Raves!

... and one rant. ;-)

RAVES:

• Safety 1st tot loks
  These are the BEST child safety locks that I know of. I discovered them when Stephen and I were visiting my brother- and sister-in-law years ago. They had these on their cabinets to keep their (then) very young sons out. I liked them so much, that I bought a bunch when we had Em. The only thing to keep in mind with these is you can't lose the key! Like my sister-in-law used to, I keep my main key on my kitchen sink (it's magnetic, so it sticks to the metal), and it's not allowed to leave that spot. I also have a back-up key in a secret spot, in case we misplace the main one. When someone's not used to using the lock and key, it can be a bit tricky to line them up and unlock a door, but with practice, it becomes second-nature. In my opinion, they're so much cleaner and easier to use than all other locks I've seen. I love these things!


• The First Years hands-free baby gate
  I love, love, LOVE this baby gate. It's a step gate, so in order to open it, you step on a pedal. You gotta put some weight into it, too, so it's pretty difficult for a young child to open it (assuming they even know how to open it). We have one up in our bedroom doorway, and it works great to keep dogs out, and to keep kids in or out when necessary. It's been in that doorway since Em became mobile, and I love it. Actually, it was only a few months ago that she really started learning how to open it, and now she's a pro. But it lasted a good few years with her, and I'm hoping will do the same for Leah! Like I said, though, it's good for dogs, too. It's nice to keep our door open at nighttime, but we keep the gate closed so the dogs don't come jumping on the bed. ;-)
  My brother, Jaime, actually bought this for my parents one time when he was in town years ago (I forget which grandchild it was meant for -- it actually might've been intended for Lily), but they didn't get much use out of it. So we inherited it! I highly recommend it.


• shampoo rinse cup
  Little ones hate to get water and shampoo in their eyes, of course. I bought this on a whim for $5 or something like that, and it works pretty well, but I'm thinking this one might work even better.


• (Mini) Co-Sleeper
  We co-sleep around here. Emily slept either in my arms or in the Co-sleeper for her first two years (or around there), and then she slept on a crib mattress next to my side of the bed between ages two and three. The night of her third birthday, she slept in her own bed in her own room for the very first time. Like Em did, Leah starts out in the Co-sleeper and sleeps there for her first three hours or so. Then she ends up in my arms for the remainder of the night. I'm hoping she starts to sleep more hours in the Co-sleeper soon, but if not, that's okay. The Co-sleeper's nice because, after adding leg extensions, it's flush with our bed. (Our bed's pretty high.) It's super easy for me to just scoop the baby out of the Co-sleeper and pull her into bed. It's nice for breastfeeding/co-sleeping families. An added bonus is its ample storage underneath the mattress!


• Q-See baby video monitor
  A couple years ago, we bought a video monitor from costco.com, but as soon as we tried it out, we weren't happy with it. (It really didn't work at all.) A little while later, I saw that costco.com was selling a video monitor from a different maker, and it was on sale ($50 off!). We decided to go ahead and try it, because we knew that if we didn't like it, we could just go ahead and return it to a Costco warehouse and get all our money back (including shipping!). To our pleasant surprise, though, the Q-See worked (and continues to work) very well. It sees well in the dark, so we can keep an eye on Em when she's sleeping in a different room, or we can keep an eye on Thello, who just recently started sleeping out in the living room with Xyno because he announced that he's a big boy now. We've had the monitor for a couple years now and we still love it. I can't believe we only paid $100 for it. What a great buy that was!


• Em's vtech Kidizoom digital camera
  I put this on Em's Christmas wish list, and her Aunt M bought it for her. (The *pink version, though.) It was a GREAT choice. She uses it a lot, and I love the fact that she can just go crazy taking pictures because it's digital. It's neat to go back later on and actually look at some of the pictures she took -- there are some pretty cute and creative shots in there! There's one she took of Leah that is really funny. I should download it and post it. The camera also has a few little games on there that Em likes to play, one of which is a puzzle game. It takes one of Emily's pictures and creates a puzzle out of it! I think that's cool. She digs it, too.
  * I think M bought the camera for ~$40; not sure why the price has gone up so much (to $60) on Target/Amazon. vtech's site has it up for $50.


• wooden toys
  I would love to have a 'no-plastic toy' rule for this house, but I know that's kinda unrealistic. I have started buying Em more wooden toys the past few months, though, which is good. Wooden toys are just prettier, nicer, and seem to be more fun in my opinion. She has a set of Melissa & Doug colored wooden blocks; a Melissa & Doug slice-and-bake cookie set (really cute -- a big hit) that our neighbor, Lee, gave her; a coffee and toast set that Martha gave her; and a cupcake set that Stephen and I gave her for Easter. (She'd been wanting that cupcake set for a long time! It's really cute. I'm glad I bought it for her. I got it at Target, but unfortunately I can't find it online to link to.) I saw a bunch of other adorable wooden toys on Amazon that I'd like to gradually get for the girls. (They all happen to be Melissa & Doug.) Here are the links to some of them:
  -- sandwich-making set
  -- birthday party birthday cake
  -- food groups
  -- pizza party
  -- beginner pattern blocks
  -- pattern blocks & boards
  -- See & Spell -- looks neat!
  -- shape-sorting clock -- this one looks really cute!


• Netflix
  Blockbuster kept disappointing us by changing their policies for the worse, so we finally jumped on the Netflix bandwagon. I'm glad we did. We currently only subscribe to the cheapest plan, which is only $5/month (because two movies/month is all we seem to have time for!). Really, two movies is all we need. I don't even have enough time to watch the shows on my DVR, much less movie rentals! I love how easy this system is, though. Putting the movies I want in my queue online, and then receiving them in my mailbox a few days later... that's wicked awesome! :-)


• GE SmartWater water filter/dispenser -- and -- GE SmartWater water cooler/dispenser
  For far too long, Stephen and I couldn't get it right when it came to good drinking water. Stephen's parents bought a water cooler when they were living in Ramona, and we followed suit and bought the same one for our Carmel Mountain apartment (except ours is the counter-top version). Stephen was skeptical that we'd actually use it, but here we are, eight years later, still using it daily and loving it. It's fairly small, it's compatible with 3- or 5-gallon jugs, it dispenses cold and hot water, and it has a child safety switch on the hot side. (We don't leave our hot switch on, though, because it obviously uses more energy, and we don't need hot water enough of the time to justify it. It's nice to switch it on when we want tea or something, though. It doesn't take long at all for the unit to heat the water. We always leave the cold on, of course! I need cold drinking water all day long!) The thing we couldn't get right, though, was the water itself. We never had (and still don't have) a refrigerator that dispenses good, filtered drinking water (and everyone knows how San Diego-area tap water isn't fit for human consumption), so we used to fill up 3-gallon jugs from the vending machines at the grocery store. But that just got to be too tedious. After years of doing this, we finally resorted to buying the Pur faucet water filter. We bought it from Costco, so it was very reasonably priced, and it seemed easy enough to use. We installed it (it attaches to the faucet), and it worked great for a while. It was easy to place the jug underneath the filter to fill it up, and I liked the way the unit had light indicators to let us know when we needed to start thinking about changing out the filter. And best of all, the water tasted great. We were happy for a while there. But then, something started happening with our (brand-new) faucet. It started leaking a bit and shooting out thin streams of water. Stephen tried tweaking it and fixing it, but it soon became evident that the Pur was the culprit. Stephen then announced that the Pur needed to go. I was disappointed because I really did like the product. Finally, we decided to go ahead and do what we'd always thought about doing, but never took the time to just DO -- we bought and installed an under-the-sink filtration unit and a separate, small, dispensing faucet that mounts next to the regular faucet. It's similar to this one, but it's not dual-stage. Its filter lasts about a year, which is awesome, and while the water doesn't taste quite as good as the Pur water did, it's plenty good enough. This system is convenient, easy, and does the trick. I'm so glad we finally found a good, permanent solution to our problem. It's awesome!


• vinyl plank flooring
  This stuff looks good, it's durable (awesome for kids and dogs!), it's easy to clean, and it's not too expensive. Love it!


• Racket Zapper
  It's springtime, so we've started seeing a lot more flies and mosquito hawks (a.k.a. crane flies) around the house (outside and in!). The flies are obnoxious, and Stephen got fed up, so when we were at Target the other day, he picked up a Racket (bug) Zapper. It's shaped like a tennis racket (which seems a bit dangerous when it comes to little kids, but we of course put it up out of reach), and when you press its button, it charges up the electric shock so that when a fly or other pest crosses its path, it ZZZZZZZ -- zaps it! It kinda creeps me out to use it, but it is easier than using a fly swatter. Although there was a really fast fly buzzing around the kitchen yesterday, and I spent a good five to ten minutes trying to catch the thing! He was just too fast. I didn't get him. Usually it's not so hard!

RANT:

• Rubbermaid (plastic) laundry basket
  Why, oh why, can't I find a decent laundry basket? Both of mine are made of (what looks to be strong) plastic, and both are broken at the handles. Stephen said maybe we should try to find a lightweight metal basket (i.e. one that can't break on me!). I haven't taken the time to look into this, but if anyone knows of a good laundry basket, please let me know!