Won't-Grow-Up Birthday Bash

Seconda turned three last week and in honor of her emerging from the terrifying terrain known as the terrible twos (wishful thinking) I decided to throw her a totally overboard birthday bash with a fully-realized theme . . . Peter Pan and Neverland. Sec loves Peter Pan -- not Tinkerbell, as you'd expect, but Captain Hook and his bo'sun Smee. She absolutely adores Smee. It so happens that I am rather fond of Peter Pan myself -- was a childhood love of mine, too, and Primo is obsessed, no other way to put it. Couple our shared passion for Peter Pan with the fact that I recently wrote this article about birthday party ideas for kids in the city, and spent a few weeks putting together various theme parties, soup-to-nuts, fanning the fires of my party-planning zeal and you get one totally pimped out Neverland Party. As Primo put it, "Mommy, you've gone TOO FAR with this party! Enough is enough!" It was so ridiculous that I grew embarrassed and worried that the parents of the kids in Sec's class would think I was some kind of precious party nut, so I spent all last week explaining to them that I wasn't usually so fanatic about my parties. When you have to preface your party with an explanation, you know you've gone too far.

First, the cake:

I am not going to compare myself to the Ace of Cakes, but you may, if you feel so compelled. The truth about the cake is that it looked like a big old pile of shit, green shit, before my dad, who could have a great show on the Food Network called The Cake Doctor (he's a real MD, you see, and also good at fixing cakes) stepped in. I gave him a handful of plastic characters and a big tub of cotton candy and he made the magic happen. But I'm happy to accept credit.

Here's Sec in her PJs wearing some of wildly fun dress-up accouterments I provided, all of which were relevant to Neverland adventures. This is mermaid hair. There were also eye patches, bandanas, and Lost Boy animal masks:

Here are the children happily doing the crafts I lovingly prepared for them until midnight: pirate hats, coloring pages, trace-your-shadow on butcher paper, feathered headbands, and fairy wands. Primo, the purist, pointed out Tinkerbell did not use a wand, but I told him we needed something to appease the die-hard princessy types.

My bagel spread (not in keeping with Neverland theme but NYC bagels are the perfect food for any occasion and need no apology). I did offer Pirate Booty as well.

Tattoos, of course, every possible kind of Neverland-related tattoo, including mermaids, fairies, pirate and Native American totem poles:

Blowing out the candles:


General revelry:

I didn't take a picture of my goody bags only because I didn't want to give you guys any ideas that you'd regret in the wee hours of the morning as you assembled them, half-deranged. Let's just put it this way: it was my first time at Oriental Trading Company, and I did not exercise enough restraint. There were pixy sticks, pirate telescopes, fairy paraphernalia, homemade pixy dust put in silken pouches and homemade mermaid-shaped chocolates, all of which was placed in a treasure chest. I used the snow day last week to start a sweat shop in my living room, where Primo worked overtime on my assembly line, putting an equal number of pirate gold in each chest. I also forced him to draw all decorations as well as the game "Pin the Hook on Captain Hook." In exchange I gave him pixy sticks which he just couldn't refuse. Good times.

The party was a success but we are all relieved its over and I can slowly morph from a psycho Martha Stewart wanna-be to my normal self again.

I have the answers to your problems!

There are a great many things about which I know nothing – sports, chemistry, how to choose a ripe cantaloupe – and there are plenty of things I know a little about – bargain shopping, belly dancing, Shakespeare – but there is one thing that I know a lot about: parenting.

Its not that my own experience has made me an expert, though I do have quite a robust collection of cautionary tales and don’t-try-this-at-home stories. But in researching the articles that I write for parenting magazines (you can read them at my website) I’ve had occasion to cross paths with plenty of people that are actual experts, lots of experts with differing perspective and varied backgrounds. All of which is a preamble to this pronouncement:

A MOM AMOK IS STARTING AN ADVICE COLUMN

ASK AMAM

Just like Dear Abby, I will fix your conundrums, dilemmas, stalemates and otherwise prickly parenting situations.

You have a problem.

I have a solution.

It not a money-back, one-hundred-percent guaranteed solution but it will be – I promise you – worth a short. And it will be free. At the very least, I will tell you what parenting book to consult. Or I’ll ask my readers and THEY’LL tell you what to do.

I’ll give you a twitter-sized solution in 140 characters or less and I’ll give you a normal-person-with-a-decent-attention-space answer, with justification.

So try me. Ask me anything (except medical questions because I’m on MD, not even close, can’t tell a liver from a pancreas, so sorry, no can do). You can ask about:

Crazy and infuriating kid behavior including what they’re (not) eating, (not) drinking, and (not) crapping on the bowl

Discipline, or lack thereof

Marriage minefields

Making Mommy friends

Playground politics

Awful, gross things your body is doing -- in pregnancy, postpartum and beyond

That’s just a sampling. Feel free to let it all hang out. It will be anonymous, after all. Just email me at amomamok@gmail.com.

All Shook Up

We all want sick arms like Madonna. Ok, that's a given. But this, dear readers, is no way to go about it.

Shake Weight

I can only hope that you are having trouble reading this screen through the haze of tears which resulted from the laughter this video induced.

There is only one possible explanation for this product's orgins. It involved a bunch of people sitting around a bong one night when someone said:

"You know what would be FUNNY? You know how you can get a woman to do anything if you tell them it'll tone their muscles? What if we made this weight that looked just like a phallus and then told them they'd lose weight by shaking the thing up and down just exactly like they are JACKING SOMEONE OFF???? Ohmigod, we HAVE to make that."

Honestly, who would ever believe letting a machine shake you for 6 minutes would make you beach-ready?

Of course, as I sit here and type this, I haven't been to the gym in oh - almost two years -- so I guess even the Shake Weight might be an improvement.

The woman who never lets you down

Seconda was playing on David’s cell phone (hell, I won’t let the child within five feet of mine but David’s is fair game when he’s not looking). Since she doesn’t know how to dial numbers that connect to actual people, she usually ends up hearing this message:

“The number you have dialed is not in service at this time. Please try again later.”

Most people are annoyed when they hear this message. Not my daughter. It means she has reached her best quasi-imaginary friend, who goes by the name “Woman.”

“OK woman! I will try again later! Thanks Wooooomaaaaan!” she yells with delight.

Two minutes later, she informs me: “Mommy I have to call the woman back now. She told me to.”

Thankfully, Woman is exceedingly easy to reach and always available to repeat my daughter’s favorite message: “Please try again later.”

“OK Woman, I WILL!!!!” Sec shrieks with laugher. Woman is so reliable.

But after doing this a few times, she did tire of Woman’s predictability. My daughter wanted more from Woman than Woman was able to give. Their relationship had run its course. And Sec told me:

“I want the woman to say, “If you need help, I will help you!”

I guess the child has to learn sometime that customer service is never quite what you hope it will be.

Tomorrow, I think I’ll introduce her to Man who Tells the Time.

Who you gonna call?

I read this article in the Times yesterday about one this amazing Brooklyn lactation consultant, who I’ve interviewed countless times for articles I’ve written on breastfeeding and who I have actually referred to in said articles as “lactation superstar,” The woman is a genius, a breast whisperer for certain – the kind of person who is doing just exactly what she was called to do, rescuing new mothers from bleeding nipples, panic and self-flagellation. I know because she rescued me.

In his first days, Primo was a terrible nurser. So was I. Neither of us had a clue what we were doing and I swear I produced more liquid out of my eyes, crying, than I did out of my breasts. When he was about five days old, I called the pediatrician for help, and he gave me a phone number for a woman named Freda Rosenfeld.

“Freda gets results,” he said.

Since I couldn’t get an appointment with Freda 'til the next day, I opted to go with another lactation consultant who did not, even remotely, get results. After an hour of palpating me and watching Primo flail at the breast, she told me she didn’t know what was wrong and to give him formula.

“I could have saved the $100 and given myself the same advice,” I told David when she left.

Being stubborn as a mule, however, I did not give up, didn’t give the baby formula, and after a few weeks, we’d worked out the kinks and I breastfed him, happily, til he was a year and a half.

Looking back, though, I wish I had held out for Freda because I know she would have made nursing infinitely easier and more enjoyable for me and Primo. I know this because I did have occasion to meet her, two years later, when Seconda was three months old and Freda single-handedly saved my breastfeeding from certain doom.

Sec was a good little sucker, and I wasn’t so shabby a feeder myself so we didn’t have any real problems nursing at all, for the first few months of her life. But when she turned three months old, she suddenly refused to nurse. I mean totally refused. She would scream like it was a cat o nine tails I was asking her suck on, rather than my perfectly nice breast stuffed with manna milk. I’d spend 20, 30 minutes, battling with her, desperately trying to coax her back onto the breast that she’s been happily feeding from for months, and in the end, I’d have to give her a bottle of frozen breastmilk. She cried, I cried. I was shocked, rejected and terribly sad that I’d have to stop breastfeeding. Then, as a last-ditch effort – after taking her to the pediatrician, and asking parkslopeparents, and researching online – I called Freda Gets-Results. I figured there wasn’t much she could do, but it was worth a shot anyway. She told me she could see me that afternoon and Sec and I got on the Q train headed to Ditmas Park.

Freda ushered me right in and proceeded to ask a ton of very odd, very mysterious questions. I told her my theory, which was that Sec just preferred the bottle. This didn’t seem convincing to her. Then she took the baby, cooed and gurgled at her while checking out her mouth and tongue in an enigmatic way. Finally she watched me nurse – or try to nurse, since Seconda wouldn’t suffer the nipple even for a second. She listened intently to the way Seconda screamed, and she concluded: “This is not a fussy baby. There’s something going on here.”

So she rolled up her sleeves and coached me through different position, switching sides, taking breaks, asking questions. I managed to get Sec on to the breast for half a minute, but then she started screaming like a banshee again.

“She burped! She burped and then she cried!” Freda exclaimed

“I guess,” I replied, “But she’s always crying when I try to feed her.”

“But after she burped is when she really started screaming”: she said, “Let me ask you something: did you have any tomato sauce or orange juice today?’

“Yeah,“ I said, “I had both.”

“This baby has acid reflux,” she said.

“But she never spits up,” I countered, “I thought babies with reflux spit up all the time.”

“Not if they have silent acid reflux,” she replied, “And that’s what Seconda has.”

She instructed me to sit the baby up to nurse, and miraculously Sec stopped crying and started sucking. It was like magic and I literally cried tears of joy and relief. She told me to cut acidic foods out of my diet and keep with the sitting-up nursing. And after I left her office, I never had another problem with Sec refusing the breast.

It’s not always as simple as that, but everyone I know who’s had a visit Freda has offered a glowing review (you can read my friend and fellow writer, Debra Nussbaum-Cohen's story about Freda here). So if you’re in Kings County and have a lactation tribulation, you know who to call.

Toys! Toys! Toys!

It’s Toy Fair time, and last week I was invited to a tour of the Hasbro showroom to check out the new 2010 toys. Here are the things that I dug

BeyBlade Metal Fusion:

So you get this stadium, which is a plastic flat-bottomed bowl with high sides, and then you get a bunch of kids (or grownups, because let’s face it, my husband would play this for hours) and everyone pulls the ripcords on their BeyBlade tops and tries to knock each others tops off. Last top spinning wins. The really cool part, though, is that all the parts are interchangeable, so you can customize your top by changing the point, the weight disk, spin gear and all this other stuff, until you make your Dream Top. I’m a sucker for an old fashioned toy concept, and this one is a modern take on a classic.

FurReal Friends

We don’t have a pet for a bunch of good reasons: A. We live in a tiny apartment, B. I’m way too overextended caring for my little animal-like children and C. I’m just really not a pet person. But for a long time now, my 3 year-old has been clamoring for a pet and I’ve had to come up with new and creative ways to stave off her demands. And now I’ve found the perfect solution – these animatronics furry little toys that look and act like real animals. They are made to respond when you touch them on certain points – so if you pet Lulu the cat, she will move her head and ears, open and close her eyes, and even knead with her paws. And no litter box to clean or allergy attacks to account for. Normally I don’t go in for toys that do all the work of playing for the child, but I did feel like these pseudo-pets, especially the tiny ones that fit in the palm of your hand called Snuggimals which retail for $7.99) would really excite my daughter and invite hours and hours of play.

There was plenty to oohh and ahh about, in the category of Blasts from the Past:

Empire Strikes Back Action Figures

If you were born in the 70s your heart is biologically wired to skip a beat when you hear the words “Empire Strikes Back.” This year is the 30^th anniversary of the movie and in honor of that, Hasbro has release a whole bunch of action figures, characters dear to my heart: Luke, Darth, Leia, and of course, Hunky Han. The figures are much more articulated than in the 70s – all the joints twist and turn and extend, but besides that, they look just like the old ones. Come August, you can believe we’re going to be playing with those. They’re also releasing the AT-AT – one gigunda one which can fits 20 action figures, and one medium sized one, which is still pretty roomy and which my daughter, no doubt, would attempt to ride immediately.

Strawberry Shortcake 5-inch Doll

Its Strawberry Shortcake’s 30^th anniversary, too, and Hasbro is celebrating with a 5 inch doll ($9.99), which was the height of the original Ms. Shortcake back in the day. I have a soft spot for Ms. Shortcake and her aroma-therapeutic friends, not just because from my childhood, but because my husband confessed to having adored his Strawberry Shortcake when he was a boy. She’s sweet and wholesome and better than one of those pine air fresheners hanging from the rear view mirror when you need to get a stinky odor – not naming names, but it does happen in long car rides – out of your nose.

Weebles

The toy that wobbles but won’t fall down has been around since 1971 and I’ve always thought they were cute but didn’t give much more thought to why kids love them. At the showroom, I got to speak to a Hasbro rep and heard precisely why. Weebles give little toddlers, who don’t have the fine motor skills to manipulate an action figure, a chance to play like their big kid friends, with toys they can easily grasp in their hands, and which never fall down, no matter how much you knock them about. It turns out to be a very satisfying play experience for year-old crowd, and the Weeble scenes, the treehouses and such, let kids do what they love doing best – put toys in, and take toys out. This year, the Weebles are being restored to their original egg-shape which is ideal for little fists, so look out for those.

Alphie

The original Alphie came out in 1978 and now he’s baaaack, but with an LCD screen for a face. He comes with 30 cards full of edifying info about ABCs, counting, and other things you want your kid to know about. You slide the card in his chest and your child is prompted to press the button for the right answer. There are a ton of products like these now – all of which light up and sing in ten languages and who knows what else – but what I like about this one is it’s a robot. Who doesn’t like robots?

Candyland

My 5 year-old son absolutely loves Candyland, so much so that one afternoon, I read him the little story that comes in the box, about Lord Licorice, Princess Frostine and the other confectionary creations, about 6 times in a row. Then he went off and drew his own game board and we played that. If that’s not inspiration, I don’t know what is. Candyland, which came out in 1949, recently turned 60 and there’s a brand-new game board out this year which is supposed to be less gender-specific, with more boy-centric characters like the Duke of Swirl (as you see, my son didn’t have any trouble getting into it anyway, but the intent is to broaden the appeal).

Which brings us directly to the wide world of Board Games, a world in which Hasbro is King. The make just about every board game you ever played, including Guess Who, Sorry, Connect Four, Clue, and Trivial Pursuit. It’s hard to imagine improving on such tried-and-tried products. But that doesn’t mean the toy people won’t try. Last year, they introduced a new feature on all their games, called U-Build, which allows you to customize the game so you set it up and play exactly how you like. In addition to that, there was plenty of action on the board game front.

Twister Hoopla

Nothing brings a party to life like a little game of Twister, but now instead of a dotted mat, you’ve got different colored rings that have to be passed from one person’s body part to another and must be kept off the floor at all costs. Twister was an active game that got bodies moving well before there was a widespread impetus to do that, and I like the new makeover.

Scrabble Flash

I’m sure Scrabble purists out there would object but I thought this new incarnation of the game was pretty darn cool. You’ve got five “electronic tiles, ”basically these genius LCD screen, onto each of which a letter pops. You then you have 75 seconds to arrange the letters into as many word combinations as you can. When you link the tiles together and make a word, the machine somehow recognizes it (!!) and beeps to confirm. I may be easy to impress but that totally knocked my socks off.

And, last but certainly not least . . .

Monopoly Revolution Edition

Monopoly turns 75 years old this year and it has had a major face-lift for its birthday. The new Monopoly has a circular board, uses electronic banking instead of cash and includes a space-agey device which plays popular music like Rihanna and Beyonce to accompany certain actions. Since I was never a Monopoly nut, I don’t have any purist leanings to grapple with, but if you do, rest assured you can still buy the traditional Monopoly board in stores, too.

So that’s my round-up. The trend was oldies but goodies with some updates. Plenty of good stuff to get kids moving, to ignite curiosity and to spark the imagination.

Glorious Sunset!

My family loves Fairway. They have our favorite goat cheese from California there, cheap hot crusty French baguettes, four thousands kinds of coffee and spices and granola by the pound and live lobster. They have EVERYTHING. Including the frickin' Statue of Liberty. The view from Fairway in Red Hook is the kind of vista that stops you in your tracks . . . especially when the sunset looks like it did on the night Primo took this video.

My son, vlogger extraordinaire.

Kid's so full of sweetness, you could get diabetes just talking to him. Am I exaggerating? Just listen to him proclaim the moonlight "glorious!"

One important word of warning: do not attempt to get to Staten Island on what my child calls the Verrazano Bridge.