Are you looking for a new read or two for your little one?
Thanks to my 14-month old son, Brooks, I’ve been influenced to buy about two dozen books, which has allowed me to collect some quality book reviews.
Below, you can find a short list of my son and I’s favorite books that have become apart of our bedtime routine.
1. Where is Baby’s Mommy? This was the first book I read to my son when he was a newborn, so it is sentimental to me. Every time I read to him I give him two options. If this book is ever one of the options, he always points to it! When the answer is no to the questions in the book, we shake our heads together.
2. Baby ABC. My toddler seems to be drawn to the contrast between color and black and white in this book. The photos of the babies are super cute, too.
3. Have You Ever Tickled a Tiger? Baby Brooks loves to touch and feel all the animals in this book. His favorite is the walrus whiskers.
4. The Wheels on the Bus. This book was from Brooks’ cousins. This song seems to be a go-to for toddlers. That and “Itsy, Bitsy Spider” never seem to fail. This book is also a sing-a-long and pop out!
Written by our Founder & CEO, Lindsay Bell
Category Archives: Uncategorized
"Tales from the Top" from Female Entrepreneurs
I recently attended the Cornell Tech @ Bloomberg speaker series, featuring three successful female entrepreneurs. While there, they shared their “tales from the top” along with Cornell Tech students, Bloomberg employees, and the New York City tech industry.
Three female entrepreneurs were featured (two of them also mothers) including:
Katia Beauchamp founder of Birchbox,
Brit Morin founder of Brit + Co, and
Nadia Boujarwah founder of DAI Global, LLC.
After listening to these three women, my takeaway tips for other entrepreneurs are:
1. What are you feeling or looking for? Sit in a silent space and give yourself time to reflect and think about the big picture.
2. Listen for work arounds. What should the core product be?
3. Verge into digital – try doing video rather than editorial. It will save you a lot of time and garner more views.
4. How do you champion other women? Get out there and mentor (i.e., e-mail women back that need help, be supportive not competitive). It’s hard enough out there!
Written by our Founder & CEO, Lindsay Bell
goBaby: Your Source for Making Infant Travel Easy
It’s time to make traveling with your little one(s) easy and stress-free!
Meet goBaby – the Airbnb for Baby-Gear-on-the-Go.
We had the chance to meet with goBaby’s founder, Natalie Kaminski, and found out what you need to know about this on demand app today.
Q: What led you to the idea behind goBaby? Was there a specific time or event where you recognized the need for rental baby gear?
A: Traveling with kids is a lot of fun, but it is also very stressful. And having to carry all the stuff that kids need does not make it any easier. As a mother of two young daughters who takes several family trips per year, I have experienced this problem first hand. Following a trip to Chicago where I was able to borrow a car from a friend, but couldn’t find a way to rent a car seat, the idea for goBaby was born. I just could not believe that this type of service was not yet available, and as a digital product developer, I immediately jumped on the opportunity.
Q: Why should parents turn to goBaby when traveling?
Because it is super convenient! goBaby wants to make family travel easier. We want to allow parents to pack light instead of hauling bulky equipment, and rest assured that they can easily rent anything they may need for their children on-the-go.
Q: How does someone go about renting baby gear, or offering their own for others to rent through your app?
The goBaby app is very easy to use. After you download the app, you can search the available items by specifying location and dates. The app will present you with a list of items to choose from, and you can review photos, description, pricing and delivery items. Once you find the item you like, you make a booking request, which will be sent to the owner.
Listing an item is equally straightforward. Create an account, snap a photo of your item, provide description, pricing, and delivery options and you are good to go!
Written by our Marketing & Social Media Consultant, Taylor Bell
A Giant Leap for Toddler-Kind
When it’s time for a child to take their first steps, a wave of excitement comes over parents. However, it also seems that the feeling of excitement is also paired with anxiety, caution, and nervousness. Good times, right parents?
One thing that can help ease some of these scary thoughts, is thinking about all of the cute shoes you can pick out! Let’s face it, any shoe in mini form is adorable.
To help with picking out shoes for your toddler, we found a great article posted by Lucie’s List, which talks about the biggest things to look out for prior to purchasing, as well as some of the top walking shoes.
Here are some things to keep in mind before purchasing:
1. Size does matter. At your first go round – take a trip to an actual kids’ shoe store and have your child’s foot measured by a specialist. Also, pay attention to the width of your child’s feet to see if you’ll need shoes that run wide.
2. One size fits today. Don’t buy bigger shoes for the months ahead. Shoes that are too big are hard to walk in and can cause falling or tripping.
3. Bend it like Beckham. Shoes for toddlers should bend easily in your hand. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that toddlers wear lightweight and flexible shoes that allow their feet to move naturally.
4. New versus used. Generally used shoes for young kids take a beating and tend to be “single-user” items. Higher quality shoes last much longer and may be able to be handed down to another kiddo.
Here are some of the top infant walking shoes:
– See Kai Run
– Pediped
– Stride Rite
– Tsukihoshi
– Livie & Luca
For the complete article on the Lucie’s List website, click here.
Written by our Marketing & Social Media Consultant, Taylor Bell
Perfect Your Practice with ivivva Sport Gear
ivivva stores and showrooms are community spaces that quickly transform with movable fixtures to host complimentary events like dance, yoga, run clinics, and a variety of athletic classes. They also have a dreams and goals program that facilitates workshops around the store and with teams and classes. In this workshop they encourage girls to dream big and set goals for themselves, and at the same time know that falling and getting back up again is all part of the journey.
Their products aim to create technical, beautiful athletic apparel for girls. ivivva is designed with active girls in mind, to help them perform their best in all their activities. It is co-created with girls and ivivva designers, with the girls’ sharing feedback and ideas, and ivivva designing what she needs even beyond what she can imagine!
Today, we are featuring one of ivivva’s popular products, the Perfect Your Practice Jacket, which is perfect for on the field or on the ice to get to and from practice. This is a popular item to purchase alone or to buy in bulk for a team sale (see below for product image).
To order this jacket, or do some browsing of your own, check out the ivivva website here!
Written by our Marketing & Social Media Coordinator, Taylor Bell
Your Holiday Gift Guide
Looking for just the right gift this year for your friend, family member, or significant other? Well, you’re in luck thanks to Issuu – an online publication that posts thousands of digital articles that are all available to active readers.
Their 2016 Holiday Gift Guide is helping to make this the easiest shopping year yet. Below you can find some suggestions to get you started.
Top toys for 2016:
Hatchimal Hatching Egg
Cosmo Robot
Think & Learn Code-A-Pillar
Build and create toys:
Shape Mags Advance Starter Kit
Wonderhood Grand Hotel
Meccanoid 2.0
Wheels that wow:
Micro Kickboards
Penny Skateboard
PlayWheels Trolls Glitter Skates
Gifs for mom:
Josie Maran Argan Sugar Scrub
Madewell Tote
Duckfeet Arhus Boot
For the full 2016 Holiday Gift Guide, read through the online magazine here!
Holiday Camps for Kids
Looking for some fun activities for the lil’ ones this winter break? Kidz Central Station is offering some great classes to keep them active and your hands free!
From December 19th-30th, you can check out these classes:
1. Holiday Camp Snowflakes
Age: 3-4 years
Time: Weekdays 9am-Noon or 12:30pm-3:30pm
Cost: $15-$75
2. Holiday Camp Full Day (Peppermints)
Age: 4-5 years
Time: Weekdays 9am-3pm
Cost: $15-$125
3. Holiday Camp Full Day (Gingerbreads)
Age: 5-8 years
Time: Weekdays 9am-3pm
Cost: $15-$125
4. Holiday Cookie Wars
Age: 4-8 years or 9-13 years
Time: Weekdays 9am-Noon or 1pm-4pm
Cost: $100+
For the full list of semester holiday classes and additional event details, click here!
Written by our Marketing & Social Media Coordinator, Taylor Bell
Ride-Sharing Tips with Lyft and Uber
Trips with Tykes released an article a few months ago that highlighted some great tips to keep in mind if your kids are traveling with Lyft or Uber.
If you’ve never used either of these services, first download either the Lyft or Uber app to your smartphone and set up an account with your credit card information. You will be prompted what to do next once you’ve completed this step. At the end of your ride, the app allows you to rate the driver, and the driver can also rate you as a passenger. You’ve been warned not to throw a ragging party in the back seat. The app will then charge the linked credit card on the account. No need to rustle in your bag to find buried cash or your credit card anymore!
Now that you are comfortable with how it works, let’s hear about some great tips if you are using either of these services to travel with kids.
1. Lyft and Uber will save you money.
Perk: both car services regularly offer promotions to entice new members to join and try them out.
2. They’ll keep you from being ripped off.
Technology tracks Lyft and Uber drivers and charges by the mile, so it keeps the drivers honest.
3. Make sure to select the right vehicle size.
The bigger the car you request, the more you’ll pay with ride-sharing services. My family of four (including two small kids) has never had an issue squeezing into a regular Lyft or a standard Uber (called UberX).
4. Plan for carseats.
Many Lyft and Uber drivers in the US will deny you a ride if you don’t have a car seat for a child of an age that requires one. Uber offers UberFamily in a few cities that includes a single car seat for an additional charge (usually $10).
5. Know about surge pricing.
Both services implement surge pricing when cars are in short supply (Lyft calls it Prime Time).
For the complete list of tips, read the article, here.
Written by our Marketing & Social Media Coordinator, Taylor Bell
Cardamom Event Recap
Our Founder & CEO, Lindsay Bell, recently attended CARDAMOM’S event that took place last week in NYC. Here is what Lindsay had to say about the “Girlfriends, Glam, & Giving” event (full details on the event can be found in our blog).
The event was well attended at a local salon in Flatiron; where moms were welcomed with complimentary blow-outs… wow! Then h’orderves and vino were passed around, and Project Playdate presented on behalf of Founder, Amanda Raposo. Project Playdate is an award winning alternative to babysitting that helps women and children in need. There was a silent auction on site where 100% proceeds of the auction went to Project Playdate. It was truly a great event all around!
To learn more about CARDAMOM read the release below.
CARDAMOM app launches to connect moms with one easy “wave”.
They say it takes a village. But modern motherhood can be an isolating experience, without ready-made friends to lean on, laugh with or talk with. Many women, disconnected from their “pre-mom” lives, struggle to find and make connections that are in sync with their new lifestyles.
Enter Cardamom, a game-changing new app for moms. Launched for iOS last week, Cardamom utilizes profile-matching technology to introduce moms by neighborhood, kids’ ages, availability, interests, and even niche factors such as language and career choices. Users create a customized profile Card, then digitally “wave” hello to each other to explore a friendship. Cardamom makes it easy to connect and chat with other women in real time.
“Before motherhood, we made friends organically through decades of life,” says Cardamom cofounder Sonal Patel, a New York City-based mother of two, “When you have a child, it can feel like starting all over. So, women expend a tremendous amount of time and effort in meeting other moms, through meet-ups, mommy-and-me classes, playgrounds, moms’ groups, events and more. But it can be overwhelming, exhausting and uncertain.”
The Cardamom app is an easy solution for moms to quickly find and connect with each other. “It’s all done from the comfort of your phone, with no planning and no pressure,” offers Patel. “And it’s not just about play dates. We connect women who just want to chat with other moms in their local areas or someone to grab coffee, or even build professional networks.”
Now available in New York City and the surrounding areas, Cardamom will be building out networks in the coming months, with a nationwide expansion planned by early 2017.
The Cardamom app is available for free download at the iTunes store. It is compatible with iPhone, and an Android-compatible version will be released in the coming weeks.
A Radio City Rockette Newbie
I have visited New York City countless times and even lived there for about five months for a summer internship. It’s easy to rack up the visits when you have two sisters that move there by the time you are 10 years old.
Given all of my visits, I’ve done my fair share of activities – the top of the Empire State Building, walks through Central Park, Broadway shows, golf at Chelsea Pier, games at Yankee Stadium – the list goes on and on. However, there was one thing that remained on my NYC bucket list, and that was to see the Radio City Rockettes.
A few weeks ago my dream came true and I found myself inside Radio City Music Hall (thanks Mom)! The entire experience was like no other. It all started with a preshow drink with my mom and big sis, Lindsay, at Del Frisco’s. My sister considers this move a preshow staple each time she sees it. An hour later I found myself stepping into the grand lobby with two story Christmas trees and decorations to my left and right. We soon made our way to our seats and the show started right then. Cue the orchestra, dim the lights, and here comes Santa Clause.
Each act throughout the show was a show stopper. There were shopping scenes, toys that came to life, a tour through NYC, fireworks, snowfall, and the conclusion gave you a reminder of the true meaning of Christmas (tears might have been shed). If you sat near me you would often see my jaw dropped, eyes sparkling, or constantly poking my mom who sat next to me saying, “WOW!” I’ve been to many Broadway shows and musicals, and I can honestly say that nothing has compared to the experience I felt while inside this grand music hall.
We exited out of the gold doors and onto 6th Ave, when I felt as if I should be skipping down the street and singing Christmas carols. It was like I was ten again and believing in all things Santa.
If you haven’t seen the show… go! It’s great entertainment for all ages. Take it from the toddlers to the grandparents that were seen in the audience at the show I went to. If you can’t make it to Radio City, pull up your Netflix app. Believe it or not, you can watch the Christmas Spectacular right at home! You won’t have the live fireworks or snowfall (unless your are seriously invested), but you can appreciate the story just the same.
I’ll leave you with a photo I took of my favorite act in the show. The synchronicity of these girls was INSANE!
Written by our Marketing & Social Media Coordinator, Taylor Bell!