Keeping her pants up while getting down

Keeping her pants up while getting down

My daughter’s going through a growth spurt, and any jeans without those little adjustable waist button-and-elastic dojobbies tend to sag to her rear’s danger zone without an actual belt. I’ve spent the past several weeks plying her with all the...
A female pirate? Ahoy.

A female pirate? Ahoy.

We love Oliver Chin, author of the Tales from the Chinese Zodiac Series. In his latest book, Baltazar and the Flying Pirates, Chin teams up with illustrator (and blogger!) Justin Roth in this, um, high-flying tale of adventure and fortune.The best part? The head...
Brains = Cool

Brains = Cool

With my daughter starting kindergarten, I’ve been thinking a lot about kids thinking lately. And more specifically: how to make thinking cool to my kid. Part of the problem? Pop culture surrounds kids with celebrations of the body, not the mind. That’s why...
Cartoons for the thinking mama

Cartoons for the thinking mama

When I was in high school, an artist friend of mine and I wrote a graphic novel during biology class featuring the adventures of our teacher’s prominent nose, thus beginning my love affair with random and edgy hilarity. If you adore the absurd, you are going to...
Green: A great color for every baby

Green: A great color for every baby

There’s so much advice for new moms to wade through, and after being pregnant and told you can’t eat spicy tuna rolls or a good brie for ten months, it would be easy to throw up your hands by the time you get around to choosing the safest, most...
Just the right shade of … skin

Just the right shade of … skin

My daughter recently drew a picture of herself and one of her school friends. She made herself pink and her friend brown. Neither color was exactly … right. And as a budding artist, she was bothered by the limitations of her crayons. Just as her hair isn’t...
Our favorite dolls get ink

Our favorite dolls get ink

We love Melissa Conroy’s Wooberry dolls. The originals are not only designed from her child’s sketches, they’re also handmade. And beyond adorable.In a move that touches my writerly heart, the dolls have gone meta and returned to their paper-based...