TV COMMERCIALS AIMED AT WEEBS

Weeb is sick with a stomach bug at the moment. She's been on the couch since around quarter to five this morning, watching TV (when she's not giving me something else to put in the washing machine).

I am amazed at how low they will go to advertise to children. We don't watch a ton of TV - er, let me rephrase that to - we don't watch a lot of TV with commercials.

Has anyone seen ads for CUPONK? It's a ping pong ball and a cup, sold by Hasbro. It's about $12 CAD. For a ping pong ball. And a cup.

But the cup lights up.

Ah.

Luckily Weeb isn't feeling very well or she'd want the thing.

She does appear to be well enough to tell me that she wants all of the Littlest Pet Shop toys, including the ones currently in McDonalds Happy Meals AND the Strawberry Shortcake Splashin' Petal Pool.

Weeb's birthday and Christmas are only 5 short months away so I suppose I'd better brace myself for all the MUST HAVE items that will crop up between now and then. I've already got 'ping pong ball and cup' on MY wish list!

BEER VS POP

Why is it socially acceptable to drink several beers but not several soft drinks?

I pondered this as I was stealing a sip or four from my husband's non-alcoholic beer this past weekend. As the bottles piled up on the kitchen counter, I thought there is no way that we'd drink Coke in the same amounts.

When I mentioned this to Wonko he told me about a story from his younger days when he was a designated driver and agreed with a friend to drink a Coke for every beer she had. I think they totalled 16 and he said he was FAR more ill than his friend, the following day.

The idea of more than one soda makes me cringe. Maybe it's the sugar content? Beer doesn't seem to have the same effect, though I'll admit it's been a long while since I had a proper beer.

Based on my extensive half minute online research on the subject, I have come to find that based on a 12 ounce serving, Bud Light contains 110 calories and Coke Classic contains 140. Most of the calories in Bud Light come from alcohol with a tiny portion of them coming from it’s 1 gram of protein and the remainder coming from refined carbohydrates. In contrast, all of the calories in Coke Classic come from sugar.

I further found that for the past two decades, Americans have been drinking just as much beer as they’ve been drinking coffee and milk. Soda consumption is even worse and typically doubles that of any other beverage. In fact, many people drink more soda than water.

Half minute online research, and pretty much the entire previous two paragraphs, found here.

It can't be that much different in Canada. And I haven't even touched on my addiction to Slurpees. I might be able to justify two Slurpees on a very hot day, but even that is pushing it.

So why is it okay to see 6 beer bottles on a kitchen counter and not 6 bottles or cans of Coke?

This blog post has been brought to you by weekend pondering and a 100 degree fever in a wussy adult on a Tuesday morning.

THE ARTISTRY OF A WEEB - FEB 2009

This is from Feb 2009. Weeb infoms me that this is a picture of her allergy doctor and the scared little girl who had her turn after us. She patted the picture of the little scared girl and told her it was okay, there's nothing to be frightened of. LOL

I'm not sure what this one was about (she had only just turned 3 when she drew these) but they look an awful lot like Balloon People and perhaps a Balloon Cat.

WEEBY HOMEWORK

One night in January 2010, I was working late and Wonko sent me a text saying that he was doing homework with Weeb (who had just turned 4 y/0). They don’t force homework at her preschool, but if she’s not completed her work in class, sometimes she’ll ask her teacher if she can take it home. This is what I found. She’s written all her numbers from 1 to 100. Pretty good for 4 years old, eh?

But what’s this? Ah, proof that she is indeed my child.

Some more homework. My just-turned-4-years-old-daughter is doing ‘greater than / less than’ math work in preschool. We're very fortunate that her daycare / preschool has such fantastic teachers who are making this kind of work fun for her.

She's also reading pretty darned well for a (now) four and a half year old! I worry that Kindergarten is going to be pretty boring for this kid and that she's going to invent all manner of chaos to relieve that boredom.