But you can't make her swim. Which can be a mite frustrating when you've brought her 20-odd thousand miles to the magic ocean of Haga Haga, South Africa, a remote and ridiculously gorgeous African beach you haven't seen for decades, in a hamlet that remains as unchanged and pristine as it was when you were Crabtot's age.

I've long fantasized about bringing Crabtot to this spot. She makes the fifth generation of my family to spend a happy tot-vacay here, swimming in rock pools, jumping in shallow waves, and making sandcastles. That is, if she'd quit whining and take the plunge.

To me this place, where we've spent the past week, feels as far-flung and iconic as childhood itself. To Crabtot it's just where she is right now, and not necessarily where she wants to be. So while I had it in my head that she would be in her element on arrival, she spent her first days hanging back from the ocean, whining about shell collecting, and being generally "gormless," to use a favorite family word. LAWD can that kid whinge and moan! And just when I thought I'd rather take an ice pick to my own eardrums rather than have to hear Tot say "let's go home!" one more time, she suddenly got her "sea legs." As in, she decided to jump in and enjoy herself. That's Crabtot swimming in "Mermaid's Pool" where Crabgreat-aunt and Crabgran (also pictured here) learned to swim. It's a tidal pool set back from the ocean, deep enough for a kid to swim in, with flat rocky ledges making natural steps for sitting and jumping.

Every morning and evening we look for urchin shells, or "nuns' beads." Crabtot likes to paint them and make jewelry for her doll, Edie. We've been paddling in the soupy-lovely lagoon, which is framed by scattered driftwood and protected by high hills of tangled bush. As one who lives far from her roots, I've always thought it important to give my kid a taste of the traditional South African holidays my family has always taken. For Crabtot and me, this means traveling about as far from our current home as it's possible to go. I doubt we'll get back to Haga Haga in future years of her childhood but I'm glad we've done it at least once. Even though I've had to endure a lot of petulance in the process.

I doubt I'm the first mom who's spent thousands of miles and banknotes trying to give her tot a respite in nature, only to find the child moaning about home and wishing to play with gravel in the parking lot behind the beach! It's annoying. But when I give it further thought, even the whiny aspect of Crabtot's first days here connects her to family ritual: Before returning to Haga Haga for this epic voyage, I recalled myself so completely in love with the place and charmed by everything we did when I came here as a kid. We stayed in a shack with no electricity and bathed my kid sister in a plastic tub. But, romantic as the memory seems now, I highly doubt I enjoyed it all at the time; if I dig a little deeper I recall fighting with my siblings throughout those car treks from Cape Town and being annoyed with my parents for never taking us to more happening holidays destinations where the digs were fancier and there were mobs of other children to hang with. Indeed, crabby mommies were once crabby kids. So, whining in paradise? —Just a part of Crabtot's family tradition!

This is our last African dispatch and if we can survive the trek we'll soon be back home, where Crabtot can then proceed to miss Africa after missing Wyoming. Yes, the grass is always greener for Crabtot. Wait, doesn't that remind you of someone...?

Any last tips for dealing with a transatlantic whiner for 36 hours? Ah, but you'd whine too if you were leaving this behind:

Nope, this isn't going to be a sexy post. The title is just my way of getting you interested in Crabtot's and my visits to the playgrounds in Cape Town. Because South Africa really just has these most fabulous swings, and actually these most fabulous playgrounds in general, and in our forays out to swing and climb and seesaw, I realized I had forgotten quite how different from America the playgrounds are in S.A., and quite how much I loved playing in them when I grew up here.

For starters, the swings in S.A. are made from car tires. They hollow them out, attach them to chains, and voilà: There are also other sorts of tire swings:
In fact, tires are the dominant medium in a South African playground. At the bottom of slides, for example, there are tires to cushion your landing:
Having visited several playgrounds here in C.T., I can say that every one of them makes ingenious use of tires. Some use whole tires set out like stepping-stones for children to step onto and jump off in a sort of rubberized obstacle course. Some are painted rainbow colors. Some have colorful designs stenciled on.

Tires! Crabtot has not once tired of leaping off or swinging in them. And when you think about it, tires are brilliant things, because they are soft and yet bouncy and the shape is so versatile for kids' play. So I wonder, why do they use tires here so much but we don't use them in the U.S.? Is it just that they have more old tires lying around here? From stolen cars perhaps? Like the car I borrowed that got stolen from me yesterday? Yes! That must be it! Or wait, maybe it's simpler: In Africa you just don't have the plethora of ready-made playground paraphernalia, specially developed by child experts and triple-checked for safety. In Africa someone just says, "Hey, we need a playground." And then they go get them some tires. Simple. Artful. Recyclable. Genius.

Another thing I clean forgot we used to play on, and which I never ever see in the U.S., are seesaws. Where are they? I haven't seen any in Crabtown, nor did I ever see them back in my New York City days. Why, though? Nothing could be more fun than bouncing up and down on a seesaw. It is, however, best to have another kid's weight on the end on the seesaw, rather than Crabtot's chunky mother or her doll Edie (pictured here on the ground). And yes, those are tires sunken into the ground beneath the seesaw seat, just in case someone leaps off his end early and the other half comes down hard.

Q: Has the seesaw has been deemed too "unsafe" or "uncool" or "un-something" to have in U.S. playgrounds? And ditto the merry-go-round? Crabtot is totally entranced on the merry-go-rounds of Cape Town, and I don't blame her. I well remember whole days spent whirling round and then staggering off the merry-go-round to see how dizzy I was.

So my question to the floor: Do you guys ever see seesaws and merry-go-rounds (or tire swings) in your American/U.K./wherever playgrounds? And if not ... why not? Surely it's not a matter of safety? I mean, heck, Crabtown has these crazy, whacked-out athletic playgrounds, with luge-like slides and cliff-hanging platforms inviting children to break a leg. Indeed, in this ski-resort town of ours, a town quite determined to train extreme athletes on its intimidating climbing walls and scary twisted ladders, safety doesn't rule. If safety were so paramount, then surely they would signpost the kiddie rides of Crabtown as they do the adult runs, i.e., Black Diamond, Double Black Diamond, and so on?

Seriously, Parks and Rec peeps, can we please get a dang seesaw in Crabtown? Or a merry-go-round? It may sound superscary, but I'll take my chances!

And now I leave you with the image of an afternoon's spent sitting in the sun, playing on tire swings, looking up at Table Mountain and collecting acorns from ancient oaks. This play area is pretty trashed and needs serious TLC, and you have to watch where you park (car thieves! everywhere!), but they've got one thing right here in S.A. and it's how to do a simple playground that appeals to kids. Nothing here has changed since I was a kid, which makes sense, since being a kid pretty much means the same thing whenever you live your life. Come to think of it, not even the paint colors have changed in S.A. playgrounds since I was small. All the slides and jungle gyms are painted in primary-color, thick, shiny, suspect lead-looking paint. I remember lazy summer days when we would peel it off in long, lovely sun-warmed strips and chew it. Delicious!

Stay tuned for a final South African dispatch. Crabtot and I are making a remote trip to a rural beach town, then winging our way back to Crabtown, and from thence you will see me writing my usual fare: bad behavior (from moms and tots), general momming complaints, admissions of laziness, selfishness, predicting your monthly momoscopes, and so forth.

Now please tell me about your playgrounds. Have you seen a seesaw?

"Having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face. You really need to be certain it's what you want before you commit."

Not my line, but Elizabeth Gilbert's from her memoir Eat, Pray, Love. Actually, it's something her sister told her and is the best analogy for the task of motherhood I've heard. I bring it up to answer those who wonder why I avoid discussing the good parts of motherhood and, when I'm not being downright silly about momming, am perpetually crabbing about it. Indeed, many folks think I don't enjoy being a mom. And they're right.

Because a ginormous portion of the time, being a mom is tedious and frustrating. In a way that only another mother can understand. So why then do so many moms pretend not to understand and so often feel threatened by any frank talk of just how monstrously hard it is? Why do so many moms act shocked when a mom drowns her tots in the bathtub or sticks her head in the oven? You don't have to have postpartum depression to find momming depressing. But what is very depressing is just how uncomfortable we can be made to feel for saying so. Especially by one another.

I started Crabmommy because when I had Crabtot I felt I had joined a terrible cult, a maternal conspiracy in which almost no one seemed to want to tell the truth about her daily life: that, like a facial tattoo, motherhood is utterly fresh and shocking and freaky every time you wake up in to it, yet it's utterly, terrifyingly permanent at the same time.

As a new mom seeking community, wherever I looked I saw mommy media displaying happy mothers snuggling their tots and looking enchanted and fulfilled and glowing (go away, Christy Turlington!). From advice columns to websites to mags to blogs, the business of motherhood came to me packaged in perky prose. Sure, there were mentions of "tough" times and "challenging" children, but these came couched in  euphemisms, the tricky bits safely sandwiched between clichés expressing the rapture and satisfaction that comes with the privilege of being a mom. So that no matter what doubts were expressed in the vast majority of motherhood writing, the piece always had to end on an upbeat note in which the mother made clear just how much she loves and values her child. Which to me is about the only thing that doesn't bear mentioning. Because unless you've really cracked, or have given birth to Rosemary's baby, loving your child is a given. Duh. It's the rest we need to talk about.

I think the most positive portrayal of motherhood is one in which we mothers lift the gag order on the enterprise, making it okay to be less than enthralled. The nicest, best, and most affirming thing we can do for each other is be up front about the dark side of the job. So if you find toddler tea parties dull as all get-out, or can't stand reading, or become unreasonably enraged by the daily dramas of dressing tantrumy children in snowsuits, or like to smack your kids because it makes you feel good even if it's bad, then say so. And if you feel thrilled by each and every diaper change and transformed by the wonder of it all, for God's sake, shut up. You freak.

As my friend Adrianne said, we moms don't want to be judged more harshly by each other than we judge ourselves. Clearly that fear of judgment makes us wary of one another and afraid to say anything edgy about momming. But venting is so much fun! Never have I felt happier as a mom than through blogging about how miserable it makes me. Happy with my discontents, that's me! And I'm glad to say this past year I've found many moms who don't mince words, whether in person or in print. So many of us are glum and bored and exhausted and annoyed, and it's ... inspiring!

But what do you think? Are you getting tired of the crabbing? What do you want to hear your mombloggers talk about?

Pookie the Rabbit with Wings, a book from my childhood and my mother's before me. It's about a hybrid rabbit-fairy who lives in a toadstool. Like many other family books, Crabgran has kept Pookie precisely for the purpose of reading to future Crabtots. And because I knew there would be lovely old things like Pookie waiting for us on this vacation, as well as lovely new African storybooks too, I traveled light on the reading fare. Of course, I couldn't guarantee that the Brit-fairy stories of my youth or African folktales would vie with Elmo Does the Hokey Pokey and Madeline Joins the Circus, so I brought a few reserves. But I haven't needed them.

It's quite a strange feeling for Crabmommy to enjoy reading time. As I've mentioned before, after a long crabby day I frankly find storytime quite tedious, and the shorter the book the better. But this winged bunny is a character I loved as a wee lass, so when I read about Pookie now it's with the eyes of a tot.

I used to stare at this page as a kid.

Looking at this still gives me a weird entranced feeling. Say what you will about Brits but they know how to tell a kids' story. For one thing, they always fetishize food in their kiddie lit. Everyone's always eating toasted crumpets and drinking honey tea and whatnot. See here Pookie visiting his pixie friend who makes blackberry jam. Check out those "rose-petal curtains" and the "beechleaf hearthrug." So absurdly cute I could eat that page right up!

Maybe it's just been hardwired into me, but I still think this drawing style rocks much harder than any modern illustration involving collages of Manhattan or clever gobs of paint à la Eric Carle.

See Pookie holding a meeting with the woodland folk. Humans are trying to put a road through the forest! Stop those wankers, Pookie!Not to get too Proustian here, but I've often wondered if it's possible to get back the enchantment that reading held for me as a kid. No matter how much literature means to me as a grown-up, the feeling I get from it never squares with the hit I used to feel in the presence of Pookie and his ilk. Maybe neuroscience types could explain it to me. Or maybe I'm just too jaded and crabby and self-involved to lose myself properly in fiction. Or maybe it has something to do with the fact that these days, when I settle down to read a nice spot of Edith Wharton, more often than not a high-pitched whine starts from somewhere beyond the bedroom door. ...

What do you think? Do you have a childhood fave that gets you this way?

Because I've been so in tune with motherhood for, well, over three years now and blogging about it for almost one year, it's not surprising that I've developed a certain clairvoyance when it comes to other mothers. I see you, and I know things about you. And even if I can't see you, I feel your presence out there and I can divine truths about your parental style, your tot, yourself. I know, for example, that one of you Capricorns reading this very post ate your child's remaining Gummi worms yesterday while she was at preschool and then lied to her about it when she came home. I know one of you Geminis truly cannot stand your little son's best friend and so even though you don't want to be, you're always a weentsy bit snippy and mean with him on play-dates. You feel bad about it, but he's just such an irritating little boy. And that name! What were they thinking?

Because it's my job to share my expertise, I've decided to bring you monthly mommy horoscopes—momoscopes—here at Cookie. As with all things Crabmommy, the outlook will be bleak. It 'aint pretty, what fate has in store for you this January with your offspring, but you might as well face it:

Capricorn: Be careful with your loose lips. Small ears hear big faux pas and once again, your comments about a relative will get you into trouble.

Aquarius: Your spouse planned something special for your birthday, but then forgot to order it until it was too late. And the Fedex charge was so outrageous. So that's why you're getting the Amazon package again.

Pisces: Prepare for an awkward conversation. You should never have told that one mom what you thought of that other mom when she said that one thing to you about that other mom's kid. Because the mom you told would have been better off not knowing what the other mom thinks about her kid. Besides, she can't be trusted. She's actually saying something nasty about your kid right now.

Aries: It's true your methods of discipline haven't been working and that you could benefit from some fresh new ideas. Unfortunately, you haven't got any and nor has anyone else around you.

Taurus: Things have been going so well in the potty-training department and you're sure you're only weeks away from disposing with the pull-ups. Hang onto them. You're so not done yet!

Gemini: You wonder why your little boy is asking you about cigarettes. It's because the babysitter stole some from your secret stash. Really, it is time to quit once and for all. But you won't. Not this month, anyway.

Cancer: Your child will destroy a favorite item of your wardrobe this month, but take heart: it wouldn't have fitted you ever again. Because that extra inch of post-partum back-fat is here to stay.

Leo: You can't put your finger on it but you feel as though you've forgotten something important with potentially embarrassing consequences. Well, you have and yes, you will be mortified next week when you remember.

Virgo: Your siblings have been talking about your kids and their sleep problems all month long. One of them plans to lecture you about it, and you will have a big fight. But honestly, what did you expect after everyone had to put up with that screaming all through Christmas week? Get that Weissbluth book out again and this time, stick to it.

Libra: Yes, your partner promised to help more with the housework and made all those resolutions. But by month's end you'll be right back where you started: doing all the dishes and pulling giant wads of lint from the washing machine. As usual.

Scorpio: You swore you wouldn't ever spank your naughty tot again. But I'm afraid you'll break that promise this month. Oh, well, buck up. You're not alone. In fact, as we speak, at least twenty two thousand mothers worldwide are breaking that promise too!

Crabtot can swim! After mere days of splashing in Crabgran's swimming pool, she can swim!

Or so she tells us. Proudly. And indeed we are proud. She "swims" with water wings. She lets her face get wet. She isn't afraid of the Kreepy Krawly (pool vacuum cleaner thing). She wasn't even freaked when it suddenly went nuts and ate its plastic skirt! For us, this easy attitude is big. Born to cautious, neurotic parents, it's no wonder Crabtot has possessed a long-standing fear of lawnmowers and vacuum cleaners and hasn't attempted a backflip yet, unlike the swimming/skiing/gymnasticating three-year-olds of Crabtown, whose athletic prowess (and parental encouragement) knows no bounds.

Of course the other reason Ctot is only just donning water wings and gingerly testing the waters is that her mother disapproves entirely of tot swimming lessons and has spent far too much of your precious time crabbing about it here and here. So while mites one-third her age know about floating, bubble-blowing, and nose-pinching, Crabtot knows zero water tricks. And though I dreaded this summer vacation in Africa in a house with an unfenceable swimming pool—and thought perhaps under the circumstances we might benefit from some lessons—I found my incredibly anxious side overcome by my still more incredible laziness. So I never did enroll in classes prior to this trip. Instead, I did something that involved far less exertion: I bought the Pool Turtle.

How does it work? Quite geniusly. I've mentioned the turtle before, but now that I've tried it, I can report back and say it's really bloody swell. You have an alarm home base and a wristband remotely wired to it. When you attach the cute turtle band to the child's arm, you alarm your tot, so anytime water touches the turtle, the siren screams and everyone in the neighborhood thinks someone's being murdered! It's fantastic!

Seriously, the Pool Turtle, while stupidly named (since the one place it's not meant to go is in water), is a nifty solution if you're going somewhere with an open swimming pool. Or if you live on a houseboat. Or plan on taking your toddler to a picnic at the Hoover Dam. Or to a friend's water birth. Or anywhere that might turn you into a human hovercraft on account of large bodies of H2O. Truly if Crabmom—a person about as relaxed as a wasp—can go to the loo at my mother's house without going into cardiac arrest from fear for Crabtot's safety, then this is once heck of a product. FYI, you can get it heavily discounted through an approved dealer here.

So while you in the northern hemispheres freeze your bottom cheeks together, we're having fun in the sun. We're chilling around the pool, and in it too. Yes, I'm pleased to say that even in Crabgran's jungly modern treacherous home, with its crazy pool, we're having lazy summer days. What once we feared, we now enjoy.

p.s. No she's not alone in the pool as the pic makes it look, so don't have a heart attack (Crabgran is behind the foliage). On the other hand, don't think me too responsible with all this swimming stuff: I took tot for a swim in some sewage runoff last week so by all means heap the judgment! Give it to me! Why not? You know I love to give it to you!

Not ME! One is my seven, people. Crabmommy walks in the shackles of motherhood, beaten down, worn out and only one little duckling shall be my brood. But I want to speak of the phrase "we are pregnant." Because it really tweaks my vibe. And I feel like Crabhub and I are the only couple who never used the first person plural when I got knocked up. Okay, so maybe this isn't the most relevant place to begin my new monthly Manners&Etiquette discussion, "Rude Mommy," but this is my blog, and that phrase just dang offends my ears and crabs me out!

We are pregnant. Dad-to-be, unless you're a seahorse, in which case the spawn would indeed be lodged in your tum-tum, please revert to the third person singular feminine in my presence! She is pregnant, not you. And while maybe you'd like to be and you maybe you think you can even imagine it, and heck there's even a disorder where men actually mimic pregnancy...the truth is, pregnancy is women's work. You sowed it, but she grows it.

I know when fathers say they're pregnant too it's meant to be cute and supposed to show a desire to understand and commune with the greatness that is motherhood. But it irks me that we can't call a spade a spade anymore. So a pregnant woman is now actually only half-pregnant, because he completes her and all that? Sorry, Dad, but I'm only seeing one bump and it's not yours. (And if you ask me, your pet dog is dead, not passed away, or passed on or over or under.)

What do you think? Am I just a rudemommy, or is anyone else out there allergic to this line?

Speaking of pregnant and being offended, there's perhaps only one worse preggie-related phrase that could come to these ears and I *almost* heard it last month. There was I at the grocery store—admittedly tummy wibbling over my too-low jeans—when I exchanged light banter with an acquaintance, and then at one point she looked down at my stomach and said, "Are you...?" I was dumbfounded. I guess at least she had the decency to bloody trail off rather than finish the sentence! But LAWD, doesn't everyone know to avoid that question? Guess not—I have a friend who has twice been asked on different occasions by the same woman if she was pregnant. And no, she wasn't.

I thought everyone, especially women and moms, knew to avoid looking at, much less commenting on, a possibly-pregnant tum. Apparently not in Crabtown. Maybe it's because everyone has taut, toned ski-abs three seconds post-partum so that even a slight bit of chunk is reason to suspect reproduction. Well, good for you, taut-abbed ladies. Now please run along to the gym. Some of us have donuts to eat and blogging to do.