It only LOOKS bad

Way back when I was just a young know-it-all, parent to none, I would look at friends' children who were forever showing up with assorted bruises and scrapes and wonder how they could get injured so often.

Now I know.

Each week, DOM has found a new and interesting way to bruise, cut, or scrape herself. Last night, while playing outside with a babysitter, she fell on our front walk, scraping up the entire right side of her face. Apparently, she didn't cry - she just popped right back up and continued playing with the bubbles. If it were me in that situation, I probably would have headed straight for the emergency room.

This morning, it looks pretty bad, but doesn't seem to bother her. I just keep looking over my shoulder, waiting for a visit from Child Protective Services.

It's the Happy Meal...OF DEATH

I've been reading Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, a look at the many business practices in which the fast food industry (from restaurants to suppliers to farmers/ranchers) engages in order to deliver a consistent product, keep labor costs low, and maximize profits. (An interesting review appears online at Salon.) The entire book is disturbing, but nothing is quite so fear-provoking to a mother as the description of a 7-year-old boy's death after ingesting an e coli tainted hamburger. I now find myself flinching whenever I pass a McDonalds. But how does one raise a child in today's America without the occasional fast food visit? Very carefully.

Schlosser's description of how "natural flavorings" are added to food was particularly interesting. Apparently, so much of what we believe is flavor in processed foods is just a smoke-and-mirrors chemical reaction that fools your olfactory senses into believing that what you are tasting is cheesy goodness. I find that I'm spending more time carefully reading food labels to try and figure out whether certain products actually contain any real food at all.

In the past, I've been known to make some pretty drastic dietary moves to improve my health or body image (near-vegetarianism, South Beach Diet, etc.). I'm trying to eat mostly fresh vegetables and whole grains. But I think the most important thing to do right now is to stay away from anything that might kill me.

Random observation #2

So, why is it that the one summer we finally shell out the bucks to join a pool, we are either out of town or cursed with cool and cloudy weather the weekends we are in town?

For the love of eBay

DOM is less than a month away from turning two. Hair pulling about how quickly she is growing up aside, we are faced with the birthday present dilemma: how do we buy her a ton of presents without spoiling her? I'm justifying this year's spending spree by doing most of my shopping on eBay - at least that way I'm not paying full retail.

It's no secret that a two-year-old has an attention span shorter than that of a housefly. The most thrilling thing about the birthday party for her is going to be a cake and ice cream and lots of paper to tear. That there will be some neat and interesting new toys will just be icing on the cake (pun intended, sorry). She will be excited...for about two minutes, or the average amount of time it will take to open the box and get the toy ready for play. Then the toy will be discarded on to the rapidly growing pile of primary-colored plastic lining the walls of her room or our rec room.

So, you say, why buy her lots of toys if she really doesn't care or won't miss them. And I respond to you...I dunno. It's a compulsion, really. I see all this cool stuff that I think I would like and I think to myself that maybe, just maybe that is going to be the toy that captures her imagination and keeps her occupied for hours on end.

Dreams are nice. But they're getting expensive.

Random observation #1

The leaves outside my office window are falling up today. That means either:

1. The earth's polarity has reversed and they're being sucked out to space;

2. Christopher Columbus was wrong and the earth, indeed, is flat - and we've gone from the top side to the bottom side; or

3. We're about to receive a visit from a big honking storm.

On a related side note, there aren't any trees in the courtyard below, so where are the leaves coming from?

The incredible shrinking birthday

Every once in a while, I get tempted to plot birthday celebrations out on a graph. It seems to me that, with the exception of the big "0s" (30, 40, 50, etc.), they just get less and less of a deal. Until one hits, say, 90 and then every subsequent birthday is a miracle to be feted with grand feasts, cakes sagging with candles, and special greetings from Willard Scott for people "of a certain age."

The most precipitous drop off comes after the birth of your first child. Prior to that, nice dinners, trips to fancy bars or dance clubs, parties - they all served to celebrate the anniversary of your birth. Once the child comes, the parents' birthdays just fade away. And, if you're (un)lucky enough to share a birthday with your child? Forget it...you are doomed never to celebrate your birthday again.

Now, as an only child, birthdays are important to me because...well...the day is all about me. It's that damn self-centeredness. But this morning, for instance, I woke up ready to accept my worship. Mr. MOM was great - he serenaded me with a rendition of happy birthday even before I could focus my eyes. But a trip down to DOM's room produced...a detailed listing of what she had for dinner last night.

"Sing happy birthday to mama," Mr. MOM said.

"I get dressed," said DOM.

"How about telling mama happy birthday?"

"..."

"Can you sing the song?"

"..."

Fortunately, I was able to get a "happy birthday" out of her in the car on the way to work. I guess it's inevitable that after 30+ years of making a big deal out of my own birthday it is time for the celebrations to fade off into the sunset.

But I can't wait until DOM's birthday.