Mamakaze! Attacking Life at Full Throttle

Moses baskets have come a long way from their humble origins on the Nile river. Despite their inception as crude escape vessels for tiny targets of ethnic cleansing, woven baby carriers have floated into modern homes on a wave of popularity. And why not? They’re comfy, convenient and — with good craftsmanship and a pretty fabric — quite cute!

Perfect for newborns, these clever carriers can be used as sleeping quarters or as a safe place for baby to relax while mama checks off a few household chores. We love how easy they are to carry from room to room while we’re tidying up!

The original Moses basket was made of bullrushes and covered in tar and pitch. Luckily, today’s baskets aren’t required to be seaworthy, so they’re a lot prettier than the craft in which Mamakaze imagines the wee Moses bobbed down the Nile.

In searching for someplace portable for our latest addition to sleep, we found baskets in styles ranging from sensible to sumptuous.

Available in a multitude of colors, patterns and prices, Moses baskets are accessible to mamas on any budget. We found items from $30 to $458 and everywhere in between. Whether your nursery’s decor is contemporary, classic or country, there’s a Moses basket out there to float your boat.

There’s a nip in the air, and while rosy baby cheeks are irresistible, we’ll soon be faced with wintry weather that requires some serious baby bundling. Mamakaze has scoured autumn’s offerings for adorable outerwear, and we’ve come back with 20 of our favorite coats and jackets for the upcoming snow season.

Whether you’re looking for something lightweight or heavy-duty, rough-and-tumble or prim and proper, we’ve picked an eye-pleasing assortment of cool-weather coverups that should have something for every baby. Our ‘06 baby outerwear preview features fashions to flatter little snowflakes of all shapes and sizes.

There are classic wool selections and trendy suede styles for both boys and girls. We found faux fur for the fashionistas, parkas and peacoats in a rainbow of colors, and Western wear for lil’ cowpokes.

We love the way this fall’s colors pick up the hue in our little one’s apple cheeks, and with a veritable cornucopia of colors, your little pumpkin is sure to look his or her best in one of this season’s cute and cozy cold-weather fashion finds. The weather outside may be frightful, but with these delightful coats and jackets, your wee ones will have nothing to worry about except whether they’ll be drinking cider or cocoa.

Every mama deserves a wee break. With the third trimester upon us, Mamakaze has decided to slow things down just a bit in order to prepare for the impending arrival of Babykaze. That’s not to say we will be eating bonbons and watching soaps all day (although we must admit that sounds fabulous). During our little hiatus, we will be adding all sorts of nifty features to the site.

We’ll create a much-needed “about” page and provide contact information, and for our many daily visitors, Mamakaze will be adding a members’ area with checklists for your nursery, your labor bag and packing that all-important diaper bag. We’ll also have a few fun features such as quizzes and a gender predictor. And because Mamakaze knows you love shopping as much as we do, the Mamakaze Mall will feature all of our favorite online shopping sites along with a helpful litte writeup telling you what we love about each one.

In the meantime, we’ll still provide quality blogging — but only once a week until we get the improved site up and running. Look for new posts every Monday!

Everyone needs something a little extravagant — even babies. After purchasing for our first two precious children the finest in high chairs, strollers, cribs and clothes, we were worried that there would be nothing special left for the impending Babykaze. Of course, Mamakaze’s fears were groundless.

Fur has been big in the ’00s, and while we’re not a big fan of real animal hide, we love the luxe look of a faux fox or a counterfeit chinchilla. And who better to swathe in the warmth and luxury of faux fur than our bouncing new baby, due at the turn of the year?

We absolutely adore Brooks Pond’s faux mink carrier cover, which slides right over our regular soft baby carrier. Once the bundle’s in the Bjorn, we can cover those sweet little arms and legs in softest imitation mink, lined in super-snuggly ultrasuede. Presto! Baby’s riding in style while being protected from the elements.

If there’s one thing Mamakaze loves more than function, it’s fashion, and this carrier cover happens to embody both! There’s also a significantly cheaper but equally adorable faux-pony version for the budget-conscious mama.

Mamakaze found this glam, gorgeous gear online at our favorite splurge site, PoshTots.com.

Ideally, Totakaze would eat every meal at home. But Mamakaze often finds ourself out and about during lunchtime, feeding our wee one bananas and cheddar bunnies from our emergency diaper-bag stash. If playgroup wound down a bit later than usual, we used to be able to mollify our dear daughter with the smallest of snacks. As Totakaze’s appetite grows along with her ever-changing toddler body, however, we’ve discovered that we need an actual lunch bag for days when we’re going to be feeding her on the go.

But why settle for something that looks as if it should be carrying Papakaze’s CD collection rather than our little one’s chicken, peas and apples? Since Mamakaze is the one doing the shuttling, we reason, we ought to be able to carry whatever ridiculous girlie purselike lunch bag we like! And we’ve managed to find several fashionable insulated lunch totes that will be perfect for a day about town. (In fact, we’d take these bags with us even if we were leaving Totakaze behind!)

Our particular favorite is a cute orange neoprene tote (left) with separate sections for food and drink and an outer pocket for napkins — or, in Totakaze’s case, Wet Ones. It’s bright and modern and comes in a variety of fun colors, and the acrylic handles give it a sleek, stylish aesthetic. We found it at Target (online only) for $15.

Mamakaze is always looking for new ways to keep our body from sliding into decrepitude and disrepair without spending much of our precious downtime on self-maintenance. As much as we enjoy pumicing, paraffining and lotioning our tired dogs at day’s end, what we’d enjoy even more is to be able to watch America’s Next Top Model while digging into a three-scoop bowl of Ben & Jerry’s Coffee Toffee Crunch. (Yes, we realize the irony, but we’re pregnant and we just dare you to raise that eyebrow.)

Geniuses that they are, the fine people at Bliss Spa realized that an awful lot of people — mamas in particular — just don’t have the time or inclination to spend hours self-pampering. So they invented some super-swell socks that do all the work for us.

Ladies, we are not kidding. It takes all of two second to slip into an effort-free pamper session for our feet, thanks to Bliss Softening Socks. Just 20 minutes after donning these special sockies (or the next morning, if you have seriously hard-done-by heels like Mamakaze), your feet have gone from parched to perfection!

It’s a lot like the classic Vaseline-and-old-socks trick, except less messy and time-consuming. When you slip into these superb stockings, your body heat activates a polymer gel that infuses your tired tootsies with intensive moisturizers such as Vitamin E, jojoba and olive oil. No muss, no fuss! When you’re done, your soles are silky soft. And best of all, the socks can be wiped clean with a wet sponge and reused up to 50 times.

For the world’s quickest and easiest pedicure, Bliss Softening Socks are available online for $48.

Wherein itinerant infants are imperceptibly imprisoned
Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Most of the time, Totakaze is free to wander the house. But on certain occasions — say the cat has thrown up and Mamakaze needs to clean it without the “help” of the wee one’s tiny hands — we need somewhere safe to stow our little one.

For such occasions, we couldn’t make do without our Superyard, a play yard that is indeed quite super. It has extra-high walls to keep tykes from scaling the sides, and encloses a generous 18 square feet of play area (or 34 square feet with the optional two-panel extension).

Unlike her playpen, which lasted only until Totakaze started crawling, the ample dimensions of the Superyard let our wee one feel as if she still has free roam of all the land. With several dozen toys in her play yard, Totakaze could last for hours (not that we’d do that to her!).

The panels are, quite literally, a snap to assemble and the Superyard can be set up indoors or outside. This summer, Totakaze played on the beach but remained safe from dogs, scary seagulls and her own lust for danger thanks to the Superyard, which fits easily in the back of Mamakaze’s small SUV.

This roomy, durable play yard is available online for $75.

With nighttime temperatures dipping as fall approaches, even hot-flashing pregnant mamas can get chilly at times. Mamakaze recently pulled out our Gap maternity Warmest Jacket, which we wore constantly while pregnant with Totakaze but is regrettably no longer available.

Luckily for newly-pregnant mamas, there are lots of warm — and better still, fashion-forward — outerwear options for moms-to-be.

A mama can never go wrong with Belly Basics, and their faux shearling coat at left is no exception. This double-breasted, winter-white number can be dressed up or down and the color is flattering for just about any skin tone — perfect for setting off that pregnant glow! We found it online for $198.

If you’re a repeat mama and laugh aloud at the idea of donning a pale hue when taking the tots out, fear not. The stores are filled with variety of maternity coats, jackets and vests to suit all styles — including the all-important “low maintenance.”

Whether you’re looking for a down parka, a light trench or something a little dressy, we’ve rifled through racks both real and virtual and come up with the cutest cold-weather threads. Below is an assortment of belly bundlers for all occasions, and budgets big and small.

We believe the famous song goes something like this: “A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” The lyrics are more than 50 years old, but we’re pretty sure most women agree that jewelry is pretty swell!

And while Mamakaze’s not such a material girl as to turn up our nose at, say, breakfast in bed or a sweet crayon-drawn card, we must agree that one the most delightful gifts a mama can receivem is something we can wear daily to remind us of our much-loved wee ones.

With charm jewelry being in vogue at the moment, along with many other of our fave ’80s fads, we think there’s nothing better to pair with our ankle boots and skinny jeans (well, as skinny as maternity jeans get!) than an uber-cool oxidized-finish charm bracelet made of three different sterling silver chains, with our babies’ names and birthdates insribed on simple hammered silver discs.

Mamakaze found this perfect gift — we’re thinking it’d be great for Christmas or perhaps as a little gift from Papakaze when our bun emerges from the oven — for $130 at Bliss Living, along with lots of other cool and elegant Mommy jewelry.

And lest we fail to instill an appreciation for good accessories in our young daughters, there’s plenty of bling for the babies there, too.

In any household, especially one such as Mamakaze’s which is filled with Tauruses, there is bound to be some clashing of both opinions and aesthetics. While Papakaze has thankfully limited his design input to mere veto power, let us not underestimate the little ones.

Although they don’t know Herman Miller from Hermione Granger, they do know one thing — that the house should be carpeted from wall to wall in toys. Which means our “carpet” is garish, to say the very least. We don’t mind (too much) that their playthings are hideous to behold, because after all, they enjoy them. But recently during a game of memory with Kidakaze, Mamakaze found ourself thinking, if we have to look at that stupid clownfish one more time, we are going to flush ourself down the toilet.

Since the point of playing memory is to enjoy family-friendly fun with one’s kids — and not to fixate on our irrational hatred of overmerchandised animated characters — the solution is purchasing a game that kids will enjoy, but with an aesthetic that adults can appreciate.

Mamakaze recommends the Maharam memory game, which features for your matching pleasure an array of 36 famous 20th-century textile patterns. None of which, we might add, features clownfish, wizards, tiny map-wielding Latinas, or chubby technicolor bears that defy gravity. Even in our home full of clashing decor preferences, a design-friendly game is one thing that’s bound to harmoniously tie all the elements together.

Mamakaze found the fun (and fashionable) Maharam memory game online for $36.