Draw on the Furniture

Toddlers, little heathens that they are, love taboos. Especially when the infraction involves a Sharpie marker and your Corian countertop. Crazy making!

I know it seems counterproductive to get your little muralist a gift that encourages this behavior, but at least it'll keep them occupied and away from the remodeled surfaces. This Color-It footstool is extra-sturdy cardboard that can hold up to 60 pounds. Its plain white expanse just begs your child and friends to draw all over it. Just let them go wild: paint, the evil Sharpies, mud, whatever. It's just cardboard, after all. And for your child, it's a satisfying way to engage in a taboo without timeouts.

Color-It also comes in briefcase form, just in case your kid's a budding rebel executive. Find it at www.momastore.org. And let the defacement begin.

Insta-Tent

On these hot, hot days and equally steamy nights, your children long for the outdoors. And while that backyard overnight sounds fun, who really wants to hammer and peg together that real tent?

Avoid the grunt work and get this kid's camping tent instead. There's absolutely no hammering, struggling, cursing and stretching required. Just shake the tent out of its bag and it opens automatically, creating a sun shaded environment for children by day and a bug shelter by night. The bonus? You can't really fit in it, since it's for kids! You can stay inside, in the air conditioning, while the kids pretend to camp out. Brilliant. What I'm not sure about is just how easy it is to stuff that auto-unfurl tent back into its home, but hey, every activity has a small downside. It's still superior to scraping mud off of stakes.

The camping tent is online at www.magiccabin.com. Order it for insta-fun.

A Sense of Scale

Kids love looking at pictures of animals. But what most books can't deliver is a sense of scale: just how big or small is that animal, anyway?

Life-Size Zoo solves this dilemma. Brimming with life-size, to scale shots of over twenty different zoo animals, this book gives kids an idea of how they'd measure up against a gorilla, or just how petite that meerkat really is. Plus, it has games, tons of nature facts, and plenty of encyclopedic info for your curious child. It's bringing the zoo into your home, but without the smell.

This is also a very economical gift, at the extra special price of just twelve dollars. You can't beat it. Order online at www.amazon.com. And let the safari begin.

The Key to Quiet Time

You know how you can go out and buy fancy cat toys all day long, and all the cat does is play with one of your socks? Well, babies and toddlers are very much the same. One of the most popular "adult" items that fascinate babies is a set of keys.

With this set of "Love" keys, you can hand the baby a realistic and convincing version of what you're carrying around, but without all the sharp edges and eye poke potential. They're made metal (in either silver or gold), clank authentically, and each key is a different shape and size (so far superior to those cheapy plastic versions, the cat toys of the toddler universe). And, they're easy to carry in a purse, just like real keys (the perfect restaurant distractor).

Order the "Love" keys at www.mollaspace.com. It just might be the key to some parenting success.

Do It Yourself Baby

This isn't exactly a gift for someone else. It's a gift you buy for yourself so that you can fashion baby gifts all by yourself. So, if the idea of creating gifts from scratch makes you break out in hives, this entry probably isn't for you.

This book delivers a ton of gift ideas for crafty individuals with lots of time on their hands (sound like anyone you know well?). Yet, it doesn't have that Martha Stewart vibe that's so perfect, it's impossible to pull off and leads to much wailing and hair yanking at 3 am. All in all, the book is worth having in your gift arsenal, especially for stocking stuffers, decorations, and small stuff just to treat your baby right.

Order the book online at www.fredflare.com. And do old Martha one better.

Sprouting Up

Sometimes popular sayings are really true. Like when people peer at a tiny newborn and say "She'll be off to college before you know it." Babies and children do tend to grow like weeds, and while the first few years of a child's life seems interminable to the exhausted parents, it really is a short blink of the eye.

Help those overwhelmed and exhausted parents document their babe's true growth. Dynomagic's Lil Sprout growth chart is rollable, clear, and flexible for easy shortage, so they can whip it out for fast measurements whenever. But the great thing about this particular chart is that there are photo pockets along it. Simply cut out an appropriate age/height snap of the kid and place it next to the appropriate measurement on the chart. It's instant documentation, growth spurts and all.

This is a very inexpensive gift. You could up the ante by adding one of those new, tiny polaroid cameras for instant visual gratification, but that's up to you. Find the Lil Sprout at www.dynomagic.com.

Appropriate Dress

Living in Los Angeles, I've seen just about every inappropriate little girl outfit imaginable (including a three-year-old wearing a t-shirt that said "Porn Star." I considered calling Child Services). It's not right, making little girls look like putanas. That's why a dress like this is so wonderful.

This adorable "Sevilla" dress manages to be cute and frilly without being cloying. It's long without looking princessey. It's not particularly low-cut. The colors are bright and fun but your girl won't look like a carnival, either. And, she can wear it out to a party or over a bathing suit. Plus, its gypsy charm suits virtually any type of girl. What's not to like?

Did I mention the price? It's just 48 dollars. Yeah, that's more expensive than Target by a long shot, but this dress is cuter, better made, and is of hand-me-down quality. Compare that price to other desirable girl brands, and it becomes a veritable bargain. Take a look at www.chasing-fireflies.com. It'll keep your little girl looking, well, just like a little girl should.

Multi-Medium Buy

It often seems, in an age of Nintendo and X-Box and Wii, that the simple pleasures of being a child get lost in the multi-media fray. Take, for instance, the simple acts of drawing, painting, or putting on a puppet show.

Well, kids still want to do these things, and this nifty multi-use easel makes it easy. Just check out the pics: on one side, you've got a chalkboard, on another, a whiteboard (I guess if your goal is to raise a tiny executive, that whiteboard will be put to exhaustive use), it functions as a regular easel for painting, AND it magically transforms into a puppet theater. Your child decorates the frames (totally included) for the theater, for instant dramatic effect. And all you have to do is leave them to it (and then, unfortunately, come back in to watch the puppet show, complete with unintelligible mutterings and much puppet wailing and thrashing about. Earplugs NOT included). It's just good, not-so-clean fun for everyone.

This fabulous multi-purpose unit sells for about 100 bucks, which isn't bad when you think about all the kid can do with it. Order at www.halfpintcitizen.com.

Draw It or Wear It

Toddlers and eating out. A pretty oxymoronic situation, since eating out with a toddler is the fine dining equivalent of letting a bear run amuck in the refrigerator: horribly messy, highly unsanitary, and should be illegal.

But sometimes a parent has to bite the bullet and take the toddler out. Thus, entertainment becomes paramount. These wearable crayon rings could save the day. Give them to a parent in need of booth relief. They can wear the assorted colors and pull them off digits when necessary. Or, string 'em on a chain and keep them in a purse for easy access. They're easier for tiny uncoordinated hands to grip and scribble with, and are less likely to "take an eye out" if thrown. And, finally, it's just such a cool parent present.

I won't lie: at fifty bucks a set, these aren't cheap. But hey, what decent wearable art is, anyway? Find these rings of parental solace at www.thefutureperfect.com. And let them eat in peace.

New Little Peacock

I've never been totally sure how I feel about baby slings. My tiny premie infant couldn't deal; she ended up in some desperate little ball at the bottom of it, requiring a crowbar for extraction. However, I've known women who swear by them. So what do I know?

I do know that this particular baby sling is, by far, the prettiest I've ever seen. Called the Peacock, the sling features that ethnic embroidery so popular with today's hip new moms. It works pretty much the same as every other sling on the market, balancing the bundle of joy's weight across Mommy's shoulders, hopefully leaving her hands free to handle kitchen knives or juggle oranges, or, god forbid, read a novel whilst baby slumbers. It would make a lovely baby shower gift, and it's decorative enough that a few gallons of spit-up might not blunt its aesthetic value.

Locate the Peacock Baby Sling at www.lilyandserena.com. This site has beautiful linens as well, but I would save those for later in the kid's life, when the spewing has died down.

Birth of Bigfoot

Having a baby means a world of "firsts." First smiles, first diaper, first solid food, first footprint. Yeah, I said "footprint."

This baby gift commemorates the baby's first official footprint (NOT carbon footprint, for god's sake. Why freak the little tike out immediately about environmental affairs). The kit's perfect for exhausted new parents who need something interactive to do with the infant. Simply press Jr.'s tootsies into the plush crushable foam, and the footprints stay forever (sort of like Neil Armstrong's first footprint on the moon). It's so much chicer than bronzing those baby shoes.

This is really a fabulous shower gift. No one else will give it, I promise. And there it will be, on the proud parents' mantel, forever: a pair of feet yearning to march off to better things than bottles and naps. Find the baby foot print kit at www.aplusrstore.com.