I have a new favourite outfit of all time for little girls. (Thank you, Mom.)
Irene got this ensemble as a gift for her baptism last weekend and it is exactly what I’ve been wanting. A corduroy jumper that she can pair with pretty shirts to look cute and girly without being overly dressy. She can romp around in this with best of them and it should stand up to a great deal of wear. And brown and pink? With a polk-a-dot belt? C’mon, too cute. Continue reading 'Snug As A Bug in a Brown Corduroy Jumper!'»
There are a lot of books being marketed to young children out there. Many are based on popular kids shows — forget about these. Many are classic stories we remember from our own childhood — these are often nice. And then there are the fairy tales — be careful with these. Too often a publisher will put out a shoddy rendition of a fairy tale figuring that the story will sell itself. The abridged story will be poorly constructed and the illustrations barely passable. There is no joy in these stories.
Continue reading 'Byron Barton’s “The Three Bears” Best Toddler Book Ever'»
Colum loves the idea of a board game, but Colum is also a three-year-old boy. Sitting down to a game of Snakes and Ladders, then, is an exercise is slowly mounting frustration for all involved. Either that or a random game of tossing dice and moving little pieces around willy-nilly until Irene comes over and tries to eat one. He just doesn’t have the patience for any sort of prolonged roll-and-move, turn-taking game. So when he unwrapped this
Pengoloo game at Grandma and Grandpa’s on Christmas Eve, I was skeptical. Great. Another game that I don’t have time to play during the day that will infuriate his sister and ultimately end up in whining and floor-rolling.
Continue reading 'Perfect For Preschoolers: Pengoloo'»
A week and a half ago I went out and bought a slow cooker. (It was a
Versaware by Crock-Pot for $39.99 at Kitchen Stuff Plus, to be exact.) I wondered at first whether this review would be a good fit for my blog since I don’t usually write on cooking. Is a slow cooker a parenting tool? But then I realized that an inordinate amount of my time and energy is spent thinking about, prepping for, and actually feeding my children. Anything that can help with that is definitely on topic.
I’m not entirely sure how I finally decided that I needed a slow cooker, but I suddenly could wait no longer. Continue reading 'My New Crock-Pot Rocks'»
Update, Jan. 16, 2010: The company has contacted me and followed through on their delivery. It seems there was a personnel change that caused the service rift. The business is up and running again.
Update, Jan. 9, 2010: This company has failed to delivery the pacifiers they donated to a charity raffle I held and seems to have gone AWOL — not responding to emails, not tweeting, etc. Please refrain from ordering anything until I can verify they are still in business.
I must admit that I used to be a little biased against pacifiers. It’s probably because my parents didn’t use them for any of us four at all and I didn’t see the need. I mean why give your baby something you need to keep buying and then have to deal with taking it away when they get older. Insofar as the whole soother debate is framed around thumb sucking vs. soother, I always sided with the thumb sucking. It’s free, it’s easy, it’s guaranteed self-soothing and, hey, I used to be a thumb sucker. Besides, soothers look dumb. Continue reading 'Personalized Pacifiers, Pretty Peace Please'»
DAILY SNACK
I got this hat for $2 at the newly opened used kids’ clothes shop in the Junction.
Little Bird Fly 2955 Dundas Street West
Booyah!
Product Review
Last week, L’il I moved from our bedroom into Young C’s. She’s mostly sleeping throught the night now, so I figured it was time. I’m not sure what it is about girls, but I suddenly found myself looking at the room. What can I do to brighten this up, I thought? The jungle-themed hooks and lightswitch plate that Young C’s grandparents gave him were nice. And the sunny yellow wall colour works. The “Ready for Reading” posters we picked up at the library are okay, I guess. And both kids really love the dinosaur mobile. But isn’t there something I could do that would say “girl” without really saying “girl”? Something that would make it feel like it wasn’t just a boy’s room? Continue reading 'Ikea Wall Stickers Peel Off'»
Product Review
I’m a few weeks into the not-so-solid feeding phase and still trying to catch my rhythm. The eternal and unsolvable problem when it comes to infant care is that you need to do things right away if you ever want to keep on top of it all. But infants are such babies and they really have no patience at all. So more often than not I finish spooning the pureed goop from bowl to baby and barely have time to walk the bowl to the dishwasher before L’il I is screeching and kicking and looking for an escape hatch. And Young C will usually pick this time to yell “Poo!” and starting running around in circles. I yank L’il I out of her highchair, toss her bib on the counter, kick the stepstool over to the toilet and chant “Run, run, run!” I’ll wind up wiping her face in the bathroom and then putting her down for a nap and trying to sneak in a little laptop-time while C (hopefully) amuses himself.
The next meal-time, then, starts off with a lot of cursing under my breath while I try to wipe/scrape dried up baby goop off all surfaces. That is why this was the best bib I ever owned:
Continue reading 'The Best Bib I Don’t Have Anymore'»
Every once in a while you find something that is enjoyable for both you and your children and good for them, too. And if you can actually enjoy it in your own home without having to shell out for “an educational program that’s fun for the whole family,” then all the better, right? Imagine if said activity could also be done with the kids tucked into their beds and then send them sweetly off into the night. Perfect.
Continue reading 'A.A. Milne Verses Foster A Love of Words'»
An essential and integral part of parenting, as far as I can tell, is running around in circles trying to find all the gear. Socks, sweaters, mitts, and hats. There’s winter hats and ball caps and sun hats. There’s boys’ hats and girls’ hats, baby bonnets and hats with dinosaurs on them. I know I’ve got hats coming out the wazoo. I still wasn’t quite satisfied with the little tan baseball cap and/or denim sun hat I have for L’il I, though. I wanted a one-hat-fits-all for the summer and, yes, I wanted something a little more girly. (I know. What’s happening to me?) So when I ran around the apartment for twenty minutes last week on the way out to the park and found NO hats, I clearly
needed to buy a new one. Right?
Continue reading 'Locally-Made Baby Sun Hat'»
Gear Reviewed, Miscellaneous Musings, Reviews
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baby clothes, baby hats, baby sun hats, children's clothes, fair trade, hats, Junction, locally-made, Snug As A Bug, sun hats
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