Growing up, Mother's Day was always about doting on my maternal grandmother. She wanted her brunch, or at the very least, a nice handmade Mother's Day card. My mother would always claim that she didn't care about the holiday, personally, we just needed to keep my grandmother happy.

To some extent, I share my mother's nonchalance about the holiday. (Perhaps to be totally fair, I would better describe my feelings as "Stupid over-commercialized holiday that can't possibly compensate for all societal gender inequity in one day but YOU'D BETTER GET ME SOMETHING NICE OR ELSE.") After all, while my life is not without its irritations, overall, it's pretty sweet right now. I get to work part time, my husband is an involved parent, and our sweet girl gives us lots of hugs and lets me know every day that she enjoys my company. One day of brunch and flowers is neither going to top that nor adequately compensate for 20 months of not quite enough sleep...

Here is an area where local governments can aid parents: by helping their children not smoke.

According to an Associated Press story, smoking bans in restaurants DO curb smoking among teenagers.

Youths who lived in towns with strict bans were 40 percent less likely to become regular smokers than those in communities with no bans or weak ones, the researchers reported in the May issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

The findings back up the idea that smoking bans discourage tobacco use in teens by sending the message that smoking is frowned upon in the community, as well as simply by reducing their exposure to smokers in public places, said Dr. Michael Siegel, of Boston University School of Public Health, and the study's lead author.

Of course, parents wield enormous influence over their children by kicking the habit themselves.

The study found that having a smoker as a parent or a close friend was a factor in predicting whether children experiment with cigarettes. But strong bans had a bigger influence on whether smoking grew into a habit, reducing their chances of becoming smokers by 40 percent.

Massachusetts is among 23 states to ban smoking in most public places, including restaurants and bars, according to AP.

This story validated what first-born children like my husband and I always suspected: First-born children really do bear the brunt of parents' "tough love." I will NOT let my sisters off the hook after this one. LOL!

From MSNBC's coverage of the study:

“The folklore is that parents punish the older child more than the younger ones,” says Lingxin Hao, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University and an author of the study, published in the latest issue of the Economic Journal. “But it isn’t just folklore — this is a national pattern.”

First-borns who dropped out of school were 20 percent less likely to be getting most of their annual income from their parents than younger siblings in the same situation, Hao and her team found after reviewing annual surveys, involving more than 7,000 kids each year, conducted from 1979 to 1994 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In addition, the researchers found, first-born daughters who got pregnant as teenagers were 30 percent less likely to be getting most of their money from their parents than younger female siblings.

This part of the study really struck a chord with me, as I remember my dad and even teachers at school lecturing me on helping my sister get better grades in school. Keep in mind I was the nerd and she was the cool kid that didn't do homework. As if she was going to listen to her tightly-wound sister. Ha!

“Parents have an incentive to play tough with their kids, especially the older ones, to try to establish this signal to the other children that they’re not a pushover,” says Joseph Hotz, an economics professor at Duke University and a co-author of the study.

It’s all for the sake of setting an example, a refrain first-borns know all too well. By punishing the oldest kid more severely, Hotz says, parents are hoping to essentially scare the younger brothers and sisters straight, keeping them from making a similar mistake.

An acquaintance at Ari's school actually knows these precious girls and sent around a link to their personal website. The girls, four-year-old twins Addison and Cassidy Hempel, suffer from a rare pediatric case of Alzheimer's disease known as Niemann-Pick Disease Type C. The vast majority of children with the disease die before the age of 20, according to a recent story by ABC News:

"You can't tell your kids they're dying," said a sobbing Chris Hempel, Addison's and Cassidy's mother. "They'll never know."

The Symptoms and Signs

The Hempel family didn't always carry this burden. When the girls were born, they were healthy and hitting all the major milestones.

By their first birthday, they knew how to walk, but soon the girls' parents knew something was wrong.

When Addison and Cassidy were two years old, they caught a viral infection they couldn't shake. Scans showed each girl had an enlarged spleen, but doctors couldn't determine the cause. Then, things began to get worse.

"I started seeing increasing symptoms with balance and coordination -- bumping into walls and falling down," Hempel said. "And when they were around other kids, I noticed they weren't running as quickly or jumping. I started getting really concerned."

I went to bed as soon as Indiana was called for Sen. Hillary Clinton at around 11 p.m. west coast time. Here is a CNN roundup of election results from Indiana and North Carolina last night.

Update On Burma: The death toll in Burma after a cyclone hit the southeast Asian country this weekend has climbed to 22,000 people, according to CNN. The already devastated country is facing food shortages.

Census Bureau on Latino Growth: In case you missed it, one in four children younger than 5 in the United States, is Latino, according to U.S. Census Bureau information released by the Washington Post. Here is the breakdown according to state:

Hispanics account for more than half of children younger than 5 in New Mexico and California, where their share of the overall state population is 44 and 36 percent, respectively. In Texas, Arizona, Nevada and Colorado, about one-third or more of children younger than 5 are Hispanic.

The figures are less dramatic but still notable in Virginia and Maryland. In both states, Hispanics account for 11 percent of children younger than 5 -- and 7 and 6 percent of the overall population, respectively.

Peace Corps Boots HIV-Positive Man: The Washington Post ran an editorial condemning the Peace Corps' decision to oust a volunteer for being HIV positive. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of the man, Jeremiah S. Johnson:

In his lawsuit, Mr. Johnson said the Ukraine country director for the Peace Corps told him that he had to return to Washington because Ukraine does not allow foreigners with HIV to work there. We will save our quarrel with Ukraine's policies for another day; no matter how misguided and discriminatory, they cannot excuse the U.S. government. After another medical examination in Washington in February, Mr. Johnson's Peace Corps volunteer career came to an end...

A more formal response to the ACLU letter is forthcoming. Peace Corps press director Amanda H. Beck told us yesterday that the agency does not have a policy of "automatically excluding people with HIV." Still, the fact remains that Mr. Johnson, now waiting tables back in Colorado, was booted from the Peace Corps because of his diagnosis. HIV should not be a barrier to public service. Making it so, as in Mr. Johnson's case, is a waste of talent and goodwill. With all of its work in dealing with HIV-AIDS around the world, the agency should know that.

What else is in the news? What's up with you?

If you haven't heard the story about Central Washington and Western Oregon's recent softball game, you have to watch the ESPN video over the fold.  

It's a fabulous story about a college softball game in which Sara Tucholsky hit a 3 run homer... her first home run of the season.  In her excitement, she missed tagging first base.  She turned around to tag it properly, and tore her ACL as her foot was planted and didn't pivot with her body.  She then crawled to first base.  What happened next, is an amazing story of sportsmanship.  The opposition asked if they could help.

Mildred Loving, a black woman whose marriage to a white man led to the seminal U.S. Supreme Court that overturned Virginia's ban on interracial marriage, died today at age 68. NPR has a good interview with her from last year, on the 40th anniversary of the Court's case. Pam at the Blend observes that Loving is also a beacon of hope for supporters of same-sex marriage:

Those of us eagerly waiting for the day when same-sex marriage is finally legalized across the land owe a debt of gratitude to Mildred Loving, whose 1967 case (Loving v. Virginia) resulted in a landmark Supreme Court decision that broke down a major social and legal barrier  - interracial marriage.

A moment of silence for a woman who once said she wasn't trying to change history; she just fell in love.

(Crossposted at Mombian.)

I am feeling a little election-fatigued, but it is an exciting race in that moms here and everywhere have a say in the nominating process. Indiana and North Carolina moms: Please give us updates!

The polls in North Carolina close at 7:30 p.m. EDT and at 6 p.m. local time in Indiana, according to my quick and dirty google search.

Recently I was thumbing through Entertainment Weekly's "Summer Movie Preview" when I came across this little blurb in "The Shaw Report:"

IN: Postpartum chic
FIVE MINUTES AGO: Maternity style
OUT: Flat bellies

Postpartum bodies are chic? God bless you, Jessica Shaw!

The New York Times ran a story about "slow medicine," the practice of medicine focused on comfort rather than a cure. In this case, reporter Jane Gross focused on seniors who decided resuscitation, surgery and other drastic measures were not worth the pain and discomfort at the end of their life.

The term slow medicine was coined by Dr. Dennis McCullough, a Dartmouth geriatrician, Kendal’s founding medical director and author of “My Mother, Your Mother: Embracing Slow Medicine, the Compassionate Approach to Caring for Your Aging Loved One.”

Among the hard truths, he said, is that 9 of 10 people who live into their 80s will wind up unable to take care of themselves, either because of frailty or dementia. “Everyone thinks they’ll be the lucky one, but we can’t go along with that myth,” Dr. McCullough said.

Ms. Sandberg-Cook agrees. “If you’re never again going to live independently or face an indeterminate period in a disabled state, you may have to reorganize your thinking,” she said. “You need to understand what you face, what you most want to avoid and what you most want to happen.”

Kendal begins by asking newcomers whether they want to be resuscitated or go to the hospital and under what circumstances. “They give me an amazingly puzzled look, like ‘Why wouldn’t I?’ “ said Brenda Jordan, Kendal’s second nurse practitioner.

She replies with CPR survival statistics: A 2002 study, published in the journal Heart, found that fewer than 2 percent of people in their 80s and 90s who had been resuscitated for cardiac arrest at home lived for one month. “They about fall out of their chairs when they find out the extent to which we’ll go to let people choose,” Ms. Jordan said.

Of course, the decision to seek or decline care is a personal one. But it is something we will all have to face at some point -- not just the elderly. (Don't forget to write your wills!)

But as the article pointed out, there is a quiet etiquette being broken in even talking about it. Doctors are supposed to do everything possible to save a patient whether they are 10 or 100. But oftentimes, patients are never told of the actual physical discomforts and financial costs in receiving surgery, for example, near the end of life. What do you think? Should more doctors broach this sensitive topic?

In an attempt to become as eco-friendly a parent as possible, I have tried every single diapering option known to man. For the first seven months of Ari's life, I had him in cloth diapers, picked up and laundered by ABC Diaper Service in Berkeley.

After nearly cracking from sleep deprivation -- I was changing them even at night! -- I switched over to the chlorine free diapers by Seventh Generation. But after a few accidents, including leaking and diaper rash, I turned to the evil Huggies. They contain lotions that kept and still keep my baby from getting diaper rash and they come in a box of more than 100, eliminating trips to the supermarket -- another environmental consideration.

As part of the article I was working on (see below), I got to test the new hybrid gDiapers on Eli. (See pictured.) The verdict? It's a great concept, but not readily available, even for this city dweller.

I had to drive 15, 20 minutes to North Berkeley to purchase them. And they aren't the cheapest option on the market either: $22.99 for a starter kit that includes two cloth-plastic wraps, 10 diapers, which resemble over-sized maxi pads, and a plastic stick. (I'll explain in a minute.) To buy additional pads for the wraps, cost $13.99 for a box of 32.

The concept is cool and I got a little thrill from putting together the diaper without reading the directions. (Woo-hoo!)

Basically, you snap the plastic in the cotton wrap and stuff the oversized pad in the plastic. The diaper is bulgy, which was one of my beefs with the cloth diapers. Then again, the gDiaper does seem to be easier to handle than a cloth diaper and more eco-friendly than a disposable. Once the baby soils the diaper, you simply tear open the pad, the cotton falls out and you flush it down the toilet.

While I, thankfully, did not have an issue with a clogged toilet, apparently it is not an uncommon problem. The plastic stick is to break apart the cotton in the toilet in the event it does not easily disintegrate. (Mine did.) I marveled at my baby's excrement going where it should: the sewage system as opposed to the garbage.

But I admit that I have not rushed to the Elephant Pharmacy in North Berkeley to restock on gDiapers. It's too much of a hassle to drive there for a single item and getting the diaper together, not to mention the bulkiness, got old quickly. I am back to using the evil Huggies. But as an environmentalist, I am trying to cut down on the number of diapers by sitting Eli on the potty in the mornings, and hopefully, getting her out of diapers sooner than Ari (4 years).

Quick Note: I just submitted a parenting piece for an environmental magazine and am publishing the material I did not use. -Elisa

BERKELEY, Calif. -- As part of my research, I compared the prices of organic and non-organic baby and kids' foods at two Walgreens in Berkeley, the Berkeley Bowl supermarket, Whole Foods in Berkeley and Safeway's Pak 'n Save supermarket in nearby Emeryville. To my surprise, the prices for organic foods have fallen, making them comparable to better-known, non-organic brands in certain food categories like cereal.

Or, my perception is simply colored by the fact that prices for all foods have risen, as NJmom recently blogged here.

Anyways, I thought I would share with you what I found, especially since some of these stores are available nationwide. I noted which foods were organic so you can assume the rest is non-organic. Walgreens, for example, sells no organic baby foods or snacks, although it does sell one organic baby formula by Similac.

Formula (25 oz.)
Walgreens
Walgreens Infant Formula...$14.99
Enfamil Infant Formula...$26.99
Similac Organic Infant Formula...$29.99
Berkeley Bowl
Earth's Best Organic (13.2 oz.)...$16.49
Whole Foods
Earth's Best Organic (13.2 oz.)...$15.99
Baby's Only Organic Formula (12.7 oz.)...$10.29
Pak 'n Save
Similac Organic Formula...$31.19
Enfamil...$26.49
O for Baby Organics...$25.99 or $21.99 with free Safeway Club Card

Rice Cereal (8 oz.)
Walgreens
Gerber...$2.29 or 2 boxes for $4
Berkeley Bowl
Earth's Best Organic...$2.08
Whole Foods
Earth's Best Organic...$2.99
Pak 'n Save
Earth's Best Organic...$3.29 or $2.75 with Safeway Club Card
Gerber...$2.98

Baby Food
Walgreens
Gerber 4 oz. jar...$0.99
Gerber 6 oz. jar...$1.19
Berkeley Bowl
Healthy Times Organic 4 oz. jar...$0.79
Healthy Times Organic 6 oz. jar...Not Available.
Earth's Best Organic 4 oz. jar...$0.79
Earth's Best Organic 6 oz. jar...$0.99
Whole Foods
Earth's Best 4 oz. jar...$0.83
Earth's Best 6 oz. jar...$1.29
Pak 'n Save
O for Baby Organics 4 oz. jar...$0.79 or 10 for $7 with Safeway Club Card
Earth's Best 4 oz. jar...$1.29 or 10 for $7 with Safeway Card
Earth's Best 6 oz. jar...$1.28 or 10 for $10 with Safeway Card
Gerber 4 oz. jar...$0.65
Gerber 6 oz. jar...$0.85 or 10 for $8 with Safeway Card

Baby Finger Foods
Walgreens
Gerber Graduates 1.48 oz.-container of puffs...$2.99
Walgreens #2
Gerber Graduates 1.48 oz. container of puffs...$2.69
*Note: Except for Gerber Graduates puffs, the prices for all other baby items were identical in both Walgreens.
Berkeley Bowl
Healthy Times 5.5 oz. box of Organic Teddy Puffs...$2.38
Whole Foods
Healthy Times Organic Teddy Puffs...$2.29
Pak 'n Save
Gerber Graduates 1.48 oz. container of puffs...$2.89 or 3 for $6.60 with Safeway card

As for the older kids, here is a comparison of some favorites: