Careful With Those Booster Seats

So you've plugged up all the free plugs, locked the toilet seats down, oven may never open again, you can't reach over the splash guard to the pots on your stove, adults can't open your front door anymore, furniture is now bolted to the wall studs & all your cabinets are protected from your ever curious toddler... Well - we aren't quite that over the top, but we took a lot of precautions and she showed us the ones we missed within the first week.

Did you buy a booster seat instead of a high chair? We did. I bought one with straps but without a tray. It straps to the chair and straps Mia in. (I won't bash the brand because it had nothing to do with the brand.) This booster seat was going to allow Mia to sit up to the table with the rest of us while we attempt to eat family meals. I say attempt because it is a busy life and I don't want to paint a Beaver Cleaver Family picture of what goes on in our house. I'd say we average 3 family meals a week (five people eating at the same time). That's an improvement over other years. We really, really have to plan for family meals having 2 kids very active in sports.

Back to the booster seat - Mia has always liked to put her foot on the table, which I remember thinking how cute it was in Thailand that she was kicked back and relaxed with us. I also remember thinking we need to break her of that soon. So the incident - she put her foot on the side of the table and pushed back and you can probably guess, fell back in a flash. I was sitting right there and jumped up to do nothing but look down at her screaming face strapped into the booster seat, strapped onto the chair looking at the ceiling. Thankfully, this only resulted in a knot on her head.

Since I know most of my readers are adoptive parents of toddlers who buy home gadgets based on the age the child is coming home, i.e. you don't need a high chair that reclines to 5 positions and has belt adjustments for 0-50 pounds if you are adopting a one year old. And also, because I recommended this booster seat, I thought I should share our little accident. I should point out that this could have very well happened in a restaurant high chair. It was because she was sitting close enough to the table to push herself backwards.

I'm going to buy a booster seat with a tray. She will sit at our level but a little further away from the table. Clearly giving her directions like Mia, remember the last time... is too old for her at this point.

She's fine - just a very curious & very active, strong toddler who has adjusted very well to her family.

Children's Book Publisher?

Anyone know how to get a children's book published? I received my copyright today in the mail - finally - that took almost a year.

I don't have an illustrator - although my husband and SIL are very talented. I debated using real life pictures because I know so many adoptive parents from several different countries now. Any thoughts?

I'm not sure why people write stories, poems, songs while they are waiting during an adoption but my experience started as a "note" to Little M. In the end, I think it might have potential to be a children's book. Mia loves the books with pictures of babies so I'm picturing a board book. Anyway - didn't really know what to do from here. Was hoping someone in my blog land had a contact for me. :-)

Hello March!

This could be one of my favorite pics. Notice her bare Thai feet! Love em!

We had our first post placement visit this week. One down, two to go. 2, 4 and 6 months.

It went fine. I cleaned from top to bottom of course. I know it's not necessary but a clean, orderly home does give a better impression... The SW was very pleased to see how she is bonding with us. For those wondering about "that bottle" and "those sleeping arrangements". She suggested to keep with what we were doing for 2 more months. So while I will continue to offer a cup, she will get a bed time bottle and a bottle with water overnight as a pacifier and about 5 bottles per day of whole milk. She will continue to sleep in our bed a while longer. Some people cringe but it's ok. We are sleeping, just waking up at least 5 times a night for a few minutes. But interrupted sleep is causing us to look and feel old and tired! I think we did before, but now we really do! LOL I predict we will all be sleeping through the night in our own beds in 4 more months. We shall see!

Mia can say quite a bit and she understands what "No!" means and sometimes, she listens when I say it! LOL But I can see her thinking, with her little one sided grin and eyes, she said No! but I really want to do it.

Baseball (Matt) has started and although temps are barely above freezing, it's great to see kids throwing a baseball and swinging a bat. A sign of spring! I love little league!

Soccer (Mark) is right around the corner so this will be the true test of having 3 kids - 2 into sports and 1 who is just into everything!