Sappy, Vomitous Lurve Fest 2006. Bring Emetrol.

While I'm no Her Bad Mother in the bloggylove department, I do want to spread some irony-free warm fuzzies around. You know, the kind of stuff that makes people say ewwwwwwww mommybloggers.

Eat it, naysayers.



First: The Perfect Post Award of the month goes to Staci Schoff's remarkable essay about teaching kids to tolerate diversity where there is none to be found. It's elegant and compelling, and if I had come across it in Brain, Child (hint hint, Staci) as opposed to her blog, Mommy With an Attitude, I wouldn't have been surprised at all.

But, wait! as they say in adland, There's more! There are two other posts that really stuck with me this month and I'd be remiss if I didn't share them. First, Sunshine Scribe's heartwrenching essay, Wishing it Were Flashback Friday, about the mean girls who grow up to be mean moms, only to pop up in the places you least expect them. She always writes deliciously but this one is so personal, it really resonates.

Then there's Lumpyhead's Mom's post, And Verily I Wanted to Throw Up, which does what I have wanted to do for a week now but found myself unable to: Respond to the wretched attack on stay-at-home moms as hurled by Linda Hirshman. (Not to be confused with Linda Richman, although my fingers manage to type Linda Richman every time. Oh, if only it were Mike Myers in drag instead of the woman who keeps the entirely unproductive Mommy Wars alive.)

Self-proclaimed overeducated stay-at-home moms, I salute you.

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Other link lurve. Just because I never do this and, well...just because.

*Hally, yes that Hally is chronicling her most inspiring life these days on her very own blog. She's detailing her adventures in Tanzania after having moved her toddler twins there for two years. Did I mention she's a single mom? And a great writer? And saves the world for a living? And that her friends and family seem to be physically unable to post comments on her blog? Show her the lurve, friends.

*New blogger Baby in Broad needs some advice about staying animal-free during and after her pregnancy. Can any herbivores out there help a vegan sistah out? This is not my milieu.

*Go watch the funniest, strangest YouTube piece I've seen in a while, courtesy of Stephanie at Pickleness. Even Nate forwarded it to friends, and that's saying something.

*If you haven't been to Cool Mom Picks lately, you're dead to me. Dead. But if you can still hear me from the afterlife, go now and redeem yourself. While you're there, sign up for our newsletter. It's like one measly mailing a month. Twelve a year. You get more Nigerian con artist emails that in an hour and they're not going to point you towards cool music picks for kids, stylin' baby duds, and jewelry made by stay-at-home moms that should be for sale in Barney's at six times the price.

And you know how I love the stay-at-home moms.

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Finally, a gracious thank you to the Divine Ms Lady M for awarding a Perfect Post award to my retelling of my first real CompetiMommy experience. Considering how many fantastic pieces were written this past month, I really am flattered.

...I'm Gonna Eat Some Worms

Ever have one of those days where you realize you suck?

Like for example: You spot a woman in the local Starbucks with a kid about the same age as yours and you're thinking how great it would be for your daughter to actually have one friend. So you start chatting up this woman, only to realize that you had met a year ago when your girls were newborns, and you exchanged numbers then. She called the next week, you said you'd call her when you got back in town, and that call took place.....never.

You stutter a vague apology and say something completely retarded about being really busy, um, for a whole year; at which point you're faced with a polite, closed-mouth grin and a terse, "well, see you around." Which, as you know, is really code for, "too late, beyatch. And don't think of trying to make any other mommy friends around here either. I've added your name to the blacklist."

Oh my God, I'm like one of Those Guys, aren't I. The I'll call you guys that we spent our entire single years complaining about.

Am I the only one with the best of intentions decimated by terrible follow-through?

Everything You Need to Know About Me You Can Learn From My Toolbar

1996: What's a toolbar?

1998: Adweek, Adweak, IMDB, The New York Times, the New York Times Crossword, Yahoo Games

2001: Match.com, Writers Guild East, Gotham Writers Workshop, Media Bistro, Bloomsbury Press, Daily Candy, Zagat, Travelocity, Conde Nast Traveler, boggler, Yahoo Games

2004: Talking Points Memo, Daily Kos, Wesley Clark Meetup, Code Pink, Salon, Slate, New York Times, Yahoo Games

Early 2005: Urban Baby Message Boards, Babycenter, Babystyle registry, Babies R Us registry, safe fetus, kelly mom, six custom announcement sites, New York Times, Yahoo Games

Mid-2006: Blogger, Technorati, Sitemeter, Bloglines, Neomail, Flickr, Photobucket, BlogAds, BlogHer, cool mom picks, chbm.

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Hey look! I made up a meme, didn't I? It sort of looks that way. Wow, my first made-up meme. I almost feel like Kristen.

Which means...your turn. That is, if you have the time. And if you're not too good for that sort of thing. Snotface.

Tell us how your toolbar (OR favorites - same difference, sheesh) on your browser has evolved through the years. No fair cheating to make yourself look cooler, either.

Because Whichever Baby Walks First Wins a Million Toys a Year for Life

"How old is she?" the tall woman with the reluctant smile asked as I pushed Thalia in the black bucket swing.

"She'll be a year in a couple weeks."

"Oh how nice," she remarked while pushing a smartly dressed boy of roughly the size. "Same here. Is she talking?"

"No. Well, she does say cat. Sometimes. Sometimes it's cad and sometimes it's dat but pretty much she says cat. Is he?"

"Oh yes. Mama, Papa, Go, Up...So, is she walking?"

"Walking!" I said with a chuckle. "No, not walking. Which makes it easier on us, heh, since..."

"Really? Not walking? Is she standing? Crawling?"

"Crawling sure," I said. "She's waving to you by the way." I indicated to my daughter who was furiously bouncing her hand up and down at the wrist in the woman's direction. The woman gave a half-hearted wiggle of her fingers, the bare minimum of anatomical movement needed to constitute a wave.

It takes a special person to ignore a smiling, maniacally waving baby.

I eagerly anticipated a follow-up question on how many signs my daughter had, since this time I was prepared with a clever retort about men at work. (Okay, so clever only to me and maybe my father.) But instead, she silently gathered the little boy and got him settled in his stroller.

In the time it took for me to unscrew the cap off my lukewarm water bottle and take a gulp, she was already through the iron gate that marked the exit. No goodbye, nothing. Just an empty swing and some footprints in the sand where she had been standing.

Here's the kicker: She wasn't the mom.

She was the nanny.

I don't know what "maniacally waving" means, but I really like doing whatever this is called. This here thing with my hand. So fun!

June 26

For the better part of the last two decades, a mere mention of June 26 in conversation was enough for me to rudely but innocently ignore the rest of your sentence while I stared at some faraway point and drifted into the celluloid of the filmstrip playing in my mind.

Frame one: Wearing black Reebok high-tops wrapped in a yellow rhinestone dog collar beneath the chintzy white gown, because that was as much a fashion statement as I could make.

Frame sixteen: "Practicing" flipping the tassel from the right side of the hat to the left side with a Marlboro light dangling from my lips.

Frame twenty-seven: Brandishing the pristine new diplomas while singing Alphaville's Forever Young with my girlfriends (the original, not the remake with all that extra electronica, you heathens) through the tears, as beaming fathers tried to take our pictures.

Frame thirty: Being stopped by the MHS video guy, amidst the chaos, whose job it was to track down the yearbook's "Senior Superlatives" and record us, wedding style. He asked me what the class flirt was going to do with her future.

Frame thirty-one: Adlibbing an entire bit about majoring in flirting in college, and all the courses I had to take to fulfill the requirement. A bit of foreshadowing of the comic bits that I would often attempt--and then fail miserably at. Recorded on video. Forever.

At least I was skinny.

There's so much more to June 26, 1986, the prom being the same night. I wore a black sequinned flapper. He wore white tie and tails. We had the same haircut. We had the same piercings. I hated my mother. The night was dreadfully boring, full of dashed expectations and alcohol that never materialized, and a band that played only one slow song all night which my boyfriend chose to dance with someone else.

But then, nearly twenty years later, one of the few things occured that could possibly change my associatioins with June 26.

It became my due date.

The birthday gets so much attention, but the due date, once the delivery has come and gone, hardly at all. It is thereafter banished to some back corner of your brain, 2,834th in a line of Very Important Things to Remember, after the final score of the 1924 World Series, and how to play Hot Cross Buns on the recorder.

And yet, for nine months that date is absolutely everything. Number one on the list, ahead of even your own birthday and the season premiere of Lost. It's the date you are repeatedly confronted with at the OB's office, or when you plug your last menstrual cycle into copious EDD-determining computer programs, just to see if the result will change. It's the date that creates insta-friendships with other expectant women on online message boards. It's the date you both love and fear with all your heart.

It's also the answer to pretty much any question you are assaulted with for forty straight weeks.

So when are you due?

June 26.

Wow but you're carrying so small. Why, when my sister was your size...

June 26.

Really? You're HUGE! Are you sure?

June 26.

You're not going to have a summer baby are you? Her birthday will always suck.

June 26.

Hope you don't go early. You don't want a Gemini, the two of you being earth signs, right?

June 26.

Isn't that a Sunday? You know all the good delivery nurses take Summer weekends.

June 26, 2005.

The day that came and went with nary a contraction.

I was huge. I was hot. I had what I called Muppet ankles, where there's no discernable definition between the calf and the foot. Every time I looked at my swollen feet oozing out over the sides of my thongs, I could only think of a muffin, rising and spreading out of the tin.

Also: Miss Piggy riding a bicycle.

The nursery was painted. The co-sleeper was assembled. The clothes were laundered, as instructed, in the overpriced laundry detergent that doesn't actually get clothes clean but makes mothers feel as if they're good mothers because the package says so, more or less. The doula was booked, the schedule was clear, and the family had one hand on their cell phones at all times.

Just one thing was missing.

Then it was June 27, a date I had never even considered. June 27? Was there such a thing? What eez zees June twenty-zeven of wheech you speek?

It was the same thing that happened when I turned thirty-one. I had spent so much energy anticipating thirty, that I was shocked, shocked to discover that the years kept accumulating afterwards.

Soon it was June 28, June 29...and then, July. July! The nerve! The horrible, horrible nerve of July coming along while I had no baby to show for it. Just a huge belly and my Muppet ankles and an amoeba-sized bladder and the feeling that every day was a year. But a sucky, crappy, horrible year. A year without Christmas or chocolate, where every day is Tax Day and you owe six million dollars.

Didn't the baby know I had told people, "by July she'll be here. Yessiree Bob, I will have that baby in my arms and life as I know it will be changed forever." Didn't she hear me, all the times I had uttered those words? I mean I told people. She was making me look bad.

LOOK HERE, BABY. I AM YOUR MOTHER! I COMMAND YOU TO COME OUT!

Right.

Nate and I started bargaining. We'll take July 2 but not July 4. No holidays. Or, we'll take July 4 so that Nate can play golf on July 3. July 4 isn't so bad right? Okay, we'll take July 6 but that's it! Not one day more. Oh fine, we'll do July 7, but not July 6. Better to go an extra day than for her to share a birthday with George Bush.

Famous last words, as we used to say back in 1986.

July 6 may be the day, but I think I'm going to start the celebrating ten days earlier every year. Or at least the reminiscing. I'm pretty good at it, what with twenty years of practice. Besides, even with last year's unbearable humidity, the clumps of hair in my shower drain, and the relative lack of interest in personal hygeine during those final excrutiating days of pregnancy--my hair still looked far better than it did at my prom.

Kids Draw the Darndest Things

Outside the basement elevator entrance in our building, the one that all the strollers go in and out of, the walls are filled with the art of the children who live here. I'd like to think of it as a wonderful homage to the kids, and not just a solution for parents who don't want to scuff up the Sub Zero with that icky scotch tape.

This one was just added a few weeks ago.


You can see why it's my new favorite:

Original artwork c 2006, some cute little girl in Brooklyn with my kind of humor

The Picky Eaters Club: Everyone's Welcome! Just Don't Bring a Cream-Filled Dessert

Mom-101, erudite New York foodie-type, restaurant whore, and cookbook co-author has hereby been bound, gagged with a quarter-pound of quince paste, and replaced with The Picky Child Within to describe ten things I hate (as instructed by Krista).

1) Touching food. Nate makes such a show of arranging all the gourmet vittles he prepares in a towering display, Alfred Portale style, and yet I have to pluck the beautiful slices of medium rare steak from out of the pool of herbed polenta (and wipe it off) before I can eat it. The rosemary sprigs can remain in the mashed potatoes, if I work really hard at it, but that's about it.

2) Milk in cereal. Cereal should be eaten crunchy, right out of the box as God intended it.

3) Beans. Garbonzos are tolerable if pureed, doused in tahini, and passed off as hummus. But refried beans? God help the Mexican restaurant expediter who scoops that excrement onto my plate. Especially if they're touching my enchiladas.

4) Root beer. Tried it, don't like it. Tried it again, still don't like it. I suppose I'm no worse for the wear having one more sugary, nutritionally-void item out of my repetoire.

5) Avocado. I want to eat it, really I do. I mean it's both expensive and high in fat--what's not to like? Answer: Avocado, which tastes like paste.

6) Tuna fish. The smell is kryptonite to me and I can't be in the room with it. If you are dining with me and order a tuna fish sandwich, I will ask you nicely to reconsider. If you persist, I will vomit on you when it arrives then stick you with the check. In fact, just seeing the words here are making me gag a little. Moving on...

7) Pre-made sandwiches. They're always soggy from dressings or mustard or mayo (which I also hate). I will sooner eat Chex Mix and a bag of Combos for lunch in the airport than buy a turkey club that's been sitting on that semi-refrigerated shelf all day. Besides, you don't know who touched it or how dedicated he is to wearing a hair net. Ew.

8) Fruit in cake. Cakes should be chocolate, vanillla, occassionally almond if you're feeling frisky. If you want raspberry in your dessert, order the damn tart.

9) Guinness. I want so very very very badly to like it, since all the cool girls do. They're also the ones who can play pool and bowl. Sadly, I'm not one of them. I'm the one nursing a Rolling Rock near the pool table, and I don't even look cute doing it anymore.

10) Meat in tomato sauce. It's the last remaining vestige from my vegetarian years. I wasn't a very good vegetarian since I still ate bacon. And Walter's hot dogs. And chicken soup as long as I couldn't see the chicken. And turkey at Thanksgiving. Okay, I was the kind of vegetarian who just didn't like meat in tomato sauce. Our voice may be small but our numbers are great.

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I don't know who to tag because I always think if I tag someone they'll hate me, or if I don't tag them they'll hate me. So this is an opt-in tag. Feel free to find your alter ego and tell us ten things you dislike. However I would love to see toyfoto and tracey's take on hatred, if only because they're so upbeat all the time.

The Daddy Duhs

I was lying in bed, brushing the dander off the satanic cat when Nate called my name through the pocket doors from the adjacent baby's room. "Liz," he admonished, "do you have to leave the top open on the wipes? It dries them out."

I mumbled a half-hearted apology.

"This is like the third time you've done it though," he said as I heard the crinkle of a fresh diaper in his hands. "C'mon already."

Before he could continue, I bolted upright.

Oh lord. Nate sounds like me.

Which means I sound like...

It was like the third act of some big-budget, predictable romantic comedy. I'd like to think I'd be played by Jessica Alba, but I think I'll have to settle for Sara Jessica Parker under bad lighting.

The incident got me thinking, it possible that men aren't the clueless creatures that they proport to be? That they are indeed capable of remembering to check the diaper bag for diapers before leaving the house, to insert the little round disc in the bottle to keep it from leaking, to give the baby a bath and use soap--without being told? Is it possible that men do not in fact have a genetic affliction that keeps them from throwing the baby's clothes in the hamper and not on the floor beside it? Is it possible that they are actually able to care about things like appropriately moist diaper wipes, even if the diaper wipes are not blonde and braless and able to toss them a Bud while humming Hail to the Redskins?

Is there even a slight chance that as far as domestic cluelessness men are...faking it?

I hate to speak in generalizations because indeed there are men--some of them reading this very blog--who are capable and conscientious and fastidious, and very much in possession of the nurturing gene. But if I may generalize anyway (why thank you very much, I think I will generalize!) I am pretty sure that most men do not fit this description. They do not remember to pick up formula at the store, let alone checking the list to see if you need formula before going to the store, let alone even knowing that there's a list to look at, let alone going to the store in the first place.

They do not do these things because they have lead us to believe that they handle the parenting minutia poorly. Or worse, that they are incapable of handling it at all. And so, moms are left multitasking again, remarkably able to both clean up our partners' messes and shake our heads at the incompetence. Sometimes we even chew gum too!

They're the Daddy Duhs: Those little annoyances that we laugh about and roll our eyes about, and then go and fix so that we can be sure that things are done the right way So There.

The Daddy Duhs are rarely huge, horrible things like dropping the baby on her head or letting her play in the oven. They're the little annoyances--the hangnails of parenting. Like sticking the baby food jar that's been open for six days back in the fridge. Or putting the baby in a snow hat in 95-degree heat, because the summer one is "too pink."

I always assumed the Daddy Duhs could be justified by a combination of several factors: Career chaos occupying that grey matter that might be applied towards keeping the household in order; lack of time; lack of interest; basic genetics and evolutionary tendencies. But now I'm changing my tune: I think that men do as little as we allow them to do. Less rising to their own levels of incompetence than sinking to our own low expectations.

So while we get frustrated, what do they get? Less housework time, more PS2 time. Less bottle washing time, more SportsCenter time. Fewer nighttime feedings, more sleep.

Ladies, are we being had here?

On the other hand, I'm guilty of some mild deception myself. I spent many years pre-Nate as the single girl who changed her own lightbulbs, installed her own venetian blinds, killed her own mice. (Or at least called her own super.) I could carry my own luggage. I could hail my own cab. I owned tools for God's sake. Today, you'd be hard-pressed to catch me tippy-toed atop three phonebooks on a wobbly ladder, 75-watt bulb in hand. It's not that I can't, it's that I don't really need to.

And that's the point.

Maybe we just need to give the guys a chance to fail before they can succeed. Let them be the ones caught without a clean diaper in the park when three days of constipation come to an abrupt and malodorous end. Let them be the ones with 8 ounces of formula soaking through their brand new Ken Follett hardcover because they didn't bother to snap the lid on the bottle before sticking it in their backpack.

Let them be the ones who get stuck with a squirmy, excrement-coated 11 month old on the changing table with only a stale, dried-out wipe at the ready.

You'll see how fast things change.

Magically Blas-Phem-Ous

Last night, when Nate came in from walking the flatulent dog, he was chuckling at the direct mail piece (no, not one with another nickel) he pinched between his fingers.

"It has my name on it but I think it's for you," he said passing it to me, before cursing the Yankees and storming off to bed.

On the front of the folded card there were four small, square portraits: A smarmy 40-ish guy in a tie who looked like he just slept with your teenage sister; a bearded guy with salt and pepper hair wearing the practiced but forced smile of a self-help guru; a thirty-ish woman with hair by Flowbee; and a hippie chick with a chestnut, middle-parted Marsha Brady 'do, despite being thirty years too old (and it being thirty years too late) for such a display.

Then I read the headline:

Who is for these Jewish people?

I thought, not me. They're creepy.

Then I thought, wait--what does that mean, who is for these Jewish people? Is everyone against them? Are they all serial killers? Did they pay retail? What was the problem exactly?

So I opened the pamphlet to find that apparently, their mothers are for them, their spouses, their friends...and Jesus too!

Oy.

The Jews for Jesus guys used to drive around my heavily Jewish college campus in these scary black vans, shouting into megaphones at women in AEPhi sweatshirts. I had to scamper away from a few myself from time to time. Once in a blue moon I catch them around the city, but mostly they've been off my radar. And yet now, they're targeting Nate, of all people. Nate, my lapsed-Mormon, institutional religion-hating sigoth. Genius.

I'm not particularly scholarly when it comes to religions, including my own. But to me, the whole thing is counterintuitive. Jews for Jesus is like Devout Muslims for Wanton Nudity. Or Pasty Irish for SPF-Free Sunbathing. If Jesus is your homeboy, your copilot, your rock, your beacon--awesome. More power to you. But don't be walking around in a yarmulke humming the Sh'ma. That's all I'm sayin'.

Along these lines, there's something I've been meaning to get off my chest for quite some time now.

I'm not sure that I've ever told anyone this, but it's haunted me for many years. I just feel safe with you all, that I think this might be a good time to finally put it into words, release it into the universe, and move on.

When I was young and I used to picture God? It was this guy:

On Behalf of My Entire Industry: Um, Sorry.

1 in a possibly infinite series.

As long-time readers may know, my musical tastes tend to be stuck somewhere between 1975-1986. And yet, I am somehow responsible, as part of my job, for finding music (or finding the people who find music) and putting it into commercials.

I can only give you my word that I do not impose on the American television-watching public that which I impose on my own household. While Journey may get a bit of play (shut up) on my iTunes, I would never lay it into an ad except with tongue planted firmly in cheek. Don't Stop Believin' has no place in some heartfelt commercial about believing in the power of Charmin. Or whatever.

In fact as any of my co-workers can attest, one of my personal most reviled advertising tactics is the use of song lyrics that "say" your strategy or product message. One needs an exceedingly delicate touch to pull this off, which is why it works one out of every bazillion times.

Heinz did it with Anticipation. Nike did it with Revolution. But when Rolling Stones classic Let's Spend the Night Together is reduced to a plea from Sheraton to book a room for your next convention, I throw up in my mouth just a little.

This sounds a tad harsh from me, perhaps. I'm really not a snarky bitch, as fun though it may be to play one at times. In fact, I hope I'm fairly sensitive when it comes to critiquing commercials (besides my own which are always fair game). I know as well as anyone that it takes hundreds of people to make a great ad, but just one to make a bad one.

In other words, there's always some bonehead along the way, generally on the client side, who dampens your dreams of fame and glory by asking you to put his talentless kid in the ad; to put your half-million dollar production in the hands of his best friend, the budding director; or to use a sitcom star who has as much to do with the brand as Marlon Brando has to do with soy cheese--and oh by the way, this actor wants to help "write" the ad. And he wants to perform it in drag.

All of these have happened to me. And worse.

Do the words Zestfully Clean mean anything to you? Back in the beginning of the ol' ad career, I was asked to turn that jingle into a reggae arrangement. For the black folks. Because you know how the black folks like the reggae.

So let's just say there are a lot of talented copywriters and art directors out there who no more want to be producing the garbage that makes it onto tv than you want to be watching it.

But when an obscene advertising budget compells a copywriter to buy a wonderful song and turn it into something crude and commercial, I find it hard to hold my tonge.

I am sad about the deterioration of the alternaclassic Our House by Madness. Once it was a quirky little tune back from the early days of MTV. Today apparently Our House is what they sing when they spontaneously break into song around local firehouse, because they're Just That Excited about drinking Maxwell House coffee.

I am also pretty miffed about Ritz Cracker's use of the Modern English classic, I'll Stop the World and Melt With You. This song used to bring me back to Freshman year in high school. To slow dances with small sweaty boys who wanted to feel my non-existent boobs. To Nic Cage at his most totally rad like omigod. And now? I think of dancing cartoon characters enjoying a high-sodium Nabisco product.

But I am nearly distraught at the Dorito's Guacamole Chip commercial, which depicted a woman who, One Way or Another, was going to get her get her get her get her Dorito's off the top shelf of the supermarket. Why, Deborah Harry, my former idol? Whyyyyyyyyy? Ceratainly this pains you as much as it pains me.

I can't change the world. I can't even change the advertising world. But maybe, just maybe, I can guilt a single copywriter into reconsidering licensing Billy Preston's Everybody Wants You to promote Applebee's new chicken fajita salad.

I do it for my daughter, truth be told.

Because one day I'm going to be humming a song in her vicinity. It will be something with great meaning to me. Something that once shook me to my core, something with the ability to careen me back in time to a place of profound pain or love or angsty teenage rebellion. And upon hearing this, Thalia will say,

Oh! The maxi pad song!

And I will cry.

Today's Father's Day Reality Check is Brought to You By...

Me: So what do you want to do for Father's Day?

Nate: Well aren't we going to your dad's for steaks?

Me: Yeah, but that's dinner. I mean, what do you want to do during the day?

Nate shrugs.

Me: Do you want to go to brunch? Do you want me to make you breakfast? Do you want me to rub your feet and bring you beers?

More silence.

Me: What? It's your first Father's Day so just tell me.

Nate: Well the Open's on, there's the World Cup, and the Yankees are playing so I'm set.

Me: Really? That's it?

Nate: Yeah. Face it, Mother's Day is really the gushy, flowers, fawn-all-over you day. Father's day is more like, thanks for the golf bag and the card, now let me watch my game.

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Happy Father's Day to you and yours.

News Suckage

I have a confession: I looked at the news this week for the first time in ages. I have no newborn to blame anymore either.

It's just that it's all just so very tragic. And where there's no real tragedy, by God you can always count on a news producer to find some for you. Because even if no Americans died in Iraq today, there's still a three-legged dog somewhere who bit a homeless orphan with colitis before being run over by a drunk schoolbus driver. And now, here's Bill, with sports.

So I peek today, just for a bit, and here's what I see:

-2 more soldiers missing in this stupid useless occupation. Which is horrible, of course. But how many non-soldiers went missing today? While all life is sacred, it's like we hold up two missing US men as the worst thing in the world, and describe whole villages (towns, really, but we call them villages so that they seem less important) blown up in a quick blurb on page 23, right after Ann Landers and Your Lucky Numbers.

-The grieving man whose wife and two little girls plunged over a cliff at Bear Mountain in their minivan? Yeah, he might not be an innocent bystander after all. However the good news, according to the newscast, is that the kids "suffered only minor injuries." I guess losing your mother and finding out your philandering father might have played a part counts as minor these days.

-$1.4 billion of FEMA money --our money--after Katrina went to bogus claimants for bogus purchases like Saints tickets and Carribean vacations. Way to go Brownie. Another heckuva job you did there.

The only good news seems to be that An Inconvenient Truth is kickin' box office booty.

Please someone. Please give me some good news. I need a lift.

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Edited to add: I had originally referred to this Iraq fiasco as a war, and not an occupation which is what it is. Thanks to my ever-astute mother for the correction.

In the Words of Vyvyan Basterd*: Booooooring

One of the three most snooze-inducing blog topics in the world: How sick the author is. The others involve minute-by-minute accounts of one's day and anything about golf.

It seems my fate to plow through several intense months of work and other obligations, only to be stricken with disease the moment a little down time comes my way. Like my body saying, "oh no you don't Missy. You'll lie right there in bed and you won't get up, you won't clean the house, you won't go to Lowe's for begonias for the windowsill. You're taking some time off whether you like it or not."

And so I reluctantly go, sulking and pouting the whole way.

I won't torture you with details about the stomach virus that has afflicted me over the last few days or the fever that had me about .5 degrees from speaking in tongues. Just wanted to mention that if I commented on any blog yesterday and it made no sense whatsoever, forgive me. Just imagine something witty and well punctuated and know that's what I meant to say.

*If you know who Vyvyan Basterd is, by the way, we're going to get along just fine.

Crapft

They're wily ones, those charity people.

Being the bleeding heart that I am, I have at some point given to pretty much every kind of non-profit you can imagine. So I'm in a good position to know.

The solicitations come daily, crammed into every free inch of space in my teeny New York City mailbox which certainly wasn't designed for such torture (nor was my postman). Aside from the standard cache of magazines and bills and catalogs, some days I get up to a dozen different pleas for my generous help, often times two from the same organization--one thanking me for my recent contribution, the second asking me for another.

So you can imagine what my hallway entry table looked like this week when slathered with a month's worth of unopened mail.

The direct marketing tricks just to get you to open the damn things could put Publisher's Clearinghouse to shame. Oddly shaped envelopes, handwritten addresses, torture updates from Amnesty International, a blurb above the Planned Parenthood return address touting "a message from Blythe Danner and Gwynneth Paltrow inside." And then there's the good old OPEN IMMEDIATELY stamp. Which you do. Of course. Only to end up entirely pissed that the URGENT VERY URGENT matter had to do not with your recent tax bill, but with the campaign of a democratic mayoral candidate in South Dakota that neither me nor the rest of the Emily's List addressees will ever help get elected.

But if you actually make the time to open the envelopes, you are witness to the true ingenuity that is crappy graft. Or crapft.

The bleeding heart blackmail tactics used to be pretty basic - a couple sheets of free self-adhesive return labels preprinted with your name and either a) the American flag b) birds c) little heart-wrenching pastel drawings made by sick children. It's a brilliant plan: You feel bad throwing out two perfectly good sheets of self-adhesive return labels preprinted with your name and the American flag (or birds or little heart-wrenching pastel drawings made by sick children) and yet you feel bad using them without sending in a little donation. So pretty much what you do is put them aside, in a junk drawer or a little crevice on your desk between the computer and the pencil case. There they remain, gathering dust and curling up at the ends, until you move addresses. At this point of course, you feel perfectly justified tossing them.

Or, you could always just make a donation.

These days, apparently mere address labels are not enough to pry open the checkbooks of cash-strapped liberals. I receive free greeting cards from Gay Men's Health Crisis and City Meals-on-Wheels. "Signed" photos of Bill Clinton from the DNC. Membership cards, however useless, from NARAL and the ACLU (although I admit I like being able to call myself an actual card-carrying ACLU member). I received a world map from Unicef, various wallet-size 2006 calendars, some kind of plant guide from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, a prayer flag garland (whatever that is) from the Campaign for Tibet, and a magazine from the Nature Conservancy.

In return for the Nature Conservancy magazine, I not only make a contribution every year at Christmas for my stepfather, I make extra sure that it goes directly into the recycling pile and not the garbage. Seems the right thing to do.

But the ultimate in coercive direct marketing ploys came from the American Diabetes Association, whose most recent crapft was a nickel.

A nickel.

Five cents, glued just inside the plastic address window because, honestly, who in their right mind throws out money?

Not me.

I tore open the envelope, rolled the dulled coin between my thumb and forefinger, then realized I was now in a bit of a quandary. I could pocket it, sure, but is that right? I mean, I'm taking a nickel from people who could be using that money to help folks with diabetes. Shouldn't I send them something in return? A nickel, at least? (Or, more likely, 25 bucks.)

Then I realized, here it is. The actual cash-money value of guilt: Five cents. The amount of money that buys not even a gumball these days. The amount of money you can be short at a deli, and the clerk will say, "eh, don't worry." The amount of money that would fall out of my wallet and roll under a supermarket register and I wouldn't think anything of it. For five cents, I was sitting at my desk writing a check to help cure diabetes.

Wily, I tell ya.

The No-Sleep Sleep Solution

If I've learned one thing in my short tenure as a parent, it's that you cannot plan anything when it comes to your child. It goes back even before the birth, when you ask been there-done that friends whether you really should have a birth plan and they laugh at you. Birth plan? they cackle. The birth plan is you go to the hospital and get that baby out of you by any means possible.

I thought I'd avoid dressing her in pink.

I thought we'd spend hours together listening to classical music.

I thought I'd read to her every single night. Right after the bath I gave her every single night.

I thought we'd have family dinner time, with the TV off.

I thought the TV would be off a lot, in fact.

I thought even if we did watch TV with her, it would never ever be something like Deadwood. ("I don't want her first word to be cocksucker," I told Nate last night. "If her first word is cocksucker, I will laugh so hard," Nate said.)

I thought I'd never feed her something that had fallen on the floor. Under the couch. In the dog hair.

I thought she'd never eat a french fry, at least until she was twelve.

The top-secret unauthorized french fry photos of '06.

Ha.

I also thought the sleeping arrangements would be a bit different. "We're not going to co-sleep," I distinctly remember telling Nate one night as I rested my third trimester cankles on his lap. "It's not good for our relationship."

"Sure," he said. "Makes sense to me."

Well once again I was wrong, but not in the way you'd think. The fact is, we have not co-slept. What we have been doing, rather, for the last 11 months and 7 days is best described as co-not sleeping.

Three hours straight is deemed a victory. Four hours straight is a miracle. But it's better than zero hours straight which is what we were getting when we tried to put her to bed anywhere but in between us.

There's something comforting about feeling her skin next to ours, hearing her gentle breaths, waking up to her grabbing my nose and giggling. But the three feedings a night is starting to get to me. Also, Thalia's nasty new habit of sleeping horizontally which forces us to the edges of of our inadequate queen-size bed while one lucky winner gets kicked in the face all night as a special bonus treat. It was those mornings when my lips still felt raw from a 2 am roundhouse to the mouth that I reminded Nate about the beauuuuuuutiful like-new crib mere inches away from our bedroom door.

But.

There was always a business trip coming up, a visit to grandma's, a something-or-other that made him insist, "this is a bad week. Maybe next week. Yeah, next week."

Maybe next week turned into maybe next month, and maybe next month brought us to where we are today: With a co-not sleeping almost year-old baby who still wakes up every three hours; and her very very exhausted, co-not sleeping working mommy.

I'm not ashamed to say I'm tired. I'm done. It's been fun and thanks for all the memories, but I'm ready to send you into the scary crib of doom which you will eventually learn to love, dammit.

All of which would be fine and dandy except for one major obstacle.

I thought he would be the dad who could plop her in the crib and let her cry. Tough Love Nate, I'd call him. And I thought I would be the mom who'd curl up into a ball on the floor outside her bedroom door, sobbing along with her while Nate pats my back and reminds me how this sleep-training business is all for the best. But I thought wrong. Again.

"One year," he said last night. "I promise. It's a nice round number and next month we'll do it. Really."

"Really?"

"Really."

So now I'm planning on it.

Will I ever learn?

The CompetiMommy

Thalia's squeals and wild arm flailing meant that either she was suddenly very excited about the margarine- shellacked scrambled eggs from the hotel's breakfast buffet, or more likely, her baby radar had kicked in.

Sure enough, a mom about my age had entered the dining room with a little girl who looked about Thalia's age. After the standard I pushed a kid out of my vagina-you pushed a kid out of your vagina, so hi there nod across the tables, I brought Thalia over to say hi.

"What a cute little girl," I said. "How old?"

"11 months," her mother beamed as she tossed back her red curls.

"Oh, mine too! Today, in fact."

"Well actually she's 11 and a half," she corrected. "Her birthday is in two weeks."

small talk small talk I'm from Ohio I'm from New York nice to meet you this is Emily this is Thalia my husband is working today more small talk

"And look at those cheeks!" I commented. The little girl indeed had huge, squeezable pillows of chub on either side of her nose.

"Oh," the mom said a little defensively. "I've been worried about them."

"Really?"

"Oh yes. But the doctor assured me they'll go away."

The doctor assured her? Seriously? She asked her doctor about her kid's cheeks?

"Is she in any playgroups?" the mom asked.

"No," I said shifting Thalia to my other hip while she reached for her new friend's pacifier. "No playgroups yet."

"Well, Emily has one and it's just wonderful. She has five friends. Five! Three girls and two boys. She's very social."

The light bulb went on over my slightly dense new mommy head. I was getting this little girl's resume disguised as chitchat. I had heard of these types of mothers but had never actually encountered one in person. (Probably because I did not have a playgroup.) I was so excited. A real live, CompetiMommy. Right here! Talking to me! If only I had had my camera on me.

The questions continued to fly: Do I take classes with my daughter? Does she know sign language? Does she take swimming? Is she good on the plane? How many words does she have? It was exhausting.

My dreams of lolling aside the pool together with my new pal, ordering daiquiris while our children frolicked unattended by the deep end were dashed to tiny little bits. As amusing as it is to watch a total stranger attempt to impress me with her infant's inventory of friends and words and signs, I just don't have the energy for it. There's too much angst in the world as it is, what with Iraq and Guantanamo and the move of Arrested Development to cable.

But the interesting part of it all is that while this woman was painting a picture of a prodigy who would graduate Harvard at thirteen with a dual major in music composition and quantum physics, the kid was absolutely unremarkable. She wasn't particularly responsive or vocal or physical or...anything, really. The most striking thing about her were those delicious cheeks.

The cheeks her mom hoped would go away.

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The Trip Ends on a Foul Note. Really, Really Foul.

307, 316, 246, 602, 524: The hotel rooms I've occupied over the past month. It got to the point where I was confusing one for the next. A waitress at breakfast would ask me for my room number and I would just start spewing numbers at her like Rain Man. 16! 316! No, 224! Yeah, that's it! No wait...

It was time to be home. Where I am now. Huzzah! Huzzah!

But...

Not without a minor detour.

Thursday, the day we were due to head back to New York from Raleigh-Durham, I was instead routed to Orlando for an impromptu client meeting. Poor Nate had to fly home alone with the now shrieking baby. And the golf clubs. And the stroller carrying case. And the backpack. And the diaper bag. And the 35-pound suitcase. And the 75-pound suitcase. Let's just say that we've now decided to will 50% of our estate upon our deaths to the person who invented curbside check-in.

I wasn't happy about the diversion, but I found the silver lining: 2.5 uninterrupted hours in a nice, air-conditioned, employer-paid business class airplane seat on the way home. After all, I had just come off of three weeks of absolute work madness, followed by one of those "I need a vacation from my vacation" vacations, straight into client meetings, a client dinner, a few hours of sleep, and client meetings again. The nap would do a body good, to say nothing of the cocktails.

The Delta jet still had that new plane smell--I half expected to peek into the cockpit and find one of those little green trees hanging from a control knob. I settled into my lovely bulkhead seat, stretched out my legs, took a few sips of deliciously mediocre white wine and shut my eyes. Bliss.

I had fallen asleep maybe five minutes when suddenly...what's that smell? Oh GOD the smell.

"I don't get paid enough for this," I hear a flight attendant mutter under her breath as she tears past me towards the coach cabin. I glance around and the entire cabinet is wincing at the fetid odor that's hanging in the air like August humidity. Two more flight attendants race up the aisle, one wearing a surgical face mask, the other snapping on a pair of rubber gloves. They each clutch wads of napkins in their hands.

Just then I remember...

The dogs. The therapy dogs in training. Two of them. First row of coach as we boarded the plane.

Oh dear lord, that odor can only be one thing: Canine intestinal distress. Doggie diarrhea. Stinkin', rancid German Shepard shit. On the plane. The plane with dozens of windows, not one of them able to open.

Two-and-a-half hours.

"Well," Nate said. "At least it happened to a writer."

"A writer with a blog," I said.

In Defense of Inlaws (No, that's not a typo)

Where Nate's family stayed. But wait...what's that name again?

Heh. Heh heh heh.

Inlaws get a bad rap. A mere mention of spending my vacation with them—okay, twenty (20) of them—garnered quite the assortment of “poor baby” comments on this very blog.

Well don't be projecting your own inlaw baggage on me! (Said while raising right hand and snapping fingers from side to side like the lame white woman that I am.) While there was indeed a modicum of family politics involving new wives versus ex-wives and some really nasty leftovers that we were "supposed" to eat instead of the freshly grilled hot dogs and hamburgers, overall I would deem the week a huge success. The only person who might disagree is the guy I called Jason all week, when in actuality there was no such person with that name.

When I first met Nate's family in Utah four years ago, he told me they were anxious; they thought they were meeting Carrie Bradshaw. I'm guessing he oversold me just a bit, and so they were expecting some sophisticated, big-city, overeducated glamour girl as opposed to the goofball who chews with her mouth open and does a victory dance around the kitchen table when she rolls a Yahtzee.

He may have undersold them just a bit to me as well: Army brats? Check. Low-paying waitressing careers? Check. Teen pregnancy? Check. It starts to form a certain picture in one's head. Particularly one (me) who was never exposed to people all too different from one's (my) own relatively privileged background.

And yet, they're each bright, conscientious, funny and gracious. I've never felt uncomfortable around Nate's mother and three sisters, even for a minute.

My relationship with Nate's family has evolved in perhaps a different way than most. I think in most cases it all starts with a wedding--one big weekend to cement the joining together of two clans. Instafamily! Just add a big poofy white dress and stir. Having yet to participate in such a ceremony, I've had to rely on a more organic pace at which to get to know my partner's family. We've tried to make the time, if only once a year, to get to know one another. To circle each other, do the proverbial sniffing of the butts and say, yeah, I think this just might turn out to be a good thing we've got going here. As it turns out, we do.

(Well at least I think so. For all I know they’re all lying around on the couch right now discussing that bitch who ate the last King Kone out of the freezer.)

This week however I fell more deeply in love with them as I watched the way they cared for one another's children. There was always an uncle, a cousin, a grandma to wipe popsicle stains off cheeks or rub suntan lotion onto pale little arms. Uncle Chris could administer bubble baths. Grandma could feed them dinner. Aunt Jessie could sing the kids to sleep. There wasn’t a moment’s of hesitation to tell Nate and me, “leave the baby. You two go to the beach.” Or "here, pass her to me. You finish your breakfast." Nate’s siblings each took care of my daughter as if she were their own and not just because she's the cutest, happiest, most delightful baby on the history of this planet or any other. A bystander might not have even known whether Gwen belonged to Lexi or to Emily, or whose son Brodie was. It didn't matter. It only mattered that the children knew that they were safe and loved in any arms that reached for them.

I don't yet have enough distance from the week to be able to fully articulate just how magical the experience were. But I can say with confidence that it was the best of what family can and should be.

Now none of this is any different from how my own family behaves with my daughter. (So hold your horses there, Aunt Fredda! You took excellent care of Thalia back in LA and I'll fight to the death anyone who says differently.) But for some reason, I just didn't expect quite so much devotion from a family not my own. For the first time, I felt less like "Nate's girlfriend" and more like a fourth sister.

This is indeed my family, too.

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On a separate note: I've received a gently scolding email from a lovely friend in the Carolinas regarding my previous posts. I can only assure you I'm an equal opportunity offender. I'll just as soon make fun of the synthetic boobage of LA, the frightening driving habits of my New Jersey neighbors, and the lovely smell of urine boiling on the subway platforms in my own beloved hometown during the summer months. Please take no offense, North Carolinans. I got no beef with your lovely state per se, since...

Wait...

Did someone say beef?

Behold, the smallest burger $2.79 can buy.
Courtesy Granny's Real Country Cooking, Kure Beach, North Carolina.

North Carolina Travel Tip #458772

If you ask for butter, you will get margarine.

If you then ask as sweetly as possible whether the waitress might be a doll and get you some butter instead of this margarine, she will look right at the packet of butter, the one which reads butter-tasting spread made from 60% vegetable oil, and tell you that that is indeed butter, hon. She'll then probably wander into the kitchen and laugh at the stupid snotty Yankee tourist who doesn't know what the hell butter is even when she's staring at a whole dish full of it not six inches from her nose.

Coming up in Future Installments of North Carolina Travel Tips: If a burger costs only $2.79 in a restaurant, there's generally a reason; and that reason is not "wow, things are so much cheaper down here!"

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Milestones

One week ago, Thalia was a baby. A little creature whose only purpose in life was to make people smile, make them laugh, maybe wave on cue.

In one week, things have changed. And changed drastically.

The turning point was dinner last week at a trendy Santa Monica establishment called Sushi Roku, which is Japanese for place where many surgically enhanced blondes eat overpriced spicy tuna rolls. Our little we-can-take-her-anywhere daughter, our what-a-good-flyer-she-is-you -hardly-notice-her-on-the-plane girl, our I-know-you-wish-yours-was-as-perfect-but-can't-win-'em-all offspring learned to shriek.

Shriek.

Hello, attractive table of LA actors with very white teeth, do you like the sound of my daughter's shriek during your seared ahi appetizer? Because if you missed it, she'd be delighted to repeat it, only exponentially louder.

Ah, there it is. Enjoy your sake. Try the enoki tempura, it's fabulous.

One week ago, Thalia was a girl to be looked at. Now she's a girl to be watched. She goes into drawers and takes whatever was in the drawer out of the drawer. She takes whatever was in the diaper bag out of the diaper bag. She takes whatever was in the trashcan out of the trashcan. And then bangs on the trashcan. And then, when we're not looking, probably puts the entire thing into her mouth.

And while one would generally be thrilled to walk into a hotel room with a real live Jacuzzi tub up three tiled steps right next to the bed, a couple with an 11 month-old who's just learned to climb steps is only slightly less thrilled.

Thank you, twenty (20) in-laws. Thank you for being here this week and helping me tame the toddler that has inhabited the shell of my infant daughter.

Or wait, maybe it's just temporary? Tell me it's just temporary. Judging from the number of churches down in North Carolina, I'm sure I could find an exorcist.

Fun Facts about North Carolina!

1) North Carolina geography includes the Appalachian Mountains, which is home to Appalachian State University, which has made the single best recruitment video ever in the history of higher education.

2) North Carolina is home to minor league baseball team, the Ashville Tourists. How awesome is it that the visiting fans get to scream "bunch of fucking tourists" at the home team?

3) North Carolina towns includes Frying Pan Landing, Sandy Mush, Lizard Lick, Whynot, and Climax.

4)The state blue berry is the blueberry. There was stiff competition in the category.

5)Famous North Carolinians include Soupy Sales, Clay Aiken and Gallagher. Famous racist North Carolinians include Jesse Helms.

6)Since every state should honor its own man-eating vegetation, the official carnivorous plant of North Carolins is the Venus Flytrap.

7) There is an exit off rte 40 E called Jones Sausage Road. I know because I passed it this morning.

8)North Carolina is where I'll be spending the next week, on a gorgeous beach, recovering from the past three weeks of work-induced madness in L.A. I will be with Nate, with Thalia, and with twenty (20) members of Nate's family. These family members include his dad who I will meet for the first time, and who refers to Thalia as Althea.

Yes, we are staying in a separate hotel.

Yes, any interesting details will follow.

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edited to add: In the spirit of full disclosure, I had originally referred to Senator Helms as both dead and racist when, indeed, he is only racist. In my vacation-compromised head I had created one crazy amalgam of Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond who are more or less the same person anyway. Mea culpa.

Post Perfect

It's the first of June.

This means 1) My bills are overdue 2) Holy shit, it's June! 3) It's time for May's Perfect Post awards.

In previous months I've wanted to recognize lesser-read writers. But this time, to ignore a bigger shot and one of her most impressive of all her very impressive posts would be like ignoring the pink elephant in the room. (Not that she's an elephant--elephants don't have blogs. They much prefer traditional diaries. Also, their sons aren't nearly as handsome sporting a hat.)

Rebecca? Girl? Girl's Gone Child? You amaze me with stunning regularity. It's hard to choose from your buffet of literary deliciousness that you serve up with consistent wit and craftsmanship. But if your essay, "This is Not My Home" isn't a perfect post then I don't know what is.

If you're not a regular reader of hers, you need to be. If you are, go read this one again.

I don't want to give anything away, but I swear on my [looks around hotel room for something clever to swear on...nope, nothing comes to mind] it's worth your while.

----

Separately Cristina (a pretty perfect poster in her own right) has gone and made me all blushy and happy by awarding one of my own posts. Thank you! Republicans with no sense of humor might want to skip this one. That means you, Condi. Yeah, you. I know you lurk here late at night.

And then, just as I'm about to publish this post, the absurdly popular and artistically incomparable Karen Rani goes and emails me that she also liked something I wrote here this month. So now I've gone from humbled to a little embarrassed, actually.

Thank you, both of you. It's been the kind of week where a couple of virtual pats on the back done me good. Really good.