“iO TV has what you want to seeee. Hundreds of channels and the HD is freeee…”

As soon as I hear the jingle, I know what’s coming next. My 8-month-old son, who moments before was playing quietly playing on his blanket, whips around toward the TV like he just heard someone scream, “Free boobies!” For the entirety of the commercial, he is in a trance. Go ahead and try to distract him. Not happening. The first time this occurred, I thought it was a fluke. But this same same scenario plays out every single time the damn commercial comes on – and that’s pretty frequently.

For those of you not living in New York, New Jersey or Connecticut, iO TV is a local cable service provided by Cablevision, which apparently tries to woo subscribers by playing some of the most annoying commercials ever made. There’s a series of them, but my particular favorite is the one where this fat dude raps – with a hint of calypso – while tacky mermaids chant the company’s phone number in the background. After seeing this about 30 times, I really regretted not having one of those old picture-tube TVs because, you know, if you’re going to smash your head through your TV, it would be much more of a spectacular way to go than banging your head into a flat screen.

“Okay, maybe my son is just weird,” I rationalized. Not a totally unreasonable conclusion given his lineage. But then I noticed some of my Facebook friends mentioning that there kids were having the same reaction. I took my search to YouTube, which confirmed my suspicions that something strange was indeed afoot.

There were a lot of videos of kids watching this advertising annoyance in a zombie-like state. So now I’m beginning to wonder if there was something hidden within the commercial – maybe a subliminal message that hypnotizes babies into being cable customers for life.

Are businesses now marketing to babies? I ponder this as I change my son’s Pampers, which he specifically asked that I use, and get him ready to chow down on some Gerber baby food, which he picked out…

Dear future bully,

We don’t know each other yet, but I suspect we will one day. My son is only 8 months old and far from the classrooms and playgrounds you frequent. But I know you’re lurking out there somewhere, ready to send him home with his first mystery bruises and without his favorite backpack. So let’s cut to the chase.

Yes, I realize my son’s name translates to “little flower” in Italian. My husband and I weren’t really thinking of that when we named him. We just thought the name sounded cool. I can also tell already that, although my son is not even a year old yet, he’s more the sensitive type – the kind of child who will probably enjoy writing more than contact sports.

But what you fail to realize, big smelly kid (I’m just guessing here), is that this parent rabidly protects her offspring. See, that protective feeling starts at birth, when you hold your child for the first time. It evolves into an all-consuming obsession the first time you hear him laugh – a laugh so genuine and untouched by the outside world that it pains you. And speaking of pain…

This all brings me to the point of this letter. Seriously, if you mess with my kid… you’ll pay. No, I’m an adult and I don’t beat up children. So that’s why I plan on bribing the next biggest, smelliest kid in your elementary school – whether it be with cash, video games or Chipwich ice cream sandwiches – to take care of things. His name is Jayden (just another guess, but it does seem to be the name du jour). Sure, you may think I’m bluffing because adults are supposed to act in a more civilized manner; we’d consult with your teachers and parents to try and figure out a good solution to this problem. Whatever. You’re clearly just years away from an appearance on one of Maury’s “Who’s Your Babydaddy?” segments, so why waste my time?

And if you think you can just go after someone else’s kid, think again. There are many parents who feel as I do but won’t admit it. But they’re secretly plotting, so I suggest forgetting this whole bully thing – or growing eyes on the back of your head.

Until we meet,

Mrs. LaBruna

P.S.

Come on, people. I wouldn’t seriously advocate beating up a bully (not really). But this does illustrate the intense emotions parents can have when it comes to protecting their children.

“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”

Hidden message:

Santa’s an $#*@.

I mean, Santa should top the list of nonjudgmental people, right? Nope. He disgustedly puts his big balding head in his hands when forced to listen to his elves singing, and just look at what he did to Rudolph. That reindeer had the most flight skills of his peers, but Santa still shut him out because of his ruddy schnoz. Oh, but the the fat man knew who to turn to when a blizzard threatened to cancel Christmas. If I were Rudolph, I would have told him where he could put that sleigh.

“Miracle on 34th Street”

Hidden message:

Kids are ungrateful brats.

So it takes almost the entire movie for little Susan Walker to come around and believe her elderly friend Kris Kringle is really Santa Claus and not some crazy old nut. But it takes all of two seconds for Susan’s faith to be shaken when she thinks he didn’t get her the house she wanted for Christmas. Not a dollhouse, but an actual house. Kris comes through in the end, but I feel real sorry for the man Susan marries when she grows up.

“How the Grinch Stole Christmas”

Hidden message:

Loners are creepy and messed up.

Consider it a psychological case study: You have an unmarried guy who lives alone in a cave atop Mt. Crumpit with his dog. He gets upset because his neighbors down the way are happy, so he breaks into all their houses and steals their stuff. You could make this a slightly more realistic tale by having the Grinch live in the basement of his parents’ house and work for a Whoville IT company.

“A Charlie Brown Christmas”

Hidden message:

Christmastime is depression time.

Poor Charlie Brown. He can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem. Actually, if you watch any of the other “Peanuts” specials, you realize that this is his M.O. He definitely needs more help than Lucy and her little psychiatry booth are able to provide.

Here’s a little background: My MIL fears everything. One time when we showed up a little late for dinner, she told us she had assumed we were dead in a ditch somewhere (apparently, there must have been a rash of ditch-deaths when she was growing up in Italy). In our absence, she even put out calls to my husband’s brothers in Buffalo and D.C. to verify her conclusion.

So it may come as no surprise that for months now she’s been doling out advice on how to keep the swine flu out of our home. While infectious disease experts focused on things like proper hand-washing, my MIL had instructed me to drop off our 7-month-old son at her house instead of taking him out anywhere – and I mean ANYWHERE, including an open-air Christmas tree lot.

At a recent family gathering, she had the death grip on him, letting few others hold him. She practically had an aneurysm over the fact we brought him to a friend’s daughter’s first birthday party (she wanted us to call the little girl’s parents in advance to verify that all who were attending were in good health). And each time we dare leave our home, she always calls the next day to see if her grandson is flu-stricken.

All her constant worrying came to a peak recently when, after I asked her and my father-in-law to watch the wee one while my husband and I went to dinner, she wanted to know why we were going on a Friday. “Don’t go on a busy night,” she warned. “Restaurants don’t wash the dishes as well on busy nights.” The thought of carelessly washed dinner plates spreading virulent diseases has no doubt ruined her sleep for a few nights now.

I hoped the fact my son had received both his seasonal and swine flu vaccines would abate her fears. But then some stupid friend of hers blew my cover by telling her the vaccine can take up to two weeks to become effective. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop when some moron tells her about babies needing flu booster shots, which have been almost nonexistent at my son’s pediatrician’s office.

For now, I’m tolerating the insanity. But if my MIL manages to knit my son an impermeable bubble, all bets are off!

You’re liars! Every last one of you!

“He’s adorable!”

“OMG! So cute!”

That’s what you posted on my newborn’s Facebook pictures, but come on, did you really mean it?

Let’s face it, newborns are really only cute to their parents, who made them, and their grandparents, who waited with baited breath for the baby-making to finally occur.

Yes, bringing a new life into this world is amazing, but let’s not overlook the truth: Babies don’t hit their stride, looks-wise, until about three months or later. Up until that point, they can be lumped into two main categories: aliens and old men. My son fell into the latter group. I love him to pieces and think he is the most beautiful creature that ever pooped on this earth. But in those early days, I can see how, to the casual observer, he probably just looked like any other baby with a Rudy Giuliani receding hairline and the face of chicken guru Frank Perdue. He also had jaundice, to boot.

Yet, there were the comments, praising him on his baby beauty. I accepted them but knew my acquaintances were just telling me what I wanted to hear. I ignored those that claimed that he looked just like me. Let’s get real, people. (Unless, of course, my Facebook friends were trying to tell me that I look like an old man, in which case I give them an enthusiastic middle finger.)

I think what these well-meaning Facebookers were really trying to say about my son was, “OMG! Thank goodness he’s healthy!” or “It’s totally precious that he has all of his fingers and toes!”

Of course, at almost seven months old, he’s now utterly adorable and worthy of such compliments. But I’ll hold onto those early photos, just to remind him how lucky he is to no longer be a newborn.

Here’s how I envisioned my Hollywood birth going: My water would break in dramatic fashion and I’d rush to the hospital. An hour later, I’d be pushing out my own gooey bundle of joy, with everyone in the delivery room alternating between cheers and tears.

In the real world, my water did break, but my labor went badly. I had to be induced, and my son’s heart rate dropped when I started pushing. Before I knew it, I was being wheeled into the operating room to be sliced open – the latest member of the C-section club.

Of course, most people know what a C-section is; about one in three women in this country gives birth via this method. But I had to learn a few things about C-sections the hard way, such as:

* I’d probably never again feel as completely out of control as I did that day. It all happened so fast and I was so out of it. When they handed me consent forms to perform the operation, I had no idea what I was agreeing to. I could have been co-signing the nurse’s car loan for all I knew.

* I realized just how major of a surgery it was. Just try and get up and walk around unassisted. You have no abdominal strength, so you just end up trudging along like you have to take a dump.  And the surgical staples! I couldn’t even look at them. My husband did and told me I looked like a zipped-up purse.

* I began to distrust the medical community. Did they really have to do this to me? What if a different doctor had been on duty?  Well, at least it made me feel better to steal everything from my hospital room that wasn’t nailed down (excluding the blood pressure  machine and that slab of concrete they called a “daddy bed”).

* I mourned. Yes, I mourned for the vaginal birth. Instead of cuddling my son after he was born, I was wheeled back to a recovery area after the C-section. I stayed there for a couple of hours, so I never got to see my family’s reaction to the new grandson. I felt selfish because my son was healthy, and I knew people who couldn’t have children and would gladly trade places with me. But still, I mourned. And to this day, I can’t watch TLC’s “A Baby Story.” It’s too frustrating to watch the easy labors of others and some jerk dad from Jersey saying, “My wife, she was a real troopah. I mean, one second she’s having – what do you call them, contraptions? – and the next, bada bing, bada boom, the baby fell out.”

The important thing is to let yourself mourn. Don’t let anyone trivialize your feelings. And if you find yourself really, really down, don’t be afraid to talk with someone, whether it’s a loved one or someone who charges $200 an hour.

For me, that robot was Verbot. He was supposed to follow your voice commands, but you could scream until you were blue in the face and most times he’d just sit there, looking dumbly at you with his cheap little robot eyes. Sadly, Verbot is no longer, but many other toys from my childhood are still being made. These simple toys let kids have fun and use their imaginations, and I think there’s something to be said for that nowadays. That’s why I plan to subject my son to the following:

1. Hungry Hungry Hippos.

Behold! Children on speed! I can still see me and my friends frantically trying to get our hippos to eat all the little white marbles. Hopefully my son has better luck with the game than his Daddy did. My husband ate one of those marbles when he was 6 and so began his parents’ vigil – every subsequent poop was carefully inspected to see if said marble had made its way out. It did, for the record.

2. RadioShack toys.

Nothing said ’80s childhood quite like a ghetto RadioShack gadget. I had the Tandy Computerized Arcade - nothing more than a plastic rectangle with buttons that lit up. It met an untimely end when the family dog peed on it and the switch rusted in the “off” position. Times have changed at RadioShack and the toys look a little sleeker. Still, I’m confident I can still find my son something crappy there that forces him to be imaginative.

3. Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine.

The Sno-Cone machine looked sad even when I was kid, like something out of a retro toy museum. Kids didn’t want “Peanuts”; they wanted “Smurfs.” Still there was something magical about the ice shavings spilling from it, which you put in cheap paper cups and topped with some suspect syrup.

4. Sit N Spin.

This one never quite worked on ’80s shag carpeting, but on the right surface, and after several Capri Suns and a bowl of Kaboom cereal, you could look forward to spinning right off that sucker and into a pile of your own puke.

5. Vibrating football game.

I think mine was handed down from my older brother, and most of the little football players were missing. It also seemed to be made out of sharp metal.  Sans football players, I’d just throw on other toys and objects and watch them vibrate across the fake field. See, now that’s imagination!

Fisher Price Rainforest Jumperoo

My son can bounce for an hour in this thing, and the Jumperoo’s activity center keeps him enthralled when he’s not going all spastic. He especially loves the spin rattle and the bug on a stick, which he teethes on. You can get the Jumperoo from sites like Amazon.com or Walmart.com for $69.

Sophie the Giraffe

It’s sad when perfect little babies become teething, rashy messes. Sophie to the rescue! The retro-looking giraffe is painted in high-contrast colors with baby-safe dyes, is easy for little hands to grasp, has plenty of little anatomical parts (horns, baby legs, lips, etc.) that baby will enjoy chomping on and squeaks. She looks like she should probably cost about $9, instead of the almost-20 bucks Amazon charges, but keeping a baby quiet is priceless.

Handmade wooden mobiles

Looking for an alternative to those crib-mounted mobiles, which usually need to be removed as soon as baby starts sitting up, I saw some great wooden Czech-made mobiles hanging from the ceiling of my son’s pediatrician’s office. Problem solved! I purchased a neat Dragon one from the U.K.-based Wooden Toys Shop, which had fast, free delivery and free gift wrap. It flaps its wings when you pull its string and is totally eco-friendly. It’s also hung from plenty of string, so you can adjust it upward and out of the reach of little hands. My son loves staring at the dragon when he wakes up in the morning, buying me some more sleep time. Prices vary depending on style of mobile.

Bumbo Baby Seat

These little molded seats are great for getting your baby up and off that noggin of his (for those who don’t know, babies’ soft skulls are prone to flattening when babies lay on their backs all the time). Once a baby can support his own head, he can be plopped in the Bumbo for a change of scenery or, if he’s too small for a high chair, feeding time. About $40.

Photo site gift certificates

New parents are constantly taking pictures of their babies, which makes Shutterfly.com or Snapfish.com gift certificates so very necessary. Available in varying denominations, let a new mom order pictures, photo books or anything else her little sleep-deprived heart desires.

The sleep deprivation was really getting to me. I mean, seriously, I was at the point where I would have welcomed a coma just to get some shut-eye.

All my baby books and mean friends who were parents had warned me about this, the fact I apparently wouldn’t sleep for the first three months of my new son’s life. I was ready for it. But what I didn’t anticipate was developing a dirty little habit I could tell no one about until now: During this time, I became a Lifetime Movie Network junkie. For those keeping track at home, that’s only slightly less embarrassing than still watching that “Jon & Kate Plus 8″ farce or beauty pageants.

It started innocently enough. It was in the wee hours of the morning and my son had just closed his eyes for his two-hour sleep session. I flipped on the television and realized there wasn’t much on that wasn’t an infomercial.  Then I hit the Lifetime Movie Network – LMN to those in the know.  I remember thinking, “Oh, hey, wow. It’s ‘Casualties of Love: the Long Island Lolita Story,’ that movie where Alyssa ‘I look nothing like Amy Fisher’ Milano was cast as Amy Fisher.” It took me back to high school, when Amy and her beau Joey Buttafuoco-Over-Here became tabloid royalty after the jealous teen girl attempted to kill his wife, Mary Jo. The whole scandal gave Zubaz-pants-and-sleeveless-shirts-wearing men everywhere hope they could land their own young thing.

I was hooked.

I swore it would just happen the one time. But then I found my butt glued to the couch, soaking in “Gospel of Deceit” starring that dark-haired chick from “Baywatch.” The basic plot line follows a preacher who tries to get his wife to cheat on him, then he tries to kill her. I won’t ruin the rest for you, but the end of the movie features a hil-ARIOUS showdown in the church.

My low point came when I found myself mesmerized by the acting talents of one Tori Spelling in “Mind Over Murder.” Yes, Tori as a D.A. with ESP. Apparently, getting smacked upside the head by a car gives you the ability to read people’s minds (that was only slightly less believable than Tori as a prosecutor). But oh, wouldn’t you know it, her “gift” almost gets her killed!

I tried to rationalize my addiction. A good portion of LMN movies are about women who, for some reason or another, want to harm their husbands. What new mom recovering from childbirth couldn’t relate to that? The movies are also mindless fluff – perfect viewing for the sleep-deprived brain.

Somehow, I managed to break the addiction. I think the defining moment came when I hit the info button on my remote and saw something called “Stranger With My Face” playing next on LMN. I couldn’t do it anymore – for the sake of my husband, for the sake of my son. I’m sorry, Tracey Gold, Yasmine Bleeth, Shannen Doherty, Scott Bakula. You’re just going to have to find someone else to watch your engrossing drivel.