The Forest School

Classwork

We joined the Forest School in Prospect Park this session, and are so tickled by it. It is just so dang sweet.

An average class is like this: We all walk to the "classroom" together, quietly (hard for me, yes), and then stop to sing a song about a lark who says "cookoo". After we arrive, we play in the mud with sticks, little shovels, pails and cups of water. A hand washing song is sung, and the kids line up to swish their hands in a shiny metal bowl filled with warm water.

Snack time is awesome: There is an earthenware plate covered first with a little red checkered towel and then with crispy and sweet sliced apples. They pass around cool hibiscus tea in tiny white ceramic sake cups, and homemade bread with either butter or apple butter. Isaac always pauses as if making a great decision, and then announces, "apple butter!"

After snack we do a bit more exploring. Today we went fishing with sticks at the dog beach. We caught some dogs! There was an especially big and nice one named Lily.

We finish with a circle time full of sweet songs about nature and bugs, say bye-bye, and then play with "kites", or little bits of silk tied to sticks.

The thing that makes all this so wonderful is how incredibly gentle it is. All of the kids classes I have been to with Isaac up until this one have been really loud! This is really quiet. The singing is quiet, and the games are quiet. The exploring leaves them space to discover without rules. It's quiet enough that I notice myself, or catch myself wanting to tell Isaac to do something, and then realize he's very capable of figuring it out on his own.

Thank you Forest School!

Elska!

Elska means love in Icelandic. It's used for people and sometimes for animals, but not for inanimate things.

Elska is also a make-believe island, and the name of the children's music performer that Isaac and I, with our friends Emily and Coco danced around to this morning. It was funny to be going to a show so early, but also very exciting. I even wore sparkly eye-liner for the occasion.

We found the Islandic Elska on Hudson St. in the Tribeca 92nd st Y's moody, loungy back room. There was a bar with coffee and super yummy cookies, a big red cushy bench, and a table full of cute t-shirts that I do not have pictures of. We and about 75 other parents and kids grooved in the red glow to songs with names like Winter Bear, Man-made hole, and The Elska Express.

Some of her songs are catchy and dancey, some sweet and lullaby-y, and all are very twinkly. It's music that parents are happy to listen to, too. Even Jeremy danced around the living room when we came back and played Winter Bear. Emily, the Elska expert told me that the woman underneath the little blue hat had visited and fallen in love with Iceland and Elska was born of that.

She wears her orange patterned cloak with style, and the little balls on her head are so dang cute. She was graceful and incredibly earnest, and had nice props and signs that she pulled out of benches and corners, magician like. She only lost us during the short film, "Land of the Lost Socks", but I think it was because the film was not as bright as her.

You can listen to her music on her webiste, Island of Elska

Uppababy G-luxe Stroller Review

Do I like you?

I've had this stroller since July, when I got it in the mail as a replacement for my other G-luxe which was recalled when it kept folding up and onto the little guy.

I have very mixed emotions about the G-luxe (2011) and I'm just not sure if I like it. I've certainly thought about it a lot. (see my other stroller post here)

I've decided the easiest way to sort this all out is with a pro and con list, so here it goes:

Pros:
1.) Its light - 11lbs!
2.) Reclines for napping, though our little guy has napped in it maybe 5 times max, in almost a year.
3.) Easy to push. One of our babysitters said it was the smoothest stroller she had ever pushed. Go figure!
4.) It has low sides, so its easy for the little passenger to look around
5.) It folds pretty easily (though I do need to teach Isaac's omi, everytime she visits, how to do it), and stands up on its own,
6.) The part that goes under their knees lifts up so that when they are really little, they have a nice place to rest their legs. Isaac used to sit cross-legged in there, like a little buddha.

Cons:
1.) The crotch strap is too short.
2.) You can't remove the fabric on the outside of the crotchstrap to wash it, so after you wash the seat pad, the crotch strap cover looks very dingy.
3.) The seat is really narrow. My little guy is a big little guy, but not that big, and I feel like the seat squeezes his hips too much.
4.) The seat pad (this is what irks me most on a daily basis) is attached with velcro (see below) on the top, and over time velcro wears out a bit, so now whenever I put him in it, the seat pad falls down, and when the seat pad falls down, its messes up the alignment of the crotch strap. Geez, how many times can I say crotch strap in one post!? So I spend lots of time trying to pull it up when he's already sitting in the seat, squirming. This is no fun at all. 
5.) The brakes for the back wheels are positioned in such a way that when you try to pull the stroller up stairs, the brakes catch on the stairs. So you kind of have to tip it forward and pull it up at the same time. Its hard my back, and not so much fun for the passenger either.
6.) The part that goes under their knees lifts up when the stroller is folded, so when you unfold it, you have to lower each side down, every time, kind of a pain.
7.) It needs two hands to fold/unfold, and when folded it's not very stable, kind of a leaning tower of stroller. It can come crashing down quite easily.

Arghh! Silly seat pad!

note, dingy crotch strap (ha!, said it again!)

Reclining

Hmm...I see I have almost the same number of pros vs. cons, but on a close inspection, I see that the con list is much longer, word-wise, and a lot heavier, frustration wise.

Final word is nope, not the best stroller. Keep shopping!

Baby, Moon, and Me

Isaac

+

the moon (here shown with jupiter and its 4 moons!)

=

Major fascination, appreciation, and a loud, "moooooooo" (still working on the "n").

Moo(n) Isaac's 5th word to date:

#1 Da-dee!

#2 No

#3 Maa-ma

#4 Bubble (Baa-bul)

#5 Moo(n)

I think the moon has received such high rankings not only because of its glowing perfect shapes, but because it makes an appearance in about 7 out of 10 baby books that we read to Isaac. The moon is everywhere in baby picture-literature.

A short list:

The moon peeks through the window in Goodnight Moon. 

It shines its light on Maisy in Sweet Dreams Maisy

It looks very mysterious and much like the photo up above in the beautiful and bizarre Margaret Wise Brown book Red Light, Green Light 

It is a cute crescent in Goodnight Gorilla

It inspires conversation and glows round and yellow-y orange in Say Hi Backback Baby!

It lights up a love-match of crickets in The Very Quiet Cricket

And keeps watch over an egg in The Very Hungry Caterpillar 
The moon is huge and round in The Three Robbers, and barely lights the rich dark sky.

Funny that the sun doesn't show up nearly so often.

Maybe we want to inspire babies to love the night and sleep as much as possible.

Goodnight moonie moonie moon!

This is not isaac, but whomever it is sure is a cutie pie!

The Strange Practice of Dunking Babies Underwater

To dunk or not to dunk, that is the question!
I dunked Isaac yesterday, for the second time ever. It was a last hurrah sort of baptism; the last day and the last hour of the little pool across the street. I dunked myself at the same time since it didn't feel right just watching me push him under.
They say the younger the better, that the little guys automatically hold their breath as long as you do it forcefully and quickly. Isaac did. There was no coughing or choking or anything like that, just a super surprised big eyed fish looking face. His hair was plastered straight on his head with water streaming off, eyes blinking and blinking.  There was a cry after that, a little one. Then there was a grumpy stage (understandable), and he was over it, complete with chortling and ba-ba-ba-ing.

Then why did and does it freak me out so much!? It's healthy for goodness sake, no?

Infant Aquatics seem to know quite a bit about this subject.  Their website has a very compelling videos of little ones as young as 9 months old in action.  Like little fishes they flip over and float on their backs!

water baby at 6 months old

Beautiful New Camera! New Backpack too!

And we are so very happy about both.
The camera is a Nikon D3100 and it takes insanely gentle, lovely photographs.  
Huge thank yous, Grandma Judy! 
The backpack is a Deuter Kid Comfort II. It comes with nice yellow buckles, lots of pockets, a kick-stand so it stands, and a little teddy bear peeking out the side.  
Huge thank yous Omi!
Combining the two was very exciting.

Since the proof is in the puddin', I give you some puddin', from our recent trip to Seattle
Isaac is walking (well, riding) to the meadow at my Dad's house, trying out (sleepily, dirt-ily) the baby back-pack for the very first time.
He did grow to love it, but not quite at first.

We loved the pack, even if he at first did not.  It has snazzy design elements incorporated so its nice to our hips and shoulders.  My mom says its the Cadillac of baby backpacks.

He smiled a lot and slept a lot in this pack.
I took a lot of photographs of both activities, and whatever else in between.

Down below is at Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park.  A lovely place to nap.

The Olympics are an even lovelier place to walk and look and smell!
There were mountain goats, alpine flowers, and overwhelmingly stunning vistas of mountains galore!

stroller envy

Stroller envy is real.  Talk to a momma and see if she's felt it; you'll notice she's not listening if a super cool stroller is passing her by.
I feel the envy: I want a Bugaboo Bee, though my punk rock side would be way too embarrassed to trot down the street with a $650 set of baby-wheels.  My husband clearly states while frying potatoes, "There is just no way we would spend that much money on a stroller."  So I say, "Maybe next year on craigslist?"
Oh the bee: cute, compact, very upright, and ever so slightly tough.  Lots of room underneath too.

bzzzzzz

I've discussed stroller envy with my friends.  I say it comes from how you can't have your kid do everything you want them to do, so instead we gotta have the stroller that does everything we want it to do.  And then when we find out our dream stroller doesn't make our lives perfect, we think another stroller will do the trick.  Its a classic grass is greener situation.

Fellow momma Micaela says that we feel like if we had the perfect stroller, our kid would never cry.  You could bring 'em anywhere and do anything, and they would just be happy.  Yeah, right. 

I began strolling with an old city mini I bought it from my friend Molly.  Her kid is really cute and smart and I was hoping that her stroller would impart such qualities to my little kid. When we came to pick it up she told me she hoped Isaac will be okay in it. Her son had screamed and screamed whenever she took him out in it for the first few months. Uh-oh. What was I supposed to do?  It was a winter evening and my little one started screaming too, on 5th Ave and President St., 20 minutes away from home.

I felt bad listening to him cry.  Sad and worried too, because I couldn't see him, (the Bugaboo Bee can be turned so your face your baby while strolling) and his little 3 month old face was out there exposed to the world without me to filter the bad stuff out.

The city mini barely lasted the winter. I wanted every other stroller we walked by that looked cute and comfy.  Pushing the city mini with one hand and carrying Isaac with the other aching one made those times especially hard.

He did look cute in there, all bundled up.

Technically speaking, I think he didn't like the city mini because it set him far back, in a jogging stroller sort of way so that when he turned his head side to side, as he likes to do, he couldn't see anything except for the inside of the stroller.  I think that is what brought him to such despair.  He did try to sit upright, but then he bumped his head on the front bar, which brought on a different kind of despair.

Enter the 2011 Uppababy G-luxe: I read about it online, saw this photo and thought, "this is the one."

cute, cheery, yet technologically advanced, yes?

Its "the most lightweight reclining stroller on the market." though I mostly liked how it looked.
And it inspired action: a trek to Mini Jakes, the home of very cute (and pricey) baby stuff, to give it a spin.  My first disappointment was that the cool electric orange of the photo, was more of a muted pumpkin.  I was a little bummed, but still hopeful.  I put Isaac in and noticed that the crotch strap was a little tight, but I ignored it because I didn't want it to be too tight.  He didn't cry, and that cemented the deal. We left with a black one, to please his papa and match his clothing.  I was happy until we got to the car and I tried to fold it.  Wrestle it to the ground would be a better description.

Life has not been perfect since buying the uppababy stroller.  The crotch strap is still too short (make sure your kid is skinny and/or doesn't wear cloth diapers before buying this one!) and I still break a sweat trying to get it to fold. There still are times that I carry Isaac with one breaking arm, and push with the other.  But he can see side to side now, the wheels roll deliciously smoothly, it's given my friend Micaela her own case of stroller envy, and its the one we got, so I'm now going to stop complaining.

Checkin' out the sides!