The Lone Star Baby is quite recovered. When she was feeling puny, I gave her a couple of pieces of modeling beeswax to amuse her. She fashioned one into a bracelet, so I made her a bracelet from the other one, also, and sang "Wonder Woman!" at her while she waved the bracelets on her wrists. I am a Wonder Woman fan myself, and it turned out she just loved this game. Now she goes around the house, with the beeswax on her little wrists, singing "Wonder Woman!" Her dad then played the WW song for her and she was thrilled. Although the Wonder Woman interest comes from me (Lone Star Pa is not into DC characters), my husband is a life-long comic book collector and we have Marvel stuff all over the place. The Lone Star Baby is a long-time fan of Spider-Man, sporting a Spider-Man lunchbox, jacket and new shoes...shoes I bought before I realized she could not wear them to her new school!
In an ironic twist of fate, many of the Lone Star Baby's possessions will not be allowed due to the school's policy prohibiting "violent characters", and specifically naming Spider-Man and Hulk, among others. This is ironic because I am the most strict mother I know when it comes to violent media of any kind, including books. I do not allow my children exposure to any violent media before the age of 7, even very high-quality literature like The Chronicles of Narnia books, because I believe children's minds are very absorbent before that time and that they have no filters to prevent them from becoming what they are exposed to in those early years. I do not know anyone else who is as careful about this as I am, so it seems really weird that such a policy, which I fully agree with in principle, would be so inconvenient for us. The Spider-Man and Wonder-Woman that the Lone Star Baby knows are not violent, though. They come from Spider-Man & Friends books about playing frisbee and cuddly dolls and songs that do not show any fighting. Since the Lone Star Baby has never experienced them in a violent context at all and does not know that they are ever portrayed with such a context, I have no problem with them. I will have to comply, though. We'll just have to play dancing super heroes at home!
2 comments:
We're on the same page!
I suspect that, in your house, Wonder Woman is perfectly behaved-- sets the table, helps the Lone Star Girl with her homework, and does not kick. In our house, Obi-Wan (really Qui-Gon, but Lucia insists otherwise because of her cousins) plays in the dollhouse politely with the other dollies and there is no talk of lightsaber fights.
In our house, the violence comes all from Brad the Gorilla. Now that Brad is living on top of the hutch, it is very easy for him to throw rotten fruit and veggies down upon our heads while we type. Yesterday, he threw down two over-ripe, practically rotten avocadoes on my head. I didn't even know we HAD avocadoes in the house!
That Brad. You certainly are a patient Land-Lady!
Well, the super heroes are not quite that well-behaved. They do a lot of dancing and jumping around all over the place (not to mention stalking the Magi, a seasonal activity) but they are never violent(:
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