Happy Hour, Happy Parents

I have a new hero, and her name is Christie Mellor. Ms. Mellor has penned a delightful and caustic book entitled The Three-Martini Playdate: A Practical Guide to Happy Parenting, and I have literally laughed myself to tears while reading it.

In a nutshell, Mellor is trying to puncture the insane notion that children, simply by virtue of being a genetic product of their over-indulgent parents, are the center of the universe. That children DO grow up and when they do, and have their own, vastly more entertaining lives, you need to have one of your own, and it's not going to appear out of thin air. I won't spoil any of the howlers by listing all my favorite one-liners and passages, but I do have to include my favorite three "Do-It-Yourself After-School Enrichment Program" activities:

1. Delicious Snacks for Mom and Dad
2. Chemistry in Action! The Gin Fizz
3. Letting Mommy Nap 101

For a while, I wondered if I was somehow neurotic about insisting that Bean stick to a regular and relatively early bedtime, but as I made dinner, sipping sherry, and reading the end of my new favorite book, to the sounds of beautiful silence from the monitor...I knew we had made the right decision.

Martinis, anyone?

Oh, and before I forget, here's what a FIXFAX is: Scottish word for a framework or pillory, which had a variety of forms. All had holes for the necks and wrists of those convicted of such crime as sales fraud, bad debts, and fortune-telling. This device was known by such nicknames as the thewe (for female penitents, who were called "babes in the wood"), the penance board (for the religiously inclined), and wooden parentheses (for intellectuals). The fixfax was placed in the town square, where passersby could jeer and pelt the confined with dangerous or humiliating projectiles. The practice was not completely abolished in England and America until 1837 and 1905, respectively.

Word du jour: TOONIOPERTY