Daddy Types: December 2004 Archives

December 2004 Archives

December 31, 2004

2005 To Do: The Kid's First Haircut

So next week we're going to get the kid's haircut. Not to gloat or anything, but she's got such a shaggy wig, we're running out of options; it has to be cut. Or styled, or shaped, or evened out, or...
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December 30, 2004

Good Idea, Bad Execution: The Woodsman

The Sunshine Cinema on E. Houston St has it's own "Reel Moms"-like program on Wednesday mornings called "Rattle & Reel." All well and good, because they show indie and foreign titles, not always chick flicks. "Babies are FREE!" shouts the...
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NYT: Champion Of The Hip Parents Rights Movement

Two articles on the same topic in a week? Is this an editing disconnect? Or a brave stand for the rights of oppressed parents yearning to be to free hip again? In the New York Times, David Handelman has a...
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December 29, 2004

MacGyver A Bugaboo Cup Holder

After acknowledging my warning about slapping a "shop class project" on that expensive stroller, Modern Day Dad has spent a little of his Christmas vacation in the basement workshop, MacGyvering a cupholder for his Bugaboo. Basically, he filed down one...
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VBAC Backlash

On Slate, David Dobbs examines the recent dramatic drop in the number of VBAC's, Vaginal Birth After Cesarean, which has occurred as more and more hospitals ban the procedure--and force women to give birth via cesarean again. The reasons, Dobbs...
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December 28, 2004

Womb House, by Atelier van Lieshout

Now! From the artists who brought you the 'Bad Furniture' cage/crib comes The Womb House. Atelier van Lieshout is a Rotterdam-based workshop/studio founded by Joep van Lieshout, which makes art that functions as furniture, architecture, or whatever, and that...
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Re: Onesies ®

A little while back, someone asked me why I was shilling so hard for Gerber Onesies ® on Daddy Types, when there were better brands out there with finer fabric, better fit, etc. Oh, but there aren't, I replied. Gerber...
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Kid to Dad: RTFM

You'd think we'd learn by now. It seems that every time the kid starts wigging out, or when we get frustrated with something she's doing--or not doing--we puzzle over it for a while, then we (ok, my wife) checks Brazelton....
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December 27, 2004

Teaching Your Child To Babble In Four Languages

Rifling through other people's kid's piles of Christmas presents, I found The Babbler under Modern Day Dad's tree. When a kid activates it, The Babbler makes those hard-to-pronounce-unless-you're-a-native-speaker sounds in French, Spanish, and Japanese so that he becomes familiar with...
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December 26, 2004

Hip Family Hotels, or Paris on $1,500/Night

So you're a hipster worried that your jetsetting, boutique hotel-hopping days are over? Afraid that all your vacations are belong to Mouse? Well relaaax. According to Jennifer Conlin's report in the New York Times, there's a new crop of hip...
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FDA: Vioxx is fine, but mall ultrasounds? Watch out

While apparently asleep at the wheel while big drug companies' billion-dollar pain-killers turn out to cause heart attacks or whatever, the FDA has not been shy to go after "facilities with captivating names such as Fetal Fotos, Peek-a-Boo, Womb with...
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December 24, 2004

Have Yourself A Smokin' Little Christmas

Man, are we out of practice. We're in DC for Christmas and went to brunch in Adams Morgan. Giant coffee shop/cafe, a couple of children scattered about, no problem. The kid stayed in her carseat on her stroller, and we...
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December 22, 2004

Celebrity Baby Loves Weego Carrier

Checking in on Odin Snowdeal, the web's most blogged about x-treemie, not only is he doing well and plumping up like a ballpark frank, he's started doing product endorsements. Odin (aka Eric IV) and his dad (Eric III) both love...
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Japanese One-piece Crotchless Pajamas

Before the kid was born, my wife bought some of these Miki-House side-tie pajama/onesie-like things from Akachan Honpo, the Babies R Us of Japan. It was the interesting shape that caught her eye, I think. They're cut flat in this...
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Desperate Househusbands

In the unspoken rules of suburbia, mothers broker the play dates with an exacting calculus, weeks and even months in advance. For some moms, socializing with each other while their offspring crawl around is as essential as whether or not...
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December 21, 2004

Q. What's in your diaper bag?

The Short Answer: way too much. The Longer Answer: see below. [thanks to DT reader and new dad Bruce] Related, in a ripped off kind of way : What's in Your Gadget Bag, Glenn Fleishman? [homage/apologies to Gizmodo]...
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Bingo. Hey, Where's Our Pithy Moniker??

The women get Domestic Divas, Mini-me Moms, etc. etc. and what do men get? Called fat, uptight, and homophobic. I thought you were trying to sell us something, Euro RSCG..."What our study has revealed is that there isn't just a...
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Do You Know A Yummy Mummy?

Somehow, I doubt you do. Typically, when someone's trying to persuade you of something, they mention their qualifications or past accomplishments. Hold that thought:"Last summer we introduced America to the 'metrosexual,'" says Marian Salzman, EVP and Chief Strategy Officer of...
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December 20, 2004

Russell Crowe Multi-tasking With His Stokke Xplory

If there's even a slight fluctation in The Stroller Force, Patty at Baby Chic 101 can detect it. How else could she know of this photo of Russell Crowe and his wife, pushing his moptop kid Charlie in a grey-on-grey...
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A Tray For The Stokke Kinderzeat

Poking around on ebay Germany, I found not only enough slightly used and vintage Stokke Kinderzeats (they're called Tripp Trapp outside the US; thanks to DT reader JJ for the ebay.de tip), but this very cool-looking tray that slips right...
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December 19, 2004

The Scared of Santa Photo Gallery

What do you expect? Some of those Santas are pretty damn scary-lookin'. Scared of Santa photo gallery [southflorida.com, via metafilter] Funny (and also a little scary, and also from metafilter): Christmas letters to Christopher Walken...
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Zed's Dad, Baby

Anytime might be a good time for pie, but there's no good time for syrup on cheese. Am I the only one who thought that the Spike TV True Dads show kinda blew? It was pretty serious Lifetime, almost like...
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From Father's Day Party To Experimental Cord Blood Transfusion

If you have to find out your new baby has an extremely rare, deibilitating, and potentially fatal disease, at least try to be in a family of pediatricians. That's one lesson to learn from the story of Scott and Jill...
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December 18, 2004

Kids Favor Sounds Over Visuals

Researchers at Ohio State University found that children paid more attention to sound stimuli than to visual stimuli. They theorize it may be part of the language learning mechanism. Read the report of their findings or BoingBoing's original post about...
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Sperm Banking and Testicular Cancer

Rather than just be funny and critical (or just critical, depending on your POV), I thought I'd round up some info on testicular cancer resources, including an important issue for dads and anyone with designs on being a dad sometime...
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December 17, 2004

Geek Christmas

Just wanted to post this gingerbread motherboard. There's more Christmas geekery at BoingBoing. Related: T-shirts and Creepers for Geek Babies...
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Siemens Cell-based (Baby) Monitor

It's not just for babies anymore. Early DT reader Enoch Choi uncovers a new advance in personal monitor technology coming from Siemens. Called the MyAy--which I think is a Utah spelling of Mia or Maya; add it to your shortlist...
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Why Not Show Your Support?

Buy this bracelet for $5, and show your support for the Lance Armstrong Get The Ex-Wife Who Nursed You Through Cancer To Take The Three Young Children While You Run Around With Sheryl Crow Foundation. Seriously, people....
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December 16, 2004

This is why you don't have a 13th floor in your building

The nanny had just taken the 10-month old boy out of the car. Woman jumps off 13th floor, killing baby [Jerusalem Post]...
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Dude Looks Like A Grandson

Sorry, saw that easily half of the Google News posts were about Steve Tyler becoming a grandfather, not Liv Tyler and her husband having their baby, who they named Milo. Details at Celebrity Babies...
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Damn, But There Are Some Fine Daddy Blogs Out There

[via Rebel Dad, who's obviously nominated] There's Best of Blogs competition on, and there are a ton of cool-reading blogs nominated in the Best Daddy Blog category. Oh, and Daddy Types is nominated, too [thanks, Elizabeth!]. While I already had...
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More Advice from The American Frugal Housewife

Repurposed here for the American Spendthrift Husband:Where turkeys and geese are kept, handsome feather fans may as well be made by the younger members of a family, as to be bought. The sooner children are taught to turn their faculties...
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Love For Sale

After reading Caitlin Flanagan's New Yorker article on the topic, Atlanta PhD candidate and savvy father of two David Morgen is shocked, shocked to find consumerism running rampant in the parenting world. I'd agree, but I don't know what credibility...
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Maclaren Volo On Sale at Buy Buy Baby??

Wow, the Maclaren Volo, the spare, lightweight, mesh folding stroller we've almost bought a dozen times, is on sale at buybuybaby.com for $79.99! That's $20 off! Let's see, with $15.00 for ground shipping, that's a whole $5 less than buying...
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NYMag Tries, Fails, To Conceive

Amy Sohn tries shooting fish in a barrel--how smug marrieds annoy their child-free friends--but all she hits is her reflection; her whole story's based on her self-absorbed extrapolation of a passing comment, "we've lapped you," made by a new mom/friend...
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December 15, 2004

More Holiday Shilling in NYC and London

Here are a couple of heads ups that have come my way via the entirely unbiased world of store publicists. I relay them only for your convenience, and because I actually HAVE shopped at both these stores and DO like...
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Hovering Over Your Future Wimp

In Psychology Today, Hara Estroff Marano wraps up a lot of current research into the mental, emotional, and developmental problems afflicting children today, and finds that many are caused by over-protective, over-programming, and over-accommodating parenting. Here's a random sampling of...
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Spike TV Gets Real With 'True Dads' Documentary

I was wondering when this was coming. When SpikeTV announced the results of its viewer survey last spring, they also mentioned a series of documentaries they were producing about fatherhood. They were originally supposed to be broadcast in November, but...
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Who's Your Daddy? Guess Right And Win $100K

What moral capacity is required to keep Fox News's true believers' heads from exploding when their favorite company puts out a show like Who's Your Daddy? I really want to know. On Jan. 3rd, Fox will air a reality TV...
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December 14, 2004

Awesome Wooden Swedish Car From Playsam

We just bought the kid this car for Christmas. It's from a Swedish company called Playsam, which makes all kinds of sleek wooden toys for kids, adults and executives. (Are those three categories mutually exclusive?) This two-person model is...
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Nativity Sets

OK, when I was a little kid, I had a fascination with nativity sets, so one Christmas, like every great aunt in the world sent me a nativity set. Well, Grammy just sent the kid her first set, from Fisher...
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LL Bean Jogging Stroller - InStep for Preppies

Considering I don't even jog to the Korean deli when I find we're out of Diet Coke, a jogging stroller has never been on my shortlist. But if you're a runner, you can certainly do worse than an InStep. The...
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Bar 6, 502 Sixth Ave at 13th St. - NO

You know how you're wary about going back to some of the places you used to go, because now you've got a kid in tow, and well, you remember that place was definitely not kid-friendly? Forget it, just go. We...
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Handy Holiday Packing Tip #33

If you're sending gifts to a new parent this holiday season, why not skip the impersonal styrofoam pellets--which can be a choke hazard, safety first!-- and use diapers in the little angel's size as your packing material? It's soft, practical,...
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Album di Famiglia at Estella

We'd almost given up ever finding any black baby clothes, then yesterday, we found a whole whole world of them. The kid's godmother had recommended Estella, on 6th Ave at 12th St, to us for months. I have to say,...
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December 13, 2004

Toys R Us Times Square Stroller Pool?

In the last 24 hrs, I've seen three people in Midtown pushing giraffe-print umbrella strollers. On closer inspection, they have logos for Toys R Us Times Square and babytrend, and a barcode decal on the handle. That's as much as...
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December 12, 2004

Bellini Crib Rated #1 [Among Politicians On The Take]

Outfitting a nursery's expensive, especially if you're gonna do it right Some people like to get friends and family to chip in a little somethin', which is great, unless those people are civil servants and their friends get their money...
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A Bloke Reports From Reel Mums

In this report, the Guardian's film critic (and new dad) Steve Rose skips the press previews and takes his 8-week daughter to a Reel Moms-style babies-welcome showing of Dodgeball in London. It'll sound very familiar, but As they say, it's...
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December 11, 2004

Booking Santa

If you're not going to visit Mall Santa, maybe you could get Santa to visit you. RealSantas.com directly represents over 100 "real bearded Santas" around the country (most are in Southern California, though), and has contact information for over 400...
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Visiting Mall Santa

Modern day dad posts about that time-honored American tradition, you remember from your own childhood: visiting Santa at the mall. Funny stuff, even for you New York snobs who have no intention of getting your kids within 10 miles of...
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Only 2 More Shopping Days...

...until you have to pay retail again at babystyle.com. I don't know why I've never mentioned it before, but we received a couple of babystyle toys as gifts when the kid was born, and she is still loving them, even...
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December 8, 2004

Be Careful With Your, Um, Laptop Equipment

A new study from researchers at SUNY found that the combination of high computer temperature and the knees-together posture required for actually positioning a laptop on your lap can increase scrotum temperature by as much as 2.8 degrees centigrade. That's...
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Wrapping Paper Question

The kid is fascinated by the Christmas tree--which, because we were worried her fascination would lead to eating, tugging, and a tree falling in the living room, is only 4' tall and perched safely on a table--and we expect that,...
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Words To Live By

Posting may be light today; I've got an offline writing deadline. In the mean time, let's all stare at this street sign from Shenzhen. [via TMN]...
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December 7, 2004

Cleaning up around the webhouse

1) the category archives are extremely popular 2) they're pretty freakin' big, what with the pictures and all. 3) I can't figure out how to be able to page through old posts 10 or so at a time. Result: I...
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Japanese Dads Forced To Take Paid Leave

What's more Japanese than the government requiring all male city employees to take 40 days paid leave before their child's first birthday? How about that until now, no man has ever taken a day's paternity leave in the history of...
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You Had Me At 'Explosive'

On the supposedly squeamish subject of men and diaper changing: I've always figured that any gender who can create (and turn into a box office success) a movie like Dumb & Dumber should have absolutely no trouble working the business...
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December 6, 2004

Trailer Trash Baby Clothes On The Upper East Side

It's not all Bugaboos and pre-school admissions consultants up there, you know. According to the help at L'il Ricky's, the former drag queen makeup store, plenty of Upper East Side moms [and seriously, do men shot at L'il Ricky's? No....
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Pet Stroller

If the Improvements Pet Stroller looks tiny, that's because you're supposed to hunch over when you push it. Very slowly. Because you're 90 years old. And it's an improvement from sitting in your house all day, waiting for the Meals...
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Strollers With Reflectors

Now that it gets dark earlier, and I'm pushing a dark-colored stroller ahead of me, I think about reflectors. Neither the Bugaboo nor the Maxi-Cosi car seat has any reflectors. [Of course, why would a car seat have safety reflectors?...
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December 5, 2004

It's Twins! But Not When You Think

So in 1999 some woman in Montreal was dating an identical twin, who's understands himself to be the father of her child--and who's been acting as such, for five years, by paying child support and visiting the kid every other...
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December 3, 2004

Babar: Ideal Role Model, Racist Imperialist, or Elitist Poster Elephant? [Check All That Apply]

In the New York Review of Books, Alison Lurie takes a long, historical and memory-filled look at Babar, The King of the Elephants, the 1931 bedtime story creation of Cecile de Brunhoff and her artist husband, Jean. Jean published six...
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"New" Slang from "the playgrounds and college campuses" [sic]

William Safire explains the words "kids" are sporting these days, including many terms that are so over, even I've stopped using them. "Camo is fashion slang, short for "camouflage," used to describe outdoorsy wear that blends in with jungle greenery."...
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Fathers 4 Justice, Now On The Fen

Fathers 4 Justice, the costume-wearing, irrational publicity-stunt-pulling UK advocacy "group" comprised largely of one bloke who, surprise surprise, has been denied custody of his kid, has set up shop in Scotland. On the roof of the Scottish Parliament. In Santa...
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Umbilical Cord Keepsakes

Umbilical cord blood storage is a relatively new advancement (more about that later), but many Asian cultures have a tradition of keeping the stump of a baby's umbilical cord. According to new mom Huileng's blog, grandparents in Singapore differ on...
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December 2, 2004

Wanted: LI Baby Blogs

Or do you call them blawgs out there? Heh, just kidding. I've had a request from some media types (not reality TV this time, relax) seeking parents on Long Island who keep baby blogs. If you're interested in being interviewed,...
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Because There's No 'M' in Minivan

Metrodad is driven [sic] to typing in all caps by the idea of men driving a minivan. "MINIVANS ARE FOR SOCCER MOMS!!" he says, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. You have to read the whole hilarious post....
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Dingo, Schmingo. It's The Coyotes I'm Worried About

While, with a few exceptions, a nation chuckles at Dingo-eating-baby jokes, I doubt "Coyote Snack" would make a popular T-shirt in the rolling hills of Austin, TX. Please refer to suggestion #8 on the City of Austin's "Ten things residents...
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AF Dad Phones It In From Qatar

Air Force mechanic John Markin rounded up 700 min. worth of phone cards so that he could call into the entire labor & delivery of his second child back in Indiana last week. [A momentary hats off to his wife,...
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California Baby Lotion, Shampoo, &c.

My wife showed up one day with this travel-sized assortment of shampoos and creams from California Baby. As far as the bottles go, so far, I've only used the shampoo and bodywash in the kid's bath, but it's pretty nice...
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Going Out With Kids

On Ask Gothamist, a single woman seeks advice on going out with her friends who insist on bringing their baby everywhere, even to movies and bars. So: Are YOU aware of how annoyed child-free get when you go out with...
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December 1, 2004

The Squash Industrial Baby Food Complex

Who says new parents can't talk about anything but their kid? You introduce this fascinating topic into the conversation, and you'll be the hit of the office holiday party:...[S]quashes are divided among Cucurbita maxima, Cucurbita moschata, Cucurbita pepo and Cucurbita...
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Finger Puppy Puppets Out Of Dog Yarn

Started as a loving tribute to a lost companion, VIP Fibers creates custom spun yarn from the fibers of your Very Important Pet or, if your pet is not very important, from the high-quality fibers of some other dog, cat...
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Who the hell are you people? Er, I mean, Welcome!

Site traffic's jumped about 40% in the last couple of days, and I can't for the life of me figure out where you new folks are coming from. Did everyone hear about Daddy Types from your cousin-the-new-dad over Thanksgiving, or...
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Ringing The Bell For Babystyle

If just 999,993 more Daddy Types readers do their holiday shopping at babystyle.com, I'll be able to pay for the kid's first year at Harvard in 2023. [Of course, she's dived off the bed so many times already, she'll be...
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