We put off buying Isabella’s first toddler bed as long as we could. One reason is that there isn’t a whole hell of a lot of room in our one-bedroom apartment for an actual bed (if only reports of our being multi-millionaires were true!). Another reason is, to be honest, that I like the containment aspect of the crib. Put the Squirt down at bedtime, and you’re guaranteed that’s where she stays. A little grownup time at last.
Well, goodbye to that.
Isabella’s toes are virtually sticking out between the slats of the cage–I mean, crib–so Michelle went to a second-hand kids store called Jane’s Exchange, over on East 3rd Street, and bought a toddler bed for fifty bucks. Yesterday, I went to pick it up and tied it to the rickshaw with a bungee cord, biked it home and dragged it up the stairs.
Guess what? Isabella wouldn’t stay in it! Maybe I just found a second use for that double-sided tape I wrote about in yesterday’s post.
By the way, since Jane’s Exchange is over in the East Village, on my way, I stopped in at AuH2O, “an environmental
and socially conscious clothing store located in the East Village. We specialize in one-of-a-kind pieces that are recycled, redesigned, and reconstructed, sewn right on site.”
Kate Goldwater uses her design skills and store to subvert her customers. “They come,” she told me, “because they know the clothes are one of a kind. Then I get to convert them in the dogma of reuse.” In addition to making all her new clothes from old clothes, Kate replaces plastic shopping bags for her customers with bags she makes herself from scrap cloth. If a customer brings the bag back she gets a ten percent discount on the next purchase.
Kate even applied to the TV reality show Project Runway. Here is what she said at her interview: “I want to change the world! I’m a socially conscious, environmental and feminist designer that wants to revolutionize fashion! I’m opposed to the mass production, mass consumption, wasteful, sweatshop labor-filled industry but making clothes is my passion! I have the talent and motivation to make it in the industry and make a difference! And I need Project Runway for the exposure.”
Here is what they said to her: “Uh, no thanks.” You think they somehow weren’t in love with the no mass consumption idea?
But Kate did get to write a hilarious piece about her Runway experience and about AuH2O for the Huffington Post, and I’d take that over Project Runway any day! Besides, aren’t the ties she makes too cool for Project Runway? The one pictured here is made from plastic cards that come in credit card junk mail and say “Your business name here” on them.