When I found out I was having C, I couldn’t stop dreaming about all the little outfits I would get for her. Luckily, she seems to have inherited my love for dresses, twirling around and around, squealing with delight when she has a new one on.  Few things are as adorable as dresses for littles, which can make it hard to select just one. I am guilty of buying too many dresses for C time and time again, simply because I couldn’t make up my mind on just one. To help make it easier for you, I’ve pulled an assortment of dresses together below for littles from Amazon that are both charming and delightfully affordable.

Floral Dress

This smocked floral sundress is as sweet as it is practical for your little one to wear on a warm spring day.

Striped Dress

Flutter sleeves give this seersucker striped dress a fun detail that little ones will love.

Embroidered Dress

This white cotton dress has a beautifully embroidered skirt and bow-tie back, perfect to dress littles in for a special occasion, or simply as a day dress.

The post Adorable Dresses for Littles from Amazon appeared first on Julia Berolzheimer.

When Outside Opens Up, I’m Still Gon Be Choosy

By Veronica Wells-Puoane of NoSugarNoCreamMag.com

Black people are truly special. And in the midst of this pandemic, it’s been our humor that has lightened the load of some of this. But levity is not my forte. I have a tendency to take things too seriously and look for the deeper meaning behind the joke.

And since the spread of the coronavirus became something the nation took seriously and people found themselves quarantined in their homes, I’ve seen jokes and memes of people discussing all the things they’ll do when “outside open back up.”

And as much as I can’t wait to get back out into the world, I’m not going to allow my current desperation cause me to say yes to any and every invitation.

To some extent, I’ve already done that. Two weeks after I graduated college, I moved to New York City to start an internship with MSNBC. I was in my early twenties, excited to be in a big city and anxious to be out, often by any means necessary. If there’s one thing I can say about New York City summers, it’s that they’re seductive. The temperature stays warm well into the night, you can walk almost anywhere and there is more than enough to do. And during my first few summers here, I did. I went to networking events, festivals, brunches, concerts. museums, movies, plays, parades, clubs, day parties, reality show reunion tapings, etc.

Now, don’t let me give you the wrong impression. I’m an introvert who keeps mostly to myself. But I will also admit that the pressure to be out, seeing, exploring and doing got to me. And there were more than enough times when I left the house feeling like the world would pass me by if I stayed inside. And instead of returning home pleasantly spent from the day’s happenings, the older I got, the more I realized I didn’t enjoy all these events that I attended.

New York is a city known for its authenticity. But it’s also a place for climbers. And while we should all be striving for better, there is a culture of pretenders here, particularly in media. You’ll know them by the way they converse with you. They’re talking to you but steadily searching the room for a more interesting, more accomplished person to engage. They have jobs but ultimately you’ll learn that they’re more invested in titles, Instagram followers, and knowing the right people than doing any type of work.

There are people who leave the house for the sole purpose of finding a man. And the entire day or evening is a bust if love doesn’t appear to be on the horizon. It’s a lot of pressure to place on an evening and an incredibly boring topic of conversation even when I was single as a dollar bill.

Coming home from those types of events, with those type of people, you realize you might have enjoyed yourself more reading, watching tv at the crib, or being out but not among the wrong crowd.

I learned a long time ago not to invest good time and positive energy into spaces and people that don’t nourish and uplift you. And it’s a lesson and practice that has protected me from a lot of discontentment, burn out, and bad energy over the years. I’m a more peaceful and joyous person because of it.

So, when outside opens up…

I doubt it will be exactly what we once knew. But when it does, I want to go to the movies with my sister, sit outside and have brunch with my college friends, walk through the botanical gardens with my husband before catching some obscure concert, or sun myself on a park bench after a long walk without a face mask.

I hope that when outside opens back up, we remember that it is a luxury, a true gift. And I hope we use that time of connection wisely.

Veronica Wells-Puoane is the creator of the website NoSugarNoCreamMag. She is the author of “Bettah Days” and You’ll Be All Write, a question and answer journal for Black women. She is also the culture editor at MadameNoire.com. Find more of her articles by Veronica on Curlynikki.com, HERE!

When I think of Topo Chico, I think of sitting at a table outside a trendy restaurant in NYC, enjoying the chillingly refreshing taste of light bubbles. Topo Chico, much like San Pellegrino, is a mineral water that sits somewhere between flat water and full-on seltzer, and comes in a sexy glass bottle. Dubbed “Williamsburg Water” by my co-worker Leora Yashari, Topo Chico is exactly that — cool before it was popular, just like the hipsters who love it. Personally, I love Topo Chico for its size-to-amount ratio of bubbles (it has a ton of small bubbles); when I heard they were releasing a hard seltzer, I obviously pounced.

The Topo Chico hard seltzers, unlike their non-alcoholic counterparts, come in tall skinny cans and in four flavors — Tangy Lemon Lime, Strawberry Guava, Tropical Mango, and Exotic Pineapple. Though Topo Chico does technically have two flavored NA options (grapefruit and lime), they are known for their bubbles much more than their flavor profiles. I was able to get my hands on the first two flavors — Tangy Lemon Lime and Strawberry Guava — so I gathered my co-workers on Zoom, and we put these hipster babies to the test.

We started out with Tangy Lemon Lime, which was almost immediately called out for not tasting like lemon lime. “It tastes like being at the pool, like sunblock and beach club soap, but in a good way,” my co-worker Michelle Santiago Cortes said. “It definitely tastes like sitting at a bar in Key West,” another co-worker, Natalie Gontcharova, added. We came to the conclusion that it tastes like key lime pie and lime skittles and is reminiscent of Key Lime La Croix. Leora, who loves key lime, was a huge fan and our Lifestyle, Wellness, and Social Issues director Kristin Iversen liked it much better than the Mike’s Hard Lemonade Seltzer I made her try last month. When we put it to a vote, most of my team decided this was the best flavor.

Next was Strawberry Guava, which smelled a lot like guava and tasted a lot like strawberry. I liked this flavor way more than the lemon lime, but the majority of my team disagreed. I thought this one tasted like a strawberry daiquiri in the absolute best way. It definitely didn’t have the fizz I wanted, but the flavor was great. Most of my team wished there was more guava and thought it tasted like strawberry candy or watermelon Jolly Ranchers. My co-worker Olivia Harrison put it perfectly: “The aftertaste tastes exactly like bubble gum.”

My biggest gripe was the lack of bubbles. Topo Chico is famous in my household for its massive amount of tiny little perfect bubbles, but the hard seltzer missed the mark. It was barely bubbly and didn’t really make that satisfying opening-a-can-of-soda sound. This was a plus for a few people on our team who don’t love bubbles (I could write an entire essay on why they are wrong, but I digress), but when I’m drinking seltzer, I want that sweet, sweet fizz. 

In the end, we all decided that these did make us feel like we were at a Brooklyn rooftop party and it made us very nostalgic for pre-pandemic hot girl summer. We also collectively agreed that we would bring a 12-pack to a party as a status symbol despite its slightly-higher-than-White-Claw price tag. While Topo Chico’s foray into hard seltzer was a mixed bag for the team, I foresee all of us sipping on some Strawberry Guava or Tangy Lemon Lime at an outdoor party at some point in the post-pandemic world.

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We Tried The Ugly Sweater Bud Light Hard Seltzers

I Tried Every Canned Alcoholic Drink I Could Find

So, How Is It Really? Mike's Hard Lemonade Seltzer

In the latest episode of Go Off, Sis, the podcast from Refinery29’s Unbothered, the hosts welcome big little boss and 16-year-old actress Marsai Martin, who’s fresh off her two wins at this year’s NAACP Awards (bringing her total to a whopping 11).

After producing and starring in 2019’s Little (opposite Issa Rae and Regina Hall), the Black-ish star has become the youngest executive producer in Hollywood — and she’s constantly adding cherries to her résumé, like launching Genius Entertainment (a family business production company) and producing Disney’s Saturdays, a comedy that pays homage to roller skating. [“Roller skating] is an activity that is so big in Black culture, but you don’t hear about it often,” Martin says. “We just finished filming the pilot. It will inspire young Black girls to do their thing and do what they love.”

Saturdays is just one of many projects from Genius that’ll focus on Black stories and love, with shows and movies that feature Black girls. Martin says she’s over content that’s about pain and trauma. “I started Genius to make sure young Black girls don’t go through what I went through. When I was younger, [I didn’t see] girls who looked like me onscreen,” she explains. “If you don’t see it actually happening, how do you know you are able to do it? I just want to create content that everyone can relate to, not just a certain white male-dominated group.”

To learn about Martin’s sisterhood with other Black starlets in Hollywood, like Euphoria’s Storm Reid, along with her advice for other aspiring artists, listen to the full episode, below.

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