While we were in Madison, 5 received a fantastic percussion set from two of my mother's lovely colleagues. It is his new best friend. It's supposed to be 18months+, but I figure if there are no knives involved, he can play with whatever he wants.
He's figured out how to use the sticks to hit things and the xylophone is one of VERY few things that can distract him from power cords and stereos...
It was supposed to be a toy for Oma's house, but I'm so glad we brought it home with us!

Yeah, so this was one of those things that I bought "for my baby" (meaning really myself). It was the only things I absolutely HAD to have at the Craftacular. Check out the other Zombabies here.
Happily, 5 and I have pretty similar taste. He loves his Zombabie, (who is named Kai), and enjoys chewing on his ears and biting his face. If only people understood it when I show my affection with biting...

The munchie has become a fan of squatting. Just had to include it.

We are preparing for a family trip to beautiful Duluth!
As usual, I have some exceedingly grand plans for the things I will accomplish before I leave.
I'm planning to:

make myself some new shorts (I made my trial pair last week and am now ready to use my "good" fabric)

make myself a new skirt (this will also involve screenprinting, because I clearly have nothing better to do)

prepare to make a Scandi-style Mei Tai. This is only a little bit ridiculous. I have to choose my fabric for the body because I'm going to get the strap fabric in Duluth. For all my shelves of fabric, I almost never buy two full yards of anything, so I actually need to buy some! I'm hoping this carrier will be a nice option for both my husband and me so we can just throw one in car for trips (instead of 3).
I promise to share the process when I actually put it together.

Totally doable, right? Oh yeah, I have to pack, too...

This week I whipped up a picnic quilt (and I use the term "quilt" VERY loosely here)! With meal mess increasing exponentially, it seemed a prudent idea to prepare for outside eating. We tried just setting the Bumbo seat in the yard, but little 5 can reach down and add grass to the meal a little too easily...
This will be perfect for us- heavy enough to keep out ground chill, light enough to fit in a tote bag, beautiful enough that I will want to bring it everywhere, but not so pretty that I will fret over the inevitable food spills.

Quilt details:
    This beauty measures 64" by 72".
    The super sweet center fabric and red fabric on the edge was picked up at Ikea in Sweden (although I believe both of these patterns were available in the US as well)
    The blue border fabric is some upholstery fabric I bought on super clearance years ago.
    The back (oops! forgot to photograph it) is two full yards of a crazy bright plaid I got from someone's destashing frenzy.
    The middle is half of a cotton blanket I scored (for $2.62 no less!) from the Salvation Army, which I then hot hot washed and dried.
    I call this a quilt because there's patchwork on one side (I know, not a requirement), and there are three layers. I have yet, and may never, bother to do true quilting on the body of the blanket. I also did not bind the edge- I just sewed the three layers together inside out, flipped it right side out, and topstitched.

Good enough for me!

I was alerted to the end of one of 5's naps the other day by a very strange sound. Kind of a scratching, scraping sound. I was delighted to find that the little pumpkin was entertaining himself by reading the next chapter of my book!
He is already enthralled with books of all kinds, and sometimes enjoys being read to, but mostly wants to read to himself with help turning the pages occasionally...

I recently got the Johnny Cash Children's Album through our Inter-Library Loan program. I waited and waited for several weeks, eagerly anticipating such a marvel concept as Johnny Cash singing kid's music.
I was a little disappointed.
I should have known.
While all the songs were truly aimed at children, the subject matter was often just as dark and violent as the rest of his music.
My favorite inappropriate song was about a boy who loved his dog, and when the dog got old and he had to shoot it, he wished he could be shot himself instead.
Hmmm, perhaps this album would be best edited before giving the kiddos a listen...

Just in the past week or two, Fred V has discovered that there is music that is not sung by his mom that just might be worth listening to. This means that soon, there will be children's music in our house. This is the first medium that my husband and I have to sift through and make mindful choices for our son.
I have issues with a lot of children's music on the market today. A lot of it is insipid, pandering, and utterly obnoxious. Then, of course, there's the whole Disney can of worms. Avoiding, or at least trying to balance, gender stereotypes and enforcement of the status quo takes a lot of careful and thoughtful diligence.
For those of you who may have read the above paragraph and scoffed at my typical, first-time parent foolishness, I will say only that my mother raised two daughters who were neither tomboys nor princesses by making mindful decisions about the media we were exposed to and the context in which it was presented.
So I have begun the process of reflecting on my own childhood favorites, and discovering what's new and wonderful in the world of music for children.
My own hands down favorite is Raffi, Canadian musician and advocate for children all over the world. He has a pleasant voice and sings a combination of original and traditional songs, in French and English. We picked up two of his CDs at our library the other day and I'm pleased to be able to say I still like him.
My only new music discovery thus far was actually made by my sister. Hip girl that she is, my sister brought us one of They Might Be Giants' children's albums "Here Comes Science". TMBG was one of my favorite bands as an adolescent and I actually saw them live several times as a teenager, so I was thrilled to learn they were making music for kids now. V is not exactly ready to learn about science yet, but I think it's fun for him anyway.
Growing up, my TV watching was limited to educational programming almost exclusively and I LOVED learning through music. My favorite show, "Square One", on PBS, was all about math and had several math-themed music videos in each program. I can only hope that I can find such quality programming for V when he's old enough to watch any TV.

I would love to hear about your favorite children's musicians. What do you like?