unsolicited opinions on random things
Remember a couple weeks ago when I wrote about my recent itch to “get my sew on”? Well, I went and did it – I ordered a new sewing machine. I got a good value model off the Costco website.
While I wait for my new toy to arrive, I’ve been looking up patterns. I found this great roundup of 15 Free PDF Sewing Patterns for Baby Stuff over at Babble.com. Don’t you love the one for the baby apron? Now that Little C is eating solids, she definitely needs one of these!
[image via Babble.com]
Now that the weather is turning, I’ve been looking into playgroups and drop-in activities in the ‘hood for those days when the cabin fever sets in.
I’ve compiled a handy “week at a glance” style listing of the free activities for babies in Leslieville. I know, the Edgewood Connection and the South Riverdale Parent/Child Centre aren’t “technically” in Leslieville, but they’re close enough.
You can download my PDF here. And please let me know if there’s anything I’ve missed that can be added. Hope to see you out and about at some of these activities!
I’m working on compiling a Leslieville (and possibly East Toronto) baby activity guide that I plan on sharing with you all via Stuff Avery Likes and my blog on the Leslieviller. I’m looking for content to add to the guide.
Please share any and all FREE programs you might know about for babies (and parents of babies). I’m trying to make it baby-specific, so if there’s an age limit to the activity, then I guess it should be for kids under 2.
Any tips you have are greatly appreciated, and like I said, I’ll be sharing the results with you soon.
Oh wow, this is hilarious. I was reading one of my favourite baby websites, Babble, and saw this post about a new children’s book, Go The F To Sleep. Don’t worry, the book comes with a disclaimer:
Go the F To Sleep is a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don’t always send a toddler sailing off to dreamland. Honest, profane, and affectionate, Adam Mansbach’s verses and Ricardo Cortés’ illustrations perfectly capture the familiar—and unspoken—tribulations of putting your little angel down for the night, and open up a conversation about parenting in the process. Beautiful, subversive, and pants-wettingly funny, Go the Fuck to Sleep is a perfect gift for parents new, old, or expectant. You probably should not read it to actual children, and if you do, he cannot be held legally responsible.
Sounds like a delightful read to me!
This past weekend, Jenny and I walked over to one of our favourite neighbourhood shops, Telegramme Prints, to pick out a cool poster for the tadpole’s room. We picked the Zoo print by Japanese artist Shinzi Katoh. That image up there is really small, and you can’t read the text (which is my favourite part). I’ll take a better picture of the print in the nursery once I frame and hang it this week.
Telegramme has a few different posters by Katoh – have a look here.
PS – I’m 35.5 weeks pregnant… the baby’s arrival is just a few weeks away! So excited.
Up until last week, I was pretty convinced that we didn’t need a specialty diaper bag for the tadpole. We have a few different messenger bags, so we thought we could just stash our gear in one of those.
That was, until we saw a diaper bag made by Skip*Hop when we were in Mortimer Snodgrass in Montreal on Saturday. This diaper bag was so cool – it straps right onto your stroller handles (and also has a detachable shoulder strap if you’d prefer to carry it), it has a million compartments that actually look useful, and the geometric pattern we chose looks good (important, of course). The price-point is decent at $65. I’ve seen diaper bags in shops for twice that much. So of course, we bought it, and also picked up the matching Pronto Changing Station kit.
I’m now checking out the Skip*Hop website, and will have to definitely restrain myself from going nuts buying more of their products. The NY-based company makes award-winning, well-designed, safe, and attractive gear for babies and tots, and they donate a portion of all proceeds to charity.
I’m sure there’s a shop (or two, or three) in Toronto that carries Skip*Hop, or you can order online through Mortimer Snodgrass.
Ian and I have liked the Ugly Dolls for a while, and have recently decided we just have to get one for the tadpole. They sell a bunch of them at Magic Pony on Queen West, so we’re gonna head out there sometime and pick one. But it’s so hard to decide – they’re all so wonderful. Which would you choose?
As Ian and I start to make the long list of stuff we need to get for the tadpole, I want to make sure we don’t forget to build a great library for the kid. Of course, we’ll be visiting the actual library often, but there are some books that are so good, I want to have our own copies.
On the must have list:
Goodnight Moon
Where the Wild Things Are
The Very Hungry Caterpillar (and anything and everything else by Eric Carle)
Eloise
This is New York (and the rest of the “This Is” series)
Moxie, The Daschund of Fallingwater
The Secret Garden (I’ll have to read that one to the kid for a while until they’re older)
What other books would you recommend for our kid?
The more I read about all-things-baby, and how to decorate a baby’s room, I have learned that having lots of different lighting is key. Table lighting, overhead lighting, night lights, etc. Right now all we have is a garish overhead light in the soon-to-be-baby’s-room, and that just won’t do. Imagine turning that on at 3am for a diaper change or feeding? No thank you.
On my baby wish list is this adorable rabbit lamp from Anthropologie. It looks cute on its own, and when you turn it on, it provides a soft glow. Adorable, no?
PS – would you consider a teapot as a pendant light? Crazy.
I promise to not go too baby-crazy here on the blog, but I had to share this. I don’t read too many baby websites or blogs (I find them a bit overwhelming), but I do love OhDeeDoh – a website made by the folks behind Apartment Therapy. It’s like a design blog for kids’ stuff, and it’s full of great ideas.
I saw this post on OhDeeDoh, featuring a baby’s nursery with bright blue walls and cool white tree decals (wall stickers). I loved the wall stickers so much, I wrote a comment asking where they got them. They came from “Designed Designer’s” Etsy shop, which is full of amazing decals for baby’s rooms. I love wall decals – they look so cool, and are so easy to put up and remove later.
I am most definitely going to get one of these for our baby’s room – now I just have to choose which one! I really like the birch trees with owls (pictured above), the woodland tree with owl, the birch trees with deer, and the safari playground. Aren’t they too cute? Visit the Designed Designer Etsy shop to see them all.