mommapalooza

it's a bird, it's a plane ...

  ... no, it's Super Madeline, wearing her playsilk from Bumbershoot Baby like a cape on her back. I ordered one of those for her a few weeks ago after reading about their play potential on the Baby Bargains board. I was originally going to make one for her, but I found that the shipping charges to Canada from the Dharma Trading Co. for undyed habotai silk squares a bit exorbitant (something like $15 for my $6 square). So far, Madeline likes to wear the playsilk like a cape, use it as a blanket for her stuffed animals, and on occasion thinks it's fun to tie it on like a skirt.

Today's links:

• Shape of a Mother, in case someone somewhere on the internet hasn't heard of it. (It might not be cool to open this one at work, btw.)
• This post at Diary of a Playgroup Dropout. I started reading this blog because of the catchy name, having struggled with the whole playgroup genre myself (and check out my all-time fave photo of baby I don't know).
• I've been trying to keep up with Picture This. I love that is a blog out there dedicated to helping average parents take better photos of their little people. I am so glad that the recent posts have been on cropping, as it just occured to me that lack of cropping is why I'm not so smitten with the proofs from Madeline's latest photo session. I better take another look at them ...

summer in the city

Apparently, the weather this summer has been unusually warm here in St. John's. Madeline and I try to get outside on a daily basis, and even have been brave enough to walk the trail around Quidi Vidi Lake (it took a really long time, and I had to take both the Zooper and the Ergo with us). A playground should be built any day now on our street. I kind of hope that "any day" means before the snow comes again ...

Even though it's not the most suitable playground for Madeline, we've been going to Bannerman Park a lot recently. There is one playgroup that meets there on Wednesdays from 10 - 11:30 am. It's free, offered by the City of St. John's. They have an assortment of toys for non-mobile babies, a play tent, lots of balls, a wee picnic table for snacks and drawing, and a bunch of ride-on toys for toddlers.

A different playgroup meets at Bannerman Park from 10 - 11:30 on both Thursdays and Fridays. The folks who run it bring sand toys (even though it's a gravel surface), and bubbles, and serve juice and a snack.

Both groups welcome anyone who shows up with a child under 5. I may not have made any friends by going to these things, but getting out of the house sure beats turning on the tv.

madeline takes toronto

Plans are being hatched for Madeline and I to take our much-anticipated trip home to Edmonton later in August. Chris is planning on coming as far as Toronto with us, and we'll spend a day or two there exploring. We're on the hunt for a good place to stay. Our first thought was to check into the Four Seasons, as we stayed at one in Sydney courtesy of travel reward points and were impressed because they supplied a one-day stash of diapers for Madeline and offered a strollers for rent. Alas, the Four Season hotel might be child-friendly, but we're not millionaires. So we're looking elsewhere for accomodations.  Chris was poking around the 'net and discovered the Delta Chelsea, which he's quite optimistic about. There's a wading pool, a stroller or wagon rental, and a "creative centre" for children. I imagine that the creative centre is intended for kids older than Madeline, but it's nice to find another hotel where an effort is made to ensure that younger guests enjoy their stay. It's still not "budget", but maybe there are more out there like it!

do lab coats come in 2T?

Another item for the toddler's guide to St. John's category - the Newfoundland Science Centre.  Madeline and I checked this place out earlier this month. I hadn't even realized that there was a science centre here until I saw a brochure for it at the tourist info centre! It's tucked away in a corner of the Murray Premises (entrance is through the science gift shop). A positive - children Madeline's age get in free (I think my admission was $6, but it might have been less). A negative - no parking is provided, so guests have to pay to park on the street or in the Murray Premises lot.

Madeline probably would have enjoyed her visit to the Centre a lot more if she was a couple of years older, but there still were some things that she really enjoyed. With the current dinosaur exhibit, she spent a few minutes making a crayon-rub of a dinosaur skeleton, and enjoyed playing in the sandbox with a brush to uncover a buried fossil.  A more experienced paleontologist would probably have managed to get less sand on the floor, I'd expect.  There is a puppet theatre station with sea-creature puppets that Madeline and I played with, a row of aquarium tanks with a gecko and assorted bugs to look at, and an area with blocks fashioned to look like stone bricks to build with. I would have liked to linger at the mental challenge stations, but the pint-sized boss had other ideas.

The staff didn't strike me as particularly knowledgable, but they were high school students who had probably only been at the job for a couple of days at the time. We stayed and played for over an hour, and our parking charges weren't much, so I'd say that the science centre was worth the price of my adult admission. It was an okay place for a toddler, though I think that a preschooler or a school-age child would get way more out of it, of course.

The Runny Nose Standard

Are all runny noses equal?

I know that it's frowned upon to take a child suffering from a cold or some other runny-nose-inducing contagious illness to places where they might exchange germs with other little children, but what if the runny nose has nothing to do with a cold? What if it's seasonal allergies? What if it's teething?

I ask because Madeline's getting her bottom 24-month molars in, and her teething symptoms regularly include fever and a runny nose. Teething certainly isn't a contagious condition, but I am very apprehensive to take her anywhere that she might encounter other young children. It's not readily apparent that she's teething - I imagine that everyone would think that Madeline has a terrible cold and I'm an ignorant mom bringing my poor child to places where their own children will pick up her germs and catch her terrible so-called cold. Argh! So we lay low while her nose is running. No playground. No swimming pool. No playing with the other kids at the YMCA.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm thinking too much and no one else on this planet becomes a hermit when their child's nose is merely running out of sympathy for his or her tender gums.

Goodnight Somebody

Chris dashed out shortly after dinner this evening for his ultimate frisbee game. Madeline went to bed before he was back. She insisted on holding his photo id for work in her hands while I tucked her in, and as I closed the door to her room, all I heard was a tiny little voice repeating, "'Night Dad! 'Night-'night Dad!" ...

bathroom humor friday

I never posted an update to my tale of potty woes from the end June.  We haven't been charged by the Extraordinary Baby Shoppe store I will never order from again, nor have any unwanted potties shown up at my door. Hipbaby promptly corrected my invoice, and the Bjorn potty arrived the day that I had posted.  So, all is good!

It's Linky Friday again, so I wanted to mention that I've been enjoying reading the parenting advice at Ask Moxie. I don't know how this average mom got in the business of sharing her experience and opinions, but I seem to nod in agreement with everything she writes and it's nice to find another like-minded mom on the web. Right now my favourite post is one from February on potty-training (I know, what a coincidence!). Madeline and I are stealing some of her ideas ...

This week I also liked reading Single Parenting While Married over at MIM's about how she and her husband had one of those moments of clariety about what it means to be a parent and be present on the parenting team in her household. It also makes me glad that my Chris merely has a pager, not a Blackberry :)  This party favour post at Kiddley is one that I've bookmarked, under the assumption that Madeline will have another birthday party one day. And there's a pretty good post at DotMoms, about the perennial school bus and seatbelt argument.

not-quite-cinderella story

I've written before about how pleased I am with those flexible-soled Pedoodles shoes we have for Madeline. Just imagine how excited I was a couple of months ago when a half-dozen or so new designs were unveiled on their website! I didn't hesitate to order Madeline a pair of the orange runners for her birthday.

Fast-forward six weeks, and a few days after Madeline's birthday, I try to put the orange runners on her feet for an outing. Visualize my confused expression as the shoes refuse to slip on. I ordered them in the same size as her current pair of Pedoodles! I sent an email to the company, asking if the toe box on the runners are indeed narrower than they are on the shoes that Madeline currently wears, and they did confirm that the runners were narrower and fit smaller. Bummer. I then thought of replacing them with the fabulously cute red mary jane style, when I went to look them up at the retailer I would order them from (free shipping to Canada!), I noticed that they have started to post feedback about the sizing of the new styles on the site. And the Ruby Janes were noted to fit narrower and smaller as well. Bah!

On a more positive note, the stitching on Madeline's current pair of Pedoodles just gave out last week. This pair lasted a lot longer than her first pair with the decorative stitching. Instead of sending them back, I picked up a curved sewing needle and have stitched them up with strong thread. It worked pretty well, even though it took me forever to understand how the moccasin-style stitching worked.

Friday Finds and What Not to Say

Fridays seem to have become the designated link day on several of the parenting blogs that I follow, so I thought that I'd try my hand at following suit, starting today. But first, a story that I have to vent about because I'm in disbelief:

The other day Madeline and I had walked down to the northeast end of Quidi Vidi Lake. That's the part of the lake favoured by the duck population, and it had been awhile since we had visited our feathered friends. Well, Madeline was more interested in walking along the large flat rocks that border the lake path than watching the ducks, but another mom had brought her little boy there to see the ducks at well. A few feet away from the ducks, she popped her son out of his stroller, but he wasn't really in a walking mood. The Other Mother got mad, and snapped at her son to stop "being lazy". She dragged him closer to the ducks (who were swarming as someone had just dropped off a pile of fresh breadcrumbs for them), and the little boy got quite upset. The Other Mother chided him for "being a coward!". Umm ... honestly, her kid was probably less than 18 months old. And his feelings ought to have mattered. What kind of positive outcome can grow from a situation where a parent is being so disrespectful of their child? Ugh. Madeline and I got out of there rather swiftly.

And now, a vibe that I can get behind.  I think I've mentioned that I have a crush on the It's Not All Mary Poppins before. My favourite posts from Mary's blog? The "Eating Green" series (The Direct Way and the Devious Way), the "Tantrum" Series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) and a new one this week on Benign Neglect. I recently read a good one on whining, but I can't find it at the moment. But I probably will before Madeline actually starts to whine :)

future hair model

Not really! But I am happy to report that Madeline's Hair Mat™ has been responding well to treatment with her dad's fancy-schmantzy Aveda hair conditioner at bathtime, and the quasi-dreadlock is more commonly seen impersonating some really cute curls!