Baby Stuff Euro-Style

The Tripp Trapp

About four years ago, just weeks before I met Isaiah, I had resolved to go on a trip to Italy for free -- within the next six months. I was desperate to return but knew I wouldn't be able to scrape together the funds. With my 10+ years of experience as a babysitter, I figured a nanny job was my ticket back to il bel paese.

I posted an ad on Craigslist San Diego, simply stating my desire to accompany a family to Italy as their nanny. Within a few days, I received one response. That single response turned out to be the best nanny job ever. Not only did I get to go to Italy for free, I got paid to hang out with an adorable three-year-old in a town called Lazise on the shores of Lake Garda. I made friends with a Kenyan-Italian family, and took the boy swimming at their pool everyday. I ate gelato about 5 times a day, and took my morning coffee out on the balcony with a view of the lake in the distance.

You'd think with spending as much as six days straight alone with this kid (yes, a teary-eyed call to my mom ensued, "Thanks for being such [sob, sob] an amazing mom. I had no idea how hard you had to [hiccup] work to raise us..."), along with over a decade of babysitting under my belt, that I'd be sick of kids. Nope. In fact, the experience confirmed for me what I knew all along: I want to be a mother some day. Perhaps it was all the gorgeous Italian baby clothes in Lazise's boutiques that did it for me. Truth be told, I even brought home a pair of Trussardi baby shoes -- for my future baby. They are now stashed in my mother's bureau along with stuff she's bought for her future grandchildren. See, I am not alone in my silliness!

As it turns out, I've still got babies on my mind. Now don't go jumping to conclusions, Mom, I don't have any news to share, and if I did, you wouldn't be learning about it for the first time on this blog! Let me rephrase, I've got baby-stuff on my mind.

Here's some cool stuff I've discovered during our time thus far in Switzerland that I'd like to have for our future kiddos:

The Tripp Trapp -- Although these are available for purchase in the States, I never would have known about them if it weren't for my babysitting gigs here in Switzerland. I think it's safe to assume that these days every Swiss kid grows up with this special high chair. The genius part about the chair is that the kid never grows out of it.

High quality wooden toys - Yes, children in the U.S. play with wooden toys -- my mom still talks about how she used to play with Lincoln Logs -- but there are some beautiful wooden toys coming out of Germany! My favorite toy is the Multibahn from Nic. Another goody is the Kinderlaufrad, a children's beginner bike with no pedals, which I had never seen or heard of until we moved to Switzerland. The original, Like-a-Bike, is very popular in Switzerland -- so popular that even those not made by the German company are colloquially called Like-a-Bikes, similar to how Americans call all cotton swabs "Q-tips."

My ward and me in Piazza Bra, Verona