I tried to identify the creator of the incredible molded acrylic-walled structure in this photo before the wife and I headed out of town for a kid-free, backcountry, weekend, but no luck. It's on the wall at MoMA in...
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April 2010 Archives
April 30, 2010
MoMA Mystery Maze, c.1970
April 29, 2010
Noby, Joby. Joby, Noby.
While I was Googling around, trying to track down this fleecy-soft version of Noby Noby Boy, from the cover of the just-released-on-iTunes soundtrack of Keita Takahashi's PS3/iPhone game, I found out Cabel from Panic had a kid way back,...
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Nipple Confusion Is A Myth
Yes, all this time [i.e., since breastfeeding came back], the problem with pacifiers has been that they screwed up a kid's latching. Which is an improvement when you consider that, for much of its 150-year history, the complaint against pacifiers...
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Stokke @ MoMA
I've posted about the rainbow of Stokke Tripp-Trapp high chairs in MoMA's cafe before, but never with such a great photo. Ahem....
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Praise The Lord And Pass The Search Engine-Optimized Minivans For Moms!
Dear Publicists and such, Please know a thing--just ONE, though in this case, two or three wouldn't hurt--about this site and its readers before sending me shit, mmkay?Hi Greg, Here's a story by one of our writers, John Wilson, that...
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The App Cubby Jr Sale
David Barnard's stories of life as an iPhone developer on his blog App Cubby put a nice human face on the hard work and economic realities behind the supposed app gold rush. And also the hopes, such as the sharing...
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April 27, 2010
That's Really The Kind Of Parent-Playing Lie I'd Expect From An 8-yo
K2 just walked in wearing her sister's swimsuit. Me: That's your sister's swimsuit. K2: I can wear it. Me: Why don't you wear your own swimsuit? K2: I asked her, she said it's OK. So advanced....
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Yes Indeed, Richard Harvey Wrote The Music For That Sesame Street Crayon Movie
Finally, Daddy Types has solved one of the greatest mysteries of parenting! Finally, as in, actually, it was solved last fall, but I only realized it yesterday: The music from that Sesame Street Crayon Movie was all written and performed...
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April 26, 2010
Adventure Playground By Archigram, c.1972
Archigram's massive archive just cracked open all over the Internet. While they're famous for their crazy concept studies and futuristic proposals, one of the architecture collective's realized projects--since demolished--was an adventure playground in Calverton, Milton Keynes, Buckhinghamshire. Which sounds...
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Ausgezeichnet! Der Neue Schaukelwagen!
And here I thought I knew about all there is to know about Schaukelwagens. Turns out that not all Schaukelwagens are old. The Schaukelwagen did go into production soon after it was designed [in 1950 by Hans Brockhage and...
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OK, I'm Back. Did I Miss Anything?
I guess Apple's private police force swooped in and took all of RCN's servers and routers and fiber and coax, because there's been no internet access all day. So my day--and regular DT posting--will commence shortly....
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April 24, 2010
This Is J. Paul Getty In A Party Hat.
I have no idea what's going on here. Obviously, that's J. Paul Getty, in the early 1970s, attending a birthday-type party with a gaggle of small children. He is wearing a tiny hat. I assume it is in England,...
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April 23, 2010
At Home [Depot] Dad Meets Changing Table [Saw]
Nice. After a few years of chronicling the presence and absence of mens room changing tables, I am glad to see some changing table rebellion--on any surface I'm not eating off of:My last trip to the great orange tool warehouse...
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DT Advertiser Shoutout: Earth Day Edition
A quick shoutout to longtime DT advertisers Vincent, Sweden's favorite brand of kid's shoes, who are celebrating Earth Day with a sale! [I have no idea, either, but it's 25% off across the website, so just go with it.] Use...
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April 22, 2010
Little Office Space
This is so wrong in so, so many ways. Like five ways at once. I know the Little Tikes Young Explorer were just a cubicle, it'd be fine. Ridiculous and depressing, but fine. This actually has a low-to-middlin', kid-tuned...
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Ellie For Willie
Whether you think it's exhaustive or exhausting, New York Magazine's sprawling feature talking about circumcision from every angle imaginable should be required reading for anyone deciding the fate of somebody else's foreskin. And as of tonight, it seems like the...
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The Elmo/Broccoli Study
Maybe it's the lines of pollen she snorts off the edge of her crib every morning, but K2 has been having a rough time with itching and snot the last couple of weeks. So while we were at the pediatrician...
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Damn, But That Is One Gigantic Kids Tub
I'll say it again: damn, but that is one gigantic kids tub. Safety Tub Kids inventor Adam Schwartz [in tub, left], a father of a 2yo, told the NY Times' Joyce Wadler he got the idea, "three months into me...
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April 21, 2010
Dude Becomes Dad While Dodging Volcano
BoingBoing's original headline for this story was something like, "Help Bennett Get Out Of Volcanoland," but since there's nothing anyone can really do, and since he's apparently on his way back from London via the rest of Europe and Mexico...
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They Shoot Horses And Turn Their Rib Cages Into Cradles, Don't They?
Mamma mia, che fatto? Hungarian master woodmangler Laszlo Lapp exhibited this gut-busting, choke-hazarding, barber shop chair base-stealing cradle at the Milan Furniture Fair. At the Roberto Cavalli store, which I think means "dead horse" in Italian. The Most Hideous...
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John Baldessari Is Not Demonstrating Developmentally Appropriate Interaction Strategies
From Electronic Arts Intermix's description of John Baldessari's 1972 video art structuralist critique, Teaching a Plant the Alphabet:Teaching a Plant the Alphabet is an exercise in futility, an absurdist lesson in cognition and recognition. The scenario is elementary: A...
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April 20, 2010
Celebrate Earth Day By Buying Your Kid's Way Into A Gap Ad
Not really sure what is going on here, but near as I can tell, you can pay cash money to get your kid into a Gap ad. Is this a valid value proposition in our parenting society? If you...
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Packed With Antibodies, Breastmilk Really Satisfies!
[thanks andy from stork bites man]...
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Got Breastmilk? Billboards
It really is too bad that the Ohio Department of Health didn't go with the most obvious slogan for their breastfeeding public awareness campaign. If those cowhugging shysters at Big Milk so much as hinted at suing, the case...
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April 19, 2010
OG Jean Prouvé Kids Desk
After you get over the excitement of finding a vintage Prouvé children's desk--in this case, at the Swiss modern design shop Quintessentia--you can start thinking about who the ungrateful little rugrats were who beat this table down were. Or...
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The Fifth Axis: Hut-Hut Rocker By Kalon Studios
Coochicoos seems to have been taken in by Kalon Studio's email last week that their new Hut Hut rocker is optimally-milled on a 5-axis CNC machine from your choice of five FSC-certified woods, and that the name means Giddyup...
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Today's German Lesson: Ein Schaukelwagen 'Sehr Bespieltes'
'Sehr bespieltes': I wish I could tell you it's German for "great project!" It is actually, "very played-with." And that's just what this Schaukelwagen that popped up on German eBay is: sehr bespieltes, also sehr berepaired. But at the...
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April 18, 2010
No. 4115 Kindergarten Chair By Kai Hoeffer Larsen
When we last left our hero Kaj Høffer Larsen, he was saving fragments of Kaj Bojesen wallpaper from behind the cabinets of his father's just-closed furniture and toy factory in Langeskov. Now we find him with "40 Years of...
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April 16, 2010
DT Friday Freakout
Friday Friday Friday--Ooh, what does it mean? It means it's time to ruin your weekend with alarming and/or depressing news from the worlds of science, safety, and parenting! Mother Jones has a shocking story about how, according to a mind-blowing...
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Class Of The Titans
I was found this awesome name cluster in a 1963 New Yorker profile of a Bell Labs chief, Dr. John Pierce, by Calvin Tomkins last night.:When they were seniors at Woodrow Wilson [High School in Long Beach, CA], Pierce, [Apollo]...
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Make One, Drop One. Need One? Take One. The Toy Society's Toy Drop Program
The Toy Society leaves little homemade toys in public for ye random other folks to take home. The toys have a little, "Take me home! Just spreadin' joy!" message and the URL of their blog, where "Found!" stories are...
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April 15, 2010
Kids And Parents And Photos And iPads
Maybe it's because her camera was better than mine at the time, or because she was already all into her iPhoto, but my wife is the Chief Kid Photo Officer around here. She does the awesome, annual photobooks for the...
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The Anti-Slavery Alphabet, c.1846
With lines like "I is the Infant/ from its fond mother torn," and "W is the whipping post," but as far as abolitionist alphabet primers go, this is probably the best I've ever seen. So goodbye Teabaggers, and hello Emancipation...
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Last One Out
So weird to think that because they can't build a bunch of condos, the hospital's bankrupt and closing. Anyway, the NYT has the story on the last baby born at St. Vincent's in the West Village. If only the reporter...
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April 14, 2010
Sad Meal
Alex Brown's quotidian epic of a photograph, Untitled (Sad Vader), can now be yours, and I don't mean on your blog. 20x200 has just published two versions of this masterpiece, an 11x14 edition of 500, and a 16x20 edition...
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We Stand On The Shoulders Of Goatcart-Riding Giants
And to think I wondered for a moment how relevant it might be to us as dads today, in 2010, to delve into the history of the crazy old toys our great-grandparents used to ride on. Longtime DT hero [and...
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April 13, 2010
Crazy Old Playthings: An Internet Treasury Of Animals Pulling Kids Around
Wow, DT reader Sara either turned her kids loose in the street for the afternoon, or the whole clan has mad Googlin' skillz, because after Benjamin Harris's grandchildren's goat wagon, she sent a veritable parade of crazy animals pulling kids...
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Crazy Old Playthings: Benjamin Harrison's Goat Cart
Crazy grandparental antics didn't start in the 20th century. President Benjamin Harrison, for example, gave his grandkids a bunch of goats, including one named His Whiskers, pictured here on the South Lawn of the White House pulling Goat Cart...
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Crazy Old Playthings
They're starting to bubble up, photos of some of the crazy old playthings our great-grandparents made. That our grandparents managed to survive playing with. So they could eventually bring our own parents forth, and so on, and so on, until...
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Farmer Gram's Homemade Dog Wagon
I've had Jim's incredible, homemade Dog Wagon parked in my browser tabs for a week now, and I literally woke up at 5:00 and realized I had to post about it right now. Not because he basically invented this...
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April 12, 2010
Get In The Habit Of Checking Whether Your Kid Is In The Back Seat
It's spring, not too hot yet. And the Gene Weingarten's March 2009 story for the Washington Post just won the Pulitzer Prize. Which makes it an excellent time for every parent to get in the habit of checking, every single...
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Gummibandbild By Dieter Roth
It looks like the small trove of kid-related designs by Dieter Roth will only trickle out to the world one or two at a time. Stopping Off Place has an awesome one, Gummibandbild, a type of adjustable picture Roth...
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This Is Not A Back Flip On A Big Wheel
Big Wheels are made of injection-molded plastic and would disintegrate before they left the ramp, never mind the impact. This is a backflip on a Big Wheel-shaped, steel-framed tricycle called the Trek MOD. Available in both blue and pink...
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April 10, 2010
Holy Smoked Mackerel! Kay Bojesen Wallpaper
I swear, I've been to kaybojesendesign.dk, the site of one of the biggest Bojesen collectors around, a dozen times, and I've never noticed this. What an incredible story:...When the factory was closed in 2008 I was allowed to cut...
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April 9, 2010
It's The Little Differences, Ch. 1, Cont'd: The Bubble Bum
Is this all because RyanAir is charging £20 to bring a carseat on a plane? Where are all these Britons going without their carseats, anyway? It turns out inflatable booster seats are proliferating across England faster than CCTV cameras...
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Wait, How Many Free Diapers Do British Kids Get Every Day?
The NY Times has caught onto the supposed Mumsnet Election Fever that's sweeping British politics at the moment. Both the Labour PM Gordon Brown and his conservative Tory challenger David Cameron and their wives are working the family-friendly angle. Cameron,...
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April 8, 2010
How Different Are Car Seats In Europe? Ch. 1
You know what, it's the little differences. Like Czech-made inflatable booster seats, that inflate in "under one minute," and that supposedly fit three across [even though they don't tell you the dimensions], and that fold up to about the...
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The Isabella Boom, Explained
Apparently, if your first name is Isabella, you get free admission for life at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. And if your first name is Renzo, you get free admission for life to every museum with an ill-advised...
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April 7, 2010
But It's Too Darn Hot
Look, I am truly sorry for all the kids who are getting seared on the giant Mongolian BBQ-themed playground equipment installed in the new Brooklyn Bridge Park. But seriously, is there anything more laughable than the warning sign, saying...
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Mansfield Dad Still Working Out The Details Of His Cradle Of The Future
Despite neither being for sale at Christmas 2009 for £160 nor actually existing in the physical world, the Babycotpod's pod-shaped baby cot, the Cascara was awarded three stars for durability by Baby Hampshire Magazine. Working backwards from their editors'...
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April 6, 2010
Eames X House: Eames House Blocks By House Industries
EAMES EAMES EAMES HOUSE HOUSE HOUSE BLOCKS BLOCKS BLOCKS D'oh! House Industries makes it look so easy, but getting stackable awesomeness by mixing an icon of 20th century architecture with classic fonts turns out to be pretty damn hard....
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Color Rally Blocks
I'd like to think that given our ongoing fixation on colored grids and blocks, I might have posted about Grimm's Spiel und Holz Color Rally Blocks by now. But there we are. Grimm's Spiel und Holz Color Rally Blocks,...
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Es ist nur eine Frage der Zeit
Yes, it is just a matter of time before the kid outgrows all that giant plastic crap you buy you end up selling it from a vacant lot in Tejas. See the full-sized image, and several other installation shots...
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Richard McGuire + Liquid Liquid On Fallon
Holy smokes. Liquid Liquid performing "Cavern" on Jimmy Fallon. So Richard McGuire is like, "Now that two of my four awesome children's books are back in print, I can take a break from designing awesome motion graphics for PBS Kids...
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April 5, 2010
Unicorno Pillowcase
Yeah yeah, I know tokidoki's a massive colabo licensing empire now, but seriously, when you're faced with unrelenting demand for unicorns and rainbows, it's nice to have a kawaii manga juggernaut in your corner. The kid's aunt bought her...
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DT Wagonspotting At The 2010 NY Auto Show
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } 2011 Acura TSX wagon rear 3/4, originally uploaded by proscriptus. Not DT DT, DT reader...
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April 4, 2010
Sweet Amish Doll Quilts
I'm sure the vintage hand-painted woodgrain frame guys are going, "Doll quilts? Who cares about doll quilts?" But if you've got a babydollwrapping frenzy going on in your house, you'd probably be all, "Can you keep the frames and...
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April 2, 2010
Gilbert & George Singing Sculpture Toy By Kit Grover
Wow. In the Fall of 1971 Gilbert & George's Singing Sculpture was the debut show at Ileana Sonnabend's new gallery in SoHo. The pair stand on a table in suits and spotted metallic makeup and execute a precise series...
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Kiss Me Deadly: Awesome, Handmade Mid-Century LA Modernist Dollhouse
Check out this sweet & simple doll house Chris spotted on eBay; it's coming from Long Beach, CA:Created by a Los Angeles shop teacher clearly inspired by the case study and mid century modern homes that were being built...
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April 1, 2010
Baby Upset He's Not A Single Lady
Dad Totally Cool With Operating A Video Camera While Driving. [youtube via the awl] update: Oh look, his crying woke up the Sakura baby!...
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White House Notices Dads, Announces Actual Policy At Work-Family Forum
Haha, April Fools! The wife and I had some serious conversations in advance of the White House's forum on Workplace Flexibility. For one thing, she has worked at the White House and organized a deeply substantive yet highly photogenic presidential...
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Oh No, I've Put The Sakura Bloom Baby To Sleep!
It's crazy, the power these little creatures have over our most detached, analytical minds. Ever since Sakura Bloom started running their ad with the bemused baby peeking out from the dad's sling, I literally could not stop thinking, "What...
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Karin Mobring Ikea Playtable & Chairs On German eBay
Now, nothing against Mid-Mod Design, which is awesome, but this is how I like to buy my vintage 1960s Ikea kids furniture: just sitzin' in a gruppe on the side of the Straße for one shiny euro. Of course,...
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ThinkGeek's My First Bacon Is Everyone Else's Like Fifth Bacon
You know, maybe ThinkGeek was just a too busy bringing last year's most perfect April Fool's Day joke, the Tauntaun Sleeping Bag, into actual production, that they didn't notice the entire industry that has risen up to putting little...
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