Baby Slings & Clothing Sunscreen Protection

The advice has always been that babies and young children should stay out of the sun as much as possible.  Of

Our son with sun protective swim shirt

course, it’s impossible to completely avoid the sun, especially when your child becomes more and more active.  Recently, certain types of baby clothes and baby gear have been manufactured to offer UV protection.  But, as indicated by a comment on a recent Consumer Reports Baby blog post called Sunscreen tips for babies and young children it is very unclear what level of UV protection we are getting from these clothes. I found out that we need to look for the UPF.

Baby Clothes Sun Protection Standards – Look For UPF

The American Melanoma Foundation’s site on sun protective clothing says that new standards were released in the US in 2001.  Now, the US has the “most stringent UV-protective clothing standards in the world!”  The unit for these standards is measured in UPF (UV Protection Factor).

What does the UPF rating mean? UPF goes beyond SPF by measuring… continue reading…

Do Sports Car Driving Teenagers Want Families to Die?

We’ve been having car trouble recently, so my wife was driving our toddler and I to the dealership to pick up our ’98 Maxima.  I’m in the back seat, next to the toddler’s car seat entertaining him.  Just outside my window I see a pimply teenage boy staring angrily at my son and I in the back seat.  I have no idea why

The teenager is by himself driving a lipstick red Mistubishi GT something.  There’s no one else on the road.  Suddenly he accelerates very quickly and cuts in front of us – as close as you can get to our bumper without hitting it.  Then decides to flip my family the finger and speeds away.  My wife got a bit scared, and swerved slightly, but fortunately there was no oncoming traffic.

Can someone explain this to me? A teenager takes time to look at a family continue reading…