1m2aSandbox

Recently one of my girlfriends went to put her 15-month-old down in his crib for the night. As he hit the mattress, he grabbed for a small object nearby. After she pried the object out of his fingers, my girlfriend realized it was a small plastic vial full of medicine used to fill her son’s nebulizer. He’d somehow gotten hold of one and hidden it in his crib. And if he hadn’t brought it to her attention, he’d have found it in the middle of the night and shoved it in his mouth.

Maddie’s been enamored with the
alphabet for a few months now, and while I want to encourage this
fascination and so forth, her distraction when faced with what she
realizes are Letters and not just A Jumble of Lines is beginning to
wear a bit thin.

Am I the only mom whose kid goes through these passionate love affairs with a specific food, only to suddenly shun them without warning one day?

Maddie’s always been a pretty good eater; as a baby she’d eat just about anything and I smugly assumed that would continue through toddlerhood. I’d listen pityingly to my girlfriends moan about their kids’ refusals to eat veggies and think, “Glad I won’t have that problem.” She doesn’t refuse them completely now, but she is much more enamoured of pasta and cheese than I’d prefer, and broccoli, carrots, and the occasional asparagus (NO CORN!!!!) are about all I can get down her. Thank you, Lord, for Veggie Booty.

Highest on her list, though, has always been fresh fruit, and at first her preferences followed the seasons. Last summer she ate a lot of berries, then fall came and it was apples, and so on. But for the past couple of months she gets this craving for a specific food and God help you if you don’t have it on hand.

We’ve been incredibly spoiled this winter up here in the Northeast; with temperatures unseasonably warm, Maddie’s been able to indulge her passion for the outdoors pretty much unabated. We have yet to have our first snowfall, and in fact this past December was the first December without snow in 120 years. And just a couple weeks ago we had an entire Saturday at 70 balmy degrees!

But I know that this weather won’t last – we’re descending into the 20s and 30s this week, much more typical for this time of year. So I’ve been reading up on how to keep Maddie warm and safe (since telling my toddler “no” to the outdoors is definitely not my favorite option) and I thought I’d pass on what I’ve learned.

As Maddie passes her nineteen-month marker
(yes, I still keep track,) I’m amazed at how different
developmental skills suddenly take off.


She’s always been a talker; in public or with people she
doesn’t know she’ll be quiet and reserved, simply
taking it all in. But with family and close friends she’s
quite the chatterbox. For several months – actually, about a
year now! – she’s been jabbering in her own emphatic
language, using gestures to help us stupid adults keep up. And of
course she started saying individual words last summer – the
basic “dada” and “mama” and so forth
– but recently she’s been forming her own short
sentences, and you’re left to extrapolate on your own.

Infant car seats made news recently when Consumer Reports ran a new batch of tests against 12 brands of rear-facing infant car seats. Using speeds of 35 and 38 MPH rather than the government speed of 30 MPH, Consumer Reports found that 10 out of the 12 car seats failed.

Yes, 10 out of 12 car seats failed.

In addition, Consumer Reports found that when testing a European model of a popular car seat, that car seat performed better than any other car seat they tested. The American version – same manufacturer – failed. Coincidentally, car seat testing in Europe is much stricter. CR also found evidence of problems with the LATCH system, and said seats did better when secured with a seatbelt. One car seat, the Evenflo Discovery, didn’t even meet government standards, and Consumer Reports is urging a recall of that product.

Three car seats failed all of CR’s tests – the Evenflo Discovery, the Graco Safeseat, and the Britax Companion. Only the Baby Trend Flex-Loc and the Graco Snugride with EPS passed every test.

For more information, read the entire report by clicking here. And even if you’ve got a top-rated car seat, I encourage you to find a car seat inspection station near you to make sure your seat is properly installed.

And of course, remember that any car seat is better than no car seat at all.

I recently hit the 20-week mark in this second pregnancy, and as I move forward towards the five-month mark, I recall that this is the time in my last pregnancy where it began to feel as if it were moving more quickly. Do you know what I mean? At the very beginning you’re excited and dreamy, and perhaps exhausted and nauseated, but you have this long pregnancy stretching out before you. Then suddenly you “pop” and have something that’s clearly not “just fat” in front of you, and it becomes much more immediate and real and you start to look anxiously at your “to-do” list. Or perhaps, start to think anxiously about making a to-do list.

I’ve hit several of those moments over this past pregnancy – those times when something you’ve forgotten completely about your last pregnancy comes rushing to the forefront and you can’t believe you ever forgot it. So I’ve compiled a bit of a list, because Lord knows I’ll forget it again if there’s ever a third time. And why is that? The answer is item number one on my Things I Forgot list: