Cradle Crap

When Penny was just a “wee-bairn” one of our neighbors asked: “Does she have cradle cap? Oh, boy, I remember having such a hard time with that cradle cap.”

Well, being the new and innocent parents that we were, we had not seen any cradle cap on our child’s head…nor did we really know what it was!

So imagine our surprise when not a week later the pediatrician mentioned, “Oh, she has a little cradle cap. Some lotion should take care of that.”

It didn’t. Months have gone by and we still hear the voice of our neighbor echoing in our ears: “Does she have cradle cap.” And the naïve response, “uh, uh…no. Not her.” It’s as if our neighbor was a seer or mystic, trying to forewarn us of the horror, the annoyance, the crud.

Now we can’t seem to get rid of it. The yellowish flakes still appear when we brush her hair in the morning, and we don’t dare dress her in black! In desperation, we recently took the advice of a sister and rubbed olive oil over her scalp…and then washed out the olive oil with Dawn. It seems to have helped; that, and a good comb. But the flakes still linger.

How long did you or your children suffer with cradle cap?
	My children are hygienic angles; they never had it.
	I was bald past one, so it was easy for my parents to eradicate.
	My children still have it.
	I still do not wear black.
	What is cradle cap?
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In Tag We Trust

We may not have mentioned this before, but Penny is one of those kids that is naturally drawn to tags. Now that she is able to explore beyond her arms reach, we imagine the most burning question on her mind may be, “Does everything in the world have a tag?”

We never really noticed tags before, but they turn out to be pervasive in our society. Tags adorn everything from mattresses (do not remove!) to cars (license tags) to goods (price tags). Mom wears a tag on her belt that lets her into her office building. Even Newman has not one, not two, but three tags dangling from his collar.

Will Penny ever be able to escape the alluring draw of the tag? Right now all she wants to do is tag along with her mom and dad. In a few years, she’ll probably start playing tag with her friends. With luck, she’ll be tagged as an exemplary student. Maybe she’ll be a professional tagline writer!

In the meantime, we invite you to notice just how many tags encumber your world. Send us a note describing your favorite tag-sperience. And for the technically savvy among you, be sure to tag this blog.

As a postscript to this entry, we include a number of photos from our recent vacation to Deep Creek Lake. Remarkably, there’s not a tag in sight.