Yet Another Scary Recall

I am taking a break from my usually scheduled program to make sure everyone has heard of yet another toy recall. Is it good news that this recall has nothing to do with lead? Well, seven additional recalls were announced yesterday relating to lead paint in toys, so toys made with paint containing lead need not worry that their 15 minutes are coming to an end.

The recall I am focusing on is the Aqua Dots recall. Have you heard about this? Children ingested the Aqua Dots and became unconscious. Turns out, a chemical used to make the Aqua Dots turns into gamma hydroxy butyrate, AKA the date rape drug. This recall disturbs me on so many levels.

First, this is another recall of toys that have originated in China. A note to US toy companies: Until a consistent and reliable way to monitor the safety of toys coming from China is implemented, assume toys from China are not safe. Time to ramp up US manufacturing operations.

Second, the name of the toys is Aqua Dots (my emphasis). When I see the word aqua, I think of water. To me the name of the toy implies water dots. How can anything named water dots be dangerous? Why would parents ever think that anything named water dots would have a chemical that turns into gamma hydroxyl butyrate when ingested?

And, third, did the toy manufacturers not foresee these water dots being ingested by kids? They made them small enough so not to be a choking hazard, so they must have suspected this may happen. After all, they are made of water (so the name implies) and are little round balls that most likely look very appetizing to some youngsters.

To be fair, I have never looked at the Aqua Dots package. This toy was on my sons’ Christmas list but we had yet to buy it. The packaging might have all kinds of warnings such as “Not meant to be eaten,” or “This is not candy.” But, honestly, do warnings on packages really stop kids from tasting something if they really, really want to try it?

So, that puts toy companies in a quandary. They can’t very well test their product on kids during manufacture to see if 1) they will eat the product and 2) whether or not eating the product will cause some horrific medical emergency. What to do, what to do. I know – have the scientists that you use to determine what went wrong after kids are hurt study the product before it goes to market. I find it hard to believe that chemists would not have been able to study the chemical in question prior to the toy going to market and predict what was going to happen. That’s what chemists do – they study the reactions and interactions between various chemicals and materials and determine what byproducts, impurities, and new chemicals are produced as part of the reaction or mixture.

But, what if the toy companies did not know that this particular chemical was used in the manufacture of the Aqua Dots in China? Then shame on them. They are not doing enough to protect American consumers and children.

US toy companies are learning this lesson the hard way. They are losing costumers. They are losing income. But the lesson is being learned at the expense of the safety of our children. I would like to know – was it worth the money saved by outsourcing manufacture and not implementing a substantial program of regulation and monitoring? I think they will learn this lesson again this Christmas when parents, like me, think twice before buying that toy with the Made In… label.

We have been lucky at my house. We only have had one toy included in the lead paint recall. The worst thing that happened to us was a few shed tears when we took the toy away from Luke. But I don’t want to be scared every time I buy a toy for one of my sons. If they are going to get hurt from a toy, it should be the normal way like getting hit in the head with it when their brother throws it at them.

Here is the information released by the CPSC on the recall:

Spin Master Recalls Aqua Dots - Children Became Unconscious After Swallowing Beads

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed.

Name of Product: Aqua Dots

Units: About 4.2 million

Distributor: Spin Master, of Toronto, Canada

Hazard: The coating on the beads that causes the beads to stick to each other when water is added contains a chemical that can turn toxic when many are ingested. Children who swallow the beads can become comatose, develop respiratory depression, or have seizures.
Incidents/Injuries: CPSC has received two reports over the past several days of children swallowing Aqua Dots. A 20-month-old child swallowed several dozen beads. He became dizzy and vomited several times before slipping into a comatose state for a period of time, was hospitalized, and has since fully recovered. A second child also vomited and slipped into a comatose state and was hospitalized for five days.

Description: The recalled toy is a craft kit which allows children to create various multi-dimensional designs using small colored beads. The beads fuse together when sprayed with water. The recall applies to all models of Aqua Dots. The product is available in various different kits with accessories such as a drying fan, applicator pen, design templates for the beads, and spray bottle. The product is labeled for ages 4+.

Sold at: Mass merchandisers nationwide from April 2007 through November 2007 for between $17 and $30.

Manufactured in: China

Remedy: Consumers should immediately take the recalled toy away from children and contact Spin Master to return for free replacement beads or a toy of equal value.

Consumer Contact: For additional information, contact Spin Master at (800) 622-8339 between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. ET Monday through Friday, or visit the firm's Web site at www.aquadotsrecall.com
To see this recall on CPSC's web site, including a picture of the recalled products, please go to:
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml08/08074.html

Women are From Mars, Men are From _enis

It had to happen. I could not write a blog about male dominated households (MDH) without addressing their obsession with the __enis. And that is how I am going to refer to the word in this post, for fear of turning up in search engines that don’t really fit the intended audience of this blog. We'll see if that plan works. If this subject is sensitive to you, please stop reading and come back tomorrow but know that I am going to talk about this obsession as it relates to my 6 and 4 year old boys, and not as it relates to my husband.

My boys aren’t obsessed with their __enises as much as they are obsessed with the word. I think __enis must be the funniest word ever invented. Otherwise, why would my boys bust out laughing every time they hear or say it? When referring to this body part, I prefer to use the word __enis, rather than my mother’s chosen label, which is wingy dingy. The boys went from referring to their __enises as wingy dingy to wenis __enis to now mostly just __enis.

My grandma doesn’t think it is right to use the clinical terms when describing _enis and _agina. She thinks it is perverted, and that a nickname should be used. I guess this is old school thinking, or maybe the way the majority still thinks. I’ve always heard that it’s best just to call it what it is, rather than applying some embarrassing nickname. There will be plenty of time for that when the boys reach college.

I have always agreed that it is best just to call it what it is. To me, giving it a nickname implies that the clinical name is dirty or a bad word. By association, would that make the boys feel dirty or embarrassed about their body parts, and the naturalness of them and their uses? I don’t want them to ever feel ashamed of or embarrassed by their body parts. And I want them to feel comfortable talking to me their dad about any questions they have if they need to. I just can’t picture a conversation with my sixteen year old beginning with, “I have a question about my wingy dingy.”

Don’t get me wrong. Some situations call for a substitute word. In public we generally just call them private parts (As in, don’t show your private parts to the neighbors; that’s why they call them privates, because they’re private). In the bathtub, we tell them to clean their areas (in the front) and their regions (in the back).

I think John and I have done a sufficient job of making the boys comfortable talking nonchalantly about their anatomy. Maybe too good of a job. Some examples:

We went to see Bee Movie over the weekend. The main bee was talking about hitting the humans where it really hurts, which I understood to be the wallet. Luke yelled out, “He means the _enis.” That was the funniest line in the whole movie. He had learned this lesson just moments before after hitting his father in the concession line.

I was talking to a mom in the parking lot at Jack's school, and Luke was trying to get my attention by tapping me. I ignored him, and he kept tapping me. When we got back to the car, he said, “Didn’t you notice I was punching you in the __enis?” I said, “First, you don’t punch -ever. Second, you especially don’t punch in someone’s private area. Third, I don’t have a __enis because I’m a girl.” And he responded, “That’s right. You have a __agina because it’s down by China.” Credit that one to my sister.

And, Luke again (I know, I know, we definitely are in trouble when he hits puberty), who has an aversion to underwear, was wearing a pair of sweatpants with a hole in them. We didn’t realize the hole existed until he left the house. Luckily, he was mostly spending the day with my sister. When he discovered the hole, and how it was sized perfectly to show anyone that was looking his frank and beans, he said, “Look, Nan. Trick or treat!”

Lastly, Jack was taking a bath one day. He is very sensitive, as I have mentioned before, and always worries about hurting someone’s feelings. He also worries about his feelings being hurt, and especially being laughed at or called names. He asked me, “Mom, do you think that at anytime ever in the history of the world someone said to someone else, ‘Dude, you look like a _enis.’?” I was too busy laughing to answer his question.

I Had a Bad Dream

Over the last four nights, I have been woken by the boys a minimum of one time each night. The reasons vary. One time, Luke’s water was not cold anymore and he wanted ice in it. Another time, Jack had a booger in his nose and couldn’t breath. Another time, Luke’s nose was bleeding. But most often, when the boys wake me in the middle of the night, it’s because they’ve had a nightmare.

Jack and Luke seem to have nightmares relatively often. The nightmares aren’t so terrifying that they can’t fall back to sleep, but they are scary enough that the boys require company in their rooms until they fall back to sleep. Usually the nightmares involve being chased, being lost, falling out of the car, or being eaten by a monster.

I started doing some searching around on the Internet, and found that studies show that girls are more likely to have nightmares than boys. It’s on the Internet, so it must be true. This surprised me. I thought that boys would be more likely than girls to have nightmares due to the fact that boys (at least mine anyway) are more prone to playing aggressive games that involve some sort of battling, chasing, or attacking. There is almost always a monster or villain involved in their games, and they are required to escape from it or defeat it. Why wouldn’t they be scared? If I played “The Monster is Getting Me” games everyday, I’d have nightmares too.

In these games, my boys always sprout some superpower that allows them to defeat the monster. They are stronger, faster, and smarter than the monster. Also, the monster is usually played by me and I am extremely easy to defeat. The monster is reduced to a gelatinous pile of blubber, and the boys are heroes that have saved the day.

Maybe that is why girls have more nightmares than boys. Boys have a sense of strength and power that allows them to defeat their imaginary monsters. Do girls, by nature, feel too weak to overcome the bad guy? I found a guide to helping children overcome nightmares, NIGHTMARES AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT THEM: A Parent’s Guide to Children’s Bad Dreams. In this guide, one of the treatments for nightmares is to help your child feel powerful enough to defeat the monsters in their dreams. They can defeat the monster during the day, why not at night in their dreams? Well, in the day the monster is imaginary and looks like mommy. In their dreams, it takes on a realistic form with razor sharp teeth and talons. Luke says, “I know monsters are not real, but I believe in them anyway.” How do you argue with that?

The guide also recommends getting your child to describe their nightmare in detail. My boys usually are too scared to do this right after their nightmare. I did get Luke to do it one night. He said, “There were all of these puppies around me, and they kept licking my face.” That’s a nightmare? I was convinced it was just a ploy to get me to come in and lay with him. I found out the next morning that the puppies were vampire puppies. Now, that’s scary.

Shhhh - Don't Tell Mom

Once a year, John’s mom and three sisters travel to St. Louis from Jefferson City and Columbia, Missouri to spend a day shopping and a girls’ night out at the Fox. We have seen 42nd Street, The Rockettes, Wicked, Spamalot, and this year it was the Drowsy Chaperone. I always look forward to our night at the Fox, since it is pretty much the only exposure to culture that I get.

This year’s night out was last Friday night. I told the boys earlier in the week that their grandma and aunts would be coming in to spend the night with us, but that the girls would be going out after dinner. When Friday came and I reminded the boys that it was a girls’ night out and they would be having a boys’ night with daddy, they immediately started chanting, “Streak, streak, streak.”

Streak? What’s that all about? It either meant: a) They thought they could convince their dad to let them go streaking, or b) Every time I leave the house and they have a boys’ night, they go streaking. John was mum on the subject. Don’t I spend enough time trying to get them to keep their clothes on? Now they’ve turned nakedness into a fun game to play when I’m out that is guaranteed to land us on Social Service’s watch list.

That chant started me thinking about the things that my husband lets the boys do that I never would. When I say no to something it is usually due to one of two reasons: Because I am a chicken and don’t want to do the thing myself, or because I do not have the boy gene that replaces rationality and clear-headed thinking with testosterone and blind courage.

Here are some of the things that would never have happened if it had only been mommy around and daddy was not there to let them:

Climbing onto and into things – The boys love to climb up on the roof of our house. They consider it a special treat. They also like to climb over the tops of cars and into any space, as long as the space doesn’t allow for escape and would smother you to death in a matter of minutes if you got trapped inside. Check out the roof and car top carrier pictures here.

Cave dwelling/small spaces – I like a good cave tour as much as the next person. That is, as long as it is a guided tour with trained professionals in a cave that doesn’t require me to belly crawl through tunnels that are barely larger than my head. Whenever the boys head to City Museum, famous for striking fear into the hearts of claustrophobics at the mere mention of the place, I usually sit that trip out.

Parasailing – Jack and John went parasailing last year in Florida. No thank you.

Roller coasters – Every year, we go to Six Flags for my boys’ birthdays in May. When Jack turned four, he was tall enough to ride the Screaming Eagle. And he did. With his dad. Twice.

The Tree House – John built this wonderful tree house in our backyard. I was worried about having it, especially when he added the second level. Couldn’t we just get a nice, safe swing set? I needn’t have worried. They hardly ever play in it.

I did take Jack up on the ski lift in Colorado when he was four. I am not too fond of heights, and he was wiggling around like crazy. But, I couldn’t resist. Can you blame me? Look at that view!

Mothers have a special bond with our children that fathers will never have. Not to say that fathers don’t have a bond, but a mother’s bond comes from growing her children inside of her body and then begging for mercy through 18 hours of excruciating labor. Dads have to find other ways to bond, and what better way than being co-conspirators in a fun adventure that mommy does not know about? If my husband and I had daughters, he would bond with them in a different way. Like taking them out of school to go get their ears pierced without my knowledge (I’m pretty sure my mom didn’t know that my dad was doing this with my sister and me when we were young). It just so happens that we have boys, so bonding takes on a riskier role. I just hope my husband doesn’t bond so much that the kids end up in body casts.

The Darwin Awards

Have you heard of the Darwin Awards? According to the Darwin Awards website, the awards are defined as this: “Named in honor of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it.”

I thought of the Darwin Awards on Halloween night as we were performing the flaming pumpkin experiment. I’m sure to many recipients of past Darwin Awards, their ideas seemed really good at the time. I doubt that many of the recipients, at the time of the activity that garnered them the award, were aware of their impending receipt of this award. I, on the other hand, was astutely aware of the potential for this experiment to earn us an award, or, at the very least, a nomination or honorable mention, that we did not want. And yet, on with the experiment we went.

My boys have influenced me this way. They talk me into doing crazy and dangerous things against my better judgment. This includes things like swinging from a rope that has one end tied around our Halloween phantom lodged high in a tree. What is scary about the flaming pumpkin experiment is that it was I who was encouraging them. My uncle wasn’t going to do it until I enthusiastically agreed to give it a try. I’ve definitely crossed over to the dark side.

That is why I was so excited to discover The Big Book of Boy Stuff, written by Bart King and published by Gibbs Smith. This book is chocked full of, well, boy stuff including crazy and what the boys may deem dangerous experiments. The boys and I are eager to dive in and try some of the experiments, including Flaming Greenbacks (More fire. Yes!) and cooking solar-powered marshmallows. We will be making our way through this book, and will be posting our results on my blog and hopefully not the Darwin Awards site.

As far as the Darwin Awards go, it does seem that the majority of the stories have men in the leading roles. Or criminals. I am not a man and I am not a criminal. So, by being the ring leader of these crazy experiments, perhaps I am adding a layer of protection to keep us off of this list.

p.s. Regarding my post Reflections The Day After, where I implied that I would be cleaning up the Halloween decorations, I must apologize to my husband. He was out all day yesterday putting everything away, even before he read my blog! What a good man.

Reflections The Day After

Halloween has come and gone. I learned a lot this year, and I hope this newfound wisdom is something that I will carry into the next October 31st. Let me share what I learned.

It’s a lot more fun putting up the decorations than it is taking them down – It’s hard to tell from the picture, but John designed an elaborate stage of cauldrons, smoke machines, black lights, spider webs, skeletons and generally spooky decorations. He hung a scary phantom in our tree, and used twine to drop it on unsuspecting passersby. He also dressed up in a frightening costume and stood pressed against the front of our house under cover of darkness and smoke. This was the perfect location from which to jump out and terrify all of the little kiddies. The kids (even grown ones) loved it. Now we I get to take it all down. Last night it seemed well worth it. Today when we're I'm de-decorating it might not seem that way.

My boys want me to play monster, but don’t want me to actually look like a monster – They liked me in this costume as long as I talked like me and acted silly. The first hint of spookiness from me and they ran terrified from the room.

You’re never too old for Halloween – The one second from the left is my grandma. She’s in her 80s. The rest are my Aunt Patti, my cousin Megan and, the only one dressed like a girl, my cousin Clayton. What a good sport he was. And that's my husband scaring my grandma.

Fake eyebrows are hazardous – Just ask my Aunt Patti. When she took hers off, she pulled most of her real eyebrows and a fair amount of skin with them. It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eyebrow.

No matter how cute the food is, the boys still just want to eat candy – I spent not a lot of time but enough time making these cute mummy dogs from Pillsbury. I thought the boys would certainly eat them because they love hot dogs, and what’s better than a plain old hot dog if not one dressed like a mummy with a face on it? Think again. Luke’s dinner consisted of two bites of cinnamon toast and half a bag of candy. The adults enjoyed the mummy dogs anyway.

The joke is all in the delivery – I didn’t know this until recently, but the tradition of telling a joke before you get your candy is apparently a St. Louis thing. When we talk to people that have just moved here, or people in other cities, no one does this. In St. Louis, you better have a joke ready if you want candy. Luke made his jokes up on his own as we were heading toward the first house. This guaranteed the candy giver would never have heard the joke before, that the joke made no sense, and that the joke wasn't funny. I kept telling the neighbors, “It’s not the joke that’s funny. It’s all in the delivery.”

Pumpkins do not burn – My Uncle Kiley has some wonderfully fun and perfectly boy experiments. He read somewhere that if you soak a roll of toilet paper in kerosene, put it in a carved pumpkin, and light it, you will get a flame 3 feet tall that burns for 45 minutes. He didn’t have kerosene so used lantern fluid instead. We weren’t sure what to expect, so when he lit it we had fire extinguishing materials available. The pumpkin didn’t catch fire or roll down the driveway, and the toilet paper burned just as expected. It was the perfect Halloween boy magnet. Jack even did a spooky Halloween fire dance.