Whoozyerbaby should be very grateful that she is not at all processed and ready to devour.

From her round cheeks to her eyes as deep and blue as the North Shore she is a delicacy intended for only one of my internal organs. It is my heart that wants to envelope her and I couldn't stomach life without her. Ever.

Because there are endless other reasons why I would want to eat every last chunk of her plump, pink perfection:

As her birth approached the message was sent from my brain cells to my blood cells and through the placenta "Put the brakes on it, kid. You are not ready. To join. The world. I am not ready to share you with the world." She came almost 2 weeks early in blatant disregard of Mama's missive; didn't heed my message, "Oh shit, Mom, sorry, I didn't get that email. are you sure you sent it? I looked everywhere..." She's not one to stop. Once she joined us it was game over. She was no longer the hidden vintage in my dark, damp cellar. No time for snuggling. Whoozyerbaby is Action Baby. But that doesn't mean there's no warmth to her. She is light transmuted to human form. This face has L-O-V-E written ALL OVER IT.

Agony of her feet...

It's official, I can no longer claim with any measure of confidence that Whoozyerkid is still a mere baby. Her feet smell like ass. They really, really do.

I'll make a wager that Mario Batali doesn't use one of these in HIS kitchen...

This is seriously the most useful thingamajiggy you'll bring home from the hospital next to the nasal aspirator a.k.a. baby snot-sucker-outter. It's a perineal rinse bottle. Snag a couple the next time you, say, push a person with a head the size of your mother-in-law's regulation-sized swirly purple BOWLING BALL out of your hoo-haw. It has many uses, this magical squirt bottle. Clean it REALLY, REALLY well, fill it with raspberry sauce and make pretty little whirls on a dessert plate to impress your dinner party guests. Or, drizzle a dressing zig-zag on tender romaine hearts. You are Tom Keller. No, you are GREATER than Chef Keller because you have the squirt bottle to end all squirt bottles and he does not have ovaries or a uterus like you, you saucy little saucier.

Picky Eater or Grandma's Revenge pas deux

This should come as no surprise; Whoozyerkid looooovvveeesss Mac and Cheese. But not just ANY Mac 'N' Cheese will do. Oh no...
Will I feed my kid Kraft in a box? You know the answer to that question. I know you do. Hell, no! So...this particular exclusion is self-imposed.
Let's try another brand---in every single form known to connoisseurs of boxed mac 'n' crack--including hippy peace sign and floppy-eared semolina shapes; Annie's Naturals boxed noodles with every conceivable color of cheese and pasta type. Will the taste buds of Whoozyerkid succumb to the relatively inexpensive and all-natural elbows and cheese nestled in recyclable cardboard? No. In fact this brand earns the prestigious award of 5 Whoozyerdaddy garbage disposals. For a product to earn this award Whoozyerkid must refuse to even try the candidate and daddy must perform pasta digestion detail.
Next up; the dreadful Kid Cuisine. It looks better than Kraft and Whoozyerkid begged and she caught me on a quasi mainstream kind of day. So I caved. Thank God she won't eat that crap. 2 Whoozyerdaddy garbage disposals. Whoozyerkid will eat 3 bites to earn the chocolate portion of the faux meal. I need to feed this to Whoozyerbabysitter so it doesn't go to waste.
Not even worth a mention are homemade versions of mac and cheese, and any mac and cheese in a restaurant other than Red Robin, which I can't stand but we'll go to say--if we're shopping and Whoozyermommy needs a margarita.
But, my friends, the 5 goldenforks award goes to Trader Joe's Mac and Cheese---at almost $4 a pop. The deep freezer is stocked...and I'm not happy about it. I will keep slogging away in my quest to find a good, earth-friendly value and to please my discerning little baby bird. One day I'll duplicate this masterpiece of a mac 'n' cheese. I'll hide a TJ's box and leave it on the counter and I'll serve the home-made stuff. If any mom can do it, I can. Whoozyerkid will be none-the-wiser.
Many of you are thinking---"just serve her what you eat" or "she's going about it all wrong" but Whoozyerkid regularly eschews arugula, risotto, chicken and sun dried tomatoes and she's a skinny little sprite. I myself had food issues as a child and I did not eat anything green until I hit my 23rd birthday out of spite towards a vegetarian ex-boyfriend.

And also, I remember uncles on each side of my family who had a thing for making me eat beans (what is it with uncles and beans?) and oh, it was miserable. I'm not about to force a child to eat something she doesn't like and I'm not about to starve my child; she's supposed to be learning at such a tender age and a girl can't think straight when she's hungry. And yes, I'm sometimes a pushover. We're working on table manners and not food struggles. Our list of excuses is a million miles long as to why I'm a short order cook.
I dread having two picky palates to feed. I know I created a monster and I have to change my current approach. Which is why Whoozyerbaby is going boobmilk all the way until I figure out how the HELL not to raise two picky eaters. And I wonder, it's not too late for Whoozyerkid, is it? Is one doomed to being a picky eater always?

Whoozyerbrood before Whoozyerkid's latest refusal of non-Trader Joe's Mac 'n' Cheese and Whoozyerdeprivedbaby's subsequent liquid diet.

Crap!

Whoozyerkid has a fever (I suppose, from the trip to Walmart) and I forgot my sister's birthday.

My Confession...

I went to Walmart today.

BUT---

it was to buy spray bottles---heavy duty ones made in the good ol' USA.

Why? You ask. I am going to MAKE my own cleaning products. And the author of this book
Clean House, Clean Planet

recommends a very specific spraybottle made by handicapped people from plastic (Walmart) bags and suggested that it can be purchased at Walmart. I call it a ringing endorsement. Plus---Target is 2 miles farther and I am trying to save fossil fuels. Don't get me wrong. I HATE going to Walmart, but it is close and time is valuable and sometimes a girl has to go to Walmart.

So in the cart went--

1 box of borax

2 shakers of Kraft Parmesan cheese --because apparently these containers are superb for shaking homemade powdery substances. Does anyone want some Kraft? Comment and I'll save it for you. It will never go bad. Not ever.

3 Sprayco spray bottles

4 boxes of Whoppers (they were on sale).

Assorted hair clippies to announce to the world that yes, Whoozyerkid IS A GIRL despite her rescue-from-a-mullet short hair.

9 microfiber towels for kitchen spills/cleanups. No more paper towels, Whoozyerfamily, are you ready?

Get ready... The unpaper towels are on their way. They're ordered. There's no turning back Your buttery toast will no longer ooze onto paper but terry-backed flannel.

And...apparently you can make cleaning products out of borax, baking soda, lemon juice, olive oil, vinegar and essential oil. I'm going to give it a whirl. I mean, what did we do before we humans decided we needed all of this CRAP? Our lives are eaten at by our quest to spend money. A trip to the store takes more time, effort and money than to mix vinegar, water and essential oil into a spray bottle. A piece of cloth is softer and more absorbent than a paper towel. Arts are lost--instead of playing the piano, knitting or whittling wooden figuruines we go to Walmart.

We have forgotten so many valuable skills. And hey--if Julia Childs learned how to cook at forty-something imagine what I could learn at thirty-something?

Co-Sleeper Stupidity

Can I just say that only 1 in 5 people are capable of folding this stupid-assed thing (which by the way, babies DO NOT SLEEP IN!!!!) into its case?

Whoozyermama: 0
Whoozyerdaddy: 0
Whoozyerfriend who borrowed it: 0
Whoozyerfriend's husband: 0
Whoozyerbabysitter: 1

And no, you can not have Whoozyerbabysitter's phone #...

The Lithuanians

If you know me more than just a little you would know that I rarely talk to my biological father. Those who are close to me know him as "BFD". Figure out what "F" stands for. Despite this alienation it doesn't mean that I'm not at all curious about half of the blood coursing through my veins and a fourth of my daughters'. It's just that my emotions are somehow like a hanging cauldron in the 19th century---I have the hope of hosting this rich rabbit and root vegetable stew but instead my water within gets a little lye and some stinky ploughman's clothing and a sweaty hausfrau stirring and stirring...dirty socks. That is my relationship with the WhoTheHellAreYou family. Dirty, sweaty socks that I just can't seem to throw away even though I should. I have a really really good, sweet Dad who loves me and who is there for me--who coached me through Whoozyerkid's birth, dealt with my wicked stepkid antics, gave me away at my wedding and ate my green soup on St. Patrick's day... He is Dad. He always will be. BFD, he offers the words "I Love You" and they are so easily given and yet they ring false. Dad, he is so sparing with those--or any--words. But when he says them he means them. There is no mistaking that. It's funny. I was afraid to love him for fear of being disloyal to BFD. Now--if I were to throw any love to BFD I would feel I was being disloyal to Dad. Funny how that works...

Here's what I know about this part of me, the blood part; the part of me that I have tried to disassociate myself with:
My grandmother walked out on her seven children. No one really speaks to anyone else. It's as if my father and most of his siblings have some sort of attachment disorder. My father and at least one of his brothers are Vietnam vets who repeatedly relive this part of their pasts. BFD is bipolar. When I do speak with him he has a hard time with give and take. There is no cohesive family amongst these siblings. They all seem to drift in and out of one an other's lives. My uncle murdered my aunt, his wife. He's a cold-blooded killer and he's still in a state prison to this day. Honestly. It goes on and on and some of it is so private I'm just leaving it alone.

Anyhow, there was a little hope today. I am not the only WhoTheHellAreYou in the Bay Area. There's another one in San Francisco. She and I connected on Facebook and her father is another one of my uncles who she said was on the threshold of tears when she told him that we exchanged emails. So we'll see. I have hope that at least one member of that family (other than me--and some of you would even question that) is connected to reality. We should be. According to BFD we were bodyguards to the Czar, our Lithuanian surname means "bodyguard". And we have intelligence and longevity on our side. Too bad we're all crazier than a field of running march hares in springtime.

On a side note, I called BFD tonight to ask if it was OK to give his phone number to his brother and he was drunker than a bee buzzing in a beer bottle. Sheesh.

If only it were that easy

Apparently you can acquire superpowers by following this routine:

1. Place sticker that says "Great Job!" upside-down on forehead.
2. Do not remove or forfeit said superpowers.
3. Do not remove necklace. It was a gift from the very generous heart of internationally-reknowned superfriend Chebbles. Note: wearing this multicolored adornment bandolier-style a la "Annie Get Your Gun" makes you a real bad-ass.

Up next: What daring feats does Whoozyersuperkid perform? Whoozyersuperbaby dares Whoozyersuperkid to a death-defying body fold during which an ENTIRE FOOT will be placed in her mouth. Stay tuned while evilgenius Whoozyermama cowers under a dining room chair and considers the germ-killing properties of all-natural, non-toxic mouthwash for kids. Will Whoozyersuperkid swish and spit or will she swallow?

Mom Shoes.

Stillettos and kitten heels are for idiots. For the most part high heel lovers are idiots who like pretty, pretty, shiny, shiny. Or--as a high heel fan you have a high pain threshold and you're really short. Or, you're passive/agressive and married to Tom Cruise who is very, very short.

High heels at one time made a woman stand out by adding a few inches to her stature. Now, I think short is the new tall. Everybody---repeat after me---short is the new tall. It's hot. It's in limited supply. Think about it. Ruminate on the fact that there's no accessory that will make you shorter. Short people have something that no tall person can achieve; a view from the ground. A lot goes on down here. Not that I'm short. But I'm not tall. As a mom I spend a lot of time on the ground. I know what goes on there. It can be fascinating.

OK, OK. I like how heels look on me. But having children ruined me for heels. Ruined. Me. My arches are as flat (and as stinky) as a slice of cheese.

These are my favorite shoes:



Let me tell you that I panicked and searched high and low when those shoes went AWOL and---after weeks of looking and having almost resolved myself to purchasing another pair found that I had left them at my folks'. Two hours away.

Need I say more? Go ahead. Tell me... pull from that place in your heart for shoes--you know, that spot that in some way is connected to a nerve ending in your foot per the ancient art of relexology. And yes--the girl whose feet hurt after a jaunt anywhere---just anywhere for any length of time in heels. Find that girl inside of you and tell me; what shoes would she wear every day if she could get away with it and still be a maven of style?