Book Shopping

Yesterday I ventured out with a friends to some of the more unique book stores in Toronto in search of some books for C Monster.  I have been trying to find books for him that talk about life subjects such as how people are different, emotions, weaning, nursing, becoming a big brother (no I am not pregnant) and so on.

However I find that finding these books at Chapters and such are a little harder and often I do not like the choices I have.

So our first stop was Glad Day Book Shop. Here I picked up 3 great books for C Monster.

Yuck! That's is not a Monster! - a cute little story about 3 monsters born at the same time but one of them is cute and cuddly instead of scary like a monster "should be".

A Tale of Two Daddies - This is the story of 2 friends one has 2 dads; the other is all excited and amazed to find out things about the 2 dads like who braids her hair or who gives her a bath.

My Princess Boy - The title says it all; this is the story of a little boy who likes to dress up as a princess.

Stop number 2 was at Toronto Women's Bookstore. Here I found a great book on pregnancy. That I bought for C Monster as a tool to understand what his mama will be going threw once we get pregnant. It's called What's Inside Your Tummy Mommy? This book breaks down your pregnancy by month and explains to your child just what baby looks like in your tummy.  I would highly recommend this to anyone who is pregnant with a young child at home.

After our stop there we continued just down the road to Parentbooks. OK to a little about the store first if you are a parent and your child has any special needs from hearing to diet to Autism to anything under the sun that you can come up with you need to check out this store. Every single book in the store is about parenting. Here I picked up 3 more books for C Monster.

We're Having a Homebirth!! - A great simple picture book you can use with a child probably even as young as 18 months to help explain a homebirth to them.

Maggie's Weaning - A simple story explain to a child as he grows up he will need less and less breastmilk until one day when he will no longer need any.

Michele: the Nursing Toddler - A book normalizing toddler nursing and also explaining that all toddlers one day stop nursing.

And that ends my shopping trip yesterday...

Carriers

This weekend some of our friends that have recently become parents came to visit so we could talk about carriers; this got me thinking that I should blog about the various carriers we have used over the last year and a bit.

Before starting I want to throw this questions out to you - have you used a carrier or are still using a carrier if so what is your carrier of choice?

I have been a baby wearing mother from the time Christophe was about 1 month old, we tried wearing him before then but he always seemed to have a hard time breathing every time we placed him in a sling. Needless to say that this freaked us out at the beginning and delayed our baby wearing until his weird behavior stopped.

We tried 6 different carriers with him and still have 5 of them today which 4 of them we use regularly.

Heart 2 Heart lightly padded sling:
This is still one of favorite carriers, Christophe lived in it until he was about 5 months old. We did the laundry together, grocery shopped, took long walks, cleaned the house and so on... Now the sling is stored in the bottom of the stroller as Chrstophe has grown I find it not as ideal for long carries; instead I use it to help deviate some of the weight when Christophe no longer wants to sit in his stroller of just needs some love. It is also great to help hold him up when he needs to be rocked to sleep on though nights.

Just recently my sling broke, I contacted the manufacturer and they were devastated and understood the severity in this. Due to there great immediate response to the fact that one of my rings on the sling gave I still trust the manufacturer and would use the heart 2 heart again with Christophe and our future kids.

Rolz & Sassy Ring Sling:
We bought this one before the heart 2 heart and I used it all the time for 2 weeks then I found a heart 2 heart that I liked the print ( I forgot to mention earlier that the patterns for the heart 2 heart are not always the most stylish ) The Rolz & Sassy became my back up sling, this was the one I took out when the other was dirty; I also kept one sling on each floor so the heart 2 heart was on our main floor and the Rolz & Sassy was on the top floor that way we always had a sling handy. The Rolz & Sassy have some amazing prints; with that said I have selected to wear our Rolz & Sassy on special occasions because it looks so much nicer then the heart 2 hearts. Would I buy another Rolz and Sassy probably not, am I going to use my Rolz & Sassy with our future children yes. Just because it's not my favorite sling it does not mean I hate, I just prefer the Heart 2 Heart.

Ellaroo Mei Tai:
This is the only carrier we have parted with. Before we parted with it I have to say I loved it and used it on the go often it truly aloud me to be hands free. The slings let you be hands free but I find you have limited rang of motion with the arm that your sling is resting on. So you ask me why did we part whit it? For a few reasons, Christophe was outgrowing the height of the carrier and was starting to arch his way out of it (this can be dangerous); the color was white and with the long tails that Mei Tai's have it was always dragging on the floor and was extra hard to keep clean; the last reason we invested in a new carrier that replaced the Mei Tai, so we wanted to sell our Mei Tai to get a bit of money to put towards the new carrier. Would I recommend a Mei Tai to someone, yes but make sure to stay away from white.

Olives and Applesauce:
This is our number one carrier these days. When Christophe started being to heavy for me to comfortably carry him in my sling I wanted a soft structured carrier; these are similiar to a Mei Tai but has bucckles so they go one and off a lot faster. I knew I liked Mei Tai's so I figured I would also liek this style of carrier. After doing some research I found Olives and Applesauce, they offer a todler carrier with a larger body that your typical structured carrier, I was sold and wanted one. We have had our for about 4 or 5 months now and I love it; I can do a front acrry for about 3 hours before I need a breack and a back carry - well Christophe needs a break befor I do. The only draw back for me is I have yet to master being able to put Christophe on my back on my own. Many days when we go out we bring our Olives and Aplesauce instead of the stroller. Also they have some of the nicer prints I have seen, we get comments all the time on how beautifull our carrier is.

Lascal M1 Carrier:
I can't say much about this one other then I never liked it; it always felt like my baby was velcrowed to my chest. To me babywearing should feel more intamint then that. This was the carrier Geoff like a lot at the begining.

Moby Wrap:
I always found that Christophe felt so nice and snug in the wrap. This is a good one to get at the begingin for skin to skin; wraps can really cover you up. The draw back of the Moby is that it is a streachy wrap that means when your baby hits about 20 lbs it gets harder and harder to use; many people prefer rigid wraps for this reason. Geoff was a big fan of the wrap and used it frequently; I used it here and there but because I have 2 other styles of carriers that I was alreay used to I never gave it a fare shot. Would I recomend it to others, based on Geoff experiance - yes.

In case any of you are wondering Christophe is now 14 months and weighs about 26 lbs.

Books for mamas

I picked up the book "Fresh Milk" by Fiona Giles at Red Tent Sisters here in Toronto. I have to say anyone with an open mind that has ever nursed should definitely read this book. It is a combination of short stories and real life accountings of men and women from around the world and there breast-feeding experiences. It opens up many topics for discussion and makes you ask yourself tones of questions. The author sent out a questionnaire to a bunch of people in order to receive material for the book. Some of the questions she asks in the book and my answers are:

What single change in the world would have made breastfeeding easier for you?
For a visual aid to come to your hospital room and
demonstrate how it's done as soon as your baby is born.

If you could buy breastmilk by the liter from the corner store, how much would it cost?
If it was for babies that would otherwise be getting formula free. For anyone else; 1 000 000 for colostrum; 500$ a liter for a mother that has nursed less then 6 months and 100$ a liter if the milk comes from a mother that has been nursing more then 6 months.

If you could cook with breastmilk what would you make?
Ice Cream.

Within any given chapter in this book I cried, laughed and was slightly wired out.

It's an amazing book that all nursing mothers should read.

Spoiled Rotten - Book review

I guess you can't spoil a child with too many books. It's hard to find French books in Toronto that will not cost you your first born child. There is basicly one store where you can buy french books in the city and they grosly over charge for them.

So memere and pepere made sure his library was well stocked by adding 11 French books.

As much as I like all the books we selected; if I had to pick 3 for my favorite ones they would be:

Il était une fois un arbre, by Mary Newell DePalma. This story is about a beautiful tree that ages and passes away leaving his children behind to continue his legacy. It's a beautiful story to introduce a sad subject to a child.

Caprice a la campagne, by Melvin Gallant. This was one of my favorite books growing up. The auter is a friend of the family; the story is about his cat.

Je t'en prie ne tourmente pas Tootsie, by Margaret Chamberlain. This one has these great eye catching illustration and is about what you "should" and "should not" do to your pets.

Thank you memere and pepere for all the great books.

Review Fuzzi Bunz Diaper

Fuzzi Bunz: We only own one of these because I have issues with the positioning of the snaps; this is probably our most hated diaper for that only reason.

The positive points:

• Comes in a variety of colors
  
• Dries quickly (1 run in the dryer)
• Available at most baby boutiques
• Wicks moisture extremely well
• Poo stains come out of the outer layers extremely easily (so even-though the stuffing may have a stain the diaper looks clean)
• Reasonably priced ($18.50)
• not bulky
• looks cute one baby
  

The negative points:

• Mass produced product (not locale)
• Not organic, inside is bleached white
• Sometimes leaks at night (I think a doubler would fix that)
  
• The snap positions make it extremely cumbersome to close (this by itself made me decide we did not want to use these diapers - this is the reason why we only have one)
• Because inside layer wicks so well; if he has an open air incident while changing the pee just runs down the sides and goes all over his outfit.
• sized - you will need to purchase more diapers in your babies diaper wearing days

Would I recommend to someone else:
only if this is the only option you have for cloth, so basically no.

Would I buy again for my son:
no

We all love to read

I decided I would start sharing with you some of my favorite kids books we have bought so far. So once in a while I will post a book that we are enjoying to read to Christophe. Since day one I have always made sure to read him a minimum of one story per day.

We picked up "We like to Nurse" by Chia Martin (ISBN-0-934252-45-9) this afternoon at Red Tent Sisters. It's a great little story about how various animals also nurse just like baby.

Another book we recently purchased that I love is "Eco Babies Wears Green" by Michelle Colman (ISBN-978-1582462530). As we are all getting more and more eco conscious this is a great little board book that shows eco baby car polling on a bike, recycling, composting, etc.