Yoga Kids by Gaiam

This morning I started doing a few yoga stretches while Lexi played nearby.  Immediately, she was mesmerized with what I was doing and crawled over to check out the alignment on my Downward Dog ( a bit stiff, for the record).  It hit me that sooner rather than later, I should introduce yoga to her.  Yes, we did a few mommy and me yoga classes but frankly, I ended up spending the bulk of the time nursing her or tending to her.

Every single day, she is pushing her physical limits, inching her way closer to walking. She watches every single thing we do and imitates most of it. (We found her pretending to plug in the radio today – fortunately, we have baby proofed that outlet!)  I know how connected I feel to myself when I do yoga and I can’t think of a better gift to give my daughter.  You can bet that I’ll keep doing yoga with/near her and sooner rather than later, we’ll be side by side in our downward dogs. read more »

We participated in a kiddo gift exchange with our local group of friends this weekend. Each family was assigned two little ones, and each little one received two gifts. One of Gioia’s gifts was an adorable tutu from tutus & tuques. I LOVED the tutu even before I  knew the backstory. Now that I know what tutus & tuques is all about, I love the tutu even more. Providing small groups nationwide with tools to make gifts for children battling cancer & long term disease in their local hospitals, tutus & tuques has started a movement that I am firmly behind. You can be a part of the movement in three ways: 1) host a group to make tutus and hats for your local children’s hospital (operating nationwide), 2) buy a (fabulous!) tutu and your contribution will sponsor 4 tutus to be made for children battling disease, or 3) spread the word! It will help hands and hearts reach more and more kids. Read more about tutus & tuques and their mission here.

Loving the interactive play area!

My 7 month old daughter spends a lot of time at home. It is not surprising as she doesn’t have her driver’s license yet…or her “land legs” for that matter. She is at the mercy of us, her parents. And, admittedly, when the weather gets bad we tend to take cover in our home and she has even less time in the great outdoors. It is not that we want to deprive her of the exciting sights, sounds and scents of the outside world. It is just that we have a rather small “go-to” list of appropriate rainy day venues that are suitable for our little angel.

That changed this past rainy-weekend, however. We discovered the joys of the children’s room at the local library. I’ll be the first to admit that I assumed the library was more appropriate for “older” children who, well, can read. Turns out our local library has all sorts of fun goodies for all ages, including pre-crawlers. We found plenty of board books, well-padded play areas, well-chewed and colorful toys, and a variety of interactive play areas that my daughter had an absolute blast exploring. Needless to say, we’ll be making the local library a regular on our neighborhood circuit.

Have you discovered your local library yet? If not, give it a try. You may be surprised. This mom sure was!

Loving the gathering drum!

I am floored, but there is a glimmer of hope that my daughter may actually have rhythm…despite being the product of a genetic matchup of two embarrassingly aryrhythmic parents.

This week Gioia started a local music class called Music Together. The Music Together^® program encourages our little one’s “innate ability to sing in tune, create rhythms and participate in music making with joy and confidence.” Parents (or other adult escorts) are required to participate and – to be honest – you want too because it is a lot of fun!

Gioia definitely dove right into the “participating in music making with joy and confidence” part of the curriculum. Before class even started she burned a few calories thumping on the gathering drum that sat in the middle of the room while yelping with enthusiasm. The rest of the class brought much of the same. She sang (OK, squealed) during the songs, laughed during the dances and went crazy for the “fireworks” we made by throwing colorful scarfs in the air.

Watch out world, there is a new generation of superstars coming up through the ranks!

The stinging sea nettles...

My 6 month old daughter, Gioia, is fascinated by the stinging sea nettle. Who knew? I certainly wouldn’t have had I not decided to take her to the aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park (San Francisco). I didn’t expect her to be that into the sea life (yet). Boy was I wrong. She was big-eyed and with a big smile for well over an hour, taking in the sights and sounds of the exhibits. She giggled and cooed and reached for fishes and eels. And boy did she love those stinging sea nettles. She stared and stared at the orange floating sea jellies against the bright blue water background and, well, seemed to fall in love with their underwater world. read more »

Last week I was at a work meeting and one of the ladies from our PR agency introduced me to WORDLE. She uses the program to include “word cloud” slides in her presentations. Two seconds into the program and I was hooked.

I can think of a number of different non-work uses for this program. Specifically, what a fun art project for moms & kiddos! You simply enter a bunch of words (or a website or Twitter account) and Wordle arranges the words into a word cloud. You can select horizontal or vertical or half and half. You can select colors. You can select font. The end result is your very own personalized (and very framable, if you ask me) work of art!

For a step further you can check out Tagxedo. Not only can you select alignment, font and color…you can also choose to have your words arranged in a picture. I used Tagxedo to form the word cloud pictured here. I simply typed in “www.LuxeMom.com” and chose the duck shape and wa-la! Tagxedo pulled words from our website and arranged them into this super cute word-duck. Love it!

Have fun creating your own art projects with Wordle or Tagxedo. I am planning to create a Tagxedo word cloud for my daughter’s room that includes family member names, terms of endearment, etc. I may not be able to draw, but I can Tagxedo! Enjoy!

A little something for your wee one to enjoy!  We love these videos, sure to make your babe or child smile and dance.

Big Green Rabbit offers kids the opportunity to play a game, learn a dance, sing a song or watch a show.  Each one is designed to get kids to engage with the characters and dance and move during each episode, while learning about the environment and health.  Targeting 3-6 year old kids on health and environmentally-focused themes proves that education can be fun! read more »

Gioia's Very Own Fantasyland!

What kiddo hasn’t fantasized about being ruler of his or her own very own kingdom?!? The drama…the adventure…the DRAGONS!

Well polish the crowns and dust off the thrones, Kidlandia has created a mechanism whereby all this imagining can be made “reality”. The easy-to-use and incredibly cool on-line Kidlandia Personalized Map Creator allows your little Royal Highnesses to create their very own empires. read more »

Little Passports

A friend of mine once told me a wonderful story about her family. When she was growing up her family would have monthly dinners focused on a different country. She and her siblings would study the country selected and would prepare a short “report” on something related to that part of the world that they would share during dinner.

Her parents participated as well, and took things a step further by cooking recipes indigenous to the area and playing “dinner music” from that part of the world. She learned a lot AND she developed an appreciation of travel and people of different heritages. In short, it helped make her a better global citizen. And what a fantastic family learning activity!

I’ve held on to her story over the years, filing it away in my mind as a “must do” for when my daughter is old enough. I was immediately reminded of these fun future plans when I came across Little Passports. read more »

Enjoying a little Bossa Nova in the MoMA Sculpture Garden

We were recently in New York as part of our family tour.  As many of you know, New York is my favorite US city – to me it invigorates, energizes and challenges the senses in the most wonderful way.  I was excited to have a day and a half (albeit too short) in the city with just me and the babe.  But as we neared, I realized that many of the things I used to do while living there or visiting just weren’t as appealing with a 4 month old.  Let’s face it, Tom and Jerry’s Bar was suddenly unlikely to welcome me with a sweet baby strapped to my chest. And yet, read more »