As I mentioned before, I rarely get asked to do stuff through my blog, and when I do, it usually is to review paper clips, or something really exciting like that. But because I’m having a week of awesome (except for the start of today, which was decidedly NOT awesome, therefore I’m not writing about it), I’m writing this post from the terrific-ly interesting city of New Orleans because someone way on high at Microsoft Windows Phone thought I was worth enough of a sponsorship. Which brings me back to seriously awesome.

So, I’m living it up.

Me + Rice Krispie treats = Heaven

I spent the afternoon lunching and wandering around with friends in the awesome French Quarter testing out that fabulous phone o’mine. I’m pretty obsessed with the way it is so easy to upload photos to email. It’s so freaking fast! See? I got this one uploaded of mah friends in under .00233 seconds. Good stuff.

This is before Julie saw the heels she will covet for the whole entire conference.

And so while I’m telling you about the phone, I’ve got to mention the customized home screen, which consists of “tiles” that you can move around and about your phone in the order you want your information to appear. Some people “pin” (that’s what you do to get a tile locked into the home screen of the phone) their husband’s contact information to their home screen. Me?

Is it bad that I “pinned” myself to my own start screen? It’s so I don’t forget who I am. Or something.

The phone has an impressive camera, if you couldn’t tell the one above was by my lowly Blackberry. It does look subpar, doesn’t it? It’s one of the most impressive options of the phone. Also, the video camera pretty much kicks ass too. But I haven’t taken any video yet. That’s for later. I did use the camera to take a photo of my most-awesome room on the “Club Level” (hence, the Rice Krispie treats — there were no regular rooms left!).

Room: almost as good as the Rice Krispie Treats

This won’t be the last you’ll hear about my awesome new Windows Phone, as the kind folks at Microsoft have allowed me to try it for THIRTY DAYS!! Which should give me just enough time to install all those cool apps from the Marketplace, upload my songs to Zune, and of course, take that darned video.

DISCLOSURE: Microsoft Windows Phone offered to cover up to $2000 of my expenses towards Mom 2.0 and I’ve kindly accepted their gracious offer. In exchange, I will be tweeting and writing two posts about my experience with the phone. Thank you #windowsphone!

]]> http://www.selfmademom.net/2011/04/14/wherein-i-discuss-my-mom-2-0-sponsorship-by-microsoft-windows-phone-yay/feed/ 1 http://www.selfmademom.net/2011/03/30/whats-on-my-mind-this-week/ http://www.selfmademom.net/2011/03/30/whats-on-my-mind-this-week/#comments Thu, 31 Mar 2011 03:42:00 +0000 selfmademom http://www.selfmademom.net/?p=2069

A “weaksauce” post, as my brother would say, but I’m in a time crunch and so I just have time to share what I’m thinking about, what I’ve seen going on this week…

• Have you seen my friend Ericka’s amazing personalized Seder plates for kids? I cannot believe that Passover is on the horizon, but it is, and now that my eldest is at a Jewish school, I’d better learn ways to make Pesach fun. And cute.

• I am loving being a Totsy Mom, but I KEEP MISSING THE SALES! Like this amazing one from Crocodile Creek. How this is happening, I don’t quite know. So I’m going to put the weekly sale dates in my calendar so I don’t miss buying the goodies that my family needs. You should mark them down too!
  • 3/31   Gifts for Mother’s Day
  • 4/7     April showers bring baby showers (baby and baby shower gifts)
  • 4/14  Summer apparel/summer camp
  • 4/21  Green for EarthDay
  • 4/28  Beach( swimsuits, beach towels, and beach toys)

• There’s a new trend on the horizon to use apps to help manage your social life with your kids. The concept scares me, but I love it. It’s sometimes hard just through Facebook or Twitter to find out what your friends and potential friends are up to or find interesting and, well, I don’t really need any more technology in my life, but maybe at the end of the day it’ll help me break away from the computer.
  • Yellowbrck – my old blog friend Eli just started this new social network site to help parents share where they are with their kids and what they’re doing to help other parents find ideas of things to do and see with their children. It will also help to build community around personal blogs and users can win prizes at various check ins… now I just have to get that iPhone!
  • Instant Playdates -  I’m actually always looking for a late afternoon play date. You know, the time after naps when we have nothing to do before dinner. We usually just take a bath to kill the time, but with spring approaching, I may want to get the kids out a bit more… Instant Playdates lets you broadcast to your friends through Facebook what you’re up to so that you can easily get together. So, c’mon friends, join these two sites so I can track you down.

As if I haven’t committed myself to enough already (new business, new Chicago Parent blog ((details forthcoming)), I was asked this past Fall to be a “Totsy Mom.” If you don’t know, Totsy is one of the hottest deal sites on the web for clothing, products, goods for moms and kids. They have daily sales, much like Gilt Groupe and the brands they have deals on are ridiculous — Schoenhut, Melissa and Doug, Kidorable, American Apparel — just to name a few.

I usually don’t sign up for things like this. I rarely attach myself to a brand, product. I have done some branded posts lately, but those were mainly for WORK…

However, something about Totsy felt right to me. For one, I like to shop. A lot. And I like to shop bargains. Totsy is bargain shopping for your kids (and some for yourself) at it’s finest. Alright, it helps that I’m getting some Totsy credits to use each month for posting deals about their brands and deals. I might even have some specials for you, my fine readers!

So, I’m here to try being a Totsy Mom for awhile. I hope you’re all cool with that and come along for a fine, shopping ride.

Yes, I am being compensated in Totsy credit for posting on my site a couple times a month about Totsy + hang out with them on Twitter and Facebook.

Earlier today, I got to put on some real clothes (they were trouser jeans, as Caitlin noticed, much to my happiness) and head out to a brunch put on by the ever-fabulous Bump Club and Beyond. I was on a panel of “the city’s leading mom bloggers” (HA! Don’t they know I’m a blogging slacker??) and my co-hosts Cindy, Linda and Caitlin and I had a ball giving some of our best tips around the city to Lindsay’s group of new moms.

My quick talk was about tips and tricks to planning your child’s first birthday. Because, eventually, all those cute newborns grow up to be cake-smashing, drooling one-year-olds. Because I forgot, unlike my counterparts, to actually print up and hand out my tips, I told everyone I’d post them on my blog. So, here, in no particular order, are my thoughts:

1) Make the party favor part of the party – if you have a musician, give each kid a maraca. The little babes don’t know what a goodie bag is – take advantage of that while it lasts!

2) Kids this age don’t need much for entertainment – a place to crawl around, 30 minutes of activity and somewhere between 20-30 to eat. By then, they’re pretty much wiped and will hopefully nap all afternoon for you.

3) I personally think a mid-morning, post first nap party usually works the best for you and for your friends – sometimes the afternoons are unpredictable! Well, at least they are in my house.

4) Pack two shirts – one for photos and one for after the cake – and bring a good bib! (This one, I admit, is pretty self-explanatory.)

5) My eldest got really freaky and nervous at his first birthday party. My youngster loved every minute of the party. Bottom line — don’t worry if you’re kid is nervous – it’s a lot of attention.

And you were waiting for the Chicago-specific stuff, right?

Best locations for a Chicago kiddie bday party:

• Just about any pizza joint – remember my baby’s first birthday party last year? At Pequod’s pizza. It was relatively inexpensive, I bought one of those foam letter mats and threw it on the ground so the kiddos could crawl around and it was a blast. And the dads could swill beer too. Happy Birthday.
• If you think a pizza dive isn’t quite for your family, there’s always the East Bank Club where I had my eldest’s party. Yeah, it was like a mini bar mitzvah. Best food I had at a first birthday! But notice, I didn’t repeat that one.
• For a smaller get-together I love Musical Magic on Roscoe. So sweet and cozy inside and so easy to manage.
• And then there’s the name-your-own-kiddie-gym-place like Bubbles, My Gym, Gymboree, Little Gym. All good choices.
• The park district also has many rooms for rent – I am partial to the one at Sheil Park because it’s close to my house, and it’s clean and a good size for a party. I think that sort of stuff matters.

Best entertainers to hire for your party (if you’re in to such a thing):

I can’t say enough about these three very fine kiddie entertainers…

• Miss Amiee Leigh. We took her class at the JCC for so many months and years I lost track along the way.
• Little Miss Ann. She is the best of the best. Book her. If you can.
• Mr. Singer. The kids adored him.

Ideas for how to gift the birthday baby:

• I recently got tuned into Echo Age by a friend of mine. Basically people donate a certain amount of money towards your gift which you can use to buy a few gifts of your choice, or to donate to charity. Really love this concept. Especially for a baby who doesn’t even really know what “cool Fisher Price toy” means yet.
• Buy the babe some books. They never grow old.
• Create a gift registry if you must. At least you’ll get what you want, right? Cuts down on those return errands and gift receipts.
• One thing I always did was test out toys my friends had whose kids were older. If my kiddos loved playing with them at a friend’s house, well, I’d just invite myself back over to that friend’s house. No, I’d put it on a wish list.

And with that, my favorite first bday toys:

• Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Door. It’s expensive, but worth it. My five-year-old still plays with it. Have the grandparents buy it or something.
• Any pre-walker push toy. Unless your kid is walking already. Good for my kiddos who were well over a year before they considered walking.
• Any Little People toy. Those things are indestructible.
• A set of wooden blocks. Basic but always good to have around the house.

How to invite all those people to your shindig:

• You may want an invite for your scrapbook, but those babies can’t open the mail, so save the money until they’re at least 2 – use evite, or, my new favorite online invitation store, Paperless Post.
• I must also mention my go-to printed invitation source – Tiny Prints!! You can even save money on your kids’ birthday party invites by using the code from my blog: AFF1105.

As a veteran of what it’s like to be at an unfriendly coffee shop with your children, I can’t express enough excitement for the opening of Little Beans Cafe this week. Little Beans Cafe (an indoor play space and coffee shop combo) is the newest addition to the Elston corridor – and it makes you want to slow down your car and take a break from all of your errand running.

The play space takes the best of an upscale coffee shop and make-believe play land nirvana and packages it all under one roof. For $12 per child (plus $7 per each additional child or sibling), you can grab a cup of Intelligentsia coffee and watch your child explore.

And as if this weren’t enough, Little Beans is offering a plethora of class options for parents AND kids. I don’t know about you, but I’m always looking for a new experience for myself and my kiddos. Starting in March, Little Beans will be hosting a bunch of fun and different classes for your family. Class options are:

• Family Yoga – Learn stretching, fitness and relaxation techniques for the whole family
• Mommy Time Yoga – an hour of time for yourself!
• Imaginative Art – have a coffee while your little one explores his or her artsy side with Wishcraft art studio
• Music and Movement – need I say more?
• Parent Time/ Supervised Play – drop your kids in the play space and sit in the cafe to get some work done!

Best yet, because this is Little Beans launch week, I’m giving away ONE FREE LITTLE BEANS CLASS OF YOUR CHOICE (or 3 supervised play times) to a lucky winner this week!

There are a couple of ways you can enter to win this prize: (1) leave a comment on this post (make sure you include your contact info so we can get in touch with you if you win!); (2) Become a Fan of Little Beans Cafe on Facebook (and leave a separate comment telling me that you’ve done so); and (3) Follow @LittleBeansCafe on Twitter (and leave a separate comment telling me that you’ve done so).

So three total entries per person. All entries must be received by midnight CST on Friday, January 28, 2011. We will randomly choose and winner and contact that lucky individual on Monday, January 31, 2011.

All week long, A Hen and Two (Now Three) Chicks (Caitlin Giles), Sassy Moms in the City (Alison Ray) and I are giving away something great from Little Beans so make sure to check out their sites too!

Now go, enter, and PLAY!

Disclosure: I am being compensated by Little Beans Cafe for my time and for hosting this giveaway.

I have two new items in my house geared towards making our lives more centered. I’m not known for my spirituality, but I am known for my love of cool products and yoga. You didn’t know that? I’ve been doing yoga before hipster moms in lululemon made it trendy. I first experienced yoga under the teachings of famed New York City instructor Elena Brower in a small, hot and very crowded yoga space on 3rd Avenue in New York City over 11 years ago. After I left New York, I had a hard time finding my Chicago “Elena,” a teacher who understood the physical and emotional needs of a young yogi. I had a hard time until I met Betsy, teacher extraordinaire of the physical side of yoga.

I’ve been taking her class religiously (well, with the pregnancies, on and off) for the last 4 years at East Bank Club on Monday and Wednesday mornings. I schedule work meetings around her class, I schedule sitters, day care appointments and drop-offs at my mom’s house to make the class. It’s that good. And apparently, I’m not that busy yet.

Well you can imagine how excited I was to hear that Betsy came out with a DVD of one of her classes this past week and I got a copy to review! I popped the 50-minute DVD in on a Thursday morning when I couldn’t make it into the gym and I was not disappointed with my solo yoga session in my basement. Of course there are downsides to practicing yoga in your home. The blackberry flashes, the phone rings, the baby cries on the monitor and your moment of Zen disappears into your kid’s toy basket like the latest issue of People magazine you haven’t read yet.

But, by the end I was sweaty, if not totally centered in my yoga zone. Which, is what just what I asked for on a day when I couldn’t be present in person to Betsy’s class. (P.S. you can buy the DVD on the Yogatude website!)

Which leads me to how else I’m centering my household – by foot. See, last May I re-did my kitchen and made a great new table that sits six people. As part of the re-do, I purchased some great, if not ergonomic for the kids chairs, from West Elm. The curved back, the sloped bottom of the seat was visually appealing to me, but not so comfortable for my eldest. He needed somewhere to rest his feet.

I’ve heard along the way in my son’s preschool that kids need to rest their feet in order to be comfortable sitting around a table. It was just a rumor, but I saw the truth to it many times when he’d be sitting calmly at a kiddie chair, but fidgeted like mad in an adult chair. I thought I had made a mistake selling away our Svan chair that we thought my son had grown out of. I never truly loved that chair, but it did have a foot rest.

And then enter my friend who introduced me to Charlotte of Stokke, who, after several conversations about marketing to moms (there was a business reason for the introduction!) told me about their “high chair” – the Tripp Trapp chair – which is so not a high chair, but more of a lifestyle chair. A chair that grows from birth (the newest addition to the Tripp Trapp family is a newborn set) to adult hood, I wish I had this chair when I was growing up!  And she was so kind to send me two for each of my kids to test out.

Design-wise I liked the structure of the Tripp Trapp better than the Svan, and my son felt that it was a big upgrade from what he thought was his “high chair.” Lifestyle chair, I say. And, just as I was starting to write this post last night, I saw a link to this post on the Stokke Facebook page about the importance of a child’s feet being centered on something when they sit. No more rumors!

Only happy minds and happy feet in my house now.

I was given a copy of the yoga DVD and two Stokke Tripp Trapp chairs for review.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted just what I’m going to do with my career, or, lack thereof. See, this past Fall I decided I wanted to go back to “work.”

But “work” when you don’t have to “work” for a living has many definitions. I thought I wanted a real job in a real office where I could have set hours, a real paycheck and other benefits. So, I had a bunch of meetings, poked around job and social networking sites, but after a few months of that, I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not quite ready to go back to WORK.

Instead, along the way, I’ve built up with my “business partner” various projects that are keeping us busy. Busy enough that we’re in the process of building our website which will lay out our offering (think marketing to moms, not a huge stretch), and sort of crystallizes in my head what I really want to do: help brands connect with real-life moms through experiential marketing, traditional PR, networking and writing. It’s not rocket science, but it’s taken a long way to get here.

And, for now, I’m happy.

But here’s the rub. All of my networking, business development, website creation, meetings for paying clients and such is slowly drawing me away from my kiddos activities. Already.

Out goes the work I produce, in comes the guilt. The not-really-working-yet-working mom’s guilt.

I’ve already had to cancel on my baby’s two mom-and-me classes for today and tomorrow due to a packed meeting schedule. The baby won’t know the difference, but I know what he’s missing. I’m trying to be good about staying offline at home when my kids are awake and want my attention. I’m staying up late at night sending the emails, drafting notes, connecting. I use my babysitter hours to do more work, but that just translates to taking kids on more errands.

It’s all coming full circle again, three years (wow) after I quit my job.  A reader asked me over email how it felt to quit work, because she was thinking about doing it. I told her I’d write my thoughts and opinion. I can only sum it up like this:

A mom is always working even if she’s not getting paid. A mom is always feeling guilty about something. You just gotta do what feels right for you and your family because that’s what matters the most.

So I’m going to keep on truckin’ for now. Because even though the guilt is there dangling above my shoulder, I’m feeling better than ever about my professional prospects. Now’s the time.

What say you all on not-really-working-yet-working mom’s guilt?

One of my *new* “clients” (More information forthcoming, I swear!! Too busy to blog! Does this blog feel like an advertisement yet? Ack!) is running a very cool campaign for the next 10 days. Mamaloot, the awesome daily deals website geared towards Chicago parents, is donating a can of food for every email sign up they get over the next 10 days to the Greater Chicago Food Depository. Isn’t that nice? And I said I’d help spread the word… It’s so easy to sign up on their site and every day they send you an email of some really great parent-focused discounts and steals. Not just for moms of young kiddos!

Better yet, some of Mamaloot’s “Best of the Best” partners (Bullfrogs and Butterflies, Grow, Building Blocks, Little Threads, Psycho Baby, Pump It Up, Kid City, Green Genes, Galt Baby and Wishcraft) are also hosting in-store email sign ups and some of them are matching the food donation or making unique gives of their own. We love these partners!

So if you’re feeling giving and want to save money on stuff you’re doing with your kids already, go sign up! Better yet, spread the word and help to feed some hungry folks this holiday season.

Tiny Prints, a sponsor of my blog, send me a note earlier this Fall with a very compelling offer to try its new selection of holiday cards. Another good fit for me and my site, because I’ve actually been using Tiny Prints before I had this blog. I used them for the birth announcement for my eldest son and seven subsequent orders.

However, things have really changed since 2006. While admittedly I loved the card I picked out for his birth announcement 4.5 years ago, there are so many more choices to choose from now. I guess that’s a good thing since I’m a very indecisive person. However, being indecisive this year was no help to me because of Tiny Prints’ expanded selection.

Of course, because it’s me, I was super picky in choosing a card to send out this holiday season. We’d taken some amazing photos down at Daley Plaza, and I wanted a card that showed our fun experience at the photo shoot. I also like cards that are modern and of course, I had to weed through Tiny Prints’ vast, but not applicable to me, Christmas Cards. (Boy sometimes I wish I celebrated Christmas because the stuff is so cute!)

So after much debate, I picked a flat, simple card with three photos so that I could include a photo of each child, plus a single shot of both kids. The rest was cake. Tiny Prints’ card creation process is not only easy, but you can compare and contrast styles. Great for someone like me who’s indecisive, right? But I stuck to my guns and finished the card within minutes. When I hit “done” they sent me a proof to approve, so I didn’t feel like I was hitting the button to the bowels of the internet never to see my card until it appeared in print at my house. All 175 of them.

When I received them quickly last week, I was impressed with the speed of delivery and the quality of the card. It is a nice weight and size. And the colors looked the same as I saw on the computer.

The only resulting issue was stuffing, sealing and stamping all 175 cards. I realize this issue is not unique to Tiny Prints, but Jessica promised me next year they’ll consider self-adhesive envelopes. That may seal (pun intended) the deal for me to be a repeat customer.

This is how I spent my Saturday night. You people better enjoy my cards!

Disclosure: Tiny Prints bought a paid advertisement on my site and comped my holiday cards. I decided to review the process because I really am pleased with how it all turned out. Thanks Tiny Prints!

For those of you who would like to try out Tiny Prints, they have a great offer for the next 2 days: Save $15 Off Any Holiday Product $99+ OR $20 Off $149+. (Code AFFDEC)