Marin Daddy Blog

Beware the bounce house! The jumpy house and its various iterations are seemingly ubiquitous these days at kids' birthday parties and public events. Until now parents only had to worry about germs (from other people's kids, not yours certainly) and children klunking their heads together mid-bounce. But today California Attorney General and gubernatorial hopeful Jerry Brown the Center for Environmental Health filed a lawsuit against various bounce house manufacturers, distributors, and suppliers over high levels of lead found in many of the inflatable houses.

It seems the vinyl used in constructing the bounce houses is often contaminated with lead, depending on where it was made. (China? Just guessing.) Lead levels on tested examples ranged from 5,000–29,000 parts per million (ppm). By way of comparison, Federal limits for lead in kids' products are 90 ppm for painted surface and 300 ppm for everything else.

When I was growing up, my favorite dinosaur was the Triceratops. You could have your big, macho, hyperaggressive T-rex and your slow, plodding brontosaurus. The triceratops, I like to think, was the thinking kid's dino, a creature that, although a gentle herbivore at heart, was capable of opening a sizeable can of whup-ass on an unwary predator, courtesy of its three wicked-looking horns. Note that the cool ride-on dinosaur pictured (which can be yours—or your child's, rather—for about $300 and change ) is a triceratops, not any other less worthy species.

So you can understand why I and legions of other sophisticated dinosaur lovers are heartbroken at the news that some smarty-pants scientists have decided that triceratops isn't triceratops at all, but rather a juvenile form of torosaurus, a similar looking dinosaur that also sports three horns and a frill at the back of the neck. How can this be? Have we all been living a lie? It's important stuff like this that keeps me up at night.

I've found that one of the ways to get my kids to eat so-called "yucky" food (or rather potentially "yucky" food, since usually they've never actually tried it) is to involve them somehow in the preparation of it. Since it's summer, we tend to cook outside on the grill quite a bit, so combine participation with the spectacle of charring food over an open flame and you have pretty much an irresistable combination.

Let me first note that safety is first and foremost when cooking on the grill with kids around. Anything that gets hot enough to put a nice sear on the outside of a steak can similarly do so on someone's hand or arm, so the first rule of helping Daddy cook dinner on the grill is "stay away from the grill". The second rule is—wait for it—"stay away from the grill". Sensing a pattern here? Kids are not allowed outside unattended when the grill's hot, and trips outside to see what's going on are on a strictly escorted basis and confined to a safe zone on the deck overlooking the barbecue area.

I feel I haven't written a blog post in something like forever (the last one was May 9), which I've decided it directly attributable to working on getting a huge website project off the ground at work (check it out: the all-new Drupal-powered www.famsf.org), and of course undertaking my favorite activity ever: moving! Perhaps you detected a note of sarcasm in that last statement. I'm sure I'm not alone when I declare that without a doubt, moving is the least enjoyable human experience. Although the end result may be happiness and a possible quality-of-life improvement, getting there is definitely not half the fun.

Of course when we set out to start I launched right in to the process with a cheery "Oh, this'll be easy!" Naturally, I remembered the last time we moved when we loaded up all our possessions into a 16-foot rental truck (one load only!) and bribed family and friends with the promise of beer and pizza at the close of day. I neglected to consider that this was a couple years before we had children, and I was utterly unprepared to face the horrors that lurked in our garage and indeed every room in the house. How is it that two small people can accumulate so much stuff over the courses of the so far not very long lives?

Happy Mothers Day to all you hard working moms out there! And if you're not hard at work, I assume you've been that way to get to this point, so happy Mothers Day to you, too! And dads, I hope you're doing something today for the mother of your children to make her feel special. One of the great side benefits of having kids is that you don't have to run out to the card store at times like this. Give them some crayons, stickers, maybe some glitter, too, add some nice heavy paper, and you have a veritable greeting card sweatshop right in your own home. Moms, grandparents, and just about everyone loves to get a unique home-grown card decorated by a genuine preschooler. This comes in especially handy if you've forgotten to go to the card store, and don't have time to run out and grab something—anything—from the picked-over card selection left at this point in the game (of course you'll be in the company of many other anxious dads in the same boat as you, so don't feel too bad).

One of the springtime's treats is homemade strawberry rhubarb pie. My four-year-old somehow got the notion that we were going to make a pie, and has been lobbying me to do that for a couple weeks now. So I went out shopping and picked up some strawberries, rhubarb, and some of the frozen pie crusts that Trader Joes sells.

Just so we're perfectly clear: I may be a wannabe house-husband, but I don't make pie crust, since those that I have tried to make end up with the texture of cardboard. The Trader Joes offering is made of pretty decent stuff (i.e. no partially hydrogenated oils) and is really good, so I usually just buy those when I find it necessary to do some pie making. Right now strawberries are fresh, abundant, and cheap (I heard a news story on the radio recently that explained why, but I wasn't really paying attention so I don't remember), so go get a mess of them and make yourself a pie!

Here's my recipe, amalgamated from a variety of sources to make a pretty tasty pie:

There's nothing quite like spring in Northern California. There are those among us—East Coast transplants probably—who tell us that California has no seasons, but they're dead wrong. They're just more subtle than in other places. I'm not going to go into a treatise on the subject here, but if you're really interested go and read Steinbeck's monumental East of Eden, where he describes the situation in a much more articulate way than I can. Spring is perhaps the most definite season here in California. It's warm, the hills are a bright verdant green, creeks are running, and wildflowers about. It's a fantastic time to go hiking and to take in those fleeting seasonal sights.

Since today is St. Patrick's Day, why not celebrate by gathering the kids in the kitchen and whipping up a loaf of traditional Irish brown soda bread? It's so easy to make—and so good—that I bet you'll find yourself making it more than just on March 17.

This dense, moist bread gets its leavening from baking soda and buttermilk, hence the name. I happen to like the brown kind, made with whole wheat flour, the best, but you're welcome to use all white flour if you so choose.