Busy Month for Daddy

(Posting from Pierrette's Laptop, even though this is Geoffrey; more on that in the next paragraph.)

It's been a busy month so far.  While working from home on the holidays, my laptop brick died, and Best Buy will only repair the unit as a whole, so I had to ship out the entire laptop so that they can fix a defective power adapter.  That, or pay $150 for an adapter that they will fix for free on a laptop that only cost $699 to begin with.

So my laptop's in the shop, and with it, some of the photos I was planning to post here.  If they fry my HD while fixing/replacing the power adapter, I'll be very irritated, but there wasn't a good solution to backup the HD while I was running out of battery power, and their $80 backup didn't appeal to me.

After that, I really focused on the renovation, tearing up the flooring on the main floor to make way for the bamboo.  I carried an 8x12' 1/4" plywood panel home from Home Depot to acclimatize for new subfloor - not yet sure if it's enough, but it's a start.  Also took the fan off the ceiling in the bedroom since the light has stopped working - either I've gotta diagnose it, or we've gotta replace it.  Either way.

Then I got the flu - fever for several days, lots of sleep, not much else.  Yesterday, I recovered enough to return to work and then we spent the evening picking up 13 boxes of composite vertical strip bamboo flooring from Rona in Ed's van (Thanks, Ed!).  I know I'm recovering because I'm no longer able to sleep all day every day - so I was up 'til 2am reading about tiles and transitions (tiles should probably have a backerboard, rather than simply subfloor - so subfloor, thinset, backerboard, optional membrane, thinset, tiles; thinset for porcelain needs to be premium latex-modified, unless you're using schluter ditra, at which point they recommend unmodified thinset, etc.)  Adding to all this, Pierrette had heavy heartburn and was running low on liquid cal-mag, which wasn't working, so I went out to get her some Tums at 3:30, after doing a quick round of research on what heartburn medicine was ok for pregnancy (stick to chewable calcium carbonate, mostly).

So it's a late start to Saturday, after a long night.  Time to go eat breakfast and get on to cutting some subfloor (outside, I hope, if the weather co-operates).

Stroller

We wanted to shout out a thank you to grandpa Wiseman...

Last weekend grandpa Wiseman (Roy) treated us and baby Wiseman to a brand new stroller.  I have to say I can't wait till the little one is out so I can go for nice walks with him and his new "Cadillac".  Yes for all of those who want to laugh at us we chose a Bugaboo.  However we had our reasons:

• Had to have adjustable arm in length that could accommodate both comfortable myself (5'-5") and Geoff (6'-1").  Honestly there are only a few out there that met this first requirement: Bugaboo Cameleon; Stokke; Quinny Buzz (just barely); Mutsy; Stroll-Air
• Weight of the stroller when folded.  I.E. I needed to be able to lift it comfortably into the trunk of my car.  This gave a strike against the Mutsy, the Quinny and the Stroll-Air.  However the Quinny was just on the line of tolerable.
• Ease of use.  We played with all of these over and over in the stores.  the Quinny and Bugaboo kept on coming up at the top for the easiest to fold and open.  The Mutsy we had to fight with each time and the Stokke we eventually got the hang of it after going to 4 different stores and finally finding a sales clerk that knew how to operate the stroller.
• How each of the strollers felt to us when we walked around with them.  Geoff really seemed to prefer the Stokke and I preferred the Bugaboo. For both of us it had to do with the handle.
• We looked at the price however by this time we had already decided against the Mutsy one of the lower cost options.  The remaining 3 options ranked in price as follows the Quinny (+/- $700); Bugaboo (+/- $1100); Stokke (+/- $1200).
• Then I wanted to look at the widest span of the stroller because I know it can get complicated trying to get a stroller onto the TTC in Toronto. The narrowest Stroller was the Bugaboo, followed closely by the Stokke and then the Quinny was probably a good 6" wider at the wheel span.
• The I looked at what came with the stroller and what was available as an add-on.  For the all inclusive package the Stokke definitely wins, it came with almost everything including a stroller umbrella/parasol.  The Quinny followed after however the bassinet is a separate purchase and the amount of verity in the accessories that you can purchase after the fact are limited.  Including the fact that until this month you could not get an infant car seat that was compatible with the stroller.  The Bugaboo came in last for all inclusive however it definitely leaves everyone else in the dust with the after-market add ones you can get.  The only ones we are planning on getting for our Bugaboo are the cup holder, diaper bag and travel case.
• The designer in me had to look at the style and colours available, however at this point all 3 strollers left in the running were all great looking and very hip :-)

All in all: 

• The Mutsy got eliminated due to the weight and not user friendly
  
• The Quinny got eliminated due to the wheel base width
• The Stokke we flip flopped back and forth to this one but at the end it got eliminated because it just was not as user friendly, it felt odd to push around (at least for me) and it was more costly

Oh, for those of you that are wondering what our final choice was from Bugaboo: The Cameleon with a dark grey base and red canvas tailored fabrics.

SAFETY

I was sick for a bit so that would explain my absence. Baby and me are both fine, so no worries. I decided to divide these entries by subjects as there is a lot to say.

TOY SAFETY:
The Canadian Goverment released this notice regarding toy safety that I tought would be good to share with everyone.

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/cps-spc/advisories-avis/info-ind/toy_lead-jouets_plomb_e.html

Also for those of you that want to keep up to date with recalls in Canada there is a great newsletter from the Canadian government that you can subscribe to.  

On our part, a few of the things we are doing for baby to keep him safe from all the dangers of toxic chemicals out in the world are:

• Use only stainless steel, glass, silicon or wood for meals.  I.E. Glass bottles, silicon trays to freeze milk or homemade food, metal sippy cups,  wood cutlery (once he is there)... If you are wondering why we don't want to use plastic check out this information on Bisphenol A.  You can also check out this great article on what plastics are safe.
• Keeping up to date with recalls both in Canada and in the US.  The US often recalls things a few days before us.
• Choosing his toys wisely, this is probably the over cautious first time parent nerves kicking in but we are doing our best to select toys from manufacturers with none to minimum amounts of recalls.  We will always have few exceptions to this rule as I know we have at lest one Fisher Price toy and we all know they had there shares or recalls. Some of the toy manufacturers that we like are:

Manhattan Toy

Vulli

Kushies

Haba

Natural Pod

Melissa & Doug