Mandy's Minute

We recently went on a trip to Hawaii and the piece of baby gear I really missed from home was our baby video monitor.  This is one baby product that I think every family and/or caregiver should have.  Don’t get me wrong the regular sound baby monitors are very helpful too but if you have a light sleeper like I do, the Summer Infant Video Baby Monitor comes in handy!  It allows me to see and hear my son without having to go in to his room at various times to check on him.  It’s also fun to just sit and watch when he is playing around in his crib.  The sound and visual clarity are excellent!  I like this video monitor so much that this last Christmas I gave one to my mother and mother-in-law to have at their places when we visit and for when they are caring for their other grandchildren.  Yes, they can be a little pricey but if you get just one when you have your first child and if you plan to have more, it’s very cost effective.  Additionally, ebay is your best bet in finding brand new, unopened Summer Infant Video Monitors for a fraction of the cost compared to other retailers such as Babies R Us or Target.  If you are in the market for a baby monitor, I would highly recommend purchasing the Summer Infant Video Baby Monitor as it will become one piece of baby gear you’ll be glad you have in your arsenal.

Since all the airlines are charging for how much you can bring, we decided we would fore-go taking much baby gear and decided on renting it while in Maui.  I did some research and there are several places that rent baby gear on Maui such as www.easytravelhi.com, www.wildwheelwentals, and www.nanaenterprises.com but I settled on www.akamaimothers.com  for a couple of reasons.  One, they are the least expensive and two, I really liked their story.  Moving from the mainland to Hawaii, which seemed almost on a whim and started a pretty successful business renting baby gear.  Kudos to them.  I made my reservation online and got a confirmation within 24 hours from the owner David.  For the week I reserved, a pack of 15 indoor toddler toys, stroller, baby monitor and high chair – for total of $75. 

Within an hour of arrival, our items were delivered by the owner David.  He rushed in dropped the items off, showed my husband how to do the stroller and ran out.  The impression I got, is that he is very over worked.  I know he does the deliveries himself, in addtion to all the customer service but being pulled in many different directions, can leave the customer feeling less valuable.  Anyways, once the items arrived, I had mixed feelings on my decision.  I was told the baby gear and toddler toys are cleaned prior to going out for the next rental but I beg to differ.  One look at the toys (and just feeling the mesh bag they came it), I knew I had to go to the store and buy cleaning wipes, there was food and grime on most, if not all the toys.  They also included a plush toy, which I think is crazy, because you can’t clean it properly.  If it was mine, it would go into the wash but since it wasn’t it went on top of the refrigerator for the week.   We went to Safeway to get some wipes and while there, my mother kept saying, “something stinks” and “something smells dirty.”  Well, we found out what “stunk” and what was “dirty”… it was us!  The stroller handle smelled so bad that not only could you smell it but our hands reeked too.  GROSS!  Needless to say, we wiped that sucker down too.  Nothing is more disgusting when items are supposed to be “clean” and when you wipe them down with cleaning wipes, the wipes turn black.  That my friend is not clean! 

Once the items where disinfected and clean, my son had a blast with them and the stroller and high chair did their job.  Overall it was a good experience but I would suggest to Akamai Mothers that they might want to consider hiring another hand to help David out and clean the baby rental gear before it goes out.

Since we knew that we would need a car seat once we were in Hawaii, we decided to pull out the Britax Boulevard my son got from his grandparents on his first birthday, instead of taking his Chicco KeyFit 30 Infant Car Seat we have been using for the last year.  I also purchased one of those Go Go Kids Travelmate attachments by Go Go Babyz, to help getting around the airport easier.  I have to say, I was really impressed. 

The Go-Go Kidz Travelmate car seat attachment was easy to attach to the Britax car seat and made getting from point A to point B very easy.  The handle is nice as it can accommodate a tall or short person, the wheels snap into place easily and can be removed quickly and the ride is very smooth.  The only thing I would suggest to the manufactuer is if they could make the attachment knobby things on the bottom a little longer and wider so platform would sit on the base a little better.  

The Britax Boulevard is FABULOUS.  I love this car seat.  It is a beefy child car seat with a lot of features such as True Side Impact Protection, Quick Adjust Head Restrain and No Re-Thread Five Point Harness and which I like best - 65 LB weight capacity.  That means, we can use it for a long while.   My son also seems to enjoy his new Britax car seat.  He sits a little higher so he can see out of the windows a little better, he has more room and the fabric on the Boulevard is very cozy (and easy to clean).   I’m glad we did not rent a car seat from the rental car place not just because you never know what condition you’re going to get but because I feel the Britax and the Go-Go Babyz travel cart was a perfect combination, making our family’s travel safe, comfortable and smooth.

Well we took the plunge, we went to Hawaii with a 12 month old!  It wasn’t the easiest thing but it certainly wasn’t the hardest either.  We traveled on Hawaiian Airlines and my son sat in our laps.  Luckily it was a faster flight opposed to the regular estimate of  5.5 hours, due to a a tail wind which got us there in about 4.5 hours.  I read Shelli Rivoli’s book, Travels with Baby: The Ultimate Guide for Planning Trips with Babies, Toddlers, and Preschool-Age Children which I found quite helpful but in all honesty, you’re going to find you could have brought more of this and less of that and well, since every baby is different, how one baby responds to traveling, another probably won’t be so good or bad.  You won’t necessary know what best works until you do it, but Travels with Baby is certainly a good jumping off point. 

I would say overall, it was good.  Since it’s our first vacation with a child there is obviously a learning curve, as with anything being a first time parent is.  I would say the most exhausting thing was keeping him entertained on the way back.  My son traveled better to Hawaii than on the flight home.   One thing that kept my husband and I from losing our minds was we talked my mother into going with us and with her there, it was a great, great help to have another set of hands.  I certainly would say if you plan to travel and if you are on good terms with your mother or mother-in-law, have them tag along as when you’ve sang, “The Ants Go Marching” or “The Wheels on the Bus” for the 100th time, it’s nice to have someone else sing and dance with your baby while you catch your breath.

I fell for it…the marketing blitz and the rave reviews for Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee.  Being a coffee lover, I typically stick to one kind (Tully’s Coffee - in my opinion the BEST, far better than even Starbucks Coffee) and Dunkin Donuts Coffee reminds me why.   Even, my brother-in-laws have been raving on how great Dunkin’s coffee is and you see all the commercials so I thought hey, I’ll give it a try.

Now, I’m not a coffee guzzling machine but I do enjoy a cup or two a day.  I gave up coffee when I got pregnant and for about 9 months after my son was born due to terrible headaches and breastfeeding.  After some experimenting, I found that if I buy a bag of caffeinated coffee and a bag of decaf coffee and mix them together, it cuts down on the caffeine and I can enjoy two cups throughout the day instead of only one with no headaches, no crazy caffeine buzz and doesn’t seem to have any effect on my breastmilk.  Now, I know it sounds crazy, but it works for me.  So, I purchased Dunkin’s coffee on sale at the local grocery market and paid $6.99 for one pound bag…it’s a $1.50 less than Tully’s and Starbucks, when on sale, so I I though, if this works out, I’ll be saving a $1.50 a bag.  Not bad.

I took it home and when I opened them up to do the mix.  I was really disappointed with the appearance of the coffee grounds and aroma.  Dunkin’ Donuts Original Blend Coffee states it’s made of “100% Arabica beans”  well, let me just say this, the appearance of the grounds were light brown, almost orangish in color, looked like Sanka, the instant decaf coffee my grandmother used to make for herself.  The aroma of the original blend wasn’t “knock your socks off” great either, it just smelled of packaged coffee.  Then I opened the Dunkin’ Decaf, the grounds were really dark but they actually smelled better then original blend.

Next was the taste test…at best I would say the taste is equivalent to a “premium” coffee freshly brewed at a convenience store like, AM/PM or fast food restaurant like, Jack in the Box.  It’s just okay, nothing to write home about and certainly not something I plan to buy again.  I don’t know about you, but I like to enjoy my cup of coffee.  It’s like wine in some ways, I like to smell it, enjoy the different tastes and certainly the little party it has in my mouth before it goes down smoothly.  It’s one of my little pleasures each morning and sometimes in the early afternoons.  Yes, I know what you are going to say, “you mixed the Dunkin Donuts Original Blend with the Dunkin Donuts Decaf Blend” but it really doesn’t matter and let me tell you why.  I do this all the time with Tully’s House Blend and Tully’s Decaf House Blend which comes out PERFECT.  It’s fabulous, just as they indicate on the package “Smooth, Inviting and Buttery.”  Yum!  And like I said before, prior to moving to Tully’s 3 years ago, I would mix the Starbucks House Blend and Starbucks Decaf House Blend and the taste was never “off” there either. 

So if you are wavering on whether or not to try Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee, save your money or at least try it first at your friend’s house that keeps raving about it or just plum don’t get sucked into the marketing hype, because I’ll bet dollars to donuts, you’ll like the coffee you were drinking much better before and then, like me, you’ll have a full bag of Dunkin’s coffee to finish.  Or if your lucky, you can pass your bag along like I will, by giving the rest to my brother-in-laws, and going back to Tully’s.

My son recently started chewing on his crib.  Not that I’m surprised and as much as I would prefer that there are not teeth marks on the wood, my feeling is that’s all apart of having a child.   My concern started when he scraped up some wood shavings with his teeth and then started gagging because they got stuck in the back of his throat.   Not cool!  My husband and I both went running into his bedroom and obviously went to his aid, trying to figure out what the heck was going on, when I noticed the damage to the crib rail.  That put me in the market for a crib teething guard.  I tried two other products before I fell in love with Trend Lab’s Crib Wrap Rail Guard. 

The first product I tried was the Kidkusion Gummi Crib Rail.  The concept is good but the adhesive sucks.  The adhesive strip is very small and once your child works the side or end up, due to chewing and their saliva, you can’t get it back down.  I think if the adhesive was on the entire gummi strip, that would be a great benefit to this product.  Also, if you were wondering, it did not take the finish of the crib when I removed it.  So, since that was a bust,  I then tired the Prince Lionheart Crib Rail Teether.  That didn’t work either, just because it plum didn’t fit the width of the crib rail.  My sister-in-law also purchased this crib teether for her little one and it fits her crib just fine and she is very happy with it.  Her child has not pulled them off and he is nearly 12 months old.  It obviously needs to sit snug on the rail so if your rails are greater than 3/4″ in width, don’t buy these. 

Finally, my last stop was the Crib Guard by Trend Lab.  This works great!  It is made of soft fleece with a waterproof barrier, easy to install and washable.  Can’t ask for anything better.  Since my crib is one with sloping sides, the crib toys can only hang on one side and since my son has two crib toys hanging on the rail, I purchased the shorter Trend Lab Crib Guards.  I put one on each of the smaller sloping sides and one between the two toys.  PERFECT FIT! Since the smaller guards come in a package of two, my Mom took the other smaller guard and purchased a long rail crib guard for her crib and did nearly the same thing; put the smaller guard between the two crib toys on one side and the long guard on the other (the sides of her crib are higher so there is no need for protection there).  She thinks their great too!  So, if you are one of the lucky ones who has a teething crib eating toddler, I would recommend skipping the plastic crib teething guards and purchase the crib rail guards by Trend Lab.  I think you’ll be very happy with your purchase and won’t have to worry about wood shavings in your little one’s mouth.

Okay, so I wanted to be a good mom and make my son’s first birthday cake from scratch so I made sure to start trying recipes several weeks in advance to get just the right one.  I tried several from baby cookbooks to online recipes to Williams-Sonoma and let me say…most all tasted like garbage.  Mind you, I’m not a bad cook or baker.   I’m not trying to toot my own horn but I would say my skills in the kitchen are probably above average.    Anyways, my husband, who loves cake, was at first excited to try the cakes but after a couple of these recipes, he became less excited to try.  I finally said to him, “no wonder people make the boxed cake mixes, they’re easy and taste good.”  Which got me wondering, is it just that our tastes have been trained to like processed foods instead of foods made from scratch?  That’s another discussion for another time…back to the birthday cake.  Since the time for his birthday was coming up fast, I decided I would try the “healthy” boxed  cake mix.  I made two;  Dr. Oetker, Organic Vanilla Cake Mix and Cherrybrook Kitchen Yellow Cake Mix.  The Cherrybrook Kitchen had a nice texture and was much better tasting than the Dr. Oetker cake mix but neither was GREAT.  I would certainly recommend Cherrybrook Kitchen to anyone who has a food allergy.  So to make a long story short, when it finally came down to it,  I made Duncan Hines Carrot Cake and homemade frosting and here’s why…I figured that my son will not likely consume much if any of the cake and frosting and even if he does, it’s really only once a year since I do not make make many treats or have many treats hanging around the house.  I made cupcakes for the rest of the party goers and two mini-cakes for him.  One for his party and another to take first birthday cake pictures privately.  And guess what…I was right.  He didn’t know what to do the the cakes.  He just put his hands in it, thought the texture was a little weird, put a messy frosted finger in his mouth and then he was done.  Geez…all that worrying for nothing.   Now it doesn’t mean that I’ll give up on trying the best cake recipe out there but I will says to the food conscience mothers and fathers out there, if you go with a boxed cake mix for their first birthday, don’t feel bad, if your child is anything like mine, he or she will hardly consume any of it and you can redirect the energy of worry to something more concerning…dinner.

When it comes to baby clothes, I’m one who loves a deal…either from Goodwill, garage sales, consignment shops, eBay, Craigslist…you get the picture.  With that said, I’ve found three store brands that are very good quality and fashionable.  One is Jumping Beans from Kohl’s, the clothes are cute, run true to size and don’t shrink.  The only thing you have to be careful of is the pricing.  Kohl’s always (and I mean always) has sales but you have to be smart about them.  If you play your cards right, you can pick up Jumping Beans tops and pants for $3.00 each which in my book is a bargain for a new outfit. 

Another store brand I’ve grown fond of is ToughSkins by Sears.  Now, I can only speak for the tops but I’ve found that they are made from quality material and well constructed.  They also run true to size and do not shrink.   Again, you can get these on sale and save a bundle.

Finally, now I’m sure there will be people who disagree and again I can only speak for the pants but I really like Target’s Circo brand.  I’ve purchased some twill lined pants and really really like them.  They have kept up with an active crawler.  They are a little longer so I have to roll up the pant leg so my son’s feet don’t get caught in the leg but overall I haven’t found that they shrink nor fall apart after washing.   Most Circo items have good everyday pricing.

If your watching your budget like most of us out there, I would give these three brands a chance if you haven’t already, I think you’ll be happy with your findings like I did.

I have to admit I LOVE most Fisher Price toys.  However I would say some certainly out do others.  I purchased the Rainforest Peek-a-Boo Leaves Musical Mobile for my son early on and even though it says it’s recommended up to 5 months, my son had it on his crib until about 11 months when he learned he could stand and grab the mobile.  I took down the mobile and he still uses the music box which lights up but has no moving parts to look at.  On the other hand my mother purchased the Precious Planet 2-in-1 Projection Mobile for the grandkids crib at her house and although it’s nice, I prefer the Rainforest Mobile.  My biggest grip about the Precious Planet Mobile is that you cannot turn it off by double pressing the buttons like you can the Rainforest one.  Both come with remotes to turn on and off but you have to be careful as if you have anything else that belongs to Fisher Price hanging on the crib that also has a remote, they are both on the same frequency so as you turn one off, you turn the other one on.  Additionally the Rainforest Mobile seems to have more pleasant music than the Precious Planet Mobile.  However if you didn’t have the opportunity to compare both, one would be happy with the Precious Planet Mobile but if you can find the Rainforest Mobile.  That’s the one I would go with.

Innocent Ejection Heart Murmur, that’s what my son was diagnosed with today by a doctor at Children’s.  Thank goodness.  During his 9 month check his pediatrician said he heard a heart murmur, which of course made my heart sink.  My immediate response to the doc was, “if he has a heart murmur, he’s had it since birth.”  In meaning, “How come no one has heard it before?”    I was told that as children age, their hearts slow down and it’s easier to hear heart murmurs.  It took about a month to see the cardiologist at Children’s but it was well worth the wait.  The appt took about 2 hours but it was a thorough exam.  Two blood pressure and pulse readings; one on leg and other on arm.  One pulse-ox reading, an EKG and echo-cardiogram in addition to the cardiologist exam.  All in all, it went well.  Blowing bubbles was very helpful to keep my little on occupied while attaching leads and taking blood pressures.   Once all the diagnostic measures where taken, the cardiologist stated my son has an innocent ejection heart murmur and that he is a happy healthy child with a healthy heart.  There are no signs of congenital heart conditions (no holes or valve issues).   Apparently it’s the second most innocent heart murmur diagnosed in children.  The doctor said three-fourths of children will likely be diagnosed with a heart murmur sometime in their childhood. She said there is no need to have activity restrictions and that as long as his regular pediatrician does not hear any glaring issues in the future, we will not have to see her again.  So good to hear.