Nine-year-olds love collecting little treasures.
It’s a funny thing about nine-year-olds. You may look at your own nine-year-old and think: where did my baby go? Gone is the nine-MONTH-old who worried about approaching strangers and howled when you walked away. Now you have a nine-YEAR-old who may shoo you away when you drop her off at a friend’s house.
Yes, some nine-year-olds may seem embarrassed by their parents, yet they absolutely want you around on the sidelines.
How can you tell if your child’s scrape is infected if his skin is already bright red?
I heaved a sigh of relief. My children greeted my husband and me at the door. The children had just baby-sat themselves. I thought everyone was unscathed until I saw one of my children covered in bandages. Cuts and scrapes? Apparently, although I had admonished them not to ride anything with wheels and not to climb on anything above the ground, the child with the bandages had tripped over her own feet during a benign game of four square.
“Did you wash the scrapes?” I asked.
hurray! launching a new look (photo credit: pixabay)
It’s no longer a secret. Many of you have noticed our new Two Peds in a Pod® logo. And indeed, we’re launching a whole new look. It’s a new vibe with the same dependable and relevant pediatric advice in a mobile friendly format!
The average blog’s lifespan is counted in months, not years, and as we complete our ninth year, we’re proud to have exceeded that expectation many times over. But it’s now harder to hang in.
Please don’t let us disappear off the internet!
As more and more advertisers jockey for spots at the top of search engines and more content crowds the web, it has grown tougher to reach parents. In fact, if you are reading this on Facebook, it’s because we’ve just paid Facebook to have this post reach all of our followers. We’re proud to avoid distracting pop-out ads on our blog, and we’re depending on your grassroot efforts to inform other parents and caregivers about our site. Invite your friends to follow us!
It’s been nine years, and like a cat with nine lives, we are determined to land on our feet. We believe, more than ever, that the internet is the best medium to reach you at all hours of the day. Help grow our worldwide presence.
Wishing you all Peds on earth!
Naline Lai, MD and Julie Kardos, MD
©2018 Two Peds in a Pod
Read our very first blog post from 2009 here.
ick, a tick
I was grumpy all morning after realizing that my dog was out of tick repellent. Really grumpy. I did not like the thought of having to remove a tick from my dog.
After all, on the East Coast of the United States, we are seeing ticks galore. All month long, parents who have had to remove a tick have been bringing us presents such as the one pictured here. Yes, that is a tick you see nicely trapped in tape. Sometimes when parents bring us a tick, it’s still clinging to the child and they ask us to remove it. To save you a trip to the doctor’s office, here is a quick refresher on how to pluck the bugs off:
Teach your child to recognize poison ivy: “leaves of three, let’em be!”
Recently we’ve had a parade of itchy children troop through our office. The culprit: poison ivy.
Myth buster: Fortunately, the rash of poison ivy is NOT contagious. You can “catch” a poison ivy rash ONLY from the plant, not from another person.
Another myth buster: You can not spread the rash of poison ivy on yourself through scratching. However, where the poison (oil) has touched your skin,
In the wake of chef Anthony Bourdain and designer Kate Spade’s deaths from suicide, you may be wondering how to address the topic of suicide with your child. We bring back psychotherapist Dina Ricciardo’s post for guidance:
“Hi, it’s me, Hannah. Hannah Baker.” So begins the first episode of 13 Reasons Why, a thirteen installment Netflix series that focuses on the aftermath of the suicide of a 17-year-old high school student. Based on the novel by Jay Asher, the series has sparked quite a bit of debate and concern among parents and mental health professionals. At its best, the series has served as a conversation starter; at its worst, it has glamorized suicide and the fantasy of revenge. At the end of the day, however, an important question remains: How do we talk with our kids about suicide? While many difficult topics have become increasingly safer to discuss, suicide is one that is still shrouded in secrecy and shame. In fact, it is so difficult to talk about that I had a hard time writing this post.
Raw chicken left out overnight—Dr. Lai’s recipe for Salmonella
These days it seems that the bacteria Salmonella is lurking everywhere. Last month’s egg recall for possible Salmonella contamination affected over 200 million eggs, but Salmonella is not just in eggs. In the last few months, dried coconuts and even guinea pigs (as pets, not as food!) have caused people gastroentestinal misery.
Nontyphoidal Salmonella usually causes fever and crampy diarrhea. Sometimes the stools contain blood. This stomach bug mainly lurks in
Melanie with grandma and mom
Now that you are a mom, maybe, just maybe, you realize that your grandmother or mom was right after all. We asked our readers for some examples and our friend, writing coach Melanie Cutler, told us about two generations of advice she wishes she had heeded:
Grandma Helen ALWAYS had unsolicited advice for whoever would listen. She clipped out magazine articles and mailed them to her children and grandchildren. She was very well-read, and she knew a thing or two about most things nutrition and health-related.
Gepetto always said his son had allergies, but the villagers knew better
It’s not your imagination. This is a particularly bad spring allergy season. We didn’t need media outlets to tell us that there are more itchy, sneezy, swollen eyed kids out there this year.
It is worth treating your child’s allergy symptoms- less itching leads to improved
