For the not so crafty gifters

Me, I consider myself a light crafter. I like to do it, but I can not come up with something and finish it quickly and still have it look good. When it comes to gift giving, I prefer to give the store bought kind. There is nothing wrong with that! When it comes to baby showers I like to give the unexpected gifts. Usually in themes. When I do give clothes though I give the larger sizes, like 12 months and up. I find that most gifted clothes are the smaller sizes. Anyways, on to my theme gift kits.

Solid Food Feeding Kit

• Rice Cereal
• Spoons
• Bibs

Breast Feeding Kit

• My favorite Breast Pads (I liked the Lansonal brand)
• Lansonal Breast Cream
• A good book or magazine to read while feeding
• A nursing pillow
• Burp cloths

Bottle Feeding Kit

• A Can of Formula (they can always exchange it if it is one they find irritates the baby.)
• My favorite bottles and nipples. ( I like the Gerber naturals)
• Burp Cloths
• A good book or magazine to read

Toddler Kit

• A pair of soft shoes or grippy socks
• An ice pack for the clumsiness
• A box of colorful band aids

Childproofing Kit

• Plug Covers
• Door Handle Covers
• Cabinet locks
• Handle Locks
• Anything Childproofing

A Child Grooming Kit

• Brushes, Combs
• Hair bows and barrettes if applicable
• Fingernail Clippers
• bath soap/shampoo/lotion

An Emergency Kit

• A Thermometer
• Baby Tylenol
• Baby Motrin
• Vick's Baby Rub
• Q-tips

There are endless possibilities. So if you are like me and looking for a quick gift, here are some ideas. Thinking in themes helps a ton for me. I hope it helps for you!

Tutorial: 90-Minute Mitered Blanket

Here's an easy baby gift to sew in just a bit of time and for around $10 or less. My mom and I made some of them while she was here helping me with Baby #2 last year. The instructions were a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a hand drawing, so I made it into a step-by-step tutorial for you. For all of you swaddlers out there, have you noticed how difficult it is to find a SQUARE blanket? This one ends up 34" square. I've only used flannel so far, but since summer's coming up, you could make it out of lightweight cotton. A breezy seersucker would be cute too!

Materials:

• 1.25 yards main fabric (the puppy fabric in my photos and referred to as the BACK fabric in the instructions)
• 1 yard coordinating fabric (the polka dot fabric in my photos and referred to as the FRONT fabric in the instructions)
• sewing machine and coordinating thread

1. Cut the main BACK fabric into a 40" square. Cut the coordinating FRONT fabric into a 30" square. Mark the centers of each of the four sides of EACH fabric square (mine are marked with pins in the photo).
2. With right sides of the front and back fabrics together, match the center points and pin edges together. There will be 5" of the back fabric extending beyond the front fabric.

3. Starting at the center mark, sew a 1/4" seam allowance and STOP your needle when you get 1/4" from the end of the front fabric and make a backstitch to secure. Go back to the center mark and stitch to the other end, again stopping 1/4" from the end of the front fabric. Repeat on all four sides, leaving a 4" opening on one side to turn the blanket right-side-out.

It will look like this with "ears" on each corner:

4. Now, fold the blanket so that two stitched sides line up, your STOP points match up, and the corner of the back fabric comes to a point (You'll see an extra seam in my photo that you can ignore. I had to do a little piecing to get my 40" square since I was using a piece of fabric in my stash that wasn't quite big enough).

5. When all is matched up and it's lying flat, draw a perpendicular line from the stop point to the angled fold, like so.

6. Pin in place and sew along the line you just drew. (My STOP point is shown as a red dot here.)

7. Trim off the point to a 1/4" seam allowance. Repeat on all four corners.

8. Reach through the opening and turn blanket right-side-out and poke out corners with a dull pencil so as not to poke a hole through the corner. Press flat, and this creates a frame of about 2.5" around the front fabric. Use a zig-zag or other decorative stitch and "straddle" stitch the seam to hold it in place. This will close up the opening too.

9. You're done! You'll have a little leftover fabric, so you can sew some strips together to whip up a little coordinating burp cloth for a super cute gift combo.

I hope you'll try this, and let me know how it goes. This is a great blanket to take anywhere and is soft for baby to lay on and play. And if you make it with flannel, it's basically a giant burp cloth and spit-up catcher for those tummy times right after a meal, KWIM? It lasts through many washes and gets softer and softer with each one!

Rock Around the Cradle

So I realize it's not your typical mommy-to-be worry, but when I was expecting my first baby I worried about what sort of music she would spend her childhood listening to. I have ... um ... opinions about these things, you see, and I was a little bit afraid of what I might find in the children's section at the music store. Turns out, there's a whole lot of really great kids' music out there, much to my pleasant surprise!

Here's a rundown on some of our favorites over the last 5 years, some of which I have been listening to with my children from Day One. My kids love this music, and I love this music - which says a whole lot when all I hoped for at first was to find something for my kids that I could tolerate, too. And I think any one of these albums would make a fun, useful, not-your-typical baby shower gift.


The first kids' music I ever bought was The Innocence Mission's album Now The Day is Over. I desperately wanted to learn some lullabies, and this album is all full of them. Really good lullabies, too, like "Stay Awake" (from "Mary Poppins") and "Moon River" (from "Breakfast at Tiffany's") and of course "Now The Day is Over", all sung by Karen Peris' dreamy voice; and most of which I have in turn sung my children to sleep with.


For another gentle-but-fun album for the daytime, I highly recommend Elizabeth Mitchell (no, no, not the one from "Lost"). I've only heard her latest children's album, You Are My Little Bird, but I just learned of a couple others (You Are My Flower and You Are My Sunshine) that I'm simply going to have to give a listen. I love that she sings in Korean and Spanish and Chinese, and that she has some of her song lyrics with guitar chords available on her website (youaremyflower.org).


If you're in the folk music groove (it's what I grew up with!) go look up this oldie-but-goodie, American Folk, Game and Activity Songs for Children by the legendary Pete Seeger. Then listen to him sing "All Around the Kitchen" or (my favorite) "Jolly is the Miller" and just try not to dance around with your little ones.


If you're looking for something a little more rockin', these are two I keep coming back to. Lots of different artists, styles and moods on these compilations. Some revamped childhood favorites, some totally new, but almost all of them really singable and danceable and completely delightful.

Okay, read for some video fun?

This song is from They Might Be Giants Here Come the 123s. The whole album is about numbers, including a song for each of the numbers from zero through nine, even numbers and infinity. The whole album is fun ("We share the same omniverse; please clean your room we share the same omniverse" - from "One Everything"), educational ("The definition of zero is the mathematical value between positive and negative values" - from "Zeros") and sometimes unexpected (who knew there really is such a thing as a triops?!).

And while we're on They Might Be Giants, here's a song from their newest kids' album, Here Comes Science:

We are loving this album around here, too. Before I had kids I never thought I'd be dancing around my kitchen to songs about Speed and Velocity or Paleontologists; and I'm pretty sure They Might Be Giants is the only band around that could make me want to!

I recently discovered that another old high-school favorite of mine has been making kids' albums, Chris Ballew of The Presidents of the United States of America is known as Caspar Babypants to my kids. Another who'd've thought situation. Here's one of my favorites from the album More Please:

There's so much more out there, I know, but these are some of the favorites that we've discovered and loved to share with friends.

How about you? What's your favorite music to listen to with your kids?