The Sunday Review – The Coolfan

Meet Izzy!

Izzy is a Coolfan, a mini fan which hygienically and efficiently cools your baby or toddler's food. It is the brainchild of Mark Mainey, a dad who got fed up of blowing on his children's food to cool it down to a safe eating temperature.

We have been using our Coolfan for nearly two months now and I can honestly say it has revolutionised our mealtimes. Granted, the Coolfan is NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, a vital piece of baby kit but if you have one it does save a lot of waiting around for food to cool down and prevents the need to blow on your child's food to cool it – this can transfer bacteria through saliva.

In my old house I didn't have a window ledge in my kitchen where I could open the window and leave Lara's food to cool down, and, for hygeine reasons, I never used to blow on her food to cool it. Instead, I always had to remember to remove a portion of food from our meal about 5-10 minutes before we all sat down to dinner to make sure it had cooled sufficiently for Lara to eat. On many occasions, the food would still be too hot and this resulted in the inevitable tears and frustration while she could see the food but not eat it, or worse, see us eating our food. Since using the Coolfan, we have not had to worry about this at all. The Coolfan is so effective that it can take just 1 minute to cool the food down – I was really astonished at how quickly it worked and as such, I now serve Lara's food at exactly the same time as ours.


The Coolfan is a simple concept. The fan is mounted on a shaped stand which sits above the bowl or plate of food. The fan is shaped like a head to make it fun for your littlies although I'm not sure that Lara really cares what it looks like – maybe she will do when she's older. The fan is made from soft foam so that there is no danger to tiny fingers if they do choose to interfere with it. The fan head removes easily from the mount when you need to clean it or replace the batteries. There are plans in the future to provide collapsible stands so that you can take your Coolfan out and about with you to restaurants, friends or relatives.

If I am honest, I feel a retail price of £9.99 the Coolfan is expensive for something which, if I really put my mind to it, I 'could' fashion out of a hand-held travel fan and a coathanger. But, the point is, I haven't done that, have I? And I probably never would – partly because I'm too lazy, and partly because it wouldn't be as safe or as well-constructed as a product designed to do the job.

Despite my reservations about the price, I would recommend Coolfans to any of my Mummy and Daddy friends (there certainly seems to be a lot of interest). My Coolfan is now indispensable but (and there is one big but) it EATS batteries. If I use the Coolfan for every evening meal and one lunchtime meal on my Lara-day each week then I can only get about 10 days usage out of one pair of AAA batteries. I don't know why it uses so much power but I do know that I've had to invest in a set of rechargeable batteries as on the days when my Coolfan was out of action due to lack of power, I really missed it.

AARGH - My Childcare Conundrum All Over Again

A little under a year ago I blogged about choosing childcare for Lara who was going to be 7 months old when I returned to work. It was a long and stressful process that required a lot of thought. One year on, I have to start the whole process all over again. I've moved house and in the new year I will be upping my hours so I need to find childcare in my local area – the sooner the better. I can't believe I have to start from scratch on the search for suitable childcare.

Last year I started my search with nurseries and was uninspired. I changed my mind and looked for childminders. After contacting over 40 people and interviewing 10, I found two lovely ladies who have served Lara well over the past year. They both offer very different types of care, and are both very different to me. I feel like I made the right decision. But now we live in a different town and each morning we have to trek an extra 4 or 5 miles over a busy level crossing and through a town with a one-way system to the town we used to live in order to drop Lara off with the childminder, then drive the whole journey back to work, and then back to Bracknell in the evening before trekking back through the one way system and over the level crossing in the evening.

And so it is time to start looking for local childcare. This time around I started my search by looking for childminders. I contacted my local Family Information Service who emailed me back within minutes with a list of all the childminders in my village and the surrounding regions of Wokingham. Where last time my search was quite flexible in terms of location, I now find myself looking at a much smaller area because I am mindful that in not much over a year I will start looking for a pre-school for Lara and then after that a primary school – I need to make sure that I choose a childminder who will do school runs to our local schools.

Now, heres the problem. Bracknell, where we used to live) is quite built up and has lots of young (and not so young) mums who want to work in childcare. In Wokingham where I now live the average age of residents is a lot older, there are a lot less people and very few of them seem to want to look after children for a living. After scribbling out all of the names of women who could not work the hours I wanted, I was left with a list of 5 people. Two of them immediately ruled themselves out, one didn't answer her phone, one was away on holiday and one sounded evil on the phone. Great.

And so, in a total reversal of last year's situation, I have started looking at nurseries again. I've seen a few and once again it is not so much that I dislike them, just that they don't inspire me. I don't feel strongly enough about any of them to get excited about the possibility that Lara would spend a large part of her life there. We have seen one we liked – very different to anywhere else we visited either this year or last (in fact, it made me a bit weepy when we visited as it just seemed so 'right'). We're on the waiting list for it now but I'm aware that the days are ticking by and within a couple of weeks I am going to have to give my notice to the current childminders officially (they know we're looking) if we are going to move on in the new year. I'm told its likely that I'll be able to get 3 days at least at the nursery which is frustrating, but better than nothing. It does however mean that I still have a childcare gap I need to fill.

Arrgh.

Meet Bob the Build-A-Bear

Meet Bob. He's a casual kind of a bear. A bit cool. A bit of a rebel. Lara loves him, and when you ask him, he'll say “I love you” too. Bob was brought into this world on Saturday at the Build-A-Bear workshop in Reading.

From the very first minute we arrived, the staff at the Build-A-Bear Workshop were brilliant. They must have to go through the whole spiel so many times a day but they manage to remain cheerful and enthusiastic and seemed able to alter their approach depending on age and engagement levels with the customer.

As you can see from the videos, Lara was a little apprehensive. I think at 16 months she is just a tiny bit too young to appreciate the interactive element of the Build-A-Bear workshop, but me, I loved it! I am a little bit of a bear addict. Maybe one day I'll post a picture of my sizeable collection.

Our adventure started off with the choice of which bear. They offer all sorts of animals, not just bears and a good range of colours and sizes to suit all budgets and tastes. Lara is a bit of a traditionalist and chose a very classic brown bear.

Next, we got to choose a sound. We could have recorded a sound of our own but we opted for “I love you”. The sound was installed in the bear's paw because that is what they recommended for smaller children for ease of use.

Next, we went to the great big fluff-filled machine at the back of the store where the member of staff gave us a choice of squishiness and Lara helped to stuff the bear. I don't think Lara really got going until the bear was fully stuffed – maybe she didn't recognise it as a bear until that point?

Finally, Lara added a heart and the bear was sewn up. We gave him a 'fluff'' in the bear wash and then went on to choose him an outfit (Lara chose, I just helped to choose the co-ordinating Converse-style trainers!). The bear got to try on his outfit in the dressing room and admired himself in the mirror.

Finally, Mr. B. registered bob's birth on the computer and his birth certificate was printed. Bob got packed up in a big gift box and Lara carried him home. She hasn't left him alone since. Bob has become part of the family. He has his shoes taken on and off (he spent most of the weekend wearing Lara's Peppa Pig slippers), he gets to use the phone, he regularly gets fed a bottle of juice and Lara's favourite pastime is changing Bob's nappy.



We found the staff helpful in every aspect – I thought they were particularly good at keeping both bemused child and stressed parent happy throughout the whole process. We both loved our first ever Build-A-Bear experience and will certainly be back to buy Bob new outfits in the future, if not to add new family members to keep Bob company! It was a great way to spend a morning with a toddler and a very special treat