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Strollerderby
If I wanted something the color of a wine cooler, I suppose I would just buy a wine cooler. But then again, I'm not in 11th grade anymore.
I’m all for alcohol. No, really. I’m all for it. I prefer red wine. And second to that I’ll take a good, darkish beer.
I never thought I’d have to specify the shade of darkish beer that I like. But now I fear that if I don’t I might get stuck with one that’s pink (magenta? ruby? cerise? amaranth?).
Molson Coors is trying to get women to drink more beer. And rather than just marketing to women who might be inclined to drink beer instead of using half-naked women in their marketing, they have brewed a new beer that’s pink.
Um, yuck?
Co-sleeping is awesome. There’s nothing like the delight of drifting off to sleep with your baby nestled safe and cozy in your arms.
If you’re passing out drunk, though, next to you is the last place your baby should be. As one British mom recently learned, drunken co-sleeping can be fatal. The risk of smothering or crushing the baby skyrockets when any adult in the bed is intoxicated.
In general, co-sleeping is a safe choice, and a brilliant move for breastfeeding parents. But if you’re not sober, you’re not a safe sleeping partner for your baby.
We’re not talking about a beer with dinner, here. The British mother who smothered her child had drunk an entire bottle of wine on an empty stomach before passing out with her little girl in her arms. When her husband came home, he found her unconscious with the infant dead at her side.
Do you drink in front of your children?
Children who see their parents drunk are twice as likely to regularly get drunk themselves. That’s what the BBC reports a new survey of young teenagers shows.
The Ipsos MORI survey of 5,700 children aged 13 to 16 found one in five claimed to have been drunk by the time they were 14. By the age of 16, half of those questioned said they had been drunk. And, as mentioned, the odds of a teenager getting drunk repeatedly is twice as great if they have seen their parents under the influence, even if it was just a few times.
So yes, of course, what parents say and how they behave has a strong impact on the drinking patterns of their children. This should come as no surprise to anyone. It’s just that I’m not sure that seeing one’s parents drunk leads kids to drink more. And judging by the comments of readers, I’m not alone. If you take a look at several of the hundreds of comments after the BBC article, a great many say that their parents were very strict about alcohol which made them more inclined to experiment away from home, which is at odds with the results of the study. Here are just a few of those comments: Continue reading »
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- Mommy’s sippy cup
I’m a single mom of 3 girls and 3 boys, trying to juggle kids, work and laundry with the help of God, family, friends and wine (not necessarily in that order). That’s how the bio on my personal blog reads. Now, don’t get me wrong. I love my life. I love my kids. I love being a mom. I wouldn’t trade a minute of it for all gold in the world, although I’d consider trading it for a nap. Nah, I wouldn’t even trade it for a nap. But let’s face it, being a mom is hard work. It’s demanding. It’s never-ending. It’s emotionally draining. And it’s without monetary compensation.
In the evening, you put the kids to bed, look back over the day’s events and relive them just one more time -
Two wine producers are now battling it out over the use of the word “Mommy” on their bottle labels:
Mommy’s Time Out: “We All know that being a Mommy is a difficult job. A Mommy’s Time Out is a well deserved break.”
and Mommyjuice : “…balanced, fruit-forward wines that bring just a bit of peace after the chaos of everyday life as a parent.”
The Tipsy Mommy has been enjoying a media moment recently. She’s a natural postermom for the backlash against the hyper-vigilant helicopter parenting model: Relax, the kids are fine, have a drink. There’s a reason this idea has traction. Motherhood, while, of course, rewarding beyond measure–is friggin’ relentless. And nothing says ‘lemme outta here for a minute‘ like a few dead brain cells.
But this is the first time a bottle of alcohol has been directly marketed to mothers. What, exactly are they trying to tell us? Continue reading »
Alcohol disrupts women's sleep
A nightcap is often a surefire way to nod off to dreamland, but research shows that too much alcohol actually disrupts sleep, causing frequent night wakings and restless sleep. The effect is particularly strong among women.
Unlike men, though, women don’t report feeling sleepier after a night of alcohol-induced bad sleep. They get poor quality sleep but don’t appear to notice that they slept badly.
In fact, the Daily Beast reports that women react differently than men do to alcohol consumption in all kinds of weird ways. Differences in sleep after drinking are just one of the ways women have unique responses to booze.
A woman needs to drink only 90% of what a same-weight man does to reach the same blood alcohol level. She may or may not feel equally drunk, depending on her individual tolerance. Because women have fewer enzymes in our stomachs to break down alcohol, we get more ethanol into our blood streams. That means women alcoholics often suffer the same organ damage male alcoholics do, even if they start drinking later in life. Continue reading »
According to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, drinking alcohol while pregnant is a really bad idea. In fact, their official stance on the matter leaves no wiggle room whatsoever: “No amount of alcohol consumption can be considered safe during pregnancy.”
That’s right. None. Not even a thimble full of whiskey or a small glass of wine. That seems rather harsh but generations of American women have faithfully followed that advice and avoided the bottle out of fears of doing some harm to their unborn child. Until now, that is. According to an article in the New York Post, more and more pregnant women are drinking alcohol and not feeling guilty about it. Continue reading »
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