Step One: Admit that we are powerless...


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Mixing the Magic of Disney with the Quality of Behr®
Create the happiest rooms on earth with Disney Color by Behr, available exclusively at The Home Depot.

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Someone worked on this. Someone who does what I do, every day.

Maybe Disney was looking for a way to extend their reach to the ba-jillions of kiddlets who love their Disney characters, and the parents who consistently reach into their pockets to pacify them.

Maybe Behr was just looking for a way to extend their reach to consumers, tapping into the market of adoring parents who would NEVER paint their baby's room with something as mundane as "Blue"…. Oh no, it has to be ATTA BOY BLUE or CINDERELLA'S BALL GOWN. No kidding.

Go ahead and look… you know you want to.

Someone came up with all those names.
Someone developed the tagline, "Mixing the Magic of Disney with the Quality of Behr®".
Someone wrote the web page copy that begins, "Create the happiest rooms on earth…"

And in case you didn't know, certain colors and characters have been designated for "Infants & Toddlers", "Kids", "Girls", "Boys", and "Tweens & Teens". God help you if you select a pirate color for your little girl's room… do not pass go, go directly back to "Girls".

All I know is that Mickey Mouse has NEVER stepped foot/paw/whatever into our home at 8001.

The television is shut away in the basement, where the girls never interact with it.

The computers are behind closed office doors, where the girls can only use them with our supervision and for viewing home movies and photos.

On Sunday I took TinyE on an outing to Home Depot, where I thought she would enjoy looking at the flowers as I picked up some mundane home repair products. Silly Mommy.

Someone in the paint department handed a sticker to TinyE when she was getting restless, and when we got home I promptly applied it to her favorite place – her belly.

And then she pointed at the mouse character on her tum and announced with delight, "Mishey Mouse!"

And all I could think was, "MY GOD! THEY GOT TO HER!"*

My next thought was, "This is from the child who still speaks in one-syllable, one-word sentences?"

My next thought was, "Why not Papa John's?! That's one brand this household practically worships!"

And Dave's response was, "She can't even say ELVIS!"

I wanted to blog about marketing to children, and everything Dave and I have done to limit our girls' exposure to marketing and branding hoo-ha (children have been shown to have brand preferences by age 2…).

And then I found this: Hands off my kid's brain, bozos.

It's a long post, but I found myself agreeing with every sentence. It's worth the read. And I figured.... why redo it?

* Research has yet to reveal the source of possible Disney infiltration. Next up…. Researching the research process behind designing Mishey Mouse. How did they know???

Goodbye, Friend



Fritz
2001 - 2007

We don't know what happened last night. One minute Fritz was pacing the house, upset about the neighborhood cat that was prowling in our back yard. The next, he was on his side, under the kitchen table.

Dave yelled at me to come and get TinyE — I thought he meant that Fritz was freaking out again, come get TinyE so she stays away from him. When I got to the kitchen, she was climbing on a chair, struggling to look over Dave's shoulder and see what was going on... she wailed as I picked her up, "Da-Dat! Da-Dat!"

I saw Dave with his hand on Fritz's side, saying "Hey Fritz, hey buddy..."

Dave looked at me and said, "He's dying."

There was no struggle, there seemed to be no pain. There was just a vacant stare in his eyes, a quiet mew, and one deep shudder. It happened in all of two minutes, if that long. Then the house erupted into further chaos as both girls wailed separately in their bedrooms, locked away as Dave and I stood in the kitchen, stunned. Trying to figure out what had happened and what to do next. What to do with the big, heavy, limp body cradled in Dave's arms. What kind of dream we were in. We decided to take him to the U for a necropsy. We just need to know what happened.

Dave helped me get the girls settled down, and then he left. The furry white body loaded into the cat carrier, little pink nose and ear tips turning grey.

The rest of the night was eerily quiet. There was no boulder on the bed by my feet, no rattling of the window blinds in the early hours, no high-pitched squeaks of excitement as I doled out the morning nibblets.

Goodbye, little Fritzer. Our tiny, gigantic, pinhead, high-strung, cuddly, snarly kitty. We loved you.

My Tiny Ease
You read it correctly, there's a new name to this blog. While "My Tiny E" served this blog well during the years of a single daughter, I believe the addition of a second daughter means it's time to change the brand stategy and upgrade identity. As you may recall, "My Tiny E" was chosen for two reasons:

* Because TinyE looked like a Tiny Elvis in her white baby jumpsuit (a la the Saturday Night Live skit - Tiny Elvis)
* Because she is a Tiny Extrovert.

Therefore, playing on the equity and reputation of our original name, and with a touch of bittersweet, let me introduce "My Tiny Ease":

* In recognition of the Two Tiny Extroverts who now rule our roost.
* In recognition that while most of my week is stuffed with ridiculous responsibilities like work and cleaning, the girls still offer me one precious, fleeting space of Tiny Ease.

My Tiny Ease looks forward to the opportunity of continuing its mission: posting regular heaps of emotional drivel, opinionated rants, and irreverent observations, regardless of audience preference or existence.

Labor Day Weekend Pics






Let there be light...
Where there used to be shade, we now have room for our own baseball diamond:

Fun with pop culture, part I


It's my kid in a box.