Hey, it’s rough out there. As wise bloggers have noted, nobody can pretend that the good old days of innocence and cheap birthday parties are still with us; it’s a whole new world order. Tougher. Meaner. Scarier.

Cryptozoologier.

And birthday party activities are adapting. No longer the sweet, innocent romps of yore, they’ve become cutthroat arenas of parental rivalry and physical danger. Forget that old standard pin the tail on the donkey, unless you use dartguns, laser tag body armour, and a cowboy-maiming, possibly firebreathing donkey recently forcibly retired from the rodeo circuit.

But some touchstones of the Twentieth Century have adapted to our new times and survive, finding new adaptations and applications. Behold the best of these:

Stolen from Newscoma
It’s hard out there for a chimp. Don’t go unarmed.

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…but it’s a good thing.

One of the newest trends in banking (er, those that are still operating, anyway) is checking accounts especially for teens. The parent is co-owner of the account, and I say it’s about time.

Young people have been able to easily obtain credit for the past decade or more, even when they don’t have a job. I know, because I was one of them. The rickety little card table set up on the college campus quad informed me that I needed no income to get thousands of dollars in credit. I signed up without my parent’s knowledge, since I was an “adult,” and paid dearly for the tough economic lessons I learned through misuse of said card.

So something like this checking account sounds fabulous. It alsooffers a no-fee limited debit card with the parents setting the daily spending allowance, the use ofonline banking,as well as overdraft protection. Wells Fargo currently offers this product, as do some other smaller banks and credit unions. It is expected to become more widespread as parents across the land breathe a sigh of relief.

Messing up your credit when you are young and most likely inexperienced with money is NOT a rite of passage into adulthood. I’m tired of the ways that credit card companies manipulate andtry to play “gotcha” withtheir most vulnerablecustomers in the form of high interest rates and confusing language. Because the long term effects of a bad credit rating can take years to erase, and having mommy and daddyrescue your in-debt butt is not the way toimpart fiscal responsibility.

A checking account is clear cut. It is finite money without late charges and fees, and I wish they would have had them when I was younger. And (gasp!) it just might help them learn not to spend money they don’t even have.Something that perhaps certain adults could learn as well.

Although I do have a tip for those parents who have had to rescue their child from credit card hell. Make sure you have them pay you every penny back. Trust me, because I know from experience. After that initial roadbump, I never got into credit trouble again.

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Completely awesome, but kids, don’t try this at home. Because it’ll give your parents a frickin’ heart attack!

Mind you, on something like this Sandy Summit wooden playset it’s not such a big risk.

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I’m not “That Mom.”

You know, the one with the immaculate house, no matter what hour of the day or time of the week. I knew a couple of those mothers from a former playgroup, but I never got up the courage to ask them if they had outside help, or if the spotless everything was all them.

I consider myself to be “casually dating” housework.

I tend to flake out if something better comes along, and we’re definitely not in a committed relationship.

But seriously, from the moment the Munchkin was born, I took those pregnancy books to heart that reminded you that infancy was special and time-consuming and that the dirty dishes in the sink could wait.

Uh, flash forward six years and I’m still doing it.

My house tends to be clean, since the Munchkin has dust allergies, but laundry is my Achilles heel. To say that I hate it would be a vast understatement. I’m ok with the washing and the drying part, it’s the folding that really gets to me. I would pretty much rather do anything than fold laundry, including just staring up at the ceiling. Which has happened an embarassingly large number of times.

Eventually it gets done, as it must, since one cannot live picking their way through mountains of unfolded laundry.

But if only I could just break up with laundry! If I could just sort of tell it that it’s all my fault, and that it just isn’t working for me anymore. Laundry didn’t do anything wrong, I just need a break.

And then ideally I would promptly delete laundry’s number from my speed dial and never talk to it again.

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The bookies here at Teeny Manolo are currently taking bets as to how long Angelina Jolie’s tattoo series is going to get.

Each line is the latitude and longitude of where her children were born.

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