The Princess has become addicted to Club Penguin. When we signed her up, it asked for a username and she said “I know, someting really unusual, I am going to call myself Kate”. Club Penguin said “Sorry, Kate is no longer available, would you like Kate59004?” No, she wouldn’t and several (painfully picked out on the keyboard) tries later she had understood how to pick a sufficiently weird user name. There’s a valuable lesson learnt early. Her best friend at school, B, is on Club Penguin also and, although they see each other five days a week in the real world, they are keen to meet in the virtual one also. So popular has Club Penguin become that this weekend we started using it as part of our disciplinary armoury. She starts the day with 10 Club Penguin minutes, she gets additional minutes for good behaviour and loses minutes for bad. We lost 20 minutes leaving the funfair on Saturday. Now, she’s learning about negative numbers too. It’s all educational.
B’s Daddy is finishing off a Ph.D in meta-computation (who knows?). I suppose that this means that they are expert in computer safety as B seems to have a great deal of freedom to wander the internet. When B’s father dropped him off at the weekend to visit, I asked “Is it true that B has set up a website for their club*?” “Yes, I think so,” said his father, “on blogger or something.” “Really?” I squeaked, “What’s the address?” “I don’t know,” he said, “but I think he emailed it to his mother.” “He has an email address?” I yelped. “Yeah, since he was 4.” Am I out of touch do all the other 6/7 year olds have email addresses?
B is very interested in “mythical beasts” – the chimera, Pegasus and so on – he traipses into school with a copy of Greek myths under his oxter. The Princess asked me the other day whether mythical beasts are only for boys. “Certainly not,” I said. “Is that just what you say or does everyone say that?” she asked. “But I’m right,” I protested. “But is that what everyone says? You never say that things are for boys or for girls, you always say that everything is for everyone. Now, does everyone say that mythical beasts are for boys?” I pondered this for a while and went with the following: “Well, some people might say that the prettier end of mythical beasts, say unicorns, are for girls and the scarier end, say dragons, are for boys.” “FINALLY,” said herself. The problems the children of feminists have to face.
And in other news, just after its finally grown back after the scalping she gave herself last year, the Princess has cut her own hair again, I despair.
*He and she have started a club at school.
Our same-age boy is addicted to the social interactive page “Moshie Monsters”. What does this say about his mother’s feminist credentials? But I’d definitely say that mythical monsters are for BOTH genders and you can tell the Princess I said so. Maybe mention Medusa? There’s a role model for ya!
I cannot wait to read the princess’s pre-teenage blog. It will be entitled “Second-guessing my Mother”. (Z has his own e-mail address but he’s 9 which is ancient in internet years. And I check his mail more often than he does).
Try the “Percy Jackson” series out on her – Greek myths at an American high school – (oh yes, it had to happen) – and yes, there are girls in them… daughter of Athena anyone?
PS – what is an “oxter”?
What is it about children and hair? I bet Princess looks lovely with another chunk missing. We have a barbie (shudder) who has had a fierce haircut. It is full length one side and cropped the other. Watch out for the style on the catwalks next season.
hehe! I love it. Were we just gullible, growing up in the 70s & believing our mothers when they said there wasn’t anything we couldn’t do even if we were a girl?
C, Medusa, I like it. L, I am more nervous about the tween blog. F, saw those in the shop and thought about purchasing but they look terrifying (which I suppose is the point), oxter is armpit, apparently it’s common in N England too, if only you had some connection with the North of England…
L, no, frankly, she does not.
TM, weren’t we just?
Not sure about the North of England but definitely in Scotland. It is spelled auxter there, I believe.