LittlestPage (now two-and-a-half) got a doll as a gift this morning as part of a special day for her. I’m sure MrsPages will be writing voluminously on the day’s events later. I’m going to tell about my significant part in the whole thing.

She was very proud of her new doll and was walking around holding it and talking to it. When we pressed her on what the doll’s name was, she stared at us blankly. She had no idea. So, of course, being the helpful types that we are, the names started flying.

“How about Abby?”. No, that wasn’t it.

“How about Mary?” Nope.

“Is the dolly’s name Sarah?” Uh-uh.

And on, and on, for a few minutes, each name being rejected with a wide eyed shake of the head. Nothing seemed to be getting through. I was beginning to wonder if she was really getting the concept that she was allowed to name this doll.

As I was getting ready to come down to work, I looked at my wife and made a (not-surprisingly) tongue-in-cheek comment.

“Let’s just call her Chuckles!”

And of course… the littlest voice pipes up: “Chuckles! Her Chuckles!”. She wandered off into the living room talking happily to Chuckles the baby doll.

Wow. Nearly fifteen years of marriage has sure put a good edge on that glare. I apparently give MrsPages lots of reason to practice.

I helpfully left for work. It took a few hours for the rest of the family to convince her that perhaps “Ruby” was a better name than “Chuckles”. She’s now happily tucking Ruby into bed in a tupperware box.

Maybe one of these days I’ll learn that the smartypants comments are the only ones they are guaranteed to hear and respond to.

Maybe.

We went to Wal-Mart today. (Yeah, I know. We try, but sometimes we break down and make the cheap-and-close choice.)

Navigating store checkouts with kids is a big problem. It’s not the candy. We occasionally buy a treat, but our guys know they aren’t getting the real junk, and they usually get it when they aren’t asking.

No, the big problem with checkouts is the magazines. Huge easy-to-read letters spelling out in intimate details the sins of shiny fake people we don’t even know. Lurid promises of pleasure-generating techniques hidden within. And, in my opinion, worst of all: the cover captions like “LOOK AT THE FLAB!” and “BRITNEY GOING TO POT!” and “CELLULITE! CELLULITE!” over pictures of women with perfectly normal, wonderful bodies.

I’m only really worried about one of those categories of headlines. You see, my kids look at the headlines about Angelina’s latest burp and think “Who’s she?” or “Why should I care?”. My kids see the sex-secrets promises and either don’t understand or will ask about them later, and they’re pretty easy to deal with (“People think sex will save their relationships and make them happy when they aren’t. They’re wrong.”).

But when my girls see pictures of normal women with “OMG! THEY’RE FAT!” over them in large letters, there’s no way that it doesn’t affect them. They’re looking at their mom and looking at their own growing bodies and they’re wondering what “beautiful” really means and they’re trying to figure out all sorts of things, and they see the world telling the “beautiful people” that they’re fat and ugly. The natural response is “So then what am I?”.

When my boys see pictures of regular girls in bathing suits with “LOOK AT THAT TUMMY! COTTAGE CHEESE THIGHS!” plastered on them, what does it teach them to think about women? When they see people at church, do those phrases now come to mind? When they look at their wives 20 years from now, will that standard be met? Is it even possible to meet?

Most of the world is easy to dismiss as inane. Why do we care about who a country singer is marrying? It’s easy to write-off as pointless. It’s easy to ignore. We have no referent for that in our lives, so it is easy to see as alien. But the redefinition of a basic concept like beauty, that’s tough to shake off. Beauty is in our lives all the time.

God, save us from People magazine.