NJ Moms Blog | lynette {radio}

Baby Jail

August 30, 2009 by Lynette ·

Baby jail That’s what we call it. Baby Jail. It’s the nickname for the rig we had to construct to contain my 22 month old Houdini toddler. A few weeks back he discovered his own upper body strength and hoisted himself up and out of his crib with a very pronounced thud to the floor as a reward. Being a very curious little fellow, he repeated the experiment several times just to see if the result was the same. It was.

In the process of his escape attempts, he broke the front wall of the crib clear off the track. With the locking clips broken, we had few choices. First choice – buy a new crib and accompanying crib tent, but he will only be in it for another year or so, and he sure as hell isn’t getting any more siblings, so not very cost-effective. Second choice – convert the crib into a toddler bed (it’s a 3-in-1 crib meant to be a crib, toddler bed, and full size headboard) and make the best of it. A quick trip to Babies R Us for a bed rail and a gate for the doorway and we were all set. Of course the sales associate I get is pregnant with her first baby. The look of horror on her face when I asked for help constructing a baby jail to constrain my toddler in his room was priceless. First time parents are funny.

Read the full article on New Jersey Moms Blog…

Filed Under: bebe, NJ Moms Blog

Leapfrog 2.0

November 7, 2008 by Lynette ·

I call it this because I’ve been a Leapfrog fan since my daughter was a baby (and she’s now 7), and now we are again a Leapfrog family with our second child. Some of the only toys we saved from my daughters babyhood are Leapfrog toys – now passed on to her little brother. My favorite is the drum from about 8 years ago – bang it and it counts and sing the alphabet song. The new and improved version does colors and Spanish, so I can see already the progress and thought they have put into the products over the past few years. When I started reading up that Leapfrog not only had ‘baby toys’ but items that would be great for her now and through middle school I was thrilled.

What I’m really impressed with is their leap (sorry, couldn’t resist) into the online world called Leapfrog Learning Path. We are a high-tech, geeky family and our kids are the same. I am very impressed with the amount of data that gets synchronized between the gadgets and the Learning Path for parents to track. One thing I haven’t found yet (or maybe it doesn’t exist yet) is a way to print some sort of report so I could show my daughter’s teacher. Being that my daughter reads at 4 levels above her grade, but is about average in her grade for math, tracking this is very beneficial to us. Having her sit at the kitchen table and do ‘extra’ math problems to strengthen her skills is *boring* but playing a game is *fun*.

Leapfrog was kind enough to give us a pink Digj to try out. There were extra games available at the seminar to take, but some of the moms loaded up for their kids – so my daughter will have to wait until Christmas to get any extra games for the system and really see how well it works. It’s hard to give an honest review and feel for the product with only the built-in game, so if you plan on purchasing one, be sure to pick up a few games right away for the system. I’ve seen bundled packs available in the stores already. [Read more...]

Filed Under: gaming, mom stuff, NJ Moms Blog Tagged With: leapfrog, swag

Kung Fu Panda Kids

June 5, 2008 by Lynette ·

This past Sunday, my family was invited by the New Jersey’s Moms Blog (where I also write) to an exclusive Kung Fu Panda party. To cover some of the basics, it was held at this adorable children’s botique / salon / play area Kidville & HP sponsored the event. We mainly went for our daughter, since the weather was going to be nice, and we’d never taken the baby into NYC yet. I never realized that everyone there was a blogger, either from NYC or the NJ Moms Blog. One gal happened to be up from DC, too. It seems the majority of us were busy with our kids and didn’t have all that much opportunity to chat, but a few grownup conversations were had.

There was a moon bounce, which my daughter always loves. A big hit for her was the Playdoh station where she got to make a pretty accurate Po the Panda statue. Her all time favorite was getting to play the XBOX 360 Kung Fu Panda game. She (almost) beat the pants off her dad playing the game. It totally amazes me how she (or any kid there) could pick up the controller and somehow instinctively know how to play the game. Finally learning how to use chop sticks was a huge help to me, as I don’t use them properly and really could never teach her! The girl that worked the candy counter and taught Kidlette how to pick up Goldfish and gummy bears with them should list that skill on her resume.

We are huge Jack Black fans, from School of Rock to Nacho Libre, and this movie will be no exception. Since the weather here in the Garden State will be swamp-ass hot this weekend (upper 90F) a movie theatre, some Cokes, and a hopefully quiet 7 month old will be enjoying the movie.

As for our trip into the ‘city’ with two kids, well, I could have planned better. My husband and I are used to working and commuting there from our house, but whoa brining kids is a whole different animal. Kidlette is easy, she’s just shy of 7. Besides making sure I throw a few bottles of water and some snacks in my bag, she’s good to go. The baby, well, breastfeeding lightens my bag by a pound or two, and a container or two of food for him as well as some diapers and a change of clothes and we were golden. But, then, THE STROLLER. The. Evil. Stroller. Not that I don’t adore the pack-mule-on-wheels, I do, but try getting around on NJ Transit trains and the NYC subway system with one. My first thought was to just carry the baby in the sling all day, but then realized what a wreck my back would be. Note to self, the subway system SUCKS for strollers or people with wheelchairs, period. Plus, traveling the subway on a weekend is hard. I’m guessing it’s when all the maintenance goes on, and the C line wasn’t running to/from where we needed it to, so instead of trying to figure it all out, we just grabbed a cab. Surprisingly easy with a stroller.

Next time we venture into NYC with the kids I plan on doing something that we can do at an easier pace (we were 30 minutes late for a 2 hour event). I can see the draw for some people to live in the city with kids. There are seemingly hundreds of things to do within walking distance and almost all of them interesting to both parents and tots. For now, I’m more than happy in my Garden State!

[tags]Kung Fu Panda, Jack Black, HP, Hewlett-Packard, Kidville, NYC, NJ Moms Blog, XBOX, XBOX 360[/tags]

Filed Under: NJ Moms Blog Tagged With: Hewlett-Packard, HP, Jack Black, Kidville, Kung Fu Panda, NJ Moms Blog, NYC, XBOX 360

Official Mommy Blogger

May 6, 2008 by Lynette ·

NJ Moms Blog I’ve been a mom almost 7 years, and it’s taken me this long to wear the title of ‘stay at home mom’. In fairness, I did work outside the house for about half of that time. To help celebrate that landmark, I’ve started contributing to the New Jersey Moms Blog. I was thinking about starting up a blog like this, but realized I don’t really have any mom blogger friends in the state. Just goes to show that no matter how connected someone is online, they can still be void of face to face friends in ‘real life’. That all goes back to my I-need-a-local-hip/cool-mamma to grab coffee with – and to grab a cocktail every once in awhile. The local moms group has been providing lots of activities for me and the kiddies, but I need some more adult interaction.