Today I was at Babies 'R' Us, and saw a rack of those unfortunate shirts for little girls that say things like "Drama Queen," "High Maintenance," "Hottie," etc. Then I noticed that there were shirts for boy babies, too. And I was repulsed, yet strangely fascinated, by the shirt that said "Chick Magnet." This is not what we mean when we say equality ( Read more... )

Today we hung out with my brother-in-law, poguer, who is in town for a conference. After lunch, I went swimming with him and the kids at his hotel. On the elevator ride down, an older gentleman was admiring Elliot, and Gillian informed him, as she likes to do, that Elliot is a Christmas baby ( Read more... )

At Gillian's school the other day, I overheard a conversation between two parents discussing ear piercing. The father of a little girl was saying that she didn't cry when she got hers done at Claire's over the weekend. The other parent asked if he would do the same thing for his son. The father replied, "No way. He'll have to do his with a potato ( Read more... )

Last year I thought a lot about the weirdness of pregnancy. Now I'm confronted by the weirdness of breastfeeding. A famous comic once wondered who was the first person to decide to squeeze a cow's teat and drink what came out. That isn't really remarkable, since humans understood about milk and nipples long before they domesticated cattle. The ( Read more... )

This morning I was once again engaged in Gillian's endless and interminable Little Mermaid pretend play. It is her current idée fixe, and we go over and over the story with different variations all day. It is exhausting. As we got in the car to go to school, she was trying to convince King Triton that humans weren't bad so she (Mermaid Gillian) ( Read more... )

rt_hon_rackman and I were in one of the stores in Downtown Disney on Sunday, helping a friend get discounts on some christmas shopping. While she looked around, I watched my daughter and hers entertain themselves by coloring some pictures of princesses. I have my opinions about the Disney Princesses (TM), which I will get around to detailing in this journal at ( Read more... )

Last night, Gillian went to bed early, and rt_hon_rackman found ourselves blinking at each other in surprise, thinking, "My god, we're alone!" rt_hon_rackman quickly whipped up some salmon, put a candle on the table, and broke out the wine. Impromptu date! We actually sat and ate an entire meal without interruption. We spoke to each other about adult things. Our ( Read more... )

Gillian has recently begun eating surprising quantities of food, which means a growth spurt is in the making. That gets me to thinking about how much she's growing in other ways, too ( Read more... )

Here it is, 12:20 am, and I am supervising my feverish three year old in the bathtub. The fever reducer is just starting to kick in, so she is chirping happily away, chewing on ice cubes, swishing around in nice, hot water while I type away. There is nothing like a bath to aleviate just about any childhood problem from chest colds to boredom and ( Read more... )

Lest I give everybody the impression that Gillian does nothing but listen to the Rolling Stones, here is what she did today: she wrote her name ( Read more... )