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Adventures in competitive parenting
You're at a San Francisco park and meet a new mom when your son steals a shovel from her son's hands. You initially connect because amusingly both of your sons are 3 years old and named Owen, and you're both pregnant with a second child.
You get to chit-chatting and you tell her that you'll be giving birth at CPMC. She tells you that she's going for a natural birth at home because she doesn't want to get forced into an unnecessary C-section.
To quickly change the course of the conversation before she goes on any further about CPMC's high C-section rate, you unthinkingly mention that your son had his flu shot today.
Her son isn't vaccinated because her chiropractor says it messes with the system and her alternative pediatrician is accepting of her alternative view.
Your son runs over and interrupts the conversation (thank God!) by asking for a snack. You proudly pull out a box of Annie's Organic Cheddar Bunnies. Her son runs over, but he backs away when he sees the crackers. You ask if he'd like some and his mom says, "We don't eat crackers..."
She pulls out a stainless steel container filled with what looks like white goop and tells you that she makes her own yogurt because it contains more probiotics than store-bought.
She then asks if you've started to tour kindergartens. Rather than respond, you check the time and blatantly lie, saying, "Oh gosh, it's 5 p.m. We stick to a strict early bedtime."
Her son starts to cry because you're leaving. She pulls out a pacifier (made of pure organic rubber, of course) and pops it into her son's mouth.
You leave feeling pretty good about yourself because you never gave your son a pacifier.
Ahhh...the joys of competitive parenting.
A YouTube video titled "Why it's hard to make mom friends" aims to capture the competitiveness that can go on between moms. It might seem an extreme scenario, like the picture painted above, but most moms can probably relate.
| October 14 2010 at 04:33 PM
Sandwich in a can?
Mornings in households with kids are hectic. Waking up the children and then clothing and feeding them is always a bear. And then there's the chore of making school lunches. Slicing the oranges, chopping the bell peppers, and spreading peanut butter on the bread always takes more time than it should. How can parents possibly speed up this morning routine?
The Candwich: The ultimate convenience food or downright disgusting?
Enter the Candwich, a liquid-form sandwich served in an aluminum can that will supposedly be available later this year. Toss it in your tot's backpack and he's ready to go to school.
The aptly named Candwich will be sold in three flavors: peanut butter and strawberry jam, peanut butter and grape jam and barbecue chicken. It's being marketed as the ultimate food for people on the run: students, construction workers, 'soccer moms.'
No word on whether it's organic, though we're pretty sure it's not. And while we haven't seen an ingredient list, we can probably assume this product will be made with a lot of corn syrup and things you can't pronounce. And we certainly don't expect it to pop up on Whole Foods' shelves.
Are you absolutely disgusted?
Well, don't fret too much over the possibility of this invention making its way into children's lunch boxes. The Candwich was invented by a Utah manager named Travis L. Wright, who according to the British Daily Mail, "is being sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission in Salt Lake City for allegedly fraudulently misusing funds he raised from 175 investors between 2001 and 2009 by selling notes issued by his Waterford Loan Fund LLC." In other words, it could be awhile before the Candwich is available in a neighborhood near you.
| July 08 2010 at 10:59 AM
Toddler gets trapped in candy machine
Every child dreams of visiting a place filled with candy and toys. One curious toddler actually made it to such a place.
Today, the UK's Daily Mail covered a story about 2-year-old Cohen Stone who somehow climbed inside an arcade machine at a restaurant in Perth, Australia.
Stone spent 45 minutes hunkered down atop a pile of hard candies while his panicked mom and party guests waited for a service man from the company that made the machine to arrive and rescue the boy.
We can all get a good laugh from the photo of Stone waving at mom from inside the candy machine, but as this situation was unfolding it was probably rather traumatic for mom.
Has your child's curiosity ever led to trouble?
| March 12 2010 at 10:33 PM
Learning to play pretend
Baking cookies, playing checkers, flying paper airplanes--I love doing all of these things with my kids.
Building sand castles at the beach, collecting bugs in the backyard, making angels in the snow--I'll do these activities with my kids any day.
Reading books, drawing pictures, building Lego cars--sign me up!
But when it comes to playing pretend games with my kids--getting down on my hands and knees and pretending I'm a kitty cat and actually lapping up milk from a bowl on the ground (which my daughter has gotten me to do on several occasions)--I'm not so good. I would much rather watch than engage.
Call me unimaginative. Call me a poor sport. Call me the cliche "bad mom." But pretending that I'm a baby by wearing a giant towel wrapped around my bottom (over my jeans, of course) so it looks as if I'm in a diaper makes me a little uneasy.
I realize that this sort of creative play is what builds little brains; it's the best thing kids can do. And I appreciate my children's creative minds and their incredible ability to play in pretend worlds. And I know that I played imaginatively as a child--I used to pretend my baby brother was my cat and I forced him to lap up milk from bowls. But now that I'm in my 30s I often find this sort of play...tedious and tiresome.
My 6-year-old daughter has finally learned that her mom is great at playing a game of Connect Four but not so good at playing princess or school or twin sisters. And so she now independently creates her pretend worlds with her dolls. She loves to gather her crew around her chalk board easel and play school. While she's teaching Julie, Felicity, and Kit how to spell "cup," I sit next to her cleaning cat fur off the couch.
But my 5-year-old son is still determined to get his mom to play with him in pretend worlds--and my mommy guilt is forcing me to try my hardest to re-learn a skill that comes naturally to children.
A few weeks ago, my daughter and husband went to Cirque du Soleil with some friends and left my son and I at home for nearly five hours. I was delighted to spend the day with my son; I always cherish the one-on-one time I get with my kids.
After my husband and daughter walked out the door, I asked my son, "What do you want to do? We could go rock climbing at Mission Cliffs, or go to the farmers' market and then come home and cook. Or we could build a giant rocket using recycled boxes and paper towel rolls."
"Let's just stay at home in our jammies mommy."
My son is generally a homebody. Nothing wrong with that. I'm always up for hanging around home.
"That sounds great!" I said. "I can teach you to play Chinese checkers or we could make some cookies or I can read you Robin Hood..."
"Let's play pet shop Mommy. I'm a kitty. There's your house. Here's the pet shop. Come pretend to buy me and then bring me to your home."
I had been roped into yet another game of pet shop. I decided to be a sport and play because most of the time I weasel my way out of his games: "Gosh, I better get started on dinner!" is a common excuse. But I figured that some day very soon I'd look back and miss the times when he wanted to play pet shop. So on this day I decided to indulge him--just to see what it would be like if I went along with his games for a full afternoon.
I wrapped a ribbon around his belt loop and took him for a walk--you can take a cat for a walk, right? I served him water and cereal in bowls on the ground. We played for a good 45 minutes.
"Let's put together that dog puzzle that you got for Christmas," I suggested.
"No, let's pretend we're wild kitties now."
Wild! That sounds fun. I started to romp around on my hands and knees on the floor. I yowled and hissed and scratched the carpet. I needed to release some pent up energy.
"Not crazy kitties, Mommy. Wild kitties. We live in the wild. I'm the baby. You're my mommy. Come on!"
We pretended to live in the forest and built a cave with the couch cushions and cuddled up. I always like to pretend to take a nap when we play these games...but the sleepy time didn't last long.
"Let's pretend it's Christmas," he said.
We invented "Kitty Clause" and gathered a pile of "gifts"--a flashlight, a stuffed penguin, some Post-it notes, my husband's cell phone ear piece--and pretended Santa brought us these things.
I put on the ear piece and pretended to call my kitty alien friends in outer space, "Kitty aliens. Come in, kitty aliens. Come to Earth now."
"No mommy that doesn't happen to kitties. No! That's not real."
My son takes these games very seriously and he likes to re-create real worlds that actually exist. (Keep in mind that he believes Santa is real.) When I get overly imaginative, he gets agitated.
Lunch time!
I cut up some mango and made some pasta. I returned to my normal, non-meowing voice.
"Mommy we're still playing the game right? Or do you want to pause it?"
"Oh yeah, let's pause it."
"No, let's keep playing. But cats don't eat this food," said my son who was slurping up slippery mango slices.
And here's my favorite line of the day: "We can play fruit bats and then if we have time we can play penguins."
I played fruit bats. Yes siree. I ran around the house flapping my wings and slept upside down by doing a headstand up against the wall.
"Time to wake up! It's morning!" I said, as the blood rushed to my head. It had been awhile since I had been upside down and I saw stars when I was upright again.
"No Mommy! Bats wake up at night! We need to sleep more." Back on my head.
I was impressed by his dedication to the real bat life, and I have to admit that I was having fun, so much fun that I agreed to play owls.
We "hooed" and hunted pretend mice constructed of crumpled up paper.
After a four-hour pretend-play marathon, a half-hour before my daughter and husband were scheduled to come home, I said, "Let's see if we can find something on Hulu. Maybe some Inspector Gadget?"
"But mommy we never played penguins..."
I turned on a movie.
| February 11 2010 at 07:03 AM
Father-to-be gropes delivery nurse
Men are known to occasionally misbehave in the hospital delivery room. While most perform like champs, some scream at the doctor, push their mothers-in-law aside, or even fall asleep while their wives are struggling to get to nine centimeters.
Mug shot: Adam Manning
But we (women) forgive men for their behavior since attending to a woman in labor is certainly no easy task.
Yet it's hard to have any sympathy for a Utah man who last Friday groped a nurse as she wheeled his wife into the delivery room, according to the Standard-Examiner, a Utah newspaper.
Thirty-year-old Adam Manning brought his laboring wife to McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden. He told a nurse she was "cute" then reached for her breasts.
The police were called. Manning's wife said he was drunk, though it's unknown whether he drove to the hospital intoxicated.
Manning was arrested on charges of forcible sexual assault, and he missed the birth of his child.
| October 12 2009 at 06:33 AM
While my kids eat healthy, I eat crap
What did I have for lunch yesterday? An old chunk of hardened cheese, a few sticky Jolly Ranchers leftover from Halloween, and two energy bars mailed to me several months ago by Clif Bar public relations because I'm a blogger and they're hoping for a plug in a blog post. (If you haven't already, you should read the NY Times article about companies mailing free stuff to mommy bloggers.)
Because our refrigerator was empty, I should have walked to the produce market down the street to pick up fixings for a proper lunch but I was grappling with a time issue. I needed to cram in as much work as possible before picking up my kids. Plus, I was too tired to walk the two blocks because I had stayed up working until 1 a.m. the night before. And so I ended up feeding myself a terribly disgusting, unhealthy meal.
Shutterstock/Christian Kieffer
What did my kids have for lunch? Strawberry Stonyfield organic yogurt, perfectly ripe peaches, and sandwiches made with the last of the Diestel all-natural oven-roasted turkey.
Here I go bragging about what I feed my "precious" kids and I tire of smug moms who do the same but in order for my story to have full impact I have to reveal what I dished up for my kids at breakfast.
I served them organic blueberries, whole milk yogurt, and sprouted wheat toast spread with honey made by busy little bees happily living in Shasta County.
For my breakfast, I scavenged a few overly ripe berries from the bottoms of my children's bowls and bread crusts left on their plates. Still hungry, I noshed on a Clif Bar. Yes, I know you're thinking that I should have made myself a piece of toast but I was too busy getting my two children out the door and into the car.
So this means that yesterday, I ate three Clif Bars before 4 p.m., which left me feeling quite ill. Have you ever made Rice Crispy treats and ended up eating the entire batch? Well, it's a similar feeling. Clif Bars pack in a lot of nutrients, but they're loaded with sugar.
I'm beginning to notice a trend. While my kids eat healthy, I eat crap.
Not always. At dinner, I finally got something wholesome into my belly. I made green salad tossed with dried cranberries, pine nuts, and grilled chicken. I was so desperate for something nutritious, something green, that I wolfed down half my food before my kids even took their first bite.
"Wow, Mommy, you eat really fast," said my son, who stared at me in astonishment.
It's certainly no revelation that moms neglect themselves while they nurture their children. It's a mom's (and a dad's) natural instinct to put their kids first. This phenomenon manifests itself in all sorts of ways. Some moms shower only occasionally and bathe their children nightly. Some moms wear dowdy yoga pants while their daughters prance around in $100 tutus (Erin Blakeley writes a thoughtful blog post on this for Babble). Many moms neglect themselves of any sort of luxury--a pedicure, a massage, a new pair of underwear--while they pay for their children's music and art classes. And I wouldn't doubt that in the midst of this sagging economy most moms are cutting back on themselves before they reduce the time, money, and energy they put into their little ones. Mom's soy latte habit gets cut before the kids' piano lessons.
I'm 100 percent about putting kids first. My children will always, always come first. If we were stranded on a deserted island with only one Clif Bar, I would break the bar in half and give one piece to each of my children and not take a crumb for myself. But at 4 p.m. yesterday when I was ready to keel over from Clif Bar overload I realized I need to put more time and money into nourishing myself. My kids will actually benefit from this because I'll have more energy to put into loving and enjoying them.
(Clif Bar: I apologize for the negative publicity because I do love your Blueberry Crisp bars so much that I often can't stop eating them.)
| September 03 2009 at 11:49 AM
Tales of remarkable goldfish
Most parents have flushed a dead goldfish down the toilet or helped bury a deceased fish in the backyard and constructed a grave with twigs and pebbles. In our family, we have already held two goldfish funerals.
Yes, most goldfish seem to die easily; they're disposable pets. The story typically goes that your kid wins one at a carnival, you spend $20 or $30 on the bowl, pretty rocks, plastic seaweed, and food--and then it dies six months later.
But some of us also have tales of amazing fish who survived even though we cleaned their bowls only once every three months.
Growing up, my brother and I had a fish who went without food for two weeks when our family went on vacation and forgot to ask a neighborhood kid to care for our pet. When we returned, the fish was miraculously alive, and we named him "Amazing."
From then on, we never forgot to feed Amazing and his bowl was always sparking clean. He went on to live for two more years, and I remember my younger brother crying when the fish eventually floated to the top. We stuck him in an old matchbox, which I decorated with stickers, and buried him in the garden, marking the spot with a cross made from sticks. Now, his grave is covered in a brick patio.
North News & Pictures Ltd
Sparkle the goldfish with owner, 15-year-old Kelly Chivers
Yesterday the British newspaper The Daily Mail ran a story about an even more remarkable goldfish. Sparkle jumped out of his bowl, fell five feet to the ground, and survived out of water for seven hours.
A spokesman for the National Marine Aquarium, in Plymouth, England, told the Mail, "It's possible but unlikely because once they are out of water they are normally so stressed they die pretty quickly." But he added that if the fish had been able to remain calm it could have lowered its metabolic rate and survived with just a coating of water.
Do you think seven hours sounds long? Last year in the UK, a goldfish named Ginger survived 13 hours out of water, according to the Daily Telegraph. And then there's the story of Goldie who was 45 years old when she died in 2005; the BBC reported that she was the oldest goldfish in the world.
Do you have any stories to share about remarkable goldfish?
| August 26 2009 at 08:33 AM
Advantages of getting pregnant during a baby bust
For the first time since the decade began, Americans are having fewer babies.
Shutterstock/Dmitry Naumov
Are we in the midst of a baby bust?
The number of births had been rising in the United States since 2002, and in 2007, it broke a 50-year-old record high, set during the baby boom. But last year, births began to decline, by nearly 2 percent.
The National Center for Health Statistics reports that 4,247,000 babies were born in the U.S. in 2008, down roughly 68,000 from the year before.
Many experts blame the economy for the baby bust. The largest declines were in California and Florida, two states hit hardest by the housing crisis. In 2008 California logged 14,500 fewer births than in 2007, a 2.6 percent decrease. Experts believe another contributing factor is the net decline in immigration in recent years.
And so it sounds as if we're in the midst of a baby bust--and you know what that means? Fewer pregnant women, fewer babies, more availability in the hospital delivery room, not as many stroller traffic jams on Noe Valley's 24th Street, fewer kids applying to preschool... Yes, there are all sorts of advantages (many of them trivial and silly) to getting pregnant during a baby bust--and to raising your child amongst a smaller population of kids. Here are the top 10:
1) The city's most popular obgyn will start accepting new patients again.
2) Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough will always be in stock at your local supermarket. Fewer pregnant women with crazy cravings means a greater selection in the ice cream aisle.
3) At your birth, you might actually get the anesthesiologist into your room to set you up with an epidural because he won't be occupied with a dozen other moms screaming, "I'm going to kill you if you don't stop the pain now!"
4) If you're going for the natural approach, you might actually have the full attention of the hospital's on-staff doula.
5) You're more likely to stay overnight at the hospital in your own room--rather than get stuck in a shared room.
6) The city's most popular and best pediatrician will be accepting new patients again.
7) The sales rack at Gymboree will be filled with adorable, cheap clothes available in all sizes. Fewer moms, means fewer Gymboree shoppers.
8) Fewer babies means fewer disposable diapers dumped into landfills, fewer families cruising around town in SUVs, fewer cheap plastic toys. Your child will grow up in a cleaner world.
9) Your kid will have an easier time getting into preschool, elementary school, middle school, high school, college. Heck, he'll have an easier time getting a job when he graduates--or making the Olympic team. Fewer babies, means less competition.
10) The lines at Disneyland will be shorter.
| August 08 2009 at 10:06 AM
Where the wild crunch berries grow
Guess what? The multicolored balls in Cap'N Crunch's Crunch Berries aren't real berries.
If you have ever purchased this cereal for your family, you probably already know this but that's not the case with San Diego woman Janine Sugawara.
Sugawara bought the cereal for four years believing crunch berries were a real fruit, according to the blog Lowering the Bar and a USA Today story. When she learned the purple, teal, and green berries were actually cereal balls flavored with strawberry concentrate, she sued the manufacturer.
Judge Morrison England Jr. proclaimed:
This Court is not aware of, nor has Plaintiff alleged the existence of, any actual fruit referred to as a "crunchberry." ... A reasonable consumer would not be deceived into believing that the Product in the instant case contained a fruit that does not exist. . . . So far as this Court has been made aware, there is no such fruit growing in the wild or occurring naturally in any part of the world.
Plaintiff did not explain why she could not reasonably have figured this out at any point during the four years she alleged she bought Cap'n Crunch with Crunchberries in reliance on defendant's fraud.
| June 09 2009 at 08:40 AM
Girl finds condom in Happy Meal
You never know what's inside this box.
A 7-year-old Swiss girl must have been disappointed when she discovered a condom in her McDonald's Happy Meal this week. She found the prophylactic buried in her french fries, according to an Associated Press story. Her mom immediately phoned Fribourg state police and the department is performing an analysis to determine if the condom posed a health risk.
What would you do if you found a condom in your child's Happy Meal? Just how grossed out would you be?
| May 05 2009 at 02:03 PM
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