127 articles

When you wish upon a tree…

art - kids
yoko ono wish tree

This wish tree was recently at the Jim Kempner Fine Art gallery in Chelsea.

I had a couple of extra minutes before a recent shoot in Chelsea, so I wandered into Jim Kempner Fine Art Gallery and saw, in the courtyard, this Wish Tree by Yoko Ono.

Of course I had to participate in the project (anything to help motivate some of my wishes into transforming from dreams into realities) so I took one of the little labels, wrote down my wish, squeezed it with my eyes closed, and then tied it to the tree.

It was a really nice, contemplative thing to do before heading off to work.

That particular tree is no longer in that particular courtyard, but you can add your wish to the collection by going to ImaginePeace.com. They also have instructions for building your own wish tree (do I hear weekend activity with your kids, anyone?) with templates for tags and everything else you might need.

Maybe if we all wish hard enough for all the stuff we need to make a better world, it’ll come true.

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

Screen time is limited in our house, and we generally watch shows together, so I have to be able to stomach whatever is on. Recently, whilst trolling through the selections available on Amazon Prime Instant video in the desperate hunt for something that doesn’t suck for my daughter to watch, I stumbled upon the 1984 season of Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood, a childhood favorite.

(Amazon’s instant video, by the way, is really great… there are hundreds of movies/TV shows/etc available for free if you are a member of Amazon Prime. I know that Amazon is an instrument of the evil overlord, as are Google and Facebook, but I do find myself taking advantage of it’s offerings because who wants to pay a la carte to watch episodes of old TV shows when you don’t have to?)

I did not remember how utterly surreal the whole Mr Rogers scenario is. It is the most gentle world, full of full length songs about love and friendship, live instruments, puppets (more than one of whom, from the sounds of it, are played by Fred R. himself) trips to places like the aquarium or the antique train museum which are run by people who are as gentle and patient and capable of bursting into song as Mr Rogers himself. It’s kind of like being in a Waldorf preschool classroom, but on TV, which is ironically about as un-Waldorf as you can get.

Anyway, I am happily taking little vacations with my daughter in Mr Rogers neighborhood, getting inspired to compose our own operas, learning about fish, hanging out with King Friday in the land of make believe and humming along to the theme song.

Happy Halloween!!!

jack o lantern

This pumpkin was plucked from the field, its face designed by Ada, its features carved by Josh and then photographed by Brooke. Truly a family affair.

This morning, my daughter declared that this is the happiest day of her life. The combination of being allowed to wear “high” heels to school in costume, having her mom come join in the school Harvest Day parade, and being allowed to stop in all of her favorite neighborhood spots to ask for candy and get it…. It’s almost too much to bear.

Plus the weeks afterwards of slowly finishing the haul of sweet, not-so-good-for-you deliciousness. It really is the Best. Holiday. Ever.

As a parent, I can get all caught up in the worry about too much sugar being ingested, teeth surely decaying, stomachs rotting, kids getting confused and thinking that they deserve candy all the time, etc etc. I could even start looking at the other, far more creative, more labor intensive, more clearly-his-parents-love-him-more style costumes that parade around the streets of our neighborhood today and feeling the tentacles of jealousy reaching up, threatening to ruin my day.

But I’m not going there. Instead, I like to think about how fun it is to run into all sorts of friends on the street, how lovely it is to see all of our favorite shopkeepers out in costume, making the kids they know so well smile by giving them a treat, how much this holiday is really about a sense of community, as every neighborhood celebrates in it’s own way, having local parties and parades and just forcing people out of their normal day to day routines for just a moment. Even the most serious allow themselves a bit of silliness today.

Which is a beautiful thing.

ps: While you’re taking your make up off tonight, if you have time, listen to Orson Welles’ crazy 1938 War of The Worlds radio broadcast, which had the whole country up in arms thinking that we’d really been attacked by Martians. 75 years later, it still resonates.

Oh sh*t, Halloween is tomorrow!

halloween witch

Our very own, resident, extremely powerful-but-good witch. In full regalia with very carefully selected lipstick and nail color.

I have been feeling very smug this year because we actually got the whole costume situation worked out waaaay ahead of time. We are a magical family for 2013, with Ada as the witch (powerful but good) Josh as the wizard (who looks more like the grim reaper as he’s wearing a navy blue hooded cape I made for myself in the early 90′s when such things were in fashion) and me as their pet black cat. I wanted to be a ghost, but Mme Witch was having nothing of it.

We even went pumpkin picking last weekend.

But do we have a trick or treat bag ready? Nope. Have we carved out the aforementioned pumpkin? Negative. Have we decorated the house? No, again. So I find myself today, at the 11th hour, scouring the internet for ideas. I figure I may as well share them with you guys, while I’m at it. Because hey, I have a feeling I’m not the only person out there in my predicament. And we all want to wake up on Nov 1 with our heads held high, right? We’re gonna need it. Our kids are all going to feel horrible from eating so much candy.

Here are a couple of cute ideas to get your juices flowing…

Super simple, very kid friendly spooky decorations for your house. And you can make each one in about 10 minutes.

copper leafed pumpkin

Nevermind that this involves getting your hands on some copper leaf and having a bit of skill and patience. It looks great. (Though I bet these people don’t have kids…)

For the truly ambitious, there is always this copper leafed pumpkin display from One Kings Lane.

A great DIY treat bucket from MerMag.blogspot.com.

A great DIY treat bucket from MerMag.blogspot.com.

Here are some super cute treat buckets made from paint cans. So much more festive than a plastic shopping bag, and so much smaller (ie less candy!!)

spider sweets from bakerella

The cutest Halloween spider sweets ever. From Bakerella.com.

These spiders are made from rolled up brownies, licorice legs, and raspberry candy eyes. How happy would you be to see one of those in your treat bag? If you were 6, that is…?

candy corn cookies from baked bree

I never liked candy corn, but these cookies look delicious! from Baked Bree.

These are sugar cookies with some orange zest and a bit of food coloring to transform them into giant pieces of candy corn. Yum!

Delicious pumpkin gruyere soup. Both the recipe and the photo come to us from Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer via Bon Appetit.

Delicious pumpkin gruyere soup. Both the recipe and the photo come to us from Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer via Bon Appetit.

Oh and Bon Appetit just posted this delicious looking recipe for cooking soup inside of a pumpkin, so maybe this year we should skip the carving altogether!

Wrapping it up

sandwich wraps on provisions by food52

These sandwich wraps from Provisions for Food52 are the perfect combination of stylish and sustainable. (ugh. that sounded like a magazine caption…) Photo courtesy of Food52.

I save and reuse my zip-loc bags. It drives my husband crazy, because I wash them and hang them up like flags all over the kitchen to dry. They are plastic, and hence automatically evil, I know, but they are damned useful. And I figure if I am using them over and over again, they’re less wasteful, right?

Kind of right. But really, if I could figure out some way to eradicate them from my kitchen drawer without sacrificing functionality, I would be a happy woman.

Turns out, I’m one step closer to Nirvana now that my friend Deborah Copaken Kogan tipped me off to these sandwich wraps from Food52′s online shop (called Provisions, which is kind of confusing for me as that is the name of the health food store I love in Sag Harbor, but whatever.)

Made in Georgia out of vintage fabrics (but with a stain resistant nylon interior) these wraps are machine washable and built to last. Plus they are pretty enough to cheer a person up when he or she is all groggy making lunch for the kids before everybody wakes up and the chaos of the day begins.

I haven’t gotten any yet, but I’m totally ordering myself up a set just as soon as I work out why the image isn’t loading properly for this post. I swear.

Lose yourself in the thicket

I generally try to avoid falling into the iphone/ipad-as-babysitter trap: we don’t have a TV, our movie watching is fairly limited (Ummm, except for this summer, when I totally broke all my rules and watched a movie pretty much every day with my daughter mostly to give myself a break from being her solo-camp counselor/playmate/chef/confidante, etc. More on that later.)

But I digress. What I want to say is that while I don’t often use electronics with my kid, there are times (horrible traffic jams, 6 hour flights, etc) when a good app can be a lifesaver.

Thicket:Classic is one of my favorite of these apps. I found the above video on youtube (where there is a video for pretty much everything, thank you very much) and if you watch it, you’ll get a pretty good idea of what it does.

It’s an interactive art piece incorporating sound and motion where the possibilities are mesmerizing and endless. And the sounds, for the most part, are soothing rather than jarring over-computerized harmonic barbie voices singing about boys. (OK, I admit that I come as close to hating those musical Barbie movies as a person can come without other people being worried about said person’s priorities) I have Thicket on my phone, though I imagine it’d be pretty great on an iPad, too.

And, to be honest, it’s as captivating for adults as it is for kids.

Wish upon a star

eco stars recycled crayons

Recycled crayons in the shape of stars. In loads of great colors. What’s not to love? Photo courtesy of organicfundough.com

So it’s time to start supplying your kids with their back-to-school supplies. If you’re in the market for new crayons (because the old ones are like little stumps with shredded paper attached to them) may I suggest the Eco Stars crayons pictured above? Made from crayons recycled in the National Crayons Recycle Program (which you can participate in, by the way, ridding yourself of the old stubs without adding to the landfill) these little stars will add a festive sparkle to the arts and crafts table. They make great gifts, too!

Available at the Ultimate Green Store, which is well worth a bit of a browse, while you’re at it. Lots of great stuff to be had there…

This is not your ordinary dance class

Ok granted, I’m a bit paranoid, but I have always secretly believed that at some point, the apocalypse is going to really happen and the world-as-we-know-it is going to come to an end.

And in that new Terminator/Matrix reality, we’re going to need a whole different set of skills to survive, and a whole new breed of heroes to potentially save us and put things right again. Our new best friends will be the people who can build things with their hands, grow their own food, jump over buildings, and hack into computer systems to thwart the bad guys.

And as our primary job as parents is to ensure that our kids survive (and because one of my movie heroines is Terminater uber-mom Sarah Connor) my overly imaginative brain has been particularly concerned with ensuring that my daughter become one of these skilled people. — Read more

Tie em up

hair ties made from cute elastics

Cutest hair ties I’ve seen this summer.

The hair accessories fall fully under the category of things-I-could-totally-do-myself-but-lets-be-honest-I’m-never-actually-going-to-get-around-to-it-so-I-may-as-well-just-buy-it, but there you have it.

I was wandering though a store in San Francisco with my daughter who clocked these immediately and insisted that we buy them. And while I had the above mentioned feeling of why don’t I just make this myself-ness, I came to my senses and bought them. And my kid’s ponytails have been looking festive all summer, as a result.

The ones we bought out west are actually by a company called Calliope, but they don’t seem to have a website (only a facebook page– but then again, I’ve also just been trying to get my daughter to sleep for 3 hours, so I’m not the best web researcher right now)

The ties pictured above are by Mane Message and you can buy them direct from your laptop, which is a good thing for those of us who only have time to shop between 10:15 and 10:45 pm…

Speaking of which… time to order some more multivitamins from Amazon…

A better bottle

lifefactory water bottle

The newest addition to the stuff-I-always-carry-in-my-bag club.

I first laid eyes on these glass water bottles in my friend Nancy’s well stocked tote bag. Nancy is one of those women-who-I-am-always-copying. Everyone needs one in their life. She always has the baby blanket that folds up all tiny whlist still being totally warm, the all-natural sunscreen that doesn’t go on like wet chalk, the perfect summer sandals, the coolest kids books… I could go on, but I won’t, because then you will all just go off and befriend her and have no need for this or any other blog for that matter.

But the credit for actually purchasing the fabulous Lifefactory water bottle goes entirely to my daughter, who saw one in a store a couple of weeks ago and insisted we buy one immediately.

And she was right. Not only for the obvious reason that water out of a glass bottle just tastes way better, but the surrounding silicone sleeves are medical grade and BPA-free, so that a) you don’t have to get all worried about horrible poisons seeping into your kid’s body and b) when the glass bottle you just bought gets dropped (which is inevitable) it doesn’t break. Simple, yet oh so important. Plus the colors are lovely and Disney character free. Which may very well be the best part, as far as I’m concerned.

Oh and they come in adult sizes too, should you decide to really go for it.