Daddy Types: July 2007 Archives

July 2007 Archives

July 31, 2007

P Is For Peanut: The Alphabet Illustrated By The Getty Photo Collection

Discerning richly contrasting black-and-white visual stimuli is one of the most important characteristics of early childhood sensory development. One of The Getty Museum's greatest collecting strengths is photography. When considered together, the solution is obvious: put infants to work...
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Bee List

The Bugaboo Bee has left the building. Here's a report from Joah, a dad with some foresight--and a new babywhip:I just picked up my Bee at Babystyle yesterday. It was a good thing I was on the pre-order list because...
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Vintage Soviet Pedal Cars To Vintage American Pedal Cars: We Will Crush You

Jalopnik's already got the perfect headline for this sweet collection of vintage images of Soviet-era pedal cars, so I'll just add, "You had'em on the run, Comrades!" From this angle, the Moskovich looks a bit like The People's MB...
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Dash Snow's Children

Oil industry-and-art-world scion-turned-graffiti artist Dash Snow has always done his best work with semen. As he explained last January in a New York Magazine cover story titled, "Warhol's Children" [he's the tattooed one on the right]:“I’ve always been a big...
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MOO Stickers Are As Slick As I Expected, Also Slicker

I am not a sticker person. The kid is. She's not the only one, either, as the William Randolph Hearst of the sticker industrial complex, one Mrs. Grossman of Petaluma, California, who swims every morning in an Olympic-sized pool...
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Freebirth!

Unassisted childbirth advocate Laura Shanley and midwife Mairi Breen-Rothman will be discussing the "over-medicalization" of childbirth and the issues, advantages, and challenges of giving birth at home--and taking your requests!!--live today at 1pm EST on the Washington Post's website....
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July 30, 2007

It's Baaack: Sled Of Death, Other Creative Playthings Goodness On eBay

There's a pile of sweet old gear on eBay at the moment, both of the Creative Playthings and Creative Way To Break Your Neck, Young Man! Playthings varieties: CREATIVE PLAYTHINGS ESKIMOS PLAYSET vintage FP little Looks complete, in nice...
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Ollie Kottke + Nintendo Mashup

Old blogger/new dad Jason answers the burning question, "iPhone, Wiimote, or newborn baby: which has the best built-in accelerometer?" [here's a hint: it's the one with the Moro Reflex plug-in installed]. Surprisingly, he doesn't make the next leap of logic:...
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Rocket Craft: Stunning Plush Rendition Of Your Car, Bike, Engine

Holy smokes, it's like Take-G, only with plush instead of wood, and your car and its engine instead of fantastical anime robots. Rocket Craft is an outfit in Sapporo who will create a plush replica of your car, precise...
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I'll Have The Plush Roast Chicken

Purple Flavor makes a fine-looking plush roast chicken. From the size of the plastic box it comes in, I expect it's life-sized. Or corner deli rotisserie-sized, anyway. The felt herbs and seasoning look a little choke-hazard-y, so you might...
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My First Braining

Frankly, I always thought it would be the bookshelves. There's a 9-foot niche in one of our living room walls, a perfect spot for some low, sleek, floating shelves to hold artbooks with a display shelf on top. So...
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July 29, 2007

SDCCspotting: Coney Plush & Neighborwood DIY Kit

Here are a couple of interesting-looking SDCC finds from Kidrobot's photostream: Up top is a DIY version of Mike Burnett's awesome Neighborwood toy figure. When it comes to the preferred mediums of the indie toy scene, wood is a...
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July 28, 2007

R2-KT: This Is The Pink Droid You're Looking For

Wow, I was definitely taken in by The Dark Side of The Force on this one. I was about to blast George Lucas like a Tatooine womp rat when I saw this picture of a kid hugging a pink...
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July 27, 2007

Your Baby Industrial Complex At Work: Dorel Launches Maxi-Cosi, Kitchen Sink, In US

While we've loved--and hated and grown to like--the Maxi-Cosi car seats we bought from Europe, I'll be the first to admit, I've dropped the ball on covering the arrival of the multinational conglomerate Dorel's US launch of its highly regarded...
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Tempest In A D-Cup: Fighting Over There Vs. Over Here Edition

Dateline: Fort Bragg, North Carolina - After a single, anonymous complaint, a mother of three who has breast-fed all her kids in the food court of an Army-owned minimall where she's worked for seven years, was told to stop...
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No, Wait, I've Got It: Bugaboo Banzai

If they can stand to stick around that long, regular readers will know that my awakening to the minimalist awesomeness that is was the Bugaboo Gecko can be pinpointed to the Spring, around the discovery of the Gecko with...
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Bugaboo Has Snow Tires??

I guess I've been too busy dreaming up ways to smuggle 1,500 Bugaboo Bees into a Philippine prison to notice, but DT reader KS points out that there are snow tires available for all the Bugaboo models [i.e., the...
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BCB: It's Short For B-Class BS

Mercedes Benz USA CEO Ernst Lieb tells Bloomberg that the company "is designing a version of its Mercedes-Benz B-Class car for sale in North America for the first time." Great news! Unless you're Canadian, in which case you've been...
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July 26, 2007

BBC: It's Short For Busting Bulgarian Childsmuggling

Yes, it's that time of year, when someone at the BBC decides they'd like to summer in Bulgaria, so they arrange for a story about babysmuggling. This time, the BBC conducted a month-long sting operation that resulted in three...
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Hermelin: Sweet Ikea-Colored Crib--From Ikea

DT reader LC writes of the new Hermelin crib from Ikea: "Too bad it wasn't available a year ago. But then I might not have painted my son's Gulliver crib orange (which is awesome)." Don't worry, I've already asked...
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Hand-Knit ATHF Carl Baby Set: Combover Cap and Chest Hair Sweater

Ah, summer, when we head to the beach and the pool and spend our days frolick--Holy crap, check out that dude's shoulder hair! It looks like he's wearing a freakin' sweater! And that's just the baby. The Carl (ATHF)...
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July 25, 2007

I'm Not Enlightened Enough To Know What To Do With This Awesome, Buddha Stamp-Filled Pilgrim Scroll

It doesn't really matter, because it's already sold, but for some reason, this scroll just seems spectacular to me. Part of it's purely aesthetic, because the simple inkstamped cotton technique is so simple. Part of it's the content and...
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Two Grandmothers' Names, Both Alike In Dignity

I guess for some people in the world's more creative cultures, unpronounced accents on names are like Nutella on crepes: there's no such thing as too much. For example, British pop singer Peter Andre thought his first daughter with his...
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B Is For Be-Ins: The Silkscreened Alphabets Of Sister Mary Corita Kent

There's no chance one blog post can do justice to the silkscreen work of Sister Mary Corita Kent, an artist and nun who combined pop, modernism, collage and appropriated advertising, with poetry, inspirational and religious content, and social and...
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And Then They Put Their Kids Into Their Bugaboo Bees And Drove Away

The extraordinarily limber Ross Sisters singing about potato salad in a 1944 MGM Musical [youtube via foryourentertainment via boingboing] previously: Bug Bee Berkeley: Bugaboo Bee Music Video Now Online...
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July 24, 2007

Some Anthropologist: No One In The History Of Civilization's Played With His Kids Before, Why Start Now?

According to a paper by Utah State University anthropologist David Lancy, tribespeople on the South Pacific island of Ifaluk "believe there's no point in talking to babies because they're "essentially brainless" until they turn two, so there's no reason for...
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Axiss Of Swivel Threatens Old Europe's Way Of Car Seat Loading Life

I always knew those French were up to something. Bebe Confort, the rival to our own Amurcan Baby Industrial Complex, has released the Axiss swivelling car seat for Group 1, the EU standard for kids 9-36 months old and...
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Baby Mama Drama: "Diddy Wrote A Song About It. Like To Hear it? Here It Goes."

Good news for all the dads out there whose baby mamas pack up and move across the country, taking their newborn twins, after they've been busted for hooking up with D-list actresses: Sean Combs has a new sympathy video for...
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The Babies Of Otakon 2007

Over the weekend, DT's Asian Culture Correspondent Haniel and I headed to Otakon 2007, the giant Anime and Japanese culture fan convention in Baltimore, to scout out anime artists [stay tuned for a roundup of the sweet finds]. We...
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July 23, 2007

Dad: Wii Kid Actually Laughs Like That

Wired has an interview with the Baby Theo's dad. Theo's the kid who laughed like a possessed demonchild at his dad playing Wii Golf. 34 seconds of good stuff. FWIW, in five months, Theo's accumulated 2mm YouTube views. the...
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Whoa, Check Out This Calligraphy By Betsy Dunlap

Now don't take the complete absence of any mention of calligraphy and the near-complete silence on the subject of birth announcements as a sign that I don't appreciate a good, handwritten announcement. On the contrary, I'm probably just too...
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Cute Knitted Bear From Suburban Outfitters

Oops, I mean Anthropologie. My bad. I saw these in the store window on the way to pick up my laptop with the [finally!] fixed hard drive, and I figured they were just display props, but no. There's a...
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You Are What You Eat, And For New Yorkers, That Means Mercury-Laden Fish

A couple of very interesting research results for the food-and-baby-conscious New Yorker: First, new mom Meg Hourihan [mazeltov!] has a very enlightening discussion of how to decide what to eat during pregnancy. Statistically, her data sample has problems, since it's...
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Serving Size Trix Are For Kids!

You know how sugared cereal manufacturers are hyping their voluntary advertising restrictions, where they say they won't market food with more than 200 calories or 12 grams of sugar per serving to kids under 6? And how they claim they're...
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Bug Bee Berkeley: Bugaboo Bee Music Video Now Online

Praise the Lord, and pass the Cirque du Soleil extras, people: the Bugaboo Bee music video is now online, and a chance to see the Bee in motion is the least of its offerings. Whether it's too [check all...
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Mod Dads' Rad Mid-Mod Add-On Is One-In-8*10^7

The kids were demanding their own rooms, and Tom Lloyd-Butler and his partner Dan Zelen needed extra space for their surfboards, so they carefully added on to the sweet 2BR mid-century modern house that UC Berkeley architecture professor Ernest...
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July 22, 2007

BMWTF: World's Fastest Wagon v3.0: The M5 Touring

By now everyone probably knows about the insanity that is the BMW M5 Wagon, or as it's known around the Bayerische, the M5 Touring. [Jeremy Clarkson reviewed the 5-liter V-10 with its 507hp, 10mpg, and not-quite-flat-folding seats, in May...
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July 21, 2007

The Myth Of The Stay-At-Home-Dad: The Digested Read

Can I be frank and honest and open? The only happy stay-at-home dads are the bloggers. The rest are insecure, career-abandoning losers with no friends. So get some friends, you say? With a LinkedIn profile that says "SAHD"? Good luck...
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July 20, 2007

Audi & Jeeps: Chick Cars & Dad Cars

So here's the dilemma: just when I think we oughta crunch out and get a 4-door Rabbit, like half the families in Europe, who seem to do just fine, thank you very much, an Audi A3 drives by. Seriously, every...
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Franklin Roosevelt's Jive Alphabet

One for the old folks out there. Franklin Roosevelt was the jive-talking black Muppet on the early seasons of Sesame Street. Here he is doing a call-and-response alphabet with his mother to with a funk bassline and a voice...
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1,500 Philippine Prisoners Practice 'Thriller'

OK, if I ever go to prison, my only hope is that I'll be able to do my time wisely. Perhaps learn a trade, a skill, a talent. Maybe there'll be a choreographer with a varied repertoire of numbers...
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Incredible Vintage George Nelson Children's Desk On eBay

Wow, he's not just for marshmallow sofas and whimsical nursery clocks anymore. Because it's never too early to learn how to take a memo, Herman Miller produced a child-sized version of George Nelson's secretary desk. This example is in...
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Trofast: Vintage Ikea Cradle/Sofa By Erika Pekkari

Andy does it again. On his dadblog, Stork Bites Man, he posted this photo he found of the prolific Ikea designer Erika Pekkari's sweet solid wood Trofast crib, which converts into a sofa. [Which I think is Swedish for...
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July 19, 2007

Offi Da Charts: Price Increase On Nursery Furniture Leaves Gap In "Affordable Modern" Market

When did this happen? Here's a tip from an anonymous new dad reader:I don't know if you've noticed, but Offi just made some major, across-the-board, price increases. In my book they are now completely out of the "affordable" range...
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Cuddle Me Condos In Color, Also Correction, Also Sibling Names

The visionaries at Pandiscio have graciously provided a color version of Bela Borsodi's portrait of Cuddle Me Condos, and I think we can all agree that One Kenmare has never looked moodier, Urban Glass House has never looked whippier, 40...
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Hand-Knit Fruits & Vegetables From London, Eng-uh-land

Innocent Drinks, the Nantucket Naked Jambodwalla Juice of England, sure loves themselves some knitting. DT reader Eim tells me the kid's grandma-knitted iPhone made it into the newletter this week [screenshots, anyone?]. Also, they featured some fair-trade knitted fruit...
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Once You Have Lack, You Never Go Back

No way, how much do I love MVRDV? The Rotterdam architecture firm just won the competition to build an extension to the city's Museum Boijmans van Beuningen that will house some public space, but also storerooms and archives for...
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There's A Reason Rold Gold Honey Wheat Pretzels Are Shaped Like Crack Pipes

Because they're freakin CRACK. The kid first found these in the nursery at church, then she had a bag at my mom's--a bag-a-day, more like--now we can't stop. That's right, I've switched from Red Vines to Rold Golds. If anyone...
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July 18, 2007

DT Good News/Bad News Roundup

Just some headlines that might be of interest to the daddy types out there. First, the good news: Good News: Sugar cereal companies are all scrambling to look responsible by not advertising too-sugary cereal to little kids. Bad News: They're...
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Mein Stroller Hat Zwei Wheelen

After the war, the Germans discovered that all their leading two-wheeled stroller designers had fled the country. Rebuilding the two-wheeled stroller industry would be hard, but they were determined to make a go of it, even if it meant...
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Rubber Duckie Gigantique Par Florentijn Hofman

Oh la la, ca c'est le freakin' plus grandest Rubber Duckie que j'ai jamais vu! You may know Florentijn Hofman from the Rotterdam housing block he painted electric blue. Or from the 50-foot-tall inflatable green bunny he installed on the...
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Damn Earthquake Cuts Daddy Types Japanese TV Fame Short, Still At 15 Seconds

If only there hadn't been an earthquake and hundreds of injuries and several deaths and a fire in a nuclear power plant and a release of some sort of radiation cloud, my 15-second, on-the-phone interview about discovering the wooden...
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Keba Keba: Takashi Murakami's Children's Book

Haven't seen much coverage of this, even though it's been around since 2003. That's when Takashi Murakami illustrated a story by the Japanese musician Yujin Kitagawa about a kind, friendless creature named Keba Keba. The result was an exhibition,...
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Hot NY Trend: Tibetan Nannies Teach Kids How To Be Oppressed By Kids With Chinese Nannies

When daddytypes was born, I started the category UrbanBabyWatch. The idea was to sift through the impenetrable archives of just-the-girls talk and pull out those rare, invaluable, or at least useful, nuggets of information dads needed to know. Screw that....
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July 17, 2007

Tupperware Noah's Ark Triggers Flood Of Childhood Memories

So DT reader Tim writes about how their 1-yo son loves playing with their older friend's Tupperware Noah's Ark when they go to visit. And I'm like, "Tupperware Toys? Are you kidding me? I had no idea!" And sure...
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Switch Pitch By Chuck Hoberman

Sheesh, PingMag is clearing up all sorts on Asian inscrutability. First, mystery octopus playground equipment, and now magically transforming plastic balls. When we went to visit the in-laws in Hong Kong last winter, they gave the kid one of...
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Non-Risky Business: Can You Fit A Car Seat In A Porsche 928?

A DT reader--we'll call him Joel--has a problem. It's not his wife Lana who, by insisting he get that low-mileage, late model Porsche 928 GT, sounds like what every white boy off the Lake wants. No, Joel's problem is...
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Stranger Pregnancy: Seattle Writer On Wanting To Knock Her Boyfriend Up

Writer Jen Graves takes a long, circuitous, and self-involved look at pregnancy in the way that only someone writing for the Seattle indie paper The Stranger could. The gist of the piece: an unexpected pregnancy and an even more unexpected...
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Sushi During Pregnancy? You're Eating For Two; Get The Platter.

Asian food writer Steven A. Shaw guts, skins, and filets the American medical community's warped recommendations about eating sushi during pregnancy. Then he slices them into tasty, bite-sized morsels and serves them up in the New York Times today:WHEN my...
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July 16, 2007

Tako-no-Yama: The Itinerant Octopus Slide Builders Of Japan

In the 1960's in Japan, when the Maeda Outdoor Art Company unveiled a serpentine mound of polished concrete called "Play Sculpture: Stone Mountain," someone trying to be helpful told the artist, "If you'd just put a head on it,...
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Eine Kleine Buchpenis

So German children's book author/illustrator Rotraut Susanne Berner--who illustrated that Sylvia Plath children's book I mentioned yesterday--was in talks with a US publisher [the not not-edgy Boyds Mills Press] to release her latest series of seasonally themed picture books....
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Arrr! Detect The Pirated Robeez By Their Awesome Skulls

According to Bobux's own history, which started in 1991, Robeez copied them. [Robeez' history, which begins in 1994, is silent on the subject.] And according to like half a dozen other companies, including scrappy little underdogs like Target, the...
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So Far, It's Mostly The Cats Named Soterios Johnson

The NY Sun is a few years late discovering the popularity of WNYC radio announcer Soterios Johnson among the McSweeney's-and-Flickr-loving crowd. So far, there's a Jonathan Coulter song [old], a band [new], and more than a few pets named after...
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Right Here Over The Rainbow, Baby: Whitney Brothers Bentwood Blocks

Whoa, these are awesome. This is the molded ply block equivalent of a box full of nothing but Crunch Berries. Normally you'd have to buy twenty Creative Playthings Airfield Sets to get this many air hangar-shaped blocks, and even...
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Oops. CP Hollow Blocks Are Being Knocked Off Already. By CP.

Yeah, so, when I suggested Creative Playthings Hollow Blocks were long overdue for knock-offery, I guess I assumed the hollow block sets filling up our nation's Montessori schools and daycare centers were all 30+ years old. Actually, I don't...
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Creative Playthings Amphibious Assault Vehicle On eBay

The description says this is a trolley/street car, but anyone this side of Fallujah knows better. It's a maquette from a top secret, Cold War-era envisioning project for the Rand Corporation, in which Creative Playthings, Disney and others were...
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July 15, 2007

Please Someone, Knock Off This Kids Furniture

I gave ModMom a lot of grief for choosing to make and sell knock-off versions of prominent indie design companies like Offi, NotNeutral, and Argington. But wait, explains one ModMom Furniture Posse Member, isn't that what those companies are...
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Yet Another Kid Climbs Inside Yet Another Arcade Game

This time it was a girl, 2-year-old Angelia Romero of Middletown, NJ. And this time, local firefighters figured they had to break the glass to get the kid out. This is like the third or fourth time this has happened,...
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July 14, 2007

Sylvia Plath's Children's Books

Forget it, it's too hard to write anything offhand about Sylvia Plath. She did her most amazing writing at the same time she was having and raising two kids. [Frieda was almost three, and Nicholas was one when Plath...
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Sperm Donors Work, Egg Donors Nurture: Parenting Stereotypes In The Assisted Reproduction Marketplace

Peggy Orenstein, who covers the uterus beat for The New York Times Magazine, has a long, fascinating, and somewhat frustrating article charting the socioemotional landscape of egg donation. It's all worth reading, but Orenstein's account of surfing an egg donor...
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HIV Amigurumi Toy: Use Protection When You Play

Etsy artist Le Petit Bijou will donate $3 of each purchase of this hand-crocheted amigurumi HIV to Blood:Water Mission, an NGO which provides clean water to health care facilities in Africa. BWM was founded by the members of the...
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July 13, 2007

Greenham Anti-Nuclear Demonstration 25th Anniversary Colouring Book

It's a travel day; the kid and I are flying back from Gram's house to our house, and so I was packing the crayons in the plane bag, wondering what the kid'd color on. Fortunately, the UK Guardian's website...
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July 12, 2007

"Baby Benadryl"? How About "Flight Attendant Xanax"? Damn.

A mom and her 2-year-old son were removed in June from a Continental ExpressJet flight from Houston to Oklahoma City because the kid kept saying "Bye, bye, plane" through the safety demonstration: "As she finished, she leaned over the...
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Q: Any "Conscientious" Toy Companies Out There?

Lead painted Thomas engines, poisonous Veggie Booty powder, rubber duckies with a 5,000-year landfill half-life, the environmental insanity of shipping Fiji Water around the world. DT reader Shawna emailed with a question I've been wondering myself. Are there any "conscientious...
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TRU CSR WTF? Fisher-Price Stroller Box Full Of Legos

A mother of three bought a boxed Fisher-Price Stand 'n Ride Duo Stroller off the showroom floor of the local Toys R Us. Street value: $150. When they got home and opened the box, eight boxes of Legos Bionicles...
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July 11, 2007

Holy Moses! Wicker & Chrome Pram On eBay

Not a lot of info on this pram, just that it says, "Presty, Made in France" on the label. Oh, and it's made of airy wicker and heavy chromed tubular steel, it's in mint condition, and it's FREAKIN' AWESOME....
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DT Retail Scoutabout: Bugaboos And Space Shuttles Edition

image: Space Shuttle tray from Pecoware via superlocal's flickr stream Some news, sales and rumours from the retail wing of the Baby Industrial Complex: First, the bad news: DT reader Ndele reports that when he and his wife tried...
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We Need More PVC-Based Strollers, Please

You can keep your snooty French Riviera beach strollers, eBay. Because here in US of A, when we need wheeled mobility on the beach, we have everything we need, thanks to our good, old-fashioned American ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit....
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Ooh La La! 80's Beach Stroller From The French Riviera?

What better way to celebrate Bastille Day than by buying an insane, vintage beach stroller from the French Riviera, courtesy of HM The Strollerqueen? According to the eBay description, that's what this is, "Made in France, Les Ateliers," a...
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Mod Mom Furniture Applies Lessons Of Digital Video Revolution To Kids Furniture

Time was when, if you wanted to make a me-too version of whatever TV show is popular right now, you needed a massive studio infrastructure staffed with hundreds of people, including a suiteful of development execs who'd pay their...
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Spy Shots: Bugaboo Furniture Undergoing High Altitude Testing In Park City

So we're driving down the freeway in Park City the other day, and I came across a top secret R&D lab where Bugaboo is testing a new line of children's furniture. Too early to tell what the designs are...
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1962 Citroen DS Wagon, Restored, No Reserve

I don't know why I torment myself like this. I really want to live a life where a 45-year-old French station wagon with hydropneumatic suspension and no rear seat belts is the most natural car in the world to...
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1955 PopMech Dad Makes Toy Rocket From Bomb

Don't worry, the 500-pound bomb was lined with rubber as part of the conversion to a toddler plaything. If there's any sense in the world, this thing should be turning up at a Honolulu garage sale someday. Popular Mechanics,...
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July 10, 2007

White House Pets & Puppets [That Aren't On FoxNews]

When First Lady Laura Bush went on her whirlwind Africa tour a couple of weeks ago, First Twin [Second First Daughter?] Jenna accompanied her. At the end of a visit at an elementary school in Bamako, Mali which had...
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Playskool Poundin' Bedbugs

What exactly is the Playskool Poundin' Bedbugs supposed to teach? Apparently, you take that long, hard, red thing into the bed, where you pound and pound and pound on the little nubby things until you're completely worn out. They,...
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Toxic Industrial Cloud Plush Toy

I can't beat - Dutch artist Dennis Douven's own description of Cloud X.1:‘Cloud X.1’ is an environmentally conscious 10″ handmade plush, patterned after the Toxic industrial cloud creatures which I first created as a street art sticker, named: ‘Little...
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July 9, 2007

Whoa, Insane Vintage Stainless Steel O-L-I-V-E-R Letters On eBay

If you're on the fence about the name Oliver, maybe this will help settle things: there's a vintage Oliver Tractors sign for sale on eBay that's made of 3-D stainless steel letters, each 18" high. Un. Be. Lievable. As...
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DT Namewatch: Superlatives Edition

Gawker's running a poll of sorts: Pick The Most Pretentious Baby Name Consultant Contest 2007. Voting starts tomorrow, but there's one more chance to add names. The runners up that didn't make it to voting:Luxman, Dodger, Amaranth, Arcadia, Clooney, Trench,...
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Two Boobs: Park Slope Pizza Joint A Lactivist Clubhouse

Well, on the bright side, we don't need to rely on the British for long, silly articles about Park Slope Parenting anymore. [update: or at least on the British media. The writer Samantha Storey grew up in London. Oy. Thanks...
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I've Never Been So Happy In My Whole Life. Now I Have A Place To Put My xB

Jalopnik reader Hernan snapped some photos of a 2009 Ford Flex maxi minivan test car prowling the empty streets of San Anton. From these pics, though, I can't tell if the xB slides in the back or nests underneath,...
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Looks Like It's Going To Be That Kind Of Day

I just put Diet Coke in the kid's sippy cup....
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July 8, 2007

Oof! Oeuf Baby Lounger Recalled For Frame Failure

Wow, a recall at one of the mini majors of the indie baby gear market. A recent batch of Oeuf Hang-Out Baby Loungers have been recalled by the company and CPSC after six reports of the tubular steel frame failing....
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Wha Wha Wha?? Veggie Booty Veggie Made In China?

So that green stuff all over the kid's hands, that gave 57 other kids the salmonella, is made in China. How comforting that Robert's American [sic] Gourmet chairman Robert Ehrlich claimed not to know that their veggie seasoning came from...
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Nazonazo Uta: Japanese Counting Word Game Anime

Another random find from what's feeling more and more like the smartest kid's TV show in the world, Japanese publish broadcaster NHK's Pythagoras Switch. With 5,000 kanji and 102 phonetic syllables, it's no surprise that spoken Japanese has a...
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The IKEA Diaper Bag & Changing Pad, Complete [Thanks Again, Mom!]

So a couple of months ago, after seeing Funk-Station's computer bag reworking of the classic blue IKEA bag, I wondered if you couldn't tweak it into a diaper bag, too. It has three separate pockets and both hand and...
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"Family" By Saul Steinberg

I think this is from Steinberg's 1954 book, The Passport. Reminds me a bit of Framy, the Japanese square dog on NHK. via Andy's dadblog, Stork Bites Man...
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July 7, 2007

"Minimalist Daycare": Community Playthings Crib $10 On eBay

Are you still bummed about losing out on the David Netto crib on eBay last weekend? Because now you have a second chance at scoring a 96% discount on a sweet minimalist crib. There is a solid maple crib--just...
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Wack Sparrow: Sweet, New Nursery Furniture From Oeuf

These Sparrows may cost more than a farthing, but not much more. Oeuf's new Sparrow line of nursery furniture hits a sweet spot in the market, the mid-priced [$600-800] segment for folks who like modernist design, who want more...
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July 6, 2007

Katsumi Komagata's Gorgeous Baby Books

Japanese graphic designer Katusmi Komagata began creating books for babies and children when he became a father himself. Like Bruno Munari, whose iconic childrens' titles no doubt serve as an inspiration, Komagata's books are actually designed objects, with die-cuts,...
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AT-AT Stroller Dad Interview: The Thingamababy Strikes Back

What, another interview with the AT-AT strollermodding dad? Thingamababy's got a sitdown with Florida Star Wars fan and new dad Rick Russo, and it's just like ESB vs. SW: the sequel is definitely better. I'd go so far as...
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Cool-But-Incomplete Toy Week Continues On eBay

A couple of otherwise promising toys on eBay seem to be missing a piece or two: 1975 Creative Playthings AMERICAN INDIAN Little People, ends July 10th, starting bid: $10+$7.55s/h result: sold for $11.50+s/h This is the coolest of the CP...
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July 5, 2007

Kidsmodern Euro Crib Prototype Smorgasbord

Kidsmodern has a sweet-looking trio of cribs, so sweet it's hard to remember the time just a couple of years ago when it was Oeuf-way, Netto-way, or the highway, baby, for modern crib design. That said, one of the beds...
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Bamboo Baby Spoon By Bambu

Everyone has his special purpose; it's just a question of finding the right time for it. Bambu's is making plates and bowls out of bamboo. And the time to use it is now, when the earth is teetering on...
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Readme Animal T-shirts By Biome5

Printing text on a t-shirt that's meant to be read from the wearer's point of view is not new, but it's almost always adorable. When it's combined with the alphabet in a chunky, clean typeface and animal photos, it's...
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July 4, 2007

My Mom Hand-Knit An iPhone

My mom was insanely cool even before she knitted an iPhone. Last week, as the hype was peaking, I braced for reports of kids across the country grabbing for their parents' new iPhones; it was a drool-soaked disaster waiting...
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God Bless America, Even Though Our Prisoners Can't Do Algorithm March

I guess it's the Philippine equivalent of prison rodeo: 967 inmates doing a skit from a Japanese kid's TV show. Previously: Japanese TV silliness: Algorithm March (with ninjas)...
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July 3, 2007

Detacho Modular Doll House For Modular Families

The simple, clean appearance of Ben Forman's Detacho doll house system belies a very sophisticated, flexible pedagogical program. It's designed to acommodate a variety of different family scenarios: separated, single, or divorcing parents; "casual" and "office" parents; new step-parents;...
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ReBuilding Center Dollhouse

Wow, it's amazing how the same basic idea--make the kid a modernist dollhouse out of recycled building materials--can have such different executions. Dutch's Miesian townhouse is spare and unfinished to an extreme, letting the kid play God by filling...
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Little Tikes Cozy Coupe Tuning?

David from Hemming's sent me this link to Sniff Patrol's latest spy shots of the BMW 1-Series, which got me thinking about sweet, small coupes. Totally unrelated to that sight gag, I remember seeing a momblogger who'd repainted her kid's...
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Marcel Wanders' Daughter's Rare Bead Necklace

Droog-and-beyond designer Marcel Wanders spent six months collecting rare and unusual beads, beads with stories, to make a necklace for his daughter, Joy. Now, whether he had enough beads left over, or he just replayed the concept, I'm not...
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Boys Named Anakin: They're So Cute When They're Little

Hello, adorable little one-year-old photographed wearing a Wookie costume at the Disney-MGM Star Wars Weekend, what's your name? Oh. And what would you like to be when you grow up? And how does having your older brother dressed as...
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July 2, 2007

Use The Craft Glue, Rick! Star Wars Stroller Modder Speaks

After his son's AT-AT Imperial Walker-modded stroller made the Internet rounds, Star Wars fan dad Rick Russo finally stepped into AJ's Thingamababy spotlight. And now he's given an interview with the Star Wars Blog, explaining his inspiration for the...
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AMC Gucci Sportabout Not Just Gucci, "Gucci"

And here I thought the Gucci baby carrier was the label's tackiest foray into the family market. No one told me about the AMC Gucci Sportabout, a souped up, "fashion-oriented Hornet" wagon featuring "boldly striped green, red, and buff...
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What's the difference between Swedish Actress Liv Ullmann and Barbie?

With the animated TV show and Marvel comic, and the character names and backstory created around a bunch of generic Japanese robot toys, The Transformers were multimedia cross-promotion from the moment Hasbro launched them in 1984. But Anthony Lane is...
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This Is How We Roll With Lowly Worm

I never go to Hoopty Rides looking for kid-related enlightenment, but when I find it there, it's always superlative. Of a Missouri amusement ride company's recent liquidation auction, Mister Hoopty wrote:One assumes that intellectual property [being sold] includes the...
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Awesome Dutch Miesian Dollhouse Costs $15 And Half A Day

That's Dutch as in JD, Juniper's dad, of course, not the country. Though the Netherlands is known for the quality of their kid's design, I'm afraid the whole Bugaboo-pushing lot of them takes a backseat to our Dutch, who...
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