Beautiful Baby Bonnets

I have mentioned before how much I love dressing my sweet Tinker in pretty little outfits. I love the 'old fashioned' things like smocked dresses and hand knitted cardigans. Another thing I love is the humble baby bonnet.

With my little lamb inheriting my milk white complexion, we need to keep her precious red head out of the sun so she always wears a hat when we leave the house. I love love love bonnets I think they are the sweetest little hats.

Here are some pictures of the Tinker and I in Perth last December. The first time she played in sand, she wasn't so sure about it but she certainly rocked her beautiful bonnet!

So I was very excited to get an Etsy email this morning featuring this gorgeous bonnet:

You can buy this pretty little number HERE at Ub2 A Modern Baby Bonnet, A postmodern twist on an heirloom classic. What a cute store, right up my alley. They say "ub2 Bonnets give a bit of postmodern flair to a classic design! With adjustable straps & truly substantial protection from the elements, they'll protect your little ones from the sun, stay put on their heads & add a bit of funky fashion flair to their wardrobes! For BOYS and GIRLS!"

I love how they make their bonny little bonnets for little boys as well. The fabrics are beautiful and they feature a really wide deep brim unlike some token bonnets you can find. Perfect!

Must. Get.One... Or two!

What's new kitty cat?

Thought I should do another little catch up post for anyone who is remotely interested!

Just like your garden variety nutjob, I am asking myself some questions. You know what they say about talking to yourself...

1.What have you bought lately?

Not a great deal because we are on an economy drive at our house trying to save up for the big garden renovation which I will tell you all about soon. I did manage to grab a few bargains on Saturday at Kirribilli Markets. For the little Tinker I bought this sweet lilac cardigan, handknitted from alpaca wool. Isn't it gorgeous? It only cost me $36.50. I love a bargain.






2. What's on the menu?

Well the other day Stella McCartney tweeted about Meat Free Mondays and I think this is going to be something we will do in our house from now on. My husband and I are both fatter versions of our former selves and today we began our healthy new eating plan to lose some weight. I think Meat Free Mondays will assist in that. I promise to keep you updated (bored) about our new diet as it progresses... if it progresses! I'm not great at sticking to new regimes so don't hold your breath.

Tonight's dinner is this hearty vegetable and lentil soup that works out at $1.25AU per serve!





3. What are you reading?

No books at the moment, no time! Two of my friends are now bloggers so I am enjoying reading their posts. I thought I might share the links with you. It's funny because the nature of their blogs couldn't be more different. Both fabulous mummy bloggers, I think the subject matter will appeal to my lovely readers:

Apathetic Housewife

Super Organizer


4. What's new with Stepford Dreams?


Some of you have noticed I now have the http://www.stepforddreams.com/ site. Not sure if it makes any difference to anything but it sounds cool doesn't it?

Also I'm very excited about our Monday giveaways, so far they have been really fabulous and I'm pleased to say we have lots more scheduled.

If you have an interesting product you think other Stepford Dreams readers would love to hear about, please shoot me an email!

5. What's the Tinker been up to lately?


She is now 18 months old and every bit the tinker. She is incredibly cheeky and ever so beautiful. She really amazes me with her memory and her sense of humour.

I can't help but compare her to other children sometimes and I often feel so lucky to have such a bright and engaging girl. She has always been that way, never one to stare off blankly like a lump of child.

Even as a tiny baby she would really engage with people. Now that she is such a fabulous talker it is even more apparent how clever and complex she is.

Here she is looking up at the navy helicopters that fly over our us all the time. She was saying "Touch heycopter mama? Nooo! Too high ha ha. Touch? Nooo, silly!"





I have just enrolled her in Mandarin classes and I'm awfully excited about it. Learning languages is something I have always loved and I hope it is something my little Tinker enjoys.

The classes are held in a playgroup type format for parents and children and run for an hour and a half with painting, songs and stories. 90% of the session is in Mandarin and they are designed for children and parents who do not speak Mandarin at home. I'm so looking forward to it. We will do a trial session first to see if she likes it and of course I'll share our progress on the blog.


She had her 18 month vaccinations this morning and she was so brave because I bribed her with a jelly bean. It worked. I'm off to wake her up now because we are going to see the Playschool show live in concert with her BFF and her mummy. A fun play date. I will pack the camera!

See you later!

Being the Bigger Mama

credit businessblog.net

I really hate that expression "be the bigger person." Whenever people think you should roll over or walk away they finish their advice with "be the bigger person."

I have had a couple of situations lately where I've been told to "leave it! Be the bigger person". Why? Why should I? Am I lesser of a person because sometimes I choose the path of most resistance? Maybe I am.

Let me paint you a picture. My beautiful spirited little toddler doesn't like being tied down. can't blame her. She is who she is and she certainly isn't sedate. She won't sit for long in a pram unless it is moving. Fast. So walks to the park are fine, but meandering around a mall is not fine. Not at all. She contorts and screams and does not stop until she is freed from her Quinny or Silvercross prison.

It is not my fault. I am not her. I am me. So when strangers roll their eyes at me and tut tut at me and say things like "shut that child up" and "what's wrong with you, why don't you discipline her?" I tend to blink back embarrassed tears and wonder why I am so lousy at this parenting gig. That was until a few weeks ago when the Tinker and I were out shopping with my mother and I suddenly grew some spunk.

Tink was walking beside the pram but we had approached the escalator and I needed her to sit in the pram for her own safety. So I got down to her height as I do and I said "it's time to sit in your big girl pram now just for a minute." She pulled away and wailed "noooo big girl pram" so I put my chipper voice on and said "yes it's time for the big girl pram and because you are such a big girl you can even have some cheese!" just as I said this a woman walked up to me and said "pfft. You are pathetic!"

So I put the Tinker in the pram and chased after her. Going fast was just the treat and Tinker started giggling. I called out to the woman "sorry I missed what you said before. I think you were giving me some parenting advice?"
She turned back and glared at me and slowly shook her head at me. The way I might slowly shake my head at a pair of stirrup pants perhaps. "I'm really open to suggestions, I'm trying my best with her, what else would you suggest I do?"
She swore at me. My mother appeared then, apparently her search for Sussan had failed. She was horrified to find me in the midst of an altercation with the woman in the stonewash jeans and bleached poodle perm hair. "Just leave it Carolyn. Be the bigger person."

Nope, no bigger person that day. I was the little person. The littlest person in that whole bloody shopping centre. Littler than my Tinker and littler than the Iggle Piggle toy I'd bought her when she cried near the check-out. I called out to the swearing woman "Really, tell me how I can improve my approach to toddler tantrums, seriously tell me I will take all the advice I can get."
You know what she said? She said "Fuck you, I'm a child psychologist" and then she ran into Big W. That's our Aussie version of Wal-Mart for my American readers.

Now obviously she isn't a child psychologist, or maybe she is? I really feel for the parents forking out a hundred and fifty bucks an hour to expose their children to such an inarticulate therapist if she is. I think she was just some nutjob who picked the wrong mummy to humiliate that day. Maybe I should have just left it, but she was straw that broke this mother camel's back. People are always rolling their eyes at me and criticising me when my Tinker throws a tanty in public and until that day I would usually just look away embarrassed or shrug my shoulders but that cow set something off inside me and I snapped.

Are you the bigger person in these types of situations?

Shopping daze

Do not fear, my lovely readers I have not gone all cheesy on you. I am not attempting some sort of corny title. I do truly mean daze, not "days" in a bad ad kinda way.

What I am talking about here is the sort of deer in the headlights reaction I tend to have when faced with a supermarket or any large shopping centre. I find that if I do not pack myself a neatly drawn up list of things I have to buy and where I have to buy them, then I always find myself frozen and stupid. Frozen by the lights? The noise? The people? I do not know what it is exactly but it is quite strange. I can enter a supermarket with my IQ in tact, withing 2 minutes I am reduced to a fumbling idiot. I can wander aimlessly up and down the aisles. Staring at things on shelves not really even thinking about whether I want to buy them, just staring off in a daze.

I go completely stupid! For a while there I thought it was my eyesight not adjusting well to the bright lights. Then I considered the temperature changes. So cold in the dairy aisle, f-f-freezing in the ice cream section then warmish around the rotisserie chickens. I can't blame the little Tinker because my shopping daze problem existed well before her arrival.

I have been known to pop down to the supermarket to buy 3 things and come home with about 13 bags of things. None of them anything to do with the three I actually set out to buy. Time slips away when I am at the supermarket. I don't know where it goes. Maybe I lose it in a particular aisle? Is the aisle with the eggs? There are so many different eggs now. Did you know you can buy free range organic eggs grown in Queensland by Japanese farmers? Well you can at my local shopping centre.

It isn't just the supermarket either. It is the rest of the mall as well. I am completely unable to go shopping without a target. I can get lost in the mall all day long and come home with absolutely nothing but a pair of black socks for my husband. Of course these day long trips to the mall are a thing of the past now that I have my Tinker but you know what I mean. Now I just get 20 minutes trips to the mall where I wander aimlessly and leave with a Teletubbie or something.

When I had money and or time to burn my shopping daze wasn't such a disability because it didn't really matter that I set out to buy a raincoat, wasted 8 hours at shopping centre and came home with a bag of broccolini and a manicure. These days however it is important that I get what I set out to buy and for this reason I am one of those anal shoppers who takes a typed out shopping list sectioned off into aisles and even separated into sides. For example at supermarket A.) I know that eggs are in the 3rd aisle on the right opposite the tinned tomatoes and at supermarket B.) I know the chicken consomme is in the 5th aisle on the left opposite the cous cous. On the days where I have not made myself a list I always come home with crazy things like weird sausages.

That was Monday night. My reason? There was a man cooking up free samples and because I tasted one and there was nobody else there at the time I felt awkward saying thank you and walking away while he had his Madonna-type headset thing on and he was looking right at me, so I took a packet and put them in my trolley.

Is there anyone else out there who suffers from 'shopping daze'? Tell me about it!

Mrs Mop

Ok so the Americans have Roswell, Australia has the Dingo that stole Azaria and the Brits have Princess Di's death ... and I have a conspiracy theory of my own.

It may not be as flashy or as interesting but I tell you, it is sooo real. On the edge of your seats?

Mops. I reckon that all mop companies have colluded to pull a massive swifty over me and every other housewife who likes a clean floor. They want us to buy a new mop a month. Not just a new head but an entirely new mop.

Back in the day, I had a very efficient cleaning company who'd handle all manner of mop related issues. I had nothing to do with how my floors were cleaned, they just got done. Yes I paid for this to happen but that was as far as I involved myself. However, when I was pregnant and unable to continue working anymore (long story, think spew and lots of it and then think how that might work with gaol cells and courtrooms and you get my drift) we put our house on the market in order to get us a "family home".

Suddenly how clean my floors were and how shiny they looked really mattered to me. I became fixated on mopping. I was sure that each potential buyer that came through and didn't make an offer was horrified at the non-shiny floor. So I decided to mop the floors a couple of times a day as well the myriad of other chores the nesting pregnant person deems essential.

When we moved to our current home I brought the mop with us. It was an Oates brand sponge head mop. Just in case you were wondering. It died just after my daughter was born. So I went to the supermarket to buy a replacement head for it. They didn't have the right one. So I went to KMart in the same mall. Nope, they didn't have it either. Frustrated and hot because it was January and I had a newborn attached to my chest by way of a sweat factory I mean a Baby Bjorn carrier, I just decided to ditch the Oates mop and buy a Vileda mop.

Obviously I wasn't in too much of a new baby daze at that moment because I was smart enough to buy every single replacement head the store had for that particular mop. I thought I was quite clever. That lasted a while. Until recently when the last mop head went to its final resting place. I went back to KMart. Nope they didn't have that head anymore. So I went to the supermarket, Bunnings, another KMart, BigW and two different branches of Woolworths. None sold the stupid Vileda head to fit our mop. I refused to be beaten again.

So I drove all over Sydney on the Easter weekend in search of this stupid mop head. I refused to be beaten by the conspiracy. Woolworths, Bunnings, Coles, Target, KMart and even The Reject Shop. I tried them. I rode that wave. And I was washed up.

Sad and beaten I limped home and admitted defeat. My husband looked at me like I had completely lost my mind. There was a time when I'd be broken by a really difficult criminal case or some awkward office politics but no not this time. I was broken by a mop. A mop conspiracy I tell you. And a big one at that.

So I walked up the road and I bought one of those old fashioned cotton mops at my local grocery store. The next week I realised I needed a squeezy bucket for it. Without the squeezy bucket you are just dragging a dirty muddy flood through your house. Because I left the mop soaking wet for a week it was ruined and I had to throw out the head and get a new one.

I went to Bunnings and bought a special squeezy bucket that came with two free Oates mop heads. Came home, tried to fit the free head onto the grocery store mop and of course it didn't work. So I went to Kmart. Nope no corresponding Oates mop there either.

So what did I do? Did I fall on the floor in a heap crying at KMart? No I did not. I stood tall. I bought 2 new mops. Yes two. One an Oates one, one a Vileda, I bought 8 replacement heads. A large Swiss Meringue and a large latte. I sat on the massage chair (you know the types at the shops where you pay $2 and sit on the vibrating chair like a freak?) and I ate my meringue and I drank my coffee and then I left.

I came home, kissed my husband, hugged my daughter and smiled. I was practically new age. I was practically one of those revolting happy positive idiots that read The Secret and other self help books. I was not broken and bitter because the mops had beaten me. I had surrendered myself to the mop conspiracy and I was no longer broken. So what, I have to spend a small fortune every month on mop supplies. I do not sweat the small stuff. I am a housewife extraordinaire.

Shopping with a conscience...

image credit "hippy"

I read an article this morning about the mayor of Sydney Clover Moore (the one who wears dog collars as some sort of foul fashion statement). She has banned Tim Tams and a range of other foods from City of Sydney Council meetings. You can read the full article here.

It is all part of her initiative to serve only sustainable, "cruelty free" foods at Council events.

She subscribes to the belief that 80% of the world's cocoa comes from The Ivory Coast, apparently where there are allegations of child labour... According to the article, Arnotts dispute this.

It got me thinking, how many of us actually loyally subscribe to the "shopping with a conscience" style of living? I don't. And to be brutally honest I'm not sure I feel all that guilty about it. I mean I'm not out buying ivory from South Africa or face cream made from panda testes but I don't always buy organic meat and I usually choose things based on quality and value for money not "green-ness"...

Is it just hard core hairy armpitted, furry browed hippies who genuinely lead these lifestyles? I guess mega rich Hollywood types can sustain it as well. What about regular folk? I was at Macro Wholefoods the other day. Not really by choice. I was actually grabbing some scones from the bakery next door and decided it was easier to run into Macro and buy an overpriced carton of organic fresian cow cream than go to the supermarket down the street and queue up for a regular priced carton.


It turned out to be a $148 carton of cream thanks to a parking ticket I got from stopping in a loading zone out the front. Ooops. While you can park there in the afternoons it is not ok in the morning. Hmmf. Thanks North Sydney Council, you rock. Anyway I was in there looking for the cheapest carton amongst the $10 cartons of rip off cream when I noticed a few people wheeling large trolleys around. Full of groceries. Who does this? Who are these people? I really want to know. I mean a few items is fine but who does their entire weekly grocery shopping at Macro? It would be about a $1000 a week for two people not to mention how tasteless a lot of that stuff is. I like a bit of salt, oil, flavour. Shoot me!



This so called "green shopping with a conscience" thing seems to be a real domino type thing. Where do you stop? What makes the plight of the Indonesian fishermen more important than the poor basket weaving kids in Fiji? You could go on and on until you are left totally naked living in a tree.

Who doesn't like a quickie?

Three words:

Bluefly Massive Sale!

xx