Teeny Manolo

Happy 39th anniversary to Sesame Street, but why did they decide to have an open bar? Everyone knows what happens at those kinds of office parties.

Handsy little devil, ain’t he?

As responsible Parentosphere bloggers we’ve previously noted the bizarre celebrity fad for money as literal plaything. See this image of adorable Violet Affleck, toying with the weekend box office take for Daddy’s last movie.

Well, the fad has spread even unto the Scientology Celebrity Center, and amid shocking, completely unforseen reports that Tom Cruise can no longer command $20 million a picture, we can see that the normally highly competitive Suri “Louboutins” Cruise has had to scale back from Benjamins to Jacksons as well.

I was moderately good at math when I was in school, but then as always profoundly lazy and am thus, very glad that The Guardian’s Hadley Freeman, the only UK fashion writer worth following, has gone ahead and done the cold, hard calculations. Yes, as you’ve always suspected, there is a specific formula to the monetary value of celebrity baby photos.

Now, nobody here is asserting on the record that breeding is more lucrative than releasing a new album. On the record.

But…

Once A-list children made their debut at the Crillon ball in Paris; now they’re on the cover of a Richard Desmond publication - OK!, generally, not Asian Babes…

Some might think these prices are the product of a celebrity-obsessed media that believes its own self-produced hype. In fact, they are the result of a strict mathematical formula: Value of pictures = Fame of parents x glamorousness of mother during pregnancy x general attractiveness of both parents (no one wants to fork out a couple of mil for an ugly baby) + any past scandal that either parent has overcome to reach this ending + funniness of child’s name. Divide amount by two-thirds if child is adopted: the interest in celebrity kids is to see how the celebrity’s genes have fared, you see.

As if there isn’t already an obscure branch of calculus devoted to the economics of celebrity adoption. I believe that Cambridge will shortly boast the Madonna Chair in African PhotoOps.

When a brave paparazzo informed Ms. Campbell that the game is entitled “Drop the Baby” and not “Pitch the Baby” she tossed the hapless prop orphan to her longsuffering entourage, demanded ten thousand dollars and a bottle of Cristal, and stormed off to cry on Diddy’s yacht.

The entire run-up to the birth of the Jolie-Pitt twins has amused me from the get go. Or perhaps bemused is a better description.

There was the whole “OMG! Angelina Jolie is in the hospital awaiting the birth of her twins!” frenzy that made no sense to me. Straight-faced news infotainment anchors would discuss in serious tones the fact that she was in the hospital and in bed and blah, blah, blah…

Hello people! Many women who are carrying twins are placed on bedrest in the last few weeks, if not the entire last trimester, to ensure that the mother rests and that those two little ones can stay in there for the longest time possible. It’s not unusual, it’s not really a big deal, and it certainly doesn’t deserve the sort of coverage it garnered.

Then even better was the “She’s in the hospital and she’s cranky!” Please give me the name of someone who enjoys a hospital stay. Of course she’s cranky! It’s summer, her hormones are in full throttle, she’s about to have two babies at once, and she’s eating hospital food. I totally sympathize.

It was even bigger news when Brad would visit her at the hospital. Yes, if I am carrying your children you are damn well going to visit me at the hospital. And you’d better bring snacks, too! Would you expect him to never see her? Then they would run the headline “Bad Dad Brad” or some such ridiculous thing. And the press seemed surprised that he would actually bring their other children to see their mother.

Newsflash! Kids miss their mom when she’s not there! The best way to deal with that? Let them see her! You know Occam’s Razor and all that.

But hey, that doesn’t make for very entertaining copy, does it?

So, now we can breathe a sigh of relief that the whirlwind is over.

That is, until Gwen Stefani goes into labor and then all hell is going to break loose.

Again.

Gwyneth Paltrow: Apple Makes Moses Cross-Dress!

I read that headline at People, and I thought, there goes that pesky media yet again. Misinterpreting and editing interviews with a celebrity so that it sounds like a mom is calling her barely-a-toddler son a cross-dresser! When will they ever stop?

But if the direct quote in the article is to be believed, Gwyneth Paltrow described it that way herself.

You know, there are many ways I as a mother could describe the very common situation of an older sister dressing her younger brother in girl’s clothes, but “cross-dressing” would not be one of them.

Last week’s poll about traveling “extensively” with children sparked quite a heated, yet always civil and urbane debate. God how I love our commenters! Eighty-one percent of the respondents said that yes, parents should travel as much as time and budget should allow, while only eighteen percent disagreed. Looking back, I should have qualified the word “extensively” or even better, used a different phrase.

This week I’m going to chart some territory in celebrity waters. On the Larry King show, Christina Aguilera said in an interview that she was going to be in a “Rock the Vote” ad, along with her infant son Max, swaddled in the American flag. She defended the decision, saying that her son was going to be exposed to the press anyway, so why not in a manner of her choosing?

Talk about living the American Dream: soccer mom Jeannie Tate has her own talk show, hosted from within her minivan. Finally, a justification for the ubiquitous gas-guzzler of the American Suburbs. Got to make space for the video crew!

(OT: is anyone else as tired as me of seeing minivans with one lone occupant? is it just my past as a Greenpeace campaigner? Am I the only person on Earth who’d win the lottery and buy… a smartcar? Okay, I’d buy a Countach too, but still.)

In the age of YouTube, when anyone could have a vlog, it takes a certain something to break out and make a name for one’s self. Whatever that thing might be, it’s a thing Jeannie Tate has in common with Tila Tequila and Brian Atene. The rest of us can only gaze in wonder (and add comment # 1580 on the YouTube thread)…

Click HERE to enter our stylin’ Stila giveaway!

You KNOW how we feel about Elmo. Stolen from Worth1000 via AgentBedhead, this is the one-sheet for this summer’s top horror thriller:

It’s all Gwyneth’s fault. Well, Gwynnie and anyone else outside of the sex trade who popularizes heels four inches high. Take a look at fashion victim Mel B (Gimpy Spice) and see what a poor working Mom is reduced to:

Ah, servants. If you can afford Louboutins, you can afford the traditional “paid companion” of ambiguous gender preference. Just don’t eat or drink anything she brings you, if I remember my Miss Marple correctly.

In future, may I suggest something a little more practical, something that looks less like you’re going to Edith Prickley’s pole-dancing lessons at The Home and more like you’re a sexy momma who also has a, you know, life?

Something like this, the Diego di Lucca Women’s Elite Boot: