Can You Tell If She's Breathing?

Why don't child monitor's have pulse-ox functions?

I mean, this is pretty basic nowadays.  Even without taping the reader to a finger or a toe, the machine could measure the CO2 output in the room to let you know that your child is sleeping...and alive.  

Or it could just count the number of respirations as your child's chest moves up and down.

These are not new functionalities.  They've just never been properly applied to home-safety.

Instead, the current "recommendations" are stupid things like the advice I got from the doctor when my daughter was ill:

"You should check on your child every 2 hours to make sure that they're not having trouble breathing"

Uhm....

2 HOURS!?!?  

The brain only lasts 4 minutes without respiration providing oxygen.  Wouldn't it be better if we just had the breathing monitored by our child monitor?  A little alarm goes off if the CO2 levels increase too much..or don't decrease fast enough...or that it can't count your child's respirations?

I mean, seriously!  People who make baby products- where are your heads!?  You'd rather provide the ability to download pictures from the baby cam than something useful like knowing that your child is breathing.

Eating at "Children Friendly" Places

I recently went out to eat at a "Family" Restaurant.

You know the kind- it's usually a sticky-tabled, sticky floor, greasy spoon with lots of noisy children running out of control in between the tables and color crayons on every table.  It's wasn't my choice, really, but the grandparents wanted to go, so we went.

Now, they have a "children's menu" which was composed of macaroni and cheese, breaded meat by-part nuggets, canned fruit cocktail, and a ton of french fries as the "vegetable".  I honestly think that there is just one kid's meal on the planet and every restaurant orders the box of pre-fab kid's meal parts and sticks it on the menu.

But, I digress.

Now, our daughter is just learning to eat with utensils and non-mashed solids.  But you'd think that a restaurant that caters to "families" as much as having a bunch of crayons on the table and booster seats would have the following:

• Bibs (you know, like those disposable bibs at lobster places!?)
• Children-sized flatware (perhaps that would not be so sharp as the adult versions?)
• The food would have the option of being cut for LITTLE kids.  
• Wet wipes at the table.  (let's face it- kids are messy eaters)

As it was, the restaurant supplied none of these items.  Even the fruit cocktail, which is pre-cut anyway, came is 1" size, choke-able-chunks.

And, of course, there were other forms of entertainment for children, too:  Gameboys, hosting such age-appropriate games as Grand Theft Auto.

Now, you can call me old fashioned, but isn't it slighly unethical to provide games that are not age-appropriate?  Aren't you promoting poor judgement by parents and children alike?

I just don't know what the world is coming to, but I'm afraid of what the streets will be like when the children of today grow up because we can't give them a clear message about what is ok to eat, what is ok to play, and how it is ok to behave.

Potties, Potties, Everywhere

You know, I've peed in a lot of potties in my life and I never really thought about how difficult it must be for a parent who is potty training their children to find a public toilet that is the right size for the kids butt.

I've thought about how difficult it would be to a child of the opposite sex...and the obvious questions that would arise about the external plumbing.

I've thought about the germ factor of public toilets... and trying to dangle your kid over a dirty potty.

But I never really thought about how a tiny little kid may not be able to appropriately span the width, much less the length of an adult-sized toilet.

That is, until I had a kid that was potty training.

Now, I understand that most of the world is adults, so most of the toilets in the world are going to be adult-sized toilets.

But you really would expect that places geared towards children would have some sort of adapter or child-sized toilet.

You know, like McDonald's.  I don't eat there, but I know a LOT of kids go there...no child-sized toilet.

Or the play area at the mall.  You'd expect that the toilets near that play area would have at least one child-sized stall, right?  Or perhaps one in the "family" bathroom?  It would make sense there wouldn't it?

Or Disneyland... (hate to admit that they've failed on that one, but in all the years of marking my territory there, I never saw a child-sized toilet)

But the one place that I was MOST, well, irate about not having a child-sized toilet...was the Children's Hospital.

Now, this is a hospital ONLY for children.

ONLY children.

And while I understand that it would be too limiting to have some rooms with the child-sized toilets (like in preschool) vs. the adult-sized toilets, you'd pretty much expect that they would have an adapter that they could put on the toilet seat to allow your child to piss in peace.

But no.

They don't even have child-sized commodes...

During our recent stay at the hospital, we had to bring our own from HOME....only to find out that the adapter ring for that training potty doesn't fit the oblong, industrial-type public toilets.

What shocked me so much was that when we asked for the trainer or tot-pot, the nursing staff looked at us like we were speaking a different language.

"A what?  You want a training toilet for your kid?  Here?"

Yes, here.  People do pee (and more) in the hospital.

o_O

So, I guess my month of finding stupid things that people do is just beginning again.


BTW, I did find a solution that didn't involve me hugging the back of the toilet while my daughter sat upon it.  It turns out that our tot-pot could have the bowl removed, but otherwise be intact.  We put the whole thing up on the toilet seat and it was very sturdy because of the rubber feet.  The only thing our daughter needed was a crown.

Alcohol And Breastmilk

So, you may remember me talking about how the Medela Breast Pump vacuum lines- how Medela says that milk will NEVER get into the tubes...but they provide instructions on their sterilization bags on how to clean them- should it ever happen.

Right....

Well, evidently, they have had so many people call and complain about the lines getting hard after the sterilization bags that they have changed their recommended cleaning method.

Now they say to pour alcohol into the pump lines to clean them...instead of steam cleaning them.

So far, my lines have remained flexible with this treatment...though, I have to say, they didn't actually specify to use RUBBING alcohol...

Crossword Misinformation

I like doing crossword puzzles.

I know that it's completely a pat on my own back to fill it out and say "I know that answers".

It's not like I'm into the NY Times Crossword or anything- just the local one.

But that may be the cause of the problem I recently encountered.

My daughter's recent cold (as my husband put it "fire the double-barreled snot gun) reminded me of a recent crossword puzzle clue of "Nasal Membranes".

Now, being an anatomy professor, I felt I could easily answer this question.

However, there were only 5 letters in this answer.

As I looked at the crossing answers, I saw a "p" in the middle...

...and it made me very mad.

I realized that the FREAKIN MORON who wrote the crossword puzzle felt that "septa" were nasal membranes.

This is completely WRONG.

Ever hear of a deviated septum?  (septum singular, septa plural)  A septum is a bony wall that makes an alcove.  So, like the BIG septum that separates your nostrils.  When this is not straight all the way back, it's called a "deviated septum".

Notice, membranes were not mentioned in this definition.

That is because a biological membrane is a single layer of cells.

It is not a bony protrusion.

I really made me wonder how many other incorrect answers in crosswords serve as educational material for the masses.

After all, you wouldn't know it's wrong until you know it's wrong.

Amazon Mom Fine Print

Here's something you really need to know about Amazon Mom:

They changed their rules.

When I first joined Amazon Mom, it was free two-day shipping and some discounts on baby things.

When it ended, it ended.

Now, however, they have a fine print line item that says that they will secretly, automatically switch you from a free service to a $79/year service with NO FURTHER NOTICE.

You won't even get a receipt.

What you will find is that Amazon has charged you this exorbitant amount for deliveries like this:

And this

And this.

So, I guess my advice is:  DON'T sign up for it.

It just hasn't been work the headache for me.

When Scheduling Meetings Across Time Zones

This is a big deal to me.

It's just good customer service.

When you have a client that is in Time Zone A and you are in Time Zone B, then you need to talk about meeting times and project times relative to Time Zone A.  

In other words, don't be a jackass and make your customer do math in their heads.  Most of the time, they will do the math wrong, anyway, and your meeting time will be screwed up.

Likewise, if you have clients in multiple time zones, you need to use the time zone of the headquarters.  So, if the headquarters is in San Francisco, for example, you need to refer to all project times according to Pacific Time.  Your client will be used to having to do the math relative to their headquarters. 

It's amazing what a difference it makes to your customers.