Girls Like Super Heroes Too - a wise little girl's rant on toys

Girls like super heroes too.

It's true.

Ask Riley:

I saw this adorable little girl (who is wise beyond her years) on CNN recently and she got my attention.

Why do girls have to buy the pink stuff?

Now, when I was younger, I definitely liked the pink stuff and princesses. Heck, I still do!

However, I also liked the boy stuff.

I did not realize how blessed I was because, as a little girl, I also got to play with super heroes. And blocks. And sling shots. Plus, tractors, army men, cars... You name any basic boy toy and I probably played with it.

Not because my parents were super progressive or because my relatives mistook me for a tomboy.

I was just lucky enough to have a twin brother.

Annnnndddddd, I had access to all of his toys. The non-pink-princessy stuff that Riley so rightfully pointed out is usually unavailable to most girls.

I wonder for only daughters or families full of sisters, when do those little girls race their first set of hot wheels, have a sword fight or build a Lego tower? I did all of the above before age 4.

I didn't realize how lucky I had it: my toy selection went across the entire gender spectrum.

Same goes for my brother. Though he might not appreciate me sharing this, he joined me more than once to play Barbie, dress up or have a tea party.

And that is ok. In fact, it should be fine... desired even.

The "pink toys" pull out a different side of kids imagination and creativity. And by boys playing house and girls playing super heroes, they expand what they are in their imagination AND, consequently, what they might dream themselves to be when they grow up. If more kids could play with toys across the gender spectrum, we'd have more male nurses, dancers, stay at home dads. Or more female presidents, surgeons, pilots, etc.

But, why do we separate toys? Blue for boys and pink for girls? Super heroes verses princesses? Why do - as Riley pointed out - the companies (and society I might add) trick the girls into buying the pink stuff?

Because toys are way more than just playing.

They're socializing kids into gender roles. This paper details the process as does an article on education.com.

Don't get me wrong. I have no problems with a female nurse or a male pilot. To each their own. I just want to make sure kids have the option to decide what they want to play with and what they want to be when they grow up.

So the Rileys of the world can play princess or super hero.

Next time you're babysitting or hanging out with children in your church/family/neighborhood/wherever, spice up their imagination. Give a girl a sword and give a boy a doll. Have the whole group play house and then have the whole group play super heroes.

Open up their imagination.
Expand their dreams.
What they play and dream as a kid will one day become reality.

Four iPhone Fails

Santa brought me an iPhone 4s for Christmas.

I am grateful, truly, BUT me and gadgets don't always get along. Since my daddy - who is also not super tech savvy - has been managing to operate his iPhone, I figured I had a shot.

Hmm. Silly me.

Here are four (and probably only the first of many) iPhone fails that I have had:

1. "Mass" Text Mix-up

This first fail happened literally within minutes of me activating my phone. I sent a message as soon as I got into my car after leaving the store.

First, I have a confession to make: I send mass text messages. Yes. Judge all you want.

I know some people think it is poor etiquette to send the same message to multiple people but I simply found it incredibly convenient when setting up when to meet for dinner, who I need to drive to church, sharing updates about boys or redneck weddings, etc. etc.

Well apparently, some of those people who are anti mass-text-messages work for apple and they have imposed their own moral messaging code on iPhone 4s users. It seems (at least to my tech-savvy-impaired self) that one cannot send a mass text message without revealing all recipients and their responses to the group.

Yes, it seems that instead of a "mass text message" like I had on my old phone, the iPhone has a "group message system."

I learned this the hard way with the very first text message I ever sent out on my iPhone.

I simply said "Guess what is exciting about this text?" and sent it to 3 of my friends who I know own iPhones.

PS - 2 of those friends are boys.

My girl friend who I sent it to responded first with this:

"I'm guessing either (a) it came from your new iPhone or (b) you just got a text from [she used the name of my current crush whose identity shall stay a secret ;)] and you're texting me to tell me about it"

 Both a and b were good guesses ;)

Then I responded to her AND, unbeknownst to me, my 2 guy friends with:

"I wish it was option b ;) but it is option a :)"

And not long after, I got this text from one of my guy friends:

"Woo hoo for an iPhone"

I was confused because he wasn't supposed to know I had an iPhone... that was why I sent out the exciting text. My girl friend and I had already discussed me getting an iPhone but he was supposed to be surprised. So I texted back to him:

"Hold on. Did you just take a lucky guess that I got an iPhone or did you see a message about options..?"

To which he responded:

"Both :)" 

I thought, "Crap!" And then I thought, "Praise the LORD I didn't send this to my crush!"  That would have been awkward.

No more mass text messaging for me!

2. No Alarm

My second iPhone fail was within 24 hours of owning the phone. I got it at 7pm on Thursday night and then by 9am on Friday, I was supposed to be up, showered and hitting the road to visit my brother in the upstate.

That would have happened if I had correctly set my alarm.

Instead, at 10 am I awoke to find that I had either snoozed it (which is unlikely since I was not familiar with the phone) or silenced everything including the alarm the night before or maybe I set it for pm instead of am...? I still, frankly, am unsure of what precisely I did.

But I do know I did not wake up on time. Fail.

3. Mistext 

Next, I was trying to get fancy and use the microphone to tell Siri what to text to my friend Nathan. However, I was suffering from a cold so either my congestion or simply the fact that I always talk too fast and my words run together made Siri mistext my message. 

See below (I'm in green and he is in white): 

Note - Nathan knows me and the iPhone well enough to understand what I was saying even though Siri didn't. Also, note that I did not learn from my mistake in the first message on the top right; my second to last response says "seen" instead of "soon." Hopefully I will figure this out SOON enough :) 

4. Sweet Landing

If you have known me or followed this blog long enough, then you are well aware of the fact that I am a klutz. As such, you probably are not surprised that one of my fails included me dropping the phone.

However, I outdid myself.

I didn't simply drop the phone, I dropped it into a plate of cake.

And, I couldn't have dropped it on the glass part or the section covered by the $40 case that I bought,  no, that would have been too easy to fix.

Instead, I dropped it on the bottom where the teeny tiny sliver of exposed important parts that plug the phone into its charger were vulnerable to be coated in cake icing.

I tried to wipe it off with a napkin and even poked at it with a plastic fork but all to no avail. There was a resilient glob of yellow butter-cream icing making itself at home.

Fortunately, my friends' parents operated on my phone with a bit of compressed air and some toothpicks. I'm happy to report it is up and running, free of any icing or cracks.

Good as new :)

Which is a good thing because I haven't even owned the phone for two weeks!

Fingers crossed for no more iPhone fails but I'll keep ya posted if any more occur...

Christmas Sweater + Cop + a Crane and a Camera

CHRISTMAS SWEATER

To begin, I recently went to a Tacky Christmas Sweater party. I was dressed from head to toe: light-up reindeer antlers, light-bulb earrings, an elf shirt, tacky sweater and polka-dotted furry Santa socks.

That would be me on the left ;) 

 And these were my favorite part!

When it comes to things like this (dressing cheesy for partys and such), I always say "go big or go home" ;)

But, not "go to jail."

Yea, that is not how that saying goes.

Don't worry. I didn't go to jail.

COP

But I was pulled over. By a cop WITH A CANINE UNIT. Annnnndddd, I had some of my students in the car. Classy, right?

Such the role model BCM intern ;)

Anyways, it was after midnight and I was running late for an event called LoveGave at a local Walmart that I was volunteering for during the midnight-3am shift.

Despite that I was running late, I wasn't even speeding. I had no idea what I had done when the cop knocked on the window and asked "Ma'am. Do you know why I pulled you over this evening?"

Turns out, it was all a big misunderstanding.

I didn't realize I was in a turn-only lane when I came to a light so I paused with my blinker on til I could get back over in the lane going straight; I did not have time to get off the main road and risk getting lost which I have a very high propensity to do. Plus my gas light was on (naturally) so I didn't want to waste gas since I knew I wouldn't fill up until the next day as I would definitely not be stopping on the way home at 3am to fill up.

Anyways, from wherever the cop was (I didn't see him until blue lights were in my rear-view mirror!) he thought I ran a red light turning onto the main road. 

OH AND DID I FAIL TO MENTION, I WAS STILL IN MY TACKY-CHRISTMAS-SWEATER-OUTFIT?????????????

Yes. Recap:

• it was after midnight
• I was driving a car full of college students
• you saw how I was dressed!?!
• I stopped in traffic with my blinker on to turn the opposite direction of what the traffic signal was suggesting
• I told him I was headed to Walmart to volunteer til 3am???  Granted this was the truth but it sounded crazy nonetheless.

I can imagine the guy thought I was drunk as a skunk.

But, no, I hadn't had a drop to drink. I'm just directionally challenged and enjoy going overboard in cheesy attire for Christmas parties. 

Fortunately, once he spoke to me and could tell I was completely coherent and sober,  he realized the misunderstanding and let me go with just a warning for improper lane use.

So, running almost half an hour late now, we headed off towards Walmart - carfeul not to go over the speed limit by even 1 mph. 

A CRANE AND A CAMERA

I generally try to stay positive and view things from a glass-half-full perspective.

Turns out, there was a silver lining to that cloud: my volunteering task (unbeknownst to me until a few hours before my shift) was to be in a crane live on camera. That is just part of a publicity stunt that LoveGave does to raise awareness and money, this year in an effort to feed low-income children over the holidays. Essentially, 1-3 people are live on camera (which happens to be on a crane in a Walmart parking lot) talking sometimes about Jesus and the church but often about random stuff, especially the shifts that are past midnight. Those are the ones that tend to be the most random and entertaining. Since I was late for my shift, someone else went up in the crane to be on camera.

Praise the Lord. I thought I had escaped.

But when 2am rolled around, I was up... literally... in the crane and going live on camera.

Turns out from my vantage point in the crane, I happened to see... guess who? No, not Santa. The cop. Yep, I guess he was just coming to investigate if I truly did head to Walmart. I saw him drive around the parking lot and stop near my car but, fortunately, after that he left.

Somehow (maybe a miracle of God to spare y'all from any further torment and me from any further embarrassment), the internet connection died halfway through our camera shift but in case you're curious to see my short-lived airtime, here it is: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/18895670.

All is well that ends well: we met - and exceeded - our goal for LoveGave to feed low-income families but if you want to learn more, here is the website: http://lovegave.com/live/

Go big or go home!