I just found Gluten Free Mommy via a recipe link on BlogHer. What a great little resource for gluten free recipes! I passed it along immediately to my friends in my twin club who have their kids on a gluten free diet. I’ve mentioned many times here in the past that children with autism often respond well to a gluten-free and casein-free diet. We tried it without a whole lot of success for Pablo, but I’m not ruling out trying it again in the future. I haven’t perused the recipes too much on the site, and I imagine they’re not casein-free, but hey – it’s a good starting point for some of us!

Okay, that was a bad title. Think anyone would make this DJ Lance Rock cake and some Yo Gabba Gabba cupcakes for me for my birthday?? Probably not, huh? I guess I could make it myself and serve it for Easter?

Too weird?

I’m participating in a fun new program called Team Mom (see the link in my sidebar if you want to get in on the fun!) and I get to sample new products and write about them here on my blog!

This is my very first Team Mom review, and it’s for the Baby Jamz Jammin’ Microphone. This was actually the first I’d heard of the Baby Jamz line of toys, but apparently they’re becoming popular, since all the preschool moms knew what I was talking about! Baby Jamz is a new hip-hop/rhythm inspired preschool toy line created by Matthew and Solange Knowles (Beyonce’s father and sister.) There are several different toys available – the singalong microphone we received, a cell phone, a dance mat, a musical keychain, a boom box shape sorter, a mix master chair (which sounds way cool) and a music cd full of the traditional kids songs, all sung by Solange Knowles. The toys are available exclusively at Wal-Mart.

My kids were completely freaking out over this microphone. They love music, and they love “performing” music, so I figured they’d be all over it. And they have been! It’s a bummer that we only have one of these microphones, because they’re all struggling to be generous with their turn-taking. Such is life in the house of twins. The microphone plays portions of six different songs. Each song has sort of a hip hop beat behind it, and it plays the music portion only, without words, to encourage kids to sing along with it. My kids got frustrated right away because they couldn’t really sing along with Old McDonald’s Farm – it only plays the “Old McDonald had a farm, EIEIO,” part…on a continuous loop. There’s no place to sing the, “With an oink oink here and an oink oink there…”

The microphone also has a button for recording your voice, but it’s a little wonky. It records a really short clip – not even a complete “loop” of any of the songs it plays, so you can only hear yourself singing along with about four words or so. Also, the quality is really bad – you can barely make out whatever was recorded. Considering the toy retails for under ten bucks, though, it performed about as well as I expected it to. What my kids really like is that there are buttons to speed up and slow down the songs – fun! What I really like is that it has an off switch. Haha! It’s a fine toy, but it lacks something critically important: a volume knob! This toy is LOUD. In my noisy household, it’s doesn’t seem all that loud, but when the microphone is right up near your mouth while you’re singing, it’s also pretty darned close to your ear, and it’s WAY too loud.

All in all, this is probably a toy I wouldn’t buy for my kids, but I probably would buy it for an annoying relative’s kids. My kids are having a ball with it, but they’re having more fun using it as a prop in their pretend play without playing the music at all. I’m more interested in checking out the CD, since we listen to kids’ music A LOT in the ol’ minivan, and the CD sounds like something I wouldn’t mind listening to.

So. Baby Jamz! Check out the line of products at your local Wal-Mart.
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Disclosure: This is not a paid review. I received this item for free from Team Mom so that my kids could try it out and so that I could write about it here. The value of the item is $9.97, which falls under the $40.00 limit set by my membership in the Blogher Ad Network, and as such that allows me to review the item and keep it for our own use, without passing it along to someone else. However, if you really, really want it? Come on over and I’ll let you sneak it out the door.

Update! I felt like I needed to come back and fill you in on a few more things. First of all…the day we tried out the microphone, my son was having the most fun with it, and he even took it outside with him (something I generally do not allow. We have outside toys, and we have inside toys, and never the two shall meet, right?) Unfortunately, I got sidetracked and the microphone got left out in the grass. It sat out there for three days, and during that time, it got covered by snow! Crazy-ass Colorado springtime weather. The next day (Easter Sunday) I went outside in the melty warm weather and retrieved it from the yard. And guess what? Three days of UV rays at an elevation of 5500 feet didn’t fade it even slightly. (Being within shouting distance of the sun tends to fade most of our playground toys quickly!) More surprising than that, the microphone still works just as it did when we took it out of the packaging, even after getting buried in snow. Just like the old Timex commercials: it takes a licking and keeps on ticking! I found that to be pretty refreshing, since most toys seem to be ridiculously cheap and break easily.

Do you remember a couple of months ago, when I raved about the Nick Jr. show, Ni Hao, Kai-lan? When I wrote that post about the Dragonboat episode, I had no idea it would be THE ONLY EPISODE we would ever see. Well, I think my kids may have seen another episode, but every time that show is on and I’m in the room, it’s the Dragonboat episode. It’s getting a little ridiculous: I can sing along with the “Calm Down” song! It’s kind of annoying, really, that they would hype up a new show so much, only to give us a couple of episodes. They did the same thing with Yo Gabba Gabba, as I recall.

But I have good news! There are new episodes coming! And right in time for Spring Break next week. Tune in all next week and you can catch the following:

Monday, March 24 – “Everybody’s Hat Parade” – Kai-lan notices Yeye’s gardening hat and is inspired to make a hat of her own. When everyone in the backyard starts making hats too, Kai-lan declares they should have a hat parade. Rintoo makes a very original creation that everyone loves, but when Hoho copies his hat, Rintoo gets upset. Kai-lan and the viewers must find a way to show Rintoo that copying is a compliment, so the hat parade can go on.

Tuesday, March 25 – “Snowiest Ride” – Kai-lan’s backyard is covered in snow and as she finds a great hill for sledding, she sees beautiful ice sculptures at the bottom. After borrowing Yeye’s sled, she gathers her friends together to ride down the hill. Everyone is excited except for Tolee, who jumps off the sled at the last minute and runs away. He is scared and it’s up to Kai-lan and the viewers to help him overcome his fear of sledding by breaking it down into small, manageable steps. They start with a small hill, then a medium-sized hill, and then finally the big hill. Tolee gets over his fear and soon everyone is zooming down to see the magical and mysterious ice sculptures.

Wednesday, March 26 – “Safari Pals” – When Kai-lan discovers mysterious footprints, she leads her friends on a safari through the backyard to find out who made them. During their journey, they meet a big, friendly elephant named Stompy and Kai-lan invites him on the safari. While most are delighted to see Stompy do cool things, Rintoo becomes jealous and leaves. Kai-lan and the viewers must show Rintoo there’s something special about him too – he’s extremely fast! Soon enough, Rintoo isn’t feeling jealous anymore and they continue the safari to determine who made the tracks.

Thursday, March 27 – “Rain or Shine” – Kai-lan and her friends plan a big day of outdoor play when it suddenly starts raining! Kai-lan happily finds a way to play outside, but Rintoo, Tolee and Hoho are upset that the weather has stopped them from playing the way they planned. With the viewers help, Rintoo, Tolee and Hoho realize that Kai-lan isn’t thinking about what she can’t do in the rain, she’s thinking about what she can do! Soon they all find plenty of great things to do, and have a fantastic time in the rain.

Friday, March 28 (11:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.): Above four episodes will repeat in a two-hour marathon.

Yay for no more reruns! Now, if only we could get our regular prime time shows to come back with some new episodes!!