Vitamin RC (Reality-Check)

This morning my husband and I discussed whether it's time to start giving our son, the Juban Princeling, a regular multi-vitamin. And just in time, too, as the Princeling went ahead and had a fit when I wouldn't give him one of my enormous, horse-sized vitamins that I can barely choke down every morning.

So I did what I usually do when I have a question about raising my child in a healthy way that will help him be the best little Princeling he can be: I consulted the internet.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics:

The American Academy of Pediatrics believes that healthy children receiving a normal, well-balanced diet do not need vitamin supplementation over and above the recommended dietary allowances, which includes 400 IU (International Units) of vitamin D a day. Megadoses of vitamins—for example, large amounts of vitamins A, C, or D—can produce toxic symptoms, ranging from nausea to rashes to headaches and sometimes to even more severe adverse effects. Talk with your pediatrician before giving vitamin supplements to your child.

I think it's adorably optimistic of the AAP to assume that we all live in a TV commercial where the children sit quietly and happily at the kitchen table to consume a "normal, well-balanced" breakfast every single day. Probably one cooked by their parents and consisting of things like egg-white omlettes with spinach and tomatoes, organic turkey sausage, and fresh-squeezed orange juice. And the children are all fresh-faced and wholesome, and they do their homework without being nagged, and the siblings never fight, and no one ever has a tantrum, and at night the whole family holds hands and sings "Kumbaya."

Barf.

Yeah, right.
(Photo from hubpages.com)

Here in the Lopez household we are full of good intentions and lazy follow-through. Husband and I would love it if the Princeling one day had a breakfast that could conceivably qualify as "food," but every morning we're slapped in the face by real life. Yesterday he had a cookie for breakfast. Today's breakfast consisted of:

1 1/2 saltines,
Three bites of an apple
Four Skittles

And we were happy, because he ate those saltines and had those bites of apple!

To be fair, when Husband and I took the personality quiz in "Stress-Free Potty Training," the Princeling scored astronomically high in the "Strong-Willed" category. (Oh, yay.) But I imagine most households are like ours: good intentions, harsh reality.

Part of this complete breakfast!
(Photo from Wikipedia.)

Nice try, AAP, but have any of you ever MET a child? Do any of you truly believe in your heart of hearts that the overwhelming majority of American children are receving healthy, balanced nutrion via their meals and snacks?

Since the Princeling likes fruit so much we have not worried much until now. Fruit is healthy, right? The USDA says we should make "half our plates" full of fruit. The USDA wouldn't lie to us. Would they?

Then I thought back to the past few weeks and noticed about 90% of what the Princeling regularly consumes falls into one of these three categories:

Fruit
Hot dogs/chicken nuggets
Skittles

Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure Skittles don't pack a lot of vitamin B and hot dogs aren't high in fiber.

The thing is, the Princeling does like vegetables. But he only eats them under certain circumstances, like when they are heated up in a bowl and he's watching his train movie, and Saturn is in retrograde, and it's a Leap Year, and the Speaker of the House has a last name ending in the letter Q.

So, thank you for the vote of confidence, American Academy of Pediatrics, but our kid is now a Flintstones Kid. It's the only way I can sleep at night.

Return of Juban Princeling Photo of the Week!

Better late than never.

This one is titled, "This is What a Feminist Looks Like!"*



And that sippy cup next to him? Is a Tinker Bell sippy cup. I'll just take that Liberal Mother of the Year Award now, thanks.


*My BIL's boyfriend, The Professor, pointed out that any ol' misogynist might see this photo and make the case that feminists are illiterate, since the magazine is upside-down. To which I would respond to those misogynists: HE'S TWO AND A HALF GO HAVE A GREAT BIG GLASS OF SHUT THE F**K UP.

When Baby Boomers Become Grandparents

This past weekend I took my 2 1/2-year old son, the Juban Princeling, down to Miami to visit his grandparents. It's a win-win-win situation for everyone: my parents get to spend time with their one and only grandchild, my son gets quality time with two people who never put him in time-out and think his whining is adorable, and I get two built-in babysitters for four days. It's actually win-win-win-WIN, if you also count my husband, who got to stay home and hire hookers and drink absinthe without having to keep track of a baby monitor.

The Baby Boomer generation has certainly put its own spin on this whole "grandparenting" business. They are, remember, former hippies. Free love, flower power, Jim Morrison, Woodstock, bell bottoms, long hair, freaking out squares, and whatever else the dirty, unwashed types used to do, has spilled over into their golden years.

My mom, circa 1969.

(Kidding. My parents did not actually
attend Woodstock. At least, not that they
remember.) (Photo from xtimeline.com)

One night at the dinner table I had the following actual conversation with my son:

Juban Princeling: Where's Grandpa?
Me: I don't know.
The Truth: Getting high in the backyard.

Actual quotes from my dad:
--"Shopping for clothes for the Princeling gives your mother orgasms."
--(Upon seeing my son riding his tricycle backwards) "Look! You're doing reverse cowgirl!"

Now, I'm not a prude, but I'm pretty sure the sexual revolution was not intended to compare a toddler on his trike to one of Cosmo's sex tips. I know, I know, I'm such a Puritan.

While we were down there my dad became obsessed with a movie he'd seen about 100 years ago that's not available on DVD, or even VHS. Thanks to the magic of Google (and because I am Generation X, not Generation "How Do I Send An Email?") I found a copy for him online and we ordered it, but a)I'm pretty sure it's a bootleg of something someone recorded off cable TV; b)I'm also pretty sure the site we ordered it from is only quasi-legal at best. I've instructed my mother to keep an eye on the credit card they used in case of any suspicious activity in the next few weeks. But man, won't my face be red when that DVD arrives in mint condition and the credit card goes untouched!

(And it's not like I'm a squeaky clean mom, either. Some day when the Princeling is, no doubt, in therapy, I imagine several items from his childhood will come up, such as songs involving the lyrics, "If your girl steps to me I'm smackin' a ho," played at his second birthday party, and all his earliest memories taking place at a wine shop.)

But, the important thing is that everyone had a good time. The Princeling only got one time-out the entire time we were there, during which I had to forcibly restrain my father from rescuing him and calling Child Services on me, because when your life's motto is "Grass and Ass," you tend to come from the same school of discipline as Ned Flanders' parents.

My mom took the Princeling to his favorite place on the planet, the Gold Coast Railroad Museum, where every week they have Fun With Food Fridays, in which the kids get to make ice cream, then eat it, then ride in a real train caboose. My son the train-lover hits a special level of nirvana whenever his grandmother takes him to FWFF at the Gold Coast, and honestly, I don't know why it isn't outrageously crowded whenever they go.

The Princeling and his grandpa at the Gold Coast

Railroad Museum in April.
(The Princeling's steam train t-shirt courtesy of Shirts That Go.)

My parents have so much fun with their grandson that they make no pretense about him being the sole reason they ask us to come down there so often. He's only 2 1/2 and they've already begun estimating when he'll be old enough to fly down without me or my husband. If they were a corporation, the internal memo would go something like this:

"How can we maximize our Princeling time, while minimizing our Daughter time?"

But, I guess that's how it goes with children and their grandparents. The Princeling had so much fun at their house that he did his excited little happy dance for nearly the entire four days straight. He probably even did it in his sleep. And really, isn't that how it should be?

"I'm an airplane!" Classic grandfather-grandchild moment.

Juban Princeling Photo of the Week: 5/21/11

The Princeling and his hot dad riding the
R train in Brooklyn.

The Doctor and The Cat

I make no secret of the fact that I am a giant geek, and I love Doctor Who.* I actually didn't start watching the new series until January** when my friend Nola got me into it. She and I pretty much share a brain, so when she told me I'd like it, I trusted her. And she, of course, was right. I love it!

I love Christopher Eccelson, who played the 9th incarnation of the Doctor in the first season of the new series, I LOVE David Tennant who came next, and I am madly in love with Matt Smith, the current Doctor, and want to have babies with him. (Don't feel sorry for my husband, here; he wouldn't mind being in a Freema Agyeman/Karen Gillan sandwich.)

So, Husband and I are now finished with Season 5 and onto Season 6, when in a few short episodes we'll be all caught up with the new series.

And it's occurred to me recently, while thinking about "Doctor Who" and letting my son, the Juban Princeling, watch PBS Kids because I am a horrible evil mother worse than Hitler's mother and I let my son watch TV (gasp, clutch pearls, call Child Services), that the children's animated show, "The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!" is really not so different from "Doctor Who."

Photo of Matt Smith as my boyfriend, er,
The Doctor, Karen Gillan as Amy Pond, and
the TARDIS, taken from Chaotic Geek

"Doctor Who" is based on a character called The Doctor, a Time Lord who can travel across space and time. He uses a TARDIS which stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. He always travels with a young (attractive, female) companion. They have adventures in places most humans don't get to see or even know about. The companion learns things.

Photo of the Cat in the Hat, with Sally and
Nick in the Thinga-ma-jigger, taken from Moxie Bird

"The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That!" is also based on a fantastical being who shows up to whisk away his two young friends, Sally and Nick, and takes them in his Thinga-ma-jigger to exotic locales for adventures and learning.

In an episode of "TCITHKALABT," Nick and Sally learn about whale songs; in an episode of "Doctor Who," it is thousands of years in the future and Spaceship UK is floating around the universe on top of a giant space whale. In "TCITHKALABT" (which I am now copy-pasting because that it a pain in the ass to type) Nick and Sally learn about ecosystems and how animals depend on plants and flowers to survive. In "Doctor Who" the Doctor discovers a living being inside a star that has been sourced for energy fuel for a spaceship. In "TCITHKALABT" Sally and Nick learn how to build a bird's nest for some eggs they find. In nearly every episode of "Doctor Who" the Doctor has to save Earth and/or the entire Universe and/or all parallel universes from imminent destruction.

So you see, the two shows are actually quite similar. I'm pretty sure if I keep letting the Princeling watch "TCITHKALABT" he'll grow up to enjoy "Doctor Who." (And also if I dress him in a Yankees jersey he'll grow up to be Derek Jeter!)

Would it be bad parenting of me to start a letter-writing campaign to PBS Kids to get the Weeping Angels into an episode of "The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That!"? They are super cool.

*The new series. I've never seen the original series because once when I was about 4 years old and it was on, I had a nightmare about The Doctor.

**Trauma from childhood nightmare, see above.

Juban Princeling Photo of the Week, 5/14/11

So overwhelmed by the book selection at Barnes & Noble,
the Princeling has to have a little lie-down.

Juban Princeling Photo of the Week

My husband says "flashlight," I say SONIC SCREWDRIVER!

I mean, right?

(Image of David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor from geek.com)

The Sick Kid Drinking Game

Just in time for Cinco de Mayo (aka The White Person's Mexican Independence Day), it's the drinking game parents all over my apartment have been waiting for! W00t w00t, and whatnot!

Last night our 2 1/2-year old son, the Juban Princeling, scored a pretty high fever out of nowhere. Like, literally, he pulled it out of his ass just in time for bed. I saw him do it, too, saw him reach back, grab a fever, and smack it onto himself. Great.

So I did what any good parent would do: I dumped some baby Motrin down his gullet and kissed him goodnight.

This morning I took him to the pediatrician, who checked his throat, which was easy since he was screaming his head off. Might be strep, she said. Then the nurse came in to do a culture while I was forced to hold my frightened, crying, screaming son down on the table. Five long minutes later we got the results: yes, strep. Yay! All that torturing my child was not for naught!

The rest of the afternoon was spent feeding my son baby Motrin, snuggling him, and trying not to kill him. Know what's worse than a kid going through a hard dose of the Terrible Two's? A sick kid going through the Terrible Two's.

He'd whine for me even while he was on my lap snuggled into my bosom. He didn't want to eat. He didn't want to drink. He wanted this toy, but then he didn't want it. He wanted to lie in bed. He wanted to get out of bed. He wanted the light on. He wanted the light off. He wanted a Band-Aid on his shirt. (I don't know, either.) He wanted his grandma (who lives in Miami). He refused to eat or drink anything except jelly beans and lollipops even though I know he's on both Motrin and antibiotics and I don't want his stomach lining to, you know, shred. He wanted a bottle of 1945 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild Jeroboam. Oh wait, that was me.

I used all the tricks from "Buddhism for Mothers" I could to keep calm and carry on during what was, to my son, the most wretched of all times for anyone, ever. I reminded myself that he is sick and miserable, that strep sucks, and that I am his Mommy and that for the rest of his life when he gets sick it'll be me he wants. And then when he refused to put on PJs I lost it a little bit and snapped at him just a teensy bit, which I think is what Hitler's mother used to do and now my son will surely grow up to make war and genocide. Great. I couldn't hold it together for just 45 more minutes until bed time, and now an entire race of people will suffer for it as some point in the future.

So I came up with the only way I know how to deal with a crisis of this level: a drinking game!

A little medicine for baby, a little medicine for Mommy
(photo courtesy of WikiCommons)

Here's how you play:
Don't bother drinking every time your child moans, "Mommy!" or you'll be passed out in under five minutes.
Open a bottle of your booze of choice.
Drink once for every...
*Refusal to eat real food
*Degree of temperature above 98.6
*Reversion to babyhood (in my son's case, he actually asked for a bottle for the first time in over a year)
*Day of antibiotic
*Request for a lollipop
*Voluntary snuggle
*Hour of quarantine
*Request to watch the same damn video yet again

When the bottle is empty, mash it over your head as hard as you can to knock yourself unconscious for a while. Repeat as necessary.