Favorite (baby) Things - The Lovey

I was thinking that it has been a while since I've posted any baby things. When I first started this blog, that was one of the things I wanted to do -- keep a record of our favorite baby accouterments for future reference. At any rate, here is our "lovey" installment of favorite things.

Children will, naturally, choose something for a lovey that they like. Different children have different aesthetic preferences (in my completely unscientific opinion) and each will soothe him/herself differently. Eleanor, after a couple of months of protest, took a serious liking to the pacifier. Henry, despite our best efforts, only took the paci long enough for me to write this post and hasn't been interested in it since. However, both children have found something to snuggle with at night.

Eleanor picked out her Blankie and Dear Giraffe. (I'm giving them proper names, because that is what they deserve.) Blankie was a small blanket made from the leftover yarn from a lovely sweater and hat set made by our longtime neighbor, and baby-shower-hostess extraordinaire, Mrs. P. Now, I should mention that after 2.5 years, Blankie in no way resembles the small fluffy orange blanket that we received. However, that is because it has been so well loved through good days and bad.

The day Blankie was received:


Blankie (the orange one in the foreground) in a recent photograph by Eleanor:



Dear Giraffe, or Giraffey as he is sometimes known, was a gift from Uncle Bobby. I will never forget the day that she first set eyes on Giraffe, it was like love at first sight. She fell right on top of him and started gleefully laughing. Giraffe is a Gund stuffed animal, and though somewhat floppier in the neck and worn looking, has held up remarkably well to all of the stroller rides, diaper changes, and carseat time that Eleanor has dished out.

Eleanor with her two favorites in the new big bed:


Henry has only recently settled into his lovey. Thankfully, he really seems to like his own little giraffe. I had tried several different things, a small sized blanket that I made for him, various stuffed animals, a wooden rattle, but nothing really held his attention. Then, while we were shopping for our double stroller, I saw this little thing -- a sort of giraffe head on a soft cloth blanket body -- and decided to give it a try. I figured because I thought it was so cute he would surely ignore it completely. Much to my surprise and delight, he actually thought it was cute too. Funny that both kids have latched on to giraffes, could that be because I like them? Anyway, Henry's is a MiYim organic toy (I know, I'm a greenish yuppie), and it is really sweet. I don't have any pictures of him with it yet but it looks like this, only slightly more loved:

My Deal

I got this plastic house at a garage sale for $5. I thought it was the greatest deal ever. Thank goodness I was shopping with Sarah though because I have a feeling Vince would have vetoed the purchase. He tried to give me $10 to take it back. That was before it was all cleaned up though -- now it looks almost as good as new. Eleanor really enjoys it and Vince has even come around.

Ali

I finished Eleanor's doll. Well, except for the clothes. Luckily, we had a dress on hand, which is a tiny bit too small, but it works for the time being. Eleanor named her Ali, which I imagine is for a girl in her music class.

I got the complete Waldorf Doll kit from a place in Ann Arbor, of all places, called Weir Dolls & Crafts. The kit came with fabric for the body and head with the pattern already printed on it, matching thread, yarn for the hair, floss for the eyes and mouth and a bunch of wonderful wool stuffing. I also bought, on their recommendation, some dollmaking needles and ball point needles for my sewing machine. I figured I would make it look (approximately) like Eleanor so I chose a light skin color, blue eyes and blond curly hair. The hair color isn't exactly like Eleanor's but I think it is still pretty cute.

It was so much fun to make. I felt like I was pouring a bunch of love into the little doll body every time I added a new wad of stuffing. I found the trickiest part to be sewing the body and head together, but hopefully they will stay joined! I am looking forward to making the clothing so that Eleanor really feels that it is her doll. I am going to let her pick the fabric and (hopefully) make matching dresses.

And, let me introduce Ali:

Box. Or Boat.

Sometimes I am appalled at how much packaging material Amazon uses to ship things. For instance, I recently ordered some cute wall stickers (so that Henry's room has a bit more personality than a hospital ward) and they came packaged in a very sturdy tube. However, instead of just mailing the tube, Amazon picked a rather large box to put the tube in and then stuffed it with probably twenty feet of brown packaging paper. I was fuming about the waste when I realized that Eleanor was sitting in the box and singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" at full volume. And, not just once, she kept pulling this box out and using it as her boat. Anyway, I stopped fuming for a while and just enjoyed Eleanor's imagination.

Eleanor taking Rosemary and Teddy Bear for a boat ride:


Eleanor paddling furiously down the river with one of her train tracks as an oar:

Smelly Kool Aid Play Silks

Eleanor and I (emphasis on "I") decided to dye some silk scarves for her to play with. We saw a tutorial on the Artful Parent blog, and since I've been excited to try all of her projects because they all look wonderful, we (again, read "I") decided to do this one right away.



I went to Safeway and bought all the colors (flavors) of Kool Aid they had, seven in total. We followed the instructions to soak the scarves in hot water with a splash of vinegar and mixed up the dye. Eleanor enjoyed smelling the packets of Kool Aid and stirring (splashing) the water/vinegar/powder.



Once we got everything mixed, the tutorial calls for microwaving the scarf in the bowl with plastic wrap over it for 3 minutes. This smelled terrible to me. I don't remember ever having such an aversion to the smell of orange Kool Aid, maybe I've never smelled it before, but boiling it in the microwave filled our house with a wretched and nauseatingly sweet orange, plastic laden funk. I am serious, I can't ever remember being so averse to a smell even when I was pregnant! Anyhow, we made it through that step and I think the silks turned out great. I do wish we had been able to find a color that would make blue though. Eleanor seems to be enjoying them, even if they do still smell like Kool Aid.



Maybe next time I'll get really fancy and use onion skins and blueberries to make natural dyes. I bet they would smell nicer.

The Kitchen

I've been feeling especially crafty lately -- just wanting to make anything and everything for Eleanor and Henry that I possibly can. I saw a pattern on the blog forty-two roads for a cardboard kitchen and decided that it would be perfect for Eleanor. I had no idea what I was getting into.



The woman who made the kitchen originally and created the pattern must be running for mom of the year. Or engineer of the year. It is an incredibly well thought out pattern and a very creative re-use of corrugated cardboard but I just couldn't make it to the finish.



I must have put 20 hours into the thing and this is as far as we got:



That said, I kind of like the way the uncovered cardboard looks. Eleanor enjoys it, though maybe not quite as much as I think she should for all the hours of woman-labor. At any rate, the good thing about it is, if she gets tired of it we can just collapse it or recycle it. So, I am on to the next project -- a Waldorf doll for Eleanor. More on that as it comes together.

Cute Trains

The other day, Eleanor delighted as I took pictures of her "cute trains". She would rearrange this small group of blocks and then tell me it was a cute train. After I snapped a shot, she immediately wanted to see the result of her work. Here are a few of her cute trains:

Eleanor's Winter Pals -- Snowmen and Women

Eleanor has been enjoying the company of some soft wintry friends. We had a bunch of teddy bears, snow men and one Christ-moose (thanks Jess!) in with our ornaments. These stuffed buddies have taken up residence on one corner of the couch. We also added one new snowman last week in a moment of weakness on my part when we were at Target. The round little guy with the red hat and scarf came into our family after having made two consecutive visits to the doctors office and to Target for antibiotics for each of the kids. Eleanor occupied by jumping the snowman along by the puff on his hat waiting for a prescription? Done and done.



Anyway, we also had our first snowfall last week. Vince was so excited about it that he brought a heap of snow into the dining room at breakfast time and proceeded to create a lovely small snowman with a large carrot nose on the table for Eleanor. I don't think she quite knew what to do!

Etsy

I have to say I love the Etsy website. I have actually been slightly obsessed with it lately. It is a website "to buy and sell all things handmade." This includes everything from original artwork, to clothing, toys, jewelry, and just about anything else you can imagine. It is a great way for me to online shop -- except that I don't actually buy everything I like, I just save my favorites and enjoy looking at them! Saves a LOT of money.


Not only are the handmade items sold on the site (for the most part) beautiful, but the site itself is also really neat-o. When you want to shop, you can choose from several different ways to search through the items offered. You can search by category, by color, by location of the artist creating the work, by "time machine" -- or when the items were posted, and several other ways.


My personal favorite is the "suggestions" generator. As you are browsing through you can mark things as a favorite and then when you click on the suggestions generator, it produces a list of things you might like based on your saved favorites. Sometimes the list it produces contains things you might never even consider buying, but it is interesting nonetheless.


If you want to see an example, one cool "shop" (that is what the sellers are called) that I recently came across is Palumba. Coincidentally, they work out of Ann Arbor, MI. They also have a regular non-Etsy company website, which I visited after drooling over the stuff I was seeing in their Etsy shop. They have lovely, old fashioned-looking wooden toys and cloth dolls, such as this Skittles in a bag set:




Beware, if you haven't looked at Etsy before but you like unique arty things, it can be addictive!

The Castle

Eleanor has a new favorite toy. (Thanks Linda and Alec!) I thought she might only like the Haba Dragonstone Castle (with inhabitants) so-so because I thought it was so ridiculously cute, which is usually how things work. The castle and it's inhabitants, a knight, princess and dragon, are made of nice colorful cloth. The castle has many cool features -- a little bee that buzzes back and forth along a string, a little chicken attached by a piece of elastic that sits in a pocket, mirrors, a window and best of all the door, which fastens with Velcro.



Eleanor's love of the castle borders on obsession. Every morning or after her nap since Wednesday, she has grabbed the castle and said "pay dis" (translation: play with this) and then after we have it set up she says "nah doo, mah womwam" (translation: make the man and woman knock on the door). For hours on end we have made the little man and woman knock on and then go through. Sometimes we vary the game a bit and the man and woman dance or give each other a little kiss, but mostly they just knock on and go through the door.



We have another Haba toy, the Dream Journey, which is a little car with three little men/women in it. Eleanor has had this since she was younger but never really loved it. She is now using the little car as a bed for the man and woman and the wheels from the car for the bedside lamps.

So, I wanted to add this one to the list of favorites right away!