Eating Like a Boy / Booster Seat Review

Yesterday was a very productive day for me! Yay! I got done everything that I had listed on my to do list and I was ready for my family who is visiting from Montreal to come and see our place and our son. Everyone was gathered around our bar height table nursing their glasses of wine or cups of coffee while I readied my little man for his supper. My mom came into the kitchen while I was preparing his meal and was shocked at the amount that I had made. "He'll never eat all of that!"  My response was that I wouldn't have made that amount if I didn't know that he would eat it. Over the course of forty-five minutes (my little guy is a slow eater) he proceeded to polish off every last bit of food that I had made much to the surprise of my family. Granted, at least one ounce of food wound up on his bib, hands, or face but he still managed to eat about ten ounces of food. At least I wasn't feeding him in his swing like I used to. When he started to put his toes in his mouth while I was trying to feed him, I decided it was time to move him to his booster chair. Cleaning pureed peas out from between his toes with a q-tip was not going to become a daily routine!

Never have I been so glad for the invention of portable booster seats! We have a Fisher-Price Healthy Care Deluxe Booster Seat (sells on Amazon for about $30.00) and it's an amazing little thing. There are two straps that allow you to attach it semi-permanently to just about any type of chair and three height levels to make sure that your baby is at the perfect height. The tray has three pieces: a lid to keep it all clean while traveling (or keep a dirty tray from mucking things up on your way home), a dishwasher safe top tray with separate cup or bottle holder. Remove the dirt upper tray and your baby can still stay and play in his high chair with a clean bottom tray while you clean up! This is a very handy little chair especially since it all fold up and buckles together to be no bigger than a large purse. The one thing that I would have found handy is if it reclined. If it had been a reclining version like the Fisher-Price Space Saver high chair, I would have been able to use it right at his first feeding instead of feeding him in his car seat or swing. We're one of those starting families that lives is a small two bedroom condo and space is at a premium. When it came time to decide between a formal or dedicated high chair or swing my husband and I decided that the swing was more of a necessity. I do not regret our decision. The swing is the best thing (I'll have to review that next!) and I was able to feed my son in that for quite a while without any problems. Not to mention that the swing is a life saver when getting him to fall asleep! 


So I hope I've provided you with some fun and helpful info today! I hope you all have a good night and see you tomorrow!

YAY! Technology Works! / Excersaucer Review

You may wonder why I'm so excited! You see I've finally gotten my almost ten year old laptop to work! I'm writing from it now from my kitchen table while keeping an eye on my little man while he's in his excersaucer. You'll also notice that I've changed the layout once again. I was hoping to put in something fall like but I couldn't find anything that really fit the bill with three columns. I had to work with the HTML a bit to get the title of the page moved down a bit and so that the two lines of text lined up but I finally did it! YAY!

So any ways, since I mentioned earlier I do a quick little review of our excersaucer.We actually have two of the bulky toys. One was a shower gift and another was a hand me down. The hand me down is a Graco Baby Einstein Discover and Play Entertainer (currently listed as unavailable on Amazon.com) which was the first one that my son got to try. This one does require batteries but only for one of the eight toys on it. My son loved the three wheels each made to make a different sound (bell, pebbles and click) and it was the first thing he learned how to do. The battery operated bit is like one of those old 80
s memory games but instead of colors and flashing lights you have animals. As the baby presses on each animal (cat, dog, duck, cow and lion) he gets to hear the sound they make. If he presses the same button again he'll hear the word in English. If he presses it a third time he'll hear it in Spanish. so far these are the only things that he really plays with in this saucer and he's six months. It seems to me that he gets far more interaction with his newer saucer.

His newer saucer is an Evenflo Farmyard Excersaucer Mega. This one require no batteries and has seven toys/activities and a snack tray. By far his favorite is what what my husband and I refer to as his "chicken ball" a clear plastic ball with three chickens inside with little egg shaped pebbles that he can spin at his heart's content. He also enjoys the rocking horse that clicks when moved and the small mounted flip book.There are also a couple of toys that are great for teething that have been a godsend. This saucer also has a small mirror which provide him with tons of amusement as well. We haven't really tried the snack tray yet other than to hold a cold teething ring but seems to just like hanging on to it and jumping around! Since I did get this one fresh out of the box there was some assembly required but it was a piece of cake just following the instructions.

In this case I would definitely say that batteries don't necessarily make it better and would recommend the Evenflo saucer to the Graco. I hope you find this helpful and let me know if you baby prefers one type to another! I'm always interested in getting feedback!

*SO* Productive...

So I've done a lot today. Not nearly as much laundry as I should have but when do I ever?

I talked to the electrician today in regards to our melted breakers. He hasn't spoken to the wiring inspector for our town yet but he's going to the supply house tomorrow to see if he can find compatible breakers. I'm expecting a call from him tomorrow morning and I'm expecting the worst. The worst being that we will have to completely replace the whole panel. I hope it isn't the case but then if the breakers are hard to find now won't I just have to replace the panel if the buyers (when we eventually sell) as us to in their P&S? What a headache.

I did do something for myself today that pleases me to no end. I sat down and fixed up my other blog. You can see it here. I'm very proud since I added new pages and dealt with some HTML issues. YAY! I also added a page to this site under the "home" link on the little chalkboard in the upper right hand corner. I'll hopefully beef up this site too soon so look forward to that!

The Trials and Tribulations of Homeownership

So we came back from a great trip down to North Carolina and my hubby has one day of rest before it's back to the daily grind and school work. We've had a delicious supper with a new glaze that I tried on a salmon fillet when he calls me to the hallway that connects the two bedrooms and bathroom. "Do you smell something?" He asked me and I replied yeah, I smelled something like melting plastic. My hubby continued his investigation and pulled the coats out of the coat closet while I went back to check on JM, our six month old, who was sleeping in the bedroom. I hear him swear and the smell was stronger. I called the Property management company and they said to call the non emergency number for the fire department. The firemen came and took our electrical panel apart and lo and behold two  of the double breakers had melted. Awesome. Long story short the company that made the panel went out of business twenty or more years ago and if the electrician can't find compatible breakers we'll have to install a whole new panel.

The thing that really ticks me off is that this specific problem was addressed in our P&S agreement when we purchased the place. The building inspector specifically indicated that the panel and those particular breakers needed to be looked at by a licensed electrician and wiring inspector. I refuse to pay for the work that was supposed to be done two years ago!

Road Trip

So we've made it to North Carolina. We're here for my brother-in-law's wedding which is Saturday. I'm very happy to say that the total drive only took us about fifteen hours with a five and a half month old. I was definately expecting it to take longer with a younger baby. Most of friends and family have agreed that it take an average of fourteen hours. Altogether not to bad I think.

Tomorrow I'm making supper for an unspecified number of people. It'll be fun and informal bbq. I also get to go to a bookstore tomorrow!!! YAY!

Life in the Fast Lane

Life is running away with me once again. Three weddings plus birthdays, work and a host of other familial obligations have turned my small family's life topsy turvy.

Saturday we are off on an adventure. We are heading down to North Carolina for my brother-in-laws wedding. We are driving down with a friend and it'll be good to share driving. I'm not too sure how it's going to go with our six month old. I've done a couple of long drives before but I was able to stop fairly often. This time we'll be leaving at night so we can get the biggest bit of road under us while he's sleeping his night though. That will mean about nine hours of straight driving before I have to worry about feeding him. It's usually a fourteen hour drive though some of my crazier friends have done it in twelve. With a baby though I have a feeling it'll be more like fifteen hours. We'll see.

I'm also fairly excited since I have a gig when I get back for a play called "Lilacs" at Lesley University. It's a programming job and I'm looking forward to it. I'll have to bring JM along but I have a feeling that it won't be that bad. It's only for a couple of hours as far as I can tell and if I bring a sippy cup for JM to much on it should be fine.

On top of everything I think I'm going to try to do some side selling when I get back. A little thing like candies and nuts, bracelets. I think I'll call it nutty housewife. yup. OK well that's it for now. JM is waking up and not really happy....