We live in New England and so the Fall is a pretty nice time of year to live here. The weather becomes milder and it is just cold enough to start wearing long sleeves. It is also a great time to take the little ones out to the local farms. I really enjoy frequenting the local farms because you can not only find some great deals on good food but you can also have a nice afternoon of entertainment for very little money.

Yesterday Allison and I took Eva to a local farm called Adam’s Farm and there they have some cows, goats, sheep and chickens. They also have a corn maze and an area filled with pumpkins. First we took Eva to the pumpkin area and there we set her down and let her explore. She climbed all over the pumpkins, found some small ones and really liked the weird looking gourds. The whole time she was doing that I was snapping away with my camera. Farms are great places to get photos, you are outside the light is natural and the scenery is perfect. If you have some time go and frequent one of your local small farms if there are any near you. You might end up with pictures like the ones I got.

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Copyright (c) 2010 Read To Me, Dad

Outside in the Fall

Allison and I like to take Eva to as many places as we can so that she gets a good experience dealing with new situations. And she does really, really well adapting. Today we took Eva to a place that I really like called Butterfly World. It is in Florida and we went there back in July of 2007. It is great for families and we decided to get annual memberships so that we could go back a few times during our trip and on future trips. If we go even twice we save money.

Butterfly World is a pretty amazing place. There are habitats for butterflies, birds and flowers. They even have some beautiful lorikeets that you can feed. And so I paid the $1.00 for a cup of food and got this sweet video of Allison and Eva feeding the birds.

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Butterfly World

As you know from reading previous posts Dad’s Day with Eva and Baby Sherpa Diaper Backpack, I love going to the Zoo with Eva. Now that she is getting older and starting to take notice of things beyond herself she is enjoying the trips as well. This past Saturday Allison was off at an event and I had Eva for the day. We spent the morning at home and in the late afternoon we went to Big Bully’s BBQ Burgers so I could have lunch and then it was off to the zoo.

Our local zoo, Capron Park, is a small zoo but they have some very interesting animals. The highlight of each trip is the Lion
enclosure which now has a Male White Lion named, Ramses.

And by the looks of things he has begun to fit into the family very well. There are hopes that he will breed with the lionesses in the enclosure because they each carry the white lion gene.

On this day we walked around and saw some interesting things, the Lions were waiting for the next Pizza Guy to arrive, the last one was tasty.

The Ocelots were being fed and Eva was so excited being so close to the ‘kitties’. She get so excited seeing our cats that seeing a large cat like an ocelot so close, it was right at the glass, got her very happy.

We went into the rainforest and shot a bunch of images of the dart frogs but all the other animals were hard to find and not easy to photograph.

The meerkats were all huddled together at the top of their hill. I wonder if something scared them or they were just being close.

The Serval was active too.

We had a very nice afternoon. I look forward to our next trip.

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Dad has Eva, let’s go to the Zoo

Today Allison spent the entire day in Connecticut. This was probably the first all full day alone with Eva so far. Don’t get me wrong I am a very competent father. I was up changing diapers right away and now that Eva is on rice cereal and diaper duty is a little more odoriferous, shall we say, I can still hack it like a pro. But an entire day watching after this little person who is in need of a ton of attention. Well, that was the challenge. But I was up for it.

First off, I was not baby sitting, Eva is my daughter and as a good Dad I was taking care of her for the day. Allison fed Eva before she left so Eva was both satisfied and a mess. She likes to move her head from side to side as soon as the spoon gets close to her face, it makes for a very messy face. So for me the first thing I did was Tubby Time. Tubby Time is my thing, Allison feels that I should have tubby time because I am not home all day and this is a good bonding thing between Eva and me. Okay, I will go with that. My knees on the other hand are not a fan of tubby time.

Eva really likes the water. Our faucet and hot water is very stable so I now sit Eva in her little tub and fill it up so she can splash with the water from the faucet. She likes to splash. She also likes playing with toys when she is in the tub. So whenever I see a new Munchkin Rubber Ducky I get it for her. She has a ton of them and when she can take a tub in the big tub there are gonna be about 15 duckies in there with her.

After tubby time I got Eva dressed and we played for a while. We watched Transformers Animated (The only show I let her watch, she’s gotta learn about the Transformers sometime.) Eva also played in her jumparoo.

She finally got tired and took a good little nap. She woke up in time for lunch and so I fed her a bottle and then attempted to feed her some food. Eva does not eat when I give her food unless Allison is in the room, so this was gonna be interesting. I tried a few spoonfuls and we were getting nowhere. Eva does like her sippy cup of water though, she tears through that like you wouldn’t believe. So I got an idea. Her rice cereal and milk was pretty watery, so I poured it into her sippy cup and she did a really good job of eating her rice cereal. Sneaky, yes, wrong, well I am not sure about that.

After lunch we got ready to go to the Zoo. I love taking Eva to the Zoo. Correction, I love taking Eva to the zoo in the off season. The place was a madhouse. I see some of the worst behavior in the zoo. People are just terrible sometimes. Banging on the glass, roaring at the lions. Just a bunch of knuckleheads.

The big draw to the zoo was the brand new White Lion that debuted on Earth Day. He is just getting used to being part of the pride, (there are two other female lions and the zoo hopes to breed them as the females carry the white lion gene.) I’m sure that he is very beautiful but he was pretty sleepy and he rolled all over the wood chips so his fur was full of wood chips. But his eyes are so light colored and beautiful. I look forward to going to see this lion more over the years.

You can see the rest of the Zoo Pictures in this Flickr Set

After the zoo we zipped over to my comic book shop to pick up my subscription, then it was over to the mall to get some Fish Oil Capsules. Eva was asleep most of that time.

We finally got back home and played a bit more and then it was dinner time. I fed her a bottle which she took pretty easily, then I attempted food. She took a couple of bites of peas and then had no interest in the rice cereal or the water, so I didn’t push it. I got her ready for bed, read her the nightly story and said prayers. I left the room and went to clean up from dinner. Eva cried the entire time (about 10 minutes.) I tried feeding her a little more milk but she wasn’t having any of it so I put her back in bed, went to the other room and did some more cleaning up, when I came back she was asleep. So pretty easy day overall. (Well, it didn’t feel easy at some points but how can you stay frustrated with this kid, I ask you, how?)

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Dad’s day with Eva…

The one thing that I was dreading when my daughter was born, besides the obvious fears of her general health, welfare and safety, was changing diapers. I had never changed a diaper before and I was nervous. So when it came time to change the diapers I jumped right in. Meet your fears head on and defeat them, I say. And that is what I did. I became a diaper changing machine. My wife can even claim that she only had to change 3 diapers the whole time we were at the hospital and those were done when I was home getting a few hours sleep.

I want to be involved in taking care of my daughter and that means changing her diapers when we go out. However you won’t catch me carrying the custom made floral diaper bag that my wife has nor the ‘man purse’ navy blue one that we also have. Nope, I am strictly using the Baby Sherpa Diaper Bag. And it seems that I am in good company of other dads including some famous ones like Brad Pitt and Tiger Woods. They both have the Baby Sherpa Diaper BackPack.

I heard about this backpack through Brian Anderson of Dog Eat Doug, one of my favorite web comics. I went to the Baby Sherpa website and learned all I could about the backpack. I knew that I was going to start this blog for new dads and so I asked for one to test and review. It arrived a couple of weeks ago. This past Sunday I took it for a spin when we went to the Capron Park Zoo.

First off I had to make sure that I packed the proper gear for a day with the baby. So I laid everything out.

I packed:
6 diapers, a package of baby wipes, a tube of A & D, 2 burp cloths, 1 receiving blanket, a sleeper, a onesie, baby hat, mittens, booties, baby socks, bib, 5 toys (yes she is less than a month old, it was overkill), 3 board books, ice packs, 1 bottle of Gatorade, 1 can of ginger ale, fruit snacks, cheese and cracker snack packs, dried fruit, cell phone, camera, XShot. And then I asked my wife what else I should pack and I got a list of a few more things.

The Baby Sherpa Diaper Backpack has a soft sided cooler uniquely integrated into the backpack to store bottles, snacks, beverages, medication (holds 6-8 canned beverages). This is located in the bottom of the bag. The silver lined insulated cooler also has a mesh pocket that you can use to separate things like medication from your snacks. The mesh pocket of the cooler also offers quick and easy access. Clean up is easy too. There is a little hole at the bottom in cooler so that condensation and spills can easily drain out. That makes for easy cleaning. The items that I brought were not nearly enough to even fill half the cooler. I could have packed much more and will as Eva grows up and we need to bring more snacks and drinks. There are also two removable side pockets. One is also insulated and can hold a large can of soda. The other is mesh and is perfect for easy access to a bottle of water. I used that one to store my second camera lens.

The cooler empty

The cooler with our snacks and drinks.

After packing the cooler I was able to stand up the backpack and start filling the top pockets. The top of the backpack is unique in that instead of one large upper pocket it is compartmentalized into two compartments plus a zippered pocket. I chose to pack the items for diaper changes in one section and the change of clothes/extra clothes in the other.

I could have stored even more and I did once I asked my wife what I had forgotten to bring. Did you notice that in the image above you can see the two compartments as well as a large flap. That flap has two zipper tracks so you can choose to unzip one compartment or the other or both at the same time.

Those are the two major compartments on the bag, the cooler and the dual large top compartments. There is still much more.

I am a gadget guy. I love having little shiny back or silver things with me. One of my favorite items to take with me is my digital camera. I am never without it. The Baby Sherpa Diaper Backpack has two zippered side pouches that are the perfect size for digital cameras, cell phones, keys, small first aid kits, palm pilots and wallets. I also meant to take my GiSTEQ™ PhotoTrackr™ with me so I could automatically geotag my images at the zoo but I left it at home. Otherwise it would have fit perfectly in one of the pockets. Next time.

There is also a large pocket on the front of the backpack. I used that to store the board books. There is also a Bungee X cord on back is great for jackets, toys, blankets and it can be tightened to make your items more secure.

There are so many hooks and rings and straps to add toys and blankets and other items that I had to load them up. Eva is less than a month old and has no need for toys at the moment. But ‘Daddy’ wanted to really load up his Baby Sherpa Diaper Backpack. So I got a bunch of her toys that have hanging loops and hooks and magnetic snaps and snaps and well pretty much any connection option possible. I got all those and I started snapping them on and clipping them on and pretty soon I had a colorful assortment of items with me on the backpack. Here are some photos.

On the back with the shoulder straps.

On the front with the snaps and hooks and a carabiner.

A happy backpack on a picnic table.

You’re probably saying, thats great, you can load a bunch of stuff but how did it actually perform. Did you do anything other than load it up and carry it around?

I certainly did get to use it. I undid all of the straps and put the backpack on. I cinched up the padded shoulder straps as well as the waist and sternum straps. I was ready to go. We went to our local zoo. Allison pushed Eva in the stroller. We walked around for a while and Eva began to get hungry. We found a picnic table and Allison fed her. Then I needed to do a diaper change.

I was right on it. I took Eva to the bathroom and set her up on the Koala, not before I used the oversized diaper change pad 26″ x 17″ that also doubles as padding on the back of the backpack. With the changing pad out and Eva strapped on to the Koala changing table I got out the diaper, wipes and A&D. I got Eva all changed up and ready to get back out and see more of the zoo.

I loved using the Baby Sherpa Diaper Backpack at the zoo and look forward to many more afternoons spent outside with Eva and Allison. I would like to thank the folks at Baby Sherpa for believing in my enough to allow me to review the product. I am going to be using this for years to come. They even gave me a promo code so that I could pass savings on to my readers. You can use the promo code Benspark07 for free shipping. this offer lasts till 01/01/08.

There are just so many features to the Baby Sherpa Diaper Backpack that I know I didn’t get to even use them all, however I wanted to make sure that you knew about each of them so here is a list of the features of the backpack. It is a rugged and tough piece of gear that any active family would be happy to own. These are the features as listed at the Baby sherpa Official website.

• Deep inside compartment with zippered pocket
• Soft sided cooler uniquely integrated into the backpack to store bottles, snacks, beverages, medication (holds 6-8 canned beverages)
• Modular insulated pocket holds large-size brand name bottles, mesh water bottle holder
• Padded pocket to hold a video camera or breast pump
• Secure, interior parent zip pouch for wallet and a key clasp
• “Tough as nails” zippers feature easy pulls
• Oversized diaper change pad 26″ x 17″
• Cell phone/Palm Pilot pouch, sunglass case
• First aid compartment
• Reflective tape for safety
• Waist, sternum strap and ergonomically designed padded shoulder straps which feature a key clip and passy saver
• Bungee X cord on back is great for jackets, toys, blankets
• Heavy duty lug handle
• Loops for hanging up the bag
• Water resistant
• Easy clean
• Toy loops
• 30 day manufacturers warranty
• Fits as carry-on luggage for all airlines

Come back next month because the folks at Baby Sherpa and I will be putting on a contest to give away a Baby Sherpa Diaper Backpack, a Short Haul Diaper Backpack and a DayLite Diaper Bag.

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Copyright (c) 2010 Read To Me, Dad

Baby Sherpa Diaper Backpack