52 in 52 #11 - Car Seat ICE Labels

Over and over again, I have seen this pin on Pinterest. 

The basic idea is that if you and whoever is capable of relaying information in an accident are knocked unconscious or (God forbid) killed while driving, that emergency personnel will be able to have information re: your children that will be important in assisting them.  Since they won't be able to tell you their pediatrician's name and phone number or if they have any medical issues, this will be a suitable substitute. 

Each example of these labels online are a tad bit different, but it really comes down to what you think is going to be important in an emergency.  Below are my choices for my cards for my children:

• Child's name
• Child's DOB
• Parents with dates of birth
• Insurance Information
• Medical condition(s)
• ICE contact - not the parents
• Pediatrician

I decided to include both of the parent's names and DOBs since I don't know who will be driving the car at the time.  It is important to remember that your ICE contact, in this case, should be someone who isn't either one of the child's parents in case both are in the car together.  Ideally this should be a related third party who would be capable of providing the remaining information on the parents and children.  We chose my mother for this role since she has this information, is their grandmother and likely would be close in proximity to where ever we are. 

This pin is definitely something that you don't want to think about but it would be essential in an emergency.  What items would be on your list? 

Never-ending work commute

Webster defines commute as "to travel back and forth regularly (as between a suburb and a city)".  It makes it sound so pleasant.  To travel... like you are going to visit some far away land where magical things happen.  They should really alter that definition to include more of the "real world" experience.  Here are two of my ideas:

- to sit in an un-ending sea of other cars with the most pissed off other workers in your town for hours per day,
or
- to drive in a car that costs too much to a place that pays me too little to deal with people who should have been evaluated for a mental disorder years ago

I like the second one the best, but I doubt that Webster's will think it's near as amusing as I do.  However, after my day at work today, I am likely to be considered one of those mental patients.  Luckily, I can almost always come up with something to say... now whether it is witty or intelligent or even remotely legible is a different story.  When you drive three hours per day you have a lot of time to think. Why don't I think more about what I am going to blog about that day? I have to admit that most of the time I sit down at my computer with no inspiration to write about anything.


Everyday that I go to work I spend almost three hours of that day in my car.  That's twelve hours per week, forty eight hours per month and a whopping 576 hours per year just driving.  That is ridiculous when you break it down like that.  I really need to come up with a safe way to record my ideas while I am driving.

In the mornings, I leave my house at 5:30am so I am lucky to be awake while I am driving and probably look like a zombie to most of the other people on the road at that time.  I have been at this job for almost 9 years and have always worked at a similar time of the morning.  You would think that I would used to getting up at the crack of dawn, but no.  I still have to prep so much at night time because I am lucky to get up in enough time to get dressed and brush my teeth before heading out the door.  If I want coffee and lunch packed, it has to get made or prepped the night before or else it's so long to that.  I have enough time in the morning to wake up on the way to work fully to be able to communicate with others if I had to, but luckily since I go in so early I don't have to show how truly anti-morning that I am to anyone until about 7:30 in the morning.  And that guy thinks that I am bad at 7:30 - he should talk to me at 5:30! 

 However, in the evenings, I am really just trying to decompress after a long day at work.  Since I live so far away from my work, I work a schedule roughly based off of a 4x10.  I actually work 11.5 hours per day three days per week + my three hour commute makes for a LONG DAY.  At the end of those days, I am usually perfectly content to sit in total silence while I drive home.  Somedays I have the radio on but the majority of the time it's just me and my own thoughts.  I really try to not project any of my work stress on my family, so I am grateful for this time to think all my stress and frustration through...This is the time when I usually run into traffic - yes, rush hour traffic is still going on in DFW well into 7pm.  I don't mind though because I know that I'm off work and headed home to be with my family.  Speaking of - I'm off to spend time with them right now. 

-Sara

Taking my own advice and admitting one of my faults

This advice is hard for me to say outloud because I am one of the worst people with this topic.  This one idea is applicable in almost every situation that one comes across, and you will almost never be in the wrong for remembering to do this.  Ready?  Mind your own business.  That's it.  It sounds so simple, right?  Trust me, as a self-proclaimed busy body - it's not. 

I am a gossip.  I don't like celebrities at all (partially because I don't understand why most of them are famous), but I am quick to gossip about a lot of other people/subjects.  It's not 100% bad but it definitely is almost always 100% destructive.  Even if you start out with the best of intentions to not beat someone down with gossip, it's like your brain gets total control and you end up going crazy. 

I was reminded of this again tonight while watching the most recent video of one of my favorite YouTube mommy vloggers (dreamflight6000).  She is the mother of two cute little boys and the eldest has been diagnosed within the last year with Type 1 diabetes.  She shares a lot of details about their struggle as a family with his diagnosis, and some of his day to day operations with it, which I appreciate even though I don't have it and I don't know anyone else who does.  She is very informative and she is an awesome teacher.  They had a scare this week with her child's medicine, and had to end up calling 911 for an ambulance to come to their house for her little boy.  It was very scary for everyone and traumatizing for both Amy and her family.  In her video she mentioned that she did not want to explain what happened because she gets a lot of hate comments on her diabetes videos normally and doesn't want to make that any worse, which I totally respect.  When she said that, it just broke my heart, because she is dealing with this diagnosis as well as can be expected and works hard everyday to ensure life is good for both of her boys.  Who are these people to post hate on her videos?  Who are these other people to presume to know anything about his medical condition and give potentially deadly advice re: different medicines that they should try or different alternative diets that they should put him on to "cure" diabetes?  Can't we just give support and butt out?  Why is it that, as a society, we have to project our thoughts and opinions on other people who are just wanting to tell us their story?  Can't we just mind our own business?  It makes me embarassed as a person who watches her videos on behalf of these people who can not just watch and leave positive comments...

Thinking futher about this though made me remember and realize that, while I am not guilty of projecting any negativity and hate towards Amy and her son that I do "hate" on whole groups of people for random reasons.  Never racial or anything like that, but I will detail one of those below:






Parents who don't ERF (extended rear face) their children in car seats.  Let me start by saying that I don't say anything to anyone's face re: this subject unless approached by the person to talk about our situation.  I don't chase parents around in the parking lot of stores with brochures showing decapitated children or anything like that, but I do say things outloud in my car anytime I see a small child foward-facing in a car.  I don't care how many times I hear that someone's kid screams bloody murder in the backseat, or how their child was too tall to sit rear facing, it is still PROVEN safer for children to sit rear facing as long as their sit still fits them for weight and height than to be turned around.  It's not uncomfortable for your children to sit like that past one year no matter how tall they are.  Now, I understand that every parent has the right to make decisions for their own child and that there are people out there who turned their child around at (insert inappropriately small number of months) and their child was fine, but seriously, why is this like a badge of honor?  Leave them turned rear facing.  Your child doesn't know what they are missing.  Why would you want to take your child's safety for granted?  My children are 28 months and 13 months and they will remain rear facing until they outgrow their seats.  We have a Sunshine Kids Radian XTSL in grey and a Diono XTSL in grey camoflauge. 

I feel justified by talking about these parents because it's better for their children, but when I start to think about it, I am no better than those people hating on Amy and her family.  They probably feel that they have her son's best interest at heart but in reality are just as annoying as I probably am about the ERF topic. I can't vow to alter my way of thinking because I will never change that, but I can resolve to stop being so negative about parents that choose differently than I do.  I am making an effort to be better.  I can't promise anything but an attempt, but I will definitely work on it. 

-Sara