RookieMoms Blog

In order to carry less luggage, we have rented a carseat on the other end of our trip a couple of times. We have not had an issue… yet. After reading the scary story that Debbie just published on Delicious Baby, I think I will never rely on a rental carseat again. READ THIS!

Why do we own a Tickle-Me-Elmo? Because from time to time my husband determines that following a hot trend is a worthwhile experience that keeps his white-collar-indie-rock-loving butt connected to mainstream America. And because he thought it would be funny to see my expression when my son, who could not have cared less about Elmo at age barely-two, opened the gift on Christmukkah morning.

Since Ryan doesn’t have time to drive around to various stores, nor the personality type to head out for Target at 6 am to mingle with the masses on a special holiday shopping day, he simply created himself an RSS feed to track the presence of the product in a few online stores. When it became available, BAM, click and add to cart.

Same thing when he wanted to buy me a Nintendo Wii, ‘xcept this was a few years later so he got the alert sent to him via SMS. The dude is brilliant, I tell you.

picture from Amazon.com

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This tip brought to you as part of this weekend’s Blog Blast from Hasbro and Parent Bloggers.

I was never into dolls, so I didn’t ask for or receive the Cabbage Patch Doll when they were HOT HOT HOT. I didn’t want the creepy but cute Teddy Ruxpin. But I didn’t completely avoid toy-induced mania either.

Don’t get me wrong. As a kid, I was plenty greedy. I used to sit with a Sears catalog and circle what I wanted on every page. And then every catalog. I was tireless in wanting new stuff. Having divorced parents, it paid to play the odds — so a big, random list was a kind of mother’s helper.

I learned this the hard way.

One Christmas, I told everyone in my family that I really wanted an Easy Bake Oven. And I got double-lucky. One side of the family got me the shiny new Easy Bake Oven and my other set of grandparents got me an old-fashioned (but still brand new and functional) Holly Hobbie Oven. I was a very happy 5 year old and my mom was a very irritated 28 year old. From then on, I had to make fully distinct Christmas lists so I wouldn’t get overlapping gifts again.

Ultimately, I sacrificed the olde timey sweetness of HH for the slick modern stylings of the the Easy Bake Oven (c’mon, it looked like a new-fangled microwave and not a wood burning stove!); I’m happy to say I had years of baking miniature cherry and apple pies with a 60 watt lightbulb.

I can’t help but wonder which toys my boys will really beg for. Will it be the now forty year old EBO or something equally retro like Transformers, Legos, or matchbox cars?

[Toy links and images go to Retroland.com and the mini-histories are good fun to read -- thanks!]

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What lengths would you go to in pursuit of the elusive “It” toy for your own child? Or did your parents go to great lengths when you were little? Share your stories as part of this weekend’s Blog Blast from Hasbro and Parent Bloggers.

I love Holden’s preschool and have to credit them with getting him pretty well potty-trained and conversant in choices and consequences. When the kids are in the 2-3 year old group, at a certain point, they are given the choice of underwear or diaper. Many — like Holden — will change their minds according to their moods and whims.

A side note: at home, he never ever chose underwear. I suspect that he wanted to be fully master of his domain before risking it. I don’t know why, but that’s how it went.

So, right after his third birthday, when his school went on a one-week recess, Holden announced that he was done with diapers. Hooray. He pretty much had the whole thing mastered and we had very few (daytime) accidents. Cool.

For the next few nights, we noticed that he would still use his nighttime diaper if it was on. So, that’s when I made my fatal mistake: I asked him, “Holden would you like to sleep in diapers or underwear?”

I had wrongfully assumed that he would continue to choose diapers at night until he had the whole deal well mastered. Nope. He chose underwear. And that means that we change the sheets and his clothes at least every other night.

Operation Diapers at Night has been in progress for about two months now. When he has a dry night, we reward him with a glow in the dark sticker for his ceiling (he has about 20). When he has an accident, we try not to pressure or shame him by saying nice things like, “it’s ok, we’ll just clean you up” or “put the rest of your pee in the potty and we’ll get you into a nice warm bed.”

It feels like the last week we’ve had more wet nights than dry nights. Furthermore, he cries and fusses more each night (like he’s trying to wake Milo and piss us off)… is it a really bad idea to move to pull-ups at night?

I posted pictures on Flickr of Scarlett’s bedroom. Go there to see them larger, and here are the small ones.

I painted these stripes and made this banner from fabric.

The dragonfly and other decorations are blik stickers.

This mobile is “vintage” as it was on my sister’s crib and she is 26.

Whitney and I had an amazing weekend at BlogHer 08. We hobnobbed with old friends and new ones (like Grover from Sesame Street and Anna from MommyPoppins) and were going going going until dark each night (no, not really until dawn like some other folks, but past our kids’ bedtimes just the same).

This is not the post to tell you all that we saw and did and learned (a lot!) but rather this is a love letter to my husband, Alec.

Alec worked from home on Friday so he could do the preschool drop-off and pick-up himself unassisted. He sorted out dinner, bedtimes, lunches, and in-fighting. We checked in at the end of Friday and things had gone pretty well. Heck, the boys were in school from about 8am to 5:30 so I wasn’t all that concerned.

But Saturday was a different story… he had 12 full hours of playdates (that He Arranged!), diapers, meals (that He Determined), tantrums, and joys. When I returned from my last day of the conference just bubbling and bursting with ideas and enthusiasm, we spent at least 20 minutes recounting all the details of his day as he polished off a bottle of wine (also unassisted). Of course, I loved it. I wanted to know everything that I missed… but I also smiled inside to think about how I must sound to him on all the other days when he works and I stay home.

The next day, Sunday, Holden was so happy to see me he wanted to be in my lap almost the entire time. And Milo (with his toddler attitude increasing by the day) only had eyes for Daddy (of course, he calls us both “dada”).

I love and appreciate you Alec; you make it all possible!… and I think we’re going to do just fine when BlogHer 09 is in some far away land!

The other week, Holden and I answered the call to be testers in LeapFrog’s Emeryville toy lab. We jumped at the chance to visit a toy company, drink milk at Starbucks, watch trains go by the nearby tracks, and stare at the construction workers. If you ask Holden which part was his favorite, I’m not sure what he’d tell you, but my favorite was getting a sneak preview of the Leapfrog Tag Reading System.

The tester asked him to do different tasks with the Tag reading pen, like tap on various animals and shapes to see what noises they make or click on words to hear them read aloud. Cool! Sitting across the table, it was so hard to restrain my impulses to cheer for him (or even correct him).

The next day, we got our own Tag system to try out. The non-test-lab version comes with a book for about $50 and there are more you can buy for about $12 each. I had to wrestle with the website a bit to download the correct audio – seems to work ok on my mac but probably took a half hour and required me to enter overly personal information about my son. Each chunky little pen can hold 5 books worth of data (why not all at once?) and must be downloaded separately (annoying!).

Alec and I introduced this to Holden as his “reading robot” as a special treat for giving up his pacifier (yes, I’m obsessed). Alec wanted to be the first to try this with Holden — as the father he wants dibs on cool electronic toys and video games – and so they settled in and read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

They both loved clicking the play button on each page to hear the story and taking detours into playing side games as well as hunting around for extra noises and music hidden on each page. And I liked getting my turn to go through the book together.

I know that as Holden’s early reading skills build, he’ll get more benefit from this toy as he can click individual words to hear them read aloud. But for now, it’s pretty fun to snuggle up together and listen to the tree complain and the coconuts tumble down as we go through the pages together. I think I Spy would also be lots of fun. That’s the next one on my wishlist!

Bottom line: totally recommended for geek parents with pre-readers and early readers with money to spare on fun titles (or gifty grandparents).
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Thanks to the Parent Bloggers and LeapFrog TAG for sending me, err I mean Holden, this groovy reading robot. Find out what other folks think.

The other day I took the Savvy Source preschool quiz and came away with some great tips. I haven’t even navigated my way to the end where I get all the recommendations of activities to try with my kid. Simply answering the questions showed me how many skills my preschooler is developing and how many I don’t even recognize as skills.

My child provides feasible answers to “What would happen if…” questions.

I had to confess that I didn’t know the answer to this question, so I put it to the test, and now it’s one of my favorite activities to do with him.

“Julian, what would happen if our car got a flat tire?”
“We have to take it to the mechanic and he would fix it and then we will go back on the fweeway!”

“Julian, what if we run out of milk?”
“Then you will go to the store and get some more and I will eat Life cereal.”

“Julian, what will happen if we get to school and there are no teachers there?”
“Then you will read me some books, and then we will hear voices, and it will be a teacher!”

It has been fun to hear what he comes up with to these open ended questions, and we’ve turned it into a game we can do in the car or at dinner.

“Julian, what if we go to the zoo and a zebra gets in our car?”
“What if Grandma Jackie makes pumpkin pie and puts in on her head?”

Next, item inspired by the Savvy Quiz was this one:

My child can tell in his/her own words what happened in stories or parts of stories and can predict what will happen next in stories.

Here, I’ve determined that Julian does not have this skill. I asked him what happens in some of his favorite books and he says “I don’t know” even though he has the whole book memorized and can answer comprehension questions during the book. “So one day, Officer Buckle gets a police dog. What happens next?” “I don’t know.” Ok, something to work on.

Take the Savvy Source quiz and see what you think. Warning, the quiz is very long. You’ll need about 10 minutes.
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I did this quiz because the Parent Bloggers Network asked me to. See what other Parent Bloggers thought.

Ok, we chucked the paci!

For reals this time.

We gave him his three point explanation every time he asked for about twenty times:

1. You’re Three Years Old
2. The Dentist said “no more paci”
3. The garbage truck took it away

Oh and p.s. all the pacis still in the house are Milo’s so don’t let me catch you with them.

So, what I need now is some ideas to help him find his sleepy place now that his crutch (and mine, let’s be honest, sometimes I miss the plug. A lot) is gone. So far, I’ve invented the myth of the sandman (although my memory was fuzzy so I started to make up some crazy details!), we talk about his pretend (invisible) paci, and Alec leads him through some deep breaths.

At school, he still naps (with some difficulty) but there is a staff of kids and a full legion of peer pressuring little kids dozing happily at his side.

I really super mighty desperately with all my being want to keep the nap and return to the days of easy slumber. Any tips?

Dear friends,

We Rookie Moms try not to blog about blogging because we believe that our readers are more likely to be fellow mamas, not fellow bloggers, but since there are definitely a handful of savvy bloggers reading our site, I want to address an issue some of us may be facing this week. This ego boost is brought to you by my husband, by the way.

The marketers who pitch their products to us everyday, hoping for free advertising on our site, can be ignored or gently told, “no thank you.” Heather and I have a hard time ignoring, but when someone is pitching us something crazy off-topic, we do it, or if it’s just not quite on-topic enough, maybe we’ll send the “no thank you” message. If we’re feeling energetic and want to say, “Hey, company with a marketing budget, please tell me why I should give you something valuable for nothing?” then we might go ahead and craft a really smart email to send them. (Like, if you think we reach your target audience, why not pony up a whopping $35 to advertise to them?) But it’s not an obligation. Deleting their message is just as easy.

Now as BlogHer is approaching, some marketers are contacting us and saying they’d like to meet. They’d like to have coffee and learn more about what Mom Bloggers want from marketers. It’s flattering, sure. But is it okay?

Now here is my main point - a realization I came to only after my husband recently asked me some probing questions about why a corporation should be able to take up my time while I pay $15/hr for childcare.

We are not obligated to deliver our consulting services to corporations for FREE! Especially those of us who make our livings doing marketing strategy and/or execution. Why should we give our services away gratis? We are worth more than that.

I am personally excited to go to BlogHer, to meet a lot of cool people face to face, to thank them for nice reviews they’ve written about my book, to tell them that it’s been cool to participate in their projects, that I appreciate their thoughtful writing. I know there won’t be enough time in the weekend to squeeze in all the talking and listening and card-exchanging and jumping up and down hugging that I’m looking forward to. Should I give an hour to a for-profit company who wants to craft a smarter marketing strategy? No. I’d rather give that hour to myself. Maybe I’ll find a quiet corner, rest my feet, call my house, take notes on my thoughts, or just stare into space. Maybe I’ll find some other bloggers with whom to exchange entrepreneurial ideas. Maybe I’ll sit down with my bloggy partner and discuss usability or leg-shaving techniques.

I just want to remind all of us that our time is valuable. Just like the real estate on your web site. It’s not fair for other people to make money off of it without giving us something in return.

So, note to publicist and marketers who are reading this. We are no dummies. We are available not for whoring, but for hire.

And note to others who I’ll be seeing at BlogHer, who contribute to the community, who are slaves to their labors of love, or slaves to their children, or slaves to comfortable shoes for that matter, (or who would like me to stop using the very upsetting word “slave” because it carries so much baggage and what do I know about it) I am so looking forward to hanging out and learning more from you.

Signing off…