Items tagged with 'parents'
Capital Region's most popular baby names
Updated
Because we were thinking about birthdays this week, we thought it'd be fun to look at Capital Region baby names. (A name is one of the first birth day presents you ever get.)
So we pulled together the numbers for the past handful of years for the four core counties of the Capital Region.
And away we go...
Good daycare near Albany?
Sean emails:
My wife is pregnant (yay!). We both love our jobs and plan on continuing to work after the baby is born. However, we don't know anyone in the area with young kids that could recommend a reputable daycare near where we work (Latham). The commute is from Albany, so anywhere between Albany and Latham would be right in our wheelhouse. Any daycare recommendations?
This question has come up before, but it was more than two years ago -- and focused on Saratoga County.
So, got a suggestion for Sean and his wife? Please share!
photo: D Sharon Pruitt (cc)
A good obstetrician?
Anonymous Soon-to-Be Father emails:
My wife and I just found out that she was pregnant. So recent, in fact, that it's too soon to tell our friends + family (shh!). We were hoping some of your readers could help us find a reputable doctor to catch our first baby. We're not daring enough for a home-birth and we like the idea of avoiding c-sections as much as possible.
Doula recommendations are also welcome! We're probably [not looking for] midwives, under the assumption that their services are more geared towards home-births. However, I've heard of midwives that will operate (no pun intended) out of hospitals sometimes...
In any event, we're looking to have the baby in a hospital (including or between Albany + Schenectady), have someone more knowledgeable than I in the room with us, and continue down the road toward natural child-birth (avoiding c-section) as long as possible.
Congrats! And important question! Maybe everyone can help Soon-to-Be Father and his wife sort out some of the local options.
Got a suggestion, or just a tip on how to go about finding the right provider? Please share! And please explain why you like that person, or why you chose that option.
photo: Flickr user nerissa's ring (cc)
Where to buy kids shoes?
With growing kids -- with growing feet -- Amarit emails:
I recently learned that Junior Shoe Port is closing their Albany and Latham locations, meaning that the only Capital Region children's shoe store is in Clifton Park. For those of us in Albany, that's quite a hike to get shoes for our kids, especially since they don't all grow at the same rate or need shoes at the same time. ... I know it seems minor, but as a parent of three kids with weird feet (and not all the same kinds of weird), I need a place with knowledgable sales people who can properly fit my kid for shoes. Ordering online for them is very challenging. Since learning about this closing earlier today from an equally dismayed friend, a number of other parents have expressed their concerns as well.
The Times Union reported recently that, in addition to the Stuyvesant Plaza store closing, the Clifton Park Stride Rite is also headed for closure. So there will be even fewer options.
Got any ideas for Amarit and her kids? Please share!
photo: Flickr user tamakisono (cc)
How to find a nanny?
New parents S and J reached out to us looking for some suggestions on finding childcare. They're having a tough time getting into their daycare programs of choice, so they're looking for a nanny. Eventually they may also be needing sitters. So...
How do you find a nanny -- or baby sitter -- in the Capital Region?
They'd welcome specific names (of course), but also suggestions about where to look.
Got a suggestion? Please share!
photo: Flickr user nerissa's ring (cc)
When the world points toward being fearful, how do you teach your kids to be brave?
Sometimes it's a matter of knowing when to leap.
So, I'm watching the Olympics with my daughters. And we're talking about how strong the women on the screen are, how brave the 15-year-old girl is as she twists and turns at 35 miles per hour off the high diving platform and into the water.
"Mom, I want to do that. But she should be wearing a life-jacket. How can she swim without a life-jacket?"
"Well, she practiced and practiced. And she learned how to hold air in her lungs and use her hands and feet, just like you do when you're wearing your life-jacket."
"But that's far to jump. She shouldn't go by herself."
I want to throw caution to the wind and tell my 5-year-old little girl that someday she'll be able to go places by herself, too. That she'll be jumping without a life jacket, and that I will hold my breath until she comes back up from under the water. But, truth be told, I am grateful for being the mother of a cautious child some days. Apparently, it's a scary world out there.
There was recently a report of an attempted abduction just across the bridge in Scotia. A 10-year-old girl told her mother and police about an older man in a rusted, light-green, 4-door sedan who had tried to lure her into the car with candy.
But she made it up. The girl later admitted to Scotia police that she wanted to get attention from her parents. There is a new baby at her home.
There was about a week between that first report and the news that it was false. And despite the statistics that very few kids -- only about a hundred, out of tens of thousands of reports -- are taken in this sort of stereotypical situation, I had a day or two when my girls only played in the back yard.
These sorts of stories generate a lot of fear -- they're our worst nightmare. And we'd like to think that the world wasn't always like this, that there were times that qualify as 'back in the day' when things like creeps in light green sedans didn't threaten the way we look at the world. But this just doesn't hold up. There have always been creeps in rusted, light green 4 door sedans.
Most popular baby names New York 2011
As it does every year, the Social Security Administration today released
So we pulled the list -- the 100 most popular names for boys and girls born in New York State last year are after the jump. We also looked at how the top 10 names this year ranked during the last few years.
One name in particular has skyrocketed in popularity...
Walking on eggs
Let the games begin.
I should have known by the barrier that this was going to end badly.
The tape keeping the throng of sugar-crazed toddlers at bay read "CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS." Parents all around us were laying out strategies for their kids, so complex I expected at any moment a mom or dad would pull a chalkboard out of a stroller and diagram the game plans with arrows, Xs and Os.
This was an egg hunt of epic proportions, and we were out of our league.
... said chrisck about The alligator man