Some children are actually born with a tooth or two. I’ve seen it twice in 40 years of practice. The rest of teeth come in over a wide variety of times and unpredictable order- it’s unique to each child. Some sail through teething, but many are crabby to the point that parents will call me at midnight or schedule extra doctor visits…. Usually the first question the parents ask is “could it be an ear infection?” & the parents are often more distressed than the child.

There are gum numbing meds to purchase over the counter which usually don’t get deep enough to reach the problem, and how many times do you really want to give oral pain relievers to a your child in their early years.

The “treatments” I was taught in Med school during the 70’s are questionable to downright dangerous. One old professor swore by the “whiskey nipple” where a tablespoon of sugar was tied into a rag that was then soaked in whiskey for the child to suck on. A year or so later it was found that alcohol could dangerously lower the children’s blood sugar causing seizures or death. Some of my friends quipped “but we can still prescribe it for the parents.” Other MDs said they gave sedatives. “Sedatives!!!” my head screamed, “I don’t thinks so!”

Then one day a child presented with a blood blister at the site of an incoming tooth and I decided to extend my search to pediatric dentists. I called some of the most respected, and their answer was universal-

Biting.

The best analgesic for deep gum pain was biting. When biting, the pain fibers were temporarily numbed. Babies knew this and were trying to bite, but I noticed that few teething rings on the market allowed for a good clamp down on the sore gums. They were just too fat.

Over the years I found that a thinnish ring with various bumpy projections is the ideal. Metal and wood don’t give enough, and fabric is so soft that it breeds germs. Today there are many concerns about toxins the plastics most teething rings use. So where was this mythical perfect teething ring? Now there’s the rub.

A friend went to the local big box stores looking at every teether displayed and there wasn’t a single one made in the USA, and almost none made out of plastics that had undergone enough testing to be used in an adult’s mouth for a few minutes at the dentist. The thought of my granddaughter spending a great deal of time sucking on one for an extended period of time made me cringe with worry over long term effects (think breast cancer associated with some plastics).

Necessity being the mother of invention, I turned to Bella’s father for help. Working together, and including advice from Daniel’s aunt, an MIT trained chemist with 30+ years in testing, we created the Circus Teethers and BugBite.

We believe that these are a safe and comfortable solution for all concerned, and maybe fewer night calls.

I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things.

~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

There are very few days better than my yesterday. Not only was San Diego classy with its perfect spring-y 75 degrees, but I had the privilege of doing “research and development” on our latest product line. That means that I twirled on a grassy knoll with my beautiful niece as we both grasped small planes -she held Amelia, and I flew Ace. We had to get our wiggles out before we landed the planes on their landing strips. We rushed into the classroom, found the runway that was the letter “a” and practiced our graceful descents into alphabet heaven.

As an “expert” educator with a master’s degree in education, I’ve attempted to teach her in the past, but she has the attention span of a two-year-old! Of course, her distractibility does not bother me since she is two, after all, but sitting still is not one of her many talents, and has made my lessons in the past difficult. She’s an explorer, a do-er; she is her father and her mother’s daughter, and I love her. In all of her sticky-fingered, movie line quoting, distractible glory, she is, perhaps, the most perfect person I’ve ever met, and today I taught her how to write the letter “a”.

In a world that often seems ruled by incredibly powerful boxes with wires, it was a beautiful thing to incorporate twirling in the sun into my niece’s educational plan. I hope that all of you wonderful readers out there know that I’m taking my work seriously and, while I respect technology greatly (it definitely has a very important place), I am striving to develop a program based around the philosophy of simple goodness. I want my “interactive” component to involve another person and the “movement” in it to come from little arms and not from the shifting and clicking of a mouse.

I hope that someday soon that you, too, will have a day like mine.

At DANO2, we want to take the mystery out of how your toys are made. In order to do this, we’ll all take turns blogging about who we are and why we do the things we do. To kick it off, we’ll start with one of our favorite experts, Dr. Carolyn Monahan.

Who is Dr. Carolyn Monahan?

She is the Pediatrician behind our designs, the mother of the founder, and one phenomenal doctor and humanitarian. Here is an introduction in her own words:

I am a lucky woman. Besides helping people in a busy Pediatric practice, I have gotten to go to Kenya, Fiji, Jordan, and Guatemala teaching medical personnel how to resuscitate newborns having a hard time with those first crucial breaths.

Most wonderful of all my blessings, though, are my three grown children, as well as my beautiful granddaughter and the next baby on the way. I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to work with my children in designing safe toys for my grandchildren.

As for this blog, I think it will be fun sharing with you what I’ve learned throughout my life.

Some of my knowledge comes via a Psychology degree from UCLA, ASU, and UCSD, some of it from an MD degree at UCLA with Internship, Residency, and Infectious Disease training at UCSD, and 40 years in the trenches battling strept throat, teething issues, and worried first-time parents, too.

But much more of what I have to say will seem intuitive to any grandmother worth her salt. I have been a mom and swear it is harder and more educational than earning my fancy titles. As a great professor once told me, “listen to the parent.” As one of the designers of these teethers and toys, I respect you and want to dialogue with you as we try to make the world safer for all of our children.

By safe, I don’t mean “bubble babies”- children need to explore. As Garrison Keillor once said “it’s a shallow life indeed that doesn’t give a person a few scars.” However, a bruise is one thing, but polluting our children and the environment with toys is a wholly different matter. In designing these toys, we committed ourselves to the belief that the environment we control should always promote life… life for children and life for the planet.

Take care; we can talk more later about how it is happening.

It seems that Ducki has the travel bug- makes sense that since he is the only PVC-free American-made duck, he should see America; no news yet about his next adventure, but stay posted…maybe the next city he visits will be yours, and let’s just say that Ducki is pretty generous when he visits a city (aka: Free stuff!!!).

We had so much fun meeting people that working the booth hardly felt like work at all, but 9am-6pm each day got a bit hard on the feet. Carin, Miki, and I were all craving pedicures by the end. Daniel and Chad weren’t as excited at the prospect. Anyway…

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Top 5 highlights:

5. Daniel teasing Carin about the way her love of sports borders on obsession and watching her strained smile as someone touted a team she hates.

4. So.many. amazing.toys.

3. Chatting with some of our great reps.

2. Finally connecting with the some of our retailers who we’ve never gotten to meet in person before, and meeting so many great people who are now going to be retailing our products.

1. Hearing other parents’ passionate support for manufacturing in the United States with safe plastics.

–It feels fantastic to be able to provide parents with something we believe in so much!

The team at DANO2 has been out at Toy Fair NYC, and it’s been a blast! I think that the best part about the trip for me is spending time with all of our retailers, reps, and fellow manufacturers. I suppose that I’m drawn to the type of person who can spend the better part of a day in a world designed to amuse children. Go figure.

We started out Valentine’s day with a tasty Bouchon bakery breakfast with our reps and then have spent the rest of it talking non-stop about our new product, The Little Sky Riders. Single, as I am, I spent most of the day talking about my love affair with Ace, the zippy leader of our new troop of planes. He’s red, hot-headed, but full of heart. Just my type. The best part about him is that this summer he’ll be flying around our site in a free video showing our little active learning fans how to make letters.

So anyway….Happy Valentines Day Ace! You take my breath away.  - Lauren XOXO

(PS don’t tell Amelia, the pink plane; she might get jealous)

Upon arrival to the city, Ducki went on a photo shoot. It was tough to block away all of the paparazzo to get great shots, but we did our best. Thankfully, we brought along the talented photographic genius, Michelle Kirk, to capture the relationship the  made in America duck has with one of America’s best known and best loved cities.

The toughest shot to get was at Ground Zero as one of the part-time DANO2 staffers is also a firefighter whose friend was called in that fateful day. Both our staffer and Ducki sat in reverence to honor those valiant Americans who stepped up with nobility to save lives.

In Central Park, the ducks paid homage to the controversial literary great, J.D. Salinger. In his classic work, The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caufield keeps asking where the ducks go in the winter- symbolically asking where he should go in the cold times of life. At the end of the book, he finds that the ducks migrate to southern California. This week, though, the ducks came from Southern California stuffed with tributes to Salinger and answers to the question “What does it mean to be an American teenager?” written by Carlsbad, CA high school students. Some of the highlights to those answers are as follows: “you get to eat as much fast food as you want. Good-bye J.D.”, “Freedom!!!! Thanks for Holden”, “You have to clean your room”,  and ” Lots of opportunity…if you do your homework.”

A few more of our favorite Ducki photojournal photos – click on thumbnails to view larger: