About six months ago, the kids convinced me to take them to the dollar store so they could spend some of their birthday and/or allowance money. While we were browsing around the toy section, I saw these new puzzle books that contained "the newest puzzle craze" — Sudoku. I had never heard of it before, but I didn’t want to be left out of the new craze, so I bought two books. I should have saved my dollars.

If you have any inkling of an addictive personality, I recommend that you stay far, far away from these puzzles or you will turn into a Su-DORK-u like I have. You will raid your kids’ backpacks looking for the perfect pencil with a great eraser. You will be a slacker with your other hobbies such as blogging. The numbers 1 through 9 will dance in your dreams. You will become a missionary and try to convert your siblings to Su-DORK-u-ism. You will become anti-social as a night solving puzzles will seem more appealing than going out with your husband or friends.

Sorry to make this post so short, but I……must…..go…..play……now. 

Here’s an interesting bit of info I borrowed from About.com.

It is estimated that about 80% of car seats are misused, either because a child is in the wrong seat, the seat is installed wrong, or the child is not placed in the seat correctly.

I used to think that I was part of the 20 percent of parents who were safely transporting their children in the car. Cutie was in a front-facing chair with a 5-point harness that was snug. Like a good mom, I replaced the old clip on the harness so she couldn’t push it down the straps and wiggle her shoulders out of the harness. Bud was in a booster seat with a high back. Little did I know that my safety efforts would have been useless had we been involved in an accident. A very good friend has been certified as a child passenger safety technician and she has helped me see the error of my ways and inspired me to repent. I feel compelled to confess my sins before you so I can drive forth with a clear conscience.

Cutie’s car seat was expired. We bought it in 1999 for Ant, and it worked well for him and Bud and now Cutie. Experts say that car seats expire six years from the date of manufacture. Click the link to read up on the reason why.

Bud’s booster seat positioned the seat belt across his neck if he wasn’t using good posture. How many 5-year-olds have good posture?

The booster didn’t have any support on the sides to keep Bud in an upright position if he happened to fall asleep. I would often find him asleep with his torso floppily hanging over the arm of his chair.

I didn’t make the seat immovable. I have an older vehicle that doesn’t have all the doo-dads for the LATCH system. I did understand that after threading the belt through the car seat to the buckle there should be no slack. I even put my weight in the chair and pulled the belt as tight as I could to make sure there was no slack between the seat and the buckle and the chair. My efforts were in vain, though, because I didn’t know how to use the seat belt retractor to keep the seat belt tight; that is, until my friend showed me how to do it last night. This morning, I found a short instructional video that demonstrates how to secure a car seat using both the LATCH and the old-fashioned methods. It’s worth watching, but just in case you don’t watch it, here are some vital instructions:

After threading the seat belt through a car seat, pull the car’s seat belt out until it stops and then secure it in the buckle. Slowly let the seat belt retract, you may hear a little click, click, click as the lockbar slides over each notch in the retractor. After the belt retracts as far as it will go, make sure the car seat is right up against the car chair’s back and kneel into the car seat as you pull more of the seatbelt into the retractor. When you’re finished, the seat should not be able to move more than an inch.

I thank God that in the 8+ years I have misused car seats, we have not been in any car accidents. I am currently waiting for the UPS driver to drop off the new car seat and booster I ordered online. In the meantime, I have borrowed safer seats from my friend to whom I am grateful for caring so much for my children.

Don’t read this if you’re expecting it to be sek-sy. I’m not that kind of girl. Also, if it is still November 7 and the polls are still open and you haven’t voted yet, PLEASE GO VOTE NOW.

This past month had a bunch of firsts, and I’d thought I’d share them with you.

When I woke up last Monday I experienced my first (and hopefully last) panic attack (I think) which probably stemmed from having an absolutely crazy schedule the prior week, along with the lack of sleep that is to be blamed on IBS after a visit to G0lden C0rral Saturday night. My heart felt like it was in labor as my chest contracted with intense pain. It would last about a minute then go away, but then it would come back stronger within ten minutes. The last time I felt it, I screamed in pain for my husband to help me and then I wailed like a child in time-out. My husband used his priesthood and gave me a blessing that calmed me and allowed me to sleep again. When I woke up, I cancelled every unnecessary thing and allowed myself to rest most of the week.

Cutie wore underwear to our 3-hour church services on Sunday for the first time…and she kept them dry!  I was such a proud momma.

Bud was kicked out of the chapel since he was goofing off during the Primary program practice two Sunday’s ago. Dh and I had to explain to him that it was hilarious when he was a goof during his school’s fall concert, but it wasn’t acceptable to be goofy during the reverent church program. I also threatened Bud that he would have to sit with me in my boring class if he was kicked out of practice the next week. His teacher reported that he was an angel during yesterday’s practice, so I think we got through to him. I guess we’ll see next week during the performance.

My sister Heidi moved into her own apartment after living in our unfinished bonus room for eight months. I’ve been wanting to post an "Ode to Heidi", but my creative juices just aren’t flowin’ at the moment. I’ll just say that she brought into our home a spirit of ultra-coolness and I’m proud of the sweet bond she made with Cutie. I had set some strict rules to protect my children that Heidi totally respected, and about which she never complained (that I know of), although they must have been an inconvenience for her. For that I’m grateful. When she told me she was moving, I was happy for her, but I was sad that I wouldn’t be seeing her as much, so she has agreed to come over for dinner at least once a week. Isn’t she awesome?

Ant was a ninja for Halloween, which was a new costume for him; last year he was Ash the P0kemon trainer. Bud and Cutie chose to ignore their new costumes this year (a pirate and a hairdresser) and went trick-or-treating as Spiderman and a purple lion again. We first made the rounds at the trunk-or-treat at church and then they went to some of the neighbors’ homes while I stayed home to pass out the goodies. We only had about eight groups of trick-or-treaters come to the door this year. I guess carrot and celery sticks aren’t very popular.