How to Weigh In

I can't believe I was doing it wrong all these years. We must get the word out.

- LT
(Thank you reader Deb from Seattle!)

Are Kids Parties Out of Control? Answer - YES.

Yes, yes and double yes in my opinion. I read this article today from

Time.com.

and this just fuels my irritation at the cost of kid's birthday parties. You should see the pressure the parents in Los Angeles are under to top the next little friend's party. It's just crazy. I actually felt GUILTY for NOT having a big blowout for my daughter's one year old party. We had two small dinner with relatives and a couple of friends and she had a great time. Isn't this what it's all about?

I did go somewhat overboard on my oldest child's parties and after the last one (he is 3) my fellow mamasnapper and I turned to each other and vowed 'never again!' We're going to Disneyland with ONE friend or something like that. So there's my rant for the day. Listen up parents - take that money and put it in a college fund - we're going to need it for the price of college which is skyrocketing. My advice - make some cupcakes and play pin the tail on the donkey (remember that game?) and create a memory instead of joining the race for 'best party of the year for a one year old!' Your thoughts?

- LT

Consumer report recalls car seat study!

Consumer Reports recalls car seat study
Non-profit group retracts study after government finds problem with
standards used; will issue new report.
By Christian Zappone, CNNMoney.com staff writer
POSTED: 3:28 p.m. EST, January 18, 2007

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Consumer Reports, the consumer product
testing magazine, announced Thursday that is withdrawing a recent
report on rear-facing infant car-seats.

That report alleged that several infant car seats failed crash tests
performed using tougher standards than tests used by the federal
government's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

The initial report was released in January 5 and was reported on
CNNMoney that day. (Read the original story.)

Consumer Reports made the announcement after receiving information
Tuesday night and Wednesday morning from NHTSA that raised questions
about whether tests conducted by the non-profit group accurately
simulated the conditions they were supposed to.

"Our initial review of the Consumer Reports testing procedures
showed a significant error in the manner in which it conducted and
reported on its side-impact tests," said NHTSA Administrator Nicole
Nason in a statement posted on the agency's Website.

"The organization' s data show its side-impact tests were actually
conducted under conditions that would represent being struck in
excess of 70 mph, twice as fast as the group claimed," said Nason.

"When NHTSA tested the same child seats in conditions representing
the 38.5 mph conditions claimed by Consumer Reports, the seats
stayed in their bases as they should, instead of failing
dramatically, " she said.

Consumer Reports crash-tested 12 infant-seat brands, including
models made by Evenflo, Graco and Baby Trend, and found that 10
didn't provide adequate protection.

The car seats have already passed federal government crash tests,
which are conducted from the front at 30 miles per hour.

Consumer Reports said it will publish a new report with "any
necessary revisions" as soon as possible.

In the meantime, Consumer Reports urges motorists to remember any
child seat is better than no child seat and to suspend judgment on
the merits of individual brands until the new report is released.

Survivor!

This has been circulating for a while but I still get a laugh out of it everytime I read it.

THE NEXT SURVIVOR SERIES

Six married men will be dropped on an island with one car and 3 kids each for six weeks.

Each kid will play two sports and either take music or dance classes.

There is no fast food.

Each man must take care of his 3 kids; keep his assigned house clean, correct all homework, complete science projects, cook, do laundry, and pay a list of "pretend" bills with not enough money.

In addition, each man will have to budget in money for groceries each week.

Each man must remember th e birthdays of all their friends and relatives, and send cards out on time.

Each man must also take each child to a doctor's appointment, a dentist appointment and a haircut appointment. He must make one unscheduled and inconvenient visit per child to the Urgent Care (weekend, evening, on a holiday or right when they're about to leave for vacation). He must also make cookies or cupcakes for a social function.

Each man will be responsible for decorating his own assigned house, planting flowers outsid e and keeping it presentable at all times.

The men will only have access to television when the kids are asleep and all chores are done.
There is only one TV between them, and a remote withdead batteries.

Each father will be required to know all of the words to every stupid song that comes on TV and the name of each and every character on cartoons.

The men must shave their legs, wear makeup daily, which they will apply to themselves either while driving or making three lunches.

Each man will have to make an Indian hut model with six toothpicks, a tortilla and one marker; and get a 4 year old to eat a serving of peas.

Each man must adorn himself with jewelry, wear uncomfortable yet stylish shoes, keep their nails polished and eyebrows groomed. The men must try to get through each day without snot, spit-up or barf on their clothing.

During one of the six weeks, the men will have to endure severe abdominal cramps, back aches, and have extreme, unexplained mood swings but never once complain or slow down from other duties. They must try to explain what a tampon is for when the 6-yr old boy finds it in the purse.

They must attend weekly school meetings, church, and find time at least once to spend the afternoon at the park or a similar setting.

He will need to read a book and then pray with the children each night without falling asleep, and then feed t hem, dress them, brush their teeth and comb their hair each morning by 7:00. They must leave the home with no food on their face or clothes.

A test will be given at the end of the six weeks, and each father will be required to know all of the following information: each child's birthday, height, weight, shoe size, clothes size and doctor's name. Also the child's weight at birth, length, time of birth, and length of labor, each child's favorite color, middle name, favorite snack, favorite song, favorite drink, favorite toy, biggest fear and what they want to be when they grow up.

They must clean up after their sick children at 2:00 a.m. and then spend the remainder of the day tending to that child and waiting on them hand and foot until they are better.

They must have a loving, age appropriate reply to,"You're not the bossof me."

The kids vote them off the island based on performance.
The last man wins only if...he still has enough energy to be intimate with his spouse at a moment's notice.

If the last man does win, he can play the game over and over and over again for the next 18-25 years...eventually earning the right to be called Mother!

Eating at the table for more then 8 seconds

Question: How can I get my child to sit still long enough to eat dinner?

Does anyone have this problem too??? I cannot get my 3.5 year old to sit down and eat more then about 4 bites. I have tried so many ways of trying to get her to stay put- I try to make the food look interesting- dinosaur shaped pancakes, patterns with vegetables or fruits, colorful pastas, alphabet pastas, christmas tree shaped pastas....She would rather run circles around the house and say "mommy?" 47 times in a row and have pretty much nothing to say EVERY time I respond. If she DOES sit at the table it is because she wants to sit on my lap and pick at MY food- which by the way is usually the same thing she is having, but for some reason is more appealing because it is mine.
Here is a blurb from Babycenter.com that may help you and hopefully me!

"Answer: A very young child has about a 15-minute attention span; a preschooler, a little longer. A meal that stretches any longer may leave your child bored and restless and wandering away from the table. So you've got a small window of time in which to feed him. Once that window closes, it may be difficult to get your child to focus on eating again, regardless of how hungry he is. When one family I know eats out at restaurants, they order their kids' meals as an appetizer so the children will be served first.

And since children this age are easily distracted, it's helpful to turn off the TV and stow the video games during meal times. It may be easier to get your child to stay at the table he can watch a video during the meal, but he'll be too distracted by the action to pay attention to his body signals and it will be harder for him to tell if he's full or still hungry.

If your child regularly claims that he's not hungry, make sure he isn't snacking too close to dinner. I suggest scheduling at least two hours between snacks and meals for younger children. If he snacks at 4 o'clock and you put dinner on the table at 5, there's a good chance your child will just pick at his meal. Try pushing his snack back to 3, or serve dinner at 6."

Another suggestion from mamasnap is limit the amount of liquids your child drinks before dinner. My daughter would only drink juice if I let her. She drinks it, gets full- or feels full anyway, and won't eat solids. I now let her have a glass of milk AFTER she eats. There is pretty much NO WAY she will sit at the table if she has had anything to drink before hand.
I have to admit that I occasionally let her eat breakfast in front of the TV- because she is distracted I am able to get more food into her. Zombie bites. Isn't that horrible?!!!!! But, hey, I have a 29 pound 3 1/2 year old ad I worry that she isn't eating enough. BUT this is another subject all together...

-SBH

10 out of 12 Car Seats Fail!

This makes me crazy. Having now owned 3 different carseats and spending hundreds of dollars on carseats, I find out that 10 out of the 12 car seats just tested failed even in very low mileage tests.

Consumer reports just came out with this study in their new magazine. One chair did so badly, they recommended a recall on it - Evenflo Discovery Chair, but the two that didn't fail were the Graco Snugride with EPS and the BabyTrend Flex Loc.

The Good
Baby Trend Flex-Loc Adjustable Back
Graco Snugride with EPS

The Bad
Chicco KeyFit
Peg Perego Primo Viaggio SIP
Compass I410
Evenflo Embrace
Britax Companion
Graco SafeSeat
Safety 1st Designer
Combi Centre ST
Evenflo Discovery
Eddie Bauer Comfort

Here's the whole story. Any seat is better than no seat - but it's better to buy wisely mama's. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070105/ap_on_he_me/infant_seats

- LT

Kids At Home= Eating More Fat

What better way to start off the new year then to perseverate over being fat? Here is an interesting article by Anne Harding that I came across....hmmm...food for thought...hahaha

Adults living with young children eat significantly more fat than grown-ups with no kids at home, a new study shows.

Adults with kids consumed nearly 5 more grams of fat and 1.7 more grams of saturated fat every day, the equivalent of an individual pepperoni pizza a week, Dr. Helena Laroche of the University of Iowa in Iowa City and her colleagues found. Adults living with children younger than 17 also ate more salty snacks, cheese, beef, ice cream, cakes and cookies, pizza, and processed meats like bacon.

Busy schedules and time constraints may be forcing parents to choose more high-fat convenience foods, Laroche and her team suggest in their article in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine. Adults with children may also be more likely to keep these foods around the house because they think kids like them.

"We need to approach nutrition as good for the whole family," Laroche told Reuters Health. "Everybody should be eating the same nutritious food."

She and her colleagues analyzed data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a nationally representative sample that included 6,660 men and women aged 17 to 65.

Households with children younger than 17 didn't consume more calories, but they did eat more fat, Laroche and her colleagues found.

"These findings suggest that food advertising aimed at children may influence not only the child's diet but also indirectly affect parents' diets," they note in their report. The authors suggest switching kids to lower-fat milk after age 2, as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Heart Association, as well as limiting snack food, cheese products, and pizza.

SOURCE: Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, online January 4, 2007.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all!
The two Mamasnaps are enjoying the holidays with their families and will be back soon to dish you some more great stuff!!!!!!!