Mama Says…

Come September, Julia will be starting Junior Kindergarten at an all-French school. Dave and I aren’t French and our combined knowledge of the language is minimal but we strongly feel that enrolling her in the French system will be a huge asset for her.

Naturally, when Kendall King and Alison Mackey’s book The Bilingual Edge – Why, When and How to Teach Your Child a Second Language came up for review, I wanted to check it out. Linguistics professors at Georgetown University with a wealth of knowledge between the two of them, King and Mackey have compiled a book that offers parents facts, references, statistics, tips and suggestions about introducing a second language into your home.

A lot of people are surprised when we tell them Julia is going to an all-French school. Knowing that we speak very little of the language, the question we get most often is “How will you help her with her homework?” and I must admit, that was a concern of ours when we first started toying with the French school idea. Yet we’re confident we’ll be able to raise a bilingual child even though we’re not ourselves, a thought that King and Mackey support. Myth #1 in Chapter Two’s list of Top Ten Myths About Second Language Learning: Only bilingual parents can raise bilingual children. They note that although “raising a bilingual child takes planning, effort, and dedication, even for parents who are bilingual themselves”, in today’s day and age, bilingualism is on the rise and that “with the right foundation of knowledge, any parent can raise a child who knows more than one language, even if that parent is monolingual.” They’re right, and I happen to have living, breathing proof: my brothers. My father and stepmother speak only English but sent my brothers to the same school Julia is going to, and both of my brothers went on to speak fluent French despite not hearing it at home.

One chapter that really spoke to me was Chapter Six: How Can You Best Promote Language Learning At Home? Dave and I only speak English yet we want to incorporate French into our home. In this chapter King and Mackey offer suggestions on how to introduce and incorporate language into day to day activities, such as counting the stairs in Spanish, reading books in French or singing a lullaby in Korean, ideas that resonate with young children and are easy for parents like Dave and I, who struggle with anything more advanced than “Bonjour! Je suis un anana.” (Hello! I am a pineapple.)

King and Mackey tackle the issue of language learning through ‘edutainment’ in Chapter Seven, a chapter that I found quite interesting. I make no bones about the fact that all the Spanish Julia has picked up has been courtesy of Dora the Explorer yet I have always believed that if she wanted to learn Spanish further, she’d need more than a cartoon character to teach her – a sentiment that King and Mackey seem to share. Their research showed that babies and young children don’t learn language through television; instead, they respond to and learn the most from interaction with other humans. Language-based television shows and DVD’s are readily available and can be used to support language learning, but have no merit when used as the main teacher. (A related aside: I read an interesting article today that supports this argument, reporting on how ‘edutainment’ videos actually delay language developments in babies and toddlers.)

Mama Says: By the time I got my copy of The Bilingual Edge I didn’t need any convincing – I knew that I wanted my kids to learn a second language. If, however, you’re on the fence about it, grab a copy of this book. It’s not a gripping read – for lack of a better way to put it, it’s a textbook read that can be repetitive at times, but it’s packed with solid information about the benefits of bilingualism.

Forget Christmas – garage sale season is, in my opinion, the most wonderful time of the year – a sentiment I’m willing to bet Bruce Littlefield, author of Garage Sale America, shares. Packed with interesting facts, tips on hot states to hit for specific finds and droolworthy sales and Do’s & Don’t lists for buyers and sellers, Garage Sale America is the quintessential handbook for buyers and sellers alike, for those who wake up before the summer sun to hit the streets in search of bargains; the incurable collectors.

People like me.

I was at a sale this past Saturday morning when I spotted a table full of children’s books. Although the sign read “Books 50 Cents Each”, the ones I was interested in had $2 stickers on them.

When I asked the lady in charge how much the books were she jumped out of her lawn chair and hustled over to me, hands stuffed in the pockets of her money belt, jingling change. “Two dollars,” she announced upon examination.

“Two dollars for the lot of them?” I pointed to a pile of two, maybe three books on the table.

She sucked in her breath. “Oh, no,” she breathed. “These are board books. They’re two dollars each.”

Number seven on Bruce’s handy Do’s and Don’ts for Sellers list: Don’t ask “new” prices for used things – including well-worn board books. Clearly this seller should have brushed up on her garage sale etiquette before having her sale. I mean, who pays two dollars for a used board book?

Garage Sale America is a quirky cross-country tour of, as Bruce puts it, “the mostly off-the-book industry estimated to be around $3 billion a year.” Brimming with stories of great sales past and tips for buyers and sellers, the book also spotlights some of America’s more ‘famous’ garage salers and has corners devoted entirely to popular hunt items – from Hot Wheels to Tiffany, Bakelite to bottle openers.

The old saying is true: one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. There’s just something about rooting through other people’s junk and finding that diamond in the rough – whether it be a bag of marbles, vintage vinyl or a dusty Limoge vase – and paying for it with the change you found under the couch cushions. But, as Bruce notes, there’s always the sale you don’t get, the one that “haunts you for weeks like a bad dream, eats away at your psyche like a termite on softened wood.”

He’s absolutely right. The two boxes of records some guy grabbed from right under my nose last Saturday morning are still eating my husband’s psyche for breakfast – and probably will for a long, long time. To say he’s sore he didn’t get his paws on those records is an understatement.

Bruce saves the best for last, when he opens his doors and invites readers to take a room-by-room tour of his home furnished with his fabulous garage sale finds. While I drooled over his Hoosier-style Kitchenette, his collection of Franciscan Pottery Starburst dishes and general sense of style, the burning desire to hit the sales grew hotter and hotter within me. Look out, weekend…here I come.

Mama Says: In a nutshell, Garage Sale America is a very cool book.

(Bruce also has a great website where you can list your upcoming garage sale, scroll through garage sale listings, read his blog and take a peek inside his fabulous home. Like I said…very cool!)

I had three calendars on go – a large book calendar, a wall calendar beside the computer desk and another one in the kitchen – and I still managed to space out on appointments and birthdays from time to time. My husband Dave bugged me to amalgamate them into one calendar – a great idea, but I couldn’t find a calendar I liked that incorporated everything I wanted it to.

That all changed when I heard about Cozi Central, a computer-based family calendar and message centre all in one with several very cool perks included. As soon as I got word that I’d been chosen to review the Cozi system, I downloaded the free software – that’s right, I said FREE, baby! – and got started.

There’s so much that I like about this system that I’m going to take the easy way out and do this up bullet-style. So, without any further ado, here’s what grabs about Cozi Central:

• The layout: On the home page, the calendar is big and clearly visible and so is the message centre below it.

• There’s an area on the left-hand side of the page to personalize it with a picture and in the bottom right-hand corner is a clock that’s big enough for me to see, which is something I noticed immediately as I’m as blind as a bat and have a hard time seeing the teensy weensy clock in the corner of the Windows toolbar.

• Within the calendar, each member of the family is assigned a different colour, so their appointments and events are easily discernable – at a glance I can tell what’s showing up for who just by the colour.

• The message centre: I can type whatever I want into the message box – notes to myself or Dave, grocery lists, reminders – and send them to either myself or him via email or our cell phones (and lemmie tell ya, when I realize that I’ve forgotten to tell Dave that we need sugar and he’s already left for the grocery store, that feature comes quite in handy).

• I also really like how easy it is to make lists within the program. I rely heavily on lists and I currently have several written within Cozi. Having all of my lists together in the same place is really helpful and makes life a lot easier.

• The screensaver: This is, by far, the coolest screensaver I have ever seen. With the click of a button I was able to set the screensaver to display all of the pictures we’ve got on our computer. We’d run into problems with another photo-based screensaver and had to stop using it, so being able to see pictures of my family and friends pop up on the screen again was something I found very cool.

• What’s neat about the screensaver is the layout – instead of showing one picture at a time, Cozi displays a collage of about five or six pictures. It’s really cool and, in my opinion, one of the best features of the entire program.

• Another feature I really like about the screensaver is that the clock also shows up all nice and big, so I can always see what time it is.

• The accessibility: Cozi is accessible from the computer, cell phones and the Web, which is just awesome. Dave can access the calendar from work to add or check on things, a feature that makes life a whole lot easier for both of us. We both feel like we’re on the same page, and having our family calendar available in so many different ways meant I was able to ditch the three useless calendars I was using and manage our lives strictly with Cozi.

Another tidbit that’s worth mentioning is the quick response time from the Cozi team. Through “Send Feedback” link on the home page, Dave contacted the team with a concern and had a personal response via email within a few hours, something that I found rather impressive.

And now on to what I didn’t like – only one thing, in fact. More often than not, when I open the program on my computer it completely freezes up for several minutes. It always ends up kicking in, but it locks everything else up on my computer until it does, which is annoying.

Mama Says: I highly recommend trying Cozi out – it’s free and even if it doesn’t work for you and your family, I betcha any money you’ll like the screensaver.

Every night on our way to bed, Dave and I whip out our fists and engage in a fierce Paper/Rock/Scissors battle, the loser having to tiptoe into our nineteen-month old son’s room and change his diaper oh-so quickly and quietly. If we don’t change Oliver before we hit the sack it’s guaranteed that when we wake up in the morning his diaper will have leaked.

We’ve got creeping into his room and changing his diaper on the sly down to a science, but when the Parentblogging team asked me if I was interested in reviewing Huggies Overnites, I gave an enthusiastic yes. Admittedly, I’ve always been skeptical of diapers that claim to last the night with no leaks, but we are a Huggies-friendly household and I was curious to see if their Overnites could withstand the test. The diapers – a pack of 31 – arrived in a really cool travel bag and I started using them almost immediately.

The first night didn’t go so well, but I didn’t blame the diaper. Anyone who reads my personal blog knows that at times, my son can be rather, uh…craptastic. When I went into his bedroom that morning I found him pretty much covered in poop – he’d had a total blowout just minutes before I walked in. I chalked it up to bad luck and waited for bedtime to try again.

He leaked the second night and a few other nights he wore the Overnites. I’d say the non-leak to leak ratio was about 70:30 – some mornings he woke up wet and others he woke up bulging, but not wet. It made me wonder what Huggies considers an ‘overnight’ to be. Is eight hours overnight? Ten? See, Oliver usually goes to bed between 7 and 7.30pm. When we sneak in and change him, usually between 11 and midnight, he rarely wakes up wet. He typically gets up between 6.30 and 7.30am, so if I put him in an Overnight at 7pm, that diaper’s on him for approximately twelve hours. That’s a long time and a lot of pee for one diaper to withstand.

I wasn’t all that surprised that Oliver leaked, to be honest, but what did bother me quite a bit was the fact that I couldn’t find the diapers on store shelves in my area. I live in Canada and after a bit of searching I began to wonder if this particular brand of diaper is even sold here. I don’t have a definite answer to that question, but I’ve checked several stores that carry a variety of diapers and haven’t been able to find them. And frankly, that bugged me. What if I really liked the Overnites and wanted to use them on Oliver exclusively at nighttime? I wouldn’t be able to.

So let’s crunch some numbers. Because I couldn’t find a Canadian price for the Overnites, I compared US prices and found that they’re sold for between $10-12.99. When I use the latter price and factor in the exchange rate I get a cost of about $15CAD for a pack of 31.

We buy our diapers at Costco, where a box of 200 Huggies Size 4’s – with Leak Lock – costs just over fifty bucks and lasts about two and a half to three weeks. Am I going to spend an additional $15 for 31 overnight diapers that are hit and miss with my son, on top of the fifty-plus I spend on his regular, everyday diapers? No way. I’d rather tiptoe into his room at night and change him before I go to bed. Sure, not having to do that was nice while it lasted, but with the Overnites, having him wake up dry wasn’t a sure thing and that’s simply not good enough for me. I’d rather wake him up and change him knowing that in the morning he’ll be dry as opposed to putting him in an Overnite diaper and wondering if, come sunrise, he’d be wet or dry. I won’t stop buying the Huggies diapers that we buy now, but I won’t be buying the Overnites.

When I’m not up to my eyeballs in laundry, stepping on half-eaten clumps of grilled cheese and trying to keep my house clean, I’m in my van, which used to look more like a preschool on wheels than a vehicle.* There were enough Cheerios, toys, sippy cups and wadded-up Kleenexes in my van to sink a ship, and my children could hardly see out the side windows due to the sticky fingerprints and what the hell is that? smeared all over them. It’s safe to say that my van is my home away from home. It’s also safe to say that it was a total pigsty.

*Keywords in that sentence: used to.

So you can imagine how stoked I was to get a big box of Blink products to review. Targeting the busy mom on the go, these products – Toss Outs, Tidy Totes, Spill Grabbers, Mess Lifters and Smudge Cleaners – are designed to help keep the inside of whatever you drive clean and organized, so it looks less like a playroom and more like an actual…gasp! vehicle. (Although, I think just about anyone with a vehicle could benefit from these products.)

Before I even put the products in my van I was struck by how compact they were – they’re designed to either clip on seat/door pockets and visors or fit in the glove compartment, so they don’t take up a lot of space. The small Toss Out trash bags hang from prongs on the front of the package and the Smudge Cleaner houses the spray cleaner and twenty wipes all in one, features that I thought were quite ingenious. I was disappointed to find that I couldn’t use the Tidy Totes, the product I was most excited about, because my captain’s chairs don’t have seat pockets and there is nowhere else for it to clip on and be easily accessible. However, my husband has it in his truck and is really enjoying it.

The Mess Lifters, wet interior wipes, do quite a good job of eliminating set-in stains – I used one of the wipes on an old coffee slop on the passenger’s seat and was surprised at how well it worked. And I didn’t stop at stains – while waiting for a train to go by I grabbed a wipe and used it on my dusty dashboard and console. It made quite a difference and cleaned up the rather large bug that’s been smushed above my steering wheel for months quite nicely.

Spill Grabbers are dry, absorbant wipes that I’ve used them on coffee and sippy cup spills and they’re tucked in the side pocket of my door for easy access. But my two favourite products are, hands down, the Tidy Toes and the Smudge Cleaners. I’m not kidding when I said you could barely see through my side windows. My kids had done a number on them but a few squirts and a wipe later, the Smudge Cleaner had them lookin’ good as new. I just wish the wipes were a bit bigger; it took me two wipes to clean each side window in my van.

All hail the Tidy Totes – finally I have a solution for all of the loose crap that’s been rolling around my van. I’ve got one filled with CD cases, one with books for the kids and another that has a few toys (for those for the love of god take this toy and please stop screaming moments), extra diapers, wipes and a couple bottles of water. They’re mesh, so it’s easy to see what’s inside, they’re durable, and the drawstring top keeps them closed.

Mama Says: These products are pretty much awesome. The slogan ‘Blink…and it’s done!‘ is bang-on; they’re quick and easy to use and are a large part of the reason why my van is (finally) clean. Two triumphant thumbs up!

***Congratulations, KATIE! You win the Soccer! DVD! It’s going in the mail soon.***

“Can we watch the soccer movie? Can we watch the soccer movie? Can we watch the soccer movie?”

That’s pretty much all I’ve heard since I put on athleticBaby’s award-winning Soccer! DVD, the newest installment in a series of videos geared toward getting toddlers excited about sports and physical activity, for my three-and-a-half year old soccer enthusiast last week.

I put it on for her, sat down on the couch and had a hard time deciding what I wanted to focus on more: the video itself or my daughter, who alternated between kicking her brother’s Batman ball off of the fireplace – “I’m scoring goals, Mummy!” and shakin’ her groove thang to the video’s catchy music.

In a day and age where more and more children are opting for video games and the boob tube instead of extracurricular activities and physical activity, a video series like this is needed for young kids. Aimed at kids aged three months plus, Soccer! introduces them to the sport and to the idea of regular fitness. Children from about 18 months up to about ten years of age are shown warming up and playing soccer as part of a team, as well as just having fun being physically active.

All of this is set to catchy, kid-friendly music that I find myself humming while making dinner and doing the dishes. Award-winning children’s singer/songwriter Eddie Coker’s musical stylings really add flair and pizzazz to this video and singer/songwriter Susie Tallman’s contribution, a song called “Let’s Go”, marries nicely with video’s theme and footage.

Something I really liked (besides the soundtrack) was how kids of all ages were featured playing and enjoying soccer, which I felt shows kids that soccer – and sports in general – will grow with them as they get older. I also think it’s pretty cool that athleticBaby was created by a working mom of three with the goal of creating a product that encourages children to get out there and get active.

The only aspect of the video that didn’t grab me was the colour identifying and number counting that was mixed in with the ‘active’ footage. In a sports-themed video, it seemed a little out of place to me.

Mama Says: Clearly, this video was a big hit with my budding Beckham, and it’s something that as a parent, I’d be pleased to give (or receive) as a gift. And at $16.99, the price is right. For more information about athleticBaby and the other videos in this series, visit www.athleticbaby.com

Inspired by Mrs. Chicken, I’ve decided to raffle off my copy of Soccer! to one of you lovely readers, after clearing it with my daughter first, of course. Leave me a comment here by Saturday, February 10^th and I’ll pick a winner at random. Score!