image: www.bloodymaryland.org

If you

As feedback to our 10 Most Crushworthy Children’s Show Hosts, a Babble reader nominated this yummy foursome. We agree. Made up of Rich, Scott, Dave, and Smitty, these dudes look sexy even in cowboy hats, goggles, and strange blue auto-mechanic jumpsuits. Mmm. They’re music to our ears and our eyes.

And for that, they are our Crush of the Week --Andrea Zimmerman

Photo: PBS

As much as I enjoy the hearty braises of winter,  I get most inspired in the summer months, when I can throw a handful of fresh ingredients onto the grill and have a deliciously simple dinner in no time.

Grilled vegetables are a staple in our house (replaced by roasted vegetables when it gets too cold and dark at night to use the grill). The beauty of this recipe is that it isn’t really a recipe at all, but merely guidelines to create your own version at home, using whatever vegetables you have on hand or that looked good at the farmer’s market. 

I like to serve the vegetables straight up, as a salad, but you can also pile them high on thick slices of grilled sourdough or fold into a steaming bowl of pasta. My kids, who are by no means terrific eaters, will make a meal of the latter, though more often than not they will leave the mushrooms and squash on their plates. That’s okay with me. Some adults do that, too.

Grilled Vegetable Salad

Serves 4 to 6

3 portobello caps

1 medium red bell pepper, seeded and cut into large planks

4 small tomatoes

2 small Vidalia onions, sliced 1/2-inch thick

1 bunch asparagus, woody ends removed

1 zucchini, sliced lengthwise into 1/2-inch planks

1 yellow squash, sliced lengthwise into 1/2-inch plans

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon olive oil

Salt and pepper

Juice of 1/2 lemon

2 tablespoons thinly sliced fresh basil

Set grill to high heat. In a large bowl combine Portobello
caps with 1 tablespoon oil and season with salt and pepper. Arrange on the
grill and cook until browned and softened, about 2 minutes per side. Repeat
with remaining vegetables, tossing each with 1 tablespoon oil and seasoning
generously with salt and pepper. When all vegetables are cooked, set aside on a
baking sheet to cool.

When cool
enough to handle, cut vegetables into 2-inch pieces. Place in a large bowl and
add remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil, lemon juice, and basil. Season with
additional salt and pepper if necessary. Serve immediately.

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As feedback for our Ten Most Crushworthy Children’s Show Hosts, a Babble Reader confessed, “I nurse a smoldering crush on him and his Western shirts.” We can see why. Along with his chicken puppet side-kick, Chica, Sean sings and styles his way through the Sunshine Barn, leaving us swooning with desire.

And for that, he is our Crush of the Week –Andrea Zimmerman

Photo: Sprout Online 

Over at MedPie, Barbara Locke, MD has a list of five very sensible dangers to look out for this summer. She even offers a cutesy rhyme to help you remember–

Don’t mow the lawn ’till you’re sixteen,

Be careful not to trampoline,

Avoid the family dog and such

And don’t fall out of windows much.

–since I’m always forgetting to keep my kids from falling out of windows.

But let’s be honest. These aren’t the real summer health hazards. You know the ones I mean, the dangers that keep you awake at night, long after your kids have passed out on their beds, sticky with sweat and ice pops. 

Here are the real horrors of summer:

Sunburn Syndrome: The horrible guilt you feel when you forget to drench your child in sunscreen and s/he comes home from camp an unsightly shade of pink, which only darkens through the dinner hour until your child is writhing in pain and the only thing that will comfort him/her is four hours of unsupervised television. Exacerbated by the “caring” camp counselor who calls after dinner to remind you to apply sunscreen in the morning since it isn’t her (goddamn) job.

Camplessness: Those hidden weeks between school and camp and then between camp and school when your child simply has nothing to do, because camp directors and school directors can’t seem to get their act together to make sure the kids are occupied every single week because, really, what are we supposed to do with them all day?

Viking Phobia: The fear that if you turn on the oven your brain might actually melt, so you let all your “good food” rules slip by the wayside while your kids frolic in the fridge and eat cold hot dogs, ice cream, and Uncrustables for dinner every night.

Polar Disorder: Feeling so hot and drained in your home that you drag your kids anywhere there’s air conditioning–movie theaters, shopping malls, doctor’s offices (they could be sick, right?)…

Bedtime Dysfunction: The inability to resist your kids’ whines of, “We can’t go to bed, it’s still light outside!” Side effects include falling asleep while waiting for the sun to set, leaving the kids to wreak havoc until they pass out near midnight. This invariably results in having to wake them minutes before the camp bus arrives, leaving no time to put on sunscreen before they leave…

Got any hidden summer dangers of your own? Leave them in the comments below!

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Sometimes I’ll catch my three-year-old son staring off into space, looking so pensive I just have to ask him, “Ronan, what are you thinking about?”

He’ll turn to me and say, “Gooky poopy head!”

So much for deep thoughts. 

But I do wonder what my kids think about. My efforts at conversation with them are mostly thwarted–How was school? Fine. What did you dream about? I don’t remember. I don’t think they quite grasp the concept of thinking or dreaming yet.

I’m not the only one who wonders what’s going on in my kids’ heads. Peter Hartlaub over at The Poop, The San Francisco Chronicle’s baby blog, often wonders the same thing (about his own kids, of course). He cleverly estimates the percentage of each day his kids spend thinking about various things and asks readers to do the same. 

So here’s my best guess for my 3-year-old:

Pirates 47%

His penis 29%

His brother’s penis 2% (mostly at bedtime when they fight over who gets to flush the toilet)

Gum 8%

I need a Band-Aid! 14%

And 4 1/2-year-old Declan:

Writing his name in bubble letters 23%

Pirates 21%

Can I have dessert? 35%

Hoping “We’ll see” really means “Yes” in response to, “Can we watch a show?” 21%

Of course, 1-year-old (today!) Molly is easy:

Food! 50%

Mama! 48%

Dada! 2%

Share your own kids’ deep thoughts in the comments below!

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Remember candy cigarettes? So much fun pretending to be so bad? I
haven’t seen them on store shelves for years, so I’ve got to assume
marketers saw the danger of hooking kids with candy.
But I wonder: is the new trend toward diguising kids medicines as gummy candies really any better?

The gelatinous blobs have sold like hotcakes to parents who have
struggled to make their children swallow the traditional
pediatrician-prescribed multi-vitamin. The fight to take your fiber
pill becomes a non-entity when you’re promising them, “you can have a
gummy this morning!”

And here’s where I’m going to play the grinch. I’m not going to
argue they’re easier to serve up, but should we really teach our kids
that medicines are like candy?

Like those sweet slim ciggies before them, the gummy meds are
parading something potentially dangerous in a candy form.  Even “good
for you” medicines like vitamins, which can reach toxic levels when overconsumed.  Even those fiber treats, meant to keep your kids from getting blocked up, can cause the exact opposite when they get hold of the bottle of sweets and go to town.

So let’s weigh this out – toxic possible overdose versus a morning fight. Which are you going to pick?

Image: MyCalorieCounter

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They’re seeing double at Armstrong Elementary School in Garland, Texas. And double. And double.

The small Texas school has just five hundred thirty-nine students – and thirty-eight of them are twins. There are nine sets in the second grade alone. 

It’s surely a sign of the trend toward twins – spurred on by fertility interventions. These days, one out of every thirty-three kids is a twin (compared to one in eighty back in the day). In 2004, there were more than one hundred thirty two thousand twin births recorded in the U.S. – more than any year prior (that was the latest year data is available on, no word on whether it’s risen in the past five years).

There’s no question there are more of them, but I’d hazard a guess they’re more spread out too. And they’re bringing more attention. Perhaps because because the hot button fertility drug issue (hello Octomom) make these parents an easy mark? The years have also been marked by advancements in medical technologies that keep twin pregnancies going and keep premie duos alive.

And perhaps I’m the anomaly that proves the rule, but I never thought twins were rare. I grew up in the eighties in an even smaller school than Armstrong (there were thirty-four kids in my graduating class). And there was one set of twins in my class, plus half of a set of a twins (his brother failed a year and ended up behind us). My next door neighbors had identical twin boys, I have a set of twin uncles (born in the sixties) plus a set of twin cousins.  None of these kids were born with fertility interventions.

Twins make up seven percent of the population at Armstrong. But they made up eight percent of the population in my third grade class. 

Did you know a lot of twins growing up or are you meeting your first multiples as parents?

Image: MSNBC

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I can’t decide if this is pure genius or a complete rip-off…

A San Francisco company is offering work-at-home parents a place to work with childcare built right in. Cubes and Crayons offers workers office space with onsite childcare. There’s everything you need for the professional office: conference rooms, Wi-Fi, photo copier, even a kitchen where you can get all the water cooler chatter you miss working from home. Meanwhile, your kids are happily occupied in a swank childcare center, complete with tricycles, a slide, a play kitchen, and stage, and cared for by an attentive staff (ratio is one staff member per three children). Sounds perfect, right?

But you pay for perfection: drop-in rates are $16/hour plus a yearly membership fee that starts at $435. That includes the workspace and child care.

There’s another place to go for free Internet, printing capabilities, and a kitchen. It’s called your home. And if you can find a reliable sitter in your neighborhood, it may cost far less to have someone watch your kid in your own home. Especially if you have more than one kid.

It’s true that working at home can be a lonely, solitary existence. But most of the people I know who work from home don’t make a ton of money. For us, Cubes and Crayons is a luxury we can’t afford. 

But for some, it might be just the ticket. Especially on an as-needed basis, when the sitter calls out sick or you have a last-minute meeting to get to; you can leave the kids behind if you have business elsewhere.

Would you use this service if it was in your neighborhood?

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One current theme I’ve heard leaking out of the GOP Hive Mind lately is the idea that the Obama Administration needs to stop blaming the Bush Administration for, well, anything. For example: “I think people will be blaming George Bush until they die. We are
almost halfway through the 1st year of Obama