Hot Dog!!

Before you plan that family bar-b-que, were you aware that Americans eat an estimated 7 billion hot dogs between Memorial Day to Labor Day? And that on average a child chokes to death on food about once every five days (in the US) and that among those children younger than 10, 17% were caused by choking on hot dogs!

Unbelievable!

I remember first hearing about the choking hazard of hot dogs in the early 1980's, I think it was on the Phil Donahue show. A grandfather was so upset about the death of his grandson, that he invented a special cutter for them, so that no other child would die this way. The cutter was very simple to use, it was kind of like an apple slicer, you put the hot dog through the center hole, and it would cut grooves into the side of the hot dog. That way, if a child started to choke, the throat would not close on a solid cylinder, and would be easier to remove. It was about this time too, that Fisher Price redesigned the shape of their "Little People" because the old design had proven to be a choking hazard also.

I never did see that grandfather's hot dog cutter, but I did take his message to heart. I began to cut my children's hot dogs lengthwise into quarters. It was this time that my children were no longer allowed to eat un-halved grapes and marshmallows.

Now almost 30 years later, the designers of Guard Dog, a hot dog slicer for the home, has an industrial design to slice hot dogs at the factory. It is called Kinder (pronounce it like kindergarten) Cut, and it thinly slices the hot dog into an 8 petal, daisy design at the meat processing plant. You cook the hot dog as usual, either boiled or on the grill, and the hot dog opens up. The idea is that if a bite of hot dog does get stuck in the throat, it will easily break up into a few pieces, and be easy to cough out.

A hot dog slicer, for home use is the Toddler Bites Hot Dog cutter. It is pretty basic, you cook

the hot dog as usual, press the Toddler Bites Hot Dog cutter over it, and the hot dog is cut into twenty identical pieces. Easily washable.

Will Kinder Cut become standard to the hot dog market? I don't know. To me, having the inside of my hot dog exposed to flame or boiling away in a pot, just isn't appetizing. But with so many families now having twin and even triplet births, this could be a real time saver.

And anything that reduces the worry of choking, child or elderly, has got to be a winner in my book.

Pictures on this blog are copyrighted to their companies. For more information, please check out the links below.
http://tdn.com/lifestyles/article_52d66eac-7353-11df-92fe-001cc4c002e0.html
http://www.mypreciouskid.com/toddler-bites-hot-dog-cutter.html
http://www.thisoldtoy.com/L_FP_Set/Pg_Link.htm
http://www.creativators.com/

Poems

A few days ago, my daughter was challenged to write a limerick. She didn't find it easy, so her brother, hoping to help her with the challenge, scanned our shelves and gave her a Book of Poetry he had gotten for Christmas when he was probably about 7. And probably never opened since that Christmas morning soo long ago.

Sob! (Thinking back to those days always makes me a bit misty eyed. I am one of those women who really enjoyed having a handful of little children under her feet.)

My son suggested that the following poem from his Christmas book might fit nicely on my blog. I agreed, so here it is:

Kindness To Animals

Little children, never give

Pain to things that feel and live;

Let the gentle robin come

For the crumbs you save at home;

As his meat you throw along

He'll repay you with a song.

Never hurt the timid hare

Peeping from her green grass lair,

Let her come and sport and play

On the lawn at close of day.

The little lark goes soaring high

To the bright windows of the sky,

Singing as if 'twere always spring,

Amd fluttering on an untrired wing-

Oh! let him sing his happy song,

Nor do these gentle creatures wrong.

Author Unknown

100 Things I've learned the hard way #21 - #32

More pearls of wisdom:

21. Buy the cooking oil while you are at the supermarket. Guaranteed, the bottle at home will not have enough oil in it to reach the little line inside your deep fryer.

22. No matter how frugal you want to be by saving money on vacuum bags, don't buy the bagless vacuum. They don't suck, as in, they don't work very well if you have pets especially.

23. There is no shame in having a small shop vac as your household vacuum. It's the only thing that won't clog sucking up great tufts of Labrador fur.

24. You can not put a price on a good dog, they are indispensable. Louis is gentle with the littles, actually whimpers along with the upset/crying, cuddles with me when I'm newly out of the hospital and weak as water, is a one dog welcome wagon for children returning home for the weekend and growls, snarls and acts like he will take the door down when there is a stranger at the door. Priceless.

25. Houses are the most reasonably priced where it is the hardest to obtain a job

26. Teenagers know everything. Twenty year olds aren't teenagers and they aren't adults, so they still know everything, but they're not 100% sure about it.

27. Cats, children and dogs don't perform on command.

28. When your daughter is a teenager, it is inevitable that you are going to say, do or wear something that will embarrass her.

29. When your son is a teenager, you will age at least 10 years in his estimation, and although you embarrass him, he'll kind of grit and bare it.

30. When a sibling turns 30, the younger kids will all think he is ancient, but so will the teens and the one's in their early twenties.

31. Your mom will give you unsolicited child rearing advice, even when you're in your 40's and it's with your sixth child.

32. You will give your mom unsolicited advice about her caring for her great grandchild, even when she is in her 70's, is the mother of 5, the grandmother of 13, and the great grandmother of 7.