Mamakaze! Attacking Life at Full Throttle

Moses baskets have come a long way from their humble origins on the Nile river. Despite their inception as crude escape vessels for tiny targets of ethnic cleansing, woven baby carriers have floated into modern homes on a wave of popularity. And why not? They’re comfy, convenient and — with good craftsmanship and a pretty fabric — quite cute!

Perfect for newborns, these clever carriers can be used as sleeping quarters or as a safe place for baby to relax while mama checks off a few household chores. We love how easy they are to carry from room to room while we’re tidying up!

The original Moses basket was made of bullrushes and covered in tar and pitch. Luckily, today’s baskets aren’t required to be seaworthy, so they’re a lot prettier than the craft in which Mamakaze imagines the wee Moses bobbed down the Nile.

In searching for someplace portable for our latest addition to sleep, we found baskets in styles ranging from sensible to sumptuous.

Available in a multitude of colors, patterns and prices, Moses baskets are accessible to mamas on any budget. We found items from $30 to $458 and everywhere in between. Whether your nursery’s decor is contemporary, classic or country, there’s a Moses basket out there to float your boat.

In any household, especially one such as Mamakaze’s which is filled with Tauruses, there is bound to be some clashing of both opinions and aesthetics. While Papakaze has thankfully limited his design input to mere veto power, let us not underestimate the little ones.

Although they don’t know Herman Miller from Hermione Granger, they do know one thing — that the house should be carpeted from wall to wall in toys. Which means our “carpet” is garish, to say the very least. We don’t mind (too much) that their playthings are hideous to behold, because after all, they enjoy them. But recently during a game of memory with Kidakaze, Mamakaze found ourself thinking, if we have to look at that stupid clownfish one more time, we are going to flush ourself down the toilet.

Since the point of playing memory is to enjoy family-friendly fun with one’s kids — and not to fixate on our irrational hatred of overmerchandised animated characters — the solution is purchasing a game that kids will enjoy, but with an aesthetic that adults can appreciate.

Mamakaze recommends the Maharam memory game, which features for your matching pleasure an array of 36 famous 20th-century textile patterns. None of which, we might add, features clownfish, wizards, tiny map-wielding Latinas, or chubby technicolor bears that defy gravity. Even in our home full of clashing decor preferences, a design-friendly game is one thing that’s bound to harmoniously tie all the elements together.

Mamakaze found the fun (and fashionable) Maharam memory game online for $36.

Like most kindergarteners, Kidakaze does a lot of coloring. She has quite the collection for a girl of her tender years — crayons, markers, chalk, paint, glitter glue. And like most kindergarteners, she’s not exactly an organizational expert. Thus, her room looks a lot like the school-supply aisle at our local superstore … if the superstore happened to stock all its merchandise underfoot.

As always, parenting magazines have just the solution for such a situation: The humble hanging shoe organizer. Only problem is, most shoe organizers are designed to be seen by nobody save the moths in the back of Granny’s closet, not to be prominently displayed in a playroom or or little princess’ palace.

However, Mamakaze has discovered that with a little hunting online, one can find just about anything. A few clicks of the mouse, and we found a closet organizer in the cutest shade of kiwi. A little more surfing and we managed to find organizers in hues to satisfy all sartorial styles, and even an island-inspired palm-tree print.

Our favorite? That very first gorgeous green closet organizer, pictured at left, that we spotted for $18 at Organize.com (online only).

Now Kidakaze’s art-supply storage will be just as appealing as her little Crayola masterpieces.

Mamakaze generally believes in letting toddlers have free roam of the living areas in our house. We are annoyed, mind you, by the endless unraveling of our toilet paper rolls and the constant dispersion of our Tupperware throughout the kitchen and surrounding rooms. But we remind ourself that by exploring and experimenting, Totakaze is creating new synaptic connections and, with any luck, all the chaos will one day result in a full scholarship to the Ivy of ~~our~~ her choice.

However permissive Mamakaze may be, there are certain cabinets that are better left unopened. For our tot-level repositories of dishwasher detergent and glass mixing bowls, we have amassed an impressive collection of babyproofing gadgets. The only problem is, parts of our once-attractive kitchen now look not dissimilar to Fort Knox. And this, dear readers, is not our ideal aesthetic.

Lucky for lovers of stylish, sleek kitchens, Mamakaze found this “invisible” magnetic cabinet lock. The lock is mounted inside the door with an adhesive and operated with a magnetic “key” that can be stored out of reach of busy baby hands until we’re ready to work our magic. This drill-free solution even works for doors without handles — a must in an ultramodern kitchen!

We found this ingenious magnetic cabinet lock for $16 online.

Everything old is new again — skinny pants, charm bracelets, ankle boots — so it doesn’t surprise us at all that one of Mamakaze’s very favorite ’80s trends, the ubiquitous Swatch watch, has made a resurgence of sorts. What does surprise us, however, is that its reinvention for this decade comes in the form of a baby monitor.

Graco’s stylish Decor baby monitor, $40, has four interchangeable face plates in blue, yellow, pink and green — allowing you to tailor its look to complement your nursery. Unlike our cell phone and iPod, whose face plates cost us a pretty penny on top of the original product, Graco kindly includes the extra plates with the monitor.

And lest you think the Decor monitor is a one-trick pony, it has two parent units with all the usual features, plus the main unit keeps baby’s comfort in mind with a digital temperature indicator.

Some things get better with time, and Mamakaze is happy that today’s charm bracelets are a little more elegant than the fuchsia plastic one we had in grade school. And ’80s throwback though it may be, the Graco Decor is a more sophisticated snap-together accessory than the Swatch watch. The four classic nursery colors will blend beautifully into just about any baby’s bedroom, and ’80s-lovin’ mamas can delight in a bit of nostalgia without fearing the mockery that leggings and ankle boots might elicit. (Not that that’s stopping Mamakaze from rocking that particular look!)

Perhaps our friends are over-brave, but we’re sure there must be other people like us. Mamakaze is part of a group of about a dozen mamas with tots from about a year to 18 months old. Our playgroup started when the babies were just wee, immobile things, so refreshments seemed like an easy and logical idea. Over the past year, the babies learned to sit, then to crawl, and later to race toward objects of desire at light speed. Suddenly, serving snacks didn’t seem like such a great plan anymore.

But with several mamas, including Mamakaze, finding ourselves in the family way, we certainly can’t deprive ourselves — and our precious cargo — of sustenance. Thus, quartered grapes and soft breads have replaced decadent cookies and chewy bagels. And with a dozen sets of swift little feet and grabby little hands to contend with, using breakable serveware at playgroup is no longer an option.

But, creative mamas that we are, most of us have come up with solutions that pleases the aesthetic sensibilities of the grown-ups while ensuring that our china and glass remain intact. Whether it’s bold, stylish melamine, understated wood or sophisticated metal, our pitted cherries, cheese cubes and other baby-friendly munchies are still sitting pretty.

Mamakaze loves chunky pieces of focaccia in the kiln-dried maple serving bowl at left ($200, Uncommon Goods). Some mamas do it up in high style, while other mothers choose a clean, colorful scheme. Either way, we feel perfectly grown-up eating off pretty dishes. Well, as grown-up as one can feel while fighting with a toddler over the last piece of edamame …

Babies love electronics — especially electronics with buttons. From the moment she first grabbed a remote control at three months old, we knew we were going to have to keep an eye on our gadgets around Totakaze.

A year later, she still enjoys clicking buttons on the remote, but she’s also graduated to fiddling with keychain fobs, stereo equipment, and — to our great and unending dismay — Mamakaze’s PC tower.

There seems to be some sort of invisible bullseye on our computer’s power button, because Totakaze is able to race across the room in a mere instant and destroy whatever unsaved work we might have up on our computer at a given moment. We’ve tried barricades and time-outs, but it is futile trying to get between a toddler and a shiny, powerful button.

Mamakaze feared we might have the only tot with a propensity for data destruction, but apparently we’re not alone. Unless Leaps and Bounds has gotten inside our head somehow, we suspect that the PC Guard Tower Protector was a creation born of necessity.

The PC Guard attaches to any computer case with Velcro straps and keeps the buttons and slots away from those curious, tiny fingers. The unobtrusive design is available in either black or grey to complement your computer equipment. Mamakaze found our PC Guard Tower Protector online at Leaps and Bounds.

It’s just a wild guess, but we’re thinking that we’re not the only mama out there who could benefit from having a toddler-proof PC.

If there’s anything Totakaze enjoys more than eating, it’s eating with her own fork and spoon. And if there’s anything she enjoys more than that, it’s getting her hands on a “real” piece of flatware and trying to stuff the oversize utensil in her little mouth. Maybe it’s the shiny metal or maybe it’s because it looks grown-up — whatever the reason, little kids the world over love to swipe silver from Mommy and Daddy.

That’s why our new best friend is the toddler flatware available exclusively at Leaps and Bounds. Available in either a traditional pattern or sleek contemporary design, this set of fork, spoon, and kid-safe knife looks just like adult tableware, but is made especially for tiny hands.

A far cry from the goofy, ornate sterling-silver tableware we used as a tot and the plasticky pastel spoons in Totakaze’s cabinet, this sophisticated stainless-steel “silverware” blends right in with the rest of the family’s and makes the little one feel like part of the action at the dinner table. (And with any luck, we won’t have to keep such close guard over our own forks and spoons now!)

We found My Very Own Flatware online for $19.95 at Leaps and Bounds.

Wherein crisp, clean style doesn’t end at the nursery door
Monday, August 14, 2006

In a perfect world, we’d walk through our chicly appointed home and the nursery would be indistinguishable aesthetically from any other room. In the world in which we live, however, the nursery remains an established bastion of brightly-colored, cartoon-themed plastic.

However, admirers of modern style need not fret. With a little hunting, one can appoint a nursery in as striking a style as one’s living and dining areas.

Every room needs a good piece of art, and while we can’t say that the Art Babe mobile with picture cards (pictured at left) is going to fetch much at Christie’s, the whimsical black-and-white line drawings are attractive to baby and mama alike. Just clip the cards into the minimalistic stainless-steel wire mobile and it’s your very own mini-MoMA!

But that’s not to say baby should live in an echoing, inhospitable gallery. Clear colors and crisp patterns evoke a modern aesthetic without feeling cold or stark. Mamakaze loves to see a baby’s room decked out in bright dots and bold stripes — a look that will please both the cosmopolitan and the cutie-patooties.

We’ve assembled an assortment of bold, graphic items for baby’s room, along with a few fun accessories. Nursery furniture, of course, is a story for another day — we’re currently busy selecting the very best of modern design in cribs, change tables and high chairs. But with a few of the pieces below, baby’s room is already on its way to a more sophisticated style.

Have we mentioned that Totakaze is a very active girl? She looks sweet as a cupcake, it’s true, but beneath her rosy, smiley exterior is a force of unfathomable destruction. When we add up all the times Totakaze has done something that took a few years off our life, we reckon we have about six months to live.

Today’s accomplishment for Totakaze was using her high chair as a diving board. We turned our back for just a minute as our innocent little cherub enjoyed her morning sippy cup, and when we looked over at her, she was standing smack in the middle of her high chair tray, dancing up and down on her fat little legs and beaming with pride. Fortunately we managed to magically teleport ourself to the high chair and snatch Totakaze up in one one-billionth of a second, before she went all Greg Louganis on us. But had we looked over a moment later, or had the high chair not been such a high-quality product, we shudder to imagine what might have happened.

Of course this could all have been avoided had Totakaze been wearing the five-point harness that comes with her Peg Perego Prima Pappa. Unlike the three-point harness provided with some other chairs, the five-pointer keeps babies securely in place (well, our clever Totakaze needs about 30 seconds to escape from such a harness, but we think we’ve established that she’s an extreme case). And unlike the cheaper chair we keep at Nanakaze’s house, the tray is sturdy enough to support a wild 24-pound toddler.

In addition to its super-strong tray and secure tray-locking mechanism, the reasons Mamakaze loves this chair are many. The Prima Pappa folds to a compact size for storage and is easy to operate. The seat is easy-to-clean vinyl and the dinner tray comes off in a snap for convenient washing. With four recline positions and seven height adjustments, the chair is as appropriate now as it was when Totakaze was a babbling babe taking her bottles at a 45-degree angle, rather than a tyrranical tot angling for a better vantage point.

When we were high-chair shopping, we found many imitators at lower prices, but none felt as sturdy as the Prima Pappa. We felt a little silly testing chairs for sturdiness with our nonmobile, 16-pound lump of slobbering sweetness in tow, but when we’ve used other people’s “as-good-as-Peg” chairs, they’ve wiggled and jiggled under the abuse of our wee dynamo. After today’s incident, we’re even more satisfied with our purchase.

But more importantly, we’re never, ever again going to leave Totakaze unharnessed (or let her escape without consequence) for even a second!

Totakaze dines in a gorgeous limited-edition Prima Pappa rocker that is no longer available, but we adore the stylish jade cube pattern available currently on the regular high chair ($169.99, Babies R Us).