Whitney: A reader e-mailed me today, and told me that she thinks I look just like Sandra Bullock in my publicity photo! She said that she and her husband we’re discussing it and they both think so!
George: You don’t look anything like Sandra Bullock.
Whitney:
George:
Whitney:
George: I used to look like James Spader, though.
Whitney:
George: I’m sorry, hon, but you don’t look anything like her.
Whitney:
George: You’re prettier!
Whitney:

Lately, I’ve been awash in good books. Here’s a sampling of my latest must-reads (I’ve also updated my recommendations page to include them):
(1) Joyride by Lindsay Faith Rech: A completely addictive novel about friendship, love and betrayal. I’ve had this on my nightstand for months — I knew from the chatter at the chicklitbooks.com forum not to pick this one up until I had the time to get lost in it — and it just blew me away. And Lindsay is only 26 years old . . . how does someone so young write so well? I can’t wait for her next book . . . she’s truly a writer to watch for.
(2) The Women of the Other World series by Kelley Armstrong: This is another writer I learned about on chicklitbooks.com. Supernatural plots have really never been my thing, but one of the women posting there was so enthusiastic about Armstrong’s books, I decided to pick up Bitten . . . and now I’m hooked. I loved Bitten so much, I immediately ordered her other three books, and despite all best efforts to space them out, I gobbled them up, one after another.
(3) Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner: To be completely honest, although I enjoyed Weiner’s other books, I kept putting off reading this one. I knew that one of the topics it covered was infant loss, and that I might have a hard time reading about that. Finally I decided to get the audio version and listen to it while I ran . . . and immediately became so absorbed in the story that I’ve been carrying around my cd player and listening to it while I eat lunch, do the dishes and cook dinner. Weiner reads the book on the audio version, and she’s wonderful . . . she has a beautiful speaking voice. I’m so glad that I didn’t miss out on this book.
(4) My Losing Season by Pat Conroy: I’m a die hard Conroy fan . . . The Prince of Tides had such a profound affect on me, I still remember the first time I read it. It was the summer after my sophomore year in college, and I had a dreadful job waitressing at a country club in the Adirondacks (think Dirty Dancing, minus Patrick Swayze, the dancing and the fun). I started to read The Prince of Tides, and was so caught up in the story, all I did was sleep, work and read. Conroy’s memoir, My Losing Season, is basically a sports book — which I never read — but this will appeal to all Conroy fans simply for how much background it gives you on his wonderful novels. I didn’t know that Conroy has had such a tragic life, which saddens me . . . clearly great talent doesn’t guarantee a happy existence.

The Mother’s Group is a tough nut to crack.
I remember back before I was a mom, a friend who had recently relocated told me that in her efforts to make some new friends she felt like she was stalking other moms at Story Hour.
“It’s like dating again, only worse,” she said.
I thought she was exaggerating. After all, moms should have a natural affinity for one another . . . right? We’re bonded by diaper changes and leaky breasts and interrupted sleep and that final layer of baby fat that just won’t budge off your thighs and ass.
But, as it turns out, she wasn’t exaggerating. If anything, she was underestimating how hard it is to break in. Dating, pah . . . men are easy compared with a group of women. These chicks have thirty-plus years of experience with high school cliques and sorority rushes, and are now experts at the cold shoulder. Sam and I just got back from our second Story Hour, and I haven’t been able to get anyone there to even make eye contact with me, much less a chance to slide in the ever popular conversation starter, “Your baby is adorable!”
I seem to remember that sharing stickers went a long way toward breaking the ice back in grade school, but something tells me that’s not going to work with the In Mommy Clique. What do I have to do? Bring in twenty bottles of chardonnay and get everyone loaded at 9 a.m.?
Actually, maybe that’s not such a bad idea . . .

I deleted some of your comments by accident . . . sorry.
My site has been inundated with comment spam, and when I go into Moveable Type to delete it, I keep screwing up and deleting real comments, too.
We’re working on a solution . . . what it will be, I don’t know. Some bloggers handle the comment spam by forcing all of their posters to register on their site, but so far I haven’t wanted to do that. I think it would tend to discourage commenters.
Any computer gurus out there?

The Whirling Vortex of Chaos.
That’s our new nickname for Sam. The boy has a special talent for making a mess. I know I’m still relatively new to this parenting gig, but I’ve really never seen anything quite like it. In a matter of seconds, he can dismantle any room — books on the ground in a jumble, toys akimbo, toilet paper unspooled, stacks of laundry demolished.
Lately he’s expanded his field of expertise to include hiding things. This morning, for example, Sam and I were actually dressed and fed and ready to walk out the door, shopping list in hand, at the early hour of 9 a.m. The only problem . . . I couldn’t find my keys.
Sigh.
So I began my search, crouching down to survey the house from the perspective of a three foot munchkin. After twenty minutes of searching, I found the keys behind the toilet in the guest bathroom. And, bonus, during my search I also uncovered the hair brush that had gone missing the day before. The stud finder is still MIA.
The problem with this game of hide and seek is that one of Sam’s favorite hiding spots is the garbage can (this actually works both ways; he also enjoys taking things out of the garbage can — i.e., garbage — and spreading them around the house). So when things disappear, we’re never sure if they’re just missing temporarily . . . or if the City of Stuart has hauled them off during its twice weekly garbage pick-up.

What all the cool girls are wearing to prom this year.

The story.

So far, says Helen Rodriguez, Nagpal’s sales associate, no one has bought the $495 gown – but it just arrived.

“Our biggest sellers are still the traditional princess ball gowns, but sometimes a parent will come in with their daughter and will buy her whichever dress she wants,” Rodriguez said. “If my daughter had the body to wear it, I’d let her!”

Gah.

Update: Everytime I see this picture, it shocks me anew. And George and I have decided that her left nipple was airbrushed out of the photo.

All mothers dream of the day when their wee ones will look up at them with adoring eyes, and say, “I love you, Mommy.”
Sam isn’t quite there yet.
“No, Sam-bean, don’t put that in your mouth,” I warn him. “It’s dirty.”
“Dirty,” Sam parrots.
“Yes! That’s right! Dirty,” I say, delighted.
“Dir-ty, Dir-ty, Dir-ty,” Sam sings.
“Can you say Mama?” I ask.
“Dirty!”
“Ma-ma.”
“Dirty,” Sam says firmly.
While giving Sam a crash course in table manners, I try to explain how a fork differs from a spoon.
“With a fork, you stab your food. See? Stab,” I say, demonstrating the technique with his Peter Rabbit fork and a segment of mandarin orange.
“Stab!” Sam says.
“Um . . . right,” I say.
“Stab! Stab, stab, stab,” Sam giggles.
“Well, yes, but . . . how about ‘I love my mommy,’ instead?”
“Stab!”

Any interest I might have had in scuba diving — which, I must admit, was negligible to begin with — was lost after watching the movie Open Water last night.
Although it did prompt George to look deep into my eyes and say, “Honey, if we’re ever in the middle of the ocean being attacked by sharks and I die . . . it’s okay if you swim away from my body while the sharks feast on my remains.”
If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.

The local news is all a-flutter about Donald Trump’s Palm Beach wedding.
My reaction: yawn.
And $132,013 for a dress? That’s just obscene. But I’m sure the bride and groom will live happily ever after . . . or at least until he runs out of money or her looks start to fade.

Today we said good-bye to our Maddy. She’d been in failing health for a number of months, and we came to the sad realization that the recovery we’d been hoping for would not be coming. The end was short and merciful, but terribly sad.
Good-bye, my sweet girl. You will be missed.