No pacifier - no problem

As I wrote on Saturday, we took away Anna's pacifier after her second birthday. We told her that big girls no longer got pacifiers and the bowl in which we kept her pacifier no longer has one in it.

At the first nap on Saturday, she asked for it and didn't sleep. That night, she again asked for it. I told her that big girls didn't use pacifiers and she was a big girl now. Wanting to give her something in return, I told her that big girls got to read longer stories at night also and have read to her loner bedtime stories from bigger books each night. She asked for it again the next day, but hasn't asked for it since. The first night (Saturday) was the only night she had trouble getting to sleep. But, she hasn't napped since removing her pacifier.

The reading longer stories has worked well. A couple of nights, she has wanted to read her smaller board books that rhyme. Also, there is also the occasional night she barely wants us to read at all because she is so tired. She just says, "night night daddy, night night" and that is our hint to leave.

Anna has handled not having a pacifier extremely well. I think we took it away at the right time as she was able to make good decisions about it. That said, I am tempted to get rid of Madelyn's now so as to not deal with it in 1.5 years. :-)

Moments with my little girls

I thought I would show a couple short clips of my little girls from the past week which were just some of the moments which I like to remember with my girls. After my post yesterday, I felt it was appropriate to share some of those Cinderella moments with my girls.

First, from last weekend we set out a sprinkler and Anna played in it for the first time. It was getting late and neither Heather or I felt like going to the pool...so the sprinkler seemed like a fun option to beat the heat. Here she is in a photo and video. I took the video from the deck while holding Maddie, you can hear Maddie talking the whole time:




Last night, I was on the ground playing with Anna and Maddie. When Maddie finished her tummy time, I put her in the Bumbo seat and she was thrilled by the Bunny to the point she was laughing. Here is a picture of Anna and Madelyn in their matching outfits and a video of Madelyn laughing at the bunny.



Note, Maddie still has her little Wubbanub that Lori sent us...its with her pretty much all the time.

I danced with Cinderella

I have been hearing a song often on the radio that just has been breaking me down. I think its lyrics are powerful for any father who has a little girl who may be struggling with the realization that their little girl is growing up so fast they will be dancing away from us so quick. I don't have a boy to know if its similar, but now that Anna is growing up I just realize how much more they need their daddy especially if you have a girl with a very sensitive spirit like Anna.

Back to the song..it makes me desire to cherish the moments I have with my girl more than I do now. It also reminds me to take a step away from what I am doing and hug her when I am busy with something else whether it be work or a chore around the house. The song is even more bittersweet knowing that the artist lost one of his daughters in May at 5 years old.

So, the song is called Cinderella by Steven Curtis Chapman. Here is a youtube video of his song with the story of the song at the end of the video...and of course what I stated above were the intentions behind the song:


Here are some of the lyrics:

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew
Oooooh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't wanna miss even one song
'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone...

Scary Story for parents

This scary story will scare all parents, especially those with kids in small day cares. I mean...how horrible is this? A 7 yr old beats to death a 10-month old, Marcia Poston, in a day care while the nursery worker, a 20 year old named Ashley Swann, was gone for 20 minutes. I can't even begin to imagine how I would react would that happen to my child. This is sad and my heart goes out to Marcia's family.

Love her smile

Madelyn is at an age where I the thing that brightens my day the most is her smile. As she grows up, I look forward to the little hugs and holding hands I get with Anna, but for now I just am enjoying this beautiful little smile. Here it is in big version...

Time flies faster than ever

People often complain that their kids grow up too fast so I am guessing this isn't news to most people. But, while Anna grew up pretty fast we are seeing Madelyn grow up even faster because Anna's growth was not as noticeable. Anna is a ton of fun to be around, play with, feed, talk to, cuddle to, and everything else. This of course means that Anna gets a lot of attention, so much so that we almost don't dwell on Madelyn's stages as much. I think this picture from before church this morning shows what fun and therefore distracting our little Anna can be:


Madelyn has been great lately. She is sleeping periodically through the night, she went from 10 PM to 7 AM yesterday night. This morning at church I played with her while she sat on my lap. Everytime I looked at her she would get a big toothless smile often with her tongue sticking out. Its sad to think that I haven't had nearly as many of those times with Madelyn as I have had with Anna. But, I think what it has done is make me appreciate the changes in Madelyn more. With Anna we spent a lot of time watching the grass grow. With Madelyn, I get less time but notice more the little changes. Whether its the smiles or the fact she now kicks the fish on her bouncer.


Even while capturing that cute Maddie moment on camera, Anna jumps in with a "Cheese" and a smile:


I am thankful for these two wonderful little girls and what fun they bring us.

Thoughts when away

Its mental images captured like these that I recall when I am away from my family and missing them. These precious times, like Heather playing paddy-cake with Anna and Madelyn, happen consistently around the house but we don't often get the opportunity to capture the fun. I think you can see the fun in Madelyn's expression and see why images like this stick out in my mind as special times I hold on to when away. I know things are not always this fun, but this is what I like to picture my family doing when I am away.



Lately I have had a lot of day trips leading me to run through books like crazy, spend long hours in airports, and be exhausted from the stress of traveling. Most of these trips have me leaving before 8 AM and getting back late the same day or the next day. Its definitely tiring...but I like to look at pictures of my wonderful girls when away and imagine them having a blast :-)

Nice tan

We have been traveling to the pool very often in the heat wave that is hitting Raleigh. With the past full week hitting near or above 100 degrees, we have been staying indoors or heading the pool every day. Last week Anna managed to go to the pool every day aside from one and took multiple trips a couple of days. Sometimes its just with Daddy, sometimes its the whole family, and sometimes its with Mommy and Madelyn when they are meeting friends. Through this even with massive sunblock on, we all have managed to get better tans including Anna. Here is Anna looking cute with her tan:


And here is a comparison of Anna's tan to her Daddy's and Mommy's. We still can't tell if she had Daddy or Mommy's coloring :-)

My favorite becomes one of her favorites

My favorite book growing up was Richard Scarry's Cars Truck and Things that Go. My mom saved my copy of the book, printed in 1983 and complete with a nametag on the front from show and tell when I was a kid. The thing I loved about the book was searching for Gold Bug, a Where's Waldo like search before Waldo became there. The book is about 70 pages, so memorizing every goldbug appearance was tough. The other things, the story and the cars were interesting later, but finding Gold Bug was always the big deal. Now the book is one of Anna's favorites and she even says Gold Bug...although it comes out more like "Ba Bug!". Below is a picture. If you look close enough, you can see a sticker on the upper right hand corner of the cover with my mom's handwriting and my name on it :-)

Chicco vs Peg Perego redux

Yes, we have both car seats but no we didn't spend much more than had we bought two Gracos. Why? See my post here about buying last year's baby products at a significant discount. In fact, the Peg Perego after taxes, shipping, everything cost less than the Graco SafeSeat and only $5 more than the Graco Snugride at Babies R Us. But why two?

We bought the Chicco Keyfit system late in the summer of 2006 before our daughter was born in October. At the time, I didn't know about the discounted other products and liked the Chicco size, weight, and features on comparison. Fast forward to baby number two born last week and we needed an additional car seat for our BOB Revolution Duallie Jogging Stroller which only accepts car seats from Graco, Peg Perego, or Britax. There was no way to get the Chicco to fit, and walking daily is an important part of my wife's social life and exercise...worth the money for an extra car seat. We also thought we would use the car seat in our second car which gets over 10 miles per gallon better than our other car.

As I said in my last blog post, the Peg Perego doesn't look like it fits our little girl as well. How little? She was 7 lbs 12 oz on Monday, these pictures are taken Thursday. Her head at birth a week ago was 34 cm. So, not too little. Here are pictures of her in the Peg Perego, in the Chicco, then back in the Peg Perego with a Kiddopotamus Snuzzler attached.









In the end, the Chicco definitely fits her head best for now. The head support from the Chicco is removable, so it removes as they grow. The Peg Perego head support does not seem removable and its part of their side impact protection. As you can see, there is a gap between her head and one side. Adding the Kiddopotamus Snuzzler, no matter how much I try, doesn't seem safe at all. As you can see, it seems to push her head forward an unsafe amount. Plus, since the Peg Perego puts the child more vertical than the Chicco, it doesn't need to further have her push forward.

In the end, the Chicco seems to provide the best head support now...but the looks of the Peg Perego head support with Side Impact protection looks impressive for the future when the children have some more muscles to hold up their head.

Aftermarket additions to infant car seats

We recently purchased a second infant car seat for two purposes. Primarily, this infant car seat was for use with the jogging stroller so my wife could get out and get exercise. Secondarily, we thought we could use this car seat in our Toyota Matrix which gets considerably better gas mileage than our Honda Pilot. After our first trip walk in the car seat yesterday, we noticed the that our little girl was very vertical and sleeping with her head slouched forward. So, thats no good. I decided to research the safety issues around after market additions...

The Kiddopotamus Snuzzler is the model we own and have already used in thr strollers. It claims the following:

Crash Tested for Safety
If you’ve done your parenting homework, you know that adding fluffy, squishy things to your baby’s car seat can compromise her safety, as the harness straps may not fit as snugly as necessary with all the cushioning around baby. Have no fear, Kiddopotamus knows all about baby safety. Snuzzler has no padding behind baby for the safest harness fit. It has undergone rigorous crash tests by accredited United States agencies to ensure that it conforms to federal standards.

While that might be so, the local experts at the hospital and fire stations still say not to use them. Not able to find any US government information about these aftermarket additions for head and body support, I found a Canadian website which talks about these very issues. The Snuzzler provides head and body support. So, I looked at those sections and saw the following:

Head Support Cushions: If the manufacturer incorporates a head support cushion with the restraint system, then the manufacturer has tested it for that model and make of restraint. Should a head support cushion that is purchased separately be used, then it is possible that the slots in the head support cushion may not line up with the slots in the restraint for the harness system. By re-routing the harness system to accommodate the aftermarket head support cushion, slack may be induced into the harness system, which may increase the likelihood of ejection from the car seat in the event of a crash.

Additional Padding Behind the Child: Any additional padding behind the child can induce both slack in the harness and additional compressibility. The Standard, which regulates children’s restraint systems, only allows for a certain amount of compressibility in the foam and material used. By increasing this amount, during a collision the additional foam/material can compress to the point that the harness system becomes very loose and therefore no longer is capable of restraining the child.

The Snuzzler does not have slots for harness in the head support and does not have additional padding behind the child. So, based on this Canadian website it seems that they are correct in their statement that the known problems are handled by the Snuzzler.

But, you can still find all sorts of statements like this:

An aftermarket product is anything that is not sold with your car seat. Shoulder belt positioning devices, seat belt tightening devices, head cushions and car seat covers are considered unsafe aftermarket products. It is never recommended that you use anything extra with your car seat without the express consent of the car seat manufacturer.

So, at this point we are not sure what to do. We will probably try the car seat again and make sure that our daughter is tight in her straps. Also, we may try to check out how she is in the car seat base rather than the stroller which seems to tilt her even more vertical than the seat already is.

Here are some pictures comparing our new car seat, a 2007 Peg Perego Viaggo SIP with our old car seat, a 2006 Chicco Keyfit which I think shows first that the head support for the Peg Perego is much higher and that the Chicco tilts back further. Both are at the lowest settings available.




Maybe this is a reason the Chicco did better on consumer reports? The only category the Chicco scored higher on was "ease of use." Not sure if this is ease of use or not.

Blessed with nearby friends and family

I blogged earlier about the grandparent factor and its importance when having more than one kid...well I thought I would follow up with how blessed we have been with nearby friends and family. Last Tuesday afternoon, Heather started having contractions around 2:45pm. At about 3:45 we called Suzanne, Heather's life-long friend, who came by and took Anna. We also called John, my good friend and roommate throughout college who took Cassie for the next 24 hours. Suzanne's husband Aaron came and helped Suzanne that night so that when Madelyn was born less than 4 hours later, Suzanne was able to come visit Madelyn while Aaron took care of Anna. That night, I came home with my mother in law and we stayed the night at home, leaving Heather alone in the hospital with Madelyn.


The next day, Suzanne took the morning off and Aaron the afternoon off. That was great. Suzanne brought Anna to the hospital to meet her sister. Anna thought she was funny and special from the beginning. Anna went home and took a nap with Aaron taking care of her in the afternoon and getting his first diaper changing experiences. Suzanne is pregnant, so he needs the practice anyway :-) That evening my good friend Derick brought me dinner while in the hospital and I went home that evening to be with Anna and Cassie.


On Thursday, when Heather was coming home, Heather's sister-in-law Stephanie came from Greensboro (~90 min drive) for the day and spent time with Anna while I went and got Heather home. They had a blast, and we were home for lunch. Stephanie left early in the evening and we were on our own.


Beyond that, we had other great help yesterday when one of our neighborhood friends, Ann, watched Anna while both Heather and I went to Madelyn's doctor appointment.

We also have been blessed with 3 meals a week all of May. Our friend Meg arranged it and a variety of people will be bringing them.

I don't feel at a loss right now from not having grandparents because of how surrounded we have been by friends. I am so thankful for our friends and how helpful they have been. I still wish we had grandparents more accessible, but I don't think that is holding us back!

On Paternity Leave

I am off work right now on paternity leave, which is a huge blessing to our family. IBM allows for up to 2 weeks paternity leave at the birth of a child or new adoption all based on manager's discretion. My manager gave me the full two weeks, which was more needed with the newborn and 18 month old. It has been wonderful because someone is here to play with Anna and take care of Madelyn so that Anna can slowly adjust to Madelyn being around. As Heather said in her blog today, Anna has been a great big sister, loves Madelyn, and is always trying to help. Today though, for the first time, Anna seemed real needy of some Mommy time and I got some great Madelyn cuddle time. Hopefully I will get some more of this in the next 6 days I have off :-)

My girls

Once Anna woke up from her nap today, we had Madelyn and Mommy home. I took Anna into my lap and my sister-in-law Stephanie handed me Madelyn. I had my two little girls at that point, it was a great feeling. Anna likes Madelyn, she likes to point to her, laugh when she cries, and touch her hand quickly...we are using the word gentle a lot...luckily Cassie had helped us work a lot on that word before. When we lay Madelyn down, Anna wants to be able to see her. Its sweet.

Anna and Madelyn in Daddy's lap:


Anna touching Madelyn's hand:

Madelyn picture

Yea, this is just to put up another big close up of Madelyn from yesterday...everyone is still well and now at home...we'll talk more about that experience later I am sure.

Madelyn Elizabeth Burckart

Announcing the birth of Madelyn Elizabeth Burckart at 7:28 PM this evening. She weighed in at 7 lbs 11 oz and 21.25" long. Both Mommy and Madelyn are in great shape and recovering at Rex until Thursday.

The Grand Sitter

One of the things that has come more apparent as Heather and I have had children is how far our family lives away from us. Most of our friends have a sibling or parent who live close by or at least a parent who is retired and can come stay the week when needed. Heather and I have no immediate family within an hour drive which means that "stop by" help is almost non-existant. We are blessed by having Heather's best friend since she was born, Suzanne, living just 20 minutes away and she is Anna's primary caretaker outside of us generally.

In this age where grandparents involvement in the raising of their grandchildren is becoming even more commonplace, this has had me at times feel jealous that we don't have that situation. It has never become more apparent than it is as we plan to have our second little girl any day now. Many of our friends, when this happens, will not have to ask other friends to be on call while they have a parent who can be around or stay with them. In general, Suzanne is our one single contact for taking care of Anna while Heather is in the hospital and she has been gracious enough to keep her schedule as clear as possible. Because the doctor is telling us we have to make it quickly to the hospital due to Heather's already advanced stages and history with Anna, we have my close friend John on call just two miles down the road to come and take care of Anna should Heather go into labor again at night. We also have a variety of other friends willing to be called, as well as another set of friends, Andy and Kristen, on call this Saturday when Suzanne is out of town. I recently programmed four close neighborhood stay at home mom's phone numbers into my cell phone so I could quickly reach them if needed. If all else fails, we will take Anna to the hospital with us and hope someone can meet us there to take care of her.

As you can see from that long description of our action plan just to take care of Anna, we are blessed with many local friends who can help but at the same time don't have that simple "call mom to come" type plan that others have. When it comes to having a regular sitter, Heather's family is only about an hour away which is too far to babysit while Heather and I go on a date for example. Other friends of ours have siblings and we are blessed to have Suzanne who is closer to us than many of those friend's siblings. But I see, for example, the situation my sister is in having my mother there and two retired in-laws all to gladly help with one wonderful 6 year old girl. We have other friends in the neighborhood who also have more than one set of parents not to mention siblings local to call on. I do realize we are blessed with our friends who we can call on and I am very thankful for that...but it still would be nice to have the Grand Sitter around when needed :-)