g'dolim

so, aviyah is super super way way into dora. it's kinda crazy. i mean, i think it's something that maybe i would generally feel like "ahhh!", but i actually think it's really cute and i totally think that dora's a really good role model for a young girl. i mean, here are a whole bunch of parents who i think are really really annoyed with dora, and i guess i can understand. it's like any kid fad, right? a toy or a hula hoop or a boy. i think it can get tired after a while.

but the thing is is that she watches dora on the computer in hebrew, so dora was always really interesting to me too because i would learn hebrew along with aviyah. i mean, i even downloaded a few episodes on to my ipod for me to watch, and there were a few times i was on the subway and somebody would look over and be like, really? really? you're watching dora?

anyways, she's like so into it that each of us all have our own dora names. so aviyah is dora, and i'm boots, and mommy is benny (or now maybe mrs. marquez), and yalei is tico. (the extended family has names too: mommom is isa, papa is chocolate tree, and so on.) and she's pretty serious about it. i mean, first of all, when people meet her now, she's all disgruntled when i say her name is aviyah. she does settle for me saying, "her name is aviyah, but she really really likes dora, and if it's okay, if you can call her dora." and she smiles and she's very happy.

so, anyway, when we were in israel, i lost our umbrella stroller, but one of my friends was really nice and she borrowed a stroller we could use from one of her friends. when we went to pick up the stroller, there were two little girls from the family. the older girl was about 4 1/2 or 5 years old. when i introduced aviyah as kind of dora, she was very clear that she did not like dora at all. she didn't mean aviyah, she was just saying that dora was not cool at all. i asked her why and she said, "g'dolim sonim et dora. raq k'tanim ohavim et dora." big kids hate dora, she said. only little kids like dora.

then her mom explained that it was so crazy because even a month before, she was still so into dora, but now, all of a sudden, she totally did not like dora even at all. it was so sad. aviyah was like, why doesn't she like dora? how could she not like dora? and i tried to explain to her that sometimes little kids can be a little rough and she's just a little bit confused because dora is way cool. and she was okay with it, but it was so sad because it made me think about how even though she's so into dora now, not even that she won't always be into dora, which is natural, but that one day she'll specifically decided not to like dora anymore because of peer pressure, you know. it's like she could totally still like dora, but then other kids will make fun of her (and it's true, my students make fun of me when i say something about dora because of aviyah) and that's so sad, i think.