I wanted to share a few things I learned from the experience of travelling to Paris with a baby and a little one. I’m certainly no expert (yet) but we did manage to find some things that worked wonderfully, in helping to ease transitions and be efficient travel-helpers.

If you ever fly Air Transat (which flies solely out of Canada, I believe) you might want to consider signing up for their Kids Club. It’s free, and gives you Priority Baggage handling (so our bags were first off the plane in Paris, a huge timesaver), and Priority (as in Business Class-level) Check-In. No lines.

I also had a series of ideas about how to reduce toxins when travelling on planes. I wrote about them last year here – and they worked, again. Bringing bar soap, covering our seats with old sheets…. it all felt more comfortable, and was more eco friendly in the process.

In Paris I found this little Tavolina toy that worked really well on the plane back. Bigger and more complex than most toys it was still small enough to stow in the carry-on.

We make our own baby food, so we found this simple, fabulous stainless steel food mill  here. It works so well we often use it here at home too – it’s perfect for half an avocado, or mashing up a turnip…. which constitute the bulk of the mancub’s diet these days (along with some local grassfed beef, which still comes out best in our food processor). The mill was easy to pack in our suitcase, and easy to clean. Perfect.

Our baby carrier. We use an ERGO and we used it non stop in Paris. I can’t even imagine going to Paris with a stroller – hundreds of stairs on the metro, 6 flights of stairs up to our rental apartment…. would have been impossible. This way the little mancub napped in all of the beautiful museums and parks of Paris. He must have had some fabulous dreams…

These new carbon filter water bottles called “Bobbles” that made it easier to use tap water wherever we were. We never had to buy bottled water, and avoided purchasing more plastic bottles. We had a portable water filter with us all the time. We got ours at our local American Apparel.

Oh, and letting things (lots of things) slide. Breathing in deeply and letting go. Lots of non-organic patisserie/bakery snacks for my eldest. Lots of things I might not have “let go” here at home. But all in all, it was small potatoes (I told myself, sometimes repeatedly . It made the trip a lot more relaxed. We planned everything out the best we could, and made lots of eco & organic choices, and made the best of everything else. That made it extra delightful.

We have a brand new pile of baby blankets in the shop, all handmade with Marimekko fabric and organic cotton flannel on the underside.

Mod, stylin’ ways to give babies a hug.

Perfect for naps, strollers, carseats, all-purpose holding and cuddling…made from collectible, beautiful pieces of Marimekko (which themselves are all printed from hand mixed eco inks).

We have only one of some of them, and 2 of others, but all are extremely limited edition. We really depleted our stash of smaller Marimekko pieces with this blanket mini-collection, so we may not have too many more in the future. We do have some brand new Marimekko and organic cotton baby quilts coming soon, though. All one of a kind, in some of our favorite prints.

This week we surely were in the midst of winter, though far milder than Ottawa should have this time of year…

We delighted in the beautiful ice sculptures that are part of Ottawa’s Winterlude festival. Already the skating was iffy, the Rideau Canal (the world’s longest outdoor rink) having had too many warm days.

Nursing on an ice sofa chair. Awesome.

And then, to warm up an already warm end of winter, a whole lot of cooking. And standing. And cooking.

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend, wherever you are!

The sniffles have lingered (thanks to the pressure of 35,000 feet I’m sure) so our Paris photos remain nestled on the card in the camera. Except the ones taken by the kind and incredibly talented Parisian Yann of PhotographyDream, who took the one above at the Palais Royal (thank you, Yann).

As we linger in the dusk light of our trip (it almost feels like we’re still there) I’ve been mulling over what I would put on a quick crush list. I’m in full savour mode, and full of lots of new ideas – for art, homeschooling, baking, our shop…. oh my.

Here is a snippet of my crush list.

Pain au curcuma et noix…. this recipe looks interesting -I didn’t have this myself as I’m on this son-helping-diet but it got rave reviews. Photo via here.

Belgium-based Bellerose. My little one came home with her choice – an almost neon yellow thin, buttery soft sweater with a boat neck and puffed shoulders, and washed out black, big-cuffed, high-waisted sweet jeans (from the winter sale pile). It was all just right. And a special treat for a girl who does next to no shopping like that, ever.

La Droguerie. Near Les Halles, housed in an old Medieval-era building on a sweet cobblestone street… full of beautiful ribbon, buttons, patterns, bolts and bolts of Liberty fabric. (photo via Craftzine)

(photo via Flickr)

The Pompidou Centre – the 1970s constructed complex in the 4th arrondissement – which happened to be blocks from our rental apartment. Home of the best (my favorite) modern art collection, fabulous architecture, an exterior staircase up to a beautiful view of the city… and a must-see bookstore.

(photo below via Flickr)

The bookstore is huge, airy, incredibly stocked + well-organized. Apparently it has 10,000+ titles and no less than 300 art magazines and reviews. Great kids section too.

We’re a sorry lot right now, all sniffles and coughs and irritating ear pain. Must be from the (long, oh my, looong) plane ride home from Paris! YES. We whisked ourselves away to a tiny, sweet, eco appart in Paris for 2 weeks and managed to pull off a fabulous getaway. Some of the happiest, most wonderful moments and days I can remember. It has given us a fresh perspective, lots of amazing food in our bellies and so much inspiration. And an excuse to do nothing else but revel in eachothers’ company. So I suppose a few sniffles now … so to speak… ain’t the end of the world.

I very much look forward to sharing with you our trip – what we learned about travelling to Paris with a baby and another child…. eco friendly Paris living… favorite family spots, and more. We’ve managed to recreate our favorite Moelleux cakes with a great silicone mold pan I bought at this 200 year-old Paris kitchen shop, but will need to make some eclairs very soon.

(photo, above, via fxcuisine.com where they have an excellent review of the store)

Speaking of soft places to land, I also wanted to share with you one of our new organic pieces in the shop – a double thick hooded organic bath towel in creamy white. Personalized with an initial on the hood, using organic cotton too. The inspiration for this much-larger-than-normal baby hooded towel came when our son outgrew his first one, a gift, some months ago. Towels should be thick and big and “hug-gy” so this one was designed to do all that.

It should grow with a child right through the ages of 4 or 5, at least.

And it’s  as soft on the earth, being organic cotton, as it is on the skin.

See you back here soon with postcards from Paris…

With littles of a certain age, everything goes to the mouth. Directly. I know babies learn so much about the world through their mouth and all of their senses, but I just can’t abide by board books and cardboard being gummed. (Yes, still no teeth!!)

So when I saw these wonderful fabric designs over at Spoonflower, I knew they would provide a great alternative. For him. And for me

You can order the fabric in organic cotton sateen, printed with water-based, eco friendly non toxic inks. And they are quite quick to sew up. We didn’t use cotton quilt batting inside, but you certainly could to give each page a little more depth.

Oh, and if you are looking for a custom-made organic cotton fabric book, you should check these out. They are just stunning. She had a Kickstarter campaign recently and has launched her own organic cotton book line.

The wooden floors on our 100  year old house are chilly on the toes this time of year. When it came to warming the little man-cub’s feet this winter, I wanted something that would grow with him and might even work in the early spring (outside) when I think he might be taking this first steps.

Unfortunately, so much conventional leather is tanned using chromium, and this is problematic on a number of levels. So, we found these beautiful little naturally dyed shoes here and they are as sweet as they are comfortable (I gather).

Chrome is a heavy metal that is mined mostly in developing countries under questionable conditions, sometimes, and much energy and resources are used to extract, transport and produce with the chrome. Morever, much of the leather tanning of conventional childrens’ shoes (as well as many leather goods) occurs in factories that do not use new, more environmentally friendly systems of production, which leads to the pollution of nearby water and soil with chrome effluent, and other toxins used in the making of the leather. Lastly while not all chrome is equally toxic (hexavalent chromium such as that which is found in pressure-treated wood, for example is really really really toxic… remember what Erin Brocovitch was fighting for?) studies have found concentrations of toxic chromium in leather goods, and in babies’ leather shoes. Not only can chromium act as an allergen for many people, but its residues can enter the skin and cause cellular-level damage, even damaging DNA. Yuck. You can learn more here.

When I watch my mancub work, hours a day, to pull himself up and then balance – upright – for a few moments, and then a few moments more… I am reminded of the tremendous thing that is walking. My children – all our children – so subtly and beautifully shine light on what we so often take for granted, don’t they?