One of the hair trends for boys and young men that just won’t go away is long, shaggy hair.  When it first came into vogue, I used to think, I can’t believe their moms are letting them do that!  I mean, they are probably just tired of nagging them about cutting their hair. 

 And then I started thinking, as I had to bribe my son to get his hair cut with the promise of a balloon and lollipop, that maybe they were on to something. 

From MSNBC, I learned that there are parents out there who are potty training their children without diapers, sometimes from birth.

Hold on, I need to get some aspirin, because the mere thought of doing something like that gives me a headache. 

These parents believe that the benefits to being diaperless are numerous, among them the fact that they do not impact the earth with disposable diapers, who admittedly have a less than desirable half-life.  I can totally get behind that.  But I want to shake them and say, “Have you never heard of cloth diapers?”  This is crunchy, but with a capital K.  They claim to be inspired by other countries and continents, such as Africa, where it is wrongly assumed that diaperless babies are the norm. 

I don’t know, maybe I was just a lazy mom, because some days between the lack of sleep and my son’s colic, it was all I could do to go through the zombie-like motions, much less watch my child like a hawk to see if he was going #1 or heaven forbid, #2 without a diaper.  I practiced attachment parenting, but this is taking it to an entirely new, and frankly crazy, level.

I was reading the article, attempting to keep my snorts of disbelief to myself, when I reached this last section:

Isis Arnesen, 33, of Boston, has a 14-week-old daughter, Lucia, who is diaper-free. She said it can be awkward to explain the process to people, such as when she helped Lucia relieve herself in a sink at a public restroom.

“Sometimes I don’t know what’s gonna happen and it doesn’t work, and sometimes I feel a little embarrassed,” Arnesen said. “It makes her happy though, right? She smiles, she’s happy.”

Did that say what I thought it said? Ms. Arnesen held her infant over a public sink? Were the toilets in the restroom non-functional?  When is it ever ok for anybody to relieve themselves in a public sink?  Unless homegirl travels around with anti-bacterial wipes and scrubs down every sink her daughter uses as a toilet, I am not ok with that.

My friends, this is example #45 on “how not to win people over to your cause.”

And of course her daughter is happy, she’s only 14 weeks old!  I highly doubt that if Ms. Arnesen were to switch to diapers, her daughter would all of a sudden become a morose, sullen child who refused to play peek-a-boo. 

Methinks these people just might have a little too much time on their hands.

Say hello to TeenyManolo‘s competition.

Don’t worry, that’s not a dirty joke in that balloon; it’s a reference to The Fashion Weekly Daily, where Francesca made her print debut as a fashion critic. And how, you ask, would such a young tyke (only seven!) land a plushy gig like that in the cutthroat world which is fashion journalism? Eschewing such grubby pathways as years of grad school or ramen-fuelled unpaid internships, she did it the old-fashioned way: Mom got her the gig.

From Jezebel, which website I vastly prefer to The Daily‘s PDF-centric, browser-crashing monstrosity:

Elle editor-in-chief Roberta Myers’ 7-year old daughter Francesca made her critical debut. When asked what her mom has taught her about life in the front-row, she replied:

You have to look out for FANCY… Fashion in general is really pretty.

Love it! After all, who needs 800 words when it can be done in just 10?! (Also, tell us “Look out for FANCY!” doesn’t sound like something that could have passed the lips of the great Diana Vreeland.)

Actually, it does.We still can’t hate her because she’s connected. And why can’t we? Because she’s wearing the gorgeous Lilly Pulitzer sundress, and it is a widely-known fact that, however outrageously priced the Pulitzer may be, it, like the Pucci, is the physical manifestation on Earth of the visions in unicorns’ happiest daydreams, and thus the wearer is +18 protected against snark.

It’s true. You can Google it.

The shoes, however, are not Pulitzer, and thus can come under some well-earned fire. I understand beach thongs. At the beach. I understand equally that even the sainted yet dependable Dr. Scholls sandals are really just low-heeled mules and thus technically shoes, rather than mere flip-flops, and I understand moreover that children and grownups all over the world should be schooled in this difference, repeatedly if necessary. Looks like Mommy learned this lesson! Look out for inappropriately-casual!

New York Fashion Show Front Row: Mules okay; flipflops not okay.

Not even if you’re seven.