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Mamma Wears Prada January 16, 2015

Why Barbie is more than welcome in our home

Beatrice likes, Daily photo, family, motherhood, parenting, Toys Comments Off

This is an overdue post. I’ve meant to write something about this topic for quite sometime now but always postponed it. Until last night when I read the latest ridiculous post about a mum refusing to buy a Barbie to her girl. It just sent me up the wall so I now need to vent it all out.

Let me give you some background. When I was little I was in LOVE with Barbie. With my sister and my mum we used to go to toys shops and admire the shelves full of different Barbies. The idea of owning my own Barbie was like a dream. My mum loved it too so whenever she could afford it, she would surprise me and my sister with a new Barbie. I remember my first Barbie was a simple one with a little pretty dress. My mum used to sew skirts and dresses for our Barbies so we had the opportunity to create different roles for her: one day she was a mummy taking care of her little kids, one day she was a secretary, a swimmer, etc.

Playing with Barbie for me did not mean dreaming to physically become like her (never even thought or noticed she was slim, blond bla bla) but getting inspired to play different pretend roles every time I was changing her clothes. I was inspired to make her having different careers in sports, music,business and being a mom, have a family, a house.

One day my dad (yes my dad!) came home with Big Jim and a green Jeep. Someone gave them to him and he never thought those toys were just for boys. He just gave them to us and we started playing imagining that both Big Jim and Barbie were going traveling and they were a family. When my dad built wooden furniture for my dolls, I created a house for Barbie, I developed my own taste and designed her a home. Barbie helped me to be creative.

Barbie Skier

I remember my favourite one was Barbie “Fior di pesca” ie Barbie “Peaches”. She had the most beautiful peach colour dress and I’d spend hours getting her ready, fixing her hair. Why would wanting to make your favourite doll look like a princess be so wrong? If this was really teaching something bad, we should had stopped women dreaming to be pretty for their wedding day, which is the closest you can get to look like a princess I guess.

The second most favourite Barbie was “Barbie giorno e sera” (Barbie day and night). Her outfit would change from professional business woman during the day to glamouros party girl at night.

Courtesy of my sister who was so kind to go to the attic and get my lovely Barbies, took many pictures and sent them to me for this post. Awww

What is wrong with imagining to have a job and go to the office during the day only to discover that at night we can party? Aren’t we all like that? Why is this kind of role play so bad? Please don’t tell me because her skirts were too short, that’s just being a bigot.

I remember treasuring those Barbies I received (I still keep in a box in my attic) and now those dolls are linked to amazing childhood memories. When I was little I thought Barbie was inspiring, I could make her be whoever I wanted it and this was a big thing in my head.

Having always loved playing with Barbie obviously I could not wait to buy one (or two) for my daughter. To be honest at the beginning it was more an excuse for me to own one more Barbie than for her to play with, it was my childhood dream to have many Barbies, many outfits, different roles to make Barbie play and fantasising about playing different scenarios.

Bee’s Barbies

When I read the post about this mum hating Barbies, although I can respect her opinion, I find her argument for not wanting to buy a Barbie to her daughter really absurd.

One of her reasons for not liking Barbies is that she is not comfortable with the idea of having naked dolls around the house. I clearly think this underlies a more serious, personal problem. Naked dolls!??!

Although I tend to ask Bee to dress her dolls up (mainly because we keep losing bits and pieces) I don’t see any problems seeing undressed Barbies around the house. If a Barbie is undressed is because Bee was probably about to change her outfit and then she got distracted by another toy not because she enjoys looking at them naked (what kind of sick mind would think that) .

What are you really teaching a girl by acting like that? That she should be ashamed of her naked body? Isn’t this a totally wrong message to pass on?

Second reason: she won’t buy a Barbie to her daughter because the doll has unrealistic proportions.

My 1980’s Barbies

Do you really think that when Beatrice plays with Barbie she really notices that Barbie is slim, with blue eyes, perfect boobs and long blonde her? Never, I never heard her mentioning that to me. I think girls of her age are more about feelings and role play than noticing sizes or particular features that mainly adults are concerned with.

If Bee would really notice and be influenced by that, she would definitely not saying ” Mamma you are bella” when on an early Sunday morning we cuddle up in bed and I have no make up, funny looking hair and I am definitely not wearing a glamourous dress. And certainly she would not go “Mummy I love you but you need to slim down or put some make up on”, come on!

If we were to think like that we should then ban all toys and princesses dolls including, fancy dress costumes and Disney dvds from our daughter’s lives. What about the boys then? Following this theory isn’t dreaming about being Spider man or Superman something bad too? Isn’t sexist thinking that only action figures for girls are bad?

I liked one of the comments a mother left in the post. She actually mentioned the fact that “Self respect and self esteem should come from you as the parent. Leaving that to a doll is lazy”.

Totally agree.

My daughter is influenced by the way I treat her and other people, by the way I teach her to behave. I guess whoever has got problems with a simple dolls has hidden problems withing his/her childhood and blaming a doll is perhaps a way for them to feel better.

Children have played with dolls and action figures since forever. I believe that especially when really young, dolls can help a kid’s imagination, they can help them exploring new things. If we were to ban a simple doll, we’d definitely be more worried and stop the negative body and self-image messages portrait in television, in movies and music videos.

Owning a Barbie and enjoying giving one as a present is a bit different than becoming an obsessed mother and wanting a daughter to compete at pageant shows and focusing on her success based on the looks, now that is wrong!

Funny enough I haven’t yet come across a post about banning children from owning a Monster high dolls which apparently are very popular right now. Do you know them? Did you see that they come with coffins and skulls!?

The only reason why Bee didn’t get another Barbie for Christmas is that I already bought too many Barbies for her and I fear that she won’t be able to treasure her dolls as much as I did when I was little if receiving a Barbie as a gift was to be taken for granted.

It’s a parent job to teach their children about healthy body image and I wish people would just stop blaming a doll for not knowing how to develope a positive body image for their children. Young girls are daily bombarded with messages about how they “should” look and appearance and although we cannot stop this, we can teach them how to judge and question these messages.

I quote another mum comment as I could not have said it better:

“The Barbie experience is what you teach your children it to be….Look for the positive in every situation…..when you look for the negative that is what you see”.

ps if you would like to read Barbie’s interesting legacy and a great message of self-esteem please check this article published on the Huffington Post

Mamma Wears Prada January 11, 2015

How we survived chickenpox

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It was the Friday before Christmas and I was SO ready to enjoy a full day by myself. My holidays started 2 days before the kids were off from nursery so I was dreaming about all the different things I could do without them: a lovely bath, grocery shopping without the screaming, relaxing in front of the tv and preparing for my family’s arrival the week after.

Nope.. it did not happen.

Nursery phoned, I had to go and get Bee asap because she had chickenpox!

Aaarrrghhh what a lovely Christmas present!! Right on time when I needed and wanted some child free time. Bee was actually her usual self just with a few spots. The next two days she didn’t develop any temperature, she wasn’t particularly itchy, so I really considered myself lucky as the week went incredibly smooth. My family arrived, we spent a lovely Christmas and New Year together, everything was magic.. Until the day they left.. Leo woke up showing various spots on his skin..

I knew I could not stop him getting chickenpox from his sister but somehow I thought that if he got it as mild as Bee had, we would have sailed through the week.

Nope.. again.. it did not happen.

Leo had one of the worse cases of chickenpox. In less than 12 hours his skin was completely covered.

He was crying and moaning non stop, you could tell he was in so much pain he could not bear it.. poor little monkey.. it was heartbreaking watching him and although I did all I could to alleviate his pain he was still so unsettle.. day and night..

We did not sleep for 2 nights and I mean DID NOT . He was restless, angry , grumpy . He developed high temperature which was so difficult to take down and then his skin became infected. I took him to see a doctor who prescribed antibiotics for 5 days. We truly spent two days in hell. I can honestly say I’ve never seen one of my children suffering so much and it was awful.

Out of this experience I would like to share some tips that helped us relieving a little bit his pain and what has worked for us in terms of treatments for chickenpox.

First of all we found incredibly soothing, giving him a lukewarm bath in Aveeno. The warmer the skin, the more spots come out (especially in the nappy area). Somehow, playing in the water took his mind off the pain, a small break from all the crying. The Aveeno bath helped to keep the skin moisturized and at the same time helped to heal the spots. I bathed him even twice a day to give him relief.

We used two different creams for the spots: a gel one which was advised by the pharmacist, and the calamile lotion. We used sudocream for the nappy area although I was told to use Metatanium too, which we used very successfully in the past for bad nappy rashes. It’s really important to use a cream that creates a barrier and protect the skin covered in spots from the acidity of the wee.

Based on his age (20 months) we gave him one 2.5 spoon of antistaminic in the morning and one at night. It seemed to help a bit plus it made him a bit sleepy, which was brilliant as he could catch up some sleep.

I still breastfeed Leo ( yeah I know, I know) and that is what saved us from going completely mad. When he was screaming during the night I simply attached him and he quickly calmed down. Because chickenpox makes your child very dehydrated, it’s essential to make sure that he drinks plenty of fluids.

For the temperature the doctor advised us to give him paracetamol and if after two hours the temperature was not going down, we had to give him ibuprofen. As usual when in the past he had temperature. we stripped him down to the nappy to keep it cool and generally keep a close eye on him . I slept with him for the first 2 nights because he kept crying and was so inconsolable.

Now that he’s not itchy anymore we try to keep his skin moisturised using the Aveeno cream which I find it’s helping to heal the spots.

And the most important thing was giving him plenty of cuddles! I spent 48 hours literally holding him, kissing him, comforting him. He’s so little and he was probably pretty scared of what was happening to his body so he really needed to feel reassured that everything was going to be fine. After two days he started eating again and he had plenty of treats to make him feel better.

I can honestly say we had the worst 3 days I can remember and the relief of seeing Leo being himself again is the best feeling ever.

Mamma Wears Prada January 1, 2015

Golden sweet celebration

Daily photo, Dessert table, Holiday Comments Off

Christmas has been a wonderful celebration with my whole family. After 10 years my mum and my sister made it to be here with us and knowing my mum’s sweet tooth, I prepared a dessert table full of yummy treats.

This year I was particularly obsessed to do something with golden colours therefore I used a gorgeous shiny golden table runner and various golden decorations from cupcake holders to Christmas stars to create a special Christmas dessert table.

In Italy this is the time of the year when we eat quite a lot of Torrone which is the Italian nougat made of honey, sugar, egg white, toasted almonds and other nuts. I decided to create a nougat cupcake and I was suprised no one had thought to make one before. So I just made the recipe up combining all ingredients that create the typical italian torrone taste.

Christmas is not Christmas without Panettone! I made this gorgeous dessert the day before and then wrapped it in cling film to keep its freshness for the next day.

I could not wait to make these! White chocolate covered Oreos are just wow!

Gingerbread tree and mini house cookies

It literally took me ages to make these decorated cookies but I was quite pleased with the final result and I used them as place cards on our Christmas table.

Ferrero rocher.. because you always needs a bit of chocolate!

Simple vanilla soft cookies filled with marmalade

Stack of star cookies, simple but pretty!

We could not find our wooden Nativity in our attic so last minute I ordered specific cookie cutters and made a Nativitiy out of gingerbread cookies.

Obviously most of these dessert didn’t make it to the New Year so it’s time to bake again! Happy New Year everyone!

Mamma Wears Prada December 30, 2014

Mulled wine season

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It’s not Holiday time without a good hot mug of spiced, sweet mulled wine, or Glühwein! Yum! So hearty and comforting! Definitely the best drink to sip as soon as you come home from a long walk in this chilly weather.