No way KAZ!

Sorry for the poor image I have attached here with my post. It is not the actual picture of the Kaz vaporizer I owned since I already threw it out!!

It is common for children to have coughs and colds so my pedia recommended that I get a humdifier for my kids' rooms so that the air won't be too dry especially when the kids are coughing.. so I did what every mom would do.. I went to the nearest Mercury Drug Store to buy one!

So in 2006, I bought a Kaz mist humidifier which I loved since the steam coming out is cold unlike with other steam vaporizers. So I used it whenever necessary and then I noticed that their filters got dirty quite fast so I had to replace it every month which meant I had to spend around 400 pesos just to change those filters but then after a few month my real trouble began! I needed to use the humidifier and the filter was dirty so I went to several Mercury Drugstores to buy the filters and guess what? They were all out of stock! and a couple of outlets didn't even know that there were filters for the Kaz humidifiers.

I needed the humidifier and couldn't find a filter so I was forced to buy new ones. I got the Kaz Steam Vaporizer. I am not sure of the exact amount but I think I got it for around 900 pesos each.

Unfortunately, this Kaz Steam Vaporizer caused me more damage than good! The first time the yaya used it in my son's room, in a matter of 30 minutes my son's room was filled with smoke from the burning voltage regulator where the yaya plugged the Kaz in! I thank God that the yaya wasn't sleeping yet so she was able to detect the smoke and run my son out of his room!

Thinking that the voltage regulator was either old or was overload, I bought a new one for 2500 pesos and this time i got 1000 watts so that it wouldn't get overloaded but at the same time I was also wondering why the one in my daughter's room was working fine. So we plugged it in the second night and after a few minutes there was smoke again and this time some sparks came out of the regulator as well! Thinking I got a lemon, I told that yaya not to use it anymore!

Until last week, I mistakenly used the "lemon" instead of the working one and again in a matter of a few minutes our adaptor started burning. I unplugged it and immediately told the yaya to throw it out of the house!

The next week, my daughter needed the vaporizer so her yaya plugged it in at 10 pm and went down to do her laundry. At 11:30 pm, my husband smelled that something was burning! We got so scared when we realized it was coming from our daughter's room! We rushed her out of there and her room was just filled with smoke! We are still very grateful that nothing happened to her. What was surprising was it was plugged in a Panther Voltage Regulator with a fuse and that didn't stop it from burning up!

So I was surprised that it happened to another Kaz Vaporizer we had so we said it might be just as faulty as the other one! So we tried to look if it was made in China but what we found was the answer to our mystery!

It says in the inner flap that the Kaz Steam Vaporizer may cause excessive boiling or blowing of fuse if too much salt was put in with the water! They did have a warning in the box but who is to say how much is too much? I have thrown out both Kaz vaporizers because I don't want to risk my kids' lives just because the yaya puts in too much salt!

So before i threw out my Kaz vaporizers, i lost around 1800 for the 2 Kaz vaporizers I threw out and an additional 7500 pesos replacing the voltage regulators that it blew out! But I could have lost so much more than that!

I learned a very important lesson when looking for a vaporizer or a humdifier -- nothing with steam (hot of course) coming out of it or anything that says it can easily blow a fuse!

What is a BILIBO?

The best answer to that question I believe was written in a newspaper article that featured the Bilibo

" The Bilibo -- They don't know what it is, but they know they like it!"

The first time I saw the Bilibo was in a bazaar. I saw this shell-shaped-bright- colored- "I don't know what" but I was very intrigued with the design. So I talked to the stall owner and she told me that the Bilibo was an awarded toy in both the US and Europe. Leaving the stall I still didn't have any idea what it was!

So when I got home, I researched the net, I love google!, and found so many interesting facts about the Bilibo!

First of all it had already received several awards such as:

* Toy of the Year - UK Good Toy Awards 2006
* Good Toy, Good Toy Committee, Japan 2005
* Deutscher Lernspielpreis, Auswahlliste 2003
* Dr. Toy 10 Best Active Products 2002
* spiel gut, Arbeitsausschuss Kinderspiel 2002
* Design Distinction, I.D. Review 2002
* Swiss Product Design Award 2002
* Design Preis Schweiz, Distinction 2001
* Swiss Federal Award for Design 2001

and then i read hundreds of reviews from parents saying how much they loved the Bilibo! So the next day, I went out to purchase my kids one which was a huge mistake because I realized after an hour that I should have gotten two!

I have two kids and within an hour they were fighting over whose turn it was! I was amazed how my kids were able to use their imagination and play with a toy that they were not used to playing with.

Let's face it, a lot of the toys that we buy for our kids are usually played with a specific play pattern but the Bilibo made them think! And not only did it make them think but they had tons of fun doing it!

My daughter immediately turned it over and she pretended it was a mountain which she climb and jumped off several times! and then my son had his turn and turned the Bilibo over and immediately climbed in and asked me to spin him around-- I did spin him around until my back started complaining :).

Nowadays, I still get surprised that the Bilibo keeps popping up everywhere and anywhere! One day i found it near the bathroom sink and found out that may daughter used it as her step stool! And another day i found the cars of my son neatly parked underneath the bilibo! :)

I guess somewhere along the way we have forgotten that nothing is more important than imagination to help with the development of a child's thought processes and creativity. By encouraging a child to imagine, they start being creative and thinking "out of the box" and with the bilibo they have fun doing it.

Welcome to Manila Moms!

Hi to all the Moms and Dads out there!

I created this blog... (well i am trying to anyway hahaha it is a bit harder than i thought it would be:) ) so that we can share things that would be helpful for us parents here in Manila.

I have two great kids and am always searching for new things for them to do, places for them to visit, and other things that I know will be beneficial to their development.

I will try to write about things, places, and other stuff that are kid-related so that we can keep each other informed about new trends that are going around in Manila.

If you do have anything that you would like to share please do feel free to post on this blog or email me :)

Thanks for visiting my blog and hope you learned something new for your kids :)