Mamakaze! Attacking Life at Full Throttle

To the uninitiated, there’s not much going on in the heads of babies. They’re just cute little lumps who sit there drooling and staring as the world goes by. But mamas know better than that. The small set can be very particular. Mamakaze can’t count the times we’ve purchased things we thought Totakaze might enjoy, only for them to gather dust. Then, Totakaze will see a toy at playgroup that seems like nothing special to us, but which Totakaze absolutelymusthavethisveryminuteorelse!!

One thing that both Mamakaze and Totakaze agree on, however, is Karen Katz’ adorable lift-the-flap board books. We discovered these when Totakaze was but a wee thing of three months, and she quickly learned to anticipate the lifting of the flap and the revelation of whatever toy, body part or family member happened to be hiding behind said flap.

It’s not only Totakaze — the cheerful, sweetly illustrated books delight many of her wee friends as well. There’s just something little ones love about the sweet, brightly-colored illustrations of happy tots, the thrilling lift-and-discover routine, and the familiar faces and objects the roly-poly protagonists of Katz’ books uncover.

This month, we were delighted to discover the release of the “Baby’s Box of Family Fun” boxed set of four Karen Katz favorites. Along with Totakaze’s current favorite, “Where is Baby’s Mommy?” the set comprises the popular books “Daddy and Me,” “Grandma and Me” and “Grandpa and Me.” Although we already have several of the books in the set, Mamakaze is already thinking of several baby friends of ours who have birthdays coming up.

Of course every baby is different and there’s probably a tot out there who doesn’t enjoy a good game of literary peek-a-boo. But we haven’t met one yet! For upcoming birthday babes, we found “Baby’s Box of Family Fun” (that’s four books full of glorious lift-the-flap giggles) for a shockingly thrifty $12.97 at Amazon.com.

Wherein we keep abreast of nursing fashion and literature
Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Although we support breastfeeding each and every day on a personal level (and lest we forget to support the breasts themselves, we also regularly recommend good-looking nursing bras!), Mamakaze would be remiss if we didn’t mention “the womanly art” on our site at least once during World Breastfeeding Week, which began yesterday. While we would like to point out right now that there’s nothing at all wrong with bottle-feeding, we applaud mamas who are able to put up with cracked nipples, mastitis, ill-timed leakage and all the many other joys of giving one’s baby the very best.

Before Totakaze’s recent decision to drink exclusively from her Nuby sippy cup ended our days as a nursing mama (for the next five months, anyway!), one of our biggest breastfeeding challenges after aforementioned cracking and painful swelling was finding nursing tops that didn’t, well, look like nursing tops. We’re no shrinking violet, but neither do we want to draw attention to our lactational status with bulky, oddly placed seams or obvious zippers. We don’t think it’s that difficult to design tops that are both fashionable and functional, and luckily, we’re always able to find a few that look just like something we might wear if we weren’t in charge of the care and feeding of a ravenous barracuda.

We love love love the beautifully-cut nursing clothing at Motherwear, and their Safari Wrap nursing tank ($19 marked down from $32, Motherwear.com) is no exception. Like most of their nursing garments — and unlike so very many others — the top nips in at the waist to flatter your figure, whether you’ve just given birth or lost all the baby weight and then some. The neckline pulls aside to reveal discreet nursing openings on either side.

To take nursing mamas from summer to fall, here are a few more attractive tops we’ve unearthed in our quest for a fashionable breastfeeding experience.

And for a lighthearted, realistic look at breastfeeding, what better way to spend World Breastfeeding Week than reading “Spilled Milk” by Andy Steiner? “Spilled Milk” is a collection of witty, honest nursing tales and a realistic look at the benefits and, shall we say, letdowns of breastfeeding. The hilarious read tells it like it really is and examines the social complexities of whipping out one’s girls in public when one isn’t necessarily drunk enough to want to show them off.

“Spilled Milk” cuts through all the guilt and embarrassment and discomfort that go along with breastfeeding (or not breastfeeding, since motherhood is cleverly designed to be guilt-inducing no matter what decisions we make!) and provides good advice and great laughs.

Whether it’s floating around in pretty clothes or flipping through pages, however you celebrate this week, do it with pride! Breastfeeding, however natural it may be, isn’t easy and Mamakaze salutes all those mamas with nerves of steel who toughed it out through engorgement, cracking, indentured servitude and beyond!

Like any mama, Mamakaze enjoys networking with other moms. We also like staying informed, reading well-written articles and getting deals on cool stuff. So quite naturally, when we’re not perusing the Web in search of fabulous finds, we’re checking out the quality content on ClubMom.

ClubMom is by moms and for moms, and its experts aren’t just professionals — they’re moms as well. There are message boards where we can chat with other mamas, and we enjoy reading the best of the day’s mom blogs in “Mom’s Daily Dose.” But that’s not the best part, dear readers!

Mamakaze’s friends are always telling us to get on a certain ubiquitous social networking site, but quite frankly we’re just a bit creeped out at the thought of scary perverts checking out our online profile. That’s why we love love LOVE ClubMom’s new “Mom Network.” It’s the very first social networking destination that’s just for mamas. We can search for other moms by interest, location, children’s ages or even particular challenges we’re facing as mothers. We’ve already found so many other women with whom we have lots in common!

Another thing we love (not that finding new friends isn’t delightful) is that ClubMom always has sweepstakes and special offers. Right now, members get a daily chance to win a Disney vacation package for four. Not to get ahead of ourself, but we’re thinking our girls will look super cute in those mouse ears.

If you’re not already a member, it’s time to join the club! We have joined a lot of online communities in our day, but we have to say that ClubMom has the very most to offer.

Click here to join ClubMom

Wherein we enjoy a good read not involving a very hungry caterpillar
Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Recently, Totakaze has become enamored, to say the very least, of Eric Carle’s “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.” We rediscovered it last week behind one of her book baskets and within two days, we had the thing memorized.

Now, this is a book we picked out for her ourself, and one that we loved as a child, but, dear reader, there is only so much gobbling of chocolate cake, ice cream cones, pickles, Swiss cheese, salami, lollipops and other assorted delicacies that a mama can take. At some point, we ourselves were very hungry for any literary fare other than that particular book.

Luckily for us, this past week marked the release of Janet Evanovich’s “Twelve Sharp.” We realize this is not a very child-friendly tome, and it is one that we would certainly never read aloud to a toddler. But we mamas need to get away from the daily humdrum every now and then with a good tale of murder, mayhem and mystery. We adore the Stephanie Plum series for its pulse-pounding plotlines, witty dialogue and well-drawn characters.

Mamakaze must confess that, even though we had meant to savor Evanovich’s latest novel over the course of several days, we stayed up extra-late on the very evening we started our read so that we could find out whether our feckless heroine made it through the book in one piece. (We won’t give away the ending, because this is a must-read for summer!)

Now that we’ve caught up with our favorite bounty hunter’s latest exploits, we find ourself able to approach Totakaze’s beloved caterpillar book with renewed enthusiasm. How often we forget the difference it makes when we take a little sanity time for ourself!

Wherein we secretly sneak Kidakaze educational materials
Wednesday, June 28, 2006

When we were little, we seem to remember learning being a lot cooler than it is now. Or maybe we were just far dorkier than we recall. Either way, we’re certainly not about to let Kidakaze while away the summer watching mindless cartoons and then scribbling away in coloring books based on the cartoons she’s just watched. We have grand visions of imaginative play, of learning while laughing. Of seeing just a few animals that aren’t animated.

That is where Zoobooks comes in. When we were little, many happy hours were spent poring over the differences between various animals. Our personal favorite happened to the Seals and Sea Lions edition, but we enjoyed each and every issue we received. Zoobooks were easy-to-read, beautifully photographed and illustrated, and (best of all!) ad-free.

We were thrilled to find out that Zoobooks are still around and apparently as well-loved as they were back in the ’80s, when we used to sprawl out on the front porch with a freezer pop and the latest issue.

Will Kidakaze spend time vegetating in front of the Saturday morning cartoons? Will she still beg us for poorly-constructed licensed-character clothing? Probably, on both counts. But we hope her subscription to Zoobooks will open up a world of animals that neither walk on two feet nor have technicolor fur, nor speak perfect English in impossibly high-pitched voices. Maybe learning sans cartoons isn’t as cool as it used to be, but that doesn’t mean it can’t still be fun.

Wherein Mamakaze is flabbergasted by a friend’s latest project
Thursday, June 22, 2006

We think everyone probably has a friend like our best pal — someone who cooks gourmet meals two weeks postpartum, decorates her baby’s room using framed pages from vintage storybooks, and whose scrapbooks look like professional photographers’ portfolios. Oh, the scrapbooks!

Our friend is always on the bleeding edge of scrapbooking. She knows where to find all the cool papers and what the latest layout trends are before they hit the magazines. To be quite honest, she is the sole reason we haven’t begun scrapping ourselves. We find her scrapbooking know-how to be quite intimidating.

So we weren’t too surprised when she presented us proudly with a suede-bound book and told us to look inside. What did surprise us was that the meticulously-framed photos of her little boy were laid out on the glossy pages of a professional-looking book, rather than on scrapbooking paper. And no, she didn’t get a book deal, although we’re certain she could if she set her mind to it. She made the book herself on Shutterfly.com.

Yes, you heard that right. Made it. Herself. In fact, she said it was much easier than scrapping and that everyone should try it. Instead of measuring and cutting, she simply dragged and dropped pictures and typed the captions right into their software. For a mere several hours of work (our superhuman friend said just a few; we’re still skeptical), she produced a professional-quality photobook featuring crisp, clear pictures of her adorable son on archival-quality paper.

Even though we feel intimidated by the very thought of trying to match her excellent work, we visited Shutterfly to investigate all this fuss over their Photo Books. And indeed, it looks remarkably easy. We’re attracted by the utter lack of drudgery and toil, and heartened by a recent comparison article in Slate.com praising Shutterfly as the best and easiest to use photobook site on the market.

So now we’re obsessed with shooting the kidlets’ every moment, hoping that with enough snaps, we’ll have enough well-composed shots to start on a glossy, high-quality book of our very own! We may not be able to scrap worth a darn, but for just $40, we can’t pass up the opportunity to showcase our babies in gorgeous, leatherbound glossy pages.

Don’t get us wrong, we mainly read our four different parenting magazines for information that will help us in the care and feeding of Kidakaze, Totakaze and the forthcoming Babykaze. But, dear readers, we are still a woman and still a shopaholic, and we don’t have time to peruse Vogue as often as we’d like. So it’s refreshing for us to finally be able to read up on schoolyard bullying, potty-training and the hippest new places to shop all in the pages of the same magazine.

We are particularly impressed that the editors of Child magazine not only have a keen eye for fashion, but fill its pages with relevant, well-written articles instead of the recycled pap we sometimes find ourselves flipping through in other publications. Recently, while skimming through a certain pregnancy tome, we were horrified to discover near-duplicate items within two pages of each other! In a former life, Mamakaze edited for a living, and we can certainly appreciate a well-planned, well-written, well-edited magazine.

While we still read the other magazines (after all, one has trouble finding 15 exciting uses for a toilet-paper tube all on one’s lonesome), we always look forward to finding our copy of Child in the mailbox, brimful of fashionable children’s clothing, beautifully shot meals and thought-provoking articles.

Click here for magazines.