motherload

Last week Shelley was telling me about a woman who'd been inside her house for the first time. She was doing a carpool drop-off I think, or maybe she was a new friend. Anyway, Shelley said she was admiring Shell's grandma's china that's in a cabinet in their living room. And as she stepped away from the huge case of cherished breakables, she pointed out that they really should rein the cabinet into the wall, or one small quake could send it and all Grannie's priceless pink flowered table settings to garbage can heaven.

(This is a concern when you live in NoCal. You can't even hang pictures over your bed--or especially a baby crib--since one wee tremor could have them dive off the wall and turn sleeping Junior into Flat Stanley. Or worse yet, rain down glass shards over yourself or your offspring like New Year's Eve confetti on Times Square.)

So anyway, Shelley must have said something like, "Yeah you are totally right, but as the First Lady of a time-sucking winemaking business, with three kids, a big house to manage, and the onset of a new job twinkling in my eye, who's got the time?"

A few days later the woman called Shelley. "So I've got my drill charged up and I'm free next Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday afternoon. When can I come by and bolt that china cabinet to the wall?"

Now, just how much do you want this carpool woman to be your best friend? The offer of such a kind favor aside, I just love that she's got her own drill and she ain't shy about using it.

Fast forward to today. I'm leaving a little day spa where I've just lost 2 pounds in eyebrow hair and I'm wrangling to set up my stroller while holding Little Miss Earache in one arm. I happen to glance down the street and this ancient fragile looking woman is approaching, and she's managing to somehow drag behind her an oxygen tank that she's hooked up to. I didn't know whether to be sad for her weakened state, or happy that she's at least not letting it stop her from getting out in the world.

And as I look back at my stroller and revert my thoughts to sending a pox-curse on the village of the owners of MacLaren (why do those visors always eventually irreparably schlump?), Wee Decrepit Woman on Oxygen comes up to me and says, "What can I do for you, dear? Let me give you a hand." And even though at that point I'd finally gotten my sidewalk catastrophe act together, it was all I could do to not give her a teary-eyed osteoporotically-bone-crushing hug, then send her to my house to iron Mark's shirts.

Though I don't really know that that's what she had in mind.

Even with His Holiness Obama blessedly elected into office, here we all are at the intersection of Economic Infrastructure Meltdown and Holiday Shopping Stress. And despite how much I want a really fabulous pair of brown high-heeled boots (and black ones too) this Christmas, it seems that along with everyone else I've spoken to, this season of giving is going to be coming more from the heart than from Bloomingdale's. I think an act of kindness will be this year's jewel-toned cashmere scarf, and really it's a shame that it took Wall Street shitting the bed to wake us all up to the fact that that's how it really should be anyway.

So take out that Excel spreadsheet with all your gift-buying ideas on it (wait, not everyone keeps that in Excel?), and whether or not you have the cash to buy every last person matching his and hers hot air balloons, consider what you can do instead of get. Rake your sister's leaves, deliver a tray of gin and tonics to your neighbor right when they get home from work, or set aside some time to organize your cousin's linen closet. I assure you, they will delight in those gifts far more than the Hammacher Schlemmer heated gloves that they're just going to keep in in a box in their basement for four years until they give them away to Salvation Army.

And when I'm at your house next and seem to be spending an excessive amount of time in your bathroom, no need to slide the sports section (and some air freshener) under the door. I'm likely just scrubbing the grout around your bathtub with some bleach and a toothbrush.

Merry Christmas!

Little Miss Happy Pants Paigey serenely endured a temperature all weekend, maintaining her nearly impenetrable good nature. Then today all hell broke loose and she's a clingy don't-you-dare-set-me-down blubbering mess. Poor sweet thing.

And of course I can't help but marvel at how adorable she looks when she's bawling. Thankfully she doesn't wail like this often so she's not at risk for years of therapy to undo the trauma of having a mother who clucks delightedly and says, "Aw. How cute are you?" when what she's desperately trying to do is communicate how utterly miserable she is.

Yes, I know. I'm that mother.

So I took her to the pediatrician this morning. And lest you think I let raging fevers go unchecked I called their office Friday and they said if she's eating and sleeping and chipper, just keep watching her for any change.

After his examination, our friend-doc Dan leaned back, crossed his arms in that all-knowing doctorly way and declared that yes, good thing I brought her in, she does indeed have an ear infection in her left ear.

Now, far be it from me to be the mother who balks when her kid gets caught smoking pot in the alley by the high school, "Not MY Obedi! He'd NEVER do that!" But the fact is, Kate has never had an ear infection, and up until today nor had Paige. I mean, it's not what my kids do. (Read: It's something that plagues all those other common folks' children.)

I mean, barring that there was some kind of shouldn't-even-joke-about-it mix-up at the hospital, I guess it turns out that ear infections actually are something my kids--or at least one of them--do do. And I realized that I had to remove one small maternal point of pride from my unaware-I-was-even-keeping-track mental checklist. (My mother had much more outspoken bravado about these things. "My children go outside and play in all kinds of weather!" "My children never catch colds." "My children all have excellent teeth.")

Anyway, it got me thinking about what a game of I Never would be like today, played amongst a group of hardcore manic Mamas.

Here are a few things I wouldn't have to drink to:

• I never took my kids' temperature with an anal thermometer.
• I never gave my kids formula.
• I never dressed my children in a My-First-[Insert Holiday Here] outfit.
• I never had my kids in the room while I was watching TV.
• Post-infancy, I never had my child sleep in bed with me.
• I never tasted any of the bottled baby food I've fed my babies.
• I never saw the placentas from my pregnancies.
• I never put my kids' names on our answering machine message after they were born.
• I've never had my baby cry into our answering machine, nor did I have my child leave the outgoing message when she was old enough to speak.
• I never got any of my offspring to take a bottle.
• I never thought I'd be the kind of parent who makes every effort to be home in time for naps to take place in the crib/bed. (But I am.)
• I never had any embarrassing leaky boob-milk incidents.
  
• I never obsessed over my kids' poop.
• I never put one of those headband things that have a bow on them on my baby daughters.
• I never had the natural childbirths I hoped for.
• I never worried about safety issues with crib bumpers. (They're too damn cute to pass up.)
• I never let the fact that they could lose their shit--literally and figuratively--prevent me from taking my babies out in public.
• I never understood how parents could go for years without spending a night away from their kids.
  
• I never spent a night with my husband away from our oldest child in her first two years of life.
• I never dressed my daughters in clothing that matched mine.
• I never tasted my own breast milk.
  
• I never made my husband drive like a chauffeur and sat in the back next to my baby's car seat. (I never did that with my second child, that is.)

Did you have to drink for any of those? (Or to just get through the endless list?)

Until recently, aside from the ear infection, there was one other mini maternal point of pride that was on my list: I never encountered a floater while giving my kid a bath.

Unfortunately--and disgustingly--a couple months ago as Mark was bathing Kate one evening I heard him say to her, "Kate, is that---? Oh, God. Okay honey, let's get you out of there." And a minute later as I heard the toilet flush and the water gurgling down the drain he called out to me, "Can you please bring me some bleach?"

As I cracked the door to toss the cleaner in and make a hasty you're-on-your-own-dude exit, Kate craned her neck towards me and yelled out proudly, "I pooped in the bath, Mama!"

Charming.

Since I did my best to sidestep the whole gnarly scene, maybe I wouldn't have to drink for that one after all.

What is it that you have never done as a parent?

Got my knickers in a twist and sent this letter to the head of my former prep school today.

A justifiable rant, or am I off my rocker?

Dear Dan:

As an alumna and lifelong fan of Wheeler, I want to thank you for the great job you've done helping me feel connected to all that's happening at the school. I appreciate hearing about everything from curricular enrichment to campus development, how my donation dollars are being spent, and even being kept in the loop in times of tragedy. All these things have made me feel closer to the Wheeler community than I have in years. If I didn't live 3,000 miles away, I'd send my daughters to Wheeler in a heartbeat.

I'm sure it's in that same spirit of inclusion that somewhere along the line correspondence to me from the school started to be addressed to "Mr. and Mrs. Mark McClusky." My husband has attended some Wheeler events with me, and even he commented on how odd it is that as a result my own name has dropped off all mail from the school.  

I know this is likely is a matter of old-world etiquette. And in that vein, it makes me ponder whether Mary C. Wheeler herself was ever married. I don't believe she was, but I can't help but wonder if she had been--even back in 1889--whether she'd have named her progressive all-girls school something akin to The Mrs. John C. Smith School.

It appears that you are mindful about how you present your own name in school correspondence--sometimes signing with the familiar "Dan" rather than using your full name and title. I'll continue to look forward to receiving news from Wheeler. I just hope that going forward you'll be as thoughtful about how you address the envelopes as you are about their contents.

Best,
Kristen Bruno McClusky, '85

Remember in the die-if-I-missed-it show of my teendom, Happy Days, when Fonzie attempted to admit he'd made a mistake?

Well, if you weren't as devoted a viewer as I was, I'll tell you about it. He'd do this super goofy but kinda-funny-because-it-was-predictable thing where'd he'd say, "I was wrr-wrrrr-wrrr..." and inevitably someone like God's own Ritchie Cunningham would say, "Wrong, Fonzie? Are you trying to say you were wrong?"

Well, despite the myriad similarities between Fonzie and me--including the fact that I like conducting meetings in the bathroom--this week I had reason to actually feel happy about admitting that I was wrong.

But first, the back story.

Before having Kate, my concept of work had one modality: working 50-65 hour weeks,compulsively checking email when not at work, never knowing when a pitch would require unexpected late nights/travel/migraines/beatings from executives, never knowing when the work that we spend long hours and late nights producing would result in beatings from clients, and intermittent Sunday evenings rife with stomach-clutching because it'd all start over again in a matter of hours.

After having Kate and taking a hiatus from work my psyche was able to unfurl from it's abused-child fetal position. And unbelievably, for the first time, the simple realization that there were other kinds of jobs out there came to me.

Unfortunately, agency life, for all it's unpredictability and manic peaks and valleys, did get me accustomed to creature comforts far beyond Bagel Fridays. It was creative. It was lucrative. It was never boring. My co-workers were always funny and mostly brilliant. And the flip side of the burning ulcers was the 'the client loved it' adrenaline rushes.

Teeninsy Kate injected her existence into my life with the dramatic flourish of a table being hurled on it's side during a round of Go Fish at a nursing home. She was a mindblowingly happy-making, wanted and welcomed addition to my life, but oooooh-ee! Did she ever change things.

Unsurprisingly, there was no turning back to my old job life. But nearly a year into careerlessness, I started to get small twinges of wanting to do something. I talked to friends, joined LinkedIn, winced with introspection, lunched with former co-workers, and massaged my temples in an attempt to conceptualize the kind of job that'd be both gratifying and allow me moderate to lavish time with Kate.

My criteria were: part-time, lucrative, flexible, creative.

Ever the realist, Mark said, "Pick two."

In this process I was like a spider, dragging anyone within reach into my web to wrangle over the whole morass with me. Which is to say that aside from Kate Kate Kate, I had a new conversation topic to drone on about to anyone who'd listen.

And throughout all this thought and blather I made what I thought were two brilliant assertions:

1. The vast majority of part-time jobs require hair nets.

2. Job sharing is a myth.

I mean, here I was living in San Francisco for God's sake, and I didn't know a single person who job shared. And if I didn't know anyone here who did, you can bet your Blackberry that folks in Omaha weren't.

But then, last week, I was proven wrong by a dear friend who I'll mysteriously dub "Sherry" so as to conceal her not-yet-started-the-gig identity. Yes, after a series of phone calls and interviews that spanned several weeks, my dear Miss Sherry got herself a two-day-a-week job. Job-sharing with another woman.

But wait! I also must mention that this job is in her field, at a super-cool company, senior management level--and she'll even get mondo employee discounts that'll rock her whole family.

No burger flipping required! (In fact, I'll go out on a limb and guess there's not a deep fryer in the whole building.) No calling the men Mr. So-and-So and getting flowers for Secretary's Day! No whispering, "And what are you wearing, Arthur?" into the phone while the kids play in the other room!

And best of all, NO HAIR NETS.

In the words of my people from the great small state of Rhode Island, I am SO WICKED HAPPY for her. And for the slim ray of hope this casts for all the other talented professionals who--mothers or not--have great contributions to make, years of senior-level experience, want or need to make money, and require flexibility.

Now that that myth has been busted, does anyone know if that toothbrush photo from the Jamaican vacation story is true?

I collect brother-in-laws named John. I currently only have two, but my sister Ellen is single so there is a chance that I could add a third to my set some day.

My one brother-in-law John--the Coastie who's married to Mark's sis, Lori--he and I have a long-standing joke about the Miller's $30-spending-max holiday gift exchange. It goes back to when I wasn't yet married into the family, as he was. He delighted in taunting me year after year about whether or not I'd be on the gift exchange list. Then he'd dangle his inclusion in my face by saying "Neener neener neener!"

It was clearly a very mature joke, and likely not funny to anyone other than John and me, but isn't finding those perversely-amusing common grounds to laugh about when you're flying on tryptophan and bourbon what brings families closer together?

So anyway, now that I've made the grade and am officially and securely part of the gift exchange, I got an email from Mark's cousin Maggie's fiance Josh. (You following that?) Due to his engaged status he's in the mix this year (though frankly I think he was last year too and the Millers are growing a bit lax about the exclusivity of membership). He got Kate to buy for this year and wanted some ideas about what she might like.

Pondering what gift booty would delight Little Miss Kate made me realize the extent to which three-year-olds live in an altered LSD-trippy parallel universe. One where the most mundane everyday objects take on a fascinating sheen.

Like, we were at a toy store yesterday and amidst all the cool fun stuff and actual toys, Kate spotted a plastic placemat with pictures of something like goldfish on it. She woozily, adoringly clutched it to her chest like a diamond tennis bracelet from Tiffany.

"This placemat, Mama," she whispered with reverence. "I love this placemat. Can I please get it?" Then, realizing there were others with different designs she started yanking them off the rack with delirious glee. "Oh look they have more! There's this one? I love this too! I want all of them, Mama! Can I have all of them? Please?"

Invoking my well-honed powers of Resisting a Child's Desire to Buy Crap, I heard myself say, "If you really want one you can ask for it for Christmas." Then I thought what an absurd Christmas list item that is. Other kids want dolls, Legos, Thomas the Tank Engine. Kate wants a placemat. And she'd truly be BLISSED OUT to get it.

Before having kids I cracked up hearing that my friend Shelley's son slept with his beloved Wiggles video. As in, clutching the actual video in the box, not having it playing while he slept. Well, joke's on me when Kate spends a rainy winter night cuddled up with her stuffed dog Dottie and a placemat.

Kate's other Christmas list items are barely better. Somewhere along the line she suddenly decided that scarves were the coolest things EVER and spent the better part of a 75-degree day pleading with me as if her existence depended on it--and how could I be so cruel as to deny her?--"I want a scarf, Mama. A SCARF! I need one right now!" The small plastic bowl with a snap-top lid that a friend recently left at our house became another object of lustful desire. They'll be happy to know she had to hug it during several potty sessions. (I ran it through the dishwasher.) And truly I can't think of any gift she'd love more than a package of seeds--poppy seeds, flower seeds, any type really as long as they are little and plentiful. I'd even wager you could wrap up a dust bunny in a little box and Kate would ceremoniously carry it to her altar--I mean her play kitchen--with the intensity and loving care you'd reserve for a baby bird.

Anyway, I hope all these things are providing Josh not only some good gift ideas but also the realization that, as a man on the brink of marriage, the next big plunge into parenthood could result in becoming the owner and operator of a small person who you love madly madly madly but whose passions and interests you can rarely make a whit of sense of.

But hey, it keeps things lively around here.

As for Paige, she's also happily entrenched in her own trippy reality. Sadly we're past the stage where she'd wave her arms around, catch sight of one hand, then slowly turn it over and back in front of her eyes, examining it as if this brilliant device was something she'd never seen before and wasn't right there, attached to the end of her arm. God, Mark and I loved that.

If Paige was writing an online dating bio she'd add the fringe on the bottom of the couch to her list of interests. Despite whatever real toy she's given to wrangle with on the floor, she'll eventually roll herself over to the couch and flap one hand slowly through the tassley fringe with deep contentment.

And whenever I carry her in my front-pack and we walk under a tree, Paigey arches her whole body backwards to stare up at the leaves and the light and laugh and laugh and laugh. I mean, sure, leaves certainly are funny, but they're not quite the laugh riot Miss P makes them out to be.

All this fascination with the mundane has made me realize how much being a mother is like working a crowd of drug-addled concert-goers. Most of the time I'm in a Stadium Security role, just trying to coral the happy trippers, and make sure it all stays mellow and fun and no one loses an eye. But inevitably somewhere in the course of the day I'm more like a Rock Doctor triaging bad trippers in a tent, helping them get through fits over inanimate objects they're convinced have come to life to torture them. You know, managing a situation like: " This sock is hurting me!!! It hurrrrrts meeee! Bad sock!! BAAAAAD!!"

Oh sure. A bad trip like that? I'd say I take on one of those--sometimes as many as three--nearly every day.

And to think I don't even have a walkie talkie or a medical degree.

My friend Geri, who I see and talk too far less often than I should, called yesterday.

Geri: "Okay, so first off I have to say that when I got this red envelope in the mail from you I thought, 'Oh God, she's already sent out her Christmas cards. And it's just days after Halloween.' "

Me: "And you were disgusted by what a super organized stay-at-home mom I'd become? You were ready to totally write me off as a friend?"

Geri: "Well, not quite write you off... That's a bit extreme."

Me: "But then you opened it? And realized it was just a really really late birth announcement?"

Geri: "Exactly. And my faith in you was restored."

Yes, last week, just days after our beloved newborn Paige turned, well, nine months old, we popped her birth announcement into the mail.

We figured that years from now, when she and Kate are in their thirties and looking through old shoeboxes of family photos and memorabilia, Paige will care more about ever having had a birth announcement than she will about the fact that we got around to sending it out so bloody late. In fact, if she doesn't look too hard at how very large she was in the pictures, perhaps she'll never even make the connection.

Speaking of lost connections, on an online video chat with my Dad and Joan last week, I mentioned that they'd be getting a birth announcement in the mail from us soon, "just in case you were wondering if I was still pregnant." Which caused my dad to lean distortingly close to his computer video lens and say, "What's that? You're pregnant?!"

Ah dear. Perhaps sending this card out now did more harm than good.

Well, despite what anyone else says, we still want to shout it from the rooftops:
"Paige Victoria McClusky is here! She is a supreme addition to our family, and we love love love her more than you'd ever know!"

Take that! We've announced it. Even if she did make her entrance nearly a year ago.

It wasn't until some time late Monday that I realized that Mark and I staying home alone with the kids on election night was a poor decision. So I called out to my Friday Mama Posse like a deer raises her tail to signal her kinfolk.

Sure we have young kids. Yes, it's a school night. But heralding this new desperately needed change, something that's been dangled in front of us tantalizingly for so very long--if, or when, we finally get it and seal the deal--we really need to be in the company of friends.

So I heated up some homemade squash soup, tossed champagne left-over from our wedding into the fridge, and called an order in to Extreme Pizza.

By 7:30 Megan had already cried tears of joy, most adults were wearing old party hats from Kate's second birthday, and I was drunkenly photographing my "I Voted" sticker in different settings--on a doll, on Baby Wes, on Mary's forehead. Oh, and let's not forget me making Drew pretend to shoot up with the Fisher Price doctor's kit syringe.

Good times.

One could make the argument that the kids--bleary-eyed one-year-olds and amped up three-year-olds who were ravaging the house with a toxic combination of toys, organic Teddy Puffs, and each other's rabid encouragement--were acting more mature than the adults.

Aside from the two lucky ones who scored our limited Baby Sleeping Vessels, the kids stayed up way too late. And the adults drank way too much.

We're all paying for it today, and I can't think of any reason more worth it.

Barack on, Obama! Once these hangovers pass we can all work on getting used to what it feels like to be proud of our President. And heck, maybe even our country.

Can I hear an Amen?!

Our Halloween decorations this year included a large bag of black plastic spiders. Kate and I both spotted them amidst all the other spooky crap at Target and I'm not sure which one of us got more OMG-I-must-have-them-now fired up. Suffice it to say we couldn't wait until checking out to bust into the bag.

My guess is this delightful sack o' arachnids were meant to adorn the nearly suburban-mandatory big fake spider web that covers the pumpkins on the stoop or is stretched across the front porch. But at that point we hadn't rigged our web yet. And when we got home, somewhere in the course of the day Kate had dropped one in the hallway by her bedroom. I have to admit that more than once I walked by the same fake spider sitting in that same place on the floor and had a momentary ick shiver. Which got me thinking that less truly is more.

So I stuck one on the soap bar in Mark's shower.

After getting ready for work the next day Mark didn't say a thing, and I later discovered our eight-legged friend on my pillow. And from there we went back and forth--it was in the medicine cabinet on his toothpaste tube, in my jewelry box, under the sheets on his side of the bed, yadda yadda yadda.

But of course, I had to think of the way to end this cat and mouse game with enough flourish to mark it as the grand finale. And also to assert my clear and evident spider-hiding domination. I mean, not that I'm competitive or anything.

As I pondered my coup, I was chagrined at the thought that in the few days leading up to Halloween Mark was going to be in New York. And then--duh!--I realized that having him find it there--while I was home in California--should be my genius next move. So, when he was  taking his pre-airport departure shower at the painful hour of 5:30AM, I sprinkled the entire bag of spiders into a section of his suitcase, reserving some for inside a pair of dress shoes he'd packed.

It sucked voluntarily getting out of bed in the wee small hours to do this, but I'm willing to make sacrifices like that to secure my place on the medal podium of pranksterdom.

The voicemail Mark left me after unpacking his bag at the hotel--and sending a bunch of spiders flying--was, "Well played, honey. Well played."

Of course, when he got home a couple days later, I pulled back the sheets of our bed to see all the spiders come home to roost. Sure, it surprised me, and sure, gave me the proverbial willies, but we both knew that the game had really ended with my bold and brilliant suitcase move.

Or so we thought.

Today, Mark sent me an email from the office entitled "I don't know if you're teaching Kate tricks." Turns out that when he put on his cycling jacket to ride to the gym at lunch he discovered that the pockets were filled with dozens of small wooden mushroom- and pepperoni-painted disks, part of the pizza-making toy Kate's currently obsessed with.

Mark was fairly certain that this was my handiwork, or that I'd coached Kate to do it. But I'd undergo a polygraph to prove that the girl acted entirely on her own. I wasn't even aware she'd done it. Though if I did happen to catch her red-handed, God knows I wouldn't have stopped her.

Ah well. Just when I thought I had the last laugh, little Miss Kate comes in out of the blue and ends the game with a dazzling flourish.

Well played, Katie. Well played. 

Last week, while Mark was in Neuva York slumming  his way through dinner at wd-50 alongside Gourmet Magazine editor Ruth Reichl, food critic Geoffrey Steingarten, Chef Grant Achatz and other foodie luminaries, our neighbors took pity on the girls and me and had us over for pumpkin-carving and pasta.

In a rookie-level tactical error, I fed Paige before the rest of us sat down, then realized I'd dashed any hopes of her sitting out our meal patiently from her high chair. Employing an Italian-American approach to problem solving, I looked for some more food I could stuff into her.

Did they possibly have any Cheerios, I asked. "I think so," said Jennifer. But then looking at the box, "Oh, but they're the sugary Honey Nut ones. Will those work?"

Mark and I fully embrace the No Sugar for the Kids so There's More for Us patented approach to childrearing. So, I paused for a brief moment before my own desire to eat uninterrupted won out and I succumbed.

At nine months, Paige is proficient at swiping Cheerios off her tray and even picking them up with her pincer grasp, but she still hasn't had the I-can-put-these-in-my-mouth-all-by-myself realization. So after I inserted the first-ever dose of sugar into her innocent little bouche, her eyes widened, and she excitedly tapped her fingertips together, signing "More! More!"

It was the first time she's signed! I've only been trying to teach her a few signs--more, all done, milk--seeing as, well, seeing as I only know a few myself.

And earlier in the day when she got all babbling arm-waving hopped up looking at some pumpkins I asked her if she'd like to touch them, and wonder of wonders she reached right out and she did!

Call it parental goofballness, but it is amazing to get those first hits of two-way communication with your little bundle of chub. It's not like you don't expect it to ever happen, but after nine months of feeding and bathing and diaper-changing marked only by intermittent smiles and laughs--which don't get me wrong are akin to a narcotic for a sleep-deprived Mama--after all that it's still thrilling and freaky and somewhat unbelievable when you suddenly get confirmation that there is in fact someone in that baby body. And that they are listening.

Jennifer and I encouraged Paigey to sign "more" a couple more times to validate that, yes, she was in fact doing it. Woo hoo! I gave her a million proud kisses all over her head like she was some prize-winning Basset Hound at Westminster.

Of course, it's been nearly a week and she hasn't signed a single time since. Granted, she also hasn't had any more Honey Nut Cheerios. 

I'd just like to say that I'm prouder than the mother of an honor roll student. Proud of my husband Mark, that is.

Back when Kate was a few months old, she and I tagged along with him on a work trip to Chicago. Maybe I have some Nordic blood I'm not aware of. Something that drove me to bring my wee tender infant to Chicago on a winter weekend that served up record cold. As if thrusting this defenseless small thing out into blasting bitter winds and inhuman sub-zero temps was some cultural rite of passage that if she managed to survive would result in her being given a secret name from a tribe elder.

But really I think it was just me wanting to get out of the house.

Yeah, so anyway, we went there and it was chilly. And we stayed in a schmancy hotel. And the first night Kate arcanely (and cruelly) managed to wake up every hour at the same exact time (3:14AM, 4:14AM, 5:14AM) forcing me to stick a boob in her mouth to quiet her down because Mark had to wake up the next day with some hopes of having slept enough to be an intelligent functional journalist. Those few nights comprised perhaps the most miserable ones of my infant mothering.

But all that aside, Mark and I did go out one night to an amazing restaurant called Alinea to eat the most decadent, fascinating, and theatrical meal of our lives. All 25 or so courses. Not to mention the 15 wine pairings. (But really, after the eleventh glass of wine, who can keep count?)

In fact, the business behind Mark's trip to Chi-town was that he was interviewing that restaruant's chef, a guy in his early thirties named Grant Achatz who's a disciple of His Holiness Thomas Keller, and a frontiersman in the realm of molecular gastronomy. That scientifically-alchemized and post-modernistically presented haute gourmet food utterly unlike anything your mom used to make. And food that many moms--from my mother's generation at least--might never appreciate the staggering artistic and experiential merits of. (I can hear my mother now: "You've got to be kidding me! For the price of that coo coo meal you could've put a down payment on a perfectly good house!")

So, after that trip Mark wrote a story for Wired about Grant. They stayed in touch. Gourmet named Alinea the best Restaurant in America. Grant was named the Best Chef in the U.S. by The James Beard Foundation. Grant got cancer. He started work on a cookbook. He asked Mark to write an essay for the book. Grant also asked Geoffrey Steingarten and Michael Ruhlman to contribute. (This, by the way, is like being invited to play golf with Tiger Woods and, well, some other really amazingly super good and well-known golfer.) Grant's cancer, blessedly, went into remission. The book, Alinea, went on sale over a week ago and I believe is now in its fourth printing. I'll resist the cookbook/selling/hotcakes metaphor-pun.

I can't imagine people are snatching it up because they're in a rut about what they've been serving for dinner and want to mix things up a bit and wow the kids with some Surf Clam with Nasturtium Leaf and Flower with Shallot Marmelade. Or maybe have the neighbors over for Sunday football and some Foie Gras with Spice Cinnamon Puff and Apple Candy.

The book has a "How To Use this Book" intro, and it actually says that they do want you to venture to produce some of its recipes. But it's unlikely that any non-professionals (aside from one blogger with a lot of time, patience, and ambition) would do so. Hence the brilliant term "coffee table cookbook." Aside from the complexity of the number of components and steps and even the staggering grocery gathering that'd be required, you'd also need a kitchen stocked with a madman's array of chemicals plus state of the art hi-tech equipment that can do things like turn fresh parsley into powder or make Gob Stopper shaped spheres filled with unexpected innards, like say, curry sauce. Or Concord grape. Or, heck, both.

Not that that's a recipe mind you, but this book is packed with similarly mind blowing match-ups that you could never in your most drug-induced Suessian dreams conjure. And if you ever have the very very good fortune to eat at Alinea--something you really should try to do before you take all your foods up through a straw--you won't believe you're actually eating these sublime things all together or that you love how they taste.

And for God's sake if you do eat there, be sure not to go with your mother or your brother-in-law or whoever it is who'll be too freaked out by the food's novelty or who's an unadventurous eater or is even just an old school party pooper. Or maybe on the other hand, bring them along! Require them to just shut up and eat, and watch as the kitchen and the front-of-the-house staff knock their damn socks off! I promise you the next day they'll quit their 17-year run at the accounting firm, hop a flight to Fiji and take up kite surfing.

But oh, where was I? The book. The book. I'm telling you, it's like that. It's not just like flipping through the utterly comprehensive and practical yet curveball-less Joy of Cooking. It takes you places. This is not a cookbook that you buy for your friend who likes to cook, although he certainly will love it. Buy it for someone whose culinary specialty is a toasted bagel and know there will be something that will floor and amaze even her--not to mention the people who come across it on her coffee table.

There's science! There's art! There's technology! There's food! There's stunning photography! And there's my husband's name. Right there on the cover page.

So recently I suggested you make a contribution to help fund breast cancer research. Today I'm advising you to go out or go online and buy this book. Not because I want to help sales for Grant or for Mark, though they are nice guys and God knows Grant is a fascinating and crazy hard-working genius. But because this book could boost your cool quotient exponentially. Not to mention the effect it could have on many of the folks on your holiday shopping list.

Help cure cancer, save your soul, then impress your friends. You can thank me later.