Holiday Safety Tips (For Roughly 50% of Us)

"Haaaaaaappy Holidays, Haaaaaaappy Holidays!!!
Have a Screaming Good Christmas!!!"

Keeping with the Moos of the Day blog's LONG tradition (May 2008!) of providing important safety information, I have just come across Moos that I wanted to get out to you immediately. 

The following concerns an actual news story written by actual Medical Doctors in Great Britain (really, it is, NOT kidding). Please continue reading for the sake of your children (and your childrens' children).

Doctors in the United Kingdom have issued a scary warning to parents of children (BOY children) in anticipation of the Christmas holiday's travels.

That warning?

This holiday season...

Keep that toilet seat lid up!   Yes, after extensive research (four boys and a six-pack of Guinness), medical doctors have determined that EVERY boy between the ages of 2 and 4 years old runs the risk of crushing his 'winky' if he is holding the toilet seat up while urinating into a toilet. The study references the fact that ornamental toilet seats (shown below) are heavier than newer, environmentally-disasterous-fossil-fuel-based-plastic seats and could do considerable damage to the young man if the seat were to fall down onto the child's exposed 'winky'.

This is a BAD toilet seat, any way you look at it (from above, OR below)...

Please make sure that when you are traveling with small children that you immediately check out the toilet to make sure that it is safe for your child. 

The following tips are provided by the article (I'm not making any of these up) and are posted here as guidelines for you (and for the safety of your child):

*Parents should consider using toilet seats that fall slowly and with reduced momentum, which would reduce the risk and degree of injury.

*Heavier toilet seats could be banned(?) in houses with male infants.

*Households with male infants should consider leaving the toilet seat up after use, even though it contradicts the social norm of putting it down.  [Left unsaid, of course, is the half-awake small boy falling into the toilet and flushing himself to Washington, DC...  Another political nightmare just waiting to unfold...]

*Parents could educate their toddlers to hold the toilet seat up with one hand while urinating. 

*During such a feat, parents should keep an eye on toddlers until the toddler can do this by himself.

I do have several recommendations of my own that I would like to throw into the mix. Please keep in mind that I am here to help YOU eliminate some of the trauma associated with parenthood...:

1. Encourage your male children to urinate outside whenever possible. This saves water and gives your grass that 'healthy green glow' all year long!

2. In the winter-time, you can improve your child's 'penmanship' by challenging them to write their names neatly in the snow. The success of this venture, of course, is partly determined by the complexity of your child's name. 'Mike Kane' was relatively easy when I was young (it still is, now that I think about it) as it consists of only eight letters. Conversely, Terrence Winston Casey, III presents a much larger challenge (and the need for a much larger bladder).

3. Throw caution to the wind and encourage your male children to be a 'setter' when they relieve themselves (Number 1 AND Number 2) if you have a heavy toilet seat lid. This will be a HUGE problem when they use the restroom in high school, but come on, they've got to get beaten up sooner or later, right? Might as well get it out of the way on Day One of their Freshman Year!

So I guess the real message here is to tell your kids to be careful when they're 'doing their business'. 

According to the article it sounds like if these docs in the U.K. want to BAN certain types of toilet seats. Hey, instead of banning toilet seats, why don't get (and keep) parents involved with properly training their kids how to, 'Make wee wee in the potty?!' Boys need to take matters into their own hands, and do the job properly.

Next thing these 'caring guys in white' are going to do is request a ban on 'Lawn Darts'! Come on, everybody loves 'Lawn Darts'!

Nothing more fun than a rousing game of 'Toss the Sharp Heavy
Spike Up Into the Air (and RUN for your life) Game' of Jarts!

Most of us survived 'Jarts' (but I still miss George Cahill...). 

I would be remiss not to mention the joy of also surviving: Riding in cars without seat belts, riding in cars without 'child' car seats, sitting on our parent's lap while they were driving, lighting model ships on fire with lighter fluid to re-create the conflaguration scene from "Tora, Tora, Tora!" and, my personal favorite, riding with my friend Steve Helinski along the back roads of Long Island while he pretended that his 1968 GTO was a Star Trek "Shuttle Craft". (For the record, it was NOT my idea, and it didn't turn out so well, but I'm still here to write about it -- so, if nothing else, it was another valuable life-lesson learned!)


I guess the thing that caught my eye in the article was the fact that here we have more well-meaning individuals looking to make folks a little more 'careful' (a.k.a.: 'Anxious'). I'm sure that they really had the best of intentions in publishing their study (remember - 4 boys), but perhaps they should have dug a little deeper to determine exactly how many boys between the ages of 2 and 4 are dropping seats on their 'winkies'! If it's ALL of them, then this is great information to be aware of.


If it's 4 out of the entire male population in the U.K., well, we'd better find something more 'statistically significant' to worry about. For example, the chances of an asteroid hitting me square on top of my head is of a major concern to me. If I could get some research here, I would feel really good (or maybe not) about this.


So Moms and Dads across the vast and mighty U.S.; raise those seats (or not) and have your sons play a rousing game of 'Sink the Sub' (you can send me a note and I will explain) next time they have to go Number 1. Just make sure that they don't drop the durn seat and cut you off from ever having Grandchildren.


You'll find the original article here:  Hey, did you just hear a 'thud' (and a blood-curdling scream)?

Let's all be Wee Wee safe this holiday travel season!