There's something I really, really want for Mother's Day.

I've got my eye on it. And I think if I ask my sweet husband for it, he will actually give it to me, even though it's quite a hefty gift, and we've just moved, and Crabhubby has a lot on his plate...But Father's Day is coming up too. So Mother's Day can be a sort of bargaining tool for FD, right?

I've never been a big fan of Mother's Day. Like Valentine's Day I think these things are generally cheesy and the sentiment is mostly lost in the sea of commercial claptrap. My own mother never made much out of MD. At most we brought her a messy breakfast in bed, and she pretended to enjoy it even though we all know breakfast in bed isn't quite what it's cracked up to be. But my mom never drew attention to MD. And, until now, nor have I. With only one child, aged 3, I haven't had many Mom's Days myself. And it's not something I've anticipated or cared much about.

But this year I'm all over it. This year I need it.

Many of us want spa treatments, swanky treats, bling, and schmantzy dinners for MD. And many moms  probably just want husbands to do the housework. But my husband does housework anyway. And spa treatments, while nice, aren't really in our budget, having just spent a chunkload moving from Crabtown to Crabcity (Cookie magazine, can't you throw some spa stuff in for me? I'm your mom-blogger! Wrap me in seaweed, I beg you!)

Back to what I want from my man: pampering the Crabmommy is just too pricey right now, so if Crabhubby gave me a spa massage for Mother's Day, I wouldn't enjoy it because I'd be too busy thinking of the Visa damage. There is, however, one thing within range. It's a pretty major present. But one I think I deserve. You see, Crabtot and I are at home together full-time at the moment in a new place. We are without playmates and preschool, both of which this momblogger and are her tot are used to. So life has been, shall we say, crabby for both of us.

What I want for Mother's Day: the sweet sound of silence. For a whole day.

I want to get up on Sunday and walk the streets, without keeping an eye on someone else. I want to drink coffee sitting down. With a book. I want to poke around in vintage stores for hours, something I haven't done in at least three years. I want to explore my new city for a whole Sunday, with no aim, no schedule, no competing agendas. A day with no conversations, except those in my own head.

To not feel like a mother on Mother's Day: that is what I want. Just for one sweet day.

What are you asking/hoping for this MD?

I took a deep breath. "Oh dear, Crabtot!" I said cheerfully. "Ella Yellow just got eaten by the praying mantis. You have to go back to start! Never mind. You'll soon catch up."

We were playing the Ladybug Game. Anyone else have this board game? The players are ladybugs trying to get back to their rosebush home after being blown off course. First they have to make it past the praying mantis in Hydrangea Maze (if you get the "bug off!" card you don't get eaten). Then they have to collect aphids along the way to feed to evil ants that block their path in Ant Alley.

It's a good game. If your kid wins, that is. But lately I've decided Crabtot shouldn't always win. She's almost four. Soon enough she'll be a big girl at big school. And in the game of life, you don't always make it to the rosebush unscathed. In life, there are praying mantises along the way. And ants who want your aphids. If you follow my meaning.

Crabtot was not thrilled with me yesterday when I stopped pretending that she, Ella Yellow, would always beat me, Ricky Red, in the Ladybug Game. Here's the thing: I'm not sure I did the right thing. Maybe she's still too young to get sent back to start. Maybe I should continue to pretend, every time, that she's "lucky" enough to draw a "Bug Off!" card to protect her from the mantis. On the other hand, maybe I should stop making sure she stays lucky. Maybe I should stop ensuring she gets an aphid stash big enough to get her through Ant Alley without a hitch while I, Ricky Red, get abused by the ants every time. Because if I teach her to start losing now, she won't mind so much when she's older and ants come along and mug her for her aphids. If you follow my meaning.

It's always fun to see their little faces when they win. Then again, tell your kid she's always a winner and you might just be setting her up for a fall. The question is: when is a game just a game in which kids can win whenever they want and when is it a lesson for real life, where everyone's a loser sometimes?

You tell me: Do you teach your kids to lose? If so, at what age did you start?

I've got flat hair, but my 3-year-old, Crabtot, has a mass of ringlets. Or a snarlicious wad of hair-tangle, as the case may be.

I've written about this before, as well as some wacky French scientists who actually concluded that straight hair tangles more than curly. Puh-lease. While my limp locks aren't nearly as sassy and gorgeous as my daughter's, they respond meekly to a brush, whereas her hair requires more attention and coaxing to behave. Sorta like Crabtot herself.

Now, normally I'm known for my cheapmommy ways. I don't enjoy spending moolla on products. But when I last spritzed some generic Albertson's detangler on Crabtot's lid, her locks became a pungent sticky wad of cotton-candy-like hairfloss. I tried other stuff too. But now I know what's worth breaking out the bucks for: Tiny Tillia's delectable Cherry Blossom Detangler.
Tiny Tillia has a fleet of yummy kid products, from tangerine bath powder to mango-cucumber body wash, but the detangler was necessity and not indulgence when C-tot had to present as a flower-girl in her auntie's wedding last weekend in Palm Springs, CA. Crabtot had an adorable turquoise frock, made from her grandma's 1960s prom dress, as well as a hot-pink-and-white polka-dotted hair bow for her hair. To let my child sport snarls on this day? Definitely not.

Thankfully the blossom detangler rocked those tot-locks to perfection: instead of knots Crabtot had curls, and they were bouncy but not sticky with weirdo residues. Plus, when she sailed past me up the aisle, tossing flower petals, her hair smelled heavenly.

Also nice to know: Tiny Tillia doesn't have any parabens, minerals and bad-for-baby-and-Mother-Earth whatnots in their stuff. They have a shop here.

What about you? Does your kid have rebellious hair? Have you any taming secrets to share?

Something awful happened to me recently.

I was at a bagel place, and Crabtot was melting down as she often does in public eateries. Those of us with spunky children know that while we adore their crabacious, sassy personalities, we adore them much more when they're at preschool and might adore them even more if these preschools would start becoming useful already and turn into boarding schools. (Boarding preschools! What a brilliant idea!! But that's another post.)

Back to the scene: Crabtot was pulling a fit in this bagel place and demanding all sorts of extras on top of her chocolate milk and cookie treat. Then she got to this point in her tantrum that I simply cannot bear, where she jumps up and down and shakes her head and pokes her tongue in and out of her mouth while producing a decidedly unattractive gurgling noise, as though a poltergeist were being wrenched from her small frame.

So I grabbed her hands, dropped to my knees, and said in a stern cut-out-your-nonsense voice, complete with hissing angry-mommy noise:  "Stop it right now! What a terrible noise!" And then Crabtot said something naughty back to me and then I said something along the lines of "Do you see these people around us? They are trying to have their lunch. And they do not want to hear children shouting and being rude!"  Or words to that effect.

So basically I gave my kid a little lecture. And this woman looks at me, then looks at Crabtot with a pleading saccharine expression on her face, and she says the following, very loudly: "Awwwww.....she's too young to understand all that! She's just a widdle thing [yes, she spoke in a baby voice]. She doesn't understaaaaand you, do you, poooor widdle girl?!"

To which I only just managed to respond with a testy "She's not too young for discipline." To which the woman continued with her "Oh, poor thing!" talk. She cringed from imaginary blows to her own heart caused by my mean-momminess, and continued to do so until I had backed out of the restaurant, embarrassed and outraged. Obviously I should have met her halfway with a gentle "Mind your own beeswax, you rude cretinous toss!" But we rarely say what we want in the heat of the moment. And truly, I was floored.

I can't prove it but in my gut I felt this woman was a mom herself, and as such thought she should tell me how to mom my own. To her mind, Crabtot was too widdle to hear stern Crabmommy words. Ladies, I ask you, even if she had been right, how could she have had the gall to interfere? In a public place, no less! I mean, I wasn't exactly pulling Crabtot's hair while puffing on my crack pipe! (That stuff I reserve for home only.) Judging my momming? Be my guest! But keep it to yourself. Or put it on your blog. Only, don't stick it to me in public.

Trust me lady, Cwabtot isn't too widdle to know what she's doing when she's naughty. Nor is she too young to understand Mom's methods of discipline. I know you surely know better, being a complete stranger to us, but worry not: Crabtot can hold her own. After all, we're talking a kid who just promised to "boil" me.

Any of you have a busybody tell you what to do with your kids in public?

I'm still so appalled by this. Commiserate with me.

Far be it for me, a Cookie blogger, to cast aspersions on Babble's pricey recommendations for baby blankets. That might be a little bit of pot calling kettle black. But you know what? I'm gonna do it anyway because this is my blog and my editor says I can say whatever I want. And really, shame on you Babble for suggesting the best baby blankie of all should cost $137 (it's cashmere, dahling!). Cashmere. For a spitting, snotting, drooling baby. GMAB.

A little research and see what I found:
A piddly $11 gets you one of these soft, sweet homemade Smushies, so named because creator Jules Goldin's baby smushes his up to his face. Plush and tactile and pretty and cheap! Indeed, if you lose it you aren't going to be murdering your checking account to replace it. You can even splash out for 2 right off the bat and not be afraid of homelessness if your tot drops it on the way home from the park! Heck, get 3. Live dangerously! You're still not up to the bottom-priced Babble pick. Order here.

And may I suggest this as the perfect baby shower present? Especially if you're a cheapmommy like me, and double-especially if you're attending one of those "second baby" baby showers (complete with pricey registry), which I trashed so thoroughly...

What's your favorite thing to give as a baby shower prez?

p.s. *If you're looking for a great summer swimsuit, go here (the Crabmommy's personal blog) for the chance to win $100 in swimwear from Land's End.

Alert to any moms popping a tot this month o' May: If you give your baby the middle name of "Crunch" (you heard right), you can win $5,000.

Seriously, according to Vlasic Pickles, May is National Pickle Month. And in celebration of this auspicious occasion, Vlasic is putting up $20,000 and a year's worth of pickles for anyone who meets a whole bunch of criteria I'm too lazy to paraphrase here (the above link tells all).

But the sweet-sour taste in the deal is the extra 5K you get if you agree to make the babe's middle name "Crunch."

What I want to know: What if I make Crunch the first name? What will you give me then, Vlasic? Or how about "Vlasic Crunch Pickle" as a suite of names preceding the last name? Food for thought. Pity I'm not preggers or you'd see me running after this one. I mean, a year's supply of pickles? I'd do it for that alone.

l mean, c'mon. Crunch is hardly weird in the weird, weird world of modern baby names.

Nothing is more prolific than parenting advice. But why is much of it so obvious and lame? Beats me, but I certainly get a chuckle from the many completely stupid and/or self-evident things told to new moms in the guise of expertise. So much so that I have catalogued several choice pieces over the course of this blog. Read them and enjoy in the Because We Need Advice archives. Because it's really quite amusing to waste time on totally useless parenting tips (especially when you should be unpacking boxes).

Sometimes it's not the advice-givers so much as the advice-seekers that need to get a clue: Pampers.com has an "Ask the Experts page" rife with silly questions from clueless folk. Here are some snippets from their Q and A forum. I took the liberty of ignoring the expert answers here and just giving them myself. After all, I am Crabmommy, Expert Mother and Counselor in my own right...right?

Q: How should I respond when my 7-month-old tries to eat the book I'm reading to him?
A: Wow. This certainly is a key area of concern and I can see why you wrote in. I'd take it as a sign that,  strange as it may seem, your kid might not give a rip about reading at the grand old age of 7 months. Or else he just wants a Cheerio. Probably both. Advice? Blow off the early literacy program. You can always come back to it when Grandma sends him flashcards for his first birthday.

Q: Could the behavior swings of my 2-year-old be due to schizophrenia?
A: More important, could your asking this question be due to extreme neurosis? Get yourself checked out. I'm worried.

Q: How do I teach my 4-year-old daughter not to kiss boys on the lips?
[For this one, I'm actually going to quote the original advice-giver's answer. Because it's utterly priceless. And from an MD no less.]
First, don't freak out. Children's sexual behavior can be upsetting to us, but it's usually innocent exploration. She has seen people do this in the media and has had no indication that it is not usual and acceptable behavior...

"Sexual behavior?"
"Not usual and acceptable...?"
Huh? We're talking about tots kissing here, not third base, Doc! Good LAWD, these people are nuts.

I'll leave you with that one. And Pampers.com, I will be back, for you have many choice nuggets for the Crabmommy to mock. You also have a most promising tab on your website called the Pampers Parenting Institute (PPI). Stay tuned, everyone.

Seriously, how dumb is this stuff? Anyone else got a parenting advice doozy to share? Something totally  lame you were told to do with your offspring?

After my previous post on paper toys, I found these fabulous paper nesting dolls for a whopping $3:
They are by artist Timothy Haugen, whose Etsy page, Fantastic Toys,  includes such ridiculously adorable paper crafts as a 3-D mushroom house.

Another site with fabulous FREE paper downloadables is The Toymaker. I love her Window To Fairyland 3-D box. She has many other cool downloadable paper projects too. Like these black and white templates for bug boxes, houses, and school buses. Simply print out, let tot color 'em in, and then put  together with a modicum of effort. Lovely stuff!

I'm feeling quite peachy-pleased about finding these sites. Takes care of the desire to be craftastic with paper, even if you lack original talent for it. As in, me.

Go on, do one!  You know you simply must.

This post isn't about being the perfect family. It's about looking for one. You know, finding a family where the grownups and kids can all be friends together. A one-size-fits-all scenario.

In this amusing essay, author Emily Mendell describes her search for that elusive thing: a family unit where everyone likes each other, so everyone can be BFF and go camping ensemble. Walking off into the sunset holding hands. All 7 or 8 pairs of them.

Finding the perfect family match is surely a tall order for most couple parents. It's hard enough to find couple friends you like. Add tots to the mix and you have the potential for any social gathering to be thwarted by both crying and fighting (kids, usually) and couple critiquing later (grownups, always). How many of us have liked the adults but disliked their tots? Or liked the tots but found the parents or the parenting appallingly off-base?

The chances of a perfect score all around, then? Skimpy indeed. But Mendell did find hers, and describes how much fun it is to be pals as a group. She talks of "the ultimate sign of love: we yell at each other's kids."

I used to roll my eyes at the notion that parents would need to be friends with other parents. But now that I'm a mom I know it's part of the package. You hope you don't lose the other friends you have pre-baby. You hope your childless friends can forgive the interrupted phone calls and pathetic lack of social stamina. But you need parent-friends too. Preferably ones whose kids you can yell at. And perhaps because Crabtot is an only child I've always especially been on the prowl for the family that might, in time, join us for an actually fun dinner. And then, a weekend away. And THEN we would graduate to a proper vacation! Grownups in good company. Kids in good company. Dare to dream!

Crabhubby and I had ready-made families in our past life in New York. Two of my close friends produced children weeks apart from Crabtot. The parents were treasured friends before the babes came. Then we moved to Crabtown, where we hoped for the perfect triad to complement our own. There were misfires. And, too, good times with good people and great potential for full-on family friendship vacation fun, though we didn't stay long enough to make that happen.

And now we're on the move again. We have to start over. Finding the perfect family? Finding someone else to yell at my kid? At this moment, I'll just be glad to find my favorite sweater. I think it went into one of the last boxes I packed. You know, that box where you put a frying pan, thumbtacks, and a sweater for padding into one hasty box marked Miscellaneous.

Anyone found the golden family match? Or do you have a misfire to report?

Yes, it's that time of the month.

Time for Crabmommy, also known as Astromommy, to grab her crystal ball and see what the stars have in store for you. As you may know, I have many weaknesses as a mother, but I also have strengths in the department of maternal clairvoyance. Yes, I have visions, mommies. Sometimes I see individuals out in the mommy universe having specific experiences; other times I see giant clumps of you moms experiencing something more vague and general. Always I see mothers. Mothers behaving badly. Mothers with children behaving badly. Mothers in various states of duress. Yes, sad to say the Crabmommy sees suffering more often than not. It's my glass-half-full persona that makes me tap into the negative energy of the universe. Can't help it.

Without further ado, your monthly momoscope:

Aries: So maybe the tot's extra-curricular classes are a bit pricey. Maybe you should hang out at home making fairy mobiles out of twigs and leaves! In fact you've assembled some great craftastic ideas to that effect. In a binder, no less! You plan on using it this month. As it turns out, you won't. You're too lazy. Fairy mobiles? Please. It's all you can do to lie awake on the floor while Tot's in the dance class.

Taurus: You're really playing the martyr this month. But your husband thinks he's the one with the heavy load. Which is why you're headed for a big old marital tiff this month. So, defy the stars! Instead of arguing, why not get yourselves a MartyrMeter?

Gemini: Expect to find yourself in the car an awful lot. Again. You're a tad ticked off about that car pool thing. I mean, you've been getting the motherload re. giving rides to other people's kids. This month  you've been promised payback. Except that the mom in question pleads sickness. Oh dear. Oh well.

Cancer: No sense in getting depressed by that mom-flap of extra skin at your midriff when frankly you've had every opportunity to exercise it away, but have preferred to watch Netflix in your free time with a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. This month you'll fixate on the mom-flap again but I don't see you at the gym. Maybe next month? We'll have to wait and see.

Leo: Could this be true? Good news? Leo, this is WEIRD. Usually I can only see the negative stuff. But here I see one of you Leos out there, a quite gorgeous blonde in the South, going on a sudden and delightful child-free trip...involving a bit of extra cash...and shopping...and good girl friends...and I see a really sassy yellow silk blouse that suits you perfectly and makes you feel all MILFy. Wait, sorry. That's your sister. (Don't be mad! You guys look so alike!)

Virgo: You've promised yourself you'll keep up that sudden flurry of interest you had in politics, but here you are reading Cookiemag again rather than those links your spouse bookmarked. But don't feel too guilty. You voted in the primary. Your voice was heard. Now go see that cute toadstool in the Nesting blog.

Libra: Someone else is going to clean and detail your car inside and out. You wish! Sadly this month the only person cleaning that car is you. Because you can't stand another minute. Those crushed goldfish on the back seat. The tissues. The shoes. The crud and mud. Good news: you will finally clean it! Bad news:  the tot will spill chocolate milkshake all over the booster seat right after.

Scorpio: Another month of library Storytime and yes, it's dead boring. Tip: while listening to the Good Morning song pretend you're in prison. You're in those pants. Making license plates. Talking to your kids on the pay-phone. Open your eyes. See? Storytime isn't so bad after all.

Sagittarius: It will feel completely rude when your mom-friend offers you advice on handling your kid. BUT let's face it, you did ask her to be honest about how the playdate went. I know, you didn't really want her to be honest. Next time, just say thanks and leave. Don't ask and they're less likely to tell. 

Capricorn: Once again you're lame-ing out on that promised girls' night out. Amazing how fun these events sound until you put them in ink in your datebook! Don't worry: you'll be up for cocktails and catching an indie band some other time. One day. Maybe.

Aquarius: You've been forgetting things lately and you're going to continue this trend. They say it's post-partum hormones. For some people this goes on way beyond the new-mom phase. For some people forgetfulness absorbs right into the maternal tissue, forever. Sad but true. So you know, you should just...uh...er...ummmm....what was I talking about? Can't remember.

Pisces: Yet another baby shower this month. And the invite comes with a pricey registry. Who does she think she is? You're appalled! Still, you'll go because it's too awkward to get out of and you're not good at lying. Never mind. The grub will be good.