He looks at me...and I melt.
He reaches for me...and I melt.
He scrunches up his nose and giggles...and I melt.
He bobs his head to the music...and I melt.
He stops himself in the middle of his play to throw himself at me...and I melt.
He takes a step away, but turns around to make sure that I am still there...and I melt.
He cries out in pain or tiredness or simple sadness...and I melt.
I will never be able to describe this feeling adequately. It isn't like I have never felt love before....I have felt it from my family and friends...and obviously from my husband. But this is different.
This is a love that stops me in my tracks 100+ times a day.
This is a love that changes my mood in an instant.
This is a love that seems so pure and perfect while feeling so unbelievably strong and unwavering.
This is a love that surprises me.
Showing posts with label infant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label infant. Show all posts
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
And ready to go!
Yesterday I posted about the realization that Superman had outgrown his infant car seat. Today I am going to talk a little bit about what I did to find Superman's new seat.
Unless your child is over a year, the next car seat after the infant seat must be a convertible one. Most state laws dictate that children must be at least 20 pounds and one year before they are allowed to be forward facing. However, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA),
So the first thing I do whenever I need to buy something new is go to Consumer Reports. Sadly, this time they dropped the ball for me initially. I didn't feel like their reviews on car seats helped me much and they were recommending some seats that had really low scores. Frankly, I just didn't understand it all.
The next thing I did was post on my personal Facebook page that we were looking for a new seat and wanted recommendations. I thought that I might at least get some leads and maybe some car seats to stay away from. Of the 21 responses, all but one person recommended the Britax and that person had a Combi and an Evenflo. The three main Britax car seats people had were the Roundabout, Marathon, and Boulevard.
At this point I did go back to Consumer Reports and found that the Roundabout was the highest rated of the three, but had the lowest limits for weight (35 lbs rear facing & 50 lbs forward facing) and shoulder height (max 16.25 for both rear and forward facing). All three have a max height of 49 inches.
Since I want Superman to be rear facing for as long as possible, I felt like the Roundabout was out of the mix for me. When I looked at the Marathon 70 and Boulevard 70 the only differences was the side impact protection. The Boulevard has extra head support in case of a side impact collision. According to Consumer Reports, the Boulevard also had a feature that allowed for adjusting the harness height without having to re-thread it. Consumer Reports also rated the Boulevard higher than the Marathon.
I went back and forth over which of these two to get. Amazon had them both on sale and the difference in price was about $20. Finally my husband told me to get the one that was rated higher. So we got the Boulevard 70.
I will be honest, when I saw how big the car seat I was a little worried that I went a bit overboard. We could have gotten away with the Marathon...but it turned out we couldn't install it in the middle seat (and wouldn't have been able to install the Marathon in the middle either). Now I am grateful to have the extra side impact protection.
Resources:
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
Child Restraint Laws (by state)
Seat Check.org
Car Seat Recall List
**Disclaimer- I am not an expert on car seats. I have no certifications or documents saying I should be giving advice. Therefore, take what I say as one mom's experience and do you own research. Thank you.***
Unless your child is over a year, the next car seat after the infant seat must be a convertible one. Most state laws dictate that children must be at least 20 pounds and one year before they are allowed to be forward facing. However, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA),
"For the best possible protection keep infants in the back seat, in rear-facing child safety seats, as long as possible up to the height or weight limit of the particular seat."With this in mind, I knew that I wanted to not only get a convertible seat, but one that would allow Superman to stay rear-facing as long as possible.
So the first thing I do whenever I need to buy something new is go to Consumer Reports. Sadly, this time they dropped the ball for me initially. I didn't feel like their reviews on car seats helped me much and they were recommending some seats that had really low scores. Frankly, I just didn't understand it all.
The next thing I did was post on my personal Facebook page that we were looking for a new seat and wanted recommendations. I thought that I might at least get some leads and maybe some car seats to stay away from. Of the 21 responses, all but one person recommended the Britax and that person had a Combi and an Evenflo. The three main Britax car seats people had were the Roundabout, Marathon, and Boulevard.
At this point I did go back to Consumer Reports and found that the Roundabout was the highest rated of the three, but had the lowest limits for weight (35 lbs rear facing & 50 lbs forward facing) and shoulder height (max 16.25 for both rear and forward facing). All three have a max height of 49 inches.
Since I want Superman to be rear facing for as long as possible, I felt like the Roundabout was out of the mix for me. When I looked at the Marathon 70 and Boulevard 70 the only differences was the side impact protection. The Boulevard has extra head support in case of a side impact collision. According to Consumer Reports, the Boulevard also had a feature that allowed for adjusting the harness height without having to re-thread it. Consumer Reports also rated the Boulevard higher than the Marathon.
I went back and forth over which of these two to get. Amazon had them both on sale and the difference in price was about $20. Finally my husband told me to get the one that was rated higher. So we got the Boulevard 70.
I will be honest, when I saw how big the car seat I was a little worried that I went a bit overboard. We could have gotten away with the Marathon...but it turned out we couldn't install it in the middle seat (and wouldn't have been able to install the Marathon in the middle either). Now I am grateful to have the extra side impact protection.
Resources:
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
Child Restraint Laws (by state)
Seat Check.org
Car Seat Recall List
**Disclaimer- I am not an expert on car seats. I have no certifications or documents saying I should be giving advice. Therefore, take what I say as one mom's experience and do you own research. Thank you.***
Monday, November 15, 2010
All buckled in...
A few days ago I wrote about safety on the internet...or rather I wrote about reading about safety on the internet. Today I am going to talk about safety in your car. I know that many of you have little ones around the same age as my Superman. Many of you probably are still using your infant car seat, aren't you? It is okay to admit it, I was up until this week.
Thank goodness for friends with children older than my own. I was at boot camp and it came up casually. I had it stuck in my head that my infant car seat was rated to 30 pounds. Superman is only 19 pounds so we were good. What these ladies pointed out to me was that it is not just weight, but height that factors into the change to a bigger seat. When they said that I had one of those, "OMG I can't believe I didn't think about that!" moments.
So I did a little research and found that the height limit for our infant seat was 30 inches. Superman was 29 inches at 9 months. Fortunately, we measured him again and he is still just 29 inches. However, the other thing the manual said was that if his head was less than an inch from the top of the seat, it was time to get a bigger seat. Sure enough Superman's head was less than an inch from the top.
So let me recap. You should know the following limits for your current car seat:
Thank goodness for friends with children older than my own. I was at boot camp and it came up casually. I had it stuck in my head that my infant car seat was rated to 30 pounds. Superman is only 19 pounds so we were good. What these ladies pointed out to me was that it is not just weight, but height that factors into the change to a bigger seat. When they said that I had one of those, "OMG I can't believe I didn't think about that!" moments.
So I did a little research and found that the height limit for our infant seat was 30 inches. Superman was 29 inches at 9 months. Fortunately, we measured him again and he is still just 29 inches. However, the other thing the manual said was that if his head was less than an inch from the top of the seat, it was time to get a bigger seat. Sure enough Superman's head was less than an inch from the top.
So let me recap. You should know the following limits for your current car seat:
- weight limit (if it is a convertible seat, you should know the limit for rear facing and forward facing)
- height limit (if it is a convertible seat, you should know the limit for rear facing and forward facing)
- shoulder height limit
**Disclaimer- I am not an expert on car seats. I have no certifications or documents saying I should be giving advice. Therefore, take what I say as one mom's experience and do you own research. Thank you.***
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