Let The Cleaning Begin!

Christmas is over - at least it is at our house! The ornaments started coming off the tree last night and we rounded up all the decorations from around the house. We need to get all this stuff packed up and reclaim our space back. We are also interested in getting back to normal so our social worker will see our home how it really is on Tuesday for our home visit. She asked if she could bring another person along that is learning home studies and of course I said "Sure!". The more, the merrier!

I'm not sure what exactly I'm going to be serving. 1. To make sure our house smells yummy and 2. To be the hostess with the mostess! Probably bake up some gluten-free cookies and coffee and iced tea. There's no milk to be found in this house!

I've collected all our pictures for our profile and now we really need to get writing. It is so hard to write about yourselves and not be so critical of everything. I want to say the right thing that will connect with the right birthparents. I guess whatever we decide to say, it will be coming from us. It's just hard to get started! Writer's block??

Still stuck on my choices for a car seat, the Consumer Reports reviews on infant seats that came out yesterday are NOT helping. I was very surprised at the results and when I checked in with my ring of certified child seat technicians, they had some choice things to say about their reviews. Most of all, it was very disappointing to find out that all the installs were done by lab technicians and they did not have a child seat technician verify the seat was even installed properly. I don't see how a "scientific" experiment could be conducted when the seats are not being used properly. Second, most of the seats passed when they were installed with the seatbelts, which strengthens my theory that LATCH is not safer over seat belts.

There is a HUGE backlash from this review and it is popping up already. I saw a review written on the Target website for the Britax Companion and someone said don't buy this because it "Did not pass strict safety test". Puh-leeze. Do your research - this is one of the top rated infant car seats by certified child seat technicians. It concerns me that people (parents) blindly believe something someone tells them because "it was on TV so it must be true." Now people are going to be rushing out to buy a Graco Snugride because "it did so well". I will NEVER put my baby in one of those.

Actually, this might work great for me.... all the safer seats that I am considering, no one will probably want and I won't have to sit on a waiting list to get one! Once I actually decide which way I'm going anyway.... I'm glad I can wait until February to see the new Chicco KeyFit seats that fit up to 30 pounds. I know it has a matching stroller! I'm not exactly sold on a travel system either because a convertible seat works great too. I guess I need to figure out what fits in my truck the best. And I'm doing a belt install in the center position, I only have LATCH on the outboard seats. No question there. And no, you cannot use an anchor from each side seat to connect the child seat in the middle - it is NOT safe to do so!

I don't know why I'm ranting about this. I need to put this kind of passion in our family profile!!! LOL