Last week, on my usual appearance on WCAP (980 FM, every Tuesday from 1:15-2pm!), Dean Johnson e-mailed me a link to this advice column for a discussion topic. Baby-touching (and pregnant-belly-touching) is a topic I’ve addressed before, but I really liked the columnist “Advice Mama,” particularly this quote:

Decide what’s right for you and your baby, and put your parenting instincts before your desire for approval. Not everyone will agree with you, but that’s pretty much par for the course along the parenting road.

So true. As I put it in my book, “You get to act, they get to judge.” And judge they will.

Advice Mama’s take also made me think of one of Aesop’s fables — the one about the old man, his son, and the donkey. Remember that one? It’s a good one to keep in mind.

Through Facebook, it was recently revealed to me that several of my friends were under the impression that “Up on the housetop, reindeer PAWS.” (The actual line is “reindeer pause.”)

Did you think this? Did you ever wonder why all other reindeer have hooves, but Santa’s have paws? (Genetics are complex, perhaps the mutation that allowed them to fly had unexpected consequences, sort of how like if you breed foxes for tameness they also develop floppy ears.)

Did you wonder who “Olive, the Other Reindeer” was? How about Round John Virgin? I’d heard those two mondegreens before, but not the reindeer one.

Because I am a theater geek, having to actually think about the lyrics of “Up on the Housetop” made me come up with A Very Pinter Christmas:

Scene: Up on the housetop.

Woman: Reindeer.

(Pause.)

But you don’t have to play my reindeer games. Instead, here’s an open thread for cute kid stories — your kids, or your own kid-hood — holiday-season misconceptions.

My own? Apparently, the first Christmas that I was cognizant at all of what was going on, I got really upset when it was time to go to bed on Christmas night (not Christmas Eve). Why? Because I’d taken “You’ll get presents on Christmas” extremely literally, and thought that they would disappear the next day as magically as they had appeared that morning!

A post on Salon’s Broadsheet that brings together several themes we’ve been talking about of late: Facebook, narcissism, parents v. nonparents (this came up on Wednesday’s chat a bit):

What happens when the Mommy Wars and online oversharing collide? Well, if STFU, Parents is any indication, the answer involves a seemingly endless supply of Facebook status updates involving bodily fluids. The blog chronicles some of parents’ (and mostly mothers’) most disgusting and narcissistic posts.

…

Unsurprisingly, STFU, Parents has already awakened the ire of moms and dads who don’t see the humor in the site. “You know what?” writes a woman named Miriam in an e-mail posted on the blog. “If people don’t like parenting updates on facebook, they should unfriend that person and get the fuck over it.” She goes on to call the anonymous blogger a “bigot” and wonders whether “STFU blacks” and “STFU gays” are on the way.

I’m not sure that accusations of anti-parent bias address the real problem. More to the point, good luck trying to explain to your college-aged daughter why she shouldn’t post pictures of herself vomiting on Facebook when you already did, sixteen years ago.

Scene: The neighborhood playing field. Milo is getting his morning exercise and meeting some little girls in the neighborhood. He then does the other thing I bring him out in the morning to do.

Little girl: Does he do doggie doodie a lot?

Me: Yes. Considering how small he is, I’m always surprised how much poop is in him.

Little girl: My baby brother’s like that too.