I Heart Sundays

Our grass desperately needs cutting. The artemesia is overgrown and covering much of the front walk. We have not put away summer clothes and shoes. But apparently we don't give a damn because we spent yesterday hiking, collecting (fern leaves, acorns), and, later, buying sweet potatoes, homemade jam and weird gourds at a farm stand. What a lovely day.

warm and cozi

It is the sign of a deeply disorganized home to unearth a bottle of Pol Roger beneath the hill of laundry that's been perched on top of the clothes dryer, well, for quite some time evidently. I don't know what stresses me more, that a perfectly good bottle of bubbly has been shaken and heated to oblivion or that I have no recollection of buying or receiving it, thus, the laundry must have been there a very long time indeed.

So the topic of yesterday's Daily Candy was most welcome. Cozi. It's a new freebie web tool from Microsoft that whispered all the right things in my ear: centralized contact info, a family calendar (no more "what Doctor's appointment?") and a communal shopping list that everyone can add to so I'm not the only one to blame for 8 jars of dill pickles in the pantry but no toilet paper. All wonderful things that will save me time, make me organized and, if I'm lucky, help us get to the bottom of the laundry pile faster. Naturally I signed up on the spot. Step one is to add in family members and their coordinates. I input my husband and 2 minutes later got this reply: "why r u spamming me?" Ah, young love. Next it's Stella and Henry's turn to be cozi'd. About 20 minutes later and I've managed to assign colours to each family member, schedule my hair appointment, Stella's twice weekly Karate class and upload all 800 photos so all my unflattering, not fit to print photos can scroll before me every 5.2 seconds. Fantastic. (reminder to self: summer sun highlights are not the same as real highlights and generally start to look crappy at the same time my summer "freckles" revealed themselves to be, horror, age spots.)

So we're cozi'd. I'm not sure it's going to live up to its promise. Time will tell friends, time will tell.

A stack of these tiny chairs were found in the storage room of a primary school that was relocating after decades in the same spot on the lakeshore. I guess someone years ago decided wood chairs weren't comfortable so they were all replaced with that moulded plastic stuff. Imagine. But goody for me. I bought them all. I painted this one for my little niece, Maya, and delivered it last week to her new house. My sister bought this sweet but unloved house and moved in a week ago. Against the carpet removal, floor refinishing, replacing trim and doors chaos inside, I love that my sister found a few minutes to make the pretty urn you see peeking out of the corner. I know the neighbours must love her for that.

I do have a few chairs not yet spoken for, so if you're interested in a cutey little chair for your cutie, contact me.

cozy cozy cozy

Two weeks ago I was absolutely not ready to say good-bye to summer. Linen skirts, soft t-shirts, bare feet on warm patio stones. Can't. Let. Go. But then today came along and changed my mind. That fall wind that turns blue sky grey then blue again - all within the hour. Love it. It was the perfect day to try out my brand spankin' new JJ Cole stroller cozy. I bought the original Snuggle Me. It's less streamlined and less fashionable than the new Urban model, which looks and feels like a trekking in Nepal-type sleeping bag, but I like the faux sheepskin lining. And so, evidently, does Henry. He curled right into it and fell asleep - something he rarely does on walks. He looked so cozy and yummy, the way sleeping babies do, that I kept right on walking and walking and walking. I love fall.

what we bought

This is our painting. It's not, by the way, askew. I am.

As you can see, it's gold foil, textured and scrunchy in places, with photos of monkeys, and nice pink drippy splotchy paint circles here and there. It's covered in a thick coating of resin which makes it really glossy and luminous. We call it "Monkeys with Pink Circles" Isn't that clever? We also call it October's mortgage (oh well).

It's quite large - about 4-feet tall and 2 feet across - so it certainly says "hey you! over here! look at me!" just the way real monkeys would. Stella's convinced they're people. And even though I know people just don't have tails, if you look at them closely and long enough you might just believe that they could.

Steven Nederveen is the artist. You can see his other stuff here. I might need to have the gold fish on white instead of groceries...

in my dojo

Oh dear. We're beginning to think karate lessons were a bit premature.

Make your own (virtual) tape here
http://www.says-it.com/cassette/index.php
So silly. But fun. And free.

Another Fantastic Rationalization

We went out for pizza and came home with our first real piece of art. I feel so grown up. It was a completely spontaneous purchase made at the excellent Queen West Art Crawl today. And while walking to the bank machine, I had an anxiety attack thinking about the much-needed bathroom reno I was probably now forsaking this year, but those scandalous Elastoplast-coloured tiles will have to wait because this quirky, colourful, amazing painting makes the whole house look better. I love it.

With the three-year old hanging out with Grandma for the night, we fixed a pitcher of gin and tonic and set to reconfiguring the living/dining room to find a suitable spot for our big purchase. Lamps, tables and mirrors were relocated, a forgotten armchair relegated to the basement resurrected, my grandparents' antique sideboard (it goes with nothing but I cannot part with it) moved and moved again. Sure, the baby's swing and playpen and Stella's craft table and armchair are now stacked in the kitchen (and they're not coming back) but we eventually found the perfect spot and hung it.

We spent the next two hours admiring it from different vantage points: "Go out in the hallway and then come in from the dining room so you can see it with fresh eyes" "Now sit on the bench. Isn't it cool?" "I want to have people over." And so on. We were practically experiencing Stendahl syndrome by the end of the night.

It's funny. I can buy a $30 pillow at HomeSense and have total buyer's remorse when I get home, but I'm really pleased about this thing that we certainly cannot afford, hadn't budgeted or planned for or even considered, that we can't sit on or store things in, that doesn't spin or light up or otherwise amuse young children. It's the first non-functional object we've bought since we married five years ago. And I'm so glad we did.

A Work In Progress

I bought a stack of old window panes on closing day at the market last year with the intention of doing all sorts of interesting things with them over the winter. Putting pieces of thrifted and vintage fabric or old illustrations behind the glass or maybe painting them. I'm finally getting around to doing something with them. I think this one is going to be a headboard. I was planning to make it for Stella's room, but these fabrics, which I love--they're so soft and faded--won't work, so this will be added to the store when it's finished. Somewhere, somewhere, I have a bowl of lovely old painted metal hooks that I'd like to put along the bottom to make this functional and pretty. My two favourite things.

Shopping at WalMart is like using a public washroom. Go only if you have to. Take a deep breath. Take care of business. Get out as quick as you can. It's a passionless shopping experience. You go for the lowest price on the planet for a 64-load jug of Tide and that's about it. No one goes to WalMart for retail therapy. I'm not picking on WM specifically. I feel the same way about most chain stores: Feh.

So I'm kind of saddened by the news that Robeez was bought by Stride-Rite. I mean I wouldn't turn down $30 million bucks either, but still. I loved the whole story. From the first pair being fashioned from a cast-off handbag (how "mom" is that?) to total global sales domination fifteen years later, while maintaining manufacturing in BC and, by all accounts, running a very groovy family-friendly company that consistently ranked in Canada's Top Places to Work lists.

Well, it'll be interesting to see what she does with that $30 million. That's a lot of seed money.

Canadian Family Mag - super deal

I really like this magazine. Yuki Hayashi ,one of the editors, is super-cool, super-stylish with a good eye for new gear. It's published in Toronto, so you can always find the stuff they've featured. And, would you believe, you can get a year's subscription for just $8? That's less than a Starbucks with a mango biscotti. Thanks to SavvyMom for the scoop.

Fairies, ballerinas and princesses don't hold much truck with the kid. We chalked up last year's occasionally alarming gender-related query ("mommy, am I a boy or am I a girl?") to the off-kilter boy/girl ratio at her nursery school.

But when she attended a princess dress-up party a few months ago and, faced with a closet full of faux satin gowns, plastic pumps and boa-trimmed evening coats, opted to wear a Spiderman costume with full body padding and a face mask for the parents' fashion show, well,
a few eyebrows were raised among the preschool set. Who knew four year olds could be so judgmental?

Her stereotypes-be-damned attitude and cool willingness to spend the party friendless
for the sake of Spidey was impressive. What any of this has to do with crochet booties is anyone's guess, but here they are. And aren't they, like, the cutest thing ever? I'll be adding them to my site next week. They're made to order and made by hand and I wish it would get cooler so Henry could wear them outside.

Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner

Child In Corner To Exact Revenge As Soon As He Gets Out

My husband sent me this very funny, very apropos story after a particularly "challenging" day with 3-year old Stella. A day where I asked my daughter - not rhetorically - "Are you possessed by a demon?"

I'll spare you the details. I'm sure (?!) her behaviour is in within the normal range of insane.

Sweet (Pirate) Dreams

My favourite thing to do in Venice is wander. With nothing more than a general sense of how to get back to the hotel (always the Hotel Ala if you're interested) and no agenda, besides penning postcards over a cappucino in Peggy Guggenheim's garden and lunch at Ai Sportivi, I've always stumbled on the nicest surprises.

I'm often asked how and where I find products for honeybunch. I take the Venice approach and wind up in the most interesting places. I madly dog-ear magazine articles, clip newspaper articles on interesting people and things. I keep a notebook and camera with me always. And when my heart beats a little bit faster I know I've found something special (hand-knit cowboy boots for babies. Seriously. I'll have them in two weeks).

And so I don't exactly recall how I came across Ann Wood's ethereal papier mache ships. But they made me swoon. Don't they make you want to sail for Neverland? I'm so glad there are people like Ann Wood making beautiful things that serve no purpose other than to tickle the imagination and delight the eye.

beep, beep

That's the sound of my horn. And I'm tooting it. It's not really shameless self-promotion. I'm just chuffed when the big guys notice my little business.
August is off to a good start.

First, the September issue of Chatelaine magazine - that's my Stella on page 126! It's the photo I had made into a custom canvas, as a surprise but then I was so excited I couldn't wait and I showed my husband the proof before the painting was ready. This image of Stella Bella has now appeared in The National Post and on sweetmama.ca. She's so blase about her celebrity.

Then Urban Baby Runway , my morning coffee and blog habit, ran a little thing on Friday about my cute birdie mobiles. Hurray! The interesting thing, before anyone thinks I'm making a fortune from free publicity, is that editorial coverage rarely results in sales. So the reason for my giddiness, even though I write for a magazine and you'd think I'd be over it, is that it's still exciting to be the subject.

My Other Car is A Cadillac

Maybe it's different outside the city, but us shallow, terribly shallow, Toronto mamas judge each other on our taste in two things: strollers and diaper bags. We size each other up at the moms-on-maternity-leave gathering places: the park, the library, Starbucks. Could I be friends with her? Do we have anything in common? Is that a Petunia Picklebottom she's carrying? It could be vestigal competitiveness from pre-baby days. We've replaced those formerly coveted items, purses and pretty shoes, with more practical but equally important accessories. Sure it's snobbery at its junior high worst, but I could not befriend a woman whose taste in diaper bags leans to the minty green with Winnie The Pooh appliques.

Now that I'm on my second baby and have had to replace much of the gear that turned out to be a mistake with baby one, I can spot a new mom a mile away. She's the one lugging a bulging Fleurville Mothership on an hour's trip to Loblaws. It's like wearing an Oscar gown to a Saturday matinee. It's simply not done. She hasn't learned that you need more than one diaper bag. Oh yes, you skeptical husbands, I assure you it's true. The Mothership is the weekend tote of the diaper bag genus. For jaunts to the grocery store a sleek Diapees and Wipees will suffice. And for lunch with your non-mommy office friends nothing less than one of Mia Bossi's stunning bags will do. They're gorgeous, they're grown-up, and when you doff your Monday-Friday Lululemon uniform, they look good with real clothes. Yes, yes, yes I know they're $400. But there's a way around that, other than amortizing the cost over the number of outings. Mia's bags come with a removable insert so once your bottle-toting days are over, swap out the diaper bag lining for a laptop or briefcase insert. Genius. I. Must. Have. This. Bag. Oh Steve...

Ode to Martha Stewart Kids

I'm not exaggerating: I would not have a business if it weren't for Martha Stewart. Pregnant, I pored over every single page of every MS Baby issue in 2002. Those ice-cream colours. That buttery photography. Those bebes. Pure sweetness. The fall issue (I still see the cover: grey-blue background, dark-haired cherub wearing a white cotton-eared hat. Sigh.) featured a menagerie of ceramic flower planters from the 1950s- lambs, scottie dogs, puppies - holding Q-tips, cotton balls, a tiny hair brush. Darling.

Inspired, at last! I had a theme! Decorating ennui gone (everything I loved was too expensive. everything else was hideous) I set off to kit-out baby's room with authentic vintage finds. First stop Aberfoyle. And would you believe within five minutes I'm staring at a table full of the very planters featured in MS Baby? The Gods were with me that day people, the Gods were with me. I bought every one for $5 a pop. Next I found a hand-stitched teddy bear wearing a pork-pie hat, spectacles and leather spats. Spats! $10. A child's lamp from the 1950s with a pom-pom-trimmed shade was $15. For $3 a piece I picked up sheets of paper dolls from the 1940s and framed them simply in painted wood frames. The room was simple, peaceful and adorable. Neither of us tired of it. The whole thing cost less than $500, including the crib.

I loved that magazine and now it's gone. I'll miss it.

Mr. Scottie, above, lives on today in Henry's room.

ModernMom?

It's 2 am, which is scandalously late for the owner of a four-month old baby to be online and, gasp, working. And I've had guests over tonight. And a glass or two of Shiraz. So I should be sleeping right now. But I can't until I figure out why this silly article "How to Get a Man to Do Housework" on www.modernmom.com has my nursing bra in a twist.

My husband does not do housework. Period. There is no pretense to housework. He feels no more obligation to clean the house than he does to, say, speak Latvian. There is no apology. There is no guilt, no guile. "Me? Speak Latvian?," he'll ask quizzically. You can understand why this type of article would be of no interest to me. But, given the late hour, the Shiraz and the pre-and post-guest tidy up, I was intrigued by the promise. And the article is written by a guy so it's bound to offer a privileged glimpse into the complex reasons why a man does not want to mop and how a loving but not issue-free wife could use these insights to help him want to mop better and more frequently.

So yeah I read it. And no surprise the writer, Marty Friedman, is a bit of knucklehead: "Most men will take on a few additional chores around the house if they are respectfully asked and not second-guessed and criticized for what they do. They are even more likely to do household chores if they can choose what they do, and do it without being monitored and criticized." But I expected Marty to say something knuckleheady that. The nagging wife defense predates Archie Bunker; this is not a new strategy. It's actually pretty predictable. And in my view a red herring. Men, or at least my man, don't do housework because they don't want to. They'd rather read The Atlantic or Esquire or download music or zone out in front of Rockstar SuperNova. And who the hell wouldn't?

At our house it's like that trust-building game where a person falls backwards, eyes closed, certain in the knowledge someone will catch them. The non-houseworking man knows this deeply and has cleverly applied the principle to housework. He knows that someone will always pick up the socks, load/unload the dishwasher, find the source of the bad smell in the fridge, etc. So why are we still blaming wives? I'm not going all Naomi Wolfe or Norma Jean here. I'm just looking for a little honesty. I'd rather hear "Uh I don't feel like doing (insert chore) because I'd rather (insert leisure activity)" than be led to believe it's perversely my fault he doesn't want to do anything around the house. I think Marty needs to take a closer look at his motivation, don't you?

For more insightful and inspiring stories about love and marriage also read "Put some sizzle back into your Friday nights" and "A new idea to communicate better with your guy". Sheesh. Maybe the gals at www.modernmom.com need to rethink the first half of their name. OK, now I can sleep.

The Stroller Chronicles

I bought my first Maclaren, a bright red Triumph, three years ago at Maklem's in Toronto. It cost about $269 and I thought that was an outrage for an umbrella stroller. But my stylish downtown friend Jenn had one and so I had to have one too. It was the least I could do, this act of stroller solidarity, since I steered her very, very wrong a few months earlier when I recommended she buy the same Peg Perego Atlantico I had. But I'll come back to that lumbering beast in a moment. The Maclaren was meant to be my urban buggy. Good for navigating the crowded sidewalks of Bloor West Village. Something that wouldn't take up the entire trunk, leaving no room for groceries or a jug of washer fluid (Peg I'm talking about you).

The Triumph has its shortcomings: an inadequate sun/rain canopy, two seat positions - ramrod and supine- and an absurdly difficult closing mechanism that required me to literally take off my shoe and wedge my toe, painfully, under the thingamajig to fold the stroller. This, as you can imagine, was most inconvenient in a snowstorm.

I never loved the Triumph and didn't treat it very well. But after a three year tour of duty, it's still called into occasional service. Which is more than can be said for the $400 Peg. So after a discouraging couple of months researching and test-driving other brands (including the much touted Bugaboo - I don't get the appeal, frankly) I bought a Maclaren for the new guy. This time the upgraded Techno. It costs about $469 if you're forced to buy it in Canada. We were able to take advantage of a business trip to San Francisco and ordered it online from www.tinyride.com. I think I paid $225 and free shipping. A very satisfying experience for me, though my husband wasn't pleased having to escort a five-foot tall box home.

The Techno is a sleek ride. Handles well, turns easy, and it will let you steer it with one hand long enough to drink your Tim Hortons. A much more generous sun canopy with a peekaboo window on top is a big improvement over the Triumph. And I like the colours.

The downsides:
It tips backward with alarming ease, especially with a newborn in the reclined position
It folds up more easily (I can keep my shoe on, thankfully) but it doesn't fold flat and lock into place all that well.
The shopping basket below is impossible to access. So you're tempted to hang your Loblaws bags on the handles. Don't. See point #1.

I give the Techno one enthusiastic thumb up. I'm a tough customer.

gimme a buck for shrek's legs

It was the annual neighbourhood tag sale on the weekend so naturally I took the opportunity to hide some kid junk among the Nick Hornby novels and five-year old travel guides; purple ponies with irrevocably matted manes, a palm-sized carriage carrying a frizzled Cinderella, a barbie from Italy in full bridal regalia. And so on. While we made $100 (most of which was spent by day's end on Dairy Queen, Tim Horton's and some over-priced boconcini) it was sweet relief to unload some junk. Or so I thought.

With the potential for a meltdown high, the kid was given a pocketful of coins and sent across the street to hang with her gang. She proceeded to do the garage sale version of a pub crawl, spending a few minutes at each house's kid table, casting a careful eye over the goods. I forgot how far kids can stretch a buck. She returned an hour later with a clammy No Frills bag loaded with - to a three-year old's eyes - some seriously rockin' loot. Like, for instance, these Shrek legs. Why Shrek sans upper body was even for sale is anyone's guess (though I'm certain someone must have asked the same question about the matted ponies).

After some strategic questioning ["what are you going to do with Shrek's legs, honey?"] that went nowhere, it was evident the kid was not going to forsake them. True to her word the Shrek legs have turned up unexpectedly over the last three days, kind of like the Travelocity gnome.

An Unconventional Father's Day

Also titled "why we love Target." Yes, friends, our day of fatherly celebration was spent in the air conditioned confines of the big red bullseye in Niagara Falls NY. Which, in case anyone is ready to beatify my husband, was actually his idea.

Three hours and two loaded shopping carts later, the only reason we left was a crying baby that I couldn't bear to nurse in the not-so-great bathroom. Why do these places never learn? A department full of great baby gear for sale and an ill-equipped and unforgiveably dirty washroom. Why, why why? The marketing geniuses at IKEA have it figured out. Their family washrooms are a shining beacon to every other retailer operating a public loo; proper diaper change tables, not those precarious wall-mounted things, a stash of emergency diapers, a decent armchair for nursing, enough room to spin your Maclaren around and a few toys to keep the toddler amused. And it's all stuff they sell. Brilliant. But I digress.

Why, you ask, would we spend a precious summer Sunday traversing the QEW to a big box store with sub-standard toilets? Because where else can you find a coveted product, one that as far as I know, hasn't even hit the shelves in Toronto, on clearance? It was worth the drive with a 3-year old (who sang Puff the Magic Dragon the.entire.way.) and aforementioned baby in tow, it was worth having to sit in the backseat the entire way, it was worth having to eat lunch at Bob Evans (a depressing ritual my husband won't forsake) because I scored a gorgeous and clever Boon potty for 20 bucks. As my three-year old would say, ha-ha-a-boo-boo.