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  • "Indigos," "Crystals" & Jenny McCarthy: Have You Heard About This?!?

    I stumbled across a blurb about Jenny McCarthy and her autistic son, Evan, the other day.  I discovered that Jenny identifies as an "Indigo adult," and considers her son a "Crystal child."  As you are probably wondering, so was I: what exactly does that mean?  Upon further reading and research, I discovered a huge amount of online information about Indigos and Crystals, and the belief that "indigo/crystal phenomenon is the next step in our evolution as a human species."

    Want to know more?  Keep reading, but be warned: I'm about to drop some serious metaphysical shit on you.  For real.  

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  • Gender Stereotypes: One Family's Fight Against The Binary System

    Reading this post the other day really struck a chord with me.  I am the mother of a uber-femme, sparkly, Princess-loving little girl who practically poops pink.  She was born that way.  She has always preferred "mothering" her baby dolls to playing in the sandbox (this is a girl who will make a "bed" for her "baby" out of a dumptruck). 

    But I am always trying to balance the scales: I encourage (but don't force) her to try new ways of playing; we read gender neutral books with her, along with "Fancy Nancy;" and my husband and I take the kids along when we hang out with our queer friends, some of whom are women who identify as men, some of whom are men who identify as women.  We discuss the fact discuss the fact that whatever a person wants to be, whether "boy," "girl" or something in-between, is their choice.  We are not trying to change who our daughter is - or confuse her, though that happens - we're just trying to open her up to the fact that she can choose who she wants to be.  And so can everyone else.

    We're talking the talk... but over at HipMama yesterday, I read an article about a family who is walking the walk...

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  • "Sippy Cups" Author on Drinking, Motherhood, a New Book and Zoloft

    Stefanie Wilder-Taylor is my new favorite mom. Funny. Smart. So hot she must be anorexic. What's not to love? Asked on the Today Show not too long ago whether it was OK for a mom and dad to split a beer in front of their kids, she said something close to, "I think a husband and wife should have their own beer."

    If by own, she meant thirty six, then we're on the same page. Still, it was pretty funny -- the Today Show cast could be heard cackling in the background.

    It turns out Wilder-Taylor, author of the classic parenting tome "Sippy Cups are Not for Chardonnay," had a whirlwind few weeks following the show. She won praise from parents who think it's just fine to mix playdates with an occasional drink and got a book deal out of the whole thing.

    Good for her. If her new book, "Nap Time is the New Happy Hour," is anything like her first, I can't wait for it to come out (April '08 baby!) -- especially if she tells all about her brief relationship with Today Show host Meredith Viera.

    The following is a Strollerderby conversation -- similar to Charlie Rose, just with more alcohol:

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  • Peanut Butter and Babies Equals Crazy Delicious

    When I was a kid, I couldn't help feeding my dog, Bo, peanut butter. I'd spend hours laughing as the poor thing licked the roof of his mouth, desperately trying to delouse himself.

    "We have got to try that with Emme," I told my wife. "Can you just imagine?"

    "Sounds good to me," she said.

    At the time, our daughter was little more than a month old. She could barely chew on her bottle, but boy, she sure loved peanut butter! It was great fun watching as she licked the roof of her mouth, swatting at her face with her pudgy little hands. She'd smile and coo and drool slobbery gobs of peanut butter onto her pajamas, spitting it out as fast as we could put it in.

    "I seriously think I can do this for hours," I remember saying, chuckling at our little game.

    Our doctor said it was wrong for some reason, I can't remember why exactly -- something about the lack of teeth maybe. But we quickly learned that not only was it great fun to watch, but it was also good for her. She gained weight like crazy -- swelling up like a prized pig!

    It soon got us thinking about other things we're not "supposed" to feed our children, and before long our daughter was sucking down thick slices of hot dog, pieces of Hubba Bubba and, on rare occasions, a can or two of Hamms. (Talk about sleeping through the night!)

    "Doctors," I told my wife. "They think they know everything." 

    Any other "banned" foods that are actually good for young babies? 


  • "Hipster Parents": And Now David Brooks Weighs In

    Always with the writing about the hipster parents.  And now David Brooks joins the fray.  Brooks, New York Times Op-Ed columnist and great-grandfather of 10, addresses the usual list of problems with Babble, Alterna Dad, and Urban Baby.  And like Time Magazine before him, calls out pretty little Girl's Gone Child writer and Babble contributor, Rebecca Woolf, who elicited a comparison to Erma Bombeck (we should all be so lucky!).

    Brooks covers the usual complaints against the hipster parent set: failure to grow-up, worship of fashion and the icons of youth, and an inability to surrender to Barney.  My response to David, and anyone else ranting and raving about Babble and all other supposedly hip parenting modalities of expression, is "turn away."  If it bothers you so much, then just don't read it.  On the other hand, most scrappy types enjoy a fight and I can certainly respect that.

    Truthfully, I find major media covering non-vanilla parenting very heartening.  If Babble hadn't come along when it did, I would have been forced to pillage and burn every copy of Parenting Magazine in every doctor's office around town.  How many smiling, skinny, happily crafting and cooking suburban moms can one stand reading about before one is driven to heavy drugs?  The nice thing about all this discussing of the hip parents, is it gives us a new scapegoat and something against which we can measure ourselves.  And I don't know about you, but I'd much rather be compared to an angst-ridden hipster than a Prozac filled cheerful-head any day of the week.


  • Alternadad: Not So "Alterna"?

    As the Mommy Wars give way to the "Hipster Parent" Global Conflagration (surely, it's no coincidence that so many pieces on "Hipster Parents" include references to Franz Ferdinand - really, haters, you expect us to let go of irony?), much ado has been made over a book entitled Alternadad, by one Neal Pollack. I'm over the ado, but I thought this review of/meditation on the book and the Somme River-esque battles being waged over its merits was worth mentioning. Michael Agger is a bit late to the front, but he brings a take on the book that's thus far been ignored by many reviews. (Full disclosure: he also mentions Babble, and gives a nod to DaddyTypes and some site called - hang on while I check the spelling - Metroid. Wait, sorry - MetroDad, by one "Pierre Kim". Sounds like a nom de plume to me.)

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  • Tired of Changing Diapers? Try Elimination Communication

    baby potty I admit, when I first heard about Elimination Communication (EC) several years ago, I was skeptical.  Really skeptical.  Okay, maybe I even said, "Ewww."  After all, what was this about?  Rushing to hold your infant over a potty, based on intuition and certain cues?  I'm a big believer in non-verbal communication, telepathy if you will, and in fact I've communicated with my own children that way when they were pre-verbal, using it for instance to know when they were hungry or thirsty (and don't many parents do that?  Think about it; I'm sure you have done this too), but, uh, the peeing and pooping?  It's one thing to mistake "I want that block" for "I'm thirsty", but....the pee.  And the poop. 

    But what about the diapers?  They're expensive, and lots of people have issues with the bleaches and gels and dyes that kids are wearing next to their kid-bits for longer and longer periods now, judging by the ever-increasing diaper sizes that are now available (soon!  In Extra Jumbo Jumbo!  New retro designs, great for the dorm!), and aren't we filling up our landfills with these things, each one with a half-life of about 400 years, collectively containing enough ammonia and methane to increase global warming at least ten degrees?

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