Dear Crabtot,

It's your third birthday today. And in keeping with the traditions of parent-blogging, I'm meant to write you this very sincere and sentimental newsletter. I'm meant to lay down, for once, my mantle of maternal cynicism and show you (well, actually, since you can't read—show everyone but you) that I really am grateful to be a mom and that I live, love, and have learned so deeply and so much more because of you.

My newsletter should read something like this:

Dear Crabtot,

I can't believe you're turning 3! It's amazing how time flies...[yadda yadda]... You're such a complex little being now. And sometimes you challenge me! [Here's where I could get a smidge risqué and hint at dark moments in the past year.] But no matter how tough those moments are, you always inspire your dad and me to be the best people we can be. [That sentence must follow the dark risky stuff, a redemptive line just to show that while it's been a bloody hard year, I want everyone you to know that I know parenting is essentially a positive experience.] Then I throw in some humor about the tricky times and the cute things you've said and then I write this bit about how even though I'm Crabmommy, nothing melts the crabby shell around my crustaceous heart like a Crabtot birthday.

The problem, Crabtot, is that Mom doesn't like to do what she thinks others think she should. So if your blogmommy is rude and complainy and whiny, and everyone thinks maybe for one day in the year she should post about the indescribable new capacity for love that has come about because of you, she doesn't want to! She's a naughty mommy!

The other problem is that your mom thinks it's gimmicky and therefore insincere and contrived to copy things that have been pioneered by this blogger who is called Dooce. Dooce is funny and clever and all. But Crabmommy wants to think of you on your third birthday, and to try not to think of Mommy or her blog or Dooce or anyone else. So I'm not writing you this newsletter, okay?

Love, Mom.

Crabmommy bio

Do you know the night momster? By day she's generally a pleasant person. She may be a bit crabby, but she's a loving mother and wife.

Come nightfall, she changes.

When the moon rises and everyone is asleep, it happens. Like a man into a werewolf, so the mom into...the momster.

I'm talking about the unspeakable ill humor that comes to me when I'm woken from deep slumber. And that's been happening a fair amount lately, what with Crabtot being in a fitful sleep phase. I'm still more or less capable of being nice to her when she wakes me and I dutifully shush, soothe, and otherwise speak sweet mommywords to the little one. But poor Crabhusband!

When awakened by Tot, I take out my tiredness on Crabhub. In the logic of daylight, I have no problem with the fact that I get up to soothe Crabtot and he sleeps through most of it, given that he has work to go to and he's also, well, the dad, and a whimpering tot needs Mama. But daytime logic doesn't stop the night momster: by night I become quite mean, and wail loudly about those who get to sleep and those who don't. Don't get me wrong: our kid is a good sleeper, but I think I'm just genetically incapable of dealing with any night waking—hers, mine, anyone's. Nobody could be huffier without sleep than me.

Except maybe my mother. She could sleep even when awake. When I was a kid, she could barely crack an eyelid before 9am and would never remember kissing my brother and me goodbye for school or signing report cards. We could take advantage of her upright but comatose state and get her to agree to things she never would in her waking life. As for me, by day I'm full of guilt, apology, and benevolence toward Crabhubby. But too much night waking and I start shouting. On a bad night Tot gets it too. I'm good for a max of three Tot soothes; thereafter I just yell, in a terrible momster voice, "%&##@@@!"

Shuts them all up.

Any of you night momsters too?

Crabmommy bio

According to scientists, straight hair actually snarls more than curly, contrary to popular belief. Seriously, here's an excerpt from a study:

To learn which kind of hair truly is the snarliest, biophysicist Jean-Baptiste Masson at the Ecole Polytechnique in France had hairdressers count tangles for a week in the hair of 212 people-123 with straight hair and 89 with curls. Counting was conducted between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m., so that hair had a chance to snag during the day.

Who funds these people? How did they pick that magic number of 212 people?  The results, by the way, were as follows: an average of "5.3 per head of straight hair and 2.9 per head of curly hair."

Jean-Baptiste, I'm sorry, but on the curly vs. straight tangle debate, you're not convincing me. My tot has a puffed thicket of curls and hot damn if it isn't a snarly pot-scourer frizz at all times! In part it's uber-snarly because her mama has dead-straight hair and rarely brushes it, so she hasn't a clue how to handle snarl-prone curls. My hair may be badly styled and peat-colored but it has never experienced a tangle in its life, except for a year in high school when I was moussing it up into a tower of shag. Then it might have had a touch of tangle.

I've never been much bothered by tot's tangles because she's so scrumptious that it doesn't matter. Plus she has her entire life to play with her hair, so why do I have to? Not to mention the supermarket detangler I bought smelled like a Dollar store and clearly contained lead or something. So I dumped it.

However, after spotting various products out there on websites devoted to curly tot hair (yes, everyone has lots of time on their hands, it seems) I have decided to buy some specially formulated shamps for Crabtot called, curiously, Hans' Oom-Pah-Pah. With a name that absurd, naturally it must be mine. Plus, it does look like it contains some nice, nontoxic solutions to tot-frizz.

Oh what a tangled web we weave when...okay, that's not working...What's your take on tangle theory?

Crabmommy bio

With two uber-anxious parents it's a wonder Crabtot ever gets to do anything at all. One of us is always barking at her to avoid this, watch out for that, or be careful jumping off a three-inch step onto soft grass. As Murphy's Law would have it, the first time we actually let Crabtot do something dangerous (jump on a trampoline), something bad did happen.

It's Friday and I'm slugging a cocktail at Crabhub's company BBQ, when I hear a terrible wail. It's Crabhub, who, within one second of allowing his tot onto the trampoline, saw her get squashed by another.

Crabtot cried, but not for long. Shortly after the accident, she smiled and forgot her tears. Except she wouldn't walk. Her leg looked normal, but she wouldn't put weight on it. She was her toddler self, only crawling. So we hit the ER.

The pediatrician advised x-rays "just to be sure the growth plate isn't damaged." "Growth plate?" Crabhub was terrified, no doubt picturing Tot with a permanent gammy leg because Dad didn't catch her on the tramp. But x-rays revealed only a minor sprain—and an adorable fact: kids have no kneecaps! The tot patella is the size of a corn kernel! Crabtot took the x-rays to school for Show-n-Share (Btw, what ever happened to Show-N-Tell? Is "tell" too bossy? What gives?) "Look at that little kneecap!" she repeated to her pals in the circle. "It's so cute!"

I wish I could say that I thought about myself only after Tot's x-rays came back. You see, my sis was visiting from South Africa and we had swell plans for the days when Tot would be at preschool. But a kiddo's leg in a cast would ruin my fun. Yes, I'd like to say my selfish thoughts occurred well after the accident. The truth is, they didn't. Right when Tot started crawling, I saw my longed-for week ruined. Naturally I was worried about and sorry for Crabtot. But people, I've got so much maternal compassion it just overflows...leaving plenty leftover for the mother herself.   

Crabmommy bio

I've been scanning the mom-blogosphere and many are blogging about the onset of fall. One chipper mom spoke of fall as a time to renew: renewing "family goals" (what are those?), cleaning up the house and so on. I assume she means doing dull organized things like getting your digital photos printed and albumed and buying new fridge magnets for the kids' schedules. Me, I see fall as a time to get really, really depressed.

We had a swell summer. Capped off by a lovely Labor Day weekend. We went to Portland, OR (read all about the voyage here) and while Crabtot attempted to throw rocks into Portland's impressive Zen garden, it was an otherwise serene way to spend summer's last official weekend.

Back in Wyoming, the sun still shines (as it always does, relentlessly, even when it's minus 50), but there's a sharpness in the air. Stand in the shade and you need a down jacket. So I'm turning to depressing reading. I'm liking very much Arlington Park, by Brit novelist Rachel Cusk. It's about miserable moms in uspcale British suburbs. They all loathe themselves and their families, and rattle around in enormous gourmet kitchens. Apparently, Cusk also wrote a controversial nonfic book about how horrible it is to be a mom. Which makes me think she's probably a great mom. At its best, Cusk's novel reminds me of THE great novel of domestic doom, Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. (If you're married and have kids, it's best to read that book stone drunk.)

Here's a snippet from Arlington Park, when this mom character goes shopping for dinner. It captures the light mood I'm talking about:

Amanda felt that if she were not married, it would not have been required of her to go to the butcher. These visits seemed to emanate from a core of physical embroilment, from a  fleshly basis that sought out other flesh by which to feed itself. It all seemed somehow grotesquely related, the conjoining and making of bodies and the dismemberment and ingestion of them.

It's getting heavy and heady here at Crabmommy. Curl up with a book. Get depressed. Keep me company.

Surely Crabmommy will soon break into the rich-mom scene with her schemes and dreams? This is my sincerest hope, especially after last night, while watching the "California Baby" products mom-inventor on TV. She had a great frock on and was very modest about her success, stating simply that she was "just a mom" who saw a gap in the market and then began mixing potions for her organic baby shampoos.

Inspired by and jealous of such moms—chicks savvy enough to parlay mommy notions into cold hard cashola—Crabmommy once again reaches deep into an otherwise empty brain and asks: what can I do to improve parenting and pad my purse in the process?

The Martyrmeter®

Every new set of parents plays the martyr game. Which of you is doing more? Is it the breadwinner slogging through a deadly job to provide the dough? Is it the stay-at-homer, dealing in tantrums, playdates, and interminable wiping of orifices? 

Don't argue. Get a MartryMeter®!

A two-pack handset (one per parent) and docking station combo, the MartyrMeter® takes the guesswork and arguing out of the competition for the title, Most Put-Upon Parent. Simply log your activities into the handset (see attached sheet of coded chores); at day's end, plug the handset into the docking station, where the MartyrMeter® will compute your daily miseries and stack them against your spouse's. Rest assured, our computational device has been programmed for complete accuracy. Winners may rest their case!

Note: the MartyrMeter Deluxe Edition® comes with a built-in lie detector. Do you suspect your spouse of fudging numbers and fibbing about times? Does parent-on-duty say the baby woke at 5am but you think it was probably closer to 6am? Just grab that Meter, and let our patented motion and heat sensing technology track your spouse's blood pressure while he or she holds the handset. If he's lying, we've got his number! Game Over!!

Crabmommy bio