Chalk and Cheese Chronicles

Twin Moms at the Silicon Valley Moms Chevy Event

When I first became a mom, my world was my twin mom friends. We'd met through our local twins club, Gemini Crickets, and huddled together for warmth and safety, protecting our young, protecting each other. Moms of singletons ventured out and reclaimed their former lives faster than we did. We were slow to get going, encumbered by double the baby gear, double the weight and double the challenges. Slowly, our babies grew up, became preschoolers and now, kindergartners and we, well, we just aged. And we're outgrowing our twins club, the days of sleep training and potty training and Music Together far behind us.

I joined SV Moms just before they launched, back in April of 2006. Linsey and Linda soon followed me over, and then, this year, we were joined by Carla (who photo blogs), Ana Garza and on Deep South Moms, by Lisa G. Recently, we were even followed over by the BFF to twin moms, Mama Speak, who is 6 degrees from every twin mom I know and I love her! Suddenly, it seems as if we've all got our groove back. We'd passed through the twindom and survived the early years. But what next? Then came SV Moms, and there we found a new home. What could be better than going off to college with your closest friends? That's how it feels.

When my son finds himself in a new place, he uses a trick to facilitate making new friends. He brings a toy. Then, when the kids flock around him, attracted to the toy and ultimately, to him, he feels secure. It's his way of making friends. Believe it or not, I'm a bit of a shy person inside, always slightly insecure. I rarely like to be the first person to enter the room. No, you go first, I'll follow behind. I think I need to be an event photographer. At my friend's wedding, she assigned a bashful friend the task of taking candid Polaroid shots of wedding guests and it worked, the friend worked the room with her camera, meeting people along the way.

So that's what I need, an excuse to be there, a reason to approach people. I know, I can rely on what my mom says is my incredible wit and adorable personality, yada yada to do the same, but couldn't I just tote around a security blanket once in a while? So barring a fancy camera to bring me comfort, I do love that I have my twin mom friends as my social crutch. And having braved a few social events within the blogging community In Real Life, I am finally branching out and enjoying it. Really, I am. I'm lucky to be able to move amongst the two communities, now interwoven. I've even met more SV Moms bloggers who are moms of twins: Beth, Kirsten, Alix, Bonggamom and Sidney! Not to say that moms of singletons don't rock - they do! - but sharing the experience of parenting twins, especially during the early years, is a special bond.

Goodbye Mini-Van, Hello Lincoln MKT

For four days spanning the Labor Day weekend, I got to abandon my work horse of a mom mobile and test drive the new Lincoln MKT. I was looking forward to the Lincoln's arrival. Goodbye mini-van, hello Lincoln MKT.

By the time the car was delivered, I was already running late for a meeting. So with keys to autotopia in hand, I hopped in and then spent a record 10 minutes trying to work out how to get the darned vehicle to start. The push button start was a novel feature for me, and I pushed and I pushed and I pushed.

Then, I got hot and sweaty. The afternoon sun was blazing and there I was, an automotive illiterate, with the windows rolled up in a car that wouldn't start. My vision of a smooth sailing air-conditioned ride across town was fading fast.

It was almost like that scene out of that 1980s film, Risky Business. Worse, even. At least they were able to get the engine to start.

Finally. I noticed a friendly little suggestion flash across the in-dash screen: Step on brakes to turn on motor.

Duh! Bingo!

Vrooom...and I was off. A little late, but driving down the highway in climate controlled style.

That night, I opened the glove compartment to search for the car owner's manual. I'd wanted to give it a brief read through, so I'd be familiar with some of the car's features. I'd particularly wanted to figure out how to use the Active Park Assist, especially as we'd planned to head to San Francisco the following day. Ever try to parallel park in reverse up a San Francisco hill? In a stick shift, I could never do it. Would the automatic drive Lincoln MKT be up for it? Not sure if I was...what if auto-assist failed?

But...no manual. Uh oh. I was on my own.

The glove compartment only revealed a manual for the navigation system, nothing more. I queried my fellow Bay Area Lincoln MKT testers (@mamaspeak / review, @glennia / review , @bonggamom / review,  @citymama) on Twitter and learned I needed to push a button on the gear shift in order to activate the Active Park Assist. I totally see the need for the Active Park Assist feature because there really isn't a whole lot of rear visibility using traditional methods of glancing at rear and side mirrors and of course, the old-fashioned head turn to look behind.

Apparently, I'm no good at pushing buttons because I swear, I pushed that gear shift button and nothing happened. Not that I devoted more than a minute to the task (I had cranky kids in the car at the time), but I just couldn't get it to work.

No matter. I soon got back to enjoying the experience of driving a new-to-me car.

The following morning, our family of four set of for San Francisco, about a 45 minute drive away. My husband noticed the Michigan plates on our car and predicted we'd be mistaken for Michigan tourists <eye roll>.

San Francisco is one of my all time favorite cities, a way to see a microcosm of the world when we no longer have the time or finances for far flung adventures.

The Lincoln MKT handled the drive beautifully, gliding up scenic highway 280 and climbing up and down the city hills with minimal effort. It felt like a car commercial. The navigation system was a hit with my directionally challenged husband; while it took some getting used to for me and my innate good sense of direction (yep, stereotype reversal). But I enjoyed connecting my cell phone to the car's built-in Bluetooth, it was so much less distracting to drive that way than with an ear piece.

We stopped briefly in Pacific Heights for lunch and then headed over the Golden Gate bridge to the Bay Area Discovery Museum. Our two children occupied one space each in the second and third rows and they were in awe of the foggy view that unfolded as we opened up the Lincoln's two ample sun roofs.

Riding in the Lincoln MKT seems like a dummy proof, fail proof experience. They've got you covered. Someone in your blind spot? Small dots on the side mirrors light up. Blind spot! Blind spot! Lost in an unfamiliar city? Turn on the navigator. Backing out of the driveway? Rear view cameras show the world behind you. (Again, I suspect that this warning system is needed because visibility out the side and rear windows is obstructed by the car's headrests and exterior design.) There's just so much luxury that I feel I almost don't have to do anything for myself. Even my butt can get cooled down or warmed up with a push of a button via the handy seat warmer and cooler controls.

On Labor Day, we drove down the coast in the opposite direction, heading down to Monterey and Pacific Grove. We worked this car!

On a side note, we decided to take our newly purchased Graco backless Turboboosters out for a test ride in the Lincoln MKT as well. We've got 5-point Latch Britax Marathons in the mini-van and 5-point Latch Safeguard Go car seats in my husband's car but we needed a third set of seats for when my boys go off on playdates or ride in grandma's car. So we opted for the wallet friendly, ultra portable Graco Turboboosters for which my nearly 5-year-old twins were now height and weight qualified to use.

This is a classic example of what not do  - can we say D A N G E R O U S? (And yes, I know about car seat safety.) My boys were actually fitting into the boosters just fine...when they were awake, but lulled by the boredom of the road, they quickly fell asleep. The backless Turboboosters offered no head and body support and neither did the seats of the Lincoln MKT. Fortunately, everything turned out okay and the Turboboosters will be stored away for a while.

It was really nice to have that third row seating in the Lincoln MKT. My boys tend to fight when seated next to each other, so as we do in our mini-van, we put them in separate rows. The one disadvantage of the Lincoln's third row seats is access. You need to be a tiny person to get back there. There's no way my dad could ever get back there - it's just not physically possible. I also didn't like the center storage console (probably an optional accessory) as it made the car feel bulky inside. To access the third row seating my kids had to scamper over either the center console or the folded up second row seat. Either way, they had to STEP on something, leaving footprints or tiny scuff marks; I'd rather that they could access the very back row by being able to keep their feet on the car floor. Another disadvantage is that there is far less trunk space in the Lincoln MKT than there is in my mini-van.

Overall, we enjoyed our time with the Lincoln MKT. It's probably the maximum size I would ever opt for in a car and feels a bit more like a chunky station wagon than an SUV. It felt safe and gave a smooth ride and I was constantly entertained by the endless features available in the car. We subjected that car to our active lifestyle and it passed the test. We ate in it and spilled crumbs. We drove it near and we drove it far and some of us (see above) even slept in it. I'm not a car techie, but as an ordinary mom who needs a car for an active lifestyle, this car works.

A big thank you to the folks at Ford for making the new Lincoln MKT available for me to test drive. This was not a paid test drive and I received no compensation.

Original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.

LeapFrog Fails at Customer Service

 Oh, LeapFrog. You impressed me when you talked about the research that goes into the creation of your products. Solid products, solidly researched.

Then I got my hands on a Didj. You kindly gave me one; the other, I purchased from your on-line store. My preschoolers quickly became hooked on the simple Jet Pack Heroes game, a free download which they easily played at the kindergarten level. The premise of the game is to rack up points by shooting down what my kids called "ghost-es," it's an innocuous little game with a few educational components built in for good measure. We loved it. It was a perfect first electronic game, especially for long car rides.

But then I tried to spend the Bitz (points earned). I think my boys had somehow earned 150 Bitz which I learned we could spend on customizing their screens via the LeapFrog site. For Jet Pack Heroes, this meant we could use our earned Bitz to buy screen moods (chill, nightfall, strawberry) and keys which open secret rooms. I also spent about 20 minutes on the Didjerator and created 10 Didji characters for the screen hero. My kids loved the new customized looks of the Jet Pack Heroes game. All worked well for about a week.

Then everything disappeared in a poof. The custom moods and the characters - gone. Of course, my kids noticed right away. So off I went to sync up our units yet again. I spent about an hour spending Bitz on custom features (it was slow going) and thought I'd done everything correctly but when I turned on our Didjis after syncing, there was nothing there. I checked our account and the amount of Bitz in our account read a big fat zero, as if the Bitz economy were directly tied to the woes of the real economy. I went through the process again and again. But nothing I did on the LeapFrog site came through. I would have been fine with it, but my children refused to play the game without being able to select from different characters and micromods.

My boys put down their Didjis and refused to play without the added screen bling.

I emailed customer service, but eventually only received an automated reply telling me to check the product FAQs. I called customer service three times and they were absolutely useless. Calling LeapFrog's customer service (an overseas call center) was akin to throwing the user manual at a random person and having them leaf through it in an attempt to help me. Last May, I'd also tried calling them but kept getting voicemail even though I'd called within stated operating hours. I even lurked on the LeapFrog forums but saw no real solutions there. So, their customer service was horrible then and it's horrible now.

Oh and the Learning Path site is a maze to navigate. First, it welcomes me by name but then asks me to log in. I feel like I'm always logging and re-logging in - it's never clear whether the system has recognized me, even when I attempt to sync our Didjis. Finding my way around that site is confusing. I never feel like I know where I am or where I'm supposed to go. I think they need to re-design that site from scratch. I have never been able to use the Learning Path site to track my children's progress (not that I care to do so). Not sure why.

I wish our Didj had come pre-installed with Jet Pack Heroes, complete with the ability to customize the screen. But they strove to offer more than that by luring us to the Learning Path and they failed miserably. I want to talk to an informed customer service rep, one who knows the technical aspect of the games; not someone who is reading from the manual for the first time. I want you to email me when software patches are available. And psst, my husband suspects the software creation had been farmed out to contractors who may no longer be involved in the build.

LeapFrog, you really had my admiration up until I encountered technical difficulties. It's at the customer service level that your company fails. Why put so much time and money into the excellent research end of your products when you can't follow through at the customer service end? I really feel like I wasted my money on your product. I don't want to see you fail. You'd pumped up my expectations only to let them down with a thud. I think most of your customers give your products high ratings until they hit a glitch and have to work with LeapFrog customer service.

You have a problem, LeapFrog. It's floating around here and here and of course, here. Oh, and here. And also here. Wow, that was exhausting.

What next, LeapFrog?

Original post to Chalk and Cheese Chronicles.