Saturday, March 1, 2008

Never Feed a Baby Mushrooms : )

I am determined to feed my 11 month old son a variety of fruits and vegetables. The kid will eat ANYTHING (except kiwis). I am so proud of him, cause I know a lot of friends that have so called "junk food babies" all they eat is sugar and candy. I want my boy to have a well balanced diet.

But anyways, I was cooking a new recipe for dinner last week and it called for some fresh mushrooms. After I cooked dinner I had about 5 normal sized mushrooms left over. My son had never ate them so I thought I would let him try them...BIG mistake!!!

My son actually ate all the mushrooms which surprised me. He will eat anything, but mushrooms do kinda taste funky just plain and raw. I had no idea these would work like a laxative on him!! So now for the third day in a row I have been changing at least three nasty smelling dirty diapers. Usually my son has one dirty diaper a day!

I have learned my lesson about mushrooms and babies. And although they may not affect every baby in this way Mommys be warned, mushrooms will clean out your baby : )

Friday, February 29, 2008

Diapers...Name Brand VS. Store Brand


We all know that diapers can be a very expensive necessity. But are those cheaper store brand diapers really a good value? Or are we better off spending more for Pamper's or Huggies? This post is based on my experiences with both types of diapers. This is only my opinion and experiences. Some people may agree or disagree with my views.

When my son was first born he only wore Pampers. I felt they were very absorbent and fit him well. But after he moved into size two diapers I started looking at the store brand diapers. I realized I was paying double for the same amount of diapers. I am not a rich person, so I am always trying to find ways to save money. I decided to give Parent's Choice (a Wal Mart store brand) a try.

I was very pleasantly surprised by Parent's Choice. I had tried Huggies a few times and my son leaked through them about four times a day, with the Parent's Choice he has yet to leak through them.

My Mother shops at Sam's Club (A warehouse store) she suggested buying diapers there cause they were cheaper to buy in bulk. Once again I tried the store brand (Member's Mark) and was very pleased. My son has yet to leak through these as well.

So all this got me thinking. Why do we spend more money on name brand diapers when most of the time the so called store brand diapers work just as well or better than others? I figured we have been told forever that this brand or that brand is the best ever so we buy it for the name.

Others are determined to only buy the best for their babies. That is great if you can afford it, but I am looking for the best value for my money and I have found this in store brand diapers. Besides I don't think my child will ever remember that he did not have Pampers or Huggies when he was a baby!

Thursday, February 28, 2008

The Battle of Dog and Boy

Yet another day of chaos in the house. It seems that our beloved dog Angel (pictured on right) has figured out that the baby bottles contain some sort of food. She has proceeded to eat at least 3 nipples off of the bottles in the last 5 hours! And now the baby realizes if he reaches her food she will come to him.

Of course the baby does not understand that he can not feed the dog, and the dog doesn't understand that it is wrong to take food from the baby. So what to do?
I try to keep them separated but that is near impossible and not fair to either one of them. Sometimes I feel like I am watching two babies!

Last night was fun, I am functioning on 3 hours of sleep right now. It seems the baby is having another bout with cutting teeth. This may not work for everyone, but I have found that rubbing his gums with a cold wet rag helps him greatly. And I give him half a dose of baby Tylenol to help with the pain. I can only hope he pops out the rest of these teeth soon.

Looks like my husband does not have to work this weekend, which means we have a huge shopping day planned for Saturday. That should be fun, dragging a baby around town all day! Stay tuned to see what kind of chaos that creates!

Monkey Boy

My 1 year old son has already learned how to crawl out of, over top of, underneath or around everything I have bought to try and keep him confined to one large play room. So my latest adventure was trying to find a baby safety gate। Sounds easy right? Nothing is ever easy here!!


The problem began with the entrance to the play room. It is an extra large opening that measures 70 inches wide. Now I am not a rich person and I hate wasting money, but it was inevitable that I had to buy something to keep the baby in that room. So my shopping started at 9am.

First stop, Magic Mart, a local retailer with a mid size selection of baby products. I was excited when I realized that the first gate I saw was 72 inches wide, but alas nothing could be this simple for me. After inspecting it closer I realized that the gate had this diamond shaped design. My first thought was he is going to stick his toes in there and climb right over it. Then I noticed that the top of the gate had these little x designs on it that were not covered up. I could see my baby poking his eye out on one of those.

You would think they would make safe products for children. But anyways on to the next store, Wal-Mart. Now we all know that Wal-Mart has everything anybody could possibly need all in one store. But remember, nothing is ever simple for me.

I was very disappointed with Wal-Mart's selection and prices on baby gates. They only had five to choose from and three of those were very flimsy and cheap looking. I don't think they would have kept my baby confined for more than five minutes. So now I was off to Toy's R Us which I was not happy about. I had always thought that the store had high prices and only toys, boy was I wrong!

Upon entering Toy's R Us I saw the exact gate that I needed for only $43! It was very sturdy and secure. It is made by Even Flo and extends to 72 inches. I will definitely be shopping at Toy's R Us again. I would highly recommend this gate for anybody with an odd shaped doorway. It is also a great value for the quality.