But now that you are reading this, it is too late.

If you don’t have a tween/teen/young adult around the house, you are probably living your life in utter bliss, knowing nothing about a mythical figure called Herobrine, or things called creepers, or the vast network of people who are utterly obsessed with this video game.

Like my son.

I like to think of it as Lego on steroids.  The main principle of the game, as far as I can tell, is for you to survive and build your own world that can encompass pretty much anything that can be represented by blocks.  There are attacks on your personal kingdom by things called creepers and other things called zombies that you are probably more familiar with.   And uh, I think that is pretty much it in a nutshell.  Survive, build, defend, and build some more.

And did you know there are homemade videos on YouTube that represent hundreds and hundreds of hours of work on the part of the people who created the custom worlds for each one?  And that many of them have millions and millions of views, some of them even more than Jennifer Lopez?

Here are a couple of the better ones…

It is somewhat jarring for me to admit that all of these are actually quite enjoyable to watch.

I’ve got nothing against Pinterest.

In fact, I’m sort of fascinated by Pinterest.  I mean, in theory, what’s not to like?

Cute things, pretty things, kid things, food things, and all kinds of things in between.

But yet I have managed to not register for an account, nor do I visit even semi-regularly.

You see, I simply don’t have the time.

I am one of those people who would lose myself in all of the stuff, finding excuses to go on the site when I didn’t really need to, or needlessly researching photos in order to Pin them.

I don’t have the time for that.

I feel like I would be back in the olden, heady days of my personal blog (I started blogging in 2004) where I spent an inordinate amount of time visiting other people’s blogs.

I’ve got a fourth grader to homeschool, a house to at least attempt to keep clean, a demanding toddler with a full therapy schedule, and oh hey, some things called friends in real life that I should try to call and talk to.

Roll those all together, which isn’t even counting cooking or reading books or spending time with my husband, and you have someone who is so far successfully resisting the siren call of Pinterest.

How about you?

It’s totally irrational, I freely admit it.

But it annoys me to no end to see a family dynamic that is fairly uncontrollable (unless possibly adopting a particular sex) played out as competition.

The one up in the picture I can sort of live with, but I saw one today that caused me a fair amount of rage.

Instead of a simple boys vs. girls, it had “Boys 2, Princess 1.”

Ugh.

Let’s not show any favoritism here or anything.  Nothing like letting everyone in the Southern California region know that you think your daughter is a cute, adorable princess and your boys are just, well, boys.  Whatever.

Now if it had said “Princes 2, Princess 1” I would have been totally fine with it.

Perhaps I have a certain sensitivity when it comes to girl favoritism when it comes to my in-laws, who definitely fawn over the granddaughters much more than the grandsons.  And of course, they have almost twice as many grandsons.

Fine, fine.  It’s totally a personal problem.  I’ll just go away and sulk in a corner by myself.

77% of you reacted favorably to Harrod’s attempt at a more gender-neutral toy area.  13% said it was easier to shop when there was a clear demarcation between girl and boy toys, and 4% of you didn’t think it was a good idea.  I am all for a bit more neutrality when it comes to the toy section.  Girl things don’t all have to be pink and purple and boy things don’t all have to be blue and green.  I purposely bought my daughter a bunch of “boy” colored toys because all that pink grates on my nerves.  I actually kind of hate pink.

Now I want to now what you think about one of the newest Facebook apps, Unbaby.Me.

I belong to more “flash sale” sites than is probably healthy, and they have more clothes by far for my toddler girl than my inching-toward-middle-school son.  I look at LOTS of dresses.

Often I will click on a particular brand just to see what they are offering, even if I know I can’t afford it.  Actually, BECAUSE I can’t afford it, I want to see what I’m missing out on by being poor.

So recently, I clicked on a prestigious French brand that is branching out into children’s wear, and read this opening line:

Do right by your little girl and clothe her in Chloé from a young age.

Erm, really?

Because I choose not to spend $180 on a denim jumper she would probably wear twice, I’m doing my daughter wrong?

Anything to make people feel morally superior for spending an inordinate amount of money on kid’s clothing, amirite?

Priorities.

Methinks people have them in the wrong place.

My son is going on a trip to Sacramento this weekend with his grandpa, and we told him he needed to get a haircut this week.

“I can’t get a haircut!  I want a mohawk!”

Uhhhhh, whaaaat?

As a child of the 80’s, I have absolutely nothing against a mohawk.  I actually don’t have a problem with my 9 year old sporting a Mohawk if that is what he really wants to do, which it apparently is.

But.

I’m wondering where the hell this came from.  We currently don’t know anyone with a mohawk, and I’m trying to figure out where he saw a person with a mohawk that he now wants to emulate.

I tried to discuss with him that despite the fact that it seems to be a rather carefree, rebel hairstyle, it requires quite a bit of work to keep it looking decent, including rather frequent haircuts.  I also told him that he would probably have to start using a lot of hair gel.

The mohawk is currently on hold, pending my son’s decision on how exactly how much he hates hair gel and haircuts.  Which up to this point has been quite a bit.

Self-expression is a bitch.

Care Bears, selling for $1200

Pound Puppy, selling for $5000

Furby, going for $500

Cabbage Patch Kid, yours for $2000

Stretch Armstrong figures (God, who didn’t have at least one of these and beat the crud out of it?)  $17,800

via

During the recuperation period from my surgery, I am not ashamed to admit that I read some Young Adult Fiction.

The Hunger Games, to be precise.

I had bought the e-book versions because a) I am a geek, b) I just had to know what all the fuss was about, and c) I was sort of hoping that the Munchkin would be able to read them also.  And any writing that falls into the YA category is vetted by me personally before he gets to read it.  I don’t think he needs to stumble upon some description of two teens having sexual relations at the age of 9.  There will be plenty of that in the years to come, I’m sure.

Uh, OK, I was just really distracted by that last sentence and reminded of my friend who has vowed never to talk to her son about sex.  Ever.  She cannot wrap her mind around the fact that our sons will be hitting puberty sooner rather than later.

Anyhoo, I burned through all three books in about four days, between snoozing sessions.

And now, pathetically, I cannot wait to see the movie.

Yeah, all the 14 year olds and I will be lining up at midnight.

And here I thought I had escaped all that by not reading any of the Twilight books.