For me, the 4th of July signals summer. Regardless of how hot it has been leading up to it, or how many ears of corn we’ve cooked and eaten, the 4th is the day. I love it - there is something electric about celebrating the birth of a nation, wearing the read, white and blue - but most of all, the kids love it.

This year, we’re planning on taking my daughter the parade and letting her watch the kids on their bikes and trikes ride by. We’ll bring hers, but the chances that she is actually going to get on it and ride down the street are slim, so we’ll keep the expectations low this year!

I know she’ll talk about it for days afterward. She’ll talk about which bike she liked the best and other more random thoughts. We’ll come home, have a small cookout here at the house, play outside, go to the pool and unfortunately - put the kids to bed before the fireworks.

The fireworks are the best part of the 4th of July for me, but unfortunately, my kids are just to young to 1) stay up until they start and 2) to enjoy them. Knowing my 2yo, she would be scared to death of the loud noises and wouldn’t be able to enjoy the beautiful colors and shapes exploding into the air. I’m waiting for the day that she will look up at the colors and shapes and open her mouth in amazement. I hope that next year, she’ll be ready…I know I am!

I don’t know what it is - but Mother’s Day feels so different from Father’s Day. For our family, Mother’s Day is all about family and togetherness. Father’s Day seems different. More about the individual than the unit. On Mother’s Day, my husband and daughters made me breakfast - on Father’s Day I took the girls to church so my husband could have some alone time.

Granted, we’re different people, but I see it in other families too. On Mother’s Day, the family goes out to brunch. On Father’s Day - Dad goes out golfing. What’s up with that? Why the seeming difference of the two days when they are really celebrating parenting, not the individual.

What does your family do for Mother’s Day? For Father’s Day? What’s different between the 2?

Today, I had one of the scariest moments of my life. We were at the pool, and all of a sudden I couldn’t find her - my 2yo. I thought she must have been behind the froggy water slide looking at an old band-aid, or picking up litter, I wasn’t worried. Then I saw my husband with an awful look on his face running toward me. My baby girl had gone down the slide - I had missed it and she was under the water. It must have only been a few seconds - she could have stood up in the water if she had tried, but she was too freaked out to figure that out.

My heart sunk then raced. Before I could even figure it out she was up and in my husbands arms. She was fine - scared, but fine. I was still shaken. I knew I couldn’t’ show it to her, so I told my husband to bring her back into the pool so that she wouldn’t get scared of the water. She wanted to go and dry her face off. So we did.

Then she said, “I want to go again Mommy!”

It was a scary reminder that accidents can happen in a moment. Life is too precious to let it pass by.

There’s a lot of talk about how to get your message across in 140 charachters on Twitter. People question whether or not it can be done effectively. Well, I’m asking, what if you had to do it in 9 letters. Yes, you read that correctly 9 letters. Let’s take it a step further. What if you had to express your love and devotion to your loved ones in just 9 letters?

What would you say? Be True? True Love? 1st Love? Be Mine?

9 letters is all you get on Necco Sweethearts, but quite honestly, 9 letters is all they need. Necco just had a contest asking for people to reccomend 9 letters for their new version of Sweet Hearts. What would you want your Sweethearts to say? Who would you say it to?

Let me know and you could win a box of Sweethearts to share with someone you love! Just comment on this post and let me know what you’d write on your Sweetheart!

When we had to buy car seats for baby number one, we didn’t have an issue. We were very generously given the infant car seat as well as the convertible car seat as shower gifts. We had registered for what we read was the safest car seat on the market - Britax. We did have to buy 2 more car seats, one for our other car and one for my mother-in-laws car, but that didn’t seem so bad.

Now, with baby number two, we’ve reused the infant seat, but clearly, my 2yo is still in her convertible. So, we have to buy 3 new car seats. One for each car, and one for my mother-in-laws car. We can probably do without buying one for her car - do some switching of cars when she has both, which would be rare, but we do need 2 for each of our cars because we have schedules that don’t always allow us to know who is going to be picking up the kids.

I want to buy the Britax because I do think they are the safest, but they are so expensive. I have been doing my research. I’ve checked out Car&Caboodle, Consumer Reports, the Baby Bargains book, etc. Everything points to Britax still having the safest seats due to their side impact protection, but I’m not sure I can afford to buy 2 of them. But if I don’t won’t I be short changing baby girl - we bought her big sister the best, shouldn’t we do it for the little one? Of course…so, what to do? What should I do? Any advice? Are there other car seats that rank with the Britax? Please let me know!

Need something to do next weekend? Live in the Philly area? Check out CHOP’s Healthy Kids Day at the Mann Music Center on May 30, 2009!

CHOP is putting together an event complete with musical guest Laurie Berkner. There will be vendors with educational information and gifts, activities and food (healthy food!)

Be warned, if you plan on going - you’ll need to register first - you can do that here.

Let me know if you’re going - we’ll be there!

I found another use for old baby food jars. Have you ever wanted to make a PB&J sandwich and take it to work. If you’ve done it - than you know that the jelly seeps into the bread and makes the sandwich icky. But, if you have extra baby food jars around - pour some jelly into one and screw the top back on. Throw it in your bag and take it to work. At lunchtime - make your sandwich. Perfect PB&J - no mess no fuss…and you have a reason to keep those empty jars!

I don’t know if you’re on Facebook, but chances are that if you enjoy reading blogs you are probably also on Facebook. If you are on Facebook, you know all about the quizzes that you can take. If you’re like me, your friends take way too many quizzes, and you get caught up in it more than you want to.

Anyway - my point is that tonight - I took a quiz. A quiz about what kind of parent are you. I was intrigued after seeing a friends result. Her result? Mainstream parent. My result? Kind of Crunchy.

If you met me, you wouldn’t think of me as kind of crunchy (at least I don’t think you would). I am a typical suburban mom (if there is a typical suburban mom)…I drive a minivan (techinically it’s my husbands car…but all the same), I drop my kids off at day care so that I can work. I wear suits to work, not everyday, but often enough. I like shoes, etc.

After taking the quiz - I realized that I may just be a bit of a crunchy parent. Here’s why:

1. I cloth diapered my first child and used G Diapers on my second
2. I don’t let my kids watch television
3. My daughter attends a Montessori school (not in itself crunchy…but…)
4. I made both of my children’s food for the first 2 months they were eating solids (longer for my first)
5. I nursed my first child for 1 year, and plan on nursing my second as long…
6. Both of my kids slept in our bed for a number of months. My second still does most of the time (she’s 9 months)

There’s more, but I realized that many of these things make me slightly crunchy…at least as far as Facebook is concerned.

Where do you fall in the mainstream to crunchy parenting realm?

The 2yo in my life has gotten really good at manipulating both myself and my husband. She can prolong bedtime at least an hour past it’s original time. As a matter of fact, lately it seems that bed time has permanently moved at least 30 minutes past it’s original time. I’m not sure how it happened, or when, but everything I look up at the clock - it’s 7:11 and we’re just starting bedtime. We used to start it at 6:45…but that was when we only had one child and now, we have 2. So I am feeding the baby and putting her to bed and my husband takes the big girl and puts her down. She’s a Daddy’s girl - enough said!

Anyway - I was thinking about it and how she manages to get what she wants and I couldn’t figure out how we had gotten to that point. I am not a “strict” mom, but I am structured and bed time isn’t something that should be moved without thought.

I figured it out. My husband and I do things differently. He’s more relaxed about the start of bedtime…he’s more likely to read one more story or sing one more song than I am. She uses that. Then when it is finally time and he’s not going to read another story…she starts the crying. I don’t put up with it. I’ll sit her in her bed and leave until she stops crying or sit in a chair in her room silently until she stops. She normally stops fairly quickly.

The problem with my way of managing the situation is that we have another child who has to listen to the howling while it is occuring and is therefor not going to bed on time - or worse - being awakened due to the screaming.

So, what to do? Any advice is appreciated!

We’ve been really lucky with child care. My mother-in-law has watched both of my girls for 2/3 days a week since they were born. We found a care provider who treated them like family the remaining days. With that situation in place I went off to work each day confident that the girls were ok.

Now, a family emergency had pulled my caregive away from us and my mother-in-law and father-in-law are off on a long overdue and well deserved trip, we’re completely without care.

The search for good childcare isn’t easy. Do you want 1:1 care or a group situation? In-home care or institutional care? How many kids are too many? What ages should the kids be? What type of personality should the caregiver have? What type of facilities do you want the place to have?

It reminded me why I started this site. These questions are hard to answer by yourself, and other parents are often the people you turn to. Hence PARENTise…it makes it a bit easier…to make those tough decisions and feel like you’re making the right decision. I know it’s helped me!