There is a recall of tons of cribs from Toys R Us (Babies R Us, etc.).  You can click on this link for more info.

 http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml08/08312.html

Our crib is actually recalled, so I registered last night and we will get a voucher for a new crib in the mail (after we send in a part from the crib itself).

Kind of a pain, but they have had over 40 instances where the slats broke, so I think it is worth the effort.

I’ll try anything once!

http://men.webmd.com/news/20020729/humming-may-help-sinuses-stay-healthy

*Note: So far my song of choice is the theme “song” from Boohbah!

Do you remember the autopilot from the movie “Airplane?”  I need a slightly more realistic automan to keep in my car for when I’m out with the kids running errands.  It would be great to push a button on my glove compartment and suddenly a blow up man appeared to be sitting in the front seat of my car while the 2 little ones hang tight in the back seat.  Then, I could run in and run out out of the store without getting arrested. 

I’m not a neglectful mom, or at least I try not to be, but lugging the kids around is tough.  It is especially difficult when you realize you are only going to be in a particular store for less than 5 minutes (picking up prescriptions, running in for milk, etc).  Getting both kids out of the car and into a store can take longer than 5 minutes!

With the state of our society, we really can’t leave our kids in the cars, but a “Man in My Car” is still a good idea in my book.

Enjoy.

Sleeping alone, women sleep better.

Men sleep better next to their mates

Rest was more fragmented for females in shared bed, study found

By Linda Carroll

MSNBC contributor

Updated: 11:28 a.m. CT Oct 10, 2007

Lori Taylor would love to sleep next to her husband — if his snoring and thrashing weren’t guaranteed to keep her awake all night.

Still, the 48-year-old New York City teacher has mixed feelings about choosing to sleep in separate beds.

“There’s something nice about the warmth of a human body next to you, even if you’re not sleeping as well,” says Taylor, who has slept apart from her husband off and on for the last five of her 11-year marriage. “When you’re in bed together you’re in a little private space on your own time. Cuddling up on the couch with the phone ringing isn’t the same.”

Taylor’s trouble getting a good night’s rest next to her husband isn’t unusual. Women sleep less soundly when they share a bed with a romantic partner, a study published this month in Sleep and Biological Rhythms found. Surprisingly, men actually sleep better when they sleep next to a woman.

There are a lot more couples sleeping separately than you might guess, says Mark Mahowald, director of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Minneapolis and a professor of neurology at the University of Minnesota Medical School. An estimated 23 percent of American couples sleep apart, according to a survey by the National Sleep Foundation. A Canadian study reported that 34 percent of couples hit the sack separately.

Women may have a tougher time sharing a bed because men are much more likely to be snorers, says Mahowald. And often, it’s the woman who has to move to a different bed — or room, in some cases — when the decibel level of her husband’s snoring crescendos to an intolerable level.

But snoring may not be the only problem for women who’d like to spoon all through the night.

Device measured movements
For the study, Austrian researchers asked 10 committed couples, ages 21 to 31, to wear a small device called an actigraph on their wrists while they slept at home. An actigraph, which resembles a wristwatch, keeps track of a person’s movements during the night and chronicles their periods of sleep and wakefulness.

The actigraphs showed that the women’s sleep was more fragmented on nights when they shared a bed, than when they slept alone. The differences weren’t huge, but they were significant.

The researchers speculated that women’s fretful sleep might be caused by brain wiring differences between men and women. Women tend to be lighter sleepers because they historically have been the ones caring for infants, the researchers suggested.

The actigraph’s measurements would most likely have been even more distinct if the couples in the study had been older, says sleep expert Michael Perlis. That’s because snoring becomes more of an issue as men age, explains Perlis, director of the Sleep Research Lab and an associate professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Rochester in Rochester, N.Y.

Psychologist Wendy Troxel isn’t surprised to see that men do better when sleeping in a shared bed. Studies have shown that men are very dependent on close relationships — contrary to popular stereotypes, says Troxel, a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh who has studied how the quality of a relationship affects overall health and sleep in men and women.

In general, men show much clearer benefits from committed relationships, Troxel says. “My research shows that married men are much happier and healthier than unmarried men,” she adds. “The findings are much less consistent with women.”

Willing to sacrifice for a snuggle
Noting that a good night’s sleep is important to daytime functioning, the Austrian researchers suggested that couples might consider the possible deleterious effects of sleeping together and choose separate beds instead.

But Perlis and other sleep experts aren’t convinced that this is the best plan.

“At the end of the day, there’s something essentially comforting about this behavior — so much so that people are sometimes willing to sacrifice perfect sleep to get it,” Perlis says. “I’d be hard pressed to imagine recommending with a cheerful heart for people to sleep apart.”

Perlis and other experts suggest couples look for solutions to snoring and other sleep problems before turning to separate beds. “I’d recommend ear plugs, whatever it takes,” Perlis says. “That’s also partly a personal judgment.”

Ear plugs have helped Taylor and her husband sleep through the night on vacations when the couple needed to share a bed. But, she says, they don’t help enough to make a shared bed work at home.

“I’d like him to go get a sleep study,” she adds. “But so far he’s been unwilling to do that.”

© 2007 MSNBC Interactive

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21091112/

Things I hate to hear:

• “What are we doing today?” Said by the hair stylist.  I really want to say, “I’m not going to do anything but sit here.  It’s your job to make me look good.”
• “I’ll be taking care of you today” Said by the waiter/waitress.  Really taking care of me would require more than bringing my lunch.  It might include a nice shoulder rub, a warm wash cloth to put on my face, maybe turn off the noisy background sounds of the restaurant.
• “Did you find everything today?” Said by the checkout cashier.  Do they really want to know that I couldn’t find everything on my list?  Are they going to tell me where it is and wait for me to come back, even though I’ve got all my other groceries spread out on the conveyer belt.

Geez, am I in a mood today, or what!!! 

I get bursts of time and/or energy and often try to organize my life.  Whether it is rearranging my clothes drawers, cleaning and sorting toys, or finding homes for the miscellaneous pieces of my life, I like the sense of accomplishment.

I am always so proud of myself for my new hiding spots for things thinking, “This is great!  The _______ (fill in the blank) has been sitting on the ______ (fill in the blank) for weeks now and it finally has a place of its own.”

This is great until I need to find that thing and that new perfect location is a totally mystery to me!  This has been happening a lot lately and it is driving me insane.  Maybe the unorganized clutter that you look at everyday is actually a better storage/retrieval system than trying to find a box/drawer/closet for your stuff and spending hours treasure hunting to find it!

Here’s my rant for today.  I don’t like to use my blog to complain, BUT…

I have previously written about how I feel like an out-of-control freak show when I go out in public with my kids all by myself.  I still push myself to do it for mine and my kids’ sakes (we have to leave the house sometime), but could the stores throw me a freakin’ bone?

Today, I had my baby in her car seat that wouldn’t quite fit on the shopping cart and my son chilling out in the ride-along bench that was attached to the cart.  Yes, the contraption makes it possible for me to keep 2 kids semi-immobile while I shop, however it also requires that I maneuver an 8 foot long tank through the mega market aisles. 

I tell myself, “I can do it” and I push on (literally).

I’ve made it through the shopping and only had to purchase one Diego bribe, I mean coloring book.  I arrive at the checkouts only to find one lane with a real person and all of the self-checkout lanes open.  I usually avoid the self check outs because I’m not adept at the scanning and would much prefer the traditional Scan-Man (or Lady) to help me out.  Today, I just wanted to get out, so I thought I would try it myself.

It certainly wasn’t any faster doing it myself.  I clumsily scanned the items while simultaneously reassuring my son that we were almost done.  Inevitably, I had to have a Scan Lady come help me to finish up and she stuck around to help bag some of my items (probably not in her job description).

My rant is… with all of the other multi-tasking, baby juggling, head-ache rousing things I happily deal with everyday, can’t another person be responsible for scanning AND bagging my groceries?  I try to save money by going to the mega stores, but if it means the extra work to check out, I might return to a more traditional grocer (while they still exist!).