where animals rule the world...

Webkinz is hard work.

For those of you who don't know what this is, here's a simple explanation: You buy your child a stuffed animal for $12.95 that has a super-secret-special code that allows you to bring your pet to life on the world wide web. They are given an empty room and a welcome gift. From there, they must earn dough (Kinzcash) to be able to afford to feed, clothe, make comfortable and spoil their pet. They play games, take quizzes, win and work to make the money.

"They" is your child...unless "they" are three (almost four) years old and "they" only want to play with their pet, cannot read or play any games...but have the desire to still spoil their little pink dragon rotten. So, much to my amusement, Sarah orders "me" to "Play Cash Cow Mommy!!!" or "We need money...Slider [the pink dragon] needs new yellow shoes at the store!!!" "You must play Goober's Lab now mommy!!!". Now, I have no problem playing video games all day, really...but Goober's not doing the dishes and Zingoz is not chasing Julia upstairs. And that creepy dog running the pawn shop is not making dinner.

So, below is a photo of how the game works when you've got a couple years of experience....I might add that Lauren is rather thrifty in Webkinz world and turned down my request for her to send Sarah the gift of a TV for her dragon....So mommy wouldn't have to work so hard. It's really tough raising kids in this dog-eat-dog world...I tell ya.