We just got the RideSafer Vest for my 4 year old who weighs 37.5 lbs She's very proud of that .5 lb. I haven't tried it out yet, but we do a fair bit of traveling and I don't want to have to tote 2 carseats all by myself through international airports when I'm traveling alone.
I am a bit of a car seat safety nut so I researched the heck out of this vest. It sounds totally safe and legal in the US for this age and weight and it's well-reviewed and recommended by all the reputable car seat safety blogs. I'm looking forward to trying it out on our trip next week.
If you like the outdoors - hiking, trail running, exploring - Sedona is a fantastic pick. Likewise for good food, drink and resort-sitting while soaking in the amazing landscape. I'm from the Pacific NW and we chose Sedona for our tenth anniversary because we wanted to explore a part of the country very different from our own area. We stayed at L'auberge resort and it was amazing. We are runners so we did a ton of (early morning, pre-heatwave) trail running and hiking. I'd go back again in a heartbeat. There isn't a lot to do there other than outdoors stuff though. The shopping is pretty minimal. It's close enough for a day trip to the Grand Canyon though!
Third vote for Travel Pro. If you look around the airport, you’ll see it’s what the flight crews generally use. Best $$ we ever spent - we’ve put ours to hard use frequently traveling internationally over the last 3.5 yrs and they still look perfectly new.
I could have written this. My 4.5 year old daughter is very busy and can be extremely sweet or very aggressive depending on her mood. On Monday, her teacher took me aside and said DD shoved another little girl on the playground as hard as she could. If the teacher hadn't caught her, she'd have hit her head on the brick and probably ended up in the ER. She assured me it wasn't just my daughter - all the "older" girls (ages 4) have been acting aggressively like this lately.
Not entirely sure how to handle it either. I do notice her behavior improves significantly in all areas when I pour lots of love into her "love tank" as I call it. I praise her effusively for all the good things she does, noticing even the tiniest things and tiniest acts of kindness she exhibits, which makes her light up and do more of those things. Lecturing about being kind and not hurting our friends doesn't seem to result in much other than resistance. I do remind her every day, often, about our family values of being kind toward other people. We probably could use another talk about using words or picking alternative activities when we feel angry.
Part of it's the age, I think. I have moments of great hope for her and moments of concern that she's going to be a psychopath. You're not alone!
My husband seems uninterested in most products, and barely looks in the mirror. But he likes the razors from Dollar Shave Club and I've noticed he's been slowly signing up for more and more of their subscriptions. He's got men's shampoo in the shower now, and a couple facial products like after shave and lotion.
My preschooler has the Zinus 12 Inch Gel-Infused Green Tea Memory Foam Mattress. It was a steal on Amazon’s deal of the day last year, for $140 for a full. I am really happy with it. It’s on the firm side for sure, but softening slightly over time. I am comfortable laying with her but I don’t think I’d necessarily love it as my full-time personal mattress. For a guest bed, though, you can’t beat it.
I just bought a Lenovo Thinkpad T580 for work and I LOVE it. I've always been a Mac person, but I'm really happy with this device. DH is a software engineer and he helped me settle on this one. 1TB solid state drive, 2 GB RAM $1800.
Yes, we dealt with this from about 18 mo (when she first started climbing out of her crib) to now, at 4.5 years old. We tried EVERYTHING. For a year or more, we locked her door from the outside after doing the normal bedtime routine and listened to her scream and beat on the door. We tried laying with her (while she climbed all over us and drove us to lose our tempers). We tried walking her back to her room without speaking with some success. We tried rewards charts, consequences, the whole 9 yards. Nothing changed til we completed dropped her nap and made daycare drop it too. Now she is tired at 8 and lies down and goes to sleep. But she's almost 4 1/2 and it took this long and she still fights it at times. Some kids, man. Please know you're not alone.
We got one for DD at 18 mo and she would straddle it and walk it. She was a little under 2.5 when that turned into real gliding and zooming down big hills on it. She’s a daredevil. We got her a 16” pedal bike for her 4th birthday and she learned to ride instantly. I think she’d have learned to ride even earlier if she’d been given the opportunity. Needless to say, we are huge fans of strider bikes!
Drive this time. Next time find an eye doctor that does OptoMap and pay the $35 that your insurance won't.
100% this. I have never had my eyes dilated...all my doctors have had OptoMap technology. I love it because it’s so easy and I’m a nerd and I love seeing the images of the insides of my eye.
My just-turned-three year old starting doing this, and altogether regressed in her potty training when we moved to a new town. We had just had a new baby, her dad had a new job and I was returning to work after maternity leave, she had a new childcare provider, we were all a bit stressed. Looking back I can see how much change she was dealing with and that it was clearly a reaction to the stress. She also refused to nap and wouldn’t sleep at night. Three is a really challenging age. My friends three year old is doing the same thing after having a new baby brother. I don’t know how much advice to give you except that time will help. Give her extra love and attention and a bit of grace, because she’s dealing with so many emotions and doesn’t yet have the ability that express them.
DH took longer than I expected to feel normal and he’s not typically one to complain. He was pretty sore the first couple days but we also went to a couple outdoor functions and didn’t really stay home and rest. He spent the better part of a week with an ice pack down his pants, complaining a lot. I was glad when he quit telling everyone he was icing his balls. 🙄 He definitely could manage on his own. I don’t think he would have wanted to be in charge of our two little kids by himself the first few days but he was fine taking care of himself.
My 18 mo old has struggled with eczema since he was about 5 mo. When it was really bad on his scalp, our pedi recommended Scalpicin and when that wasn't enough, we were prescribed a steroid lotion for a short while which really cleared it up for good.
But day to day, whenever he gets flare-ups on his body, I put on hydrocortisone cream (over the counter, topical) and it clears the patches right up. It's like magic!
I've been on the lookout for a pair of joggers that are cute/presentable for public, but comfy. Something I can wear in place of my usual yoga pants/leggings, but not have to worry about pantylines, lol. It's been hard to tell online though.
I also want to ask for more workout leggings for maternity leave. My most comfy ones are crops but I need more for being home during the winter.
My friend has this pair from Prana and they are so cute. Way cuter IRL than on the website, tbh. They are like joggers, but the cinched leg opening makes them way more visually appealing than most other black capris and joggers on the market. I am buying a pair ASAP.
I have never had that problem with my Garmin (FR 235 currently) and I’ve run many hundreds of stroller miles. I’ve got lots of mama friends with Garmins too and it’s never come up. You might try resetting it or making sure it locks the GPS before you start running. Their customer service is really helpful too. But don’t let that stop you from getting the Apple Watch!
Thanks! I need to figure out how to reset it. Their customer support is great- my band broke in less than a year (my dads too) and they replaced both of them! I have been better with getting the GPS locked and it’s a little more accurate but still off. So frustrating...plus it always says I am running much slower than I am.
I doubt the Apple Watch will help though. I ran with my dads and it was annoying as well. He also doesn’t think it will fix my issues.
What Garmin do you have? I have the forerunner 230...
I have the Forerunner 235 - just like yours except it has the wrist heart rate monitor. This website might be helpful wrt resetting it: thewiredrunner.com/troubleshooting-gps-watch/#Forerunner230 Sometimes it's as simple as turning it off and then turning it back on again. You could also try googling your problem - I've had luck with finding fixes to Garmin problems that way. Their customer service line can also help you think up solutions. It's so weird to me that you're having this issue with stroller running - that definitely should not be happening!
DH is a runner and loves his Apple Watch for regular use but isn't the hugest fan of it for running. Just fyi...
My parents will buy me my annual passport for DL! It’s my Christmas and birthday present every year and I really do appreciate it because it gives me something fun/special to do with the boys! They will be buying DS1 his pass for his bday this year (sometime between now and mid Dec).
I keep going back on an Apple Watch. I am back to running consistently but my Garmin is so inaccurate when pushing the stroller (which is 100% of my runs). I end up playing music and using MalMyRun on my phone and am always looking in the cup holder to see my pace/distance. Even if I got the non cellular one, at least I would have the data on my watch (and not be using two devices that I have to start/stop). But we switched to Cricket wireless so not sure I want to switch back to a company just to support the watch. It’s a lot of $$$ too for something that isn’t a necessity...
New running shoes would be nice too
I have never had that problem with my Garmin (FR 235 currently) and I’ve run many hundreds of stroller miles. I’ve got lots of mama friends with Garmins too and it’s never come up. You might try resetting it or making sure it locks the GPS before you start running. Their customer service is really helpful too. But don’t let that stop you from getting the Apple Watch!
Basically all my 6 year old's friends are getting one of these since DD1 loves hers so much and tells all her friends about it. We got her one after seeing how much the older kids at tennis all loved theirs.
Do you think a 4.5-5 year old would get something out of these? DH gets a big discount on them through his job, so I’m tempted to get DD one for Christmas but I’m not sure if we should wait til she’s a little older.
It’s a really good one. I just finished pressure washing my entire deck and side of house. Its definitely time consuming but it’s easy. I can’t see how you’d fuck anything up if you use common sense and don’t continue blasting something crumbling or peeling with the highest available pressure. I was careful around windows, not to blow water through the seals, but it was a very satisfying way to clean window and sliding door tracks in a instant. I wouldn’t pay a company to do it unless there was a safety (height) concern or i just didn’t have any time to do it.
Consumer reports says June is the best time of year to buy pressure washers, FWIW.
I try to remember that discipline should be about teaching rather than punishing. No Drama Discipline is a really good book that has helped me get my head around this concept. So, I would do exactly as you've done with allowing only supervised access to books, but personally, I wouldn't read to him less or stop going to the library. Reading is really important to me and I want to help our kids learn to love it and learn treat books respectfully. I am dealing with sort of similar situation where our (just turned) 4 year old plays too rough with her 14 mo old brother and so I have to supervise them together constantly. But I try not to limit their access to each other because it's important for her to learn how to play with him. At this age, it's just soooo much teaching and correcting. It is definitely hard. Also, I have noticed that my DD will not seem to mind a consequence or will even laugh when we are administering the consequence. But it definitely registers, because she will talk about it later and can verbalize why she has the consequence. I hear her play acting with her dolls and dishing out similar consequences to them, so I wouldn't take his lack of emotion over it to mean he doesn't care.
My daughter runs four tomorrow and she is already beginning to read. It 100% comes from her own interest and we have done nothing to push it except read to her lots. (Daycare/preschool does the rest, lol) But she’s always been a very early talker, could sit forever listening to books even as a baby, etc. On the flip side, she’s a very challenging, high energy, strong willed child, so there’s no perfect package. If there’s any reason I’m glad I to have two kids, is that it has really shown me how every child is different and that’s just fine. My 13 mo old is nowhere near as advanced verbally and has little attention span for books. He’s smart in his own way (I think, lol) and I bet he’s going to do just fine. There’s just such a wide range of normal. Go with your gut when it comes to deciding what your child needs to do academically.
Another vote for the Zinus. We bought a full size one for our 3 year old daughter last year on Amazon's deal of the day (strangely the regular price now is even cheaper than what we paid). It's super comfortable. I would happily sleep on it myself and it's nice to know it would be comfortable for guests if we needed to use it as a guest bed.
I was given a few sample packets at a race expo recently and I was really impressed with how delicious and healthy it is! Very lightly sweetened with monk fruit and super tasty! My kids love it in their berry smoothies. I would definitely buy it again and I'm not even a big smoothie person.
We did Ferber for sleep training at 4 or 5 months. I still nursed MOTN but Ferber helped her get back to sleep after a wake up for nursing. I look at sleep training as helping the baby develop the skills they need to get back to sleep on their own when they wake up. It's as much about giving them a valuable skill as it is helping mom and dad get some sleep! Ferber worked for us within a day or two. I highly recommend reading the book. I still refer to it often with my 4 and 1 year old because it's got tons of useful info about what is normal for sleep at various ages.
I think I’d be inclined to do it. My DD stayed with my mom for a week when she was 2.5 while we went on our tenth anniversary trip. She’s close with my mom and while not a chill kid (super high energy), all parties reportedly has a great time. I feel like if the grandparents know what they’re getting into and your son will tolerate being away for that length of time, it will be fine. Having time to bond with the new baby after it’s born, and not having to care for two kids is sooo nice. It probably depends on your son and your parents’ personalities and abilities. If he misses you, you can Skype or FaceTime and that might help. My daughter asks about us when we are away but does just fine with a check in every once in a while.
Our ClickList guy said we can request paper bags and that he has customers that do reusable bags. I think they just transfer it into your bags when you arrive. They have been very accommodating at my Fred Meyer, even asking me if I feel I get too many plastic bags and anticipating ahead of time that I might have questions about how to cut down on that.
Yes, when I was 14-17ish, I would systematically pull out my bottom eyelashes and sometimes my eyebrows. (They’re still very sparse and I’m 37 now). It was definitely an impulsive behavior for me and I got satisfaction out of the feeling. It was somewhat ritualistic in that I almost always did it in one class and it seemed to be triggered by boredom. I did stop and no longer do it, but even now, 20 years later, upon reading this post, my brain can instantly recall the feeling and start to feel the impulse to do it again.
Agreed. My hair is still a bit different in those areas at 33, over 20 years later. And I still feel the impulse sometimes. It’s definitely something I recommend dealing with as soon as possible
I started pulling out individual hairs like that when I was 9 or 10. I don’t think it was anxiety related, but more something that started becoming a habit. I got some bald patches and my parents straight up addressed it with me. That was enough to get me to curb the behavior. I think I was a bit embarrassed. There was another girl at church that was my age that really struggled with this due to some trauma and home life issues and I think my parents were on high alert because of that. I could see firsthand how she was disfiguring herself and that was enough for me to try to stop once they pointed out how I could be headed down the same road. That said, if it’s related to anxiety, she might need some extra help with other ways to deal with it.