1m2aSandbox

I’m sure you’ve all see the
waves of crib recalls going on for the past couple of years.
Drop-side cribs, which are in nearly every baby home I’ve
been in, are being demonstrated to be risky to say the least.
Unclear directions, drop-side mechanisms that can wear down and
fail, poor construction, and more have led several watchdog
agencies to press for the ban of drop-side cribs.


Yesterday another wave of recalls was announced – a total of
nine manufacturers, I believe, recalling cribs made within the past
ten years – and the total number of cribs recalled now totals
9 million.

For the past three years, we’ve seen
slow but steady progress in Maddie’s relationship with the
water: she loves being in it, but is fearful of new experiences, so
progresses very slowly on the swimming front. She’s been
taking swim lessons since she was three, but even this year has had
significant meltdowns and mental walls that she’s run into.
We seem to hit that wall, stay there, inch our way forward, then
have a lovely breakthrough.


I’m happy to say that right now we’re in the
breakthrough stage.

Yesterday evening I was taking out the
trash in our driveway when I discovered, upon moving the trash can,
a very large, fat, fuzzy black caterpillar. Without even thinking,
I yelled, “Cora, Maddie! Come and look, quick!” The
girls came scrambling out and stopped, awestruck, at the sight of
the fat guy. My mom came out with them and wrapped him around a
stick to move him out of harm’s way; the girls followed like
puppies and watched contemplatively as he worked his way down into
some vegetation. They debated where he was in the “Hungry
Caterpillar” timeline – Monday or Saturday? – and
then began digging through the dirt, happily collecting small bits
of flora for their own stuffed animals to eat for supper. And
suddenly we’d gone from two girls sitting desultorily around
the house after dinner to two intrepid nature explorers, busy at
work.

My last entry was an introduction to
sunscreen – so if you haven’t read that, please read it
first.


Today we’re getting into the nitty-gritty: specific
ingredients to watch out for, all the sunscreens I’ve tested
so you don’t have to, and my top picks.


Hey, no fair trying to skip to the end.

It’s summertime, which in my
household means extended periods – and I’m talking
three or four hours at a pop – at our neighborhood pool.
Being the pasty white girl that I am, I worry about skin protection
– and with good reason. We’re burning faster than ever
before, and those freckles suddenly aren’t as cute as they
were when we were nine.


There’s a lot of confusing information out there about
sunscreen, and I’ve spent hours digging through internet
research trying to find out what’s best for my family. I
already make the girls wear the long SPF-material swimsuits that
cover their arms and legs – I call them the Amish Sporty look
– when we go during the day, but we’ve still got faces
and forearms and legs to cover. And while I often wear a rash guard
myself, I don’t particularly want the farmer tan that brings
two-tone biceps with it, so I want the absolute best sunscreen I
can find. Add to all of this my concerns about chemical absorption
in the girls and trying to use eco-friendly options, and suddenly
picking the right sunscreen seems a pretty tall order.

After a few months in a holding pattern,
Cora’s begun showing a renewed interest in potty training.
And I can’t decide if it’s simply maturity – or
devious cunning.


Cora’s been doing most of her pooping in the potty for a
while now. She’s discovered that a poopy diaper is rather
uncomfortable, and nine times out of ten she’ll tell me when
she needs to poop so as to avoid having that happen. Sometimes
she’ll be in the middle of a game or a social situation and
not want to stop and simply use her diaper, but by and large
she’s got the pooping down.

Almost a year ago, Maddie started asking
me when she’d be old enough to wear glasses. Not sunglasses,
just regular glasses. Since I, my husband, and my mother all wear
glasses, she sees all the grownups in her house with them and
assumes it’s a level of adulthood to be sought after and
attained.


Maddie was so wistful about them that I bought her a pair of
clear-glass stylish frames from Claire’s in the mall for
Christmas. Maddie ended up revising her list at the last minute
(see: Necklace Crisis) and I tucked them away for another time,
thinking she’d forget about them.


My friend, she did not forget. For the past six months
they’ve come up off and on, and I finally gave in and pulled
the trigger for her birthday last week. Maddie unwrapped her bright
pink, rectangular frames and squealed with delight.


And has worn them pretty much non-stop.