The first picnic

Just in case I didn't rave enough about our new portable highchair last time, I thought I'd better say again how fab it is!

Picnics (or picnic-style indoor eating, given the weather) has been a non-starter with Baby Bean. Within seconds she's seen something on the other side of the room that she wants to play with and is off, speed-crawling to her goal, leaving me chasing her with a wet wipe to get the cream cheese and tomato seeds off her hands before they are embedded in someone's cream carpet! I've tried the following:

1. Sitting her on my knee with a book in one hand to entertain her with, and small pieces of food in the other hand for her to graze from. But those pieces invariably get "sorted" from hand to knee to sofa, back to hand and then to floor. With some smearing into my clothes for good measure.
2. Spreading a wipe clean tablecloth across the majority of floor so she can wander a little, and put her food on that to be nibbled on. But she THROWS things, and they ALWAYS land on the one bit of floor that wasn't covered by the tablecloth. And she crawls through her food!
3. Lugging a full sized highchair from house to house, and thanking God for the fact we chose to buy a Mondeo (for its cavernous boot) as our family car. Not really convenient though and means Bean is 4 foot in the air while the rest of us are on the floor!
4. Feeding her myself - eg. putting small bits of food in her mouth while she's playing, or encouraging her to suck from a puree pouch. But then she's not really part of the meal, and I'm still chasing her around the room, and there's always one time when she absent-mindedly sucks on the pouch before realising she didn't actually want it, and so spits it back out over EVERYTHING!

But now we have the Amazing Travelling Highchair and all is well :-)

So this Bank Holiday weekend we got invited to a BBQ by our good friends and neighbours. It was our first BBQ since she came along and thanks to our new highchair (and the rather wonderful cooking skills of our friends), I wasn't even a little bit nervous. Not about the mess (we'd be outdoors), not about Bean wandering off into the vegetable patch or the pond or the BBQ (she'd be safely in her seat), and not about whether I needed to take food with us (see the aforementioned good cooking).

And I was right. It was a brilliant evening. And Bean ate loads, including her first BBQ'd sausage, burger and corn on the cob!

 

Have chair, will travel

Remember my mini-rant about the ubiquitous highchair-without-tray? Well after a few more unsuccessful run-ins with this item I decided to wage war and take my own chair everywhere! Obviously our current highchairs (Mothercare padded and folding one and the convertible wooden one that becomes a table and chairs) aren't exactly portable! I can't easily roam the city streets with one of those over my shoulder!

So I googled it!

There are a few options it would seem - Lindam have a portable chair and Chicco do one very similar. But I liked the Mothercare one. It's height adjustable so can be lowered as Baby Bean gets taller; the tray doesn't have to be on it once she's old enough to sit at the table, and it comes with its own bag for carrying it! But it cost more than our normal (discounted, admittedly) highchairs.

So I ebayed it! (Gotta love the internet :-))

And look what we found....

 

 

So we have won! We can now BLW our baby with ease wherever we want!

 

But it also means I need to make a confession - we are now the proud owner of FIVE highchair-type-things: the aforementioned 2, a Chicco one which clamps onto the table, this one, and a booster seat that doubles as a change bag.

 

Do you think this may be excessive?!?! Or can it count as a "stash" for the BLW family? Thing is, they are all going to be so useful!

 

1) The wooden highchair lives in the dining room and is used for dinner. When Baby Bean is older she can sit on the chair, at the table bit, and colour in (just as her cousins did before her).

2) The Mothercare padded one is in the kitchen so is used for breakfast and often for lunch. It saves me dragging through the other one and means I can do house "stuff" while she eats. Besides, it has a removable insert in the tray so is very cool :-)

3) This one - well we can take it everywhere so will no longer have to worry about whether restaurants have highchairs. We can also take it to other people's houses!

Plus, Bean can touch her toes in it, which is ALWAYS a good game:-D

 

 

 

4) The booster seat - as per number 3, but we won't need a separate change bag.

5) The Chicco clamp-on seat......... OK, we probably won't use this one. But we used one in Wagamama and it seemed like a good idea at the time!

So you see, one highchair really is never enough!

 

Now, how do I stop myself buying an Ikea Antilop........