Immaculate baby conception

Posted by Dad…

Ok, the blog about Zoe’s surreal toys and videos is now officially more about her eating than play habits. We’ll correct that later, but this one had to be put out into the world

Experiment #1 – One suction cup bowl from IKEA, half a container of yogurt, remains of some animal crackers, two spoons and Zoe

Result: Zoe refused to reliquish control of both spoons, dipping the handles into the yogurt and then licking the spoon part that has no food on it.

Experiment #2 – Dad just clear cut his way through a bunch of sugary weekend leftovers, so insert some protein, hard boiled egg style

Process – peel eggs, eat half, give some to the sticky monster in the high chair

Result: Zoe eventually relinquished her spoon, preferring to dip the egg into the strawberry yogurt. On hearing of the process report, mother instantly gagged at the thought of yogurt covered eggs. Good thing dad didn’t mention the impulse to dip the eggs in the chocolate sauce left over from last night. The jewish part of the family remembers some distant Christian ritual involving eggs, chocolate, bunnies, etc., but it is too early in the AM for total recall of the egg chocolate process….

Update: next post we will review Zoe’s recipe for Yogurt covered egg trail mix.

Reminder: never leave a baby unattended with a suction cup bowl. Suction cups don’t stick too well to animal cracker crumbs.

Zoe’s fave five toys

Posted by Dad…

Well after a year or two of watching the fave five commercials during daddy’s basketball games, Zoe has assembled her favorite five toys list:

1. Pie Chan and Gnon from Vulli Toys. Her fave toys to chew on – plus she recently gained the dexterityto make the squeakers work! Since Sophie the Giraffe is AWOL, these mushrooms have gained in popularity
2. Mrs. Pink Teddy Bear from the famous Ty Beanie Baby collection. Mrs. Bear greets Zoe every morning and doesnt mind being chewed on one bit!
3. Pop up books are so much fun! With chewable plasti-paper and semi easily detachable elements in fun cut-out shapes, these are the most entertaining, fulfilling and filling toys around! Nothing shuts Zoe up like a mouthful of good book!
4. Tags (on toys) also, noting fills a babies tummy up and quiets those teething pains like tags on toys. Much more fun and tasty than the toys themselves, Baby Einstein is (psychotic handicapable video puppets aside) famous for adding warning tag after warning tag to alert us parents to the ingredients and potential hazards of each and every component. the Baby Einstein Activity Mat is rife with chewilicious tags on each and every detachable piece!
5. Food. Not just for eating, food can be used as paste, glue, paint, stacking toys, projectile weapons and many more entertaining things! Plus, after filling up on toys and books, who wants asparagus or broccoli anyway?

Baby Veggie Trail Mix

Posted by Dad…

O.k., so on Ubbe J’s suggestion, I looked under the vinyl cushion on Zoe’s highchair. Big Mistake.

Zoe, ever the resourceful sort has been squirreling away her favorite foods for a rainy day, or a hike, or a camping trip of some sort.

Guess what I found? Can I package and sell it? Would babies eat it (dumb question)? Would the FDA or other regulatory bodies allow my entrepreneurial efforts at free trade or eCommerce?

Anyone wanting to design a label or order some, please email Zoe!

Generic Mental Health PSA – Free Advice, for Free!

Posted by Dad…

We’ll let you in on a little Secret to happiness in life. No, not positive thinking or another new-ageism, though those can help!

It is good old fashioned pep talks – no seriously.

In your family they might be called coaching sessions, lectures, sermons, lessons, advice and they may be as welcome or disdained as ours can be – pending proximity of the next closest opportunity to eat or nap. So here is a sample of how they work using template P-4u2 from the Oddly Handicapable Buchwald handbook of life.

In helping out a friend with a problem of the lady kind, we used the template below to great success (at least in our minds, no matter what the lecturee has to say).

This version of the P-4u2 pep talk is offered out free for use, provided you comment back on your results.

We hope that it will function as a swiss army knife in your repertoire any time you need to give a little self esteem, advice or just get a laugh to restore in others that endless positive energy and goodwill attitude that feeds the world – even if it did not exist as part of their personality before. Step aside Knute Rockne, Oprah and Phil, cause if this works, we’re challenging the Family Guy, Osbornes and the Simpsons for most cohesive family unit!

In order to make the process more user friendly, we have included simple prompts as to when to use the person’s name and when to allow them to speak.

This will also be another one of those pages we should just print out, sign and place in Zoe’s Psychotherapy binder (boy are we going to skate through that process!):

Generic Pep Talk P-4u2

(Copyright 2008, Zoe Buchwald, www.mushybaby.com)

• You know what you are, (Person’s name, last name or nickname)? Switzerland! You know what Switzerland is?

(Lecturee response allowed here)

• Yes, I know, a country. Do you know what else?

(Lecturee response allowed here)

• Alright, technically it is a continent and not an island. I get it, the country itself is totally landlocked, but thats where I’m going, (Person’s name, last name or nickname).

(Lecturee response allowed here)

• No, we are not going to Switzerland, Switzerland is on a continent and a continent is made of a rocks, just like islands – a rock is an island.

(Lecturee response allowed here)

• Yes, this is supposed to be a metaphor, but you know what else besides that?

(Lecturee response allowed here)

• It’s an island!

(Lecturee response allowed here)

• O.k., it’s not an island, but it is on one, I mean a continent, errr, rock!

(Lecturee response allowed here)

• No, we are not going rock climbing, hunting or skiing to get away from your issue here.

(Lecturee response allowed here)

• No, we are not defecting, immigrating or anything else. don’t evade the issue here.

(Lecturee response allowed here)

• OK, this isn’t coming out right – Switzerland is a country, you are the rock! be strong here!

(Lecturee response allowed here)

• No, I didn’t mean you are as smart as a rock, I meant that you (Insert moral here).

(Lecturee gratitude allowed here)

So try it out on your family, friends and co-workers and report back! We need to  get any kinks tweaked out before we need to use it on Zoe!

Good Girl?!?

Posted by Dad…

Well Tracey and I swore we would not be the type of parents that uses TV to help occupy our daughter. Well that didn’t last too long, hopefully not to her detriment growing up in this plugged in society

So Tracey, based on Zoe’s progress decided to try her out on actual TV, you know, the kind we grew up on with the PBS logo and the telethons, etc. instead of the direct programming we have been piping into her from the Baby Einstein videos…

She flipped from Judge Whomever-it-is-this-week to our old public station and what happened to be on?

Wont’cha tell me how to get (Because we always want our children asking strangers directions) to Sesame Street?
So the first scene was an in depth conversation between a furry creature with Marty Feldman eyes and a slightly less furry, less Feldman eye’d creature talking about scythes or some whatnot in front of a brick wall.

Zoe took one look and immediately let us know her dissatisfaction with this particular type of programming. Give that girl some brightly colored sport or her Baby Einsteins!

Good Girl! No reason for us to have to explain Bert and Ernie, or Big Bird’s hallucenogenic friend Snuffalop-a-whatever-it-is-a-gus.

Good Girl? Hooked on one video already at the tender age of 9 months?

Eeesh, the psychotic break can’t come soon enough to drown the DVDs out with pleasant beeps and buzzes inside my head…

What baby stuff were YOU thinking about?

Posted by Admin Dad…

So, after a week or so of playing around with Zoe’s blog, I checked on our stats. Decent enough for a new blog, but what really surprised me were the search terms used to find out little page of commentary – Favorites in color

Search Terms for 7 days ending 2008-01-15

• sophie the rubber giraffe rubber baby to
• cold sorces with babies
• to cold to go outside with infant
• chan pie gnon
• baby nine month cavity
• baby stuff not made in china
• wide set eyes babies
• spotted infant teeth
• demonic influence in music
• music value
• spoke teething toy
• unless baby products
• giraffe teething vulli
• blue chan pie gnon teething toy
• sesame street stuff
• giraffe chew toy baby
• infant salivating
  

Now thought that categorizing some of the blogs as vaguely erotic, psychotic break and oddly handicapable would bring some hits, but Nooooooo, it’s the baby nine month cavities (womb?), Spoke teething toy (throwing star? sputnik chandelier?) and music value (demonic or not – you decide?) that are pulling in the viewers.

Go figure…

More from Zoe later in the week!

Oati-oati-os anagram for quickset cement?

Posted by dad…

Meet our daughter, Zoe. She is the main focus of this blog and a source for never ending observation and insight into the human condition. She also answers to the name: “Little-Baby-Zoe-Ketze-Mushy-Baby-Marshmallow- Chewy-Ooey-Gooey-Pineapple-Coconut-Up-Side-Down- Roly-Poly-Squirmy-Wormy-Chunkybuster-Butterball -Zoe-oat-Spaghetti-oat-Wheatie-Feety-Girl-Head”.

Our soon to be nine-month old girl is an eating machine. More accurately, she is a salivating machine capable of coating any surface completely with a slick layer of cold wetness in a matter of seconds while forcing objects many times her size into her oral cavity in the search for comestibles.

As she has begun her self-taught masticating lessons, (replete with pincer practice) we started propping her up in her highchair with a handful or two of handy baby-starter foods.

The first attempts were met with frustration and an occasional case of Infantosis (inflammation of the emotions of an infant):

1. maneuvering the pieces near the oral cavity only to have them stick to various body parts, rarely of which are internal
2. picking up the offending finger friendly pieces up and depositing over the side of the chair, occasionally inadvertently bopping a cat on the fly or on the bounce
3. the arm sweep, clearing the flat surface with one or two broad strokes
4. finally, the subject of this writing, the magician act…

The magician act starts innocently enough – Zoe stuffed into the chair with a handful of O’s to keep her occupied. Brief observation of the subject notes O’s moving in a mouthward motion and quickly disappearing, followed by some rudimentary baby clicking/chewing-like noises.

Occasional observation reveals agitated, hungry baby wanting more. Additional O’s are added and the process repeats.

The medical diagnosis of “Acute Hunger Activation” or AHA for short brings a dosage of cereal, carrots or some other substantial edible.

Once the substantial edible is rejected, often all over the baby, the father and the kitchen in general, Zoe is removed from the chair under the diagnosis “Baby’s Full of Food” or BFF for short.

The extraction process reveals that the baby is indeed unable to be removed. Approximately 95% of the foodstuff (according to the boxes, primarily rice, whole grain wheat flour and bran) has been mixed with saliva in the same general proportions as concrete.

The baby is stuck to the seat with all the O’s she shoved underneath her in an amazing disappearing act.

• The seat is oated and coated
• The baby’s chin is adhered to the top of her onsie
• The Bib is cemented in half and also to her belly
• Her dolly and teething toys now have an odd new texture that will not come off in the laundry or the dishwasher
• Her diaper (HTH- How’d That Happen?) has O’s stuck IN it
• Zoe-style hair goop holds better than Breck, Dipity Doo and VO5 combined
  
• Her orifices are clogged, ears, nose – unfortunately not her now agitated and screeching little mouth though
• My hands, which not unlike the feeling one gets when stepping in something unsavory in stocking feet, are now adhered to the baby

My elbow stuck to the chair’s eating surface, merely in the want of leverage to get the 25 pound sack of baby out of the chair has me feeling like Uncle Remus’ Brer Rabbit in the tar baby.

I guess my next invention will have to be a non-stick finger food.

Honestly, NASA, Home Depot or P&G should look into patenting this stuff, because if they don’t I will be forced to start a children’s sweatshop focused on using this material to build adobe style housing for the poor.