Little Rock Star.

The Diaper Minefield.

I just wanted to let you all know that I have started a new Facebook group for parents wanting to chat about the hot button topics of parenting.

I've found that in an attempt to keep everything running smoothly in parenting groups the more controversial topics of parenting (and there are many) are often sort of avoided.

If you want to chat with other parents about everything from vaccination and circumcision to private schooling, breastfeeding, technology and toys please join us.

Be prepared for some heated discussions hopefully filled with a sense of humour and respect for all viewpoints.

We want parents from all different walks of life and with children of all ages. Whatever country you are in, come and join us. The page is based out of Vancouver so some topics will be geographically irrelevant to you but so much of what we are dealing with as parents transcends all borders.

Can't wait to engage you in some healthy debate and some trading of information!

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/thediaperminefield/

Why The Pressure on Anti-Vaxxers is Making This Pro-Vaxxer Sick...And a Review of the Documentary BOUGHT.

I'm going to open with a review of the new documentary Bought so that anyone who doesn't care about my personal feelings on vaccines and anti-vaxxers can simply move on afterwards.  

"Medications, including vaccines are not all bad. But they're not all good. We need to bring up questions. We need to have science and data be the focus and get the money people out of the conversation." - quote from Bought.

Bought attempts to explore the link between increased illness rates and the toxins we are ingesting - mainly vaccines and GMO's in our food.

When I started writing my post below this review I was unaware of Bought and I only just watched it. While I love watching documentaries I take them all with a grain of salt because they often paint a one-sided picture of an important issue.

But I have to admit this one seems more balanced than some of the anti-vax stuff I've seen (if you can get past the opening discussion about the kid who was severely effected by a vaccine).  Of course it is obviously intended to raise concerns about vaccines which will no doubt lead to accusations of it adding to the mass hysteria. Which it probably will.

At any rate knowledge is power and I think parents should watch it anyway. I think it's important to hear the other side of the story even if you don't agree.

Read the credits on who was involved in the making of it. Write down the names of the doctors and experts who are testifying in it. Check the sources and start your own research on the information in this documentary there. I'm going to.

I think it was a poor choice to open with the family whose son suffered devastating effects from a vaccine. We all know the horror stories of the one in a million chance that something immediately goes wrong and I think using that slim-chance shot as an opener will turn off all but the people who need to see this film the least - the already anti-vaxxers. I almost stopped watching after the first few minutes because I was thinking what I think most people would, "Ya, that's really sad but we all know it can happen and it's a one in a million chance. Vaccination is still worth the risk."

But once I got past that part, the rest raises some interesting questions about what we are putting in our bodies - vaccines and food - and doesn't blame the doctors which I found refreshing.

If you live in B.C., think right now about all the calls for cumulative studies on the impacts of the various LNG and Pipeline projects proposed. It makes sense. A study on one proposal will show very different results then if you add up the environmental effects of a bunch of them being built and operating at the same time.

That's sort of the logic they are using in this film. The risks of one set of vaccines may be different then if you consider all of them and toss in the other toxins in our environments.

But if you're sick of the whole vaccine debate you can just fast forward to the halfway mark where they turn to looking at GMO's and how they could be impacting our health.

I found it a slightly more credible "alternative view" film because it's not just about how horrible vaccines might be but also explores another potential contributing factor - all the crap we eat.

Here's the link to Bought. It's not free after March 6th so watch it now, prepare to pay or hope they make it more accessible.


** I'm adding this in a later date because I found no good reviews of Bought when I originally posted this. Anyway, HERE is a review "debunking" a lot of the information and claims in the film. decide for yourself. 


And if you're totally put off by anything related to the Anti-Vaccine movement here's a funny clip for you:



There's also some clips about the tweets he received after this aired which you can find online as well.

But really, it's not funny how vicious people are getting with each other over this when really the issue is just about access to accurate information regardless of who the information validates.


Just trying to keep the discussion light!

Anyway...now my feelings on the current Vaccine Battle:

It's actually not making me physically sick, I just thought that was a catchy title. Sometimes I get annoyed with people who refuse to vaccinate too. But then I remind myself that we are all trying to make the best choices for our children.

So...

There's no way to post about this without pissing people off, especially since I'm not a doctor, scientist or researcher and therefore what I say counts for very little and is simply my opinion.

For the record, Babe is vaccinated.

I shouldn't feel the need to state that right up front but I'm afraid of the backlash I'll receive if people presume from my sympathies for the other side that we are, God forbid, anti-vaxxers. That's my point in a nutshell. I feel the need to stand up and say we are vaccinated...(read: the good guys) - and I shouldn't have to.

As far as I know she's up to date on all of her shots (I'll get to the "as far as I know" part in a second). However I have chosen for us to opt out of all vaccines of the flu shot variety. 

Vaccinating Babe was a choice that I did not make easily. I previously blogged about it HERE. I don't consider myself particularly conservative or hippy-dippy. Rather my beliefs and reasoning for decisions seems to change with the information I have to go on at the time. The reason my choice to vaccinate was so difficult for me had nothing to do with not wanting to see my baby momentarily hurt by the needles. It wasn't because as a new mother my mama-bear hormones were in overdrive. And it wasn't because I was leaning strongly in one direction or another. 

The reason taking her in was so traumatic for me was because I felt I couldn't win either way. 

Like most parents, I wanted Babe to be as protected as she could be from serious harm (read disease) and I knew I'd never forgive myself if she was injured or killed by something I could have made the choice to prevent. But that rationale wasn't enough to ease my fears about the amount and accuracy of reliable information about current vaccines. I really did feel that I was making a choice that could harm her either way. And as I watched her get her first shots I had a horrible, sinking feeling that I could be making a huge mistake. I knew no matter how much research I did on my own, it would never be enough and I would never know the whole truth.

While I believe in vaccination as a concept and its positive contributions to healthy societies I can also see that we have significantly amped up the amounts we are taking. I am not satisfied that from a pure, uninfluenced scientific standpoint we have ruled there is no serious cumulative impact from our heavy vaccine load and especially when combined with other toxins in our modern environment.

Which brings me to:

At this point I have no idea what I have been vaccinated for over the years. There's no database that I can access that will show everything I have received. I have absolutely no medical knowledge on what was in what I got, how it might react with something else I received or will receive in the future and how those vaccines may have disrupted my body's natural processes.

I know I was vaccinated as a baby/toddler for whatever was standard at the time. As I got older I became terrified of needles and my parents let me opt out of in-school vaccination programs with the intention of doing it later at the doctor's office. Sometimes I went, sometimes it got forgotten about. As a young adult I got boosters when it was recommended that I do so but I don't remember for what or by whom. I travelled and therefore received travel vaccines from various clinics and was responsible for the paperwork which is now long lost. I've lived in numerous cities and I have been through three family doctors and a ton of clinic visits. I've definitely had too many Tetanus shots because I can never remember when I had the last one.

And Babe's records aren't perfect either. We moved. She was vaccinated at a couple different places. I know I forgot her vaccination book at least once but don't know if it was filled in later or if the records were always sent to our family doctor. I know I spontaneously got her vaccinated for chicken pox after an outbreak at her first daycare but it's not written down in her vaccine booklet. We moved and I can't remember now if she ever did get her 18 month shots, so now I have to figure that out which is harder to do than you would think if your family hasn't always gone to the same source for your vaccinations.

Record keeping on Canadian vaccination is apparently pretty dim. According to media reports there's no central database and therefore no reliable numbers on how close we are to the herd immunity rate or which parts of the country are experiencing lower rates.

Check out this recent MACLEAN'S article: The Real Vaccine Scandal

Which brings me back to:

If we aren't accurately keeping track of who got how much or what and when, then how are we supposed to have reliable data on what the cumulative impacts might be?

And if vaccination is as important as most of us believe then shouldn't our governments and physicians be making a much bigger push for it - to stop the hysteria? They should be toting out all the research they can and showing us how Big Pharma isn't skewing the results. If they could make a more trustworthy push for it they could better limit the damage being done by the anti-vax movement.

"Misinformation regarding vaccines must be addressed promptly and aggressively. False or misleading information about vaccination is widely dispersed by a few influential individuals, self-described vaccine-safety advocates, and some clinicians. Public health officials and professional organizations should respond swiftly to dishonest or unbalanced portrayals of vaccination." - Douglas Diekema, New England Journal of Medicine

But part of what is getting me annoyed with us pro-vaccinators bullying the anti-vaxxers comes down to one word: Autism.

As a parent, that you could argue has the potential to become an anti-vaxxer, I get that Dr. Andrew Wakefield's research on the link between the MMR vaccine and autism was debunked. I think a lot of parents understand that by now. But of the anti-vaxxers I know, none of them made their decision not to vaccinate based on that one study or on concerns of autism alone. So I'm sick of hearing all us vaccinators push this false study in their face as the reason why anti-vaxxers are morons that refuse to accept the safety of vaccines. 

While the study likely sparked the current swell of fear over vaccination it is not what I believe most parents are now basing their decision to not vaccinate on.

It's more than a fear of Autism:

For me, and I'm guessing many other parents who want real information, the choice of whether or not to vaccinate has simply become overwhelming. For the most part I trust scientists and doctors. I believe in our family doctor and I trust her opinion. I love our doctor. I know she cares about us and I know she wants to keep us healthy. But...

I also believe it's possible that she hasn't been completely informed on all of the risks associated with vaccines. I don't trust Big Pharma (I am embarrassed to be using the term because it immediately conjures up an image of overly-paranoid conspiracy theorists). But NO, I don't believe that companies that stand to gain enormous sums of money from a product should be trusted with relaying completely accurate, unbiased information about their product. If you look at our governments, the manufactures etc. when have they ever been completely honest about what could or is going wrong? 

The majority of us are not educated enough in the matter to ever fully determine the potential links between the pharmaceutical companies (who stand to gain profit) and the scientists, doctors and researchers who are recommending our current vaccine load. And most of the people who say the links are there and that they are producing scary results are the wackjobs that no one takes seriously.

When I was on the fence about vaccines I couldn't find anything that fully convinced me either way. I understand the serious damage these now-preventable illnesses can do. I understand how many of us need to oblige in order to obtain herd immunity. I get that the current available data says the safest choice statistically is to vaccinate. 

However, I also see great benefit in our body's natural defence mechanisms and the dangers of suppressing them, especially at a young age when everything is developing. I've also seen how recommendations by doctors have changed over time as we have gained more information. What may have been prescribed thirty years ago wouldn't be now because serious risks and complications were discovered. Anyone remember Thalidomide?  I do have doubts that the information we are being provided on vaccines is entirely accurate but I can't attribute that to either a conspiracy to hide the evidence or simply that our best minds just don't know for sure yet.

But what I do know is not all anti-vaxxers are way out in left field and the pressure that the rest of us are putting on them to do the right thing is freaking me out.

We are now talking about mandatory vaccination, banning unvaccinated children from schools and parks, fines and jail time for non-complying parents and potential removal of children from their families. For what? For questioning big corporations and our governments? For desiring more information before injecting their babies with something? For standing up and saying they don't feel comfortable with being pressured to make a decision they don't have the whole story on yet?

I want vaccination for our children. I want it to work. I want everyone to have it. I want us to do what we should to protect those who can't. But I also want the ability to choose when and how to use it based on reliable data that hasn't been tampered with by companies that stand to gain financially. I get that for vaccination to work we essentially have to all be on the same page. But I don't think we should be throwing our rights and freedoms away and condemning people who are trying to protect their children as horrible parents who are putting everyone else at risk...although that last part may be somewhat true.

I made the choice to vaccinate Babe. I still believe it was the right choice. But I did choose to delay her vaccine schedule by a few months and space them out and I believe I did the right thing. Would I have felt terrible if she had gotten seriously sick in that time. Of course I would have. I also would have felt terrible if she had passed a horrible illness onto another child. But at the time I knew the risks of her contracting something when she was mostly at home and exclusively breastfed were slim and I felt the risks of injecting her with multiple shots when she was still so tiny and racked with early digestive problems were worse.

And we still don't receive flu vaccines because I don't feel they are necessary. I do believe the individual shots might be innocuous but I think she's getting too many vaccines already to start getting annual vaccines for essentially mild illnesses.

Some parents will say that I was irresponsible for spacing out her shots and some will say I remain irresponsible for not getting her vaccinated against the flu. Or maybe they will say I am naive. That all the evidence shows she was safe to get her first round of shots shortly after birth. That I risked the lives of other kids by delaying her shots or by not getting her vaccinated for the flu. But my intuition told me she couldn't handle it all.

If you're not vaccinating right now the pressure is really on. 

I'm thankful I'm not in your shoes.

Look at the comments section of any vaccine-related news story and you can see how inflamed the debate has gotten and how much hatred there is towards parents who are opting out. They're being accused of risking the lives of compromised children that can't have the vaccines. Of endangering the masses. Of being idiots, hippies or conspiracy nut jobs. That may well be and it's scary.

But the alternative to not letting people decide or shutting them down when they call for more information is a loss of our rights as a society and less accountability from above.

For me, the data on the pro side seems pretty solid. Anyone would agree that your family doctor or the CDC website are your safest bet for up to date information. But I am also willing to concede that facts and figures could have been hidden from the general public, including doctors. 

I also believe that as research advances and we learn new information, how we prevent illnesses will change - it always has in the past. and if that's true there will turn out to be regrets. Links will be found between causes and illnesses that at present we aren't aware of.

On the anti-vax side it is much harder to find credible information. So much of what is out there on why not to vaccinate comes from sources that I am trained to see as unreliable. Doctors and advocates with questionable reputations, websites and media whose motivations are hidden or aren't using credible, unbiased sources. But it paints a picture that all the reasons not to vaccinate are wrong and they aren't. Some have merit and should be investigated further.

There is no denying that for all our modern medicine we have higher rates of diabetes, obesity, autism, allergies and immune disorders. Some or most of that may be attributed to current lifestyle choices for example, obesity and diabetes. Other increased rates might be attributed to toxins introduced through pollution, GMO's or cheap plastic stuff. Increased autism rates are very likely due (at least partially) to a better understanding of the disorder, an increase in the spectrum of sufferers and improved screening measures. 

But could we please not rule out that increasing the amount of vaccinations we are giving our kids could also be playing a role and we just don't know it yet?

I don't believe that the parents who are opting out are frivolously subjecting the rest of us to potentially lethal diseases just because they are flakes. I prefer to believe most of them are like me. Intelligent and well-meaning but skeptical and afraid of making the wrong choice. Attempting to be well-informed but not satisfied with the information available. And sick to death of being lied to by our government.

While I want to see vaccination working for us I see the vilification of anti-vaxxers taking us down a road that I don't want to go. I don't want to see parents making permanent choices for their children based on a fear of punishment. I don't want to see more polarization between the two sides. I don't want to see animosity grow between us on this subject to the point where people are being threatened or hurt. I don't want to see research into alternative medicine, historic practices and more holistic approaches decrease at a time when we should be investing in it further. I don't want to see reputable doctors and scientists not want to go on record or voice concerns about a vaccine or its ingredients for fear of being labeled a wing-nut or losing their careers. I don't want to see medicines pushed on us or our constitutional rights taken away. And I don't want to see less accountability for pharmaceutical companies and our governments.

When you write off all anti-vaxxers as ill-informed idiots you are shutting down the discussion on a very important practice in our society. If we could begin to accept that people who aren't currently vaccinating may have some points that are worth exploring and some questions that deserve better answers we may actually get a lot closer to higher vaccination rates as people begin to trust again. 

Treating them like they already have the plague isn't going to get them on board with vaccination. Hearing their concerns and demanding real answers for everyone just might.

Cozy Robots.

Made some fuzzy little buddies for some friends on Valentine's Day. 

I love these little robots and have wanted to make one for along time. You can buy them from various makers online but I found a pattern on Etsy and made my own. 

Cute huh?

Stuff I Found on the Internet.

Just some stuff to share with you all in case you haven't seen it.

The first is a funny video from Story of This Life that features a toddler helping Mom out during the day and really shows why it now takes me twice as long to get the same amount of stuff done as it used to. Of course because I work full time but still like a clean house this is all compacted into the evenings.



OK the kid in this video is way younger than Babe. Should I be concerned that she still does ninety per cent of this crap? Of course she no longer sits in a highchair but the dishwasher, the laundry folding, the drier, the windows...that's all the same three years in. The dryer scene especially really spoke to me. Babe loves to help to put the laundry in the washer and dryer, but she is so over eager to get the job done that she is constantly throwing the colours in the whites as fast as I can pull them back out and closing the dryer door every time I turn around to get more wet clothes. I guess her helping around the house is a work in progress.

She also likes to help fold the laundry. Of course, her idea of helping fold the laundry is to pull all the already clean and folded face cloths out of the closet, unfold them all and throw them on the floor and then re-fold them all. See exhibit A titled "The Face Cloth Train" below.

The second is also a video by Story of This Life which features the cliche clean freak mom and the cliche laid back mom.



I'm definitely the laid back mom according to this video. Babe eats stuff that falls on the floor, climbs all over the playground with minimal supervision and I don't think I've ever cleaned off a public high chair in my life - unless there was a glaring booger on it. Even then my go-to approach would likely be to flick it off with a stir stick.

The video is a funny little clip although I do think it kind of paints the germaphobic mother in a more negative light. Certainly the laid back mom would be more likely to be a second or third time mother in most cases. I'm of course a first time mom but because I nannied for so many little ones I guess the over-protective impulse kind of wore off. I simply can't be bothered to disinfect everything or shadow Babe's every movement and ultimately I don't think it is healthy for Babe. Of course we do end up suffering through our fair share of sicknesses, which always sucks. Currently Hand, Foot and Mouth disease is going around Babe's preschool. My attempts to prevent Babe from getting this pain-in-my-ass disease was to instruct my three-year-old to not put stuff from school in her mouth.

And to avoid the inevitable head lice infestation I have told her not to wear other kid's hats or hair bands. I'm not an idiot, I don't have expectations that my toddler will listen to my warnings and diligently remember to follow my advice...but so far, passing the responsibility onto her seems to be the extent of what I'm prepared to do to avoid these ailments. Short of keeping her out of school or away from other kids in general I'm not sure what else I realistically can do.

But there's no way she will remember my warnings and I fully expect to be hit with festering mouth sores and itchy scalps any day now. And yes, I will complain about it despite my lack of prevention techniques.

Now something a little more serious.

I read this opinion article last month and haven't had a chance to share it until now. I think it is really interesting and touched on a lot of the same things that I feel about raising children without religion.

Read it HERE.

Seriously, GO. Read it. It'll either speak to you or really piss you off, either way it'll kill five minutes. Then you can come back here and agree with me or get pissed off again.

I've thought and thought about what to say about the topic here which is probably why it took me so long to finally post it. I have strong beliefs on this in line with the LA Times article but I realize other people have strong beliefs the other way and some of those people matter to me. So for now I have decided not to say too much and to simply share the article for anyone who is interested.

I will say that my hackles do get up at any suggestion that simply because my daughter isn't being raised with devotion to a specific faith she will somehow lack a moral compass or always feel empty without His love. I am not religious but I am certainly spiritual and curious. I don't feel alone or lost without a designated faith and I don't believe my daughter will either. I do see the value of emotional security, structure and moral guidance in religion, I can see how it can give someone a sense of purpose and belonging. However I don't believe children raised without it can't have the same. We do however discuss the possibility of God and the vastness of the universe and the idea that our loved ones who have passed may be somewhere better or may have started again as babies. And for now she does seem to enjoy saying prayers at night and thinking up things to say thank you for which I see nothing but benefit in doing.

Some of you might remember a post I did back before we moved up North when I took Babe on a tour of various religious facilities in Richmond, it was an awesome day and we will do it again when she is a bit older. I recommend everyone go. I see it as my job as her parent to expose her to as much as I can. Give her as much information as I can. Have her meet as many types of people as I can. So that when she is grown she will be open-minded. Curious. A free-thinker. Thirsty to learn. Able to adapt. And accepting of others not like her. Then hopefully she will be able to make choices about the person she wants to be and what she wants to believe without feeling like she will be a disappointment to her family for following her heart. But even without the guidance of God she is still being taught every day to have strong ethics, to stand up for what she believes is right, to weigh information and the views of others, to do the right thing, to be grateful every day for her blessings, to make a positive impact on her world and that there are consequences for her actions here and now.

OK. I'll drop it for now. But there's no promises that I won't go into more detail at a later date if I feel that I am being respectful. With the stuff going on around the world with the fighting between various religious groups over everything from terrorism to women's rights to medical procedures and parenthood it's a topic I, like many other parents feel strongly about.

Hold onto your boots because I'm also considering how to comment on the great vaccination debate which appears to be really amping up this year.

PS.

Awesome Mother Moment of the Day:

It took me until 4:30 pm at work to remember that Babe put stickers on my back when I was getting dressed this morning. Perfect.

Our Holiday Prep.

Just wanted to add a little holidays update while I have the chance.

All parents find it hard to squeeze in everything they want to do during the holidays while juggling work, home, Christmas parties and shopping. And I think for most single parents it must be even more overwhelming to try to get the kids out for fun family time without that ever-important second pair of hands. Plus sometimes it can be pretty lonely to see all the other families when you're alone with your child, but Babe and I have been having a really great time making the most of Christmas activities this year.

I gotta say thank heavens I nannied for so long because it really helped me with the planning and implementation of family activities as a single parent so we don't end up overwhelmed, crazy-rushed or having a major meltdown halfway through.

Like most parents I've been trying to start holiday traditions with Babe, mainly because I want her to enjoy the same things I loved as a kid but also because I want to emphasize the activities and family fun of the holidays and downplay the gift mania of Christmas morning.

Of course, Babe's grandmother will thwart my attempts to reign in the volume of gifts she gets despite my ongoing protestations and tantrums (urgh, story for another day). But I think in order to keep the storage of toys to a manageable level I'm going to start following what I have heard a lot of other parents say they do and have Babe donate one of her old toys for each new toy she brings home. That sounds like a great way to give back and keep her room from looking like the children's section of Walmart on a December shopping weekend.

Also last year and this year I was/will be away from Babe on the actual day of Christmas so I'm trying to maximize all the other holiday fun we can have.

So last year my tradition attempts were interrupted because we had moved to Smithers and then we didn't stay long enough to have multiple Christmases there so we didn't establish anything we liked doing. I did make the effort to ensure we still donated to the local food bank and stuff but that was about it for Babe.

Now that we're back in the city we have picked up where we left off and this is the first year that Babe (now three years old) is really "getting" the whole deal.

SANTA VISITS:

So far Babe has met Santa three times this year. I didn't really plan it that way but there it is anyway. Our new apartment complex has a Christmas party every year and Santa showed up on the roof of the building and then came down to hand out candy canes. They also hosted a big bonfire and free hot drinks and a choir. It was really nice to have that sense of community within the complex.

Then I took Babe to Bright Nights Christmas Train at Stanley Park and Santa was there as well.

But because the other two Santa encounters were unexpected I still wanted her to have her dress-up photo taken with Santa so we had to make a special trip to the mall just for that.

Annnd...I believe she is going to see him again with her preschool class.

That's a lot of Santa.

However despite all these opportunities Babe has only barely managed to squeak out the word 'Barbie' one time because she gets completely star struck when she sees Santa. She can't wait to see him, she has tons of stuff she wants to tell him, she promises me this time she'll be her usual talkative self and let it all out but nope. Every time she just stands there with a big grin on her face, nodding like an idiot. It's actually pretty cute. And secretly I'm pleased because I'm hoping to really downplay the desire for a Barbie and if I have Santa promising her one every time they meet it's going to make my life more difficult.


CHRISTMAS LIGHTS:

I love them. Babe loves them.

As I mentioned above I took her last Friday night to the Christmas Train at Stanley Park. Of course it was me and every other family in the Lower Mainland. I had wanted to take her during the week when it would be less crowded but the weather didn't co-operate. So we went on the first dry day we got which happened to be a Friday evening and it was bussssy.

But the place is amazing. Everyone does an incredible job with the lights and I thought this year the displays inside the train grounds were the best ever. Of course we missed last year. But I've been going for years with kids I nannied or my little cousins and this year really did seem extra amazing.

Of course because it was a spur of the moment weather-induced decision I didn't pre-buy tickets (which I highly recommend). So when I arrived at 7pm with my three-year-old in tow we had to wait until 9:30 pm to actually ride the train. But we passed the time easily with that second visit to Santa, seeing all the lights, snacking on hot chocolate and popcorn and getting Babe's face painted (her most favorite thing).

In case this is your first year going be prepared, it's expensive, I think just Babe and my tickets for the train was almost $20 and with food, firefighter donations and her Santa photo it rounded the evening up to probably $40 for just the two of us. But it's mostly for charity and the kids love it.

I also took Babe to Canyon Lights at the Suspension Bridge. Another fantastic light display. We got in for free because we live right nearby in the same postal code but I think it's a pretty pricey deal otherwise.

I thought Babe would be terrified of the actual bridge but she loved it and we had to cross it again and again. It was a touching moment for me because I have a photo of my mom and I standing on the same bridge when I was teeny tiny.

Babe was a little fussy the evening we went but she did love walking through the treetop (Ewok-village-style) adventure and they had a live band playing Christmas music which Babe must've danced to for half an hour.

We also found a snail which was probably the highlight for Babe.

This week I'm hoping to take her for a drive to see some of the private home displays around the area.

DONATIONS:

Every year when I was growing up my mom would take my brother and I to the toy store to pick out a toy each to donate to the toy drive. And I've been doing it ever since. Sometimes I would take the kids I was nannying at the time and other years I just did it with a boyfriend or on my own.

So it is really important to me that I do it with Babe.

When it was just me I would usually try to pick out a teenager gift because they seem to be the least donated items at toy drives. But this year I know Babe will relate more to a toy and will likely get more out of choosing something she really wants for herself and then giving it away to someone else.


So we haven't actually done it yet this year because I've been mulling over the present-age thing, but hopefully we will check that job off the list this week.

But we talk about it lots and I've been trying to get her thinking about what she would like to give and preparing her for the concept of not getting to keep the toy she picks out. I'll let you know if any of my preparations manage to stave off a meltdown when it comes time to drop off the gift.

Another family tradition is stuffing stocking for the homeless. Again we missed last year because we were in Smithers but I shopped for a bunch of stuff for the stockings last week on my lunch breaks and on the weekend Babe and I met everyone else who was donating/helping and together our little group of family and friends stuffed 120/60 pairs of wooly socks with everything from toiletries and snacks to gift cards and warm toques. It's definitely my favorite part of the holidays and hopefully will be Babe's as she grows up. Although it's probably overly optimistic to expect her to like it more than getting gifts on Christmas Day. At least until she is a teenager.

And of course Babe has been completely into other little holiday things like her advent calendar, decorating the tree, mailing her letter to Santa and stringing lights up on the balcony. Doing all this stuff with her is a lot more fun now that she is old enough to start to understand it all but little enough to still find so much magic in it.

In the past I have done holiday baking with my mom and given out treats to family and friends but that completely stalled once Babe was born. I have the utmost respect for all the parents who manage to pull that off with kids running around. So far I haven't even considered trying.

Damn You, Sexy Nurse!

Babe just before her first Halloween. The day of she actually went out dressed as an owl.

Been looking for a Halloween costume for Babe.

I know this has been in the news around Vancouver lately but I'm getting so frustrated that of course I want to weigh in as well.

So,

To pretty much every Halloween store in the Lower Mainland:

Are you fucking kidding me with the options for little girl costumes this year?

Why are the only choices for my three-year-old daughter either a Disney princess or a sexy version of anything else?

When she was smaller I could get her the cute, warm, fluffy costumes from places like Old Navy. But now that she is bigger we have been looking at other ideas. And I am so disappointed.

Why is it that in order for my not even three-year-old daughter to dress up for Halloween she has to look sexy. Why can't we find a regular nurse costume? Why does it need to be Stripper-Nurse? For a fucking toddler.

Babe wanted to be a lady bug. I've been to a bunch of stores. But do you think I could find a regular chubby, round ladybug costume? Nope, not this year. (And I'm kicking myself because I actually do have exactly that in storage and can't find it.)

Every single one was ladybug wings with a short little dress attached. And when Babe's second choice was a cat I thought that would be easy peasy. But nope. Same shit. Every cat costume was cat ears, a tail and a tight-fitting leopard-print number usually reserved for the only clothed scene of a porno movie.

But one isle over, in the boy section - lots of realistic, warm and practical lion and tiger costumes.

I got so sick of seeing the same damn Disney Princess costumes and tight, short-skirted everything else costumes that I finally took her over to the boy section of the store. And I shouldn't have to do that. If she wants to be a doctor there should be an appropriate doctor costume in the girl section.

Because that is the whole point of a uniform isn't it? It's basically the same for everyone. Real firefighters, policemen, doctors and soldiers dress almost exactly the same, regardless of gender.

But not for Halloween. The boys can be regular doctors, the girls are limited to hooker-doctor. Like the only way a woman should perform surgery is if she still manages to look beautiful doing it and remembers to carve out time to perform blow-jobs in the evening.

At the last store we went to, the boy section had; dinosaurs, zoo animals, firemen, policemen, zombies and construction worker costumes. Perfectly age-appropriate and fairly close to realistic for $30. But the whole girl section was pink, sparkly and slutty. And the only costume that wasn't pink and slutty was an offensive First Nations costume...which was brown and slutty. And remember...I'm looking at costumes for THREE to FIVE year old girls.

Even the days of the ever-faithful, big round pumpkin costumes are gone. Or at least they're gone for the girls. The girls get Pretty Candy Corn Princess (which is just marketing for a striped orange miniskirt). Of course, in the boy section - regular fat pumpkin costumes.

And the sick thing is I can't even blame the stores because it's the consumer that's buying this crap. We continually overly sexualize women at younger and younger ages, hold them up to impossible standards of beauty, convince them early on that no matter how hard they work they'll have to look good doing it too and now a little girl can't even trick or treat on Halloween without freezing her buns off in some sick, booty-shorted version of a policeman costume.

And then we turn around and over-protect the same daughters because there's so many perverts out there who sexualize kids. Well, gee...I wonder why?

Over my cold, dead corpse is my daughter dressing up in anything even remotely sexy before high school, and definitely not before she enters kindergarten. For now, she can get something from the boy isle and I'll take another twenty minutes out of my busy day to talk her out of a panic because the costume is for boys and not girls.

And really? Like I said before, why is there even separate boy and girl sections for little kids costumes anyway. A doctor is a doctor, a dinosaur is a dinosaur and a pumpkin is a gourd for crying out loud!

Can't the kids isle just be for kids? Isn't Halloween supposed to be for kids?

It's supposed to be laughter and staying up late and ghost stories and candy - not JELL-O shooters and hooking up in a crotchless Catwoman suit behind your current elementary school.

Babe last year on Halloween in Smithers.

Another App Review.

So it's been a long time coming but I wanted to quickly review a few more kid apps for you all. Babe is nearing three years old now so of course her taste in games on my phone have changed since my last app review page.

Now some of you may be pro iPhones, iPads etc for little ones and some of you may not be. I myself go back and forth. But for anyone who does utilize technology babysitters from time to time, here's my top picks for Babe...or rather, Babe's top picks.

Top of my list is My PlayHome. I have no idea why this dollhouse app hasn't gotten more review attention online. There's some of course, but when I searched best apps for kids it didn't come up. I love this app. I originally downloaded the free Lite version but it only came with two rooms. Babe loved it so much I paid to download the full version which I think was about $3.00.

It's a full dollhouse and everything in the house is interactive. Babe can change CD's on the stereo, dress the people, flush the toilet, get food out of the refrigerator, put toothpaste on the toothbrushes and pull carrots out of the garden. This app has held her attention longer than any other and she has loved it for about a year now.

The only down side is everything is so tiny that on an iPhone younger kids may have some trouble manipulating everything. But now that Babe has it on her iPad it's much easier for her to use.

I also downloaded the DooDoo Pad for Babe about a year ago and she still uses it all the time. Not sure if the name is a lost in translation deal, but whatever.

I originally got it because I thought I would like it too and I was right. The pens are super cool with neon lights, beads and an array of colours and paper backgrounds.

You can also import photos and draw on them. Babe loves to colour all over pictures of herself and save them to my photos.

The Lite version is of course free and although it does have an ad banner at the top it doesn't seem to get accidently tapped as often as some of the others.

The only downside, and maybe that has changed since we downloaded it, is when you are drawing with one pen, every time you lift your finger the colour changes. So if you wanted to stay with pink you'd have to keep drawing a line, then undoing it until you rotated back to pink. But I did notice that there was a colour wheel when I looked at the newer version so maybe it's a little different than the one we have.

To compliment Babe's letter learning I chose the Endless Alphabet app. It got good reviews and they weren't kidding around when they made this bad boy. It's so awesome. But the makers know it too and the app will set you back a whopping $6.99.

It has a ton of words to learn and not just ones like; cat, dog, hug and pretty. The kids choose a word and the funky cartoon characters make a big mess and scramble the word up. Then the kids have to drag and drop all the letters back into place. As they drag a letter the app makes the sound that the letter makes. Then once they have fit all the letters back into place the voice says the word, then shows a little cartoon of what the word means and explains the definition to the child.

There are so many funny characters and interesting sounds that Babe can spend a long time working on her letters with this app.

The only downside that I see is she can place the letters back into their spot in any order she wants. Meaning, if the word is BELLOW, Babe can place the LL's first, then the W in it's place and the B last. I would prefer if she were learning how to spell the word out in order from left to right.


Babe likes puzzle games, we have tried a few over the last year. But so far her favorite by far has been the Shape Builder app. It was a good buy at $.99.

It's very simple. Colourful shapes scrambled up, drag them into place and it becomes a picture of something. It has numbers, letters and images to fit together.

It doesn't keep Babe preoccupied for as long as some of the others but she keeps coming back to it.

Also for some reason, because the shapes are random splotches that only reveal the real picture once they are in place, some of the shapes frighten her. I have no idea why or what they look like to her but once in awhile she gets to a puzzle that she says is scary and she wants to skip to the next page. But that's probably just specific to my precious little weirdo.

Both of us LOVE the Nighty Night app. The pictures are really cool with a combination of realistic textures and cartoon characters, kind of like the Little Big Planet video game. The app is $2.99 which is pricy for a kid app but I would buy it again if I had to.

A soothing male voice starts with an intro about everyone going to sleep in town but says there are still lights on at the farm house. Then Babe has to turn off all the lights in the farm house to put all the animals to bed.

Again, it's interactive so whatever she touches makes noise and she loves going through the house and putting the animals to sleep (just for the night, it's not a euthanize the farm animals kind of game).

The end has a little girl waving out her window and Babe finds that part really intriguing. She always waves back.

This app is part bedtime story and part play and it's very calming. No bright, flashing lights or loud sounds. Just farm animal noises and lullaby music. A good short game to play at the end of the day to calm your child down.

And that's it for now folks. Check out some of these apps and let me know what your child thought. And of course let me know if you have any I should be checking out.