Author Archive

As the mother of an infant, your physician will strongly urge you to give your baby Tummy Time. Back when we all used to sleep on our bellies, the stomach muscles got a workout and every baby crawled. Now our nation of SIDS-panicked back-sleepers has such a collective flabby gut, many kids skip right over crawling and walk instead. This is supposedly bad for development, another thing your physician and spiteful other moms will tell you.

Anyhoo, if your babe’s not the type to coo and gurgle when placed on her belly, floor toys like the transcendently cute Wish Come True line will help. Each three-inch figure has a chiming bell inside, and a heavy bottom so it rocks from side to side without falling down. Plop one down in front of the kid and watch him stretch and reach to bat it. Heck, at $7.50 they’re cheap enough to get all six and make an obstacle course. According to the manufacturer, you’re supposed to make a wish when you rock them. Here’s one: I wish Tummy Time was over.

One caution: the Wishing Toys are in “blind boxes,” meaning you won’t know which one you’ve got until you open the package. Hey, maybe you can wish for the one you want!

Available at friendswithyou.com.

When it comes to nurseries, you can either do your chocolate-brown-and-pale-blue modern Baby-reads-Dwell thing, or you can just wholeheartedly embrace the kiddie theme, with teddy bears and alphabet-block letters. But just because it’s meant for kids doesn’t mean it has to be tacky. Take, for instance, the “Lions, Tigers, and Kittens…OH MY” crib sheet set from Pixel Organics. At a sweet 220 threads-per-inch count of organic cotton (no nasty chemicals for your kid!), these sheets feel as good as they look. And with a fresh vintage-look pattern, they’ll have your friends wondering if your mom saved your baby sheets in a box in the attic.

Available at sparkability.net.

What you use to pack your child’s school/camp lunch largely depends on how much time you have to spend in the morning. Rushed parents sling things into plastic bags; those with time to spare fill up precious bento boxes. But most of us are treading a middle ground, lacking the time to fiddle excessively yet wishing to inject this mundane daily task with a scintilla of style.

Enter Mimi the Sardine, maker of sturdy, simple, brilliantly hued Lunchbugs. This photo doesn’t do them justice. The bags are beautifully crafted of eco-friendly coated cotton, with strong handles and smooth, heavy zippers that even small kids can operate themselves.

“We double-stitch, we make sure it holds up, and we have very few returns,” says Pia Andersson, a San Francisco Bay Area mom who began her business by sewing bibs on her kitchen table after she emigrated to America from Sweden and had a daughter. “I sent a few to Hanna Andersson, and because I have Swedish eyes and a Swedish visual sense, she bought them.”

Andersson wound up designing children’s clothing for Hanna Andersson and Garnet Hill, but these days her own line pays the bills, and she says Lunchbugs are the company’s most popular item. All Mimi the Sardine bags, aprons, cloths, mats and bibs are wipe-clean and feature bold prints and Marimekko-like colors.

Available at mimithesardine.com.

It sure is fun to play with miniature doll duds, but every popular line has a fatal flaw: Bratz clothes are too hoochie, Barbie clothes too Joan-Collins-in-Dynasty, Groovy Girls apparel is just way too pink. Save your wardrobe-update dollars instead for the Petite Mode Collection: 30 Days in Style doll clothing. Crafted in coordinating stylish shades like black, gray, and red, the “30 Days” collection is made up of simple, up-to-the-minute pieces that are meant to be mixed and matched. Go ahead, put the (approximately Barbie-sized) black-and-white striped T-shirt with the navy suspender shorts; you can’t go wrong.

Manufacturer Re-Ment is best known for its miniature sweets, and it retains its usual strategy for packing its fashion offering: you never know exactly what outfit you’re getting until you open the box. It’s a good thing, really; this way you can much more easily justify buying the whole collection.

Available at asiaphilic.com.

There are times when you just need your backyard dotted with holes. Well, actually, there probably aren’t. But you could put up with said holes if your child(ren) were being kept busy at a wholesome outdoor activity that improved her hand-eye coordination, right?

I present to you the Big Dig, a mesmerizing excavation toy. Children aged 3 and up can perch on the sturdy tip-resistant stool, dig the satisfyingly heavy claw into the dirt using the nifty hand controls, rotate, dump, and repeat. For hours. And hours.

The Big Dig is available at uniquetoyshop.com.

Vintage children’s clothes are very thin on the ground at consignment shops and thrift stores. Yeah, you can get used Gymboree or Baby Gap items, but they’re usually never more than a few years old and lack in a certain weathered charm.

Turn to Fab Vintage Baby instead, for fresh dresses crafted from real vintage fabrics — mostly pillowcases, by the looks of it. Who knew there were so many wildly printed pillowcases from the ’50s and ’60s? Fab Vintage Baby’s Heather Rider, that’s who, and she turns them into sweet little gowns for infants and girls up to age 6, as well as neat appliqued tees featuring cutouts of retro prints. Sure beats combing the thrift stores.

Zid Zid Kids’ magnificent Airplane Backpack is all wrong for the school year. It wouldn’t even hold a piece of notebook paper, for criminy’s sake. But when you’re packing them off to summer camp, this metallic wonder is the perfect size for lunch, a sweater, and an “I love you — have a nice day!” note from Mommy.

Handmade by Moroccan artists, the backpack is constructed of soft silver vinyl with vivid embroidery.

Available at olliebollen.com.

That rickety plastic microscope you got for Christmas circa 1985 is like a fossil now that EyeClops Handheld Bionic Eye is on the scene. The handheld magnifier looks a bit like a classic webcam, except instead of capturing digitized video it blows up whatever you point the EyeClops at and displays the image on a TV screen.

EyeClops couldn’t be easier to use — the included jack plugs simple into the television, and then you just point the EyeClops at whatever you want and choose your level of magnification, up to 400 times its original size. Nothing is safe from the Jumbotron: hair becomes thick as cables; salt looks like towering boulders; a fingertip is a deeply carved labyrinth.

Want to take an up-close-and-personal look at the insects in your life? Accessories include a Bug Vac that will scoop up the six-legged for inspection. Just remember to look modest when your kid is winning the Nobel prize thanks to your science enrichment.

Available at entertainmentearth.com.

If you’ve chosen a vintage look for your nursery or children’s room, Moonlight and Roses’ glittery vintage board art is the perfect accessory. The boards ($37) come in a variety of themes, including fairy vignettes, puffy cherubs, and realistic animal portraits. But our favorites are in the “Animal Antics” collection: dear little hedgehogs driving cars, kittens performing at a circus, bunnies about to take baths. Hey, it beats the poker-playing dogs.

Available at moonlightandroses.com.

Amongst the many pleasures of playing with Play-Doh is its mysterious, ineffable, instantly recognizable scent. You could never smell it for the next 50 years, then take one tiny whiff, and you’d know immediately what you were smelling.

Perhaps the significant fathers on your Father’s Day list would appreciate being transported back to childhood with a spray or two of Play-Doh cologne. One sniff and it’s instant nostalgia. But don’t take too long making up your mind to buy a bottle; the scent was only produced in a limited edition for Play-Doh’s 50th anniversary.

Available at demeterfragrance.com.