Shafted!!!

...said Harper, my second child, on her first birthday.

I am having tremendous pangs of guilt about the "double" dinosaur themed birthday I held a few weeks ago.

A friend of mine said once, "do your best as a parent... And then pay for their therapy when they're older."  Sage advice considering I'm pretty sure this is where her first session will begin...

"Well, you see I'm the second child and on my first birthday there is only one picture/video of me enjoying my cake.  The rest of the documents from this day revolve around 'the prodigal son' -Tommy and his friends," she'll say with great disdain as the therapist nods and takes notes documenting this first misstep.

Their birthdays are 5 DAYS apart, for God's sake!  I can't have two separate parties so that the one-year old, who won't remember a thing will be able to look back at pictures and know she was loved.

I really hope she doesn't see the picture (I mean pictures - there were many) from Tommy's first.  It was a bash.  Ridiculously so.

She did, however, get her own cake. This may or may not be because I'm kind of a sugar nazi, and I wanted her to have a less diabetes-inducing experience for her first taste of the vice we call sugar, but it was her own cake nonetheless.

 For the record, I would like to point out that this "poor neglected child" came 16 DAYS LATE!!!  Let's not forget that little tidbit.  I know I won't.  If she had come on August 1st as my biological clock said she would, we would have been able to have a little separate party for her in late July saving me at least one 50-minute hour with a Jungian student.

She doesn't have a clue that....

...the rest of the party is watching Tommy's cake!

To her future therapist:  You're welcome!

Glamor is My Middle Name

If you look at Angelina, Gwyneth, Madonna or any of the paparazzi-tracked moms, it would lead you to believe that motherhood is borderline glamorous - and easy. It especially irks me to see the section in Us Magazine titled, "Celebrities families are just like us."pictures that have quotes like:

"They clean up ice cream cone disasters." (yes, on the day the nanny has off)

"They manage their 6 kids at the airport.". (to their private jet)

"They go back to school shopping.". (at Hermes and Henri Bendel on Rodeo Dr.)

"They go to yoga." (when above mentioned nanny is back and private yoga instructor is off)

First of all, I can tell you that when I'm shopping with my kids (at Target), they aren't patiently sitting in the cart pointing to cereals on the shelf.  The one that can walk is running ahead, declaring his inner tiger and growling/roaring at complete strangers as they pass us.  

The same child rarely leaves the beach with a smile on his face, in a stroller being pushed by his hard body mom.  It's usually some variation of me in a t-shirt and skirt cover-up (that I swim in because my body is more semi-soft) sweating like a man, pushing the baby in the stroller and carrying a tall 3 year old under my arm like a football while he screams "I just want ice cream Mama!"  The ice cream cart is placed directly out the exit of the beach, thank you very much!

Second of all, do they really get a call from the sitter when they are at work that the 4 year old's poop is green, "I mean really green, Mrs. Stewart!".   To follow that up, do they say, "OK, save it for me to look at," in response to this call?  I think not.

I'm also pretty confident that at a family wedding, they do not find themselves locked in a bathroom stall with their little black dress pulled down to their waist as if they are trying to acquire beads at Mardi Gras, hand expressing milk from their overly full lactating breasts.  Just when I started to feel individually human again, a perfectly normal adult event turns into a human 4H demonstration.

Finally, do they ever find themselves dry heaving in front of their kids at a hairball the size of a guinea pig that they find in their tub drain?  

Sorry, I just didn't want to be the only witness to this.

Really? They don't just let their handyman weather the wave of nausea this produces?  

Look, I'm sure being a celebrity has its downsides, but I can say, without hesitation, that they are not just like us.