Babysitter and Mommy Mixers

Finding a good, reliable babysitter that you trust can sometimes be difficult. If you have young kids, having a babysitter every once in a while so you and your spouse can go out and spend time with another is essential. Fortunately, the internet has made finding a babysitter a little bit easer, and even fun. There are several companies out there offering "mommy mixers," where moms can meet with each other and with prospecting babysitters. Some of these, like MommyMixer (www.mommymixer.com), require a registration fee ranging anywhere from $100 to $500 for a VIP membership, which gives you access to babysitters in different cities (for jet-setting parents), unlimited "immediate help" searches and more. MommyMixer is currently in over 50 cities throughout the country. If you're looking for something in the Tampa Bay area, there's Sitter Soirees (www.sittersoirees.com). Event registration at this site starts at $60.

Have you tried one of these services before? How was your experience? Would you recommend it to others?

More Tickets During Recession

It's not just businesses and household income that hurts during a recession, local government also feels the pinch. So it's no surprise that when economist Thomas A. Garrett conducted a study to find out if traffic tickets were purely dished out for public safety that he found the number of tickets cited go up significantly when local government revenue falls. In short, when there's a 1 percentage point drop in local government revenue there's roughly a .32 percentage point increase in the number of traffic tickets in the following year. What's interesting is that according to Garrett, the number of tickets does not go back down when good times return. Garrett says the increase makes sense as it's an appealing way to generate revenue, particularly during a time when raising taxes is not an option.

Furthermore, Garrett does say that the tickets being handed out are at their heart for public safety reasons, but doesn't believe many cities go out of their way to make a point to write more tickets. However, this article from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch references a 2004 investigative piece where top police officials in the town of Bel-Ridge, MO threatened officers if they didn't write more tickets.

Have you received a traffic ticket lately? Did you deserve it? Noticed more police patrolling the streets? Let us know.

Racial Medicine

Do drugs respond differently to people of different races? There was a case of a drug called BiDil, which the FDA approved in 2005 to treat heart failure in blacks. The drug worked for African Americans but not other ethnic groups. This has raised the question of developing drugs for racial groups, which becomes a genetic difference not just a social category--and beyond skin color. This article from Newsweek suggests that maybe the touchy subject is the reason that only 3 percent of the patients who might benefit from BiDil were actually getting it. It seems clear, however, that humans can expect more drugs in the future to be designed not just for their race, but their own individual genetics. Because as it's pointed out in the article, identifying yourself as an African American, while may be accurate, doesn't mean you have the same ancestry (one could be from Kenya or South Africa or a mix of many nations and heritages).

What do you think?

Socioemotional Meanings In Sweat

A new study from Rice University says socioemotional meanings, including sexual ones, are conveyed in human sweat and that women are able to smell and recognize them. That essentially means that humans can communicate through smell, much like animals do.

The press release says, "Denise Chen, assistant professor of psychology at Rice, looked at how the brains of female volunteers processed and encoded the smell of sexual sweat from men. The results of the experiment indicated the brain recognizes chemosensory communication, including human sexual sweat." The release goes on to say, "Nineteen healthy female subjects inhaled olfactory stimuli from four sources, one of which was sweat gathered from sexually aroused males. The research showed that several parts of the brain are involved in processing the emotional value of the olfactory information."

This kind of report doesn't seem all that surprising, but since this is weight loss season it makes you want to keep your spouse at home instead of watching them head off to the gym.

Financial Marriages

It's not uncommon for couples to stay married for the sake of their kids, but it seems there's a growing trend of couples who are staying hitched because of finances. An article in the Phoenix Examiner discusses how couples who don't have kids remain in the same home because of their shared mortgage, car payments and other cost-of-living expenses. One woman said: “We were married thirty years before we decided to live separate lives. I was all for a divorce and so was he but our accountant gave us two financial scenarios. Divorced, we would lose money. By staying together, we got to keep more of our funds and our health insurance coverage as a married couple.”

One marriage therapist in the article says that separated couples living together is more common than people realize. This is why statistical data is so tricky because you can also make the argument that there are couples out there who have been living together for many years who share assets, etc. who aren't married. So are hollow marriages still "marriages"? What are your thoughts?

Miracle Babies

It's rare to have two sets of natural twins. It's even more rare for the babies to be born of different color (one black and one white). Well, a mixed-race British couple Dean Durrant (black) and Alison Spooner (white) had that happen--twice! Dr. Sarah Jarvis of Britain's Royal College of General Practitioners is quoted in an MSNBC article as saying, "Non-identical twins from mixed parents, of different races, less common still. To have two eggs fertilized and come out different colors, less common still. So, to have it happen twice must be one in millions." It's so rare that the article says there is no statistical data for this phenomenon. However, scientists believe that this might become slightly more common as more mixed-race couples continue to marry.

Use Common Sense, Be Safe

I read an article earlier today that suggested not to shoot your guns in celebration of the new year. Seems reasonable. But celebration isn't the only place you should use common sense, the weather is another place to use good judgement. Click here to read an article of a man who used a cutting torch to thaw ice and wound up thawing a lot of ice when he caught his house on fire. Be safe, don't drink and drive, and enjoy your New Year celebrations! Happy New Year everyone and be sure to give your spouse a BIG kiss at midnight--then remember to do the same thing throughout the year.

Army Couple Makes Marriage Work Through 5 Deployments

Army majors Elizabeth and Mike (no last name given in the article) have deployed five times between the two of them to Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq. Fortunately, the U.S. Army has been extremely accommodating letting the two station geographically close, even if not together. Over Christmas, Elizabeth traveled to his unit, only to find he had gone to visit hers. Elizabeth says, "I left presents on his desk." The couple, having met in the military has been married for eight years and says they currently see each other about once every three to five weeks. Enough time to get their family started. Elizabeth is currently in her third trimester of pregnancy and the couple is already starting to make plans for another deployment. They expect their next move will take them to Afghanistan, but this time they wish to go separately so one can stay behind to care for their new baby. They realize that this will add a new level of complication to their marriage, but then again this couple has faced tougher challenges in the past.

Read their full story here. According to the Military Family Research Institute, nearly 13% of active-duty service members were married to another service member in 2005. Are you one of them?

Medical Myths

Your kid eating sugar will make them hyper, right? Not so says British medical journal BMJ. They say that there is no scientific evidence to support this myth and that some of it is even psychological for the parents. The journal said that when parent were told their kids had sugary drinks, they rated that they were more hyper, even though the drinks were sugar free. Other myths include the one that poinsettias are poisonous, suicides increase during the holidays, eating at night makes you fat, you lose the most body heat through your head, and that their are cures for hangovers. To read the full article with explanations on these myths, click here. So go ahead and eat up at night with that sugary dessert, but don't drink too much because there's no cure in the morning. Happy holidays!

Less Gifts This Year

Who on your Santa list is not going to receive a gift this year because of the economy? A Maritz Holiday Poll asked who's off this year's holiday gift list and perhaps surprisingly extended family were the first to go. 67 Percent said extended family were getting chopped, while 55 percent said friends and 50 percent said work associates. Click here to see the poll.

Have you removed some people off your gift list who has traditionally been on it in years past? Are you making homemade goodies instead or have other ideas? Let us know what you're doing.