Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner

Child In Corner To Exact Revenge As Soon As He Gets Out

My husband sent me this very funny, very apropos story after a particularly "challenging" day with 3-year old Stella. A day where I asked my daughter - not rhetorically - "Are you possessed by a demon?"

I'll spare you the details. I'm sure (?!) her behaviour is in within the normal range of insane.

Sweet (Pirate) Dreams

My favourite thing to do in Venice is wander. With nothing more than a general sense of how to get back to the hotel (always the Hotel Ala if you're interested) and no agenda, besides penning postcards over a cappucino in Peggy Guggenheim's garden and lunch at Ai Sportivi, I've always stumbled on the nicest surprises.

I'm often asked how and where I find products for honeybunch. I take the Venice approach and wind up in the most interesting places. I madly dog-ear magazine articles, clip newspaper articles on interesting people and things. I keep a notebook and camera with me always. And when my heart beats a little bit faster I know I've found something special (hand-knit cowboy boots for babies. Seriously. I'll have them in two weeks).

And so I don't exactly recall how I came across Ann Wood's ethereal papier mache ships. But they made me swoon. Don't they make you want to sail for Neverland? I'm so glad there are people like Ann Wood making beautiful things that serve no purpose other than to tickle the imagination and delight the eye.

beep, beep

That's the sound of my horn. And I'm tooting it. It's not really shameless self-promotion. I'm just chuffed when the big guys notice my little business.
August is off to a good start.

First, the September issue of Chatelaine magazine - that's my Stella on page 126! It's the photo I had made into a custom canvas, as a surprise but then I was so excited I couldn't wait and I showed my husband the proof before the painting was ready. This image of Stella Bella has now appeared in The National Post and on sweetmama.ca. She's so blase about her celebrity.

Then Urban Baby Runway , my morning coffee and blog habit, ran a little thing on Friday about my cute birdie mobiles. Hurray! The interesting thing, before anyone thinks I'm making a fortune from free publicity, is that editorial coverage rarely results in sales. So the reason for my giddiness, even though I write for a magazine and you'd think I'd be over it, is that it's still exciting to be the subject.

My Other Car is A Cadillac

Maybe it's different outside the city, but us shallow, terribly shallow, Toronto mamas judge each other on our taste in two things: strollers and diaper bags. We size each other up at the moms-on-maternity-leave gathering places: the park, the library, Starbucks. Could I be friends with her? Do we have anything in common? Is that a Petunia Picklebottom she's carrying? It could be vestigal competitiveness from pre-baby days. We've replaced those formerly coveted items, purses and pretty shoes, with more practical but equally important accessories. Sure it's snobbery at its junior high worst, but I could not befriend a woman whose taste in diaper bags leans to the minty green with Winnie The Pooh appliques.

Now that I'm on my second baby and have had to replace much of the gear that turned out to be a mistake with baby one, I can spot a new mom a mile away. She's the one lugging a bulging Fleurville Mothership on an hour's trip to Loblaws. It's like wearing an Oscar gown to a Saturday matinee. It's simply not done. She hasn't learned that you need more than one diaper bag. Oh yes, you skeptical husbands, I assure you it's true. The Mothership is the weekend tote of the diaper bag genus. For jaunts to the grocery store a sleek Diapees and Wipees will suffice. And for lunch with your non-mommy office friends nothing less than one of Mia Bossi's stunning bags will do. They're gorgeous, they're grown-up, and when you doff your Monday-Friday Lululemon uniform, they look good with real clothes. Yes, yes, yes I know they're $400. But there's a way around that, other than amortizing the cost over the number of outings. Mia's bags come with a removable insert so once your bottle-toting days are over, swap out the diaper bag lining for a laptop or briefcase insert. Genius. I. Must. Have. This. Bag. Oh Steve...

Ode to Martha Stewart Kids

I'm not exaggerating: I would not have a business if it weren't for Martha Stewart. Pregnant, I pored over every single page of every MS Baby issue in 2002. Those ice-cream colours. That buttery photography. Those bebes. Pure sweetness. The fall issue (I still see the cover: grey-blue background, dark-haired cherub wearing a white cotton-eared hat. Sigh.) featured a menagerie of ceramic flower planters from the 1950s- lambs, scottie dogs, puppies - holding Q-tips, cotton balls, a tiny hair brush. Darling.

Inspired, at last! I had a theme! Decorating ennui gone (everything I loved was too expensive. everything else was hideous) I set off to kit-out baby's room with authentic vintage finds. First stop Aberfoyle. And would you believe within five minutes I'm staring at a table full of the very planters featured in MS Baby? The Gods were with me that day people, the Gods were with me. I bought every one for $5 a pop. Next I found a hand-stitched teddy bear wearing a pork-pie hat, spectacles and leather spats. Spats! $10. A child's lamp from the 1950s with a pom-pom-trimmed shade was $15. For $3 a piece I picked up sheets of paper dolls from the 1940s and framed them simply in painted wood frames. The room was simple, peaceful and adorable. Neither of us tired of it. The whole thing cost less than $500, including the crib.

I loved that magazine and now it's gone. I'll miss it.

Mr. Scottie, above, lives on today in Henry's room.

ModernMom?

It's 2 am, which is scandalously late for the owner of a four-month old baby to be online and, gasp, working. And I've had guests over tonight. And a glass or two of Shiraz. So I should be sleeping right now. But I can't until I figure out why this silly article "How to Get a Man to Do Housework" on www.modernmom.com has my nursing bra in a twist.

My husband does not do housework. Period. There is no pretense to housework. He feels no more obligation to clean the house than he does to, say, speak Latvian. There is no apology. There is no guilt, no guile. "Me? Speak Latvian?," he'll ask quizzically. You can understand why this type of article would be of no interest to me. But, given the late hour, the Shiraz and the pre-and post-guest tidy up, I was intrigued by the promise. And the article is written by a guy so it's bound to offer a privileged glimpse into the complex reasons why a man does not want to mop and how a loving but not issue-free wife could use these insights to help him want to mop better and more frequently.

So yeah I read it. And no surprise the writer, Marty Friedman, is a bit of knucklehead: "Most men will take on a few additional chores around the house if they are respectfully asked and not second-guessed and criticized for what they do. They are even more likely to do household chores if they can choose what they do, and do it without being monitored and criticized." But I expected Marty to say something knuckleheady that. The nagging wife defense predates Archie Bunker; this is not a new strategy. It's actually pretty predictable. And in my view a red herring. Men, or at least my man, don't do housework because they don't want to. They'd rather read The Atlantic or Esquire or download music or zone out in front of Rockstar SuperNova. And who the hell wouldn't?

At our house it's like that trust-building game where a person falls backwards, eyes closed, certain in the knowledge someone will catch them. The non-houseworking man knows this deeply and has cleverly applied the principle to housework. He knows that someone will always pick up the socks, load/unload the dishwasher, find the source of the bad smell in the fridge, etc. So why are we still blaming wives? I'm not going all Naomi Wolfe or Norma Jean here. I'm just looking for a little honesty. I'd rather hear "Uh I don't feel like doing (insert chore) because I'd rather (insert leisure activity)" than be led to believe it's perversely my fault he doesn't want to do anything around the house. I think Marty needs to take a closer look at his motivation, don't you?

For more insightful and inspiring stories about love and marriage also read "Put some sizzle back into your Friday nights" and "A new idea to communicate better with your guy". Sheesh. Maybe the gals at www.modernmom.com need to rethink the first half of their name. OK, now I can sleep.