Study: More U.S. girls starting puberty early – CNN.com
Study: More U.S. girls starting puberty early – CNN.com.
The study just confirms what anyone with eyes can see: kids are growing up too fast. Literally. This has always worried me, especially in regards to when The Little Empress will start puberty. I hit puberty around 11 years old and got my period at 12. The idea of a child hitting puberty at 7… I can’t even fathom how a child of that age can even begin to process the changes.
Even though her pre-teen years are still far, far away, they’ll be here before we know it. I just hope that she’ll be able to enjoy being a little girl for as long as possible.
2 Year Old Smoker?!
Parents Let Two-Year-Old Smoke 40 Cigarettes a Day! | momlogic.com.
Wow. I mean, effing wow. Not only is this 2 year old a 4 pack a day smoker, he’s over fifty pounds!
From the original article at The Sun (UK)
“He looks pretty healthy to me. I don’t see the problem.”
Is this what we’ve become??
Okay, so KFC recently introduced the Double Down — a sandwich that uses, amazingly, two deep fried chicken breasts as the “bread”. Not to be outdone, IHOP has introduced a cheesecake stuffed pancake called the “Pancake Stacker”. This filling breakfast will set you back about 1,250 calories.
Aside from the fact that it does look quite tasty — hey, I like pancakes. I like cheesecake. I can admit this — I’m pretty repulsed. I can’t help but wonder if America is so damned gluttonous now that we seek to stuff ourselves unnecessarily for no good reason while folks around the world — hell, people in America – still starve to death.
What a way to set an example.
For moms with mutts…
I find this downright adorable…
Dog Sings To Soothe Crying Baby – Watch more Funny Videos
This dog is a lot more helpful than Miyuki was in the first days! Miyuki would pace back and forth, panicking, until someone got the baby to stop crying. Eventually, she just learned to retreat to the bathroom and cover her ears. 
NPR: Home Births Rise, Mostly By Choice
Home Births Rise, Mostly By Choice – Shots – Health News Blog : NPR.
Children were born at home for thousands of years before modern obstetrics so a return to this makes sense to me. While I personally would not consider homebirth for myself — I labored for 24+ hours at home, without pain relief and by the time I got to the hospital, I was literally crying for some relief at 5cm. I <3′ed my epidural, yes I did. — I would gladly defend any other woman’s right to do so.
California Poison Control Center to Shut Down
I just got this in my email and went to the California Poison Control Center website to verify for myself.
Hi everyone, I wanted to pass this along. I worked at the poison center and still have friends there. They are very concerned that the Governer has not included any funding for the poison center in the budget, and as of September, the center will be closing. Please read the following press release and help us out. I hope no one has had to use their services, but having worked there, I know how much relief it can bring to be told that whatever was eaten or touched is not dangerous. We were able to prevent so many ambulance trips and ER visits by reassuring parents and other callers that whatever happened is not toxic, or to get them to the ER in a timely manner if indeed what happened was dangerous. Here is the release: Funding for poison control services has recently been completely eliminated from the California state budget. Beginning in September of 2009, California will become the ONLY state in the nation without any emergency poison control services for residents or medical professionals. More than 50% of poisonings happen to children 5 years old and under and more than 90% happen at home. Poison Control is a service that saves California $70 million in health care costs and prevents 164,000 emergency room visits annually. Please help to save it! Please help tell your Representative and our Governor that the California Poison Control Center is an extremely valuable resource that we absolutely do not want cut from the state budget. HERE’S HOW YOU CAN HELP: - Call the Governor’s office at 1-916-445-2841 or email him through http://gov.ca.gov/interact Tell them how valuable the Poison Control Center is and why it should not be cut from the budget. They keep a tally of what every call is about, so every call helps!! - Call your local legislator Tell them the same thing. You can find your local legislator by entering in your zip code at http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html Thank you so much and please spread the word! Together we can save the California Poison Control Center .
Californians, please spread the word! This should not happen! I have called the CPCC myself when The Little Empress had eaten something I wasn’t sure was toxic or not. This is a vital resource for all parents and cuts down needless and costly emergency room visits. Please do not let the CPCC shut down!
For what it’s worth…
Yes, yes, another Jon & Kate Plus 8 post. Sue me, I got sucked in to TLC’s weekend marathon and ended up watching way more of them than I ever planned to.
Since TLC marathoned the episodes from beginning to the present, you could see the evolution of the Gosselins from a young family, struggling to make ends meet to their current trainwreck of a situation. Whether you loved them or hated them, chances are you’ve spied them on a tabloid cover or heard about them even if you don’t watch TV. And if you haven’t, well, consider yourself lucky.
Normally, I could care less about celebrities. They have their lives and I have mine and that’s just fine. I don’t envy celebrities for what they have because while the money would be really, really nice, life under a microscope sure as hell isn’t. Even so, when a family like the Gosselins come around and practically GIVE you the microscope, can you really be blamed for looking?
Having followed the Gosselins on and off, my first impression of them was that they were a young family, struggling to get by in the most extraordinary of circumstances. Twins AND sextuplets? Just the idea of The Little Empress having a twin is enough to make me curl up in a fetal position and rock back and forth moaning, “Oh god no oh god no oh god no.” (Don’t get me wrong, I love my daughter to pieces but she. is. a. handful.) Watching Mady Gosselin twirl around, the spirited energy bomb that she is, makes curl up in the aforementioned fetal position because good lord, Mady is exactly how I was as a child and is likely a reflection of what I have to look forward to with The Little Empress. God help me. And it was extraordinary to see how Kate Gosselin managed her humoungus household. If she was a little stressed out, who could blame her?
But then the one hour special became a series on the Discovery Health Channel which then got moved to TLC which has since morphed from The Learning Channel to The Litter Channel because it seems like most family shows have something to do with folks having multiples or huge families. (And yes, I watch these on occasion too because, wow, trainwreck.) And with each subsequent evolution of the show, the Gosselins changed as well. Far from being the young, just trying to make it family that I think most families could relate to, they’ve quickly become a celebrity family that very few people can relate to. They became a family that folks loved or hated. Casual watchers of the show — myself included — saw something wrong in the body language between Kate and Jon. As the show became more popular, more mainstream, some fans hated to admit that they loved the Gosselins; meanwhile anti-fans loved to hate them.
Why does the media even bother elevating people to celebrity status? Is it to worship them or to hate them?
I guess that in some sick way, the allegations of Jon being unfaithful and the Gosselins marriage being on the rocks has brought them crashing down to earth. Casual couch potato viewers — myself included, sadly — jumped from their couch saying, “I knew something was wrong!” Online forums buzz with news on who has outed the Gosselins for what they are, blogs speculate what is next, Gosselin lovers, haters and “… wtf is this all about?” folks tuned in on Monday to watch the painful, train wreck of a season premiere.
The silences, the body language, Kate’s palpable animosity, Jon’s resigned body language, the strain. To us, it is a television show; to them, it is their lives. I feel so very ashamed to be peeking in on what should be some very private parts of their lives and yet I remind myself that it is okay because they are choosing to air it for us.
I can’t help but wonder what will be next for the Gosselin kids. The sextuplets are 5 and the twins are nearly 9. They are no longer the uber cute little kids they once were. When TLC drops them — and they will, make no mistake. The entertainment world is cruel and you’re only as desirable as your marketing team wants you to be — what will happen to the kids? Will they notice that the attention is gone? (I’m sure Mady will!) Will they miss the free trips, the special treatment? Or will they bounce and recover?
And what of Jon and Kate? I mentioned to my sister that TLC’s marathon of Jon & Kate Plus 8 episodes over the Memorial Day weekend felt a lot like a memorial service. See how they used to be! See how they changed! See what changed! The season premiere really felt like the beginning of a slow death for the show, like a train slowly but surely about to crash to a stop. It is horrible and you know people are going to get hurt but you just. can’t. look. away.
Part of the problem
I have a confession to make: I’ve been following the Gosselin family, ie. Jon & Kate Plus 8. I remember hearing about them awhile back from their first TLC special, about how they were a family with twins and sextuplets. I didn’t take too much notice when Jon & Kate Plus 8 was made into a regular show, mostly because we didn’t have cable until last year. I would catch a bit of the show from time to time but usually didn’t watch the show in its entirety. Something about the show just rubbed me the wrong way. Mady reminds me too much of myself as a child and Kate reminds me of how overbearing and controlling I can be from time to time.
Even so, I’ve found myself fascinated by what’s going on with them. When rumors started flying back in February about Jon fooling around without Kate, I rolled my eyes and wondered why folks couldn’t leave them alone. And yet when the latest season of Jon & Kate Plus 8 wrapped, I watched the finale and was disappointed that there was no huge reveal.
Whether or not Jon’s been unfaithful to Kate doesn’t affect my life at all. Yet here I am, reading People for Kate’s take on what’s happening with them. I’m watching the current TLC marathon of Jon & Kate Plus 8 and it is beginning to feel like a memorial service to the happy memories. And of course, I’m planning to watch the season premiere to find out what’s going on.
I try to be a pretty private person myself yet I seem to enjoy peeking into others. Yeesh, why should I care about the Gosselins lives? Geezus. I’m part of the problem!
… I know all this but I’m still going to watch. I’m hopeless.
He’s not my sun.
While reading a friend’s blog entry about Mommy blogs, I followed a link to Ayelet Waldman’s 2005 article for the New York times called Truly, Madly, Guiltily where she talks about her relationship with her children and her husband. As she puts it, she loves her children but is in love with her husband, a claim I can understand and hell, even agree with.
However unlike most women, Waldman claims, her life does not revolve around her children but instead, revolves around her husband. Um, okay. And then, this:
An example: I often engage in the parental pastime known as God Forbid. What if, God forbid, someone were to snatch one of my children? God forbid. I imagine what it would feel like to lose one or even all of them. I imagine myself consumed, destroyed by the pain. And yet, in these imaginings, there is always a future beyond the child’s death. Because if I were to lose one of my children, God forbid, even if I lost all my children, God forbid, I would still have him, my husband. But my imagination simply fails me when I try to picture a future beyond my husband’s death. Of course I would have to live. I have four children, a mortgage, work to do. But I can imagine no joy without my husband.
God forbid she find any kind of joy in her children, who are the part of her husband who would still be living. God forbid she could find any joy in them.
God forbid Ms. Waldman’s husband ever die. I’d feel so sorry for children whose mother couldn’t find joy in them, despite her own saddness.
And if my children resent having been moons rather than the sun? If they berate me for not having loved them enough? If they call me a bad mother? I will tell them that I wish for them a love like I have for their father. I will tell them that they are my children, and they deserve both to love and be loved like that. I will tell them to settle for nothing less than what they saw when they looked at me, looking at him.
I know that closing is supposed to be poetic, even poignant. How awesome her love for her husband must be, above the love for her own children. But correct me if I’m wrong here but basically, she is saying she would tell her children to find a great love for themselves like she had for her husband, never settling for less than that love. Never mind that she didn’t show them that love herself. That’s supposed to make it better?
Nope, sorry, not buying it. At the root of it all, it seems to me that Waldman considers the love for husband and love for children to be mutually exclusive. Because, God forbid! a woman could love her husband and her kids in a way that doesn’t put one above the other.
Admittedly, the love you have for your child/ren and your partner are two different types of love. But just because they’re different means you love one more than the other or that one love means more than the other. The whole notion reminds me of those fights I used to have with my sister. “Mommy loves me best!” I’d yell as I would stomp my feet, as if to prove a point. (Yeah, I was a brat.) Our mom would step in and say, “No, I love you both the same.”
My love for my husband and child are two very different but similar feelings. I grew to love my husband but I fell in love instantly with my child. The Hubster ™ and I are equal partners in life; I am The Little Empress’ minion, teacher, feeding trough, pillow, etc. My relationships are vastly different from each other, neither more nor less than the other.
Has the ardor that I once felt for my husband diminished or been completely replaced by my overwhelming maternal feelings for my child, as proposed by Waldman? Uh, no. For one, ardor is not a word I’d use to describe what my husband and I feel for each other. (Or at least, not a word I could use with a straight face when thinking about our relationship. OOOOH. HOT BURNING PASSIONATE LOOOOOOOOVE. Gimme a break, I’m so 12 years old at heart.) My non-existant sex life had nothing to do with lack of love for my husband — and frankly, equating frequency of sex to depth of one’s love is just plain stupid if you ask me — and everything to do with my perpetual sleep deficiency and the fact that TLE insists that boobies are her food and not Daddy’s toy. (Ever try to initiate the mood when you’ve got a 1 year old climbing over you, mouth at the ready trying to nurse? Take notes — DOESN”T WORK. This child is the best birth control we ever had.)
So yeah, in my very humble and honest opinion, Ms. Waldman can stuff it.
The Gentlest Thing
The past few days haven’t been easy since The Little Empress was a bit discombobulated from her birthday party on Saturday. Poor little thing is still so very easily overstimulated and it has made her clingier and needier than usual. For us, this means she’s been nursing around the clock again and it has been wearing me down.
I had just about lost my patience with TLE who has been bouncing from boob to boob pretty much all night. Finally, she’s gone down for the night and while she snoozed beside me, I found this video on YouTube.
I’m reminded again how lucky I am to share this special bond with my little one and despite how exhausting it can be at times, I still treasure every single nursing we have.
About
My name is Michelle. I write, I shoot and I mom, not necessarily in that order. I'm aware that 'mom' isn't widely accepted as a verb but I think it should be.I'm a self-professed geek and caffeine addict. (Some may argue that the latter is a requirement of the former.) I live with my husband and our daughter in the California Delta.
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