Friday Randomness

• This article about children with feeding problems really touched home for me. The stories here are pretty dramatic (one child with a feeding tube would only use the tube while hiding in a closet) and the improvements seemed to come quickly (one child seemed to have her problem solved in four months), but the frequency of feeding problems (one in four children, with severe problems in 3-10% of the population according to one person cited in the piece) surprised me.
• I think we should all be playing k.d. lang's Hymns of the 45th Parallel this weekend to send good musical vibes to Elswhere and family as they head for Vancouver. If you ever plan on moving again, you must read Elswhere's Notes from the Malevolent Heart of Packing
  It is one of two brilliant posts on packing from this summer, the other by Tenured Radical, who offers us "Ten Commandments of Moving."
• Parents who are decluttering or moving should take heed of TR's 8th commandment, worth quoting at length: "If you haveth children, and you are getting rid of all kinds of toys and kid things that they will never play with or use again, do not put them on the street for the trash man. A relative of mine once found his children howling inconsolably at the window as their discarded, forgotten belongings such as games, broken car seats, befouled crib mattresses -- transformed before their eyes into Precious Things -- were being scooped up into a dump truck on the special pick up scheduled prior to moving day. Such things must be spirited off in the dead of night after the children are in bed or when they have been sent off on a sleepaway." A few days ago I cleared out part of the basement, making sure to put many Precious Things into black trash bags. But the tray for an old booster seat? That sat atop a table. Curious Girl is actually charmingly naive. "Look Mommy! This got into the trash by mistake!" she said in horror. Politica tried telling her it was broken, but CG insisted it is "VERY SPECIAL TO ME." Politica said she could use it in her playhouse for a few days. I helped her clean it up, and tried telling her that she had never used it (which I thought was mostly true). "No, I used it for painting while you were feeding me," she said. And I realized she is right. We have a photo of her being tube fed, playing with special paints we had as a feeding time treat. Darn that good memory. So now we have the Very Special Tray gathering dirt in the playhouse, where it can be spirited off another week.
  
• As I appear to be the blogosphere's go-to gal (at least according to my statcounter key word info) for info on jellyfish stings, I must point out this study as reported in the paper of record. According to the Times snippet, a recent study shows that vinegar is effective in treating jellyfish stings (not that most of us pack it in our beach bags, but that's another thing). We found that packing wet sand on the sting helped relieve CG's discomfort (but it was really the Muppets that did the trick, and I am a little pleased at being the top google result for "jellyfish muppets." tee hee.) The study didn't address wet sand, though. I couldn't actually find the study at the Medical Journal of Australia's website, but it seems to have published a plethora of studies on jellyfish (the most recent of which suggests hot water, not vinegar, is effective). So I will stick with the Muppets as my treatment of choice.