We Talk Shop

While on vacation earlier this year, I made a snap purchase at a General Store — three placemats for my son to use at the dinner table. I got one with the alphabet, one with trucks and one with animals. They are colorful, durable and great entertainment at the table.My toddler son has already learned more of his ABC’s by having us pointing out letters on his placemat and I think he feels special that he gets to use something so colorful.

As a Mom, I like the fact that it’s large enough to keep the table clean(er). If I knew where to buy these in a store, I would get more.

Get it: $3.99 from Crocodile Creek.

My toddler son got some of that fancy foaming soap for Christmas last year. We finally finished the bottle, which tells me that we don’t do a good enough job washing our hands. In attempt to do better, to use more soap this cold and flu season I bought another kid-friendly soap: Huggies Clean Team Hand Soap.

It’s a cute bottle with a hippo’s head for the spout. It dispenses a foaming soap — which I love because it just is cooler than regular soap, but more importantly for young kids is that the soap can 1) be seen by the kids and 2) stays on their hands. My only complaint is that I’d like more soap to come out with each pump. I have to double-pump to get enough soap to wash my hands.
But the really cool part is that there is a red light that flashes in the hippo’s head. It stays on for 20 seconds — the amount of time you are supposed to was your hands. Try it folks. Even if you don’t buy this product, try to wash your hands for a FULL 20 seconds. It’s longer than you think. Great idea, especially this time of year. With the MRSA virus speading like wildfire, the best thing we can do as parents is to all wash our hands.

Watch an animated demo.
Read about hand washing on my Mom blog.

Get it: It’s about 3.99 for the dispenser. I got mine at the grocery store so I’m sure you can find it most places you normally purchase hand soap.

We love the frog toy holder and how it looks on the bathtub wall. I especially like how many toys it holds and that you can hand a wash cloth from his foot — and that you can place shampoo and soap on top. This gadget holds quite a bit and keeps Junior’s bathroom organized!

We’ve had this up for about 7 months when it came crashing down. I think the glue just wore out, but I am hopeful that we can buy new glue and get it back up. I’d give it 5 stars, but will have to deduct one since it fell down.

Get it! Target carries it in the baby section, but you can find it almost anywhere you buy baby stuff. It retails for about $24.99.

All Moms and Dads want a diaper that can hold a lot of pee at night. Twelve hours of pee to be specific. The regular, standard, run-of-the-mill diapers we use during the day just can’t hold that much pee. Huggies Overnights can!

I swear by these diapers. They can hold all thatextra “liquid” and Little Boy (and PJs and sheets) stay dry! To be totally truthful, there are a few times when we have some leakage out of the top of the diaper and if they came in one size larger I would be in Heaven. This diaper is the closest I can get right now!

Get them! They come in three sizes 3,4 and 5, but aren’t the easiest to find. I get them at CVS and Publix and normally buy 2 bags at a time because the stores run out. A bag of 27 runs about $10 and change.

When your children are babies you can buy toys when they are there with you, go home and wrap them up and give to them later. They act like they’ve never seen it before. That’s what happened when we were shopping with Grandma and my son. He saw the Fisher-Price Amazing Animals Sing and Go Choo-Choo (it was eye height from his stroller), touched the train spout and giggled when it began singing and playing music. Grandma had to get it. So, a birthday present it became.

Since then about 6 weeks have passed and he really loves this toy. He’ll sit with it and turn the music on and clap his hands while it sings along. The voice is soft and cute and the songs are fun. The train moves on its own or you can turn that feature off. It comes with a few animals and they are great toys alone. They bend all different ways and act as rattles because there is something in their feet.  

I love watching him play with this toy because he seems to enjoy it so much.

Get it! Practically anywhere they sell toys. It retails for $30.00, but seems like a more expensive toy.

Here’s another product that “I wish I’d had it earlier.” The Massaging Action Teether from The First Years is an excellent teething ring for babies and toddlers. I found it while searching Babies R Us for a softer teething ring during one of his “teething spells.” The rings we had seemed so hard; he wasn’t using them. I wanted to find something that he could actually chew on. Off to BRU I went and scoured their teething ring aisle. I came across this one that vibrates and thought it couldn’t hurt to try it. Not only did I think the vibration would feel good on his gums, but the rubber that surrounds the vibrating pieces (shaped like a star, with soft points that fit perfectly in little mouths) is very plyable and soft. It also has a rattle in it so babies like to shake it, and the bottom portion is hard so your baby can chew on it too. I found this really helped during those times when nothing seems to work.

Get it! BRU or I’m sure anywhere rattles and teethers are sold. It’s about $7.95.

Every time I say “I can’t live without [insert product name here]” I think, I need to blog. Tonight it was the Safety 1st bath seat. This is a great help at bath time with a baby who is at the in-between stage of bath time. You know, they’re too big for the sling/hammock-type infant tub, they can sit up unassisted, but aren’t quite ready for bath time without some device to help dear Mom and Dad. That’s where the bath ring comes in handy. Little one fits right in and can sit on his own, play and splash while Mom or Dad washes all his parts.  A friend of mine got this seat first and really liked it, but she commented that it’s hard to wash ‘everything.’ True, but a little extra effort from Mom or Dad gets all the parts clean.

A unique feature that I love is the swivel action. I can wash my son’s right ear, then swivel him around and get his left ear – all without having to twist my tired body all around.

I won’t give this product recomendation though without a warning — this is not a device to leave your in child unattended. Furthermore, if you’re easily distracted you might opt for just holding your baby in the tub or sink because you could easily feel overly secure with this ring. It does a great job, but as we all know, it’s not perfect when it comes to water and babies. I found some great added information about this seat too; it tells about which tubs you definetly CAN’T use the ring with. So, just be careful out there.

Get it! It’s about $24.99 everywhere.

I was looking for a stroller that I could carry in the car for those emergency times – when you want to walk around the mall and your 5-year-old gets bored and doesn’t want to walk. He is naturally too big for the strollers that you can rent, I haven’t found an umbrella stroller yet that my husband who is tall can push without slumping over and carrying him is not an option. So I began my search online for the perfect stroller, not any easy task mind you, there are just too many out there and the prices are crazy. The baby-gaga.com site is great and has a very helpful stroller review area where you can look at the max. weight limitations for each one and sort by price.

Once I found several that I thought would work, I went out searching for reviews and I have to say thank you to all of the moms that took the time to review the Chicco C5 Stroller, McLauren stroller and Chicco Tuscany Stroller. It is because of their reviews that I ended up purchasing the Chicco C5 Stroller. On all of the sites and information from Chicco it states that it is for a child who weighs no more then 40 lbs. But after reading many posts, I saw several saying that people had used for a child who weighed up to 55 lbs. and the stroller handled it fine.

The stroller came last night, and I have to say it was the easiest stroller to put together! My son sat in and we took a stroll around the house, it handled beautifully, you would never know that he weighs 40 lbs, I had no trouble pushing it on the carpet, it did not “strain” at all from the extra weight. My husband likes it because it is very high and he can easily push it. It comes with a rain shield, which is a bonus because they usually run at $20.

The sun shade does not look like it is going to provide that much protection, the seat does recline and it has a small basket, which is a nice feature considering this is not available on most umbrella strollers.

I bought it at Babyuniverse.com, $89.99 because they offered free shipping, bonus, because shipping alone on some sites was close to $20.

If you are looking for a really fun gift idea for the person that loves Star Wars - you have got to see the latest edition to the Mr. Potato head family, Artoo-Potatoo.

This is a must have for every Star Wars fan and it looks great next to Darth Tater and Spud Trooper. My son loves Mr. Potato head and could not wait to bring this one home and add it to our collection. It is somewhat smaller then the other two (afterall it is a droid), and as a bonus it comes with Princess Potato!

So if you are looking for a really fun gift idea for this Holiday Season - buy a Mr. Potato Head for your Star Wars fan.

Get it: The Hasbro site has this product for $7.99. Plus you can check out the other Star Wars Potato Head products.

Cleaning bottle parts and nipples is a pain for sure, but sterilizing them is made easy with the Medela Quick Clean bags. You just toss the nipples, rings, breast pump parts, small bottles, then add 2 ounces of water, zip the bag up and zap in your microwave for 3 minutes. There’s a convenient “spout” built into the bag so you can safetly get the hot water out of the bag, open the bag to release the steam, and viola! you have sterilized all of your equipment.

I’ve used these bags since my son was born. Early on I purchased a microwave sterlization contraption that took up space and was akward. Plus, I don’t even know if I could clean my breast pump parts in it. I returned it and then learned of these wonderful Medela bags. Even though I stopped pumping, I still use them to clean the nipples and rings to his larger-sized bottles.
They cost about $5 for a box of 5. Each bag can be used 20 times. There is a convenient “count down” area where you can mark off each time you use them so you don’t loose track.

Git it for sure! I buy mine at Babies R Us, but you can also find them at Target and I’m sure other places that sell breast pump supplies.