DIY Paternity tests. But is it a good thing? Now, in 30 states across the US, you can walk into the drugstore, plunk down thirty bucks*, and walk away with a DIY paternity test that would answer this important question.

For those who had a situation where they are unsure, living with the uncertainty can be hard. But before running out and buying a kit - try to understand the impact to knowing the results. Many relationships can be broken. Other concerns include that fact that this is uncontrolled - so samples can be taken without the person’s knowledge (I am thinking potential lawsuit here…), and as well a child could be tested without one of the parents knowledge.

I personally have not in this situation, so I can’t begin to imagine what I would do. But I do know that in any case, this is not something to be taken lightly, and I fear that having these tests available at a cheap cost in an uncontrolled environment seems like a recipe for disaster.

Now the question burning in everyone’s minds - will this put Jerry, Montel and Maury out of business?

* there is a $120 lab processing fee, bringing the total cost to about $150.

BEWARE OF THE NIPPLE CREAM!!! If you have Mommy’s Bliss Nipple Cream, marketed by MOM Enterprises Inc., please immediately stop using the product as it appears to have some harmful chemicles that can cause respiratory distress in infants.

Disney recalls some toys. Disney is recalling a Tinkerbell wand and a Pirates of the Caribbean sleeping bag because of excessive lead paint. If you have these articles, please return them.

That’s not funky punctuation on my part. We Can! is a new national program designed to put the brakes on America’s rising obesity rates in children. We Can! (short for Ways to Enhance Children’s Activity and Nutrition) is a partnership between the National Institutes of Health and the Association of Children’s Museums.

This program focuses on several lifestyle changes (such as portion control and daily exercise routines) that, when accomplished together, can lead to much healthier weights for kids and an increased activity rate, both of which have enormous benefits across the board. Bad habits in childhood often stick with people right on into adulthood, and before you know it, you’re an overweight, sedentary adult with big health problems. The best time to curb unhealthy habits is during childhood, before they’re so deeply ingrained.

We Can! can be a model for overcoming the challenges of childhood obesity and overweight, [acting U.S. Surgeon General Rear Admiral Dr. Steven K.] Galson said. “Its partnerships are demonstrating how physical activity and sound lifestyle choices can make a difference and how communities can work together to make those lifestyle choices real,” he said.

We Can! is an education program to help children aged 8 to 13 years old to maintain a healthy weight. It’s being implemented in more than 450 communities in 44 states.

The newest cities in the program are Boston, Las Vegas, and Pittsburgh.

A full third of American adults are overweight. Let’s do something now so that our kids won’t follow in our too-heavy footsteps.

Posted by Sunshine.

Longevity is decreasing. Children of today may be the first generation who live a shorter life span than their parents. We are (not so) slowly but surely destroying our future health with the obesity epidemic. Obesity in children has tripled since the 1970’s. I guess this is not so surprising when you consider that two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese. Yup… two-thirds.

More and more children are getting adults diseases, such as Type-2 diabetes. It is called “advanced aging” and it means that these children will have a lower life expectancy. And it is important to point out again that annual health care costs of of treating obesity and its complications currently run at $70 to 100 billion a year.

And it is also important to consider not only the life expectancy, but the quality of life, which probably will be hindered if dealing with obesity and its further complications. So please do your children a favor and permit them a childhood where they grow up with healthy and active habits.

A bowl of cereal a day to have a baby boy. It has been proven that a woman can further influence the chance of having either a boy or a girl by the foods she eats. Eating a bowl of cereal (calcium), more bananas (potassium), salty foods (sodium) and eating generally more calories overall can increase chances of conceiving a boy. 59% of women eating a bowl of cereal per day had baby boys, compared to 43% of women who ate 1 bowl or less per week. To be honest, I am not sure how that works considering it is the male sperm that determines gender, but apparently it does. Go figure.

Watch out for lemonade! A dad in Detroit has his son removed from the home by authorities for a few days while they determined whether or not he was negligent. He was at a ballgame with his 7 year son and accidentally got him drunk on “Mike’s Hard Lemonade”. Dad did not realize there was alcohol in the drink. In the end, the child’s blood test showed no signs of alcohol and the family has since been reunited.

My grandmother passed away this week, and due to circumstances beyond our control, my husband and I found ourselves with a less-than-ideal choice: take a baby and a 2yo to her funeral, or miss it entirely.

We’re taking them (and boy, do I have my worries about that), but it got me thinking about what other people feel is appropriate. Do young children belong at a funeral? Does it matter whether it’s open casket (this one will not be)?

For older children, parents might want to refer to this page for advice and guidelines. And the “experts” say that children as young as three can and should attend a funeral if the deceased was someone they knew and loved. They grieve too.

Here’s my survival strategy for my Nana’s funeral — maybe it will help someone else faced with the prospect of taking small children.

* Have a quiet, non-messy snack handy (and a ready-made bottle for baby, if at all possible — eating at a funeral might not be proper, but I figure the rest of the congregation would appreciate that far more than hearing my child scream because he’s hungry)
* Have a few quiet toys/teethers on hand (I have my daughter’s favorite coloring book and a picture book in the diaper bag)
* Explain beforehand, as best I can, what my 2yo can expect to see and hear, and what I expect of her (no yelling, no running around, etc.)
* Keep in mind that kids are still just kids, even in somber attire at a grownup event. Perfect behavior is just not going to occur.
* Be prepared to take the child out if it becomes clear that she is overwhelmed.

Posted by Sunshine.

My daughter was a decent teether. She was a little cranky when new teeth were coming in, but it wasn’t too hard to handle. A bit of Baby Orajel on her gums, and she’d be a happy camper again. My son, on the other hand, is a little monster when he’s teething. He’s not nearly so easy to soothe.

So what’s a mom to do? If you don’t like the idea of topical teething gels or medicine, like Tylenol, Miss Poppy offers these natural alternatives:

For a do-it-yourself ointment for sore gums, try the old-fashioned remedy of a spot of clove oil diluted down with safflower oil. Rub it on their swollen gums for slight relief. (Slight relief? That doesn’t sound too encouraging…not to mention I don’t keep either of those oils around that I’m aware of.)

Other natural teething aids:

* Ice-cold carrot and celery sticks
* A whole, chilled peeled apple (lots of fun to hold and drop on the floor)
* A gel teething toy, frozen first in the fridge
* A clean, cold, damp face cloth straight from the fridge (This has proved to be my son’s best option during the day - I hide an ice cube in the cloth for further relief)
* Hard teething biscuits
* Crusts of bread, served chilled
* Your finger, served chilled (Okay, I know what she means, but that sounded like something you’d find in a horror flick)
* A cold drink of water or diluted fruit juice
* A cold yogurt or chilled puree of fruit

As always, you’ll want to supervise your child with any of the foods mentioned above.

Have other tips for frazzled moms like me? Squawk back and share your best stuff!

Posted by Sunshine.

An interesting new study suggests that both a child’s temperament and the relative strength of the mother-child bond can affect the quality of conflicts (level of aggravation, for example) between moms and their two-year-olds, but had nothing to do with how often conflict arose.

Interactions between 60 mothers and their children were observed during two sessions — a 50-minute lab visit when the children were 30 months old, and a 90-minute home visit when the children were 36 months old. The Lehigh and University of California, Davis, researchers recorded details of all episodes of conflict, including whether mothers and children displayed compromise, justification or aggravation (simple insistence without explanation or threats), and whether there was a resolution.

In both sessions, mother-child conflict occurred an average of 20 times an hour, with a large degree of variation in frequency of conflict (from five to 55 times an hour) and the quality of conflict.

(Fifty-five times an hour?? And I thought my kid went on a button-pushing rampage some days!)

Researchers found that more active children who were less able to control their behavior had more instances of conflict than less active/more self-controlled kids. (Um, yeah…I have yet to meet a two-year-old with much self control.) Children who felt more secure in their relationship with Mom (mother’s availability and responsiveness, etc.) and their mothers were more likely to experience conflicts with adequate resolutions, not just “No, you can’t do that, end of story” and a subsequent fit. (Or is it that children whose mothers helped them find a compromise or helped them understand the reasons for a “no” feel more secure in their relationships with their mothers? Hmm…)

Posted by Sunshine.

My daughter is obsessed with Dora the Explorer. I mean, freaking obsessed. She’s not so keen on other things, like brushing her teeth, eating supper, etc.

A week or two ago, I had a sudden flash of insight. It might make me a bad mom, but what if I could take her obsession and twist it to my advantage? There was a bad storm that night, right as her bedtime rolled around. My sweet girl told me she was scared of the noise, so I lied through my teeth and told her it was Dora and Boots (Dora’s monkey companion, in case any of you have miraculously escaped watching this show) playing a ball game inside their house. The noise was the ball hitting the wall.

Oh, and if she saw any flashes of light, that was just Dora’s mommy taking pictures of their game.

I felt kind of like a heel for lying to my daughter, but she got into bed and went to sleep with no tears.

Since then, I’ve tried the Dora tactic with other things. Of course any respectable kid-idolized character would, say, let her mom brush her teeth and hair after a bath, right? And I’m sure Dora eats her fruit and veggies and actually lets her mom wash her character-themed sheets (if Dora had Dora sheets, that would be weird though) without screaming and crying for a solid half hour over it…you get the idea.

It’s not that I press her to do things because “Dora does it” — she’ll get peer pressure soon enough without that!, but rather, when she does something the first time I ask her to, I tell her she’s a good helper just like Dora. It might not work out so great long-term, but right now that Dora obsession is responsible for a lot fewer battles in my day.

Gracias, Dora!

Posted by Sunshine.

That’s right. The glass baby bottles of yesteryear are becoming in vogue again as worried parents try to avoid plastics with bisphenol A (BPA) in them.

Bisphenol A, or BPA, is a manmade chemical used in polycarbonate plastic, the material used to make most baby bottles and other shatterproof plastic food containers. Americans are widely exposed to BPA, but opinions on its safety are mixed.

The Food and Drug Administration says current uses with food are safe. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says animal testing has shown that BPA has hormone-like effects on the reproductive system. The CDC says more study is needed to see if it could be harming people.

Switching to glass bottles (or using them instead of plastic ones in the first place) is one way to avoid exposing your baby to BPA, though you might have some trouble finding them. They represent less than a tenth of all baby bottle sales, but major manufacturers like Evenflo and Dr. Brown’s do make them. If you do use glass, be aware that these bottles do break (of course), and that you shouldn’t give your older baby a glass bottle to drink from without supervision.

Also, glass bottles usually cost more than plastic ones, and if you prefer plastic, you can find BPA-free plastic bottles, like these.

I love my son’s plastic baby bottles. I was pleased to find a wider-mouthed variety (easier to clean!) with a more natural grip than the ones I used with my daughter, which we threw out before we ever decided to try for a second baby.

Am I switching?

Nope. Not with less than three months to go ’til he switches to sippy cups. I figure he’s already been exposed, so any harm has already been done, as bad as that sounds. Besides, what about the BPA in all the other plastic products we use around our kids? Should I rush around trying to find alternately packaged containers of shampoo and detangler? What about my wipes dispensers? Until they can prove more objectively that BPA is harming kids, I’ll just keep on keepin’ on.

Posted by Sunshine.

I went to a huge family function Sunday (for a branch I haven’t kept up with very well), and was delighted to spot a distant relative who has always been a good friend of mine. But after the hellos and how are yous, I found myself grasping at straws to keep the conversation going. He doesn’t have kids, and I realized with dismay that talking about parenting stuff wouldn’t be nearly as interesting to him as it is to me.

No diaper disaster tales to exchange…no humorous kiddie anecdotes to trade…no parental angst to share…what else is there? Have I really fallen so out-of-touch with the non-parenting world? What on earth did I talk about before?

Then my brain shrugged off its lethargy, and I found myself asking him about his work, about his upcoming marriage, about his plans for the future. And he, in turn, asked intelligent questions about my life (and not just the kid part - about my own dreams and plans). We had plenty of catching up to do, and the hours flew by. What do you know - I am more than a mom, even when I don’t feel like I am!

In a few years, maybe we’ll be able to share parenting anecdotes, too.

Have you ever found it difficult to talk to old friends who don’t have kids, or does the switch from kid-centered to adult-centered conversation come easily to you?

Posted by Sunshine.

Who do you save for? Your children’s college education, or your own retirement? This is a topic that is on many adults’ minds these days. It used to be that responsible parents put away money to (help) pay for their children’s continuing education. But these days some financial advisors are saying “whoa there, you need to look out for yourself in your golden years.”

The reality is, a lot of benefits you may be expecting when you become a senior citizen just night not be there. And one of them is employment subsidized healthcare. Fidelity has been doing an annual survey, and they estimate that a couple retiring this year (65 years old) will need to have $225,000 saved only to pay for health requirements during their retirement. That assumes they do not have employment subsidies and this is the amount over what Medicare will contribute.

So now a lot more parents are putting less into college savings. Many themselves did not have assistance and they figure “where there is a will there is a way” and their children can be motivated to find funding themselves if going to college is their goal.

There is nothing wrong with looking out for number one - yourself. That does not make you a bad parent. And if you can take care of yourself, it is one less thing your child will have to think about when you are getting older. So, tell them you are doing them a favor, they just don’t realize it yet.