I hereby rename the Toddler stage "Disaster Machine"

Springsteen exit stage left. There's a new boss taking over!

The other day as I was blissfully watching a little Law & Order on the stationary bike at the gym when one of the male trainers came out of the day care and said to me "man, your kid is a trip!"

I feel that Max is SO safe at the gym daycare, from the moment we walk in every one who works there says hello to Max, knows his name. The trainers take the time to go in and play ball with him while he is there. No one could get through them to get to my kid. In fact TOTT went in not to long ago in the evening and the girl behind the counter squinted at him and asked "are you Max's dad?"

Our new roles are as parents to the real star of the show...The Boss.

The Boss, you say? We've never heard that one before! Sweet Baby Max, or King Max yes but The Boss? No. Well, get used to it.

The trainer proceeded to tell me what a kick they get out of him and how he does this thing now where if he wants to do something or wants you to get something for him he will forcibly take your hand and put it on what he wants or lead you over to wherever he wants to go and command you with a "THIS!" and follow it with a blink of his cartoon baby eyes and a sweet voiced "peas?" And so the they had taken to calling my sweet baby The Boss.

He is indeed The Boss. I mean really, I am the boss. I may have made him eggless cookie dough as a treat today but then I put my foot down and wouldn't give in to the cupcake. See? I'm in charge! of course then I spent an hour on youtube playing Beatles videos, so maybe he really is in charge.

Oh well, when your kid is under the weather you do things like make 'em cookie dough and play Beatles vidoes, right? RIGHT?

We spent Sunday in the E.R. It was decidedly not awesome. The Boss was climbing and slid, smashing his face on the edge of the entertainment center. Ma (Grandma) was watching him at the time and she was inconsolable, but it could have happened on any of our watches.

Because toddlers are disaster machines.

The gum above his right front tooth was split to the bone- good lord! seeing your childs bone should never happen- and he tore the connector from his lip to his gum. As you can imagine blood was gushing at nearly rate of the oil spill. It was terrifying. Afterfour hours in the emergency room we left with a 'it'll heal itself' and a prescription for anitbiotics. He vascilates between playing fine and being miserable. Poor baby!

Just an FYI, if your kid is miserable I do indeed suggest eggless cookie dough. Bonus for you, it's yummy so you can drown your 'my baby is sick' sorrows in it too! The Boss loved it so much he did his version of Snoopy's happy dance while singing 'Happy Day!" It slays me with cute.

Anyway, he's been extra cuddly and snuggly and I've been drinking in that sweet baby skin. He is intoxicating, even if his feet now smell like feet and not marshmallows. When did that happen? It's going too fast. But I am still drunk with love for my little klutzy boy. Maybe he did actually inherit something from me after all.

Sorry about that, little dude.

In fact right now I'm trying to decide whether the lovely new goose egg smack in the middle of his forehead makes him look more like a Cyclops or as if he is sprouting a unicorn horn. I think unicorn horn. I also think it's time for more Tylenol (generic, natch)

I leave you with this, in NY we hit up a music class at with DadaRocks and his adorable son Marc. Marc and The Boss made quick friends and had a glorious time together. Plus, the teacher could for real and for true play the guitar. The Boss' mind was blown. He just stood there for a few, taking it all in before he finally let loose and boogied till he couldn't boogie no mo!

The good stuff starts about 30 seconds in, it also features Marc. This kid is so cute I could eat him up. Luckily I have my own kiddo to snack on because we had just met DadaRocks and his wife...I'm not sure if munching on their child would have made the proper first impression.

The Boss spins it right round, baby, right round.

Really, is there anything cuter than babies rocking it out??? Sigh. It makes my heart happy.

Tangled up in blue...Huggies Jeans Diaper blue, that is!

TOTT and I are midgets...errrr...small people. 

Hanging with Rebecca Romijn and Jerry O'Connell. Like ya do.

Someone call Alanis because I've got a new one for her song. An actual ironic moment. Not just bad luck, or poor planing. Actual irony. But more on that in a minute.

There is something about NYC that usually makes me want to take a Xanax. Since I'm a bad weaner, Xanax isn't an option right about now. Curse you Xanax and your non-safe-for-nursing-relaxingness!

Let me just tell you, that if you need to hit NYC may I recommend you arrive as the guests of the fantastic Huggies team. When I received the email asking me if we would like to attend the Huggies Jeans Diaper fashion show and inviting Max to be in the fashion show,  I was like...hold on let me check my sched. OH HECK YEAH!! First off, Max already rocks the Huggies. Second, who doesn't want to go to NYC for a fashion show! I though I could live out some sort of 90's Carrie Bradshaw fantasy. Only instead of D&G hot pants it would be jeans diapers. The Huggies team even popped some in the mail to us so we could try them out before we got there.
I think they are adorable! I've seen some rumblings on the internet about them and to those people I say lighten up! They're diapers, they look like jeans, and they are so cute. You know I love a baby in a diaper, and this adds to it. I've always been a wee bit jealous of the adorable cloth diaper covers...why can't disposable diapering moms have some fun too?  TOTT, Max and I took the train from DC armed with an Elmo video and a well stocked diaper bag full of treats. The moment our train arrived in New York my phone rang. How lovely! It was Attitude New York letting us know our car was waiting for us. Let me just tell you, hopping into a driven Escalade complete with car seat is a lovely way to roll into the city. Well done, Huggies.
We were driven to the W Hotel at Union Square, a swanky hotel which at first glance might not seem to baby friendly, but the entire staff simply couldn't have been nicer to Max, the door man and the kiddo had a nice high five or two and we were off to our room.  And what a lovely room it was!

Then it happened.

We settled in and I started to clean the little tyke up before we headed off to dinner and then TOTT and his fellow producing partner were to see American Idiot. I started digging through the diaper bag, and then the suitcase feeling the panic rise as I futily searched.

It went like this:

Me: Dude. We forgot diapers!
TOTT:  Who is this 'we', kimosabe?
Me: Shut it you! We. Have. No. Diapers.(I start to giggle)  At a diaper event.
TOTT: It's like ray-ee-ain on your wedding day! (he starts to laugh)
Max starts to laugh too, just cause we are.
Me:(Laughing)  I can't believe we are here for a diaper event and have no diapers.
TOTT: (laughing) I'll just run out and get some.

Knock.Knock.Knock.

TOTT: (confused face-answers door) Hello?

Adorable Hotel Worker Marian: Miss Dulli? Huggies would like to welcome you to New York.

She then proceeds to hand me a Skip Hop denim (natch) diaper bag. I say thank you and the moment she leaves we begin giggling again. I tear open that bag and whatdayaknow! DIAPERS! Huggies literally saves the (stinky) day! After the kid was changed and we had wiped our tears of laughter and totally rewrote Alanis' song (remind me to send it to her. It's pretty good. And features actual irony) we dug into that cute bag and whoohoo! more goodies!

Along with the diapers and bag were coupons for more free diapers (squee!) a gc to cover eating out etc. and oh yeah...a FLIP video camera.


We headed up and moved on out to meet the friends for dinner. I've no idea where we ended up, exept that it was totally YUM and featured this:

Ultra awesome super sly taken on the go pic of Uncle Jesse in several poses. How oddly awesome.

At that point I wasn't aware that Rebecca Romijn was the Celeb mom. Weird, non? (note to Alanis, NOT ironic though.)

After a quick trip to the St. James theatre, Max and I were off to the hotel to catch some ZZZZ's before his big day! We started out with a lovely breakfast with our fellow bloggers who were total rockstars. I don't mean to be biased, but seriously...some outrageously adorable children amongst the bloggers. They kids quickly got acquainted as did we. Is there anything cuter than a bunch of 18 mo-2 year olds playing together?

We got the kids ready for the fashion show and then two of the tallest, most beautiful people ever walked in the room. Rebecca Romijn and Jerry O'Connell. The two of them were very nice and down to earth! Even better they seemed to genuinely like babies and were happy to interact with them. Jerry told Max that he had two little girls at home for him...so it looks like Lauren the waitress has some competition. I know I'll be the mother of the groom, but I've got some great ideas for the Dulli-O'Connell wedding.

Before you knew it we were off to the fashion show! Having done a bunch of these myself as a kid I know how hectic they are and you add babies into the mix and it's a whole lot crazier! There were a couple of mix ups, and we felt a little ummmm, second fiddle there for a second but the Huggies Team was on the case and took care of everything politely and brilliantly!

I was very proud of Max, he's done a ton of photo shoots so he's a pro with that, but this was his very first fashion show and he did very well!

The Huggies team even let me know that he ended up on the life.com website and he even made the Access Hollywood promo for the event. Well done, Max.

I wish the shirt was shorter so you could see the jeans diapers!

We had a wonderful time, and the diapers are great. We used them overnight in NY and they held up beautifully while Max slept for 11 hours! Go Huggies! (and Go Max) They fit him like a dream and I think they are cute. Why not have a little fun while keeping our little ones dry? Everytime I've asked M to bring me a diaper he's chosen the Jeans diaper so I guess he likes em too. Get em while you can cause they are only available during the summer. Thank you to Huggies for hosting us, we had a lovely time and we love the jeans diapers!