The Aging 8 Year Old

Has your tween been looking a little, well, old lately?

Do you look at her across the breakfast table and wish she'd do something to prevent the wrinkles that will be here any minute?

Or, do you gaze at her youthful complexion and wish there were a product to help her preserve that smooth countenance?

Well, fear not.  Walmart is here.

The Geo-Girl beauty line will be in stores this February. It is reported to be: 

aimed at the 'tween' market of 8-12 year olds, and will include blusher, mascara, face shimmer and lipstick that is 'mother approved', as well as anti aging products.

That's anti-aging products, in case you missed the bold print.

Hopefully, they'll have another line that targets the pre-tween.  No need to leave 3-7 year olds out in the cold.  They've got their face to think about too, you know.

Lot's Wife.

Found this while engaging in serious research and study (here).

I bet Dinah knew her name.

Cinderella Ate My Daughter (too)

It's here.

The author will be doing readings from Connecticut to California.
Check here for locations and times.

Etsy

I know people who make things, and the way they make things is so much better than the way I make things.  And so mostly, I leave the making to them.

My friend Ali made this Rapunzel pillow for C:

 And my friend Luc made this Rapunzel notebook:

C loves both of these, and they've sparked some conversations about why one Rapunzel has red hair but the other has yellow.

Her thoughts on this have evolved:

"Maybe the red-hair girl is really Ariel, and she is stuck in a tower?"

to

"Maybe they are both Rapunzel, but different Rapunzels.  Like one is from New Jersey."

She's settled on the last line of reasoning for now, but won't tell me which one is from New Jersey.

If you make things, or know someone who does, feel free to leave a link to their site in the comments. 

Meanwhile, I will just keep melting bars of chocolate and drinking them: my solemn pledge until the temperature rises above 0. 

Is Pink Necessary?

This morning, while it was 10 degrees outside, Dave and I sat inside dividing up the New York Times between us. Also, I melted two bars of Cadbury Royal Dark Chocolate and made the real deal drinking chocolate.  Because when it's 10 degrees, the powdered stuff won't do.   I went right to the book review, where Annie Murphy Paul reviews Peggy Orenstein's new book Cinderella Ate My Daughter.

Miss C skipped in and climbed onto my lap.  She studied the photograph which accompanies that review, and then asked, "Is that a Barbie?  Or, a real live person?"

Jury's out on that one.

Disney Princesses Get Earthy

I was running through mecca two days ago to grab some of C's favorite cereal, the kind that if we don't have to start the day, we might as well just throw in the towel and go back to bed because the wailing and gnashing that ensue....it's like me when we're out of coffee.

With the box of delicious tucked under my arm, I felt powerful and fast and did a turbo run down a side aisle, one lined with books and magazines and more books, and then I was not moving anymore because there were all these books!  And I needed to look at them and read the back covers.
I think this might be called Grocery Store ADD.  And I certainly have it.

After I'd thoroughly familiarized myself with the girl who kicked nests and had tattoos and played with fire, I remembered that this was supposed to be a quick trip.  A two-minute run to get one thing.  I was in a hurry, I reminded myself.  But the children's books were right next to me and when I glanced at those, I was made aware of the next holiday approaching.  Valentine's Day!  Because each book had some sort of heart or pink and red or chocolate theme tied in.

The rack:

There was the typical fare:

Wherein Cinderella, on her first anniversary with the prince, is given a sapphire ring

but then she loses it (and much trembling and weeping ensues)

but then she finds it!  and the prince gives her diamond earrings too, and then they have a massive ball:

But what caught my attention, on the other side of the rack, was this one:

Wherein the princesses are all planting trees and picking up litter and conserving water and saving electricity and tending to animals and eating from their gardens and making their own clothes.
And it's printed on recycled paper.  

They're practically composting and eating their own placentas!

What's up Disney, this is tripping me out.

That Swimsuit Becomes You

I grabbed this book at the library while I was checking out:

Like an impulse buy, except with a lower interest rate. 
It was filed under "New NonFiction" right next to The Bellyfat Cure.

I'm not far enough in to give My Two Cents on it yet, but there is a study cited that I thought was interesting.

It was run by social psychologist Barbara Fredrickson and explored self-objectification.
The author of the Girls on the Edge, Dr. Leonard Sax, describes it as such:

Dr. Fredrickson and her colleagues recruited college men and women, then randomly assigned each volunteer to wear either a bulky sweater or swimsuit.  The men wore swim trunks, and the women wore one-piece bathing suits.  Each volunteer was sitting in a dressing room: no windows, no observers.    Each volunteer was then asked to take a math quiz while sitting in the dressing room.  Fredrickson and her team then compared how women wearing swimsuits performed on the quiz compared with women who were wearing bulky sweaters, and likewise for the men. 

The results?

Men can rock math tests in swim wear, and even do slightly better than men wearing frumpy sweaters.

Women can rock math tests in frumpy sweaters, but do waaaaaaay worse while wearing a swimsuit.

Sax goes on

[Fredrickson] found that these women were objectifying themselves.  Just wearing a swimsuit made these young women focus on their own bodies as objects to be evaluated and rated. 

So the word is, if your daughter is off to school in a midriff shirt and JUICY pants, "at some level she's going to be thinking about, analyzing, and judging her own body when she ought to be thinking about geometry or Spanish grammar."  Or when she ought to be thinking about how her mama gonna whoop her when I find out she took my JUICY pants!  Give me those.

Now, where did I put that oversized reindeer sweater Miss C got for Christmas?  I think I'm going to order a few more, sizes  4 Toddler through 18 I Hate My Mom.

So Tan

I was 16 when a classmate asked me a very important question: Where was I going to go tanning in order to get ready for prom?
Since I thought he was joking, I told him I'd be rolling around in the snowbanks outside my home to give my skin a nice rosy glow.

But he was serious, and even told me where he'd be tanning.

And I was all, "No you aren't."

Yes he was.  And so were a lot of other guys and girls in my class.

To get ready for prom.

My skin comes in two shades: Pasty, and Sun Poisoned Sienna, and in my youth I alternated between these. I'd get red and blistered, then the burn would peel off and I'd be Pasty again, with some fine new freckles.   I've since settled into a more permanent Pasty, protected with slabs of SPF 250.


But when I was 16, and sir asked me where I'd be tanning, I began to notice how many of my classmates were glowing.
In January.
In Upstate New York.

Word on the street is that this is still popular.
I know this because I am back in Upstate New York.
In January.
And people are still glowing.
Something is not right here.

This NYT article reports:

Indoor tanning, it seems, has become in many families a mother-daughter bonding ritual, like shopping or going to the hairdresser.

Why not just roll around in a snow bank?
Rosy glow, mood enhancing, and free.

Just sayin.

(Thanks Kristi, for pointing this one out.)

The Feminist Breeder

Jill Lupescu wrote a guest post over at The Feminist Breeder, titled 'Why Disney Princesses Should Come With Warning Labels.'