THE BEASTIE LAB

Every year there is a canine costume party called "Dog-O-Ween" near our home in Venice Beach (I suspect it's partly why my son wanted a dog so badly.). So, of course, our new dog , Pickles, will be in costume celebrating it this year. We contemplated a namesake giant pickle costume, but in the end, we thought about what he would want to be if he were choosing and since his biggest obsession is birds -more specifically, chasing them- and living near the beach that means seag

The kid & I have always had a fascination with tentacled creatures, octopus, squid, cuttlefish and the like, but for a period of about 6 months when he was 5, he became obsessed with the chambered nautilus. I mean totally OBSESSED. It was pretty much all he wanted to talk about. We spent hours poring over books, searching the internet and making repeated visits to aquariums. We visited the nautilus tank in the Berlin Aquarium 5 times in 2 weeks. And I will admit, it is a fas

This has become something of a holiday tradition around here. Yes, grandparents and other close loved ones may be eager to stare at your kid's cute face when they are drinking their morning coffee, but face it, you gotta really love that kid to want to see him first thing every day. It's a gift with limited appeal and I think it's a little tired. Here's a fresh idea. Scan a drawing, painting or cute note from your kid and have that printed on a ceramic mug, water bottle or tr

Admittedly, this is a RIDICULOUS thing to make. It's almost embarrassing to admit to doing it. But I never let that stop me. And I won't tell if you want to make them too. My advice: Make them in the morning when you are feeling relaxed and patient. The first time, I went to my local standard supermarket and bought the only pack of egg roll wrappers they had. The label was all in English. And admittedly, I used them straight out of the fridge, which probably wasn't the best i

The kid's current obsession is origami. And it's kinda contagious... Origami isn't just folding cranes, sailboats and hats like I remember doing when I was a kid. In case you don't know, origami has blossomed over the past few decades into a very sophisticated craft & science. Not only are scientists using it to design spacecraft and robots, but some of the paper models origamists are folding for fun are astonishing and require hundreds of precise folds. Most are made from on