Remember in 2007 or so when I wrote about switching from plastic water bottles to SIGG bottles?

(Links here and here)

Well, guess what?  SIGG has come out and admitted that the liner of their water bottles isn’t BPA (Bisphenol A) free.  Many people, myself included, like to limit their exposure and that of their children to Bisphenol A in their food and drink containers.

SIGG has done just that with their SIGG Bottle liners manufactured after August 2008. The greater issue is that SIGG led people to believe that their water bottles were ALWAYS BPA free. So folks, like me, who wanted to reduce their exposure to BPA bought the bottles.

From now through the end of October, SIGG is offerring a return program whereby you can return your bottles with the old liner and have them replaced with new bottles. Follow the instructions at their website. You will have to pay to ship your bottles back to them.

We have 10 SIGG bottles that I will be sending back for my own peace of mind. But I still feel annoyed at the company for lying about the BPA in the first place.

Today I made a new rule at our house.  No television on school nights, at all.  I’ll say up front that I am not a fan of television at all.  It really does not hold my interest and I find the noise in the background distracting.  I always find it funny when people say that they turn the tv on for background noise because they hate the complete quiet of the house when no one is home.  Because I revel in the silence.

I had been allowing the kids to turn the tv on when they were done with their homework, but I noticed that this was causing a couple of problems.  Namely kids who were rushing through their work so that they could be the first one to get the remote, or kids who “forgot” that they had homework until it was almost bedtime, or kids who were actually doing their homework but were distracted by the tv in the background.  So now the simple rule is no tv during the week.  It certainly makes my job easier as there is no negotiating.

Does anyone else restrict tv viewing during the week?  Do you give out tv hours as rewards for chores or grades?  I was thinking of doing something like that for my younger children, but not exactly sure how I would implement it.  And what do you do when the weekend comes?  Is it a tv viewing free-for-all?

Have you heard about the great trade in event? 

Toys R Us and Babies R Us are having an event from now through September 20th where you can bring any of your used baby gear into the store to recieve 20% off of a new item.  Cribs, strollers, car seats high chairs,etc are all eligible.   The hope is that many of the unsafe baby items will be traded in and put out of use.  Car seats all have expiration dates on them on, but how many are still being used because they were passed down through friends and family.

I have been wanting to buy my daughter a new booster seat and being able to get an additonal 20% off by turning in her old seat is the incentive I need to actually go out and do it.

Back to school season is here and along with it back to germs. it is inevitable, your kids are going to be exposed to illnesses and  they are going to bring them home to you.  But what sort of steps can you take to minimize the spread of germs.

1) Wash your hands.  Wash wash wash.  Remind your children that they should be washing their hands before they eat anything.  If they can not wash their hands they should use hand sanitizer.  I have sent my kids to school with a small bottle attached to their lunch boxes. 

2) Take your multi-vitamin.  Most of us are not getting all of the vitamins we need from our diets.  This is especially true for our children.

3) Get a good nights sleep.  Your kids should be getting 8-10 hours of sleep per night. 

4) Take time to eat a good breakfast every morning.  It  really is the most important meal of the day.  Studies have shown that children who eat breakfast perform better in school than those who do not.

5) Have time to just relax.  With school, activities, and homework and is sometimes hard to find the time for the kids to find the time to just run around with their friends with no agenda.

I was  the sort of kid who loved to read.  I would take armfuls of books out of the library every week and would begin reading them in the car ride on the way home, despite the fact that I would get carsick.  Sometimes I would read through the books so quickly that I would reread them before the next weekend came.  I read through all of the Judy Blume books and the like, but I also remember reading Diary of Anne Frank for the first time.  I was in fourth grade.  I read the entire book not knowing it was a real diary and when I got to the end of the book I was devastated.  I had never heard of the Holocaust, or concentration camps, or even Hitler.  It was a watershed moment in my life.

I was just reading an article  in the NY Timesabout a new trend happening in schools where children are allowed to pick their own reading assignments.  Imagine it… no more being assigned Moby Dick, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies.  Children chose to read the books that they want to read.  Hmmmm.

I am not sure how I feel about it.  On the one hand I remember suffering through books I thought were so incredibly boring that I wanted to cry.  On the other hand shouldn’t there be some sort of agreed upon core of literary knowledge that we share?  And isn’t there a value in doing something that is difficult?  Reading books that stretch your mind, make you think new things, push you out of your comfort zone?

I suppose the only way to answer the questions is to determine what the ultimate goal of teaching literature is.  Is it to instill a life long love of reading, like some assert.  Or is it to teach specific works of literature, which has been the long held goal.

Perhaps the most fascinating thing about the article is the comments that people left, for both sides of the argument. 

I can see all sides and think that perhaps the answer to the question lies somewhere in the middle.  I was never assigned the book Diary of Anne Frank ever in all my many, many years of schooling.  It was a book that I read by pure happenstance, when I was quite young, one I discovered because I had a voracious reading appetite.  So I do understand why educators feel it is important to instill a love of the written word into kids.  And let’s  not forget that those  who love  to read, often love to write. 

How  would you feel about your child being in a class where they were allowed to pick any books they wanted to read?  And what if your child picked comic stylebooks or Captain Underpants, would you intervene?

My oldest son will be able to get his driving permit on his  next birthday.  Something that simultaneously thrills and frightens me.  He is a good kid.  He is responsible.  He has never given me any reasons to doubt his judgement.  But still he is a kid and kids do dumb things.

Teenagers by their very nature think that they are invincible.  And that is at the core of what frightens me.

This week I came across this video.  I think many of  you have probably already seen it.  It is an extremely graphic representation of a car accident that occurs when a teenage girl is texting not paying attention to the road.  It reminds me of those scared straight videos from the late 1980’s which were to scare teenagers from drinking and driving.

Warning: it is graphic and loud, so you might want to make sure little ones are otherwise occuppied before  you watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGE8LzRaySk

What do you think of the PSA?  Would you show it to your teenager?  or do you think that it is too graphic?

I will let my teenagers see the video, but I think that more important than trying to scare them is to model good behavior and to not text on your own phone while driving.  Yes, I think it is graphic, but honestly not anymore graphic than many of the movies that the see.

One of my favorite bloggers plans a  back to school feast for her children on the eve of back to school.  They break out the fancy food, fancy china, and use the dining room, treating it as an occasion worth celebrating.  I love this idea.  I had hoped to do something similar, but illness, last minute running around for missing school supplies, missing immunizations, and the kids already committed to activities put a damper on it.    I think our back to school ever was me running around the house like a crazed  person, trying to organize all that needed to be done for the next day, while trying to maintain a chipper attitude.  Trying being the operative word here.

Other people I know take photos of their kids every year standing by the front door, for some perspective on their growth I am guessing, and have them wear the same clothes on the last day of school.  I fear that my boys are so hard on clothing that they will have to end the last day of school in nothing but tattered rags. 

Of course I took photos of my kids on their first day of school.  My oldest son who is a freshman in highschool told me that all of his friends at school were laughing and saying that their mothers were taking their photos also.  That made him feel like he wasn’t the only poor tortured child out there.

We are only on Day Three of school here, but the after school snack seems to be the tradition here.  So far I have baked treats for them when they come home from school (It gives me the additional benefit  of having something to do with my four year old who is home with me all day).  Now, I am pretty sure that I will not continue to bake every single day, but their excitement has made me mindful of what sort of snacks they would like to see waiting for them when they get off of the school bus.  Relatively healthy snacks, I should add, because I know more than anything they would  love to see a vat of candy.  Parenting Magazine has some recipes for Super, Yummy Afterschool snacks.  I think my kids would really like the Strawberry “Cheesecakes”, which are essentially graham crackers with a cream cheese and jam spread.   But part of the allure of the after school snack, at least at my house, is that I set the table and they sit with me and  I get to hear all about their day. 

Do you have any Back to School traditions?  Any things you do that are unique to your family?