I really should have done this last month, but with us traveling, and then getting settled back in at home, I just got lazy. I finally did get it done, though. Orren is done with bottles!! His new bedtime routine involves getting a sippy cup of milk, which he drinks while we read him a few books, and then we go brush his teeth, and he goes down for the night. He was a little confused at first, but he's fine, and he wasn't all that attached to his bottles anyhow, so it's been a nice easy transition for him.
Lucky for us, he gave up his pacifier voluntarily at 8 or 9 months (I can't remember which, but somewhere in there), so we don't have to worry about breaking him of that. Yes, yes, yes! My boy is a big toddler now!
The only baby item we have left is diapers, and those will stay a while, which is good, because they're adorable. They're so cute, in fact, that we may have another baby just to keep them around. OK, so that's not the real reason, but a 2010 baby is a serious consideration at this point. You heard it here first. ;-)
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
We are ERF!
In this picture, Orren is one year and one day old, taking his first car ride as an extended rear-facing toddler. Fittingly, we were on our way to the Minnesota Children's Museum in St. Paul. By the way, his jacket is on backward so that it does not interfere with the fit of his car seat straps. He's wearing a long sleeved t-shirt under there, then his seat harness is fastened, and then the jacket goes backward over the top. It's the safe way to keep warm in the car during winter!Anyhow, this is yet another of my late late late bloggings. This is what happens when you spend the holidays driving, exploring new cities, and meeting your husband's enormous family.
Anyhow, as of Orren's first birthday, Christmas Day, we are Extended Rear-Facing (ERF)!! That means that even though he hit 20 pounds at about 4 months old, and he's now over a year old, we have not turned his car seat around, and we won't until we absolutely have to. In fact, since he is outgrowing his Britax Diplomat in height, we're going to be purchasing him a Sunshine Kids Radian XT SL, which will allow him to ride rear-facing until he is 45 pounds.
We are just grateful for the knowledge that rear-facing is better, and that a step up in car seats is a step down in safety. It seems that despite the pervasiveness of the tests which lead to these conclusions, and the American Academy of Pediatrics voicing their support of extended rear-facing, the knowledge hasn't reached the majority of people. I see a lot of forward-facing 1-year-olds, and it makes me sad. Then I look to the back seat of my car, and see Erin smiling back at me in her 5-point harness, and the back of Orren's seat, and I'm happy because I know that if we are in an accident, my kids have the best chances possible to walk away without a scratch.
In celebration of extended rear-facing, I give you the following:
AAP's guidelines which recommend rear-facing for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers.
And because this knowledge reached us, we can prevent this from happening to our kids.
This is a shorter video with some awesome pics of rear-facing toddlers and preschoolers, and also debunks some of the common myths. Even if you don't watch the other, watch this one. It's only 3 minutes.
Rear-face your toddlers, people. Forward facing is for big kids! Ignorance is one thing. We have all been ignorant of certain research or discoveries before. Stupidity is when you've been told and shown, and choose to still act unsafely. Don't be stupid with your kids' lives. After reading the above link and watching the above video, you can't claim ignorance. Keep them rear-facing, and when they can't rear-face anymore, keep them harnessed. Don't fall into peer pressure from other parents to compromise your kids' safety because "it's overkill" or "other kids will laugh at them". My 6 1/2-year-old rides in a car seat with a 5-point harness, and not one kid has ever made fun of her for it. Any excuse that anyone gives for not rear-facing to the height/weight limit of their car seat, and not harnessing to the weight limit of their harness, is garbage. If you value your kids' lives and safety, learn as we have, that a step up in car seats is a step down in safety, and don't be hasty to move up.
Monday, January 25, 2010
One year in cloth, and doubling our money!
I'm a little late on part of this because Orren has been in cloth since birth, and he is 13 months old today. As of Christmas day, however, we have been exclusively cloth diapering for one full year!! I'm proud of us. A lot of people claim that trying cloth is stupid, that you'll just go to disposables after all, and many other nay-saying things. We proved them wrong, though, and handily at that. We love cloth diapering, find it EASIER than using disposables (totally eliminates the midnight run to Wal Mart because you're out of diapers!), and can't imagine any other way now that we've done it. Since Orren was not hospital-born, he's never been taken away from us, and did not even get put into a disposable diaper at birth. When Orren was not on me, he was with Thak, and when it was time to get him dressed, Thak pulled a little blue organic cotton fitted diaper out of our bag, and that was the first thing Orren wore.
In the past year, we have moved cross country, and taken a road trip from our new home on the Mexican border all the way up almost to the Canadian border. In 2009, we saw 16 states. Through all of that, Orren wore cloth. I have washed our diapers in coin operated machines, and at relatives' houses, but we always found a way to use cloth. It may seem a paltry accomplishment to many, but I'm proud of us.
Now, as for the doubling our money part, I'll explain that now. When I was pregnant with Orren, when we were researching cloth diapering, we wanted to know exactly how much money we would save by cloth diapering, and how long we would have to make it in order to reclaim our investment even if we hated it. We determined that in 6 1/2 months, we would break even, and in 13 months, we would have spent HALF on our cloth diapers as we would have on the number of disposables we'd have used in that time.
Orren's 13 month birthday is today, and as of today, we have officially gotten twice as much for our money as we would have if we had used disposables. If he potty trains at 2 (and he might. He's already really interested in the potty.) then we will get four times as much for our money as we would have with disposables. If the next baby does the same, then we'll get 8 times as much for our money.
Now, who would like to use cloth diapers for their next baby? I hope everybody does!! Cloth diapering is a joy. It's one parenting decision I will never ever regret, and for infinite reasons.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Product RAVE: Britax Blink
We ordered our stroller last week, and it came in on Tuesday evening. Let me tell you, this thing is worth every penny and then some! We already own several Britax products, and so we have high expectations of this brand as far as quality goes. The Blink delivers.
Things we love about the Britax Blink:
-STYLE STYLE STYLE!! This stroller looks amazing.
-Height! If I wear 5" heels (which I often do), thus standing a total of 5'11", I can still push this stroller without bending over in the slightest.
-Height again! It's got the tallest seat I've ever seen on this type of stroller. It is excellent for tall skinny toddlers like Orren.
-Compact size. This stroller folds down compactly enough to fit in the back of my Chevy HHR and still leave room for a full haul of groceries, or everything necessary for a day at the park.
-Ease of use. This stroller is absolutely idiot-proof when it comes to folding and unfolding, and has such smooth easy movements.
-Seems to have plenty of storage room as far as a stroller of this type goes. It even has a little pouch on the back of the canopy for extra storage.
-Price. Feature for feature, this stroller stacks up nicely against many twice its price. Being that it is a Britax, it is excellent quality for the price, and worth more than we paid.
Things we do not love:
-The upholstery is not as high quality as that of our Peg Perego stroller, but also, that's one hell of a comparison. Peg Perego is known industry-wide for having the best upholstery of any manufacturer of baby gear, so nothing is going to be as good. I'd say the materials the Blink is made of are the next best thing.
-There's no water bottle holster like we have on our Peg Perego Aria, but this may be available for aftermarket purchase, so this may be a temporary problem in actuality.
Bottom line:
We love our Blink! I only wish it came in double so I could continue to use it with the next baby!
Now pictures:
It's almost as tall as 6-year-old Erin!
Orren loves his Blink!
Things we love about the Britax Blink:
-STYLE STYLE STYLE!! This stroller looks amazing.
-Height! If I wear 5" heels (which I often do), thus standing a total of 5'11", I can still push this stroller without bending over in the slightest.
-Height again! It's got the tallest seat I've ever seen on this type of stroller. It is excellent for tall skinny toddlers like Orren.
-Compact size. This stroller folds down compactly enough to fit in the back of my Chevy HHR and still leave room for a full haul of groceries, or everything necessary for a day at the park.
-Ease of use. This stroller is absolutely idiot-proof when it comes to folding and unfolding, and has such smooth easy movements.
-Seems to have plenty of storage room as far as a stroller of this type goes. It even has a little pouch on the back of the canopy for extra storage.
-Price. Feature for feature, this stroller stacks up nicely against many twice its price. Being that it is a Britax, it is excellent quality for the price, and worth more than we paid.
Things we do not love:
-The upholstery is not as high quality as that of our Peg Perego stroller, but also, that's one hell of a comparison. Peg Perego is known industry-wide for having the best upholstery of any manufacturer of baby gear, so nothing is going to be as good. I'd say the materials the Blink is made of are the next best thing.
-There's no water bottle holster like we have on our Peg Perego Aria, but this may be available for aftermarket purchase, so this may be a temporary problem in actuality.
Bottom line:
We love our Blink! I only wish it came in double so I could continue to use it with the next baby!
Now pictures:
It's almost as tall as 6-year-old Erin!
Orren loves his Blink!
Sleep, toddlers, and all that other good garbage.
I just got the latest issue of Parents magazine in the mail yesterday. I like Parents. It's always got good recipes, suggests awesome gear, and keeps me up to date on parenting trends and ideas I would have totally missed out on since I've spent my entire adult life stuck in various corners of backward hell thanks to Uncle Sam. Anyhow, this month's issue did not have a new whole wheat cupcake recipe for me (although there is a beef and broccoli recipe I'm dying to try!), and didn't tell me about the latest and greatest in mommy-and-me classes. It didn't reassure me that circumcision rates truly are falling, or that homeschooling is becoming more popular, or extol the virtues of whole wheat pasta and organic brown rice from California. (Hey, who doesn't like to have their way of doing things justified in a national publication?!)
No, this month's issue had something far more important for me, a 4-page-long article about sleep training in toddlers. We've had sleep issues with Orren... I guess. The thing is, for me, this sleep thing is so arbitrary. I know tons of people who never get a full night's sleep even if their kids are in preschool, because their kids just insist on getting up at night. Then on the other hand, we have Orren's pediatrician, who told us that by 6 months, night wakings were totally unnecessary. He's a good doctor, but we don't agree with him on EVERYTHING, so we didn't take his suggestion of weaning Orren off his night feedings that early. We let Orren continue with his night feedings (only one feeding per night) until he was about 10 months old. Then we started trying to get him off of it. We'd go in, change his diaper, give him hugs and kisses, and put him back down, at which point, he'd scream. The length of time he'd scream varied, but he always screamed. After a couple weeks, we'd occasionally give him a night feeding. A bad parenting move, to be sure, but after a while, it becomes easier and easier to take the easy wrong over the hard right when taking the easy wrong will get you a few hours of peaceful sleep.
Long story slightly shorter, Orren still wakes up once a night. He no longer gets a bottle, and is usually content to just get changed, rocked for a maximum of five minutes (usually closer to two) and be put back down. He'll be 13 months on Monday. According to the article in Parents, sleep training should begin much earlier than this, at maybe 4 months. My first reaction was a sinking feeling... we had missed the boat. We were destined to become those parents whose kids keep them up all night all the way until elementary school. Shit. How could I, an experienced parent (hell, a former SINGLE parent who got married only to continue raising the kids alone due to deployments and insane work schedules!) drop the ball this hard?? If I were an NFL player, I'd have ten flags thrown at me for unsportsmanlike conduct for dropping- nay, spiking- the ball that hard! My heart sunk. I committed the biggest parenting screw-up ever, the thing I have disrespected countless moms for. I had overindulged my child, and created a crappy sleeper. Visions of our on-post neighbors' 2-year-olds dancing on the porch at midnight flashed through my head. Tell me I haven't set us up for THAT. In addition to being tiring, talk about embarrassing. Nobody wants to be *that* parent, least of all a somewhat obsessive perfectionist such as myself.
Then I read further. The sleep training they referred to was getting the baby to fall asleep on their own, being able to put them down awake, and have them go to sleep. OK, he's been doing that for the past seven months.
They recommended giving the last feeding of the evening at the beginning of the bedtime routine. OK, we can check that one off, too. We give him his milk, then read him a story, then brush his teeth, and then he goes to bed. OK, well, I guess it's in the MIDDLE of his bedtime routine, because before that, he gets a bath, then gets dressed for bed, but I think the point was not to have it at the end of the bedtime routine, so I think we're doing ok.
They recommend a 7 pm bedtime, and that the baby sleeps from 7-7. 7 pm is, in fact, Orren's bedtime, and he usually wakes up at 7 something. We're right on target there.
They emphasize the importance of a routine. Well, ever since Thak's 2nd tour in Iraq, when I was alone in Georgia with Erin, who wasn't much older then than Orren is now, I've known the importance of a routine, especially for people like us, whose lifestyle is unstable by its very nature. I've had Orren on a schedule for as long as I can recall. We're good on that.
The conclusion I draw from this is that we're actually doing fine. Sure, we could always revisit the Ferber method, if we chose to, but I think there are greater evils in the world than having to go into Orren's room most nights (he probably does this 4-5 nights a week), and rock him for a couple minutes.
All this got me thinking about everything else that he's doing. He's such a big boy. He's down to only one bottle a day. Otherwise, he's on sippy cups only. He still gets his bottle at bedtime (as part of the routine explained above) and we'll probably do away with that next week. Since we just took his day bottles from him a few days ago, we want to give him a little time to get used to that before we take away his bed time bottle, too. Probably on Monday, his 13 month birthday, we'll go ahead and just give him a cup of milk to drink while we read his books, and then skip the bottle. Once we do that, we can pack all the bottles away, because we won't need them anymore for him!! (And we hopefully won't use them for the next one either. I guess we'll see if the 3rd try is the charm for breastfeeding! I'm keeping the bottles as a matter of superstition, though. If we get rid of them, we'll end up needing them.) So we're about 80% done with bottles right now, and will be 100% by next week. We're ahead of schedule compared to last time. Erin was 18 months before we got her off the bottle completely. Orren will be 13 months to the day.
He also decided he wanted nothing to do with his pacifier anymore when he was about 8 months old, so that takes another big battle off our to-do list. Taking Erin's paci was not easy. She was a very sucky baby, and due to instability in our lives (moving, for one thing) we let her keep her paci until she was 16 months, at which point, Thak had had enough, and took it away from her. For about two days, it was hard, but after that, she forgot all about it. Even though we didn't have to go through some terrible ordeal with Erin, I'm glad we will avoid it entirely with Orren.
I see so clearly now that things balance out with these kids. Erin was a really easy baby. Orren was still easy, but definitely much fussier and more demanding than Erin. It's becoming really apparent, though, that Orren is going to be a pretty easy toddler, whereas Erin clung to all her baby things for dear life. It all balances out in the end.
No, this month's issue had something far more important for me, a 4-page-long article about sleep training in toddlers. We've had sleep issues with Orren... I guess. The thing is, for me, this sleep thing is so arbitrary. I know tons of people who never get a full night's sleep even if their kids are in preschool, because their kids just insist on getting up at night. Then on the other hand, we have Orren's pediatrician, who told us that by 6 months, night wakings were totally unnecessary. He's a good doctor, but we don't agree with him on EVERYTHING, so we didn't take his suggestion of weaning Orren off his night feedings that early. We let Orren continue with his night feedings (only one feeding per night) until he was about 10 months old. Then we started trying to get him off of it. We'd go in, change his diaper, give him hugs and kisses, and put him back down, at which point, he'd scream. The length of time he'd scream varied, but he always screamed. After a couple weeks, we'd occasionally give him a night feeding. A bad parenting move, to be sure, but after a while, it becomes easier and easier to take the easy wrong over the hard right when taking the easy wrong will get you a few hours of peaceful sleep.
Long story slightly shorter, Orren still wakes up once a night. He no longer gets a bottle, and is usually content to just get changed, rocked for a maximum of five minutes (usually closer to two) and be put back down. He'll be 13 months on Monday. According to the article in Parents, sleep training should begin much earlier than this, at maybe 4 months. My first reaction was a sinking feeling... we had missed the boat. We were destined to become those parents whose kids keep them up all night all the way until elementary school. Shit. How could I, an experienced parent (hell, a former SINGLE parent who got married only to continue raising the kids alone due to deployments and insane work schedules!) drop the ball this hard?? If I were an NFL player, I'd have ten flags thrown at me for unsportsmanlike conduct for dropping- nay, spiking- the ball that hard! My heart sunk. I committed the biggest parenting screw-up ever, the thing I have disrespected countless moms for. I had overindulged my child, and created a crappy sleeper. Visions of our on-post neighbors' 2-year-olds dancing on the porch at midnight flashed through my head. Tell me I haven't set us up for THAT. In addition to being tiring, talk about embarrassing. Nobody wants to be *that* parent, least of all a somewhat obsessive perfectionist such as myself.
Then I read further. The sleep training they referred to was getting the baby to fall asleep on their own, being able to put them down awake, and have them go to sleep. OK, he's been doing that for the past seven months.
They recommended giving the last feeding of the evening at the beginning of the bedtime routine. OK, we can check that one off, too. We give him his milk, then read him a story, then brush his teeth, and then he goes to bed. OK, well, I guess it's in the MIDDLE of his bedtime routine, because before that, he gets a bath, then gets dressed for bed, but I think the point was not to have it at the end of the bedtime routine, so I think we're doing ok.
They recommend a 7 pm bedtime, and that the baby sleeps from 7-7. 7 pm is, in fact, Orren's bedtime, and he usually wakes up at 7 something. We're right on target there.
They emphasize the importance of a routine. Well, ever since Thak's 2nd tour in Iraq, when I was alone in Georgia with Erin, who wasn't much older then than Orren is now, I've known the importance of a routine, especially for people like us, whose lifestyle is unstable by its very nature. I've had Orren on a schedule for as long as I can recall. We're good on that.
The conclusion I draw from this is that we're actually doing fine. Sure, we could always revisit the Ferber method, if we chose to, but I think there are greater evils in the world than having to go into Orren's room most nights (he probably does this 4-5 nights a week), and rock him for a couple minutes.
All this got me thinking about everything else that he's doing. He's such a big boy. He's down to only one bottle a day. Otherwise, he's on sippy cups only. He still gets his bottle at bedtime (as part of the routine explained above) and we'll probably do away with that next week. Since we just took his day bottles from him a few days ago, we want to give him a little time to get used to that before we take away his bed time bottle, too. Probably on Monday, his 13 month birthday, we'll go ahead and just give him a cup of milk to drink while we read his books, and then skip the bottle. Once we do that, we can pack all the bottles away, because we won't need them anymore for him!! (And we hopefully won't use them for the next one either. I guess we'll see if the 3rd try is the charm for breastfeeding! I'm keeping the bottles as a matter of superstition, though. If we get rid of them, we'll end up needing them.) So we're about 80% done with bottles right now, and will be 100% by next week. We're ahead of schedule compared to last time. Erin was 18 months before we got her off the bottle completely. Orren will be 13 months to the day.
He also decided he wanted nothing to do with his pacifier anymore when he was about 8 months old, so that takes another big battle off our to-do list. Taking Erin's paci was not easy. She was a very sucky baby, and due to instability in our lives (moving, for one thing) we let her keep her paci until she was 16 months, at which point, Thak had had enough, and took it away from her. For about two days, it was hard, but after that, she forgot all about it. Even though we didn't have to go through some terrible ordeal with Erin, I'm glad we will avoid it entirely with Orren.
I see so clearly now that things balance out with these kids. Erin was a really easy baby. Orren was still easy, but definitely much fussier and more demanding than Erin. It's becoming really apparent, though, that Orren is going to be a pretty easy toddler, whereas Erin clung to all her baby things for dear life. It all balances out in the end.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Mission: lightweight compact stroller
We were unable to take our Peg Perego Aria to Minnesota with us because we didn't have room for it in the car. The Aria is a nice stroller (and has come down in price enormously according to that link!), and more compact than the usual American monstrosities most people's kids roll out in these days, but folded, it still takes up a lot of the back of the car, and on this trip, space was the one thing we didn't have. It's a fact of having kids, and choosing not to upgrade to the requisite gas guzzling SUV or mini-van, that everything must be more compact than what Average America is buying off the shelves at Wal Mart. We fight this battle already with car seats, and do ok. We somehow overlooked the stroller issue until our trip, though.
Doing a nearly two week trip to MN without our stroller was ridiculously more difficult than it would have been had we had it, so when we got home, we knew what we had to do. We looked up lightweight and compact strollers to see what we liked. We already knew that we liked Maclaren because their product is excellent quality, will last for years, does exactly what we need it to do, and looks awesome. I've wanted a Maclaren for years, ever since Erin was a baby, but could never afford one. Now that we can, I thought we should just go ahead and get one. We had just about decided on the Maclaren Techno, but decided to look around a bit more.
We like Peg Perego products, and figuring that the Techno cost almost as much as the Peg Perego Pliko P3 (the stroller I actually wanted when I bought the Aria. The only reason we didn't get a Pliko right away is because we bought our car seat in a discontinued color, and could only find the Aria to match.) we'd go ahead and compare the two. We were surprised to find that Peg Perego had actually come out with a cheaper option than the Pliko (apparently, they're replacing the Aria with it), called the Si. I like the Si, so I put this Pliko thought out of my head, and had 90% decided to just order the Si, because it's car seat compatible (for the next baby), which the Maclaren isn't, and is so similar to the Pliko, which I've wanted for so long. Then I watched one of the promotional videos for the Si on Peg Perego's Italian website (hey, if you can speak Spanish, you can understand enough Italian to get by! They didn't have this video on the English site.) and I noticed that when folded, it's barely any more compact than the Aria, and then realized that the Pliko is about the same. That won't work.
Then I remembered that Britax (our favorite car seat company) had come out with a lightweight stroller recently also, the Britax Blink, so I thought we could go ahead and have a look at that. When I first googled it, I saw that it retails for only $150, which is roughly half the price of any of the other options we were looking at. It also closely resembles a Maclaren in style and function. We wanted to get something high quality, that would last a while, that we can use with the next baby, too, and that will not look like crap in a few months, so we didn't mind spending some money to accomplish that. However, we're not stupid. The Britax Blink being only $15o suggested retail was an attractive quality. Plus, every Britax product we have is excellent quality, so we know they make good stuff, and figure that their stroller will likely be no exception. Then I clicked on one of the links, and found that the Blink was on sale for $99!!! I texted Thak immediately, and he said to do some more research on it, so I did. I found reviews (although I hate parent reviews since most people don't know what the hell they're talking about), and most helpfully, videos done by parenting websites not affiliated with Britax, which reviewed the stroller and showed it in action. I was sold, and when Thak came home for lunch, I showed him one of the videos, too. He liked what he saw, and told me to order the stroller!
And as of today, our Britax Blink in Cowmooflage print is on its way to us. We're expecting it to arrive on Tuesday! Our next road trip will not be nearly so difficult because we will have a nice compact stroller to bring with us. I can also grocery shop without worrying about whether or not I put the stroller in the house before leaving, and I can leave the Aria set up at home for walks around the neighborhood, or use in the yard (like when I need to have Orren contained while I clean out the car or something.) I can't wait to receive our new Britax Blink!!! I love the quality of Britax products, the style of this stroller, and the cowmooflage print. I'll post pics when we get it!!
Doing a nearly two week trip to MN without our stroller was ridiculously more difficult than it would have been had we had it, so when we got home, we knew what we had to do. We looked up lightweight and compact strollers to see what we liked. We already knew that we liked Maclaren because their product is excellent quality, will last for years, does exactly what we need it to do, and looks awesome. I've wanted a Maclaren for years, ever since Erin was a baby, but could never afford one. Now that we can, I thought we should just go ahead and get one. We had just about decided on the Maclaren Techno, but decided to look around a bit more.
We like Peg Perego products, and figuring that the Techno cost almost as much as the Peg Perego Pliko P3 (the stroller I actually wanted when I bought the Aria. The only reason we didn't get a Pliko right away is because we bought our car seat in a discontinued color, and could only find the Aria to match.) we'd go ahead and compare the two. We were surprised to find that Peg Perego had actually come out with a cheaper option than the Pliko (apparently, they're replacing the Aria with it), called the Si. I like the Si, so I put this Pliko thought out of my head, and had 90% decided to just order the Si, because it's car seat compatible (for the next baby), which the Maclaren isn't, and is so similar to the Pliko, which I've wanted for so long. Then I watched one of the promotional videos for the Si on Peg Perego's Italian website (hey, if you can speak Spanish, you can understand enough Italian to get by! They didn't have this video on the English site.) and I noticed that when folded, it's barely any more compact than the Aria, and then realized that the Pliko is about the same. That won't work.
Then I remembered that Britax (our favorite car seat company) had come out with a lightweight stroller recently also, the Britax Blink, so I thought we could go ahead and have a look at that. When I first googled it, I saw that it retails for only $150, which is roughly half the price of any of the other options we were looking at. It also closely resembles a Maclaren in style and function. We wanted to get something high quality, that would last a while, that we can use with the next baby, too, and that will not look like crap in a few months, so we didn't mind spending some money to accomplish that. However, we're not stupid. The Britax Blink being only $15o suggested retail was an attractive quality. Plus, every Britax product we have is excellent quality, so we know they make good stuff, and figure that their stroller will likely be no exception. Then I clicked on one of the links, and found that the Blink was on sale for $99!!! I texted Thak immediately, and he said to do some more research on it, so I did. I found reviews (although I hate parent reviews since most people don't know what the hell they're talking about), and most helpfully, videos done by parenting websites not affiliated with Britax, which reviewed the stroller and showed it in action. I was sold, and when Thak came home for lunch, I showed him one of the videos, too. He liked what he saw, and told me to order the stroller!
And as of today, our Britax Blink in Cowmooflage print is on its way to us. We're expecting it to arrive on Tuesday! Our next road trip will not be nearly so difficult because we will have a nice compact stroller to bring with us. I can also grocery shop without worrying about whether or not I put the stroller in the house before leaving, and I can leave the Aria set up at home for walks around the neighborhood, or use in the yard (like when I need to have Orren contained while I clean out the car or something.) I can't wait to receive our new Britax Blink!!! I love the quality of Britax products, the style of this stroller, and the cowmooflage print. I'll post pics when we get it!!
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Look, everybody! It's another convenient excuse to tar and feather female soldiers!!
As a female veteran, I have learned one thing very quickly and well. Male veterans wear their service as a badge of honor for the rest of their lives. For us female vets, though, it can often feel more like a rotten, stinking, dead albatross on a string around our necks. Male soldiers' reasons for serving are almost always seen as honorable, admirable even, whereas female soldiers' reasons for serving, even if identical to those of most male soldiers (travel, adventure, getting out of a crappy town, etc) many times draw suspicion. I once was totally berated by a military wife for my reasons for serving, only to find out that her husband enlisted for identical reasons. The military, my beloved Army anyhow, is an exercise in hypocrisy. If the soldiers are bad, and they are, the dependents are 100 times worse.
Well, hang on to your albatrosses, fellow female veterans, because the national news media has given dependent wives who feel threatened that their husbands serve with women one more reason to tar and feather those of us who did, at one point, answer the call to serve. Oh joy!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34842238/
I have NOTHING against the soldier in this news story. I think people are failing to see this situation for what it is. All they see is a female soldier who refused to deploy, and at that, every non-prior-service military dependent on the planet picked up a stone in each hand, ready to lob it. I've heard everything from "She knew what she was signing up for, and should have been ready to deploy!" to "I hope they put her UNDER the jail for this!"
Am I the only one who saw that this girl HAD a family care plan, as is required of every single parent in the Army, and that family care plan fell through just days before she deployed? I'm pretty disappointed to see that I appear to be among the only people who sees that this soldier was trying to do the right thing, DID the right thing, and then when the system failed her, resorted to desperate measures.
Do I agree with her decision to miss movement? No. I don't agree with it at all, and I think she handled the situation very poorly, but that brings me to my next point. Where was her squad leader? Where was her platoon sergeant? When I was in the Army, I couldn't eat chow, lace my boots, or gas up my car without my superiors needing a situation report on it, it seemed. My NCO's drove me nuts, but I remember them fondly for it, because they took really good care of their soldiers, and knowing what your soldiers are up to and what's going on in their lives is a big part of that. As a young soldier, I dated an NCO who was a single father, and I know what single parents have to go through to remain deployment ready. I know how often their leadership is supposed to check up and verify family care plans, and that it is COMMON KNOWLEDGE that if your family care plan falls through, the FIRST thing you do is tell your supervisor, and they will pass that higher so that the command can deal with it as they see fit. Usually, it will mean that you will not deploy with the unit, and will join them later when you have found arrangements for your kids. The other option is to get out. It is perfectly legal, honorable, and even common, to get out of the Army for lack of a family care plan.
This soldier had a choice, yes, and if it were me, I certainly would have seen the iffy nature of the family care plan at my disposal, and gotten out. This soldier, apparently did not, and this is the situation that resulted. If her squad leader knew about this, and did nothing, or used the old Army favorite, intimidation, to get her to shut up about it and feel like she had to fix it or resort to committing a felony (missing movement is a type of AWOL, which I believe is a felony), then the squad leader is the one who should face the charges for this. I feel like crappy leadership HAD TO have played a role in this situation in at least some small part. As a former soldier, I can tell you that not all soldiers are taken very seriously by their leaders when they raise a concern. If your leadership doesn't take you seriously, your problems will never be passed higher, to people who might be able to do something about it, and you'll basically be left out to dry. I've seen it happen 100 times, especially to female soldiers. For all the Army's talk of diversity and equal opportunity, there is a significant percentage of soldiers who really don't like us very much, and many times, we have to trust those very people to take care of us. Needless to say, it doesn't work very well. The other thing I see is that this soldier could have been too intimidated, scared, or distrustful of her leaders to take this concern to them. I don't even have to go into the reasons why a soldier can learn to distrust their leaders. They are too numerous to even list, and anyone with even a working knowledge of the military can certainly imagine the types of things that would cause that. One way or another, though, this soldier didn't get the help she needed from her leadership. If her leaders knew about this, her commander would not have been expecting her to show up that day, and there would have been a better plan in place for how she would proceed. The system failed this soldier, and now she is paying the price.
I'm not surprised by how the Army handled this. I'm not even surprised that the situation happened this way in the first place. I was a female soldier in a nearly all-male unit. I've seen everything you can imagine, and a lot of things you wouldn't believe even if I told you (the truth is stranger than fiction.) It is reasons related to this why I am happy to have married someone I served alongside, who knows what the Army was for me, and who asks for no explanation. This is the way of things for many female soldiers. The system exists because it has to, and it works great for some, but for the ones who need it most, every safety net is broken, and every leader who's charged with your well being and readiness can't be bothered. Adding insult to injury, the male soldiers and their wives who dominate the Army from the soldier and family side only see that you wanted special treatment, that you weren't ready to deploy when ordered, that you missed movement. Really, anyone who's ever put on a uniform more than twice should see that this situation was easily preventable.
Shame on this soldier's supervisors and command for failing to know her situation and deal with it properly. Shame on male soldiers for acting like they don't see what's really going on here. Shame on military wives who selfishly only see that their husbands could never get away with that same thing, and refuse to put themselves, for just one minute, in the shoes of a single soldier parent.
People, she had a baby. She didn't rob a bank. Let's put down the torches and pitchforks for just one second, and think. We might see that this is yet another case of a female soldier failed by the very branch she serves, and then demonized by the misogynistic military community. If nothing else, and I know it isn't much, THIS female veteran reserves judgment on the accused until the results of the court martial are published.
Well, hang on to your albatrosses, fellow female veterans, because the national news media has given dependent wives who feel threatened that their husbands serve with women one more reason to tar and feather those of us who did, at one point, answer the call to serve. Oh joy!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34842238/
I have NOTHING against the soldier in this news story. I think people are failing to see this situation for what it is. All they see is a female soldier who refused to deploy, and at that, every non-prior-service military dependent on the planet picked up a stone in each hand, ready to lob it. I've heard everything from "She knew what she was signing up for, and should have been ready to deploy!" to "I hope they put her UNDER the jail for this!"
Am I the only one who saw that this girl HAD a family care plan, as is required of every single parent in the Army, and that family care plan fell through just days before she deployed? I'm pretty disappointed to see that I appear to be among the only people who sees that this soldier was trying to do the right thing, DID the right thing, and then when the system failed her, resorted to desperate measures.
Do I agree with her decision to miss movement? No. I don't agree with it at all, and I think she handled the situation very poorly, but that brings me to my next point. Where was her squad leader? Where was her platoon sergeant? When I was in the Army, I couldn't eat chow, lace my boots, or gas up my car without my superiors needing a situation report on it, it seemed. My NCO's drove me nuts, but I remember them fondly for it, because they took really good care of their soldiers, and knowing what your soldiers are up to and what's going on in their lives is a big part of that. As a young soldier, I dated an NCO who was a single father, and I know what single parents have to go through to remain deployment ready. I know how often their leadership is supposed to check up and verify family care plans, and that it is COMMON KNOWLEDGE that if your family care plan falls through, the FIRST thing you do is tell your supervisor, and they will pass that higher so that the command can deal with it as they see fit. Usually, it will mean that you will not deploy with the unit, and will join them later when you have found arrangements for your kids. The other option is to get out. It is perfectly legal, honorable, and even common, to get out of the Army for lack of a family care plan.
This soldier had a choice, yes, and if it were me, I certainly would have seen the iffy nature of the family care plan at my disposal, and gotten out. This soldier, apparently did not, and this is the situation that resulted. If her squad leader knew about this, and did nothing, or used the old Army favorite, intimidation, to get her to shut up about it and feel like she had to fix it or resort to committing a felony (missing movement is a type of AWOL, which I believe is a felony), then the squad leader is the one who should face the charges for this. I feel like crappy leadership HAD TO have played a role in this situation in at least some small part. As a former soldier, I can tell you that not all soldiers are taken very seriously by their leaders when they raise a concern. If your leadership doesn't take you seriously, your problems will never be passed higher, to people who might be able to do something about it, and you'll basically be left out to dry. I've seen it happen 100 times, especially to female soldiers. For all the Army's talk of diversity and equal opportunity, there is a significant percentage of soldiers who really don't like us very much, and many times, we have to trust those very people to take care of us. Needless to say, it doesn't work very well. The other thing I see is that this soldier could have been too intimidated, scared, or distrustful of her leaders to take this concern to them. I don't even have to go into the reasons why a soldier can learn to distrust their leaders. They are too numerous to even list, and anyone with even a working knowledge of the military can certainly imagine the types of things that would cause that. One way or another, though, this soldier didn't get the help she needed from her leadership. If her leaders knew about this, her commander would not have been expecting her to show up that day, and there would have been a better plan in place for how she would proceed. The system failed this soldier, and now she is paying the price.
I'm not surprised by how the Army handled this. I'm not even surprised that the situation happened this way in the first place. I was a female soldier in a nearly all-male unit. I've seen everything you can imagine, and a lot of things you wouldn't believe even if I told you (the truth is stranger than fiction.) It is reasons related to this why I am happy to have married someone I served alongside, who knows what the Army was for me, and who asks for no explanation. This is the way of things for many female soldiers. The system exists because it has to, and it works great for some, but for the ones who need it most, every safety net is broken, and every leader who's charged with your well being and readiness can't be bothered. Adding insult to injury, the male soldiers and their wives who dominate the Army from the soldier and family side only see that you wanted special treatment, that you weren't ready to deploy when ordered, that you missed movement. Really, anyone who's ever put on a uniform more than twice should see that this situation was easily preventable.
Shame on this soldier's supervisors and command for failing to know her situation and deal with it properly. Shame on male soldiers for acting like they don't see what's really going on here. Shame on military wives who selfishly only see that their husbands could never get away with that same thing, and refuse to put themselves, for just one minute, in the shoes of a single soldier parent.
People, she had a baby. She didn't rob a bank. Let's put down the torches and pitchforks for just one second, and think. We might see that this is yet another case of a female soldier failed by the very branch she serves, and then demonized by the misogynistic military community. If nothing else, and I know it isn't much, THIS female veteran reserves judgment on the accused until the results of the court martial are published.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Last one for today, MN pics.
Erin always falls in the snow every time she sees it. This snow bank in Tom and Rob's front yard was literally about as tall as she is, so she sank right in.
Here's all of us on Tom and Rob's lawn, with about a ton of snow.
Look at these guys. Aren't they studly?
Here's all of us on Tom and Rob's lawn, with about a ton of snow.
Look at these guys. Aren't they studly?
Yet more MN pics!
We arrived in the Twin Cities in a blizzard, and it didn't stop snowing for three days after we got there. That was fine by us, though. It was pretty!
Here is the finest example of feline perfection I have ever seen. This is Tom and Rob's cat, Gracin. Is he not the most wonderful thing you have ever seen?
The first morning we woke up in the Twin Cities, this is what the car looked like. I personally think the Texas license plate on the front makes this picture even better.
Frank was freezing his little doggie ass off. Rob bought him a sweater not long after this was taken.
Thak and Tom were always doing that thing called "snow removal" in the driveway, which apparently is pretty big up there!! (Can't imagine why...)
Here is the finest example of feline perfection I have ever seen. This is Tom and Rob's cat, Gracin. Is he not the most wonderful thing you have ever seen?
The first morning we woke up in the Twin Cities, this is what the car looked like. I personally think the Texas license plate on the front makes this picture even better.
Frank was freezing his little doggie ass off. Rob bought him a sweater not long after this was taken.
Thak and Tom were always doing that thing called "snow removal" in the driveway, which apparently is pretty big up there!! (Can't imagine why...)
Still more MN pics: Fun with firearms!
Let's play with a bow inside the house!
Try it! You'll like it!
Thak owns us all in stance.
I shoot like a girl.
Try it! You'll like it!
Thak owns us all in stance.
I shoot like a girl.
More of the MN pics
And yet more, these featuring Erin playing with her cousin Lucas, who is very close to her age (he's like maybe 4-5 months older than she is). They had a great time that day!
Yes, trampolines DO still function with about a ton of snow on them. I had not known that before!
Playing in the woods, jumping on rocks. Amazingly enough, they did not fall! Yay for snow boots!
Running around is the way to keep warm!
Erin always eats the snow. Don't worry. It wasn't yellow.
Yes, trampolines DO still function with about a ton of snow on them. I had not known that before!
Playing in the woods, jumping on rocks. Amazingly enough, they did not fall! Yay for snow boots!
Running around is the way to keep warm!
Erin always eats the snow. Don't worry. It wasn't yellow.
Some of the MN pics
OK, here are some of the pics from our Minnesota trip.
This is a Pamida. Pamida is me and Thak's inside joke, and always has been, because when we were first dating, he made some stupid reference to Pamida, and I was like "What the hell is Pamida?" and he explained it to me that it's a store that towns in the midwest have if they're not big enough for a Wal Mart. Meanwhile, Pamida has been the running joke for the better part of a decade now. We saw this Pamida in Kansas, and had to stop to take a picture with it.
New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Kansas were so ugly that if they got nuked off the face of the planet tomorrow, nobody but the clinically insane would miss them. South Dakota, however, was beautiful. I actually took this at a rest stop on I-something or other.
This is the sign on the way into Thak's hometown. I actually took this as we were leaving, not that it makes a difference. It's ALWAYS dark up there. It starts getting dark about 3 pm, so you're almost never going to have a chance to take picture when it's NOT dark out. Anyhow, that is a boat on top of the sign because the Lund boat factory is literally the ONLY thing in that town, and most of the town's 1000 something residents (most of whom are related) work there, or did at some point.
The first day we woke up in Minnesota, Erin saw the snow, and was thrilled!! That's more snow than we had in Texas!!
And Frank thought it was a good idea to terrorize the cat at Lapene's house. That was actually NOT one of his better ideas, as you can probably imagine, judging by the size of the cat!
This is a Pamida. Pamida is me and Thak's inside joke, and always has been, because when we were first dating, he made some stupid reference to Pamida, and I was like "What the hell is Pamida?" and he explained it to me that it's a store that towns in the midwest have if they're not big enough for a Wal Mart. Meanwhile, Pamida has been the running joke for the better part of a decade now. We saw this Pamida in Kansas, and had to stop to take a picture with it.
New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Kansas were so ugly that if they got nuked off the face of the planet tomorrow, nobody but the clinically insane would miss them. South Dakota, however, was beautiful. I actually took this at a rest stop on I-something or other.
This is the sign on the way into Thak's hometown. I actually took this as we were leaving, not that it makes a difference. It's ALWAYS dark up there. It starts getting dark about 3 pm, so you're almost never going to have a chance to take picture when it's NOT dark out. Anyhow, that is a boat on top of the sign because the Lund boat factory is literally the ONLY thing in that town, and most of the town's 1000 something residents (most of whom are related) work there, or did at some point.
The first day we woke up in Minnesota, Erin saw the snow, and was thrilled!! That's more snow than we had in Texas!!
And Frank thought it was a good idea to terrorize the cat at Lapene's house. That was actually NOT one of his better ideas, as you can probably imagine, judging by the size of the cat!
Friday, January 1, 2010
Back to Hell Paso
We got back night before last, late. West Texas is as ugly and smelly as ever, but we'd expected no less. In some ways, it was good to be back in familiar surroundings, but in other ways, it sucked because, well, this place sucks.
The good news is that we only have about 16 more months to deal with this place and the Army, and only a few weeks after that until Thak graduates from school, and we can leave, so we're really in the final countdown until we're done with this crap for good. Today is New Year's Day. Next time this day comes around, we'll be well inside of 6 months before we can run from this place and never look back. That doesn't exactly suck.
Our trip to Minnesota was awesome. I had no idea I would love it so much up there. I'll post pics as soon as I can. Thak did some weird thing with them, and I can't find them (NEVER NEVER NEVER let the husband clean out your memory card...) so whenever I do, I'll post them. Thak also took a couple short videos of the snow in Minneapolis, and the kids opening their presents on Christmas morning (I think), so when I figure out where he put those, I'll upload them to youtube, and embed them here. We have literally TONS of pictures, because we did so much. It will take several entries to show them all.
We saw a lot in Minnesota. We went to the Minnesota Children's Museum, which was probably the coolest place I've ever seen (and just as good for Orren as it was for Erin), and we went to the aquarium that's under Mall of America. While at Mall of America, we went to the Vikings store, and got the kids a football. We also saw Legoland, and the new Nickelodeon amusement park that's in the middle of Mall of America, although we didn't ride any of the rides this time. Mall of America was cool! The only part that sucked was that we ended up parking on the roof of the parking garage, and it was 6 degrees outside, but probably more like -20 with the wind chill up there! It was super cold and super windy, so that part sucked. It wasn't that big a deal, though. Minneapolis and St. Paul are great cities. They aren't filthy and disgusting like El Paso, and they're very middle class. In fact, crime in the entire state of MN is very rare compared to everywhere else we've lived. It's a whole different world up there. We want to go back in the summer and see more of the Rochester area than we did. We liked what we saw on our way home, but we want to see more in the summer. So far, it seems like a real fit for our family, though! The kids were happier in MN than I've ever seen them, Thak and I were practically stress-free (yes, even driving through a blizzard!), and the whole place was just awesome. I was surprised to have liked it that much. I really was kind of expecting it to suck. OK, Thak's hometown sucks... but any town with about 1000 people in it and absolutely NOTHING to do is guaranteed to suck, regardless of where it is. The rest of the state, however... well, the part of it that actually has cities.... was amazing.
But anyhow, pics soon.
The good news is that we only have about 16 more months to deal with this place and the Army, and only a few weeks after that until Thak graduates from school, and we can leave, so we're really in the final countdown until we're done with this crap for good. Today is New Year's Day. Next time this day comes around, we'll be well inside of 6 months before we can run from this place and never look back. That doesn't exactly suck.
Our trip to Minnesota was awesome. I had no idea I would love it so much up there. I'll post pics as soon as I can. Thak did some weird thing with them, and I can't find them (NEVER NEVER NEVER let the husband clean out your memory card...) so whenever I do, I'll post them. Thak also took a couple short videos of the snow in Minneapolis, and the kids opening their presents on Christmas morning (I think), so when I figure out where he put those, I'll upload them to youtube, and embed them here. We have literally TONS of pictures, because we did so much. It will take several entries to show them all.
We saw a lot in Minnesota. We went to the Minnesota Children's Museum, which was probably the coolest place I've ever seen (and just as good for Orren as it was for Erin), and we went to the aquarium that's under Mall of America. While at Mall of America, we went to the Vikings store, and got the kids a football. We also saw Legoland, and the new Nickelodeon amusement park that's in the middle of Mall of America, although we didn't ride any of the rides this time. Mall of America was cool! The only part that sucked was that we ended up parking on the roof of the parking garage, and it was 6 degrees outside, but probably more like -20 with the wind chill up there! It was super cold and super windy, so that part sucked. It wasn't that big a deal, though. Minneapolis and St. Paul are great cities. They aren't filthy and disgusting like El Paso, and they're very middle class. In fact, crime in the entire state of MN is very rare compared to everywhere else we've lived. It's a whole different world up there. We want to go back in the summer and see more of the Rochester area than we did. We liked what we saw on our way home, but we want to see more in the summer. So far, it seems like a real fit for our family, though! The kids were happier in MN than I've ever seen them, Thak and I were practically stress-free (yes, even driving through a blizzard!), and the whole place was just awesome. I was surprised to have liked it that much. I really was kind of expecting it to suck. OK, Thak's hometown sucks... but any town with about 1000 people in it and absolutely NOTHING to do is guaranteed to suck, regardless of where it is. The rest of the state, however... well, the part of it that actually has cities.... was amazing.
But anyhow, pics soon.
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