What do you think about the mother in this case? A 26-year-old North Dakota mom was arrested for breastfeeding her baby while she was drunk.

Police were called to her home to investigate a domestic disturbance, and found Stacey Anvarinia breastfeeding her 6-week-old baby. The officers believed that she was drunk and arrested her. Last week she pleaded guilty to child neglect charges, and is due to be sentenced next month.

North Dakota authorities said that they believed that the police were correct to make the arrest, even if the mother hadn’t been breastfeeding, out of concern that the child was being taken care of by someone who was intoxicated.

Getting falling-down drunk then breastfeeding is one thing. But having a glass of wine in the evening – is that something that a mom could be arrested for? I hope not. Unwinding at the end of the day when baby is in bed with a little TV and a glass of wine is sanity-restoring to many moms.

The La Leche League says that light drinking is compatible with breastfeeding, and that one drink a day or less isn’t harmful to your baby.

So can you drink alcohol if you are breastfeeding? And should you be worried about being arrested? Alcohol certainly gets into breastmilk in small quantities.

So the most sensible thing for nursing mom to do is just a little planning. It takes a couple of hours for your body to process one drink – like a glass of wine or a bottle of beer. So if you have a glass of red wine in the evening just after you put baby to bed, knowing that the next time you’ll need to nurse won’t be for a couple of hours at least, then you and your baby should be fine.

And if you have more than one drink? What if you are going to a wedding, or a night out? Some mothers avoid breastfeeding their babies for several hours after drinking, either pumping breastmilk beforehand to feed the baby, or using formula. Then, after drinking alcohol, pumping milk and dumping it eases any engorgement and gets rid of any milk which may have alcohol in it.

What do you think? Are you a nursing mother who drinks alcohol? How much is too much? Or should nursing moms never drink alcohol?

The sad thing about moms and makeup, is just when we are at our most sleep deprived and exhausted and haggard looking and most in need of the help from makeup, we are too sleep deprived and exhausted to apply any.

But that’s OK. And anyone who doesn’t forgive a new mom for not looking sparkly and at her best is, to put it politely, a ratbag. New moms should be allowed to focus on their babies, not fuss with foundation. And do you know what? Your newborn baby thinks you are the most wonderful thing he/she has ever seen. And that’s even with two hours of sleep and no makeup.

And it doesn’t necessarily get much easier as babies get older. My pre-baby makeup routine was either none (by day) or excessive (by night). Now I have a son and don’t get to go out at night much, and if I do there’s a mad rush to find at least clothes that are not stained by drool and sandbox sand so makeup tends to be reduced to a few swipes of mascara.

Occasionally I manage a little eyeliner during the day, but makeup has definitely become an optional extra with little kids. I leave my eyeliner and mascara next to my toothbrush so I see it in the mornings, and if I feel like it, it’s easy to put a little on.

Now my son is three and I’m used to not wearing it. Hanging out with other moms who are all in the same boat as me and don’t have time to put on makeup either makes me feel more comfortable without it. I love my non-mom friends, but I always feel just a little dowdy compared to them, even though I know that they have more time for grooming, and a steadier hand to apply eyeshadow without a toddler climbing up their leg shouting Mommieeeeeeeee! But I much prefer no makeup and having my beautiful son.

Perhaps the solution for moms who do want to wear makeup is to train their children to apply it for them? Obviously, most moms will be wanting a more subtle look, but I think the theory is a good one… My son is very keen on putting mascara on me, once redirected to put it in the right place. Consider it one of many games to develop motor skills, and benefit for mom. Would you let your kids try doing your daytime makeup look?

A playgroup that I hang out with had a gathering this morning, and one mom I hadn’t seen in a few months was there. So we said hello, how nice it was to see her again, and asked after each other’s kids. She looked rounder in the belly than I remember, and her son is about the age where many moms start planning baby #2.

It could also be a little extra weight.  Bolder people than me might just ask outright but I don’t want to cause offense if she isn’t pregnant. But, I don’t want to not ask, it would be rude not to ask after her new baby, and besides, if she’s pregnant I want to know!

I asked her how she’d been, and she replied that she was feeling a lot better this week because her morning sickness had eased off.  Congratulations, my friend, and thank you for saving me from asking the awkward question.

I just read an article about riders on the subway in Chicago, and whether they give up seats to pregnant women or not. Only half of bus and train users in Chicago give up their seats for a pregnant woman. Some commuters said that they don’t want to offer their seats to pregnant women just in case the woman in question isn’t actually pregnant.

I think moms have a pretty good radar for spotting other pregnant women. Have you ever noticed one of your friends or colleagues acting a little differently, holding herself differently, or has that subtle expression that she knows a really exciting secret? And then a few weeks later, she made the announcement?

I guess since we’ve been there, done that and got the maternity t-shirt, we can pick up the subtle signs that differentiate early pregnancy from a recent jelly donut binge.

But, my policy is still going to be to wait until I’m told to start talking about someone’s pregnancy. if you get it wrong, your friend is probably going to be offended and feel fat. I’ve had a messy relationship with weight most of my life, and the last thing I want to do is make anyone else feel bad about their weight. Most pregnant women like to make the announcement themselves, not have someone else guess first. It takes the excitement of the news away if someone else already knows .

Udderly Smooth Udder Cream lotion was originally developed for use on dairy cows and the product still bears the instructions for use on cattle, as a treatment for cracked or sore udders.

I first herd… sorry, bad joke… heard about Udder Cream from a friend whose six-month-old baby had eczema, and was having a difficult time finding anything that would relive it. Her son’s pediatrician recommended Udder Cream, and reassured her that he didn’t think that her baby was a calf and that the cream was perfectly safe for human babies, and that he had used it on his own children.

My son, a few months older, also had eczema and dry skin on his legs and arms. I had been using other lotions but hadn’t found one that helped. So, I tried the Udder Cream on the rash, and on his dry skin. A few days later, his dry skin was much improved, and while his eczema rash was still there, it didn’t seem to be bothering him so much. We used it twice-daily from then on.

One of the first compliments I received on a date with the man who turned out to be a serious relationship was what soft skin I had. Oops, did I mention that I’d been stealing it? Mom’s skin takes plenty of abuse, with frequent handwashing after all those diaper changes, and baths and all that extra laundry and housework babies generate. I love using it on my hands, and I keep a pot in the kitchen, and one in the bathroom.

It comes in a nice big screw-top tub that cost about $5 each and last a long time, and then are useful for storing bits of toddler toys in when empty.

The downside is that it’s hard to find in stores. I order mine online in packs of six. Ace Hardware is the only store that (sometimes) carries it in my town, but you can order a tub online and have it shipped to your local store for free.

And a little warning – the cream contains lanolin, which is a natural product from sheep, but rarely, it can cause an allergic reaction. I’d advise doing a patch test and trying a little out on your baby and watching for a reaction before using it.

I love Udder Cream. It helps dry skin better than any other lotion I’ve tried, and it made a big difference on my son’s eczema. The best part is that it’s cheap enough to try even if you’re unsure.

This weekend I met an inspiring mother of  an adult and it got me thinking about what kind of a mom I hope to be when my son is grown up.

The mom I met was out rock climbing. She was standing on the edge of a cliff in a state park about an hour out of the city, holding armfuls of climbing gear, enjoying the beautiful day, the beautiful scenery, and doing something she loved. She taught me to set up climbing anchors at the cliff tops, I lent her some of my gear, and we all climbed together for the rest of the day, and heard her stories about sleeping in a sleeping bag roped to the side of a cliff half-way up a mountain, and other daring tales.

Her son is in his mid-twenties, and she’d been climbing for over 30 years. Climbing is something I’m very passionate about and it was wonderful to meet someone who has kept up her passion through motherhood.

Our lives change so much when we become moms, and often many of the things we do for ourselves get lost, or there is no time to do the hobbies and interests we used to have. I hope I can maintain some of the things I’m passionate about as well as being a mother. And I hope one day I’ll be old and wise, and I can help others and share knowledge and experience as generously as the mom I met does.

Maybe my son will love climbing too, maybe he won’t, I’d love to share that with him if he does, but whatever he is passionate about, I hope that I will be as good at supporting him, and also helping him to find a balance between doing things he loves and doing things he needs to do (like school).

And when he’s all grown up, and off doing his own things, I hope he’ll let me know what he’s doing, even if it’s something I don’t understand (and it probably will – who knows what kids of 2030 will be into?) and I’m sure I’ll be very proud of him. And I hope he’ll feel that however grown up he is, that his mom will always be his mom.

What kind of mom do you think you’ll be as your children grow, and when they are grown up? How do you maintain doing the things that you love?

This was the must-have baby product when I was pregnant, and along with all the other moms of newborns that I knew at the time, I bought one, despite the nagging doubt that I was wasting $40 on a blob of plastic. The buzz on the Internet swayed me – rave reviews from other moms saying their 1-6 month old babies LOVED their Bumbos. Or more usually, LOVED!!!!!! with plenty of exclamation points.

I ordered my Bumbo from the internet, and it arrived, and it was indeed a blob of plastic, a sizable, sturdy lump of plastic, but still a lump of plastic. I started to feel that I’d been duped.

I plopped my son, who was at the age where sitting up is almost a possibility, into the seat. He looked startled. Then a big grin spread across his face. He flapped his arms, kicked his legs, and grinned. From that day, every time I needed to pee, answer the phone, or do anything that needed concentration or two hands, I set him in the Bumbo and he was perfectly content for several minutes, sitting up and watching the world go by. He used it for a couple of months, until sitting up was old hat and crawling was now the new black.

Then fast forward almost three years. My son is now capable of climbing on top of the five foot high radiators, then sitting and grinning and kicking his legs, and we also have Daycare Baby (age 1) and Boyfriend’s Daughter (age 6). We just moved house, and when I was packing, I pulled out the Bumbo from the back of the closet, and all three kids crowded round. “What is it? Is it a potty?” They asked. “It’s a baby seat”, I said. “I want to sit in it!” They all said. Actually Daycare Baby said “aa? aa? aaaaaaaa!!” but that seemed to be what she meant.

It’s a baby seat, guys. But they all had a go. Daycare Baby tried to get in backwards, which she thought was very funny. My son sat in it and peed, which they all thought was hilarious. The Bumbo had a wash. Then Boyfriend’s Daughter had a go. The Bumbo got stuck on her bottom, so she crawled around the house like that. It kept them all entertained for a good thirty minutes. Never mind that it’s a baby seat.

The Bumbo Baby Seat is a very useful lump of plastic, perfect for babies aged 1-6 months. And 1-6 years too.

Beagle puppy Ruby Puppy, or Ruppy for short, is the world’s first transgenic dog. Transgenic means that she has genes from another animal. Ruppy, and four other beagle puppies, were given a florescent gene from a sea anenome which makes her glow red under ultraviolet light.

Ruppy and her sisters are all identical clones of each other.

Kinda cool, kinda freaky and kinda scary all at the same time. And also a little hard to see the point of – why does science need to create a glowing dog?

Byeong-Chun Lee of Seoul National University in South Korea and his team bred the dogs to test if adding a gene from another species works in dogs. It’s been done in insects and plants, mice, sheep and goats, but Ruppy and her sisters are the first transgenic dogs.

Lee says that next they hope to use the same principle to investigate human fertility. They plan to breed dogs lacking an oestrogen hormone receptor, and use them to study hormone-related infertility in women.

They speculate that the procedure could also be used to study other human diseases using the transgenic dogs as models.

Talk about weird science. Some other geneticists have criticized Lee’s laboratory, saying the procedure is too expensive and slow to truly be useful, and that other methods are better for studying fertility. It does sound very complex to me, but then human fertility is also very complex and poorly understood, so perhaps the scientists will be able to shed light on some fertility issues and the glowing puppies will eventually lead to (not glowing) human babies.

Sonia Sotomayer is one of the most remarkable Supreme Court nominees in history. If her nomination is approved by Senate, she’ll be the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court, and only the third woman.

She was born in New York to Puerto Rican parents, and was raised in the Bronx. Her father died when she was nine, and after his death her mother worked six days a week as a nurse, sometimes working a second job, to support the family.

Even as a hardworking single mother, her mom, Celina Sotomayor, never stopped encouraging her children to focus on their education. She bought a set of encyclopedias for her two children, much talked about in the media in the last few days for being the only set in the neighborhood, and worked extra hours to pay for the tuition costs and send her children to the nearby Catholic school.

Sonia’s brother is a doctor, and after graduating from Princeton university, Sonia went to law school at Yale. She then worked in private practice briefly, but has spent much of her career in public offices, first as an Assistant District Attorney in New York, and then as a Federal District judge and a Court of Appeals judge. During that time, one of the organizations she was involved in was the Maternity Center Association, now called Childbirth Connection, a non-profit organization working to improve the quality of maternal care.

As well as education, Celina said that her parenting focused equally on character. She says that “I always taught my children to study and be honest and be good.”

In a speech at the White House with Barack Obama on Tuesday, Sonia paid tribute to her mom.

“I stand on the shoulders of countless people. Yet there is one extraordinary person who is my life aspiration. That person is my mother, Celina Sotomayor. My mother has devoted her life to my brother and me. And as the President mentioned, she worked often two jobs to help support us after Dad died. I have often said that I am all that I am because of her, and I am only half the woman she is.”
Celina’s neighbors and friends also spoke of her devotion to her children, and of how her kids were always her first priority.

Sonia has worked hard to get to where she is now, but her story is powerful proof of how good mothering can make a huge difference in a person’s life. Not all our children will end up on the Supreme Court, but we hope that they will achieve the things that they dream of. But how does what we do as mothers affect the lives of our children, and how can we help them become successful in their own lives?

I think perhaps the best thing Cecilia did for her children was to love them unconditionally, and be there for them through all the tough times. And so they grew up with an unshakable foundation and the certainty of their mother’s love that has helped both Sonia and her brother achieve things that aren’t usually expected from kids from the Bronx.

Geri Halliwell, once of the Spice Girls, threw a birthday party for her daughter, Bluebell this week. The tabloids in her native UK were predictably hiding in the bushes outside her home to see if any of the other Spice Girls were invited – Emma Bunton and Melanie Chisholm, Baby Spice and Sporty Spice – both arrived with their own babies.

Emma Bunton and her 19-month-old handsome boy, Beau Lee (good thing her son is a cutie with a name like that!) arrived, bedecked in designer wear, hyper high heels and skinny jeans. If your thighs allow it, you wear the heck out of skinny jeans. But high heels? How does she run around after the kid in those? She looks very balanced in the things though, maybe she’s so used to them she’s playing in the sandbox in her stilettos just like we do in our flip flops.

Melanie Chisholm was another story. Her daughter Scarlett is three months old and Mel C arrived in the kind of clothes moms of three-months-old wear. Like, not skinny jeans.  One British newspaper snidely remarked that she “had the slightly dazed look of the brand new mum as she arrived in a pair of baggy trousers and ill-fitting pink top. Well, at least she made it out of her pyjamas”. Meeee-ow. She’s probably been bonding with her daughter instead of flitting around designer stores.

Do you think the media is too harsh on celebrity moms who behave like normal moms? Like the ones who are not back to size zero and immaculate hair and makeup the week after the birth?

Then the day after, Geri was photographed walking with her daughter in a stroller and smoking a cigarette. If she smokes, it’s her right to do so, cough, cough, but should she be doing it with her daughter presents?

And do you – or would you – wear high heels when you are looking after your baby?

The arduous story of the 13-year-old boy suffering from Hodkin’s Lymphoma is causing controversy from the Midwest to the west coast.

Daniel Hauser, from Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in January. He underwent the first of six planned rounds of chemotherapy the same month. Then, he refused any more treatment, apparently with the support of his parents.

When Daniel didn’t show for the second course of chemotherapy, his doctor suspected that his parents were involved in his decision to refuse treatment, and in April called Minnesota child protective services to report them for neglect.

A court ordered that Daniel should have chemotherapy.

Then on Monday, before the chemotherapy was due to begin, Daniel and his mother disappeared. The mother and son have been spotted in Southern California, and some believe that they are trying to get to Mexico for alternative cancer treatments. A warrant has been issued for his mom’s arrest and when the pair are found, Daniel will be placed in foster care and will be seen by doctors again.

According to doctors involved in the case, Daniel is almost certain to die from his cancer if he has no more treatment. If he does complete the chemotherapy, his chances of survival are as high as 90%.

There seems to be some connection to a religion, The Nemenhah faith, which favors natural remedies and healing. But even the leader of the Nemenhah faith has called on Daniel’s mom to bring him home for conventional treatment.

I’m writing this in the middle of the night. My son woke up screaming, about an hour ago, he has a nasty case of diaper rash and as I was holding him, trying to help him calm down, I would have done just about anything to stop the tears and stop it hurting. That’s how mothers feel when their child is sick or in pain. My son just has diaper rash. Her son has cancer. Terminal cancer. Terminal cancer that could kill him within the month, according to the doctor who diagnosed Danny’s cancer.

I don’t understand why this mother is not doing everything she can to help her son. I just don’t get it. Is it really his choice to refuse treatment?  And if it is, why isn’t she trying to convince him to change his mind, not run away with him?

There’s speculation that the first round of chemotherapy was so hard on Daniel that he is scared to go through any more. Chemotherapy is grueling – the medicine used is basically a poison and the side effects are painful. But most of us, if we are unfortunate enough to have to make the choice, would choose the chemotherapy over a painful death from cancer, especially when we have so much of our lives ahead of us.

I don’t understand it, and can’t begin to imagine how Daniel and his mother are feeling, or what their true motivations are. I only hope that Daniel is found before his cancer kills him, and that the right people will be able to help him decide what treatment he truly wants.

It is so, so, so exciting to see your baby take her first steps. The expression of amazement, concentration, and joy on her face, the adorable, wobbly, tentative steps, the priceless moment when they realize that nothing is holding them up. Cue startled expression, loss of balance, and ker-plop onto the floor.

Having spent the last couple of months looking after Daycare Baby, a crawling baby who is now 16 months old, the most common thing I was asked by friends and strangers alike was “is she walking yet?”

She wasn’t, and I know that the average baby starts walking somewhere around their first birthday. So, she’s later than average, but still in the normal range. And just lately, although I know the question is well intentioned, it’s getting just a little annoying.

There’s more to babies that just walking. Do you ever feel that too much pressure is placed on just a couple of milestones, first steps, first word?

$20 robot dogs from the toy section of Target walk and talk. Our babies are infinitely more complex than that, so how about some love for other, less lauded milestones?

Recognizing his/her own name. Babies realize that the word you keep using around them means that you are talking to them somewhere between 5 and 8 months. At birth, babies don’t have much concept of themselves as an individual. Recognizing that they they have a name is part of building their own identity.

Empathy for others. Even as early as six months, babies get upset when other children cry. Learning to understand other people’s emotions is a major factor that separating humans from robot dogs.

Understanding that objects have a function. Before about 12 months, everything that’s not food or other very familiar objects is simply an interesting plaything. Or a boring object. But one day, baby realizes that all these objects like keys, cellphones, hairbrushes, are for something, and that’s when she’ll stop chewing the toy cellphone and instead, hold it to her ear and babble into it.

Building towers from blocks Your budding engineer might be able to do this at 9 months, maybe not until over a year. Stacking things on top of other things helps babies understand how the physical world works.

Sometimes parents can get caught up in the milestone charts, and almost believe that if their baby walks late, then everything about their development is behind. In almost all cases – not true.

Babies have so much to learn, and they all do it in a different order. So the baby who walks late, is busy developing less dramatic, but equally valuable skills. And babies who walk early may learn to do other things a little later. It’s all totally normal.

If you are worried about your baby’s development, check with his/her pediatrician.

What has been your favorite unsung milestone for your baby? One of mine is when my son figured out at only a few months where the milk was, and started yanking my shirt down. OK, only when he did it at home. Another one is when he worked out how to slide down a slide by himself. How about you?

In the last 10 weeks, four babies have died co-sleeping with their parents or grandparents in Milwaukee, and currently police are investigating a fifth death,  of a two-month-old baby boy who died in his mother’s bed on Sunday.

I started reading the news report wondering what could cause so many tragic deaths in such a short time. I’ve always thought that responsible co-sleeping is safe and various respected pediatricians (such as Dr. Sears) and child-care experts (such as Elizabeth Pantley) agree. So what could be happening in Milwaukee? Should other parents in Wisconsin be scared?

The mom of the latest baby to die admitted to police that she had been drinking at a wedding the night her baby died. The previous baby to die in Milwaukee was a six-week old boy. His mother also admitted to drinking before falling asleep with the baby in her bed. Then there was a three-month-old boy who died sleeping on the couch with his grandmother. His grandmother told police she had drunk eight beers that night. And before that, a six-day-old baby girl died sleeping on a couch with her mother. Her mom told police that she was drunk the night before. (Her daughter was SIX DAYS OLD.)

There was only one baby of the five whose caregiver wasn’t drinking on the night her baby died. I read to the end of the report and I want to cry for those babies and I just can’t imagine what their parents were thinking.

I still think co-sleeping is safe, but only if it’s done safely. Not being drunk has to be one of the top safety tips for co-sleeping. Sleeping on a couch with a baby also seems to put a baby at greater risk. 

While a first-time labor and delivery usually lasts around many hours, sometimes, babies just decide that they are coming out. Now.

Babies are occasionally born on airplanes, on the subway, on the front lawn, and more often than you would think in a car on the way to hospital.

A mom in Cambridge, in the UK, delivered her baby in her local post office this week. She went in to top up her cell phone, and delivered a healthy baby girl before paramedics could arrive. The little girl weighed 5lbs 15oz. How do we know? Because the post master weighed her on the mail scale.

And then another new arrival made her debut on New York’s Fifth Avenue. The mom was being driven to hospital, and dang that midtown traffic, didn’t make it in time. She was expecting twin babies, and the first was born in the car outside Central Park. Paramedics made it to the scene in time to assist with the birth, and get the mother to the hospital where the second baby was delivered. The twin were born seven weeks prematurely and are expected to stay in hospital for a couple of weeks, common for preemies. One of the paramedics described the birth as “fun”. I can’t help but wonder if the mom felt the same way?

A lot of moms worry about going into labor and delivering their baby right there on the floor in the laundry detergent section at Target or in Jiffy Lube. But actually, births like these are very rare and being rare is what makes them newsworthy. The average first time labor lasts for hours, 8 to 24 hours is a normal range, with 16 hours being the average time from first contraction, to holding your baby. So almost all moms have plenty of time to get to the hospital or birthing center once labor starts.

One of my favorite things to do on a summer weekend morning is take the kids to a farmer’s market.

I’m a city girl through and through, and had been doing most all of my shopping at SuperTarget and the like. The first time I tried a strawberry from a farmer’s market – Oh My Gosh! The difference between a strawberry picked and packed in a factory and trucked across the country, and a freshly picked strawberry is incredible.

Now I’m so excited for the local growing season to start and to be able to buy produce from the local farmer’s market. Prices for produce are comparable to grocery stores, with whatever is at the peak of the season being the best value.

Fresh produce is better for you too. The fresher it is, the most vitamins and nutrients it retains. If your child will only eat one bite of broccoli, they will get more nutrients if it’s a fresh floret. And they might be a little more enthusiastic about eating it, if they have fun picking it out at the farmer’s market.

Another benefit is less chemicals in your food. Family farms generally use less agricultural chemicals like insecticides and pesticides than large growers. Many farmers selling their produce at farmer’s markets are not organically certified, but are using organic methods. Farms have to use organic methods for several years before the food they grow can be certified organic produce, so it’s a great place to get nearly-organic produce for less-than-organic prices.

Supporting local farmers is also generally considered to be better for your local economy than shopping at the corporately owned supermarket. I’d rather spend my dollars and have them go to a family farm, instead of executives and shareholders.

My local market has a coffee stand, local musicians playing, and many of the vendors give out samples of produce, and cute little kids get the most!  All in all, it’s a fun morning out for all of us.

So are you planning to go to the farmer’s market this weekend? Here’s a challenge: get any of those fresh strawberries home. I bet they’ll all be eaten in the car before you know it.

Minnesotans love yard sales. Perhaps it’s the local thrifty, practical Scandinavian heritage, but every weekend from now until fall neighborhoods here are bustling with yard sales. I expect it’s the same where you live now that spring is here.

As a new Minnesotan, I love yard sales just as much as the long term residents. Yard sales are my favorite place to shop for my son. Clothes, toys, and gear for children are among the best buys at yard sales.

You can get some wonderful bargains, but shop carefully. Yard sales are one place where the old adage Caveat Emptor – buyer beware – truly applies.

Inspect everything carefully, especially things for babies, and anything that a child could get hurt in if it’s defective or broken, like a swing, or a baby carrier.

Things to avoid are older toys which would have been made before modern safety standards. Same goes for cribs, clothing, and other gear.

Battery operated things should only be bought if your child will still love if it doesn’t operate. The batteries might be dead, or the thing might be broken.

My favorite bargains? An exersaucer for $5, which he lived in for about four months, and a Baby Bjorn carrier for 50 cents. And the very best buy? The free toys and extra things that a seller threw in when we bought an armful of other things. We got a little red wagon free with a bunch of books and my son still loves towing things around in it over a year later.

It was a cool spring day here, which I love. We are both ultra-fair skinned and burn so easily, so the summer hat battle and sunscreen tantrum were not an issue. It was a perfect day to be outside, so we drove a little way out of the city and went for a hike.

Just like almost every baby, my toddler loves to be outside, especially after being deprived of sunlight all winter. The playground at our local park is his favorite place that we visit regularly. The slide and the swings are fun, digging in the sand is fun, and he loves to collect leaves and find bugs and put twigs in a sand dump truck.

Man-made outdoor fun is fun, but even better is the real outdoors. We drove out to a country park which has a hill that rises over the river and hiked up it. I say hike, it’s about a quarter-mile to the top, which is not really a hike, unless you are three and have short legs.

Toddler had a big grin on his face all the way up. There were tree roots to climb over, fallen trees to balance on and walk along, piles of dead leaves to crunch, woodpeckers to spot, rocks to pick up, other people’s dogs to pet, wild flowers to smell, ferns to stroke, mud to stand in, and lots and lots more things to investigate.

I’ve been taking him hiking since he was a baby and he rode in a sling and I hiked. I’m hoping that he’ll grow up to love and respect nature and the outdoors, but right now I’m enjoying that he has so much fun being outside.

Have you ever taken your baby out into the country? If you haven’t, and get a chance to take your baby out into the country, or if you have woodland or parkland near you, then go. It’s so different to being outside in your yard or in a playground, and babies and toddlers usually love it.

So after looking at the view and having a snack, we started back down. He needed a ride some of the way, and I’m glad he’s still just about small enough to carry. Then he got bored being carried and walked the rest of the way himself. Some of the trees were dropping seed pods that looked like furry caterpillars, which he loved, and then we found a tunnel that lead into the rocks to wonder who lived inside. We thought it might be a Gruffalo.

Back to the car, and he was fast asleep in his carseat within minutes of hitting the road. A good sign of a happily exhausted toddler!

So that was my Day, and it was lovely.

Website ParentDish.com released the results of their Mother’s Day survey, and they say that our favorite celebrity mom is the lovely Jennifer Garner. Reese Witherspoon and Michelle Obama were tied for second place.

Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck have two adorable daughters, Violet and Seraphina, and are often photographed out as a family doing normal family things and looking very happy. Look! Sweatpants! Baggy t-shirt! Baby in a Baby Bjorn! She almost looks like one of us!

And how about the least favorite celebrity moms?

The most hated celebrity mom was Courtney Love, closely followed by Dina Lohan, and hot on her heels, Britney Spears.

Rock musician Courtney Love had her five-year-old daughter, Frances Bean, taken into care after being arrested for violent offenses, and being hospitalized after overdosing on drugs. Fame hungry Dina Lohan, Lindsay Lohan’s mom, wasn’t exactly the picture of motherhood for her and her other daughter, Ali Lohan, on their reality series, Living Lohan. And who doesn’t know about Britney Spears‘ strange behavior and custody battles over her sons?

Who are your favorite, and least favorite celebrity mommies?

Can you imagine your baby eating as much as you do? A Dietitian has recommended a 2000 calorie a day diet for baby girl Agatha Holloway. She was born 11 weeks prematurely and has been prescribed the high-calorie diet to help her to catch up to a normal weight.

Agatha almost died shortly after she was born. The 3 pound 11 oz newborn suffered a brain hemorrhage, lung disease, and severe reflux. She stayed in the hospital for almost four months before being allowed home with her parents who live in Surrey in the United Kingdom.

Now she’s 16 months old and weighs only 17 pounds.  The average toddler her age weighs around 25 pounds, so her doctors have told her parents she needs to eat twice as much as other babies her age. She’s eating cartons of cream, roast duck, veggies with olive oil, chocolate and special high calorie milk.

Sounds yummy. Apparently, the diet is all healthy, but calorific food, and she shouldn’t suffer any ill effects from it. And as she catches up to her recommended weight, her parents will gradually reduce the amount she eats to a more normal diet.

Which is what many moms say when they are faced with the choice of what diapers to pick. Cloth diapers are cheaper and the environmentally friendly option, but disposable diapers are so much easier and more convenient.

If you want to try cloth, or are thinking about switching to cloth, here’s some possible solutions to the “I want to cloth diaper but…” fill in the blank thoughts you might have.

…I hate laundry. Buy as many diapers as you can afford to increase the amount of time between washes. It will also save on laundry costs if you don’t have to wash as often. I started with 18 diapers and was washing every two three days which was not very fun. Now I have over 30 diapers and do a load of diaper laundry every five or six days. Remember used cloth diapers have a decent resale value – often around 50% of the new price – so you are not wasting money.

…the used diapers will stink. Yes, used cloth diapers do indeed stink. When we had a home with an attached garage, the diaper pail went in the garage. Right now I live in an apartment and I have a pail with a tightly fitting lid that goes in the bathroom. A carton of bicarbonate of soda in or near the diaper pail will absorb some of the odor. Don’t get it on the diapers though. We are about to move to another apartment but one that has a basement and yippee! the diapers are going to live in the basement. Phew.

…I don’t want to wash poop in my washing machine. Yes, cloth diapers do indeed have the ick factor. Tip out as much poop into the toilet and flush it away before putting the diaper in the pail. Another way to cut down on the ew is to buy a diaper sprayers. These attach to a toilet and are used to spray all the poop away into the toilet. Many cloth diapering moms rave about them. I didn’t want to spend the money on one but kinda wish I did. And it’s not enjoyable, but moms have to deal with poop. When your baby poops on her clothes – and she will poop on her clothes – what are you gonna do with those? You put them in the machine. Run an empty load after the diaper wash if you are grossed out by the poop.

…my mom says it’s a bad idea. Our moms often don’t understand why our generation want to cloth diaper when we have the choice to use disposables. They often had no choice and many moms remember all the laundry they had to do and boiling diapers in the kitchen and can’t believe anyone would choose cloth over disposables. Modern cloth diapers are totally different to the ones your mom would have used and are much less work.

…My husband says it’s a bad idea. Husbands can be anti cloth diaper, usually because of the dealing with poop factor. Well, cloth does have disadvantages. But the advantages of cloth diapers are many – the biggest ones are price, and the environment. Cost is usually a good one for convincing husbands. They are better for the environment, using less resources and creating much less trash.

And there are also other advantages cloth has over disposable. Babies with sensitive skin may have happier bottoms in cloth. And babies who wear cloth are usually potty trained earlier, as they feel wetter in cloth diapers so understand the link between peeing and being wet sooner than disposable diaper babies. And cloth diapers are much cuter than disposable ones. How about a multi-colored diaper, or a flower print, butterflies, or puppies? Choose your arguments, present them in your most charming manner, and you’ve got a great chance of convincing him.

Empty formula cans either end up in the trash, or start stack up in the kitchen. Can you recycle formula cans? The steel cans are recyclable, with other steel food cans.

Most other cans, the kind made of cardboard, are actually made of composites of different materials, and usually can’t be recycled. So what do you do with them? Here’s some ideas to save your formula cans from the trash.

• Reuse them in the kitchen. The insides wipe clean and then they can be used to store crackers, pasta, rice, and other dry goods. Peel off the outer layer of cardboard or the label and then you can label them with the new contents. One crafty blogger made labels from the packaging of the product going in the can to customize them.

• Use them for art and craft projects. Peel off the outer label then decorate the outsides. Challenge your toddler to paint on a curved surface. Or use them to store art supplies like crayons or paintbrushes.

• Reuse them as toys. One formula can plus one wooden spoon equals a drum. Cut a hole in the lid for baby to put things through. They stack nicely too, show baby how to build a tower. Then knock it down!

• Storage containers for little toys, marbles, pacifiers, coins, screws or nails in the garage, or whatever little objects you have.

• Make something out of them. One blogger made christmas gift containers from formula cans, and here’s a storage unit made from several formula cans. This is my favorite – beautiful containers for make up brushes and other bathroom supplies.

Do you have any fun, crafty or pretty ideas for empty formula cans? Please share!