When did you stop changing or showering in front of your kids? Why?

Tori Spelling, who writes posts occasionally for LilSugar, is pondering whether now is the time to stop changing clothes in front of her 4-year-old son, Liam, after a recent incident.

She writes that she was changing, and Liam said, “Oh no! I do not need to see that! Get that out of my face. That huge thing sitting on top of your legs. Your butt is ginormous.”

It reminds me of how, whenever I change in front of my 3-year-old daughter, she grabs my butt and says, “WIGGLE, WIGGLE, WIGGLE!” Nice, I know. But that, and the fact that she stares at my saggy chest in wonder, has me pondering the same thing. Continue reading »

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Could your toddler call for help if something happened to you?

This story kinds of shamed me. My kid is 2-years-old. Hell, she’s almost three and there is no way she would be able to use my cell to call for help.

But according to Jezebel.com, that’s exactly what happened when Larissa Taylor had a seizure and stopped breathing.

Somehow, her 2-year-old daughter Lia was able to call her grandmother and tell her what happened.

Bobbie Gonzalez couldn’t believe what she heard when she answered her phone.

“It was Lia and she said, ‘My mom fell down,’ I said, ‘Let me talk to your mom,’ and she said, ‘She won’t wake up.’” Gonzalez called 911 and went over to the house. Thing is, Lia had never been taught to use the phone. Continue reading »

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Don't fence me in! (Not Alfie)

Alfie Aldridge lasted a few hours on his first day of preschool before deciding he’d had enough.

The three-year-old took matters into his own hands and staged a break-out.

As the Huffington Post reports, Alfie, of Surrey, England, “ditched his teachers, scaled a 3-foot-tall wall, crossed a busy street, and eventually made it to his front door.”

You can imagine 27-year-old Samantha Aldridge’s surprise when she opened the door and saw her little guy standing there. Continue reading »

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My son needs $46,000 a month (bare minimum!) to get by.

I’ve never liked Linda Evangelista.  Not that, like, we meet up at dinner parties and she snubs me or anything.  She’s just always rubbed me the wrong way.  I suppose I’ve just read various articles about her and after about the tenth or eleventh one decided where there’s smoke, there’s fire and that she’s probably not a very nice person.

Turns out, I was right. Or I’m about as vindicated in my dislike as I’ll get, because, get this, the supermodel (God, I hate that term) is asking her baby-daddy (who also happens to be Salma Hayek’s billionaire baby-daddy and husband) for $46,000 a month in child support.  No, not a year.  Not a decade.  A MONTH.

According to Evangelista, the sum is the “minimum required” for 4-year-old Augustin James to provide for the boy in the manner in which he has grown accustomed.

Robert Frank from Yahoo consulted a “lifestyle management firm for wealthy families” (lifestyle management firm for wealthy families?  gag!) and learned how a 4-year-old living in Manhattan could burn through $46,000.

“At first glance, $46,000 seems like an extraordinary amount and it is,” Natasha Pearl, from the “lifestyle management firm” says.  “But for a fortunate child in New York, it is actually absolutely conceivable that his expenses could approach $50,000 a month.”

Here’s how: Continue reading »

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Do "The Good Ol' Days" really exist?

My daughter, Violet, is 2-years-old.  She can’t quite turn a door knob yet so we still enjoy the relative luxury of being able to lock her in her room at night.  It definitely provides peace of mind, knowing that she can’t leave the safety of her room until we let her out in the morning.

But I’m telling you what, she’s just weeks, if not days away from being able to open a door on her own.  And then what?  All bets are off, I guess.

One of my biggest fears is my daughter wandering out of the house without my knowledge and get really hurt.  My second biggest fear is that Violet will make her great escape and someone will find her wandering the streets and bring her back to me her apparently unfit mother.  Oh, the shame.  The embarrassment.

That’s why I read this article Lenore Skenazy wrote for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune called “Call The Cops!  Mom Took A Nap!” with great interest. She talks about two recent cases where women where charged and arrested respectively, after their toddlers sneaked out of the house and how it’s a shame that society can’t cut tired moms a break: Continue reading »

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My daughter and I on her first plane ride at six months old.

I was reading an article in the Huffington Post called 5 Tips To Avoid Flying With Kids. As a mom of two my hackles were raised and I was all set to hate the author, Corinne McDermott. Really? I was thinking. Parents are like lepers now? You’re offering advice to people on how to avoid us?

Sheesh.

So Corinne lists her little tips, the usual stuff: “Avoid family vacation destinations” and “Don’t book the bulkhead” or you’ll get stuck sitting next to some whiner of a kid, that kind of thing.

There I was hating Corinne and everyone who has ever given me The Stink Eye while flying with my kids when I got to the very end of her article. And then I just fell in so much love with Corinne. Here’s the last paragraph of the article: Continue reading »

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Naked babies make us happy

Here at Chez Carroll, we encourage naked babies. In fact, it’s become a nightly custom for our toddler to say, “I be a naked baby now, Mommy,” as she strips off every last ounce of clothes and runs around in the buff until bed time.

She turns 3 later this summer. We think it’s adorable.

But when do naked kids stop making you saw, “Awwww,” and start making you say, “Ewwww?”

Continue reading »

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