Gerber: trusted name in baby food and baby care, or masters of emotional manipulation?

This afternoon the TV was playing a recorded episode of Blue's Clues and I was about to turn it off because the show had ended ("Now it's time for so long . . ." Riley: "BYE BYE!") when this commercial came on that—well, that I had to share.

I couldn't find it online, so I hope the people at Gerber will forgive me for uploading a video-captured version of their ad. Also, please pardon the crappy angle, the random background noises (Riley, the oven timer, then Riley again), and the DVR overlay.

I don't know about you, but when I saw this I found myself barking out a totally involuntary sob of gut-punched emotion. The haunting DeVotchKa music, the women breathing, the gripped hands . . . this thing should air with a warning beforehand.

Dammit, Gerber. I already buy your slimy-ass "Pasta Pickups", what more do you want from me? Go ahead and take my TEARS, you diabolical marketing weasels.

Wednesday confessional

It was such a relief to hear that I'm not the only mother who allows her child to become encrusted with filth for days on end doesn't do a daily bath, I thought I'd confess a few more of my less-than-perfect parenting habits:

I let Riley get in food ruts. That is, if the meal rotation that he finds acceptable dwindles to macaroni and cheese, bananas, and Campbell's "Chicken and Stars" soup (just the condensed gloppy part!) then that is by-god what he eats over and over until his preferences inexplicably change. I know I should be repeatedly presenting fresh kiwi and tofu cubes and baked sweet potatoes, but I figure as long as he doesn't develop scurvy or a visible facial twitch everybody's doing okay.

I give him juice. Oh, I had lofty ideas about avoiding juice at ALL COSTS, because of the sugar and the lack of nutritional value and blah blah blah. Now he swills it like a freshman with a beer bong. Currently I do buy the fortified stuff that purportedly contains actual juice rather than flavorings, and I dilute it with water, but it's a slippery slope—surely it will be only a matter of time until he's running around in a little stained white undershirt, sucking on a Capri Sun Blue Ocean Blast-o-Rama with "10% REAL JUICE" and demanding his turn on the Xbox.

I plop him in front of the TV. Riley gets a hefty dose of Blue's Clues or Elmo several times a week in the mornings, and I might feel marginally bad about that if it wasn't so darn convenient. TV means we can actually enjoy breakfast, read the newspaper, and drink coffee. Am I prioritizing those activities over the potential brain damage the television causes? You bet your bippy.

I'm sure I could think of more (I forget about scheduling his pediatrician appointments until he's past the month he was supposed to come in! We only clip his fingernails when they start to display a permanent band of grime underneath! Sometimes we mock his tantrums by making comically sad faces and yelling "OH BOO HOO HOO WAHHH!") but I should probably get Riley's snack ready for when he wakes up. I'm thinking macaroni and cheese, with a juice chaser.

Next!

Okay, enough depressing stuff. Can I just tell you that Riley has started saying "Abracadabra"?

I'm not even making that up. Yesterday he grabbed the plastic poundy-wand thingie that came with his toy xylophone and pointed it straight towards the ceiling, then threw his head back and his hands in the air and yelled "ABAAQXZYSAA!" Or something like that.

JB and I looked at each other, looked back at Riley, and said, "Did you just say . . . abracadabra?"

Riley: "AFBQABWAH!" (*dramatic wand flourish*)

It's pretty bizarre. Either Mondays are Cheesy Stage Magician Day at daycare and no one told us, or we've got ourselves the world's smallest Steve Miller fan.

Capricious

Maybe it should be comforting, in a way, to know there's no way we can completely ensure our children's safety. That so much of life is outside of our control, and we can't live in constant fear of what might be.

It's not, of course. I don't wallow in anxiety about Riley the way I did when he was a newborn (when every breath of air held deadly microbes and the skies bristled with pianos ready to drop onto his tiny, helpless body), but it is impossible not to occasionally feel overwhelmed by the dangers surrounding him. The things we can't prevent or even predict. And to imagine him making it through all the potential accidents and illnesses of childhood only to have his life violently ended by a man with a head full of bad wiring and a couple of handguns . . . well. It's unimaginable, really.

The shootings at Virginia Tech have me thinking about my son's future, about how to protect him as best as I can and how to explain things like this when he's older, but mostly I'm thinking about those families, the parents whose worried phone calls weren't answered yesterday morning.

Sudden deaths

My god.

I want to take my son and move to a cave in the woods, far away from a world where this can happen.

Of clippered hair and other morsels

When Riley's hair starts getting wispy and whooshy like a gone-to-fuzz dandelion, and it begins to require more and more strategic post-nap rumpling to deal with whichever hemisphere has become flattened and roiling with cowlicks, we prepare for the Great Toddler Shearing, an activity that requires the following:

• 1 set of quarter-inch clippers
• A strong, restrictive pair of arms
• An enclosed space
• The ability to deal with sustained howling within said enclosed space (warning! Tiled floors cause echo!)

Riley hates it when we buzz-cut his hair, but he hates with equal passion all head-related manipulations including looming scissors, shampoo, and jacket hoods (note, however, that he is currently OBSESSED with the game of placing random objects on his head and announcing "Hat!"), and since we are neither sentimental about hair nor interested in combing/detangling/raising a tiny Bon Jovi, sadly for Sir Bellows-a-Lot the clippering is yet another great injustice of childhood he must occasionally suffer through (see also: Being Presented with a New Food, Having Someone Ask if It Is Naptime ["No! No!"], and Not Being Allowed to Screw Around With the DVD Buttons).

We all endured the Great Toddler Shearing yesterday afternoon, and I wish JB or I would have captured some video of the moment Riley realized what was about to happen and began to slowly back away towards the bathroom door, his face fixed in an expression of vague nonchalance—la la la, don't mind me, just caaaasually looking for the exit here. After an exhausting fifteen minutes chasing his writhing upper half with the clippers and no doubt leaving great missed tufts in our wake, our boy had been transformed into the World's Tiniest G.I.

I always think he looks a little pitiful right after a cut, a plucked chicken with huge anime eyes. But a fresh buzz-cut means we don't have to do it again for weeks and weeks, which is good news for all involved parties. Also, there's nothing quite like the feeling of burying your face in a newly-mowed toddler's head: it's crunchy and silk-soft and smells like sweet hay.

What an unusually productive parental weekend we had—there was a Toddler Shearing, a farm visit (with PIGLETS! Unfortunately for the sake of blog-post fractal continuity, the Sheep Shearing isn't until the 28th), and Riley suddenly decided that bananas are on The List of Foods He Will Tolerate. Calloo! Callay! I hope your weekend was equally frabjous, if not more so.

Below par

So hey, I was just wondering, am I automatically out of the running for mother of the year if I don't give my kid a bath every night?

Because seriously, doing a bath is such a messy endeavor, what with the splashed water everywhere and a naked toddler running around potentially peeing at random intervals and the dog getting excited by the activity and trampling soap bubbles down the hall and the eighty wet towels afterwards and the exhausting feeling of having carried out some sort of complicated military operation; it just isn't a nightly routine for us. Instead, it's an every-couple-days activity, based on a visual and olfactory assessment of Grime Levels.

I've noticed, however, that every single childcare book on earth makes mention of the "nightly bath", and I've definitely heard people refer to their own kids' daily bath, but then again I've heard of "infant flash cards" and "elimination communication" and "kids who eat broccoli" too, and I always just figured those things were MYTHS.

Revisiting the concept of being wholesome

Riley has started repeating words more and more often, picking up pieces of our sentences and parroting them back to us. If by chance you've read Stephen King's Dark Tower series, he reminds me of Oy, the billy-bumbler, who could imitate human speech in little (adorable!) snippets.

He says "Euuuuwwwww" every time we take off his shoes, because we like to sniff his socks and make exaggerated grimaces and wave our hands in front of our noses and say "EUWWWW, whose stinky feet?". He says "Whoooah" when he falls down, and he perfectly enunciates a tragic little "Uh oh" when he drops a toy or his ball rolls under the TV stand. He says "MMmmmmm" when he's shoveling in a particularly tasty spoonful of macaroni and cheese, and yells "Boooom!" when he hurls himself against the couch.

I've been saying it since his birth, but it seems to really, truly be time to make a concerted effort at banning the cuss words in our household. I guess that means no more playing Peaches' "F*ck The Pain Away" at top volume and teaching Riley to dance along, which sucks, because that was a really enjoyable family activity.

You should have heard him yelling "Beep beep! Beep beep!"

Riley and his beloved front loader:

I'll have you know in order to get that last image I clambered over the front of the . . . bulldozery-looking part?—I don't know what to call it, clearly I should consult one of Riley's books—and put my hand directly into a big glop of industrial black greasy stuff, then practically fell to my death as I made my clumsy way back down. Because I am an intrepid photojournalist, by god.

Big machinery love

Thanks for helping me out with my extremely professional market opportunity survey! I feel more inspired to pursue the book idea now, the first step being to outline what each chapter might include (besides, of course, lots and lots of cuss words). I'll keep you posted on the progress.

I've mentioned before that Riley loves all sorts of trucks and construction vehicles; well, today when we got home from daycare there was a giant backhoe loader parked at the end of our street (the city is working on clearing trees and brush from a nearby area). Riley chattered like a squirrel when he saw it, and when I picked him up and carried him over, I thought he'd lose his mind with joy. When JB got home, he even hefted Riley into the seat and let him pretend to drive (Riley: "Bmmmmmmmm!").

It's like someone went and hung the moon at the end of our driveway. I wouldn't normally be thrilled about the presence of a massive John Deere tractor thing lurking in front of our house, but now I hope it stays there for a few more days. The only thing that would be cooler is if it were being driven by Elmo and included a front-mounted bubble machine.