A study has found that children who use a pacifier for a long period of time, suck their thumbs, or are bottle-fed babies have an increased risk of speech disorders.

Ugh.

Now mind you, this is just one study, and it was published in a medical journal I’ve never heard of.

The only thing that apparently does not put your child  at risk is breastfeeding. 

Am I the only one who has had it up to here with all of these crazy studies, all of them showing different horrible things that can happen to your child because you, the parent, allowed it to happen?  That because of the wrong choices you made, your child will suffer later on down the line?  Even though you were just trying to do the best you could at the time.

Cut us some slack, will ya?

Take the thumb-sucking.  Children have been thumb-sucking for what is most likely millennia, but all of a sudden there is a huge problem with it.

The Munchkin hated pacifiers, he would spit them out whenever I tried to give one to him, and I eventually gave up.  He never sucked his thumb, but man, did he love that bottle.  I allowed him to use it to fall asleep (filled with water, of course) for probably much longer than I should have, past the age of two for sure.  It was honestly the only way he was able to fall asleep for a very long time.  But his speech is perfect. 

I only know one child who has a speech impediment, one that has required a speech therapist.  And guess what?  He was exclusively breastfed for over a year.  No pacifiers, either.

I am aware that my examples are only anecdotal evidence, but you know what, I”m cranky today.

So really, want to join me in telling these researchers to take their data and shove it?  Come on, you know you want to be crabby with me!

This article in USA Today states that researchers have found that parents respond quickly to baby names that are on the rise in popularity, versus names that are waning in popularity.

Now, as someone who is still currently wrestling with a name for her impending baby girl, I find that odd. It is a sort of lemming-like mentality that I find actually somewhat disturbing.  Where is the ability to think for oneself?  Just because everyone is naming their kid Brittany, why would someone feel that they have to as well?

You see, I don’t want my daughter to have a name that everyone else has.   It’s not that I must have some quirky, arty name that sets her far apart from the mundane masses.  I actually quite like some of the really popular names. It’s just that I don’t wish for her to be Samantha J. along with Samantha G. and Samantha W. in her classroom.

I’ve spoken to many people who said that was their biggest peeve about their name, that they had to share it with someone all through school.  I didn’t have that problem, but I could see how it would be annoying to always have your last initial tacked on to your identity.

So to latch on to a name that everyone else is using is counter-intuitive to my way of thinking.

But then again, no one has accused me lately of thinking in a particularly straight manner.

As my due date approaches, so does my baby shower.  We decided to have only one since this is my second child, even though to be honest, after seven years, some of the Munchkin’s stuff did not hold up all that well.  Seems a hot, dusty garage combined with a husband who carelessly wrapped or flat-out failed to wrap things properly made for some fairly unusable items.

So I’ve been looking through baby product reviews and such, and ran across something called the Nap Nanny.  This product purports to assist the sleep of infants by virtue of being angled and soft and whatnot, an improvement upon the wedge.  It supposedly works especially well for infants who have colic, reflux, gas, and other ailments that keep everyone up at night. 

Now, if it does indeed work as well as it says it does, and as well as the testimonials on the website claim, I would have bought this in a heartbeat for the colicky Munchkin, who was up all night long letting the neighborhood know that he was not a happy camper.  For the first six months of his life, my husband and I were walking zombies, barely able to function due to lack of sleep.  But sadly, it was not around seven years ago, and my mind has blessedly blurred many of the memories of that horrible time, which is probably why I’m OK with having another baby.

The Nap Nanny comes with a fairly steep price tag of $129.00, and it is unclear exactly how long it is usable.  It is also considered bedding, and thus nonreturnable.

Would you take a chance and pay that much money, and be out of luck if it didn’t work? 

Or is a good night’s sleep pretty much priceless?

Last week I wanted to know if you would ever consider foreign adoption, and a whopping 73% of you responded with a “yes.” Only 15% would limit their adoption to within the US, and a tiny percentage said that adoption was not in the cards for them.

Today, with the story of this woman rattling around in my brain, I’m wondering what you think of the largely self-regulated fertility industry.

All right, I was trying not to talk about some of the crazy-ass names that celebrities have been coming up with lately, but Ellen Pompeo’s choice was the straw that broke Glinda’s back. And that saying is apt, because at this point, I sort of look like a reverse camel, with the big bump being on the tummy instead of on the back. I hope that makes sense. It makes sense to me, but lately, that isn’t saying a whole lot.

First, Nicole Richie and Joel Madden’s choice of name for their son made me do a mental double-take. Sparrow? Are they for serious? As in tiny, frail, ubiquitous brown bird? I read somewhere that some (most likely) self-proclaimed “naming expert” praised them for their originality and inventiveness, saying that since Captain Jack Sparrow’s name was, well, Sparrow, that suddenly Sparrow stands for manliness. Sorry to break it to everyone, but no, it does not. Hearing the word sparrow brings images of a beady-eyed, greedy little thing that likes to pick up other people’s discarded popcorn and whatnot off the ground.

And as for Ellen, her choice was somewhat literary, but confusing nonetheless. Is she not aware of the extremely famous and popular book Stellaluna? You know, the one about the bat? Granted, she is a lovely and wonderful bat, but still a bat nonetheless. Yes, that is exactly the mental picture I want everyone to have in mind when they say my name. It’s like naming your child “Ramona Quimby Pompeo” or “Harriet the Spy Pompeo.” It just doesn’t work.

At least we have Sarah Michelle Prinze, who chose the almost old-fashioned Charlotte Grace.   Count at least one child of actor parents who will not have to face life with some crazy name their parents decided to saddle them with in the name of “art” or “creativity.”

Awwwww…. Taye Diggs and Indina Menzel introduce their new son, Walker.

In an article published many moons ago in the Atlantic Monthly, writer Hanna Rosin launches into a fascinating and well-researched article about breastfeeding. And how in her opinion, it really isn’t all that great. This is coming, mind you, from a woman who breastfed all three of her children.

I cheered when I read it.

You see, I happen to think that there is a very judgmental group of women, members of the militant wing of the Salvation Army types, if you will, that see breastfeeding as the end-all, be-all of motherhood.

Hogwash.

Am I a bit biased on this topic because I tried and failed to breastfeed my firstborn?  Possibly.  But, I pumped for months until my milk ran out due to an undiagnosed immune disorder.

No one ever said to my face that I wasn’t as good of a mother, but there were certain women who would smugly state how long they breastfed and how fantastic it was, even though I had already admitted I felt badly for not being able to myself.  Heck, there was even an acquaintance I met who still breastfed her three year old, even in public at a restaurant.

That, they were not-so-subtly trying to tell me, was dedication.

Myself?  Apparently lacking in said dedication.

Well, I’m firmly with Hanna Rosin on this one.  The evidence in favor of breastfeeding is not all that it’s cracked up to be, despite what certain groups would like you to think.

So I’m here to say that I support women either way.  If you choose to breastfeed and it makes you happy, then may the winds of fortune be at your back. 

But, if you choose not to breastfeed, I am not going to immediately apply my fingers in an “L” shape on my forehead.

I would like to  suggest that more women do the same.

I’m sure by now you have all heard the story about a Burger King franchise in St. Louis that asked a mother who brought her shoeless infant into the restaurant to leave because she was violating what the workers believed was a health code violation regarding shoelessness.

This post is not about that.

Well, not really.

This post is really a rant about the state of education in our country as a whole, and how we as a society are failing to teach our children critical thinking skills.

So if you don’t feel like reading a semi-rant today, then I suggest you go elsewhere.  I’m sure we’ll be back to the fun and light by tonight.

What I really take issue with is the utter failure of the staff to interpret the rules in a way that involves actually using their brains.  And really, it wasn’t even a rule, they were totally mistaken about that.  But that is somewhat beside the point, because they acted as if it was.

But, they lacked the ability to reason and say to themselves, ok, if an employee or an adult were to walk into the store without shoes, that is one ball of wax.  But an infant who is incapable of walking?  That is an entirely different ball of wax, and perhaps in that instance, the rules could be bent.

They could not separate a “rule” from the gray area that exists in daily living.  The gray area we encounter constantly and must adapt to on an almost minute by minute basis.

And this is where I feel that with the importance the education system is placing on rote learning and memorization in order to do well in tests, instead of real world knowledge, is where we are failing our kids.  Because even if it is the education system that is placing the emphasis on tests, it is us parents who are also failing to stop them.