Little Ethel can’t help it.

I saw this ad in my beloved “O” magazine and just had to comment. This is the new low-calorie mousse that Jell-o is pimping.

But to me it just looks like a spoonful of Ethel poo. Or something Gordie would yack up onto the carpet and re-eat. The best part is the ad said, “enlarged to show texture.” Like that’s a selling point?

For those of you working moms with infants at home: Always check your hair for dried spit-up patches before leaving the house. I realized once that I had a crusty patch in my hair while at work during a meeting, in a room full of physicians.

As I was dropping the girls off at the sitter on Friday, I looked into the back seat of the mom-mobile and saw this:

Holy freaking moly. My little Lucy isn’t a baby anymore. She’s more kid than baby. Look how long her legs are!

In my mind, Lucy has always seemed more baby-like since her hair really didn’t start coming in until a few months ago. It’s like I blinked and all of the sudden she is huge. 

When she was a colicky newborn, screaming around the clock, people would always offer unsolicited anecdotal advice. Trust me, it flies by, they’d say. You will miss these times, they’d say. I swear it was enough to get someone punched in the throat. It was really hard at that point in my life to see a light at the end of the tunnel and feel confident that it wasn’t a train headed straight for me.

But maybe all of those really annoying folks are right. Clearly, infancy is fleeting.

What’s happening in Haiti right now is truly every parent’s worst nightmare–to have an injured, dying or missing child with no access to medical care or resources. 

There are so many Haiti-related donation scams circulating on Facebook and the web right now. I wanted to remind folks to donate to an organization like the American Red Cross, where you know your dollars will actually be spent in Haiti. 

Your gift to the American Red Cross will support emergency relief and recovery efforts to help those people affected by the earthquake in Haiti. Assistance provided by the American Red Cross may include sending relief supplies, mobilizing relief workers and providing financial resources and recovery.

 Click here to learn more or make a donation.

Lucy has a love (read:obsession) with wiping things down. As soon as she gets her little paws on ANY sort of white cloth, she drops to her hands and knees, then proceeds to vigorously scrub the floor. It doesn’t matter whether it’s dirty or clean, she’ll wipe it.

But it keeps getting more and more embarrassing. We’ve been in public restaurants where she’ll see a napkin on the floor and she’ll slip out of my grasp, drop to her hands and knees, then proceed to vigorously scrub the floor. People look at me, aghast, thinking “what the heck do you make this poor baby do for you at home?” And trust me, she did NOT learn this from me. As many of you know, I am not compulsive about that at all. Grammar, yes, scrubbing on my hands and knees, no.

She’ll also take the “naked” Swiffer (sans cleaning pad) and clean the floors. So, this weekend I had an epiphany. Would it be SO wrong to give her the tools to actually clean? I mean, she’s going through the motions anyway, right? I decided to actually put the moistened cleaning cloth on the end of the Swiffer and let her go to town. She was entertained for at least 20 minutes, which is years in Lucy time.

Talk about killing two birds with one stone. At this point, I can’t really give her a Clorox wipe since I fear it will end up in her mouth. If I tried to invent a kid-friendly cleaning product, I bet someone would call CPS.

Don’t assume that your toddler will respond to your “mean mommy” voice or stare.  Abby just laughs. Apparently that look takes years of shaming to perfect.

This is what my kiddos are wearing today. In January. In California. Sorry to all you snowdwellers out there. Well, not really.

Abby looks like she is ready to Jazzercize (sp?) She hasn’t quite perfected the headband look, and REFUSES to let me even touch it. Between that and the 80’s throwback tank top, she’s ready to go. Say it with me, I’m a maniac, maaaaaaniac…