Year 2- Birthday Music Mix

As with last year, this year I made another music mix CD as my daughter’s birthday party favors. I post the set list to give other people ideas for “kids” music. Most of the songs, are not for kids only, but some are. I try to pick music that parents will be willing to listen to repeatedly. Here is the play list, in order:

Say Hey (I love you) – Spearhead with Michael Franti Read more »

Oh, Mexico! 2010

Bahia de Conception

We went to Mexico this winter, drove down hauling our ’62 Cardinal travel trailer.  Our 2 year old is now a road trip pro and we have figured out her limits, when to stop, when to nap, when to buy new toys. We mostly drove up the Baja peninsula. She had a fear of oceans in Cabo, so we found a quite beach locale without waves and called it an Ocean Lake. She seemed convinced and we spent the afternoons collecting shells. Read more »

Effin’ Bad Language

My two-year-old repeats everything I say. She has an excellent vocabulary and speaks in full, and often remarkable, sentences. I do not refrain from using “big” words with her. My theory is that the more she hears them, the more she will become familiar with them. However, I do refrain from little words, those little four letter words. Read more »

Festival Baby

I don’t remember going to music festivals as a kid. I do remember going to a Pete Seeger show and maybe an Oktoberfest, but not quite a festival. This year, I decided to take my little Vintage Clothing business The Style Revival on the road and with me, the whole family.

Crestone Music Festival ’09 in Crestone, Colorado. We were prepared because I had done flea markets so there wasn’t much prep work, but since I would be facepainting too, we needed grandma to come watch our daughter while we worked all day. We parked our little camper behind the booth so she could nap and kept lots of extra food nearby so as not to have to rely on festival food.

Thank goodness my mother-in-law was there. I don’t think we could have juggled it alone. We met the other vendors nearby and there families. We played with the hula hoops, danced to the reggae and bluegrass, ate pizza and just had an all around good time. Other than the late night freezes that weekend while camping, it went pretty smoothly.

I decided I want to do it again next year and maybe even try a couple more festivals. As my daughter gets older, she’ll be able to run off and play with the other festival kids without me having to worry about her. It is a temporary way for me to mimic a communal lifestyle for us and allow her to be exposed to music and culture while enjoying a family camping weekend together.

West Coast Road Trip ’09- Newport, Oregon

From Eugene, we had lunch in another cool little Oregon town, Corvalis, before heading to the coast. Unfortunately, we didn’t see much of it because it rained the whole time, but we did have one clear morning where we took advantage of the chilly beach and absorbed more ocean. We ended up at the very cool Newport Aquarium, which our daughter absolutely loved.

Newport Aquarium

Read more »

West Coast Road Trip ’09- Week 3

After climbing a volcano, I was ready for some serious relaxation. Since we have a hot tub at home, we are spoiled, and all I could think about was soaking in some hot water. That is when we found the wonderful and quirky Stewart Springs Resort, a historic clothing-optional mineral bathhouse in the mountains of northern Cali, east of I5.  They were very cool about having a kid. I had anticipated the possibility of having to trade off bath time with my hubby, but we ended up being able to spa simultaneously. Read more »

Left Coast ’09

Santa Barbara has a mini marine center where kids can pet sea creatures like sea cucumbers, star fish and crabs. There is also a little under water tunnel for them. My daughter loved it and ran around screaming, “fish! shark! water!”

Touching a Shark

Santa Cruz isn’t all hippies and stoners (okay, mostly), it also has a fun and fairly inexpensive boardwalk amusement park. My daughter was too young for most rides, a two year old would have had more choices, or even a more adventurous 20-month-old, but she loved the carousel, which is a hundred years old.

Historic Carousel with Daddy

By the way, I feel it is important to mention… that 30 Toddler Songs CD that I praised in a previous post, well, beware. My daughter asks for, “kids songs,” every time we get in the car and I’m ready to tear my head off and throw it out the window if I hear “Old McDonald” one more time.

Still Truckin’- West Coast ’09

a Joshua Tree

My husband and I both thought that Joshua Tree National Park was named for one large amazing tree that an entire park revolved around. Ends up that Joshua Tree is just a type of tree. Seems the name is deceptive because it is not called Joshua TreeS National Park. Anyway, it’s a wacky spiky tree out of Dr. Seuss. Really, the whole park with it’s weird rock formations is out of the Lorax or some such Seussian thing.  The view from Keys View was pretty amazing too; you could see the entire wind tunnel that is Cochilla Valley. Great place for kids, not so much for dogs.

Skull Rock

Free Range Kids

I just read a great excerpt from the book Free Range Kids by Lenore Skenazy, a New York mom infamous for letting her nine-year-old ride the subway alone. What I found most fascinating was all the hupla surrounding this scenerio. Does it matter whether the kid was nine or eighteen? As the saying goes, age is just a number. It is the maturity of the child that is most important. In this case, her son, Izzy, was asking to be allowed to ride the subway alone and only after much deliberation and precautions taken did they allow him to.

This enters into a whole discussion about today’s standards of safety as Skenazy goes into in her book. Read more »

Madlyn Primoff: Kicking her Kids to the Curb

Primoff Mug Shot

First of all, I would like to know, what’s the big deal? Child endagerment? They were in White Plains for goodness sake. What were her kids in danger of, honing their luxury vehicle identification skills, getting their toes stuck in freshly aerated lawns? The answer, apparently, is that they were in danger of being treated to ice cream by a friendly neighbor. And, worst of all, seeing their mom handcuffed and thrown into jail. Read more »