The wren has been set free...

After a few weeks of not feeding the wren, I was surprised as always how many worms were still alive and thriving though mostly little ones. Knowing that my time is super limited these days by my little one (baby time is amazing 5 hours pass and you wonder where the day went), I've put the wren in the outside compost and will be storing my tumbleweed worm composting bin in the garage until I'm  ready to grow worms again. Maybe as part of my kiddo's science curriculum. This will be the 2nd time I've had to let go of the indoor worm composting for one reason or another.

The garden blog "Red Wiggler Wren" was named after my little worm collective and I haven't been keeping up with it either. My garden is overgrown in the back yard though I am still getting flowers and telling myself I will spend more time back there some day. The some day is getting farther and farther away.

The Red Wiggler Wren is no more and if you believe in the propheticness of names then it was always meant to go this way considering it was all named after a bin of worms who liked to escape and then dry up and die...

But the joy of composting worms is that you just put those dried up husks back into the worm bin to feed the rest of the worms and they all become something new, yet in essence the same...

What I'm reading Kiddo this week...

Ten in the Bed by Penny Dale is definitely not a new take on a familiar favorite. The illustrations are kind of blah and she uses two of the same objects two teddy bears that fall off the bed at separate times. They do have different nicknames. She calls the stuffed animals by pet names like teddy & croc. There is just not much to learn from this book nor is it very engaging beyond the rhyme itself and the cute ending. Ten in the Bed has definitely been done better.

I give this two BLAHS... Will not be in my kid's library.






So far this gets the award for the worst Eric Carle book we've read. As usual, the illustrations are great but the text that goes along with it is really awful. "I am an elephant and I  stomp my foot. Can you do it? I can do it!" Manperson said that he would have preferred something like I am an elephant and I can pick up things with my nose as a more interesting choice which would have made up for the lack of rhyme/rhythm in the text. No I don't think everything should rhyme, but there needs to be some payoff for the adult reading this. Learning wise this is a real disappointment for those familiar with Eric Carle.

This get three Blahs, because we know he could do better or get Bill Martin to do the text.





This weeks reading hasn't all been Blah. Hippos go Beserk is a fabulous book. It is counting book, not only does it have counting but addition and subtraction. It starts and ends with 1 hippo all alone, but in the middle 44 come and go in all sorts of different ways. Illustrations and texts not only rhyme but are interesting for the adult too. This would also make a great math lesson. Must have for any children's library. I'm definitely planning on getting Kiddo a personal copy.

This gets a big, fat LOVE IT!

Mei Tai Baby Carrier

I made this Mei Tai a few months before my baby was even born. I'd never made one before and I had never seen one in person. I attended a meeting of the Austin Babywearer group that meets monthly at Cherrywood Coffee House a few weeks after Kiddo came into the the world and realized my Mei Tai was not proportioned well for my baby. I used the dimensions on a website pattern that no longer exists. I put a pocket that obviously doesn't work since the tie ends up in the middle of it. It seems too wide for Kiddo's body and the straps that hold her on are too close together so she can't move her head around much.

This morning I cut it up and repositioned the straps, redid the body, and put on different more comfortable straps for my waist. I kept most of the fabric and only added some more blue straps. She can now move her head and I made it so she can have more support on her bottom. 

Sadly, she still hates it. Manperson says it is because the Baby K'tan that she is used to is alot more flexible.  Both fabricwise and how it can be worn. This is supportive, but in being very supportive it is also restrictive of movement. Kiddo does not like to have her movement restricted. She also does not like to have her legs in this position. Back to the drawing board. I have fabric to make Manperson a baby carrier, but until I can manage one that works better I don't want to experiment on the fabric. I'm thinking I need to make the body of this even more narrow to take into account that Kiddo likes her legs to hang straight down which is the way they end up in the baby k-tan. The length of the straps work, but Kiddo also like lots of upper body freedom, so it needs to navigate that fine line between supporting her upper back and letting her support herself.