Completely unrelated

Sadly, Canadian chanteuse Chantal Kreviazuk — who is expecting her third son with hubby Raine Maida of Our Lady Peace on July 15th and writes a pregnancy column for CBB — lost her dear grandmother last month. Along with Chantal, we have been able to help her organize a way in which her grandmother’s memory will live on. Together with Hold*Me Baby Slings, Chantal is asking readers to help provide the women at Villa Rosa (the charity linked with her pregnancy column) with slings, in memory of her grandmother. Chantal, 34, posted on her blog,

In her honour, I would like to provide Villa Rosa, a shelter for young expecting mothers, in my hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba with as many baby carriers as possible, by a sponsoring company, Hold*Me so that as many babies as possible might feel the security and love of their mothers. My grandmother loved babies so much, and I know just the sight of a baby in a sling next to their mother’s bosom was something that would touch her in a sincere way. She would love to know that in her name, many new mom’s struggling in adversity will be able to provide this comfort to their newborns.

If you would like to donate, please phone Justin Rubin on 310 663 4535, or email justin ATholdmebabyslings.com (replace AT with @) and he will be happy to set up a sling at a discounted rate in memory of Chantal’s grandmother.

Chantal and Raine are also parents to Rowan Michael, 4, and Lucca Jon, 2 ½.

Catch up Chantal’s pregnancy columns here.

My husband Josh just published his annual Year in Appetizers on his food blog, The Food Section.  On his site, Appetizers are links to interesting food stories including food news, recipes, and gastronomical ephemera. Check it out!  (And then check out his Appetizers archive.)

Ciaran, Anya, Josh and I just got back from Las Vegas, where we attended the ABC Kids Expo, the largest tradeshow of baby and kid-related gear (albeit with an unfortunately URL’ed one).  Imagine Babies R Us but 30 times bigger.  There I met with a bunch of my favorite vendors and some new ones.  Ciaran will be posting lots of stories about the products that celebs are loving and I hope to post a few reviews of my own – both on CBB and on the new JC Penney mini-site that I was invited to contribute to (launching this weekend).  Some lines I learned about include Kaboost, Xeko, and Bright Starts from Kids II.

One of my visits at ABC was to Boon, home of the Frog Pod bath toy scoop and storage amphibian, and many other hip and ingenius products including a great new line of baby feeding items, jewelry, and layette.  I met with Kate Benjamin, the marketing director, who has got to be one of the coolest people I’ve come to know in the baby gear world.  She told me about her new blog, moderncat.net (I guess moderncat.com was taken?), which is all about products for the modern cat. Yes, it has come to that — blogs for cats with modern design sensibilities (or at least their finicky owners). Then again, less than four years ago people were laughing at the idea of a blog all about the offspring of celebrities. Before you know it, there will be 10 copycat sites and we’ll all be saying we knew Kate when she was a lowly marketing director…

Anyway, if you are a catmom or a lover of contemporary design, I urge you to check out this site that takes modern design, but not itself, seriously.  After all, if you are going to have a cat bed in your living room, why not have one made of bent plywood that matches your Eames furniture?