Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

A giggle is always welcome when you’re seeing the tail end of 35 and still getting up in the middle of the night to feed a baby; I really, REALLY don’t do lack of sleep as well as I used to.  (My baby girl is worth it, you understand.  I’m just sayin’.)  I don’t remember how I introduced my friend Brittany to Quinoa–star of ‘My imaginary well-dressed toddler daughter,’ which is a rather impressive Pinterest board–but she discovered that Quinoa had a book.  She read it, and then she bugged me until I put it on hold at the library as well (or until she just put it on hold for me, which happens sometimes).  I pulled it down the other day when I was looking for something light and fast, and oh, my.  How I laughed!

If you have no children, you may or may not find Quinoa hilarious.  I don’t know.  For me, the fact that I purchase kids’ clothes and look at parenting magazines means that I see the kid models in over-the-top outfits and settings, and that’s part of why I find her so funny.  Quinoa is the imaginary child of Tiffany Beveridge, who decided her two sons and lack of a daughter didn’t have to prevent her from pinning girls’ clothes that she thought were cute.  That’s where the Pinterest board mentioned above was born; when it went viral, it eventually turned into a gift-type book entitled How to Quinoa:  Life Lessons from My Imaginary Well-Dressed Daughter.  In it, Beveridge includes her own captions for those child model stills as well as text aimed at helping aspiring girls and parents in becoming almost as trendy as Quinoa (but not quite–never that).  I thoroughly enjoyed it from beginning to end.  (My husband, however, seemed to be equal parts amused and disturbed at the tidbits I insisted on sharing.)  If you are looking for a laugh today, look no further.  Quinoa and her never-ending string of preposterously-named friends–think ‘Xanax’–are here to oblige.