pippi longstocking is poisoning our youth

We had a play date the other day. I was busy in the kitchen cooking and arranging for some grown up fun time and should have known better. Little did I know, my son was upstairs wreaking havoc with his little buddies. When the destruction was brought to my attention by one of the other kids, I was summoned upstairs to the bathroom first. There was water all over the floor and a broken glass. Hmmm...yes. Understandable. I do believe Simon knows better on this one...but I wasn't totally shocked that he wanted to play with water in the bathroom and a broken glass is an accident that could have been prevented by one of us lazy grown ups who should have put their empty water glass in the proper place (I'd point the finger at Bryan but I think it actually might have been mine...) I gave him a free pass on this one, aside from a stern look and some pointed questioning.

After cleaning up the wet floor, vacuuming the glass up and disposing of the trash, I chatted with Simon about his poor decision making some more. Then, I went in his room to check on the situation a bit further. Gasp! The room was littered with change! The whole floor was covered with pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters...what in the world???? I couldn't fathom what happened on this scene. So I sat with Simon on the floor and asked for an explanation. He told me he thought it would be fun to throw his money up in the air. So he emptied his piggy bank and tossed all the change up until it covered everything. I inquired further, "Did you really think that was ok to do? WHY would you DO that??" I was flabbergasted. I was totally dumbfounded by the ridiculousness of the whole thing.

Fast forward to this afternoon...Simon requests to watch The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking, which the kids discovered while they were sick last week and watched like fifteen times. Ugh. But I oblige him and sit down to watch it as well. It's the opening scene. Pippi is on a ship singing a song about living life however she wants with no apologies to anyone ever. (Great role model, yes? I totally want my kids to never say they're sorry for anything, don't you?) After the opening number, she pulls jewelry and coins out of a treasure chest and asks her father what they'll use it for. Pleased with the bounty at her finger tips, she tosses all the coins in the air without a care in the world. Ahhh....now I get it.

Darn that Pippi. She's bad news.