Father Of The Blog

Every new mom knows that a stroller can be a total life-saver, and accessories that are made to work with strollers are life-savers as well. So, to kick off the Baby Shower Extravaganza we are going to be giving away a Strolling in Style Package. This package consists of an Easywalker QTRO stroller in Red, a blanket from Lil Tag Alongs and a No Throw Strap of your choice.
EasyWalker
A leading maker in innovative and practical strollers for families, EasyWalker is a company that you can trust for your stroller needs. Using quality materials and practical and comfortable designs, EasyWalker makes a great single stroller (the QTRO) and a great double stroller (the DUO). In addition to carrying strollers in a variety of styles, EasyWalker also makes stroller accessories to fit your family’s needs.
The EasyWalker QTRO is a unique maneuverable 4-wheel stroller designed to meet the needs of both child and parent with excellent performance on any surface. The QTRO has an adjustable footrest for the child’s ultimate comfort, height adjustable handle bar for parent’s comfort, full 4-wheel suspension and includes added safety features such as UV protection. The seating is easy to adjust to four settings, including horizontal. The QTRO’s light weight aluminum frame can be folded into a handy, compact package. The optional spacious carrycot as well as seat adds value and comfort to the child’s development making the QTRO suitable from birth up to age 4.
Lil Tag Alongs
Having blankets fall off of a stroller and onto the wet or nasty ground is annoying to say the least. It gets especially annoying when your kiddo learns how to play the always amusing “Pick Up Game”. Here’s where the Lil Tag Alongs stroller blanket comes in handy. So, what is it? These are blankets that are specially made with loops where you can connect links (available at most toy and baby stores) to the blanket and to the stroller; hence no need to worry about picking the blanket up off the ground. The Lil Tag Alongs stroller blankets come in two sizes: a smaller size good for lightwight strollers and a larger blanket good for full size strollers.
In addition to being able to attach your blanket to your stroller for practical purposes, you can also attach your baby’s favorite toys to the blanket with links. Keep your kiddo entertained, occupied and weather protected all at once.
No Throw Strap
Like picking up blankets off the dirty ground, picking up bottles and sippies off of the ground isn’t exactly fun…or hygienic. So, what’s a mom or dad to do? Try the No Throw, a bottle and sippy tether that attaches to your stroller, carseat or basically anywhere else. The basic premise? Attach one end of the No Throw to your bottle or sippy (or even toys) and the other to where your child is at the time (carseat, stroller, etc), then if your child does knock the sippy or bottle away or throw it, they can either get it themselves or you can easily reach it without having to worry that it hit the gross floor.

How to Enter: (Each part of the mandatory entry must be completed! But you may leave 3 entries for each part of the mandatory entry.)
First, head over to EasyWalker and look around, then come back and let me know which stroller your like the best, which color grabs your fancy or what accessories are your favorite. Next, head over and check out Lil Tag Alongs, tell me which pattern you like the best. Finally go see the No Throw and look around, then come back and tell me which pattern you like the best or something you learned about it. This contest is open to US residents only.
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Our founding fathers would have made great bloggers. Intelligent and outspoken they had strong opinions with many issues to discuss. Ok, kind of a bad comparison, the founding fathers were so much more than self proclaimed writers.

The 5000 Year Leap covers the basics of our constitution, the aim of our founding fathers in regards to focusing on a center balanced government and retrospectively outlines a couple dozen principles of freedom in their actions and writings.

The book reads easy for a historical reference and is chocked full of great quotes. Middle to high school aged kids would have no trouble reading this book. Skousen intertwines his views with selective writings and particular historical facts to support his opinions. Agreeable in some spots and arguable in others, this book is a conversation starter.

Notable chapters in this book concerning principles of freedom: ‘Protecting the Role of the Family’ an obvious choice for a dedicated family man and ‘Avoiding the Burden of Debt’ financial freedom sounds darn good. I recommend this book to anyone who wishes not to be entertained, instead for someone that may be motivated into thought.

 
The 5000 Year Leap
A Miracle That Changed the World
Principles of Freedom 101

By W. Cleon Skousen
Copyright 1981, 1991, 2006
Published by the National Center for Constitutional Studies

Hailey, almost five, needed a new set of ear-tubes and her adenoids removed at the request of ENT specialist Dr. Lieu, (Department of Otolaryngology-Pediatric). Hailey has toughed out five years of constant fluid trapped in her middle ears (even with first set of tubes) and countless infections, we’re hoping the procedure will help alleviate constant pain and sensitivity issues also prevent any long term hearing loss.

Extremely kid-friendly, Children’s Hospital in St. Louis is a great facility with the best care around. Dr. Lieu’s office is located at the hospital and between Olivia and Hailey, this would make our fourth out-patient procedure, so we have frequented “Children’s” many times prior to this, but nothing in our experience would have or could have prepared us for (although we should have expected), Hailey’s difficult recovery, I’ll get to that soon.

Kim had all the paperwork completed before our arrival so checking in was a snap. We just need to show picture ID’s and insurance card at the reception desk where a concierge was waiting to take us up to the surgical center. We were immediately placed into a spacious “family” room down the hall from the operating room where we waited for Hailey to be called. We did have a couple hours to wait too, luckily the room had cable TV, DVD, and a playstation. Right outside our room was a play area loaded with games, puzzles, books and non-messy art supplies. Hailey and Kim played Guess Who? Then it was time to send Hailey to the OR.

Dr. Lieu came in to see us right before the surgery and apologized for the wait. Dr. Lieu is highly personable and genuinely interested in her paitents health. Five plus years ago when searching for an ENT, Kim and I were lucky to have found Dr. Lieu from a pool of (in my opinion) mediocre doctors that were in our (then) insurance network and we did a few interviews too.

The cartoon print scrubs gurneyed Hailey off to the operating room, bravely she went, not looking back as Kim held in a tear. Kim and I went back to the room until they called us to the recovery area which only took an hour. I had some phone calls to make so the time went by quickly.

Approaching the recovery area we could hear Hailey shouting, “The medicine made me sick! I want to go home right now!” over and over again. She was surrounded by four attendants and thrashing around when we arrived. The fact that Kim and I showed up only made her scream louder, “Take me home right now! The medicine made me sick! I want to go home now!” I’m pretty sure the nurse administered (and I wasn’t rejecting) a sedative into Hailey’s IV more than one time over the course of a thirty minute Hailey scream feast, something I am used too, but probably nothing the nurses or techs had anticipated. A few surprised passer-byers gave us the look of ‘can’t you control your child?’ a few others gave us the look of ‘been there and glad it ain’t me’.  At one point, the stubby attending nurse told Hailey that she needed to try and be quiet because she was scaring all the other children, which I didn’t appreciate her saying to Hailey at that point in time. Hailey moved from the gurney to Kim’s arms where she shrieked and wailed “I told you blueberry! The strawberry medicine made me sick! It’s in my mouth! I can’t hear! Take me home now! I don’t like this! Etc…” for another twenty minutes before she finally started to calm down enough for the recovery team to get her out of their hair. Once back in the room Hailey cuddled up with me for a few more ear splitting cry’s and the nurses shut our door on us. Kim and I half-laughed at that and I added “well we should have expected this, [from Hailey].”

Hailey crashed in my arms for an hour or so then woke up vomiting on my lap which was no surprise and normal, (well, did not expect throw-up on me). She swallowed some apple juice which made an immediate return. Slept a bit more, then woke up and stomached half a 20oz bottle of grape Power Aid for a good amount of time. At this point we were ready to go, Hailey was calm enough to say that she was feeling better and wanted to go home and sleep in mommy and daddy’s bed. Kim had signed the release paperwork and picked up a couple prescriptions from the hospital’s pharmacy earlier while Hailey slept in my arms. I Hoisted up Hailey to leave when she vomited all over me again, this time on my shoulder and inside my shirt pocket where I had stashed my ID, insurance card and validated parking pass. I took off my button down and walked her out in crew neck t-shirt. The stuff on my pants had long dried.  She also hurled waiting for the elevator, lucky for the janitors she made it to the trash can. Kim and I were about to turn around and go back to the nurses station and ask to be re-admitted waiting out any further vomiting but from past experiences, we knew that this was just part of the process, figuring she would be ok soon and we were right. Hailey fell asleep on the ride home, slept even more once we got home, had no more stomach problems and woke up the next day feeling as if nothing even happened.

Lesson Learned:
1. Have all paperwork complete and sent to hospital before the day of surgery.
2. Get the kiddo familiar with hospital prior to day of surgery (most hospitals do tours).
3. Keep photo ID and insurance card handy.
4. Get parking validated.
5. Expect your kiddo to be disoriented after surgery and expect vomit.
6. Bring extra clothes for kiddo (and self).
7. Bring work or activity to fill an hour or two for yourself and spouse.
8. Have vomit bag ready for car ride home.
9. Kiddo will sleep a lot the rest of day and next.
10. Have quiet low energy activities planned the next couple days.

Elizabeth is curious and makes a challenge of everything, the NoThrow strap was next on her list of objects to master. NoThrow arrived the day before, Olivia thought it would make a great leash for one of her numerous toy stuffed animals, but I wanted to see what Elizabeth would do with it.

NoThrow Strap

Elizabeth had been jolted from a short nap and hurried into the Odyssey as I was running behind on a forty minute long pickup schedule, first Olivia at camp then rendezvous with Hailey who was with my sister Rach. A perfect opportunity for an extensive test of the NoThrow.

Underestimating my little genius one and a halfer, I filled a 50/50 apple juice/water mix into her big girl squeeze bottle.  Elizabeth cautiously stared me down as I easily looped the NoThrow strap securely to her car seat and then velcroed it around her bottle. A puzzled look raised her brow and she pondered the tether while sipping her watered-down goodness.

Typically, once enough of the juice has been consumed, the cup or squeeze bottle gets thrown down with the same gusto as a dunk frat boy throwing down his last empty beer can. However this time the bottle remained in Elizabeth’s lap while she investigated and experimented with the No Throw’s Velcro strap, since I was driving I only caught a few glimpses through the rear view mirror, but I definitely heard the sound of tearing Velcro.

Once home I noticed the NoThrow was still securely fastened to the child seat, sadly the Velcro loop was hanging unfastened, the squeeze bottle lay on its side, open and slowly dripping sticky stuff on the floor of Kim’s van.

What do I think of the NoThrow? Elizabeth’s advanced unfair test aside, I think it is perfect for the ages of 3 months to 18 months, maybe longer depending on how inquisitive or determined your little one is and I know this product would have come in handy when my kiddos where in that age range, (where were you when I needed you NoThrow), because all three of them have pitching arms. Bonus points for reusability value as the NoThrow can creatively be recycled into the toy chest or used to attach the remote to my wrist, yea I tried that. Many uses for the NoThrow once the kiddos have outgrown. This product receives the FOTB seal of approval.

Dawn of the Dinosaurs Poster

Ice Age Three: Dawn of the Dinosaurs picks up where Meltdown leaves off.  Main character Manny, the woolly mammoth (Ray Romano) and love interest Ellie (Queen Latifah) are expecting their first child. While melodramatic Manny is mammoth-baby proofing  nature, his buddies Diego (Denis Leary) the saber tooth goes  searching for an exciting change of scenery and Sid (John Leguizamo) stumbles upon a secret underground chamber finding then adopting three baby dinosaur eggs.

Momma dinosaur comes looking for babies, finds them with Sid and takes them all back to the reptilian dominated underground cavern. Manny, Ellie, Crash and Eddie (the two opossums), set off to rescue Sid. Diego also catches up to the rest of the heard in search of Sid. On the inside, they are befriended by a deranged resident weasel named Buck who agrees to guide them through the dangerously terrifying cave and track the mommy dinosaur leading to Sid. That’s the setup.

The lackluster plot is predictable, the only surprise in this movie is the sub plot of Scrat the prehistoric squirrel finding more than a nut in excessively sexy love interest Scrattle (pre historic flying squirrel), but the fighting and flirting squirrels are over used and become tiresome.

There were a few age appropriate gags. The kiddos (Hailey, Olivia and friend Maya), did like the movie. One note; sensory sensitive four year old Hailey became nauseated at the end of the film and hurled on the ride home, I think the frequent roller coaster ride action sequences may have had an adverse effect on her.

Rewriting history is a convenience for this film and with the absence of any intriguing plot this movie should have been frozen in production.  Even the name of this movie is agitating, it is not the “Dawn of the Dinosaurs” people, unless the mother dinosaur’s name is Dawn, which according to Wikipedia it is not. Although, naming the momma dino “Dawn” may have been too much creative energy spent for this group of uninteresting writers. Hey, how about “Yawn of the Dinosaurs?” and while I’m at it, for the second installment, “The Letdown.”