April Fools!

I have a confession to make: April Fools’ Day turns me into a bit of a conniving goofball. There’s just something delightful about a holiday that’s all about embracing silliness and childish pranks, especially when the rest of the year I’m locked into the role of Responsible Adult. I make the appointments and organize the bedroom cleaning and help the boys with their homework. I replace torn socks and and make sure the pantry and fridge are stocked with sensible and nourishing staples. I am The Mom.

But once a year I get a little goofy. I plan silly surprises and “gotcha!” moments for the boys in my world (well, except for the dog… I don’t think he’d understand). This year’s holiday tributes looked like this:

• Last night, I sneaked into my 14-year-old’s room and discovered, to my delight, that his alarm clock has an “alarm 2” switch. So without disturbing his usual morning settings, I was able to program a surprise pre-dawn awakening by the Spanish language station set to full volume. ("Bueno, los campistas, la subida y el brillo, y no se olvide de traer sus botas. Es cooooold hacia fuera allí hoy!")*
  

• Every year I find at least one fabulously freaky item while I’m surfing the web for Christmas gifts in the fall (check out sites like thinkgeek.com). Last year, it was a toilet monster. This year, it was this fabulous shower curtain (see photo). The shadowy figure is a permanent feature! I see it as a perfect cross between Psycho and Poltergeist.

• I switched the hand soap in the kitchen and the boys’ bathroom with canola oil, thinking the smeary experience would at least elicit some grudging boyish respect because of the grossness factor. The joke was on me, though, because nobody noticed. The boys just smeared oil on their hands and went about their business nicely moisturized. [Note: backfiring tricks are not unprecedented. When Caden was five or six, I tucked a second-hand Barbie into bed with each of my sleeping sons on the night of March 31st. When Caden came downstairs the next morning, he was stroking her hair and calling her Stephanie.]

• Not wanting to leave Eric out of the fun, I sneaked out in the night and tucked bubble wrap under his rear tires, hoping that the resulting noise would give him a jolt as he wondered what he-of-the-perfect-driving-record had hit. It would probably have been more startling if the bubble wrap hadn’t been bright pink and the morning paper hadn’t landed right next to the rear of the car. Ah, well, at least he felt included.

• While the boys slept, I covered the top part of their bedroom doors with newspaper and filled the resulting pocket with packing peanuts. When they opened their doors in the morning, each boy was greeted with a snowy avalanche. That was a short-lived triumph, however, since “Responsible Mom” is the one who had to clean up all of that drifting Styrofoam (that, and my older son returned the favor by covering my bed in the flighty stuff). Note to self: no messy pranks next year.

• Caden’s lunch contained a “candy” surprise. I carefully opened the end of a bag of M-n-Ms and poured out (and enjoyed) the candy, refilling the package with dried kidney beans and gluing the end closed. The prank was perfectly undetectable! I think his friends at lunch were more amused than my M-n-M-less ten-year-old, though. I had to pony up an actual treat after school to make peace with the jilted candy-craver.

• While the boys were at school, I changed the home page on their web browser to bieberfever.com. I mean, what 14-year-old boy doesn’t want to gaze at Justin Beiber as soon as he logs on?

• The final twist to the day was the dinner, which I always try to make as “April Foolish” as possible. This year’s menu was a sort of course reversal. The “fish sticks” and “peas and carrots” on their dinner plates were actually cereal-coated wafer cookies and hand-shaped Jolly Rancher chews and Starburst candies. The “cupcakes”, on the other hand, were made of meat loaf topped with pink-tinted mashed potatoes. Yummy! 

How does the rest of the family respond to this annual frivolity from Mom? My ten-year-old looks forward to April Fools’ Day almost like it’s Christmas. He giggles his way through the day, glancing suspiciously around door frames and asking frequently if there are more tricks on the way. My older son—at least this year—suddenly finds the whole thing embarrassing and mildly contemptible. (“Oh great, Mom, ‘April Fools’. That’s hilarious.”) But I persist. I’m hoping that when my kids are older, they’ll remember that once a year (at least) Mom was more than just that person who made them brush their teeth.

So... what should I do next year?

 

* Apologies to actual Spanish speakers if Google Translate mangled the DJ's line from Groundhog’s Day. My son, a first-year Spanish student, couldn't help me on this one.

Beef Stew, Tragedy & One Dumbassdog

I live in a part of the world that’s mossy and green, slicked in mud and dampened by an almost constant drizzle from October through June. Our rainfall is the stuff of legend, and this past winter has more than matched the region’s reputation. Even for here, it’s been uncommonly cold and drizzly.

So this morning, I set out to make myself a simmering pot of pure comfort food: beef stew full of tender meat, onions and potatoes. As I’ve mentioned before, I'm not much of a cook, but through the power of Google and a back-of-the-cabinet dusty old crock-pot, even I can make something that smells and tastes like a big warm culinary hug.

By three o’clock, the house smelled savory and delicious. I couldn’t wait until dinnertime. By five o’clock, the boys were asking if they could just have a bite of a carrot. By seven o’clock, though, the potatoes were still rock hard even though the pot had been simmering away on high for almost seven hours (the recipe said 5-8 hours, I swear!). By seven-twenty the natives were about ready to throw me in a pot to stew for dinner. So I punted.

The stew continued to cook while I whipped up a quick substitute meal of pasta for my hungry family. Just before bedtime, I gave the potatoes one last jab and realized they were finally about ready. It was time to let the feast cool so that we could eat it tomorrow—technically left-over, but maybe even better for the wait. But first I decided that I deserved a little tiny serving while it was still fresh. I mean, it smelled so good.

I pulled a small glass bowl out of the cupboard, not realizing its twin had grabbed on for good measure. As I stood watching in disbelief, the lower bowl fell and shattered against the side of the container I’d put the stew in to cool.

So now my stew had steaming chunks of long-simmered beef, tender carrots, onions and potatoes… and about 5000 shards of shattered glass.

Gah! Maybe the universe is telling me that I should stick to spaghetti.

I put the whole ruined mess in the laundry room sink to cool overnight so I could throw it away in the morning. I didn't want to wait up for it to cool, and I was sure that if I left it in the kitchen, our beloved dog would find his way onto the counter to feast on beef stew and broken glass. (He totally would.)

While I was securing the glass-infused death stew (conscientious dog mama that I am), that same beloved dog found his way into the boys’ playroom, which I have just reorganized and am in the process of painting. He proceeded to shred a huge bag of garbage, dragging nasty boy-cave detritus all over the area I have been so busily trying to renew. When I took him downstairs to put him outside while we cleaned up the garbage, he peed in a line all the way across the kitchen floor. That dog knew he was busted, and he was trying to tell me I was the boss. Gee, thanks, Dumbassdog.

So my evening ended up with a big pan of glass-filled stew, a huge shredded plastic bag of garbage, and a long swath of pee. 

Tomorrow has to be better, right?

Yes, that's a glass iceberg, right there in the middle.

If You Don't Give the Dog a Butt-Cut

The holiday deflated all of my best intentions to faithfully update my blog. I'll delve into that in my next post. For now, here is a peek at my afternoon. Glad things are finally back to...well... normal.

You know the children’s book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie? It’s a circular tale of cause and effect, starting with the simple kindness of giving a cookie to a little mouse and ending—after many steps along the way—with the mouse wanting (what else?) a cookie. My day has been kind of like that. Only not nearly so endearing.

The story of my day: If You Don’t Give the Dog a Butt-Cut.

If you fail to trim the shaggy family dog’s butt hair, he will inevitably end up with a wad of poop stuck in it.

If the dog has a wad of poop stuck in his butt hair, you are going to have to don rubber gloves to wash and pry it out.

If you wash and pry the poop out, the dog will probably think you have subjected him to a grave indignity, so he will definitely seek revenge.

If the dog seeks revenge, he will probably pee on something you generally prefer to have dry and fragrance free (like your shoes or a pretty area rug).

If he pees on the pretty area rug, you are going to have to get out the steam cleaner (which, fortunately, you will find at the ready because of a recent bout of carpet-staining orange dog vomit).

When you start to steam clean the rug, you will notice that the floor needs sweeping, so you will reach for the broom.

Holding the broom while turning off the steam cleaner, you will inevitably knock over—and shatter into smithereens—the Christmas statue that you were going to put away before you noticed the poop stuck in the dog’s butt hair. 

While you sweep up the shards of your once-cherished decoration, you will hear the dog whining to come inside from his post-rug-peeing exile in the back yard.

When the dog comes in from his exile, you will almost surely notice the embarrassed tail slump and suspicious dangle that can only mean…

The dog has more poop stuck in his butt hair.

Re-Killing the Turkey

Most of you were done on Thursday, but I just waved goodbye to the biggest feast of the season after having twenty in-laws over for a belated Thanksgiving meal last night.

That shriek you hear is the song to my crazed morning-after happy dance.

I am not an entertainer. I want to be. I try. But while some people are born to lay out lavish dinners for multitudes with nary a batted eyelash, I was born to be the rolls and veggie tray girl. It’s not really that I’m such a bad cook (although the facts of last night may point that way). It’s more that I’m a worrier who frets for weeks leading up to the event, and then lets pots boil over onto the stove while the guests arrive. And no matter how much planning I do ahead of time (in the middle of the night when I should be sleeping), I always seem to find myself driving to the store thirty minutes before go time to pick up that one last ingredient that will somehow lift the party from stressed-out mayhem to Martha Stewart perfection.

Last night’s meal involved a turkey—well, a turkey and a ham, because I was sick of turkey after eating leftovers since Thursday, but some of the guests were averse to ham. Ham’s easy (hel-lo, you can get them already cooked and sliced), but I had prepared precisely one turkey in my lifetime, and I think it was about eight years ago (or, roughly, the last time I couldn’t somehow escape hosting duties on Thanksgiving).

Now, you may be thinking that turkey is easy, too, but I beg to differ. Cooking a turkey involves wrestling eighteen pounds of cold, rubbery raw bird flesh onto a pan (brand new, since—duh—I didn’t actually own a roasting pan, which you don’t need for rolls or a veggie tray). First you have to fish out the neck (thanks for including that, Butterball!), and then you need to stand there for ten minutes or so with your arm swirling around the slimy innards while you frantically search for the bag of giblets. I knew they must be there somewhere—I have actually cooked poultry before—but nobody warned me that I should be looking in the turkey’s butt!

Finally (and you might be able to skip this step), I needed to run to the computer to Google how to insert a meat thermometer into “the meatiest part of the thigh.” I’ve eaten chicken thighs, but I wasn’t even sure where to find one on that nasty raw-meat monstrosity. (I think this experience may actually be the tipping point that turns me vegetarian.)

With the thermometer in according to the package directions and the wisdom of the Internet, I set the bird in the oven to cook for the promised four hours while I finished making the rest of the food and setting three tables. (Hubby was away working hard at his very important coaching job and picking up Danger Boy from basketball practice, so it was all on me—yippee!). Forty-five minutes early, the temperature alarm beeped, and I took the now-golden bird out to rest. It looked pretty good! On a whim, though, I decided to check the temp of the suspiciously firm-looking turkey breasts. I know that “firm” and “breasts” can be good in some situations, but I don’t think Thanksgiving dinner is one of those. When I inserted the probe, the meat let out the barest dusty sigh as I discovered with the rapidly rising temperature gauge that I had indeed killed the bird (again!). Damn.

“Gravy, people, you should definitely throw on some gravy. Or try the ham. The ham is great!”

Finally, the work was done, the house cleaned, the borrowed chairs in place, and the food laid out for the hungry masses. My older son looked at the food spread out before him and, sagely, made the observation of the night:

 “The problem with Thanksgiving is that the food isn’t even all that good. We have a whole day centered around turkey. Why don’t we have a day centered around something that tastes good, like hamburgers?”

Now that would be my kind of Thanksgiving! I’ll bring the buns.

Two of three tables... the top one still waiting on the BYOC (bring your own chairs)

I Got a Rock

Remember the holiday special, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown? I always felt so sorry for Charlie Brown in that show. Every Peanuts special was filled with his failures and social belittlement, but the Halloween special was the worst of all. Remember how he went trick-or-treating—the most delightfully anticipated kid event of the fall season—and got a mean trick instead of a treat at every single house? Each of the other kids got candy and apples and money, but after every door Charlie Brown would say, “I got a rock.”

I know it seems a little out of season, but I think of that TV show every year around this time for my own private reasons. You see, “I got a rock” is the refrain that haunts me as I remember my biggest holiday gift-giving failure ever.

Let me explain.

My older son was born just five days before Christmas, a surprise tax deduction and holiday-plan-changer, since he was not supposed to make an entrance until the end of January. He was fine (if a little pumpkin-colored), but his early entrance meant that he would forever have to share his birthday with the biggest gift-giving holiday of the year.

I’ve always made a big deal about his birthday, with a party and friends and a firm commitment to never have him hear the dreaded words, “happy-birthday-merry-Christmas” as we hand him a two-fer Christmas/birthday gift in one.

When he was younger, I considered celebrating his half birthday instead, but for a number of reasons—including having a cousin born on his first birthday—that never really appealed to him. So that means he gets every gift he’ll receive all year within a five-day period in late December. That can present challenges when you’re trying to think of ideas for a child who already has way too much.

When he was in about fifth grade (I think), he really wanted Guitar Hero for Christmas. That was his entire list. I bought it early and had it waiting to put under the tree. Unfortunately, there was still that other gift-giving occasion to shop for, so I got…well…creative. And while creativity is great if you’re selling napkin rings on Etsy.com, it’s met with just a dash more scorn when you’re cobbling together a “surprise” for an eleven-year-old.

His class had done a unit on rocks and minerals that year, and he had expressed a real interest in collecting his own specimens. He was particularly taken with crystals, and showed me several in books that were especially pretty. So I decided to get him an extra-nice rock collection—including various crystals, geodes, some petrified dinosaur poop, and a professional-grade rock tumbler—as his birthday present. (I know. You can see the problem already, but I was delusional.)

So there we all were on his birthday, gathered around Austin, whose eyes sparkled with anticipation for the Guitar Hero he thought would be in that big box on the table. The paper was torn away, and there it was, stamped clearly across his face as he tried to give me a grateful smile: “I got a rock.”

It’s a beautiful set. Honest! It still sits in its place of shame next to the never-used rock tumbler on a high shelf in the back of his closet, taunting me when I have to reach into those dark recesses to put away something old or unwanted or outgrown. 

An excellent fake smile, whipped out later for the photo op.

These are the lessons I learned from my ill-fated foray into the world of rock hounds:

1.   If two gifts will eventually be given, always start with the video game.

2.   Educational gifts are best left to the grandparents.

3.   Creativity is best for gifts intended for the really old or the really young.

The search is on for two non-geological gifts for this year. Suggestions will be gratefully considered. Good grief!

Laundry Lessons (Or How I Escaped the 1950s)

I taught my 8^th grade son how to do laundry yesterday. It’s been long overdue, I know, and I apologize to his future wife for letting it go this long. Sometimes it's just less painful to do it than to teach it. But his highness and I finally reached a tipping point on Saturday night. Yup. Right in the middle of preparing dinner, Mom went on strike.

OK, it was a really short strike, lasting just long enough for me to turn off the burners, abandon the half-cooked meal in the pans on the stove, and drive to the closest Starbucks for a mocha and a much-needed timeout with a good book. But I think I made my point. A little. I hope.

You see, I am the lone female in a family populated by boys. It’s testosterone soup around here—all puppy dog tails and Axe body spray. I’ve always considered myself a bit of a feminist, really, but somehow I’ve let my life devolve into a snapshot of 1950s domestic bliss, with Mom in charge of the inside of the house while Dad takes care of the lawn. I’ve even been known to greet my dear husband wearing heels, a ladylike dress and an apron (with a bow in my ponytail) just to make a point about how far from the ideal modern balance we’ve fallen. Unfortunately, the point actually taken was that there was something oddly alluring about June Cleaver waiting for him all dolled up after work. But I digress.

My husband would have been a perfect mid-20^th-century provider. He works hard, takes great care of the yard, and successfully fixes almost anything that breaks (and that’s saying a lot in the realm of Danger Boy and Captain Chaos). He’s a great guy—a catch (according to him)—but he doesn’t cook. This despite many attempts by me to get him interested in the process (“It’s just following directions… like building a ‘some assembly required’ bookcase...”). And because he doesn’t cook, my boys have grown up with a horrifyingly sexist vision of how things work in the kitchen and around the house in general. Mom cooks; everyone else sits down when it’s ready and then rushes off to their very important soccer and basketball practices while Mom does the dishes.

To make matters worse, my older son has suddenly transformed from a generally likeable kid into (and it pains me to say this) a teenager. And just like everything else my oldest has taken on in life, he has embraced this metamorphosis with uncommon gusto. Whereas some teens may be occasionally surly, mine is like a sorority girl on PMS… every single day.

So, back to dinner and the laundry. I had been battling with the 13-year-old dark phantom all day. Every small step toward accomplishing anything was met with open hostility and scorn. Attempts to elicit help or even basic civility were devoured by the teenage wraith and expelled as unrecognizable emotional shrapnel. So, when my husband walked through the door after being away for hours scouting a high school basketball game (for his very important other job as a high school coach) it didn’t take much to send me over the edge into my Starbucks seclusion. (I'm usually more stable than this. Honest.)

The very next day, I decided that the time had come to end all of this ridiculous 1950s let’s-let-Mom-do-it garbage once and for all. The kid needed some life skill training and a bit more respect for how hard his parents (especially his sainted mother) work for him every day. I decided that since cooking required dishwashing—and since our last lesson in cooking involved me forgetting to mention that hot bacon grease does not get washed down the sink when you’re done frying—I’d start with something simpler: doing his own damn laundry.

Shockingly, he was oddly receptive to the whole idea (“This is easy! I don’t know why you guys complain about this so much.”). He made his way through the two-and-a-half loads of post-teenage-boy grungies on his bedroom floor, and ensured that he would indeed have fresh boxers to wear on Monday morning (without yelling at Mom about it—what a concept).

The upside of all of this is that Grumble-butt now knows how to launder his own dirty drawers, meaning he will have one less thing to grouse about in the dark mom-hasn't-had-coffee-yet hours as he prepares for school  And maybe my son will not be completely helpless when I send him out into the world in the not-too-distant future. The downside is that I forgot to explain that not everything goes in the dryer after it has been washed (forgetting the important follow-up lessons is getting to be a pattern with me). To complete that final half load, the boy had grabbed a few of my sweaters and, um… underpinnings to fill the machine. [Sigh]

So, if you know any eight-year-old girls who like to wear somewhat motherly but now-so-very-small freshly cleaned sweaters, drop me a line. I’ll just be sitting here in a borrowed Aéropostale sweatshirt and some nice clean boxers waiting for my laundryman to get home from school.

P.S. If you want the greatest picture book ever for teaching these lessons to your own little boys, check out Piggybook, by Anthony Browne.

 

He Said What?

One thing that helps make up for all of the whining and fighting and stinky body fluids involved in parenting two boys is the fact that kids are just so darned funny. I think that’s by design—it keeps us from chucking them to the curb when they hit the teenage years. The best stuff comes when they’re trying to be dead serious or when their innocence and cluelessness run smack into their firm conviction that they know it all.

So, in the spirit of enjoying my boys as the goofballs they so frequently can be, here are my top-five (or at least five I can remember today) things my kids said or did that made me laugh.

#5. Yeah, Mom… you’re hilarious (looking)

The other night at dinner, my 13-year-old gave me this one: “Oh… you want your blog to be funny? It’s only supposed to be funny for, like, other 40-year-old moms, right? Yeah. Cause you’re nailin’ it.”

* Life lesson #4263 - Remember that Mom has a never-ending stash of  

       those pictures when you start popping off at the dinner table. And she blogs.

#4. What does a duck say?

Both of my kids had some enunciation issues early on. Austin had a little trouble with the “qu” sound, which he pronounced as “ff.” Why does it seem like every board game and book we had back then asked the oh-so-provocative question: “What does the duck say?” His response? “FFaaack! Fack, fack, fack, fack, fack…”

In a similar vein, Caden decided that his favorite song—right at the time he couldn’t pronounce his N’s—was “Play that Funky Music White Boy.” Oh, boy. He also switched his B’s and D’s, so we heard an awful lot about him playing with his “doll” and his “dike” for a while. Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

#3. Douche!

When Austin was just learning to talk, he had a few multipurpose words that applied to more than one thing. The fun part was trying to decipher what he really meant. One of these oft-used words was—sadly—“douche.” Really. It meant both “shoes” and “juice.” I remember many, many trips to the mall that were punctuated by loud drawn-out cries of “Doooouuuuche! Dooooouuuche!” He’d keep up his Summer’s Eve chant until I could figure out if he was thirsty, had lost his baby Chuck Taylors, or just wasn’t feeling springtime fresh. “Dooooouuuuuche!”

#2. Bone stickers

Back when my oldest was about seven, the boys were watching one of those funny home video TV shows, and a clip came on showing a toddler with panty liners stuck all over his head. The audience was roaring with laughter, and Austin turned to us and said, “I don’t get it. What are those things?” His little brother looked at him and replied with the earnest conviction of a knows-everything three-year-old, “Those are bone stickers!” [Duh!] Austin looked at us quizzically and answered, “I still don’t get it.”

And finally, my number one favorite kid giggle…

#1. Hey, Dude!

Some of you have seen this before, but this may be my favorite kid-mispronunciation of all time. It’s Caden back in about 2004, earnestly singing that Beatles classic, Hey Dude. It still makes me smile every time I see it.

So, what do your kids say and do that makes you giggle? Please share! (Really... down there in the comments. It'll be fun for everybody!)

Health Baby Mea Culpa

I failed as a Health Baby grandma! My son earned a 97% for the time he spent watching the “baby” (with only one small mistake), but during my short stint babysitting, I managed to almost kill the kid. On the time-stamped computer printout, I was busted for letting the baby’s head snap back three times, missing a diaper change, and even neglecting to feed the little guy within the four-minute window.

How did my own boys survive me?

Truthfully, I feel terrible, but not for little JaKobe, who I think should learn to be a little more patient on the diaper change thing. My real kids had to man up and tough it out on occasion while I navigated the slalom course of our life to get to the source of their discomfort. But I do feel terrible for my real son, who slumps and slouches through the day at school to mask the fact that he is, in fact, proud of his straight-A average (which is now in serious jeopardy). If he had a timed computer printout gauging my performance, it would have shown a major downward blip right about sixth period as he received his Health Baby report.

You see, I made him go to his refereeing gigs that day. I insisted that he leave the “baby” with me (“I parented two kids of my own! I can handle a doll… jeeez!”). It’s his first job, and I thought that canceling on his employers because of the Health Baby set a bad precedent. And really, how many dads can just quit their jobs because having a baby at home is too hard? (Thoughts on paternity leave would make an interesting future post, though…)

And then I blew it as the Health Baby’s grandma. Damn. I really thought parenting imaginary kids was one of my fortes. Little Jessica and Jennifer, my imaginary twins (whom I named back in 6^th grade) are doing splendidly. They never fight, they keep their rooms clean, and they have never once told me “I hate you”, no matter how badly I screwed up. [Sigh] Imaginary kids are so sweet!

Back in reality, my other real-life kid spent the weekend moaning on the couch with a 102º fever. I cooled his brow, brought him juice and Tylenol, and—in the moments when he felt a little better—played cribbage and battleship on a TV tray by his sickbed. I read him stories and gave him hugs, and when he was finally feeling better last night, he gave me a big squeeze and said, “You are the best mom in the world. Thank you for taking such good care of me while I was sick.”

I guess I’m one for two for the weekend. That’s not so bad, really. But I wouldn’t ask me to babysit your baby any time soon if I were you.

* Update: I went to conferences yesterday (arena-style at the middle school), and every parent I ran into already knew the sad story of my failure as a doll-watcher. You could see the reproachful chuckle in their eyes. My conference with the health teacher started with, "So... the baby..." I'm infamous for my ineptitude as a pretend baby-grandma. Jeez.

Lessons from Health Baby

Health Baby has come to visit for the weekend. This computerized simulator is here to convince my son that parenthood should be postponed until he no longer values sleep or—really—any uninterrupted time to himself. Little JaKobe (as my son has named him) cries and fusses frequently. As soon as he starts, you rub a magnet over his chest to trigger a timer that tests how quickly you can figure out which of four things might be wrong with the little guy. Is he hungry? Does he need to be burped or rocked or changed?

JaKobe sleeps for hours (you can listen to him breathing), and then he eats like a locust until he tires out again and naps, saving up his energy for the wee hours of the morning. It’s good to see a little realism written into the program. When he needs a diaper change, he’ll scream piercingly until you rub the magnet in the new diaper across his little tush, at which point, he’ll instantly coo with contentment. (Isn’t that just exactly how it went for your babies?)

It’s funny to watch a teenage boy growing more and more panicked as he struggles to decipher the baby’s cries. “What’s wrong with you?” he pleads. I so remember asking that more than a few times in the years before my kids could tell me where it hurt. Health Baby is (as you might imagine) much easier than a real child, though. I babysat the little doll this afternoon as my son went to his job as a soccer ref, and it was reassuring to know that there was always an answer to the “what’s wrong” question. (I wonder what the neighbors thought when they walked by and saw me patting the little half-naked baby against my shoulder in the living room.)

But really, Health Baby could go a long way toward being more realistic. Those changed diapers are completely fragrance-free. I want little JaKobe to give my son a realistic, full-fledged messy blow-out. You know, the squishy yellow-brown smear that goes up the back, soaks through the onesie, and leaks all over your last pair of clean jeans.

As my son nonchalantly changes that magnetic diaper, I’d like JaKobe’s little anatomically correct penis to do what little boy parts do when you remove the diaper (they don’t just make these for the fun of it), and for him to realize that that’s going to be the closest he’ll get to a shower all day. So when his sweet “Health Wife” gets home at the end of the day, he might be standing there weeping just a little, with a yellow smear on his jeans and dried pee crusting in his hair.

I don’t know if I ever realized how much of parenthood would revolve around other people’s bodily functions. Of course I knew there’d be diapers, but I didn’t think about the fact that they’d still be in diapers when they were eating solid food. Or that corn doesn’t change in any noticeable way after it’s been eaten by a child, so that when it’s running down their leg at the park, you can clearly see last night’s dinner. And I didn’t know that some kids could be champion-grade pukers either, so prone to vomiting that a simple cough can set them off. As the real-life parent, you get to be the one wiping it off and washing it away, while at the same time comforting and kissing and loving the producer of all that stomach-churning goo.

 

More than just the absence of excrement, though, Health Baby falls short of reality in one very fundamental way. Baby JaKobe only has four reasons to cry. That’s it. My son knows that if he tries each remedy for a minute, one of them will eventually work. Every parent who’s ever spent a long, dark night walking the halls with a squalling baby—wondering what’s wrong, aching over the cries of the child, begging the little one for a clue—knows that sometimes babies just cry. Sometimes they can’t be consoled. Comforting a baby sure as heck doesn’t happen in the span of a four-minute countdown. And it doesn’t end on Monday. Real babies don’t get turned back in to the health teacher at the end of a long weekend.

Still, I’m pretty sure I won’t be babysitting for my son again any time soon. So, really, this is the best health assignment ever.

* For an update on the Health Baby experiment, see Health Baby Mea Culpa.