You know those springy door-stop things down by the floor that keep the door knob from jabbing the wall? Well, there is one in Scout's room and she loves the boingy sound it makes when she slaps it, so I was letting her occupy herself with that while I was hanging stuff in her closet. The boingy noise stopped for a minute, so I looked down, and she had the little plastic cap that was on the tip of the door-stopper in her mouth. Yikes. I was able to dig it out pretty quickly, but dang! I have to watch her like a hawk now.

Everytime she takes off across the carpet, she goes straight for any little piece of fuzz or thread or crumb. I have vacuumed the house more times in the last month than I have in the 2 years we've lived here. I also had to sweep and mop the floor of the utility/laundry room (first time in ages!) and take down the ricketty ironing board because she follows me in there all the time.

Who knew I could be such a tidy person?

Labels: household chores, my house, random thoughts, safety

In the spirit of this post, I just ordered a couple of 100% natural rubber pacifiers for Scout. She has never liked pacifiers (despite my best efforts to get her to try them during her fussy first month), but she has recently taken to chewing on them. She loves to bite down hard and scrape her teeth on the pacifier as she yanks it out of her mouth. (Oh Lord, please don't ever let her do such mean things to mommy's nipples!) I think she likes the squeeky noise as her tiny teeth bounce off of the paci with each bite. She also likes to hold the nipple part of the paci and gnaw on the handle. Once in a while she will actually use it for its intended purpose for about 5 seconds.

But, if I'm going to such great pains to replace her cheap plastic play things with more natural alternatives, then it's pretty silly of me to let her chomp on a piece of plastic and silicone/latex all day long.

These Natursutten pacifiers are kind of expensive at $5.99 + shipping. And only after I hit the "confirm and place order" button did I notice that the item descriptions states that these pacifiers should be replaced every 4-5 weeks due to their natural quality.

But the ones I'm ordering will hardly be subjected to any rigorous sucking (if at all), so I'm wondering if I could push the limits on the suggested "expiration" date. I am not familiar with natural rubber, so I don't know what it does if used past 4-5 weeks. Maybe it turns into a pumpkin.

Oh yeah, and (not that she uses them very often anyway, but) I'm trashing all of her polycarbonate bottles (Avent Naturally), which contain the icky plasticizer bisophenol-A and recently replaced them with Gerber Clear View bottles, which are made of a safer material called polyproylene.

Labels: baby gear, health, safety

I am joining the revolution with Danielle and decided buy some quality toys for Scout so I can trash her bin of cheapo plastic made-in-China toys.

DH and I made some money at the garage sale we had last weekend, so we were able to order 9 wooden toys from Moolka.com.





I also found a couple toys on eBay that I was going to bid on, but the bidding has gotten higher than I wanted to spend, so I'm going to look for something different.

I hope Scout enjoys all of her new toys as much as I enjoyed picking them out.

They were all made in Germany and have eco-friendly non-toxic water-based paints, so I think I can feel good about Scout chewing on them. Yay!

I'll be glad to get rid of most of the toys she has now, but it'll be sort of tough for me to throw away a few of them. She has a couple favorites that she really enjoys. But it's for the better.

Labels: baby gear, health, money, safety, toys

I just found out that the Baby Einstein soft blocks we own are among the many toys that have been recently been recalled due to lead paint. Great.

All of this Made-in-China toy scare hoopla makes me want to toss all of Scouts toys in the trash and start fresh with safe, non-toxic, Made-in-the-USA toys, preferably made from natural materials.

Oh wait. We can't do that because we're not rich.

One of Scout's favorite toys is a soft plasticky book called "Mimi's Toes" (also a Baby Einstein product). It smells very strongly like a pool raft - ya know, that weird chemically rubbery smell? I turned it over to see what it is made of and it is PVC. I thought I remembered reading somewhere that PVC is not safe for children's toys, so I tried to look up some info on it.
From the many articles I read, I can see that there are 2 different camps: people who think PVC is the devil and say it is a very hazardous material that should not be used for toys..... and then those who think that PVC is perfectly safe. I don't know who to believe. One of the articles I read states that the strong pool raft smell that many PVC items give off is actually the pthalates (plasticizers that make the PVC pliable) off-gassing.

I know that I can't hide my little girl from all plastics and PVC items for the rest of her life, but I'd really rather not have my baby ravenously gnawing on a hunk of mildly toxic "out-gassing" material.

I wonder if I can convince my parents and DH's parents that they should buy Scout some expensive Made-in-America wooden and cloth toys form now on . Ha. Yeah.

ETA: Just so you know, DH and I aren't the ones who have bought Scout all of this plastic Baby Einstein crap. We just received a lot of toys as gifts at her baby shower.

Labels: baby-proofing, general complaining, safety

We went to the police station today and had Scout's Britax Marathon car seat installed in our car. We had it in the car when she was a newborn and decided to replace it with an infant seat for a while because the straps on the Marathon just swallowed her up and she didn't seem very comfortable in it. Now that she is much bigger, she fits nicely in it. I feel like it is a much safer seat, so I was anxious to get it installed as soon as possible. The infant seat definitely served its purpose for a while, but we never unsnap it from its base anymore (unless it is just so we can bring it in to keep it cool). That's the one thing I will miss about having a seat that comes off of the base. But I have a solution to that: I'm going to bring a big ice pack with us whenever we run errands and lay it on the seat and the buckles while we are shopping. Even if the ice pack totally melts while we are in there, at least the seat and buckles won't be scorching hot.

It has been miserably hot here. Last Friday I went grocery shopping while Scout rode contentedly in the Ergo carrier on the front of me the whole time. After we were done, I started the car and cranked the air so it would cool off a little while I loaded the groceries in the trunk. Scout was still attached to me in the Ergo. A lady came up to me and graciously offered to help me put my bags in the trunk. I only had a few left, so I politely declined and thanked her for offering and told her I thought it was so sweet of her to ask. Then she said, "I just thought I'd offer because it is just too hot to have a baby out today." I think it was her disapproving motherly tone that bugged me more than what she said.

Can anyone say "passive aggressive"?? Sheesh. Here, I thought it was just a stranger being nice but it was actually just a cranky old lady who can't keep her advice to herself. Offering to help just gave her the perfect opportunity to come over and gripe at me for having my baby out in the heat.

I couldn't think fast enough to reply with anything clever. I just thanked her and she walked on. If I would've thought faster, I would've told her that it was a billion times hotter inside the car and much safer for her to be out in the sun for 2 minutes with me while we waited for the car to cool off. But I think by her phrasing, she must've meant that it was much too hot to have a baby out of the house in general. Yeah - it's SOOOOO dangerous to carry a baby around in an air conditioned store for an hour and then spend 2 minutes in the parking lot (I even had her head shaded)and put her into an air conditioned car. I'm a neglectful mother.

Okay. Sorry. Got derailed from my original story. Anyway, after we got the car seat installed, we went to the local LLL meeting. I always look forward to that every month. It's nice to hang out with some like-minded mommas. I weighed Scout at the meeting and she weighed 16 lbs 2.5 oz! What a chunk!

That reminds me, I made an appointment for Scout to see a pediatrician for a check-up on September 17th. We haven't taken her to any well baby visits since her 1 week appointment. I know, I know...don't throw tomatoes at my head. I just really didn't care for the place we took her for her 1 week appointment and I've put off finding another pediatrician. Part of my laziness in finding another one stems from the fact that I'm dreading the confrontation about vaccinations. I've heard stories from some of my other friends who don't vaccinate their children (or vaccinate on a delayed schedule) about docs who tell you that you are a bad parent and are stupid for questioning the safety of vaccines. Supposedly, this other doctor we are going to try is open to discussing it in a friendly manner and doesn't think a parent deserves to be turned in to CPS for refusing/delaying vaccinations for their children.

**ETA**
Ha ha .... I just read what I wrote in the last paragraph and the way it is worded makes it sound as if the first pediatrician she saw wanted to turn us in to CPS or something. LOL No, not at all. We didn't even get into a discussion about vaccinations with him. Just from what I've *heard* about the physicians at that particular clinic, they are not very open to discussing more natural ways of preventing and curing diseases. Plus, the staff just wasn't very friendly AT ALL. Just wanted to clear that up. I was just being dramatic.

Labels: baby gear, babywearing, general complaining, health, safety, tough parenting decisions