So, seeing as the last post caused, apparently, some headaches, and gave at least one person the spins, I figured that it might be time for a light photographic essay or two.

Starfish and coffee; maple syrup and jam…

…Butterscotch clouds, tangerine…

And a side order of ham.

Okay, so that last one was a banana. But you can trust me that the one before it really was butterscotch cloud infused with zest of tangerine. Organic, of course. The starfish was fresh-water farmed. And the coffee? Decaf.

That’s how we do things Chez Bad Mother.

(I’d wanted to do some sort of literary commentary here, pairing up WonderBaby’s foods with Great Works of Literature – War and Peas! Banana Karenina! – but it seemed forced. Prince lyrics, however, can never be forced.)

Blockhead

These blocks are currently WonderBaby’s very favorite thing in the world. If she catches the slightest glimpse of them, or even hears the clack of wood block on wood block as Mommy’s foot knocks by them (because, yes, I am lax, lax, with the tidying), she will hoot and whoot until she is within grasping distance. Preferably sitting up, with the box at hand to pull the blocks out of, but propped up on elbows on tummy will sometimes do. And she will sit and play with them for loooong stretches of minutes. And Mommy sits on the floor and plays with her for a while and then brings laptop and coffee to the floor and the two ladies sit quietly together, occupied with their letters. And it is good.

But I’ve recently noticed that some of the blocks – which have letters, numbers, and simple pictures stamped into them – are a bit odd. The numbers and letters are straightforward enough, but some of the images, well…

Okay, so that creature in the middle of the left column, that’s some kind of stylized horse, right? That’s my guess, but I’m not sure. The creature on the bottom right block is what, though? Whiskers but no ears; legs and a stubby tail. The head is seal-like, but the rest of it?

And the one on the uppermost right? A factory, maybe? Workhouse for children with smokestack? Or is it a rocket?

The uppermost left block is, the Husband says, a gondola. Which strikes me as an odd subject for a picture that is stamped on a child’s wooden toy block. But then I thought that it was a bunny with a spear through its head, sitting on a hunk of mouldy cheese, so what do I know?

I don’t even have words, funny or otherwise, for the picture on the block that is middle of the righthand column.

And the bottom left image is clearly a bottle of Ambien or Xanax.

So what, I ask you, is a child (or a parent, for that matter) supposed to make of these? What will I tell WonderBaby when she is old enough to ask what the pictures are? That’s a picture of the bottle of little pills that help Mommy sleep, sweetie…

I suppose that the beauty of these blocks as playthings is that they will encourage her to make up words and to invent explanations for the pictures. A rockethouse! A kittyhorse! A jar of magical beans!

But until she is old enough to explain these pictures to me, I’ll have to turn to you. Please, anyone, WTF are they?

Bad Mother Math