Pink Lego? Heck Yes! Bring It On!

On Saturday we took Fionn to Target to spend her birthday gift card (thank you Grandma).  And Fionnula very excitedly ran straight to the display of new pink and purple Lego Friends and picked out two sets.  Yes I have read the various articles screaming about the new "lego for girls" and how it is limiting the interests of little girls, yes I have seen little Riley rant at the toy companies for making all the 'girl' toys pink while boys get all the other colors, I've even read through the relatively long-winded petition on change.org demanding that Lego "go back to advertising and offering all LEGO to boys and girls!"  Really?  Really?!

How is Lego NOT offering all its toys to both boys and girls?  One article actually said that the 'cool' lego is in the 'boy' aisle at the toy store.  It isn't the boy aisle!  It's the Lego aisle, and I assure you, no one will stop you from purchasing things from these shelves based on your gender.  Really.  Girls can have the Harry Potter Lego or the Sponge Bob Lego or the Alien Quest Lego.  Maybe the problem isn't with Lego as much as it is with everyone's perception in the first place that Lego and action figure aisles are FOR boys.

Also, I noticed that everything I read against the Lego Friends sets complained bitterly that the girl sets were all about girls in beauty shops and girls performing music and lounging by the pool. No where did I see mentioned one of the sets Fionn picked in which the minifigure is an inventor in a lab full of chemistry sets, tools, a microscope and a robot.  It is a relatively pink lab.  But SO WHAT?!  I was sitting by Fionn when she played with this set today.  She told me that her 'inventor' worked at a museum and was identifying the 'potion' which Fionn had carefully placed under the tiny microscope.  This same set comes with a tiny laptop which all of Fionn's Lego fan brothers seriously envy.  I assume none of the tirades against Lego bother to mention this particular set because it goes against one of their main points--that Lego is narrowing the realm of possibilities in little girls' imaginations to traditionally 'girlish' occupations and past times.

Kris asked Fionn before she bought the sets, why she liked them so much, and she shrugged her shoulders and said matter of factly; "because they have girls in them."  Ah ha.  She didn't say because they were pink and purple even though those are her favorite colors (in fact, those are also favorite colors of a couple of Fionn's brothers!), She didn't say it was because of anything the girl's were doing, whether that be designing clothes, or singing into a microphone, or building robots.  She said she liked them because they were all about girls.

So.... how is it different to tell our little girls that they SHOULD NOT want the pink and purple toys than it is to tell them that they SHOULD.  The simple answer is it isn't different.

Back to Seminary

I am not a morning person.  Many of you are cracking up right now because that is such a huge understatement.  Homeschool works well for me because no one has to be dressed and fed and anywhere at 8:00.  Well, except for Kris sometimes, however he is pretty self-sufficient.  But a few years ago something new crept into our homeschool...early morning seminary.  So, from now on, until Fionnula graduates (which is 13 more years if you are curious, plus the 5 we already put in), someone will always have to be somewhere, mostly dressed, but not necessarily fed, at 6:15 am.  Seriously.

So, try to picture a typical school day morning at my house;

First, we can't leave out the detail that anywhere between about 1:30 and 4:30 Fionnula has more than likely crawled  into my bed and burrowed her wicked cold fingers and toes into my body.  Despite the total shock to my system I go back to sleep.  I am resilient.

At 5:45 the first alarm goes off.  That's right the first alarm.  This is the alarm that tells me if my boys aren't up yet they better be soon.  So I stumble, half blind and mostly incoherent (because neither my feet, nor my eyes, nor my brain function at 5:45) down to their room to ensure they are awake.  Usually at least one of them is, but sometimes I begin to hear their alarm as soon as I round the top of the first flight of stairs and arrive in a pitch dark basement to find 3 soundly sleeping boys.  Hence the need for MY alarm to go off at this ridiculous hour.

Then I go back to bed, grab my cell phone on the way and turn on its already pre-set alarm for 6:45, crawl under the covers and go back to sleep.  I am vaguely conscious when the boys each kiss me goodbye a few minutes later.  You see, this year, we are part of a blessed 3 family carpool, which means that every third month, I don't drive AT ALL.  Which is beyond awesome.  But this month, I am driving the pick up after route.  Which means I can go back to sleep for another hour.

At 6:45 my cell phone alarm goes off.  I have my routine perfectly timed, it takes me 5 minutes to be out the door, it takes me 5 minutes to drive to the church, but...  it takes the bus at least 10 minutes to warm up enough that humans can safely ride in it on a January morning.  So, the 6:45 alarm is the start the bus alarm.  I can do this remotely from my bedroom window.  But sadly not from my bed.  Then I......you guessed it.....go back to bed.  Really.  I sleep for another 5 minutes.  THEN I get up, get dressed (and I use the term loosely folks, sweats, jammies, almost anything will work...a swimming suit.  Ok not really.), brush my teeth and am out the door.

Essentially, within five minutes of arriving at full consciousness, I am driving an 8,000 pound vehicle around the neighborhood.  More than likely on ice.  Be scared, be very, very scared.