• Um, excuse me, please don't step on my mommy toes! Thank you.
    - Carrie Vining Spanier, BettyConfidential.com
    Picture this: Jake, my little guy, was a tender 18 months and blissfully playing in the sandbox at our favorite neighborhood playground. I was sitting on the edge of the sandbox questioning my sanity (and the sanitary conditions - it was New York City, after all!), when all of a sudden another little boy poured a bucket of sand right on top of Jake's little defenseless head. I leapt up and yelled, "Hey!" The momma tiger in me was ready to pounce. This child assaulted my baby! OK, it was sand, not acid, but still! Mommy rage took over. Suddenly, instead of reprimanding the offender, I stopped, dead in my tracks, and simply said loudly, "Whose child is this?" while pointing at him. I scooped Jake - and lord knows what else - up from the sandbox and left. As a former hothead, I really was perplexed by my lack of response. I mean, should I have said something to the kid, Read More »from Don't Discipline My Child!
  • Sarah Jessica Parker admits that she and hubby Matthew Broderick weren't expecting to add two children to their brood -- but now that they have twin girls Marion and Tabitha, they couldn't be happier.

    Sarah, Matthew, James and the girls (Celebspin.com)Sarah, Matthew, James and the girls (Celebspin.com)
    When asked if there's a difference between having one kid and twins, the Sex and the City star told PopEater, "There is no sugar coating it. It's wonderful. We didn't want twins but we wanted a bigger family and this is what we got. It's a blessing, it's a thrill, it's a privilege but it couldn't be more different."

    Parker and Broderick used a surrogate to add to their family in June, and now they really have their hands full (they also have a seven-year-old son, James). Sarah said, "It's comedic. There is so much organization and advance planning that happens. It's like a military operation."

    More from Zimbio:

    Read More »from Sarah Jessica Parker: 'We Didn't Want Twins'
  • Frances Bean Cobain has asked to have her legal guardianship changed from her notoriously off-kilter mom Courtney Love to her grandmother, which is creating drama as Love lashes out. Fortunately and unfortunately, Cobain has plenty of company in the celebrity parent/ kid split up. Here's a look back at a few of the biggest.


    Read More »from Frances Bean Cobain and other celebrity kid-parent splits
  • Poop is NOT Play Dough

    by Jill Shugart, M.A., M.F.T. for ParentsConnect

    GettyGetty

    My toddler (who is potty trained) has started playing with his poop, including pooping and peeing in hidden places around the house. What should I do?


    It is not that unusual for very young children to play with their feces. There is a certain fascination with the squishy feel, the smell and the intriguing, colorful designs that it leaves-a form of Play-Doh, if you will.

    But I am wondering, since your toddler has been potty-trained, what else this behavior, and the peeing and pooping in hidden places, might mean? Has there been any undue stress in your household recently? Sometimes children will react to stressors (and that could be your stress) by coming up with some dramatic behavior that stops everyone in their tracks and gets their attention. I know one mom, for example, who attributed this exact same scenario to the fact that she had returned to school that year, and her three-year-old was not getting the same

    Read More »from Poop is NOT Play Dough
  • We've heard about rising teacher stress levels, but this is going too far.

    When Lamya Cammon , a first-grader at Congress Elementary in Milwaukee, was caught playing with her hair, her teacher brought her to the front of the class, cut off one of her braids with a pair of classroom scissors, and threw it in the trash.

    "She told me to stop playing with it. Then cut it off and sent me back to my desk," Cammon said in an interview with Milwaukee's News 12.

    When asked what happened after, Cammon said, "I went to my desk and cried. And they was laughing. She threw it away, and she said, 'Now what you gonna go home and say to your momma? ' And I said, 'That you cut off my hair.'"

    Cammon's mother, Helen Cunningham was furious and confronted the teacher who said, "Well, I do apologize'" but also went on to say she was frustrated.

    Since that time, the Milwaukee police have investigated the case and referred it to the district attorney for possible physical or mental abuse of a child

    Read More »from Teacher cuts off girl's hair in school
  • 10 Hottest Pregnant Celebs of 2009

    Baby bumps were a hot look this year, with some of our favorite sitcom actresses, movie stars, and reality TV guilty pleasures sporting a maternal glow. Here's who topped our baby bump list in 2009! And keep reading for even more celeb baby mania!

    1. Gisele Bundchen
    The internationally-known supermodel went from highest-paid model in the world to most-watched mom when she and New England Patriots quarterback, Tom Brady, became pregnant following their February wedding. This is Bundchen's first child. Brady has a son, John, from a previous relationship with actress Bridget Moynahan.
    Bundle of Joy! The couple welcomed a baby boy on December 8.

    2. Alyson Hannigan
    A star on the hit comedy How I Met Your Mother previously played Willow Rosenberg on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She's been married to her husband, Buffy the Vampire Slayer costar Alexis Denisof, since 2003. Her biggest pregnancy craving? Ginger ale!
    Bundle of Joy! Satyana Denisof was born March 24th, 2009 -- it was also Alyson's

    Read More »from 10 Hottest Pregnant Celebs of 2009
  • Would you let your first-grader on social networking sites meant for adults?
    - Melissa Stanton, BettyConfidential.com

    I was surprised to learn recently that one of my daughter's first grade classmates is 13 years old.

    What? That's what I said. But she's on Facebook, and, as all know, members must be at least 13 years old to join. I discovered this first-grader on Facebook while visiting her mom's page - I discovered she was "friends" with several of her kids.

    Of course, this Facebooking first-grader isn't 13. She's only 7. Her mom, who's a (real-life) friend of mine, spends a lot of time on Facebook and she set up accounts for some of her curious kids. Harmless? I don't know. Between us, I'm creeped out by friend's Facebook casualness. Her kids' real birthdays and pictures are visible on the site. While the privacy settings have been enacted for some of them, the security controls haven't been enacted for all of her children. If I printed the unsecured children's names

    Read More »from How Young is Too Young for Facebook?
  • The 19th Duggar child has arrived!

    That's right, Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar, stars of TLC's "18 Kids and Counting" have added one more to their brood, albeit a little earlier than they were expecting.

    On Thursday night at 6:27 p.m., daughter Josie Brooklyn was delivered via emergency C-section
    as mother Michelle, who has been in the hospital recovering from a gallstone, was taken to the OR. Though originally due on March 18th, the baby is reportedly in stable condition in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock.

    "The most important thing right now is for mom and baby Josie to get as much rest as possible," read a statement released by TLC. "The family is grateful for all the prayers and well wishes during their recovery."

    Read More »from The Duggars welcome their 19th child!
  • A few months ago, my daughter Ayla and her little friend were busy exploring a pumpkin farm when the topic of Halloween arose amongst the parents. One mother explained that she was in limbo-unsure of whether to celebrate Halloween in their family. She intuitively felt that if she said "yes" to Halloween, then it would be hard to refuse Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and so on. "What will I teach my son to believe in?" she wondered aloud. "And if I'm not teaching him to rally around a cast of pseudo-religious, imaginary characters, what can I offer instead?" [She was raised in neither a religious nor a spiritual family.]

    This question would haunt me for many months after the ghouls and zombies disappeared from my neighborhood. I knew that if I pried off the lid to this Pandora's Box I would be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of unanswered questions about my own faith, and my personal struggle to find a spiritual home.

    In my childhood, practicing religion was a means to access

    Read More »from Finding Religion For Myself and My Baby
  • The other night on my drive home, I heard something on National Public Radio that really got under my skin. Some schools across the country are outlawing flavored milk. And crusading for the cause is Ann Cooper, who I must admit, I generally respect as a school-lunch-reform maven: she called chocolate milk "soda in drag." Cooper, Nutrition Services Director for Boulder Valley School District, has outlawed flavored milk from her district, just one of many other schools to do so. (Enough have banned the drink to prompt the dairy industry to rally the many pediatricians and dietitians who vehemently oppose the ban on chocolate milk for a new campaign called Raise Your Hand for Milk.)

    As a mom and a nutritionist I, too, think that the ban on chocolate milk is crazy. I don't like milk-never have. But, growing up, my mom knew I needed calcium so she did what she could to get dairy into my diet, including hiding it in things like oatmeal and tomato soup. Including pairing it with a

    Read More »from Angry mommy responds: chocolate milk is “soda in drag”? Puh-lease!

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