My kids are dying for a pet, but we are not historically animal people. I think that’s why they are so obsessed with stuffed animals.

When I recieved an Ubooly from the Kickstarter-funded company who created this fluffy orange marsupial, I knew Julian would go crazy for it. I can’t wait to see him open the box on his birthday. (The box contains only ONE of these little guys.)

Sold for $29.95, Ubooly combines two things every kid loves: 1) a soft, tactile friend to hold and 2) Mommy’s phone. That’s right, the Ubooly’s little animated face is actually your iPhone with the Ubooly app loaded on it. The app is free to owners of the plush toy.

Upon receiving the furry little guy, you use the app to “adopt” the character and then your child can play games with him or her.  The activities are targeted at ages 4-9. It’s like this generation’s Teddy Ruxpin. It listens and responds to your child’s voice.

Rather than describe the concept in more detail, I’m going to encourage you to check out the Ubooly site for yourself and watch one of the videos.

Images courtesy Ubooly website.

From daycare to college and all the stages in between, kids need their stuff labeled. (This is not intended to negate my feelings about personalized kids furniture.) This morning, I stuck a personalized label with my son’s full name on it on the back of his swimming goggles!

Stuck on You makes personalized everything, from clothing to backpacks, labels, and stationery.

What would you stick a label on?

To wrap up our series of tips for rookie moms, I am thrilled to present our most epic giveaway ever! In celebration of their 50th anniversary, BABYBJÖRN has provided a generous prize package worth $990 of goodies for one lucky reader:

• Travel crib light with organic sheet (choose any color)
• High chair (choose red or white)
• Babysitter Balance baby bouncer (choose any fabric and color combo)
• Miracle baby carrier (choose any fabric and color combo)

I have enjoyed each of these products with my baby over the past several months. The style and quality are excellent and I expect them to last for years and years. I hope you’re as excited as I am.

Sorry y’all, contest closed.

Related links

• 5 real-world uses for my travel crib
• Baby food cheats, healthy and easy tricks
• Why the bouncy seat makes me a better mom
• How to wear a BABYBJÖRN front carrier
• BABYBJÖRN presents a Rookie Moms series

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This content series has been sponsored by BABYBJÖRN US. Follow along facebook.com/BabyBjornUS for current news and product info.

After hearing many different opinions, I was wondering, “Can I clean my baby’s ears with Q-tips?” so I asked the experts at Q-tips for the truth. The short answer is “NO!” The longer answer is this: Q-tips can be used to clean the OUTER EAR only. They’re also good for cleaning baby toes and finger nails and any skin folds. Got that?

Ear wax — especially in waxy babies such as mine — builds up to protect the inner ear from dirt and germs. Over time, extra chunks ball up and fall out periodically. It is not harmful all by itself. When well-meaning parents use tools to “clean” the ear, they risk pushing stuff in further. So, if your babe’s ear looks yucky, take her to the pediatrician for a proper cleaning. Okay?

Other stuff to never put in baby ears: olive oil, fingers, ear candles, chemicals of any kind!

It is a good idea to wash the OUTER ear with a damp wash cloth. Also, get behind the ears because I don’t know WTH kind of goo ends up there, but I think it’s milk and food from sloppy eating. You can, on the other hand, clean baby’s toes with Q-tips.

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This Public Service Announcement is sponsored by Q-tips as part of the Tipster Ambassador program. Q-tips® cotton swabs brand is donating 1 Million Q-tips® cotton swabs to 3 charities that can use them daily – Operation Gratitude for care packages, Ronald McDonald House of New York for arts & crafts and Glamour Gals for intergenerational manicures & makeovers. Visit Facebook.com/Qtips and SHARE to show your support!

[25-day old baby ear image via flickr by jessicafm]

Huge thanks to BOB for sending me a stroller to review.

My husband and I — well, mostly him — have been driving BOB jogging strollers for more than six years but this past month was our first time testing the BOB Revolution SE with the swivel wheel instead of just the straight wheel for running. And now I finally understand the difference.

The locked-in straight wheel allows you to run fast and far; you need to turn corners by lifting up the front; we have been huge fans of this for both real jogging and running errands outdoors. Alec used to run Holden to his nanny share throughout his very verbal toddler days.

The swivel wheel allows us to bring this comfy off-road powerhouse of a stroller to urban life and crowded places. It steers easily with one hand even around corners. The basket is a good size (though it gets blocked when baby reclines) and it looks comfy enough that I wish it came in my size. The BOB SE allows us to lock the swivel wheel in place when Alec or I are ready to run. Ok, I’m sorry, I am gushing.

At 8 months and change, Sawyer is barely old enough for a run so we haven’t tested that feature (ok the real excuse: we also have 2 other kids). We recently kept it in swivel mode and got all muddy on a family fun hike. I thought I picked an easy two-mile loop but it turns out that I’m not so good with trail maps. Whatever you do, do not tell Holden and Milo that we walked four and half miles through the heat and hills. I wasn’t totally sure that we’d all make it out in one piece, but Sawyer was loving it. And also sleeping for half the time despite the terrain.

Super chill on his family fun hike

Sound asleep on bumpy terrain

Last weekend, we braved the Maker Faire with the BOB. The stroller was a champ, nimble in tight places but perfect when we went off-road (in the grass) to dodge flaming dragons or noisy robots. I was surprised and impressed.

Note robots and crowds swarming

Protected and playing (should be sleeping)

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Disclosure: this amazing stroller review was sponsored by BOB who sent me one after I’d already purchased two on my own. Nice timing, BOB!

Angie Wynne is a longtime internet friend who has cracked the code for saving money with babies. She maintains a delightfully useful and awesome blog (BabyCheapskate.com) featuring the good deals (Britax sales, deals at Old Navy) along with the best prices on formula and diapers. I don’t know where she finds the energy, but her perseverance is our gain.

After years of blogging about baby deals and steals, she has poured her hard-earned knowledge into a terrific book: The Baby Cheapskate Guide to Bargains: How to Save on Blankets, Bottles, and Everything Baby. It is a handy, easy-to-use reference for all parents of small children. Even flipping through a few pages, I learned a bunch of smack-myself-in-the-forehead wish-I’d-learned-this-sooner tricks.

Angie has provided three copies of her new book to Rookie Moms readers. US Only. Other rules apply.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I love my babies and seeing their happy faces but I hate spending all my money on stuff. If you’re with me on this, enter to win Angie’s terrific book. Or suck it up and buy one on Amazon (or borrow one from a friend, I’m sure she’d approve).

Thanks to Tout for sponsoring this post and encouraging me to share mom’s best advice. Visit the SELF + The Honest Co. + Tout contest on.self.com/MomKnows to share your mom’s best advice & enter to win $500 worth of The Honest Company product and a Maya Brenner Designs necklace valued at $200, plus have your Tout featured on SELF.com. For every response a donation will be made to Baby2Baby.

Over the years, my mom has given me a lot of advice. I wish I could easily put my finger on the very best but it all tends to swirl around me and through me. Some I listened to, some I ignored. If only she had had a blog, right? Then I could search for her guidance at just the right times.

Before I had my second baby, Whitney made me a terrific scrapbook of tips and advice from our mom friends with two or more babies. Including my own mother. Mixed in among my girlfriends’ suggestions to “let some things go” and “hold onto order even more tightly” was a little blast of advice from the seventies.

We lovingly call this piece of advice from my mom God bless the rocking chair (because that’s how it starts), but the nugget of wisdom I most appreciate is to spend one-on-one time with my children as often as possible.

I believe that the time we spend together doing what they want is a foundation for their happy childhood memories. Whether its playing a silly board game during naptime, building an epic fort, or creating a LEGO comic strip out of Q-tips, they will remember me as a mama who plays (at least I hope!).

As for the first part of her advice, I must make sure to get a cozy big glider for those snuggles before my children are too big to curl up with.

Related links:

• Bonding with each child by Gina Osher
• The contest with SELF + Tout
• Cozy chocolate glider
• Tips for having two under two

What’s the best advice your mom ever gave you? And if you can think of something, go enter the contest!

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Thank you again to Tout for sponsoring this post. Wanna play along? Visit on.self.com/MomKnows to share the best advice you received from your mom. Reply directly via webcams at www.Tout.com, through Tout’s mobile app, on www.Facebook.com/TheHonestCompany and www.Self.com/health/mothers-day. Viewers can watch the entire stream of replies on the Tout widget on http://www.self.com and share favorites to Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest pages, as well as by email and SMS.

Hey there rookie moms and dads, I want you to think about your most vulnerable moments as a new or expecting parent. We all have them. Did you hire help in the form of an in-home baby nurse or doula? How did you know what you didn’t know? I was so lucky with my rookie baby that my sister was my birth doula, but after that I was pretty much on my own struggling alongside of RookieDad Alec to figure it out on the job.

Rate your baby nurse is a new website that allows parents to rate infant caregivers, doulas, and night nurses to help the other families trying to hire the right person.

The site’s founder, Melissa, had a truly frustrating experience hiring such a person when she was superpregnant with her daughter. She found the experience of hiring an in-home newborn nurse fraught with stress and mystery and was let down by one particularly unreliable nurse. She created a website for parents to exchange information to help the next parents in her shoes.

Did you love your baby nurse or doula? Share your personal experiences to pay it forward to other new parents struggling to choose a baby nurse. Currently available to residents of US and Canada.

You can follow @RateUrBabyNurse on twitter to find out more.

Launched in 2008 by moms and for moms, The Mini Social was the first members-only website featuring designer apparel, accessories and gear for mom, baby, and child at discounted prices of up to 70% off every day.  Are you guys subscribers to this daily deal mecca for moms?

We’re happy to have them sponsor this giveaway and invite you to join their site. To grab your attention, we’ve put together this bundle of goodies, a sampling of the type of product you’ll find on The Mini Social. (Hard-to-find brands, sold at sale prices that don’t break the bank.)

This prize includes a Dino Little Kid Backpack from Dante Beatrix (pictured below, slightly different from the one Holden is wearing above), an Imagiplay Counting Octopi Puzzle, A Child’s Day: An Alphabet of Play book, and finally, a gift card for use on Mini Social for $25.

The contest is long over. Sorry, bub.

Sawyer has happy legs whenever he sees me. If he’s laying down or sitting, he kicks. If he’s in an upright position, he jumps. Happiness makes him bounce and bouncing makes him happy. Win win. (It also helps that putting him in his Exersaucer means he’s in a somewhat protected position from his brothers so make that a triple win).

Thanks to the nice folks at Evenflo, we gave away one Exersaucer. The contest is over. Sigh.

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Thanks to Exersaucer for sponsoring our giveaway and providing my family with a safe place for my little guy to joyfully jump.

We’ve had quite a few giveaway prizes that many of you have outgrown: sleepsacks, a travel bassinet, a sling, etc. Today, we’re excited, on behalf of those of you with BIG KIDS, to have this post sponsored by Pinkalicious.

This popular children’s book about a little girl who loves pink so much that she turns pink has been a favorite in my house for several years.

The Pinkalicious book family includes Purplicious, Goldalicious, and Silverlicious — and now a video game version of Silverlicious for the Nintendo DS.

I’m so impressed by the sisters Victoria and Elizabeth Kann who wrote and illustrated these books. They’ve built quite an empire.

Our prize bundle today is going to one lucky entrant. The winner will receive this amazing Silverlicious bonanza of goodies.

We asked the team to put together a diverse bunch of items just in case your child is too young for a DS game. If you’ll be giving the game to a niece or nephew, you can keep some of the other items for yourself.

• Silverlicious Madame Alexander doll
• Silverlicious Nintendo DS game
• Silverlicious board game
• Silverlicious card game
• Silverlicious hard cover book

Enter through the widget below. One entry just because we love you, and an extra one for those who opt-in to our weekly email newsletter. The computer will select a winner on Wednesday, April 4, 2012.

giveaway over.
If you’re a fan, you can like Pinkalicious on Facebook.

Zzzzz.

I wish I could promise that new sheets would make any sleep woes you have — insomnia, kicking fetus, exploding boobs, kicking toddler sleeping next to you, or all of the above — disappear. Instead, I can just offer you a chance to win a set of Queen size sheets that will possibly make your bed a nicer place to be.

They come in Heather White or Sable (winner’s choice) and are valued at $249. Essentia, the sponsor of this giveaway, also makes organic bedding items for baby. I wanted to call them luxurious, but the folks at Essentia tell me that they like to have more fun with their brand. They don’t want to be stuck in the homes of fancy-only people, so these sheets are looking for a “nicer everyday people” home. Are you Everyday People?

These sheets are simple, elegant and will match any decor. Plus they are produced with stringent standards for organic cloth.

Check it out, friends: we’re going to try something different for this giveaway. Use the Rafflecopter tool below to enter. You can get one entry easy peasy; a second entry for liking us on Facebook if you do not already; and a third entry for liking Essentia on Facebook.

giveaway over.