Player

Kids, especially our daycare girl Noemi love dancing. Whenever there is music on she swings her arms about telling me to dance with her. So I like to put on some music in the morning when we all have breakfast together. Lately we´ve been listening to the "Flight of the conchordes" CD, which is a band as well as a mini TV series (if you haven´t heard of it yet go check it out! It´s hilarious!). It´s great for the kids because the band imitates lots of different styles of music, so they get a variety of styles before they can even finish their yogurt. The lyrics aren´t exactly fitting for children but ours are 8 months and 1 1/2 so it´s ok for now, but they sure a comedy for the adults which always make me start my day with a smile.

Buy the TV show on Amazon.co.uk

Buy their first CD on Amazon.co.uk 

Buy their second CD on Amazon.co.uk 

Utensils

This travel bed is definitely going to be my next shopping goal. It´s very light, folds down in a very convenient way and very stylish to look at. It´s 120 cm long so your child could sleep in there probably up to 6 years old and by then it might have a camping trip feel to it for kids which they may enjoy. Also I figure you could use it as a sun protection at the beach if you cover the roof of it with a reflective car window shade-sheet.

120€ over Rasselfisch 

Display

I got this plastic Disney princess crown years ago in a Mc Donalds happy meal. Long before I was married, long before I considered the name Aurora for my daughter. Strange coincidence that I would keep this piece of garbage for all this time and now my princess has her own princess Aurora tiara. 

Bookshelf

I really like this book about the sea. It´s called "Ein Tag in Neptuns Reich" ("one day in Neptuns kingdom"). It looks like any other colorful kids book but it´s really funny.

It starts out saying that Neptun is going to have his birthday party and on the following pages you have all sorts of sea creatures and other sea-related beings (like pirates) giving each other the news and chatting about the party. Any book that has pirates in it already caught my interest and one of them says my favorite line in the book: "I´m going to polish my wooden leg." - for the party obviously because if you had a wooden leg and you´d be going to a party you´d want it to shine, right? Ah, pirate fashion - always funny. Also hilarious how everything becomes something to do with birthdays when it´s someones birthday. So the treasure isn´t just some old treasure anymore, it´s birthday gold, duh!

Available on Amazon 

Toy Box

Yet another addition to the petting zoo. How could you resist? He´s so incredible! Kudos to "Kuschelwuschel" for making stuffed animals beyond the average teddy, dog or lion. Technically we buy stuffed animals for our child to play with but this one is off limits for now until we´ve decided if he´s actually a toy or not.

Closet

Please god, let Aurora not be psychologically scarred for life when we send her to kinder garden in one of these because it is going to happen no matter how many tears there are. 

Just kidding Aurora is not going be forced to anything. Mainly because sadly we don´t actually own any of these. So if anyone wants to get her something for her birthday one year...

www.thinkgeek.com

Cool Kids

One of, if not my favorite Mum-Kid couple is Uli and her son Jasper. 

They live in Berlin and she´s a real big city girl. Work (at a cool fashion store, duh!), parties, friends and yet always seems to have enough time for her boy. I don´t know how she does it and always looks so fabulous while doing it too. Plus: Jasper is a very, very good break dancer.

Sometimes I read her Facebook status and it´ll read something like these: 

"Oh happy day! pj´s till 3 pm. imaginary wooden block cities. French toast for breakfast. deep sea documentary. puddle jumping. live reindeer fights in the museum."

"In my new little black dress with my only date, my young little kid, having a candlelight popcorn dinner."

What endearing images, I hope that me and Aurora are going to be friends like that too. 

Display

A lovely little enamel cup we bought in a gift shop in Bremen. If we ever take a camping trip this will be Auroras cup. No one else is allowed to use it, I ´m sure she´ll say.

 

Bookshelf

When Matt bought this book for Aurora the sales lady said that not many parents buy this for their kids because they think it´s kind of gloomy because it´s just in black and white.

Obviously it´s made that way because tiny children can see the shapes better then but there is also a little circular hole in each page which reveals a little detail that is in color, like a butterfly or a bug.

I´ve read it a couple of times now and Aurora actually seemed to listen to me. I think it´s a very successful mix of attending to babies interests and at the same time with an art design that adults can appreciate.

By Xavier Deneux

Available over Amazon 

Fridge

Since my pizza wasn´t that much of a hit yesterday there was quite a lot left over. As I was eating leftovers this afternoon I discovered that Aurora was happy to help me with the rims. She is teething and she loves things she can chew on for a bit so this pizza dough recipe makes nice cracker sticks for babies.

Chewing sticks:

250 gr. wholewheat flour

1 tsp. sugar

1 tbsp. olive oil

110 ml. warm water

1/2 pk. (around 4 gr.)  yeast

1. place the flour in a bowl and pour the oil on it 

2. dissolve the yeast and the sugar in the warm water

3. add the yeast water to the bowl and knead until you have a ball of dough

4. cover bowl with a dishtowel and let it sit in a warm place for at least 30 minutes

5. form sticks or roll out and cut out shapes like animals or stars

6. bake at 180 °C for about 15 minutes or longer depending on how hard you want the crackers to be 

As the kids get older it makes sense to introduce some flavors to keep the interest up by adding some cinnamon, rosemary, crushed fennel seeds or other spices. 

Toy box

Every self respecting geek dad will buy his kid an ugly doll. Here´s the one we picked for ours. I think it was kind of lost on Auroras grandpa why we got her something that´s called ugly and we kept saying look how cute it is! But, seriously, who can resist that simpleton stare and the cute-style vampire teeth? So what if 87% of the toys we buy for our baby we actually want for ourself?

Utensils

I bought these baby food cups from Philips the other day on Amazon so now the cooking for Aurora may commence. The set consists of 20 cups in two sizes and drip-proof lids. I can freeze them for up to 3 months and I figured I could also use them for Matt or me in case of us is going back to school at some point or just for berries or pudding for a pick-nick or something. But mainly I want to start cooking myself for Aurora to be able to make sure that organic vegetables are used and to give her a wider, more creative variety of food. Plus I´m sure it´ll be cheaper in the end.

approx. 23€ on Amazon 


Ps. the first ones I made were: fennel-apple, pumpkin-turnip, sweetpotato-parsnip and Auroras favorite so far pumpkin-apple. 

Closet

I´m starting to loose track of where all these baby clothes came from. This pullover for example is one of my favorite items. If anyone knows who gave to us let me know. When Matt went to Japan he brought back a fridge magnet that was a cartoon panda face and it said "fad? -Yeah!" on it. That kind of manga-style humor cracks me up. I am reminded of that magnet when I see Auroras pullover. This fad little bear type thing that wants to play ball with the rest of the cubs. He´s the bear that gets picked last in bear-gymclass and when the game started he´s jumping up and down saying "Pass the ball to me! I´m open! Give me the ball!" He´s so darn cute! As if super tiny baby pullovers weren´t cute enough yet.

Toy box

My dad used to read Winnie the poo for me before bed and that is one of my most cherished childhood memories. Aurora doesn´t really listen to stories yet but she got this Tigger for Christmas and she seems to like him so I have high hopes that she is going to enjoy the books as much as I did. Maybe her grandpa will even do the reading himself.

Player

In an effort to establish a specific bedtime routine Aurora always gets to listen to the same music while we put on her jammies. The Cd we chose is the soundtrack to an anime version of the little mermaid. It´s called "Ponyo on the cliff" (by Hayao Miyazaki) and while Aurora obviously hasn´t watched it yet Matt and I love it. It is one of very few movies that I could recommend even for very young children. The soundtrack is very nice for bedtime because it´s melodies that have a classic feel to them and somehow they sound cheerful and timeless. I started listening to it with Aurora before I even watched the movie. I can´t wait to watch it with her. She was born into a household with a Disney/Pixar/Ghibli collection that can not be scoffed at. I´m sure she will be thankful for that in the not too distant future.

The DVD on Amazon

The soundtrack on Amazon 

Dear Diary

"Since it´s basically spring outside we went for a Sunday stroll today. Here I am with my dad. He´s looking all fancy because we went to a restaurant with all our friends. There I had a delicious mix of pizza crust and basil leaves."

 

Utensils

This winter my mum, Aurora and I are going to go on a girls vacation to Mallorca. How lucky is it that just now I happened to stumble across this mobile baby chair?! You can just hook it onto almost every normal chair and secure your baby from sliding off. I think it´s going to prove very useful on our trip, of course also for trips to Starbucks and such.

20€ (+5€ shipping) over Rasselfisch 

Closet

I mention this before related to some other topic but here is an example of my mums dark sense of humor. A "Halloween"-Mike Myers shirt. And I mean who doesn´t think a chainsaw swinging psychopath with freaky clown make up wouldn´t look cute on a baby chest, right?! 

Toy box

You probably know the saying: a bull in a china shop. Doesn´t it seem like an elephant at a ballet class would be kind of the same concept? It´s funny, it´s weird, it´s random - naturally Aurora has got it! A handmade knitted elephant in a pink ballet dress. Erm, how awesome please? Thanks Grandma!

Dear Diary

"This is a cactus my dad got me. Because they´re such durable plants my dad hopes that it´ll still be around by the time I turn 18. He thinks that by then it would be a pretty cool biological sculpture representing my childhood. Although I have no idea what a cactus is right now I agree with him."

Closet

Now you might think this hoody doesn´t look like much - that´s probably because it wasn´t!! 
I found this purple velvet hoody the other day on sale at C&A for 1,50€! I just thought that was worth mentioning since it´s crazy!

Pencil case

I never seem to be able to throw cards away. Birthday cards, notes on Christmas presents, postcards from friends... I´ve got a box full of them. But this one my mum gave to Matt for his birthday and we can all agree that this is definitely one worth saving. Now it´s sitting on the glass jars in the kitchen like a constant miniature party. I love that. After all: what´s a party without some birthday party monsters to celebrate it with?

 

Toy box

One important lesson children nowadays have to learn is that germs are everywhere. While shielding your baby from them is virtually impossible when it is trying to lick everything in sight including the dustiest cat ever to roam a city apartment we decided to go the opposite way and let Aurora embrace the existence of viruses, bacteria and germs in general. Now that doesn´t mean I give her dish-wash water to drink along with her lunch of a moldy carrot. It simply means we got her a stuffed animal of the plush microbes selection (on sale for example at thinkgeek.com). There is a mindbogglingly large choice, from sore throat (one of my favorites) over hepatitis and chicken pocks to flesh eating bacteria. We decided for beaver fever because it also teaches her a little bit about her Canadian heritage which is: don´t swim and swallow - in beaver feces infested lakes or rivers that is. Plus we thought she would like the tassels. 

Closet

Do I need to spell it out for you? 

"Cuuuuuute!"

That´s all. 

 

Fridge

I´ve got a new oven! Anyone who has been to our place and seen my old stove knows that it was about time. Obviously it´s second hand and not a completely new one but it´s already so much better than it´s predecessor. I celebrated the occasion by making a batch of cinnamon rolls. I like the recipe because the dough is completely without sugar and the filling can be made with honey or brown sugar. So when you make it for your kids and you´re someone who is cautious about their sugar intake you get to decide how much it contains.

 Cinnamon rolls:

500 gr. flour

1 pack of yeast (7gr.) 

1 Tbsp. honey

1/2 tsp. salt

oliveoil 

300 ml. water

Work these ingredients into a dough, place into an oiled bowl and let it rest under a dish towel for 30 minutes.

Roll out the dough into a tin square and spread with 200 gr. nuts and 100gr. butter flakes. Sprinkle with honey and/or sugar as much as you like and season generously with cinnamon.

 Take the longer side of the square, roll it up and cut it into slices place the cinnamon rolls close to each other into a baking dish and let them rest for another 45 minutes. 

Sprinkle the rolls with sugar. 

Bake at 180 °C for 25 minutes. 

I made a sort of an icing out of orange juice, icing sugar and maple flavoring and sprinkled them with it after they had cooled. 

Dear Diary

"I love my Dad!"

And who can blame her... 

T-Shirt H&M 

Pencil case

As the new year commences it is time for a family picture. So here it goes 17th century style - painted not photographed.

Toy box

Somehow the songs played by music playing stuffed animals are always at a psycho speed. I´m not sure I would relax at the sound of it if I were a baby. But sooner or later every parent ends up with one of these contraptions and when you do it might as well be cool looking. Like this handmade patchwork-style owl (yes owl-obsession still not over) Matt picked up at a local baby store. I´m not as big of a fan of patchwork as Matt is but I still think it´s super cute.

Closet

Obsessive behavior is becoming increasingly normal in our society. Aurora is getting a head start on it by chewing on every tag she can get her hand on. May it be on clothing, stuffed animals or toys. Also very lick-able are: empty candy wrappers, shampoo bottles, wrapping paper and mobiles. While I actually wanted to show of her grown-up style violet cardigan she posed for a snapshot of her hobby for me. Can´t complain, it might come in handy should I want to return something one day, so the saleslady knows it´s not me biting all the corners of the price tags.