Hi Hali (and everyone else)

Posted: October 21, 2008 at 3:12 am | by Cindy
Filed under: Uncategorized

Just back from the cute cute town of hilo. Aviva and I went for a gymnastics meet and left the boys home. It was really fun. The best part was sleeping in a bed alone with nobody trying to nurse off me 6 or 7 times. The active volcano was impressive also but the full night of sleep for the first time in years-yes years was delicious. So what’s new? The store looks incredibly cute with our holiday stock all set to go. Lots of toys and goodies, stocking stuffer items to nice pretty baby carriers. Not much else is new except that I have a gigantic birthday coming up so here’s my gift to you…if you come to the store on Saturday October 25th and tell the person working ( I think it’s Leila that day) ‘Tell Cindy she doesn’t look 35′ then you get 5% off your total purchase. Ha-ha-ha no actually I’m not kidding, it’s for real. It’s the ‘boost my self esteem sale’ and is only valid on my actual birthday.

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Ay! Remember me?

Posted: September 27, 2008 at 12:56 am | by Cindy
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So anyway, Big news! for those of you who don’t already know, the store moved. Just down the hall but still, it is MUCH bigger, has a cafe, play area, hosts classes and events, has consignment, a For Sale or Trade Bulletin Board, and starting October 1st will be the home of mini-boutique Pikotique:Your Organic Connection. Pikotique is owned by Christine Kanemaru who knows organic baby stuff! She has 3 kids and I’ve been one of her midwives for 2 of them. She is GREAT to work with and surprisingly hilarious. She will have wool covers and care, organic crib sheets, clothing, fitted diapers, skincare and more and did I mention-her store is INSIDE my store. We also have new neighbors, The Red Ginger Cafe (very cool) and Adoracion Boutique in our old space (NICE STUFF!). Also, Baby aWEARness will be featured in a new book called the Best of Shopping on Oahu by Honolulu magazine managing editor Kathryn Drury Wagner out in November. CHECK IT OUT! This past month we started a nice Introduction to Midwifery series, had a great Vaccine Safety lecture (in fact it was SO fascinating and Dr.Portuondo will repeat this class soon. I HIGHLY recommend it), hosted a baby shower where the expectant mom gave birth the following morning (congrats!), had sling and diaper classes, and had a lot of fun. I also want to welcome 2 new employees: Holli who some of you may know already who has a son named Henry and Britta who just moved here from Cape Cod. They are both great and I am excited to have them on board. Come visit. Sorry my website is essentially on vacation so if you want to buy anything online you;d best e-mail first to see what’s in stock. We have MUCH MUCH more than I have added online yet. . I barely update it now that we got a Mac because I can’t figure out how to upload things etc… and have been too lazy to go 10 feet away tot he other room where the old computer is. Oh, also, I have not figured out how to edit old blog posts so I will write it here- the 10% blogger’s discount coupon is now discontinued. Mostly it is because we have sales and coupons and raffles fairly often but also I’ve had to deal with some ultra pushy trying to combine offers type customers. I actually almost ‘fired’ one recently because my new philosophy is to not deal with pushy people. Those of you who know me know I can be convinced of discounts for all sorts of things-people with twins, preterm babies, whatever, even sometimes take IOUs or give loaners to people desperate for a baby carrier but being pushy makes things 25% more from now on ha-ha-ha. Keep reading my blogs as I will probably sneak coupon codes in here from time to time. Also make sure to drop me a line and sign up for my newsletter (cindy@babyawearness.com) to get announcements and upcoming event info. For example,

Saturday October 4th we will be having a welcoming party for Pikotique with goodies and fun.

Also, anyone who brings in a picture of their baby in a Halloween costume by October 31st automatically qualifies to enter a raffle and prizes will also be awarded for:
-scariest baby
-funniest baby
-baby who looks most annoyed it is in a costume

What’s new at home? The gymnastics season has started so for those of you banking on me being in the store Saturdays, I just might be sitting on a folding chair somewhere holding my breath while Aviva does her beam routine so call first if you need to see me or better yet, e-mail me with questions regarding: midwifery/finding midwives, homebirth on Oahu, classes, booking baby showers, consignment, employment, or whatevers. Kinto is doing great and I met all of his teachers at Open House recently. I text messaged him my condolences after sitting in his English class for 10 minutes. The teacher is nice but OMG Greek Tragedy? Are they TRYING to make kids drop out of high school these days? B-O-R-I-N-G. Kinto actually said it’s not that bad but it really is. He is still playing guitar, forgetting to do chores, rolling his eyes, and grumbling around. Naor is a grade A crazy person. We went to a party recently where he:

1) almost drowned (I jumped in with all my clothing on and was then in my own personal wet t-shirt contest the remainder of the party)
2) slipped and fell on concrete and scraped his arm
3) had a pinata fall on his head
4) got bitten by red ants

All within the course of 45 minutes. So yeah, things are going as expected with 3 kids, a business, a job, and a working husband who is doing a Phd at the same time. Gotta go, I hear shrieking coming from the other room…

No comments yet | permalink Posted: July 2, 2008 at 2:19 pm | by Cindy
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ok blah blah blah insert excuse for not writing a post in months right here…. OK so what’s new? BIG NEWS!!! The store is tripling its size in the fall. Starting the first week of September, we will not only expand our retail, we will have a play area, snack bar and mom’s lounge, classes, lecture series, baby showers, and fun events! Yeah I am so excited but can’t motivate to start all the crazy work I need to do. We went on vacation to Texas and I have stayed in vacation mode for the 2 weeks since I’ve been back. So travel with a 2 year-old is not my FAVORITE activity to say the least. He was good for HIM but in general, it was HARD. Among other things, I sat in fluorescent green Silly Putty (bad airplane toy BTW and it does not come off of clothing), had one of my bra straps break (really, this is just a huge complication to deal with when traveling with 2 kids, a carseat, a booster, a stroller and bags when all alone - way more so than it sounds), lost 4 marker caps in the seat crack and needed to retrieve them for freaking out toddler, only had one episode of crying (me, not him) in the bathroom during which I let him unroll an entire roll of toilet paper just so I could get a 5 minute break…which leads me to my next thing- he now unrolls every roll of toilet paper he sees any chance he gets!!!!
For those of you who know my ex-employee extraordinaire who was crazy enough to move away from Hawaii…HALI IS HAVING A GIRL!!! Her name will be Olive, which I love and was lucky enough to attend a beautiful homebirth of a baby named Olive so I know the name works out since that baby ended up being gorgeous. I will keep everyone posted on the new store and a big grand re-opening. Yippee!!!!

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Are you happy now Hali?????

Posted: February 19, 2008 at 1:21 am | by Cindy
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The only reason I am crawling back here to write another blog is because if Hali mentions how LAME I am for not updating one more time…well…the truth is: I forgot my login ID and got too lazy to find it for, um, 5 month. So this will be a long and haphazard blog entry and then for the very last time I SWEAR I WILL WRITE MORE REGULARLY. Ok business at hand first:

-everyone come to the Feb 24th screening of ‘The Business of Being Born’. We have quite a nice little event with a panel including a Chuukese traditional midwife, a CNM, an OB/GYN, moms, a doula and a childbirth educator. There will be snacks and a door prize drawing and of course, the movie is GREAT.

-the new Beco Butterfly is here. I had some issues with it at first but it really does a super job with the small small babies and I do love the idea of a sleeping baby being taken off your body and transferred to another person’s body (namely my husband!) without said baby waking up and freaking out…so stop by and try one on if there are any left. They are going FAST….

-There will be some more toys and books added to inventory soon

-the new Fuzzi Bunz redesign are here and there are 100’s of diapers in stock. I am lame about updating colros and sizes on my site (since I am so busy with my physical store, so call or e-mail if you are looking for something specific…and a little known secret is that if you read my blog and mention it…you get 10% any purchase over $50 so send a note before buying online so I can invoice you or mention it in-store.

Ok, then onto life stuff. Enough pregnant women have hunted me down and asked for homebirth services that I am actually toying with the idea of starting a private CNM homebirth service. It won’t happen really soon but I have started getting malpractice quotes (yikes) and researching all the business end of it so stay tuned!!!

Naor talks now!!! OMG he sounds like a muppet and it is soooooooo cute. He also deliberately draws with pen all over his legs EVERY CHANCE HE GETS. I have no idea what the fascination is but only on his legs, never on papaer.

Kinto got his braces off. I’m sort of sad the retainer isn’t the jollyrancher/paper clip kind but more like invisalign. His teeth look great.

Aviva is still doing gymnastics around the house 24 hours a day. I should post more pics of the kids…I just need to figure out how to add them to a blog.

Ok, everyone come tot he movie and I’ll write more soon!!!! ALOHA!

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Ok, so it is a bi-monthly blog at this point…

Posted: September 19, 2007 at 9:04 pm | by Cindy
Filed under: Uncategorized

Let me catch you up to speed since I always forget I HAVE a blog until someone says ‘hey, I saw your blog’ and then I feel like an idiot for never writing. We went to Europe. The flying was hell. Not like the kind of hell like when getting a bikini wax but like the pitchfork with devil kind. First, I breastfed about 30 cumulative hours each way. I could have fed the continent of Europe with how much milk supply increased after the flight there! Then the armrest. Oh the torture of it all. Why oh WHY do they make it go up enough to get partially out of the way so a baby repeatedly hits his head on the metal part but not enough to actually make 2 seats usable as extra space when said baby is sleeping draped across your body? And the tray table. Oh god, the torture that small rotating lever can wrath upon a mother flying with a curious baby. The best 20 minutes of the flight to Europe was spent in the bathroom when Naor used wet paper towels to ‘wash’ the mirror over and over. A bit of advice to those traveling with a 1 year-old: forget toys, they are interesting for milliseconds (I brought enough that had I grown a beard, one might have mistaken me for Santa), do not allow anyone in your seating row to order a beverage of any kind (you WILL get wet), do not wear white pants (I can not explain this momentary lapse of judgement on my part), bring a change of clothing for everyone involved in the family trip, not just the baby, never fly through Munich (they WILL make you remove a sleeping baby from the carrier at security. BTW- all passengers angry at me on the Munich-Denver leg, I apologize for the angry baby, this was why) and when they say the food is hot on the tray, BELIEVE THEM! Anyway, the Disneyland part on the way there was fantastic. It really IS the happiest place on earth. I wore Naor in a Beco all day even on the rides and it was GREAT! Europe itself was AWESOME. I mean it truly, nothing to do with the fact that my mother-in-law washed all of our laundry daily including hand washing and hanging our diapers to dry. We walked in outdoor markets eating fresh peaches and berries, hiked, shopped, and ATE ATE ATE. Ok, so since then, what’s new? BABY NAOR WALKS!!! He is hencefroth renamed from ‘His Royal Babyness’ to ‘Walker Texas Baby’ (shout out to Chuck Norris fans here) and he said the word water. Or maybe butter. One of those. It was hard to tell though since he was pointing niether at butter or water when it happened. He is all over the place and such FUN. Aviva lost her first two teeth!!!! She looks great and sucks spaghetti through the tooth gap. Kinto went to see Nine Inch Nails and informed me ‘the guy behind me was so drunk he almost passed out’ I pointed out that those are comments that tend to DISCOURAGE mothers from allowing thier teenagers to go to concerts alone with friends…He went bunjee jumping in Europe too BTW!!! Ok, those things make me sound like a negligent mother maybe I shouldn’t have blogged that. store news. I am gearing up for the holidays and there will be some new great things. For now we have loads of Becos and Bum Genius in stock. You can also call for availability of things like Babylegs, wetbags, shoes, etc….I have a hard time updating them on the website. The store # is 808-988-0010 and we are on Hawaiian time. ALOHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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It’s official

Posted: August 3, 2007 at 5:18 pm | by Cindy
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We are moving to Europe. JUST KIDDING. It just LOOKS like we are with all the crap I packed for our trip. Half an entire suitcase is full of diapers though. Gone are the days where my husband and I just had a small bag of snacks and a book as carry-ons. The flights are about 20 hours total, the baby will sleep maybe 5 of those hours and he has an attention span of 60 seconds max so…we need about 900 small items to keep him occupied on the plane. God help me when he figures out the tray thing goes up and down. I’m bringing 10 pairs of earplugs to hand out to the people around me (per suggestion from a smart customer of mine who traveled with her baby recently). I have 1000 things to do today. BUT we will be in Disneyland for 2 days and booked dinner with the princesses for Aviva one night. Then..on to Europe. I can’t wait to check out cool Euro-baby products. Any suggestions lemme know. I plan to bring back all kinds of new finds…unless of course I spend the entire time in Europe pretentiously drinking very small espressos in outdoor cafes and eating even sandwiches with a fork and knife. Then I’ll just come back jumped up on caffeine and 10 pounds lighter because I’m too lazy to cut my food (and always have a baby in one arm clammering to grab the knife!) so I’ll quit eating altogether. Hmmm…an idea there. Anyway, I’ll check e-mail obsessively while there as usual so keep in touch! The brick and mortar will still be open with Hali and Jessica but the online store is on VACATION so don’t order stuff and then get mad it isn’t being shipped because I’m gone until August 23rd!!!!Love and Aloha, Cindy

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blog? what blog?

Posted: July 10, 2007 at 1:02 am | by Cindy
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OMG how lame am I? It seems I forgot my login information so got lazy about looking for it and only now decided I nned toget off my a** and actually WRITE a blog entry. What’s new at Baby aWEARness? Well, lots of new carriers and diapers although I have not added many online so you’ll have to come visit in person!!! Bum Genius, Moshi couture baby, and more!!! It has been hot and sticky lately, sort of like living inside someone’s mouth but since the central a/c we isntalled costs too much, we hang out in the store even when it’s clsoed since the a/c is free!!!! Stop by for some cool air and baby goodies!!!

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sick sick sick

Posted: May 22, 2007 at 10:33 am | by Cindy
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OMG my whole family has the flu. I have strep throat and pink eye. I haven’t had pink eye since I was like 7. I’ve been staying home more because of the sickness, which means watching more TV which leads me ask, why isn’t Paris Hilton being charged with Crimes against Humanity? How annoying is this girl? She wanted to get out of going to jail for drunk driving because she is pretty and offers the public entertainment? Huh? Did I miss the memo where they explained how she is entertaining? Anyway, Baby N has learned to frantically point at things he can not have but wants (think scissors, roach traps, hammers, etc…) and scream ‘that that!!!’ and keep pointing and shouting until you distract him with something (keys, cell phones, wallets usually do the trick)…the kid just hates toys. He only wants to play with things that can hurt him. Kinto turned 14 Friday!!!! He had his first formal dance (ok, formal for Hawaii, they wore a tie, the girls were over the top dressed like 30 year-olds)…he told me they threatened to send everyone home early and stop the dance if people didn’t quit freak dancing, nice. Aviva turned 6 on Sunday and chopse Benihana as her birthday dinner place. Waht a funny choice for a 6 year old! Nothing like having the table as a cooking surface while holding a squirming baby in your lap throughout dinner! Ok, some cool new links for ya : http://www.adventuresinbabywearing.blogspot.com/
http://www.masonandmatisse.com/index.html

Finally, Baby Expo was this weekend and aside from me being sick, it was still just mostly more of the same boring stuff. A few nice things from http://www.sweetislandbaby.com
but otherwisea bust. Have a good week!!!

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missed Mother’s Day sale

Posted: May 15, 2007 at 5:00 pm | by Cindy
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ok, I got a few e-mails and posts about people missing the Mother’s Day sale. Honestly, I pulled it together super fast and e-mailed people who wrote thier addresses in the store. So, to be fair, until May 19th, if you come in the store and say ‘I missed the sale’ I’ll give the discount. The new Becos and BumGenius should arrive soon as well as new Babylegs. There are lots more Goodygoody shoes now too! And Spiffies, those are awesome. WE use them at my house every day. Well, this week was good. My husband graduated and officially is a lawyer. The graduation was nice despite having to wrangle 3 kids into sitting somewhat still for 2 hours. We then celebrated at the W Hotel’s Diamondhead GRill. Let me just say it is one of the least kid friendly places to go on the island. The diaper chanign situation is the wrost. My baby ended up crawling aroundc the bathroom floor trying to get away from me, it was gross and he HATES getting changed so will do anything to get away. FYI good kid places on Oahu to eat: Roy’s in Hawaii Kai (awesome for kids beleive it or not), Orchids (if you sit by the grass where they can play quietly), and Genki (they can eat as soon as you sit down). Baby N has a double eye infection. Eye goop 3 times a day is a drag but at least it is getting better. Always something, right?

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alright alright

Posted: May 11, 2007 at 3:31 am | by Cindy
Filed under: Uncategorized

I’m finally back. Things have been so busy. My baby is in the middle of a phase where I MAY NOT leave his side for any reason. Case in point, I just got my hair cut for the first time since I was 7 months pregnant and brought my ENTIRE family since I could not be away from the baby for an hour or he would freak. My husband carried Baby Naor in the mei tai and walked in circles while I got flat-ironed, now THAT is devotion! A big shout out to the best stylist on Oahu, Keoni Sanders, one of the owners of The Fix in Kailua. Seriously, if you get your hair cut anywhere else in Hawaii, you just won’t look as good as you could. It also helps that he and his wife had a baby in the room next to me on the same day I had my baby…I’m trying to get them some business so they forgive me for the yelling they had to endure while I was in labor for 2 days. Anyway, things are good here on the homefront, his Royal babyness says the word ‘book’. It actually sounds more like buccchhh but he says it while looking at a book (or a toy or a phone or keys, but we ignore those times…). He stands and is crawling like a maniac all over our non-babyproofed house. Aviva is keeping busy with hulaballettapgymnastics…they really all blend together into one long weekend full of driving around the island to various activities. Kinto has started a super teenager thing where he does not automatically tell us what grade he got on various tests, he prefaces it with what grades other people got. Example: “35 people got C’s 12 people got B’s and only 4 people got an A’ thanks, buddy, let me guess which group you were in… The store is good and we are holding our Mother’s Day sale tomorrow.Yeah for moms! I’ll be adding new things to the online store so keep checking in. Oopa slings, playsilks, nursing covers, all are on thier way!!!!

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