You've seen the headlines. Baby dies after being left in hot car. Mom arrested for leaving child alone in the car. No doubt, you've read the warnings too. Don't leave your child in the car! They can be stolen. They can overheat. They can knock the car into gear. ANYTHING can happen, so just don't do it.

Good advice for parents of babies, for parents of toddlers. Except ... what happens when your kids start to grow up? By 16 in most states, kids are legally allowed to drive a vehicle. So common sense would dictate that there must be an age, sometime before 16, when you can legally -- and safely -- leave your kid alone in a car, unsupervised.

So, when can you leave your kid in a car without risking a visit from police? When is it safe for your child to be alone in a car without you?

Believe it or not, there is no one, specific age.

Laws in 19 states make it illegal for children to be left unattended in a vehicle, but the laws vary wildly. In California, for example, a child 6 or younger must be under the supervision of someone 12 or older if they're in a motor vehicle. There's nothing on the books about, say, an 8-year-old or a 9-year-old.

Move to Connecticut, however, and what might be considered safe in Los Angeles or San Francisco could land you in jail. The Constitution State will take action on a parent of any child under 12 left unsupervised in a motor vehicle if law enforcement believe the child was left there "for a period of time that presents a substantial risk to the child's health or safety."

The wording is nebulous, at best, and what's more, that's a five-year age gap from a law in another state! No wonder parents are confused. And what of the 31 states where there's no law on the books specific to kids, cars, and supervision?

Lorrie Walker, training manager and technical advisor for the Safe Kids Buckle Up Program, admits she has no easy answer for parents.

"Every child is different, even children in the same household," Walker said.

When The Stir first approached the global non-profit to answer parents' most common question about kids and cars, Walker noted there was "very little data and not much known about levels of safe supervision and children."

More From The Stir: 'I Left My Baby in a Hot Car': One Mom Shares Her Tragic Story

Following your state's law should be first and foremost on parents' minds (the folks at Kids and Cars have a thorough list of the laws on the books every parent should check), but in cases where there is no law -- or if you want to be extra careful -- Walker suggests the following guidelines:

Yes, they might LEGALLY be allowed to stay in the car in your state, but if they can't protect themselves, you'd be wise to bring them into the store to grab that gallon of milk.

On the other hand, if they're of legal age AND they can recognize and understand when they need help AND if they know how to get out of a locked car on their own, especially if they are sick or overcome by heat and might not be thinking clearly, Walker suggests one more step before making the decision to walk away from the car ...

"If you believe your children could safely exit the car, navigate a parking lot, avoid the potential danger from strangers, and find help, then you might be ready to test their behavior to make sure they are absolutely ready to do this task without you," Walker says. "Test it out while you’re able to observe them to be sure they are following the appropriate steps that you taught them."

After following the laws of your state, the most important thing a parent can do is to follow their own gut.

"You know your child best, and you should trust your instincts, whether it comes to letting you children stay alone in a car, walk to school on their own, or be near water without an adult watching (even older, more experienced swimmers should still swim with a partner every time)," Walker says. "Children mature at different rates and at different ages. It is our job as parents to talk to our kids and educate them on how to be ready for different challenges so they know what to do to stay safe when an adult is not present."

When did you start leaving your kids alone in the car? What was your clue that they were ready?

Image via © iStock.com/AIMSTOCK

Finally, your kids are sleeping through the night. They're even going to bed at a reasonable hour and staying there too! And then it happens. Your child wakes up crying out loud and grabbing their legs. Growing pains: they're not just an '80s TV sitcom. And contrary to popular opinion, they have nothing to do with growth spurts.

"The term 'growing pain' is a bit of a misnomer," says pediatrician Dr. Carol Wilkinson, medical director of Kinsights, an advice sharing network for parents. "Studies have shown that they are not associated with periods of rapid growth."

Instead, these aches in the muscles can simply be signs that your child's muscles are sore from playing hard on the playground or something deeper -- a stress or big social change that can lower their pain tolerance and make it hard to sleep.

So how do you know if your child is experiencing growing pains? And more importantly, what can you do to help? A little advice from the experts:

What to look for:

If your pre-school- to school-aged child (typically anywhere from 2 to 12) is complaining about crampy or achy pain on both the right and left legs during the evening or at night, there's a good chance it's growing pains, according to Dr. Ashanti Woods, attending pediatrician at Mercy Medical Center in Rockville Centre, Maryland. Growing pains can also affect the arms, again bilaterally or both sides.

If the pain is gone by the next morning, don't be alarmed -- or think your child is faking it. "Although it is possible, growing pains rarely present or manifest during the day," says Dr. Woods. "Because symptoms are primarily in the evening, physical exam findings in children with suspected growing pains are usually normal."

In other words, by the time you snag that pediatrician appointment, your kid may be running around, laughing, and playing ... only to end up crying three nights later when the pain hits again.

What to do:

"Massaging the area and helping your child stretch his muscles can help a lot," suggests Dr. Wilkinson. "A heat pack can also be used before bed. If your child is waking up at night from pain, you can also try medication such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen (like Tylenol or Advil) before bed."

When to seek help:

Growing pains are a benign condition that rarely requires medical intervention, but there are some conditions that share similarities and are worth a visit to the doctor. 

"If a child has joint swelling or decrease range of motion, abnormal skin findings (such as bruising or 'new' birth marks), abnormal walking, or enlarged organs such as the spleen or lymph nodes, parents should seek attention from their child's pediatrician," Woods warns.

"Other subtle signs to suggest speaking with your child's doctor include fever, pallor (pale skin), or significant weight loss over a one- to two-month period," he adds.

Have your kids been experiencing growing pains? What do you do to help?

Image via © iStock.com/madisonwi

It's happened again. A month after a mom was arrested for daring to let her daughter play in a park near the McDonald's where she works, another mother has been slapped with a pair of metal bracelets for leaving her kids in a park to play. Only Ashley Richardson's story is especially heartbreaking.

According to cops, the mother of four kids ages 6 through 8 was at the food bank picking up something for her family to eat while her kids played. While she was gone, her 8-year-old tried using a toddler swing and got tangled up, which prompted a call to the fire department. When Mom returned, cops arrested her.

Clearly another case of what happens in America when parenting while poor and black.

Something tells us Richardson wouldn't have been arrested if she'd been a Mercedes-driving mom who'd done the same thing.

But then ... the cops still probably would have been called.

This, ladies and germs, is why helicopter parenting is now so entrenched in our society.

We are terrified of letting our kids out of our sight, even to do little kid things, lest we end up in the pokey.

In Richardson's case, she was allegedly away from her kids for two and a half hours and told cops she didn't think her trip to the food bank would take as long as it did.

Shocked?

Think back to when you were a kid.

More From The Stir: Mom Thrown in Jail for Letting 9-Year-Old Play at the Park

Did you ever spend two and a half hours out of your mother's sight? I know I did, often. I grew up on a back road, right next to a river, and yet the neighbor kid and I would disappear for half the day. Our parents drilled us on not going into the water, so there was no fear we'd drowned. They drilled us on not going near the van with the guy offering lollipops or expecting us to help find his lost puppy, so there was no fear we'd be stolen.

We were allowed to roam, at large, and our parents expected we'd make it home ... eventually.

And no one said a word. Certainly no one called the police on us.

The village of parents willing to step in for their neighbors has long since disappeared. Parents are more likely to call 911 than they are to stop, ask a kid what's up, and lend a hand.

We need only to look at the news to see evidence of this. Mom arrested for letting kid play in park. Mom arrested for leaving (sleeping) kid in (not hot, locked) car. Mom arrested for cursing at kids.

People don't step in to help. They don't stop to consider circumstances. And they certainly don't give other moms a break.

Especially not poor moms who are so down on their luck that they're feeding kids from the food bank ... and probably don't have extra cash for babysitters lying around.

Put yourself in this mom's shoes. Would you leave four kids to play in a park? How long would you leave for?

Image via © iStock.com/Marilyn Nieves

When you're pregnant, a whole new part of the English language opens up. Suddenly you're obsessed with placentas, trimesters, and sussing out whether you should go with a sonogram or an amniocentesis to determine baby's gender. And then you hit the ninth month of your pregnancy, and a new term pops up: cervical dilation.

It refers to the opening of the cervix, the part of the body that separates the uterus from the vagina, and according to Dr. Robert Atlas, an OB/GYN at Mercy Medical Center in Maryland, dilating is part of the body's way of getting ready for delivery.

"As you get closer to term, the body knows to start contracting and opening of the cervix begins," he explains.

Moms have the option of whether or not they allow their practitioner to check whether or not you're dilating -- a process done by putting the hand up the vagina and feeling the cervix to determine whether it has begun to open.

If you allow it, your doctor or midwife will describe a dilated cervix with a series of numbers.

But what do those numbers mean? Dr. Atlas breaks dilation down -- from 0 to 10 centimeters:

O -- Your cervix is closed. This is how it will stay for most of your pregnancy as the cervix separates the uterus from the vaginal opening and protects the baby from infection, Dr. Atlas explains.

1 centimeter dilated -- Start packing that hospital bag, you're on your way to labor land! Doctors measure dilation in centimeters, and 1 centimeter is a "good sign," says Dr. Atlas. It means your body is getting ready for delivery. It doesn't, however, mean that you're going to deliver immediately.

A mom can walk around for weeks at 1 centimeter dilated, Dr. Atlas says, or she can go from 0 centimeters dilated to having a baby in a day. "Every patient is different," he explains. "And if this your first pregnancy, it takes longer to go through the early stages of labor."

Up to 5 centimeters with contractions -- Put contractions and dilation under 5 centimeters together, and you've got what's called "latent labor" or "early labor." That means your uterus is readying for delivery, but again, Dr. Atlas says, when you'll deliver really depends.

He relates the story of one mom who began contracting every 3 minutes when she was just 33 weeks pregnant. She continued like that for weeks before actually giving birth!

The good news is contractions at this stage are typically mild to moderate (think Braxton Hicks), and your body is doing something. Typically your cervix is not only opening but softening and lengthening, making it easier for baby to make the trip from your uterus to your vagina and out into the world.

More From The Stir: 8 Signs Labor Is Approaching

5 to 6 centimeters -- The doctor will see you now! This is the point when "active labor" begins, and typically your dilation will be much quicker after you hit the 5 to 6 centimeter point. Contractions will also likely pick up and become more painful as the cervix works its way toward full opening.

10 centimeters -- Considered fully open, this is the point when moms are considered "ready to push" by OB/GYNs. You may also hear your practitioner say you're "fully effaced," which means the cervix has also elongated to let baby out into the world.

At the end of the day, dilation numbers are good for Moms to know, but Dr. Atlas warns mothers not to get too caught up on finding out how dilated they are or aren't.

"You may have lots of contracting and not dilate. You may NOT have a lot of contractions and be dilating," he says. "Certainly people can go from closed to delivery in a short amount of time!"

Did you start dilating well before delivery? How long did it take?

Images via © iStock.com/bulentozber; © Stepan Popov

I stood, back hunched over to protect my throbbing breasts from the pinpricks of hot water in the shower, and let loose sobs that echoed around our tiny bathroom. My husband waited outside the curtain, begging, "Just give her formula. It's okay. You don't have to do this to yourself anymore." Our daughter was less than a week old. I was a failing at breastfeeding, and I felt like a failure as a mom, as a human being.

It would take another week to give up nursing entirely, and I sank into a bout of postpartum depression that would take some serious anti-depressants to beat. I felt completely alone at the time. But according to a new breastfeeding study, I was anything but.

Researchers at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Sociology have now found a link between breastfeeding failure and higher rates of postpartum depression.

Conversely, they say breastfeeding success is linked to lower rates of PPD.

Just another "rah, rah, breast is best" study to throw in with the rest of them and incite another mommy war? Not exactly. You see, researchers didn't just look at breast vs. bottle. They specifically focused on mothers who wanted to breastfeed and their success (or failure) to do so.

If you want to breastfeed and can't, the study claims you are twice as likely to suffer postpartum depression than moms who planned to formula-feed in the first place.

Makes sense, doesn't it? If you have your heart set on doing something and can't, it only stands to reason that it will affect your mental health. But there's a stark difference between wanting to, say, be in the NBA, and wanting to nourish your child the way millions of women have done for thousands of years.

For me, breastfeeding was always the plan. I was breastfed as a child. I watched my younger brother be breastfed. I read books on breastfeeding while pregnant. I got a breast pump, registered for a boppy.

I was all set to do this.

Then my daughter was born. The nurses cleaned her up and brought her to me, and I tried to get her to latch, but she wanted to go back to sleep. It was OK, the nurse assured me, she'd wake up and be hungry at some point. They wheeled her away to the nursery so that they could get me down the hall to my room.

I didn't get a second chance to try nursing that night.

The next day, when I tried, latching on was a struggle. When I called for help, a nurse who didn't have children of her own and who had never breastfed positioned my daughter at the breast, told me, "If it hurts, you're doing it wrong," then left the room.

My daughter unlatched, began to scream, and as I tried to get her back on, I felt pain. Taking the nurse's words to heart, I immediately moved her. Again and again and again, my newborn would latch, I would feel pain, and I would assume I was doing something wrong, that my child couldn't possibly get the milk she needed. The latch would be broken. My frustrated daughter would cry, and the cycle quickly became vicious.

The nurse's parting "tip" was only a small portion of the bad information I got at the hospital, information that I took as solid at the time because I didn't know just how few maternity ward staffers are educated on lactation. In fact, studies since have shown a direct link between common hospital practices and breastfeeding failure rates.

Those studies came as no surprise to me when I read them and remembered a nurse popping a pacifier in my baby's mouth and -- when I expressed concern over nipple confusion because I was breastfeeding -- told me it was fine. At the time, I took the nurse's word because, hey, she was the "expert," right? Wrong.

I took the nurses at their word when they told me to wake my sleeping baby every two hours round the clock to eat, too. I brought her home, and every two hours, I tried to feed her, going through the latch on/latch off process over and over and over again as my nipples became increasingly chapped.

More From The Stir: An Open Letter to Moms Who Think Formula Is 'Poison'

Oh, and to complicate this all? The remaining effects of pregnancy-induced carpal tunnel made holding my own child painful. My wrists screamed every time I re-positioned her tiny body.

But I was determined to make this work. Moms do it every day. I should be able to.

With no La Leche League in my small, poor, rural town, no lactation consultants at any of the nearby doctor's offices or at my hospital, I smeared greasy ointments on my nipples, rested my throbbing wrists on my keyboard, and I searched the Internet for answers.

The mothers on most message boards were of little to no help. I'm sure there are plenty of lovely folks out there who would have helped, but I seem to have come upon a bad group. Their overwhelming sentiment? Suck it up, buttercup. You have to do this or else you must not love your child much.

I got no solid tips, aside from this: your baby may not be eating enough and that's why she's crying; try pumping to increase supply.

So I did. Every two hours, I woke my baby to feed her. Every other hour, I latched a machine to my breasts and let it squeeze my nipples down tiny tubes, working out whatever bits of milk I could muster.

I was getting no sleep. I was in pain. And my daughter and I both spent much of that time crying -- often in unison.

When I finally threw in the towel on breastfeeding and allowed my husband to start mixing up bottles of formula, some of the exhaustion abated.

The crying did not. I felt trapped in my own home, and yet I feared leaving, had to be begged to actually go farther than the front steps of our porch. I loved my daughter with every inch of my being, and yet I felt like she'd be better off without me. I'd failed to do what it is a mother is supposed to do for her child. My body had failed her.

I look back and I have nothing but love for the man who convinced me to stop nursing. He wasn't an unsupportive husband who didn't think I should breastfeed. He was a man who saw a wife and a child who both needed help. He helped me get medicine, which, in turn, helped me get through the fog of postpartum depression and back to my daughter, while formula helped her flourish.

Nine years later, my daughter is healthy and strong, and I'm well past those awful days of constant crying and self-loathing.

Still, when the topic of breast vs. bottle comes up, I struggle. I feel at times like I'm brandishing a scarlet F on my chest, signaling to the world that I'm not quite up to snuff as a mom.

Studies like this one are bittersweet. It helps to know that I'm not alone, that my response was natural. But it confounds me that -- nine years after I gave birth -- we still live in a world where a large number of moms are told "breast is best" but not given the proper tools and support to actually succeed at breastfeeding.

We should do better. We need to do better.

Not just for the babies but for the moms.

What was your breastfeeding experience like? Did it lead to postpartum depression?

Image via © iStock.com/tusquare

It hits you like a freight train. An awful smell that seems to be coming from the general direction of your child. Welcome to the next phase of growing up: developing body odor. You're about to go from buying bubble bath to buying deodorant for your child, and it all happens in the blink of an eye. 

So is your kid normal? Can they possibly be ready for deodorant when they just learned to tie their shoes yesterday (or so it seems)?

Well ... yes!

Typically, body odor can begin to develop as early as 7 years old in girls, 9 years old in boys, as the body hits puberty. Suddenly, your child is beginning to sweat more and sweat specifically from what are called the "apocrine sweat glands," glands in the armpit and groin region.

"Prior to puberty sweat comes from eccrine sweat glands that usually secrete mostly water and help with cooling," explains pediatrician Dr. Carol Wilkinson, medical director of Kinsights, an advice sharing network for parents. "When puberty hits, apocrine sweat glands kick into action and start secreting an oily substance that bacterial love. It’s the bacteria that naturally grow on our skin that digest this oily substance and leads to the smelly body odor we are familiar with."

More From The Stir: My 7-Year-Old Daughter Has Already Hit Puberty -- Now What?

Hence the reason your sweaty toddler didn't stink. But once the body makes that change, there is no going back. It's why Wilkinson suggests parents help their kids combat the underarm odor.

That means controlling both the bacteria and the sweat. Some tips from the experts to keep your kid stink-free:

1. Make sure your kids bathe daily, and make sure they wash ... with soap! "Just standing under the water will not do the trick!" Wilkinson warns.

2. An extra armpit rinse with a washcloth right before bed (for morning bathers) can do wonders to fight the bacteria.

3. Wash clothes frequently to fight bacteria. 

4. Dress kids in cotton and wool clothing, which allows the skin to breathe.

5. Try baby powder. It can keep the pits dry and help prevent the smell.

6. Buy deodorant. If the baby powder isn't enough, the next step is deodorant ... but make sure it's just plain deodorant.

"Keep it simple and mild. Heavy scented deodorant can be more irritating and actually draw more attention than desired. I find that deodorants that are sticks are easier to use than liquid or gels," says Wilkinson. While you're at it, avoid antiperspirants for young kids. 

"Antiperspirants work by closing sweat ducts using the aluminum. Aluminum can be irritating to some skin," Wilkinson explains. "Also, antiperspirant will make yucky yellow arm pit stains much worse, especially when you try washing it in the laundry. Yellow stained shirts may be worse than sweating armpits ... so deodorant alone may be the best option in the end!"

Of course, convincing your kids to stamp out the smell might be the hardest part of all ... but it all comes back to good hygiene, says Dr. Wilkinson.

"Talking to your kids early about why we practice good hygiene will help set the stage later on when it matters. Taking showers frequently, washing clothes, brushing your teeth twice a day, even changing out of pajamas into school or work clothes are all part of practicing good hygiene."

What are your best tips for keeping the stink at bay?

Images via © iStock.com/RapidEye; iStock.com/4774344sean

When I reached out to a photographer friend to book our family portrait, I had just one request. We need to schedule an appointment for sometime before the babysitter leaves for college. We didn't need our babysitter to occupy our child or encourage her to smile with funny faces. As a family portrait photographer myself, I've seen it happen, but our daughter is 9 and quite capable of following directions. Instead, we were booking a pre-college shoot because our babysitter needed to be in our family portrait.

In as in standing in line with my husband, my daughter, and me, smiling at the birdie.

He made it happen, and the photos are everything I wanted them to be. But as soon as I uploaded them to Facebook, the comments flooded in.

"Is that M. in your family photo?"

"Love that you have the babysitter in the photo!"

"Did you really have your babysitter in your family portrait?"

It's not your typical family portrait make-up, I'll give you that. But then, ours is not a typical family.

My husband and I long ago settled on having just one child (for myriad reasons -- but that's another essay entirely). And then a second "child" found us.

It happened when my daughter was 5. After working part-time and then freelancing, I'd decided to return to full time work, and I needed a mother's helper to keep my daughter occupied in the summer between pre-school and kindergarten. I asked around and ended up hiring a teenager named M.

Each day, she would come in the morning, spend the day playing with my daughter, and leave in the late afternoon. My daughter was having the time of her life, and I was happy with the playmate/caretaker who was making my life easier.

But when summer ended, the relationship between my daughter and M. did not. M. began joining us on family outings, tagging along to my daughter's soccer games to cheer her on, showing up at the town's holiday festivities to help her make gingerbread houses and ornaments. But here's the thing -- she didn't ask to be paid. In fact, she volunteered to come hang out at our house just because ...

Soon she was jokingly calling my husband Poppa, and me Jommy (Mommy with a "J" for Jeanne). Our daughter she dubbed her "Jister" (sister with a "J" for my daughter's name).

By the time summer rolled back around, there was no question that she'd return to once again act as a mother's helper. I paid her that summer -- as I have each summer since -- but she would regularly hang around after work was over, and as the years have passed, she's spent more and more time with our family. If we were going to a hockey game or even just shopping, the first question my daughter would ask was, "Is M. coming?"

Usually she did.

More From The Stir: My Daughter Loves Her Babysitter Too Much

This busy teenager made sure to carve out time for my kid. And if she couldn't be there in physical form, she was FaceTiming with my daughter or making funny comments on my Facebook wall, texting my husband photos of her cat or calling us up just to say "Hey gurl, hey!"

In the past four years, she has earned a key to our house, and a sign on the guest room door that reads "M.'s room" (she did help me paint it, after all).

To not have her in our family portrait would have been odder to me than it was to folks who were surprised to see her there.

If I were to walk outside of the situation, I could see their confusion. Why is this teenager this important to our family? And who am I kidding thinking the teenage sitter will be a constant in our lives, even as she goes off to college?

The worry has crossed my mind.

But that old lyric from the Broadway show Wicked always plays through my mind when I think about M., chasing away the worry:

I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you...

My little girl is who she is today because of M. My family is the family it is today because of M.

Because as much influence we, the parents, have over our kids, we also have to admit that the babysitters we hire are shaping our kids' lives. That's why it's so important to choose a good one.

I think I did ... and I want a photograph of my family to reflect that.

How does your babysitter fit into your family dynamic?

Image via Kevin Ferguson Weddings

June Cleaver. Carol Brady. Marge Simpson. The list of TV moms we all wish were our own is long and varied. And since Parenthood debuted on NBC, it's grown to include Kristina Braverman, mother of three, breast cancer survivor, and the type of candidate for city mayor who will stop everything during a town hall meeting to pass her phone number to a mom in crisis. Kristina Braverman is the mom we want and the mom we want to be, and without actress Monica Potter, there is no Kristina Braverman.

Like her character, Monica is a mother of three. And like her character, the soft-spoken actress shines on the homefront -- she even has a growing line of home products -- in a way that lifts other moms up rather than making us feel inadequate.

Parenthood fans who are bemoaning NBC's decision to give us just one more season, and a shortened one at that, have heart: Kristina Braverman is alive and well and living in California. 

Proof?

When The Stir spoke with the actress about the final season of the cult hit show and being a busy mom, she called from her personal phone line, not blocking the number. I thought it was an accident until late in the call when she jokingly said, "You have my number."

Then there was the back and forth that happens when you talk to Monica Potter. You interview her. She interviews you right back.

Where are you from? How old are your kids? What's her name?

When I confessed that one of my daughter's favorite songs is "Mrs. Potter," the Counting Crows song written by Adam Duritz about the actress before -- in her words -- they "dated for a minute," she laughed and asked me to videotape her singing it and send it her way.

Did she mean it? She sure made it sound like it.

It sure seemed like the woman who stepped off the podium during a mayoral town hall in Berkeley could be this woman on the other end of the phone line, calling for moms to stop stressing themselves out over being the perfect mom.

So what does Kristina, er, Monica think will happen in the last episode of Parenthood? Why has she suddenly become a Facebook maven, churning out Tuesday tips for busy moms and sharing her own throwback photos on Thursdays, in between cool behind-the-scenes looks at what goes on on set of everyone's favorite show about parenting? Some thoughts from Mrs. Potter:

On being Kristina Braverman:
People have asked me how much of myself is in Kristina, and I would say about 90 percent. We've sort of become one person. She's given me the balls to do things ... I hate that word but I just said it! Sometimes I say it, and I just, I don't know ... She's a go-getter, man. I'm the same way. Maybe that's why [Parenthood producer] Jason [Katims] hired me.

On her favorite Parenthood character:
Zeek, for sure. He reminds me so much of my dad. I love that man with all of my being. I said to Craig, why don't we do a spin-off, and he started laughing. I said, you know, we can do a show -- a half hour -- where you play my dad. It will confuse people a little bit! But that's OK. I would love that more than anything.

On her favorite Kristina parenting moment:
Teaching Max to dance and also when [Kristina] got in the back of the car when they picked [Max] up from the trip. As a mom, those moments ... please. It just reminds you of your own life.

When I went shopping for Liam -- my middle one -- for his first prom. His first and only prom. It was just one of those moments when you want to enjoy and relish. Those moments are fleeting.

On her most magical moment of motherhood:
When the three of my kids are together, and they're getting along, and it's quiet, and we're just having a nice little dinner, and you feel serenity. No one's in a rush to go anywhere. That's why I look forward to the fall and winter. I feel like summer is so busy. I love to make big pots of stuff on a Sunday and make homemade bread even if it doesn't turn out right.

Having the kids here, watching the Browns game on a Sunday ... and just relaxing with them and hearing them laugh. It's so funny to watch Molly and Danny bicker. I get a big kick out of that. They're so much alike, my 23-year-old and my 9-year-old!

On being a mom to her 9-year-old vs. her 23-year-old:
Everything is different [with 9-year-old Molly]. My values are the same; I want them to grow up with integrity, but I was a kid when I was parenting Danny and Liam. I was 23 when I had Liam. I think you go a little bit slower.

I was always moving with Danny and Liam, always in the car going to auditions and castings and rush, rush, rush, always had this high level of anxiety and gotta do, gotta be, gotta make. I have a drive that will always be with me. I'm very Type A. I like to create and make and figure out and take care of, but I think with age I'm really taking the time to -- as corny as this sounds -- listen to the birds.

On starting her Mrs. Potter home line (yes, it's a reference to the song):
It sort of started organically. My father was an inventor. My mother was a homemaker; she was a cleaning lady as well.

He was always tinkering with things in the basement, creating things, and I was his pal who helped him do all this stuff. Growing up in a household like that, I've always had that drive, that creativity, that gene that sort of stays with you.

More From The Stir: Dear 'Parenthood', PLEASE Don't Kill Off Kristina Braverman

I started working on products for the home through my website, a lot of DIY stuff. People kept asking me can you try this, can you help me make this, and I just started to work on some things and we're sort of blossoming into a little business.

Everything we do is handmade, hand-crafted, and hand-poured. I work with a lot of local artisans and makers in the Ohio area. We're looking to sort of branch out and work with different people in different communities as well to make really good, quality products that people can use and bring jobs back to the area.

On being a crafty mom:
When I was first married, I was just 18 and we didn't have a lot of money. [My oldest son] Danny and I would actually do stuff -- as hokey as this sounds -- and we would collect things from outside. We were living in Cleveland at the time, and in fall, we would collect leaves and dry them, and we'd find branches from different types of trees and make wreaths and things like that.

I still do that today. I have a magnolia tree in the front, and I'm drying the leaves from that and making a fall wreath and glazing them.

I've always been a crafty kind of a gal.

On Pinterest stressing out moms:
It is overwhelming when you look at that stuff. I had to take a step back from it! I do a lot of stuff because I love to do it, but if you start to go on those sites, you start to feel bad about yourself.

I look at those things, I actually have anxiety. I have anxiety because I feel like I'll never measure up to what those things are.

You're going to make huge mistakes and fall right on your face. That's something that I really want to stress to people -- especially moms.

I say you do what you can.

Order [your child's birthday cake] from the grocery store if it doesn't turn out right. I do!

I am not Betty Crocker, Martha Stewart. I'm the complete opposite. I love those women; I think they're wonderful, but you have to just allow yourself to make mistakes and learn from them and grow.

On sharing her failures:
I have made so many things that have just turned out to be so crappy, which I'm going to share because I have photos of them.

It's not about perfection. There's no such thing. You can try; it's never going to happen.

I like to share the stuff that worked for me and say what happened -- whether it's a craft or a parenting tip. I'm learning as I get older with parenting, a lot of moms that I know, that I can relate to ... you always feel like you have to put your best foot forward and put on a smile, which you do in life, but I also feel that if you can sort of talk to other moms who are going through the same thing that you're going through, it allows us as women to exhale and go wow, that person is going through this as well. It's not all roses and daisies over there.

Whether it's a recipe that went wrong, something you did wrong as a parent, something you're learning as you're growing in your own life as a woman ... I like getting older because I'm learning all that.

On Parenthood ending:
I am beyond. I am ... yeah. It will allow me to do other things, like I just bought the house I grew up in and I'm going to go back and refurbish that. It's going to be the face of the brand -- and that's great. But I'm going to miss going to work every day!

I'm going to miss my castmates, my family, my second home.

I'm going to miss [TV husband] Peter [Krause] the most, and Max, I think. I don't want to ever play another wife on television for someone else. I told him that, and he started laughing and said, "I don't want you to either."

We've already shot two episodes and because we're only doing 11 -- 13 total but each castmember is doing 11 -- that means I only have nine left.

I was talking to Jason last week, and I said we should think about maybe doing some more episodes. He was like, I know, and I said, why don't we go shop this somewhere else? Why don't we go shop this over at Amazon or Netflix? You know, Community did it!

On her ultimate series finale:
I think super simplistic, you know. Adam and I having a hug and holding hands and life goes on, like nothing is tied up in a pretty bow and finished.

I think what I'd like to see as a viewer is to know that the Bravermans are still living their lives. I don't think anything should be quote unquote completed or final. I'd leave the door open!

I don't ever want to see the Bravermans finished, like everything's either great or fixed. That's not what life is. That's not what our show has been.

What is your favorite Kristina Braverman moment?

Image via Monica Potter

They say it takes a village to raise a child. For mom Sonia Green, the global village of parents is helping her protect her children every time they get their kids vaccinated. That's because three of Green's four sons aren't vaccinated.

They can't be. All sufferers of an immune deficiency called x-linked agammaglobulinemia, a rare condition that affects approximately one in 200,000 newborns, Harrison, Holden, and Davis Green's bodies can't produce antibodies to disease, rendering vaccines ineffective and sometimes downright dangerous.

But when other kids are vaccinated, their mom says it helps create what's known as a "herd immunity," a sort of security blanket of health for kids like the Green brothers. It's why the law professor is a fierce advocate for the very immunizations that her kids can't get.

Sonia Green spoke with The Stir about 15-year-old Harrison, 11-year-old twins Holden and Langford (the latter of whom does not have the condition), and 9-year-old Davis, and why it is she thinks the burden should be on the community to keep all kids safe:

How were the boys diagnosed with an immunodeficiency?
By the time Harrison was 18 months old, he’d had several ear infections (and had tubes), a number of colds, and had also had a pseudomonas infection in his lip, and a staph infection. He also often got little irritating coughs. We’d tried various doctors and finally sought out an immunologist at Children’s Memorial in Chicago, thinking that maybe it was allergies. It turned out that not only was his body not overproducing the immunoglobulins that cause allergies, it was actually very deficient in those antibodies.

More From The Stir: Mom Celebrates Each Day She Has Left With Her Dying Baby

The allergist sent us to the immunologist, and he confirmed that Harrison’s body basically does not make mature B cells, which are responsible for immune system memory. Since this condition is usually genetic, the immunologist tested Harrison and tested me to see if I was a carrier. I am.

What about your younger sons?
Knowing that I am a carrier, we tried to conceive our twins using IVF with preimplanation genetic diagnosis. We were trying to avoid having more kids with this condition. We worked with an amazing embryologist in Michigan -- very high tech: a cell from all the embryos was courriered from Chicago to Michigan -- but his tests failed to disclose which embryos has the particular genetic abnormality.

However, he thought he’d be able to test the embryos for gender and only put in female embryos. This condition is x-linked, which means that in order to manifest it, the person has to be XY (thus, a boy) and have inherited my X chromosome with the defect (so a 50/50 chance for every boy). Girls who have an affected X, like me, do not have the condition, but are carriers. Anyway, the testing went awry somewhere, and we ended up with two boys. When the amnio disclosed that I was carrying males, we had in utero testing done and found out that twin A had the condition. This was confirmed at birth.

And your youngest?
When the twins were 6 months old, I got pregnant surprisingly and amazingly the old-fashioned way, and we had our youngest. With Davis, the in utero testing was inconclusive, but he was tested and diagnosed at birth.

What does XLA do to their bodies?
XLA basically means that their bodies do not make mature B cells. B cells and T cells together regulate our immune systems: kids with more severe primary immune disease (PID) like those with severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID, or “Bubble Boy syndrome”) don’t have T cells or B cells, and thus have no working immune system. My boys have working T cells, which means they can fend off some viruses. Without B cells, however, they do not produce any immunoglobulins, which means several things if they are untreated. Their bodies have no immune system memory, so if they contract something, their body won’t mount an immune response and won’t “remember” to mount that response again, so they could get the same thing many times.

How is it treated?
They take a daily antibiotic -- Harrison, for example, is on Cipro, which is pretty hard hitting -- as a prophylactic to keep them from getting sick. They also get an infusion of a medicine called intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) to give them a temporary, partial borrowed immune system. This gets depleted, so they need to rebuild it every 28 days. There is no cure for their condition that is safe and effective, so this is what they will have the rest of their lives, unless things change.

Even with treatment, they are not at 100 percent. They are still more susceptible to certain viral infections like meningitis, and the risk of a viral infection becoming severe is much higher for them than those with normal working immune systems.

What's your biggest fear as a mom?
Meningitis. Viral meningitis. Other viral conditions against which my boys cannot be protected even with their medicines. Also, any unusual bacterial infections that reoccur in the populace. The boys’ IVIG medicine is made from blood plasma of healthy, immunized adults and protects them to those limits. If anything pops up anew or again in the populace, my boys won’t be protected. I’m also worried that people won’t be honest about whether their kids are vaccinated, and that there will be some outbreak in my community.

How does XLA affect your own sons' ability to be vaccinated?
At best, the vaccine would do nothing, since the vaccine works because the body remembers the intruder and mounts a response of that intruder strikes again. Without a memory like this, the boys’ bodies would do nothing. At worst, the vaccine could actually make them sick, especially if it were a live vaccine.

How do you handle encountering unvaccinated kids?
I have not personally met someone who admits that their kids are not vaccinated. If I did, I would plead my case in person, and would be very clear that my kids could NOT associate with those kids. I will fight for my boys, and would not be afraid to take this to an extreme: not associating would mean no playdates, no “hanging out” together at recess, but even more than that.

I would ask that the school not put that kid in my boys’ classrooms (not even that of my “healthy” son, since he could become a carrier) or allow those kids to have lunch in the same lunch room as my boys. I would tell the boys’ soccer clubs, band, drama clubs, etc., that my boys cannot be with an unvaccinated child and would put the burden on them to basically exile the unvaccinated child. I believe that societally, there has to be a cost to putting others at risk, and I think that my community would be supportive.

So, your boys go to school. What was the decision like to send them to school, where they could encounter unvaccinated kids?
My boys all attend our local public schools. Davis has just moved up to middle school (starts in 5th grade for us) and the twins are in sixth grade there. The middle school has about 500 kids. Harrison is at our public high school which has about 3,200 kids.

I have to say that it was all much easier when they were in tiny Montessori schools (through first grade) where we knew all the families. We did not consider homeschooling them because our doctor never recommended it, and because we really believe in the importance of social interaction, but we did think about smaller, private schools. Ultimately, though, we went with public schools because we are still in a small (up to high school at least) community with excellent schools, and the district does take vaccinations seriously. If we lived in a state where it was easier to opt out (Illinois requires medical reasons), we might have had to make different decisions.

What is the response from the school when you make requests about unvaccinated kids being kept away from them?
Incredibly responsive. Again, it helps that the elementary and middle schools are small, and near our home, and we know the nurses, principals and even the school board superintendent. The high school has been a little less responsive, but I think that schools these days are pretty well set up to handle so many different medical issues that they do have a good system in place.

What's it like sending your kids to do things where they might encounter sick kids?
It’s scary as hell. It has gotten less scary with every passing year that I see them staying healthy, but for my comfort level, I need status quo -- lots of vaccinations -- or better. When I hear that there are trends AGAINST vaccination, I’m back to where I was with a 3-year-old Harrison, wondering every day what bug he could catch at school.

As a family, we’ve definitely had to make choices on how to live our life and who to trust. We are incredibly lucky to have an immunologist whom we trust 100 percent. If she says it’s OK for them to go to school, then that’s what we have to do. It’s definitely a struggle for me to let go, but I have to do what’s best for them. So, we’ve never let them feel like they are sick or “different.” We need for them to stay healthy, but we also really want for them to grow up feeling confident.

Have you ever noticed a sick kid around your kids and had to spring into action? What happened?
It’s funny, but this actually makes me thing of all the times I DIDN’T spring into action and wish I had. Before Harrison was diagnosed, we let him play with a girl who was obviously sick, and he got her cold, just much much worse. Even post diagnoses, there have been some times when I’d let it slide, and of course I remember the ones when I did, and my boys got sick.

When the boys were younger, I would sometimes call a parent and ask that a playdate end early if I saw that a kid was sick. I have asked to move away from people in restaurants and move theaters if they are visibly sick. Once, I asked parents on my boys’ soccer team to let their kid stay home from practice because he was coughing a lot. But, a lot of times I let it go. If I know that a kid has been coughing for a while and is no longer contagious, I’ll let him play with my kids. A lot of parents are also very good about clearing things with us.

Now that the boys are getting older and making plans for themselves, I have to trust them to know when to leave someone’s house or not hang out with a friend if they see that the friend is sick. It’s tough, but they have to learn.

Why do you advocate for other kids to be vaccinated when yours can't be?
I know -- through research -- and believe that vaccines prevent disease. I want everyone to be as healthy as possible, so I advocate for vaccines. Very selfishly though, I also ask that other kids be vaccinated EVEN IF the value to them is nil because it DOES help my kids. A kid who would or wouldn’t contract a condition -- or contract it, but not have it be serious -- regardless of vaccination might not benefit from a vaccine. But, if that same kid contracts something that doesn’t hurt HIM, he is now a carrier and could easily pass it along to one of MY boys, on whom it would have a much worse effect.

More From The Stir: Meet the Mom Who's Taking on Anti-Vaxers

My boys are essentially magnets for these conditions, so they are likelier to get them if anyone is a carrier, AND, if they do get them, they are much, much likelier to be very serious and potentially fatal. We rely on herd immunity 100 percent to keep my boys healthy. We have so many friends in the primary immune disease community, and I think there are many others who are not diagnosed. These people -- and others who are immunocompromised, like infants, and chemo patients -- need herd immunity to stay healthy.

Herd immunity is pretty important to your family! What do you say to parents who say it's not their responsibility to keep your kid safe?
Best case scenario is when I can explain in person that I am NOT asking the parent to take the primary role, but just to help the many things we do to keep our kids safe. I try to make it clear that if it costs them nothing, then it’s worth doing the good thing. It’s tougher when they place a strong negative cost to vaccinating, but I try to dispel that. I am not asking for anyone to do anything that’s not also in their own kids’ best interest. If they are already vaccinating, then they feel better, I think, knowing that they’re not just protecting their kids but also keeping my kids safe. If they are on the fence, and aren’t convinced that their kid needs vaccines, then sometimes hearing that it could help someone else puts them over the edge.

I try to make the analogy to putting seat belts on other kids: every parent I know will buckle a guest child before her own if she ends up with more kids than seat belts in the car. I make the analogy to how we all watch extra carefully for kids on crosswalks around schools, and how, as a community, we DO protect each other, and each other’s kids all the time. To me, this is nothing new or different.

I did see a very hateful comment in response to an interview about how “deficients” shouldn’t use up public resources. There’s nothing I can say to that. Someone who thinks along those lines isn’t someone I’m going to convince, and hopefully I would spot someone that hateful in person and just stay away.

I think that many people don’t really think about herd immunity these days, and it’s great that we’ve come this far, but I feel like I need to keep us from become too complacent about it.

How does herd immunity affect your decision to vaccinate (or not) your own kids?

Image via Sonia Green

The diagnosis comes. Your child has what's commonly known as a "special need." So you turn to the experts, to the books, to anything and anyone who can answer the questions swirling through your head.

But if there's anyone you should be asking how to proceed now that your child has a diagnosis, it's the people who have already walked in your shoes -- the mothers of other kids with special needs. So we asked moms of kids -- moms who have autistic kids, moms who have kids with limb differences, moms with kids who were born with Marfan syndrome, even moms who have their own differences -- for one essential "life tip" they would give to any other parent who is about to embark on the journey of parenting a child with special needs. Here's what they had to say:

1. Laugh. "Life is so hard. Parenting is hard. Parenting kids with disabilities is hard. Finding things to laugh about makes it not just better, but kind of awesome. Laugh about yourself. Laugh with your kids. Find yourself a goofy pet and laugh at it. When something is so terrible that you say, 'It'll be funny later,' take the time and laugh now. Just like I learned from a motivational board on Pinterest (the best advice always comes from Pinterest): Laughter is the difference between an ordeal and an adventure. Life is an adventure. Treat it as one." -- Jean Winegardner, blogger at Stimeyland and mom of an autistic child

2. Don't lose yourself. "Everybody always tells you to let people know that your child is not only his or her diagnosis -- that there is so much more to them than their autism, or their extra chromosome, or their cerebral palsy. What they often fail to mention is that you need to make sure that you don't pigeon-hole yourself into that same corner. For the first few years of my son's life, I truly began to lose myself while buried under all of the appointments and evaluations and therapies. It took me a long time to figure out that my entire identity had somehow been overtaken and that I needed to stop and take some time to remember who I was beforehand. Don't forget to continue to find time for the hobbies, friends, and little luxuries you have always enjoyed -- be it a massage or a cup of coffee solo." -- Jamie Krug, blogger behind Jamie Krug, Author and mom of a little boy with autism

3. Accept that it's OK to get angry. "Try to give oneself a crash course in acceptance of an idea that may be radical to those who are people pleasers or shy -- you will have to take up arms. Those arms will be courage, tenacity, and sometimes sustained righteous anger. As the parent of a special needs child, you are the only person who will speak and fight for your child. You will like to think better of the world. You will be disappointed. This will change your life." -- Leigh Merryday, blogger at Flappiness Is and mother of an autistic child

4. Ask questions! "You are your child's best advocate. If a doctor or specialist tells you something that doesn't feel right, ask more questions. Even if it may take more time, visit a different specialist or call different therapists and ask extra questions. Additional research can help you make decisions especially if they are different from a doctor's recommendation." -- Jen Lee Reeves, blogger at Born Just Right and mom of a little girl with a limb difference

5. Find your safe space. "For every new, uncomfortable, and out of the comfort zone experience we attempt as a family, I need at least a dozen hours in my safe space. With my people. With people who understand that [my son] is just ... [my son]." -- Jessi Bennion, blogger at Life With Jack and mom of a little boy who was a micropremie at birth

6. Find THEIR safe space. "In hopes of avoiding a meltdown, and because self-harm is not an issue, I leave my kids alone and give them time to self-soothe and gain control over their situation when they are experiencing overload. Because I am autistic and experience these things as well, I know that when someone steps in with the intention of calming or 'helping' me, they are (unknowingly) controlling the situation and doing what they feel is best without taking into consideration what I want or need. For my kids and me, this is seen as an intrusion and causes more aggravation and stress and tends to prompt or intensify the meltdown rather than avoid it. Respect your child’s needs, find out what he or she prefers: A Safe Place? Headphones with music? A walk outside, maybe? It’s important for parents to find out what their child wants instead of what they feel they would want if the situation were reversed." -- Renee Salas, blogger behind S.R. Salas Autism Blog and autistic mom to autistic kids

7. Think before you speak. "Watch how you talk about your child's disability in front of them, or how you let others talk about it. They internalize more than you may realize." -- Maya, blogger behind MarfMom and mom of two little boys, one who has autism and the other Marfan syndrome; Maya also has Marfan

8. Get used to waiting. "Be prepared for waiting rooms and doctor's offices with a bag of familiar toys and books or have games that you play each time you wait so the time goes by quickly and your child is less focused on trauma and instead focused on fun. We have played 'I Spy' hundreds of times!" -- Diane Lang, blogger behind Momo Fali and mom of an autistic child

9. Set a good example. "When people stare at you child, especially disapprovingly, don't bother telling them off. Instead, be an example to them by showing them how you communicate with your child. This takes practice (and patience), but it is the thing that works best for me." -- Laura Shumaker, blogger at LauraShumaker.com and mom to a 28-year-old son with autism

10. Laugh. What? We said that already? It's that important, folks. "Humor is a very powerful and healthy coping technique that helps release endorphins, the body's natural painkillers. It's also supposed to tighten abdominal muscles though we have no evidence to support this in our own lives. Despite laughing all the time, we still have belly weight left over from our babies (who are now ages 15 and 17 respectively)." -- Gina Gallagher and Patty Terrasi, sisters behind Shut Up About Your Perfect Kid and moms to kids with special needs

What are your best tips for other parents who have kids with special needs?

Image ©iStock.com/kali9

When my daughter was born, my circle of friends changed. There were the old friends but new ones too: moms I met on the playground or at story hour, moms who I ran into at pre-school drop-off. Having kids tends to bring you together. But as many of those friends have gone on to have more kids, just as many of those friendships have fallen by the wayside.

There's a divide that seems to exist with many between me -- mother of one -- and them -- mothers of many. It's to a point where I simply don't talk about my parenting struggles much, even as other moms pour out tales of trying to wrestle three over-tired little ones into bed.

I could talk about my exhaustion, about being over-extended and at my wits' end, but with all but my closest friends, I've found I sense a palpable air of disdain.

"What does she know about hard? She's only got one kid!"

It's true. I am a one and done mom and happy with my choice too. It fit for my family, just as two, three, four ... or even more fits for others. There are advantages to raising one kid, just as there are to raising many.

But if there's one myth about raising only children that needs to be busted wide open, it's the idea that somehow my life is "easier" because I stopped after one.

Motherhood -- be it parenting one kid or many -- is hard. And being a mom of one means dealing with myriad issues moms of many never face: 

1. There is no built in entertainment. There is no big sister to play cars with, no little brother to throw the ball to in the backyard. Even when you're bone tired after a long day of work, playing with your kid is completely on you.

2. There is no built-in best friend. It's true, not every child is friends with their sibling, but most siblings share an emotional relationship. At the very least, when a child is angry with Mom and Dad, they have a sounding board in the room down the hall to listen. When there's no brother or sister to listen, that anger has to come out somewhere ... and often it's right at YOU, the parent.

3. Family "discounts" are a rip-off. Ever heard the term "family four-pack"? We never get the discount! And when the town pool lets entire families get in under one fee but expects us to pay extra for our only to bring a friend, it's hard not to notice the disparity. 

4. No chance to chill out. When the second baby comes around, parents know what they're doing. They get to relax and enjoy things a little more. For those of us with one kid, on the other hand, we carry the stress of everything being new to us all the time, plus the stress of knowing we only get one chance to get this right.

More From The Stir: 10 Reasons It Stinks to Be an Only Child

5. We're constantly badgered about our choice. "When are you having another one?" "What do you mean you aren't having another one?" "It's not fair to your daughter not to give her a sibling!" "Clock is ticking, why aren't you pregnant again yet?" The questions and demands made of one-and-done families are rude, invasive, and constant. For some reason saying you're having an only child is tantamount to saying "I know you know more about my uterus, sex life, financial status, and marriage than me, so ask me anything!"

6. Our kids are constantly questioned about our choices. Nothing irks me more than when someone stops my daughter to ask her, "Don't you want a little brother or sister?" For starters, no, she doesn't! She has never asked for one and, more to the point, has specifically told me at various times that she's glad not to deal with certain things her friends with siblings do. Secondly, it's an adult decision, and it's pretty low of you to try to put it on a little kid's shoulders.

8. We're constantly worried about our only children being judged for, well, being only children. Sure, every parent worries about their kids. But even when we're sure we made the right choice, and even though science is largely with us on the notion that only children turn out A-OK, there remains a society-wide perception that we are spoiling only kids or turning out anti-social freaks. Like any other parent, we just want what's best for our kids, but the myths about only kids are daunting ... and tend to follow even the most well-behaved, non-spoiled, wonderful kids in the bunch.

9. There's no strength in numbers. Send two kids out for a bike ride 'round the neighborhood, and you at least have the sense that one will look out for the other. With only kids, you just have to trust that they'll be OK. At times, parents of only children are singled out as being the worst of the helicopter parents. It's an unfair assessment of a group that practices a wide range of parenting practices, but this is one concern that may explain it.

More From The Stir: 8 Surprising Scientific Facts About Only Children

10. We spend a lot of money and just barely reap the rewards. Oh, dress she wore once, we hardly knew ye ... and there's no little sister to get at least one or two extra wearings out of it. In fact, when the annual "it costs X amount of money to raise a child to adulthood" figures come out, parents of one are faced with the notion that most of the expenses cited in the figures are actually evened out across multiple kids. You only have to buy one house, for example, or one family health insurance plan -- regardless of the number of kids.

So there you have it. Being a mom of one is .... not all unicorns and glitter. But it is absolutely right for me.

Have an only child? What's your biggest struggle?

Image via © iStock.com/Sean_Warren

Sensory play. It's a term that's becoming better known as more and more kids are diagnosed with various special needs in America, special needs that make them more prone to crave sensory input. They want to touch things, to feel things, to squish them between their fingers and actually get a tactile sense of the world around them.

So how do you satisfy their cravings? How about some crafts designed for your little sensory seeker?

Moms from around the blogosphere have created some fun projects for kids with various special needs, and we've rounded up the best of the best. From colorful paints to put on bathroom walls to fizzy dough they can sink their hands into, there's plenty of play ahead for your family.

How would you use number four?

Image ©iStock.com/dcdp

It's a classic movie scene. The woman finds herself running to the bathroom to throw up, and suddenly it dawns on her, "I'm pregnant." Indeed, morning sickness is one of the classic signs of pregnancy, and some 85 percent of pregnant women will feel nauseated and throw up in the first trimester. But that's not every mom's story. For 2 percent of expectant mothers, an extreme morning sickness called hyperemesis gravidarum sets in sometime before the ninth week of pregnancy.

They're not just a little nauseous. They can't keep anything down. They're losing weight. They're dehydrated. Their OB/GYN is throwing around words like "ketones in the urine" and "liver abnormalities."

Hyperemesis gravidarum, or HG as it's commonly called, is one of the most common causes of hospital admissions for pregnant women. And unlike a mom suffering from run-of-the-mill morning sickness, a woman with HG will have unrelenting nausea and vomiting with no other obvious cause.

"HG is really the extreme end of the spectrum in which symptoms may lead to dehydration, weight loss, and at times, hospitalization," explains Dr. Alyssa Dweck, an OB/GYN with the Mount Kisco Medical Group in Westchester County, New York. "Weight loss, ketones in the urine, electrolyte imbalance, thyroid and liver abnormalities may be present."

In other words: this is not your typical nausea that can be quelled by eating salty crackers.

More From The Stir: Kate Middleton's Awful Pregnancy Condition Is One I Know All Too Well

Why this happens to some women is unknown, although rapidly rising human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG) and estrogen levels are likely related, and according to Dweck, women with "multiple gestations" have an increased risk. Old wives' tales have linked this kind of extreme sickness to carrying girls, but Dweck said there have been no studies backing up this urban legend -- so don't expect this to be your early gender predictor.

Do expect it to send you to your doctor.

"Inability to tolerate any liquids, decreased urination, weakness, dizziness, and other signs of dehydration warrant prompt medical attention," Dweck warns. "Persistent nausea and vomiting is concerning, especially if anti-nausea medications are not helpful."

A doctor or midwife can check you for weight loss as well as electrolyte imbalance and ketones in the urine. If an HG diagnosis is made, treatment varies. In more severe cases, intravenous fluid rehydration is required, and some moms with HG are admitted to the hospital where they may be fed through the IV as well to replenish the nutrients their body has been rejecting.

Pregnant women with HG are often prescribed pyridoxine (vitamin B6) and/or anti-nausea drugs so they can return to regular eating and a regular routine.

If you want to go a more natural route, Dweck recommends ginger supplements and acupressure to the inside wrist pressure point. Some women can also manage the condition by avoiding triggering stimuli, rest, and eating small but frequent meals, but your OB/GYN or midwife can help you build a treatment plan that will work best for you.

By the second trimester, severe morning sickness symptoms tend to abate with most HG patients, although it varies from woman to woman.

And while all of this may sound uncomfortable, there is a bright spot to having a hyperemesis gravidarum diagnosis:

"There is minimal effect of vomiting on the developing fetus," Dweck says. "In contrast, the miscarriage rate is lower in those with HG."

So all that throwing up may just help your pregnancy after all!

Have you encountered hyperemesis gravidarum? What was your treatment plan?

Image via © iStock.com/ValuaVitaly

I suppose it's what most little girls dream about: one day finding themselves in the same boat as a princess. Only, for Kate Middleton's sake, I wish her current condition wasn't one she shared with a mere commoner. Word has it the Duchess of Cambridge is pregnant with baby number two, and she's been stuck in a hospital suffering from a severe morning sickness known in the medical community as hyperemesis gravidarum.

Been there. Done that. Have the torn up esophagus and acid reflux medication prescription to show for it ... nine full years after my daughter's birth.

In fact, nine years after giving birth, I'm still not as brave as the Duchess. I won't be having another child. The reasons are myriad, but the fear of going through another pregnancy like my first is high on the "reasons to be one and done" list.

Like Middleton, I too ended up in the hospital while I was pregnant.

Twice.

Each time, I had to have a needle shoved into my veins and have fluids pumped into me via an IV to rehydrate my pregnant body after hours of persistent and uncontrollable throwing up. What has tied me -- and thousands of other mothers -- to royalty is not your garden variety morning sickness.

So, what is hyperemesis gravidarum?

Think of the worst hangover you've ever had. Take away all the alcohol (I was pregnant after all) and double the throwing up. Now add in fear coursing through your veins, fear that your body is rejecting the life you've been so excited to have growing inside you.

That was the week I found out I had an extreme form of morning sickness that affects around 2 percent of pregnancies.

It started on a weekend. I'd just found out I was pregnant the week before, and we'd yet to tell anyone because it was so early on in the first trimester. I was lying on the couch, sleeping off the exhaustion of early pregnancy, and I woke up feeling an overwhelming urge to vomit.

At first, I was excited.

OK, OK, disgusted and excited. Even as a bulimic teenager, I never enjoyed vomiting, but this was different. This was the classic sign that life was indeed forming in my uterus. This was magic!

But then I threw up again. And again. And again. And again.

As the night went on, I gave up on making it to the bathroom and simply stayed on the couch and grabbed for the garbage can. I managed to eat something small for dinner (forgive me, but nine years later I haven't a clue what it was), but it promptly came back up. It was a long, sleepless night.

By morning there was nothing left in my body, and yet when my husband offered me breakfast, the thought made me nauseated. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't produce tears. I was that dehydrated.

It was so early on that I'd yet to visit the doctor's office for a confirmation of my pregnancy (my dotor's office will not let you come in until your second trimester, which I've since learned is fairly common), and I'd used various doctors in the rotation for my annual but had no one particular practitioner with whom I'd developed a relationship. It was just as well. I got the guy on call who told me to hang up the phone and go directly to the emergency room.

More From The Stir: Extreme Morning Sickness in Pregnancy: Why It Happens & How It's Treated

Let me tell you something about emergency room nurses. They are rock stars at finding veins and starting IVs. They're used to doing it in high stress situations and on people who are extremely sick.

The nurse couldn't find a vein in either of my arms because of my dehydration. She had to call someone to help her, and they finally got a needle into my hand. 

The bags hung on my IV were a mix of fluids and a medicine known as an anti-emetic, meant to stop the roller coaster in my stomach. My husband and I would spend most of Sunday night in that ER as relief slowly dripped into my veins.

I was sent home that night with orders to follow up with my OB/GYN's office. By the time the office opened Monday morning, I'd already thrown up several times, including the few crackers I'd managed to nibble on for breakfast.

When I arrived at the OB/GYNs office (after several stops along the roadside to ... well, you know), they did a few tests (I remember peeing in a cup but not much else) and gave me a diagnosis: hyperemesis gravidarum.

And then they told me I needed to go back to the emergency room. I was already dehydrated and in desperate need of IV fluids. So I was put in a wheelchair and wheeled downstairs to once again have nurses stick needles in my arms to try to find a vein and once gain spend hours with fluids being pumped into my body. 

I was also given a prescription for another anti-emetic, this time one I could take on my own, and an order to tell work I would be staying home for several days as I would need to rest.

I was about six weeks pregnant. I had no intention of telling my boss I was pregnant at this point, but I had no choice. I was going to have to give a good reason for staying home for five straight days.

I got through the call and returned to my couch where I lay unable to move as this time the roller coaster swooped up and down and around in my head. After a day of the terrible headaches -- which were making me nauseous (oh, the irony!) -- I called the OB/GYN's office and reported I wasn't feeling any better.

This time they blamed the headaches on -- wait for it -- the anti-nausea medication! I was ordered to stop immediately and prescribed a second drug, one that would also prove to be in-effective. 

Finally, they gave me a medicine created to help chemotherapy patients fight nausea. The little white pill and I were to become fast friends.

For nearly seven months, I took that medicine daily, in order to stand up straight, to go to work every day, to keep down enough food for my daughter to flourish in my body.

I still struggled with nausea that made taking my giant horse pill prenatal vitamins next to impossible. I still tended to do best when eating greasy (read not exactly healthy) foods, the type that you eat when you have an actual hangover (but I repeat, no alcohol was consumed during the gestating of this baby!). I had days when I could barely stand up from my bed because I'd yet to have my pill and my stomach was doing flip flops. My boss became used to me running out of the room mid-conversation to hit the bathroom.

Between the throwing up from the HG and the wicked nature of the heartburn I suffered in the latter months of my pregnancy, I ended up with an acid reflux diagnosis shortly after delivery. My primary care physician assured me that it was probably temporary and I'd only have to take medicine for a few months to heal my esophagus. Did I mention that was nine years ago? I'm still on the medicine.

And yet, I know mine is not the worst run-in with HG that a mom has had.

HG is considered the "extreme" end of morning sickness, but even within the diagnosis there's a range of bad to worse. Some mothers-to-be end up in the hospital for days on end. Some get not just IV fluids for dehydration but get all of their food that way for a period of time too.

Unfortunately, it's so closely tied to the condition that most of us know about -- "regular" morning sickness, if you will -- that it's often pooh poohed by a society used to women simply munching on some Saltines, throwing on some Sea Bands, and getting back to work. It can't be that bad, they say. Just suck it up, they say.

But the more talk there is in the media about the royal mummy's tummy trouble, the better it is for all moms with HG.

If Kate Middleton, with all her money and all the advantages of living a fairy tale existence, can't just "suck it up" and muddle through, perhaps the rest of the world will get the picture that there's morning sickness and then there's this outlier, a condition which requires a lot more than just pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. We aren't trying to milk a system or get extra sympathy for our pregnancy.

We're too busy fighting to get up off the couch.

Did you have HG? What was your experience like?

Image via Oli Scarff/Staff/GettyImages

When I found out I'd given birth to a little girl, my first thought was that my husband would be thrilled to get "his girl." My second was one of relief: someone whose "parts" I get! I can do this!

Indeed, it made those first few diaper changes easier. It's bound to make conversations about tampons and bras easier too (all in good time). But there's one area where I've struggled. What is my daughter supposed to call the female body parts that we share?

I know the technical terms. Vagina. Vulva. And despite early hesitance to do so, I've taught them to my now 9-year-old daughter over the years.

But at 9, she doesn't refer to her vagina or her vulva. Sometimes she says "crotch." Sometimes "cha cha." 

Go ahead. Laugh. But it's her body. Is it so wrong for her to use silly euphemisms to describe parts of it?

Sex educators warn that parents need to teach kids the "right" words for their anatomy lest we make kids feel ashamed of certain parts of their body. I wholeheartedly agree.

It's why my 9-year-old owns Is It Normal, a pretty frank book about the body and the reproductive system. It's why I've told her that babies come out of a mom's vagina (most of the time, anyway!), given her a basic talk on menstruation to prepare her for the inevitable, and why she will get the full talk on birth control in a few years (she's only 9, so no, we haven't covered the IUD yet, y'all).

More From The Stir: 8 Mom-Approved Books on Puberty That Kids Will Actually Like

I'm pretty sure that what we've told her has had an impact. Just a few months ago, a little boy showed her his penis, and she marched immediately to us -- her parents -- with a horrified look on her face and cried, "C showed me his penis!" She used the correct term, and she was not afraid to speak up. Stressful as the situation was, I was heartened to know she'd listened to my many speeches about boy private parts and girl private parts, about privacy and saying "no."

We aren't hiding anything from our daughter. We aren't destining her to teenage pregnancy or an STD by not arming her with the realities she'll need to survive as a female.

Still, she doesn't use the word "vagina" when describing her own body. Still, we hear euphemisms.

Still, I'm unperturbed.

Because the idea of teaching our kids about their bodies is to make them knowledgeable and comfortable. And from my observation she's COMFORTABLE using euphemisms about her private parts, as comfortable as she is calling her underwear "unders," poop "brown stuff," and flatulence "farts." To her, those words are normal. They don't make her feel that her female body is shameful. If she did, I doubt she'd be so willing to march stark naked around our house on a daily basis.

I suppose I could force her to be more technical, but I confess that even as I'm comforted by the idea that she's comfortable with her body, I'm also a little confused by the insistence of late that our kids must use medical terminology in order to be comfortable with who they are.

More From The Stir: 7 Ridiculous Reasons Women Give for Wanting a Daughter

The argument I hear most often is that kids don't have "silly names" for the elbow, so why have them for the private parts?

Fair enough, only ... Americans have plenty of "silly names" for body parts. Ever said "butt," "tummy," or "tootsie"? Do you say your ulnar nerve and humerus hit when you bang your arm or do you say you hurt your funny bone? And when was the last time you told a teenage boy to pull up his pants as his "gluteal cleft" was showing?

Face it -- we all use silly words. So long as we know the "right" ones to use at the "right" times, we all do OK.

What words do your kids use to refer to their private parts? Do they know the "real" terms?

Image via © iStock.com/emholk

I'm not sure why I thought this year's Halloween costume search would be different. Maybe because my daughter has asked to dress up as a panda for the holiday? The costume makers couldn't possibly use the cutest and cuddliest of bears to divide boys and girls down gender lines, can they?

Oh, but they can. Because once again, when I plugged my daughter's Halloween costume request into Google, the results came back with options for boys ... and options for girls. Naturally, the costume pictured with a little boy covers all the skin and looks, well, like a panda. The option for girls?

As my daughter -- a hardcore panda fanatic -- said when she saw it, "Pandas don't wear ruffled skirts!"

To be fair, the "girls" panda costume is not nearly as objectionable as some of the -- for lack of a better word -- sluttier costumes for "girls" that I've found over the years.

See? No too low for words neckline, and her arms are actually covered.

So why the beef? Well, for starters, my daughter wants to look like a panda, not just dress up in a short skirt in the bitter cold.

"Pandas have fur," she told me, "I want fur on my legs!"

And yet, when I peruse the Internet, all "regular" panda costumes (aka those that cover the entire body and actually resemble the animal) feature boy models. Those featuring female models all show a varying degree of skin -- some are truly on the "icky" end -- and are more "black and white" outfit than they are representation of the popular bamboo-eating creature.

More From The Stir: I Won't Stop Telling My Daughter She's Beautiful

Sure, I can (and probably will) dress her in the costume that a boy is modeling. But I still have to ask: why are we genderizing costumes to begin with? Specifically costumes that have no gender to start with?

I'm not talking about a little girl modeling a Princess Elsa dress here or a little boy dressed up as Sheriff Woody -- the characters dictate gender, and while I would have no problem seeing a boy dressed as Elsa OR a girl as Woody, the costumes themselves are static.

Lest I come off as one of the femme-phobic ranters on the Interwebs, I should also point out that it's not that I have a problem with frills or foofs. My daughter dressed up as a princess not one but two years running, and a fairy another, because that's what she wanted. But that's not what she wants this year. She just wants to be a panda.

It's the costume industry's insistence on separating girls and boys in places where there is no reason they can't be gender neutral that gets my goat. Because to go Halloween shopping is to be launched into the 1960s, where little boys can wear pants and little girls have to morph into some sexed up, beskirted version of whatever it is they have in mind for the holiday.

Take what happens when you start looking for a firefighter costume for a child. Firefighter. Not fireman or firewoman. Firefighter. Party City offers this "boys' reflective firefighter costume," making it clear this is just for BOYS.

As for the girls? Well Party City only offers this for firefighter outfit for girls:

Note the impossibly short skirt and thigh high boots. Know any firefighter who is rushing into a burning building in that get-up? Me neither.

This is the message we send our girls every Halloween with the "girlified" costumes: boys can actually resemble the very thing they want to play act, but you need to dress as a sexed up, not quite right version of the thing you want to be for the night because, really, honey, you need to stop dreaming so big!

I'm sure I'll hear a whole load of comments about how I should just suck up and buy the generic costume (advertised with the boy in it) and stop asking for "special" treatment for my daughter, but here's the thing: I don't want my daughter to be treated "special" at Halloween. I'd like her to be treated just like the kid she is ... a kid who wants to dress up like a panda rather than some "girlified version" of one.

Do you have a beef with the Halloween costume industry? Let's hear it in comments!

Images via © iStock.com/ronniematthews; Buy Costumes; Party City; Party City

Breastfeeding mamas have made the big time! Actress Olivia Wilde allowed photographers to take photos of her breastfeeding son Otis, standing (OK, technically sitting) arm-in-arm with other moms who "dare" to breastfeed in public. Not seeing the big fuss? Glamour magazine put Wilde on the cover ... and the breastfeeding shot in its spread on their cover girl.

It's official. You can breastfeed and still be a vibrant, sexy, fashionable woman. Isn't that what we expect to find in your standard women's magazine, after all?

Check this baby (and mama) out:

Lovely. Isn't it?

So natural. So normal.

The spread is in Glamour's September issue, which will hit newstands August 12, but it showed up on the magazine's website just in time for World Breastfeeding Week and shatters outdated notions of breastfeeding moms as being part of some crunchy cult of women who eschew the trappings of modern femininity.

Breastfeeding moms -- they're just like us.

Because they ARE us.

More From The Stir: Moms Breastfeed in Very Public Places to Make Nursing 'Normal' (PHOTOS)

It's true that breastfeeding mothers have been in national magazines before. Who doesn't remember that disastrous TIME magazine article with its incendiary "are you mom enough" tagline.

But what Glamour -- and Wilde -- are doing with this photo isn't challenging moms, not even moms who choose to formula-feed. It's celebrating them. It's reminding women that we can be many things all at once -- moms, sexual beings, fashionistas, thinkers, doers ...

Said the actress to the magazine:

Being shot with Otis is so perfect because any portrait of me right now isn’t complete without my identity as a mother being a part of that. Breastfeeding is the most natural thing. I don’t know, now it feels like Otis should always be on my breast. It felt like we were capturing that multifaceted woman we’ve been discussing—that we know we can be. You can be someone who is at once maternal and professional and sexy and self-possessed. [But] I mean, I certainly don’t really look like that when I’m [typically] breastfeeding. And there’s usually a diaper involved.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

What do you think of this photo of mom and baby? Is this what you want to see more of in national magazines?

Images via Patrick Demarchelier/Glamour

If there's one thing the makers of Bravo's Extreme Guide to Parenting got right, it's that American parents can -- and should -- turn to the new reality show as a guide. A guide of what not to do to their kids, that is.

The network that has made the word "housewife" synonymous with up-turned tables and lady brawls is now turning the lens on parents who the show's title sequence says are "America's greatest parents ... at least they think they are."

In a premiere that airs tonight at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT, we meet Shira Adler, mom to an "indigo child" who practices "eco-kosher, shamanistic organic, natural, and for highest and best good" parenting (say that five times fast). In other words? She carries around crystals, is constantly spritzing her kids in the face with an aromatherapy spray, and has no discipline plan whatsoever.

Then there are Scout Masterson and Bill Horn, whose hands-on approach to parenting means never leaving their daughter alone. Never. Ever. Ever.

The latter couple is no stranger to reality TV; you may remember them as the "guncles" on Tori Spelling and Dean McDermott's pre-scandal show, Tori and Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood. Adler, meanwhile, advertises herself online as a "certified past life regressionist, inspirational host, writer, and speaker who can help you in person, at workshops, and through phone sessions."

It's hard to tell whether these parents knew going into filming that they would become the butt of the producers' jokes, but the show does little in the way of giving real parents any sort of "guide" to the particular parenting styles the stars practice. There are no tips. No how-tos. Instead it's clear that Bravo cast around for the kookiest parents on the planet ... the more to judge, the better.

It would be easier to simply roll our eyes at these off-the-wall parenting practices if it weren't for the kids featured on Extreme Guide.

Simone, Masterson and Horn's 3-year-old daughter, is a delightful little imp, with crisp pronunciation and an attitude that's just the right side of sassy. But her fathers have structured their entire lives around her, even moving their jobs to their home so they can be there 24/7, making every decision for her (seriously, their nanny is Scout's mom, but she can't even choose what Simone will eat for lunch without one of the dads weighing in). When asked about date nights, the men are quick to say they don't actually "want" time away from their toddler. Or, as Horn puts it, he wants to spend every waking minute with her.

He's not exaggerating. 

We'll excuse you for a moment to go gulp down some fresh air. We're starting to feel a bit closed in ourselves.

Adler, on the other hand, isn't stifling her kids. In fact, 10-year-old Yonah could use a little more attention -- at least attention of the right kind. His mom, who believes we all carry an aura of a certain color, describes her youngest child as an "indigo." When a psychiatrist suggests she make changes because he's not succeeding in school as is, Adler insists that these kids who color outside the lines are made to change the world. Why would she change a kid who is supposed to change the world?

Her struggle against a school system that suggests medicating her son is admittedly heartbreaking -- and familiar with countless parents in America.

But her 10-year-old lies to her face about having a bullet in his school bag only to contradict himself ... and Mom doesn't even raise an eyelid (and certainly doesn't discipline him). Her response to most things is to spray something in his face; meanwhile, her 12-year-old -- better behaved -- daughter is largely ignored.

Mom and Dad ... do not try this at home!

These two couples represent only two of the "extremes" Bravo promises to bring us on Thursday nights ... which might just be the scariest part of all.

Will you be tuning in to the show? Think you can learn anything?

Image via Bravo

They say breast is best, so it's hard to imagine a hospital advising a mom who wants to breastfeed that she shouldn't even attempt to nurse. But that's exactly what happened to a new mom in Oregon this month. Crystal Cain was told she couldn't breastfeed her daughter in the hospital because she's used medical marijuana since pregnancy. 

Take note of the word "medical." Cain is not your garden variety pothead. She actually took the drug -- legally -- on the advice of her midwife as a means to control both anxiety and nausea during pregnancy.

Cain's daughter was born eight weeks premature and required a hospital stay before coming home. That's where the mom says she was told she couldn't nurse the child because of her marijuana use. She didn't want to stop the treatment because it was helping her, but she didn't want her child to miss out on the benefits of the breast either.

When Cain put up a fight, the hospital backed off, forcing her to sign a waiver that acknowledged the potential risks of simultaneous marijuana usage and breastfeeding.

It's about as happy a medium as you can expect, but the issue certainly opens up a debate for mothers across the country. Who gets to decide what moms are doing while breastfeeding, especially in respect to legal drugs such as marijuana? A mother? A doctor? Who?

Who decides what's worth the risk to baby and what isn't?

More From The Stir: Mom Explains Why Her 4-Year-Old Uses Medical Marijuana Every Day

As medical marijuana usage gains popularity -- and legality -- in various states, there are bound to be more and more moms who are nursing ... and inhaling.

While the American Academy of Pediatrics still advises breastfeeding moms to pass on the bong, the pharmaceutical means used to treat conditions such as anxiety also scare breastfeeding moms. The medical establishment seems to waffle on the safety of taking antidepressants while nursing so often that it's hardly surprising that a mom might choose a more natural option.

Some moms opt out of breastfeeding entirely, turning to formula, because they just don't feel the risk is worth it. But it's hard to say which is better for baby -- getting the benefits of nursing with the drawbacks of anxiety and depression treatment (of any form) or going on formula to avoid those risks but not getting the nursing benefits.

Unfortunately, there isn't much medical research on marijuana usage while breastfeeding. No wonder -- what mother wants to be the one who puts her baby at a potential risk for the sake of science? That puts hospitals in a sticky position. On the other hand, moms need to make the decisions best for them and for their babies, and we need to be trusted to make that decision.

Would you smoke pot and breastfeed at the same time? How about taking antidepressants?

Image via © iStock.com/hidesy

Go walking through the toy aisle at any store, and you're bound to see the term "non-toxic" bandied about. It's a term parents should take with a (giant) grain of salt. After all, a government agency just put out a call for a permanent ban on five different phthalates in items made for kids. 

Phthalates, if you haven't heard the term, are a group of chemicals used to make plastics more flexible and harder to break, and they commonly show up in kids' toys and other childcare products. Now for the scary part: the CDC says phthalates can affect the reproductive system in lab animals. The EPA calls the plasticizers "endocrine disruptors or hormonally-active agents," and the National Toxicology Program warns the chemicals may adversely affect human reproduction or development.

And these are in our children's products?! In 2014?

It turns out some of the scary chemicals have been removed over the years. Certain phthalates haven't been used in pacifiers, soft rattles, and teethers since 1999, for example, and three more phthalates (there are more than a dozen types) were banned in 2008.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg.

According to a report issued last month by the Chronic Hazard Advisory Panel, an arm of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, diisobutyl phthalate (DIBP), di-n-pentyl phthalate (DnPP), di-n-hexyl phthalate (DnHP), and dicyclohexyl phthalate (DCHP) are all used in kids' products -- and should all be banned, even at microscopic levels. The panel also called for an interim ban on diisononyl phthalate (DINP) be made permanent because that chemical "had maximum potential for exposure to infants, toddlers, and older children."

There is good news here for parents, although frankly not much. The panel concluded most of kids' exposure to these dangerous chemicals came not through their toys and other childcare items but through food, beverages, and drugs.

But it's there.

Mouthing teethers and toys, for example, were cited as a source of exposure to DINP for young kids.

So much for non-toxic and safe for children, huh?

The thing moms really need to ask their legislators is why is this stuff in kids' products at all? It doesn't matter if it's at microscopic levels or if it's not the main source of contamination for kids.

It's there. That's a problem.

More from The Stir: The Ultimate Non-Toxic Baby Guide: How to Find Safe Products for Your Child

If back in 1999 they were already seeing issues with this stuff, why are we still dealing with it 15 years later? How many millions of kids have been exposed in that time? And how many millions more WILL be exposed until someone does something?

NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has introduced a bill in the Senate to expand prohibitions on what is used in production of children's products -- but it's still just sitting in a committee, waiting for someone to care enough to move it forward.

It's hard for us as parents to really find the time to write our legislators about chemicals in kids' products. We have enough on our hand between changing diapers, helping with homework, and trying to pay our bills.

Sadly, however, this is what it means to be a parent ... to fight for our kids at every turn. So while we should be able to buy something that says "non-toxic" and actually spend our (rare) free moments playing with said "non-toxic" play thing with our kids, giving them our quality time, instead this is what we face: a world where we can't trust the big guys to help take care of our little guys (and girls).

What are you doing to keep your kids safe from these scary products? Did you know this stuff was still hiding in there?

Image via © wojciech_gajda