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No Toddlers and Tiaras Here

So I have a confession.

I took Elie Mae to a modeling agency. In New York. While wearing black.

You see, I had this notion that just because I was entering an agency, they would look at me before judging Eliot. So I wore all black and tried to suck in my cheeks. I kind of puckered my lips when they called her name and gave them my best pouty eyes. I wanted this bad. The other girls are good, but they don’t deserve it as much as I—

Wait a minute. We were there for Eliot. Still, I couldn’t help thinking all those “Top Model” TV marathons would come in handy. I had to make Miss J proud.

Eliot wore black stretchy pants and an overpriced halter from Carter’s. And a splattering of baby oil on her head in a (failed) attempt to tame her burgeoning fro-hawk.

Did I mention my husband was there? He did the whole casual polo look, like, “Oh, hey? I’m in a modeling agency? I was looking for Chipotle. Sorry to bother you.”

Anyway, after giving Eliot’s small college fund to the man who claimed he owned a parking garage, we walked to the New Yorker Hotel. As we stepped off the elevator, I saw a line of women and their babies. Then I did what no mother should ever do. Or at least admit to doing on a blog that IS READ BY MILLIONS OF PEOPLE EVERYWHERE:

I judged the babies. Yes, punish me. Make me do what no black person has done before: order a rare steak.

I assigned them numbers in my head. (Was it in my head?) It was like, “You over there, yes, you. Multiethnic girl with a dimple and cute shoes. 8.5.” And I moved on without guilt. Like, “African-American-slash-Black boy with small fro at 9 o’clock. You have swagger. 9.” Then it was, “Androgynous baby in overalls. 5 and ¾.” And so on.

Don’t get it twisted. The other moms were doing it, too. “Oh, she’s so cute!” they said about Eliot. But then one bent down and a guy standing behind her shot tranquilizer darts at us from his mouth.

Finally it was our moment. A skinny girl wearing these boot-slash-sandals that I’m sure are trendy and, therefore, not sold in Ohio, called Eliot’s name.

She said, “Hello,” as in, “Just because you’re breathing doesn’t mean I have to care.”

We walked into half of a room. Literally. I kept waiting for the two ladies “interviewing” Eliot to say, “Just kidding! We wouldn’t conduct an appointment in this shoebox! Come with us.”

And there were other doors. It’s not that they were struggling for cash and could only rent a coat closet. My theory is that behind those doors are mechanical babies bred solely for Huggies campaigns. They don’t even poop in color like real babies.

Maybe I’m saying that because the agency didn’t pick Eliot. They didn’t even ask her any questions. They looked at our information sheet and said, “Well, you live in Virginia, and we don’t like to take babies out of the tri-state area.”

[Cricket. Why are we here, then? Cricket. Why did you accept her pictures and ask us to come?]

Instead, I did the whole over-eager parent thing. “Oh, yes, I know. But you should see how fast an Amtrak train goes these days. And she just loves the train. Right, Elie? What sound does the train make?”

But they weren’t impressed by Eliot’s train whistle because their mechanical babies lying in cribs behind the trap door can speak 3 languages and know some Mandarin Chinese.

I sensed defeat. I grabbed Eliot and turned my back on that skinny girl wearing Jesus’ winter sandals. Who takes a job where you have to stare down smiling babies until they whimper like a tasered cat in need of a root canal, anyway?

In the end, we won. We got our car back. Not one of those minivans with the strange chalk outlines of our family on the window. Just a regular old Honda. And we headed back to the ‘burbs, a place that has something NYC will never have: Crocs.

An Open Letter to Wegmans Supermarket

Dear Glorious Food Parthenon and Symbol of Excessive Suburban Sprawl:

Elie Mae and I love you like The Donald loves "the blacks." For my five-month-old daughter, you are the future. I roll her by your fancy patisserie, and, suddenly, the pain of her teething gums seems all worthwhile. She fantasizes about her first birthday, when she will sink her teeny chiclets into a rich chocolate dome or Italian rum cake. (There is evidence somewhere that rum encourages healthy gross motor development in babies.) I know this because my husband has his Ph.D. There is evidence for everything. Including that Popeye’s is not owned by that bubbly black lady from Louisiana on TV. And that its popcorn shrimp is actually a breaded void.

And there is evidence, Wegmans, that you have allowed wackness to creep into your ranks. Exhibit A: Your Eating Area Regulations.

One day, I am carrying Elie Mae in her Baby Björn through your aisles, when we both decide we are hungry. We are also diaperless. So I grab a box of Pampers and pick up a quesadilla in the food court. I have to pay for these items before I can go upstairs to your eating area.

I head toward the elevator—Elie Mae in the carrier, my diaper-bag-formally-known-as-Purse on my shoulder, my quesadilla in hand, and her Pampers in the cart. As I push the “up” button, I am interrupted by one of your kind enough employees.

“Oh, you can’t take that shopping cart upstairs with you,” she says.

I stare. I look at my full hands, my baby, and those pricey diapers. Then I calmly contort my face to express, “Whaaaaaa…?”

She totally gets me. “You can put your diapers under those stairs,” she offers. “They’ll probably be fine.”

NO, she doesn’t get me. She either doesn’t see my baby or doesn’t think she pees a lot or doesn’t think anyone in Ashburn under the crunch of the recession might pick up some diapers for the road that they didn’t necessarily purchase with their own funds.

My thought: Play dumb. Easy enough. (There’s evidence that all women lose half their brain cells during pregnancy and that the human term “mother” is just a euphemism for the scientific term “host.”) So I play—or am—dumb. “Put the diapers I just paid for under the stairs? What happens if they aren’t there when I get back?”

She reassures me that others have left their carts before and they have seemed to be fine. 

I look at my diapers, then at the space under the stairs, and I am Daria’s scary history teacher. If I can just find an enlarged, bloodshot eye.

No luck. So I take my Pampers out of the cart. I will carry it all. “What is that rule for, anyway?” I ask.

“Oh, it’s part of the fire code.”

I respect that. I get that. But as if that’s not enough, she adds: “If you think about it as a restaurant, you wouldn’t bring a shopping cart into a restaurant.”

At this, Elie Mae’s head explodes, and I have to catch it. “Mama,” she says, “but Wegmans is a grocery st—“

“Now, now, Elie Mae,” I interrupt. I pop her pacifier into her mouth like she’s any other nonverbal five month old, even though I know MY baby is a genius thanks to Your Baby Can Read. (There is evidence that teaching babies to memorize words actually teaches them to memorize words, which is almost like reading. Or playing Memory.) 

But this skill your employee has taught me is actually useful. Since then, Elie Mae and I have pictured life's lemons more like sour, yellow balls of fruit. 

Take the mortgage. "Mama," Elie Mae will remind me, "Think of those numbers as what the house wants to pay you back in happiness." 

Or cellulite. "Mama," Elie Mae reminds me, "just think of dimples as one pocket of fat smiling at another pocket of fat."

And to you, Wegmans, Elie Mae says, "Think of Mommy and me not shopping in your aisles as us making more room for other hungry customers to shop without their babies at a family-friendly grocery store."

There is only one thing left to say at the bottom of a letter, Wegmans: Please advise. 

Sincerely,

Taylor and E.M. Harris

No Confusion Here

My cockapoo, Tuxedo, suffers from many shortcomings, including a satanically-driven affinity for athletic socks. When the doggy angel and satan appear on his shoulders, Tux always listens to the pitch-fork wielding, bug-eyed pug. It's not until he gets caught mid-chomp at the back of his cage that he shows remorse. But, as we say in the church, nobody said walking this Christian path with four legs would be easy.

I know what you are thinking. What does this have to do with Elie Mae? Give me Elie Mae or I'm not following this blog anymore. 

Touché, Dear Reader. I will explain the link, but do not tease me. Are you truly among the Talented Ten who follow SweetMilks?

I digress (digression being my strength as a writer). 

If you know anything about sweet Eliot, you know she does not miss meals. My baby is in the 40th percentile for length and 70th for weight. Her legs could sell Cinnabons.

She will latch onto anything (latching being her strength as a baby). Breast, bottle, Cuban cigar--it doesn't matter. The nurses in the hospital marveled that Eliot didn't suffer from even a hint of nipple confusion after birth. I worried that one day we'd find her hanging outside her bassinet from her lips.

Because of Eliot's sensitive stomach, we had to feed her special formula through a special nipple for the first few months of her life. Enter: that demonic pug.

To prove that he, too, needed special attention, Tuxedo began to lick up any bit of hypoallergenic Similiac that fell on the kitchen floor. Okay, I thought. Fair enough. No cockapoo deserves to have colic. 

But it didn't stop there. I made the mistake of leaving a bottle on the couch after feeding Eliot. The Bible says God always provides a way out of temptation, but Tuxedo missed his chance to flee. He ate Eliot's slow-flow nipple.

I sighed. It was my fault. I vowed never to leave bottles on the couch again.

But I tell you, when that pug starts speaking lies in Tuxedo's head...

Another day I ran upstairs with Eliot. I heard rustling downstairs and thought little of it. Tux was probably sniffing the trash.

Yeah, OR he was grabbing a plastic bag out of Eliot's diaper bag, ripping a hole through it, pulling out her bottles, devouring the attached nipples, and eating the powder formula from a dispenser.

Okay, so Tuxedo preferred bottles and Similac to bowls and Kibbles. But breastmilk?! Really?

Close your eyes while you read this portion, my friends.

It just so happened that as I opened the fridge on a certain un-ominous-seeming day, a bottle of breast milk fell and splattered on kitchen floor. After sobbing over my hard-pumped spilt milk, I began to smile. This was amazing! Tuxedo was doubling as a Swiffer Sweeper, lapping up my milk until the floor glistened.

It was too late for him to benefit from my colostrum, but perhaps he could still use the "liquid gold's" nutrients to strengthen his immune system.

So what? you ask. Elie Mae latched onto anything. Tuxedo is a one-trick pony!

Ah, Dear Reader, you speak too soon. I urge you, read on. It won't take as many years off your life as you may think:

It was a dark and stormy night, and I was pumping (which is why it was dark and stormy). And guess who waltzes up, executes a perfect crossover, then goes for my breast shield? NO, Elie Mae isn't even crawling yet, though she does like Derrick Rose.

It's Tuxedo. And I swear, he catches my attention, winks, and then runs to his cage. Inside his cage he uncovers all the treats he's hoarded under his blanket and lays them out on the living room carpet to spell:
 
Any Nuk Nipple or Sheeled Will Do.

I tell him he has misspelled "shield," and he sulks, because he has wasted three milk bones.

But I am horrified, in an impressed way, like when someone eats 10 White Castle burgers and five orders of onion chips with no bathroom in sight.

I've learned that as it goes with Elie Mae, so it goes with Tuxedo. To help control her reflux, we feed Eliot oatmeal cereal with milk. Guess who waits for the oatmeal flakes to drop? In order for Eliot to drink the cereal, we have bought her several "Y-shaped" nipples. Apparently, a certain dog with a white stripe down his middle has also graduated from the "slow-flow" hole.

Just the other day, my husband found a "Y-shaped" nipple in his poop. (NO, in Tuxedo's poop, my friend.)

I am proud to say our dog has reached a new milestone. He is officially a Gerber "Supported Sitter." He pushes up with his front paws while on his tummy, bats at colorful objects, and should be eating pureed peas any day now.