Kristy emailed me and said,

I have so enjoyed your blog in so many different areas! My question is in regards to baby food. Do you feed your boys table food straight from your plate mashed up, or do you make "specific" babyfoods for them? If so, how do you store them and do you have any "babyfood recipes" you can pass on?

I'm also curious as to when you decided to start feeding babyfoods/table foods to your boys. The typical 4-6 months? Do you wait for their cues? What has been your experience in this area?

Hi, Kristy! Thanks for asking! I'm happy to share about our experience and what has worked for us. :) As with anything, I definitely recommend education, research, and taking into consideration the individual needs of your child. Read more...

My friend Pinja commented on this post,

"I liked this post simply because it got me thinking about the subject of playing with your food. Tammy and Joshua, what are your views on this? Considering children, what is allowed and what is not? When having a dinner together, is it ok for a child to start forming their plate contents into smiley faces or turning their smashed potatoes and gravy into a volcano?"

Pinja, good question! :) We do allow our children to play with their food, to a certain extent. Two-year-olds are naturally very curious, and I just love seeing creativity displayed in everyday doings! :)

To be more specific, I don't allow Yehoshua (almost 3) to make messes with his food. He is a neat eater and knows that the food has to stay in his bowl. He also uses his silverware (actually, he will ask for silverware if I've forgotten, because he doesn't like to eat with his fingers!), stays seated close to the table, and wears a bib (which doesn't get very dirty, and is usually used for several meals in a row).

But, we like to call broccoli "trees", and spaghetti is "worms", and today, when we were making Dreamy Spaghetti for lunch, I taught Yehoshua how to slurp a long spaghetti noodle into his mouth. ;) This was while we were cooking, not at the table eating. You should have heard his giggles! :)

We do practice some manners (right now we're working on "chew with your mouth closed") but we're also willing to have fun.

I'd love to hear input from other moms out there -- what do you allow and NOT allow your children to do with food, or at the table? :)

This week, I put a piece of card board in the bottom of my child's crib, to protect the mattress and prolong its life. Read about it (with photos)!

Yehoshua and I made these foodie guys a while back. They were fun to make and eat! I should do creative things like this more often with my children. The creature above was supposed to be a bunny. :)

Or, if you're a more adventurous type, you may enjoy a goofy face like this!

Recently, Court asked me, "How do you honestly do it all?!" As happens in blog-world from time to time, we read the chronicles of someone's life (the tiny snippet placed in their blog!) and get it into our heads that they are perfect in everything they do, which leads (usually) to either jealousy and dislike, or unbalanced amazement and awe.

Crystal at Biblical Womanhood shared this post about "getting things done" (or, not!) and guess what! I've been there too! ;) My face still gets a little red when I get an unexpected guest and have to invite them in to a house littered with toys, laundry, and dirty dishes.

One guest spotted the pan of (cold) pizza left on the kitchen table and said, "Oh! Did I interrupt your meal?"

"Ummm, no. Actually, we ate lunch a few hours ago. I just never got the leftovers put away. Yet..." (Read more...)

We finally decided on a car seat for Eliyahu after all our deliberations. I strongly dislike shopping for major purchases, particularly online. I like to be able to look at and touch the different products. (That's one reason I've shyed away from buying any cloth diapering things online.) And with major purchases, I always worry that I'm making the wrong choice.

But after lots of research and discussion, we decided that several factors also come into the picture. (Read more...)

I received this email today from a lady who used the Confirm Clearly pregnancy test. 

I wish I had read your blog before buying this test. I was unaware of this company's irresponsibility and had a false positive result.

Unfortunately for me, it coincided with what turned out to be a very late period and I thought I had a miscarriage! I'm sure that you can imagine the emotional rollercoaster that my husband and I and our families have been on.

We have been trying to get pregnant for several months, so of course when we found out and all the other signs were there (which were actually symptoms of my late period) we were elated and told our families.

Now I feel humiliated and devestated and am too embarrassed to even let anyone outside of my husband and I know the truth. WE WENT THROUGH A MISCARRIAGE! Our family thought we had a miscarriage!

I found out about the false positive from my doctor from blood work she did. Anyway, that is my story. Thank-you for sharing yours and feel free to post this ~ best wishes~ Laurie

Laurie, my heart went out to you as I read your email. I know first-hand what an awful experience it can be to get a false-positive from one of these tests.

Emotionally (if not physically, as well!), miscarriages are traumatic. Add to that the embarrassment and humiliation of being deceived/mistaken, the disappointment and devastation of not being pregnant after all, the sadness and hurt of realising that your whole pregnancy was "nothing", and the frustration at the fact that women are still unknowingly using these tests and experiencing emotional trauma as a result.

It is truly a difficult experience to go through, and we will keep you in our prayers. Recovery from a miscarriage doesn't happen overnight. 

Friends, please continue to spread the word about the defective "Confirm Clearly" pregnancy tests to others. I was excited when I heard that these tests were being voluntarily recalled by the company (see here and here). Unfortunately, it seems they are still being sold (see here) and women are still getting false-positive results after using tests they have bought. I know I personally stashed the tests in the cabinet for a number of weeks before using them. I had no idea that they could be defective until after we started announcing that we were expecting.

Thank you so much to those of you who have told others in email or through your journals and blogs about this issue. I have tried to reach as many people as possible with the information that these tests are faulty. I don't want even one more person to have to experience an emotional miscarriage because of the Confirm Clearly pregnancy tests. Thanks for helping to spread the word.

I think I just used up my evening "computer time" researching car seats! There's just so many choices, and trying to decide how much to spend and exactly what to get can be rather tiring!

Eliyahu has outgrown his infant car seat, so it's time to buy a bigger one. I would like to get a convertible one, so he can continue to be rear-facing for another year or more. And then theoretically the convertible one could be used for a future newborn, should we be blessed with another child. :)

So, what sort of car seats do you use for your children? Do you buy a brand new seat every time you need to upgrade?

Do you use the 5-22 lbs infant seat, and then go straight to the forward-facing, or do you use a convertible one? Has anyone tried using the convertible seats with no carrying handle (that are for 5-33 lbs rear-facing) for a newborn?

And, joy of joys, we realised in our research that since our car doesn't have shoulder belts (only lap belts) in the back seat, the options for 40+ lb children aren't all that great. I guess since Yehoshua is only 31 lbs right now, we have a bit to figure out the next step. :)

I have good news! The defective pregnancy tests "Confirm Clearly" are being pulled from retailers!

Yesterday someone left a comment on my blog with the letter they had received from the company. The Confirm Clearly website has been reduced to simply a contact page. And today I received a call from my cousin who is a Kroger pharmacist and she said that they are indeed being pulled from shelves.

I'm so glad that these tests are being recalled. Thank you to everyone who helped tell others about these faulty tests while they were still being sold! I'm not even a little disappointed that this probably means that... my husband... isn't pregnant after all.