Savvy Auntie Coolest Toy Awards!

Child Lifestyle Expert and Premier SAVVY AUNTIE, Melanie Notkin Honors the Most Trendsetting, the Most Luxurious, and the Most Notable Toys for the 2009 Holiday Season 

New York, NY – October 29, 2009 – Melanie Notkin, the founder and CEO of the multi-platform lifestyle brand for kid-friendly women who are aunts by relation, aunts by choice, and godmothers, Savvy Auntie®, is sharing her favorite gifts for nephews and nieces available this holiday season by awarding 12 toys with the “Coolest” title, 6 toys with the “Lux” title (costing $100 and over), and 8 toys will receive honorable mentions. Notkin has identified and stepped to the forefront for the underrepresented 50% of American women whom she refers to as PANKs (Professional Aunts No Kids). This underserved demographic has strong, untapped, consumer power. In order to offer these child-loving women a resource to aid in their holiday gift shopping, Notkin has created the Savvy Auntie Coolest Toy Awards. In order to compile a list of the most coveted and exciting gifts for nieces and nephews, the first toy awards designed for Savvy Aunties, Notkin selected her lists based on the most coveted toys of the season that she found to also be the most innovative. “These toys certainly have that “cool” factor that aunts want when her nieces, nephews and children in her life open their gifts this holiday season,” says Notkin. “From modern twists on the classics to toys that entered the market just this year, we’ve identified the ones we think will encourage play, imagination, as well as learning and role-play. 

SAVVY AUNTIE’S TOY AWARDS

Coolest:

Crayola Beginnings: Color Me a Song, ages 2-4, $24.99 (Crayola)

Leapfrog Tag Junior Book Pal Reading System, ages 2-4 $39.99 (Leapfrog)

Matchbox Rocky The Robot Truck, ages 3-6, $59.99 (Mattel)

Playskool Kota and Pals Hatchlings – Triceratops, ages 3-8, $14,99 (Hasbro)

Harumika Super Style Accents, ages 6-14, $9.99 (Bandai)

Disney Princess and The Frog Tiana Doll ages 3-6, $10.99 (Mattel)

Liv Fashion Dolls, ages 3-8, $19.99 (Spin Master)

zhu zhu Pets Hamsters and assorted play sets, ages 4-8, $9.99-$21.99 (Cepia)

Dr. Seuss Super Stretchy ABCs Active Game, ages 3-6, $19.99 (I Can Do That Games)

Printies Pet Design Studio, ages 6-12, $19.99 (Techno Source)

Bakugan New Vestroia 7 in 1 Maxus Dragonoid, ages 5-12, $39.99 (Spin Master)

Transformers 2 Revenge of the Fallen Roleplay Helmet – Bumblebee, ages 5-9, $39.99 (Hasbro)

Lux:

Fisher-Price Handy Manny's Repair Shop, ages 3-5 $100, (Fisher-Price)

Corolle 17" Lila Interactive Baby Doll, ages 3-8, $100 (Corolle)

Corolle Navy and Pink Baby Doll Carriage Stroller, ages 3-8 (Corolle)

Steiff Selection – Lying Lamb, ages newborn -2, $135.00 (Steiff)

Barbie Pink World 3-Story Dream Townhouse, ages 3-8, $159.99 (Mattel)

LEGO Star Wars: The Clone Wars Venator-Class Republic Attack Cruiser, ages 9-14, $129.99

Honorable Mentions:

Leapfrog My Puppy Pal Scout, ages 6 months -3, $19.99 (Leapfrog)

Vtech Kidizoom Plus Pre-School 2.0MP Digital Camera, ages 3-9, $59.99 (Vtech)

Barbie Fashion Fever Fashionista Doll, ages 3-8, $11.99 (Mattel)

Moxie Girlz Doll, ages 4-8, $9.99 (MGA Entertainment)

Best Friends Club Dolls, ages 6-10, $39.99 (MGA Entertainment)

LEGO Bionicle Baramus, ages 9-16, $41.00, (LEGO)

Nerf N-Strike Raider Rapid Fire CS-35 Blaster with 35 Darts, ages 6-11, $34.99 (Hasbro)

Dell Inspiron Mini 10V, Nickelodeon Edition, ages 8-12, $329.00 (Dell)

Each winning toy will be listed on Savvy Auntie and will link to an online retailer.  Winners will also receive an award winning seal to post on their site, further attracting the PANK demographic with Notkin’s stamp of approval.  “Kids know that the cool aunt, godmother, or best friend always gives the coolest gifts during the holidays.  The Savvy Auntie Toy Awards support all the cool aunts out there,” says Notkin.

Notkin is a regular on FOX News and has appeared on NBC, CBS and Better TV as taste-maker for children’s trends. She’s been published in The New York Times and writes a blog about her experience as the founder of Savvy Auntie. Additionally, she is the Editor in Chief of SavvyAuntie.com and ensures all content is aunt-friendly and newsworthy to child development as well as the Savvy Auntie lifestyle.  SavvyAuntie.com’s integrity earned a Webby Award nomination in 2009 for Best Parenting/Family site.

For additional information, follow Melanie Notkin on Twitter @savvyauntie!  For interviews with Melanie Notkin as well as additional information on the Savvy Auntie Toy Awards and on the Savvy Auntie platform, please contact agcrisci@gmail.com.

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About Savvy Auntie

SavvyAuntie.com, Webby Award nominee, is the first resource and online community for aunts – Aunts by Relation (ABR), Aunts by Choice (ABC) and all fabulous kid-friendly women. The website offers advice and expertise developed just for aunts, along with activities and gift ideas for their nieces and nephews. Moreover, the Savvy Auntie community enables aunts to connect and share the best and most challenging parts of aunt-hood with their Savvy Auntie friends. Dubbed “the first parenting site for non-parents,” and earning praise from the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, More Magazine and others, Savvy Auntie empowers and engages aunts with whatever they need celebrate aunt-hood. The site can be found at www.SavvyAuntie.com

My Something Big

Dear Readers,

I'm feeling humbled. I launched SavvyAuntie.com exactly two weeks ago, and I have already been asked by reporters, bloggers and women entrepreneurs, for advice on how I did it.

Advice on how to start a company. From me. It's truly amazing that I have come this far.

People seem to love my 20 Tips for the New Entrepreneur post from a few weeks back, and believe that I inspire other entrepreneurs and small business owners. But they always want more. And so I dug a little deeper within myself and my life to find what may be an answer.

First of all, here's a little secret of how I have managed to turn my life around in just one year. I deeply, profoundly knew that something big was going to happen in my life. Former colleagues told me it would. Friends told me it would. Family always made me feel like I could do anything. Specifically, it was my mom who always made me feel incredibly special. So all of that support propelled me to believe in myself.

My mom passed away close to 20 years ago. We were very close - bosom buddies of sorts. While I did not know her as an adult (I was just 19 when she passed), I can look back on our life together and clearly see how much she believed in me.

I launched SavvyAuntie.com on July 9, 2008, 1:00PM EST. And while I had been looking forward to this date and time for a year, when it was finally arriving, I was petrified. I wasn't scared about the success of the site as much as I was the new turn my life would take. And perhaps scared is the wrong word. I felt alone at a threshold, not knowing what was on the other side.

I think about my mom often. Not every day. It's been two decades and as much as I loved - and love - my mother, I can't possibly think about her every day. But the morning I launched.... boy, did I miss her. I would imagine it's the way you miss your mother on your wedding day. Or on the day you give birth. When your life changes, you not only want your mom there to experience it with you, you want your mom there to hold on to you. Give you advice. Cheer you on. Tell you that you can do it!

At about 12:30PM on that day, I put up a Facebook status that read: "Someone please hold my hand." But there was no one there to hold my hand. Not that you all weren't "there." I know you were. SavvyAuntie was the most Tweeted word that day. Emails were pouring in. Flowers were arriving. There were IMs, txts and phone calls. You were there, dear Readers. You were there.

But my mom wasn't.

I thought of my mom in that same profound way the day my nephew was born. The first time I saw him, his dad was holding him against his chest. My mother's grandson was born. Her legacy continued. Parts of her DNA and her good soul were now present in this little boy.

I don't know if my brother knows this... but I made a vow to love this little boy for my mother as well as myself. I made a vow to give him the love of two women, Auntie and Bibi (as she would have been called). It wasn't fair that he would be cheated out of having her. And it certainly wasn't fair that she would never experience holding him.

On July 9, 2008, 1:00PM EST, I gave birth to my first "baby." I don't mean to compare this website to a real, human, miracle of a baby. But still. For me. I deeply, profoundly, knew that my 'something big' had just happened.

My mom wasn't there. But it was her belief in me and love for me that gave me the courage to start this company in the first place.

No wonder I felt a little tug at my hand.

XOXO,
Auntie Melanie

This is the Plan.

Dear Readers,

I got a call one Sunday morning at about 8AM. "We're in labor! We're on our way to the hospital!"

So I started planning. Not that I didn't have 9 months to plan. Not that I didn't shower my SIL with a maternity something or other (Ummm, do you have a bag that doesn't say "I Just Bought Something at a Maternity Store" on it? This is awkward. I have to walk around with this bag. I am not pregnant. Ummm hello?), and debate names with the parents-to-be (I did have opinions for better or worse, and I love the name they chose), and stared in awe at the sonogram pics (there's my little lima bean!)

But nothing had truly prepared me.

When you nominate yourself for the SavvyAuntie.com Beta program, you are encouraged to give us 250 characters as to why you are a Savvy Auntie. One 20-something New York City Auntie wrote:

"People always tell mothers that having children will change their lives but nobody tells the aunts that their lives will change too. I would do ANYTHING for my 3 nephews and niece. I love them more than I thought I could love anything or anyone."

Nothing prepared me for walking into the hospital room and seeing my brother, whom I have always loved, but now, at this moment, loved more deeply that I could have imagined, as he held his baby boy. A teeny tiny little boy - who all of a sudden looked exactly like my dear brother - would I have know him at one-hour. I cast my eyes on my baby nephew, my first. My generous SIL let me hold him, actually encouraged me to hold him, just a few minutes later. My emotions were so deep. Our mother had passed away a number of years before, and so I held him for her too. Grandmother and Aunt holding baby boy. "Nobody tells the aunts that their lives will change too." But my life had changed.

From that moment on, I become "Auntie Melanie." I wanted my nephew to know that I was not just a grown-up playmate who came to visit and play. I was his family. I was someone he could always depend on. Someone who would always be there for him. Someone who loved him without ever needing anything from him in return.

Poor kid. I didn't let it go. At too young an age, I explained to him that I was his daddy's sister; I was his family. I tried to make him repeat it, failing every time. And then one day, one random fall day, he turned to me at just 2 years and exclaimed, as if I didn't know myself: "Auntie Melanie! We're family!" That breakthrough moment was followed by a big hug. And the love we have shared from that moment on has been the greatest love of all (along with the love of his sisters.)

That night, I went home and wrote a little book called: "Auntie and Me - We are Family." It will be published one day soon. In the meantime, I was still a beauty executive: editor of a glossy magazine and running internet and intranet sites. I was too busy doing the corporate thing to focus on the children's book.

But when I left the corporate life in the winter of 2006, I refocused on the book. And then I saw a need for more than just a book (plus my potential agent said I needed a 'platform' - I needed to be 'somebody' - in order to get the book published) and I thought about an online community for Aunts. And then I did the research (to come in a later post) and said: "Whoa! I'm not the only one!"

That was June 2007. And here we are, as I am about to give birth to SavvyAuntie.com, and I am now an Auntie many times over - not just to my sibling's kids, but to everyone in my community who knows me as Auntie Melanie. And I am an entrepreneur.

Nothing prepares you to be an Auntie. I'm not sure there isn't much to prepare you to be an entrepreneur. But everything in my life has prepared me for this moment; right here and right now. Everything has prepared me to launch an online community in honor of my nephew and nieces and in celebration of everyone else's. This, right here, right now, is the proudest and happiest time of my life. And I am proud and so very happy, to have you, dear Readers, right here to experience it along with me.

At least that's the plan.

XOXO,
Auntie Melanie

Authentic Auntie. Authentic CEO.

Dear Readers,

I must apologize.

Yes, it's just my 4th, well actually my 5th, blog posting, and I am already apologizing. You see, dear Readers, I had to take down my 4th blog post entitled: A Picture is Worth...," by request of my siblings. I had included an image of a drawing that my niece had made for me, where I am wearing the most beautiful rainbow dress, and spoke about how that drawing means the world to me. But my siblings thought that by posting it, even without mentioning her name, it invaded her privacy. And so I respected their wishes and removed it.

Being an Auntie is the best job in the world. We fall in love with our nieces and nephews from the moment we see them for the first time. We want to give them the earth, moon and stars. We want to celebrate them. From the moment they are born, our life is bigger than ever we imagined it to be.

When I started my company - SavvyAuntie.com - it was an organic idea that came to me when I realized that there were no resources available for the modern, cosmopolitan aunt. I found it frustrating that I didn't know the words or tunes to basic kiddie songs. I learned about Dora the Explorer from my nieces when they were aged two. Bob the Builder? Different from Bob Vila, in case you were wondering. Ming Ming? Turns out she's a beloved Nickelodeon WonderPets character, not a Chinese dynasty.

I had changed diapers, but never at this rate. I had fed bottles, but never to one-day-old infants. I had given hugs and kisses, but never with all my heart. Now my life was filled with books, songs, games, toys, characters, movies, boo boos, tears, laughter, surprises, rashes, baths, disappointments, bigger issues I wont get into here, and love. Real, true, never-before-felt-anything-like-this love.

And so I set out to create a community online for Aunties like me. First it started out as a guide on how to be a Savvy Auntie to nieces and nephews of all ages. After all - what could be more wonderful than a community for Aunties learning about how to care for the kids in their lives, as well as a place to celebrate and love (and let's admit it, show off) their nieces and nephews? It would be a community full of joy and devotion. Along with Gift ideas, Activities and Expertise.

Naturally, within days of dreaming up the idea for SavvyAuntie.com, I began talking to Aunts. Lots of Aunts. First time Aunts. Aunts of adult kids. Aunties by choice (friends with mom/dad). Aunts of one. Aunts of twenty. Aunts next door. Aunts 5000 miles away. Aunts named Auntie, Mimi, Shishi, Gigi, or just her first name. Aunts who don't think they are good Aunts. Aunts who think they are uber Aunts. Guilty Aunts. Spoiling Aunts. Great Aunts. Cool Aunts. Dealing-with-the-parents'-divorce Aunts. Too-ill-to-play Aunts. Godmothers. Mommy Aunties. Married Aunties. Single Aunties. And Aunts more or less like me.

And yet, with all these differences, there was so much we all had in common. Being an Auntie, the truth is, is not just about the good stuff. It's not always giggles and swim goggles and Googling gift ideas. We all have to work within the rules of the family. "She wouldn't let me touch the baby for months!" cried one desperate Auntie. "They expect me to babysit all the time - but I want to go to a party and meet someone," exclaimed a single Auntie. "I never do the right thing. It's like they lost respect for my intelligence once they had kids because I don't have kids yet," said one Auntie. "They never visit me. I always have to travel to see them, which is getting expensive. It's like they hold the kids hostage," complained another Auntie.

Being an Auntie is about being part of a family or, if an Auntie by Choice, someone else's family. And I think we can all relate to the fact that "family" is not always easy. For that reason, SavvyAuntie.com will launch with a "Dear Savvy Auntie" column with actual psychologists, coaches and therapists to answer Aunties' questions and help Aunties cope. There are also Forums and Groups where Aunties can connect, support and empower each other. And each Auntie can start her own Blog - where she is free to write about any aspect of Aunt-hood she likes. (As long as it wont get her in trouble with her siblings, I suspect.)

I have been asked by my brother and SIL not to talk about the little ones in my family in this Blog or on SavvyAuntie.com. At first, I thought it put me in a bit of a predicament, understanding that as Founder and CEO of SavvyAuntie.com, I should be the leader and help all Aunties celebrate their special relationships with their nieces and nephews - sometimes by sharing my relationship with my own, even in generic terms. Now, after taking a day or two to think about it, I realize that the best leader I can be is to be an authentic one.

While I love my nieces and nephew to the nth degree, Aunt-hood has plenty of challenges. Just like motherhood comes with it's own. Just like marriage comes with it's own. Just like singlehood comes with its own. Just like family comes with it's own. It's not always "Hokey Pokey." But it's real. And that, my dear Readers, both as a CEO and as an Auntie, is all I can be.

XOXO,
Auntie Melanie

PS - Aunties needing to cope - SavvyAuntie.com is launching soon. Sign up for the Beta Test so we can get your questions - and answers - in first!