Parenting and The End of The World

I find it very annoying that people willingly hurt their children and especially babies. No one reading this will deny that second hand smoke is a major health risk for children, but that doesn’t appear to stop people from doing it. Is it that they just don’t care about their children or their children’s health? If you know without any doubt that smoking internally injures your child, what would possess you to continue?

A new report has just been released by Tokyo’s respected Tobacco Control Journal which has carried on an 8 year study following 7,402 children of smokers. A third of the children who had parents smoking within 10 feet of them within their first few months of life ended up in the hospital before they were even 1 year old. There was a significant decrease in their immune system that made them vulnerable to infectious and potentially lethal diseases. 45% of the children that were exposed to smoke within their first 6 months of life had to be treated for infectious disease before the 8 year study was completed.

Even with the onslaught of educational videos and commercials on TV and radio against smoking, it doesn’t appear to be enough since there are many parents simply ignoring the warnings and willing to take the chance of giving their child a potentially fatal infectious disease thanks to a decreased immunity.

Being an ex-smoker, I understand how difficult it is to quit and I plan on releasing a post about how I successfully quit without the use of any drugs or patches. And I had kids, but I never smoked around them. I always went outside to smoke regardless of what the season. So I implore you, not just for your own health, but also for your children. If you don’t respect your body and wellness, respect theirs and leave the house if you can’t control your habit. It’s not fair to a defenseless child that you injure them through your elected ignorance.

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Mr. Christopher tuning in.  I’m sorry but I MUST chime in on this ridiculous uproar over the Miley Cyrus photo found in Vanity Fair.  For those uninitiated, here it is.

Now I have 2 daughters, 5 and 12 and another one on the way. This is not kiddie porn and for those that think it is, get a life.  If we were holed away on some Amish farm this may be considered smut, but we’re not.  To start, my daughters will never see this photo except when they plaster it all over the TV because they don’t read Vanity Fair believe it or not.  Secondly, I’ve read this other ridiculous blog post that I won’t even link to insinuating that Disney is trying to turn our daughters into whores.  I personally take offense to that.  That’s a crock of crap and his blog should be revoked for such idiocy.

For those just tuning in, these photos were taken by the world famous photographer Annie Leibovitz, that has taken simply gorgeous photos of world famous musicians and artists like John Lennon, Demi Moore, Sting and on and on.  There was no sexual message in this photo.  It was an artistic endeavor.  Additionally, how many 12 year olds have you seen riding the subway with a copy of Vanity Fair?  Kids don’t read Vanity Fair.  This article was written for adults to give older generations a deeper look into who she is.

And lastly, there’s not one famous artist or musician ANYWHERE that has reached her level of fame that hasn’t taken a photo like this.  This girl is forced to be this poppy teen full of glitter and happy thoughts.  When she finally gets a chance to feel grown up and beautiful, everyone jumps in to take stabs at her.  I for one am thrilled to have someone like Miley and her parents for my daughters to look up to and anyone who says differently obviously has misconceptions of how difficult it is to be famous.  I’ll take Miley over Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan any day of the week.

In a world that needs to be focused on what’s going on with our country with the current election fiascos, terrorism, war, inflation, rising oil prices, and a host of other atrocities, it just amazes me how many lemmings are out there that get so easily sidetracked and derailed for a simple glamour photo.  Miley, just keep doing what you’re doing.  Ignorance may not be blind, but it’s extremely loud.  Put in the earplugs.

Hello all, Mr. Chris once again from the Corner Stork Baby Blog. Well, ok, I’ve heard it all now. Apparently the demand for baby gifts has gone political. Not by us, mind you, but it’s now officially out there. Political onesies. Baby bodysuits with slogans on them for the various candidates. CNN covered one specifically for Barack Obama supporters on Babies For Obama.com that has a pretty slim collection of about 4 different types of onesies featuring only 2 sad designs, but a collection nonetheless. The fact that parents were willing to push their political agendas on their little ones is sure to draw some glares and possibly deservedly so.

However, what would the election process be without competition? So not to be outdone, the Hillary camp also joined in the fray creating their own onesies also. Going through various companies, you’ll find a wide selection of bodysuits including this one from Zazzle.com.

In my personal opinion I think it’s bad taste, but avid supporters would probably feel different. Obviously they can do what they want with their babies, but it just seems a tad silly and not to mention low-brow. What’s your opinion?

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Please be warned that if you are sensitive to child abuse stories, this one is not going to be good for you to read.

Mr. Christopher from the Corner Stork Baby Blog once again with some disturbing news. Fox News reported today that a woman is caught on video pulling into an Orlando car wash facility, putting money into the car wash while another woman drags her daughter out of the car and sprays her with the high powered water sprayer.

The car wash owner, Marlene Diaz saw it happening and immediately called the authorities to report the incident. Diaz overheard the lady telling the child in Spanish, “You’re not gonna disrespect me, don’t worry I’m not gonna hit you. I’m just gonna get you with cold water, you’re gonna learn to respect me. You’re not gonna treat me bad,” So even though the child was being sprayed with a sprayer that has enough force to rip off your first layer of skin, the child was consoled that she wouldn’t be hit. How nice. The woman then proceeded to grab the little girl when she was trying to get away and then held her arm as she sprayed the toddler about the legs, body and even a few times across her face. Diaz went to assist as she heard the girl screaming, but by then it was too late and they had already left.

Orange County, Florida authorities are looking for this woman or for any information leading to her whereabouts and have officially opened an investigation into the video. She was seen driving a White Hyundai Elantra in the Orlando area. The little girl is between 3 and 4 years old. More information can be found at MyFoxOrlando by clicking this link.

I could spend days discussing this subject, but small children under the age of 3 should never be struck or sprayed down with skin ripping water hoses. While I believe in a quick smack on the butt if children are getting out of hand, this type of parenting stoops to an all new low. If you have ANY information on this matter, please use the video above for contact information and help give this woman the punishment she deserves.

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Mr. Christopher here from the Corner Stork Baby Gifts blog. Canadian researchers performed a study on 987 children from infancy to age 6 to answer the question, “Are nightmares hereditary?” and “Can babies have nightmares?”. Any laymen like you or I could simply say that “Yes, a baby can have nightmares dependent on their environment.” If a child lives in a home with loud noises like yelling and screaming, fighting, or simply bad parents shaking them when they cry or hollering at the baby when they’re not cooperating, is going to cause their baby to have bad dreams or nitghtmares. As disturbing as that sounds, it’s more common than you may think. Just ask any DFAC’s agent.

But the scientists also found something else very interesting. Personality can also play a part in their nighttime visions also. Of the 987 children, a good bit of them had an occasional nightmare, but there some that had very frequent nightmares all the way through preschool and it happened primarily among children who were anxious or “difficult” as babies.

It suggests that young children that have bad dreams “are trait-like in nature and associated with personality characteristics measured as early as 5 months,” as reported in the medical journal called Sleep. One of the researchers, Dr. Tore Nielson was able to predict which children were going to have bad dreams simply by noting their anxiety levels between 5 months and 17 months. Babies that cried a lot at 5 months and were difficult to calm down typically always fell into the “bad dream” group more than the scattered few from the calm and peaceful babies. When they get old enough to communicate, Dr. Nielson says that having the children “draw the dream” onto paper when it’s fresh on their mind normally helps get to the root of the problem.

Help create a peaceful environment for your babies to help avoid putting them in a negative or stressful environment. If you and your spouse need to argue or raise your voices, step out of the room out of ear shot of the baby. If there are loud noises that startle your infant, remove them from the racket and find a quiet and comforting place in the home until the the noises stop. Not only will this increase the chances that your baby will not fall into the “bad dream” group, but it will also help the baby’s brain development and avoid the onset of timidity later in their toddler stages. Head to Corner Stork Baby Gifts at http://www.cornerstorkbabygifts.com and view some great unique baby gifts to make bedtime more peaceful like the Plush Moonlight bear. Help your child avoid becoming a statistic.

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Mr. Christopher from Corner Stork Baby Blog breaking last years resolution to not report on Britney Spears. The reason I made the commitment to ignore entertainment’s most newsworthy pop disaster is because I was trying to keep the craziness to a minimum and create one less headline about her. I was also greatly concerned about her health as a person and about some of the decisions she was making that were harmful to herself, her kids and her wellbeing. And reporters were loving it, clubs were paying her thousands of dollars to come and hang out, and all the while she was on a dead end road to a very bad place. I even received replies to my posts saying that I didn’t know Britney and that I didn’t know what I was talking about and that she has to deal with more than I could ever imagine, blah, blah, blah.

Last night, we were treated to reports that Britney has been hospitalized because she was under the influence of an unknown substance while having custody of her kids and that they had to strap her down because she was completely out of it. She also refused to give up custody of her children back to her ex-husband Kevin Federline. And all of this on the cusp of her missing yet another court ordered appearance regarding the ongoing custody battle. So not only has she broken court dates, but she also broke many of the rules set in place for her custody arrangement. TMZ and CNN also report that she was admitted under medical hold which is laymans terms is a mental watch since they fear that she could be dangerous to herself or others.

So the question remains as to why we need to be so obssessed with this girl? Photographers and reporters are watching her every move, her every decision, her every breakdown, her every car wreck, and every day she doesn’t wear panties. What does the future hold for this girl? If Britney lives through 2008, I will be incredibly surprised. She is on such a scary downward spiral that I don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel for her. One would think that the custody scenario would shake her out of it, but it only makes it worse and pushes her further into the quicksand. And there will be no end until she’s dead.

I’m assuming that’s what everyone is waiting for. Is that what everyone wants? Nobody gives a crap about her getting better, regaining custody of her children, the welfare of her children, her own mental welfare or even her overall health. That wouldn’t be a good story, would it? Who wants to read about her recovery and about her getting better? The reporters are obssessed with her car accidents, her partying, her drinking, her drug habits, her pregnant baby sister, her failed marriage and her destructive behavior. I don’t see anyone offering to help her or her children.

So I’m officially making one last effort, one last shout to all of the media and her fans, to reach out to this girl and save her. Her demise is right around the corner. Britney’s death in inevitable. I am trying to get you to understand that she will be “checking out” very soon if someone close to her doesn’t forcefully intervene. I’m only a blogger with no stake in Britney Spears either way and no personal return on investment for this entry. But this will honestly be the last time I implore her friends, family and fans to step in and steer her the other way. Stop taking joy in her demise and watching her self destruct because if she suffers the fate of mortality, you will forever carry a dark cloud as a participant in these events that led to the inevitable death of Britney Spears.

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Mr. Christopher here from the Corner Stork blog. Ok, long story short. Ok Magazine reports that Britney Spears was at a Beverly Hills hotel with a bunch of her girlfriends after the hearing in which she lost visitation rights to her boys until November 26th. While at the hotel, one of her girlfriends said, “Don’t worry. You’ll get her kids back.” What was Britney’s response? “I don’t give a sh*t. I never wanted them in the first place.”

Oh……My…….God.

I think we’re at a breaking point where this chick has so much coverage that we all will know how many squares of toilet paper she uses after she tinkles. But maybe we’re finding out way too much about this girls character. Some women have maternal instincts, but this girl has some sort of jungle thing going on. Mate, drop baby in field, move on. She is shown showing more concern for her little dogs than she does for her kids.

So what has she done to offset this situation? She’s been singing and dancing in her car, smiling non-stop, shopping like crazy and exclaimed, “I am SO happy” in front of swells of people in a Malibu parking lot. Additionally she’s out partying with her sister Jamie Lynn (who also stars on Nickelodeon’s Zoey101) where they were out so late that they miss her first visitation with her kids. She shows no concern whether or not she see sher kids and is much happier when they aren’t around and that may be the best thing right now. Especially when she’s on her cell phone during most of her visitations.

I personally think this girl has lost her mind. She was not ready to be a parent and simply was not ready to make the move from mega-superstar to Mommy. But once you make that decision, there’s no turning back. She desperately needs intervention because 5 years down the road she’s going to realize how big of a mistake she’s making by practically disowning her kids. Just because you have somewhere to store your children while you get your groove on does not make it right. She’s going to have a rude awakening and when she does, she’s going to have a complete and total breakdown. She is in some sort of complete denial as if she doesn’t even want to be reminded of her kids or her situation. If the boys are out of sight, they are out of mind and that is not good. Ignorance is bliss. On top of that, she is going to hit rock bottom when she comes to that realization.

When I started covering this, I thought I would just be declaring another bizarre Britney incident, but the more I look at this, the more concerned I am that she is going to self destruct. I shouldn’t even care, but being a parent causes me to view this in a different light. Thank God that the boys have a semi-stable place to be during her breakdown. They need to be kept out of harm’s way because Britney is a ticking time bomb. Dr. Phil says we should keep her on “suicide watch”. I couldn’t agree more.

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Mr. Chris from Corner Stork Baby Gifts with some surprising information. Apparently, TMZ and the Britney clan are reportedly planning on Britney Spears to make an appearance on this weekends Emmy’s.  Why in the world would she do that after her craptastic performance on the VMA’s?

According to the Spears camp, she is doing so not to perform, but to make an apology for her performance. But my question is, why even waste your time?  What would you even say? “I want to apologize for my drunken antics at last weeks VMA’s. Love me and take me back again.”

Am I the only one who thinks this is a very bad idea? Haven’t her kids suffered enough having to watch their mother stumble around stage in her underwear?

 Update 12-11-2007: The video on Youtube was moved.  I found another. Enjoy.

Mr. Christopher once again. You know, I typically like to spread the news out, but sometimes the quality of material is so scathing you just have to let go. Many of you have heard, but I like to break news after it’s broken and put my spin on it. After Britney’s horrid performance, one would expect that her PR people would figure out some spin on it and sure enough Sarah Silverman is the official scape goat.

According to X17Online.com, Britney overheard Sarah’s monologue that referred to Britney’s kids as “the cutest mistakes ever”. Britney after hearing the monologue went literally ballistic and threatened to not do the performance at all. Her friends insisted that she go ahead and do the show as planned. Britney was a little tipsy, but it’s reported that most of the awkwardness everyone saw was unfiltered rage at the words that were about to come out of Silverman’s mouth about her kids and her mind racing a mile a minute. Click here or on Sarah’s picture to see her monologue.

Well, I’m going to take the stance of “I don’t buy that.” If anyone has seen the video of the performance, that was a “I am wasted and can’t keep my balance and have forgotten the words to my song” performance. Needless to say, Britney has vowed never to appear on MTV again if Sarah made comments about her kids and forbid her to ever mention her kids again. MTV agreed that it was over the top of acceptable, but at that point it was too late since Sarah had already done her monologue.

So it appears that Britney officially has found a way out of that awful performance by shifting everyone’s focus to Sarah Silverman. It’s ingenious. Now if we could just forget how she leaves her kids with nannies for days at a time while she goes out to get drunk and hangs out at clubs, dresses in skimpy underwear writhing around on stage using profanity laced in her songs and even came on stage at MTV with the intro “It’s Britney, B*tch”.

Everyone makes Sarah the scapegoat here, but she was doing her job which was to be ruthless and scathing. They don’t hire her for family friendly entertainment. Additionally, she didn’t make any stabs at the kids, she made the stabs at Britney and the bad decisions that she’s made. If Britney isn’t ready to parent her children and they are interfering with her partying, then there’s no case here. As a parent of 3, I can tell you, once you have kids, the party is over. They require and need to have your undivided attention if you want them to be productive citizens. Or you could just let Hollywood raise your kids and hope that works out. Britney chose the latter. Was Sarah cruel and heartless? Absolutely, but that’s why she’s paid the big bucks. That’s just my point of view.

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Oh my. yeah, you heard it here yesterday that OJ Simpson was doing an interview on MN1.com (Market News First) and some wondered if he would use the opportunity to clear his conscience. Yeah, that didn’t happen, but some of the questions he received from the audience was like watching a video of people getting brutally maimed.

While interviewer Kate DeLaney kept the interview civil, which in our opinion isn’t what you do when given the chance to interview OJ, the audience call ins certainly addressed the questions that Kate wouldn’t.

While he laughed or shrugged off the questions, some of the best ones were just simply brutal like;

“My kid Chris was wondering, do you think it was a bigger feat to break 2000 yards in one season or to slice two necks in one night?”

Ow-yee-ouch. But then it just kept going with other callers;

“Remember when you played for the 49′ers? Did you kill Bill Walsh?”

and it just went on and on with plain viciousness. Luckily, TMZ.com captured some of these highlights for you. Meanwhile, OJ is scheduled to appear on MN1.com three more times this week. For what?! So he can sit and face the onslaught of comments like the ones from last night? Does anyone remember when there was a huge population of people that celebrated when OJ was found Not Guilty? yeah, well those people are nowhere to be found.

May we suggest to OJ, that he make a quick stop at Corner Stork Baby Gifts and pick up one of these cute Pink Poodle towels to hide from his accusers. That way he can pull the towel over his head instead of having to worry about whether his innocent and surprised looks are convincing enough. That was very painful to watch.