Your Obama Blog of the Day

Yes We Can (Hold Babies). Adorable.

This Week's Experiment in Child-Rearing

Last Friday night, Mr. S proclaimed that Q-ball would need to learn to sleep through the night in his play pen in our room in preparation for moving in with his big brother. Parents know this problem: Getting Your Kids To Sleep (a) Alone or (b) In The Same Room. It's like trying to decipher the Rambaldi Prophesies or something using only sleep deprivation and the odor of pee-pee as your clues. It's one of the many things about parenting where you find yourself thinking (or rather, I find myself thinking): I am a grown-up with several advanced degrees. I can navigate the New York and London subway systems and have driven in LA. I am smart and pretty and my tongue is pink. Why won't this baby/child (INSERT WHAT I WANT THEM TO DO)?

We've had varying degrees of success over the past several nights, and I want to say this: I am sorry to all of our house guests for making you sleep on a pull-out couch where your head is tilted just slightly below your body at all time.

A friend just sent me this link, and I had really high hopes that it would offer some insight into getting kids to stay asleep all night. But the essence of the millions-dollar study described is, parents whose children don't sleep through the night have health problems, including depression, and you should try to get your kids to sleep through the night. Come ON. Throw me a freakin' bone here, people. Please explain what you are (I am) supposed to do when the children's crying becomes an endless feedback loop, and sleep is impossible for everyone.

I realize that this is probably the number one most mundane blog post ever. Tough tatas. It's hard out here for a pimp. Etc etc. Just send advice.

All's Quiet in Whoville

For weeks now, I have been trawling the BPN newsletters in hopes of finding something really outrageous for your reading pleasure. It's been frustrating to not find anything. Okay sure there was some back-and-forth about internet porn, and an almost-good-enough exchange about whether the Berkeley water supply is safe to mix with infant formula. But only one person had this asinine response:

Our water has chloromine in it, which is a mixture of chlorine and ammonia. It kills fish, you have to treat it before replacing aquarium water. I think EBMUD says it's fine to drink, but I have a filter on my tap at home which filters this out (among other things). I wouldn't give it to my baby, child, teenager or friends. I hope that helps.

What about your enemies?

How do people not die from the stress of worrying about all these things?

The next best thing was the person whose mind-warp too-green-to-live problem was that her high efficiency washing machine cannot clean cloth diapers. I wish I had seen the original post so I could say, "go ahead and let your head explode." Finally there's the buzz about the Georgia child who died from her 'vegan' diet (the child was actually starved to death, not fed millet and, you know, wheat germ to death). I am not one to defend vegans, but "murderer" is a bummer of a rap to give people who assiduously avoid killing stuff.

Why?

Sorry to be all judgey and shit, but why does someone think this is a good idea? Note: This woman already has a 33-year old. This is like if my mom decided to have another kid. Or twins. Only my mom is not even 62-years old yet! So its more like my mom having twins when I am, what? Well, in order to not divulge my mother's age, I'll just say "older". Like my own kids will be in elementary school. Probably getting sex ed talks of their own in this hippie-dippie, drown-them-in-TMI-so-they-still-think-a-girl-can-get-pregnant-in-a-hot-tub town.

Awright, I'm babbling.

The Girly Show

My heart swelled with pride yesterday when Liam told me he liked what we were listening to in the car, i.e. Built to Spill. The album was Ultimate Alternative Wavers and for awhile it got excessive airplay both in my life and on my radio show. There are a lot of records that got overplayed in my life, the only thing I could listen to for months at a time. Team Dresch’s Personal Best, Supa Dupa Fly by Missy Elliott, Black Star, Mos Def, Lauryn Hill, Sleater-Kinney "Dig Me Out", Fugazi, Tsunami, Huey Lewis and The News. My quirk of having so many favorites annoyed my fellow DJ. I would announce a song – “This is one of my favorite songs” – and she’d flip, “You say that all the time! How can you have so many favorite songs?” and we’d argue on the air. But what difference did it make, since we had the 3:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. slot?

(thanks Andy). It may have been that she wasn’t really annoyed with my “favorites” but was really just annoyed with me. The night before our radio show, I would stay over at her apartment, and we would go to bed artificially early (like 10 pm) so that we’d be able to get up for the show. And we would lie on her futon, fully awake, listening to her roommates in the kitchen, and I would reach over and poke her. Or pat her cheek. And she would freak out and kick off the covers and make gagging noises and threaten to beat me. And then she’d settle down and I would do it again. And again. Annoying Ella was really one of the easiest, and simplest, pleasures in life. In fact, it really annoyed Ella a lot that I kept her Built to Spill album for years. I can't be certain that I wasn't listening to it in the car yesterday.

Now Ella has someone new to poke and pat her, and to poke and pat in return. Ella had Callum (7 lb. 15 oz.) last night around 11:45 pm. Congratulations to Ella and Dan on the addition of their new little rocker.