This is what 16 grains of rice looks like.  It doesn’t sound like much until you say, “When he blew his nose, 16 grains of rice came out.”  Then it sounds like more; especially when the “he” is your 2 year old.  It was one of those too quiet moments when I became suspicious and checked on my little man to find him quietly sitting at his rice table, pushing rice up is nose.  There was no doubt what he’d been doing, “Rice up nose” he said.  After I told him “we don’t put rice up our nose” I had him blow his nose.  Thankfully he is a good nose blower.  After a couple more sneezes and nose blows, I counted 16 grains of rice.  I almost took a picture of the tissue to post, but then I got grossed out.  So, here is a representation of the 16 grains of rice that my son stuffed up his nose.

When my son was 6 months old, it became obvious that his infant carseat was not going to last until he was a year old.  I began searching for a convertible carseat.  The Alpha Omega Elite from Costco seemed to be a super bargain.  We brought one home and then tried to install it.  It was way to big for us to use rear facing in our cars.  I started searching for a seat that would work in our Outback and allow me to ride shotgun without my knees crammed into the dash.

I started reading more and more about carseats and why children should remain rear facing as long as possible; it’s safer!  I found the perfect post on the  car-seat.org forum.  The Maxi-Cosi Priori was the perfect carseat for us and Target had them in stock, but it was more money than we had originally intended to spend on a carseat.  When we got to Target I pulled all the covers off the carseats to expose their shell and foam.  Carseats all have to pass the same tests, but they are not all created equal.  It was an eye opener.  I pointed out, “We wouldn’t have a problem spending $200 on a laptop that was going to last us 2-4 years.  Isn’t his safety worth at least that much?”

When we got the seat home it was amazing.  It came with push button LATCH clips which made installation a breeze.  It had a base that flipped so that no pool noodles or rolled up towels were needed to reach the correct incline.  To top it off, my son smiled when we strapped him in.

Over the last year and a half, I’ve watched him grow to fill more and more of the seat.  The top of his head is getting close to being within the limit of 1 inch from the top.   I know we’ll have to turn him around soon, or get a bigger car with a bigger carseat.  I feel lucky that I found the car-seat.org forums and have been able to keep my son rear facing as long as we have.  Even thought I’m not currently in the market for a carseat, I’ve put the carseatblog on my regular reading list.  I hope that others will find the information at car-safety.org as helpful and informative as I have.

When I had to return to the office part time my son, then 7 months, decided he did not want anything to do with a bottle.  We bought a ton of sippy cups to see what he would use.  We had tried several without success before I tried to drink from them.  I can drink a thick milkshake through a straw, but I could not get any water from a sippy cup with its valve in.  Once we removed the valves from the cups, he happily drank from all of them.  We modified the Take n’ Toss cups by drilling holes in the lids.

Finding flexible shoes that allow little feet to move is a challenge.  Walmart, Fred Meyer, & Burlington Coat Factory have moccasin like training shoes with rubber grip on the bottom designed by Trimfoot Co.  After touching a lot of baby shoes my favorite are See Kai Run shoes.  They are leather and have very flexible soles.  If you search online I’m sure you’ll find some on sale like I did.

We work ASL into our vocabulary when speaking with our son.  I learned a few signs from the ASL Browser; more, food, drink.  We started using those when he began to eat solids.  In January I discovered our local library has a collection of Signing Time videos.  Our son enjoys watching the videos.  His favorites are Leah’s Farm and Zoo Train; the ones with animals.  A new sign language video dictionary, Signing Savvy, came online in January.  It has a larger sign collection and videos which can be played in slow motion.  You can pay for access to larger videos and more features but the free & registered access is sufficient for us.