3 Things I Won't Let My Child Have

I don't want to be one of those moms who micromanages her kids. Like, at all. But I have to be realistic about a few things. There are some things that I might have to negotiate Finley away from. Things that implicate his health, things that scare me, and things I just can't handle.

Yes. I said negotiate. I know that the loud parenting 'experts' tell you not to do this. But they're wrong. The better experts will tell you that negotiating with your kid will make him a better problem solver and a better self-advocate. Call me crazy but, SOUNDS GOOD.

Nonetheless. Here's hoping Fin never wants these things:

1. Uncrustables.

I didn't really think these existed anymore. But they do. It boggles my mind. But they do. I saw them in Target the other day. I mean, when I typed 'Uncrustables' on my phone, it autocorrected to 'on crud tables'. Exactly.

My husband makes bomb PB + J's. The other day, as I dripped farm fresh blueberry preserves on my baby's leg while destroying such a masterpiece, the thought occurred to me that some children are apparently fed Uncrustables. What the eff.

And don't even tell me your kid likes them. Your kid just doesn't know any better. Like, once, one of my dogs didn't know any better and she literally ate my sh*t out of the toilet as it was flushing. Disgusting, right? Exactly.

I just have to hope that the only humans keeping Uncrustables on the market are drunk, stoned college kids who won't even remember eating them.

On the off chance that Johnny's mom one day feeds my kid one laced with some addictive substance, and he actually does ask me for one, I am prepared to draw this line. I don't care what the FDA says. This sh*t just isn't right.

2. A miniature horse.

And this has nothing to do with fear of spoiling my son. If the million dollar idea we haven't thought of yet pans out, Fin can have a horse if he wants. BUT ONLY A REAL HORSE.

This? This is about how much these theoretically cute creatures really creep me out. I don't know why, exactly, but I'm hoping folks can relate. There's one at a farm we go to for weekly groceries, and whenever it's around, I won't even go say hi to the goats I love. My husband noticed the other week, and when I told him, he actually agreed that they creep him out, too. And, usually, when something creeps me out (e.g. those miniature corncobs in veggie fried rice), he insists I'm being irrational.

In high school, my best friend and I worked in the HR department at a big corporation that was headquartered in our hometown. We were really fast at everything they gave us to do, but I think they knew that neither of us would work there if the other one didn't, so they kept us both on payroll and simply told us: Don't let anyone in another department hear you say 'I have nothing left to do'. Well, one day we got tired of playing volleyball with a Hershey Kiss in the mail room and went to the "filed resumes" drawer. You know, the functional equivalent of a never-emptied trash can. (So, when you don't get the job, but the company is kind enough to "keep your resume on file", there's nothing kind about it. It's particularly unkind when they give immature high schoolers access to it.) This one guy, Roger (for sure his real name; I will never forget it) must have gone to a seminar or bought some guy's product that insisted that your cover letter "stand out!" Well, Roger not only wrote about how he raises miniature horses as a hobby, but also included a picture of himself and his most prized little creeper, Tiffany (no, I will never forget her name either). We cried laughing at this poor fool. For years.

I just can't bear to watch Finley grow up to be a Roger.

3. Rodents. Maybe cats.

Because I kind of hate them. But this isn't entirely about hate.

When I was little, I actually liked pet rodents. I guess I had a little bit of a Lenny syndrome going on, because I always wanted to hold animals. I just loved them so much.

The feeling was rarely mutual. My grandmother's cats would FLEE when I walked in the door every Sunday. Sure as sh*t, I'd chase them. Often, I cornered Si-Ling under the dining room table, but he got more ninja-like every week. (Yes, he was Siamese.) Atticus Finch was smarter (of course), and escaped to the basement, which I was afraid of. Then there was Baby, the fat diabetic one, who I vaguely remember thinking might bite me, which might just have been what I told myself rather than admitting that I really didn't even want to pick him up.

So, I really wanted something that I didn't have to chase around the house to pick up. I guess I didn't think about the fact that rodents who didn't want to be held would just bite me.

But, in any event, caged animals were not an option in our house. My mom said that seeing animals in cages made her sad. My mom was usually willing to let us attempt to persuade her; sometimes we were successful, sometimes we weren't. And this is how I know that negotiating with kids doesn't make them jack holes, and how I'm pretty sure it makes them smarter. At no more than five years old, I made the point that they have plenty of space in their cages, because their bodies are smaller, so the ratio works out. Probably didn't use the word ratio, but it was still pretty smart. But, no. It still made her sad to see them in cages. So nothing else I could say would change the fact that a gerbil would make my mom sad. And I never even thought about asking to go to the zoo. YUP. This sh*t works, folks.

Anyway, one day my mom started talking about getting a dog. At the time, my sister and I wanted a cat. (That makes me laugh. Scoff, actually.) There must have been some story in the news about a child being abducted from home in the middle of the night in a quiet town somewhere or something, because my mom insisted we needed canine protection in what was a pretty safe town, a solid 20+ minutes from any area that could be described as urban.

So, we picked out Panda, a border collie mutt, from the local shelter, who happened to be the world's least cuddly dog. She was a great dog but homegirl just would not snuggle. She wouldn't even come onto the furniture, no matter how much lunch meat and cheese I dangled in front of her nose. Drove me crazy, but from the moment I saw her, I never wanted a cat again.

Hopefully big dog love will be all Fin needs, because now I feel bad for caged animals too, and I'm still mad at cats.

3 Signs You're Over-Attachment-Parenting

Psych. I don't there's such a thing.

I do not like to put my five month-old down. Like, at all.

I am well aware that a lot of people think holding a baby too much can "spoil" him or her. Listen, you can put your kid down as much as you want. But whatever you do, don't accuse a mom of "spoiling" her baby unless you have substantial evidence that it causes harm.

And by evidence, I mean more than the panicked vague assertion I heard from my husband one day when he misinterpreted Finley's gas for clingy-ness.

You hold him too much, he's getting too used to it.

Really? So even though all the research says it makes them more independent in the long run--

I don't care what research says. Everyone says they'll get too attached.

Everyone does? So now that we're listening to "everyone" instead of research, can you name one specific person?

I don't need to. It's EVERYONE.

So out of EVERYONE, you cannot tell me one specific person's name, who held his or her child too much, and which child, upon learning to walk, still wanted to be held all the time?

I'm wrong and stupid and you are smart and always right. (This is what I chose to hear, because whatever he actually said was not a person's name.)

Here's the thing. I work, and I have a commute. I'm gone 11 hours a day. And my baby is on a good sleeping schedule. This means that I have, almost without fail, precisely two hours of awake time with my awesome kid on weekdays. All the weekdays. And on weekends, I have to clean, to my dismay, which means I have to put him down for a good chunk of both days. And this is how it's been since I went back to work when he was two months old. Mathematically, it makes sense not to put him down when I can hold him.

And here's the other thing. He's a wild man. I know what the odds are that he'll want to be held once he's mobile. Again, math is on my side. And you can't argue with math. Everyone knows that.

You know you're in the club if:

1. Your baby has ice cream on his leg.

My in-laws were in town from south Florida one recent weekend. As I ate a ginormous burger with my boy sleeping in my lap, head on my left arm, they looked at me as if I were eating the poop out of his diaper. All three of them were telling me to put him down. I'm not sure what they didn't understand. Two of my favorite things in the world right now are eating and holding my kid. When I get to do them at the same time, it's like being stampeded by puppies. And, I'm good at it. I actually managed to eat that half-pound of grass-fed goodness without anything falling on Fin-- not even a drop of cheese or avocado, which might be the only thing more amazing than the fact that it took me about five minutes to destroy. But, ice cream, which I prefer a little melt-y, is a different story. I've had to lick ice cream off him a few times. Maybe I just need more practice. Any excuse to eat more ice cream.

2. He's quiet when you put him down. Or he's not.

As often as I hold Fin, I know for a fact that he can play happily by himself. I also know that sometimes he doesn't want to, and he gets pissed off when he gets put in his pack n' play.

You might be tempted to panic, like my husband does, on those rare days that your baby has something going on and wants to be held. If that happens, just wait a day, maybe even a week, before you accuse your spouse of spoiling the baby. We had a really rough week or two just before he was a month old, when Fin was really gassy and really didn't want to be put down. Fortunately, my husband didn't dare say anything to me during that week. (He was still afraid of new mom hormones back then. Life was so much simpler.)

No matter how often he wants to be held as a baby, he won't be a baby forever. If you think a little boy is never going to leave mommy's side just because she held him whenever he wanted to be held as a baby, I think you're psychotic. That simple.

3. The back of his head is wicked round.

Most babies spend a lot of time on their backs, so if you carry your baby a lot, you might notice that he or she starts to look a little different. That is to say, more awesome.

My husband is 41 and has been surfing for decades, which is reason enough for him to idolize Kelly Slater, the 40 year-old surfer who holds like 11 or 12 world championships, and the record for both youngest and oldest world champion. And he is beautiful. One other thing about Kelly Slater is that he rocks a shaved head, so when Ryan realized his hair was starting to get a little thin in one area, he told me he wanted to shave his head "like Kelly Slater". The problem is, Ryan's head is not as beautifully round as Kelly Slater's, and would therefore look creepy and ugly. I didn't know how to put that gently, but apparently my blank stare sufficed. Ryan still has hair.

Attachment Parenting: Your beautifully round-skulled child will thank you one day.