Elmo in the White House

Snookums and I are big fans of that Sesame Street episode where the First Lady plants a vegetable garden with Elmo and some racially balanced toddlers. So the other day when I was trying to convince Snookums to eat her salad, I said, "Eat it all up so you can grow up big and strong like Mrs. Obama."

"Where's Mrs. Obama?" Snookums asked.

"She's in the White House," I answered.

"What's she doing?"

"She's having dinner with the President," I said.

Snookums shouted, "She's having dinner with Elmo!"

I Am A Man

Recent conversation with Snookums, now 2:

Snookums: You a little baby.

Joan: No, honey, I'm all grown up. I'm a woman.

Snookums: You a man.

Joan: No, I'm not a man, honey. I'm a woman.

Snookums: YOU A MAN!!!!

Snookums' Subpeona

My daughter is lovely. She is also litigious.

Shortly after I uploaded this photo to my Facebook page, a process server appeared at the door and shoved a document at me. Snookums was suing me for . . . you guessed it, invasion of privacy.

I went over to Snookums, who was very busy screwing and unscrewing the lid of a jar. "Snookums!" I said. "This is my house, my computer, you're my daughter. You have no right to privacy!"

Snookums gestured out the window at the sound of a dog barking. "Woof woof! Woof woof!" she shouted.

The atmosphere at home has grown tense. I have left the pictures up. Meanwhile, Snookums has updated her Facebook status to "It's Complicated."

So Glamorous!

So tonight I was walking home from the subway, down a small side street. There was no one else on the street except for an unexceptional-looking older fellow who resembled R. Crumb.

As he walked by me, he said, "Oh gee, you're sooooooo glamorous."

I'd say his voice was dripping with sarcasm, but it was more like soaked. More like flooding with sarcasm. Like, my-living-room-ceiling-has-caved-in-and-my-upstairs-neighbor's-bathtub-is-falling-through sarcasm.

I said, "What?"

"You're just so glamorous I can't believe it," he sneered. "I guess you think I should be asking for your autograph or something. You're soooooooo glamorous."

Thanks for bringing me back to Earth, crazy man. 'Cause you know, I was feeling pretty glamorous there for a minute, in my stained trenchcoat, Payless shoes and Goodwill handbag.

Thanks for keepin' it real.

Electronic Babysitter, My Ass

When I was pregnant, my feelings about kids and TV were just like every other overeducated upper-middle-class mom's: "My child isn't going to watch TV! No sirree!"

Since having Snookums, of course, I've done a total 180. Now I'm like, "Let's turn on the TV and see what's on! Then I can have five minutes to myself."

Only problem is, IT DOESN'T WORK.

Snookums will look at the screen for 30 seconds max, then she runs back into the kitchen shrieking, "Mami! Mami!" and clinging to my leg like a barnacle. Meanwhile, I'm either a) pouring a boiling pot of spaghetti into the strainer, or b) holding an electric drill in my hand as I try to childproof another knife drawer.

I've tried Sesame Street, Curious George, even those dumb Baby Einstein videos with the hand puppets. She's indifferent to all of them.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends NO TV at all for the first two years of a child's life. I remember reading that right after Snookums was born and thinking, "Oh, no! Guess I'll have to stop watching Charlie Rose while Snookums is nursing!"

Nowadays, of course, I'll watch back-to-back episodes of Boston Legal or Criminal Intent while I try to get her to go to sleep. Bring on the inappropriate language, bloody corpses, guns . . . none of it makes any difference.

Maybe full-frontal nudity? Except that would probably just make her hungry.

Happy Birthday to Me

Today's my birthday. I'm . . . fortyish.

How did I "celebrate"? With 90 minutes of conference calls, a visit to the pediatrician to determine that Snookums did not have swine flu, a greasy gyro purchased on the street, and a couple of glasses of cheap red wine.

I'm not in much of a celebratory mood, seeing as I found out yesterday I'm not pregnant, despite having transferred five fertilized embryos into my aging womb 12 days ago.

Indeed, I'm downright bummed. Not to mention broke. But I'll get over it.

And until I do, I'll keep drinking this cheap wine.

Beam Knock Me Up, Scotty

So I'm doing IVF now and yadda yadda yadda. (Just for the record: We did not have any help when I got pregnant with Snookums, even though I was 41 and hadn't been trying for that long. But that was two years ago, so there you go.)

This morning I had my egg retrieval, otherwise known as "Now, just get all woozy and cozy and go to sleep for a few minutes while we stick a needle up your hoo-ha and suck all your eggs out of you! Oh, and by the way, that'll be an extra $500 for the anesthesiologist on top of the $4,500 you already paid."

I'd been a little freaked out by the idea of this whole thing -- and not just the money, which was bad enough. But I kept picturing either salmon roe sushi and those deliciously salty little red circles exploding, or a spaceship with aliens with big cat-shaped eyes probing me and using my embryos to colonize Jupiter.

Anyway, they got 23 eggs. My doctor was practically clicking his heels together, so I guess that's an unusually high amount. Now I have to look forward to Zany Dad giving me painful progesterone injections in the ass for the next couple of weeks, possibly longer. And we'll do the "transfer" -- otherwise known as, "Now we'll just shoot the fertilized embryos back inside you! And by the way, the doctor's fee is $4,500, cash only!" -- on either Thursday or Saturday, depending on how busy the sperm and egg have gotten in the meantime.

I told my doctor to leave the test tube in a darkened room with some R.Kelly playing. He thought that was funny. But he didn't seem to like the joke about aliens.