Category Archives: Real Life : Alix

Coming Soon::Real Life Goes to the Pumpkin Patch

Real Life : Alix, Uncategorized

Coming Soooooon!
OK, so I’m running a little behind on today’s post….but today we’re talkin’ pumpkin patches. We hit a really cool area here in California this past weekend and I wanted to share some photos with you. But I kind of fell asleep WAY early last night (I’m a night owl, which is when I get this crazy bloggin’ stuff done….but last night I conked out at 9:30!!). Anyway, never fear it’s comin’! Also, today is the LAST DAY TO SEND ME YER HOMEMADE COSTUME PHOTOS! The Costume Parade is going up this week! Did you make an amazing homemade costume that you are dying to show off? Or did things not go quite as expected and you have a spectacular craft fail? Send ’em all my way! Alix [at] modernkiddo.com. Read more about it HERE!

Real Life :: When Your Kiddo Hates Costumes.

Best of Alix, Real Life : Alix

It’s true. I’m a mama who love to dress up. Like this:

And like this:

As a result, Halloween has always been one of my favorite times of year. When I found out I was having a little boy, I was so excited about all the dress-up possibilities. I had visions of making him superhero capes…astronaut outfits…cool pirate getups. The works! Yet life clearly has a sense of humor, because I was blessed with the world’s most adorable child…who hated costumes. He’s an impossibly good natured boy— happily wearing any outfit I put on him. Except, of course, when that outfit might involve a character.

It all began with Wolfie’s strict NO HATS policy as a baby. Wait, no hats? What what? He’s a baby! How can he hate hats? Trust me.

When Wolfie was one, I bought a little prefab puppy dog outfit for Halloween. But because that seemed just a leetle bit boring on it’s own, I  made Greg dress up like a Westminster Dog Show handler—with Wolfie as his prize-winning pooch! Since Wolfie was still so little and liked to be carried around, they made an awesome pair.

Except my sad little pup refused to wear the “hood” that had the puppy head on it. Too much like a hat, of course.

At least I managed to sneakily draw a little nose and whiskers on him and he still looked pretty adorable.

The next year I got him the cutest little cowboy outfit…it came with wee chaps, a cowboy shirt and a super sweet lil vest. I didn’t even try and add a cowboy hat, but I figured this outfit was pretty much like regular clothes. Easy peasy, right? WRONG. What I neglected to remember was that Wolfie is a very proper little man and he liked his jackets and hoodies zipped up. And a vest? Well it’s like a perpetually “open” jacket. Yeah the vest? He didn’t like it ONE BIT.


He threw himself on the ground like a cartoon character, sobbing. Keep in mind that normally Wolfie was the sweetest, most low-drama kiddo around. Greg and I looked at each other half laughing and half shaking our heads….like “Really? You’re going to throw yourself on the ground over a VEST?” Thankfully he gets over things pretty quickly and once the offending vest was removed, he was all sunshine again.

The next year I had a great plan….and seemingly Wolfie-proof! Greg and I would go as Mr. & Mrs. Frankenstein—and Wolfie? He would be the Crazy Mad Scientist. Genius, right? All he’d have to do was wear a wee little lab coat (buttoned all the way up, of course) and make his hair all crazy. It was the perfect plan. Greg looked great.

I even left Wolfie help me put on my “spooky” eye make up so he wouldn’t be scared—this was a huge success.


But when it came time for his own costume, well…once again, you can see how Wolfie felt about all this:

I explained to him that Halloween was all about dressing up, and if he didn’t like the Mad Scientist outfit he could really be anything he wanted to. After some thought he declared. “I wanna be a punkin.” I was a little floored. “Um…..a pumpkin?” “Yes. Punkin, mama.” My costume-adverse child goes and picks the roundest, poofiest costume around?? “Wolfie, you know a pumpkin is very round, right? Are you sure you want to be a pumpkin?” “YES. PUNKIN.” OK. So I have to admit that I was totally a terrible mom and thought this was a lame costume idea (I know, I KNOW), but I wanted him to be happy, so a pumpkin it was. I searched high and low for a non-poofy pumpkin costume and FINALLY found one (it ain’t easy, folks). I came home triumphant. YES! Wolfie will be so excited! Except……

Oy! I can’t lie. It became a Battle Royale. He was going to wear that freakin’ pumpkin costume if it killed me. I finally calmed him down and like all savvy moms…..I negotiated a bribe. “Listen. If you wear the costume, I’ll give you something. Something good.” His ears perked up. “What?” he sniffled. “Um…you can have some chips.” Yes. I know. Bribing with snacks. What can I say? I was desperate. And Wolfie’s a salty boy, so this worked better than the promise of chocolate. With a sigh, he was resigned to his fate:

The final verdict: “I’ll wear it. But I won’t like it.”

By the next day (which was actually Halloween) he had a miraculous change of heart and happily wore Ze Pumpkin. Hallelujah!

Oh my silly little Wolfie. I’m happy to report the last two years were amazingly struggle free and he has decided costumes (and HATS!) are A-OK. His friend Emmy got him into Pokemon and decided he wanted to be Pikachu. Not only did he wear the outfit, he wore the kooky hat dealie too! Whooo hoo! It was a cheap-ass flamable costume, but HE WAS WEARING A COSTUME. Listen, I’ll take what I can get. And apparently this is a rather “rare” costume, and he got lots of props from the big kids who all shouted at him, “We chose YOU Pikachu!” He was beaming.

Last year he continued the Pokemon theme and dressed up as Pikachu (again) at school and as Ash, Pikachu’s owner, on Halloween proper.

This year Wolfie is plotting yet another action hero character (Ben 10, anyone?). I do my best to suggest crafty, cute things, but ultimately I just want my boy to be happy and feel great in his costume—which means he gets to choose. Hey, I’m just happy he’s enjoying the fun of dressing up. I have a feeling it’s going to be a fun Halloween, ya’ll.

PS Don’t forget we’re looking for great costume photos! Send me your best (or worst!) home made halloween costumes! Read more about it here. We’ll be posting them all in a fun Costume Parade next week! You can send them to Alix [at] modernkiddo[dot] com.

Real Life: Alix’s Prague Adventure.

Real Life, Real Life : Alix,



A little over a week ago I got back from my work trip to Prague. I was there for three glorious weeks filming five spots….and I loved every minute of it. It’s *such* a beautiful city. Of course I missed my little Wolfie like craaazy, but I am so proud of the work we did. I have to say it was completely weird to have nothing to worry about but ME for three weeks. I felt a little selfish, but my mother gave me some great advice and said it was a fantastic gift and I should enjoy this amazing opportunity. I already shared some photos of my adventure with you guys while I was still in Prague (see the post here), but since everyone seemed to dig it, I thought I would share some more! Here is pretty Prague….

These shoes carried me all over the cobblestone streets of the city….crazy comfy. I highly recommend. Who says a mama can’t have stylish AND practical foot gear??

We discovered that many buildings had little icons hanging over their doorways—a lobster, a pretzel, three violins, a golden snake— these were used back in the day to help ensure that parcels and letters were delivered to the right house. Apparently homes didn’t feature prominent addresses back then and you literally had to say, “The house at the end of the road. With the lobster. Yes lobster. The House with the prawn got my boots last time, so please make sure you look for the LOBSTER.” It was really fun looking for the different icons and I thought would make a great game fer little kiddos too….



Prague is a great city for kiddos! There are so many beautiful little parks, fun street cars, a fantastic zoo, a cool castle, boat rides….the list goes on and on.


Food is very meaty here, but tasty. Our favorite dinner was at the Cafe Savoy for SCHNITZEL. Oh my god, this was the most delicious thing EVER. It comes in a special chicken version for kiddos as well as noodles with butter. I took note of a popular bagel shop and lots of Euro-style pizzerias too so there seemed to be plenty of kid-friendly options (just in case you have a picky penny like I do who won’t gobble down goulash). I feel like I should do an extra post just on traveling with younguns. What do you think??

And then, of course, there were the marionettes. They ranged from adorable to spectacular. They are everywhere and were really, really cool.

Of course, some were cooler than others….

A lot of you have asked me about my job, so I thought it would be fun to take a little peek at my work…

Despite all the perty pictures above, we were truly working non-stop. I think we had one completely free day, but the rest of time it would be a few hours here, a couple of hours there. We stayed at the schwanky Mondrian Oriental hotel. (Alert Gossip Girl fans! You may recognize this as the place where ol Chuck Bass was supposedly staying when he got shot in the season opener….ahem. You know. If you watch that sort of thing…) Hilariously instead of “Do Not Disturb” signs, you placed a red tassel on yer door. Gold tassel was “Please service my room”. I spied a blue tassel in the restaurant but never quite figured out what THAT one meant. This is me with bed head in the morning…

This was my little work station. Have a cuppa coffee (although somehow I was transformed into a cappuccino drinker over the course of the trip!), then check ye olde bloggie and then get ready to hit the road….castings, set builds, script rewrites, meetings, more meetings, late night meetings (9 hour time difference), fittings, rehearsals…..ahhhh. The list was endless. But we loved it all. I was lucky to be traveling with some really great people and even when pressure and stress levels were high, the guys and I always managed to make each other laugh.

Unfortunately I can’t reeeeally show you any of our sets until we are finished, but here is a sneaky peek. Some of them involved miniatures….but that’s all I’m sayin’!

Our director’s were a wildly creative and amazing husband/wife team. They were super cool and I loved working with them. They also happened to have THEE cutest little boy ever who would occasionally drop by the set. This is the fabulous Yuki! And maaaaybe he’s standing inside a fake airplane. But maybe not.

How cute is his style? He was also sweet as can be.

I have so many more photos, but i think I’ve bombarded you with enough for one day, eh?

Bye bye Prague! Til we meet again….

Real Life: Pssst! Alix is in Prague!

Real Life, Real Life : Alix, ,

Greetings from Prague!!! Friends, this City is quite gorgeous, I can’t even tell you. For those of you who don’t know, I actually have a day job. I’m a workin’ mama writer/associate creative director at a schmancy advertising agency in San Francisco. My job is very creative and interesting, but also lots of hard work. This trip is an example of the glammy side of my work. We are here shooting five TV spots/web films for a client with a rather phenomenal director team. I love what I do and it’s a totally fascinating process, but we do work like crazy! Being in Prague has made for a bizarro trip….the moment I landed we were thrust into work mode with long meetings, brain stormings and castings. The home office back in California isn’t really mindful of the 9 hour time difference we have, so we have been working well into the midnight hours at times. We work work work, then pause for a break and look up and are met with the most spectacular scenery. It’s incredible.

The other fab thing about a work trip is the hotel….we always stay at really lovely places. This trip we are at the Mandarin Oriental. The hotel used to be a monastery and has all these wonky corridors and each room is slightly different. My room is a tad smaller than my co-workers but has two glorious big windows— I love to open them up and just listen to the city. Last Sunday I heard the peeling of church bells and it was pretty darn cool. This is the little alley view from my room:

Here’s our “mobile office”. We sit outside every morning for several hours with pots of coffee and work. I think the hotel staff things we are kind of crazy.

Every day we’ve managed to find a little time to wander the city….

I love seeing all the cool kiddos here. I’ve been trying to snap some photos for you (without freaking out the parents of course….). I’m hoping to do a fun kiddo-centric post next week! I love this “Children Crossing” sign. Check out the huge bow on that little girl’s head! So goooood.

As much as I’m loving my time here, it’s always hard to be away from my guys. We have done some video chats and I email them daily (Wolfie already has placed an order for a marionette! They are very popular here and I’ve been scouting the shops to find the perfect one….). Evening is when I miss them the most. I love our bed time rituals—story time and lots of cuddling. Hug are greatly missed. Like I told you, I like to end every night looking at pictures of my guys. It’s not the same as being with them, but it makes me feel a little more connected to home. Since it’s midnight here in Prague, I’m going to continue my ritual….

Ahhhh, I feel better already. Dobrý večer my friends! More updates to come! And big kisses to Miss Dottie for holdin’ down the fort while I’m away on my crazy adventure!!

I’m heading to Prague and Wolfie is beat boxing.

Real Life : Alix

Hello my friends. Oh. Mah. Gawd. In less than 24 hours this girl is headin’ to PRAGUE. So excited. The good news is, I’m traveling for a work trip (which means we have a posh flight and get to stay in a schmancy hotel) but the bad news is, I will miss my guys terribly.

I have a little ritual when I travel…at night before going to bed I watch little video clips of Wolfie just being his cute, silly self. It’s not as good as giving him big good night smooches and hugs, but it never fails to make me smile.

Here’s wolfie beat boxing. sorta.

A few years ago i was in the kitchen when i heard something coming from the living room. it sounded rhythmic and I couldn’t figure out what it was….and suddenly i had the realization that my boy was trying to beat box. hah! i asked him what he was doing and he said “I making that sound like Biz” (aka Biz Markie on Yo Gabba Gabba). When i asked him to repeat it, he didn’t really do the same beat/melody but its still kinda funny. I’m so happy I have this little moment preserved.

Making little videos of your kiddo is such a great thing. I’m not talkin’ about big honkin’ camera filming an event. I’m talkin’ whip-out-the-camera and spontaneously film a little moment. No major filming. Just something small. A few weeks ago I “interviewed” Wolfie and the results were hilarious. He is 6 and has such funny and interesting opinions on things. I didn’t tell him it was an interview but he was lolling on the couch and I just hit “record” and started asking him questions. I highly recommend it!

Speaking of awesome video, the amazing elementary school students over at New York City’s PS22 are at it again. These kiddos are fabulous. And while it sounds cheesy, listening to the purity of their lil voices and seeing the pride on their faces just makes me crazy happy. If you don’t like this then I say you have a heart made of stone, my friend! This is their rendition of Lady Gaga WHICH RULES. But I also love their versions of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ (BEFORE Glee, thank you very much) Coldplay’s Viva La Vida, and Fleetwood Mac’s Landslide and Forever Young by Alphaville. Their teacher Mr. B is pretty fab.

I’ll still be posting while in Prague, but perhaps a little sporadically. Happy Wednesday.