Daddy Types: March 2005 Archives

March 2005 Archives

March 31, 2005

Justice Is Her Middle Name

Congratulations to new parents Ronald and Patricia, who's daughter Aryan shares a birthday with George Washington. Aryan Justice's birth announcement [newbabynews.net, via lindsayism]...
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Parent Companies, The NYT Is Onto You

The New York Times reports on how the baby market's best design and innovation is coming from parent companies. There are a few brands--Oeuf and Argington, for example--that have been on DT already. One surprise (to me, anyway): Baby Gear...
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March 30, 2005

Baby Mammoth, Anyone?

There's a Japanese magazine for kids that supposedly rocks--hard--called Mammoth. It was started by Lucas Badtke-Berkow, the founder of Tokion. While it definitely targets (hip Japanese) moms, it sounds more substantial than just a Wallpaper*-y design mag. I mention it...
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A Quick Link Roundup: Cool Stores

There's a lot here I plan to write about soon, plus some stuff I've been meaning to write about for a while. Thought I'd get the links out there in the mean time: cool kid design Modern Child [that's www.modernchild.net,...
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March 29, 2005

Coming Soon: The Diaper Chump

I just assembled our new Diaper Champ, which replaces our Diaper Genie, which really started reeking and sucking. Stay tuned for a hands-on, nostrils-flared review, but I can feel confident making at least one prediction. [Before that, the basics: each...
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Costco, Is There Anything You DON'T Have?

A cool almost-spring night at the end of cold season is probably the wrong time to tell you this, but Costco has a megasized bottle of Infant Tylenol Drops for like six bucks. Megasize for Infant Tylenol is, of course,...
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The VW Beduin: Cool Mini-SUV or Cheesy Pickup?

Tired of paying out all their SUV profits in Royalties to the Touareg people of Northern Africa, VW has astutely chosen and trademarked an alternate spelling for their new smaller, Golf or [depending on who you read] Jetta-based mini-SUV: it'll...
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Words My Kid Can Say

Bath Bottle Baby Bubble Belly Bird Bear Bed Bib Bunny Book Bugaboo Bag Block Bring Bye Bread Ball Beans Bowl Bug Booger Butt Belt Although they may sound the same to the untrained ear ("Ba"), the kid's got more tones...
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Gawker Stalks B. D. (aka Big Daddy) Wong

From Gawker:I saw B.D. Wong on Seventh Ave. this morning holding hands with a toddler. If I recall, he and his partner adopted a child, named him Foo, then B.D. wrote a book about two men raising a baby, then...
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March 26, 2005

Celebrity Baby Eats Pop Tarts

It's been several months since I read Dooce's confession that she and Jon were bad parents, i.e., that they sometimes fed their daughter Leta Pop Tarts. ["but just the edges."] Personally, I avoid the crisis that Jon got embroiled in--when...
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March 25, 2005

From The Brick Testament, John 19:23

I guess I'm one of those Christians who only reads The Brick Testament on Christmas and Easter. The Crucifixion, from The (New) Brick Testament [thebricktestament.com, reminded by studio360] Equal time for you Passover fans out there, from Exodus Ch....
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Toy Piano

After exposing the kid to little more than my badly remembered lyrics for a year--and the occasional NPR--we fear we're already too late in starting her musical education. I mean, in Manhattan, there were music classes for 9 month-olds we...
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Remember, Drug Prices Are High Because Of R&D

A recent survey by The Quigley Corporation, makers of Cold-Eeze, found that "68 percent of Americans thought the media and government overemphasized the impact and import of the shortage." The survey also found that, if they were sick, twice as...
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It's Funny Because It's True

From the Wall Street Journal, which everyone should subscribe to, and whose archives you should buy many articles from, via DT reader and dad-to-be Eric....
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March 24, 2005

Born To Shop? How About Give Birth To Shop

Does this story sound familiar? "There's so much product out there that they want to get the right things for their child, and they want all of it. "Increasingly, new parents have the money, the confidence and the inclination to...
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Blame Canada

I hope you're sitting down, conservative readers. The Belgian Public Health Dept. not only promotes the use of contraceptives by teenagers to prevent unwanted pregnancy, it pays for them. They even created an elaborate campaign to shock girls into using...
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Oy Vey. Matzo Baby

image: Lars Klove/NYT This kinda cool-looking matzo print bib is $15 at the Jewish Museum, just in time for Passover. If Elijah makes it to dinner this year, I bet he'd say to take that bowtie off. Tchotchkes for...
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March 23, 2005

"Did you get that?"

A couple of people have asked why, since I'm this filmmaker and all, I don't post more about shooting video, which is, after all, one of a dad's traditional responsibilities. I could go on about breaking that mold, but the...
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Je VouDRAIS ParLER Au SALLE de bain

Hate to tell you, but according to Carnegie Mellon researcher Erik Thiessen, the exhausting sing-songy voice you use with kids--after consulting their Lame-Name-o-Tron, scientists called it Parentese-- helps them learn language more quickly. Specifically, it helps them identify word boundaries...
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March 22, 2005

Thinking About Cutting Back On The Hovering?

There's a generation of hovering, obsessively protective parents out there, and our the culture is breeding more. That's the premise of Beth Hawkins' giant article in Minn/St Paul's City Pages:We fear school buses, babysitters, and sometimes even Grandma and Grandpa,...
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CPSC: Any Problems With That Swing? Graco: I Don't Recall.

Man, I was a naive chump. As we were outfitting the kid's nursery, there were a couple of criteria we didn't even consider: would the furniture we bought kill our baby? Would it maim her or break her limbs? Hal...
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"Him? Oh, That's Just My Grad Student"

Everyone in LA needs an entourage. If you don't have a film crew following you around, hire some bodyguards and constantly pick up the tab for some sycophantic friends. If that doesn't work, there's always starving anthropology students. Researchers at...
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March 21, 2005

A Baby Daddy's Dilemma

Here's a story that a DT reader and baby daddy just posted as a comment. I'm pretty stunned by it and have to think a bit before I can come up with any useful advice for him. But it's a...
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Competitive Birthday Party-Throwing

It's as bad as you feared, even worse. However much you thought of spending for your kid's birthday party, whatever elaborate entertainment you thought of hiring, it's not enough to outdo some other parent of your kid's friends. There'll always...
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When I Was A Boy, We Got Salmonella From Spoiled Food

That's because turtles were banned as pets in 1975, and turtles, like all amphibians and reptiles, apparently, carry salmonella bacteria and were a major cause of salmonella cases--and even deaths--among infants and children. Coming a bit late to the story,...
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Dad-made Arts & Crafts Crib

On December 30, 2000, Hilary Nelson ordered the cherry wood to build a co-sleeper crib with a little futon mattress. They wanted a handmade crib to match their arts & crafts bedroom furniture, and so he designed his own. In...
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MP3 Cribs

It's the last week of (relative) calm before the second kid is due, and DT reader Adam Bell decided to pimp out his kid's crib so he could listen to mad lullabies whenever he wants. The solution: A spare iPod...
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March 20, 2005

The Happy, Healing Side of RFID

You may know RFID as the tiny radio signal-emitting chips that will someday rob every aspect of your privacy once Wal-Mart makes sure they're embedded in everything you own. But as the Japanese toy company Bandai shows, there's another, more...
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"Are you allowed to use one of the kids to wield at other kids like a sword? "

"It is not hard at all to swing them around, and if so, then i have a feeling you could just swing around in a little circle and knock them all out as they get close to you." How many...
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March 19, 2005

You Can Pick Your Friends,

And you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose. you CAN pick your kid's nose, though, and you will, more than you ever thought you would. Good luck with that....
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In case you're in the market...

Although they can sometimes reach more than $100 on ebay, a high price of around $50-60 is more typical for customized My Little Ponies. Sorry, this Boy From Oz Little Pony autographed by Hugh Jackman is not for sale. The...
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March 18, 2005

Jermaking That Up!

In case you haven't already figured it out, I don't read the Washington Post all that often. So apologies for posting this old [Nov. 2004], kind of predictable article on Those Wacky Celebrity Baby Names which I turned up while...
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Gawker Throws Baby Naming Shower For Ashton & Demi

Now that is sweet. On just the rumer that Ashton Kutcher might be needing a "daddy type" trucker hat, Gawker has generously offered to help the punk'd star and his lovely consort Demi scout out names for the l'il, uh--forget...
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No Baby Parking At The Wrong Gallery

I always used to tell our artist friends, Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, that they'd make great dads; but now I have to wonder a bit. The Berlin-based duo was recently in NYC to create a very elaborate installation...
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Plot To Kidnap Letterman's Kid, Nanny, Foiled

Kelly A. Frank, a 43-year old painter in Montana was arrested for plotting to kidnap David Letterman's son and the kid's nanny. Apparently, Frank kept a key to Letterman's ranch after doing some work for him, and he planned to...
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March 17, 2005

Sweet Jack Spade Diaper Backpack

Looks like new fatherhood agrees with Andy (Mr. Kate) Spade. That's the sense I get from this new Jack Spade Dad Backpack, which carries on the Jack Spade tradition [ed. note: What tradition? Come on, the company's only what, five...
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Blow Me To Smithereens Elmo

Apparently, when they're x-rayed in the box, the configuration of belly battery pack and arms-and-legs sensors makes Tickle Me Elmo look just like a bomb. At least that's the story from a friend of the x-ray guy in the mailroom...
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Read'em Roundup

A few things to read in your copious free time: [via Rebel Dad] one letter writer to the Washington Post finds their Style section homage to hometown girl Judith Warner and her overprogrammed groupies much less compelling than the incredible...
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March 16, 2005

Brits Bonkers for Babybots

What is it about the United Kingdom and robot babies? A group of Welsh politicians took robot babies into town in order to get some first-hand experience on the challenges of traveling and shopping with a kid. Fortunately, some reporters...
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British Crack Babybots

Teens in the UK are being sent home for two nights with robot dolls programmed to simulate drug addiction and fetal alcohol syndrome in order to teach them TO STAY OFF DRUGS--at least while they're pregnant. The robots are preemie-sized,...
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Firefly Kids Cell Phone Not Just For Chewing Anymore

The kid's expanded her use of our cell phones. She used to just chew on them and saturate their crevices with her drool. Then she started cuddling them, which approximates the way some hedge fund guys I know treat their...
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March 15, 2005

Stainless Steel & Plexiglass Crib - It's The Little Differences

As you'd expect from a product targeting the Babycare Industrial Complex (i.e., hospitals, day care centers, nurseries, etc.), this sweet commercial-grade stainless steel crib with plexiglass ends from Kaplan is kind of standardized. At a glance, it's remarkably similar to...
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NoZone UV-Blocking Sun Suit

Now that the locals are all mad at me for giving a plug to infant surfwear from The Valley, I might as well mention this one from Canada, too. [You can try pointing out that it's certified in Australia, but...
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March 14, 2005

Dogtown And Z Babies

According to the t-shirt, Generation Z is defined as "n. 1. Offspring of Generation X and Y. 2. A group of individuals born after 2000 to 2025. 3. The most adapted and connected generation to recognize, reinvent and rule." OK......
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Other People's Baby Photos: Anderson Cooper by Diane Arbus

styling credit: billy bob lips A Diane Arbus [that's DEE-ann, fyi, at least according to MEE-chelle Norris's network, NPR] exhibition that's been traveling around the country just opened in NYC at the Metropolitan Museum. She's known for her engrossing,...
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March 13, 2005

Amuse Yourself At Your Kid's Expense With Novelty Hillbilly Pacifiers

"You've probably seen them on national TV," the website starts. Um, probably not, since these days, I'm lucky if I catch The Daily Show--and latenight bullriding from PBR Rodeo. No, I found out about the hilariously embarassing novelty pacifiers by...
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Monkey See, Monkey Do

Until recently, the kid's been pretty uninterested in mimicking us. She'd do a sound now and then, but she's been more an independent observer who'll do her own thing for her own reason, not just because we're doing it. Then...
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March 11, 2005

Double Decker Stroller

I've been kind of slacking on the stroller front lately, so I'm gonna try to make it up to you--in bulk. DT reader Geoff is waiting for a couple of kids sent along this link for the Double Decker Stroller,...
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Dodged That Bullet

Wow, as I first read it yesterday, I totally felt like I could've written Metrodad's post, "Take my kid, please!" After reading the 81 comments that followed, I was like, whew, dodged that bullet. Yet here I go, playing with...
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March 10, 2005

Yeah, I'd be pretty critical, too

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution: Girl, 3, shot by playmate is critical Apparently, the girl, Antysia McClinton, was shot in the face by her 4-year old friend. They found a small-caliber gun lying around the house. Since my preferred solution--you...
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March 9, 2005

Basking in Defective Yeti's Reflected Fame

Matthew Baldwin writes regularly about his kid, The Squirrelly on DefectiveYeti.com. Last night, like Oprah training highbeam spotlight on books she likes, Baldwin used his mega-blogger-stardom on the radio to talk about parenting blogs, including this one. [And if the...
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March 8, 2005

Ann Hulbert on The Problems With Mommy Lit

If you want to keep on thinking you've invented parenting, and no one's ever had the same experience, problem, or anxiety, or solution you have, don't read Ann Hulbert. She turns her historically contextualizing eye on the recent trend of...
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Odeon, 145 West Broadway at Thomas St - CLOSE ENOUGH

Haven't been there since the kid was born (it was always our middle-of-the-night place), but JJ reports there's a changing table. Tribecadad says no, though; there's a sofa outside the restrooms, and a cloth-covered table, that's it....
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Can You Do Something About That Colic?

I always thought of colic as one of those ambiguous 19th century diseases, like consumption or bad humeurs. And even though we went through a few weeks where the kid would go into meltdown for little or no reason, we...
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Best of New York's Best of New York

A couple of highlights from the newest Best of New York listings: Best Kid's Clothing: Sons & Daughters, Inc., 35 Avenue A. Cool stuff you won't automatically see on every other kid at the day spa [I don't know what...
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Kids Furniture From The Guy Who Made Bjork's Bed

Peep is a collection of solidly made modernist kids furniture "for hip toddlers and their cool parents" from Kapow Design, an Oregon-based fine woodworking concern. Although it looks like it could pack flat and knock together pretty easily, Kapow...
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March 7, 2005

Zoe, 90 Prince St between Broadway & Mercer - NO

This restaurant has only so-so food and no-no changing tables....
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Ultrasound And The Unexpected

Yow. I just read writer Jonathan Tropper's gut-wrenching account of his and his wife's discovery--at their 20-week ultrasound--that their fetus had an inexplicable, rare, and fatal abnormality. He explains how they wrestle with the shock and grief, and how they...
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Delivery Room Prep: Are You Man Enough To Watch National Geographic?

The opening paragraph of Virginia Heffernan's NY Times review:Full-frontal images of a vagina are available on cable Sunday night, but they come at a price. You have to watch a bloody, hairy baby burst through that vagina, and before...
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No, TRUE Love Is Letting Someone COUGH In Your Mouth

which the kid just did when I picked her up. Wash hands before and after everything, try to keep the piles of babysnot-filled Kleenexes around the house below knee-level. Echinacea, Vitamin C, Jamba Juice, I even painted our door frame...
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March 6, 2005

My Other Rocker Is An Emeco

After nearly twenty years of meeting for drinks in his hotel lobbies, I'm growing a little weary of Philippe Starck's schtick. That said, the Heritage Rocker he made for Emeco, the awesome aluminum chair manufacturer is very tempting. The Hudson...
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Babylon High Chair Converts To Magazine Rack

Right before we went to Holland, a couple of people sent in the Babylon High Chair, which is a very nice find. It's got a solid, very spare design which allows the kid to eat at the table, not in...
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March 5, 2005

Womb Tone, by Walter Murch

Walter Murch is a film editing guru; he's cut films from Apocalypse Now to Cold Mountain, but he's almost as well known for his genius in explaining the techical and neurological mysteries of editing and sound. He's doing just that...
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Vincent Vega Walks Into A Dutch Drugstore

VINCENT You know what the funny thing about Europe is? JULES What? VINCENT It's the little differences. A lotta the same shit we got here, they got there, but there they're a little different. JULES Examples? VINCENT Just look at...
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March 4, 2005

We Are Zogg

"Mimic human infant traits until gametogenesis begins. Devour any competitor spawn." Either a hi-larious parody or an ominous warning for our planet or an irreverent blasphemy, or all three: My Little Golden Book About Zogg, Jason Yungbluth's reinterpretation of...
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March 3, 2005

Wait Till They See The Pacifier

This blurb from the Malaysian bootleg DVD of Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 tells the rest of us what the poor chumps who actually saw the movie in theaters already know: "SuperBabies has no redeeming qualities." Which reminds me, Vin Diesel...
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It's Not Raining Men: Baby Showers

I've never heard of guys throwing a baby shower. For some reason, it's still one of those chick things. That said, my wife had a shower at work, which had a mixed m/f crowd--mostly scientists, they gave us all kinds...
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Changes To The Changing Table

Pre-birth, we gambled a little (very little, since it only cost $50, plus an incredible $5 shipping) that a red enameled rolling tool cart--which just happens to fit a standard changing pad perfectly--would make a nice industrial-looking changing table. So...
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March 2, 2005

Mind The Bollocks

At least around the kids. Glen Matlock, the fifth Sex Pistol (he wrote the big songs, but was replaced by Sid Vicious) and now a father of two, is (*^&*in' pissed-- er, rather upset--about all these people swearing in the...
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March 1, 2005

B-Class Music Wouldn't Even Make The B-Side

The new B-Class Mercedes--which goes on sale in March in Europe, in October in North Amer-, er, Canada--will be the first Mercedes to feature an iPod integration kit. [You may know it better as a EUR183 adapter cable, and it'll...
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