We love Black Wagon for hip kids’ clothes (www.blackwagon.com). Clever Parents caught up with Sarah Shaoul, owner of Black Wagon to talk about clothes, lust at first sight, babies, celebrities and style.

A native of Kansas, Sarah Shaoul spent the summer before her college graduation in Portland, Oregon and fell in love with it… all except for its lack of shopping venues. So with English degree in tow, Sarah packed up and headed northwest to open a buy, sell, trade clothing store and ‘fill a much needed niche in Portland.’ Read the rest »

If you live in the South (or have visited in the last 15 years), it’s likely you have heard of New South cuisine. If you’re a gourmet, you probably have heard of Donald Barickman, one of the South’s most prominent chefs, often credited with sparking the culinary revival of Charleston in 1990 with the establishment of Magnolias restaurant. Read the rest »

Wear a blue wristband and help people with Cystic Fibrosis breathe easier. Show your support for the 30,000 people with CF by wearing this bright blue rubber wristband and raising awareness for the need for a cure. Money generated from the distribution of these “Breathe” bracelets will support the vital research and care programs of the CF Foundation. The word “Breathe” and www.cff.org” appear in block letters on the wristband. Buy wristbands here. $2 each, 10 wristbands minimum.

Want a fast, easy, and relatively inexpensive way to make over a kitchen or bath? Change out your cabinet hardware — knobs and pulls. With an almost infinite selection, you can subtly change the feel of a room making it modern, exotic, or country. One of our favorites is Atlas Homewares.
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After suffering an acute episode of horrific low back pain when he was 20 years old, and after three days of not being able to move and weeping every time he sneezed or coughed, David Gunther decided to see a chiropractor. The chiropractor helped him immensely and long story short, David found his way into the profession. Read the rest »

In 2003, the Komen Foundation celebrated the 20^th anniversary of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation Race for the Cure®, the largest series of 5K runs/fitness walks in the world. Nearly 1.4 million people are expected to participate in more than 100 races in 2005.The Komen Race for the Cure® Series raises significant funds and awareness for the fight against breast cancer, celebrates breast cancer survivorship, and honors those who have lost their battle with the disease. Learn more about the race on The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation website.

Here’s a picture of one Clever Parent who recently ran in the Knoxville, Tennessee Race for the Cure.

- Caroline, mom to Anastasia, 2 (and expecting #2 in a few short months) having just completed the October 2005 Knoxville, Tennessee Race for the Cure

Yesterday while I was getting ready to put the eye patch on my 20 month old daughter, Jordyn, she looked right at me, shook her head and said, “No patch.” I wanted to congratulate her on putting that sentence together to express herself, but all I felt was my heart breaking at what I was doing to her. If someone else made her feel this way, I would kill them with my bare hands. But the culprit is me and somehow that’s supposed to make it okay.

When my wife and I hopped into the cab on the Friday night marking 30 weeks of her pregnancy, we never believed she’d give birth to our twins almost 2.5 months early. To make matters worse, at the end of their one month stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), we found out that there was a problem with their eyes.

Premature babies can often get something called Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP), which causes blindness in 2,000 babies a year. ROP occurs when a premature birth can end up leading to retina detachment and blindness. So every Tuesday morning during the bitter winter cold we would once again hop in a cab, this time to visit the retinologist. There are master torturers who could learn a few tricks from this guy. We held our children tightly so they couldn’t move and whispered soothing words while he put drops in their eyes and examined their retinas. I sometimes wondered if people from Child Welfare were going to bust in over the sound of their screaming. Hanging in the balance of this awful weekly adventure was whether they were going blind or not. That is the only reason we got through it each week; otherwise we wouldn’t have survived their painful cries. Sometimes with tear drops on our cheeks and tiny four pound screaming babies in our arms unable to give each other a hug, my wife and I would look at each other trying to provide at least some comfort through our own good eyes. Read the rest »