Dear Ty

I know I said I want a bottle of Midori, but that was 3 am exhausted talk. This is what I really want for Valentine's Day.

So, yeah, Weight Watchers

I lost six pounds, gained two, lost three, yada yada yada.

So, anyway, I'm consistently down about five. I did the Weight Watchers points tracking very faithfully until just before Christmas, and now I'm doing my own version of generally-healthful eating.

This past weekend, my little munchkins introduced a stomach virus into my system. I actually know the precise moment that it happened. It was last Friday. We were sitting in the doctor's office, because Sage had puked up his Split Pea and Carrot Soup in two long, separate puking sessions, and I needed to know how many additional crib sheets I was going to have to buy (i.e., what was it, would his brother get it, and how long would it last--a stomach virus, yes, of course, and far too long, respectively). The doctor was telling me "Up to ten days" (I kid you not), when Thyme (who was seated on my lap) turned around, removed his finger from his mouth, smiled his adorable little gap-toothed smile at me, and shoved his still-wet, salivaed finger into my own mouth. I then spent the next two days puking, and am still tummy-rumbly enough that my lunches consist of items such as mango slices, seltzer, and salt sucked off some pretzels.

The best punchline of all? According to our scale, I've gained three pounds since Saturday.

An Open Letter to Bob the Builder

Dear Bob the Builder,

Not that I have, or would, because my children are only ten and a half months old, and we all know that if you so much as flick on the television only once to catch the traffic and weather prior to the day your child turns two that said child will convulse into a fit of seizures, ADD, and delayed linguistic abilities, but not so delayed that the child won't be able to state "It's all your fault!" (while crying) with astonishing clarity despite the broken baby-language-ness of it all,

BUT......

If I were to tune into your show, all the while explaining to my loving Italian father--who at that moment would be helping me with my children--what a wonderful show this is, I understand that I might be rewarded for my loyalty with the searing into our retinas of the image of a little, white-hatted, mustachioed, dark-haired, pizza-selling character who adds vowels to the end of every word.

Now, I understand that clay is not the most expressive of all media, and that one must occasionally resort to gimmicky devices in order to get one's point across. Hence, your lady character's sex is advertised by the fact that she wears earrings with her hardhat. That said, however, does one really need to resort to EVERY CARTOONISH STEREOTYPE IN THE UNIVERSE ROLLED INTO ONE CHARACTER?

Incidentally, I have rarely encountered an Italian accent (and certainly never such a bad one!) at a casual, by-the-slice pizzeria in the five boroughs of New York City, and I'm fairly certain that in the fictional world you inhabit--which looks a bit to me like the Midwest--such an accent would be even harder to come by.

If you'd like to feature an Italian character--a laudable idea, in my opinion--why not a plainclothes individual with an accent consistent with the fact that his ethnicity's big wave of emigration to the U.S. occurred 3-4 generations ago? If you'd like to feature an Italian character who has recently arrived in the U.S., how about fixing the accent and nixing the mustache and cute little hat? Armani is a far more likely scenario.

Sincerely,
Arabella

P.S. Tell your friends Curious George and Fireman Sam that I'm coming after them next.