Being Sara

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!

toddler, baby, parent, parents, parenting, mother, mothers, motherhood, car seat, car seats, rear facing car seats, front facing car seats, car safety, American Association of Pediatrics, Britax

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…

Our first year together started at 6:39 pm on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006. It was an exhausting meeting for all parties involved - mostly because it took us 36 hours to get there! But the first meeting was wonderful, and the newest addition to our family was absolutely adorable.

The first 3 months had some ups and downs - it took us a while to get a good sleeping schedule figured out (about 6 months…) and a while to get a good feeding schedule figured out (about 4 months, and then a month later, Xander weaned himself…) But all-in-all, we were quite pleased and surprised at how lucky we had gotten with our son. He didn’t cry excessively, he loved to stand, he hated tummy time, but he loved to cuddle. He had crazy, unmanageable hair, and the cutest face we’d ever seen.

At 4 months Xander started day care. They whipped him into shape in a hurry. In no time, he had a great schedule, slept well during the day, and was easier to predict when he would eat both day and night. His hair was still a little crazy, but we were starting to figure it out. The holidays were fast approaching, and we spent lots of quality time with family for a few weeks. Xander still hated tummy time, but he started to sit up on his own. Almost immediately after figuring out how to sit up, he started to bounce - especially when he heard music - this is still one of my favorite Xander quirks. About this time Xander really started to develop his personality. He began to drool like crazy, and teeth started to poke through shortly after. Toys became fun, and he slowly started to entertain himself. Bath time in the sink without the baby tub was also fun (until he started splashing everything and every one in a 5 foot radius…). We left him with family for the first significant amount of time at the end of his 5th month. A week away - he did well, but boy were we happy to be reunited!

Months 6-9 brought all kinds of exciting developmental milestones. Xander finally figured out how to roll over, and in what seemed like no time at all, he was crawling! Mobility made a huge difference for the little guy, and he began to enjoy having some control over where he was going. Food was also an adventure. Rice cereal was never a big hit in our house, but with a little trial and error we found plenty of exciting foods that Xander would eat.

9-12 months has been a perfection of some old skills, and addition of a few new ones. Now that Xander is getting better with textured food we’ve begun a game - what won’t Xander eat? So far, we haven’t found anything (that is in the approved list of baby foods of course) that he won’t eat - we’ve tried lemons, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, celery, pasta, garlic flavored pasta, rice, hamburg, oranges, bananas, apples, and lots of other foods that I can’t think of at the moment. So far, he’ll eat anything! As Xander got faster and more experienced with crawling, he soon discovered that stairs are lots of fun If you’ve read my blog much, then you might have heard that last month Xander started walking - very exciting. Now we are shifting from having a baby to having a toddler. Xander is bathing in the bath tub now. He’s eating adult food and drinking milk instead of formula. We’re still adjusting to having a little boy in the house instead of a baby, but we’re learning and loving it! It’s been a heck of a year, quite an education, and I consider myself incredibly lucky that everything has gone so smoothly!

baby, babies, infant, infants, toddler, toddlers, baby’s first birthday, first birthday, 12 months, parent, parents, parenting, mother, mothers, motherhood, first year

This was one of those instances where even though there was absolutely nothing you could do to prevent it, you still feel like a bad parent. We were at the in-law’s house, and I was playing with Xander on the floor. He crawled away, so I crawled after him. Eventually, I stretched out on the floor on my stomach, and Xander crawled back to me. He used my back to stand up, and thought that was pretty funny. Then, he lunged forward, and of course I couldn’t see well or reach him, and he plunged his face into the linoleum floor.

He cried of course, but I didn’t realize anything was wrong until I picked him up and there was blood in his mouth and on his upper lip. For a few minutes, we couldn’t figure out if he had bit his lip, or bumped his nose, but eventually we were able to track down the source. Xander continued crying for quite a while, and we managed to sop up most of the blood. I got some on my clothes, and he got a little on his pants, but over all, it wasn’t as messy as it could have been. Nevertheless, I felt awful. Xander got his first bloody nose on my watch, the poor little guy.

Of course, with Zach and me for parents, he’s probably doomed to plenty of other injuries throughout his childhood, we can’t put him in a bubble, so I guess we’ll just have to take the knocks as they come…

I know a few weeks ago I said that Xander had taken his first steps, which is true. But we had a tough time convincing Xander to take anymore steps, and the ones that he did take were incredibly unstable. Then last week he finally got his balance under control and set off across the living room! The first time he did it, I was in the shower, and Zach watched him take 17 steps. Since then he’s toddling all over the place, though when he really wants to get somewhere, he uses crawling as his preferred mode of travel.
I’ve got to say that watching Xander walk is one of the cutest things I’ve seen so far, and he seems so proud of himself. Often he sticks his tongue out, maybe for concentration, or perhaps just excitement, but either way it’s super cute. Now we’re trying to practice in shoes, but that’s a bit slower going, as Xander’s balance still isn’t great yet. At any rate, he officially started walking at 11 months, and I’m sure it won’t be long before we’ll be chasing after the little guy!babies, baby, baby steps, baby walking, development, developmental milestones, first steps, mother, motherhood, mothers, parent, parenting, parents, toddler, toddling, walking