Natalie sings!: Creating a toddler YouTube channel

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Yesterday our child turned 23 months old, and as I reflect back on 22 months, I think it will go down in our daughter's life story as the month she started singing. A lot. And asked us to sing for her. A lot. "Mommy sing more songs!" and "Natty sing by self" were two of the most common sentences our daughter uttered this month.

I've caught myself turning teary-eyed on many occasions this month as my daughter sings to me or sings to herself when she thinks I can't hear her. She has many songs now, but she has some all-time greatest hits. She references "Class on the Farm" (aka her pre-preschool class) where they sing "Old McDonald" while holding animal puppets, and then she proceeds to belt out a rushed "OldMcDonaldhadfarm E-I-E-I-OOOOOOOOOOO" (that last O gets really drawn out, and Old McDonald's most popular animal appears to be a duck...it's always a duck). She also runs around like an airplane while singing "The Wheels on the Bus" and manages to get through the lines about the wheels and the wipers before just looping on "All through the toooowwwwnnnnn" (again, her signature singing move appears to be drawing out that final note). And, after months of me singing "Hush-A-Bye Baby" to her while rubbing her back as she lays heavy-eyed inside her crib, Natalie has been singing all the lyrics of this song to herself, to me, and this week, to the Cabbage Patch doll of my childhood that I regifted to her as she prepares to become a big sister.

She's added new songs to her repertoire this month thanks to earning a new privilege of screen time. Up until hitting 22 months, Natalie had practically zero interest in TV. I had DVRed her an episode of Sesame Street months back, but it was way over her head and she watched for about 30 seconds before going back to coloring. Of course, her lack of interest in the screen has not bothered me, but I have thought about ways to slowly introduce her to videos without making it too much a part of our lives. Though I am not a believer in parking kids in front of the tube, I figure there might be times in the coming months when having her spend 15 minutes watching part of a show will be useful.

Creating a YouTube channel
I made Natalie a YouTube channel, and it's been the perfect way to introduce her to media while at the same time completely controlling what she watches and for how long. So far her channel is exclusively composed of Sesame Street clips, almost all of them from the official Sesame Street channel.

Making a YouTube channel is super easy. If you're signed in to your YouTube account, each time you watch a video you'll see an "Add to" option in the menu underneath the video. Simply click "Add to" and you'll get several options of ways to save your video, including "Favorite videos," "Watch later," and any personalized channel name you've created.

Our favorite videos
Sing the Alphabet Song!
This is by far my favorite video. It's catchy and fun without being annoying. Memorizing the lyrics takes no time, and it's fun to hear Natalie repeat back all the words as we run through the alphabet together.



Usher's ABC Song
This is one of Matt's favorites, and watching this enough times has caused it to literally become embedded in my dreams (plus, Usher started dancing with me at my friend's party [in my dream] and he is, not surprisingly, an incredible dance partner). How could you not find this man and this song charming and addictive?



Feist sings 1, 2, 3, 4
It took me a couple days to translate Natalie's toddler speak in reference to this song, but now it's impossible not to chuckle when she walks around singing "counting a 4" and "chickens from the shore" and "penguins at the door."



Norah Jones sings Don't Know Y
You know I love a good pun, and I fully hope to indoctrinate my child with a pun-loving philosophy. This is such a clever twist on Norah Jones' famous song. Natalie goes crazy every time the letter Y shows up in the video after being late to his playdate with Norah. "Natalie sees Y!" she shouts. Yes, we are trying to break our child of the habit of referring to herself in the third person, and no, Elmo, you're not helping, but you are cute.



Jimmy Fallon, Sesame Street and The Roots Sing "Sesame Street" theme
This one is purely for fun, but I finally figured out why my daughter runs around saying "A-OK": "Sunny day, everything's A-OK." And Jimmy Fallon is just adorable and a recently minted dad!



ABC-DEF-GHI Song (by Bird Bird)
OK, so the visual quality of this one leaves something to be desired, but that's because it's authentic vintage Sesame Street that dates back to at least the early 80s when I remember watching this frequently. Bonus points for how Big Bird teaches kids to spell "car" and "cat" at the end.



Potty Time
OK, this one is admittedly ridiculous, but it has also prompted my child to ask to go sit on the potty because Elmo sits on the potty. Adults, please notice how many ridiculous puns and other jokes the  Sesame Street geniuses embedded in this one. Oh, potty humor.



I Love Trash
Here's another throwback to my childhood (and yours too, no doubt). I just liked this song as a kid, and as an adult I can appreciate how a song like this teaches some great vocabulary by getting kids to make connections. "Anything ragged or rotten or rusty"? It's impossible for me not to laugh as Natalie runs around singing "I love traasssssshhhhhhh!" and I always have to resist saying, "Actually, remember how you hate trash and hate to get dirty?" Again, she's my daughter.



Kermit and Elmo Discuss Happy and Sad
This is one of the few non-musical clips in our queue, but Natalie loves to ask for this one, saying, "Elmo and Kermit the froggie play tag." Watching this video with her has taught me that I don't talk to her very often about emotions, so I should probably get on that. This video also helped prompt me to buy art featuring Kermit for her new room because Kermit appears to be perhaps her favorite Sesame Street character, and I fully endorse this choice.



Benefits of the YouTube channel
I am not surprised by how well the clips keep her attention, because it's no secret that toddlers and children can be mesmerized by the screen. I am surprised, though, by how much the clips have taught her. Her little brain really is a sponge, soaking up everything in front of her. The videos we've selected for her channel have helped her further memorize the alphabet, identify specific letters by site, begin to understand the sounds different letters make, identify numbers, learn opposites, spell a couple simple words, and even learn about emotions such as happy and sad. Sure, she gets reinforcement of all these concepts through books, toys and daily activities, but that's why I think the personalized YouTube channel has been a great supplement to her routine and education -- it gives her another way to make connections and learn.

Speaking of routine, Natalie wakes up each morning knowing that she'll change her diaper, go downstairs, have some milk, and watch a couple videos while I do her hair. This past month she has asked for this routine without fail. Creature of habit? Clearly my daughter. 

Something I love about the YouTube channel routine is that we only watch these clips from our desktop computer, so she still does not watch any TV on our actual TV. In a way, it feels like this option allows us to save some of the mystique of the television for when she's a bit older and better suited for slightly longer stretches of screen time. Right now, thanks to these 2-3 minute videos, our daughter only gets in about 10-15 minutes of screen time per day, and it seems like the perfect amount.

Have you made your child a YouTube channel? What are the best videos out there for toddlers? We'll eventually look to expand outside Sesame Street, so I'd love some suggestions!

'Next time, buy American'

This line was quoted to me two weeks ago by a man wearing a navy blue work shirt with a name tag identifying himself as Singh. He was over at our house to diagnose the problem we've been having for the past month with our fridge. (You may recall this is the Samsung fridge that we bought a year and a half ago.) Specifically, the fridge has been making intermittent horrible noises that sound a bit like a chainsaw is dividing our home in half.

According to Singh, Samsung appliances are still relatively new in the U.S., so there are lots of electrical problems the company is still working out with the models it's selling here. Singh volunteered that in his home country of India, Samsung is one of the most trusted brands of appliances, but that reputation is yet to pan out in America. He told me to buy American appliances in the future because the problem we're having with the fridge -- a failing motor, kind of a big deal -- requires ordering a part from overseas and having it shipped here.

I got really annoyed when I heard our fridge, which was manufactured less than two years ago according to the sticker inside its door, was making awful noises. I assumed this would be an expensive repair. Then I got even more annoyed when Singh confirmed that, yes, this probably will in fact be an expensive repair.

After we got our initial diagnosis and estimate, though, we did something smart, and here's what we need to keep in mind in the future. We called Samsung.

When Matt was on the phone with Samsung it took virtually no time for the representative to pass Matt along to talk to one of his superiors. The manager agreed with Matt's assessment that a one-and-a-half-year old appliance should not need a major repair. So the manager extended our warranty on our fridge for another year. The manager asked for the name of the company we'd used to give us the initial diagnosis and estimate. We'd already paid that company $70 for the diagnosis, and because Samsung had just extended our warranty they were going to reimburse us that $70 provided the company we'd used was an authorized Samsung repair company. Turns out the initial company we used is not an authorized Samsung repair company, but the manager from Samsung went so far as to call the other company and offer for them to become authorized, which would ultimately get us our $70 back. Of course, the company declined, and we're out $70, but Samsung ordered our replacement motor from overseas right then, and it showed up a few days later.

In between ordering the part and the part actually showing up was a weekend when I was hosting a baby shower at our house. Knowing that the fridge's noise can last for about two hours once it starts up, I feared that the noise would destroy the party, but thankfully the fridge obliged and stayed quiet while hosting guests.

A week after meeting Singh, a new repair person from an authorized Samsung repair shop showed up at our house with our new motor. He got here at 12:02 and by 12:16 he was done. I couldn't believe it. And all I had to do was sign a piece of paper. I didn't have to write him a giant check.

So, while we are still out that initial $70, we have an essentially free new motor and another year of free fridge repairs should anything else occur. Though Singh succeeded in making me question our decision to purchase our Samsung fridge (despite its high rating in Consumer Reports when we bought it), at least I gained faith in Samsung customer service. Ultimately, I'm reminded of something I wish I'd remembered in the beginning: when you're having a problem with a product, call the company first and see what it can do for you.

Webcam baby video monitor: There's an app for that

Although I was planning to hold out a little longer before reviewing our webcam-turned-baby-video-monitor set up, I've gotten so many requests to share our experience that I figured I'd go ahead and do so.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I knew I wanted the AngelCare motion sensor monitor because I knew I'd be crazy enough to want to know if our baby was breathing throughout the night, but I didn't want to go with the AngelCare monitors that include video capabilities because I'd read enough reviews stating the video quality was crap. Fortunately Matt is tech savvy enough that he knew about the trend of parents taking webcams and turning them into baby video monitors.

We didn't buy a webcam immediately, but once Natalie started sleeping for longer and longer stretches at night I was curious to know if she was truly asleep or simply not making noise. It turns out that having the webcam video monitor now is especially great because now that Natalie is four months old she is old enough to go back to sleep on her own even after waking in the middle of the night, and through the monitor when can read her cues to see if she's going back to sleep or truly needs us. Plus, she now moves around a ton in her sleep, so the video monitor helps us understand what's happening in the nursery while we're elsewhere.

We bought the Foscam FI8918W Pan/Tilt with 8 meter night vision and 3.6 mm lens. When we purchased it via Amazon we paid about $85, though in my experience Amazon prices constantly fluctuate (and as of this writing the cost is at $80.99). We downloaded the uFoscam iPhone/iPad app for $4.99 to allow us to access the video monitor's feed. When we set up the system, the app was capable of taking still photos, but the newly released 1.7 version of the app allows for video recording.

Overall, the pros of this system outweigh the cons, but here's the breakdown of our experience:

Pros:

• Great image quality -- the camera operates in color, but almost all the time we're watching Natalie in black-and-white in her (mostly) dark nursery. The night vision quality is strong given the fact that almost all the time she's in complete darkness. 
• Inexpensive -- compared to other baby video monitors producing images of similar quality, the Foscam system is significantly less expensive.
• Fewer devices -- This is probably the aspect that makes us happiest. Because Matt and I live with our iPhones attached to us these days, being able to access our video monitor on our phones (or for Matt through his iPad) and not through an additional device has been great. It's just generally convenient to do almost everything electronic in our lives through our phones. We're all about reducing clutter, so this is just one small step in that direction.
• Remote access -- not only can we view the app through our iPhones/iPad provided we're hooked up to wifi, but we can also log in to the camera anywhere we have internet access. So, Matt has been known to check in on a napping Natalie from his work computer.
• Versatility -- when we've outgrown the baby monitor days this camera can serve as a security camera, regular old webcam, or -- perhaps more excitingly -- a dog cam so I can figure out whether it's Max or Doc that keeps eating all my throw pillows when we're gone. Other users have set up their Foscam as a nanny cam. The app allows for users to control 12 webcams, so if you're super into security you can go wild.

This next point is sort of a pro, sort of a con...
Dependability -- So far there have been two times when I've had to unplug the camera because the image got stuck or there was some other glitch. Considering I log in to the camera probably a couple dozen times a day, I think this is a pretty good track record. I expect technology to experience the occasional bugs, and while some other people might get annoyed that this system isn't perfect 100 percent of the time, I suppose to me that sort of perfection seems unrealistic, so I'll take what we've got here.

Cons:

• No zoom -- while the camera lens itself is stationary, the app allows you to zoom in on the image just as you would anytime you're using your iPhone/iPad. I wish, though, that the camera itself would zoom because that would increase our camera mounting options. Right now the webcam is on top of the crib, and this is no doubt some kind of child safety hazard that will get more dangerous as Natalie grows, so we're planning to mount the camera on the wall directly above her crib using a small extension cord and the mounting set that came with the camera.
• Difficulty setting up remote access -- Matt took a couple hours setting up our system. He says that setting up the camera and the app is quite simple, but if you want to be able to access the camera feed remotely that's when set up becomes much more difficult.
• Connectivity issues -- because the app only operates when wifi is on, and because I sometimes forget to turn it on after being out of the house and other times my phone can't get the wifi signal, there have been times when I couldn't access the camera on my phone. I wonder, though, how much of this is an issue with the app/camera and how much of it has to do with our wifi signal.

The best part of this set up is that we can watch our baby sleep without disturbing her. Yes, my paranoid side can rest more easily when I zoom in to see her chest rising and falling with her breaths, but perhaps more importantly I get to capture these images for posterity:

Yes, that's right, we officially have a roller on our hands. Every night at bedtime and for every nap this little lady is placed in the middle of the crib, on her back, facing the camera, yet clearly over the course of her rest she manages to wiggle into different positions. At her four-month appointment last week Natalie's doctor told us that we can start placing her to bed on her stomach now that she's capable of rolling over. I'm hesitant to do this because Natalie has woken up screaming a few times when she's gotten herself onto her stomach. She rarely screams, and she basically never wakes up screaming. So, even if she can get herself out of the predicament, she doesn't do so consistently, and for the sake of her sleep and ours I'd rather keep her on her back for the time being.

Baby product review: Angel Care monitor

A few years ago when I first heard that motion-detecting baby monitors existed I instinctively said, "We will be getting one of those." I know myself too well, and I knew that checking to see whether or not a future baby was breathing would keep me up throughout the night. So when the time came I added the gadget to our registry, and when we transitioned Natalie from her Pack N Play bassinet to her crib when she was 7 weeks old we finally had a chance to put the monitor to work. Now that she's almost 16 weeks old and she's spent the majority of her life (!) sleeping in her crib, I thought it was time to write about our baby monitor experiences.

We opted for the Angelcare Movement and Sound Monitor with Two Parent Units. Overall, I am really liking this product, though it has taken some trial and error in order to make it work in our home.

Monitor design
The entire monitor system comes in four parts: the blue sensor pad that goes in the crib; the nursery unit transmitter; and the two parent units that pick up signals from the nursery unit. I like that the parent units come with AC adapters so they can be plugged into an outlet, but they can also run on battery power. We tend to keep our parents units plugged in. One parent unit rests on my nightstand and really only gets unplugged if I need to take a shower while Natalie is in her crib (this is rare). The other parent unit is set up on our desk on the main level of our house. The only time this unit is unplugged is if I happen to be Just Dancing downstairs (less likely) or doing laundry downstairs (more likely). We have not yet replaced the 3 AAA batteries we installed in each unit, but we likely rely less on the battery feature than most families.

Options
Part of the reason I like this monitor is the variety of options it provides. Parents can choose from three operational modes:

1) Sound and movement with "tic" feature on.
2) Sound and movement with "tic" feature off.
3) Sound only.

The nursery unit sits on the floor right below the crib.

Ever since we set up the monitor we've been using the Sound and Movement option with the "tic" feature turned off. Basically the "tic" feature causes the monitor to make a sound every time the baby moves. Movement includes breathing, hence the reason why this monitor is designed for parents like me who have a healthy fear of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). But, knowing that this monitor is designed to sound one alarm if it hasn't detected movement in 15 seconds or a continuous alarm if it hasn't detected movement in 20 seconds, we figured that the ticking was an unnecessary feature for our preferences.

Additionally, the monitor provides two different operational channels, A and B. There is a sensitivity dial so that you can make your monitor more or less sensitive to motion. There are volume controls on the parent units, and because the parent units also have lights that come on when they detect sound it is possible to operate the parent unit without sound. We've kept the volume on both parent units set at a medium level and let me assure you it is plenty loud, in case you have a fear of not hearing your baby via the monitor. (Well, if you're the mother you will be guaranteed to always hear your baby, but if you are the father you are biologically programmed to sleep through nearly all baby noises and likely your wife shaking you in the middle of the night.)

False alarms
The first week we used the monitor I thought it was amazing. Then during week two while Matt was at work the alarm sounded while I was on the middle level of our home, so, nearly having a heart attack, I bolted to Natalie's room only to discover her quietly sleeping away. Somehow she slept through the alarm -- she must have been extra tired that day -- but I was totally freaked out. The next day we got two false alarms, both of which woke Natalie from her sleep. The false alarm that happened in the middle of the night first freaked me out and then just pissed me off, especially after it meant taking about an hour to get Natalie back to sleep.

At this point I was ready to return the monitor to Buy Buy Baby, but in a stroke of genius I decided to turn to the product manual first to see if I could troubleshoot. Fortunately for the monitor's sake but unfortunately for Natalie's interrupted sleep I quickly discovered that in our haste to install the monitor we had done so incorrectly. Starting on page 1 and repeating on nearly every page of the product manual it is explicitly states that if you do not have a solid crib base (i.e. one made of a slab of wood) you'll need to create your own solid crib base on which to place the sensor pad. The manufacturer recommends Masonite board, but I just grabbed a piece of foam board, the kind you used for high school science project displays, and put it on top of the metal base of the crib mattress.

A peak underneath the crib mattress, complete with my foam board solution for the sensor pad. 

I worried that it would not be sturdy enough, given that it is not what the manufacturer recommends, but I am happy to report that since making that simple change we have only had one false alarm in nearly eight weeks. I wish we never got false alarms, but if the tradeoff for peace of mind is one false alarm every two months, I'll take it. I also figure that as Natalie gets older and the risk of SIDS decreases we might eventually use this monitor as a sound-only device.

Feedback interference
Besides false alarms, another common complaint about this monitor is that it has feedback problems. Yes, this has been our experience too, but I think it comes down to finding the right place to position the parent units in your home. The parent unit that is almost always located on our desk on the main level never produces that annoying static noise.

The parent unit in our bedroom, though, is another story. The static feedback is substantial, but the good news is that because Matt likes to sleep with the fan on, the white noise of the fan drowns out the white noise of the monitor. I think we get a lot of feedback on the bedroom parent unit just because our house isn't that big and our room is not that far away from the nursery.

Summary
I will take the false alarms and the feedback interference for the peace of mind this monitor offers. I have never once gone into Natalie's nursery to make sure she's still breathing, and that seems like a huge accomplishment for my inclined-toward-fear nature.  This monitor might be part of the reason I've been better at going with the flow of new parenting. This monitor is easy to use, provided it's installed properly, and it's easy to install properly, provided you actually read the directions. We did not buy the Angelcare Sound and Motion monitor that also has a video monitor component because we'd read plenty of negative reviews about the poor video quality. Instead, two weeks ago we set up a Foscam in the nursery, which is a webcam that we can control with a $5 app through our iPhones and iPad. I am in love with this new system that we have working side-by-side with our Angelcare monitor, and I'll write more about our experiences with this make-shift baby video monitor once we've tested it out a while longer.

DJ Roomba's flaw

You may recall that right before we brought Natalie into our home we brought a Craigslisted Roomba robot vacuum cleaner -- or as we like to call him, DJ Roomba -- into our home. So far DJ Roomba is doing a great job keeping our main level of our home remarkably clean with one exception. All too often I wake up in the mornings, go into the kitchen, and notice this:

DJ Roomba is great on carpet. DJ Roomba is not so hot on wood floors. He is swirling all the dog hair around and distributing it into piles on the wood floors, but he is not actually doing his job of scooping up the piles of dog hair. I guess this is his one flaw. Of course, I can easily grab the Dust Buster and get up those piles of dog hair quickly, but still, I think his advanced technological prowess should include him completing this final step.

I will say, though, that is remarkable that once his little vacuum cartridge is full of dust, dog hair, and debris every night while we sleep DJ Roomba does what I call his "ET Phone Home" moment when he returns to his little port where he lives for 23 hours of the day. Smooth move, robot!

It's official, we are living in the future, and it is weird and fascinating.

And our future dogs will be the kind that do not shed.

iBaby Log app: iLove You

There have been quite a few baby items that we've really come to rely on already in these first 100 hours or so that Natalie has been home with us from the NICU. By far the most important one -- OK, besides Pampers Swaddlers in size one and well, frankly, my own boobs -- is the iBaby Log app for the iPhone. Best part? It's free!

This app allows you to set up your basic information about each of your children...

...and then start tracking information in 18 categories:

• sleep -- starts tracking as soon as she goes to sleep, or if you forget you can go back and enter the nap's start time.
• diaper change -- allows you to enter whether diaper was wet, dirty, or both, and write comments about what you discover in the diaper more specifically (this sounds insane, but once you have a newborn you start to become quite interested in the consistency of the items that come out of their little behinds).
• nursing -- track which breast you start a feeding with as well as how long the baby nurses on each side. You can pause the feeding, which is especially useful if you baby is like ours and needs to be burped frequently during a feeding.
• bottle feeding -- we are fortunate that Natalie was nursed both by bottle and breast in the NICU, so at 11 days old she is taking bottles just fine (what a blessing in disguise from her NICU time!)
• solids -- not for a while!
• pumping -- useful to know as I attempt to stock a freezer supply. Fresh breast milk is OK iin the fridge for 24 hours; frozen breast milk is good for up to 3 months in storage.
• to do list -- not really sure about this one. I still keep a running to-do list on a pad of paper on our kitchen island.
• activity -- probably cool for things like "tummy time" (i.e. putting your child on his stomach for a short period of time to help him develop neck muscles). All the NICU nurses commented that Natalie has impressive neck control for a newborn, which I would attribute to the fact that she was placed on her stomach in the NICU incubators while under the bilirubin lights for her jaundice treatment.
• mood -- I am not really sure on this one...haven't felt the urge to track...yet. Her moods appear to be awake and quiet or asleep and quiet.
• baths -- guess who's getting her first at-home sponge bath tonight? At least we got a practice round in the NICU.
• medication
• temperature
• sickness -- Not looking forward to using this one.
• diary -- I'll use my paper and pen journal, but this one could work, too.
• milestone
• Dr. visit -- Natalie had her first doctor's appointment Friday morning, after having been home all of 16 hours. When the doctor asked us about her habits and patterns, we said they were good based on our 16 hours of parenting experience. Good news: as of Friday's appointment she'd only gone down 6% from her birth weight. It is normal for newborns to lose 10% of their birth weight in the first couple of weeks. So, she is right on track.
• vaccination -- Also not looking forward to this one. There is a room in our pediatrician's office named "the shot room." Literally. It says that on the outside of the room on a plaque. I am sure this does not win over the little ones who can read.
• growth -- Natalie was born at 65 percentile for everything -- length (20 in), weight (8 lbs., 1 oz.) and head circumference.

At this point, we've been using the sleep, diaper change and nursing categories the most. This means that I constantly have my phone on me (though I may not answer because I'm occupied with some baby duty).

It's great to start a nursing session and know when she last fed. Because she's supposed to be fed "on demand" for the time being (i.e. whenever she shows signs of hunger, mostly by crying and bringing her clinched fist to her mouth) we need to know how often she's feeding. She can't go more than four hours from the start of one feeding to the start of another feeding, doctor's orders to keep her on the right growth track. In other words, if she started one feeding at 11 a.m., even if the feeding lasted 45 minutes, she'd need to be awake and ready to feed no later than 3 p.m. Normally this is not a problem as she wakes up typically about 3 hours from the previous feeding. Also, for some perspective, sometimes babies eat every hour. This means if you start a feeding at 11 a.m. and the baby eats until 11:30 a.m., one hour later is actually 12 p.m., not 12:30 p.m. If it sounds exhausting, it is, and thankfully I've only had one 1-hour feeding in the time we've had her home. Otherwise she loves the 3-hour feedings.

It's also helpful in the middle of the night to press the "sleep" button and know when she finally went to sleep between feedings. Because without this app we would have no clue when she fell and asleep and subsequently we fell asleep. For example, her first two nights home she barely ever slept more than one hour at a time. Saturday night and last night she slept 3 or 3.5 hours at a time between each feeding, which was incredible. Matt and I each are logging 7-8 hours of interrupted sleep these past two nights. It feels amazingly luxurious. Matt gets up for diaper changes, then hands Natalie to me for breast feeding. Matt did one bottle feeding last night. So, we're pretty even right now, and it's a nice division of labor.

Finally, especially because our baby had a little early battle with jaundice, we need to know how many wet and dirty diapers she produces a day to know she's getting adequate nourishment. The best way to beat jaundice is to get the baby expelling waste because jaundice has to do with poor liver function, a problem every newborn deals with on some level. Doctors are looking for between 6 and 8 wet diapers a day. Dirty diapers can follow a more loose schedule (bad, unintentional pun). So far she is living up to her potential and I sincerely hope she doesn't back track.

This iBaby Log app is truly outstanding. If you have a baby on the way, I highly recommend downloading it now and playing around with it before the baby arrives. It will take away a lot of the new-parent jitters.

New addition

...DJ Roomba!

Matt's contribution to nesting around our house consists of him having purchased a Roomba Pet Series 562 from a woman on Craigslist (who also happens to be very pregnant and believes the Roomba is going to be too loud for her incoming baby....except it's way, way less noisy than our Dyson, so whatevs people. Her decision to sell it second hand saved us over $200 off the full purchase price.). We are currently testing it out. It is working its magic on our main level (living room, kitchen and dining room). Like everything we bring into our house, it is already nicely covered in dog hair.

The dogs do not know how to respond to it. Hopefully chasing it around will keep them occupied enough to ignore our daughter when and if she ever arrives on this planet.

And when we have a party, we can assure you DJ Roomba will play a major role in the festivities.

DJ ROOMBA - watch more funny videos     

Desk organization: Making the most of (new) limited storage

In our attempts to get our house ready for Baby Awesomerod's arrival (in six weeks!) one truth has become increasingly apparent: we have less space. Specifically, at this moment, we have less storage. When one of your bedrooms is taken over by baby stuff and you basically have to figure out how to lose a room in your house without cluttering up the rest of the house, it's time to start getting creative.

You might recall that our desk underwent a major downsizing this summer when we switched from a large, old IKEA desk to a very small but quite functional Target desk. This also means the original desk of four drawers and a large attached filing cabinet area has been narrowed down to a desk of one narrow drawer. I've had to store paper products in the guest room's nightstand, which is fine considering that piece of furniture was completely empty before. I've also abandoned my long-standing cord organization system and reduced it down to the bare essentials inside our new small desk.

Until this weekend, the inside of the new desk looked like this:

Not bad, right? I've taken the items I use most often and kept them within easy reach.

But the new cord/charger system was still getting on my nerves.

And my mismatched mini containers inside the drawer were all different heights, and one in particular kept scraping against the inside of the top of the drawer every time I'd open it.

So over the weekend I took a trip to the happiest place on earth -- aka The Container Store -- and used a gift certificate my fantastic senior students from last year gifted me (thanks again, guys!). Among many other things, mostly for the baby, that I picked up there is this 6-piece acrylic desk organizer that is absolutely perfect for the width and height of my drawer. I had no idea if it would fit or not while I was in the store (I forgot to write down the dimensions in my handy little notebook) but I took a quick estimate and was pleasantly surprised to discover that I'd found perfection. (Fun fact, speaking of my notebook: I was looking inside my notebook at my list of items to pick up and dimensions to keep in mind when a Container Store employee stopped me and said, "Wow, a whole notebook, I am really impressed with your organization!" You know you've made it when a Container Store employee makes that comment.)

Although it's not a major change, having a better cord solution is already making finding my camera accessories a little easier. I'll share more of my Container Store acquisitions soon. All I can say is it's a good thing that store is not particularly convenient to my house.

A special anniversary and a new lens purchase

A year ago this weekend, during the last Columbus Day tax-free Energy Star appliance weekend in Virginia, Matt and I purchased our stainless steel fridge and dishwasher. We've been thoroughly enjoying them all this time. Not only do they look great but they function perfectly and -- perhaps most importantly to us -- make hardly any noise. This is a major life upgrade.

But, last week, my typical need for cleanliness or my pregnancy nesting instinct took over (call it what you will), and I realized that I had not thoroughly cleaned the fridge and freezer in the entire time we've owned it. Yes, I have cleaned out each produce drawer several times and wiped down sticky shelves on numerous occasions, but our beloved fridge has never received the head-to-toe treatment it deserves.

So I started with the freezer and my handy Clorox wipes, which I find to be the most effective (though I once again admit, perhaps least environmentally friendly) way of cleaning out the various poppy seeds from bagels and leaves from various vegetables that get stuck in the nooks and crannies of our fridge. We're not big freezer users (yet) so there wasn't too much to sort through, and I am not someone who has an amazing system for organizing the contents of our freezer or our fridge.

The fridge is more satisfying to organize than the freezer, and completely emptying it out and leaving it spotless before throwing out expired goods and rearranging the contents of the shelves made me feel amazingly accomplished.

I documented the freezer and fridge clean-out progress using our new 50 mm f/1.4 lens (for our Canon Rebel XTi DSLR) which just arrived in the mail midway through last week. (We bought it through the site Adorama rather than Amazon because the two sites were charging the same price, but Adorama threw in a free 58 mm UV filter and lens cleaning kit -- two things I've been wanting for some time.)

Here's the (completely unretouched) photo of our freezer contents taken at approximately 9 p.m. Wednesday using our original lens

And here's the same photo taken from the same spot in our kitchen using our new 50 mm lens

Because of the lighting in our house I still had to take both photos on manual settings with an ISO of 1600. Granted, when I take photos to post on this blog or share with friends I almost always retouch them, adjusting usually the exposure and sometimes the saturation. But I wanted to show you the raw files of these images to help you get a sense of what the new lens will do. Namely, while the new lens does not have zooming capabilities, it does have a much more important feature: the ability to take better photos indoors in really low light. Though you might not be able to appreciate it in the examples above, the photos taken with the new lens have way less digital noise (i.e. obvious grainy pixels) than the photos taken with the old lens.

Why did we get this new lens? Well, probably at this point for obvious reasons. As we prepare our lives for Baby Awesomerod, we want to be able to take a ton of pictures of her, and since she'll be arriving during almost the dead of winter, we figure we are going to take almost all our photos indoors in low lighting. We'd rather not take photos using the flash since it tends to have a rather jarring effect.  Our friends Dawn and Jon have taken lots of adorable pictures of their daughter indoors using the same lens that inspired this purchase, and Matt, being the tech guru that he is, was totally happy to buy this lens after seeing what their lens could do.

I am totally thrilled to have a clean fridge AND a new awesome lens to document our lives. Now we need to get Photoshop Elements so I can learn to do a better job at editing photos.

$4 cord solution

I left off with our new office space telling you that it was almost complete, minus one small problem: cords. In abundance. That needed to be contained. What I anticipated could be a tricky issue to solve wound up being a pretty easy fix, thanks to a visit to Home Depot and a knowledgeable, friendly salesman.

Our salesman told us he always uses mounting bases and 8 inch mounting ties to contain his cords. The ones we bought from Home Depot are made by a company called Commercial Electric, and a pack of 10 mounting bases costs $1.99, as does a pack of 10 mounting ties. Although I can't find the exact replica of the mounting base on the Home Depot website, these mounting bases give you the same idea.


First, I had to tightly bundle the computer cords at the source in the back of the computer.

Then I had to space out the mounting bases along the back of the desk and loop the mounting ties through each base. The mounting bases have an adhesive back, and the mounting ties loop through the holes in the bases. The bases are also convenient because the ties can go through either vertically or horizontally, which is great for moving around corners on furniture or walls.

The bigger question I faced, though, once I got started was what to do with the power cord and the bottoms of all the cords when I got to the end.  I had picked up some cute red containers at Home Goods last weekend, and I was planning to use one for this purpose, but the design of the container made the cords still look messy. So, I did what I've increasingly learned to do lately and got resourceful "shopping" my own home. I picked up a basket, one of three housed underneath our living room coffee table, and discovered that it's the perfect size. Plus, its lid, its holes on the sides that serve as handles and its loose weave make it ideal for housing something electric without posing a fire hazard.

Twenty minutes and four dollars later, I was really satisfied with the results.

Granted, it's only been less than a week, but so far I am loving having my work station in the living room. It makes us more of a cozy little family.

Taking the iPad 2 plunge

Two weeks ago I came home from work to see Matt salivating over his latest gadget -- his iPad 2. He'd been talking about getting one for a while, and I told him that he should just go ahead and do it. I did tell him, though, that as part of the Great iPad 2 of 2011 Purchasing Agreement he would have to write a guest blog reviewing the product.

And now I'm pleased to present Matt's iPad 2 review...

Thanks, Stephanie. I'm thrilled to be here writing for the best blog in the entire world...

OK, OK, I kid. Here's Matt's actual review:

Hi, I’m Matt and I will be your guest blogger today. My assigned subject: to discuss the iPad 2 that we purchased approximately two weeks ago. I had wanted an iPad for a variety of reasons, the most important being that I consume a lot of media.  A LOT.  I have a Google Reader account with blogs that I try to keep up with on a daily basis, I read a number of newspapers (Washington Post, New York Times) and I have an Instapaper account. (Hint: do you want to read long articles from magazines but can never get around to them? Use Instapaper. It’s free, easy, and works on any computer, Apple and Android devices, and it looks great.) The iPad hits all of those criteria. It also doesn’t hurt that you can use it as an E-reader, though it is not usable in direct sunlight the way that a Nook or Kindle is.  

I went to the Apple Store near my house on a Thursday after work, planning to take an iPad 2 home and start using it. The Apple Store employee told me, in a serious tone, that while they did not have any in stock, they received deliveries nearly every day.  I was welcome to arrive at 6 a.m. and wait in line, hoping that when they opened, they would have a black, 16 gig Wifi model.  Seeing that I have a real job and cannot wait in four-hour lines for uncertain outcomes, I looked for other means.  This Gizmodo post allowed me to find the model I wanted at a Target near my house.  I walked in, pointed to the one I wanted, and walked out with my new iPad 2!

The other major reason that having an iPad made sense for our house is that we do not have a laptop. We have an excellent iMac in our office, but it is not portable, cannot be read in bed, and cannot travel with us. The iPad can sit on the coffee table in our living room, and can be picked up for any of the reasons listed above, or just to check email or a quick Wikipedia search.  

We are also very lucky to have a setup where we can stream music from our iMac upstairs to speakers in our living room via an Airport Express. While it was possible to control this via our Android phones, it did not always work, and often required running upstairs to turn off the music.  The iPad can be used (via the free Remote app) to control the music and edit playlists, and it always just works in a way that the Android app never did.  In addition, we can stream music from Pandora (via the free Pandora app for iPad) to those speakers in the living room, giving us an unlimited music selection while we read.

We got upsold and paid the $40 for the magnetic screen cover. It's super thin and flexible, and it snaps on and off the device using a series of strong magnets. 

While the iPad is an outstanding device, there are a few downsides to using one.  First and foremost, it has an LCD screen just like that of a laptop, so it can produce eyestrain if you use it all day. Unlike a Kindle or Nook, which have E-ink screens that are much closer to printed text, the iPad screen is electronic through and through. Second, while the onscreen keyboard is fine for writing short emails/notes, it is not a keyboard for extended writing. (Guess where I’m writing this post from?  It’s not the iPad.) Third, the excellent Apple case that can be folded to support the iPad as a viewing device does not protect the back of the device, which could be a problem for some. Most importantly, though, if you already own a laptop that is not extremely heavy, I’m not sure that an iPad is necessary. But for anyone who wants a light device with excellent battery life that allows you to to do more than read books on an outstanding color screen, the iPad is exactly the product you want.

Lastly, if you do own an iPad, and you are not using Flipboard, you are missing out. Download it now. Angry Birds looks pretty great on an iPad, too. 

Just dance

I am not an athlete, and I've never claimed to be one. That's why I was so proud of myself over the summer when I had worked my way up to running several 5Ks a week (on a treadmill) along with other cardio and (minimal) strength training. But once the school year returned in full force and going to the gym became a once-a-week trip at best, I decided to give up the pricey gym membership. This also meant I wasn't working out for several months.

Lately, though, I've found a few at-home workouts to get me back in my groove. The most fun, by far, is this little gem: Just Dance 2 for Wii. Over New Year's at the beach my friend Susannah introduced me to this game that her sister had introduced her to just days earlier. Right after we returned from the beach, Matt snagged me a copy on Amazon, and I have to say, I am hooked.

Move over, basement furniture, there's a new workout in town.

If you're not familiar with the game, Just Dance 2 (I can't comment on the original Just Dance, though I'm guessing it's similar) requires the player to copy the dance moves demonstrated on the screen, and players earn points for synchronizing arm movements with the computer. This does, of course, mean that a player could win without technically moving her feet (and I know this from experience), but that would be cheating and it would defeat the whole purpose of exercising. Players can compete against the computer or against friends; there's even a duet option for teams to compete against other teams. This also means next time you come to my house I will probably force you to play this with me.

The game includes music and accompanying dances from diverse genres and ranks each song in two categories: level of difficulty and level of sweat. A song rated one difficulty star and three sweat drops means the choreography is relatively easy, but following the moves will still get your heart rate up.

Just Dance 2 has a system that allows you to track your workout routine. I know it may sound silly -- and maybe I'm just horribly out of shape -- but doing several of these more cardio-intense dances in a row really is a workout. I've programmed my game to follow the "intense" workout (I use that term loosely, even though that's its technical name). This means I need to do six high-intensity dances in a row each day to meet my weekly goal. The best part of all this is that there's a little graph that pops up after each dance to show you how much progress you've made toward your goal. Each dance allows you to score several hundred "sweat points." I have to say, that graph provides me with some serious positive reinforcement.

Promptly after meeting my daily objective I may have cracked open a Woodchuck Raspberry Cider, but at least I earned it.

I love the Magic Trackpad

A couple weeks ago, as I was in the midst of compiling my year-end Costco spreadsheet a curious thing happened: my mouse stopped working. Specifically, it wouldn't scroll. This has happened before, so I tried turning it upside down and rolling it across our mousepad, but it didn't fix the problem. I was prepared to simply use a mouse without scrolling features.

Then Matt, who loves all things technological, got his hands on our computer and announced that we absolutely needed a new mouse. OK, fine, I said, seeing as I leave all technology decisions to him as he leaves all decorating decisions to me.

We found ourselves in the Apple section of Best Buy, playing around with the Magic Trackpad, this funky computer mouse which is simply a large rectangle with extensive capabilities beyond that of the average mouse. It operates under the same technology of the trackpad on the MacBook Pro. With this clever invention, we forked over $70, Apple upsold us and we were hooked.

This super cool gadget lets you click with one finger, right click with two fingers, scroll through a page with two fingers, scroll through multiple pages with three fingers, and even pinch the screen to zoom in and out.

When we got home from Best Buy and Matt set up the Magic Trackpad, we ran into one minor glitch. In order for this mouse to work, you must be operating with Mac OS X Snow Leopard v10.6.4. This meant our slightly older and nonupgraded Mac desktop was not compatible. Matt announced he would return to Best Buy and buy the upgrade if it cost $10, but he would not pay $30. Of course, the upgrade wound up costing $30, and Matt paid it.

Ultimately this mouse set us back $100, so I like to think of it as the world's most expensive mouse. But it's one pretty fascinating little gadget, and because it's so awesome it has actually ruined my experience using my Dell laptop at work. I keep thinking that I can scroll on my laptop's trackpad only to be sadly disappointed by its totally pedestrian capabilities.

As Ferris Bueller would say, the Magic Trackpad is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.

Tip 66: Stop paying for text messaging

At the end of August I sent out one of those classic emails with this subject line: New number. I hadn't done that since 2003 when I graduated from college, became financially independent, and therefore took myself off my parents' cell phone bill. I thought I would take that 2003 cell number to my grave, but then I discovered a new trick, thanks to Matt, my tech guru. I told my friends I would later explain via blog, so, here goes...

Tip 66: If you have a smartphone, sign up for Google Voice. The primary benefit? You can stop paying for text messaging today.

Matt took the plunge with Google Voice well before me, participating in a little experiment that got us to where we are today. At first I didn't get the point of Google Voice. The way Matt used it, it seemed like nothing more than a way to get transcripts of your voicemails, and these transcripts are comically poor. Then Matt told me there was a way to save money with Google Voice. I was all ears when he suggested we cancel our texting plan.

Google Voice shows up on the Droid as a program with an icon, just like all other applications.

Of course, there is a downside, and in order to use Google Voice to replace text messaging on your phone you have to change your phone number. So, as I did at the end of August, you have to email your contacts, letting them know you have a new number.

To counter this one obvious drawback, though, there are plenty of benefits:

1) Google Voice groups all texts from one conversation together, much like the default texting program on the Droid. This makes your texts read more like an IM chat than a series of separate texts.

2) Recordings of voicemails show up in the Google Voice program as well, and all you have to do is click on the play button beneath the transcript of the voicemail. This cuts out a couple steps normally required to access your voicemails in the Droid.

3) You can also access Google Voice from your computer. You can make calls and send texts through the Google Voice website. It gives you one more way to be in touch if you're away from your phone.

4) Even though the Google Voice voicemail transcripts are notoriously shoddy, you have the option to allow them to show up in your email. So, if you're like me and you often don't have your phone in front of you during the day, you can kill two birds with one stone when you check your email only to discover that you also have a new voicemail waiting for you.

5) You can use your Google Voice account to bring together your various phone numbers and program which ones operate at different locations at different times or based on the person who is calling. Although this is not something I've tried because I really only have one phone number, it might be something worth trying if you're like many of my friends who carry around their personal cell phones and their work Blackberries everywhere they go.

Once I had a few weeks to try out Google Voice and see that I was still receiving my texts and voicemails, Matt and I finally canceled our texting plans. We don't actually text that much, so we had plans that accounted for 200 texts each per month -- the least amount we could get -- and I know I only send about 30 texts a month. Not paying for texts only saves us $10 per month, but when I consider that we're saving $120 per year, it makes that email I sent in August seem like a small price to pay. Plus, this is one more way that I am keeping Verizon in check and continuing my quest to stop getting ripped off.

Getting ready for Europe: adapters

When Matt and I go to Europe, we won't be taking too many possessions, let alone electronic possessions. Our plan is to travel with an iPod Touch -- which will give us music and Wifi access -- and two cameras -- my Canon Rebel XTi digital SLR and our smaller Canon Powershot digital Elph. But all three gadgets require charging, so we need an international power adapter.

Thankfully, Matt's brother loaned us his, so we didn't need to go out searching for one. It folds up nicely, but with all the different converters extended it looks like a little alien.

This little alien will be an important travel companion for us this summer.

Tip 12: Cords!

I long for the day when all electronic devices will be cord-free, especially vacuum cleaners (how annoying is it to move that cord around every room and every object?). But, I accept the reality I am given. In the meantime, I have a drawer full of cords -- chargers, USB cords for cameras, iPod cords -- you name it. Unhappy with this mess, I devised a new system...

Tip 12: Use a small drawer organizer to store all your loose cords.

I love the idea of repurposing old items, so I dug around in a closet and found a bead organizer...you know, from back when I was 11 and my friend and I decided to start a beaded apparel company. (Spolier alert: it did not work out.) Now those compartments that used to house all my beads now house my coiled up cords, and I love it. I keep the cord organizer in one of the drawers in my desk so I can easily access it from my computer. Out of drawer space? Store it in your closet.

I got my drawer organizer for free (well, I guess I bought it in 1993 at a craft store) by repurposing an old item. Here's a similar idea of a drawer organizer you can buy at Bed Bath and Beyond. If you must buy something new, don't spend much money on this purchase. After all, it's just for cords.

In the end, keeping all your cords organized in one place will save you time searching for that cord before you upload your photos, and it will save you money, because although you can buy the replacement parts for cheap on Amazon, why would you want to?

Here are two more items in that drawer that are not cords:

• a memory card reader: I bought this to use with my students who are uploading photos from a variety of cameras. This little gadget is great because if you've got multiple cameras and lots of cords, you might be able to downsize with this one item. It can read five different sizes of memory cards, and it only costs $1.77 (plus $2.99 for shipping). Sure, it's not the most sturdy item out there, but it lasts for probably as long as you'll have your camera (before you upgrade) and it's about one-tenth of the cost of comparable products.
• a neoprene digital camera case: Matt found ours on eBay from an Australian maker several years ago, but now there are tons of similar items on the market. Made out of the same material as a wet suit, this bad boy will keep your electronics dry even if, say, your camera is in your pocket during a torrential downpour, and everyone else you know faced camera casualties that day.

Next up...Google reader!