Compare and Contrast

It’s true that every child is different, and that you can’t compare them. Even though both my boys were born in June, and just 4 days apart (Ben on the 19th, and Henry on the 23rd), they are growing so differently from each other!
Henry was always in the 20th or percentile for weight and height. He always looked little and petite. And, as far as clothes would go, whatever age he was, was what he was going to fit into. For instance: if he was 6 months old, he fit in 6 month clothes.

Ben on the other hand is night and day compared to Henry. Ben is in the 65-75 percentile for weight and height. And, he’s a chunky thing. This kid has rolls on top of rolls – it’s absolutely adorable! At Just shy of 5 months old, he’s fitting into 6-9 month clothes.  

We thought that we were going to be able to save some money by recycling clothes, but it looks like we’ll have to buy Ben a lot because Henry’s 6-12 month wardrobe is for spring and summer….not winter.

It just goes to show you that no two children are alike, even if their birthdays are four days apart….

Photo Session

We had some professional photos of the boys taken when Ben was about 2 weeks old.  I couldn’t be happier with how they turned out!

Smoking and Asthma

A while ago Henry got a really bad cold that moved into his lungs. He coughed and coughed and coughed, was congested and drippy, and pretty much just miserable. The doctor saw him once and said that it was just a cold, and since he had no fever, this was something that his body just needed to fight. So, we gave him decongestants to make him more comfortable and cough medicine to help him sleep through the night. Over time, he got better, but his cough never completely went away.
We started noticing that his cough would come in bursts and attacks, and he would cough so hard that he would nearly throw up (that hasn’t happened yet).
I took him to the doctor again, and this time they told us that it looks like he has an asthma variant. That the cold affected his lungs so much that temperature changes, exertion or irritants can cause him to start coughing and bring on an attack. So, the doctor prescribed a steroid inhaler. It’s not a rescue inhaler, he’s to use it twice in the morning and twice at night for a month. We’re hoping that this will get rid of his cough, but if it doesn’t, we go back to the doctor in a month for a re-eval.  

Here’s where things get sticky. My mother-in-law is a smoker. As a person who has asthma, I know first hand how smoke can cause attacks. As a child, it sent me to the hospital. So, to reduce any chance of that happening to Henry, I want to keep him away from my MIL, her home, and her car until he’s done with the inhaler, or his cough clears up (assuming it does).

So, J told his parents about the cough and the inhaler and the asthma variant, and that we want to keep Henry away from cigarette smoke for the time being (ideally, I wish it could be all the time). My MIL didn’t take this so well. She feels personally attacked, won’t take any phone calls from J, and doesn’t understand why we’re imposing this rule, thinking that we’re being ridiculous and over protective and lashing out at her.

I feel like at this point she’s picking cigarettes over her grandchild. That’s her choice, and I’ll accept it, but that doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. I’ve read article after article about second hand and third hand smoke, and I don’t want my child who at the moment has a lung condition to be around it. Not to mention all of the warnings about second and third hand smoke on infants!  

I’m not sure what to do about this situation. I’m not sure what to do if Henry’s asthma variant, turns into actual asthma. I’m really not sure what to do about my MIL’s smoking when the baby comes in June….I don’t want my kids around smoke, but I don’t want to bar them from their grandmother either.

Anyone have any advice?      

Gettin’ Stuff Done

I’ve been trying to be really productive lately.

This past week I:

• Contacted a consignment shop about selling our guest room furniture.  So, hopefully the furniture will be out in a couple weeks.  If not, we’ll be donating it to Goodwill.
• Bought a leather chair to sit in our entry way.  Our realtor said that a seating area by the front door would look really good.  So, $40 on craigslist, and a lot of cleaning later, and the chair looks (and smells) pretty good. 
• Went to Lowes with J and we bought a whole bunch of stuff and made game plans for more.  I got some sandpaper and spray paint to fix up a rusted vent in a bathroom.  I’m just waiting for a sunny day to do that – it’s been raining for what feels like a week!  I also got spackle and tools  to patch our ceiling.  I started that project today and I’m pretty proud of the results so far.  Hopefully no one will be able to tell that there was once a leak there.  I’ll post pictures once I’m done doing all of it.
• De-cluttered 3 book shelves and cleared off the top of our refrigerator, and our computer desk.

On top of all of that, I also have been trying to keep Henry pretty busy and try to wear him out during the day.  So, we went to our library’s story time.  Henry had a blast and he was so happy to see his friend Addison there too!  

Then, the next day we went to the zoo and Henry walked through almost the whole thing.  We have a zoo pass, so we go a lot, and I’ve learned to stop bringing our stroller.  I always end up pushing an empty stroller around while running after Henry. Or, I push an empty stroller around while holding Henry.  So, superfluous stroller gets left at home now.  As we were leaving the zoo, Henry turned to me and asked to be picked up.  I scooped him up and he wrapped his arms around my neck, and put his head on my shoulder and said “I’m gonna take a nap.”  It melted my heart.  Seriously, this kid is adorable in what he says and what he does.  Love this kid!

Freezer Stash

My freezer stash is dwindling quickly. At one time, the whole bottom drawer of my freezer was full. And, I mean, FULL.

I have about a handful of bags left (that picture was taken a couple weeks ago) and one of those is going to remain in there for when Henry spends the night without me.

This stash has gone so quickly. I knew that it would, it’s just shocking. I spent so long making that stash, and now I have a near empty freezer. Henry started using the frozen milk on July 22nd – so in 10 weeks Henry has gone through the majority of it. That’s around 200 ounces of milk that I had pumped that has now been given to Henry.

I wonder how he’ll handle not having any while at daycare anymore when it’s totally gone? I wonder how I’m going to handle that.

Month 15

Dear Henry,

You’re now officially 15 months old!!  OMG….I have a 15 month old.  Kid, you are seriously growing up way too fast, this time is just flying by and the more I try to hang on to it the faster it seems to go.  You have changed a lot in the past month – with two big developments.

Development #1:  YOUR WALKING!! Or, more specifically toddling – which I guess makes you officially a toddler now – it’s hard to say when someone actually reaches that mark.  Your first steps occurred on September 13.  Your Physical Therapist said that you took 3 independent steps for her, and later that night you did that several times for your Dad and I.  I can’t describe how happy I was when I saw you do it.  I believe I had tears of happiness in my eyes, and I was smiling from ear to ear that whole evening.  You’re wobbly and you hold your arms out like a zombie when you walk (which is adorable), but you’re doing it!  Right now you still need something to pull up on to stand up, and for the most part you’re still cruising to get around walking wise.  But, you’re starting to take a few steps here and there more and more.  You’re slowly getting more confident with it, and you obviously see how happy it makes everyone when you do it because we shout “Yay” and smile really big when you take a few steps towards us.  I’m so proud of you.  I know that you’ve worked really hard to get to this point, and your hard work has paid off!  We’re still continuing with your therapy for now.  We need to get you to be able to stand up without pulling up and taking more and more steps.  I have no doubt that you’re going to be doing all of that in no time!

Development #2: You are talking and communicating more and more!  You are becoming one verbal little boy!

Words you can say now:

-All done (aw da)

-Bye Bye (Ba By)

-Flower (low-la)

-Apple (A -pul)

-Mama

-Dada

-Ali (Allah)

-Cat (Tats)

-Dog (D-gu)

-Up (Up-ah)

-Down (Dow)

-No

-Milk (Ma)

-Ball (Baw)

-Uh oh

-Oh no

-Hot (ought)

-Pat (pa)

-Roll It – as in patty cake (wroe)

-Night Night (nigh nigh)

-Water (wa)

-Book (Ba)

…I’m probably forgetting some, as I mentioned, your vocabulary is GROWING

You’re also starting to make animal noises:

Cow – mmmmmm

Sheep – ba – this one is hit or miss – you were doing it and now you’ve seem to forgotten how

Three singing pigs – la-la-la (from a book we read)

Cats – mmmmaaaa

Dogs- ruff ruff ruff

Signs that you know:

-All done

-Mama

-Milk

-Please (you’re saying “La la” when you sign for please, not sure how that association happened, but it’s cute as hell)

-More

-Eat/Food/Hungry

-Friends (your teacher at daycare taught you this one.  you can’t join your fingers together, but you make the motion with your wrists and it gets your point across)

-Water (this is used for all liquids, so basically you use this to say that you’re thirsty)

You’re signing for “more.” It’s not the actual sign, but you get your point across.

This past month you’ve also started to become a more picky eater – which is frustrating, but at the same time 15 months is the first time we’ve had to deal with it, so it could be worse.  You still love to feed yourself, but you’ve figured out that you have some control over what you eat and will assert your willful nature when it suites you.  Lately, it’s become a battle to try and get you to eat any vegetables – green ones in particular.  We’ve given you green beans and asparagus this past week and you just sat there and shook your head at us when we picked one up and offered it to you.  You’ll eat protein and dairy just fine.  Fruits are still hit or miss, but are becoming more hit than miss.  For the most part your Dad and I don’t like to feed you “kid” food.  I’d rather you eat what we eat so that becomes routine, because kiddo – you are not allowed to be one of those kids who will only eat chicken tenders and french fries.  I refuse to let that happen.  This is only ever an issue when we go out to eat.  Kids menus are just horrid usually – everything’s fried and there isn’t a fruit or vegetable in sight.  So, the other day when we went out to lunch you ate honey glazed salmon and ignored the green beans on your plate completely…sigh – but at least you ate some salmon.

 

We’re still breastfeeding twice a day.  You’ve been wanting to take a longer time in the morning, either to help yourself wake up and/or because you just enjoy it.   But, the 20 minutes I have scheduled to nurse you in the morning during the week is usually not long enough for you.  On the weekends you’ll nurse for an hour right when you wake up, and usually I’m fine with that.  We’ll bring you in bed with us and I’ll nurse you and we’ll all snooze for an hour.  It’s not only great cuddle time for all 3 of us, but it also allows your Dad and I to sleep a little while longer.  The night time nursing sessions are beginning to shorten.  You used to nurse for an hour here too, but now you’ve been falling asleep way before that.  Now it’s been only taking about 40 minutes total (20 minutes per side).  I really do love that you’re still nursing.  Not only is it super healthy for you, but the emotional bond it’s created between you and me is just awesome.  When you’re upset and you start nursing I can see your body visibly relax – it’s incredible.  I’ve been starting to get some unwanted feedback from your Dad’s side of the family about the fact that you’re still nursing.  Apparently they think you’re too old for this.  Whatever.  They can get over it.  As long as you want to do it, and I am able to, we’ll continue.  I see no reason to stop anytime soon.

You still love to read.  You’ll hand us books to read to you and you’ll turn the pages as we read to you, and then you’ll take the book and flip through it by yourself.  Then you’ll either hand it back or get a new one for us to read.  “Moo Baa LaLaLa” remains your favorite.  You start to get irritated now because I think you know what’s coming next and apparently I read it too slowly, so you’ll get mad and frustrated until I land on the page that you’re wanting me to read.  It’s kinda cute.  You’ll make the animal noises that you know as I read it, it’s awesome how invested you are in reading right now.  Hopefully we’ll be able to keep this up for a LONG time.

 

You are starting to get frustrated a lot easier.  I try to be really patient with you.  I know that right now your frustration is mainly stemming from the fact that you’re having trouble communicating what it is you want.  Or, that I know exactly what it is that you want but won’t let you have it – like when you try to play with outlets or cords.  We’re also starting to have an issue with biting and hitting.  I don’t think you realize that when you do that it hurts, and we’ve been trying to communicate that to you, but it hasn’t been very successful yet.  One thing that you do that I absolutely hate is that you’ll put your index finger in one of my nostrils and your thumb in the other and you’ll scrap down with your nails.  I think I have scabs on the inside of my nose.  It doesn’t sound like this would be a quick maneuver, but it happens in the blink of an eye and it always makes me squeal in pain – which makes you laugh….sigh.  I’m going to be really thankful when you’re done doing that.  That shit HURTS!   And as soon as you’ve done it, you look at me and say “no no.”  So, you know you aren’t supposed to do it, but you do it anyway because you think it’s funny.  You also like to test limits.  If we tell that you can’t touch something, like your night light in your room, you’ll crawl over to it and then look at us.  Then you’ll touch it with one finger, and then look at us, and register that we’re telling you “no.”  Then you’ll put your whole hand on it, and we’re still telling you “no.” Next, you’ll pull it from the wall and look at us, again we’re telling you “no.”  Then you try to put it back in the outlet, but you have trouble with that, and then you start to see if you can put your finger in the outlet instead, and that’s when we get up to wrangle you, and you get so mad at us.  I know that it must be hard to understand what you can do, and what you can’t.  Especially when you can’t understand why you can’t do something.  So, we try to be patient with you, and try to let you explore as much as you can before we have to take it away or remove you from the situation.

 

You climbed up on that while my back was turned while I was cooking dinner. You scared the crap out of me.

Your sleep has been interesting lately.  You’ve been waking up earlier than usual.  This morning you were up at 5:50, usually I have to go in to wake you up on the morning and that’s at 6:30.  You’ve also started to cry when I put you down for the night.  You’ll be completely asleep latched on to me, and I’ll break the latch and carry you over to the crib, and lay you down with your blanket and you’ll start to cry as soon as you touch the mattress.  It doesn’t last for longer than 30 seconds usually, but you’re still crying, and I’m sorry for that.  I wish I could hold you all night, but you take up too much space in our bed (yes, at 15 months you can take up at least half the bed…) and as soon as you’re in bed with us you tend to wake up and want to play, so we had to stop co-sleeping all together, which was good and sad at the same time.  Your naps have also started to lengthen lately.  You’re sleeping close to 3 hours some days, which is great, don’t get me wrong, it’s just an all of a sudden type of thing.  I’m guessing that you’re growing and that’s been causing all of the wackiness with your sleep.

You’re growing so much and doing so much and just transforming into a little boy more and more every day.  I’m astounded by you.  You’re awesome and wonderful and I’m completely in love with you.  You have changed my life so much, and I couldn’t imagine a single day where you’re not with me.  I love you baby!  I always will.

Keep Growing!

Mom

What A Toddler Does To Your Dry Goods

Month 14

Dear Henry,

You’re now 14 months old today!!  This past month has just flown by, and it took me until i got in to work this morning and had a look at the calendar that I realized “Holy Cow!  I have a 14 month old!!

This past month you’ve returned to daycare, and while I know you have fun there and are learning a lot and interacting with other kids and building your social skills, the transition has been hard on you.  You had a great summer hanging out with your Dad, and now that he’s back to working full time, I can tell that you’re really missing him.  In the beginning you would cry most of the mornings when I dropped you off, but that’s slowly starting to get better.  Recently, you’ve started asking for your Dad.  You’ll say “Dada, Dada!?” over and over.  I think it’s adorable, but it is sad when you’re asking for him and he’s not going to get home until after you’ve gone to bed.

Your vocabulary is increasing.  You can say:

• Mama
• Dada
• Ali (pronounced Allah)
• Cat (pronounced Tat)
• Ball (pronounced Baw
• Up (pronounced Hup)
• Bye-bye (pronounced BaBa)
• Pat – as in Patty Cake
• All Done (pronounced Awe Daw)
• And of course, we can’t forget “No”

You’re trying to repeat sounds all the time, and I’m sure you’re list of words is just going to keep growing and growling.  You’ve been trying to say “book,” and “block” but those K sounds are difficult for you right now, but you’ll get it soon.

Speaking of books, you LOVE to sit with books!  You’ll grab a book, open it, look at the pages, say a string of syllables and then turn to the next page to repeat that whole process.  It’s so much fun to watch you!  Your Bubbi went and bought you a bunch more books when we told her about your developing passion, and you’re having a blast with them.  In fact, when we go out of the house, all we have to do is bring a book or two with us and those will usually keep you pretty occupied and content, assuming you’re not overly tired or hungry – then all bets are off.

This summer, your Dad and I really wanted to take you to a body of water and stick you in it.  Thanks to your wonderful Aunt and Uncle who invited us to a lake house, we were able to make that happen!  All 5 of us spent the weekend at a lake house and celebrated your Uncle’s birthday!  I baked a cake for the occasion and you enjoyed that immensely -especially when it was served with ice cream.  We all had a wonderful time relaxing, soaking up the sunshine and getting out on the water on a ski-doo.  You didn’t enjoy the water that much, in fact I believe you hated it.  But you seemed to have fun sitting on the latter and hanging your feet into the water.  It was a great weekend, and we can’t thank your Aunt and Uncle enough for the opportunity.

You’re so incredibly active right now!  You’re crawling all over the place, cruising around the living and kitchen.  You’ve started to stand on your own for very short periods of time.  The first time you you did it your Dad and I just stood in shock, basically holding our breathe, afraid to move for fear it would distract you.  It was amazing and we were smiling like loons for days after that happened.

You love to push things around now.  You’ll maneuver the dining room chairs out from under the dining room table and push them to all corners of the room.  You’ll use your small rocking chair to lean on while you walk all over the living room, steering it around the coffee table.  You have toys that are designed to support you while you walk, but you seem much more interested in the ones that you come up with on your own.

You’re still doing great with food.  You love to eat, and will eat anything that we put in front of you ( as long as it’s not a tomato).  All the teachers at daycare comment on how much you love food and how easy you are during meal times.  Thank you Baby Led Weaning!

Nursing has changed a lot this past month.  You’ve stopped asking to nurse when we get home in the evenings.  You don’t ask at all on the weekends anymore either.  But, we still have the morning and evening nursing sessions, and I honestly don’t think those are going anywhere for quite some time.  Every now and then when you get majorly upset, you’ll ask to nurse, and a few times I’ve had to tell you no.  The look on your face when you hear me say no to nursing just kills me.  You get so sad, you’re eyes get huge like you’re in shock, your bottom lip pokes out and then you start crying uncontrollably.  Although, usually when you ask you’re crying uncontrollably already, but it gets worse when you hear no.  When that happens, I usually change my mind and let you nurse, but I’m not sure how much milk you’re actually getting, but I’m pretty sure it’s more for comfort than anything else.  So, I snuggle you, stroke your hair and tell you I love you while your nurse.  And, you calm down so quickly it’s amazing.  Breastfeeding definitely helps with toddler tantrums.

We’ve been trying to get more interactive with your play.  We built a big fort last weekend with a blanket and couch cushions, and we had a blast.  Eventually the fort collapsed, but you and your friend Addison had fun climbing up on it and then climbing or sliding back down.  It’s fun to watch you play with other kids.  You’re starting to drift away from just parallel play and are now interacting with other kids.  I love it!  I think this weekend I want to try to make play dough.  I want to make it because I know that you’re going to taste test it, and it needs to be nontoxic.  But, I’m excited to play with it with you!

I love you so much.  I’m sometimes overwhelmed by how much I love you.  I hope that you can feel how loved you are, and huge impact that you have on everyone’s life.  You’re amazing to me and I would do anything to ensure that you’re happy and healthy.  That’s all I ever want for you in life: to be happy.  You mean the world to me, and you always will.

Keep Growing!

Love,

Mom

Two Questions

So, I’ve got two questions for you all, but I need to precede the questions with a recounting of last night.

Last night, I got Henry ready for bed.  He had a bath, fresh diaper – stuffed to the max for overnight use, he was slathered with lotion, and had his batman pjs put on.  I brushed his teeth,  I handed him his blanket, and then I settled in the rocking chair with him like I do every night and started nursing him.  The first 10 minutes of it went great.  He was a little squirmy, but not overly so.  Then, J got home and came in to give Henry a snuggle and a kiss before he fell asleep.  So, Henry stopped nursing for a few minutes so that J could say good night.  When J handed Henry back to me, Henry was a million times squirmier, and he kept slapping his hand across my chest and face and laughing.  I would sternly tell him no, and grab his hand to get him to stop, but as soon as I’d let go, he’d smack me again and laugh.  I finally had enough and unlatched Henry and put him on the floor and told him “No.”

Usually, when I do that, it makes Henry irate that he’s no longer nursing and he’ll proceed to throw a fit and then tries to get back up in my lap.  Last night, on the other hand, he couldn’t have cared less.  He was zooming all over the room grabbing this, playing with that, getting into things.  I was just amazed that this kiddo had so much energy.  Usually after 15 minutes of nursing at bedtime he’s over halfway to falling asleep.  After a little while J came in the room to see what was going on.  And, he was also amazed that Henry had so much energy.  I mean, this kid was playing with toys, grabbing books, trying to use my table beside the rocking chair as a rocker.  He would crawl to the door at lightning speed and turn around and say “byebye” and wave to us.  He’d then crawl back in the room and play with something else.  But, seriously this kid was flying all over the room for a good 20 minutes last night.

We kept asking him, “Henry, do you want to go to bed?”  and he’d say “no.”  Then, we’d say “Henry, it’s time to go to bed,” and he’d say “no.”  I was kinda lost for a moment on what to do.  I knew that it was getting later, and that he needed to go to bed.  But at the same time I knew that putting him down right now would only lead to a scream fest, and we’d be trying to put him down for over an hour if we pushed it.  So, I let him play for a while.  I was thinking that he had a lot of excess energy that he needed to get out before he went to bed, and if he needs to wear himself out to sleep well, then by all means do it.

On the flip side of all of that, I also knew that the later he was staying up probably meant that he was going to get overtired and then have a harder time falling asleep.  So, I was having this huge internal struggle trying to decide what to do.  Force him to go to bed and listen to him scream.  Let him play, and hope for perfect timing on getting him tired, but not overtired so that he’ll go to sleep easy tonight, and then stay asleep…Or, potentially letting him play too long and then getting him overtired and having him scream because he’s too tired to go to sleep….

After letting him play for close to 20 minutes, J handed Henry to me and he started nursing again.  But, he was still incredibly squirmy, and kept popping off to look at things.  Eventually, I gave up on trying to nurse him to sleep and put him in his crib, kissed him good night and left the room.

Henry was standing up in his crib screaming in under 3 minutes later.  So, I went back in to rock him, and he’d lay his head on my chest, but then pop his head up to point to something and smile.  He’d lay his head back down, but then sit up later to give me a big sloppy kiss and then smile.  Eventually, J came in and was able to jiggle Henry to sleep, and when he put him down, Henry only cried for maybe 30 seconds before going to sleep.

He did wake up sometime in the wee hours of the night.  For the life of me I can’t remember what time.  But, I got up and rocked him for about 10 minutes and was then able to put him back in his crib and he slept until I got him up at 6:30 this morning.

So, here are my questions:

1) how to you handle when your kid is nursing and is smacking you or doing a behavior that you don’t like or want to happen?

2) how would you have handled last night’s situation?  Let him play, or force bedtime on him?  Feel free to go into detail.

Car Seats

We originally bought a Graco “Signature Series Trekko” car seat/ stroller/ travel system thing for Henry. Henry still makes the weight requirement to use this car seat. It holds up to 35 lbs, but he’s growing pretty tall and isn’t fitting that well length wise in it anymore. So, that meant that J and I had to start shopping for a new car seat. Joy of joys….

For this next stage I wanted something that could still be rear facing. Rear facing just seems way safer to me and it makes me more comfortable too. It also needs to be able to switch to forward facing when Henry is either big enough for us to turn it around, or he hits two years old – which ever comes first. I also wanted it to have a high safety rating, but I think that goes without saying. Last but not least, we needed it to not break the bank, as we’ll be needing two of them – one for J’s car, one for mine.

Several people have mentioned to us to just buy one and switch it from car to car as need be. Well, that’s just not practical for us. J and I trade on who drops and picks Henry up from daycare, and I can’t spend 30 minutes unhooking a car seat, and then lugging the behemoth inside (they weight like 40+ lbs). Plus, I’ve heard from seasoned pros that putting them in the car doesn’t really get easier with time and they’ve spent 30+ minutes taking it out and putting it in the car, and we just don’t have that kind of time. So, two it is.

We started off by looking on the internet, but quickly realized that we’d need to go and see them in person to be able to make any kind of decision. So, on Saturday, we took Henry down to Babies ‘R Us, and we picked the salesmen’s brain about car seats for over an hour. We ended up not making a decision in the store, but instead went home to mull over our options.

We were now faced with the question of how long term do we want to use these new car seats? Several of the cheaper options only go until 55 lbs, and as with what happened this time, will probably happen next time. That Henry will meet the height requirement before he ever gets nears the weight requirement. So, instead of dropping a bunch of money now, to only have to drop more money in a year or two we decided to go with something that will hold him for longer. There are several options that would hold a 70 lb child, but with the added weight, comes the added $$.

I mentioned before that I wanted it to be safe, and the salesman told us point blank that Britax makes the safest car seats. He said that all car seats meet the minimum safety requirements, but Britax goes above and beyond, and it’s the only car seat that’s side impact tested and rated. Britax is the only one that uses a steel frame, and it is designed differently than all the other car seats out there – I don’t really remember how it’s designed differently, I just remember that it is. So, immediately, I was turned on to a Britax car seat.

The exact car seat model that I liked was the Britax Marathon 70-G3. It holds up to 70 lbs, and the top extends as Henry gets taller. It has the Britax safety ratings and feels extremely sturdy and comfortable. However, Britax also makes some of the most expensive car seats out there….they are NOT cheap or even budget friendly. Babies ‘R Us list price for the Britax Marathon 70-G3 Convertible car seat is $259.99….for one. I don’t know about you, but when I saw that price I almost threw up a little bit.

J and I couldn’t agree in the store on what we wanted to do. He was ok with buying a lesser model and presumably just as safe car seat, but the salesman’s spiel had done it’s job, and I wanted a Britax to put my baby in. So, instead of arguing at the store we went home empty handed so we could mull it over more and make a decision.

Once at home, I got online and started looking for Britax Marathon 70-G3 Convertible Car Seats. I ended up finding two that had been opened in the box, but had never been used. So, that immediately dropped the price down by $75. So, we bought those two. All totaled, we spent $375.98 on two Britax Marathon 70-G3 car seats. I’m still cringing inside as I look at that price tag, but this car seat should hold Henry until all he needs is a small booster seat, plus I’ll be able to relax every time I strap him into it and not have to worry that it’s not safe.

I guess an added bonus would be if we ever have a baby #2, that we can use this car seat for them too. This whole thing stressed me out and it still makes me upset about how much money we spent. But, safety comes first, and my bank account will recover….eventually.