March 03, 2010

Moving house is a pain for any mama. But I can say with some confidence – the more kids you have, the bigger the pain. In a few short days, I am doing the dreaded move.

There were some pretty clear indicators that we had outgrown our current home:

 We don’t fit around the kitchen table. Eating in the dining room is not an option - it has been converted into a children’s study so I can easily monitor homework and computer use. With no dining room and not being able to fit in our kitchen, family meals are currently impossible.

 Bedrooms are so full of beds, there is nowhere to fit the dressers. Dressers live in the upstairs hallway.

 It’s difficult to have visitors in any season except summer, when we are able to entertain outdoors. If we get rain, we’re screwed.

 The family room is too small – we can’t fit enough furniture to seat all the children. As you can see from the picture, if they all want to watch TV together, they have to be couches to each other.

There are two obvious challenges in a move for our family – finding a house that suits our particular needs, and making our current home look like a nice normal family has been living in it.

I was pretty inflexible with my list of “must-haves” for the new home. The non-negotiable items included:

BIG laundry room;
 Side entrance so kids don’t have to enter house from front door;
 Storage room on main floor for all sports equipment and hockey bags;
Very spacious open kitchen/family room space;
Good outdoor stuff – located on a court, backyard pool, backing onto green space, room for trampoline, ice rink and all that stuff that exhausts my kids and keeps them OUT of the house.
 Had to be in our current neighbourhood – changing schools was not an option;
Interestingly, “more bedrooms" was not on the list. I’m good with kids sharing rooms as long as the room is big enough to fit them all!

Found the house, now there is the small matter of making my house look like I have not been running summer camp out of it for five years. Let’s hope the “stager” is some sort of miracle worker. We made the decision to move out before listing our house. All I can say is that while that may not be the best move financially, you can’t put a price on mama’s mental health.

If you’ve got any mama moving sanity-saving tips, don’t hold out on me. I need all the help I can get.

Labels/Tags: julie cole, the baby machine, mabel's labels, moving

Posted by JulieC at 14:09:58 View Comments | Click Here to Comment

February 17, 2010

My baby recently turned 9 months old. I always think of that as a bit of a milestone because it means they’ve been “out” as long as they were “in”. I marked the day by noting it in my Facebook status update.

One friend made this comment: “Wow, so does that mean he graduates from wearing sleepers?”

The comment made me think that maybe how I dress (or don’t ‘dress’ as the case may be) my babies may seem unusual. You see, the answer to her question is “NO”. My babies don’t wear proper outfits until after their first birthdays. Until then, it is sleepers in winter and onesies in summer.

The reasons are obvious – sleepers are practical and comfortable. They keep little feet covered, don’t allow tummies to be exposed and they can survive many runs through the washing machine and dryer. The only sleeper requirement I have is that they have snaps and not zippers. Snaps allow me to access the diaper without exposing the top part of babe’s body. The other thing I love about sleepers is that they keep my babies looking like babies. I like that. I’m in no rush to see them look like full-sized humans.

And nothing compliments my baby’s look more than a bib. Didn’t you know that bibs aren’t just for mealtime anymore? Mine wear bibs all day everyday until they are done teething.

A couple of weeks ago I called home from the office asking Nanny Hazel to have the baby ready for the follow-up appointment for his bronchiolitis. Nanny Hazel doesn’t subscribe to my dressing philosophy so when I picked him up he was all in layers with collared shirt and cardigan. He even had some ridiculous shoes that she must have found in a hand-me-down bag somewhere. So, when I got to the doctor and it was time to listen to his chest, the de-layering process began. Re-dressing him was another huge time investment I had not planned for.

Don’t get me wrong - I love looking at adorable little outfits in shops and on other kids. I recently bought my cousin’s baby boy a fully loaded outfit: button-up shirt, vest, cord pants, matching shoes – and the best part – a little cap! When my cousin opened the present, she started laughing and said “You would NEVER put this on one of your babies!” True – but I thoroughly enjoyed buying it and seeing it on her son.

My fashionista mama friends get slightly horrified when I turn up with the baby somewhere special and claim to have put him in his “good” sleeper. I get that can be annoying – sometimes Daddy-o talks about wearing his “good” track pants out to the grocery store. Oxymoron much?!

But, we Mamas of Many know that the “comfort before beauty” lifestyle does not only apply to ourselves but must also be projected onto our babies, all in the name of simple practicality! 
 

Can you guess which is my baby, and which baby is my cousin’s first born? I’m guessing the pink designer shoes might just give it away.

Labels/Tags: julie cole, the baby machine, dressing babies, sleepers, designer baby clothes

Posted by JulieC at 09:34:04 View Comments | Click Here to Comment

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