My 5-year-old twin daughters Greta and Cora are in a video with Cathy Puett Miller, an expert on early reading who travels to speak about literacy and who happens to live here in Huntsville, Alabama. Cathy is known as The Literacy Ambassador. In the video, they are playing Rhymin' Simon, which is featured in Cathy's new book, Anytime Reading Readiness (book can be purchased at that link). There is, by the way, a book for parents and a separate book on the topic for teachers, plus Cathy has many other books available. Check it out!

Here's the video:

Baby Dipper bowls now available in Canada!!!

Yes, you read the title correctly: the new BPA-free Baby Dipper bowl/spoon/fork set is now available for purchase in Canada. Our first Canadian retailer is My Lil' Package in Halifax, Nova Scotia. My Lil' Package offers a wide variety of baby items, toddler items, and even maternity and postpartum items.

I know there are some Canadians out there who have been waiting for a while for the BPA-free version of the Baby Dipper bowl so that it could be sold in Canada, so I'm very happy to let you all know about our new retailer, My Lil' Package. Please pass the news along to all of your friends and family members in Canada who have young children or know folks with young children. Thanks!

Business Baby Shower Contest

Here is a fabulous new contest for mom entrepreneurs. Baby Dipper is a sponsor for the contest and I am also going to enter the contest, too. This is a great way to help all mom entrepreneurs gain attention for our accomplishments. Please pass the word along via your blog, Facebook, and/or Twitter. You can follow the Business Baby Shower on Twitter at @BusinessBShower or on Facebook. Here is the first part of the press release from January 1 announcing the contest:

Business Baby Shower Launches: Contest celebrates entrepreneurial moms and all they do to birth and grow a business

January 1, 2010 – Barrington, NH: The Business Baby Shower, a new contest celebrating entrepreneurial moms and all they do to birth and grow a successful company while balancing family life, was recently launched as a partnership between The Mom Entrepreneur and Corporate Mom DropOuts.

The contest, which runs from January 1 – April 30, 2010, will create awareness of mom entrepreneur companies and their products and services. Participants will complete an application process as well as submit a two minute video of their business for consideration by a panel of judges.

“As a mom entrepreneur myself, I’ve found that starting and growing my own business was very similar to the process of birthing and raising my children. There’s a lot of love, dedication, commitment, hard work – and occasional frustrations – that go into both,” said Lucinda Cross, of Corporate Mom DropOuts, co-founder of the Contest. “We’ve created a forum that recognizes and honors the unique challenges that go into simultaneously raising children and ‘birthing’ a business.”

BPA-Free Baby Dipper bowls are here!!!!

Yes, you read it right. BPA-free Baby Dipper bowls are officially available as of today! The new bowls come in a set with a spoon and a fork, too! As with the classic Baby Dipper bowl, the new bowls are CPSIA compliant, meaning that they are also lab-certified lead-free and phthalate-free. Another nice change is that the orders can be placed through the Buy Now page of the Baby Dipper web site using either a credit card or your PayPal account.

I would very much appreciate it if you would help me out by passing the word along to your friends and family. Also, if you know and love the Baby Dipper bowl, please take a moment to write a review of it on either (or both!) Amazon.com or One Step Ahead. Thank you so much to all of you for your support of Baby Dipper!

Video of boys eating, sort of....

Well, since a video of Carlton and Franklin eating out of Baby Dipper bowls has been requested, I tried to film a video using a camera we bought for Cora for Christmas. Suffice it to say that the film quality is poor and there is no sound. So, I'll narrate in advance: That's Franklin on the left and he is first very interested in the camera itself, then concerned about a dot of yogurt that got on the high chair tray, and finally gets down to the business of feeding himself. Moving on to Carlton, you can see that his grasp of the spoon is, uh, not the best, holding it with his fingertips at the end of the spoon handle. This is probably their fourth time using the bowls and he hasn't made much progress, but I know it will happen eventually. Last, but not least, I pan over to where Cora (in the crown) and Greta are eating yogurt themselves. Don't you just love the *rolling eyes* look Greta gave me right at the end? So, there's a glimpse of mealtime at our house. Does that look familiar or is it just scary?

Boys and Bowls!

Well, I'm sort of embarrassed to admit it, but today was the first time in several months that we have given Franklin and Carlton (now 18 months old) a chance to feed themselves using a Baby Dipper bowl. The delay was mostly due to our crazy busy schedules and wanting to have two adults here so we could take photos, film it, and help the boys out as needed. Honestly, I also didn't really relish the thought of having to deal with the guaranteed mess created by two toddlers feeding themselves at once. Remember, I've been there, done that with Greta and Cora. They actually got to use prototype Baby Dipper bowls to feed themselves, but it is still a "growing pain" of sorts even with a bowl that actually helps the child feed him- or herself.


So, this evening after taking the edge off their appetites with a few nibbles of snacks, I suggested to Hans that tonight might be THE night. He agreed, so we gave Carlton and Franklin Baby Dipper bowls filled with chocolate pudding and handed each a Baby Dipper spoon. As with the last time we'd given them a bowl full of food, they just looked at us, expecting us to spoon the food for them. We decided to do the first bite for them so they would know what the brown stuff in the bowls was. They were happy with that first taste, so it didn't take much encouragement after that for them to try to get more into their mouths.

We were able to witness here in our very own home two different eating styles for first-time self-feeders. Franklin immediately grabbed the spoon with his fist and proceeded to dip it into the pudding and then put it in his mouth right side up. By the end of his first meal self-feeding, he was sort of even scooping the pudding rather than just dipping. He pretty much got it this first time out. Carlton, on the other hand, was simply enjoying holding just the very tip of the spoon handle and tapping the spoon in the bowl. He would occasionally try to get a bite into his mouth, but the spoon always ended up upside down, often assisted by his other hand. You can see in the photos the two different early feeder styles. I know that we have a long road ahead of us, but I also know that it would be much longer without the use of Baby Dipper bowls. I sure am glad that somebody invented it! ;-)

Blog * Bid * Hope

A Baby Dipper bowl is being auctioned off this week for Blog*Bid*Hope along with two CDs from My Baby Loves on Adventures in Babywearing .


The auction will benefit The Liz Logelin Foundation, founded by Matt Logelin, a new dad who lost his wife the day after their daughter was born, and started a foundation to help others in similar situations, and Anissa Mayhew, a 35-year-old mom of three who had a stroke two days before Thanksgiving. There are incredible stories behind both beneficiaries.

Also, there tons of other auctions being hosted by 7 bloggers for Blog*Bid*Hope: Buried with Children, Mayhem & Moxie, 7 Clown Circus, Scary Mommy, Adventures in Babywearing, The Extraordinary Ordinary, & Mama’s Losin’ It.

Look here for a complete list of the auctions and please pass the word along. Thanks!!!