Today is quick and sweet – how fun do these look?

Okay when did they stop calling these walkie-talkies??

Meet the Motorola Talkabout MJ270R which features NOAA weather, flashlight and a 27-mile range.

That’s some hefty distance.

I think these are meant for grown-ups, but I’ve never met an adorable who didn’t love a little “Roger, Roger”.

Giveaway

You can win a a pair of Motorola MJ270R Talkabout 2-Way Radios just by leaving a comment by Friday, July 2nd (WHOA!  July???) and I’ll choose the winner using Random.org on Saturday, the 3rd.

Here’s how to gain extra entries:

1. Do you subscribe by email or RSS to The Good Stuff Guide? I love my subscribers, so you get an extra entry. Wahoo!
2. Email 5 of your friends about The Good Stuff Guide and tell them what a rockin’ website this is.  We’d love to have them join us!
3. Become a Facebook fan of The Good Stuff Guide and receive the latest news and your chance at additional giveaways.

(Feel free to do them all – that’s a total of 4 entries!)

Good luck!

If you are not the lucky winner, you can find the Motorola MJ270R Two-Way Radio on Amazon.

Have a great week – lots of fun stuff planned here so check back…

Sorry to totally switch gears on you, but we have some good news for you.

Today, you can win this:

I know, super cool, right??

I hope you caught the post about teaching your adorables to ride a 2-wheel bike.  These pedal-less bikes are perfect for teaching the concept of balance to your adorables.  When you switch to a bike with pedals, you can skip the training wheel phase.

Here’s the PREbike in action at our house:

My goal is to get my elder adorable proficient with this and then move it down in a few weeks to the younger adorable.

Elder adorable really wanted the cushion of the grass while he gave this bike his first whirl.  Helmet would have been a good idea still – oops.

Balanced!

You can win the Strider PREbike just by leaving a comment by Friday, June 4th and I’ll choose the winner using Random.org on Saturday, the 5th.  You can even pick your color.

Here’s how to gain extra entries:

1. Do you subscribe by email or RSS to The Good Stuff Guide? I love my subscribers, so you get an extra entry. Wahoo!
2. Email 5 of your friends about The Good Stuff Guide and tell them what a rockin’ website this is.  We’d love to have them join us!
3. Become a Facebook fan of The Good Stuff Guide and receive the latest news and your chance at additional giveaways.

(Feel free to do them all – that’s a total of 4 entries!)

Good luck!

Special thanks to Strider for this awesome giveaway and for providing a bike for my adorables to try.

1) Lose the floaties and really swim

2) Lose the training wheels and really bike.

To bone up on ideas for the latter, I’ve been deluged with REALLY good tried-and-true advice from parents.

So here we go….

Skip the Tricycle

The first bit of advice I heard repeatedly was to skip the tricycle and instead opt for a pedal-less scoot bike around age 2.

This is the Strider PreBike ($99 from Amazon) that indoctrinates the concept of balance early. The adorables just scoot around balancing with their feet.  Then when they are older, you move them to a 2-wheel bike and they already have the balance thing mastered.  Brilliant, eh?

Save Your Back:

Dear Reader Sarah emailed me with this a couple weeks ago as it proved VERY useful with her son.

This is the Kettler Pushbar 4 Position Pushbar ($25) you attach to the back of your adorable’s bike so you can balance them as they get the hang of things.

For a little more, you might want to try this E-ZBar ($37) that provides a little more control for you and a squeeze brake to really slow things down fast.

Embrace the LifeSaver:

Meet the Gyrobike: a wheel ($99) that you attach to your adorable’s existing bike. There’s actually a gyroscope inside this Gyrowheel.  The internally powered gyroscope creates a force – the physics principle is called “gyroscopic precession.” It essentially helps simulate the stability of high speed riding at extremely low speeds.

Friends, I held one of these at Toy Fair and was in AWE – it would not tip.  It is VERY cool and will certainly teach your adorables the concept of balance.

I know its a little hefty on price, but perhaps if you have a very large family or neighborhood who could all pitch in for the cost and pass it around.  When you hold it and see all the science going on inside, you’ll understand the price tag.  Maybe a neighborhood rental program??

Many thanks to the following people who weighed in: Sarah Donahue, Dr. Jim Taylor, Allison Mercer, Brian Badura, Jennifer Faulkner, Kara Thom, Lisa Warren, Jun-Nicole Matsushita, Vik Khanna, Julianne Applegate, Joe Wells, Richard Masoner, Chelsea Gladden and Kat Eden.

Playtex Baby The Insulator Spill-Proof 9 OZ Cup 4/Pk

And they have been wonderful.  But they are thrashed after all that use.

Now that my eldest adorable is 4, I thought he might need something a little more grown-up to take in his lunches.

So I stumbed on these little wonders made by Nalgene:

NALGENE Tritan Grip-N-Gulp BPA-Free Water Bottle

My friend Wendy had an excellent idea – she often does.

To distinguish whose cup is whose, her eldest is always blue and her youngest is always green.

So I thanked her, ordered 5 of each color and had a moment of silence for the 3+ years I’ve spent with the Playtex cups.

(Farewell, good cups.  You have served us well.)

The adorables took to the Nalgenes instantly (after we loosened the suction valve a little).  They hold more liquid -12 ounces- and the mouthpiece appears at this point to be unchewable.  I’ll get back to you after a year or so of use.

What are your adorables drinking from these days?

They are chock-full of great details of how the science world works. Another favorite aspect is how they work for a variety of ages: my 4 year-old understands them on one level, while a 9 year-old adorable (who may be way too cool for the term “adorable”) would discover a higher level of details and information.

We need more scientists in this world, don’t we?

]]> http://www.thegoodstuffguide.com/get-on-the-magic-school-bus/feed/ 0 http://www.thegoodstuffguide.com/a-lifejacket-the-adorables-will-wear/ http://www.thegoodstuffguide.com/a-lifejacket-the-adorables-will-wear/#comments Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:35:51 +0000 Heidi Farmer http://www.thegoodstuffguide.com/?p=1090 My friend Rebecca introduced me to this lifejacket and I think it’s a WINNER!

Can you believe this is a life jacket?  Here it is on an adorable so you can get the full scope:

This lifejacket works much better on a boat because the adorable can sit back comfortably in their seat. It doesn’t have the flotation on the back side that makes life so uncomfortable for the little guys.  It is USCG Type III Approved for kids 30 to 50 pounds, which means it is okay for boats, pools, etc.

Check this puppy out: 2 kids, front swiveling wheel (lock it down when you’re running), and it rides so well. You can’t even see the great parent tray for your keys, water bottle and kids milk and cell phone. The seats individually recline and have a 5-point harness. Comes with a rain shield. Folds in half (you can see it in here behind the bike wheel).

It’s $219.95, which is an investment, but you can always re-sell when you’re done on The MotherList. It’s also priced at or below many other double joggers. The BOB Revolution Duallie is, um, $569. Yeah. Stomach that.

Now here’s my caveat: to avoid a wicked shimmy, I need 2 adorables inside to unlock the front wheel. But with only 1 adorable, it’s much lighter to turn, so it’s not such a big deal after all.

It’s a hit. I couldn’t get any exercise without it. Period.