Sophie the Giraffe

So this Sophie....a little rubber giraffe.  How special can it be.  It seems like she's the toy du jour and in ever baby's hands.  But really?  A little rubber giraffe?  And it seems a little expensive for a teething toy.  Munchkin's was a gift but I think they are $20 or something like that.  But all the Mom's were saying you can't live without them and the babies love them to death (some giraffe's are nekkid from having their spots chewed off)

I was on the skeptical side about this.  And I was actually going to write this post from the point of view of "Every Child but mine loves Sophie".  He just didn't seem to interested in Sophie.  Then of course as soon as I was contemplating writing a post from that point of view, he just grabbed Sophie one day and started chomping down on her nose for all he was worth.  So now there is a daily chew on Sophie's limbs/head session.

So yeah, I would recommend getting one and even if your little one doesn't seem interested at first, keep offering the Sophie and see what happens.

Amaze

So you may find that babies are on the messy side.  From both ends at times.  This can all lead to some laundry stains that are hard to get out.  My Mom told me I should get this laundry booster called Amaze.  It's a little hard to find, but I can get it at the Loblaws at Queen's Quay.  I'm sure it's available in other placed but that's where I get it.

So basically you can pre soak all your poopy, puked on or messy food covered clothes, blankets, bibs etc... and the majority of the time the stains come out.  I haven't tried it on blueberry or beets type stuff.

So you should get some.

Red Food Dye

Well this is probably a Captain Obivous thing, but stay the heck away from anything with Red Food dye in it for your little one.  A good percentage of children/babies react to it in some form or another.  And yet for some unknown reason, we still get a large percentage of things like medicine with red food dye in it.  I mean really.....an infant doesn't care what colour their Tylenol is.  Trust me.....get the dye free stuff.

I used to get migraines from red food dye, so I've been avoiding it for my little Munchkin.  But I've been having a hard time with the grape flavoured tylenol and was told that all infants love the cherry.  So I bought some cherry and took the chance with the red dye (I later found out that apparently the dye free cherry does exist, I just can't find it as of yet).  He loved it but........   I gave it to him about 1/2 an hour before bedtime.  By the time we put him in bed he was a little choo choo train.  His arms and legs were going a mile or two a minute and he showed no signs of slowing down.  I brought him back down to his Dad to entertain for 1/2 an hour so I could get a little nap in.  He put Munchkin in the Jolly Jumper where he went to town for a 1/2 hour and still wanted to keep going.

So yeah......your child can either be hyper or get a nasty headache.....so stay away from the red food dye.

Food Making Equipment

Since I'm giving this making my own food a try I had to get a couple of things.  A steamer and a food pureeing device.  I ended up buying the Hamilton Beach one specifically for babies.  But pretty much any one of the small ones will do I'm sure.  I find the one I got a bit noisy, but I don't know if it's any louder than the others or not.   For the steamer I just got a low end Black and Decker.  It works just fine.

Now if you want to make large batches of something, I would suggest using your larger food processor if you have one.  For instance, the other day I pureed 4 mangos at once.  It would have been a pain in the small Hamilton Beach one.

I also bought a metal steamer basket that you can put over a pot.  The reason I got that one is because I get the feeling that when I steam beets and blueberries I will end up with a stained steamer machine.  Not that the steamer will work any less well, but.......

Gassy Baby

Our poor little munchkin suffered from some really wicked gas when he got home from zee hospital.  They had put him on domperidone to help his digestion while he was there and just continued it when he left the hospital.  One of the side effects of this is wicked gas.  The poor little guy was miserable.  Then I found some stuff that helped.  It's called Oval here in Canada.  Man does this stuff help.  Even now when he occasionally gets a bout of super bad gas it is so helpful.  I really recommend this stuff.  Just pay attention to the label and check with your doctor before using it with your little one.  They pretty much say that on all the labels of all the baby drugs and being that they are so wee and all, I figure we should do what they say.

Sprout Right

Sprout Right is a Canadian book which is always good to have.  It covers the basics of nutrition from your pregnancy through toddler land.

I've found the book pretty helpful.  Mostly for introducing foods to the Munchkin and the basic recipes to get you started.  It's helpful to know that Rice Cereal constipates babies and how to avoid that (mind you according to me it's simple.....don't give it to them).

It's not the only book I'm using, but it's one of them and I find it helpful.

You can check their website our at Sprout Right.  In addition to the book, there are workshops, menu plans etc.... and so on that you can buy.

Photography

Sometimes you want some professional photos of your baby done.  Snapshots are great, but depending on your photography skills........  You might want someone else to do a few photos.

It can be super expensive for those on a budget (like us), but we found a nifty way to get some photography done.  Today we participated in a workshop called Simply Babies through Art Strollers.

Basically is a photography session where you are interacting with your baby in an Art Cafe (in the gallery section). There are other babies and their families too.

The photographer Andrew was fantastic.  He made us feel really at ease and the process was fun.

We haven't seen the final images yet and won't for a couple of weeks (which is totally fine), but you can check out some of his other photography at his company Clear Pixel Images.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone.  I think we are also going to check out some of their other offerings as they looks quite interesting and affordable.

Passport Hints!

So today was the day we went to get Munchkin his passport.  I've got a couple of bits of advice to make it go smoother for you.  Thankfully I accidentally got it right.

Make sure when you are registering the wee one's birth you get the 2 versions of the birth certificate. I think they are the long and short forms.  You need the long one for the passport application.  And it sucks to have to wait to order that one then do the passport.  Thankfully I had the one we needed.

Also, make sure you go to a passport picture place that knows how to photograph infants.  They have rules such as no hands in the photo and some more.

So yeah, there you go!

Ring of Neglect

So what may you ask is a ring of neglect?  They are those nifty activity centres you can plop your child into and do some stuff assured they are safe.  They are kind of like those now illegal walkers we had as kids, but with no wheels and toys attached.

This one is a Baby Einstein Discover and Play Activity Center.  I don't have one so I have nothing to say about it, I just used it as an example.  I do think most of the Activity Centers are probably quite good, I just don't have one. 

We wanted one, but our house is very narrow and full of stuff (if we're not careful we could turn into hoarders, well no, but we too have too much stuff).  And in my mind they are a bit expensive.  So we ended up buying the Kidco Go-Pod.

I really like it.  It folds up into nothing and has a carry bag.  We took it to the cottage for the weekend and it didn't take up too much room in the car.  The other thing I like is that it is easy to move from room to room or just fold quickly out of the way.  You attach your own toys to loops on the pod which is kind of neat as you can change the toys that they get to play with.   I would recommend this to just about anyone.

We aren't using ours too much right now as our guy is a wee bit small still.  His head barely pokes up above the edge, but that will change shortly I'm sure.  I think he's in a little growth spurt.

As a note, apparently you shouldn't be leaving your child in them for super long periods of time.  It's that whole thing about overdeveloping muscles again like the Jolly Jumper.  We have been told we should only use it about 20 minutes a day.