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‘Style and Stuff Like That’ Category

  1. Best Kids’ CDs

    December 9, 2012 by emilybwebb

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    I’ve been sorting through my children’s CD collection and there are so many memories associated with the music we have been listening to for over six years since my eldest was born.

    I was happy to get rid of some – Bob the Builder, a Disney CD where songs were sung by Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck et al – but there are some that I think I’ll keep and that are still great for bedtime or the car.

    I’ve scaled my all-time favourites (so far) to three CDs.

    1. That Baby CD 

    Source: thatbabydvd.com

    This is a fantastic collection of adult-oriented songs produced for children. Released in 2007, this collection features family friendly acoustic and vocally arranged versions of songs like  “Songbird” (Fleetwood Mac), “These are Days” (10,000 Maniacs), “Garden Song” (Peter, Paul and Mary), “Pony Boy” (Bruce Springsteen) and “St Judy’s Comet” (Paul Simon) among others.

    We have played this CD to death since we got it in 2007, when it was released by  American couple Rob and Lisi Wolff. The Wolffs released a hugely popular CD and DVD called Oy-Baby with songs for Jewish Babies and Kids. Their good friend Stephanie Schneiderman, a musician well-known on the Portland, Oregon music scene, produced the tracks for the CD and sings on most of the songs. My favourite tracks are These Are Days, which is a rousing version of the song made popular by 10,000 Maniacs, and Happiness Runs/Circle Game, a combo of the songs sung originally by Donovan Leitch and Joni Mitchell.

    Available from thatbabydvd.com

     

    2. Big Songs for Little People by Rory McLeod

    Source: Fourdogsmusic.co.uk

    I’m a big fan of British wandering minstrel  Rory McLeod and his collection for children is a wonderful CD. The theme of the wind is ever-present on this CD with songs and spoken word tracks like “Me and the Winds Blow”, “Polar Winds” and “What the Winds Carry”. There is also a wonderful spoken word track, which my children adore, called “Death in a Nutshell” which is a very age-appropriate tale of the life cycle and death.  My favourite track, which is the most gorgeous song about a child becoming an older sibling, is called “Big Brother Soon”.

    Available from rorymcleod.com

    3. Putumayo Presents Dreamland

    Source: Putumayo

    This collection is played a lot at our house at bedtime. (I’ve even put it on my iPhone and play it at night to unwind.) Soothing songs and World lullabies from Africa, Europe, North and South America and Asia, this collection is a must-have for parents. My favourite track is “Naima” by Beninese singer Angelique Kidjo (and featuring Carlos Santana).

    Available from Educational Esteem

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  2. Fit Mum Obsession

    May 10, 2012 by emilybwebb

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    LUNCHING with a girlfriend in a trendy, inner-Melbourne suburb, I was struck, first of all by the number of mothers with newborn babies, but mostly by the fact that these women barely looked like they had given birth. In workout gear (many had obviously been out jogging or power-strolling with their three-wheeler prams) their stomachs appeared flat and arms and bottoms taut.

    I have two children aged six and three and I’m only just kind of getting back in shape.

    There seems to be more pressure than ever on new mums to get back in shape.  The obsession with celebrities and their every move is mostly to blame. Feverish coverage of stars and their pregnancies stares us women in the face at supermarket counters, on the news and in idle chatter over coffee. (I suppose if I had a postpartum photo shoot with a national magazine lined up days after the birth of my child, I would have been more inspired to shed my excess pounds too.)

    Rock star and fashion designer Gwen Stefani revealed that she kept up a punishing workout routine until two weeks before the birth of her first child Kingston.  And she regained her pre-pregnancy figure in just three months with the help of a personal trainer, admitting, “I’m extremely vain – I like wearing cute clothes”.

    Gwen is one of a long list of celebs that seem to look thinner than ever just months after they have given birth. Victoria Beckham famously appeared rail-thin and on the catwalk after she had her first child Brooklyn and even after baby Harper – her fourth child – she looks as skinny as ever. And Heidi Klum…even after nearly four babies in quick succession, the team from CSI would struggle to find any traces of the German supermodel having given birth from her perfect body.

    I corresponded with Meredith Nash, then a PhD candidate and tutor in the University of Melbourne’s Gender Studies and Development department whose current research focused on pregnant body image, celebrity pregnancy and motherhood, a few years ago. Meredith said the celebrity pregnancies present unachievable bodily expectations for the average woman. Nash is now a lecturer in sociology at the University of Tasmania and her first book Making ‘Postmodern’ Mothers: Pregnant Embodiment, Baby Bumps and Body Image will be published later this year.

    “Not only do celebrities wear fantastic maternity clothing, they also manage to be ‘skinny’ and pregnant which influences the average woman to feel like she is ‘fat’ and pregnant,” Nash said.

    “I think since Demi Moore’s Vanity Fair cover, women believe that you can be sexy and pregnant and show off your bump thanks to celebrities but you have to work damn hard to achieve a perfect pregnant or post pregnant body without being rich and famous to even entertain that possibility,” she said.

    Nash, who maintained a blog called the Baby Bump Project as part of her research, believes celebrities have become like super-parents and “women actually aspire to use the same organic baby shampoo that Brooke Shields recommends or do prenatal yoga like Gwyneth Paltrow” because somewhere along the lines celebrities became experts in parenting.

    “Similarly, the airbrushed or idealised version of pregnancy and motherhood is extremely problematic because it makes reference to the fine balance between work and family life that most women struggle to achieve when they become mothers. For celebrities, there is no visible conflict between paid work and motherhood,” Nash said.

    Getting back into your pre-pregnancy clothes seems to be a more celebrated feat that actually having given birth and surviving those first few months where everything seems a blur. One episode of Sex and the City features Miranda’s amazement and delight at being able to get back into her ‘skinny’ jeans from the 1980s. When asked how she did it, Miranda replied, “I got pregnant, became a single mother and lost all time to eat.”

    While true that life takes on a different kind of busy when you are a parent and this can aid weight loss post-birth, it seems that despite the amazing results celebrity mums achieve, the reality for us mere mortals is entirely different.

    Meredith Nash says for most women, shedding weight postnatally is less an issue of wanting to be slender than it is of wanting to return to a pre-pregnancy identity that is familiar.

    “Getting back into your jeans is a sign of more than just getting the top button done up; it represents a return to the old ‘you’.”

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  3. In defence of trackies

    March 29, 2012 by emilybwebb

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    Photo: lululemon athletica via flickr

    In the last decade years there has been the rise of a stylish, manicured and gorgeous creature that is otherwise known as the “yummy mummy”.

    The creation of the “yummy mummy” has set the bar high…impossibly high for the majority of us mums. There is now an unspoken pressure for us mere mortals to emulate celeb mums and look “hot” when we pop down to the shops with the baby in the pram.

    I don’t even try to be “yummy”, in fact I loathe the term. It is another way to put unrealistic pressures on modern mums to be the perfect blend of maternal and sexy.

    I was never a fashionista but pre-kids I rocked my own style. I lived in London for most of my 20s and the Brit-fashion scene where “anything goes” was great.

    But now, with the post-baby kilos that are hard to shift, less time and money to spend on my appearance (I spend more money on my kids’ shoes than I do on mine!) and the ever-present exhaustion that goes with having kids, I am a fan of comfort…and for me that means jeans and trackie daks on the days I am not at work.

    In fact, I embrace trackie daks…and not just because I live in the suburbs…the un-hip outer eastern suburbs. Seriously, all the running around and bending up and down that goes with having young kids, there is no better piece of clothing.

    A girlfriend and I were having lunch a while back and I said to her “I just want to find some dressy tracksuit pants, does that sound weird?”.

    She laughed and said she knew exactly what I meant.

    Postscript: I did take myself  to the Lulu Lemon outlet in Collingwood, bought myself some trendy trackies and embraced the comfort!

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