They’re called Skidders and I got them at Target for $12.99.

They’re super sturdy and actually stay on your kids’ feet all day long. I got these for my son when he was about 13 months old and just starting to walk. He seemed comfortable in them and never tugged them off. We got ones with cute little cars on them, but there were several varieties for boys and girls.

When he wears them, his feet don’t get stinky sweaty like little boy feet tend to and he can toddle right across our marble kitchen floor without slipping at all.

The outsole is rubber so the child can have better traction when learning to stand and walk. The upper material is knit so the foot can breath. It is lightweight, machine washable and comes in a variety of designs that can match with any outfit. The best feature is that it can be used indoors and outdoors.

review by Mom on a Wire

Here’s an itinerary:

Discovery Island: Monday, March 22, morning
Argh, Mateys… follow the Museum of Discovery’s treasure map to find a world of scientific adventure. Sail the ocean, discover an island, and search for buried treasure!

Cool Concoctions: Monday, March 22, afternoon

Fizzle, smoke, and bubble… will this combination get me into trouble?  Experiments will explain what makes the concoctions turn colors!

World Games & Culture: Tuesday, March 23, morning

Playtime is serious! Discover the secrets of other countries and cultures by exploring artifacts and games from around the world!

Young Einsteins, Tuesday March 23, afternoon

Connect with your inner genius through a variety of interactive science activities. You may be a future Nobel prize winner!

(AP) – 3 hours ago

Faulty screws can cause falls

WASHINGTON — The government is announcing a recall of some 1.2 million high chairs, saying they pose a fall hazard to children.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission announced the voluntary recall Thursday involving the product made by Graco Children’s Products Inc., of Atlanta.

The regulatory agency said “screws holding the front legs of the high chair can loosen and fall out” and said cracking plastic brackets can cause the high chair to “tip over unexpectedly.” These tip-overs resulted in 24 reports of injuries including bumps and bruises to the head, a hairline fracture to the arm and cuts, bumps and bruises and scratches to the body.”

The CPSC said consumers should stop using the high chairs immediately and identified the recall product as “all Harmony-TM high chairs.” It said the product is no longer in production and said the model number can be located on the underside of the foot rest.

Graco issued a statement saying safety is the company’s top priority.

“We take great pride in the quality and safety of our products, and as such, we are disappointed with the performance of the Harmony High Chair,” the statement said.

“In the case of Harmony, we have worked closely with the CPSC to identify and provide an appropriate fix. We are confident that we have come up with a solution that will improve the performance of this chair.”

Unrequited affection. How maddening it is.
Lately, I’ve been consumed with a man in my life. Straining to get him to notice me. I hang on any hint that he returns my feelings. I’m desperate for his touch.
I watch him racing about his life, seemingly unaware of my presence. I’ve abandoned my pride and openly beg him for hugs and kisses. Anything.
And just when I resolve to give up on him, I catch him watching me from across the room. He flashes a mischievous smile. My heart leaps! I breathlessly reach for him only to be met by a passive glance away.
Who is this creature that is turning me into a Pepe Le Pew imitator? My 15-month-old son.
You see, lately, Benny’s just not that into me.
I think it began with his first steps. Walking was so novel and exciting that he just didn’t have time to cuddle with mama. He had big boy things to do. Busy from sunrise to the time his head hit the crib mattress.
But then, it got personal. He began extending affection to his sister and father. Even his teachers. He would embrace them with genuine devotion, giving them those precious open mouth, wet kisses. He looked right past me.
He still refuses to say any word or noise that sounds remotely like “Mama.” My husband will say, “Who’s that?” pointing at me and he’ll look me square in the eye and say, “Dada.”
From time and again, he throws some lovin’ my way, but then quickly turns cold. It seems like he’s deliberately stringing me along. Playing hard to get.
And like a middle-school girl who has read Wuthering Heights too many times, I’ve totally fallen for it. I’m besotted.
I have a theory for why this is happening.
The thing is, I was never that school girl desperate to be noticed. Not because I didn’t fall for boys who didn’t like me. That sure happened. But at the first hint of disinterest, I always ran the other way. Call it guarded, self-preservation. Or maybe I just didn’t have the stomach for rejection.
But more than once, I’m afraid, I was one of those girls who strung boys along. I smiled from across the room with no intention of going on a date. Call it kindness, not wanting to hurt their feelings. More likely, I liked the attention.
So maybe Benny’s recent behavior is the universe’s way of evening the score. It’s payback time.
Recently, he actually cried when I tried to take him from my husband’s arms at day care. Real tears. And a pouty lip. Devastating.
I was so pitiful that my 4-year-old daughter felt sorry for me. “It’s OK mama. I’ll hug you. He’s just a baby. He doesn’t know.”
But I think he knows exactly what he’s doing. And I probably deserve it.
Cindy Murphy is a news reporter for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. She and her husband live in Little Rock with their 4-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son. She and Cathy Frye are co-editors of LittleRock Mamas.com. E-mail her at
cmurphy@LittleRockMamas.com

Today, several of our bloggers have posted their own daffodil photos.

Here’s a list of links:

Moody Mom

Arkie Mama

Blessed Mom

Check back later for more links!

Don't miss it!

Photo from Food Network. Recipe is not. We combined a few recipes to come up with our version.

Ingredients

Drumettes

your favorite Teriyaki sauce

sesame seeds

salt & pepper

canola oil

Directions

Season drumettes with oil, salt and pepper. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, toast your sesame seeds. A DRY cast-iron skillet works best. You will have to hover over your seeds, stirring constantly, to keep them from burning. When they’re nice and toasty brown, remove and set aside.

Remove drumettes from oven and baste with teriyaki sauce. Transfer to grill. You’ll have to turn the drumettes often to keep them from burning. (Teriyaki sauce has sugar in it!) Continue basting as needed. Leave on grill until done. Time will vary depending on your grill. Cut one open to check if you’re doubtful! Now you have the option of rolling your drumettes in sesame seeds. At our house, the kids bypass this step. I, on the other hand, coat mine with the seeds!

Did they eat it?

Husband: This is one of his new, favorite Sunday-evening dinner items.

Me: Yum.

The kids were too busy stuffing their little faces to say much, but they each ate several and got upset when we ran out of drumettes. I’d call this one a success.

If you are being chased by a lion, is it a good time to reproduce?

I dare say, “No!”

Your brilliant brain and body would agree.  There is a complex and amazing
biochemical process that occurs in your mind and body to assure this to be
true.

When the mind perceives that you are in stress, stress hormones like
cortisol and adrenalin (among others) are produced. As these stress hormones
move into circulation, they begin turning off the systems that are not
needed during time of fear and stress, when survival of the species is in
danger, like your digestive and reproductive systems.

In the short term, this is good, as your energy is shifted away from these
systems to the ones you need to fight and run like mad, like your muscles
and your central nervous system.  The goal is that eventually, you will get
away and be safe.  At such time, the stress system will turn itself off and
all systems will return to normal functioning.

The problem is that your mind does not distinguish between real or imagined
threats, physical, psychological or emotional stress.  The economic collapse
is just as much of a lion to your mind as you worries about conceiving.

When you cannot turn of the stress system indefinitely, the stress response
will continue firing.  You move from perceiving stress as manageable to
unmanageable.  Slight worry moves to fear, helplessness and hopelessness,
which leads to more firing of the stress system.  The result, suppression of
reproduction mechanisms.   In fact, studies support this fact, linking
infertility and other reproductive disorders with persistent stress and
stress response reactivity.

In other words, if you find yourself having difficulty conceiving, you may
want to address your own stress level or feelings of fear.  You want to look
at how you are currently perceiving your world, your situation, and your
body…Do you feel in control or out of control?  You want to look at how
you manage stress in your life and your own worries—Are you able to turn
your stress response off or does it stay on?

The good news is that you can have choice in this matter.  You can choose to
use available tools to turn the stress response system off and hopefully
improve your chances of fertility.

Patient Story -

Jane was 35 years old when she came in to see me complaining of anxiety,
irritable bowel syndrome and infertility.  She had been trying to conceive
unsuccessfully for over 2 years, which was causing her more anxiety as well
as depression.  Upon getting her history, it turned out that Jane worked 60
hour weeks and exercised every day for over an hour.  She worried a lot
about everything being perfect pretty much all of the time.  She had learned
to be this way in her childhood and from her parents, where nothing was ever
really good enough.

I explained to Jane how the stress response worked, and that there just may
be a stress component to her problems, she was eager to learn what she could
do about it.  So, she agreed to learn how to meditate, walk instead of run
while exercising (just to give the brain a chance to think that she wasn’t
running from a lion), to feed herself nurturing foods as if she was creating
a safe haven for a child to live in, get plenty of sleep, and allow in a lot
of love and support into her life so that she could inherently feel good
enough.

A few months into this, Jane let me know that she was pregnant and 7 months
later, her daughter was born.

Is de-stressing the only answer to infertility?  I don’t know the answer to
that, but probably not.  But it is a factor and therefore something you may
want to address.

Dr. Eva Selhub is an expert on the physical effects of anger, rage, stress, and anxiety on the human body.  She is a clinical instructor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School, a senior staff physician at the Benson Henry Institute for Mind/Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and the founder of the Alight Medicine for Learning and Healing in Newton, Massachusetts.  Dr. Selhub has lectured throughout the United States and Europe and has trained healthcare professionals across the globe.  Her articles have been published in medical journals and featured in publications including The New York Times, USA Today, the Huffington Post, Self, Shape, Fitness and the Journal of Women’s Health.

We’ll be contacting each of the winners by e-mail, but if you haven’t heard from us before the end of the week, send a note to cmurphy@littlerockmamas.com
Thanks for registering for LittleRockMamas.com!

I feel comfortable talking now, because Johnny went public and made a statement admitting paternity. I didn’t feel like I could ever speak until he did that. Because had I spoken, I would have emasculated him. And I could not emasculate him. Also, it is not my desire to teach my daughter that when Mommy’s upset with Daddy, you take matters into your own hands and fix Daddy’s mistakes. Which I view as one of the biggest problems in all female-and-male relationships.

I know he loves me. I have never had any doubt at all about that. We love each other very much. And that hasn’t changed, and I believe that will be till death do us part. The love doesn’t go away. It’s unconditional. It’s unconditional on my part, but our connection is profound. There’s a lot of passion there.

Because I had never experienced anything like what was flowing between us. I sat on the other side of the room. I wouldn’t go near him. And he kept saying [she mimics his southern drawl], “What are you doin’ over there? Come over here. I can’t even see you. Come closer. I won’t bite you.” I was just—there was sooo much attraction and sooo much… I want to say love, but it wasn’t love at that point. You know, it was just this, this magnetic force field like I had never experienced. It terrified me. Absolutely terrified me. And, um, I eventually walked over to his side of the room. [laughs] He was pretty relentless. And that’s all I’m gonna say on that! Now fade to black!