zzelda's Profile

Oh how I hate diaper bags! The biggest waste of money in the baby game, I think! A simple backpack or tote - or even a beautiful large purse works fine. For a manlier look, check out the offering from Duluth Pack (made in my hometown!). The quality is impossible to match. I love the scout pack for a small bag- but there are endless options. Www.duluthpack.com

We have a handful of these in our house (they were a promo my husband's company gave out at a trade show and we ended up with some of the extra's. Definitely better than usual trade show shwag!) I actually quite like them. They are not my every day bottle, but perfect for occasions when hauling a heavy water bottle is just too much. They are leak free in my purse and easy to re-fill. I've cleaned them by rinsing with a little bit of soap and hot water and hanging upside down on a chopstick, the same way we wash plastic bags. They are useful enough for me to consider having a few around for gifts. .

Perfect! My daughter needs something like this in her room. I am ordering now.

BTW - anyone else notices that urban outfitters now offers free shipping both ways on larger orders. Which makes their tempting furniture deals a lot easier to swallow. .

Yes! Nothing like a custom duvet! Though I will add, the queen size duvet I sewed, though a simple pattern of straight lines was one of the more complicated things I've made because it was so darn big. A twin or a mini would be much easier though. .

I highly recommend Tonic Living for cool fabrics. And if you'd love the look of a custom but don't sew (or don't have time) they'll also do custom sewing for you. I think I paid around $100 for a custom twin job last year. See: www.tonicliving.com

We have two strollers - the beat up Maclaren for the bus and car trips folds nicely into a corner in our hall closet. And the baby jogger gets locked in the basement with the bikes. One of the many reasons I love the baby jogger is that since it has bike-quality components it can be treated like a bike. We often leave ours locked for part of the day in the courtyard in front of our building or locked to bike racks when we go inside spaces with no room for strollers. Sure the fabric fades in the sun but the rest of the stroller is going strong after 3 years of 4 season use. Yay!

This is the sort of inspired creativity that we read AT for. Way to go mama! This room is adorable. And you and Lois will surely share lots of special moments in here.

We too have a Svan (it was a gift. Or we too would have picked the antilop!). I do love our chair except that the foot rest makes it a huge climbing temptation. (oh how I wish I could get my 3 year old to SIT all the way through dinner!) One thing that bugs me about all the chairs you show, though, is that none of them can have life beyond the high chair. Both the Svan and the Stokke chairs convert into chairs adults can use, so that at least if we are investing $300 into a child's chair it can look beautiful in our home for longer than the 3-10 years we will have children using it. Also solid wood and machine washable padding means long life even if we choose to sell it off to another family. I've seen what happens to high chairs after being crusted over with food for a few years and most often ain't pretty!

Okay. I'm taking the plunge. We've lived in our current space for one year next week. It took so much work to unpack and get our apartment basically functional (and full of enough furniture that it didn't echo!) that I eventually just gave up. But now, with a new breath of air and energy I aim to make some progress this year. I aim to add color and cohesion, to fill out the empty walls and corners, start to create a space for baby number 2 (coming in Sept!) and to FINALLY carve functional workspaces into our office/family room/guest room. Oh and to replace those god awful light fixtures in our living room with something more our taste. Wfew. A big order. But it's now or never. This is our home, after all!

I thought they were unnecessary too. Even free-cyled the hand me down chair we got. . And THEN my 2.5 year old couldn't go poop on the toilet because her feet didn't touch the ground. Seriously, she needed to push it out. So back to the potty chair we went. The big Baby Bjorn chair is a winner for us. I'd love to be potty chair free. But I think some kids really do benefit from the smaller squat.

I just noticed one of these on Craigslist in Chicago. My thought was - how odd! But if anyone wants one, it's there!