This post was also published on Momsperiments, the very lovely blog of the very lovely Shana Aborn, on Twitter: @ShanaAborn

Toddler lunches are one of the banes of my existence. Here are the questions that go through my mind each evening as I prepare Offspring’s noontime repast:

• Is it too much?
• Is it too little?
• Is it nutritionally balanced?
• Is it gross?
• Is there enough vegetation?
• Will she eat it?
• Will it keep well?
• Do they heat it up at all if it’s something obvious like meatballs?
• Is the refrigerator there any good?

I admit to sneaking a peek at the other lunches that are lined up in the fridge at daycare, and I can’t identify any of it. Possibly because of my pre-coffee status at dropoff time. Naturally, there is a nut allergy in the vicinity, so no nuts are verboten. Removing peanut butter from the equation seriously impacts my lunchtime strategy.

The Tupperware divided lunch containers I bought are divided into one large and two small compartments. The big one, I use for chicken nuggets, fish sticks, turkey meatballs, pizza bits or pasta, sometimes with a supplemental string cheese thrown in for good measure. The two small areas will have some kind of vegetable and some kind of fruit – often strawberries because the kid is CRAZY for strawberries and I am crazy for the kid. Also of note (at least to me) is that none of the other kids have as comprehensive a lunch-containment solution in the daycare fridge. Perhaps because their parents aren’t obsessive.

I try to make a point of including fruit in each day’s offering, since a) she loves the stuff, b) fruit is good for you, and c) if I can’t obsess about something and make arcane rules for myself that makes my days just that much more complicated, what *can* I do? The other day I ran out of fresh fruit and decided to throw in some sliced frozen bananas I’d been saving for smoothies. Now I’d never used a once-frozen banana in its thawed state before, and had a bad feeling about how it might turn out, so I sliced more than she’d need and stuck the surplus on a plate in the fridge, intending to check on them around lunchtime to see what she would be facing.

This is what I did to my child.

Ugh. I am a terrible mother.

The next day when I dropped her off, I stopped the teacher to explain that I had no idea what happens to bananas when they thaw, and that this won’t happen again. Very gently, she expressed relief.

So now you know what happens to frozen bananas when they are thawed.

Note for future testing: Do the test overnight *before* sending experimental matter to school.

In the moment, I thought it was a big truck rumbling past. Sitting on the sofa with my daughter, playing with her alphabet animals book (did you know that Z is for Zorilla?). But the truck just kept getting bigger and closer. Bigger and closer than seemed possible. Then the pictures started rattling on the wall, and the windows shook in their panes. When I figured it out, I scooped her up and ran outside without even our shoes (apparently exactly what FEMA doesn’t recommend). There, I saw an assortment of our awful neighbors. You’d think the Psychic Reader two doors down wouldn’t have looked so surprised. The lady who’s son stole our car a few years ago was – as usual – oblivious, and only asked me the baby’s name and what the next day’s weather forecast looked like.

After the shaking and quaking were over, we assessed the damage (a couple of crooked pictures on the wall, the drawers of our nightstands all rolled open, and the cats looked distrustful). The real price didn’t become clear to me until the next morning.

As I walked my child into daycare this beautiful, sunny, unseasonably temperate morning, she was instantly swept up in a small, sticky tide of children on their way out to the playground. I was left with an empty stroller and a full lunch bag. Also an unsettled feeling.

I parked the stroller, put away her lunch and went out to the playground to find her and say a proper goodbye for the day.

Even at the risk of setting her off into crying at the second and more deliberate separation, I couldn’t bring myself to just slink out unannounced. A grim thought, but if something happened to me during the day, her last moment with me should be one with eye contact, a planned parting and an “I love you.”

Even a mild earthquake like the one we experienced gives many people an instant’s pause. Did you tell your spouse to drive safely this morning? Did you tell your child that you love him or her? I try to make a habit of marking those dozens of small transitions daily. Good morning, sleep well, I love you… each so small, but I believe they form a mosaic of consideration, warmth and respect – a pattern I want my child to derive comfort from, so she can grow confident and feel secure.

Life moves so quickly, it’s very easy to forget some of the simple niceties. And we don’t have all day to cherish our loved ones. But those little moments when we leave one another, wake up or go to bed are special. These transitions can become tiny moments of connection.

This post is also published on BlogHer.

I have wonderful friends. Smart, observant, thoughtful, accomplished and broadly experienced in the ways of the world. And some of these well-rounded individuals don’t have kids. Some chose not to, some had the choice made for them in one way or another. As one dear person put it, “People without children may like children, may want them, may be unable to have them and/or may have lost a child.” Which is a great reminder for us all not to assume anything. In the supermarket, at the restaurant and on airplanes, we have all endured the parenting of others.

What I’m not setting out to do is enhance any split between breeders and non, or to paint all people who don’t at this moment have children with one tired, hackneyed, divisive brush.

Like hiring an outside consultant to look at your business model, I’ve asked a few people I admire to examine the available evidence (their personal experience) and offer some thoughts on opportunities for improvement. People whose judgment is not clouded by being in thrall
to their own offspring.

You’re not the first person to have a kid, and you won’t be the last. I mean you probably won’t be the last. And if you are the last, we have bigger problems. But the key takeaway from the people I polled was, “Your kid is totally great, and definitely a special snowflake. Please do obsessively admire your child. It’s good for him/her. Please do this on your own time.”

The runner-up was very practical. And steeped in truth. And strep: “I don’t have all of those lovely and hard-won daycare immunities you have cultivated. Please keep your child’s unwashed hands out of the office candy jar and samples display at the grocery store.”

In fact, the grocery store came up often. “Hold on to your child while shopping,” said one of my sources. “If I want to participate in an obstacle course, I’ll join the Marines.”

You won’t be surprised to hear that restaurants were also popular. “Unruly kids in restaurants comes to mind for me because of a recent scarring experience,” says a friend who went on to suggest that a peaceful visit over fast food is far preferable to a finer dining experience tainted by “listening to you toddler melt down bit by bit as bedtime moves further into the past.” I think we’ve all felt her pain.

And a couple of other friendly reminders, offered with a warm smile:

• If it came out of your child, I do not find it charming.
• I do understand that you can’t force your child to be quiet on this plane. But it would make me feel so much better if you looked like you were trying.
• Baby talk is inexcusable in public. Even if you’re talking to an actual baby.
• You may show me as many photos of your child as you would like to see of my dog, cat or car.
• Do not let your child terrorize my pets while you’re visiting my house.
• I’m part of a family, too. Just smaller.

Didn’t I tell you these were great people? Of course, it all comes down to standard-issue consideration, regardless of one’s personal family status. So I leave with one parting thought:

• Please remember how lucky you are to have this special, wonderful child in your life.

This article was cross-posted at The Huffington Post.

Sometimes we resort to it late in the night. Sometimes when we need some way to distract them from throwing something, splashing something else, or rolling off of another. We buy tiny slivers of sanity, one mangled meter at a time. And the currency is dignity.

To the tune of “If you’re happy and you know it”:

It is bathtime and it’s time to clean your crack.
Mommy helps you out until you get the knack.
When it’s time to clean your crack,
clean it from front to back.
Now pajamas, then it’s time to hit the sack.

The things we do in the name of toddler engagement.

I wrote a post on BlogHer about a year ago about silly songs we make up to sing to our offspring, and it got some really great comments from some parents who are similarly afflicted:

Songwriting for New Parents and Other Lunatics

Apparently I used to be way better at titles.

The kid, though? Totally worth it. A thousand times over.

And this is the post in which I blow all of my credibility as a) a parent and b) a person of reasonable intelligence and reasonableness. The problem with children’s shows is that they are made by insane adults. I believe that if the adults aren’t insane to start with, the process of creating television for children is either so soul-scorching or brain atrophying that it results in irreversible damage.

Since I am a bad mother, my kid watches a bunch of TV. Or at least is in the room while it’s on. Sometimes she watches, sometimes we color, play with blocks, stalk the cats, play with trucks, knock down towers made of blocks… It started just a few months in, I’m ashamed to admit. Well shy of the two years the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends before a kid is exposed to television. What can I say, she wakes up super early. So when I got to the end of my fatigue rope, I discovered that she’d sit next to me relatively quietly for the duration of Wow Wow Wubsy while I fell asleep for a much-needed extra 20 minutes.

It snowballed from there, but I’ve got it under better control now. A statement you will believe exactly not at all when you read the following.

The Official Nutgraf Review of Children’s Television Programming

The Fresh Beat Band: Apparently going to “Music School” consists of treating all of your classmates like backup dancers to your neverending performance, conducting acts of awkward choreography and waking up in one another’s clothes. Actually, I went to Oberlin and that sounds about right. Wholesome, repetitive, perky and they should all be tied into a big bag of hammers and dropped into the deep end of the ocean. I will never forgive them for the fact that I sometimes have their songs in my head in the shower.

Oswald: An enormous, blue octopus. There is something sinister about Oswald’s world. They’re all just a little too perky. They cannot conceal the terror that lies beneath the surface. It’s like that Twilight Zone where the family is SO HAPPY until you discover that the little boy is holding them all hostage with his mind powers.

Jack’s Big Music Show: Yes, yes and more yes. I love this show. It’s cute, amusing, colorful and totally douche-less. Some of the grownups are a little creepy, but I’ll give that a pass since they’re all talking to a bunch of multicolored puppets.

The Backyardigans: Has surprisingly sophisticated music. I love the premise and the characters. The stories are inventive and adorable. A+.

Blues Clues: Can be hit or miss. I like both hosts (there’s an old and a new one), and think the concept is cute. Sometimes they do cool things, but other times they wrap themselves around their own axle to make something ostensibly clever that fails to gel. That is when I just want it to end. In bloodshed.

Bubble Guppies: Cute and kind of clever, but weak. Haven’t spent much time with them. Don’t feel like I’m missing out.

The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That: Kill it with fire.

Dino Dan: Like! The kid is a little overprecocious and his fam is kind of happy in a relaxed manner that seems authentic. I should note at this point that the program is Canadian. The concepts are pretty big for a munchkin of Offspring’s vintage, but she loves this one and I can’t fault her.

Dora the Explorer: Now a lot of people swear by Dora, but I hate it more every time I see it. She shouts. Who are these parents who keep turning this toddler loose in the rainforest, and why does the fox steal things just to throw them around and make them inconvenient? When they run out of ideas, the writers use this troll who just needs to get a better gig. And for the love, stop clicking on things like this is a computer game because then you’re just pointing out that this is just like spending time in front of the computer, but less active. Also, waaay overmarketed. All I can picture is a factory full of tiny Doras ironing Dora decals onto shoddily made consumer goods, and that makes me sad.

Go, Diego, Go! Dora knockoff. This is not a secret. Missions are a little more complicated, way more contrived, and involve animals that do stupid things stupidly and are usually rescued in an improbable and physically impossible manner.

Franklin: There’s something wrong with that turtle. There, I said it.

Little Bear: Too soft, too stupid. Waaaay too much gingham.

Max and Ruby: Hate. Hate their little voices. Hate their little outfits. Hate their little paws. Hate their little stories. Hate.

Sesame Street: Still brings it after all these years. They’re freshened it up nicely, though I think some of the computer graphics are a little much.

Team Umizoomi: Meh. I admire them for going for the math. But still, meh.

Wonderpets: Okay. They’re pretty cute. And the cutesey voices are *so* over the top that they have to be kidding. And the art is kind of cool. I want to hate it, but I actually have nothing against this show.

Wow Wow Wubsy: Makes me want to stab myself in the frontal lobe to make it stop. This show is like a 20-minute seizure. Whoever put this on at six in the morning should be killed in the face.

Yo Gabba Gabba:  This show is pretty great. Awesome guest stars, crazy wacked out stories, bigger than life sets. Also the reason people punch mascots. And what the hell is Muno supposed to be, anyway?

There are others, of course, but I think I’ve done enough damage to my credibility as an adult, a professional and a parent, and so will leave the rest to your imagination. Phew, that’s a load off. Is anyone still speaking to me?

1. How to say part of her name. Our fault, really, for giving her a stupidly complicated name.
2. How to maneuver down the stairs one at a time (instead of logrolling down them all at once).
3. How to step out of her pants.
4. How to catch bubbles.
5. How to blow on hot food to cool it off.
6. That Adam bites girls.
7. How to effectively refuse to sit in her high chair.
8. How to climb into her new tricycle and push on the pedals with her feet.
9. How to make noises related to “You Are My Sunshine.”
10. How to pet the cat so that the cat permits additional petting.

Things I learned this week:

If you’d told me a year and a half ago that we’d have settled into a three diaper bag routine, and that I would have installed hooks by my front door so that the diaper bags are arrayed handily in a vertical manner, I wouldn’t have believed you. Actually, I probably would have believed you, but looked at you dolefully, sighed deeply and asked if you were going to finish those fries (I was extremely pregnant a year and a half ago).

We succumbed slowly to the need for three separate bags. And here they are, listed from bottom to top:

The Babushka Bag
This is one of our more complicated bag situations. Spouse takes this bag when he delivers the baby to his mother’s house one day or so per week. It was kind of an ordeal to settle on the actual bag involved here, since Spouse is incredibly annoying and has strong feelings about bags in general and how they should behave. He didn’t like the awesome Coach diaper bag I bought on Severe Sale, and substituted a messenger bag that he thought was more suitable. While it may have been more suitable for his trip to the car, it was a real pain in the butt for me or his mom to root around in, since it was full of exciting buckles and velcro’d in about twelve different places, flopping over so you couldn’t find anything. So, I did some research and took a chance on a $10 diaper bag from Amazon. A hit. It stands up, zips shut, is lightweight and meets everyone’s specifications.

Yes, we gave this WAY too much thought.

This bag contains: Baby Uggs (long story), assorted sweaters and changes of clothes to accommodate temperature fluctuations, random toys, and occasional small tasty gifts for Spouse’s mom so she knows that I appreciate her.

The Daycare Bag
This one goes with V to the daycare she frequents three days a week. She goes three days a week when it’s not snowing, when the power isn’t out, and when we don’t keep her out for some ailment or other that she probably contracts from Bella, the Daycare Dog, who I’ve taken to calling “Vector,” since I think she is the source of some of the plagues we’ve been getting in this house.

This bag contains the requisite change of clothes, some mittens, oragel, a spare binky or two, hair clips. It is supplemented with packets of wipes, astonishing monthly “tuition” checks, and various other ointments and foodstuffs for the enjoyment of V during her day.

The Actual Diaper Bag
This bag is the smallest and it is the one we use when we are out and about with the actual baby. It contains three diapers, a small packet of unscented wipes and a grocery bag for diaper disposal. You may have noticed that this is the only one that transports any actual diapers.

Are we insane? Scratch that. Are we unique?

I’m tired of buying toys. And lazy. And it’s raining. So I’ve crafted a couple of items to keep Miss V occupied today. Although “crafted” is rather a strong word for what I’ve actually done here.

I don’t know about your baby, but mine is really easily bored. Either she is super brilliant and way too bright to have her interest piqued for long by the usual, run of the mill baby toys [insert dismissive hand wave], or maybe she’s just not that bright and doesn’t understand them. Or, she could be like her mother and have a short attention span, further compromised by a modicum of apathy.

Wait, what was I saying? Be that as it may, I keep buying her toys. I know that this is my job. But her basket in the living room is bigger than the actual baby and is also now full. Still, there are only one or two things in there that she really seems to dig on any given day.

Why am I giving all of this money to Buy Buy Baby?

First of all, I have hot, throbbing tendrils of hate for the name of that store. Buy Buy Baby? It sounds to me like either a place where you buy babies, or that they’re commanding us to “Buy! Buy!” Or maybe it’s just an illiterate means of bidding farewell to a baby or babies. Whatever. It’s stupid and it makes me seethe. And I refuse to link to them. Yes, I still hand them buckets of money on a regular basis because, well, where else do they sell Pampers by the bale?

But not this time.

I was watching V play happily with an empty water bottle and got to thinking. Why don’t I stick a bell in one? She keeps sucking on the cat toys. Then I decided that what she really needed was a series with different weight, appearance and sound. I was so charmed by this image that I wanted to share it.

Here are the bottle contents from left to right:

• Green tea
• Rotini (also known as “Squiggelini” in my house)
• Basmati rice
• Whole nutmeg (We’ve had it for years and never once used it until now)

For additional bonus safety, I’d suggest taping the lids on firmly.

But do you like how I took five minutes of lurching around the kitchen and whipped it into a moral position? Such is the hazard of procrastination when one works from home.

So far, while trying to draft this blog post I have been interrupted three times. Just wanted to get that out there. Fast. Before, you know, I get interrupted.

Observation 1: Hardly Workin’ is Hard Work

I have always worked hard. Now, I’m not saying that it always went well, or that it was always brilliant work, but I did totally try. I’ve been on leave for six weeks now, after having the baby (yes – the one in the picture), and have managed to go from being a highly effective human with a full-time job, adequate social life, family obligations, correspondence, mildly successful blog project, and active freelance career to spending my days on my sofa with glazed eyes, a cup of tea that’s gone cold, and an ever-expanding to-do list.

Observation 2: Babies Are Both Easy and Exhausting

The actual elements of infant care don’t seem to be that complex. She has – essentially – four needs. Food, sleep, output management (diapers and burping) and love/interaction. I know how to meet each of these needs. Sometimes it takes a couple of attempts to identify the most pressing need of the moment, but I tend to achieve resolution pretty promptly. It’s great to feel like a success. On the other hand, she has one of these needs on average every 10 minutes, which makes it hard to get any momentum on any other activities. I say on average, because she could require an hour of constant tending, then be maintenance free for two hours… or five seconds. I never know.

For the first time in my life I’m tired without being stressed out. It’s a pretty nice feeling because unlike stress-related fatigue, it can be solved with sleep. It also doesn’t tie my stomach up in knots, give me hives or make me sweat and doubt myself. I’m tired, yeah. But pretty relaxed, all-told. S’nice.

Observation 3: Nobody knows what they’re talking about. Conversely, everybody knows what they’re talking about.

I noted this one before in my post introducing Veronica Rose, but it bears repeating.We’ve had a lot of flat-out contradictory advice from bona fide medical and baby-related professionals. And for some reason everyone’s mother wants us to give the baby water, while all medical professionals are against it. We’re siding with pros here., but I thought it was interesting.

I figure babies have to be sturdy so they survive first-time parents. Trusting your instincts seems to play a pretty big role here, as does getting to know your own personal infant. They may look at lot alike and have similar needs, but their preferences in need fulfillment apparently differ widely.

And that’s about all I can muster today. Am hoping to take the baby out for a walk in about two hours, which means I need to start my preparation sequence now. Don’t get me wrong – this is a pretty awesome gig so far, and I am crazy about the baby of course. And it’s all still so new that even this new shape of my days is interesting. I haven’t lived without a schedule before – or, more accurately, totally beholden to the arbitrary and demanding schedule of someone who can neither verbalize her motivations nor be reasoned or bargained with – and it’s at the same time frustrating and my pleasure to accommodate.

Omigod, she just smiled. What was I saying?

I’ve been a mom for three whole weeks now. I think we can all agree that this makes me an expert on all things child-related. In fact, at the 1.5 week mark, we got excused from our next pediatrician appointment because Veronica hit all of her benchmarks early. Clearly, she is very talented and far ahead of her peers. Let it be known that I totally win at babies.

Which isn’t to say that I don’t still have a thing or two to learn, and Michelle brings us some great advice to help us all sleep better at night. I, for one, am intensely grateful.

Filed under sleep training:

1. Don’t read the soul-crushing, guilt-inducing beginning of the chapter on sleep in the Sears Baby Book. Don’t touch it! It’s evil, like the stuff in the toaster at the end of Time Bandits! (If you don’t want to sleep train, I totally respect that. But I frown on anything that lays guilt on that thick.)

2. Sleep train before you reach your breaking point. Believe me. I waited too long. No one wants to see your breaking point.

3. Make a contract with your S.O. or anyone else who might be around during the night. The contract lays out the rules: When we pick the baby up, how often we check in, how long we let this whole crying thing go on. Sign the contract in blood. It is unbreakable til morn. You will spare yourself many 3 am “You’re breaking our baby!” fights this way.

4. Once the baby sleeps through the night, you will forget how hard it was. Write down what you did — with minute-by-minute detail — so you can help another new parent get through it.

Have you got a great life lesson to share? Did a mentor, teacher or song lyric change your life?