What Should a 4 Year Old Know?

Someone just resposted this link on FB, and it couldn’t have been in better timing! My sweet girl turned four just 2weeks ago — making her literally the baby of her “class” (per her age group based on school year). And though we’ve never adhered to mainstream ways of doing anything (esp in our approach to parenting) in her young life… as this school year approached, and the majority of her friends prepared to begin school (K4), I do admit to feeling just a little pressured that she was not.

Irritated?

Do you ever feel irritated at your hubby.... what about your children?  This video is thought provoking and - though targeted towards spouses/the marriage relationship - it really applies to all relationships. It's definitely causing me reevaluate not only the way I respond to B... but also the way I sometimes respond to even KB...

AAP: Rear-facing until atleast 2!

The AAP now recommends that all infants and toddlers should ride in a Rear-Facing Car Safety Seat until they are 2 years of age or until they reach the highest weight or height allowed by their car safety seat’s manufacturer!!

Car Seat Guide 2011 Info for Families:: healthychildren.org

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/42190931#42190931

This makes me extremely hapy...as I wholehelartedly believe that the previous "one year or 20lb *recommendation(!!)*" - something most parents seem to consider the rule of absolute maximum, rather than absolute minimum - is just not logical OR safe!! Based on skeletal models of a one-year-old's spine, vs a two or even four-year-old's.. just basic anatomy proves the inconsistency of that previous rule! In the short year between the ages of one and two, there is a *huge* difference in the spine’s development!!! Babies under 3yrs - but ESP under two - have very immature bones and connective tissue, thus creating a particularly serious risk of spinal cord injury in a frontal crash. However, studies haveshown that children who are left to ride RF, are 5x safer in the case of a frontal collision (which according to Crashtest.Com, frontal and frontal offset crashes combine for about 72% of severe crashes. Side impacts are about 24%. Rear and rear offset crashes only account for about 4%!). As they say... "Broken leg -cast it... broken neck -casket."

(Yes, while I admit ^that^ does present as a rather crude mental picture... it certainly makes one think, no?)

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=sssIsceKd6U

One thing I regret most in my parenting journey thus far, is that I didnt fight to keep KB rear-facing (RF) longer! B insisted that we turn her around 16 months... and though I was uncomfortable with the decision (and even had a seat/means to follow through)... I didn't know enough info o on the matter, to be able to back up my instinct and give me a basis to insist otherwise. Thankfully, I have since learned a lot more... and have already begun showing B the research. So if we are blessed with other children, there will be no question as to the protocol we take - Extended-RF all the way!!

More resources on ERF..
http://www.nhtsa.gov/Safety/CPS
http://www.car-safety.org/ rearface.html

Early elective births... NOT such a great idea...

As early elective births increase so do health risks for mother, child

Shortening a pregnancy could affect a baby’s lung development, vision,weight, and some fine-tuning of the brain, experts say... At 35 weeks, the brain is only two-thirds of what it will weigh at 40 weeks...

Source :: Early-elective births increase health risks mother child

:: Rethinking Sociality ::

A mama from our Conscious Parenting group forward this out to out to the board... and it was just way too good to not share!  Definitely makes one think....

THE DAILY GROOVE

by Scott Noelle, posted on 2007-02-02
www.enjoyparenting.com/dailygroove

:: Rethinking Sociality, Part 2 ::
If you did the mindfulness exercise in Part 1 you may have noticed that being socially appropriate (i.e., doing/saying the "right" thing) frequently requires you to be inauthentic.

For example, in certain parenting situations you may feel social pressure to control your child when you'd rather be relaxed and accepting.

Quite often the real purpose of "being social" is to protect others from their own small-mindedness. Such is the case when mothers are pressured to avoid nursing in public.

So being authentic — even when it seems "anti-social" — may actually be more social, because it creates opportunities for others to question their limiting beliefs.
When you honor Who You Really Are — and you look beyond others' disempowering beliefs to honor Who THEY Really Are — you contribute to the greater good of society.
Today, whenever you choose authenticity over conventional sociality, decide that you are being social... They just don't know it yet! :)

Archives for "THE DAILY GROOVE" can be found HERE. 

All Natural Play Clay

Marmee taught preschool for many, many years, and used to make homemade playdough for us, all the time! - I forgot how easy and fun it is! Plus with homemade... you no exactly what's in it No worries about funky ingredients or toxic colorings! So, if some ends up in your curious toddler’s mouth.... it's perfectly fine! (though the taste probably won’t be much to her liking)

The October 2009 issue* of Family Fun Magazine recently contained an excellent recipe for All Natural Play Clay. I especially like this one, because you don't have to have cream of tartar on hand. ... nor do you have to cook anything. And since there is no stove involved... children can be part of making it too!

The other part of the article, that really caught my attention, was the tips on coloring the dough, using common [natural] kitchen ingredients, such as cocoa powder, beet juice, paprika or turmeric! Hmm...I wonder what other colors we could figure out...? Perhaps, blueberry juice for purple... ??

*if you happen to own a copy of this magazine, the article can be found on page 18 of the issue.)

Ingredients
1 C flour
3/8 C salt
1 T vegetable oil
Natural Dye (see below for colors)
Directions
In a bowl, combine flour and salt. Pour in oil & natural dye and stir well. Knead dough for a few minutes. If clay is too soft, add a bit more flour. Store the clay in air tight containers in the refrigerator.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Natural Dye:
Brown: 3/8 C plus 1 T hot water, 4 T cocoa powder
Fuchsia: 3/8 C hot beet juice
Orange: 3/8 C hot water & 1 T paprika
Yellow: 3/8 C hot water & 1 tsp. turmeric

• Here’s a link to the online recipe. It’s almost the same as the magazine recipe, but the magazine recipe included a tablespoon of vegetable oil too... as well as those natural dyes I mentioned! :-)
  
• In light of the season, this is one I definitely want to try... a recipe for Pumpkin Pie Play Dough... Mmm!!
  
• Arm & Hammer even has a cool pdf where you can get ideas on how to use your play clay. Their version is slightly different but if you want a little longer lasting it would work too. Click HERE for that PDF

People for Change

This *excellent* article was written by my 16 year old brother-in-law, for our local Young Conservatives Blog. ~ Good job, Dave! I'm SO proud of you!!!

(courtesy of)

Old-Fashioned play

(courtesy of)

Especially in light of KB's birthday coming up... and the eyebrows being raised, as to the simple items we requested... I wanted to share this excellent article on npr about all the benefits of "Old-Fashioned play'. Before all the commercialism, the focus of play was on an activity rather than an object... and used imagination & make-believe - which in turn developed critical cognitive skills & emotional development, among other things.

Chudacoff's recently published history of child's play argues that for most of human history what children did when they played was roam in packs large or small, more or less unsupervised, and engage in freewheeling imaginative play. They were pirates and princesses, aristocrats and action heroes. Basically, says Chudacoff, they spent most of their time doing what looked like nothing much at all.

"They improvised play, whether it was in the outdoors… or whether it was on a street corner or somebody's back yard," Chudacoff says. "They improvised their own play; they regulated their play; they made up their own rules."

Even I remember - though I am not that old - being sent out into the backyard for hours. to play. - Just us six or seven kids, a tire swing, a simple swing set (consisting of one swing & a slide), various discarded household items (several pots & pans, an old cinnamon broom, some wood, etc), a few balls & Frisbee's, good ol' Mother nature.... and our [extremely] creative imaginations. And while it may not seem like much, now... we honestly thought we had the world. We ended up having so many awesome adventures out in that seemingly giant back yard! It became a home to be kept.... a jungle to be explored... a castle to storm.... mystery to be solved... or one of many other exciting places to be discovered. A stick became a sword, bow & arrow or some other prop... wood became floors, planks, and who knows what else... berries & other foliage became food , medicine, decorations, clues, etc... vines got twisted as jewelry & crowns... and in and among the trees were our forts, castles, "clubhouses"... :-) But most importantly, as our minds grew... so did our sibling relationships. ~ We grew together as friends... a unit... a team! Sure there were instance where we didn't get along... or that we pined to get inside out of Florida heat! But as any person wanting to keep their sanity whilst residing in a tiny 600sq feet and managing 7 little ones (age 10 to baby) running around.... there were many times the moms laid down the law... and for the most part, we didn't seem mind at all. ~ I still think fondly of this one tree that I would climb - nestling myself comfortably in the branches, just to get away for a few minutes & think. Yes indeed, those were the simpler times....

Do you know what you're signing?

This was way too good to pass up! ~
Copied from my sister's Facebook....

Autism vs. vaccines...

Recently, a friends sent me a link to an article, reporting on the court ruling against parents with autistic children. We have discussed the whole pro/cons to vaccinating before, and he thought I'd be interested. The article stated, vaccines are not to blame for their children's neurological disorder. (AOL article here). As a non-vaxing parent, with a autistic sister... here's my response back to him. (which I hope is comprehensible. My head is swimming, and I always have the hardest time sorting those thoughts into intelligible sentences.)...

I agree. Vaccinations *don't* CAUSE autism. BUT, I do believe that vaccinations *do* bring out the results of a genetic disorder which causes autism. And unfortunately, we do not have the testing or knowledge available to know which children are going to be affected, until it's too late.

Besides, the same ridiculous argument could be made for cancer. Considering that [approx] 98% of the death certificates for cancer patients don't list cancer as the cause of death... it's usually pneumonia, heart failure, or the like... you could claim that cancer doesn't kill. When in reality, it's all cause & effect.

Besides, I have learned to take news sources with a grain of salt. I have learned that they do tend to be somewhat one-sided... and usually heavily persuaded by the money-making, scare tactics of the "Big Pharm". Which unfortunately, also seem to be all about treating the symptoms, rather than the cause. Just because a court ruled that in this instance a vaccine (MMR in this case) didn't cause this case of autism, it does not mean that straight across the board it doesn't and hasn't happened. My sister is just one example. Christina, Heather & I were all vaccinated as children.. H & I are fine.... Christina is not. One of her symptoms of her disorder is her wheat allergy. Becca, and now we are finding out, KB also have those symptoms. However (thankfully), neither of them have been vaccinated. Could you imagine what would life be like, had mom & I not followed our hearts & studied it out? You just don't know... you **can't* know. And to me, that risk is not worth taking.

Sarah Palin!

Seems that the vice-presidential nominee, Gov. Sarah Palin is not only extremely pro-life... but she's also a babywearer and an Breastfeeding (& pumping) mommy!!! Meaning that for at least for a few months, breastfeeding and babywearing are going to be front and center for people to see!! Yay!!

(photo courtesy of AP)

(photo courtesy of AP)

(photo courtesy of the State of AK)

(photo courtesy of the State of AK)

(photo courtesy of the State of AK)

Article: Palin Will Indeed Bring The Breast Pump

Any publicity for AP is sweet, I love it when celebs and politicians come out and show that it's great and entirely possible to keep baby close!