September 13, 2011 – 4:55 PM
On the same day a Wall Street Journal headline proclaims, “Are Alpha Males Healthy?” comes a news report on the involved parenting and testosterone.
Testosterone, that most male of hormones, takes a dive after a man becomes a parent. And the more he gets involved in caring for his children — changing diapers, jiggling the boy or girl on his knee, reading “Goodnight Moon” for the umpteenth time — the lower his testosterone drops.
[From In Study, Fatherhood Leads to Drop in Testosterone - NYTimes.com]
It appears that all of our fears, or at least taunts by manly men, have been confirmed: if you spend too much time in the nursery, you might as well put on a dress and hand over your trousers to the missus.
Baby MedBasicsis a cute little book to stick at the bottom of the diaper bag, “just in case.” It covers typical child accidents and illnesses including burns, falls, poisons and fevers. As the book cover proclaims, it’s “emergency action steps at your finger tips.”
It’s 62 pages and covers all the major issues pretty well with actual things to do when you discover the baby is in a threatening condition, with big graphics and plenty of white space. Finding solutions is pretty easy, thanks to big tabs covering 10 major symptoms or problems, including CPR, allergies, bleeding, burns, and choking.
I did not know this, but tomorrow, a new California state law goes into effect, which requires all existing single family homes to install carbon monoxide alarms. Carbon monoxide is an invisible, odorless poison that can only be detected with proper equipment. The NFPA ( recommends that homeowners install an alarm in each bedroom. Under the new law, . The new law requires owners of all existing single-family homes containing an attached garage or a fossil fuel (fireplaces, natural gas or heating oil) to install carbon monoxide alarm devices within the house by July 1, 2011. Previous laws only required newly-constructed homes to have the alarms. Owners of multi-family leased or rental dwellings, such as apartment buildings, have until January 1, 2013 to comply with the law.
I was with my sister-in-law over the weekend. She works in a large high school as an assistant principal. She always has anecdotes to tell about the stresses of modern teens and the trouble they get into. Since my kids are only seven and eleven, most of these are just cautionary tales, but more and more, the advice is hitting closer to home. This weekend, we talked about Facebook and how much trouble kids get into on-line without being aware of it. They post sexy photos, get involved with predators, and say things they may wish they could erase in five years.
Her advice to parents: Don’t let your kids have a Facebook account. Easier said than done, but good advice if you can heed it from someone cleaning up the aftermath.
Dispose-It-Guard Disposal Guard is the best thing ever and it’s one of those items you can’t believe no one has invented before. Simple, simple tool, blocks disposal drain for everyday use, and when you want to throw stuff down the disposal, you lift it out or move it to the side. You can use the long part to push food into the disposal, rather than getting your fingers into it, or to push down long pieces of melon rind or grapefruits. Other disposal covers we’ve used meant you had to stick your fingers on some gooey handle; this one, though it could be longer, is raised about an inch so it’s not always covered with slime. With other covers, too, you’d have to move them aside to let water in, and inevitably water filled with debris would spray up out of the drain. This tool has holes in the cover, so water doesn’t spray up.
I don’t know if it’s a fathers day present or not, but if I had just heard of this, I would buy one today. Well done Disposal Guard company!
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