Archive for July, 2009

Living in or near a city, you know your kid has street smarts. And you
spend a lot of time, money and energy to ratchet up his other smarts.
(According to Harvard prof Dr. Howard Gardner, there are seven types.) But in this period of paring down, you need to be more selective with your intelligence-boosting expenditures.

Enter Wallcandy Smarts. It’s the newest line of decorative wall decals from Wallcandy Arts. Smarts is a three-step “program” to stimulate an infant’s brain development. The first step consists of installing black-and-white, geometric-patterned decals (non-toxic), including checkerboards and bullseyes. A young baby’s sight isnt’ fully developed so he particularly enjoys these high-contrast patterns. As a baby grows, he’s better able to distinguish colors. So the second step integrates primary color pieces, and then finally it’s time to add the frame decals for your own photos. Because what baby doesn’t like to look at his parents’ faces? For less than $30, you’ve got nursery decor that’s easily removable and reusable; and it won’t wreck the walls.

Now for the rest of the house.

Available at wallcandyarts.com.

These days, the limelight and a three-minute segment on national television can be just a YouTube video away. (Remember Southwest Airlines’ rapping flight attendant?) But living in a big city such as New York or L.A., where it’s not uncommon to trip over a camera crew or stumble through a film shoot on your way to pick up a quart of milk, we’re already used to being on the periphery of fame. And that can get you thinking: Maybe your precious progeny has what it takes to be the star of the next Gap ad campaign? You never know until you try.

Chris O’Shea is a photographer who has also spent years baby wrangling, styling and casting. (As a baby wrangler, she works with the child to ensure the photographer gets her shot.) Name a baby product or brand and O’Shea has probably worked for that company. The set vet offers some tips for parents looking to get their kids into the biz:

Understand the commitment: Having a child in modeling is a full-time job for the parent. It’s a lot of work, sometimes two or three shoots a day. Your child could go on 10-20 “go-sees” before booking a job.

Pick the right pics: Don’t send professional pictures to an agency (a la Teresa on Bravo’s The Real Housewives of New Jersey). Stick to snapshots in natural settings - birthday parties and backyard barbecues.

Oh, behave: When a casting director chooses a child for a modeling job, it’s not necessarily about beauty. Adaptability and a great personality count. Casting people want someone who charms them. They want a kid who is comfortable around strangers and in new situations.

Research agencies: Stick to reputable agencies such as Wilhelmina Models and Product Model Management. Note that any agency that requires you to pay to have their own professional photographers take pics is not a good agency.

Be realistic: Your motivations for getting your child into modeling (or acting) should be that it’s fun for her and she likes taking pictures. Don’t look at it as an avenue to fame and fortune. The majority of what kids do is print work. It’s the exception rather than the rule when a kid lands a bunch of commercials and actually makes decent money. Modeling gigs pay only $75-$100 per hour (then deduct the agency’s typical 20%). Hey, it’s still some nice change for the 529.

Realize size matters: Clients are often looking for kids who fit into the sample sizes, typically 3T, 5, 10 & 12. So if your little one is a size 4, she may be in a holding pattern until she hits the more bookable size 5.

Understand set etiquette: Don’t be a stage mom. Stay out of the way as much as possible. You can watch from a distance. Don’t probe people for upcoming jobs. Don’t chat up the client.

Know when to fold: If your child isn’t enjoying the business, stop. Let your kid be a kid, meaning don’t have her skip birthday parties, playdates, etc. to attend go-sees and jobs.

Visit chrisosheaphotography.com.

• Editor’s Note: Yesterday’s newsletter referred to a UCSF study about environmental toxins and brain disorders. The scientist conducting the study felt that its results raised an alarm about the possibility of breastfeeding mothers, particularly those with a genetic predisposition towards developmental disorders, passing on a high level of these toxins and contributing to the onset of developmental disorders. In our effort to be brief, some readers felt that we made the erroneous conclusion that breastfeeding causes autism and other developmental disorders. We did not intend to say that, and we regret any offense caused by the post.

It’s hard to improve upon the classic tools of sandcastle building: buckets and shovels. But HABA has done it with its Baudino Spilling Funnel, six inches of tough plastic with two chambers: one for filling with sand, one for water. What drips out is perfect for adding swirls of frosting to sand birthday cakes, melty towers, Gaudi-esque cathedrals. Have your child lay on the ground a trace a gooey line around her, have funnel fights and then wash off the sand in the ocean. Write a love poem to a lobster and watch the waves melt it away.

Made of Euro-tough plastic (even though it’s manufactured in China), the funnel will be around for many summers to come.

Spilling Funnel, $12.98.

It’s long been theorized that breastfeeding an infant has a protective effect against autism, but 2007 work by neuroscientist Michael Merzenich casts doubt on that theory. In the study, published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Merzenich found that in rats, introducing environmental toxins at the same levels found in breastmilk contributed to a significant deterioration of the brain. Merzenich fears that the toxins already present in our environment are being delivered to babies via breastmilk, contributing to the precipitous rise of autism diagnoses.

Environmental toxins like PCBs, though they have been banned for decades, are found in high concentrations in the human bodies, and leach into breastmilk. PCBEs, a close cousin of PCBs, are still being produced and are also found in human tissues. Merzenich concludes that these toxins, along with other factors like a genetic predisposition for developmental disorders, should convince researchers to take a second look at breastfeeding.

Find more at ucsf.edu.

If you’ve ever rolled your eyes through a retelling of Cinderella, wondering why she knuckles under to her stepsisters and waits for the prince to find her rather than telling her stepmother where to get off and going out to get her man, Gail Carson Levine’s Ella Enchanted will cast its spell on you. In her 1998 novel, Levine gives Ella an excellent reason for obeying her every command of her stepsisters and stepmother. When she was a child, a thoughtless fairy gave her the “gift” of obedience. She must now obey every direct command given her. Yet Ella finds clever ways to get around the curse: If someone commands her to take off their stinky shoes, for instance, she does. And then she throws them right out the window. Her spunky nature, is, of course, what eventually leads to her triumph as she breaks the curse and rescues her prince.

Parents may be familiar with the movie version of the story, which stars Anne Hathaway and is pleasant enough, but neither follows Ella Enchanted’s plotline, nor presents the characters as richly and realistically as Levine does in her book. Suffice it to say that Levine’s Ella is no one-note bratty teen rebel; she’s a fully realized, complex teenager. Her prince, Char, isn’t just a pretty face and a dancing partner; he’s introduced soon into the book and the romance between Char and Ella grows through correspondence and meetings, instead of the typical fairytale convention of instant true love.

Ella Enchanted is intended for girls aged 9 to 13, but plenty of boys could use the lesson Levine has to impart: happily ever after is a whole lot sweeter if it’s earned.

Lipstick and vibrant colors are our two go-to pick-me-ups in bad economic times. You’ve already maxed out on that first one and have a drawer crammed with partially-used lipsticks and glosses to prove it. So it’s time to engage in a little color therapy. And the best place to start is the nursery.

With bold but simple designs and a palette that pops, designer and artisan Angela Adams creates sophisticated rugs sure to animate baby’s room and beyond. These are statement items that will serve your home well, long after your little one is out of diapers. Adams is based in Portland, Maine, and her creations are inspired by the state’s natural beauty. Maine’s trees, flowers, islands and sea life are motifs in her work and are often given the geometric treatment. The rugs in Adams’ retail line are all hand-tufted and made of 100% New Zealand wool. She also has a couture line (for better times).

Because hue deserve it.

Visit angelaadams.com.

Getting a child to take medicine can be a risky business - the clamped mouth, the spillage, the drama. And it inevitably leads to you offering a “chaser” for Junior to take after he sips the vile-tasting liquid.

The problem is said chaser is usually loaded with sugar. Perennial favorite Mott’s apple juice has 28 grams of sugar per serving, M&M’s 27 grams, and Oreos (three cookies) 14 grams. Enter KidKupz. It’s a dispensing cup with a candy-coated rim that resembles bits of lollipop. With only two grams of sugar and no high-fructose corn syrup, KidKupz probably won’t give your little one a sugar high before bedtime. The green apple, watermelon, sour cherry and blue raspberry flavors are as good as any Jolly Rancher. KidKupz come six per pack, and each “kup” has standard dosage markings.

Because who needs more drama?

Available at kidkupz.com.

Boys clothing tends to be either of the bland “play clothes” variety (bedecked with masculine imagery like dinosaurs, tools, trucks), or fancy-dress duds suitable for wearing to a wedding. What does the well-dressed young man wear to social occasions where fashion matters, yet formal gear is inappropriate (and hellishly uncomfortable)?

The Goncalo Polo Sweater by Tea Collection fits the bill. The style is retro, bringing to mind the ubiquitous Penguin polo shirts of the 1950s. The shirt’s pattern, inspired by the tile sidewalks of Rio de Janeiro, is similarly vintage in feel. It’s a cozy, easy-wear pullover that has a great deal more style than a T-shirt. It’s available in sizes 6 months to 6 years.

Goncalo Polo Sweater, $47-49

The new Harry Potter movie roared into theaters last week and parents who love the idea of The Boy Who Taught Them All to Read duly went to see it with the little ones. And discovered that this latest entry is dark, indeed, with the death of a major character, violence galore, scary CGI characters sure to cause nightmares, etc. etc. As the character of Harry Potter has aged in the series, so has the complexity and maturity level of the books and the movies. Unlike the first, rather lighthearted Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is not for kids under age 12.

Instead, take the whole family to see Up, a Pixar flick that’s been in the theaters a while but is still hanging on in most markets. Like Harry Potter, it’s a fantasy with eye candy galore. But it’s a lot less scary and a lot more heartwarming; you’ll be in tears by the end of the first, wordless montage of scenes of a long, childless marriage. Up has some intense airborne scenes, but is largely sweet, funny, and enormously heartwarming. It’s great for kids age 5 and up. And it has talking dogs!

Most modern parents don’t want to give their newborn baby boy a ho-hum average name like David or Michael. They long for something different, something with snap, something that will let everyone know that little Dash or Ajax is someone to be reckoned with. But a new study claims that giving a baby boy an unusual name can cast a pall on his future.

In the professional journal Social Science Quarterly, Shippensburg University professor David Kalist says giving newborn boys unusual or “girlie” first names makes them more likely to land in jail. Kalist and his associate, Daniel Lee looked at 15,000 names given to baby boys between 1987 and 1991. The more unusual the name, the more likely that boy is to commit a crime.

In alphabetical order, the Top 10 “bad boy” names, according to Kalist, are Alec, Ernest, Garland, Ivan, Kareem, Luke, Malcolm, Preston, Tyrell and Walter.

Now, this doesn’t mean naming your child Luke automatically means he’ll end up in the clink. Why the association between weird names and crime? For one thing, prior studies have shown that the more education a set of parents have, the less likely they are to choose very unpopular names. Parents with more education also tend to have more money, and poorer people tend to commit crimes more often. There are also other corroborating studies: “a 1993 study that showed boys who have strange spellings of common first names (Patric, Geoffrey) are less likely to be upstanding and successful; a 2001 study showing that boys are judged for their moral character and masculinity by their first names; and a University of Michigan study that stated, ‘having an unusual first name leads to unfavorable reactions in others, which then leads to unfavorable evaluations of the self.’”

Be that as it may, unusual names and kreative spellings are getting more popular. Aiden, Hayden, Caden, and Jackson were all amongst the Top 10 names for newborn boys in 2008: and “John,” once top of the pack, is now a pathetic 44th most popular.