Move Over Chinese Pre-Folds, There is a New Cloth Diaper in Town

Readers of this blog will know I love using cloth diapers, and I don’t hesitate to tell anyone I talk to that they, too, should go cloth.

My guy has been toilet trained for months. He does, however, still use diapers during naptime and overnight. And because E is a heavy wetter, he uses disposables during those times.

So when I received an email from Mohammed at Lil Helper asking if I still used cloth diapers and if I would be willing to try his version, I jumped at the chance.

If Lil Helper’s diapers would keep E dry, I would buy a set.

I wish I could have captured E’s expression when I put on Lil Helper’s charcoal bamboo cloth diaper.



Super soft, the diaper and its two bamboo inserts with seven layers of absorbent cloth, stayed in place with snaps.

Mohammed also provided me with additional cotton inserts that went inside the diaper. Snaps are also used to keep the diaper on.

Once on, my guy jumped up and paraded in his new blue diaper. ‘Look, Mommy,’ he said before dancing around in the house. Cloth diaper bum is the cutest thing around, but Lil Helper cloth diaper bum is even more fantastic.

Sadly, E didn’t make it through the night with the Lil Helper diaper, but in fairness, he often doesn’t make it through the night in disposables either.

Last night, while getting ready for bed, he asked to wear his Lil Helper diaper. We plan to try it during naptime on the weekend.

I think for a child who is not a heavy wetter, these diapers would work wonderfully. If I discovered Lil Helper before E was potty trained, I would have bought them. If we ever have more children, Lil Helper is where we will turn to.

In addition to being beautifully made, Lil Helper’s diapers are:

* All In Ones. You do not need to buy an additional diaper cover.

* One-size fits all. The same diaper will fit your baby from seven to 35 pounds.

* The outer layer is made from waterproof, yet breathable materials.

* Through Lil Helpers Baby Do Good program, for every three diapers purchased by its customers the company pledges to gift a new cloth diaper to a family in need.

* Mohammed and his family are down-to-Earth, easy to talk to and funny. Nader is also an owner and founder of this company. Both men and their families live in Toronto.

I Hate the City Of Toronto’s Snow Policy

I left my house before 6 a.m. and more than two hours later, I made it to work – really angry.

The drive down to and on the highway was as expected – slow but moving, with drivers packing their patience and leaving lots of room between cars.

It was as I turned off the highway and onto a six-lane road that I began to curse.

Loudly.

The City of Toronto has a snow policy that won’t have it plowing its expressways until 2.5 cm of snow has fallen; five cm must fall for its main roads to be plowed; and eight or more cm must come down for the city’s side roads are plowed, but in this case removal doesn’t start until the snow has stopped.

I hope each person who gets in an accident in the City of Toronto because the city thinks it’s not its job to plow streets until these magic numbers are reached should sue.

Whenever it snows, that six-lane road is not even track-bare, cars are spinning and it’s hard to break through the snow to turn onto even worse ‘side’ roads.

I don’t think I should have to purchase a truck with four-wheel drive to navigate City of Toronto streets when it decides to snow.

Why Joan Rivers?

Joan Rivers is the new spokesperson for Shops at Don Mills at Don Mills Road and Lawrence Avenue in Toronto.

Each time I heard the ridiculous radio commercials promoting the local mall, I wondered what Shops at Don Mills was trying to say by using the comedian.

According to http://www.extremegroup.com/work/63, “If Joan Rivers thinks it’s fabulous, it must be.”

Does the average listener care what Joan Rivers has to say? Does the average person really believe because Joan Rivers thinks something is fabulous, it must be? Does the Extreme Group really believe because Joan Rivers thinks we should go to Shops at Don Mills at Lawrence, we will?

I find the commercials so stupid, I don’t want to set foot at the Shops at Don Mills. In fact, by using Joan Rivers as opposed to a Canadian celebrity, I don’t want to spend any of my money at Shops at Don Mills.

Note: No offence is meant to Joan Rivers. The photo has been taken from her website at http://www.joanrivers.com/

I Can’t Speak for Rob Ford, But I am Offended

Municipal elections are in full swing in Ontario.

The mayor of Toronto race is heating up with a candidate no one thought had a chance becoming the frontrunner.

Rob Ford is a longtime councillor who is hoping to bring his say-it-like-it-is, penny-pinching ways to the mayor's office, and Torontonians have embraced it.

Last night at an all-candidates debate, a man stood up, introduced himself as a doctor and told Ford he was looking at him as a patient. He said because Ford is so big, the doctor was worried Ford wasn’t healthy enough for the job.

Ford, surprisingly, answered the man’s question by saying he knew he had to loose some weight but he has always been a big guy and his doctor had given him a clean bill of health.

Ford also said he was offended by the question.

I am disgusted. What gives anyone the right to question someone’s weight? What business is it of anyone other than Ford? And how dare someone get up in a public forum and ask Ford that sort of question.

I guess this is another reason why I couldn’t be in the public’s eye. I would have told the doctor to piss off.

Poem in Remembrance

A few of my friends and a fellow blogger recently had to put down their cherished pets.
My aunt sent me this poem when we put down Sylvester, a year ago in August. I thought it was lovely.

They are gone
From your sight…
But never our memory,
Gone from our hearing…
But never from our hearts,
Gone from our touch…
But their presence is felt,
And the love that they gave us
Never departs.

Living Donor

I have back-to-back interviews this morning about the living donor program at St. Mike’s Hospital in Toronto.

I have thought about doing an article about the selfless people who donate a kidney or other organ to loved ones in the past but it went to the top of my list when I read through Designing DNA about Cathy at The Stylish House, who was desperately searching for someone to save her daughter who is dying of liver disease.

While her story made me sad, I couldn’t imagine giving up an organ or part of an organ. What if I needed it later?

There was an update on Cathy's blog. Someone, a stranger, has stepped forward to save Heather.

It was then I decided I would do what I do best – provide people with information about the living donor program, why it’s important and the risks associated with it, so people can make an informed decision, and not one based on fear, about how they can make a difference in one’s life.

The Versatile Blogger Award

Alex from Ma, What’s for Dinner made my day Friday when she informed me I was one of the bloggers she recently discovered and think – wait for it – I am fantastic.

Fantastic.

I am truly honoured I made Alex’s list.

So here are the rules:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you this award.
2. Share seven things about yourself.
3. Pass this award along to bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic for whatever reason.

1. Thank you again, Alex. I strive to be versatile so this award means a lot.

2. Seven things about myself…
• I am a mom to an almost 20-year-old stepdaughter and an almost two-year-old son. So I know all about how fast time flies.

• I survived a child in the preteen years and have almost made it through the teen years. I will take a teenager over a pre-teen any day.

• I have dreams of being a SAHM, however, reality forces me to get up every day and go to my job as a copy editor/web writer at a Toronto community newspaper chain.

• It has finally happened. I am officially old. I used to be the youngest person at the office and now I am one of the oldest. The music of my youth is now considered oldies. I haven’t been in school in 14 years.

• Blue and yellow are my favourite colours. I am slowly getting the blue and yellow house of my dreams.

• I have been married for five years, with my husband for 11, owning our current house together for nine.

• Baking bread, the smell of flour out of the freezer, fresh-cut grass and vanilla are smells I never tire of.

3. And the bloggers who I would like to nominate for the Versatile Blogger Award are:

http://mz-cellaneous.blogspot.com - From how to prevent sweaty boobs to her desire for a long-horned cow, this blogger always keeps me entertained.


www.honeyandjam.com – This homeschooled girl takes fabulous pictures.

http://lady-mama.blogspot.com - If I wasn’t afraid of becoming a stalker, I would actually like to hang out at this British-Canadian woman’s house.

http://lindyandree.blogspot.com/ - Food, photos and fun wraps up this woman’s blog

http://me-myself-and-pie.blogspot.com - I want to live near this blogger’s house so she can make me breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, particularly strawberry shortcake.

http://octoberfarm.blogspot.com - If I didn’t have to deal with tornadoes, I would also like to live near this blogger who bakes bread often. Bread. Yum. Besides, she has a countdown to Halloween on her blog. Bread and Halloween. Perfect.

http://rainforestmommy.blogspot.com - This blogger lives in the rainforest with her precious boy and tons of animals. Her life seems quite exciting.

http://thekatherinewheel.blogspot.com - I really like this blogger. Her writing always keeps me reading.

I Just Don’t Get It

The G20 summit, where leaders from 20 developed countries talk about various issues, is coming to Toronto June 26 and 27.

As the date looms closer, there are daily news stories about security; inconveniences to business owners, Torontonians and tourists leading up to and including the summit weekend; and the potential for violence and destruction.

It is the violence and destruction by those protesting the G20 that I don’t get.
Can someone tell me how holding a city and its people hostage, destroying businesses and attacking those with money help your cause?

A coworker wrote a story about the Toronto Community Mobilization Network (TCMN), a group of activists fighting for equality for women, the disabled, the queer community, Aboriginal Peoples, migrants, workers, Arabs and other groups. The TCMN hosted a news conference in May detailing their plans for protesting the summit.

According to the story, the group said the G20, as well as the G8, which is taking place north of the city prior the Toronto weekend event, does nothing to help the margalized.

It’s likely a valid point. The G8 and G20 events may not do anything to help those who need help the most.

But is this group, which can’t promise it won’t be violent in its protests of the summits, helping their causes by hurting the very people who can help?

It’s not governments that help people, it’s people – it’s Bay Street bankers who host large-scale charity events to help the United Way; it’s business owners who donate their time and services to raise money to help earthquake-ravished Haiti or war-torn Sudan; it’s downtown residents who participate in Out of The Cold programs to help the homeless; and it’s every day Torontonians, Ontarians and Canadians who believe that everyone has a right for happiness and equality.

Perhaps G8 and G20 protestors should remember that before they destroy the city and hurt the people who actually help anyone in need.

Happy Earth Day Everyone

It’s Earth Day and the 40th anniversary of an event, which encourages people to remember Mother Earth at least one day a year.

I don’t remember celebrating Earth Day as a child. I suppose we celebrated it simply by enjoying nature and respecting our neighbours by not throwing garbage on the ground and turning off our lights so they could see the night sky.

Today, school children host events and awareness sessions, the City of Toronto hosts cleanups and entertainment and companies offer incentives to help people go green. The CN Tower is getting into the act by lighting up the tourist attraction in green at dusk. Of course, I think they should be turning off the lights rather than making it green, but that is likely just me.

Happy Earth Day everyone.

Now get outside and enjoy all Mother Nature has to offer.

On another note:
Thank you to Mommy's Sippy Cup, who presented me with the Honest Scrap Award, my second time receiving this award this week.

I don’t think people need to read another 10 things about myself so instead I point you to my last blog entry… thisandthatday.blogspot.com

Mommy's Sippy Cup is deserving of the Honest Scrap Award. She often makes me laugh and I particularly like the name of her blog – and the picture that goes along with it. My sippy cup would have liquid chocolate in it.

Thank you again.

Thankful Friday

It’s Friday. I had things to write about yesterday but as I was off with a sick baby Tuesday and Wednesday, I was so busy I didn’t have time to write.
So I thought, seeing as I am so thankful it’s Friday, I would list the other things I am thankful for today.

Fridays
Fridays mean a relaxing day at the office where I can get some writing and planning done for the following week.
Fridays also only one day before I am home full time with my little guy.

Fun assignments
Next week I am going to Marble Slab Creamery in downtown Toronto. I am going to create my own ice cream flavour, which will be available at the store for the month of May. In June, I will find out how many people enjoyed the flavour of ice cream I created. I also get to interview the owner of the creamery to learn all about ice cream. How exciting and fun is that?

Weekends
We get to sleep in. My little guy and I have to get up at around 5 a.m. Monday to Friday. On the weekend, he gets to sleep in to what would likely be his normal wakeup time of about 7:30 a.m.
Weekends also mean there is no real rushing in the morning. We play in bed, we don’t rush out of our pajamas, we play outside, we play inside, we read, we colour, we have fun.

Sunshine
It’s supposed to be in the double digits and sunny this weekend. Bring on spring.

Friends and family
We are off to visit an old friend and then have a sleepover at my parents. It might mean pancakes with real maple syrup in the morning and a long, hot shower while the baby plays with Nana and Popa.

Kindness
My boss did a nice thing for me. I received a thank you letter for an article I wrote about pottery and another that offered thanks to freelancer, Maria Tzavaras, who wrote a piece about heritage trees. I received word that Maria and I won best online series for a three-part series we did at Christmas. I ‘met’ a woman who made my day when I apparently made her’s.

It’s been a good week, sick baby or not.

Picking On The City Of Toronto

I realized on my way home yesterday that I have been picking on the City of Toronto.

It’s just so easy.

The politicians are a laughable bunch, the mayor drives me crazy and, together, they do things that are just ridiculous. The City of Toronto claims to be world class and perhaps that is what drives me most crazy about the city – arrogance.

I hate arrogance. I hate people who think they are better than everyone else. The City of Toronto is not better than any other city or town in this country, just different. Each place offers a different way of life, different opportunities and different things that make it great.

However, picking on the City of Toronto is sort of like biting the hand that feeds me and for those who are reading my blog and who have never ventured to the city, I feel as thought I should also be talking about what makes it great.

So here are some of the reasons you should visit the City of Toronto:

• The Ontario Science Centre.
This was my favourite place to visit as a kid because there are so many buttons to push and everything is hands-on and interactive. I haven’t been here since my now almost- 20-year-old stepdaughter was eight or nine – I took her for her birthday – but have read they now have activities for little ones as well.

• Black Creek Pioneer Village.
This was also a favourite destination of mine. We would go here yearly on school trips. I still love to go through the village, and would do it weekly, to see how life was like in early Canada. They have a great restaurant now and their nighttime Christmas festival is wonderful.

• Casa Loma.
For some reason I missed out on this as a school trip and went with a friend after college. It’s a beautiful building and many people get married on its grounds. If you saw Mike Myers movie Love Guru with Jessica Alba, you would have seen Casa Loma (Myer’s character’s home).

• The Royal Ontario Museum.
You actually need more than a day to explore this museum.

• The Bata Shoe Museum.
I am not a shoe fan but this was an interesting place. We took my stepdaughter’s friend here. The girls had a good time.

• Yonge Street, Queen Street and various neighbourhoods in the city.
My husband and I would actually love to grab a hotel in the city one night and just explore the city and its neighbourhoods. We have spent many days exploring the various streets, ‘towns’ that make up the city and historical sites. There are some beautiful buildings (old for us, new for European standards).

In May, Toronto hosts Doors Open, which is when buildings of historic or architecturally significant are open to the public free of charge. I would suggest coming to the city and checking it out.

Grrrrrr

I received a parking ticket while downtown during an interview last week.

Five days later, I am still a tad put out and here is why:

• I didn’t notice a sign saying I couldn’t park on this small side street.
• I did notice the car behind me had a parking permit on its windshield. So I called the woman I was interviewing and asked if she knew if I could park on this residential street. She said the parking permit was so the resident could park overnight on his street and it was fine for me to be there.

Great.

So I interviewed this woman about pottery (fascinating, both the subject and the woman) and walked back to my car to find a yellow ticket flapping on my windshield.

According to the Toronto parking authority, you unable to park on this street Monday to Saturday from midnight to 7 p.m.

As I am terribly bad at directions, and I can’t parallel park, I always grab the first drive-in spot I can find.

In this case, it was pretty far down the road. As I was driving out, parking ticket beside me, I noticed the no parking sign at the top of the street.

I am paying the $30 ticket not because I think it’s right but because I am not driving back downtown to fight it.

It’s not worth it.

However, I did send a note along with my cheque with a suggestion to the City of Toronto.

Prior to hosting the 2015 Pan Am Games, the city needs to come up with some consistent parking rules and post multiple signs for the dos and don’ts of parking downtown.

I am not a mind reader. I don’t live in the City of Toronto so I do not know which streets allow parking on which side on which day. I don’t know which streets allow you to park without a permit and which ones require you to purchase the right to park.
I do not mind paying to park. In fact, I would rather just pay to avoid receiving a ticket.

So here is a suggestion for the money-hungry city – install ticketed parking metres on one side of every street.

That way people will know where to without having to read the City of Toronto parking manual.

On a side note, no matter how angry I was about receiving a ticket, I would not punch the parking person in the face, as one man is accused of doing in East York over the weekend.

Regardless, parking ticket people are just doing their jobs and the driver who is accused of the sucker punch should give his head a shake and get some help for his obvious anger issues.

Help! I am Lost Again

On Wednesday I had to drive to the Hospital for Sick Children in downtown Toronto.
My husband was supposed to go with me but he fell victim to the flu that my son brought home on the weekend and I had to fly solo.

I have driven to Sick Kids dozens of times yet I am one of those people who can’t retain directions.

Let’s just say if the police closed down my route to work, I would have to really think about how to get there another way.

It’s sad really.

So my husband gave me directions on how to get downtown, including what he said was the off-ramp from the Gardiner Expressway.

He lied.

OK, he didn’t lie per se, but he gave me lackadaisical directions including an off-ramp that didn’t exist.

We have been together for 10 years now. You would think one would know you can’t do that.

If you tell me to get off at say, York, I will get off at York or at least I will stay on until I find York, which in this case didn’t exist.

I knew I had missed my turnoff when I was past the Air Canada Centre and travelling west. I called him telling him I was getting of at Dunn Avenue and had no idea where I was or how to get back to where I was suppose to be.

He informed me he didn’t know where I was either and had no idea how to get me back to where I was suppose to be.

Great.

So I turned right and hoped I was heading at least in the correct direction. I had a lovely tour through Parkdale, one of the communities we cover in my job at a newspaper.

Eventually my husband called me and directed me to where I was suppose to go.

Unfortunately, the City of Toronto was against me. Everywhere I wanted to turn left, I couldn’t. If I wanted to turn right, I couldn’t. Eventually, my son and I made it to his appointment – minutes to spare.

I am happy to report we did not get lost getting back onto the Gardiner Expressway, or getting home.

Success.

Friday Rambles

• It took me just more than two hours to get to work this morning. It wasn’t the snow that was falling that was the problem, rather the snow that was already on the ground making it impossible to see what side of the road you are on.
Someone needs to invent a heated middle line so you know you where you are.

• At about 7 a.m. this morning, someone from the City of Toronto came on the radio to tell us that in a few hours the snowploughs should be starting their routes. What! Shouldn’t they already be out? What are they waiting for?

• I followed an older man driving a newer model Mercedes Benz the other morning and his license plate was RICH IQ.
What does that mean? Is he suggesting because he is rich he has a higher IQ? Perhaps it isn’t right for me to be annoyed but arrogance is a trait that really annoys me.

• Friday is here. Happy weekend everyone.