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I‘ve written before about San Francisco’s Zooni, makers of interesting hats for city children. Their Mop Top lids adorn some of the most fashionable heads in town, casting off chill winds and fog with brightly colored, eco-friendly yarn, knitted by hand.

Now Zooni has expanded its horizons with M’uppet Mittens, hand-made handwarmers that coordinate with the Mop Tops line. Hats and mittens are sold separately, nice for parents whose kids have outsize body parts (I have seen a lot of giant heads out there). So you could, say, buy the mittens that match your Leo the Lion hat, or you could work the menagerie theme with Chunkee Monkee or Panda Monium Mittens instead.

Whichever pair you choose, they’ll be soft, stretchy, cozy, achingly cute, and wonderfully warm. Zooni hats tend to be outgrown rather than discarded, and I suspect the mittens will too.

Available at zooniwear.com.

Should parents be informed if their minor child seeks an abortion? That’s the question that will be put to voters this November. As the San Jose Mercury News puts it, seeing Proposition 4 on the ballot may cause deja vu in some voters: similar measures were defeated in 2005 and 2006.

Supporters of Proposition 4 say that a notification law would protect children and reduce the number of abortions that are performed in the state. Opponents worry that such a law will increase back-alley abortions and prevent teens from seeking medical care. One portion of the Mercury News story is particularly chilling:

Dr. Pratima Gupta, a San Francisco obstetrician-gynecologist and board member of the Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health, recalled a young patient who called her clinic about an abortion but balked when asked if her parents knew about her pregnancy. Four months later, she returned seeking an abortion. Asked why she had waited, she said she hoped it would go away.

“It really stuck in my mind that teenagers are just teens and they will do desperate and dangerous things when they’re scared,” Gupta said. “Proposition 4 just putting up another barrier is really dangerous. What I care about is teen safety.”

Yes, Dr. Gupta. I totally agree with you. But then I think about my own tiny daughter, grown to be 13 or 15, seeking an operation that has risks both emotional and physical, without me even knowing it, and I get scared. But then I think about the horrible things women have done to end unwanted pregnancies [warning: links to disturbing text], and I get scared again. In November, parents all over the state will be mulling over these same questions. I hope we all make the right choice. I just wish I knew which one that was.

Water Babies don’t look like much. The dolls are of average cuteness and size, dressed in nondescript babyish clothes, not able to talk or walk or pee themselves or do any of the other remarkable things some dolls can do. But once you pick up a Water Baby, you’ll want one for your own. They feel better than dolls. They feel real.

The secret is the water that the aptly named Water Babies are filled with. The dolls are heavy. They jiggle. Fill them with warm water and they’re even as glowingly warm as an actual baby. Holding them feels substantial and magic, igniting our automatic baby-love.

Water Babies are also DIY a success story. Dan Lauer, whose sisters used to make their own (fragile!) water-balloon dolls, sent out proposals to over 700 manufacturers and toy companies, asking them to buy into his idea of a water-filled baby doll. He met with nothing but rejection, and so decided to quit his job in banking. He raised $250,000 and produced the dolls himself in 19o0. They were a blockbuster success, with 17 million dolls sold making them the second most popular baby doll ever (just after Cabbage Patch Kids).

The dolls are now made by San Francisco company Wild Planet Entertainment. They come in two sizes: 13-inch Water Babies and 9-inch Newborns, and are available in three (surprisingly realistic) ethnicities, Caucasian, African-American, and Hispanic. A bottle, diaper and small water-filled teddy bear are included with the 13-inch Water Babies.

Happy holding!

Available at shopwildplanet.com.

In the Age of Google, Web directories are out of fashion. But while searching for very exact pieces of information has its uses, there are times when a Google search only turns up a flood of tangentially related info, porn, Myspace pages and other Internet flotsam. When you’re searching for information on pregnancy, Aha! Baby can cut through the noise.

Run by a team of San Francisco editors, Aha! Baby is a depository of links for parents-to-be, every one vetted and described by the Aha! Baby editors. You can click through it and browse various topics (baby gear, health care, conception) or use it as a targeted search engine. Either way, you won’t go off to another site without first hearing from the Aha! Baby editors (actual humans!) how useful it is.

OK, so maybe if you want to search for something very very specific (autofill tells me that two of my baby-related Google searches have been “baby poop looks like clay” and “dracula teeth pacifier”), a regular ol’ search engine will still do you fine. But if you want a hand to hold during one of the most confusing and fact-starved times in your life, Aha! Baby could be your pal.

SF Gate parenting blog The Poop has a great post on navigating cable cars with an infant. Writer Mary Ladd suggests bringing a sherpa to lug your gear. Failing that, here are some tips for taking public transportation with children.

1. Fold up that stroller. Strollers must be folded up on MUNI buses and underground trains, Caltrain, and BART trains, and carried aboard. Yes, you will need two sets of hands to hold your infant and fold your stroller at the same time, much less holding infant, stroller, and paying for your ride. Ask for help. People around you are only too happy to give you a hand. Once onboard, try to put the stroller somewhere unobtrustive — on the luggage rack on Caltrain, or perhaps under a seat on a bus. Do not take up a seat by leaning your stroller on it during busy times, if you can help it. You may wish to take your child in a sling or carrier when possible, as drivers can forbid you from taking strollers on the bus when it is crowded. Never take strollers on escalators; instead, take nearby elevators.

2 . Take a seat. It is unsafe to hold your child while standing on a bus, or to have him trying to cling to your knee, swaying on a crowded train. Look the nearest seated Blackberry-wielding twentysomething commuter in the eye and say sweetly “Can I please have your seat?” Once your kid’s butt hits the seat, it stays there. No getting up to visit a friend in another seat, running around the train, climbing over the seats, etc. It’s both annoying and dangerous.

3. Little kids ride free. When accompanied by a paying adult, kids under four ride free on MUNI, BART, cable cars, and Caltrain. After they age out of the free years, children pay a special reduced children’s fare until age 18 (50 cents on MUNI, for instance).

4. Learn to shout “Hold the door.” It is unsafe to get up for your stop before the train or bus has stopped moving. You may want to advise the driver what stop you are getting off at, and ask her to hold the bus there for a minute so you have ample time. Failing that, enlist fellow passengers and ask them to hold doors open.

5. Use inside voices. Remind the kids that adults are grumpy and need peace and quiet. This rule applies to you too, mama — you needn’t read Everyone Poops at top volume during the morning commute.

6. Stop for a potty break. Caltrains are supposed to have functioning restrooms on the trains, but sometimes don’t. BART is supposed to have functioning bathrooms at the stations but sometimes don’t. MUNI simply laughs at your pathetic requests to use their facilities. Stop at a nearby restaurant, hotel, or other retail outlet before you get on (or near!) your mode of transportation.

7. Snack unobtrusively. You’re not supposed to eat or drink on trains or buses, and you can get a very hefty ticket, upwards of $200, for doing so. Of course, most MUNI drivers aren’t going to bust a parent for pacifying a young child with a few Cheerios. Just be tidy and keep it on the DL. Unless you’re breastfeeding, in which case you’re allowed to let it all hang out.

Holy moley, it’s already the end of April. Did you plan to let your kid hang around the house all summer, starting fires and eating handfuls of Cap’n Crunch? No? Then you’re going to have to figure out what to do with the little darlings, and your best friend in this endeavor is the monthly Bay Area Parent magazine, which publishes a mammoth, essential Summer Survival Guide each springtime. Every blessed page of it is online, so you don’t have to go scouting for it at libraries or grocery stores. Just about every article is clip-and-save worthy: primers on local ballparks, beaches and pools, calendars of local outdoor concerts, spotlights on unusual summer camps. Fire up your printer, drag out your calendar, and schedule yourself an unforgettable summer.

It’s becoming more and more clear that exposure to bisphenol-a, a.k.a. BPA, is harmful for humans — particularly teeny ones. That particular hormone-disrupting chemical nasty, found in many plastic baby bottles, sippy cups, can liners (most notoriously cans of baby formula), sealable storage containers, etc. etc., can leach into liquids and thus be ingested, potentially causing everything from breast and prostate cancer to early puberty.

How to minimize your exposure? SafeMama has a great list of BPA-free bottles, milk and food storage systems and sippy cups. Print it and take it when you when you buy baby supplies, because even though San Francisco banned the sale of BPA-containing baby bottles in 2006, you can still find plenty of tainted polycarbonate on grocery and drugstore shelves around town.

For the sippy-cup set, BPA-free SIGG kids’ water bottles are all the rage amongst San Fran parents. You can buy gorgeously patterned ones at the ACE Hardware/Standard 5 ‘n’ 10 in the Laurel Village shopping plaza, at most Whole Foods, or REI, though they don’t have as many cute kids’ bottles as Whole Foods or ACE. My own kid’s wild about a Hello Kitty BPA-free Thermos FUNtainer we got at Target, but you’ll look a whole lot cooler carting around a SIGG, trust me on this one.

Yeah, you meant to keep a baby book for your kid. But then you got busy feeding, burping, changing, soothing, rocking, walking and talking to said baby, and your good intentions went up in smoke. San Francisco-based Memento Press will do the work for you . For about $60 and up, Memento will transform your digital or hard-copy photos into a luscious book; for about $100 more they’ll even pick through your disorganized photo files and optimize the best ones for your book. These things are coffee-table worthy. I’ve seen ‘em. And grandparents cream over ‘em. There are other companies that perform this same service (people seem to like Picaboo), but I certainly wouldn’t want to trust my precious hard-copy photos to the mail when I could just stop by Memento’s San Fran store at the Crocker Galleria, 50 Post Street in San Francisco, 415-773-1878.

Concerned over the California Department of Agriculture’s plans to begin aerial pesticide spraying for the light brown apple moth, about 100 moms and kids showed up to protest at San Francisco’s City Hall on Monday. Backers of the spray plan cite the need to keep the moths from destroying untold billions of dollars of Central Valley crops. Opponents, many of whom are old enough to remember the fracas over the malathion spraying for the medfly in 1981 (and the subsequent study that showed a high rate of gastrointestinal disorders amongst children whose mothers were in their second trimester when exposed to malathion), wonder darkly just what else the pesticides will do besides kill the moths.

State legislators decide today whether to go ahead with the spraying. Want to register your opinion, or to know more? California Senator Carole Migden is planning a protest “play in” for April 28 on the Polk Street steps of City Hall at 10 a.m. You may also visit California’s Department of Food and Agriculture for pro-spray information, or the groups protesting the spraying proposal, LBAMspray.com, Play Not Spray, and the California Alliance to Stop the Spray.