Archive for March, 2009

When it comes to layette, you stick to the basics — one in each color.

Check out the simple selection of newborn essentials at Pure and Little, an online eco-friendly baby boutique. Coveralls, bodysuits and tees in pretty spring colors, from brands like Under the Nile, Kate Quinn Organics and Egg baby by Susan Lazar, will ease the 12-times-a-day outfit change. Besides an assortment of green clothing and accessories for babies and toddlers, the site offers a registry and gift-wrap service (packaged in recycled materials, of course) to simplify stocking up.

Visit pureandlittle.com.

Here comes Peter Cottontail…but he won’t be able to personally deliver to your favorite little chocoholic.

Luckily Sucre, a New Orleans-based confectioner, ships its delicious Easter treats. Send a pretty hand-painted basket filled with three indulgent caramel eggs, or spring for the season’s signature Easter basket filled with a milk chocolate bunny, handmade marshmallows, cotton candy, jelly beans and dark chocolate caramel eggs (kids will get a kick out of the online “making of the bunnies” video).

These sweets will bring sunshine anyone’s way.

Available at shopsucre.com.

With unstable stocks, preschool admissions pressure and career meltdown syndrome, it’s time to reconnect with yourself.

Renee Trudeau, author of The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal, suggests you take yourself on a solo date — all you need is a journal, a pen, a peaceful setting and willingness to reflect. Some of her ideas include:

• Go to a deli or natural foods store and pick up items for a delicious picnic. Bring your treats to a local park and enjoy your meal under a shady tree.
• Head to your favorite bookstore and browse the career, self-improvement, women’s health, psychology and spirituality sections. Take note of what topics are most interesting or appealing to you. Make sure you take time to be quiet; sip a relaxing beverage. Resist the urge to turn this into a shopping trip; this is your time to reflect.
• Visit an ice cream or yogurt store and enjoy a new flavor as a special treat. Maybe indulge in a sundae while you sit outside and just chill.
• Take off for a relaxing walk in nature, perhaps near a local lake, river or pond.
• Write a poem about your life and how it’s changed since you’ve become a mother.
• Visit a bookstore or gift store and buy yourself a new journal. Take time to break it in while sipping on green tea.
• Go to one of your favorite outdoor spots to relax and journal on twenty things you’re grateful for.
• Visit a wine bar and have a glass of your favorite wine. Reflect — what are your three favorite things about yourself? Have they changed since you were 20?
• If it’s rainy, use your imagination: where can you find a cozy, quiet kid-free corner in your neighborhood to relax, unwind and de-stress?

Visit reneetrudeau.com.

Martha Stewart need not worry about being replaced. You’re a disaster when it comes to cleaning — and unfortunately, it’s starting to show.

Remind yourself of all those practical things your grandmother told you: Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Home: No-Nonsense Advice That Will Inspire You to Clean Like the Dickens, is a new illustrated book filled with comprehensive tips and good sense (from washing lampshades to buffing bathroom floors) written by the real Mrs. Meyer.

And who is she, exactly? Thelma Meyer, an Iowa mother of nine who has kept her home in tip-top shape for more than 50 years, is the inspiration for Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day, an eco-friendly line of cleaning supplies launched by her daughter. Sweet-smelling household and laundry products, as well as baby lotions and soaps, will help you succeed with a scrubbed tub and a bathed baby.

Available at mrsmeyers.com.

In this age of competitive parenting, how do you make sure your baby comes out on top — and in the best outfit?

Dale Hrabi’s The Perfect Baby Handbook: A Guide for Excessively Motivated Parents offers a satirical look at type-A moms and dads. The author, an established writer for publications like Details and Radar, guides readers through the process of preparing for a flawless child, from brain testing to grooming. Offering cautionary tales (”Bartholomew’s parents accidentally let him touch an unnatural fabric at a theme restaurant”), advice on where to look for baby names (IKEA products, racehorses) and tips to identify the perfect baby (grows wary of lobbyists), this not-so-serious approach to the all-encompassing baby guide gives anxious parents a little breathing room — and a laugh.

Available at perfectbabyhandbook.com.

Some of the “charming” old-fashioned toys out there cost an arm and a leg — $250 for a pull-toy is not so sweet.

But the price is right with these “shaky” wooden blocks by Little Alouette. At $20, the four handcrafted maple square blocks are filled with dried beans to add a little sound to a wee one’s building process. Plus they are finished with organic seed oils, just in case one ends up in a certain tyke’s mouth.

How charming.

Available at sonnyboutique.com.

Head in the clouds? Analyzing all those formations in the sky leaves you wondering, is that a bunny or a bird?

Duck! Rabbit!, a new picture book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld, is a clever take on the age-old optical illusion of a simple drawing that can be interpreted as, yes, a duck or a rabbit. Although the “duck or rabbit?” concept is rooted in psychology (including issues of perception and reality), kids will have fun playing with the different perspectives in this visual puzzle. The rabbit may win around Easter time, while the duck could be in the lead after a visit to the pond.

It’s all how you look at it.

Available at amazon.com.

You’re now treating your clothes as an investment — meaning, they have to last. So buying duds for each trimester — little bit o’ belly, bit more belly, whole lotta belly — is out of the question.

Try something that grows with you: FIT2BEMOM just launched as a maternity active wear brand for both exercise and extracurriculars (lounging, lunching). Details like side-seam shirring, a roll-down waistband, built-in shelf bra and adjustable straps contour to your shape, resulting in a proper fit throughout the stages of pregnancy. Plus, the line’s moisture-wicking fabric will keep you cool during prenatal Pilates — or during that sweat-inducing trip to Strollerland.

A good deal is the 2BActive Kit, which includes a round-neck tee, long pant and headband in a drawstring bag, for either the active life or the active look.

Available at fit2bmom.com.

Instead of handing over your hard-earned cash to a big corporate giant, you’re looking for ways to give back — even if it’s in small doses.

Online shop Namely Newborns (founded by two grandmothers, an interior designer and the co-founder of the Miami Children’s Museum) offers personalized gifts from artisans near and far. Colorful ABC quilts are handcrafted by women in rural Vietnam as part of Vietname Quilts, a community development non-profit organization. The cotton baby blankets are washable, and may be customized with baby’s name and birthdate.

You can feel a little less guilty splurging on your BFF’s baby shower gift knowing that it goes toward a good cause.

Available at namelynewborns.com.

After reading the same bedtime story 87 times you’re ready to retire it, but your little bookworm just won’t part with her picture book du jour.

Help her curate an on-the-go collection: P’kolino’s Book Buggee will take favorite titles and treasures wherever she goes. Play librarian as you load books into this ergonomically designed, V-shaped orange holder and pull it to places only talked about in fairy tales.

Even if that’s just the next room.

Available at clevertomato.com.