Places to Get Water Bottles in Cville, etc.

So, I opened up the top of my son’s non-BPA Oggi water bottle – I think I got it from Marshall’s last year for $5.99 – and the mold was sickening. Gross. Those kid-friendly sippy-parts just ask for it, don’t they?

I didn’t think I’d have to do it, but I was in the market, yet again, for a metal water bottle for my kids.

• Criteria:

• Something short
• Something easy to open
• Something easy to drink from without spillage
• Something easy to clean
• Something cheap

What I Found:

• Roses: For kids, only plastic – and even BPA-free, I’m against it when I can help it. Adult water bottles, though, are on sale now for either $2.00 or three for $10.00.
• CVS: I bought two of their kid metal bottles for $4.99 each. Portable, easy to clean with plastic-straw on the top, easy to open – but they leak.
• Target: Mostly the same prices as what you’ll find online for both Sigg and Oggi – though I did score a Hello Kitty one for my girl for about $5.00 – though the top is one you have to pull up on and she finds this too hard to manipulate, which is a pain in the butt
• Big Lots: No kid-sizes available right now
• Marshalls: No kid sizes
• TJ Max: When I went, there was only one of the Oggi-style – a good price, but at that point my need was low and the cost – $3.99 -tempting but not a sale. They did have a new brand of short “safe” water bottles with twist-off tops that might work for older kids that were maybe $2 or 3 bucks and plain silver

I didn’t go to the Blue Ridge Eco Shop, Rebecca’s, or Whole Foods, because I knew the prices would be around $15.00 if the kid sippy style was available.

Online, I didn’t find anything as cheap as the Oggi-style from TJ Max, so I hated to buy anything that way, though some very cute designs are out there from some of the less-well-known brands….

If anyone has a line on inexpensive, easy kid water bottles – let me know!

Visit Sugar Snap – for toys AND clothes!

Great news! Sugar Snap – the awesome children’s consignment store that’s a few stores away from Whole Foods – now will consign and sell wooden and cloth toys as well as baby gear… I’m so excited for my pal Vijay and if you haven’t yet, check out the store!

Save money – support local / woman-owned business – save the planet by recycling materials/not buying new!

You can also follow Sugar Snap on Twitter or Facebook – talk about rocking the social media to promote a local business!

Fun Online Shopping: Child Therapy Toys

I was at a local toy store and got taken with a basket of little plastic babies as a great gift for a little girl turning three.

Problem: All of the babies were WHITE.

It’s not that I was trying to be PC or Guilty Liberal or anything (FYI, I’m white, and so is the little girl). It’s just that a basket of white babies looks… unreal to me. Reminds me too much of some kind of disturbed Aryan fantasy. What can I say? I grew up in LA. So I went online. (Sorry, Local-yokels…)

Homies for Sale

And I found a much more globally realistic baby set at Child Therapy Toys – along with some other fun things – like a set of Egyptian figures, with a pyramid – and some Indian goddesses – and HOMIES.

Yep. Homies.

I don’t really understand why there is a set of miniature “homies.” There aren’t miniature gangs or anything. Check it out for yourself and let me know if you have a theory about how homies help play therapists doing therapy with young kids…

When the 4 year old Turns 13

I didn’t think it would happen to MY daughter.

Not because I didn’t think she had it in her. I tend to think I can avoid natural evolution, sometimes. I remember being around 9 and disgusted with teenagers and promising myself that I would NEVER become an adolescent – I would never think I was going to live forever, I was never going to think I knew more than my parents, I was never going to be sullen and a pain and overwrought.

I figured I had been duly warned by novels, TV shows, and by my dad – and this knowledge was my suit of armor against hormones and cultural conditioning. No problem.

Ha ha ha.

So, anyway, in the last year or so I’ve watched my friends’ daughters in the 4 to 6 year range suddenly adopt the kind of attitude one only expects from a teen. I’ve also watched them pass through it- or it to pass through them – successfully. One minute cute kids; the next minute, whining selfish ferocious monsters, then back to cute kid again. And then last week, as if coming down with a virus, Josephine hit the patch.

Stomping up the stairs, yelling: “You are NOT the best mommy in the world!”

And: “I’m NEVER coming downstairs AGAIN, EVER!”

And: “I DON’T EVER WANT TO BE YOUR KID, EVER!”

Wailing, crying: “I want a donut I WANT A DONUT I WANT a Do-NUT NOW NOW NOW” etc.

What the heck? This is mild Josephine, sweet-tempered Josephine, go-with-the-flow Jo we’re talking about. Her ‘terrible twos’ hardly registered. Her three was breezy. Her four – well, here we are, and she’s deliberately going against the rules, pushing all the boundaries, leaping off the dinner table, running out the front door, testing me, poking me, driving me insane.

On the good side? I know this will pass. I’ve seen it happen. I know it’s what they do.

On the down side? I know it will come back, and worse, when she’s older. I’ve seen that happen, too. And no amount of knowledge can prevent it.

But, there are things we have to go through, and it’s not about avoiding or skipping them, but remembering the larger picture, that we are waves part of an ocean, and that everything passes. We can’t get around pain and growth, but we can have some humor and wisdom and awareness as we pass through it. And compassion.

This phase of Jo’s is not only about her growth, but mine as well. It’s good practice for me to stand my ground, and also to love her even when she’s acting bratty and spoiled and rotten. Her desires for independence and love, her frustrations, need to be treated with kindness. This is my work – later, hers. To teach her about kindness – and to teach her that, no matter how awful she is, I will love her. Which is something I can only do if she acts awful. So – good thing!  Great opportunity.

Although, I will admit – I look forward to my 13-year-old turning 5.