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?

As if to cruelly mock my Valentine's Day sourness, Crabtot has taken to drawing pink hearts everywhere, fiendishly and with a violent passion. Pink is her new favorite color! And pink hearts are what she loves most of all in this world. Some of you may remember the orange series I did early in this blog, in which I discussed the color brainwashing I embarked upon to get my little daughter to choose orange as her favorite color instead of girly pink or purple. Well, people, the experiments failed. Pink is in. In a big way. She will only accept pink fake tattoos. She will only color with the pink marker. She will only wear pink underwear.

Crabtot has also renamed herself Dark Pink Heart. Sometimes she calls herself Dark Pink Flower or Dark Pink Strawberry but always there is the emphasis on "dark pink." She brings me magazine pages containing the shade of color that is her favorite. She presses a stubby forefinger into pink margins so I know exactly what tone of frosting will be acceptable for her next birthday cake. "This pink," she says. "Dark pink."

I'm not happy about this pink thing, but I take comfort in the "dark." At least we are talking fuchsia and not pastel pink!

I guess she's a chip off the old block. Both blocks. I can get quite a bit obsessed with exact shades. Often I lie in bed thinking of how, exactly, the most perfect blue of all time could be made. Would it have a bit more teal in it or a bit more Tiffany blue, a bit more The Life Aquatic shade of electric blue, or a bit more Versailles pistachio...or a bit more Jordan Almond blue? I can also spend quite a bit of time thinking about purple and why I dislike it so much. Yes, as you can see, I'm a woman who uses her time well. And then there is Crabhusband: an architect, he can talk color with the best of us. "Don't worry," he assures me when I bemoan the fact that eventually I will have to let Crabtot have a pink room, "Le Corbusier made his own shade of pink paint that's not bad." Apparently you can still get it mixed at paint stores. A pink that is stylish. Le Corbusier Pink. I hope that it's dark: I hope Crabtot will like it.

After her bedtime story every night, I say to Crabtot something my mother always said to me before lights out: "Sweet dreams of pink ice creams." Last night I said it as I always do: "Sweet dreams of pink ice creams." As I left the room Crabtot corrected me: "Dark pink ice creams." I mean, let's just be clear on that!

Anyone else have color issues with their tot?

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:

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!

This story is old. I was too embarrassed to blog about it at the time. But I'm feeling brave today and, in her blogocratic oath, Crabmommy swore she'd be able to make fun of herself and admit it when she was being a Momocrite (that mom who judges harshly but ends up doing what she swore she never would).

Okay, so you all know I loathe braggy parents who proudly tell you their kid is "very verbal." But, I admit it, Crabhubby and I think Crabtot is "very verbal." Though we've kept this info private, we've exchanged smug looks when, in her early twos, C-tot cottoned on to the word "pediatrician" and "stethoscope" from an Elmo Visits the Doctor DVD. (Okay, it was "steposcote" but that's still pretty darned multisyllabic.)

Tot's early interest in steposcotes went down quite well with her cardiologist Crabgrandpa. Then arose an extra opportunity to spread the word to another medical professional. When Tot developed pink eye some months ago, I hate to say it, but I sort of looked forward to the visit to the pediatrician. She's always been so healthy she hadn't had much opportunity to be examined by docs. That my child might refer to the pediatrician by her specialist's name—and then ask to look at the steposcote—struck me as a pleasant spin on the pink eye situation.

Unfortunately we were seen by a new pediatrician. She had a loud, twangy voice and referred to Crabtot as "Princess," a word Tot didn't know. Crabtot was silent and my fantasies of impressed physicians dissolved. In desperation, I went straight to that parental place I swore I'd never go to. "What's that?" Pushy Mom prompted as the doc approached with the steposcote. "A princess?" Tot replied.

I'm ashamed of this attempt to show off my child, when she was sick, no less! I couldn't even admit my intentions to Crabhusband. But I know he had similarly shameful expectations. "How was the pediatrician?" he asked. "What did she think of—I mean, how was the visit?"

"Not good. Dr. R wasn't in town."

Crabhusband looked disappointed when I recounted the princess story. We weren't pleased with the pediatrician. Even though she did, um, fix up our kid.

Crabmommy bio

Last month I wrote about Crabtot's orange obsession. Cute at first. But the kid is now so deeply into orange, I'm starting to see red.

At first it might be adorably odd when one's tot sleeps with an orange plastic shot glass every night for a month. Or wakes up and slurs sleepily, "I want an orange sky." Or tells you when she grows up she will do "orange work." Indeed, it can be quite charming to have your child insist on wearing only orange underwear. And when you can't find orange undies for girls, you even dye them yourself to help the little muffin in her quest for total orange domination.

You're down with the orange food. Carrots. Mango. But when on the family walk the child looks at a big brown butte and calls it "brownlish-orange," you start to wonder, Is this a problem? A question that intensifies when Tot insists on wearing, every day, a set of too-small, too-orange Patagonia long underwear. As outerwear.

It could be worse. It could be purple. But people, it's still bad. It's Patagonia.

Yes, at its core my concern has less to do with the color obsession —a color I, after all, advanced —but it's the fact that the orange love has made Tot fall for sensible athletic gear. I want my tot to attend a party in a sweet little Zutano dress, but her choice the Patagonia. It's a choice wholly appropriate in our Croc- and Croakies-infested, ski-wear-draped town, but I'm not digging it.

Judging by her savage love of the long undies, we have a long, hard, and expensive road ahead. In grade school she'll demand a Cloudveil shell-jacket. Then it's Prana pants to the prom...At her wedding she'll have her dress designed by Goretex. She'll be tromping down the aisle in Tevas. Carried away? Maybe. But I see a slippery slope, with high-performance brands all the way down.

Advice, anyone? How does one turn a tot onto cute clothes in a sporty place?

Crabmommy bio

...said the liquor store manager when my two-year-old asked for a neon-orange 99-cent plastic shot-glass on St. Patrick's Day. Tot was also offered a shamrock sticker, but declined. Because even on the greenest of days, she's orange-obsessed: underwear, shirt, pants, barrettes -- and that shot glass, which, when held to the eye, turns the whole world orange. She got the glass and we made a hasty exit before the color talk continued and she volunteered (as she had all week), "I have pink eye."

Many moms dread that pink -- the most contagious of girly colors -- will be their daughter's favorite. I don't mind pink. But my personal pink is purple. All shades and tones. Hate it. So when tot first indicated a love of purple -- favoring the violet marker, lingering on that purple page in Richard Scarry with the pansy -- I became concerned.

A mother's job is to teach right from wrong. So when tot begged for a "purple and lello" hair-scrunchy at the dollar store, I intervened. Tot, you must learn the objective truth: all colors are good, except one. Purple is for people who are squadron leaders in food coops. It's for people who attend drumming circles in purple drawstring pants. Purple should never have made it onto the rainbow. And purple with lello? That's the devil talking, my girl!

A good mom lets her child express herself. A good mom also protects her child...from lavender-walled bedrooms and lilac duvet covers. Hence my Color Brainwashing Program: dissing purple and promoting noble hues, like orange. I feel slightly guilty when orange tot elicits compliments -- "such an individualist!" and "how unusual! Most girls like pink or purple" -- but my cause is just. Plus, in an orange world, tot still coordinates her own way: she insists, every day, on wearing one lello sock.

Crabmommy bio