Welcome

Welcome to Reviews at Café Bébé

Posted by cafebebemama on Oct 22, 2009 in Welcome | 0 comments

Hello, Bienvenue and Welcome to the new and improved Reviews at Café Bébé.  You’ll find great products and useful information on this site which will hopefully become a resource for parents everywhere.  You’ll find additional information on the main Café Bébé site: a link to the Café Bébé blog where you can read about the trial and tribulations of a first-time, stay-at-home Mummy; amazing competitions where you can win great prizes with little effort; links to some brilliant MUMPRENEURS who are shaking up the business world whilst raising their families.  What a great site!  Browse our categories for specific product reviews or type in a search to find what you’re looking for.  Thanks for visiting…come back soon!

The Potato Story

Posted by cafebebemama on Sep 26, 2009 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

McCain, the UK’s major potato company (they make lovely chips!), is working to extend their national roadshow programme in a bid to close the food knowledge gap of UK kids.  In their “Food for Thought” survey of 1500 children between ages 7 and 11, taken in February 2009, McCain discovered the following nuggets of information:

• 1 in 10 children aged 7-11 think chickens lay potatoes
• 1 in 5 have no idea that potatoes are grown in the ground
• 1 in 5 didn’t realise that chips are made from the humble spud

This is a bit more than a little distressing!  I remember watching Jamie Oliver in his School Dinners Campaign a couple years back (I know…it’s controversial!) and the kids that he was trying to help had no clue what most vegetables looked like or what they were called.  Granted, they were in a rather impoverished part of the country but they didn’t know what broccoli was!  My previous post focused on the Tesco site, Greener Living, and touched on the idea of food provenance.  How can we let our children grow up not knowing where potatoes come from?  Potatoes are lovely!  Chip form is my most favourite as is evidenced by my expanding waistline!

McCain, lovely maker of all things potato, are embarking on a major project: The Potato Story.  And because I believe in educating children, particularly about where their food comes from and to have an appreciation for the process, I am giving The Potato Story a little plug.  The website is lovely, educational and fun and I really admire McCain for kitting out a very cool potato double-decker bus and chugging it around the country to help our uneducated youth.  The Potato Bus has already been travelling across the country, visiting over 130 UK Primary schools and has, to date, reached out to more than 17,400 primary school students.  The Potato Story aims to plug kids’ food knowledge gap.  Now a part of a wider campaign by McCain called “It’s all good”, The Potato Story highlights the company’s long term commitment to educating kids on food provenance and is set to visit around 30 schools throughout September to November of this year.  So, if you’re lucky, a giant potato plastered double-decker bus will pull up into your child’s school car park and your child will have the experience of seeing, first-hand, where potatoes really do come from.  The bus also provides curriculum-aligned lesson plans for teachers to use in class.  What more could you ask for from a Potato Bus??

The lovely and talented Kim Hong, at Fleishman Hillard, sent us some brilliant information about The Potato Story, including a packet of potato seeds which will be actively “digga digga” by Little Miss and Daddy when the season is right.  Little Miss also has some new gardening tools to be the next great gardener.  Thanks Kim, Little Miss will have the dirt flying in your honour.  I’ll send you her dirty clothes!  I’m really excited, though, to see Little Miss learning about gardening and can’t wait for next spring/summer because I promise you, there will be vegetables growing in this household.  Little Miss is brilliant at picking and liquidising tomatoes at her Nanny & Grandad’s; can’t wait to have it happen here.  Although Little Miss is not old enough to see the Potato Bus, it is one of my silent promises to her; that I will do my very best by her and part of that is learning about the world around her and having a greater appreciation for it.  She doesn’t know that wasps are nasty or that some flowers are poisonous or that sometimes it’s not just dirt that she’s “digga digga-ing”, it just might be some cat poo.  All she knows is that she loves being outside, seeing nature and being a part of it.  I’ll try to keep my obsessions in check and let her explore and learn.  And when it’s rainy, we’ll grab our Crayola Crayons and colour some pictures of what vegetables are until we can learn some more.  Go check out The Potato Story and learn a bit about potatoes!  I guarantee, you won’t be disappointed.

For those of you who are Americans and are old enough to remember the first President George Bush and his Vice President, Dan Quayle, you will laugh at this one:  ever since Dan Quayle screwed up spelling the word POTATO (he spelled it POTATOE), I have constantly checked myself anytime I wrote the word POTATO!  Imagine how much checking I have just been doing.  I think I’m OK though…please let me know if you spot any POTATOES!

Wonder if the fare is "cheap as chips"! HA!

Baby Steps

Posted by cafebebemama on Sep 25, 2009 in Uncategorized | 7 comments

Those of you who follow this blog or follow me on Twitter will know that I’m having a problem with Separation Anxiety.  It’s not Little Miss’ separation anxiety, it’s mine!  Little Miss is nearly 16 months old and I have yet to be away from her for more than 4-5 hours at a time.  I do believe that the amount of times that I have left her can be counted on 2 hands and you might not need all the fingers on the second hand.  They say that the first step is admitting you have a problem.  “Hi, My name is Karin and I’m a Little Miss-a-holic.”

I’m not sure what it is really.  An underlying fear that something is going to happen to her?  A fear that I’m going to miss something?  I don’t know what it is but I do know that when I leave her, it almost physically hurts.  I never let her know it but I get a bit emotional when I drive away.  I feel like I have lost something; that a part of me is missing.

I’ve only ever left her with family or 1 very close friend.  I trust them implicitly and know that Little Miss will be fine with them but it’s still hard.  I know I need to do this more as then, this whole palava will get easier and I might even be able to leave her for a whole day or (gasp) with someone who isn’t family!

One of my favourite movies is “What About Bob?”.  It’s a bit of a cult classic (in the US) and stars Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss.  It’s hysterical and is a real family favourite.  I have seen it so many times that I know virtually every line and still laugh out loud at most of the film.  The main character, played by Bill Murray, is called Bob Wiley.  He’s plagued by massive hypochondria and see’s Richard Dreyfuss’ character, Dr. Leo Marvin, for psychological counselling.  Dr. Leo Marvin advises Bob to take “Baby Steps” and this is what I’m trying to do.  I’m not a complete nutbar like Bob Wiley but I’m taking my Baby Steps to letting go of my Baby.

My first proper Baby Step came today…I took Little Miss to play at her Auntie Debbie’s house.  She was entertained and played with and loved to the hilt.  She had an absolute blast and didn’t miss her mummy for a minute.  Her mummy missed her terribly and managed to stay away for a whole 3 hours but it’s a start.  Next time, maybe we’ll aim for an entire afternoon- maybe 5 hours!  So, thank you to Auntie Debbie, Uncle Ant and cousins Pippa and Matthew for helping me to take my first Baby Steps.  I’ll let you know when it turns into a run!

How good are you about letting go?

Little Miss & Cousin Pippa

Go Green Baby

Posted by cafebebemama on Sep 25, 2009 in Uncategorized | 0 comments

In these stressful credit crunch times, going green might be the last thing that people are thinking about.  I know I need to do better with this as it can pay dividends.  I’ve been approached by Tesco’s Greener Living website to view their site, play a “trolley dash” game and give my opinion so that’s what I’ll do for you!  The site is quite good, really.  With lots of tips and information on how to Go Greener, Save Money and Eat Greener, the Greener Living site is well worth a look.  I particularly like the information for Kids (and ultimately parents) as it encourages recycling and gardening and teaches about food provenance which is so important as too many children don’t know where potatoes come from!  Little Miss loves to “digga digga digga” and it’s something that she and her Daddy do a lot in the garden.  I can guarantee that there will be Little Miss plantings as soon as she learns not to “digga digga digga” everything.  I don’t want my daughter to think that her food comes from the supermarket or to never see a tomato plant grow before her eyes.  So, for a bit of inspiration and information, check out the Tesco Greener Living site.  The “trolley dash” game on their site completely flumoxed me as I am just not a “gamer” but it might work for you!  After I was “killed” for the third time in less than 30 seconds, I decided that it wasn’t for me but you have a go!  My eye-hand coordination just isn’t what it used to be.  And just to leave you with a lovely, lasting image about going green, here’s my Little Miss practicing her “digga digga digga” with her Daddy.

Digga Digga Digga

Just Ask!

Posted by cafebebemama on Sep 24, 2009 in Uncategorized | 12 comments

I now subscribe to a new philosophy: You never know what you might get if you JUST ASK!  A lovely Twitter-mate encouraged me to email a book publisher about a new “chick lit” book hitting the shelves soon.  It’s called “Babymoon” by author Melanie La’Brooy and is about impending, first-time motherhood.  I tracked down who the publisher was, emailed them and suggested that I could review a copy of their book and offer another one on my Cafe Bebe site.  I got a virtually instant email back saying, “Yes, that sounds fine.  Where can we send them?”!  Well, how about that!

I have since done the same with another publishing company for another brilliant book (keeping this one close to the vest) and last night emailed a very clever guy called Gary who invented a genius product called The Slanket.  Again on Twitter, a friend mentioned The Slanket and sent me a link so I could check it out.  Josie at Sleep is for the Weak is a huge fan.  You’ve got to check this thing out…so clever.  My American friends and family will access it easier as it’s an American based company but still, you’ve got to see it.  Gary is a forward-thinking businessman and after my email proposal was more than happy to accomodate my request so very soon, I will be having a competition on my site which all Mums and Dads will ADORE!

Hence, my new mantra: “Just ask!”  You just never know what you might get.  Good things happen to those who wait as well, and I’ve been waiting for quite some time so I think it’s deserved.  What are you going to “just ask” for now?  Let me know!  And let me know if you get it as well.

Home Sick

Posted by cafebebemama on Sep 19, 2009 in Uncategorized | 5 comments

This week I have had the great fortune to receive A LOT of packages.  However, I am now homesick.  Not longing for my homeland…SICK OF BEING IN MY HOUSE!!!!  From Tuesday through Thursday afternoon at 3:00pm, I was a prisoner in my own home.  Slobbing around in my pajamas being afraid to take a bath for fear of a knock on the door (I did bathe each day, mind, I wasn’t a totally disgusting person).  It was just me, Little Miss, the animals and endless Cbeebies on the telly.  Did you know that Cbeebies repeats their morning lineup after Noon as well?  I know.  Firsthand knowledge.  Little Miss doesn’t seem to notice but exactly the same episodes of kiddie telly is a bit mind numbing.  I became desperate for Twitter Messages and Emails as I felt like that was my only foothold on sanity.  Those delivery people have such control!  And I do believe they know it!

Monday my TrulyMadlyBaby starter kit arrived which was a surprise- wasn’t expecting that one but was very excited to get it.  I’m officially a TrulyMadlyBaby/TrulyMadlyKid consultant.  Whoop Whoop!  That was the extent of my deliveries for Monday and Little Miss and I managed to get out and do a grocery shop and get fresh air.  Tuesday began the waiting game.  I was supposed to get 2 pushchairs on Tuesday…I’m reviewing them for MadeForMums website and was really anticipating their arrival as one of the two is a brand new pushchair on the market.  I waited and waited.  Every time I heard what sounded like a delivery truck, I checked.  Nothin’!  I couldn’t even go out for a walk with Little Miss as I knew that as soon as I left the house, the delivery truck would turn up.  Tuesday came and went and no pushchairs.  An email to the PR contact ended up with me being told that they would arrive on Wednesday but there was no time estimate.  I wasn’t too concerned as it had just been one day wasted.

Wednesday came with joyous anticipation…they were coming today!  The postman came with a package as well…it was going to be a good day!  Tick, tock, tick, tock…the bloomin’ pushchairs did not arrive until 4:00pm!!!  4:00…another day down the drain…I was beginning to feel very claustrophobic.  But, the pushchairs arrived and let me tell you, this new one I’m reviewing…ooh…very interesting.  I’ll review it soon for Café Bébé as well.  My hubby had to work late on Wednesday night so I was decidedly twitchy by the time he go home…I hadn’t seen another adult for days (other than delivery people and they don’t stay very long!) and Little Miss, though delightful, doesn’t keep up her end of the conversation so well.

Thursday came with less joyous anticipation as I had one more delivery to wait for but I was sure that it would arrive in the morning.  Do you think it arrived in the morning?  NO!!!  It didn’t arrive until 2:00pm.  But the back of that delivery driver signaled FREEDOM!  I packed Little Miss in the car and drove…didn’t really care where but we were out!  I had begun to get a bit emotional being stuck in the house.  I started to question my ability as a mother.  I had a crisis of confidence for my website.  I was a woman on the edge…slightly twitchy, slightly paranoid.  All because I was at the mercy of delivery people who kept me prisoner in my own home!

I know what you’re thinking.  You’re saying, “Silly Woman…just have a neighbour collect in your packages!”  Yes, I hear you!  But you see, almost every one of my neighbours is elderly.  And the packages that were coming were BIG and HEAVY.  I didn’t want my packages burdening their hallways or bones.  I don’t like to impose.  If my deliveries keep up, however, I may have to come up with a different plan.  Either that or I may finally be pushed to the brink.  You’ll find me on my living room floor, singing along to Cbeebies with Little Miss patting my head and saying “Momma”.  Please remind me to just GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!