can you say adios? muy bien!

I'm ready to wage a vendetta against a particular cranial-challenged, bug-eyed Latina youth who has infiltrated the minds of my children and deposited a never-ending soundtrack of irritating and highly repetitive musica in my brain. I cannot stand another day of the whiny pleadings of my children for just another hit of this addictive little girl, and I will soon turn to the bottle big-time if I am kept awake at night by the sounds of trilling inanimate objects.

That's right. I'm talking to you, Dora. You have gots to go! I truly don't think I can live through another of your heroic missions, catching babies before their stroller rolls into a gooey geyser, saving Mariana the Mermaid's homeland from an evil garbage-adoring octopus, or doing something else with a choo choo on that one episode that I actually kept from seeping into my brain as I worked nearby. Seriously, Dora, there are so many issues that your show brings up, but they don't revolve around recycling and caring for our earth or learning our manners, like you apparently are attempting to do. Instead, watching you brings lots of different questions into my inquiring mind.

• Gotta start with the obvious, most likely asked many-times-over question: What the hell is up with your head? You're a healthy, talkative and active little girl, so I don't think you're suffering from any cranial medical conditions, so that's ruled out. Your mami and papi have normal sized heads, your baby twin siblings are cranially proportional, and even your cuz, Diego the Animal Rescuer, has a normal noggin in comparison. (Diego, we gotta talk sometime, too. You're really getting under my skin, as well, but thankfully for me, I've convinced the children you simply don't appear EVER on our television. Weird, huh?) So, what's the deal then? And, since you're rocking the XXL bobble head there, you may want to rethink the old 'do. Something perhaps a bit less W-I-D-E might be in order. I'm just sayin.
• Ditto on the eyes. Have you ever noticed that your pupils are approximately the same size as your parents' entire heads? Perhaps you should schedule an appointment with a specialist.
• This one's less of an irritant and more of a genuine query. Do you live on an island? Because it seems that you have a plethora of bridges in the vicinity of your home-- every other quest starts with traveling to the BRIDGE as the first step. And I just wanted to comment that it's so amazing that everywhere you want to go can be accessed by going through exactly three places. Wow. It's almost spooky.
• While we're talking about your travels, have you ever noticed that your buddy Map shows you a route to your final destination that involves sometimes tricky, potentially dangerous pit stops? (Gooey geysers? No, thanks!) Zoom out even a tiny bit on your Map pal, and I think you'll notice that he doesn't show you that you can just GO AROUND the tricky stuff in the middle, usually through a gentle looking grouping of trees, and you'll still end up at the same place. Even my three year old has noticed that, so it seems that you might be a little slow on the uptake here, Dora.
• That leads me to this next point... why, why, why, do you ask the same things over and over and over?? Okay, okay, I'm an early childhood person, I get it- repetition is needed when talking to very young children to help reinforce things, but geez Louise, asking "Where are we going?" fourteen consecutive times is going to get you an answer that isn't usually hurled at little ones. Be prepared.
• And finally, since I'm getting worn down by the competing choruses of you and your amigos in my brain, I think you should think about trading Backpack in for one of those rolling ones all the cool kids have these days. I've seen the things that pop out of there-- you're carrying around well more than double your body weight in there. With that giant bean of yours, the last thing you're going to need in your adolescent years is a bad case of scoliosis.
  

Okay, so I've leaned pretty hard on you here, chica, but let me say that you've got two things going for you. For as much as it's driving me crazy, you're fulfilling my daughter's daily need for singing and Mermaids. Since I'll never, ever, be putting on a particular lady of the sea who has hair color in common with my little girl, you've been providing an alternative that makes her freaking ecstatic. And I guess I do have to give your padres some credit. They are absolutely, undoubtedly raising a Free-Range Kid with you, you little pain in my trasero.


Ready to take on a cartoon character to reclaim my sanity,

**Please note the new URL-- morninglightmama.com! Change your feeds and tell your friends!**