almk's Profile

My husband and I remember watching a ton of TV when we were kids, but we were also active outdoors and were voracious readers. I don't remember having any rules to TV watching, and I consumed my fair amount of commercials, but then again, my parents brought me up to be a skeptic, so I don't think they were as effective on me. My mom tells me I would sit through a whole episode of Sesame Street at 9 months, and I recall watching shows like Quantum Leap and Star Trek: TNG when I was only 4 or 5, not to mention Beakman's World, Bill Nye, and Mr. Wizard (back in the day). I wonder if I hadn't been exposed to TV, would my interest in physics have evolved to the point where it was my major in college?

I have a background in education and so while I respect the recommendation of no TV until the age of 2 from the AAP, or the 3,6,9,12 rule post above, I don't believe there is a magic number. My almost-15-month-old watches a few minutes of Sesame Street songs or skits on my Android every day, but doesn't seem to want to sit still for the actual show, either recorded off of PBS or on Netflix. While we have made it a point to never watch shows with offensive language or violent or sexual situations while he is in the room, he did "watch" almost the entire series of Top Gear as an infant while his dad was looking after him, and we have been known to pile into the living room with toys for an afternoon of football.

It's all going to have to do with the child, and each child is different. TV can turn into an obsession, as can video games, or cookies, or soccer practice. As someone else said, the most important thing is that TV isn't taking the place of social interaction and developmental learning. When they're toddlers, take it in short doses and talk about what they're watching. Take a song you watch on Sesame Street and work it into your daily life. When they're older, make sure they can separate fantasy from reality, or suggest that they play make-believe as their favorite characters. TV isn't a singular thing that is going to turn a good kid (or good parent) bad.

We kept our Christmas tree up until last weekend. Long story short, it's outdoors on our back porch and we could see it through the sliding glass door in the play room. We decorated it with cheap plastic balls and outdoor lights and put it out there mainly so the cat wouldn't eat it, but it helped to keep the 1-year-old away from it, too. Our son was obsessed with turning on the "dree!" every night and watching it from the play room, so I couldn't stand to take it down so soon. We took down all the other decorations before his birthday party (he was born the week before Christmas, but we had his party on the 31st) but left the tree.

My one-year-old just got the Plan Toys dancing alligator for Christmas, and he loves it.

My Grandmother and her family were from the Swabia area of Germany (she grew up there during WWII and moved to the US after marrying my American grandfather in the 50's), and we celebrated traditional German Christmas, opening presents on Christmas Eve and I had never heard of the pickle ornament until I saw it in a store one year. My vote is not real. She told me the only things they had on their tree were straw ornaments and tiny candles (which seems like such a bad combination!).

I was born in 83, but I had a baby CPK named Rosalie (don't remember her middle name) with a little tuft of red yarn hair. I also had a white CPK pony, and an orange striped "Koosa" cat, like psychobabble described above. When I was about 6 or 7 we took a trip to GA to the Cabbage Patch hospital. I remember that in the cabbage patch where the dolls were "born", you got to yell out name suggestions that they would supposedly use for actual dolls.

We lived in a hotel for over two months last summer. We were moving from Boston, where our rent was $1400 before utilities and got a studio room with kitchen for $1500/month with internet and everything included, so it made financial sense. We wanted to buy a house before December, when I was due to have our son, so I just started looking as soon as we got here and we put an offer in on our house 3 weeks after we moved. We even kept the cat with us (although after an altercation with the cleaning lady, we had to cage him once a week when we let housekeeping in). My husband telecommuted to his work from the hotel room, and it was nice for a preggo not to have to worry about cleaning a whole house (or cleaning at all). Sometimes I miss just living in that one room, but it wouldn't work at all with the baby now.

Everyone seems to have good advice. We keep the house at 67, and my 10-month-old son has been sleeping in cotton knit 2-piece jammies with socks under fleece footie pjs and he still wakes up with cold hands! Seems perfectly happy otherwise. I've also been told cold hands and feet are no big deal. I'll probably add a wonder light quilt to his crib after his birthday, but it probably won't do much good since he's a restless sleeper.

Jess, that's such a great story! Not that I'm happy that it happened to your family, but what a good thing to be so positive about it and be able to put the situation in perspective for other people. You took a bad situation that wasn't your fault and made the best of it.

When we bought our house last year, my uncle in real estate told us not to worry. The worst thing that would happen is we hate the house, have to sell it at a little loss and rent or buy something new. The idea is, if that money we put in the down payment and the first year of the mortgage was in the stock market, it might lose or gain value. A house is more than a place to live, it's an investment vehicle, and you have to be in a place financially to take a loss if that's what's best in the long run. If you lose $20,000, well, paying rent is basically like losing that money as well. Take solace in the fact that the market is good for buyers, and that you can likely afford more of a house now than you could several years ago anyway.

I second the Company Store. It's where my mom got all of our bedding when we were kids.

Ditto about hoping the old ones are still safe. We didn't need ours until the baby was 5 months old and we moved him from the co-sleeper in our room to his own room. We have been very happy with the Gulliver.