Kirk blAug

Imagine a scenario where you are sitting in a public place where there are a lot of strangers around, such as a restaurant. You are minding your own business when one of these complete strangers comes out of seemingly nowhere and starts telling you about how cute you are, touching you, pinching your cheeks, and running their fingers through your hair. Or maybe they even start rubbing your belly. Perhaps after that, they start making assumptions about which sexual organs you have. Does this not seem like off putting and even rude behavior? Well, some people seem to think that doing these things to infant children and pregnant mothers is perfectly socially acceptable. I can understand friends and family wanting to touch a baby and most of them have the common courtesy to ask first and get some sort of non-verbal cue from the child, such as a smile or a warm look, that it is okay. But a complete stranger in a random restaurant? I was caught off guard when a fellow restaurant patron did

One day a couple years ago, while Chris and I were waiting in the checkout line at Target, she noticed that many parents were using a protective lining in the shopping carts. She asked me why I do not have one of those for Jupiter. I half joked that I was trying to boost his immune system, and she and the checkout clerk had a laugh about it. I was only half joking though, because some people really do try to keep their kids in way too sterile of an environment, in my opinion. I think it is a good thing to spread some germs around a bit to keep the immune system on its toes. I do not want my kids immune system to be so weak that they get deathly ill every time they come into contact with another sick kid. Jupiter does not get sick all that often. We have three dogs, sometimes we think that may be a contributing factor. If there is anything that spreads the nasty stuff around the house, it is dogs. I also do not freak out if the kids pick up something off the floor and put it in their m