bonbon living

That's All, Folks.

2010-04-03T17:22:00.000-07:00

As you can tell, I've moved on from this blog to other projects. Thanks for logging in and taking time to (hopefully) enjoy your visits. I've appreciated your comments and emails, and hope that your life is like that scrumptious taste of a bona fide Parisian bonbon. You can contact me by email, or by checking out Houzz and CalFinder.

Happy living!

Getting Out

2010-02-13T14:29:00.000-08:00

Cold winter months, and what to do? The Christmas season is over, and little ones have been talking increasingly more about ice cream, flip flops, afternoons in the nearby park doing nothing. Despite the freezing temperatures, getting out into nature seems the thing to do.

In the cold--and in the cold, situated in a city--it's easy to remove ourselves from nature, to see but not experience the natural world around us. The Publisher's Weekly review of The Last Child in the Woods (by Richard Louv) sums up the book's pertinent concerns:

Today's kids are increasingly disconnected from the natural world, says child advocacy expert Louv (Childhood's Future; Fatherlove; etc.), even as research shows that "thoughtful exposure of youngsters to nature can... be a powerful form of therapy for attention-deficit disorder and other maladies." Instead of passing summer months hiking, swimming and telling stories around the campfire, children these days are more likely to attend computer camps or weight-loss camps: as a result, Louv says, they've come to think of nature as more of an abstraction than a reality. Indeed, a 2002 British study reported that eight-year-olds could identify Pokémon characters far more easily than they could name "otter, beetle, and oak tree." Gathering thoughts from parents, teachers, researchers, environmentalists and other concerned parties, Louv argues for a return to an awareness of and appreciation for the natural world. Not only can nature teach kids science and nurture their creativity, he says, nature needs its children: where else will its future stewards come from? Louv's book is a call to action, full of warnings—but also full of ideas for change.

How fresh the crisp air, how startling familiar the surrounding honking and quacking, how strong the urge to reach over and scrape a handful of cold, hardened earth into our palms.

Here was our attempt at getting out into nature--a centuries-old working farm where we showed up at the barn just in time to help milk cows for 50cents, pet the surprisingly clean pigs (hey those guys are more hygienic than their bad PR suggests), and our preschooler cackled at the baby goat trying to nibble the corner of her coat.

Happy feet.

Happier feet.

Comin in out of the cold, partner. Yee haw and hooray for nature.

Be a Rocker Artist, Man

2010-01-27T13:17:00.001-08:00

Children in the Musee de Louvre

Well, no. You don't want to thrust culture at them, for culture's sake. But there are those golden moments with young, still-impressionable children, where enthusiasm ignites like a well-kindled fire on a January morning, and you can feed the flames of their self-initiated interests. With Loverboy gone again this last weekend, the two children and I dressed and bundled as "rocker artists" (at their request, and my complete compliance), and we headed off to the local art museum.

This can potentially be futile, frustrating, a complete waste of money, when children under 6 are involved. But they were completely engaged. Standing behind them as they looked up to admire with partial fear the enormous African ceremonial masks, I remembered standing in the Louvre as a student in Paris, sure that I had reached the pinnacle of life; I laughed to myself this Saturday as one of the children thought that the collection of armor was lines of robots, and I thought, Paris, pffft, no, it doesn't get better than this.

How to be a rocker-artist

*Do your hair in a mowhawk, or make it look slightly disheveled and dirty (easy, right?).

*Wrap in a scarf--or bandana or kitchen flour sack towel, as was our case.

*Bring along blank 4-6 note pads and map pencils.

*Sit with your kids and sketch what you see in the museum.

*Talk, talk, talk about the art.

*Hot chocolate in the cafe can be a Pavlovian incentive, I'm just sayin.

*Line the small sheets along a wall at home for your own exhibit.

*Look through kid-friendly art books such as this one. This book does a great job of not only explaining each piece, but it offers a variety of art, from daVinci to Andy Warhol, to expose the little artists to.

Converting a Closet into a Micro-office

2010-01-20T18:08:00.000-08:00

If you're someone who divides your time at home between parenting and work, designating a work space of your own can not only keep you from floating around the house with your laptop and trail of papers, it can provide a visual signal that you are on task. While private offices are wonderful and often necessary to those working from home, they can sometimes be too tucked away from the flow of family life. Yet sprawling work out on the kitchen table that inevitably has to be put away for snack time and Lego marathons doesn't always work either.

I thought the kitchen table, roomy and close to an outlet and the kitchen tea station, would work for me; but I was disheveled by the constant shuffling, the laptop giving me the low-battery-get-the-cord-now-or-else warning just as I sat down, and the crayon marks finding their way onto my documents. Not everyone is as territorial as me, but I need my space.

One weekend I'd had it, and I decided to turn what had previously been an accessories and bags closet at the end of our bedroom hallway into a makeshift home office. Take a look.

The hallway.

The empty closet with lame-ish functional shelving that the owner installed. I took the door off and I don't know if freeing the space was more satisfying (didn't Renee, the concierge in Barbery's book, say that nothing is uglier than an open door?), or my friend saying that I was completely bad*** for doing it myself.

The finished product, costing less than twenty dollars, and taking (from unhinging the door to sitting down with tea) under an hour. If we were in this place permanently, I would have thought differently about my work space, but for now this is perfect. The flat, uncomplicated surface suits my needs, the shelf above provides extra space and good lighting, and I file my work into the white bins beside my in-box.

My little darlings, watching me work. Inside my own head, I call it, "Real life embracing beauty." Oh, and sticky notes adhere really really well to the wall.

For more and better closet offices, see this at houzz.

Hot Chocolate It's Notcolate

2010-01-15T15:35:00.000-08:00

The winter cold and the recent poor air quality (yes, pathetic) will be confining us to our warm indoors this weekend. With Loverboy away, the kids and I will be cozying up to moon sand play, doing drawings, watching old Charlie Brown cartoons, and rejuvenating their reading corner. And of course drinking lots of yummy warm stuff.

If you're wanting a cozy beverage for the kiddies but want to limit sugar overload: instead of cup after cup of hot chocolate (which is indisputably awesome), serve herbal tea such as chamomile or vanilla--teas that lend themselves to adding milk and mini marshmallows or homemade unsweetened whipped cream. For a bit of sweetness, add a dash of honey or agave nectar.

Happy winter weekend!

Resolution Revolution

2010-01-14T12:29:00.000-08:00

Winter. The stillness after a busy holiday season carries within it a quiet energy and momentum that begs the question of what can be. January is named after Janus, the god of the doorway, and I don't think it's only the mountain of self-help and diet books at bookstore entrances that create the desire in us to walk into something new and rejuvenate our lives.

My personal idea of rejuvenating self has evolved over the years. There is a kind of poignant hilarity in the editing process of my resolution making. There are the detailed lists of goals from my teenage years--goals focused on the specifics of what I wanted to do with my life, valuing most that we can do anything in life if, hey, we just, like, decide to do it, dude. Goals like, write a novel before college, read one book a week for the rest of my life, visit two foreign cities each year and learn their languages. There are the goals that actually produced the opposite effect, like the summer Loverboy and I started running together through Central Park and I decided to become a runner. I hate running. Unless there's a fire or the UPS truck accidentally misses our house, I avoid it at all costs.

As I've had children and grown into adulthood, I see it differently. I do have specific goals for this year, such as take an international trip, buy and use a new beach cruiser, attend a live Bach concert. There are professional ambitions. Holistic health ambitions. My resolutions have changed from a set of goals to a list of what I want to do and be for the year. The abstract can drive that teenager lingering within me crazy, but those are the things that can mean the most. Live with optimal health. Write in my journal more. It's hard to discipline ourselves with such unspecific ideals, but it creates overall a more quality life. Another abstract goal? Hold my children more. That will not make me famous or change the world peace status, but in the dark early hours of morning when my arms surround their little ribcages that rise and fall like a little sparrow's, I wonder how I ever thought there was any loftier goal than this.

A suggestions of three friendly and effective ways to walk through the doors of 2010:

*Make a list of ten. Write down ten things you would like to accomplish or experience this year. When you mark one off, replace it with a new one.

*Make a pie. Well not literally, though a steaming piece of apple pie would suit the winter chill. Create a pie graph on a piece of paper and divide it up into how many roles you play (mother, boss, athlete...) and write one main goal for every role.

*Play four-square. Simplify your goals by placing them into four main quadrants: work, personal, family, giving back. Placing a few goals in each category will give a balanced look at your growth.

Merry Christmas, One and All

2009-12-23T20:32:00.000-08:00

Am I simply a bona fide adult, or have I finally been touched unadulteratedly with true holiday spirit? I have never found as much joy as this year in the simple pleasures of Christmas. Sitting in the morning stillness of the kitchen with my chatty 5-year-old son. Making paper chains from old books for the windows. Watching the first flakes of anticipated snowfall. Finishing once again one of the most poignant novels ever. Reveling in gift and surprises that has had nothing to do with getting (yes yes peace on earth good will toward men and that handbag from Nordstrom).

Merry Christmas. May your holidays be merry and bright.

See you next year.

Simon the Elf

2009-12-19T13:54:00.000-08:00

If you know anything about my visceral adoration of routines and rituals and belief in their psychological impact on family life (plus, I love the idea that my own tea time rolls around every afternoon at 2:30), you won't be surprised that we've carved out some holiday rituals. Annual touchpoints to look forward to. There's the traditional and general: a newly-cut tree the weekend after Thanksgiving. Hot chocolate and the jar of marshmallows. Parties. The Nutcracker. The large tree lighting downtown. There's the more personal: books for our family table gifts at dinner the night before Christmas (this year: Eggers for Loverboy, Une Gourmandise pour moi, a Swedish airplane book for our son, and an original used Eloise for our daughter). Christmas Cinnamon bundt cake and other yummies after stockings.

Then there's the strange: Simon the Elf. Given generously from Grandma as part of a book set that delineates how he is Santa's helper, come to our very own home to keep tabs on who's naughty and nice, this little guy quickly took on a life of his own. The concept is that Simon (as we dubbed him), in his quest for childhood behavioral knowledge to report back to the big guy, moves around the house, which accounts for why he's always in a different place. The adults are having the most fun--partially because this concept hearkens back to my own family irreverently hiding a baguette-shaped baby Jesus* from a 1980's dollar store plastic nativity set around the house every Christmas (still happens), partially because our little boy was terrified of him. Androgynous, 1950s kitschy, and fantastically slightly creepy, Simon will provide holiday fun for years to come.

I hope you have fun with your own traditions this holiday season.

Simon in the candle hurricane.

Simon in the bathroom medicine cabinet at 1:30 a.m. after a holiday movie marathon, which caused me to scream, which caused Loverboy to crack up in the living room.

In the gravy boat.

Hanging from the kitchen lighting.

*Rules of the game: no melting, painting, puncturing or otherwise irreversibly altering this priceless family heirloom.

Yuletide

2009-12-12T19:31:00.000-08:00

For the first time in our nine years, Loverboy and I decided not to travel for the holidays. Though I need not go into the obvious disappointments of missing large yuletide gatherings and the joy they bring, we were filled with glee at missing the travel crowd, starting January not disheveled and tired, and owning our own traditions. We [meaning I] almost broke into a cold sweat at the realization that all of the magic and spirit must come from us, the adults in the situation. The adults. But, like most simplification processes, we have been forced to evaluate what the season really means to us.

The kids and I have been making our own little gingerbread house and sprinkling powdered sugar to create a semblance of the snow that has been falling for days outside. Shivering while getting into his car seat to head to kindergarten one morning, my son said, "It must be colder than Russia right now!" (We had just seen The Nutcracker Ballet. We were thinking all things Russian.) No, I tell him, surely not. Pfft. And I look and, with us being at 5 degrees and Russia at 21, he was right.

We've decked the halls with a more traditional, homemade, English countryside kind of atmosphere. Tons of white lights. Wreaths hung in every window. The smell, the smell of the tree, oh. Pandora rolling through songs filled with history and spirit: Noel Nouvelet, The Feast of Stephen, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (inspiration for the text on this little bookcase banner). Baby It's Cold Outside, especially Ann Margaret's rendition, which my little girl (2years) loves to breathlessly imitate.

Aside from our permanent tea/coffee station in the kitchen, we've set up the house even more for snacking and drinking while the snow flurries outside. For the first time, we have a working fireplace and I don't know which is better: my husband bemusedly watching me lay out a very fine fire, or the fire itself.

So far the best activity of all has been to simply be. The children sipping cider and playing a board game while I make fudge for teacher gifts, my husband running a hand over the beginnings of a beard (a sign that he isn't at work, a sign that he's in leisure mode) while getting to his Wallstreet Journal. The promise of more snow and the silence that balances the giggling and chatting and singing, the sounds of true yuletide joy.

Chalkboard Walls, Part 2

2009-11-10T20:51:00.000-08:00

contemporary kids

By the way. Did you know that you can have standard chalkboard paint custom spun with any color you choose? Not only can you have a beautiful color on your walls, but you also can design (and leave--who says you have to create with intention to erase?) unique artwork for any kind of room. The really ambitious can make basically a negative image of a photo or print on the wall by using a projector. Yes, old school. And still fun.

Chalkboard Walls

2009-11-02T15:03:00.000-08:00

We are about to have a chalkboard wall painted in our kitchen. My husband and I have loved our magnetic chalkboard [Pottery Barn white framed] for writing lists, magnetizing magazine cut-outs we think the other will enjoy, scribbling Keats and Rilke excerpts and limericks* in the corners.

In the home we just settled into, we donated the chalkboard to the children's space and hung it low with a nearby pile of chalk for ready use. We have no canvas for our inside jokes, our lists of funny coffee shop titles**, our please more half and half and floss-es. I love how chalkboard walls give weight and aesthetic interest to a room when slick and clean, and perhaps look even better when written all over by little eager hands. Here are some rooms that do chalkboards great.

oakmanagement

designsponge

apartmenttherapy

__________

*Ann Boleyn was hot,

King Henry was hot to trot.

He took her to bed,

then cut off her head:

The life she had thought, it was not.

**Legal Grounds [offering legal advice with your cup of jo]

Eggs in the City

Dosey Doe Coffee House

Insomnia

Miso Funny Cafe

Some Flair, Frugally

2009-10-19T20:05:00.000-07:00

If you knew me personally, you'd know that I pledge allegiance to Anthropology almost daily. But sometimes: the prices, oh the prices. Here are two fun finds that have that Anthro vibe without the mind-vibrating cost. These are actually a set of four measuring cups ( from 1/4 to 1 cup) that can be used, yes, for measuring, but also for a little collective family morning cup of warmth. Mom and Dad can have their jo while kids enjoy hot chocolate--in descending size and order. It's the season for cider. I just turned my own children onto Rooibos and peppermint tea, and they feel such a kinship with Beatrix Potter as they watch the BBC Peter Rabbit animated series on these fall rainy days.

This dessert-sized plate is hefty and durable, and comes in this green, golden yellow, marine blue, and red. Perfect to up the aesthetic of the afternoon snack. Plus this baby is only five dollars, so if in the worst case it breaks (not unheard of in the world of children, eh?), you won't tear out your hair for using that heirloom serving platter just this once.

Pieces like these can make sense with children, and can teach them that every day can be an extraordinary occasion.

The Cookie [Magazine] Crumbles

2009-10-08T13:24:00.001-07:00

I am not being hyperbolic when I say that I am heartbroken to learn that Cookie Magazine is folding. Yes, here have a kleenex. Blow. Good. Due to the current economic climate and lack of sufficient advertising, it (along with another Conde Nast magazine, Gourmet) will soon be no more.

Ode to Cookie, how to explain? In the infancy of my motherhood (and I am now only six years into it), when I was trying to re-evaluate my identity and how it converged with the role of parent, this magazine provided the igniting force of my parenting style and aesthetic. Intelligent, helpful, real, and glamorous, the magazine reinforced for me that intensely involved parenting and style and the inner life can coexist. And should. That, as Dr. Daphne de Marneffe discusses in one of my favorite books, Maternal Desire: On Children, Love, and the Inner Life, raising children provides a sense of meaning and fulfillment that nothing else in life offers and can force us to deeply and acceleratedly evaluate and develop ourselves.

"Mother" is not all that I am, and shouldn't be, but it is what I consider my most important role and is the avenue by which I express my individuality and mind, and find the sweetness of, say, a warm and gooey cookie.

From their lifestyle and product suggestions,

to their Nesting blog (see the link to the right) giving haute and frugal design advice and house tours,

to hip style ideas and "uniforms" for busy moms,

this mag had it all. So long, farewell, Cookie. Alvederzane. I will be bingeing on your site this weekend and will faithfully keep all of my back copies in mint condition. And I will drown my sorrows in a hot cup of matte and (sorry but:) my other favorite parenting magazines:

Milk

Brain, Child

Wondertime

But I'm Not a Night Owl--I'm NOT

2009-10-07T21:56:00.000-07:00

Again. Again I'm on the couch with my computer at 11 pm after the family has long been in bed.

Every morning I get up before the house stirs and do yoga and meditation in my living room before a cup of tea. By morning I mean it's still very (VERY) dark outside. And then the day, the day. And if you're a mother you know how the little repetitive tasks can stretch out into a day that feels like six years. Pleasantly of course but sheesh you're still dragging at the end.

And then what. A second wind. Suddenly the house is quiet, and the in box or current writing job or magazine or hot bath or novel or idiotic staring into the living room wall happens and I can't seem to stop.

And I get it, I do. It's the only time of day I can totally focus. I love the thousand maddening little distractions and demands that each day with children brings, and I wouldn't want any other kind of day right now. But man. The simple zen-like motion of completing even the simplest of tasks with quiet focus.

____

And no I don't live in Prague but wouldn't it be a nice city to be somewhat sleep deprived in--isn't it beautiful?

I'm Brown Bagging It

2009-10-06T12:42:00.001-07:00

I couldn't help myself. I couldn't. One evening last week while browsing Nordstrom by myself (oh yes I did), I drifted through the scarf section into the bag section and came upon the Hobo International Lauren clutch wallet. If you know my love of highly-functional stylish bags (ok ok just bags in general) you'll know how I began to hyperventilate.

Am I the only mother who goes between bags and gets sick of switching things back and forth? The only one who wants to go from day (bag filled with an extra diaper, hand sanitiser, mushed crackers, a shoestring, matchbox car, broken crayon) to night (lip gloss, cell phone, credit card into a sleek little clutch) without a major swap operation? Well. The Lauren clutch opens fully at its halfway point, divulging a clasp pocket on each side and a middle zipper opening up to the full length of the clutch (which is only 9-5 closed by the way). In fact, Hobo, and American company, is known for its sleek, vintage-inspired style and its jaw-dropping utilitarianism. So not only can I use it as a wallet in the day and toss it into whatever purse I want, I can add my phone and keys to it and use it as a clutch. I can even leave my purse in the car and grab the clutch if I'm running into, say, Barnes and Noble while the kids are in school.

Yes in the spirit of motherhood-functionality-meets-style, I bought the bag. I ordered it online. Though carried by stars and featured in places like Lucky, O Magazine, Marie Claire, In Style, and Cosmopolitan, I don't need celebrity endorsement to enforce that this clutch is one of my favorite combinations (style meets massive functionality), or to make my heart beat any faster at the thought of my pending incredible organization-on-the-go. This is my sickness. When the clutch comes, I'm playing with it all evening long. It's expected to arrive via UPS this very afternoon. Possibly this minute.

In fact, is that the door???

Have Children, Will Travel

2009-10-01T17:24:00.001-07:00

My husband Loverboy and I love to travel. Love it. We vowed before Will (5) and Jane (2) came along that we would incorporate our children in our adventures and enrich our family, and not abandon our jetsetting dreams.

The overhead-compartment loads are not as light these days as before--no slipping into seat 7B with a hot tea and my bag full of Vogue and and Iris Murdoch--and though we're a little worse for the wear afterwards, Loverboy and I get a weird kick out of traveling compactly, media-free, and stylishly. Ok the last one is mostly me. But sometimes traveling, no matter how much proactive planning precedes, is grueling. The details--the details! The energy required--the energy! The inconveniently-timed potty breaks! Why travel? Why? Why?

*During our layover I ate and then got sick off of a prepackaged deli sandwich with questionable meat. The massive turbulence, which would have made the inverted dives on Top Gun look like kiddie rides, didn't help the nausea. The scalding peppermint tea at our arrival, which did help, burned my tongue.

*We waited to board in seats facing a classy and beautiful woman with a birthmark spanning the left side of her face, and Will said loudly, "That lady got too close to the oven. She was not minding about ovens." What to do what to do smile and apologize or ignore his naive social idiocy or look the other way as if he were talking about another woman or pretend to faint so the comment gets buried in the current drama?

*We spilled little airplane plastic cups of diet coke and apple juice on our laps (and over the cover of my Vanity Fair, sorry to Jackie O's lovely face). I stood, laughed in front of the seated sipping audience and said to the guy across the row from me (reading Twilight by the way). "Well what can you do" and apparently you could do nothing because his eyes glazed over my jeans and he returned to Edward and Bella and their vampirish love plight. Travel note to self: dark wash jeans really do hide stains.

But why travel with children? Aside from wanting to end up in the same destination? Well.

*A wave of awwwwws surrounded us as toddler J (2) pulled her own luggage and, when ran into a post or a person, said "Oops, almost." Nothing would deter her, nor our 5-year-old who pushed onto his own seat upon descent, completely sure that his Superhero strength alone guided the plane. Because travel means magic.

*Airplanes constitute an alter existence. Have a sprite--have two. Yes, by all means talk to strangers around you. Here, have another candy, chew gum. Miss your nap. Yes yes put on Mommy's lipstick. Color in my magazine, sure.

*After landing, we drove another two hours to a 10,000 acre ranch and lodge for my brother's wedding...

...and sang Texas songs ("Oh the yellow rose of Texas..."), laughed at the cows, spotted tumbleweed and counted how many cattle guards we passed before getting out into the sunlight and running to hug and visit with people we love most in the world.

*I gave a toast at the rehearsal dinner--teary the entire way through--and afterwards all of the children rode by waving on a tractor-pulled hay ride, squealing and giddy.

*And the next day we watched my brother and his now wife also barely be able to contain themselves as they said their vows in this rustic elegant chapel, while a family of deer crossed the field in view of the large windows. You just don't get that at home, luggage tucked into the closet.

These last three photos courtesy of Aaron Cave at Blind Apple Photography. He is awesome.

Check him out. Use his services.

*Nor do you get this: a toddler daughter yelling "Ride em cowgirl" and a son happily clearing away grapevine and riding horses, and afterwards saying, "Well I was shy to be the ring bearer but--" slamming back into his return-flight seat "man I feel great."

One Simple Fabulous Thing

2009-09-16T05:41:00.000-07:00

life hack

Conscientious mothers often face the conundrum of aiming for fabulousness in all they do and, well, sometimes feeling too tired. In all areas of life (and mothers have many), one can seemingly always do more, do better. But striving to be and do everything can be exhausting.

When I lived in Paris, I witnessed and started discovering the concept of One Simple Fabulous Thing. The French are particularly incredible at doing more, with less, and stylishly. The idea of one simple fabulous thing is that it only takes one stand-out item or concept to raise the quality quotient of what you're working with. When you begin to live consistently with this concept in mind, you can create the aesthetic and you're striving for while conserving thought and energy.

Here are some areas where one simple fabulous thing can give you one big bang for your buck:

Fake a Fabulous Dinner. If one minute you're energetically perfecting your coq au vin to Vivaldi and the next minute slopping down Sloppy Joes, shorten the gap between the two by adding one special ingredient or element to a simple dinner. To a simple grilled salmon, add French creme fraiche and dill. Add wine or Pellegrino to even the most humble of meals. Drop drop biscuits into the oven (they take only 10 minutes) and top with berries and whipped cream for a grand slam finish. Put a gourmet cheese (gruyere is yummy) or cranberry chutney on regular turkey sandwiches.

Look sartorially together, always. When you're a mom on the go and often put yourself last, you may feel like you're (and literally be) throwing on your clothes before running out the door. First of all, have an I'm-running-out-the-door-now go-to outfit so you don't panic and, say, end up in a track suit. A fab-fitting jeans, white Hanes shirt, and ballet flats for instance. Pair even the simplest of outfits with one fabulous thing for a signature, finished look. A favorite scarf. Three or four chunky gold bracelets. A fabulous leather bag. A trench. Diamond studs. Holly Golightly Wayfarers. Whatever it is, own it with confidence and love it. You will instantly feel (and be) better put together, and those who see you will notice your fabulous sense of style (how does she have the time?) and not the fact that you forgot to put mascara on both eyes.

Look finished when makeup and hair glam isn't an option. When you're three minutes short of being able to do the five-minute face and Jennifer-Anniston-esque blow out, remember first that the foundation of a finished and natural look is, well, foundation. If all you do is apply fabulous foundation and a little lip gloss and don your shades for preschool drop off, you'll look fabulous. For a quick but elegant hair fix, twist your hair into a classic bun (think a clean and finished look, not fast and furious) or twist it low and elegantly to the side.

Be an everyday Maria von Trapp. When you want to be a singing and inspiring activity leader for your children but the toys and the needs seem to pile up, think: one great thing a day. One planned activity, one focus, also allowing for down time and play time and life as it happens. Focusing on one daily event not only invites ritual--so important for family life--but it gives stability to you and your children. Think mornings of the week, like:

Monday: baking day (this can be as easy as cutting a Pillsbury premade cookie roll)

Tuesday: art day (crayons, fridge display, voila)

Wednesday: park day

Thursday: library day

Friday: fieldtrip day (museums, city hall, the post office, the drug store even, a bookstore--and tea for you!)

Be a lady of leisure without requiring much more leisure time. Add to your everyday life one rejuvenating ritual just for you. For me, it's one cup of tea during afternoon nap time. Honestly, it takes no time out of my day--I sometimes sip and contemplate life. No. I never do that. I always sip while finishing writing projects or organizing my in-box or some other task, but the idea that I have chosen one simple consistent (fabulous) thing just for me adds an ever sweeter flavor to my day. Make it a magazine during nightly bath time. Get into bed fifteen minutes earlier to read. Make your morning coffee a must. Do sun salutations five minutes before you normally rise.

Get a life. No really. You know that you're more well-rounded and recharged when you have personal interests and pursuits. It can be easy to overwhelm your schedule by trying to do some of everything, or feel an anxious urgency about all the things you want to experience--or to feel stunned into inactivity. Choose one "extracurricular" activity, give it your all, and move on when ready. Play tennis for a season. Take Italian. Attend a series of cooking classes. Compete in a triathlon. Focus and enjoy.

Give back. Jackie O, with all of her resources, was a wonderful example of focusing her philanthropy on one or two causes at a time. Annually as a family choose one cause to give care to. Join the Gorilla Foundation. Walk for cancer. For the heart association. Do card tricks at the local rest home.

[For home design ideas, see me at houzz.]

Whatever it is, whatever you do, make it simple, make it you, make it fabulous.

Babyproofing

2009-09-14T07:42:00.000-07:00

This last week a classy, adorable first-time expectant mother asked me about babyproofing. With a traditional style and home that she loves, she was concerned with having to get rid off all things beautiful when she and her husband had over a family with rambunctious children and parents who growled about proofing every little thing.

Of course every home (and every child) is different, and every parent find their own way, but here is what I've always told moms:

1. The non-negotiable of babyproofing is the focus on safety. Keep out of baby's reach anything potentially dangerous: chemicals, sharp objects, plastic, markers, etc. This is pretty intuitive. If in doubt, move it out of the way.

2. The top three ways you can babyproof without much invasion is to cover outlets with clear protectors, guard sharp corners of coffee tables etc (though I also say that sometimes simple furniture rearranging can help the safe flow for toddlers), and baby gates for those who have stairs. We have used both the high-end chrome designs that mount into the wall and the cheap plastic temporary ones that we can place in the nearby closet when company comes. Some people love cabinet latches but I don't want to rely on them to keep my child out of danger, and I believe that a child should be able to explore their natural surroundings.

3. Beyond the basics, the babyproofing becomes quite personal. And personalized for every child. My (now 5) son Will never ate anything or marked on walls. My 2-year-old daughter Jane, however: well. We've already repainted walls and I won't tell you the worst things she's gotten into her mouth (in public, in defense of my house babyproofing). I believe that a child should be able to live real life in a real environment, and learn and explore what's around them. We keep our library out with books lining many surfaces, plants low, cooking equipment and my vintage Mastering the Art of French Cooking on the Seville chrome kitchen shelving, the piano open for playing, the mandolin out. These are interspersed with a toy babygrand piano, clear IKEA tupperware of blocks, trains, an art center, a high chair, and childhood flotsam. You may have to edit and revise, but you can create a dwelling that melds functionality and safety with beauty.

Splendid Willow

I love how this living room is simultaneously stylish and child-friendly. The elegance and visual interest is added by the upholstery and textiles, the art, and the unusual lighting, keeping the room clutter free. It also utilizes a variety of storage options to keep much-used items and toys on hand (like that Vogue magazine in the drawer you're working your way through when the babies get engrossed in blocks).

All Things Artsy

Even a modest space can work with children and adults alike. A repainted vintage school teacher desk can get a new life--and give new life to your background time while children play at your feet. Books can be stacked or lined along the walls out of reach, and desk items can be placed in drawers to make room for a coloring counter.

bestgreenhometips

This space is a great example of a room that is free of baby hazards but retains style and grown-up flair. When you have hardwood floors and need to soften them for little tooshies, think of also using the rug to add visual interest to the space.

apartmenttherapy

I adore this space (that floor, that floor), which uses the built-in shelves for holding the books and details, and keeps the rest of the room simple and minimalist.

houzz

Bookshelves lining the walls like this keep clutter in check, ground the room visually, and keep everything visually and physically available for easy grabbing and using. Mix grown-up things like a stack of vintage platters on a top shelf with baby things like a bin filled with pretend cooking supplies for eclectic living.

Kindergarten

2009-09-10T17:47:00.000-07:00

If I've been quiet for the last couple of days, it's because we've been busy trying on pants and laying out ties and zipping and unzipping backpacks and tying ribbon around a teacher gift. Kindergarten. My. first. child. in. kindergarten. If you've already experienced this, you know the bittersweetness of knowing that your child is having a blast (and that you have some time to yourself), and knowing that you've entered into a new era of parenthood. As he tried on his first-day clothes last night, my thoughts turned to the day I birthed him and his first words and the spirit and drama he's brought into our home. He looked up, grinning, his blue eyes excited under the lamp light. He tried to unbutton his top button, couldn't, hooked his fingers into the collar and started pulling. I hollared Nooo and wait wait wait and he dropped his hands and head and cracked up and said, "I knew that would make you nervous."

He was so excited. So brave. Giddy. There was no nervousness, no tears. Well, there were tears. I only started crying when he straightened his tie and about-faced into his classroom. Loverboy laughed and patted my shoulder, little toddler Jane grabbed my hand, and as we moved down the school hallway, we moved into a new era.

First-day-of-school Big-bang Little-effort Breakfast:

orange juice

tea service (for the adults)

turkey kielbasa and egg scramble

whipped heavy cream on:

Crepes fantastique:

1c water

1 c milk

4 eggs

1/2 t salt

2 c flour

4 t melted butter

almond extract

*blend all together the night before. In the morning, heat up the crepe pan med-high, grease with a touch of nonstick and butter before each crepe. And flip them. The oos and aas from the little audience is great, and you up your cool quotient and feel accomplished at just 7:15 in the morning.

Fabulous Spaces That Work With Children

2009-09-07T01:03:00.000-07:00

I believe so much in the importance that a child's atmosphere plays in their development, and I'd like to help and inspire you by accumulating and showcasing specific collections of photos that not only work fluidly with children, but also look fantastic. None of this tripping over toys and moving the stuffed animal off the couch to offer guests a seat.

Between my design and freelance writing background, I've been able to be exposed to the plethora of ways a home's environment can improve family lifestyle. I have much, much (too much?) to say about the actual pragmatism and functionality of organizing children's spaces with specific concepts in mind. But for today, some aesthetics:

point click home

Keep it clustered. This small space has a lot going on, but remains free of a cluttered feel because of its clustering like things together. This is essential with children's toys and books. The stacks of books on the shelves to the right could easily accommodate stacks of children's books and even clear, mod bins of toys. In my own living room, I've lined IKEA clear plastic bins (one for trains, one for pretend cooking, one for blocks) along the bottom shelf of our vintage barn wood armoire. Contained chaos, I call it. Despite my occasional trip over a rogue train car, the system works and looks great.

greg natale

This is so elegant, and exhibits that a nursery can 1. be simultaneously grown up and gentle, 2. provide for nursery needs with simplicity, 3. be transformed into a unique nursery by wallpaper and matching textiles--relatively simple and cheap. And chic.

cullman kravis

An entire room need not be devoted to baby. That couch could easily be a crib, that room could easily be a side room for baby. Curtains could even divide the room if needs be. I have a friend who made the closed-off pentagonal hallway off the master bedroom into the baby's room, and the baby was close and had a wonderful space (even with the hall closet as a play closet) but didn't take up what had been intended as a guest room. In one of our previous dwellings (did you read that we've moved 9 times in 9 years??), we planned the new baby's room in a huge walk-in closet with an elevated ceiling.

bill kingston

This room is crisp and organized, classic and modern--and organic feeling. Keep the bare bones of a child's space simple and streamlined, and you can add those evolving finishing touches without feeling crowded or busy.

Survive and Thrive With Cozy Time

2009-09-07T01:00:00.001-07:00

When we're needing some evening parental reprieve and the children need transition from day to night, cozy time can be a saving grace. Cozy Time is what I termed as the thirty minutes of designated reading and relaxing for my children before bedtime. I began the system as a self-preservation device when my husband was busy in grad school and I was often putting the children to bed after a busy, full day. Which can be wonderful and exhausting. If you've been there, you know what I mean.

ohdeedoh

The buffer that Cozy Time allows helps children transition into a smooth, calm bedtime; it provides ritual, which children thrive on; and it even helps ward off nighttime fears. Child sleep specialists suggest encouraging a child to spend non-sleeping time in their room to appreciate its friendly and nonthreatening atmosphere. For me, cozy time is a marked time in the day, like any other ritual, to look forward to with my kids. It's a buffer for me to straighten or finish end-of-the-day tasks before my own transition into evening.

ohdeedoh take two

I put my children on their beds 30 minutes earlier--they can't tell time, they think they're staying up to read books. I've mentioned cozy time before. I love it. Here's five steps to implementing it at home:

1. Clearly set and articulate the perimeters. For instance: explain to your children that they get to start an evening ritual called Cozy Time. It is thirty minutes. The two rules are: stay on the bed/in the cozy spot, and calmly enjoy the stack of books/coloring/whatever calms your children. The time ends when mom or dad comes in to read a book and turn the lights out.

2. Be consistent. It took my 2-year-old daughter two or three days to understand, but with consistency, she understands and experiences her time.

3. Make the atmosphere different from the norm. Plug in white lights. Turn on classical music. Get out a special pillow. Stack the week's library books on the same corner of the bed. Make a cozy corner just for the special time. Whatever works for you.

4. Yes use it as a reward system. Cozy time can work as a positive motivator: a reward of extra time. It can also work as a reward rescinded: undesirable behavior or not using cozy time to be cozy means no Cozy Time the next night. Trust me it works.

5. Use it as a time ripe for connecting with your children. With Cozy Time, children have been calmed--and they're pleasantly sleepy, and cuddly. Give them their space, but also take advantage of the time that it is: read to them, snuggle, listen to their thoughts, tell a story, and take in some of the best moments of parenthood.

Larry Love Love

2009-09-04T15:10:00.000-07:00

Exhibit A.

I have a fabulous friend and fellow mom who exhibits the beautiful blend between being an adoring/enthusiastic/creative mother and exhibiting her individuality and sense of privacy. Oh and she's hilarious.

One afternoon as we sat together on a quilt watching our husbands play softball, her one-year-old son saw my two-year-old daughter's Corolle doll named Lulu. See exhibit A. The classic French babydoll is machine washable, smells fresh, and has a soft torso and smooth--and apparently lick-able--head. This baby boy, with the tenacity of a fighter Navy pilot swooping down on a target, crawled at warp speeds and, before my daughter could blink, grabbed Lulu and started sucking strongly on her face. Her face. Yes it gives a new definition to the phrase suck face, and we were caught between bew

ilderment and hysterical laughter. My daughter, stunned, then grabbed the baby back, which commenced the laughably aggressive custody battle over wet-faced Lulu.

This scenario happened two or three subsequent times, at which point I decided to get baby boy a three-inch miniature imitation Corolle doll with his birthday present. Of course he liked the silly baby better than the actual gift and of course he sucked its face. My 5-year-old son said that there saw so much love going around that we should name it LoveLove. Then my friend added a manly Larry to the front and voila: Larry Love Love. I'm actually laughing now. So wrong. It's so wrong that it's perfect.

In all of our planning and dreaming of good lives, it's the strange hilarious little experiences that meander and built into favorite memories. There is no larger moral to this story other than Corolle dolls are machine washable. Take note.

Divine DIY Dollhouse

2009-08-31T21:18:00.000-07:00

Please tell me you have seen this version of a DIY Dollhouse from Cookie Magazine's website. Easy, cheapo, eco-friendly, and very GT (Gifted/Talented) as my mom says. Such a better use for foam board than those old science fair projects we had to do.

The idea of this house incorporates one of my favorite processes in children's play: the creative accumulation of random objects for a new purpose. Love the fridge letters here. Love the alphabet cards as wallpaper. Love the Batman creeping up on the mom and girl on the couch. It's the same concept as a child taking a banana and using it for a new purpose such as a pretend phone. It's organic play.

This dollhouse also folds flat for travel, which as a great travel toy is right up there with an inflatable beach ball. I am so making one of these. I may let my children in on the fun.

Ode to a Bar of Soap

2009-08-30T19:50:00.000-07:00

Au Naturelle's organic handmade soap on Etsy.

Today I found inspiration in a bar of soap. I'm pulling it from its vapid white wrapping to place it in the shower over the vague residue of its phantom guest soap predecessor, and there in the wrapping, and even in French:

La liberte, c'est vivre dans la simplicity.

Roughly translated: to live freely is to live simply. Voila. An unexpected blast of truth as strong as the scent coming off of the actual soap, a reminder that in all of the planning and expectation, those unscripted experiences (especially with children, sheesh) come to us naturally and simply, if we let them. Like the simple fresh scent of soap.

Soap is wonderful. You can't beat a good bar of soap. Like past relationships, there are the soaps that we'd rather forget ever happened (what are those little rectangles in low-budget hotels??), and there are the bars we remember and nonsensically cherish. I'm thinking of the classic Neutrogena bar from high school days. And the Nature's Plus Natural Beauty cleansing bar my mom used to soap us with that smells almost overwhelmingly of lemon. (We love the bar, now discontinued, so much, that my mom bought of the last of them and now we have one bar in its cardboard wrapping that we keep passing back and forth, sniffing, without the heart to open and use.) There's a bar right now by my bathtub from the Broadmoor Hotel, and I but lather my arm and am back there. And there's a French milled lavender bar that a classy and fabulous friend gave me. I'm opening that one next.

Whether it's a bar of soap, a bite of croissant, a nap, a laugh with someone you love, a good workout--I hope you stop, breathe in deeply, and simplify. After moving this summer, settling into our new life, and taking a sabbatical from bonbon to enjoy a calm summer's end with my family, I'm reminded about simplicity. Thanks to everyone who emailed and inquired about bonbon during its downtime. I was touched, I was happy; it was almost as good as finding one last lemon soap bar.

Oh. By the way. Bonbon is back.

Life is a (No Fussing) Highway

2009-07-07T22:06:00.000-07:00

We always get this weird sense of retro-flavored pleasure from the idea of entertaining the children sans la tele. No videos. No handheld games. Just good old family time in the car, taking in the scenery, reading and coloring and eating fruit leather and special-treat cheese puffs. Telling knock-knock jokes. Singing Old MacDonald and maybe something off of Abbey Road, in inharmonious unison.

This requires a military-like operation of amassing major amo in the form of easily-accessible entertainment and snacks. None of this fussing with boredom. None of this are-we-there-yet business, no thanks. (That's when I start fussing.)

Here is a summer-campish list of the car amo I'm getting together this weekend for the children, for a NO FUSSING have-a-blast roadtrip:

FOR THE CAR WINDOW:

a suction bath caddy from Target, for their windows, filled with crayons

another caddy for box juices and goldfish cracker packages

colorforms to stick on the windows

Alex bath crayons, for the windows (not the car, thank you very much)

Three crate-shaped containers for

1. entertainment (see below)

2. treats (see below)

3. trash

THE ENTERTAINMENT BOX:

construction paper for those crayons

paperback picture books

a map

a telescope

small chalkboard with eraser

small homemade flannel board with felt shapes

cheap drugstore miniature handheld pinball games

magnetic board (or a magnetic baking sheet) with magnets

child-friendly CD player and CD and books-on CD selection

Legos in a bin, for the kindergartener

French Corolle doll and bottles, for the toddler

[important: one hidden we're-breaking-down toy for each of them)

TREAT BOX:

cheese puffs (we never eat these, so it's like eating pure gold)

box juices

box soy milks

raisins

gummies

goldfish crackers

dried strawberries

Trader Joe's letter-shaped animal crackers

peanut-butter crackers

DON'T FORGET:

a roll of paper towels

lots of plastic bags for closing off dirty diapers

pillows and blankets

hand sanitizer

And if all else fails, hey we're all human here. This thing comes with one for each of them. Hey. I can listen to Planet Earths eleven times in a row. I can.

Moving Groove

2009-06-28T08:41:00.000-07:00

My husband (whose call sign on my cell is Loverboy) jokes that we could go into the moving business, we're such experts. Having moved nine times in nine years will do it to you. Loverboy and I know that toy boutiques offer great recyclables like Radio Flyer boxes, sturdy for dishes. We have our favorite tape. Our systems. Our playlist. There's a lot of take-out and high-fiving going on.

And yet moving with children is another scenario entirely. There's the added layer of stuff, yes, but the added psychological aspect. How is this boxed environment making them feel? What are they anticipating with our new life? There are those things to consider for sure. But we forget that, at 5 and 2 years, children are in the present. What matters is the now. So we try to manage the now and make moving an adventure. And keep them from under our feet so we can get in our moving groove.

Here are some of our tricks under our (pushed up) sleeves:

We throw a moving party with a rudimentary version of banners we love to make. Box juices lined up for easy grabbing at will. Pandora's Pet Shop Boys station, which plays eighties music, which the kids and I rock out to, which my husband rolls his eyes at. And kind of rocks out to, too. In dire moments of boredom, the kids get a free pass and can sit and play Mrs. Pacman on our retro handheld atari.

We take endless photos of the wonderful bizarre creations our son makes out of the Lego set saved for just this occasion.

When we get to our new home, we're going to line each wallet-sized photo of his different creations on his wall.

We keep a free-for-all art station out so the children can grab and scribble whenever. We let them color on any box they like with crayons or chalk.

And we keep a dialogue going about moving. The kids squeal with excitement to get to share a room. We talk about new friends we'll make. Swimming in a new pool. Exploring the area. Hiking. Skiing in the winter. School, come fall. A certain esprit de corps enters in, and our kids run in circles between stacks of boxes, a tennis racket, a rogue pillow. We surprise ourselves by how settled we feel, even when our life is taped up into squares, by how this laughing, this private silliness, is true home.

Delinquent and Design-minded

2009-06-20T08:39:00.000-07:00

Yes. YES. I have been delinquent the last several days. Between my husband graduating with his MBA and the accompanying partying (read: cocktail galas, BBQs, dinners with friends, bocce games), and both sets of parents in town, and packing to move, we (gasp gasp) have been busy.

We are moving into a 1930s renovated house in a few weeks, and I have become obsessed with envisioning the furniture and design elements we'll implement. Most of my thoughts have gone to how to organize child-friendly spaces that have a grown-up aesthetic. Though I don't send my children to Montessori school, I do believe in its philosophy that environment (more than individual toys) matters greatly, and that a child grows when they have freedom to roam about the cabin and explore.

Kid O

Here are some of the stations we like in our home:

art center with accessible art materials, an easel, and art books

writing and letters

music center with CDS, books on CD, (quiet!) instruments, and a kinder-friendly CD player

reading corner with cush seating, a wall display (and basket) of books

pretend center with cooking and costumes

play center with tupperware of manipulatives, a dollhouse, a barn...

jars of collections

puzzles

plants to grow

Check out Lisa Mahar's, Kid O, a West Village retail store based partially on the free and open Montessori philosophy.

More later. Back to dreaming and designing.

Family Movie Night

2009-06-09T16:20:00.001-07:00

A weekly Family Movie Night ritual is a box-office hit for little critics.

Every Sunday night we roll out the carpet for our Family Movie Night. Like the best of movie flicks themselves, this low-budget tradition is a box office hit.

We designate our living room side table as the CONCESSIONS stand, offering box juices and drinks for the adults (hey, sometimes getting through the eleventh watching of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang needs a little help), individual-sized treats such as small bags of M&Ms, yogurt pretzels, and gummies, and homemade popcorn**.

Taking turns with who will be Movie Bob in charge of that night's concessions (complete with homemade paper hat), each person presents play money in exchange for a ticket and four tokens (all found at party stores). Drinks and candy are two tokens each, and the patron must choose wisely. Two drinks but no chocolate?? Two snacks but no drink?? Popcorn is, generously, free.

On with the show.

**For the best movie popcorn ever, pop kernels in oil over the stove. Pour into a large bowl and add melted butter and salt. Don't overdo the salt, but you pretty much can't add too much butter. Place in the middle of the family and grab at will (while it's not yet scarfed up by little hands, oh and your husband who always makes the popcorn because you tell him he does it best).

Lazy

2009-06-03T07:16:00.000-07:00

A cowgirl lion ready for summer action.

We had an intercom. At the beginning of every summer, after the last of the six children had finished the last of their classes for the year, the season of leisure and lallygagging officially began. Bright and early, my mom blared this Nat King Cole song throughout the house. [Perhaps my memory is too golden; surely it might have been too abrupt to slumbering prepubescent ears one time, one summer.] We awoke excited, snickering at Cole's singing about beer, and knowing that the song and the accompanying scent of pancakes officially heralded in that those strange summer months of doing nothing. And of course it wasn't nothing. We made summer lanterns from cardboard boxes, built forts, competed in the library summer reading contest, explored, napped, visited museums, ate hot dogs, swatched old AMC movies on my parents' bed (well, that one was just me).

My children listening to a little summer concert by a dear friend who came to play.

To answer the emails and requests of people wanting to see bonbon translated into my everyday life and know more of what my day-to-day looks like--and to answer my own lazy, hazy, crazy attitude that has rolled in with the month of June--I'm going to deviate this summer from the structure that bonbon was originally create around. The posts will still be frequent and I'll still share products and ideas that I discover. As always, I hope you enjoy. And I hope you roll out for yourself and your family your own memorable days of summer.

Let Them Eat Cake

2009-05-29T09:18:00.000-07:00

cited here

This winter my mom began collecting cake stands. From the shiniest, newest Pottery Barn stand to a small floral stand that we found together in an antique store in Forney, Texas, she has already amassed an enviable collection. This isn't the dusty, nerve-racking collection of useless things. These stands are beautiful. (Many of them obviously old, with a sense of history. I imagine a warm summer Texas morning on a 1930s farm. A young aproned wife making cake for an afternoon ladies' coffee.)

And these stands aren't just good on the eye. Before I had even left my visit there, my mom and I had cleaned the stands, set them up in the dining room (their varying heights aesthetically thrilling), and pulled one down again to use for the most velvety chocolate cake.

cited here

Designer William Morris said, "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." Well. Cake stands are both.

Here's to you and your cake stands, Mom.

A Favorite Collection

2009-05-28T08:48:00.000-07:00

As I write this, I realize how many collections I have. This is coming from someone who likes a certain minimalism, who doesn't like to accumulate a clutter of things--but the things I do love, I love to accumulate. Mounds and mounds and piles and shelves upon shelves of books. An official wooden old-hotel tea box to hold all of my lined-up tea bags. A stack of antique dessert plates for my tea company. Vintage children's picture books. I could go on. I won't.

And this wall of E's that I've accumulated over the years. When we were first married, my husband got us the large silver one. On our last trip to Texas, at a flea market, he got us the rusty antique one to its left. Over the years we've accumulated dozens of Es to fill this wall (only partially pictured here). I adore the letters themselves: no two are alike. I love how each displays a different font and type. We haven't haphazardly grabbed and grasped every letter that's come our way; each one holds a specific memory. The E cut off by the photo to the very right is merely from a magazine, torn out on a cross-country drive to Wharton with our children. Priceless now. We bought the cookie cutter when my husband started his first out-of-college job that initiated his career. Two were acquired on the birth of my children. The green one is from a good good friend from when she visited China. Yes, my mania is known and spreading.

It's the acquisition that thrills me most. The searching. The idea that, out in the everyday world, going about the business of life, I can always be on the lookout for an E. That something out of everyday life will suddenly, magically, enter in. For our family, it's oddly uniting. It reminds us that, for better or worse, like everything, we are in this together.

With an every-growing reminder on our living room wall.

Elephannie

2009-05-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

These easily applicable vinyl stickers from Elephannie appear like paint on a wall but allow for easy and stress-free removal. Brilliant in a child's room or playroom, which seems to be constantly evolving. And great for dwellers like me, who change things up and move often (nine times in nine years, oh yes). Elephannie is a collaboration of a brilliant husband-and-wife duo who have created these unique and hip decals. Aside from their other professional work and raising four children. They work fast, offer custom work if you have something in mind, and even send a small practice decal with the instructions. Check them out now, during their current FREE SHIPPING sale.

Yeah. Check them out. Elephannie is awesome.

Collecting

2009-05-26T06:47:00.000-07:00

From Lakeshore Learning, a favorite stop for enriching educational toys, comes this classroom-level rock, fossil, and mineral collection. Children can explore the texture and properties of these specimens, and make their own thrillingly hilarious and poignant scientific theories.

A bug vacuum. My son just received one of these for his recent five-year birthday. He spent one morning in our backyard sucking up beetles and inspecting them before releasing them peacefully back into the dirt. I say he. I mean we. This thing is cool.

Get tickled and fascinated with Charlie and Lola's "I Am Collecting A Collection," where Lola learns what a collection is and how to go about... collecting one. This series was of course books first, and I of course always advocate books over videos, but you just have to experience the video and Lola's adorable high-pitched British asides.

Oh, Yes I Am

2009-05-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

Yes. Yes I am. I'm spending the holiday with my family. Brunching with my family after a long morning stroller walk. Listening to our toddler, who looks a little too much like Elton John in her plastic star-shaped glasses, rock out on her new mini baby grand piano. Lounge on a quilt on the grass while my husband plays t-ball with our son who turned five this week. Have tea with my husband and chat on and off while he reads through his Wall Street Journal, me through my novel that I will undoubtedly finish. I wonder what you're doing. Holiday, ah, holiday.

Stay tuned for the rest of the week as bonbon talks about collections and collecting. And next week, bonbon will get into that mode of, as Nat King Cole put it those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.

Enjoy your holiday!

Two [Tres Adorable] Places To Visit

2009-05-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

Gare au Poussin. Even if you may not speak French, this francophone blog has adorable photos and great links.

This week, a very adorable mom friend with a very adorable baby boy turned me onto LFG. Little Fashion Gallery, often seen in my favorite French magazine Milk, offers an array of clothing, toys, and decor to make every mom and child squeal with francophilic delight.

Bonjour, Maman et Papa!

2009-05-18T08:04:00.000-07:00

There is something about the French that mixes so well with the world of children. Unadulterated enjoyment of life. Continually seeking pleasure as an everyday lifestyle. Easily being comfortable in their own skin. Telling it like it is. Getting mad then getting over it. And that whole croissant thing. This week, on a sunny California morning stroller walk, I looked down to see my two-year-old daughter stuffing her birdlike mouth with her croissant. Sun streaming through her crumb-flecked hair. Flashing her full-mouthed grin. Pure joy. Yes, yes, the French [and children] are onto something. Something magnifique.

Delectable croissants from Manis Bakery.

Try Martha Stewart's French take on bread pudding: Croissant Pudding.

And sing those quaint little French poems we love so much:

Sur Le Pont D'Avignon

Sur le pont d’Avignon

L'on y danse, l'on y danse

Sur le pont d’Avignon

L'on y danse tout en rond

Frère Jacques

Frère Jacques, frère Jacques,

Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?

Sonnez les matines! Sonnez les matines!

Din, dan, don. Din, dan, don.

The Best Nap Box Ever

2009-05-13T07:00:00.000-07:00

The Best Nap Box Ever will bring smiles to everyone.

Dark clouds accumulated, the wind changed, and fairies might have even wept the day my son stopped sleeping in this afternoon nap. He was not quite three, and hasn't slept since in his nap unless we've had a full day or he's getting sick. When he actually turned three and his sister was born, I was militant and aggressive about making sure their afternoon nap times coincided. Will has always been great to rest on his bed with cars or look through picture books, giving me a sliver time of complete quiet.

I firmly believe that everyone--even me yes the adult--needs some down time. Thought he doesn't sleep, my son's time on his bed allows him to unwind a bit and learn how to self-entertain. It reminds him in this fast and busy world of the value of just sitting. Just being. Lately, though, at five-years-old this month, he was getting restless. Potty brakes. Whispering down the stairs. Driving cars up and down the walls. Driving me up and down the wall, hoping he didn't wake Jane.

I needed a game plan. No napping is not an option. So I created The Best Nap Box Ever. The clouds have parted, the fairies sing, and we're back to a bit of blissful afternoon silence.

For now.

Today's selections.

For The Best Nap Box Ever:

To make the box forbidden and intriguing, only allow it out during naptime. Alter some or all of the contents every day to create suspense and surprise as they open the box. Tell them that, to get the nap box, they must stay on their bed quietly and restfully until you inform them that naptime has ended. They must place everything back into the box before getting off of their bed. Praise them for minding and quiet resting. This system will take a few days to get down, and with consistency and excitement from you, with luck, they will be telling you it's naptime.

In a clear plastic box, the following can be interchanged daily:

coloring books

graph paper

construction paper

tracing paper

chalk board and chalk

kindergarten lined writing paper

crayons

pipe cleaners

library books

magnets

wooden puzzles

matchbox cars

laminated Curious George paper dolls

black and white copies of Van Goghs to color

magnetic fridge letters

child-friendly CD player

books on CD

picture books with a CD to follow

Silence and Noise

2009-05-08T07:00:00.000-07:00

As home as sweet home can be, sometimes a girl's just got to get out. I had been in all weekend with Jane and Will (who caught a virus playing at a friend's apartment so our week would go smoother, thanks a lot). Don't mistake me; I love drawing Crayola marker faces on manila paper, deciding that Daddy IS Lex Luthor but is still pretty much a good guy, and watching vintage Donald cartoons. But: but. So Sunday, late afternoon, I grabbed my keys and journal and headed alone to the huge fountain a couple of blocks away, a gathering place for bums, travelers, kids wanting to swim. I watched the people passing. Wrote.

For several minutes I watched a bum lounge on a nearby bench beside everything he appeared to own: a red shirt and an old water bottle filled halfway with coke. Young guy--maybe thirty. Dirty, bearded, shirtless, shoeless. Mirmaid tatoo down his arm. Too skinny for his own good, but muscular. Four little boys approached him, tossing a football between them, and the bum got in on the action. One of the boys throws to this guy sitting on his bench and, with the one-handed deftness of an athlele, he catches it. He, unthinkingly and with the indifference born of a longstanding familiarity with the motion, snaps back a tight, clean spiral.

Who was this guy in a former life? Where did he come from, how did he get here, where was he going? Where in the world did he learn to throw like that? It was just a snapshot, a simple passing thought before I circled the fountain for home to make dinner and bathe the kids. Something only to be seen in silence. I love moments like this. I love people like this. My favorite people are the ones who surprise me.

If company, not solidarity, is what you seek, visit a cafe. Like many of these ingenious ideas, SadieDey's Cafe was created by a mom who wanted a child-friendly environment where parents could have adult conversations, work through that novel, and enjoy yummy food and coffee. Chat it up with a friend while your children play around you in the castle, at the train table, and other centers offered within the cafe. Visit between 10:30 and 1:30 and a Mother's Helper will help build forts, sing songs, and make playtime safer and more fun for your children. And [ahem] more R&R fun for you at 4210 Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, California.

Encouraging a Love of Words

2009-05-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

The following list suggests what you as a parent can do to encourage a child's love of words. Sometimes it's offering them resources. Sometimes it's just sitting back and letting them talk. And talk. And talk. And talk. And--

Ten Things To Encourage a Love of Words:

Check out audiobooks from the public library. May libraries offer both complete books to listen to, such as highly-recommended A.A. Milne's Now We are Six and Anita Briggs' Hobart, or books with an audio CD for following along, such as Andrea Pinkney's Caldecott-honored and Coretta Schott King Award-winning Duke Ellington, narrated and set to music.

Repeat poetry together. This not only helps a child practice memorizing a poem, it helps them understand the process of memorization. Plus being able to spout off "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" together is just plain fun at that age.

Play rhyming games. Though formal rhyming games exist at educational stores like Lakeshore, creating one on the fly in a car ride is pretty intuitive. You've been there. You've done that. Something like "The CAT on the MAT: when it SAT, it looked--" and let your child fill in the rest.

Playing jazz and tunes from musicals. Catchy tunes, wholesome lyrics, a little culture. And you'll be surprised at how much they retain and sing back at random moments like, say, Annie Get Your Gun ("Anything you can do I can do betteeeeer") in the middle of church service.

Ask questions requiring more than yes or no answers. Instead of "Did you have a good day at school?" ask "How was your day at school?" Et cetera. Lead them along.

Articulate using alliteration. "Hey beautiful bitty baby let's bathe in a bubble bath before beddy-bye bedtime."

Verbalize your actions. Especially before your child is old enough to talk back to you, telling their all-listening ears about your action will help organically grow their vocabulary. Silly narrations as you go about your normal business. "Look I'm getting out the carrots as I then close the fridge and ooh these carrots are cold I actually don't like carrots but I like carrot juice but man could I go for some tea right now." Cute in front of your toddling one. Not so cute in front of dinner guests. Just know when to stop.

Create limericks. It's the rhythm that draws them (and you) in. And the funny irreverence that this poetry form encourages. Here are two of mine. Not child-friendly, but still.

There was a girl named Mar

who decided to go to a bar.

She got really drunk

and left with a punk

and now no one knows where she are.

Ann Boleyn was hot.

King Henry was hot to trot.

He got in her bed

then cut off her head.

The life she had thought, it was not.

Give them a (soft-volumed!) microphone. The very fact that they have suddenly stronger more empowered voices will encourage exploring all of the sounds their vocals can produce and a ripple of (loud-ish) giggles.

Give them a small spy recorder. The same concept as a microphone, a miniature handheld sound recorder allows children to record their voices and play them back. Or record the poetry they're trying to memorize. Or record your voice. Just watch what you say with the device in their hands--you never know when they'll play it back!

Animals Animals

2009-05-06T22:05:00.000-07:00

This Animals Animals poetry anthology offers easily-digestible poems for little ears, to vibrant Eric Carle illustrations. Out of this book came some of the first poems my son could remember on his own. From an ant to an elephant, the book spans dozens of animals (easily found through the alphabetized animal index at the end). And if you're too short of breath for that twenty-minute bedtime book, some of the poems are only two lines long.

Scintillating Sartorialism

2009-05-06T22:03:00.000-07:00

Whether your miniscule progeny is wise [sapient],

not talkative yet [taciturn]

or lies around on their back a lot [supine],

these onesies (and tees and bibs) from SATees will make any wordsmith smile. An online store, SATees offers various vocabulary to, as they say, best describe a child you know "in a ridiculously sophisticated manner."

Wednesday Will-isms

2009-05-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

Record it. Record it when it happens. You will, despite good intentions, forget even the cutest sentences that your little one says. And if your baby isn't old enough to talk yet? Just wait. You've never been so entertained.

The oldest of six children and now mother of two, I've heard some funny funny stuff. My brother told me once that I had to pollute the American flag. One brother was, at three, notorious for saying the weirdest things, like suddenly bursting out in our suburban "Ten thousand candles on a Chinese whiteboard, LIGHTED" or telling us he wanted to be a mattress when he grew up. We asked our recently-turned two little girl what she wanted to be when she grew up and got her to say one of her favorite babbles "babymama." And our son. That verbose son. We record some of his stuff and call them Will-isms. Here are some funnies from the archives. What are the greatest hits from your child?

Some Will-isms for This Wednesday

Will: A long time ago when I lived in China, I sewed Jane [his sister's] toys as a kid daddy.

W [to a cute grad student riding her bike past us on Stanford's campus]: I'll come play at your house.

W [looking from me to his baby sister Jane]: Mom, it used to be just us, huh?

Mom: I am so excited you're going to school today.

Will: Me too.

M: What are you most looking forward to?

W: [rolling his three-year-old eyes] Mom. Stop.

M: Stop what?

W: Talking. This makes me . . . I can't think of the word. Irritated. It makes me irritated.

M: Talking about school makes you irritated?

W: No. You talking about school makes me irritated.

W: So my pretend friend--he made me laugh so hard I fell off the couch but then he spun me around and poked my belly and poked me in the eye like this [demonstrates]. Ouch, that hurts!

The Poetry Show

2009-05-05T08:00:00.000-07:00

From HBO's Emmy-winning Classical Baby series comes The Poetry Show, a quaint presentation of some of the world's most famous poems. Presented through a melange of calming animation and music, and read by famous voices such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Andy Garcia, and even Gertrude Stein, this video captivates with some of the most pleasing sounds ever created. And by captivated, I also mean me, who checked this video out from the library and popped it in thinking to have a bit of grown-up background time meanwhile--yet found myself watching the entire thing. Yes. I couldn't decide if I liked better the readings or the children intermittently commenting on poetry, especially the little English fellow who was as articulate as any college writing professor I've had.

Letting Them Love Language

2009-05-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

Caught in a contemplative, nonverbal moment.

My four-year-old preschooler is verbose. I don't use the word lightly. I use it seriously, because it defines my life. Talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking talking. His spitting out the word bird at nine months on a walk in Santa Monica ushered in the nonstop chatter that fills our household. He memorized a poem at two. Told detailed stories about a saving superboy. Then the questions. Questions about diapers, dinosaurs, apple sauce, Jesus, snot, the Lone Ranger. Talking about everything, and I can barely get a word in edgewise. I have actually raised my hand before to halt the verbal flow and contribute. Both degrees in English and a talker myself, I don't know what else I would have expected. Or adored.

When he was three, his little sister was born. Barely making it to the hospital, I had her naturally, easily, and those days were filled with confidence and blithe. Will came in with flowers, hair parted strongly to the side. Regal, proud, and--surprisingly--silent. Taking it all in. He looked at my deflated stomach, the rows of glass-vased flowers, the mechanical hospital bed. Then the nurse brought in his sister, this little potato-shaped tightly-swaddled bundle with a face. He held her, and her dark eyes began opening and closing at him. Silence. And then he threw his head back and his giggles rippled through the room. "She is so funny!" he yelled, and began a nonstop verbal stream of excited talk.

It took me some time to realize the importance that talking plays in his life. Will is not a snuggler. Only when sleepy or sick does he settle into my arms, still, his ribcage rising and falling like a sparrow's. It's not lack of love, of that indiscriminate adoration a child bestows on his mother. He displays bull-bodied intoxicating love. No, it's not about love. It's about language being its primary medium. He connects with the world through his articulation. Which is why saying simply "uh-huh, uh-huh" while checking phone messages instead of fully engaging would be to him like someone not quite returning a hug. I know this and, boy do I listen listen listen talk talk talk, and love every word.

Two poems for the verbose to love and learn:

Now We Are Six

A.A. Milne (author of Winnie the Pooh)

When I was one,
I had just begun.
When I was two,
I was nearly new.
When I was three,
I was hardly me.
When I was four,
I was not much more.
When I was five,
I was just alive.
But now I am six,
I'm as clever as clever.
So I think I'll be six
now and forever.

How Doth The Little Crocodile

(from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland)

How doth the little crocodile improve his shining tail,

and pour the waters of the Nile on every golden scale.

How gleefully he seems to grin, how neatly spreads his claws,

and welcomes little fishies in with gently smiling jaws.

Help Yourself To Just Thirty Minutes

2009-05-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

Stop and smell the flowers. Literally.

Thirty minutes. Just think in thirty-minute increments. Indulge. Feel permission to indulge, whatever that means to you. To me? Spreading the ratty antique quilt on the lawn and sneaking in a chapter or two of my novel while the kids roam through the trees and play bocce. A tea cup and saucer completely unrealistically resting on the corner of the quilt. Laying on our backs and bathing in sunlight and giggling.

Hope your weekend is filled with ease and joy.

The Village People

2009-04-30T07:00:00.000-07:00

weekend sleep-in swap with daddy

take turns making breakfast

send daddy running with the jogger stroller and yes leave you in the dust (alone, aaah)

swap playdates (aka babysitting) with a fellow mom

get a maid service (even if they come just for the bathrooms and kitchen)

get a laundry service

use a drive-thru pharmacy

let your child be entertained at music time or library day

do a supper club with friends

have supplies dropped right on your doorstep (as mentioned yesterday)

keep a regular weekend babysitter

use a gym with a children's playroom

pay your bills online

know your go-to takeout place

use a drive-thru cleaners

Getting Support Without Even Leaving Your Home

2009-04-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

diapers.com This site offers several categories of baby-specific goods. Formula, bath products, nursing supplies, books, gear, and yes diapers. Lots of them. Fast and free shipping, this site will deliver in 1-2 business days. Think of it. That stock list filled and magically appearing on your doorstep.

drugstore.com As straightforward as it sounds, this site not only provides your run-of-the-mill drugstore items, it also offers free shipping, features a deal of the day, and offers instant coupons with a click of the mouse. The even fill your prescription drugs. Drugstore.com has committed to going green and focuses on offering customers a wide variety of environmentally-friendly products.

netgrocer.com You're getting the point. Shop here for non-food items, beauty supplies, and natural and organic and kosher products. You can create personalized shopping lists and recurring orders. And give yourself more time in the grocer to meander with your child and talk about the freshness and beauty of the produce, and experience food.

*Countless online services have been created to save you thought and energy. Take-out delivery services like dinewise.com, merrymaids.com for a clean home, and even massage services. Let these above ideas prompt you to consider, online or not, how to streamline and simplify your life.

Some Helpful (To You AND The World) Textiles

2009-04-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

Swaddle Designs blankets. Hands down a favorite swaddle blanket of mine--and numerous other parents. The large blanket (now available in varying weights for warm or cool seasons), even comes with swaddle directions. The blankets come in a plethora of hip colors and patterns--yes, when you're wrapping with and laundering these as much as you do, aesthetic matters. These can also double as roomy and lightweight nursing blankets. Because of its versatility and thin width when folded, these swaddlers are great for travel. For every blanket you buy at Swaddle, a blanket will be donated to a child in need. Now that's wrapping up your baby and the larger world with love.

With the Free Trade company Yellow Label Kids, you'll also be helping others. Featured in places like Cookie, Wonder Time, Baby Couture, Bay Area Parent, and Bon Appetit (to name a few--check out their press page), Yellow Label Kids offers a quality and simple aesthetic.

Designed by moms who couldn't find affordable, quality covers for their cloth diapers, Bummis offers a variety of covers that keep baby mess free and moms and dads stress free.

It DOES Take a Village

2009-04-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

Don't sit alone with your role as parent.

That old adage. It takes a village to raise a child. Grandparents. Siblings. Fellow moms. Teachers. You know what parenting you need to do yourself, and you know when to let go and let others contribute. Letting go is, after all, a large theme of parenting (no, no, forget your kids--I'm talking about you). This doesn't mean delegate the involvement that only you can provide your children; nor does it mean diminish the importance you play in your children's lives. It does mean, however, giving yourself permission to reach out to resources that will help you perform your parenting role better and, no less important, with more joy.

Look around you for a community of support.

I suppose it takes experience to finesse the balance of how to efficiently and meaningfully mother.

And find even more joy and happiness.

Preserving Their Play

2009-04-24T06:28:00.000-07:00

Yes. Totally Out of Hand will turn your child's best art into quality jewelry. Featured at places like Real Simple and USA Today, this Connecticut-based company will take a child's drawing and archive it as jewelry such as pins, earrings, pendants, and even keychains.

Thank you so much for reading and responding. Hope your weekend is, well, magical.

The Dress-up Center

2009-04-23T06:27:00.000-07:00

For cooking up pretend fun. French Kitchen at Oompa Toys.

Simple Recipe For a Dress-up Center

Place a basket or bin in an accessible corner. If desired, hang low pegs just above the bin, for easy hanging and grabbing. This will increase their likelihood of dressing up. Dump into the bin old scarves, oxford shirts, bracelets, et cetera. Throw in a cape. A tulle skirt. Add humbly to the ensemble with thrift-store finds. Add sparkle and quirk from party stores with things like boas, canes, plastic jewelry, opera gloves, sheriff badges. Go a step further and order ready-made pieces like construction worker costumes and doctor kits. You get the point.

Always be on the subconscious lookout for things to add, because the fun has filtered into your own life. You have a red boa in the bottom of that bin, you admit. Go to the drugstore and get distracted by the two-dollar plastic slingback heels for your daughter, the plastic wrench for your son. Wonder in Sur La Table if also grabbing the smaller wooden spoon for your pretend chef is going a step too far. Dissolve into a world where dragons and ballerinas are much more important than boring to-do lists and insurance. Follow this recipe and add your own modifications, and savor it all as long as it lasts.

Living With Superman

2009-04-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

For four years, we've been living with Superman. Fantastic as it sounds, it’s admittedly not much different than living with mere mortals. He eats and sleeps like the rest of us, fusses when upset. There is, of course, the continual display of amazing feats of strength, the aftermath that I always have to clean up (Superman: not super tidy). Couch pillows tumble like boulders across the living room, used construction paper and other flotsam rip in a single tear, juice boxes drain at unprecedented speeds.

Up, up, and away.

Superman is a preschooler. We don’t question if, but when, Superman will appear each day, if he will need help tying his cape. When he wears his outfit, he is Superman. Otherwise, he is Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter, though he is still learning exactly what a reporter does. The reality has permeated all of us: I am not Mom, I am Lois, and I am beautiful and need saving. Dad is not Dad: he is suspect and a bad guy, often the victim of an impromptu punch from a walnut-sized fist. They are not carrots: they are super carrots. It is not bathtime: it is super bathtime. The hero tears through the house at a pace that, honestly, is no faster than an adult casually crossing the room. Blond hair twisted with pomade into a curl over his forehead. Arms pumping. He glances over his shoulder to ensure that his cape is raised on the tuft of wind. The pretense is cute; we remember our own days of becoming something more than we are.

Tangled up with a bad guy.

Then I lock my keys in the house. Supie and I are already running late. He’s in his car seat with his fruitsnacks and a drink. I’m momentarily stunned at what to do. Break a window? No, surely too dramatic. Call my husband? Too long to wait. Climb through the tiny front window left open for evening air? No way I could hoist myself over the bushes, much less fit through so small a slot.

It hits me. I hurry to the car, waving my arms wildly. “Superman! I need help from Superman! You have to save the day.” I am serious. He can tell.

In a flash—box drink pushed aside, fruit snacks thrown down, spewed over the car floor—he is ready for action. Unbuckled, he runs as fast as he can to the house. I pull off the screen and he flies in, runs around the living room for effect, and unlocks the house door. This isn’t our much-played scenario where Superman saves Lois from the encroaching plastic dinosaur with scary red eyes. This is real. He uses the powers that only he possesses. He saves the day.

Where is the line between pretend and real? Who cares? Superman is laying for himself the foundation of any dreamer: the belief, or at least the hope, that we possess a capacity for greatness and for . . . mattering, perhaps even so beyond natural ability. That we find something more possible than nondescript reality. That, in all the planning and dreaming, when the real chance for action comes along, we are ready.

High action on the go, this Super Hero in a Box comes with cape, mask, and wrist shields. Courage and flying ability not included. Well, ok, somewhat included.

Milk It For All It's Worth

2009-04-21T19:55:00.000-07:00

Milk, a hip family lifestyle magazine, blends an old-world childhood charm with modish style. The writing is wonderful, but you don't have to parler francais to appreciate its aesthetic. The thirteen dollar magazine isn't available everywhere, so check out its incredible supplemental online site.

2-D Dollhouse

2009-04-21T07:00:00.000-07:00

This Felt Play House from Craftsbury Kids stimulates pretend housekeeping on a pallet as pretty as a piece of art. Check out their other pretend-provoking playthings like masks and capes and felt decorating kits.

The Importance of Pretend

2009-04-20T07:00:00.000-07:00

Now this is a girl taking pretend seriously. Tribal Girl With Buffalo Headdress by Andrea Zuill.

This will make me sound like such a grown up but: children grow up so fast these says. They really do. Over a dinner with friends this weekend, one former New-Yorker at the table said they once saw a ten-year-old hail a cab. On a visit to my parents recently, a middle-school sleep-over friend of my brothers told my mom he'd prefer a fresh cup of coffee to the orange juice she was offering, thank you kindly. Now this kid was actually darling and in all seriousness might run for president one day. But at seven a.m. he was conversing about the latest presidential goings-on, and I almost spewed my mouthful of tea over the kitchen counter.

What I am talking about ultimately is not the increasingly younger age at which a child can now order a designer coffee more complicated than most adults', but the idea that magic more quickly vanishes from their lives. I remember telling adventure stories to the youngest of my five little brothers, watching their eyes bug with anticipation. Now they are fourteen. I see the awe in my own two kids when we read about Peter Rabbit's near escape--again, I know--from Mr. McGreggor's garden. I remember that feeling of magic myself as a child.

Of children needing creative guidance, writer Madeline L'Engle said in her 1963 Newbery award acceptance speech: Because of the very nature of the world as it is today our children receive in school a heavy load of scientific and analytic subjects, so it is in their reading for fun, for pleasure, that they must be guided into creativity. These are forces working in the world as never before in the history of mankind for standardization, for the regimentation of us all, or what I like to call making muffins of us, muffins all like every other muffin in the muffin tin. This is the limited universe, the drying, dissipating universe, that we can help our children avoid[...]"

We parents have the responsibility to encourage play and pretend and creativity, to balance real-world pragmatism with, well, nothing short of magic.

Help spark the magic with items like this Inspire Imagination Wool Felt Crown by Moon Dog Farm.

Hello. Happy Monday. Get to playing.

Good Times For The Gourmand

2009-04-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

Sophisticated and speedy.

Child's first cookbook when she was married, and her most used (aside from her own).

Her own.

Wonderfully depicted. Try the Coq au Vin and Mousse Au Chocolat.

Some of the most inspiring essays ever written that just happen to be about food.

The most famous food essayist. Ever. A Frenchman, of course.

As Julia Child herself said, "Above all, have a good time."

In The Kitchen With Little Chefs

2009-04-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

Cooking. It really is an art. You assemble and arduously bake a quiche, or you complete the simplest of tasks like pouring water from a pitcher into a glass, and you are building upon centuries of life in a kitchen. Many tools of the trade have withstood the test of time--and many "tools" are really about aesthetics. Old or new, these fifteen pieces of equipment belong in any kitchen of a cook with children.

an apron you can't wait to wear

a stool for little standing and bit sitting

an oversized metal bowl for large baking messes I mean projects

black oilchoth tablecloth that can double as a chalkboard for idle hands

cookie cutters (for pancakes if nothing else)

wine glass for elegant ice water, for when you feel up to your elbows in playdough

whisk, in varying sizes

strainer (for getting pulp out of juice)

white flour sack towels, lots of them--for spills and spur-of-the-moment aprons

small radio to set a classical mood or to sneak in a little NPR for yourself

letters or a Fridge Museum with paintings clipped from a thrift store art book

tupperware filled with beans for when their best helping just isn't helping

chalk board

pen and paper for quick idea jots

toy brooms

Cooking With Child In The Kitchen

2009-04-15T08:00:00.000-07:00

Efficiency. Culinary master Julia Child's kitchen (on display at the Smithsonian) shows massive forethought about where items would be placed and why. This, her ninth kitchen, had many forerunners. See the iconic pegboard holding her cookery. The kitchenaid is out. The tools are categorized into countertop canisters for easy reach. There is method and no madness. Cooks with children can appreciate the systemization of daily culinary tasks. The two people that seem to benefit from efficient kitchen design? Professional chefs and ta da parents.

This pegboard version from the June 2007 issue of Domino (rest in peace) modernizes a brilliantly classic idea.

When there's room, create a soft space in a corner of the kitchen for chatting, for eating a petit petit dejeuner, or for resting tired feet while the water boils. Smaller children can read and chat while you make their snack. Et cetera. Try it. You will be amazed how the culture of the kitchen changes with the small addition of a sitting area.

Whether with a mini table, an oilcloth-lain floor area, or a nook like this one from Ana Williamson Architects, almost no other room in the house makes as much sense for deliberately including children as the kitchen. They can help cook, do homework, color while you bustle around them.

An island like this one from Wm. F. Holland Architects is an obviously wonderful way to make more room for kitchen experiments (read: messy aftermaths). In making specific room for children, as mentioned above, a small table would fit stylishly and conveniently in place of these bar stools.

Now. If only your little Sous Chefs could actually make dinner themselves...

Three Yummy Things

2009-04-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

This Comfort Food Kid's Apron will inspire little helpers (and everyone else in the kitchen) with its vintage-flavored frills.

This wooden Well Balanced Scale found at the adorable Land of Nod makes weights and measures fun. Comes with three blue, one red and two yellow weights.

Under five dollars, this tiny stainless steel silverware set is adorable for pretend play and test-approved for (gasp!) real eating. Psssst.The other Duktig equipment from Ikea is equally as adorable.