Os Flintstones num Google Doodle

Happy Anniversary ;)

Ora isto interessa-nos / Now you've got our attention ;)

Planeta Tangerina + Tate Publishing = delirante, delicioso, a devorar já ;)

The Normal Newborn and Why Breastmilk is Not Just Food

What is a normal, term human infant supposed to do?

First of all, a human baby is supposed to be born vaginally.  Yes, I know that doesn't always happen, but we're just going to talk ideal, normal for now.  We are supposed to be born vaginally because we need good bacteria.  Human babies are sterile, without bacteria, at birth.  It's no accident that we are born near the anus, an area that has lots of bacteria, most of which are good and necessary for normal gut health and development of the immune system.  And the bacteria that are there are mom's bacteria, bacteria that she can provide antibodies against if the bacteria there aren't nice.

Then the baby is born and is supposed to go to mom.  Right to her chest.  The chest, right in between the breasts is the natural habitat of the newborn baby. (Fun fact:  our cardiac output, how much blood we circulate in a given minute, is distributed to places that are important.  Lots goes to the kidney every minute, like 10% or so, and 20% goes to your brain.  In a new mom, 23% goes to her chest- more than her brain.  The body thinks that place is important!)

That chest area gives heat.  The baby has been using mom's body for temperature regulation for ages.  Why would they stop?  With all that blood flow, it's going to be warm.  The baby can use mom to get warm.  When I was in my residency, we would put a cold baby "under the warmer" which meant a heater thingy next to mom.  Now, as I have matured, if a baby is "under the warmer," the kid is under mom.  I wouldn't like that.  I like the kids on top of mom, snuggled.

Now we have a brand new baby on the warmer.  That child is not hungry.  Bringing a hungry baby into the world is a bad plan.  And really, if they were hungry, can you please explain to me why my kids sucked the life force out of me in those last few weeks of pregnancy?  They better have been getting food, or well, that would have been annoying and painful for nothing.

Every species has instinctual behaviors that allow the little ones to grow up to be big ones and keep the species going.  Our kids are born into the world needing protection.  Protection from disease and from predators.  Yes, predators.  Our kids don't know they've been born into a loving family in the 21st century- for all they know it's the 2nd century and they are in a cave surrounded by tigers.  Our instinctive behaviors as baby humans need to help us stay protected.  Babies get both disease protection and tiger protection from being on mom's chest.  Presumably, we gave the baby some good bacteria when they arrived through the birth canal.  That's the first step in disease protection.  The next step is getting colostrum.

A newborn baby on mom's chest will pick their head up, lick their hands, maybe nuzzle mom, lick their hands and start to slide towards the breast.  The kids have a preference for contrasts between light and dark, and for circles over other shapes.  Think about that...there's a dark circle not too far away.

Mom's sweat smells like amniotic fluid, and that smell is on the child's hands (because there's been no bath yet!) and the baby uses that taste on their hand to follow mom's smell.  The secretions coming from the glands on the areola (that dark circle) smell familiar too and help the baby get to the breast to get the colostrum which is going to feed the good bacteria and keep them protected from infection.  The kids can attach by themselves.  Watch for yourself!  And if you just need colostrum to feed bacteria and not yourself, well, there doesn't have to be much.  And there isn't because the kids aren't hungry and because Breastmilk is not food! 

We're talking normal babies.  Breastfeeding is normal.  It's what babies are hardwired to do.  2009 or 209, the kids would all do the same thing: try to find the breast.  Breastfeeding isn't special sauce, a leg up or a magic potion.  It's not "best. "  It's normal.  Just normal. Designed for the needs of a vulnerable human infant.  And nothing else designed to replace it is normal.

Colostrum also activates things in the baby's gut that then goes on to make the thymus grow.  The thymus is part of the immune system.  Growing your thymus is important.  Breastmilk= big thymus, good immune system.  Colostrum also has a bunch of something called Secretory Immunoglobulin A (SIgA).  SIgA is made in the first few days of life and is infection protection specifically from mom.  Cells in mom's gut watch what's coming through and if there's an infectious cell, a special cell in mom's gut called a plasma cell heads to the breast and helps the breast make SIgA in the milk to protect the baby.  If mom and baby are together, like on mom's chest, then the baby is protected from what the two of them may be exposed to. Babies should be with mom.

And the tigers.  What about them?  Define "tiger" however you want.  But if you are baby with no skills in self-protection, staying with mom, having a grasp reflex, and a startle reflex that helps you grab onto your mom, especially if she's hairy, makes sense.  Babies know the difference between a bassinette and a human chest.   When infants are separated from their mothers, they have a "despair- withdrawal" response.  The despair part comes when they alone, separated.  The kids are vocally expressing their desire not to be tiger food.  When they are picked up, they stop crying.  They are protected, warm and safe.  If that despair cry is not answered, they withdraw.  They get cold, have massive amounts of stress hormones released, drop their heart rate and get quiet.  That's not a good baby.  That's one who, well, is beyond despair.  Normal babies want to be held, all the time.

And when do tigers hunt?  At night.  It makes no sense at all for our kids to sleep at night.  They may be eaten.  There's nothing really all that great about kids sleeping through the night.  They should wake up and find their body guard.  Daytime, well, not so many threats.  They sleep better during the day.  (Think about our response to our tigers-- sleep problems are a huge part of stress, depression, anxiety).

I go on and on about sleep on this site, so maybe I'll gloss over it here.  But everybody sleeps with their kids- whether they choose to or not and whether they admit to it or not.  It's silly of us as healthcare providers to say "don't sleep with your baby" because we all do it.  Sometimes accidentally.  Sometimes intentionally.  The kids are snuggly, it feels right and you are tired.  So, normal babies breastfeed, stay at the breast, want to be held and sleep better when they are with their parents.  Seems normal to me.  But there is a difference between a normal baby and one that isn't.  Safe sleep means that we are sober, in bed and not a couch or a recliner, breastfeeding, not smoking...being normal.  If the circumstances are not normal, then sleeping with the baby is not safe.

That chest -to -chest contact is also brain development.  Our kids had as many brain cells as they were ever going to have at 28 weeks of gestation.  It's a jungle of waiting -to-be- connected cells.  What we do as humans is create too much and then get rid of what we aren't using.  We have like 8 nipples, a tail and webbed hands in the womb.  If all goes well, we don't have those at birth.  Create too much- get rid of what you aren't using.  So, as you are snuggling, your child is hooking up happy brain cells and hopefully getting rid of the "eeeek" brain cells.  Breastfeeding, skin-to-skin, is brain wiring.  Not food.

Why go on and on about this?  Because more and more mothers are choosing to breastfeed.  But most women don't believe that the body that created that beautiful baby is capable of feeding that same child and we are supplementing more and more with infant formulas designed to be food.  Why don't we trust our bodies post-partum?  I don't know.  But I hear over and over that the formula is because "I am just not satisfying him."  Of course you are. Babies don't need to "eat" all the time- they need to be with you all the time- that's the ultimate satisfaction.

A baby at the breast is getting their immune system developed, activating their thymus, staying warm, feeling safe from predators, having normal sleep patterns and wiring their brain, and (oh by the way) getting some food in the process.  They are not "hungry" --they are obeying instinct.  The instinct that allows us to survive and make more of us.

Onda / Wave

Edição Portuguesa - GATAfunho

Suzy Lee's website

How to apply sunscreen

How much do I need?

At least six full teaspoons for an average adult. Anything less reduces protection.

How do you apply it?

Put it on 15 to 30 minutes before you go out in the sun, then 15 to 30 minutes afterwards – and every two hours after that. If you get sweaty or swim you need to reapply it even if it is water repellent. Don't rub it in too much – it should still look a bit white on your skin. Don't re-use last year's bottles – sunscreens can get damaged by heat and bacteria.
What SPF do I need?

Dermatologists recommend SPF 30. Children under six months should not be out in direct sun, but they need an SPF of 50. Sunscreen will also protect you from UV-A rays, which are also linked to skin cancer. Their protection is measured relative to the UVB protection given by a sunscreen and shown in stars – five gives 90% of the UVB protection.

Are clothes better protection?

Yes, if they are tightly woven and not light-coloured.

Dr. Luisa  Dillner's How To... guides from The Guardian

Draw your own Robots, Monsters, Superheroes!

From the wonderful mind of Jay Stephens ;)
Click to buy from Amazon

Ler é Crescer, diz-nos Gaturro

Poetry for Children

The best poems for kids aren't the soft and saccharine ones

 As the most bodily of literary forms, poetry appeals to children. It also has a certain appeal for adults who read to children. For one thing, good writing in verse helps make one a more amusing or engaging reader vocally: The rhythms effectively coach us to read aloud well. Such bodily appeal should not entail hamminess or indicate intellectual or moral condescension; good verses don't need to be artificially sweetened. This month, I've compiled work by three poets whose writing meets those dual ideals of musicality and truthfulness.

I have heard the superb writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak say that he does not set out to make works for children: He tries to make good stories and pictures. As someone who has read aloud to children many times, I feel grateful to Sendak and to Margaret Wise Brown and Dr. Seuss and other writers who have rescued me from the shallow stuff marketed as "for children" that I sometimes have found myself reading aloud.

In poetry, Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" is often cited, correctly, as a masterpiece of the nonsense genre. I'm inclined to quibble with "nonsense" as a term: The nature of all language is to combine meaning with its opposite. Everything we say or write has a component of sense and a component of nonsense. It's the proportions that vary, the kinds of meaning and nonmeaning. When Shakespeare has King Lear say the word never five times to make a line of blank verse, part of the repetition's power comes from the arbitrary or accidental nature of a word's sounds: the nasal N at the beginning, the upper teeth at the lower lip on the V, the R lengthening the final vowel. These sounds are part of the meaning, and part of Lear's agony, not intrinsically but as a physical part of the word—a bodily, potentially inert accident made meaningful by the playwright's art, including the repetition that intensifies and conveys the word's "nonsense" along with its "sense."

Conversely, "Jabberwocky" conveys its narrative meaning—the "sense" of its adventure story—quite clearly. (Carroll first published a fragment of the poem as "A Stanza of Anglo-Saxon Poetry.")

Worthy of presentation along with Carroll's famous poem are these by Edward Lear (1812-88), Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94), and Walter de la Mare (1873-1956). 

Their poems are tough, not cloying. Stevenson's "The Land of Counterpane" associates illness with imagination in a way that's disturbing or mysterious as well as engaging. The change from past to present tense in the last stanza—"I was" the giant who "sees"—evokes the imaginative or delirious trance of an extended moment. De la Mare's grotesque "John Mouldy," "Miss T," and "Jim Jay" engagingly conjoin the comic and the sinister.

Edward Lear's "How Pleasant To Know Mr. Lear" inspired an adaptation by T.S. Eliot. The wildly playful, reckless, insouciant, and what-the-hell quality of Lear's limericks have also been widely adapted or imitated—but rarely matched.

All three of these poets do not approach the experiences and interests of childhood with a knowing chuckle or a tidy closure of reassurance. They respect the imagination, including its elements of mystery and dread.

From Slate, with audio

"The Land of Counterpane"
When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.
And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;
And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.
I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.
.................—Robert Louis Stevenson

.
"Windy Nights"
Whenever the moon and stars are set,
….Whenever the wind is high,
All night long in the dark and wet,
….A man goes riding by.
Late in the night when the fires are out,
Why does he gallop and gallop about?
Whenever the trees are crying aloud,
….And ships are tossed at sea,
By, on the highway, low and loud,
….By at the gallop goes he.
By at the gallop he goes, and then
By he comes back at the gallop again.
.................—Robert Louis Stevenson

.
"John Mouldy"
I spied John Mouldy in his cellar,
Deep down twenty steps of stone;
In the dusk he sat a-smiling,
….Smiling there all alone.
He read no book, he snuffed no candle;
The rats ran in, the rats ran out,
And far and near, the drip of water
….Went whisp'ring about.
The dusk was still, with dew a-falling,
I saw the Dog-star bleak and grim,
I saw a slim brown rat of Norway
….Creep over him.
I spied John Mouldy in his cellar,
Deep down twenty steps of stone;
In the dusk he sat a-smiling
….Smiling there all alone.
.................—Walter de le Mare

.
"Miss T."
It's a very odd thing—
….As odd as can be—
That whatever Miss T. eats
….Turns into Miss T.;
Porridge and apples,
….Mince, muffins, and mutton,
Jam, junket, jumbles—
….Not a rap, not a button
It matters; the moment
….They're out of her plate,
Though shared by Miss Butcher
….And sour Mr. Bate,
Tiny and cheerful,
….And neat as can be,
Whatever Miss T. eats
….Turns into Miss T.
.................—Walter de le Mare

.
"Jim Jay"
Do diddle di do,
Poor Jim Jay
Got stuck fast
In Yesterday.
Squinting he was,
On cross-legs bent,
Never heeding
The wind was spent.
Round veered the weathercock,
The sun drew in—
And stuck was Jim
Like a rusty pin ...
We pulled and we pulled
From seven till twelve,
Jim, too frightened
To help himself.
But all in vain.
The clock struck one,
And there was Jim
A little bit gone.
At half-past five
You scarce could see
A glimpse of his flapping
Handkerchee.
And when came noon,
And we climbed sky-high,
Jim was a speck
Slip-slipping by.
Come to-morrow,
The neighbours say,
He'll be past crying for;
Poor Jim Jay.
.................—Walter de le Mare

.
"How Pleasant To Know Mr. Lear"
"How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!"
Who has written such volumes of stuff!
Some think him ill-tempered and queer,
But a few find him pleasant enough.
His mind is concrete and fastidious,
His nose is remarkably big;
His visage is more or less hideous,
His beard it resembles a wig.
He has ears, and two eyes, and ten fingers,
Leastways if you reckon two thumbs;
He used to be one of the singers,
But now he is one of the dumbs.
He sits in a beautiful parlour,
With hundreds of books on the wall;
He drinks a great deal of Marsala,
But never gets tipsy at all.
He has many friends, laymen and clerical,
Old Foss is the name of his cat;
His body is perfectly spherical,
He weareth a runcible hat.
When he walks in waterproof white,
The children run after him so!
Calling out, "He's gone out in his night-
Gown, that crazy old Englishman, oh!"
He weeps by the side of the ocean,
He weeps on the top of the hill;
He purchases pancakes and lotion,
And chocolate shrimps from the mill.
He reads, but he cannot speak, Spanish,
He cannot abide ginger beer:
Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish,
How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!
.................—Edward Lear
 

There was an Old Man with a beard,
Who said, 'It is just as I feared!
Two Owls and a Hen,
Four Larks and a Wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard!'
.................—Edward Lear

O Sabor da Maçã

I Love Charts, claro ;)

Gaturro, o gato argentino que destronou todos os outros ;)

Aqui

The Future? ;) 100 Essential Skills for Geeks

A GeekDad original, what else? My favourites in bold type ;)

1. Properly secure a wireless router.
2. Crack the WEP key on a wireless router.
3. Leech Wifi from your neighbor.
4. Screw with Wifi leeches.
5. Setup and use a VPN.
6. Work from home or a coffee shop as effectively as you do at the office.
7. Wire your own home with Ethernet cable.
8. Turn a web camera into security camera.
9. Use your 3G phone as a Wi-Fi access point.
10. Understand what “There’s no Place Like 127.0.0.1” means.

11. Identify key-loggers.
12. Properly connect a TV, Tivo, XBox, Wii, and Apple TV so they all work together with the one remote.
13. Program a universal remote.
14. Swap out the battery on your iPod/iPhone.
15. Benchmark Your Computer
16. Identify all computer components on sight.
17. Know which parts to order from NewEgg.com, and how to assemble them into a working PC.
18. Troubleshoot any computer/gadget problem, over the phone.
19. Use any piece of technology intuitively, without instruction or prior knowledge.
20. How to irrecoverably protect data.
21. Recover data from a dead hard drive.
22. Share a printer between a Mac and a PC on a network.
23. Install a Linux distribution. (Hint: Ubuntu 9.04 is easier than installing Windows)
24. Remove a virus from a computer.
25. Dual (or more) boot a computer.
26. Boot a computer off a thumb drive.
27. Boot a computer off a network drive.
28. Replace or repair a laptop keyboard.
29. Run more than two monitors on a single computer.
30. Successfully disassemble and reassemble a laptop.
31. Know at least 10 software easter eggs off the top of your head.
32. Bypass a computer password on all major operating systems. Windows, Mac, Linux
33. Carrying a computer cleaning arsenal on your USB drive.
34. Bypass content filters on public computers.
35. Protect your privacy when using a public computer.
36. Surf the web anonymously from home.
37. Buy a domain, configure bind, apache, MySQL, php, and Wordpress without Googling a how-to.
38. Basic *nix command shell knowledge with the ability to edit and save a file with vi.
39. Create a web site using vi.
40. Transcode a DVD to play on a portable device.
41. Hide a file in an image using steganography.
42. Knowing the answer to life, the universe and everything.
43. Share a single keyboard and mouse between multiple computers without a KVM switch.
44. Google obscure facts in under 3 searches. Bonus point if you can use I Feel Lucky.
45. Build amazing structures with LEGO and invent a compelling back story for the creation.
46. Understand that it is LEGO, not Lego, Legos, or Lego’s.
47. Build a two story house out of LEGO, in monochrome, with a balcony.
48. Construct a costume for you or your kid out of scraps, duct tape, paper mâché, and imagination.
49. Be able to pick a lock.
50. Determine the combination of a Master combination padlock in under 10 minutes.
51. Assemble IKEA furniture without looking at the instructions. Bonus point if you don’t have to backtrack.
52. Use a digital SLR in full manual mode.
53. Do cool things to Altoids tins.
54. Be able to construct paper craft versions of space ships.
55. Origami! Bonus point for duct tape origami. (Ductigami)
56. Fix anything with duct tape, chewing gum and wire.
57. Knowing how to avoid being eaten by a grue.
58. Know what a grue is.
59. Understand where XYZZY came from, and have used it.
60. Play any SNES game on your computer through an emulator.
61. Burn the rope.
62. Know the Konami code, and where to use it.
63. Whistle, hum, or play on an iPhone, the Cantina song.
64. Learning to play the theme songs to the kids favorite TV shows.
65. Solve a Rubik’s Cube.
66. Calculate THAC0.
67. Know the difference between skills and traits.
68. Explain special relativity in terms an eight-year-old can grasp.
69. Recite pi to 10 places or more.
70. Be able to calculate tip and split the check, all in your head.
71. Explain that the colours in a rainbow are roygbiv.
72. Understand the electromagnetic spectrum – xray, uv, visible, infrared, microwave, radio.
73. Know the difference between radiation and radioactive contamination.
74. Understand basic electronics components like resistors, capacitors, inductors and transistors.
75. Solder a circuit while bottle feeding an infant. (lead free solder please.)
76. The meaning of technical acronyms.
77. The coffee dash, blindfolded (or blurry eyed). Coffee [cream] [sugar]. In under a minute.
78. Build a fighting robot.
79. Program a fighting robot.
80. Build a failsafe into a fighting robot so it doesn’t kill you.
81. Be able to trace the Fellowship’s journey on a map of Middle Earth.
82. Know all the names of the Dwarves in The Hobbit.
83. Understand the difference between a comic book and a graphic novel.
84. Know where your towel is and why it is important.
85. Re-enact the parrot sketch.
86. Know the words to The Lumberjack Song.
87. Reciting key scenes from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
88. Be able to recite at least one Geek Movie word for word.
89. Know what the 8th Chevron does on a Stargate and how much power is required to get a lock.
90. Be able to explain why it’s important that Han shot first.
91. Know why it is just wrong for Luke and Leia to kiss.
92. Stop talking Star Wars long enough to get laid.
93. The ability to name actors, characters and plotlines from the majority of sci-fi movies produced since 1968.
94. Cite Mythbusters when debunking a myth or urban legend.
95. Sleep with a Cricket bat next to your bed.
96. Have a documented plan on what to do during a zombie or robot uprising.
97. Identify evil alternate universe versions of friends, family, co-workers or self.
98. Be able to convince TSA that the electronic parts you are carrying are really not a threat to passengers.
99. Talk about things that aren’t tech related.
100. Get something on the front page of Digg.

Oeiras? Traquinas?

11 Cartoons With Surprisingly Green Messages

Octo Pi(e) - no way! E viva as cordas da roupa ;)

The meanest t-shirt Ever!

Obrigada à Canochinha ;)

Rango: a Chameleon with an Identity Crisis

Joyeux Anniversaire, le Petit Prince ;)

Should you have kids?

Kiwi!

E Viva a Colecção BORBOLETrAS ;)

Livrinhos que o Lucas já tem:

Mais aqui ;)