So, I’m sure by now you’ve all seen this Alicia Silverstone feeds her baby from her own mouth video, right?  If not, here’s the link:

http://www.thekindlife.com/post/home-video-breakfast-with-baby-bear

Honestly, I don’t give a shit how Alicia Silverstone, or anyone else for that matter feeds their baby.  It’s not my baby.  When it comes down to it, we’re all just getting by the best we can.  Personally, her video made me throw up a little bit, but hey, that’s me.  I’m sure the filet mignon I served my child on a plate with a fork last night would make Alicia Silverstone’s vegan soul cry, but that’s what makes this crazy world go ’round.

But, here’s the thing:  you know what I did not post on my blog today?  A video of my daughter eating said steak dinner with a fork.  From a plate.   Not that it would matter because I wasn’t in an Aerosmith video, and no one really cares what I do at all.  But, also, I don’t need people to weigh in on how and what I feed my daughter, because I’m totally at peace with it.  I don’t need carnivores to laud me, or vegans to hate me.  It’s my personal choice.  But somehow, yesterday morning, while I’m innocently drinking my coffee and eating my English muffin watching the Today show, I got a little gaggy present from Alicia that I did not ask for.  And, of course, it ignited a fifteen minute discussion with Today show doctor Nancy Snyderman about why you shouldn’t feed your baby like that. Germs and the like, blah, blah.  (I totally agree with that too, by the way, but whatever)

You know, I seem to think that if Alicia Silverstone was secure with her feeding habits, she wouldn’t  feel the need to post a video and have the world weigh in.  In fact, the only people who would know about it at all are the people who actually know her in life. I’m not quite sure why she decided to make this a political statement. Publicity?  Maybe.  But, if watching this video makes me want to throw up does that mean that I’m somehow less nurturing of a mother?  I mean, I know it’s how “birds feed their babies” but what if that’s not really a selling point for me?  I’ve never aspired to be bird-like. And, as a side note, if it’s about being like birds, shouldn’t she be feeding her baby a worm?  Or a spider?  That’s not really vegan, though, is it?  Well, maybe vegans should lecture birds about being vegan, the way they lecture everybody else.  And, honestly, who says if birds had hands they wouldn’t use forks?  Forks are great.

Who. Really. Cares. Anyway. Do Alicia Silverstone and her vegan blog wield such humongous cultural influence that tomorrow morning we’re all going to walk down the street and see mother after mother spitting chewed food into their baby’s mouths?  And, even if that were to happen (except in Silverlake where, I’m sure, they’re already doing it) so what?  Don’t we have bigger fish to fry as a society?  Or, for you “kinder” folk, comparatively larger seitan patties to gently heat on a slate rock with nothing but the sun’s rays as a Community?  Chances are if you weren’t feeding your baby like that already, Alicia Silverstone isn’t going to make you start. Unless Cluless really moved you that much.  I mean, it was a highly enjoyable movie.

[I'm in the kitchen and our daughter enters]

DAUGHTER:  Mom, come in the family room.  I just turned on a tv show for you.

[I walk in and COCKTAIL (you know it, Tom Cruise, Elisabeth Shue, 1988) is on]

ME:  Aw, baby.  That’s a Tom Cruise movie.  So nice of you.

DAUGHTER:  You don’t like it?

ME:  No, honey.  I really do like this movie, but it’s kind of a grown up movie.  But thank you, love.  Good choice.

DAUGHTER:  Mom, actually I turned it on for you because I saw a lot of grown ups in it and I thought you would like it.

ME:  I do like it.  I’ll watch it after you go to sleep.

DAUGHTER: Mom.   Actually, I turned it on because I kind of like it.

ME: You like Cocktail?  But it’s boring.  It’s about bartenders.

DAUGHTER:  Please, Mom?  I really want to watch it.  I like bartenders.  They make me want to do the tushy dance.

She is three.  And we are fucked.

Hello beautiful readers,
If you haven’t already voted for me for this:

http://www.circleofmoms.com/blogger/thingsmommyliedabout?blogroll_id=51

Please do right now! You can even vote twice: once from your computer, and once from your phone. It takes about 1.5 seconds.
This contest ends TODAY at 4:00 pacific time so please vote now. Thanks! You’re awesome and I love you.

I have been so obsessed with this contest:

http://www.circleofmoms.com/blogger/thingsmommyliedabout?blogroll_id=51 , that I have almost forgot why I even started writing this blog in the first place.   I generally don’t like unleashing my competitive nature, it’s a bit like a Kraken:  it’s mean, it’s ugly and it’s hard to put back in a cage.  So, it’s time for me to get a little Zen.  Regardless of competitions and even if I do get my ass kicked, I started this blog because I like writing it, not to win contests.  Plus, it keeps me off the pole.  And the pipe.  Kidding.  Not really.  So, yes, please keep voting for the next six days or so, but I’m back on to rambling on about truly important things. Such as:

What is up with these selfish mommies who bring their kids everywhere constantly? 

I was reminded of this yesterday when was in my latest super-terrific trendy exercise class. See, me and fitness are fickle friends.  As part gemini, part lazy-ass, I have tried and abandoned most fitness crazes in my life am currently in the midst of yet another one.  This one’s great and it’s going to change everything, though aaaannddd, I say that every single time.  Anyway, I’m digressing – this one’s a class.  A strenuous, soul torturing, ass kicking class.   For one hour I actually have license to put aside my mommy peripheral vision and focus on myself and how embarrassingly out of shape I’ve become.  I’m in this class yesterday, sitting on my mat, full of fear and regret, ready to go, and in clogs this woman.  With her sick two year old child.  She, of course, expects the lady at the front to be her own personal babysitter for free.  She has generously provided her coughy daughter with a muffin for entertainment – clearly enough to occupy a toddler for an hour.

As the class wore on, this woman barely noticed her daughter who, in turn, spent the hour pressing her cute little chubby face into the glass, staring at her mom who couldn’t have cared less.  At one point, I could actually hear my heart break as the little girl opened the classroom door and started to mimic her mother doing the exercises and the teacher, put into a terrible position by this selfish asshole mother, had to close the door on her.  Ugh.  I wondered to myself, “Am I being too judgmental?  Maybe I’m the selfish one?”  Is it just me that, if I had to take care of my daughter that day, wouldn’t even think of dragging her to an exercise class for my own private dose of “me-time”?  Wait a second.  Isn’t that what babysitters are for anyway?

After class, as this woman flicked her freakishly far too long braid into a bun and slipped her clogs back on, her little girl was finally allowed to run free throughout the studio. She looked at her daughter and said, “Thank you for that, Little Buddy. Mama needed that.”  And, well, it grossed me out.   And it wasn’t just the clogs.

I had a random flashback of sitting in the Jane Fonda Workout Studio on Robertson (don’t you ever tell me I’m not a child of the 80s), watching my mom take a class.  I was definitely not two years old, though.  I was at least self-sufficient enough to read a book. And in those days, I probably spent most of that time waiting in the car.  I feel like the world wasn’t so child centric back then.  There were appropriate and non appropriate places for children.  Especially very young children.   I don’t bring my child to a bar or a very grown up restaurant or totally not for kids movie, or with me while I get waxed, and the list goes on, but yet my jaw has dropped on more than one occasion at a parent at one or more of these places with their young child(ren) in tow.  I promise you this:  I like my child more than I like your child, and if I’m without her at an adult locale it’s because she’s with a babysitter, I need a break, and I’m not looking to hang with your kids.   Let’s all make a joint mother pact to have a little consideration for other mama’s time outs, ladies, ok?  And, really, get a babysitter.  At the end of the day, everyone will be happier.

Now, if you don’t hate me yet, pretty please go vote again? http://www.circleofmoms.com/blogger/thingsmommyliedabout?blogroll_id=51  Thanks!  You’re my favorite!

Hi Beautiful Readers.

This blog was was nominated for this: ”http://www.circleofmoms.com/top25/Top-25-Funny-Moms-2012

So, when I was nominated they gave me this code for a “Badge” to put on my site so that it would look purr-ty and link handily.  I have spent the last hour and a half trying to install a fucking badge.  Not only have I failed terribly, I am terrified I just infected my computer with a virus.  I have given up the pretty badge now and just included a link because that’s as good as I can be today.   Do I look like Mark Zuckerberg, for God’s sake?

Anyway, it’d be super great if you’d vote for me.  You can apparently vote up to once a day, even.  What could be more fun than that?  Exactly.  Nothing.  I’ll even bribe you with alcohol.  Seriously.

It’s actually starting to hurt to watch my daughter grow up.  Of course, it’s also amazing and beautiful, but the painful part is something I never anticipated.  These days, I find myself constantly staring at her baby pictures, for the first time really understanding that she will never be a baby again and, truly, how fast it all happened.

I found the first few years of motherhood really difficult. That’s, of course, no secret.  I wrote a blog about it and everything.  Every milestone filled me solely with joy, yes, because she was growing up and starting to accomplish things, but also because it seemed I had overcome another hurdle in the baby-raising process.  I defined myself as “not a baby person”, meaning, of course, that I couldn’t wait until my daughter and I could go to the movies and have conversations about things, and that she would sleep all the way through the night, or get rid of diapers. Maybe I would have “my life back a little bit”.  Whatever that meant. But all those milestones  happened, my daughter is no longer a baby.  She is a child.  And I have a lot of my life back.  We do all of those fun things now: movies and long talks and lunches and it truly is exhilarating, but now, when I go to pick her up and carry her across the street, it is beginning to be more of a  challenge.  She is heavier and longer and carrying her is far more cumbersome than it used to be.  She can walk, no problem, for long stretches, even run, because, right, she’s a child.

I wouldn’t exactly say I wished the baby years away.  I felt like I immersed myself in that time and enjoyed so much of it but if you had asked me then if I would miss it, I would’ve categorically said “no”.  I was so wrong.

These days we are touring elementary schools,  Kindergarten is just around the corner.  I remember not even being able to imagine my daughter fitting into a toddler car seat, and now I can start to see her in Middle School.  And High School.  And beyond.  And, my God, how different my life will be then. Every understanding I have of motherhood now, will end and something new will emerge.  I really don’t quite know what exactly, but for the first time I just know that it will. And in so many ways my job will be over.  Ugh.  Just writing that makes my stomach hurt.

How can being a mother be simultaneously the most rewarding, difficult, extraordinary and painful thing on the planet to do?   I suppose this is the feeling people get when they decide to have another child.  Most people I know did that a long time ago.  But even though that question is still up in the air, I do know that having another baby around could never change this sick feeling.  And you just have to go through this with any child you have, no matter how many you have.

Hey, I wonder if Michelle Duggar just can’t handle this specific feeling so much, she feels if she just keeps having babies, she’ll never feel it?  Ok, ignore that thought.  I’m definitely not going to find solace entering into the mind of the batshit insane.

I guess, for the foreseeable future, I’ll just be uncomfortable, then.  And do my best to enjoy every single minute I can of my daughter’s growing up.  Even on the days when I literally want to run from the house screaming and hitchhike to the Yucatan because she drives me so crazy.  She only drives me so crazy because I’ve never loved anyone or anything so much.  And maybe even the crazy is something I should learn to enjoy a bit more.  Because that, too, will undoubtedly end.

Since my pathetically non specific New Year’s resolution to “write more” I have, in fact, written far, far less.  It has, however, catapulted my workout routine.  Last year, my resolution to “workout more” led to me writing a blog.  Not only has this year’s resolution been productive for my ass, I have also decided to cook dinner every single night.  My friends don’t even recognize me.  I don’t recognize myself.  Not because I look any different, but because the normal Mia is far more sedentary and much less culinary.  And all because I wanted to write more.

Why is procrastination so insidious?  I think I’ve always been pretty susceptible to its charms.  In school, I was definitely the “work better under pressure” type, and I frequently stayed up all night cramming for one thing or another.  That was when I actually made it into class,  because my procrastination at actually attending school most days proved far to great to resist.

When I first started writing, a friend gave me a wonderful book called “The War of Art” all about procrastination, although the author, Steven Pressfield defines it as Resistance.  It’s a great book.  You should read it.  I often read it, in lieu of doing something more pressing.  In his book, Pressfield basically sums up procrastination at one’s own fear of failure or success.  He’s probably right about that.  For instance, I am performing on stage for the first time in almost a decade, and I don’t seem to have time to rehearse.  Since I am both the only performer and writer, it’s almost a death sentence that I have no one to answer to.  Sometimes, when that starts to freak me out, I just read that book about procrastination again.  I guess I could rehearse the piece I’m so afraid to perform, but thankfully I have this great book about Resistance to get through instead.

The eventual problem with procrastination, of course, is that, in the end,  you’re just a loser.   I really should find some way to turn it around right quick.  This mama’s not getting any younger.

My new thought is to make my goals bigger and loftier, and perhaps then I will manage to use my time effectively to reach my comparably attainable goals.  So here is my new list of things I’d like to accomplish:

1.  Become a world leader  - There are so many things to do to make this one conceivable, I just want to take a nap, or write more blog posts.

2.  Cure Homelessness and Cancer – Sure they aren’t totally related, but they aren’t exactly unrelated either.  I’m pretty sure one of those definitely involves medical school, and therefore means repeating most of college and probably high school since I was never there. I’m seriously crawling into bed right now, and coming up with a treatment for a ten episode series.

3.  Climb Mount Everest – Who am I kidding?  This one makes me want to clean my entire house top to bottom with a toothbrush, not to mention chronicle my entire genealogy.

Procrastination for procrastinators.  Maybe I’m onto something.

Also, this is my cat.  Sometimes, the most important thing I can find to do is watch her sleep.  But, really, have you ever seen the like?  Wouldn’t you just stare at her all day?

So, the holidays are over.  How were yours? Ours were simultaneously stressful and joyous,  and they even included some snow!  It’s pretty but it’s cold.   But, what I felt most gratified about this holiday season was finally understanding the real meaning of Santa Claus.

As I’m quite sure most parents can attest to, Santa is an incredible currency. I am now positive that this myth arose directly from some frustrated mother hundreds of years ago as a way to stop her wee ones from drawing on the cow, eating all the molasses cookies or setting fire to the barn.  Christmas may be over but our conversations about Santa last all year around here.  Santa is always watching and has, of course, an incredibly close connection to the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.  They all talk business, except when they are on they’re annual tropical beach vacation together.  Everyone needs a little relaxation.

This year, my three year old has gotten particularly precocious and, out of necessity, our Santa myth has gotten a little more elaborate.  In the past, it has been enough for me to pick up my phone and threaten to call Santa during a bout of bad behavior.  The words, “Call him, Mama.  Do it.” soon followed and I naturally had to pretend to have a conversation with Santa, although most of the time I would only get through to an elf.  This year that wasn’t enough.  It didn’t phase her when I picked up the phone to call Santa.  To be fair, it’s a little tough to stop everything and look like a fucking crazy person talking on the phone with Santa or an executive elf  in the middle of Whole Foods.  I’m not always up for that.

So, naturally, Santa began sending emails; just as effective, and another fun advantage of my daughter still being illiterate.  The first email Santa sent this year was about her presents being placed next to the door which, as everyone knows, is the dreaded precursor to being placed on the actual naughty list.   After the email, my child decided to share her predicament with everyone: her teacher, her friends, other parents and, our most intensely judgmental relative,  ”Santa sent mama an email, and my presents are NEXT TO THE DOOR!!!”  This relative looked at me like I was Satan and, for a moment, I felt like it.  But, you know what?  Satan, as I learned long ago from The Church Lady on Saturday Night Live, is just an anagram for Santa, isn’t it?  And Santa Claus is, and always was, a myth used by parents to excise good behavior from their children.  That is clearly what the whole thing was created for: child control.  It’s genius, even if my kid keeps making me come up with more involved stories.  It was bad enough that I had to hunker down in the middle of Universal Studios and compose another email to Santa offering to sacrifice one of my presents for hers in an effort to win Christmas back after she inevitably lost it.  Because, really if I’m being honest about things, am I seriously prepared not to give my kid Christmas?  No, I’m not.  The craziest part was that I could’ve just typed out gibberish on my phone but, no, I have indeed lost my mind enough to compose an actual email to Santa Claus in English.  Not my greatest writing effort, but still.  I was writing angry.

What I really worry about is what the hell happens when she realizes that we are totally full of shit about all of this?  That’s just the beginning of the end, isn’t it?  That’s going to definitely be at least three or four full therapy sessions for her at some point.  Well, at least she won’t burn down the barn.

It was around three o’clock in the morning when I heard her scream.  My daughter is no stranger to waking up in the middle of the night, but it wasn’t her typical whimper-scream.   This was that dreaded wail of pain and fear and confusion that is every parent’s worst nightmare – especially at three in the morning when you’re  sound asleep in another room.  I couldn’t get to her room fast enough.  When I did, I found her standing in the middle of the room holding her head and screaming, “My eye!  Mama, my eye!!”  I held her tightly and tried to jar my tired brain into figuring out what happened.  I deduced that recent removal of her bed bumper (my judgment call, btw, ‘cause she’s “a big girl now”) had led to her smacking her head on her nightstand in her sleep.  I looked at her eye.  It was dark in the room and I didn’t see anything, and she seemed to calm fairly quickly,  so I put her back to bed.  After a few minutes I looked at her sleeping face and saw a line on her eyelid.  After trying to brush a non-existent hair away, I realized she had some kind of mark.  I woke her up and carried her to the bright light of the bathroom and there I saw a huge, deep gash along my baby’s perfect eyelid.  I felt myself starting to panic.  I woke up my husband (what is it in the male dna that allows them to fucking sleep through everything anyway?) and showed him.  Since she wasn’t bleeding really at all, we decided it best to forgo the trauma of an ER visit, ice it and wait for her doctor’s office to open.

In the meantime, my daughter re-enacted the event.  Apparently, it had nothing to do with the removal of a bed bumper.  She was up going to the bathroom, fell and hit her eye on the changing table (that is now removed).  A total freak accident.  Eventually, it was morning, we saw a plastic surgeon (’cause I’m from LA)  and she is, thankfully, completely fine.  In fact, the doctor sensed my panic immediately:  ”Is this your first time?” he said.  ”It sure is,” I answered.  ”Ah,” he said,”it won’t be the last.  You’ll get used to it.”  WHAT???!!

Kids and their random, injury filled accidents.  You mean, I can’t just imagine the worst of everything, not sleep and kill myself to try and prevent every conceivable and sometimes inconceivable random accident and have it work?  You mean, they’re going to get hurt no matter what you do?  More than once?? I can’t take it.  I mean, what if her eye had been open?!  What if she had needed stitches?  How do you even stitch up an eyelid anyway?

And then there’s the guilt: On some level I had wished that it was my fault.  That would have at least meant there would have been a way for me to have controlled the situation, even if I had failed to.  But, no. It was a random accident and that didn’t make me feel any better.  There are so many things that just happen in life that you can’t possibly protect you’re child from.

Even an anxiety ridden crazy person like myself couldn’t possibly imagine everything that could go wrong.  And, believe me, I do try.  It’s another terrifying factoid of being a parent that I had successfully ignored until something totally uncontrollable occured.  Now, it seems, all I can do is fast forward my neurotic brain into the future and envision my kid at sixteen with a driver’s license.  I may just turn to alcoholism.

Very early on in our relationship, my husband took me to one of the most romantic places in the city.  It was a very famous hotel with a lovely restaurant, but as famous and fancy as it was, it was isolated and beautiful.  Marilyn Monroe lived there once.  There were meandering garden paths and swans.   About a two years ago, they closed the hotel for renovation and it was reopened a few weeks ago.  Just in time for our anniversary.  Well, I have a great husband, it’s true, and he surprised me the other night by taking me there for our anniversary dinner.

Even though there were several empty tables in the restaurant, the hostess told us it would be a few minutes before we were seated.  Ok, fine, then.  We went to the bar.  I asked the waitress about a curiously named drink on the menu that had caught my attention:

ME:  How’s “Help! Save the Bees” taste? (yep, it was called that. punctuation and everything.)

WAITRESS:  You should get it.  It’s good.  It’s sweet.  And, you know, it saves bees.  You know the bees are dying, right?

ME: I am aware of the bee issue, yes.  So,what?  Do you donate money for research or something?

WAITRESS:   Research.  No.  But there’s honey in the drink.

ME:  Right…  So…

WAITRESS:  So, the more we use the honey, the more we need the bees.

Ok, so I suppose by that rationale we could all be saving bees twenty four hours a day, finding interesting uses for honey in our own homes, instead of ordering sixteen dollar cocktails.  But, more importantly, I think this lady actually believed it.  So, the bee problem is not caused by a mysterious illness killing all the bees.  In actuality, our bees are just depressed and bored.  Maybe their bee jobs are being outsourced to Bangladesh, and all we have to do as humans is make them feel worthwhile?  Huh.  Who knew.  Take that, Einstein.

About twenty minutes after our reservation time, we were finally escorted to our table.  We were given a rather shitty table considering there were only two other parties in the place, but, most importantly, the restaurant, once oak paneled and flower filled, had degenerated into a mirrored, modern art filled, black lacquered catastrophe.  Sigh.  I spent the entire evening staring at a massive, metallic, multi-colored concentric circle over my husband’s head.

Upon sitting down we were approached by a waiter.

WAITER:  Good evening.  Chef regretfully would like to inform you that he will not be serving the pheasant this evening.

No pheasant?  Really?  Well, fuck it all.  Am I right?  What am I, King Henry VIII or something?  Who the fuck eats pheasant???

It was a special night for us so we decided to order the tasting menu.

WAITER:  Very good.  Did you want the four or the six course?

US:  What the hell.  Give us the six.

WAITER:  Very good.

(five minutes later)

WAITER:  Excuse me.  Chef regrets to inform you that he is no longer offering the six course tasting menu this evening.  He will only be offering the four.

US:  Uh.  Ok, then.

(ten minutes later)

A plate comes out with caviar, foam, nacho cheese sauce and pork rinds.  It is topped with gold.  Yeah, that’s right I ate gold.  In case you’re curious, those things all together taste like something you may eat at an AM/PM at three in the morning on some weird road trip.  But Chef made me eat gold. There’s a torture scene in the movie Three Kings where they make a guy eat oil.  It felt a little like that.  I’m not sure why I gave in.   In a way, it was violating.  But, most of all,  it was just so small.  And, now, about forty five minutes after the already late reservation time they generously granted us, we were starving.  We kept seeing the bread guy walking around with his basket of bread giving everyone else bread but us.  I flagged someone down.

ME:  Um, excuse me.  Could we get some bread please?

WAITER:  Bread?

ME:  Yeah.

WAITER:  Well, you should know that, in your case, Chef recommends that you have bread only after the next course you are about to have and not before.  You should know that.  Would you still like the bread?

ME:  Uh, I guess not then.

MY HUSBAND:  YES!  I want the bread.  I’m hungry.

WAITER:  Ok, sir.  Fine.  I’ll inform Chef.  We’ll put it in the oven for you.

The bread came. Ten minutes later. Cold.  I guess Chef was angry at that point.

The rest of the meal went on like this.  Chef was controlling.  We ate, but never stopped being hungry.  If it weren’t for the bread guy who snuck us two different kinds of rolls, we would’ve needed to stop at a drive-thru on our way home.  I think that bread guy was planning a coup against Chef and his culinary Third Reich.  Good for him.

Only in LA would this be acceptable.  There is something about getting abused in this city that is supposed to make you feel privileged if, of course, you are getting abused by the “right”  people in the “right” circumstances.  I really don’t understand it.  And, yet another glorious Hollywood landmark has been reduced to another hip spot as classy as a Kardashian.

Is it possible to have a nice meal in this city?  I don’t even know anymore.  It’s like I’m living in the movie  They Live and even though people here look normal (sort of… Well, mostly…  Ok, not so much…), clearly underneath their normal human looks (or vaguely human, as the case may be), they are bizarre alien pod people from a planet that requires labotomies for all its inhabitants.

Hopefully, if I ever visit Chef again he’ll be serving Botox in between courses.  At least then I’ll be filled up on something.