Hi, Chair! - Boomer Highchair Review

In the spirit of full disclosure, this post is part of my sponsorship to attend Blogopolis. I would love it if you could read it. 

When we were buying everything in preparation for Tricky to enter this world I gave myself a $1000 budget to get everything. Cot, change table, baby clothes for a year, pram, car seat and even my own maternity clothes (I failed at this task, but scraped in at just under $2K).

When we got Tricky's highchair it didn't break the bank... we spent a whopping $7.50 on a second hand one from the Baby & Kids Markets - it was one of those moulded plastic jobbies from that Swedish place known for allen keys and meatballs. I didn't see the point in spending a fortune on something that would be used for less than 12 months before he was sitting up at the table anyway.

Now the Boomer Highchair is considerably more expensive than $7.50... but it's also going to last considerably longer than a year. You're looking at fifteen years of use. FIFTEEN! 15! Possibly even more because the Boomer grows with your munchkin from a first solids high chair to booster chair to dining chair, see:

It's European influenced so it's like the BMWof highchairs; well engineered, functional and funky, but it's Australian designed so it's like a Holden too; easy to use, long lasting and durable.

The Boomer ticks a couple of important boxes too: it's made from plantation rubber wood so it's eco friendly and because of the foot platform it encourages good posture.

There's an optional five point harness available if your child is a daredevil and likes to launch himself from furniture like Tricky does. Strapping him in will be necessary until he develops a sense of danger (either of falling or being yelled at).

One thing Tricky didn't like about the chair was how sturdy it was. The kid likes to push furniture around and has done so at every opportunity since he could coast along (he's practising his furniture removal skills at nine months old in this video). As a result my floors will not be worn down with the incessant scraaaaape, a rather unexpected bonus!

But what I really like about the Boomer is that it is easy to clean (just a quick wipe, no grooves for food to get caught in) and it gets kids at the table for mealtimes and gives them the opportunity to learn about how meal times work to encourage good habits young!

If you want to get your hands on a Boomer Highchair they are available at selected children's boutiques or you can go straight to the source and buy one online. They are currently retailing at the introductory price of $199.95 (plus $25 flat rate postage) which makes it about $13 per year of use! After that they'll be around $290 so jump in quick to grab a bargain and tell Piccolo Innovations that Glowless sent you!

Hug my bub

When I was pregnant I read every blog and forum I could find to help me sort out which baby products I would need and which I could go without based on the reviews of women who had purchased them – I didn't want to fall in to the trap of reading the catalogues or the bounty magazines that all told me I MUST have this and that and then never use it, especially with the $1000 challenge I had set myself. On almost every list of “I couldn't live without” products was a baby sling, and one in particular featured more heavily than the others – the Hug-a-Bub.

After reading the reviews and checking out the website I decided I had to have one NOW even though I would have been barely four months gone. Trying to keep to budget I sourced one second hand for just $50 (the RRP is $120 for the version I got – I am a bargain hunter extraordinaire!) and watched the DVD instructions for tying it like I was studying for an exam. I wondered if I would ever get the hang of it and be able to tie it as quick as the woman in the video, who pointed out she was doing it slowly for instructional purposes.

Carrying your bub around in a sling is known as baby wearing and is actually quite controversial, with people either loving or hating the idea. Since I bought a sling you can tell which category I fall in to. Some believe that carrying your baby with you all the time will spoil them and you'll end up with a monster but research shows that “babies worn in slings are less clingy and tend to initiate separation much earlier than babies less frequently held. It allows them to be AT the centre of activity not THE centre of attention, which is a wonderful environment proven to stimulate brain development and cognitive learning.” What's not to like about that? I figure that women all over the world going to work in the rice fields carry their kids while they work, and I'm pretty sure in the early days women carried their children to avoid them becoming a tasty little snack for a Sabre Tooth Tiger – and they turned out just fine.

In the past few weeks I've been wearing Tricky in the Hug-a-Bub and I have nothing but glowing praise for it. In fact, I've got it on now because he was being ultra fussy – within a few minutes of being in it, snuggled in close to me, listening to my heartbeat, he was fast asleep. It even allowed Hubby and I to go out to dinner to a restaurant so tightly packed with tables and chairs there would have been zero chance of manoeuvring our pram around – it also meant Tricky slept the whole time and we enjoyed a lovely meal without worrying we were disturbing anyone else with a crying newborn. A lot of women I have spoken to have lamented that their old life disappeared as soon as they had a baby – no more dinners, no more outings. I realise that the old days of just jumping up and going white water rafting without notice might be gone (I've never done this anyway, so for me it's no great loss), but with a sling we're able to take Tricky around with us and he is content to just observe the world, safe in the arms of Hubby or myself.

Are you for or against baby wearing? Leave a comment below with your experiences.

Stroller-derby

I am a clever marketer's dream - have a cute logo or even a smart ad campaign and you've got my attention (actually, save time and just put your product in shiny packaging and you've got me) and brand loyalty. But I am also a poor marketer's nightmare – if I think you're trying to pull the wool over my eyes or being condescending then no matter how fantastic your product is, I won't buy it on principle.

I've been inundated with free magazines and brochures on all sorts of baby products recently and they all have the standard “when you want the best for your baby” type slogans and feature a good looking, upper middle class, white mum in her early 30s. Apart from being a massive stereotype they've done their job well, since their target market is in fact, good looking, upper middle class, white mums in their early 30s. I'm not so daft that I believe everything I'm told though, and just because a company tells me their product is “closer to nature” than the next doesn't mean it is, so I'm going to look at the ingredients list and decide for myself (I knew my units on cosmetic chemistry would come in handy one day - I know what all those big words are!). And I know that just because the baby in your ad is cute and smiling when you use “Super Fantastic Nappies” doesn't mean mine isn't going to scream down the house sometimes when I use them – but that's OK, you can gloss over some of those minor details, make it look pretty - thats advertising after all.

There is one ad though, that whenever I see it I don't know whether to laugh or cry. It's for the Steelcraft Strider Plus pram and whilst I'm sure it is a fantastic contraption, the ad features a tall, leggy model dressed in crisp white trousers, black high heels, funky necklaces and not looking a day over 25. I have a few problems believing this is an accurate depiction of a mother;

• those blindingly white pants should have some baby spew or at least a bit of smooshed banana on them

• accessories and high heels are not the first things I think of when I hear the word mother – I'm more likely to think (and wear) jeans and ballet flats. If those flats happen to match my shirt then all the better. The necklace should have some crusted up baby slobber on it too

• this pram is $700 before you even buy the infant carrier section – if you can afford such an expensive pram and your under 25 I want to know what line of work you are in, and can you get me an interview?

• but the absolute kicker? THERE IS NO BABY IN THE PRAM!

Are you sure that's not the friend of the mum just minding the pram while she puts bub in the car? Yes I know, I'm stereotyping too. I'm sure a mother can be glamorous and look like a model – I've seen the pictures of Heidi Klum strutting her stuff down the Victoria's Secret catwalk mere weeks after popping out her fourth – so I know it is possible. Do people really think if they buy this pram they will look like this highly starched goddess?

I'd much prefer the ad campaign to show a normal looking mum (you can still make her good looking, upper middle class woman in her early 30s if you must – I'll let you keep that for now), taking a real child on a shopping trip. Show me how useful this contraption is going to be - how much of my shopping can fit underneath? Can I fold it down and put it in the boot one handed because I'm busy holding a screaming toddler in the other arm? That goes for the harness too - can I do it up with one hand whilst stopping the trolley rolling away and causing car-mageddon? And most importantly, how effectively will it push people out of the way at the January sales?

Bonus, baby!

Hubby and I are down to living on one wage (like a lot of people I don't qualify to get maternity pay) and right now is when all the bills are coming in. We chose to go to a private obstetrician because we have health insurance and the idea of continuity of care really appealed to me. But down the business end of pregnancy that gets mighty expensive! Having to see the obstetrician fortnightly and then weekly adds up very quickly I can tell you - and this is for a complication-free pregnancy I might add, who knows how much it would skyrocket if something was going in an other than textbook fashion.

I could rush in here and say “I'm not complaining...” but we all know that would be a lie. I am complaining. I know there is nothing I can do about it, I chose to go privately – but having a little whine will make me feel a whole lot better. At least we don't live in the United States (although universal health care did just get signed in, its not up and running yet). I read the blog of a Texan woman (awesomely titled 'His boys can swim!') who did not qualify for health insurance and subsequently had to pay all her medical costs up front out of her own pocket. She kept track of every pregnancy medical bill and the grand total was over $10,000! This is before she's bought any clothes or a cot, making the $1000 challenge look almost pathetic in comparison. We get to sign a little piece of paper for most of our blood tests and get partial refunds from Medicare for every doctor's visit - until you stop to think about it, its easy to forget just how lucky we are. We don't have a perfect health care system by any measure, but right now I'm very grateful for it.

Then of course, we can add to that the Baby Bonus. According to the Family Assistance Office, the Baby Bonus is to paid to families following the birth (or adoption) of a child in recognition of the extra costs incurred by the new addition. Its means tested so the amount of money you receive depends on your income (and some other criteria), but if you were to receive the full amount it is currently a whopping $5185 paid in thirteen equal fortnightly instalments. Not bad. Not bad at all. Definitely better than a poke in the eye with wet fish, or however that saying goes. Plus there are all sorts of other payments like Family Tax Benefit A and B, the immunisation allowance – and as soon as I figure out what those things are I'm sure I'll like them too.

However if I was able to change the system in any way it would be to have those lovely fortnightly payments starting about now. Finish off the nursery, pay those bills and be a little less worried about making the mortgage payment on time... and of course the new plasma TV - practically a right of passage for new parents since the Baby Bonus was introduced.

Budget: Mission Impossible

I now understand the pressure the treasurer feels each year when he hands down the budget. Some people will be happy, laughing all the way to the bank, whilst others will miss out and have to make each dollar stretch further. Fitting everything you want in to a budget is hard work, and I'm not sure my experience with budgeting has me in a very strong standing to be our next federal treasurer... because I've FAILED.

The initial mission was to spend $1000 on Tricky's first year of life, not including medical expenses. Well pretty soon after looking at the prices of everyday items that was blown well and truly out of the water and instead it became a budget for getting ready for Tricky's arrival, in other words preparing a nursery.

So what goes in a nursery budget? Things that I immediately thought I would not include in the budget would be baby wipes and the like that I could just put in to our weekly grocery list (I could always forgo my packet of Magnum icecreams if needed). But then I decided that I would purchase modern cloth nappies instead of disposables – now if I'd gone down the disposable path I'd probably have included them in the weekly shopping too (possibly causing us to swap to homebrand tomato sauce, even if it is like flavoured water), but the environmentalist in me means I've put the bulk purchase of cloth nappies in to the budget... and it's not liking it one bit. Kermit was right when he said it's not easy being green.

With eleven weeks to go before Tricky is born I've gone over budget by $149.50. I could have rounded that up to make it look prettier, but the psychological effect of that 50c is HUGE! I originally included maternity clothes in the budget but as I got nearer and nearer to the big $1K I took them off.

The breakdown of things I've purchased from most to least expensive:
Modern cloth nappies $240
Pram from ebay (RRP $400) $230
Drawers from ebay (RRP $300) $192.50
Cot from gumtree $150
Change table/bath from gumtree $90
Primer/paint for cot $55
Hugabubg from gumtree $50
Sheet sets x3 from BKM $47
Baby monitor from gumtree $25
Window shade $18
Jolly jumper from BKM $10
Nappy bag (RRP $90) from BKM $10
New Romper $10
Baby gym from ebay $8
Books from BKM $6
Rattle (so cute couldn't resist) $4
Shoes from BKM $3
Wall vinyls from ebay $1

All that equals a whopping $1149.50

I still need to buy paint for the walls, some shelves, a nappy tub and a car seat that will cost about a million dollars (one thing I don't want to buy second hand). I guesstimate that I'll end up spending about $1700. Failed. Big fat F on my report card.

But then again, it depends what you think failure is. Do I really think I've failed? Nah. I'm actually pretty chuffed at what I've achieved and how much I've learned. I was never in to buying second hand, but now I think I'm addicted. Why pay so much money for something that is going to be drooled on and chewed for a few weeks before Tricky either outgrows it, destroys it or becomes tired of it?

Through my searching for bargains I've come across not only some fantastic websites and markets, but some really lovely people who when hearing of my self imposed budget were more than happy to throw in a freebie! Though the kindness of friends, strangers and some excellent websites I've scored a bunch of stuff that helped the budget a lot! The freebies include:

• Pram cover worth $50 from one of Hubby's workmates
• A heap of baby and maternity clothes from a friend with a 5 month old
• About ten baby blankets and books from Yoink
• Vibrating bouncer from Gumtree
• Baby gates from a friend (who got them from another friend at his work)
• A change table mobile from the lady who sold me her baby monitor

So yes I've gone over budget and yes, I'm going to go even further over. But I've not scrimped on quality, nothing I've bought would endanger Tricky (I removed the razor wire from the bouncer and will make sure to get rid of the broken glass from the cot before I put him in it), and as a result when I stop working and again when he's born we won't have to struggle to make ends meet. It also means we can use the baby bonus on the truly important things in life, like plasma TVs.

Everyone is entitled to my opinion

Today Hubby and I went on a car cruise to Yanchep as part of the car club he belongs to. No matter what the event, they put on a great social day and it's always pretty family oriented. Today was no different, with a picnic in the picturesque bushland setting. We avoided the kangaroo poo, settled down to eat our picnic with the approximately 50 other people under the shade of the massive trees, enjoying the cool breeze. Sounds good right? Well it was... except for the woman who made me feel like I would be an incompetent mother after 'knowing' me for three seconds.

I don't know this woman's name, she never introduced herself to me, but I know she was eight weeks away from giving birth to her second child and therefore knew everything there was to know about raising children. For ease of reading I'll call her Jane. I know she was only trying to be nice and give advice, but she made me feel like an idiot.

Jane started talking about the costs of a new bub and asked if we had all the bits and pieces ready for the baby's room, so I started telling her about the $1000 challenge and how we've done incredibly well so far (we've scored a cot, bassinette, pram and change table for a grand total of $530). Immediately she chastised me for not looking after Tricky's safety by buying second hand gear, like I'd just gone to the tip and picked up any old rotting and splintered piece of wood and gone “This'll make a great cot!”. She continued earnestly saying she had thought more about the safety of her children and the longevity of the product than money... and spent $800 on a cot. My heart lurched and I started doubting myself – had I done the right thing? What if the cot/pram/basinette falls apart one day when Tricky is in it? World's all time worst mother candidate, right here.

So mid barbecue lunch I'm sitting there, engulfed in my own thoughts and I came up with a conclusion; I'm not so cheap that I would put Tricky at risk to save a buck. The items we have bought so far have all looked pretty good (is there a baby furniture structural engineer I can consult on these things?) and the pram was only 6 months old when the woman I bought it from had to upgrade to a twin stroller because her toddler didn't want to walk if the baby wasn't walking. We have researched all the Australian standards and the new regulations that came in on the 1^st of January to make sure we were buying products that would do their job. Plus just because something is brand new doesn't mean it is safe – one of the Maclaren series of prams was recalled recently because toddlers were getting their fingers amputated when they learnt how to fold the pram themselves. I haven't so much bought second hand, second rate furniture, I've purchased items that have already been “safety tested”. My doubts continued to ease when she revealed her sources on baby safety to be none other than that bastion of journalistic integrity, Today Tonight. If I'm going to take advice from someone it sure isn't going to be Monika “my hair, eyeshadow and lipstick are all the same colour” Kos.