Two things:

Thing 1:

Why would a person whose entire family is obese, and just had to get their preschooler tested for diabetes (and this child was found to be borderline diabetic, not fully, but still not good), feed their 2-month-old rice cereal several times a day? That stuff has been shown to increase risk of juvenile diabetes in those who are prone to it, and solids being given before 4 months of age has also been shown to increase this risk. Not to mention, early solids have a strong link to childhood obesity. So knowing this, and knowing that you have a strong family history of both, why on earth put an otherwise healthy baby at even greater risk? That's ridiculous!

See, I would just say ignorance is at play here, but I happen to know that this family receives WIC. As someone who also receives WIC, I know that when you go into the WIC office with a baby, they always talk to you about certain things. They want you to breastfeed. They want you to hold off on solids until 6 months, but at least 4, and they tell you why. They weigh your kids and tell you if they're overweight, underweight, or ok. These are things common to every office within the entire program, not just here. So basically, it's not like these people haven't heard the current recommendations, and it's not like they don't know that their older kids are overweight. So why do you do it to the baby? I don't understand. Even if you didn't know better for the older kids, you know better now, so why not do better? I'm sure this mom is getting all kinds of crap advice from relatives, but honestly, they're her kids, and the knowledge is out there. It's our responsibility as parents to think critically, and balance traditions with research.



Thing 2:

Everybody I know who's joined Roller Derby gets divorced within 6 months of joining the league. No joke. It all started out two years ago when a friend from college joined Roller Derby, and not even two months later, told just a few people in confidence that she was leaving her loser husband. Again, that was some time ago, and she did, in fact, leave him and move on. However, she's still in Roller Derby. Over the course of the past couple years, I've known several other girls who joined Roller Derby, and like clockwork, they all got divorced. Then just this past week, another one, who joined Roller Derby three months ago, announced her divorce!! It's so weird!!

Now, do I think there's some real causation here? No. Anyone who's spent more than five minutes of their life in any lab on the planet knows that correlation does not necessarily equal causation. Even so, I told Thak if I ever join Roller Derby, to just go ahead and lawyer up. Of course, he laughed, because he'll never have to worry about that. In his words, I'm far too prissy for Roller Derby. What can I say? He's right!