Look at Me, the Normal Mommy Blogger! Shopping! Celebrity Pictures!

I’ve checked out some other mommy blogs, and it seems a large proportion of what these moms do is post celebrity pictures or mention their kids and talk about how adorable they are. Now, my kids are freaking hilarious, but Hannah is starting to get tired of her comments being fodder for my musings, since I’ve noticed lately that she keeps saying awesome, unintentionally hilarious kiddish stuff, and then following it up with “promise you won’t tell anyone else I said that." Then I actually have to promise. And pinky swear. Dang. Doesn’t she know that one of the reasons I had her was for the material?

The other thing moms seem to love to blog about is shopping, particularly shopping for handmade organic linen baby clothes or crazily expensive designer handbags. They mention the brands on purpose, in bold letters, probably because they are getting free products from the companies, and it is all a form of advertising. If I want to fit in with the in crowd, perhaps I should blog about this too, but the thing is, of course, that

1) I don’t care about stuff like that and

2) my blog is a soccer blog, and there isn’t a whole lot of soccer shopping one can do. On my recent visit to Seattle, though, I did find this one soccer thing. Granted, I had to pay for it, but it was in my price range ($3.99, American), so I bought it and plan to blog about it for you. You’re welcome.

It’s a flip book, featuring Pele, the soccer star. If you hold the handle on the top and flip through it quickly, the individual pictures of Pele playing look like a short clip of him scoring a bicycle-kick-style goal, or if you turn it over and flip through the back, Pele dribbling through 3 defenders. It is not organic or made by a designer, although the brand name on it is “Flipp Tipps”, so I guess in a way, I am shilling for them now by mentioning them. Quite an unfortunate brand name, really. How can the double p at the end not make you think of Linda Tripp, the infamous informer in the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal ? I’m going to put her picture in here, alongside a picture of Jabba the Hutt, since he also has two of the same letter at the end of his name, and because I think that is the ‘celebrity’ Linda Tripp looks most like.


Look at me, the normal mommy blogger! Shopping! Celebrity pictures! Okay, moving on: at the top of each Pele photo in Flipp Tipps is a written comment about what Pele is doing; a ‘tipp’ if you will. Of course, you can’t read these if you flip through the book since they go by too fast—you need to slow down and read them one by one. I don’t recommend this. Pele is clearly a beautiful, inspirational player, but what soccer players do is usually instinctive, and can’t be written down or else it looks dumb. For example, this is what it says:

Picture 52: Balance is another key ingredient in becoming a good dribbler.

Picture 53: To perfect your balance, you must first understand the laws of equilibrium.

Picture 54: Ask your coach. It is important for you to know WHY things happen.

Wait, what? To dribble I have to understand the laws of equilibrium? Isn’t this something to do with chemistry, and nothing to do with soccer? This sucks since I am the soccer coach, now I need to study this, since at practice tonight, perhaps one of the 8 year olds will ask me about it. Damn. Thanks for nothing, Pele. Thanks for nothing, Flipp Tipps.

What else can I say? Really, don’t buy this. It’s $3.99, American, that you’ll never get back. And instead of buying this, at the same store for only a dollar more, I could have bought band-aids that look like bacon.
How cool would that have been? Hannah has been totally chastising me since I got back for not buying those instead. Now she wants them for her birthday. She’s adorable, isn't she?