Like most seven year olds, my daughter is obsessed with YouTube. She has been interested in filming videos for a few years now and I have told her that she can make videos, but I refuse to let he open toys, play with toys or otherwise promote toys in videos. She has settled on cooking, even after many attempts to bribe her to do more Logan Family Band videos. I guess my music skills are really that horrific.

In addition to wanting to make videos, she loves watching YouTube. There is a family from Arizona that she recently discovered that makes a variety of videos. The kids are cute, but watching the parents makes me crazy. The dad has a cheesy frat boy arm band tattoo and I really need the mom’s number so we can talk about getting her some eye cream. (Side note – selling skincare makes you look at everyone with a critical eye. You want to save everyone from their wrinkles.) I have also made a mental note to stay behind the camera in these future YouTube videos so as not to attract the same kind of snarky criticism I am internally dishing out to all of the adults on screen.

The thing is, my seven year old wants to emulate whatever YouTube channel she is obsessed with for the month. Last year she was consistently watching a girl who face painted, so my whole family had their faces covered in neon hues on a weekly basis. She even called her grandparents over to be victims. My daughter does not have what you would call a light touch. Her application process is similar to patching a hole in drywall. After having their faces nearly torn off with scratchy brushes and being doused in glitter we sent them on their way back home, reminding them they may need to swing by the local party store for a bottle of water on their way. I waited patiently by the phone for a call from the police station or mental hospital that night. My mom did call later asking for the best technique to remove glitter from my dad’s ear hair.

The channel she is watching now has a variety of skits that take place in a classroom or a hotel. She has focused on the hotel and has, herself been pretending to live in a hotel for the last few days. It started with us driving to my parents’ house to “check out the resort”. We decided not to stay after we found the staff relaxing in the pool and booked a room at Loganland. My husband’s roles have included manager, chef, bellhop and concierge. I have been asked to play a guest (of course!) and the MAID. Seriously, does this child not know me at all? She has watched me destroy two vacuum cleaners and clean an entire room with a wet one, yet she cast me in this role. We also may need to have another talk about equality of the sexes since her reasoning for casting me in this part was “you’re a girl”.

My husband is really getting into his parts. He is accepting room service calls, cooking to order and basically delivering anything requested by his guests. He is even answering questions like “what is on the activity schedule at the resort today?” I think he may be taking it a little too far though. Last night I told my daughter that I had requested a wake up call from the front desk so she wouldn’t be late for camp this morning. I was awakened by my husband saying “this is your wake up call!” at 5:30 am. My alarm was set for two hours later. He was promptly driven away, confused by my annoyance. He thought I was serious when I requested that he wake me up in the morning. Now I am asking does my husband know me at all? I never thought I would need a “safe” word for playing a make believe game with my child.

I am a little concerned about some of the amenities this resort offers. I have never stayed at a hotel that insists on complimentary cuddles at night from the manager. I think that would warrant a bad Yelp review at the very least, if not a restraining order. I do enjoy that they let us roam around the hotel in our underwear and help ourselves to the pantry at all hours. Their snack selections are a little lacking though.

At this point I’m pretty confident we could turn our home into an AirBNB rental if we ever needed an extra source of income. I’m sure it would be more lucrative than my daughter’s blossoming career as a YouTube star. I’m guessing the complimentary cuddles would earn us some great reviews. Hopefully my husband won’t figure out that this was all just a long drawn out ploy to get him to serve me breakfast in bed.

 

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