I did feel much better the morning after I wrote the middle-of-the-night fret post about Elizabeth being at camp. Part of it was that it was morning, and morning is just better. Most of it, though, was the comments on that post, which I started reading as soon as I was up, and have kept reading since. If I make a scale of what would be most comforting while Elizabeth is at camp, and let’s say we put “Letters from her saying she’s having a wonderful time and whining to stay a second week” as a 10 on that scale, the comments were…well, that’s actually harder than I’d expected to put a number on. Let’s call their place on the scale “Surprisingly close to 10.” I had Welling Tears of Relief.

AND, then on the second night, when all the sad thoughts returned, I had AMMUNITION. I was still picturing bad stuff happening, but then each thing I imagined led naturally to remembering one or more of the comments: I’d think for the hundredth time that maybe her stuff all got rained on, and then I’d remember one comment about how the counselors would put stuff in the dryers, and another comment about how the year everything got soaked was the best year ever, and another comment about how the counselors really are completely equipped to handle all normal camp problems, AND SO ON. Very, very helpful, and I thank you very much.

I am hoping today that there will be the letter saying she’s having a wonderful time and whining to stay a second week. But even if there isn’t, or even if the letter in fact says she’s miserable and cold and hungry, the week is half over. Well, sort of half over. Whoever thought of putting an odd number of days in a week was wrong.

I dropped off Elizabeth today for a week of sleepaway camp. And I am SURE things will look better in the morning, but right now they DON’T. She was completely fine at drop-off (I looked back and she wasn’t even looking at me), and on the way there she commented that she couldn’t wait until we got to the part where I’d leave and it would REALLY be camp time—but pretty much EVERY SINGLE PART of drop-off contained an error (“Now, did you bring her medical forms? But we never received them. Okay, we’ll double check. …Oh, here they are.” “No, I don’t have her down for the t-shirt that could only be ordered at the time of registration. No, sorry, lots of people have been saying they did, so maybe there’s something wrong with the online system, but in any case the order didn’t go through. …Oh, wait, now I have the right list and here she is”), and at this time of night, that is the kind of situation that makes me think I can’t trust them not to let her drown in the lake. In the morning, I’m sure I’ll instead be telling you all that as a pro/veteran camp mom, my advice is to not sign your child up for the first camp week of the summer, since that’s the week the camp discovers and fixes all the problems with the system.

Also, when I was about 15 minutes into the drive home, there was the kind of amazing downpour where you have to drive 20 miles under the speed limit and look at the lines on the road right in front of the car because you can’t see any farther than that—but when I left camp, everyone’s camping gear was still outdoors, farrrrrr away (wayyyyyyy farther than “Everyone grab your stuff and run for shelter!” distance—more like a 10-minute walk) from the cabins. And maybe it only rained 15 minutes away from camp and not at the camp itself, but I’m still picturing her trying to sleep in a cold wet sleeping bag. And I have her zip code entered into Weather Underground so I can keep seeing what the weather is doing now…and now…and now…

Tonight when I was flossing and brushing the littler kids’ teeth, I realized I’d gotten out three pieces of floss when I only needed two, because there are only two littler kids home right now and not three. Later I thought, “Wow, Elizabeth sure went to sleep early!”—and then realized her light was out because she’s not in there. I know kids go to camp all the time, but she’s 8 and I’m not used to not being in charge of the temperature and dryness of her surroundings, and she freaks out sometimes about bugs, and FAR too many counselors said to her cheerfully that it was THEIR first year TOO!

 

I would love to hear some Everything Was Fine camp stories. I realize that’s a vague category, so I will give some clarifying examples:

1. “I cried for the first couple of nights, but then had a GREAT time!” = Everything Was Fine

2. “My daughter broke her arm, but still had a great time! Everyone signed her cast!” = Everything Was Fine

3. “My daughter got sick and had to come home early, but she had a great time until then and went back the next year!” = Everything Was Fine

4. “________ died at camp, but that hardly ever happens!” = NO DON’T TELL ME

5. “________ was permanently physically/mentally damaged by a camp experience, but that’s so rare I’m sure you don’t need to worry about it!” = NO DON’T TELL ME

6. “I once almost drowned at camp as a child: the counselors were talking and didn’t even notice. Luckily, I managed to inch my way to the raft. I DIDN’T drown, so everything was fine!” = NO THAT IS NOT FINE

7. “I cried and was miserable the whole week, but now I realize it really strengthened me as a person” = NO THAT IS NOT FINE

8. “I’m not surprised everything was messed up—they pretty much hire ANYONE to work at summer camps. I worked at one, and I can’t believe anyone put me in charge of children! But everything worked out fine—nothing bad happened!” = NO THAT IS NOT FINE

9. “One year there was a leak in our cabin and everything got DRENCHED! We had clothes and sleeping bags draped to dry over all the picnic tables, all over the fences, all over the grass! Some of our stuff got ruined, but that’s still the first and best story we all tell about our camp years!” = Everything Was Fine

10. “I didn’t like camp, but it wasn’t a big deal—I just waited out the week, and then I didn’t go back again” = Everything Was Fine

11. “I wet the bed and told the counselor, and she acted completely grossed out” = NO DON’T TELL ME

12. “I was supposed to take medicine every day, but half the days no one remembered! It was fine, though—nothing bad happened!” = NO NOT FINE

 

This is getting long, and distressing. Here is a quicker set of rules of thumb:

1. Does the story give an example of a time that would make the parents later think, “If only we hadn’t sent her to camp”? Then no.

2. Does the story give support to the idea that teenagers should not be put in charge of children for such long periods of time, and that it is basically up to the individual child to survive the experience? Then no.

3. Does the story demonstrate that camp is an adventure, where things might go wrong but the camp is used to dealing with all of it, and children can roll with it, and no one has lasting regrets? Then yes.

4. Does the story show that camps are so extremely afraid of lawsuits that they are VIGOROUSLY careful as well as PAINFULLY regulated? Then yes.

I’ve found that if I wait, I get a lot of answers to things I’m wondering about. “Why do so many grown women look so FRUMPY?,” my teenaged self wondered after spending no-kidding 90 minutes feathering her hair and putting on make-up, and then looking critically at her 50-year-old English teacher who had a straight bob and a shiny forehead and a boring skirt. My current self can answer that it has something to do with a lack of time, something to do with a shifting of priorities regarding the use of that time, something to do with a change in how much of our life revolves around the way we look, something to do with a changing of style preferences (the black mini and coral crop-top and black-patterned tights seems right at 17, less right at 50), something to do with how we feel when we look back at pictures of ourselves with that feathered hair and frosty green eyeshadow, and something to do with how we feel when we look at what teenagers currently consider worth the effort.

I remember when it was fashionable at my school to get hair “frosted” (every single high school boy: “What FLAVOR frosting, hur hur hur”). I wondered why girls with darker hair were getting it done, when their hair looked better without it. The answer is something like “Because even though YOU didn’t prefer the look, THEY did, DUR” (that’s my own reason, now that my hair is darker and I still like it with light elements), combined with “How come girls with lighter hair were getting it done, when their hair looked better without it?,” combined with “Because it was the fad, and they wanted to participate in the fad,” and possibly combined with something about a hairdresser persuading them it looked wonderful.

When I was a babysitter, I wondered why parents let their houses get so messy or so overrun with kid stuff. I’m not wondering about that anymore (or using the word “let”).

I used to wonder why grown-ups wanted to TALK so much when it was so BORING. It turns out the answer is that it’s not boring to the grown-up. (Or that it IS boring but the grown-up feels obligated. But with the kind I meant at the time, it’s that it’s not boring to the grown-up.)

I used to wonder how high school kids could STAND not to have recess, or how grown-ups could STAND to have such boring Christmas presents. All became clear with time.

In fact, I’ve noticed that if I start a sentence with a little huff of exasperation followed by “Why would anyone _____???,” and then if I treat it as an actual question rather than a exclamation of scorn, I can usually come up with an actual answer. She’s wearing that outfit because she likes the way it looks, that’s why. She takes that kind of self-portrait because she thinks it looks good, and/or because all the more realistic shots made her cry, that’s why. She plays that game because it’s fun for her, that’s why. She puts up with him because that kind of behavior falls into the range of what she’s willing to deal with, or because she thinks she doesn’t have a choice, or because she knows she has a choice and she’s choosing this. She’s acting a certain annoying way, and so do a lot of other women her age, and I’m approaching that age—so although I don’t know yet, there’s a good chance I soon will, and maybe I should assume the reason will be as good as the other reasons I’ve found for why women older than me do things.

There are a lot of gaps still. For one thing, with a lot of questions I can think of answers—but SEVERAL answers. Is she trying to force everyone to do things her way because she really thinks we’ll enjoy it, or because if we say no it makes her doubt her own decision, or because she enjoys the act of arguing people into changing their minds, or because she gets a commission, or because she hasn’t yet understood that different people live different ways? Is she scoffing at other people’s interests because she’s right to scoff, or because she feels left out, or because she’s a scoffing and unpleasant person in general, or because she doesn’t realize how scoffy she’s coming across, or because she hasn’t yet understood that different people live different ways, or because she’s mad at the people she’s scoffing at for some other reason, or because other people scoffed at her interests and she wants to show them what that feels like?

And then there are other things, where I have questions I don’t think are going to get answered. Why would someone say in a horrible tone of voice to the perfectly nice and helpful receptionist, “Um, HI. She’s trying to get IN??” instead of a friendly “Hello! She’s here for camp!” and waiting to get buzzed in? I’m not on board with the idea that it’s because she’s fighting a hard battle or that she must have a sad life; those sound like Coping Thoughts to me, like when we try to manage our mounting road rage by imagining that the honking tailgater behind us is trying to get to the hospital where a family member lies recently injured. Sometimes that story is actually true, but mostly it isn’t.

Why would a woman say loudly “You have GOT to be kidding me right now!!” and stomp off and make loud huffy sighing sounds and crabby remarks to the air for the next half hour when the office staff can’t give her back the dollar she lost in a vending machine out in the building’s lobby, a vending machine clearly marked with a sign saying only the vending machine company can help in such a situation, a vending machine she voluntary decided to interact with, even knowing that choosing to interact shoppingly with a machine meant the transaction would not involve personal customer service? Why would someone standing in line roll their eyes and make audible mean remarks about how slow/stupid the clerk is? Why would someone in a restaurant say out loud “Heh-LO, does anybody WORK here??,” when the waitstaff is clearly visible WORKING at other tables?

So far, here are the only answers I’ve come up with: “Because for some reason that may still require more life experience before I know what it is, they think that behavior is appropriate for those situations” and “Because they’re rude, unpleasant people.” I’ve toyed with “Because they were born without sufficient empathy,” but that one doesn’t satisfy: people who have trouble with empathy can still use polite language and a polite tone of voice. Besides, the people in question are not blaring out “I WANT TO EAT” or “I WANT TO GET IN” like a toddler who hasn’t yet understood how things work—no, they’re using sophisticated scorn-indicating language and behavior and body language.

I’ve also wondered things like “Maybe they’re going through an intensely stressful time,” but that brings me back to “Maybe this horrible tailgating jerk just heard his wife was in a car accident”: it’s possible, but seems like it could cover only a tiny percentage of offenders. And most of them are not showing signs of that in other ways: they’re not red-eyed and looking unhinged, they’re just being rude as if it’s a normal way to live and they don’t understand why OTHER people are being so stupid and tentative and doormatty as to NOT behave that way. GEEZ, if you don’t get what you want RIGHT AWAY and EXACTLY THE WAY YOU WANT IT, make a HUGE FUSS!

Things were better yesterday and today with summer stuff. My mom bailed me out yesterday when Elizabeth had a doctor appointment that was at the same time I had to pick up Edward and Henry (I tried to reschedule the appointment, which I’d made long before signing up for summer stuff, and they said, “Let’s see, our next available appointment is…July 28th”), and then today there were no piano lessons, no karate, and no doctor appointments, so actually everything went well.

Oh, wait, there was an orthodontist appointment. I forgot about that because my mom and I combined it with a shopping trip that went extremely well, and so it felt like it just merged with that. We did the appointment first, then we went to KFC: I am having a little problem with their 10-bites meal, which I had for the first time this past weekend and now would like to eat every single day.

Then we went to Goodwill, and I don’t want to make the acid of envy burn the back of your throat, but they had HANNA ANDERSSON stuff for $1.79 per piece. It made me feel like pawing through every single item on every single rack looking only at the brand names—but that way madness lies. Instead I just went through the rack of Elizabeth-sized clothing as usual, and if I happened to find something Hanna Andersson, then how nice. Here’s my final haul (each item $1.79):

 

• Hanna Andersson bright pink jeans

• Hanna Andersson stripey leggings in teal and purple (possibly pjs)

• Hanna Andersson pink polka-dot cotton-knit button-up round-collar (HYPHEN AWARD) blouse that matches the pink of the pants

• Hanna Andersson brown velour zip-up sweatshirt with pink, blue, and purple polka-dots

• Gymboree denim shorts with jeweled pockets

• Gymboree corduroy heart-patterned skirt

• Gymboree appliqued short-sleeved shirt

• Gap pink fleece hooded jacket

• Old Navy cat-applique t-shirt

 

(I probably should have started with the Old Navy and worked up to the Hanna Andersson; that would have made for a more impressive impact.) I also got two things in brands I don’t recognize: a Kingkow polo shirt (very cute tiny cow where a preppy alligator would be) and an “SO wear it declare it” top (declare what?).

Other days I go to Goodwill and come out with nothing, after looking listlessly through rack after rack of pilled, grubby, Walmart/Target-store-brand clothes. Today I PASSED OVER a Hanna Andersson Christmas dress ($1.79) and several Gymboree things, just because I didn’t love them, and a Gap zip-up sweatshirt because I already had a Gap jacket and a Hanna Andersson sweatshirt in my hand.

After Goodwill, we went to Target. I wish I’d remembered to buy candy, but I just didn’t and there’s no turning back time. I bought more sunscreen, which involved clenching my teeth because Henry somehow lost a brand-new $8 bottle of it on his FIRST DAY at camp, and even though it had his name all over it in permanent marker, it is apparently gone forever and he needs a replacement. I also compared the ingredients of the Target brand multivitamin I usually buy on sale for $4.49/100, and found it’s completely identical to the Target brand “adults under 50” multivitamin which is sold for $10.99/400 and was on sale for $9.89. And I got milk, so now I don’t have to go all the way to the grocery store just for milk. A triumph.

This has all been a terrible mistake: having children, signing them up for summer things—all of it. I was going to give a sample of today’s schedule so you could rear back in dismay, but I realized it doesn’t look so bad when it’s written down. So what if I have to drop off the first two kids before 7:00, the next at 8:00, and the next at 9:00, picking up the first two between the 8:00 and 9:00 drop-offs? That’s not so bad. But such a schedule doesn’t take into account the WAVES of breakfasting and sunscreening and lunch-packing and form-remembering and do-you-have-your-towels’ing. Nor does it take into account the way I keep FORGETTING WHAT I’M DOING, so that it dawns on me in a sudden rush that, wait a second, if I’m dropping off one kid for piano lessons at 2:30 and a second kid for piano lessons at 3:00, that’s going to put a cramp in my “needing to pick up a third kid at 3:00 on the other side of town” style. And then, wait, when the second kid needs to be picked up at 3:30, I need to be picking up the fourth kid on the other side of town.

In short: o_O’

(The apostrophe is a sweat droplet of stress and befrazzlement. Also of heat.)

Well. Anyway. In happier news, I watched the first movie I’ve ever seen that was in DUTCH.

It’s called Bride Flight, and the cover makes it look soapier/shmoopier than it was. But it’s a little soapy/shmoopy. It’s about three Dutch women coming to Australia in the 1950s to meet up with fiancés/husbands, and about the Channing-Tatum/Carey-Elwes-style guy they meet on the plane over. There are a couple of Big Nudity/Sex scenes, but kind of artsy/pretty rather than horrifying/porny. Oh, wait, there’s one “up on the kitchen counter” scene that is more the latter, but it is mercifully brief. I liked the movie and would recommend it, but I feel like I’ll have to watch it again for the second storyline (when the characters are all old) to make sense: I couldn’t keep them straight until most of their story was over.

When I wrote “THERE IS TOO MUCH EVERYTHING” on Twitter the other day, my friend Firegirl astutely remarked that school must be out. And yes. I keep wanting to write more about that, but how can I when the house is LITTERED WITH CHILDREN? I will tell you frankly that when I was doing all my Planning For a Big Family, I didn’t take summers into account. I thought things like, “And by the time the third baby is born, the eldest will be in school all day, so it’s really just two children for most of the day!” or whatever, and I forgot about summer. I literally forgot.

Rob graduated from middle school! Or rather, he “completed” from middle school. There was a whole day of Completion Ceremonies. One of the worst parts, I think (I mean in addition to having a whole day of completion ceremonies), is that it seemed kind of *cough*lame*cough* to be making such a fuss over going from 8th grade to 9th. I know it’s kind of cool to finish middle school and go to high school…but…. Like, I think all this fuss will be FUN when he’s graduating high school. But. There was this big tearful Goodbye Ceremony where they could “say their final farewells to one another” (actual principal quote)—but…they will see each other in two months. In 9th grade. As they continue their regularly-scheduled school programming. We don’t live in the kind of district where kids split off into different high schools: they’re all moving together from one building to another building.

The awards ceremony went on for a million years, which was actually an hour and forty-five minutes. They gave out hundreds and hundreds of awards. SO VERY MANY self-esteem-boosting awards that any child who managed NOT to get an award would be dealt an incredible blow to their self-esteem. Backfiring: Ur doin it right.

I think they should have handed out Cutest Name awards. That was how I passed the time: going through the list of completers and picking my favorite names. I wish I could tell you all my favorites without, like, putting other people’s real names all over the internet. One of them was along the lines of Fiona Flowers, and then she was also dressed super-cute/classy in a poofy skirt and twin set and wedge sandals.

For the graduation itself, there was a limit of four guests per student, so Paul and I had to take Henry with us if we both wanted to go (because William can babysit the twins, but he can’t babysit Henry) (WE can barely babysit Henry). It was soooooo hot and crowded, and the 8th graders had to be there half an hour before it started, which meant we ALL had to be there half an hour before it started, which meant we sat in a hot and crowded middle school gym for an extra 30 minutes. It was lucky I wore a long skirt instead of one of the dresses I’d considered (knee-length), because we were sitting on the very top bleacher. Even with a long skirt, I felt like it was a good idea to cross those ankles and press those knees.

I’d been worried about Rob’s outfit: he declined my ideas of ties and jackets, but I knew from the moms in my circle that their girls were buying new, fancy dresses, so I was a little worried I should have pushed harder. But it turned out he was nicely in the middle: some boys wore full-on suits with dress shoes and ties, and some boys wore plaid shorts with polo shirts. Rob wore his $4.49 Goodwill dark grey trousers with an untucked short-sleeved button-down plaid shirt in turquoise/aqua/navy/white (Target Shaun White, if that gives you a mental picture of the look of it), and his usual black sneakers. I felt like he looked kind of dorky but in the right way: like, deliberate cool dorkiness. It helps that he’s TALL (almost six feet) and has long hair.

The girls, by the way. OMG. Way more fun outfits than the boys. But OMG. Many of them were acquiring life experience about how a short tight skirt and unfamiliar high heels are an awkward combination when your path involves stairs up to a stage and then stairs back down, in front of hundreds of people. One girl (and remember, these are FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLDS) was wearing a TIGHT, SHORT, WHITE, SATIN, HALTER dress with teetery high heels and a very fancy updo. She looked like she was ready to share her red carpet secrets with US Weekly, and here we were in the middle school gym. Approximately half the girls were wearing those dresses that are short in the front and long in the back. This has been your STYLE WATCH REPORT.

The reading of all the names was mercifully brisk. However, next year they should get someone whose skill set includes microphones.

When Rob’s name was called, I whooped and clapped, despite feeling conspicuous and embarrassed: I made myself notice beforehand that every single graduate had a small (approximately 4-person) whooping/clapping response to having their name called, and that none of those reactions seemed startling or weird or inappropriate to anyone else. But Paul! Paul DID NOTHING. He just sat there. So Rob’s cheering section was Just Me. When called on this breach, Paul said, “I didn’t know we were doing that!” Please. I’d give him a pass on the whooping, but no CLAPPING? The precedent was WELL-SET by then: (1) graduate’s name (2) small whoop/clap outburst (1) graduate’s name (2) small whoop/clap outburst. It’s a simple ABABAB pattern, PAUL.

I finally finished reading A Dual Inheritance.

I liked it, but I felt like I was reading it FOREVER. It’s the kind of story that follows two college friends from their college years to their grandparent years, and it seemed like it was happening IN REAL TIME. But I liked it and would recommend it.

I watched Tiny Furniture and ended up sobbing because I was picturing my own dear daughter growing up to be like Lena Dunham’s character. The same thing kept happening when I was watching Girls. This is a new entry, then, for my list of Indicators of Middle Age: it’s when we start identifying the female lead with our daughters/nieces instead of with ourselves.

And I wrote this:

Absolute Beginners Guide to Naming Your Baby. It was an unusually fun project, and involved writing text to fit in cute boxes so that it could be formatted for a print-out (I would love to take credit for that, but alas: I did not do the pretty formatting).

Oh! I was going to choose some people to boss around Webkinz winners! Let’s do that!

1. The Shari who wrote “Love the moose. Can’t resist animals with silly headwear.”

2. Still Playing School

 

And then I was having fun using the random number generator and then looking up who it was, so I chose one more:

3. Heidi J

 

I’ll email you to get your mailing addresses!

I hate making doctor/dentist appointments for Paul. Not only do I hate using the phone and hate trying to figure out appointment times that work (I don’t think quickly, so I’m constantly making appointments that interfere with things that aren’t on the calendar, such as the time I have to meet the school bus or the time I have to do kindergarten drop-off), I also hate the bossy/mothering feeling it gives me when I call. But if I don’t make the appointments, he will not go, and I want him to go, so it’s a matter of working with reality as it is: there’s no sense saying he “should” make his own appointments or that I “shouldn’t” have to, when he won’t and I do.

What I’m wondering is if I’m in the majority or the minority—if most adults make their own appointments, or if most households have one person who makes all the appointments. So I’m wondering if you make appointments for the other adult in your household or if the other adult in your household makes appointments for you or if you each make your own, and also I’m wondering whether the adults involved are male or female.

Let’s also have a poll, just for the one/both question.

[yop_poll id=”3″]

 

When I like to do something, I like everyone else to like to do it too (as you may already know, if you were my Facebook friend back when I was into the virtual gardens/pets) (sorry about that, but IT WAS FUN, WHY DIDN’T YOU WANT TO PLAY TOOOOOOOOO?). By birth and by nature I’m a bossy older sister, and I TRY not to push TOO MUCH, but sometimes it is HARD to be so RESTRAINED.

Anyway I’m into Webkinz right now and I want you to do it too so why arennnnnnnnnn’t you? No, I do understand. My kids started doing Webkinz when Rob was, like, 7? or 8? or something? And yet I didn’t even have the idea of getting a Webkinz for myself until a few months ago: the games didn’t really appeal, and that seemed like the main point. I don’t remember even WATCHING Rob or William play, or having much interest in what they were doing—though part of that is that I find it physically painful to keep myself from butting in when I’m watching a child play a game.

Zip forward to the present, when I am logging on daily (DAILY) to make sure I “do my dailies” (definition: play the games that can only be played once per day). I am watering virtual gardens. Collecting virtual gems to make a virtual crown. Spinning a virtual wheel to get a virtual prize. Earning virtual money by playing virtual Webkinz versions of Bejeweled and Yahtzee. Purchasing virtual clothing for a virtual animal. Fervently and genuinely hoping to win rare virtual items. Etc.

I can’t really explain it, especially since the site can be pretty annoying and glitchy. All I know is WANT TO PLAY WEBKINZ, LET ME PLAY IT RIGHT NOW. And also: WHY YOU NOT HAVE ONE, IT’S SO FUN.

I think one thing I like about it is that there are so few actual TOYS in adulthood. So few, in fact, that “adult toys” sounds dirty (as in “adult bookstore”) or else tongue-in-cheek (as in “Oh, er, no, this is a special kind of juice kids can’t have—ADULT juice”). Do you remember being a kid and thinking the presents your parents got for Christmas were UNIMAGINABLY SAD? I remember my mom explaining that no, no, these were the things adults wanted to receive! And I thought something like “Mental note: Christmas fun ends at adulthood.” That turned out not to be true, and now I explain the same thing to my incredulous children—but STILL, this Webkinz is a TOY, it’s an actual TOY, and I wanted it, and I found that quite, quite fun. And it is fun, now, to decide to spend some free time Playing With A Toy. I have found it surprisingly spirit-lifting. (Bonus: the children find this hilarious and delightful.)

But I can see how you might be uncertain (it took me about a month to get from “I might even like to have one myself, ha ha!” to “It appears I am seriously going to follow through on this silly idea”), so here is what I thought I’d do. Some of the Webkinz are quite cheap, so it’s an easy thing to try; if you don’t like it, very little has been wasted. What if I bought a couple of Webkinz and gave them away? And then two people who were wavering on the issue could try it without having to leap the hurdle of purchasing one, and plus we’d have the fun of a contest? What if THAT?

Here is what we will do. I will make a list of some of the cheaper Webkinz (there are some that are even cheaper than the ones I’m listing, but those are “add-on” items, which means they’re only at that price if your order is $25 or more). To enter, leave a comment saying which one you’d like to win. (I like to do a Google image search so I can see what they’d look like in the virtual Webkinz world, too.) I’ll choose two winners on…let’s say Monday, June 17th, 2013, and I’ll ship you the little guy you liked best. So, here are the candidates to choose from:

 

There! That seems like a nice assortment.

Here is the main issue: one reason I like doing giveaways of things from Amazon is that I have a Prime account, so I can ship Amazon gifts within the U.S. for absolutely free, which is very pleasant considering how expensive it is to ship things now. So that means the giveaway is for U.S. addresses only, which is kind of SAD and UNFAIR (like ADULT CHRISTMAS) but THERE IT IS.

The secondary issue is that sometimes a particular Webkinz animal will sell out at one price and then suddenly they’re another price. All of the above were chosen in the $5/$6/$7 range; if one of them suddenly goes up (or suddenly no longer qualifies for Prime shipping), and it’s the one the winner has chosen, I’ll have the winner pick again.

So if you have a U.S. mailing address in mind, and you’d like to try a Webkinz, leave a comment below saying which you’d like to win:

Hedgehog
Pom-pom kitty
Pug
Charcoal cat
Velvety elephant
Polar bear
Skunk
Grey Arabian
Moose
White terrier
Lemon-lime gecko
Walrus
Apatosaurus

I’ll pick two winners on Monday, June 17th.