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Strollerderby
I do. I love hanging out with my daughter, running errands, talking to her, reading books with her and going swimming together. But when I hear her sweet little high-pitched voice cry, “Wanna color with me?,” I cringe. I don’t know what it is about coloring that irks me so much. I used to love coloring, but now that it’s become a team sport, I like it less and less. Is it that I’m not allowed to color on my own page? Call me obsessive, but I want My Little Pony to be completed with a cohesive color scheme. I mean, it’s called My Little Pony, not Our Little Pony, for chrissakes. When we color in tandem, I hear myself saying ridiculous things just to avoid bruising my daughter’s fragile four-year-old ego. “Yes, purple goes with orange, baby. That looks… pretty.” Do I want to color with you? Yes, I’d like nothing more than to decorate Hello Kitty’s beauty parlor together. I love ramming into your broken, nubby crayons with my bloody knuckles as we secretly fight over who gets to fill in the open spaces. Parenting is fun!
If you think playing dolls is tedious, or if making Thomas the Tank Engine chug down the track has you thinking you’d rather be chugging beers, you’re not alone. One-third of parents think playing with their kids is BO-RING. Continue reading »
Max and Ruby…dododododoDOOdodo, Ruby and Max (dooDOO!) Max and Ruby …DoDOOdoo … Ruby and Max!
Oh, I could go on. Need I go on? No, I’m sure I’ve wedged Max and Ruby in your head for the rest of the day. You can thank me later.
Do I love Max and Ruby? I do…I love some of the first books, like Bunny Cakes (I adore Bunny Cakes, I could recite it to you right now) and Max’s Dragon Shirt. I love the first board books, in particular Max’s First Word. And then came the TV show, largely charming, mostly harmless. I could plant my three-year-old son in front of it all day. And then came my daughter.
Suddenly I found myself looking at Ruby in a new light. Why did she always have to get a beauty kit, when Max got a toy plane? Why was she learning to twirl a baton while Max learned to throw a football? Why was she trying on dresses while Max explored the store?
I couldn’t put it all down to a throwback in time. Ruby and Louise were romping around Bunny Scouts today; someone, even as we speak, is trying to come up with another way to celebrate Halloween with Grandma. But wait–maybe Grandma saves it. She’s just as mischievous as Max when she’s around–witness her vampire teeth and ice cream breakfasts! Can I cling to Grandma, and write Ruby off as an example of a girly girl? After all, I don’t want all of children’s television and books to adhere to some PC requirements. Some girls (plenty of girls) would in fact rather twirl a baton. So would some boys, but then, this is supposedly only one boy. And One girl. Plus, they’re bunnies. I’m getting worked up about bunnies.
Am I, perhaps, over-thinking Max and Ruby just a tad? Continue reading »
A study released yesterday in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology confirms one thing we already knew: the rate of cesarean births is rising–it has doubled since 1996 and now accounts for one third of all births in the U.S.
What it also shows is that elective c-sections aren’t the culprit. Only nine percent of scheduled cesareans are performed for non-medical reasons (making them truly elective). The real rise in c-sections may be due to the practice of inducing labor before baby and mom are really ready.
The study of 230,000 deliveries shows that moms who are induced are twice as likely to have a cesarean birth as moms whose labor starts spontaneously. And after labor does start, almost half of c-sections happen because of “failure to progress.” Research seems to show that inducing, even when baby is considered full term, carries certain risks. But lots of doctors choose to do it anyway.
There’s nothing wrong with choosing a c-section–the problem here is that moms who don’t want a c-section are ending up with one anyway. Continue reading »
We’ve heard time and time again that “breast is best” for baby, but it turns out, breast is best for mommy, too. You probably know that breastfeeding will help you lose weight after giving birth, but are you aware of the additional health benefits shedding that baby belly provides?
According to The LA Times, “Breastfeeding helps women lose the worst kind of body fat — visceral fat — which they accrue during pregnancy.” Visceral or intra-abdominal fat is known to cause heart disease, stroke, diabetes and hypertension. Losing even some of that fat after a month of breastfeeding has been proven to reduce a woman’s lifetime risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Continue reading »
We all want to believe that our children are the best at everything and deserve to be rewarded for their efforts. But aren’t we sending a dangerous message by overpraising kids and even giving them awards for just showing up?
In a recent New York Times” Complaint Box” column, Jennifer Greenstein writes about how her 7-year-old son “won” an award for “Most Valuable Player” on his baseball team. The catch is that every kid on the team won the same award. Continue reading »
I like babies. A lot. And I know from personal experience that there is nothing more exciting and life-changing than discovering that you are going to have one. Parents-to-be usually want to celebrate and share their happiness with their nearest and dearest and I totally get that. That’s what baby showers are all about, right?
But it seems that some parents have taken the idea of sharing their baby joy a step further. They are throwing what is unfortunately being called a “baby sex party” and it’s nothing like it sounds. It’s a party thrown by the parents-to-be in which the gender of their unborn baby is revealed to them and their guests at the same time. Continue reading »
In the four months I’ve been privileged to write for Babble, I’ve read reports from “the experts” about everything from how mood during pregnancy can negatively impact future children to how having the wrong family psychological profile can harm school performance. I’ve listened in as our readers argued furiously with one another, demonizing those who would (choose your particular bugaboo here) feed an infant formula or use daycare.
Over time I’ve realized that underneath all the certitude, judgment and rage is a search for perfection, a feeling if we can just get it right, our children will be safe from life’s vicissitudes. Perhaps this is inevitable – after all, the United States was settled, after all, by people seeking “a city upon a hill” and the pursuit of perfection, it seems, is in our collective national DNA.
But parenting is, in many ways, the opposite of the city upon a hill. It is messy, and there are few right answers, only ever-shifting judgment calls based on changing information. (Drinking while pregnant anyone?)
Moreover, we ourselves are imperfect. Continue reading »
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