Unsent Letters by Heather Mark

Dear Dr. Marc Weissbluth,

Your book “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child” was recommended to me by a coworker. I was so excited to work your plan when my baby was born, I really thought it would make my baby into a boy wonder. I found that the more I read and the older my baby got, the more turned off I was by your method. I shelved the book for a while and waited until just the other day to go back to it.

My baby is now five months old. While I’m still not willing to let him cry in his crib for a full hour when he doesn’t want to sleep, your sleep cycle graphic has done wonders for me. As soon as I put him on the sleep schedule you recommended, and let him cry when he wakes up at 2 or 3 am, his whole demeanor changed. I never imagined that he was waking up for any other reason besides being hungry. You put it all in perspective for me when you said it wasn’t fair to get him out of bed and force him to eat when he wasn’t hungry. That is something I never would have imagined on my own.

Thank you so much, Dr. Weissbluth. I hope we will continue to have successful nights (and naps!)

Best to you,

Heather Mark

Dear Baby Einstein,

I am a very weary new mom. Thank you so much for saving my sanity. You see, my three month old son is not the independent type. If he isn’t being held he cries like somebody lit his diaper on fire. But by some miracle of distraction, your Baby Einstein videos entertain him to no end.

It never occurred to me that a baby born just a handful of weeks ago, with limited eyesight no less, could enjoy television. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to be one of those moms who dumps their kid in front of the TV just to get him out of her hair. It’s just that Baby Beethoven keeps him quiet and happy for a little while, long enough for me to take a shower or sit here writing a letter to you.

Let’s be honest, who wants to be up at 6am on a Saturday if they don’t have to? Not me. Last night was long, I’m pretty sure my baby will never sleep through the night. Not even a gargantuan cup of coffee was working for me this morning. I plopped little baby in his Boppy chair in front of his Baby Einstein and I enjoyed some wake up time to myself on the couch.

Thank you, Baby Einstein. You are a diamond in the rough.

Groggily yours,

Heather Mark

Dear Guy Sitting in 21F,

I understand this airline has an open seating policy. In fact, I’ve worked for this airline since 2002 so I’m quite familiar with most of its policies. The thing about open seating is it’s full of surprises. You never know whom, if anyone, you’ll be sitting next to.

When I boarded, I was the very last person on. I was carring a car seat (with a baby in it), a car seat base, a diaper bag and one other carry on. I quickly settled in right behind you in row 22, which was the only open row on the plane. I installed my car seat in 22F and I sat in 22E.

I found it quite presumptuous of you to ask me to move my car seat to the aisle seat because it inconvenienced your reclinability. Normally I would feel bad for you because you couldn’t recline, but seeing as I was the last one to board and the front door of the aircraft was already closed I had no time to move the car seat. Not to mention it’s illegal to place a car seat in the aisle seat. When I pointed out the two empty seats next to you, both of which had a full spectrum of reclinability, you gave me attitude.

Perhaps if you’d offered me a hand in getting settled or just been courteous to me, I’d be more inclined to rearrange myself so you could recline 21F. But you were a jerk and no amount of trying to force your seat back repeatedly only to be blocked by my car seat was going to get me to move over. You’re a grown man, sir, an not much of a gentleman. A gentleman would have realized how preoccupied I was traveling alone with a newborn and all his gear and quietly sat in an adjacent empty seat.

I suppose, Mr. 21F, what I want is for you to learn some manners. But seeing as you made it 40something years without absorbing those lessons I understand you won’t be changing your ways. Good luck in the future, sir. Your method hasn’t worked so far, I encourage you to continue behaving badly for another 40 years. See where it takes you.

Whatever,

Heather

Dear Evenflo,

You make lots of practical infant items and your prices are generally good. But I have to wonder, who do you have designing these things? Clearly they’re not engineers. Or parents for that matter.

I have an older model of your Aura travel system. I love that I get the car seat/stroller action all in one. And that stroller is a real workhorse. I’ve put so much mileage on those wheels I’m surprised they haven’t fallen off.

Not only haven’t they fallen off, they haven’t gone in a straight line, either. Most of the time I push the thing and the front wheels go sideways. That’s it. I can kick and jiggle the wheels but they stay sideways. Every other stroller has wheels that go in the proper direction, what happened here?

Now the car seat, what a debacle that thing is. Did you even try to fit it into an automobile before you put it on the market? I love the zig-zag handle design, it’s nice on the wrist. But the handle is huge. I’ve installed this thing in a sedan, a mini-van and an SUV and that gargantuan handle makes it impossible for anyone to sit in the front seat. The front seat has to be moved all the way forward to accommodate the stupid handle.

The only gigantic thing about that car seat is the handle. My son isn’t even 11 weeks old yet and he’s already outgrown it. His little legs dangle over the edge and he practically sits on top of the groin strap. Can’t that be moved a little more forward so his little hey-diddle-diddle doesn’t become diaper dingleberry jam?

Unfortunately, we’ve relegated your car seat to airline detail. It’s small design fits nicely into airplane seats. And we don’t care if it gets ruined should we have to check it at the last minute. I know, those words sting, but maybe you should do some test marketing before you sell this crap next time.

Very sincerely,
Mrs. Mark

Dear Senator McCain,

Since I’m sure you are a devout follower - dare I suggest even a subscriber - of my blog, you are familiar with my love/hate relationship with breastfeeding. This is an issue I think you ought to consider in the final days of the presidential campaign.

You see, Senator, as I was making my runs to Target and Office Depot yesterday, I got snarled up in some traffic on East Colonial. The road has been under construction for some time and traffic is always dreadful, but yesterday it was magically awful. (Have you noticed, Senator, that everything in Orlando is “magical”?)

As I left Target bound for the Depot, my son started to cry. Boy was he hungry! I couldn’t skip out on my Office Depot run to go straight home so I had to pull over into a parking lot to feed him. Normally that wouldn’t be a big deal but in bumper-to-bumper traffic my only option was to listen to him scream.

Have you ever been in a car with a screaming infant, Senator? It’s kind of like driving with Nancy Pelosi in the back seat, it’s that upsetting. It took me a good ten minutes to merge into the construction traffic and find the nearest parking lot to do the deed.

After spending quality time next to the dumpster at Artesian Pools, I attempted to reenter the traffic. Not a quarter mile away I saw your buses, your entourage, and all your Joe the Plumber photo ops. You had descended upon the Mi Viaje restaurant.

Sir, do you think your staff could have found a better place to have lunch? Couldn’t you Straight Talk yourself Expressly down to the resorts or something? I mean, there are lots of immigrant owned restaurants with Spanish names in Orlando. And why is it you guys always go to the immigrant owned businesses? Is Joe the Plumber just to vanilla for you? Well, that’s a letter for another day. Just because you wanted some tacos my poor son couldn’t eat. Now that’s just wrong.

I hope your tacos didn’t give you gas. Best of luck in the election.

Yours truly,
Heather