Absolutely Delightful

Hello My Name is J, and I am a Bumbleride Addict.

March 15th, 2010 by j. 7 Comments »

I have stroller envy. Bad.

I want a Bumbleride Indie stroller. Even though I already have one. I have the double and now I also want the single. Clearly, I have a problem.

Several months ago I wrote about how Bumbleride solved my double stroller dilemma. After extensive research, I ended up purchasing the Bumbleride Indie Twin and I absolutely love it! Not only does it look super sleek and awesome, but it is super sleek and awesome. I love everything about it. It doesn’t even really feel like a double stroller…until you pick it up to put it in the car. Of course, that’s to be expected with every all-terrain double stroller. Especially ones that have all the bells and whistles that this one does. So, now I want a single Bumbleride Indie. I used to love my Bob Sport Utility Stroller and now it just doesn’t compare to the Bumbleride. Even my toddler prefers the Bumbleride.

The Bumbleride Indie weighs less than most all-terrain strollers, coming in at 20 lbs. The Bob SUS comes in at 22.5 lbs. Granted, the Bob’s carrier weight limit is 70 lbs and the Indie’s is 45 lbs, but I seriously do not want to be strolling my kid around when he or she is 70 lbs! The other thing that I really like about the Indie is the adjustable handle bar (from 32″-45″). I’m a petite 5’2″ and the Bob’s fixed handle height doesn’t work well for me. It’s hard on my neck to push a stroller with such a high handle height. Also, my husband is 6’2″, so with a whole foot of height difference between us, he appreciates the adjustable handle as well.

I love that the Indie can switch from an infant stroller to a toddler stroller in no time. I especially love that they’ve designed a clever global infant car seat attachment that will support infant seat models like Chicco. My options are very limited if I want to use the car seat, as most strollers do not accommodate Chicco. Even better, is that you don’t have to purchase the car seat adapter separately – it’s included! How awesome is that?! Other companies (which shall remain nameless) make you purchase their adapter package, which I really resent when I’m already spending $350+ on the stroller.

Other great features of the Bumbleride Indie:

Comes complete with a full accessory package: rain cover, cupholder, air pump, and car seat adapter
Seat that reclines flat
Large storage basket that is also easily accessible (I find the Bob hard to access even though it’s nice and large)
Adjustable handle bar
Multi-use bumper bar
Aluminum spoke wheels for reduced weight
Large, adjustable sun canopy with a rear pocket to hold parenting essentials

Not only is the Indie awesome for mom and dad but it’s also a pimpin’ ride for your little passenger. The Bumbleride Indie rides like luxury. It’s outfitted with tons of soft padding in the seat, roomy seating, an infant headrest, shoulder pads, a snug 5 point harness, and 12″ air filled tires to make the ride a smooth one.

Overall I think the Bumbleride Indie is a great full-featured stroller since it can handle light jogging and the fact that it works with my infant seat. I do need to get my hands on one to try out folding it up and lifting it into and out of the car. My Indie Twin is pretty big to fold up and lift in and out but not much worse than the Bob, or any other double full-featured stroller. However, I’m hoping the Indie single is easier to fold and lift.

So, I am seriously considering buying one. However, it’s a hefty price-tag considering that I also have their double stroller…and a Bob…and a Chicco travel system stroller. That would make 4 strollers. Kind of stroller whorish. Maybe one will fall out of the sky and land on my doorstep. Or maybe I can just tell Dr.McCutiePants that’s what happened since I doubt he would be behind yet another stroller purchase.

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Posted in Baby Gear, Stuff I like, Toddler Gear, Uncategorized

In Which I Am Shamelessly Boastful

March 15th, 2010 by j. No Comments »

Okay, so I don’t want to be a Brag Hag. You know, those moms that boast and brag about their wonderful perfect children so much that they ultimately get black-balled from mom’s groups and play dates. Oh yes, they do. They just don’t know it.

All moms have a little Brag Hag in them, especially moms of children under 1 years old. There are just so many milestones during that precious first year. And let’s face it – babies are just so freaking cute!!!! I really don’t want to be one of those women, but right now I can’t resist my inner Brag Hag. She’s taken over my keyboard.

This weekend, Dr. McCutiePants and I went on a date. Gasp! Yes, we actually did. It had been a month, which sadly isn’t so long for us. We didn’t go on our first date after Muffin was born until he was about 7 months old. Anyways, back to the story. We were sitting on this nice patio enjoying our lunch when Madam Poopsalot began to cry. Oh yeah, did I mention that our “dates” are with baby still? Kind of a bummer, but she’s just too young to leave with a babysitter still. Especially when you consider that the babysitter also has her hands full with Monster – er, I mean Muffin. Anyways, Madam Poopsalot began to cry and so Dr. McCutiePants took her out of her stroller and began bouncing her on his knee while we finished our lunch. Well, as soon as she came out for all to see, we had a line of people coming up to us commenting on what a cute baby she was. One woman who had just entered the restaurant b-lined it to our table and said, “Wow, she is so cute. I haven’t seen a baby that cute in a very long time!” Oh yeah, I was beaming. Proud Mamma. Why? It’s not like she got up and started walking at her tender age of 4 months (3 months adjusted!). It’s not like she opened her mouth and suddenly started talking. No, she just sat there, bouncing on her father’s knee, looking like the cutest sweetest baby that anyone has ever seen. Ever. Crooked head and all.

Okay, okay. Full disclosure. Her Friar Tuck ring of hair was hidden as she leaned against her daddy. So what. Still counts! Tee hee!

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Mommy Moments, Stories, Uncategorized

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Edison

March 13th, 2010 by j. No Comments »

Electric light bulb

Well, I’m into another week of The Happiness Project, a year long project developed by best selling author Gretchen Rubin. This past week’s resolution was to Enjoy the failure.

Enjoy the Failure?! That’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one. Or is that a paradox? Hmmm, maybe I’ll just enjoy the failure of knowing my rhetorical devices.

Okay, okay, I do understand the meaning behind this week’s resolution. I really like it too. We need to see failure as a learning experience, which it is, rather than as a defeat, which it isn’t. When you fail, you need to remember to consciously choose to fall in the direction of your next goal, treating the fall as a sort of awkward but valuable step along the path. It is hard to enjoy the failure when it’s upon you but one of the keys is to remember that a seemingly hopeless situation may be exactly the disaster you fear, but it may also turn from catastrophe into triumph in ways that you are unable to predict. So, how you deal with that failure, or crisis, has a dramatic impact on how you will succeed from that point forward.

Edison failed 10,000 times before he made the electric light. He took his failures and made them work for him to ultimately reach his goal.

Failure is an attitude, not a destination. Get up and keep crawling, clawing, and sliding forward in the direction of your dreams. Go ahead and fail your way to success! Failure is wonderful!

Really.

It is.

I’m serious.

Ok, so maybe it might possibly be hard to convince myself of this on the 10,000th fail of getting Muffin to eat his veggies. Damn you Peas!

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Happiness, Uncategorized

Crooked Baby Heads. That’s How I Make ‘Em.

March 12th, 2010 by j. 1 Comment »

(The photos above are not my children.)

Madam Poopsalot has plagiocephaly. Muffin had plagiocephaly too. Both noticed within a couple of weeks after birth. What exactly is plagiocephaly, you ask?

plagiocephaly (plā´jēōsef´lē),
n a condition characterized by an asymmetrical skull with flat spots. Temporomandibular joint disorder, as well as auditory and visual disturbances, may result if left untreated. If diagnosed during infancy, the condition can be treated with cranial orthotics.

Basically, it’s a crooked head. Both Madam Poopsalot and Muffin’s plagiocephaly happened in utero. I guess that’s just the way I make my babies. Mommy is sorry, my sweet babies. However, if we have to have a “problem”, this is a good one to have and I am very grateful for that.

Madam Poopsalot is now 4 months old and we have not been able to resolve her crookedness. It is harder to resolve plagiocephaly that occurred in utero. So, despite our best efforts at crazy amounts of tummy-time, our little MP is going to be getting ‘banded’.

Our insurance will likely pay this time (they didn’t for Muffin even though his plagiocephaly was moderate to severe and he was 3 standard deviations from normal). We banded him anyways and are very glad that we did. He was only 3.75 months old when we did it so he only had to wear the band for about 7 weeks, as we were able to benefit from a few growth spurts due to his young age. Back then, the decision was a bit agonizing but in the end what clinched it for me was reading stories of adults who live with plagiocephaly and how it has negatively impacted their lives. Issues ranging from severe self-consciousness, to chronic headaches, to vision problems, to not being able to wear eye glasses because the ears are so uneven. It really solidified my feelings that we had to do this for him. I didn’t want Muffin coming to me 10 years from now, upset asking us why we didn’t fix his head when we had the chance (you can’t do anything after they are 2 years old). I didn’t want him to come to me and ask me why I didn’t help him when I could have and why bike helmets won’t fit him, or why sunglasses (or eye glasses) can’t seem to reach his other ear. I didn’t want him to have vision problems, or jaw problems. And I certainly didn’t want him to be so self-conscious about his asymmetrical face that it affected his interactions with the world. He may be self-conscious about other things when he’s older, but it won’t be for something that I could have fixed for him. How could I say to him, “Pumpkin, your head is asymmetrical. We could have fixed it when you were a baby, but we just didn’t want you to have to wear a helmet 23.5 hours a day for 6-10 weeks. Also, it was $3500.00, so we passed. Get over it.”

No, we could not do that to him. So, we got him the Doc Band and insurance (Blue Shield) didn’t cover it. I wrote a super-tight and awesome 20 page appeal but it was denied. Essentially, they just didn’t cover it at all no matter how bad the asymmetry was. Our insurance this time will cover it. Aetna, you are my hero. We are an HMO now though, so our medical group has to approve it first. We will do it even if they decide not to cover it, of course. Now, I have to wait for a week or so to hear whether or not they will approve it. Each week that goes by, we loose precious growth time and the treatment outcome decreases, while the length of time having to wear the band increases. So, we’ll wait for them to approve it…but only for a couple of weeks. I don’t want this to be a long drawn-out process. It can’t be. I don’t want my kid’s face to end up on the side of her head while we go through the Deny & Appeal Dance.

A couple of photos of Muffin’s casting process. Very traumatic and now they do it digitally. Thank God!

And here he is with his band. He wore it for 7 weeks. Sure, we got stares, but worst of all was the silence. Up until that point, people would approach him and talk to him and smile at him (he was a pretty cute baby and I’m not at all biased). However, after he got his band people would look away and not make eye contact and not talk to him. That for me was the worst.

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Posted in Health, Stories, Uncategorized

Great Giveaway: Win a Britax Convertible Car Seat!

March 10th, 2010 by j. No Comments »

Britax are some of the very best safety rated car seats out there. I did a massive amount of research in purchasing our toddler-on-up car seats and Britax was the one that ultimately won. Britax is certainly not an inexpensive brand, but in my opinion, you cannot put a price tag on car safety and from what I found while doing my due diligence, Britax has unparalleled safety standards.

We bought the Diplomat Convertible car seat for my son in 2008, when it was time to move him out of his infant seat, and have been very happy with it. The strap you pull to tighten has frayed, but aside from that the seat has worn very well (we are currently in the process of buying a replacement strap). I’m not sure why it frayed. We are going to call Britax and talk to them about it.

Several months ago we bought the Boulevard Convertible car seat for my daughter. Since Madam Poopsalot is still in her Chicco infant seat, my son is using the Boulevard in my husband’s car and uses the Diplomat in my mommy mobile). The Boulevard is bigger and goes to a higher weight limit than the Diplomat. I chose the Boulevard over the Advocate since it was slightly less expensive with mostly the same specifications. However, if the price was the same, I would have gone for the Advocate.

You can now win one for yourself! Tammi over at My Organized Chaos is giving away one Britax Advocate convertible car seat. Click here to enter. What a great giveaway! Good luck!

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Posted in Baby Gear, Uncategorized

Collateral Damage of the Nap Strike

March 9th, 2010 by j. No Comments »

The collateral damage of the nap strike looks like this:

Yes, that shirt is upside-down and inside-out.

Occasionally, Muffin will pull a nap strike. When he does this, I still make him have quiet time in his crib. And by “quiet time”, unfortunately I mean “screaming-yelling-noisy-time”. Fortunately, so far, these nap strikes are minor uprisings that mercifully have not become routine. Yet.

On Friday Muffin pulled a nap strike and when his “quiet time” was over, I went up to get him and found him with his shirt on upside-down and inside out.

I’ve found worse.

Not too long ago he was playing with a large thick scab on his elbow and managed to pull it off. He was so annoyed that his “toy” was ruined that he started screaming, “Put it back on! Put it back on”! There was no hope in hell of a nap occurring after that.

I know at some point Muffin will drop the nap entirely but both he and I are not ready for that. He often still has 3 hour naps. A far cry from his first year of life when he never slept. Seriously. He’s still got a lot of making up to do. I was that mom who looked like she’d gotten two black eyes in a bar fight because the under-eye circles were so bad from lack of sleep. That’s got to earn me at least another year of napping, right?!

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Mommy Moments, Stories, Uncategorized

Boys & Boas…and Other Pretty Things

March 8th, 2010 by j. No Comments »

Poor Muffin isn’t going to like this post when he gets older, but I can write about it now because it’s a phase that is starting to come to an end (I think). Up until a few months ago, my little man would show a great appreciation for girly things. He often will go into my closet and attempt to try on my shoes. He was most attracted to the high heels, of course. One day I came downstairs ready to go out and instead of my usual flip flops, I had on some super cute leopard print Corso Como flats. Well, Muffin took one look at them and said, “Ohhhhhhhh, cute shoes Mommy!” Little dude has good taste. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of them. Granted, I am rarely seen out of my flip flops, but I think it went deeper than that. He also used to love the women’s handbag section in Marshall’s and would b-line it straight there once we entered the store. The ladies hat section was also on his hit list. I have a cute pink mini-handbag that I was saving for when/if I had a girl and Muffin found it and commandeered it. He would walk around with it over his arm, saying “Look at my purse, Mommy. Isn’t it cute?”! Poor Madam Poopsalot is going to have to wrestle him for it when she’s older.

Now, I know that it is not uncommon for boys to be interested in girly things and if you think about it, toddlers like nice textures, shiny things, and pretty colors…so, what toddler in her (or his) right mind wouldn’t be attracted to pretty feminine things? Besides, he really didn’t have a hope in hell – it’s in his DNA. I am part Crow – I love shiny, sparkly, pretty things. Way to embrace your feminine side little dude! Just take it a bit easy on your Daddy – now that he’s got 3 princesses to contend with.

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Posted in Fashion, Fun Stuff, Mommy Moments, Stories, Uncategorized

Frugal Friday Tip: Get Yourself a Laundry Fairy.

March 5th, 2010 by j. No Comments »

Some days I want to just throw my hands up and send everyone out naked. Laundry sucks. When I was working outside the home, my husband was The Laundry Fairy. Now that I am a SAHM the tide has turned. Gone are the days when I could put my dirty clothes in the hamper and they would mysteriously reappear nice and clean. Oh, how I hate laundry. Nevertheless, I have resigned myself to the fact that I am now The Laundry Fairy of our house. I suppose being the Laundry Fairy, has it’s advantages. I now know some secrets about laundry. Brace yourself for the exciting money-saving revelations about to come your way.

1) Wash the laundry in cold water.

2) Cut dryer sheets in half.

3) Wear jeans more than once before washing (this one I write with much reluctance as I have a thing about washing things immediately, which is evident by my never-ending laundry mountain).

4) Use less detergent.

5) Line dry your Laundry. By line drying you save money on electricity, which is frugal and green. You also save wear and tear on your clothes. The dryer actually beats fibers out of your clothing, causing them to wear out sooner. That’s where all that dryer lint comes from! Dryer lint is the kryptonite of The Laundry Fairy.

Which brings us to…

6) Keep your dryer lint free!!! A full lint trap doesn’t allow the moist air to escape properly, which slows down the drying cycle and uses more energy. While you’re at it, check your belly button too.

Okay, so maybe these aren’t really earthshatteringjumpupandkissme secrets…this is laundry we’re talking about, after all. Sheesh!

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Posted in Fun Stuff, Money, Uncategorized

Win It! Cover Girl Smokey Eye Kit.

March 4th, 2010 by j. 1 Comment »

I adore the smokey eye look. I’ve long coveted the eye make-up of a certain celebutant who’s name may or may not rhyme with Tim Fardashian. I may have even possibly spent time on her website…but I only read it for the pictures, I swear! Anyways, I have found that this look is really hard to recreate. At least it’s hard if you’re not aiming to look like you’ve just gone a round with Mike Tyson. Also, it’s time consuming. And unlike Tim Fardashian, I have two kids, a husband, and a laundry pile to deal with every day.

Well, enter Cover Girl. Now, thanks to their Smokey Eye Kit, this look is easy(er) and quick(er) to recreate. Tammi, over at My Organized Chaos, is giving away 4 kits. Visit My Organized Chaos and enter here.

So, the question is…

Is it really okay for me wear the smokey eye look with my daily mom uniform (yoga pants and nearest clean nursing top)? Probably not. The playground can’t handle the foxiness that is the nursingyogapantwearing smokey eye.

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