mommapalooza

cost of convenience

I have vowed that come next winter, I will no longer be driving my trusty 1993 Ford Tempo around Calgary. This shouldn't be too hard to achieve - I'll either be working and able to make a car payment, or else I'll be living somewhere where I won't be driving. My basic motivation for wanting a new car is to get something with some safety features.  Most of the time, to me, that means airbags, stability control, and even good tires (gosh, do I ever regret always buying the cheapest tires for my car. I drove all around Calgary for two winters with Madeline in the back!), but something happened to a Calgary toddler yesterday that reminded me to take a good look at the window controls while I'm test-driving station wagons and hatchbacks. There's an article from Consumer Reports that goes into the different styles of power window controls, and explains that ones that require a user to pull upward on a recessed switch to close the window are the least likely to contribute to a tragedy similar to what happened to that little girl yesterday. Frankly, I wonder whatever happened to having to *roll* a window down and then up again. Was that too much trouble for the average motorist?

I am also sad that a parent left her children unattended in a vehicle, but that's another story ...

Elsewhere around the 'net, I laughed after reading Amalah's post today about her efforts to welcome a Gymboree mini parachute into her home.  I was also pleased to find a discussion of 1-2-3 Magic over at The Mom Trap - I've been debating about buying that one for awhile, and now I wish that I had so that I could read along!

Sometimes others say it better.

Fun reads over at Salon right now, if you have the patience to watch the ad for the free daypass:

No Belly No Respect and Trashing the Hallmark Card Mom.

Have you hugged your landfill today?

Yesterday my friend Chris (not my husband Chris, but my friend with a keen interest in placenta art!) brought this article from Wired to my attention: The Poop on Eco-Friendly Diapers. It's full of little factoids on the so-called eco-friendly disposables, regular disposables, and cloth. Manages to slam Proctor & Gamble a few times, too. Funny how P&G claims to have studied the amount of water used in laundering cloth diapers in a diaper-service setting, but didn't mention how much of the precious resource is used in the production of it's own goods and services ...

Also, my co-workers have lately taken to either telling me a) that I've become really big or b) that I'm looking really good and no one would suspect I'm pregnant if midsection was invisible. Anyway, happy for once that weight gain has occured in the proper spot, instead of all going my to hips.

Who's doing the catching?

Chris called me to mentioned that the Globe and Mail ran this article on c-sections yesterday. I would have presumed that they were increasing in numbers, anyways - that's the trend in the US, and it just makes sense that our physicians would join the bandwagon eventually.

One of the doulas that we interviewed had mentioned that she thought that obstetricians take a more medical/surgical perspective on childbirth than family doctors do … wonder if it's true?