Blog Posts by babblestrollerderby

Like many parents, I have occasionally wished my kids came with an "off" button. After a long day listening to them squabble and whine, I've occasionally thought to myself, "If only there was some magical drug I could give them that would make them mellow out."

We all have those moments when we're pushed to the edge. But, I wouldn't actually consider drugging my kids to make them calm down. According to a new report, some parents do just that.

It's a heart-wrenching situation. Violet Lee, 2, suffers from a life-threatening immune disease. Today, she will begin chemotherapy treatment in preparation for a bone marrow transplant. The chemotherapy could save the toddler's life, but it could also leave her infertile.

If an experimental surgery works, Violet may one day be able to conceive children. Just yesterday, Dr. Kutluk Oktay, a professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology and the director of the Division of Reproductive Medicine & Infertility at New York Medical College, performed the experimental "fertility preservation" procedure in which one of Violet's ovaries was removed. The Brooklyn, New York girl may hold the dubious distinction of being the youngest person ever to undergo a fertility procedure.

Of course, Violet's health is her parent's primary concern. But they were devastated by the prospect that she might not be able to conceive a baby.

"It was hard enough to find out your baby needs to go through

It's not that I don't like the way they look. In fact, they're pretty cute. I'm just turned off by the idea of marketing "skinny" jeans to little girls. I realize that the term refers to the style (slim-fit pants with a snug fit through the legs and a small leg opening) rather than the body type (since they're made in all sizes). But still, I don't want my girls thinking that "skinny" is a positive attribute.

Maybe it's just a coincidence, but when I googled "skinny jeans," an ad for an anorexia treatment center popped up.

I'm not sure if it's possible to raise girls without any sort of hang-ups about food and their bodies . I'm doing my best to teach my daughters body acceptance - whatever size they are.

As an adolescence, I was average weight, but developed the warped idea that I was fat. I'm not going to blame my issues entirely on the media, but certainly, advertising played a role in creating my "thin" ideal.

There's no way I can entirely shield my daughters from the media. Instead, I do my best to educate them about images they see in magazines, billboards and on TV.

Maternity leave in the U.S. is notoriously short - six weeks for most, three months FMLA if you're lucky. Some parents manage to cobble together more, but it often comes with such a financial sacrifice that many breastfeeding moms find themselves back in the workplace before they're ready to stop breastfeeding their babies.

Like breastfeeding, pumping is different for every woman. For some, it comes fairly naturally. For others - myself included - it's awkward and uncomfortable. I would rather nurse a baby for an hour than pump for five minutes. Nursing moms returning to work have to hook up to a pump at least three times a day, a process made far more difficult when companies aren't sensitive to breastfeeding mother's needs.

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The first week after my older daughter, Jesse, was born, all she did was sleep. My husband and I wondered why everyone had told us that the early days of parenting would be so hard. Then, week two came and Jesse finally woke up. And boy, was she one pissed off baby. She cried. A lot.

Nothing seemed to calm Jesse's wailing. We rocked her. We sang to her. She continued to cry. Believe it or not, one doctor told me that she was just a difficult baby and that she was destined to be a difficult toddler and a difficult teenager. Maybe she'd even end up in jail. My husband and I freaked.

Then when I took Jesse to "Baby and Me" class at the local Y, things got worse. The other babies cooed and slept. Jesse howled. What was wrong with my baby? Even worse, I feared it was all my fault. I was doing something to make her cry. I was a terrible mother.

One particularly difficult night when my husband and I had tried unsuccessfully for hours to comfort Jesse's incolably crying, we looked at each other and wondered, "What have we gotten ourselves into?" Luckily, we had a pediatrician who calmed our fears and told us it was likely that Jesse had colic.

I've dealt with lice, but I've heard that nits are nothing compared with bed bugs. Once they make their way into your home, they're quite determined to stick around.

Bed bugs are now a nationwide epidemic. According to the "Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite Act of 2009", bedbug populations have increased by 500 percent in recent years - they can be found everywhere from homes, cruise ships, dormitories, hotels, retail stores and daycare centers. Freaked out yet? There's more.

Cyberbully students are causing endless angst for schools who feel obligated to interfere when students bully and are bullied--but aren't sure where the limitations of their authority lie. Legal wrangling about cyberbullying goes on--and so does the debate about what a parent's role should be when it's his kid on one side or the other of the online equation. Last week's New York Times article spotlighted one parent who sued on behalf of his daughter, who was suspended from her Beverly Hills high school for posting a video online in which other students called a fellow eighth grade girl "ugly," "spoiled," a "brat" and a "slut." The parent said he chastised his daughter. "That wasn't a nice thing to do." But still, he sued, and the court revoked the girl's suspension and awarded court costs. Putting aside the legal situation, bloggers like Strollerderby's Madeline Holler wondered if the lawsuit-happy dad did more than chastise his daughter. Did he, perhaps, take away her cell phone?

At eight and five years of age, my daughters are solid sleepers. They almost never fuss when it's time to go to bed and they rarely wake during the night.

But they weren't always good sleepers. In fact, my older daughter went through a long, difficult period of colic (for lack of a better word) from around 2 weeks to 5 months during which it took us hours to get her to sleep at night.

On most nights, my husband snuggled her into the Baby Bjorn and wandered the streets of Manhattan's East Village until she finally fell asleep. And then, once we finally settled her into her crib, she'd wake up 45 minutes later, seemingly just to torture my husband and I some more. I was hormonal and exhausted and willing to try almost anything to get her to sleep. And yet we never considered hiring a sleep consultant.