Monkey On My Back: Kelty Backpack Carriers

During one of the warmest, most expansive months of my pregnancy with Ranger, I found myself in Oakbrook, IL- home of a great REI store. When I walked into the store I only needed a watch with lap timers for swimming, but I desperately wanted to buy something exuding family fitness. Just a couple days before I had been diagnosed with insulin-dependent gestational diabetes, and I wanted to prove that I was actually more concerned about my health than the little bottle of insulin in my hotel room seemed to suggest. In retrospect, my motives were completely silly but, in all honesty, buying this specific piece of gear did make me feel better.

REI is a great place to test a backpack carrier. They have a stuffed bear in the child carriers area that is weighted to match a small infant. Definitely test babypacks with the bear in them. It's a very different feel from an empty pack. Sure, the bear is sometimes off-balance, but this is realistic as your child will at times work to be off-balance as well.

We bought a Kelty Pathfinder (for aroung $200), and it's a great carrier for older infants and toddlers. I'd definitely categorize this type of high-end pack as luxury gear rather than necessary gear. Maybe it's the hellish heat and West Nile mosquitoes of Southern Indiana talking, but we tend to use this more when traveling than at home. That doesn't prevent the carrier from getting a lot of use. Quite a few of our friends (pictured here- nope, that's not us!) have been stomping around in the woods with them on hikes or letterboxing adventures.

[I say them because I got incredibly lucky and scored a well-maintained Kelty Tour (a lighter and cooler variation on the Pathfinder with mesh panels against your back and no chest strap) for $35 at a great consignment sale.]

For a lot of families, this would be a good item to borrow from friends/lend to friends unless you'll be using it every weekend. This summer our packs have kept up with the schedules of two pretty active families in addition to our own, less motivated, schedule.

This type of frame backpack carrier requires an infant with ample experience sitting up unsupported and holding up their head despite jangling. We put Ranger in shortly after he could sit and hold his head up and the spring of our steps bounced his head in ways that looked uncomfortable and made him cry. When we tried again a few weeks later, he loved the bounce and the perspective.

In ideal weather, the Pathfinder is my favorite pack. Its chest strap makes for a fabulous fit for the long haul. But the weather isn't often ideal here, and that's where the Tour model comes in handy. The ventilated back panel is a great feature on hot, humid days.

The real "I love this gear" epiphany moment for Jim was at the West Side Nut Club Fall Festival (think German Octoberfest). The festival, at one time was hailed as the second largest free, outdoor, food festival (after Mardi Gras). While this festival occupies a geographically large area, it's crazily congested with people from lunchtime on. At night, it can be impossible to traverse with a stroller. The few people who bring strollers usually end up carrying their kids while their companions push the strollers because the kids either freak out at being completely walled in or the kids get banged into so often you wish your stroller was armored.

A lot of parents use front carriers at the festival. This works really well for small, sleepy infants, but can be backbreaking when they're over 15 pounds and still keeps the baby's view pretty limited to body parts (yours if facing in and everyone else's if facing out). These views, coupled with noise, lines, and the distinctive smells of sauerkraut or funnel cakes, don't make for happy little travelers.

So there we were, strolling along with Ranger perched comfortably high on Jim's back. No one's hands were occupied with baby nor gear (there's a diaperbag backpack on the Pathfinder for supplies). We were streamlined, so we could move casually through crowded places. We could get out our wallets to pay. We could carry food.

But, it wasn't the sheer convenience of the pack that sold Jim fully, it was the envious looks of all the other dads carrying kids (with or without frontpacks) as their stroller prevented them from moving more than one or two feet in any direction without having to ask someone to let them through. In parent world, this type of pack is definitely trophy gear. It was fun watching parents point out the backpack to each other. And I think Ranger loved the attention too. He was effervescent as we walked around the festival well past his bedtime (though that may have been the lemon shake-ups).

The Kelty's have a surprisingly long period of use with youngsters and they are made to last. The packs can hold a child up to 40 pounds (which is a still few pounds lighter than Jim's college packpack).

*Baby Toolkit is the independent opinion of Jim and Adrienne Jones at babytoolkit.blogspot.com. We have received no materials or compensation of any kind from Kelty KIDS or their affiliates. We just love to write about baby gear.

Congratulations, Laurel (winner of our anniversary Diaper Valet!)

Laurel from Colorado was the winning entrant for our First Birthday Diaper Valet random drawing! Upon receiving notification of winning, she replied, "I can no longer say that I never win anything."

Congratulations, Laurel! And thanks to everyone for reading Baby Tookit (and all the kind comments)!

Have you entered our ScreamFree Parenting book giveaway? We'll be giving away one copy a week for the next 5 Tuesdays (courtesy of Broadway Books, a division of Random House, Inc.).

Sharpen Your Pitchforks and Write Your Representatives: Parents Need to Exert a Political Voice

In case you haven't already seen the article, last Saturday the New York Times wrote an article on the damage done to the Consumer Products Safety Commission in recent years. Read the article now if you haven't already done so.

Government cutbacks have crippled public safety mechanisms while traditional safety watchdogs have been replaced with industry advocates. It's made our food and toys unsafe while we were all distracted with concerns over the safest car seat.

We, people who care about children, are a bigger presence than any other. I for one, rank food and product safety as a top priority. How do we use our collective size to reinstate adequate public safety? I don't know, but I'm open to suggestion.

The present toy recalls are probably only the tip of the iceberg.

My friend just emailed that she's so bothered by the recalls that she's sticking with crafts and homemade toys until she sees some clearer sense of direction.

Where do we go from here? Do we become the new watchdogs armed with a powerful Internet and sympathetic friends with fluoroscopes? What organizations (universities, hospitals, charities, think tanks, etc) do we advocate to step into the chasm that is being left by these cutbacks?

If you are a reader who works for such an institution (or know someone who does) what do you need from parents to convince your organization to take up this cause?

A lot of us have been wondering how these defective and dangerous products have made it into the country in the first place. Jim and I both assumed that there had to be random testing at ports as the FDA doesn't police import quality, but customs inspectors have no equipment and they don't have the authority to take suspicious goods for further testing. We couldn't be more wrong. The understaffed and underfunded inspectors that are present have their hands full looking out for their main charge; finding counterfeit products. Few people are watching this problem, and those who care are being systematically washed out or are burning out.

Let's not die of poisoned toothpaste while wearing genuine Nike shoes. Let's do something about this.

FOR a list of policitical people you can petition for change, persuade, or yell at please look up your Federal representatives at http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt or see all your state and Federal representatives using the zip code search engine at http://www.vote-smart.org/index.htm (I have no idea what this site's politics are, but it has a nice politician search). Thanks Jeremiah for the links.

Regaining Composure: ScreamFree Parenting (book & giveaway)

A couple weeks ago Broadway Books sent me an advance copy of ScreamFree Parenting: The Revolutionary Approach to Raising Your Kids by Keeping Your Cool for review. I hesitated to accept the book as parenting books have bothered me since they started appearing in my childhood home around the time of my own adolescence. My brother and I nicknamed one of the more ghastly tomes "Karate for Parents."

Backstory: I grew up in a household with volatile tempers and lots of screaming (WAAAY more than average). My parents would shout over everything from minor inconveniences like misplaced items to serious disagreements and infractions so my brother and I followed suit. The parenting books always made things more tempestuous around the house. As a result, I really came to detest the whole self-help genre, especially parenting books.

Years later, I lucked out and got the most amazing job as a university advisor. In those years, I found great mellow parenting role-models in my amazing colleagues. Daily, I saw the end product of 18 to 22 years of different parenting techniques. From observing my students, I learned which parenting styles brought out the best or worst in young people. It finally dawned on me that my own quick temper was self-indulgent and counter-productive. Jim (household Zen master) had known this for years, but was nice enough to wait for an epiphany on my part. In my head, I started writing new guidelines for how I think families should operate.

There were a few things from that mental list in the promotional email for ScreamFree Parenting that made me pause and reconsider my immediate impulse to delete the message. The book seemed like it might address some critical parenting issues that most books overlook. So, I accepted a review copy with the caveat that I might never write about the book. But I liked it and found it worth discussing.

ScreamFree Parenting, written by Hal Edward Runkel (a family therapist from the Atlanta area), is a parenting book that focuses more on the parent's reactions than on the child or individual behavior problems. It talks about familiar parenting issues like boundaries with fresh vision. I hate to excerpt or condense the book's ideas because my retelling will sound cliche at best.

The book is not very long (which Jim and I consider a strength for this type of book). It starts off primarily as parenting philosophy (and I found myself thinking "So, the kids just get to do whatever they want?") but it gets into very effective parenting strategies (some of which I frequently used while working with college students) in the last third of the book.

When it gets to actual kid behavior scenarios, consequences play a major role (but in ways that are fresh). This makes the book slightly less useful for parents of young toddlers (too young to fully understand consequences), BUT the parenting attitude philosophies can help ALL parents regardless of their child's age. [ I'm actually considering giving my copy of the book to my own father when Jim's done reading it.]

The book made me critically examine who I want to be as a parent and a person in helpful new ways. The author's approach is centrist and not tied to other ideologies (religion, etc. like so many other parenting books). It's approachable without resorting to buddy parenting, structured without rigidity, and peaceful for practitioners. The recommended techniques can help us foster greater independence, confidence, happiness, perspective, and integrity in ourselves (and resultantly our children).

ScreamFree Parenting was released today in hardback and audiobook (there's also a 2005 paperback version which I have not read). Consider giving it a read or listen now even if you only have a newborn, it's good food for thought before you're in a conflict situation.

So, do you want to read ScreamFree Parenting? Broadway Books (a division of Random House, Inc.) is giving away FIVE hardback copies to Baby Toolkit readers. Just email babytoolkitcontests[at]gmail[dot]com to enter. We'll give away one a copy a week each Tuesday for the next 5 weeks! (You only need to enter once for all 5 random drawings.)

For more information on the book's actual contents, please visit ScreamFree Living.

As always, this review is the independent opinion of Baby Toolkit (babytoolkit.blogspot.com). We have received an advance copy of ScreamFree Parenting and 5 giveaway copies of the book from Broadway Books. We have received no other compensation from and have no other relationship with Broadway Books, Random House, Inc., or ScreamFree Living, Inc. or their affiliates.