“Honey, I Shrunk the Wedding Guests!”

Jul 30, 2010 | Filed Under: In the News | Tags: Weekly News Roundup

… Starring The Supersized Mullet.  [AFP]

Americal Idol shake-up:  Kara DioGuardi is fired; Ellen bolts; and Jennifer Lopez joins as a judge.  Phew!   I was wondering how J.Lo would make ends meet.  [Deadline]

A mom’s hugs can produce less stressed offspring, even into adulthood.  They can also produce embarrassed offspring if done in front of their friends at high school.  (Not that I’ll ever do that to MY child.  *Ahem*)  [CNN]

The worst fall fashion trends.  When one invokes the style spirit of Barbara Bush, you know it’s bad, indeed.  [Refinery29]

Mothers shouldn’t put babies at risk with home birth, study says.  Well, I know I’m glad I delivered in the hospital because it had my medical essentials:  doctors; drugs; and, most critically, a Starbucks.  [LA Times]

Lilly Pulitzer designer animal crackers.  For the style-conscious toddler tummy that deserves so much more than generic-looking snacks.  [Babble]

Bryce Dallas Howard opens up about postpartum depression and how she “pretended perfection” after her son’s birth.  Yeah, I think we all pretend that at some point or another.  [People]

Top 10 Signs Your First Birthday Party Was a Success

Jul 29, 2010 | Filed Under: Candy's Column,Top 10 Lists

1.  You get more cake in your hair than in your mouth.

2.  You don’t go to bed until the ridiculously late hour of… 9 p.m.

3.   Nobody insults you with an “over-the-hill” birthday card saying, “Don’t worry, Old Fart.  One year is the new nine months!”

4.  The guests totally kicked two gallons of skim milk, bitches!

5.  You got to wear a tiara…

…making your father jealous.  (You’ll always be a pretty princess to me, Mr. Candy.)

6.  Spencer Pratt did not crash the party despite threatening to do so in last week’s Us Weekly.

7.  The neighbors called the cops because the party was rocking out to “Farmer in the Dell” at full blast.

8.  Your parents took 312 pictures of the birthday festivities (See also:  Top 10 Signs That You Are the First Child)

9.  By the time you go to bed, you’re only twitching a little bit from the sugar overdose.

10.  You got so many presents from your TWO East Coast birthday parties, that your parents have to charter Suzanne Somers’ private jet just to get them back to L.A.

Happy 1st Birthday, Miss Skye!

Riddle me this

Jul 28, 2010 | Filed Under: Candy's Column,Mr. Candy | Tags: Deep Thoughts

I cannot tell you how many times friends and family have told us, “You and Mr. Candy make such cute babies.  You HAVE to have another one!”  So does that mean if Miss Skye, say, had an Olsen Twin-sized goiter on her neck, that Mr. Candy should get snip-snipped immediately to prevent us from reproducing again?  More importantly, when is my mother-in-law going to stop paying people to tell us this?

And they say only children are selfish

Jul 27, 2010 | Filed Under: Photoblog

Miss Skye “generously” shares her birthday cake with me.  Because my hair obviously could use a leave-in vanilla frosting-and-rainbow-sprinkles conditioning treatment.

2010 East Coast Birthday Party Tour

Jul 26, 2010 | Filed Under: Candy's Column | Tags: Par-tay!

Our crew has touched down in Delaware (state slogan: ”The home of dozens!”) as Mr. Candy and I chauffeur Miss Skye on her 2010 East Coast Birthday Party Tour.  The tour is similar to what I imagine The Rolling Stones’ concert tours used to be like, only instead of a private jet, we are making tour stops in a four-door Chevy Malibu.  And instead of lines of coke, Miss Skye is getting high on obscene amounts of icing, chased with shots of water and MiraLax.  And instead of in-flight group orgies, we pass the time with in-rental car games of “How Many Cheerios Can Skye Throw on the Floor?”

I also found a rotting avocado in my suitcase.  I like to think of it as our very own Keith Richards.

But back to Delaware: In addition to residents and square footage, the state is lacking Internet access.  My mother-in-law, despite being just 55 years old, does not know how to turn on a computer, let alone own one with this newfangled Internet thing.  Meanwhile, her thoughtless neighbors do not appear to have wireless access for me to steal.  RUDE.  This is, as you can imagine, the worst thing to ever happen to me, outside of Salt-N-Pepa’s tragic split of ’99*.  Thankfully, Mr. Candy has a wireless AT&T modem that I can use; the connection is almost as fast as an AOL dial-up.  Almost.  It also enjoys kicking me off the Internet every 15 minutes or so, just to let me know who wields the power here.

You have more than made your point, Mr. Modem — I AM YOUR INTERNET BITCH.

Which is my long-winded way of explaining why I started this column nine hours ago, and am just now posting it.  To make it up to you, I would like to share a picture of my mother-in-law’s mannequin, Beavis.

Yes, my mother-in-law has mannequins.  Who hang out in the living room.  Who also — I kid you not — have been “christened” by her Web-ordained brother.  She inherited this, er, hobby from her mother, who also had a living room full of ‘em.

Ah, in-laws.

What can I say, except that I sleep with one eye open at my mother-in-law’s because I am VERY unsettled by the way Beavis stares into my soul.  Also, I pray the mannequin-collecting gene is recessive.

*I think we can all agree Salt’s subsequent solo Christian rap career was ill-advised

We have started our descent into Philadelphia, where the current temperature is 913 degrees

Jul 25, 2010 | Filed Under: Photoblog

Airplane ticket:  $400

Starbucks latte at airport:  $450

An almost one-year-old who is an angel the entire cross-country flight:  Priceless

This Pug must kill at karaoke night

Jul 23, 2010 | Filed Under: In the News | Tags: Weekly News Roundup

• Proof that there is high-quality entertainment on YouTube.  [Pug]
• 25 ridiculous parenting products. (I am TOTALLY getting the sonogram cufflinks for Mr. Candy.  The perfect touch of class for a partner at a management consulting firm!) [Parenting.com]
• As the World Turns replaced by mommy chat show featuring Julie Chen, Sara Gilbert, Sharon Osbourne, Holly Robinson Peete, Leah Remini and Marissa Jaret Winokur.  Woo-hoo!  It’s about TIME we see more of Sharon Osbourne.  And morning chat shows.  *Ahem*  [NYT]
• Kim Kardashian calls nephew Mason “best birth control ever.”  Same could be said of all the Kardashian offspring. [People]
• When parents disagree — on everything.  That sounds promising.  [MotherLode]
• Some caffeine okay during pregnancy, new study shows.  Yeah, tell that to the Starbucks barista who gave me the STINK EYE when my huge belly and I ordered a tall latte last summer.  Hmpf.  [Reuters]

Meet Pete

Jul 22, 2010 | Filed Under: Candy's Column | Tags: Wah-Wah-Wah-Waaah

Internet, meet Pete.  Pete, Internet.  Pete the Pimple has been residing on my cheek for so long, that we are now eligible for a common-law marriage.  The mole next to my belly button, a lifelong acquaintance, has agreed to officiate the ceremony.

Pete is more than just my unattractive tenant-slash-life-partner, however.  He is also a sign that I have the blues.

Hey, it happens, right?  We all feel down from time to time.  Some people deal with it by guzzling gin or getting addicted to QVC or shaving their hair in front of the paparazzi.  For me, depression is manifested in my skin, frequent trips to the fridge, infrequent trips to the shower and weepiness that seems to come out of nowhere.  I’m lucky that I’m still nursing and have to climb four-billion-and-two stairs a day in our four-story townhouse; otherwise, I might weigh 200 pounds — like I did in college.

Oh yes, I did.

I have a long history with Señor Depression (I have no idea why I assume he is Spanish, except that he does make me feel like taking a siesta), explaining why I was the Oprah Winfrey of high school, only without the fame, fortune and “friend” Gayle.  Lost forty pounds the summer before my junior year, then put it back on and then some by the end of junior year.  Lose, gain, lose, gain, until all I did was gain, gain, gain in college, thanks to late-night pizzas, weekend keg parties and a three-muffin-a-day habit.  Some people gain the Freshman 15; I gained the Freshman 50.  Clothed in baggy sweatshirts and sweatpants, I was able to remain blissfully in denial about how bad it really was.  Until one day I was sitting at my parents’ piano, banging out the classical masterpiece, “Heart and Soul,” when my mom came up from behind:

“Candy, your butt… it barely fits on the bench!” she gasped without thinking.

To this day, I still clench my cheeks whenever I hear that freakin’ song.

It took many years, but I eventually got my weight under control.  I don’t know how I did it, really; there was no magic bullet.  I think it was a combination of becoming happy with myself and learning the value of moderation.  Candy’s diet tip #1:  Eat one, not three muffins for optimal weight-loss results.  Also, drink vodka instead of beer because you don’t need to consume as much for a good buzz.  (Why I don’t have my own FDA-recommended diet book yet, I’ll never know!)

But I still get sad sometimes.  [CUE VIOLIN MUSIC HERE]

Before my mom gets in a tizzy and calls to investigate the State of Candy’s Mind, let me note:  I’m not depressed depressed.  Not like the My-Dad-Just-Had-a-Stroke-and-Oh-Shit-the World-Trade-Center-Was-Attacked depression of 2001.  Yeah, that was not fun.  I’m just sort of blah, you know?  It’s amazing how being a mother can make you power through most anything.  Because you want to be present for your child.  As soon as Skye happily throws her arms around me, or presses her open mouth against mine and burps into my mouth and laughs (true story, happened this morning), my “problems” really do melt away, as though she and I are starring in our very own corny Quaker Oatmeal commercial.  For a while, at least.  But the underlying blahs are still there.  That’s why I haven’t been posting as much lately.  And why I have ice cream sandwich crumbs under my fingernails.  And why I almost started to cry today when Skye’s daycare teacher told me my baby will transition to the toddler classroom soon.  The only thing that kept me from crawling into Skye’s storage cubby and blubbering was the fact that, as my mom would surely tell you, my butt would not fit in it.

Hard to put my finger on the cause of my blues.  Our unraveling house, complete with a leaking air conditioner and wet carpet that had to be ripped up to the tune of a thousand dollars, sure hasn’t helped.  Nor have weaning-driven hormonal swings.  Or exhaustion.  Or the fact that a toddler appears to have eaten my baby.  (Seriously, WHERE DID MY BABY GO?)  Or the struggle of balancing motherhood with my writing; spending time with Skye has trumped everything for me, so my writing suffered this past year — a decision I would not hesitate to make again — but I grapple with how to carve out more time for my career, without shortchanging my daughter, moving forward.  Because I need to write, much like Queen Elizabeth needs to wear crazy hats.  It’s who we are.

I should probably also mention that depression runs in my family.  In fact, my paternal grandmother has been in and out of psychiatric hospitals a good part of her adult life.   A genetic reality that makes me go, yeah, okay, yikes.

Or maybe I just need a good you-know-what.  Which, coincidentally, is Mr. Candy’s suggested course of treatment for everything that ails me.

Of course I am talking about a good spinning class.  Yes, Mom and Dad — SPINNING.  To, you know, relieve my stress.  *Ahem*

Ah, but spinning (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) is just gonna have to wait for now.  ’Cause I need to buy Pete a tux for our big day!  (Yes, I am dressing my zit in formalwear.  Clearly, I am the poster child for perfectly stable mental health.)

PS — For those who are wondering, Pete and I are registered in Target’s Skincare Aisle