Happy Halloween! In the spirit of the day I dressed poor Miles like a little dork and sent him off to daycare. His pants are too short which are highlighted by the fact that they are black and his socks are white. I need to do some laundry. And my mother found a fleece shirt two sizes too large with jack-o-lanterns all over it so I had to put it on Miles today. When else will he be able to wear it other than next year at this time when it will fit like his pants do?
I did send his adorable dragon costume along for the costume parade later today. I am so proud of his costume because I sewed it. Myself. With a sewing machine. I’m not sure why I decided to take this project on. My mother made some of our clothes and costumes when I was little so maybe I felt that buying a costume was the easy way out. Now that I have made a costume I will probably be buying all future costumes in our house.
The dragon idea came from Miles’ favorite book, That’s Not My Dragon. He was very into it for a couple of weeks, was being the key word here. As soon as I started working on the costume the dragon book was cast aside for a new obsession.
I thought that making clothes was supposed to save money but I could have bought at least two dragon costumes plus shipping for the amount of money I spent on the materials. And, as usual, I way overbought so now I have tons of bright green and purple fleece. What am I going to do with it all? Maybe I will figure out how to make pajamas and outfit Miles in green and purple pj’s for the next three years. Or maybe I can make some fleece pants for my husband that he will never ever wear because the color is so horrendous. But if he runs out of clean pajama pants then he will have to wear them, and I will get a hysterical laugh good chuckle out of the whole thing. Hmmm…
I am having a problem with the flow of our daily routine at home. Actually, I am not having the problem, Miles is. His timing on poopy diapers is completely throwing me off. The instances of nonconformance happen first thing in the morning and then again in the evening.
Every morning after I scoop Miles out of his crib I promptly change his very wet and heavy diaper. Then we go downstairs and he happily plays while I make coffee and prepare his breakfast. The plan is that after breakfast I take Miles back upstairs and get him dressed for the day. However, being the excellent multitasker that he is, Miles doesn’t just happily play while I prepare his breakfast. He now plays AND fills his diaper with some lovely smelling goodies. So the dilemma is, do I make him sit in crap and eat his breakfast or do I take him upstairs first and change him? I do need to explain that changing him is now the equivilant of catching a wild animal. I chase him all over the changing table trying desperately to clean him up before he sits his dirty bum down on something clean or stick his foot in the dirty diaper. I really dread it. And I don’t want to put his clean clothes on before breakfast because they will instantly be dirty. Bibs really don’t work well in our house.
The same things happens at the end of the day. Miles eats his dinner (not sitting in crap) and then gets to play until bath time. Well, lately he has taken to filling his diaper about 20 minutes before bath time. Do I let him play in a dirty diaper until bath time? I could just put a clean diaper on him until bath time but then do I put that diaper back on him after the bath (it just feels wrong) or do I throw a perfectly good diaper away?
As soon as I figure out a plan that works Miles will change his schedule and none of this will matter. So my plan is to wait him out - but do I do it with him in a poopy diaper or not?
There is something in the air in the office this week. It’s called sales fever and boy oh boy do people have it bad. The entire office is in a hyper frenzy trying to sell the heck out of our products. And it’s working.
They are buying ad words left and right and setting up old fashioned mail campaigns. The ad word world is an amazing one to me. Little did I know that all of these companies are working like mad behind the scenes to get the perfect placement on my screen when I search for something like “infant dragon costume”. Did you know all of the work that goes into those little boxes on the right side of the screen? And, even better, did you know that every time you click on a link in one of those boxes that company is charged? When I first learned that (several years ago and in an entirely different industry) I found a company that I didn’t like and I clicked the crap out of their pay per click link. It probably didn’t do much damage though because each click doesn’t cost that much and I didn’t have the patience to do it for very long.
All of the press kits that I sweated over are starting to pay off. Editors have requested samples and we should start to see some very nice publicity. I will be certain to mention (over and over and over again) the publications that even hint at the AirCrib for your added reading pleasure.
I don’t think that I have used the alarm clock since Miles was born. He wakes us up in plenty of time to get ready for work, in fact lately it has been so painfully early that I feel like half the day is gone by the time I stroll into work.
This week everything changed. I overslept two days in a row. Two days. Which means that I was late to work two days in a row. Not a huge deal around these parts since everyone at the office is so cool. But it is a huge deal in our house. A very joyous huge deal. That means that Miles is not only back to sleeping through the night (except for the 4 AM feeding that he still insists on) but he is sleeping past the 5 o’clock mark! My husband has been out of town all week so he has not had the pleasure of this new milestone. On second thought, the getting up early thing didn’t really bother him to begin with because he didn’t get up early. I did.
So tonight I will be setting my alarm clock just like old times. I sure do hope that I remember how to do it.
Miles has discovered the art of repetition. This weekend I read the book Tails at least a million times. I have to admit that it is really cute to see him so interested. He shuffles through the other books (actually he throws them on the floor) until he finds his beloved book. Then he has me read it over and over and over again. Being the boy genius that he is, he no longer takes the time to feel the soft, fluffy tails or touch the scaly ones. He is now obsessed with pulling and pushing the tabs to make the tails wag.
Last night we had dinner at my parents’ house because my husband was out of town. While I sat and ate my father, in such great Grandpa-like fashion, read Tails to Miles. What he thought would be a quick reading session turned into the entire meal. Granted I have learned to eat ridiculously fast but this time I took my time, chewed my food, and listened to Tails. Again. And again. And again.
The time has come for my second official product review. Just a reminder - I have purchased this product myself and the manufacturer has not asked for my feedback, I just love gear and an audience.
I tried out the Kelty TC2.0 (transit child carrier) once Miles had outgrown the convertible infant seat. I could no longer haul that car seat around with him in it, it was too damn heavy. And I don’t always like using a stroller so I needed a different option. I tried putting Miles on my hip with a sling and that worked well but I wasn’t 100% hands free. I still kept an arm around him as a back up measure of safety.
I decided on the Kelty transit carrier because it looks like a regular backpack only it has the added feature (bonus) of being able to hold your child as well as your gear. The maximum load weight is 40 lbs so it can be used for quite awhile. Unless you have an exceptionally large child like mine who will probably outgrow it by the time he is 1. The other cool feature is the little zip off backpack that makes a great diaper bag. You can store all of the kid things in the zip off section and then store your own things (yes, you do still have items that are just for you, just think about it for a little while and you will slowly start to remember) in the larger section. We like using it at the local Farmer’s Market where it gets pretty crowded and tight for a stroller and we need a place to put all of our purchases.
It takes some adjusting to get the carrier fiting just right but there are so many buckles and straps that eventually you can get the perfect fit. The carrier also comes in some fun colors to liven up your look!
I’m not sure if I have mentioned this already but we are in the process of setting up a web store to sell innovative juvenile products. It will be a good way to sell our products (starting with the AirCrib) and for me to get a discount on other cool products to support other companies with unique ideas. I have become the self appointed buyer which is like a dream come true! I have always thought that being a buyer would be so cool. You get to find neat new products and try them out. Now I realize that it isn’t all fun and games, that you have to find products that other people will like too. So hopefully my taste is not too unique and others will purchase what I bought. We have a really great line up of products that we found at the ABC Show last month. I will also be reviewing each product here so you can read about why I like each piece so much.
We have sold and shipped an AirCrib! Actually we have quite a few orders in hand and lots more in the works since our debut at the ABC Kids Expo in Las Vegas. But we shipped our first non-sample AirCrib this week! Now if only we had some more I could actually start shipping against our other orders…
Life in our household is back to sane again. Last week was probably the worst week that I have had in a very long time. Miles was in and out of daycare due to some “uncontainable” bowel movements. Apparently an intestinal bug traveled its way around his class and kids were in and out all week. Fortunately he seemed to feel fine, unfortunately it was not the best week for me to miss work. My mom and husband were able to fill in some to help out. We managed to make it through and I spent the weekend in a drunken stupor just relaxing with no schedule or agenda. By Sunday I was finally feeling human again and ready for the week to start.
