What to do with all that baby gear

It never ceases to amaze me how much stuff makes our way into the house just because we have kids. The other day we watched the video of Cubling's first birthday, 3 1/2 years ago, just after moving into our family home. I hardly recognised the place. What was then empty, spacious and admittedly a tad bare, is now filled with toys, baby gear and clothes hidden in every conceivable crevice.

And boy am I trying to get rid of stuff. There are items that I think have a value which I've been trying to sell through Netmums and Gumtree. No luck. I've given bags of clothes to friends and to charity shops and still there is more. So when the Baby Booty Sale came along, I quite fancied to get rid of absolutely everything in one go, while also selling a few Barefoot Books.

So when at 1pm today, we packed the unsold stuff into the car, it became all too clear that I had not succeeded in the big declutter. In spite of nominal prices on items (I wasn't there to make money, just to make sure the stuff is getting used again), people didn't buy. Baby clothes and baby toys are quite clearly items that lose their value as soon as they leave the shop, a bit like books. It's beyond me how some items didn't sell at all, when I see them as highly desired, valuable and great bargains.

And as to my wonderful Barefoot Books - I didn't sell even one. Ok, I get that this was a second hand sale and the books were new and they aren't your average cheap Amazon deal. Still, some of them are cheap and I didn't even sell them. Looks like being a bookseller won't quite work as a plan B once I'm no longer part of the wage slavery movement.

After hours of sorting, packing, setting up, selling and vice versa, which amounts to about 7 hours of hard work (I'm shattered writing this) I made £5.75. I'm ignoring that I bought a clothes rail for £8.99 which means I actually made a loss. Nevermind, it was fun and an experience and I'm happy to know that at least some items made it to people who wanted/needed them.

So here I am, sat on a mountain of clothes and baby gear wondering how to reuse it because, at the end of the day, it's still good stuff with plenty of life in it. The reality is that we buy so much more than we need that on the whole, we are inundated with baby clothes that aren't needed, therefore making their reuse value nil.

In the 4 1/2 years of parenting, I have so far bought very little children's clothes. I've managed on the whole to get by with what we were given as presents, with hand me downs plus the occasional purchase of underwear (and freebies through this blog). I can count on one hand the clothes purchases I've made. Yet I understand the constant temptation to buy this cute outfit here, and that beautiful dress over there. It's hard not to grab that sales bargain that isn't really needed. But if I look at the masses of baby clothes that didn't get sold today, I'm rather determined to continue my quest to stick to second hand, and to make sure that the clothes no longer needed go to people who have a use for them.

Watershed

There are some changes to this blog of mine. It'll all become clearer in time, but for now, I'll be moving all outdoor related posts to the new Nature Kids site. Similarly, any reviews of places to go, formerly labelled as out and about, will also now go onto the new blog.

I've spent a lot of time writing a bit of content for Nature Kids as might be expected, and with some of the themes of this blog moving across, it's more than possible that Mummy do That! will not have quite so regular posts. At the same time I hope that it'll be a bit more focussed, rather than being such a mixed bag of different themes.

There are also changes in my own interests. We are past the becoming parents stage, past the upheaval and re-orientation that this takes. It seems that my blog has come full circle: When a few years ago I changed platforms and title to make it a "mummy blog" it now moves a step away from that label. But I'm still a mummy of course - name and location will stay, and there also won't be a sudden departure or realignment. What there is, though, is a gentle move towards a more issue based blog, back to the stuff that I wrote about before the motherhood journey.

I will be writing about sustainability, child poverty, green living, making things and bilingual parenting. I'll be trying to find creativity in small things. I hope to track how my tiny urban garden develops and how to juggle children, work and home. There'll be place for things that inspire me, ideas to be explored, guest contributions, and supporting local initiatives, small businesses. Did I leave out parenting? Of course there'll be that too, just maybe a bit less or with a different angle.

I hope you're still on board (and maybe you've also joined the cruise on Nature Kids). It is a small watershed but I'm glad it's happening now, with the other watershed, the end of maternity leave and the space of focusing on the non-work world that comes with it, the opportunity to de-clutter, re-assess, and re-focus, has arrived. In two weeks, I'll be back at my desk, doing my old job with renewed motivation that stems from having had an opportunity to explore the dust tracks and scenic routes around me, rather than speeding head-on the A-roads fuelled by the juggling act of a working mum.

In the last few months, I've become a Barefoot Books Ambassador and launched a new website about which I'm still giddy with excitement. It seems bitty, but it's all perfectly related, it all makes perfect sense to me.

Which is, in fact, a rather nice feeling.

The Launch

Today was quite a special day. It was my first home party for Barefoot Books, the launch party as an Ambassador (which I guess is a fancy word for being a salesperson). It was supported by Moira Lumby, who is an experienced Scottish Ambassador which made everything rather easy. Slowly but surely the way it all works is starting to make sense, and emerging questions have been answered so that from now on I feel that I know roughly what I'm doing.

We spent the last week reading a lot of stories from the books, for me to get a bit more familiar with the vast stock, much to the delight of Cubling, who would read stories all day long if that was an option.

I'd invited both some friends and local parents because I'm quite keen to connect with people very local to me and this seemed like a welcome opportunity. It wasn't about selling, just about having an opportunity to get to know other parents of young children living in the neighbourhood, because after years of living in anonymous communities, I personally would like to know my neighbours. Interestingly though, nobody came whom I didn't know already - so maybe this invitation of strangers was a tad out of people's comfort zone. Of course it may have other reasons, people may have been at work/on holiday/enjoying the fabulous sunshine we had after a month of daily rain.

So it was a comfortable small party, where almost everyone knew everybody else.

What I like about this new little venture is that it's as small or as big as you want to make it. It's going to be a hobby, an opportunity to raise funds for some groups or charities I'd like to support, a way to connect to new people or a different way to connect to existing people. I'm not a good salesperson in general - not one who likes to ask people to buy or even donate, but the thing is that I really love these books and it's just about sharing the love, without any ambition for quantity of sales or anything like that. It's something I feel comfortable with.

Oh, and did I mention how great it is to test the books with my girls? It's like having your own library. We already have our favourites, and I look forward to the many hours of booksharing that this little venture will bring to our house.

If you would like to order Barefoot Books through me, you can do so through my Marketplace, you can also keep in touch and receive special offers by liking my facebook page or signing up to my Barefoot Newsletter (simply send an email to barefoot @ cartside.co.uk; leaving out the spaces in the address).

Going Barefoot or a Little Dream Come True

There is great excitement in my life. A dream come true, in a way. The reason this blog has been a bit quite over the past 2 weeks. My 4 year old will tell everyone who'll listen (and she'll make you listen) that mummy has a bookshop now. At home.

It's true. It's no secret I love books, and who doesn't have this little dream of their own business? Well, mine involved books. It wasn't "just" a dream - I always had my favourite independent bookshops where I bought books, and spend rather a lot of time thinking up where the perfect location for "my" bookshop and cafe would be (until it was taken over by a cafe...). I even worked in a bookshop for minimum wage just to see if it was for me (it wasn't, the bookshop had no control over stock or any freedom to make it other than a university book service; it was rather soulless). Then, out of the blue, only a few weeks ago, I stopped at the Barefoot Books stall at the Scottish Baby and Toddler Show. They are the people behind many a favourite baby and children's book and a five minute visit meant I came home with a bag full of new exciting books. A week later, and I'd signed up as an Ambassador - which means that I sell Barefoot Books.


I'm still in the starting blocks, the great thing is that there is no pressure to sell large quantities and it's really just going to be a hobby. There are decisions to be made whether to use my domain name for the online shop, or this blog, or a page on this blog.


Today, my stock arrived.
On Friday, my launch home party is happening.
We've been reading Barefoot Books all week, to test them, get to know them and love them.
I'm as excited as a child really, because, really, what could be better than selling the books you love?

ooh baby (show)

Over four years into our parenting adventure, we actually made it to the Scottish Baby and Toddlershow in the SECC this weekend. Somehow so far I hadn't been organised enough to make it, and it only happened thanks to receiving some free tickets thanks to Emma's Diary that it finally happened - just the kick in the backside that I needed and I'm rather excited to share my impressions and favourite exhibitors.

There's nothing like reviewing an event that had me enthusiastic about a good few exhibitors and that entertained Cubling all day long (including meltdown which I knew was going to happen but thanks to a giant Woody we turned the corner). Oh and there were a few Cartside rants too, of course, I just can't bite my tongue when someone tells me how I'm creating bad sleep habits because I rock or feed my baby to sleep. I should know better than to listen to self proclaimed Baby Sleep Gurus (and can't help myself, I do enjoy a rant you know).

I'd like to share some of my favourite exhibitors - those who had products to offer that I found excellent or useful, as well as some of the bits that I thought were missing or annoyed me a little bit.
On the whole, I was positively surprised by the wide variety of products, services and information. Of course you had your heavily branded and large companies, but there were lots of small ventures and initiatives too which made sure the Baby and Toddler Show is an excellent opportunity to find out about all things relating to baby, toddler and beyond.

Here are my top 10 of places I visited, in no particular order other than that of how the leaflets were pulled out of my bag (by the way - I don't receive any money or products from these companies for recommending them, I simply like them):

1. The Creation Station: The children's arts and crafts workshop people had a large area where children could get crafty. Cubling loved it and really made some fabulous things. The staff were brilliant and clearly loved what they were doing. We came home with some really nice and big items that now have a proud place in Cubling's bedroom.

2. Knitknacks: This is a little side business for the love of knitting. You can get absolutely stunning hand knitted vests, cardigans, and baby blankets from this Scottish lady. I adored her items, and only didn't buy anything because, well, we're not exactly short of hand-knitted stuff.

3. Tots Bots: What can I say, both my girls' bums are cuddled in Tots Bots cloth nappies. There are lots of great cloth nappies out there, and still I return to Tots Bots again and again. It's a Glasgow business, and by gum, they do a great job and beat the price of other brands too. As of now, Snowflake has a 24 hours clothed bum - some night nappies were purchased and I can declare that we've made the big scary move to say by by to disposables for good.

4. Baby Boom Boom provide multi-lingual musical fun and have created bilingual nursery rhyme cds - and yes, they proved me wrong when I said to Mr Cartside " I bet they don't have an English/German DC". (I'm rather disappointed that most bilingual products come in English/French or English/Urdu and it's rather hard to get by anything for our language pair which surely isn't an unusual combination). Basically, their nursery rhyme CDs provide second language version of popular British nursery rhymes. I can't comment on the quality of translation, but it's a great idea and there should be more of this!

5. Born Outdoors really fills a gap in the market. How I struggled to get hold of good outdoors clothing for Cubling - with only one retailer in the UK providing them by online order there wasn't much of a choice. Scottish based Born Outdoors brings Scandinavian quality and design to the UK.

6. Barefoot Books: Quite a few of our favourite ever children's books are published by Barefoot Books and I was delighted to see their stall at the Babyshow. And so was Cubling, what with a goat puppet drawing her in. She instantly made friends with the Barefoot Books Scotland Ambassador, and I was able to browse the full selection of books on display and went away with a few new story treasures. I particularly liked the collection of stories from around the world with CDs to listen to which are ideal for children from 4 years of age.

7. Ethical Classics make, er, well, ethical classics clothing. The company is founded on ethical principles, both in the production of clothing and their own operation, and the clothing is just stunning. I'm not one who gets excited about clothing (hand-made excluded) but their ranges really is to drool over. It really is something different, simple, timeless beauty.

8. Raindrops is another Scandinavian outdoor clothing shop for kids, based in West Sussex. I'm pretty happy to see two shops specialising in kids' outdoor clothing and have bookmarked both shops for future reference and forest kindergarten shopping.

9. Fill your pants: For anyone looking for advice on the wide range of cloth nappies on the market, Fill your pants was the right pit stop. If there was one mission I had when going to the babyshow it was to find some night cloth nappies, and the nappy gurus at Fill your Pants were just the right people to put me on track, even though it meant I didn't end up buying from them.

10. Meningitis Association of Scotland: There is no way I could not mention this stall, and the important work this charity does. In particular, they currently highlight the availability of Strep B tests for pregnant women. Many women carry Strep B and if baby is infected, it can become seriously ill after birth. This can be prevented by testing for Strep B before baby is born - however, while the test is available upon request, it is not generally offered to pregnant women. So, if you're pregnant and worried you may carry Strep B, do ask for the test and you'll get it for free on the NHS. I didn't know it was available and would definitely have requested it.


However, I thought it was a shame that there wasn't a single stall specialising in baby slings, while the buggy/pram area was massive. Considering how much I use my sling in comparison to other baby gear, and how I wish I'd never wasted the money on a pram, I feel that this is a real shame and means many parents-to-be miss out on information on baby slings.

Similarly, there was no stall focussing on breast-feeding information or support. It is guesswork why this is so, but I think it may be something to do with the cutback in breast-feeding support and the nature of how this support is organised.

I was pleased to see that most exhibitors provided cloth or paper bags for their publicity materials, but unfortunately some of the major players still hang on to plastic. I'm not going to name and shame though as I didn't manage to speak to them and ask why, which I really should have done. Another slight annoyance is the never ending collection of my personal details. I have my ways of tracking spam - but in general I do wonder if it's really so important to have all possible ways of contacting me. I'm more than happy to give out my email address, should that not be enough? Once again I can only wait and hope that my address is not sold on and we receive even more junk mail that goes straight to the bin.

The day was definitely worth it, I got myself some lovely night cloth nappies and beautiful books, plus lots of information. Cubling absolutely enjoyed herself, the highlight of the day for her was meeting Woody, Mickey Mouse and Peppa Pig (though she was sad that Buzz Lightyear wasn't there) and Snowflake was rather amazed by all the buzz and balloons.

::::: Full Disclosure: I received free tickets to the Babyshow in exchange for writing about the Show, courtesy of Emma's Diary. All views expressed in this post are mine, as is the selection of featured exhibitors:::::