Little hockey jerseys. Little polo shirts. Little dishes and utensils.

Then you have the stuff that would be popular with the Jersey Shore / Teen Mom crowd.

Little Affliction shirts. Little Escalades. Little baby liquor bottles.

Italian designer Anna Utopia Giordano has created the reimagining of liquor bottles as formula friendly substitutes in a series called PopBottles.

The mockups of Grey Goose as Hello Kitty, Beefeater Gin as Nintendo, Jack Daniels as Fisher Price, and Absolut Vodka as Barbie are displayed alongside the slogan “Parents, please, feed your kids responsibly.”

The bottles are clever and, as with all great art, are a brilliant inspiration for discussion on a number of topics:

How many brands are my kids exposed to and how young?
What kind of food am I feeding my family?
How young are my kids experimenting with alcohol?

I bet there’s one more question a few are asking: “Where can I get them?” You can’t. It’s just an art piece.

Welcome to the parent hood, my friend. Redbook magazine asked parents to name the number one thing they WISH other people knew about their kids.

1. Sometimes my kids are loud and obnoxious and it’s not because I’m a bad parent.
2. Boys are naturally curious and don’t always sit still with their hands in their laps.
3. Just because my house is messy doesn’t mean I don’t clean.
4. If I had my way I wouldn’t bring my kids to the store with me. But I can’t afford a babysitter.
5. Children don’t come out of molds. They are very individual and have their own quirks that don’t always follow ‘the rules’ in the parenting books.
6. Raising cats and dogs is not the same as raising a child.
7. I value my child’s naptime. We’ll come to your event . . . but if we don’t work it around the nap, my kids won’t be all happy and smiling.
8. I understand that you’re getting annoyed. Please have patience while I learn to be a parent and while my kids learn to be people.
9. Children are not miniature adults. They won’t react to things the same way a rational adult would.
10. Babies cry and toddlers throw fits. They are not good or bad because of that . . . it just makes them a child.
11. Please get over simply crying and whining at the grocery store and restaurants. I can’t teach my kids to behave in those places if I never take them there.

What would you add to the list?

Excessive armpit sweating is called hyperhydrosis, and while I didn’t think I was a victim of this, I do find myself drenched in night sweats. My son will also soak a sheet in sweat soon after going to bed. There are times when I’ll drip when I’m all in on a bluff at the poker table.

Why does that happen and how can you stop excessive sweating?

Here’s an infographic to help you identify excessive sweat situations and how to combat it:

Via: Bye Bye Excessive Armpit Sweat

So we practiced some other letters today. Specifically G, O, L and E.

Here are the details from the Google blog:

The theme for this year’s contest is “If I could travel in time, I’d visit…”. That could mean visiting a past, present or future setting—whether it’s traveling back in time to the signing of the Declaration of Independence, to the future to witness everyday space travel, or to just a few moments ago to relive a poignant experience.

We’re also partnering with Crayola this year and the winning doodler’s artwork will appear on a special edition of the 64-crayon box—a first!

Participating is easier than ever, since we’ve eliminated the registration step. All you need to do is submit your child’s or student’s artwork by March 20 with a signed and completed entry form.

For more details, check out google.com/doodle4google, where you’ll find full contest rules and entry forms. Happy doodling and good luck!
[Google]

Last year there was more than 100 000 entries (and they’re expecting it to be even bigger this year. So, yes, the chances are slim but the rewards are great. Speaking as someone who won a longshot contest (my son is currently featured on a Cheerios box), what have you got to lose?

If you’ve got an American kid in your family, grab some crayons, spark up the imagination and practice your G O L and E letters.

Over 500,000 children’s head injuries are recorded each year!

The Thudguard hat is a revolutionary product from United Kingdom; an infant safety hat designed to help absorb and reduce the impact of falls from a child’s own height and lessen the chance of head injury.

It is suitable for tumbling tots aged 7-18 months.
[Babys First Headgear]

Jen’s not a fan, she says they’re a little dorky, and while a fine and cute accessory for kids with certain medical needs, she thinks it’s a bit over the top for your average rough and tumble toddler. After all, Jen says, aren’t scrapes and bumps part of being a kid?

I contacted Charlotte from Baby’s First Headgear after Z smacked himself 3 times in 4 days. I even had him wear it to daycare to see what the other kids had to say. He was the centre of attention, and a bit of a curiosity to say the least.

Now you’ll notice the biggest smile and not a care in the world on our little man. He wasn’t the least bit self conscious being totally safe. I mean, we wear helmets when we ride our bikes, why not one when we’re learning to walk? It can be just as bonky on the head.

Jen’s still not convinced. Z hasn’t worn it since that day last week.

Hey at least it wasnt the baby stripper pole, the baby cage or any of these other baby products that should be illegal.

Which will you choose as your maternity leave comes to an end and you have to head back into the rat race to put food on the table, cars in the driveway and plants in the garden.

That’s a pretty eventful 5 days of extra-parental care. We knew there would be a learning curve for both us, and the daycare staff, but neither of us could have imagined that laundry list in just 5 days.

A recent survey of pediatricians put the question of daycare vs nanny up for debate. For those who landed on a firm side, 50+% opted for “it depends”, the majority chose at home care for those under 2.

Nanny: 35%
Daycare: 12%
Depends on the child’s age and circumstances: 53%
“Nanny before age two. Daycare is better after that, because children are social little beings and love to be around other kids.” — Kim Gush MD, FAAP. Chapel Hill, NC
[source]

And who can argue with that? It’s the biggest problem we’re struggling with as Z transistions to care. He’s a baby. He can’t walk. He can’t talk. He can’t properly express his needs. He can’t follow directions.

Yes, socialization is important, and we really do think Z has a ton of fun scrambling through the playground, or climbing all over their slides and gear – but it really comes down to personalized attention for us.

How did Z’s diaper get so full that it soaked through his pants? Noone was paying attention.

How is that Z’s not sleeping more than 45mins for 2 daily naps? Noone is trying to get him back down.

How is that Z’s socks get soaked when his shoes come off on the playground? Noone was paying attention.

How is that Z’s not eating/drinking enough through the day? Noone is making an effort to sit and feed him.

How is that Z’s getting bumped and scratched and bruised? Noone is there to catch a climbing infant’s fall.

Now I don’t want to be that parent. You know, the extra clingy and protective and complaining parent who thinks their child is perfect and is never getting enough attention – but Z is a baby, in a room full of toddlers, he needs the extra attention.

Jen and I are talking about switching to a nanny, we have friends who have live in care for the same price we’re paying for daycare, but we don’t have room for a suite. So we’d have to go with a live out nanny, and without the accomodation subsidy you provide with live in care, the costs rise quickly – I don’t think it’s doable.

Which means we’re stocking up on band aids, and patience.

(This post was originally written in May, 2008)

If you find the ingredients contain “dioxane and a substance called quaternium-15“, throw them out – you’re poisoning your kids, perhaps even giving them cancer.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has unsuccessfully been urging the world’s largest health care company for 2 1/2 years to remove the trace amounts of potentially cancer-causing chemicals – dioxane and a substance called quaternium-15 that releases formaldehyde – from Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, one of its signature products.

Johnson & Johnson said it is reducing or gradually phasing out the chemicals, but did not respond directly to the campaign’s demands.

Now the group is ratcheting up the pressure and urging consumers to boycott Johnson & Johnson baby products until the company agrees to remove the chemicals from its baby products sold around the world.
“Johnson & Johnson clearly can make safer baby shampoo in all the markets around the world, but it’s not doing it,” said Lisa Archer, director of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. “It’s clearly a double standard, something they can easily fix.”

Archer said her group has met with Johnson & Johnson representatives three times since spring 2009, and is disappointed the company is not making safer baby shampoo and other products in the U.S. when it does elsewhere.
[HuffPo]

And there’s the rub, right? They don’t use it in all their shampoos, they know it’s harmful and yet they use it here.

Oh, don’t think just because there’s some french printing on your bottle you’re safe, the shampoo sold here is made in the US. And it’s not just limited to J&J products, a colleague found the ingredients in a grocery store brand of shampoo too.

Which begs the question, who do you blame: the government or the manufacturer?

According to the report, obtained by The Associated Press, one of the suspect chemicals, quaternium-15, is a preservative that kills bacteria by releasing formaldehyde. Formaldehyde, used as a disinfectant and embalming fluid, was declared a known human carcinogen this past June by the U.S. National Toxicology Program. Formaldehyde also is a skin, eye and respiratory irritant.

Quaternium-15 is still an ingredient on Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Shampoo sold in the U.S., Canada, China, Indonesia and Australia, but the campaign’s research this summer found it’s not in the same product sold in at least eight other countries, from the U.K. and Denmark to Japan and South Africa.

The second chemical, 1,4-dioxane, is considered a likely carcinogen. It’s a byproduct of a process for making chemicals more soluble and gentler on the skin.

The campaign’s May 2009 report, called “No More Toxic Tub,” stated that studies by an independent laboratory it hired, Analytical Sciences LLC of Petaluma, Calif., found that 1,4-dioxane was contained in Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, Oatmeal Baby Wash, Moisture Care Baby Wash and Aveeno Baby Soothing Relief Creamy Wash.
[HuffPo]

Canada was the first country in the world to declare BPA a toxic substance even while companies were still defending it’s use.

That chemical is being blamed for increased rates of prostate cancer and early onset puberty in girls.

My wife is livid tonight. When the BPA scandal broke, we were thorough in our removal of the products from our home and demanded refunds from retailers. Now we find out just as we were poisoning our kids each time we fed them, we were doing it every night when we bathed them. Little by little, we’ve been exposing our kids to harmful chemicals that don’t need to be in there.

The bottle manufacturers relented and are changing their production methods, just as Johnson and Johnson has finally relented to the pressure.

Still, isn’t it a great feeling to know you’ve been poisoning your kids their entire lives?

True.

My guys are only 4 and 2, but in a decade I’ll be glad to worry about just 2 boys instead of a locker room full of them.

The princessification of our girls flows right alongside the mass marketing to boys of Transformers and Star Wars and Cars. Marketers have distilled the gender types into such specific descriptions that we now live in a black and white (blue and pink) world when raising our kids.

Girls are princesses, boys are warriors. Disney likes it like that, in 2009 they made nearly $4B off their princess brands alone.

Still, Riley would like things to change. I mean, why can’t girls have superhero toys and boys have princess toys?

Lego made headlines last week when it announced it was releasing female friendly sets. That immediately led to the questions of “when was Lego not female friendly?”

My niece and son played on Christmas morning for hours with a traditional set of red, blue and green blocks and not once did she pine for something pink.

The princess model creates a world where Barbie says “math is hard” and people like the Kardashians are role models. Princessing our daughters grooms them for Toddlers and Tiaras and teaches 5 year olds to label their 3 year old rivals as “hookers.”

Dr. Melanie Waters, lecturer in English literature and specialist in feminist theory at Northumbria University, absolutely has a problem with the princess culture. “[Princess dolls] are promoting a very narrow and prescriptive view of femininity, and one that ought to be outmoded in the 21st century,” she tells Ebner. “I think they are regressive. They encourage girls to be passive, and to nurture. There’s an aggressive focus on beauty, hair accessories and other images that promote the idea that girls should be concerned with their appearance”.

From an early age, girls are being socialised, it seems, for the caring, soft “feminine jobs” that perpetuate gender stereotypes, job segregation, and lower pay rates.
[Jezebel]

I’m not wanting us to go off the gender deep end by raising a completely neutral child as one couple recently made headlines by announcing this past year, but let’s not stick them in completely separate boxes.

There needs to be balance. I wear pink shirts, as do my sons. I’ve picked him up from school with pigtails and a tutu on because other kids were trying it. My 5 yr old niece asked for tools for Christmas so she could woodwork with her dad. Why can’t we just follow their lead instead of determining their future for them?

Now there is argument to be made that princessing our girls is no more likely to turn them into D-List celebs with a sex tape than Transformers is to turn our sons into machine gun toting maniacs. Active parents who put education and environment above all else will be the guiding forces of our children.

How do you feel about the pink princessification of our daughters?

Our 4 year old, however, wanted more. And more. And more. The more he opened, the more he wanted. He’d barely look at what was inside the box before turning to find more wrapping paper to shred.

Did your kids act spoiled on Christmas Day? Chances are they did, and we’re to blame.

According to a new survey by Parenting magazine, 76% of parents say their kids act spoiled and are less grateful than they should be during the holidays.

59% of parents say that their kids are more spoiled than they were as kids. Only 11% say they’re less spoiled.

The average parent spent $271 per child on gifts this year, and 30% will spend over $300.

76% of parents say they feel GUILTY about saying “no” to something on their child’s wish list, and 18% try to give their kids EVERYTHING they ask for.

The harder you try to make them happy, the more they want, just scan Twitter for some complaining keywords just after Christmas morning and you’ll see the level of entitlement we’re enabling.

Spoiled brats show their true colours on Twitter

Once again my wife and I have made a pact that next year we’ll dial it down. Bring some sanity and meaning back to the morning.

What about you, did you spoil your kids this week?

John Gruber at Daring Fireball nails what it means to be a Dad at Christmas:

Late last night, inspecting Santa’s handiwork, a simple thought occurred to me. A decade or so from now, when, say, I’m waiting for my son to come home from college for his winter break, and, when he does, he wants to spend his time going out with his friends — how much will I be willing to pay then to be able to go back in time, for one day, to now, when he’s eight years old, he wants to go to movies and play games and build Lego kits with me, and he believes in magic?

How much then, for one day with what my family has right now? How much? Everything.

The truth is, I’m the luckiest person in the world today. I hope you are too.

This time of year can drown in stressful chaos, if you let it, or you can bathe in the glow of the best day ever.