Sightings | interesting tidbits from around the net

I love CJ’s daddy’s research on belly buttons. Yep… people used to tape a coin over an outie belly button, but Dr. Greene says these days we’ve learned to just let them alone. Most go away by the first birthday.

Little Niko and Stefano picked up hand-foot-mouth disease, which is a common (but scary-sounding) illness that causes mouth sores, a fever and a rash. It’s a coxsackievirus infection that peaks from August to November. We’re glad they’re feeling better, poor little guys!

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Randy’s daughter, Finley, and her night terrors. Looks like little Julian has the same problem of “confusional arousal.” Julian’s Mommy tried our unproven technique of putting little Julian on the potty during one of his episodes, and it worked! Are we on to something?

Ethan’s Mom said her little one hasn’t reached the terrible twos… yet. I liked her collection of resources on the subject Dr. Greene calls it “The First Adolescence.”  “Our wonderful children instinctively want to do exactly the opposite of what we want.” It’s a frustrating time for both the parents and the kids, but luckily by age 3 most kids will outgrow it.

Keep checking Bloggy Contests & Giveaways at Just a Mom’s Take on Things for great prizes for you and your family. You might run across a few Dr. Greene items here and there, like full-sized samples of Dr. Greene’s new vitamin line!

Simran Sethi included video of Dr. Greene at a discussion called “Children and Chemicals” with Jane Houlihan of the Environmental Working Group and Courtney Loveman of Seventh Generation. We’re proud to participate in these talks that are so important to the health of our children. See the video at The Huffington Post.

Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) evaporate easily and can make asthma and allergies worse. As Dr. Greene said, long term exposure may actually cause asthma in some. Read Asthma Mom’s discussion on where VOCs are found and how to avoid them. Raising Baby Green gives more information about VOCs as well. Read this excerpt:.

A couple of years ago, Dr. Greene wrote an article that has become one of our favorites: Seven Reasons Why Kids Should Drink Organic Milk. People still use the article for reference, and we saw it show up in an article in The Free Lance-Star in Fredricksburg, Virginia. We get even more requests for Dr. Greene’s Organic RX, his top 10 (ok – 11) top organic food choices.

I love how Dr. Greene compares computers and kiddos in this article about whether you need to give your kids multivitamins. He starts, “You know that it is wise to back up your computer’s hard drive; I recommend backing up your child’s food drive with a daily multivitamin/mineral supplement….”

I love the concept of Broom Huggers – they’re like tree huggers (environmentalists) who run a cleaning service! How cute. Check out their helpful article on detoxing and organizing your medicine cabinet.