Or, The Crazy-Eyed Peacock Octo-Turkey Bandit Finds a Home So. Thanksgiving happened. Time to put the food where my braggy mouth is. Photos, confessions, and plenty o' dorkwads, ahoy! If there's anything better than homemade piecrust, it's husbandmade homemade piecrust. I asked Jason to provide a recipe, and he said it's something like this one, only different, and he went on and on about the importance of apple choices and using the perfect variety and his various tweaks to the topping (oatmeal) but you know, he wasn't 100% happy with the topping this year because it was a too crunchy and NEXT YEAR he's going to try such and such and zzzzzzzzz. All I know is: Make your own. Not sharing. Goway. Same goes for the stuffing. I mean, we barely have enough for two people here. BARELY. Cauliflower and broccoli, pre-cheesified. This concludes the healthy portion of our meal. OMG! The sweet potatoes don't have a serving spoon! Don't take a photo yet! People will think we are savages! Good thing I spent no less than five whole minutes combing through our leftover sage for a single perfectly shaped and photogenic leaf to put on top of them! I... Read more →

Noah's school was thoughtful enough to provide a timely craft this week, in the form of this tasteful, understated centerpiece: I feel like it's either going to take a candy-colored shit on the table or hold us up at gunpoint for some stuffing. *** Have I told you that Thanksgiving is pretty much my favorite holiday ever? While it used to be the thing I barely tolerated as a kid, a stupid holiday with no presents or candy, it's now BY FAR the best day of the year. I spend the day awash in butter and heavy cream and carbohydrates and the first bottle of wine gets opened at 11:30 in the morning because I need to "deglaze" a "pan." Plus, not to brag or anything, I make a fucking amazing turkey. The secret is basting with my secret basting baste of awesome every 10-15 minutes or so, and really the only hard part about that is not drinking all the melted butter directly. Some is okay. I mean, it is a special occasion. Also on the menu this year: roasted elephant garlic with French baguette, assorted fancy cheeses, Jason's mushroom, leek and challah bread stuffing that is pretty much... Read more →

1) Learning to properly blow one's own nose is, in fact, a highly advanced skill. If you are able to blow your own nose, congratulations! You've accomplished something with your life after all. 2) Even AFTER one has learned and is perfectly capable of blowing one's own nose, it may take even longer before one has figured out that one SHOULD blow one's own nose, rather than sniff sniff snort snorting snot up through one's nasal cavities ALL THE LIVE-LONG DAY. 3) When one DOES opt to sniff sniff snort snort all the cotton-picking live-long mother-loving day and night, despite MUCH PLEADING AND PROMPTING from one's loving, concerned mother, one might eventually get sick to one's stomach and vomit. 4) A lot. A surprising, alarming lot. 5) Usually at 4 am, or so. 6) Maybe again at 5 am, on the sheets that you just changed, or in the wastebasket. 7) Incidentally, wicker wastebaskets are a poor, poor choice for a child's room. 8) Also, if you type the word "wastebasket" enough times it stops looking like a real word. Like you're referring to tissues as "noseblankets" or "snotwrappers" or something. 9) Anyway. 10) There will also be zero fever... Read more →

Oh hi, this is me, typing with no head. It blew off. Or up. I don't know. I don't remember. Your head is where you keep your memory. All I know is that one day I looked around and realized that I have an freaking buttload of deadlines and work obligations every day and two very high maintenance children who want love and attention and someone to keep the little one from drinking dish detergent or slamming his fingers in drawers or...or...oh HELL, he's got the adjustable-blade slicer from the kitchen. Again. Today. Head. BOOM! Just like that. Wut? Hilariously, optimistically, I placed an ad for a part-time mother's helper-type person about three weeks ago. And I got a ton of interest and applications and promises of never-ending love and devotion to my children, at least for 10 hours a week, as it seems This Fucking Economy has left a bazillion previously-out-of-our-price-range, actual-real-professional nannies unemployed around here, so they're all promising stuff like cooking meals and housekeeping and taking my baby to the ART MUSEUM, or something. Teaching him German. Handicrafts. I'm like: Or you could just keep his hands out of the toilets, more or less. I'm fine with... Read more →

I just got back from a parents' workshop thing at Noah's school. And it was a very useful workshop, really, about how to encourage fine and gross motor development through toys and play at home. I was especially pleased to learn that I can totally do all of Noah's Christmas shopping at the $5-and-under store, along with like, some bubble wrap. The problem started when one of the therapists demonstrated a toy hanging from a doorway, designed to turn a regular balloon into a sturdier punching bag. Another parent requested the brand name, which was Balzac. "I guess they mean like, ballsack," she said, kindly providing us with a handy mnemonic device, while jiggling the thing idly in the palm of her hand. I choked on the inside of my lung, briefly, before clearing my throat and muttering apologies for startling the grown-ups. Then we moved on to wheelbarrow walking. A very helpful handout was provided. COME ON. I mean, COME ON. (I will have you know that I behaved BEAUTIFULLY, other than a discreet snort into the edge of my sleeve, AND two whole other mothers actually talked to me afterward, voluntarily and everything. It's working! I am totally... Read more →

Oh my God! You guys! In between all the craziness of...uh...sleeping and eating and taking like, THREE WHOLE SHOWERS IN FIVE DAYS, I completely forgot to tell you about the most exciting thing to happen to me ever in my whole life: AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! PHHHHHHFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTBBBBBB! ...is pretty much what I said when I got the notification on my phone, right before involuntarily flinging the thing upward, like it was on fire (VOLCANO FIRE), where it collided with ceiling of my car, teaching us all an important lesson about Checking Twitter DMs While Driving, i.e. Don't Do It, It Could Be A Celebrity. I drove home with this huge dorky grin on my face, composing hypothetical replies in my head that included the somewhat embarrassing factoid that I was a devoted Reading Rainbow watcher until the age of 12, maybe 13, SHUT UP YOU, and that I record the show for Noah whenever our PBS station decides to air it, and that a rerun this past summer was about composting and I sat there watching it BY MYSELF, with GREAT INTEREST, shouting to Jason in the next room about how we were TOTALLY gonna plant us some potato chunks in our... Read more →

Listen, we're kind of busy over here today, but Zah really wanted to say hi. HI. HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII. I have four whole molars now. JELUS? Oh, he also wanted to write a comment about the terribly underwhelming final three Project Runway designers. While he appreciates Althea trying to design roomy pants for the bulky-cloth-diaper set, he thinks her technical skills are lacking. I might let him write the finale recap for me this week. And why are they all so afraid of prints? Rescue vehicles are so hot this season. Anyway! That's really all he wanted to say. Besides his favorite word ever: ALLDUN. We're ALLDUN with this. There is no more food on his tray and that is sad because it's ALLDUN. From his crib, mournfully, in the morning: ALLLLLLDUN!! Leave the room and YOU are ALLDUN. He is ALLDUN with you now! ALLDUN, sir. I SAID ALLDUN. Read more →

Honestly, he's done it for as long as I can remember -- as soon as Noah had the vocabulary down, he described songs in terms of color. One day he asked for the "yellow song," and sobbed while I offered up track after incorrect track of Raffi and Dan Zanes, desperately trying to figure out what the hell song he was talking about. A song about rainbows? That paint-mixing song from Blue's Clues? Big Bird? I finally gave up, assuming it was probably some blasted Moose and Zee segment from TV with a yellow background or yellow flower or something similarly random. Then, later: a scary movie theme. Violins in minor key. Ominous timpanis. His eyes grew large and he fled the room. "NO RED SONG," he said. "OFF. NO." For awhile, we assumed he was assigning colors in lieu of how the song made him feel. Yellow = happy songs, red = angry, scary. Then came pink songs and purple songs. And he learned how to express how he was feeling with real words, but the color thing persisted. I cycle through my iPod or the radio pre-sets in the car and he regularly makes his requests from the... Read more →

Hmm, okay. So yesterday's post was kind a of preachy "we're all fucked and going to die" thing, wasn't it? Let's change the subject. More topics and questions posed by you, the people: From Danielle: I remember you mentioned doing the 30 day shred a while ago.. How did that work out? Did you stick with it for 30 days? Did you do it more than once a day? Have your abs been shredded?? Should I try it? Would you ever even in a million years consider posting a before and after pic? Am I being way too forward?? My all-time record is doing it once a day, every day, for a week. Then maybe once every other day. Then there was something on TV that I really wanted to see and I decided I needed new sneakers but never bought new sneakers because sneakers cost money that could otherwise be spent on more wine. In other words, I've failed each and every time I've committed to the workout, for no other reason than the fact that I am one lazy ass motherfucker. It's a short workout, it's diabolically effective (seriously, the difference in your energy/endurance/strength between day one and... Read more →

Since you guys proposed SO MANY awesome topics yesterday Tuesday, I shall continue to mine them for awhile, or at least until something actually important happens in real life that requires a veryimportantblogupdate!, and no, I'm not counting last night's Tuesday night's all-night preschooler-puke-a-thon. (He's just fine now, of course, which is good because we are plum out of clean sheets.) From Cagey: I have been reading The Unhealthy Truth and seem to remember you mentioning it on one of your Advice columns. The book is blowing me away and I am shocked at how few folks realize how food can really affect us - say, Red #40 for example. I was wondering your thoughts on this and if you have seen whether certain things affect Noah. For example, artificial colorings are the devil now in our house because my son flips his lid every time he has them. And this is the same kid who can eat ice cream and go right to bed! For him, Red #40 is like main-lining a bit heroin. Yep. I did write about this book, mere HOURS after I'd finished reading it, while I was freshly seething with rage. I have since gone... Read more →