Yummy cupcakes from Wildcard Confections

So back to cupcakes. Yesterday I connected with a new mom and business owner (another thing moi loves – locally owned female run businesses, of course!), Catherine Davis, owner and founder of Wildcard Confections. Catherine’s motto is “Life is short, eat dessert first,” and I couldn’t agree more. Her business is based in Virginia but she ships nationwide..so fret not kittens…even if you are an avid WM fan and you live somewhere way more exotic than the DC area, you can still enroll in this give-away and WIN!!!

Catherine is offering 2 dozen custom decorated cupcakes (a $60 retail value) – you got that right – two dozen cupcakes to one lucky winner! Here’s how you enter to win:

The winner will be selected via random draw on February 17, 2012. To enter all you have to do is send an email to wildcard9@live.com that contains your name, city, state and a phone number. Please reference “Cupcake Giveaway Entry” in the subject line.

Hurry up and enter friends…who doesn’t love cupcakes!! Especially free yummy ones?? And if you’re interested in winning those Disney on Ice tickets, you have only a few days left to enter to win, just “Like” and comment on my WM Facebook page.

For the parents who need camp as daycare all summer long, my advice is to check out the new and free service called CampEasy. This is a free service started by a local mom and her husband. All you have to do is enter in your child’s age , what they like to do, and where you are located and searching for camps, and it pulls up all your options – it’s Camp one-stop-shopping.

Personally, I don’t need camps for the entire summer. In fact, last summer I adopted a very camp-light approach with some trepidation and, in the end, it was a great solution for me and my girls. They were finally old enough to play together and I learned that it makes my life more difficult when the older one is in camp because the younger one misses her. I still think camp is important, however, because everyone needs a break from each other and let’s face it – I’m not setting up the amazing crafting tables and themed weeks that you get from camp.

New to me this year is the camp over at Bethesda’s Kidville. After spending the last few weeks really enjoying the new Rockin’ Railroad Music class with my 3-year-old (I mean, a 4 piece band? Hello! Love it) – I’m intrigued by the themed camps being offered at Kidville for camp this summer.  You can pick from a menu of 2 week, 8 weeks, 12 weeks or a 16 week camp option.  First, for those with very little ones ages 18-24 months, it’s not easy to find summer camp options – but Kidville does offer them even at these young ages. The camps are separation optional for the younger ones (2s and young 3s), so ultimately it’s the parent’s decision when you can drop and roll out immediately. For the older kids: 3s, 4s and 5s, there’s no need to stick around (music to the summer-exhausted parent’s ear).

I’ve always struggled the most with camps in August, when it seems this entire town goes dark, even though the kids don’t start school until Labor Day (or in the case of pre-schools, well after Labor Day). So it’s the late summer camp option at Kidville that particularly appeals to me – the two week session in mid-late August. By then, it seems everyone has grown tired of the pool and it’s just too hot to hang out at the park for very long.  For the theme lovers out there, Kidville Bethesda also offers a one week specialty camp: Fairy Princess Camp or Super Hero Training Camp. Love it.

Bottom line: like it or not, now is the time to nail down the summer camp plans. At least it’s freakishly warm out this week - it makes it all seem a little less ridiculous!

Who doesn't want a care package of these delivered to them?

Loosen those pants and get ready for one of my fav give-aways yet! Delicious Crumbs bakery is opening 2 new locations in DC next week. And to celebrate, they will be giving away 1,000 free cupcakes beginning at Noon on Wednesday January 18. Their 2 new locations are:
1107 19th Street NW
L’Enfant Plaza Food Pavilion

But wait, there’s more! Continuing our theme of Moi Loves Moi in 2012, Moi also loves Vous….and several of you will receive care packages from Crumbs! All you need to do is Like my WM facebook page and post a comment under my FB post about this give-away and you will be entered. Hurry because one of my kiddos will pick the lucky cupcake winners before next Wednesday.

Moi loves cupcakes.

HELP ME HELP YOU

Is what I’ve wanted to scream at my 3-year-old innumerable times. Sure, have a raging fever and spit out the Tylenol. That really hurts me. Well, actually it does hurt me. Maybe more than it hurts her, depending on what horrible time of the night it is. But why do sick kids make it so damn difficult to help relieve their misery with pain reliever? Seriously.

Why am I asking why.

Why not, right? If they make even the most mundane task, difficult, why not make something designed to help them feel better, difficult.

After a week of having a sick 3-year-old, I have since devised and modified some strategies for my youngest that previously worked on my older child when she was younger and sick. I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that I wondered a few times if some covert CIA prisoner training would help me learn how to trick my sick prisoner into taking her medicine and keeping it down. I’m not above questionable methods when operating on little sleep and even less patience. At one point I considered feigning a toddler dental emergency so I could get her mouth propped open and dose her up that way.  Seems harmless enough, doesn’t it?

I even conducted a 15 minute intense brainstorming session with my mother on how best to dose her up during the inevitable multiple-times night wakings, crying, with fever peaking and yet still refusing the medicine. The logic behind protesting medication is something I’d pay big money for in that toddler-tell-all that I’m sure will be a best-seller if one of these damn kids would just give it up!

So today, because it is kid-sick-season, I offer you my best-of approaches and I’d love to hear what schemes and trickery work for you because we all know these tricks have an expiration date and the savvy toddler will wait until the next illness at 3am to let you know this trick ain’t working any more.

The Syringe Sneak Attack: The Element of Surprise

This particular technique works only on the youngest of the toddler set, in my experience, and requires cat-like reflexes on the part of the drug administrator and the distraction only a solid episode of the Backyardigans or Dora can provide. The drug administrator must first do some warm up stretches, loosen up the arms, the fingers, maybe a few jumping jacks. Then evaluate the seating position of the toddler. Can he see you from his peripheral vision? Then abort the mission. Can you approach him on the right angle that works best with your hand-eye coordination? For instance, a sneak attack attempt with the loaded syringe into the left side of my toddler’s mouth results in a #parentingfail. I have to get it into her right side. Evaluate their seating position and vision limitations. Are they preoccupied enough? Is it the trifecta of dosage opportunities? If so, you must approach quickly, eject the medication at warp speed accurately into the back corner of their mouth and then move quickly away from said subject. Then enjoy the rush that comes with defeating your competitor in this match. The victories are small but meaningful to a tired parent.  If the element of surprise is foiled by an older sibling who rats out your approach or a show ending, forget it, the Tylenol will immediately be spit back out (hence why you move quickly away but not out of eye sight). If the toddler is closer to 3 than 2, in my experience, they are too savvy for this technique.

My neighbor tipped me off to this technique this week. I’ve mistakenly been attempting to dose up my kid quickly and just get it over with, despite how frequently she spits it right back out. Turns out, it can take 15-20 minutes to drink one tsp of Tylenol but if it gets it into her system, then I am prepared to pack my patience. The lynchpin to the success of this technique is bribery – what do you have that the toddler wants ENOUGH that they will participate in said game? In my house, as I’m sure in yours, it’s candy. Oddly, it must have something to do with the shiny lid to the breath mints, but the Icebreakers pulled up from the rear as what I would consider the LEAST appealing “candy” into the biggest motivator this week, along with marshmellows or life saver gummies. Typically we would rotate through all three, take a sip, get a piece, take a bigger sip, get another piece, and so on. This technique, while painfully long, tends to result in the least amount of drama chez moi. Another small victory but this time for both parties – kid gets candy and medicine, parent gets medicated kid.

Life savers, Icebreakers, Marshmellows & Medicine....all part of the fun

The O’Dark Thirty Slurpee: The Petri Dish of Deceit

 Finally, the piece de resistance, the most brilliantly executed scam to get her to take the medicine came from my prolonged brainstorming conference call with my mom. How to best get a sick, fever-ridden 3-year-old to take another dose of medicine at 2am when mommy’s reflexes are definitely not cat-like and no one has the patience for a prolonged candy negotiation yet it is critical that they digest another dosage so everyone can go back to sleep? This requires some advance work, some strategy and organizing all the tools to execute it properly. We discussed several options when finally my mom suggested the old faithful: Popsicle. Who ever says no to a popsicle? Even at 2am? So what did I do? Carefully considering the importance of her taking the entire dose and not diluting it too much with some kind of liquid, we agreed that I should cut a tip-off a popsicle, mash it up so it has the consistency of a slurpee, then put it back in the freezer. Then in the middle of the night, when she’s crying in my room, retrieve the petri dish of deceit from the freezer, quickly squirt the appropriate amount of Tylenol into the slurpee (clearly your tools and medicine is lined up ready for you), then innocently offer her a cool refreshing slurpee sip, which in the dark and their sleepy toddler haze, seems perfectly reasonable and quite lovely. It’s a win-win. This approach worked brilliantly for me, much to my great relief. I even lined it up ready for the next night but she fortunately didn’t need it.

Please tell me I am not alone in this agony. What techniques work for you?

For more ideas on how to scam your kid, “Like” Wired Momma on Facebook

My youngest has devoted herself to defying the odds and surprising me with her physical stunts from a very early age. She started walking just after her 10 month birthday and within days, opted for scaling fences. Fast forward to stronger motor skills in the 2s and why wait for mommy to score a snack, why not just quickly scale the counter top when mommy walks away?

So eventually it became ridiculous that we were still imprisoning her in a crib, which she obviously would just climb out of wheneve she wanted too, and we moved her into a regular bed about 6 weeks ago. Everything was fine at first. Then maybe the total freedom and liberation that comes with a bed finally registered in her little ninja brain but she’s adopted some unsavory habits. Her morning wake time has shifted backwards, much to my chagrin, to more like a 5:20am-ish timeframe. My oldest woke at that time for years – like probably well over 4 years – and even now we have to strong arm her into staying in her room until 6:30am. She can often be found in our room asking why it’s “taking so long to get to 6:30″ as we unpeel each eyelid and wonder who we tortured in a past life.

Since the early-wake times have started with the youngest, our days can begin in one of two ways: Jarring and Punishment or Creepy and Stalker. With Jarring and Punishment she deploys this technique: With her ninja like skills she creeps down the stairs unheard despite the old hardwood floors, flips on the overhead light, loudly declares “WAKE UP  NOW” and then starts  yanking our covers off the bed.

It’s so pleasant.

When opting for Creepy and Stalker technique, again her stealth ability to soundlessly navigate through the house, gives me no warning as I emerge from the bathroom ready to head to the gym, only to discover a shadowy creature lurking in the doorframe of my bedroom, making no sound, as if she is stalking her prey. Let me tell you, before coffee and fresh air, even a petite 3 foot creature unexpectedly waiting for you in shadows can scare the crap out of you.

Eventually, beaten down and exhausted, I resorted to purchasing one of these “Tot Clocks” based on the recommendations from some friends and WM readers on the super awesome, totally amazing if you are missing it, Wired Momma Facebook page. By the time I purchased the Tot Clock, money was no object. I was willing to pay anything if it could stop the madness. Tot Clock arrived on Friday and we activated it before bedtime, mercilessly repeating to her that if she wakes and sees the bunny still sleeping, it means she needs to go back to sleep, and we optimistically set it for 6:30am before the bunny could switch over to awake time. True, it has been only 4 days, so it is too soon for me to declare #failure because the sleeping bunny in no way is luring her back to sleep yet. But a change has occured.

Dear bunny...can you try a little harder to get her back to sleep?

Instead of employing one of her cruel techniques to immediately wake us up once she’s awake, she instead roams the house like a night stalker. Usually buck naked. Often in search for her beloved and filthy pirate shirt that’s been worn for 4-5 consecutive days. One morning we found her quietly sitting in the living room reading Halloween books. It’s anyone’s guess how long she’d been sitting there.

Could any of us have imagined how strange children are before we had them? Anyone care to bet whether my little ninja returns to sleeping to at least 6:30AM before thorn-in-my-side-why-do-we-still-have-to-do-this DAYLIGHT SAVINGS arrives?

Emily Mogel at yesterday's #healinghands event

Yesterday I was lucky enough to be invited to a round-table discussion on juvenile arthritis with the Arthritis Foundation, Massage Envy and Emily, a sweet, smart and articulate 10 year-old girl from Frederick. Prior to yesterday’s event, I am embarrassed to admit that I didn’t even realize children could get arthritis, not to mention how debilitating and life-altering of an illness it is for children. I’m confident we all know someone who suffers from arthritis and the statistics are staggering. 50 million Americans have arthritis and that number is expected to arise to 67 million by 2030 but did you know that 26,000 children have arthritis? Juvenile arthritis is an autoimmune disease that can cause children to need a wheelchair, inflict extraordinary pain on them and prevent them from the healthy and active lifestyles that kids crave and need.

I was moved listening to Emily speak about her experiences with the wisdom and poise you would expect from an adult, not a 5th grader. As I sat there imagining what this experience was like for her mother, I learned that children as young as one to 18 can be diagnosed with juvenile arthritis and with no clear warning signs. Emily’s mom said there were signs pointing to the onset of the illness before she was diagnosed but they were subtle and Emily was too young to articulate it. In retrospect, her mom said that one clear sign was Emily’s sudden dislike for bath time because the  movement around the tub and into and out of the tub was painful on her joints. But what 2-year-old can explain that?

And it was movement that was the central theme of yesterday’s event. “Movement is our biggest message,” said Lisa Mauti, VP of Communications of the Arthritis Foundation. Movement helps lubricate the joints and can help relieve the pain of arthritis and one natural means of relieving the pain of arthritis is through massage. Winston Moore, Regional Director of Operations for Massage Envy, explained that his company has partnered with the Arthritis Foundation to support World Arthritis Day on October 12 because of the relief that therapeutic massage can bring to arthritis sufferers. Moore explained that no child is too young for massage, parents should start with the child’s hands and joints to get the blood moving and help increase circulation.

I learned that much research is needed to better understand juvenile arthritis. The goal of treatment for juvenile arthritis is to relieve inflammation, control pain and improve a child’s quality of life. Mauti explained that researchers are exploring what bio-markers we have in our blood indicating that we are predisposed to arthritis, including the more common osteoarthritis. And it is a trial test through Children’s Hospital that is working well to help Emily combat this debilitating disease. Mrs. Mogel noted how grateful she is to live in this area and have access to pediatric rheumatologists and Children’s Hospital. Many children need to travel 10-15 hours to access the kind of medical care and attention they need with juvenile arthritis.

In honor of World Arthritis Day, on October 12, Massage Envy will donate $10 from every massage and facial in their facilities to the Arthritis Foundation.  What a wonderful way to treat yourself or a family member and ultimately donate to a very important cause.  Give-away Alert: I have two one-hour massages from Massage Envy to give-away to loyal WM readers. All you need to do is “Like” the WM FB page or subscribe to my RSS Feed (just look to your right and enter your email address) and send me an email at monica.sakala@gmail.com letting me know that you would like to enroll in the give-away. Enter soon because I will announce the 2 lucky winners next Thursday October 6. And I can’t encourage everyone enough to visit Massage Envy on October 12 to support the Arthritis Foundation and the research needed to help cure arthritis. Massage Envy has 24 clinics in the DC area.  I also encourage you to alert others to the Massage Envy deal and support World Arthritis Day using #healinghands on Twitter.

Winner will be picked on September 23. I will notify the winner by posting it on the Wired Momma FB page and sending them an email.

Here are the show times:

Show Times:
Wednesday, October 19 @ 7:00 p.m. (buy one get one free)
Thursday, October 20 @ 7:00 p.m.
Friday, October 21 @ 10:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, October 22 @ 10:30 a.m. 2:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Sunday, October 23 @ 12:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m.

What does that mean, I used to wonder. I would stare at my baby wrapped like a burrito and swear with each passing minute that I would never again sleep uninterrupted. I wouldn’t shower with ease. I wouldn’t know what an impromptu night out on the town would mean. I would be trapped by this small cute blob that basically always needed something but didn’t give much back.

“Oh, she’s so adorable. Enjoy it now! It doesn’t last…”

I know, I know, I would snark in my head thinking of cruel things to bark back at this well-intentioned stranger….I  know….they grow up so fast. They all do except  mine, who won’t sleep and really fusses at inconvenient times.

I hated that cliché. I hated it as much as I hated “Sleep when the baby sleeps”

You know why I hated that one? Because I TRIED but she didn’t sleep LONG ENOUGH….where could I get the kid who slept when mommy slept? Why didn’t someone put that one on the menu? Aren’t they supposed to obey and respect their mother’s wishes?

But then came Monday. When my sweet smiling baby went from this:

Will she really ever grow up?

to this:

I never agreed to this happening so fast

In the blink of an eye.

I swear it was like someone pressed the fast-forward button times 5 and there went my sweet girl, proudly wearing the fall 2011 kindergarten accessory, the pinned on name tag identifying her name, her teacher and the color of her bus. With barely a glance back, she boarded that school bus and was off.

I totally cried behind my sunglasses, cursing that stupid cliché for being as right as it is annoying.  And then what did I do? It was like I was out to torture myself on Monday. I should have just gotten out a knife and taken up cutting.

On Saturday, pre-over-hyped (though we did lose our power) Irene, we went out and purchased a full size bed for our 2.5 year-old. I noticed her in the crib last week and realized how ridiculous it was that she was still being imprisoned. So big girl bed delivery was scheduled for Tuesday.  So what made more sense than to head to Babies’R'Us on Monday and purchase a side rail for the big girl bed.

Does that make sense to you? If it does, then you probably haven’t been in that store in a few years, like I hadn’t.

Immediately after crossing the threshold, I was drowned and suffocated by sweet baby smell, small cute baby onesies, little tiny size N diapers, cute little Halloween costumes….and there I was to purchase something to render my  home cribless…..a mere 24 hours after my oldest started Kindergarten…..the extra small baby things were mocking me. They were cooing and giggling and smelling good….

Could I get pregnant just standing there, I wondered? How could I not realize that going from Kindergarten to Cribless in the same week is just too much for a gal to take? What will the nursery look like without the beaver-chewed up sides of the wooden crib anchoring the room?

How did this happen?

(Friends…don’t forget to “Like” Wired Momma on FB to keep up with my rants and raves…I usually am not so emotional!)

Are your neurotic ideas in here?

So after my uber-long post on Monday, and after yesterday’s historic #earthquake (where I learned a few things about myself..more on that later) today I will offer you a rare glimpse into the mind of my genius, or I mean, my neuroses sponsored exclusively by motherhood. Prior to children, the closest I’d come to considering the likelihood of improbabilities happening to me was when watching an action adventure movie with a friend, we concluded we are slow and not real thin, therefore we’d be one of the first to die in a horror movie.

Neurotic Idea #1: Don’t think I am Susan Smith

I travel the Bay Bridge all the time – my parents live on the other side of it. This summer it was rated one of the scariest bridges in the world. So how does a gal not worry about what would happen if her vehicle goes careening off the edge of a bridge and hurling towards the water with both of her children in the backseat. Does this thought have me flirting with crazy? Or am I just thorough and well-prepared?  Again, I am no Susan Smith. I am not thinking about driving my kids off the side of the road or bridge and into a body of water..but in the realm of wost-case scenarios – what do you do if your car goes hurling off the side and plunging to the water? And it’s all the more complicated if you have more than one child…I have two…but what if I had three….how do you get them out and safely? Who do you go for first? What does that say about you as a mother if you are picking one before the other?  Somehow conversation over July 4 dinner with my siblings prompted me to confess, for the first time, this five-year long fear that has been haunting me. And I sucked them into my crazy – are you sucked in? My brother-in-law oddly knew that we all should travel with this device to help crack open the windows of the vehicle (I think we know what I will be giving everyone for Christmas). My sister later emailed me a link to this page offering a tutorial on what to do in the event your car plunges off a bridge into a body of water…..so now I am prepared. Aren’t we all so grateful for the Internet and its ability to feed     calm our fears… Don’t think I won’t enjoy knowing that I’ve sucked you in though….

Neurotic Idea #2: Shadowy Lurking Figures

This fear has lessened since I’ve added to my brood, and since they’ve grown bigger and louder and more argumentative, but especially in those first few months of motherhood, I was totally terrified that someone would steal my kid. Particularly in the middle of the night when I was fast asleep. Again, now that they are feisty and talk-back and argue, this fear keeps slipping away because  – do you really want them? But when the babes were small and helpless and mostly quiet and made cute cooing noises, this fear was very real for me. I’ve also stopped watching 10pm TV so I have fewer crazy and paranoid ideas.

Neurotic Reality #3: Acts of Nature

So in the midst of the historic earthquake, I realized I kinda suck in times of crisis. My younger one was napping upstairs. My older one sat on the sofa and stared at me, nervously asking me what in the world was happening and what do we do. Now, I wasn’t quite to the shoving old ladies out-of-the-way and shouting “SAVE YOURSELF” panic level, but I was a little freaked out, and quite slow on the uptake regarding what the hell to do. I really feel certain the earthquake lasted longer than 45 seconds or maybe all of my thoughts were working in super slow motion but it felt like an eternity. I was slow to move her to a door frame (how are we really supposed to know what the hell to do when we live on the east coast? Here’s where you could argue that paranoid parents should probably consider all worst-case scenarios instead of just talk about them….) And then I was caught up in the dilemma of what to do about my younger one. Again – the crazy bridge diving fear coming back in another form!  Did I dare go wake her to save her life unnecessarily and then risk she not nap all afternoon? Or do I leave her up there while I saved myself and my oldest by standing in a door frame? But what is riskier? Waking a sleeping 2-year-old or earthquake injuries? See how this quake had to be longer than 45 seconds?

I remained in the door frame with my eldest.

So when the ground under my feet and my children’s feet starts to buckle, I learned that I just might suck when the paranoia becomes reality…..

What are your paranoid ideas sponsored by motherhood? I know I can’t be alone.

Everyone, including Oprah, likes to talk about distracted driving and the importance of not texting while driving. Of course, I am in full agreement and know that my state, Maryland, just this year passed a bill to prohibit texting and driving, or even reading texts while stopped at a red light. But to me, distracted driving is about more than technology  and how we are using it. Frankly, as a mother of 2 young kids, what defines distracted driving in my car is my kids. A trip around the beltway or down the street usually involves kids arguing, instant demands that I retrieve whatever they’ve just dropped and loud fighting over whether we’re listening to the Backyardigans or Little Mermaid soundtrack. To say that I am distracted would be an understatement. Tell me, what kind of new and emerging technologies are auto manufacturers putting in vehicles to help parents stay safe and focused, despite what their kids are doing? 

New model vehicles today are equipped with voice integration systems, so the driver can talk without having to look away from the steering wheel. Additionally, you can talk-to-text, so you can respond to a message without averting your eyes from the road by simply stating a command. Many systems allow you to preset a certain number of different pre-determined text responses like “On the road, be home soon.”  You then can tell the car to respond with that command, we’ll call it command 3, and then you’ve responded without taking your eyes off the road. A recent study found that 80% of all crashes happened because a driver looked away from the road seconds prior to the crash.  Voice recognition is now available in over 90% of models, up from just 70% in 2009.

Loved this scene in Modern Fam of Cam trying to open the car

Finally because your Jeep is a little older, you might not be aware of how many newer models come equipped with a video player in the back seat or satellite radio. The kids can listen to the video with their headphones on and the parents can still carry on a regular conversation.

All of these new features sound fantastic – and I loved that episode of Modern Family. I’ve also been coveting the iPod sync my sister has in her Mini Cooper, especially because I despise listening to the commercials on the radio. As I consider the built-in video players for our next vehicle, I’m torn because it is something I’ve actually ached for when I hit that unexpected traffic jam on the beltway but I can see how there’s likely an issue with setting boundaries and expectations with the kids. What’s your experience on this front? 

Well, as a mom to 2 young kids, I certainly face that battle every day. We’ve worked really hard at setting boundaries with the kids on when they can and can not watch a movie in the car. They know that for the commute to daycare or home, they aren’t going to watch a video, but certainly for longer distances it’s a real treat to have access to it. Just like everything else with them, we try to be consistent so they know what to expect with it, it’s a privilege to watch the movie, not an automatic right.  And for the record, it can be a life-saver in those unexpected Saturday afternoon beltway traffic jams.
 
That makes sense. Now moving on to safety technology and emerging technologies, everyone has heard of anti-lock brakes and electronic stability control. What other types of new safety technologies are automakers installing in vehicles that parents should know about before heading off to the showroom floor?  To me, just the idea of heated or cooled seats seems like wonderful technology.

Well, personally, the blind-spot assist technology has been really wonderful. Basically when another vehicle is in your blind spot, as detected by sensors built into your vehicle, a small light will illuminate in your rearview mirror to let you know. It can be really helpful, again, especially when you are in a rush or the kids are distracting you. In terms of emerging technology, vehicle-t0-vehicle communication is really pretty amazing.  What it means is that vehicles will be able to talk to one another.  For example, say that a monitoring system picks up that all cars are turning on their windshield wipers at mile marker 48, your vehicle can then ready itself for inclement weather and alert you to an upcoming weather front. Or, maybe cars are all suddenly shifting to the far right of a lane – this driver behavior can then alert the city that there’s a pothole in the road. Another example might be when two cars are approaching the same intersection, vehicle-to-vehicle communications can determine that one of the vehicles isn’t preparing to stop – even though they have a stop sign, and can warn the other driver. 

Very cool stuff to look out for. So these are technologies to look for in the future?

There’s lots of cool stuff in the works.  One thing to keep in mind is that car shoppers value safety – so, automakers compete against one another to build cars consumers know are safe.  That means each company is doing lots of research and experimenting with things behind closed doors to beat the competition.  In the end, the consumers win.  In general, though, I think you’re seeing automakers take on the next generation of safety technologies – which are the types of technologies that help a driver avoid a crash in the first place.  Things like lane departure warning and adaptive cruise control are great examples of that.

Until then, off topic, but still fun for families, kids as young as 3 and 4 are learning about the environment and the importance of recycling in preschool. I’ve heard that many parts of the vehicle are recycled, can you give me some fun facts that I can relay to my kids about what’s been recycled in vehicles today?

Sure, they might like to know that old blue jeans are used for trunk liners and carpets inside the cars.

Some sweet 80s jeans as carpet liners, anyone?

 The auto manufacturers also study nature to help learn how to build new technologies into vehicles. For example, one manufacturer is studying locusts because they fly in tight formations and are masters of collision avoidance. So what can we learn from how they locusts travel and avoid collisions, and apply it to safety technology in vehicles? Really interesting stuff.

Final question – gas prices are still pretty high. As we head into the July 4 holiday, long road trips and traffic, do you have any tips on getting the most out of our mileage?

Sure. Before you hit the road, check your tire pressure. Keeping your tires properly inflated can improve your fuel efficiency by almost 3%, which translates into about a tank of gas per year. On distance drives, maintain a steady speed. Most people don’t realize that every 5 mph over 60 mph they are driving is the equivalent to spending an extra 20 cents per gallon on gas. And a third tip that is easy to remember is be sure you tighten your gas cap all the way – you can check your owners manual for specifics on your vehicle but typically you should hear the cap click as you tighten it. A loose gas cap is an easy escape route for gas.

Thank you to Amy for her great advice on autos today. And I’ll keep you all posted on if we end up with a vehicle with a third row seat or not – I’d love to hear from readers who do have an SUV with a third row and if it’s been as used as you expected it would be.