Toddler

Los Angeles-based casual-wear brand Splendid, famous for its ultra-soft fabrics and trendy silhouettes, is the latest label to collaborate with Target on a capsule collection. Although the brand is synonymous with the sexy, sun-kissed California look, its Target offering ? Splendid Littles for Target ? is focused to lure fashion-minded new moms rather than club-cruising beach bunnies. The baby and toddler line is a lower-priced version of the brand's own collection for tots, Splendid Littles, which spins out stylish, high-priced looks for the swing-set crowd (think $68 jersey dresses cleverly tailored for toddlers)

A mother putting her toddler into a car seat was killed and six men were wounded Tuesday in a rolling gun battle that started inside a Sacramento barber shop. FOR THE RECORD: Sacramento shootings: An article in the Dec. 15 LATExtra section about a shootout at a Sacramento strip mall gave incorrect call letters for a local television station. The station is KOVR Channel 13, not KVOR. ? At least two armed men walked into Fly Cuts and Styles and opened fire just before 1 p.m., authorities said.

Showing I'm as much in the little box we could call Lakerdom, or Clipper Nation, or fans of any team in any town, I didn't set out to do it. I was thinking about Tuesday night's Lakers game against the Bulls, which I was assigned to cover, what it meant, what I could say about it when it struck me. A 2-year-old boy died in Staples Center at a Lakers game not 48 hours before. As storied as the arena has become in its 11 years, nothing that important ever happened there.

It was minutes after the Lakers' victory over the Golden State Warriors on Sunday night, and the crowd streaming out of Staples Center was ebullient. In a luxury suite high above the basketball floor, the Tang family lingered to take pictures. Two-year-old Lucas Anthony Tang posed with his parents and his 11-year-old sister in front of a glass barrier meant to protect fans from the steep drop below. But as the family reviewed the pictures on their digital camera, they lost track of Lucas.

Parents should limit their young children's screen time to no more than two hours per day, according to pediatricians. This recommendation has been in place for many years, but parents and child caregivers don't seem to be catching on. A new study finds that the average preschool-age child is exposed to double the recommended amount.   Screen time consists of television, DVDs, computers and video games. The researchers examined data from nearly 9,000 preschool-aged children who were part of a longitudinal study that began in 2001 and included interviews with parents and child care providers to collect data on each child's daily screen time.

Toy maker Fisher-Price, a unit of El Segundo-based Mattel Inc., said Thursday that it was recalling more than 11 million children's items, including tricycles, highchairs and toy cars, because of safety problems. More than 7 million of the recalled products were tricycles, which are being recalled because a child can sit on, hit or fall on a protruding plastic "ignition key," which could result in "serious injury, including genital bleeding," according to the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission.

I wouldn't call it a vacation, exactly. Any time you have three pet llamas and a 3-year-old and you're covering 30 miles in less than a week, it's like, well, let's call it an adventure. My wife, Amber, and I and our high-energy daughter Ediza spent a week in early August exploring the breathtaking terrain between the Mammoth Lakes area and Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park. The adults got a chance to experience the high-elevation landscape through a child's eyes: sledding down a mound of snow on a sleeping pad, pretending to fish with a stick, collecting feathers along the trail, assigning names to the ants crawling on the ground.

Los Angeles police are investigating a North Hills couple on suspicion of negligence after their 2-year-old son was shot to death by his 7-year-old brother with a handgun left unlocked in a closet. Detectives questioned Darren Eugene Ellis, 36, and Ebony Aiesha Ellis, 24, after the Friday evening shooting in their apartment in the 16700 block of Parthenia Street. According to a preliminary investigation, a 9-year-old found the .40-caliber handgun in a closet and took it into a bedroom where his siblings were playing, said Det. Floyd Walton of the Los Angeles Police Department's Devonshire Division.

The state Assembly passed a bill Thursday to ban the chemical Bisphenol-A from baby bottles and other items that come in contact with small children. The Toxin-Free Toddlers and Babies Act, or SB 797, would ban the use of BPA in feeding products, including formula, for children 3 years old and younger. BPA has been linked with health problems such as infertility, autism, asthma, hyperactivity and breast cancer. In January, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reversed its long-held position that BPA posed no concern, calling for more studies of the artificial hormone that often is used in shatter-proof plastic baby bottles, sippy cups and linings of cans, including those containing baby formula.