“I hate you and I am not your daughter!” she yells at me on the street.

Option one: laugh.

Option two: sit on bench and wait for tantrum to play out, and Twitter about how hilarious she is.

Option three: pick her up and throw her in car and forcibly attach seat belt and listen to wailing all the way home.

Then she kicks me. Well, that changes the whole dynamic doesn’t it? My four-year old is now hitting out-of-control territory and I’m standing by waiting for the next level of hysteria. And here it comes: 3,2,1...

Has parenting jumped the shark? Or maybe it’s just those people hawking things to parents who seem to have gone a step too far. Two products have hit the stores recently that both have a 'What were they thinking' vibe to them. The first is diaper jeans and the second is chocolate-flavoured toddler formula.

The diapers aren’t actually denim, they just have a denim-like pattern on them, complete with studded pockets. Because you know all-white bottoms are soo last season. The hilarious thing about the denim diapers is not the way they look (which is not so bad) but the way Huggies has chosen to market them.

The Press Release reads: (and see the cheeky commercial after the jump).

Do the names Laura Dekker or Jordan Romero mean anything to you?

Dekker is the 14-year old Dutch tween who wants to sail around the world solo. Romero is the 14-year old who this week reached the summit of Mount Everest, the youngest person to do so. He is now one mountain away from reaching his goal of climbing the seven highest summits.

People tend to fall into two camps when discussing these tweens: the first supports their goals of world fame, Guinness Book of World Record superiority and earth domination. The second group just says WTF?

Breast is best. If you are a pregnant or new mom, the mantra is so ingrained in you that you say it in your sleep, during your fits of crying and while staring down at your baby – no matter what they are eating.

So, if breast is best (and it really is best), why is it so hard to get support for it?

Recently Better Homes and Gardens ran a article on Yahoo’s Shine Network entitled the Top Ten Commandments for Dining with Little Kids. There was the usual anti-kid pointers that even most parents would agree with (sort of like the list that the editors here at MSN.ca put together). But one of the commandments said:

THOU SHALT NOT BREAST FEED AT THE TABLE
Yes, I have seen table-side breast feeding at a four-star restaurant. If at all possible, take it to the ladies room. (Note: most upscale restaurants have really nice restrooms!"

Seven year old Jack started having severe seizures before the age of one. Soon after he was diagnosed with intractable epilepsy which is a category of epilepsy that does not respond to medications. He was placed on a strict Ketogenic diet which is high in fat and low in carbs and his seizures decreased, but not enough.

In January of this year he underwent brain surgery which removed part of his brain to control the seizures. This is actually a dual-surgery procedure that calls for two different surgeries a week apart, because of bleeding on the brain, Jack had a third surgery as well. The surgery was a success, he was transferred to Bloorview Kids Rehab Centre for two months and went home to a very relieved mom, dad and little brother in March.

Watch the amazing video after the jump.

Long before Justin Bieber hit the scene I knew that boys took their hair very seriously. I wouldn’t be surprised if my eldest son believed that his blonde mane gave him superpowers. That would explain his hatred of getting it cut and his constant uttering: “my hair is me.”

It’s not that his hair is just long, the back does hit the nape of his neck, it’s the constant look of bedheadishness that makes it so special. His hair is neither straight nor curly, but that in between that would make women weep with frustration but looks good on men. He sports a “surfer ‘do” reminiscent of Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High but not quite that long.

The funny thing about his hair is that it makes him stick out, even though he insists that he doesn’t want to be different, that he just wants to blend in with the crowd. He uses his crazy hair to say to the world: Look at me, I’m different. Which of course, he is. He is a quirky kid trying to fit in with mainstream Grade 4 boys whose hair all behaves and lies flat.

I have found the answer to why men can open the fridge and can not past the first shelf, and why kids can’t find their library books on the bookshelf marked Library or their rainboots in the cupboard.

I glanced at the Social Studies: A Daily Miscellany of Information in the Globe and Mail a few weeks ago and this headline caught my eye: Can’t See It For Looking? The tidbit  referenced a Duke University study that found that airport security employees may miss a deadly box cutter if they find a water bottle first. They did a series of tests and found that identifying easy to spot items diverted people away from finding the more hidden items.

I love the feeling of my daughter’s toes resting gently on my knees as she is sleeping, her warm breath on my back and I love the feel of her arm slung across me when I wake up in the morning. But I hate being kicked in the gut and woken by her incessant squirming. But that is bed sharing, you take the good with the bad.

Our daughter does not go to sleep in our bed, nor does she end up in our bed every night but if she wakes up and wanders in then we hoist her up and we all go back to sleep. The bonus is that if she is asleep in our bed then she will sleep in until around 9:00 a.m. I would not define ours as a Family Bed, I would say we have a Family Accessible Bed

Sam had a middle child personality even before his younger sister was born. He was (and is) sweet, accommodating and can play with kids older than him or younger. And as he gets older we can already see that Jan Brady-sized chip being carved out on his shoulder. My doula told me that the world needs more middle children because they are the negotiators and mediators of the world, so we do have major world-saving plans for Sam.

Typically, middle children get the least amount of attention and it is true in our house too. Blogger MamaKat admitted to forgetting her middle child's birthday this week and lots of commenters agreed with her that middle child syndrom is real. My husband thinks that the benign neglect may make Sam more sane and capable than the rest of us. It worries me but then I forget about it because my oldest is being ridiculously rude and needs a drive to his soccer practice and his younger sister is so adorable and wants me to put on some music so she can dance.

Yesterday was our wedding anniversary, a dozen years of marriage: three kids, a dog, two deceased cats, two cross-country moves, two houses and countless dirty dishes/laundry/phone calls/arguments and hysterical fits of laughter.

It has taken me more than 25 years together to realize that this marriage is a keeper. I don’t mean that in a “I have one foot out the door kid of way” but more in a “it’s hard for me to believe that this whole marriage thing really works kind of way".” That is my legacy of being a child of divorced parents.