The Perfect Baby Handbook » Celebrities

New York Times food critic comes out as a “baby bulimic”

dale — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:00:20 +0000

Or, more precisely, a “toddler bulimic.” In this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, esteemed restaurant critic Frank Bruni confesses, extensively and juicily that, from an early age, he was an insanely motivated eater.

BRUNI: As troubled blob.

And a violently needy one. By Bruni’s account, adapted from his forthcoming memoir Born Round: The Secret History of a Full-Time Eater, if denied a third hamburger or a 144th cookie, he would work himself into a tormented tantrum and throw up —more or less on his mother.

…I’ve always wondered, in retrospect and not entirely in jest, if what she had witnessed was the beginning of a cunning strategy, an intuitive design for gluttonous living. Maybe I was making room for more burger. Look, Ma, empty stomach!

Though traditional bulimics are a tad more furtive about their purging, Bruni clearly realized that his piece would generate more buzz (and web-traffic) with the headline “I Was a Baby Bulimic” instead of “I Was a Kid With Bizarre Eating Issues.”

Calculation aside, the story (and companion audio-slide show) is fascinating. According to to Mediabistro, Bruni is quitting his Times’ post to promote his book so if you were hoping to see him projectile vomit at The Four Seasons while gorging himself critically on grilled octopus with minted eggplant, sorry, you’re out of luck.

Children at risk from Jon Gosselin’s “clothing designs”!

dale — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 03:55:13 +0000

WORST & CO: The sub-chic Jon & Hailey

Just when you thought Jon Gosselin, of “Jon & Kate Plus 8″ fame, couldn’t get any more loathsome, People magazine reported that he’d signed a new deal to design kids’ clothing for the Ed Hardy label with help from his new girlfriend. This seemed unfathomable and was later refuted by the rigorous journalists at Entertainment Tonight:

A rep for the clothing designer denies previous reports that the two were designing a new line together, telling ET, “There is no children’s clothing line in the works with Jon and Christian [Audiger, who designs for Ed Hardy]. It is untrue.”

With this respite, the world made sense again. I mean, seriously, have you clocked the way Jon dresses? Is there anyone less qualified to conceive youthful, innocent style except perhaps Jeremy Piven (“Entourage”) or Hulk Hogan (“Brain-Addled Wrestler”)? Has Jon absorbed some important life-lesson by leaving his spouse for Hailey Glassman, 22, the daughter of his wife’s plastic surgeon that might inform his sense of color and proportion? Do louts know how to sketch?

But damn: Turns out the People story might be true. And, if its original reporting stands, it gets worse. Much worse: The poor Gosselin sextuplets will be drafted to wear Jon’s fashions in ads. And his girlfriend is to uncreatively collaborate:

Glassman will also have a hand in creating the kid-friendly fashions. “She’ll have a lot of input with Christian,” Gosselin told PEOPLE of Hailey’s involvement.

Old Hailey can’t even choose sunglasses that flatter her strangely pointy face (though, in her defense, apparently she hasn’t let her plastic-surgeon dad give her an artificially squared-off face.)

Incidentally, People’s report on this development is hilariously even-handed, as if its reporter felt the need to hedge her bets in case women still find Jon adorable. Is that even possible?

Sasha Baron Cohen: Hey, sorry, your manipulatively marketed movie bombed

dale — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 04:00:22 +0000

I was talking to a California teacher the other day about the way her kids casually call each other “gay,” as the universal synonym for “uncool.” As she put it, they sincerely have no clue.

ASS: Cohen fails to fool enough bigots.

Understandably, I didn’t have a lot of faith in the American public’s ability to appreciate the satire that supposedly excuses Sasha Baron Cohen’s Bruno. Its (relentless) marketers clearly hoped that their “expose” of homophobia might conveniently be mistaken for “look how funny fags are” flick a la Adam Sandler’s I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.

The joke is on Bruno’s promotional team, and Cohen himself. The movie made “only” 30 million this weekend, “shockingly low” according to the Los Angeles Times, which noted that its earnings collapsed from Friday to Saturday; all signs point, limply, to terrible word-of-mouth, possibly fueled by Twitter.

A couple theories. 1) It’s a lousy movie, whatever the majority of critics say; 2) For all the producers’ attempts to blur the satire factor for the bigot market, homophobes didn’t want to be seen at a “gay” movie.

Maybe the folks at Universal should have asked their kids.

Admirably imperfect mom of the week: Stefanie Wilder-Taylor

dale — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 03:59:16 +0000

It’d hard to be funny when you’re hanging out with tiny people who see no compelling reason to avoid gaping pits, ravenous dingoes, speeding Camaros, and large houses made of gingerbread. The parenting experience more typically facilitates freaking out, not the writing of a bestselling humor book.

VISION QUEST: Stefanie's book

So when someone like the truly hilarious Stefanie Wilder-Taylor* can turn parenthood into two such volumes, Sippy Cups Are Not For Chardonnay and Naptime is the New Happy Hour, the conventional wisdom is: Keep churning out similar books whose titles allude to boozing—like Kindergarten Rhymes with Scotch-on-the-Rocksergarten—and try to cash in.

Stefanie didn’t take that route. Instead she wrote It’s Not Me, It’s You, a casually outrageous memoir of her wild-child, pre-marriage 20s and 30s. It basically challenges her fans to deal with her rougher edges and get past the notion that moms aren’t allowed to have a racy back-story or scandalous thoughts. Stefanie recounts distinctly un-maternal tales: her erstwhile fascination with strippers’ breasts, her unwitting misadventures with crack cocaine, and her bittersweet attempt to reunite with her estranged dad, a brilliant stand-up comic who’d devolved into a brilliant pothead.

It’s a brave, funny book. Comedy depends on honesty—for something to be funny, the truth must be in there, somewhere. But while comics like Lenny Bruce and George Carlin were recklessly candid, and Margaret Cho and Kathy Griffin push the confessional edge, most “mommy humorists” are honest only up to a certain, decorous, wholesome, ultimately boring point.

I particularly liked the chapter about Stefanie’s attempts to be a Big Sister, and the loathsome, lonely child with whom she’s paired. It’s funny, sad, compassionate, infuriating, did I mention funny, and very, very real.

*Full disclosure: Stefanie “blurbed” The Perfect Baby Handbook, and has given me great advice. And, irrelevantly, is pretty hot. And, no, that’s not her on the cover of her book.

The fate of Paris Michael Jackson—according to the world’s meanest astrologer

dale — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:59:53 +0000

So I just discovered that Michael Jackson’s daughter, Paris, was born on April 3. The good news: So was I; it’s a really nice birthday. The bad news: Someday, Paris is going to read about herself in The Secret Language of Birthdays, this infamously rude, famously “accurate,” best-selling astrology book—and find out that she’s “demanding, self-centered, and naive.”

PARIS: Star-crossed

April 3, according to author Gary Goldschneider, a Dutch stargazer and Yale-educated psychoanalyst, is “The Day of the Fulcrum.” If we take his word for it, Paris is fun-loving and good natured, but also “manages to be at the center of things,” and likes to order her environment and control those around her. Consequently, she detests being ignored!

Also, he specifies, as an April 3 creature, Michael Jackson’s daughter will get fat and develop crippling headaches.

Lucky Paris! Your future as an obese, migraine-afflicted, control freak who likes to be mobbed by the paparazzi awaits you.

It could be worse. This cruelly irresistible book claims that babies born on October 4th are incorrigible, headstrong, and foolhardy while July 22nd infants (“The Day of Occupational Fluctuations”) are unlucky and stressed-out.

Michael Jackson doll—as seen in hands of his bereaved son!

dale — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:00:48 +0000

BENDABLE LIMBS: Blanket and doll

Trust it to a website called “Droolicious—Modern Design for Modern Parents” to find a product to drool over in the middle of Michael Jackson’s memorial.

The site’s post titled “What Was Blanket Holding?” dispenses with eulogistic ponderings and zeros in on the revelation that Jackson’s youngest son, Blanket, was gripping a “1995 Official Triumph International Michael Jackson doll” that “you can pick up” for between $260 to $1500, depending on whether you’d like it to sing.

No one at Droolicious seems to find it at all curious, notable, or (I dunno) heart-rending that this child is holding a plastic, miniature version of his plastic, full-sized dead father—something that’s never really been seen before. John F. Kennedy, Jr., for instance, didn’t have a JFK doll to help him mourn.

It’s as if Barbie’s daughter is attending Barbie’s Dream Funeral. A version of which, I just found out, was recorded for this 2007 YouTube video. Given Barbie’s parallels with MJ—both emaciated pop icons, born in the late 50s, given to makeovers and blank expressions—this clip disturbed me. I actually gasped at 00:28.

Goodbye, Barbie/Michael.

Related Posts:
• Michael Jackson bleached his son’s hair—both cruelly and cheesily
• Michael Jackson’s death as a “learning moment”
• How Michael Jackson disguised his kids—a brief history

A “rocking sheep” that is priced, in all seriousness, at $575

dale — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:01:04 +0000

Ordinary children have to make do with a rocking horse. Special children, whose parents like to shop online while drunk, get to own this $575 “Electric Pink Rocking Sheep” by Danish Crafts. Upholstered in lambskin, this creature is even more amazing than it first appears. Consider the web site’s description:

Most nursery sheep lull you to sleep; this one is strictly built for action. If you’re too old or sedate to hop on for a ride, it doubles as a cool TV rack or footstool.

These are challenging concepts. Let’s take them one-by-one:

1. Unlike most nursery sheep, this one is “strictly built for action.” Personally, I’m not seeing the rigor that “strictly” implies, but perhaps the prototypes were 400 percent fluffier; then someone at Danish Crafts said: “Hold on, we are being indulgent and unfocused! I personally feel that this rocking sheep, in its current incarnation, is built less “for action” and more for gratuitous fluffiness!” And someone else said, “By god, you’re right. You don’t see NASA sending inefficiently furry, pink rocket-ships into space, do you?” And then the boss barked: “Reduce fluffiness by 75 percent immediately!”

2. It is possible to be too old or sedate to ride the “Electric Pink Rocking Sheep.” I would generally agree. On the other hand: Sir Elton John?

3. It doubles as a footstool: A dead body also doubles as a footstool with the added advantages that it isn’t weirdly unsteady, super-silly, and swelteringly hot in July. In defense of the Rocking Sheep, it’s less likely to arouse suspicions.

4. The product can also double as a “cool TV rack”: Absolutely. Certainly—if everything your family owns apart from this Danish thing and a tiny TV has been destroyed by fire and you really want to watch “Grey’s Anatomy” on top of a pink sheep that wobbles.

Related Posts:
• Introducing…Princess Firefighter!
• Michael Jackson bleached his kid’s hair…both cruelly and cheesily
• The dark side of being “as cute as a button”

Michael Jackson’s death as—what else?—a learning moment

dale — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 03:57:41 +0000

How parents of gifted children can take canny advantage of Michael Jackson’s death:

• Give your offspring the okay to choose the King of Pop for a role model “as long as you explain that heroes are ‘complex people with less than flattering attributes,’” writes Project GiftED blogger Melissa Greczy, a woman who likes to point out that one of her daughters founded a charity at age eight while the other is experiencing a “musical breakthrough.” As an alternate role model, she considers Superman. Who has a nose.

• Scrutinize your kid in days to come to see if “especially vulnerable to anxiety about death.” This might indicate that she’s gifted, explains Heather Siladi, a San Diego Public Education Examiner. (It might also indicate that she’s just vulnerable to that shot of the stretcher that CNN keeps showing over and over. Or to strange frail men who style themselves as military dictators and then play with chimps.) You can then seize on “this excellent opportunity to explore how music affects culture.”

• Use selected songs from MJ’s backlist to teach your child about: diversity; the difference between stop and go; the alphabet; and the value of aspiring to “Soul Train” dance standards. According to this list (featuring some great video clips), “Dirty Diana” is not enlightening.

So many Michaels, so many Jacksons

dale — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 03:36:07 +0000

Whatever else you think about Michael Jackson, you must admit that he was wildly creative—except when it came to naming his offspring. As the Washington Post notes:

Jackson is survived by three children: Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr., Paris Michael Katherine Jackson and Prince “Blanket” Michael Jackson II. (emphasis c/o Google News)

REMEMBER MY NAME: Eldest Michael, youngest Michael, and girl Michael.

What will happen to these three monotonously christened people, the ultimate symbol of narcissistic parenting? Which one will change his or her name to Kevin or Sarah or Kevin-Sarah-Tito first? Sad, sad, and sad.

Obama tries desperately to get in on “bad parent” craze

dale — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 03:17:49 +0000

Item A: Confusing a trend with an authority figure, Babble.com’s Karen Bridson blogs about how the “bad mother” craze has cut her “a little slack” after seven years of pressure to “do everything perfectly.” She has never met a trend so thoughtful and lenient.

SCOUNDREL: Worst dad ever!

Item B: Just when she’s feeling pretty good about her new imperfection, President Obama tries to out-flaw her! In a new interview with Parade magazine, Obama says, “I know I have been an imperfect father. I know I have made mistakes,” adding, “If I could be anything, I’d be a good father.”

As the magazine’s cover photo reveals, he’s not kidding. Look how much those kids despise him. Malia (left) appears to be thinking: “God, Dad! You’re such an incompetent snuggler. Wipe that smug grin off your face!”—while little Sasha (left) is, like, “This horsey-ride sucks. This so-called father can’t even summon the energy to jostle his thighs now and then? How am I supposed to imagine that I’m trotting about on a Shetland pony? Also: Straighten your tie!”