All ye pirates and those with lil pirates please pay attention. Veggie Booty is being voluntarily recalled after 51 cases of salmonella poisoning in 17 different states have been associated with the product.

Nearly all who have fallen prey are children under ten. The bulk of victims falling into the toddler category, developed bloody diarrhea.

Robert’s American Gourmet, based in Sea Cliff, New York, is voluntarily recalling all lots and sizes of Veggie Booty.

It is sold in supermarkets, health food stores, vending machines and online.

People who purchased Veggie Booty and still have it should discard the contents and contact the company at 1-800-626-7557 to get information on reimbursement. None of the other Booty snacks - Pirate’s Booty, Cocoa Booty and Fruity Booty - are included in the recall.

Dear Hubster,

Did you know that there are seven steps between our dryer and our garbage can? Really, it’s only seven. I counted them today when I walked the gigantic ball of lint I found on top of the dryer to the trash, where I then disposed of said lint ball. Also, I’m a bit tired of you strutting around because you washed a load of laundry. I might award you strutting privileges if you folded / hung it and put it away. Heck, I might reward you with a BJ if you started doing that.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0DU8CLJmOE]

Wouldn’t that make a kick butt alter ego for the Pillow Fight League? Yeah, I thoughts so. I’ve already thought of a the name (Suzy Homebreaker)and the outfit. Now they just need to pick up shop and head to Florida, cause we all know there’s an ice cube’s chance in hell of me hauling my sun native butt up to Canada for anything, not even bacon.

.

Growing up, my best friend lived downstairs from me. He and I spent a lot of time playing and thus a lot of time arguing. Cussing was not tolerated so we developed insults of our own. Our fights went something like this:

“Skeletor can not kill Jem!, Jem! is outrageous”

“Oh yes he can, Skeletor can kill everyone!”

(here is where he chucks Jem! over my balcony into the bushes below)

“What did you do that for Big head?”

“Shut up bloody lizard!!”

“Big head”

“Bloody lizard!”

(this could go one for hours so I’ll just spare you the rest)

My kids have now reached this stage. We put our foot down over words like stupid and dumb, they are not allowed in our house, so the girls have started getting creative.

“You’re a banana butt!”

“No! You’re a banana butt you blueberry farter!”

“Be quiet mushy nose or I’ll tell mommy that you eat dog poop!”

I try to ignore these exchanges (or at least hide the fact that I’m snickering), hoping that they will work it out. I know that they will face worse in school so using home as a testing ground for their new found word weaponry isn’t a horrible thing in my eyes. I do, however, step in when it is obvious that someone’s feelings are truly getting hurt. I want them to know how to respond to such taunting but I also want them to continue to be the empathetic creatures they naturally are.

I have noticed though, that Mira is floundering with the appropriate timing of a vivid zinger (not at all unusual for a spectrum kid). Sometimes she’ll run up to a child she has never met and shout “You have a cantaloupe mouth!” and they in turn, run in fear from this clearly unstable child. I can’t blame them. I’m sure they have never in their short life been confronted with ill-timed fruit insults from a perfect smiling stranger. In an attempt to keep these social faux paux at a minimum I’ve been trying to teach her proper timing:

“Now say I’m a big kid on the play ground and I just called you a doodie head”

“You’re silly mama, you’re not a kid”

“Hey doodie head!”

“That’s not nice mama, I’m your kid, you love me”

I can tell this is gonna take a while. I guess it’s a good thing we still have nearly two months of summer left.

Levi is child number three and with my vast domestic skills you’d think I’d be a baby food making pro by now. I’m not.

When Mira first started solids I fed her jarred food before realizing jarred bananas were just, well bananas. After a few months of buying it off the shelf, I found a book about making baby food and dove in head long.

I spent an entire day toiling away, dolloping tablespoons worth of pureed foods into ice cube trays. I froze, I bagged, I labeled and I failed. No matter what I did I could not cajole her into eating anything I so lovingly prepared. Nothing, nada, ZIP. The kid would have rather starved then let a homemade pureed pea pass her lips. Considering her weight barely hit the 5% percentile, I gave in. I could have been sad but instead I comforted myself with the idea that the vitamin C they claimed to be adding to their jarred stuff was actually crack rock.

When Tessa came along, I prepared a few things at home but still relied heavily on premade alternatives. I didn’t have time to poop, let alone whip up some apple blueberry delight. This was a difficult and busy phase of my life- a tiny baby (this is said in terms of age because Tessa, like Levi, was anything BUT tiny) and what we later discovered to be, an autistic 18 month old who actually required more care then the baby.

So here I find myself again at that critical point in my child’s life- FOOD. Solid food. Food that is not produced as a natural biological act of my body and can be whipped out at a moment’s notice. Food that requires gear like wittle spoons and special bowls and bibs (oh please lord help me find cute well priced bibs cause nothing says neglectful mama like an ugly bib).

Things are a bit different this time. My other kids are older and theoretically more self sufficient so I should have 5 minutes to run a blender without worrying about my car keys being inserted up the dog’s butt or my cell phone being flushed (should right? RIGHT?). Also, since my lovely friend gifted me an immersion blender after my regular blender died in a big blue electric flash (followed by smoke and then my husband running out into the backyard in his underwear with it, trying to avoid setting off our fire alarm), I guess I should bite the bullet and make my kid some homemade pureed crap.

Well I DID bite that bullet, though instead of whirring up some dog turds I started with white rice, nectarines, and carrots. Levi’s first meal was straight up nectarines - a bit too acidic for this refluxy kid

I added in the whipped rice and though at first he was a bit suspicious

apparently I hit some sort of baby nirvana with this mixture, because he figured out how to grab my hand and help jam the spoon in his mouth. Carrots have not been quite as big of a hit but my little piggy still wolfs them down.

I’m going to try to keep him totally off the crack rock jarred stuff, especially since another friend (of Bess and Hank fame) claims to have found what looked an awful lot like a pubic hair at the bottom of an organic baby food spinach lasagna delight, and I’m going to need lots of support from you smart folks out there in blog land. Do you make your own baby food? Anyone have some baby food making pointers? Maybe a recipe or two for when I start combining fruits and veggies?

Hey Daddy look at these Chimpanties that came in the mail today!

Chimpanzees?

That’s what I said, silly! Chimpanties!

__Tessa

My maids came on Tuesday. There was a small… um.. let’s say “incident” in the bathroom.

Rather then trying to explain things, we just went ahead and ate them.

The agency will be sending me fresh meat uh, more maids in two weeks. For those who are local, I might just be selling off their cleaning supplies at my garage sale.

I covet the Bedazzler. Can you tell I’ve been up too many night at 2:30 am basking in the glow of late night infomercials? You know if I had such a device in my possession, everything I own would be bedazzled. Eve.Ry.Thing.

You’ll have to pardon my short visit here today, my maids are coming. It sounds so pretentious to say that but I kinda love it. Oh honey, just leave that dog barf, the maids are coming tomorrow. No darling, just leave that ancient meatball in the corner, the maids are coming , they’ll get it.

Well actually it’s been more like: “Pick that up! Don’t put that there! Don’t you know the maids are coming? They’ll think we are unholy pigs and take camera phone pictures which they will post to a blog full of snarky comments, red arrows and an audience of millions! Do you want to be known on the internet as PIGS?”

Click on over to Little Bird Reviews if you want to find out more about Childhood Vaccinations as well as my take on urban survival.

just a little PS: Comment moderation has been turned back on, so your post wont appear till I approve it.

Because we have never, all five, been photographed together in a picture before.

Because I love each and every one of them so much, that every day I wonder if it is possible for your heart to actually explode from joy.

Because one day, we may forget that we crept up ever so softly while he slept and all piled on to enjoy this moment. To smell his scent, to bask in his smiles and to have his strong arms securely wrapped around us.

Because one day my children will be too big. They will sit behind closed doors with loud thumping music, thinking that they are too old to be tickled or snuggled.

Because one day I might be senile and need a little help to remember.