I shall return

Hey Folks!

Yes, I have not posted in a while, but I have a semi-reasonable excuse. I have a writing deadline on November 4th, so there won't be any new posts until after Halloween.

When I do return, look forward to an appropriately spooky story chronicling the terrifying creature currently bent destroying my home. They call him....SNOODZILLA!

Happy Halloween to one and all!

P.S. I will add, briefly, that if there is anything better about having a kid than getting to dress him up in a costume against his will and then parade him around for the delight of the neighbors on Halloween, I truly haven't discovered it.

Party All the Time

My husband David and I complement each other in many ways, but our mutual destruction is assured unless we can figure out some way to curb our shared love of SEVERE over-planning.

The following is the actual schedule that faced us as we headed into last weekend:

FRIDAY -

MORNING - Shop for, decorate and clean house for the surprise birthday party of a family friend I'll be hosting this evening. A sit-down dinner for 10.

NOON - Make tragic, weekend-screwing mistake of checking Craigslist and discovering there is a murphy bed, which I have been wanting for our guest room, on sale for a great price. Order said murphy bed, thus assuring own doom.

NIGHT - Throw friend's birthday party in state of high-frenzy. Remove guests from home before falling into bed at midnight leaving kitchen disaster in our wake.

SATURDAY -

PARTY NUMBER TWO! It's the BIG Snoodie First Birthday Extravaganza!

MORNING - We know we're scheduled to visit a sick friend to visit for most of the morning - so best to get a jump on the day! We're out of bed with Snoods at 6am! As David attacks the kitchen fiasco, I begin making giant mound of cupcakes (pausing only to run to the neighbors to frantically beg for cupcake liners, which I have neglected to purchase during yesterday's maniacal shopping outing). Snood yells miserably from his play yard for sweet freedom, but we eagerly explain how worth it this all will seem once he sees the great Feast of Snoodie we are preparing!

LATE MORNING - We cease work to visit the aforementioned friend. Upon return (around 11am), I realize we have approximately 8 hours of preparations to complete before the party starts at 4pm. BUT, instead of helping with this, David now has to leave to go get a UHAUL and pick up the ill-advisedly purchased murphy bed. He estimates that the entire undertaking will last about 2 hours...

AFTERNOON - ...he is wrong. By early afternoon I am texting him frantically.

12pm-

ME: Where r u???

DAVID: Turns out Murp bed actually belongs to ex-boyfriend. He dsn't want 2 sell.

1pm-

ME: Where r u now???

DAVID: Convinced b-friend - getting cashiers ck. then heading bck to buy bed.

2:30pm-

ME: Where r u???

DAVID: Disassembling bed I'm gonna B a while.

By 3pm I give up on the texting and decide I better concentrate on frantically shoving detritus into every conceivable inch of closet space in our home, while simultaneously attempting to speed-ice cupcakes and hang birthday banners.

3:55pm finds David back at home! The two of us unload the final pieces of our massive new murphy bed into the guest room in the waning moments before our first guests arrive. The early arrivers help me take out the garbage and set the table before - THE PARTY BEGINS!

4pm - David emerges from a 60-second shower and joins the gathering revelers. The party is an enormous success! I've taken a friend's good advice and kept it small and super-simple. Snoodie crawls around with a handful of other babies and then shoves an entire cupcake in his face. BIRTHDAY ACHIEVED!

9pm - Our guests have departed and David and I lay semi-conscious in our backyard only to realize that we now need to start packing for a two-week trip that begins first thing tomorrow morning. I offer my husband seven million dollars if he will just let me die in the middle of the lawn instead, but he refuses. And so, I get up and follow him into the house, where we start pulling out bags and throwing in a haphazard collection of clothing before crawling into bed around midnight.

SUNDAY

5am - Wakey! Wakey! We're out of bed in the dark before dawn to head for LAX looking like rejects from the cast of Zombieland.

So, the weekend nearly killed us.

BUT now that it is behind us we are thrilled to have our new murphy bed and glad to be on our nice vacation. And as for the birthday party? As I mentioned in my last post, one friend advised me that all you really need to come away with to deem a 1st Birthday Party a success is a picture of your baby wearing a hat and covered with cake.

And to that I say - - - CHECK!

Happy Snood-day to You!

This Friday is Snoodie's FIRST BIRTHDAY!

(please do not panic, you are not actually invited to a first birthday party)

Preparations are officially underway for the Feast of Snoodie! And by preparations, I mean that I am on my way to Party City to purchase some streamers and perhaps a balloon or two.

As the date for the party draws near, I've been getting advice from all corners about what a child's birthday party should involve:

"One child for every year the kid is old!"

"Get a bouncy house! Everyone loves a bouncy house!"

"Start late! That way everyone has had their nap!"

"Start early! Get it done and out of the way!"

Perhaps the most poignant thought on the subject, however, came from my father.

He informed me in no uncertain terms that if he ever learned he had a only a month to live, he would spend each day of that month riding an exercise bicycle in the center of a children's birthday party. This way, the month would seem like several years and by its end death would be nothing but a sweet relief.

So, I've been warned.

The touchstone I keep returning to is that, whatever we end up putting together, Snoodie won't remember it. I mean, the first couple of birthdays are just trial runs before the child has any actual ability to retain the experience, right?

As a friend pointed out, for birthday number one all you really need to come away with is a picture of your baby wearing a hat and covered with cake! So, I'm adding cake mix to my list and heading off to shop!

Check back next week to see the disturbing cartoon baby above replaced by an actual photo of Snood enjoying his very own birthday cake! (If no such photo appears, please send help immediately.)

Snood Glorious Snood

When my husband and I were first dating we would meet up each Friday night at a different restaurant in Los Angeles. At the time, we were unencumbered by childcare costs and/or mortgage payments and so we could afford to splurge on some pretty nice dinners.

Each week, one of us would do extensive research before making a reservation.

We'd meet up for a cocktail before dinner and talk for an hour or so about the restaurant choice. Upon arrival, we would discuss the menu in detail before ordering. When the food was served, we'd pass our plates back and forth as we discussed the merits and missteps of each dish. After the date, we'd head out, holding hands as we lovingly revisited the meal, course by course, while strolling towards the car.

At some point, about 6 months into our relationship, I turned to David with true concern and said:

"I'm worried that our relationship is 90% based on talking about food."

He pointed out that many couples he could name made it work on less, and we set a wedding date.

Since then, the arrival of ze Snood has put a serious hurting on date nights. These days we eat mostly at home. The first year plus of marriage has reveled a whole new side of our eating selves. For example, David has had to work double time to keep track of the long list of food rules I adhere to, which includes:

• No raisins in anything. Ever.
• No cold foot that could be served hot (i.e. shrimp on ice)
• No "surprise cruch" (i.e. chicken salad with large hunks of celery)
• No condiments (this includes ketchup, mustard, relish and hot sauce)

I could go on all day.

David, on the other hand, is basically the human equivalent of a goat.

He will head to the fridge and open a tupperware container of dubious origin any night of the week and give it's contents a whirl. While I have never actually seen him devour a tin can, let's just say I'm not putting anything past him.

So it's been interesting to start introducing Snoodie to solid food. So far, I think he takes after his dad. It started with rice cereal, which he devoured with gusto. We moved onto fruits and veggies, which he ate with glee (brief product endorsement: the BEABA babyfood maker is awesome - I never would have imagined myself as a "make your own babyfood" type but I am a convert!).

And now, as he approaches his first birthday Snood is eating it all. It's a feeding frenzy in my dining room. I am beginning to give serious though to simply sitting Snood in a high-chair, putting a bowl a food in front of him and then turning on a high-powered fan and blowing the food in his general direction. I am almost certain this system would result in more food consumption and less mess than we are currently experiencing.

We've even starting heading out for date nights again!

Gone are the fancy reservations and the five courses. These days we specialize in dinner at 5:30pm. As we have a maniac in a high chair along for the ride, our dining choices are limited to loud restaurants with friendly servers and we tend to order more burgers than filets, but still we're getting out and firming up the very core of our relationship, our first true love, the thing that made it all happen for us...

...FOOD!

What I Did on My Summer Vacation!

Well, it looks as though summer has come to an end, news that is melancholy on all fronts EXCEPT ONE! Yes, folks, this year, the arrival of Labor Day brings with it a single bright light - - - the return of www.shortfatdictator.com!

*sounds of rejoicing*

I fled the blog sometime back in August, in order to devote massive amounts of quality time to dipping El Snoodo in sunscreen, before heading out in search of water sources in which to plunge ourselves.

But now that fall is in the air, I hereby declare myself ready to fall into autumn's cobwebby arms and begin, once again, to blog about my questionable parenting choices!

First, an update since my last post - - the plague has finally abated (though, not before Typhoid Snoodie managed to pass it on to his grandmother, his parents, my cousin, my sister, his babysitter and two family friends).

I tell you, this cold was one for the record books. We were laid so low by it that at one point my husband turned his goopy eyes to me and said in-between hacking coughs,

"We're never going to be well again. This is it for us."

I gave him some chocolate and sent him back to bed, figuring that it was probably useless to try to explain the unlikelihood that the two of us had managed to catch the world's first incurable cold. And, as it turned out, we were not chosen to suffer endlessly. Eventually, we all recovered and managed to crawl from our sickbeds and back out into the sunshine.

One other delightful development since my last post is that Snood has come a long way since ARP! In fact, he is now performing tricks on command!

Our relationship now involves little more than the following exchange repeated without end:

Me: How big is Snoodie?

Snood raises hands above head to indicate bigness.

Me: SO BIG!!!!

It seems simple but, let me tell you, after eight months of attempting to decipher a series of ever-loudening cries without success, this first glimmer that Snoodie actually speaks English is pretty much the best thing to ever happen to me.

So, that's the news for now! Start looking for the blog again on Wednesdays. Lots more tales to report in the weeks ahead as my little Snoodie turns one!

Sick

We've got the plague.

It all started at the tail end of our super fun summer vacation to New York. There was a family wedding last Saturday night and so, of course, my sister Anne and I decided that, since we were baby-free and David has agreed to designated drive, it was our moral obligation to tie one on old school-style!

(insert woo-hoo type sound here)

The wedding was the greatest kind of wedding there is, and by that I mean a wedding at which the bar is open for cocktails before the ceremony even begins. Anne and I got our game faces on and headed for the bar!

CUT TO:

Six hours and countless Budweisers later David finally managed to drag Anne and I from the dance floor, where we had been performing an unsightly and age-inappropriate version of FLO-RIDAs "Low" to the bemusement/horror of our assembled relatives and we reluctantly agree to head for home.

As we poured ourselves into the car, I called to check in with my folks, who had left a bit early to relieve the sitter.

The bad news was that the report from home was was not good. The good news was that I did manage to discover the ultimate sober-up quick catchphrase the moment my mom said to me:

"There's something wrong with Snood."

We raced home to find our poor little guy moaning and feverish and ended up heading to the E.R. after Snood's fever passed 104 degrees. We delayed our flight back and several nights of missed sleep later, finally managed to limp back to L.A with a sniffling Snood (who, it turned out, just had a nasty virus).

And that is where we find ourselves now.

EXCEPT! I forgot to add that during the above events David and I both caught the Snoodie-plague and are now both horribly sick - - just in time for Snoods to start feeling better!

I sat Snoodie down and explained to him quite calmly,

"Snoodie, Daddy and Mommy feel like crap. And since we took such nice care of you when you weren't feeling well, how about you do me a solid and just mellow out for a few days until we are feeling better, OK? Maybe just play quietly while Daddy and I catch up on some much needed sleep?"

He didn't go for it.

So now our existence is reduced to wandering the house zombie-like, with strange fluids leaking from our heads as we half-heartedly attempt to stop Snood from licking the fireplace grate, while simultaneously breaking down on a cellular level.

We are hot sheeting the bed, with one of us chasing Snoods around until we can't stay vertical for another moment and then diving into bed and yelling to the other, "It's your turn! I think I saw him heading for the kitchen!" before passing out again.

Because...we have the plague.

One of those...

You know that feeling when you're driving along a highway, let's say the 405 South for argument's sake, and you're feeling just swell!

You're making great time and you're so darn proud about it that you can't resist turning to your friend or loved one in the passenger seat and saying aloud,

"Wow! Traffic sure is moving better than I expected!"

Almost before the phrase has left your lips, of course, brake lights appear in front of you, stretching as far as the eye can see. You curse yourself for angering the gods of traffic, who are now punishing you for your hubris.

Well, a few Thursday nights back, I was lying in bed with my husband David when I turned to him with a self-satisfied grin and said,

"You know, honey? I think we are really getting a hang of this parenting thing!"

(Cue Disaster Sequence)

It was July 4th weekend, in fact, and since David had the rare Friday off we both decided it would be fun to take Snoodie to the beach!

We were wrong. It was not fun to take Snoodie to the beach.

This was mostly on account of the approximately ninety-four thousand other Los Angelinos who had ALSO decided the beach sounded like fun on that holiday Friday.

In fact, our outing to the beach did not, in fact, ever actually involve the beach. Instead, it would be more accurate to describe said outing as a trip to western Venice Boulevard, where we sat for forty-five minutes in 100-degree traffic with an angry baby.

The only possible upside to be found in the entire misadventure was the distinct probability that Snoodie picked up some new vocabulary words from listening to daddy and mommy interact with their fellow drivers.

After pulling over in a Marina-Dey-Ray parking lot to feed Snood an ill-advised car-seat-based lunch, we headed home, covered in sweet potatoes and hoping for a better day tomorrow.

But a better tomorrow never came.

Instead, the next afternoon we headed over to friend's house for what else? A Barbeque! What could be more fun on the 4th of July????

As it turns out, if you happen to be us, sticking sharpened bamboo under you own fingernails might be more fun than our 4th of July BBQ experience.

Let me say up front that this was NOT because there was anything wrong with my friend's lovely barbeque. The source of the trouble was that, an hour after arriving at said barbeque, we realized that we'd forgotten the diaper bag. Which meant we'd not only forgotten the diapers, but also....the Snoodie food.

Considering that, at that point, we were forty-five minutes from home with a wet angry baby, we realized that our only option was to put our baby's needs first and head immediately for home.

Oh, no wait, I'm wrong!

That's what the sane and normal parents did in that situation. David and I, on the other hand, felt the fact that we were really hungry, combined with the fact that the food was ALMOST READY, meant that we should stall Snood until after we'd eaten.

At some point I am sure that David and I are going to learn that attempting to stall the Snood is NEVER a good idea and that, in fact, once he's reached a point where he's vocalizing his frustration, IT'S TOO LATE TO STALL AT ALL!

This is how we found ourselves, ten minutes later, running for the car holding two large plates of barbeque and a wildly shrieking Snoodle.

(shrieking Snoodle file photo)

The car ride was spent trying to prevent black beans from flying off our plates as we careened down the hills yelling, "You're OK! You're OK!" in response to screams that loosely translated to:

"Are you idiots kidding me? I needed to eat like an hour ago! When are you two morons ever going to learn that when I say I'm hungry it doesn't mean try to shove some deviled eggs from the buffet into my mouth! I mean DINNER! NOW!"

Forty-five minutes later we made it home with frazzled nerves and limped inside holding a now wimpering baby, half covered in flying Barbeque, starving and disheveled. We crammed some baby food into him and were about to settle into what remained on our plates of cold BBQ when David looked around and said,

"I don't see the diaper bag."

I ask you, now, to play along with a little game I like to call the www.shortfatdictator.com guess-a-thon!

Can you figure out the reason why David couldn't see the diaper bag?

(begin irritating game-show type music)

(end music)

If you guessed,

"because we did bring it to the Barbeque and had it there all along!!"

then buy yourself a case of Turtle Wax, because you are RIGHT!!!

Following this realization, David got back in the car, drove 45-minutes back to the BBQ, retrieved the diaper bag and then drove forty-five more minutes home, while I put an angry Snood-monster in the bath and got him ready for bed.

That night, too exhausted to even limp outside to look at the fireworks, the two of us sat shell-shocked, shoveling half-crushed plates of cold barbeque into our faces and drinking to forget.

Oh, and we also added a new amendment to our marital contract. The next time I turn to David in bed to praise our parenting skills, I asked him to immediately smother me with the nearest pillow to spare me the horrors to follow.

He agreed without a moment's hesitation that it was the only plan that made sense.