meta-dad

And Now Our Moment of Zen…

Quote of the Week

My father used to play with my brother and me in the yard. Mother would come out and say, “You’re tearing up the grass.” “We’re not raising grass,” Dad would reply. “We’re raising boys.” -Harmon Killebrew

Dad Tip #129 – Don’t Bother

Not that I have the right to offer solid advice about fathering – I’m new at this. This one I heard recently but can’t place the source right now (this was actually from Super Nanny).

B.T.W. My wife and I are big fans of Super Nanny. Our hearts go out to those parents and it is also good “heads up” for things that could go awry. It’s wonderfully confirming to see that *we* don’t have it so bad.

When giving your kid a bath, give them a pair of goggles to wear when you are washing and rinsing their hair. No soap in their eyes. Try it.” – Super Nanny on ABC

Bath-time is part of my daily ritual with the boys right now, and the soap-in-the-eye thing is a real killjoy. The goggles workeded for about two nights. Great. Onward and upward. No really, it’s kind of a stupid idea. If you are washing a little girls hair (or hey, a little boy’s) and it is very long and they have goggles strapped on – how the heck are you going to comfortably and efficiently wash their hair? Besides, the soap-in-the-eye thing can be averted easy enough (close your eyes) but the water in the mouth and in the nose is the real bummer for my tike. File this tip under, “Don’t Bother.”

2007 Chevrolet Volt Concept

This article should be titled, “I Like to Look.” I live in Los Angeles but like many I still think of myself as a New Yorker – transplanted pedestrian, that is. I’m not a “Car Guy.” But out of necessity I have embraced car culture, kind of, not really, though. I truly miss the days of jumping on the subway and sipping my coffee while being totally engrossed in the first two sections of the paper. My disposition is this – I can’t see investing a crap-load of money into something (car) that ultimately is devalued once I buy it, unlike say, a house which (in theory) will eventually (I hope, I hope) gain value over time. But I can’t drive my house to work, so I have a moderately beat-up Jetta that gets me back and forth to work.

I doubt I would buy this thing only because I don’t see many hybrids on the Chevy line-up currently and my experience with technology in the past twenty years tells me to steer clear of any Chevy Version One EV efforts, wait for Version Two EV at best. I mean really, this is what Chevy has listed under their Hybrid Section on their site. A Tahoe Hybrid. Awesome (sarcasm). According to their numbers it will get a whopping 19 city / 26 highway m.p.g. Holy Crap Batman, that’s frigging amazing! Especially when the average m.p.g. in Europe is 40 m.p.g. or something. The Volt is a nice looking car, but let’s see if it goes into production. This guy seems to sum it up well:

First, batteries are expensive, and a series hybrid needs much more robust batteries than an assist hybrid like the Prius. That is why the assist hybrid is attractive; all the ICE technology is an easy match for actually building something abd the batteries are smaller and lighter, and don’t need to be so robust. That is why the Volt doesn’t even have suitable batteries yet. Kind of hard to build a car without them. Which is why Toyota is building a bunch of non-plug in assist Prius hybrids. They don’t have to wait for battery technology to catch up. GM is still in the maybe-in-the-future mode.” Anonymous Post, treehugger.com

To be honest wih you, this car is definitely a pipe-dream. It is being billed as a perfect solution for those of us who drive under 40 miles a day. Great. A sporty “local” drive. But for those of us with a couple kids and a dog, where are the hybrid minivans? Yeah, I said it. I said the M word.

Breastfeeding ‘Aids Class Status’

It’s fascinating to me that baby formula companies in the sixties and seventies were able to sway an entire generation of mothers/parents away from breastfeeding, of course claiming baby formula (manufactured nutritional powder mixed with cows milk) is better for you than your own Mother’s milk! Well, it seems things are coming full circle. Yes, I think breastfeeding is a good thing and no I have no harsh opinion toward those who don’t. It’s a mother’s decision, plain and simple.

And in families where one child was breastfed while a sibling was bottle-fed, there was still a difference in their chances of social mobility, with the breastfed child 16% more likely to move up in class.” – Breastfeeding ‘Aids Class Status, BBC News

This article makes some pretty remarkable claims, albeit cautionary ones regarding the outcome of their 60-year study involving 1,400 babies. Then again this article seems to be very much in step wth previously published articles about breastfeeding. Their October 2006 article, Breast milk ‘does not boost IQ’. is quick to state that most mothers that breastfeed are “clever in the first place.” Although I am in general agreement with what they are saying here, something about this article feels more like well marketed science-lite or science-tainment.

The one article that I agree with whole-heartedly is this one, Breastfeeding ‘kills baby’s pain’. Watching my oldest son get a battery of three shots (with the final being a tetanus shot in the thigh) while breastfeeding was a first-hand proof that their is some serious mojo in that milk. He didn’t bat an eye. Then again, he could be a robot. Personally, I side with the idea that the hormones/endorphins in the breast milk keep the baby comforted and perhaps block or lessen the impact of pain. All I know is by the end of the visit with the Pediatrician, the only one not in tears was my son.

Happy Valentine’s Day To My Kids And Beautiful Wife!