Cool or not cool: Making Your Bebe Work Out With You By Treating It as a Weight?

Photo via SUSAN WATTS/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

If you’ve been on the fence about whether or not to have a baby, the newest workout fad might be just the thing to knock your ass over to the reproducing side of the fence. Forget all about buying expensive dumbbells and pesky resistance bands.  There will be no more whoring around a stripper pole pretending you “just wanna dance." All you have to do is have a baby, wait until its neck can support its giant baby head, and BOOM: you’re on your way to weight loss, baby liftin’ style.

It’s pretty self-explanatory: the baby (tot, child, fruit of your loins, etc.) is the weight, and you hold it while working out. If interested, you can read about the specific baby-related workouts in this NY Daily News article.

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Cool or Not Cool: Letting Your Kid Run on that Wall Along the Edge of Prospect Park?

[VIA NINEDAVES]This past weekend was totally beautiful, which means that everyone was out and about in the neighborhood. I was one of them, too: shopping, eating, and drinking my way around the slope, just trying to soak up as much sunshine as possible. 

My journey to outdoor neighborhood bliss brought me up to Prospect Park on Sunday, where I grabbed a Coolhaus ice cream sandwich with my buddy and did some serious people-watching. There was just one problem: all the benches along Prospect Park West were taken. So we decided to lean up against that triangular divider wall on the edge of the park.

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Cool or Not Cool: Retailers Forcing Eco bags on Their Customers?

pic from exhibitoronline.com

Hello. My name is Jcharles and I'm a bag-o-holic.

It's pretty embarrassing to be the guy addicted to baggage. I know this. If you peered into my closet you would see piles of tote bags, book bags, messenger bags, a brief case or two and a gray duffle bag from the late 80's.

And Eco bags? Please. I have every Trader Joe’s eco bag ever made. They're all lying under a pile of Trader Joe paper handle bags. I even have those bags that fold up into cute little pouches so you can throw them inside other bags. Now, mind you, this has absolutely nothing to do with the saving the environment. To a bag-o-holic eco bags are like nips of booze -- they're cheap, easy to carry and they get the job done when you need a quick fix. So I go out of my way to buy a good-looking eco bag. Being forced to purchase one because there's no other option, however, is a horse of a different color. 

"But JCharles," I can hear you crying at this very moment. "Stores like Ikea and Area Kids are making us do just that!" And my answer to you is: I know. And now it's time we explore our feelings about it. 

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Cool Or Not Cool: Parents Who Still Fight To Ban Ice Cream in Prospect Park?

I should begin this post with a disclaimer: I am not a parent. I have never been a parent. I hope to one day be a parent, but until then I recognize that I have absolutely no authority on parenting. I say this so that I may nip in the bud any comments suggesting I don’t know anything about parenting. You’re right! I don’t!

Yet this post might upset some parents. Perhaps it’ll make other parents happy. I don’t know exactly what the outcome will be. What I do know is that there is a group of parents threatening one of the most sacred rights of every visitor to Prospect Park: ice cream. And if they're successful, our summers will be a little bit less sweet. Our hot afternoons a little less tuneful. Our appetites less satiated. “Give me ice cream or give me death!” I’ve been known to say. I guess I’ll have to take death, for if a group of radical Park Slope parents with an anti-ice cream agenda have their way, singing trucks full of frozen, creamy, delicious treats and carts of sugary, icy snacks will no longer traverse the open roads and trails of the 585 acre park.

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Cool Or Not Cool: Getting Your Baber’s Ears Pierced?

Photo via http://www.sodahead.com/

Depending on where you’re from culturally and/or geographically, there seems to be a difference of opinion on whether or not getting a baby girl’s ears pierced is an adorable rite of passage or just plain unnecessary and cruel.

A New York Times opinion piece and a subsequent Refinery 29 article both covered the subject, citing that Latin cultures, especially around Miami, where the population is largely Hispanic, are all gung-ho about piercing baby girls as soon as they’ve freshly emerged from the womb.

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