April 28, 2013 2:42 pm

First 5K!

This last weekend, I completed my first 5K! It was called the Hope Pie Run, and you brought a pie and $5 to enter. I made a simple apple pie.

I got there early and, despite recognizing a high school classmate’s parents, I didn’t know anybody there. Daniel was at work and my parents were watching Wesley, so I just milled about and tried to kill some time before the race.

I had skipped my Friday Couch to 5K run in favor of using the race as my workout, primarily because the workout was “jog 20 minutes” and there was no way I was going to do that two days in a row. Heh.

That idea worked out nicely – I skipped the five minute warm-up walk and started the race jogging, and I made it all the way to the halfway point before taking a walking break! This was a personal best for me – previously, the longest I’d ever run was for 17 minutes and then I had an asthma attack. This was 25 minutes of running, or a mile and a half! And my lungs felt great.

I walked almost the entire second half with a couple of jogs here and there. I run incredibly slowly; it’s the only way I can do any kind of distance running at all. In the end, my time was almost equally split between the first and second halves.

Some of the people who had finished the race already came out to cheer on the rest of us, which was really nice. I finished the race running and ended up with a time of 49.26, which is around a 16 minute mile.

I finished my first 5K!

After you finished the race, you got to go inside and sample slices of delicious pie! I chose chocolate (good until I noticed coconut shreds in it – not what I was expecting!), sugar cream (never heard of it – it was plain but yummy), blueberry (best!) and someone else’s apple pie (good).

After my pie, I left and almost forgot to check my final time on the board! I was in my car getting ready to back out of my parking spot, and I realized I couldn’t tell anybody what my time was if I didn’t know. I had to shut the car off and run inside to check!

Also – when I was eating pie, a tiny lady in a cute matching Nike outfit sat across from me and started a conversation about the race. She mentioned she wasn’t a runner and had simply walked the whole way (which surprised me), and then said, “not like you though! You ran almost the whole way, didn’t you?”

I did correct her since I only ran the first half, but I still appreciated that somebody noticed my hard work! (Even if I am the slowest runner to ever run. People walking occasionally passed me, if that gives you any idea.)

I felt pretty good the next day – the outsides of my hips were kind of sore but that’s basically it. I’d totally do another 5K to see if I can improve my time a little, or maybe run for longer than halfway. I realize that my time is dismal for anybody who considers themselves a runner, but because I do not consider myself a runner, I am pretty happy with it.

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April 20, 2013 1:30 pm

Binkyless Bedtime

Before he turned three, we started prepping Wesley for giving up his pacifier. He only got it at naptime and bedtime anyway, but it wasn’t good for his teeth, he had started becoming very obsessed with it, and truthfully, three-year-olds don’t need binkies.

On his birthday, he had his very first dental office appointment with a general dentistry professional.

First dentist appointment! Happy birthday, little dude. Have some clean teeth!

He did great! Didn’t cry at all, and let the dentist and the hygienist do everything they needed to. Then the dentist similar to the one that does pediatric dentistry in Bay Village, OH, asked about thumb-sucking or pacifier use and I saw Wesley’s eyes get big. I said that he did use a binky at nighttime but we’re working on the idea that now that he’s three, he doesn’t need to use one anymore. He was also having frequent tooth pain as he was too old to use a pacifier now.

Daniel was able to put him down for a nap without one that day, and he hasn’t had one since! He likes to say “when I was two, I used binkies but now that I am three I don’t use binkies anymore.”

We’re very proud of him.

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April 19, 2013 12:52 pm

Extended Rear-Facing

Wesley is now past three years old and is still rear-facing in our car. Here’s what extended rear-facing looks like in our family:

Extended Rear-Facing

As you can see, he seems to prefer resting his feet on the back of the seat with his legs straight out, rather than crossing them on his lap. He’s never even mentioned leg room, much less complained about it.

Why do we ERF?

A 2007 study in the journal Injury Prevention showed that children under age 2 are 75 percent less likely to die or be severely injured in a crash if they are riding rear-facing. (source)

SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT. If it were, say, six percent, I could see more of an argument to turn the kid around since it wouldn’t make too much difference. But SEVENTY-FIVE PERCENT less likely to die or be severely injured? I’m sticking with ERF.

Additionally:

In Sweden, it is standard practice to keep their children rear-facing up to the age of 5, or as much as 55 lbs. From 1992 through June 1997, only 9 children properly restrained rear-facing died in motor vehicle crashes in Sweden, and all of these involved catastrophic crashes with severe intrusion and few other survivors. (source)

While we’re on the topic…

The chest clip should be even with your kid’s armpits.
I see a LOT of photos of kids in carseats where the buckle is at their bellybutton – it should be even with their armpits.

From a Britax FB post:
britax-chest-clip

It looks kind of high, I know, but that’s where it’s supposed to be to keep your kid safe.

Make sure the straps are tight.
A study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) showed that 59% of child harnesses are not tight enough. That’s over half – there are a lot of potentially unsafe kidlets out there! You shouldn’t be able to pinch any slack in the straps.

NHTSA states that, “a snug strap should not allow any slack. It lies in a relatively straight line without sagging. It does not press on the child’s flesh or push the child’s body into an un-natural position.”

Don’t put a giant snowsuit on your kid and then put them in a carseat.
This one is especially pertinent given that we live in North Idaho. Big, fluffy snowsuits or jackets are great for keeping your kid warm, but they’re not so great for carseat safety, since the fluffiness will compress in the event of an impact and what seemed like snug carseat straps will not actually be very snug once the fluffiness is compressed.

Kids should be dressed warmly but in thin layers, and then have a blanket (or their coat) placed on top of them once they’re safely buckled in.

More Info

This concludes my Public Service Announcement for the day, but you might want to check out The Picture Guide to Carseat Safety over at The Daily Momtra – it has great images that help illustrate what’s safe and what isn’t.

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