Relic of the Month

Charlotte Bronte decorated this dollhouse.  It is for sale.  Read more here.

Theatre Fun

The Kiddo has been having a blast all week hanging out at the Cherry Lane Theatre, where T's theatre company is preparing for their upcoming show, which opens tomorrow night.

Here he is checking out the construction of the set and designing of the light cues, having fun with company member (and his new favorite person) Victoria, and finally, as the Kiddo himself says, "runnin' aroun' 'n' aroun' 'n' aroun'!"

Melora Hardin talks about Attachment Parenting

Photo via Celebrity Baby Blog

Melora Hardin of The Office opened up to Celebrity Baby Blog this week about her two home births, extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and overall attachment parenting lifestyle.  It's a great, in-depth interview, and I highly recommend reading it in its entirety.  Here are some of the highlights:

On breastfeeding:

I breastfed both of them for two and a half years each. I feel like for me, I was not a sleep-deprived mother, because I got really comfortable with the idea of rolling over, plopping my boob in their mouth and they would go back to sleep and so would I.  And that was easier for me than getting up out of bed and sitting in a chair next to the crib.

I think it's a great thing, and something people should feel confident and comfortable with, and not stressed out about. When I was doing it, I had so many people asking me, "When are you going to stop breastfeeding? When she's 16?" Joking like that. And it's like, "Well I'll do it when it's time to stop!"

In countries where they breastfeed at least a year and over a year, their rate of breast cancer is so much lower than this country. It's what they're meant to do. The plumbing needs to be used. It's good for your boobs! And it's great for the baby.

On choosing home birth:

I had two beautiful births at home that I feel really great about, and I would always choose to do that at home unless I had to go to a hospital. I think hospitals are fantastic for emergency or high-risk situations. But luckily I didn't have that.

On attachment parenting and being influenced by the books of Dr. Sears:

Reading that book and hearing that they had seven or eight children but didn't start attachment parenting til their last three was interesting. And he's a pediatrician and she's a nurse, and they talk about the difference between practicing attachment parenting with their last three and how that affected their last three as compared to their first five or so. I thought that was fascinating, from people with that kind of experience -- really quite mainstream. I thought it was a pretty great testimonial for the method, and I talked to my husband about it, and he thought it sounded good and we thought we'd try it.

Snow Bandits

I love the art of window display, and there is no better time and place to soak up the rococo goodness of department store windows than New York in December.  This week I've been enjoying the blog  Quaint Handmade, as it posts photo documentation of this season's over-the-top displays at Barneys, Bloomingdales, Bergdorf Goodman and the like.  Check out all the eyecandy, here.

Meanwhile, as I was walking through the Meatpacking district last week, I was stopped in my tracks by this inventive and cheeky vignette at the Moschino store on West 14th Street, wherein desperate snowman times clearly call for desperate snowman measures:

Photos:  Top, Quaint handmade.  Bottom three, yours truly.

Wintery Cute Fashion

My latest style blog crush is Le Monde de Tokyobanhbao.  A compatriot of Betty, The Cherry Blossom Girl and Punky B, Tokyobanhbao is yet another example of a perfectly put-together, impeccably cute, vintage/h&m/Zara-obsessed, French, teenage self-portraitist.

So help me streetstyle gods, I just couldn't help but post this recent ensemble.  I imagine this is what Santa's elves would be wearing if the North Pole workshop was relocated to a Parisian Atelier.  And I mean that in the best possible, most wintery-wonderful way.

Photo/Tokyobanhbao.

What The Hubby's Up To

Over the last few weeks since the orchestration of my birthday-surprise-for-the-ages, I have been inundated with remarks from people reading this blog who are marveling at the man I married. Indeed, I am a very, very lucky girl to have a husband who would give me such an amazing gift, but the truly incredible thing is that you don't even know the half of how wonderful T is!

I'm not going to get into listing all the ways in which he is so wonderful right now, I just want to focus on one piece of the wonderfulness puzzle.  And it is this:  I want you know about T's work, which is inspiring, beautiful, and changing-the-world-for-the-better-exciting.

Back in 2001, T decided to start a theatre company for young people who stutter.  He has stuttered since childhood and spent most of his life feeling isolated, alone, and misunderstood. When he was growing up, he found an expressive outlet in the performing arts and went on to become a successful professional actor/dancer/choreographer.  Throughout his years performing in New York and around the world, T was having the time of his life (this was the era during which we met, after all!) but still, something was missing.  T dreamed of shifting gears and using his gifts and experience to help other people who stutter.

Hence the inception of Our Time Theatre Company.

Now in its eighth season, Our Time provides an environment of unconditional acceptance which allows young people who stutter to transform the fear and shame that often comes with stuttering into confidence and self-esteem.  Within the fun and fabulous framework of Our Time, young people who stutter discover the joy of creating and performing original theatre and music.  There is no audition for prospective members, no performance experience necessary, and Our Time serves its company members free of charge.  Usually kids come back to Our Time year after year, fostering a feeling of community and family.  The impact that T and Our Time has had on so many lives is breathtaking.  I cannot tell you how deeply affecting and inspiring it is to watch young people being transformed by art and understanding.  And yet it goes deeper -- the stock-in-trade of Our Time is love, and it positively oozes out of every performance, every song, every poem written at Our Time.  At the heart of everything the theatre company does is a vision of listening and acceptance that transcends the boundaries of the specific issue of stuttering, motivating audiences to appreciate and celebrate everyone's unique voice.

I have chosen to tell you all about this now, because last week T launched the Official Our Time Blog!  You must check it out, as it is an excellent window into the company's ongoing projects and a great way to see behind the scenes, all while getting your daily dose of cuteness in the form of kids performing and reading their own original work (T is addicted to his new Flip, so expect lots of video snippets!)  

By frequenting the Our Time Blog, you'll be the first to hear about Our Time collaborations with popular artists (Our Time's supporters have included Mandy Patinkin, Paul Rudd, Rosie Perez, Cynthia Nixon, Natalie Portman, Bill Withers, and many many more.  You'll want to keep your eyes and ears peeled for news and updates on the in-production Our Time Album which features many celebrity guest artists).  

SOOO, check it out!  And check it out often for news and updates!  

NOTE:  For an opportunity to see Our Time in action, in person, there are shows coming up this weekend in NYC.  For more information, click here or call 212.414.9696.

And finally, to give you a little taste of what's in store for you on T's blog, I'll leave you with three of the Our Time pre-teen company members, reading about their holiday hopes:

Sightseeing in Our Own City

Last week I was so busy posting about our dream-trip to Paris that I wasn't even able to keep you up to date on some of the fun sightseeing we were busy doing as soon as we got back to New York!  One of the highlights of our first week back was the day that the Kiddo and I spent with our friend Liz Rubincam (who took the following two photos).

We started out at one of our favorite lunch spots on the Upper West Side, Hampton Chutney Company.  There we indulged in the restaurant's trademark dosas and waaay delicious cardamom iced coffee.  Not only is the food scrumptious, but the Kiddo loves hanging out there, playing in the sunny window seat and reading from the library of children's books they have on hand.  

Afterwards, we bundled up and headed across Central Park to the Whitney...

...where we took in two incredible exhibits, William Eggleston: Democratic Camera and Alexander Calder: The Paris Years.

Calder and Eggleston are two of my favorite artists, so it was a treat to see both shows in one location.  Click here to watch a short but juicy clip showing some of the highlights of the Eggleston show as the artist's son speaks about the work (I attempted to embed the video, but ran into technical difficulties!  My appologies).  Here are some of my favorite pieces from the show:

As much as we enjoyed the photographs, the Calder show was just out-of-this-world magical, whimsical, and wonderful.  What a spirit of exploration, fun, and invention Mr. Calder possessed.  Here are some tidbits, culled from the Whitney website:

"Tight Rope Artists" from "Calder's Circus"

A young Alexander Calder, pliers in hand, in his studio in Paris

The five suitcases in which Calder transported "Circus"

"Josephine Baker IV" wire sculpture

Towards the end of the exhibition, near the display of Calder's amazing wire portraits of Josephine Baker, there was an absolutely arresting archival short film of Ms. Baker performing her signature dance moves.  The Kiddo and I must have stood there and watched it loop a dozen times, and ever since I have been a little obsessed with learning more about this fabulous icon. To feed my craving for more knowledge about her, I'm thinking of ordering this from Amazon. 

Can any of you direct me towards great footage/books/information on La Baker?