I follow Parenting Magazine on facebook and enjoy reading their guest mom blogs and articles and have found that I seem to be commenting on a lot of them in this blog......haha. So, yes, here's another.
Recently one blog/article I found interesting was their 20 greatest parenting inventions ever. Here is their list:
1. Television 2. Velcro 3. Umbrella strollers 4. Temporal thermometers
5. Cheerios 6. Vaccines 7. Internet 8. Sesame Street
9. Santa Claus 10. Washable markers 11. Play Doh 12. Tear Free Shampoo
13. Portable DVD Players 14. Bubble Wrap 15. iPads, iPhones, iPods 16. Magnetic refrigerators
17. Microwave 18. Plastic Baggies 19. Digital Camera 20. Mac-and-Cheese
OK, maybe I'm seriously old fashioned or a bit of a "hippie" or something ;-p, but I seriously think that a big chunk of this list is not only unnecessary but things that I try to keep Wee Man away from or avoid in our day-to-day lives.
We're a pretty big reuse/re-purpose/recycle household and so the plastic baggies, umbrella strollers (I kind of thing of these as a one-child-only lifespan product, so disposable), and bubble wrap are big nos on my list for 'greatest parenting inventions'!
I don't agree with television, portable DVD players, iPads, iPhones and the like as 'parenting' inventions. While they have their time and place, I try to avoid these as much as possible in my daily life as a parent (at least when Wee Man is awake and around) and I cringe when I see little ones in the grocery store or shopping mall glued to a handheld device as a distraction. What happened to crayons, books or stuffed toys that they can use their imaginations with?! Or what about interacting with the world around them? Wee Man happily people watches, checks out (and continuously comments on) the windows and products in stores, and carries on a conversation with us and the sales people when we're out and about. Yes, I'm fortunate to have a well-behaved and patient child. But I do believe part of this is not allowing him these sorts of distractions and requiring him to learn and show patience, proper public behaviour, and manners at a young age. Sure there is the occasion when he has a meltdown in a long line or we've pushed him beyond his level of patience, but I prefer to pull something else out of the diaper bag at this stage (a beloved book, blanket, toy or little snack) rather than resort to an electronic device.
Now, I do have to say that my husband owns an iPhone (I'm still in the dark ages with a phone that only *gasp* calls people) and Wee Man is somewhat interested in what it has to do. The hubby has downloaded 2 aps that Wee Man enjoys: one is animals, and when you touch the screen the animals make their sound; and the second is household items, again a picture and when you touch the screen it tells you what the item is (clothing, fruit, etc.). But he doesn't get this on a regular basis, and has no desire to play it on his own. In fact I believe his words usually are, "Daddy - namnals" (animals) and then he'll sit on my husband's lap for about 5 minutes and watch a couple of them before he's off running around with some other toy.
I do have a huge YES for things like Velcro (trying to tie a toddler's shoes is about the same as trying to wrestle an alligator some days!), cheerios - or any dry cereal for that matter, washable markers (see my crayon story in a previous post. haha!), magnetic refrigerators, vaccines (the age-old debate, I know, but we are big believers in vaccinations and have done so with Wee Man according to the recommended schedule in our province and I am thankful we don't have to worry about horrible things like smallpox, polio and the like in our child's health), and digital cameras (how many thousands of pictures of Wee Man have we taken already; I can barely remember the days when we had to conserve shots because we only had a few left on a roll and then having to wait to see what came out of those photo sessions!).
My list of 20 would probably look more like this:
1. Cloth diapers
2. Washing Machine & Dryer
3. Velcro
4. Food Processor (I made all my own baby food - huge cost savings & I knew exactly what was going into his little body)
5. Digital Camera
6. Folding Potty seats
7. All-purpose strollers (LOVE our Valco - can't imagine life without it!)
8. Diaper Sprayer
9. Wipes Warmer
10. Reusable snack bags & containers
11. Breast pump and bottles
12. Cell phones (for text messaging and quick calls when I'm running behind on 'baby time'!)
13. Baby monitors (ours is a hand-me-down circa-1990s but works and prevents me from having to open his door to hear what he's up to!)
14. Vaccines
15. Convertible car seats (ours worked from birth & will last until he's 40 pounds!)
16. 3-in-1 Cribs (ours goes from crib to toddler bed to double)
17. Board books
18. Baby gates
19. Non-spill sippy cups & drink containers (We have almost white carpet in our home - everywhere. Enough said!)
20. Mirrors that fit rear car seats
You'll see a great number of my favourites have to do with reusable or long-term use things - cloth diapers; reusable snack bags (cloth with a water-proof layer; easily washable and so so so cute!); our 3-in-1 crib that will result in us never having to buy Wee Man another bed in his lifetime (we will have to get a double-sized mattress at some point, but the bed frame will last him into adulthood, or at least it better....It was bloody expensive and is solid wood - no particle board here!); our Convertible car seat (will last until he's 40 pounds and was used to bring our 7 pound bundle of joy home from the hospital); our Valco stroller (never had an infant car seat the snapped into a stroller, so having one that reclined fully and was usable for newborns through the toddler ages was key!); and board books (preventing rips and tears and having to get rid of well-read books!).
Some of the others on my list are a little more frivolous ~ for example, our Wipes Warmer. Knowing I was going to be cloth diapering, we also chose to go the cloth route with our wipes. Meaning that when we needed to change Wee Man's diapers we would have to have moist wipes and I figured stumbling back and forth from the bathroom (not attached to Wee Man's room) wasn't going to be fun at o'dark-thirty. So, I bought the Prince Lionheart Wipes Warmer. We can put about 50-60 baby-sized wash clothes in this thing (wet) and it keeps them warm until we use them. Totally frivolous, but so wonderful! It also has a little nightlight on the front of it so it helps to light up his room a bit as it sits on his dresser, next to the table-top change pad (another great purchase), and helped us to navigate in the darkness during those night-time diaper changes and feedings! A wonderful invention. I can't imagine what we would have done without it....haha!
I also have to say that the mirrors that sit on the back of the back car seat so we could see Wee Man when he was rear facing and we were in the front is another wonderful invention! I can't count how many times it came in handy as he would all of the sudden start screaming for some reason and we could peek and see - was it something serious or just his "I hate the car - entertain me!" yells (he was a horrible traveller for about the first 6 months). If something like his soother came out, or his hat was over his eyes, we could tell and pull over if necessary to adjust.
As a Mama who breastfed exclusively until Wee Man began solids (and then continued until he was a year old), having inventions like a breast pump and bottles was fabulous! I was fortunate enough to have an amazing husband who was more than willing to do the single-Daddy thing for 5 days when Wee Man was 6 months old so I could away on a little trip to the USA with a girlfriend. Having a breast pump and bottles was a wonderful thing ~ I was able to stock up the fridge and freezer with enough milk for Wee Man for the time I was gone (he was starting solids then, so it wasn't as horrible as it may sound!) and then I took my pump with me and continued to pump & dump while I was away so I could return to feeding him when I returned. Without such inventions I wouldn't have been able to have the flexibility of being away from him for more than about 3-4 hours at a time by then. Luckily I had a little one who would happily go back and forth between the two, so we didn't have any issues with things like nipple confusion or bottle/breast refusal!
And finally, now that we're potty training, I have to say the coolest invention I have found is our fold-able potty seat. This little contraption folds down 4 times so small that I could fit it into my little purse! It sits on top of a regular toilet and allows us to continue with potty training without having to carry some massive potty chair or circular toilet seat cover with us! Wee Man prefers this seat over his potty chair, so it has paid for itself over and over and over again! I love it.
What kinds of 'greatest parenting inventions' would you have on your list?! There are so many things out there these days that I seem to find new things all the time that I think are pretty cool (or pretty crazy!)....what a time and world we live in!!
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