eebee is a cutie

Parent Bloggers asked me to review one of "eebee's adventures" dvds, and to be perfectly honest, I initially found it to be a little weird. eebee is a puppet, admittedly pretty cute, who explores all kinds of different methods of play in the dvd- Exploring Real Stuff. eebee, and other babies featured during the video, play and explore with cheerios, rice, paper, wrapping materials, balls, and other equally common objects and manipulate them in different ways. All sorts of experimentation takes place, from dumping to scooping to tearing to crumpling to rolling and sliding.

The real test of the dvd, of course, came from playing it for Gabriel. In the end, what I think doesn't really matter, if the real critic in our family liked or disliked it. He was mesmerized. I was sure it would be a little young for him, since the age range for this particularly dvd started at 6 months (although others on the website start at different ages), but as usual, I was totally wrong. Whenever the screen would shift and the title of the next scene came on, Gabe would scream "more baby!" at the television. He loved the puppet, eebee, and he loved watching the other babies play with the different objects on the screen. He kept inching closer and closer to the television to see the babies up close and personal, and would occasionally turn around to comment to me on what he was seeing.

Besides being entertaining, I almost wanted to pull out paper and a pen to take notes on the different things the babies were playing with in the dvd. It would be a great snowy day activity to fill some containers with rice or beans and let Gabe go to town with a scoop or a tube as they were demonstrating in the movie. I'll definitely be saving my packaging or wrapping materials for him to do some mini-experiments with tearing and crumbling and pulling. I even started thinking that I should wash out my recycling and let him play with it before I put it out each week. The babies in the dvd seemed to be totally engaged with all of the activities, and I think Gabe might enjoy it too.

In addition to the dvd, we also reviewed eebee's HAVE A BALL cloth activity book, and Gabe really loved this one. In fact, I'm planning to order a couple as gifts for other ball lovers in our life, because this book was such a hit. The book has a cloth stuffed ball attached on a string, and on each page of the book, the ball is used in a different way. On one page you put it through a hoop, then on another in a pocket, or you hide it behind a pillow on the page, or some other equally cute activity. Gabe couldn't get enough to playing with it and will often ask for the ball book when we are sitting around. It looks like there are several different books and toys on the website, so there is lots of choose from even if your child isn't obsessed with balls the way Gabe is.

Gabe was a definite fan of eebee's adventures, so I can wholeheartedly recommend the book and dvd for the 2 and under crowd. It would make a great holiday present, and eebee is offering some discount codes for 20% off and free shipping on the website. Here are the codes if you're interested:

free shipping on orders over $50
coupon code: hooray

20% off thru december 25, 2008
coupon code: eebee20

Check out what everyone else has to say about eebee's adventures on Parent Bloggers also!

My Baby A to Z DVD

We've been working on shapes with Gabe for the last couple of weeks, so we're always on the lookout to find some new ways of showing him different shapes in a fun and interesting way. We jumped at the opportunity to review the My Baby A to Z DVD. My Baby A to Z- Come Explore Shapes With Me DVD introduces the basic shapes to kids through a few adorable puppets, fun music, and snippets of children and animation.

Gabe doesn't seem to care much for television, but he found the Come Explore Shapes With Me DVD to be interesting enough to hold his attention for the whole video. I sat with him, and he would excitedly chatter about the characters on screen and point out the shapes he recognized while the video was playing. It was pretty cute, and made me feel that he was definitely learning and having his shapes reinforced for him through the video.

The creators of the DVD are two parents with a toddler themselves, so they have the inside track on what toddlers find interesting. At 21 months, I thought the video was a little challenging for Gabe and would definitely serve an older audience too. For example, when the characters would ask the viewer a question, the answer period was too short for him, so he ended up opening his mouth to try to say something and the puppet would have moved on. I don't see that as a negative, though, I'm sure that as he gets more adept at pointing out shapes and following along it'll be the perfect speed. And for those of you with older kids, it'll likely be the perfect speed to keep them occupied.

Since watching the DVD over the weekend, Gabe has been pointing out circles, triangles, squares and stars to me all over the place. We had taught him those 4 shapes before watching the DVD, but I think maybe having those characters demonstrate how to find shapes in everyday life clued him into his ability to find them all over the place too. It's been exciting to see him make the connections!

The My Baby A to Z DVD is available on Amazon and on the website, and I happen to have a free copy to give away to one lucky reader! Just leave me a comment and I'll have Gabe draw names out of his Halloween candy bucket! Parent Bloggers are also giving away 20 copies of the DVD on the launch post for the DVD, so stop on by to increase your chances!

the tao of fertility

I'm definitely a fan of trying alternative or holistic medicine. Earlier this week I was trying to convince my OB to write me a prescription for acupuncture to see if it could make a dent on this nausea. Which is horrid, by the way. Truly, truly horrid. But that is the subject for another post.

When Parent Bloggers asked if I'd like to review The Tao of Fertility, I jumped at the opportunity because I figured that Josh and I would start "trying" for a second child in the next 6 months or so, and everything helps. I'm a big fan of acquiring as much information as possible, and I've heard wonder stories about Chinese medicine, so I was fascinated to learn more.

Truthfully, though, I can't speak much to the validity of the methods in the book because before I'd finished the first chapter, I found out I was pregnant. I can, however, confirm that having the book in your house helps you get pregnant, so I'm happy to send the book along to anyone interested in having a good luck charm.

I did find the book interesting and informative, however. I don't know much about Chinese medicine, and although I've heard about its success with infertility, I haven't heard details. The Tao of Fertility assumes no prior knowledge, and lays out fertility advice in a straightforward, clear, and logical way. Dr. Daoshing Ni encourages readers to make serious changes in their lives, from diet and nutrition, to herbs, acupuncture and exercise, and even examining your readiness toward having a child. He discusses his methods in relation to Western medicine, and even provides a 28 day plan for readers to follow.

If you are at all interested in undertaking an alternative approach to fertility, or you'd like to try something before embarking on fertility treatments, I would definitely recommend The Tao of Fertility. Dr. Daoshing Ni keeps the book interesting with his clear tone, and touching vignettes sprinkled throughout.

As I mentioned, I'm happy to forward the book along to a worthy recipient. Email me if you're interested, and if I get more than one request, I'll draw names out of a hat. For more information, check out Parent Bloggers or Amazon to order.

a website for the less than organized

Gabe's grandparents have serious gripes with me. I take tons of pictures of Gabe, but I rarely upload them to the computer, and once I do, I very rarely forward them along to family and friends. At first, I claimed it was because I didn't want to be obnoxious and overload their inboxes with pictures of Gabe, but the truth is, I'm just kind of lazy. I'd really like to be able to share pictures of Gabe with my family, especially since the last time I went to my inlaws' house, I realized they have almost no pictures of Gabe around the house!

Enter Kinzin. Kinzin is a website for parents and families that allows you to connect with family and friends, communicate with your family and friends, and share pictures and stories - all in a secure environment. Kinzin allows you to create a family page, including sections for each of your children, and then you can invite family and friends to join your page and keep updated on everything going on in your family. By using Kinzin, you can share information with those people you'd like to keep updated, and maintain your privacy at the same time. In an age where so many of us live far away from our extended families, Kinzin can really help. Best of all, Kinzin is free!

Kinzin allows you to upload pictures and stories to your page. You can create memory books, journals, family newsletters, and even more, all on Kinzin! But my favorite feature of all, by far, and the one that has initiated a truce of sorts with the grandparents, is that you can sign up for an additional service that mails your best 10 photos from every month to the address/es of your choice. Each address to which you'd like photos mailed is $2.99, and every third address is free! $2.99! That's it! To have Kinzin automatically mail 10 photos one time per month to the grandparents or great aunts or cousins, and then no one yells at you anymore! No one has anymore excuses for why they don't have pictures of your children featured prominently on their mantle. Plus, it'll help out those non-computer literate members of your families (we all have 'em). Zero effort from you, and voila! You've kept everyone up to date!

Kinzin is easy to use. So far, I've found that the photos are easy to upload, and you can add titles and descriptions of each picture if you'd like. Kinzin also lets you enter short descriptions of what is new in your child's day or week or stage of development. When you invite family and friends to view your website, they don't have to sign up for anything either, your invitation is enough for them to see your page. Kinzin can even be linked up with your Facebook page, if you'd like the news and pictures about your kids to be more public. Kinzin also works with Flickr to pull photos from there instead of your hard drive, if you'd like.

The bottom line is that if you face the same difficulties I do- finding time to email, print, or mail out photos and then send them along to family and friends, or if you'd like a way to share information about your family through a secure network, Kinzin is for you. I've been using it for a couple of weeks now, the first shipment of photos of Gabe shipped out this week, and so far I've received rave reviews. Everyone has updated pictures, and I didn't have to do anything! It's a win-win situation! Plus, the grandparents are happy!

For more information, check out Kinzin or Parent Bloggers to learn more!

rrrrrrr... a parent bloggers review

Parent Bloggers Review

I grew up speaking Spanish. In fact, Spanish was my first language because my parents didn’t speak much English when I came along. I learned the little bits of English that they knew from them, and then learned more in school and of course, from television. I went through different stages during my childhood of refusing to speak Spanish or being embarrassed to speak Spanish in front of friends. When I was 10, though, we took a trip for 3 months to Argentina to visit all of our family and friends, and since then, I’ve been enraptured with the language. All of a sudden, I realized what being bilingual meant. Since then, I’ve worked to keep up the language, including studying there in high school, college and law school, each for a semester. I’ve tried to get back to Argentina whenever possible, and Josh even took an immersion trip to Costa Rica 2 years ago in the hopes that he’d be able to speak Spanish fluently in the future.

It appears that Gabriel is also working on being bilingual. At least, he’s been gargling and gurgling so much, that my mother in law asked me the other day if he was practicing rolling his r’s. I doubt that, but I certainly have been working to make sure that he will also grow up bilingual. And trust me, this is harder than it sounds. I have to remind myself constantly to speak to him in Spanish, even when Josh is around. I have also been buying books and music CD’s in Spanish so that when we read and sing together, he will constantly be exposed to the language.

When the Parent Bloggers asked me to review the Boca Beth language program, I was excited. Gabriel is still too young at 4 and a half months to give me much of an indication as to whether he likes the products, but I tried them out myself to see what I thought. The Boca Beth set that we received included a DVD called “I like animals”, music CD, coloring activity book, Boca puppet and maraca. All of these products come in a set that retails for $29.99.

The first thing we tried out was the musical CD, along with the props. I tried mimicking the songs from the CD with the Boca puppet. Gabriel was a fan, and I agreed that Boca was pretty cute, with bright colors and ease of maneuverability. The maraca was also a hit with Gabe, although his rhythm was a bit off. The CD had 15 songs that included phrases in both English and Spanish, often directly translated one after the other. The same song might include one sentence in English, followed by the same sentence in Spanish, or vice versa. The songs were catchy and not too long, and I was able to get through a few of them before Gabriel lost interest (not bad for a 4 month old, I’d say). I didn’t love the CD, though, mainly because I would have preferred a full song in each language, or at least a full section of each song in the different languages. Since almost every sentence was in a different language, I thought it could be a little confusing for a non-native speaker. I worry that it might not be totally clear whether each sentence is a repetition of the previous sentence in the other language, or whether it is just a continuation of the song. I did think the songs were fun for kids, though, and as long as you were clear on how the songs were structured, you’d definitely learn Spanish from the CD.

The DVD won me over, though. Gabe doesn’t watch TV yet, but when he does, I’m sure he’ll love the DVD. I believe that the best way to learn another language is by seeing language in context, live and in action, and that is what the DVD does. The DVD is interesting enough to keep a child’s attention, and included quite a bit of vocabulary and language. The DVD’s description boasted 200 vocabulary words and 85 phrases. Not too shabby for one DVD, that’s for sure. Animals are featured throughout, with their names in both Spanish and English, along with descriptive sentences in each language. I also loved the fact that Gabriel will hear grammar and other words besides just the names of the animals. I may even try to imitate that structure when I teach him other words in Spanish and English in the future.

The coloring book was cute, but definitely too old for a baby. I did show it to my 7 year old nephew and almost 4 year old niece, and they both seemed interested in learning the different Spanish words featured in the book. I was pleased to see that the products will apparently appeal to a broad range of ages. Once Gabriel is old enough to understand a little more, I suspect we’ll be using the whole set of products for quite some time.

My overall feeling about the products is that they will definitely come in handy if you’d like to introduce a foreign language to your child. Obviously, they can’t do it all by themselves, but the DVD and CD could certainly spark an interest in Spanish in your child. All the products appear to be entertaining for children, and I’d definitely recommend it to friends.

If you’re interested in checking out one of the Boca Beth sets, leave a comment on Parent Bloggers for a chance to win a free copy!

public service announcement for new moms

I told Gabriel that it's about time that he starts making a living around here, we're not running a free joint. So Gabriel and I have been hard at work for the past couple of weeks reviewing a product from the Parent Bloggers Network- the Burpcatcher. The Parent Bloggers Network reviews all kinds of kid and parent appropriate products through blogging. I've been looking at their products for a while now and have found tons of items that are interesting, so check it out if you have a minute!

If this is your first visit to the Halloweenlover household, welcome! I'm a new mom to an 8 week old baby boy (Gabriel), on maternity leave from my law firm in Boston, married to a business school student (Josh) who is currently knee deep in his post-graduation job search, and living with our two adorable pooches.

I have to admit that many things about being a new mom were a surprise to me- the explosive and leaky diapers, the socks that constantly slip off, the dry skin (for both of us), and definitely, DEFINITELY, the spit-up. My mom never mentioned the spit-up and my niece and nephew never seemed to do it, at least when I was around, so I was wholly unprepared for the prolific, ahem, liquid that could appear without warning. So when the Parent Bloggers Network asked me to review the Burpcatcher, I was psyched!

Funnily enough, I'd just seen an advertisement for the Burpcatcher when I received the email from PBN. The Burpcatcher is just like a regular burp cloth, but with a pocket at one end. Once you place the Burpcatcher over your shoulder or arm, the pocket automatically hangs open, and stays open, to catch any spit-up that might ensue from a burping session. The Burpcatcher comes in a couple of options, both costing $9.99. You can either purchase a package of two flannel Burpcatchers with a ribbon lining in pink, blue or green, or one fleece Burpcatcher also coming in pink, blue or green. Gabe was a little disappointed to receive his sample Burpcatcher in pink, but after some convincing he agreed to try it out anyway.





See? Doesn't he look a little moody about the pinkness?







The Burpcatcher is the first burp cloth to include a pocket that catches spit-up rather than letting it run down your back, or over your arm and onto the rest of your clothing.
The hardest part about using the Burpcatcher, is to remember to pick it up every time you go to burp your baby, or if you know that you are approaching a fussy time that often includes spit-up. In our case, Gabe doesn't consistently spit-up so I occasionally risk it and leave off the burp cloth, but since I was trying the product I made an effort to use it constantly and it certainly worked.

We've found over the last 2 months that regular burp cloths aren't absorbent enough, so for the most part we stick with cloth diapers. I was happy to find that the flannel fabric was just as absorbent as the cloth diapers we've been using and caught most of the spit-up before it reached the pocket, but the pocket did save my sweater a couple of times. We also draped it over the boppy and leaned him onto the boppy for some modified tummy time. It caught some unanticipated spit-up then too. I even brought it to my new mommy's group to see what some of the other mothers thought, and those of us that have experienced the spit-up agreed that it would have been a great gift. The colors are simple enough to go with anyone's style. It would be a cute shower gift if you were in the market for gifts.

Now if only Burpcatcher could come up with a burping bib with a pocket too, for those spit-up episodes when I'm sitting Gabe up in front of me for a chat!

All in all, I was definitely pleased with these burp cloths and found them easy to use and pretty cute. One of the other reviewers mentioned that in her dryer the Burpcatchers were the last things to dry, but I didn't have that experience, although now I'm wondering if maybe I'm overdrying my clothes! I'd definitely recommend them to a new mom or anyone looking for a baby gift.

monitors anyone?

There is an awful lot going on in the halloweenlover household these days, most of them relating to the bayyybeee that is possibly arriving in this household in the coming weeks. This Monday was our 32 week appointment, at which time the pumpkin showed off its wriggling skills and moved in and out of the reach of the doppler several times, making it difficult for the doctor to get an accurate read on the heartbeat. He or she probably weighs around 4 pounds, based on her manual estimates and measurements. All appears to be well, and we're very happy to be crossing the threshold into 32 weeks. For some reason, this whole baby thing feels very REAL these days.

Over the past couple of weeks, Josh and I have been fortunate enough to play around with a new product sent to us for our review. A very, very new BABY product, that has just hit the shelves at your neighborhood Huge Baby Store, the Philips DECT Baby Monitor.

Now, a baby monitor was something we'd thought long and hard about. Should we get a video monitor or an audio monitor? What were the relevant features? What about interference? Would it block the cordless phone and internet (we've experienced this problem before)? What about price? What about size and looks? There were a number of things to think about.

Once you've made the choice for an audio monitor rather than video, the Philips monitor definitely comes out as a front runner. After owning it and playing with it for a couple of week, albeit without a baby, here are my thoughts:

1. It is the cutest baby monitor I've seen out there.
These monitors, both the one that remains in the baby's room and the one that goes along with you, are pretty sleek and modern-looking. The monitors are white with yellowish/orange accents. The parental unit comes with an attachment to wear it on your belt or around your neck. It is small, about the size of a small cordless phone or largish cell phone.

2. The features and perks are very nice.
Both monitors have bright displays that are easy to read. Both show you the time, volume, and temperate in the nursery. The parental unit (handheld one) can activate a few lullabies and a nightlight from a remote location. We tested this one out and could scroll through and turn on lullabies from downstairs! The nightlight can also be turned on from downstairs, and it seems to be a good strength, nothing so crazy that it would wake up a baby, it just sort of casts a soft glow over the room and displays little stars on the light up portion. You can also use the parental monitor to talk to the baby from another room. I'm not sure how much we'll use this feature, but I didn't see it on other monitors. Of all of these, my favorite feature was seeing the temperature in the nursery since I'm a little paranoid about that room getting too hot, since it is very small.

3. Best of all, NO INTERFERENCE.
We used the monitors near the computers while surfing the internet, and tested them with each of our cordless phones and even while the microwave was running. This was a problem we'd had in the past with tons of electronics, so it was a relief to get away from it! Apparently, Philips uses "digital enhanced cordless telecommunication" to make sure you don't hear your neighbor's baby instead of your own by scrolling through up to 60 channels to find a clear connection. I don't know anything about the technology, but it definitely worked. Our neighborhood is full of kids and even when we left it on for hours, we never heard anything but our own house. Josh and I had a good time using the monitor as a walkie-talkie and running around the house chatting to each other. When we aren't making noise, I hear absolutely nothing from the monitor- no background noise or strange sounds or buzzing or anything. I think I'll appreciate that when I'm trying to sleep.

The monitor is really new, and I've only seen it on display in the glass display case at Huge Baby Store, looking all petite and cute next to the other models. I was nervous to have a review a product like this one, because I've been so picky about other baby items, I was convinced I'd be disatisfied. But truthfully, I'm very impressed with how easy to use and functional I think the Philips monitor is. I'd definitely recommend it to other new or expectant parents I know. Feel free to email me if you have any other questions! And I'll do another review once the littlest member of our family is here. I'm sure I'll have more opinions once there is a baby on the other end, instead of Josh making scary noises and trying to terrify me.