Jake Sully and I in SIMS 3

July 15,2010

This morning, my ten year old daughter said she was going to make our family on Sims3: me and her, her sister and dad. I told her that that sounds great but to make sure that the dad is Jake Sully from Avatar. I couldn't help but to grin wickedly as I said it, more to myself than her.

She looked at me sort of speechless, her bed hair falling to one side as she cocked her head like a young pup.

“No,” she then said with a confused frown.

I felt guilty. Was that an inappropriate joke? I don't even know anymore, it's been so long since I've been around people my age for longer than a school-drop-off time. See, after I had the kids I moved out to a small town. I quit work to stay at home and well, lost touch with the rest of my friends, who had their own busy family lives. Also, I'm about 10 years younger than the other mothers at their school and well, god forbid, I'm not ugly either. Women prefer to have ugly friends and lets just say that making real friends has been a lost cause. But where was I?

Oh yes, Jake Sully.

“I was just kidding, honey,” I told her. “I just think he's...handsome.”

That isn't bad to admit, especially since every show of TV families have fathers leering at other (younger than their wife) women at some point or other. It's empowering to be unfaithful by looking, as far as I'm concerned. Also, I hope my girls won't grow up to be
hopeless romantics. If I have learned anything about life, it's that true love, that metaphor or phrase that sounds soooo good, just doesn't exist. What exists is temporary love, which blows up as fast as a balloon, but then deflates just as fast as you settle into marriage. This, is of course one of the things I feel bad about. I don't lie to my kids. I tell them to one day pick their husbands using their heads, rather than hearts.

So, anyway, I went to do my own thing forgetting all about the Jake Sully thing. Until, my daughter called out. “Mom, look here's our family picture.” After you make
a family, the game takes a 'family photo' of the people you designed.

“That's nice honey,” I said, glancing at it from afar.

Then she went to building our house: a two-floored square box with windows on every inch of the wall, red carpets and upstairs, adjoining bedrooms...so we can all be close. She showed me.

“Look, mom, here are our rooms on the top floor. Mine, Cindy's and this big one's for you and Jake Sully.” She giggled, pointing at the huge room, amid which was a big bed, with a heart bedframe and silken red sheets.

Lets just say I felt many sensational thoughts, all of them a-tingling:

Oh, god, what have I done to my daughter?

Just how bad is this, really?

What would people think?

What would her dad think?

I'm not having any more kids: I'm just a baad mom!

Jake Sully and I in a big bedroom with red carpet and a heart-shaped bed...grrrr.

There. There's another diary moment to go down in history about my baaaad parenthood. Learn from it, you will...