Photo by rockerchic

One mom's question about whether or not to pierce her 4-year old's ears sure sparked some debate over in The CafeMom Newcomers Club recently.

What's interesting to me is that age wasn't the controversy, it was gender — her child is a boy. So in an era when many CafeMoms agree that little boys should be allowed to do ballet, many at the same time believe that earrings are only for girls, not boys.

Wow. What year is it?

Photo by Christy.Cab

"Little boys in ballet/tap?" asks CafeMom hanksmom0207 in the Advice for Moms group. "Is that okay for little boys?"

I'm probably about as "pro" boys in dance classes as they come, but I'd love to hear what you have to say.

Photo by L0stNL0v3

"He's really into gun play," said one of Leo's preschool teachers when she pulled me aside a few weeks ago. She wasn't freaked out or coming down on my parenting. It's just a school rule: No gun play.

I wasn't all that freaked out, and sadly, I wasn't the least bit shocked either.

Photo by babylove080708

For all the moms who are still waiting for your toddler to call you "mama," or have been emphasizing that you are not "Dada," don't worry. A lot of CafeMoms say their little ones -- boys especially -- didn't start using the word until they were close to 2.

"My boy is 19 months and just last week got it! It was like a light bulb went off in his head," says on mom. "I have been Mommy ever since. Be patient and calmly correct him when he calls you 'Dada.' He will get it eventually. I personally feel it is more special now that he calls me Mommy because everything and everyone was 'Dada,' but he has only called ME Mommy."

Photo by deaner2

Lots of things are more lax in the summer -- schedules, clothing, bedtimes .... but what about personal care needs?

The other day at my mom's pool, my cousin's 6 year old son had to go and just whipped his pants down and started peeing on a corner of the lawn. Though I was a little taken aback (and a tad grossed out), I wasn't totally shocked.

He would have never dreamed of doing this had it been fall and certainly not winter.

This happened to a CafeMom Toddler Mama yesterday while waiting in the grocery store checkout with her son. What would you have done?

"I was talking to my son and I look from the corner of my eye to see a kid with a backpack, maybe 5 or 6 walking. Suddenly, a guy with white hair grabbed him, screamed "What where you're going!" and then kicked him.

"His backpack jumped up and the kid kind of lurched forward before he walked away. I knew it was the man's child because the cashier told me she had seen this before. I asked her if I should say something, and she said no, they come in all the time. She told me she met the mother at the bus stop and she's even worse than the father.

Sorry if I seem potty-training obsessed lately, but I'm waiting for the potty bug to bite my 2.5 yo. I was hoping he'd start getting on the potty this summer. So far...he's sat on the pot once...just sat... *sigh*

Anyway, love the above Japanese potty-training video Pants Pankuro, an episode that provides a very important potty lesson for boys.

Photo by MommaRoxs

There's lots of little kids on CafeMom with mohawks! It's such a great haircut for the summer. Spiky 'dos were subject of a conversation recently in the CafeMom Newcomers Club where most moms agreed that mohawks on toddlers are cool—as long as the kids were OK with the cut.

Some of the moms were sweet enough to let me post photos of their tots with mohawks and fauxhawks. Check out how adorable they are!

Big kids and tweens love to hang out at the playgrounds in my town, and I'm pretty sure that even teens haunt the space in the evening, judging by all the beer bottles and potato chip bags I find there in the mornings. Grrrr, that makes my blood boil ... but the real reason I bring this up is because big kids hanging out at parks and play areas often intimidate toddlers and littler kids.

It's a tough one. Whether you are 4 or 44, you should be able to swing or go down the slide at a public playground if you want to. Who has the right to say someone else can't be there?

But another mom was wondering whether a particular group of kids in her neighborhood have crossed the line, and wrote of her frustrations with big kids talking trash at the playground in a Journal.

As babymama8505 tells it,

Supermodel Gisele Bundchen told a Vanity Fair interviewer recently that husband Tom Brady's toddler son with another woman is "100 percent" hers and that she's felt as if the toddler were her own since "the first day."

"It's not like because somebody else delivered him, that he's not my child," Bundchen said in Vanity Fair. "I want to him to have a great relationship with his mom, because that's important, but I love him the same way as if he were mine. I already feel like he's my son. He's my little angel -- the sweetest, most cuddly, loving baby."