Strollerderby : Play-Doh

Playdate: Would You Go "No Poo"?

JeanneSager — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 21:27:00 GMT

Here's one way to answer the carcinogens in your kids' bath products - Amy Graff at The Poop is going "no poo."

As in no shampoo. Not a drop of Johnson & Johnson. Not a palm of Head and Shoulders. Graff, who is one of my favorite columnists over at San Fran's main parenting blog, is making a leap that I have to admire. Or hold my nose about.

The "no poo" method has had its proponents for years, folks who say it's better to let the body's natural oils keep the scalp healthy and the hair "clean." As Graff explains in her "no poo" mission statement, the idea is that a few weeks of greasy hair must be endured. But when the body takes over, word has it luscious locks take over.

The sort of fringe movement is jumping from granola crunchy greenies to parenting mainstream as reports on parabens, phthalates and 1,4-dioxane make more of us realize there's a lot more to fear than a dirty kid. Take Graff - she's always thought the whole thing sounds kind of "icky" . . . but her kids' shampoo is on the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics' list of products loaded with carcinogens. For the sake of her kids, she's willing to give "no poo" a try.

I checked out the CSC list, and took heart that my daughter's shampoo isn't on there (although a bubble bath we once used an entire bottle of was - eek). If it was, I'd obviously change - to another shampoo. Although it's hard to trust the big companies, it's even harder to fathom not using something relatively heavy duty to rid my daughter's head of play-doh and play sand on a daily basis.

I'm going to follow Graff's experiment, but I'm not that brave. What about you?

Image: Boon

College Kid Tries Brewing Beer, Makes Soy Play Dough

Amy Kuras — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 15:02:00 GMT

Playing with Play-Doh is such huge part of American childhood. Tell me you didn’t, the first time you opened up a jar of it for your kid, inhale deeply and immediately feel five years old again.

And maybe, just like most five year olds, really curious about what the stuff actually tastes like (answer: salt and feet. Seriously, it’s gross). But for kids with wheat allergies, even playing with it can cause a reaction. Hasbro won’t say what’s in it, but the cans do carry an allergy warning for wheat.

Enter college ingenuity. Sawyer Sparks, an agricultural economics junior at Purdue, tried making gluten-free beer when a professor said she couldn’t drink it because of an allergy to gluten (a grade grubber after my own heart). He glopped a bunch of gluten-free ingredients, including soy flour, into a pot on his stove, and well, while you wouldn’t want to drink the resulting gloop, it turns out it makes a really great substitute for traditional Play-Doh.

Sparks had already started a company marketing animal feed and agricultural products made from sunflowers, so he saw the business potential in this as well. Soon schools had bought hundreds of the $2 containers of what he called Soy-Doh. The product comes in a dozen colors and as many scents, each of which smell like food. Don’t worry, though –it’s all nontoxic.

How smart is this guy anyway? When I was that age I was concerned with drinking beer, not making it, and certainly not spotting business opportunities right and left

Stuff Parents Dream About: Life Without Play-Doh

JeanneSager — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:39:00 GMT

It's sacreligious, I know, but sometimes I dream about life without Play-Doh. Yes, I know it's good for promoting their little creative minds. I know it's good for a half hour of keeping them out of your hair.

It still sucks.

I dream of the day I won't find a dried-out hunk of pink stuff wedged between the pillow and the cushion on the couch. I dream of flipping open the newest issue of New York and not finding the pages gooed together by an orange wad that - after carefully prying it from the pages without tearing them - will leave an oily stain behind that reminds me of the Victoria's Secret's smuggled into my kid brother's room.

Yes, like MLK, I too have a dream. It centers heavily on sweeping out the space beneath the dining room table and not having to crawl in with a putty knife to scrape hardened-on chunks of colored dough off of the floor. It's no great manifesto for the rights of all mankind, but I'm willing to start small.

I'll liberate the nursery school moms from the time spent swapping recipes for the homemade version. Not only do we buy the stuff, but to save absolutely no money and waste a lot of time, the masses huddle in suburban kitchens mixing and kneading and dyeing. And to thank us for our efforts, our kids mash our glorious creations into the heating register in the bathroom and fashion a hat for that cat that will require clippers to remove.

Excuse me, I just heard the timer. The glop's done boiling. Time to dye it bright pink for the princess.

More stuff parents dream about to come . . .

Image: Amazon

Part I: Why Parents of Girls Have it Better

Five Ways to Spot a Stalker Mom - So You Can Run

When They Can Curse in Context

Five Nonsense Kids Character Names Explained

How to Annoy Your Sister: Advertise on Craigslist

Mom Takes her Potty Mouth to Work

Strollerderby Playdate: Boobies and Blood

Adrienne Martini — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:00:00 GMT

I've just returned from a lovely playdate with Heather at Oh My Stinkin Heck. We had coffee. We played with Play-Doh and Webkinz. But, mostly, we griped about the video store.

What's wrong with getting a couple of flicks to watch with the kids on family night? Plenty. Once you manage to pass the gauntlet of candy near the registers, you have to explain all of the DVD cases that feature headless women with enormous breasts or horrified women covered in blood. Now that's entertainment.

It's not that the questions that your kids will ask are hard to answer -- it's just that so many times the older kids take video boxes as illustrations of how the world is and don't ask questions. While the pictures alone won't force the tweens into a Girl's Gone Wild gig, they do add to the climate.

But Heather is a mom after my own heart. Not a prude, just aware of how powerful images can be. I do have just one word of advice, however: Netflix.

Getting Play-Doh Out of the Carpet

Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 11:22:00 GMT

Doh!

This is a question that has been troubling frustrated parents for years. How do I get Play-Doh out of my carpet?

We should have just asked Yahoo! (I didn't even know you could ask Yahoo! You with think with all the time I spend on the internet I would have run across this before, but nope.)

Yahoo! asked Hasbro who makes Play-Doh. Hasbro says to let the Plah-Doh dry and then use a stiff brush to break it up. After it is all broken up, just use a dust buster or vacuum it right up.

Play-Doh also just introduced a pick up stick tool that I could only find sold with their Creativity Cetner.

Or you can just do what I did. Pull the carpet up. It peels right off of hardwood, or worst case scenario I use a damp rag.

My kids love Play-Doh, but they make a huge mess every single time. Espeically the boy. Then again, Hasbro says that Play-Doh is for children 36 months and up, and my kids are only 2 1/2.

Now I am going to go see if Yahoo! has any secrets about getting cat vomit out of my carpet. I figure it can't hurt to at least try.

Strollerderby : Play-Doh

Playdate: Would You Go "No Poo"?

Which Kids Shampoos Have Cancer Causing Agents?

UPDATE: Bye Bye BPA: WHICH Bottles Will Go Bisphenol Free

Family Mounds Up 250 Pounds of Plastic in a Year

SC Johnson Says Bye Bye to Phthalates

Playdate: High Fructose Corn Syrup Freak Outs Be Gone

College Kid Tries Brewing Beer, Makes Soy Play Dough

Stuff Parents Dream About: Life Without Play-Doh

Strollerderby Playdate: Boobies and Blood

Getting Play-Doh Out of the Carpet