Modern Mamma Marvels

I was sent two boxes of Whole Grain Pop Tarts for review. I have to be honest and up front: I didn’t eat the one flavor. We were sent Strawberry and Cinnamon. And, well, I’m allergic to cinnamon. Tongue swells, throat closes. Not a pretty picture. And so, FireDad took those to work and reviewed them for me. The Strawberry ones stayed with me in the FireHouse and, well, I’ve got nothing bad to say about them!

I don’t like overly sweet things. I always pick salty over sweet. But these Pop Tarts, unlike their non-whole-grain counterparts, aren’t smeared with a top full of icky sugar frosting. It’s just a gentle swirl. This, of course, was a negative point in FireDad’s review. He does like sugary things. However, he did like the taste and said that while he knew that they were whole grain, they didn’t have that “overly healthy” taste to them that made him not want to finish. If FireDad approves of something healthy, well, that’s a good thing.

BigBrother had a few bites but wasn’t really sure about the jam-texture inside. (He has food texture issues.) So, I resigned myself to eating the whole box for review. (Not the whole thing at once, of course!) And I found something surprisingly wonderful. When combined with my other high-fiber breakfast foods (fiber enriched yogurt and, uhm, coffee! ha!), the whole grain Pop Tarts did a great job of, uhm, well, let’s just say that things were comfortably regular in our house. Fiber is good!

I liked the flavor. I liked the health factor. I think BigBrother will actually like these once he gets past his jam indifference. I liked the lack of much-o sugar on top. I liked the fiber! And, to be truthful, when I went grocery shopping last Thursday, I picked up another box. Not of the cinnamon, of course. I haven’t bought Pop Tarts since college when I didn’t care what I was ingesting. I do care nowadays. And I bought them. With my own money. And I’ll do it again. And again. And now I want a Pop Tart even though it’s my “everything” bagel morning. Mmm.

For those interested, here’s the info on the strawberry and the cinnamon.

I’m not really great at cleaning. It’s not that I don’t like a clean house. I do! But with two children age two and under, my priorities aren’t necessarily focused on the bathroom sink. Clean diapers, yes. A presentable mirror, well, no. However, I accepted the challenge offered to me to review Clorox Green Works natural cleaning products. I figured it would force me to clean my bathroom. Because, uh, otherwise? Well, let’s just say it wouldn’t have been on the top of my to-do list this Saturday morning!

Maybe I wanted to do this because I now have a two year old who is using the bathroom. Not consistently. Not on his own. But he’s in there. And he’s touching things. And I want those things to be clean. And while I want them clean, I don’t want the added worry of, “What if he licks the sink? Will he pick up some bleach residue and turn into an Ewok?” Yes, I think these things. Because? Two year old kids lick sinks. And they stick their hands in their mouth before and after washing their hands. And just a myriad of other ick-factors that make you not only doubt your cleaning regimen, as in how often, but what you’re using to clean with. Oh, scary.

And so, when I got the Green Works cleaning agents in the mail, I read the ingredients. I expected a long list of words I couldn’t pronounce. Nope. Take the All-Purpose Cleaner for example:

coconut-based cleaning agent (nonionic surfactant), corn-based ethanol, , filtered water and
biodegradable preservative, fragrance with essential lemon oil, contains no phosphorous or bleach.

Coconut, eh? I can get behind some coconuts. And so, without a scary list of ingredients, my next question is, of course, your question as well.

So, uh, does it work?

I put them to test in my, uh, not-so-clean bathroom. I don’t have a long amount of time for cleaning. I need things to work quickly so I can get back to important things like reading books, over and over, to BigBrother. And rushing him to the bathroom when he announces, “BIG PEE!” And changing Poo-Splosions made by LittleBrother. And feeding him at the tap every fifth second. You know, real life things. I don’t have patience for cleaning products that don’t work quickly or require too much eblow grease. And, man, my sink was DIRTY. Ew.

Much to my delight and, honestly, total surprise, the All-Purpose cleaner did its job on the sink with no problem. Or exertion on my part. Spray. Wipe. It’s clean. I was still wary when I picked up the Glass & Surface cleaner and sprayed it on my mirror. (Which was also, uh, not-too-clean.) I honestly expected streaks. No streaks! Clean mirror! Quickly! Hurrah!

So, all right, they clean efficiently. My next question is always the deal-breaker.

What’s it smell like? You see. I don’t like perfume-y smells. I have a sensitive nose. I don’t like flowery stuff. I don’t like over-bearing clean-y smells. And these products are none of those things. I fresh, lemon-y smell that doesn’t make you gag or overwhelm you by the time you’ve wiped down your entire bathroom. Even FireDad agreed that they smell all right.

Truth be told, I love this line. Will I still use bleach on some things that BigBrother can’t yet reach? Yeah, I’m sure. But am I going to grab the All Natural Toilet Bowl cleaner the next time I’m at the store? You bet your biscuits.

I’m sure you all remember the hullabaloo about Baby Einstein making your kids dumb. I’m here to say, “Stupid is as stupid does.” (Thanks, Forrest Gump!) Truth is, if you use the television as a babysitter, sure, your kid isn’t going to learn as quickly as the mothers and fathers who are actively doing things with their children. That’s why I’m digging the new Baby Einstein initiative to get parents involved with their children.

I received Baby Einstein: Baby’s First Moves for review. We have the whole box set of the other Baby Einstein DVDs so I was excited to have a new one in house. I really can’t say enough about this particular DVD. While LittleBrother, only three months, merely sat on my lap and occasionally looked at the screen as I chattered along about what was going on, BigBrother surprised the heck out of me.

You see, two-plus-years is really out of the “Baby” Einstein demographic. But holy frijoles did BigBrother enjoy watching this video. The three of us sat on the floor in front of our television. I had told BigBrother that we were going to watch something “special” for LittleBrother. Well, that was enough to make him interested. Use of the word special always has that kid on board! From the moment that a baby came on the screen, BigBrother was delighted. As the narrator talked about what the babies were doing (walking, clapping, standing up), he joined in, looking to me for my approval and continued narration. He explained to me what the puppets were doing and laughed any time a puppet or a child played peek-a-boo.

Color me surprised. This kid is all about actions. Cars that go fast. Sirens that wail. So when he took such an interest in a “baby movie,” I was just simply shocked. But I used it to my benefit. We talked about each scene. We talked about the sounds that the animals made. We talked about hair and hands and eyes and noses. I did all of this with him when he was little and in the age demographic for the movies and plan on doing the same with LittleBrother as he becomes more interested. I suppose this is why BigBrother can’t watch anything on television without discussing what is going on with whomever is watching with him. Makes it hard to watch the news, I tell you.

The best feature of the new DVD is the “Baby Moves” section. A pilates instructor gives you a few easy exercises to do with your baby throughout your daily routine. Any Mama looking to lose a few pounds would benefit from the lunges and lifts and your baby will enjoy the time spent together. Of course, don’t feed your baby immediately before lifting him directly over your head. Yeah. Ick.

All in all, I’m pleased with this particular DVD. Quite frankly, if I hadn’t been sent to review it, I wouldn’t have known that BigBrother could still benefit from watching these with us as a family. We still won’t be watching them on a daily basis or throwing the baby in front of them on repeat (I never, ever choose repeat mode) but I think we’ll make it part of our weekly learning adventures.

Interested in picking up the new DVD? Get it on Amazon! (And PS? The new website is fabulous.)

I’ve been in a food rut for awhile. It started near the end of my pregnancy with LittleBrother and continued through, well, it’s still going on. I recently decided to try and work myself out of this rut. Not an easy task!

I bought Rachael Ray’s 365: No Repeats; A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners (A 30-Minute Meal Cookbook). And I can’t say enough about it. It’s really a great cookbook. And the pictures are colorful which is good for those of you who are visual, like me. I was kind of bummed that each recipe didn’t offer a picture (remember, I just said I’m a visual person) but the pictures that are offered are quite nice.

There’s a bit of humor written into the book which is nice if you’re really trying to convince yourself out of that rut. The point behind the book, no repeats for a year, gives you a wide selection of choices. And that, right there, is why I suggested this book as a good pick even if you’re “blessed” with picky kids.

BigBrother is in the “no thanks” stage of eating. (At least he’s polite about it, right?) The few recipes I have made from the book thus far, well, he’s taken a few bites and even offered up a “yum” before running away to find something more interesting than sitting still for five minutes. The recipes are quick which is a “must have” in a recipe when you’ve got two children ages two and under. I don’t have time for difficult recipes. I don’t have times for “big and scary” new things. But I do have time to find some healthy, new and quick recipes for our family to try out.

Some of my favorites in the book? Southwestern Pasta Bake. Zucchini and Bow Ties. Fa-Schizzel My Schnitzel. (No, really. See? Humor.) For Neil Diamond: Tangy Cherry Chicken. Sounds like some interesting stuff, no? I wish I had pictures to share of a few things but I never have the camera on my mind when food is ready. I want to eat, eat, eat!

There are some thing in the book that my kids just aren’t going to eat just yet. You know, like shellfish. Or lots of chewy meat options. But there are also 365 recipes from which to choose. They’re going to like something. Trust me. If BigBrother approved of anything, it should be a go for your house.

Pick it up!

I’m raising a transportation afficionado. It was a given that he would like fire trucks since we’re constantly visiting FireDad at the Fire Department. But if it goes, this kid is all about it. Trains, boats, trucks, cars, bikes, clouds. He also likes the things that vehicles use to travel on. Water. Roads. Bridges. “Clouds” (you know, airplanes fly on clouds!). That’s why I wasn’t all that surprised when he couldn’t peel himself away from Bob the Builder: On-Site - Roads and Bridges.

He had never watched Bob the Builder prior to sitting down with me to watch this DVD. But the footage of really big machines made him run to his room, grab a “digger” and come back to fix our living room floor into a road. Of course, I then had to read our whole library of big machine books immediately after we were done watching the show together but, hey, I’m all about the books so I didn’t mind all that much!

I had no idea that this movie was going to become one of his favorites but it has! Now that he’s seen it a few times, he sits and names off the machines while making any number of sounds from his arsenal of personal sound effects. I was amused as we traveled to the next city over and he started telling me, in mixed legitimate terms and two-year-old mumbo-jumbo, how to make a road. Since I had watched it with him, I offered up some of the right prompts and he was the happiest he has been in the car for a long time as we talked about building roads.

This movie gets a two thumbs up rating from BigBrother and from FireMom. (As in, it doesn’t annoy the bejeebus out of me like some kid films do!) If you have a Bob the Builder fan or just a transportation guru, grab this one!!

Many thanks to the Parent Bloggers Network for the DVD to review. Read more of what others are saying about this one!

We were sent some Yoplait Kids Yogurt for review. To be honest, there wasn’t much for us to review. BigBrother has been eating Yoplait Kids since he outgrew a yogurt for babies. (You know the one.) He runs to the fridge and exclaims and variation of words for yogurt. Gurt! O-Gurt! Randomly, E-gurt! And on occasion, Yo-gurt! He’s recently mastered holding the yogurt cup with one hand while spooning out the yogurt with the other. When he was first learning to do this, he pulled too hard on the spoon and got yogurt all over his forehead.

Okay, I digress. But it was a funny sight. (However, it’s not a totally jump. Yoplait has tips for letting kids learn to spoon-feed themselves right on their site! See. I knew what I was talking about!)

What’s so great about Yoplait kids? You mean, beyond the fact that they are decorated with Blues Clues, Dora or Diego? (Hey, when you’re fighting a food battle kid and he likes something healthy because it has a character on the front, well, you just don’t argue.) Yoplait Kids yogurts are smooth. No fruit chunks to provide choking hazards. Or, if you’re like my son, to spit out. (Things “in” food are a no-no for BigBrother.) The flavors of the traditional yogurt cups are good. No. Really. I once accidentally tasted the vanilla (Blues Clues) and then I finished eating it. (As a side note, I now eat Yo-Plus vanilla everyday.) The yogurt drink is in a small bottle but, I must admit, BigBrother isn’t in a bottle-holding-to-drink stage yet. It got a bit messy over here. I would assume by summer he’d be more able to handle such a thing. Until then, we’ll spoon out our yogurt!

Beyond that stuff, Yoplait Kids is nutritious. Don’t tell your kids but this yogurt has 25% less sugar than the average of leading “kids” yogurts. I don’t know about your kids but BigBrother doesn’t need an excess of sugar. Nope. Not at all. Less is good for this child. Beyond that, it’s a good source of calcium, vitamins A & D, and naturally occurring omega-3’s (DHA) for forming brains. Awesome.

Back to the yogurt drinks? Uhm, I drank them. They were good. I do feel it will be a great snack for BigBrother this summer when everything has to be done quickly so we can get back outside as soon as possible! We just need to work on the actual process of drinking something like that. Or buy straws. Yes!

All in all, we love Yoplait Kids Yogurt in this house. (And the adult brands, too.) BigBrother doesn’t have a wide range of tastes in food right now so I’m glad that he likes something that’s remotely healthy.

And now you can give it a try. Go to YoplaitKids.com and click on the “free coupon” button on the right hand side of your screen. It’s good for a free package of Yoplait Kids yogurt! Free is good! Healthy is good! Good is good! Good!

I’ve done a lot of dieting over the years. I’ve done some smart things. And some not-so-smart things. I’ve bought expensive stuff. I’ve tried the cheapie generic brands of the expensive stuff. I don’t enjoy the process of losing weight. However, I just had another baby and want to lose the weight. So, I jumped at the chance when the Parent Bloggers Network asked me to review The Ultimate Tea Diet by Mark “Dr. Tea” Ukra.

Before the book came in the mail, I was trying to figure out what the heck it could be about. I was hoping the book wasn’t going to say, “Drink tea only. Don’t eat. Just drink tea!” I figured that would also aid in some unhealthy weight loss but, as much as I love a glass of iced tea or a cup of hot tea, I also dig me some food. So I was pleasantly surprised to know that this book is not about cutting food out of your diet and replacing it with a beverage. It’s about adding tea to a health choice of foods and getting off your rear end.

Apparently tea has three super awesome things that, when placed together, make you lose weight. I’m sure you know one. Caffeine. You’ve gotta read the book for the other two. (I’m awful, no?)

I enjoyed reading this book. As a long time tea drinker, I enjoyed learning the history of tea, some really interesting facts and other information about tea. I learned what is and is not a tea. You know that chamomille that I used to drink before bed in college? Totally not a tea. It was a history lesson without feeling like “learning.”

What I really enjoyed were the recipes and meal plans in the back of the book. I’m not always that inventive in the kitchen so having new stuff, easy to make, right at my fingertips was a great resource. It takes this book from being a fad diet to a usable guide to weight loss! Of course, I can’t have the cinnamon roast hot todtea because I’m allergic to cinnamon but not every recipe called for cinnamon. Just for tea! That’s right. Every recipe, whether it is for breakfast, lunch or dinner, calls for you to add some tea. It’s an interesting way to look at cooking. Chicken tea soft tacos. Eggplant and sun-dried tomato tea chicken. Quick and easy tea hummus with whole-wheat pita. Those are just three of ones I’m most interested in!

To be honest with my readers, I haven’t yet made any of the recipes nor have I started the diet. I’m still too soon after birth to really get “in” to a diet. I’m thinking after he turns three or four months that this will be my first stop on the weight loss trail. Other than the gym. But just because I haven’t tried it doesn’t mean I think it’s a waste. The book offers a simple to follow plan. And this important advice:

If you say you can, you will; if you say you can’t, you won’t.

Amen. That’s advice to live by! I hope to come back by my brother’s wedding in August and tell you that The Tea Diet combined with normal exercise got me into that bridesmaid dress and made me feel awesome. I guess that will be my “final” review at that time. Until then, pick up the book and get cooking. And brewing some tea.

And so it would seem natural that BigBrother would dig Wheels on the Bus: Mango’s Big Dog Parade. I wasn’t really sure how he would react. He doesn’t really dig “people shows.” But the puppets? Especially a monkey? He was diggin’ the monkey. He wasn’t really sure about the dragon but, oh, the monkey was a thumbs up from that little critic.

FireDad and I were a bit bothered by the lip-syncing problems with the spoken word segments. Yes, we’re overly critical about stuff like this but, really, it was distracting for the both of us. Then again, we’re not the target audience, are we? To top it off, BigBrother didn’t seem to notice because he was entranced by the songs.

He’s a musical kid and so the tunes really made this DVD work for him. He was humming along with the songs even though he didn’t know them (though you’d definitely know the tune for The Wheels on the Bus by the end of the show even if you didn’t know it prior!). He had a few dance moves. He had a few laughs. It was good.

Personally, I was digging the whole “taking turns” theme. We’re working on that in our house right now and BigBrother even turned to me once while we were watching and said, “Mommy’s turn!” Of course, it doesn’t always work (see also this post) but hopefully he’ll learn someday!

We liked the DVD enough to keep it in our library. While I don’t think it would be BigBrother’s first pick, it will be a nice distraction from the constant Thomas the Train nonsense that we currently have going on up in here. And really, he laughed every time that bus tried to talk to him and I love his laughter. So it’s a win-win situation.

Hit up the Parent Bloggers Network to see what others are saying about Wheels on the Bus: Mango’s Big Dog Parade so far. Also, they’re giving away a free copy of the DVD so be sure to enter before January 21st!

We like music almost as much as we like books in this household. Actually, it just depends on what we’re doing whether we would choose books over music or music over books. Sometimes we’ve got music on while we’re reading books. In the car, I prefer music as reading while moving makes me physically ill. BigBrother, however, doesn’t seem to have this problem. Yet. He can read and groove at the same time.

When it comes to television, BigBrother likes shows and/or movies that allow him to groove a little bit. That’s why That Baby DVD was a big hit with this kid. And this mom. I knew that I would like it when I was contacted by the Parent Bloggers Network to review the DVD and CD. I mean, music made popular by Joni Mitchell, The Pretenders and, oh, oh!, Fleetwood Mac?! That my child would supposedly like?! Sign me up!

But you never know how kids are going to react to certain things. He’s a butt-shaker when it comes to music. He likes songs that make him dance. I wasn’t sure that he was going to “feel” the “mellow” of these songs. But I put it in the DVD player and we sat down on the couch together to share the experience. And the kid was intrigued. Whew.

As with anything we watch on television, I talked the entire time to keep him engaged. During the first song (which I was totally digging, by the way), some trees are moving in a circular fashion. The trees are all different from one another; one has autumn leaves, another is covered with red hearts and one is a purple tree with circles. As we’re learning about shapes right now (and arguing that all colors are not, in fact, green), he really liked this particular part of the video.

One song that I expected to hate but ended up laughing at/with and loving was “Brass in my Pocket” (originally made popular by The Pretenders; you know it, trust me). I like the song. But… when it started… there were children… lip-syncing. And I cringed. I don’t like lip-syncing in normal, everyday music videos and most of those artists are trained to lip-sync properly. Kids? Well, let’s just say I was watching their mouths and dying inside. For a little bit. Until my son started laughing. And then he got off the couch and started dancing with the kids who were not only lip-syncing but dancing around in typical kid-style dance. He would look back at me, big grin on his face, and shake his little but. He even sang along at one point, informing me that, “I special!” Yes, Bubba, you’re special. And so, by the end of the song, I wasn’t horrified by lip-syncing children. (Even if that one little girl was a little over the top for me.) Instead, I was laughing with my son and shaking my own pregnant butt. On the couch.

BigBrother also really enjoyed the alphabet and numbers segments. As the parent, I was pleased to see that they went through the alphabet and the numbers slow enough that BigBrother could join in and say the next letter without being rushed but not so slow that you wondered if your DVD player had stopped functioning. It was an appropriate pause! Good job!

0Some things I really dig about That Baby DVD? The inside cover of the DVD gave some specific reasonings as to why songs were chosen and what went into making the video. Now, granted, BigBrother isn’t going to find interest in that kind of information. But as a parent and a music lover, I was thoroughly intrigued! As the liner says, there’s more information on the website. And, AND! Do you know my favorite part of the whole thing? This little quote (found on their details page) that means a million bucks to any parent:

If your discs get scratched, stepped on, dropped under the car seat, or smeared with peanut butter, we’ll replace Them, free of charge. We have kids too. We know how it is.

Okay, so not a million bucks. But $34.95 if you buy That Baby DVD and That Baby CD together. (As for the CD? Perfect (PERFECT) for car trips and includes three more songs than the video. I strongly suggest buying both.) BUT OH! WAIT! Want 20% off? (Christmas is coming. Christmas is coming.) Simply visit the site, order the video and enter the coupon code: PBN. That gets you 20% off of your purchase. Who doesn’t love a sale?

Intrigued yet? (I would be.) I’m embedding the video below. (If it doesn’t work, hit up their details page and watch it over there!) But before I do, I have to say: we’re fans. BigBrother wanted to watch the entire video, all the way through the credits. (Usually, by the time credits roll, he’s ready for something else.) That Baby CD is in the car and, yes, I’ve listened to it when my child wasn’t present. BigBrother refers to That Baby DVD as “Dancing Kid Song” and has asked for it on his own a few times since we’ve received it. I don’t have a problem letting him watch it… even with the lip-syncing.

(If you’re wondering what other Mamas and Kids are thinking, hit up the Parent Bloggers Network Campaign Launch post for That Baby DVD!)

I’ve been the recipient of a bunch of wrong words a the totally wrong time. However, I’ve also been blessed to get a few right words at the right time. That’s why this book resonated with me on almost every level.

The Right Words at the Right Time, Volume 2: Your Turn! by Marlo Thomas and (new) Friends was sent to me for review by Mother Talk. I was initially scared of it’s thick size! (401 pages!!) I’m a mother of a toddler in my last motnth of a very complicated pregnancy. How was going to start and finish this thing in time for review?! Panic set in.

Then I picked up the book.

Man, it was super easy to knock out one or two of the thirteen parts in a sitting. The stories in each part were short, to the point and mostly emotionally uplifting. I say mostly because, on occasion, they jumped into heavier emotional territories than you want to be jumping into when you’ve got third trimester insomnia and you’re trying not to think of worst-case-scenario type outcomes for your overly complicated pregnancy. (Pregnancy and early infant loss are mentioned a few times throughout these stories. I give this as a warning to expectant mothers and mothers of loss.)

And so, rather quickly, the book was finished. I enjoyed it. I related to the authors of these stories because they were everyday citizens, like you and like me, as opposed to the celebrities featured in the first book. I felt like I had more in common with these people even if it was just the fact that the paparazzi doesn’t care about my every last move.

A few of my favorites? The story “Through My Daughter’s Eyes” on page 114 really made me smile. A mother who was just having an all around blah-kind-of-day was uplifted by her daughter’s kind and sincere words. I know what it’s like to have those moments and be uplifted by your very young child. BigBrother does it for me on a daily basis. (Or, really, sometimes daily! He’s not perfect and neither am I!) A few pages later on 141, I liked the reminder that “stuff” in our lives can either make us “bitter or better.” It’s something that I had to keep in mind, especially when I got to the story on page 208. I COULD be bitter that adoption is referred to as a “win-win situation.” I mean, it is totally dismissive of the birth parent experience: how it is a lifetime sentence of grief and loss. That hardly seems like a win on the part of the birth parent, does it? Instead, I’ll just use this moment in my review to say that adoption is not always a win-win situation and it should not always be viewed as such. Real mothers and real fathers do live with the lifelong trauma of relinquishment. Coercion and corruption do exist in today’s system. It should not be dismissed as a “win.” Before judging it as such, ask all parties involved, including the birth family and adoptee, if they view it as such. And now I feel better for having educated possible readers about a mistake in the book. So there.

Minus that story working my nerve and the stories about pregnancy and infant loss which made me nervous, the book was very encouraging. An easy read and an interesting one at that, it prompted me to think about the words I choose in certain situations. I try to think before I speak. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I don’t. I’d like to succeed more often. Maybe someday someone will write a story about me for a book like this. Or, ya know, at least feel good about something in themselves for a few moments. Yeah, that sounds better.

(Have you been given the “right words” at the “right time.” Hit up the website and share your story!)