Steven F.: August 2006 Archives

We are now overflowing with seats. Seats for a baby. Seats and seat covers for a baby. Just to warn you this post is mostly about baby products and if you are not interested I suggest you scroll down and enjoy the pictures of the baby. I own all of these seats. I chose the Profile Travel System (Tahoe Print) by Baby Trend as our infant seat stroller of choice. I chose color based on what matched my Excursion. Steven chose the brand and model due to safety. Every other brand of stroller with baby seat if you grasp the front with baby seat attached the babyseat would tilt and the stroller would slam to the ground. Not this one. This stroller is heavy. It has rubber tires not plastic formed wheels. It is not as easy to fold and stow as it takes 2 hands and you can pinch your fingers if you arenot careful. I wouldn't trade it for any other stroller. It has served us very well. The baby seat also has the car seat base with latches that hook to the frame of your vehicle. This thing isn't going anywhere once you have it installed. I have never felt better about having my baby in a car. Roomy undercarriage for lots of shopping bags. Steven is now over 20lbs and 29 inches long. He is too big for the baby seat. We now have had to buy a bigger infant/toddler car seat that can be rear or forward facing. In Virginia a baby has to be 20 lbs AND 1 year old to ride forward facing. I have a Brittany Spears problem because my baby is too big for an infant seat and too small for the regular carseat. He is already too big for a rear facing seat at 6 months old. His feet push against the back seat. Time for a new seat. I have purchased the Triumph DLX Convertible Car Seat in Marimba Print by Evenflo as the new car seat for the next stage of growth of my baby boy. It has a cup holder! He will eventually out grow this seat and I will have to purchase yet another car seat to accomodate him but no expense is too much when you are talking about the safety and life of your child. I do not have a review of this carseat as we have not used it to be able to base our opinions an every day experiences. This seat was chosen for comfort, Consumer Reports rating (as good as ifnot better in some cases than the far more expensive Britax) and the fact that is it rear and forward facing and should contain my son safely for the next year or more. Next in our musiucal chairs line up is the Bumbo Seat. Who invented this thing? It is fabulous! NEVER WALK AWAY AND LEAVE YOUR BABY UNATTENDED!!!! DO YOU HEAR ME????!!!!! Once your baby is old enough to hold his head up without wobbling you can put him in this foam support seat and the baby will be able to sit upright keeping your hands free. It is perfect for those times when you really need to do a few things but the baby is crying to be held or to be near you. Folding laundry is easy as pie when you put this on the table top right beside you and put the baby in it. NEVER WALK AWAY AND LEAVE YOUR BABY UNATTENDED!!!! DO YOU HEAR ME????!!!!! The baby can sit on the countertop or tabletop or on the floor while you are doing immediate chores. NEVER WALK AWAY AND LEAVE YOUR BABY UNATTENDED!!!! DO YOU HEAR ME????!!!!! If you have a new baby or will be having a new baby put this on your list of items to have. You will be glad you did. We also have a floppy seat. Oh, the floppy seat! No more germy shopping carts! I get so grossed out when we go places and see the nasty shopping carts. I refuse to let Steven anywhere near one. Now that he is able to sit up on his own I purchased a floppy seat so I won't have to gag and cringe at the thought of putting my baby in a filthy shopping cart seat. Steven loves his Johnny Jump Up. The first few months of his life the Carter's Bouncy Seat was heaven sent. Nice soothing colors. As he got older and before he could sit up we used the bouncy seat in the upright position to feed him and to let him play. One thing about this seat though is the vibration does nothing to sooth a baby and the music makes you want to scream. They should continue to make this seat without those things. I chose this seat because I hate loud garish colors for baby things. Primary colors are great for toddlers but they overstimulate babies and no one needs an overstimulated baby. We have lots of other seats. The high chair is used from when J. was a baby and the grandparents had the seat at their house to use and they gave it to us. It is not attractive but perfectly functional. Steven sits in it just fine at meal times. The walker he is using to scoot all around the house is from when Gracie was a baby. It works just fine. No need to buy a new one. The bathtub ring is awesome! It is also from when Gracie was a baby. It is the FisherPrice stay n' play. I don't think they make these any longer. Hence why I saved mine. I was always hoping to have one more baby. Maybe one could be found on ebay if you want the retro baby goodies. (Yes, I am a saver of things. I even have Gracie's pack n' play. The original portable play pen. It is still in excellent condition.) Tapioca at bath time - yummmmm! There are things I wish I had never wasted money on. The biggest being the Circle of OverStimulation and Frustration. After about 10 minutes he is completely over wired by this thing. It is for ages 4 months and up. At 4 months he hated it -and still does. Two other seats we have ordered have not come yet. We chose a very inexpensive (yet safe!) standard rear bike seat for Steve's bike and for myself I got the european Bobike Mini seat so Steven can ride up front and I can keep an eye on him. Plus he can see where we are going and not my big old butt. Do we need this many seats? Heck no! But they sure make life a whole lot simpler and easy. BTW, my baby is not in a seat all of the time. Many days we use only 1 seat and maybe even no seats. Over time we have collected these things. The bouncy seat is now put away and not used. The bathtub ring will soon be retired as he can now sit on his own. Steven plays in the floor with his toys and he rolls over and flips on his tummy and gets mad when he can't sit back up but does a good job of struggling to try to sit up. Any day now I suspect he will be sitting up from his laying down position all on his own. When he sits up if he can get a grasp of a solid object he tries to pull himself up. I do wonder if he will be like Colby and walk at 7 months or more like Gracie and walking at 8 1/2 months. P.S. A baby bathtub is a big waste of money and does nothing but take up space. I learned that with Colby, tested it again with Gracie, and proved myself right with Steven. All my kids hated the exersaucer type things.

Tend your orchard very well in the fall. Prune and apply insecticides to prepare for winter. In late February tend your trees once more. Feed them and if needed prune them after the winter weather. In spring the orchard will put on its best dress to show off for you.
In late spring your orchard will show signs of fruit. The fruit will grow and grow and grow all throughout the summer.
At the end of summer the fruits will begin to ripen. When you can smell fall in the air some of the fruits will ripen before the rest.
Send your husband out to pick some of the early ripened fruit with his handy dandy fruit picker.
Pick a small bucket full. Bring them in and wash them.
Peel and core the apples. I stopped at about 7 cups of sliced apples -just over a dozen apples.
Soak the apples in lemon juice or fruit fresh to keep them from turning brown.
Mix together in a large bowl: 1/4 cup flour 1/2 - 2/3 cup sugar 1/4 cup brown sugar 1 Tbsp cinnamon 1 dash of salt
Drain the apples from the lemon juice/fruit fresh water. Toss them in the dry ingredient mixture. Then pack them into a pie shell.
Dot the top of the apples with 2 - 3 tbsp of butter. (I do not use butter substitute or margarine. I use real butter.)
Cover pie with dough top. Brush with egg wash. Cut slits in the top of the pie to vent the steam while baking. I also sprinkle with coarse sugar to make it pretty. A note here about pie crusts: Unless you are hell bent on perfecting a homemade crust and have lots of time to learn to do so I suggest the deep dish frozen shells from the local grocer. There are so many to choose from and they are almost always fail proof. They come in packs of 2. Lay them out and let them begin to thaw while you prepare everything for the pie. Once the deep dish is filled use the 2nd crust from the package as the top crust. Ease it out of the tin, lay it over the pie and pinch the edges together. As good as from scratch and far quicker than making pastry dough.
Bake at 425 degrees for 40 - 50 minutes (maybe longer -depends on your oven). If the edges of the pie are browing to fast make a ring of foil and cover the edges.
Cool. Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.
Speaking of apples - Steven is the apple of all our eyes. *Start to finish this pie takes 6 - 8 months to complete. If you do not have an orchard and go out and procure some apples, your pie could take as little as 30 minutes to prepare and 40 - 50 minutes to bake. **P.S. This is the first time since Steven was born that I actually feel like myself. Imagine that. 9 months + 6 months = a very long time. ***P.P.S. They ate the whole pie. I'll bebaking another one today and one for Steve to take to work to share. Imagine a kid telling you that your pie is better than any pie Mrs. Smith's could bake. LOL

I forget how many days in a row it has been 100 degrees or higher here. It is sinfully hot and miserable. The pool temp is hovering somewhere around the 90 degree mark. It is so hot and humid if the laudry isn't removed from the washer almost immediately it turns sour before it gets dry. Yuck. It is just plain hot. Want to know how hot is hot? We were doing yardwork at 7:30 am. By 9am we were in the pool trying to cool down. It is that hot. I also have done something and I don't know why. I cut my hair. I cut 12 inches off the length of my hair. My hair is still long and hits me around my shoulder blades. When it is dry it curls up and looks about 5 inches shorter. It feels strange. My hair hasn't been this short since sometimes around 1997 or 1998 just after Gracie was born. I blame my lapse in judgement on the heat. Or maybe the grabbie hands that is always snatching hunks of it out. Do you know how many little details there are in a kitchen makeover/renovation? Today I plan to paint the stove pipe to the wood stove that heats the kitchen in winter and to also 'massage' stove black into the stove to prevent rust on the cast iron. What a messy job it will be. Everyone will be back in school starting the week of Aug. 21st. I am trying to get all of my little projects finished by then because I won't have much help with keeping the baby entertained. Thank you all for being patient with me. I promise I will be around to vist very very soon.