So anyway, I deleted a bunch of apps from my phone.... Ron showed me this app that tells you what's on your phone that accesses your private information, email, accounts, etc. I deleted a lot of stuff - mostly games Aubrey, in her infinite wisdom, saw fit to install without asking, but some of it was actually apps that came installed on the phone. I don't know what they are, I don't use them, history! And my sneaky sweetie....she gets herself in trouble. I'm sitting with her at bedtime and, just before I go to leave her room, she asks me where my phone is. Apropos of nothing, of course. It was a good question....I said in my purse and she said no, it's not. So I asked why she was in my purse. I'll give her a lot of credit for quick thinking. She said she noticed my purse was open when she walked by to go upstairs. Just plausible enough that it could be true......and I had been walking around deleting apps, so he phone could have been anywhere. So, instead of spending a lot of time looking for it, I decide to call it. Quick find, right? Except that I can't hear it ringing anywhere. Hmmmm. Next thing I know, a crabby Aubrey is coming downstairs holding my phone, which had been in her room. Hmm again. How how did it get there? Couldn't possibly be that Aubrey took it? Of course not. Took some doing but she finally admitted taking it (with Devon, of course) to play games. Not only without permission, but after having been told not to touch it. My phone now is password protected.
I hate having to do stuff like that. I hate that the food I buy for lunch and snack for the girls has to be kept in a locked trunk - which still gets broken into, I might add. I bought a quart of cherry tomatoes yesterday. Aubrey was home alone for not that long today and guess what? They're almost gone. Granted, I'd rather she eat tomatoes than cookies, but still, how do we teach what is a reasonable snack and appropriate servings/portion control? I admit I'm not the best role model, but I don't consider most foods to be in single serving packages, no matter what the size.
And speaking of size, Aubrey received, on her 8th birthday, a Swiss army pocket knife from my parents. She has always loved this knife. She want more knives, and bigger knives....I think I have my nephew to thank for that, although it could be partly my Dad....or at least that's what I thought until this weekend when her birth-mother whipped out a doozy of a knife! Anyhow, she wants more and bigger. Of course she does! So, Devon goes to a fair sponsored by a friend's church. The fair has a hunting theme (archery games, game to eat like boar, venison)....and comes home with one of the prizes they gave away pulling names out of a bowl....a knife. And I don't mean a pocket knife, either. It's got to be a good 4 inches long, camo outside, and it looks like you could use it to work on your kill when you go hunting. Who gives knife like that to a 7 year old? And of course all she wants to do is take it everywhere and show it off. We finally convinced her that she could no take it to school - or anywhere else for that matter. And all we hear from Aubrey is how unfair it is that she got a little tiny pocket knife when she was 8 and now she's 1 and Devon has a big knife and she still doesn't. Well, I have Devon's knife and I have no plans to get Aubrey one like it anytime soon.
It seems like things are so different now than back when I was a kid. I'm not talking about technology, although that certainly has changed. But a child's life is exposed to so much more violence than we were. No, I'm not talking the idyllic 50s. I mean it seems like anywhere you look there's something violent built in - and it's not slapstick-like violence, either. The novels kids read, the movies they watch, the video/computer games, even the cartoons, ....and then we wonder why our society has become so violent. I truly believe that this constant exposure to violence helps the kids - and adults too - become inured to it. It's so commonplace....are we heading back to a time like when Kitty Genovese was brutally murdered and nobody helped, only this time, not out of fear but out of our just not noticing?
I love that Devon still wants to watch shows that I consider age-appropriate. And I enjoy watching them with her. Aubrey is at a tough age - the "tween" years.....too old, at least in her opinion, for "kid" shows but not mature enough, really, to handle processing the violence in so much of what she is exposed to - even when it is not particularly graphic. And don't get me started on sexual content. I have no good solution. If I don't let her read the books and watch the tv shows and movies, then she's ostracized, fits in even less with her peers. So, how do I help her process what she's absorbing? Well, aside from trying to find not-too-young wholesome family activities for us all to do, I wish I knew . . .
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