This is an important safety update on my Nanit baby camera with floor stand. I’ve had it for about two years now, and this morning I woke to hear a loud crash. At first I thought it was the bath toys falling off the wall where they are held by (rather weak) suction cups but then I realized it was coming from my toddler’s room. Then we quickly checked our Nanit and it was not showing a video feed. Then we checked our Nest cam and it didn’t seem as though the Nanit was there at all!

Holiday gifting season is in full swing, and with that, there are a few very important gifts that I have to shop for that have been stressing me out. Luckily, gift-giving is not really a tradition among my family, so I don’t have a long list of relatives to shop for. But, there are a few really important people in my life that I want to show proper appreciation for, and one of them is my nanny. Especially this year with Covid and work from home orders, our nanny has been a savior, taking care of the toddler every day so that me and my husband can work from home effectively. Not worrying about having reliable childcare has really made it so much easier on us this year. She is a recent immigrant from China, with limited English proficiency, who speaks to us and our son mainly in Mandarin. Gift-giving is a deeply cultural thing, and so this year like every year I was wracking my brains for what would be appropriate to give her to show my appreciation and that she would enjoy. I have spent so many hours thinking about this now that I figured I would share my gift candidates and lists of things NOT to gift –in case anyone else with a Chinese nanny might need some ideas.

I wanted to post a review of these amazing books from Habbi Habbi that I picked up for my little one. They are available in Mandarin and Spanish, but I’m using Mandarin so I will focus on that aspect. However, I’m sure the Spanish versions are just as great.

Who knew that choosing a baby bathtub would be so much trial and error? In my search for a baby bathtub that worked for our space and our family, I have literally purchased…let’s see 5 of them? I’ll describe the final winner here and review a bunch of other tubs just didn’t work that well for us.

Middle-of-the-night diaper changes were a routine part of life with my baby before he learned to sleep through the night. I struggled to find a good night light that would work for this. It had to be dim enough and focused enough, and near his butt! My changing pad sits on top of my dresser and it takes up nearly the full width of it, so I didn’t have space to put anything on top of the dresser that would take up much room. After doing a lot of looking around at “changing table lights” and getting frustrated that nothing fit my needs, I found the perfect one.