Image via flickr user imcountingufoz

A new trend is causing tongues to wag as it increases in popularity. Coffee drinking parents are now seemingly spreading their addiction to the next generation, giving their adorable toddlers their very own Babyccinos. This of course is giving conniption fits in certain parenting circles. How dare hipster parents share their love of the drink with their young offspring.

For those who have not seen the articles or heard of the trend, the story goes like this: caffeine craving parents are now ordering drinks for their preschoolers. Generally these drinks consist of streamed milk and foam, and it often includes chocolate or decaffeinated espresso shots.

This so called trend is the fact that it has been around for ages. Twelve years ago, the town my boarding school was in had a Chinese restaurant and a single coffee shop for our hang out choices. As a non-coffee drinker I would choose a steamer with a hazelnut shot. They were pretty tasty, so no wonder the toddler set likes them. Even back then, there were blurry eyed parents handing these steamers to little kids. They didn’t have the cutesie name back then, but they were the same idea.

I really don’t have a problem with these so-called Babycinnos. Aside from being tasty, for a lot of parents resorting to giving their children these drinks the trip to the coffee shop is one of the few things keeping them sane. They may be parents, but they are still adults and they need adult interaction, and more than likely, a good shot of caffeine. If a little bribe in the coffee shop helps contribute to this daily sanity booster, who are we to judge?

Society today loves to pick on parental choice these days. They have taken the concept of it takes a village to raise a child, but ignore the part where the village actually helps raise the child. Instead, they like to tisk-tisk parents who don’t always feed their snowflakes free-range chicken, fail to dress them in organic bamboo clothes, or heaven forbid, parents who give a little bribe in the coffee shop for a couple moments of real world interaction. Sometimes parents can make decisions that may not be what the prevailing wisdom may call for, but as long as the parents are doing things that can harm the child (like making it say an Irish coffee) it is okay to be a little different from the crowd.

One of my favourite board games growing up was the “Game of Life.” It was a simple game where you would drive your plastic car across the board. The spinner was like a mini Wheel of Fortune wheel and each space was a different life event. You would start the game with a little peg-man, alone in the car. A blue one for the boys, a pink one for the girls. You would get married shortly after getting a job (this was mandatory) and of course, soon after would come the children. This was the best part. You would place a new peg in you car every time you would land on a “congratulations a child is born.” The more children you collected, the fuller your car would get. I loved seeing how many kids I would have to fit into that little car. Often, I would need a second car because the first one would overflow from all the children-pegs.

My life is a lot like that game. I may not have discovered Atlantis or inherited a skunk farm, but my little car is certainly filling up. This week we welcomed baby number six, a beautiful little girl.  In the “Game of Life,” you never knew how many children you would have in your car, but you were rewarded in the end. In my real life, I never knew how many children I would have along the way, but each one is a blessing and a wonderful gift. Welcome little Z number six.

Late last year a case in Australia made international headlines. It was the situation where Doctors accidentally aborted the wrong twin. The twins were mere weeks away birth when a heart problem was detected in one baby. The baby faced years of surgery, if he even survived the birth process. So the painful decision was made to, at 32 weeks, abort the sick baby. Unfortunately the poison intended to kill the the baby with the heart condition was instead injected into his brother. Despite emergency surgery to save the favoured twin, he did not survive. The intended target of the procedure was later aborted.

This case saddens me for many reasons. The mother went into the hospital one day with two babies but left none. Two beautiful children were lethally dosed, one unintentionally, but one on purpose. But what bothers me is the reaction of the world. The headlines all cried out that the “wrong twin aborted.” There seemed to be universal acceptance that the sick child was unworthy of saving. The outrage is reserved for only the healthy twin, the wanted child. If the procedure had gone as planned, there would not have been a single mention in even the local news. If the second baby had also been unwanted, the outrage would still be missing. After all, the abortion of unwanted normal babies take place millions of times a year all over the world. But because this particular baby was wanted, desired and chosen for life, the world hears about his death and mourns for the lost life. His brother, however, a mere unwanted fetus, receives no such attention.

My baby is finally six! To celebrate, we invited over three friends for Secret Agent training and cake. Now that my boys are getting older, I am enjoying planning parties that they appreciate.

For this party, my first stop was Pinterest. I was not the only mom to plan to a spy party, so there were a lot a good ideas out there. I pinned them on my Pinterest Board if you want to see the sources.

For invitations, I took a picture of my every willing model in his best spy pose and created a custom birthday invite. The invitation warned that “Dr. Tantrum” was out to ruin the party and secret agents were needed to help save the day. I included my phone number, but purposely left out the address to force parents to RSVP. I once had a birthday party where only two children had RSVP’d but over twenty showed up, so I have learned my lesson.

The decorations were very simple: I didn’t have any. Six year olds don’t really appreciate all the effort decorations take, so I used my energies elsewhere.

When the guests started to come, they were given a quick tour of the house and James showed off some of his toys. When everyone had finally arrived, we started the festivities. I gathered everyone, included older brother Andrew, and explained that Dr. Tantrum was out to ruin the party so we must train as Secret Agent Spies in order to stop him.

First, everyone needed their agent hat. In order to earn it, the boys needed to cross the “laser” obstacle course. I created the course with red crepe streamers crossing back and forth through the hallway. Every child had to cross the lasers without breaking any of them, retrieve their hat, and make it safely back. If they failed, they had to go to the back of the line and try again. After everyone had their hat, they ran through the lasers to destroy them.

Next the spy team had to work on their strength: out came the pinata. I couldn’t find a suitable “spy” pinata so we used a green dinosaur. The kids really didn’t care. Each child took several swings before the pinata fell to the ground, and then they all went to town trying to chop it open. I didn’t put candy in; instead I put spy tools, which included magnifier glasses, siren whistles, compass rings, click cameras and sunglasses. The kids eagerly grabbed their prizes and didn’t even notice there wasn’t any candy. I made sure everyone got at least one of each prize and they put them into bags with their names on them.

Next came a crash course on disguises. This did not go as well as I had hoped. I put mustaches inside of black balloons and blew up some extra empty ones. The plan was to have the kids stomp on the balloons and pop them to find their mustaches. Unfortunately, I always use high quality balloons, ones that can with stand a six year old’s foot stomping on it. We had to resort to pointy objects to pop them.

After donning the mustaches, it was time for graduation. Everyone was given their spy water guns and lined up for their pictures. Each boy posed like an agent and I used those pictures at the end of the evening for the thank you cards.

Then, suddenly, my oldest son Andrew switched his spy hat to his top hat and cried “I am Dr. Tantrum and now I know your secrets!” The other kids squealed and they started to play “Capture the Agents.” The agents would try to wrap Dr. Tantrum with left over streamers while he tried to capture them and send them to his base. It was crazy and more than a little loud, but the boys loved it and played several rounds.

When the pizza arrived, they were more than ready to gobble down the food. Then came the cake. It was a simple half circle cake with a cupcake on the top, but as soon as I lit the sparkler, one of the boys announced, “It’s a bomb!” James desperately tried to blow it out but couldn’t. He was looking more than a little nervous as the sparkler came closer and closer to the cake. Then my Dr. Tantrum step in and, with perfect timing, blew hard until the sparkler burned itself. I announced that Dr. Tantrum had stopped the bomb and saved the party. Everyone was quite thrilled and they had their fill of cake.

After the cake had been eaten, the presents were opened, and the boys had free play in James’ room. As the parents came to pick up their child, everyone was handed their hat, sunglasses and spy goodies, along with a thank you card with their picture on it. Overall, it was a great party and everyone had a fantastic time.

However, as my babies have gotten older, I have struggled with the car seat issue. Truth be told: my kids do not like car or booster seats, and sometimes I wonder if they really do make my older children safer. Now the American Academy of Pediatrics have announced that they believe children should be in child restraints even longer than previously recommended. They now claim children should remain rear facing until they meet they weight restrictions of their car seat. This would mean keeping your child rear facing until many of them are two or older. Currently, most children make the transition from rear to front facing at the one year mark. Under this recommendation, my five year old would still be in his rear facing car seat, feet scrunched up, because he still has not the 35 lb weight limit.

The logic behind keeping children rear facing longer is based on a 2007 study that seem to suggest that children in a front facing car seat is 75% more likely to suffer fatal and severe injuries. However, this statistic is misleading: the study analysed accidents from between 1988-2003. Of these accidents, less than 1% involved injury or death. Of this fraction of a percent, you find that indeed, the risk of death is 75% higher in front facing car seats: a 0.02% increase of overall risk.

The case for car seats for older children is also a more murky than what the numbers would suggest. In research done by Steven Levitt, author of Superfreakonomics, he found that the studies in favour of extended car seat use only compare car seats to no restraints at all. When he ran simulations with toddler crash test dummies, comparing seat belt restraints to car seats, and compared the numbers between the different restraints there was no apparent difference in the two most serious injury categories. When he compared car seats vs seat belts vs unrestrained children in an accident, the statistics again showed a decrease in death when some sort of restraint was used, but not much of a difference when comparing belts vs car seats.

Using restraints in a car is important. Twenty percent of children involved in serious crashes are not restrained that all, a statistic that needs to change. However, forcing children approaching thirteen years old to remain in a booster seat, when statistics show only a miniscule increase in real safety, will not protect these children. All it does is create more snake oil parents must buy in the name of safety.

On Saturdays my guys get a treat: sugar cereal.  Sometimes it is Captain Crunch, other times it is Honeycomb cereal. Their true love, however, is Lucky Charms. It is the one with sickly sweet marshmallows mixed in with surgary, shimmery shapes.

They love everything about Lucky Charms, the fun shapes, the sparkly box and of course those brightly coloured hearts, starts and fourleaf clover marshmallows. In fact, the only complaint about their sugar concoction is the fact that mixed in with their yummy marshmallows are those silly cereal bits. They have attempted the ol’ pick out only the marshmaellows to eat, but they have realised that this is a quick way to lose surgar cereal priviliges. I am certain, however, if they ever found the site www.cerealmarshmallows.com, they would be go nuts. This site sells marshmallow cereal, minus the non-cereal bits.

Imagine, a cereal that is all marshmaellows. No more picking out the non-marshmellow healthy part (if you can call the sugar glazed oat pieces healthy). My adult brain and teeth hurt at the thought of such insanity, but I distinctly remember being eight and dreaming of a world this existed. I know my kids will not be getting bowls of this cereal monstrosity anytime soon, but I think I might have to share the link with them. Dreams do come true, and that is a magic that goes beyond any magically delicious cereal you can buy in a store.

Created to mark the launch of the Chevrolet Orlando, eight model makers spent two weeks crafting the seven seater replica. It took the putty from over 10 000 pots of Play-Doh, and a spokesperson for the project is quoted as saying: “We’ve pretty much exhausted the UK supplies of aquamarine Play-Doh.”

The masterpiece will be parked on the street for the next week, but there is no word on how the public art installation will be prevented from drying out or how young children will be prevented from “sampling” the bright blue dough.

Image courtesy flickr user anyjazz65

It is not logical in this day in age, to have a large family. The Duggars has announced that they are expecting baby number twenty, much to the delight of the cynics and critics on the internet. At one time, large families made sense. Extra children were cheap labour in the fields and a retirement policy in old age. More children meant a stronger family line and were a sign of wealth and power. But now we have child labour laws, old age security programs and little concern of family lineage after the first son or daughter.

But then logically, why have any children? We live in a time where avoiding children means greater wealth, and greater free time. With the world population at unprecedented levels, and the new belief that your legacy is your accomplishments, not your lineage, all the old reasons for having children have fallen away. However, when we announced our first child, no one felt the need to ask if we could handle it or looked at us like we were insane. So why is it different when I express desire for child number five. Having children now, therefore, is not like the days of old. So what compelling reason can I give for this burning desire in my heart?

All I can say in my defence is that I was created to be a mother. God put a desire in my heart, to not just to carry and birth children, but to care for the most helpless, the weakest, the motherless. When I hear of a child who is abandoned or abused, my heart breaks. I know that I can not help every child in need, but every once in a while I get a call for a specific child that needs me, and that feeling swells inside me and I know that child is meant to belong in our family.

Logical? No. But there are certain things that can’t be justified through logic. Family is one of those things. Sometimes your heart tells you do something that defies public opinion and you must choose what is truly best. So now I must wait patiently until the call for baby number five, and of course convince my husband.