Teeny Manolo

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s August out there, and around the ol’ raincoaster homestead that means one thing and one thing only: making a laughingstock of yourself trying to play with the kids’s beach toys.

You name it: hula hoops. skipping ropes. beach balls. shovels and pails and pimped-out sandcastle engineering equipment. swimming pool badminton. trac ball. nerf football. water balloons. boogie boards. that stupid little rope on the ring with the dooie at the end of it that you stick on your ankle and dance around like Ed Grimley rolling on E.

They whup my sorry ass every damn time.

But among the glories of summer toys too tempting for even those of positively Malkovichian gravitas, one stands supreme, like the lone cherry on the very summit of the quadruple chocolate-mint meltie with extra crushed hazelnut praline that lives in my dreams, if not in my diet.

The SuperSoaker.

And, as with all the many immortal archetypes which chime agreeably in our collective unconscious like the orchestra of the divine Big Band which plays at the right hand of God (except when the bagpiper is there), the history of the SuperSoaker is nothing less than an epic of human achievement and a moral fable of the most exquisitely resonant irony.

And iSoaker has it; here’s a snippet:

The year of 1989 began the water weaponry revolution. The origin of the Super Soaker® actually dates back to 1982 when Dr. Lonnie Johnson, a nuclear engineer, first had the idea of making a high performance toy water gun. At the time, he was employed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena California as a spacecraft systems engineer on the Galileo mission to Jupiter. As a part time inventor, it took eight (8) years before the gun was finally introduced to consumers…

The idea behind the Power Drencher was actually derived from some work Lonnie was doing on a heat pump that used water as opposed to freon. He hooked up the model of the pump to his bathroom sink at his home. “I turned around and I was shooting this thing across the bathroom into the tub and the stream of water was so powerful that the curtains were swirling in the breeze it sent out,” he said. “I thought, ‘This would make a great water gun.’” (Quote from a Weekend Edition interview between Lonnie Johnson and Liane. Click here for more information.)

Unlike its motorized predecessors, Johnson developed a gun that relied on air pressure and arm pumping for pressurizing the firing chamber. The end result was a water blaster capable of delivering more water farther and faster than any other water gun on the market. The brand name, Super Soaker®, was introduced nation-wide in 1991 through a series of TV-advertisements.

If we, the adults, cannot beat those darn kids at their own game, the least we can do is learn enough to bore them stupid on the subject, right?

It’s not exactly Ladri di biciclette, if you know what I mean.

It seems Miguel Monroy here, colloquially known as Loserboy (or at least, among blog readers anyway, and a more discriminating bunch you won’t find anywhere, I tell ya) is a tough guy. A bully. A gangsta.

A tricycle thief.

Police say 21-year-old Miguel Monroy stole the tricycle Saturday evening when a mother and her daughter went into a store. Orem gang task force members then spotted him joyriding down Orem Boulevard on the trike.

He’s facing four charges: the theft, plus giving police three false IDs. If he hadn’t been so conspicuous, cruisin’ the hood on his girly new wheels, they never would have popped him in the first place.

Silly Miguel. Everybody knows what the big boys ride.

Last week I read a very thought-provoking article by the Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the title being “Disappearing Babies, All-Too-Visible Narcissists.”

Whoa, nothing like taking a stand, is there? Sir, consider the pot to be duly stirred.

In the article, Rabbi Boteach posits the theory that basically, modern society is just too concerned about having a good time to have a lot of children. Having kids requires too much sacrifice, and too much time away from selfish pursuits, such as updating our Facebook status.

With all due respect, Rabbi, you have obviously never met a mommyblogger, because not even children tugging at our arms, begging us to pay them some attention will keep us from saying what we need to say. Not that I am speaking from personal experience, mind you.

However, I will agree that there is beginning to be a certain culture of thinking that children are intrusive and bothersome that worries me. These are the same kind of people that label parents as “breeders.”

But, he even points a finger at someone like myself, who has only one child and who had the audacity to have him in my early thirties. Shame on me, apparently, for not starting when I was twenty and having as many children as I possibly could. He even goes on to keep alive the untruth that only children don’t share as well as those with siblings. Let me tell you something, the only reason children with siblings share most of the time is because their parents give them no other choice, not because of some altruistic motive. Then I think they just sort of eventually give up. I know I did.

Since choosing to have children is the most life-altering thing that could ever happen to you, I would like to think that people arrive at their decision based on more important reasons than losing their free time to update their Facebook status.

And if that is indeed a large factor in their decision making process, frankly I’d rather they not have children anyway.

Enter the Super Fantastic Stila Giveaway now!

Say hello to Tavi, a 12-year-old fashion blogger who is the very embodiment of superfantastic. While your common-or-garden tween angst appears to have put a temporary crimp in the blogging style, we have hope that she’ll again take to her keyboard and, with time, perhaps realize that no, Katie Holmes should not have worn black socks with those gladiator sandal heels.

Until such time as she makes a triumphant return to the blogosphere (ETA 36 hours) we can trawl the archives, enjoying such gems as: My New Best Friends

Normally I would say I want to kidnap them, but since we’re possibly the same age I shall instead befriend them. We’ll make secret clubs and eat soup we made out of tree bark and run around with mops on our heads and eat bugs. You’re extremely jealous you’re no longer 12 years old, aren’t you?

Damn straight.

Tough economic times are hitting everyone, including teens looking for the perfect back-to-school outfits.

The LA Times recently reported that “Thrifty Chic” is now the new cool.  Teens are shopping at places such as vintage clothing stores, Ross, and Wal-Mart for their fall wardrobes.  The harder it is to find the clothes, the more they will appreciate them.  Or, at least that’s the theory, anyway. Vintage items are the most coveted, as it is possible to score stylish, well made clothing for the same price as a new, more cheaply made garment.

I have to say that I fully embrace this new turn of events.  I don’t have a teenager (yet) but it’s about time kids realized that demanding their parents buy them multiple pairs of 7 Jeans (retailing for 150.00 and up) every year was just a bit on the conspicuous consumption side of things.

Let them think they have stumbled upon something novel, something new that only their generation has thought of.  Let these teens discover for themselves the thrill of the hunt, the quest for that perfect boyfriend sweater or Jackie-O inspired wool dress.

This quote from the article warms the cockles of my shriveled little heart:

Wearing frayed shorts, ankle boots and a T-shirt that said “L.A’s Wasted Youth” on the front, Maddy moved methodically through the store, eventually spotting exactly what she wanted: a tan Member’s Only jacket for $35.

“I’m so happy,” she said, heading for the fitting room. “I’ve been looking for a Members Only jacket forever.”

You know, I can’t wait to tell my 90 year old grandfather that he is totally on-trend. 

Not content with dressing the anatomically impossible Barbie in tame outfits like fairy princesses and snow queens, Mattel decided to finally give Barbie the outift her figure has been crying out for all along.

Yes, Black Canary Barbie (based on a comic book character) is certain to captivate that certain elusive demographic Mattel has yet to successfully reach. That of the obsessed fanboy living in his mother’s basement.

Oh, and if a few little girls happen to see their favorite doll dressed like a dominatrix, complete with fishnets, uber-shiny latex and groin-grinding boots, well, that’s apparently not their problem.

A whopping eighty three percent of you are dictators at the family table, banning any and all electronic entertainment. I join you in celebrating our rule! I happen to think that eating together as a family is one of the most important things we can do for our children. I don’t care if it’s KFC you picked up on the way home from work, make time to share at least one meal a day together. That means talking with each other, not texting your friends or playing a Leapster. And, that includes meals out.

Something brought up in the comments got me to thinking about something that happened in early July. A woman boarded a Southwest plane with her sister and their children. One child is autistic, and another has cerebral palsy. The children were apparently disruptive during the flight, getting up and being loud. Upon attempting to board their connecting Southwest flight, they were told that due to the children’s behavior on the previous flight, they were not allowed to board. They were forced to get a flight on another airline the next day. Southwest did not give them a later flight, nor did it give them a hotel for the night.

I was moderately good at math when I was in school, but then as always profoundly lazy and am thus, very glad that The Guardian’s Hadley Freeman, the only UK fashion writer worth following, has gone ahead and done the cold, hard calculations. Yes, as you’ve always suspected, there is a specific formula to the monetary value of celebrity baby photos.

Now, nobody here is asserting on the record that breeding is more lucrative than releasing a new album. On the record.

But…

Once A-list children made their debut at the Crillon ball in Paris; now they’re on the cover of a Richard Desmond publication - OK!, generally, not Asian Babes…

Some might think these prices are the product of a celebrity-obsessed media that believes its own self-produced hype. In fact, they are the result of a strict mathematical formula: Value of pictures = Fame of parents x glamorousness of mother during pregnancy x general attractiveness of both parents (no one wants to fork out a couple of mil for an ugly baby) + any past scandal that either parent has overcome to reach this ending + funniness of child’s name. Divide amount by two-thirds if child is adopted: the interest in celebrity kids is to see how the celebrity’s genes have fared, you see.

As if there isn’t already an obscure branch of calculus devoted to the economics of celebrity adoption. I believe that Cambridge will shortly boast the Madonna Chair in African PhotoOps.

Last week I asked about Christina Aguilera and her planned ad for Rock the Vote, which had most of you not really giving a hoot what Ms. Dirrrrty Girl does in her free time.  After that majority came almost twenty percent being a bit offended that she would wrap her infant in the American flag.   Big fans of Christina we are not, over here on Teeny Manolo.

As for this week’s question, it’s a good one.  We were out at a restaurant, and one of the next tables had a teen and what I am guessing was a 7 year old or so.  Both kids had electronic devices (one texting on a cell phone and the other playing some type of handheld videogame) on at pretty much all times except when they were eating. 

There has been much discussion of late and around these parts of the Herculean loads shouldered, strollered, or shoved into minivans by parents in the name of having essential items to hand at all times. We all know what it’s like to realize the last of the diapers is gone and you’re halfway through Death Valley…or if not that scenario exactly, well, it felt like it.

But at a certain point, preparedness can indeed be said to have gone too far. Indeed, it can in this instance be said to have run amok. People have stormed Hadrian’s Wall (and quite successfully, too) with less ordnance than this.

From DListed:

29-year-old Stephanie Wilson decided to take her little baby and her other young child for a walk around their Utica, NY neighborhood on Tuesday evening. Everything was going well until Stephanie ran into one of her rivals. Stephanie and the other woman immediately began arguing over money. That’s when Stephanie reached into the stroller and pulled out a big knife! She also pulled out a sawed-off shotgun.

Now, any fool knows this is completely impractical. You can’t shoot a sawed-off shotgun with one hand! Put the knife down, fool!

But wait, there’s more!

When the cops searched the stroller they also found two more knives and a box cutter. Strangely, she only got THREE counts of endangering a child and one of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon: what’s that? One for each knife, the shotgun for the felony, and the box cutter came free with the set?

No report on the number of sippy cups seized.

Click here for our Stylin’ Stila Giveaway #2!