You might need more "me time" IF...

A few days ago I snuck out to the spa for a much needed eyebrow wax. Fortunately, I have some gray blond hairs, so I can go a few months between appointments, but it had definitely been a couple months since I'd been in. You can imagine my surprise as the aesthetician asked if everything was OK and that she was worried about the orangey/red spots around my eyes and whether she could "operate." (She was also trying to do a hard sell for some eyebrow tinting with respect to the above mention blond hair, but I digress). I thought about how my son had inadvertently cut my eye that morning while wielding a miniature school bus and wondered if I developed some type of infection that would put a stop to my 15 minutes of me time. "Here, look," she said as she thrust a mirror in my face. What a saw was even more embarrassing and shocking. The orange spots were surprisingly not my little gash from the run-in with the school bus. There, right above my right eye, on the middle of my nose, AND under my left eye were remnants from my son's lunch side of mashed pumpkin (someone must have been pulling on my sunglasses before the Mommish washed his hands)....

Only in mommyland kids, only in mommyland...

Buy Buy Baby and Beyond...

You may have already heard, but as I am slow on the corporate news now that I am no longer in the corporate world, I just heard about a beautiful merger. No, not the nuptials of Mimi and Nick, but the merger of east coast baby merch mecca Buy Buy Baby and home of the weekly 20% off mailer - Bed, Bath and Beyond. To the Momish, the takeaway is that those 20% off coupons may now be used (double check with your local store) to stock up on all things baby gear - including strollers of the carrycot variety (a secret obsession). I know many of my New York friends had registries at Buy Buy Baby - so hopefully the Midwesterners and west coasters will soon have another registry option... I do know that Bed, Bath and Beyond's website already has a baby section and it features a wide variety of high, middle and low price points (for instance, in strollers they offer Uppa-Baby, Peg Perego, Bugaboo, Combi, Joovy, Maclaren, etc.)

An interesting tidbit for me (in my past-life I liked to pretend to be a corporate attorney and work on mergers and acquisitions - and even had "Family Business" magazine on my routing list at the law firm) from the deal was that Buy Buy Baby was founded by the sons of the founder of Bed, Bath and Beyond. Buy Buy Baby had eight stores and was worth $86 million. It will be interesting to see if the deal means that baby merchandise will be carried at Bed, Bath stores or if more Buy Buy Baby stores will pop up through out the country.

Sound Familiar?

My younger brother, who will become a father this fall, recently sent me the following link to a newstory with the subject heading, "Sound Familiar."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080804/ap_on_re_mi_ea/odd_israel_home_alone;_ylt=ApgS4DeIYIzg8tGAFycdjlIDW7oF

The story is about an Orthodox Jewish family in Israel with five kids who accidentally left their youngest child, a three year old, behind at Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv, while the rest of the family made their flight to Paris. The little girl was found wandering the duty free shops. Thankfully, the child was reunited with her parents and siblings in Paris via escort on the next direct flight. Just reading the story is enough to give any parent a heart attack - but unlike so many other similar news stories this one has a happy (enough) ending.

My brother questioned my familiarity with the story because, as one of six children in my family, it seems I was the one forever getting lost. I still can remember the exact intonation of the loudspeaker lady at Nordstrom's asking me to "Please meet my party at the Shoe Department," when I was probably around fifteen. But my most vivid memory is when, in an age long before text messaging, e-mail and even cell phones, I was accidentally left behind at my synagogue one Saturday morning after Shabbat services. [Ed. note: Although I am beyond impressed with how quickly the girl was reunited with her family - it begs the question if it was really simply modern ]technology or if Israeli secret airport security is just THAT good...] In my case, mom thought I was driving home with my dad and my dad thought the opposite, that my mom had me... I thought the girls went with my mom and the boys with my dad, but no one (i.e. my older sisters and/or parents) inadvertantly neglected to tell me about the change of plans. Et voila, I spent an afternoon with Rabbi Spector educating him in the ways of Cabbage Patch naming principles (he even brought up Tallulah Aimee during my wedding ceremony - and speaking of - hmmm...maybe one theory behind the crazy celeb baby monikers is that celebs are naming their kids after the cabbage patch dolls they had growing up.... just a thought...) waiting for my parents to finish driving carpools and make it home to get the dreaded phone call...

The parents in the Israeli story are going to be questioned for negligence. Thankfully, my parents were never questioned. But in today's age of toddler-tethers and mommy arrests for leaving a baby in the car while walking 10 feet away and making a donation with two other kids, it does make you wonder where the line should be drawn.... The Babish is also called "The Wandering Jew" by some of his distant relatives because he never stays still and is always on the go (hmmm...after revisiting the past, maybe his personality is more like mine than I care to admit). But, I am still amazed at how my mom and dad were able to, well sort of, most of the time keep track of where we all were. Perhaps as a result of my past - losing the Babish is one of my biggest fears. I can't bring myself to tether him - so I'm just trying to teach him to hold my hand in a busy place, or I strap him in the stroller or sling him when I need to really keep an eye on him and just deal with the protesting. When we are in a safe area, like a large playground, and I have the energy to follow him - I let him wander, hoping he can get his wandering fix during those times...

Kids say the Darndest Things...

I was thinking about posting a shameless plug for my sister, Jenny Meyerhoff, whose first children's book, Third Grade Baby, comes out in just one short month.... But, I happened to check out her highlarious blog today, and so I just had to provide a link to a very cute story about my three year old nephew's commentary about a birthday gift.

http://www.thepurpledesk.blogspot.com/

My nephew Noah is one funny kid. He recently offered to be the Babish's jumping coach, since everyone else seemed to some sort of coach and he wanted in on the action.

The Babish still has a limited vocabulary - so I'm still waiting for some funny-isms. I've only had one. While I was trying to prompt the little guy to say "whee" or "slide" while looking at a picture of a boy going down a slide, the Z-man was not having any of it. But he kept saying Tuzzy, Tuzzy every time I said "slide." Thinking my kid was really confused, I just politely kept saying, yes that is a slide. Finally he looked at me point blank and almost yelled the word, "Tuzzy." Duh - it clicked for dumb Momish- he was trying to tell me that the boy was going down on his Tushy...[and it served as a wake-up call that he does understand a lot more that I think, including when I caution him to go on his tushy every time he's about to go down his slide head first...]

Save the Stroller Drama for Your Mama!

I've often hesitated to post about strollers for fear that I would offend someone. You see, I've often thought of strollers like cars - they depreciate so quickly, so it's not worth the big splurge. All you need to do is ask any of my friends and they can cite my diatribe against the Bugaboo verbatim. [A) Way overpriced - save $300-$500 bucks and put the money in a 529 savings account; B) if your kid has a trust fund and you want to drop a grand on a stroller, at least get something more unique (heck, I'll even tell you which strollers to import from Europe if you let me); and C) no matter what you say - you will end up getting at least two strollers anyway (so don't tell me it will be your only stroller). Now, to cut some slack, just a few years ago, there weren't many other options (so I won't look down on the Bug drivers whose kids will turn at least 2 in 2008 :). However, it seems like there is a new model out every month and many offer great features. My biggest advice is to shop around and test drive. Lift those strollers up, check out how tall/long the seat is and how wide the base is. And if you really want my admiration - buy your stroller on sale! If you want a jazzy stroller (with bassinet, etc.) - look for floor model sales from local boutiques (even some websites offer floor model sales). If you are more of a basics, with no shock absorption kind of mama, then remember, like cars, traditional stroller manufacturers offer new models every year - so don't turn your nose up at last year's model. Many go on sale from late fall through early winter.

OK, OK - but there is finally a new stroller that has really piqued my interest, so I must give a shout out. Before we go any further, in the interest of disclosure I will divulge my wheels. We currently drive an Infinity Rock Star Baby Stroller. Yes, the Tico Torres and Jon Bon Jovi "inspired" stroller. I also keep the Maclaren Volo in my car (purchased for us as a gift - but at $89 instead of $109 because I registered for the older model). I found the RSB stroller at a Warehouse Sale of a high-end children's boutique in the area. At the time it retailed for $499 - however, we got it for $325 in cash - it was a floor model, but it was still in the box wrapped in plastic. I wanted a stroller that had a bassinet, car seat adapter and rode front and rear facing. I got all of that in the base price, plus some nice extras, like a rain cover, adjustible handle and large and plush bassinet that my 95% son was able to use for almost 4 months! (I'd imagine an avergae baby might fit in the bassinet for 6 months). My one complaint is that on a recent trip, American Airlines managed to rip the foam handle cover and my seat canopy corners. [Note to readers: buy the stroller carrying case- universal ones are far cheaper than the ones that match your stroller and they can spare you from my mistakes.]

But fret not, the parent company - Hauck - has already shipped me a new foam wrapper and seat cover (because that also ripped) at no charge. My stroller is already past the one year warranty and they are still sending me all of this. Which leads me to the new stroller that I am so coveting, from the same parent company, so not only does it look great, but trust me, you know you'll have great customer service too.

Introducing, the I'coo Targo stroller. Weighing in at only 22 pounds, there are many similarities between this stroller and my beloved Rock Star. Basically, it looks like they took the Infinity base (which sold in Europe and was marketed here as the Rock Star and occasionally found without a bassinet as Infinity at BRU) and added a few new features. The coolest one is the ability to raise the seat along the frame - in a Stokke Explory kind of way (good for baby's view and Stokke's claim was also air quality). Another feature is the ability to fold the stroller with the seat on. I can fold my RSB with the seat when it is rear facing, but apparently this stroller folds both ways...

It was originally priced at $699, but now I've seen it for $599 (remember this price includes the car seat adaptor and rain/UV cover which those two things alone could cost you a hundo for some other brands)...And maybe you'll get lucky and find a floor model somewhere...

Apologies, Apologies

As you can tell, it's been a little while. Well, in the past six months, we moved to the burbs and I quit my job. So I've had a few other things on my mind (like getting my first semi-darker shade of pale skin tan in about 10 years! I will try to post more often, but please forgive me if I instead choose to spend my son's naptime vegging on the couch with Oprah.

Baby Cooks?

So if you have read what the Mommish says, you know how passionate I am about homecooked (or as close of an approximation to it as possible) baby food. So you can imagine my intrigue when I came across a new product in the Williams Sonoma catalog that not only purees, but also steams, blends and warms fruits and veggies into delicious concoctions for the wee ones. It's called the Beaba Babycook and it looks pretty cool. That being said, the $139 price tag is a little steep for the Mommish, and if you already are the proud owner of a veggie steamer (or microwave or even a good old fashion oven for that matter) and either a blender or a food processor - then you already have all the tools you need. But if you are looking for easier clean-up and keeping everything in one place, it does look like a pretty sweet contraption.

Since it is sold through Williams Sonoma - maybe it would be best on a wedding registry - instead of a steamer and blender - just get the Babycook!