What a whirlwind. Owen cut his first teeth and started sitting up during the weekend of July 4. (Did I already tell you that?) Then he began crawling whole-heartedly the last week of July. Now he’s pulling up, cruising a bit and teaching his parents (hi, third-person) the importance of caffeine. Oh, and his front top teeth have debuted. So there you have it. On to the inaugural post for the feature “My 2 Cents.” It is likely that this feature is never re-featured, so get it while it’s hot.
Note: “My 2 Cents” is my obscure way of saying “Product Reviews.”
First up!
Owen’s favorite cereal brand: Happy Bellies cereal made by Happy Baby.
These cereals include probiotics. I stumbled upon Happy Bellies while perusing the clearance aisle at Kroger. It was one of my classiest mothering moments.
“Tell me, Amy. Where DO you buy Owen’s food?”
“Why, only the best red-tag specials for my baby boy!”
I told myself that I must have stumbled upon, not a neglected throw-away, but a real pot o’ gold invisible to the eye of commoners. Anyway! Let me justify my dirt-cheap (yet attractively packaged) purchase:
It has probiotics! I love probiotics. I just Googled things like “probiotics immunity” and “overuse of antibiotics” and came across things like this. Here’s an excerpt:
Many probiotic effects are mediated through immune regulation, particularly through balance control of proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines. These data show that probiotics can be used as innovative tools to alleviate intestinal inflammation, normalize gut mucosal dysfunction, and down-regulate hypersensitivity reactions.
Hmm. Who doesn’t love a science-induced brain freeze during lunch? Yay, I think, for anti-inflammatory cytokines. After I Googled “nonimmunologic gut defense barrier,” I looked in the mirror and decided to punt because I certainly saw no MD in the reflection. But then I found this! And it’s in English:
“Understanding pros and cons of probiotics”
(There are more arguments regarding the overuse of antibiotics and the drastic increase in allergies/asthma in developed countries over the last many years, but I won’t get into that since I really don’t know what I’m talking about.)
Secondly!
My new favorite disposable diaper: Nature Babycare diapers
In paranoia at its finest, I’m very afraid that I’m rubbing cancer on Owen’s … boy parts … when I put him in a regular diaper. So I went on a search for a comfortable natural, chlorine-free diaper and found these. Owen seems to like them just fine and they’ve been wonderful at containing leaks. However, we have to buy a size larger than usual because they run small.
And, the final item for this installment of “My 2 Cents”:
I could spend years talking about my love affair with this book. It comes at the recommendation of friend Ashley. It’s easy-to-read, comprehensive and packed with information of all kinds and at all levels. Because of this book, I’m finally making Owen homemade baby food and spend all my time and money at Whole Foods. He’s eating avocado daily, his food is supplemented with brewer’s yeast and he has tahini with his yogurt. In short, he eats better than his parents do. I’ll have to write more about this book later because it is just too fabulous.
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well hello.
we used the same brand of rice cereal for my daughter. We loved it. Now she won’t eat anything that is a babyfood consistency, but it was a good run.
As for chlorine-free diapers, we’ve used Tushies brand since she arrived in our lives and LOVE THEM.
Amy, I heard a doctor on t.v. just a few weeks ago talking about how probiotics are good for children’s immune system. (if I heard it from a doctor on tv, it must be true) I myself have been eating yogurt with probiotics, once you get older that “regularity thing” becomes an issue. I started taking them in capsule form, hard to pack all that yogurt on an 11 day France trip. Hope they work as well. Lynn
Paranoia at its finest: my baby doesn’t get probiotics and she uses diapers with chlorine. Dear heavens.