Daddy Types: August 2007 Archives

August 2007 Archives

August 31, 2007

Decide Your Own Lead Levels By Making Your Kid's Toys Yourself!

If you're sick of waiting for months--or even years--for a recall to find out just how much lead is in your kid's Made In China toys, have I got the blogpost for you! Craftzine has rounded up a giant list...
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Mercedes C-Class Estate, Two Words: "High-Class," "Homely"

When the gaffer's tape came off the new Mercedes C-Class Estate in advance of the Frankfurt Auto Show, the fellas over at Jalopnik just about had a wagongasm. I remain unconvinced. Though it does look better than I expected,...
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Hey You Girrrrrrrrrlllllls!

Andy bought this dvd on Amazon. Another reason to hate "Parenting" magazine [storkbitesman]...
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Look! Shiny New Object! High Chair Alfons From Sirch

If you haven't heard about Sirch's Henry high chair, the German-born, molded birch ply Ode To Cheerio-Eating Joy, it's probably because you're not reading Naomi's blog enough. She picked up on it even without attending ICFF, while legions of...
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Bush Administration Sides With Big Formula On Breastfeeding

I've gotta get the kid out the door for pre-preschool [it started yesterday!], so I haven't even had a chance to read this story on the front page of the Washington Post yet, much less think of an outraged, pretend-surprised...
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August 30, 2007

BabyPlus Prenatal Audio System Makes Normal Babies Look Like Geniuses Compared To Their Stupid Parents

So I'm reading and enjoying Joel's return to gadgetblogging at BoingBoing, when I see a post about the BabyPlus Prenatal Education System, [$150] which provides a "curriculum" of 16 audio rhythms, basically remixes of the mother's heartbeat, which get piped...
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Daddy Gives Kid The Fast Typing Gene

You know what they say about a guy with big hands and big feet: he must've gotten it from his father. And in the case of Jeshua Fuller, born Tuesday in Brooklyn, they'd be right. Jeshua was born with...
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Cars You Couldn't Have But Soon You Can, Vol. I: Honda Stream Coming To The US

Well I'll be darned. The small, 7-seat people mover, the Honda Stream, was one of the many great-looking, extremely efficient, and all-around awesome, Japan-only family cars that taunted me with their unavailability. Meanwhile, the US had the Mazda5, the,...
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Holden Crewman & Commodore: Australian For "Sweet Cah"

How is this possible? Until last night, the only Holden I'd ever heard of was the Caulfield, a temperamental, unreliable model which was entertaining but ill-suited for the city, and which ended up getting trucked out to Camarillo for...
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August 29, 2007

Baby Paper? "Because Babies Love To Play With Paper!" Uh,

Somewhere in America, a car is parked in the driveway tonight. It's regular space has been usurped for months now by several dozen cases of [reams of?] CD jewelbox-sized, crinkly plastic-lined fleece hankies known as Baby Paper. ["Known" may...
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Probo The Huggable Hospital Robot Is Obviously From Europe

The University of Brussels and the ANTY Project are developing a friendly, plush hospital robot for diagnostic and therapeutic use with children. Despite getting burned on the Teddy Ruxpin thing a few years back, Bill Gates is involved in underwriting...
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Ford S-Max Spotted In LA

Recently, the fine folks at Ford Motor Company sent me an invitation to participate in a kind-of-tasty-sounding promotional event, which, for various reasons, I was unable to accept. Should such an invitation ever involve a sneak preview in advance...
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August 28, 2007

Freshman Dad Has 17-mo Roommate, Not A Lot Of Free Time

Mike Schieding's girlfriend got pregnant during junior year [of high school]. If he hadn't found out about Endicott College's campus residential program for single parents, he figures he never would've been able to manage a job, an education and full...
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Blockspotting: My Aunt's Sweet, Vintage Alphabet Blocks

I still can't forget how nice these blocks felt, and how beautiful they are. On a visit to my grandmother's this summer, the kid got to play in the same basement toy closet I did [it used to be...
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The Wagonmaster Has His Eyes, His Cunning, And Now His Strength

flickr user illtakeyourphoto! scanned in this sweet ad from a 1970 issue of Ford Times. And now that Andy's gone freelance, he's got all day to surf stuff up and pass it around! Stay at home, dads! The Wagonmaster...
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BP Loves Children And Wants To Fill The Earth With Flowers.

Giant corporations exploiting adorable, emotionally manipulative fictional characters to suck every last dollar out of our wallets, while making outlandish PR claims that are totally at odds with accepted science and the dismal reality on the ground got you...
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August 27, 2007

Whoa. Mary Blair's Disney's Cinderella??

Our approach to thwarting the Disney Princess Industrial Complex is simple. I think. Oh, who'm I fooling? They're complicated and doomed to failure as soon as the kid has a sleepover party, but whatryagonnado? Here's the plan: The movies...
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Henry Hill: Wiseguy, Artist, Parent, Circumcision Fan

You may know Henry Hill--the original Wiseguy who informed [sic] Nick Pileggi's book which became Scorsese's and Liotta's Goodfellas--from a question in the Movies Edition of Trivial Pursuit that you bought at a garage sale for a quarter and...
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Big Mac's A Big Mac, Except They Buy It With A Platinum Card

I am glad to see that American Express's Departures Magazine is on the lookout for kid-friendly travel spots; while the London finds sound brilliant, this month's recommendations for "Lisbon with Little Ones" needs some work. From Sophy Roberts' report ["wow--what...
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August 26, 2007

AdAge: Time To Sell Dads Stuff, Destroy America

Ad Age columnist Lenore Skenazy [really?] says that since what Today's Dads want most is more time with their families, advertisers can sell them all kinds of stuff by promising convenience and time-savings. David Goldsmith, marketing consultant and father of...
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August 25, 2007

WHOA, FULL STOP. Spongmonkey Plush Toys???

Have you ever had one of those moments where you suddenly question the way you've lived your life and all the choices and assumptions you've made, and you just stare in baffled rage at your reflection in the mirror, wondering...
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Freakonomicist Teaches Rock, Paper, Scissors, Not Bedtime Stories. NYT Makes Quiznos Commercial About Same

My second reaction to Freakonomicist Steven Levitt's strategy of focusing on teaching his kids the things they won't automatically pick up at school, like creativity, instead of math and reading: brilliant. [Note: for purposes of Freakonomics, "Creativity" is defined...
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Synergroovy! Creative Playthings Toy News Truck & Camera

Hilariously inevitable. A toy TV news van with a detachable microphone and camera on top, that flips over into a giant toy studio camera, complete with a lens. From Creative Playthings, during the late A Division of CBS years,...
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August 24, 2007

Elaine Kaufmann's Minivan

It's kind of wild to think that the first generation of adults to grow up in minivans are walking the streets right now. Actually, the first generation of Americans conceived in minivans just graduated from college. Let's do the math:...
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DT Cute-Out: Munro Leaf's Safety Can Be Fun Can Be Beautiful

I found out about The Story of Ferdinand author Munro Leaf's other book[1] last summer during the DT Bizzare Book Contest. DT reader Chris had submitted the 1938 classic, Safety Can Be Fun for its awesome combination of clean graphic...
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DT Cute-Out: Kindra Murphy And Her Magical Estonian Stickerforms

Kindra Murphy spent a good chunk of last year in Estonia, soaking up design inspiration, and raiding the local office supply stores for the classic, Colorform-like stickers that she used to compose Estonian Village. It's just on butcher paper....
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DT Cute-Out: Tooth Fairy Pillows And Other Yo Gama-GOO-dness

You know what, it's been kinda grim around here lately, time for a cute-out. The fellas at Gama-Go are having a big Labor Day Sale next weekend. The first 200 people to order $150 or more of Gama-Go-Gear between 12:01AM...
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It's A Small Goth World After All

NOTE: This has nothing to do with goth freakshow circuses and their vacuum-gluing dwarves. Bats Day In The Fun Park is an annual weekend-long gathering of Goth culture enthusiasts which culminates in a big, black, fishnetty trip to Disneyland. It's...
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Little Britain Indeed

Sorry, sometimes there are things you just can't not post:EDINBURGH (AFP) - A dwarf performer at the Edinburgh fringe festival had to be rushed to hospital after his penis got stuck to a vacuum cleaner during an act that went...
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If You See Something, Say Something: OK, How About STFU, Virginia?

I swear, if it weren't for the boiled peanuts and all the Chick-Fil-A's... The Wall Street Journal reports on a Virginia campaign promoting its sexual abuse hotline "designed to encourage people to trust their instincts about possible abuse," which...
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Go, JHPIEGO, Go! Midwife Training In Afghanistan

Afghanistan has the second highest rate of mortality for pregnant women and newborns in the world. Women have a 1 in 9 chance of dying during or after birth, and children of those women have only a 1 in 4...
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August 23, 2007

After BPA Blurb, Publicists Reach Out To "Headline Parenting" "Expert"

So while I didn't get on CBS yesterday, I did get a quote in the Washington Post's article about the latest developments in the whole Bisphenol A toxic plastic baby bottle controversy. [I guess that means I'm not TV-hot, only...
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DTQ: What's Too Long For A Kid's Book?

So the kid and I just read Mister Tall, one of the Roger Hargreaves books, and I know some old man at the Wall Street Journal will harrumph when I say it, but the book's just too damn long and...
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DT Word Of The Day: Galactagogue

n. An agent that promotes the secretion and flow of milk. [found in "Alcohol’s Effect on Lactation," Julie Mennella, Ph. D., published by the NIAAA/NIH] also, galactagogic, adj. also, galactagoguery, n., the title of a 1939 Time Magazine article on...
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Forget It, Jake. It's Rajasthan.

90-year-old Rajasthani farmer Nanu Ram Jogi and his wife Saburi, 50, are celebrating the birth of their new daughter, Girija Rajkumari. Girija is Nanu's 21st child. Saburi is his fourth wife. She had originally been married to Nanu's Number One...
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August 22, 2007

Craigslist Brings Sperm Donor Model To Lactation Industry

Spotted on the Birmingham, AL Craigslist:young mom needed for special job need lactater. want to make $100 on a regular basis? I want your milk. no other contact necessary. clean discreet environment, or I will come to your location.A hundred...
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Bulletproeuf Baby?

So tell me, did New Line Cinema get permission to use the image of Oeuf's new Sparrow crib on Bullet Proof Baby, the fauxmotional website for Shoot'em Up, the new movie where Clive Owen and Monical Belluci have to...
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Liveblogging The CBS Early Show Segment On 'Hip, Hands-On Dads'

A little while back, CBS's Early Show called, looking for one of the "new breed of dads" they could put on TV. He had to be: hip hands-on in the NY Metro area, and willing to let CBS show his...
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August 21, 2007

Like-A-Vespa

This Like-a-Bike-like walking scooter practically demands to be covered with mod decals and several rearview mirrors. And if anyone knows where to get a kid-sized army jacket, I know where to get an iron-on target t-shirt. [And speaking of...
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RIP Kato Ryo, AKA DJ Klock, AKA A Kid's Dad

The kid's bouncing around, and rather than turn on the TV, I thought we'd both mellow out for a few minutes by watching Kenji Hirata's chill animated felt video for the equally chill "Theme" by DJ Klock, which was...
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August 20, 2007

Jawdropping Industrial Chrome Crib, Was $9,945 Now $560, Needs Wk

The Doernbecher Crib from Hard Manufacturing provides a dramatic improvement in the pediatric ICU experience for everyone involved: doctors and nurses, little patients, and even their families. All four sides raise and drop with ergonomically designed ease and security,...
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Bwahaha, Handknit Lemmings Plunging Off Handknit Cliff

[pet-killers: 1, peer-reviewed science: 0!] In the classic 1958 nature documentary White Wilderness, filmmakers for the Walt Disney Company faked a lemming migration and over-the-cliff suicide plunge using pet lemmings they bought from Inuit children. As a result, and...
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More Mercedes Benz 2008 C-Wagon Spy Shots

By camouflaging all the test mules with hideously boring body panels from a fifth generation Camry, Mercedes-Benz has done a spectacular job of keeping the ground-breaking design of the new, mid-range C-Class a mystery, right up to the launch...
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DTQ: What's Missing From The Non-Fugly Kids Market?

DT reader, advertiser, and mailing list drawing prize donor Mark from Sparkability took a break from his sweet kids design guru-ing to email his list of the Top Ten Most Needed Kids Products:Cribs under $400 Doll/Play furniture (crib/cradle/highchair) Cookie Jar...
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Liveblogging The Yo Gabba Gabba! Premiere On Noggin

It's freezing outside [in DC. In August. They call this global warming? Feh.] so the kid and I will be liveblogging the premiere of The Most Important Children's Television Program Of Our Generation, Yo Gabba Gabba!. Stay tuned for...
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Huge, Hand-Woven Pacman Carpet At Our Children's Gorilla

The motto for the wonderful Swedish design firm Our Children's Gorilla is, "The children's imagination is our inspiration." In this case, "the children" are "the children who spent the 80's in dark video arcades, pumping every spare kroner into...
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August 19, 2007

Electricity Aquarian? Oh, It's A Source Family Name.

Isis, Omne, Magus, Electra, Orbit, Electricity, Djin, Sunflower, Damian, Lotus, Goddess, Octavius, Pythias, Rhythm, Sol Amon, Aquariana, Zoraster, Ahom, Omega, "cannot remember his name." Those are some of the first names I rounded up of members of The Source Family,...
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August 18, 2007

Sweet Sweet Maximo Toy Box Discovered At Target

Kind of. Tina posted about finding these great-looking, fabric-lidded toy bins at Target. The bins are made by Nico Schweizer's Zurich-based Tower of Toy Awesomeness, Momoll. And Tina randomly met Schweizer's wife at Target on Long Island. Kinderhocker Maximo,...
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Marcus Walters' Pictographic Alphabet

London illustrator Marcus Walters created this sweet pictographic alphabet for his soon-to-be-born daughter. Check out his blog and his portfolio for more great work. Three years of reading Eric Carle and Leo Lionni have softened me up for interesting...
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August 17, 2007

"Emma" By Chuck Close

There was a time when getting my portrait painted by Chuck Close was a quiet aspiration in my life. Mostly because he doesn't take commissions; he only paints pictures of family and friends. And as one of the nicest,...
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FOUND: Documented Evidence That Babble And Alternadad Are, In Fact, Different

You know how, around the beginning of the year, Babble was launching at the same time Neal Pollack's book was released, and Babble's reviewer kind of threw a hissy fit, as if there was only one seat left in the...
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The Harmony, For Pinstripe Prep: Zed's In Bed, Baby

The Limited Edition Harmony. A convergence of Pinstripe Prep, upstart purveyors of fine baby and kid gear ["country club couture without the snobbery"], custom car guru Joe Iacono and the mastermind Jason Albert, whose expert hands bring each custom...
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Consumer Reports: Keep All Magnetic Toys Out Of Houses With Young Children

One of the kid's favorite toys is Magna-Tiles. She plays with them every day. They're awesome. They spread like an irresistible marketing virus from playdate to playdate, from cousin to cousin. Not counting the dozen or so folks each...
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I Once Thought About Naming Myself @llen

A couple in China wanted to name their son '@'. Considering that almost everyone in China's got symbols in his name, it's not as big a deal as it might first seem. @ is pronounced 'ai ta' in Mandarin, which...
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Vanity Fair: Arthur Miller "Deleted" His Down Syndrome Son

I am totally floored. The playwright Arthur Miller had a son with Down Syndrome in 1966 who he never publicly acknowledged and all but wrote out of his life. [What an odd choice of words, under the circumstances.] The boy,...
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August 16, 2007

Sweet Ikeahack: Gulliver Crib + Thinply + Router

Wow. I don't know what's more shocking: the sweet DIY goodness that resulted from this classic Ikea Gulliver crib and some specialty lumber, or the fact that an Ikea somewhere didn't have a Gulliver in stock, and the expectant...
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Another White House Intern Scores! Jenna Bush Set To Marry Baby Daddy

Congratulations to former Karl Rove intern Henry Hager [above, top] and Jenna Bush [above, bottom, obviously], who have discovered that pre-marital sex is not, after all, a faith-based program. The couple's engagement--and so far, only their engagement--was announced today...
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What's In Your Circumcision Library?

So we're waiting at the OB's office for the 20-week ultrasound visit yesterday, when I spy this Newsweek blurbicle with Brooklyn novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, whose "My Five Most Important Book" list was topped with, "The Holy Bible: Genesis."...
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Rauschenberg-ian Goodness On A Onesie* By Ooh La La Mama

You know what you used to see too much of at a contemporary art auction? Robert Rauschenberg prints. I swear, the dude was off the hook in the 70's and 80's with the indistinguishable collage-y silkscreened mish-mashes of pop...
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Pish Posh, It's Just An Air Raid: Blossom, The Brave Balloon

During WWII, the Royal Air Force deployed thousands of barrage balloons over British cities and factories to run interference with low-flying, divebombing German fighter planes. In 1941, someone decided a bit of backstory might help English kids understand what...
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NYT Dad Inventors Story Requires Extensive Setup

The NY Times has a big feature today on "the new breed of involved dads" whose unique childraising perspective drives them to invent new and exciting products. And whose very existence still seems to require a lot of incredulous data...
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August 15, 2007

Toys R Us Lead-Tainted Bibs Still Less Lead-Tainted Than Wal-Mart's

The NY Times commissioned its own testing, and found that vinyl bibs made for Toys R Us by Hamco contained three times the lead allowed in paint. Hamco bibs sold for three years at Wal-Mart, however, had as much as...
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FDA: Stop Giving Cold Medicine To Kids Under Two

Last spring, a group of pediatricians petitioned the FDA to finally conduct a formal safety review of cough and cold medicines for kids under two years old. [The FDA had resisted for decades in large part because of the longstanding...
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I Know How You Feel, Mate

A headline on boingboing proves why, even in the face of opposition, the menace must be stopped: Man spends 7 nights in tree to escape crocs...
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Petunia Pickle Bottom Diaper Bags For Dads: Hint For Them By Name

You know how secret shopper Paco Underhill says women will cut through the men's department, but if the women's department's right up front, men will not need socks after all; we'll just catch up with you at the food court?...
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Dude's Selling A Maxi-Cosi CabrioFix On eBay, Also That Ikea Trofast Cradle

Now one of the basic rules about car seats is that you don't buy them used because you just never know for certain that they haven't been in an accident and had their structural integrity compromised somehow. That said,...
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Whazzap! Dutch Baby Do-Rag

Without going too deeply into my own personal history with the subject, let's just say that I, like many, many parents, can appreciate a good do-rag. Yet when it comes to a classic bandanna you could easily tie on a...
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August 14, 2007

DT Drawing! Win A Micralite Toro Newborn From Sparkability

To celebrate the launch of the new Micralite Toro Newborn stroller, longtime DT advertiser Sparkability is giving one away. And Daddy Types is helping to increase your chances to win. Complete details about the stroller and the drawing are on...
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Mister Rogers' Nakedhood

Tom Junod profiled Mister Rogers for Esquire in November 1998. The result is something of a tour de force of "Hold my hand, Tom" journalism, which the magazine for some reason deleted from its website:The old navy-blue sport jacket comes...
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Mattel CEO Announces He's A Dad! Also, That They're Recalling 10 Million More Unsafe Toys

Mattel took out full-page ads in several national newspapers today so that CEO Robert Eckert could tell "fellow parents" that he's "a father of four." And then this morning, Mattel and the CPSC held a press conference to announce the...
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Now We Know Where To Shred These Crocs: On The Escalator. Holy Crap.

Not only are they fugly, they're dangerous, too? Crocs--and other soft-soled shoes like flip-flops, but as you'll see, the delta here is the spike in Crocs sales--are involved in an increasing number of escalator accidents. DT reader Jennifer points...
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Let A Thousand Strollers Remind Me Of Bloom

Spot The Bugaboo Knockoff used to be just fun, but let's face it; Bugaboo's original, innovative design has been around for almost eight years now, and on the market for six. The company has something like 30% market share...
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August 13, 2007

Crocs Must Stop, Holey Crap, Too

Except for one outburst this time last year, I've expressed my sheer hatred of Crocs by ignoring them at every opportunity. I was sure they'd come and go as quickly as Uggs, but my problem now isn't that they're still...
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Whoa. Baby Einstein's Got A Posse, Too.

And that posse wants to meet the University of Washington behind the Magic Kingdom after school. Or Else. Let it be a lesson to you, junior publicists of academia: if you call out a marquee product of a major corporation...
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Unavailable Wagon News From All Over

I knew that the Jetta SportWagen Clean Diesel waitlist wouldn't start moving until next year, but how come I didn't hear that even the gas-engine variants are delayed? Something about a factory fire destroying a bunch of cylinder heads....
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"I'll Show You The Wife Of The Mind!"

Writer and creative block expert Susan O'Doherty's teaching an interesting-sounding seminar tomorrow night at Mediabistro in NYC:How to balance your job as a mom and your job as a writer It's possible to be both a great mom and a...
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Fisher-Price Factory Owner Kills His Lead-Painting Self

So a freelance reporter staged a story about Beijing pork buns being stuffed with soggy cardboard, not pork, and he gets sentenced to a year in prison for, as the Associated Press quotes it, "infringing on the reputation of a...
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August 12, 2007

Icon Mag: Kids Designer Furniture? Bring On The Recession

The cheeky British architecture and design magazine Icon is calling for a recession to help out the overheated, over-indulgent design world. Can you guess what the second most noxious symptom is after "the cult of celebrity"?:Designer furniture for children As...
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Louis Vuitton & Takashi Murakami Love The Little Children

Superflat Monogram [2003], Murakami Takashi's magical, animated tale of an adorable little girl named Aya and her keitai phone teaches us one of life's most important lessons: Louis Vuitton is a lovable, selfless panda with a heart of gold...
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Whoa. Sick Hamptons Playhouse

So an architect-designed playhouse sold for $790 on eBay? Big whoop. For that, you could sink a couple of posts on this wood-and-steel mesh outfit. It's on Long Island--judging by the Lilly Pulitzer and the loafers and the neighboring...
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Frodo Has A Posse

Yo Gabba Gabba debuts on Nick Jr and Noggin next week [August 20, set your playdates to stun], and David Itzkoff, the NY Times' man on the weird kiddish TV beat, has an abbreviated preview/profile of the OC/LA dads...
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There Is No Craigslist In Peru, Illinois

I've been to some remote places in Illinois in my day [Pontoosuc in the house!], but the closest I've got to Peru was that one crazy weekend I drove out from Chicago to the opening gala for the new...
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August 11, 2007

Patented Modernist Dollhouses

Ever the eBay shark, Andy found this sweet, modernist plywood-and-plexi dollhouse for sale on eBay and posted it to Stork Bites Man. The description says it was designed and built by an architect; the plexiglass walls can slide out...
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August 10, 2007

Woo Hoo! Tokidoki + ducduc + Yoya Colabo Crib

Colabos are nothing new for the indie and art toy world, but products for actual kids are. The plush & vinyl toy boom is a bit weird in that it ignores the traditional toy customers--children--in favor of still-a-kid-on-the-inside twentysomethings...
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Flickr Dad: It's My Kid In A Bakfiets Baby

Flickr user Hive carried a baby bakfiets home in a bakfiets. Then the baby put the baby holding the baby in the baby bakfiets. [note: it makes plenty of sense in Dutch.] Bakfiets op Bakfiets; Kinderbakfiets [hive's flickr stream,...
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Think Of The Cardboard Children

An Ohio man put a lifesized cardboard cutout of a kid out by the road to slow down speeders. And it works! At least until Friday night, when the shootin'-mailboxes-for-fun crowd gets off work at Cracker Barrel. It still...
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NZ Gov't Leaker: Naming Your Kid Superman, Satan, Same Thing

So the New Zealand government naming registrar has rejected the appeal parents who wanted to name their kid 4Real, saying you can't start a name with a number. [The family's not entirely crazy argument: what's the big deal? People are...
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Someone Needs To Slap Some Sense Into This 'Gen X' Person

I still remember the first time I posted something on a Saturday night--and another dad commented on it like half an hour later--and being like, dude, this is it: I'm never going to a party without a Moon Bounce ever...
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August 9, 2007

Bakfiets In America! Bike Carriers In The NYT

The NY Times has a round up of new baby seats and carriers for bikes, including the WeeRide Kangaroo, some trailers [But not the Cougar Chariot?] and the Dutch bikebox, Bakfiets! suhweet. And yes, though the Bakfiets could hold...
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Chinese Car Seats: The Perfect [Shit]Storm Of Child Safety?

When he sent along the link to Alibaba.com, the Thomas Register of globalized wholesaling, DT reader T tees up the issue beautifully:I, at least, assumed that the companies that slap their brand on car seats actually substantially design them,...
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August 8, 2007

Bugaboo Bee Ride Doesn't Cost 50 Cents, Doesn't Play "It's A Small World After All"

Some knucklehead left his brand new Bugaboo Bee on the street in front of Two Boots pizza, a known den of lactivist agitation in Park Slope. Then he took a picture of it, folded it up, parked it inside,...
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August 7, 2007

Study: The ADHD Comes/ On Little Bear's Feet

University of Washington pediatric researcher Dr. Dimitri Christakis made news today when a study he co-authored revealed that 1yo kids fall behind on their vocabulary development by almost 10% for every hour of Baby Einstein videos they watch each...
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TMX x AF1: Custom Airbrushed Elmo Kid Kicks

Whoa. These Elmogrified Air Force Ones are made to order by the Bronx-based airbrush artists of Airmagination. You may know their work from Vibe, The Source, or the collaborative mural in Fitty's crib. Personally, I'd get Elmo painted on the...
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Baby Einstein, Sesame Street, Spongebob, Simpsons: Three Of These Things Belong Together

When most of the headlines about the latest results from University of Washington research into babies and TV focus on the endumbening effect Baby Einstein videos have on babies' vocabulary, are they missing the larger point? [Each hour kids...
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HOLYCRAPITSOCUUUUTE: Octopie Plush Octopus Boy From Plushplay

The thing is, Octopie would probably be the cutest polar fleece plush octopus boy around even if his spots weren't "hand-felted with Merino wool." And yet, they are. Fifty bucks, get it while it's there. But if you miss...
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Little Marc Box At Colette Is A Desperate Cry For Help

Since Marc Jacobs has come so clean about overcoming all his addictions lately, I will, too: I'm a recovering Colette-oholic. I wrestled with my problem for years, even though to be honest, I usually found their highly edited [i.e.,...
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August 6, 2007

Stitches Out On Time

So a quick stitches update: the kid has been doing fine. She was a bit clingy and wiggy for the first couple of days, but she was the best patient I've ever had. We developed a little ritual for changing...
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Potholder Rug Made From T-Shirts And/Or Sweaters

This cracks me up. We used to make potholders like this at my grandmother's house during summer. Not that we were ever allowed to hold any actual pots. [Though when he was two or so, my brother did dance...
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August 5, 2007

Is There Anything The Japanese Haven't Turned Into Plush?

Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, I think I feel a Mind-Bending Plush Week coming on. Or, you know, just a handful of Japanese-market dolls for sale in the eBay Store of anime plush/collectibles specialist Saltypear. I feel like we're just scratching...
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Daddy Types Would Like To Thank More Advertisers

A big shoutout to the advertisers who provide us with such useful information about their valuable products and important events and initiatives: Sparkability, purveyor of better things for babies and kids Hyperion Books for Children, publisher of David Horvath's Bossy...
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August 4, 2007

Pristine Eames Rocker, One Baby-Having, HM Employee Owner, On eBay

Wow. "A2" condition, no scratches, no dings and almost no wear on the original runners. "Strong and supple" shockmounts, paper label and beautiful manufactured-on datestamp. Being sold by "the original owner and 'child'"? The only way this vintage Eames...
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Japanese Mid-Century Modern: The K-Chair Mini By Karimoku60

Established in the 1940's, Karimoku is the biggest wood furnituremaker in Japan. Their early specialty seemed to be a kind of formal, destyled riff on Swedish/Danish/Knollish modernism, the kind of thing Ultraman would be sitting on while he listened...
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Cardboard Kid Goodness From Riki Watanabe's Carton Furniture Series

Andy has great photos of the eco-friendly, flatpackin' goodness of Watanabe Riki's hexagonal Riki Stool, designed in 1965 as part of his Carton Furniture Series. Looking at more photos of the stool going together, the designer's claim that it...
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Vintage LA Strollermodding: Ladera Park Baby Show

From the Prelinger Archive, we learn that parents gathering in parks to show off their kustom strollers didn't start with pinstriped Bugaboos or AT-AT Walkers. But since the only mentions of the Ladera Park Baby Show are to this...
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August 3, 2007

The Auto Union Type C Pedal Car, Hand-Made By Audi

A was for Aston Martin. Holy moley. Audi Heritage has produced the world's most beautiful factory pedal car since...since forever. [Like the Junior Volante, the Type 52 Baby Bugatti was electric-powered.] Handbuilt alloy body, Audi-engineered seven-speed gears and hydraulic...
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What's? The Deal? With That? Don't Mohels Have To Sign NDA's?

Good L-rd, people, PLEASE tell me you are not out there choosing your mohels based on which celebrity offspring penises he's circumcised?! Just check out what happened to Babble contributor Sam Apple when he went chop-shopping at the JCC:Thirteen circumcisions...
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Cutting Off The End Of Your Son's Penis May Or May Not Affect His Sex Life

There's a lot to swallow, but the deft reporting hands at US News & World Report do a good job of pulling back the outer layers of controversy and concentrating on the most sensitive areas that are the thrust of...
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The First Time's No Longer Free: NYC Hospitals Stop Handing Out Formula Gift Bags To Newborns

As with so many things during World Breastfeeding Week, news stories about questionable formula marketing practices come in attention-getting pairs. This time it's New York City's public hospital network, which announced that it would stop handing out free formula samples...
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August 2, 2007

Asked And Answered: Jordan Flaunts Her Artificial Milk Delivery System

note: cans are simulated and not to scale What better time than during World Breastfeeding Week for British "glamour model" and new mom Jordan to rip off her metaphorical top to reveal her chest--is not taking reservations. Sorry, Princess....
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No. Way. Carbon Fiber Shell Rocking Chair By Garageworks Industries

For a lot of Eames Shell Chair lovers, one of the key selling points is its molded fiberglass material, with the glass threads visible like a vintage high-tech woodgrain, which was adapted from WWII-era airplane radar domes by Eames...
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August 1, 2007

DTQ: What Movie Are You Stoked For Your Kid To See Someday?

Let's lighten the mood. Assuming they survive the lead paint, the car seats, and the trips to the ER, what formative movie can you barely wait for your kid to be old enough to see? Apocalypse Now? Fast Times...
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Get The Hell Away From My Kid, Diego! Get The Hell Away! Mattel/Fisher-Price Recalls 1MM Toys For Lead Paint Contamination

Maybe it would be easier if all the companies left who don't sell hyper-popular licensed character toys contaminated with lead paint could please raise your hand? Anyone? Fisher-Price, whose Made in America toys we all gnawed on as children, has...
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When I Hear JPMA Supports Safety, I Reach For My EU-Certified Car Seat

Proper use of a car seat is a vital and effective way to protect kids while driving. The lobbying and trade group for the Baby Industrial Complex, the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association, says that car seat safety tests are "more...
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Dancing Bears, Dashikis, Rope Sandals: Why, It's Baby Hippie Wear Just Like Grandpa's

Seriously, people are there not enough Phish heads having kids to warrant some cloying hippie baby clothing from the 90's? Why are new hippie parents seeking hippie threads for their little ones forced to revert all the way back...
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Between The Lines Artist Coloring Book For Charity By RxArt

When I wrote about artist coloring books last summer, the new RxArt compilation coloring book, Between The Lines, had been announced, but it wasn't actually ready until December. Now it's for sale to help raise money for the arts-in-hospitals...
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Peter's ABC Book By Chicago Artist Robert Amft

I swear, I can't believe this hasn't been on DT yet. Robert Amft graduated from the Art Institute in Chicago in 1940; he was from a family of commercial artists, but he also made his own art, photography, collage,...
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