For all those parents who want to knit - or knitters who want to give baby gifts - but who live in hot climates, knitty's new Katja top may be just the adorable answer. Cute as a bug, and worked in recycled cotton, the top can knitted entirely without seaming.

The free pattern is published by knitty magazine and designed by Tisra Fadely. The sweet model's name is Lael.

Parents.com recently sent me an e-postcard with links to several of their articles, and I just had to follow the one about best and worst munchies for kids. Binx is just getting old enough to start eating things you might term "munchies," and yesterday during a tense few moments at Goodwill I tried to mollify him with the closest thing they sold to food - Combos! (For those who haven't had Combos, they're very salty pretzels filled with very salty cheese-food. They sent a brilliant orange drool stream down his front. Luckily we were cruising Goodwill shirtless. Oh, we were a classy family yesterday.)

Figuring Combos would not be on the Parents.com best list - and that I might get some good ideas - I clicked away. But I was disappointed to find that their list was extremely basic, without any explanation of the choices.

Strangest of all, the best list was topped by a classic but inexplicable choice. #1: American Cheese. Now, I love some American Cheese and always did as a child. But Binx is new to this eating thing, and doesn't know didn't know about the cheap and brilliant cheese experience until yesterday. There is still time to introduce him to much finer cheeses while his brain is young and malleable. In a world with crumbly Goudas aged to perfection, mouthwatering local organic Cheddars, string cheeses in their own kid-happy packs, and creamy lumpy Bries ready for exploring fingers, why on earth would any dietitian top any best munchies list with specifically American cheese?

It kind of made me doubt the rest of the best-for-kids list, which included some of the foods I loved best as a child and

7 stores. 5 hours. 2 meltdowns. 1 crawling expedition on horrifically dirty Party City linoleum. Results? Not much.

I was brought up in New Jersey, where things are done in a very particular and traditional way. Children's birthday parties have themes. The first thing my mother asked when I called her to discuss Binx's first birthday barbecue was "What's his theme?" The question was asked with a serious formality. It was a test for the new mom. Did I pick a good theme? One that is cute, and fun, and lends itself to showing off my creative decorating prowess?

I answered "on the move." That was Binx's theme, according to our hurried evite of the week before. It seemed apropos, with all the crawling he'd been doing. I pictured cupcakes with little red wagon cake toppers and plates and cups with little red tricycles. It would be a multimodal happy baby extravaganza.

Boy did I learn a lesson.

I'm sure you're familiar with all-important Ren & Stimpy episode "Space Madness" -- and if you're not, please, put down that Plato and let me be your guide to high culture.  (This is Martin, BTW, filling in for Larissa.)

In the surreal ending, the spaceship's mad Captain Hoek assigns Cadet Stimpy to march around a small round console, guarding the button at its center: the History Eraser Button.

Stimpy's not supposed to touch the button of course. But who can resist pressing such a big beautiful button, a "jolly candy-like button"?  Not to mention the maddening urge to eradicate history?  [spoiler...] Not Stimpy!

Binx has a high-tech toy that's a lot like the history eraser console. It's so secret I can only show you this night-goggle spy-cam shot of it.  Binx has been blithely pounding away at that jolly lighted button the whole time Larissa's been away.  After 6 days of this I think Binx has managed to erase all patterns of our previous relationship.

I finally got a lot of work done yesterday, despite the fact that Larissa is not here to help take care of Binx.  (This is Martin filling in for her.)  The key was putting Binx in a large play yard with a sufficient number and variety of safety-approved toys, while I worked nearby.  However, it was clearly the toys' safety I should have been thinking of, as the following police diagram shows.


(A) is the security perimeter designed to keep the infant from harm, but which inadvertently served to trap the victim, one "Elmo" (B), inside. The victim was allegedly attacked with a plastic pail (C) and, to add insult to injury, "gnawed upon."  (D) marks a few of the many positive, enriching toys provided for but rarely utilized by the suspect (E).  Finally, (F) is a rubber chicken that dared to intervene.

Tragically, the suspect is less than 1 year old.   He and I also had a very fine day. Whenever he looked over at me I think he thought I was playing too.  Sigh.

Larissa's on vacation (this is her "dh" Martin filling in), so I get up every morning with Binx.  Sure it's sweet and precious -- and believe me I'll get to the cutesy stuff -- but since it's Sunday, maybe it's time to stretch out a bit and think about that ineffable 4th dimension: time.

(A resounding roll from the tympani drums, please, or even better, the sound of a gong.)

So far in my life I've been resistant to acknowledging the passage of time.  Though by rock and roll standards my life's been pretty tame, by my ancestors' WASPy ones I've been quite dissolute in my avoidance of adult responsibilities.  In certain ways it's helped.  I'm (holy moley) 19 years older than the drinking age in my area, but until recently I got still got carded regularly when buying beer.

As a consequence I've willfully ignored all the standard symbols of advancing age.  I've seen spring flowers coming and going, leaves turn to brown, winter snows fall and melt... blah blah blah and SO WHAT.

Boy, did I get my comeuppance yesterday, which was undoubtedly the hardest day I've spent as a parent. Before then, everything was going along so swimmingly.  I was having no problem taking care of Binx 24/7 in Larissa's absence (this is  Martin filling in for her).  Sure, I wasn't getting a lot of work done, but I was musing about things and enjoying myself.

Then a tiny virus came along, knocked me down, and started kicking.  Hard.

I woke up with a savage headache and violent hot and cold shivers.  Whenever I get sick, my body gets very theatrical, putting on trembling scenes of woe fit for a Jacobean tragedy.  I'm never just a little sick. This time it felt like a cinder block was lodged in my sinuses.  I couldn't think straight.

Then came the siren wail: Binx was up, and upset.

"Larissa, could you check him?" I mumbled automatically.

No response.  I rolled over to find her not there, and slowly grokked she was in the godforsaken tropics sipping umbrella drinks.  There was no one there to help me.

The rest of the day was a battle between two life-or-death impulses: the need to take care of myself, and the need to take care of the baby (I think he might have been coming down with something too), and  though it all turned out okay, man, it wasn't pretty.

About 6:30 pm some emergency help arrived, with cold medicine and soup (for me) and graham crackers (for Binx).  Those things helped, but I think just as important was the message that I wasn't alone.  Lesson of the day: in this task of parenting I'll take all the help I can get.

Props to all you single moms & dads out there.

Since Larissa's away on vacation (this is her "dh", Martin, filling in), I thought I'd have more crises to report.  But Binx hasn't been too much trouble.  The only things of note he did yesterday were to crawl approximately 50 laps of my 12' long office -- more than 1/10 of a mile! -- and to feed me precisely 0.999999 Cheerios for every one I fed him.

There's been plenty of time to notice other things.  Like how I'm getting more looks from the opposite sex now than ever.

Of course everybody everywhere looks at Binx.  He's cute as heck.

But sometimes there's more.  When I carry Binx into the swirl and hum of the hip grocery store, I feel it: that odd sensation of eyes following me.  Conversations take on little chugs and pauses, as sentences are waylaid, ever so momentarily.  Over the free sample cart of organic sesame crackers, past the magazine rack, through the glass freezer doors, there are people stealing looks -- at me. And it's not just any people.  It's women, usually late-20's or mid-30's.

I'm not saying they're making advances, or even that a glance is any more than a brain spasm.  But some sort of instinctive interest is obviously there.  

There were times in the past when I got (briefly, sigh) popular because I played guitar, or had some other colorful habit.  It was fun to feel wanted, but it always turned out those people didn't really like me.  I just symbolized something.

What is it I represent now?  "Enquiring minds want to know."

Thanks to kitty27 for the great photo, under Creative Commons License.

First off, full disclosure: though the author line says Larissa, she's not writing this.  It's her significant other, Martin. 

I'm filling in for Larissa because yesterday she left for Hawaii, where she will be pursuing a mythical nectar she calls sleep of indeterminate duration -- a state of being in which she will choose when to begin and end periods of rest. 

I don't quite understand the concept.  Perhaps it's one of those mystical trance states achieved after 10 years of meditation, like being in many places at once?  Anyway, my brain hasn't been 100% for the last 51 weeks.   Which curiously enough, is exactly the age of Binx.

I'm on my own with the boy for six days until the wife gets back.  And call me crazy, but right now I'm feeling cocky about it.

Yesterday when I arrived at my friend Sarah's house, both her boys were in adorable floor-length (on them, anyway) aprons, with nothing but diapers or superhero undies underneath, working hard on a batch of cupcakes.

At one year into this parenting thing, I'm still in a bit of shock and feel like baking and cooking sound too complicated most days. I hope that someday I'll be awake and energetic enough to share the experience frequently with Binx. I've already invented two extremely easy new dishes that can be made with stuff I have around and can be thrown together without much attention. But I long for the days of baking bread again, and things like scratch cupcakes.

To inspire me I have Sarah, who cooks often with nearly-4-year-old Everett and 1-year-old Truman. And I have my membership in a fairly new flickr group called Cooking With Family and Friends. Instead of featuring glamour shots of finished cooking projects, this group pool shows photos of people happily cooking together and sharing in the abundance and good cheer of the kitchen. In fact, many of the photos show my personal kitchen (yikes).

Do you cook together with your kids? And if so, do you have any tips or stories or best recipes to share? And would you join the flickr group and show us your families cooking? I'd love to see you in action and get inspired even more.