Since Mike takes our only car to work everyday, I sit at home and play Wii with the kids a lot. Zoe has gotten really good at most of the games and her favorite (this week) is the sword fighting game on the Wii Sports Resort. Basically, a whole herd of people come after Matrix style and you have to use your sword to fight them off one by one. Zoe really gets into it and when she loses she throws a FIT. Crying out of anger and defeat and you'd think she actually had something riding on winning this game. Usually when she gets like that, I turn the game off, citing that she obviously has had too much excitement and she needs to calm down. Today I took a different approach. After losing this one level about 5 times she started bawling, I asked her, "Are you angry at them for beating you?" "Yes, those are mean guys." "Then fight them harder, if you are mad at them, beat them up more, don't give up!" "You mean like Princess Jasmine?" (I'll get to that) "Yes, just like Princess Jasmine!" And you know what? She beat the level on the next turn!
So what does Princess Jasmine have to do with any of this?
About a month ago, Zoe got a DVD, the Disney Princess Tales. It's purpose is to teach little lessons to girls about life. This DVD happened to be about perseverance. In Jasmine's short film, her father's favorite horse has escaped the stable, so she decides to find it and bring it back. She searches and searches until she finally finds him in an oasis in the middle of the desert. This horse, however, could only be ridden by Jasmine's mother (who said to be dead, which was just alluded to in the original movie). So Jasmine puts her perseverance to the test while she tries to break the horse so she can ride him back to her father's stable. Of course, she succeeds and all is right in the world. It is a Disney movie after all. But I was really surprised, not that Zoe caught on to the message of the movie, but that she applied it to a situation she was facing. Pretty cool, huh?
So now we move to this new healthcare reform. HA!
Anyone who knows me knows that I HATE this new plan. And not because I am a Republican or because I hate Obama or because I want the uninsured to stay that way. I hate this plan because I can do simple math, I don't think the government should be involved this heavily in our lives, and I think there is a better way. But as many opinions and ideas as I have, I'm not going to get into all that here. But what I will get into is how a video game and a princess movie can teach us all a lesson, like it did my 3 year old. As Americans we have a right and duty to keep the government in check. There are always going to be set backs and things that happen that we don't like, on both sides of the aisle. As conservative Americans, we may be feeling angry or defeated and honestly, we should feel that way! Being run over by a steamroller is never fun! But this isn't the time to be mopey and cry and point fingers, it's the time to say, "You made me angry, now I'm coming after you!" We have an AMAZING opportunity this November to show Washington, and more appropriately, the White House that many Americans are fed up with the way things are going. We aren't mindless idiots who will do whatever we are told and believe whatever the media spits out. We have thoughts and opinions and BELIEFS that we are willing to fight for. PERSEVERANCE PEOPLE! If a child can get it, so can we.
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