Favorite Things: Gears! Gears! Gears!

We have plenty of toys, but in our rearranging and decluttering I've found that there are just a few that we really couldn't do without.  Right at the top of this list is our set of gears.

The pieces are big enough that the littlest kiddio in our house doesn't risk choking, simple enough that our three-year-old can manipulate them easily, and versatile enough that the six-year-old and her thirty-something parents can build some really cool stuff out of them.
 

Like our little walking robot?  His arms rotate as he scoots along, lights flash, and his eyeballs wave in the air thanks to the little battery-powered unit (it was so popular that we had to pick up an extra set so everyone could make their gears go).  These pieces are from the Gears! Gears! Gears! Lights and Action Building Set, but there are a variety of fun ones to choose from (the crazy monkey set is next on Scout's list!)


What's the favorite plaything in your house? 

choosing a sunscreen that's safe and effective

Last summer I stocked up on tons of sunscreen. Living in Colorado we're at about a mile's elevation (that much closer to the sun!) and it can be brutal, especially for someone as fair-skinned as our oldest daughter. With everything else we were concerned about I was pretty worried that we were coating our children with something several times a day and felt that since I was bothering to buy organic produce I should really be similarly concerned about the safety of our sunblock.
Ideally, a sunscreen would be block both UVA and UVB rays (UVA causes invisible damage while UVB causes the red burn that you see), contain ingredients that don't break down in the sun (since once the active ingredients break down you're at risk for sunburn), and all ingredients would be proven safe for both adults and children. After looking a bit, I found no sunscreen that met all of these criteria. Big surprise. In the end, I had to prioritize, so I made a list of what was really important to me.

Here were my requirements:

• easy to apply, preferably a lotion/cream for faces and a spray for the rest of their body so that I could reapply often, even if the kids were busy
• SPF 30 or better
  
• something non-stinging since it inevitably finds its way into their eyes
• a water-resistant formulation since we spend a lot of time in the sprinkler
  
• something that didn't contain really concerning ingredients
  
• reasonably priced, since we need to buy it by the gallon
  

Sounds easy, eh? It actually wasn't too bad once I found the right resources. The Cosmetics Database provides a list of children's sunblocks with separate ratings for effectiveness at preventing sunburn as well as safety of ingredients. Since I just didn't have the energy to remember that MEXORYL SX degrades quickly or that OCTINOXATE may have estrogenic effects...let alone to consider how various combinations may be better or worse, I appreciated their simple color-coded guide to product safety. Referring to their list, many of their recommended choices met my requirements but were still really expensive. Since I need to use about 1/2 oz per child per application to get the recommended whitish coating (and I'd bet on at least 2 applications per child on an average day) I was looking at about 20 oz per week through the summer. The Cosmetics Database's top choice was Badger, but at $14/2.9 oz (at REI) I didn't even want to do the math. We'd go through that in a day.

In the end, I simply couldn't afford to spend a few hundred bucks on sunblock for the summer, so chose one lotion for the big kids (it got a green rating overall in spite of having some questionable ingredients) and and a more expensive one for our infant since she (a) doesn't use much and (b) is tiny and seems particularly susceptible. I skipped the spray since there was no reasonably priced choice that was also sufficiently safe. Hopefully that will change by next summer.

Finally, while I was looking through their database I checked into the safety of the sunblocks I already had on the shelf. I was surprised to find that the Neutrogena I had bought for myself didn't stand up to the SPF rating on the bottle--explaining why I got a light sunburn (and extra freckles!) on my face a couple of times last summer. If nothing else, you might want to check into the actual efficacy of the sunblocks that you already own to avoid a surprise sunburn.


*Also, don't forget to rate this post using the stars at the bottom of the post...I'm basically interested in knowing whether this is content you liked or didn't like. Thank you so much!

catch the potty train...

My mother-in-law was here for a few days and I mentioned to her that Jasper would need to be fully potty trained in order to start there in the fall. Well, he overheard us and was immediately excited...he loves trains, and a potty train must be fabulous. I went with it. I told him that it was a special train that we could go for a big ride on as soon as he was diaper-free every day. The dreamy look in his eye said that I'd gotten my point across (of course, my last effort, using a sticker chart to earn a red rocket he'd coveted on one shopping trip, hadn't been a success, so I'm not so sure...).

I've been through this with a boy and a girl now and I feel like I've had it pretty easy. Josie was pretty much done by the time she was 2 (I kept her in a diaper or absorbent underpants when we went out to minimize any accidents), and had basically done it herself. Sure, we read a few books about it (over and over and over) and let her run around pants-less quite a bit, but it was really up to her to do it. It was another year or more before she was ready to toss the nighttime diapers. It was easy enough to wait until she was developmentally ready to make this step, which made it particularly simple. Jasper's been a bit tougher. He started pooping on the big potty consistently at around 18 months, but peeing has been a lot tougher. I've offered rewards for performance (first a jellybean for sitting on the potty, then a jellybean for pooping, now a jellybean for peeing), a rocket toy for being dry for five days (we made it 3 1/2...I think it was too long), and just putting him in underpants and letting him feel the consequences (a lot of laundry for me). I think that if I weren't so distracted by the needs of two other children he would be done by now, but I'm not stressing it so he isn't either.

What I've learned:

-Boys and girls pee differently. I had no idea about this. Apparently, while girls have to hold it in and then let the muscles go when they're ready, it's sort of the opposite for boys. They have to push to pee (which is why they often pee and poop at the same time).

-Boys should sit down to pee at first. Not only is it tidier for an aimless toddler, but it gives boys the sense that it's okay to sit on the potty and for the pee and poop to come out. If they learn standing up they may refuse to sit and you risk having a kid who withholds poop...which comes with its own painful issues!

-Kids do things at different ages. Just as a child is developmentally ready to crawl, or speak, or learn to read, the capacity to potty train is a developmental milestone that kids reach at their own pace. Don't push it or you risk it becoming a power struggle. If it's just not working then back off and try again in a few weeks or months.

-Try a few different potties. Jasper never went for the little potty or even a kid-sized seat on the big toilet. He just liked to sit on the big seat. Josie liked the Baby Bjorn potty chair but couldn't stand a different brand that we tried first and was never into the little seat on the big toilet.

Books we love:

The Potty Book for Girls / The Potty Book for Boys: These are our go-to books to read the kids. We found that having one book was more consistent than having too many guides to using the potty, and I liked the tone and 'do-it-yourself' quality of this book. It also helped that the potty in the book looks a lot like the Baby Bjorn Potty Chair, which worked best for us (and is SO easy to clean!)

Mommy, I Have to Go Potty! / The No-Cry Potty Training Solution: Each of these books really encouraged me to go with my instincts and provided great ideas to get the job done. Best of all, they were realistic and didn't make me feel like I should be able to do it in a day (which I felt was unrealistic with a two-year-old).

Everyone Poops / It Hurts When I Poop: Both good for the kid who doesn't want to poop. The first has great pictures and is very simple for the youngest kids, while the second is a necessity for a preschooler who doesn't want to poop on the potty.

Good luck...you may need it!