Strange Machines

Lately Wolf loves talking to himself as he plays. He describes his imaginary scenario (e.g. Moon Wolf’s birthday and all his friends are gathered around to celebrate) and often gets his stuffed animal friends to talk too. Yeah, I think I really better get cracking with planning his 3rd birthday celebration. Moon Wolf celebrates his birthday every day so I think it is a sign…

The other morning he woke up and exclaimed: “Isetan toy shop. Isetan toy shop.” I asked him if he’d been dreaming about being there and he said yes. He was looking at cars there with me and my godparents.

My Mom says he’s the chattiest of all her grandkids and certainly the most active. He’s been an avid climber and climbs everything from the couch to his Dad.

Most delightful is watching him play sometimes. He makes up the funnest games in the most unlikely of locations and once he is engrossed, it is hard to disengage him. Occasionally at cafes, he’ll start a game of getting his Playmobil friends and his cars to visit his great-godma’s house and it is a big event! They all sit around and he helps them park their cars.

I’m probably a biased Mom but he is so creative!

Everyone’s been pushing me to start him on school but I am reluctant. He does seem very ready to socialise so we might try one of those overpriced Mommy and Toddler classes and see how that goes.

And I have to start doing it soon because although it is in May, I’ll be delivering his sister end April, if she decides to be on schedule. Which means I’ll need to plan his 3rd birthday before I deliver or it probably won’t happen because I’ll be too exhausted to organise anything in the 3 weeks after birth.

My lazy plan is to order a party set from an online birthday supplier like Birthday Express. They provide birthday party supplies, basically everything from invites to napkins to balloons to party favours (saves me the hassle of buying and packing those little things) to even thank-you cards (really for the parents!). And they promise on-time delivery. I like that.

Wolf loves the party favours we’ve brought home so far and although his little sister’s 1st month will be a week or two after his birthday, I think I should keep both parties separate just so they both feel special. Well, Wolf really. He’s at the age where he knows what parties are and knows to enjoy them.

He’s been singing Happy Birthday to Wolf since his grandma’s birthday last year so I think he’s ready for his very own party. A small one with less than 10 friends, a cat cake (cos he loves cats), party favours for sure, and all his loved ones around.

Since I’m ordering one party pack, I might as well order one for his baby sister’s first month too. Planning two parties so close together must have its benefits! I don’t think I have the energy to do it all myself, like I normally do. Meanwhile I’m getting more fat and unwieldy. Sigh…

If he has a posse of stuffed animal friends already, have them line up enthused to take the meds to get better from (the same ailment your child has). Should your little one not bite the first time round, have the stuffed geniuses cheer about how much better they feel and go queue up for another round.

First time we tried this, it went on for 3 rounds before Wolf finally jumped queue and wanted to take it too. We kindly told him to wait his turn or ask the animal friend if he could take his place. The kind friend said okay, and since that day, we’ve never had any trouble getting Wolf to take his meds (with lots of cheering too).

These days, he picks out his fave friends to take meds before him! Cos they’re sick too. LOL!

Wolf’s been developing in leaps and bounds. He’s the chattiest 2 year old my Mom’s ever met, she says. He talks to his stuffed animals, to us, and even to himself sometimes. And now he willingly sits in the pram although his first choice is for “mama carry”. Hey, I have arms of steel now.

Sleepwise, he is doing great too. He usually wakes once or twice a night. These days he sleeps 10-11 hours at night. And sometimes even drops his afternoon nap. When that happens, he dozes around 9pm for less than an hour then wakes up for a bath and short playtime before bedtime.

I was so proud of him tonight for napping in his carseat. He has a new cat friend he’d been eyeing during the last few visits to the hospital (for my checkups) and finally my Mom decided to buy it for him. He hugged his little friend to sleep. I was so happy!

Another alarming article about the dreadful effects of cigarette smoke on children. Point of the article is, don’t smoke at home and don’t go anywhere where there is third-hand cigarette smoke sitting on furniture or carpeting (or any surface for that matter) if you don’t want your children’s health affected.

A New Cigarette Hazard: ‘Third-Hand Smoke’

By RONI CARYN RABIN
Published: January 2, 2009

Parents who smoke often open a window or turn on a fan to clear the air for their children, but experts now have identified a related threat to children’s health that isn’t as easy to get rid of: third-hand smoke.

That’s the term being used to describe the invisible yet toxic brew of gases and particles clinging to smokers’ hair and clothing, not to mention cushions and carpeting, that lingers long after second-hand smoke has cleared from a room. The residue includes heavy metals, carcinogens and even radioactive materials that young children can get on their hands and ingest, especially if they’re crawling or playing on the floor.

Doctors from MassGeneral Hospital for Children in Boston coined the term “third-hand smoke” to describe these chemicals in a new study that focused on the risks they pose to infants and children. The study was published in this month’s issue of the journal Pediatrics.

“Everyone knows that second-hand smoke is bad, but they don’t know about this,” said Dr. Jonathan P. Winickoff, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

“When their kids are out of the house, they might smoke. Or they smoke in the car. Or they strap the kid in the car seat in the back and crack the window and smoke, and they think it’s okay because the second-hand smoke isn’t getting to their kids,” Dr. Winickoff continued. “We needed a term to describe these tobacco toxins that aren’t visible.”

Third-hand smoke is what one smells when a smoker gets in an elevator after going outside for a cigarette, he said, or in a hotel room where people were smoking. “Your nose isn’t lying,” he said. “The stuff is so toxic that your brain is telling you: ’Get away.’”

The study reported on attitudes toward smoking in 1,500 households across the United States. It found that the vast majority of both smokers and nonsmokers were aware that second-hand smoke is harmful to children. Some 95 percent of nonsmokers and 84 percent of smokers agreed with the statement that “inhaling smoke from a parent’s cigarette can harm the health of infants and children.”

But far fewer of those surveyed were aware of the risks of third-hand smoke. Since the term is so new, the researchers asked people if they agreed with the statement that “breathing air in a room today where people smoked yesterday can harm the health of infants and children.” Only 65 percent of nonsmokers and 43 percent of smokers agreed with that statement, which researchers interpreted as acknowledgement of the risks of third-hand smoke.

The belief that second-hand smoke harms children’s health was not independently associated with strict smoking bans in homes and cars, the researchers found. On the other hand, the belief that third-hand smoke was harmful greatly increased the likelihood the respondent also would enforce a strict smoking ban at home, Dr. Winickoff said.

“That tells us we’re onto an important new health message here,” he said. “What we heard in focus group after focus group was, ‘I turn on the fan and the smoke disappears.’ It made us realize how many people think about second-hand smoke — they’re telling us they know it’s bad but they’ve figured out a way to do it.”

The data was collected in a national random-digit-dial telephone survey done between September and November 2005. The sample was weighted by race and gender, based on census information.

Dr. Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician who heads the Children’s Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said the phrase third-hand smoke is a brand-new term that has implications for behavior.

“The central message here is that simply closing the kitchen door to take a smoke is not protecting the kids from the effects of that smoke,” he said. “There are carcinogens in this third-hand smoke, and they are a cancer risk for anybody of any age who comes into contact with them.”

Among the substances in third-hand smoke are hydrogen cyanide, used in chemical weapons; butane, which is used in lighter fluid; toluene, found in paint thinners; arsenic; lead; carbon monoxide; and even polonium-210, the highly radioactive carcinogen that was used to murder former Russian spy Alexander V. Litvinenko in 2006. Eleven of the compounds are highly carcinogenic.

(Source: NYT)

I was really sad to read that stress during pregnancy can affect one’s baby, as evidenced here, here, here, here, and here.

I’ve been through an immense amount (to my reckoning) of unneeded stress through the tail end of my first trimester till today with virtually no support from anyone. Hence I worry about my baby girl’s brain development. Trying to stay positive has been an uphill battle.

Advice from the first article: people needed to develop greater sensitivity to pregnant women’s needs.

Yet most people are insensitive to pregnant women’s needs, simply judging from a poll taken among friends. Worse if you’re having your second. I’ve been accused of being a bad mother, lazy, negligent, emotional, overreactive… the list goes on.

It doesn’t feel like there’s any solution.

It appears that I’ll be shopping even less after my little girl is born. Already Wolf howls for me to carry him after lunch and I get nothing done. Hence, on the nights that I can actually stay up to surf, I do my shopping, surfing, idling online.

Friend of mine pointed me to this site, noting my complaints about my skin (which allegedly looks fine since I’ve been too lazy to moisturise and have been washing with organic soap. She even blasphemed to implicate that I might have acne. Right.

So I headed over to this skiniD site, which is by Neutrogena by the way (so it can’t go that wrong), where they do personal evaluations – a painless 20 step one I must add – and offer an Acne Solution or more aptly named SkinID Acne Treatment, that is, a few products based on your skin type, habits, and lifestyle.

Pretty neat and fun and decently priced at $40 for the 3 products they recommended. Always wanted to try wipes.

I like that they put the ingredient list plain on the round up so you can decide if you want to get them. I’ve always liked Neutrogena stuff and give them huge kudos for offering fragrance-free products. Go check it out. Hayden’s on the landing page.