My thoughts: I don’t know if it should be a law, but I wish more parents did it. We not only buy a seat for our little guy, but we schlep the car seat on board, too, and strap him right in (as you can see in the photo below).

There is no debate that this is the safest, most conservative choice. But I’m not going to argue that it should be forced upon every parent – I don’t have enough data to make that kind of call.

Safety and cost factors aside, there’s also the consideration of… being considerate.

Every time we’ve flown with Jake (two times), we’ve had the three-seat row to ourselves. But I was just on a long flight last week (3.5 hours) where a mama and her VERY restless 18 month old shared a seat in the row in front of us. It turns out that – for once! – the flight wasn’t fully booked, so mother and child ended up in separate seats anyway. (There used to be a day many years ago when you could usually count on more spaciousness like this, but that is incredibly rare on flights these days.)

The toddler was adorable and the woman they shared the row with was the easily-infatuated grandmotherly type. I was glad it was comfortable for all of them, but it did cross my mind that if that pair had been sharing the middle seat on a more crowded flight it would have been perfectly, 100% miserable for all parties concerned!

Three people sardine-canned into a row is bad enough. Adding a squirmy, restless fourth sounds like a whole new circle of hell to me. Ugh!

So I’d advise parents to keep that in mind when making their decisions about whether to purchase an extra seat, especially on longer flights with older babies. How much worse is the flight going to be for you if you’re trying to keep your little one contained and not kicking or sprawling themselves across the perfect strangers you’re scrunched in with?

Today he tried to hook up his miniature red wagon. I was pretty sure that would not work and I told him so. Bailey wisely counseled me (she and her sisters do that a lot), “You should just let him try, Mom. Let him figure it out for himself.”

He DID figure it out – and proved me wrong. It totally worked. He also managed to get three trailers going simultaneously.

I should just stay out of these matters about which I know nothing. ;-D

February 14-15, 2009: Mesquite campground at Horseshoe Lake, Verde River.

Highlights of this trip:

• The Brazaletes Pueblo ruin at the summit of St. Clair Mountain was extremely fascinating. One of the most extensive ruin sites I’ve seen (that hasn’t been developed for public interpretation, that is).

• First time camping since Scott made the dinette modification. Compared to the bench seat we had previously, the dinette is SO family friendly. The set up is much roomier and the layout is far more conversational. I liked that there was room for the hubby, a tween and the toddler to sit there while I prepared a meal and served it to them at the table. When we had the bench, there wasn’t a lot of room for other people to sit on it while I was cooking – knees in the way. And, of course, no table, so I was handing the food out. We always had to eat outside. While that is usually something we WANT to be doing, since we’re camping, after all, it was pretty cold on this trip  (got below freezing at night) so we were glad to have the dine-inside-where-it-was-warm-and-comfortable option.

• HM fell into the river once while climbing out onto a tree from the beach at our campsite. Completely drenched, from head to toe. Later, after she was dried off and in dry, warm clothes, the dog dragged her into the water’s edge from the muddy beach. Not as wet this time, but much muddier. I think HM learned her lesson and now understands why I always harp about using the gentle leader!

• It was cold weather for falling into the freezing cold river (like HM did… twice!) or sitting at icy concrete picnic table, but it was the PERFECT temperature and conditions for hiking and exploring, which we managed to do a lot of on this trip!

Jake is giddy. He thinks the crate is his own personal play BOX. Bonus that it even has a door to open and shut and open and shut and open and shut and open and shut.

Scott is doing a renovation on our camper that is going to be pretty cool. It came with a bench seat (with storage under the seat and it converts to a bed). He took all that out and is building a dinette – with storage and bed conversion also) in its place. Will be much more comfortable to have a little table and seating instead of the bench. Hopefully it will be basically done by this weekend. I will post before/after photos once it’s done!

In the meantime, Jake is proud to be wearing daddy’s shop goggles!

Ever since Jake saw his baby friends Mia and Leland dining tidily with eating utensils, he has decided he also MUST hold a utensil while he eats. That’s all he does with it, tho! Well, he tries to spear microscopic crumbs of food and occasionally he will lick the empty fork tines, but I know this will turn into competency eventually.

That’s also his first experience with ketchup on the french fry that he’s eating. He, of course, loved it. The french fry you see here was at least triple-dipped.

And that’s me behind the dog, hunched over my computer working on the neverending blog transfer chore. Kind of obsessive about it at the moment, in fact.

No wonder it was taking so damn long to finish the assignment!

But I could hardly be frustrated with her when she wrote this awesome little baby book memento.

Jake rolled his toy eggshell, fascinated. Not for much longer, though. He soon walked over to his highchair, and played with the straps. Again, not for long. He soon decided that stretching out his onezie was much more interesting than the other two, but not for less than a minute.

Jackson, usually known as Jake was an often-distracted baby. Shoes, clothes, and toys fascinated him as far as inanimate objects. But when it came to family, Jake loved his whole family a lot. When it came to animals, Jake loved them all — at least the ones he could pet. Although he was small for his age of fifteen months, he could get into many places and make a mess anywhere, be it small or large.

Although it may seem that Jake can’t play with anyone or anything for less than a minute, this isn’t true. Jake will play with many things for quite a bit of time, until the person he was playing with left, or whatever he was playing with taken away; or he put, or threw, whatever it was into a hard-to-reach spot. And, of course, he became bored and wanted to play a different game.

After more playing and a little fussing, Jake was placed into his highchair with a graham cracker and his water. He crushed the graham cracker and threw the water on the floor. Then, he began to laugh. I guess that’s what babies do.

After making such a mess, I took him out of his highchair and he began to play again, zooming off with toys, wrestling with Bailey’s toy bear, things like that.

But, not only is Jake an active baby who loves his toys (he is digging in his toy box as I write this! ;P) he is a great listener. For example, when he threw his cup on the ground it went under the bench. A little while afterward, he wanted the cup. Mom told him to go look around his highchair. So he walked up to his highchair and began looking at it. I got his attention and pointed under the bench and told him his cup was under there. So he went under and grabbed it! I guess Jake knows more than we give him credit for. . .

Here comes Halloween!

Now that he’s walking, he thinks the park is SO MUCH more fun (remember my sensitive boy doesn’t like to sit in grass, sand or dirt lol)…

Walking to the park

Going down the slide

Jake loves to climb steps

Checking out the trees

Peeking

It’s almost naptime…

Yep… kinda done.

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