WordPress weekly photo challenge: Blue

Living in San Diego, CA, I get to enjoy beautiful blue skies the majority of the year. I’m not sure what makes the sky so blue here, but I’m guessing it has to do with our latitude and the ways the sun rays light up the sky. It really does help when taking photos of various subjects, and using the blue sky as a nice, contrasted background.

I took this photo in our backyard a few weeks ago, after what will probably be our last rain for the next six months.

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Blue

I also can’t help thinking about my boys when I hear the word blue. My whole world is blue because of them. They avoid the aisles of girl toys, calling them “the pink aisles”. They both have beautiful blue eyes and look great with blue tops, so I buy a lot of those. We also have a blue couch at our house, courtesy of IKEA. With a removable cover you can throw in the washer, this is one of the best furniture investments I’ve made with two kids. Here’s my four-year old when he was just a baby, sitting on the blue couch in his blue footsy pajamas, with his beautiful blue eyes (which you really can’t see well on this picture). 

And here’s a photo of his brother when he wasn’t even two years old, sitting on our blue couch in my blue T-shirt, using my Boppy pillow and a burpcloth to breastfeed his lovey. How cute is that? I also have a photo of him using my breastpump but you’ll have to wait for the color “yellow” to be the theme of the photo challenge!

A special Mother’s Day story

This past Thursday afternoon, I received a strange email message that got my attention immediately. It came from my Every Day I See A Cow blog, mentioning a post I wrote last Thanksgiving where I featured cow hand puppets from IKEA. But it wasn’t about a cow.

The email sender was a mom located in Nova Scotia, Canada, almost 4000 miles away from San Diego, where I live. As I read her message, I quickly realized it was a cry for help. Earlier during the day, her two-year old daughter lost her lovey. Her ONLY lovey. Yep, no backup. Gasp!

So this desperate mom browsed the web for hours looking for a new lovey, which happens to be a lamb hand puppet from IKEA, just like the ones featured next to the cow on my Thanksgiving cow blog post. Of course, luck would have it that IKEA recently stopped selling these hand puppets. Apparently they’re not a hot item on the resale market either. At least, not on the day this lamb puppet disappeared.

As you can imagine, this tragic and sudden loss didn’t go well for her daughter, who kept crying and asking for her lamby. As she couldn’t find another one to buy anywhere, this poor mom became frustrated until she saw my blog post and emailed me, asking me if by any chance I would have an IKEA lamb hand puppet. Hmm, I replied, attaching the photo below, like… this one?

IKEA lamb hand puppet

I actually bought several hand puppets at IKEA a few years ago. I think they were only $1.99 each at the time and very entertaining for the kids. I think I have a frog, a chicken, a zebra, and of course, a lamb. My kids still like to play with these puppets once in a while but I figured they could manage with one less.

So I got this mom’s address and on Friday morning I went to the post office to send our lamb to greener pastures. I’m pretty sure Nova Scotia has much greener pastures to offer than San Diego. And the best thing about all this is, in about a week a little girl will be happily reunited with “her” lamb lovey. Someone should tell her it just went on a vacation for a week or so…

This experience tells me that as moms, we need to stick together. Maybe one day another mom will be the one helping me out when I need it. But if there’s one single piece of advice I can offer new moms, it’s to get several copies of your baby’s lovey. That’s what I did with my two kids and even though we haven’t lost any so far, I don’t regret the additional purchases. 

By the way, if your child ever lost his or her lovey, I’d love to hear your story. How far did you go to replace it?

Happy Mother’s Day, everyone!

phil&teds USA recalls metoo clip-on chairs, finally

Stop using dangerous phil&teds metoo clip-on chairs

Well, it took three months for phil&teds USA to get on board with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and admit their product is unsafe, but they finally did it!

On May 15, 2011, the US CPSC urged phil&teds USA to recall their metoo clip-on chairs because of fall and amputation hazards, but the company refused to do so, only addressing the issue by making a “repair” kit available the US CPSC deemed unacceptable.  Yesterday phil&teds USA admitted the product is unsafe and consumers should be allowed to return it for a refund.

It had to take all 19 reports of the chairs falling from tables, including five reports with injuries, for the company to react. Two reports of injuries involved children’s fingers being severely pinched, lacerated, crushed or amputated. The three other reports involved bruising after a chair detached suddenly and a child struck the table or floor.

This really makes you wonder whose best interest phil&teds USA has in mind – their consumers or their corporate greed… A flagrant example of a company who makes baby and children’s products but doesn’t believe in safety first, even when they screw up. Knowing how they address safety issues, I wouldn’t recommend this brand of products to any parent, especially when you realize how expensive most of their products are. Shame on you, phil&teds USA.

Visit the US CPSC website for the complete announcement of the phil&teds USA recall and pass it along to your friends, for their children’s safety.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission urges consumers to stop using phil&teds metoo clip-on chairs

Stop using dangerous phil&teds metoo clip-on chairs

If you own a phil&teds metoo clip-on chair or know someone who does, please read this news carefully. What’s terrifying about this announcement is that it’s not an “official” recall. Why? Because phil&teds USA, the baby gear company, hasn’t agreed to a recall with terms acceptable to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. Instead of simply recalling the defective and dangerous chairs, phil&teds decided to provide parents a repair kit. Unfortunately the US CPSC doesn’t find this kit acceptable at avoiding accidents. So the US CPSC is doing its best to protect consumers by urging parents to stop using the chairs all together.

What’s wrong with the phil&teds metoo clip-on chairs?  The best way to understand the dangers this product can cause to a child is to watch the US CPSC’s video about the phil&teds metoo clip-on chairs. Babies/children can get injured for a number of reasons:

• The confusing installation instructions, which may cause the problems below
• The chair can detach from the table, causing the baby/child to fall down on the floor
• If one side of the chair detaches, the seat can tilt and trap the baby/child’s fingers in the hinge, crushing or possibly amputating those fingers

With so many parents using baby gear and relying on baby gear manufacturers to keep their children safe, it’s hard to believe a company would avoid a costly (but safe) recall. Phil&teds doesn’t seem to mind. Maybe it’s because they’ve already spent enough money on the phil&teds stroller recall a few months ago and they can’t afford to lose more money. The phil&teds stroller recall involved amputated fingers also - go figure.

I’m glad my kids are growing out of the little baby gear but this makes me wonder whose best interest is at heart – ours and our kids, or a company’s bottom line. This is putting a lot of pressure on parents to keep their babies and children safe. Who needs the additional burden of unsafe baby gear?

Please spread the word and let your friends know about this announcement.The US CSPC’s safety notice about the phil&teds metoo clip-on chairs, including which models are affected, is available on the agency’s website.

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B.O.B. single and double strollers recalled due to strangulation hazard

Overall the quality of B.O.B. strollers is excellent and you’ll see the recall below is easily fixable. But if you or someone you know owns a B.O.B. stroller, you’ll want to take care of this before you take your kids out on their next ride.

Name of Product: B.O.B.® single and double strollers
Units: About 337,000 in the US and 20,000 in Canada
Hazard: A drawstring on the stroller can get wrapped around a child’s neck, posing a strangulation hazard.
Injuries/Incidents: There has been one report of an 11-month-old girl who got entangled at the neck by the stroller’s drawstring. The child was freed by her mother.
Description: This recall involves 11 models of B.O.B. single and double strollers. All of the recalled strollers have a yellow/orange drawstring at the rear of the canopy which is used to gather loose fabric when the canopy is pulled back.

Read the full recall notice for B.O.B. strollers on the U.S.C.P.S.C. website, including the serial numbers being recalled.

B.O.B. single and double strollers recalled due to strangulation hazard

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