Looks like the Baby Owen Company is going to be holding a consignment sale in October 2009 — visit our consignment site for more information:

www.obabysale.com

We’re excited about it — I think it will be good … with the economy the way it is I think sales like this are becoming increasingly popular — a way to get good quality clothes for your kids without spending a fortune!

Stay tuned for more info…we’ve just started organizing but things seem to be going well so far!

So I just have to weigh in on this whole, Jessica Seinfeld copied all my recipes controversy.

First of all, in the interest of full disclosure…I bought the Jessica Seinfeld book.  I have to say, I’m thinking about writing a review or a post or something on Amazon.  This book is not the greatest cookbook ever written, no offense to Mrs. Seinfeld.  The whole “puree and sneak into food” concept sounds like a good one, but in practice…its a TON of work.  She makes it sound like it only takes an hour a week or something to roast all these vegetables, puree them, measure them into bags (what a mess!) and freeze them.

So far, I’m not impressed.

Plus, there’s no info. on calories or anything else so you aren’t really sure what you’re cooking up.  Plus an utter lack of “main” courses (unless spaghetti pie and mac and cheese count.)

For me, an overall disappointment.  The cookbook definitely does not live up to the hype.

And now this other gal (The Sneaky Chef) is saying Mrs. Seinfeld stole 1) her idea (puree and sneak vegetables) and 2) her recipes.

To me it seems like apples and oranges (excuse the attempted pun.)  I’m not so sure about the stealing of the idea thing.  There is more than one Italian cookbook, for example.  Why not more than one “puree and sneak veggies” cookbook?

So I don’t think there is much there.  The accusation of 15 similar (exact?) recipes, however, may be another matter.  We’ll see.

Anyway, plagiarized or not, I wouldn’t recommend the J.Seinfeld book anyway.  Summary: too hard to keep up with the purees, no variety of recipes for main course, no calorie content.  Beautiful artwork, though.

Today’s Baby O’Blog quote: “Copy from one, it’s plagiarism; copy from many, it’s research.”-Wilson Mizner (1876-1933)

Halloween is upon us and once again I find myself struggling for a costume for my 3-year old.  It would be a lot easier if he would just tell me what he wants to be, but the whole concept is sort of lost on him.

While searching one of the online “costume” sites I found someone selling a “ghost sheet” for $17.60 plus shipping.

UNBELIEVABLE!

The hunt continues….

Well, I hate to admit it, but I shelled out almost $75 for two Thomas Live! On Stage tickets today.

For those of you living under a rock, Thomas the Tank Engine is a talking train (only he doesn’t actually ever do the talking, various narrators from Ringo Starr to George Carlin are more than happy to talk for him.) 

Anyway, he goes on these adventures with all his other talking train friends and bascially pulls in jillions of dollars licensing his Thomas and Friends junk.

I say “junk,” but of course we own 1/2 the stuff out there — you name it, we probably have it.  And its expensive junk too.

Anyway, my beef today is not with the outrageously priced tickets ($25 in fees alone) but rather with the production itself.  (Now, to be fair — I wasn’t there.  I roped another unsuspecting relative of our little Thomas disciple into going.)

Apparently, just before intermission, they turned off all of the lights (I guess it had something to do with the story line) and scared the hell out of all the 2- and 3-year olds in the place.  (Including our own little Thomas fan.) 

C’mon…who DOES that?  You can’t just dim the lights, maybe?  Or pretend its night time?  Its a bunch of preschoolers in the audience for cripes sake.  I have half a mind to write a letter or an email or something. 

Or boycott all things Thomas from now on.  (Yeah right.)  We already have our tickets for the Thomas movie on September 8th.  I can’t wait to see how THAT goes.

Today’s Baby O’Blog Quote: “Peep. peep.”  Thomas the Tank Engine

Sorry to be “off the blog” for so long…turns out a second baby can be a real time drain! (but in a good way!)

I’ve been thinking about all of these product recalls, lately though.  Naturally — everything is made in China and (big surprise) its all turning out to be crap.  Well, not all of it…but a lot of it.  And a lot of it is stuff that babies and kids use (like Thomas trains, bibs, toys…)

This is interesting for me as I’ve been working to develop a product and struggled with manufacturing overseas.  It was daunting at first (as in, how the hell do you find someone to make your product in China?) and so uncertain (as in, would I get quality merchandise or just a bunch of crap?)

Well, if people like Mattel and the Thomas folks are running into all sorts of problems then what does that mean for the rest of us?  The little guy?  The person who is just trying to get their product manufactured and (maybe) turn a decent profit.

I’ve said all along that I was most interested in putting something out there that was a QUALITY PRODUCT.  So maybe I don’t know all of the formulas and margins and all of that for making a (decent) profit, but I’d much rather have something that I was proud to sell and that (frankly) was manufactured in the USA.  Maybe someday down the line I’ll have to look at overseas manufacturing but right now I like supporting local businesses and I know they are sneaking any lead paint into the mats.

And so it goes.  It will be interesting to see how this shakes out.  My guess is there are many more recalls to come, so stay tuned.

Today’s Baby O’Blog quote:  “Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.”  Henry Ford.

Looks like they are rolling out that invention show again this year.  Last year’s winner was the innovative new car seat.  I’l be interested to see what folks come up with this year.

Admittedly, I’ve only watched it briefly.  I saw a guy with a new sort of wheelchair which was actually pretty innovative and the first “real” invention of all the stuff I’d seen so far.  Its amazing what people show up with — to call these things “inventions” is really a stretch.

I’ll be interested to see how they avoid some of the pitfalls from last year (and something that the Mom Inventor’s group runs into as well): namely, the fact that some of these inventions already exist.  You’d think folks would be doing research on this stuff (especially the potential finalists) before putting it out there.  Ah well.  We’ll see what happens.

Thanks for reading!

Lorraine

Todays’ Baby O’Blog Quote:  “I invented the cordless extension cord.”  Stephen Wright, comedian

Today Mom Inventors and Good Morning America revealed the three finalists for their 3rd annual Mothers of Invention Challenge.

If you’re interested, you have until midnight TONIGHT (5/12) to vote.  The winner will be revealed tomorrow (Mother’s Day.)  Here’s the link:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Weekend/story?id=3160236

At least this year I didn’t see anything that had previously been invented (which was not the case last year.  Oops!  Was that a product that’s already been on the market for years?)  I was surprised they chose two “kitchen” items, though.  Not to unduly influence anyone, but I thought the chopping board was the best of the three. 

Feel free to post a comment and let me know what you thought!

I also need to follow up on that Staples contest and see who won.  OH!  And the Whirlpool contest is off and running again; I’ll try to post something about that as well for those who are interested.

Good luck to the three contestants on this year’s Mothers of Invention Challenge!

About three weeks before the birth of our second child (if I’m lucky I have that long!) I had the brilliant idea to start an online newsletter.  Since folks are always asking me how things are going, I thought it would be a good way to keep folks informed.

Oh, and also to write a monthly column about my “take” on the whole product development thing. 

So anyway, if you’re interested in signing up you can visit the website and type in your email address:

 www.babyowencompany.com

Old newsletters are going to be archived there as well, so I guess it really depends on if you want to check back periodically or have the hottest news delivered to your inbox “as it happens!”

Either way, I’m happy to have a loyal readership!

So anyway I’m finding that this online newsletter thing is that its a little bit of work, but not too bad.  It might be LESS work for someone who comes from more of a computer background (the most technology I ever came into contact with in high school was an IBM typewriter), but generally I think I’m figuring it out (sort of like the product to market odyssey.)  Thanks for reading!

Today’s Baby O’Blog Quote:  “The greatest problem in communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.”  George Bernard Shaw

Today’s blog entry is for all of you stay-at-home, working moms and mom inventors: Amy Sanderson, a mom from NH and a mother of three — entered her “Stash and Store File Folder” in the Staples Invention Quest. And guess what? She was named one of the top five finalists in this nationwide contest! To see the finalists and cast your vote for another ingenious mom, go to:

www.staples.com/iq.

You can vote once per day now until April 20th. GOOD LUCK AMY!

Today’s Baby O’Blog Quote: “To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.” Thomas A. Edison (1847-1931).

Well, I have a few updates on the invention/product development front.

Before I start, though, let me just say that I am so FRUSTRATED when I see products coming out that were launched AFTER I started all of my work on the sink mat.  Mostly I’m frustrated at myself…but frustrated all the same.

I think I might have mentioned that I lost (literally) 6 months with my initial designer/molder (what a nightmare.)  So that set me back.  I guess these delays aren’t entirely my fault, and I’m not sure what I could have done differently…but this has all been a great learning process for me.. ..so I guess I can’t complain.  (Well, I CAN complain, but I’m not sure it will do me much good.)
Anyway, fast forward (like, a year) and I FINALLY now have folks that seem to know what they are doing and are helping me, but it took forever to get here….and I’m still not “there” yet.

But I guess “here” is a good place to be, considering I was “nowhere” just a short time ago.

Anyway — a few updates: there was some movement on the patent application this week.  Apparently the patent examiner raised a few “objections” and questions which my patent attorney thinks can be overcome.  So we’ll file a response and see what happens.

And it took “just” 14 months for them to look at the application.  We filed AFTER this new “expedited” process (12 months) but still pretty quick when you figure some folks were waiting 3, 4 years on their applications.

Also — did I mention I’m thrilled with this new molder?  We had some sample runs, and are troubleshooting like crazy.  I love people who think/work like I do…let’s just GET IT DONE.

More soon!
Today’s Baby O’Blog Word:  PERSISTENCE!