In honour of Sesame Street’s 40th anniversary, here are some classic videos.
Archive for category Parenting
Happy 40th, Sesame Street!
Nov 10
Tylenol is recalling some of their liquid products meant for infants and children, and information is a little hard to come by on their website. Eventually you may find this letter from Tylenol to healthcare professionals which reads, in part,
The company has implemented this recall because examination of bulk raw material detected that one of the inactive ingredients did not meet internal testing requirements. Specifically, the gram-negative bacteria Burkholderia cepacia (B. cepacia) was detected. The portion of raw material in which the bacteria was found was isolated and was not used in the production of any finished product. However, it was decided, as a precaution, to recall all product that utilized any of the raw material manufactured at the same time as the raw material that tested positive for the bacteria. Please note: No bacteria has been detected in finished product and the finished product has met all specifications.
US Recall has a list of the recalled products, so if you’ve got one of them, the letter says you can
contact our Customer Care Center at 1- 800-962-5357 and we will send them a coupon for a new bottle.
Note: this post was originally posted on March 7. I pulled it shortly after the first comment was posted, below. I’m adding an update which addresses some points made in that comment.
On January 7 I called Aloha Kona Kids to order a stroller. At that time I was told that the stroller would be in in about five weeks. The next week I received a receipt for the stroller, and that receipt says “your stroller has been ordered & will be here in approx 5 wks.”
Five weeks from January 7 is February 11.
On February 23 I called Aloha Kona Kids. Having not heard from them, I was curious to find out what happened. They did not answer their phone, so I left a message.
On February 24 I called Aloha Kona Kids twice. They did not answer their phone either time, so I left two messages.
On February 25 they called back, leaving a voicemail saying that the stroller was held up because it had to be tested for lead. This probably refers to the testing mandated by the CPSC and the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which set a February 10 deadline for testing products.
However, this February 10 deadline has been known about for a while. This story is dated January 8, one day after I ordered the stroller. And regardless of when they found out about it, Aloha Kona Kids surely knew about this deadline on or just before February 10 as their orders stacked up.
When did I find out about it? February 25, two weeks after this deadline and two weeks after the approximate delivery date of February 11.
I called Aloha Kona Kids back on February 27 and was told that the stroller had passed testing and was shipped. They couldn’t give me a delivery date as they hadn’t received the manifest from the shipping as of yet, but would call back the next Monday or Tuesday to let me know.
The next Wednesday, having not received the promised call, I called them back. I was told that FedEx said it shipped but the manifest they’d received didn’t have the stroller on it. However, this apparently happens frequently, and a second half of the manifest would show up. Aloha Kona Kids said they’d call back by Friday, March 6, to let me know if the stroller would show up on March 10 or March 17.
Having not received that phone call by Friday, I called them this morning. The stroller wasn’t on the manifest but it could show up March 10, 11, or 17, and they would call when it arrives.
I’m not holding my breath. Aloha Kona Kids has shown time and time again that they are extremely hesitant to call with any sort of news. When the originally promised five week deadline passed, they should have called. After I left a voicemail the first time, they should have called. After I left a voicemail for the second time, they should have called. After promising they’d call “Monday or Tuesday”, they should have called Monday or Tuesday. After promising they’d call “by Friday”, they should have called by Friday.
We only purchased this stroller from Aloha Kona Kids because they’re a local business, and keeping money within your community is a good thing. This stroller even cost $30 more than it would have cost through Amazon, and we have to pay state tax on it as well. But to pay more money to get shoddy customer service? No thanks.
Next time we need to purchase something big and expensive for our daughter, we’re skipping Aloha Kona Kids. We’ll order from Amazon instead.
Update: After my order was cancelled, I ordered the stroller from an online retailer. Here are some points I would like to make to address Philip’s comment:
- I don’t actually know who Philip is. I only dealt with a woman named Lori. I only spoke once with a man on the phone, and that conversation consisted primarily of him saying that Lori was out for lunch and would call back when she got back to the store (which she did).
- “We have contacted you several times regarding this matter.” I was only contacted after making repeated phone calls.
- “I told you when you ordered the stroller it would not be sent until after Feb. 10th.” The receipt dated January 7 clearly stated that the stroller would arrive at Aloha Kona Kids approximately five weeks after it was ordered, or on or around February 11. Unfortunately I’ve since recycled the receipt, or else I’d show a picture of it demonstrating that Philip’s statement is incorrect.
- “I gave you the option of “will call”. That is when we call you when it arrives. No deposit is required for this. You wanted to pay for it “NOW”.” Actually, when I ordered the stroller I inquired about putting down a deposit. I gave my credit card details and only found out when I received the receipt that I had been charged the full amount.
- “Our prices are the same as anywhere in the mainland.” For full disclosure, I ordered the BOB Sport Utility stroller (MSRP $299) and the Infant Car Seat Adapter (MSRP $59). I was charged $329.99 for the stroller and $59.99 for the adapter. Adding tax of 4.166% my total was about $406. Everywhere I looked online for the stroller had it for $299, thirty dollars cheaper than Aloha Kona Kids. I eventually ordered the stroller from Toys ‘R’ Us for $316.90 ($299 for the stroller, free shipping, handling of $14.24, tax of $12.67, and $10 off for paying with PayPal) and the adapter from REI for $67.99 ($59 for the adapter, $8.99 for shipping) for a total cost of $384.89.
Now I’m not saying that Aloha Kona Kids is a horrible place to shop. Shopping at the actual store is great. There’s loads of interesting products that you can’t get at other Big Island stores. The in-store customer service is quite good as well. However, I received poor customer service when dealing with orders over the phone. I can’t understand this drastic shift in customer service.
I very much prefer to do as much shopping at local businesses as I can. We love Bellies, Moonsprout, and the Village Toy Shop. We do the vast majority of our grocery shopping at Island Naturals, KTA, and Sack N Save. But there comes a point when being a local business isn’t enough to keep the customer satisfied. All of the businesses I’ve mentioned here have given us excellent customer service, so we continue to shop there.
And Sandy makes the point that consumers generally have to pay a little more at local businesses than at nationwide chain stores. This is completely correct. The corollary to this is that local businesses have to justify this extra expense, and they usually do so by offering unique stock and through improved customer service. In the days of a global economy where nearly everything can be ordered online, it is difficult for local businesses to offer truly unique stock, as is evidenced by this BOB stroller example. Thus the local business has to justify the extra expense through improved customer service. When that customer service is lacking, the business should not be surprised with the customer turns to another option. Why should I pay more to get frustrated with a local business?
Elizabeth Melissa Hina Cavanagh was born on March 9, 2009 at 12:52 pm at Hilo Medical Center. She weighed 7 pounds 1/4 ounce and was 18 3/4 inches long.
Everybody’s doing really well. Mom and Dad are a little tired, but that’s okay. Elizabeth is as happy as a clam.
Trivia: there was a magnitude 4.0 earthquake while Alice was getting her epidural. Fun!
Our awesome dresser
Feb 13
We’ve had a dresser for a while. Big, solid, wood. With kidlet coming Mrs. CanSpice decided it was time to spice it up. She asked Randy, a good friend of ours, if he would like to paint it. Randy’s always done excellent work (check out the first four pictures in my Shakespeare In The Park 2008 photostream) so we knew our dresser would turn out awesome.
We were definitely not disappointed. Witness our new awesome dresser:
We can’t thank Randy enough!
The skeptic blogosphere is all afire with a story from Times Online titled “MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism“. See, back in 1998 Wakefield published an article in Lancet which claimed that eight of twelve familes blamed their child’s developmental problems (most commonly manifesting as autism) on the mumps-measles-rubella vaccine (commonly known as MMR), and these problems only started within days of receiving MMR. Wakefield also claimed to have found a new inflammatory bowel disease underlying the children’s conditions.
Since then, anti-vaxxers have been all the rage. MMR and other vaccines have been blamed for the rise in autism. Unfortunately numerous studies have been done that show no link between vaccines and autism. Here are four as described by the CDC:
A September 2008 case-control study published in Public Library of Science (PLoS) was conducted in 2004-2008 to determine whether results from an earlier study that claimed to find measles virus RNA in the intestinal tissue of a specific group of autistic children could be confirmed. The results could not be confirmed, and no link between MMR and autism was found.
An April 2006 study conducted by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) of NIH and the CDC assessed data from 351 children with autism spectrum disorders and 31 typically-developing children. The study did not find a link between MMR vaccination and autism. The results were pubished in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.
A February 2004 case-control study examined the possible relationship between exposure to the MMR vaccine and autism in Atlanta, Georgia. The results were published in Pediatrics.
A November 2002 study by CDC and the Danish Medical Research Council that followed more than 500,000 children over 7 years and found no association between MMR vaccination and autism. The results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In case you’re wondering about the third study, the conclusions read:
This study provides strong evidence against association of autism with persistent MV RNA in the GI tract or MMR exposure.
In the face of overwhelming evidence, anti-vaxxers like Jenny McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Edit: I had John F. Kennedy Jr. here before. Obviously that’s incorrect.) continue to spout nonsense about vaccines. There’s a “Green Our Vaccines” campaign to “remove toxins from vaccines” which, as Mike Stanton points out, would remove anything useful from the vaccines, given they’re made up of weakened forms of the disease being vaccinated against.
Meanwhile, measles rates increased by 36% from 2006 to 2007 in England and Wales. Meanwhile, an unvaccinated teenager died from measles in 2006. Meanwhile, an unvaccinated teenager died from measles in 2008 (note that he had a weak immune system and probably wouldn’t have been vaccinated anyhow, but also note this quote: “he would have been protected if there had been high vaccination rates in the community.”)
A pseudo-scientific movem… no, I won’t even go that far. A quackery movement based on the suspected lies and falsifications of one person has led to more children getting sick and dying from a fatal disease. Sadly the anti-vaxxers have big mouths and big budgets, and haven’t let a lack of knowledge get in the way of their blustering, so the battle has not been won.
For more, read Bad Astronomy, Pharyngula, Respectful Insolence, and Science-Based Parenting.
If you’re a parent or prospective parent — and I know a number of you people out there are — you’re probably concerned about your child’s health. These days, toys can occasionally be laced with toxic chemicals. How’s an informed parent supposed to tell which toys are safe?
An informed parent can look up their toys on the Consumer Guide to Toxic Chemical in Toys. They’ve got a huge number of toys on there with levels of toxic chemicals found in testing.
As an example, one little girl I know is getting a Melissa & Doug Wooden Sushi Slicing Playset which has no detectable lead, bromine, cadmium, chlorine/PVC, or mercury, and only two parts per million of arsenic in the shrimp. Safe toy!
[hat tip to Skeptic Dad]
