Philadelphia Moms

Main Line Mama: Yum & Bum

I go gaga over all things organic. Let’s face it: with rocket fuel in our infant’s formula and chemicals such as sodium polyacrylate in our baby’s diapers, it’s nice to give your baby chemical and additive free organic options when available. That is why I love Yum & Bum Natural Baby Markets. It is a store that carries only natural and organic products for baby, toddlers and mommies.

 

On the store shelves you can find cloth diapers, eco friendly wipes, vitamins, organic baby food and baby food making items, natural cleaning products, BPA free pacifiers and eco friendly teethers. The list goes on and on, but if you can’t find what you are looking for simply tell the storeowners, Jeff and Rich. They are always at the store greeting every one who enters with a smile, they know their customers by name, and they are very open to suggestions.

 

Yum & Bum is located in Wayne at 105 E. Lancaster Avenue. This weekend is Wayne’s Big Sidewalk Sale. Yum & Bum will be participating with guest speakers, free goodies, give-a-ways and at 3pm they will be breaking into a healthy treat filled piñata. Yum & Bum will also be hosting a free infant CPR/choking course on Monday May 4 and Monday May 11. To sign up for this course, find out about additional events hosted at Yum & Bum, or to shop online, please visit the Yum & Bum website.

Rocket Fuel In Formula

I'm sure that by now you've hear about this.  While I can't say I'm entirely surprised, I'm still fuming (no pun intended) just the same.

Holidays in Review: WOW Toys

Remember how I was so excited to check out WOW Toys? Well, we did.  Fireboat Felix for my son and Dynamite Daisy (times 2) for friends of ours.  Can I just tell you how much I love that some of the WOW vehicles are pink? 

Anyway, the WOW Toys seemed to be a hit with the kids.  The colors are great, and toys themselves are sturdy and well-constructed.  The "people" are considerably smaller than Little People figurines, but not too small.  (By the way, in interest of full disclosure, my son did receive several Little People toys and is more than happy to play with those as well--although so far I'm less than impressed by the quality of the Racin' Ramps Garage.)

Fireboat Felix is a bath toy and squirts water.  We chose that one for our son because "Felix" is a family name, but honestly, the day I was shopping I was like....well, a kid in a candy store.  There were so many WOW Toys I thought my son would like and I'm trying to find excuses to pick up Police Chase Charlie and Flip and Tip Fred.  And Katie's Camper Holiday Friends may be on tap as a gift for some upcoming birthdays.

WOW Toys come in a fairly large variety of sizes and do seem more expensive than Little People, but they are PVC-free.  I found a great selection of WOW Toys at Happily Ever After.   At the time of this post, Amazon has several WOW Toys on sale.

Holidays in Review: Viking Toys

I know the last week was light on posts, but you know with the holidays here, there were so many gatherings,most involving spiked eggnog, and Philly Mama couldn't always find her way to a computer. 

Our particular household celebrates Christmas and let me tell you, was Santa ever good to my son.  Over the next week I'm going to highlight a couple of toys that he and/or his cousins received that are particularly charming for one reason or another.

First up are Viking Toys' Chubbies.  Now because I apparently have the sense of humor equivalent to that of a 13 year old boy, I can't really say the word chubbies without giggling.  But I digress.  Months and months ago, my mother gave my son a toy truck and car made by Viking Toys.  Both were very cute and well-made.  I didn't know anything about the company, but my mother seemed pleased to find that the company was based in Europe.  Sweden, specifically, and since she's partially Norwegian, she enjoyed supporting her Scandinavian brethren.  It seems that the toys are actually manufactured in Thailand, but whatever.

At any rate, the plastic car and truck were a hit with my son and the truck was the first toy he began saying "Vroom, vroom" with as he pushed it around.  Then a few weeks ago, around the same time I was hunting for some small toys for stocking stuffers, I came across this review by Z Recommends. From the photo, I immediately realized that these distinctive-looking "Chubbies" must be Viking Toys. 

Now, if you've been reading this site for awhile you know I love me a good, well-made, wooden toy. And I still do.  However, as we enter the toddler years, what I've learned so far is that wooden toys really, really hurt when launched at you.  So I'm not opposed to trying to find safe, plastic toys as well.  After reading the Z Recommends review, I read up on Viking Toys on their website, confirmed that the plastics are all free of phthalates, PVC and BPA. While they use all new materials when making the toys, the toys themselves are recyclable.

I found a box of seven Chubbies at one of my local children's stores, Lolli Lolli.  These toys were a little smaller than the Viking Toys my son had previously received.  It was the perfect stocking stuffer and let me tell you, these Chubbies are awesome to have around.  They are small enough to keep one or two in the car, your diaper bag/purse, wherever you might need a "distraction" toy that doesn't make noise.  I even brought one to church.  I like that they aren't "blinky-blinky" toys and still require some imagination. Best of all, my little man loves them and we have a ton of fun racing them around the living room. 

Good things come in small packages.  Check them out.

 

An Alternative to Little People

I've been making a mental list of toys for my son for Christmas (a list only because I haven't had the courage to brave the stores this holiday shopping season yet) and my quest for greener, less plasticky, less made-in-China-y toys continues.  I'm always willing to make a few exceptions, provided they are generally "safe" toys. 

My son has taken a liking to Fisher Price's Little People, which I find endearing as I have find memories of playing with Little People as a kid myself.  So I planned on getting some version of some Little People toy for him for Christmas, and yet.  Yet, I feel funny about it, because although it would be nice to give him Little People for sentimental reasons, Fisher Price has had about a bzillion recalls (see here for an example). 

Then recently, while on the hunt for another child's birthday present, I stumbled upon some WOW Toys.  I didn't know anything about them, but they seemed cute and fun, but they are plastic so I vowed to do some research on the company when I got home. 

And then I forgot about it.  Until, that is, I checked out Z Recommends review of WOW Toys.  As usual, ZRecs does a great job of providing detailed information--according to their research, WOW Toys are PVC free and "As a company, WOW Toys appears to be materials-conscious, proactive on testing procedures, and inspired to deliver great design through self-imposed constraints."  Plus ZRecs does a fairly comprehensive side-by-side comparison between Little People and Wow Toys.

At any rate, when I FINALLY do head out for some Christmas shopping, I'm going to take a closer look at the WOW Toys.  Maybe baby doesn't need Little People after all.

PSA: Carter's Tagless Clothes

Many of you may have already heard about the skin irritation that Carter's tagless clothing has caused on some children, but I thought I'd post it here too just in case.

My son did have some skin irritation on the lower back part of his neck for months last winter and spring.  His rash wasn't nearly as bad as some photos I've seen as part of this story, which almost look like burns, and I had attributed my son's rash to his ezcema.  Which maybe it was.  At the time, it never occurred to me that it could be his clothing. 

Currently there's some debate about whether Carter's tagless clothing is still a problem or if the problem existed only with their Fall 2007 line. 

Vaccine, Schmaccine

Climbing back onto my soapbox again...

I've been listening a lot to Jenny McCarthy. Specifically about vaccines.

My son is fully vaccinated to date. Let's just get that out of the way.

I don't really question the idea of vaccines; I think kids should be vaccinated. But I have begun to question the timelines for vaccination. My son's first vaccination occurred when he was about 30 hours old for hepatitis B. At the time, I thought this was odd, but since the doctors were recommending it and I was planning on vaccinating him anyway, I okay'd it. Most hospitals offer the vaccine to newborns. According the the CDC, hep B is transmitted by "contact with infectious blood, semen, and other body fluids from having sex with an infected person, sharing contaminated needles to inject drugs, or from an infected mother to her newborn." It was already known that I didn't have hep B, so I wouldn't be transmitting it. So looking back, and given that the chance of my newborn having sex or shooting drugs was fairly small, I could have passed on that vaccine for now.  I will be passing on it if there's a next time.  Not because I think that vaccine is dangerous, but because I find it absurd to give that vaccine to a newborn.

I know, I know. They offer the vaccine at birth because it can be given to a baby that young and because it ensures that children who will almost never be brought to a doctor again will have at least that vaccine.

I know, from our own lovely genetic sequencing escapades, that each person can have any number genetic hiccups that they don't even know about. Would never know about unless they had extensive genetic testing. Things that don't effect anyone's day-to-day life. Variants and mutations that live outside the world of exhaustive research and studies. So, do I think it's possible that a vaccine could effect a genetic mutation or variant? Maybe jump-start something that was already there? Yeah, I do. I mean, yeah.

I can almost see at least one of you rolling your eyes. People point to the case I linked to above and cry "See?!?!?! Vaccines DO cause autism." I'm not ready to jump to that conclusion. But I do think there are ways in which vaccines could aggravate some existing thing. It seems to be the consensus that genetics and environmental factors play a part in autism. Depending on which statistics you look at, one in every 150 to 500 births, results in an autistic child. According to some, it's the fast-growing disability in the U.S.

I'm not just pointing to vaccines themselves either. There are other environmental factors. Take a look again at the chemicals in half of the things we eat or products we use. Do we know how any of them might effect an underlying condition?

I don't mean to get all apocalyptic here. All I'm saying is that I never questioned the safety or the timeline in which vaccines were given before my son was born. I never questioned a lot of things before my son. Find out about the timelines. Do babies need to be given 3 vaccines at once every 3 months for essentially their first year or two of life? Are there delayed timetables for giving vaccines? When, or do, children "have to" have vaccines? I already researched the answers to these questions.

Ask questions, do your research, make decisions based on what you think is right.

BPA Free

Forgive us if posting is a little light these days: my son decided to welcome Fall by spiking a fever of 103.  So this will likely be one of those weeks, and I know other working moms feel my pain, where you aren't able to be all places at all times and wind up feeling like you're failing on both the working and mothering fronts.  Sigh.  If only I could be cloned.

In other news though, a little goodie that I've seen on multiple sites now is that Born Free has introduced pacifers and stainless steel food/beverage storage.

SafeMama

You may have noticed over on the sidebar that there is a link to SafeMama.  I've been using that site as a resource for months, paticularly after I really started following the BPA stuff and toy recalls.

Well, I just wrote my first post for them, a product review of Cherrybrook Kitchen's Yellow Cake Mix (which I used to get me through my son's first birthday party).  I'm excited beyond words, because I think SafeMama is a great site. 

You should totally check it out. No, really, go there right now.

End of Summer

How did this happen?  Labor Day weekend already?  It seems impossible. 

One bright note is that many of the Philadelphia area farmer's markets will continue to set up shop through late October (some even into November).  I get my son a ton of fruits and veggies for "school" (read: daycare) at some of the farmer's markets closest to me.  If you're in the city, there are so many markets on so many days of the week, you can almost always get to one.  For more information, see the Farm to City website.