"You have 'em, I'll entertain 'em"...

And Dr. Seuss did just that, during his long life and continues to do so after his death. The "'em" in question, of course, is children. A lot of my friends and people I know who are my age are now having kids, as evidenced by them using photos of their kids as Facebook profile pictures (a personal pet peeve, btw).

Anyhoo, a quick troll around the Interwebs today found me three stories related to caring for children, and now you are brought up to speed on my method for finding today's theme. : ) I hope you enjoy regardless of whether you have kids at the moment.

In a nod to those out there my age and older (and those who are not the oldest child in the family), Northwestern University professors have found that exposure to and ingestion of dirt may not be the worst thing in the world, according to the Chicago Tribune. Their study of Filipino children who were exposed to a "healthy" amount of dirt and pathogens in childhood actually developed less of a chance of cardiovascular inflammation in adulthood and thus had less of a risk for heart attacks and the like. I'm not sure what a healthy amount of microbes is, but it does make me feel better about being an early adopter of the five-second rule...

Did you ever have to do that parenting simulation exercise in school where they give you a baby doll which is able to cry - at unexpected times - so you get the idea of what having an infant is like? I did, but I'm pretty sure my pretend infant had nothing on the Simbaby. The Chicago Trib reported on a recent alumnae donation to Elmhurst College's nursing program. The $50,000 gift allowed the program to purchase a Simbaby to better prepare its nursing students for the challenges in treating young children. "Baby Boo" allows the student nurses to get a feel for making their own decisions without the possibility of actually hurting a child if they make a mistake.

A much more low-tech version of soothing a baby has gone viral online. Anderson Cooper on CNN featured this video on his "The Shot" segment. The clip shows an Akita-like dog next to a baby bassinet or carriage, whose howls actually sooth the crying child in the bassinet, though I'm not sure which becomes more nerve-wracking, the crying or the howling...

(Photo courtesy of The University of Southern Mississippi)