The Daily Fuss

What the Fuss? Mercy Watson

We love pigs. Sassy little Olivia is a longtime favorite in our household.

Last year, as a gift for Mairin's Frist Birthday Book Party, she received two Mercy Watson chapter books from my friends.

Leighton and Mairin quickly elevated Mercy to Olivia status and we subsequently bought the four Mercy Watson books we did not have.

Mercy is a pig, the pet (nay, child) of the Watsons of Deckawoo Drive - born of the imaginations of author Kate DiCamillo (The Tale of Despereaux and Because of Winn-Dixie) and illustrator Chris Van Dusen.

Although Mr. and Mrs. Watson believe that Mercy is sophisticated enough to drive a car, trick or treat or fight crime, Mercy's single motivation is food, specifically "warm toast with a great deal of butter on it."

Whacky hijinx ensue as the Watsons' expectations of Mercy as a "porcine wonder" remain far too high on six, distinct occasions.

Mercy Watson books are entertaining for all ages and wonderful for early readers. You can buy them individually, or as a set.

My only warning is that merely opening the book generally brings about a request for a snack of "hot buttered toast". I recommend having bread and butter on hand at all times.

 

What the Fuss? Little Miss Austen

I love the Baby Lit line of board books (compact cardboard books, simple, small and durable  enough for drooling, babbling beebs) showcasing literary classics such as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

We received Pride and Prejudice as a gift yesterday and (once I got over the fact that I should have produced this book) I marveled at the opportunity it presents for me to connect with my daughter.

Kids books are deliberately juvenile and understandably designed to promote certain types of behavior over others (for example: sharing and kindness are heralded; soiling one's pants is to be avoided). However, this cleverly written version of Jane Austen's masterpiece offers a vehicle for me to dish about a most-beloved heroine in terms that Leighton can understand.

I met the cheerfully illustrated pages with equal parts nostalgia and excitement.

  

I am a smelly english major. I took two Jane Austen and three Shakespeare courses in college. I enrolled in electives dedicated to Chaucer and Spenser respectively. I spent several semesters delving into these authors with an enthusiasm that still exists within me - buried deeply beneath a current lack of leisure and welcomed family obligation.

Apparently, board books are the best way for me to revisit some of my favorite stories. Who knew?

To Aunt Chris, thank you for sending Pride and Prejudice and for introducing us to Baby Lit.

To Baby Lit, (and ultimately Gibbs Smith) thank you for publishing an inspired and fashionable way for me to introduce classic literature to my precocious toddler and her paper page-destroying little sis.

To Elizabeth (Lizzy) Darcy (nee Bennett) thank you for your timeless complexity, idealism and sense of daughterly duty. And for being, in Ms. Austen's own words,"as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print."

Coming soon:

About the Authors:

Jennifer Adams is the author of a dozen books including Remarkably Jane: Notable Quotations on Jane Austen and the popular Y Is for Yorick: A Slightly Irreverent ABC Book for Grown-Ups. Jennifer works as a writer and editor in Salt Lake City. Her favorite baby name is Fitzwilliam.

Alison Oliver runs Sugar design studio. Alison's design portfolio includes everything from logos to packaging and product design for clients such as Chronicle Books, Citibabes, Aerie, as well as Gibbs Smith. She lives in Manhattan. Her favorite baby name is Lizzy.

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What the Fuss? Monkey Business

Last weekend, Grandma and Grandpa brought over the game "Five Little Monkeys" (from the creators of this children's book) and it was a hit. 

The game targets ages three and up. As we unpacked the pieces, I didn't believe my wee lass could follow so many rules. However, Lei, who just turned two and-a-half, had a blast following every last monkey-related directive.

Each player (up to four) has plastic colored monkeys. There is a big, plastic, pop up bed that sits in the middle of a board with spaces that direct players to do one of four pretend things when they land on them - take a bath, put on pjs, brush teeth, and go to sleep. 

Players take turns spining  to move around the board, act out the picture on the space they've landed on, place a monkey on the bed and then push the button on the spring activated bed. No one knows when it's going to pop.

Monkeys that fall off the bed remain off. Monkeys that simply tip over, but stay on the bed, are stood up again. The game continues until someone has four monkeys on the bed AND has acted out each of the four pretend scenes.

Leighton had no issues with patience.

 
Mairin, on the other hand, has yet to grasp the concept of "taking turns".

 
WE LOVE THIS GAME! What a great way to introduce small children to counting and strategy while developing fine motor skills.

We bought Five Little Monkeys for $20 at Toys R Us. It would make a fantastic holiday present for the little kid on your list.

Fussworthy Tunes: Music Together Family Favorites

"Hello to Leighton. So glad to see you." We can't stop singing it. We add Luella, Mommy and Daddy to the mix and it's more than our baby can handle - she grins and drools and it's so much fun.

Family Favorites™ has 19 fun and wholesome songs drawn from the Music Together® library of nine albums. One song entitled "Goin' for Coffee" seems to be designed with the idea in mind that acquisition of your fave Starbucks concoction can be accomplished within the duration of the song, no matter where you live. In other words, the little ditty is short and sweet ... or "tall with sugar". 

I picked up the CD for $17 at Giggle in Lincoln Park, but I don't see it on the website. You can pick it up from the Music Together website for a song (pun absolutely intended) at $14.95.

Family Favorites™ may sound a bit goofy to you at first. I chose "goofy" (laboring over the use of that word as I was going for "light" rather than "pejorative") because no self-respecting thirty-three-year-old who fancies herself hip and forward-thinking can handle the fact that she gets excited about a wipe warmer, Jumperoo and an album that isn't Adele or Coldplay or some Top 40 fluff that she can't admit she likes (not in her blog anyway).

I love to sing. I love music - Ryan and I both do. We believe that music is an entertaining and practical way for children to express themselves. And so, we shelve the "too-cool-for-school" attitude and happily sing along. "Zoom. Zoom. Ridin' In the Car ..."

This product review conforms to the Fuss Formula. 

Poop-a-Doops

The weekend is upon us and we're playing it low-key. Last night, Leighton was fast asleep.  Ryan sat in one of the leather club chairs, iPod Touch in hand, looking through the top hits of 1997, whilst I toiled away deciding whether my picture and Tweets should appear on the right or left hand side of my post. 

As he scrolled through the list we joked that 1997 was not a particularly fabulous year for music. And, in true Tommy Boy, road trip fashion, we sheepishly pretended to haaaate the playlist. We faked our way through MMMBop, Wannabe and that goofy Chumbawamba tune. The Freshmen by The Verve Pipe - so good. Notorious B.I.G. Hypnotize and Mo Money Mo Problems - are you kidding me? No Doubt? - No doubt. Unfortunately, Barbie Girl was the buzz kill that ultimately ended the two-person dance party. Barbie Girl and the fact that Leighton, were she awake, would not have approved of the foregoing – a sobering realization for the new-ish parents of one. 

I should say that we are not exactly “newish” parents. Rather, we are newish human parents, but seasoned dog parents.  By "seasoned" I mean that at this point in the evening we are unphased by the fact that we have spent the last five minutes trying to decide where that smell is coming from and whether Luella (our four pound, five year-old Yorkshire Terrier) simply tooted or has poop-a-doops.

“Poop-a-doops” basically means “cling-on”. Signs of poop-a-doops include 1) intermittent whiffs of poop – the location of which cannot immediately be determined; 2) tail tucked between legs, so much so that it can neither be seen nor extracted; and 3) shaking when asked "Do you have poop-a-doops?" Check. Check. Check. 

Because the initial threshold has been met, Ryan picks up Lue in one hand, turns her butt toward his nose and sniffs in the direction of her rear – this is part one of the unsavory poop-a-doops confirmation test. Part two involves trying to pry up her little tail to confirm what the other indicators are almost certainly telling us. After a minute or two of waving Lue around like a left over hoagie he found in the fridge (the mayonnaise on which may or may not have gone bad) Ryan deduced that we narrowly escaped a poop-a-doops situation. It was, in fact, just a toot. Ryan set Lue free and apologized profusely to her. She ignored his overtures and with unflinching ambivolence went to bed.