Keep on keepin' on

I bought Emily her Christmas present(s) today.

We are giving her a Sit N' Spin and an outfit for her to put on a Cabbage Patch Kid doll. I went to the basement after she went down for her nap and unearthed my Cabbage Patch Kid. She's got red hair in pigtails and blue eyes. Perfect for my Emily. I'm going to bring her to my mom tomorrow to help de-funk-ify her before Christmas. Now if I can only remember her name...

The Sit N' Spin is a leftover idea from Emily's birthday. This girl LOVES to get dizzy. She runs around in circles in the living room until she falls over. One of her favorite things is for Daddy to put her in our big black chair and spin her round and round and round and round. And then Mike takes her out of the chair, sets her on her feet and laughs until he pees as she tries to walk.

My plan for Lucy's Christmas is to buy her a Baby's First Christmas ornament similar to Emily's. Em has one that is a memory book, with places to write about her first Christmas. Otherwise, Lucy's Christmas present from us will be money towards the 2 convertible car seats she'll need in January.

Part of the reason behind the slightly small-ish-ness of our Christmas present plan is all the lead in the toys. I'm not going through and throwing out every toy the girls have, and I'm not eschewing (woo! look at me with the $3 word!) all toys made in China, but I am aware of the issue. And I am quite concerned.

But, I keep thinking, even if the toy is made here in the Good Ole USofA, how can we know with any certainty that the paint/decoration/flavoring/whatever is lead-free? Just because the toy itself was manufactured here doesn't mean that the paint/decoration/etc was also manufactured here and that also doesn't guarantee unleaded-ness in the toys.

So what is a parent to do?

At this point, I am planning to just keep on keepin' on. I watch for toy recalls, try to minimize the amount of chewing on toys that Emily (and eventually Lucy, once she masters the whole get-something-in-the-hand-and-get-hand-and-thing-in-the-mouth concept) does and hope. Oh, and those vending machines with the jewelry and candy and crap in them? The ones in the grocery store? Yeah, my kids are NEVER getting anything from those. Gah! I get the heebie-jeebies just thinking about them.

I also participate, via posts like this one, in blog blasts for The Parent Bloggers Network and The Consumers Union's Safe Shoppers program.

For those of you who might want more information about toy recalls and/or "Safe" Toys, here are some links:

http://www.consumersunion.org/campaigns/notinmycart/learn.html

http://www.leagueofmaternaljustice.com/safer-toys.html

http://www.recalls.gov

http://www.cafemom.com/topics/toyrecalls

http://coolmompicks.com/safertoy07

http://www.buyhandmade.org/