It's just an outfit, for one day!

I can't really be the only mom out there who doesn't much care what her kid wears to school, can I?  I mean, I see facebook updates like, "I'm apparently the meanest mom in the word for not letting my 14yo wear snow boots to school," or "Green pants and an orange shirt with a necktie? I made my kid change this morning and now she hates me."  My question, which I never have the balls to actually ask, is "What does it matter?"  The kid isn't naked, weather inappropriate (no tank top in January), provocative, or gang-related.  So why is it worth a fight, or even a nag?  Kids have so very little control over anything; why not let them at least control their own clothes?  Ryan left the house today, in 18` weather, in a cotton halter dress over black skinny jeans (to make the dress warmer), a cardigan, and black tennis shoes. And of course her winter coat for the walk to school.  If she's too cold today, she'll learn not to wear a summer dress in sub-freezing weather.  If the kids laugh at her she'll either stop wearing dresses over jeans or she'll learn not to care what other people think of her style choices.  But either way, I don't believe that she'll look back on this as the day her mother failed her.  But if I tried to control what she wore all the time I think she would remember that, and rebel in other ways to compensate.  And that could be bad.

but she's my Mommy, and some part of me thinks she may ground me

I guess most people grow up knowing that some day their parents will, gods willing, be old and they'll have to take care of them.  We expect to outlive our folks and we expect that at some point the balance of power will shift and they'll be the kids and we'll become the parents.  But try pulling rank on a woman who isn't shitting herself, who does remember you, and every stupid thing you've ever done to call your judgment into question.  Try putting on your stern face and saying "No!" to someone who will always, because experience dictates it, hear your voice say that word in a whiny teenage tone.  Mom's being pretty good about listening to me enforce the doctor's orders, but I am well aware that I possess no more rank than she permits me to have. If she really wanted to take a shower, stitches and all, I'm not sure anything short of body slamming her in the hallway could convince her otherwise.  And this is all (so far) temporary, so if we're all lucky things will go back to normal soon and I'll be her kid and she'll be a parent of an adult with no real authority but still the ability to make me feel guilty with a stern look, and I won't have to worry about it.  But it also means I can't burn any bridges right now.  I can't just say "You're a sick old lady and I'm the one without a big gash up the back of my head so listen to me or be put in a home!" or whatever else you say to parents when they get all sassy.  At least she's lucid.  I can't even imagine how hard this would be if she didn't understand why I was pulling rank, or if she tried to fight me physically.  If she gets Alzheimer's, I'm shipping her up to my brother in Chicago.  We don't get along well anyway, so I won't worry about burning that bridge.  :D

Labor day is coming up, you know.

If I believes in an immortal soul, I would sell mine for a 3 day weekend alone in a hotel with good lighting and room service.  I would stitch my quilt, crochet the baby blanket I'm making for my brother and his pregnant wife, and let other people cook for and serve me whatever I feel like eating.  I would sleep in, poop with the door open, and never have to utter the words, "Why is the baby crying?" or, "Thomas, stop it!"  It is my dream.

That had to taste terrible

Tommy had to take a benadryl.  I had long ago given up on getting him to swallow the liquid stuff.  He had somehow turned his throat into a shooting mechanism and could cough it right back at me as I forced it past his uvula.  So I bought some solid adult-dosage pills, broke them in half to get the right dosage for his age, and was going to hide one in his ice cream.  I was so clever.
He would eat any bite of the ice cream except the one I put the benadryl in!  "Don't you want this bite?"  I would ask.
"No, you eat it." 
"It's melting.  Better gobble it up right now."
I fed it to him and watched it slide right back out onto the spoon, painfully close to melting and exposing the hidden pill.
"Pleeeeease eat this bite of ice cream.  It's the bestest bite!"
"You eat it, Mommy."

Finally, after a while more of this, he just spit the damn glob of cookies and cream onto the floor and I threw it away.  Desperate, I tried the impossible.  I showed him the other half of the benadryl and asked him, "Will you please eat this?"

He popped it in his mouth and chewed it up, then gave me a look as if to say, "I only ask that you be honest with me.  Is that too much to ask?"  He chewed a pill. Who does that?!

So now he knows why.

There are days when after dealing with a toddler, an almost-toddler, and a sullen teenager, I need a beer.  I feel that this is okay. I put the baby down, I know I have hours until he'll want milk again, so I have a beer. Tom looks at me sideways but he doesn't say anything. And yet I know he disapproves (not because of the nursing but because he disapproves of drinking in general).
Yesterday I left at 2:00 pm and got home at 9:30 pm.  He got the boys up from their naps, made dinner, fed them dinner, cleaned up after, and then dealt with the pre-bedtime and bedtime routines. When I got home, he had a beer.
Life is funny.

Pets, including Frog Babies

I never really thought of myself as an animal kind of person. I've never dreamed of living on a farm, I fear all dogs larger than a beagle and anything large enough to ride on.  But every time we get some new type of pet and I hear my mother sigh when she hears about it, the more I realize that while I may not be an animal kind of person, I am an animal kind of mom.
Growing up, I had pets. Or rather, we had family pets. A dog and a cat, and later a dog and two cats. But no fish, no birds or hamsters or guinea pigs or snakes or turtles or anything like that. Every once in a while we'd have a caterpillar in a mayo jar, or some ill-fated lightning bugs, but no one had any pet that Mom wasn't willing to snuggle with.
Ryan has a bird. She bought it sometime around the first of the year, with her own money, and it lives in her bedroom.  I told her from the beginning that it was her bird: hers to feed, hers to clean up after, and hers to bury if it comes to it. Surprisingly, Fibonacci is still alive.  So we did some asking around and found a great used cage, much larger than the one she had, for free and for her thirteenth birthday we got Ryan a second bird. And so far Fibonacci and Wycliffe are the best of friends in a giant cage in the corner of Ryan's bedroom.
We have a turtle named Spike. He lives in our hallway and eats veggies and bait. He lives next to the albino catfish who has managed to outlive and/or kill all our other fish. We also have a cat named Cat, a dog named Cheyenne, and 5 of what Tommy calls frog babies in a tub on my kitchen counter (to keep Cat from getting them). I named one of the tadpoles Blondie, because it is slightly lighter than its brethren, and I can't wait to see what kind of frog or toad they all turn out to be.
I understand why my mom didn't want a house full of animals to take care of. But dropping fish food into an aquarium or tadpole tub doesn't take a lot of time.  Neither does setting a cup of nightcrawlers in a turtle tank or giving him some lettuce.  As for birds, I guess the joke is on her.  Her boss loves birds and part of my mom's job description now is to take care of the parakeets, macaws, African grey, cockatoo, and other assorted pet birds in the office. In fact, her boss is the one who gave us the giant cage. It wasn't giant enough for the bird it came with.

Pet owners I want to slap

Dogs aren't people. Your dogs aren't your children. It's both obnoxious of you to claim that they are, and insulting to actual parents. The question "Do you have any kids?" should never be met with "Yes, five. Two poodles and three schnauzers."  You can love your dogs as much as you want.  You can set them places at the table and buy them clothes and dedicate a whole room of your house to them, but it doesn't make them children.  If I absolutely had to leave town for a week and leave my children behind, they would be with a baby sitter, not a kennel.  And when I go to a doctor's appointment or to the grocery store, they come along. They do not get left at home with a bowl of food on the floor.  My children use either diapers or the toilet, not training pads on the floor or my yard.  My children go to a pediatrician, not a vet. My children do not lick their own (or anyone else's) genitals.

Human children are a whole different level of love and devotion than pets.  Even crazy cat ladies who would stay in a burning house for their pets feel an even crazier devotion to their children. Or they don't, but that's what makes them crazy.  And you'd be surprised how "parents" to dogs change their tune when they become actual parents to actual children. So please stop calling your pets your kids.  It's stupid and obnoxious and weird.

They still can die, and they still probably wouldn't

Every single time you take your child in a car, they are traveling at high speeds on hard pavement in metal and plastic canisters of flammable liquids. That is a fact. It is also a fact that if you thought about the thousands of ways a child could die in an auto accident every time you got in the car, you'd never leave the house and probably have the kid taken by the state due to your emotional and mental issues over it. When people say "I could be hit by a bus tomorrow" they really mean "I know logically that I am mortal", not that they fully accept the gravity of the truth that they could be hit by a bus tomorrow, but they could. Why do I say this? Because people need to stop believing, and I mean this literally, that rules will make them immortal.

I know parents who are just anal about the rules. Never put a baby in a car seat in a coat, stay rear-facing as long as possible (ever known a mother to fold her kid's legs together to keep the car seat rear-facing longer? I have), never allow a baby to sleep on their tummy (I've heard of moms who rolled babies over who flipped on their own during the night), never let a baby have a blanket in the crib (why do sleep sacks come in toddler sizes?), never give a baby under x months old anything over stage 2 baby food. And what does all this boil down to? A belief that if they follow all the rules and never deviate, nothing can happen to their babies. And if something bad happens to someone else's baby, that person must have done something wrong. The car seat straps weren't tight enough, or there wasn't a fan in the baby's bedroom, or they are a cheerio before they were old enough. Every baby death must be avoidable because if not, then how can I be absolutely sure to avoid my baby's death?

You can't. You can minimize risk but never avoid it altogether. Last fall a kid at a school here in town was struck by lightning. The fiery hand of fucking God hit this kid in the parking lot of the elementary school. This is the textbook definition of random! And I heard parents rant about how the school had no lightning rod, and the kid had a skateboard, and my favorite: school should not have let out if there was a storm. Because what I want is for the school to hold the kids hostage until the rain stops, which often takes hours. But this accident must have been preventable and avoidable, or else we have no power. And if we have no power, then we are powerless, adrift on an ocean with our kids, unable to control the waves or the tides or the currents. And that just scares the fuck out of everyone. And rather than live with that reality, they hide behind their rules. And we all do it, to an extent. We all try to minimize risks (as we should), and we all somehow convince ourselves that a car cannot drive through the wall of our house and run over our children while they sleep, that organic food can never make us sick, and sometimes even that if we make our kids dress conservatively, they cannot be raped. But it leads to some harsh behavior too. Parents treating other parents like monsters and murderers for fastening the car seat straps over the coat rather than inside it (read that link, it's really good), or for giving a baby a blanket, or letting a toddler have m&ms (choking hazard, you know). But the fact is that we are all blood bags waiting to be popped, and nobody is running around with needles, poking their kids.

For the record, my 12 year old gets to ride in the front seat, my sons wear coats in the car seats, my babies have blankets, Danny gums table food, I absolutely love the BundleMe in the winter (and it's a death trap the likes of which will surely kill my child, another good link), and I consider myself to be a pretty good mom. But then, I also let my daughter ride her bike to the store by herself, so I'm obviously the most passive-aggressive murderer ever.

Childhood freedom

The crime rate overall in the US is lower today than it was when I was a kid. [source] In all honestly, it was more dangerous for us to play outside and ride our bikes in the 80s than it is for our kids to do the same now. And yet, I hear from a lot of parents that they just cannot conceive of letting their kids do the same things they did, the same things they remember fondly as integral parts of their childhood. Sure I have friends who are helicopter parents, overprotective and proud of it. But I have friends who are fairly reasonable people, who still worry that letting their children go on unscripted bike rides will somehow give permission to wandering herds of pedophiles (they travel in herds, right?) to snatch their children.

I remember when my daughter was ten and was supposed to meet me at a friend's house. I showed up alone and then told the woman that Ryan would be there shortly; she was riding her bike over from a sleepover at her friend's. This woman, whose own daughter was nine at the time, asked me when I had started letting Ryan ride her bike by herself, like just off down the street alone. I can't remember now what I answered, but I do remember that this lady, an oddly optimistic woman usually, was just shocked because she didn't let her kids ride their bikes by themselves. They went on family bike rides together, but no one could just go to their friend's house or to the park or even just ride around aimlessly. And this woman even said that when she was a kid she rode her bike all over town, from morning until dusk.

It's hard for me to let my kids go. At just about every stage of my kids' development, some part of me rebels. I cried the first time Ryan went to preschool. And even last year when she started junior high. But I had to leave her at preschool, and let her go to junior high. And I made the conscious decision, at several points, to think back to my own childhood in this same small town, and set reasonable boundaries for her. She could ride her bike anywhere south of the tracks and north of the high school. A couple years later she could cross the tracks but not the highway. Now, at almost 13, she can ride her bike (or new electric scooter from Santa) all over town.

In case you're thinking I am just ridiculously permissive, keep in mind that my daughter has her cell phone on her at all times. Twenty years ago I had no cell phone, no way for my mother to find me if I was out of earshot. She told me to be home at 6:00 and I came home at 6:00, but she never knew where I was until then. And that was fine. It was great! I went on long bike rides, wandered through parks, found toads in the back of the cemetery, sat and read at the library, lots of fun stuff. And I want my kids to come up with their own fun memories of bike rides and toad hunting and neighborhood exploring. I want to raise free range kids.

Mommy Badges

I was inspired recently by another mommy to think of some "Mommy badges". Mommy badges are like Girl Scout badges. They commemorate milestones that every (or most) mommies go through. A good baby shower game would be for all of the guest mommies to make badges for the guest of honor, to let her know what she can look forward to. Here are some badges I've earned, and I encourage you to leave yours in the comment section.

1. the "Is there a baby in your tummy?" "No, I'm just fat" badge
2. the walked in on during sex badge
3. the loud in public "Who farted?!" badge
4. the puked on at the grocery store badge
5. the Oh my god what are you eating badge (could be a crumb from the floor, could be a cricket, you don't know)
6. the "I'm going to enjoy this moment of peace because when I go see what he's up to I'll blow my top" badge
7. the trip to the doctor because some non-food item has been swallowed badge (pennies, rocks, whatever)
8. the swearing toddler in public badge
9. the "Why aren't Barbie's boobs long like yours?" badge
10. the "I hate you" badge (every mother's version of an Eagle Scout badge)
    

In response to a comment

I recently got a comment on one of my breast feeding posts that made me think. It was from a friend of mine, with whom I would like to stay friends, and it basically said that both she and her husband were formula fed and they're all right, and their daughter was formula fed and she's fine. (For the record, I don't doubt that any of them are fine.) And it said that breast feeding's not for everyone and that formula was good enough for her daughter. My first instinct was to reply with "Oh I totally get what you're saying and you're right," because that's how polite I am. But the fact is that I don't get it. And to stop short of saying she's not right, I don't happen to agree with all of her statements either.
Formula isn't, at its core, toxic. It can be, if the water it's mixed with is bad or if there's some problem in the manufacturing process, and those possibilities are part of my objections to it, but it is not toxic. A baby fed infant formula will turn out just fine. But, they will still not get everything that a baby fed breast milk gets. And I just cannot fathom how that is good enough for a baby. I understand if a parent doesn't realize the discrepancies, but not if they don't care. My mother was fed, exclusively, sweetened condensed milk. The kind that comes out of a can that you make fudge with. That's what she got in her bottles until she was old enough to be weaned onto whole milk, which was at about 9 months. It was the 40s and she was adopted, so that was what she got. And she grew. She lived and gained weight and met all of her milestones. So will a baby fed whole milk out of a gallon jug. But we don't feed whole milk, or even sweetened condensed milk, to babies because it is lacking in so much. What was good enough for my mother was NOT good enough for me, or for my kids. And I'm not sure, but I think it might actually be illegal to give a baby sweetened condensed milk.

Not everyone can breast feed. I freely admit that. But, while I know that it's a relatively common opinion, I cannot understand sexualizing my breasts to the point where I'd deprive my baby of their milk. There are a LOT of things that were good enough for me that aren't good enough for my kids, some because we know better now than they did back then. Smoking, going without a seat belt, carcinogenic sun burns, and baby formula. It's a parent's choice to make, but I just can't see making that choice. I don't propose that the choice be taken away from anyone; I just can't see going in that direction. And while my instinct will always be to apologize for offending and back down, my opinion won't change.

I just need to get it off my chest

I'm a mutterer. When I used to work at a factory, bosses would shovel shit at me all day, and I'd take it. Yes sir, no sir, whatever you say sir. But I'd mutter into the machine about it later. I am real good at talking back to people who aren't there. And I am currently on a message board where everyone is so supportive of each other and we all get along, and it's great. But it means a lot of muttering, on my part, to keep up the niceties. So I'm going to do my muttering here, now, because I simply can't keep it in any more.

Safety is great. Safety for children is the most important factor I take into consideration every day. But, like everything else, it has to be mitigated against real world considerations. Some parents "err on the side of caution" to the point that they become paranoid and over protective. Being a parent is scary stuff, especially when you consider just how many ways there are for a terrible thing to happen to a kid, and how many terrible things there are. And for those parents, following "rules" to the letter often helps them feel as if they can prevent terrible things. But at what cost? I've known parents who went months without sleep because no matter how many people told them to swaddle the baby, the books said never to put anything in the crib, and swaddling involved a potentially deadly blanket.

Parents wait months and months to let a baby have a single lump in his baby food, or a blanket in his crib, or any toy small enough to fit through a toilet paper roll. (Newsflash: a garden hose will fit through a toilet paper roll, and a garden hose is not a choking hazard.) Parents who wash toys in bleach on a weekly basis, or who refuse to let a child sit in a shopping cart without a preposterous looking flouncy cover, or who won't let a toddler use a public bathroom without bringing a toilet seat from home. I am not kidding; people carry toilet seats with them.

My point is that some people have to follow every rule ever laid out by anyone, out of a mistaken belief that as long as they do everything right all the time, no harm can ever come to their children. And frankly, it annoys me a little. Because then when I don't follow a rule I am recklessly putting my child in danger and therefor I am a bad mother. Here are examples, muttering as I am, that drive me nuts.

Did you know that everyone under 4'9" needs to be in a booster seat whenever they are in a vehicle? Sounds logical, right? Well, this is everyone under 4'9" regardless of age. Also, regardless of why they are under 4'9". So every adult with dwarfism should be, for their own safety, driving from atop a booster seat. But here's the thing: dwarfs often have average sized torsos - you know, the part of the body that the booster seat actually elevates - and are only short because of short limbs. But they are under 4'9" so they must be in a booster seat, preferably in the back seat away from air bags! There is no room for interpretation. I can only assume that means that a formerly 6'5" double amputee would need a booster seat as well, since people tend to lose height without their legs. Welcome home, Soldier, and thank you for your service and sacrifice. Here is your Evenflo Big Kid Booster Seat!

Car seat safety is of the utmost importance. That is why, no matter the temperature, car seat straps are never to be fastened over a coat. It seems that a coat, any coat, that comes between the straps and the baby will compress in an accident and leave space for the baby to fly out. I have no doubt that this is true. But when it is 20 below I am less inclined to fear a head on collision and more inclined to fear hypothermia or frost bite brought on by me standing there taking the baby's coat off with the car door open. Although I have been told that it is okay to merely unzip the coat and fasten the straps against the child's chest that way. Except that I have recently learned that car seat covers and BundleMes are unsafe because they come between the back of the car seat and the baby. So how on Earth is the back of the coat safe to be behind the baby? And if a thin cotton cover is unsafe, then a onesie must be a death trap. And diapers! Diapers fit between the crotch strap and the baby. In fact, a diaper keeps the baby an unsafe distance from the center of the entire 5 point harness system. So it stands to reason that the only safe baby is a naked baby. In 20 below zero temperatures, in Snowpocalypse.

I'm sorry for all that ranting. It just bothers me when the same people who circumcise (over a hundred dead baby boys a year in the US alone just from complications of circumcision) and formula feed (how many babies die from diseases that breast feeding might have prevented or from tainted formula [or water]?) throw fits about car seat covers and buttoned up coats.

And the dwarfs! We must think of the dwarfs! The aren't tall enough to be allowed to touch upholstery!

I just need five minutes!

The lack of sleep I expected. The inability to keep any portion of my house clean for more than thirty minutes wasn't a surprise. The elevated noise level, the refusal to eat anything but fruit snacks and popcorn, the need to buy 5 gallons of milk a week. All of these are relatively easy to tolerate. But I do so look forward to the day when I can go potty in peace, without hurrying myself to the point of hemorrhoids.

dress codes

In 20 years, I will be interested to see how this whole home schooling trend turns out. On paper, it seems great. You teach your own kid at their own pace in ways that interest them, and then you get them their socialization elsewhere. And it seems like basic math. Individual attention + personalized curriculum = a lifelong love of learning and respect for knowledge. But then there's the stereotype, which persists no matter what the advocates try to do. You know how sometimes you can kind of tell a gay person in a crowd by how they act? Well the same can often be said of home schooled kids. But instead of over-sized gestures and snazzier clothes you get twitchy kids freaking out whenever anyone kisses in front of them. Okay, so that's an exaggeration, but some kids don't do well having everything catered to them personally. Or rather, they don't do well when it ends.

I kinda hate the school system. They take wonderful little kids full of potential and energy and trim off all the fun bits and interesting edges until they get cookie cutter conformists. I hate that PE class is mandatory. As far as I'm concerned it should be illegal to force kids to undress in order to pass a class. I don't really care about the reasons for it, adults are telling kids from the age of 11 up to take off their clothes twice a day or else fail the class. And I do have an issue with dress codes. At work is one thing; if you don't like the dress code at work you can go get another job. But I live in an area where the next closest middle school is 15 miles away, and exactly the same. In my opinion, unless it is dangerous (high heels, shorts in winter) or vulgar (too revealing, sexual innuendo) or promotes illegal behavior (pot leaf graphics, alcohol brands, tobacco), it should be a matter of expression. Yes, I really mean that. Bathrobes, Cindy Lauper clothes (wow, I'm dating myself there) whatever. If there's a kid who wears a wedding dress every Monday, it's only going to be news the first couple minutes of the first couple Mondays. After that, it's just Tyler being Tyler. I really don't believe in a vague sense of "appropriate attire." Who gets to decide what's appropriate and how did they get to be the ones to legislate taste? They say kids need to dress for success, but success in what industry?

I'm having a bad day, alright?

I am a stay at home mom, and no matter how many catchy little emails get forwarded into my inbox telling me that my job costs $100,000 a year to hire out (nannies, cab service, maid, etc) I still bring nothing in. I may very well save money, but I do not earn money. And I am accutely aware of this fact. My husband provides for the family, I just clean up after it.

Some part of me, no matter how feminist I try to get about marriage being an equal partnership and me being a stay at home mother, not a housewife, still feels like I have to be a martyr in order to earn my keep. I mean, let's face it, emotional pain and trauma aside, the family could survive a lot better without me than without Tom. I could be replaced with a case of baby formula and a day care; Tom pays the bills and he parents. So, to defend my existence and expense, I over compensate. I bake and I (at least attempt to) cook, I sew, I wear old clothes with holes and I don't ask for new. Part of this is because I actually like baking and sewing, but part of it is because if I'm not going to earn money the least I can do is try not to hemorrhage it either. To tell the truth, the bra I'm wearing right now is 13 years old and expense is a big part of the reason I decided to let my hair color go natural. But also, I hold out eternal hope that one day somebody will appreciate all that I did that went unappreciated. Sadly, the thing about being an unsung hero is that you often remain unsung. How many early Christians were crucified and they're not the ones we think of when we see a cross. Not all martyrs are remembered.

Here's a secret, everyone at soccer practice already knows you're a soccer mom

If you have 3 kids and need a bigger vehicle, a minivan makes sense. If you need to be able to buckle 2 kids into car seats, store a backpack or two plus extra diapers and snacks for on the go, and still have space for groceries, a minivan sounds just about perfect. If you're an adult who needs an adult car, doesn't drive in dangerous or off-road conditions, and wants to save money on fuel, you should look into getting a minivan.

So why do these people always buy SUVs instead?! Here's an interesting little known fact; a minivan will not actually castrate a man. It also won't age you, or give you back pain, or impregnate you with more children than you currently have. It's just a vehicle, and a pretty practical one at that. It's not just for den mothers or soccer moms, but even if it were that's a pretty sizable demographic anyway, and also happens to be the same target audience that resists it so much. And driving your kids to soccer practice in a Trailblazer because you're too cool or sporty or whatever to drive a minivan makes you look ridiculous. Everyone at soccer practice already knows you're a soccer mom. And what's more, they're insulted that you think it's something to be ashamed of since they are also soccer moms. Embrace it, because to do otherwise is idiotic.

Yes, that's right. The denial looks worse than the truth. You end up looking like this guy, who is similarly ashamed to admit he is bald.

How to feed babies from outside of the bra

Danny ate avocado today. I just scooped it out of the peel and mashed it through a strainer and he ate it, and he LOVED it. No yucky face or spitting it out or anything. I skipped cereal altogether because it's just empty starch and carbs and why bother developing a taste for that? But now I'm looking down a long road of baby foods and the diapers will turn bad (I do not mind poopy diapers at all as long as it's just breast milk. Anything else and it's awful!) and I realized that I do not look forward to hearing about well-meaning friends' irrational fears of chunky foods. Sometimes it gets so hard to bite my tongue when I hear people say things that I know just aren't true. Here are a few of my pet peeves:

1. Gagging is not choking. All babies will gag at some point. Whether it's a puree, lumpy food, or an actual bite of something, the gag reflex will be triggered. When something gets too far back on the tongue, the throat gags. And it's a good thing! It means that they have the reflex they need in order to bring food back to the front of the mouth rather than just let things slide down into their windpipe. Gagging means their reflexes are preventing them from choking.
2. Choking happens when something blocks the windpipe. Hot dogs, grapes, round throat-sized foods are good at this. Small foods aren't that good at it. I almost laugh when I hear about someone who once tried to make their own baby food but couldn't get it smooth enough and didn't want their baby to choke on pea skin. How on earth is the skin from a pea going to block the windpipe? Is it going to stretch across like a dental dam? Smooth food is easier for babies to get used to after an all-liquid diet, but lumps are not safety hazards. Baby food does not have to be ketchup in order to be safe.
3. Babies don't often like new foods. It can take 15 tries before a baby likes a food, and after that it cam become their favorite food. Even if they eat and hate it every day for 2 weeks, try it again later. "My baby doesn't like green beans; I tried them last month" is a sure fire way to end up with a kid who won't eat vegetables. Because every time he makes a face at a flavor he's not sure of, it disappears forever. So try it again and act like he's never expressed an opinion before. It can't hurt.
4. It's not hard to make your own baby food. Do you cook for yourself? Do you own or can you get a food processor or blender? If yes, then you can make baby food. Steam vegetables and then pulverize them. Bake a sweet potato and then mash it up. Hell, all you have to do with avocados and bananas is let them get overripe and then mash them with a fork. I only put the avocado through a strainer today because it was Danny's first try at food ever. The only baby food I've ever bought is the meat, and I'm considering not even doing that this time. Oh, and that baby cereal I discounted earlier? It works great to thicken things that puree too thin. Canned peaches and pears make great baby food if you add the cereal to it, although I'd personally try to get fruit canned in plain juice, or at least rinse off the sugar.

A couple tips I've learned and like to pass on. Use ice cube trays to freeze the food and then just thaw one or two at a time in the microwave. And to fill the trays, put the food in a plastic baggie and cut a corner off. You can pipe it out like frosting.

I am NOT ready for this

My daughter has a crush. I think. Maybe she doesn't but I think she does, and she's too private to confirm or deny, so we'll go with my assumption. So for the purposes of this article, she has a crush. And he's not good enough for her!

But will anybody ever really be good enough for her? Will anybody be smart enough and motivated enough and mature enough and responsible enough? And for right now, she's twelve! If the perfect guy came along and wanted to date her, wouldn't the fact that a mature and responsible and smart and motivated guy wants a twelve year old scare me on its own? But this guy is nice. And not bad looking (when I squint and pretend I'm twelve, and remember my own crush on his father when I was that age), and that should be enough to impress a twelve year old girl, right? So, should I take her dad's advice and hate the guy for being good enough to impress a twelve year old, or should I be happy that my "weird kid" daughter has a bit of developmental normalcy, and has a crush? Maybe. I think.

My son, Hellboy.

He put kitty litter in the fish tank. Pee-y kitty litter. It's clumping litter and he just picked up a couple clumps and plopped them into the tank. I have no doubt the fish will die soon. Then he laughed! And he tried to give the baby's hand to the cat. He tried to feed his brother to the cat!
You know in the movie when the lady finally realizes that her adopted son/neighbor/nephew/babysitting client is the devil, and no one else realizes it but her and they all think she's crazy when she tells them he's the devil? I am at that point right now.