One of my favourite spring home decor touches is to cut branches from blooming trees and make floral arrangements with them. It's a great inexpensive way to have flowers in the house and well at the same time you are trimming your trees.
C Monster also made his very own arrangement for his room. His vase is a tiny pear juice bottle he got a few months ago at a restaurant and as he put it "mama it's so cute and tiny I need to keep it because it's cute like me" Ever since he brought it home I have been trying to place a flower in it regularly; I think right now it has a tulip from our front yard but in this picture it has a matching floral arrangement to the one I made with branches.
It's gorgeous out, you would think it is summer today. C Monster and I spent the morning outside; me cleaning the front yard and him drawings with chalk; ridding his tricycle; helping out with the cleaning; playing with his cars. We also cleared out our little flower patch; we picked all the flowers that had grown - as I want to plant some vegetables here this year; Carrots and Onions.
Now lets rewind backwards and take a look at yesterday...
C Monster Talk
I have to say some of the stuff that comes out of my sons mouth is too cute. Here is a few conversations.
A toy and him this morning were having a conversation at the table:
C Monster :”whats this?”
Toy : “yum yum me gona eat it”
C Monster : “Oeuf”
Toy : “num num”
C Monster : “mine”
Toy : “me gona eat it”
This one is his reaction to going to Sports Ball at a different time of day. See he started level 2 in Sports Ball (ages 2-3) this week the class is at 9:45 instead of 9am. Geoff dropped us off half way and we walked the other half in the stroller (we used to get dropped of at the door). Geoff dropped us off in front of the Donlands Subway Sation.
C Monster in the car: "more vroom vroom doing doing" - translated "more car ball" or "we did not drive far enough we are not at Sports Ball"
C Monster as I place him in the stroller "cho cho doing doing?" - translated "train ball" or "are we taking the train to Sports Ball"
When we got to Sports Ball we had to pass the door and park our stroller; in the winter we used to bring it in with us because their was construction happening in the stroller parking area. As we approach and pass the door:
“There it is yeah”
“doing doing ohoh”
“no doing doing”
When he finally understands we are going:
“yeah doing doing”
The Kitchen Arrived
C Monster’s birthday present finally arrived today (I was just one month late). We got him a toy kitchen set from WonderWorld Toys. I have to say I was a bit disappointed when I opened the box - the description on line was a rubber wood kitchen. The top and bottom are made from laminated MDF and the round contoured bright bits are foam. I we would have known this in advance I am not sure it would have changed our mind on what kitchen to get for him but it might have. I was expecting all the parts except for the little window on the oven door to be rubber wood. That being said the kitchen is really nice; lots of storage space for all his stuff and the most important thing is that he loves it.
C Monster’s Space Part 3
I was waiting for his kitchen to arrive to do the last segment of C Monster’s space. Like I said perviously we have an extra small home so you need to maximize your space usage as much as possible also it is important for me that C Monster has space to play and store his toys in both the living room and the kitchen as these are the 2 rooms most used in our home.
In my kitchen I have a few open shelves at the end of my cabinets - one section is allocated to toys; again I use the same bins that way toys can be rotated around easily. In the hallway that connects the living room and the kitchen in order from the living room to the kitchen are:
His tickle trunk (dress up box) - I always stash a few toys on top of it when I am cleaning (in this picture is his abacus and xylophone). Next is his potty and after that his new kitchen.
To make the space more kid like without making it look horrible I framed a few educational posters and mounted them on the wall. The frames are designed in a way that the posters can slip out easily and be changed. We have about 20 posters and I try to change them once every few weeks.
So there you have the Monster’s space... after we are done landscaping and figuring out our back yard I will post about his little corner outside.
Yesterday Grandmama, papa, C Monster and I went to the One Of a Kind Show. It's running at the Exebition Center until the end of the weekend. This is one of my favorite places to shop and to get ideas from.
C Monster was a champ and listened very well to us all morning and afternoon (well until he passed out in my arms during a nursing break. For those of you with kids big or little the show is ready for you. First little ones get in free. They have a nursing room with lots of chairs and change tables; they also have a microwave for those of you that are bottle feeding.
For the kids 2 and up there is a complimentary child care center (you get 1 1/2 hours free) it's a first come first serve - keep that in mind. We talked about dropping C Monster off for a bit but I just could not bring myself to do - he was having lots of fun running around with his papa.
A wooden tractor for C Monster from Thorpe Toys. - let's talk about Thorpe for a second. I love their toys C Monster now has the tractor, the plane, the boat and the car. You can really only get their toys at shows (you can order them via email but the shipping is more then the toy) The plane was around 13$; the tractor 10$ and the one person car was under 5$, the boat was around 13$. The quality of the toys are fantastic - C Monster is pretty rough with his stuff and these are all surviving very well.
A Nugs for C Monster. - The gut selling them said they were extra solid as long as you stayed away from the ones with the long legs and arms. So far it survived many throws... lets see if it keeps up. These were just so cute and C Monster really loved them.
A modern and stylish tea cozy from Tenacious Life. - This is something we had been looking for, for what seems forever.
A Dragon puzzle for C Monster from Sleepy Hollow Creations. This is C Monster 3rd puzzle from Sleepy Hollow. They are mode from wood; and when I asked her about her paints she said they are all food grade. If I remember correctly the dragon was 24$ - the quality and hours of amusement C Monster gets from the puzzles make it money well spent.
For our sweet tooth we got honey and honeycomb from Honey Pie. I want to try to make honeycomb ice cream.
Worth a mention
We would of loved to buy everything we saw that we liked but at-last our pocket books and the environment can not handle that. So here are a few things we though about getting but did not - some of wish I did buy, but the good conscious consumer in me told me I did not need them.
L'Atelier du cheval de bois; he has some of the most beautiful hand crafted toys I have ever seen in made in Canada. We stared at them for a very long time but could not justify buying C Monster any of them as he already had tones of everything.
billy would designs; innovative and creative jewelry and accessories made from recycled and reclaimed wood. I so wanted the EarWings.
Stand Up; not only is this clothing company trying to make a difference in the world with donating a portion of each sale to help various causes world wide - they offer very fashionable funky designs for t-shirts. We both wanted one of their shirts but could not justify adding another t-shirt to our already overflowing dresser drawers.
If you live in Toronto you should definitely try to check out the show, I now actually try to wait till the show to buy stuff we need - I just finished going without a watch for 3 months because I wanted to see what would be at the show.
Today was a "balmy" 8 outside and it's calling for 9 tomorrow and them 6,5,2,3,2 for the rest of the week. Definitely starting to feel like spring - not quite here yet but coming. Last week I ordered all my seeds except for the Edamame seeds - Richters did not have any.
Bike Helmet - or Food Helmet - or Bed Helmet
Today after gym at SH Armstrong we strolled by our neighborhood bike accessory store Velotique. I say bike accessory because that is all you find there - no bikes. I think it's great that means you have a fantastic selection of everything you need to be a well equipped. Our goal was to get a helmet for C Monster. The sales clerk was great she took out the 4 "boy" helmets out and lined them up so C Monster could select one. His choice black with red flames - he takes after his mom :-)
The kids helmet they had were from Giro; we find it easy to get it on him and once on him it holds it place. It has these little lights on the back; the on and off button for one of them is slightly damage but still works - all this only after one day. In the helmets defense C Monster abused it all day. The most important thing is that C Monster is willing to wear it and is very happy with his shiny new helmet.
Tidbit of Info for Breastfeeding Moms
I have been working my way through "The Breastfeeding Answer Book"; I am currently reading the section on drugs and found this interesting tidbit of information that serves as a great reminder for the breastfeeding moms out there:
"In general, the best time to take a drug is right after breastfeeding, so that the drug can begin clearing from the mother's system before she breastfeeds again. If the mother is taking a once-a-day medication, suggest she takes it right before her baby's longest sleep period, if her doctor agrees." - La Leche League International The Breastfeeding Answer Book p593
That being said I want to remind everyone that if you are taking any kind of medicine and are breastfeeding or pregnant you should talk to you doctor first.
This morning I had a long awaited appointment booked with the Apple Genius Bar. Ever since I have had my iPhone it's been glitchy - gets stuck in searching mode or just totally crashes on me. It took me forever - well actually 3 months to find a weekend that I could get away for the morning with C Monster and get my phone checked out. All I have to say is they are amazing. I waited a total of 5 minutes before the saw me and in about 10 minutes I left with a new iPhone. This is just another reason why "I am a MAC".
After my Genius appointment I took advantage of my me time to get some Starbucks and sit down and read. Right now I am reading Mothering Your Nursing Toddler - yup C Monster is still nursing and I am proud of it. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is planning on nursing past 12 months; or who found themselves breastfeeding a toddler even-though they had not planned it. This book has helped me feel secure in my choices; gave me the courage to continue on those days that felt like C Monster only wanted to nurse and made me smile and laugh at great stories from other mothers just like me.
Winners
I used to be a huge fan of Winners for toys however that was before I decided that Melissa & Doug toys were being banished from my household. - Melissa & Doug have just had way too many recalls for me to bother with them. That being said if I find myself at Winners I always take a quick look at the toys just in case. Well this time it was well worth it as I found a great big pile of Discover Rigs by Sprig for 29.98 each. (these usually sell for around $65CND) We had money from my mother and father for a birthday gift for C Monster - so voila:
Thank you mom and Dad C Monster loooooves it.
Art
As always as soon as 6pm hits C Monster is climbing the walls. To diffuse this little beast we did art tonight. One of my favorite ways to let him glue stuff is make a mixture 50% white glue and 50% paint; that way if he ends up not wanting to stick anything to the page their is still a painting. One of the drop in teachers gave me this idea and we have used it over and over again. Tonight we used lots of little bits of various fun things that last week we cut up together when Christophe was practicing his cutting skills.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST - GO CANADA GO WE ROCKED THE GOLD BLING THIS WEEK AT THE OLYMPICS.
