Children's Books
 

I read Corduroy when I was a kid (yes, that was in the Ice Age... and your point is???) Maybe I had it read to me.

I said maybe.

Children's Books
 

My girls really liked both of these.

The back of the Corduroy book we have mentions that it is a story about "A black girl buying a bear" or something to that effect. Maybe the book we have is very old (I think the story was written in the early 1970s and the book was a "hand me down" from a person whose kids are grown), but I'm always taken aback by the fact that the book jacket points out that the story involves a "black girl". Why not just say it's about "A girl buying a bear"? I'd be curious to know if the new book you bought makes the "black girl" reference.

Oh, and don't get any of the other "newer" Corduroy books. They are really tedious.

Children's Books
 

I forgot about the Numeroff books. These are great, although I think the quality has fallen off a little in her later works. If You Give a Pig a Pancake, If You Give a Moose a Muffin and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie are the best ones, IMHO. Most of the others seem to be derivative of those three.

Children's Books
 

Oh, just come up here and I'll read it to you under a fluffy blankie with warm milk and cookies, and you can even have a fafa. Come to Mama.

This does not surprise me since it was published in 1968. They probably thought they were so modern to write a book about a "black girl" buying a bear. Sigh. Well, you are right - no more mention of "black girl." Nothing on the back cover - inside jacket talks about "Lisa" buying the bear, etc. On a related note, I don't think childrens books do "socially aware" very well. Unless there is something more subtle, like in "Snowy Day", the boy mentions going to his neighbor's "across the hall" - you're happy to see apartments finally mentioned in a book in a natural way. Exception: I kind of like the Sesame Street/Elmo book where 2 friends see that their respective neighborhoods have pink monsters, while the other has blue. Then there are books that I liked when I was little but I'm scared to pick up now:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/06...CLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Children's Books
 

you can get your fix, still:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/03...CLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Children's Books
 

I don't know. I thought the Dr. Seuss tale about the Sneeches was pretty socially progressive.:

Now, the Star-Belly Sneetches
Had bellies with stars.
The Plain-Belly Sneetches
Had none upon thars.

At the end you learn that the stars on the bellies don't make a difference after all. Of course, I had to do some stupid project about that book in my college interpersonal communication theory class, which was the only reason it came to mind.

On an unrelated note, this baby does NOT want out. And I have the worst case of cankles and hobbit feet the world has ever known, and since I have always been blessed with unusually low blood pressure, there is no relief in sight. Any advice welcome.

Children's Books
 

Yep, but there are some newer books, which don't evidence being by someone else, with poor illustrations and crummy little stories.

Children's Books
 

Try to stand next to Hillary Clinton.

Children's Books
 

I have an ABC board book from the "Estate of Richard Scarry." I think they took original illustrations and had someone else write lame little story to go with it. Since my kid can't read yet, we just look at the pictures of that one.

On Cankles - I had the worst swelling with kid #1 - I couldn't wear shoes at all from month 5 on out, which went over great with the managing partner. Your options are as follows: Drink LOTS of water, cut down your salt and keep feet above head...all day, wear ugly freakin' support hose Rx'ed from Dr., or deal with it. Chances are you just have to live with it until baby pops out. Sorry. On the plus side, I had almost no swelling at all with baby #2 - it was a very different pregnancy altogether.

Cankles
 

Also, it doesn't actually go down right away once baby shows up esp. if you end up with a c-s or get pitocin in your system (and may get worse...eeek!), so don't take sweatpants with elastic at the leg bottoms to come home in like I did for #1....big mistake.

Children's Books
 

My grandmother used to read that one to me.

Children's Books
 

This reminds me, a friend who is senior attorney at UAW and big democrat party donor told me that he heard a rumor that Hillary was trying to get pregnant to soften her image. i also thought the pregnancy period would make her body seem more in proportion.

Burger, have you heard this in Dc?

Children's Books
 

I hear her dear aunt flo left this world some time ago.

Cankles
 

Another reason to avoid an epidural--no IV fluids means your ankles get back to normal sooner. Big difference here between no. 1 (epidural) and no. 2 (none).

Then, all those books and helpful people that/who say to basically not get out of bed for a week? Do it. Your ankles will thank you.

tm

Children's Books
 

Well you need to quit the prenatal reading of:
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/14...CLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

BTW - on the Children's books topics, there have been some books we've gotten (gifts/hand-me-downs) that I've yanked from the shelf for different reasons. Some, because we're not ready to deal with "where is my real mother" yet (so I've put aside "The Story of Babar", where the elephant's Mommy gets killed on page 2 and just about all the well intended adoption books that don't quite hit the right note). Others are just annoying "How Iwariwa The Cayman Learned to Share". But some seem creepy. Has anyone read, "Love You Forever", Robert Munsch? Does it really have a Mom who is a stalker and drives to her son's house with a ladder on top of her car to break in so she can rock her adult son? And the son fondling his elderly mother in a rocking chair?
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/09...CLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Not that I won't stalk my own kid when she's older.....but, wow, that's creepy for a kid's book.

Cankles
 

Yep. Though I had hideous swelling after both c-s, with the second it got MUCH worse and I was admitted with (among other things) PP Hypertension (postecclampsia?). BP (normally a happy 104/65) was and angry 190/115 and increasing.

Children's Books
 

I seem to think that was voted creepiest book evah a while back. I know a lot of people give it/get it for baby shower gifts. Ugh.

Children's Books
 

(a) My daughter loves Babar, but that book does take some creative reading. When we read it, the wicked hunter made babr's Mommy fall down, and then the Elephant King was just too sick to be King any more.

(b) The Munsch book sounds creepy -- but the same could be said of the psycho-stalker Mom in "Runaway Bunny." I think we adults just approach these things from a less innocent perspective than kids do and perhaps most people once did. After all, if your parents love you and would never harm you (as little kids should feel) -- how could it be bad to have them around your whole life?

S_A_M

Long time, no post.
 

Random musings:

Strollers. Got a combi when the Trepidation Kid was born, because it had a fully reclining back and you could slap an infant car-seat into it. It was a great stroller - didn't look that small, but folded up narrowly enough to fit between a radiator and the wall of our hallway and weighed next to nothing. Turned on a dime. Anyhow, what with the Monster Kid (21 mo., 30+ pounds, 35 inches and extremely athletic) having become an escape artist (ripping out straps, wiggling the entire frame enough to let him slip out under the arm rest), the thing is sort of shot. So we got a little MacLaren. It's cute, looks smaller than the Combi when open, folds to about the same size, weighs noticeably more (though apparently not a lot, compared to most strollers) and turns like a pig. Sigh.

Big kids. Went to a local kid hangout with my spawn this weekend, and he and another little boy ran around together and tried to swap half-chewed food. His mother asked how old TK was and I said 21 months, she sort of looked at me blankly and said her kid was 3 1/2. TK had two inches and probably 10 pounds on him. Damn, he must have been one of those meth-babies y'all were talking about.

Kids' clothes. I have a sibling with closet space, who has become the repository of children's clothing for our extended family. This is extremely convenient. Unfortunately, my relations apparently have crappy taste in childrens' clothing, so I still have to supplement. Mostly with cool T-shirts, though. And, on a related topic, my sibling's kid (the eldest boy, therefore she picks out most of the boys clothing in the collection) is going to spend much of his childhood getting the crap beaten out of him by other kids. I am currently trying to save his sister (the eldest girl) from a lifetime of concealing all childhood photos. All that being said, eBay is totally the way to go. Both for getting rid of outgrown kids clothes and acquiring new crap they will immediately outgrow. (And for maternity clothes, which are obscenely expensive given how long you wear them.) This reminds me that my sister hasn't recycled back to me a 2T Kenneth Cole leather jacket I got her son - I got it 50% because the idea of a 2 year old having a Kenneth Cole leather jacket was just so wrong, and 50% because it was really cute - and my kid can wear it now. No fair. Just because her 3 year old is runty doesn't mean she should hoard the good stuff.

Kids' socks. I have way too much fun putting oddly colored socks on my kid to go the all-white route, but I have discovered that Old Navy socks are durable and may be purchased in bulk. Useful given the apparent inability of the local washeteria to keep socks in pairs. They also get bleach stains on my light towels, so I really need to find a better landromat. Fortunately, a kid wearing one red sock and one green one is pretty cute. (Except at the office "holiday party," I guess.)

Sick kids. Sick kids are Typhoid Mary. They should be quarantined. Away from their parents. I think just expelled my appendix through my nose.

Peanuts. Kids can't be protected from everything, even life-threatening environmental hazards. I'm not so naïve as to say parents should just deal, but anyone who tells me that my kid can't eat a PB&J because someone passing by might encounter a peanut molecule off his breath can stuff it. I strongly take Hank's point, and I suffered from a life-threatening childhood food allergy including dermal contact reactions (which was not outgrown, thank you). That said, even though it is an idiotic slippery slope, I think public schools should adopt anti-peanut policies, if only because bullshit lawsuits should not be paid out of my tax dollars. Parents of allergy-ridden students, however, should be told that the policies as a practical matter are unenforceable by the school, which can, at best, inform all parents of the policy and try to dispose of peanut products it becomes aware of. (Or, ultlimately, they need to just deal.)

Fucking old people. Visited the grandparents in their retirement Nirvana recently. What a friggin' nightmare. Nothing, NOTHING was childproofed. In fact, the whole house was "senior friendly," meaning that if you looked at a door it opened, if you touched a fawcet it gushed forth, and everything was low to the ground. There wasn't a sidewalk in the neighborhood, much less someplace to walk to. God knows the grandparents are not going to disrupt their house (or redesign it) to child-proof. God knows they aren't going to keep an eye on the bairn while "you kids" are present in the same state to do it. God knows they won't just feed the kid what we eat, but instead will insist on feeding him all sorts of horrendous "kid-meal" crap involving soda, fried mystery meat and french fries. God knows they must exercise their grandparently right to claim that Gummy Bears count as a fruit or vegetable. So we spent a week chasing a hyper, bored toddler with full access to the cleaning products in a house with no lock or latch on the door leading to the swimming pool. One night when he escaped from our room, he decided to open two supposedly latched doors to crawl into bed with another houseguest (who had arrived after his bedtime and therefore he had never met), who woke up and said "Um, hi there, shouldn't you go back to bed?" TK reportedly replied "OK!", got under her covers and promptly went right to sleep. She thought this was cute, but it was less cute when his panicked parents woke her up searching the house for him at 4:30 in the morning. I'm still exhausted.

Long time, no post.
 

This is really egregious false advertising. I want my 30 seconds back.

Long time, no post.
 

I confess I was afraid to read the rest of this paragraph.

I am sick with two (if you count the spouse, 3) sick chidren. It sucks - Mommies can't call in sick. Worse, I have no voice, so "no-no, get down from there!!!" in a whisper doesn't exactly carry a lot of weight. I took #2 to the ped yesterday - ear infection. His first and hopefully last. Even given a week of not eating and barfing what he did eat, he's still gaining weight at an alarming rate. 7mos, almost 26lbs.


ETA: Oh, man...when he learns to walk, I'm gonna need to put this kid on a treadmill: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhanes/...t1/chart01.pdf

Long time, no post.
 

Because you wanted to read a long paragraph about fucking old people? You have changed.

Long time, no post.
 

JFC, what is the big fucking deal about not sending your kid to day care/preschool/school with PB&J? Is there some preordained right to eat a PB&J? Besides, PB&J is a shitty packed lunch because the J soaks through the bread anyway. The only thing worse is a tuna sandwich packed in the same bag as a ripe banana.

If your kid loves PB&J so much, let him eat it for dinner.

This way, parents of kids with peanut allergies won't have to home school their kids. Think about it: given the unexplained rise in peanut allergies, do you really want to create such a large cohort of home-schooled weirdos?

Long time, no post.
 

!!!! Not if you put peanut butter on both pieces of bread. Sadly, I didn't learn this tasty cooking hint until I was babysitting in high school. At the same house, I learned to keep vodka in the freezer.

So.....
 

How's little Razormouth doing?

Long time, no post.
 

Kids with peanut allergies should coat their nostrils with jelly as a protective measure.

Mmm, grape snot.

Long time, no post.
 

Ageist.

So.....
 

Great. The past couple of weeks have been really packed with developmental milestones. She's getting to be more of a little kid and less of a baby already. Waah!

And she loves tooling 'round the 'burb in this:

http://i5.ebayimg.com/03/i/04/8b/2d/a1_2.JPG

Long time, no post.
 

In matters sexual, yes.

Long time, no post.
 

You people have dirty minds.
Maybe my kid is willful and won't eat anything else (an affliction my sister had for about 3 years)? Maybe he's got a babysitter who doesn't know? Maybe we haven't been able to go grocery shopping for 2 weeks and there is nothing else in the house? Maybe we aren't aware that something contains peanuts?

Maybe I forgot?

You can't micromanage the rest of the world. School policy & enforcement notwithstanding, you can't rely on it. Ultimately, one way or the other, you've just got to deal.

So.....
 

The only way to stop it is to have another one. And another one....

Long time, no post.
 

These are two different points -- I am talking only about your convenience, not the other parents' reliance on your taking measures to help them out. But really, is it that hard to do so? (Putting aside forgetting or not knowing about peanut ingredients.) Of course the parents have to deal with the problem -- in every context, not just in school, and whether or not any other parent or any other person wants to take a relatively simple step to try to avoid a problem that for some people is serious. But your position really seems to be that they can suck it because it's too much trouble for you.

My point is that, your dramatic litany of reasons notwithstanding, it can't be so difficult to avoid sending your kid to school with PB that it's necessary to present the issue initially as if your kid has a *right* to eat the PB&J at school.

Now I'm hungry for a Snickers.

So.....
 

and what about the (robust) puppies?

So.....
 

Being summoned. It's happy hour at Hooters.

So.....
 

Say hi to Sven for me.

Peanut allergies
 

I'm not really sure why school needs to be different from any other place in the world. If a kid has a life-threatening allergy, he needs to learn to do what's necessary to protect himself, whether that means not sharing food with other kids or not sharing saliva with other kids or washing hands regularly or whatever. Outside of a very very few cases, this is something that can be adequately controlled by the allergic kid and his parents. Putting those rare cases aside, it seems to me the height of selfishness to ask hundreds of other families to inconvenience themselves so that your kid can delay learning something that he needs to learn for his own safety anyway.

Peanut allergies
 

Training a 3 yo to stick himself with an epipen should be easy.

I'm no fan of inconveniencing many to benefit a few, but a classmate of mine died from anaphylactic shock (or cardiac arrest as a result) from, apparently, shaking the hand of someone who had been eating peanuts earlier that evening. He was in his 30s and aware of his allergy. So it's not just a "buck up camper" issue.

Peanut allergies
 

Life is so hard. Imagine coping with the inconvenience of not bringing peanut butter to school.

It takes a fucking village, indeed.

Peanut allergies
 

PB restrictions aren't a debilitating inconvenience (though it is, frankly, a significant one if you have kids who like PB), and, overall, I don't have a personal problem with making a good-faith effort not to do things that I know will put others into life-threatening jeapardy. And, yes, it is clearly hoping too much to think a 5 year old can effectively safeguard against the threat of the omni-present peanut (though the teachers should really be given charge of the epi pens).

But I don't think the "limiting the many for the benefit of the few" and the inability to rely on those limitations are really separate issues. If enforcement is fundamentally a hopeless cause, there is little gain to justify the restrictions. I object to the inconvenience because it doesn't really help.

I hate to think what our lives will be like once this precedent is set - soon no one will be permitted to have family pets so their kids don't transport dander to trigger asthma attacks. Or flowering houseplants, for that matter. Then again, as Burger's story illustrates, maybe some people are just doomed.

Peanut allergies
 

this rings true.

Another true story, my ex-aunt, the actress, had a friend who had a shrimp allergy. Had sex, unprotected, with a man who had eaten shrimp earlier that day, and died from it. On the other hand, I had a housemate my first year of lawshool who took ecstasy and when he was at the plateau of exing, I guess, he screamed at all of us with him to back off and not to touch him cause he might shatter. apparently he thought he was a ice sculpture. another housemate's fiance touched him. he didn't break.