Wordless Wednesday - Speed Racer

I am completely smitten with the Hipstamatic app* for the iPhone. That is all.

*Okay, not quite all. Full disclosure: I was neither asked nor paid to write anything about Hipstamatic. I heard about it from Sarah Funk at Silver Lamb Studios, paid for the download, and have been obsessively playing with it ever since.

Things I Love - Bugaloo Shoes

Top 6 reasons why you should buy these shoes right now:

6. They're made in North America. To steal from this website: They're made for children, not by children. This dovetails nicely with what I've been reading recently as well as my own long-established prejudice/preference for buying from small business, more-or-less local, and hand made.

5. Free shipping (including international) with an order of 3 pairs.

4. Five percent of your purchase goes to Justice International Mission.

3. Cheaper by a significant margin than Robeez (which are now owned by a huge multinational and manufactured in the, to quote the nebulous term on their corporate website, Far East).

2. Excellent customer service, quick turnaround, and Heidi Wells answers her own emails.

And the number one reason to buy these shoes without delay:

1. The most important reason to buy any shoe, any time, for anyone: they are almost unbearably cute!!


I stumbled across the website almost by accident when looking for baby shoes on craigslist, and was impressed with the beautiful designs for both boys and girls, and the ease of placing an order. I chose the Sneakers (which I loved so much I ordered them in two sizes), and the Clives. When I got the shoes three days later (three days including shipping internationally), I was even more impressed. They're really well made, they fit well without being too tight or falling off, and they're even cuter in person than on the website. Whenever we're out and about The Boy never fails to get compliments on his shoes.

The Boy checks out his new footwear

Even better, Bugaloo is currently running a spring sale. Many of the shoes are only $14.

Note: I have no financial interest in Bugaloo Shoes, nor have I been offered free product or samples to write this review. Just like other reviews under Things I Love, I have found them myself or through the recommendations of friends, and used them in the real world.

Things I Love - gDiapers

Before The Boy was born, I was pretty sure I wanted to use cloth diapers. Using cloth seemed like a good fit, philosophically. As I've mentioned before, I couldn't stand the idea of creating tons of garbage with regular disposables, and cloth diapers are substantially less expensive. We found a local diaper service that was even cheaper than buying and laundering our own. We live in an apartment with coin-op washers/dryers - on top of the initial investment in supplies, it would have cost us $21/week to do a load every day. The diaper service, which includes drop-off, pick-up, and laundering with non-toxic cleaners, is only $18/week for 70 diapers. Regular newborn sized disposables at our local shops range from $14-$16/package for just 40 diapers. So it was an easy decision: save money and be an eco-warrior!

The only thing I was not looking forward to was a smelly diaper bag full of poopy cloth diapers whenever we were away from the house for any length of time. Ick. Then a co-worker, Rodney, asked me if I'd ever heard of gDiapers. (How he knew about them I don't know, as he has no children, but he's the kind of guy that just knows cool things.) I checked out their website, learned where they could be purchased in Vancouver, and decided to give them a try. I figured worst-case scenario I could always use regular disposables...
I loved them from the very beginning, and have been using them ever since! They are guilt-free disposables. Cute cloth outer cover, a snap-in reusable waterproof liner, and absorbent inserts that are biodegradable, compostable, and flushable. And no gaggingly cloying scent - smell is a big deal for me, so this is a huge plus. They're awesome! Even if I just wantonly throw them out, they don't clog up the landfill.

Eight months ago, when The Boy was first born, they were only available at specialty baby stores and health food stores, but they've grown in popularity so much since that they're now available at many drug stores.

It should be noted that we have also used regular disposable diapers, so I am able to do a direct comparison between regular disposables and the gDiapers. My son and I were lucky enough to vacation in Provence when he was two months old. Cloth was out of the question (who wants to do that much laundry on a holiday?) and gDiapers weren't available. For the first time in his life, The Boy was in Pampers. And for the first time in his life, he had diaper rash. And I was horrified at the amount of garbage we created in just two weeks. We've also used regular disposables on a couple of other trips, and for a while we used them overnight for their absorbency; we found that once The Boy was sleeping more than a couple of hours at a time, cloth diapers just weren't able to do the job. But we've now eliminated regular disposables entirely; we use cloth at home during the day, gDiapers when out and about, and gDiapers overnight.

The Takeaway:

Pros:
gDiapers = no diaper rash (every baby's bum is different, but this is true for us)
guilt-free disposables
"little g" cloth covers are so cute!

Cons:
a little more expensive and not quite as convenient as regular disposables
not yet available everywhere
subject to the same blowouts/fit issues as any other diaper

Things I Love

This post was prompted by a conversation I had yesterday with a newly-pregnant friend. She's been collecting lists of must-have baby items and we were discussing some of them. It's my experience that at least half the items on any must-have baby list are not in fact things you must have. What you absolutely must have for a newborn is food (your breasts or formula), shelter (your home, including diapers), and love (your arms). And a car seat, or they won't let you leave the hospital and drive home. Everything else, no matter how convenient or attractive, is non-essential. So many of these helpful lists are compiled by companies, stores, or manufacturers who want to sell something to you, or by magazines who are currying favour with their advertisers. They all have a vested interest in making you think you need more than you do.

One of the things on the list my friend was looking at was a fancy counter top steamer. The helpful hint that accompanied the recommendation was that the steamer could be used not only for sterilizing bottles in the early days, but later on would be great to steam vegetables and make your own baby food. It was multi-purpose, thereby saving you from having to buy both a bottle sterilizer and a baby food steamer. Sounds logical, right?

Except that you don't need to sterilize bottles. A run through the dishwasher or a careful hand wash in hot soapy water is all that's required. And you don't need to buy a special steamer to make baby food - an inexpensive insert or dim-sum style bamboo steamer is more than adequate to cook anything you want. Or sterilize your bottles, for that matter.

It's always better to trust recommendations from other moms. They have no interest in selling you something you don't need, and they've actually used the product in practical, real-world situations.

With that, a new feature here on Wave The Stick: Things I Love.

It should be noted that I do not work for any of these companies, I don't own stock in them (but maybe I should!) and I've not been given free samples to review or promote. This is stuff I have heard about from friends or discovered for myself and actually use. I should also say that I welcome feedback if you've tried a product I recommend and love it too - or even more important, if you've tried something and didn't like it at all! Nothing works for everyone - I'd love to hear all perspectives.

The Bumbo Baby Sitter

It's a really fascinating and wondrous thing to watch your tiny human evolve from a helpless being completely oblivious to his environment, to an aware little creature observing his environment, to an engaged little guy interacting with his environment, to a very busy little person trying to effect change on his environment.

Until babies' eyesight develops enough to see beyond the distance from mother's breast to her eyes, they're pretty much oblivious to anything and everything else. You need to get right up close and personal for them to be aware of you. Toys don't mean much - heck, even their own hands float through their field of vision and cease to exist once they're no longer in view.

As eyesight improves and babies learn to hold their heads up, observing becomes a huge thing. They watch EVERYTHING. My son has always wanted to know about everything that was going on around him, and would get frustrated if he couldn't be a part of the action. He got bored pretty quickly with looking up at the ceiling all the time. That's where the Bumbo seat came in.

Here's The Boy, pictured in his Bumbo at about 3 1/2 months. It gave his little body excellent support, allowing him to sit up and watch the world before he could manage it on his own. There are no fussy straps or buckles, and it's really easy to get him in and out of it - but not easy for him to escape from himself, at least not yet! It's really easy to clean - a smooth surface with no nooks or crannies for gunk to collect in. Babies are shockingly proficient producers of gunk in various forms: spit up, drool (not the same thing), dropped food particles... Not to mention the unfortunate leakages that occasionally occur...

Once my boy was past simply watching what was going on around him but not yet able to sit up on his own, his Bumbo allowed him to stay upright while interacting with simple toys: rattles, wooden blocks (and whatever else was handy and not baby-toxic).

Now at 7 1/2 months, and really trying to effect change on everything around him - what I call the see-it-grab-it-eat-it stage - the Bumbo is really effective in limiting his grabbing range. Now that he can sit up and move around a little on his own, I use the Bumbo to curtail how much trouble he can get into. It keeps him just immobile enough that I can get things done, but not so immobile that he's shrieking to get out of it.

Takeaway:
Excellent product, performs as advertised.
Retails for about $60 new.
Pretty indestructible. I bought mine used for $30 - it looks brand new.