First Place: My Dear Bouncy Chair, How I Love Thee

First place in our Miraculous Giveaway goes to Jennifer, a talented mommyblogger whose son, Anderson, was born on the same day as Gwen.

Jennifer writes:

When first skipping off to Sears to complete our baby registry, I had never even heard of a bouncy chair. To be honest it was one of those things that, pre-baby, I would have rolled my eyes at and thought it was “just another gimmick”.

Fast forward to the end of May, and Anderson is about 5 weeks old. We go over to our friends' place for dinner. They have this wonderful contraption in the middle of their living room floor. It has an aquarium on it. It plays music. It vibrates. It bounces. I’m thinking, “Do these come in my size?” Her daughter, 6 months old at the time, is sitting in there mesmerized, like some sort of drug-induced trance. At this point, I am just as mesmerized as she is. Immediately, I inquire about what this amazing contrivance is and I’m openly invited to let Anderson try it out. I was, at that beautiful moment, introduced to benefit #1:

I got to eat my dinner. With both hands. I was very excited.

As soon as we could pile into the car we headed over to Walmart to see what they had available. We decided on a Bright Stars bouncy chair. No aquarium, but complete with vibrations, bouncing, toys and music. As soon as we got home, we set it up. I was utterly disappointed that Anderson fell asleep for bedtime and we didn’t get to try it out right away. The next day, I put him in there as soon as the opportunity arose. I had a fussy, cranky baby on my hands. Unbeknownst to him, he needed a nap. I bounced him for a couple of minutes with my foot, while checking my e-mail. I looked down from my laptop, and to my sheer and utter joy, I experienced benefit #2:

He was asleep. I think I might have shed a small tear.


Fast forward again to July. We’ve now reached the “Entertain me, Mommy” stage and I’m so stuck for ideas. In desperation I plop Anderson in the bouncy chair and watch in amusement as he discovers the little green frog hanging in front of him. He studies it for a good 10 minutes. I then find out that this frog must be very witty, because he’s provoking some very funny faces and smiles from my son. Benefit #3:

Baby entertainment centre. Almost better than HD.

We’ve now reached August, and Anderson has learned how to wildly bounce himself about, and finds this quite funny. (Benefit #4: Baby Home Gym). For the past couple of days we’d been concerned that Anderson hadn’t had one of those beautiful poosplosions that we always looked forward to. We were discussing what to do, and decided that if he hadn’t gone by tomorrow that we would call the doctor. Rich and I sat down to a game of Settlers of Catan that evening, and naturally, we sat Anderson in his bouncy chair so that we could play and he could be engaged with us. I plopped him in, and set it on vibrate.

About 10 minutes into the game, I heard rumbling from the depths below. Appropriately, I said “Oh Sh^%!” as I saw a line of Crayola yellow liquid rise up the front of his white shirt. Welcome to benefit #5:

Laxative effects. The experience was truly cathartic, in all regards.

From that day forward, the bouncy chair was not only our dinner companion, our entertainment center, our baby gym, and our naptime favorite but we turned to it to elicit poop if we thought we hadn’t seen enough of it yet. It got very messy. Better yet, we appreciated benefit #6 most of all:

It’s machine washable.

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You can read more of Jennifer's hilarious and poignant writing at Adventures of Being a Mommy. Congratulations, Jennifer!

Second Place: Arnold's Swingin' Good Time

Second place in our Miraculous Giveaway goes to Arnold, who has the distinction of being our only male contestant.

Arnold writes:

I would say that the best item we ever had was a battery-powered swing. Now, this was a much bigger deal for my first daughter, Katerina, because we used it _all_ the time. In particular, we often did the Lower Mainland trek and this swing saved our weary souls many-a-time. Set it up in the VW Camper van, get on the ferry, tie the baby down and start it a rockin'. (ed. note: THIS IS PURE BRILLIANCE.) Katerina went to sleep quickly 90% of the time, and then so did we. Compressing a two hour ferry ride into less than 30 minutes waketime was a God-send. And with 4 D cells for power, it was able to operate for up to something like 12 hours straight. It was used a lot at home too, putting her to sleep without leaving our sight - much better than wailing in a crib that was cold and lonely.

Since it was so successful for baby #1, we got another one for baby #2 (11 years apart - sold everything in between, so we needed a full resupply). This child, Alexandra, was a much more boisterous, action-packed baby, who fought sleep (and straps, and laying down) with a vengeance. While Katerina lay and fell asleep in the swing, Alexandra flailed. It worked occasionally, though, and that was good, but was used far less than the first time around. That being said - at 18 months now, Alexandra wants to get back into the swing to play again!

So, I would consider this product one to really consider investing in for those early months. (From 6 months to a year, my highest recommendation would be an ExerSaucer - but that is an item for another post.)

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I've had the pleasure of meeting Arnold's daughters, and they are both lovely and charming. Thanks for your entry, Arnold!

Third Place: Heather & the Heater

Third place in our Miraculous Giveaway goes to Heather. Heather has the distinction of being the farthest-away contestant, as she is from Wisconsin(which according to one source is "The Badger State").

Heather writes:


My favorite and most useful item for my daughter's first 3 months of life has been the space heater. Yes! I know! The space heater. She was born December 6th, in WI, so obviously it's freezing. When we first brought her home, she was like any normal baby, not wanting to sleep in her crib. So her and I nursed and slept in a chair. I would get SO cold after breastfeeding, that I needed that heater blasting on me. Then after we fell asleep in the chair, it was lovely to have it warm and toasty.



The space heater also came in handy when the little one had a bout of diarrhea at a week old. Which of course burned her butt up and gave her horrid diaper rash. So I would put her in the bathroom on a stack of towels, naked. The space heater warming the room nicely while her butt healed. She still loves her naked time, still with the space heater. We love that darn space heater.



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Heather was kind enough to include a picture of the lovely Annabelle.

Say it with me now: AWWWWW!!

You can read more of Heather and Annabelle's adventures at Heathrow's World. Thanks for your entry, Heather!

Housekeeping

Sorry for the total lack of posts lately, guys. Here is my lame list of excuses:
1. I have recently been appointed to my church's Council and to the Call Commitee (our pastor of 11 years is leaving, and it is the Call Committee's job to find a new one). I've held these "jobs" for about a week and have already spent nearly 8 hours in meetings. Not to mention a lot of time emailing and phoning and networking, oh my.
2. Gwen and I are leaving for our week-long circle tour in TWO DAYS. So any time not spent dealing with Church stuff, has been spent packing and confirming plans with friends and relatives.
3. I don't have a third reason, but I think lists should always include at least three items. Hi! I have OCD, have we met?

In other news, the Miraculous Giveaway is now closed, and I have three fantastic stories that will be posted over the next week (while I'm away! How brilliant! Almost like I planned this, except srsly, I'm not that organized) sharing tips about important and useful baby products. I have already contacted the winner, and a Miracle Blanket will hopefully be winging its way through the mail post haste.

Also, Gwen took a few steps last night - one day later than I originally predicted! She just likes to mess with me, I guess. Her dad and I were both playing with her on the kitchen floor, and I guess she was revelling in our devoted attention so much that she didn't notice she was walking. It was way cool!

Reminder!

Hey! You guys have two days left to send your stories for The Miraculous Giveaway. Come on, get on it!

The Miraculous Giveaway!

Hey you guys! Go check out the second comment on this post. Go ahead, I'll wait here.

*humming quietly to self*

Okay, are you back? Now ... isn't that awesome?

I'm guessing the love between me and the Miracle Blanket is most accurately reflected in the post "Most Useful Products: Birth to Three Months" which I wrote back in August, you know, when Gwen was four months old. But I've mentioned the Miracle Blanket lots of times. Still, I'm just tickled that my mentioning has attracted the attention of the inventor himself. Don't worry, little people, I will still remember you now that my blog has hit The Bigtime.

Obviously, the appropriate thing to do is to have a giveaway on my blog! Which millions thousands hundreds dozens pairs of people read! I can't wait!

Since I know many of you have your babies already, and most of them are past the swaddling stage, I would love for you to enter this contest on behalf of someone who's expecting. In fact, I would double-plus-love if you entered this contest on their behalf, and then showed them this blog. Imagine the power I could wield if each one of you introduced one new reader to Blogging For Two! Why, I could rule the world!

(Hmm. A brief interlude while I try to find the page on Blogger.com that states World Rulers are chosen by blog readership... I'm sure I saw it somewhere...)

So, here's the contest. I want a story about a product that helped you in your (or your partner's) pregnancy, birth, or first six months of parenting. The product can be a book, a baby-related item, or maybe just the set of noise-cancelling headphones you whipped out at 2am when you couldn't take the screaming anymore. The catch is: I don't want just a product review, I want a story. Tell me about when you bought this product, or how you came across it, or how you thought you didn't need it at first but then found yourself begging the Wal-Mart greeter to open the doors even though it was 9:01pm because your baby needed a soother, dammit. Tell me about who recommended it to you, or who advised you against it. Tell me about how it saved your life or your sanity or your marriage. Make me smile. Make me laugh. Make me weep in recognition.

Everybody wins: we all get to read some great stories and learn about useful products, someone is going to get a free Miracle Blanket, and I'm going to have effort-free blog fodder for a few days. SCORE!

(If you're nervous about me sharing your story, let me know. We can change names and identifying details so you can remain anonymous, or we can just keep the story private.)

Send your stories to lauralyzer@gmail.com. Please let me know if you are okay with having your name and/or website listed. In deference to the fact that when it comes to parenting, our time is not our own, I will leave this contest open for TEN WHOLE DAYS, meaning it will close on February 28th. I'll choose a winner and contact them to find out where they want their Miracle Blanket sent.

Now get writing! Entertain me, dammit!