meta-dad

CPSC Offers Recalls and Heeds Warnings for Halloween

At a glance Halloween seems to be a fairly safe and straight forward family affair. Dress the kids up. Let them get a bag or two of candy. Take some snapshots for the family album. Clean up (especially that rotten jack o’lantern on your front step) and move on to Thanksgiving, right?

Well according to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission there are some safety tips to follow this Trick or Treat Season. I will offer the unabridged version of their tips as they seem to (rightly) focus on a few obvious hazards.

Decorations Safety;

• Whenever possible do not use candles and when you do keep them away from kids, general foot-traffic and their costumes.
• When prepping your house for Trick-or-Treaters, clean the pathway leading up to your front door of all obstacles and make sure it is well lit.
• Don’t overload extension cords and only use healthy UL tested products

Costumes Safety;

• If wearing a mask, make sure they can breath well enough and make sure they can see (including peripheral vision)
• If they are going to be out on the streets Trick or Treating make sure they carry a flashlight and have reflective or light colored fabric or material on their outfit.
• Choose costume that are “flame resistant” which means they will be less likely to catch on fire.
• Weapons (swords, knives, et al.) should be soft and bendable or collapsible in nature.
• Make sure costume is weather appropriate, which may mean additional layers under outfit.

Treats;

• Make sure parent/guardian(s) check all candy, toys or treats (especially for young ones) for tampering or choke hazard

Like most holidays, a few products are being recalled for safety reasons. Crate & Barrel out of Northbrook, IL has recalled thirty thousand Halloween Ghost Tealight Burners for burn and fire hazards. There have been five reports of the tealight holders igniting and one report of the holder becoming excessively hot. Two consumers suffered burns to the hand. Just by looking at this product (above), I can tell you without doubt that many more people have been burned by this product – not necessarily bad ones but burns nonetheless.

Coyne’s & Company, out of Minneapolis MN, is recalling all fourteen thousand of their Casper the Friendly Ghost figurines due to excessive amounts of lead. These figurine stand approximately three inches tall and are made from resin and paper. Please check the original press release for model numbers and additional details as there are many different figurine designs included in this recall.

Sited Links;
Tag Home Decor | Ghost Tealight Recall Information
Halloween Figurines Recalled by Coyne’s & Company for Lead Hazard
Ghost Tealight Holders Recalled by Trade Associates Group and Crate & Barrel…
CPSC 2008 Halloween Safety Tips

And Now For a Moment of Zen…

Searching for a good baby costume this year?

Via Photographer, Mr. Philip Toledano

This Week in the World of Parenting

• Nancy Shute at U.S. News & World Report did an interesting blog posting on a few ways to ensure your breastfed baby is getting the (newly defined) proper vitamin D in their diet [*that would be the breast milk diet], including supplements for newborns as well as kids and teenagers, fortified milk, cod liver oil and she forgot to mention broccoli which is high in vitamin D.
• I stumbled across a wonderful post by Starr King Elementary School in the San Fransisco area describing “Five Easy Ways to Earn Money for Your School.” Great ideas that I am going to being sharing at the next P.T.A. meeting.
  
• The fine folks at the San Fransisco Gate posted an article this week aptly titled, “Hey Kids, Go Outside and Play” This article describes the pitfalls of kids spending too much time indoors. Good stuff.
• Also, over at Datamation, writer Mike Elgan posits some interesting thoughts on how social networking websites (using Facebook as the prime example) are endangering the commonly head concept of the nuclear family in his article, “How Facebook Is Destroying the ‘Nuclear Family’“. I will leave it up to you whether that is a good thing or bad.
• And with Halloween quickly approaching I have been sifting through the sands of the web for that prefect low maintenance solution. Over at Associated Content I found an interesting list of “Single Dad and Son Halloween Costumes Ideas.“ My favorite is definitely – The Man with the Yellow Hat and Curious George.

Beautiful Kids Halloween Costumes

Zid Zid Kids has delightful costumes will inspire flights of fancy and hours of fun!

These artful costumes are crafted and stitched, the capes themselves are a work of art – abstracted forms and the fantastic Zid Zid palette create a peacock and giraffe. Complete with a printed paper mask for full effect!

(ZidZidKids Vis A Vis Romp.Com)

Masquerading Season is Upon Us

Scottish folklore involving Halloween, revolves around the ancient Celtic belief in faeries “Sidhe” or “Sith” in modern Gaelic. Children who ventured out carried a traditional lantern (samhnag) with a devil face carved into it, to frighten away the evil spirits.

These customs included offering the spirits parcels of food to spare the house another year. Children too were given the added protection by disguising them as such creatures, in order to blend in with the spirits. If children approached the door of a house, they were also given offerings of food – Halloween being a harvest festival – which served to ward off the potential spirits that may lurk among them. This is where the origin of the practice of Scottish “guising” – a word which comes from ‘disguising’ – or going about in costume arose. this, of course being the key feature of the tradition of trick-or-treating practiced here in the US.

When my wife and I met in NYC, she and her friends had a strong tradition of getting dressed up (I’ll spare you the pictures) and having a big bash and then going to the big NYC Halloween parade down 6th Avenue. It was always a great time, albeit it a chilly one, but there was always plenty of local “spirits” to keep us warm.

Now that we are married with a cackle of kids are attention has turned to our little ghouls and goblins. We have started our window shopping for costumes at a few select halloween costume stores but have yet to settle on a theme. Farm animals seem to be a favorite costume for the toddler set, while superheros and popular TV characters seem to dominate the choices for the older boys.

It is fair to say mom and dad will be into the guising as well but I guarantee the costumes will be a bit less revealing as they were a few years ago – it’s a family production now and rated G.

Cinematical Halloween Costume

It’s quite simple. Dress up your kid for Halloween (and yourself, for that matter), take a picture of yourselves and send it to them. If you win, you get a bunch of horror DVDs – how apropos. There are winning categories for both kids and adults and the movie titles are appropriately rated (i.e. Gremlins and Monster House for kids and Nightmare on Elm Street – Box Set, and The Exorcist for adults amongst others).

Sited Links:
Cinematical | Third Annual Halloween Costume Contest