Being Sara

This past weekend we carved pumpkins with Xander. This was by far, our messiest pumpkin carving experience yet (Zach and I have been carving pumpkins since we were in college, so about 8 years now). Xander has an ear infection, and has been quick to anger lately, but on Saturday, he enjoyed pumpkin carving for about 45 minutes. He had a blast looking into the carved out pumpkins, munching on raw pumpkin, and of course, stepping into the pumpkins.

I want to make it clear - Xander was trying to get into the pumpkin - we didn’t encourage this behavior (this year). When we were about half way through carving, Xander had had enough. Zach and I finished our pumpkins as quickly as possible (taking turns), and as soon as we were done, we whisked Xander off to the bathtub. It’s a fun family tradition, and I anticipate that with each year, Xander will hopefully enjoy the process more and more!

I think the week after Xander’s birthday, he blossomed into a toddler. It feels like one week he was still our baby - we were carrying him around, feeding him baby food with a baby spoon, and he pretty much accepted what we were doing and where we were going. Then, he learned how to walk with shoes on, and figured out that with shoes on his feet, Mom and Dad would let him walk around outside. For a few days we were able to hold his hands and he was content to walk with us, pointing out interesting things, and walking where we wanted to walk.

Then he decided that he’d had enough of being guided around - he wanted to go where he wanted to go. If we try to take his hand and point him in a different direction, he pulls out the peaceful protest move and simply picks up his legs and or just sits down. Then we are forced to pick him up and carry him which of course elicits loud screams from Xander, which makes anyone around us give us the “are you a bad parent?” glare.

The amount of change Xander has gone through in the past month or so just amazes me. It’s as usual, a bittersweet transition - we are so excited to watch him develop into his own little person. At the same time, we had just gotten comfortable with the previous setup, and as usual, we are forced to continually adapt to meet Xander’s latest development.

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As Xander started getting closer to the one year mark, I began wondering about car seat arrangement. The law in New Hampshire (and from what I can gather, it’s similar in many places) is that children have to be at least one year old, and weight at least 20 pounds before they can ride in a front-facing car seat. That seemed to be a pretty simple rule, and I was looking forward to seeing how Xander reacted to the new perspective.

Then I started to notice things. For example, the two babies who go to Xander’s day care who are 6 months and 1 month older than him both still sit in rear-facing car seats. This confused me a bit. The car seat we have, a Britax Decathlon convertible seat can hold up to 33 pounds rear facing. Why would that extra 13 pounds matter? I also found a few websites that talk about the benefits of keeping kids in rear facing seats as long as possible. CarSafety.org is an excellent place for information on this subject. They talk about why rear-facing car seats are better, and what can happen during car crashes in rear vs. front facing seats. This site also says that the American Association of Pediatrics recommends keeping kids rear facing for as long as possible. The AAP recommends that kids be at least 20 pounds and 1 year old. They say that IF your seat allows for higher weights, and your kid’s head is at least an inch below the top of the seat, then rear facing allows for “optimal protection”.
Finally, I spoke with our doctor. He said that it is fine for Xander to sit front-facing, as children’s center of gravity becomes lower after they reach 1 year and are the appropriate weight. He explained that the higher center of gravity is the concern for babies, but as that lowers, the need to sit in a rear-facing seat also lowers. He also said that if possible, the center back seat is the safest.

Since Xander is now 23 pounds, and almost 30 inches tall, we decided to flip his seat around to front-facing. He meets all of the requirements, and his legs were starting to scrunch up in the rear-facing position. Xander seems to enjoy the front-facing position, and we can certainly interact more easily with him this way. He has truly become a toddler in the past few weeks, and the change is amazing!

Just a quick comment about this picture - this was taken after Xander’s birthday party - he slept for maybe 45 minutes that morning, and this was 5pm with no nap, and we were on our way to another party - he was worn out, but his mood was still happy!

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Xander’s first birthday party went quite well I think. The weather looked a little iffy at first, but then the sun came out, and we spent most of the afternoon outside. In hindsight, this was quite fortutious as it turned out that Xander had a lot of fun shaking cake off of his hands and into the crowd… (video to be supplied soon…) and I’m very glad I didn’t have to clean that off my floor or walls! The cake was definitely the highlight for me, but Xander also received a ridiculous amount of gifts. Since we invited a large crowd, I suppose it was to be expected.

He got lots of great clothes (mostly from his grandparents - both sides) and some excellent toys - ones that make noise, ones that have wheels, and some balls. All perfect for him. Some family and friends who had not yet met Xander made the trip, which was awesome. We ended up with about 30 people at our house - another reason we were grateful for the improved weather - our house was pretty cozy with all of those people inside! So, after the barbecue and cupcakes (I forgot to put out the ice cream…) we did presents and then people slowly started to leave as Xander and the other kids there played with his new toys.

By 5pm everyone was gone. We did a rush picking up of the house, packed Xander into the car and drove to our sister-in-law’s surprise 30th birthday party. It was quite convenient to get her out of the house for the party setup by having her come to our party, and she was completely surprised. Xander was exhausted and slept the whole way in the car. He perked up when we got there, and didn’t crash again until about 9pm, when we left. One would have expected him to sleep pretty soundly after the busy day, two parties, and very little napping, but no - he managed to get in plenty of tossing and turning, our constant motion child…