we heart it because we made it [cloth high chair]

having baby cedar has changed our lives in a very lot of ways, but actually one of the changes we notice the  most is how it has changed the way we move around the city.  in our pre-cedar days, we traveled very happily to & fro on our little 100 cc moto (what they are called here, i think its the french word for motor scooter).

[the "you" sign was for a project - this was the only picture i could find of us on our moto!]

since we have seen several moto accidents involving babies, we figured we'd wait awhile before our family moto riding begins.  so, in the meantime, we've taken to traveling around by tuk tuk. which is basically a little carriage carried behind a moto

now, a tuk tuk feels pretty luxurious compared to a moto, but its still no piece of cake trying to transport ourselves & cedar & all his baby accouterments (really, who knew how much stuff one little baby can use!).  which brings me to our current dilemma - how to eat out (a real cultural pastime here since its often the same price as cooking at home....& doesn't heat up your house & is easier too!) with cedar.  in the past we just took him & set him on the table or on a blanket on the floor (plus the restaurant staff often take turns holding him anyway which is always great!).  but now our little guy can move a lot & basically needs a place to be restrained. since high chairs at restaurants aren't very common here, when we go out, we have to take along some sort of chair or umbrella stroller, which is a pain, particularly when traveling alone in a tuk tuk or by bus, which is how we travel whenever we leave phnom penh. dilemma.

 

so! i was excited to find the perfect solution while we were in kampot a few months ago.  a family there had this cool high chair thing that was made out of cloth & could fold up to be really small.   now, with  the solution to our troubles in mind, i searched high & low on google for "cloth high chair patterns", but couldn't find any in the totseat style.  thankfully, daniel (who is a much, much better sewer than i) was able to make a pattern based on some pictures we took of the baby in kampot & now we have our very own homemade version! (if you want a copy of the pattern, just email me)

so far, baby cedar seems to like it.

we're off for a week in hanoi tomorrow, which will be the true test.  daniel made a sweet little carrying case too, so it sure was easy to pack!