Sources of influence

So this morning I come upstairs from putting out the garbage and Frost is jumping up and down on the living room carpet.

"Mum, Mum, do you want to get the 100 piece Betty Crocker cake decorating kit?"
"The what?"
"Cos there is so much in it and there is a lot of good decorating things and you could do a lot of good decorations!"
"Why do you think we need it?"
"To make decorations!! Its only $10. You think thats a lot because of the price of cotton candy yesterday but its so coooool!"

This encapsulates my objection to commercial television.

The reference to cotton candy comes from our visit to the Seattle Center and Whirligig with Sheri, Marina and Zephyr yesterday. Frost wanted cotton candy but I said it was too much sugar and money. The boys had a lot of fun but I have noticed that Frost is very impressionable - be it commercials or friends - he has yet to develop his own compass with sources of influence.

On the way home from the Seattle Center Zephyr and Frost were pretending to be the good guys in Star Wars and shooting space ships aka cars from the enemy faction. Frost said "wouldn't it be cool if we found a real gun and could shoot people?" Zephyr disagreed. He said that then they would go to jail. Frost suggested it wouldn't be a problem if they were too young for jail.

After I explained about compassion and juvie if you were under 18 they pondered that a moment. Frost said in that case they should do it when they were 17 and 3/4 then. At that point I retreated into the mantra about gun safety. Zephyr knew that one but Frost was still into his whole performance as a tough star hero and couldn't be convinced back down from his role as super-shooter.

As my Dad said in an email to me today: "Why do your family have this passion for the violent??" [Now hang on there! David and I played toy soldiers and cowboys and indians. We shot each other to death with cap guns: "Bang, Bang you're dead!" "Aaaaaaargh"]

Also in the "doing things to be cool" Frost squished a cup of ketchup against the wall of the Seattle Center House, asked me to open the window so the boys could throw my face creams outside and encouraged Zephyr to throttle him - then cried when it hurt.

Clearly we need to have a few heart-to-hearts when he is in a sombre mood.