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Kids

Lia is One Year Old!

Babies grow so fast sometimes I don’t even remember what happened. Here’s a little flashback to when Lia was only one day old just to see how far she’s come in this past year…

Let’s review Lia’s progress at this twelve-month milestone against what’s listed in What To Expect The First Year:

By first year, Lia should be able to:

  • Walk holding on to furniture (cruise). Yup.
  • Use a few gestures to get needs met. She points to things.

Lia will probably be able to:

  • Play patty-cake (clap hands) or wave bye-bye (most by 13 mo). Both.
  • Drink from a cup independently. Yup.
  • Pick up a tiny object neatly with tips of thumb and forefinger (many not until 15 mo). One of her favorite hobbies is to scan the carpet for specs of dust, crawls to it, picks it up with two fingers, and says “dirty”.
  • Stand alone momentarily (many not until 13 mo). When we went shoe-shopping, she stood more than 20 seconds by herself.
  • Say “dada” or “mama” indiscriminately (most by 14 mo). Yup.
  • Say one word other than “mama” or “dada” (many not until 14 mo). She says “apple” all the time.

Lia may possibly be able to:

  • Play ball. (many not until 16 mo). Yes, although sometimes it goes backwards.
  • Stand alone well. (many not until 14 mo). Starting to.
  • Use immature jargoning. (many not until 15 mo). Yes.
  • Walk well. (3 of 4 not until 13 1/2, good crawlers tend to be slower to walk).  Not yet, only cruising.

Lia may even be able to:

  • Say three words other than “mama” or “dada” (half not until 13 mo, many not until 16 mo). She regular says “turtle”, “ball”, “dirt” (dirty), “duck” (ducky), “apple”, “up”, “eeyore”, “bear”, “bird”, “wow”, “baby”, “boobey” (blueberry, once), “book” , “doggie”, “pahn pahn” (means scared in chinese), “milk”, “mouth”, “oh-oh” (with a cough), “heel” (hello), “butt” (bunny), “computer” (only twice), and probably more we forgot.
  • Respond to one-step command without gestures (“give that to me”, most until 1st birthday, and many not until 16 mo). We can point to something and have her give it to us, but recently she decided it’s more fun to keep it.

So overall Lia is doing very well with her progress. She is so much fun now. We look forward to seeing what else she picks up, and hopefully she won’t starting walking too soon!

Happy birthday Lia!

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Upgraded Rat Trap

When my parents came to town to spend the week with us and attend Lia’s one-year celebration, they decided to bring a truckload of merchandise. The items include organic home-grown lemon, custom pureed flax seed multi-grain mix, green San Jose Race Crew 2007 T-shirts in all sizes, an air-powered keyboard from my childhood, and the last of which is the subject of this blog, an animal trap. My mom read about my rodent headache and decided that my mortifying rat-catching skills required assistance, so she unilaterally brought the trap my grandpa made.

rattrap1

Here’s the rodent’s perspective…

rattrap2

I was impressed. This device was constructed using simple parts, which included a wire frame, a door that snaps close by the aid of powerful springs, a bait hook that releases the door, and a sliding latch that ensures the door’s seal. According to my mom, she has caught every animal known to humans from her organic backyard, and whatever animal is lurking in my garage is no match for this device.

We shall see.

Health

Dangers Of Plastics

About three months ago, as part of Lia’s ever-increasing demand for nutritional edible goods, we added Yo Baby to Lia’s diet for breakfast. 

yobaby

It seemed sensible at the time, as Yo Baby is an organic yogurt that, according to its manufacturers, helps promote brain development with its whole milk, helps body growth with calcium and protein, is all natural and certified organic, helps digestion with its active cultures, and contains reduced sugar, which is about as much as a jar of baby food fruit. Lia enjoyed this little cold, sweet treat, and for three months, she had a container’s worth of yogurt every morning. Little did we know that months later, we would discover that this very yogurt, touted to be healthy, would come in a toxic container known to be carcinogenic.

In retrospect, we should have paid more attention when we read the July 2008 issue of the ShopSmart magazine, where an article titled “How Safe Is That Plastic Container” revealed a few recycle numbers (resin identification code) to avoid, including that which contains Yo Baby. After doing a little research, I’ve deciphered the incomprehensible recycle digits and valuable information on each:

Number Abbr Description
recycle11
 PET/PETE Polyethylene terephthalate. Used in water bottles, juice, and sports drinks. PET breaks down over time and the toxin DEHA leaches into beverages when bottles are reused. DEHA can cause liver and reproductive problems and can cause cancer. Avoid recycling reusing because they’re porous and can absorb flavors and bacteria that can’t be cleaned.
recycle21 HDPE Commonly used for milk jugs, liquid detergent bottles, shampoo bottles.
recycle31 PVC Polyvinyl chloride. Commonly used for meat wrap, cooking oil bottles, and plumbing pipes.  Can cause cancer, birth defects, damage to kidneys, lungs, and reproductive organs.
recycle41 LDPE Low density polyethylene. Commonly used in cling wrap, grocery bags, and sandwich bags.
recycle51 PP Polypropylen. Commonly used in cloudy plastic water bottles, yogurt cups/tubs.
recycle61 PS Polystyrene. Commonly used for disposable coffee cups, clam-shell take-out containers. Polystyrene-foam cups and clear plastic take-out containers can leach styrene, a possible human carcinogen, into food.
recycle71 PC Polycarbonate. Commonly used for some food storage, sports bottles, and baby bottles. Contains Bisphenol A (BPA), which can cause breast and prostate cancer, diabetes, birth defects, and child hyperactivity. Can leach into food if exposed to heat or are scratched, cracked, or worm from repeated use and dishwashing.
recycle71 PLA PLA is made from corn, potato, or sugar cane, and is safe and can be composted. Unfortunately this is also classified as “#7: Other”, along with BPA and newer non-BPA plastics.

Now you may wonder if some of these plastics are so harmful, why are they still in use? The reason is that the FDA decided that the levels of harmful chemicals leaching into food is within safety limits. Some new studies, however, seem to show that there are potential risks from even low levels of exposure, including a new draft report from the National Institutes of Health.

With that, we now move on to some practical steps for protecting you and your love ones from the toxic plastics:

  • Use #2 HDPE, #4 LDPE, and #5 PP
  • Use #1 PET, but don’t recycle the water/soda bottles
  • Use PLA
  • Avoid #3 PVC, #6 PS, and #7 PC.
  • Don’t store fatty food with plastic containers or plastic wraps.
  • Microwave-safe only means it won’t melt, crack, or fall apart, but toxic chemical can still leach into food. Use glass or ceramic.

And if you’re really paranoid concerned, you can even:

  • When buying meat packaged with cling wrap, slice off a thin portion that came into contact with the wrap and store in glass or ceramic container or use non-PVC wrap.

Research has a tendency to keep reversing itself, and someone will probably find some toxicity in one of those recycle numbers that we trust to be safe. The only thing we can do is do our best based on what we know today.

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Rat Update 1: Evasion

After setting the rat trap, two days of silence passed.  On the third day, the peanut butter I used as a bait disappeared, but the trap was still active. The next day I reloaded the bait, and once again, the peanut butter disappeared. No Rat.  Finally on Saturday, the trap went off, the trap flipped over, but to my dismay, the rat had somehow evaded the trap!

Perhaps the trap was too large. Tim mentioned that he was able to catch rats with regular mouse traps, so I decided to pick up a 4-pack of mouse traps…

mousetrap

However, the instructions bamboozled me…

neverneedsbait

Never needs baiting? Is the yellow colored plastic supposed to masquerade as a piece of refresh cheese to lure rats, similar to the functionality of fake baits used in fishing? The traps have been set up according to directions for now, but if we don’t harvest some rats soon, I may have to go the traditional route and add some raw meat!