Our Christmas Tree

We have an artificial, pre-lit Christmas tree on loan from my parents. Yesterday I put it together again, and then let the kids have a ball decorating it. Last year, I bought several boxes of glass balls at Dollar Tree. They looked nice, but we lost more than half due to tragic toddler related incidents. Glass was found for months. My husband managed to step on some while remodeling the front room and got a really nasty cut on his foot. This year I bought some shatterproof balls.

I know our tree isn't pretty in the home decorating magazine kind of way. It's barricaded in the corner, and the ornaments tend to move and flock into clumps on the tree, a bit like sparkly birds. My kids love to decorate and redecorate the tree. Ten years from now, I will probably have a beautiful, perfect Christmas tree, and mourn the loss of my "kid tree". I will enjoy my creative decorative techniques while I can.

The AAP and I

In general, I find that I agree with the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics).

Breastfeed exclusively for 6 months before starting solids? Check.
Then continue breastfeeding for at least a year? Check
Rear facing for at least a year? Check
Vaccinate your child? Check

However, they do not advocate cosleeping, and I've heard a recent campaign about the ABCs of safe sleeping:
Alone,
on the baby's BACK
and in his/her Crib

While I think in certain circumstances that is the best and safest thing for baby, I don't think it always is. I more subscribe to the Sears idea that it can prevent SIDS and create a more bonded experience for mom and baby.

I coslept with S for her first year of life. I didn't worry about SIDS with her like I did the first two kids. I felt a certain bit of naughtiness to cosleeping since the AAP was already speaking out against cosleeping at that point. I felt like I was eating cake for breakfast or something by cosleeping. It was quite fun. However, my older two kids were generally both sleeping through the night by 2 months of age. S didn't sleep through the night til she was in a crib in her own room. Coincidence? I think not.

Z slept in a Moses basket right next to my bed for the first couple months of his life, and then would spend several hours in bed with me at night. I'd put him in bed to nurse, and then promptly fall asleep. But, I have made a more concerted effort to have him sleep in his own bed. I don't feel like it's safer in our case, but I do think it makes for more sleep. He more or less is sleeping through the night.

He has recently decided to do his own field test, and has decided that our nice Tempurpedic mattress is far superior to his $40 mattress courtesy of Wal-Mart. About 3 am, he will wake up and squawk until I put him in bed with me.

Tonight I gave him a late bath, a full jar of baby food, and a good nursing session before putting him to bed, so I have high hopes of him spending the entire night in his bed.

My dishes!

Recently, our local television consumer advocate broke a story about how much lead is acceptable in our dishes. You can click here to see the original story. I was obviously concerned, given I have several small children, all of whom I would prefer to remain unleaded.

The response was so great for the story that they arranged for people to do free testing on their dishes at the news station. Anything under 1 is "ok", and according to the experts at the station today, anything over that is "hot". The FDA says anything under 2 is ok.

I told my mom and grandma, and we spent two hours in line, waiting for our dishes to be tested. My grandma brought her brand new dishes that she'd dreamed of owning for 50+ years. Hers were great. She brought in my uncle's family dishes. They came in at 5!!! I brought my Japanese dishes and my Christmas dishes. My Christmas dishes came in at .5. My mom brought her regular dishes, her Christmas dishes, and my sister's dishes. All came within acceptable ranges except her Christmas dishes, which were at 1.7. My Japanese dishes came in at 1.2. So. quandary time. I'm leaning towards destroying them since I'd rather err on the side of caution. But I like my dishes. And we spent quite a bit of money on them. My husband has offered to shoot them for fun.

We took our kids into the clinic and had the older three tested for lead exposure to be on the safe side. Since we live in an older house, this seemed like a good idea, dishes notwithstanding. All three were very brave. I was especially proud of S, since they really had to dig around to get enough blood, and being two, she really didn't understand what was going on. She didn't even cry.

For those reading this who are in my neck of the woods, they'll be doing another free dish check on Tuesday Nov. 20 at the Salt Lake County south building, located at 2100 s. State.

My tax dollars at work

For months, my husband has been complaining to the city about how the shoulder of the road looks on our street. The holes are getting quite deep, and it's starting to get quite deep. When it rains, we get some pretty big puddles.

So yesterday morning, my son comments that he saw a couple of men with a dump truck full of dirt come by and start shoveling dirt into the holes. Upon hearing this, I was excited on my husband's behalf, thinking his complaining had finally resulted in the shoulder being fixed. Here's a photo of their work:

Fun with Fondant

My grandmother's birthday is the day before Halloween. This year, we had a big party to celebrate Halloween and her birthday. She wanted all of the kids to wear their costumes so she could see them all decked out.

I offered to bring dessert, and was really excited to finally try out fondant on a cake. I'd found a really easy recipe here to make fondant using marshmallows, powdered sugar and shortening, and was really intrigued. The recipe was really easy to make, and I had a lot of fun making a gruesome Halloween themed cake. I used a Betty Crocker Bake & Fill pan to make the hollow for the cherry pie filling to fit in.

"I spilled my food, Mommy"

This will never stop being funny for us.

A couple months ago, we went out to dinner, and S wanted soup. We gave her clam chowder, and she did a pretty good job of polishing off the bowl. We continued on our drive to Ephraim, UT. About ten minutes outside of town, we heard the noise all parents dread on a road trip: the sound of a vomiting child. S began to cry and said, "I spilled my soup, Mommy!".

A couple nights ago, she got a mild case of food poisoning (?), and threw up. She told her daddy that she had spilled her food.

My husband still hates vomit with a passion that takes my breath away, but even he can giggle at the "spilling of the food" phrasing.

Anything to get out of room cleaning

My dd K will do anything to get out of cleaning her room.

In all seriousness, she is a great, tough kid. Today she came home from school, sobbing because she fell off her bike. Now, I can count on one hand the number of times she's cried since she exited toddlerhood. One of those times was when she broke her arm. She cried when it happened, but then insisted it felt fine and she didn't want to go to the doctor. After five days, I noticed that she was writing with her left hand. Huh. She's right handed. That's interesting. She could still move it ok, but when pressed, admitted it did hurt. "But, if it's broken, they'll put a cast on it, won't they? And you can't go swimming with a cast on, can you? No, it doesn't hurt." So, I took her the doctor. Sure enough, it was broken.

So, when she came home crying today, I definitely wanted to get her right in to the doctor. This time, I was in within two hours of the injury! Go me!

As you can see, it's broken again. She's in a temporary cast til Monday, and then she'll get the "real" cast. She's not as upset this time around because there was no swimming on the horizon. But, she is bummed out because it's her right arm again, so writing will be difficult.

She also got a big spot of road rash on her other arm, so both of her arms are all covered up in gauze. Poor kid.