Pigeon: I'm in the mood for a hot dog party!

Naturally as a Pigeon-lover, I also love this! http://dailyiowegian.com/archive/x744036059

FREE Car Seat Safety Event- Friday Oct 7th!

Google Images/Torrance CA Fire Dept

If you're a safety nut (aka, a parent) like me, you'll be very interested to know that there's a free car seat and booster seat safety check going on tomorrow in Washington, DC hosted by AAA and Dorel Juvenile Group. Please see the details below and spread the word. You may help save a child's life.

WHAT:

AAA and Dorel Juvenile Group are hosting a free car seat and booster seat safety check for families; Certified Child Passenger Safety Technicians will be on hand to help properly install car seats and provide parents with safety tips for childproofing their vehicles

WHERE: 

U.S. Capitol Senate Parking

400 1^st Street NE

Washington, DC  20510

*Right in front of U.S. Capitol Police Station and Union Station*

WHEN:
Friday, October 7, 2011

10AM – 2PM

WHY?

Google Images/ES Communications

National Child Passenger Safety Week was September 18-24, but it's never a bad time to ensure your child's safety seat is properly installed. Also, data collected by National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) suggests as many as 75% of car seats on the road today are not properly installed. According to NHTSA, on average, 4 kids die in car crashes every day and more than 500 are injured. The risk, however, is dramatically decreased when a car seat is properly installed.   

Please feel free to come back here to comment and share what you learned or to ask questions. 

Safe Travels!

The Priceless Present

Google Images

Dave Ryan, the host of my favorite Minnesota-based radio show said something really deep and inspiring this morning that I was so moved by, I just had to write about it. Dave and I don't always see eye to eye on certain things, but as a parent, one of the Great Unifiers, he's almost always spot-on. Well, this afternoon as I was listening to a re-play, he reduced me to tears. Not ugly, sobbing pitiful tears, but my eyes did well a little at the remark. 

My Facebook post sums it up:

Best advice I've heard all day comes from Dave Ryan from The Dave Ryan in the Morning Show : Whenever you go to your kids' games or recitals, don't tape it ALL. Don't watch your kids through a viewfinder because you'll miss it, you can't enjoy what's going on that way. It's not that exciting when you go back and watch it, so watch it live. 

He's so on-point with this bit of advice and I'm so glad this is something I had already begun to implement in our outings. Before, I wanted to try and capture every little moment in the girls' lives until I realized I was missing out on a lot by fiddling with the camera, or these days, my camera phone. Then what was worse, I wasn't even getting the shots I thought I was, when I came home at the end of the day to review the pictures I thought I had taken, knowing I had missed out on a lot to be the photographer and "get the shot". 

A fellow Mocha Mom-friend of mine recently lost her 7-year-old son unexpectedly and although I wasn't particularly close with the whole family, his death hit me hard. She recalled a memory on Facebook the other day in which she could have reacted a hundred different ways, but instead she chose to let her son just be. He was having fun with a friend melting candles on the radiator and rather than look at the fact that he was staining it and making it a mess, she allowed him to just treasure the moment and not feel bad for simply being a kid and having the healthy curiosity that comes along with it. And, now that he's gone, she has those colorful streaks to remind her that he was once there, loving life and appreciating the simple things, and knowing, I hope, that she was the best mom ever to him.

Something parenting has really taught me, especially when they're (finally!) in the bed after a long, busy, crazy day, is that one of the best things you can do for your kids is BE PRESENT when you're with them. Shut off the tv, the radio, the phone, the computer and just relish the gift of time that you have with them, because even though it's so cliche to say it, it will be gone before you know it. 

So now when we go out, I make sure to document the memory to share and revisit later on, but I'm very careful not to spend too much time behind the lens. Keeping the memory is great, but enjoying it while it's being made, being fully immersed in that moment that will never come back around again, is so profoundly priceless.

Oodles Noodles...the Healthy Way

Anyone who's ever attended college or just been on a budget knows how delicious those little packets of ramen noodles (in our house, the kids call 'em "Oodles Noodles") can be. That's because of a little miracle ingredient called monosodium glutamate or MSG. On the up side, it makes everything taste better. On the down side, it has been linked to a whole host of health problems and other issues, which you can read about here.

Well, we love the noodles but to us the taste of MSG is not worth all of the other bad things you get along with it, so we made a happy compromise. We still buy the packets of ramen noodles but we toss the seasoning packet out and instead use one tube of Trader Joe's Low-Sodium Concentrated Chicken Broth (they have Veggie broth and Turkey broth as well) a sprinkle of salt, garlic, and pepper. It's quick, delicious and so much healthier than the alternative. Feel free to try any variation of this easy recipe to suit your tastes and comment back to share with the rest of us if you are so moved. Here's to healthier eating. Now if I could just slip in some vegetables...

All images taken from Google Images.