A word of warning to all baby-gift buyers: don’t buy just one blankie. Play it safe and buy at least three. If you have never had a baby, you may not understand how critical this advice is…but experienced parents everywhere are nodding their heads in agreement.

You will never be able to predict which of your young child’s possessions will become their most beloved. But often, it’s one of the receiving blankets that you were given when they were born. During the first few months of their lives, babies are wrapped in these blankets for warmth and security. But somewhere along the line, they become something more than just practical pieces of cloth.

The attachment will probably not become evident until your child is old enough to talk…one day they will start demanding that the blankie accompany them on every outing, and balk when you try to sneak it into the wash. Naps and bedtime will become impossible if the blanket is not available.

By the time we discovered that my daughter’s soft and worn pale pink blanket had become her most precious possession, it was no longer possible to find an exact duplicate. We had to settle first for an almost-identical blanket, and then later for a blanket that was much less than identical. In her eyes, the two replacements never quite measured up to the original, but they served as stand-ins for laundry time or when the original was temporarily lost.

Don’t think that you will be able to reason with your child if his coveted blanket is permanently damaged or lost. There is no reasoning with a toddler. And don’t expect your child to be responsible for the care and keeping of their blanket, because babies don’t understand cause and effect. If they teeth on the blanket until it is threadbare, or toss it under a restaurant high chair to be left behind, they will not appreciate that you cannot make it reappear.

One night, our toddler daughter threw her precious pink blanket into the fountain at a restaurant. Though not lost, the blanket was soggy, cold and dirty – not the kind of thing you want your child to snuggle with – but we didn’t have an extra blanket with us, and exposing her to a wet cloth that had been rinsed out under a bathroom faucet seemed better than listening to a toddler sob through dinner. After several close calls, our family mantra became “Do we have the blankie?” We learned to carry a spare when we traveled, just in case some tragic accident befell the original.

Take it from someone who learned the hard way - buy blankets in multiples and explain to new parents that they need to rotate the blankets frequently, so that they are never too dissimilar. It could save them a lot of grief in the long run.

Contributed by Laura Weaver

Quote:

"What's the proper etiquette for office donations such as chipping in on a baby gift or wedding gift for a co-worker? Should a dollar amount be set for contributions, or should it be left to each individual to decide how much to give? We just took up a collection for a co-worker whose house was lost in a fire. The office manager refused to accept checks, insisting on cash so the gifts would remain anonymous. Some people gave hundreds of dollars, others tens of dollars. Can you help with some guidelines here?"

E.S., Churchville, Pa.

Office giving is one of the most vexing problems we hear about. People want the opportunity to give, but they don't want to feel they have to give. While small offices might have just a few donation requests a year, people working in a large office may get hit up multiple times in a single week. In this case, saying ''no" is difficult, but shelling out for every request could break your bank.

People should never "make the rounds" of all the desks, asking each co-worker for a donation. Besides being a time waster, this creates stress for people who don't want to give, a consequence managers should want to avoid. The better solution is to have a bulletin board where employees can post information about solicitations.

People interested in contributing can then visit the solicitor to make a donation. Since this is a donation, givers should offer whatever they feel they can afford, and the solicitor should be appreciative of all gifts, regardless of amount.

It was a kind gesture to take up a collection for your co-worker whose home was lost. However, your office manager should not have refused to accept checks. Instead, he or she should have welcomed all donations, then taken the funds to a bank and had the bank issue a single check to your colleague.

Quote:
"My boss is the senior vice president of public affairs for our company. Because of his position, he and his wife are asked to host numerous evening functions. His wife is heading out of town for a time and will miss some of these functions. Is it appropriate for him to go to them alone? Also, does it matter whether the situation is business attire or a black tie event?"

K.L., Shawnee Mission, Kan.

It is acceptable and appropriate for your boss to attend business functions without his wife. The formality of the event doesn't matter. In fact, in many corporate settings, spouses and dates are not invited to evening functions simply to allow more business associates to be included on the guest list.

E-mail your questions about business etiquette to bizmanners@globe.com; fax to 617-929-3183; or mail to Etiquette at Work, The Boston Globe, P.O. Box 55819, Boston, MA 02205-5819. Each month one reader whose question is published will be chosen at random to receive a copy of Peggy and Peter Post's book, "The Etiquette Advantage in Business." Peter Post is a director at the Emily Post Institute in Burlington, Vt.

Life in the 20th century is definitely stressful. In many households, parents balance work with family activities and the children?s schedules. Work, school, financial worries and relationships are just a few common sources of stress that patients report when they come to my office for treatment. There are several ways to manage stress, but my favorite is laughter.

Not just funny busines

In addition to the joy of having a good laugh, there are several health benefits attributed to laughter. Laughter is believed to improve immune function, increase pain tolerance, decrease the stress response and it may be good for the heart. A recent survey of rural Midwestern cancer patients revealed that humor was one of the most frequently used complementary therapies. Of 105 women diagnosed with breast cancer, 21% used humor or laughter therapy as a way to reduce stress.

Laughter, stress and the immune system

Researchers in the field of mind-nerve-immune medicine (psychoneuroimmunology) suggest that laughter not only has psychological benefits, but it also has a positive physiological effect on the immune system. A study was conducted on 33 healthy women to determine the effect of laughter on self-reported stress and natural killer cell activity. Natural killer cells are a type of white blood cell that plays an important role in the body?s immune system. Low natural killer cell activity is linked to decreased disease resistance and increased morbidity in persons with cancer and HIV.

In this study, one group of subjects viewed a humorous video while another group of subjects (control group) viewed a tourism video. All subjects were then tested using a Stress Arousal Check List, a Humor Response Scale and an assay to assess immune function. The researchers observed that stress decreased for subjects in the humor group compared with those in the control group. They also observed that subjects in the control group had increased immune function and higher natural killer cell activity. The researchers concluded that laughter reduces stress and improves natural cell activity.

Stress Relief

Stress has been shown to depress the immune system and laughter may be a way of alleviating some of the burden of chronic stress. For more information of stress management, complete the Truestar Vitamins Profile and choose our Stress Plan. Supplements such as ashwaghanda and relora have been shown to offset some of the negative effects of stress on your body.

Better Health For Mommy And Baby

One doctor calls it a side effect of the nation's obesity problem.

Women thinking just because they're pregnant, they can eat anything and everything they want. Nine months later, they've got a big baby in their arms and a big weight problem on their hands.

Expecting her second child, Mount Carmel mom Ashley Kanipe is determined not to make the same mistake she did with her first pregnancy.

Kanipe, an expecting mother, says proper eating habits weren't an issue for her.

"I just ate whatever I wanted really. I just never really felt full, so i just kept eating, but I didn't realize I was gaining so much weight," says Kanipe.

She ended up adding 60-pounds to her small frame. Twenty of it was still there almost a year after Tye was born.

The Institute of Medicine says ideally, you should only gain 25- to 35-pounds if your weight is normal, 28- to 40-pounds if you're underweight.

If you're overweight, you shouldn't go over 25-pounds and if you're obese, 15-pounds is the mandate.

Experts say you really only need 100-extra calories a day during your first trimester, 300 for the remainder of your pregnancy which is the equivalent of these two snack packs.

Angel Crutcher, M.D. Ob-Gyn, says, "If you can eat healthy, those 300 calories can go a long way, but if you try to eat junk food, you're going to probably eat a lot more calories and gain a lot more weigh than you should."

Tipping the scales leads to gestational diabetes, preeclampsia and increased risk of having a c-section.

A study last year shows the babies born to overweight mothers are more likely to have cardiac or other birth defects.

Doctor crutcher urges her patients to exercise during pregnancy and try to resist cravings, which she knows first hand is easier said than done. She just gave birth ten months ago to her first child cameron.

Dr. Crutcher says, "I delivered early at 33 weeks, but by then I had already gained 30 pounds, so I was kind of close to my maximum already. It is hard to do."

"I'm not a good role model for my patients, I guess," says Crutcher.

Crutcher says one way to speed weight loss after delivery is breast feeding. It burns an extra 300 to 500 calories more a day.

How long should it take to lose the weight after the baby is born? Doctor Crutcher says it takes nine-months to put the weight on, so it's alright if it takes nine months to lose it.

But if it stays on up to a year, it's not going anywhere, and you're going to have to diet.

Monica Kass Rogers
Special to the Sentinel

The glittery-pink Stardust banquet room in Chicago buzzes with baby-shower clatter. Girlfriends dish. Aunts snap photos. And first-time parents Ewa and Michael Lichodziejewski say thanks again and again.

The very pregnant woman at the front of the room isn't Ewa, though. It's Karah Janssen, the baby's gestational surrogate. And as Ewa and Michael unwrap stacks of booties, blankets and baby gear, Janssen opens boxes of soothing bath treatments and certificates for spa services and weekend getaways.

The high point? A diamond ring Ewa tearfully presents to Karah, along with the announcement that the baby's middle name will be Karah.

"This is a big moment for all of us," says Janssen, who also is Michael's sister. "A day when I get to celebrate nearing the end of my role and see them celebrate the beginning of theirs."

As more couples turn to surrogacy via in-vitro fertilization, showers for the women giving birth are gaining greater cultural acceptance. There are more than 1,000 surrogate births a year, according to the Organization of Parents Through Surrogacy (opts.com), a national support group for families who use surrogates. As a result, birth rituals are expanding to embrace and honor surrogate moms.

"Gifts, flowers, cruises, showers, special parties . . . I've seen examples of all of these," says Hilary Hanafin, a Los Angeles psychologist who has counseled surrogate mothers and intended parents for 23 years. "New rituals like these fill a psychological need. They help couples receiving the child and the surrogate who will birth the child transition into their new roles."

The majority of surrogate mothers today are gestational surrogates -- those who carry to term a baby conceived through in-vitro fertilization. The fertilized egg, which contains the genetic material of at least one of the intended parents, is then implanted in the surrogate's womb.

Gestational surrogates have largely replaced traditional surrogates, who donate their own eggs and are artificially inseminated, typically with the intended father's sperm. But infertile couples are bypassing that route as in-vitro fertilization improves and in an effort to avoid thorny legal issues such as who is the legal parent.

Most surrogates are paid $18,000 to $25,000 for their role on top of pregnancy- and birthing-related expenses. But motivation for becoming a surrogate often goes beyond the money, say surrogates and surrogate facilitators. The commitment to being a surrogate spans about two years and includes many medical appointments, hormone injections and the possibility of a high-risk pregnancy.

Relationship affects surrogate

As a result, a surrogate's emotional recovery after the pregnancy can be linked to how the intended parents treat her, Hanafin says.

"If they were distant, officious and had minimal contact, it's no surprise that that made for a more difficult recovery," she says. "If they were warm, gracious and inclusive, that had a more positive effect."

Less fear in the relationships would be good, says Carole Jackson, a 44-year-old mother of two from Murrieta, Calif. She has had two surrogate pregnancies: one at 35; the second -- twins -- at 38.

"After my husband and I had a boy and a girl of our own, we knew our family was complete," Jackson says. "But I had friends who were infertile and saw how much pain they felt. I so much enjoyed being a mother and couldn't imagine my life without children . . . it started me thinking about doing this for someone else."

The relationships that developed with the intended parents in Jackson's surrogate pregnancies differed. "With one, I felt completely honored and was able to celebrate with the family. To this day, I feel really good about it. With the other, [I was included] not at all. I felt so empty at the end, like it was something I dreamt."

Jackson and other surrogates point out they are not as interested in being in the limelight as they are in helping bring joy to an infertile couple.

"Gifts are nice, but when you're included in a family celebration, where you get to meet grandparents and extended family, that's what you remember years later," Jackson says.

Celebrations can take various forms, says Sherrie Smith, a program administrator for the Center for Surrogate Parenting Inc. The agency in Annapolis, Md., matches surrogates and intended parents.

"Just as you traditionally have separate baby showers with the people you work with and your family, a surrogate may have a party with her support group and attend a different celebration with her own family or with the intended parents' families."

Last month, Ewa Lichodziejewski and her mother-in-law invited Janssen and her girlfriends to an end-of-pregnancy party, designed to celebrate Janssen, the surrogate.

Similarly, toward the end of Lisa Wippler's third surrogate pregnancy, friends threw her a surprise "Completing the Journey" party with lots of bath and spa gifts.

The party was a "very positive emotional release," says Wippler, a 33-year-old mother of two boys in Menifee, Calif.

Having a party that puts the focus back on self-care was "a blessing," Wippler says. "Because when a surrogate comes home from the hospital, there's less of a grace period. People expect her to bounce right back."

Changes ahead

Surrogate and fertility experts say awkwardness about what's appropriate should decrease as surrogate births increase.

"In the past, there was a lot of mystery shrouding surrogacy," says Marie Davidson, staff psychologist for Fertility Centers of Illinois, a reproductive-medicine practice. "But today you don't have to go far to find someone within your social circle who's gone through IVF."

Some changes, however, will come more slowly. Timing, for example. Though baby showers traditionally happen before birth, Chicago attorney Nidhi Desai says families involved in surrogate births are more likely to want to celebrate after the fact, including surrogate moms in a bris, christening or baptism.

"You've got to remember, these couples have been through unbelievable stress," Desai says. "They're going to have a hard time celebrating until after the baby is safely born."

Monica Kass Rogers wrote this for the Chicago Tribune, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.