I have an odd thing for dioramas. I’m sure it stems from elementary school projects and science fairs. I sheepishly will admit that I even created several entries in a Peep diorama contest over a decade ago. (Mind you this was pre-husband/pre-baby. I had a LOT of time on my hands).  

My entries included Saturday Night Peeper and a Peep-pod (peeps in a paper mache peapod).  I refrained from my entering my glass slide with smushed peep on it - “Peep Smear” as it was a family oriented contest. Alas, I came in 3rd. What did I win for 3rd place? I won, of course, more Peeps. Gee, thanks.

And why do I delve into this gritty-yellow-sugary period of my past for this blog? To illustrate why I love the books by Sloane Tanen so much. I have found a kindred spirit in her. (Apparently I have a thing for dioramas featuring chicks). Sloane’s aren’t the sugary kind, but the retro pipe-cleanery kind you may recall from childhood

It’s her attention to detail and killer captions that make me laugh out loud. She has a new book out “Hatched” that places her pregnant/new mother fuzzy chicks in all kinds of situations.

Click on links below and make sure to “click to take a closer look” to see her captions. You’ll see what I’m talking about.

Maternity Jeans

Goodnight Moon

Sorority Sisters

Ah, but not all of Sloane’s work is for adults - she also has a series of Coco children’s books out. The humor and images are much more kid-friendly. And they are soon to be staples in Ben’s growing board book collection!

Ben seems to be grasping this whole baby in Mommy’s tummy idea. (Kind of, sort of). Of course, I don’t expect a 1.5 year old to fully understand. We tell him about the baby, and sometimes he will touch my tummy and softly whisper “bay-bee”. The other night we were at IKEA in the elevator with another couple with young kids. Ben sat in the shopping cart smiling over at the mother. He then lifted up my shirt partially and pointed at my tummy. She said - “Oh, are you showing me the baby!?”  He grinned proudly back at her. It was so sweet, I almost melted right into the $1.29 per square foot TUNDRA hardwood flooring samples covering the elevator floor.

I’d love to be able to share more with him about what is to come. Just wondering if there are any toddler picture books or books that helped you prepare your child for their impending competition younger sibling?

On days when we’ve had one too many meals of mac-and-cheese, I like to turn to the Naked Chef for some sheer escapism.

Jamie Oliver - aka the Naked Chef - is the British boy wonder (okay, he’s in his thirties, but still baby-faced and tousle-haired) with award-winning restaurants and his own cooking show, who learned how to cook growing up in his parent’s pub. And now he’s all grown up, he’s written a book for people like you and me: “Jamie’s Dinners: The essential family cookbook.” As the jacket proclaims, with typical Jamie exuberance: “Real life. Proper Food. It’s dinnertime!”

That’s long as you can accept that “Five Minute Wonders” actually take thirty, and that his idea of a simple jacket potato involves ”freshly picked white crabmeat” and “finely chopped mint and chili.”

But that’s not the point. The book is filled with pictures of Jamie, his gorgeous wife Jools and their adorable daughters, Poppy and Daisy, at the dinner table; Jamie picking greens at the local farmer’s market; Jamie stirring a pot on the stove with a toddler on his knee….you can almost smell the tang of the star anise in the dish of sweet duck legs. Just as well, since I don’t often get further than flipping dreamily through the pages.

Except for one brief, glorious afternoon last weekend. For once, I was organized enough to shop for ingredients for one of the less daunting concoctions - The Real Mushroom Soup. Let’s just say this is not Campbell’s.

As the baby napped and my husband took a break from his job as stay-at-home Dad at the neighborhood Dunn Brothers, the three-year-old sat on the kitchen counter and ”helped.” Together we learned the difference between porcini and shiitake and oyster mushrooms (okay, I added button mushrooms for bulk…do you know how much porcini COSTS??). And at the end, she helped me sprinkle chopped parsley in and a big dollop of mascarpone. Maybe I wouldn’t have made the pages of Jamie’s Dinners with my pink swim goggles on to survive chopping an entire red onion, but oh, how gourmet I felt. As the book advised, we even made a little bowl of zest of lemon and lemon juice to spoon in the middle of our bowls upon serving.

That was when the spell broke. The three-year-old made a face at the lemon juice in her soup and pushed the bowl away. The baby tasted a few wary spoonfuls then gagged and spat out a porcini morsel. But it was good while it lasted and my husband proclaimed it delicious.

Cribsheeters, what’s dinner like at your house? How do you reconcile your own gourmet yearnings with what the littlest and pickiest eaters will swallow? Any recipe book recommendations?

I’m on a roll with the parenting books. After devouring David Walsh’s “No: Why Kids Need to Hear It and Ways Parents Can Say It,” I moved on to Caitlin Flanagan’s “To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife.” 

Clearly, I’m not the only one driven to distraction by Flanagan’s inconsistencies (Here’s a review on Slate and another on Salon.com). She calls herself a stay-at-home mom but she’s working on a novel and her lot includes a trio of maid, nanny and therapist. She reminisces dreamily of the era when women ruled the home and didn’t yearn for more, but she also writes movingly of the day her own homemaker mother decided she’d had enough, dusted off her nursing degree and went out and got a job, abandoning Flanagan, then 9, to a life of latchkey-dom.

She admits to never changing a sheet - the maid does it - but also to hiring a clutter consultant in a fruitless quest to attain a Martha Stewart aesthetic. Flanagan’s book is often lumped together with those in the feminist backlash genre - her disdain for Betty Friedan is quite evident - but she also admits to playing both sides: she’s equally adept at whispering cattily with the stay-at-home moms about the working moms, and vice versa.

Sound like someone you wouldn’t spend five minutes with, much less an entire book? Well, it’s true Flanagan never tells you much you don’t already know. And she jumps in crazy trajectories from whatever interests her - Mary Poppins, the Kennedys, Real Simple mag, modern wedding mania - to whatever happens to interest her next. But you’ve probably never heard it told quite so entertainingly.

The most shocking thing here is how likeable she is, despite some unlikeable things she says. By the end, I’d forgotten most of my irritation and was left with just this warm realization: motherhood is full of contradictions, and we don’t all have to agree. To hell with all that….beg, borrow or steal this book!

Note: This book and many others, along with monthly stacks of glossy mags - “Parents,” “Working Mother,” “Babytalk,” etc. - come by my desk thanks to H.J. Cummins, the Strib’s Work & Life columnist. The most unexpected so far: “Postpartum Depression For Dummies,” which H.J. adorned with a Post It proclaiming: ”What an insensitive title!”

Read any parenting/baby books lately that shored you up or drove you round the bend? Do share…

From time to time May and I like to pass along events that may be of interest to our readers. We just received an e-mail from Louise Limerick (isn’t that a great name?) in Australia who will be passing through our hemisphere next month - St. Paul to be exact. Her topic of discussion sounds quite relevant. Below is information about the event that she passed along to us:

Louise Limerick was named one of Australia’s Best Young Novelists in 2004 by the Sydney Morning Herald. She is touring the United States meeting with mothers’ groups, libraries and book clubs for the release of her debut novel, Friends & Mothers. Louise will be talking about her journey as a stay-at-home mother and a writer as well as reflecting on some of the themes about motherhood in the book. Friends & Mothers is essentially about the importance of self-realization for women, and the difficult choices that we face as mothers. According to Louise, “There is no right or wrong way to be a mother, but there are lots of choices and lots of expectations. My view is simply that a mother owes it to herself, and her children, to find out who she really is as a person.” Please come along to meet Louise and join in a discussion about motherhood.

Location: St Paul Public Library, 90 W Fourth St,

Date: Thursday, May 24 2007

Time: 12pm RSVP to Barbara Sippel by phone (651-266-7000), voicemail (651-266-7043) or email (Barbara.Sippel@ci.stpaul.mn.us)

For further information, click here.