In our quest to avoid flouride, I talked with my best friend about her process. She, as mentioned, is using the Tom's of Maine toothpastes. I'm working more on teaching my kids to spit it out for now, but will probably make that switch next toothpaste purchase. More importantly, though, is the attempt to avoid our tap water. Seemed kinda simple at first, just buy bottled. Well, it's not that simple.

See, there is plenty of bottled water which also contains flouride (especially the smallest bottles, as they seem to be "children sized"). So then we thought maybe a Brita filter, but then we both had the thought that that probably didn't filter out the flouride, which did turn out to be the case. So BA went on the internet and found that the only way to avoid flouride was by a reverse osmosis filtration system. We found that the Costco bottled water said on the side that it was purified by such a system. I'm happy to buy that water, as it's tasty. However those bottles are small drinking bottles, not very conducive to such things as boiling water, food prep water and the like. A fair amount of what we prepare still seems to require tap water, just for quantity (and cost effectiveness).

So now there's some thought of buying a reverse osmosis filtration system, which are quite expensive (about $320 for a system), but worth it if you consider buying bottled water for any length of time (consider, say, $7/case, and a case a week, or more? You easily equal your spending within a year). But it's a big up front cost to swallow, and we need to figure out if we have space under our sink for it (the practicalities).

In the meantime, we'll continue with our Costco water, I guess, but we will figure this thing out. What a frustrating "public health measure".

It CAN be done!!!

In a minivan we loaded five kids (two almost 6 year olds, two 3 year olds, and one six month old - and two mama's) and drove 4-5 hours into the mountains for our fourth annual snow trip with our friends. The dad's took the station wagon loaded with stuff.

With lots of snacks, books on tape, colouring books and car games there were minimal stops (all for potty calls). Dramamine, however, was employed as we headed both into and out of the mountains, which certainly simplified the demands as they all napped - except for the baby - at the same time.

Of course, it was humourous as the two big girls fell asleep all over each other, and every so often we'd hear from the back "Elley, get OFF me", or "Phoebe - quit pushing"!

No, I'm not talking about outer space, I'm talking about living space.

I recently heard from a friend that we were a little crazy for having three kids in just over 1000 square feet with only two bedrooms. Frankly, a year ago I would have agreed. I worried a lot about adding a third person into our already cramped quarters. A few thing's have transpired to change my mind.

First of all, we simply added the third person... she starts out very small and doesn't take up much space - but it's unREAL the amount of real estate that all the baby crap takes up. At first we had no crib, as she coslept early on, so the big girl's room was unchanged. The bouncy seat isn't the biggest piece of equipment, so that wasn't a huge deal. Now she's into the exersaucer, and that thing is huge. But these things are all temporary.

Then in December we went to visit my sister-in-law, her husband and her baby son in New York City and we saw where they lived. Turns out to be, per my brother-in-law, 450 square feet. It is a tiny little place. They made it totally manageable... now granted, they don't have a mobile kid, and further, they're now looking for a new and bigger place, but I was able to see how to make the most of a tiny space. They were uncluttered, and had done well to make the place adorable.

Chloe's now been in the crib in the girl's room for a few months - and it IS cozy, but they ALL love it. In fact, last night Phoebe and Piper spent the night at a friend's house, and Chloe woke more, and I can only surmise that she missed them, it might just have been too quiet.

So to make our space liveable for up to the next five years, while I complete my next degree, I've been doing Flylady to help me declutter the house. It's amazing how quickly the clutter REaccumulates when I don't stay totally on top of it, but this system recycles it's directions to allow for revisiting area's that have started to reclutter. So I have hope that we'll be able to stay here comfortably.

A small home used to be the standard, even for some of the largest families. It's only recently that there is an expectation of personal space within one's home. Part of the sense of entitlement that is instilled somehow in kids, starting with my own generation. For now, we're content in our small space, and are finding creative ways to make it seem less small. Once we can shed the crib and the exersaucer, we'll be in good shape!

We have fluoridated water where we live, which made the fluoride supplement arguement easy, but it makes avoiding ingesting fluoride hard. Pediatricians have been recommending fluoride supplementation on the CDC's guidelines for quite some time now (I don't know how long exactly as I only have an almost-six-year-old, but longer than 6 years). At that time I hadn't given the fluoride arguement much thought as it's in our water, it's pretty much a done deal.

However, the issue has arisen a few times over the past couple of years. First, my best friend read a book (I'll have to get the name of it and post it here) which turned her completely off of fluoride. She even makes a point of having unfluoridated toothpaste, specifically Tom's of Maine makes an unfluoridated one for both adults and children. Then secondly the discussion came up with my second daughter with the pediatrician, who simply checked her chart for water fluoridation and didn't say much else about it. So I realized it was up to me to look into the issue further.

What my research is telling me is that I don't care for having fluoride be ingested by myself or my children. I'd rather they remove it from our water. The CDC's recommendations are based on three references, each 10 years old. I've seen lots of research, dating throughout the 90's, linking fluoride ingestion with possible neurotoxicity and cancer. More recently, though, I've liked what the Canadian experts have to say about fluoride supplementation. According to the Canadian Dental Association there is:

weak scientific evidence supporting the effectiveness of fluoride supplements.

and

The use of fluoride supplements before the eruption of the first permanent tooth is generally not recommended.

In the end, I don't feel too concerned about the fact that I use fluoride topically applied to my teeth (especially as I have very sensitive teeth and need the treatment in order to eat), however, I think I'll be buying bottled water now, and finding some of the Tom's of Maine toothpaste for my kids, as they still swallow their toothpaste.