the amazing reach of cnn.com

If you are here thanks to cnn.com, welcome! If you're not, you might want to check out this essay I wrote for Babytalk magazine, which was reprinted on cnn.com's "Living" section today:

Why I Didn't Want a Girl

I am thrilled to hear everyone's feedback on the story, even if you didn't like it. (If you nose around the comments section of the posts below, you will find a lively debate.)

A special shout-out to anyone who lives in FLORIDA! I am going to be visiting Tampa, Naples, and Fort Lauderdale between May 12 and 23, with my one-woman show MOTHER LOAD. You can find all the info here. I hope you'll come check it out!

As far as the essay: I do want everyone to understand one thing. I did not title my essay "Why I Didn't Want a Girl." CNN did. Babytalk called it "Boy Crazy," and my original title was "A Daughter, At Last."

CNN's title is definitely more provocative, but if you read my essay, I think you'll find it's much more about my concern about my apprehension about having a girl, than my proud statement of how anti-daughter I am.

18 months later, I am utterly besotted with Maddie. To all those strangers who told me how lucky I was to be having a girl: you were sure right.

PS For a lovely look at the inverse-- what it's like to want a daughter when you only have sons-- check this out, by Allison Slater Tate.

swine flu: not looking good

This morning, there is sad news that the first US death has occurred due to the swine flu, a little boy in Houston, Texas, not quite two years old.

And here we all are, at the same crossroads we've been at umpteen times. Is it time for us to freak out? Or, like MRSA, SARS, and the avian bird flu, are we going to feel like idiots in six months for having bought into the hype?

This morning, at my sons' school, not only did they have Purell at the doors to the school, but more sanitizer was pumped into each child's hand as he or she entered the classroom.

Is this risible? Or merely prudent? Who can say? In the meanwhile, it seems like we can do absolutely nothing about swine flu, but worry. And use more Purell.

seet, mama

I once heard, from a very wise Orthodox Jewish mother of nine, that our children are divinely inspired to be ours. And that the challenges they present us with are exactly the challenges we need in order to become better people.

It's a lovely thought, isn't it? And quite true. Fergus challenges my patience many, many times daily, and heaven knows I am an impatient person. He moves very slowly, but then, I tend to move too quickly. When my kids frustrate me, it gives me much-needed perspective to consider that God wants it that way.

Maddie, at 18 months, has already shown, by her headstrong and bossy ways, that she intends to challenge me quite well in her turn. For now, at least, she is still a cuddly mama's girl, and in her eyes I can do no wrong. Still, she challenges me:

"Seet, mama? Seet? Seet?"

That's "Sit, Mommy." And she says it all day long. If she's watching Blue's Clues, she wants my company on the couch next to her. If she's having a leisurely lunch of scrambled eggs and peas, she wants me sitting at the table as well.

I really appreciate her invitations. I can't remember anyone else in my family inviting me to take a seat. However, what she doesn't understand is that her sitting quietly = my opportunity to run around our house like a madwoman, getting 100 things done. How can I just sit at the kitchen table when there's a dishwasher to be unloaded? How can I sit for 22 minutes of "Ni Hao, Kai-Lan!" when there are brothers to bathe and overdue blog posts to write?

Still, she beckons. "Seet, mama?" And I know that she's right. There's nothing more important, at that moment, than sitting down with my daughter, and keeping her company. So I do it. For five minutes, anyway. All too soon, I'll have all the time in the world to unload the dishwasher, and she'll want nothing to do with me.

drop-kick the drop-side cribs

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Toys "R" Us has stopped ordering drop-side cribs because of safety concerns. The good old Consumer Products Safety Commission, full of action, has scheduled a meeting to plan how the government can better reassure us that drop-side cribs are safe. In other words, they're going to take a good long time to figure out how to tell us all there's no problem. Meanwhile, after 21 recalls of 4.2 million cribs over the last two years, the largest toy retailer is pulling the plug, rather than waiting until a drop-side crib actually comes to life and bludgeons a babe with its own rickety parts. Apparently, that's what it would take for the CPSC to take quicker action.

I've never really understood the point of drop-side cribs; I own them but have never used the drop-side function. It never even occurred to me. I'm hoping that makes my own particular cribs a little less rickety.

It does chap my fanny, however, that when there really IS something dangerous to our children-- as drop-side cribs are proving to be-- the agencies that are supposed to protect us are always caught sleeping on the job. Same with the cough medicine, same with the salmonella peanut butter. And that means, as mothers, we can't really ever relax. I think it's probably better for my kids if I don't worry about every single thing they encounter being hazardous to their health. But sometimes I'm not so sure.

sanctimommy watch

From an eagle-eyed reader in the Big Apple, a link to this post, on passiveaggressivenotes.com:

Before you decide whether the parent writing this note was reasonable or not, consider that it was posted in the LOBBY OF AN APARTMENT BUILDING, where a "meet and greet" was being held for said baby. I was never a germaphobe when my babies were little, but I also didn't host parties for them in public thoroughfares.

It does seem to me like the sterilize everything around a newborn thing has been increasing in intensity. Recently, I visited some friends who just had their first- they greeted me in the mudroom/foyer of their home, which was plastered with laminated signs listing the baby's "rules," such as taking one's shoes off before entering. Gladly would I have, had I ever actually been invited inside. Our whole meeting took place in the vestibule, since apparently they preferred visitors not enter the actual home in the first place. I did understand their horror: I was holding Maddie on my hip, who kept lurching at their newborn with her fat, dirty fingers, saying "Bayy beee... BAAYYY BEEE..." (and yes, I managed to keep her away).

I do think the writer of this note deserves some credit, for not writing it in the voice of the baby: "Hey, there! I'd love to meetcha, but Mommy says you have to Purell first! Ga ga goo goo!" Then, they really would deserve the public ridiculing they are receiving courtesy of the internet.

Fergus Explains It All

Fergus is the only one of my children who seems to have a hard time falling asleep. Because he was such a good boy yesterday, when he came back out of his room last night in his jammies, squinting at the light coming from the TV, telling me he needed another hug, I let him lie down with me on the couch for a few minutes, and held him tight. My husband David was moved by this picture of domestic bliss.

DAVID: Fergus, don't you have the best mommy?

Fergus thinks about it for a moment.

FERGUS: No.

MOMMY: Excuse me?

FERGUS: No. You are not de BEST mommy. In anudder house, there is pwobby a mommy who is gooder.

DADDY: Fergus, that's not nice to say.

FERGUS: (clarifying) You still a good mommy. You're zust not the BEST mommy.

What can you do? He's so obviously, totally right.

Juicy Juice on the Brain

I like Juicy Juice, I really do. Their 100% berry juice is a mainstay in our home. So why I am so bothered by their newest taste sensation, Juicy Juice Brain Development?

"Her brain will triple in size by the time she's two!" their ads crow. So, if you really love your child, she should be drinking Apple Brain Development or Grape Brain Development, both enhanced with DHA, "an essential building block for brain development."

Now, surely it can't HURT, if your toddler drinks juice, to drink one that is enhanced with brain-enhancers. And it's a lot easier to get them to drink Juicy Juice than, say, Children's Arctic Cod Liver Oil. But is DHA really necessary? Present mostly in breast milk and salmon, it's not something either of my older children got much of after their first birthdays. So, if I give Maddie this juice, I'll still feel guilty that I didn't do the same thing for her brothers. And I still can't help feeling that I'm being suckered, here; that basically, Juicy Juice Brain Development is one smoothly-marketed step up from Easter candy bursting with yummy pwotein.

Oh, heck, I don't know. Are you going to buy it?

Fergus Facts- Easter edition

We went to an Easter egg hunt this morning and the three kiddoes each came home with about 75 plastic eggs, stuffed with corn syrupy goodness. After a few minutes of letting them gorge themselves:

MOMMY: OK, Fergus, that's enough candy for now.
FERGUS: Why?
MOMMY: Because the candy has a lot of things in it that aren't good for you.
FERGUS: Pwease, zust one more?
MOMMY: OK.

Fergus bites into a chocolate egg.

FERGUS: Mmm. Dis one? Tastes like it has a WOT of pwotein in it. Pwotein, and mint.

I triple dog dare you

Is it not interesting how children will sometimes, just when you least expect it, give away the secrets to raising them easily and effortlessly?

I have a picky eater at my house. Well, maybe two (Maddie is 18 months, and therefore picky in the way all children entering their terrible twos are, but it's too soon to make a permanent call). Cooper, I can say with great certainty, is a very picky eater, and after six years, I was out of ideas:

MOMMY: Eat your green beans.
COOPER: I don't want to.
MOMMY: You have to eat some.
COOPER: (lip quivering) I REALLY don't want to.

and so on. I had pretty much decided to stop asking altogether, to keep throwing half his dinner away without comment, since all my wheedling and cajoling over the years had been decidedly counterproductive. Then, the other night, this:

COOPER: Mom, aren't you going to ask me to eat my green beans?
MOMMY: ...cooper please eat your green beans.
COOPER: I am not going to. Unless you triple dog dare me.
MOMMY: What?
FERGUS: (looking up, with a mouthful of green beans): What?
COOPER: Triple dog dare means if you tell me it, I have to do whatever you say.
MOMMY: Or else what?
COOPER: Or else nothing, but you HAVE to do it. That's all.
MOMMY: (tentatively) I triple dog dare you to eat your green beans.
COOPER: Ohhh-kayyy.

And he eats a few green beans.

I mean, are you kidding? Was this all I had to say all this time? For the last few days, "triple dog daring" the boys to clean up their toys and get dressed and go poop and eat their dinners has been working remarkably well. I can't believe Cooper just handed it to me. Feel free to give it a shot, I hope it works half as well at your house.

But beware. It can be turned back upon you. As I was coloring Easter scenes yesterday evening, with the boys:

MOMMY: Fergus, I like those Easter eggs.
FERGUS: Fanks.
MOMMY: Do you like my Easter bunny I drew?
Fergus regards it for a few moments.
FERGUS: Well. If you triple dog dare me to wike it, I do.




image from tailwags.webs.com

BabyBangs

One of my favorite blogs, daddytypes.com, is alerting us all this morning to a new height of nausea in our Toddlers & Tiaras world.

Meet Baby Bangs!


There, aren't you relieved! I'm sure you looked at that baby in the top photo and thought, geez, that baby is wearing a fuchsia tutu but I'm still REALLLLY on the fence whether that's a boy or a girl. And knowing the gender of an infant is truly of utmost importance.

Thank God for BabyBangs, a "patent pending HAIR+band accessory combination" with "silky strands of monofiber Kanekalon" that are then "sprinkled with MAGIC! inspiring a world of mystical magical memorable moments for you and your baby girl to cherish forever!"

I'm getting Maddie the Geranium Vivace model, which offers "a delicate row of Rose, Olive, and Lavender Fleurs with stitching details in Rose, Sheer Ribbon Underlay and Bow (w/ Faux Pearl Drop in center) in Sheer Lavender." Why not? BabyBands can be put on your baby's head in just six simple steps! (I haven't had a hairstyle that required six steps since my wedding day.) And then a "light hairspray can be used, while protecting baby's eyes and face."

I know you want some for yourself, but BabyBangs are only "for Bebe’s and Enfants 0-9 months." Any older, and you'll have to magically grow your hair longer, like Katie/Kate Holmes Cruise.

not so fast, sneaky chef

I bought a copy of The Sneaky Chef yesterday at a bookstore. Since its author, Missy Chase Lapine, got kind of screwed when Jessica Seinfeld basically published the exact same book and got to go on Oprah, I figured I was supporting the underdog.

The book gives you all sorts of clever ways to sneak fruit and vegetable purees, baby food, mushed avocado, etc, into all kinds of foods kids love, like cookies and pasta and meatballs. Now, if you're shaking your head and saying "kids should eat vegetables as they are, it shouldn't be about hiding them," then I send Earthling greetings to you and you should go back to Planet Vegan now. My kids *do* eat vegetables, but could always eat more, and having two picky eaters out of three, I can tell you: that whole canard about serving a food 10 to 15 times before your child will eat it is bullshit, unless it's really 10 to 15 thousand times and that was just a typo.

So I was most anxious to try Ms. Lapine's recipes, and being up before 2 out of 3 children this morning, I was delighted to find one called "Extra Sneaky Chocolate Breakfast Ice Cream," for which I had all the ingredients already in hand:

1 frozen banana, cut in pieces (about 1 cup)
1/2 ripe avocado
2 tablespoons plain yogurt
1 tablespoon honey or sugar
1/2 teaspoon unsweetened cocoa powder

Put all ingredients in food processor and puree on high. Makes about 1 1/2 cups of ice cream.

I only had Ovaltine, so I used that instead of the cocoa and the honey. Girl, I am telling you, this stuff is GOOD. Maddie wolfed hers down in her highchair, and wanted more, but I saved the rest for the boys and had to content myself with licking the food processor blade.

I couldn't wait for the boys to wake up so they could see this wonderful treat their selfless mother had prepared for them.

"Surprise!" I said. "It's special chocolate breakfast ice cream!"

Cooper, my pickiest eater, took a bite. "Blech," he said. "What is in this?"

"Oh, come ON," I said, not mentioning the avocado, "it's delicious."

Fergus, my child who will eat anything, said, "I don't wike it," and tearfully challenged my admonition that he couldn't SAY he didn't like it if he didn't TRY it by saying, "I know I don't wike it because I don't wike the wooking of it."

"Can I please have Raisin Bran for breakfast instead of ice cream?" Cooper asked, gently, seeing that I was about to lose it.

So the boys had Raisin Bran, as usual, and I ate both of their bowls of chocolate breakfast ice cream, and I think next time I'll try it as an after-school treat. Or maybe I'll just stop trying so hard.