Boone Children's Gallery

Today Baby M and I went to the Boone Children's Gallery at LACMA. The gallery is a large room with tons of activities for kids and it's free! The current exhibit is called Construct and there are tables for drawing and painting, big easels for painting 4 foot high masterpieces, giant foam building blocks and more small wooden blocks than I have ever seen in once place. At 10 months, Baby M is a little too young for most of the activities although he loved climbing around the giant foam blocks and taking the wooden blocks off the shelf. As more kids arrived, including at least 3 Zoes (who knew Zoe was such a popular name?), the block area started to get a little too dangerous for Baby M so we walked around and looked at the creations by other kids and read a book called Building a House.

While at the gallery I signed Baby M up for NexGen, a LACMA program that offers free general admission to anyone under 17 and one accompanying adult. What a great program! After we finished at the Boone Children's Gallery we browsed the gift shop at the Page Museum (and validated our parking), crawled around on the grass in Hancock park, grabbed some lunch and then headed back into LACMA to check out a few of the galleries. We looked at some Picasso's, a Rothko, and a bunch of Kandinsky's before Baby M started getting fussy and it was time to go home. This was a fun outing and I think we'll do it again soon. I think it would be even more fun for slightly older kids.

Traveling & The Car Seat

We just got back from our first big trip with Baby M-- airplane, hotel room, rental car, the whole enchilada. Baby M did quite well. He didn't cry at all on the airplane, although he didn't sleep either and was constantly climbing between our laps and the floor. Unfortunately, he also did not sleep much in the hotel room which resulted in someone brushing her teeth with diaper cream instead of toothpaste. Yech! Despite the fact that he was sleep deprived, Baby M maintained a relatively sunny disposition throughout the long weekend which included a rehearsal dinner, a wedding, a hike through the forest and countless meals where small town restaurants tried with varying success to accommodate 20 out of town diners.

In preparing for the trip I went back and forth on whether or not to bring our car seat. Most people I spoke with and most of the information I read online overwhelmingly said I should take my own seat. I heard horror stories about the vomit-covered, recalled, broken car seats being offered by the rental car companies. But there were two things pushing me towards renting a car seat: (1) My car seat was professionally installed in my non-LATCH vehicle. I'm not sure that I could get it out, let alone put it back in after our 4 day trip; (2) My Britax Marathon is huge and I hate traveling with lots of luggage. Even on my 3 week honeymoon to Europe all I took was a carry on bag. So we decided not to bring our car seat, but even so we still ended up needing to check our bags. Babies need a lot of stuff-- between our suitcases, stroller, baby and diaper bag we just barely had enough hands between the 2 of us to get through the airport. How does anyone travel with more than 1 kid? And take 2 car seats? I'm baffled. And it turns out my aversion to checking luggage is well founded, Horizon airlines managed to loose both of our bags. Eight hours later the bags showed up, apparently they did some sight-seeing in Portland.

We had reserved a car and convertible car seat from National and when we showed up at the counter the woman working there all but threw a blue Cosco Convertible car seat at me. The seat was covered with crumbs, but not disgustingly dirty. Still, I wonder how much time it would have taken to vacuum out the seat, I mean they vacuum the cars anyway, right? When I made the reservation the representative had assured me that although National, along with every other major rental chain, would not install the car seat due to liability issues, they would provide the car seat manual so that we could install it ourselves. When we asked for the manual we were informed that it was lost and that this was the only car seat they had, so we'd just have to figure it out on our own. Eventually, after about 30 minutes, we did and were on our way.

Really, it was not a terrible experience, but I wonder why some car rental company doesn't try to differentiate themselves as the "family friendly" car rental company. There are plenty of families traveling and with some states requiring car seats for kids up to 80 lbs there should be quite a few travelers needing child seats. I would definitely pay a bit more to have a certified car seat installer install a clean, functioning car seat in the car and have it ready to go when we arrived.

The Old In/Out

For several weeks now Baby M has been very big on taking things OUT-- blocks out of the wagon, pajamas out of the drawer, Tupperware out of the cupboard. Lately however, he has gotten very keen on putting things IN. Of course, he has not really mastered the concept of putting things back IN to the place that they came OUT of. Hence, I am constantly finding blocks with my dish towels, remote controls in the potted plants and pacifiers in the mail slot. Occasionally he does seem to make a connection between an object and where it belongs, like the time he started throwing the stack of clean diapers into his diaper pail or the time he took my dirty socks out of the hamper and put them into the basket of clean laundry waiting to be folded. He didn't quite get it right, but I had to give him an A for effort.

In my multitude of parenting books, I read that constantly restricting babies from exploring would result in fearful children and that obsessively tidying up after your child could cause low self-esteem. I think the idea was that if your baby spends all this time carefully distributing his toys around his room, it is disrespectful to sweep them all back into the toy chest in one fell swoop; you should admire his work. Since I'm the type of person who has a hard time asking for extra ketchup packets, I want to do all I can to raise a confident child. Although sometimes I have to wonder if I have taken this idea of "letting babies explore" a little too far. As part of my baby proofing efforts I consolidated all of the dangerous materials into a few cupboards so now Baby M pretty much has the run of the house. What this means is that by the end of the day my kitchen floor is covered in Tupperware, the living room is strewn with magazines and the bedrooms look like Mervyn's after a post-holiday sale. What do you think, will Baby M be doomed to a pusillanimous life if he doesn't get to throw old newspapers all over the floor?

Walking in LA

We are lucky to live in a community where there are lots of shops and resources within walking distance. Actually, it is not just luck, a walkable community was a priority for us and we gave up living in a bigger or nicer house so that we could live in our neighborhood. I try do most of my errands on foot-- I can walk to the grocery store, the drug store, the library, the post office, the park, coffee shops, restaurants, etc. Both Baby M and I much prefer the stroller to the car and the hassle that comes with getting a baby in and out of a car seat.

Most people are perfectly nice when they see Baby M and I waiting on the corner to cross the street. They smile at his pudgy little feet propped up on the stroller bar and laugh as he waves his Tag Along Lion Chime. But more often than you would expect, drivers yell or honk their horn at us as we cross in the crosswalk with the light. Do these people not remember Driver's Ed? Pedestrians have the right of way. Is the extra 10 seconds they have to wait to make a right turn really enough time to bring on a blistering case of road rage? And besides that, do they realize that they are yelling and honking at a baby?!?

Today we saw particularly egregious case of driving gone bad. My husband, Baby M, our dog and I were walking back from getting a cup of coffee at Peet's coffee near Lincoln and Mindanao. We were waiting at the corner where the 90 freeway hits Mindanao. The light turned green, the little walking man started flashing and we began making our way across the intersection. When I was about half way across the intersection a car sped around the corner just inches from my toes. I turned around incredulously to look at my husband, and to, perhaps get some sympathy from the next driver. You know something along the lines of "Oh my gosh that asshole driver almost took out your whole family. I can't believe that guy!" Instead the woman yelled at me to hurry up and get out of the damn intersection. Nice. It is people like this who give Los Angeles a bad rap.

The rest of the way home my husband and I brainstormed about what to do about inconsiderate drivers. My husband rides the bus or bikes to work most days so he has his fair share of encounters with idiot drivers too. We thought about publicly shaming them on a web site called assholedriver.com. Ofcourse that url is already being used by a porn site, but I did come across this site allowing users to post pictures and comments about asshole drivers they encounter. It's in beta and seems to be focused on New York, but still looks promising. Maybe I'll start keeping my cell phone handy at intersections and post a few pictures of my own.

American Idol Live

On Monday my husband was given some last minute tickets to American Idol Live, the concert tour of the top 10 American Idol finalists. His company has a box at the Staples Center and the tickets were a reward for receiving an outstanding performance review. He called me at 5pm to tell me he had tickets for the 7pm show. Even if we had a regular babysitter, 2 hours probably wouldn't have been enough notice, so we decided to take Baby M to his first big concert. I was a little nervous, but knew that the box had glass walls and a sitting area with a couch and some comfy chairs, so I figured we'd be okay even if Baby M was fussy.

We got downtown just after 7 and parked in a $7 lot that was one block east of the $25 lot (yay us!). I put Baby M in his sling and we walked over to the Staples Center. We got settled in the box and were immediately concerned about the noise. Concerts in the Staples Center are LOUD! I kept Baby M's ears covered the best I could and wished I had thought ahead and brought some earplugs for him. Initially Baby M was a little apprehensive and kept his head buried in my shoulder for the first few performers (or perhaps he was just trying to tune out a terrible set by Ramiele), but by the time Michael Johns rose up out of the floor singing "We Will Rock You" he was having a grand time. He was mesmerized by Carly's version of "Bring Me to Life", bounced along to Brooke's "1234" and munched Cheerios (the only food he'll willingly eat these days) during Jason Castro's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

Halfway through the concert there was an intermission which seemed to be a 20 minute commercial for Guitar Hero, but it gave Baby M a chance to crawl around the box a bit so it worked out. He fell asleep during David Archuleta's performance and amazingly slept through David Cooks' rock heavy set and the full ensemble finale. Even though American Idols Live was probably not the concert we would have chosen to see, I think all 3 of us enjoyed it. If we ever get the box seat tickets again, I wouldn't hesitate to take Baby M along.

Mean Baby at the Library

Since it has been so hot lately Baby M and I have been spending some time at the local libraries. We haven't been to a story time yet, but every library has at least one scheduled during the week. Baby M is not quite ready to sit and listen to a story, but he loves crawling around and pulling books off the shelves. These days Baby M needs a lot of space to explore and our little 1940's era house just isn't cutting it.

So far my favorite library is the LAPL Playa Vista branch. The library has a large children's wing with plenty of board books and also wooden puzzles, large foam blocks and funny little velvet cars. We went on a Monday morning and there was only one other child in the room which meant Baby M could crawl around without any danger of being run over by an older kid. The Mar Vista branch is also nice. The children's room is much smaller, but it has lots of board books in large tin buckets and a built in bench that is the perfect height for Baby M to cruise on.

Today we went to the Main Branch of the Santa Monica library. I spent a lot of time in this library pre-Baby M because it has a much larger selection of titles than my local branch and it's really just a lovely space to be in. There is a garden patio, a cafe and lots of natural light. But today was the first time that I'd ventured into the children's area. There are no toys and the board books are not really baby accessible; they sit on a low shelf along a main walkway and I'm concerned that Baby M would get stepped on while he picked out his books. On the plus side, there is a huge open activity area where Baby M was able to crawl to his heart's content. Without any doorways, heating grates, tables or chairs to dodge he was really able to build up some speed. He was like Baby Flash, or whichever superhero has the power of super-speed. While Baby M happily wandered around a little boy, maybe 3 years old, came into the room and was very excited to point out the baby. He got down on his hands and knees to mimic Baby M's crawling. This got Baby M very excited and he made a bee-line for the little boy, hands and knees pounding, head wobbling, screeching like a banshee. The little boy stood up, said "Mean Baby" and stomped out of the room. Completely unconcerned my "Mean Baby" ambled off to try to pick up some shadows by the window.

UCLA Baby Lab

Right after I brought Baby M home from the hospital I read What's Going On In There by Lise Eliot. The book, written by a neuroscientist, describes how an infant's brain is formed and how each sense develops. In addition to providing details on the physical structures of the brain and the role genetics and environment play in development, the author also explained many of the experiments used to gather the information. I really enjoyed the book and although it was a bit heavy on the science, it was a nice break from the practical infant care guides I had been reading at the time. In particular I found many of the experiments fascinating. Did you know that whether or not a 4 year old can delay eating a marshmallow is one of the biggest predictors of success later in life? I've already got "Run marshmallow experiment on Baby M" penciled in for 2011.

Since I'm already planning on doing my own experiments on Baby M, it's no surprise that when I received a card in the mail from the UCLA Baby Lab looking for test subjects I said "Sign us up!" Don't worry, there are no experimental drugs involved or weird psychological tests. We went in for our first study this week which has to do with whether or not infants will pay attention to illusory figures. Baby M just had to watch a TV screen for about 15 minutes and an eye tracking device monitored where he looked. Sometimes he looked at the illusory figure and sometimes he did not, which the researcher said was pretty typical. Baby M also had some time to warm up to the researchers and play with some of the toys in the lab. All of the researchers were very nice and happy to share information about their research. I would definitely go back if another study opens up.

There was no compensation for participating, although we did get free parking at UCLA and a cute T-shirt for Baby M. My husband wonders why anyone would participate, but he has never stayed home all day with Baby M. As most stay at home moms will tell you, anything that gets you out of the house for a few hours is worthwhile. Especially if it is free (most structured activities and even some playgroups cost $20 a visit), allows Baby M to see something new and allows Mom to have a bit of grown-up conversation.