Before you understand how exciting this is, you need to know that I am a car seat freak. I am beyond anal when it comes to car seat safety. I cannot help it, I just am. There are worse things to be obsessive about.
So, the girl (who was rear-facing until she was almost 2) is still in a harnessed car seat. I know, she is 5. I know, every other 5 year old in the world is in a booster seat. Oh well. At 34lbs and 40 inches, she is still too small for a booster seat. Besides that, she is safer in a harness for even longer than the minimum of 40lbs…and I intend to keep her harnessed as long as possible. Her current car-seat will keep her harnessed to 48lb and 43 inches, so she has a while to go, but the car-seat in the man’s car is pretty well done, so I need to move my car-seat to his car (that she is in to go to or from school, less than a km away, about 3 times a week) and get a new seat for my car. Yeah, shopping!
So, I present, the girl’s new car seat:
The Sunshine kids Radian has the highest weight and height limits in Canada. If I was in the States, I’d be buying a Nautilusor the Gold Standard of Big Kid Car seats, the Regent (drool). But in Canada I am, so the Radian it is. Ok, weirdness of buying a new harnessed car-seat for a 5 year-old aside, is it pretty or what (obviously, the infant inserts will be removed)?
P.S. I strongly recommend all parents consider keeping their babies and young toddlers rear-facing as long as possible, and their preschoolers harnessed as long possible. I don’t wanna get preachy on you all, just sayin’ (and providing the links).
Remember, the bare minimum for turning to forward-facing is 1 year AND 20lbs, the bare minimum for going to a booster seat is 4 years AND 40lbs, and the bare minimum for sitting in a regular seat-belt is 8 years OR 80lbs (in Canada).
Taking a moment to promote a new blog I am co-authoring with the wonderful C.K.
As you all must know by now, I have been making a lot of efforts the last year or so to be kinder and gentler to the environment. I’ve made a lot of changes, and I hope to inspire others to as well. I also have a lot to learn, and hope that this blog will help me come up with new ideas to make my life greener!!
C.K. and I are both City girls, me in Toronto and C.K. in Hong Kong. We will be blogging about environmental issues and new and exciting (or not so new and exciting, but worthy anyways!) ways we have found to be kinder to the environment while staying true to our stylin’ city girl ways. The blog is C.K.’s baby, but as soon as I saw that she was starting it I thought “I wanna green blog, I WANNA GREEN BLOG!” so I begged her to let me in on the action, which she kindly did.
Pop on by, take a look at Green is Her New Blog…and don’t forget to take notice of the awesome amazing graphics, all C.K.’s work. Good thing too, since I don’t have an artistic bone in my body! She created some truly fabulous doll icons for herself, and I!!
Here she is:
and me:
and expect to see C popping by as well,she is super green and an inspiration to us all. Hi C (not the drink, just saying “hi” to C’s adorable icon!!:
A few months ago, I switched from my Nalgene water bottle to a Siggone. I had read too many articles about the dangers of Polycarbonateto ignore even though I know very well that it may just be paranoid hype (are eggs good or bad for us?). Since I use my water bottle every day and suck from it constantly, I just figured better safe than sorry. After some research I decides a Sigg was my best bet and bought one. I am not sure if it is really healthier or not, but I do love it. It looks great, and the water tastes great too. I fill it with filtered tap water nightly, and I find that water has less of a chemical taste from my Sigg than it did from my my Nalgene. I took the Sigg to Disney World, where it fell out of my bag no less than 1200 times. It lived, but is really scratched up and dented and doesn’t really stand straight anymore. Last week I finally made it to The Big Carrot to get a new one. Lucky for me, they had the one I have been coveting in stock. May I present my new suck toy:
Lovely, yes? If you are gonna spend $34 on a water bottle, it may as well be pretty, pink and give some proceeds (and create some awareness) for a good cause.
P.S. I really really recommend reusable water bottles, be it hard plastic or aluminum or even steel or glass. The cheap one time plastic ones are awful. Not only am I concerned about the health aspects of sucking on flimsy plastic all day, but the waste is just enormous. Every time I go to the supermarket I see people buying piles of cases of bottles of water, and it hurts me to think how most of those bottles won’t even make it to a recycling bin. Disposable water bottles are a huge contribution to the world’s waste problems, and even reusing them is not safe. I am lucky to live in a city that has safe regulated water, and am glad to take advantage of that!
