DRAGONVALE

All right, I admit it. I'm hooked.

I don't usually play computer games, but I do keep Bejeweled and Angry Birds and a couple more on my phone to entertain young relatives.

One of them earnestly insisted I install Dragonvale. Actually, I think it went like this:

"You should put Dragonvale on your phone."

"You think so?"

"Yes. Then I can give you gifts."

"Gifts?"

"Yes. All you have to do is download the app."

"I don't know how."

"I do. Give me your password."

And presto, I got Dragonvale. The 'gifts' turn out to be 'gems' needed to purchase dragons and other stuff. Also turns out I can give her gifts, too. She even showed me how to play.

"Here's some money." Punch. Points are added to the money supply.

"We'd better buy you a food center." Punch. A little house is added on the screen.

The market also sells habitats, buildings, decorations, dragon eggs...All so you can build your own little dragon world.

And sometimes it leads you to buy stuff with real money. I pointed this out.

The blithe response from the knowledgeable nine-year-old. "Oh, don't worry about that. When it says to put in your password, just cancel it."

You get the picture.

Anyway, I can't stop playing. But I do have to give out gifts every twenty-four hours, right? I'm not addicted. Really I'm not. Why would a grown woman be addicted to building a kingdom of fire dragons and rainbow dragons and earth dragons and...

SHOPPING FOR KEDS

So this eight-year-old and I were shopping and we run across a basket of Keds. You know. The old canvas tennis shoe type Keds. Classics. White. She almost swoons for wanting them so much. Of course, nice person I am, I tell her to see if a pair will fit her and we'll get them. Despite the price which, the store being a little boutique in a tourist town, is way more than it should be.

Alas, couldn't find her size. She was so disappointed.

Thank goodness for the internet. I ordered them, they came to her house, and she proudly wore them that same day with little socks like back in the fifties.

Who says kids today don't appreciate the old things?

LITTLE GIRLS AGAIN

We had company the past weekend. Another little girl, this one eight years old. She walks in and says importantly, "I have a makeup bag."

Thinking lip gloss and clear fingernail polish and things like that, I ask, "What do you have in it?"

"Oh... Mascara and other stuff."

"Mascara?"A lot different from how it used to be. I can't remember mascara ever showing up in play makeup.

She opened her bag. Sure enough, there was makeup. An eyeliner pencil, a compact, maybe some blush. And mascara.

"My mommy gave me most of it," she explains, "but we bought the mascara."

And every morning she carefully "made up" her face with the mascara. Oh, she also used some lip softener (colorless in a lipstick tube) I gave her.

I'm beginning to sound like an old fart but things have really changed since I was a little girl!

GIRLS

I've been visiting a home with two seven-year-old girls.

One has her own beauty routine in the morning. She uses a comb-like brush on her hair before she takes one with bristles, wets it and brushes till her hair's damped down and straight. Then she looks at herself smugly in the mirror, turning from side to side. "There," she says. "My hair is perfect."

The other runs a brush through one side of her hair and she's done.

So when we let the 'lid' down on the convertible and they're in the back seat singing along to Yakety Yak, guess which one starts squealing because her hair's getting blown.

Nope. Both of 'em.

Didn't realize they started so young.

Future Plans

As the six year old spending the weekend with me went to sleep, she confided her plans for the future. "When I grow up, I'm going to tell everybody what to do."

"Uh huh." She's seen too many princess movies.

"Yep, everybody's going to do what I tell them. I'll be head of everybody, men, women and children, when I grow up."

"Uh huh." Maybe she's read too many books about kings.

"And I won't let anybody hurt any animals. Not ever. They can't ever hurt them. Yep, I'm going to tell everybody what to do."

This kid has ambitions. Laudable ambitions. I'm thinking president?

Happy Mother's Day!

To all the mothers out there, I hope your day is good.

Forget the pain you went through to deliver, or the processes and endless paperwork you went through to adopt the little suckers. Ignore the things they do or say that embarrass you along with the worse stuff that makes you gnash your teeth and/or scream.

Dwell only on the happiness they bring and the good times you share.

And keep loving them!

Visit to Hospital

When we went to the hospital yesterday, we ran into a group of very short people in scrubs and surgical masks. Turns out they were seven-eight years old.

Glad I wasn't going in for surgery.