No words needed:

I have been recommending these for a long time for people. Instead of keep repeating the information, it’s time to write up a mini review for them.

Carpet and babies/toddlers do not mix well. How can you clean milk/food/drool/etc off carpet, three times a day? We have bamboo floors, which we love. However, little ones still prefer a softer area to play, and occasionally fall, on. Bring in the soft foam squares. They are colorful, they are soft, and they are not that expensive. Since they comes in squares, you can replace one if you need to. They also help define an area for the little ones. We use them to define a playarea for the kids within the loft. It forms a natural space. Others have also used them on balconies and roof decks.

Which brand to get? Forget the little one foot alphabet squares that you can buy from toy stores. They are not durable enough. Our first child torn corners off them. We found a online retailer that sell industrial strength mats. Those are designed for gyms and tradeshow floors. They are thicker, and much more durable. Note that they do NOT mate with the small versions. Try Soft Tiles.

We have used ours for almost three years now, and they show very little wear and tear. At about $1.20 a square foot, it is worth it.

Waking up hearing your two toddlers having an actual conversation:

G: Where did you go last night?
M: I saw people climbing, up and down
G: really?
M: yes.

(We took M to see someone indoor rockclimb.)

There are the usual ways. When we go up and down stairs, we count each step. When we read a story book, we count things that we see in the pictures. There is the “twelve days of elmo christmas” book. But then…

It is also good to have the toddler participate in household activities. He helps with many little things. Putting his dirty clothes in the laundry basket, putting his toys away, etc.

Now, we combine these two things, each morning:

Dad: Let’s make breakfast
Toddler: Can I help you?
Dad: Sure. Bring over the coffee
Toddler brings over the bag of coffee bean and the grinder.
Dad pour beans into grinder, put cover on, plug it in.
Toddler pushes down on the level: One, Two, Three,…. Twelve
Dad: Thanks!
Toddler: No problem!

Perfect french press coffee prepared by a almost three years old.

Next step: Telling time:

Toddler: Can I press the thingie down? (The french press)
Dad: Not yet. We have to wait five minutes.
Toddler: Can I do it now?
Dad: Not yet. See the clock? Wait until it says 8:45

To be continues…

First time flying with the pair of toddlers? Let’s go for the most challenging trip — Boston to Hawaii, 6156 air miles, 18 hours, Hawaii to Boston, 5167 air miles, 11 hours back. We made it, and it was a good trip.

Reason for the long flight down is that we managed to use all those frequent flyer miles that I saved up and upgraded us to first class, in exchange for a longer route down, BOS-MIA, MIA-LAX, LAX-HNL. It was worth it. We have three seats. The almost three years old gets two pillows on either side of him, made a little bed, and slept for most of the trip. Mommy held the 1+ toddler on her on a aisle seat behind us.

To/From Airport

I did not want to bring car seats for two kids. We ended up using a local car company instead of taxi. They provide car seats for a very small extra charge, just a few dollars. They asked several times during reservation to make sure they are providing the right type of seat — forward facing normal car seats, not boaster seats etc. One surprised is that the seats were the old fashion non LATCH type. Since our cars have the LATCH system, I did not know how to use the seat belt to tie down the car seats. The driver told me that I am suppose to “install the car seat myself”, probably due to insurance issue. Of course, he helped me anyway.

The alternative for us would have been to drive our car with car seats to Logan and park at the central parking. The car service both ways works out to be just very slightly cheaper than parking the car at Central parking for a week. But the hazzle factor is lower with the car service, since they drop off and pick up right at the terminal.

Logan security

We took our double stroller with us. The took the stroller thru the gate between the metal detector. They did not really look at the stroller too much.They however made us took the kids shoes off. They let our two bottles of milk thru without any questions. Low security alert I have to say.

The mountain buggy

We handed the stroller to the gate agent before the jet way before we board the plane, and picked up the stroller at the jet way outside the plane door on arrival. I was glad that we had the stroller. Running from one end of MIA to the other without it would be a pain. We did not have a bag for it. For those who has a buggy, you know that the only thing that holds the buggy folded is that snap on the hand strap. I brought a piece of shoelace and used that to augment the hand strap tie down.

The stroller suffer no damaged after five flight segment, although at the last leg, arriving at Boston, it got pretty dirty for some reason. Boston was the faster in getting the stroller back to us at the jet way. The other segments it came mostly after the plane is almost emptied.

The CARES Child Aviation Restraint System

This sounded like a great system. We did not want to carry a car seat with us. Does it work? Not quite. The strap the ties around the seat back does not open completely, which is probably a good design. However even at the maximum opening, it is too short for the first class seat on the 757. I could barely hook it onto the top of the seat back. As a result, it does not fit the toddler very well. I ended up just hooking up one side of the shoulder strap onto the regular seat belt. The concept seems good though, and I bet it would work well for narrower seats.

In Flight Entertainment

I brought a small travel magna doodle, a book, and several brain quest card decks with me (recommended by [GM]). The only thing that ended up used is the magna doodle, because they always loved the toy. Otherwise little G just watched the horribly tiny overhead video screen without sound on the 757. I did have my Treo smartphone with me and I can play a few kids movie on it, but I did not have to use that during the flights. I did have to use it during car trips once we got there.

Car Rental

With two kids, it is really not practical to bring two car seats with us. We rented a minivan from Hertz. They supply car seats for something like $5 a day. I think even if we rented it for longer period of time it is wtill the same charge. We also opted for their GPS option, which was really useful since I do not know HNL at all. It was very useful in getting to restaurants etc to meet friends and family. They don’t have to give detail directions.

One thing about the rental car, when we got there they had the reservation messed up. Strange for Hertz. They were very friendly, and “upgraded” us to their bigest SUV. In fact, a brand new one. However, while the car is bigger, the height was a pain. Getting in and out, putting the stroller in and out etc were very difficult. We also had problem parking the thing in small parking lots. Not recommended.

Gear

TBW

Sights

TBW

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Parent Hack has a discussion on giving kids dummy phones to play with instead of real phone. But be careful — you don’t want to wake up talking to the State Police like we did.

Out of all the toys and tools and stuff that we bought for Guppy and Morgie, some highly effective and not necessarily expensive items stand out:

• At IKEA, they sell a colorful line of plates, cups and bowls called KALAS that is perfect for Guppy. He loves drinking and eating out of it. In fact, while we are in the half moved-in state in the new loft, we get used to drinking out of his cups as well.
• At the The Container Store, they imported a Japanese first aid box that is perfect to store all the baby health supplies. It has a little compartment at the top that is perfect for nail clippers, which we always loose around the house. There are two sized, get the bigger one. Stock number: 10013626. Called the “first aid kit” and find it under “travel essentials”.

We have always encourages Guppy to read. His personal library contains over 20 books by now. One of his favorite is a Disney Look and Find book. He gets oh so happy when he finds a fish or a boat or a ball in the pictures. But that’s not the guy thing.

I was playing with him in our bedroom. I sneaked outside to grab my tea, and on the way back I realized that he has not followed me out, which is what he normally does. He loves company. Instead it’s all quiet in there. Could he have fallen asleep? I don’t think so. I took a sneak peek inside:

He is reading. More precisely, he found a Honda Odessey brochure that we left on the night stand. He is flipping through it, studying it, completely engrossed. That — is a guy thing.

It’s all my fault, really.

Guppy loves Gadgets. Nothing surprising here, since his Dad loves Gadgets and have so much fun stuff around the house. Since he was around 8 months old, he can imitate us talking on cellphones. Soon after that he can use his little figure to operate the joystick on the phone, making the screen change from one thing to another. He is very proud of that.

After destroying my Sony Ericcson Z600, and almost destroy my new T630, we have been trying to give him one of our old cellphones to play with. Unfortunately he can tell the difference. So finally I gave in and charged up the old cellphone, without a SIM card, and let him play with that. He was very amused by it because now it works, sorta. It will switch on, but just says “insert SIM”. That’s until this morning.

I did not know this, but the phone will allow emergency calls even without a SIM card. That’s a good thing normally, but not when your 1+ years old is making the call. He was playing with the phone in bed with me, and suddenly I hear “Hello, this is the State Police. Can I help you” from the phone. (Cellphones, be being location based, emergency calls are routed to the State Police). I explained to the nice police dispatcher that it was just my baby playing with the phone. But now you know what not to do with old cellphones !

This is a review of the Toyota Sienna minivan (I still have problem saying this M word..), FWD XLE 2005 with XLE package #8. The major content of package #8 are leather seats, heated seats, NAV and Rear entertainment system (RES), backup camera, 115V outlets, second and third row window sunshades, moonroof, JBL sound system with CD player(not changer!), and side curtain airbags.

Test Drives and Making Deals

I shopped for the Honda Odyssey EX-L and the Toyota Sienna LE with options. Both cars are very nice and competent family vehicle. Being near model year end I was hoping to get a good deal from either brand’s dealer. I test drove the Odyssey — it definitely has a slight edge on handling and driving. It is puncher (more responsive) and ride harder (more sport like). The EX-L has everything that I wanted except a powered rear door. It would be nice to have a powered rear door to load groceries and strollers. For some reason the Honda only have powered rear door on the Touring model (top of the line). I almost bought the Odyssey.

A big different between the Honda and the Toyota is the way they package the car. For Honda, there are very few, if any, options. You pick the model (LE, EX, Touring) and they give you what you think you need as far as gadgets and trims and options. That makes shopping easier. For Toyota, on paper, each model comes with many different and overlapping option packages. It makes shopping very confusing. However in reality Toyota mostly ship each model with just one of the most popular package.
For the XLE FWD, it’s package #8. For the LE FWD, it’s package #6.

If you want all wheel drive, you can only get it from the Sienna. But that’s not the reason I ended up with the Sienna. I bought the Sienna because the Honda dealer are, well, too pushing and unwilling to make a good deal even at year end. I owned Hondas before, and they are always like that. I think my days with Hondas are over. It’s Toyotas and Lexuses from now on.

I ended up paying close to invoice price, including the current $1000 cash back. They also gave me a very good deal on my 15 years old trade ins.

Car Seats

Once I got the car home, my first task is to move the car seats from the Lexus to the Sienna. The rear seats on the GS is slanted, and we had to stuff towels under the car seats to make them level. The LATCH hooks are kinda hidden and hard to get to. Not so on the Sienna. I put the two car seats on each of the second row captain seat. Following the Sienna instructions, I had the seatbacks set to (about) 5 clicks inclined. The LATCH hooks are clearly accessible in a large openning on the seat. The opennings are covered by a velcro sealed flap running the entire width of the seat. Pull open the flap, and you can see and get to the LATCH hooks very easily. It took all of 10 seconds to install each seat. One big plus for the family friendly, eh, minivan.

Sunshades

The Sienna has privacy glass on all the back windows: two on each sides, one at the rear. They are basically darkened glass. They are a great improvement over normal glass, as Guppy today fell asleep comfortably in his seat without using the sunshades. In the GS he hated the Sun shining on him while he is trying to sleep. But with the Sunshades, it really makes a different. The Sienna has built-in sunshades in the second and the third row windows !! That’s great. I hope they last.

Driving and Engine

The Sienna drives reasonable well, for a minivan. The only bad thing is that after driving it for a while, switching back to the GS it’s always a surprise. I press the gas pedal and the GS jumps forward, whereas the Sienna would have just moved.

Center Console

The XLE trim comes with a center console that can be mounted on the front row or the second row (or not at all) between the seats. It has two nice big bins. The top bins’ lid, when flip open, has a clip for a pad of paper and a pen. Nice touch. The bin has two cup holders in the front, two in the back, and if you open the small drawer in the back, there are two more cup holders. So do I like this console? Well, yes and no. We test drove an LE which as a flip up console. It is a simple tray that is mounted on the edge of the passanger seat and can be folded down. Once fold down, you can walk from the first row back to the second row easily. This is important as we parents sometimes use the van as a mobile station. Park the car. Walk back to tend to the kids. With the center console, we have to step over it to walk back to the second row. Possible (we do it all the time) but not as convinient.

Instead of the center console, the XLE comes with fittings that we can put on the mounting points on the floor to give us two little cup holders and a little tray, at the floor level. We could do that but have not tried it yet. The only thing that’s strange about that option is that the cup holder are then too low on the ground. I probably will give that a try sometime later.

Automatic Door locking and Unlocking

The Sienna, with the powered locks, have four options to automatically lock and unlock the doors. The doors will lock automatically when you shift from park to drive, and unlock when you shift from drive to park. We do not like the feature where it automatically unlocks when you shift from drive to park. Being in the city, seems a little safer to leave the doors locked until we specifically unlock them.

You can switch on and off these functions with a somewhat cryptic sequence. It goes something like:
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I must have done this 20 times before figuring out how to get this to work — The timing is critical. You have to hold down the lock switch for exactly 5 seconds. Too short or too long will not work. One trick is to use the “ding ding” sound of the seat belt warning to count off 5 seconds.

Cargo Capacity

This is the official numbers: 148.9/94.5/43.6 cu. ft. for behind front/middle/rear seats. I need to go measure to see the actual length available for storing cargo.

More to Come

I will update this review as I use the car more. Stay tuned.