Bizarre Love Triangle

As you may recall from a previous post, Benjamin began a whirlwind romance with older woman Lucy at the tender age of four weeks. Their puppy love blossomed unhindered until the untimely appearance of a rival suitor - Gabriel. At nearly six months of age, Gabriel has proven to be a formidable opponent. But if there is one thing that Benjamin has learned from the hours of E! Entertainment television he has watched with his mother, it's that May-December romances are all the rage right now (HELLO - Ashton and Demi, anyone??), so he's not about to go down without a fight.

On Saturday, he invited Gabriel to meet him at Santa Monica Beach for a mano-a-mano talk. Unfortunately, they didn't get very far before things got ugly.


Gabriel: You see these keys, Benjamin? They are the keys to Lucy's heart. Accept that your time with her is over!

Benjamin: Nice try, Gabriel, but I saw Lucy first. If you have any honor, you'll respect that. Back off!

Gabriel: I see that talking is getting us nowhere. Well, we may be on your turf, but I have superior hand-grasping skills, so watch as I steal your socks!!

It only distentegrated from there.

When we got home that afternoon, I was prepared to give Benjamin a pep talk. You know... Assure him that soon, he'd have the same ability to sit up unassisted that Lucy might be attracted to in Gabriel. As I was about to start my speech, though, something fell out of Benjamin's diaper bag.

Gabriel's sock! Benjamin claimed that he had no idea how it had found it's way into his belongings, but I have my suspicions. Perhaps I'd underestimated his cunning all along!

ATTACK OF THE 3-FOOT TOYS!!!

It's a sad fact of life that babyhood passes quickly (for the parents, anyway). It's an even sadder fact of life that that swift passage requires an ever-increasing supply of ever-increasingly expensive baby gear. So after watching Benjamin try to climb out of his swing for the hundredth time with a look on his face that said "Come ON, Mom, this thing is sooooooo last month," I made a trip to the local money pit (AKA Babies R Us) and purchased a Baby Einstein activity center. In theory, Benjamin will be able to comfortably "stand" up inside of it while entertaining himself with its myriad of toys, lights, and noisemakers. I'm not sure if this is a good thing, but he seemed to be most drawn to the little mirror mounted on one side. Maybe he just wanted to make sure his 'do was in place.

I guess the resolution we made to ourselves that we would never allow our home to turn into a baby gear junkyard has been tossed out the window, along with many other resolutions we smugly and naively made before Benjamin was born. These included a promise to never use baby-talk and a vow that the pug would not be neglected. It seems that the pug may have found a way to get back at us for our neglect, though. Check out what came in the mail the other day:

If we come home to find the place filled with loads of new pug gear, I guess we'll know who the culprit is.

Back in the Saddle Again (Sort Of)

After nearly a year of waiting, I finally staged my momentous return to the beaches of Santa Monica and reclaimed my title as reigning Queen of Volleyball. Ok, obviously lack of sleep has made me delusional, because my return was less than momentous, and I have never even been close to being the Queen of Volleyball. Lowly Serf of Volleyball is more like it. Still, it felt gooooooood to get back on the sand, even if it means that I'm still so sore that it hurts to type this post.

Luckily, I had two of my best girlfriends there to fight over - I mean, to babysit Benjamin. Here is an exchange that I happened to overhear:

Deb [with longing look on her face]: Do you need a break? I'll take Benjamin for a little bit.
Yvonne [holding Benjamin]: No, that's ok. I'm fine. I mean, of course unless you want to take him.
Deb [eyes downcast]: No, no, no... I got to hold him yesterday. You go ahead.

It went on like this between the two of them for much of morning. And while they were busy fighting over who got to hold the baby, the baby mama was busy getting her butt kicked seven ways from Sunday. One of the guys even commented to me, "Hey, you're getting pretty good at diving into the sand!" I think I deserve mad props, guy! Have any of YOU ever tried to dive for a ball while majorly engorged? I'm directing this comment mainly towards my husband. After one particularly humiliating faceplant, I looked up to see him holding Benjamin while pointing at me and saying, "You see Mommy playing volleyball? Isn't she GREAT? HAHAHA!!"

When Benjamin gets old enough to understand how the game is supposed to be played, I'll just show him this picture:

The Anti-Cult-of-Mommy

The coolest kids in the park, counter-clockwise from top left: Lucy (Catherine's daughter), Presley (Brooke's daughter), my Benjamin, Liam (Michal's son), and Gabriel (Nicci's son).

As I've mentioned before, one of the perks of joining Gymboree has been meeting other moms. Other moms who are not members of the dreaded clique I'll call the "Cult of Mommy." You may be asking yourselves, "What is the Cult of Mommy?" It's hard to say definitively what it is, but giving you examples of typical Cult of Mommy comments should paint a fairly clear picture.

• "Don't you know that feeding your baby store-bought baby food instead of organic vegetables you puree yourself causes permanent brain damage?"
• "You mean you don't worship at the Altar of Harvey Karp?"
• "Your baby drinks FORMULA?? Why don't you just go ahead and give her crack?"

(Each of these comments is usually accompanied by raised eyebrows and clucks of disapproval.)

Well, a few of us Gymboree moms decided to form a mommy clique of our own. The difference is that our clique doesn't believe you're a bad mommy if you let your baby watch trash TV with you or if you wean him before he starts kindergarten. In our mommy clique, it's ok to admit that you miss your old life sometimes and crave the company of other new moms. Of course, we also love watching our little ones hang out together, which at this age entails plopping them on the same picnic blanket and letting them slobber all over themselves.

At our latest playdate, a certain little one exhibited some remarkably forward-thinking behavior. Lucy decided to make her intentions known to Benjamin. I, for one, was very impressed, because many-a woman much older than she still hasn't figured out that it's ok for the girl to make the first move. Go, Lucy!