It's Side-Impact Sunday!

OK, really, someone just showed me some awesome Youtube vids of my kids' car seats. They're only about 10 seconds each, but totally get the point across. They're slow-motion, but the crash tests themselves were carried out at a realistic speed (30 MPH, I believe).

What you also need to know is that US car seats are not required to be tested for side-impact safety, only front-impact. That doesn't make sense to me since side-impact crashes are the most deadly, statistically speaking, but the car seat industry in the US largely ignores that. I don't think that's right, but nobody asked me what I thought of it, so it is what it is. In Europe, crash tests are conducted for front and side impacts before car seats are approved for sale, and for that reason, many American moms buy German or Swedish car seats, even though they are illegal to use in the US. It's not like anyone ever gets caught for that. If you get pulled over, the cop will look and see that your kids are in something resembling a car seat, and then go on about his/her business. Even if you TELL them, "I bought my car seat in Germany." they never ticket you for it, so it's a viable option for many parents in the US these days.

I like American car seats, though, and most of all, I like Sunshine Kids. They're a good company, although being based in the Pacific Northwest, the company's name is rather ironic (they don't get much sunshine up there!). They are the only company giving the people what they want these days. They make steel framed seats, with the highest rear-facing and forward-facing weight limits on the market, and a shell tall enough to actually make it work. The tall shell is very important since a 45 pound rear-facing weight limit would be no good if the car seat is too short to fit an average-sized 4-year-old, with at least an inch of shell above the top of the head. A lot of other popular manufacturers have begun testing their seats for high rear-facing weight limits, and released 40 pound RF limit seats, but they're too short to be functional much past the age of 2 unless the kid is very petite (for them, it works fine, but most kids are average sized, so I don't think it's functional across the board).

Another huge reason I love Sunshine Kids is that again, they give the parents what we want. They release their crash test footage, AND they are the only American manufacturer who puts their side-impact protection technology to the test! I've always been big on side-impact protection since side-impact crashes are so dangerous, but it's always been a big crap shoot because most companies in the US don't even test their seats for side-impact effectiveness since there's no standard for it. They also never release their crash test footage and results. Any crash test footage you see with any seats other than Sunshine Kids, is unofficial, and probably part of university research, not car seat manufacturer research. Sunshine Kids tests their seats in side-impacts, though, and here are the videos of my kids' seats in side-impact crashes.


Erin's booster:



This is the predecessor to Orren's seat. Really, the main difference in Orren's seat and this one is that Orren's rear-faces to 45 pounds, while this one does 40, and Orren's can use LATCH to 80 pounds while this one can until 48. These differences to not affect the crash results at all. The fact that Orren rear-faces while this dummy is forward-facing makes it a slightly different result than what we'd have since Orren's body is cradled by the car seat shell, and would not move about nearly as much in a side-impact crash, but I think this video still gets the point across that this is a damned effective seat.




Side impact protection: It's not just for Europeans. Consider it when purchasing your child's next car seat, and just because they're in a booster doesn't mean you can forget about it! In fact, if you ask me, it's even MORE important when they're in a booster since they're less protected for lack of a harness. Sunshine Kids and Recaro are the only two brands readily available in the US that have been tested in side-impacts.

A victory's a victory, no matter how small.

It just occurred to me that in less than a month, Orren will be 18 months old. At that point, we will have broken even THREE times on our cloth diaper investment, AND we'll be halfway to our rear-facing goal.

Of course, we'll rear-face Orren for as long as we can, but if it's just not working out anymore when he's 3, we wouldn't feel too bad about turning him around since 3 represents a major milestone in ossification of the vertebrae. That means that if we wait until at least 3 to forward-face him, he'll face a greatly reduced risk of spinal injury or internal decapitation in a crash than if we forward-faced him sooner.

See the difference? If you can just make it to at least 3 years rear-facing, then the spinal cord is SO much more protected than before.


I think this pretty accurately describes why our minimum rear-facing goal for Orren is 3 years. I'm so happy that we're almost halfway to that.

You want to hear something hilarious? I just had to uninstall and reinstall the car seat, because I had to move Orren's straps up to the next slot. After I got the straps adjusted, and vacuumed the seat of the car, and the car seat, I set the Radian in there forward-facing just out of curiosity of what it would look like in a couple years. Funny enough, it looked weird to me. It just showed that it's all in our perspective. I've gotten so used to looking at rear-facing toddlers, mine and other people's, and HUGE rear-facing car seats like the Radian, that it will take some getting used to when it's time to turn him around. That won't be for a long time, though. We've got miles and miles of room left in this seat to rear-face, and Orren's happy that way, so we're going to keep at it until AT LEAST 3 years old, longer if it works out.

I think our reasons are justified. Spinal development is a good reason to keep rear-facing in my opinion. It doesn't matter how big or strong your baby/toddler is. Their spine is not any more developed than any other baby their age, and they face the same risk of internal decapitation and spinal injury in a crash. My son is strong as an ox, and huge for his age, but his spine is still immature because he's a baby (ok, a toddler...)

I can't believe Orren is almost a year and a half old!! Here is is on his 17 month birthday, happily rear-facing in his Radian XTSL. Look how much leg room it has. It's such a comfy seat! (And yes, per the manual, it is allowed to brace against the front seat like that, and the more upright install we do with it is also approved.)

The charter school is GOOD!!

We went to the charter school today to turn in all of Erin's documents and her registration packet. It wasn't the campus she will be going to. It was the westside campus of the same school, though, so we can expect the eastside one to be very similar when it's finished. It was NICE!

The school itself looks awesome. It's not falling down and nasty like the other schools around here. The office staff was really nice, and treated us wonderfully. They answered all our questions, and again, we were told that Erin has an excellent chance of getting in. They said that since we had all our ducks in a row, and all the necessary documents ready for them, they're putting her into the system right away. We will find out in mid-June if we were accepted or not (again, we probably will be), and she will undergo placement testing later in the summer. I explained that she would be out of town for the entire month of June, and asked if that would create a problem as far as her testing was concerned, and they were very cool about it. They said that it would not penalize her in any way, nor hurt her chances of admission at all. They said they understand that a lot of kids go on vacation in the summer, and are totally prepared to work around us as far as that goes. She will be tested after she comes home in July.

The other cool thing was that that the student population of the school seemed very diverse. That's a priority for us, especially here, where the population of the area is pretty much one race. We strongly prefer our kids to be in very diverse schools. That way, not only do they have friends of all races and cultures, but there is not the bullying problem that there was in the public school here when Erin was one of only three non-Hispanic kids in the entire school. I really was happy to see a lot of diversity in this school's student body.

This school is outstanding. I can't even tell you what a relief it was to walk in, ask questions, get answers, and not have anyone treat us like idiots. It was nice to not be automatically expected to be destitute and ignorant. I think this school has a far better crowd as far as the families go. It would kind of have to, wouldn't it? It's not something you hear about unless you specifically go and search for better academic opportunities for your kids, and really, any family who's going to do that is going to be a little more "on the ball", so to speak, than the average Juan or Juanita of this area, who just wants to throw their kids on a bus and forget about it until the bus drops them off again. It takes effort to get your kid into a charter school, and it takes a family effort to continue to be there. There are volunteer hour requirements of every family, and mandatory parent/teacher meetings, especially for those students who have an individual educational plan, which Erin probably will. Sending the kids to this school is a commitment for the entire family, and any family who's willing and able to make that commitment is bound to be a more conscientious sort than the average parents in this area.

I hope it works out. We'll all be very happy if they take her. Erin LOVED the school. I think she's going to be happy there. In a last-ditch effort to hedge our bets, I looked for other charter schools in this area, and found only two other Elementary schools. They were magnet schools for the gifted, so they weren't for us. This is the only option for us. We have all our eggs in one basket, because that's all there is. I'm glad our one option is a good one. I REALLY hope it pans out.

An annoying bias

Our society has many biases that have been studied, debunked, and railed against. There's one that nobody will ever do any of that for, though, and it is one that really annoys me. I find that people, especially women, are incredibly biased toward second wives and second families (if there was a first family... thank goodness, in our case, there was not.)

I call people on it every time I see it, of course, but it's like the giant game of Whack-a-Mole. Every time I make one judgmental ass rethink their stance that just because my husband was married prior to our marriage, and I met him while he was married to his first wife (note: "met" is a whole lot different than "dated"), that I am the bad guy, and probably have serious character flaws, self-esteem issues, and possibly a personality disorder (yes, these are things people have said about second wives, in my presence, before they knew I am one), another springs up. I guess since divorce is so common these days, this is something most people have an opinion about, and I have noticed that almost unconditionally, people have the first wife's side, even if they don't know anything about the situation. It's always assumed that the first wife is this kind woman who's maybe not as pretty as she used to be after ten years and four children, but a great mother, and devoted keeper of his home, and the second wife is some scantily clad Jezebel type who stole him away, thus cheating the angelic first wife out of the life she so richly deserved for all she sacrificed, and sentencing the children to grow up fatherless.

That sounds really drastic, but that's society's perception of second wives. An acquaintance was talking about how her father-in-law was married twice. The first one, he divorced 37 years ago, and then thereafter he's been married to his second wife. This man has terminal cancer, and they're beginning to plan some of the details of his funeral. Well, one of the big questions is if the first wife (a known drama queen) should be allowed to attend. I say hell no! I swear, if I ever lost Thak (and he knows he has to outlive me by at least a day, so none of this is going to happen if he knows what's good for him), and his ex-wife thinks she will show up to his funeral, I will throw the biggest fit you ever saw, and hire ten Hell's Angels to pull security and make SURE she doesn't get in. It's just inappropriate! Losing your husband is hard enough without having to deal with his ex-wife at the funeral.

Of course, I was the only one who saw it that way. Everyone else had things to say about how the first wife should be allowed to come, and do whatever she wants, because she was wronged by her husband divorcing her and remarrying 37 FREAKING YEARS AGO!! They said the second wife is probably worried that if the first wife is there, that the stories she's told everyone about how they got together and whatnot, won't match up, and everyone will know what a skank she is. Um, ok, first off, none of us know this woman. Could she be a skank? You bet she could. Odds are, though, she's just a regular person like you or me. Most people are, you know.

This just illustrated for me, bigger than anything, the dichotomy. It was perfect because we know absolutely nothing about these people except that one is the first wife, the other is the current wife (of 30+ years!!!), and the first wife is a known drama queen. From where I stand, that's a solid strike against first wife, and none against second wife. Yet somehow, people automatically feel for first wife and vilify second wife, not even knowing any of the story.

Could I be in the wrong as pertaining to that situation? Definitely. I don't know these people either. Maybe second wife is the worst person on the planet. Maybe first wife really is angelic. Who knows? That's my point, though. NONE OF US knew anything about these people, yet that's the conclusion almost everyone jumped to. It is a bias that our society has. Women in particular, are incredibly judgmental toward second wives, and I have no idea why that is.

I guess this rubs me wrong since I've been on the receiving end of that judgment before. I'm sorry if this comes off as "typical second wife rhetoric" but even when trying to give this woman the benefit of the doubt, it's obvious before long that Thak's ex-wife was a joke from beginning to end. She's ugly and worn out, with 4 kids by 4 different men, none of whom she was ever married to. She's mean, and lazy, and the only thing she ever cooked was Hamburger Helper, and that only rarely. She never cleaned the house. She was demanding, psychologically abusive, and even unfaithful. She trapped men by spending all their money to the point that they couldn't afford to divorce her, and by beating them down so much that they lost the will to try to get out of there. She's a great person, right? No, she is NOT a great person. She's scum, and me and Thak refer to her as "The Mistake" because that's exactly what she was, a very expensive mistake that Thak made when he was young, dumb, and susceptible to falling for her type of BS, and then paid for well into his 30's in the form of alimony.

I am not saying I'm the epitome of awesome wife. Nobody is. I at least try, though. He comes home to a made-from-scratch dinner on the table every night. He always has clean clothes to wear. He doesn't have to clean (which is good, because he wouldn't anyhow). I don't spend money on anything unless he's approved it. I'M the mom of his ONE AND ONLY biological child, Orren, and of Erin, who is his just as much. The other thing is that I had to sacrifice a lot for years because of his first wife. Do you KNOW how expensive alimony is?!!! It's REALLY expensive, and every time we turned around for a while, she kept trying to up it. She once even said, "Why can't you pay more? You'd still have a few hundred a month to live on?" This woman DELIBERATELY tried to take food off my daughter's plate, and the roof from over our heads, because she could not stand the fact that Thak had moved on and was happier than he'd ever been in his life (Doubt me on any of this? Ask his brothers. They know the deal.)

In light of all this, is it any wonder that I totally cringe every time someone assumes the worst of some woman who did nothing wrong, but happened to marry someone who had been married before? I really just don't see the reason why a second wife should be automatically judged and vilified by so many, and why people feel so justified in it. The reason I am fairly open these days about the fact that Thak was married before this is because I want to try to change people's minds. I think I'm fairly normal in many ways. I'm not a bad person at all. I'm the mom who likes cheap cloth diapers and $300 car seats, and can sing every song from Dinosaur Train. I'm the one who tutored your kids in math and physics, because I'm the only mom we know who's any good at that stuff. I'm the one who can never seem to keep my house organized enough, although I try. I'm just a person with strengths and weaknesses like anyone else. I'm also Thak's second wife, 10 years younger than the first. I know it looks bad in some ways, but the reason I think it's important to be open about it at least a little bit is so that people can see that it's NOT bad. I didn't steal him. She wasn't good to him, ever. First wives aren't inherently good, and second wives aren't inherently bad. People are just people, individuals. That's really all there is to it. You know NOTHING about a person based on whether her husband was married before.

Yay!! Finally a use for those crappy old strollers in the garage that are left over from when Erin was a baby!

Photo contest

Yes, I will be entering this AT LEAST once! I WANT this iCandy stroller so badly! It converts from single to double and is barely available in the US!! It's over $1300!! I want it!!

I've got to think about my entry. Maybe something involving a really crapped up stroller, with one wheel removed, and both kids hanging off it somehow... or maybe the old Graco piece of crap (which cost $50 in 2003. LOL) needs aluminum foil rims and a pimpin paint job?!!! I don't know, but we've got crappy strollers to play with, and if ingenuity will get us anywhere, I'd say we've got as good a shot as anybody else! If nothing else, it will be fun to do.

Charter school? OH YEAH!

This is what I feel like! I just called the main office of the current charter Elementary school, and asked if I need to check all the blocks on one form if we're willing to accept ANY placement, or if I needed to submit a form for each. She asked if I wanted east or west side of town. I said we would prefer east, since that's where we live, but reiterated that we will take any placement. She said that we should have NO problem getting into the new school that's only 20 minutes from our house. Since it's a new school, and word hasn't really gotten out yet about it. I know about it because I know one of the people who's been hired to work there, but they haven't actually advertised it yet. We will be some of the first applicants!!!

It was also a great relief that they were very homeschooling-supportive. Even the wording of their documents lead me to believe that they get a lot of former homeschoolers into their schools. The lady I talked to was definitely positive about taking Erin, being that she had been homeschooled. She said our chances are excellent of getting in. EXCELLENT! That's great!

I'm printing off the forms as soon as Thak gets home and loads the printer software onto this computer, and actually right now I'm going to call the pediatrician so we can get a copy of her shot record tomorrow. Then I'll fill out the forms, hit Kinko's to make copies of important docs, then swing by Dr. B's office, and turn in everything tomorrow morning!! I hope to hear back really soon!!! Cross your fingers we get in, because our odds are good at this point!!!

Charter schools? OK.

I wish someone had told me about this months ago. Apparently El Paso has charter schools. I had no idea. I searched for them repeatedly, but didn't find anything. I have somewhat of a connection (a surprising one to anyone who knows me) with a new charter school, but I don't know if that's going to be enough to get us in. I'm cool with that, though. I'm done fighting Ysleta ISD. I'm NEVER setting foot in one of their slummy piece of crap institutions again as long as I live.

The only wrinkle is that we'll probably get wait-listed since we've missed the first registration lottery by a couple months. The good news is that they continue taking applications throughout the summer. I will take ANY school they're willing to place her in at this point. I don't care if it's on the other side of the mountain and we commute 40 minutes each way. The gas is still cheaper than private school tuition, not like there are any private schools within half an hour of our house either. Anyhow, I digress. We may end up homeschooling for a little longer than we'd planned, but I can totally manage that if we're wait-listed for a charter school. That will be nice. With luck, we'll get into the new one that's being built just 20 minutes away. I have a surprising connection there, so we'll see.

I'm downloading the forms now, and will probably go turn them in tomorrow. I've got to start on dinner now because Thak will be home in an hour. He's going to be thrilled about this. It's something. Honestly, all we need at this point is some hope, and before, we had none. Now we have some, and it makes things better. Yes, we're probably stuck with homeschooling for at least part of next year. Oh well. We'll do it. Erin is starting to make progress (not with reading, but that will come in time). As long as we can AT LEAST get on a wait list for ANY charter school, we will be thrilled.

Cross your fingers for us. I have a feeling this isn't going to be easy.

My kids behaving badly

OK, so my kids are usually good. I generally show pictures of them being adorable and sweet, and they do have that side to them. They also have another side... a side that's decidedly crazy, messy, and even a little nasty. Here are my kids behaving badly. All these photos are less than 24 hours old.

Mean, anti-kid people suck! Let these people know what you think!

I really can't imagine how ideas like the ones in this article manage to stay around when they are so outdated and just wrong. I suppose I could take it as an indication of the fact that our society is decreasingly family-oriented, that fewer people have children at all, and that those who do have less involvement with them than parents in previous generations. I'm sure all of the above would be accurate statements, but that doesn't make it right.

In case you can't click the link, the article it references is one from Better Homes and Gardens, called "The 10 Commandments of Dining with Little Children". Oooooh wee... here we go again. The non-offensive parts of the article were certainly written by Captain Obvious himself (Don't block the aisle with big strollers? Discourage food fights? You don't say!) but the offensive part was written by every anti-child piece of crap person on the planet. "Thou Shalt Not Breastfeed at the Table", it says. Then it goes on to say how nice the bathrooms in upscale restaurants are, and that certainly it wouldn't be bad to take the baby there to nurse, so as not to disturb other diners.

Let's take just a minute to break this issue down. First of all, I've ALWAYS found the notion of nursing a baby in the bathroom totally offensive. For one, where are you even supposed to sit? In most bathrooms, there are no chairs, so you have the option of sitting on the sink counter (which is generally wet and crawling with bacteria) or on a toilet (barf). So which one of these is more preferable for a little baby to eat his/her dinner on? How about this, anti-child people, which one of those surfaces would YOU like to eat YOUR dinner on. Secondly, bathrooms stink. I hate public bathrooms so much that I will do just about anything to avoid using them because they are so disgusting and fetid. The majority of people are the same way, at least to an extent. Again, why should a baby be sentenced to eat their meals in a room that smells literally like crap? Sick. For another, I don't know about other babies, but loud noises scared both of mine (a sneeze was the one sure thing to set Erin off, and Orren is scared to death of the vacuum cleaner!) and bathrooms are loud. There are toilets flushing, hand dryers blowing, doors slamming. It's like a baby horror movie!

Let's put this person's "Commandment" about not nursing at the table into honest words. It would read, "Thou shalt feed thy baby in the filthiest, smelliest, scariest environment available, because babies are not people, and do not deserve basic courtesy like a clean place to eat."

We can even take it one step farther and think about mom. Our society chastises mothers enough for breastfeeding. From disapproving stares from old people, pointing and snickering from high school kids, and being told by uneducated moms that it's disgusting, it's not easy to be a breastfeeding mom these days! I know! I tried! I've nursed both my kids in public and it was horrific. Not to mention, the actual act of breastfeeding is incredibly difficult in many cases, and in all cases, requires long term sacrifice on the mom's part (mostly dietary). So we know that, but even so, we're going to take it one step further, and say that moms who have actually made it work for long enough to be up to going out to dinner should be punished further by being exiled to the bathroom, and probably condemned to eating a cold meal because babies always need to be fed right when the food comes (it's Murphy's Law, you know).

It's just too outlandish for me. I wouldn't even think they were serious unless so many of the comments on that article were anti-breastfeeding, and anti-child. I guess it's really true that our society does not care at all about kids, or families, or anything like that.

I also wonder why this article gives parents so little credit. We don't block the aisle with a bulky stroller. We have a Britax Blink which folds up compactly enough to store under the table. Half the time, we go out to eat at 5:30 to beat the rush, and are seated immediately, so we don't even bring the stroller in. Discourage food fights? Seriously? Any PARENT who lets their kid have food fights is probably not the kind of person who belongs in any establishment more upscale than McDonald's, and it's got nothing to do with the kids. Plus, I mean, I had no idea my kids shouldn't just run all over the restaurant freely, and play with the noisiest toys imaginable. What? You don't like our Tag Reader?! How could you! OK, seriously, though, my kids color at the table, or we bring books to read, or something. I don't know anybody who brings noisy toys to nice restaurants. Who does that?? This article doesn't give parents nearly enough credit.

This all reminds me of when the "child-free by choice" people invaded a well-known moms' message board, and told everyone that all we deserved for being "breeders" was to eat fast food unless we left our kids with babysitters. Screw that. My kids can go anywhere I can go. They behave themselves, and the reason they do is because they know how to act in various types of places, some of which do not include a drive-thru lane. How about that...

Oh, in case you're curious, look here:

You want to see the original text of the Pampers propaganda page? This blogger copied and pasted it. Click here. Total BS, right?

To wrap up cloth diapering week:

Cloth mommies: 1 Proctor and Gamble: 0

Pampers removed their anti-cloth propaganda page from their site! We won! We raised enough valid points, and enough of us did it that it was loud enough for even the corporate giant to hear!

I know what you're thinking. What does it matter if Pampers has anti-cloth stuff on their site? Certainly we have anti-disposable stuff on the sites for the brands of cloth diapers we use, right? True on both counts, but the difference is that the facts on the cloth sites are actually facts. The things on the Pampers site were blatantly false. Anything that seeks to prove that a use-once-and-throw-away product is superior from an environmental standpoint to an indefinitely reusable product, is a blatant lie. Anything that claims caustic chemicals are better for your baby's skin than organic cotton is a blatant lie. That's not all there was on there, but it was all just as stupid. I'm glad it's gone. I actually had some moms try to use that propaganda as ammo to tell me I was harming Orren and the planet by cloth diapering. It was a pain, and we got it removed. It is a small victory indeed, but a victory none the less.

Another positive thing that's come from this Pampers Dry Max scandal is that the cloth love is growing. I'm a member of one of the more popular cloth diapering communities on the web, and our membership has exploded this week with moms (and even a few dads!) jumping ship on Pampers, and wanting to know how to get started in cloth. I have a feeling we're going to have some Huggies converts before long. I heard the other day that Huggies dyed their diapers blue to look like jeans (looks like blue plastic to me...), and the dyes have been discoloring babies' skin. I smell scandal #2, no pun intended. It's all the better as far as I'm concerned. The more you know about disposable diapers, the worse they seem. Anything that gets people to try cloth is a great thing in the long run.

That's another thing. I think a lot that's wrong with the world is misinformation, or total lack of information. If I walked up to 10000 random people on the street, and asked, "I want to get started in cloth diapering. What do I need to buy, and from where?" at least 95% of them would tell me flat diapers, plastic pants, and pins. The other 5% would be cloth diapering families. (That's a real statistic, by the way. 5% of families use cloth, about the same percentage as do non-hospital births. I found that interesting, and bet there's at least 75% crossover between the two minority groups.) That's the problem, and it's the thing that really pissed those of us in the cloth diapering community off about the Pampers propaganda page. People have no idea what cloth diapers are these days. Sure, the old stuff is still available. I even know some people who use it. It's not the majority, though. The majority of CD families use some form of modern cloth on at least a part time basis. (I do about 50% modern cloth, and 50% prefolds, which are pretty old-school, but my covers are very new millennium, NO plastic pants here!) The propaganda on the Pampers site was based on 1950's-style cloth diapers. I'm going to bet Pampers have changed since their debut in the 50's or 60's, yet they assume cloth has remained the same? It's a ridiculous and completely unrealistic assumption!

The real problem with it, though, is that people believe that crap. It shocks me how many people actually buy what they're fed by the corporations. Why would a giant corporation whose sole purpose is to make money off of you actually have your best interest in mind? It's up to you to not be blind as a consumer, and to truly research your options for yourself, ask around, and no buy into baseless propaganda generated by corporate giants. I only hope the Pampers Dry Max scandal has served to teach some people this the hard way. I'd surely hate to have had my baby get chemical burns and blistering rashes before learning my lesson about trusting corporate giants, but sometimes it takes a bigger hammer. I think this will have a positive outcome, with more people than ever finding the cloth love, and more dispersion of knowledge about modern cloth diapering options. We're actually working on something currently that would get cloth diapers shown on a very popular TV show. (The host had wanted to do a show about cloth diapering, but Huggies paid her a lot of money not to do it, so the cloth community is currently rallying for donations from our favorite diaper companies for audience gifts, and petitioning the show's producers and host to do the cloth show anyhow. We're making significant progress, and may get it done.)

In short, cloth is soft, it is gentle, and it is hanging on my clothesline flapping gracefully in the West Texas wind. It is peaceful, and kind to people because most all cloth diapering products are made in the US, UK, or Canada, by well-paid Union employees or contracted Work-at-Home-Moms. It is truly a decision any parent can feel good about, and I'm really happy that the knowledge is spreading. Knowledge is power! Power to the parents!

Boys are still different.

So Orren is a nut. We all know this. Part of his craziness is being a climber. I'm trying to break him of it, and really the only form of discipline that works for a kid his age is redirection, and being really consistent. Man, that takes a toll. I remember a few months ago, his thing was opening drawers. We'd redirect him 10-20 times, and then he'd get the idea and stop it. He still doesn't try to open drawers. (Knock on wood.)

Now that his thing is climbing EVERYTHING, he's a little older, and has apparently realized that being redirected just means he can come back, do it again, and mommy will pick him off of it again and again. He thinks it's a game. It's to the point where he's not even allowed on the furniture anymore because every time he gets on any piece of furniture, he climbs to the top of it and dives off. (I will be shocked if we make two years old without a broken bone or stitches, probably both.) It's just as if the world is his monkey bars or something. Everything we own is just something else for Orren to climb. Just the other day, I was getting him a cup of juice, and came back in to find that he'd climbed our pub-height dining room table, and was trying to grab the chandelier. I guess we could take all the chairs away from the table so he couldn't climb it, but where would we even put them that he couldn't just climb them and dive off anyhow? There's really not a lot of the house he's not in, so that's not really an option. Plus, I believe in house-proofing the baby, and less so in baby-proofing the house.

I never had these issues with Erin. She was never a climber, or a particularly physical toddler. Orren, on the other hand, acts like an NFL lineman. He pushes everything and everybody around. He moves furniture where he wants it, to use it to get up onto whatever he's wanting to get onto this time. It's ridiculous how physically adept, not to mention strong, this boy is.

I just feel like I'm spending almost all day (except when he's sleeping) redirecting him and picking him off of stuff. I wonder if we got a climber of some sort for the back yard, if that would help. Then he'd have somewhere to climb, and wouldn't have to get in trouble for climbing the furniture and the counters. Yeah, that will probably be a tough sell for Thak at this point. The last thing we want to do is accumulate more stuff just a year before we move cross country AGAIN, and incur more expenses during a time when we are trying to save as much as possible. We'll see, though. Maybe if I find a used one on Craigslist... although that's not likely here since this city's Craigslist is filled with stuff that belongs in the dump that people are asking tons of money for. Something's got to be done, though. I'm completely wiped out at the end of the day from just picking Orren off of the furniture all day long. On the positive side, though, the workout is good. My arms look fab.

It all goes back to insecurity.

There was a very interesting conversation on a parenting community I visit on occasion. This vegan mom was saying that her meat eating friends are really antagonistic toward her, and when she posts pics online of food she's made, or even mentions food, people go out of their way to tell her they ate a big steak for dinner the previous night, or something else equally crappy and uncalled for. Other vegetarian and vegan moms reported similar issues with friends of theirs. It's a very common thing. People are threatened by vegetarians and vegans for some inexplicable reason, and they express that by being really mean to them every time the topic of food comes up.

I think this goes farther than diet, though. I think the reason why so many people are mean to moms who (borrowing my Drill Sergeant's words here) take the hard right over the easy wrong is because they took the easy wrong, and feel guilty about that.

Not one person who's ever told me I'm nasty for cloth diapering has ever, in fact, tried cloth diapering. They unquestioningly filled up the landfill along with Proctor and Gamble's bank account, and anyone who dares to do better is a threat to them because they feel guilty over it then. Of course, I don't go seeking out disposable diapering parents to school on their carbon footprint, but I have a toddler. Diapers come up in conversation. When someone offers me a Pampers coupon, I tell them we use cloth. That, or they see me change Orren, and from there, it's obvious that we use cloth. Then a lot of times they say something really nasty to me. I don't give it the justification of a response or anything, because I know I'm doing the right thing, and the opinions of people of no consequence don't matter, but the fact remains, there are a lot of people in this world who are as nasty to cloth diapering mommies as they are to vegans.

Ditto extended rear-facing. You would not even believe how rude people have been to me about it, and people I've said NOTHING to. They tell me that I can't bear to see my kids grow up, so I keep them in car seats forever, or that I'm depriving Orren of seeing the world (Sorry, but he can see the world OUTSIDE of the car. Plus, he can still see out the window. Who cares if it's backward?) The thing is, it's not always easy to keep a bigger toddler rear-facing, but it's far safer, so we take the hard right over the easy wrong. People feel threatened by this, even though it's something anyone can do.

Then there's the old standard, breastfeeding. Everyone who's ever breastfed can tell you at least one story about someone who told them it was nasty. Hell, I only breastfed my kids very briefly, and I can even tell you about the disapproving looks I got while trying to nurse Orren in the car at the Savannah Mall when he was about a week old. People are extremely disapproving of it, and it's always the ones who didn't even try.

I seriously think people have a hefty dose of guilt over crappy decisions they themselves made, or things they know they could have done better, and try to justify that to themselves by putting people down who have put the time and commitment in to make the better decision. I don't think anyone who's truly confident in their decision actually feels the need to put others down about theirs.

The real problem with this is that it creates a vicious cycle. These people are mean to us, so after a while, we get sick of it, and tell them some home truths, then we're the mean evil ones, when really, if they weren't so insecure as to feel the need to be mean to us, it never would have come to that point. It's stupid, but it's also pretty apparent that it comes of a lack of confidence in taking the popular route rather than the best route that causes this kind of thing.

Win it!

You can win a Britax Frontier 85! Just click that link, then follow the instructions near the end of the post for how to enter. It's easy. The Frontier 85 is a very cool big kid seat. I personally wouldn't recommend this for any kid under 4 years old, but Britax rates it for 2 and older. It doesn't rear-face, only forward, but it's got the tallest harness on the market. It's what they replaced the wildly popular (and too enormous to fit in my car) Britax Regent with, and I think it was a good move. There are 10 harness positions, which beats the crap out of the usual 5 or 6. Also quite notably, from what I hear, this seat actually makes a very decent booster when the harness is outgrown. Most 2-in-1 or 3-in-1 seats are crappy boosters (I'm looking at you, Graco Nautilus currently residing unused in my husband's truck).

I did enter to win this seat. If I won it (we'd know hell froze over because I never win anything!) I'd sell or give away the Nautilus, then use the Frontier for Erin in the truck. Then after Orren outgrew his Marathon and his Radian, he could use it. That won't be for years. He's not even 1 1/2 years old yet, and he still has plenty of room to rear-face. I think we will make it to his 3rd birthday before we have to turn him forward-facing. That's what we hope for anyhow, to make it at least 3 years rear-facing, longer if we can. Then he'd forward-face in his Radian and his Marathon until outgrown. After that's up, though, we'd move Orren to the Frontier 85 so he could stay harnessed until he's mature enough to sit still in a booster, and buy Erin another Monterey if she needed one by then anyhow. (She could be 11 years old by that time anyhow, so she may or may not still need a booster. It will depend if she can pass the 5-step test to be safe in just a seatbelt.)

So yeah, I kinda want this seat... It's one I've been thinking of getting anyhow. We weren't going to buy now or anything, but it was an eventual plan. It would be neat to win.

Oh, one more cool thing about the Frontier 85 is that it's good for NINE YEARS before it expires!! Holy cow!! That's the longest car seat life on the market. The Radian is second at 8 years, and most other seats are 6, but this one, you can get 9 good years of use out of. That is outstanding. I've been moving away from the Britax brand lately, but the Frontier 85 is one thing they have done so right, I've got to give them their due. It's a good seat. Again, though, if your kid could rear-face, don't be in a rush to turn them around. Rear-facing is as much as 500x safer than forward-facing (depending on the type of accident), so it's really not something you want to be hasty about. Again, though, I've got to hand it to Britax for not rating this seat for 1 year and 20 pounds like other 2 or 3-in-1 forward-facing only seats. They rated it for 2 years and 25 pounds, which is still awfully small to be forward-facing, but a marked improvement over the norm. I like that.

A Green Garage

Thak and I have been discussing ideas for our shop for a while now, really ever since we decided that in a few years, we plan to open a shop. We've been through how many bays we need, decided that we want to also have a towing service and a storage lot on premises, and even decided on a rockabilly theme for the office portion of it. We know that being a veteran-owned business, and being military-friendly will give us an edge if we end up in a military area (and that's a possibility).

Just the other day, though, we thought of a new idea. What if we also made our shop a "Green Garage"? Everyone's on board with the eco-friendliness these days, but we've never seen a green garage before! It would be something new, and possibly another selling point that could get customers through the door. Right now, our ideas are rather limited, but we've got a while to come up with more, and I'm sure we will.

First off, we'd like to power it with solar panels. This is totally possible in a sunny area (and the areas we're currently considering are very sunny). We actually got this idea from the birth center Orren was born at. It's run 100% on solar power, and their solar panels actually generate more power than the center itself needs, so that surplus power goes out into the grid, and helps power other homes and businesses in Savannah. They get a check every month from the power company for the surplus power they generate, too. Not only is solar power a great way to reduce our business' carbon footprint, but it can even reduce overhead in the long run, and generate a small profit after the solar panels have paid for themselves. Solar power is an important part of being a green garage.

We also wanted to possibly emphasize alternative fuel and hybrid work. Thak is being certified in these areas already, so this would not require anything more from us. It would just be one existing thing that we could emphasize that goes along with the green theme. We are even considering a hybrid and alternative fuel vehicle discount of some variety, probably on a par with the military discount.

We also are looking into the logistics of making bio-diesel, and becoming a bio-diesel fueling station. This one, we need to do a lot more research on, but my whole thing is that somebody's got to make bio-diesel, so why not us? I know that most cities do not have a place to easily buy alternative fuels, especially bio-diesel, so that would be another draw for us, a way to get our name out just that much more, and fuel sales would bring a little more profit as well.

Of course, there will be the usual things that most businesses do these days as well. We'll be recycling, meeting or exceeding EPA standards as far as dealing with used fluids, using compact florescent bulbs, and using as many reclaimed materials as possible for any building we do.

I think we're onto something with our green garage idea! There is still a lot of research to be done, and I'm sure we will come up with many new ideas for ways to make our garage greener as we go along, but we have a starting point as of now.

Thaksin's Automotive and Towing is currently set to open in 2015, and we will be leaders in greening the automotive repair industry!

To move, or not to move.

Our landlords are not cool. Basically, they've said they're going to fix a bunch of stuff around here, but never have actually done it. They also prohibit tenants from doing repairs, which we totally disregard because for one, Thak is way handier than their maintenance people, and for another, I think a year's long enough to wait for any given repair to be completed before doing it yourself.

In addition to their ridiculous policies, they also pulled a total bitch move yesterday. As you may imagine, Thak and I pay our bills on time. Our rent is paid on the 1st, no question. Knowing this, imagine my shock when I came home from grocery shopping yesterday, and found an eviction notice on our door. I immediately called Thak at work and asked him if he paid the rent, and of course, he said he did. He checked the bank account, and it had never come out, but he DID pay it. He has the check duplicate and all that. It wouldn't have gotten lost in the mail because we drop it off ourselves, and I KNOW he dropped it off. So anyhow, Thak told his Company Commander about this, and he thought they might have lost the check. I thought that was a good possibility, and yes, it seems that's what happened. So basically, we had to stop payment on that one check, then pay the enormous late fees they insisted upon charging us, and all this within one day. They dropped the notice off sometime after 4 pm yesterday, and said we had to pay in full by today, or leave. OK... Well, the money's not an issue, but wow. THEY lost our check, and so we have to go to the bank, get a cashier's check, and pay enormous late fees because apparently it's OUR fault that THEY lost our check?? Yeah, that didn't go over well.

Honestly, if this house weren't better than 90% of the houses in this city, we would already have moved. It's in a horrid school district, most of our neighbors are 10 million years old, and the house itself is falling apart. It's got the best layout ever, though, and for the price, it's a steal. I would miss the house itself if we moved. I would not miss our craptastic landlords.

After Thak got back this morning from dealing with all that garbage, he went onto AHRN.com, the military-run rental listing site, and was looking at other places. We're trying to figure out if it makes sense to move at this point, or to just suck it up with Slum Lord Supreme until we can get the hell out of here. We paid A TON in deposits on this house (think a full month's rent, plus $600 for pets), and would not lose them automatically if we moved since we've been here over a year, and our lease is month to month at this point anyhow. Even so, signing another year's lease would be stupid at this point because there is a chance we could be out of here long before that (Don't ask how. I'll tell you if it becomes a reality, but at this point, we're not discussing those details with anybody.) Plus, paying a bunch more deposits (although nobody charges as much in pet deposits as our landlord does!) just to avoid another year of what we've already put up with for over a year, is kind of counterproductive when you consider that now is the time to save, not to incur unnecessary expenses like moving. If we moved, it would have to be a killer deal, and compensate in 6 months or less for the money we'd lose from the deposits we paid with our current place. The problem is that it would be the size of your average tuna can, with the worst layout ever, probably in an even crappier neighborhood, and we'd probably have to downgrade to only having one bathroom again, which would totally suck.

At the same time, though, there is a chance we could find a nice place in an outlying community like Socorro, Horizon City, or Clint. The schools in those places aren't good, but they aren't good anywhere here, so we can't really consider that as part of our decision. The houses in those places are fairly cheap. You can get a 4 BR for what you'd pay for a 3 BR in the city, which means that we could get a 3 BR for the low end of what a 3 BR in the city cost last year, which would be much less than what we're paying now. The only issue is the commute. It's really far from post, so we wouldn't have Thak home for lunch, or after PT formation anymore. He'd have to pack lunch and breakfast to take to work. That's not all bad. With him riding the bike more, we're not really concerned about the commute budget-wise because it's not going to cost us much in gas any way you cut it. In the truck, it would cost at least $500 a month in gas to commute to the city everyday, but on the bike, it will cost a teeny tiny fraction of that, so basically the bike has freed up a whole lot more options for us that didn't exist when we first moved out here.

So I think within the next couple weeks, we'll be making our final decision on whether to stay here and suck it up for another year, or to leave the city and suck it up with a long commute. I'm not sure what it'll be at this point. We'll probably end up staying where we are. Thak's just pissed at the situation right now, and when he gets that way, he always says we're going to move. We almost never do, though.

Boys are different.

Erin was such a nice baby. She never wrote on a wall, or nose-dived off furniture, or took her diaper off. I never turned my back and then looked back to find her standing on the table. The worst thing she ever did was jump on the bed. She was just sweet, and happy, and adorable. Everyone loved Erin because she was just delightful, easy to be around, and even allowed me to keep a fairly clean house until she was like 4 and learned how to make BIG messes.

Orren is not Erin. From day one, he's been fussier. He walked earlier (Erin was nearly 10 months old, Orren was 9 months and 9 days), talks more at 16 months than she did at 3, and is generally 10 times as curious as his sister ever thought about being. He's a very intelligent and hands-on boy. His occasional discontent is frustration at not being able to explore things that he wants to know about. I can see in his eyes that even if this one never makes it to the NFL, there could well be a place for him at NASA. He's incredibly intelligent.

The downside is that he's NUTS! You can't leave Orren unattended for even a minute (yes, this means I get just about zero bathroom breaks during the day) because when you come back, you will likely find him standing on the table, jumping for the chandelier, climbing the bookcase, or on top of the couch, about to jump off. He has NO fear at all. Yesterday, he was spinning around on the couch going "Wow! Wow! Wow!" When I picked him off of there, he jumped up on the coffee table, and launched himself from there, swan dive style onto the ottoman. This was right at bedtime, by the way. I'm really surprised we haven't had our first ER visit yet. Knock on wood that we haven't. I seriously do not know what I would do if I had to take the kids to the ER in this place... probably go on post even though it's farther. On the up side, I do know an ER nurse at Del Sol, and she could possibly get us in faster... Is it bad that I'm already thinking of what ER we'd go to if/when Orren needs his first stitches?

The other thing is that Orren is really rough. I don't think he's violent, or that he would intentionally hurt someone, but we've had to do away with certain toys because he would literally beat the crap out of me and Erin with them and think it was hilarious. He'll jump off the furniture on you, and dive bomb you if you're on the floor, laughing the whole while. I have no idea where he learned this stuff from, but all I can figure is that it's coded into the DNA. All I can do with him is take him outside and hope he runs it out enough during the afternoon. He's barely napping anymore, so there is a lot of figuring out what on earth to do with the boy.

Now we're going to try to brave the grocery store. Thankfully, it's only Super Target, which doesn't have long lines or too many people, but even so, shopping with Orren is always interesting. I hope we make it through this without anything getting damaged.

I guess I have a better understanding of some parents with wild kids now. Of course, there are still some cases in which the kids are just undisciplined, but Orren is very well disciplined. We're extremely consistent. (For example, he's no longer permitted on the couch because he can't behave safely while up there, and I've spent all day picking him off of it. He's beginning to get the point.) Even with our consistent discipline, and calm yet firm approach, he's still wild. It's just who he is. He does follow the rules that he understands, but teaching him new rules is very hard compared to how it was with Erin. For one, at this age, it requires redirection, and a lot of repetition, so I'm picking him off of things dozens of times a day. He's BIG, and he fights me on it every time. My back is absolutely killing me. I don't even pick him up at all on the weekends so I can have a break. Thak does it then.

OK, off to take my rough and tumble little boy and my drama queen princess grocery shopping now. This generally proves interesting, but we get what we need.

What's IN that?

In the wake of the Pampers Dry Max product introduction, many babies developed severe diaper rashes and chemical burns due to whatever the corporate giant Proctor and Gamble put into the toxic soup contained in their diapers. That alone is bad enough, but what makes this really heinous is the way P&G handled this. They could have said, "It was an oversight on our part. We'll be conducting a voluntary recall and refunding the money of customers who reported adverse health consequences." and that would have been that. Instead, they responded by insisting that their product was outstanding, and lashing out at the cloth diapering community, insisting that we are putting our children at greater risk, and taking a greater toll on the planet than they are. You must be kidding me.

In response to that, cloth diapering netizens all over the US will be blogging all week long about the benefits of cloth diapering, and getting the FACTS out there about this. Knowledge and facts trump corporate lies any day, and any intelligent person knows that.

Let's start with an awesome article about what's really in a disposable diaper. Click here. Scary stuff, isn't it?

Then for today, we'll just continue with my Top-5 Reasons for Choosing Cloth:

5) What's cuter: Bright colors and unique prints, or crinkly paper and plastic coated and filled what who knows what? Gimme my cloth!! I love how soft and cute it is on Orren!

4) I vote with my dollars for family-owned companies, work-at-home-moms, and products made right here in the US of sustainable materials such as organic cotton and hemp. A disposable diaper purchase is a vote for the corporate giants who don't give a crap about anything or anybody. I can do better than that, so I choose cloth.

3) The planet is sick from the amount of garbage our nation generates. I choose to do my part to reduce that by using cloth diapers. No, you will never convince me that cloth is less sustainable than disposable. I will believe that when we start wearing disposable clothes in the name of being green. It takes energy to wash diapers? Yeah, it does, but it takes energy to manufacture disposables and bring them to the stores, and I'm guessing my phosphate-free laundry detergent and my clothesline take a drastically smaller environmental toll than the Pampers or Huggies factory and the semi truck that brought the load of eventual trash to Wal Mart.

2) It's convenient. Modern cloth diapers are awesome. Admittedly, I do a bit of new and a bit of old-school, but it's all pretty great. From prefolds with awesome covers, to pockets that go on just as easily as a disposable (and are even permitted by the majority of daycares these days!) cloth diapering has a method to suit everybody. It's nowhere near as hard as people think it is. If my husband can master the art of the prefold (in fairness, he puts them on the baby prettier than I do!), anybody can find a cloth diapering system that is second nature to them.

1) I know the entirety of what our diapers are made of! There are no undisclosed ingredients, proprietary agreements, or trade secrets. I can tell you exactly what is sitting against my son's skin right at this moment. It's organic cotton which has never been dyed or bleached. Isn't that much nicer than a bunch of chemicals nobody can even pronounce, which have horrible long-term side-effects?


These are my Top-5 reasons for choosing cloth! Oh, and I forgot one.

Reason #1-a) I never wasted my husband's hard-earned pay on whatever the hell "Pamper's Dry Max" is.

The Information Age is both good and bad.

Recent events have lead me to one conclusion. This age we live in, in which our lives are so shaped by technology, is easier in some ways, and more complicated in others.

Of course, for me, it's easier because all the information in the world is right at my fingertips. If I want to know about anything, there's no going to the library and sorting through hundreds of books by the Dewey Decimal System (does anyone besides me even remember that crap?!) or looking at microfilm anymore. No, all it takes now if I'm curious about something (which I often am) is to flip open my computer, click the little fox icon, and type a word or phrase in the Google box when the page comes up. Upon doing that, I'll have thousands of articles on the subject of my interest right there on my desktop within a second or two. The Information Age is an information junky's paradise. In that way, I adore it. I never have to wonder about anything for long. There is hardly an off-limits fact in the world, which is awfully nice for the inquisitive among us.

The way in which it's harder stems from the fact that information is a double edged sword. The more you know, the more you notice how many other people don't know whatever it is that you know. I don't know about the rest of you, but to me, knowledge is contagious. No matter what it is, I want to pass it on. When I learned Calculus, I left my papers all over the house to show Thak how cool my new math skills were. When I learned circuits, I wanted to rip everything apart because I KNEW how it worked, and actually COULD put it back together again! Every time I get a great book, when I'm done reading it, I always end up giving it away to someone else on the condition that they, too, will pass it along when done, because I can't keep the knowledge of its greatness to myself. (Yes, due to the latter, my home library is sorely lacking, but my book expenditure probably rivals many people's.)

When it comes to parenting things, I'm exactly the same way. When I learn about something that's pertinent to life at the moment, I'm definitely going to pass that along because I like to know stuff, and figure others do, too. Car seat safety is a big one. There are also many awesome articles and studies out there on vaccine safety, chemical exposure via disposable diapers, circumcision, baby wearing, product safety, and really any other topic you can think of. When I find something that really makes a lot of sense, I always want to share it, and generally do. I'm extremely selective about my sources, and they must be objective, peer reviewed, and scientific. When I share something, it is fact. When someone shares something like that with me, I pay attention to it. I'm not interested in hearsay, or Fox News reports, or Penn and Teller. I consider the source always, but if the source is respectable (World Health Organization, Journal of the American Medical Association, etc) then I respect the information held within.

Unfortunately, others don't seem to have the same respect for information as the curious ones among us. Upon receipt of valuable information from respectable sources, these people are often likely to call the messenger condescending or rude, or to otherwise defend their right to do things ass-backward despite it being scientifically proven that the opposite is far superior in nearly every way. I can only imagine these are the same people who see some term they do not understand, and just go on about their day not understanding. I guess I never will understand that mentality. Every time I don't understand something, I at least google the term to get some sense of it, and generally do a lot more than that. I'm curious. I don't know what it's like not to be, and I'm glad I am. I've come to the conclusion that being curious leads to a more progressive and all around better lifestyle, because you're always learning.

The other hard thing about the digital age we live in, which ties in with the first thing, is that we are in each other's lives on a ridiculous level. A person you are friendly with at a coffee may add you on Facebook or follow you on Twitter, or get your blog URL (but not from me! At least 75% of the people I know have no idea I blog.) and then after that, you are now privy to 100% of each other's lives in a great many cases.

Hey, look! It's a twitpic of their kid! Look at that nasty, poorly installed, incorrectly used, expired car seat with the forward-facing baby in nothing but a disposable diaper, covered head to toe in Cheetos! (True story, by the way.) By one image, I have just learned a hell of a lot about that person as a parent, and I can admit it, judged the hell out of them. Yeah, yeah, we're not supposed to judge. Find me the one person who doesn't, and I'll sell you a bridge dirt cheap. The fact is, we're so much more exposed to each other's lives these days than ever before. Obviously it's anyone's choice what to put and not put online, but most people put a lot, and therefore let the entire world in on their shortcomings as well as their triumphs. Bottom line, social networking shows us the down and dirty version of the people we know, ignorant political views (blaming Obama for Bush's screw-ups, anyone??), crappy parenting, and all. These are things we'd probably never have known about certain people if we just knew them on the perfunctory level that we did prior to becoming social networking contacts. The problem is that now, there's the expectation that everyone from your true blue buddies to a friend of a friend's dog (no shit, a friend from a previous duty station put her dog on a social networking site) is supposed to be your contact on whatever your social media is. We're exposed on an immense level to people we would have only limited dealings with in the absence of social media, and this creates problems.

Obviously, the solution is simple. Delete, block, and deny requests from the potential ignorant fools in your life. It's not that simple, though, because the expectation is that you won't, so that opens a whole new can of worms. It's any given person's choice, of course, but the one thing that's true is that the Information Age has its good sides and its bad sides, and the good and the bad are both exacerbated significantly for us, the curious ones. ;-)

Scream with me, please.

OK, I know, I know... others will do as they will. I get it. Here's the thing, though. WHY is it pretty much only the people who can't use their car seats correctly who ALWAYS twitpic images of their kids in the car! AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear crazy Ft. Bliss girl:

Your 1-year-old could totally still rear-face. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that he should. It's not cute to see him forward-facing. It's sad. Oh, and that chest clip is so low he'll probably fly right out of his harness in any impact. Tighten the straps, too.

K thanks bye...

Oh, and PS:

Please get your 3-year-old out of that backless booster, and into something with a harness. I don't care how big he is. Maturity is a huge factor in readiness for booster use. My 6-year-old is ready for a booster. She can sit in the proper position for a whole car ride. No 3-year-old on the planet is mature enough to do that. Oh, and your booster is CRAP! That belt path routes the lap portion right over his abdomen instead of keeping it on his thighs where it belongs. Have you ever heard of "submarining"? It refers to the tendency of a child restrained by a seatbelt (generally in a booster) sliding under that seatbelt in the event of an impact. If your booster doesn't keep the seatbelt on the thighs rather than the abdomen, then you are ASKING for your kid to submarine in an accident. Oh, and one consequence of submarining is the throat getting slit by the seatbelt. Sound like fun? Spend more than $10 on a car seat next time.

OK, I think that's really it.



Man, I just don't get people. I was a single mom when I had Erin. I had next to no money, but I still bought her the best car seat I could find at the time, and learned how to use it properly. Yes, these were the days before anyone knew about extended rear-facing, but I read up, got her good stuff, and learned how to use it right. It's not hard. It bothers the crap out of me when people who claim to be good parents simply ignore facts and put their kids' lives at risk as a direct consequence of it.

I'm 99% sure, no I'm 100% sure, I wouldn't be 1/10 as annoyed by this if it wasn't always these people who take pictures of their kids in the car and show them off to everyone. I mean, shit, what's so cute that happens in the car?! I have pics in the car ONLY to demonstrate proper car seat and booster use (and I only took those because these other idiots are doing the wrong thing, and I wanted to show the right way!) My kids don't do anything cute in the car. Well... maybe they do. I wouldn't know because my toddler rides rear-facing, and my big girl is always too obsessed with whatever electronic media she's got (usually her Tag reader or her laptop) to do much else in the car.

I guess it comes down to this: If you suck at car seats, that's not something you want to immortalize in pictures which you share with everyone you know via blogs, social networking, twitter, or what have you. It's not cute. It's annoying, and you look like a fool. That is all. Really.

Former Industry Leader, what do you have for us??

There's a rumor going around (a well-substantiated rumor) that a certain car seat company, which was a pioneer in extended rear-facing, but has since fallen behind (although still the industry leader in extended harnessing), is doing what everyone's been hounding them to do for years, and releasing a seat this year that has more than their current sorry 35 pound rear-facing weight limit. The rumor is that the new seat will be good for up to 40 pounds rear-facing and 80 pounds forward-facing. OK, that's not bad. They've officially caught up to the better ones among cheap-ass seats in Wal Mart. Sunshine Kids is still leading with their 45 pound RF weight limit, and their seats have the leg room while rear-facing to actually make that feasible (the most leg room of any rear-facing seat available in the US!) Basically, the point is, I won't be trading in our pretty little 2010 Radian XTSL anytime soon. We're all still completely smitten with it.

With that said, I'm still curious to see what the former industry leader in this stuff comes up with. Will they really get on the ball and give the people what they want? We are asking more of our car seats than we were five years ago. We want to rear-face our children well into preschool, and for that, we need the weight limits to allow it. We need short bottom harness slots so people can use these seats from birth, and tall top slots so that they'll fit a tall Kindergartener who's not ready for a booster yet. A lot of people's kids are fat these days, so we need a high weight harness in addition to high height. What's more, this seat can't be huge! We need to fit three across in a compact car, because fewer and fewer of us are willing to upgrade to a gas-guzzling behemoth of an SUV, or a hopelessly lame mini-van, just because we had a few kids. We ask a lot of our car seats, so I'm going to be very interested to see what our former industry leader does with this.

Within the past year, I have not been very impressed with many of their new seats. The only new one is basically an even bulkier version of an already bulky seat, which supposedly protects the passenger next to the seat, too, but does absolutely nothing more for the child IN the seat itself, but they don't really emphasize that fact, and have basically upped the price by $100 (to approximately $360) compared to the old model, which does exactly the same thing for the child in the seat. The only thing they've come out with in the past year that's actually worth it is a harnessed booster that has the tallest top harness slots on the market, and actually works well as a booster once they are outgrown. That was basically just a barely modified version of something they already had, though. They just made the top harness slots an inch taller and upped the price by roughly $75.

(As gimmicky as that may be, we actually might have to buy the latter seat for Orren in a couple years, depending how old he is when he outgrows his Radian. It would be nice if the Radian got him to 5 years old or more, and then we could just get him a Monterey like what Erin has. He's only got two harness slots left before he outgrows his Radian by height. Being that he's only 16 months, that doesn't really seem like we'll make 5, so we'll have to do something, and "something" is probably the Frontier 85 unless Sunshine Kids comes out with a harnessed booster with tall top slots before then.)

Anyhow, I'm looking forward to seeing whether our former, but now rather disappointing, industry leader, will actually jump back into the game with something that gives the people what they want, or if they're going to basically fizzle as far as the extended rear-facing world is concerned, and just become, for all intents, a harnessed booster and common car seat manufacturer. Until then, though, I'll just keep checking their company online sites, and sifting through ten thousand posts from other moms begging to review the new seat for them, and absolutely nothing from the company.

On that subject, I must say I am grateful for the fact that my husband not only makes enough money to buy us the baby stuff we want, including the best car seats on the market (you will NEVER see me shamelessly begging on a company's website, to test a product even though there's no chance in hell they'd go for that kind of thing!), but even more-so, that he takes an active interest in this type of thing, and believes in it as much as I do. This stuff was not entirely my idea. Sure, I initially read the literature and developed an interest in it, but then I tossed it to him, and asked him what he thought. We've been on the same page with this from the day we learned of it, and I am really grateful that Thak is on board, and that the worst reaction I ever got from him was when I told him Orren was about to outgrow his Britax Diplomat in height, and that I wanted to get him the Radian XTSL, and Thak said, "Babe, it's gonna have to wait till payday. Will the Diplomat last him that long, or do we need to move the Marathon from my truck to your car in the meantime?" Mind you, payday was only a week away. I hear things from other moms whose husbands do not believe in extended rear-facing or extended harnessing, or who think it's ridiculous to buy the best car seats for it because they cost a lot, and they have to really fight to keep their kids safe in the car because daddy doesn't believe in it. I am so glad that Thak has taken it upon himself to become informed, and that he doesn't mind doing whatever it takes to keep our kids safe in the car. He's a good dad. He doesn't think he is since he's gone so much, but he is.

John Deere

Daddy insisted on it. He had two requests on behalf of his boy when mommy started making diapers at home. Daddy insisted that there must be Vikings ones for football season (107 days till the first preseason game!! SKOL VIKINGS!!) and there must be some John Deere ones. The John Deere one was easier because I had some of this fabric on hand already. It matches my kitchen curtains. I think it's rather nice. It fits him extremely well (I reworked the pattern a bit. That was a success.), but he's not in a good mood today, so he's not exactly photogenic at the moment (unless you LIKE to see screaming babies flailing their cups, while covered in Crayola marker).

Next week, we order our Vikings fabric, and start on that. The search is still on for Gators and Georgia Tech fabric that will look good on a dipe or a cover, but we'll find it somehow! I know Thak will also want Mossy Oak sooner rather than later, but definitely in time for hunting season (which begins long after football season). Making dipes at home is great! It doesn't take long, and they fit him great. It's pretty easy, and the sizing is unlimited. Plus, we can have them any way we want them, and nobody else has the exact same ones as we do!

New playroom!

We converted our breakfast nook to a playroom. With more than one kid, it just doesn't work to have all the toys all over the living room and all that. It was just getting entirely ridiculous. We keep their books in their bedrooms, and some of their toys go in their rooms, too, but there are so many that just don't work out for there. Some are toys that they both use (like the blocks, the legos, and stuff like that), others are just messy and I don't want them in their bedrooms (like art supplies), so we really needed a playroom. The nook wasn't working out as a homeschool room, because we always end up doing any formal lessons we do on the couch, and mostly informal lessons anyhow. (I believe the name is "unschooling".)

I can't remember who came up with the idea to make the nook into a playroom. I think it was me, but it could as easily have been Thak. Whoever it was, though, it's worked out very well. The nook is not terribly big, but also not tiny. It's about the size of either of the kids' bedrooms (thus making it roughly 1/3-1/4 the size of our entire on-post place at Ft. Stewart!) so it's not a boundless playroom like some people have, but it's got enough room for many toys (we'll still keep the books in their bedrooms. We wouldn't have room for them in there with all the toys.) and an art table, with floor space to spare for playing with push toys, ride toys, and of course, building with blocks and legos.

View from the door. A baby gate keeps it separate from the kitchen, keeping Orren out of the hazards. I have a separate kitchen door from the formal dining room.

Yes, it's messy now. This is after a whole afternoon of use! This is the view of it from the kitchen.



And here's my messy back yard (when it's this windy, it's hard to keep it clean!) through the big windows. I like that about the playroom most. There are lots of windows. The light bulb is actually blown in there, and you can't tell because the windows let in so much light.

Homemade diaper!

I found a great tutorial for converting prefolds to fitteds, and for once, it didn't require a serger. Seriously, if I'm going to try to save us money by making diapers at home, buying a serger doesn't make much sense since we'd be out more than we would if we just bought more diapers. I needed to see how to do this WITHOUT a serger.

I also wanted to use fitteds because they're excellent for older babies and toddlers since they stay on so well, and while they do require a cover while out, you can use them without a cover at home, and allow the skin to get more air. Fitteds are great. They're also not exactly cheap to buy, and at Orren's size, it's getting to the point where our commercially available options are becoming slim pickings. He's in the biggest size of pocket diapers commonly available at this time, and will probably outgrow that before he potty trains. Fitteds come in the same sizes, roughly, as pockets and all-in-ones, so pretty much our only options are to go just prefolds until he potty trains, or make some diapers at home. I choose Option C, all of the above. I like our prefolds just fine, but I like to have other things, too, because frankly, there are days when I just don't want to mess with hunting down a snappi, and fighting an active toddler to let me snap his cover after fighting him to get his diaper snappi'd on.

Today, I made our first ever homemade diaper! It's a fitted, made out of a prefold and some cute blue flannel I have tons of on hand. (The cool thing is that I already made some burp cloths out of this flannel and some repurposed terry cloth from a towel that had gotten stained, so this dipe makes those into kind of a coordinated set!) It closes with a single row of size 20 KAM snaps. So here's Orren in his brand new sheep diaper! I have to tweak my pattern a little bit, but all in all, this diaper is pretty good!


More of a close-up of the dipe itself.

Yes, I have the right to be happy!

One of my aunts-in-law is a real piece of crap. I've actually noticed a trend among scandinavian women that they can't just let anyone be happy, and she's the epitome. (Maybe it's because they all look a billion years old by the time they turn 30, and they have to try to make other people as miserable as they are.)

Yes, believe it or not, I AM happy about my husband getting out of the Army in a year. What a revolutionary thought... I might be able to bank on him being there for stuff, and he may not have to do a job he hates with every fiber of his being anymore, and we may be able to live somewhere we WANT to live rather than in whatever shithole Uncle Sam plunks us down this time. Amazing that we would be happy about being so close to being done with this "wonderful" lifestyle of instability and bullshit.

And oh, if that crazy old bat compares this one more time to when her brother, my late father-in-law, got out of the military 20 years ago, I will scream. There are too many differences to even compare the two situations. For one, we are NOT moving to bum-fuck nowhere (aka, where all these people are from). OF COURSE Thak's dad had to work a crap job for peanuts! That's all there was! That's all there ever is in that town! That's the kind of place where adults work for life at jobs that high school kids would have anywhere else. Plus, we've made MAJOR sacrifices to make him marketable in the private sector, and for him to get his civilian education to translate his military experience to high paying civilian positions. His father barely graduated high school, and his military job had no civilian crossover at all. STOP THINKING YOU KNOW ABOUT US AND OUR SITUATION! YOU DON'T! IF YOU KNOW ONE SOLDIER WHO GOT OUT, YOU KNOW ONE SOLDIER!!!! YOU CANNOT MAKE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT ALL OF US!!

So yeah, I'm happy, and will continue to be, no matter what sour-faced old Finn says I shouldn't be.

Plus, since when have I cared for the thoughts of homophobic, overly conservative, holy rollers? Oh yeah, that's right... never.

Shut up, you idiot. Nobody likes you anyhow.

Oh yeah, by the way, this day is GOOD!

Look to the sidebar, at the little red ticker, with the sparrow who's ready to fly free. Today, we hit the 1-year mark on Thak's enlistment! One year from today, we WILL see Ft. Bliss in our rear view mirror, and be preparing to leave El Paso forever! (He'll have some time left before graduating school, even then. It will be anywhere between a few weeks and a couple months. We don't have a definitive graduation date at this point.)

This time next year, we will fly fly fly.... we'll be done. Every vet loves to know the freedom they've defended for so many years at expense of their own, and in just a year, that's going to come true!

Every date from here until there will be the LAST one of that date that Uncle Sam will control our lives. 365 days, and we are FREEEEEEE!!!!!!!

Shocker.

Look at this article. I found its link via Seventh Generation's fan page on a certain social networking site. I, for one, was NOT surprised at all. I mean, wait, you're going to tell me that the Brand New Super Extra Wowie Zowie Mega Extra Dry, hold all your kid's pee from birth to Kindergarten, disposable diaper contains some nasty chemicals that are causing severe rashes in droves? Holy shit! How could that be?! I'm totally shocked! I mean, Proctor and Gamble is an awesome company that has babies' best interests in mind, right? I can hear you laughing. I'm laughing, too.

The thing that REALLY scares me is that disposable diaper companies won't disclose their ingredients, so the average consumer actually has no idea what they're putting next to their baby's skin. Of course, lab tests have been done, and they have found that these chemicals are indeed very nasty. The obvious one is the chlorine byproduct Dioxin. It is quite probably carcinogenic, and has a convincingly strong link to male factor infertility. (Yeah, you heard me. Your son could be sterile as an adult from Pampers use as a baby. Sounds great, doesn't it?)

While not an eco-friendly option by any means, if you must use disposable diapers, for the baby's sake, please use something chlorine-free, and made by a company that discloses all its ingredients so you can at least google them all and see what they do, and if there's anything harmful associated with them. Seventh Generation diapers are one brand that's like that, and I'm sure there are others as well. Try your local health food grocery. You may find many brands to choose from, and you can go from there. I know the 7th Gen are good because a cloth diapering friend of mine was unable to use cloth for the first few months of her son's life since she was staying with her in-laws while her husband was on an unaccompanied assignment in Korea, and they wouldn't allow her to do cloth diapering in their home. She used the 7th Gen diapers for that time, and was happy with them. Based on that, I know that these things actually work. Like I said, they are not an eco-friendly option, as they are not biodegradable, compostable, or anything like that. These will be in the landfill for thousands of years just like the Pampers and the Huggies, but at least you won't be exposing your baby to NEARLY the amount of crap that you would with conventional disposables. If you absolutely must use disposable diapers, at least do so wisely.

Happy made up bullshit holiday!

Today is Military Spouse Appreciation Day, and boy oh boy, I cannot WAIT until it's over! I'm so sick of it. I mean, this "holiday" has technically existed since 1984, but only within the past five years has it become a huge to-do. I remember when I first heard of it, I laughed. I mean, an appreciation day for military spouses? What? Why on earth would anyone have that? I just thought it was stupid because military spouses are, in 90% of cases, the WORST people I have ever met.

Needless to say, I do not see the necessity of paying tribute to a group of people who have brought more bad into my life than any other group of people I can think of, so yeah, I'm just glad this is my LAST Military Spouse Appreciation Day to deal with since Thak will be out of the Army (well, on terminal leave anyhow...) this time next year.

An ingenious message!

We all know that disposable diapering is just a glorified way to throw money in the trash. Sure, many of us, myself included, have been guilty in the past of this environmental, health-related, and financial parenting sin, and I think especially in those cases, we appreciate it that much more when we see the light and use cloth!

I read an interesting little blurb from a US Marine whose wife is a very committed cloth diapering mommy (she even makes her own!), who was encouraging his fellow Marines to encourage their wives to cloth diaper their babies. He said, "Guys, you wanna use cloth diapers and not waste your money on that disposable garbage. No shit, my wife has saved us so much money in just a year of doing this that I bought a brand new plasma TV in cash. I can't wait to watch the Vikings on it this football season."

This guy is a genius, and I'll tell you why. He's a Vikings fan. OK, no, it's not that, although that does make him a little cooler in my book. The reason he's a genius is for his approach. He made his message guy-friendly, and put it in terms that even the least environmentally-minded person on the planet could understand and appreciate. A brand new plasma TV that he will never have to make payments on is something at least 95% of the men in the world (and 100% of the ones in the military!) can appreciate. That makes you think, too. "Hey, I can have something very expensive that I want, or I can have a fuller trash can for the same amount of money." By that, it's a no-brainer!

It reminded me also of an interesting coincidence in our own household. Thak's motorcycle cost approximately the same amount as we have saved by cloth diapering! (Yes, he got an insane deal on his bike. Ebay is good sometimes.) Not only did he get the bike he's been wanting to get for years now, but that bike even saves us money because it gets WAY better gas mileage than the truck, so we bought a fun way to save money with the money we saved by another fun thing. (Well, I think it's fun anyhow. Come on! How can anyone NOT find brightly colored diapers fun and adorable?!)

Well, there you have it, dads. Cloth diapering favors you heavily. Do you want a plasma TV, a motorcycle, some new tools, nicer golf clubs, a bar in your living room?? You'd be able to afford it with the money you'd save with cloth!

Doing it Private Sector style.

I went grocery shopping yesterday. It's hard with two kids, but it's better than doing it on the weekend where I'd have Thak and his impulse buying along for the ride. (Bringing Thak grocery shopping with me saves me from heavy lifting and child wrangling, but makes our bill an average of $100 more. It's definitely well worth my patience, sanity, and energy to drag the kids along, and deal with their shenanigans on my own to get out of there $100 richer than we would otherwise.)

Anyhow, I asked Thak if I had to go to the commissary, and to my surprise and delight, he said no!! I was thrilled! I hate going to the commissary so much that I actually didn't grocery shop last pay period. I just fed us off whatever I had in the freezer and pantry and pocketed my grocery money. Nobody knew any different. I keep a huge stockpile of food (in rotating stock) in preparation for the months between Thak getting out of the Army and graduating from school, so it was really easy to get two weeks out of it. The ENTIRE reason I didn't shop last pay period, other than small trips to nearby stores for odds and ends, is because I am just so DONE with the commissary. I'm just done with it. It's crowded, if you don't get there within half an hour of opening you can't get what you came for, and half the time, I run into people I cannot stand. I'm also sick of being stopped every 30 seconds and being asked to make somebody a purse. (I carry the diaper bag I made for myself. You can imagine...)

I find that I'm so much more relaxed when I shop off post. It's much less crowded, and they seldom run out of stuff, and the places I like to shop are not very popular with military people, plus I live in the least military part of the city. I just enjoy it so much more to shop off post. Plus, it takes so much less time! Going to the commissary is an all-day affair. Going to any of the off-post stores is like a couple hours, max. It's far easier to schedule around nap times, and stuff like that.

The only problem is that now, I have to go to more than one store, and they're on opposite sides of town, but that's not too bad. Awesome enough, Super Target on my side of town has a lot of good stuff, and a generic brand of organic foods that's really good, so that helps a lot. For what we can't get there, we go to Sun Harvest, which is the health food grocery on the other side of the mountain. It's a long trip, but at least the kids enjoy the drive through the mountain pass on our way to get some tahini, wild rice, fresh mint, and organic lamb (no, all these things are not for the same dish!)

We're doing it Private Sector Style for the rest of our lives! The only exception may be when they have a case lot sale at the commissary, but Thak has said he wants to join Costco instead, because their prices are as good and they have more organic foods there, so maybe I really have set foot on post for the last time. I hope so. Actually, probably not. I fully intend to go with Thak when he goes to his Final Out briefing on the day he turns in his ID card and receives his discharge papers. The reason I plan to do that is because I actually want to SEE Ft. Bliss in the rear-view mirror, and know that we are done with it forever.

I swear, we have more than one foot on the outside. This last year is so hard. Everyone always says it is because you're just so ready to be done with all this garbage, and you've done everything you can to set yourself up to live well on the outside, and you just want to get out into the real world, but the Army's not going to let go until it's time, and they're going to give you hell all the way there. I'll be so glad when that little red ticker in the left sidebar drops below a year. The months have been going by SO fast ever since we dropped below a year and a half. I hope this next year goes by just as fast. It needs to. It's time to be done with this stuff. In fact, when we drop below the year mark, I may go take the post decals off my car! (They're expired by a year and from Ft. Stewart anyhow, so they're no good.... It's the principle of the thing!)