Filed under: Moms, Celebrity babies, Celebrity kids, Television, Rumors, Celebrity parents

Despite what people are saying (myself included), Jennifer Lopez's rep says the star is not about to make television stars out of her children.

The confusion is understandable. Last week TLC released press materials describing the planned 'docuseries' featuring Lopez as one that will "deliver a slice of [Lopez's] life that audiences have never seen before, as she takes on her career and launches a new fragrance while trying to juggle her new responsibilities as a first-time mom."

Today, we have her manager chiming in with clarification. "The recent show Jennifer Lopez plans to produce for TLC is not a reality show," says Simon Fields. "It's a show that will track the creation, production and eventual launch of a new fragrance. Jennifer will appear in a creative, entrepreneurial capacity and will absolutely not feature her children and family life."

I am glad that Lopez isn't going to be exploiting her children but am now wondering just who will watch this new show. Frankly, seeing Lopez working in a "creative, entrepreneurial capacity" sounds a little boring to me. Where's the drama in that?

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Filed under: High school, Public school, Teenager, Weird but True

When Kristoff Wennersten decided he wanted Carolyn Campbell to be his date to the prom, he didn't want to just walk up and ask her. That would be too simple, too straightforward, too normal. He needed something spectacular. Something that would impress the object of his desire and guarantee she said yes.

So the Huron High School senior enlisted the help of his lacrosse teammates and together these brilliant guys came up with a surefire way to get her attention: spell out the invitation on their bare bottoms and display them during a game. Because nothing says "you are special" quite like a row of butt cheeks with writing on them.

Surprisingly, it worked. When Campbell saw "Will You Go To The Prom With Me? Yes or No?" spelled out on the backsides of the 13 players, she responded by tapping on the back of the guy with "yes" on his butt. Not surprisingly, the display got the lacrosse team in trouble.

"Inappropriate is inappropriate," athletic director Dottie Davis said. "It disrespects women, and that's the clear message we need to have the students understand - what may be fun to them isn't necessarily fun to everyone else."

In addition to a receiving a one-day suspension from school, the team members involved must sit out an undetermined number of games and perform 20 hours of community service. Wennersten is unrepentant. "I enjoyed every bit of it," he says.

I don't know what ever happened to the time-tested tradition of just asking a person to be your date, but apparently that is passé.

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Filed under: Lifestyle, Moms, 0-3 months, Infant / First year

I don't know if you've noticed this, but being around very small children can make a grown adult act like a capering, idiotic clown. Witness my daily ritual of singing to my 3-month-old at the top of my lungs during a diaper change:

Did you poop, poop, poop, poop your pants?
Did you poop, poop, poop, poop your pants?
If you're feeling warm and mushy then it's time to check your tushie
If you poop, poop, poop, pooped your pants!

The Poop Poop Poop Your Pants Song is an old family favorite from when my toddler was a baby. We also enjoy the following during baths, sung to the tune of "In The Summertime":

If your figs are clean, then your nuts are very nice
If your figs are clean, then your nuts are very nice
If your figs are clean, you're not stanky you're not stanky anymoooooore

(This is particularly entertaining when accompanied by an Ashlee-Simpson-esque hoedown dance.)

My husband sings an interesting rendition of "Hush, Little Baby" that features his own take on the lyrics:

And if that diamond ring don't shine
Daddy's gonna drink some turpentine
[...] And if that twenty-dollar bill don't change
Daddy's gonna buy you something strange

Riley's heard that song so many times he lustily sings along with his favorite lines: "TUPPENTINE!"

What kind of ridiculous songs are being sung in your household?

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Filed under: Pregnant celebrities, Celebrity babies

Jason Lee, star of the television show "My Name is Earl" and his girlfriend Ceren Alkac are pregnant and expecting the baby in the fall.

Lee has starred in movies like Alvin and the Chipmunks, Almost Famous, Clerks II, Dogma, and was the voice of Voice of Buddy Pine/Syndrome in The Incredibles. Alkac is a model.

Lee has a four year old son with ex-fiancée Beth Riesgraf with the creative name Pilot Inspektor. It would be a shame to follow up a name like that something ordinary like Henry Thomas, so here are a few possibilities for the new baby :

• Conduktor Supervisor
• Racir Qualitee Control
• Truckor Ticketmastor General
• Frycook Telemarktur
• Auto Mehkanic

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Filed under: Toys, Marketing to kids, Spirituality, Indoor Play

Barbie, the iconic American fashion doll, is destroying the youth and the culture of Iran. So says Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi, anyway. Najafabadi is Iran's Prosecutor General and he wants restrictions on the importation of Western toys in order to preserve Iran's Islamic culture. Iran is, according to Najafabadi, the third biggest importer of toys in the world.

It's not just Barbie, of course; Batman, Spiderman, and Harry Potter are subjects of Najafabadi's ire as well. "The irregular importation of such toys, which unfortunately arrive through unofficial sources and smuggling, is destructive culturally and a social danger," he wrote in a letter to Iranian Vice President Parviz Davoudi.

Iran requires women to be very conservative in their dress and Barbie, of course, does not meet that expectation. There have been attempts to create alternatives that do conform to Islamic law, but they have not been successful. "We need to find substitutes to ward off this onslaught, which aims at children and young people whose personality is in the process of being formed," Mr Najafabadi said.

I'm not sure if it is possible to prevent the influx of Western culture or even if they should even try, but I suspect ultimately it will be the children that will decide what sort of toys they really want to play with.

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Filed under: Pregnancy and Birth, Moms, Photography, Weird but True, Spirituality

A couple of years ago, a woman got a picture from her ultrasound and was very surprised to see the face of Jesus hovering over her baby. Now a woman in Ohio has apparently witnessed the second coming. Well, the second appearance of Jesus in an ultrasound, anyway. Instead of seeing her daughter in the ultrasound, Monet Sledge spotted what appeared to be the Jesus on the cross.

What Sledge is actually seeing in the picture is her daughter's outstretched leg bones with the still-developing knees forming Jesus' head. Still, Sledge sees the illusion as a good omen. "People say maybe my baby is gonna be blessed and maybe it is a good sign," said Sledge. "I don't know, I've done wrong in my life, maybe he's forgiven me early."

I dunno... I never saw anything in an ultrasound but bits and pieces of my various rugrats. Maybe I'm just not as blessed. Anyone else ever see something other than a baby in their ultrasound?

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Filed under: Moms, Books, Blogs

I'd heard of the blog Petite Anglaise before, likely from scanning through the blog rolls of parenting blogs I do read everyday. But I hadn't really devoted any time to getting to know it, until a friend told me: Petite diarizes her life as a single Mom in Paris. And she left the father of her child for another man. And now she has a book deal.

Those three sentences were intriguing enough for me to go to her site late one night, where I promptly devoured all of her archives and then, still hungry, searched for more of her writing. It turns out she has a book, based on her true story, popularized in her blog.

It's a bit of a new phenomenon, the blogger turned author, and I find it intriguing. In this case, it's also especially voyeuristic: Petite (who never revealed her true name in her blog, but does in her book) talks specifically about the fact that she left her child's father for another man, a man she met through the comments section of her blog. It's true: real life is stranger than fiction.

I read the book and enjoyed it very much: Petite Anglaise (aka Catherine Sanderson) is a talented writer with a gift for capturing tangible detail in her text. But what is lingering with me, bothering me, are the reviews of her book on Amazon.com and around the web.

Ms. Sanderson is, in my opinion, not being fairly judged on her merits as a writer -- her book is not being judged as a book. Instead, she is being judged as a person, and raked through the coals by readers who do not approve of her choice to leave her baby's father, who call her selfish and horrible.

The author was clear in her description of why she left her toddler's father: they had not been intimate in more than a year, they were placid strangers inhabiting the same space. She craved more.

The whole notion is interesting. Is it OK for a Dad to leave the Mother of his child if he does not love her any more? Is it OK for a Mother to leave her baby's Father if he does not desire her physically anymore? If she does not desire him?

To read the reviews of Petite Anglaise, it would seem that the world has decided that splitting a family for the hope of something emotionally greater is an emotionally stunted decision. What do you think -- is it ever all right to leave your child's parent? I know it can never be an easy decision, but I do think there are just some situations where a divided family is better than a whole.

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Filed under: Newborn, 0-3 months, Weird but True, In the News

I have spent entire years of my life trying to keep babies smiley and happy, but sumo wrestlers in Tokyo hold a yearly contest to make babies cry.

During "crying sumo," a pair of babies is held up in the air by amateur sumo wrestlers until one cries. In the event of a simultaneous freak-out, the winner is determined by which baby bellowed the loudest.

The annual event isn't meant to be mean spirited, though. In Japan, crying is considered beneficial for babies and the ritual is held as a wish for the children's healthy growth. The photos of the giant sumos holding tiny, wailing babies are a little sad, but kind of neat at the same time.

I would have had to leave the room during the competition, but I'm pretty sure my kids could have kicked some major crying sumo butt when they were small!

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Filed under: Teenager, In the News

You didn't have to be a mother to feel the anguish that the children and mothers of the the FLDS sect were feeling when over 400 children were removed from their compound recently.

Like Kristin and many others, I was conflicted over whether the state of Texas had done the right thing. It's no small thing, removing children from their parents, especially when so many of them were babies and young children. But as I watched video after video of the mothers in television interviews, I was struck by how vague and evasive their answers were. It made me wonder, what is really going on here?

Today, a few answers have started coming out. CNN is reporting that of the 53 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 that were taken from the ranch, over half are pregnant or are already mothers. This seems to be in direct conflict with information given by the sect, that teen girls were not forced into spiritual marriages.

In that same teen age range there are only 17 boys in custody. Among kids under the age of 13, there's a pretty even split of boys and girls on the ranch, but this low ratio of boys to girls in the teen years seems to lend credence to the rumor that boys (coined "lost boys") are kicked out of the group once they reach a certain age.

Obviously, the sect has some explaining to do. But instead of doing so, they're claiming that the girls are actually adults and that the state is wrong when they say they are minors. It's a question a simple birth certificate could answer, but I have a feeling that nothing in this case is going to be simple.

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Filed under: High school, Public school, Teenager, Celebrity style, Peer pressure, Weird but True

At least four students at an Oregon high school have fallen victim to a rather unfortunate fashion trend: vertical lines shaved into the eyebrows. This look was popularized by hip-hopper Soulja Boy, but police say gang members have adopted it for themselves. Because of this gang connection, school officials at Centennial High School have prohibited these students with self-inflicted bare spots in their eyebrows from attending classes.

"We don't dictate policy for any schools," Officer David Schmidt of the East Multnomah County Gang Enforcement Team said. "We just tell them what we see the latest trends are. This is a way for them to identify each other. In a school setting, it intimidates other kids."

Until somebody invents an eyebrow toupee, the only way to get rid of the so-called gang symbols is to shave the eyebrows entirely. And that is exactly what school officials want these students to do. One student found a way around that by putting band aids on the eyebrows. That student has returned to school, but the other three are still sitting out, presumably waiting for their hair to grow.

One of the students, Andy Gonzalez, claims he's not a gang member and only shaved his brows to impress girls. I wonder how impressed the girls will be when he shows up with NO eyebrows.

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