Toy making!

Sprout & his best friend Aiden with their new toys!

I love making things for Sprout. Sewing clothes mostly, though I've painted, crocheted & made things from wood. Today my friend Kirsten & I made toys: bean bags. It was Kirsten's suggestion--I think she got the idea from the course she took in preparation for opening her own daycare. She arrived with a wagon full of Aiden & a variety of dried legumes. I dug into my massive stash of fabrics & we picked a range of colours & textures to use. Shiny, smooth, bumpy, fuzzy, stretchy.

After a couple of hours of cutting fabric, serging the bags, filling them with rice, barley, split peas, lentils of various sorts, popcorn & beans, then sewing them up. I think they might have taken an hour had we not been chasing two toddlers around during this project. The end result was two dozen bean bags: each of a different colour & texture of fabric, plus different sizes & weights of 'beans' inside.

When I showed them to Sprout, he wasn't quite sure what to make of them. I can't wait to show him all the ways we can use them. There are so many games you can play with bean bags: throwing them, balancing them on your head, shaking them to make noises, stacking them...

Now that I've made lots of bean bags, I'm mulling over the idea of making them to sell. I have a table booked in the Blim Market at the Autumn Shift Festival (on Broadway to 12th Avenue, September 17th, noon-6pm) to sell my ANEW baby & mama gear. Would you buy bean bags for your child (niece/nephew/grandchild, etc)?

Wordless Wednesday

Counting Pennies

Living on a fairly limited income as we are at the moment, I'm always trying to think of ways to save money. My efforts tend to fall into these categories: deals, reducing, making things myself & reusing.

I'm always on the lookout for deals on things we need. I've signed up for tons of deal websites that sell things at deep discounts, like Baby Half Off, Baby Steals, Stitch Steals, etc. I've also joined a couple of group buying voucher sites: Groupon & Social Shopper. We also make good use of the Green Zebra coupon book--it's got tons of great coupons for grocery stores around here, children's stores & there's also the $50 usage credit for Modo. When I do buy clothes for Sprout, I try to buy used at stores like Wee Ones Reruns, which is conveniently located around the corner from our house.

Sometimes it's not a sale that makes something cheap, but an 'off-label' use, like the wood stove pellets we use for kitty litter. $6 for a 40-pound bag! Made from sawdust that would be a waste product in mills, they're flushable too.

Reducing is all about trying to ask myself, "Do we really need this right now?" before I buy anything. Avoiding unnecessary purchases & putting things off until later is a way to save money sometimes. I also try to get things that will have multiple uses. For example, rather than buying a change table for Sprout, we just bought a low, wide dresser that we could put a change pad on top of. When Sprout's out of diapers, we won't have a useless piece of furniture to get rid of. Cutting out unnecessary purchases like shampoo, conditioner & cleaning products, replacing them with cheap (& green!) alternatives like baking soda or vinegar. We try to walk, bike or use transit (I've got a U-Pass, so it's already paid for) as much as possible, rather than Modo vehicles.

Reusing has many facets for me. A lot of Sprout's clothes, particularly his sleepers, are hand-me-downs from his cousins. Using cloth diapers is reusing & will save us money in the long run. My latest repurposing project is a lingerie laundry bag now used for storing & drying bath toys. (see photo) The suction hooks to hang the toys are also something I had lying around. When I sew, I try to use fabric or clothing that I already have.

I've always loved to make things from the time I could hold a crayon. Sewing, besides being a hobby that I love, is a way to save money too. I made my own ring sling & baby wrap carrier, quite a few clothes for Sprout, sheets & blankets, wipes, bibs, curtains for our bedroom, clothes for myself & many birthday gifts. Recently we made a 'guillotine' style baby gate (at the suggestion of Kirsten) to keep Sprout out of the cat litter. Materials consisted of some cove molding & plywood, plus a length of webbing for a handle, all of which we had on hand.

How do you save money? Do you have any interesting tactics to share?

Mail!

There's nothing like opening up the mailbox to find a package has arrived.
Honestly, one of the reasons I order things online is for the thrill of receiving packets in the mail.

The pen refills that I ordered on eBay finally arrived this morning. I assume that the Canada Post lockout delayed them a bit, but for what I saved--about a dollar each refill!--it was worth the wait.

I love the packaging: it seems so old fashioned to use an envelope with string & button closure. The stamps are quite lovely, too, don't you think?

Wordless Wednesday

Sorting recyclables for SPUD

Wordless Wednesday

Announcing...

I am the new Central Contributor for Vancouver Mom! It's an online magazine for us urban mommy types. Check it out! You'll find interesting articles about what's happening in Metro Vancouver, lots of resources like a stroller buying guide, tips on exercise with wee ones, links to blogs, etc, etc...

I'll be writing about an article a week for the next six months, which means I may slow down a bit on this blog. My focus will be what's going on in the Main/Cambie Street area: new shops, interesting eats, events. I'll definitely post links to my articles here. :)

If you have any ideas for what you'd like to see me write about, or tips on something that's going on in this area, please let me know!

Sprout visits Mama at work

Performing as the green fairy for Vancouver's 125th birthday celebrations in Stanley Park.

Stroller kids

Lately I've been noticing children (not babies or toddlers) in strollers a lot lately. Other writers have been noticing too--Zosia Bielski in the Globe & Mail, Margaret Hartmann at Jezebel, to name just a couple--likely because of Too Big For Stroller*, a blog that makes fun of stroller-riding big kids & their parents. (Here's a Salon interview of the blogger) Probably I notice because I'm always checking out other people's strollers & how well or poorly they work. But mostly it's just because these kids are big. Big, like 60 pounds big. Some of them look like they're well old enough to be in elementary school. I'm willing to give some of them the benefit of the doubt, maybe they're just big for their age. However, they can't all be.

Before I really get going, I'd like to say that I'm not writing this to judge parents. I'm coming at this from the perspective of a parent who knows she'll be facing this question herself in a few years. I'm also just really curious about why bigger kids are in strollers these days, compared to in the past. Is it that strollers are getting sturdier & more able to accommodate older kids? I know ours has a weight limit of 50 pounds. Even if your child is at the 95th percentile for weight, s/he's going to be five years old before s/he hits 50 pounds!** The average kid is about 50 pounds at the age of seven.** Maybe since parents often pay $500-1000 for one, they want to get their money's worth out of it. Or is it that children are somehow becoming less able to walk due to more sedentary lifestyles? Is it that parents are trying to cover too many miles on outings? Or is it about safety? Perhaps parents want their children contained, rather than running around in busy public places? (though most of the big kids I see in strollers are not actually strapped in & were old enough to easily undo the harnesses & escape, anyway)

One of the commenters on the Salon interview points out that "people think it's somehow "immoral" to not expend energy. Sitting when you could be walking is viewed as a sign of poor character." She also criticizes the writer of Too Big for Stroller, saying that she "has no idea which kids are able-bodied and healthy. Some may have invisible disabilities or illnesses." Whatever the reasons these kids are in strollers (& I seriously doubt any significant percentage are disabled or ill), what I worry about is the future health of this generation of kids. If they're riding around in strollers a lot of the time (which seems unlikely, but I have no way of knowing) that doesn't bode well for their future activity level. Isn't this just setting them up for a life of riding motorized vehicles instead of cycling (or kayaking or other human-powered travel), watching sports rather than playing & just a lot more sitting? It has nothing to do with laziness or work ethic, I'm just concerned that this may be one more reason children will grow up to be much less healthy than their parents: a generation already suffering from ridiculous rates of obesity (in North America, anyway) & related health problems.

So, my dear readers, I ask you: have you noticed this trend when you're out & about? If you have older children, when did they stop riding in the stroller? Do you have memories of riding in a stroller as a small or not-so-small child? Why do you think kids are staying in strollers longer?

*Sadly, I can't access the blog: Firefox tells me it's a server error. Could you see it? Or maybe it's been taken down...
**According to these growth charts.

At the beach

Happy little sand monster

One reason I love Facebook: I noticed a friend posted as his status update that he was going to English Bay with his daughter & her friends. I wasn't necessarily thinking of going to the beach, as I'm not really a beach bum. But I thought, hey, it's a short bike ride mostly along seawall. Let's go! So we packed up Sprout, slathered ourselves with sunscreen & away we went.

The seawall was really busy, but thankfully pedestrians were staying on their side, so we didn't have to slow down to crawling pace & weave around them (like the part near Granville Island where it's not separated).It was a lovely ride in perfect summer weather--no need for a jacket, but not too hot.

Sprout loved the beach. He tasted his first sand & got himself very dirty playing in it. He had sand everywhere: on his face, in his shirt, his sandals, his diaper, even in the brim of his hat! I put so much sunblock on him that he didn't get burned anywhere, however, I think the sunblock helped the sand & dust stick to him. As did the melon juice from his snack. After a seriously messy dinner to add to the grime, he earned his bath tonight!

Here's a video of Sprout playing in the sand. I think a sandbox may be in our future...