Baby it's cold outside...but time to buy a bathing suit

It's January and here in the Northeast, we're buckling down for at least two more months of frigid temperatures, mountains of snow and icy roads. We haven't really even entered snow season yet.
Skiers are hitting the slopes and children are still hoping for snow without a crust of ice so they can make snowmen, but sledding downhill at the speed of light is still a thrill.
Snowmobilers are also in their glory wearing full suits like this one to keep them from cold, soaked clothing, temperatures in the single digits and hypothermia.





So could someone please explain to me why I am being assaulted with bathing suits, capris and summer shorts when I go to the store? Why is it that if I haven't purchased a bathing suit for my daughter by mid-March, she won't have one in time for swimming season - which is in late June, early July up here in Massachusetts.
Don't get me wrong, I understand why the fashion industry shows their collections months in advance. You have to show off your Spring collection months in advance so you'll have enough time to meet the demands of your buyers. However, if I want to buy a winter coat for my child in the middle of winter, because *gasp* a zipper broke, I won't be able to do it past January, because they're all on the clearance racks right now. We do need to make sure that the bathing suits are on clearance in May, so the Fall line of sweaters is on the shelves in time for that July heatwave.

Normal is what you have and what you make of it, not what you want...

My daughter and I were driving home from an appointment on Saturday when she started talking about how she went about choosing gifts for Mom and Dad at her school's gift fair. For a mere 20 cents she purchased my husband (Dad) a retractable tape measure and me (Mom) a small snowman ornament for the tree. She also described how she made the beautiful snowman card that came home with them.

But then she said, "Some of my friends had to make two cards. Their parents are split up. Kind of like H's parents. On days she spends with her Dad, she comes to the after care program at the YMCA. On days she spends with her Mom, she gets picked up at the school."

I could see the confusion in her eyes in my rear view mirror. We'd never really talked about divorce before. It's not a subject you bring up with your children unless its happening to your family, someone you know or if you're explaining what it means because they know someone who has divorced parents. I noticed she didn't say divorced, but split up.

If she wanted to know about divorce, well she came to the right person. My mother has been married and divorced four times, my father has married and divorced three times. My mom's parents were divorced.

"Well, sometimes parents can't get along and so they split up. It doesn't mean they love their children any less. My mom and dad split up when I was little," I said.

"Oh," she said.

"It's not always bad," I said reassuringly. "My grandma and grandpa split up too. But my grandpa remarried, so I had Nana Julie. I had extra grandparents - Grandpa Bill and Nana Julie, Grandma Rita, Gammie Smith and Papa Smith."

She nodded and smiled, before she went on to tell me about her knew friend at camp.

What I realized was, that because I had grown up a child of divorce, I didn't really notice it in the world around me. I'm always saying I want the normal life I didn't get growing up, but the funny thing is there is no normal. Normal is what you have and what you make of it, not what you want.

I'm in love with this Web site...

Oh how I've longed to ready snarky comments about celebs written by women like me. Oh how I totally love Heartless Doll It's so delicious!!! Take a peak.

I HATE BARBIE

I grew up with the Barbie Dream Cottage, her red Ferrari and a trunk full of dolls and accessories. I never liked Barbie with her fake smile, dead eyes and unreasonable body measurements, but there was no alternative.

When the Bratz line came around in 2001, I thought I'd hate these dolls even more with their "Passion for Fashion" and overtly sexy looks. That's until my daughter discovered the Bratz TV show a few years later. The four main characters - Jasmine, Chloe, Sasha and Jade - ran their own magazine and the show revolved around getting good grades, loyalty, friendship and having your own identity. Each girl was a stereotype, but it meant something. I realized that the show had the same values in it that "Jem and the Holograms" did when I was younger.

When she started wanting the dolls, I took another look. The dolls' clothing had toned down from their over-sexed looks and had smaller chests and were shorter than Barbie. Even though they had doe eyes and cut-throat fashion sense, I couldn't see them as being as bad as Barbie. Since then, she has saved money for her Bratz dolls and two years ago shopped the Christmas sales so she could get the whole line of skating dolls. Last year it was Be-Bratz, a doll that came with an online persona.

This year, she wants the house and a few pieces of furniture, but now, I'll have to fight all the other parents to get these items before they're pulled from the shelves and destroyed. That's right, Mattel decided that winning a $10 million law suit against MGA for copyright infringement wasn't enough. Well you know what, SCREW You Barbie.

I'm going to have to tell my daughter that she can't buy any new dolls or watch any more Bratz videos because of some corporate jerks who think it's more important to watch their bottom line than improve their stupid doll. Gosh, I guess competition is now against the American way.

I wish I could sue Mattel for the emotional distress this is going to cause in my house.

Just in Case you've been wondering what Vankman and Spangler have been up to...

While your waiting for Ghostbusters III to come out, a new manga series is filling you in on what the foursome has been up to after their last movie appearance. I saw this book at Barnes and Noble the other day while I was looking for the latest Return to the Labyrinth manga book. Yes, my childhood is now the fixation of a new generation thanks to the world of manga.

Here's the Editorial Review from Amazon.com:

Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters, of course! Find out what's been happening since the Ghostbusters last saved New York City as Peter, Ray, Egon, Winston and the rest of the gang make their first manga appearance! The phrase 'Everyone's a critic' takes on a whole new meaning when the crew is called in to help out a troubled Broadway production. Later, Ray learns that being a Ghostbuster isn't always the thrill-a-minute job he'd imagined it would be. And Egon has a touching interlude with a former instructor who still has a thing or two to learn about the afterlife. Then it all comes down to the ultimate showdown between our heroes and a team of peeved poltergeists. The Ghostbusters are about to be Ghost Busted!

Sacrifices and reality...

We all have to make sacrifices as parents. Sometimes it's not getting that new gizmo or gadget you want so badly because junior needs braces. (Who am I kidding -- I sacrifice action figures so my kids can have them.)

Sometimes, you have to go see "High School Musical 3: Senior Year " in the theater so your 8-year-old daughter isn't the only one who hasn't seen it at school. Sometimes, you have to endure the strains of bad songs dripping with saccharine sweet nonsense. Sometimes, I just look at my daughter and wonder if it's karma.

I wasn't the popular kid in school. I was the newspaper nerd who hung out in the newspaper office all the time. I was editor, of course. I hung out with the Star Trek boys and wore a lot of black. I had bleached out hair. I had five permanent hall passes senior year. I would never ever sing the lyric, "I want the rest of my life to feel like a high school musical." Uggh.

Why is it that society wants children to believe that everyone has to like everyone else?

My son went to a day care where he said he didn't like someone. They told him everyone was his friend. He said, "I'm not his friend." The teacher was not happy. I said, "Well, he doesn't like him and doesn't have to." That did not go over well.

Life, it turns out is just like high school, only a little more tolerable. For instance, go to you're work place and look for the popular kids. Yeah, they're the ones patting each other on the back for doing the most inane things. There's still that group of girls who volunteer to run everything in the office -- they belonged to every club conceivable. You know where you fall. We just learn to navigate the cliques better as adults. We find more of our own or realize that we can belong to more than one group.

I can't stand that we pretend that everyone holds hands and gets along in the real world. This isn't an episode of Barney. We don't all love each other. And it isn't necessary to try to brainwash our kids into it with G-rated after school musicals. What we need to do is teach them tolerance. When we can learn tolerance, the world will be a better place.

A peek into the unknown...

I have an addiction.

No, I've given up smoking and I really don't count caffeine. I'm addicted to the PostSecret Web site.

If you don't know what PostSecret is I'll tell you the fabulous secret of PostSecret. Many years ago, a man named Frank Warren decided to collect secrets. People from around the world send him their secrets on post cards. He's published many books, spoken at many colleges and puts many of the post cards on the Web.

Every Sunday I can't wait to log on to see the secrets. I've never written one to him, but I enjoy having the ability to be a voyeur, without having to write a story about the event or meeting I'm at. It's voyeurism at its best. It's anonymous and I owe nothing. Sometimes the post cards are sad. Some are depressing. Some are funny as hell.

For example:

I don't know what the biscuit incident is. I never will. But to know that someone else out there is carrying a grudge for something as stupid-sounding as the biscuit incident, just makes me feel better. (I've held grudges over stupid-sounding things too. They sound stupid to other people, but to me it's something serious and personal.) It may have been something totally serious or it could have been an unappreciated joke. I don't know.

I think I like this site because no matter how bad I'm feeling inside, I know that I'm not the only one.