Candid admission: Earlier tonight, I saw the horror movie Drag Me To Hell (a smartly cheesy film about a young mortgage-loan manager cursed by a bug-eyed gypsy). I’m a little jumpy, unhinged. But even if I’d been calmer when I stumbled on The 2009 Cute Kid of the Year website, I suspect it would have […]

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This Saturday, the Little Tikes’ Cozy Coupe will be inducted into the Cleveland’s Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum hall of fame. The foot-powered Cozy Coupe—a shoddy, plastic reproduction of Fred Flintstone’s 7,000 B.C. Flintmobile—sold 457,000 units in 2008, outperforming both the Toyota Camry and the Honda Accord. What this means: Sooner or later, your baby will predictably […]

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As someone who tries to keep abreast of infant current-events, I regularly check Google News for key words like “baby,” “parenting,” “tiny genius,” and “toddler.” Here’s one thing I’ve found: Nothing good ever happens to toddlers. It’s like there’s some unwritten rule that journalists can only use the word “toddler” in tragic contexts. (Do your […]

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I was recently perusing the website for the prestigious Horace Mann nursery school in New York City. The site is stringently designed. Uptight, preppy, with the occasional photo of children enjoying “recess” by standing sedately beside a picnic table. I was quite struck by the downloadable assessment sheet the school uses to evaluate the hopeful […]

» Continue reading "Toddlers with awkward gaits need not apply"

Are you familiar with the Time Out Pad? The electronic mat that turns the Naughty Step concept into a stern multimedia experience? In some circles, it’s old news, but I nevertheless find it fascinating. A quick briefing for the uninitiated: When your kid acts up, you set her on the Pad, and set it to […]

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