Take that, wicked witch! At Salvage One.

For $35 at Pamela Angus’ Etsy shop. Adorable!

And it’s only $26 at 26OliveStreet on Etsy, right here. I love baby rooms with orange, along with a whole lot of other people, and this would be the perfect mirror for a room like that.

It folds up to put in your car like a stroller, and has a canopy:

My first thought was Ooooh, which changed to Oh when I saw the price tag… $690. Yeah.

It’s about $206, converted from pounds, at the British site Natural Mat (who also manufactures it). Natural Mat ships overseas and there is a six week lead time.

To me, there is something about a Moses basket waiting empty for a baby that evokes exactly the delicate, amorphous last days of waiting for the baby when you can almost see them there, wrapped up safe and sound inside. To me, the way it captures all the hope and anticipation and fragility of waiting make it the sweetest piece of furniture there is, which no doubt is why bassinets still catch my eye these days.

(If you’re waiting for your first baby, I feel like I should share my tip, here - leave yourself freedom to figure out how the sleep thing works, then order the beautiful nest. I’m sure there is a Feng Shui rule somewhere about how empty, expensive baby nests drag down the chi of a household!)

But sadly (sad! sad!), it’s too small to snap down the front on Little Capucine, and the next size up is far too big! Back it goes, sniff…so if you’re baby isn’t in the inbetween, go for this little jacket for us, would you? ($46 at Speesees.) It’s really, really cute and soft - a teeny bit stiff, washing could soften it up.

Our hunt came to a happy end yesterday… when, just in time for some pretty cold days, my mother turned up a padded cotton jacket at a second-hand shop by the French brand Absorba. It’s beige gingham, intended for a boy but neutral enough for a girl in my opinion. We’re using it, anyway!

It’s a little like this one, minus the hood:

So we’ve got a warm happy ending and can move on to the puzzle of what sort of shoes you put on an outdoor crawler when it’s freezing and wet.

I’ve found some options, with difficulty, but not what I’m looking for. Actually, I did find what I want - twice! - but they aren’t available. So I’m mad and don’t want the other options yet!

First, a jacket by Airdeje for the French grocery chain Monoprix:

The second, by mystery brand Olive (I can’t find out a thing, it’s a terrible name for Googling) at Yoox, in size zero only:

This one at Nonchalant Kids is also great, but the color is exactly like the safety orange hunters wear so…no:

This one at Gymboree is pretty cute - the squares vaguely remind me of a robe, but really it’s the red that makes me feel like we’d be sick of it the day after Christmas:

These ones at Pottery Barn kids are a little too Eddie Bauer barn-coat for my taste, like I need to have horses around as well:

The newsboy-esque Etsy option I found at Brooke Bryan looked a little bit stiff, but mostly I thought it might not be quite warm enough:

This vintage infant jacket (on Etsy at Vintagejane) was very precious, but short sleeved and too tiny:

And that was everything! When I’m done pouting, I’ll probably go for the Gymboree version. If it isn’t already next summer by then!

I think a lot of games would be played with pocket-size buddies like these, their expressions are so lifelike.

$35 each at Motley Mutton.

Vintage-y Halloween decorations with the glass glitter I’m so into:

A hysterical do-it-yourself gnome costume for walking little people:

Happy trick-or-treating, everyone!

Vintage red flower chandelier for $89 at Uptown Country Home - there was an identical brass one in a design magazine spread I saw recently, but this red is awesome if your nursery has it as an anchoring color:

Three-foot distressed wood angel wings by Cody Foster, $80 at Miss Duffy:

This large wooden puzzle of France from French toymaker Vilac, $26 at Oompa:

The steel schoolhouse art/bulletin board, on sale for $80 in our store! Yes, I know - and you can probably get free shipping, too!:

This small chandelier with glass-glitter stars by Wendy Addison for $18:

This small toadstool chalkboard at Fred Flare for $32:

Et voila!

There were no details in the post, but in the comments someone identified it as being by Lisa Jones. So I wandered off and found her website, but this isn’t listed there (although there are a lot of other cute designs!).

This would be the greatest poster for the nursery wall, does anybody in the UK know anything more about it or the artist? I toiled through the ’stockists’ links, but had no luck. It reminds me of children’s book illustrations, I would love to know more!

Pros: Cotton, a good rattle, ears!

Cons: Not narrow enough for easy grasping, only the tail tip is narrow.

Overall: This toy is a great example of why reviewing toys is so tricky. We were really ‘meh’ on this one for weeks…and then little Capucine became obsessed with it, it’s her absolute favorite toy. Those thin floppy little cotton antennae are good for many long minutes of sucking, chewing, and inspecting. The tags, the friendly face, the rattle - she loves it.

Tragically, this caterpillar abandoned ship at the Champs de Mars during a photo with the Eiffel tower. So now we have to buy another one. It’s in our store - probably should be at the top of the toy list at this point! - and you can get it right here.

So, I love the classic-ness of smocking on babies, if it is a little bit modern. Which I never really see. So look at this:

My gosh, these took my breath away. Such tiny stitches and generous amounts of fabric, and really great colors…

(These are well above the usual Etsy prices, although in this case the workmanship is magnificently equal to the cost if your resources run to those heights):

So lovely! You can find the rest of Anna Fabo’s work - all the way from Barcelona - in her Etsy shop, here.

UPDATE: OK, somehow I missed that the two smocks above are for big people. She has little people creations, too:

I’m off to have some coffee after that last correction. Whooops! Clearly my brain isn’t all that recovered yet. (But seriously, I still love the pink and the grey for a little girl, you know what I mean?)

Bonnie Jones “Hanging Handkerchiefs” for sale here.

We’ll be back on line soon!

- Mama & Papa Capucine

Sigh. Etsy is so enticing. This isn’t the kind of hat I’m looking for at all, but I love it so. It looks perfect for Spring, but who knows if it would fit by then. (Fit seems to be the key issue with everything baby related, unfortunately.)

PS. Just a reminder, if you need the snug ruffled kind of pilot cap rather than this springy one, we still have that awesome organic one in our store…which keeps this blog going, incidentally. Just in case you’re thinking some cuteness doesn’t sound like such a bad idea!

My thoughts were that someone really understood kids when they designed this chair, followed by: why have I never seen it before? And then, how much is €285.00 in dollars these days? Never mind, I haven’t space in Little Capucine’s 12 x 12 quarters anyway, but what a lovely, lovely chair…maybe you’ve got a way to make it happen?

I really love these, for their happy aura and the DIY possibilities. I’ve been seeing a lot of bunting lately, so here is what I’ve saved up…

I bet these are what the original British ones looked like:

My favorites, at PB Teen:

A quirky and tiny version that could stay up year-round without looking leftover from a party (like, say, Christmas lights totally do):

A creative take that I find pretty irresistible - the play on ‘bird on a wire’ here is pretty clever, you must admit:

Growing up, we decorated for birthdays with those chinese accordion-style paper garlands, which I still love but now I’m wondering if I could get away with stockpiling bunting for birthday decorations, too. So festive! Practically speaking, a tiny house doesn’t require many streamers to be decorated, but there is always the garden! And the porch!

If you search for more bunting options, my hot tip is including the words ‘garland’, ‘banner’, ‘pennants’ and ‘flag’ while you’re at it. Clearly I am not the only one who is vague on what bunting is, and it always helps to have some extra terms up your sleeve when you sit down in front of a search engine, eh?

I’m cross posting this at Petite Capucine, my grown-up home blog, because who doesn’t love bunting?

I should say up front, I’ve got mixed feelings about it. I’m hesitant to write up ‘cons’ because this product is truly a mix, and the ‘cons’ list always makes it sound like it is a dud. It would be accurate to say this carrier may work perfectly for you, and you will need to try it for a week to know. There ain’t no other way…as I’ve now learned.

Here’s Little Capucine, asleep (her arm should be above that strap but she tucks it under sometimes):

Summing it up as briefly as possible:

PROS

- Really pretty. Did I mention how pretty the fabric options are? Gorgeous. People will stop to gaze and say how beautiful the carrier is, outshining even your baby. A huge thumbs up to the company for great, genuinely contemporary fabrics worth getting excited about. I wanted at least five of the patterns. (The one I have is ‘Avery’.)

- Awesome slip-in pouch for newborns; beats the heck out of those weird infant inserts.

- Comfortable to wear, especially the back carry. I wore it for three hours of walking, no problem, the first day.

- Comfy firm padded waist.

- Comfy arm straps. Or at least, I don’t notice them.

- Better sizing for smaller-framed women than, for example, the Ergo. Generally narrower and less bulky.

- Safety buckles that take two hands to open, seems mighty safe to me compared to the elastic ’safety loop’ other carriers have.

- Nifty design for strapping baby in first, then putting on like the baby is a backpack. You can take baby off and pass the carrier to someone else with the baby inside…maybe even still asleep.

- On a back carry, baby is distributed more along the length of the back instead of lower down as with, again for example, the Ergo or a mei-tai.

CONS

- Either a buckle or webbing, depending on your adjustment, is directly in baby’s face while sleeping. When Little Capucine falls asleep, it’s either heading aiming down into the buckle, or leaning back (I move her head backward to save her skin from rubbing the webbing). Note in the product photos above from their website, the buckles look like they are miles from the baby’s faces. Which makes me wonder if I got a lemon or they redesigned or something?

- Very short chest strap. This is what keeps the straps on the shoulders, so it’s important. Weird, because the waist clip has a ton extra - if you were large enough to need the extra around the waist, you for sure couldn’t get the chest strap closed.

I have a small frame, but even with the chest strap fully tightened there still is hardly more than a nubbin of webbing:

- Overall smallness makes it unusable for average guys, especially the short chest strap. So not a carrier you can share.

- No neck/head support from carrier body (for babies over, say, four months). Wouldn’t be a problem if the hood worked.

- Hood is useless (sorry, there isn’t any other way to say it) . This merits saying more about…

Notice the gap between head and carrier. The fabric basically sits on top of the baby’s head, providing zero support. In a front carry, I have to hold her head in one hand. In a back carry, she fusses around forever and falls asleep with her head bobbing around. I’m guessing the rings the hood clips onto should be moved up, the attachment should have three points instead of two, and it should be elasticated to support a sleeping baby’s head?

The hood is removable and slides into the waistband for storage, leaving the pretty fabric on display…except in actual use, this makes no sense with a back carry because you can’t attach it during a back carry so you have to leave it on all the time in case the baby falls asleep.

The hood issue is more obvious if you look at the Ergo, which snugs the baby’s head against your back so it doesn’t bobble around while they sleep; this is the Ergo hood in a photo from their website:

- The combined buckle-in-face/lack of hood/lack of neck support basically make it difficult for baby to sleep in carrier.

- Not quite long enough for the long-waisted, but it is OK for comfort anyway.

- Supposedly, you can nurse while in a front carry - but the safety buckles can’t be loosened on-the-fly, so I think maybe that feature doesn’t work now they’ve got the new snazzy safety kind.

- It’s expensive, about $130.00.

OVERALL

I probably wouldn’t buy this again, personally, but I have a feeling it could work for different body types and baby sizes (for example, our friend with a small twin the same age as Little Capucine tried it and the buckles weren’t an issue at all). If I had bought it for $20 second-hand, I would be willing to do some ‘hacks’ to make the hood work (put elastic in the sides) and cover the buckles and webbing with a fleece tube, but for $130… not unless the three big issues I ran into were fixed would I pay that much. This carrier is attractive and comfortable, and I feel like it’s so close to excellent. I know mamas always have gripes about details on products they use every day, but these are so major they make the carrier barely useful for me because Little Capucine can’t take a nap well. If they could just fix this:

- Lengthen the chest strap.

- Make the hood snug enough to support baby’s head.

- Fix the buckle/webbing-in-face problem.

If you decide to try out this carrier, I liked it enough to put it in our store for now until I hear back more from other moms. It is beautiful and comfortable, which is truly something in carriers. Our store keeps the blog going, so if you want to try out this carrier, why not from our store? The Beco Butterfly is right here in a bunch of cute prints! And thanks for keeping us blogging!

A NOTE: I’ve tried this carrier with straps tight, straps loose, and a mix of both, as well as on the front and on the back, and with Little Capucine in and out of the infant insert. She’s not unusually long or heavy (she’s eight months in these photos), so I feel secure in saying I haven’t missed anything obvious with fit…but if you know better, by all means, comment away!

ANOTHER NOTE: If you’re curious, I arrived at the Beco Butterfly by reading a zillion posts on carriers on message boards. I even joined The Baby Wearer so I could read reviews on message boards there. Nobody else mentioned the issues I ran into, so bear that in mind - although I think reviews of the retired ‘4th Generation’ and the ‘Butterfly’ got mixed up a lot. The Beco Butterfly and the Mama By Design ‘Calyx’ were my two finalists. The Calyx straps rest on the baby’s legs, which I thought looked a little un-ideal, so I went with the Beco. (I didn’t go with the Ergo because it felt too large on me when I borrowed one, and as a footnote they’ve got a lot of mamas hating on them for barbaric business practices I know nothing about firsthand.)

We weren’t too bummed about that, because looks-wise the Arm’s Reach is a very utilitarian-looking metal/plastic/nylon structure in the same vein as a Pack ‘n Play - you’ve probably seen one already, they are everywhere:

Say what you will for functionality, this is not one of those droolworthy baby items.

And then I happened to spot an ad in the back of a Mothering magazine for a wooden cosleeper called The Baby Bunk. The photo was admittedly a little difficult to visualize from:

But it fit low boxspring-less beds, was in wood, and could be turned into a bench for kids later. It cost $295, more than the $220 for an Arm’s Reach, but figuring it was made from wood, that seemed fair to me. I gave them a call and found out I could actually rent it for $40 a month. RENT! I could return it whenever I wanted, no storing needed! For a baby item with a shelf life of three or four months, I was sold.

The woman I talked to was the owner and couldn’t have been nicer; don’t let the homemade vibe of the website worry you - I recommend calling instead of bothering with email, if you’re interested at all. She walked me through the details and had me take measurements over the phone to make sure it would work.

When it arrived, it turned out to be a beautiful, solid piece of furniture the advertisement photo didn’t do justice to (see our photos below for a better idea). It attached securely to our bed frame without a hitch and was fantastic for the four months we used it. When we were done, all we had to do was package it up in the box it arrived in and call for a UPS pickup.

You’ll need to buy the little mattress (and sheets), that isn’t included in the rental:

If you have a standard bed setup with a mattress and boxsprings, there is a different system for attaching the cosleeper that is similiar to the way the Arm’s Reach attaches. For ours, we paid $15 for the frame clips for our non-standard bed frame:

The feet are individually adjustable in case your floor isn’t level (like ours):

We put blocks in the photos to show scale; it’s definitely fairly narrow and won’t go beyond four months before the baby’s arms whack the sides (unless your baby is still swaddled at night):

I think the big bed mattress is technically supposed to rise above the edge of the cosleeper, but our mattress is so low-profile it didn’t do that - which I actually loved, because it was easier to maneuver the baby around.

So, we say go for it if you’re looking for an alternative to the Arm’s Reach. It’s not cheaper, the plusses are more about having a furniture-like cosleeper and, if you rent it, not having to decide what to do with it when you’re done.

So, to repeat myself: fits low beds without boxsprings, is in natural wood with a non-toxic finish, can be rented, or turned into a bench for kids. And no plastic in landfills when you/your mama group are really, really finished with it.

Now, if only there was a similiar scheme available for all those other things, like prams and infant car seats, that you can only use a few months!

I’ll put in links for products I used for this list, too. It was all one small backpack, no big deal. Here ya go!

- We booked the aisle and window seats in a three-seat row, on the hope that nobody would want to be in a seat between two parents and a baby. (The Air France lady was the one who told us to do it.) That worked perfectly, we had an extra seat to pile stuff in both ways. Barring that, go for a bulkhead seat.

- We reserved a bassinet, many airlines have them on long flights. Request one when you make reservations and then call to reserve or confirm again 48 hours before the flight, because there are usually more babies than bassinets. That is a tip from a flight attendent, too.

Here’s what the Air France bassinets are like:

- Board the plane last, not first. That way you aren’t stuck there if things take way too long boarding, and the baby can kick around in free space for as long as possible. The stewardesses hooked us up with that tip. Don’t worry too much about not having anymore overhead storage space available once you get on, we saw stewardesses making babyless passengers shuffle their carryons elsewhere so people with babies had their carryons right overhead on all our flights.

- We used five diapers on the plane, and brought 12 (for a 12 hour flight). She slept most of the time, both ways, so not much diaper changing, same as at home. Our flight lined up with our nighttime - that would be my preference now, because the one on the way back wasn’t during our nighttime and that was more of a hassle. Having said that, I wouldn’t want to be without plenty of diapers.

- We used the Skip-Hop travel changing kit. The plastic changing mat was great because nothing is clean in airplanes. We changed her on it the whole trip as well. I think a backpack would do just as well, but a plastic changing mat was a total must-have.

Link: We have the denim one. You can get any of the colors in our store here. There is also the even smaller Spark by Skip Hop, which you can get in our store as well. (I would skip the similiar one by JJ Cole, none of the moms who reviewed it endorsed the quality.)

- We brought Infant Advil and Infant Tylenol, plus nose rinse and a nose bulb with us. We’re adding an infant decongestant now. We needed everything. We couldn’t get any of them without prescription, so we had to go see doctors. Never again will I travel without! I would also add the Little Noses saline rinse. If you end up having to use it to get their ears to pop, it has a smooth tip that doesn’t hurt their nose, so less traumatic than all the other kinds. Which sounds minor, but when the baby screams from the rough plastic tips on all the saline solution sold in Europe, your shaking nerves will thank god you have a nice smooth plastic tip available somewhere in your luggage to keep the trauma factor down.

Link: You can get Little Noses with our without the aspirator in our store, here. The aspirator came so highly recommended, it’s how I came across this brand originally.

- We packed four days worth of clothes (including a backup outfit for each day, so eight outfits and six jammies total) and did laundry. Worked well.

- For 19 days, we packed three packs of diapers and two packs of wipes and a small size Desitin. Three packs of wipes and a regular size Desitin would have been better. We only just started the third pack of diapers. That is disposables, I don’t have cloth diaper tips. I say this because unscented stuff was impossible to find in France so I wish we had had more of our preferred stuff. It made sound dumb to take up so much space with diapers, but we did it on purpose - we always come home with more stuff than we left, so it was a way of guaranteeing we’d have free space available after the diapers disappeared. (We used water spray (like the Evian ones) for fresher diaper changes, as well.)

Links: We have Desitin Original in our store, and the Evian water spray here.

- Getting an infant to suck during the descent is far harder than it sounds. The average descent lasts 30 minutes. Our baby was too distractible to nurse actively that long, so we mixed a pacifier with nursing and rinsing the nose with saline solution to make sure she swallowed. We did that because she didn’t suck hard enough on our first descent and couldn’t hear for the first week because her ears hadn’t popped, so make sure they swallow, one way or another. Not just light flutter nursing. The doctor we saw in France is the one that gave us directions on the nose rinsing; the goal is swallowing, whatever it takes. (Hot tip on nose rinsing: lay the baby with their head on your knees, angle your thighs down, hold them across their chest with both arms pinned and drip the solution in.) If they take a bottle and normally suck on pacifier, you’re in luck. If they don’t, you have my sympathies on the tears over the nose rinsing. Anguish.

Link: You can get natural rubber pacifiers in our store here. We ended up using the admittedly weird-looking European style aspirator after the saline drops, it works very well. The only one I found in the US is in our store here, but get one in Europe if you can - they have a better look than this one.

- The Moby was awesome in the airport and we also used it a ton when she had jet lag and needed help falling asleep, and when her ears hurt so she couldn’t lay down, and when she got a cold and was better off upright. We had to take it off in security, an Ergo would have been handier then. But thank god for the Moby. A carrier of any kind, really.

Link: We have the orange Moby, like in this photo. There are twelve colors now (!!), you can get a Moby or a Carrier in our store here or here.

- On the plane, I wrapped her arms in the arm flaps of a miracle blanket, like a swaddle, and she slept better through the screaming kids after that. (Those kids! Sheesh!) We didn’t swaddle more than a few times at home even when she was brand new. I don’t know why I tossed the Miracle Blanket in our backpack, maybe imagining the wild frontier of baby travel having some unknown need for a swaddle in it, but it helped keep her sleeping deeply, so amen to that.

Link: You can get any of the Miracle Blanket colors in our store here.

- An ipod with white noise would have been great. We stayed with family and there was always noise that woke her up in the iffy early-sleep hour or two. I’ve never used white noise, but it occurred to me that this would have been the moment to try it out.

Link: I saw this link recently, listing a few sources for free white noise downloads over at Parenting.com

- I wished I had had antibacterial wipes for the airplane seats and other random armrests she chewed on.

- I wished we had brought our own car seat. The three we used in France were hard plastic with no padding, just a quilted cover, and she was fed up after fifteen minutes. Of a one hour drive. How unlike her! It took us forever to realize they were uncomfortable, it wasn’t obvious at all. We could totally hear her say ‘ahhh’ when we got back home and put her in ours.

- A beanie that tied on. We would have lost every hat she owned if we hadn’t switched to the tie-on one. Was handy for the plane, where it was freezing once we were airborne.

- On the plane, a onesie under a footie sleeper would be perfect. It was super hot before takeoff and freezing in the air, like always. We have a photo of her with the chest of a footie wide open, like a real Guido, and her cheeks neon pink as we sweated out waiting for takeoff (when it then became freezing, like always). A zippered footie is way better than a snap one, doing up snaps in those airplane bathrooms took way too long.

- We gave her baths in the bathtub where we were staying, we just got in with her. No need for an inflatable baby bathtub that way. Some hotels don’t have bathtubs and a sink could be too teeny, so ask ahead if you’re doing hotels, I would say.

- We put baby massage oil on her face on the plane to keep it from drying out, about four times.

Link: Our midwife hooked us up with this awesome oil. I’ve got a post half-written about it, I’m so into it I need to finish it up, but if you can’t wait that long you can buy it here. The website and brand name is a little random, but the oil is amazing.

- Bring tape on the plane, like packing tape, to tape a blanket over the TV monitor or any other light you can’t turn off while they are sleeping. It sounds random but all four of our planes had screens we couldn’t turn off, located directly above the bassinet, making sleeping hard for her. I would wrap a little tape around a water bottle, personally, to make sure sleep happens.

- After all was said and done, we agreed that to make the jet lag effects on a baby worth it, a three-week long trip was a minimum for fun to happen and four weeks was ideal.

Good luck and bon voyage, for sure! If you’ve got specific questions, you can contact me, I’m happy to share.