Proving My Wife Wrong
The Bad Things
Discipline is not my responsibility
Feb 22nd
I should not have to discipline my son. This should be the job of his teacher at daycare and then responsibly handed off to his kindergarten teacher and so on until he graduates high school. At that point, I will have a half-hearted discussion about drinking and safe sex and then rely on the college and professors to make sure he doesn’t contact and STD or drink. If anyone fails along the way, I will blame, lash out and most likely sue to make sure it never happens again.
If you agreed with anything in the last paragraph: LEAVE. You More >
Graco Drop Side Crib Recall
Apr 29th
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has issued another drop side crib recall, this time for a wide variety of models sold under the Graco brand name, but made by LaJobi. You can see all the models here.
As I posted, drop side cribs are on my Bad Things list for this reason. Drop side cribs are recalled at a fairly regular rate, which makes me wonder why companies continue to produce them (although these started selling back in 2007). If you are a new parent reading this — steer clear of drop side cribs unless it is an absolute necessity. More >
Ammonia, Part Three
Feb 12th
This has been a learning experience. I do want to say that we are still thankful for a healthy baby. A bout of pneumonia is nothing compared to some of the other illnesses out there — and I will never try to compare or think that we have a burdened plight.
As I mentioned early, I don’t get overly concerned by illnesses and I don’t scare easily. In fact, I was wondering if the concerned parent instinct in me was completely missing. I wondered if I was going to be that dad that says “toughen up” when my son breaks More >
Ammonia, Part Two
Feb 7th
So, with the pneumonia diagnosis, the Dr. changed our son’s antibiotics and gave us a nebulizer prescription. From that point on, we would need to give him the nebulizer every three hours until the next morning when he would have another appointment to check his lungs. If things weren’t better, he would need to go to the hospital.
Having another appointment 24 hours after this one sent my recently heightened daddy radar into overdrive. When the pediatrician is visibly concerned — that’s when I worry.
24 long hours of nebulizers and broken sleep had us bleary eyed, but we could see More >
Ammonia, Part One
Feb 4th
Our son is 10 months old, and has been relatively healthy, for which we are very thankful. I am not relating this story as medical advice or as any type of direction — but I have found that information passed on from others has helped me tremendously, so I thought I would pass on a bit of my own.
It started as a night of broken sleep on Friday and a fever by Saturday. It had the classic signs of an ear infection — wouldn’t sleep unless on one of us, irritable, sporadic vomiting, lethargy and feverish (all symptoms mild and More >
Alcohol Free Hand Sanitizers
Jan 31st
I will admit that I have not tried every product in the category of alcohol free hand sanitizers, but at this point I don’t want to try any more. BabyGanics, which generally makes my list of good things has landed on the other side of the tracks on this one — but as part of the overall category, and not specifically their product.
I get it — no alcohol means longer drying time. However, when you are using hand sanitizer between the dirty diaper and the new diaper, time is very much of the essence — and the alcohol free variety More >
Drop Side Cribs
Jan 20th
Drop side cribs definitely make my list of Bad Things. The U.S Consumer Product Safety Commission has posted another crib recall (click here for recall notice from USCPSC)- and it is not surprising that drop side cribs are involved. Please note that this recall involves both drop side AND non-drop side cribs, but as you can read, the issue is mainly the drop side versions.
We do not own a drop side crib, so I can’t say from personal experience that they are dangerous. I can say that everything we read when making a crib decision warned of their dangers, which is More >
Playtex VentAire Bottles
Dec 2nd
I don’t completely dislike these bottles, but I am definitely not a fan. At first, I didn’t like them because of all the parts — they are a pain to clean. Another criticism is that the numbers wear off with washings — another point that didn’t push me to the “bad things” column. My pet peeve is simple — it says you can make an 8 ounce bottle, but the truth of the matter is that if you put 8 ounces of water in the bottle and try to add the formula, it doesn’t fit. Major design flaw in my More >
