Kettler is known to be the best trikes on the market with their safety features like limited turn front wheels to prevent tipping when making sharp turns. To keep them even more ahead of the game, they are introducing a Go-Green trike with mostly recycled materials for their parts. Another major plus, this trike will fold up for easy transport to the park. What else do you need? Oh right, a bucket to hold all the treasures your tots find along the way. Conveniently placed in the back and even has a hinged dumping mechanism. At Amazon for $79.

Today's theme is bike riding =) Well, the weather is getting nice so you gotta start thinking about outdoor activities! I am going to be a full blown Mommy now and lecture. Always, ALWAYS, wear a helmet when doing any potentially dangerous activities. And that includes running. My daughter took a major spill a couple of days ago running up and down our driveway, which has a severe incline. Luckily, she was about to get on her bike so was wearing a helmet. She came careening down the hill and stubbed her toe in the ground and started flying head first for the asphalt. This is all hearsay, thankfully for my emotional well being I did not witness this. She scraped the entire right side of her torso, which she, of course, cried about but if it weren't for the helmet, I don't even want to think what would have happened to her head and face. So, always wear a helmet and to make it super cool and cute, get a Tail Wags helmet cover. Comes in many designs like Slope Shark and Lucky Lady for $40.

With spring break approaching, I am already looking for things to do during the long days at home. This is a super easy project that will also bring some spring blossoms in your home. Allergies, you say? Well, what can be more perfect and appropriate than colorful paper flowers to usher in the spring! Includes everything you will need, including a vinyl vase, so you can safely put this in your tot's room. At Amazon for $15.99.

I love what Ralph Lauren has for Spring! I mean, it is an easy go to brand for basics, like the polo dress, our tots all have it in every color but the ruffles is all new and super fabulous! It is the easiest thing to wear, throw on some tights and they are ready to romp around and go on slides without a hitch. Deveron Polo Dress is $45.

For boys, you have to admit, this cardigan is sooo handsome! In fact, I am going to see if they have it for grown ups because how perfect would it be for chilly summer nights? It has the perfect dash of panache yet is still very rugged for boys. The little collars are so great and the stitch details make this timeless (although tots fashion does not really only need to be timeless until they grow out of it but a good hand me down heirloom). It is 100% pima cotton for ultimate comfort. Pima Cotton Shawl Cardigan is
$135.

I'm inspired by the real castle we saw in Milan so I thought I'd feature a fake castle inspired by a real one =) How cool is this thing? I guess you REALLY love your tot to get this for her, or maybe you are ruining her by spoiling her excessively. Either way, it's awesome and their adult years will never compare. When they go to college and move into a dorm, they will not be able to exist! And if you've spoiled her properly, you will move this into her dorm room for her. That will at least ensure no boys will sleep over ;-) At Posh Tots for $15,470.

The Huffington Post reported today that the Consumer Product Safety Commission is preparing to issue a general warning about possible suffocation deaths from small infants being carried in baby slings. These slings have been popular for ages but there have been too many deaths caused by these slings for the government to not do something about it. The warning should come out sometime this week.

Duomo; Torino Bull (you spin your right heel on his testicles for good luck)
Castella Sforzesco, the carnival next to the Castella
Santa Maria delle Grazie, home of The Last Supper
We did finally get to see Milan, outside of runways and showrooms. I was feeling extra guilty for dragging my entire family to Milan only to be working the entire time. Once Fashion Week was over, it was all tot time (well, then I had to go to Madrid to speak at a conference). It is never easy trying to balance work with family especially when traveling, it is so tough! But in the end, it still was better to travel with them because I would not be able to be away from them that long. But between working and doing family activities, I was extremely exhausted the whole time because I had absolutely no downtime. I also felt bad treating my husband like a hired nanny so I also had to give him some free time to explore the city on his own. I can recover from exhaustion, it is certainly a small price to pay for having it all =)

For the most part, Milan is not very tot friendly, in the sense that there is not a whole lot for them to do. But the people there are extremely nice and friendly when we showed up to restaurants and places with them. We did avoid super fancy restaurants so as to not ruin some rare date where they are spending good money on a nice meal. We decided to just do the regular things like museums and cathedral visits, which were boring for them. But I figured they will need to start learning to travel like grown ups if they want to go on grown up trips. We do enough Legoland and water park trips specifically for tots, sometimes they have to go on grown up adventures too.

We went to the Castello Sforzesco, a real life castle! It was build in 1368 as a fortress and turned into a palace in the 15th century. There were all the fixings of a fairy tale castle - turrets, draw bridges over actual motes, gates with spikey pointy ends and of course a dungeon! This place was magnificent and enormous, an inspiring and impressive sight to behold. So the modern Italians decided to honor this landmark by putting a super cheesy carnival right next to it. The historical importance of the castle was lost on the tots, but the exciting carnival was not. So maybe the modern Italians had a point. This was the strangest and most ostentatiously decorated carnival with multiple themes piled on top of one another - jungle, Hawaiian, Princess, Disney, robots, pretty much everything you'll find in the Birthday theme section of Party World. But the tots LOVED it!

After a long trip, all I want to do when I got home was lounge comfortably in my robe. And my daughter did the same thing, she is in love with her Little Giraffe satin chenille robe. I had no idea how hard it was to find nice robes for tots until I started looking, apparently it is not something tots wear very often. But why not? What do you do on the weekends when you wake up to a chilly morning and want to spend a good part of the day in your pajamas? Or if you're my daughter, you wear it out like a coat over regular clothes. She did this at a birthday party and all the dads started calling her "Hef", kinda hard to explain to her why =) There is absolutely nothing like this luxurious Little Giraffe, comes in several luxe colors for $98.

Obviously I have not figured out the internet situation here. It has been a whole week in Milan and other than a lot of eating, we have been hampered by illness and weather (overcast or rain in the high 40's, a couple of days of sun in the 50's). My 4 year old arrived with a mild cough, which became a severe cough when she infected her younger sister but by the time it mutated to me, it became a full-blown cold with sinus congestion and fever. I am here for Milan Fashion Week, which meant I had to hack my way to all the events while everyone looked at me with fear and scorn. The shows here are incredible and it has been a worthwhile trip since this is the bag mecca of the world, but you can read about all that on Bag Snob.

We are staying within walking distance of the Duomo, the third largest cathedral of the world. I've been to St. Peter's cathedral at the Vatican (the largest in the world) and I cannot remember how it could possibly be bigger than this. The ceiling was 100 feet high with richly colored stained glass extending the entire height. An impressive sight to behold to say the least. As expected, the area is full of tourist traps but we walk there daily because we don't know how to take the electric cars that run throughout the city. But we'll get there now that Fashion Week is over. There are 7 of us so although taking cabs is doable it's not exactly affordable since we need 2 cabs and it seems like everywhere we go amounts to 15 euros (around $20).

We did take cabs to dinner one night when it was raining, which meant $80 in roundtrip cab fares. Luckily, the dinner was incredible!! Da Gaspare on via Ravizza, 19 (apparently owned by a famous soccer player here, but don't ask me who, I couldn't exactly make out the name when it was said) is called a Pizzeria and looks like an average café but we learned quickly not to let looks and name fool us. As soon as we walked in to the fresh display of seafood, I knew I was in heaven. Razor clams grilled to absolute perfection - sweet and just tender was sooo good just in its own goodness without need of seasoning. Branzino, we've had it everyday, but here, the whole live fish cleaned and immediately grilled is probably what mermaids experience when they eat fish. Spaghetti with clams, yeah, I thought I've had this dish before but apparently I have been eating a very mediocre imitation. It is so simple with just olive oil and parsley but with the clams pan fried and the pasta soaking up with precious nectar, it was seriously life altering. It was recommended to me by a sales associate at Stefanel (a trendier version of Club Monaco), I think I will go back and ask for more!

You know what summer means, strawberries and strawberry picking! Strawberry picking is one of the best activities with your tots. You don't have to worry about falling out of trees like when you go cherry picking (that happened to me when I was 7) because the bushes are the perfect height for tots, close to the ground! I go to an organic farm so if they decide to sample, I don't have to worry. Of course you must go dresses appropriately and what could be more fabulous and cute than this dress with a giant strawberry appliqué? Just be careful your tot doesn't get picked wearing this ;) Decaf Plush "Big Strawberry" Dress is $54 at Kitsel.com.