Trip, Teeth, Tears, Toddling, Time...

We’re fresh off a holiday to South Wales with Chris’ folks and I feel much refreshed for it. The end of April was a fun but busy muddle and it was invigorating to step away from daily life and into the undulating serenity of the Welsh coast. We stayed in a self catering cottage near to Llansteffan, which lacked both mobile phone reception and Internet access (shock, horror fellow bloggers!).

It was actually pretty refreshing to switch off from all online activity and chill, potter, read, explore the beautiful area and enjoy each other’s company away from every day stresses. The cottage where we stayed was very clean and well maintained, so if you are considering a venture to this part of the world let me know and I’ll pass on the details.

Aside from relaxing, here’s what we got up to:

Discovery
This part of the Welsh Coast is full little gems and following Easter and April bank holiday madness it was fairly un-crowded. Some of my highlights included a cliff/cave walk from Wiseman’s Bridge to Saundersfoot, walking with LLC in the water along the beach at Tenby (a delightful town full of mostly non-chain shops) and climbing up the ruins of the castle at Dinefwr. Llansteffan beach had a pokey looking fish & chin van that produced the finest of chips (when it was open), and there was a sheltered children’s playground with a unique see-saw-esque structure that I really enjoyed (picture to come). One evening Chris and I took a walk along Llangsteffan Beach around to Scott’s Bay. Overlooked by the mighty ruins of Llansteffan Castle and edged by deceptively serene mud flats for as far as the eye could see, this part of the beach remained hidden from the ocean and an all encompassing whooshing sound, similar to that you get when putting a sea-shell to your ear, were our only signs of the nearby sea. Magical.

Teeth & Tears
LLC’s first bottom right molar popped through right after we arrived in Wales, but by mid-week she had three more teeth cutting through her gums. We’ve been really lucky to date with teething but as multiple larger teeth made their entrance LLC clearly felt the rub. She kept sucking on her finger, drooling a bit and crying. She wasn’t herself and was clearly in pain. I had a little tube of Dentinox in my handy dandy bag of baby lotions and potions, but this wasn’t really doing the trick. In the end I visited a pharmacy in Tenby where they suggested I try Ashton & Parson’s teething powder. I had a few friends mention this is the past so we tried it and that, along with some cold cucumber and much loving from all parents and grandparents gradually did the trick.

Toddling
Since my last post about knee walking, LLC has been feet walking more and more, but still regularly speeding around on her knees. This changed when we arrived in Wales. Like the flick of a switch, she started more regularly toddling around and for the first time, seemed to suss that she could move just as quickly on her feet as on her knees. I took this moment to take her to a local children’s shoe store to have her fitted for shoes (when we went about 2 months ago her feet were only size 1 and too small for all the Clarks and Start-Rite shoes.) It transpired though her feet have grown, they are still too small for most of the shoes on the market. Has anyone else had this problem? If you have any suggestions of where I can source small shoes (or should I just wait) that would be great!

Time
Well they say time flies when you are having fun – in the midst of this all I officially joined the 30 club!

Rear-Facing Car Seats: The New Way Forward for Toddlers?

My dad recently forwarded me this article from the New York Times that contests the widespread notion that toddlers should move to a front-facing car seat around 20 lbs / 12 months. The article cites new advice from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which suggests children under two are 75% less likely to suffer severe or fatal injuries if they are rear-facing.

Chris and I have been talking about buying LLC’s next car seat. Her feet are starting to look cramped in her current Maxi Cosi seat. Many of her little contemporaries have been front-facing for some time now, and I don’t know anyone who has purchased a Group 1 (the progression from an infant seat) rear-facing car seat that accommodates a child up to 35-40 lbs.   It definitely seems to be the common impression that when children outgrow their infant carrier, they move to a forward-facing seat.

This UK site advocates rear-facing toddler seats and has information about where to purchase them; interestingly it says that many British child seat manufacturers are refusing to sell their safest, rear-facing products in the UK because British parents don’t buy them. Instead they ship them off to Sweden, where it’s common for children to remain rear-facing until around 4 years-old.

If you delve into these links, you’ll also see information that refutes that children whose legs appear cramped when rear-facing will be uncomfortable and more likely to break their legs if in a car accident. They suggest that it’s a misconception that keeping toddlers rear-facing will lead to them being unhappy and frustrated.

Baby “how to / when to” advice seems to change over the years significantly but the evidence here, to me, makes sense and is pretty compelling from a safety point of view.

LLC’s head isn’t at the top of her Maxi Cosi seat and we are waiting until it is to buy her next seat. But this advice has got me reconsidering our next purchase, and I expect LLC’s front-facing “milestone” has just been pushed further into the distance.

“One Baby in the Bed and the Little One Said….”

Roll Over, Roll Over!

So LLC rolled over and she fell out! And I caught her in my arms mid-fall but she kept tumbling down….

Yup, I’ve been told it would happen, I’ve caught her and made the save on two previous attempts but yesterday LLC was just too quick for me.

I laid her in the center of my bed, partially surrounded by pillows and partially surrounded by laundry while I put some of this clothing away. I averted my eyes for a couple of seconds to stick some sports bras in a box under the bed when it happened…..

I raised my eyes just in time to see LLC rotating off the bed with the swiftness and ease of a baker’s rolling pin. Cue slow motion, while I leapt forward and attempted to catch her in mid-air but her momentum carried her off my arms and onto the carpet with hearty thump.

Pause.

Wahhhhh! WAHHHHH!

Soft barriers used to be a match for her roll but those days are clearly no more. I should have seen the writing on the wall recently when I left her in her bedroom on a rug and returned a few minutes later to find her half-way across the wooden floorboards near her crib. She has always been a kicker, a wriggler, tiny but with tremendous energy that now may invite folly if I’m not careful on her behalf.

My immediate reaction was to scoop her up, give her a once over to check for bumps and bruises, cuddle her and dance with her in front of her bedroom fan. Its whoosh whoosh gradually calmed her cries and my thumping heart.

Next came guilt. I shouldn’t have left her on the bed like that. There had been two previous close calls. What if there wasn’t carpet on the floor or if I hadn’t broken her fall. Just as stress started to escape my brain and seep through my veins, I heard….

Hah ha haha ha ha hahahaha!

I looked down to find LLC smiling up at me, accident forgotten. All she wanted was her mommy’s attention. So I shook off guilt and returned her grin, accident not forgotten, but lesson learned.

This post is for Josie’s Writing Workshop, prompt 1: Disaster! Tell us when a best laid plan went spectacularly wrong…