This post is from from my other blog here

Sal’s been hitting his head lately and it’s got me worried. My cousin’s daughter is autistic so I’ve had a fear in the back of my mind that Sal will become autistic too. I’ve also just read that autism is being linked to tv watching - another thing I’m guilty of.

I started doing a little research online today about toddlers who head bang and came across an article that’s made me feel better. The big relief was that Sal’s unlikely to have or develop autism. Dr. Greene gave 3 signs to look for before 18 months. If your kid does these things - Dr. Greene says that the chances are very slim that your child has or will develop autism.

1. Does the child point
2. Does the child follow your gaze
3. Does the child engage in pretend play

They were simple enough signs to look for to give an indication if concerns are meritted. Simple signs. I needed that since it’s easy for me to fly off the handle with concerns.

Dr. Greene also writes on how the child will not hurt themselves or be able to hurt themselves at this age. And that was a big relief too.

If you’ve got a head banger - I’d recommend reading Dr. Greene’s article. It helped me out a lot.

Tags: autism, concerns,

This post is from from my other blog here

There’s not to much question about it - overall most child development resources will strongly advise against television before 2. There’s increased rates of ADD, I’ve recently heard of it possibly being linked to the increase in autism, and overall - it’s just not conducive during this tender age to language development. Any child will know the tv will not respond to anything they say so they become set in a passive mode. I’ve read more books then I care to admit to on development and I clearly know the disadvantages associated to television before 2 years of age.

But - we let Sal watch tv. Salvador was born into a family with 2 parents addicted to tv. I’m not sure he’ll ever know the extent to how much tv we like to watch as we steathily try to hide our tv watching - waiting till he is asleep. Before he was one I was a tv nazi. Zero tv allowed. I sighed heavily when my husband would watch his games and Sal would be around. I tried hopelessly to shield Sal’s eyes when we’d go into a sports bar and televisions would be visible from every angle. Overall - it’s difficult. Television is pervasive - and it sure doesn’t help when your parents are addicted to it too. We’ve given up some tv - mostly since we need a little sleep and waiting till Sal’s asleep doesn’t leave us much tv watching time (Sal isn’t one of those baby’s that likes to sleep…)

Sal’s tv watching started innocently. Talking to my husband’s mom I learned that all her kids watched Sesame Street when they were babies. They all turned out alright - 2 going to Stanford, the other with 2 PhDs - seemed like it couldn’t be all that bad - and what if that helped them just a little, to get them to where they got? Well - I figured 15 minutes here or there of sesame street wouldn’t hurt. I underestimated how our genes might come into play - Sal almost instantly became addicted. He’ll hiss an “s” sound pointing to the tv anxious to watch sesame street. One particularly scary time was when Sal was supposedly taking an unusually long nap in our room - I later found him awake - happily watching a tivo’d episode of sesame street. How he managed to work the remote correctly is still a mystery. Luckily he hasn’t been able to reproduce that feat with any consistency.

Then the mornings got rougher. Sal kept waking up earlier and earlier - and at first - Cris would try to keep him entertained since I was up during the night with him - but then - we both needed a little more sleep so Sesame Street became our easy way to catch a few more z’s in the morning.

We stayed away from the DVD’s too for a while. The baby einsteins just were to expensive and I didn’t quite get what was so great about them - but then a friend asked if we had any DVD’s to borrow while they took a trip and I got to thinking - a couple DVD’s probably would be good to have for emergencies. I started researching. I knew I didn’t want the baby einsteins - I wanted something that maybe got him a little more exposure to letters or numbers (the whole early introduction to academics is a whole other topic that I think I’ll go into in another post another day - I do know that there are a lot of pro’s and cons and yes, have been doing a lot of reading on that too.) Anyways - I found out about “The Letter Factory” through some of the different bulletin boards I lurk on and actually read all 300 amazon reviews (5 stars - pretty phenomenal on amazon to get that many high reviews). Although the DVD is geared for a 2 - 5 year old - I read that a few of the Mom’s with younger kids (15 monthish) seemed to really enjoy the DVD as well and some had even learned the sounds of the letters through watching the DVD. Well - we bought it. Sal loved it - seemed to instantly imitate some of the letters - and soon after we could ask him almost any letter what it “said” and Sal would proudly give us the sound. Problem was - it also added to his tv time.

I still feel guilty for the early introduction. I think a lot of mom’s do. It’s tough - you want to do everything perfectly - yet sometimes getting a few precious moments to yourself can be oh so valuable. I think I used to silently judge those moms that let their babies watch tv. Now I am one of them, and fear those moms that silently (or not so silently) judge us mom’s that haven’t been so perfect. But - my husband’s brought up a good point - a happy mom’s better for the family. And if I’m one of those mom’s that needs a crutch of some tv time to keep my sanity - well - so be it.

This post is from from my other blog here

We can get Sal to sit down if he wants something. Like his toothbrush. He understands he needs to sit before he can get his toothbrush and if he starts to stand, he’ll have to give it up.

But that’s something that is linked with a “reward”. So it seems easier for him to be able to link the cause-effect together.

How does that map onto things that don’t have a reward? How do we train around that?  Yesterday for instance, he wanted to turn on the television. We told him no television. And he looked back at us. And he slowly tilted his head in the direction of the television. Then he signed please. Then he stood straight up, looked us in the eyes, and nodded, very slowly and deliberately, “yes”.

I had to turn away cause I was laughing. It was pretty cute. Moms pointed out that he was not merely repeating our words back to us in signs - as we said no (shaking head) and he was saying yes (nodding head).  So in some ways, he is pretty sure he knows what he’s talking about.

In other ways, he often knows what he doesn’t want to hear either.

This post is from from my other blog here

Upromise is doing a promotion through the end of the year. Get an extra $1 for each meal you have at one of their participating restaurants. Then get another $1 for filling out their dining survey/review after the meal. It is an easy additional 2 bucks that, over 14 years, shouldn’t be too shabby.

It is another testiment to how difficult online community is to develop, that they’ll pay a dollar for each review, huh? Well, I suppose I shouldn’t comment and just take advantage of it. The deal is good for all meals through the end of the year.

This post is from from my other blog here

The Mozart Magic Cube is one of my favorite gifts - his aunt got it for him. Each side of the cube is button - very easy to press. But it is what happens when he presses it that I like the most. The buttons toggle the music of course. One side of the cube is an “orchestra” button, which plays the song. Okay, no big deal so far. It’s the other 5 buttons that I find really interesting.

Each of the other 5 buttons will play a particular instrument. So if you want to hear the song, as only played by the flute, then one presses the flute button. Want to add the french horn to accompany the flute, press the french horn button. Tired of the flute, press the flute button again and you’ll only hear the french horn. Basically, you get to add and remove instruments to the song on the fly by pressing the 5 other instrument buttons.

The other instruments are a piano, french horn, violin, flute and the harp. I’m not really into the harp as a solo instrument, but it does accompany the other instruments well.

The buttons have transparent cutouts as well, so that they light up when the instrument is active. So in the orchestra setting, you can see when the flute is playing because it lights up. I imagine this will help youngster associated types of sounds with the instruments themselves. It helps me do that at least.

Having toys that he likes and I like helps us both out. We’re both more likely to play with them - and play with them together. He’ll get his music cube and we’ll explore the songs and the instruments together. Quite fun for us both.

Tags: magic cube, review, parenting, education

This post is from from my other blog here

…and enjoy the rooms because Sal loves exploring them too.  Last night he found the key to the minibar and gave it to me. I put it on the nightstand and that was that.  Had to cut him off.

This morning, after breakfast, we’re playing around in the room.  He wanted the remote for some TV, but moms is trying to keep him off less than 1 hour a day.  So I gave him back the minibar key and asked him to put it back.

He didn’t head straight back to the minibar, but did get back to the keyhole with the key in around 45 seconds. He didn’t have the coordination to put the key back into the hole but we were pleased he knew where it was supposed to go.

He’s been getting better and better at these longer term memory games. We’ve been playing them more too - hunting and searching for things helps him use his recall abilities. And if he doesn’t know where something is, or if we’ve moved it, he’s starting to establish a “search pattern” skill - to search for things with better and better coverage.  We figure that helps out with his patience and helps him develop the skill of searching for things efficiently.

Once he learns how to open the minibar though, I imagine we’ll have a different set of chalenges to face.

Tags: parenting, activities,

This post is from from my other blog here

Sal knows body parts - can point to his nose, mouth, teeth, ears, belly, knees, hair (?), feet, toes, hands and such. And apparently, he knows something about how they all should be put together - roughly at least.

He was at a counter and since it is getting close to Halloween time, there were decorations out. These decorations included a decapitated head and a little motorized moving severed hand. The first time the hand moved, he glanced at it. But when it started to move again, he didn’t like it. Then saw the head. He was pretty completely disturbed by then.

In research circles, they look for things that get extra attention from babies, to measure interest. And how far out from the norm things are. If things are normal, the babies don’t pay too much extra attention, since there are so many other things to study in the world. I’d guess that younger children, without as complete a mental model of how the world should be, wouldn’t be as startled by the hand and head. They’d just be different objects in the world, without any meaning behind them. As they interact with people more, seeing more faces, giving more high fives, they begin to get a deeper understanding behind what a head and hand should be like.

So we’ll count this up as him knowing body parts should be attached somehow to make a “whole”. And/or he’s not a big fan of the horror genre…

This post is from from my other blog here

I studied the mind a bit through college - cognitive science is a fairly new field that focuses primarily on the mind. But school topics never got as in depth as the experience I’m getting watching our boy grow up.

We learn about the differences between comprehension and production. The way I remember it is that it is easier to understand messages than it is to produce them. When message get transmitted, there are all sorts of stimuli that one can use to form the basic concept of the message. Generating those stimuli so that the receiver will get the right message is more complex. Takes an understanding of communication and some argue, a mental model of the recipient.

So that’s why I question how much Sal “knows”. Part of it is the typical skepticism that I have in life. I want to protect us from projecting my own wants and desires (around his level of development and understanding) upon him. Our testbed recently has been his sign language.

We’re using quite a few signs now and he’s really comfortable using them. Though they aren’t quite perfect. If it was, this journey would hardly be as interesting.

We taught him “please” early on. He would sign “more” and we would ask him to sign “please” and then we’d give him more of whatever he was requesting. But I got the feeling he saw this as just an additional hoop we were asking him to jump through - afterall, the “more” message was pretty clearly delivered. And when he was in a good mood, the “please” sign would be all smiles and sugar and spice…and when he was in other moods, the “please” sign would have a bit of attitude behind it. It could have easily also meant “Now!” or “Do it or I will throw a tantrum” or “I’m only doing this cause you’re asking me and I don’t really mean ‘please’ but it’s the only way I’m going to get what I want, so I’ll do it”.

Yes. He’s got a lot of emotion behind the signs. And/or I’ve got an imagination on overdrive.
Still, the notion of “please” is too abstract for him to appreciate I think. There’s no need for social graces at his age. He doesn’t always recognize himself in pictures or the mirror - so his sense of self isn’t quite developed. Why would he have a sense of social interactions and the need for such pleasantries?

And the sign could just be in response to us saying the word “please” to him. He doesn’t know what it means, just that when we say it, he needs to react a certain way. He’s learned cause and effect, but not really any meaning.

Till, he started signing it on his own. First, probably out of habit. The “more please” set of signs were so frequent, that he probably just optimized the situation and decided that he’ll usually sign both at the same time, since that’s what it usually takes to get what he wants. Sometimes they are even out of order. He’s just doing the necessary signs to get what he wants. At least he knew how to game the system.

Then he started using it in different contexts. When he wanted something for the first time, he started signing “please”. There was no “more” part to it. Or when he needs help with something - “please” is the sign he’s found most helpful. He’s found that other signs don’t get as much interest when he’s struggling with something new. When he wants to reach a new object on a desk, signing “banana” doesn’t get him it. Nor does “more” nor “apple” nor “ride”…because we’ll understand that to mean something else. But when he signs “please” and we have no context, we’ll go out of our way to figure out what it is he’s after - what we can do to help him out, since he’s made such a polite request.

So, he’s learned how to really game the system. Some signs lead to us interacting with him more. Us being more curious about what he means instead of saying “oh, you’ll have to wait till lunch for your apple” we’ll probe him more and introduce him to all sorts of items on the desk until he gets exactly what he wanted. He has gotten much better at manipulating us, one might say.

But I don’t mind - because, after all, isn’t manipulation exactly what communication is all about? Working together to get to the same idea. I’ve been speaking as long as I can “remember” (what were my memories like - what shape did they take before I could talk? I do not know…) and so it’s really natural for me to take it for granted. I think that’s why it’s so fun to watch communication evolve in this little guy…

Tags: parenting, baby sign language, communication

This post is from from my other blog here

I’m a big believer in baby wearing. We followed a lot of the attatchment parenting philosophy - picking and choosing what rung true for us - and one of those things was wearing Sal. It just made sense to me when we were out and about - I wanted Sal nearby so that we could talk and I’d have my hands free - rather then having him stuck way down in some stroller all the time looking at everyone’s knees. The natural motion of the walking was especially nice for him when he was fresh out of the oven since it was a lot closer to the womb experience then being rolled around. When I was out for a quick errand - the last thing I wanted to do was to get a big clunky stroller that would take time to set up - and then be hard to maneuver around. Baby wearing? yeah - big fan. Don’t get me wrong - we use strollers too - but if I have a choice - I’d wear Sal.

There are a ton of baby wearing devices out there - all with their different merits. A couple of areas to consider when choosing your baby wearing device are:

• comfort for you
• comfort for the baby
• ease of use (some of them take a lot of practice)
• flexibility (can you modify how you use the carrier as the baby grows and develops?)
• portability (this may seem odd, but the clunky ones are harder to bring around with you - especially if you’re gonna be strolling and baby wearing depending on your baby’s mood - you want something that you won’t mind bringing along w/ you)
• how long will you be wearing your baby in this (some are better for short term carries, others are better for hikes)
• looks (ok, admit it, some of you like your baby gear to be at least a little cute…)

The Peanut Shell was by far my favorite carrier. It scored high on all these items except I wouldn’t use it for over 1.5 hours personally (I use a stroller usually in these circumstances). It was especially handy since I could use it as a blanket it as well, it was easy to stick in my diaper bag without taking to much room, and Sal and I really were comfortable. We knew many moms and babies who were also addicted to their Peanut Shells as well. We’ve used this since birth and I still use it on Sal who’s 15 months old. It gets trickier w/ a toddler since they are so eager to use those little legs - but Sal will still chill sometimes in his peanut shell and it’s fun to be able to chat away with him.

The real trick to getting the most out of this carrier is the fit. There are different sizes that will roughly map to your shirt size. Don’t be afraid though to email the owner and ask questions on fit or to exchange yours if it doesn’t fit right. It will seem a little small when you first try it - but depending on the type of fabric that you’ve chosen - your baby will expend the pouch and ideally be a little above your hip (to low and you’ll feel this in your back.)

Oh - and in case you’re wondering who’s picture that is in the peanut shell - that’s Sal

Tags: parenting, sling, reviews, peanut shell

This post is from from my other blog here

It’s inevitable that you and your lil’ns gonna be in the kitchen - and sometimes you just need them to keep a bit busy while you’re trying to get things done. Here’s a couple pointers that have helped us out in keeping sal busy and happy in the kitchen (after the obvious baby proofing that needs to be done to keep it safe)

- The non-latched cabinet
Since most of the cabinets will have baby locks on them - it’s especially fun for your lil’n to find a cabinet that is not locked. We fill this one with all sorts of tupperware, spoons, anything that’s safe. Sure sometimes it will look like the cabinet spit up all over your floor when your lil’ns done - as tupperware covers the floor - but it’s good for them to get a chance to explore, manipulate different size containers, bang on them and test out their sounds, etc.

- Refrigerator Magnets
These are a lot of fun for them to move around - an added bonus is to leave a few pots out that they can stick the magnets to as well. The best magnet set which also gives them a good taste of phonics is the LeapFrog letter magnet set. It’s got a catchy little tune for each letter that Sal loves to dance to and he gets to hear the alphabet song.

-Activity Mat and Table
A big hit in this household is a big foam activity mat on the floor that’s easy to wipe off and a table that’s easy for your lil’n to reach. I’ll put Sal’s snacks on the table and he loves going by his table and munching. Sometimes we’ll pretend to cook - taking the wisk and a bowl and a couple other items. It’s funny how fast they’ll pick up on the activity and start to imitate you and pretend play is great for building up their creativity. Another thing that sal loves is if i take a couple of the tupperware pieces - and pour in some rice or dried beans - and it’s like his own little “sand” box that he gets to explore. Since the mats underneath, and I’ve got my dustbuster near by - i don’t need to sweat the mess. It’s pretty quick to clean up.

It’s all about keeping a controlled chaos that we can both enjoy

Tags: kitchen, activities

This post is from from my other blog here

The last time I thought of Play-Doh was from an episode of The Simpsons, where Homer ate a Play-Doh donut to make it into disability.

But when we went shopping for gift bags, we got a set of little Play-Doh tubs and well, once that smell hit me, all sorts of memories came flooding back.

Sal’s not old enough to be completely trusted with the Play-Doh yet, but he has a good time with it when we play together.

Ball!  Pancake!  Hot dog!  To just feeling the Play-Doh squish between his fingers. It is a delight - that I had forgotten a bit myself.

Well, we already have a blog we're working on at Baby Smarts - and I've gone through the process of trying to get its feed in here. Hopefully, it'll be coming through within the 5 days. We've put up the post already that mentions babysmartsdad.minti.com.

But maybe there will be Minti specific things we'll share here. So, hello!

This post is from from my other blog here

Checking out Minti again. They’ve opened up the system to allow external blogs in - one just needs to “claim” their blog by having their username text in the blog somewhere soon. So here it is - babysmartsdad.minti.com. Overall, it is about what was to be expected.

A lot less content than I would have expected, but that has no where to go but up. Makes one realize how difficult it is to create community. They do some nice little touches, like including avatars (though it took a little while for me to decipher what my default avatar (to the right) is. It’s a baby boy - I guess they determine how old your kid is and give you the appropriate icon, but still, it took a while for me to figure out that’s a pacifier and not a pierced clown nose. But it is better than any graphic you’re going to find here…that’s for sure.

They also have little patches (ala the boy scouts) that you earn as you accomplish things. Makes one feel like one should contribute in order to get the next badge, or to gain the next level. It is effective, a little gimmicky, but effective. I want to go and participate more to get more awards. Really. I do.

Just that it is hard to find worthy topics. I searched for Doman, as those the hot toipcs for us right now. Nothing. Nothing on flashcards either. I guess that’s okay - it’d be too scary a cult if everyone knew about the Domans. And then a question I saw asking about biting - the first response was “bite back harder” which is kind of a scary answer. A few answers lower, Izzy had a more reasonable response. So the theory of “there are going to be some wack answers, but if you get the right set of friends, there will be some useful stuff” has got some support so far.

But reading a letter from the founder makes me hope for more. I want them to succeed - because what they are going after is something really useful. It’s just not there yet - but at least they’re passionate about getting it there.

I’ll keep using the site, poking around, trying to add to the community what we can. And of course, whatever interesting articles I find, I’ll share here too.

Tags: web community, minti, parenting

This post is from from my other blog here

It is more expensive at the moment, but we’ve turned the corner and figure that the year pass for the zoo is worth it.  Our local zoo has a yearly pass that is only 5 times the amount of the daily pass. So we make up for it in 5 trips. Plus, the yearly pass is also good for additional discounts at other zoos or parks that our zoo is associated with.
But really, it reduces a lot of the stress about going to the zoo. If his mood changes and we’re not having a good time, since we can come back at anytime, it’s no problem. A lot easier on the mind and all of it’s financial concerns to just spend 20 minutes at the zoo if we know we can come back anytime.

Or, if he’s more interested in watching a water fountain or playing with a balloon than looking at the animals on any particular day, it’s no problem either. Do it. Some other day we’ll focus more on the animals.
Each time we go, there’s something different that interests him and we see that as the big benefit to having the year pass. He gets to explore the zoo at his own pace, following his own interests of the moment. Rather than us trying to check off every animal on the page within 3 hours. If he wants to watch the birds for 2 hours because they are building a nest, cool. If he wants to wait until the lizard actually moves and it takes 20 minutes, no worries.

It fits in nicely with mom’s schedule too. Some days, if there’s nothing going on, they can always just go drop by the zoo and see what’s happening there. It is constant backup plan.
Also, lots of the zoos and such have a refund of your daily admission when upgrading to the year pass - so you can check out the place first.

Tags: parenting

This post is from from my other blog here

Lots of sources mention tailoring your child’s activities to their interests. We agree. But that’s the easy part. The hard part is finding out what interests them. I mean, beyond dirt and such. What games are fun for them. What simple little experiences and activities thrill them. There is no magic set that will work for all kids. Instead, each child with have their own set of interests. So how do we explore that set? Well, serendipity of course.

Please, feel free to comment on any of these activities with your own experiences or suggestions. We’ll add all the suggestions so they can randomly pop up as well. And the full list will always be available as a category.

I’ll cheat on this first activity and go with our bike rides, since I just wrote the review of our Sidecar. I really enjoy the rides now with Sal and look forward to them even more as he grows up. Soon, we’ll chat during the rides in the Sidecar. Then we’ll probably get one of those fake tandem bikes. And then he’ll be on his own bike.

But I see it as more than just a physical activity. We’ll ride to get ice cream. We’ll ride to go to the fish shop to pick up supplies. We’ll ride to the market or for lunch. It’ll be a life style encouraging him (really us) to be active. It’ll be a journey that will develop his sense of direction and a familiarity with our neighborhood. We’ll plot our courses before we leave to learn navigation and mapping. We’ll remember which routes are biker friendly and which aren’t.

But most of all, I’m hoping we’ll have fun through it all.

Tags: parenting, parent child activities

This post is from from my other blog here

At the beginning of this past summer, I felt I needed to get some more exercise. But going out on my own wasn’t a solution, since I also needed to find a way to keep Sal out of mom’s hair a bit more often. I’m not a jogger, though mom did want a jogger. Though she’s not a jogger either. So that didn’t make any sense for us. I’d rather ride a bike. It’d allow us to see more places. So we looked into bike carriers.

I was delighted to find the Chariot Sidecarrier or Sidecar. I like the Sidecar name better, but it seems that the website is calling it a Sidecarrier now. There weren’t many reviews I could find online about the Sidecar, but the few I could find essentially said it was great (most of them) or it was a pain to install (just a couple). Searching now, here’s a site with a few reviews.

I figured we’d take our chances. The positive things going for it: that the kids liked it and some even fell asleep. That was worth the gamble. If I could get Sal out of mom’s hair for a couple of hours and he came back well rested, then everyone would be a winner. Plus I might even get a bit thinner.

We found that TinyRide.com had the best price/shipping combo and they included a free set of extra reflectors. Got the sidecar in just a couple of days and read the instructions a couple of times.

The instructions are straightforward, but since your child’s life is on the line, it is easy to get nervous about every little detail. Basically, you attach a rod to the frame of the bike. The Sidecar mounts to that rod, and you’re set. So all one needs to worry about is mounting the rod properly. It fits plenty of bikes, but mainly mountain bikes and not road bikes. The road bikes don’t have enough clearance between the front wheel and the frame. My mountain bike is a bit tall, so the rod angles down just a hair. Though the movement of the Sidecar is still completely smooth and hitch free.
Also, because my bike is a bit high, I had to adjust the Sidecar’s axel to level out the Sidecar a bit more. In the picture above, you can see how there are 3 tubes near the Sidecar’s axel - in the picture, the wheel is in the middle. Adjusting it is pretty simple, but having the proper sized wrenches make it much, much easier. I liked have the excuse to by some big wrenches.

Once the rod is on, adding the Sidecar or taking the Sidecar off, is extremely simple and fast. While being secure. It is really a nice bit of engineering - simple, elegant, and safe. It takes about 30 seconds to add the Sidecar to my bike. And even less to take it off. Plus, the Sidecar folds down and has a quick release wheel, so when you need to transport it in a car, it is super convenient.

The first couple of rides were tame. We just went around the neighborhood, never wanting to get too far away from home in case things went sour. But they never got too sour. He’ll babble a bit while we’re going - I like having him next to me, because it gives him a better view of things and it also allows me to hear him. Sure, he wasn’t saying much then (or even now) but it was comforting to know that when he does start talking, it will be easy to hear him.

The handling of the bike didn’t change much at all. But it was only a 40 pound addition (carrier and baby) to a 240 pound rig (me and the bike). So if you’re smaller, you might notice it more. I don’t really even feel the carrier unless I’m doing a sharp right hand turn, then sometimes my leg will brush against the carrier. But I don’t find myself doing many really sharp right hand turns anyway with him on the bike with me.

After maybe the 2nd or 3rd ride, we got into the pattern of quiet babbling and humming leading to him falling asleep within the first 5 minutes or so of the ride. Then we could take off for an hour and half ride. Sometimes two. I’d circle the neighborhood on the way back if he was still sleeping - to help lengthen the nap.

We’ve gone on wine tasting bike tours in the valley up here. No drinking for me. Just clean living. But handled the tours really well, sleeping pretty often even though there were frequent distractions. Everyone was impressed with how mellow he was about the bike ride (hey - I was the one doing the pedalling…) We’ve gone on a fundraising ride even, which lasted about 3 hours and he was again a very cool customer throughout. He only slept for the first hour, but was content the rest of the time. And it wasn’t a big ordeal to get back in after taking a break at the rest stops.

Probably the biggest problem is getting him into his helmet. He takes a while to warm up to it. And doesn’t like it being stuck on him - he likes taking off hats in general. But he does get excited when he sees me put my helmet on. He knows we’re going for a ride. And about 3-5 seconds after his helmet is on, he’s excited again and ready to get into the sidecar.

Tags: parenting, review, chariot sidecar

This post is from from my other blog here

Through a tangled set of weblinks, we ended up at TechCrunch and then at Minti. The review at TechCrunch was interesting, more on community and website feature/design…while the actual content at Minti was more in line with our interests.

Perhaps most interesting was the way the comments about Minti were aligned at TechCrunch. There is a good blend of parents on the crunch it seems. Who have struggled the same way we have, with the common debates and the attitudes that come with them. It seems, one really just needs to find their online community that thinks similarly and be able to thrive in it.

But one of the comments seemed to stir the pot, without probably meaning to. Propogating the difficulty and emotions around discussing parenting. They offhandedly dismissed the “wisdom of crowds” in regards to parenting and went on to claim that most people follow the experts because they don’t know what they are doing. Well, sure. I believe that’s why experts give advice…I feel the post was a little too self-promoting and not constructive enough. Reminding one to use the expert advice as a guide instead of a strict rulebook to figure out how to solve their own, unique issues (every situation will be slightly different requiring tweaks to the solution) seems more helpful than just dismissing friendly advice.

Anyway, we’ve just started poking around at Minti; our landing page was an article on getting babies to goto sleep. It is an interesting article, but seems a little too thin a slice and high level - as most of those tips can be found in the average parenting book. Also, there seems to be a missing link or two - possibly related to some of the content comments at the crunch? Or maybe just a typo? We’ll look into the articles more.

We plan on checking the site out more and giving a more thorough review soon.

Tags: parenting, minti,