I realized today in CVS Drugstore as I was holding my 4 month old son and keeping an eye on my 4 year old daughter that being a mother is really a lot of work. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have had my share of difficulties with having one and adjusting to two children, but struggling to care for two at a time really made me aware. I can’t imagine having more than two kids!

My husband has to work and my mother is out of town until evening, so I will have no break. However, I hope you have the opportunity to get a break from working as a mom and enjoy yourself. Take a long bath with the door locked and music loud (otherwise you can hear your kids banging on the door). Take a walk alone. Go out with your husband and kids to a park and tell hubby you will be having fun and not disciplining or chasing kids.

Essentially, ENJOY YOURSELF and savor being a mom.

Have you ever heard the recommendation to “shop the perimeter” of your grocery store?

What this means is that you should be buying items from the outer sections of the store. Every store has produce, dairy, bakery and meats all along the perimeter of the store. All the processed and non-food items are in the middle. If you “shop the perimeter,” you will be avoiding the chemicals, preservatives, dyes and other fake items in the processed foods.

This is a much healthier diet anyway, but recently I read an article about some of the larger corporations using a chemical to reduce the sodium and sugar in the processed foods. This chemical falls into the category of “artificial flavors” which don’t have to be disclosed any further.

You can read this article at Dr. Mercola’s website.

Personally, I do read the labels and find that organic products like soups and other boxed items don’t have artificial preservatives and flavors. More and more grocery stores are carrying organic items so look for these products as alternatives to your favorite processed foods or take the time to search the internet for ways to make the items yourself.

What are your plans to celebrate Earth Day today?

You can make a change in your day to reduce your fuel usage. Walk when you normally would drive.
Reduce electric use by turning off a light and opening your curtains or blinds. Or better yet, open your windows and turn off your air conditioning (assuming you have yours on like we do in Florida now!).
Find out what items you use that can be recycled and recycle them. I personally had no idea that my city would take paper boxes like cereal boxes, but now I am putting them out at the curb with our other recyclables.

Happy Earth Day!

Earth Day is coming up on Tuesday, April 22nd. I do what I can to help the earth by recycling newspapers, cans, bottles, etc. In the past, I have tried to use rechargeable batteries, but then the items I needed them for worked better and lasted longer with regular batteries. Now I have to run a baby swing many times throughout the day and the 4 D batteries tend to only last about 7-10 days (guess the baby is in there a lot!).

So, my bright idea to reduce my carbon footprint is to get a charger and 4 D rechargeable batteries. “Of course it will be great! I won’t have to run out to the drugstore for batteries every couple of weeks. Think of the reduction in waste and especially the reduction in cost!”
HA! I spent about $45 for the charger and batteries, but they only last for 2 days! What?! I have to remember to charge them every 2 days? Yikes, that’s a lot of responsibility! Hard to do with Mommy Mush Brain, but I will do it so I can feel good about not filling the landfills with used batteries.

Hopefully someone is working on a rechargeable battery that will last longer for these types of items. Or Mr. Fisher-Price, have you thought about a battery pack??

I am sure by now you have heard about the dangers of Bisphenol-A (BPA) in plastics. The danger lies in that this chemical leaches out of the plastic into the beverages or foods contained within the container.
Most recently, it’s been found that many baby bottles and sippy cups have these chemicals and this doesn’t even include the sports bottles available for our older kids and us when we go to the gym. They use BPA in polycarbonate plastics and will most of the time be designated by a #7 in a recycle symbol on the bottom of the item. However, not all #7 bottles have BPA and not all plastic is marked with any number.

So, what do you do? Well, first, look at the plastic items you have to see if any have distinguishing marks on them. If you are unsure, it’s a good idea to decide if you should take a chance on using the item. There was a report on television that said that the more you use items with BPA, the more of the chemical leaches out. So, if it’s an older item and you are unsure, please keep that in mind.

There alternatives to these items out there. One choice is to confirm if the plastic item definitely doesn’t have BPA. www.SafeMama.com has a list of products detailing which items are BPA free. There is also more detailed information on BPA and how it affects people. You can view this information by clicking here. She also sells some of the products at this website: www.EliteBreastfeeding.com.

Options for adults include glass items and stainless steel. I have seen a number of stainless steel sports bottles for working out. I personally have a to-go coffee mug that is stainless steel on the inside that I use at this time and my daughter has a Hello Kitty stainless steel Thermos we purchased.
Check out www.TheSoftLanding.com for stainless steel and other safe items. Don’t be deterred by the prices as these containers will last for you.

Let’s keep our kids healthy!

Gas prices aren’t the only thing that has gone up in recent months. With it has come a slow but steady increase in the cost of groceries as well, along with anything else that must be transported from one location to another. Everything from milk to meat has gone up and with it the amount of money we must allocate for groceries each month. Now is a great time to get into a few little habits that will add up to big savings at the cash register.

If you’ve thought that coupons were a big waste of time, now may be the time to rethink it and give these little money savers another try. Yes, coupons can save you money, but use them carefully. Don’t let the fact that you have a coupon for product X bully you into buying it if you don’t really need it. Figure out what you really need from the store and then go through your coupons. Only grab those you actually need and weed out any coupons that have expired as you go along. Make it a habit to clip coupons once a week and stick them into a little box or an envelope.

Comparison shopping is also a good idea. Take a few minutes to glance through the different store advertisements to find out who has chicken on sale or where you can find the cheapest milk (check your local gas station for milk). If you know your family eats a lot of chicken breast for example, it’s worth making a trip to the store that has it on sale and stock up on a few pounds. Freeze some of the meat for the next few weeks.

Make sure you don’t go to the store hungry. Grab a little snack before you head out the door. When we’re hungry, we end up buying a lot more food – especially junk food – that we don’t really need and weren’t planning on buying in the first place. All these extra little purchases add up, not only at the register, but also later on the scale. Shop after you eat, or at least grab a piece of fruit or a handful of nuts to eat on your way to the store.

So far so good… while all of the above will help you save money on your groceries, we haven’t gotten to the most powerful strategy yet. You’ll be surprised how simple, yet effective it is once you put it into place. Here it is – Plan your meals ahead of time and only purchase the items that you need for those meals. You can plan part of your meals around the items that are on sale, or look for a good deal on the ingredients you need to prepare the dishes you picked. Why does planning ahead of time work so well? Because you can make a grocery list that includes everything you need to prepare those dishes (avoiding extra trips to the store), and you don’t buy too much extra “stuff” that ends up going bad in the back of the fridge. Coming up with a plan is also the best strategy to avoid impulse buys that will have you overspending on your weekly grocery budget.

Planning your meals and your grocery list is easy with the Menu Planning Basics report and the menu and shopping worksheets that you can grab free at www.MenuPlanningCentral.com – Or if you prefer, you can have “The Menu Mom” create the menus for you.

If you have a baby or toddler in diapers, you need more than a small shoulder bag like what’s popular now. On our main site we have some colorful and inexpensive Asian diaper bags like the one below.

These diaper bags are made of a silk brocade fabric in a variety of colors. Designs include dragonflies, butterflies, cherry blossoms, fortune flowers and chili flowers. These are priced so you can switch out bags to match outfits or your mood. They are purse sized so you will not want to rely on these bags to carry enough for a full day, but they are a good size to carry a few diapers, a bottle or two and an extra outfit.

We tend to have more available than what is on the site so please email me at vanessa@tropicalbabyboutique.com if you are looking for something specific.

View all of our in-stock diaper bags by clicking here: Diaper Bags.

If you would like to do a link exchange with this blog or our main website, please email me at vanessa@tropicalbabyboutique.com.
I am also looking for ideas for articles for the blog and will consider posting articles geared towards parenting.

My 3 month old son has had a cold/cough for nearly a month and has been through one round of antibiotics. Plus, I have been giving him probiotics (which I highly recommend anyway). Well, since the cough is still there, I contacted the holistic doctor he had seen a month ago and she said that maybe his body is detoxing from having too much of the probiotics. I never knew a baby could go through something like this.
I though I was doing what’s best for my son, but maybe it was a little too much!
He should be coughing less in the next few days, but we’ll see. I definitely don’t want to do antibiotics again.
If you have been hit with the cold/flu that has been going around, definitely consider using probiotics to build up the good bacteria in your system. Just don’t take too much!

This issue has been bothering me for some time and I don’t want to stir up any major debates or anything, but I figure we want to make sure our kids are healthy and will live long, healthy lives. What we do to our bodies is one thing, but we really need to watch what our kids ingest. I am no saint when it comes to eating bad things, but there are still certain things I will be sure my children will not eat or drink.

Below I have links to information regarding Splenda and Aspartame. After I realized about 10 years ago that I was allergic or had reactions to Aspartame, I was very adamant about making sure I didn’t have any. So, of course, when new artificial sweeteners came out, I did my research on them.
First, there are many dangers to Aspartame (also known as NutriSweet), but less and less foods are using this in favor of Splenda. Did you know that Aspartame can make you hungry? Splenda is also known as Sucralose. Sucralose is created by taking sugar and adding in chlorine molecules to make it not metabolized by our bodies, in turn causing us to not get any calories from it. So, first, you are taking in chlorine molecules and second, your body is not processing the sucralose that you are ingesting and also it was found that your body will absorb it and not eliminate this chemical.

The reason I am concerned for our kids is that the company that manufactures Splenda is advertising it to be used for you AND your kids. I think this can cause long term effects for your kids (not including what it does to you) and don’t recommend allowing your kids to have it. Unfortunately, it is being slipped in to items more and more and you may not realize it’s in the products you buy. They don’t always list the Splenda logo on items and some items are not labeled as diet.
For example, I bought the Viactiv Vitamin soft chews and it listed sucralose as one ingredient.
I discovered recently that the Capri Sun Roarin’ Waters packs have Splenda and high fructose corn syrup in them. They advertise Capri Sun as having no artificial sweeteners, but that’s definitely an artificial additive. All Capri Sun has high fructose corn syrup too which is also a created sweetener and also addictive from what I hear. And of course, any diet sodas have either Splenda or Nutri-Sweet in them.

PLEASE CHECK THE LABELS when you buy items for your kids. All it takes is to be aware of what they are having to keep them healthy in the long run.

Here are a couple of links discussing these sweeteners:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2000/12/03/sucralose-dangers.aspx

http://www.vitalearth.org/Aspartame_Deception.htm