Little miss muffin ate her what?

Because whey makes everything so much more palatable.

Today's gem from the nanny interviews

Me: "So, your agency profile says that you can swim?"
Potential nanny: "Oh, yes, ma'am." Pause. "But only in water up to my neck. Any deeper than that, and it's a little hard for me."

The kind of nonsense that goes on at our house

Also the reason why Bella may never get toilet trained.
He's practicing his throat singing, and she's speaking whale.

Click here if it tells you the video isn't available below (goes to Google Video).

Yahoo answers: swallowed shard of glass

No no, everyone calm down, it wasn't the baby. It was just me. I ordered a glass of wine, and only halfway through drinking it did I realize that there was a chip on the rim of the glass. I didn't remember seeing the chip when they set the glass down in front of me, and then had a delayed memory of a sharp "ding" at some point when the waiter was pouring the wine. I inspected my remaining half-glass closely, and when I didn't see any telltale glints of light, drank the rest anyway. I thought of Austin Powers: "I, too, like to live on the edge." Hopefully not the internal bleeding kind of edge, but still. I was sure I'd be fine.

That was four days ago, and for the past couple of days, I've had a sharp, singular point of pain in my throat. Rather than ask any of my M.D. friends, my brother in med school, or, hey, go see a G.P., I decided that I could resolve my swallowing glass issues by Googling. The second search result led me to something called Yahoo! Answers, where apparently you can ask questions and people with absolutely no experience or expertise in the subject matter can contribute their gut reactions and heartfelt feelings. I didn't even need to ask the question myself; someone else had asked it for me about a year ago:

Question: Think I've swallowed tiny chip from glass. Do I need to worry?

I'll summarize the answers: No less than 15 random people chiming in with various versions of "don't worry, you'll poop it out," a few of the "OH MY GOD MY UNCLE DIED FROM INTERNAL BLEEDING, HE DIDN'T SWALLOW GLASS ACTUALLY IT WAS AN AX YOU HAVE TO GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM NOOOOOOWWWWW!!" type, and then one person who says, "a small chip? not a shard? dont [sic] worry about it, if you have no pain or tenderness in your throat then it'll be fine in your tummy, and come out naturally tomorrow..."

Uh. Well it WAS a shard, and what if I DO have pain in my throat? And we don't have those German-style toilets with the inspecting platform, so I have NO idea what does or doesn't come out on any given day. On to search result #3. It actually turns out to be a shady site, which my antivirus software says is trying to launch a trojan horse, so I won't include the link. But I love the related search list:

- i have a very small shard of glass in my finger, do u think it will work its way out
- When they say to eat 6 small meals a day what is considered a small meal?
- I swallowed gum?
- Swallowed Plastic?
- about a desecant swallowed?
- I swallowed mothwash. Do I need to worry?
- How wil you know if you swallowed a bone?
- I accidentally swallowed a quarter, will I be OK?

and my favorite:
- I hit myself in the head kind of hard, will I be OK?

Noonoo

Bella and her noodles at Din Tai Fung. Mmmm.

How It Begins

Here, Bella is writhing and absolutely WEEPING in frustration because her fancy glittery shiny shoes are now two sizes too small. No way could she be coerced into choosing another pair to wear. Amazingly, she eventually managed to wedge her feet into these and wore them out to the playground. I scolded her mildly about her vanity, and then headed out myself and walked four long Beijing blocks in heels. In the rain. This, despite the fact that as a former NYC commuter, I keep a pair of flip flops in my enormous purse all summer long. Who would've thought that the madness of girls and their shoes would begin at age two?

Scary Things Happen When Mama's Bored

Embroidered and embellished purple toddler slippers, made of knitted and felted wool, with non-slip suede soles. Still don't know if they fit, as the uncooperative Bella refuses to put wool slippers on when it is 91 degrees outside.

No Mo' Boobas

We were at Beihai Park on Sunday, where Gabriela showed a marked aversion (as in, grabbing my hand/hair/clothing and throwing all her weight in the opposite direction) to entering any of the temples or pagodas.

"NO WANT BOOBA!" she would scream.

We were a tad confused, since she hasn't been breastfed in years, and no one was running around naked as far as we could tell, until we realized that she meant "Buddha" and that many of the statues in the temples would be pretty darn frightening to a 2-year-old. She didn't like the statue of the turtle with the lion head and fangs, either.

Magic Ironing Fairies

The morning of my cousin's wedding, I went in to the hotel room that Gabriela was sharing with my mom to get my new dress, which I had hung in their closet when we first arrived. I'm not usually the type to hang clothes up, so the fact that it was on a hanger at all was amazing in itself. I thought that the heaviness of the hem and the drape of the fabric was all ingeniously designed to keep it looking wrinkle-free, and I remarked on it to Mama: "Wow, what a great dress! I just hung it up overnight, and look, no wrinkles!" Amazement that faded into embarrassment once I saw the look on her face, and noticed the ironing board set up in the room. I'm sure it was more or less the same look I got when I was little, and when told that "Mama doesn't have the money to buy you that toy," I had apparently said, "That's easy, let's just go to the bank and get some, then."

The Perils of Bringing a Toddler to Brunch

Two reasons not to bring your toddler to Sunday champagne brunch:

1. chocolate fountain
2. the evil looks you get from other tables when your kid's toasting with orange juice in shot glasses

How to say "Paparazzi" in Korean?

Bella and I were wandering around some nice shopping streets around Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul, when we were asked (at least, I think someone asked for my permission; it was all happening in Korean) if they could photograph Bella as part of a photo shoot. No idea if these photos ended up in Korean Vogue, the flower shop's brochure, or in this chick's engagement/wedding photos...