The Perfect Baby Handbook » General

The mystery of the disappearing birthday present

dale — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 03:30:26 +0000

Have you seen this t-shirt? Say, blowing down a street in Brooklyn? Or on the back of mischievous, Size-5 thief? Or somewhere in my friend Ariel’s house?

THE TEE: Gone, but not forgetten.

If so, please grab it and forward immediately to Perfect Baby Handbook Worldwide Headquarters on Montague Street so I can restore it to Ariel’s son Austen, the birthday boy for whom it was intended.

You see, sometime between 12 noon, Sunday, when I arrived at Austen’s madcap, high-concept birthday party (and handed it, giftwrapped in orange tissue paper, to his mom) and 3 p.m., it vanished. And 100-percent cotton, imported “Vintage Black Football Jerseys” by Appaman don’t just vanish, do they?

Especially when they’ve been known to “pair perfectly” with Appaman’s “Vintage Black Slalom Sweats”?

But, somehow, this one did, amidst the chaos of the treasure hunt, the dauntingly complex Jelly Bean taste test (organic vs. non-organic), the hysteria, the glee, and the serving of a cake that so masterfully depicted Nemo (of Finding Nemo fame) that a dozen toddlers stampeded towards it, much like art-snobs crowding around the latest Damien Hirst sculpture.

It truly is a mystery: Although Austen was witnessed at one point “feeling” the package and asking, with slight dismay, “Is it clothes?”, no one knows if he ever opened the gift. The card that accompanied the gift was found, halfway out of its envelope, on the floor.

My current suspects include:
• Birthday guest Dorian, a rival four-year-old who has never impressed me as honorable.
• The cat, Augustina Trembalina*
• Mysterious forces who feel strongly that well-off American children receive far too many birthday presents and wanted to make a point.

*Certain names have been changed

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?

Why insanely costly private schools could (but don’t) charge even more

dale — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 03:47:46 +0000

FUNNY HA-HA: Fieldstone grads

In the middle of the most recessive recession in decades, you’d think attendance at private schools might dip a bit. Nope, reports the Economist in a semi-horrifying story that makes you want to drown someone. In fact, even more parents are scrambling for the right to pay surreal, bankruptcy-inducing amounts:

Compared with last year, applications are up 14%,” says Mark Stanek, the principal of Ethical Culture Fieldston, a private school in New York. All through the application season he and his board of governors had been on tenterhooks, waiting to see if financial turmoil would cut the number of parents prepared to pay $32,000-34,000 a year to educate a child…

How unnerving for the board of governors! Those tenterhooks can really hurt. Overall, the Economist finds “little sign of a meltdown in private schooling” in America, while finding a nice smattering of signs that such schools will raise fees by 2-to-4 percent this fall. Two theories: 1) Parents fear the recession will further shit-ify public schools; 2) They assume that application rates at the snoot-schools (which are really selling college-placement guarantees) will be down, increasing their kid’s chances.

After amassing proof that these institutions could get away with charging way more (in much the same way that Rosemary’s Baby’s heroine amasses evidence that her husband’s in league with Satan), the report offers a nice reality check:

So why aren’t fees even higher? [The likely explanation] is that schools’ quality would decline if they simply sold places to the highest bidders. Part of what they offer is the chance to learn with clever classmates, and if fees were too high the pool of brainy potential pupils would become too shallow.

Whew! That was close.

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.

“The Best Kids’ Books Ever”—as chosen, in a willy-nilly manner, by Nicholas D. Kristof

dale — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 03:59:13 +0000

I.Q. PROTECTION: Buy now!

Want to scare parents? Claim that their children’s brains start disintegrating every July, unless the kids are pried away from computers, televisions—and (presumably) diving boards and climb-able trees—and forced to read the 13 children’s books that New York Times’ op-ed columnist, Nicholas D. Kristof, vaguely remembers from his boyhood, or has read to his own kids. He’s horrified by this inevitable cerebral rot:

I was aghast to learn that American children drop in I.Q. each summer vacation — because they aren’t in school or exercising their brains.

Unsurprisingly, his totally unmethodical list, titled “The Best Kids’ Books Ever,” currently tops the “most emailed” story ranking on the Times’ website, as in “Oh my god, Gerald, our offspring’s brains are in jeopardy. Please pick up all 397 titles in the Hardy Boys series—including the graphic novels Abracadeath and Dude Ranch O’ Death! on your way home from the office.”

Yes, bizarrely, lazily, Kristof feels the Hardy Boys belong in the pantheon of children’s literature*:

Yes, I hear the snickers. But I devoured them myself and have known so many kids for whom these were the books that got them excited about reading. The first in the series is weak, but “House on the Cliff” is a good opener.

if Kristof’s list had been called: “Crappy Books that Get Children Reading, Which is a Good Thing in the Grander Scheme of Things,” fine. But I’ve read The House on the Cliff. Recently. I went through a masochistic phase where I wanted to understand the historic appeal of formulaic children’s mysteries, from Judy Bolton to Trixie Belden. (For a fascinating, insider look into just how soullessly the Hardy books, along with The Bobbsey Twins and the [more defensible, proto-feminist] Nancy Drew series, were churned out, read Leslie Garis’ devastating memoir, The House of Happy Endings.)

And if you really want to give your kids a persuasive reason to avoid stupidity, have them read the transcript of Sarah Palin’s resignation speech.

*Kristof, whose middle name is Donabet, also likes Charlotte’s Web. If you have several spare hours, check out the 2000-plus reader comments his hit-and-miss list inspired.

What if the only news were baby news?

dale — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:57:10 +0000

We all know obsessive parents who believe the entire world revolves around infants. Though understandable, this perspective is dangerously distorting. For instance, when these moms or dads attempt to read New York Times headlines, it’s quite possibly they see this:

U.S Says It Will Preserve Secret Jails for People Who Dislike My Baby

Short of Cash, California Will Start Paying Its Bills With Lightly Used Maclaren Strollers

U.S. Faces Resentment in Regions That Can’t Access My Mommy Blog

Disgraced Governor Did Not Improperly Use Public Funds, Says My Child’s Fischer-Price Talking Frog

Documents Show Iraqi Dictator’s Fear of That Smug Mom at the Park Who Wears Cheap, Cashmere-Blend Twin Sets. Exclusive!

Obama’s Poll Ratings Strong Despite His Inability to Breastfeed

Unemployment Reaches 9.5 Percent, So We Can Probably Hire a Harvard-Educated Nanny for Almost Nothing

Not that it matters, now that all nannies are about to be replaced by robots.

Michael Jackson bleached his kid’s hair…both cruelly and cheesily!

dale — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 03:55:07 +0000

Newish photos of Michael Jackson’s children have revealed that the eldest—Michael Joseph Kingly Son of Jackson His Highness, Jr.—was, at one point, a cheap bottle blonde. Presumably not by choice. Although fresher scandals about Prince’s parentage, biological and otherwise, are arriving fast and furious, the hair thing has really touched a nerve among parents. Especially those who need to be outraged often enough to sustain a lively blog.

THREE FACES OF JR: It don't matter if you're white or really, really white.

Not that it’s loving to bleach a child’s hair to the point where he looks like Siegfried, Roy, or one of the Village of the Damned zombies (who, incidentally, wore wigs with built-in domes so they appeared to have extra-large brains).

INSPIRATION? Blondes have more fun, except when they're possessed.

But what’s really behind the revulsion and concern these photos have provoked? If it’s just the evidence of bad parenting (bleaching a child’s hair can, after all, burn her tender skin, compel her to yodel, lead people to conclude you’ve just kidnapped her and must disguise her, or cause allergic reactions; just ask Sasha Baron Cohen), is it really so shocking that someone known as Wacko might exercise poor judgment?

I think it goes deeper. I think these photos make all too vivid a broader problem: our tendency to “package” or perfect our children, while denying their natural selves: the occasionally messy, lazy selves who just want to play mindlessly now and then with uneducational materials like dirt.

As a helpful reminder to avoid imposng perfection on your child, you might want to buy this prieceless 1988 sculpture, “Michael Jackson and Bubbles,” by high-kitsch (and apparently clairvoyant) artist, Jeff Koons. And then you know, just keep it out in the mud room.

SUN-IN: Portrait of the artist as a young, racially ambiguous figurine.

Outraged mom reacts—sluggishly—to a 2001 teen trend

dale — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 03:51:55 +0000

Almost all parents excel when it comes to paranoia. For the few who don’t know how to freak out competently on their own, there are syndicated parenting columnists like Debra-Lynn B. Hook to give them a nudge. In a recent piece, Hook uncovers a trend so disturbing she can’t quite process it:

Co-ed sleepovers. I repeat: Teenage girls and teenage boys having a slumber party. Together. At the home of willing parents. Whaaaat?

CORRUPTING INFLUENCE: Sleeping bag.

As incomprehensible as this idea is, Hook—a Kent, OH-based journalist, mother, and African drumming enthusiast—can prove it’s really happening; she references a Time.com report which says the trend “been ’sweeping the teen circuit’ for several years.”

Problem is: The Time story in question was published in January, 2001. The so-called sweeping took place in the ’90s. Which isn’t to say Time’s coverage doesn’t merit attention. It’s actually quite funny: At one point, the writer suggests that parents who wish to host slutty sleepovers safely would be well-advised to invest in security systems. That way:

[Any teen] coming or going will set off [the] house alarm. For families without security systems, I suggest that a parent sleep on a cot or couch near the door.

Hook does cite some empirical evidence: Her own 16-year-old daughter, it seems, actually attended a boy/girl post-prom sleepover this May “in a buttercup yellow dress and just the tiniest bit of mascara.” The discovery of this event so stunned Hook she couldn’t quite process it:

“…one of the moms confirmed the kids’ after-party was at her house. The boy-girl after-party. The boy-girl SLEEPOVER after-party.”

In case you’re wondering. a Google search doesn’t exactly confirm that co-ed slumbering is back! and destroying the nation’s fabric. But maybe it is. I’ll do some more checking and see if I can find a 1972 Hartford Courier exclusive or maybe a mention in the 1897 Farmer’s Almanac. Please refrain from panic until we can sort this out.

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.

Jon & Kate divorce update: “We’ve made a life-changing decision to devote more time to tanning.”

dale — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 03:51:44 +0000

NEW PRIORITIES: "God, Jon, start tanning without sunglasses now and then! Your eye area isn't supposed to look like that! God, you're stupid."

During this difficult, emotional, shamelessly hyped, and—if all goes as planned—massively viewed—period for the Gosselin family, no advice is more important than this sun-worshipper’s tip:

How do I prevent “raccoon eyes?”

Adjusting the protective eyewear occasionally during a tanning session will help to minimize this condition. The adjustment can be performed by gently sliding the eyewear to a new position.

Judging from these recent photos, the soon-to-be-single Kate is showing some tanning restraint. As for Jon, he’s starting to look crazy. Children need evenly tanned parents.