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A recent href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16709587/site/newsweek/">Newsweek
article brought my attention to a new free booklet put out
by the nonprofit organization href="http://www.zerotothree.org">Zero to Three a
valuable parenting resource site that’s listed on my target="_blank"
href="http://www.1mother2another.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=34#top">
Top 5s Page.


This new booklet, “Healthy From the Start”, is endorsed
by the American Academy of Pediatrics and outlines sensible and
healthy eating habits for babies and toddlers – and more
importantly, what we as parents can do to encourage these
habits.

If Babyhood is all about Sleep –
learning to sleep at night instead of day, learning to sleep
through the night, being able to self-soothe and go back to sleep,
getting into regular naps, and so on – then Toddlerhood is
all about Control.


And when I say control, I mean control in many guises: developing
motor skills control, learning about emotions and how to control
them (also known as Not Throwing a Tantrum), realizing adults
control you, discovering how to control adults (can you say
Manipulation?). But there’s one more type of control that
dominates any toddlerhood – potty training.

No, this isn’t a review of that
penguin movie.


My daughter, who has not seen that movie, has Happy Feet of her
own. She and her daddy, who spent a lot of time together last
weekend while Mommy started working on family taxes, came up with a
new game – Happy Feet.

We’ve finally seen a turn in the
weather; it seems winter is actually here to stay. Undaunted, I
simply bundle my kid up extra-well and head out to the park in
spite of the cold. But the past couple of days we’ve had a
snow threat and so have stayed inside, relying on play dates.


So when my friend Ingrid informed me we wouldn’t be seeing
them yesterday because of a dentist’s appointment, I
panicked. No Naomi! How would I keep my child from noticing we
never actually left the house all day?? Which is why I unthinkingly
said, “Why don’t you simply drop Naomi off at my house
while you go to the dentist? Then they can still play
together.” I promise, my motives were purely selfish.


My first inkling that this might be harder than I anticipated was
when Ingrid fell on the floor in gratitude. I hadn’t really
thought about this as being babysitting, just another play date
where one of the adults happens to not be there. But how bad could
it be? Naomi knows me, knows Maddie, knows my house. What could go
wrong?

I’m afraid that our cat’s got
some competition in our household now; what has been up to this
point a one-cat home has suddenly become the residence of two
kitties.


Of course, one of them is my daughter.


I’m not sure where she got this idea, but she absolutely
loves to crawl around on the floor and pretend she’s a cat.
She’ll crawl all over the house, saying, “Meow! Meow!
Meow! Meow!” And just in case I don’t get the message
from that, she’ll periodically stop, pet herself on the back,
and say, “Soft!”

I never thought I’d say this, but my daughter is too concerned with cleanliness, and it’s driving me crazy.

I think the first time we noticed it was during our beach vacation. Maddie had just turned 15 months and been eating solid foods for a long time, and while she never had a spontaneous one-baby food fight, she certainly didn’t seem bothered by the excess pureed blueberries smeared across her face. And while she had never really had a chance to get down and dirty in, say, a mud puddle, she seemed to enjoy finger paints as much as the next child.

A couple weeks ago I told you about a
recent Consumer Reports test; the Consumers Union tested 12
rear-facing infant car seats and reported that 10 out of the 12
seats used failed at least one of their tests.

Last week, the Consumers Union retracted
that report after the federal government claimed the failure
results came from drastically higher test speeds than stated in the
report.

Consumer Reports has announced an internal
investigation into the veracity of the government’s claims,
and that they will re-do the tests as soon as possible and issue a
new report. Meanwhile, they are still urging a recall of the
Evenflo Discovery, the car seat that failed the most in their
tests.

I imagine that if you’re a parent
using one of the infant car seats that got low marks, you’re
feeling partly relieved but partly confused right now. I know I
would be. I’m not sure what I would do in your situation.
Here are the things I know to be true:

Consumer Reports works really hard to
provide unbiased, high-quality, dependable information to
consumers. They refuse to accept advertising or sponsors, conduct
all their tests anonymously so they don’t get
“freebies”, and do not allow companies to even use
their name in advertising such as “Consumer Reports rated us
the best!”

I also know that ANY car seat is better
than no car seat at all. So here are some things you can do:

-Make sure your car seat is in good
condition. If your baby is the sixth one to use it, you may want to
think about buying a new one. Buckles and straps start to wear down
with time, and the plastic may be weaker than you think.

-Along those lines, I’d encourage
you not to buy a car seat second-hand; you have no way of knowing
if that seat you picked up for 20 bucks at a garage sale has
already been in a wreck or not, and thus may be structurally
weaker. Only borrow a used car seat from someone you know and
trust, make sure you have all the instruction books, and look them
up on line to make sure the model hasn’t been recalled.

-If you buy a new car seat, register it
with the maker so they can notify you of any safety issues or
recalls.

-Sign up at href="http://www.cpsc.gov/cpsclist.asp">this site to be
notified of any government recalls; they’ll email you
automatically.

-Get your car seat installation checked.
Click href="http://www.seatcheck.org/">here to find a location
near you. Having your seat correctly installed is half the
battle.

-Click href="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/011907dnnatcarseats.55ad0942.html">
here to read an article on the car seat test retraction.
You can also read about it at href="http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cu-press-room/pressroom/2007/2/0702_eng0702ccs.htm">
Consumer Reports’ website or read the
government’s updates on the situation at the target="_blank" href="http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/">NHTSA
website.

-Use a car seat. All the time.

I’ll let you know if there’s
more news on this topic as I find out about it.