L-A's Profile

#6, where's that poster from (please and thank you)?

The *duo* that make up Meomi are also behind my daughters favorite books, "The Octonauts" series. Sooo good! (Octonauts.com)

Love the Orange Blossom pillow doll. South OC, stand up!

We just moved (with our 3-year-old) from LA to suburban Orange County for work purposes. I miss our "city life" so much that we drive back every chance we get. It's only an hour away, but it seems like another state, culturally.

I've never not lived in a big city in my life and this has been the hardest transition ever. All the seemingly trivial things that got me through my day -- for example, a good cup of non-Starbucks coffee and being able to walk to said cup of coffee (along with the post office, the newsstand, the library, locally-owned eateries, etc.) -- are lost to me. My daughter sees ZERO cultural diversity on a daily basis (a strain on my soul, since she's bi-racial and stands out wherever we go). And now, just to run tedious errands, I'm in my car on the freeway ALL the time...you know, the way non-Angelenos erroneously think people in L.A. are anyway.

Sure, I don't know anyone else's individual considerations, but I just want to scream to anyone considering the move...it's not worth it! Go to a street festival! Go play at Shane's Inspiration! Get your kid a NextGen membership at LACMA! Hike through Griffith Park, then get muffins at The Trails! Play bongos at the Hollywood Farmer's Market! Do it because you can...or, just do it for me!

Okay. My exclamation marks and I are out of here.

Wow! I've been doing that exact same thing for myself (minus the coloring and ponytail holders) for nearly every trip I've taken for years. I always felt like such a freak (a well-prepared freak, but a freak, nonetheless). Nice to see I'm not the only one out there. I have a kid now, too, so I'll likely be passing on the list-making gene to her.

It's a cool shot. The colors make a big impact, no doubt. But the content?! I was trying to get my 3-year-old to eat her spinach recently and after dinner was over I found an old Popeye episode on YouTube for her to watch for inspiration. She's not a hyper-sensitive kid, in general, but she was absolutely horrified. In my 30 years, I've become so desensitized to violence on TV that I hardly gave a thought to all the "Ka-Powing!" and whatnot that went on on that show. I figured that, since there were no guns, weapons, blood, or death, it was no biggie. I was mega-wrong and the result was a toddler who was practically in tears wondering about why the big man tied the skinny lady to the train tracks.

I'm so stoked that this was a post! I think about this all the time. My kid loves to be read to, but I feel like I'm more into the pictures than the stories when I do my shopping.
We love Flotsam and everything by Willems. A few others (some I loved pre-kid, some post-)"
-Almost anything by J. Otto Seibold (particularly "Mr. Lunch Takes a Plane Ride")
-"Psst" by Adam Rex
-"The Octonauts and the Only Lonely Monster" by Meomi
-"Lost and Found" by Oliver Jeffers
-"Flight of the Dodo" by Peter Brown (he has other good ones, too, like "Chowder")
-"Lost and Found" by Oliver Jeffers
-"Imagine" by Norman Messenger (so beyond!)
-"Follow the Line Through the House" by Laura Ljungkvist

remember those odd little kids from your childhood who used to put absolutely everything in their mouths, even gunk off the bottom of their feet? well, despite my own fastidiousness and the near-draconian household rules i've enforced, my toddler is in danger of becoming one of those kids. i basically can't clean a cranny of the house fast enough before i hear her usual refrain 'what's that, mama?' mere moments after she's finished trying to initially solve the mystery with her mouth. obviously, scrubbing up with the usual (toxic) cleaning suspects isn't any better than letting her sample whatever needed cleaning in the first place. i'd like to giver her innards a sporting chance, at the very least, until she starts pre-school and her peers begin to shame her in a way that may be more effective than mommy's lecturing.

Help!!! I have a 2.5 year old girl who hates to play when we're in the house. I have tried seemingly everything (wooden Montessori-type stuff, stereotypically boyish stuff, instruments, building stuff, puzzles, dress-up, kitchen stuff, Play-doh and art supplies, stickers, outdoor toys like bubbles, a bike and a sandtable, even the good-ol' empty cardboard box). I'm at my wit's end because no matter what I come up with, all she does is cling to my legs and whine for me to read to her. I'm all for fostering a love of books in my child. But, literally, from the moment she wakes up at 6a, to the moment she goes to bed, she wants to be in my lap being read to. Day in and day out, it's either get in the car and drive her to play-dates or the park, or stay home and prepare for LOTS of reading. It's to the point where I can't even take a breath or get anything done in my own home. I only have about three more months before she goes to pre-school, but I don't know if I'm going to make it with my sanity intact. PLEASE, tell me there are some other restless kids out there and let me know what you've done (not TV-related, please) to tame them.

This looks like a page torn right out of Domino magazine. I'm not entirely sure I mean that as a good thing. It looks so calculated and perfect.