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Strollerderby
The clever folks at Make magazine have dug up an Etsy seller offering chemistry themed crayons. These are awesome: brilliant colors tagged with shades straight from your 7th grade chemistry class.
These crayons are perfect for the Baby Einstein who just won’t be satisfied until they’ve shaded in their technical schematics with colors like lithium, rhodolite and olivine.
Motherhood isn’t easy. Not only do we have the weight of our children’s futures on our shoulders, we have to contend with the opinions of everyone on how to do it. If our kids do anything wrong, we’re blamed. Even if our kids don’t do anything wrong, we’re blamed for not giving them even more.
When I was pregnant with my first child, I wailed to my own mom, “People see that I’m pregnant and they keep telling me what to do: what to eat, what to wear, how to give birth, how to take care of my baby! I don’t want all that advice.”
My mother nodded sagely and said, “Getting advice from strangers during pregnancy is good practice. The only thing you will ever get more unsolicited advice on is how to raise your kids.”
She was painfully right. Advice from strangers is one of my least favorite parts of being a mom.
So I love the guest post at Motherlode from a family law defense attorney who is also a mom. She makes a compelling case for minding our own business when we see other parents and kids out in the world. Not just because it’s the polite thing to do. It also makes for a better society and healthier families.
There may be important health benefits to epidurals during labor, beyond the immediate benefit of pain relief.
New data show that epidurals may protect women’s muscles during labor. A British study of about 400 women showed that women how had an epidural during labor were less likely to experience organ prolapse after giving birth.
Muscle damage to the abdomen and pelvic floor affects a surprisingly large number of women; about 13% of those who’ve had a vaginal birth. Two thirds of the women who suffer this long-term muscle damage had no epidural, the British research team found.
All these medical terms are a little vague. Let’s be clear: an epidural might save you from a lifetime of peeing your pants a little when you laugh too hard.
Childhood is supposed to be the happiest time of our lives. Through the rose-tinted glasses of memory, most of us look back fondly on our early years as a time of simplicity, contentment and joy. Sure, maybe some bad things happened to us. But we were basically happy.
Children laugh many times more frequently than adults do. Little ones especially bubble over with giggles at the slightest provocation.
What about kids who aren’t happy? Can depression emerge early in childhood? Even in preschool?
An increasing number of psychiatrists and social scientists are saying yes. Preschool depression isn’t an accepted DSM diagnoses yet, but it may be on its way. In the meantime, cutting edge researchers and doctors are treating kids as young as 3 for depression.
Nine year old Logan Hearn saved his two-year-old brother Brendan’s life performing CPR after the smaller boy fell into the family’s swimming pool.
Brendan fell into the pool and was quickly found by his mom, Tabitha, who called 911 and then began performing CPR. Logan saw that she was doing it wrong and stepped in, saving his brother with the skill he’d learned in lifeguarding lessons over the summer.
It’s the week for lifesaving kids! Yesterday we ran a story about a three-year-old who saved her dad by walking to a nearby fire station for help.
What do these kids have in common? They knew how to help in an emergency, and they had the self-confidence to do it.
Good news, moms and dads! We really are becoming better parents. Debates rage on the finer points of breast vs. bottle, cosleeping vs. cribs and what preschool best prepares our little ones for their Harvard admissions interview.
But overall, this generation of American parents is getting the most important things right. Child abuse is down. Way down.
Crimes against children have been on a downward trend for 15 years. New data released by the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire show that child abuse in all forms continues to decline nationwide, in spite of the recession.
Typically, times of economic strain are seen as high-risk periods for domestic abuse. Economic instability at home can lead to depression, marital strife and lack of food or resources. As the stress flows downhill, parents are more likely to lash out at their kids.
A group of Arizona moms descended on McDonald’s en masse to hold a nurse-in after an employee kicked a nursing mom out.
On August 11, Clarissa Bradford and her kids were asked to leave a Phoenix McDonald’s when Bradford began nursing her 6-month-old baby. The restaurant has apologized, and says it won’t happen again.
But about 100 women turned out for the breastfeeding demonstration all the same. The protest wasn’t targeted so much at McDonald’s as at the mixed public reaction to the story. Commenters on the Internet and talk radio suggested women should not breastfeed in public. Many thought nursing moms should feed their babies in the bathroom if they must do it at all.
As one mom said, “Would you want to eat in the bathroom? That’s disgusting.”
It is. It’s also a pretty common request to nursing moms.
Joslyn Gray 
Amber Doty 
Julianna Miner 
Monica Bielanko 
Sierra Black 
Meredith Carroll 
Carolyn Castiglia 
Sunny Chanel 
Madeline Holler 
Wendy Michaels 
Rebecca Odes 
Danielle Smith 
Danielle Sullivan 
Katherine Stone 
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