Recommended Reading

Lesson 12: Working Moms vs. Stay-at-Home Moms -- Worst Cage Match Ever - In response to yet another recently published study which examines why children of moms who work outside the home will grow up to hate life, this blogger humorously examines the pros and cons of both walks of life.  I definitely gigglesnorted when I got to, "Your partner wants to rest after a long day of work and they don’t understand that you need to rest too and they say something like, “Why? What did you do all day? This house is a wreck” and then you have to go to jail for stabbing them in the shoulder".

Vitamin D & Preeclampsia Connection - This post talks about a study which has found a link between the levels of vitamin D in a mother's bloodstream and the likelihood of developing early onset Preeclampsia.  It links to a really interesting study and I hope with some more research doctors will have found a way to lessen a women's chance of developing this somewhat common complication.
When Food Dyes Color Our Child's Behavior - Yet another reason to avoid processed foods.  This article talks about the negative impact that manufactured food dyes have on our health, and of course on the health of still developing bodies.

AAP: Toddlers in Rear-Facing Seat Until 2 - The American Academy of Pediatrics has finally changed their wording to be more beneficial.  They have always recommended that children remain rear-facing as long as their car seat allows, but previously they had advised parents that the minimum to consider turning their child's car seat was 1 year and 20 lbs.  Thankfully, they have revised the wording to set the minimum recommendation at 2 years, but again, parents should still defer to their individual car seat manufacturer's recommendation.  I'm so glad that they have changed the wording.  I've previously talked about my feelings on this topic here.  We have always planned on keeping Jack rear-facing until at least age 2.

Monsters Inc. How to thwart the $17 billion marketing effort to steal your kids' dreams, infiltrate their friendships, plaster their PJs with logos, hijack their imaginations, fragment their attention spans, make them obese, and drive a wedge into their relationship with you. - Scary article on advertising to children.  I read a book about this called Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood.  If you like the article and want more information I would recommend reading it.  It's terrifying as a parent to feel like you're up against this giant, multi-million dollar industry because even with the best of efforts there's pretty much no way to shield your child completely from marketing.  Beginning at a terribly young, impressionable age, they methodically infiltrate everything, including schools, to teach children who to admire, what foods to eat, and how to dress, among other things and there are serious ramifications.  It's terrible that there's little to no restrictions on this type of thing in the U.S., but of course some other European countries have it figured out.