Baby Gate Tips

Exercise TV, The Kind Diet and The Baby Gate

This week I bumbled across ExerciseTV on demand on cable. It has gobs of workout videos available instantly, some killer and some painfully cheesy. Normally I don’t have the attention span for exercising in front of the television but curiosity and bad weather got the better of me. So far my favorite has been Jillian Michaels’ 30 Day Shred. It has no dancy choreography or silly stuff, just lots of push-ups, squats, lunges jumping jacks and crunches. It’s very Turbulence Training-esque.

I finished reading The Kind Diet by Alicia Silverstone. Food politics and celebrity nutrition claims aside, it has some beautiful color photos and tasty looking vegan recipes. If only I could get someone to make them for me, starting with the cupcakes. That’s always my problem with cookbooks. I like reading them. I like looking at the pictures. I like eating. I don’t like cooking.

Ripley is a menace. A few days ago it started snowing, which I guess smells sort of like rain, which must in some way remind her of thunder, which resulted in a full-tilt, head-spinning panic attack. She darted out the front door and down the street in a blind terror, chased by invisible demons and imaginary thunder monsters. Yes, a slush-colored dog darting through traffic in a snowstorm, oblivious to any calling, pleading or commands. It took forever to catch her and aged us like ten years. We have since purchased the biggest most ridiculous baby gate we could find. It’s like four feet tall and you need three hands to open it. There will be no more door-darting!

 

 

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The Cow & Gate Mum and Baby Club has a wealth of baby freebies for mums and babies and all you need to do is register. The form isn’t that long won’t demand the endurance of a marathon runner to complete and there are some great extras to be had.

• Click here to mooo on over to Cow & Gate

Baby freebies are a complete and utter winner in my book. If I’d realised exactly how many different clubs and extras there were for mums I would have been rolling in stuff when I had my first. I can tell you that when the second comes along, I’m registering for everything under the sun.

The Cow & Gate Mum and Baby Club gives you a free pregnancy diary as long as you join before you hit 32 weeks and, of course, if there is stock. You also get free money off vouchers, emails that detail the latest offers and tons of expert advice.

You can even spend time online meeting other parents, whether you are a mum or a dad, and reading up on the latest news and views.

Related posts:

1. Free Pregnancy And Baby Packs @ Emma’s Diary
2. Brilliant Baby Freebies @ Hipp Baby Club
3. Baby Freebies @ Aptamil Baby Club

A baby gate is a child proofing measure that many parents take on to keep their home safe for their babies. This is especially critical when your baby begins to take his or her first steps and you have a home that is multiple levels with stairs. Knowing how to properly install a baby gate on the stair and stair banister will keep your child safe and protected from any unnecessary falls or injuries that may occur accidentally as a result.

Installing a baby gate simply requires you to purchase a gate that fits the size and width of your stair’s banister and following the instructions that come inside. This article will provide a generic description for the process of attaching the baby gate to the stair banister. You should read the instructions before attempting the installation and be sure that you know what you are doing for the safety and well being of your baby.

Tools and Materials Needed

• Baby gate
• Stair banister
• Tape measure
• Baby gate installation instructions

Step 1: Purchase a Baby Gate

Go to the store and purchase a baby gate for your home. The baby gate should be sturdy and durable and not collapse inward under the weight or pressure of the baby. If the baby gate cannot withstand the weight of your baby search for one that can.

Ask the store associate for information on the different models of baby gates that the store sells and as for any recall notices or consumer product safety recalls that may be associated with the product or the company manufacturing the product. 

Step 2: Assemble the Baby Gate

In more cases than not the baby gate will come pre-assembled out of the box. This will make life easier for you when installing the baby gate to the banister of your stairs in the home. If you need to assemble any of the parts to  the baby gate, follow the assembly instructions that came with the baby gate and make sure that you follow them exactly.

Step 3: Install the Baby Gate

You will need to attach the baby gate to the banister once it is assembled or the pre-assembled baby gate is taken out of the box. Most baby gates have a locking mechanism that holds it in place when you click it and stays rigid regardless of the actions of the baby. Secure the baby gate to the banister in manner prescribed in the instructions for the brand or model that you purchased. You need to pull on the baby gate forcefully to make sure that it is attached properly and that the baby gate does not move when pressure is applied. 

Be sure to check the baby gate thoroughly before, during and after installation in order to make sure that it does not buckle or fold or give way. If there is any wiggle or slack in the baby gate, remove it immediately and return it to the place of original purchase.

Blaize is currently doing well and according to his mother, Leya Ozwald, “very excited” to get on his skis again soon. There are no protection bars on the Cougar chair, which, as a father of a young child who enjoys  taking skiing on the mountain, sucks. The bar is not a guarantee that shit won’t go bad. From my personal experience, when a safety bar is 1) Low, like on the Casper Chair at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, or 2) have the arms that come down from the bar which touch the chair as on the Teewinot lift at Jackson Hole, which you can situate in between the small child’s legs (or adult legs if not 3 or less are on the quad chair) that offers greater security (for child and for parent!).

The lift to the summit of Snow King, Exhibition, has a safety bar, I believe, every fourth chair. It is surprising that the folks at Snow King don’t put in safety bars on all the chairs on Exhibition, at least during the Hill Climb. During the Hill Climb, and throughout the year, Non-skiers/boarders are required to use only the chairs with safety bars. During the annual Hill Climb, this causes a huge backup of people wanting to ride the lift. If there were bars on all the chairs the wait time would be much less, and safety arguably increased. In addition, I would think this action would increase revenue for the mountain. I don’t know how much a safety bar costs, but it is a fairly simple device with minimal hardware required to install, taking only a few minutes for each chair. Snow King can hire Lawrence Bennett, artist and metal worker with a shop at the base of the mountain, to make custom ones for them, if they don’t have a line on some. I bet there are used ones that can be bought from a ski area that doesn’t use them because they went out of business or upgraded their double chair to a triple or quad. Hopefully monetary gain would follow doing the right thing, which in my opinion is to keep the kids and adults using the lifts at Snow King, our beloved town hill, safer. OK…what the hell is safer? Well we can debate that, but to me it is having bars on the Cougar lift so that I don’t have to hold my son or clip him in to the lift with a cord to prevent him pitching off and getting hurt or killed while out trying to have a good time.

On Sunday Axl and I were at Jackson Hole for the day where we ripped the animal trails off of Teewinot Lift and then ventured up to Casper and over to Thunder. I am learning the easiest ways down from all the lifts as I go out with Axl these early days of his skiing. Giradelli larger milk chocolate chips and GU Chomps got us through the day. I heard about using a ski pole to help slow Axl down but have not yet tried it. I have been skiing without poles and grabbing him and carrying him like a football over the steep sections, which unfortunately interrupt many of the cat tracks, at least for enough time to not have it be a smooth, super easy ride down from the Thunder, the Gondola (getting onto Amphitheater for a brief moment until one can cut east to Nez Perce is steep and challenging) and even Casper (below the restaurant to the cat track). This being said, there may be some easier ways which I haven’t learned yet and hopefully won’t have to as Axl is getting stronger and ripping more every time out!

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OKLAHOMA CITY — OU football head coach Bob Stoops is teaming up with Gov. Brad Henry and State Superintendent Sandy Garrett to back a new program to help find missing children.

The National Child Identification Program is a voluntary program designed to give families tools to identify their children if they are lost or missing.

“This is an easy way for parents to keep track of information that could someday save a child’s life,” Henry said.

Statistics show that 800,000 children are reported missing every year, the governor said.

“That means a child goes missing every 40 seconds,” Henry said.

The state plans to launch the program, which is co-sponsored by the American Football Coaches Association, within the next 30 days.

“Coach Stoops brought the idea to my office, and through a federal grant, we are implementing this program,” Henry said.

Many other football coaches have backed the program in other states, Stoops said.

“We work with young people every day and it is important that we do everything we can to keep them safe,” Stoops said.

A missing girl from Dallas was found in Phoenix with the help of a kit the girl’s parents had picked up at her school, said Bret Phillips, National Child Identification Program spokesman.

“In states where these programs exist, we’ve had many success stories,” he said.

Garrett said the state will encourage parents to participate.

“The program is purely voluntary, and parents will keep the information at home,” she said.

Phillips said the kit’s contents will not expire or require replenishment, but the child’s photo should be updated as the child gets older.

Henry said the government does not want to create a database that stores the information in the kit.

“The only time you will ever need to give this to a government official is if your child goes missing,” he said.

The governor said the state received a portion of the Federal Safe School’s Grant, so state funds would not be used to purchase the kits.

The federal grant allowed the state to purchase 360,000 kits for $300,000.

“We hope that we will get 100 percent participation, but at this time, we only have enough for students who are currently enrolled in public school,” Henry said.

Garrett said because of the small number of kits available, home-schooled children and some private school children will have to go without for now.

There are only enough kits for children in public schools who are in grades kindergarten through sixth grade, she said.