]]>
]]>
Another california art post
]]>
I'm writing something here to see what the font is.
]]>While Tom has cerebral palsy, he also has the good fortune of being born to Manhattan ad executive Richard Ellenson and his wife Lora, who have not only the means but the committment and perserverance to develop a curriculum and an infrastructure to get their kid mainstreamed into a New York City public school.
It's rambling and long, but it's a pretty remarkable story. Did I mention it's long?
The Lessons of Classroom 506 [NYT Magazine]
]]>[for the completely unstyled, impromptu, classically Cedars Sinai family portrait, check celebrity baby blog, who also provided the correct number of Fraserian monkey babies.]
]]>
The NY Times calls this a wood toy cart; the Target website description is "wood and wood composite," so I'm sure it's safe to gnaw on. And it won't outgas any kind of bonding chemicals, at least not any more than the IKEA "wood" stuff.
Anyway, it's pretty straightforward and goodlooking, even if, only six months into this kid lifestyle, I'm starting to feel oppressed by the tyranny of primary colors. And they were so inviting in their non-pastel-ness, too...
Buy a Red Pull Cart Storage Box, $39.99 at Target.com (website only) It also comes in blue.
]]>THE NOTHING GETS BETWEEN ME AND A PARTY AWARD: The unknown person who left a baby in an SUV to attend a Hamptons magazine clambake back in June. The sight angered ABC newsman Chris Cuomo so much, he stormed over to party organizers who made the following announcement over the Flying Point Beach loudspeakers: "Attention! Anyone with a Cadillac Escalade, you have a baby crying in the back seat!"NYPost, via Gawker]]]>
Gee, I don't know why I didn't know about this. I mean, I only get about 500 emails on this topic every day. Wah Baby makes some irreverent baby-sized t-shirts, which are available at Totshop.com for $19 each.
Besides Sophocles and Sigmund Freud, am I the only one who finds it problematic for a baby to wear a MILF t-shirt?
Totshop
Random "Oedipal" titles from Amazon.com: Mankind's Oedipal Destiny: Libidinal and Aggressive Aspects of Sexuality by Peter Hartocollis; I Call You to Go Beyond the ""Oedipal"" Sufferings of Childhood (Truth for Real Series) by Avatar Adi Da Samraj;
Treating the Oedipal Patient in Brief Psychotherapy by Althea J. Horner
Raphael has been talking about building an eco-village in Belize, where everyone can live off the land, free and healthy, but Child Services threw a wrench into things when they awarded Grandma custody of Andre because the kid was malnourished.
In the mean time, the couple's on the run, in a motor home in the forest upstate somewhere, living off, what, gas station food? Kudos to mom, though for keeping up the nursing for 14 months. Whoa.
[via Gothamist, who's got the story and the comments]
Takes tot into the woods [NYDN]
Raphael "Archangel" Spindell's Yahoo Profile [Hobbies: "Sylvanism, Organic Permaculture, Green Anarchy, Web-Design"]
Children of the Millennium, the couple's defunct mad-as-hell website [via Internet Archive]
On the other, saner, hand:
Vegetarian Baby & Child Magazine
KidBean, "the world's first online VEGAN children's store!"
VegFamily, "the magazine for Vegan Family Living"
"Haven't you ever heard of just holding up the diaper??" That bit of advice comes from weatherman/curmudgeon/author/dad Al Roker, who, we learn on this Today Show segment, "is too big for these." "These" are Weeblocks, soft jersey cotton-covered foam cups--as in jock strap, not tea party--that apparently succeed where the Canadian Pee-Pee Teepee fails.
Like many other products at Sozo, a parent company which specializes in playfully modern nursery sets, Weeblocks are embroidered with colorful stitching (Jock, Lil Kahuna, Squirt, Whizz Kid). Matching bibs are available (wha, to complete the look??). And their website has a helpful animated flash demo, which, alas, came too late to save little baby Sozo's dignity (I presume that's their kid modelling the Weeblock on Totshop.)
Like father, like son, though, I say. Sozo dad was the mascot in college, and is obviously comfortable with the idea of wearing elaborately decorated, sculpted foam on his head. So while it's not for Al Roker types, Weeblock is the perfect gift for former mascots. And Disney cast members. And plushies. [thanks, Kara.]
Weeblocks, animation, crib bumpers, and Matt Lauer are all at Sozo's site.
Buy Weeblocks for $10 or the giftset for $30 at totshop.com
Buy Don't Make Me Stop This Car: Adventures in Fatherhood, by Al Roker, at Amazon.
Two quotes:
There had been some hills opened for early potatoes, and many, too small for use, lay scattered about upon the loose earth. The thought struck me, what if little children prematurely torn from life, should also be discarded as useless, and then fell to crying again, and Fido licked away my tears..."About the Author: William H. Beard (1824-1900) was known for his lithographic renderings of dancing bears."When I told her of the metaphor of the small potatoes, a faint smile played about her features for a moment; then she asked me if I did not remember what the Saviour had said of little children, and of His love for them. I was greatly comforted; and Fido, who sat by with anxious, inquiring look, seeing my brightened expression, capered about for joy.
A Child's First Impressions of Death [Harpers.org]
]]>
I know it's great, and the kids love it and all, but I'm just not into all the folk-y music. And while I support hemp in theory, I'm not ready to limit my kid to Paul Simon's CD series of Lullabies From Any Culture But Your Own. So I've been wondering, why there aren't lullaby versions of rock, grunge, hip hop, Bjork, hell, even Grandmaster Flash, anything besides folk music.
Be careful what you wish for. Because Punk Rock Baby might have it. It's a lullaby cover version nirvana--or hell, depending on your tolerance for glockenspiels. Smells Like Teen Spirit's on Rock Baby; Don't You Want Me? and Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Relax are on 80's Baby. Bjork is on Dance Baby; and yes, White Lines is on Hip-Hop Baby.
Clearly, some tracks survive the transition to the nursery better than others. As far as I can tell, they're all lyrics-free, just ready for you to sing along. So if you're confident that your organ-backed karaoke rendition of Gangsta's Paradise will help shape your kid's musical taste in a positive way, stop wasting precious time.
Get over to Punk Rock Baby and order up your CD's now. They're £8.99 each, plus shipping.
Punk Rock Baby CD is also available as an import from Amazon for $18.49
I can't believe I haven't posted this before. Fetopia is not only the home of the original Cletus the Fetus, but of a small, small world of feti, all handmade from sculpey clay and ready for...well, I bought about twenty of them last year for no reason, and I still can't figure out what to do with them. They come with holes, so you can thread them like beads, or without; and now they're available in a beautiful mosiac of skin tones.
I DO know that they were unwelcome lying around the coffee table while my wife was pregnant. For some reason, she did not think a little bug-eyed clay fetus in a sombrero was a helpful visual. But they're so cuuuuuute. And now several of the ones I bought last year have been retired, so I'm sure they'll be a great investment.
Buy fistfuls of feti, including the feti of the world at fetopia.net
Buy feto-embedded soap at fetosoap.com
feti feti feti
This CD takes its name from "Thula Mntwana," the Zulu version of that mid-night staple of new parents everywhere, "Hush Little Baby." Have you heard it? It goes a little something like this:
"Hush little baby don't you cry/ Mama will buy you a horse and cart/ If the horse and cart breaks down/ You will still be my beautiful child... [Hush little kid, it's sleepin' time/Guess Zulu lullabies don't have to rhyme or fit in meter]"
Anyway, those lyrics are from the liner notes translations. The fifteen tracks are sung in a dozen different languages [not that there are 180 tracks, I mean that--oy.] by as many different artists.
WorldVision has a radio feature story on the album which includes interviews with a few of the artists, the producer Philip Miller, and clips from several songs. It's pretty cool. [listen to the mp3 here]
One song, "Railway," sounds pretty depressing; it about South African men who have to leave their families to find work. It goes, "The railway makes me crazy/ because it takes away my babies' father."
Here's a review from the SA Sunday Times, and a shorter one from the Mail & Guardian.
You can order The Thula Project from SA music site Kalahari.net for R150 (about $US23) plus shipping, or from Buy Music Here, a non-profit which supports public radio in the US, for $28.95 [yeah, wonder how those options are gonna break out].
]]>Moms:
Cookie Pie Face
Squirt
Rice ("b/c the lady who did my ultrasound said, 'like a piece of rice'")
Tic Tac ("b/c when I had my first US that's what it looked like - a tic tac w/a heartbeat")
Lemon
Bean ("In the first few weeks, I'd talk to my belly 'grow, bean, grow'")
The Bunny
Wiggle Worm
Dads:
Homer
Buddy ("but he also calls the cat 'Buddy'")
The Little Nipper ("we've subconsciously shortened it to 'Nip'")
Peaches ("He used to call me that, but has transferred it to the baby...At least it's not 'Apple.'")
The Baby {"he's too superstitious to call it anything else")
Skeletor
The Alien
Hong Kong Phooey