Beyonce As Inspiration

I'm in a particularly bad way this week, looking for a little levity. I stumbled upon a cluster of toddlers dancing to Beyonce's 'Single Ladies'. Apparently a hit with the sippy cup crowd. My favorites:





And the truly amazing Arianna:

Is It Friday Yet?

You Really Ought to Give Iowa a Try

Great news from the heartland! Iowa has become the third state in the union to legalize gay marriage.

"The Legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification."

This is poetry to my ears.

Lovely Boy

Photo credit: flickr.com, Queen of the Camera

Park Slope Moms

I'm about to move to >cringe< Park Slope. It's a neighborhood known for its precious moms -- women who used fertility treatments to home birth the twins, Ava and Dash, who are treated like royalty. The joke (or not) is that these babies are spoonfed organic smashed potatoes with rosemary and pomegranate, unless they're not in the mood, and then they watch Baby Einstein videos while being massaged with lavendar oil.

I used to think that was a terribly unfair, terribly misogynistic take on Brookln motherhood. After all, I'm moving in. And I have my own princess I want to take to the park. But it's all fun and games until you're neighbors.

We're doing renovations in our apartment, and our co-op neighbor has a young child. Apparently, he's quite sickly: any sound wakes him up, any dust gives him nosebleeds. As you can imagine, it's difficult to renovate an apartment without making sound or dust. We're doing our best, but it's not good enough -- to satisfy her, we've had to hire a lead expert and a dust and air expert, and respond to numerous passive-aggressive emails about his "naptime".

So when do we call it? When do gear up for a fight? We want to have a good experience in our new apartment, but right now we're terrified of making a peep, and we haven't even moved in yet. Ah, moving in. Sounds like heaven. (Gulp.)

What? I'm Just Relaxing

It's not that I drink a lot of wine. I just drink a little wine. All the time.

Being a mom is stressful. With a full-time job as well, it can be torturous. So the first thing I do when I get home at night is relax with a glass of red wine. Sometimes -- say, six of seven nights -- I'll have another with dinner. And then I'll cozy up with one more as I watch Jon Stewart.

You'd never know I'm a domestic lush unless you noticed that nasty, purple ring that red-wine tannins leave on the inside of your mouth. It's particularly embarrassing when you notice after the teleconference with India in the morning. So imagine how pleased I am to find this bu-RILL-yant invention that ends the vampire mouth:

Wine Wipes. All my friends are getting them in their stockings this year.

Photo credit: flickr.com, miqul