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Here are some useful lists if you really do decide to go and get a tummy tuck (don't blame me if you do it, I'm not recommending that you do) and of course I have to put in a legal warning -- I am not a doctor and this is in no way medical advice. This is a list based on my experiences only. Always check with your doctor before making any medical decisions!

In no order particular order of importance, you will need to get (or do) the following:

I feel as if I am reporting from a foreign land. Having never expected my life experiences to include plastic surgery, it is as if I have found myself visiting some strange country I never imagined on my list of travels – Timbuktu, say, or one of those bizarre Eastern European autocracies. Kyrgyzstan perhaps.

The final days and weeks leading up to the surgery were stressful as I fretted about what might happen and what could happen to cause extra problems. One of my children had a cold and I worried that I might catch it.

It's brutal, selfish, dangerous, invasive, unnecessary, superficial, and morally questionable and yet, and yet, I will go through with it next month. I've scheduled a tummy tuck.

T he Public Health Agency of Canada, our federal body for public health issues, has just this week released a report on the experiences of pregnancy, labour, birth and the postpartum period of 6000 Canadian women. This report contains some surprising and some entirely expected information. 

E very proud parent remembers all of his child's firsts -- first word, first step, first call to 911.

Jack falls down a lot. Like many kids, he progressed from awkward and tentative steps to running full blast almost overnight. Unfortunately, his balance and coordination haven't quite caught up yet, and as a result, he wipes out an average of about a dozen times a day. I usually hear a little thump as he flops onto our unforgiving hardwood floors, accompanied by his squeaky voice casually saying, “Daisy.”

A car seat for a child may seem challenging to install, but the difficulty is nothing compared to the process of getting someone to check the installation. Long before we had even purchased Oliver’s most recent seat, I made one phone call after another to a local police station that had offered car seat inspections by appointment in the past. The only times I ever spoke to a live police officer was when I was given other numbers to call.

I t was a perfect late summer afternoon and my wife and I were taking the tot for a stroll through Little India. We gazed at colourful sari shop window displays and breathed in spices drifting out from the grocery stores and buffet restaurants. We came to the crosswalk where Ashdale intersects with Gerrard, and I pressed the button to activate the crossing lights.

W hy does it seem like everything is killing us these days? Every night on the news there’s some other thing that’s giving us cancer or full of lead or a direct link to obesity or diabetes or autism. As a new parent, I'm finding it a little overwhelming that as parents we are not only solely responsible for a new person's psychological and emotional well being and immediate physical safety, but also with his health for the rest of his life. It seems that parents nowadays have to deal with things that are suspected to cause harm 20-50 years from now.

Dr. Moses Gross (photo by Mimi Choi)

At what age should parents consider taking their child to first see an optometrist?