Here's My Doug Flutie

Hey Biters!

Otto has been out of school, we have all been coughing and the rain has come and gone like a fraternity brother in a lopsided relationship with an ATO little sister. I am planning on pulling some time out of my Christmas ass to compile my end of the year STUFF CRUSH. But until that magical hour falls out of my backside I am going to throw a wobbly hail Mary and ask you readers who haven't voted to vote in these last few moments of 2010 for this here blog. I am currently in the top twenty and would love a last minute hooyah to try to get close to a more interesting number, such as fifteen or eight or eighteen, even.

Click to the link below or the one on the sidebar, scroll down to MY MOMMY BITES and vote!

http://www.babble.com/babble-50/mommy-bloggers/nominate-a-blogger/index.aspx


Happy New Year is a limp understatement to describe how I feel about every reader, every commenter and every minute that comes closer to 2011.

xoxo,  Dotty

From Ogden Nash To Paris Hilton's Chest

The Boy Who Laughed at Santa Claus

In Baltimore there lived a boy. He wasn't anybody's joy. Although his name was Jabez Dawes, His character was full of flaws. In school he never led his classes, He hid old ladies' reading glasses, His mouth was open when he chewed, And elbows to the table glued. He stole the milk of hungry kittens, And walked through doors marked NO ADMITTANCE. He said he acted thus because There wasn't any Santa Claus. Another trick that tickled Jabez Was crying 'Boo' at little babies. He brushed his teeth, they said in town, Sideways instead of up and down. Yet people pardoned every sin, And viewed his antics with a grin, Till they were told by Jabez Dawes, 'There isn't any Santa Claus!' Deploring how he did behave, His parents swiftly sought their grave. They hurried through the portals pearly, And Jabez left the funeral early. Like whooping cough, from child to child, He sped to spread the rumor wild: 'Sure as my name is Jabez Dawes There isn't any Santa Claus!' Slunk like a weasel of a marten Through nursery and kindergarten, Whispering low to every tot, 'There isn't any, no there's not!' The children wept all Christmas eve And Jabez chortled up his sleeve. No infant dared hang up his stocking For fear of Jabez' ribald mocking. He sprawled on his untidy bed, Fresh malice dancing in his head, When presently with scalp-a-tingling, Jabez heard a distant jingling; He heard the crunch of sleigh and hoof Crisply alighting on the roof. What good to rise and bar the door? A shower of soot was on the floor. What was beheld by Jabez Dawes? The fireplace full of Santa Claus! Then Jabez fell upon his knees With cries of 'Don't,' and 'Pretty Please.' He howled, 'I don't know where you read it, But anyhow, I never said it!' 'Jabez' replied the angry saint, 'It isn't I, it's you that ain't. Although there is a Santa Claus, There isn't any Jabez Dawes!' Said Jabez then with impudent vim, 'Oh, yes there is, and I am him! Your magic don't scare me, it doesn't' And suddenly he found he wasn't! From grimy feet to grimy locks, Jabez became a Jack-in-the-box, An ugly toy with springs unsprung, Forever sticking out his tongue. The neighbors heard his mournful squeal; They searched for him, but not with zeal. No trace was found of Jabez Dawes, Which led to thunderous applause, And people drank a loving cup And went and hung their stockings up. All you who sneer at Santa Claus, Beware the fate of Jabez Dawes, The saucy boy who mocked the saint. Donner and Blitzen licked off his paint. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

And I believe in her!

Gimme head with hair long beautiful hair shining, gleaming, streaming, flaxen, waxen!

I used to give a shit about my hair. Well, not a Snooki shit or even a Gwyneth shit but I did make a pretty good effort to drive a few miles every few months and continue to amass a cool collection of butterscotch colored highlights for the world to ignore. But after having a kid and losing all sense of time and fashion and femininity I have thrown in the towel and now look like an old mop that lives to the left of the refrigerator.

To give myself a tiny bit of credit I did give it a good college try the first few years of Otto’s life. After all I didn’t want him to look up while breastfeeding and mistake me for a tired, 19^th century wet nurse whose soul purpose in life was to nourish the heir to Pembroke Manor instead of using her breast milk for the eighteen children she left down the road in a mud hut she called hell. I washed it with overpriced shampoo and blew it dry when the evening meant more than Two and Half Men reruns and tuna melts and even liked it most of the time.

When Otto hit two, I got a rubber band stuck in my hair and instead of gently prying it from my locks using a dollop of deep conditioner and a squirt a patience, I freaked out and drove to Otto and Dave’s hipster barber and had the girl cut my hair into a sloppy shag. The cut, while being cool and refreshing, left a huge hole in the back of my hair color and every time I turned around my head was a different shade of poop like a spinning pinwheel or melted black and white cookie.

Then, after the first cut, I stupidly asked for highlights expecting them to be as glossy and gold as my former hairdresser’s, a woman I had blown off simply because she moved salons and was now more than fifteen minutes away from my lazy ass. What happened next can only be described as the original members Four Non-Blondes squatting on top of my head for a reunion concert of hideous. Over processed, under whelming and just plain damaged goods. The hair underneath was a bad brown leather shoe, the top was a can of French’s fried onions and the sides belonged to at least two former members of Cinderella after the post-Heartbreak Station Tour break-up of 1990.

A few months went by and I could not look at myself in the mirror without hearing the voice of an aged call girl on the side of the freeway screaming discount prices for oral and anal. So, with my pride in my back pocket and a nest on my skull I crawled back to my old stylist and watched in shame as she poured a lot of semi-permanent dye and regret all over my mangled mullet and started from scratch.

That was less than two months ago and yes, it’s party season and yes, I was due for a new start on the roots last week so I could look fresh and festive and Christmassy and Cringled. But yet again, the world’s huge left ass cheek got in my way and forced me to hold off on looking halfway decent for the holidays. Otto got a case of the barfs all over me Monday morning that turned into me getting it yesterday which then turned into him getting a crazy fever and bronchial infection which turned me into insanely worried and weathered which made me skip the morning shower today after spending 24 hours in bed with headache of the century which made me pull my dirty hair back with no make up and some great stress zits and BLAM! A super stylish, put-together, metro-sexual male friend of ours came by which forced me to remember that I had no make-up on and nasty pajamas falling off me and it forced me to my feet and into the bathroom to see what he saw and POW! What was there before me was not the girl I once knew or the mother I have become. NO! It was shifty, wild-eyed member of a maximum security women’s prison, five months after her incarceration where enough time had gone by for her greasy, dyed wigwam to grow out and make every angle of her cranium seem like a cracked Cadbury Egg oozing all over her unflattering gray prison uniform. It was as though I were staring straight into the eyes of Charlize Theron while playing Aileen Wuornos before she took off the stunt make-up and before she won the Oscar and after her career-denting turn in November.

And what do I want for Christmas? Next Tuesday I will drive the fifteen miles and twenty-five minutes and so help me baby Jeez Louise, I will get my mop top tweaked if it the last Christmas present under my lopsided tree! And to all a good night!

Giving and Getting

Not a lot of blogging has been going on this past week. Otto is now out of school for the holidays and the rain is coming down like kittens and puppies and in Los Angeles that means all hell has broken loose. Ladies who lunch are melting in their chilled Gazpacho starters and the facelifts are falling like stock prices and melted mozzarella cheese. That means we have been housebound and hell bent on doing things that keep us busy and out of reach of the acid rain and reckless drivers.

Yesterday, just when I thought a bit of cabin fever would come down on us I stole a few moments to read one of my favorite bloggers and discovered that the Christmas complaint department at my house had just closed for the season and cabin fever was 86ed from the lunch menu.

As I scrolled through the latest post from The Bloggess, I read that she had offered $30 gift cards to the first twenty people who needed them to make Christmas possible. Then, as I continued reading I was thunder struck by how amazing the world of blogging can truly be. Low and behold, her offer had mushroomed into a crazy, Christmas miracle of $22,000 of emergency Christmas mending and last minute holiday hoping. Last I check her comment section for that one post was busting at almost 1300, some asking for help and most wanting to give. I don’t need to repeat any of the tales that broke my heart. Just go to her link HERE and see for yourself. Read about the families who have nothing and the families who have so little but still want to give. Read about the people who were depressed and despondent over the coming holidays and are now feeling alive and worthwhile again from the mere act of helping a perfect stranger in need.

For all intense and purposes I should have had a bitchy, brooding, bafflingly morning today. After all, I woke up with a sick Otto crawling into bed and vomiting on my side bed, forcing a fast and furious bed linen evacuation and loads of puke-slathered laundry. Then that waterfall of waste was followed by our five hundred year old cat hurling twice in the dining room, pooping once in the living room and crapping thrice on the front porch because the elderly gent is allergic to rain and respectable behavior.

What would normally curl me into a croissant did nothing more than make me laugh and feel oddly lucky. Otto is fever-free, eating well and watching Superman. The cat is curled up and no longer constipated. My beautiful birthday/Christmas tree is sparkling with lovely lights and lots of love and two families in need just emailed me with wonderful words and humble requests.

If you have a minute to spare and buck to pass please log on to thebloggess.com or contact me here at mymommybites@gmail.com to see if we can keep this awesome ball rolling and send out more gift cards and giggles.

Merry Christmas!

Dotty

Time to make the...

Today was Teacher Appreciation Day at Otto’s school and to honor the second oldest profession the parents hosted a luncheon to thank the teachers for handling our crazy little packages with such care. To pitch in, Dave and I did what we always do. We cooked in a kitchen the size of a back pocket and argued over the deep-fryer basket position. Besides a bowl of pasta salad that could easily feed the island of Bermuda, we made homemade, melt-your-mug glazed doughnuts that were as sinful and sickeningly delicious as the first bite of a Ring Ding after a wild and winning soccer game in third grade.

Remember those crazy cool parents who would bring Hostess snacks and cans of Coke when it was their turn to be the post-soccer game treat parent? And remember those crunchy granola ass clowns who, the next week, would follow up the pre-packaged, chocolate-frosted goodness with a platter of bulgur wheat date bars and unfiltered apple cider that looked like untreated sewage waste?

I never, ever want to be that parent so that is why we made these. 

Dave took this photo and them I ate it

Doughnuts

Ingredients

• 2 (.25 ounce) envelopes active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees)
• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm milk
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup shortening
• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 quart vegetable oil for frying
•  
• 1/3 cup butter
• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
• 4 tablespoons hot water or as needed

Directions

1. Sprinkle the yeast over the warm water, and let stand for 5 minutes, or until foamy.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the yeast mixture, milk, sugar, salt, eggs, shortening, and 2 cups of the flour. Mix for a few minutes at low speed, or stirring with a wooden spoon. Beat in remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time, until the dough no longer sticks to the bowl. Knead for about 5 minutes, or until smooth and elastic. Place the dough into a greased bowl, and cover. Set in a warm place to rise until double. Dough is ready if you touch it, and the indention remains.
3. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and gently roll out to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut with a floured doughnut cutter. Let doughnuts sit out to rise again until double. Cover loosely with a cloth.
4. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir in confectioners' sugar and vanilla until smooth. Remove from heat, and stir in hot water one tablespoon at a time until the icing is somewhat thin, but not watery. Set aside.
5. Heat oil in a deep-fryer or large heavy skillet to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Slide doughnuts into the hot oil using a wide spatula. Turn doughnuts over as they rise to the surface. Fry doughnuts on each side until golden brown. Remove from hot oil, to drain on a wire rack. Dip doughnuts into the glaze while still hot, and set onto wire racks to drain off excess. Keep a cookie sheet or tray under racks for easier clean up.

Merry Early Christmas - I Heart You Mr. Dobson

Commercial Appeal

Nope

The national commercial is a rare, feral animal in a jungle of random and unpredictable acting jobs. They are hard to come by and even harder to explain.  You might book a job solely based on your resemblance to a celebrity’s aura, an uncanny likeness to the producer’s favorite cousin, you happen to be the spitting image of the director’s deceased dog walker or you came into the audition wearing a bold color choice of puce, which in turn, excites the semi-circle of ad executives who were just served a plate of quince paste and collectively take that as a “sign” that you are THE ONE. The job is not you, has nothing to do with you and doesn’t even like you. It is all about selling the product and buying some time.

Once you get the job and spend a few fruitful, adrenaline-fueled days on set flirting with the camera guys and trying your best to endear yourself into the director’s Blackberry contacts list, you come away feeling that you have finally arrived in the land of the working actor. You drive home after hugs and high-fives mentally spending your unseen residual checks on that new designer handbag that was just featured on the IT celebrity gossip blog lying label down on a plush beach towel next to Sienna Miller’s butterscotch colored legs as Jude Law rubs Crème de la Mer tanning cream all over her lower back and upper chest.

After the drive home ends with you parking on the street three blocks from your apartment instead of on the cobblestone driveway you always pictured you’d own, you have a few manic days of joy that turn into a lot of hopeful weeks that slowly mushroom into a storm of disappointing cloudy, months. The ever-elusive commercial job is like a life raft floating just an arm’s length away from your grasp as you bob up and down in a cold ocean. Every time your tired, sun-scorched hand reaches out to grab hold of the bright yellow rubber, the raft lurches away from you and into a beautiful sunset you are too blind to see. The auditions pile up, no one says yes and you realize that you must have forgotten your bag of luck in the last dressing room along with your favorite pair of youthful Haviana flip-flops and your dilapidated dignity.

I haven’t booked a commercial gig in quite some time. The last one I was lucky enough to wrap my greedy little tentacles around was a Chili’s ad where the back of my head was prominently featured throughout its two minute running time. That nugget of acting brilliance came only after the director showered me with a handful of pity pellets and awarded my misguided mug four seconds of a full-face, reaction shot that showed nothing more than my innate ability to look annoyed in a corporate office setting while a giant, super-imposed Chili jumped out of a ten story window and absconded with my lunch.

Last Friday, I got a call to audition for a frosted Mini-Wheats spot that featured a typical mom planning her kid’s school calendar for the year.  My instructions were as simple and ridiculous as always. I was asked to sit at a long folding table fake writing on an even faker piece of paper all my fake children’s activities. As I fake scribbled and fake reacted to my fake life I realize that my fake daughter had a fake science project due the next week and the fake pressure was on. The moment I said my lines out loud a fake Frosted Mini-Wheat chimed in reassuring me that he would make sure that my fake daughter ate an entire bowl of his fake family members the morning of the big fake project and that indeed, because he and his kind were so nutritious, my fake offspring would receive a fake A on the lesson. I was then instructed to really fist-bump a real alarm clock that was standing in for the fake Mini-Wheat and thank him for all his help and guidance in parenting.

I did all of this without an ounce of shame or horror. I felt fine about my commitment and I was in the zone, ready to cash those checks and buy some slutty accessories and some new, hipster wear for Otto. I looked into the eyes of that clock and made it my Mini-Wheat wonder pal. I could even taste the fake powdered sugar on my real, ass-kissing lips. I never flinched or fumbled and I may have even winked and nodded after my funky fist-bump. The force was with me and I thought for sure that I would get a call back and a chance to spin the fake wheel of real fortune yet again.

But as soon as he called cut, the casting director asked me to hold up my hands and show the camera the front and back of my mitts. Clearly, there would be close-up shots of the mom’s hand holding Mini-Wheats and motherly, manicured fingers and that, my friends was my undoing. All that work, all that cheese, all that fakery, all that breakfast cereal bullshit gone in a single moment.

Yup 

For my hands, are not the hands of a hand model or a weekend weed whacker. They are not even the hands of a hand-holder or a cab-flagger. They are the hands of a crippled clam-shucker, passed down for generations in my family with pinky fingers as twisted and tweaked as a diving rod after a deluge.  Yes, the mangled digitus minimus is the most prominent leaf on my family tree. My great-grandfather Parky had them, I have them and now Otto has them. I will never be a concert pianist. I will never sell opulent engagement rings or off-white opera gloves and Kellogg’s will never sell that box of crooked pinkies to the America we all know and love.

Looks like it’s back to bobbing for me.

I Like What I Hear

Last night we were sitting down at the dining room table having dinner and catching up on our day. As usual, I let out an A-typical, “What did you do today, Otto?” which was followed by a disappointing downpour of “I don’t knows.”

And as always, Mr. O refused to give up the 411, which made me want any tidbit that much more. It was as though I were a desperate, wait-listed co-ed who just received her eighth rejection letter from a half-baked university without a beer-soaked main quad, a deep-fried student union or a drunk and disorderly mascot.

“I may not want to participate in a flaccid college experience but at least I want them to want me!” she screamed, as yet another debilitating letter fell from her twisted, sad hands…

The more Otto ignored my pleas for details of his day the more I scratched the bottom of the desperate parent barrel for any information that would satisfy a needy, albeit motherly desire to be involved in her child’s school experience.

“Did you paint today?”

“Did you play any games?”

“What books did you read with your teachers?”

“What did you eat for lunch?”

“How many times did you go pee-pee?”

“Did you learn any new dirty jokes?”

“How do you really feel about naptime?”

“Hey, how about those Goldfish crackers?”

“What’s up with crayons?”

When all looked hopeless and covered in shrugs and salacious silence I decided to throw him a curve ball that I knew he couldn’t hit.

“How are your friends at school?”

Now, you may ask yourself why I would consider that bland, simple sentence a speedy and special pitch right into his sweet strike zone. The answer is easy. I know all his friends and I know their parents and their last names and I know that Otto loves his class, loves his friends and loves talking about his friends, in a less Gossip Girl kind of way and a more Animal House, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid sort a of way. Needing to get some sort of snapshot of his school day I threw the ball and he swung.

“Eva is my favorite friend”, he blurted out, turning the color of a sun-bleached Valentine.

Knowing full well that he loves her as much as Santa loves snow and Mrs. Claus loves Christmas-themed canoodling I was still curious as to why he hadn’t mentioned any of his boy pals, as he usually does.

“Why do you like her the best?” I queried like a plummy parliament member.

“Because she is so cute and her dress is sprinkly.”

My first instinct was to wonder if, indeed, I was going to have to put a sequin-covered princess dress under the tree this year. After all, little dudes dressing as cheeky chicks seems to be all the rage in pre-schools across this great land and I have always been one to buy a ticket for the trendy bandwagon ride. Worse case, I blog about it, Otto is world famous for sporting a spiral skirt and stilettos and hates me in high school. Best case, Otto becomes a Breck Girl and gets a book deal.

When my mixed-message fantasy faded I erased the cross dressing from the 2010 Christmas list and realized that Otto was referring to how cool Eva was overall, not just her wrapping paper. Seeing that I agreed and felt the same about her and everyone related to her, I suddenly felt an uncontrollable urge to tell Otto what my mother told me when I first brought Dave home to meet my parents.

“Dorothea, do not fuck this up. I want this one in the family!”

But instead of blurting out my four-lettered enthusiasm, I sat back, smiled with a parental pride reserved for a medicated stage mother and held Otto in the palm of my pitcher’s mitt while he gushed all the gory details of his delicious day, right down to the ink-drawn dragon slaying and the carpeted train crash.

When he was done with the dishing, I kissed his fried rice face, cleared the table and floated into the kitchen thanking the powers that be for letting me have a son who indeed, wanted to discuss girls and gargoyles with me at least once before college. I then scraped the plates, wiped off the counters and began planning the wedding of the century.

“Oh Otto,” I blathered to myself, “just wait until you see the dress. Sprinkly is just the tip of the tulle iceberg.”

Birthday Whore

It was my birthday Sunday and everyone who knows me knows I am a birthday whore to the core and I love celebrating for a week straight and telling strangers and random lamp posts and brick walls that it is, indeed, MY day, for all seven days. Three days after I faced the the big 43, I am three days closer to all-over Grecian Formula gray and painful can-opening and it feels pretty good.

Saturday night Dave was sick as a sailor, which in turn made me as sad a clown with a case of the weepies. His sick meant that I thought I would be on my own for a Saturday night pre-birthday celebration. But after sending out a pathetic and groveling text to my most magnificent pals, Bobby and Ashley, my prince and princess in shining armor cuddled up to the task of being my dates. They took me to dinner, they escorted  me to a super hip bar where we had ultra fancy drinks and they even made me laugh at how young my leggings looked.

At the bar we were served the most amazing libations by the bartender who really is a chemist and also happens to be an old friend from high school who I just got reacquainted with recently and who continues to win mixologist awards from coast to coast. It was mellow and adult and terrific but I was so worried about Dave and his off-gray skin tone early that evening, that I rushed home sooner than I would normally and forgot to close out my tab like a fucking amateur party tramp.

I am currently horrified, mortified, petrified and putrefied by my lack of awareness and forgetfulness. Yes, I was once a bartender and seethed, on many an occasion, when someone would flake on the check. NO tip, no bar back tip, no formal thank you, no way! How could I possibly have spaced paying my tab, especially dressed like a black liquorice on the prowl? When I finally realized my gigantic gaff I left a frantic Facebook message for the bartender at 12:15 a.m. telling him I would be in on Tuesday with cash in hand and a huge bouquet of pale yellow apologies.

The upside is that I got home before midnight so I could spend the first few minutes of my new number with Dave, my emotional left leg. Besides a Happy Birthday song, I really wanted to make sure he hadn't come down with Dengue Fever followed by an Ebola chaser.  When I saw his fuzzy, friendly face his color was less cement and more boiled meat and that alone, made me calm down and relax after hours of unwarranted concern. Dressed like the Sears pajama sale section he hugged me and coughed over my shoulder and it was germy and awesome and just what this birthday slut wanted.

Sunday, my official birthday arrived and Dave woke up partly healed and gave me a delicious day.  Breakfast out with my boys, road trip to IKEA, a kick-ass Christmas tree purchase deep in the (818), Farmer's Market drive-by and late afternoon family time with Otto dressed as an astronaut while Dave cooked my favorite, all-time, if-I-were-on-death-row-and-had-a-last-meal-request, meal, Spaghetti Bolognese. We trimmed the tree, sang random holiday songs and pretended to shoot of to Uranus in a super fast rocket.

I felt blessed and happy and hardly older and as lucky as a Kardashian seat cushion on its day off. The only thing missing was a cake. Dave was too worn out and I was not that interested, even though Otto would have loved the sugary button on the end of such a great birthday hang.

But for the sake of birthdays past and tradition and overall sentimentality, I give you a photo of the only cake I really wanted, a towering tribute to my wonderful, lovely and always generous mother who made it for me every, single year until I turned twenty-three at which point I lived too far away to eat it right off the cake plate.

It was the amazing, regal and show-stopping Enchanted Castle Cake, a mass of sweet goodness she found in the 1970 edition of Betty Crocker's New Boys and Girls Cookbook, a cookbook made famous for Mother's Day Spam and Pineapple Loaf and something called a Fruit Basket Upset which involves canned fruit cocktail, mini marshmallows, whipped cream and red dye # 2. Turn to page 55 and you will quickly see that the creepy, coagulated concoction looks even worse than it sounds.

So, with that, I end my birthday whoring with a round of thanks to my wonderful husband, Otto and his outrageous love hugs, my fantastic pals who sent me so many wishes and toasts, an original Sony Walkman, the gift of the century that blew my doors open, a bartender and his brilliance and my mother's joyous joo-joo floating around me all day. My birthday was perfection wrapped in an all-white, hermetically sealed anti-aging envelope and I licked the glue with gusto.

STUFF CRUSH FRIDAY

This week's  STUFF CRUSH comes to you from the makers of MY MOMMY BITES earplugs and the MY MOMMY BITES sound machine, two tastes that taste great together. Add an eye mask and an old, deflated down pillow on top of my head and you have a foggy window into my nightly beauty regime as well as the view my husband's left eyeball has every, single, sun-shiny morning.
Hot mama =understatement.

These here kicks are the Paul Rodriguez NIKE SB in kids size 10. Nothing cuter. Nothing cooler. Makes you want to roll a pre-schooler on the playground and steal their treads.
Nordstrom's - $39.95

The Regalo kid's cot was the bee's knees over Thanksgiving weekend as Otto slept like a tramp on a train car. Best part was every time he moved we didn't have to hear the sounds of a water balloon wiggling like the kid's Aerobed we used over the summer. That sucked and we barely slept.  Go, cot go!
Amazon.com - $25.00

The best mixer, the best thirst quencher, the best flu chaser, the best bottle opener. And so big!
Cost Plus $5.99 a four-pack

I love this SPF because I can spoil myself and protect my darling dermus. Okay, confessional a coming. My college BFF left this at my house over the summer and I used it and fell in love with it and haven't had to shell over the billion pennies it costs because I use a squirt the size of a fish eye every day. But, it's super duper good. And I may just buy it when the tiny, teeny bottle finally hacks its last cough.
I have no idea where this comes from because I am cheap and hate high-end department stores. But if I had to guess it would be Neiman-Marcus - $675 1 fluid oz.

My high school BFF and her three thousand children (only three, but still...) introduced these to Otto over the holiday weekend and if he isn't a little Pablo Picasso with lots more hair and a little less crazy. Amazing, cool, clean and compact for all kids artistically inclined or linearly challenged.
Target - $2.99

CLICK HERE

And finally, this cute little circle of love is for the whole family. Put it in a lunch box, a snack bag or a back pocket. Stuff it in a turkey and bake it. Hang it from the tree or display it on your mantlepiece next to grandma's ashes. Better yet, nail it to your front door for all the neighbors to enjoy while they sing you out-of-tune Christmas carols dressed as 19th century muggers. But whatever you do, click below it and vote for MY MOMMY BITES as Babble's Top 50 Mom Blogs of 2010 and make a biting mommy happy for the holidays. Get me to the top ten so I won't nap in my oven. A gigantic thank you is hardly enough. Have you ever met anyone so shameless and desperate besides that high school gym teacher who got arrested for intentional ball handling?
My Mommy Bites - 1 minute of your time/free

Thank you, D-Listed

First, I had a crush on her. Then I had a crush on him. So this is clearly the greatest cocktail I could ever imagine drinking.