The European Union passed legislation that bans BPA in baby bottles by March 2011. Looks like the American Chemistry Council, which has treated the EU's reluctance to ban BPA as proof of its safety, is going to need another argument. But they won't anytime soon, because they had just helped defeat a similar U.S. ban (again) before the EU vote.

USA Today has a great article about Jennifer Taggart's work to identify products that exceed CPSIA limits for potentially harmful chemicals. They even made a mention of another Jennifer...

Pediatrician Dr. Alan Greene is encouraging parents to rethink starting children on rice cereal.

That news may soon come in handy to ZRecs contributor Adrienne (she of the in-depth stroller and car seat reviews), who with her husband Jim welcomed a "beta release" of their third child into the world last night, born prematurely at 34 weeks but doing well in the NICU. Congratulations and our protective thoughts are with you, Jim and Adrienne!

If you'd like to make salt dough ornaments this holiday season, you can learn everything you need to know from the time we made salt dough Halloween ornaments.

I read Dawn Rouse's refreshingly frank post about talking to her daughter about her family and suicide with great interest. You hear all the time about talking to your kids about drugs, sex, strangers, online safety, but you never hear about talking to your children about depression or suicide. In order to destigmatize depression and suicide we need to talk about it, teach our children how to understand and process depression and suicide. Dawn gives a good start to the conversation.

I'm not sure why I've been thinking about the Pacifier Fairy; maybe because with the holiday season upon us, even more families than ours indulge in fantasy and myth-making as preparations are made for a jolly old soul's annual visit. If you haven't read this post about collaborative storytelling in our family of non-denominational fantasists, you're in for a treat!

I just discovered the fantastic reviews that a friend writes for Texas Public Radio. He's written an extensive review of the new The Fantasia Anthology Disney recently released.

If you're interested in a cute illustrated alphabet book featuring Star Wars characters, today (Monday) is your last chance to lay claim to one. Unfortuately for the dad purportedly planning to fund his child's college education with the sales, he'll likely be getting a quick education in copyrights and the Lucasfilm empire soon. (And of course, you could always buy the licensed Star Wars ABC" title="Star Wars ABC">Star Wars ABC book instead...)

Speaking of books, I love these tiny photo books. I've been trying to get our photos in order and I think Z would really enjoy a series of tiny books about her life.

Hope everyone is having a lovely December. We'll post soon about some of our presents for Z that have been coming in, and which we are surreptitiously playing with without her knowledge!