Excerpts
Below are some excerpts from The Parent Trip: From high heels and parties to highchairs and potties
He shoots, he scores!
You know how everyone tells you not to tell anyone that you’re trying to get pregnant? At first I thought this was simple common courtesy, as if by not disclosing this little nugget you are sparing your friends and relatives from picturing all of that valiant, clumsy endeavoring. I quickly learn the real wisdom behind this advice: The minute you tell folks you are “trying,” the pressure is on.
“Well?” they drawl each time you see them, sizing you up to see if there’s any noticeable addition to your girth.
“Nothing yet,” you reply as breezily as you can. [Read complete excerpt....]
Pay at the pump
In more than one awe-inspiring video shown in Prenatal Prep, we watched as a newborn babe wormed its way up its new mom’s belly and located its intended food source. By sheer instinct and fundamental need, these intrepid creatures were able to engage in the act of nursing that is one of nature’s most beautiful and profound.
Pumping breast milk, on the other hand, is about as organic and intuitive as watching a monster truck rally on TV while downing a bag of Doritos. [Read complete excerpt....]
“Mommy’s Dead,” and other fun and enlightening tales for tots
My favorite “urban legends” web site insists that the time-honored nursery rhyme Ring around the Rosie is not, as myth suggests, a song about children carrying flowers in their pockets to mask the stench of death that permeated the air during the black plague. No, it’s just a bunch of silly words strung together, like “a tisket, a tasket,” or “hey, diddle, diddle.” Fair enough. But what about the unfortunate, tumbling Rock-a-bye Baby? Or poor, irreparable Humpty Dumpty? And Jack and Jill with their fractured skulls? And that guy who dies in his sleep in It’s Raining, it’s Pouring? [Read complete excerpt....]
Chew on this: A helpful, handy baby-feeding primer
It’s pretty much agreed that as far as food is concerned, babies can get by on breast milk for the first year of life. To me, that’s like saying “women can get by with one purse in perpetuity,” which theoretically, of course, is true, but do I really want to carry a sequined silver evening bag roughly the size of a banana on a day trip to Disneyland? Am I expected to tote my lip-gloss and compact to the Opera (never mind that I don’t go to the Opera) in my hot pink, laminated, moisture and mold-resistant, you-could-fit-a-case-of-diet-Coke-in-it diaper bag? And which of these two options—if I am going to be allowed but one—do I bring to a job interview? On a hiking trip? To a funeral? [Read complete excerpt....]