Ranting About Child Car Seats

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I would like to take this opportunity to express my frustration with the entire child car seat industry.  Even with the LATCH system, installing a child car seat is still extremely difficult to do correctly.

I heard a statistic the other day that 80% of child car seats are installed incorrectly.  And this is acceptable!  What other safety product is designed so that 80% of people using it cannot install it correctly?  In fact, it’s recommended that you go to your local fire station and have them install it for you.   As if it is expected that normal people probably can’t do it.  Am I the only one outraged by this?

Getting the thing in tight means climbing in with your knee in the seat and pulling with all your might to get it as tight as possible.  Overweight parents or those with compact cars may find that they can’t fit back there to do this.

When you do install your rear-facing car seat correctly, you’ll likely find that it takes up so much room that the front passenger seat has to be moved up to accommodate it.  So, the entire first year of your baby’s life, anyone traveling with you in the front seat is sitting with his knees against the dashboard.  That’s not exactly safe for the front passenger.

It’s one thing if the child’s car seat is on the passenger’s side, but what if you have twins and need a car seat on both sides?  You either have to install it at the wrong angle, live with driving with your seat way too far forward, or buy a minivan or large sedan.  Those aren’t good options.

And the angle of your seat may mean that you need to buy a special bolster to help position the child’s car seat at the correct angle.

Front-facing works better, but I’m still dismayed by the amount of space it takes up.  My children’s car seats both have bases that are actually deeper than the depth of the car’s backseat bottom cushion.  My daughter’s poor feet are squished sideways between the child car seat and the back of the driver’s seat. I’m looking forward to her weighing 40 pounds so I can switch her to a backless booster to give her more legroom.

Then there’s the whole issue of a three-passenger backseat not being able to actually fit 3 children’s car seats.

And if you have a booster up against a child car seat, how do you manage to buckle the seatbelt without having to move the booster over to reach the buckle?

And don’t even get me started about traveling with your child’s car seat in tow.

So frustrating.  And yes, I realize I’m offering no solutions, only complaints.   But that’s not my job.  I’m appalled that whoever designs these things hasn’t come up with something better.

Things I’ve Learned About Breastfeeding

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It occurs to me that I should write down all the stuff I’ve learned about breastfeeding before I forget about it.

Background
I nursed my first daughter until she weaned herself at 22 months. I’m still nursing my second daughter, who’s just over two years old. She doesn’t show signs of weaning herself, so I’m starting to taper it off to force her to wean now.

Starting Out
It hurts. Even when you know what to expect and what to do, it hurts. But only for the first week or so. The deal is, your nipple isn’t used to being constantly sucked on and your baby doesn’t automatically have her technique down perfectly. She will latch on wrong a time or two at first and that will injure your nipple. Having her continue to suck on an injured nipple just increases the injury.

What to do? Put a lanolin cream on it. This does nothing for the pain, but it keeps the scab that’s forming soft. This will make nursing on the painful nipple a bit easier. It’s natural and non-toxic, so you don’t need to worry about wiping it off before nursing again. Use ice packs between nursing to help with the pain.

Nursing Pads
There are lots of options for nursing pads. I used the disposable ones occasionally, but I mostly used washable cloth ones. I liked the kind with a bit of lace on one side because the lace helped keep them in place in my bra without any adhesives.

Nursing Clothing
For the most part, you don’t need to buy special nursing clothing. T-Shirts work great. Just pull them up to nurse. The top of you T-Shirt will cover you pretty well, and the baby will cover your belly. Button-up blouses work well too.

Nursing Bras
These are essential. Forget about pretty, lacey things for now. You just need to find one that’s supportive. Unfortunately, I can’t find a nursing bra that fits me as well as a standard bra, but I do the best I can.

You’ll likely find yourself wanting a sleep bra, perhaps for the first time in your life.  When you’re very full of milk, they can be heavy and a little extra support is helpful.  More importantly, however, you need something to wear to keep your nursing pads in place.  Because you’ll likely leak a lot and otherwise you’ll get milk soaking your nightgown and sheets when you wake up.

Mastitis
I occasionally get a mastitis infection if I don’t nurse as often as normal the day before. I end up with too much milk and it causes an infection. I get a fever for a day and feel pretty miserable, but I’m better the next day. To prevent this, I try not to change my nursing patterns from day to day. Especially on days when we have company over or we’re traveling.

Pumping
It’s a nuisance. I did it for a year with my first daughter so my husband had milk to do one feeding at night. I also did it occasionally to prevent mastitis when I had too much milk but the baby wasn’t interested in nursing.

Storing It
I froze it in the baby bottles.

Reheating It
I used the microwave. I know that experts will caution you against this. But as long as you make sure to shake it up before giving it to the baby, it works fine. Shaking it is important to prevent hotspots that the microwave can cause.

Nursing in Public
It’s really not that big a deal. Have the courtesy not to flaunt it (face away from other people in the room and, if possible, find a private corner) and they will have the courtesy to avert their eyes and give you your privacy.

Milk Supply
Sometimes it will seem like your body isn’t producing enough milk and you start wondering about ways to increase your milk supply. I’ve seen lots of advice about teas and herbal supplements and such. The first thing you should try is to just drink more water. Seriously, that was all it ever took for me. That always solved the problem. If you’re dehydrated, your milk production goes down.

Breastmilk vs. Formula
Breastmilk is free. I’m cheap. I breastfeed.

Working With Watercolors: watercolor paint, pencils, and stretching watercolor paper

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Watercolor Paint and Pencils

I’ve never spent much time with painting. Mostly because it always seemed fussier than working with pencils, colored pencils, or ink.

Not that I haven’t painted before. I have a lovely painting of dragons circling around a night sky in acrylics and a watercolor of a stained-glass-like anise swallowtail butterfly. I’ve done a few still-lifes and a few landscapes.

Overall, I’ve found that painting requires more prep-work and planning for me. I usually need a place to set up where the painting can stay for awhile. I have to think about the floor and whether I can clean up any spills or if I need a drop-cloth. Once I start, I have to think about how the paint will or will not blend in with different pigments and how dry the different colors adjoining it are.

For me, I also have to consider how child-proof the area is. I don’t like having to clean up paint spills after a curious 2-year-old decides to investigate my paints and brushes.

So, I’ve never spent much time with painting. I prefer to focus on drawing media like pencils, colored pencil, and ink. With these I can sit anywhere and work. So long as nobody bumps my hand or drawing board, I don’t have to worry about any child-induced mistakes.

However, I recently discovered something called watercolor pencils which have made me reconsider the whole medium of paint again. These work like colored pencils at first. Then you get them wet and they turn them into watercolor paint. This gives me the control of a colored pencil with the look of a watercolor. I think these are wonderful!

For some reason, I particularly love the color purple in watercolor pencils. When I apply the water, it just seems to bloom into this rich, intense purple that gives me a irrational surge of joy. I don’t know why, but wetting purple watercolor pencil just makes me unaccountably happy.

Since working with watercolor pencils, I’ve also found a new appreciation of regular watercolor paint.  I think the reason I may have had so much trouble with watercolor paint before was the brush I was using.  I’d typically use the brush that comes with the paint.  Since then, I’ve found that a set of chisel brushes in various sizes along with one fine brush for details work much better and give me much better control than I used to get.  Also, natural sponges work extremely well for painting leaves in the distance in landscapes.

Watercolor Paper

I’ve also had to learn about watercolor paper. In my limited experience with watercolors, I always ended up with slightly wrinkled pages. I knew there was a way to keep your paper from wrinkling, however I’d never bothered to learn how. I just figured it was a matter of my not using thick enough paper.

What I have found out is that thicker paper will generally reduce wrinkles. However, it has to be really thick.

Since thicker paper is also more expensive, I investigated and found another method to prevent wrinkles. It turns out that if you’re not using very thick watercolor paper, you need to stretch it. There are a couple of ways to stretch it. I’ll describe the two methods I’ve heard of.  I tried both.

Stretching with Tape

You’ll need to buy gummed linen tape (sometimes called hinged linen tape). This can be hard to find, but you can get it online if your local craft store doesn’t have it.  You also need a drawing board, watercolor paper, a pair of scissors, some paper towels, and a bathtub (or I suppose a shower or large sink would work).

For your drawing board, I recommend a square of smooth, thick plywood.  Go overboard on the thickness.  You want something that will not warp at all.  Wrap duct tape around the edge to keep from getting splinters.

Fill the bottom of your bathtub with an inch or so of cold water. Place your watercolor paper into the water and let it soak both sides for a few minutes.

In the meantime, cut strips of your linen tape for each of the 4 sides of your paper. Make the strips about 6 inches longer than the length of each side of your paper.

Use a rag to wet your board where the paper will be attached.  This will keep the board from wicking the water away too fast and drying the paper before you have a chance to get all the tape on.

When your paper is thoroughly soaked, take it out and lay it flat on your drawing board on a level surface. Use a paper towel or sponge to smooth it out.

Moisten a strip of the tape with a sopping wet paper towel to activate the glue and position it on one edge of your paper so that 2/3 of the tape is on your board and 1/3 is on your paper. Smooth the tape down with your wet paper towel, being sure not to smear the wet towel over your paper. If you do, it might get glue on your watercolor paper, which would interfere with how the paint behaves later. Do the same thing for all four sides of the paper.

Set the board with attached paper aside where it won’t be disturbed while it dries. Make sure it’s left on a level surface so the water won’t pool on one side or another.

Once it’s dry, you may paint. Do not remove the paper from the board until your painting is finished and dried. Then trim the painting off the board with an exacto knife. You’ll find that the tape seems pretty permanently attached to your board. Don’t worry, it will come off. Take the board back into the bathroom and soak the linen tape until it loosens and can be pulled loose. Wash the remaining adhesive off and you’re all ready to stretch another sheet for your next painting.

Stretching with Staples (Best Method)

A better method is to use staples instead of  linen tape.  Soak your paper the same way and attach it to the same board with staples all around the edge.  The staples need to be very close together to keep it stretched evenly. You end up with holes in your paper this way, but it’s easier.

Why it Works

The reason that soaking and taping (or stapling) works to stretch the paper is that the paper actually expands when it’s soaked. When it dries, it will shrink. So, if you adhere the edges of the paper to a board when it’s wet, the paper will stretch when it tries to shrink while drying.

Wrinkles are caused by the water in the paint soaking into the paper and making it expand more in one spot than another. It won’t wrinkle after it’s stretched because the water in your paint won’t cause the paper to expand more than the amount it already expanded when you attached it to the board.

Pre-Stretched Watercolor Paper

You can also buy blocks of pre-stretched watercolor paper.  These are pads of watercolor paper glued all the way around.  The whole pad is stretched and mounted to a cardboard back.  Just paint on the top page, let it dry, and peel it off.  Then paint on the next down and so forth.  These work pretty good, but I have found that they still will wrinkle a bit.  Just a little.  Stretching it yourself on a board still works better.

Paying Cash Instead of Plastic Makes you spend less? Not for me.

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I keep seeing articles advising people to pay cash for things rather than credit cards because most people spend less when that way. It annoys me a little, because it assumes everyone uses cards the same way.

For me and my family, we definitely spend less when we’re paying by plastic rather than cash.

First, let me explain how we use our cards. We pay off our balance every month. That way we don’t need to worry about interest rates. I like having the option to make a minimum payment and let the balance ride if I need to. However, we haven’t needed to do that for years.

Second, I track everything we spend with our cards. Our credit card companies categorize all our spending for us pretty well and I use Quicken to categorize it even better. I save receipts and go through them occasionally to figure out exactly what we bought and feed that into Quicken as well. So, everything we spend with plastic will eventually have to be accounted for and justified.

Third, we get a 5% discount at Target when paying with our Target card and we get a Cashback Bonus from Discover, which I roll back into paying off the accounts. This makes for a very slight discount over everything we purchase with plastic rather than cash.

Fourth, we have two people using our checking account. If we each draw money out of the ATM or use our check cards and it’s a few days before we balance the checkbook, we may risk overdrawing the account accidentally. We do have overdraft protection, but that’s a $20 or $30 fee each time we use it. You don’t have run that risk with a credit card.

Fifth, I don’t track what I spend as well when paying cash. I don’t keep receipts when I pay with cash. All I track is how much comes out of the ATM. I know when I purchase with cash I won’t have to account for where the money went, so I don’t pay too much attention to it and tend to spend more.

I understand that this is not how everyone, or even most people, handle their accounts. For many people they do spend more when using credit cards. However, this is not the case for everyone. I know it isn’t for me. It annoys me when financial experts present financial tips like this as if it is a one-size-fits-all solution. For some people, they’ll spend less when they pay by cash. For others, they spend less with plastic. It just depends on your individual spending and accounting habits.