May 2008

and no whining, and a slightly used ergo, and maybe some chocolate truffles from charles chocolates with peanut butter inside, but otherwise no gifts for me this Mother’s Day.

A year ago, when Milo was fresh, our family went to Brushstrokes (paint-your-own) Pottery and made a mug of Holden’s relatively big footprints and Milo’s teeny tiny footprints. I declared that — forever going forward — Alec and the boys need only fill the mug with something special for Mother’s Day. And that something could always be (good) chocolate. Done and done.

I want to be recognized, appreciated, loved but I don’t need more clutter in my home.

So, that covers the gift portion of the day, but what do I really want? I want to sleep a full night and wake up to happy children. I want the happy children to cooperate as we get ready for a delicious brunch out some place fabulous. I want there to be a very short wait (even though it is Mother’s Day and brunch is not unheard of for such fabulous places). I would also like to avoid all poopy diapers, whining, discipline, and household chores for one day. Basically, I want the fun parts of motherhood without the unpleasant parts.

And world peace.

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How do you want to be recognized this Mother’s Day? Share your hopes and dreams as part of a Blog Blast, sponsored by Johnson’s Baby Cause - a new charitable giving site that I don’t really understand and the Parent Bloggers Network. You’ve got until tonight to write your post.

This weekend we attended a babycentric-event in Mill Valley where we sold a whopping three copies of our book. It was nice to come home and learn that Amazon had sold A LOT more than that. Note to self: face-to-face sales are not such a great use of time. The nice part of the event was meeting a few other people who have produced some lovely contributions to the world of stylish babies.

Allow me to highlight three of them.

1) Oishii Knits. Fellow, (or shall I say fella?) Berkeley mom Erika makes her knit hats and dolls stand out from the rest of the layette with her delicious palettes. Take note because your gorgeous baby is about to look double the gorgeous with these unusual color combos.

2) OYikes!. These are not diaper bags, but rather multi-function bags that come with a changing pad, wipes case, AND a LAPTOP SLEEVE, because if you are part if this century, you probably need that. And, they are gender neutral. So smart.

3) Rattle Me. Totally cute organic cotton apparel with hip graphic designs. Yeah, you’ve seen something like it before, but these are a notch above the rest. They gave me a coupon code: SPRING23 for 10%, so check that out.

We don’t announce many sales here. But Britax carseats almost never go on sale and they’re one of those things that I believe you really ought to buy new. And if you have more than one car and/or more than one kid and/or really involved grandparents, you may need more than one!

Ok, so go to Amazon before the end of May with a buddy and save 20% on 2 carseats or other products. Like if you’re potty training, maybe you need some covers. Or else you’ll end up biking your kids around for days while the cover dries.

I have two Britax Marathon Car Seats, one for each of my boys. And we drag those suckers all across country.

Thanks for the tip, Sunny!

My friend Sara was just telling a few of us about Playborhood.com, started by a Bay Area dad she met while attending a cool workshop down south. He has a strong belief that kids need unstructured, spontaneous, and (for older kids) unsupervised play–and safe places for doing so.

The website is a collection of stories about kids and adults who exemplify these ideas as well as communities that are working by intention and design to create such places. Additionally, the website provides good parenting resources, many specifically relevant to the benefits of play.

Sounds awesome to me. I can hardly wait until we (as a family) are mature enough for some unsupervised play. And I hope we live in a community that supports this goal. Right now, I can usually walk a couple rooms away for as many minutes with my two alone together.

Berkeley has its own site at berkeley.playborhood.com. One section of the website allows people to let potential home buyers know how kid friendly the neighborhood is. Brilliant.

Please take a minute to check it out and leave comments on what you think of it. Maybe you have ideas to make it better? Or a story that you think would be perfect to share with other like-minded, play focused people in the area?

As Sara says, “Thanks for checking it out. Keep playing!!!”