Want to get knocked up? There's an App for that

The frustrating thing about getting pregnant is that it often happens either far too easily or not nearly easily enough.

It's a game of UNO if you're a bewildered teenager and chess by mail if you've been trying to start a family for years.

One British couple is crediting the conception of their baby to an iPhone App. Lena Bryce, 30, said she and husband, Dudley, tried to get pregnant for four years. But just two months after downloading a fertility calculator, Britain's "first iPhone baby" was in the oven.

Suggesting that infertility can be solved with a quick trip to iTunes store would be a gross overstatement. But as anyone who has fumbled with a thermometre and a bedside calendar can attest, sometimes it's a bit of a trick to get the timing right. What our high school guidance counsellors suggested could be accomplished on a particularly frisky trip to the movies, can be mystifyingly akin to timing a hole in one with Halley's comet. 

So if an App is easier for you than basal temperature and a Filofax, why not? Maybe it'll help you remember when to book a meal at a nice restaurant.

Here's a similar App called iPregnant.

(Thanks to Jennifer Wilson-Speedy for spotting the Mashable post that drew this to our attention.)

Some other parenting news you should check out:

How to sneak fitness into your child's day

Ontario eyes lower child-care standards

Summer camp gives coddled kids a break from parents

Baby 101: A new dad's crib sheet

Family Literacy Day and Wicked Wednesdays

In case you missed it during all of today's Apple-related madness, it is Family Literacy Day.

The event is run by ABC Literacy Canada, and the idea is to "encourage families to read and learn together."

I agree wholeheartedly with the folks at ABC that literacy is about more than just reading books. You can encourage literacy by doing all sorts of things, including following a recipe. I love the way we can organically learn about fractions through baking, too. (I know, that was my nerdy schoolmarm moment of the day.)

Not sure how to mark the occasion? Here's a list of fun activities. Or find a Family Literacy Day activity in your area.

I think my favourite Literacy Day initiative might just be the Munsch at Home contest. Families submitted their own Munsch-inspired stories for a chance to be published with a real-deal Michael Martchenko illustration, and to win personal visits from Munsch both at their home and in their neighbourhood school.

We've got the winning story here.

ABC has all the finalists here.

We weren't really trying to mark the occasion, but I guess we started our Family Literacy Day with a pre-breakfast reading of Captain Underpants. After school today, our caregiver will be cajoling lovingly encouraging Cameron through a couple of pages of homework (due tomorrow). That counts, right? And we'll be reading our routine bedtime stories, likely including favourites by Mo Willems or Oliver Jeffers.

On a slightly different but related topic, I've been noticing a pattern of badness on Wednesdays (not every Wednesday is chock full of Family Literacy Day fun).

I don't mean to suggest that my boys are being "bad" on Wednesdays - it's more that we're all hitting a bump of midweek fatigue that leads to tears on Wednesdays evenings.

The kids even cry sometimes, too.

But seriously, we've all been through quite a bit of school- and work-week busyness by Wednesdays, when the weekend still feels quite a way off. Sitting on the bunkbeds last week, Cam drying tears about something I can no longer recall, I proposed that we start a new Wednesday tradition called "Wicked Wednesdays." (We're predictably alliterative about these things, having already had "Friday Fun" in place for a while.)

We've had stomach flu ripping through our house this week, so I'll be happy if we can mark our inaugural Wicked Wednesday with a minimum of vomit. However, the "deal" is that if the kids already have their pajamas on WHEN I GET HOME AT 5:30, we can have a movie night and a "snacky dinner" in the living room. For some reason, this break in routine has the kids pretty excited.

I'm all about parenting by gimmick if it makes the evening a little more fun and bedtime come a little sooner.

So in between our Family Literacy Day reading, we'll be taking a brief (90 minute) break to watch a movie. I won't give away what it will be other than to say it will likely be part of a series that rhymes with Czar Pores.

If you're also looking for a way to get through Wednesday, I hope you just might find a little help in the Munsch stories, or copy our lower-brow movie plan.

Cute kid quote of the day: Sick day edition

I've been home with Alister today because he has stomach flu. My policy is that the less said about this sort of thing the better, but I will say that I'm quite sure he went through his entire wardrobe of pajamas in the last 24 hours.

Things started to look up this afternoon, though, when he was well enough to ask to watch the movie Cars.

I forgot to hit "menu" straight away so we ended up watching the previews. Alister didn't mind, though.

"Coming Soon! I love Coming Soon! Coming Soon is funny!"

Never underestimate the power of a group of moms with cupcakes

Like many parents, when Susana Molinolo first heard the news of Haiti's devastating earthquake, she could barely comprehend the destruction or stand to see the images on television and in the newspapers.

Almost immediately, though, the co-chair of Bowmore Public School's parent council felt that some sort of school fundraiser was needed, so she contacted fellow parent council mom Nancy Botelho for support. Remembering the brisk cupcakes sales at the school's winter concert, they quickly settled on the simple concept "Cupcakes for Haiti."

Really, this blog post should be entitled "Never underestimate the power of a group of social-media savvy moms with cupcakes." Because when Susana emailed Rachel Muir, senior designer at Top Drawer Creative, she had a poster back within an hour that was soon used to replace profile pics on Twitter and Facebook, helping the event go viral.

Meanwhile, Susana had started emailing other Bowmore parents, former colleagues, neighbours, etc. asking for support and for bakers to come forward. Late last week a colourful array of cupcakes were piling up at Susana's home. On Saturday, at the sale outside the house she shares with husband Brian Gahan and their 3- and 5-year-olds, people purchased cupcakes for prices ranging from $2 a piece to (wait for it...) $437.50. (The high-priced cupcakes were part of a box from Desmond and Beatrice that was auctioned.)

The event has raised $9800 for Medecins sans Frontieres, and that donation will be matched by the Canadian International Development Agency. Some funds are still trickling in, and all in all Molinolo estimates this bake sale will likely raise a total of $20,000.

Here's how one friend Russell Gienapp described the event:

On one small patch of front lawn in the east end of Toronto, on a chilly Saturday, $9800 was raised for Haiti relief. What Susana Molinolo sold were just cupcakes (don't get me wrong they were yummy). What the people who bought them ate was a symbol of community building and the ability of people to come together for a... much-needed cause without a lot of glitzy pomp. Simple, effective and every neighborhood could do something like this.

To see more pics from Cupcakes for Haiti, check out Susana's twitter feed. She's also written about the event on her blog.

Susana and her volunteers exemplify the difference a group of motivated people can make with simple actions and a lot of heart.

Copy this concept!

There's an idea: Pediatric clinics at low-income schools

Tonight the Toronto District School Board's program and school services committee will be discussing its proposal to bring health clinics to six of the neediest inner-city schools in Toronto.

The moves follows startling findings during hearing and eyesight tests at schools in poorer communities. Nearly a third of these kids needed follow-up care by an optometrist, and 13.7 per cent needed further hearing tests. This spoke to the barriers preventing low-income families from getting the health care they need, including difficulty juggling work schedules and appointments (when you're in a minimum-wage job, chances are good you won't have the flexibility to duck out to take your little one to a clinic) and simply not having a family doctor.

The clinics would be run by Sick Kids and St. Michael's hospitals, and would likely be open one day per week after school. It's not just hearing and eyesight that these clinics would be handling, but rather that those barometers cast a harsh light on the severity of this particular health care gap.

I also find this interesting in terms of the discussion thread happening on my blog post on childhood obesity earlier this week. Perhaps more so than banning junk food in school vending machines and cafeterias, having easy access to pediatric physicians who can monitor body mass index could be a key step in the right direction.

But as commenter Yuki suggested in her insightful explanation of why low-income families aren't preparing and eating healthful meals, the real solution could be to "make basic cooking classes and hands-on nutrition a mandatory part of the curriculum so our provinces' children are better equipped to make healthy choices in the future and actually have the practical skills to execute them."

Some other headlines you don't want to miss today:

Ottawa to speed some Haitian adoptions

Trustees' vote keeps nine more pools afloat

Baby 101: A crib sheet for new dads

Teacher accused of sex with teen

Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids

We've been using the phrases "helicopter parents" and "hyper parenting" for a while now. We know most kids are over-scheduled and over-protected. We enjoy tsk-tsking at the notion of the parent who runs interference for her child all the way through university. A Time magazine feature The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting was full of delicious anecdotes about these incredibly micro-managing parents and their terribly indulged offspring.

The CBC's upcoming documentary Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids - A look inside the frenzied world of parents who over-protect, over-indulge and over-schedule their children will mine some of the same territory when it airs Feb. 4th at 9 p.m. ET.

Here's a clip:

Even if we don't throw $7,000 birthday parties, I believe we can still see some of our own parental anxieties reflected in these over-the-top cases. The parts of us that wonder if maybe we too should be grinding our own flax seeds, getting up at 6:30 on Saturday to out-dial other parents on registration day, or squeezing in some extra French lessons between karate and piano. It's worth reflecting on how broader psycho-social factors have brought about this type of parenting and how those affect all of us. It's worth considering how this approach to our kids will affect their ability to cope without when they're full grown. And it's also damn entertaining to witness extreme parenting at its height.

I'll be writing more about this once I've watched the full-length screener, but meanwhile, mark the calendar for Feb. 4th so you can catch it yourself.

Some more interesting stuff on the way we parent:

What's good about 'bad parenting'

The end of Supermom

Parenting trends: Hot news from the home front

Newsflash: Your kid's not special

Bringing baby up 'badly' on purpose

What's really making our kids fat?

The Ontario government has announced a ban on sales of pop and other junk food, as well as unhealthy lunch meals, at schools starting in the fall of 2011.

I think it's an important and logical step in the sluggish efforts to combat astonishingly prevalent obesity among children and adults. Surely in our educational institutions we should be setting a good example, right?

But I got some feedback on Twitter this weekend that got me thinking a little differently about where the problem really lies.

I haven't had a chance to verify this, but one person said that it's schools in affluent areas that sell the most junk from vending machines and unhealthy cafeterias, and yet it's not those kids who are obese. It's the kids who eat junky foods because their parents can't afford anything better who get fat, and it's not because they're buying pop at school, she said.

Of course it's not news to any of us that there's a link between poverty and obesity. That's why community gardening programs and others that help put healthy foods in the hands of people with lesser means have been so successful.

It was on my mind Sunday when I hauled home a huge bag of winter vegetables - carrots, parsnips, potatoes, turnip, beets, bok choy, onions, ginger, garlic. The cost - $16.10.

I was talking about the affordability and nutritional density of these mostly root veggies with the boys' father, and he challenged me to better understand the way my own education and good fortune arm me with the knowledge required to turn these cheap veggies into parsnip-potato pancakes, turnip-carrot-parsnip-apple soup, mashed yukon gold potatoes with horseradish, and pan-seared bok choy with ginger. (And that's just this weekend - my crisper is still full.) 

I'm not working a second job. I know I'm fortunate to have the time to make these foods for my family. But the extent to which it may be a mystery to others how to plan and prepare healthy meals is something I hadn't considered fully. In future, I hope to better explore the initiatives and policies that really would help Canadian kids maintain healthy body mass, and would love to hear your thoughts.

What kind of healthy-eating programs would make a meaningful difference?

A Grade 1 perspective on all-day kindergarten

His father and I were talking about the gradual roll-out of all-day kindergarten in Ontario this morning, when Cameron, ever nosy, asked, "What are you talking about?"

I explained that there would soon be all-day kindergarten in some Ontario schools, and that it might be available at our school by the time Alister, now 2, enters schools.

"I don't think that's a very good idea," said Cameron. "That's too long."

I proceeded to carry on about how part of the day would be very play-based, and about leveled-playing fields and about how not every family can afford a nanny or a really good daycare. In other words: blah, blah, blah, blah and blah.

Cameron's answer?

"I can't let that happen to my brother. I CARE about him!"

A "public servants" announcement

Tonight when his baby brother was using particularly bad table manners, Cameron, 6, had this to say:

"Silence please. This is a public servants announcements from Cameron DeCloet. Please do not invite him [Alister] for dinner. Thank you for listening to the public servants announcement. Oh, and no smoking."

What NOT to do when your friend is going through a separation or divorce

When someone in your circle is going through a separation or divorce, it's not always clear how to help or what to say. Here are some "dos" and "don'ts" to make that a little easier.

DON'T act like you know what your friend needs. You don't want to foist a night of dancing on someone who just wants to disappear for a while, and nor should you assume your friend wants to be left alone.

DO ask how best you can help. Everyone who goes through a major life event like the loss of a marriage is going to experience it differently. Your friend may want distraction or quiet walks in the woods or a pair of boxing gloves or a van to carry stuff to goodwill.

DON'T ask "Was it mutual?" or "What happened?!" If you don't already know, you're not close enough to ask. Besides there are no tidy talking points to cover this raw, nuanced territory.

DO make yourself available to chat about the separation if your friend seems to want to share.

DON'T presume you're helping by offering a playdate. Your friend may not want to be without his or her children and may already be missing them when they're in the care of the other parent. Or it could be that by taking the child who is old enough for playdates, you're removing a playmate for the younger, higher-needs child, and a source of conversation and happy interaction for your friend.

DO ask what kind of childcare is really needed, and be open to having siblings over, too. Or ask if you can time a playdate with a younger child's nap.

DON'T assume your friend will feel awkward in a room full of couples. Couples are the world your friend knows, and being suddenly locked out of the circle is very hurtful. He or she is likely grappling with a staggering loss of social status and you contribute to the isolation of single parents when you don't extend the invitation.

DO make your friend welcome, but not obligated, to bring another person of either sex to the party or outing.

DON'T assume a single-parent can't get or afford a babysitter. Your friend may have off-duty nights when the other parent is looking after the children. And in fact, it's possible he or she out-earns you. Not every divorced parent is financially strapped. Maybe your pal has wildly under-spent on entertainment and eating out since finding himself at loose ends!

DO make sure you give your friend the opportunity to decline rather than assume he or she won't want to participate or be able to make it happen. Even if she can't come the first time, be sure to keep asking. Maybe next time that teenaged neighbour or kind aunt will be available.

DON'T waffle on an invitation. When your friend invites you to do something, don't leave them hanging and waiting to see if you get a better offer. Likely she's learning to set things up in advance to avoid loneliness and keep things fun for the kids. And you don't want your friend to feel like the person you call only when your spouse is out of town.

DO what you can to clear your schedule when your friend musters the courage to ask friends to help him or her blow off steam or tackle an emotional closet clean-out. 

DON'T gossip. There isn't anybody that's going to help, or anyone that's going to entertain for more than a minute.

DO be humble. Your friend never dreamed he or she would be in such a position, and you may find yourself there one day, too.