It's a beautiful day in the neighbourhood

Finally, just past midnight, it's starting to cool down. I'm reluctant to complain about this sudden heat given that we've been so deprived of sun this summer on the Wet Coast. So I won't.

Instead, I'll share some photos of the small fry having a deliciously wet time with a hose, a trug pool and assorted toys.  We all got splashed and splattered and soaked and it was wonderful. Except, perhaps, for the odd passerby.  Aaaaah nothing like standing in a pool of cold water to cool your core.

Jack had a lovely afternoon with his friend Orien in the lane in front of our home.

I'm so blessed to live in this beautiful co-op, with a freaking cute kid and a husband who passes me a perfectly cooked grilled cheese sammich out our kitchen window so I can keep watching our small fry.  And now I can go to bed without the fan on.

I am INCENSED at the CBC

Dear CBC,

As an ardent supporter of the CBC and public broadcasting, I have to let you know that I will no longer be a supporter. 

The incredibly biased news brief which put such a poor light on the millenia-old practice of cosleeping was incorrect, inflammatory and did not even address the real issues.

Let me ask you -- if SIDS, identified as 'sudden infant death syndrome' and by its very definition is UNEXPLAINED, then how could 'maternal suffocation' be a cause of SIDS? Then the cause of death would be suffocation or accident, not SIDS.  The logic is faulty.  To force a mother to be up late at night, all night, trying to stay awake in order to put her sleeping baby back in a lonely crib is what leads to unsafe cosleeping situations, like sleeping in a couch or chair.  Cosleeping deaths while the mother is intoxicated, under the influence of drugs or in a smoking household are not rightly cosleeping deaths, but cosleeping inevitably gets the bad reputation, something which the CBC had the opportunity to set straight and absolutely failed. 

What no-one seems to talk about are the risks of crib-sleeping.  What about the other deaths from SIDS that occur when the child is in a crib? Or those babies in Surrey burned in their crib when a lamp fell in? Or the infant whose fingers were consumed by a ferret... in a crib?  Had those babies been safely sleeping in their parents' presence, those tragic accidents would not have occurred. 

All over the world, cosleeping is the norm. It is biologically correct (cavemen did not force their children to sleep separately; had they done so we would have died out as a species).  It promotes breastfeeding duration. It promotes maternal and infant rest and health.  It has been shown to prevent SIDS (yes, PREVENT!).  Safe cosleeping should be encouraged, and parents not be made to feel bad because they 'insist' on an unsafe practice. 

Here is a recent article by the Sunday Times in the UK which talks about the changing reputation of cosleeping, something which the CBC just put back 10 years due to your incorrect reporting:  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1083020.ece

You may want to pay special attention to this quotation from the article:  “In the UK, 500 children a year die of Sids,” Sunderland writes. “In China, where it [co-sleeping] is taken for granted, Sids is so rare it does not have a name.”

Shame on you CBC.  I expected better reporting from you, and now I feel that I must question the quality of your reporting on all subjects. 

Sadly,
Lorien Quattrocchi