Untrition

Bebe loves American cheese. I try to feed her the healthy stuff, the good stuff, the Parmesan and farmhouse cheddar that will make her a tiny connoisseur. And she just wants the plastic stuff. For a kid who eats mac 'n' cheese for breakfast, she's also rather fussy -- for example, this fine product interested her for two bites . That's why I'm sitting here watching the only truly bad Law & Order show while the soy milk banana bread bakes, ensuring her at least a nibble of healthy breakfast.

My inadequacy as a nutritionist puts me in the "bad mommy" category, according to the current Details -- in an insipid article about how men should overome their disapproval of their working wives, because let's face it, ALL working parents suck eggs, you boys too! The piece distinctly mentions Junior eating Cheez Nips for dinner as the ultimate sign of inadequate parenting. Now, Bebe has never had a Cheez Nip (only this organic variety!), but she loves her a Triscuit, and though I never serve them to her at dinner, sometimes they're all she'll eat in the afternoon. The books tell you that being a good mommy is all about offering your kid ONLY HEALTHY CHOICES, so the fact that she has had a Triscuit tips me toward trouble. But hey, advice givers, what happens when offering ONLY HEALTHY CHOICES adds up to startvation for your whitebread-loving kid?

It's belaboring the obvious to point out that my gen's obsession with monitoring what goes in to our babies' bellies is related to our utter terror of the world that's eventually going to eat them; what ONLY HEALTHY CHOICES will there be given global warning, the evisceration of the social contract by the Bush Dynasty, rising fundamentalism, and the mad consumerist Barbie fetishism of the Paris Hilton obsessed. And how much pleasure are we denying ourselves by trying to stuff fruit-juice sweetened oatmeal yuckies down their gullets? I like to take Bebe for a cupcake now and then. I am a bad mommy, then, according to a publication that puts Patrick Dempsey on the cover and sweats about Italian shoes.

Props to Ange and Zoe for sending props to me. I pledge to continue this blog even as the giant SoCal metropolis devours me. Somewhere I have to keep talking about the human side of "me."