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Strollerderby
Like this would fly today (not)
A few days ago my sister and I were laughing as we remembered how we used to have a real workbench in our playroom when we were kids. No, it was a real workbench, stocked with saws, hammers, nails and wood. Not the plastic stuff. The real stuff. Not only did we saw real things, we also dissected batteries with hammers (you know, by smashing them as hard as we could until the battery acid sputtered and oozed out).
We were laughing because we managed to avoid death (although not destruction). And we laughed because in a million, zillion years, we would never allow our kids to do the same thing.
In fact, so much of what we did as kids would never, ever fly today. Writer and illustrator Amber Dusick of Parenting. Illustrated with Crappy Pictures, has summed up then vs. now pretty succinctly in 12 images of what we did as kids that our kids will never do. For better or worse.
Take a look and laugh (but don’t show your kids so they never catch on to what they’re missing):
A soccer ball to one kid's head means a whole school is now ball-less
I could understand a school banning dodgeball because it can be a rather violent game. But banning actual balls? That takes, well, another kind of balls.
A Toronto school is banning its students from playing with soccer balls, footballs, volleyballs and tennis balls (yes, tennis balls — those ones with the yellow/green fuzz), according to Mommyish. Why? Because of the “extreme danger” that hard balls present.
“Any balls brought will be confiscated and may be retrieved by parents from the office,” said a letter issued by Earl Beatty Jr. and Sr. Public School in Toronto. “The only kind of ball allowed will be Nerf balls or sponge balls.”
According to the AAP, co-sleeping is one of the leading causes of sleep-related deaths in infants
About 2,500 babies die annually from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Now the American Academy of Pediatrics is speaking out with updated information about how sleep-related fatalities can be reduced.
New recommendations state that no bumper pads should ever be used in cribs, not just “puffy” bumpers that were previously frowned upon. The AAP also suggests pacifiers be offered to infants, and women breastfeed their babies, according to the Wall Street Journal.
But what’s bound to spark some debate is the suggestion that while babies should sleep in the same room as parents so they may be monitored closely, they should not sleep in the same bed.
Continue reading »
International Babywearing Week celebrates the world of possibilities that abound when wearing your baby. The benefits of babywearing reach both caregiver and child. Whether you carry your baby for their comfort or your convenience, studies have found babywearing to create happier and healthier babies.
Click through these breathtaking babywearing photos of celebrities and everyday parents in honor of International Babywearing Week, October 10-16.
Ok, so I am probably with a lot of other people who think that flash mobs are totally over-done now, BUT, I caught the Babywearing Flash Mob covered at Cafe Mom’s The Stir and admit that in all my years of babywearing (which is now nearing an end) I wish I had been in a babywearing flash mob! I decided to post 3 absolutely beautiful and creative babywearing videos. No matter if you have a baby carrier or not, these videos will have you busting a move or reaching for your tissues. Continue reading »
Is hands-on parenting leading to a drought in the bedroom?
Just last fall, Erica Jong irritated attachment parents everywhere with her assertion that investing a lot of energy in child-rearing equals imprisonment for mothers. Now she’s at it again, only this time she blames breastfeeding and co-sleeping for putting “sexual passion on life support.”
I no longer embrace the “attachment parent” label, but I fit the profile: my five children have been breastfed, sling-ed, and slept next to me until we gave them each the boot to their own beds around the age of two. Yet you will notice I have five children, so obviously there was time, space, and interest enough in there for nookie, too.
I can’t really get too hot under the collar about what Erica Jong thinks about modern motherhood. I just think she’s wrong. Sure, having a new baby in the house equals less sex all around. Is that really anything new? And if it is, maybe it’s a big plus that women no longer feel pressured to “perform” during a time when hormones and fatigue make the whole experience less pleasurable for them. I’d say it’s pretty normal – even biologically designed – for a new mom to feel less-than-crazy about sex. It doesn’t mean that women are using breastfeeding and babywearing as some sort of penis-deflector. Continue reading »
That baby should not be on a pillow!
Jennifer Combs has made it her mission to end co-sleeping in Broward County, FL. Combs is a nurse who studies ways to prevent infant deaths, and she says out of 45 baby deaths in 2009, six “were sleep-related but had been called something else.” The Sun Sentinel (via the LA Times) notes that, “Added to nine already identified, that made 15 babies dead from unsafe sleep – or one in three. The standard estimate has been one in five.”
Combs is researching infant deaths in Broward County dating back to 2006 “to get firmer numbers to report at an infant mortality conference in September.” She sees a pattern of unreported sleep deaths and wants to be sure adults put babies to bed on their backs in their own cribs, emptying the crib of all soft items. Dr. Khalil Wardak, a Broward County medical examiner who handles infant deaths, says parents know the risks of co-sleeping, but they ignore them. “Older family members slept with their parents and their babies, and they came out OK, so they think it’s OK,” he says. “But it’s not.” Continue reading »
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