When Valerie Hunter Gordon developed a disposable diaper called the Paddi in 1947, consisting of flushable cellulose padding held inside a nylon shell, she made things easier for herself and her friends, but manufacturers didn't see the genius in the product. The executives probably didn't wash many diapers.   

The Paddi was a major hit with her homemaker friends, and she wound up sewing over 400 sets for them at her kitchen table.  Although the diapers proved popular, Gordon couldn’t convince a company to manufacture them because it was thought there was little market for them. Finally, in 1949, Gordon was able to sell the idea to Robinson and Sons, a company that was one of the first to make disposable sanitary napkins. After a slow start, Paddi’s became quite popular, which led other companies to tweak Gordon’s two-part design and release their own disposable diapers. In fact, it wasn’t until 1961, when Pampers were introduced, that the completely disposable diaper became the norm.

Read the rest of the story of the disposable diaper, plus the history of other baby products such as the pacifier, stroller, and baby monitor at mental_floss. Link

St. Patrick's Day is Sunday and green seems to be the theme this month. So, in honor of this pinch worthy holiday, I share with you my son's new favorite green treat: Green eggs, hold the ham. 

• 1 box of instant vanilla pudding
• Vanilla wafers
• and green food coloring 

Make the pudding according to box directions. Add green food coloring to the pudding. Plate the pudding and put a vanilla wafer cookie in the center. Yes, it's really that simple. The best part, the little kids can participate in every step of the process.  

Don't go patting me on the back for this simple and kid friendly recipe just yet. I must sadly confess it was not really my idea. This recipe was taught to my son by some wonderful and creative preschool teachers. I am just the grateful recipient of my son's new found culinary expertise. 

Happy family cooking! Oh, and my son would like me to wish you all a very, "Happy Green Leprechaun's Day."  

Before my children were born, I held with Thomas Sowell's view that "Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late." Practical experience as a parent has only confirmed this view. Now a psychological study provides evidence that babies may look innocent, but aren't:

A University of B.C.-led psychology study found that infants as young as nine-months-old embrace those who pick on individuals who don’t share their preferences.

Study lead author Kiley Hamlin said the findings reveal that babies are constantly busy assessing their surroundings, trying to determine who their friends and enemies are. [...]

The youngsters were then shown a puppet show where the character demonstrated the same food preference as the baby. Another puppet demonstrated the opposite preference.

The puppets harmed, helped or acted neutrally towards the puppets with different or similar food preferences.

Results showed that the babies far preferred the puppets who harmed the puppet with the opposite food preferences to their own. One baby even planted a kiss on the puppet she liked. [...]

Hamlin said the findings suggest that babies feel something like schaudenfreude, a German term describing the pleasure experienced when someone you dislike or consider threatening experiences harm.

Link -via Dave Barry | Photo: Tom Check

The Yitzhak Rabin High School in Kfar Saba, Israel, collected information from teachers on junior class students, supposedly to identify troublemakers ahead of a field trip to Poland. The teacher collating the information on a spreadsheet accidentally emailed the internal document to the students who signed up for the trip.

Though some students were described as "pleasant" and "quiet," many others were given insulting labels such as "big baby," "sicko," and "not too bright."

One student was said to "have a voice like a 4-year-old girl," while another was flagged for having "a thing" for boys.

Students showed up at the school this morning with their individual put-downs taped to their shirts.

One of the students who found themselves on the infamous spreadsheet said she would have a hard time looking her teachers in the eye after this. "We are very angry," she told YNet.  

Israel's Ministry of Education is launching an investigation into the incident. Link  -via Daily of the Day

A clapping-type game called "cups" is spreading rapidly among young schoolgirls. The modern revival, with its accompanying song, is considered to have started with Lulu and the Lampshades' video You're Gonna Miss Me. Their routine was included in the movie Pitch Perfect, which was released on video in December. But why are cups and other clapping games so appealing?

The games are encoded with sociocultural significance, said Elizabeth Tucker, a folklorist and English professor at Binghamton University in New York.

They have existed since at least the late 19th century and their functions include teaching dexterity and serving as tools for forming friendships. And new research is showing that these primitive clapping and chanting games have endured around the world, despite competition from hand-held technology.

Kyra Gaunt, a social science professor at Baruch College in New York, researches hand games. There are so many distractions these days, Gaunt said, that hand games are harder for children to master. And as playtime has become more structured — soccer leagues and play dates — students are discovering the games in different ways, often through music classes, movies and, of course, on the Web.

The spread is easy to explain: you see it, and you say, "That's neat! I wanna learn to do that." Luisa Gerstein of Lulu and the Lampshades said she doesn't know who invented cups, as she had learned it years earlier in school. Some things never change. Link -via TYWKIWDBI

(Image credit: Matt McClain/Washington Post)

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Two-year-old Oscar gets his first ride in a wind tunnel, the kind people use to train for skydiving. He sure does have fun! -via Daily of the Day

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In a kids-division dance battle, 6-year-old Bgirl Terra owns the crowd at Chelles Battle Pro 2013 on Saturday. Her somewhat older opponent isn't bad, either. -via Viral Viral Videos

Raising Children of the Korn requires a daily dose of nu metal, which is thankfully captured for posterity in this YouTube clip by XxSassahmaxX. Here are 3-year-old Lukas Payne and his older sister Serene rocking out to Falling Away From Me while on a road trip.

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] (Love that? Watch 'em rock out to TENSION) - via Daily Picks and Flicks

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Barbie has a new dress embedded with LEDs! The "digital dress" has several pre-programmed patterns and an interactive mode with touch screen technology, plus a sound activated mode. Look for the Barbie doll with the digital dress for $50 in August. You glow, girl! -via Geekologie 

How far would you go to have your husband's baby? Are you smart enough or brave enough to try to break through one of the toughest prison systems in the world?

Sure it sounds like a plot of some strange, future Oscar nominated movie, but according to NBC News savy Palestinian women are actually breaking their husband's sperm out of Israeli prisons in order to concieve. How are they smuggling sperm out of a prison where every visitor is subjected to several layers of security checks? They won't exactly tell. They don't want to stop the flow of sperm and baby dreams. What they will say is that is a very calculated and planned manuever that typical includes Mother-in-Laws and taxis waiting to speed them off to an IVF clinic.  

The clinic won't confirm how procedures they have performed. Many of the Dads and Dads-to-be are servring multiple life sentences for terrorist acts. The clinic will only say that they are doing this to help the wives. 

“We are doing this to help these ladies because we feel as doctors that the wives of prisoners pay a very high price,” Abu Khaizaran said without revealing how many other such procedures he had conducted. “She has to wait for her husband, sometimes she can spend her lovely youth just waiting. And by the time her husband is out, many of them will not be able to have babies.”

John Ray of NBC News has the story: Link

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Titus Ashby is only two years old, but he can sink one ball after another, often with banked shots or from great distances. His proud father, Joseph Ashby, writes:

This is the trick shot video that makes other trick shot videos look like a bunch of old guys who should have something better to do -- like retire, turn up their pacemakers, or join an assisted living facility. 

Link -via VA Viper

Andrea Burnett makes Star Wars-themed crib mobiles and sells them through her Etsy store Sheep Creek Needlecraft. They are each custom-made, with your choice of elements like different spaceships from the films, a Death Star, and planets. This is perfect for getting your geek baby off to a stellar start! Link -via Geeks Are Sexy

Jorge Cham of PHD Comics charts an essential truth: parenting is a long period of anxiety punctuated by moments of sheer terror or joy. When it's all over, which will you remember the most easily?

Link -via Joe Carter

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Jude practices his faceplants instead of taking a nap. His parents watch by a baby-monitoring app. And laugh! -via Daily Picks and Flicks

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Little Kayla is very excited about seeing the moon, but she can't reach it! -via Viral Viral Videos

First Lady Michelle Obama is not afraid to get her groove for a good cause.  She recently visited the set of Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to promote her "Let's Move" campaign to end childhood obesity. The result is a hilarious segment titled, "The Evolution of Mom Dancing."  

It includes great dance moves like: 

• Go Shopping, Get Groceries
• The Where's Your Father? (Get Him back here!)
• and The Driving The Station Wagon

As an American I am proud to say, "My first lady can dance better than your first lady! Nanner! Nanner! Nanner!"

Hit play or go to Link [Flash video/self-starting]

The Tooth Fairy tried to get the tooth. But Emily's room was a mess, especially the bed. It was covered with toys, blankets and Emily's sister. So she left a note saying that she would come back if Emily cleaned up and made the tooth accessible. Amy, Emily's mom, reports that the child responded favorably and it's likely that the Tooth Fairy will return.

Link -via GeekDad

Would you put your baby or toddler outside in the freezing cold for their lunchtime nap? Most Nordic parents wouldn't give it a second thought. For them it's part of their daily routine.

Daytime temperatures this winter in Stockholm have regularly dropped to -5C (23F) but it's still common to see children left outside by their parents for a sleep in the pram.

Wander through the snowy city and you'll see buggies lined up outside coffee shops while parents sip on lattes inside.

And if you are visiting friends and your child needs a nap, you may be offered the garden or balcony instead of a bedroom.

Helena Lee of BBC News explains: Link (Photo: Asa Eriksson)

Collectors Weekly has a pretty comprehensive article on the evolution of black dolls, from homemade dolls to racist caricatures to darker versions of white doll molds to specialty doll companies to what's available today. Because children should have dolls that reflect who they are -and that reflect the people around them. One of the people who contributed to the article is Debbie Behan Garrett, author of the book Black Dolls: A Comprehensive Guide to Celebrating, Collecting, and Experiencing the Passion.  

"Because of the false belief that anything white was better than anything black, some early dolls that black parents and children made from household items were often in the image of white people,” Garrett says. “I didn’t personally make any dolls as a child, but I have heard of those who used a Coke bottle as the doll’s body and undyed rope as hair. The undyed rope represented blonde hair.

“In the early movies and television, there were not very many positive images of black people,” she continues. “White characters always had positive roles: There was Shirley Temple, ‘Leave It to Beaver,’ and Opie on ‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ to name a few. Black people had Buckwheat in ‘The Little Rascals’ and other characters that were not positive images for young children. The negative characterization of black people not only affected black children. It was a way to embed in the minds of young white children that all black people were like the ones seen in the media.”

The end of World War II in 1945 brought about a boom in U.S. manufacturing featuring new plastics developed during the war. Suddenly, vinyl and hard plastic dolls were cheap and easy to churn out of the factory. These manufactured dolls were so affordable that middle and lower class people didn’t have to hand-make their dolls anymore.

The mass-production of plastic dolls was so streamlined that, for manufacturers, making special molds of dolls with African American features seemed like an unnecessary cost. That’s why most of the vinyl and hard plastic dolls were white. The black dolls that were sold by companies like Horsman or Terri Lee were most often white dolls painted brown or dipped in brown dye, Garrett explains. “You couldn’t look at the doll and classify it as a true representation of a black person,” she says. “Because it was just a brown counterpart of the white doll.”

You'll also read about Samantha Knowles and her new documentary Why Do You Have Black Dolls? and the many companies that sprung up over the years to fill the need for authentic black dolls. Link

Today you are a man. Tomorrow you go back to junior high school an internet rap sensation.

Meet Daniel Blumen. This May he is set to have his Bar Mitzvah. That is the day that this 13-year-old boy will read from the Torah and become a man. This rite of passage is a huge accomplishment. Most families plan big parties and send out written save-the-date cards, but not Daniel. Daniel and his family created a beautifully made video of him rapping. Oh, and did I mention that the video also includes cameos by several celebrities. The save-the-date video has gone viral and now Daniel has become a celebrity in his own right.  

Hit play or go to Link. 

When you were little how did you get out of going to bed? Ask for a glass or water? Complain that you had to use the restroom? Not a 10-year-old boy from Massachusetts. This little guy called 911. 

According to Enterprise News a 10-year-old boy called 911 at 8:09 pm to complain about his Mother sending him to bed. The boy dialed the police, but hung up before talking to them. As per policy the police called the home back.   

On the call, the mother is heard telling the boy that the police are on the line because he called them. The mother asks if he still wanted to talk to them and complain about his bedtime hour, but he didn't.

Link

Image: Pirate Clock from the NeatoShop

Sunny Chanel's 7-year-old daughter is too young to see any of the nine films up for a Best Picture Oscar. But she took a look at the posters for each film and gave her assessment of what the movie is about from that. This is what she said about Django Unchained:

"It's a wild west movie! But I don't know why there is a 'D' in the name. It should be just Jango, just with a 'J' not a 'D'. That's weird. The guy in the middle is a good guy and the other guys are bad guys. The guy on the left always plays bad guys. In the movie they dance a lot and then they kill bad people and the bad people kill the good people because they are mean. Really mean."

Leonardo DiCaprio would get a kick out of her assessment of his roles. After judging all nine movies, the youngster says that Lincoln will win the Academy Award. Link -via Laughing Squid

Many children who suffer from neglect or abuse from their parents nonetheless manage to grow up into decent adults. Question is, do they owe anything to these bad parents?

What do we owe our tormentors? It’s a question that haunts those who had childhoods marked by years of neglect and deprivation, or of psychological, physical, and sexual abuse at the hands of one or both parents. Despite this terrible beginning, many people make it out successfully and go on to build satisfying lives. Now their mother or father is old, maybe ailing, possibly broke. With a sense of guilt and dread, these adults are grappling with whether and how to care for those who didn’t care for them.

Emily Yoffe of Slate wrote an interesting article exploring the question of whether grown children of neglectful or abusive parents have any obligation to take care those who didn't even fulfill their own: Link - Thanks facetedjewel!

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Jesse Teeters and his two-year-old daughter unveil their first duet for the public. He calls it "The culmination of 2.5 years of parenting." Adorable! On the off chance you're not familiar with the song, see the most popular performance here.  -via reddit

I saw this headline a couple of times yesterday before I realized that what made the story so rare is that she gave birth to two sets of identical twins all at the same time! Tressa Montalvo had a Cesarian section on Valentine's Day at  Women’s Hospital of Texas and produced four boys, each weighing between three and four pounds. She had conceived fraternal twins, then each embryo split into identical twins. Montalvo and her husband used no fertility drugs.

The odds of delivering two sets of naturally occurring identical twins is somewhere in the range of 1 in 70 million, according to the hospital. Two boys shared one placenta and the two other boys shared another placenta.

Ace and Blaine were born at 8:51 a.m. on February 14 and weighed 3 pounds, 10 ounces (1.64 kg), and 3 pounds, 15 ounces (1.79 kg), respectively. Cash and Dylan followed a minute later, weighing 2 pounds, 15 ounces (1.33 kg), and 3 pounds, 6 ounces (1.53 kg), respectively.

"We tried to stick to the A-B-C-D theme when naming them," Tressa Montalvo said. "We didn't expect it, we were trying for just one and we were blessed with four."

The quadruplets join a two-year-old brother. The boys' father said they were going to try for a girl next. That's easy for him to say. Link  -via Holy Kaw!

(Image credit: Reuters/The Women's Hospital of Texas)

Is the secret to improving your kids' grade be as simple as who they're friends with? Maybe so, according to a new study by high school students Deanna Blanksy and friends:

In the grade point study, researchers took to the classroom to see whether academic achievement might be as contagious as obesity. They asked 158 eleventh-graders to go down a class roster and point out their pals. Then they checked everyone’s report cards at the time of the survey, and again a year later.

The researchers found that those students whose friends were outshining them academically tended to improve their grades over the year. Whereas those who were hanging out with academic underachievers let their grades slide.

Link

Kelli Higgins and her husband have eight children, including 13-year-old Latrell and his younger sister, who were adopted from foster care at age 10 and 5.

The family was sitting around the dinner table last month, when Higgins – a professional photographer – mentioned that she was preparing for an upcoming baby photo session. Latrell mentioned that he wished he had baby photos of himself.

Higgins’ 12-year-old daughter asked, why not “recreate” a newborn photo shoot just for Latrell? The family had a good laugh thinking about him in all the newborn poses.

“I thought it was funny and that it would be a good idea,” Latrell told TODAY.com. His mom found the notion bittersweet.

“I was very sad too because I didn’t have any photos of him either," Higgins said. "I think it’s really hard to have children and not know what they looked like when they were younger.”

Higgins and Latrell went into her studio the next day, both laughing hysterically the whole time, she recalled.

Latrell's photo shoot created a sensation when she posted it on her Facebook page. Latrell is cool with it, and the photos have brought attention to the many older children available for adoption. Link -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Kelli Higgins Photography)

Photo: University of Washington, Institute for Learning & Brain Science

Your baby is smarter than you'd think. A new laboratory technique allowed scientists to peer inside a baby's brain to see what's going on there while you read or talk to it:

Infants as young as 6 months are capable of making predictions based on probability, a higher level of reasoning than is commonly believed possible, researchers have found.

When shown a range of facial expressions, children as young as 7 months cast the longest gaze on the fearful face, similar to adult behavior, which scientists say signals an early sign of emotional processing.

And every parent knows that mimicking a baby's behavior, such as clapping hands, brings the child pleasure. Imaging technology has confirmed that this kind of play activates the pleasure center in the baby's brain, whereas engaging in a mismatched activity doesn't.

Sumathi Reddy of the Wall Street Journal has the full report: Link

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Bianca Giaever made a film by asking six-year-old Asa Baker-Rouse for a story. The story is about a bear and a mouse, but then Asa gets philosophical about dealing with nervousness and fear.

We all get a little scared sometimes. Scared of graduating school without a plan; scared of monsters. One six year old has a remedy: think of something else until the "nervous has gone out of you." Think of juice, pizza, and a piano shaped chocolate chip cookie. In other words, he says, "when the scared feeling comes into you, the scared is scared of things you like."

There aren't many situations that couldn't be improved by pizza and a cookie. Link

Chris and Laura King take their children's manners seriously. They insist that the kids behave themselves in public. This was greatly appreciated by the servers at the Sogno di Vino restaurant in Poulsbo, Washington, who gave them an unsolicited discount as an expression of their appreciation:

Owner Angela Scott, who was also serving that night, and the two other servers were so impressed with the kids' manners that they wanted to congratulate them somehow.

"You would never even know that children were in the dining room," Scott said. "We just wanted to say, 'Awesome! You guys were so good!'"

So they agreed to give the kids free ice cream. [...]

Soon after, the picture exploded in popularity. By Feb. 4, the friend contacted King and told her that people were asking for more information about the receipt.

"They are always pretty well-behaved so it wasn't anything out of the ordinary from them," she said.

But the night was somewhat extraordinary for Scott who still recalls how much easier three polite children made her job that evening.

"We see the opposite a lot of time," Scott said. "Sometimes children are not the most well-behaved. It was nice especially because they are so young."

Link -via Daily of the Day | Photos: Laura King