Friday, June 22, 2007
This is for the holdouts...
By Executive Order, Crocs Aren't Chic. See, now the President has been spotted wearing them so the issue must be addressed. Here's the money quote:

Crocs now rival flip-flops as the most annoyingly omnipresent style of summer footwear. City streets are inundated with shuffling phalanxes of men and women with bright orange, yellow and red Bozo feet.

P. S. I still haven't worn mine outside my own property ;)
Study: Oldest Siblings Generally Score Highest on IQ Tests
As the oldest I found this article intriguing. The most interesting thing about the results of the study is the reason they believe the oldest has a higher IQ. It's not because the oldest hogged the best DNA or anything like that. It's because:

The elder child pulls ahead, he said, perhaps as a result of learning gained through the process of tutoring younger brothers and sisters.

The older child benefits by having to organize and express its thoughts to tutor youngsters, he said, while the later born children may have no one to tutor.

So in this case it's not nature, it's nurture.
I love this guy's work...
Maybe you've gotten the email that features the work of this sidewalk artist. Here's a great link that shows him at work and then shows the final product. If you'd like to see more of Julian Beever's work you can click on his home page Pavement Drawings.
Book recommendation

For those of you who have boys in your life I highly recommend Conn and Hal Iggulden's The Dangerous Book for Boys. It's been praised repeatedly by one of my favorite bloggers and I picked it up to give it a look. It's full of great things for boys (and girls) to do, but is mainly aimed at boys, specifically at getting boys out of the house and helping them reclaim the adventurer in their souls.

The table of contents is full of great stuff. The first few items:
Essential Gear
The Greatest Paper Airplane in the World
The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
The Five Knots Every Boy Should Know
Making a Battery
How to Play Stickball
Fossils
Building a Treehouse
Dinosaurs
Making a Bow and Arrow

There are dozens more great topics that should appeal to boys. I will admit that I would have loved this book when I was growing up too.

This book is timely because a new movement seems to be afoot to get kids outdoors. I'm seeing more and more articles mentioning something that is characterized as "Nature Deficit Disorder." This basically is a name for the phenomenon where kids are insulated in their homes and backyards and aren't allowed to roam freely anymore. They're out of touch with nature and out of synch with the natural world. They're playing video games indoors instead of building forts and riding their bikes all over creation.

As a parent I know why kids are being kept on a short leash. The 24-hour cable news cycle has created a hysteria among parents about the safety of their children. The every-other-day kidnapping that happens a country away is making it seem like children are in much more danger than they really are. But the hysteria has taken such hold over our imaginations that if I were to be the maverick parent and let my kid run around town unsupervised then I'd be judged by other parents. Parents are so afraid of something bad happening to their children (which I fully understand) and being blamed for it if it does happen.

So instead of letting our children explore their world and take risks, we insulate them and coddle them. I think we're doing them more harm than we realize because we're also unwittingly sending them the message that we can't trust them to make their own way and learn their own lessons, however hard those lessons may be.

For those of you who have boys in the 7-13 age range I highly recommend this book. As a matter of fact, I recommend the book to father's with sons of any age (still at home).
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
My boobies
They are occasionally an item of interest for Emma. Since she wasn't breastfed she is not intimately acquainted with them, like she could have been. Every once in a while she wants to see them, or see what's under my shirt i. e. my bra-clad boobies. I have no problem letting her look at this point because to her they're just another body part. Once it's well established that she knows about boobies I'll teach her that boobies aren't to share with everyone. OR, she'll get a crash lesson the first time she asks to see someone else's boobies.

We go through the routine you would probably expect. She sees my boobies and and then looks down at her chest and says, "I don't have boobies." Then she looks at Daddy, "Daddy doesn't have boobies." Then we depart from the script as she reaches over to squeeze my boob and says "Mommy, you have a LOT of boobie."

I declare the lesson over, throwing a glance at M, who is grinning ear to ear.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
More from Left Field...
So I'm driving down the road, minding my own business and from the back seat a little voice squeaks...

"Polly want a cracker!"

Then she cackled madly.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Where is she getting it from!?!
A southern accent!

"Mommy, the princess is over thay-er."
What was I thinking?
Lately I've been plagued with serious fatigue. I crave the bed so badly, any time of the day. This morning I heard Emma calling from her room at 6:49 a.m. I looked at the clock and thought, "Damn, I'm supposed to have eleven more minutes in bed!" I forced myself to get up and go check on her. I had the brainstorm that I'd bring her back to bed with me to rest a little longer.

Stupid. To her my bed has always been for play. So for the next ten minutes this is what I got to hear about a hundred times...

"Open your eyes, Mommy."

"Open your eyes."

"Mommy, open your eyes."

"Open them."

"Open your eyes now, Mommy."

"Open your eyes."

...and on and on. Next time I'll tell her to get up and play with her toys for a little while till I come back. Sheesh.
Bulldozer
Emma and Daddy walked clear across the property to see a bulldozer. As usual, Daddy let her test-drive it, more or less. She looks like she's taking it very seriously.