High Fashion

All Nathan!

 

Still in his jammies, Nathan found his suspenders!  He was thrilled.  Pardon the breakfast yogurt on his shirt!

Extended Rear Facing

The minimum age that a child's car seat is supposed to be changed from rear facing to front facing is one year and twenty pounds.  However, rear facing past that point is still safer.  Just think about this for a moment...

When a child is in a forward-facing seat, [in an accident] there is tremendous stress put on the child's neck, which must hold the large head back. The mass of the head of a small child is about 25% of the body mass whereas the mass of the adult head is only 6%!  A small child's neck sustains massive amounts of force in a crash.  The body is held back by the straps while the head is thrown forward - stressing, stretching or even breaking the spinal cord.  The child's head is at greater risk in a forward-facing seat as well.  In a crash, the head is thrown outside the confines of the seat and can make dangerous contact with other occupants, vehicle structures, and even intruding objects, like trees or other vehicles.

Rear-facing seats do a phenomenal job of protecting children because there is little or no force applied to the head, neck and spine.  When a child is in a rear-facing seat, the head, neck and spine are all kept fully aligned and the child is allowed to "ride down" the crash while the back of the child restraint absorbs the bulk of the crash force. The head is contained within the restraint, and the child is much less likely to come into contact with anything that might cause head injury.-" (source)(emphasis added)

Nathan's current seat

It is safer not to turn your child's carseat forward facing until you reach the rear facing weight limit on the carseat itself, which on a convertible carseat is usually around 30 pounds.

Both of ours, The First Years True Fit and the Cosco Scenera, go to 35 pounds rear facing, so both Nathan (29 months) and Miriam (16 months) are rear facing.  There are even some carseats, such as the Graco My Ride 65 Car Seat, Safety 1st Complete Air that can rear face until 40 pounds, and the Sunshine Kids Radian80SL goes to 45 pounds rear facing.

Some people think that you have to turn them around when their feet touch the back of the seat, but that isn't true.  We've found that Nathan is quite comfortable crossing his legs. Occasionally  the objection is made that a child might be at increased risk of broken legs if rear facing.  I am ok with that, if true, because in the event of a severe accident in which my child was likely to suffer an injury of that magnitude rear facing he would be at higher risk forward facing.   There's a little saying that goes "Broken leg? Cast it.  Broken neck?  Casket." 

 Basically, the longer a child can ride rear-facing, the better protected his or her spinal cord is in the event of a collision.  - Joe Colella, Former Child Passenger Safety Training Manager for the National SAFE KIDS Campaign

"The most common misunderstanding is that a child is ready to travel facing forward when his neck muscles are strong enough to support and control his head. However, when a car hits something at 25 to 30 mph, it will come to a stop at a negative acceleration rate of from 20 to 30 G. Because of the time lag between when the vehicle stops and an occupant stops, and the fact that the head of a forward-facing adult or child is still free to move relative to the restrained torso, the head may experience as much as 60 or 70 Gs acceleration for a brief moment. Even the strong neck muscles of military volunteers cannot counteract such forces. Instead, the rigidity of the bones in the neck and strength of the connecting ligaments (not the muscles) hold the adult spine together and keep the spinal cord intact within the confines of the vertebral column.

Very young children, however, have immature vertebrae that are still partly made of cartilage. These are soft and will deform and/or separate under tension, leaving just the spinal cord as the last link between the head and the torso. According to documented research, autopsy specimens of infant spines and ligaments allow for spinal column elongation of up to two inches, but the spinal cord ruptures if stretched more than 1/4 inch. Real-world experience has shown that a young child's skull can be literally ripped from her spine by the force of a crash."- from Carseat.org, here

And just one more quote, this one from a post on the subject:

 "toddlers between the ages of 12 & 23 months who ride rear facing are 5 times safer and 75% less likely to experience serious injury or die than their forward-facing peers."

I'm not a safety expert, a car seat technician, or a crash test expert.  I'm 'just' a mama.  I know that I can't protect my children from all harm, but considering that motor vehicle injuries are the leading cause of death among children in the U.S it is definitely worth a little bit of thought and research to consider how we can best keep our children safe while traveling.  Because it doesn't matter how safe a driver you are - you cannot control other drivers and you cannot predict whether a drunk driver is going to come flying through red light at a seemingly empty intersection.  You can only take steps to keep your child as safe as you can.  Keeping your little one rear facing is an easy way to make them safer. 

We haven't found rear facing past a year to be inconvenient or a hassle at all... it's a really simple way of making our kids a little safer in the car! 

 

Are your little ones rear facing still?  

Did you know that it was still safer, even past the age of one? 

What are some good safety resources you've found?

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Update: As of April 2011 "the American Academy of Pediatrics now advises parents to keep toddlers in rear-facing car seats until age 2, or until they exceed the height or weight limit for the car seat, which can be found on the back of the seat.  Previously, the AAP advised parents to keep kids rear-facing as long as possible, up to the maximum limit of the car seat, and this has not changed.  But it also cited one year and 20 pounds as the minimum for flipping the seat, which many parents and pediatricians interpreted as conventional wisdom on the best time to make the switch.  The new policy clarifies the AAP's recommendation, making age 2 the new guideline -- a real game-changer for parents of toddlers.

A 2007 study in the journal Injury Prevention found that children under age 2 are 75 percent less likely to die or to be severely injured in a crash if they are rear-facing. Another study found riding rear-facing to be five times safer than forward-facing." -CNN, AAP: Toddlers in rear-facing seat until 2

We are still rear facing two carseats, with an almost 3 and almost 2 year old.  Nathan is getting very close to the weight limit, so he will probably need to forward face soon after 3, however.  
 

Three

Three means... the small people will outnumber the big people.

Three means... Miriam won't be the "baby" anymore.

Three means... a whole new adventure.

Three means... getting to babywear a newborn again, (and give EC another try.)

Three means... a baby!

Expected next May!

Please pray for a healthy pregnancy... and feel free to leave your best morning sickness coping tips, as I'm already having trouble keeping things down.

Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil Review

In our home, we try to keep things deliberate and simple.  That approach gets a bit more complicated when we add in budgeting, like for our food purchases, but basically our food approach is pretty simple.

1. Life is too short to eat things that taste yucky.
2. Life is too short to obsess over what we eat, after all, we're going to die anyway.  Our efforts can be better used on things that will last eternally.
3. Life is too short to further shorten it by willy nilly consumption of unhealthy industrialized food, and we have a responsibility to our children, and to God, to try to leave things better than we found them.

So basically, we try to eat healthy - real foods, local foods, sustainable foods - we try to eat frugally - home made foods, from scratch foods, bulk foods - and we try to eat practically - simple foods, nutritionally dense foods.

Nathan approves.

One simple way that we try to be healthy is by making sure that the fats in our kitchen are good fats.  We avoid all vegetable oils and shortenings, and prefer butter, olive oil, and lard.  And, we've been exploring coconut oil as well!

Tropical Traditions was kind enough to send us some of their delicious coconut oil for review purposes.  We LOVED it.  If they had sent us five gallons instead, we would have eaten it all and died of happiness... so I guess it's a good thing they didn't or we wouldn't still be around to share how good it is! ;) 

As a nursing mama, I've noticed that my energy levels are better when I make a point of having plenty of good fats in my diet.  I know a mama whose midwife specifically recommended to her to take a tablespoon of coconut oil every day to make sure that she was getting enough good fat in her diet!  I know that personally, I would much rather take that tablespoon in fudge, but either way coconut oil is a great fat to be consuming and I have felt that for me personally it was an energy booster.

grilled cheese sandwich with coconut oil... yum!

We still need to sit down and do the math to see just how large a place coconut oil will have in our pantry and diet. 

But, as this very tasty jar of Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil confirmed for us, coconut oil definitely will be a pantry staple from now on around here!




Ways to enjoy Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil:

• on bread!
• in fudge!
• use for popcorn - this is particularly amazing & Micah's favorite oil to use for popcorn now
• in baked items - just substitute for butter or other oils
• use on a grilled cheese sandwich

Is there any coconut oil in your pantry? :)

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Disclaimer: Tropical Traditions provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it unless I so chose.  Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product.  I am not a nutritionist or medical professional and any opinions in this post are merely my own opinions and are not to be construed as medical or nutritional advice.

Wordless Wednesday

Loving Right Now

• The rainy day today, grey and drizzly, and the contented rumble of the thunder in the distance.  Maybe it has to do with being raised in a desert, but rain always makes me happy.  It is making me especially happy today because the grass has been getting crunchy and yesterday was pretty warm, so the rain has cooled things down and the grass will green back up again.

• Anticipating fall.  I love fall.  Pumpkins, cozy sweaters, scarves, and the changing colors... as well as the crisp, cool weather, which pretty much requires a big chunky mug filled with some hot substance.  Also, jewel tones, especially dark red.  And bronze.  And that smell, that really organic, leafy smell, of everything settling in for the winter.

• My Lisa Leonard necklace* which reads ". and like olive plants thy children . " It's part of Psalm 128 (the version in the Book of Psalms for singing, which I first memorised).  Here is the complete Psalm (KJV) -

Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD; that walketh in his ways.

For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. 

Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table. 

Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD.

The LORD shall bless thee out of Zion: and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life.

Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel.

• The Graphic's Fairy, and this sweet fairy she just shared.

She has lovely vintage images that she shares.  Great source, especially since she tags them well and it makes it easy to find what you're looking for if you're working on a specific project.

•  Our current favorite Pandora station. Start with some Raffi, mix in some Elizabeth Mitchell,  and enjoy!

•  

  

  Summer flowers

  
  

Annnnnd...

This FACE!

What are you loving right now? :)

 
 
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* (partially paid for with a gift card to Lisa Leonard, thanks again Lisa Leonard, MomSelect, and Mom Magazine)