My daughter had gotten quite a bit of wear out of her fall clothes the last couple of years and I only had to add a few pieces here and there, but this year she finally grew out of those clothes and had to get a whole new wardrobe.  Typically I buy 80% of her clothes from Mini Boden, 20% from Nordstrom and all of her jeans from GapKids; it’s pretty easy to shop for her this way.   This year I was disappointed to find that she can’t fit Mini Boden shirts because she is at the top of the combined size (i.e. they size 7/8 and she wears an 8…she wore their 7/8 size last year) and she needed shirts more than anything.   I went to GapKids where there was nothing exciting to buy but jeans.  Bloomingdale’s, Gymboree and Lucky Brand Kids were all a bust too.   My fail-safe, the place that never lets me down–Nordstrom–didn’t even have fall clothes out yet (it was mid-September; they really need to rectify their buying schedule).    What was I going to do?

Luckily it stays hot in Georgia most of September, so I had some time to surf around….and around and around.  It was so hard finding cute clothes for my daughter online!  FINALLY I found LaBella Flora Children’s Boutique and this is where I bought most of her new clothes.  They have the cutest clothes for baby girls all the way up to age 14!   I have seen some of the brands they carry, like Flowers By Zoe, at Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom, but never so much in one place.   And I was introduced to some new children’s designers that I had never heard of, but will be looking for again in the future.  My daughter had a great time picking out her clothes, but had to have a limit or she would have gotten so much more.   Bottoms from Mini Boden and dark-washed skinny jeans from GapKids completed her wardrobe.    Per her instructions, all her pants and jeans had to be skinny this year.   My only rule is that she had to be able to move comfortably in her pants; they couldn’t be so skinny to prevent her from running, playing and sitting “criss-cross applesauce” on the floor.

Thankfully she can still wear her red peacoat and polka-dot green dressier coat from Mini Boden that I bought last year, so that’s an expense saved.   Converse are her shoes of choice so she got 2 pair of low-top Chucks in navy and in gray from Zappos.com.    Short tan moccasin boots from local children’s shoe store, Sprong, and black suede slouchy Steve Madden boots from Nordstrom gives her choices for different looks.  Sadly she can’t wear UGGs this year because of the sizing.   I got most of her tights and leggings from Target, but look at these cute socks I bought from Mini Boden; they are packaged so nicely that they could be a gift.

Excited to finally receive all her clothes in the mail, Girly put on a fashion show for Funkidivagirl.com readers.

She loves this 2 piece Flowers By Zoe outfit.  What’s not to love; it’s tie-dyed and has a blinging peace sign!

This Hannah Banana 2 piece outfit is her favorite; it’s very rocker-chick chic.  I like that she can wear it dressed up with the boots or to school with the Chucks.

This shirt by Morfs is super cool.  The candy necklace is made from recycled fleece and the sleeves are tie-dyed tube socks.  The silver belt is Mini Boden as is the orange plush cord skirt.  The funki gray leopard tights are from Target.

Here’s the same orange Mini Boden skirt, Boden purple leggings and a shirt made by Lemon.  The smiley faces are studded; so cute!

The same Lemon shirt with green “Funky Slim Fit Jeans” (gotta love the name!) from Mini Boden.  She loves these pants; I think that they will be getting a lot of wear!

The same green Mini Boden pants with a Flowers By Zoe shirt.  Do you see a theme here, tie-dye and peace signs?  I swear I had nothing to do with it!

Another Flowers By Zoe shirt with another pair of Mini Boden pants, this time in a brown cord.

This Flowers By Zoe hoody is in the same vein as the shirt; it has a cool design on the back as well.  She will wear this as a fall jacket everyday to school.

You might remember this skirt from a shopping trip with Girly this summer; I wanted her to wear it in the fall as well, so I found this Flowers By Zoe shirt to match.  The peace sign has rhinestones.  I wish that I could wear it…bling and peace signs, that’s my thing!

Of course all of the shirts can be worn with her skinny jeans or denim skirt from GapKids, so she has lots of options.  My husband calls Girly “my little doll” because I like to dress her up, but hey, she needed clothes; right?  I can’t let her walk around naked and cold.   So she might as well look cute!

© 2009, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

When the Nordstrom catalog arrived in the mail a few weeks ago several items caught my eye, but one pair of shoes in particular made me drool.  The catalog page wasn’t even highlighting the shoes–it was about shawls–that’s how powerful these shoes were to me; they just leapt off the page.

So, on a shopping excursion to buy my daughter some new fall boots, I brought in my ripped out catalog page and asked about the shoes.   Trying them on, I fell in love even more.  While the heel is very high, it’s also a platform so the shoes are relatively easy to walk in.   And the inside…ahhh…they feel like butter.   They looked so cute on my feet that several shoppers stopped and admired them; one lady even bought a pair in black.  The price gave me pause, but thanks to the generosity of my mother-in-law I had a nice gift card in my wallet that I supplemented with the last of my PB & J money.

Nordstrom didn’t have my size in stock, but they ordered them from a different store and mailed the shoes to me without a shipping charge.   I just got them in the mail yesterday and I can’t wait to wear them if it ever cools down here in Atlanta…..maybe I’ll rock them at Blogalicious!

© 2009 – 2011, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

A few weeks ago my husband James had a conversation with one of our neighbors that rubbed him the wrong way.  This was a man that we hadn’t met before even though he lives at the end of our block.  James felt that the man’s behavior during their conversation was erratic and even more cause for alarm was the fact that the neighbor mentioned our son.  Our son walks Chili Dawg the puppy every evening and obviously the neighbor had noticed as well, but according to James, the man was a little too interested in The Boy.    He told our son to stay clear of that neighbor and me too.  I didn’t think much of it until I was walking the dog myself one morning and the neighbor called out to me–thinking that I was The Boy (we do look alike).  I kept walking and later confirmed my husband’s suspicions to our son–stay away from that man.   We couldn’t quite put our finger on it, but there was something “not quite right” about him.

In general my husband is very trusting and open to everyone; he’s one of those people who talks to strangers on the plane and in line at the grocery store.   On the other hand, I am not like that at all; I do not trust easily and I warm up to people slowly.   But when it comes to our kids, James is more guarded than I am and more concerned about their safety.  Most of the time I soften his safety reigns and let the kids do things–even if it means that they might get hurt.   However, when it comes to “creepy neighbors” I trust his instincts.

And he was right.  The other day I arrived home in the afternoon to see 2 police cars and a police van at the end of my street (not a normal occurrence on my quiet street).  Come to find out that the creepy neighbor was taken away in the van; someone called the police because he was outside brandishing a pitch fork and shouting wildly.    What we didn’t know before–but felt in our interactions with him–is that he has psychiatric problems.   And lately he hadn’t been taking his medication and spiraled out of control.  From what I understand he is a nice guy when he’s on his meds, but can quickly turn irrational when he isn’t.   I think we met him on the down swing.

He didn’t hurt anyone; hopefully he’ll get the help that he needs and resume his medication, but I’m so glad that we trusted our instincts.

© 2009 – 2010, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

Plinky.com: how do you think of these questions? And how did you know that I dream of being on Sesame Street?

If I ever moved to Sesame Street, Grover would make a great roommate. I think Grover and I would get along great because he’s wacky and fun-loving, but also very sweet. Just like me, he’s a dreamer. Together we could dream up all kinds of crazy schemes and business ideas and have a blast doing it.

Super Grover and Funkidivagirl…saving the world from mediocrity!

© 2009, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

Oh, didn’t you know that Kurt von Trapp wore dreadlocks?

For those of you not familiar with Kurt von Trapp, he is a 10 year old boy in The Sound of Music, which was first a broadway musical in 1959 and then became a movie in 1965, starring Julie Andrews.   The von Trapps were in fact a real family; although names and other details were changed, the musical and movie are based on the autobiography, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, by Maria von Trapp.

The von Trapps were Austrian and the story takes place right before World War II, so are you surprised to learn that a von Trapp boy had brown skin and wore dreadlocks?   Not very likely, right?

Apparently not.   Not even in a high school production in 2009 is this thought even permissible.  The sentiment was made plain by a man who said to my son–fresh off the stage as Kurt von Trapp–”I bet they didn’t have many dreadlocks in 1938 Austria.”

This was overheard by my husband and I;  My son just smiled wanly and continued on his way.  I don’t even know if he completely heard the man, didn’t understand what he was saying or didn’t know how to respond. I mean, what would one say, “Thank you?”

Dumbfounded, I analyzed what I was feeling and why.  What the man said wasn’t racist per se and he could have even been giving a compliment (in a weird way), but yet the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.  Why?  Thinking about it later I concluded that it comes down to this: that man was essentially saying that my son was in a role originally meant to be played by a white person–because I know he wasn’t just talking about the dreadlocks.   He did not say anything about his performance or experience as Kurt von Trapp, like “Great job!” or “Did you enjoy playing that role?”, but rather the focus was on his appearance as clearly not what a typical 1938 Austrian would have looked like.

Even in a high school theater performance, is it naive to think that we can be color-blind and focus on the ability of the person to convey the character in a convincing way and not whether or not they “look the part”?  My son gave a great performance as Kurt von Trapp–he was a von Trapp child.  In his first school musical he was cast as Winthrop Paroo in The Music Man, played by Ron Howard in the 1962 film version, and he tore the house down with his performance of “Gary Indiana.”

Thankfully that man’s comment was in no way indicative of the audience at large or my son’s school.  In my research for this post I learned about color-blind casting–also called non-traditional or integrated casting–which is the practice of casting a role without thought to the actor’s ethnicity (I knew that my son’s school did this, I just didn’t know that it had a name in the acting world).   I would hope that all schools employ such practices, because after all a school should be a place of exploring, learning and growing.  I expect young actors to continue to challenge and change the status quo of traditional casting in theater and film.   There are already organizations dedicated to theatrical inclusion such as the Non-Traditional Casting Project and there are notable non-traditional roles that African Americans have played in recent years: Denzel Washington in Much Ado About Nothing and Julius Caesar, and Laurence Fishburne in The Lion in Winter and Othello, just to name a couple.   Grey’s Anatomy was created completely without specific character ethnicity, so the casting process was wide open; consequently it has one of the most diverse ensembles casts on a prime time network today.

I honestly don’t think that man meant anything by this comment.  I just think that he is myopic and uncultured.   The fact is that the world is becoming increasingly more diverse in the workplace, politics (hello Mr. President!) and culturally.   If a small high school in Georgia can show a middle-aged white man that yes, Kurt von Trapp can have dreadlocks, perhaps his eyes were opened just a little bit wider.

*Check out these fantastic performances on YouTube:

“Do Re Mi” from The Sound of Music

“Gary Indiana” from The Music Man

© 2009 – 2011, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.