Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the internet another wacky news story is spreading like a virus.  It's manic Monday my dear readers.  This one takes the cake:  A Maine woman was taken to a hospital rather than a jail cell after she began going into labor in the back seat of a police car following her arrest on a domestic violence charge this past weekend.

Police said the 23-year-old gave birth after being arrested earlier in the evening for allegedly assaulting her husband in a fight while driving.  Road rage is taking on a whole new meaning.  I'm shocked - she's married at 23!  Poor thing.

Officer Doug Maifeld told the Sun Journal of Lewiston that the woman, who was eight months pregnant, began going into contractions in the back of the police car. He said an ambulance met them at the police station and took the woman to the hospital.  Police said the mother and baby were then taken to Maine Medical Center in Portland, where they were reported to be fine. 

Perhaps all that exertion brought on labor.  I remember taking walks around the hospital to bring on labor I just should have beaten up my husband....lord knows I was in enough pain too.  Did I miss something?  Is beating up other people the new lamaze?  Breathe and beat ladies.  Do you think she'll blame this on raging hormones? 

Did you beat your husband when you were pregnant?  Did you come close?

Hey there Funny Mom fans, if you want some really good belly laughs this weekend come out to see MAMA'S NIGHT OUT on Saturday, May 3rd, at 8:00PM at the Carlisle Theatre in Harrisburg, PA.  Get an early start to your Mother's Day celebration this year.  

MAMA'S NIGHT OUT is comedy by mothers for everyone so bring your husbands they'll enjoy it too.  MNIO is family friendly comedy but please leave the kids at home!

I just heard the news that J Lo and hubby Mark Anthony are going to star in their own reality show on the Learning Channel about balancing family and career.  I am so fed up with the reality genre already.  What ever happened to a little fiction?  Not to say that reality shows aren't completely produced and fake but enough airing of the boring minutia of the lives of celebrities, their ugly, spoiled families and showing them after they've had unneccessary plastic surgery and calling it entertainment already.  

And J Lo just had her babies like a few weeks ago and suddenly she's the authority on balancing career and family?!  Oh yeah, it's so hard to maintain that balance when you have millions of dollars.  Try balancing my entertainment career with my family!  There's no full time nanny in my house to pick up the kids after school, clean the house, no personal assistant to run my errands or drive me to the airport.  Give me a break.  I'm on the ledge people and I'm gonna jump already.  Sounds like the Learning Channel got desperate in their grab for ratings and lowered themselves for another celeb style reality show. 

PS - I did a season on a reality show and I can say with the utmost conviction that they're completely produced.

My husband and I are friends with another married couple who also have a 5 year old - Samuel. They're really good friends and we always look forward to get togethers. Our husbands get along, our kids do, we do too. We take holidays together on the Cape every summer. Sounds perfect right? It was.....(dramatic music - dum, dum, dum)....till their son started hitting our daughter.

This started about 6 months ago. Admittedly, boys play very differently than girls. From what I've observed in the playground and from my own nephew experiences: boys think nothing of hitting; they actually seem to enjoy it; nor do they appear to hold grudges when they've been hit; they're just a different species. Girls are a very different matter altogether. They rarely hit and god forbid they do get hit they will remind you of the 'incident' for years to come: the time it happened; the day; what they were wearing; what they were feeling at the moment, etc....you get the picture.

Custom cars, custom computers, why not custom kids?  The question is asked of almost every prospective parent: "Would you prefer a girl or a boy?"  Upon first pondering a parent's ability to select the sex of their children I must admit, my knee jerk reaction is NO.  I'm of the belief that this much fooling with nature will only result in an imbalance in the population like the one very present in China.  They have entire generations of men with no wives and no more children.   I realize the inherit conflict in saying this because I believe a woman's right to chose is her own private medical decision so logically it should follow the right to chose the sex of her children should be her decision as well. 

Medically speaking, I am aware that doctors often provide genetic counseling to couples who may be carriers of diseases that are more prevalent in certain sexes leaving the couple to decide.  That's appropriate. 

If I could choose the sex of our next child I have to say I'd have another girl only because I have such great clothes from Lily.  I also have some fabulous shoes for 'her' that I'd hate to waste and some great accessories too.  I even have a great name picked out:  Violet.  Then, I could have my little garden of children:  Lily; Violet.  Sounds like science fiction.  And we all know, little boys can be very gross.  I have nephews.  I've seen their disgusting little habits.  I'm kidding people.....or am I???

What do you think?  Should parents be allowed to pick the sex of their children?  Did you?

We babysat our 4 month old god son, Andrew, on Sunday.  It's only been a few years since Lily required constant carrying but wow have baby slings come a long way!  Now Lily was an enormous baby.  She weighed 9.5 pounds at birth (born naturally by the way - hey drugs are natural - 17 stitches later thank you very much) and was 13 pounds by the end of her first month.  I remember one of my aunts gave me a sling at my baby shower.  She kept saying, "I first saw this in Guatemala, all the women down there use them."  To which I replied, "Great, I'll remember that when I'm picking coffee beans in Brooklyn."

I always thought they looked a bit dodgy.  The one my aunt gave me didn't look particularly strong enough to hold my little butter ball.  It was like a sheet with a clip on it and the whole 'one clip' thing didn't thrill me safety wise.  And quite honestly, our über baby was so heavy I couldn't imagine the positioning of her weight being beneficial to my back.  I also wasn't thrilled with the fact that slings looked like a lot of work.  One minute it's a sheet with a clip the next it's a bandanna.  I was never good at making beds I still can't get my corners to look like sails so how could I possibly handle the sheet thing every day.  I'm sure there are millions of women who use them and the benefits they get from them are innumerable.  Good, good for them.  As we say in Brooklyn, "I'm just saying." 

We're faced with an educational dilemma here in Brooklyn. Lily, our five year old whose birthday is December 22nd, is having trouble keeping up in Kindergarten. Believe it or not, they're only 5, 6 at the most, and they're doing fractions this week! Lily, like most kids her age has trouble paying attention so fractions are really a joke to her and she's the youngest in her class so she has 'maturation issues' already. I even tried to make the fractions homework fun last night: if you have one booger and you cut it in two that makes two halves of a booger. You see maturation issues run in the family.

Now fractions to me, are first grade level work. Even Lily's teachers agree the standards of the state educational board that decides on curricula are not age appropriate. But make no mistake, many, many schools are pushing our children to learn earlier and earlier. New York State isn't alone in this. On a lighter note, I believe in a life of lowered expectations and standards. And that we should start disappointing our children now if we're really going to prepare them for the world.

I think these are the perfect solution for people who want to feel like they live in the city but remain in the country.  If you look closely enough you can see the still in the background.  I'll take the penthouse please.

OMG!  I went to our local Keyfood this morning just to pick up a few items, 5 in fact, and the total came to $29.73.  I was so shocked I made the Express Line cashier (who now really hates me) void out the order and do it again.  I hate that she chews her gum so loudly and then snarls into that awful microphone, "Manager to express register."  Much to my chagrin and disappointment, the total was the same - $29.73 for: cookies (one package); breakfast sausages; milk; scallions; and organic apple juice!  Holy crap people!  Now that I'm a mom, I find myself running to the store every day to pick up some item I've run out of.  Looks like I'll run out of money first.  I don't know about a full on recession but I think it's say to say that inflation is way on the rise. 

Have you noticed prices going up on everything as well?  I know we're getting hammered at the pump but what about everywhere else too?   Share your latest sticker shock with your fellow fleeced parents, misery loves company. 

Sorry readers I couldn't help commenting on this photo I saw on AOL.com today.  My b.s. barometer has reached fever pitch and there's not enough Children's Tylenol in this house to break it.  I know what you're thinking.....this photo of Bush must be photo-shopped because we've never seen him expressing real emotion in the form of tears before for the victims of the war that he started in Iraq.  Finally.  But do you think he really cares about all our young soldiers dying over there?  Or for the Iraqi people?  The families (in both countries) that are being destroyed by this senseless war?  The fact that we've taken the most secular country in the Middle East and completely devastated their economy and their infrastructure?  And what about our own economy?  Our own infrastructure?  Our schools? 

The bridge in my neighborhood was just voted one of the 20 most heavily trafficked in the U.S. in need of immediate repair.  And it's over water!  There's no money to fix it either but there's money for a war.  And for those of you who say, that money comes from a different place I say it comes from the same place - the tax payers pocket.  Enough already.  Every great civilization falls:  ancient Rome did too fighting countless wars against supposed 'invaders'.  I wonder if they referred to the Gauls as the evil doers?  A man started this war I think it will take a woman to end it.....and you know who I'm talking about.  But I think it would be even more sweetly ironic if the man to assume office after Bush has the middle name Hussein.  Maybe there is a god after all.

I had lunch with a group of old college buddies today.  Some of us chose to raise our children in urban environments while other parents opted for the burbs.  Now I've always thought there are many benefits to both: urban centers are great for diversity, exposing children to culture, museums, smelly street freaks you know all that great stuff associated with cities; while there's nothing like good 'ole fresh air, green grass, climbing trees, competing with supposedly friendlier people over sh*t no one really needs nor can afford to develop a child's imagination and body.

In a nutshell, I'm saying there are benefits to both.  I've never been one of those people who says I'd choose the city over the country for my child or vice versa.  I'm generally not that black and white about anything.  It's just worked out this way for us career wise: both my husband and I work in NYC.  It's definitely not cheaper to live in the suburbs - let's just dispel that myth.  When all the costs are figured in like commuting and taxes even the New York Times says home ownership costs about the same in the suburbs as it does in New York City. 

We just tend to be city dwellers.  We see the benefits to living in Brooklyn on a daily basis but we love the ease of suburban living....at least it appears to be easier....the grass is always greener because heck we don't even have grass!  If we could just get a Dairy Barn in Brooklyn I swear all our problems would be over: to not have to get out of the car; or circle for hours looking for a parking spot; or wait while some mental patient tries to haggle over the price; just to get a quart of organic milk would be incredible.

One of Lily's classmates was sent to school today with one of her mother's many old Starbucks cups full of juice for lunch.  Now that's definitely an urban child.  I know which mother it was too.  I could just see the poor woman desperate to get her five (that's right I said five!) elementary school children ready for the day.  She probably forgot to turn the dishwasher on the night before and just said, "Oh the heck with it."  Washed out a few old cups she had rolling around the floor of her Cadillac Escallade (someone's got to tell these people that Brooklyn Heights is just an expression not a mountain range) and voila - Lily's friend had espresso apple juice to wash down her PBJ.  She may have started a new trend...espresso apple - for the kid who falls asleep after lunch.

Now despite the negative feedback from readers, I still give my five year old a sippy cup in her lunch bag because sports bottles leak like crazy.  It's not because I have issues with letting go this issue is I've had enough of irate Kindergarten paraprofessionals cornering me at pick up time complaining about sports cups leakage or as they like to call them 'drippy cups' in cubbies.  Generally, when other adults send me notes about 'leakage' it's usually in those naughty spam emails - you know what I'm talking about.  In fact, several terse notes have come home about leakage in the past two months.