Tim recently found In The Town All Year Round at the library and it’s been a major hit in our house. Alex (and I) love children’s books that are really densely illustrated. This book has no storyline, or at least not a written one. Which is a relief since as readers who are parents will know that reading and rereading favorite books to toddlers can get old. This way we can all just look at the illustrations together. The book follows the life of town through the seasons, which is very soothing and teaches a lot in a very gentle way.
I’m filling this tool storage/part storage away for our next house. I’d love to use these in a pantry or a children’s room. It’s about $240 for the blue unit pictured. Which is expensive but I’ve spent more at Ikea on storage stuff.
Then, I love these red part bins ($3.50 each) for toy storage in Alex’s room. An 8.5 inch and a 4 inch bin will sit side by side in our Ikea shelves. I particularly like that you can add inserts to customize the storage — so a section for matchbox cards; a section for various play tools.
A dear friend recently had her first baby (a girl!) and we wanted to send her a care package of some of our favorite baby things.
1. These swaddling clothes saved us; they didn’t have this camo print three years ago, but, I’m tempted to buy us some right now. I’d use them as a scarf!
2. Egyptian Magic is the best diaper cream out there. As a bonus, its a great nipple cream, rash cream, facial cream.
Rocket balloons are all the rage on the UWS playgrounds. Alex and I have spent hours chasing after them in the park. I highly recommend them! My cohort is firmly into round two (and sometimes three!) of babies and this has been my go-to gift this summer for the siblings of all the new babies. For those of you in the city, State News on the East side has them for $3 and West Side Kids has them too.
This charming, hidden dollhouse belongs to Jenny’s daughter (of Dinner: A Love Story fame). It reminded me how wonderful the freedom to play is when we’re young. I vividly remember how awesome it was when my parents let me paint a mural (of a sort of Lost-like tropical waterfall) on the wall of my bedroom when I was eight. I’m not talking about permissiveness — I certainly wasn’t allowed to paint on every wall in the house — far from it. I also remember being allowed hours to make elaborate stop motion animations with my fairly intense horse/barnyard collection (this may be the nerdy-ist sentence ever written on this blog, oh well, god bless my parents for keeping the faith all these years). I’m going to try to keep this in mind with Alex; whatever his fixations and desires might be. NB: This is an incredible toy drill for tool obsessed children.
This morning Alex cut himself for the first time in his two year old life and was inconsolable. Parenting an inconsolable toddler is _______. Having explain what pain is and that it will go away to a toddler who lives almost completely in the present moment. The hardest part for me is that he now knows he can experience pain (!!). On the one hand, simply part of growing up and on the other, heart-wrenching. He kept taking the bandaid off and touching his cut; which of course made the pain worse. What finally shifted the energy of the morning was something so simple; I started putting bandaids on places where he wasn’t hurt; first on both his big toes (giggles) then across all his toes (more giggles) and finally all over his feet (still more giggles). So when I came across this projet nid de poule: knitted, colorful patterns filling potholes in the streets of Paris (in 2009), I inexplicably felt that there was some similar impulse at work; to fix something that was broken or at least distract us. Found on Jumelle’s Tumblr and originally from juliana santacruz herrera .
Mornings around here start promptly at 6am; after breakfast (and I’ve had some coffee) there is reading of books, singing and head rubs. After admiring the bright nails of Jenny, Ashley and Leigh, three of the nicest and most stylish ladies I know, I got my nails painted with Essie’s One of a Kind last night. Which, for those keeping score at home, matches my winter coat in its hunter’s orange. I basically pranced around the apartment last night exclaiming “I have fancy hands! I have fancy hands!” until Tim couldn’t take it anymore.
I mean to blog, I really do! I think about the blog everyday — so even when I’m not here, know I’m thinking of you. In the meantime, the Halloween report = totally awesome. I made Alex’s costume (a cape with a iron on decal) at the 11th hour with Leigh’s help. Alex went as a Cleaning Superhero since he is really into sweeping and vacuuming these days (see video below!). He had a blast sweeping the streets of NYC in his cape. (Side note: check out the ADORABLE and BEAUTIFUL costumes Leigh made/scouted this year).
How great is this pop-up book where you draw the story yourself? I can see having lots of fun with this; as a funny birthday gift for the adult who has everything and as a creative activity for older children. $20 from Hearthsong.com
I’m just cleaning up my desktop and going through my tabs in Firefox. It’s so funny how different people surf the internet — I open up tons of tabs as I browse — like 50 at a time (which makes my husband crazy) and then go through them all at once at a later date. Some people never leave windows open — others never use tabs. Anyway, I love these sheets, and when Alex is ready for a toddler bed, I’m going to buy these for him.
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On Home
A house is more than just a shelter from the storm. How we shape our homes, and how we behave within them, speak volumes about our history, our values and our way of life. - New York Times
Living is the greatest art of all. - Alfred Stieglitz
To have less would be in many cases to have more - more tranquility of life, more ease of mind, more knowledge and more real enjoyment. - Candace Wheeler
To be alive means to live in a world that preceded one's arrival and will survive one's departure. - Hannah Arendt Found Via Jessica Helfand
On Consciousness and Freedom
But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about in the great outside world of wanting and achieving. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the rat race, the constant gnawing sense of having had, and lost, some infinite thing.
David Foster Wallace, Commencement address at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, May 21, 2005.
