Look! A new guest reviewer. Today’s review is from Natalie Zee Drieu of the fabulous Coquette Blog and the CRAFT magazine blog. Natalie is pregnant with her first bambino. Congratulations and thanks for the review, Nat!
I love to sleep. When I don’t sleep well through the night, I get groggy. This ended up happening to me more and more after my first trimester when I really began to grow. My doctor advised me not sleep on my back and recommended I get a body pillow to help me sleep better. A body pillow?! Where would I store it? It wouldn’t look so pretty on top of the bed. Ahh!
I have to say, I was a bit skeptical at the idea of this huge pillow in bed with me and my husband. I didn’t want him to think it was a big barricade between us either. But for the sake of a good night’s sleep I had to try it. After extensive research online, I ended up getting the Leachco Snoogle Deluxe Total Body Pillow.
Jenna McCarthy is one funny mother. (No, not Jenny McCarthy, although I suppose she is funny, too.) Jenna McCarthy started her writing career in New York for the glamorous Seventeen magazine. Dude. Back in the day, I soooo wanted to work at that magazine. My inner teenager was a wee bit jealous as I read McCarthy’s bio. Anyway, McCarthy’s bicoastal career eventually led her to Santa Barbara where she became a radio talent, a mother of two, and a very, very funny writer of the book The Parent Trip: From High Heels and Parties to Highchairs and Potties.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a huge fan of parenting books; I have an entire bookshelf dedicated to them and they pretty much all make me feel inadequate. Not so with The Parent Trip. It’s more like reading the diary of one of your more humorous friends - a diary that spans pre-pregnancy, pregnancy and the first year of parenting. McCarthy touches on the highs and lows of pregnancy, labor, navigating the evils of a new mom’s group, breastfeeding, toys, the first vacation, you get my drift. All that crap we never thought we’d spend dozens of hours agonizing about as new mothers.
I’ve been sorting through Sy’s old stuff getting ready for the next offspring, version 2.0. Poor kid is going to be dressed in stained hand-me-downs from the get go. I do want to get a few new things, I just can’t help it.
Enter the New For Baby clothing line. How cute is that one piece outfit? It feels slightly reminiscent of Star Trek, which is probably why I am so drawn to it. New For Baby has a great line of clothing for the wee ones. You won’t find any trucks, ducks or taglines here. Just rich, vibrant colors in hip, sleek designs. Sounds good to me.
Welcome to Day 2 of the GHM Mother’s Day Giveaways featuring an Ultimate Burpie from Bawl Baby.
Congratulations to winner Katrina!
I have been thinking about Mother’s Day again. I get all excited because I love my kid so much. I look forward to celebrating the fact that I am her MOTHER every year.
I think these brag books by Maude Asbury are the most elegant I’ve seen, not to mention, sassy and sweet. I think they’d be a great gift for a new mom, just slide it into that diaper bag at the shower, or even for a new grandma.
As I was perusing their site, I noticed their super cool i-makit kits, where you can put your own cover on a photo album. Mine would be SO crooked.
I’ll keep this short and sweet because this product is a total uni-tasker, but definitely one I’m glad I have. I meant to write about this when I was reviewing potties.
The Piddle Pad, made by the geniuses at Kiddopotamus, is a waterproof seat liner that is completely worth its modest price tag. The liquid absorbing, soft pad is a unobtrusive receptacle for pee, vomit, blowouts, you name it. The backside of the product is coated with vinyl to help keep the product in place and the liquid where it should be, not on your car. You just place it on the base of your child’s car seat (or stroller) and your days of washing the car seat cover are numbered. It doesn’t snap or slide into to anything, it just sits there, ready to catch whatever rain may fall.
Here’s the most brilliant travel snack trap out there, the Snack Trap. An ingenious little snack cup with a flexible lid that junior can pick snacks out of without flinging them everywhere. It’s not perfect, the lid can be pulled off, the snacks can be shaken out, but it’s all about chaos management. It took Sy a little while to figure out how to extract the snacks, but once she got the hang of it, she was ultra-proud of herself.
Some friends of mine are pregnant with their first babies and I’ve been thinking about what I want to give them for a shower present (hope they aren’t reading this today!). I love to give the diaper bag they’ve registered for (unless of course it’s a Petunia Picklebottom, my pockets aren’t that deep) crammed full of all kinds of random things we never knew about as expectant parents.
One thing I always shove in a pocket is iLEX. We always have a tube of iLEX skin protectant paste at Sy’s changing table. It has been the best diaper rash problem solver out there. It is definitely in the Top Ten Things That Saved My Sanity as a new mom.
Our cousins just had a baby a few weeks ago. They were brave enough to haul him along to the family Christmas party. He was sleeping while we ate (brilliant child, letting his parents eat). They had the monitor with them, but they also had this totally nifty little device called Itzbeen. I can’t give this thing a proper review it since I’ve never used it, but I must say, we all thought it was one neat gadget!
The Itzbeen has four timers with little icon buttons: one for diapering, one for feeding, one for sleeping (or lack thereof) and one for miscellaneous (like administering medicine). It even has a little button on the bottom to remind you which side you fed your baby on last! My cousin set the timer for the last time she’d fed, diapered and gotten her new babe to sleep and got herself to the dinner table. The alarm went off when she needed to feed him again and off she went. It even has a soft light so you can see it in the dark. I wish I’d had one of these when Sy was wee! For $24.99, I think it’s a perfect shower gift.
Ahem. I was checking the price for this item on Amazon and looked at their “Better Together” section, you know, where they add an item that would make your purchase even MORE FABULOUS! Anyway, can you figure out what item with which they paired this? You guessed it: Breast Milk Alcohol Test 3 Pack. So, are they inferring that if you need a timer to remember when you last fed your kid, it’s because you’ve just downed an entire bottle of red wine while watching reruns of Oprah?
I mentioned TruKid, a cool momma-run company, last month but now I’ve tried the line, so as usual, I have more to say.
TruKid is a natural skin care line for children, which means no icky parabens or other harsh preservatives. The line is cheerfully packaged, easy to use and fairly priced, which is great considering TruKid tries to use as many organic ingredients as they can.
Out of the whole line, I have two favorites: the sunscreen and the lip balm. The lip balm tastes like spearmint without being overwhelming, which is nice for the younger customers involved. Of course, I never gave Sy a chance to get her gummy paws on the lip balm, because channeling my fine toddler, I decided it was MINE ALL MINE. But I think it would be a nice mild flavor for the five and up set, especially if your youngin is starting to transition from fruity flavored toothpaste to a minty one.
Reader Kelly sent me a link to Little Stork, “your source for THE Premium Baby Delivery Bag.” I’ll admit I was skeptical at first, thinking, can’t we all just pack our own bags a month early and be done with it? But then I checked out their bags and laughed as I remembered that I packed a lot of trivial items like, uh, make-up. I must have confused myself with a famous person who is hounded by paparazzi as they leave the hospital. Because, you know, that’s soooo close to my reality. Needless to say, the eye shadow never left the bag. Little Stork’s bags seem to be well thought out with just the right amount of gear to drag into the hospital. The items go from the mundane (ponytail holders) to the luxurious (Soothies breast gels). Yes, I consider Soothies to be luxurious. Welcome to the glamorous world of breastfeeding.
So yesterday after playgroup, Sy was “helping” me open the sliding door of the minivan. Yes, I own a minivan. I’m not proud. Please don’t tell anyone how much I love it.
Anyway, she threw a two year old hissy fit about wanting to open it ALL BY OWN. So I was fumbling for the keys to click the sliding door open again, holding onto my purse and closing my cell phone all at the same time. At that exact moment Julie, our fabulous playgroup leader, yells HAND, HAND, HER HAND! I looked over in complete horror, that awful lump in my stomach sliding into place, to see my poor wee one’s little paw getting smashed by the sliding door. Luckily all I had to do was click to make it open again, I am quite surprised I had the presence of mind to do even that. I ran over and grabbed her and looked at her hand. Four tiny little fingers had big mean, red indentations in them and the skin torn off a few knuckles. Nothing was broken, but let’s be clear, she was reaaaaaaaaaaally upset. We ran her back up to my friend’s house and hollered for ice. Andie brought out a regular ice pack and once the howls of angst settled down into a moan, she busted out her son’s Hug & Heal bunny. I’d never seen this thing before and I am so going out and getting one. It’s a little plush bunny with a velcro opening on the side where you slide a mini ice pack into place.
It’s newborn season in my life. Many of my friends are having their second baby right about now. While they all knew what to expect at least a little more the second time, there are always new challenges, lack of sleep, feeding issues, lack of sleep, fussy kids, lack of sleep.
My friend Leigh’s newest baby is very jerky and unsettled when she sleeps. She’s been busting out of the swaddles which then wakes her up, which then makes for one crabby baby. Now that’s a challenge I am familiar with! Sy was colicky for what felt like years, but was really only about three months (oh, but what long months they were). We also had to swaddle her for a long, long time to either help calm her down or to keep her jerky limbs from waking her up (once we got her to sleep, that is). We tried a lot of different swaddling cloths, but found the Swaddle Designs Ultimate Receiving Blanket to be the best one out there. It is huge, has directions sewn in and is a really strong, soft cotton flannel material. We’d wrap her up in that and then rock her for what felt like hours (oh, that’s because it did take hours) until she fell asleep. Once she was conked out, we’d give our arms a break and transfer her to her Snuggle Nest where she’d sleep almost peacefully for at least 28 minutes, give or take 20.
When I was pregnant, all of my friends told me that I was a fool to register for the Diaper Genie. They complained of having to purchase special bags which was wasteful, it was expensive, twisting the diaper into a bag-encapsulated sausage every time was tedious, etc. Go with the Diaper Champ, they said. One flip of a lid and the diaper is gone. Being the rookie that I was, of course I registered for everything my friends loved and got the Champ. It even comes with blue trim or pink trim if you really want to drive home the difference in the gender of your diapers.
Two Champs later (once the funk sets in, there aint no going back), I finally started to listen to my friends’ current opinions for diaper removal. I recently succumbed and got the Diaper Genie II. Very important distinction, the I and the II.
Sometimes I just don’t have it in me to cart around Sy’s diaper bag. And sometimes it just does not match my dress or my attitude. There are days when I don’t feel like advertising that I am a mom. Of course, having a sticky, silly two year old attached to me at the hip is a dead give away. Anyway, when you crave your own accessories, it’s good to grab a bigger handbag from your superior (ha) collection and throw in one of the following little bags:
