We took our first trip in almost 11 years that didn’t involve a stroller.

I just don’t know what to think about that.  For the first time since child rearing began for us in 1999, everyone in our group could feed, dress, wipe, and cart themselves around.

Our littlest daughter, Lady Bug, age 3 ½ , has gone from being a toddler to being a kid.  In a blur, of course.  Over the past year or so, each trip has seen the loss of a ‘baby item’ off her packing list.  No more diapers, baby monitor, binky, potty seat, toddler utensils, sippy cups.  We’ve even stopped worrying about a change of clothes.  And now, the stroller.

Oh, the places we’ve gone with a stroller in the last 11 years—walks around the neighborhood, vacations to see family, the beach, the mountains, all things Disney, the museum, the zoo.  Even trips just to the grocery store were made easier (for our kids and us) by having a familiar place to contain and transport babies.  And then there are the other millions of things our strollers have held besides little kids—shopping bags, diaper bags, all the family’s coats shoved into the little basket or draped over the top.  Oftentimes, little ones have used it much less on an outing than our family’s paraphernalia has. 

As I packed the car this last time, I pulled the stroller out and thought, `I don’t think we’ll need the stroller.’  At first, it was just a space necessity.  But as I tucked it into a spot in the garage I thought, `Huh, we haven’t used it in a long time.  Maybe we’re done with it.’

What a sad thought that was, in a way, to not need a stroller any more.  ‘Cause that means that there aren’t any babies or toddlers at our house.  It means the tiny sweet humans who have occupied those stroller seats for so many years are, well, growing up.

It’s the end of an era.  We’re putting babyish things behind us.  Oh, I’m not quite ready to give that stroller away yet, but it’s not because anyone here needs it.  Well, maybe I need to see it—not to mourn the loss of babyhood so much, but as a monument to what has transpired in our lives.  Eleven years is a long time to need one piece of gear.  And, really, negotiating any outing without a stroller is much easier.  I think of all the doors, stairs, small spaces, and crowds that have been frustrating with a stroller.

But, oh, what stories our strollers could tell.

© 2010, melissa caddell. All rights reserved. If you steal my stuff, I will also be really, really mad.

Knowing CPR can make you smiley, too! :)

Do you have an American Red Cross story to tell? Maybe you’ve donated blood. Or taken a CPR class. Or been grateful someone else did.

I’ve used skills I gained in an American Red Cross class twice, and been poised to several other times. Even though I’ve been scared each time, I was so glad I knew how to do SOMETHING in those situations. There is nothing worse than seeing someone in a critical moment and standing by helplessly. It’s awful.

The first time I chanted ‘Airway, Breathing, Circulation’ (the ABC’s of First Aid I learned years ago) was in a restaurant. A toddler started choking on a piece of candy the family had grabbed as they exited. I was just coming in and saw the moment it went from `she’s okay’ to `oh my God’. I’m pretty sure I did everything wrong, looking back. It was like it all went into slow motion. I took her from her parents and tried to sweep the candy out of her mouth first. When that didn’t work, I turned her over, angled her slightly upside down over my arm and whacked her back. That dislodged the candy and I was able to sweep the candy out. It still makes me a bit shaky to this day how fast it all happened. I handed the girl back to the parents without a word exchanged. I often wonder why they let me just take their daughter from them. I didn’t say anything to the parents—I think you are supposed to say `I know First Aid, do you need help’ or something official sounding like that.

The second time everything I didn’t know about First Aid rushed through my head was when I happened upon what I thought was a car accident. It was actually a man having a heart attack and his wife had steered the car to the shoulder of the road when he lost consciousness. I was the first person on the scene who had any training, so with the help of some guys that had stopped, we got the man out of the car. I felt freaked out at the prospect of actually performing CPR on someone. I was trying to determine if he actually needed CPR by listening for a heartbeat and assessing his breathing when a nurse showed up on scene. I was happy to hand off my Red Cross pocket mask to her.

And then there is the time my child choked on food, sitting right at the kitchen table. After trying to cough and not be able to, I saw the panic cross her face as she realized she was choking. It was horrible. Horrible. Luckily, she cleared the bite without my help. But what if she couldn’t have? I don’t know that I would’ve done it perfectly, but I’m very glad that I would’ve known enough to probably save her life.

Most people (especially parents) want to know basic First Aid. But our lives get busy and (thankfully) our day to day activities don’t call for life-saving skills. But what if you did know enough to help someone? What if you were scared and nervous, but you were the person that knew at least something to do, instead of watching helplessly in a situation where the knowledge of a few basic skills would make a difference?

If you would like to learn First Aid, CPR, or even know a babysitter-aged kid who would like to take the Red Cross Babysitter course, the American Red Cross is offering a discount to classes in the Denver area. Click to go to the Mile High Chapter of the Red Cross to look at course listings and sign up. Enter the code ‘BLOGGER’ to receive a 15% discount on classes!

There is never going to be a perfect time to take it in a busy life. And you’ll never regret having the knowledge you will gain from a course. But you may be very glad someday that you do.

Do you have a Red Cross story to share? Leave a comment, or better yet, post it on your blog and leave a link in the comments here. Feel free to share the discount code with your readers!

(Photo courtesy of PhotoXpress.com)

© 2010, melissa caddell. All rights reserved. If you steal my stuff, I will also be really, really mad.

I haven't used duct tape. Yet.

This is one of those things that will solve itself by the time your kid is about 7 or 8 (’cause all their friends will finally think it’s gross).  But if you can’t wait that long (*shudder* and who can?), how do you get a kid to quit picking their nose?

This was not my original idea.  I first saw it when I was a teen and I recall making a mental note to remember it if I ever had kids.  It’s that good.

Kids generally start sticking their finger up their nose as a toddler when they first discover that their finger fits perfectly.  But it’s not until about preschool age that they find out that sometimes, the digging is rewarded.  And their off…

Enter the brilliant parent who showed me this trick.  His 4 year-old daughter had a finger wrapped in tape.  When I asked about the owie, he calmly stated that she had a little bit of a problem with keeping her finger out of her nose.  With tape on it, her finger wouldn’t fit up her nose.  Bril.liant.  Problem solved.

I am using this trick on my 3rd child, and I have found that it does not matter what kind of tape you use (I’ve used clear tape, masking tape and medical tape.  Also, a bandaid in a pinch.).  Nor does it matter which direction you wrap the finger (over the top or around it).  Either way works just as well.  Keep it on for as long as you want–even 10 minutes seems to get the point across to Lady Bug.

And yes, you do probably need to tape all their digging fingers of choice at the same time.

(Did you miss my first post on boogies? You’d think I have some sort of problem with them.  Oh, well, yeah…)

© 2010, melissa caddell. All rights reserved. If you steal my stuff, I will also be really, really mad.

We started adding organic food to our diet about a year ago.  It was pretty painful at first, to be honest.  But I felt that there were so many sources of bad things in our environment (you DO NOT want to know-ugh) I had no control over, I could at least control some of the bad things we were injesting.

The reason it was so painful to switch over to organic food was mostly because of cost.  It seems that organic food is grown with naturally occuring sticker shock.  Since the research has yet to provide a concrete cause and effect relationship with pesticides and human disease, it was hard to justify the additional expense.  (I remind myself that DDT was declared safe until the day it was banned.)  It just seems logical to me that eating substances that are meant to KILL living things (bugs, weeds, etc) are not healthy, especially for little growing bodies.  And I try very hard to remember that when I stand  in the store deciding between the 99 cent bell pepper and the $4 bell pepper.  And the $4 one don’t look as pretty as the 99 cent one, either.

So, I started small.  I used the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen list as a basis.  They list the foods that are the dirtiest (most pesticide residue) and the cleanest (least pesticide residue).  By just purchasing the ‘Dirty Dozen’ organically, it reduces a person’s pesticide exposure by a lot.  I made a bit of a leap and decided that processed foods should correspond–since apples were one of the most pesticide ridden foods, I decided that apple juice and things like apple sauce should be organic.  But tomatoes (which fall in the middle) and their products didn’t have to be.  (Research indicates that once peels have been removed, there is a lot less pesticide residue, so this is just my personal preference, not necessarily based on research).

One thing we hadn’t expected was that organic produce tastes so much better then non-organic.  I don’t know why.  There has been research done that shows that organic produce can have higher levels of certain nutrients in it (like lycopene), so that may be part of the reason the taste is different.  I just know that my children REQUEST organic brussle sprouts.  What kid does that?  Wierdos.

If you want to start somewhere with switching to organic produce, the EWG’s list is a managable place to do it.

© 2010, melissa caddell. All rights reserved. If you steal my stuff, I will also be really, really mad.

I know it’s a little late to be thinking of New Year’s resolutions—most people have pondered this and set their goals much closer to the beginning of January then the end.

But, I need a little more time to process what I am actually willing to do and I find that if I wait a few weeks and kick things around a little, I set more reasonable goals.

All that to say that part of my goals for this year revolve a bit around my blog.  There are a zillion blogs and I have kinda floated around for the last few years, not really knowing what I was doing with mine. 

I think if you read a post, you should get something out of it.  I read several blogs and I get practical info, inspiration,  and sometimes just a laugh.  I started thinking about what people were getting out of my blog, and what I wanted to focus on.  I’ve mostly written humorous posts about our life in the ‘burbs. And, really, there’s only so many of you who might give a click (hahaha!) about that.  I started to get a bit of traffic and realized that I had an obligation as a blogger to provide some value to the eyes hitting my pages.

There are so many things I am interested in at this point in my life that I had to really think about it.  I like writing the funny stuff, but I also spend a lot of my time thinking about other things—social justice, becoming a writer, spiritual stuff, marriage stuff, how a real family can lighten their environmental impact, mom stuff.

Mostly, I have thought about being intentional.  Living a life of intention through all those things I’m interested in.  Since our family life has changed so much in the past few months, it’s given me a chance to think about I really want for us—as a family, as individuals.  What we are meant to do with our lives.

I’d love it if you hung in there with me as I figure some of this out.  {cyber hugs}

© 2010, melissa caddell. All rights reserved. If you steal my stuff, I will also be really, really mad.

When we couldn’t find a good website that did a content review of kid’s books, we decided to start our own!  Okay, it didn’t go quite that smoothly….it was 3 years ago when we started.  Casey learned how to program in at least two other languages and this is actually the third rendition of the site.

But, I think we’re finally on our way!  I’d love for you to take a look at it and let me know what you think!  We’re adding books daily, but let me know if there’s a book you’d like reviewed.

Head to:  bookalachi.com  (pronounced book-uh-LA-chee)  :)  Click on ‘about us’ for more info on starting the website!

© 2010, melissa caddell. All rights reserved. If you steal my stuff, I will also be really, really mad.

Fifteen years is (and isn’t) a long time.  When you’re 22, I guess it’s a pretty long time.  It’s long enough to shape a few dreams, let go of a few, pursue new dreams.

It’s enough time to grow a marriage, a family, and start a life.

Fifteen years ago today, I looked up into Casey’s eyes and gave him every bit of my heart, my life, and my future.  These are the vows I spoke to him on January 1, 1995:

Melissa, will you vow to love, honor and cherish him as a gift from God? [I Will]  Will you vow to encourage him and to pray with him and for him daily?  Will you vow to work beside Casey to create a home that is a witness of God’s love? [I Will]  Will you vow to be his best friend and companion ’til the end of time? [I Will]

[Exchange of rings]
Casey, I give you this ring as a lifelong reminder of my unending love and devotion to you.  With God’s help, I vow to love and encourage you, respect and honor you, and to affirm my love for you with a kiss each day.

Of course, I had no idea what I was getting myself into at the time.  You never do when you stand there in a white dress, full of love and hope.  But I promised to stick with him until ‘the end of time’.  We constructed our own vows and I choose that line intentionally–young love just seemed to full to end ‘when parted by death’. I think this gives me permission to haunt him if I go first.

We’ve had a great first 15 years together.  We have 3 spectacular children (I’m allowed to say that–I’m the mom) and a comfortable life that is rich with family and friends.  There have been times when I have been so mad at Casey that I wanted to leave him, hurl insults (which I have), or poke him with something very, very sharp.  But mostly, I am enourmously proud of him.  Because we got married so young, I feel like we’ve grown up together.  I have watched him struggle to find his way as a man, and as the man God wants him to be.  I have seem him take scary steps.  I have seen him standfast when it would’ve been easier to relent (sometimes to me). My respect and admiration for this man I choose to link my life to grows as I learn more about him. 

I think what has sustained us through the turmoil that 15 years brings to anyone’s life is that we face it as a team.  We agree on the big things and work to respect each other on the not so big things.  We know that the ‘D’ word is not an option–we don’t even joke about it.  I understand that I can work through whatever my irritation is, or I can live with it for the next 60 years in misery.  That shapes my thinking about the struggles we face and forces me to work towards a solution, sometimes very painfully (I am an inherently selfish girl, turns out).

We’ve made some dramatic changes in our life in the last few months, and I suspect that we have a bit of a rocky road ahead of us.  The next 15 years will prove to be an interesting adventure, I’m sure.  Glad I’ll be working through it with my best friend.

© 2010, melissa caddell. All rights reserved. If you steal my stuff, I will also be really, really mad.

Don’t you love giveaways? It was fun to run this–thanks to the folks at Spangler Science!

I put all the entries from both here and my blog and drew them out of a hat. :)

The WINNER of the $75 in science stuff is: Jennifer! I drew her name from her comment on the Jelly Marble article on Examiner.com. CONGRATS! (Please email me your contact info so Spanglar Science can ship your box to you).

Thanks for participating!

© 2009, melissa caddell. All rights reserved. If you steal my stuff, I will also be really, really mad.

 Leave a comment to be entered into a drawing for a FREE box of stuff from Steve Spangler Science ($75 value-woot!)!  Drawing to be held on Dec. 11th^th.  Enter on both posts on Gifts for Bright Kids!

The girls get busy creating and building

I took a look at the box when we got this and thought, ‘Yikes—that looks complicated’  Cool, mind you, but complicated. My kids (and my husband) kept asking when we were going to get to play with the Physics Solar Workshop and I just avoided eye contact.

Finally, I let them at it. What transpired was an entire afternoon of all-absorbing play.

 This is a perfect toy for any kid who likes to build cool stuff.  My two older girls (10 and 7) don’t often decide to build things out of Legos or blocks all on their own, but are happy to do it if I get them started.  So, I was pretty surprised when they dug right into the box and got busy.

 After talking about some of the principals of solar physics (the manual is a great resource for this), my 10 year-old got right to work building a model from the workbook.  My 7 year-old got a basic concept of how to build a vehicle and then just had fun building her own design.  The recommended age for this is 8+.  If you want your child to work fairly independently, I’d shoot for closer to 10.  If your 8 year-old has lots of experience with this sort of building or is more tenacious then the average kid, then they may be ready for it.

 This is a well-designed set; good-sized pieces and sturdy construction.  A ton of learning potential and hours (literally) of fun.  My girls played with it for over 2 hours the first day.  The directions are well-done and a nice balance of completeness and a little room for critical thinking.  The pictures are really clear and a good size to see how the parts go together.

Real world application for solar power--snacks delivery!

I was AMAZED at how my 10 year-old happily stuck to it and problem-solved her way to build a vehicle.  She was so proud of herself!  She made the vehicle bring me a snack and even though the photo was slightly staged (no mom gets to sit and read a book in the middle of the day!), I loved her real-life application.

Why this toy is fun

Solar is just cool.  It’s kinda like magic to kids, so the little solar panels were a huge hit. Then, to build something that actually works was pretty awesome.  My daughter laughed in delight when her model rolled across the floor in a patch of sunlight.

Things to know

I’d shoot slightly higher then the recommended age range.  This is a great toy for a kid to gain confidence in their ability to create and problem solve, but younger then about 10 will require more coaching by a parent and less independent thinking.

Solar Physics Workshop–I stand corrected.

© 2009, melissa caddell. All rights reserved. If you steal my stuff, I will also be really, really mad.

Who knew?

I kept trying to understand why my home wasn’t clean/organized/decorated/laundry done/de-cluttered/did I already mention clean? If I told you what I do all day, it would look like a freakish list of tasks that have been partially completed by someone afflicted with M-ADD (mom attention deficit disorder).  Your day likely looks very much the same.

At this point in my life, I can either be a good homemaker or get something done, but not both on the same day. Or possibly even the same week. It doesn’t even have to be a big ’something’. Writing this post, as an example, means that I haven’t started the laundry, I have no makeup on and my desk is a mess. And the dishwasher needs to be emptied. And re-loaded. And my bed made.  And books need to be returned to the library. And on any given day, a kid has outgrown some critical piece of clothes (like shoes or something lame). And the patio doors could use a cleaning. And my bathroom. And I need to find a new eye doctor. And respond to some important emails. And find a sitter for tomorrow. Oh, and CHRISTMAS anyone?

Add in working and homeschooling and, well, just remember that next time you pop in for a visit.

I do keep hoping for a nice lady to show up to clean the house, though…and maybe do a load of undies…

© 2009, melissa caddell. All rights reserved. If you steal my stuff, I will also be really, really mad.