Holy crap is that a Mr. T onesie?

MDD reader Ray posted in the comments of this post a few days ago a link to another online baby boutique, Retro Baby. I've blogged about these stores before, but this one is good. Like Baby Wit used to, they've got all kinds of onesies and baby t-shirts using some of your favorite old school tv shows and celebrities. I'm obviously partial to anything related to Mr. T (it's obvious to me at least), but there are some other winners out there too. The site makes me wonder however, how do places like this use images of celebrities, movies and television shows to sell t-shirts without getting into trouble? I'm thinking it would be good to buy what you like soon before the inventory starts disappearing. I pity the fool that doesn't give Mr. T his cut.

Don't be a fool! Stay in school!
Mr. T onesie (sorry, "one piece") $16.95 at RetroBaby.com

For once, I can't even judge.

I've found that judging (and unfortunately being judgmental) of other parents, especially parents with children around the same age as mine, is pretty much impossible to avoid. I try hard to keep the attitude of "Hey whatever works for you is perfectly OK," and I do believe that to a reasonable extent, but when I'm around other parents with little kids it's hard not to compare.  All of this goes out the window however when it comes to parents of twins.

Before we were even thinking about having a baby, I kind of thought it would be cool to have twins. Getting through the difficult aspects of dealing with young children all at once sounded like a good idea. It's tough to deal with a new baby, two couldn't really be that much more difficult right? Lucky for me I wasn't able to choose. Now when I talk to friends or other people I've met recently who have young twins, it seems that what they are going through is so different I don't even have a basis for understanding. Feeding, sleeping, traveling - all the things I do every day with my baby seem to be completely new adventures if you've got twins. It's not as simple as doubling the task, though it does seem to be at least double the work. For instance, I might think I've got a great method for getting a baby to sleep, but getting two infants to sleep at the same time isn't even something I can relate to, let alone judge.

Which ultimately is a lesson I suppose I should take away with me. The next time I think to myself how I can't believe how late so-and-so lets their kids stay up at night, or how crazy so-and-so are to let their kid eat meat at three months, I should think about all the people raising twins. Because the truth is that usually, whatever works for a parent is perfectly OK.

Pink art.

I went to an art show last weekend which was (unfortunately) rather uneventful, but I did see a couple of cool things. One of which was this artist called Fanok who makes these illustrations around a theme of a little girl. Aptly titled "Just A Little Girl," the prints show his character tackling all kinds of bizarre circumstances, in a pink dress. Kind of like a Shepard Fairey/Obey thing except with a completely different motif. I thought they were interesting, and though I didn't buy one for Madame's room, I considered it. It might be something worth checking out if you're looking for something cool to hang on the walls of your daughter's room.

Just A Little Girl website.

At least it's Vivaldi.

A while back I bought Madame a "stationary entertainer," not only so she would have something new to play with, but also so I could have a safe place to put her. After some debate I went with the one from Baby Einstein and now I'm really glad I did. I'm sure I'm not the only parent who tries to limit the amount of babytoys that make annoying bleeping noises, but sometimes it's hard to avoid them - like in an exersaucer (sorry, "stationary entertainer"). On the Baby Einstein version there is only one thing on it that makes noise, this colorful disc with five pictures of animals on them. When you hit one of the animals, it says the name in English, then after a second hit it says it in Spanish, and then a third consecutive hit gets you a song.

Normally it hasn't been a big deal, because by the time she accidentally got a song to play, she'd hit another animal, stopping the song. But last week my little genius has figured out the three consecutive hit rule, and she likes the music the best. Now she'll smack the duck (the picture in the center) over and over until the song plays - whereupon she'll immediately stop, smile, and rock back and forth. She loves it so much I can't turn the thing off, so I'm forced to listen to 30 seconds of Vivaldi's Spring over and over and over again. Which, all things considered, could be a lot worse.

Bombalulu's.

Baby boutiques are, as far as I can tell, mostly the domain of the internet and NYC. They have some in LA, but not like New York. Maybe it's just because now I'm a dad I'm interested in them, but when I was there recently I seemed to see them everywhere. (In my youth I used to see record stores everywhere in NYC. What am I going to see when I'm an old man? Drug stores?)

One I stopped in on my way to Kid-O was Bombalulu's on West 10th. They have the requisite educational toys and cute stuffed animals, but they really excel in children's clothing - especially for girls. There were great t-shirts (like the one we picked up for Madame - pictured above) and all kinds of dresses and accessories. They're even capitalizing on the princess craze and making tutus and other frilly play clothes for girls. According to their website all the clothes are hand-made so it's not cheap, but hey, you are shopping in a baby boutique after all.

Bombalulu's. 101 W. 10th St. NYC (right down the street from Kid-O)

Same old stories.

I've been writing this blog for about 8 months now, and the more I look at news articles about dads the more they stay the same. Like this one from the Seattle Times about how "Generation X" dads "seek balance" but really they are too afraid to tell their bosses that they want to spend more time with their families. Blah blah blah. Dads care, but they have it hard. Mom's care, but they have it hard too. Parents have it so hard these days. There must be a pile somewhere of these articles where all you have to do is switch around the proper nouns. Maybe you can order them from the back of Rollingstone, I don't know.

Then I searched Google News today for "dads" and the first result is a blog entry from Jay Allen (of Zero Boss fame) over at Blogging Baby titled "Why arrest "deadbeat dads" on Mother's Day?" Even though it's not (or maybe because it's not) an article from a newspaper, he brings up a good point. Though it's true fewer mothers pay child support than dads, mothers that do are delinquent on their child support payments at the same rate as dads. It's not only deadbeat "dads" that are the problem, but deadbeat "parents." It would have been nice to see someone write a newspaper article with a fresh point of view like this one - but I guess I'll have to keep reading blogs. Thanks Jay.

The gift of "mama."

Happy belated Mother's Day to all the moms out there who may be reading this. As it was the first Mother's Day in the MDD household, we wanted to make sure it was special, and I think we succeeded. We happened to have around both modern day mom and the two modern day grandmas which was special, plus we decided to go out to eat on Saturday instead, which proved to be way less crowded and hectic. (As an aside, my sister-in-law, one of the modern day aunts (OK, that's enough - sorry) says that the worse day of the year to be a waiter is Mother's Day brunch, because everyone eating is uptight, not used to going to a nice restaurant, and never tips well. Plus multiple beverages make for a lot of trips back and forth.)

Anyway, it was a good day, and as I was thinking about it this morning, it occurred to me that Madame has given her mom the best gift of all. A couple of weeks ago when we were on vacation and the baby was sick she started saying "mama." At first we were thinking it was really more of a distress call because she was hurting so bad, but the more she did it the more we were convinced that she was in fact associating that word with her mother. The clincher for me was one morning we woke up and her mom went to go make her a bottle and left her with me (like we do most every morning) and Madame was not pleased. I got three straight minutes of "Mamamamama!" that no tickles, kisses or funny faces could distract her from. Once my wife came back thought everything was instantly better.

At first I have to admit I was kind of pissed. Here I am, taking care of her every day, spending most of my waking hours thinking about how to make her happy, entertained, comfortable and generally a better person, and she busts out with "mama" as her first word. Isn't that a kick in the pants? But now that it's been a few weeks I've got some more perspective. I'm happy being the go-to guy for lunch, a diaper change, a ride in the car or someone to pick up that toy that she's dropped. But when her mom comes home and Madame lights up like a Christmas tree and gives her a big "Mamamama!" it's really more of a gift than her mother, or I, could have hoped for this Mother's Day. Hope yours was just as good.

News links for Friday.

Deadbeat dads rounded up for Mother's Day [Chicago Sun Times]
In what I'm sure someone in the Cook's County Sheriff's department thought was a brilliant PR move, 150 deadbeat dads who have combined over $1.5 million in unpaid child support are being arrested. Too bad they can't do this sort of thing all the time, and not just around Mother's Day.

Teen dads 'crack,' leave eggs at firehouse. [Palm Beach Post.com]
Ever have to take part in one of those "exercises" in high school where you have to carry an egg around everywhere you go for a week and treat it like a baby (which basically means keep it from cracking all week)? You know - "Don't have sex kids, because if you do you could make a baby, and then you would have to carry it around with you everywhere you go, and you would probably just end up cracking the baby."
Anyway, some clever kids in Florida found a quick way to get out of the assignment, and abandoned them like any responsible, irresponsible teenage parent at the firehouse.

 
The most embarrassing weirdest search referral I've had to moderndaydad.com in at least a month. "dad fatty."

Let's help a future product designer.

A student from the UK studying product design needs some help for his final project, and he emailed to see if the MDD readers out there could help. I don't normally get a lot of comments on this blog, but if you're reading this and have an opinion, leave a comment. Well designed kids stuff has to start somewhere right?

His project involves kid's luggage, and his questions revolve around long family vacations - primarily those that are longer and more involved than a car trip. His questions are:

1. As parents at what age do you allow your child (children) to carry their own luggage?
2. Do they use the luggage for their own clothes or is it largely for toys and games? And do they pack it themselves?
3. Would an additional piece of luggage used for toys result in difficulties due to the numerous other items taken on holiday?
4. What criteria would be important in an item of children's luggage (e.g., lightweight, serves multifunctional purpose like a seat for child etc...)
5. Do you carry any items for yourself or your child that are specific to a delay in travel?

I still have a baby, so I'm not really speaking from a lot of experience, but here it goes:

1. I'm not sure, but my guess is as soon as they are able to carry it for themselves. 5? 6?
2. I have no idea, though I think I was pretty old before I packed a suitcase for myself.
3. Another piece of luggage means another thing to deal with, which is never a good idea when traveling. Plus all it would do is encourage kids to bring more toys on vacation, which I think I would want to limit anyway.
4. The top criteria for me I think would be make it as manageable for a kid to deal with as possible. In other words, if they can handle it and be responsible for it without me having to hold it for them, than it's good.
5. From a traveling-with-an-infant perspective, we just had to make sure there was plenty of food, formula and diaper changing stuff. When traveling with a baby you don't really get the luxury of packing stuff just for you in case there is a delay.

I know that's a lot of questions, but if you've got an opinion about any of it, leave it in the comments. I'm sure he'll thank you.

Teutonic rocking.

Sometimes all you have to do is ask. After getting an email shout-out from MDD reader and Berlin native Bettina, I asked her if she had any cool modern baby stuff from Germany to share, and she sent me this link to the RH-tire and the RH-babe. German wasn't one of the languages I opted to take in high school, but from what I can tell (with some help from the Google translation and Bettina's email) it's a combination rocking chair (RH-tire) and crib/cradle (RH-babe).

Even though I don't know anyone who has actually used a rocking cradle, it's a pretty interesting idea that I'm surprised I haven't seen before. Personally, I think it kind of looks like something Ikea should have thought of (maybe it's the wicker), but it's got nice clean lines and certainly would be a conversation starter with guests.

I can't figure out how many Euros it is, but here's the re-tire website (in German).

Got an idea? Call a handy Grandpa.

MDD reader Anna saw my post about the sling bookshelf that faces books outward so kids can see the book covers and loved the idea for her impending arrival. She didn't however love the design, so she enlisted her handy father to make one. Using the picture of a similar one from Pottery Barn Kids (I don't think they sell one anymore), her father made the one pictured. She said it cost about $20 in materials from Home Depot (most of the cost was paint) and the only tools used were a rotary saw, drill and maybe a hammer. Lucky for Anna the carpentry skills were free.

Nice job (soon-to-be) Grandpa. I'm thinking it looks like a project Home Depot should use for one of their Home Depot Clinics.

Bilibo.

I saw a lot of cool modern stuff for kids in Kid O while I was in NYC, but the thing that impressed me the most was this Swiss toy called Bilibo. It's just a really simple plastic shell that kids can use for all sorts of playing. You could sit in it and rock, have someone spin you around, or wear it like an over-sized helmet. The website also shows kids playing with it in a pool, using it as a turtle shell and a tunnel for toy trains. It's simple, sturdy and leaves a lot open to the imagination. I spoke with the woman working at Kid O about them and she said that you can only get them in the US through them, and that they might be distributing them to other stores in the US soon.

For now you can order one for $30 from Kid O
Also, get the general kinderspiel from Bilibo.com

Windows on the MoMA.

One of the things we got to do in New York while we were there is visit the new and improved Museum of Modern Art. I have to confess that I didn't know much about the renovation, other than it was newly completed and it took a long time. But not being able to resist both an immensely popular and kid-friendly destination, we went.

The building is really pretty amazing. I remember vaguely what it used to be like from the last time I was there back in college (more days ago than I care to admit), but it's so different now it's hard to imagine how the old space even existed there. The best part are the windows - every window in every room frames whatever you are looking at in an incredible way. Either you're looking out at people in the museum (often on different levels within the building) or it seems like you're looking out at a building midtown Manhattan as if you've never seen it before. The collections and exhibitions are of course great (and the reason the museum exists in the first place I suppose) but to anyone making the visit I would definitely recommend stopping to look out of each window you can.

Time Out Kids.

While I was in NYC I found the greatest thing for parents in or visiting the city - Time Out New York Kids. For those that don't know, Time Out is a weekly magazine in NYC, London and Chicago (though my sister says that it isn't very popular in Chicago) that writes about all the things going on in that particular metropolis - from art to eating to any kind of event. It's kind of like the most comprehensive living section of a newspaper you can imagine. Time Out Kids is the same thing, except it comes out every other month and focuses on stuff to do with your kids. We used it to find a restaurant in Brooklyn that would be good and also kid-friendly (we ate at Chestnut in Caroll Gardens and had a really excellent meal with Madame in a high chair right next to us).

I suppose if you're a parent in NYC you already know about it, but if you're visiting with the family any time soon, grab one at the newsstand when you get there. It's worth it for the restaurant guide alone.

Or if you live in NYC and buy it every couple of months anyway, feel free to subscribe to Time Out New York Kids.

(See? If I'd been reading Daddy Types as closely as I think I do, I'd have already known about it.)

When you're sliding into first...

Yesterday was the first weekday I've missed making a post since I started this blog back in September, and fittingly I have Madame to blame thank for it. Somewhere between NYC and home she passed off her stomach virus to dad, and consequently I spent all of yesterday in the bathroom and on the couch with a low-grade fever. I guess I knew your kids could get you sick, but I never realized they could make you feel as sick as they felt. The second I think I've got this dad stuff down, I realize I'm still such a rookie. Hey, we're lucky we got through nine months before our first family illness, right?

Anyway, after 14 hours of sleep everyone (meaning me) is feeling better this morning. At least summer is almost here.

Diarrhea [Wikipedia]

Back home.

Well, we made it back home from our east coast sojourn last night. It was an interesting trip. The beginning in Boston was incredibly perfect - from the weather to the hotel. The later part in NYC was rough - from the cutting of two new teeth to her first bout with diarrhea. Madame's just getting over her stomach bug, modern day mom and I are now in the middle of colds of our own, and we're all getting over the jet lag, so no big post today. Some quick impressions though:

• We saw about an equal number of Bugaboos in Boston as we did in NYC, including the limited edition denim, which I'm not really that in to.
• Changing tables in airplane bathrooms are really convenient. Change the baby and then just pivot to wash your hands and throw away the dirty diaper.
• We saw two famous people. Owen Wilson checking out the art at MoMA, and this dude from the Apprentice waiting to get on our plane home (if he counts for famous, that is).
• If you absolutely need to get some Pedialyte into your baby to avoid a trip to the ER and an IV, a big medicine dropper like the one in this Safety 1st Healthcare Kit is essential.

Thanks for your tips and advice. I'll write more later this week.

Ninth month developments.

Nine months old is three months away from a year old and the realization that I am the father of someone who is a year old. Luckily I've got three months until that eventuality.

This month there has been a slow down in obvious developmental achievements. She seems to be getting smarter, but mostly it's just more of the same - playing, trying to talk etc. However, if I had to list the developments for the sake of a regular monthly blog entry, they would be:

• Rolling Around. She's not crawling yet (at this point she may never - which everyone says is OK) but she's figured out that if she's playing on the floor, and she wants to get to somewhere in the room, that she can get there by rolling. Not the best, but also not the most ineffective way of getting from one place to another.
• Clingy-ness. This one has really developed this month. Now my baby is definitely social, but it's getting to the point where she not only wants to be in the middle of things, but she's demanding it. Sometimes she'll whine the second I get up and take a couple of steps away from her. But if we're hanging out together, she's totally cool.
• Second Tooth. Right after the first one arrived, the second started breaking through right next to it. But even though they're adjacent, my dad is still going to have to wait on the flossing lessons.

Soft books.

I've written about tons of toys and other stuff my baby has enjoyed or is enjoying. But one thing I haven't mentioned that she's totally into is soft (or cloth) books. So here's the soft book best seller list in the MDD household (in no particular order).

Circus McGurkus by Dr. Seuss.
Peekaboo! I Love You! [Lamaze soft book]
Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman
On The Farm. My First Colors Book [Soft Sounds book]
Sunny Day Come & Play [Manhattan Baby]

Identify this kitty.

A friend of mine from San Fransisco gave Madame this stuffed toy (pictured) and I can't figure out what it's called. It's made by Sanrio and is obviously some sort of Hello Kitty plushie, except where Hello Kitty's body should be is a green, cylindrical shaped thing. There are pictures of what seem to be watermelons around the side of it, so I've taken to calling it "Watermelon Kitty." The tag says "Nyanko Party" and has a link to San-X.co.jp which, although it's fun to look at, if you don't speak Japanese (which I don't) isn't much help. Does anyone out there know anything about it? And what is it about this kind of bizarre Japanese stuff that makes me love it so?

Stacrobats.

Madame (as the first grandchild on my side of the family and all-around special baby that she is) got lots of stuff for Christmas, some of which we wisely held back for a later date. She doesn't know the difference now, and eventually it's the parents who get sick of a particular toy, not the baby. So recently we rotated into the collection a really cool toy that my aunt got her - Kushies Zolo Stacrobats.

I can't really figure out what exactly Zolo is - I think it's some sort of toy brand created by a design group - but they make toys for older kids and also have a "Kushies" line of toys for babies. The Stacrobats are these little, magnetic, semi-plush figures and come in a carrying case/stage for the baby to stack them on to. They are colorful, easy to grasp and are honestly the one toy she plays with that I am interested in playing with it, with her. I can't speak for the rest of the Zolo toys, but if they're anything like this one they must be good.