Congratulations on marrying off your one-year-old.  What a spectacular wedding you threw at our public park, complete with tablecloths, floral centerpieces and a team of event planners in matching uniforms.  Wait, that wasn’t a wedding?  It was a child’s birthday party?  

Oh, then girlfriend, we need to talk.  I get that “mom-petition” is fierce in Los Angeles, but I did some math: your massive balloon displays were delivered by that shop in our neighborhood where a single Mylar frog goes for $20 (learned that one the hard way).  You had four pairs of human-sized mushroom clusters.  I’m guessing that set you back about….a year of preschool tuition.

And let’s talk about your theme: Alice in Wonderland’s tea party.  So cute!  For a six-year-old.  I’m sure your little one is a big Lewis Carroll fan and all, but she hasn’t even tried cow’s milk yet, much less tea.  Hey, I won’t begrudge you a cute theme—let’s just be honest about which party guests you’re trying to impress.  (Hint: not the ones wearing diapers.)

My real question is, if you had the resources to throw an elaborate, themed party for 75, don’t you have a backyard at your beach house?  Why set up camp in the public park?  More people to admire your vision? Better access for the paparazzi?  Because for those of us doing our usual Saturday morning routine, it was a bit of an inconvenience…

Keep reading, I’ll keep ranting, at Lifetime Moms…

I’ve never spent a night away from my child.  This is not a badge of honor – more like a virginity that I’m desperate to lose but can’t because I’ve got no game.     

Sometime after Viv turned two, I realized I was ready for a little bit of adult time.  I wasn’t trying to cut the cord – just stretch it to a place with a pool where I could read a magazine unmolested.

My first order of business was to arrange a spa overnight with some other mommy friends.  This seemed ideal – with Dave watching Viv, I knew she’d be just fine.  It took weeks of emails to find a Saturday that worked for everyone and finally book the resort.  I circled the date on my calendar and counted down the days.  

Then, one of Dave’s friends announced a last minute wedding set for the exact same Saturday night, a hundred miles away.  Wedding trumps spa, so I backed out of the girls’ weekend. 

Plan B: My mom came to visit for two weeks.  I asked her if she’d be willing to stay with Viv while Dave and I staycationed one night at a nearby hotel.  We’d lay by the pool, get massages, and sleep for 12 hours.  It would be the first time we’d slept in together since 2010.   The day before the trip, I came down with a vicious cold—the kind where it feels like you’re swallowing shards of glass and there’s a small planet sitting on your sinuses.  The kind where even driving 40 minutes to go lay by a pool sounds too hard.   We canceled.

Twice foiled in so short a time – I began to wonder if there wasn’t some sort of conspiracy afoot.

Question: Who stands to gain by keeping mommy home every time she tries to skip town? 

Answer:

Logical conclusion: my daughter is a wizard, an X-men or maybe a Firestarter.

Perhaps I’d better put this little fantasy of mine on hold, for the safety of my community.

Honeymoon in Disney?

Of course you want to bond with your new baby and stimulate her rapidly developing brain, but how do you play with someone who can’t talk yet, or even sit up?  Reading stories and singing lullabies are classics for a reason, but after a few months, moms can get a bit bored — I know I did. Even the baby seemed bored.

The solution? I got creative, finding new ways to connect with and amuse my little one that were also fun for me. If you’d seen me in action, you might have thought I was nuts, but trust me, the baby loved every minute!

Keep reading for five fun ways to shake up the routine and keep baby entertained.

1. While cooking dinner, imagine that you’re hosting a Food Network show. Channel your inner Giada as you describe and explain each step of the process (“I give my sauce a little stir . . . yum, looks good”). Your baby, who can watch at a safe distance in a bouncy seat, will love all those new words, sounds, and smells. Before you know it, you’ll be baking cookies together.

2. Play your entire music collection in alphabetical order (easy to do on iTunes) and pretend you are DJ-ing one of those “Songs from A to Z” holiday weekend radio shows. Dedicate the songs (“This one goes out to Daddy”), sing along to the music, and add personal stories (“Ooh, it’s Mama’s prom theme”). Not only will you boost your mood, dancing to your favorite jams with baby snuggled in your arms, but you can also help shape your little one’s musical taste — at least until she’s a tween.

Read the rest of the list at Circle of Moms and add your own.  Thanks!

The parents-to-be with their practice baby (Viv)

Dear Jordan and Lana,

I wish that Dave and I could be at your baby shower to celebrate, but as you may know, parents of small children rarely go anywhere.  So instead, I’ve jotted down some words of wisdom that I hope you’ll find wise and not too wordy.

People think a baby will make their lives more complicated. Well, I have good news for you. Babies actually make everything much simpler. Here are a bunch of things you won’t even need any more once you have a baby:

An alarm clock

A gym membership

Dinner reservations

Concert tickets

Clothing that has to be dry-cleaned

A subscription to The New York Times

Cosmetics

Hair salon appointments

Books more than 10 pages long

As you can see, you will save a lot of time and money and be far less bourgeois, all thanks to your baby. 

But don’t worry yourselves about the loss of freedom, the sleepless nights or the projectile vomiting.  You’re pledging the global Fraternity of Parents and there is going to be some hazing.  That’s just how it works.  Take comfort in that fact that your baby is gorgeous, and a genius.  I can tell this from the sonograms. 

Some more advice:

DO Take lots of pictures.

DON’T Look at pictures of yourselves when you were tan, well-rested and traveling the Greek islands on a yacht.

DO Schedule date nights.

DON’T Expect to stay awake through both dinner AND a movie.  Pick one.  

DO Make sure Lana gets some time to herself.  Happy wife, happy life.  Happy mommy, happy salami.  What?  Who said that?  Gross.    

DON’T Sweat the small stuff, like making a mess.  There’s nothing Oxiclean and a sense of humor can’t save. 

DO Ask for help.  Everyone in this room and especially the author of this letter would love to sing to the baby while you shower, feed you dinner, commiserate or advise.

BUT DON’T Listen to any advice you find stressful or annoying. 

DO Learn Russian (you know who you are).*

DON’T Feel guilty if it ever gets boring parenting an infant.  Even the gorgeous, genius babies are sometimes boring.  Just keep talking and eventually she’ll talk back.  Especially when she’s 16. 

Whatever you do or don’t do, you will be wonderful parents and your daughter will be so loved.  We can’t wait to meet her.  I promise Viv will probably not poke her in the eye. 

Much love,

Aunt Amy

*My SIL is bilingual.  My brother, less so. 

A funny thing about raising a kid in Los Angeles is that you’re bound to run into some celebrity parents.  Viv is not even 2 ½, but she’s already chatted up Pink and her daughter Willow, been cootchie-cooed by Amber Valletta at Trader Joe’s and met Don Cheadle outside a café–he reminded her to hold Mommy’s hand crossing the street.  Word. 

One celebrity I was really excited to meet was fitness guru Sara Haley, who turned up in our weekly music class with her adorable son Landon. 

If you don’t know Sara, she has a successful line of workout DVDs, a popular website and a fancy training clientele.  As you can imagine, she stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the toddler moms—obnoxiously fit and trim–and I wondered what her damn secret was.

When I finally found out, I pounced, desperate to talk about exercise.  (This must be an occupational hazard for her, like when a doctor goes to a cocktail party and everyone shows him their rashes.)

So I’m like, Sara, help me.  I haven’t worked out in three years and I’m in the worst shape of my life.  But as a SAHM with a kid not yet in preschool, I don’t know how to fix that.

Well it turns out that Sara’s been working on a new idea – a way to exercise that incorporates our kids, no childcare required.  This week, me & Viv and some of the other music class families volunteered to test the new workout.  (That’s Viv in the green shirt and high pony, utterly fascinated that “Landon’s Mommy” is ALSO “The Teacher.”)

I’ll admit, I was skeptical about working out with the kids.  I figured I’d maybe lift one leg before Viv noticed I wasn’t paying full attention to her and pitch a fit.  Instead, this is what happened:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Is that a riot or what?   We managed to keep it going for about 45 minutes.  I got a serious workout and the kids had a ball.  They basically did three things:

(1) Mimicked our movements (so cute).

(2) Climbed on us, providing extra resistance and making the workouts much harder – score.

(3) Sang along with us as we executed challenging isometric movements inspired by kids’ songs like Patty Cake and Humpty Dumpty.  (This was a bit like being tortured Clockwork Orange style, but I’ll admit that singing while exercising is great cardio.)

I was sore as, well, a mother the next day and eager to try it again.

Until Sara produces a new DVD or YouTube series so we can all share this Toddler & Me workout, I have something great to tide you over: 

Go to SaraHaley.com and check out her videos Sweat Unlimited (so hard, but really fun) and Expecting More, which is for pregnant ladies who actually want to work out (weirdos).  Leave me a comment under this post telling me which video you want.   I’ll do a random drawing and someone will win a freebie (May 8 – May 15, 2013).   Cool?  Cool.

Dad or Alive: Confessions of an Unexpected Stay-at-Home Dad, a memoir of Adrian Kulp’s first year at home with his baby daughter, is funny and touching, real and raunchy, with an uncensored POV that is uniquely male. (For better or for worse, I now have some idea what my fiancé was really thinking in the delivery room.)

When we first meet Adrian, he’s more focused on the Phillies than on fatherhood, grappling with the loss of his man cave to make way for the nursery and wondering how he got himself in such a jam:

“Did I dream of being a dad when I grew up? Not really…I dreamed about one day taking Daisy Duke out on a date and feeling up her boobs in back of the General Lee. I dreamed about being an astronaut, wrestling in the WWF or having a cool helicopter named Airwolf.”

But soon enough he’s in the parenting trenches, fending off the stink-eye from airline passengers when he boards with his 2-month-old, testing the limits of the liberal Babies ‘R Us return policy and, hilariously, attempting to use the urinal in a bar men’s room with baby Ava strapped to his chest in a Bjorn:

“Ava’s feet split the ‘work area’ to the left and right perfectly, and even though I couldn’t see anything, I’d be fine. It was a little bit like Malkovich putting together that gun under the table to shoot the president in In the Line of Fire.”

While delivering plenty of the light-hearted parenting anecdotes that blog readers expect, Adrian also digs deeper, grappling with questions of identity in the face of change. The crash and burn of his Hollywood career soon after Ava’s birth is riveting, relatable stuff, especially in today’s economy. Even though I knew what would happen (*spoiler alert* – Adrian becomes a stay-at-home dad and launches a popular blog), I found myself in suspense and rooting for his resurrection.

Truly, I loved this book – a perfect Mother’s Day or Father’s Day gift, sure, but treat yourself, too – stash it in the bathroom, lock the door, and sneak chapters during Dora the Explorer. On sale now at Amazon or wherever you like to buy your books.

And you don’t have to take my word for it. Here’s my Q&A with the author himself:

CB4M: You give us free stuff every week.  Why should we buy the book?

ADRIAN: Let’s just talk about the cover of the book for a minute.  It’s fucking awesome.  Do you know how cool it’s going to look sitting on your shelf or desk at work?

The free stuff that I lob out onto the Internet every week is just a taste. It’s like the little sample cups you get at Ben n’ Jerry’s when you can’t make up your mind. This book is a triple-scoop of all your favorites nestled into a warm, delicious waffle cone. Wait, what are we talking about again?

CB4M: I laughed out loud when you compared pregnant sex to straddling a refrigerator.  Did anything you wrote get you in trouble at home?

ADRIAN: My wife is pretty cool about that stuff. She actually got MORE pissed off about the fact that I didn’t properly describe how she decorated our bathrooms in chapter 4.

Ever since she’s known me, I’ve never really had an edit button. My mouth kinda just falls open and the most unacceptable and politically incorrect diarrhea spills out of it onto the floor.

Plus, I think a lot of times she gives me carte blanche because she doesn’t really have a good sense of humor. She thinks she does, but she doesn’t.

SHIT. That might get me in trouble.

CB4M: If Dad or Alive gets made into a sitcom, who should play you on TV?

ADRIAN: Hmmm… that’s a really tough one. I’ve always been a huge Christopher Lloyd fan, but he’s like, 75, so that wouldn’t work. Jason Segal or Jason Bateman would probably do a good job. Maybe even Jason Statham… the kids would probably listen to me if I were The Transporter. 

Honestly though, my top pick would be Louis CK. The problem is, he’s already playing my character on FX. Dude is amazing as a dad.

Dad or Alive: Confessions of an Unexpected Stay-at-Home Dad is on sale now. 

Note: A copy of the book was provided to me to facilitate the review.  I guest post on Dad or Alive and blog-stalk its author. 

Ever since my daughter was born, I’ve had this fantasy about taking her to visit a farm. 

Fresh air, baby animals, fruit picking – it all sounded so cute and wholesome.  Plus, I wanted my kid to know her food comes from the ground, not Trader Joe’s.  But the realities kept me from making it happen: 45 minute freeway drive, brutally hot weather during growing season, port-a-potties. 

This week, with a favorable weather report, friends organizing, and grandpa Boo Boo in town to help out, I decided the time was ripe (fruit pun!) and we hit the road.  Everything went great for the first 15 minutes.  Then, just after merging onto the 405 freeway, I heard tell-tale coughing from the back seat.   My toddler is prone to carsickness, especially if (A) I feed her right before we get in the car and (B) we hit some stop & go traffic.  Check, check. 

I managed to pull onto the shoulder just as Viv blew like Mount Vesuvius.  If your toddler is going to throw up any meal on you, I highly recommend breakfast, as the tropical fruit and cheese combo was, at least, a pretty color.  However, after a few hours of baking in the sun, my new car still smells like pickled feet.

Viv doesn’t enjoy the feeling of hot molten lava cascading from nose to toes, but once I stripped her naked and cleaned her up (note to self: restock 10 cases of wipes), she stopped wailing and still wanted to go to the farm as promised.  Way to boot and rally, kid.  The only thing standing between us and pony rides was the California Highway Patrol car that had pulled up behind me to see what was happening. 

A CHiPS officer, we’ll call him Erik Estrada, stepped up just in time to witness me using brute force to fit my shrieking, pants-less daughter back into her toxic car seat.  This was one of those times I’m glad my kid looks just like me, because otherwise we might have set off Estrada’s Amber Alert.  After a long, thoughtful pause, during which old Erik probably decided he didn’t need Viv’s puke in his cop car, he wished us well, even providing an escort back onto the freeway. 

An hour and a half after leaving the house, we finally arrived at the farm.  Everything was great for the first 15 minutes, and then an emu bit my daughter’s finger.

(It didn’t leave a mark.)

We’d barely begun, and I was already so tired.  Part of me wished we had just stayed home, but then we would never have been able to do this:

Or this:

Or this:

Or this:

Or this:

Which makes the farm trip a great metaphor for parenthood–it’s sour and sweet, sticky and smelly, hairy and scary, sweaty and exhausting, and totally worth it. 

I’m not technically infertile, just over the hill. If you saw me in good lighting, you might mistake me for 35, but you know what they say: you’re only as old as your ovaries. And those biatches are past 40. Can they still produce a sibling for my daughter? Time will tell. I’ve been trying to conceive for a year, and so far all I’ve gotten is a lot of unsolicited advice. Here are some of my favorite pearls of wisdom. And by pearls, I mean snowballs with rocks in them.

1) Just relax, and then it will happen.

Nothing is less relaxing than being told to relax. Or more guilt-inducing – gee, maybe my emotions are preventing conception. It’s all my fault! Nonsense. If stress really prevented pregnancy, there wouldn’t be any Lohans.

2) Kids are a pain in the ass anyway.

So is working, but that doesn’t mean I want to be unemployed. Downplaying the joys of having children is disingenuous, and we all know the best things in life usually take some effort. Don’t try to talk me out of wanting what I want.  Just sympathize.  Repeat after me: “I’m sorry, that’s tough.” Was that so hard?

3) Losing a few pounds could help.

This might be true, but it’s also mean, and I’m emotional, so don’t you dare say it to my face. Slip me an anonymous note or something.

4) Maybe you should switch doctors.

I know your heart is in the right place, but planting seeds of doubt is crazy-making. If you want to offer up a recommendation, a better approach would be, “Do you feel confidence in your current doctor?”  If the answer is yes, let it drop.

5) Have you considered adoption?

Have you considered minding your own business? Adoption is a big and very personal decision–not one that you need to be a part of. Unless you’re a healthy knocked up teen who wants to finish high school. Then we should talk.

Continue reading at Lifetime Moms.

Dave is super easy going about the wedding planning.  Usually we’re in sync, and if we’re not, he’ll defer to Bridezilla.  Except on this one issue:

No video.  He’s putting his foot down.

Photo via WeddingClan.com

“I want to experience our wedding, not record it.”  He tells me.   He’s thought about this.

Pre-baby, we used to go see rock shows at this club on Sunset, The Roxy, and we’d be so annoyed by all the people with their camera phones in the air, videotaping the whole damn thing. 

It’s bad enough having your view blocked.  The vibe suffered. 

Instead of being in the moment, singing and yelling and dancing, these douchebags were standing stock still, trying to “capture” something that in reality they were completely missing.

A great concert is more than just video and audio.  It’s the smell of the beer that sticks to your feet.  It’s the taste of victory when they play that song you hoped they’d play all night.  It’s feeling the sweat drip down your back from jumping up and down like a pogo stick.  I hoped our wedding might encompass different sensations, yet I appreciated the analogy.

But, but, but…

“Plus if I know I’m being recorded, I’m going to be too aware.  It will change how I am. Our wedding’s not supposed to be a performance.”  Well, no one wants that.

But, but but….How is being videotaped any different from being photographed?

“A photo is a stolen moment.  A video is ALL the moments, and that’s not necessarily a good thing.”  He tells me about the time he was asked to videotape a close friend’s ceremony, years ago.  “I don’t know if they watched the video, but if they ever do, all they’re going to remember is that damn crow that squawked the whole time they were saying their vows.”  Crow?  “Crow!”

But, but, but…Surely sometimes video gets it right.  Neil Armstrong’s moon walk.  Michael Jackson’s moon walk. 

“Video replaces memory – it becomes the only version of events.  Our wedding would be frozen forever, this one version that the video camera shot.   I want my memories.  No one puts stock in memory anymore!”  He’s right.  I know he’s right.

But, but, but…What if I have a head injury and get amnesia and only our wedding video will bring back my memory? 

“You’re not going to get amnesia, and if you do, I think our photo album will suffice.”

What do you think, reader?  Videotaping the wedding, pros and cons?

Dave might change his mind, he might not.  I’m not going to push it.  I’d rather he remembered how much fun it was planning our wedding together.

And I don’t want to be eating crow.

Onesie crotch extenders, it turned out.

For every pink frilly item that begged me to play dress-up, there was some totally confounding oddity.  But no matter–I welcomed it all.

Lovingly rewashing everything with Dreft and folding those tiny clothes into brand new drawers felt like my first real act as a mom.

Now, two and a half years later, I find myself packing up Viv’s baby clothes for another set of expectant parents – my brother and sister-in-law.  I’ve been waiting for them to have a baby and I’m thrilled it’s a girl.  (Is it sexist to fantasize about family vacations where we braid hair, paint nails and play Barbie?  I can’t help myself.)   As a sister, an aunt, and a person who badly needs to de-clutter, it’s exciting packing up Viv’s clothes.  But as a mom, it’s emotional, too.

The woman who unpacks her first box of baby hand-me-downs has everything in front of her – the dreamy haze of the newborn days, feeding and sleeping and not sleeping, confusion and chaos, magic and mystery, and such rapid growing and changing that one day soon the items from that first box don’t even fit any more, and it’s time to open the next one.

The woman who packs such a box has experience, knowledge and memories.  She’s mastered the art of swaddling (so what if it took five different blanket brands to get it right?).  She knows the onesie extenders aren’t worth the trouble, and puts them in the Good Will pile instead.  She remembers fondly her go-to pajamas–the ones she could fasten in the dark.  She’ll never forget the coming home outfit, and puts it aside.

I’ve been both of these women now, and while I know there are still many, many parenting milestones ahead, it feels strange to have already closed the lid on these boxes.

As much as I treasured my daughter’s baby phase, it’s impossible to want it back.  I’d never give up our new communication – the relief of being able to ask, “What’s wrong?” and receive an answer.  The joy of hearing “I love you.”  Still, I don’t like to think that there will never be another baby in the house again–sleeping on my chest, staring into my eyes, smiling for the first time.  I’d be so good at it now, too.  Less afraid, more assured, but also less available, I know.

If you’ve been reading my blog, you know we’ve been trying for nearly a year.  It’s in fate’s hands, this baby thing, though I have trouble letting go of imagined control.  I make myself crazy with fertility nutrition books (“eat full fat dairy”) and Chinese medicine (“avoid dairy”), all my information sources contradictory and not especially scientific.

I do know one thing in my gut, and that’s that bringing an umbrella will almost surely prevent the rain.  Hand down the baby clothes, and hope that little cousin lovingly destroys them with spit-up and blow-outs and teething like a beaver.

Take away the umbrella, and maybe it will rain.