We apparently missed hula hoop season and cannot be the only ones. The same thing happened to us with backyard toddler pools a few years back, and I knew I wasn’t alone because of all the freecycle wanted posts.

According to the calls I made tonight the following stores have or may have hula hoops:

• Go Bananas in Lansdowne Town Center (571–333-4514) — 4 left @ $9.99 each
• Go Bananas in Brambleton Town Center (703–327-1900) — 6 left @ $9.99 each (The girl I spoke to believes they carry year round.)
• Dick’s Sporting Goods in Dulles Town Center (571–434-0046) — just sold out, but may have more as soon as tomorrow
• Sports Authority in Sterling (703–421-7010) — 19 left @ $5.99 each
• Party City in Leesburg (703–669-4222) — still have plenty stocked for summer @ $4.99 each

According to the rest of the calls (and stops) I made, the following stores are out, maybe for the season:

• Rite Aid in Leesburg — never carries them
• Ben Franklin in Leesburg — sold out a few days ago
• Target in Leesburg — hula hoop section has disappeared
• Wal-Mart in Leesburg — out of hula hoops
• Toys ‘R Us in Sterling (703–404-8697) — out of hula hoops
• KB Toys Outlet in Leesburg — out of hula hoops
• Only One Dollar Inc. in Leesburg (703–771-6967) — out of hula hoops

Hula hoops are harder to come by than one might think. For those of you beyond Loudoun County I suggest checking high-end toy stores and sporting good stores first. When in doubt, call ahead.

I hope that someone finds this post useful, and that the rest of you get a good laugh at my family’s commitment to buying hula hoops tonight. If you are able to take this post seriously and have hula hoop availability updates to share, please comment below!

We had lots of fun making kick-the-can ice cream at the Rust Nature Sanctuary’s spring Eco Fair a few months ago, and finally drank enough mediocre coffee for a repeat performance at Playschool. I found recipes and instructions at Kaboose.com and dairyspot.com and then co-mingled and finessed them to work with the contents of my refrigerator. The result was definitely worth the two months of reduced quality coffee!

Afterward, we wanted to do it again (and again and again) so I requested large coffee cans on freecycle and found out that very few folks are getting their coffee in large cans around here. In addition to the fact that we live in a fairly well to do county where many folks can afford better coffee, many brands have switched their bulk packaging to plastic. I wiggled my way out of that conundrum by hoofing it to REI in Fairfax to buy The Mega Ball, a plastic contraption designed to replace the coffee can.

The verdict in our unscientific, one run vs one run test is that kick the can ice cream kicks the mega ball’s butt!

Kick the Can Ice Cream tricks and observations:
I bought all the ingredients but the ice at the store. As luck would have it the bulk of the ice cubes in our freezer were made of coffee or contained mint leaves or tang, but we used them anyway.This made the whole production give off a heavenly scent. Our coffee can started to leak coffee ice cubes right away so we covered it with a trash compactor bag. It was still leaking so we covered it with a towel. The towel made it soft which made it safer to send down the slide and push in the swing at the playground. That made us happy. Very happy.  I think the towel also insulated the can a bit and wonder if that helped the ice cream along? Our outer can lid was shredded when we opened the bundle up, and that made it a one use thing — which made us sad given that large coffee cans appear to be headed towards extinction. Our inner can was intact which was quite a relief since a hole would have meant salty (coffee-mint-fake-orange-flavored) ice cream. Our ice cream was the consistency of soft serve and we (6 experienced tasters aged 1 to 30) liked it a lot.

Mega Ball tricks and observations:
The Mega Ball was simpler, but I missed the journey. We didn’t need to wrap it in a towel so it was too hard to safely launch down the slide. The mega ball is one of those funny shaped things that takes a long time to dry on my counter. I like the idea of the Mega Ball and will continue making my kids earn their ice cream with it this summer, but will switch back to kick-the-can after two more months of coffee drinking.

There are so many work-at-home moms out there doing cool things! One mom based right here in Leesburg, VA finds used clothes and turns them into something new for babies, hence her name — Recycling Babies.

Fun Finds for Mom is another mom crafted blog. This one is full of unique products. The author, Elena, got my attention by reviewing my favorite kid’s sunhat before I got around to it…

… there’s exceptionalcaresolutions.com

It turns out I wasn’t wasting time while surfing the web this evening. I came across this site which sells a potty watch and a pair of Drymids boxers that might work for my potty-challenged four year-old.

If someone told me five years ago that the phrase my favorite potty would come out of my mouth today I would laughed at you, but I do have a favorite potty. It is the Baby Bjorn Little potty and we love it because:

• it is cheap ($10), so you can buy lots if you want extras for car, stroller, upstairs, etc.
• it is small
• it is comfortable and puts the kids in more of squatting position which is kind of how mine poop in a diaper.

When I looked it was hard to find locally, but you can get it online at the EC store. They also sell a similar potty that is see through for really exciting potty times…

robeez.com

Either everyone in the universe now knows about Robeez and this post is old news, or my universe has changed completely in the last four years. I am guessing that a combination of the two is true. But it is also true that not everyone has discovered their booties. In my opinion the booties are their best product. I like things that are soft, fuzzy, warm and machine washable.

Robeez are cute and comfortable, and they are a great gift. As a general rule socks fall off and Robeez stay on.

They are hard to find used, so if you find used Robeez you should be very proud of yourself, and if you have to buy them new you should cut yourself some slack. They are worth the price. If you can’t afford Robeez you can probably find cheaper knock-offs some place like Target. New Robeez can be bought online, at Nordstrom’s kids shoe department, at the Vancouver Aquarium (if you happen to be there), and at many independent children’s shops.

You can google soft soled shoes online and find experts who will tell you why it is good to keep your children in these as long as possible. Mostly I agree… except when hanging out on unnatural tile or cement floors. When I am somewhere where standing and walking barefoot makes my feet and legs tired, I try to give my kids some padding on their feet too.

Also, I have met some folks with wide footed or chubby babes who find that the elastic is too tight. So keep that in mind if you have a cherubic little one.

naartjie.homestead.com

Ever since my kids were born my mom has insisted on showering them with gifts. We have come to a wonderful understanding… I will appreciate the gifts she lovingly gives and she will accept a little guidance on what we need, value, and have room to store. Part of that understanding is that she can buy them anything she wants from Naartjie.

The company is from South Africa and naartjie means tangerine in Afrikaans. They are expanding their operations in the US, but are still mostly found in shopping malls on the west coast. So at this time Naartjie clothing is still unique here on the east coast. Even when it is everywhere I believe I will still appreciate the way this company combines fun prints, details and colors with super comfortable cotton clothing.

Some items are very loudly branded with the word Naartjie — good marketing, I guess, but I prefer the pieces where the branding is more subtle.

Bonus for cloth diapering families: Everything we have bought from Naartjie so far has worked well with cloth diapers

ETA: Naartjie has arrived in the Northern Virginia area. There is a store at the Dulles Town Center.

This is one of our many favorite kid products. The Kiddopotamus placemat suction cups onto the table, and has a “catcher” that hangs over the edge. We first saw it at the home of a child I was taking care of when my son was two, and he loved it. It helped to define his space at the table during the transition into a booster seat without a buckle, and was useful to control the chaos created by his younger sister – a self-feeder from that day she started solids – by catching the spills (especially important when we took her out into the world where there was not a dog eager to clean up all that fell).