It’s been a while since I’ve posted, so I thought it would be fitting to review the Itzbeen Baby Care Timer.  What an extremely useful, yet delightfully simple gadget this is!  It helps you keep track of your baby’s schedule by allowing you to see how long it has been since you’ve done a particular task.  For example, after you change your little one’s diaper, hit the diaper button and the timer will begin counting up.  In a few hours, when you think it might be time to check the diaper, you can see exactly how long it has been since you last visited the changing table.

I am still using the timer now, even though we have already celebrated my son’s first birthday and fallen into an easy routine.  I found this extremely useful during the early days/weeks/months.  It was all a sleep-deprived daze, and the Itzbeen helped me find my way.  Here are some of the events I use it to help me keep track of:

Getting a child (or in my case, husband) to drink water instead of juice, pop, or other tasty beverage can be very difficult.  I find water to be extremely refreshing, especially if it has been softened nicely and cold.  However, some find it bland and boring.  Enter MiO from Kraft, a cute silver pod of liquid that will “enhance” your water.  Add a drop, or a spritz, whatever you want to “Make It Yours”, as they tout in the flashy ads on TV.  The only thing MiO gave me was an incredible migraine.

First, some background.  I had seen the ads on TV and thought, oh, flavored water, that’s been done.  But this is more portable, so that’s interesting, and you can add as little or as much as you want to suit your taste.  I came across a display of MiO at my local Meijer on my weekly grocery shopping trip.  They had a special offer going where if you purchased two bottles of MiO at $3.99 each, you could get a 24-pack of bottled water for free.  At first I was not sure, but then I saw that there was a sweet tea flavor of MiO.  I had been to Florida just a couple of weeks before, and I was still jonesing for sweet tea, so this got me.  (As an aside, I discovered recently that you can get Gold Peak Sweet Tea at Five Guys, yet another reason to love that establishment.)  I put the MiOs and the water in my cart.

Reviewing my experience on an airline does not fit with what I normally review, but all moms need to fly at some point, right?

I flew AirTran this month so that I could attend my brother’s destination wedding in Florida.  AirTran’s hub is in Atlanta, so if you fly with them, you’ll likely have to stop in the ATL at some point.

My flight from DTW to ATL was not even half-full; the flight attendant joked that since there were only 23 of us on board, we could decide where we wanted to go.  The remaining legs of my trip, ATL to PNS, PNS to ATL, and ATL to DTW were all jam-packed.

One really nice thing about AirTran is that they offer XM/Sirius Satellite radio on all flights.  You can plug your headphones right into your armrest, and there is a little console where you can select the channel and change the volume.  They have free earbuds, but you have to ask for them, and they aren’t very good, so I highly recommend bringing your own.  Even when all other electronic devices must be turned off during taxi, takeoff, and landing, the XM/Sirius stays on.  I took off from PNS listening to Milli Vanilli’s “Girl You Know It’s True”.