"Lazy Sunday" for the laziest work week.

Back when I used to work for the man, I used to love working between Christmas and New Years. If I didn't have any place special to be, then I would never take these days off, because working this week meant not really working much at all. Most people were away, and there was lots of time to troll around the Internet looking for diversions.

If you're one of those people (and you - for some impossible reason - haven't seen this yet), check out this unbelievably funny skit from Saturday Night Live a couple of weeks ago.- "Lazy Sunday" or probably better known as the Chronic-WHAT?-cles of Narnia rap. I just saw it last night off the Tivo, and it's probably the funniest thing I've seen on SNL in years and years.

Apparently I'm not alone, because this morning my friend (who actually tipped me to it a week ago) found this article about it in Slate. Every now and then something that's funny stops being just funny and transcends into something just awesome. That's what this is.

"Lazy Sunday" - SNL [You Tube.com]
The Chronicles of Narnia Rap [Slate.com via Matt]

Sixteen and Seventeenth month developments

So today is Madame's seventeenth month birthday, and I'm officially going to stop counting the freaking months next month. "She's a year and a half" is perfectly acceptable from here on out I think.

As I didn't do one of these posts last month, I'm rolling it all up into one - and in these two months a lot has happened.

• Talking. She's not really speaking yet, but her arsenal of words (or word-like sounds) is growing all the time. Before I had a kid I thought that little kids just started saying words one day, but I'm starting to realize it's much more of a gradual continuum. She can repeat sounds you make, and sometimes she can put certain sounds with certain meanings consistently, but she isn't speaking any perfectly formed words yet. Her baby talk is really developed though, and her inflection and facial expressions really convey that she's saying something, just in a language I can't understand. If I could do this part over with her, I probably would have done some of that baby sign language with her.
• Eating. I, as pretty much anyone who knows me knows, hate cheese. I'll eat pizza and some mozzarella, but other than that it kind of sickens me. My Madame however loves cheese. We're trying to incorporate other food in her diet, but I swear that girl could live on grilled cheese sandwiches, peaches and pretzel rods until she's 18.
• Testing. Even at 17 months, I'm starting to see those terrible twos start to creep in. She constantly tests us, seeing what she can get away with and seeing what the consequences will be. Tell her "no" and she'll try it again. Tell her a second time and she'll either stop doing it, take whatever she was doing somewhere else out of my sight and try it again, or smile at me and then do it again. Getting angry or yelling really doesn't have any effect, so I'm trying to develop an icy stare that will stop her dead in her tracks. But I've been unsuccessful so far.
• Kisses. This one is the best. After months, she's finally started to give kisses. I don't really know why this one was so important to me, but after changing the fourth dirty diaper in as many hours, getting a kiss on the cheek is a nice reward - even if I have to prompt her.

Man complains about the Christmas-crunch, noone reads (thankfully).

For those of us celebrating Christmas, we're definitely in the home-stretch. This year everything kind of snuck up on me, and although I've gotten a lot done, it still feels like I've got a million things to deal with, and that I'm going to just flat-out forget about 30% of them. Not to make everything about having kids or anything, but my ability to focus on multiple ongoing things has been greatly diminished in the past year and a half.

Anyway, blogging has dropped off as well  - which is OK I suppose because my traffic has dropped off too, and I can think of a lot of better things to do than read me bitch that Christmas is happening way too quickly this year. Plus Typepad (the blog service I use) decided to crap the bed last week, so the time that I set aside to actually blog was in vain. Ugh.

So from here until New Year's I'm not making any promises. Hopefully I'll get a chance to blog a few things, but it's not looking like I'm going to have a lot of time. Of course, I'm pretty sure neither are you.

Scooters, bikes, and other conveyances for fresh legs.

I wrote a post a few weeks back about the Like A Bike, a bicycle without pedals. The idea seemed a good one to me, but even though it's beautiful, the price tag ($279) seemed a bit high. Then I finally got a copy of the DWR jax catalog in the mail yesterday, and lo and behold they're selling the Like A Bike. So I guess a pedal-less bike isn't exactly as unusual as I thought. Oh well.

But that post did generate a lot of interest and introduced me to some new scooting options for your kids. MDD reader Kevin pointed me to the Kettler Scoot Training Bike (pictured here) which pretty much looks like the same thing as the Like A Bike, but more like a regular outdoor bike. And they even sell it at Amazon for $89.99.

I was also contacted by Randy from Glider Rider, a German version of a similar product. I can tell from our correspondence that Randy is really passionate about balance development, and his product seems like it will do the trick. Apparently they're quite popular in Europe, and in the states the Glider Rider will run you about $127..

Then the other day a good friend of mine emailed me about this cool little scooter his folks had gotten his daughter - the Svan Scooter (made by the same people who make that sweet Svan high chair). It's not exactly a balance toy, more like a simple, perfectly simple, indoor tricycle. The front of it has no handlebars, but a wheel that pivots while the two wheels in the back are fixed. This lets your kid just push it to the left or right to go where they want. The wheels are rubber (so it's safe and quiet indoors) and it's made out of beautiful molded plywood. The Svan Scooter just came out this November and it's $118.99 from Amazon.com.

So there are some options, but I have to say that Svan scooter just jumped to the top of Madame's wish list (thanks Jamie).

LA recap.

We spent this past weekend in LA, without the Madame (thanks to the modern day grandma and pop-pop), for a weekend of December shopping. "Shopping" is really an excuse to get away from home, stay at a nice hotel, and remember what it was like traveling without a small child. LA definitely doesn't give you that traditional "Christmas" feeling, but with temperatures in the high 70s I wasn't complaining. I'm too tired to think of anything clever to write about this morning, so here's my quick recap:

• Hotel. We stayed at The Standard in Hollywood, which we had stayed at back in 1999 soon after it opened, but this time it was kind of a disappointment. The location is great and the lounge is a fun place to hang out, but the services were definitely sub-par. There were small things like no shampoo in the room, but the big thing was the building itself. The floorboards in the room above ours were in serious disrepair, and the creaking from the people leaving Sunday morning in the room above us was so loud it was impossible to stay asleep. The price for the location is still great, but I definitely wouldn't recommend it.
• Shopping. When I go to LA I like to shop in places I can't find here in Vegas, so we spent most of our time checking out places on Melrose. I finally got to check out a Fatboy bean bag chair at Fitzsu, and I got some great vintage kids stuff at Jet Rag (which I'll probably blog about later). The best store we went to was Not Neutral to check out some kids furniture. The worst was (unfortunately) Grommetville, who had a sales girl who was the opposite of helpful, and kind of made us wish we hadn't trekked all the way out to Silverlake.
• Food. I have two restaurant recommendations for you. The first is the Gardens of Taxco, an authentic "Mexico City style" (as they say) restaurant, which apparently means no menus and and endless stream of food that you didn't really order. And they have the best mole sauce I've ever tried.
  The other is Yamashiro, an Japanese palace built in the Hollywood hills in 1914 with amazing views and great food. Apparently it used to be known for great views and average food, but they've got a new chef now who is (in my opinion) doing his job right. It was a unique, only-in-LA kind of experience, and the perfect cap to a great weekend.

Baby Bush; Big idea about having a baby.

What's the Internet for really? Product research? Self indulgent Pithy blog entries? Nope. It's for clever use of stock photography. Check out the parents and kids on BabyBushToys.com (a baby boutique spoof site featuring "products for the resoundingly average child"). Perfect. My favorite toy: the "Twisty Thing. That is Red." My favorite stock photo: pictured above.

And here's a funny essay from McSweeny's you may or may not want to share with the expecting mother in your life, depending on her mood swing of the moment.

Baby Bush [via Dan].
I Don't Know What the Big Idea About Having a Baby Is by Wendy Molyneux [McSweenys.com via Brian].

Wish list 2005

I got an email a week or so ago from AJ over at Thingamababy asking me (along with the other bloggers in his blog roll) to post a wish list of things they want for their kids this year (here's AJ's list). We don't really have a list for Madame, we're just letting our family decide what they'd like to give her. Except long sleeve shirts. She needs some long sleeve shirts.

Instead I've decided to post my personal wish list of things I'd like to have this year. Emphasis is most definitely on "wish."

1. I'd like Costco to stop "improving" every baby product I buy from them on a regular basis. First they decided to stop carrying Pampers Cruisers and replace them with their own, crappy (sorry) "Kirkland" brand of diaper. Then they went and "improved" the baby wipes so now they stick to each other so much that every time I go to get one I get five. Goddamn Costco.
2. I'd like to see some more attractive women on the TV shows Madame and I watch. Laurie Berkner always sings a happy song to dance to on Jack's Big Music Show, but why can't Heidi Klum stop by the clubhouse once in a while?
3. I'd like everyone who reads this to send a package to a soldier serving overseas. You don't need to know anyone, just go to AnySoldier.com, click the "Where To Send" link and pick one of the hundreds who seem to post requests every day. Don't mix personal hygiene items with food, and don't forget to include a letter. It's really the least any of us can do.
4. I'd like a gnome to pick up after the trail of destruction my daughter leaves behind. I don't need a maid, just a magical little guy to quietly put back the stacks of magazines, drawers full of Tupperware, and boxes of salt from the pantry that she leaves in her wake.
5. And I'd like a new dining room table and six Eames DCW.

What I get for shopping at Walmart.

My own parking space. Sweet.

10 most "dangerous" toys.

I was checking out this article in Fortune Magazine on line today (another piece about expensive baby gear - but this one doesn't have a quote from me unfortunately, so I was, as you can imagine, not very interested) when I saw a link to this: 10 most dangerous toys.

Now I don't know what it says about me, but I was expecting some really heinous stuff - wood burning kits, poisonous chemistry sets, giant plastic bags. But these dangerous toy lists every year (apparently put out by W.A.T.C.H. or World Against Toys Causing Harm) must be working, because the stuff in this year's list doesn't seem all that scary. There are toys that have small parts or fur that could cause choking, guns that shoot toy arrows or silly string at a high velocity, and those giant foam fist-hands that "made the list because it could cause blunt impact injuries." Duh.

The scariest thing on the list is a pair of "anti-gravity boots" (pictured) that look like a broken arm waiting to happen. They also look like the most fun.

So check out the list to find out which toy horse has poorly rooted fur, and congratulations to W.A.T.C.H. for keeping the really scary stuff off of the store shelves entirely. And don't be surprised on Christmas if little cousin Jimmy starts smacking you with his new giant fists.

Blinging up baby (that headline is way too easy) [Fortune on CNN.com] (via modern day great-aunt Jeanne - thanks!)

10 most dangerous toys [CNN.com]

Holiday gifts. Kids. Jack's Big Music Show.

I've written a couple of posts about Jack's Big Music Show already, and though I'm not obsessed, I am into it probably more than I should be. Fortunately that's still not more than my little girl is into it, which is a good thing (I think).

Anyway, from looking at the comments in my posts, it seems a lot of people are looking for JBMS toys to give this year. Unfortunately, there aren't any. I can't imagine a scenario where they'll never start making the toys (since the show is now also on Nick Jr. and looks like it's a hit), but they're just not available now.

About the best you can do this year is get the CDs from some of the artists who play music on the show, which isn't as good as a plush Mel the Dog, but it's better than nothing. Music for Little People.com has a collection of CDs for $45.44, or you can always get them individually from Amazon.

Laruie Berkner Band - Under A Shady Tree (many of the songs featured on JBMS are from Laurie Berkner)
Rebecca Frezza - Road Trip
Music for Aardvarks - Grumpy
Milkshake - Happy Songs
The Dirty Sock Funtime Band - Mr. Clown and the Day the Sun Got Wet (from CD Baby.com)
Lisa Loeb and Elizabeth Mitchell - Catch the Moon
The Persuasions - On the Good Ship Lollipop (includes the song "I'm So Glad I've Got Skin")

Also on MDD:
Jack's Big Music Show. (09-29-2005)
Jack's Big Music Show sure is swell. (11-02-2005)

Holiday gifts. Everyone. Ornament greeting card.

So you just had a baby this past year and you sent out the birth announcements, but your kid is much older now and you want to send a picture with this year's holiday card. You also want to send a small gift to some of your friends and family that's fun and unique without breaking the bank.  If you'd like to kill two birds with one stone, check out this holiday ornament card from 2Peas1Pod. My favorite baby announcement company will custom design a holiday card for you with a picture that can be punched out and converted into a tree ornament. They'll also do regular holiday card if you want, but this might be something a little more special than a fruit cake for the aunts and uncles.

Check out all the holiday card options at 2Peas1Pod.com.
Also on MDD - Birth Announcing.

Welcome Bloomberg readers.

I had a quote in this article in Bloomberg News yesterday (it's towards the end), so there's a chance that some of you are visiting for the first time. If you are, welcome. There's lots of dad and kid related stuff on my site which you are more than welcome to check out, just use the search box on the left or browse through my categories. And if you've got a suggestion or a comment, please leave one in this post. I'm always happy to hear from new people.

KKR, Wal-Mart Bet on Moms' Love of Status Strollers (Bloomberg.com)

Holiday gifts. Mom. Diaper bag.

It's time to start thinking about gifts, so this month I'm going to try to highlight a few things I've found that might be worth checking out.

For your baby's mama: the Petunia Pickle Bottom shoulder bag.

You've already found your perfect dad diaper bag, but what about mom? Even though she might not use it as much, everyone loves having their own baby gear. I was in the pediatrician's office today and I saw a mom with this totally sweet diaper bag. PPB has been making high end diaper bag backpacks for moms for a while now, but I'd never seen the shoulder bags. The black one the mom had looked feminine, modern and stylish, without being another typical Kate Spade bag. It also looked pretty big, which always comes in handy.

Check out the "Samba Roll" diaper bag from petunia pickle bottom.com

Also, check out Diaper Bags for dads at the Modern Day Dad Store.

Looking for single dads in NYC.

I got an email the other day from a single mom who has recently started a social/support group for single parents in Manhattan. She said they had a couple of dads but they would like more (not for "any dating subplot" she promises), and she wondered if I had any ideas where she could let other single dads know about it. I wasn't sure where the single dads hang out in Manhattan, but I said I'd post about it here.

So single dads in NYC, here it is. They meet every other Saturday (the next meeting is December 3rd) in Soho for lunch and babysitters are provided. The only qualification is they're looking for parents who are raising their kids alone, or mostly alone (so joint-custody dads are out of luck). You can contact the organizer at slk@cbsnews.com.

No shirt, no shoes, kids, no service.

A good friend of mine who lives in the Andersonville section of Chicago sent me this article (reprinted from the NY Times) about a restaurant in his neighborhood that recently posted this sign:

Children of all ages have to behave and use their indoor voices when coming to A Taste of Heaven

Well, apparently a lot of parents in the area got pissed off and started a big brouhaha. Which isn't surprising, when the owner of "A Taste of Heaven" had this to say about his (former) clientele:

McCauley, 44, said the protesting parents are "former cheerleaders and beauty queens" who "have a very strong sense of entitlement." In an open letter to the community, he warned of an "epidemic" of anti-social behavior.

"Part of parenting skills is teaching kids they behave differently in a restaurant than they do on the playground," McCauley said. "If you send out positive energy, positive energy returns to you. If you send out energy that says I'm the only one that matters, it's going to be a pretty chaotic world."

Ignoring the "positive energy," hippy nonsense, it seems to me that insulting the people that buy your flapjacks isn't quite sound business sense. Anyway, what we're left with is another article in the NY Times about parents vs. the child-free. I got a taste of this from some of the more hardcore child-free a few months ago, and I'm still puzzled by it.

The fact is, I've got no problem with this guy posting a sign about wanting kids to "behave" in his place. It's his business, and he should be able to say what he wants, just like people will be able to stop spending money in his restaurant if they are offended or bothered. But if you ask me, posting a sign asking people to get their kids to behave is just a gutless way of saying you don't want kids in your restaurant. Young children are unpredictable and don't always behave or use their indoor voices, even under the best circumstances. Expecting them to have the same social skills as adults is unreasonable. Also, not every parent is going to discipline their child in the way that you may want them to. If you've got an issue with a particular patron, can't you just ask them to leave instead of alienating a whole group of people?

Say what you mean, and those of us trying to go out to eat with our kids will gladly go somewhere else - no hard feelings.

War on Brats [The Detroit News (reprinted from the NY Times) via Matt]

The bike that isn't a bike.

At what point in this blogging adventure here do I say, OK. Now I've seen it all. I thought I had with the adult pacifier, but this one is close.

Don't be fooled by the picture. What you're looking at isn't a bicycle. It's a "LikeABike." A wooden toy with two wheels, handle bars and a saddle, but no pedals. The idea is two-year-olds want active toys, and could generally use some forward-motion encouragement during walks around the neighborhood. The LikeABike solves this by giving kids a ride they can push forward with their feet Fred Flintstone style. It's beautiful, made out of wood and costs $279.

Is this genius or absurdity? For the life of me I can't decide. At first I was confused. $279 for a bicycle that doesn't work? Seriously? But then I read some of the testimonials on their web site:

It is so true what the LikeaBike people are saying about how easy it can get to walk your child to pre-school… It used to take me forever, now my daughter happily jumps on her bike and we make it in time... no problem. Petra T. (Brooklyn, Park Slope)

Before we gave our son a LikeaBike for his third birthday he had received physical therapy for more than a year... After learning how to ride that beautiful little vehicle his coordination and sense of balance improved considerably. LikeaBikes should be part of every pre-school's inventory. Jenny and Steve N. (Manhattan, West Village)

Now I'm starting to see the genius. Improve your child's balance, get them around the neighborhood, and give them something fun to do all by avoiding the tyranny of pedals. Still, at $279 I think a resourceful dad, an old bike and a socket set could probably come up with something cheaper.

Check out LikeABike at their official site [via Transport Trends.com]

Prepping for Thanksgiving 2005

Thanksgiving is almost a week away, and if you're the cook in your house like I am, it's time to start thinking about what's for dinner. I'm probably going to stick with some of the same recipes I did last Thanksgiving, with a few new twists.

• Turkey. This year I'm probably going to grill the turkey like I did last Christmas. I ended up using this recipe from Alton Brown, and it came out great. The wood smoke gave it a great smokey flavor, but the real trick (I think) was the brining. You can't stuff a grilled turkey, so the dressing has to be made separately. I'm debating making two birds and roasting the other, but I don't think I'm going to have enough guests to justify that.
• Dressing. Last Sunday we had "pre-thanksgiving," where I try out the new recipes that I might use this year, and one of the winners was this Southwest Cornbread and Chorizo Dressing I got from Sunset magazine. It was really tasty, with the salty/savory chorizo balancing out nicely with the sweetness of the butternut squash. I used to make a cornbread and andouille stuffing I got from Emeril, but this one is way better.
• Stock. The only other thing I'm going to try this year is to make my own chicken stock. I know, it's a little over the top, but it's something that goes in a lot of recipes and I'm hoping that the real stuff will make everything taste that much better.

New shoes.

After Madame started walking and stopped crawling altogether, we figured it was time to finally think about getting some shoes on her feet. And like I've mentioned before, it was like sticking her in cement. The shoes we were trying (sneakers that were probably too small) were too heavy and too foreign for her to even consider walking with them. Eventually we found a pair of soft shoes from Nike that had a very minimal sole and a Velcro piece that wrapped around the heel for easy shoeing (who knew "shoeing" was a word?).

Anyway, I've tried to find a link to those shoes but I've been unsuccessful. Then yesterday a friend of mine sent me a link to these - Gucio shoes. Apparently a former design student in Poland tried making the perfect kids shoe for his final project and, after studying shoe making in Italy, it's become a full time business. Each shoe is hand made and designed for comfort and flexibility. The shoes look pretty cool, but handmade kid's shoes from Poland are going to set you back $47.99. And am I going to let my daughter run around the park in handmade shoes that cost $47.99? Not anytime soon.

The good news is I bought a pair of regular kid's sneakers from Nike, and after about two weeks of the first transitional shoes, she graduated to the sneakers and hasn't looked back since.

Gucio shoes available for $47.99 (gulp) at ToddlerTreads.com [thanks Beth].

MDD inbox.

I haven't responded to quite a lot of MDD email in a while, so I figured I'd get some of my housekeeping done here in this one post. Responses/links are in the order of when I received them.

• Julie from new (to me at least) baby t-shirt store Trendy Tadpole sent me a link to her shop to check out. She's got some cute designs that you can put on your choice of t-shirt or one-piece. There are some good ones, but my favorite would have to be the Atari Joystick (I'm old-school like that).
• Manny from d.a.d inc. dropped me a line to say hello and ask when did I find the time to work on modern day dad. Then he posted a blog entry with a similar theme. Honestly I try to blog during nap time or late at night when everyone else is asleep. I am finding out however that the older and more active Madame gets the less time I've been devoting to the blog, and consequently my number of posts has dropped in the last month or so. Hopefully it will be more quality than quantity.
• MDD reader Aubrey tipped me to Kee-Ka, a gift t-shirt store that specializes in kids and pregnant mother t-shirts. I feel like I've seen (and written) about a million of these sites. This one seems geared towards gifts, and the illustrations and designs are playful without being cutesy. This would be a place to check out if you're looking for a quick and unique shower gift.
• And last but certainly not least Dave Caolo recently started his own dad blog "DaddyDaze," and he's really hit the ground running. There's lots of good stuff there - personal posts about his family, a brand new video podcast, and I'll be damned if he didn't dress his son up like Chewbacca for Halloween. That rules me. Check out his blog, I'm predicting it's going to be one to watch.

Telling people you stay at home.

I was reading this really well thought-out post last night on Dadventure about tips for guys thinking about becoming stay-at-home dads. I could only think of one thing to add, and the middle of writing my comment, I realized that I might as well bring this up here too. Is it OK to feel awkward when you tell people that you're a SAHD?

It came up the other day when the DirecTV guy was over installing my HDTV service (the joys of which I'll leave for another post another day). In the middle of the install, he asked me, as most Americans do to people they barely know, "So what do you do?"

Immediately I gave the answer that I've been giving everyone for the past 15 months - "I'm a stay-at-home-dad."

"Excuse me?"

Not knowing if he didn't hear me correctly or that he couldn't fathom it, I said, "I'm a full-time dad. I stay at home with my daughter during the day."

To which he replied, "Oh. That's cool I guess."

To which I replied, "Yeah. It's really cool actually."

Later in the day as I was marveling at the picture quality of my new television, I kept replaying that conversation in my head. Not because the satellite guy was being a jerk, because he wasn't. I just don't think he had ever met a SAHD before (not to mention the fact that the "SAHD" moniker is cumbersome at best and not easily used in casual conversation). The thing I kept thinking about was my internal reaction to the act of explaining to a stranger what I do. For some reason I felt kind of defensive, like I had to justify not going to a normal job every day. And as the explanation was coming out of my mouth, I felt guilty for not having a normal 9-5 job. The whole thing was very awkward.

Admittedly, all of this is a lot of contemplation for a fifteen second conversation with the DirecTV guy, but it got me thinking. Some of my defensiveness was definitely a guy thing - here was this guy doing a very working-guy type of job, and here I am worried if Noggin is coming in clearly or not. And I do have moments sometimes of nostalgia (and envy) when I'm speaking to my friends about their regular jobs, but I think at the end of the day all of this comes with the territory.

Staying home with my daughter is the right choice for our family, and I'm lucky to be able to do it. And just because I feel weird sometimes explaining what I do during the day doesn't mean I secretly wish I was doing something else. I need to get used to the fact that what I'm doing is different, and probably will be until my Madame is out of the house for good.

And who knows, maybe next time the DirecTV guy will go home, quit his job, and make his wife go to work too.