Friday, March 30, 2007

Plastic sucks, part II

Not that I needed any more research reports to convict me of the evils of plastic, but there is another recent comprehensive report substantiating my paranoia:
http://www.environmentcalifornia.org/uploads/Ve/AQ/VeAQsr6MMu4xA3-2ibnr_g/Toxic-Baby-Bottles.pdf

The above study shows that every major baby bottle on the market was tested for the culprit Bisphenol-A, which is well established as a cause of cancer, impaired brain development, immune system issues, obesity, diabetes, early onset of puberty - in short, BpA is a particularly harmful toxin. And as the study concludes in their testing, every baby bottle tested contained BpA and it leached into [insert your baby]'s milk when the bottle was heated or washed with a harsh detergent! Argh!!!

That's the bad news. There is no good news, but an interesting angle on this is that at least now we have a very credible piece to the puzzle of why such an alarming number of children in the U.S. these days suffer from allergies, obesity, early puberty, etc.

A more uplifting post to come, I promise.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

K's 1st birthday she-bang













This is a much belated post but here it is, pics from K's 1st birthday party and a list thrown together of a few life lessons learned the hard way.
lesson #1 - crafting the invite list: leave kids off the guest list at all costs. the presence of kids in your home guarantee spills, food on the floor, vomit, noise at decibels similar to a cargo plane operating at full throttle, and otherwise unmitigated chaos. i used m&ms to bribe them to behave but then one of them started puking on the floor - a m&m overdose i suspect!

lesson #2 - time management: if it's daylight savings time, then remember to change the clocks the night before. otherwise you will find yourself standing by the oven the morning of the party trying to calculate when to heat up the pastry hors d'oeuvres and it will dawn on you that you should have put them in the oven 60 minutes ago because you forgot to change the clocks, the guests are actually arriving in 15 minutes, the baby is still in her pajamas (as are you) and now you have a nervous breakdown.

lesson #3 - the law of putting things in the freezer and forgetting about it: never put a champagne bottle in the freezer and swear you won't forget about it because you will close the freezer and immediately forget about it. that is, until 9 hrs. later when you remember and open the freezer, only to see a mess of slush and broken glass. which leads me to lesson #3.25: never try to lick up champagne slush.

lesson #4 - public floggings: there is nothing wrong with subjecting guests who willfully and recklessly neglect to RSVP and show up at the party anyway, to a public flogging. it is without a doubt a most appropriate response by the hostess toward a guest who failed to give notice about attending the party with their spouse, 2 screaming toddlers and one cat (ok, maybe there was no cat). flogging is recommended because it is more humane than stoning and minimizes damage to your home (as we all know, hardwood floors are a pain to keep scratch-free as it is).

I'm sure there are plenty I forgot and am now doomed to repeat my mistakes. And no, I didn't bake cupcakes for k's party. The mountain of strawberry cheesecake frosting went unused because I ran out of time to bake the actual cupcake. I did bake one on k's actual birthday because I hate hate hate to bake and that's how much I love my little girl (if i can't feel a little smug on my daughter's birthday, then when?)