The fall shoe sale ends at midnight tomorrow, October 31st!

These are by miYim toys, made totally of organic cotton. The wide knit and natural colors made these cuddly friends unique, soft, and lovable. A perfect gift!

We found them at the ABC trade show and I’m glad to say they are finally up for sale in the toy category!

Half our Pediped styles just went on sale, down to $25 for the rest of October!

We just brought in two of Zolowear’s top selling slings- Jetson and Solstice!

Both are cool 97% cotton/3% stretch sateen/100% fabulous! Hugs your baby and your body comfortably.

Jetson is our only Zolowear sling also available in pouch form, and it has a sister print for ring slings, called Judy.

Sustainable Berry plum Zolowear sling Two gorgeous new arrivals here- Berry and Stone Zolowear slings, both just now added to Zolo’s sustainably grown cotton line. That means earth-friendly 100% organic cotton twill that comes from sustainable farming methods. The jewel-toned Berry looks and feels smooth and luscious. Well, the Stone feels that way too, but with a more gender-neutral color. Both have black sling rings and the strong zipper pocket.

The newcomers join the hemp/cotton Sable Brown sling so we now carry all three of Zolowear’s organic solid slings.

April ’07 Earnshaw’s featured Pediped shoes

I spy the Zoe on the right but I have to guess for the left…

are those girls wearing Abigails? One in pink, one in blue?

This week we’ve diverted our attention from the flow of incoming new products to deal with technical improvements.
It may not seem very exciting to see new products stay in their boxes, unphotographed, unshelved, unavailable for sale or posting links to them… but trust me, the nuts and bolts we’re working on are nonetheless exciting and helpful to you and us.

we were in this

The CHARGE Study (Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and the Environment) is a case-control study of 2,000 children with differing patterns of development. These include children with autism, children with developmental delay but not autism, and typically developing children. Subject groups will be compared with regard to a broad array of exposures and physiologic factors. Autism cases will also be characterized into more homogenous subgroups to determine whether particular genes or environmental exposures are associated with certain subtypes of this condition.

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In *my* words:

they’re taking kids 2-5 with all sorts of developmental situations and looking at their environmental exposures back to pregnancy… meds you took, agriculture you lived near, hazardous materials at work, pesticides and paint you used, every time you were sick, ate fish, took a vitamin, gave your kid tylenol, as best you can remember up until now.

they take hair, urine, and spit from the whole family to test genetics and heavy metals and who knows what else. They use baby’s first haircut too.

they collect medical records from everywhere possible, even mom’s dentist and delivering hospital. Questionnaires galore about health/sleep/behavior/eating/…

then they do about 5 hours of developmental / psychological testing on the kid.

the goal is to break “autism” into subtypes. For example, one type could be regressive and caused by toddler heavy metal exposure, another type may be more genetically determined and non-regressive, another type may have more of the immune dysfunction and be triggered by vaccinations, another type may have a certain genetic marker, late regression, and come with a cluster of gut symptoms.

The point of subtypes would be more accurate diagnosis and better fitting a treatment plan to the kid’s situation.

If you’re thinking that looking back and trying to remember what you took for that cold in ’04 isn’t the very best way to study this, no fear, another current study is actually tracking kids *during* pregnancy and early life.

But 1) you’ve got to get pregnant 2) I think they’re full. It was on 60 minutes last year and the buzz was high.

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So anyway, we finished today. it was really interesting to be involved in. hmmmm, don’t know where to start.
I don’t know if they’re still recruiting. Pay was $250 for about 20 hours work, but if you needed all these reports done, it would be so very worthwhile. At the last visit talking with all the drs about what they’re looking at and where the research is going next, and having this fun day just with E… it was really a great time and well worth it.

This morning our first shipment came of a newly launched product, the Pikkolo carrier by CatBird Baby!

It’s an innovative carrier for front, back, or side carries with lots of mainstream user appeal and great colors (I love the Appletini pikkolo carrier best).

Like a Bjorn, this carrier works for infants facing inwards and soon lets them face out to the world. but like the Beco or Ergo, it’s built to support the growing weight of a 6, 12, or 18 month old in the front positions, and like the Beco or Ergo, once baby is sitting up (5 or 6 months old) you can use it for a back carry. So you get a lot more value from your purchase!

Action shots coming soon.

There is a new blog post at Sakura Bloom today about how to get started with your sling.

There are so many ways to position a baby in there, what do you try first? what will baby want?

They give a very simple guideline- consider how you hold your baby already and then use the sling just like that! you don’t have to use a sling in some weird new “hold” and don’t get confused by names for different “carries”. Just put the sling on, put baby where you always hold her, and then pull the sling tight to hold her just like that, letting your hands go free.

And as usual, the photo illustrations are absolutely enticing :)