Ask Moxie

Baby carriers and back pain

Baby carriers do not need to hurt your back. If you're wearing them correctly, you'll feel the weight of the baby, but it shouldn't be so painful that you need to take pain meds. If you are feeling that much pain, you can Google the name of the carrier you have and the word "instructions" and someone somewhere will have posted photos of the correct way to wear that carrier. Or else try a different kind of carrier, because there is no perfect one, and maybe there's a better one for your body.

In general, the closer to you and higher up you can put your baby, the less pain and movement you'll have. If you're using a Bjorn or Bjorn-style carrier (which I don't actually recommend because I think other styles are far less painful, notably the Ergo if you like a constructed carrier or a wrap carrier if you like less construction), make sure the cross in the back crosses below your shoulder blades. It should be where your bra strap goes. Here's a really old post on different kinds of carriers.

Also, wearing your baby should be something you do because you want to. Not because it's "in fashion" or because Dr. Sears tells you to. Do it because babies who are worn tend to cry less, or because you like having your little one snuggled against you, or because your baby won't stop !@#$%-ing screaming if you put her down, or because your best friend walked all the baby weight off by wearing her baby, or because you can't deal with your stroller, or whatever. But let it be because you want to. Not because the lady at the grocery store or the women on the message board or the misogynist ad-writers at Motrin tell you you have to and then make fun of you for it.

You are the parent. You get to decide.

Also, seriously--Lucky Magazine? I read you because I want to get away from the "moms should do this and that" crap that bombards me every effing day in this country. All I want from you is to know whether ruching is in this fall and how to wear suede booties with a sweater dress and why shea butter is the miracle that's going to solve all my hair problems. I do not want misogynistic mommy drive-by ads in your pages. If you want to take ads from the hacks at Motrin (who apparently have never heard of a focus group), force them to give you ads about pain and *actual* fashion. They could have done a heck of an ad about stilettos and other painful shoes, but they chose the easy, inaccurate, bottom-feeding low-hanging fruit. Don't participate in the proliferation of mom-guilt on the hardworking women of the world. We get enough of it every day from people wearing Christmas sweaters. We want your magazine to be a safe space.

I think I'm going out to buy a big bottle of Advil tomorrow.

(Hey--if you're feeling carpal tunnel-type pain from lifting or carrying a baby or toddler, before you despair or get cortizone shots or dope yourself up on a pain reliver that starts with M that I'll never buy again, try homeopathy. Go to a health food store and plunk down $6 for a tube of pellets of Rhus Toxicodendron. Get 30x if they have them--if not get whatever dose they have. Take one under your tongue three times a day. If it's the proper remedy for your kind of pain, you should feel less inflammation and pain within three to four days. Keep taking until the pain is gone. If it isn't doing anything after four days, then it's the wrong remedy for you, so you can stop. Safe for breastfeeding, and no interactions with anything else! I had debilitating carpal tunnel from lifting my horse of a firstborn, and his pediatrician, who is also a homeopath, prescribed Rhus toxicodendron for me, and it worked like a charm. So I'm passing it on to you, the pain sufferers of the internet.)

Archivist Alison gets her own site

For those of you who couldn't get enough of Archivist Alison and her posts on organizing, archiving, and saving vs. purging, your wishes have come true. She's now writing her own blog, with the tag line "Information is worth little without context."

Check it out. And check out her new "Five Minutes with Archivist Alison" spots on the Jumping Monkeys podcast.

Beating the heat

We're in the middle of a heat wave here in NYC, so I thought that instead of just complaining about it, I could put up a post and we could share ideas for dealing with heat and humidity. To those of you down under and in NZ going into winter now, I apologize. But I know you Australians have tips for staying cool in the heat, so lay 'em on us, please.

I'm going to share what I've learned, but obviously I'm no expert. I have two fair-skinned kids (although both are slightly darker than I am--I never tan ever, only burn and freckle, and my kids turn a nice golden by the end of the summer) and I live in NYC where there isn't much community space inside and we spend lots of time outside at playgrounds all summer. Also, there's just no way to escape the heat in NYC since you have to be outside for significant time to get from one place to another. You come out of your apartment and walk to the subway or bus. Even if you can afford to take a cab everywhere, you still have to stand outside waiting for one. If you live in a public tran/walking city you'll get what I mean, while those of you who take cars everywhere probably can't imagine it.

My first tip is to remember that little babies are probably feeling better in the heat than we are. Not too long ago they were in 98.6 degree heat and 100% humidity, so they aren't as shocked and affronted by the wall of heat as older kids and adults tend to be.

That also means that you can definitely take them outside, just use common sense. It's better to go out in the early morning and late afternoon than the middle of the day. And don't have your babies in direct sunlight for more than a few seconds at a time. It's not good for their core temperature, skin, or eyes. The best thing in terms of monitoring their heat and shade level is to wear them in a carrier, but the hot hot heat is going to make that icky for you, so even die-hard babywearers often switch to the stroller in the heat of summer. (Other benefit of the stroller: cupholders for cool beverages.)

I loved my stroller tie-on protective shade because it provided shade, SPF protection, and still allowed the breeze to come through, but was annoyed with it because if I walked too fast it'd flip up and flap around. Maybe it was good that I had to pace myself?

I just realized I could blather on, but most of my tips can be summarized thusly: shade, cool liquids, and naps when people need them. Don't be a hero. And seriously keep an eye on your older, sports-playing kids to make sure they're not overdoing it (especially in polyester uniforms) because heat stroke/exhaustion can creep up on you. (I get it myself every few years because I'm a dumb-ass, and can attest that it's a slippery slope.)

What do you have for beating summer heat and sun?

My 3 new favorite products in sunscreen, kids' toothpaste, lip gloss

I've been raving IRL to people about them, so thought I might was well tell you guys, too, about the new sunscreen and kids' toothpaste that have solved my problems in those areas, and my awesome new lip gloss.

Sunscreen: I'm very fair-skinned (part Scandinavian) with blue eyes, and my mom had her first of 6 (and counting) skin cancers removed when she was only 47, so I'm anal about sunscreen. But I haven't been that happy with my options. I try to use physical sunscreens (zinc oxide, titanium dioxide) instead of chemical sunscreens because the physical barriers seem both safer from an absorption standpoint and also more effective. My skin is also combination skin, so in the summer I tend to feel greasy. So the last thing I want is a greasy sunscreen on my face. But I haven't found a physical sunscreen with high enough SPF that didn't also leave me feeling greasy.

Enter the ingenious Peter Thomas Roth Instant Mineral SPF 30 Powder. It comes in a brush tube, so you just powder your face with the sunscreen powder. It's odorless, and sort of a vaguely beige color, but I can't see it when it's on my face. (I think you'd have to try really hard to put on enough for it to show.) Reduces shine, prevents greasiness, and has SPF 30. The ingredients are completely inert* (although you wouldn't want to inhale a whole tube's worth of mica at one time). I was outside in the bright sun for two full hours the other day and nothing but one application of the powder sunscreen on my face, and I wasn't at all pink--my freckles didn't even come out.

It's very spendy at $30 for the tube, but you don't use that much at a time, and it filled the need I had so perfectly that I've decided it's an affordable luxury for my ticking timebomb skin. I'm going to send some to my mom for Mothers' Day. I got mine in an actual Sephora store, but you can also buy it from Sephora on Amazon.

Kids' toothpaste: I'm into the natural brands without artificial colors or flavors, and I require xylitol in my kids' (and my) toothpaste. Oh, and no sodium lauryl sulfate. My kids, however, like the toothpaste with the sparkles, which is usually scary bright blue, and contains SLS but no xylitol. Enter the Natural Dentist Sparkle Berry Blast toothpaste ($5.45 for one tube or $16.35 for a three-pack of tubes at Amazon). It's sweet, but not too sweet, and it's pink, but more of a vegetable-color pink instead of a scary pink. And it sparkles, but from natural mica, not from the mystery chemical sparkles in the blue toothpaste. My kids think they have something "cool," but I know it's still the hippie granola toothpaste. Natural Dentist also makes a berry flavored oral rinse with xylitol if your kids are into the mouthwash experience. (The mouthrinse is also billed as being particularly good for people with braces. I'm not sure why--maybe because it's SLS-free so it's not irritating?)

Lip gloss: I got a free cosmetic-bag sample a few weeks ago of Laura Mercier's Lip Plumpers lip gloss in Wildberry. Best lipgloss ever. It plumps up your lips just slightly (so you look pouty but not like Melanie Griffith) and has a minty thing going that tingles a little but doesn't sting like other lip plumping glosses can. The Wildberry is a pink that looks mostly natural next to my fair skin but also just slightly glam, and would look amazing on someone with darker skin than mine. Thank goodness this was not the lip product that ended up in the porta potty at that T-ball game a few weeks ago.

Again, it's way too expensive at $30, but since I've gotten hooked on that free sample, I'll probably ask for it for Mothers' Day and give it to myself on behalf of my kids. It's still cheaper than those green shoes that are now out of stock in my size.

* From the Peter Thomas Roth website: ACTIVE INGREDIENTS: Titanium Dioxide 15%, Zinc Oxide 10%. INACTIVE INGREDIENTS: Mica, Silica, Zea Mays (Corn) Starch, Tocopheryl Acetate (Vitamin E), Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C), Retinyl Palmitate (Vitamin A), Salix Alba (Willow) Bark Extract, Iron Oxides.

Birthday present season

Wow. I'd forgotten about this spring birthday gauntlet. It's been awhile since we've shared present ideas for different ages, so can we do another one of those posts today?

I'm thinking specifically birthday presents, which in NYC is the $20-25 range.

I've been giving books lately. Not out of any high-minded theory that kids should be reading more, but just because I can't keep track of toys, and books usually don't have extraneous parts.

Hey, while we're at it, can we share ideas for goody bags? I decided a few years ago only to give music and consumable items in goody bags. Every year I mix a CD of that child's recent favorite songs and give that, along with various food items (banana, fruit leather, peanut brittle--just kidding, candy if the kids are old enough, etc.). If I'm really feeling prepared I might throw in some stickers. The kids may think it's lame, but I'm happy with it, and the older kids think getting a custom CD is cool. (Is anyone else thinking about the mix tape scenes in High Fidelity?)

So: Birthday gift ideas for different ages, price range for birthday presents in your area, and goody bag ideas. Feel free to toss in anything else birthday-related you can think of.

Reader call: Car seat rage

The other day I schlepped my cats and both boys almost a mile in the snow to the vet (uphill both ways), and wondered "Why don't I live someplace where I can just have a car??" But then I got this email, and felt like a jerk for my car-free self-pity:

"Please help....my child hates being in a car seat and facing backwards. She's only 7 month old, so turning the seat around is a long wait. She can manage if someone sits in the back with her, but if no one there she throws tantrums. I've tried toys, singing, holding her hand while driving, but nothing seems to work. this winter is extremely cold, and its impossible to walk outside for long periods of time, so the idea is to go to the mall. But with this problem its even harder to drive to the mall than slippery roads and cold wind blowing in our faces. Please suggest something that I can do to make her more content with not having someone next to her for 15min drive."

I can remember a 6-hour drive with a 6-week-old screaming almost the whole time. But that seems to have wiped my car seat rage memory. In previous posts on this topic people have suggested that the baby might be carsick facing backwards, and that that may be contributing a lot to her anger. I'm not sure what the solution would be. You could try the Sea Band wristlets. I'd walk into the health food store and ask if they had anything homeopathic (not herbal) to alleviate motion sickness and try that. You could try a remedy like dramamine, but some kids react badly to it.

Readers? Any other suggestions, either of ways to deal with the screaming or to stop motion sickness if that's contributing to it?

Sugar substitutes and metabolic syndrome

I'm assuming you guys have seen this article about the study that found that even a can of diet soda a day increases your risk for metabolic syndrome by 34%.

Or this piece on Good Morning America about the article. (You have to sit through an ad first before the story starts.)

I wonder if this is going to make companies stop putting sugar substitutes in otherwise healthy things, like yogurt and food for kids.

I think this also puts the nail in the coffin of soda consumption for many of us. Too dangerous to drink sugar substitutes, and way too dangerous to drink high fructose corn syrup. Plus the caramel color is bad for us, and so is the carbonation.

I guess it's back to water. (Until Passover, when some of the stores in NYC stock kosher-for-Passover Coke sweetened with regular sugar, which I'll indulge in.)

I also wonder if this is going to give stevia (a no-calorie sweetener made from the leaves of the stevia plant) any traction, since it's just a refined leaf, not a chemically-altered substance.

The Zazzle store I forgot I had

Did any of you guys remember that I'd started a Zazzle store? I'd completely forgotten about it until I got a check for $6.92 on Saturday. Thanks to whoever bought the mug I made. I hope it helps you enjoy your hot beverages of choice.

Since I have the store, should I put more things on it? If so, what sayings should I use? "I'm the perfect parent for my child"?'"What's wrong with people?"? "Why can't you just stay asleep?"

Guest post: Archivist on managing your kids' stuff

Remember the post two weeks ago about organizing kids' stuff? I got an amazing response from archivist Alison Langmead that I had to share with you. Alison writes:

"First of all, please let me reiterate that I am an archivist and records manager, not a professional organizer or life manager or any such thing. It is my job to help organizations maintain, access and
make use of their stored information for both the short and long terms. That said, more and more information professionals are starting to look in to the serious issue of personal information management as it relates to the information economy and other broader social trends.

I have read through all the comments (pre-January 5th) to the "Help with Organization of Kid Stuff" thread and I have found them fascinating from both a personal and professional point of view. One
general response came to me right away. In my experience, I have found that people have natural tendencies towards keeping their stuff or destroying their stuff. Some people, for example, feel lighter when they clear out an entire closet, while others feel only loss. I call these extreme types "Destroyers" and "Keepers." I think most folks would consider Destroyer a harsh term, but I love it. I'm a natural-born Destroyer. Think Shiva. Perhaps the term "Purger" used so often in this thread is better. On the flipside, "Hoarder" has a major negative connotation for me. So, let's compromise and call these basic types Keepers and Purgers. Quibbles over taxonomy aside, I have found in both my personal and professional experience that there is a kind of personality continuum between these two ends of the spectrum, but
that innate tendencies do exist. Reading the comments to this thread, it has been very easy to differentiate the Keepers from the Purgers and all the gray areas in between.

All of this explanatory build-up has been to say the following: There is nothing so difficult or so emotionally burdensome in the personal domain as being a Keeper who feels social pressure to purge
excessively or being a Purger who feels social pressure to keep excessively.

Many commenters have noted thoughts such as, "I like to purge. Is this bad?" or "I keep everything due to an inappropriate sense of sentimentality." I am of the firm personal conviction that rebelling
against one's natural predilictions does not help us as we go through life. If you like to purge, then you need to accept that, and work with it. The reverse also holds. This is not to say that we can always
just keep and purge at will. We are in this world with other people who have other tendencies and needs. In my professional life, I am constantly in the position of reminding people that the process of
information management is a necessary balance between keeping and purging (or, to be terminologically precise, retention and destruction). If we keep absolutely everything, it becomes almost impossible to find any one given thing, which is almost precisely the same state of affairs that we find if we destroy absolutely everything. Finding the balance, then, between appropriate keeping and purging is what we are all looking for in this thread.

But, compounded with this, I believe that there is general social pressure for women, mothers especially, to be super organized. It is as if we are all supposed to be born with the innate ability to keep it all together. Some of us do indeed have this capacity, others do not. But those who are not so inclined often feel that they are somehow inferior to those who can. This is a crying shame. We should feel free to do whatever makes us feel happy and healthy and what facilitates our ability to raise happy and healthy children. This will be different for everyone.

For some of us, however, it is not social pressure that is the problem, rather physical constraints. If you are a born Keeper who lives with a partner and a child in a 450-square-foot apartment, your living conditions will pose extra challenges for you. Some of the really creative storage ideas found in this thread could really help you out. Balance and acceptance will again always be key.

Enough with that diatribe for now. As promised to you Moxie, I have a few general comments that you and my fellow readers might find helpful.

1) There is a difference between the act of reducing your family's holdings and finding a more compact way to store things. Decide which one of these things you want to do and do it. Do not confuse the two
issues. The first is an act of purging, the second, an act of keeping. They are both good and proper.

2) Scheduling things for purging can be a very good thing ("the one year rule," the toy "death row"...would "toy purgatory" be slightly less morbid? Maybe not.). But as other commenters have already noted, the key to this process is finding the precise right length of time to keep things before you purge them. Otherwise said, the trick to this is not the act of deciding to keep things for a certain period of
time, it's deciding what that "certain period of time" is and what action you will take at that time. By the way, I am less comfortable with the "everything that fits in this small box" rule. I think it leads to preferential treatment on the basis of size and not meaning. Which leads me to...

3) When trying to decide what to keep and what to purge, the pros are always considering their mandates and their user base. Maybe this would be a good thing to do in the personal domain as well. Ask questions like, "Who am I keeping this for?" And, "What will they be doing with it and for how long?" BE HONEST. If you are keeping your children's art for your own sake, then do it up right! If you are
keeping it because you want your kids to have it when they have their own kids, then do that up right as well! In addition, I couldn't agree more with those commenters who suggest that you involve your children
in these decisions when they are capable. Finally, if you are doing it because you are
afraidthatyoumayonedaywishtoseeitagainbutthenagainyoureallyneedthisspace,

then it is my opinion that you should confront that fear and come to some sort of compromise. This might be a moment for the swift one-two of transferring the items to compact storage with a plan to revisit the items later on.

4) Charity is always a good thing.

5) I really do not wish to be a scaremongerer about this, but making digital copies of physical objects is absolutely not a panacea for these issues. I could go on and on about this, and will do so, if requested. Suffice it to say here that, unless you are willing to go to your CD's every two years or so and make sure that all of the data you put on them is still there—meaning, you will need to open up the files and look at them—you might find that you have lost your records of these objects. All types of digital media are prone to corruption and failure. Hard drives even have an accepted "mean time between failure" figure associated with them. CDs, DVDs, hard drives, tapes...all of these objects _will_ fail. It is just a matter of time. Now, let's all take a deep breath. We can get around this problem. It simply takes effort. You have to go back from time to time and check in with your stuff. Just make sure it's still there. Copy it onto new CDs from time to time. By the way, professionally speaking, hard drives are preferred to CDs for longer-term storage, mainly because it's easier to check in on your stuff with a hard drive. You'll do it more often because you aren't sitting there for hours swapping disks in and out. And, one more thing, it is now well-understood in professional circles that, for the long-term, digital objects are *more* expensive to store than physical ones.

I think I've been on my soapbox for long enough. Please feel free to ask any and every follow-up question that comes to your mind. I love talking about this stuff.

And, thanks, Moxie for putting yourself out there and maintaining this fabulous resource. I cannot tell you how many times I have read and re-read a posting at 3am reassuring myself that I am not alone with my perceived faults and my very real fears. With all of our similarities and differences, we are all fantastic mothers."

You're certainly welcome, Alison. Thank you so much for your wonderful post! Questions, anyone?

Help with organization of kid stuff

Iowa caucus for Americans today. I'm really curious about how things will go. [Confession: I am so not paying attention to anyone but the top three contenders on each side, and confused the candidate Ron Paul with rapper Sean Paul (turn down your speakers if you're at work). And every time I saw a "Ron Paul for President" sign I thought it was an ad for a new album coming out. I only figured they're two different people the other day while watching CNN. Duh.]

Can we talk about organization? I am not a great organizer in general, and was barely holding on with the new holiday influx of toys. But yesterday my older son brought home a beautiful little pinch pot from his art class at school. And I realized I was going to have to start really processing 3D art projects and figuring out what to do with them. (I've been putting the drawings and paintings into file folders and saving them.)

Gah!

So I guess what I'm looking for is ideas from those of you who are good at this sort of thing. I could use ideas on processing the unbelievable amounts of clothing we end up with, the toys, the art projects, and the seasonal stuff. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels like it's all getting away from her.

I wish I could just shove it all into an attic or a garage, but I don't have either of those right now. (I'd be willing to bet there are readers who could use tips on organizing basements, attics, and garages, if you've got any ideas for that.) And I watched a show about hoarders that scared the living crap out of me, and now I'm actually afraid I'll get rid of too much stuff in an effort not to end up with stuff that runs my life.

What do you keep and what do you get rid of? How do you manage and store the kid stuff you do want to keep? Will I magically become organized if I buy a labelmaker?

Thank you.