Here and at my personal blog, I received plenty responses to the tot art post. Like me, many of you dispose of preschool prize-offerings—the starfish covered in cornmeal and glitter, the muddy paint swirls on posterboard, the playdoh-and-toothpick hedgehog. Many of us feign joy when the teacher hands us the weekly art stack. But we all know that sequin-decorated paper-plate fish will make only a brief stop in the living room or on the fridge before going to its final resting place—the trash.

Like me, many of you feel a tad guilty, and shuffle the paintings from surface to surface before tossing them. Others don't seem to fret at all and dispose of the sketches in one move. I'm guessing the non-fretters are seasoned parents, who've already been through at least one cycle of preschool art and thus don't take their children's every creation too seriously.

As to how to sensitively dispose of the art, I've received great suggestions: I love the idea of keeping giant envelopes on hand, addressed to grandmas, aunties, enemies, and friends, and encouraging the tykes to spread their masterworks around. Then there's asking the kid which piece is good enough to go to recycling—as though "Recycling" is a gallery for which only the best art may qualify. Reverse psychology! Love it.

I wish I'd had these tips sooner. While Tot was at school, I put her July 4 construction paper American flag into my paper recycling. But I didn't take it to the dump. That night, Crabtot spied the flag waving from the can. "My flag!" she wailed. I tried to pretend the flag had accidentally made it to the can, but even tots know a lame excuse when they hear one. "That's not berry nice, Mommy," she said in a pious voice, pressing the piece to her chest as though it were something, um, special.

And so the American flag proudly flies again on our refrigerator. It's a bit crumpled, but it flies still. For now.

Crabmommy bio

After the anonymity of NYC, being in a place where everyone knows your name sounded appealing. But small-town friendliness only works if you're friendly. If you're mean and gossipy, it's not good. Even if you do your mean, gossipy thing while hiking up a jagged peak in the middle of nowhere. Because your middle of nowhere is the same nowhere that everyone who knows your name likes to hike. So you should keep your mouth shut when you hike. Idiot. I mean, what were you doing hiking anyway? You hate hiking!

I promised when I started blogging that I wouldn't spare myself from scrutiny and judgment. So I give you another tidbit from the Crabmommy vault of shame. This time, I was doing what nobody should ever do: I was gossiping about another mom, remarking on how overweight she had become since having her tot. Appalling, I know. But when I hike I get nasty, and when I get nasty I'm liable to insult even another mother. Especially another mother. Yes, I know! I'm AWFUL!

So I said she was fat. And then I said she had a pretty face and my husband said no she wasn't pretty and I said she was lovely pre-partum when she was thin and he disagreed. And then we looked up: directly at her brother making his way down the hill toward us.

I wanted to slip on a boulder and disappear forever into the lake to my left. But I held it together and we paused and chatted as though this were a happy surprise. And after he disappeared, we did a volume test: Crabhubby went up, I assumed our original position and repeated the nasty things I'd said. He shook his head as I gabbed. No, he couldn't hear.

We decided the wind direction had saved us. But we'll never be sure. Maybe the brother had heard. But, unlike some Crabtowners, he just knows when to keep his mouth shut.

Crabmommy bio

Have you seen the Mama Merit Badges? These 1.5-inch iron-on embroidered badges are adorable, and they offer a fetching form of kudos for the various facets of childrearing.

I was never a very good Brownie, which is what preceded Girl Guides in my native South Africa. I was a useless Brownie and I never even made it to the Girl Guides. In an entire year of Brownie-ing, during which my fellow do-gooders all seemed to get, like, twenty badges up and down each arm, I received exactly one badge: the "First Year Star." Which means you have been a Brownie for one year. Well done, Crabmommy! 

Now the Mama Merit Badges, this is a different story. I've been having so much fun checking out the little pictures and their accompanying text. And no matter what Brown Owl once said about me, I've discovered I am badge-worthy after all. That cute little boob patch you get for breastfeeding? Did that. Check! (I must say, though, can't there be a bottle patch too for all those moms who have warmed up countless bottles? I mean, that's no picnic either. A trifle judgmental these Mama Merit badges, eh?).

There is the shopping with baby badge, the diaper badge, the potty-training badge. Check! Check! I feel excited, vindicated, all those years after feeling inept at earning badges here I am scoring patches left and right! The travel with baby badge—I should get at least 3 of those. I've taken Tot to South Africa fergodssake, singlehandedly, and am about to do so again. Give me a set of platinum baby travel wings!! I've earned it!

But, wait. The Tantrum badge. Hang on. It's for "keeping your cool when your 3 year sobs inconsolably for a half an hour." Not sure about that "keeping your cool" part. Half an hour? I can barely keep my cool for five minutes. And then there's this line: "We all need this badge of honor for not shaking, striking or screaming at our children."

Hm. Spankmommy that I was, and temper-losing Mommy that I am, I guess I'm one badge short of a full set.

Crabmommy bio

Lazy moms may find here my tips to ensure minimal exertion while entertaining the kids on these hot summer days. Or at least, that's my intention. I have plans to make this a regular column. But I can't promise anything. I mean, that would be absurd—a lazy mom promising to work hard on a column about laziness...I'm too lazy to even finish that sentence.

Let's see what I can muster for today's entry, from my position on the couch. 

Instant Magic Wand:

Is your tot into fairies? Does she desperately want a magic wand? Are you too lazy to make one? Are you too cheap to buy that one with the lights and the fairy voice-activation? Fret not—Crabmommy solves all.

Don't be intimidated by other moms with their gold foil and sequins at-the-ready in their Craft Boxes, fastening a perfect five-point felt star onto a slim branch perfectly whittled by Handy Dad. Don't despair if neither you nor your partner knows how to fashion anything out of anything. (Remember those other parents are losers in their own way too. You might envy that chick for being married to Handy Dad who made that super-cool swingset and that mini-shopfront, but rest assured, he's probably a secret drinker. I mean, he can't be that great can he?) Okay, er, back to the point.

Instant Magic Wand:

Step One:
Purchase a flyswatter. These come in a myriad of colors so you should have no problem finding one in your tot's color of choice. Flyswatters shouldn't cost more than a buck, so if you're a cheapmommy as well as a lazymommy, then—yay!

Step Two:
If you're not feeling industrious, under no circumstances should you dip the swatter-head in glitter-glue. Just wave the paddle shaped head in the air and say "Abracadabra! I wish for a magic wand." Then, look at what you're holding and say "Wow!" Presto! A magic wand has appeared for your fairy to treasure. And it's even orange!

As I made clear when Daddy Underground eschewed the cute-ification of words, I go the opposite way: I baby-talk often. To adults too.

Like all tots, Crabtot enjoys revamping ordinary nouns. A bottom to her has always been a "bobbin." And now that she knows the body part is more widely known as "bottom," we try to correct her back to "bobbin." Which is what we call it.

By now, many Tot words have become part of our Crabfam lingo. For example, early on in her vocab, the word "more" was "moy." So we say "moy" all the time now. "Moy wine, Crabhubby?" "Do we need to get moy dishsoap?" And how much better is Tot's catch-all term "foonts" for a spoon or a fork! Surely that's a worthy addition to any dictionary, meaning "I need something—spoon, fork, whatever—to eat with."

Yes, cuteness governs the way I choose to speak. And act. How cute is a child with a delicious fat bobbin? Too cute indeed. So I often choose to "eat" this bobbin. For this I don't need a foonts. But Tot has this odd habit of making me spit out the imaginary bobbin. She doesn't mind if I "eat" it so long as I subsequently regurgitate it and "give it back." If I won't, she goes nuts. As for her own imaginary eating, Tot has invented a delicious food called "goomins." When playing shop, " restaurant," or just generally in need of a treat, goomins suddenly appear in her hands. If you're lucky, you might get offered some too.

A final sample of Crabhouse snacking options: I enjoy taking Tot's toes and having a nibble. Especially plump are the big toes, or as Tot calls them, "toe thumbs." Yum!

Many moms treasure their tots' preschool scribbles. I'm sure many folks see in Wylie's angry blobbing the beginnings of a young Pollock, and in Lola's fanciful swirls, some serious Impressionistic promise. Not us.

Crabhusband used to work in the art business, and while he sees Crabtot as sheer magic in every other way, even he can't fake enthusiasm for her portfolio. For Tot, art is a coerced, half-hearted affair, a puddle of orange paint, a nest of orange-only crayon scribblings. Crabtot's teacher calls her drawing "developmentally appropriate." Which I think is rather generously put.

Sure, some of Crabtot's pieces are keepers. We love her potato print Christmas card with its weird soupy red and green crosses. And I have a fetching, furiously orange doodle in my keepsake folder. But there's a limit to this stuff.

I reached my limit last week when I noticed the fridge was covered in unremarkable toddler art. But chucking it all... It seemed almost sacrilegious to destroy what Tot has wrought with her own chubby hand. Tossing it makes you a coldmommy, right? My solution: You move the paintings from fridge to desk...desk to drawer...then finally, drawer to garbage can. No direct deposit. In this way, you dilute the inevitable feelings of guilt.

I'd love to hear from others who find Tot-Art a tad tiresome. Do you people also shuffle pieces from surface to surface before trashing them? And are kiddie paintings and crayon scribbles recyclable? I need to know. Because now that tot's finally in a preschool where they actually do things, I need an approved timeline and method for disposing of them. 'Cause I can't keep all of these keepsakes, man. And I don't need to feel guilty about this...do I?

Nothing is more irritating than being encouraged to do the obvious by experts. Nowhere is this more prevalent, IMHO, than in the world of learning. In so many ways are we told that we must turn to librarians and other researchers in the world of literacy and pedagogy to help us figure out how to take on that most monstrously important duty of...reading to our children.

Crabtot receives a subscription from an elderly couple to a little magazine called Wild Animal Baby. And while like all publications these days it is pushy about promoting serious learning to the wee ones via the huggability of the natural world (How many lemurs can you see?), Wild Animal Baby amuses Tot, so we tolerate it.

Except for one section. In which some person makes up incredibly dull-witted rhymes every month, e.g.:

I hear the gentle rain pit pat above my head.
I watch the flowers open in my flowerbed.
When the sun comes out and raindrops shine like jewels
I run and jump and splash in all the raindrop pools.

The poems are bad enough, but what really gets me are the advice on appropriate hand movements for each line, and the instruction "Parents: encourage your child to mimic you as you perform the illustrated motions." There is the hand next to the ear for hearing the gentle rain; then the fingers making binocs around the eyes for the watching of the flower and then various ridiculous splashing and leaping motions.

In its earnestness factor, this reminds me of well-meaning librarians who say, at Storytime, "It's a good idea to show your child the front and back of the book, as well as the blank pages before the story starts. I always ask, what color is this? Can you say it Spanish?"

Give me a break. Get me a drink.

Crabmommy bio