I know I seem like I’m on a bit of a kick here, but it seems that my confusion about sunscreen has a basis.  According to the Enviornmental Working Group’s most recent research on the industry, there has been a product explosion over the past two years.  Thanks to pressure from the EWG, the number of sunsreens containing any of the 4 recommended UVA/UVB blockers jumped to 70% from just 29% last year.  Most notably, the number of sunscreens protecting from harmful UVA rays has more than doubled.  Their 2009 sunscreen guide has a best of list with comprehensive pros and cons on each sunsreen.

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Yes, you read that right.  This past weekend I was at South Street Seaport for Children’s Fest and came across a table handing out Y Water, a new developmental drink for kids.  Y-water is the first in this new category of drinks for kids.  They currently have four flavors with different constellations of vitamins and minerals.  All of the ingredients are organic and each is a low-calorie drink (as opposed to juice, which is packed with calories!!).  To top it off, the packaging is a cool, molecular-looking y shape that can be used as a toy.  Y Water sells y-knots to bind them together for your child to make whatever she pleases!

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Aden + Anais, the maker of all those adorable muslin wraps and blankets we see in and on strollers around town have extended their product line to include sleep sacks.  I, for one, am happy to see another lightweight sleep sack on the market.

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Finally, there are some answers the the many questions I had about sunscreen.  Specifically, what really is the difference between different levels of SPF protection and is there really a point where it doesn’t quite matter? And, how much and how often should it be applied?  Confused by SPF? Take a Number gets to the bottom of the SPF wars that have large HBA companies churning out products with 80+ SPF!  This article argues that all those higher SPF numbers are likely to yield is a false sense of protection.  I know that back in my day it was all about baby oil and suntans.  Boy, the times sure have changed.

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Jonah Lehrer wrote a piece in The New Yorker titled Don’t! that offers a beautiful explanation of an ongoing longitudinal study looking at delayed gratification and future success.  This study, conducted by Walter Mischel, a Stanford professor, suggests that raw intelligence isn’t the most important variable when determining future success in life.  In fact, what he suggests is that “intelligence is largely at the mercy of self-control: even the smartest kids still need to do their homework.” The key, it appears, to delaying gratification is teaching the brain to be distracted and shifting the focus of your attention.  This, Mischel argues, allows children to find ways to make situations work for them. The good news is that delayed gratification is a skill we can teach our children.  But what is so important is that it gets practiced throughout childhood.

According to Mischel, even the most mundane routines of childhood — such as not snacking before dinner, or saving up your allowance, or holding out until Christmas morning — are really sly exercises in cognitive training: we’re teaching ourselves how to think so that we can outsmart our desires.

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I am reposting this letter asking for help for this beautiful little boy.  This originally came from the Hudson River Park Mamas.  Please let as many people as you can know about this!

Kai Anderson has a rare form of Leukemia
He is not even five years old
To cure it, he needs a bone marrow transplant

PLEASE COME TO A BONE MARROW DONOR DRIVE
IN KAI’S HONOR

Hope For Kai
Bone Marrow Donor Drive

Saturday, May 2nd
9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Montessori School of Manhattan
53 Beach St.
(Between Hudson and Greenwich)

www.HopeForKai.com
For more info call: (212)-334-0400

Just days ago Kai had symptoms that his parents thought might be the flu, or even just a cold. Now he is in the hospital, diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia (Philadelphia Chromosome-Positive Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia), being treated with a cocktail of seven chemotherapy drugs. Only, for this acute, high-risk form of leukemia, chemo is rarely enough. Kai’s best hope lies in a bone marrow transplant.

That’s where you come in.

The Anderson family absolutely need your prayers, kind words, home-cooked meals, practical assistance and generous donations for the enormous medical costs ahead (at www.HopeForKai.com). More than you can know. You see, last year, Kai’s dad and special buddy, David, was diagnosed with a type of cancer (also rare and complicated) called Mantle Cell Lymphoma. That’s right. Two cancers in one small family. Kai’s parents are operating day-to-day with unimaginable levels of stress and heartbreak.

But right now what they need, more than anything, is a way to save Kai’s life.

Thanks to amazing refinements in medical technology, a miracle may yet be possible. But it will take all of us.

Bone marrow transplant is probably very different from what it was the last time you heard about it. Getting tested for compatibility takes only seconds. Dab a swab on the inside of your cheek and register with the national bone-marrow registry. If the marrow is a match, donors are asked to undergo one of two minor, non-invasive outpatient procedures that extract some of your healthy stem cells to replace a patient’s unhealthy cells. It is that simple to give someone a second chance at life.

Astonishingly, despite these advancements, every year thousands of patients in desperate need of bone marrow transplants go without, due to a lack of available compatible matches. Less than 20% ever get the transplant that may be their last chance for survival. The technology is there; it’s the donors who are not. That’s not only shameful, it’s
short-sighted. Because this is something that can happen to any of us, to any of our children.

If you can’t attend the bone marrow drive above, please visit www.dkmsamericas.org for a free kit you can use at home. Then help spread the word by forwarding this e-mail to everyone who may be able to help.

Kai and Birgit Anderson have been part of the Hudson River Park Mothers Group from the beginning. He is her firstborn, the one who made her a mother.  And from the beginning, the Hudson River Park Mothers Group’s mission has been to create a caring community for families.  The only assurance we can offer our children, and the most valuable lesson we can teach them, is that while bad things in life can’t be prevented, their load can be shared. Please do what you can to help us share this one.

Who knows?

The thing that could happen to any of us may just be cured by one of us.

Thank you!

The Hudson River Park Mothers Group

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I recognize that as parents one of the last things we ever want to think about when it comes to our children is someone touching them inappropriately, or worse.  As a former counselor in a program for children and teen sexual abuse survivors, I remember the horror well.  Jill Starishevsky, a mother and former prosecutor for victims of child abuse and sex crimes has published a children’s book, “My Body Belongs to Me” that allows us parents to have an age-appropriate conversation with our children about their bodies, boundaries and what to do when someone violates them (heaven forbid) - tell!  In my experience, this is one of those subjects that we don’t want to think about, which means we often avoid talking about it and giving our children a clear message that this is wrong and should not be kept a secret.  If ever there was a must-have book for our children, this would seem to be it.  It is written for youngsters ages 3-10.

Pattie Fitzgerald, founder of Safely Ever After, a safety program for parents and kids, proclaims, “I have been teaching child safety classes for nearly ten years, and this is the first children’s book I’ve seen that really addresses the issues in a way that kids can understand and that doesn’t seem scary or heavy-handed.”

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Today’s New York Times shared a remarkable study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine showing that DNA tests outperform pap smears in the identification of cancerous cells.  On top of that, the DNA test is considered reliable for years and has results within hours. This could obsolete the pap smear test altogether.

This research was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as was the drug company who has created a $5 test - a price that would only go down with demand and means the possibility for greater prevention in third world countries where preventive medicine is accessed less frequently.  This is exciting news in women’s health!

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Probably not.  I am frequently asked by perplexed parents of children who don’t seem to sleep as much as other children they know or have heard of if it’s possible that they have one of those children who just needs less sleep than another.  And while it is true that not everyone’s sleep needs are identical, the fact is that what we often try to pass off as enough sleep is simply too little. A recent New York Times Article, “Distractions May Shift, but Sleep Needs Don’t” points out this tendency to assume our child is one of the exceptions when it works better for the family schedule.  This is a growing problem as children get older and have busy lives packed with social event and activities.

“The literature really strongly suggests the average early to mid-adolescent needs 9 to 9.25 hours a night,” said Dr. Judith Owens, an associate professor of pediatrics at the Alpert Medical School of Brown University, who directs the Pediatric Sleep Disorders Clinic at Hasbro Children’s Hospital.

She quickly headed off my question about children — or adults — who don’t need that much sleep. “It’s a bell-shaped curve,” she said, with just 2.5 percent of the population needing significantly less sleep than average.

“The problem,” she went on, “is that 95 percent of us think we’re in that 2.5 percent. You should assume until proven otherwise that your kid needs that much sleep.”

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Wonder bumpers, by Go Mama Go Designs, are a lovely solution for parents who are aware of the dangers of traditional crib bumpers, but would like to soften the sleeping environment for those active infants and toddlers who are all over the crib.  Like so many other great products created in the parenting market, wonder bumpers were created by moms.

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