Sometime in the the early years of our marriage, Kyle and I bought a white noise machine from Brookstone.  It was originally intended to help block out the sound of his snoring, but soon it served multiple purposes - masking noises from surrounding apartments, distracting him from the sound of MY snoring when I was pregnant, and muffling the whimpering of our babies as each one learned to self-soothe.

Now we take it on every trip, and when I travel alone, I miss the low whirring sound like snow on analog TV channels that are just out of range of the rabbit ears.

Cloud B knows all about sleep.  Not only do they provide a resource center for parents who are struggling to help their children sleep, they carry many products that are designed “to achieve a better, safer sleep for baby.”  These products, such as the LullaBag and Sleep Sheep & Friends, are “developed in consultation with an advisory board of pediatricians and sleep specialists.”

When I heard about Dozy Dolphin, part of the new Cloud B sound and light collection, I knew it would be a great fit for us.  The dolphin is a plush toy with an internal sound machine which has two ranges of sounds - cheery ones for playtime, and soothing ones for naptime or bedtime.  Plus, it’s made from bamboo, which is one of my favorite materials - amazingly soft, hypo-allergenic, and eco-friendly.  What’s not to love?

Of course, Oliver thinks Dozy Dolphin is pretty cool.  He loves any toy that makes noise, especially the soft huggable ones.  It did startle him one night when he jostled it in his sleep and the white noise came on suddenly, so I’d suggest keeping the volume pretty low when it’s time to sleep.

The girls think it’s a neat toy too.  Because it’s in Oliver’s crib, they’ve deemed it a baby toy, but really, Dozy Dolphin would be a great sleeping companion for any child.  I think it would be even better for a toddler who’s just starting to have night time fears, particularly since a toddler can manipulate the sound buttons themselves.

Come to think of it, since I’m on the road now, I’m kind of wishing I’d brought Dozy Dolphin along with me.

Dozy Dolphin is currently on sale for $24.95 (reduced from $64!) at Amazon.

When CJ was three months old, I took a two-day house-hunting trip to Colorado.  I pumped the whole time and took great pains to properly store my expressed milk.  I needn’t have bothered; by the time I was able to give it to her, it had degraded such that she didn’t want it.

Breast milk isn’t exactly hardy stuff.  It’s best when consumed directly from the source.  But since that isn’t always possible, we mamas need a better way to store it for more than a few hours.  And once we’ve spent precious time and energy pumping it, we definitely need containers that keep it from spilling or leaking.

MilkBank makes some amazing products that I wish I’d had when Tacy and CJ were babies and I was pumping regularly and sending bottles off to day care.  The MilkBank breastmilk storage system is a giant leap beyond any other storage system, be it bags or bottles.  The vacuum pump removes the remaining air at the top of the bottle and creates a tight seal, which helps the milk retain taste and nutrients.

I’ve defrosted many bags of breastmilk only to sample it myself before filling the bottle and toss it out of utter disgust.  With MilkBank, that doesn’t happen.  If there’s no air in the milk container, there’s no opportunity for contamination or spoilage.  It’s that simple.

The MilkBank bottles are also unique in their design.  Of course these bottles are BPA, phthlate and PVC free, but they have two other features that I especially love.  One, they’re triple vented.  Basically, that means there are three vents on the ring that fits over the nipple and screws onto the bottle.  The air that comes in through those three vents as the baby drinks goes into an internal tube that extends the length of the bottle, venting the air to the bottom of the bottle - not back into the milk.

Totally confused?  Just look at the picture:

Still confused?  The point here is that when the baby drinks, he’ll get milk - not air.  Less air in the baby’s tummy means less discomfort and spitting up.  Got it?

The second reason these bottles rock is that they’re leak proof.  Seriously - they are.  I’ve tried all sorts of supposedly leak proof bottles and sippy cups, and my kids were able to make every last one of them leak.  Considering Oliver mostly futzed around with the MilkBank bottle instead of drinking from it, we had a prime opportunity to test its leak potential, and I was amazed.  I want MilkBank to start making sippy cups too.

One component of MilkBank bottles that we didn’t personally test was the insulated feeding bottles.  They’re geared toward teeny babies, and they hold three ounces.  These days, Oliver can drink three ounces in a single gulp.

Also, I have to admit that although breastmilk is served at body temperature, straight from the source, my kids have always taken their formula and milk cold.  I’ve never been much for warming bottles.

But MilkBank’s website notes that “warm milk or formula provides superior nutritional absorption“.  So my school of hard knocks approach probably wasn’t in the kids’ best interest after all.  Whoops.

I wish I’d known about MilkBank when Oliver was a newborn.  I’d have pumped more and offered bottles more often.  Maybe I could have taken a break from bedtime once in the last 400-odd days.

Alas, I can’t change the past - but thanks to MilkBank’s generosity, I can help change someone else’s future!  Yes, you - I’m talking to you there, with the picky baby and the pumping aversion.

Congratulations to Sarah, lucky winner of a MilkBank feeding and storage set!

My oldest child is pretty darned good at a lot of stuff, if I may say so myself.  She’s a top reader, she swims like a fish, and I’m always amazed by what a good big sister she is.

She does struggle with a few things though, like putting her dirty clothes in the hamper and eating the same dinner as the rest of the family.  Oh, and math.  Math is a bit of a challenge for her too.

Kyle is the son of a math teacher, and I’m the daughter of an engineer.  While that might make it sound like math should come naturally to her, it actually means that both of us know what it feels like to have a parent throw up his hands in frustration and say, “What do you MEAN you don’t understand?”  So we really try hard not to do that.

Thing is, sometimes a parent isn’t the best person to help a child grasp mathematical concepts.  DreamBox to the rescue!

DreamBox is a cool new online math learning tool for kids in grades K-2.  It includes more than 350 lessons in the form of adventures that respond dynamically to the child as they “play”.  The lessons conform to the math curriculum standards set by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and they’re intended to develop “conceptual understanding, computational fluency, and problem-solving ability.”

I checked out the DreamBox curriculum page and was gratified to see that in fact the focal points for the first grade curriculum listed there do mirror what I’ve been seeing on Tacy’s math worksheets.  I’m not a teacher myself, obviously (god bless teachers for the job they do - I could never be one), so I don’t have a strong opinion on what sort of techniques are most effective where it comes to introducing math concepts.

However, I do think it’s important that whatever techniques are used, kids need to develop a positive association with math early on.  Math concepts build on each other, and they simply don’t stop.  The difficulties I had in Algebra I, way back in eighth grade, kept compounding all the way through high school and college.  I never did catch up.

Worse, math starts to play a crucial role in other subjects - like chemistry and physics - even as early as high school.  A freshman engineering student like me who never mastered Algebra I is going to be [expletive] when she encounters Fluid Dynamics or Linear Circuits.

But back to first grade, where all this learning begins, and to DreamBox, which helps kids internalize the logic of mathematical concepts.  In some ways, early math seems like a bunch of memorization - 1+1=2 because it just DOES.  Sure, you can count on your fingers, but eventually you’re going to run out of fingers, and besides, it’s just easier to memorize what those answers are.

What DreamBox reinforces, through games that illustrate these concepts, is a means of logically thinking  through the problem to get to the answer.  Think about it: How often in life are we presented with a problem in the form of x+y=z?  Most of the time, we’re figuring out word problems - the exact sort of problems many of us hated because we couldn’t just scribble down our memorized answers.  We actually had to think through those problems, and we hadn’t learned to do that right from the beginning, the way our kids are now.

Furthermore, when I wrote that DreamBox responds dynamically to the child, I didn’t just mean that the program gives her an “Attagirl!” when she answers correctly or a “Try again!” when she makes a mistake.  DreamBox actually adjusts the lesson - the difficulty, the pacing, the information provided to Tacy as she plays - based on her answers and how long she takes to arrive at them, WHILE she is playing.  More personalized even than a personal tutor!

Who knows what Tacy will want to study when she gets to college, or if she’ll even go to college.  Maybe she’ll become a child star and start paying the mortgage. (I can dream, right?) But the important point is that a lack of understanding of math fundamentals won’t keep her from what she wants to pursue.

To learn more about the DreamBox online math learning tool, check out their website and the other Parent Bloggers Network reviews!