Beaba: Fun with Baby Food

One of my favorite milestones in babyhood is starting solids. There’s nothing more gratifying (for me) than making food and filling my babies tummy. Full disclosure, both my children are very excited eaters.

With Cam I used the stovetop steamer and an immersion blender. This works just fine. However, receiving and trying the Beaba Babycook Original Plus has hands down changed my cooking experience. While I could steam, boil and roast all my veggies & fruits, use the immersion blender or food processor and make the same food – this does it all for me! I didn’t quick appreciate the ease of it until I cubed raw chicken, sweet potatoe and broccoli – threw it in the steamer basket all together, forgot about it, pulled it out when the bell sounded, removed the basket & used the same container to blend it. Voila! Lunch was served.

I do still use the food processor for larger batches or blends, but I steam and puree everything in the Babycook. I might roast veggies for dinner versus steaming them, for flavor and texture, but then I blend in the Babycook.

I have a lot of fun improvising with recipes. This past weekend we used a veggie/fruit recipe and amended based on what we had in the house (almond flour vs regular flour). We cooked the muffins in the Beaba Silicone Trays and the whole experience was super fun.

There’s a few foods I won’t make from scratch because it simply doesn’t seem worth the time, when I can purchase at the store for a few dollars in organic form. Applesauce is one of them. The beaba is SO easy, that I even make my own Applesauce these days. 

Some suggestions for improvising:

• add yogurt to everything. I add yogurt to just about anything. Sweet potatoes, yogurt & pumpkin pie spice. Meat and grain dishes that I want to make creamier. Cold dishes that I want to take the chill out of. I use Pavel or Straus whole milk plain yogurt. Trader Joe’s has a yummy version as well now. 
• Cheat. For example: This week I made a delicious stew. In it was a bag of frozen, organic pre-cooked rice from Trader Joe’s (cheat number one), black beans that I had made in the slow cooker (delicious thanks to the bay leaves, garlic and onions they cooked alongside), an organic lentil/veggie/red pepper soup  boxed soup for some liquid (cheat number two), and pureed broccoli left over from lunches this week. The result: fiber-rich, nutritional, filling stew for on the go anything.
• If you have an early riser, cook then. What else are you doing at 6am? Between 6-7:30am this morning, I steamed and pureed sweet potato & apple, roasted broccoli & threw in some chicken drumsticks. Really, why not?
• Add coconut oil to everything. steamed veggies. pureed veggies. scrambled eggs.

Don’t forget:

It’s back to school time with BEABA – receive 20% off their site from now until Labor Day! Use code MAINSTREETMAMAS at checkout

Silicone Trays:

I absolutely adore these. They are a generous serving size, incredibly easy to clean, and very versatile. We currently use one for fruit puree and one for veggies. We also have enjoyed putting different foods in each compartment and eating breakfast with our toddler “Lazy Susan Style”

MSM Life Hack: Alively.

Main Street Mamas has teamed up with Alively, a new app that's the talk of tech town.  

Why?  Well, because how irritating is this very scenario??:

• You're at the soccer game, recital, music class, whatever...and your child is demonstrating his/her amazing talent.  
• You grab your phone to take a quick video.
• <STOP> You're out of storage.  You must first delete precious memories to capture this new precious memory.  UGH.
• Maybe you had enough storage and were able to shoot a video that will most definitely garner millions of views on YouTube.
• <STOP> You don't want millions of people to see your awesome kid on YouTube.
• So how to share?  Ah!  Facebook!
• <STOP> You're not so into sharing this little life moment with former clients, 500 old classmates and the 60 people you don't even remember how you met to begin with.
• Now what?  Just text it to your husband and mom.  That'll be fine.
• <STOP> Husband: "What is this??  It's all blurry"  Mom: "Honey, I even tried with my reading glasses...it's just too small"
• Moment lost.  Your kid was totally incredible and you'll be the only one to witness it.  Not to mention you wasted 8 minutes messing around trying to share a low-quality blurry video that's now taking up 20% of the storage in your phone. 

Enter Alively.  

1. Open the app.  
2. Select the handful of people with whom you'd like to share your video.  
3. Shoot said video.  
4. The lucky few (or many) you selected are notified and can watch live or later.  
5. And here's the best part (in our opinion anyway)...your video is automatically sent safe & sound to the cloud and off your phone!  

We're spreading the word!  We want everyone using this game changing app to capture and share their family's special moments.

Main Street Mamas will be utilizing Alively to share snippits from our exclusive classes, events & lunches.  Download Alively on your iOS device to join us (sorry Android users, you'll have to wait)! 

Watch Alively in action:

What the press is saying:

• Wall Street Journal "Former Facebook Live Manager Launches Live-Streaming App Alively"
• TechCrunch "Live video minus Facebook equals Alively"
• Fox Business "Live stream to a select group of friends with new app"

Baby Zen Yoyo Stroller Review

As a Stroller Traffic Scout, I recently had to privilege of testing the Baby Zen Yoyo 6+Stroller. A few fun facts about this stroller:

Price: $495

Weight: 13 lbs

Age/Weight: Appropriate for the baby who can sit up on their own.

With two children in tow: one who wants to walk sometimes but NEEDS to sit at the end of an adventure and one who is more comfortable being worn – an umbrella stroller has become my fast friend. We live quite close to the beach and in theory Cam, our 2.5 year old, could walk. However, the way home provides tricky and I really do need the storage that a stroller provides. Our hurdle is always finding a stroller that we can take to the beach and then easily carry once we get to the sand dunes as we don’t have a paved walkway at the beach. Our answer: The Baby Zen Yoyo.

At 33 lbs and 3 feet tall – Cam fits nicely in the stroller. As soon as he grows out of it, Kaitlin will grow into it. The under carriage is perfect for a diaper bag, sand toys or a blanket. Not too large, but great for a trip to the beach or the grocery store for staples.The stroller folds down with one hand and the shoulder strap allows for an easy carry. Baby on one hip, stroller on the other shoulder. It’s is both light and quick – make certain you use the break or without a child in the stroller (to weigh it down) it will make a dash for it off down the street!

The sunshade is 50+ UPF , which I love! It has a single handlebar which allows for more leverage and better control. Let’s be honest, us coffee loving moms appreciate that. You can also buy a cup holder for roughly $30.

The Baby Zen Yoyo is airplane compliant – fitting into the on board luggage compartment & you can buy what looks like a garment bag to house it.

If trying to make a decision, I encourage you to read Magic Beans comparison to the Uppa Baby G-Luxe

Soul Cycle for the New Mom

When I found out I was pregnant I was determined to stay in great shape & I was promised I would bounce right back. After all, I was the one who never had to train hard for a marathon.  The one who never dieted a day in her life. The one who clearly would be able to do it all, once baby came along. That’s what people told me.  I envisioned hikes with my sleeping child in the front carrier in our first weeks post-baby & runs around our favorite jogging paths in Golden Gate Park. Cam would create the perfect athletic trio.  I would train for a tri, right before I announced that I was ready for another baby. That’s how I did things – fast & furious.

Well I am here to tell you what didn’t happen. All of the above. Cam sure is fast & furious.  The gorgeous bundle of liveliness rocked my world. Happy & healthy is the name of the game, but at 11.6 pounds he came in like a wrecking ball. And wreak havoc he did on my previously tiny body. So when my sister wisely told me that I needed “me time” and that meant hitting the gym, I ran to SoulCycle. My post c-section body looked a little out of place. I was round. Lumpy if you will. And weak.

Cam’s birth left me more vulnerable than I had ever been in my life. Having stopped breathing right after birth, I was constantly on high alert. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I was supposed to be the one who gladly handed him over to a Sensible Sitter and merrily went on my way. Instead, I was petrified that they wouldn’t be able to get him to sleep. That he would get gaggy on the bottle if they didn’t burp him properly. And what if you had a breathing episode, like he had in the hospital. I worried that he would stress the sitters out, and then my fears looped over & over in my head.

When I walked into my first SoulCycle class, it took me a minute to put my fears aside and begin to pick up the pieces to my self confidence.  Rapidly, it became my therapy. It was 45 minutes that I could not incessantly text my sitter.  If something happened, she had the number to the studio and knew my bike number. Nothing has happened & faith in Cameron grew. All I had to do was take my ride song by song.  Slowly but surely, I began to believe in myself again.  And every now and again, I would get derailed. I would look at my fourth trimester body, resembling that of a misshapen stuffed animal, and grieve my old body. I would look at other moms breast feeding effortlessly and wonder why we were dealt a hand of cards that didn’t allow for that glorious relationship. And then, I would enter the solace of a SoulCycle class and I would leave it all on the road. Sometime silently and sometimes not.  With every pedal stroke I felt a little more like The Little Engine That Could. I think I can. I think I can.  I would dig deeper, tapping into the strength & determination one if gifted when you take on the title on “mama”.  It’s the down stroke that does it for me on the bike: the momentum you create right before you pull your pedal back up and dig yet again. As I became more willing to listen to each instructor’s message, I was able to apply them to my life.  Lindy would encourage me to embrace my weakness’. Heather would tell me to get out of my own way. Ian would leap onto his handlebars like a sprite & lighten my mood. That was enough. And I would leave that much lighter, in spirit.

10 months postpartum, I still have hard days. Yesterday was hard for me.  Mid day I received notice that Cam had a breath holding spell & had passed out on our nanny. I made a class. I did for myself, and I did it for my son. He deserves a strong mom, and SoulCycle is helping to build one. So here’s to strong mamas, it’s not for the faint of heart!

And I’m learning, it’s okay to just look like a mama.