Scottish rocker KT Tunstall has credited her brother, Daniel for wiping out whatever malaise she might have experienced related to her being an adopted member of her family.

Daniel was born deaf, and his disability put the circumstances of her birth into perspective for her: "Any personal woes I had with being adopted - which I don't remember having - were wiped out next to that."

And for working moms who might be suffering guilt pangs, here's another one for you.

Research out of the UK, from Bristol University's "Centre for Market and Public Organization" ... whatever that means ... appears to suggest that working moms make for overweight kids.

Whether because of busy schedules that make for more fast food, less supervision that results in mouth-stuffing couch potatoes, or something else, kids whose moms work are fatter than those with SAHMs.

Yes, kids ... and people in general ... are getting fatter, and this may coincide with more working mothers, but I would like to suggest that there are a whole bunch of elements at work in between these two realities and it seems simplistic, at least, to bundle fat kids and working moms into the same burrito and call it cause and effect.

For example, this story that puts blame for obesity on gestating mothers, saying that those not getting enough of the important B vitamins at the time of conception may produce children who are predisposed to obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes.

Or how about this one that says that children who don't get enough sleep have a good chance of becoming obese?

There's a no-brainer, if you ask me ... sleepy kids don't run around as much.

The stat is almost funny, though: research suggested that every additional hour per night a nine-year-old spends sleeping reduces the child's chances of being obese three years later by 40 per cent.

Huh?

Anyone worried about toxic toys under the tree this Christmas ... and it sounds like everyone should be ... might want to take a wander over to KangarooBoo for a look at some cool gifts that are guaranteed not only safe, but fun.

The site was started by a woman with an interesting history that includes being born in China illegally under the one-child policy, moving to the USA, surviving cancer, and making a point of making a difference.

And here is a story of horribly high infant mortality, fields of tiny baby graves, infants that do make it past the first weeks not assured at all that the next will be survivable, mothers delivering at five and six months, others with so little information on child care that babies die sleeping next to space heaters.

No, this isn't about birth and death in the Third World, but the real-life today situation in a neighborhood in Memphis, Tennessee.

From the other side of the world comes this story that jarringly sums up what it sometimes takes to save a kid.

As Cyclone Sidr drew down on Bangladesh, some people in desperation tied their children to trees in the hope of keeping them from being swept away.

I can't even begin to imagine the horror of this, both for those taking such a last-gasp measure, and for the children having to undergo such a horrifying ordeal.

In at least one case it worked, and a 13-year-old and a 5-year-old ended up being two of only a handful of survivors where there had been more than 70 children before the storm.

How grateful should everyone be who has never been faced with anything even close to such terror ...