Idiot Proofing the Baby Library

i don't have time to do a lot of reading. other than for work, stealing a glance at the days news on the iPhone, or catching two paragraphs of the sunday paper before M decides that i'm just playing a fun game of peek-a-boo and WHAM! she's torn it in half and thrown it on the floor laughing maniacally. it's pretty cute.

but i do read a lot of baby books. 

for the first 14 months, M had zero interest in books, unless they were delicious. 

apparently "SMILES," which is just a poorly lit board book featuring flash photos of smiling toddlers who look like they are sweating, is delicious. as is Dr. Seuss' "Oh, The Thinks You Can Think!" she pooped out a bit of page four one day. Dr. Seuss probably never thought about his book as turd. 

Oh, the thinks!  

i learned quickly that there is such a thing as being a terrible, terrible infant book "author" (i use quotes because my fucking dog could probably write a better book than some of these people just by randomly selecting items that he's peed on in the neighborhood to pair with photos..."flower pot" "trash bin" "shoe" "dog" "bicycle" "car" "tree." See?? See how easy that is, dumbass who has "Octopus" and "Orca" in a book for PEOPLE WHO CAN'T SCUBA DIVE. We're still trying to learn the difference between fish and lizard. Baby Einstein my ass).

As you can see, I have gotten really worked up about these books. So worked up in fact, that I had to vent. So I was going to write an open letter to children's book authors. Then I was going to have an old-fashioned book burning (this is still an option as we just got a fire pit for the backyard). But, I finally just settled on letting all of my feelings out. 

I'm sure there will be more, but here are the four books that no longer live here: 

• Oh! The Thinks You Can Think!
• Love Song for a Baby
• Five Little Ducks
• Opposites

I'll get to this one next.