Living the Americone Dream

No, you read that correctly, Americone Dream, the Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavor with Stephen Colbert on the lid. What does that have to do with Fun Dollars? I'll get to that in a bit.

This past Monday, I did feel like I was living the American Dream...shopping for licensed toys for my kids at Wal-Mart, Disney via Barbie, and Lego characters we saw on Netflix. After purging and decluttering so many of my kids' toys in preparation for a yard sale, I thought they could each use a new "something".

Carrick just recently got into "Ninjago", the computer animated Lego ninja series now available on Netflix. Thankfully, the show is still current enough that they sell Ninjago Legos at Wal-Mart. He has been playing on his "magic blanket" all week. (Magic Blanket is a fleece blanket we lay on the floor that has a pile of random and mixed-up Legos in the middle. When he's done playing we just gather up the corners of the blanket and the mess is "magically" picked up. Also, the blanket can travel from room to room that way, thus increasing its magical-ness.) He has been making his own version of the Ninjago characters with the random parts he has at his disposal. He inherited ALL of Corey's 1980's/90's Legos from his childhood, so he has a hoard of pirates, astronauts and knights to choose from.



This is what the characters actually look like.

I was really impressed with his creativity while he made each character. He would find a hat or a weapon and fashion it into a part of each characters' look. He took two little yellow square "jewels" and put them in one of his guy's hands as ninja throwing stars, the weapon of one of the characters. Even though I really appreciate his thinking outside the box, I imagined how excited he would be to have real Ninjago Legos. I don't even think he knew they existed until I brought the box home. (As a rule, I do not take the kids to Wal-Mart with me on the few times I shopped in recent months. And if they do go with me, we just don't go to the toy aisle.) I wrapped up the Lego box with Christmas wrapping paper when I came home from shopping. I told Carrick when I picked him up from school that he could have a surprise present when we got home, but only after he helped to pick up the toy room. He offered to put away the dishes instead, and that was a perfectly acceptable alternative.

These are Carrick's versions of the character. See the throwing stars?

Lily and I tackled the toy room together. Her surprise present was a Cinderella Barbie Doll. She had found an old mini Barbie Doll a few nights ago and was carrying it around. However, she kept calling it "scary". The hair was messy and kind of all over the place giving the doll a zombie-esque look. So I thought she could do with a proper princess doll that wasn't scary. I also noticed that she's been favoring blue with some things recently, and I thought that Cinderella with her blue dress might be the way to go. (Also, the Cinderella doll had the most pleasant looking face of the available princess Barbie dolls.) Some of them looked like they might gossip about the other dolls ;)


While my kids played with their new toys, and I enjoyed my tidy house, thanks to their help, I sat down at the dining room table to begin this post: Living the Americone Dream. Yes, watching my kids play, free from danger or war. Typing on my new laptop about my day, pursuing happiness, living free. Isn't that what it's supposed to mean to live in America? Free to do what makes us happy and prosperous, so long as it doesn't infringe on anyone else's human rights? Free to play in the yard without tanks rolling through the streets, or threats of dictators? Free to eat a whole pint of Ben and Jerry's for lunch?

I thought if I threw that in there with all that other star-spangled stuff it might go unnoticed. Yes, I did that. That's what it means to be an American to me. I am free to eat Fair Trade Vermont's Finest for Lunch with Stephen Colbert winking at me after shopping at Wal-Mart. That's my Americone Dream.

Toys and ice cream at Wal-Mart- $21.00
Balance this Pay cycle- $79.00
Happy Spending!