If Your Child Gets Lost, Have a Fresh Photo Ready

Today’s tip at Parent Hacks is so brilliant I had to post it here: take a digital picture of the kids before entering an amusement park in case they get lost. Not only is this a great way to generate photographic proof of your adventures, but it could literally save your child’s life. If you and your child were to get separated, the digital photograph beats a plain descripting of your child: the hair colour, eyes, height and even today’s clothes would leave no room for doubt when enlisting help to search for wandering tots.

The chances of actually losing your child are very slim – most of the time children are drawn to flashy or noisy distractions like mall fountains or those ride-on trains. As my own little one starts to take his first steps I can only look forward to the stress that is bound to be heading my way…

Nine Month Old Refuses to Drink Bottle

Our son was having a bad week. No bottle was good enough for him, and the ones he did drink ended up being decoration on his shirt when he threw up ten minutes later. Since I was taking penicillin for my strep throat, we assumed that the baby had picked up my infection and took him to see his doctor immediately.

Diagnosis: Attitude, not strep throat.

Apparently, around the end of their first year, children start wanting to assert more independence – never mind that they don’t have the skills needed to do so. Even though your child can’t yet walk (maybe they can’t even crawl yet!) you will find them trying to push themselves away from you and travel on their own. Their nutrition changes and the time is right to start weening them off the bottle and onto real milk and solid food.

This is the same time that sleeping habits start to change and originally docile babies start to become menaces. Just when you thought you were getting used to the routine of parenthood, it all changes! It’s time to start baby proofing your home, if you haven’t already, because your child will be discovering all imaginable dangers very soon.

What happened to the good old toys?

I was walking around the stores lately looking at toys to get for my son, when suddenly I stopped halfway down an isle of infant toys and asked myself what happened to the good old toys. Nowadays it seems like everything requires batteries.

I was looking for a teething toy for my son so I stopped a sales associated and asked her to please direct me to teething toys that do not contain water or liquid. When we got to the huge wall of teethers it came down to two options: one of them was a raspberry shaped pacifier and the other was a vibrating star or strawberry. I stood there feeling puzzled. Not even the teethers are free from batteries; apparently some genius decided that the vibrations of a rubber toy soothed a baby. I decided to buy the raspberry (which by the way is an incredible product that doesn’t require batteries).

On another shopping trip we wanted to look at ride-on toys, exersaucers, and those walking toys that children push when they first start to walk. Everything needed batteries! I swear the battery industry is carried by parents who buy toys for their children. You don’t realized how fast you go through the batteries until everything you own requires them.

I wanted to buy my son just a set of wooden block for him to build whatever his imagination would allow him to just like I did when I was little (and my father before me and his father did before him). This simple no batteries required toy was more expensive than any of the other toys in my baskets. When did we stop liking the good old fashion wooden toys that were built to last? Why have we replaced them with cheap plastic and a battery compartment? I hope that every child at least has one good old fashion toy just to remember that you don’t need a song and bells and light to go off on a toy just for you to have endless hours of fun.