Welcome
Welcome to where the parenting "experts" at AxB tell you all about the best baby/toddler/kids products that we've encountered.Why this site and not, say, any of the literally (note: maybe not literally) millions out there?
Well, for those of you living the "millennial urban lifestyle," you'll find that most books assume you are moving out into the suburbs, living in a house full of playrooms, mudrooms, guest rooms, and miles of storage and that you take your minivan to go everywhere (largely the mall and the Cheesecake Factory, we presume). That's not the lifestyle we lead. We live in the inner core of the Boston area in a "huge" 3 bedroom apartment just north of 1300 sq. ft. We both work. We don't have a car and have taken our daughter on transit since she was 2 weeks old, including her daily trip to daycare. Since then we've had another baby (a son), thus becoming a multi-kid household.So if it doesn't fold, store easily, or look good out all the time, it's not something we own. If it's going on and off the bus or into a Zipcar, it better be lightweight.
Is this all luxury stuff?
So, honestly, we do alright. Some of the stuff we own isn't the cheapest, but it's all very value-conscious. Our high-chair recommendation, not cheap... our stroller though, 1/3 the price of a City Mini (and 60% of the weight!).Is anyone paying your for this? Sending you free stuff?
Nope (or at least, not yet). This is all stuff we've tried and liked and we really just want to help our friends, family, and others that we know figure out how to do the baby thing in a dense, urban environment. If this site is ever popular enough that someone wants to send us some free samples, well, then we'll look up those FTC guidelines and post disclaimers accordingly.That said, if you DO click any of the Amazon links on this site, we do get a small affiliate kickback. It's nice, but it's not the reason for the site (indeed, we really just wanted convenient Amazon links and we think Amazon discontinued "public lists").
What's with the math stuff up in the logo there? Do I need to know math?
We're nerds, but you don't have to be. We do all the research, the optimizing, the reading of reviews elsewhere, and keep trying new things until we get it perfect. So yeah, we need the math stuff, but that means you don't. That said, we're nerds, we like people who like math, so that's cool too.
In case you were wondering what the site name is about (you surely weren't), long ago we tried to come up with a way to refer to our household in the collective since we don't share a last name. We were attracted to something that used some form of our last names (which as you can see from the posts begin with an "A" and a "B"), was easy to pronounce/spell, and ideally had a nice little in-joke in there. From that, we came up with AxB (pronounced "A cross B") which is a form of multiplication used in linear algebra, and more importantly, in economics and physics (see: Wikipedia on the Cross Product if you're really interested).
The particularly cool thing about this function is that the result is a unique blend of the two initial inputs in a way that metaphorically (if NOT AT ALL LITERALLY) evokes the blend of DNA that makes a child.
Also, we had a reader point out we're doing PRODUCT reviews, which makes our readers more clever than we are!
