10 months

Holy moly, Cole is ten months old today. It's fitting that I do a proper round-up for posterity. I was inspired the other day by a friend's post and so now I present:

15 things about Cole

1. He's not walking on his own just yet, but we think he's close. He's happy to walk around the perimetre of his play area in the living room with one hand lightly touching the couch or chair as he moves. He walks holding our hands, and pushes his little ikea cart around too, when Jamie isn't giving him rides down the hallway anyway...



2. He is on a good eating kick again. He mostly eats food in pieces and can chow down with the best of them. He loves homemade pancakes and weirdo organic waffles, squash and yams, chicken and beef, kiwi, sometimes tofu, puffed rice, water from a regular cup or a sippy and tonight he had his first sandwich! Grilled cheese, but not the diner kind... He had the kind dipped in egg yolk with organic mozzarella inside wholegrain bread - he doesn't know what he's missing with the white bread and fake cheese... I was actually really excited to make him a sandwich - the first of thousands, I'm sure!

3. He loves to play the guitar with Jamie. He's already better than I am! ;-)

4. His favourite books this week have been "Brown Bear, Brown Bear", "Ten Apples up on Top" and "Animal Sounds" (he consistently points out a few of the animals if we ask). He especially loves the taste of "There's a Wocket in my Pocket". Yummy.

5. Cole just recently learned how to wave! It's not quite Queen Elizabeth's style just yet, but he does it with gusto and on cue...



6. He also points! He pointed before, but now he points at everything. He can point to me or Jamie when we ask him "where's Mama?" or "where's Daddy?", he points at strangers on the Skytrain, he points at lights and lamps and the fire alarm and all kinds of stuff.

7. He is a huge flirt. If you are a pretty lady, he will play coy for a minute and then wow you with a grin. And then he'll point at you and grin some more. I think I have a heartbreaker on my hands...

8. He can kiss! Only me so far (aww). It's an open mouthed kiss, planted right on my mouth (ish area) and there is a lot of drool and some teeth involved, but it's so adorable I can't resist it.

9. He is wearing size 12-18 in shoes and pants now too, but they're a bit loose on the waist. He's longer than he is round. Maybe we should start saving up for basketball camp?

10. He's very silly, although he might say that it's Daddy who's the silly one:



11. He has just made a huge leap in understanding, it seems. Suddenly so many things are making sense for him, and he seems phenomenally excited about his world.

12. He is a bit of a ham. I was too, so maybe he gets that from me along with blue eyes and brittle toenails? When he's not mugging for the camera he is trying to eat parts of it.

13. He loves tunnels, climbing under things, up stairs and over obstacles. He'll scale you just to get on to the sofa if there is a delicious pen or cell phone just out of reach.

14. He loves to rip paper. He will grab a piece with both hands and pull it in opposite directions with all his might, looking like Bruce Lee the whole time. When he succeeds in ripping the paper he makes a lovely chortle and smiles like crazy. Then he tries to eat it.

15. He's a happy camper. Still not sleeping thorough the night and we have our moments of course, but he is such a cheery little guy and we love him to bits.

A rose by any other name?

So, I am known to be as indecisive at times about small details as I am most of the time quite the opposite about the big things. I make up my mind about most things quickly, but sometimes I find that dilly-dallying over minutiae can be overwhelming...

For some time I'd been thinking that 'mumum' wasn't really the right name for my etsy shop. Maybe it's all the feminist literature about mothering that I've been reading (kidding, but I have, so maybe!) but I was thinking that naming the shop something that spelled out 'mom' might make folks think that all my stuff was mom-related, and I have many ideas that aren't specifically so... Make any sense to you? Me neither... Also, while it seemed to roll off the tongue both easily and adorably for Cole, it was a bit of a stumbler for me. Mum-mum. Mummmumm. Mu-mum? I dislike annunciation, apparently.

Long and the short of it, I changed the name! The new name is hudsonny.

Whether it's 'better' or not may be up for debate, but I really like it. It's a little weirder and enables me, I think, to branch out a little bit. It's also got some heart, never fear. Hudson is Cole's middle name. And I'm happy to report that he really likes the bunny in the banner - so much so that there might be a smudgy little fingerprint on a particular part of my screen...

I think it's a good sign that after posting stuff to the shop I've seen as many views overnight as I got in a week with the old name... And I made a sale! 'So hot for you' water bottle cozies, I knew you were awesome. ;-)

Changing the name is not actually easy to do on Etsy (technically impossible), for good reason I'm sure. I had to ditch the old shop, which still exists but is empty, and start fresh. Check it out! So far there are the same objects, but more are coming soon... If you do visit, please add me as a 'favourite' - I can't tell you how nice that feels. "They like me, they really like me..."

A plethora of pincushions

Because I'm having fun hand-sewing and feeling crafty lately, I've been thumbing through my books looking for ideas. I kept seeing pincushions, so I got out the scrap basket and made a few new ones that used up little treasured bits of various fabrics that I can't ever seem to part with.

First up, the quick and adorable tartlet pincushions from Zakka Sewing. You can find these little tartlet tins at any kitchenwares store and truly - the actual project takes no time at all.

And have been wanting to make this other one from Last Minute Patchwork for ages. It looks far more complicated than it turned out to be. Although the pattern didn't call for buttons, I have a small handful of lovely vintage ones from my Mom and I have been keen on adding them to some projects lately. This one was too good with these fabrics (plus it covered up the fact that the points didn't match 100% perfectly on the top!).

I don't need all of these, so I think I'll use the button one for myself and save the others... Yay - I can finally retire the pincushion that I've been using for ages! It has a number of needles stuck inside, so I am randomly poked when I least expect it. It will be nice to avoid that.

Future coffee drinkers of Canada

Cole is not drinking a coffee, relax. It's tea! And it's actually not even that. I emptied the tea into my travel mug on-the-go since hot tea was splashing out of the stroller's cup holder and all over the place every time we rolled over a crack in the sidewalk. Lovely! I am getting used to being covered with various liquids, but I paid good money for a relaxing cup of loose-leaf earl grey (or is it gray?) tea, so I didn't want to waste it...

Cole is very fond of playing with things other than his toys. Comb? Spool of thread? Shoe? Sign him up. A coffee cup was a logical choice in that line... Anyway, I really enjoyed the looks of passerby (or is it passersby?) on the street, many of whom scowelled at me as though I had actually given a baby a hot beverage. Silly dimwhits - he only has coffee in the morning. :-) It was worth it for the funny photos.

A new use for beans

The title of this post implies that a) I already have many uses for beans and b) I had some spare ones lying around the house collecting dust. Neither of those things are true. We do love us some beans & wieners here on occasion, but I'm talking about the dried kind of beans. The ones you put in beanbags.

Randomly the other day I was reading about how to create your own beanbag chair and thought that I hadn't seen any actual beanbags lately. I have fond memories of them from childhood - it seemed that beanbags were involved in many of the games played at school and I thought we could use a few around here...

They were a really fun project - easy and a great use of fabric scraps (boy, do we have a lot of fabric scraps!). And if you did have copious amounts of dried beans to get rid of this would be a great way to use them up. We didn't have any, so I bought a $3 bag of small white beans. Very descriptive. For 900 grams they are a much better deal than the polystyrene beanbag filler available at craft stores, and my theory is that if Cole manages to gnaw a hole in the bag I'd prefer he ate actual dried beans rather than plastic or whatever...

Although to greatly reduce the chance of that happening at all these are triple sewn. They're lined with plain, sturdy white cotton (which has double-sewn seams) and then that little bag is enclosed in a little case of heavier weight fabric. A little beanbag pillow case, sort of! The little beans will have to break free of three separate barriers if they want to escape, and I'm just not sure they're that smart... Check out step-by-step photos & instructions of this project over at Flickr, if you're interested in making your own. So easy.

One thing I've found lately is that I really enjoy hand sewing. In the past, I would do anything to avoid hand sewing, but I've discovered that it's such a methodical, slow process that it's actually very relaxing. Spending a lot of time at night now watching old British mystery shows and slowly hand-stitching things.

Anyway, Cole loves his beanbags! He likes to crawl around with them hanging from his mouth and patting them. I made him two sets. The first was out of an upholstery-weight ikea fabric but then I couldn't resist making 5 more in awesome Japanese cotton/linen prints and they're very popular here. They make a lovely rattling sound and have a really pleasing weight to them. Oh, and they do have that authentic beanbag smell. Mmmm....

Oh, and I guess we do have another use for beans. Cole is trying them today. But the baked variety and I didn't make them. Thank you Amy and your organic canned goods. ;-)

Update!

New stuff is in the shop! Just a few things so far, but more are in the works. Hope nobody minds me posting these things here, by the way... This blog started out mainly about Cole, but it's also about our daily lives and crafty things are a big part of that.

These bunnies are my new favourite thing. They're called 'pajama bunnies' since I picture their little faces peeking out from head-to-toe pajamas. They're scrappy and fun and not store-bought perfect but I think that's part of their charm.

And the hot water bottle cozies use the Spoonflower fabric that I ordered a million years ago. They have six different sayings related to the fact that bottles are hot and you climb into bed with them. ;-) I kept forgetting to take the photos... The light in our place is really bad but I figured it wouldn't get better for a while so I might as well just go for it...

PS - Canada Post, I dislike thee. Your employees are helpful (and all the women at the central branch love Cole) but the rate for sending parcels in this country is absurd! It costs half as much to send a stuffed bunny to the US than it does to send something to Toronto. Why? Sorry, fellow Canadians. My goal - making things that fit under the 20mm thickness so they can all get sent at cheap letter rates. The bottle cozies fit into that category... I'll make it up to any friends & family who order from me, if the postage is high... ;-)

My hope is to get a bunch of stuff into the shop and then apply for a table at the craft fair someday. Eeek - intimidating!

Hip hop...

Bunnies are coming. Is it Easter already? Nope... Just finished a schwack of soft stuffed scrappy bunnies and am in the process of changing my mind about the Etsy shop. The holidays derailed a bunch of plans to create things for v-day and such and of course I changed my mind about the look, the possible contents, whatnot. I wish I was not so wishy-washy. Or do I?

Anyway, photos of the bunnies coming soon. A preview first. I love these squishy little guys and gals.

I have to march off to buy a fun paper backdrop for their photos today. Well, "have to" is perhaps a stretch, but "am going to" is the truth.

Gung Hei Fat Choy

One benefit to living downtown is the easy accessibility to parades. On Sunday we hit up the Chinese New Year parade, just a few blocks from our house. The weather was sub-optimal - grizzly grey sky and pouring rain - but Cole really enjoyed all the drumming, dragon dancing and colourful displays.

We were given some fortune cookies from the community police folks in the parade. I love fortune cookies (despite their dubious origins). Forget vague hints about good luck or new acquaintances - the police took the time to customize their cookies with these winners:


You could try your luck here if these don't leave you feeling fortunate... Apparently someone complimented me today in my absence and Jamie's enthusiasm inspires people. Much better.

Cows and rabbits and ducks - oh my

Just a few photos from a terrific trip yesterday to Maplewood Farm in North Vancouver. Fun! Nothing like watching a cow get milked, feeding ducks and petting bunnies. I milked a cow once, a long time ago in Europe on a dare from people whose language I didn't understand and who laughed at the Canadian girl touching the cow - it's kind of creepy. We're going to get a membership to this place - for $100 annually you can take yourselves, all your kids, the grandparents AND the nanny. Well, now. Seriously though, it's a great little farm and Cole was so intensely focused on the animals we couldn't get him to look up for a photo for most of the trip!

I've finally started to upload a few photos to Flickr. Just a few more photos of trip yesterday so far, but Grandma's be aware - there are more photos! :-)