Liz Gumbinner, editor of coolmompicks.com and Maria Pilar Clark, creator of must-have product column Cosmotot for Chicago Baby magazine share their favorite products and services. Unless specifically stated otherwise, our Picks are our editorial opinions -- not paid placements. While there is no guarantee of placement and they won't be returned, Picks submission samples can be sent to Mommy Tracked at 35 Miller Avenue #140, Mill Valley, CA 94941.

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A Smith & Jones Production.


Guts and glory is a good way to describe the whole labor and delivery process, considering that moms come out of the 16-hour plus ordeal with serious aches, pains and plenty of stretch-marked war wounds while dads get all the pain-free glory - bestowing the time-honored family name upon the newborn babe.

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Pinggleader.


Technology and trendy are not always mutually exclusive, at least when it comes to most event management web sites that more often that not, offer bland cookie cutter invitation templates that take frumpy and try to slap on fabulous.

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Trashy is So Last Year.


Believe it or not, children's lunches create more than 3.5 billion pounds of garbage each year, which amounts to an astounding 18,760 pounds of trash annually from an average sized elementary school, and that's not even counting the extra goodies your kids sneak in when they think you're not looking.

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Mother's Day: Mission Accomplished.


With all the Mother's Day gift guides out there, we love the one at Cool Mom Picks. The picks are completely cool (by definition we suppose) and many of them support indie and mom-run businesses.

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I Want Candy.


Childhood summer vacations held the promise of en masse bike rides, sunny afternoons spent at the community pool, backyard Barbie parties and plenty of dusky evenings catching fireflies and crickets. And, who could forget the youthful metabolism that came along with those idyllic days, fueled all the more with sugary candy necklaces, fruity lollipop rings and sticky gummy bracelets.

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Shoo Flu.


April showers may bring May flowers, but those seemingly innocent little rains can also pack a stone-cold punch more suited for grizzled boxers than garden parties, not to mention more sniffles than you can shake a budding stick at.

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I Love My Calendar Girl.


Ok, so your fridge can't tell you that there's only one paltry swig of milk left in the jug or that the bag of mesclun salad you have in the crisper is on the fast track to compost. But with Cozi, it can tell you which family member will be AWOL next Tuesday so you make sure the dog gets let out,

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If I Had A Hammer, I'd Shatter The Glass Ceiling.


If Rosie the Riveter were around today, she'd probably be a high-powered woman of the workforce, balancing both work and play with equal amounts of skill, dexterity, the occasional happy hour, and of course, an elite social circle of of like-minded, motivated movers and shakers, like those found on The Glass Hammer.

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Look Who's in the Driver's Seat


Every mom gets that sinking feeling when she hears terrible coughing, sputtering and wheezing - not from the kids, but from the family car.

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Second Best Ain't So Bad.


Flip on any news channel, and our current economic pitfalls sound more like the convoluted plot to a dramatic daytime soap than the foundation of our country's livelihood. Traders are pulling out their hair as stocks plunge, Wall Street execs are seeking a serious bailout, the President is scrambling to turn the whole situation around, and as a result, the general population is tightening their purse strings.

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It Takes a Village.


Anyone who's ever participated in spearheading a group-gift organization effort knows that it's about as successful as herding cats. Not only does it require calling each individual person, selling them the gift-giving spiel, getting giver opinion and collecting contributions, but it also inevitably means keeping tabs on who still owes what

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Changing the Present.


Just because the season of mandatory giving is (finally!) over and just because our bankbooks are all tapped out, that doesn’t mean we should forget about the need to give beyond ourselves. In fact, what better resolution for the New Year than to make charitable giving, no matter how modest, a fact of life?

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Motherhood 2.0: Tech Tools of Tomorrow.


Let's face it. When it comes to the internet, our kids might as well be the Neil Armstrongs of cyberspace, navigating unchartered air waves of a new, digital world as we glaze over while remembering the simpler days of regular phone calls that didn't involve texting and video games that employed the use of one simple joystick.

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Dance With The Boogie Get Down.


Until the day that kids can make it through winter entirely runny-nose-free, I'm always on the lookout for natural alternatives to the contraband kids cold medicine I still have in the back of the bathroom cabinet. (Shh, don't tell the sanctimommies on me.)

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I'll Drink to That.


I don't know about you, but before my wee ones joined the family fold, I was pretty sure that "whine" was something reserved exclusively for the dinner table.

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