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protecting my anonymity…sort of

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Main Entry: an·o·nym·i·ty
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural an·o·nym·i·ties
Date: 1820

1 : the quality or state of being anonymous
2 : one that is anonymous

This is something that I have tossed around inside my head for a while now.  There is a lot of information that floats around in cyberspace and I want to make sure that I can control that which I can have control of.  Does that make sense?

So what that comes down to is…privacy settings on my facebook account so that only friends can see what I put out there, making sure that my home phone number isn’t posted anywhere, and not directly putting mine or my families’ names out there unless I know it’s safe and a bunch of other stuff.

I know that there is a lot that I can’t control cuz “big brother” is always watching.  But I’m gonna do my best.(and I hope that my friends and family who read/reply/link to my blog can understand this)

So over the past couple days I’ve taken our names out of my blog.  My oldest daughter will now be known as “Munchkn” and my younger daughter will be known as “Peanut”.  My husband will be Hubby (there’s a stretch, huh?)

So there you have it.  Let’s see how this goes.

I’m a certified Child Restraint Technician!!

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This weekend I took the St. John’s Ambulance course and got certified as a Child Restraint Technician!!!

I had been very diligent about my girls’ carseats and how they were installed and was pretty confident in my ablilities to install a seat before I took the course. But, boy, did I learn a lot!!!
Now when you try to shake my carseats at the belt path, the whole car shakes!! The carseat doesn’t move an inch!!

We did a car seat clinic yesterday and of the 10 seats that came:

  • 1 was forward facing with pool noodles underneath and wiggled all over the place
  • 2 were infant seats at the wrong angle, wiggled all over the place and touched the front passenger seat
  • 1 was rear facing with the forward facing foot down- 1 infant in an infant seat had the harness so loose that the baby would have slipped right out and the chest clip was at it’s stomach and the base was really really loose
  • 1 forward facing seat was too big for the vechicle and we advised the parent to get a new seat (even the senior tech/instructor couldn’t get it installed properly
  • 1 was a forward facing seat that was loose and the tether wasn’t tight enough- there were a few others

but only 1 infant seat was actually insalled propertly!!

I’m so happy that I now know how to do it properly and have the skills to not only install seats but teach the parents how to do it, and why it’s done the way it is.

Any one want some help???

t13#13 – car seat installation errors

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(blog365: 122/365)

Thirteen errors parents make installing child car seats

Rear-facing:1. car seat not at a 45 degree angle
2. infant car seat carrying handle left up
3. car seat touches front passenger seat(s) (not all car seats allow for this)
4. chest clip not at arm pit level
Forward-facing:5. child put forward facing too soon
6. tether not used correctly or not at all
General car seat errors:7. child is the wrong size (too big or too small) for the car seat
8. UAS/LATCH or car seat belt not tight enough (shuld move no more that 1″ in any direction)
9. belt clip used improperly or not at all
10. harness straps or seat belt (booster) not tight enough
11. harness straps through the wrong slots for child’s height and which direction they’re facing (rear-facing: slots below shoulders; forward-facing: above shoulders)
12. car seat is too old
13. no car seat is used at all (yes, some people still do this…ugh)

PLEASE CHECK YOUR CAR SEATS!!!!Here are some tips to help you!

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safe saturday

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(blog365: 19/365)

[This post is back-dated as it was a “computer free weekend”]

There has been a lot of talk about how safe PBA (the endocrine-disrupting hormone Bisphenol-A) is.

The Globe and Mail recently had an article saying that:

Health Canada is conducting studies to try to find out how much bisphenol A is leaking out of polycarbonate baby bottles and infant formula cans.

This article sums everything up (read this on if you read nothing else): Ban Bisphenol A Fact Sheet

And here is another good article with lots of references: Bisphenol-A in Baby Bottles: Scare Tactic or Toxic Concern?

So until we know how safe it is under normal-use conditions, I’m going to limit my kids exposure to it.

I found a great blog that talks about PBA- and toxic-free baby and toddler stuff: http://thesoftlanding.wordpress.com/

Luckily Nuby carries a lot of PBA-free stuff and is reasonably priced at Wal-mart!! There are some really nice products on the market (like Kleen Kanteen), but they have a really nice price tag to go with them.

I’m sure I’ll post more about this as information becomes available.

she’s a natural!

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Last night we had Munchkin’s first swimming lesson of this session! And she did great!

At first she was very apprehensive about the whole thing. We haven’t been swimming since last summer when we were in Nova Scotia.

She was on her back and kicking her feet and she’s try to roll over to be on her tummy. She had so much fun!

If you don’t count throwing up on the deck. She had swallowed some water and started coughing. Knowing Munchkin the way I do, I knew that she was going to be sick so we go to the edge of the pool as quicky as possible. She did throw up but not in the water! Thank goodness, or they would have had to clear the pool. I’m sure everyone would have just love to have their first class shortened because of us. But we got cleaned up and got back in the water.

Swimming ended at 6:30pm, and by the time we got home it was 7:00. Munchkin was asleep by 7:15!