Baby Jogger 2014 City Select Double Stroller
The Baby Jogger City Select double stroller is one of the best options on the market, with its overall comfort and wide variety of configuration options.
PlanetBox Rover Lunchbox
The PlanetBox Rover is an awesome little stainless steel lunchbox for kids and adults alike. It has several compartments to keep food items apart, bento-style, while the two included round/lidded containers (one large, one small) are great for dipping sauces and/or yogurt. Its reusable stainless steel construction is both sturdy and eco-friendly. It works perfectly for solid "finger foods" like sandwiches, fruits+veggies,…
2014 Britax B-Agile Stroller
As a stay-at-home dad who likes taking his son on lots of walks around the neighborhood, having a good stroller is important to me. The 2014-model Britax B-Agile is one of the better options out there, for several reasons: It's surprisingly lightweight for its size. You can fold it one-handed. After the kid is out, just push the safety button on the…
Skottie Young’s ‘Daily Grind’ Sketchbook
You comic book aficionados out there are probably already familiar with Skottie Young's illustration work. If not, a good starting point is the charming Fortunately, the Milk, a book he worked on with Neil Gaiman. This morning, Skottie released his new sketchbook, Daily Grind, which collects about 100 of his black-and-white daily sketches that he hand-picked from his archive. It's a limited-print…
Zoku Slow Pops — Mini Pop Molds
Summer is already halfway over, but there's plenty of hot weather left before we move on to more civilized seasons. If you're still looking for ways to beat the heat, you could do worse than picking up these mini-sized Zoku Slow Pops molds. They let you make up to 9 ice pops at once, which are easily removed from their silicone casings.…
Osmo
Here's another cool iPad thing for kids. Osmo is a system consisting of an iPad stand (which works with pretty much any iPad but the original model) and a mirror attachment that fits over the iPad's front-facing camera to redirect it downward. Once attached, Osmo lets you load up one of three games that scans real-world objects in front of your iPad…
Epic! — eBook Subscription for Kids
Epic! is one of the cooler subscription services I've seen in a while. For $5 a month (the first month is free), your iPad gains unlimited access to a huge, highly curated library of eBooks for kids 12 and under. Watch the promo video to see how it works. The books work in landscape and portrait modes, and new books are added…
‘Maker Dad’ by Mark Frauenfelder
Mark Frauenfelder—editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools—recently published an awesome book for geeky dads called Maker Dad: Lunch Box Guitars, Antigravity Jars, and 22 Other Incredibly Cool Father-Daughter DIY Projects. As the name suggests, the book contains a bunch of projects intended for fathers and their daughters to have fun building together. These projects teach your kid some important skills (like programming…
Whaleywasher
This one is for those of us with little kids running around the house. Watching them learn how to wash their own hands is fun in a way, but cleaning up the mess sure isn't. They have a hard time reaching anything, they're putting their hands all over faucet handles and knocking over soap dispensers and getting water everywhere, and you're standing…
Safety 1st Finger Pinch Preventer
This is one of those things I wish I'd known about sooner. My 2yo son has a habit of closing house doors a little too roughly, and this whole time we could've been using the Safety 1st Finger Pinch Preventer as a precautionary measure. It can be fitted on the hinge or knob side of a door, preventing those horrible finger pinches…
‘Fortunately, the Milk’ by Neil Gaiman
Fortunately, the Milk is a children's book written by Neil Gaiman—and illustrated by one of my favorite comic artists, Skottie Young—that tells the tale of a father who goes out to buy some milk and returns with a wild story for his kids to hear. The premise sounds silly, and the book is certainly full of silly events. But it's also a…
Cardboard Rocket
I've yet to meet a kid who doesn't love playing with cardboard boxes. A lot of them also appreciate rocket ships, so the Cardboard Rocket would make an awesome gift for them. Obviously you could make your own rocket ship out of boxes if you wanted, but these guys have done all the work for you, cutting out not only the necessary…
Snap Circuits Alternative Energy Kit
I've always been kind of a sucker for geeky kid stuff. I grew up watching shows like Bill Nye the Science Guy and Beakman's World, and of course I had one of those Creepy Crawlers bug-maker kits. Now that I'm a dad, I like to keep an eye out for these same kinds of geeky things I can share with my son…
Yield Picnic Bag
Summertime is in full swing, and the weather here in Oklahoma City has been quite pleasant this year, unlike previous years where it's constantly 100°F or higher. It's perfect picnic weather, and I'm considering picking up a couple of these Yield Picnic Bags. Essentially, it's a tote bag you can carry your food and/or drink with, and when you get to the…
OXO Tot Perfect-Pull Wipes Dispenser
After Shawn's big announcement yesterday, I thought it'd be fitting to post about this wipe dispenser. With two kids doing diaper damage around the house, he's going to need it. There are three factors that set the Perfect-Pull apart from those cheaply-made dispensers at the grocery store: It's weighted. It has non-slip feet. It somehow (i.e. magically) keeps wipes from getting stuck.…
LEGO 6-Case Workstation and Storage Unit
Most of us nerds have some LEGO around the house, dating back from our childhood. Mine are in a giant tub in the attic. After finding today's item, I'm ashamed of how I am storing them until my kids are old enough not to eat them. The IRIS LEGO 6-Case Workstation and Storage Unit is part storage, part workspace. With 6 sliding…
“The Poopsmith” Baby Onesie
The Poopsmith's job is obvious. And for the first several months of your newborn's life, "poopsmith" is a pretty apt nickname. And so it might as well say so on the onesie.
‘Darth Vader and Son’ by Jeffrey Brown
What if Darth Vader had been an involved father? Jeffrey Brown illustrates a slew of father-and-son moments (such as "Take Your Child to Work Day on the Death Star") comically showing what life might have been like for Luke had Darth been a dad like any other. "When I was your age, we didn't even have Star Destroyers..."
Stork Messenger / Diaper Bag
The Stork Messenger bag from Timbuk2 is "the diaper bag for people who don’t want to carry a diaper bag". My wife and I are expecting our first in just a few weeks and finding a diaper bag that we both like has been anything but easy. Most of them look like oversized purses, or else are shy on pockets and much…