Nature Can Be Cruel

It’s no secret that prior to and after childbirth, most mommies’ hips spread a bit. Even those who are successful dropping back down to their pre-pregnancy weight, or loosing even more, few witness a hip transformation akin to their teens and twenties.

Dads also typically suffer a certain amount of weight gain, whether as “sympathy gain” or love handles born from too many late nights or meals of macaroni and cheese.

It happens to most of us; you have kids and the rear-end spreads.

So it stands to reason that nature has a cruel sense of humor. For after creating these progeny, one of the rewards is a parent spends a lot of his or her time flaunting the result of this little bundle of joy.

What do we mean? Think about it; next time you’re in a parking lot, dropping off your child at daycare, going to a park, or some other family friendly institution, check out your fellow parents. What do you see? Nothing but a bunch of fat fannies poking out of car doors, as the parents strap in, belt up and secure the little ones for another ride in the car.

Straw Poll

Before we get to this posting, a quick note on why we’ve been silent for too long – primarily because of dad’s Thanksgiving ACL reconstruction surgery. The good news is that everything went well, and he’ll soon be able to carry Penny around again.

Penny herself had some minor surgery on January 9, a tympanostomy, or for the layman, she had ear tubes put in. That’s one part of this bifurcated post – we thought of two topics that could use the same title, and figured we’d give the reader a twofer as consolation for our extended absence from the blogosphere.

So back to the surgery. It turns out that Penny has had at least nine ear infections in the past year. Apparently that’s a few too many, so the pediatrician referred us to see a specialist who recommended the tubes. Penny did a great job – was only grouchy after waking up from the anesthesia. And since then she’s slept great and been a generally cheerful girl. It turns out that having fluid constantly in your ears for a year and a half doesn’t feel that good.

On to the second part of the post (and the original namesake). What is it with toddlers and straws? They seem drawn to them like moths to a lamp. Take a toddler to any restaurant, and within seconds they’ve spotted the nearest straw and proceed to cry relentlessly until they are able to chew the end and discard it quickly on the floor.

Once you’ve secured a second straw, they want to drink from it. Nevermind that they haven’t quite figured out the whole “suction makes the liquid move through the straw” thing. Glance around any family-friendly restaurant, and you’re sure to see a batch of parents patiently feeding their tykes water, using the straw as a sort of pipette, gently dropping water into their progeny’s mouth.

At some point the kid figures out how the straw works and can actually use it to drink – the problem is that they still can’t be trusted with a genuine, bona fide, breakable glass, so the next step is for the parent to hold the glass just below the surface of the table so that junior can suck the precious liquid through the straw. (Note that at no point in this process is the parent actually enjoying their own, tasty beverage).

Which brings us back around to the title of this posting: a straw poll. Why is it that certain things, like straws, fascinate all kids, regardless of gender?

Write to us! What are/were your kids most fascinated with? Q-tips? The neighborhood cat? Dump trucks?