Tula love ♥

For three months now I've been obsessing over the Tula Emma Mai. The fabric is oh-so-similar to the pattern on the card box and stationery I used for my wedding, and since the carrier is called Emma (my name) Mai (a Japanese girls name I love), I felt like this carrier was fated to be mine.

The last time I wrote on this blog, I was entering a competition to win a Tula carrier. I didn't win, which is actually a blessing in disguise because the prize was a stretchy wrap. Now that Elliott is a heavy toddler a stretchy wrap is not appropriate for him at all. Amazingly, I won a 40% discount at the Tula store instead. Yay!

It took a while to convince my husband that we need a carrier for Elliott anymore seeing as he already knows how to walk and weighs 24 pounds (11kg). Luckily my friend Erica from Everything Mom and Baby had one my husband could try on, and even he noticed the difference in support between the toddler sized Tula and our Beco Gemini.

Summer is almost here and I really want to take Elliott outside the city to explore nature. I would love a repeat performance of his face when he saw a goat at Riverdale Farm last year:

Riverdale Farm is accessible by the Toronto transit system, but it involves a tram ride. We've learned the hard way that our stroller and trams don't really mix well... With Elliott on my back in a Tula we will have no trouble getting around!

I am also hoping to take Elliott to Leslie Spit, which we have not been back to since he was born. We will take him to the Beaches (also involving a trip on the dreaded tram), and to High Park. I would also like to properly escape the city and take Elliott hiking in the Tula, so please leave me a message with your favourite hiking spots around the GTA!

Without further ado, here is a photo of us trying out our new toddler sized Tula. I love it because Elliott feels so weightless that I actually forgot he was on my back for a while!

Me (at our local sling meet): "Has anyone seen Elliott??"
*A roomful of lovely mamas looks frantically about*
Mama friend: "Uhh... He's on your back!"

(^o^)

The photo above also shows you my card box (bottom left corner) and wedding stationery (above the card box) contrasted with the Tula Emma Mai fabric on the right. Cool huh?!!

Legacy wrap

Before I had Elliott I had no idea that carrying a baby could be so important. I don't own a car, so all the dedication and love other people pour into choosing and maintaining their car, I poured into choosing a stroller. I finally decided on a Maxi Cosi Foray, and spent much time before Elliott arrived testing it out with my childhood friend:



Then Elliott arrived... and from the very first day he let it be known, loudly and clearly, that he hated seats of any kind. One day, as I was pushing him home through the snow and almost in tears at the sight of his red, screaming face, a lady approached me and gently said "Some babies just need to be held" and gestured upwards at her own chest. That was my biggest parenting epiphany. From that day on I left the stroller at home most days and carried Elliott in a Baby Bjorn my mother had kindly bought me, and we were both happier.



Elliott grew very quickly, and by two months he was too big for the Baby Bjorn. His need to be held is showing little sign of abating at 14 months, and I fully expect to be carrying him when he's this big:



Choosing a carrier to replace the Baby Bjorn is where my obsession began. If we can compare stroller shopping to car shopping, carrier shopping is like handbag shopping. You can be lured by a pretty design at any moment, and whatever you buy it will always fit! Just as with handbags, some people like to have different baby carriers to match their outfit - a concept my husband truly struggles to understand.

I have a Beco Gemini Paige which I love, and which my husband is happy to use as well. It is still comfortable to wear even though Elliott is 14 months old and over 11kg. However, looking at other carriers is FUN!




If you are a new mother reading this blog post, I'd like to give you a few links to really pretty carriers, in the hope that you'll catch the bug and we can chat prints :-P

For the most supportive carrier to take you from newborn to toddler:
Manduca

For the prettiest prints, an Asian style of tying, and a do-it-yourself ordering system you can lose yourself in for days:
BabyHawk Mei Tai

For more pretty prints:
Olives and Applesauce

For personalised appliques, gorgeous fabrics, and labour so filled with love you have to apply to go on a waiting list to have your carrier handmade in Australia:
Beetlebums

See what I mean? This can get addictive!

Tonight I came across a brand of carrier called Tula. They are based in Poland, and I feel an affinity for the globe-trotting international couple who started the company. As I looked at the fabrics, I felt my heart skip a beat at this:



It's a carrier called "Emma Mai". How perfect is that?! I'll tell you how perfect. Back when I was planning my wedding, I had a card box wrapped in this exact same fabric, and it was the inspiration for my entire wedding. This carrier and I are linked by fate!

If you think this post is getting a bit crazy, yes. I fully admit that I am the baby carrier equivalent of a crack addict...

I would love to own this carrier. Now if only the fates would align to somehow bring one to me!

New/old Osaka home

After much travelling around, we are finally settled in a new home for the next seven months! It is going to be the longest Elliott has ever lived anywhere, so I am really excited to start new routines with him.

We have had an eventful couple of months. We stayed with Elliott's grandparents in Calgary for two weeks and went to a wedding:



Elliott was too noisy to attend the ceremony, but he had a great time at the reception and even went out on the dance floor with Mummy and Daddy!

After Calgary we headed off to Hawaii, where Elliott learned to crawl during our two weeks there:



After Hawaii we came to Japan, but had to stay in a temporary apartment while we waited for our proper one to be ready. Elliott got to visit my old university campus daily. It was such a strange feeling to have him visit the International Students' Centre with me!



Then on Monday we arrived at our lovely new room:



Our new room feels like the complete opposite of our room in the Reversible Destiny Lofts. It's much smaller, which I think will make it very easy to keep warm in winter. It's also very linear!!! Now that I stay home with Elliott every day, I think the biggest difference that I will appreciate is that there are no uneven surfaces for him to fall down on, and I will be able to wipe the hardwood floors sparkling clean after every messy meal he has. I do miss our loft though. I often wonder what it would be like if Elliott had learned to crawl in our Reversible Destiny Loft!

And after a fun day out at the Expo Park yesterday I ventured out today to find the supermarket:



1. The hill right outside our apartment
2. Heading through the neighbourhood halfway down the hill (I was trying a shortcut)
3. More walking downhill... This was when I could see the supermarket in the distance!
4. Even more walking downhill... We were almost there!

Needless to say, it was a lot of walking UPhill on the way home :-D The last time I lived in this area I was the healthiest I've ever been from all the biking and walking I did up and down these hills. I'm sort of hoping all the walking to the supermarket I'll do in the next 7 months will make me look like I did a decade ago :-P

Baby angst

Elliott is seven months old now, and is slowing turning into a little boy before our eyes. He sits easily without my help now, and although he still hates tummy time he will surprise me by rolling onto his tummy and eating the corners of his play mats if I leave the room for a few minutes. He is not interested in crawling, but laughs and smiles if we let him hold our hands and "walk" on our feet, or hold onto the couch to stand up. I have a feeling he wants to skip the crawling stage and go straight to walking! This is probably because most of the babies are quite a bit older than him at his baby play group, so he sees other babies doing amazing things like push a doll pram and he wants to try it too!

It's summer in Toronto right now, and I spend a lot of my day outside meeting new mum friends in the playground outside our building. This afternoon the playground was deserted except for three boys who were about 11 or 12 years old. I had a new ball for Elliott to play with, but once he saw the older boys running around with water guns he refused to play boring old ball games with me! He spent half an hour staring longingly at the water fight going on around him.

Eventually the boys realised Elliott wanted to join them, and they came over to play with him! Growing up I was surrounded by girl cousins, and the few boy cousins we had were usually dragged into our girly games. I'm not really sure what boys get up to when they're on their own and I was not sure what to expect from the big boys this afternoon. They were just lovely though. One said "Aww! He's so cute!" and asked me lots of questions about Elliott. Then they all joined Elliott on his blanket and started playing with him! It was quite rough play, but when Elliott looked over at me and saw me smiling his concerned face disappeared and he started giggling at the boys. It was so heartwarming!

I had to physically resist trying to grab Elliott back when the boys threw him in the air, tried to make Elliott walk, and let him fall on his back when he couldn't walk. I kept saying to myself "If he had lots of older cousins or siblings, this is what would happen all the time". Elliott's look of pure joy that the boys had finally noticed him let me know I had made the right choice to leave him to play. It also made me realise that Elliott puts his complete trust in everyone he meets, and I felt such an overwhelming need to protect that trust at all costs. I never want him to be hurt, and I certainly never want his little heart to be broken. (Or his little arms and legs, if I'm completely honest!) My love for this little boy grows exponentially every day ♥

Baby led weaning

The day before Elliott's six month birthday I went out and bought a highchair from Ikea and was super excited to start solid food with him. I had read a book called Baby-led Weaning by Gill Rapley and had bought banana and avocado for Elliott to try for breakfast.

Elliott's first BLW experience was underwhelming... He didn't try to grab the food, and he certainly didn't demolish it like the babies I'd seen on YouTube did. After nine days of him crying after we put him in the highchair I was starting to think we may as well give up BLW and do conventional purees. I even bought a jar of organic pureed peas at the supermarket last night.

This evening I had a breakthrough though. Rather than feed Elliott the peas on a spoon I thought he might like to paint his highchair with them. He did! He loved it! There were peas EVERYWHERE and he had so much fun that when I put half a banana into the mix he picked that up and tried to nom it. Yay!

So I am back on the baby-led weaning bandwagon. Now to find more foods Elliott can paint with! (^o^)

Riverdale Farm

Now that it's summer in Toronto I am trying to take Elliott out and explore the city more. Today I meant to take a quick walk, and ended up trekking all the way to Riverdale Farm and back! Riverdale Farm is not a working farm, it's just a place where city kids can learn what a donkey looks like :-D

Elliott loved being at the farm! He especially loves looking at leaves blowing in the wind when he looks up at trees. He seemed to really enjoy meeting the goats today, too.



It's amazing to me how expressive babies become at six months old!

Farewell Japan

I left this blog in somewhat of a hurry after the earthquake on March 11th. It was unsafe to drink the water in Tokyo if you were a nursing mother and my husband was being called back to his university in Toronto, so we rushed to buy tickets home early and said goodbye to Japan about a week after the earthquake happened.

I have wondered if our time in the super-stimulating loft might have hurried Elliott's development along. There is a mum in my apartment building in Toronto who has a baby girl with the same birthday as our baby. We go to the same play group, so I am able to compare them. Elliott started sitting up unassisted and rolled from front to back at 5.5 months, but the baby girl was doing it earlier. Elliott is reasonably happy to sit up for long periods of time, but he flops to the floor when he gets tired. The baby girl is completely comfortable sitting, and has even started trying to crawl! All before six months old. From this I conclude that both our babies are doing things a bit early, but that girls do things faster than boys. (Although there's another baby girl a week older than Elliott at play group who doesn't know how to sit up by herself yet)

You can see from all this that mothers are pretty competitive!!

Here is a picture of Elliott sitting up nice and straight in a Dragonball suit we bought for him in Japan: