It's not quite an ankle bracelet.

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As a new dad I understand how overwhelming the desire for making sure your kid is safe can be, but this still creeps me out. A Japanese company has developed a school uniform blazer embedded with GPS tracking to keep a virtual eye on your kid's whereabouts. Have things gotten so bad that knowing that your child is in school isn't enough? At best I suppose it would just be for over-protective parents, but at worse it would be used as a replacement for good parenting. And isn't anyone else concerned that putting a big GPS beacon on your kid could attract the bad people it intends to protect against?

GPS-mounted blazers enable parents to locate kids. [Japan Today via Gizmodo]

News links for a Thursday.

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California smarty-pants gets the first perfect score on the new SAT, and now because of the new grading system my SAT score went from "slightly above average" to "pathetic." SAT Scores: 2400 is the new 1600. [CNN.com].

Here's one Madame must have read without me. Some Babies Skip Crawling [WMTW.com - "Where The News Comes First." How many TV stations in the country have a "news comes first" slogan? I would say at least one in every market.]

Sweep the leg. Six year old British kid becomes a black belt. [Sun UK via Fark]

Congratulations to Britney and Kevin on their impending arrival. I for one am going to try to not blog about this for the next nine months. [Rollingstone.com]

Boston and NYC advice?

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So, we're finally taking the baby on an east coast tour to meet our friends and see some proper cities in what I like to call Madame Live! 2005. It should be a fun time, checking out our old stomping grounds now with a 9 month year old baby in tow, but I have a few city-related questions. And who better to ask than the brilliant MDD readers out there? (OK. Enough sucking up, but seriously thanks for reading.)

  • Does anyone have any suggestions for good baby-friendly restaurants in Boston and NYC? I'm not particularly worried, we take her out with us all the time to all kinds of places, but it's always good to know about good restaurants people have had good experiences at with their baby.
  • Any suggestions of places we should check out (particularly in Manhattan) while we're there is also appreciated. I wanted to check out the new MOMA, but I heard it's still a really long wait to get in. Is it worth it or should we wait until our next visit?
  • What do people do about cabs in NYC? Do they just not take them with the baby? I'm assuming this is the case, as it's kind of hard to bring the Britax around with you everywhere you go. If this is the case, is there any stroller-on-the-subway advice anyone has?

Email issues.

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No dad stuff today. I've spent the whole morning fighting MS Outlook. For some reason my email client (Outlook) keeps downloading the same email - all the email I've already received - from my POP server. I think it's a problem with the POP server (I use Yahoo), and I've sent in a message to their customer service, but it's still broken. I swear to god I'm going to switch to a Mac as soon as I can (even though it might not be a Microsoft problem, it took me most of the morning wading through the menus, preferences, help pages and all the other crap on Outlook to figure that out).

Sorry for the rant. If anyone has any suggestions or has dealt with this before I'd be happy to hear from you.

Hacking maps.

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This doesn't really have anything to do with dads or parenting or kids or whatever, but my new favorite thing on the Internet is Google Maps. Typically of Google, it's simple, easy to use, and incredibly powerful. You can find just about any location instantly, get directions, and even see a satellite image of what you were looking for. But the coolest thing is, Google has opened up all the data (via XML) so people can make all kinds of cool stuff with it.

Suckling a Big Mac.

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McdonaldsbabyNot to cop all of my blog entries from Boing Boing, but I have to mention this picture I saw there last night. It's apparently an ad from a European McDonald's, and even though it looks like it has to be fake, supposedly it's real. The thing is, back in the day when some of us were pretending we ran a McDonald's of our own, I bet this ad would have seemed cute to most parents. Now it just looks sinister.

Via Boing Boing, via WFMU, via Stay Free.

Blame teething.

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Um, what did my baby do with my baby? These last few daysMadame has just not been herself, and I'm blaming the new sprout of teeth she's suddenly developed. Her diet and sleep are pretty much the same (even with the daylight savings time change), but for some reason she's generally irritated and very quick to freak out.

The problem is, outside of teething rings, cold spoons and maybe a little baby Tylenol there isn't much I can do. I did a Google news search on "teething" and came up with this "Health Tip" on Forbes.com yesterday, which basically says the same thing. I don't expect there's any magic treatment, but it is kind of frustrating. Any teething tips out there?

Classic cups.

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StackupcupsYou know, no matter how many Spanish speaking, movie tie-in, remote control things you get for your kid, sometimes you just can't beat the classics. Madame's Grandma showed up for Easter dinner a week and a half ago with a simple gift that she can't keep her hands off of. These Stack Up Cups from The First Years are incredibly simple, just some nesting plastic cups with numbers on them, but they are keeping her more occupied than any other toy she plays with. And at $2.99, it easily has to be the best toy bargain out there.

Stack Up Cups only $2.99 at Buy Buy Baby.

First digital camera.

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FirstshotOne thing I learned at CES, was that if you're an electronics company that isn't making an MP3 player or a digital camera, then you might as well admit you're doomed for failure. I guess other companies got the memo too - because Toray Ultrasuede (the people keeping baby spit-up off of couches across America) has teamed up with an industrial design firm to create the FirstShot, a digital camera for toddlers.

It's easy to make fun of this - kids taking pictures of the wall and stuff - but I think it's a cool idea. Encouraging kids to be creative, whether it's with finger paint or home electronics is what's important. And because it's digital it doesn't really matter how many pictures get taken of the wall or half a face. It would just be cool to see what toddlers think is worthy of taking a picture of. Hopefully it won't be too expensive when it comes out, though it's hard to imagine that it won't be.

FirstShot info at Core77.com  (idea via Shiny Shiny)

Human boobs? They're Grrrreat!

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Sometimes you just have to let the absurdity speak for itself:

The two-week-old cubs, a male and a female, were taken from their mother Noah Noah after she killed the third cub in her litter, prompting veterinarians to engage in alternative childcare, the semi-official Myanmar Times weekly reported in its edition to be published Monday.

The emphasis is mine.

Woman breastfeeding tiger cubs in Myanmar  [Yahoo News]  (via Boing Boing)

Question for Bugaboo Frog owners.

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We're taking the family on a trip back east soon (to visit friends and show off the baby), and I'm wondering about my Bugaboo (notice how it's mine and not the baby's). Has anyone checked it at the gate before, or do you check it with the rest of the baggage? The first time we flew with it we were only using the car seat attachment so we checked the wheels and frame at the gate and brought the car seat on the plane with us. But now we use the full stroller (seat and frame) and I'm worried that the bag check person at the gate will get the seat and frame mixed up or separated somehow. Maybe it's just better to buy that Bugaboo "Transport Bag" (expensive as it may be) and check it with the rest of the bags.

Any insight any of you might have would be very much appreciated.

Baby mobile phone.

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BabyphoneWe happen to live near a junior high, and when school lets out lots of kids walk through our neighborhood on their way home. In noticed the other day that lots of them, maybe one in five, was talking on a cellphone. At first glance it looks weird to me - children walking down the street talking on the phone like they're negotiating big deals on their way to lunch - but hey, it's 2005, kids in junior high can certainly use a cell phone, and I need to remind myself not to be such an old dude.

Which leads me to the "i-Care Baby Cell Phone" (pictured). Designed for children aged 3-10, it has four pre-set auto dial buttons (on the feet and hands of the phone) and according to the website, "...will provide plenty of opportunity for the parent and their small children to chat each other whenever they desire." My gut reaction of course is, what is your child doing unsupervised before the age of 10 that they need a cell phone to give you a call? You can trust them to be out on their own but not trust them to be able to dial their own phone number? This would never happen, right?

Last week we were hanging out in the park when a little kid, maybe 9 years old (at the oldest I swear), came up to us and asked if we had a cell phone and if he could use it. My wife said of course and handed him hers. This was the conversation:

"Mom. {pause} Yeah. I didn't go to the movies. I'm at the park with my other friends. {pause} Arbors park. {pause} OK. {pause} Bye."

Sometimes it's really hard not to judge.

i-Care Baby Cell Phone from GuideTek (via Shiny Shiny)

Finally. A home for budding Dr. Frankensteins.

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ToyzooHappen's Toy Lab is this place in Cincinnati where kids can go and make their own toys out of recycled parts. Kind of like the Build-A-Bear workshop idea but way cooler, kids can take parts from all kinds of discarded action figures and dolls and create a one-of-a-kind toy. The Toy Lab also encourages the children to name their toy and give it a back-story - does it have superpowers?, where does it live? etc. Then they take a picture of every toy and post it on their website. It seems like a fun, creative experience for kids, plus they get to keep their toy at the end.

It's always cool to see people coming up with great ideas for kids (like the folks at Pancake Mountain) and then turn those ideas into reality. Too bad (for me) that it's only in Cincinnati.


Happen's Toy Lab (via Plastic Bugs).
Also, definitely check out the bizarre creations in the Toy Zoo.

100 year bloom.

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100yearbloomThis past Saturday we put Madame in the back of the car and drove out to Death Valley National Park. It's a great park normally, but right now it's particularly special. Because of the unusual amount of rain we've gotten in the southwest this winter, Death Valley (usually the most desolate place in America) is blooming with wildflowers, and they're saying it's the best it's been in 100 years. I'm no photographer, but I took a bunch of pictures to check out if you're interested. If you live anywhere near the southwest, or are traveling here in the next month or so, take some time and check it out.

100 Year Bloom Photos {Modern Day Dad]

Death Valley National Park official website
In Death Valley, new life [Boston Globe]

Ban the bunny.

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Happy Friday, and if you're so inclined, happy Easter on Sunday. After you've read about the startling revelation that "Sweet Jesus! Easter Candy and Church Don't Mix," go over and check out this essay proposing we eliminate the Easter Bunny from all Easter celebrations. Best quote:

And given the general overall seriousness of Easter in the Christian scheme of things, it seems all the odder: It's like if on Yom Kippur, Jews the world over solemnly atoned for their sins, right after lining up to visit a giant purple aardvark named "Kippy."

Chianca: Bunny you should mention it [Townonline.com] via Fark.

Brush that tooth.

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InfantgumcleanerLike I mentioned yesterday, my baby's got her first tooth. And as soon as my wife mentioned it to the ladies in her office, they all asked her if we were brushing it yet. Um, brushing it? One tooth? It never occurred to us, but apparently it's something we should be doing. So we went out and bought this Gerber Tooth and Gum Cleanser, which is really just some infant toothpaste and a finger puppet rubber tooth brush/massager.

Is it helping? Who knows? I have a suspicion it's just another thing companies like Gerber sucker parents into doing that our parents never did. Even in Dr. Cohen's book he says you don't need to do any of this, that as long as you aren't giving your baby a bottle in the middle of the night their teeth shouldn't rot. But really, what says "bad parent" more than a child full of rotten teeth? So I guess for the time being it's back to the finger puppet, and I'll let her grandpa teach her how to floss once she's got some adjacent teeth.

Eighth month developments.

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Holy crap she's eight months old. She's growing like a weed (we've moved onto 12 month clothes already) and getting smarter every day. And it's all still pretty amazing. The developments this month were:

  • Clapping. I blogged about this a couple of weeks ago, but it also has to be mentioned here that my genius daughter has figured out how to clap. Now instead of just flailing her arms up and down when she's happy, she can also clap. And I can get her to clap now too, which I'm now spending a decent portion of each day trying to make her do. I wouldn't be surprised if her first word is "clap."
  • First Tooth. This one took me by surprise. A few weeks ago she wasn't really acting like herself - kind of unusually crabby - and I thought, "Maybe she's teething. Probably not, but you never know." And sure enough, she had popped her very first tooth - lower left incisor. Needless to say it was big news around the family.
  • Object Permanence. This started last month, but now it's really come into its own. If she's playing and spots something she can't have (usually the remote control) she'll immediately go for it. Last month if I got it out of her sight she would pretty much forget about it and go on to something else. But now if I put it out of her sight she knows where it is and still wants it, usually until I distract her with something else.
  • Peek-a-boo. In the past week or so, usually in the evening, she's started to play peek-a-boo with modern day mom. It goes something like this: she'll put a burp cloth over her face and we'll say "Where did Madame go?" and she'll pull it down and we'll say, "There she is!" whereupon she'll put it back over her face and start the game over again. At first I wasn't sure if she knew the cause and effect of what she's doing, but after a few sessions I'm pretty sure she does.

Breast milk? I'll be the judge of that.

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A recent study by British formula maker Cow & Gate found that one third of British fathers tried their wife's breast milk.  I thought about doing it when Madame was breastfeeding, but for one reason or another I never got around to it. Supposedly the fathers who were surveyed said that is was "part of an emotional urge to immerse themselves in the process of infant rearing," which smells like bullshit to me. Here are some of the more likely reasons I think why a dad might try a taste of la leche (in no particular order):

  1. To gross out his wife.
  2. Simple curiosity. The baby loves it, so it must be good.
  3. To be able to say they did it.
  4. Accidental taste during some post-natal foreplay with the baby's mama.
  5. On a dare.
  6. A fascination with the convenience of literally making food.
  7. To gross out his wife.

Earth dads give breast milk a try [Times Online (UK)]