Levi Turns 1

Levi Turned 1 on July 13, 2008!

We had a duck theme party for him, because its one of his favorite words (duck and hi!)

Here is a link to some of the pics -
http://s169.photobucket.com/albums/u218/leighi123/baby/July%202008/1st%20bday/


About his carseat -

He is 20lbs now, and 1 yrs old, so he meets the minimum requirment for forward facing in the car BUT we have decided to keep him rearfacing for much much longer, until he reaches the weight limit of his seat.

Rearfacing is A LOT safter than forward facing for young kids, they still have the 'big head, small body' thing going on, and childrens spines dont fuse until the ace of 4-6yrs - this means that they are at much greater risk of head/back/neck injuries if they are facing forward in a carseat.

We have the Compass TrueFit by Learning Curve (purchased from www.LearningCurve.com when there was a great sale!)
The great thing about this carseat is that the forward facing minimum weight is 23lbs! That means that parents will have to rearface their children for at least a little bit longer, which I think is great sence there most parents seem so anxious to flip them (most dont do the reasearch and know nothing about extended rearfacing, or they have silly reasons why they want their child to face forward)
The other great thing is that it has a rearfacing limit of 35lbs, it has a removable headrest as well, which makes it fit niceley in the car.
Up until the child is 22lbs, or reaches a line drawn right on the seat, you install it at 45degrees without the headrest. After that, you add the headreast and you can install it a bit more upright (between 30 and 45 degrees, the manual doesnt state this, but Learning Curve has approved this, like most other convertable carseat manufactures).

Beacuse of the tall shell (with headrest on), its much more likley that children will be able to rearface to the full 35lbs - many carseats with shorter shells are outgrown in height before weight.

Saftey is my top priority, so Im happy to have this great carseat which will allow my little Levi to rearface for a loooong time yet.

Here is a link to a thread with lots of information about why its best to rearface your kids as long as you can -
http://www.car-seat.org/showthread.php?t=40366


Anyway - Little Levi is sooo big now - he is close to walking, and is doing more and more every day, its so much fun to watch him!