"Rayovac Powers Your Summer" Promotion

Rayovac, the battery company is hosting a promotion from June 21 to July 20. They will have summertime tips and lots of wonderful prizes. All you need to do is visit http://www.rayovac.com/PowersYourSummer/ to enter to win prizes each day. You can also "like" Rayovac on Facebook to get reminders to answer the daily questions on their web site.

Oh, and by the way, the first 99 bloggers to promote the Rayovac Powers Your Summer Twitter Event won a prize package from Rayovac! Rayovac will also be hosting a Twitter event on June 30, 2010, so be sure to check in for that one.

Perfect Kids' Lunch Box for Back to School

I'd like to introduce you to the Easy Lunchbox, another mom-invented product and quite possibly the perfect lunch box for kids to take to school or on picnics or in the car, or, well, most anywhere. I came to know Kelly Lester, the inventor of the Easy Lunchbox, when she wrote to me to ask advice as a fellow mom entrepreneur. We have not yet met in person, alas, since she's in California and I'm in Alabama. Maybe someday...

So, the Easy Lunchbox. What's up with it? Well, it is a bento-style plastic container that has three separate compartments. This means you can take at least three separate foods with you and keep them apart without carrying around three or more little containers or plastic bags. One compartment is, of course, just the right size for a sandwich, but it can be used for so many other things, too. The Easy Lunchboxes web site has a fabulous page called Yummy Lunch Ideas with photos of Easy Lunchboxes filled with the most amazing variety of food combinations. There is even a page with links to tons of other web sites that have great lunch recipe ideas.


The Easy Lunchboxes come in sets of four compartmentalized containers with lids of four different colors. You can purchase a lunch bag cooler that is big enough to hold three Easy Lunchboxes or one Easy Lunchbox along with a freezer pack, a drink, and maybe even more special treats for lunch. The lunch bag coolers are available in five colors, though I must express my daughters' disappointment in the lack of pink lunch bags. It doesn't bother me, but I'd say it might be wise to offer the lunch bag in pink.

We received our sample Easy Lunchboxes and two lunch bag coolers, one blue and one purple, so my daughters, Cora and Greta, each quickly tried to claim the purple one. Such is life with 5-1/2-year-old twin girls. As the package did not arrive until just as school was ending for my girls, our first opportunity to use the Easy Lunchboxes was on a trip to the local children's science museum, Sci-Quest, though I'm realizing as I type this how cool it would've been if we'd gone to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, home of Space Camp, and taken photos of my kids eating out of their Easy Lunchboxes in the shadow of the Saturn V that adorns the Huntsville sky.

OK, back at Sci-Quest, we ate our mid-morning snack in the break room after a morning of fun, at least on the part of the kids. In these photos you can see that we were able to fit in two freezer packs, four juice boxes, a soda for Mommy, and an Easy Lunchbox with tasty snacks. We didn't have any fresh fruit on hand that morning, so it ended up being veggie sticks, fruit chews, and one large marshmallow for each of us.

As expected, everything was still in place and the drinks were still cold even after a couple of hours of play. Carlton enjoyed handing out the drinks while Franklin kept an eye on everything. Greta and Cora are excited to take the Easy Lunchboxes to school when it starts back, so I know I'll be referring to the lunch suggestions available on the Easy Lunchboxes web site when that time arrives.

The Easy Lunchboxes are made of non-toxic, food-safe, polypropylene (PP or plastic #5) and are thicker and stronger than common plastic containers. The Easy Lunchboxes are BPA-free and phthalate-free and also meet strict FDA requirements. They are safe for refrigerator, freezer, microwave, & dishwasher!

I would definitely recommend the Easy Lunchbox system to just about anyone, whether it be for use at home, school, picnics, on the road, or at work. In fact, my husband has already inquired if he may use the girls' lunchboxes this summer before they go back to school! We just might need to get him a set of his own!

And now for ways to find Easy Lunchboxes online:
Web Site
Facebook
Twitter

Woo hoo! Giveaway for Facebook fans!

The Baby Dipper bowl now has 400 fans (likers?) on Facebook, so I thought I'd celebrate by having a giveaway of a BPA-Free Baby Dipper Feeding Set! How about that?

OH! And I just figured out how to add a Shop Now tab to the Baby Dipper bowl Facebook page. The best part is that it is set up so that fans of the page get a 10% discount on purchases made through the FB page!


Here are the details of potential entries in this giveaway (be sure to leave me a way to contact you):

Since this giveaway came about because of Facebook, the required entry for the giveaway is to be a fan/liker of the Baby Dipper bowl Facebook page. You must post here that you are a fan/liker before completing the additional entries:

1. Follow Baby Dipper on Twitter @BabyDipper (1 entry).
2. Blog about this giveaway, including a link to this giveaway. This is worth 5 extra entries. You must leave 5 separate comments and include the link to your blog entry.
3. Put our button on your blog (in the sidebar to the right). This is worth 1 extra entry and you must leave the link to your blog to verify.
4. Follow this blog via Google Friend Connect. Leave me your name on GFC in the comment (1 entry).
5. Tweet daily - Up to 3 times a day, at least 2 hours apart! Include the link to this giveaway and @BabyDipper in your tweet. Post your Twitter status here (1 entry per tweet).
6. Subscribe to the Baby Dipper newsletter (1 entry).
7. Have a suggestion for a new retailer for the Baby Dipper bowl? Suggest a retailer, either brick-and-mortar or online that you think would be a good match for us (and that does NOT include the Big Box stores like Wal-Mart, Target, Buy Buy Baby, Babies 'R' Us, etc.). I'm looking for something that maybe I haven't heard of. :o) (1 entry per store, up to three stores).

This giveaway will end at midnight CST on Monday, June 28. The winner will be notified by email (be sure to leave that for me!) and will have 48 hours to respond before a new winner is selected. Previous winners of Baby Dipper bowls are not eligible to win.

Thanks to all of you for being fans (likers) of the Baby Dipper Facebook page! Keep an eye out for another promotion when we reach 500!

This giveaway has now ended. The winner was #55, as selected by Random.org. #55 is Ashley Reynolds! I have emailed you, Ashley, and you have 48 hours to claim your prize. CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Credit Card Fraud from a Merchant's Point of View

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from a woman in Australia regarding making a wholesale purchase of Baby Dipper bowls. Well, at least I think it was a woman and I think she(?) was in Australia. Over the last two weeks, this person, whom we shall call Nancy (named changed to protect the unlikely-to-be-innocent), proceeded to bombard me with demanding emails, leading me to figure out that she probably isn't a legitimate buyer, but rather a scammer trying to trick small businesses.

The first email, entitled simply "Order." (period included) was sent directly to my personal email account at Baby Dipper. Odd, but not so difficult to guess, considering that it, like so many others is firstname@company.com. Normally new inquiries either come in through the form on the Baby Dipper web site or to info@babydipper.com. In the first email, I was given a company name and a shipping address in Australia. She inquired where she could view my products. Even this first email made me wonder. Clearly Nancy did not know that I only have one product, not productS to offer (as of now) and had not seen the web site view the product.

So, in short order, I responded by answering her questions and sent along information about wholesale pricing for international orders. I also made a point of asking Nancy for more information about her company, including a link to their web site.

Well, the next email I received from Nancy had a title of "GET BCAK TO ME NOW" (her typo). Again, odd, but in the email was a polite order for a good size quantity of Baby Dipper bowls. She advised me that she's had "difficulties when it comes to getting orders to my address here in Australia," so she requested that I contact the shipping company in the United Kingdom that she's used in the past and gave me her customer ID number. I, in turn, emailed the address she gave me and asked for a shipping estimate for the shipment of Baby Dipper bowls from China (where I have some inventory stored) to Australia. I responded to Nancy's email letting her know that I had sent an email to the shipping company and asked her again for a link to her company's web site.

The next day I received an email back from a man(?) at the shipping company with an estimate of the shipping fee. He informed me that his company had made a shipment to a man in Australia in the past and that this shipment would not be a problem. He went on to tell me that pick up would be made by their agent in the states (UM, our inventory for this shipment is in China!). He continued on that the shipping company only accepts payment via WESTER UNION MONEY TRANSFER (his typo). I sent the quote back to Nancy and waited for a response.

"PROCESS IT NOW" screamed the title of the email that followed from Nancy. Alrighty then. In this email she gave me a credit card number (a Visa card) with the expiration date and CVV number as well as the billing address, which was in California. She asked me to charge "her" credit card for the total product and shipping cost plus the $100 Western Union fee. Oh, and she was "waiting online" to read back from me concerning the payment.

OK. Stop there. Yes, I would like to have a retailer in Australia, especially one who will start with an order of this size, but I'm no dummy. I had been updating my husband on all of these emails and we were already suspicious of this "buyer." I emailed her back to let her know I was working on determining the proper way to process the payment. This was at 1:43 pm.

My next step was to do some sleuthing to see if I could figure out if Nancy was a legitimate buyer or not. The first thing I did was call Visa's World Customer Service Center to inquire about the credit card number she gave me. At that number I was able to verify that the street number and zip code she had given me in California were indeed the correct ones for that credit card number. I was also able to get a phone number for the issuing bank, so I jotted that down and promptly made a call to Chase to investigate further.

In the mean time, my diligent husband was also researching and sent me this link about merchant liability and credit card fraud. The phrase he highlighted for me was "the liability for fraud lies on the merchant, not the credit card company." Enough said. I am not going to accept a credit card that is even remotely suspicious, especially for a bill of this size.

We also researched the shipping company and couldn't find anything about it online. Plus, the email address for it is at a generic email address, like a Hotmail account. Oh, and the company whose Australian shipping address Nancy gave me turned out to be a manufacturer of products for the concrete industry. Hmmmmm.....

The first agent I spoke with at Chase informed me that Nancy's name did not match the name on file for the credit card. Ding ding ding! I also asked about the man's name the shipping company had mentioned they had shipped to in Australia. No luck there either. He did verify that the complete street address was correct, but agreed with me that if the name doesn't match, it's a no-go and then transferred me to the fraud department at Chase. The agent in the fraud department was very nice and very well-spoken. He took notes on everything I've detailed in this post and thanked me profusely for taking my time to report this suspected fraud, telling me that he was placing a hold on the account and would contact the true cardholder.

A hold on the account. That's what I told Nancy after she emailed me at 4:04 pm, 12:44 am, 7:01 am, 7:07 am, and 7:08 am. I told her that "my accountant has placed a hold on this transaction for security reasons." I noted that I would let her know if or when anything changed, which hasn't happened. That has not, however, stopped Nancy from emailing me seven more times demanding ("GET BACK TO ME NOW") that I let her know if the shipper has been paid via Western Union.

I haven't responded to those last seven emails and I will not respond no matter how many times she sends me emails with titles in ALL CAPS. The whole experience has been very interesting. I am still relatively new to being someone who accepts credit card payments, rather than just using credit cards to make payments. That does not mean that I'm a fool who can be easily persuaded to process illegitimate charges. I did spend a fair amount of time on this issue, but I feel good about the whole thing knowing that I most likely saved the true credit card holder from more headaches than these scammers (Nancy and the purported "shipping agent," who are likely working together) have already caused. I would hope that if my credit card account were hacked that some other honest person would do the same for me. Consumers need to remember that in the case of credit card fraud, it is not the credit card company, but the merchant who is left holding the bag. If a retailer asks you for ID or other identifying information when making a purchase by credit card, please know that they are being wise and are protecting credit card holders at large by doing so.

Flip Video Camcorder

Not long ago my sister gave me a surprise gift. It was not my birthday or anniversary or even a holiday of any sort. She gave me a Flip Ultra HD Camcorder. Wow! She thought it would be useful for our family and for Baby Dipper, and it has already been used for both. I am really, really enjoying my Flip!

Before our twin girls were born in 2004, we made sure we had a video camera so that we could capture all of those darling moments that bombard you continuously as a new parent. After much research, we ended up buying a camcorder that used Mini-DV tapes.
So now after 5 years of filming the girls and later our twin boys using these Mini DV tapes, I have a drawer FULL of little tapes that are just sitting there. We don't have time to watch them or even figure out how to copy them over to an electronic file so that if something were to happen to the tapes themselves we would still have all of the videos from them. What to do about all of those tiny tapes?

I try to be responsible about the things that cannot be replaced. My mom and I swap jump drives with all of our digital family photos at the end of each month, thus ensuring that there are copies at two different locations, so that if one of our computers dies or one of our houses burns down, we still have a copy at the other house. In addition to having an external drive to back up my computer, my parents and I also keep a backup of our important computer files at the other's house for the same reason. On that same vein, for photos made before the digital age, Mom and I swapped negatives for all of the 35mm photos we each have. I have a huge box of her negatives in one of our closets that is all of the photos she and Dad took of my siblings and me while growing up. She keeps the prints at her house and I keep the negatives here. Opposite for my prints and negatives - photo albums here, negatives at my parents' house. Pretty smart, huh?

But these little tapes... You can probably tell that this problem has bothered me for quite some time, but that no effort has been put into solving it. One day I will get my act together and record all of those tapes in digital files that we can easily keep copies of in multiple locations. Dad actually just recently got busy digitizing his VHS tapes from long ago, so maybe his software can be used to digitize the Mini DV tapes.

The good news is, though, that as of last month I can very easily download every video I make right to my computer! The Flip camcorder is completely self-sufficient. When you first plug it into your computer, it leads you through the set-up for the FlipShare software, which is amazingly easy to use. You can even edit your films and put them together to make movies with titles and music. When it is plugged into your computer's USB port it also charges the Flip's battery!

AND, it is SO very easy to share videos with friends, family, and business associates as needed. The videos can be uploaded to Facebook, web sites, blogs, etc. I'll even upload one here so you can see how easy it is to do. That's Carlton (in light blue) and Franklin (dark blue) running and shrieking in the light rain and a puddle.



My point in all of this is that I'm quite pleased with the Flip and really don't have any complaints about it so far. It has been mostly for personal use so far, but I did use it to film myself (don't you hate doing that?!?!) for a contest I entered for Baby Dipper.

Flip offers several different versions of their camcorders. Some are smaller, some are HD, and some have longer recording times than others. There is a new one called Slide HD that, yes, slides open so that you can replay your films on a 3-inch screen. Flip Video camcorders come in a variety of colors and there are quite a few accessories that go with them. I would say that if you are looking for a small, easy-to-use camcorder, the Flip should at least be on your list of cameras to consider. They range in price from $149 to $279 and are eligible for Free Super-Saver Shipping on Amazon.com. You can also find them in stores and on the Flip Video web site.

My guest post on Preemie Twins

OK, so I'm not the best blogger in the world. It is very hard for me to find uninterrupted time to put together a single coherent thought, much less an entire post full of them. Four of the reasons for that are in the photo above (Cora & Franklin on the left; Greta and Carlton on the right). Well, I was invited to write a guest post for the Preemie Twins blog, so I gave it a try. This was posted on Preemie Twins on May 10. I figured, though, since it's something I actually wrote myself, I might as well share it here, too. Does anyone else out there have twins? Any thoughts you want to share??? Here's the post from Preemie Twins:

Hi everyone! First, let me introduce myself. My name is Barbara Schantz. I am a mom of two sets of twins and also the inventor of the patented Baby Dipper bowl. The Baby Dipper bowl facilitates one-handed feeding of infants by parents and also helps toddlers learn to feed themselves. My twin girls, Greta and Cora, born in 2004, were the inspiration for the Baby Dipper bowl. My twin boys, Franklin and Carlton, were born in 2008, just before the Baby Dipper bowl went on the market. Needless to say, the past 6 years have been incredibly busy and the most insane years of my life (so far).

I get lots of comments from people I know and people I don’t know (usually in stores when I have all four with me and am in a hurry) about how I have my hands full or one of the other usual remarks people make about having twins. The thing is that they just don’t get it. They don’t get to experience, to observe, to participate in the daily activities of two little ones of the same age. I must say that one of my favorite ages is 18-24 months, which is precisely where Carlton and Franklin are right now at 22 months. That is the age when they truly start trying to communicate and play with each other and start using their own “twinspeak” words. For instance, my boys call drinks “neh neh” and they both understood that long before I finally figured it out.

I get the impression that people are in awe of MOMs (with twins or more) and are happy that they are not in that position. I would say that I was one of those people before I had twins of my own. Now that I have twins, especially two sets, I really would not want it any other way. My husband, Hans, and I have talked about this many times since our girls were born, even as recently as this week. In our situation with the kids 3 1/2 years apart and the girls the older of the two sets, things flow very naturally in that we are able to assign one girl to watch each boy or hold a boy’s hand. When interaction between the two sets is not needed, each twin plays with her/his co-twin almost exclusively. Yes, we do have four (FOUR!) children, but we only have two ages to deal with. I honestly think that it would be much more difficult to have kids of four different ages than having two sets of twins.

OK, let me back up a bit here. YES, it was extremely difficult at first, especially our first time around. Taking care of two newborns is pretty much double the work of taking care of one newborn. It means double diapers, double feedings, double baths, double the chance of being awakened in the middle of the night, double everything. However, lets clarify that comment about feedings. Generally twin parents are able to feed two babies at once, so that’s not exactly double the amount of work required. MOMs can breastfeed or bottle feed two babies at once (I even know of MOMs who surfed the internet while breastfeeding their twins!). Once the babies are being spoon-fed (with a Baby Dipper bowl, of course), parents can prepare one bowl of food and alternate bites between babies, so while one baby is swallowing, the parent is scooping up a bite and feeding the other baby. The babies can be bathed together once they’re able to sit up, so around 5-8 months or so, thus saving some time there. A big time-saver is when both twins are thoroughly potty-trained. There is no way around it when they are both in diapers. Each baby’s diaper change is a separate event, some more involved than others, naturally.

Once the twins start playing together and sharing interactively, mom will suddenly find that she can actually slip away for a few minutes, though she still must listen in and check on them every few minutes as twins can sometimes get into more trouble than a single child. My understanding is that singleton babies require more parental attention since there is not a built-in playmate. This is not to say that parents of multiples should leave the teaching of things such as colors, shapes, letters, numbers, etc. to the kids themselves, but that this is another aspect of twin life that turns out to be easier than having only one child. Now that our girls are five years old, they play together just about all the time that they are not at school. There is very little arguing, surprisingly. They are really starting to realize how special it is to be twins and like to announce to people (even those who haven’t inquired about if they or their brothers are twins) that we have two sets of twins. I certainly hope that they continue to be close and get along well through their entire lives.

So, when others insinuate that having twins (especially two sets) must be incredibly difficult, I sometimes tell them that it is actually not that difficult, that my girls help with the boys, that each kid has a playmate all the time, that I only had to go through two pregnancies, that we only need to have two types of food/books/toys/clothes around at any given time. But sometimes I just humbly nod and move along, letting them remain in awe of us Mothers of Multiples and ignorant of the benefits that aren’t obvious to outsiders. Let’s not forget that from the time the babies are able to react, MOMs get double smiles, double giggles, double hugs, and double kisses.

Piggy Paint for cute toes and fingers

I would like to take a moment to let you know about a fabulous new product for children that has nothing to do with feeding them. Piggy Paint is the invention of Melanie Hurley, another mom who was looking for a product for her kids. As with the Baby Dipper bowl, when she wasn't able to find a satisfactory product, she created her own. Piggy Paint is water-based, so it is non-toxic, virtually odorless, hypoallergenic, and doesn't contain any of the things that could be bad for your children like formaldehyde, toluene, phthalates, Bisphenol-A, ethyl acetate and acetone. All of the details are available at the Product Information page.


So, that's the basics, but the fun stuff comes with first picking out a color and then with the painting of little toenails and fingernails. We tried out Forever Fancy (below), which is a bright pink color, much to the delight of Greta and Cora, my 5 1/2-year-old twin girls. We did learn the hard way that Piggy Paint isn't kidding when they say to apply 2-3 thin coats of polish. Our first try, I only put on one coat and after making sure it was dry (which doesn't take long at all!), they took their bath. Well, let's just say that Mommy needed to redo their nails after the bath. I also learned that Piggy Paint dries better using a hairdryer set on low for about one minute.

Lesson learned and the next painting was in the morning with 2 coats, which worked out much better. Let me clarify that my daughters are rough on their fingers and fingernails. They really enjoy playing with rocks, sticks, dirt, and digging in the sandbox. These activities are not friendly to any type of nail polish, so their Forever Fancy pink fingernails were not forever fancy after all. I do think that if they hadn't played so hard the polish would've lasted much longer. Their toenails fared much better than the fingernails.

As a "control" for our experiment, I painted my own toenails with the Piggy Paint. As I type this post three weeks later, they still look marvelous. And that was with only one coat of Forever Fancy! Clearly, I'm much gentler on my toenails than Cora and Greta are on their fingernails. :o)

You can purchase your Piggy Paint directly on their web site. Through June 30, you can use the code "Piggy15" for 15% off on the Piggy Paint website. You can also find retailers for Piggy Paint by entering your zip code on the Retailers page.

Be sure to follow Piggy Paint on Twitter and on Facebook for news and special offers!