Screaming Meanies

As my husband and I are sitting down to a nice meal in a not-too-cheap Cantonese and Sushi restaurant recently (looking forward to a quiet dinner), I am guilty of the oh-no-eye-roll as the hostess seats the booth next to us with two parents and three children under the age of 4. I do this because I suspect what will happen to my quiet dinner. I wasn’t wrong.


Now, I’ve heard talk here and there on the web that small children should be banned from restaurants and I do not agree. Families have a right to eat out just as anyone else. That being said, I also think that other patrons of the restaurant have a right to a dinner sans children screaming, crying or in our case, banging a spoon on the table for nearly 40 minutes.

I love kids, don’t get me wrong, but what I don’t love is parents that do absolutely nothing to quiet, comfort or remove their screaming children (or perhaps just take the spoon away). Kids will be kids and parents, well, you had the kids and it’s your job to teach them how to behave in a public restaurant. Becoming a parent involves sacrifices, not mine, yours. Common courtesy should be the words of the day….and before you tell me that I have forgotten that I was a child once too, I will tell you that I certainly was never allowed to act out in a restaurant (or any public place), throw food, run around between the tables, scream or throw a tantrum. I do remember being a child; I spent some time being escorted outside until I could calm down before going back to my seat.

We all know it’s hard, hell impossible sometimes to keep all the children cool and calm. We get it, just asking for some actual parenting. If it at least looks like you’re trying, I’m good. Oh and maybe you replace the banging spoon with a breadstick or something?

Santa's Lap

Why is it that kids get so excited to see Santa and so terrified to sit on his lap?

It's an age-old tradition to visit Santa and tell him what you wish for at Christmas. When I was really small, of course, I don't remember screaming though my mother says I did.  When I was a bit older, I remember being so excited and nervous and then chickening out when I got close up on line after waiting for 45 minutes.  Mom wasn't pleased!  When I finally got there, motivately only by threats that I wouldn't get anything if I didn't tell him what I wanted, I made it through but he smelled funny and no one I knew had a big hairy beard like that. I do remember the wonder of it and I thought he had a very nice voice. For the most part, I wasn't traumatized.....some kids aren't that lucky.  How about you? (picture from www.humor-articles.com)

No More Tears

Although, I have a hairdressing background, it was a long time ago that I stood behind the chair. When I heard recently that Johnson and Johnson were being questioned about the ingredients in their baby shampoo, I thought of a boss I had at one time who insisted that the shampoo had novocaine in it and that was the reason it didn’t hurt baby’s eyes. Novocaine, really? … she said her mother told her that, and she believed it.


Obviously that’s crazy but, we were taught in school that J & J had simply balanced the PH of the shampoo so that it wouldn’t be alkaline or acidic and that was the secret of the “no more tears”.

Now, consumers and activists have pressured J & J enough apparently, that they are now, according to the Huffington Post, “continuing efforts to remove traces of two harmful chemicals from its baby products around the world.” The two chemicals, 1,4-dioxane and quaternium-15 are the ones in question now although J& J have removed other dangerous chemicals and ingredients from their baby products before. The worry is in the fact that babies have more sensitive and highly permeable skin than adults which contributes to higher health risks. J& J has no known plans to remove these chemicals from their adult product lines at this time.

To read the Huffington Post article in full: http://tinyurl.com/br9ntja

Viral Baby Video Stresses Mom out

I watched a cute video the other day because it had a baby, went viral quickly and I wanted to see what people were talking about. A mother taped her 2 year old having a tantrum and the family dog had a reaction to it. Cute, right? No one was hurt in the taping, no one was mistreated, no one was humiliated, it was just a very short, cute video of a 2 year old and a dog.


It actually started to get some major attention but it was the negative comments from the "internet crazies" that may cause Mom Caroline to need therapy. Internet anonymity causes people to be cruel and mean spirited for no apparent reason. Shame, shame! Read more from this mom here: http://tinyurl.com/6qpgcya

Too Particular to Push?

When I was younger, elective c-sections were unheard of. Women actually wanted to avoid a c-section. It was more recovery time and they really didn’t want the scar. Of course, that was back when recovery from a vaginal birth got you a week or two of rest time in the hospital; and that was with no complications.


This trend of elective c-sections for convenience bothers me. I’m old fashioned I guess, but I feel like convenience goes out the door when you have children and you might as well get used to that from the beginning. If you can’t even be inconvenienced to have the baby naturally, how are you going to deal with the day to day of a child?

I have a friend that’s “going there”. She’s due in late November but has insisted they wait until Dec 1 because….get this… she doesn’t like the birthstone for November.

Now some facts; elective c-sections have been on the rise steadily for at least 15 yrs. Some critics even question how many elective c-sections the patients truly choose and how many are surgeries pushed by medical professionals who don’t want their weekend or vacations interrupted by a spontaneous delivery.

Researchers say that elective c-sections are safest for the baby when done between 39 to 41 weeks of gestation. Some experts also believe that elective c-sections can lead to premature births due to inaccurate dating and these preterm babies can face a host of health problems.

Women who have a first baby by cesarean are also at increased risk of complications during their second delivery, regardless of how they birth, according to statistics.

At any rate, if this is a purely convenience decision for the mother, I hope she’s not shocked when she finds out that the baby won’t be checking her daytimer before needing feeding, burping, changing, sleeping, crying, changing, bathing, dressing, changing, etc. I ask you, do we really need to be scheduling something as important as the birth of our babies like hair appointments?