Victoria's Secret and My 9-year-old Daughter

I never really figured that my daughter would grow up with anything other than perfect self esteem, perfect body image, graduate from high school and receive a full college scholarship to a fabulous university like Harvard or Stanford, find a marvelous husband who adored her, win the Nobel prize for Chemistry or Physics, and then be elected the first female President of the United States.  Every parent looks at their new born and young children and has every hope and dream for them to grow up and have a wonderful life.  Oh, I knew that there would be issues along the way, and with a daughter I had chosen to think that she would be a strong, confidant woman with super model looks with no questions or other bumps along the road.  Don't get me wrong, we have no major problems yet, but I made an observation the other day and it got me thinking just how much a young girl is bombarded with sexual images on a daily basis.

Valentine's Day was last week and the kids and I had gone shopping at the mall to get a present for Dana.  We actually went to Williams & Sonoma to get her a cookbook stand for the kitchen. Yes, after 13 years of marriage Valentine's presents are about practicality, not chocolate and lingerie.  We also decided to get an iTunes gift card from the Apple store which was right nearby.  At least something a little fun and spontaneous instead of staying with Mom's practical Valentine's shopping list.

When we came out of the Apple store, we were right across the mall from the Victoria's Secret store.  A quick aside, I have noticed this to be fairly common in more than one mall.  I have two theories for this common occurrence.  First, the retail store marketing experts from Victoria's Secret,  think that wives/girlfriends will go shopping for underwear and and bras and their husbands/boyfriends are more comfortable looking at computer gadgets instead of trying to be unobtrusive holding a shopping bag standing around in Victoria's Secret, or second, the retail store marketing experts from Apple think that tech geeks who would rather talk to their buddies about processor speeds and how much RAM in a computer than talk to a real, live girl can look at the windows and dream.  Of course, the third option is the stores conspired together.

However, I digress... when we came out of the Apple store, we were right across the mall from the Victoria's Secret store and their window display model was dressed like the photo you see here.  Delaney stopped for a good long moment and assessed what the model was wearing.  She did not say anything, but I noticed the pause, the look, and you could see the thoughts rolling around in her head.  So I attempted my best understanding Dad speak and asked. "Do you have underwear that looks like that?"

She looked down shyly and said, "No."  Then we walked towards our car for about 20 feet and she said, "I have never seen Mom wear underwear like that either.  Who wears underwear like that?"

I opened the door, and now was having second thoughts, but figured it was too late.  "Well, sometimes when you are older and you go on fancy dates you might want to wear fancy underwear."  This seemed to answer her question and a breathed a silent sigh of relief.

"Dad, how old do you have to be to wear fancy underwear?"

"25."  It is my standard response for questions about dating, boys, sex, etc.

"Does Mom wear her fancy underwear when you take her on a date?"

Why oh why did I start this conversation was running through my head, but was in for the duration.  I said, "Sometimes, but most of the time just her regular underwear."

Another pause and then, "Where do boys buy fancy underwear Dad?"

Now I was stumped.  "I don't know.  Mom buys me fancy underwear sometimes but she never tells me where she buys it at."

"She buys it at Old Navy.  I was with her at Christmas time.  But please don't tell her I told you."

"OK Delaney, your secret is safe with me."

Duct Tape

The latest craze sweeping the 9-year-old female gender (at least the one in my house) is duct tape.  Yes, the girl who will rant, rave, and/or feign illness to avoid a trip to Home Depot is now asking on a regular basis if we can go to Home Depot.  I can't remember when it started.  I think it was after one of her friend's birthday party, but then she sat in her room with scissors, card board boxes, and a roll of duct tape creating.  The first creation was a storage box for her craft supplies.  A simple brown cardboard box was transformed into the much more artistic purple and leopard print pattern.  I did not know their was duct tape in a leopard print, but it was Delaney's first media to work with when the duct tape craze began.

She has also created a hair clip with multi-colored ribbons of duct tape which she has worn to school and been complimented (genuinely) about what a pretty hair ribbon she has.  my fear is that the tape will stick in her hair and end of ripping strands or handfuls out, but so far, she has made sure all the sticky part is covered and no problems to report yet.

So, this past weekend, Dana had a meeting all day Saturday, and I was with the kids.  After the requests all week, I asked Delaney if she wanted to go to Home Depot and she gladly jumped at the chance.  Before i knew it she had a coat on, shoes on, and was waiting for me, instead of the normal routine where I asked her three or four times to get her shoes on.  The total cost for one roll of red duct tape was $6.97 at Home Depot.  The only disappointment was all they had were solid colors like red, blue, yellow, and no patterns or leopard print.  I could only imagine a general contractor taking out his roll of leopard print duct tape one day.  He would be laughed at by all the other contractors.  Anyway, Delaney spent almost all of Saturday creating.  The latest creations are a cross with fashion, and now she is sporting the duct tape belt and the duct tape backpack.

Either way, I have not got my money's worth from any purchase as much as I did for the $6.97 I spent there in quite a while.

The Flintstones are a band down by the river

I know that everyone gets old, and the pop culture of your day becomes the good old days of your children.  I just never thought it would happen to me.  There have just been a number of incidents in the past few weeks that make me feel that my time in the cool and hip generation has passed me by.

The other night at dinner, Andrew was telling us about a YouTube video that his homeroom teacher had shown them in class.  My first clue should have been YouTube.  He said that his homeroom teacher had shown the class a video from a motivational speaker that he thought was very good, and very funny.  He couldn't remember the name of the speaker, but he was fat, had glasses, and talked really loudly.  After a moment of thought, I asked if the motivational speaker "lived in a van down by the river?"  When Andrew replied yes, I said his name was Matt Foley and it was a sketch from Saturday Night Live.

The Grammy Awards were this past weekend and Delaney and Andrew were both very excited about watching all the music stars on TV.  You know, you get to see what the person looks like after you have listened to their music forever.  The preview show was the first indicator as stars walked down the red carpet before the show and I would ask my children each time, "Who is that?  What song do they sing?"  I did recognize some of the people like Mumford and Sons, and Taylor Swift because at this point I think I am the only male over 18 that she hasn't dated in the last month.  On a related note, I didn't recognize Brian Wilson, but that was due to one too many face lifts and plastic surgeries, more than me not being familiar with the Beach Boys.

This week, we were out to dinner and somehow the conversation turned to TV shows and family TV shows.  I asked Andrew if he knew who the Jetsons or the Flintstones.  He said that he did not know the Jetsons, until we show him a clip from YouTube on my iPhone.  However, he did reply with confidence that, "aren't the Flintstones that band that you have a CD in your car?"

The fact that I still listen to a CD player in the car, should have told me that I was a golden oldie already, and I could have figured it out without my kids help.

The danger of unattended candles

It is a staple of Hollywood movies throughout the ages. A dinner table bathed in the glow of candlelight, a couple sharing a romantic dinner, talking of their future life together long into the evening as the candles burn low…

But not at my house. Delaney is convinced that an unattended candle will result in a raging inferno that engulfs the house in a matter of seconds. If you turn your head for just a moment, Delaney will blow a candle out.

Dana will light a candle in the kitchen area every now and then because it smells good and makes the kitchen smell good after grilling liver and onions or something like that. We will come and go from the kitchen as we do things around the house, laundry downstairs, sit in the living room, watch TV, but the candle still burns low and the house smells great. However, during Christmas vacation when the kids were home, Dana would come back in to the kitchen and find that her candle had gone out. She would dig the wick out of the wax and shape it or “hug it” like she has read in Martha Stewart or some such place that only females know about, but sure enough when she left the kitchen, the candle would go out again. At one point, Dana was sitting in the living room reading and she saw Delaney coming out of the kitchen. She asked Delaney, “Is my candle still burning?”

To which Delaney replied, “No, I just blew it out for you”

This fear of the open flame goes throughout with Delaney. We have a gas fireplace insert in our basement that is controlled by a thermostat. During the winter when it is cold in the basement, when use the fireplace to help heat the area. If we are hanging out in the basement with her watching TV, playing a game, or whatever else, all is fine. But if we live the basement and she wants to stay and watch TV she will get a blanket to stay warm and turn off the fire because you never know with an open flame.

Delaney likes to have candles at dinner because she thinks they are fancy. We have done this on a few Friday nights for fun, and she always gets a kick out of it. Of course we have to blow the candles out after we eat dinner and we are clearing the table before we eat dessert, just to be safe, and then re-light the candles for dessert. Not quite the Hollywood image from the movies, but for now, it works.