Lakeshore Learning online coupon discount code

Lakeshore Learning has great wooden and educational toys, like the one at right. If you are looking for some holiday gifts that fit that criteria maybe this coupon code will help...

The code is: 79246

It's for $5 off a $25 or more purchase, or $10 off a $50 or more purchase.

Expires 12/31.

Another online parenting support

I've added another site to the places I turn for online support. It's called mamasource and it is a really nice complement to the local twins group and the Berkeley Parents Network, which I also belong to. The advantages of mamasource are that you get same day replies to your queries and it is pretty thoroughly anonymous if there's a reason that matters to you. Mamasource has a national reach, which gives it a different flavor, though it does customize relevant local info, so you're not getting ads about a new baby shop 20 states away.

There's a daily digest that you can very easily reply and post to, and also info on local mom owned businesses!

Streamlining time on email

As the holiday season heats up and there's more demand on my time, I'm finding my To Do lists getting longer and I'm also misplacing them more. So I'm passing on this tip from my sister-in-law. It's worked great for me. I no longer need to make lists of people I need to respond to via email. Instead if I get a message I can't reply to right away, I star it - or some programs call it flagging a message. Then when you do have a few uninterrupted minutes you can log in and just look at all of your starred mail. It's a straightforward list of who you need to reply to, and especially with all the holiday shopping spam it narrows down your inbox to a manageable level.

Bottom's up...

I'm trying to get my girls to drink out of cups and someone had the great suggestion to teach them using our shot glasses. Shot glasses are better proportioned for their small mouths, plus there's less liquid to spill when they decide to turn the cups over to see what happens. It was great advice and is helping a lot.

Mixing breastmilk and shot glasses reminds me of a story I read in this really useful book - So That's What They're For!: The Definitive Breastfeeding Guide. The book relates how a lactation consultant was working with a breastfeeding mama. One of the woman's problems was that her pumped breastmilk just wouldn't freeze. It took the lactation consultant a while to get to the bottom of it, but I'll give you a hint - what's the other liquid that doesn't freeze in your freezer? You got it, vodka. I think of that story everytime I go out and have a drink these days.

The Plastics Question

Rubber Ducky,
you're the one...
with pthalates!

I was stopped yesterday while food shopping by two Cal Anthropology students. They were interviewing moms of young kids about their knowledge of pthalates and Bisphenol-A. I actually felt like I was back in school on one of those days that I coincidentally had done all the reading and the teacher decided to give a pop quiz. My good friend who works in maternal-child public health had just been talking to me about the plastics question earlier in the week.

My friend suggested I read this article in the Nation. It's about pthalates in toys... the component that seemingly makes plastics (like rubber duckies) soft. Pthalates are actually banned in Europe. Bisphenol-A (BPA) meanwhile is a concern in harder plastics like bottles. Clear bottles like Avent and Dr. Brown's have them, while murky ones like Medela and Born Free don't.

I've basically decided that plastics are convenient at times and I'm not going to banish them from my house, or invest in pricey products like Born Free. Instead, my ground rule is when it comes to kitchen wear I won't freeze or heat foods in plastics, but I do serve the girls out of plastics. And for toys, I'll happily accept hand me down hard plastic toys, but won't buy new ones.

Here's a recommendation on the baby bottle issue in particular from a Chicago Tribune article:

Until more is known about the real dangers of BPA, choose glass or supposedly safer-plastic baby bottles offered by Born Free (made with polyamide) or Medela (polypropylene) so bisphenol A can't leach into the milk. For sippy cups and water bottles, plastics labeled No. 1, No. 2 or No. 5 in the recycling triangle are considered safer. Try to keep your child from putting plastic toys -- especially those designed for older children -- in his mouth.

And always use glass, rather than plastic, to microwave food and liquid.

Putting the green in the green and red

As the holidays approach, this is a great list of gift ideas from the blog Green Parenting.

Green Parenting: Green, Socially Responsible Gift Giving

A quick list of some of my favorites:

• Membership to a local museum
• Adopt and track a sea turtle throughout the year at Seaturtle.org
• Help a rural community develop health or social services (or a number of other options) via Seva Foundation
• Send seedlings or windowbox gardening kits – seeds of change or windowbox.com
  

And potential ideas for kids to give to others:

• Compose. Songs, poems, stories, plays, portraits, dances…
• Work. Clean out somebody’s garage, cupboards, paint their porch, weed their garden…

They also have good ideas posted for toys and the like.

This mama walked into McDonalds...

This isn't a joke. And actually I didn't even walk. I went to the drive thru - ten gazillion times worse for the planet, I know. I remember doing a business story about how some cities to get in compliance with the Clean Air Act had to restrict the hours of their drive thrus.

But here's the dilemma for any parent, and times two for a twin parent. You're driving home and your babies fall asleep in their fixed car seats. You want them to keep sleeping, what do you do? I think I should probably stash a book in the car and just park in the street outside our building. Unfortunately our apartment's garage is kinda claustrophobic to me. Plus for some reason the girls always wake up right away in there.

Yesterday, though, I was hungry and tired and so I went and got myself a sundae in the drive thru and then went to a beautiful cemetery near our house and sat there eating it. It was a great quiet moment. I may get addicted. Before I do, any other suggestions for a pleasant, sane break with two sleeping babies in the car?

Mmmmmm... birthday cake

This is an egg-less, milk-less frosted Banana Cake that was a hit when I made it for a good friend's 1-year old. Because it doesn't have the egg whites and straight milk it should be fine for any solid foods baby who has started eating yogurt and wheat already. And who is allowed an occasional sugar treat. It made one 8" X 10" sheet cake and then one small loaf cake (sweets for later!).

I frosted the sheet cake with a version of cream cheese frosting and used the juice from some microwaved frozen blueberries to color the lettering.

Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

5 big, ripe bananas (about 2 cups)

2 cups plain yogurt
2 scant cups sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 tablespoon vanilla

1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

4 cups flour (white whole wheat flour works fine here)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 8"X10" pan and a small loaf pan with non-stick spray.

In a big bowl smash up the bananas. Add the yogurt through vanilla (all the wet ingredients). Once that is all combined add the baking soda, baking powder and salt. Make sure it is well combined with wet ingredients, then add the flour.

Final step is to add 1 cup of frozen blueberries if you'd like them. Pour batter into the pans...

and bake for about 35 minutes, until golden brown on top and a fork inserted in the cake comes out almost clean of crumbs. (this picture makes them look more golden than they should be)
Then, make the frosting:

Cream Cheese Frosting
To cover one 8X10 sheet cake well, plus extra for writing

1 8-oz. brick cream cheese, at room temperature
2 tablespoons butter
1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon water

Combine the cream cheese, butter and powdered sugar in a bowl with a hand mixer. Add vanilla and water to smooth. Use most of it to frost the cooled banana cake.

If you want to write "Happy Birthday Little One" on the cake here's a way to make fruit dye. Just take a handful of frozen blueberries or raspberries and microwave them in a little water.

The water will turn blue or red and if you mix that into a little bit of the frosting you'll have purple or pink frosting.

You then just fold a piece of wax paper into quarters

and spoon the frosting down in one sealed off corner. I take some scissors and snip off the tiniest bit of that corner and you can write with your wax paper "pen."


Yum!

Ergo-MOM-ics, Part 3

For those with postpartum joint pain (especially in the hands like I had) these were some of the things that helped me heal:

1. I can't say this enough... try not to tote around the infant car seats. Those things are heavy and were killers for my wrists and finger joints. (but I know, it all seems worth it at the time if it keeps baby sleeping)

2. No pushing the umbrella stroller with one hand! While it's so tempting to do - if you need to hold/comfort a baby or talk on the phone while you're going down the street- I had some of my worst joint pain after trying to steer our double umbrella stroller one-handed.

3. And on the subject of strollers, I now am trying to push ours with the palms of my hands and keeping my fingers out straight. I found that I was really gripping the stroller handles hard which was not helping things.

4. Another thing I discovered while trying to give my hands a break... gmail has keyboard commands. If you have gmail and you enable that functionality then you can ease up on your mouse use, which I found helped a lot.

5. Comfy shoes. It's a real pain to lace up sneakers when you're trying to get out the door with two little ones, but fortunately there are some good for your foot/back slip on athletic shoes out there.

6. Ask for help carrying when possible. I know, yet another thing to ask for help with, but twin parents get a crash course in this kind of community building exercise the first year.

Ergo-MOM-ics, part 2

What could this image possibly have to do with... ?! Hang with me for a sec. An issue I've heard about from lots of new moms, especially twin moms, is joint pain. When my hands and wrists started aching, I tried to just suck it up for a while. But when I couldn't squeeze a tube of toothpaste I went to my doctor. That's because a friend of mine reminded me about that oxygen mask lecture on airplanes: "Parents should put theirs on first and then you can help your kids." I decided that was pretty smart and I should probably be taking better care of myself so that I could go on lifting and toting my babies, especially since they'll only get heavier.

After my doctor's visit and follow up research, I've basically concluded what this post below - from my favorite parent's listserve - says. So I'm just going to repost the info below. And tomorrow I'm going to try to blog about some of the little changes I made that seemed to help my joint pain a lot:

Most postpartum joint pain is caused by ligament laxity due to
the hormonal effects of pregnancy. Ligaments are responsible for
joint stability, and after pregnancy, do not adequately support
and stabilize your joints as you move.
Most postpartum women will feel this mostly through the hips and
pelvis, though it's not unusual for other weight bearing joints
to be affected.
The good news is that since you're already 6 mos. post
childbirth, you should begin to feel more knit together soon. In
the mean time, treat your joints with care. Avoid movements that
aggrevate your joints, don't try to stretch a joint to relieve
pain. Don't walk bearfooted, choose shoes with a conoured foot
bed. When getting in and out of bed, 'log roll' your body to one
side, then use your arms to help bring yoru body upright as your
swing your legs off the side of the bed.
When lifting your baby, squat, and brace your core muscles before
you lift. Nurse your baby in a supportive chair, with a neutral
spine, i.e., don't hunch over.
Take special care of your wrists. Avoid twisting movements, and
wear wrist braces if you experience pain or tingling at night. If
your wrist pain continues, or gets worse, get a referral to a PT
who specializes in repetitive stress injuries and/or postpartumissues. In some cases postpartum wrist pain can become chronic if
left untreated.
Helene Byrne, BeFit-Mom, author, ''Exercise After Pregnancy: How to Look and Feel Your Best''