I frequently post about cardboard toys and furniture – as the compact/travelbility (is that a word?) of them is beyond convenient. As I travel light – and now with two boys that will become more of a challenge, I need to think about how to have enough “amusement” at our destination – sans the bulk, weight and general annoyance of a Great Toy Shlep.

I adore Calafant toys for this very reason, but for your children that are still too young to really decorate their own toys – Kroom toys, available from Abe’s Market (my new fave green store), give you that light cardboard portability, pre decorated, and ready for playing.

Both of the above are less than $30 (each)! Ship them to you destination – and spare yourself the agony of dragging toys about a dirty airport and being told by some snug, underaged ticket counter bird that your luggage is over the limit of 2 pounds and will cost an extra $500 dollars, will that be cash or charge?

In addition to the farm and Noah set, you can send this lovely Kroom table set ahead, which the grandparents can easily store under  a bed when not in use.

This dollhouse is compact enough to store under a chair.

As is this castle.

Kroom toys are lovely, durable, inexpensive and easy to store. The perfect thing to send and keep at grandma’s – which is where the boys and I are headed next week!!!

Florida, here we come….

Of the piles of toys and other presents my son received for Christmas, his favourite was this battery free, wind up microphone.  All I knew when I bought the thing was that it was in eco packaging and required a child’s energy, rather than batteries, to work. Excellent, I thought smugly – a musical toy that doesn’t require dirty toxic batteries. What a truly clever mummy I am!

What this idiotic mummy didn’t realize is that though it works just as well as advertised – the damn thing plays “Pop Goes the Weasel” in a dolphin singing in electronica pitch just as many times as junior will push the button. And push the button he will. Again. Again. And again.

Yes, it works just as well as any microphone. It also has a few “beat” sounds that my darling, totally lacking in any rhythm or musical ability, son adores pressing incessantly whilst singing “Pop Goes the Weasel” with the unmitigated joy and exuberance known only to two year old boys.

So. Is it a good gift that a little one will enjoy? Yes. It is that. Will they play with it for more than one day? Yes, they will. Will it amplify their little sweet voices like a true microphone? Yuppers.

And THAT, my verdant friend, is the point.

How many parents have been puzzled (if not somewhat annoyed) at seeing their progeny tear into a gift with absolute delight at the ripping of paper, only to remove the gift and after a cursory look and try, spend the next few hours playing with the box.

And how many of us (if not all) aren’t wondering how in the bloody ‘el our children have amassed this mountain of toys, when we have struggled to keep it all under control with a no-gift and/or green toy policy? My eldest is only 2 and I am already packing toys away that I will be placing on a Green Mama “Craigs List” type site (more on that early next year).

Well. Tired of tripping over, stepping on and otherwise running into the seemingly fertile toys in my house , I recently wondered if I mayn’t just wrap up a few toys that my son already owns and regift them to him for Christmas. Not because I’m cheap – but because my toe hurts from running into the seemingly endless recycled, European, eco, non-toxic painted shapes of wood that are strewn about my house. (Well, it used to be my house.)

Box Play to the rescue!

Box Play provides mama with a selection of wonderful stickers that will turn any box, from an egg or milk carton to cereal or shoe box (among others) into a fun toy! Even into a bowling set (above)!

These recycled eco stickers are affordable and brilliant in that they allow you to turn boxes into toys for a second life, before hitting the recycling bin.

Why shouldn’t the ever present toilet roll be turned into a rocket ship?

Box Play stickers are the perfect thing to pack when traveling for the holidays to turn cartons into toys when you arrive – sparing you from having to pack too many toys – using space that you need for those parkas and jumpers.

I love this company, and hope that they develop even more stickers. No one ever bruised a toe on an egg carton.

9 days ’til Santa!

When I was complaining that my son didn’t like having his heart listened to at the doctors office, (which is funny as the doctor doesn’t like listening to me, poor thing), a friend suggested that I buy him a play stethoscope so that we could “practice” and it wouldn’t be so unusual when assaulted by the cold real thing.

I got my eldest this beautiful little doctor playset, which he adores. He now asks to listen to everyone’s heartbeat – even the “patient’ pups – and wants to give us all “shots” and take our temperature.  (As long as he doesn’t take CME credits sponsored by Merck, I’m happy.)

This is a great unisex gift idea (at less than $40), a wonderfully portable toy (very light and compact) and an effective de-sensitiser to all the “scary” bits at the doctors office. (I only recommend that you get rid of the play “pills” as a) pills should only be fun when your name is Judy Garland and b) they are a choking hazard to any younger sibs.)

Note: This set is not covered by insurance.

20 days and counting….

My sons vintage clothing collection keeps growing as I love knowing that they will never show up in the same outfit as the other fellow – or looking like a catalogue photo. But sometimes, that means ordering bits and bobs from overseas – paying in shipping what I’m saving in buying rubbish clothes that fade or fall apart after a few washes.

As we all know that those Gauls can dress a child – here is a look at a few finds from a little French shop called Little Vintage…

Nautical. Always, but always in style.

With a wee baguette under her arm, and sweet little white sandles….

I’m obsessed with coats, scarves and hats on children. Especially coats. Most especially double breasted. Oh! Mon Dieu! (Vintage buttons are always the piece de resistance.)

Little Vintage also has darling vintage furniture, toys and books – but those may be too heavy to ship.

Vintage used to mean old and dingy – but now it’s chic and timely (and green!). Just a few pieces in your bebes wardrobe and they’ll look très magnifique!

Off to the cafe….

I’ve been green washed and am quite p@#$%^ off about it.

I bought my son this Peter Rabbit from the Beatrix Potter “Naturally Better” line. “Certified Organic Cotton Eco-friendly Materials” read the description.  Well.  That’s all very bloody well fine and good – but why does the legally required tag on the creature read – “CONTENTS: Polyester Fibers”?!

I’ll tell you why. Instead of a wolf in sheep’s clothing – I payed just under $30 for polyester in organic cotton clothing which has me ready to slag someone off in Chinese.

Lesson: As much as we try to make sound toy decisions – read, check and treble check toy labels! Descriptions are just – well – very creative versions of a half truth.

NOTE: For TRULY eco/green organic plush toys, please consider Apple Park or MiYiM, our two favourite brands.

When you become a green mama some people will start to hate you. Not dislike – but truly and verily detest you. They will think that you are ridiculous, self righteous and dramatic. They will roll their eyes. They will feel sorry for your child. They will continue living with their heads buried in the sand as juniors fertility, cancer and health is compromised by the corporatocracy that we live in that has allowed for childrens health to go straight into the toilet. Our kids are sick. They are suffering from increasing levels of ADD, Autism, Asthma – and thats just in the “A’s”! And to be honest, there is only so much that we can do about it. But do, we must.

Though you may end up with only 3 friends – (less if you are Republican. Trust me. I am one.), you need to get your Rosa Parks on, inhale the spirit of those first suffragettes, feel the “Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death” patriot vibe – and soldier through like a Brit being bombed by Germans.

Stay the course.

And when you say that your son can’t play with metal cars, like the one above that was found to have a ridiculously high lead content, as all the other children are, you will know that you have saved your child from that exposure, as all the other mums add just that much more sickness causing metal into their childs body. (No doubt they’ll be off to McDonalds a bit later in the afternoon.)  They will, you can be sure, laugh at you behind your back – but you are mitigating your childs exposure to disease causing substances making his life better. His health better. His psyche better. (Lead is, as you know, responsible for all sorts of neurological conditions – including lower IQ.) And isn’t that all just EXACTLY what a mum is supposed to do? Generations ago would you have said, “oh, let him have just a little of the poison mushroom”?! No. You wouldn’t have done.

These cars look sweet. The Disney Princess jewelry looks sweet. All these recalled toys have looked just delightful – but they are poisoned. And like mushrooms, only an expert can tell you which ones are bad.

Stick to green or eco toys this season – or at least check HealthyToys.org before buying ANYTHING. Your childs health shouldn’t be compromised over a cheap toy.

For a pittance have our lives been sold….

If you are green and lazy and have children on your Chanukah/Christmas list – Cate & Levi is for you. Using organic and reclaimed wool (as well as undyed wool stuffing), Cate & Levi spend all night sewing adorable onsies, shirts and making hand-puppets and toys that will delight little eco tots of all ages.

The trippy hand puppets remind me of ones I would make as a child – just much cooler and better made.

Their stuffed animals are equally funky – but will be easy to spot on the playground if they walk away in a sea of Doras and Princesses.

I like the “zoo cubes” – but always feel a bit uncomfortable with toys that lack bodies. It all seems a bit too French Revolution to me.

But the full corpus animal pillows are my fave, as they can be hugged and slept on without any fear of nasty “All New Materials: China” chemicals and bits.

Cate & Levi, I would venture to guess, are not monochromatic modernists. Nope. These folks do and love color and no doubt honeymooned in Morocco. I bet Cate even wears orange. All the better as childhood should be filled with wondrous colors and animals that almost look magical.  Shop for all the kids here, and save yourself the stress of “what age is this for, please?”

Happy Giving!

When I was a wee lass back in the dark ages when we only had a 13 inch black and white telly with two channels (London. Early ’70′s.), I had a favourite game and costume: Nurse. (Girls didn’t have Doctor outfits back then. The fact that I wore trousers was already shock enough for the post-war mums.)

Complete with a Victorian upside down “pocket watch” pinned to the pinafore, I loved to chase our Persian cat Wizlon about the flat in efforts to take his temperature and bandage him up. He was unamused. I was suitably relentless. I still remember my pretend “shots”, the bandaids that my mum had to keep me fresh in, and my fake thermometer. It was brilliant.

From Haba, a PVC free Doctor set for the young ones that dream of six figure school loans. This playset, available at The Soft Landing (love them), is perfect for young gentlemen or ladies that have younger siblings, patient older ones (geddit?!), or pets. Complete with a prescription pad, thermometer, mask, stethoscope, blood pressure meter and bandage all in a doctor’s bag – any young MD will be delighted for hours at pretending that Big Pharma has sent him to Europe to get in some Continuing Credit Hours provided he hands out their samples by the handfull…I mean – any child will love playing Doctor for many a snow filled hour while the pets hide.

It’s almost Christmas and Hannuka – buy now and glide through the holidays emotionally unscathed.

The Bad News: these cardboard cars (made of  %100 recycled cardboard), are, so far, only available in the UK.

The Good News: It’s only a matter of time before they are available in the US, as they are too adorable not to be.

And who knows, perhaps you have  a lovely friend on that isle that could ship one over for you….

Until then, stateside, try Calafant toys for smaller cardboard vehicles.

Buckle up!