RookieMoms Blog

Happy holidays (cards early this year)

2008-11-21T22:47:51Z

Every year, I send out cards that say “Happy Holidays” and it’s not just because I tend to celebrate both Hanukkah and Christmas. I like the big winter holidays (I haven’t really met Kwanzaa yet but I suspect we’d get along great) but the problem is that I don’t usually get around to mailing my cards until New Years so it seems safer to cast a wide net around the season.

But this year, my wide net might just include Thanksgiving because I already received my cards and they are just waiting to be sent out. The photo cards from minted.com look fantastic (if I do say so myself, I did pick the picture and kinda the design). As satisfied as I am with the cards themselves, I was most impressed with the service.

The minted.com website shows a variety of attractive designs for photo cards to choose from. After ordering, each uploaded photo and card style are then finessed by a real live designer for maximum aesthetic appeal. Not only that, but when Rick mailed me a proof, and I didn’t like the result (sort of a “what was I thinking with that combo?” kind of situation) he offered me some choices of styles that would work better with my chosen photo. And he was right.

I was very pleased with the professionalism and SERVICE. Rick and friends made it super (duper schmuper) easy to get a high quality card in minimal time. Thank so much for that! Because other than stamps, what I don’t have is time.

Now all I need to do is find my addresses and buy some stamps and I could shock everyone on my New Year’s Card list this year.

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I was given the chance to order these cards for free for sharing my opinions from the Parent Bloggers and Minted. And I would have paid for them.

DIY holiday gifts

2008-11-10T21:14:22Z

When we had no kids and Sunday afternoons were a long string of free hours to fill, Heather and I embarked on silly craft projects. In the early part of this decade, I lead her from duct tape purse to sock dogs.

Now, my crafts are usually kid-centric and often unfinished. Julian and I did manage to paint some stars on a plain thermal shirt yesterday with fabric paint and a stencil. It was finished and he wore it that day.

My point is: I love me a handmade gift. I hope I find time to work on some this coming season.

Gift ideas I’ve shared in the past:

Memory Game - put personalized photos on wood blocks and make it into a game.
Create a Princess Tutu - this is pretty much a no-sew project!
Sew a quick newborn hat from a t-shirt
Create a personalized paper banner
Embellish a shirt or other item with felt and floss.

Feel free to post comments with links to your projects.

This post was inspired by Klutz and The Parent Bloggers Network!

Worth the price of Halloween candy

2008-11-14T15:56:40Z

My very obedient 4-year old boy (I’m not even kidding - the kid is totally easy-going - except for during his last playdate with Holden) placed his Halloween candy outside his bedroom door on the night of October 31 and went to bed, anxious for morning to come. He didn’t have to wait too long, because morning starts at 5.30 am when you are Julian and you are excited about something. His excitement was justified, because a little fairy (about 118 lbs) had replaced his candy with a toy! And hooray! It was a HOT WHEELS Trick Tracks Triple Stunt Starter Set!

I told him he could put the box next to his bed but he could not get out of bed again until after 6.30 am, because it was Saturday morning FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. At the agreed upon time, he and I and baby sis gathered around the wonderous new product that had appeared in our house and began to explore.

Thirty minutes later I had assembled a race track with three different stunt stations. The highlight? When I struggled with understanding the directions, Julian said, “Mommy, you’re so nice to set this up for me.”

Together, we figured out the upside down loop, probably the most thrilling of the possible activities to do with the race track. Julian was off in his own world, though. So pleased with the whole thing - the idea that he gave up his candy, that he was sad to do it, but that it turned out to be worth it - he kept saying, “The fairy is so nice! She gave me this racetrack and I love it!”

By the time my husband woke up and joined us and, I shamefully confess, figured out the rest of the functionality of the track, it was the new favorite toy of the household.

Although Mattel sent this product to me so that I would review it for the ParentBloggers Network, I must say that we went to Target that afternoon and purchased another set for his friend Theo, and a new car ($.97 at Target — this is a collection habit I can deal with) for Julian. So Mattel, as we marketing professionals say, you gave me the razor, but I will definitely keep buying the blades as we are having so much fun with this racetrack!

Daddy review: My Baby A to Z

2008-11-10T04:22:54Z

I seem to have become the defacto “new media” guy in our household - holden and I spend at least a few minutes each weekend looking up trains, or theremins, or Obama on YouTube. So when we got a hold of “My Baby A to Z” Heather tasked me with the evaluation.

So the other day Holden and Milo and I sat down with the DVD and watched it through a few times. I can say right now that we now get regular requests from the two of them for “the shapes video”

Overall I liked the stuff that I saw, and obviously the boys loved it. The DVD is focused on learning shapes, as I’m sure lots of other videos like Baby Einstein and the like. In general we’ve never been big fans of “learning videos” in part because they’re usually produced by massive money making machines like Disney, and I feel like I’m being tricked into getting my kids addicted to Disney at an early age.

So this DVD was a small breath of fresh air - the two characters that talk to the kids through the TV screen (which is all the rage these days… even Diego has to ask “Will you help me?” before embarking on any adventure… I guess that’s better than Diego ignoring my kids completely though, right?) But I digress. Put simply, non-licensed characters are a huge plus.

I think the thing that surprised me the most was simply how much Holden and Milo liked the video - it seemed a little advanced for Milo and a little simplistic for Holden, and yet they both were totally enthralled and Milo even got up to dance for most of the music bits. (Though to be fair, they are often so short that they were over by the time Milo had pushed himself off the couch)

This is a cute DVD that our kids loved - if you like educational videos and are looking for something a little fresher than Baby Einstein/etc, you (and your kids) will probably be quite happy with My Baby A to Z.

– Thanks to the Parent Bloggers for sending a new go-to video for our newly TV-addicted kids.

Memory lane: turkey pain

2008-11-10T21:33:57Z

I really love Thanksgiving. It’s one of my total favorite holidays. I love how my mom makes the turkey and all the sides but when I’ve tried it on my own, I’ve had some real mixed results.

Omitting all the times I went to Other People’s Thanksgivings and had to learn to live with another way of making stuffing or cranberry sauce (can of glop? ick!), I can roll down several of my own Turkey Days where I could have learned a thing or two from the Turkey Hotline People.

Thanksgiving 1998: first Thanksgiving living out in San Francisco. My sister and I decided to tackle just cooking a turkey breast. We did everything fine, but since we marinated it in red wine — for whatever reason — all the meat was a little pink. And scary.
Thanksgiving 1999: big ol’ potluck. Together with my roommate, we hosted about 20 single fun people in our Castro district apartment. All the sides were there, but I miss-timed the turkey by about 90 minutes. Oops. Luckily my friend Brad was not a moron like me and he could tell when it was done. We had fun shoving the leftover carcass down the trash chute.
Thanksgiving 2007: two kids and a home in Berkeley, hosting the in-laws. I decided to make it easy on myself and buy all the sides from Whole Foods and just cook the turkey. In my enthusiasm I bought it too early and it went bad. The in-laws got us a frozen-solid bird the day before Thanksgiving and we thawed it in the kiddy bath-tub amidst several very heated food safety arguments.
Honorable mention: first time I met Whitney was Thanksgiving 1996 and we were both newly dating a pair of best friends from opposite sides of the country. One of her great friend’s brothers made me a wonderful turkey and trimmings in San Francisco. Maybe that’s why I moved here. hmmm.

Do as I say and not as I do this year. When in doubt, call the turkey hotline people and save yourself hours of aggravation and some potential salmonella poisoning.

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This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by Butterball. They didn’t pay me or anything but maybe I’ll win fabulous cash and prizes in the form of poultry for sharing.

A few coupon codes

2008-11-07T17:32:04Z

I’m not usually into posting about deals and discounts, but a few good ones have come my way recently:

Smith & Hawken - Use WEBP263 to save 25% through Sunday, November 9
Sephora - Use FF2008 to save 20% through Saturday, November 8
Gymboree - shop through this link to save 30% on everything through November 9.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Stop lugging carseats on airplanes

2008-11-06T19:19:10Z

Traveling with toddlers is not easy under the best of circumstances. If you’re really lucky, the flight is smooth, you packed enough snacks, the in-flight movie doesn’t include scary stuff, and you’ve scored a SkyMall catalog perfect for I Spy.

After Holden turned about 8 months old, he was so darn squirmy that we vowed to buy him his own seat if we were to ever fly with him again. We did fly with him and we carried that huge Britax for a 13-month old, a seat-kicking 18-month old, a still-kicky 20-month old, and on and on. Now with two little guys (20 months and 42 months if we count that way), we were dragging TWO CARSEATS on the airplane in the not too distant past.

But on our flight to Hawaii, we tried something different. Holden wore the new CARES (Child Aviation Restraint) system. It’s an FDA-approved restraint system that loops around the seat back and the seat belt to give him more security than a regular airplane seatbelt while also:

giving us one less huge thing to lug on board (fits in my carry on easily)
making it that much harder for him to kick the seat in front of him
impressing the woman in front of us also traveling with 2 little ones

On our Thanksgiving trip, we’re going to go one step further and let Holden try out the regular seat belt and put seat-kicking Milo in the CARES unit. The problem with this test is that once we do this, we may have a very hard time changing back if it doesn’t work.

If you’re still carrying carseats on board, check out the PacBack by Cheeky Monkey: this is the thin strappy doohicky that converts your mammoth car seat into a backpack. Useful and packs flat. Get this if you have to bring car seats on board. We love ours and loan it out. It started to fray a little and we had it repaired.

More info on the CARES, see kidsflysafe.com. Amazon is selling for about $10 cheaper and it’s available for super saver shipping. Buy it on Amazon.

I got one for $0 to test out, but would pay the $64 they’re charging on Amazon. Great if you like to travel and you have a toddler who likes to come along.

No on 8 - a Rookie Moms-endorsed vote

2008-11-03T20:18:29Z

The purpose of this post to cheer for some folks and inspire you to vote along with us:

1- Isobel is a friend from my mom’s group, married to her partner Angela and raising a 4-year old daughter, who just got published on The Huffington Post today: For The Fourth Time, Yes I Do

2- My childhood friend Nikki and her partner Renee sent along the picture above of their son Lennox with the subject line OUR LITTLE ACTIVIST. I immediately felt that I needed to get this picture in front of more people. How could one want to delegitimize the marriage of this kid’s parents?!

3- Lesbian Dad, who has a real name that I call her in person but I don’t know if I’m allowed to say it on the Internet, crossed my path on Halloween night when we were both out Trick or Treating with our 4 year olds and 1 year olds (because you see people, we are both parents who love our children in exactly the same way and love our partners too and should have the same exact protection under the law because we, me and Lesbian Dad, are both human beings). I think I just lost control of that sentence, so let me start a new one. Lesbian Dad was dressed as a No on Prop 8 message. Because, as she says, it’s malarkey.

Enough already with the cruel attempts to keep our gay brothers and sisters from marrying the people that they love. The folks who have put Proposition 8 on the California ballot for tomorrow have employed a crazy fear tactic to get votes. The commercials warn that gay marriage will be taught in elementary schools.

I don’t even want to go through the list reasons that this is upsetting for me. I want to instead say that Heather and I want you to vote tomorrow. Please vote NO ON 8.

PS: Heather really has a gay brother and I have a gay college roommate (sister-esque) — so “brothers and sisters” is not just some weird Berkeley saying I like to use.

Under the table and climbing

2008-11-03T18:55:01Z

Speaking of “the best things in life are free” — aside from the wild chickens on Kauai, I think Holden and Milo most enjoyed the built in jungle gym of climbing around and under the condo’s kitchen table.

At first we tried to keep them away from the glass-top table for fear of it falling or breaking (or smudging?) but after a while, boredom is the brother of invention and Holden discovered the merits of the hidden play structure. Milo was quick to follow.

Under the table and dreaming

A case of “the best things in life are free”

2008-10-31T21:01:16Z

On Wednesday, Julian turned four years old. We’ve had at least three birthday celebrations and he probably opened more than twenty gifts during this time.

While he does love his new Zingo game, his bat costume, and the fact that my best friend “Auntie” Sharon will be taking him on a date to a jazz concert next week, I was most moved by the thoughtful gift given by our babysitter.

Having observed his enthusiasm for the Bug Jug my brother gave Julian for his birthday, Erin the Babysitter came to our house (her job) on Wednesday morning with a plastic take-out food container containing one ladybug with some leaves and sticks. I was very impressed. He loved it and I don’t know that I’ve ever witnessed the giving of such an ideal gift for the gift recipient.

What to get the kid who has everything? An insect from your yard.

photo:-sunny-