Being Sara

Parker & "Uncle Peegee"

Dear Squeaky,

Somehow you have developed into a little person who can survive on 20 minute naps.  I know others have tried this method and found it successful.  Your father and I are not those people.  We function much, much better with 8 or more hours of sleep – straight.  We can still function pretty well on 5, and if we have to, on 4.  However, the 3 hours you’ve been allotting us for the past 3 days is not really helpful.  You see, my bosses don’t find it cute or endearing when I fall asleep in meetings.  I’ve walked into more doorways than I can count because I’m too tired to pay attention to where I am going.  I put bread in the microwave and rice in the bread drawer.   I’ve walked into every room of our house looking for a pair of socks I had been carrying at one point (still no clue where I left them…).  For a period of time yesterday I couldn’t remember how to spell the word “reciprocate”.  I love the fact that you’re sleeping two or more hours at a time during the day, but I’m not around to take advantage of that time.  Unless you want us to sell you to some band of Gypsies (since they are known for staying up all night dancing and partying anyway), then I think it would be an excellent idea if you tried sleeping for longer stretches of time.

Love,

Mommy (who is on the verge of sleep deprivation psychosis)

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It’s hard for me to believe that Parker is 6 months old today.  I can still remember him kicking around in my belly, still remember the excitement I felt the night before he was born, that morning that Zach and I got up before the sun and drove to the hospital.  I remember how nervous I felt, how the epidural gave me the shakes, and then holding my breath while the doctors gave Parker his first APGAR score.  I can remember holding him for the first time, and snuggling with that little baby burrito for hours and hours.  I remember a million more moments after that, but those moments don’t seem so long ago.

Parker is growing so fast.  He is already asserting his personality, and he is quite capable of telling us the things that he likes and the things that he doesn’t.  At six months, Parker likes the following: Bouncing or jumping, waking up  in the morning (always with smiles), cloth or soft toys to chew on, being tickled, bananas, apples, pears, peaches, carrots, squash and sweet potatoes, biter biscuits, his brother, his father, his mother, Mac screensavers, his hands and feet, rolling over, and standing or sitting in the grass.

Parker does not like the following: Being ignored, being alone, green beans, peas, loud noises, falling asleep, teething and getting buckled into his car seat.

Every new milestone is bittersweet for me.  I’m so excited to see what Parker will do next, and I can’t wait to meet the little boy he is turning into.  On the other hand, every day he grows farther and farther away from that curled up little burrito that I fell in love with six months ago.  I know that I’m not going to have any more children, so that was my last chance to enjoy all those infant moments.  As happy as I am to know that there will be a day that my whole family will sleep through the night, and that someday we will be done changing diapers, a part of me will always miss those moments with the baby versions of my children.

So, happy six-month birthday little man – you make me happy every day and continually surprise me with your antics.  And even though you are growing faster than I am ready for, know that you will always be my baby.

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I know most babies are supposed to start rolling over sometime around 4 or 5 months.  Xander was 7 months old before he figured it out and boy was I stressed out that he had some sort of delay betweens months 4 and 7!  Of course he doesn’t – he is just fine, but you couldn’t convince my “new mom” head that everything was going to be ok.

Luckily, I’ve already gotten most of that stress out of the way, so the fact that Parker isn’t quite rolling over at 5 months hasn’t started my worry meter yet.  He is much more patient with tummy time than Xander was, but as you’ll see from the picture, Parker is more interested in rolling when he starts from his back.  The day we took this picture we were certain he was finally going to get all the way over – he was so close!  He just keeps getting stuck on that darn shoulder.  I just know he’s going to get it figured out any day now – I can’t believe how fast he’s growing!  Wasn’t he just recognizing my face just a few weeks ago?

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If it’s not one thing, it’s another.  The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics released a study on baby shampoos.  It turns out that several major baby product companies use both formaldehyde and 1,4 dioxane to make their shampoos.  The EPA classifies formaldehyde as a “probable human carcinogen” and 1,4 dioxane as a “group B2 probable human carcinogen” (I have no idea what the “group B2″ stands for).  Either way, not only have we been feeding our kids carcinogens in bottles (BPA) but we’ve also been bathing them in it.  Great.

This article at Babble lists the products that tested positive for either chemical.  When I went down through the list, I discovered that we currently have in our house, or have recently used in the past the following cancer-causing shampoos on our kids:

• Aveeno Baby Soothing Relief Creamy Wash
• Equate Tearless Baby Wash
• Huggies Naturally Refreshing Cucumber & Green Tea Baby Wash
• Johnson’s Baby Shampoo
• Johnson’s Moisture Care Baby Wash
• Johnson’s Oatmeal Baby Wash – Vanilla (currently have a huge bottle of this at home…)
• Huggies Soft Skin – Shea Butter

There are a few Johnson’s and Huggies products that are not on this list, such as the Johnson’s Cucumber & Melon baby wash.  Does that mean that this one is ok?  The Huggies version of this product is on the list, why isn’t the Johnson’s version.  Is it “safe” or did it not get tested in the study?

The Babble article also includes a link to SuperEco which has a list of “safe” baby shampoos.  Of course, there is only one in that list that is sold within a 50 mile radius of me…  I’m pretty sure I could find Burt’s Bees organic shampoo if I looked around a bit.  At $9.00 a bottle, that’s a lot more than we currently pay for shampoo for anyone in our family.  Why is it that the safe, healthy stuff always has to cost more?  And why do these companies that we try to trust with our kid’s safety keep adding crap to their products that is so obviously unhealthy for everyone?

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As I’m sure many parents have been reading the past few months, BPA (Bisphenol A), has become a hot topic.  It’s really sort of old news now.  To sum up, BPA is a chemical found in lots of plastics and it’s bad.  Research has shown that we absorb most of the BPA in our systems through food (canned, tupperware containers, bottles, etc.)  Apparently BPA can hang around in your system for a long, long time and cause all sorts of scary problems.  The Wikipedia Entry on BPA is actually quite informative.

The flurry of talk about BPA started sometime last year when the CDC initially decided that the levels of BPA we Americans were injesting was safe.  About the same time, Canada decided to ban BPA from baby bottles.  More studies were done, more debate and discussion ensued.  In Connecticut and New Jersy Attorneys General asked the six biggest baby bottle manufactures to remove the chemical from baby bottles, and they agreed.  So, we (the US) are finally moving the in the right direction when it comes to BPA and baby bottles.

At one of our first check-up appointments for Parker, I asked our pediatrician about BPA-free bottles.  In his always relaxed manner, he said that the next time he is in the market for baby bottles, he will probably replace his current ones.  That seemed like sound logic to me, so I started searching for BPA-free bottles in preparation of the day we would introduce a bottle to Parker.  It turns out they aren’t easy to find in my area.  I ended up ordering the Avent bottles from Amazon.

At first, I was little weirded out by the slightly honey-colored tint the bottles have, but according to Avent, that’s how BPA-free bottles look, and now I don’t even notice it.  I think BPA-free bottles were the right choice for us, and I felt good about omitting this potentially hazardous chemical from my son’s meals.  Then my husband asked me about pacifiers.  We went through a lot of trouble to find BPA-free bottles, but what about things like pacifiers, teething rings and all those other things that Parker will eventually put into his mouth?  I removed BPA from the most frequent plastic thing he puts into his mouth right now, but will that matter in a few months when I can’t control everything going into his mouth?  Along those same lines, what about sippy cups?  Xander has an extensive collection of sippy cups and I’m sure all of them contain BPA.  Should we toss all of our sippy cups into the recycling bin and start over?  Would it make a difference now or is it too late already?  Amazon has some nice ones in stock, but it’s not cheap to start over…

So I continue to keep an eye on the news and the information about BPA.  Does it make a difference that we hand wash Parker’s bottles, and that he drinks formula cold, so his bottles never get to a temperature that should be high enough for the BPA to “leach” through?  What do you think?  Should I be the mom who eliminates all plastic toys from my house, and buys only wooden, lead free paint toys?  Or should I continue on the “wait and see” path, and assume (hope) that the steps we’ve taken so far are enough to keep our children healthy?

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