Dissonant Dad

French Parenting

2012-02-10T17:38:00.000-05:00

Why French Parents Are Superior
While Americans fret over modern parenthood, the French are raising happy, well-behaved children without all the anxiety. Pamela Druckerman on the Gallic secrets for avoiding tantrums, teaching patience and saying 'non' with authority
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204740904577196931457473816.html

Why American Kids Are Brats
And their parents might be getting just what they deserve
Read more: http://ideas.time.com/2012/02/10/why-american-kids-are-brats/#ixzz1m1NnTsWp
http://ideas.time.com/2012/02/10/why-american-kids-are-brats/

My Bad

2012-01-31T09:12:00.002-05:00

I thought the idea of my at the time 6 year-old son playing for a U7 soccer team that played in a U8 league with three practices a week was overkill and overly ambitious at least. Well that team playing up a level won all of their games, and just won a national tournament at Disney World.

Maybe driving three towns away for practice might have been worth it? I do not know, but I doubt I will be telling my son about the achievements of the team we left. I was debating whether to have him try out for the team next season, I am sure this will make competition for the squad much stiffer.

3 Surprising Reasons to Give Up Soda

2012-01-31T09:11:00.000-05:00

http://health.yahoo.net/experts/eatthis/3-shocking-soda-facts

Reading Stamina

2012-01-27T13:40:00.002-05:00

I am getting into the heavy reading for the Spring semester and man my reading stamina stinks, I should have read more during Winter break. A pleasant side note, I discovered quality yellow crayons can serve as decent highlighter replacements in a pinch. I tested a few brands of crayon and cheap waxy brands clump up on the page and will leave stains, so avoid those.

Extreme faith in the heat retaining abilities of our house

2012-01-12T10:53:00.003-05:00

Last week on a particularly cold night we told our boys to wear heavy pajamas so they could stay warm, my 6 year-old said, "If we don't open the windows we won't let the cold in and we won't have to worry about it."

Life ends but it never stops

2011-11-17T08:45:00.007-05:00

Died in a quarter way house of a stroke while asleep, I am studying social work and I never heard of a quarter way house, I guess it is like a holding pen or a realm for a holding pattern, cleaned up enough to get out of the half-way house, no place to put you, hey what's between half way and all the way there, between half and nothing, between half and out of our hair?

My brother that I have not seen in about four years and have not spoken to in about three died 19 days ago and it took two weeks ago for the word of mouth to get from two new friends made some where along the line in the 3/4- 1/2- 1/4 way system, to the street to the guys he got high with to his x-tai chi students, to his daughter on the other side of the continent via his phone which was in the hands of some other person that let her know that her dad died a little while back, to our mother, to a hysterical message on my answering machine as I was getting dressed to leave for my niece's (brother-in-laws daughter) fifth birthday party in the skylands of deep suburban McMansiondom in what passes for mountains in New Jersey. I usually don't answer the phone unless I am getting a call from someone who I am in the process of meeting some where, but there is a hysterically pained tone of a mother whose child has just died that is unmistakable even from an answering machine heard from distance.

So naked I have this conversation and begin melting down the aluminum three step ladder that I was sitting on sobbing from a pit inside myself that is only accessed on especially painful occasions; realizing you are not loved by someone anymore and nothing is going to change that no matter how you try to perfect yourself or how you try to hurt yourself their attention is irredeemable, realizing that some small maneuver on your parents part or being three minutes late or one block over could have irreparably changed your life for the better, being akin to a tragedy and feeling that you were not deserving of the luck that shielded you from it or as in this case having something so awful and yet so foreseeable occur that you reserved a space in this pit because you knew it was going to come to pass and only the foolishness of magical non-logical thinking gave you any hope of another out come but you would allow yourself to think, "Anything is possible, right?" So when he came to mind there could be a trap door that would allow you to slip out before the downward spiral built up the speed of inevitability.

My son's, one of whose name is a combination of my brother's and mine, are confused and distraught at hearing this wailing that they of course wind up in fight and the younger one comes out the other side of it with bruises on his face reminiscent of Franck Ribery's signature scars. So I snap back from being a naked crying infant to being a father.

Now for the sad parts, the parts that I think about when I am alone in the laundry room, or in the car for over 25 minutes, or making an iTunes playlist of music that he turned me on to;

ironically and heart breaking-ly his last "new-friends" of literally hundreds upon hundreds of new friends this man made in 49 years on the planet, their names were the Spanish version of my name and our older and long dead of AIDS from IV drug use brother's name. He was estranged from most of his family but he recreated some sense of it out of the x-cons and state funded rehab residents of the half way house, one telling my mother, "He was like a father to me."

The next is "his stuff" he called from prison after having fits of violence acted out on those closest to him in proximity and to his heart, asking if I could help him pay for his storage space. His soon to be x-wife had moved, his newest baby's mama had fled and no one else was in a position to help any more. I thought, if he gets his life back together as some point in the future it would be a shame if he lost everything from the approximately 10 year period of mostly good living, or mostly overcoming the visions and voices and traumatic memories and torment to earn a nice living, starting a martial arts school, writing for men's health magazines, appearing on TV, owing a Manhattan apartment on the Park by the Cloisters, unbeknowst to him until meeting her family in Japan marrying an wealthy women, having a new (third) daughter, a pretty good life for a schizophrenic with multi-addiction issues suffering from post traumatic stress from being raped as grammar school student by the teenaged son of a neighbor and later sexually assaulted by the 17 year-old daughter of another family friend while babysitting, leading him to ponder, "Why is everyone making me have sex?" Which was not a surprising precursor to many of those new friends I mentioned being of a sexual nature, and I mean many many.

So all his stuff martial arts trophies, swords, an eclectic music selection, Asian art, if I do not help right now, it will be all gone, possibly showing up on some storage space reality TV show. Could I move it to my attic my garage? If this all ends badly at least I would have his stuff. No, I can not get involved, when violence and a loose grip on reality is what we are dealing with I can not have him showing up on my doorstep looking for his swords or asking for more money.

"No I can't help you right now."

"I understand sorry for having to ask."

My last conversation I had with the man that was my idol for many of my childhood years, whose reputation for fighting prevented me from getting my ass kicked by older boys in the neighborhood many times.

So he gone and so is his stuff, I can't cry as I decide should I integrate his CDs into my collection or keep them in separate box, if you know me you know my relationship with CDs. Can we put this trophy on display some where or will my wife shoot down the idea on the grounds that it does not fit the decor? I have nothing to visit with him with.

But ultimately the safety of the family that I have chosen to create was more important than enabling the one fate bestowed, or having the ability to get lost in the melancholia of memorabilia and the sounds of memories.

Lamest Trick or Treater Ever

2011-11-01T22:12:00.004-04:00

Even though my town tried to cancel Halloween, or actually postpone it until Friday, the kids were out in force dodging downed power lines and hurdling 50 year-old 10 foot tree limbs with aplomb. Anyway adding to my anecdotal evidence for my on going study into the loss of social graces of those under 25 was the worlds lamest trick or treater that I encounter a few days ago.

Neither the 70% of children who did not bother to say "trick or treat" nor the 40% who did not say thank you after receiving candy and worse than my 16 year-old cohorts and I who went trick or treating sans costumes and when questioned about it one of the group replied, "We're dressed as professional kick ball players, now give us some candy," not fully realizing how scary a gang of teen aged boys could be to a lone adult, but the lamest trick or treater darkened my door last night, not really wearing a costume, accompanied by three friends, all about 17 years-old, with a pillow case in one hand, his cell phone in the other, in mid conversation, tucked the phone under his chin to continue the conversation so he could free up his other hand to open the pillow case wide enough for my candy, does not acknowledge that I exist, turns away while without saying thank you while continuing to talk on the phone.

Four seconds later as I am giving candy to his friends I began to think that I just missed a "You god damn kids get off my lawn-esque" crabby old guy opportunity, I should called him out on his rudeness and made the kid get off the phone if he wanted my butterfingers and kit kats, the punk assed bitch. Sometimes you are so surprised that the witty comeback or opportunity to stand up for yourself or for decency and decorum slips through your fingers, and to try retrieve it only makes your reveal yourself as being unstable.

2011-10-30T13:37:00.001-04:00

http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/113718/states-most-millionaires-cnbc

Lost Posts from May 2011

2011-10-11T22:36:00.003-04:00

My almost nine year old son asked his mother yesterday, “What do you pee out of?”

Mother: I don’t have a penis.

Then he demanded, “Let me see it!”

"Don’t you miss having a penis?"

"You need to shave down there, that’s disscusting."

Mother: Daddy has hair down there and you will too,

Son: He should shave it too.

------------------------

3rd grader, "I’ve got lead in my eye, I’ve got a pencil in my eye, I’m going to die!"

He did not have pencil in his eye, pencils are not really made of lead, he did not die.

OCCUPY WALL STREET & Policy blog postings

2011-10-11T22:25:00.001-04:00

Protesters Against Wall Street

NY Times Editorial

Listen to the 99 percent: What Occupy Wall Street is saying to the nation

States Adding Drug Test as Hurdle for Welfare

It is interesting, these are all issues I was blogging about in the Spring for my Policy class. I've posted some my article reviews/comments of below:

Of The 1%, By The 1%, For The 1%

by Joseph F. Stiglitz, Vanity Fair

The issue raised in this article is how “the upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent.” 25 years ago those figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. The author points out that “the more unequal a society is, the more reluctant the wealthy become to spend on common needs. The rich don’t need government benefits - they can buy these things for themselves.”

This situation can perpetuate itself leading to more and more disparity in the future. We need only need to look to what is happening in Arab world right now to see what can happen when “a fraction of the population controls the lion’s share of the wealth.” With this in mind our nation needs to ask itself if this is the direction it really wants to go in?

The last main point of the article is that Alexis de Tocqueville noticed long ago that Americans had “self-interest properly understood” in that they understood that paying attention to everyone’s self-interest or the common welfare, is beneficial to their own well-being.

Basically when the nation is better and more secure, it is better for the top 1%, more stable markets etc.

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NO ONE REALLY WANTS SMALLER GOVERNMENT, COMMENTS ON PAUL RYAN’S BUDGET

Reading “The Radical Gradulism of Paul Ryan,” http://budget.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=235261 about the budget proposed by the House Budget Chairman just reiterated to me those on the right always seem to stay on message no matter what the current political or economic environment. They will alway have a drive for lower taxes, no regulations on business and smaller governments and see every national success or failure as an example of why we need, you guessed it, lower taxes, a laissez-faire view of the business sector and smaller government. Never mind that the government and deficit both grew under their watch during W. Bush’s two terms.

The truth is that people on both sides of the aisle want the government to come down strongly behind the issues that they feel are most important.

“What the Ryan budget offers instead is a gradual, manageable change of course that might allow us to continue to experience the kind of growth and stability we have seen since the Second World War.” Strange does columnist Yuval Levin mean the growth and stability that were made possible by a large middle class, a strong safety net, strong unions, government regulations of the corporate sector that characterize the post war era?

“A plan that sought to address our fiscal problems by raising taxes far higher than this historical norm—as Ryan’s detractors on the left would have to do, though they are loath to say so—would almost certainly yield weaker growth, and therefore have a harder time restraining the growth of the debt.” As I discussed in my last post from a few weeks ago, statistics show that we currently have a historically low tax rate, so it could be raised and still not be “far higher than this historical norm.”

I may have missed it, but in this article and in what I have heard from the right the military budget is left in tact. Another area that the right never looks into cutting is the cost of enforcing morally driven laws against consensual activities, the cost of police enforcement of prostitution laws, tax revenue lost from the illegality of gambling and the cost of imprisoning non-violent drug users. A closer look at the war on drugs reveals that after 40 years and $1 trillion was deemed as failing to meet any of its goals. Think about how much one trillion dollars is, “If you started a business when Christ was born and lost $1 million a day, it would still take another 700 years before you lost $1 trillion,” REPRESENTATIVE PHIL CRANE.

Beside Rand Paul, his dad, and at best one million actual libertarians, no one is actually for less government, they are just for government doing less to help issues they don’t care about, and more for their issues, on the right, moral and law and order issues, strong military that stimulates the economy and helps America have an empire that keeps foreign markets safe for our business interests, or helps open new ones, as opposed to the left wanting the government to focus on trying solve societies ills and inequalities.

------------------------------

I was not able to find one specific issue that moved me but looking at a number of issues I noticed a real disconnect concerning the amount of money our nation spends on its military, the high rate of profits our corporations have continued to earn despite the recession and the lack of money we have to fund our public programs and jobs that are leading to the need for so many cutbacks and lay-offs.

In last Sunday’s Star Ledger I read articles with headlines like, “Next fight: Contracts for state workers. Talks expected to be ‘pretty ugly’” where state employees are afraid to anger Gov. Christie because they don’t want to vilified in the way he did to teachers. Also “Energy Department staff to face cuts ...” “Budget ax poised in Millburn district” schools, and “Laid off Newark cops are moving on.”

Yet one can still find headlines like “Pentagon requests its largest budget: $553 billion” where the Pentagon is asking for its 14th year in a row of spending increases even with the winding down of the Iraq War. We do not have money for teachers and cops and blame welfare queens, pensions and the stimulus package for our national debt but some how the cost of our two wars at over $1,153,594,999,999 at 11:15 AM today and counting (1) is not brought into the conversation? So it seems there is plenty of money for war.

Looking at the corporate world over the last year most aggregate economic indicators are up, the GNP (2) has gone up the last five quarters, the top three stock exchanges NASDAQ, NYSE, AMEX all show growth in their trading volumes over the last 52 weeks (3). The financial papers are littered with headlines such as:

“U.S. Corporate Profits Surge” - The Wall Street Journal (4)

“Corporate Profits Were the Highest on Record Last Quarter” - The New York Times (5)

“U.S. corporate profits rise most in 25 years “- MarketWatch (6)

Still many want to cut federal and state employees like social workers, teachers and police, stating that this will free up funds to help our economy grow. Like all other areas of human endeavor public jobs contracts are far from perfect and there is much room for improving on abuses like “double dipping” holding two state jobs and getting pensions from both, large buyout clauses in some higher level state administrators and board members, and other areas like pensions and tenure can be looked at with new eyes and made more responsive to success in the work place.

The facts that these conflicting headlines bring to light point not to a lack of finances in America but a lack of interest in helping those in need and a choice to use hard economic times for many Americans as an excuse to push forth an anti-middle and working class political agenda that has been in the works since the 1960’s.

LINKS

(1) Cost of War http://costofwar.com/en/

(2) GNP http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=231&page=3&count=100

(3) NASDAQ, NYSE, AMEX trading volumes over the last 52 weeks http://research.scottrade.com/qnr/Public/Markets/Statistics

(4) “U.S. Corporate Profits Surge” - The Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703956604576110612955564394.html

(5) “Corporate Profits Were the Highest on Record Last Quarter” - The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/24/business/economy/24econ.html?_r=1

(6) “U.S. corporate profits rise most in 25 years “- MarketWatch http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-corporate-profits-rise-most-in-25-years-2010-03-26

===========================

Many conservatives and libertarians only value private sector jobs as if they are superior to public sector jobs, as if the morgages and rents, goods and services and college educations they pay for do not help strenghen our ecomony as private sector job It is as if they believe only jobs that increase their profit margins are valid, and those that serve the interest of the middle class and in turn the nation as a whole are without value. During a recession where affluent Americans profits are rising, middle class job killing legislation and budgets cuts do not appear to be the best way help those actually feeling the pains of this recession to lift themselves up to a better future.

Especially jobs that help lay the foundation for a strong middle class, jobs in education and public safety. A strong, financially secure and educated middle class is imperative to having a functioning democracy, and many of these current conservative and libertarian ideas such busting unions and ending free public education (“Education, like any other service, is best provided by the free market” ) run completely counter to what has made America the strongest nation in world.

Picture a senario where you already have high unemployment and very few good jobs where you do not need a college education. Then cut police jobs and make our cities less secure, you cut jobs in education which makes it harder to educate our children and in turn harder for them to go to college and get good jobs. Now not only have good middle class jobs that are within the grasp of poor and working class people been eliminated, you add a percentage of those formerly middle class laid-off people the ranks of the needy.

The short term gains from many of these cuts will be drastically over shadowed by the harm they are doing to society’s ability to produce citizens with highly employable skills. Those on the right look to the corporate world where one can raise their profit margins by laying off employees and see no reason not to apply the same logic to essential public jobs all so they can have more money by lowering their taxes.

National debt more than tripled from 900 billion dollars to 2.8 trillion dollars during Reagan's tenure.

There is not less money in America, their is less money available to the middle class.

http://www.lp.org/platform

Eisenhower

"Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

There is a jelousy on the part of many who work in the private sector, they see their jobs being cut, they see pensions as a thing of the distant past which they came along too late for, and they have not gotten rich in the corporate world and see public workers making as much as they do with more benefits and they have been told that they are lazy union workers who do not deserve to be well compensated.

So rather than unionize fight for the jobs in their own industry, or complaining about paying 1.99 for a bottle of coke when it costs 18 cents to make

(http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_does_it_cost_to_make_a_bottle_of_coca_cola) and being angry about the exorbitant bonuses that corporate executives are paid with your money, being angry that they make their profits of the back of that usury usurious mark up,

many in the public are so brainwashed that they hate those in the same boat as they are and worship those above them, those who control how society is set up and do infinitely more to keep them in their troubled possition than those next to them, one step ahead or behind them in the pecking order of financial success in this nation.

People would rather have a dream of becoming rich than a reality of being secure.

Veblen pointed out. The poor don't want to fight those above them, they want to be like them. http://www.bolenderinitiatives.com/sociology/thorstein-bunde-veblen-1857-1929/thorstein-bunde-veblen-leisure-class-author/critic-may-ha

2011-09-15T11:09:00.000-04:00

Putting an End to Arsenic in Our Food Supply

2011-09-06T09:21:00.002-04:00

I have started my first official year in a MSW program this week. I have been pissed off about my profs emailing reading assignments that are due at my first class, completely inappropriate, the class starts on a certain day, that's when the work should start, it's like having to check your blackberry every few hours on your vacation, technology has eradicated all boundaries, when you are affiliated with an institution it's like no time is solely yours anymore.

Deep Sleep

2011-09-05T21:46:00.000-04:00

>first relax, then clear your mind, don’t think of anything, don’t think about what you did today, think of nothing

930 pm tonight, my six year old teaching my 9 year-old how to fall asleep quickly

2011-08-17T14:49:00.001-04:00

‘Brain-eating amoeba’ claims second victim this month

Great, any more stuff the world wants to add to the list of things parents have to worry about?

Nagged

2011-08-03T15:35:00.002-04:00

My kids are out of summer camp and it has taken three days and bout of asthma reinforced by hysteria to derail the best laid schedule of Daddy Camp!

I have to catch up on some chores, but some how telling my 9 yr old to read to pass the time is like telling him to pull his nails out with pair of pliers. "Why isn't anyone home when we call for a playdate," and after we leave a message, every time the phone rings, "Who's that, who's that?!?"

How old are kids when they become in charge of their own social calendar?

I guess the plus of not being nagged for things to do by your kids is negated by the fact that parents are usually no longer considered when planning their tweenaged agendas.

Kid Sun Bake Soccer Cup, last team not suffering heat stroke wins!

2011-07-22T17:28:00.002-04:00

I am torn, it is 100 degrees out and will be the same tomorrow, and my 9 year-old son has a soccer tournament this weekend, where they play two games a day. My wife is freaked out because some cadet at West Point died in the heat yesterday, and the tournament in Upstate NY. We decided to not have him play. I called out doctor for his opinion, he got back to us after we made up our minds and my wife and kids went to the shore for the next day and a half.

The doctor said it is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT to make sure the kids stay very hydrated, get frequent breaks and stop playing as soon as they get any symptoms like dizziness or nausea.

My gut feels like things would have been okay, and I do not want to be the kind of parent that gives into fear because something bad happened somewhere once in the world in a similar situation, but when I called the tournament and they said there is no set temperature where they would cancel the games, I was like fuck it, they seem more concerned about not cancelling games and having to refund teams than playing it safe, so hopefully the second day of the tournament will be under 100 degrees.

Had THE TALK!

2011-07-14T21:58:00.003-04:00

So my 9 year-old kept asking questions trying to figure out how babies are made, so I just decided to tell him last night.
Previously we had told him that you take a little piece of the daddy and a little piece of the mommy and put it in the mommy and the baby grows from there.
Last night in the least racy way possible I told him that mommys have a tiny room inside them called a womb and the daddy uses his penis to put sperm, which look like tiny tadpoles and have all of the information about the dad, inside the womb. The mommy has an egg in the womb and it has all of the information about the mommy. The sperms race to the egg, and the strongest and fastest sperm connects with the egg, which then makes a hard shell so no more sperms can get in. Then the information from both parents mix to start creating a baby!

He was very mature and fine with this. He did ask, "What if the stuff doesn't come out?" To which I answered, "You just keep pushing it in until it does."
Son, "I do not like that part with putting the penis inside the mommy, is there another way to make a baby with a scientist or doctor?" Me, "Well yes, it costs lots of money, but they can take the sperm and eggs out of the parents combine them and then put them in the mommy, or take the sperm out of the daddy and put it into the mommy, but the regular way works better and it is free. You could adopt a baby too." Him, "No then it would not be a 'insert our sir name'."

My wife walks into the bathroom and I say everything went well, he is just not enthused about the putting the penis in the mommy part. She answered, "Oh honey it is okay you will enjoy doing it." He then opens up the shower curtain and starts to gyrate his naked crotch around in a dance music video informed nine year-old's interpretation of sleazy dancing stating in a deep raspy voice, "Oh yeah it's fun I'm gonna like it!" We kind of went into shock, then he turns back into himself and is about 100 times more grossed out by the idea of having to put his penis inside someone.
I told him not to worry when he grows up and meets his future wife his body will tell him when he is ready to make a baby and he does not have to worry about it for a number of years to come. And then I tease my wife like crazy for making the situation way more icky than it had been.

Trying to figure out sex

2011-07-13T13:01:00.003-04:00

My 9 year-old has been trying to figure out sex lately.

Last night he asked his mother if I peepee in her butt to make a baby?

A month ago he told her that his friend needed his dad to help him do something, so the dad paused what he was watching on TV or his computer. He said the image on the screen was a man peeing in a woman's mouth.

My wife began to laugh nervously which lead our son to ask, "Are you laughing because you let daddy do that to you?"

I think it will be time for "the talk" to be happening pretty soon.

ps. Despite our numerous explanations he still thinks tampons are for ending pregnancies and calls them, "Baby Killers," as in, "So wait you don't swallow the baby killers, you put them inside your body?"

One of the ancillary annoyances of having depression

2011-07-08T01:31:00.004-04:00

One of the ancillary annoyances of having depression issues is the realization that the things bothering you are often not as serious as those giving difficultly to others around you and yet they feel as if they are.

As I was driving to my therapist yesterday I was in a pissy mood and then saw a young blind man being taught how to use his cane as he crossed the busy street I was driving on; a few minutes ago I was thinking about talking about my general malaise with a friend I am having dinner with tomorrow night and quickly remembered that his wife is leaving him but they don't have the money to support two separate households so they are still living together, which makes me say to myself, "What the fuck are you having trouble dealing with? Your kids wanting to play video games everyday and not cleaning up behind themselves, your wife being to tired after work to hang out, really? And your therapist, chiropractor, physical therapist and massage therapy aren't enough to help you deal with the stress of life. Be satisfied with the privileged life you enjoy and somehow convince yourself that it is enough, because it is more than most people on earth have experienced."

I have to stop letting my kids bait me into arguments, my six year-old after being given a stern talking to about all of the things he could be doing to stave off boredom was having a temper tantrum because he did not want to clean up and he wanted me to play with him, I told him that I had cleaning up of my own to do and sometimes we have to do boring things in life, part of my job was to do boring things like clean up the house.

As I climbed the stairs I heard him asking why did I chose that job if it was boring and I did not like it. Normally I would get in his face about being disrespectful, but I just kept walking. Something I am going to try to do more of after making whatever my original point is.

Fever

2011-04-13T21:49:00.002-04:00

My 6 year-old son has had a fever since Monday, he is missing the kindergarden presentation, and the kids have off from school next week, and I have my final term paper due on my birthday in less than weeks, but have not had any time to work on it this week because I have continuously believed that my son's fever would be gone tomorrow and hence spent my time tending to things around the house because once I start on writing the paper I won't have much free time, three days in a row and they are home next week, wait, I did just sign them up for spring break soccer camp, thank god, that at least gives me about three hours a day, well closer to two and a half because we are always late and I have to leave our house about 15 minutes before the camp ends, so yeah we will have to go to the doctor tomorrow, hopefully this will clear up soon we have a really busy weekend like literally seven events/activities planned, and then Bloomfest on Sunday, what a drag it will be if he stays sick ...

SOY AND DAIRY: HEALTHFUL OR HARMFUL?

2011-04-12T09:29:00.002-04:00

The Down-Low on Dairy & Soy: Magic Bean or Tragic Bean? Both have good and bad qualities, moderation is the key. Despite what most grandmothers would have you believe your body does not need dairy products, you can live fine without them. "The FAO/WHO developed the Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score, a method of measuring protein values in human nutrition. Eggs, milk, and soy all score a 1.0, the best possible. Beef scores .92 and peanuts score .52." This statistic shoots down the importance of eating beef to getting enough protein.

2011-04-11T21:21:00.001-04:00

Skin bleaching a growing problem in Jamaica slums

Lying

2011-04-08T12:15:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

By Patty Dow, M.A., Life Coach and Parent Educator

It is a loaded word and carries all kinds of moral judgment about the perpetrator. It leaves parents feeling embarrassed or deceived when they realize that their young children are doing it. Often times, parents notice "lying" in their children for the first time around age three. You ask your child a question about school and some wild tale comes out of his or her mouth. You confront your child about the missing cookie, only to be met by denial. In this month's Parenting Tip, I'd like to put some perspective on the subject of lying in young children.

First, let's look at this phenomenon from a developmental perspective. Most children, by age three, are able to carry on conversations. They have learned that there is a give and take in communication and that when they ask questions or make statements, they get responses from others. However, they have only been conversing for a few months. Someone asks them a question, the rule is, they reply. Sometimes they say the first thing that comes to mind. This is not deliberate and malicious lying, but to them, carrying their weight in the conversation.

The next developmental pieces of this puzzle are cognition and retention level. At ages three and four, children do not have a well developed sense of time and they don't always retain information from things that happened earlier. They may legitimately not remember what happened in school TODAY. You ask? They make it up (following the rules of communication - a question requires a response), or give you a blank stare! Sometimes, the things they make up are things that they have heard others say. Again, not malicious or intentional, but it's what comes to mind and they heard someone else say it, so why not?

Frequently, children blur the boundaries between fantasy and reality. They have fantasies in which they catastrophize, or romanticize, sometimes to meet an emotional need that they have. When my daughter, Courtney, was born, we already had a dog named Timber. He was petrified of her and barely began to come near her when she was old enough to throw a ball. Other than those occasional games, he avoided her like the plague. When she was 3 ½, we sadly had to find a new loving home for him because we had to move to a place where animals weren't allowed. When Courtney was 4, she would tell people about her wonderful relationship with her dog and what fast friends they were. She would dreamily tell people, "Timber would follow me everywhere and come over and put his head in my lap while I was watching TV." Lie? Well, definitely not the truth, but somehow, it was to her! Did it harm anyone? Nope. So what did I do? I let it go. As she got older (she is now 21), I told her anecdotally and she got a kick out of it. If your child is blurring fantasy and reality in a way that doesn’t matter, let it go. If your child is blurring fantasy and reality in a way that matters, you don't have to attack or insist. You can gently insert the facts as they tell stories about their lives.

Next, let's look at the intentional side of lying. From fairly early on, we learn that lying a) gets us what we want and b) can act as a form of protection when we fear the disapproval of others. One of the most important things parents can do is MODEL. How many of us use "white" lies; you know… stretch the truth just a little bit? Sometimes we think our reasons are legitimate - we don't want to hurt someone's feelings, or we want to avoid a scene of some type. I am not passing judgment, but it is important to remember that if you value honesty and want to pass that onto your children, they will pick up on it when adults lie to others. Young children are still very concrete in their thinking. They do not distinguish one type of lie from another. They think, "Mommy and Daddy told So-and-So this untrue thing, so it must be okay for me to do the same." Then they try it and get reprimanded for it. It doesn't make much sense in their minds and it hardly seems fair.

The last thought I want to leave you with, is that when your child lies, it isn't directly targeted toward you - it's not PERSONAL. Even if your child is lying intentionally, this is a sign that your child is having difficulty with something, NOT doing it TO YOU! S/he might be having trouble accepting disappointment, or might be very concerned about letting you down. Does this mean that parents don't address it? No, but you will probably have better results in the future if you address it empathically, non-emotionally, and matter-of-factly. Let your child know that you value honesty and that it is okay to make mistakes. Have a discussion and see if you can get to the source of the lie. If you come down too hard on your child, it will probably leave him or her scared. This, in turn, can lead to more lying and a breakdown in communication.

Patty Dow, MA
Life Coach/Parent Educator

Post from My Social Work Policy Class Blog

2011-04-06T11:34:00.003-04:00

Chart shows low tax burden for rich

I was unable to attach the chart to this post so please click on the link below and take a minute to view the chart. “Blue areas represent a historically low tax burden for a specific income level, while red areas represent a historically high burden.”

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110316/ts_yblog_thelookout/chart-shows-low-tax-burden-for-rich;_ylt=AgzGIvwZ3WbYBe.37rqXmqzCw5R4;_ylu=X3oDMTQ1czQ4ZmMwBGFzc2V0A3libG9nX3RoZWxvb2tvdXQvMjAxMTAzMTYvY2hhcnQtc2hvd3MtbG93LXRheC1idXJkZW4tZm9yLXJpY2gEY2NvZGUDbXBfZWNfOF8xMARjcG9zAzQEcG9zAzQEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNjaGFydHNob3dzbG8-

The chart basically shows that despite the repeated claims from the lower taxes crowd that taxes are extra ordinarily high, and that the country is broke due to the pensions of greedy public workers like fire fighters, police officers and teachers, the tax burden on Americans is actually lower for the vast majority of Americans thank it has been 50 years.

The wealthy are being allowed to keep more of their money compared to any time in the last 100 years except for brief periods around 1930 and 1990. With this in mind it appears that our federal government’s shortage of funds may be due to the lack of funds being brought in by taxes and not solely public workers pensions, or over spending on social programs. The high cost of our military actions, and all other governmental costs have not been counteracted by the trickle down effect historically low tax rates over the last quarter of a century. Lower taxes have not caused the affluent to create new businesses and in turn new jobs at a rate that has any significant affect on our overall economy.

Basically the current tax rate is low compared to what it was durning the post WWII economic boom under Eisenhower, and even lower than it was during the Reagan Era. The lower taxes mantra reminds me of the concept of Manifest Destiny, no matter what gains its adherents achieve, the only acceptable next step is more, more tax cuts now, more land then, an insatiable appetitive for more that accepts no compromise.

Youth Soccer

2011-03-29T09:12:00.001-04:00

My son's team has NY Red Bull coaches, it's weird, I drove to the game with one of them this weekend, he was at least my age most likely older, most int'l youth coaches I have met are young guys in their 20's. There is this world wide network of coaches that, a high percentage of which are from the UK, and they coach in Ghana one year, move to USA the next, are an assistant coach to a low level pro team in Wales, then become the head coach to kids in NJ, it is very weird transient lifestyle that I was not perviously aware of.
So we roll into our first league game on the road last weekend with a professional coach decked out in Red Bulls gear, and our boys are rocking Adidas kits, we arrive in a nice upper middle class town in North Jersey and they have t-shirts and dads coaching having them do jumping jacks before the game. My son's team had to stop scoring at 7-0 our else the club would have been fined for each additional goal. Not growing up with soccer it is interesting for me at least to see the vast range of how towns develop players.
The day before another team my son plays with sometimes got demolished in a scrimmage by Portuguese and Brazilian kids from Ironbound SC in Newark. So I saw the whole spectrum from kids who just kick the ball around for fun to upper middle class and rich kids with the best training money can buy to those whose families live and breath the game, you can guess which one looks the best so far.

Less Distractions On Campus

2011-03-25T10:06:00.005-04:00

So after missing three weeks of class I has a midterm last week. I am not going to try to make up all of the reading I missed, but I have a paper and some blog entries due that I missed, plus keeping up with the current reading and and starting to research my major term paper.

Studying at home is often hard, we have had all of these house issues like possible two dead animals under our back deck that stink to high hell once the temperature sniffs 50 degrees, our heater has cut off twice and we have had to have someone come and service it to get it running again, and we had people come by to give estimates for trimming trees on our property, the guys we picked were suppose to call to give a heads up as to when they were free to come.

Well as I sit trying to figure out what the hell I am going to write my make-up paper on, and where am I going to find the research sources online, and being mad at myself for not getting any of it done earlier in the week, particularly because my kids have a half day to day and a play date at our house, so I will have less opportunity to work on the paper today than any other day this week, the tree trimmers show up. So there a bunch of Latin dudes high up in trees over my house with chainsaws and a giant truck sized wood chipper buzzing away as I type, not exactly an environment conducive to higher level conceptualizing. Also two worries have begun to creep in, one, this service was so much cheaper than the others, are they insured if one of these giant branches falls on my roof? Secondly, are we removing enough or too many branches? Too many may be safer and have less leaves to deal with in the fall, but it may look bad, and make the tree lean and force the roots to start coming up. Too few and we are still in danger of having a large branch fall on our house during a storm.

Oh and there are the squirrels who live in the tree, I am a little worried about their stress level.

Evil Baby Killing Tampons

2011-02-23T08:39:00.005-05:00

My 3rd grader notice some of my wife's tampons on a counter, and asked my wife about them. I did not hear all of her explanation but I heard enough to know it was too much information for him to deal with.

I was laying on the floor of his bedroom and he sat on top of me put his face close to mine and asked, "Is there something you can take to kill a baby inside a mommy after you have made one?"

GREAT

Me, "Mom! what exactly did you say to him. Son do not worry about that, though you are definitely not the first person to come up with that idea."

My wife, "He was asking me about what tampons are for."

He knows that his mother takes pills so she does not get pregnant. My wife explained that the tampons have nothing to do with making or killing babies. She then began to explain how the pill works and I had to cut her off realizing that to an eight year old or an extreme right to lifer the process of how they work may be considered "killing a baby," so I just chimed in that the pill keeps the mommy from making a baby.

We have told him that to make a baby you take a little piece of a mommy and little piece of a daddy, put them together inside of a mommy and it grows.

So last night he asks, "Do you make a baby if you cuddle too much and your hair gets tangled and it gets inside of the mommy?"

This morning the tampon box is still out and he says, "I hate tampons they are for killing babies." So my son thinks that tampons are for killing babies, we told him they are not, but he does not believe us. I explain that they are used only when mommies are not making babies, he does not buy it. I have to take a cup and use it as model of an upside down womb, fill it with a little water and describe a period as the water pouring out of the cup and the tampon is a sponge to keep mommies clean. Not fully buying it, I explain there is blood involved and the womb makes a bed for the new baby to grow in and if it is not needed the body throws the bedding out.

So we left it with him finally starting to turn the corner but not full convinced that tampons are not for killing babies.

Seems like yesterday

2011-02-01T17:29:00.003-05:00

My just turned six year-old, "February is not so fun,"

me, "Why? We have a bunch of fun things, the Super Bowl, Coach Charlie's birthday dinner at Red Robin, your kid birthday party,"

Him, "Mehhheh,"

me, "What that party is costing us around $500, I can call up right now and cancel it!" I pick up the phone,

him, "NO!"

Me, "Alright then, you have to appreciate what we do for you, I am sorry but I can't make everyday all fun all the time, I have a number of things I have to do."

Him, "Dad do you remember when I was the most important thing in your life? Seems like yesterday."

Me, "WHAT? What did you say?"

He repeats what he said

Me, "Where did you get that from?"

Him, "In Toy Story they say 'Do you remember when we were the most important things in Andy's life. Seems like yesterday.'"

Me, "Oh man that was pretty funny."

So my six year-old has figured out how to quote film dialog to bust my balls, great.

Welcome to the Spring 2011 Semester

2011-02-01T13:58:00.002-05:00

Sometimes it feels like the only thing I hate more than work is change.

And by work I mean on a project I do not believe in and by change I mean unwanted or unplanned change.

Two things

2011-01-24T09:51:00.008-05:00

Over winter break I finally had time to build the second of three cheap book shelves I bought months and months ago. It was tall and white and I put it in our boys' room, the last one was black and didn't match the room's color scheme. The boys have been happy to have their books, comics and trading cards back in their room rather than in the attic where they aren't really allowed to go into.
My kindergartner said he wanted to paint the book shelf. Knowing full well that I was not going to let him do this I asked what color he wanted to paint it, he said, "Clear!"
I let him know that you can't make non-clear items clear with paint.

-------

We got back late from a family birthday party last night and missed the first few minutes of the Jets game. My boys wanted to watch the game but I sent them to bed during half-time and told them that if the Jets come back you can watch the DVR of the game, if not they save themselves the grief of watching their team lose.

During the third quarter I got up a few times to go to the kitchen to make food and get drinks. I was pretty much sedentary for the fourth quarter. After they lost I felt a bit bummed and thought, "I am not going to watch the Steelers celebrate," and turned the channel, then to my surprise my 8 year-old popped up from under a TV tray standing the far side of the couch that I was sitting on and yells, "I hate the Steelers!" I asked how long have you been there? "Uh," okay how many Jets touchdowns did you see? "Two." So he snuck down the stairs when I went to the kitchen and hid for at least a half an hour about six feet away from me.

......... kitchen
-
--

---

---- ......... TV

^ stairs

couch-> [_me_______] him

If we were not both so bummed about the outcome of the game he would have gotten in trouble for sneaking out of bed and staying up late.

Jan. 24th, excerpt from "Laughter," by Deng Ming-Dao

2011-01-24T09:47:00.002-05:00

"... We are too often in a rush for our children to grow up. It is far better for them to fully live each year of their lives. Let them learn what is appropriate to their time, let them play. And when their childhood is spent at adolescence, help them in a gentle transition. Then their laughter will continue to resonate with cheer and hope for us all."

Holiday Issues

2011-01-02T09:17:00.003-05:00

Our hamster died at one year and 11 months, just shy of the normal hamster life span, which was good considering she had cancer since being one month old. She had been slowing down for a month and two weeks ago it did not look like she was going to make it through Xmas. She bounced back the past week to the point we thought that she had gotten better, but it was just that last burst of energy that we often get right before giving birth or dying.

With the giant snow storms that hit our area I had lots of snow to shovel, then the next day I built my kids an igloo with entailed a bunch more shoveling, then since I did not want to go snowboarding I agreed to my wife's B plan of tubing, the next day we spent the whole day shopping so tons of walking and carrying big boxes, this all lead to my back going out at a restaurant. We got home to see our hamster dead which lead to the kids climbing all over us because they were upset, which lead to them sleeping in our bed, neither or which was good for my back.

We also went out to lunch with my parents who we have not seen in more than six months due to a some major family issues, though everything went fine the lead up did add stress to the week.

So like many breaks this one ends with me accomplishing less than half of things I thought I would at its onset.

Me, Petty, No?

2011-01-02T08:51:00.003-05:00

I had two conversations over new year's eve where separate friends debated little factoids I brought up as being incorrect. Now neither one is of any ground shaking importance, one is about the history of the town we all live in, the other about a soccer tactic used in a recent match. As a residue of growing up rather shy I usually don't make statements that I am not sure of outside of speaking with my immediate family, therefore I am usually sure of my statements.

So I politely let my doubters know that I stood by my statements and that I could back them up with documentation, which still didn't convince them. So big deal right, well my issue is not with them it is with my desire to send them web links to prove that I was not speaking out of my ass. As I write this I realize my problem is that I hate when people go on about shit they know nothing about, or stand strong on points where they can easily be proved wrong, so for someone to think that about me places me in a zone of discomfort. This has to do with me not allowing myself the freedom to be wrong. I understand that I am frequently wrong across many subjects, but I apparently can not deal with others thinking I am wrong when I am not.

So my desire to email friends links proving that I was not talking out of my ass is petty, no?

Reborn as an ant

2010-12-03T13:33:00.003-05:00

My eight year-old had a dream where he lived to one hundred years old and then died and came back two days later as an ant who only lived for 30 days because some kid from his class stepped on him, a kid who he has seen step on ants before.

I asked if he had been taught about Eastern religion, "Have they taught you about Chinese or Indian religion?" and he said no, so this is rather interesting on a many levels.

Thank God ...

2010-12-02T12:20:00.003-05:00

... my massage therapist asked me about my kids having a half day or they would have been left out in the cold and freaking out, because I was totally unaware of it, I knew tomorrow was a half day, but not about today.

Maybe I Should Let My Five Year-old Professionally Train for Soccer

2010-12-01T21:54:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago my kindergartner was offered a tryout for a local elite soccer training program, mainly off of his older brother's reputation. The practice is in another town and ends at 8pm, he gets cranky at 730 and is suppose to be in bed by eight so I passed on the opportunity.

I take the little guy to soccer training during the week after school and my wife takes him to a recreation program on the weekend. They didn't play any scrimmages during the Fall at the practice I take him to, so I saw him scrimmage for the first time in about six months this evening. Holy frickin' cow, he was a total beast, he had five goals and his side won six to three. The impressive thing was that it was a three on three game, but he was taking the ball from his teammates and they would try to get it back, so it was really like a one on five game. He of course needs to learn to better with others but I couldn't believe that he already had moves and technique and how fluidly he moved about the pitch with the ball. Soccer is his older brother's life, almost to a fault, so it is going to be interesting to see what the future holds if the little one winds up being better than his big brother at the big guys favorite thing in the world.

There's No Crying in Therapy!

2010-12-01T21:36:00.003-05:00

I am currently in my third stint of going to therapy, since I was about 25 I have done about four years of therapy, which is a pretty lame percentage of time for someone who has a psych degree and is working to become a therapist, but anyway I cried for only the second time during a session in all those years of sessions, the strange thing is that it was after remembering that I had to quit my high school Freshman basketball team because my parents couldn't pick me up after practice and they did not bother and try to set up any alternate means for me to get home. My therapist thought that since it made me cry and I usually don't cry that it was a breakthrough, but I wonder if realizing that your parents did even a poorer job than you already thought they did really a breakthrough? Maybe I guess?

Which leads one to wonder, "How much fodder for the therapist's couch am I giving my boys on a daily basis?"

Child’s Ordeal Shows Risks of Psychosis Drugs for Young

2010-11-21T21:56:00.001-05:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/02/business/02kids.html?_r=2&hp

Digging Up Dead Friends

2010-11-21T21:17:00.002-05:00

As we drove past a cemetery my Kindergartner said, "There are a lot of dead people." Then he asked about if they can come back, I can't remember what we answered, if we said something about heaven or not, but then he said, "I want to dig up my friend 'Jack' because I want to talk to him because he was nice."
We told him he could talk to him in his head. When he did not seem convinced we then said he could pray and have God let Jack hear his message to him.

Eight Minutes, Do Less Better

2010-11-19T09:26:00.009-05:00

If one tries to accomplish more than one CAN accomplish, one accomplishes very little.

If we have a never ending list of things we need to do, where every one accomplishment or task completed is normally replaced by two new deeds to be done, then we are never finished, and never at peace. Somethings have to be done on a regular basis, somethings can be put off, and others have to be completed right now.

What absolutely needs to be done is to eliminate things that we only perceive we need to do, and that we really do not gain anything positive from participating in. Things that just are distractions, mindless activities or things to build up our ego.

Prioritize, plan on completing a reasonable number of tasks, again not what one wishes they could accomplish in the allotted time, or what one's more efficient sibling or friend from college could accomplish, but what you can, by using your past history as a basis, and plan accordingly.

View from the Neighbor's Deck

2010-11-19T09:09:00.002-05:00

I am trying to get back into meditation, increasing the length by one minute each day, today I did eight minutes in the back section of my side yard, which is next to and behind my detached garage, cornered by a tall wood fence on two sides, with a row of some sort of tall thin pine trees that block it off from the rest of the side yard and make it virtually "un-visable" from the street. I am letting some very young trees grow along the fence to block the view of my neighbors.

Unfortunately a section of the fence collapsed in some extremely windy weather we've had this week, so I have a clear view of my back neighbor's deck and glass sliding doors, so I could not stand directly in middle of this basically outside room where I wanted to meditate unless I wanted people looking up from their cereal and pondering why this freak is standing motionless looking into our house. So I moved a few steps to the left to be out of their view. I would be alone with the sound of the wind, squirrels, cats, leaf blowers, tree trimmers, cars, birds and my thoughts so long as my next door neighbor wasn't hanging out on their back deck, which at this hour seemed unlikely. Six and a half minutes into my eight minute standing meditation I hear the sounds of someone on the deck, going back and forth a few times. Fuck it I am not stopping early to make some one who does not give a damn and me and my piece of mind feel more comfortable about the sanity of their next door neighbor. Ah, well, maybe they are familiar with standing meditation or wall gazing, or maybe they are not.

The point of this is that to keep my self on track I am going to blog the length of my meditation and the main concept that my mind decided to decode on ponder.

Good Taste

2010-11-16T11:36:00.003-05:00

The other day I was playing the newest Fall album in the car and at some point my eight year-old son said, "Dad," which is usually how he starts off when he is going to complain about my music, "This music is awesome." It is cool bonding over music with my kids, though my big guy some times complains that no kids in his school really know music like he does so he does not have anyone to talk to about it but me. I tell him his classmates will eventually catch up to him a bit by middle school.

SCHOOL PICTURES, THE REMIX

2010-11-16T08:55:00.003-05:00

My kids school pictures did not come out too great. I felt like, life is not perfect and this is a representation of it, my 8 year-old is entering that awkward stage and sometimes does not look like the perfect little boy he use to, and he is growing his hair long again and it is now in an in-between stage, that's life. My little guy had a weird smile in his picture.

I had talked to the boys about their pictures how they were not perfect, but that it did not matter, and I pointed out some of the positive things about the pictures. They eventually came around and no longer

My wife was really unhappy with the pictures, so when we received an email about retakes she wanted to have them redone. I did not really care about it, but worried that it would send a mixed message to the kids because I had recently spent time getting them to be okay with the imperfect pictures.

Fast forward to this morning, picture retake day, basically the boys were neurotic basket cases worrying about their smiles for their pictures, and spent all morning trying on various smile faces, sometimes laughing at themselves and each other, sometime confused as to why this particular smile made them look more insane than happy (I never couched it this way though, I would say, that's not the best I've seen you make, less/more teeth depending on the smile).

So we wind up being late for school, I get home turn on the computer to blog this entry, then I get a phone call from school, my oldest son forgot to put the envelope with the money for the retake in his back pack. I find the envelope and adding to the confusion realized that my kindergartner had the 3rd grader's envelope, which was my fault. So I had to drive back to the school and straighten this all out. Which was actually pretty easy to do, just annoying.

Fear the Mind Wanderer

2010-11-12T12:56:00.001-05:00

Letting your mind wander is a major cause of unhappiness

On Papers

2010-11-12T11:53:00.002-05:00

My current paper writing style hearkens back to my more inefficient pre-computer underclassmen years in college. Then for a five page paper I would write about eight or nine pages on whatever moved me about the topic then make an outlines and literally cut and tape the pertinent parts of the draft into the outline and stay up all night retyping the final draft from the collage looking original.

Currently I am taking my source information, interviews and observations I had done, and writing a paper from that, basically treating all of the data as important, then going back and looking at what the professor wanted, what theories we have covered in class that seem to match up with what I have already written, once I am able to cram in an acceptable amount of applicable quotes and references, then I begin to slough off the unnecessary parts.

Hopefully by next semester I can regain the ability to make a well thought out outline in advance and then more efficiently just fill in the needed info into each slot, and writing the final draft will be more of a gentile smoothing out than an amputation of half of what I have written.

2010-11-09T20:04:00.000-05:00

San Fran bans toys in some fast-food kids meals

2010-11-01T09:18:00.002-04:00

Drug experts say alcohol worse than crack or heroin

America really needs to reexamine it's views on alcohol as being the "okay way to get intoxicated" while criminalizing healthier ways, resulting in millions of people being sent to jail, thousands of people being killed in the illegal drug trade, and billions of dollars being wasted on the war on drugs and incarceration.

More Man Than You & Other Tales of Secondary Sexual Characteristics

2010-10-28T12:04:00.004-04:00

My son who is in third grade is kind of hairy, which makes sense because I am very hairy. The other day a male classmate of his saw his arm hair and said, "Eeeuw, you are pretty hairy!" My son looked that the boy, who he said actually had a decent amount of body hair himself, and said, "It just means that I am more of a man than you are," and the kid dejectedly let out a sorrowful, "Oh," and slunk off.

I have been trying to teach my son the art of the witty comeback as a non violent defense mechanism, and I am glad he is developing that ability. It is cute to see the difference between him and my 5 year-old who is afraid of getting in trouble for telling mean kids to "shut up," but thinks an okay response to a verbal insult is to "punch him in the penis!"

---

I am currently reading about adolescent development and writing a paper on it in which I had to interview a teenager. One point is that as a girl's body mass increases during puberty and they often develop a negative body image because of it (Steinberg & Morris, 2001). Reasons for this are developing earlier than their peers and the media portrayal of a thinner pre-pubescent body type as beginning the standard for beauty.

I am sure this is not new news to anyone reading this, but I find it sickening that girls in our society are lead to believe that there pre-pubescent bodies which are really their pre-sexual bodies are more attractive, beautiful or sexually appealing than their post-pubescent bodies, which by definition should be more attractive because they are now physically ready for intercourse (not mentally ready in our society of course) and childbearing. It is totally ill, a completely unhealthy view that our society perpetuates.

It seems that tween girls long to grow up to be "mature" teenagers and once they do some long to not have physically mature bodies. It is like society is set up to make us not be satisfied with who we naturally are.

My New Friend Tee Just Pee'ed on Me

2010-10-25T13:09:00.002-04:00

I was at my older son's soccer scrimmages yesterday. I bring my 5 yr-old son sometimes because there is a playground at the field and he has some friends that are sometimes there.

Yesterday he ran up to some kids he didn't know and started playing with them right away.
About an hour later he comes up to me and I notice his pants are wet, I asked, "What happened buddy did you have an accident?" He answered, "No, me and my new friend Tee had to go peepee so we went back there (behind the jungle gym) and he got peepee on my pants."
Me, "Are you sure you didn't have an accident, it's okay, I know you don't know where a bathroom is around here."
Him, "No, Tee is little (looked to be 3 or 4) so he wasn't so good at it."
Me, "Okay well next time come to me if you have to go to the bathroom, and don't pull your pants down around strangers even if they are other little kids, and especially don't pee standing next to another kid who is peeing okay?"

Too Often of Two Minds

2010-10-25T13:03:00.003-04:00

Something I have realised lately is that I am too often of two minds and that is why I am less efficient than I would like to be. A prime example is with my current grad school class, I love the mental stimulation aspect of it, but the time it takes away from my life I hate. Other cases are when I am say doing laundry, but can not stop thinking about other chores that I have to do, and so I only put away half of clothes because I feel pressure to move on to the next thing and accomplish more, which winds up with me actually completing less tasks and results in the dreaded loose ends all over the place.
I go into my garage and think I should ride my bike some more before it gets too cold, but oh yeah, two weeks ago my kick stand came loose and made the bike un-rideable, and I never looked to see if I had the correct tool to fix it when it happened so now it is sitting unusable because I did not follow through when the initial incident occurred.

Slow Down and Let Them Learn

2010-09-30T10:24:00.003-04:00

I need to slow down and leave enough time to let the kids make mistakes. Just as people I know let there kids act up and then cave into them because they, "Don't get to see them much, so they don't want their time together to be spent in conflict, with the kids unhappy and crying," which I see as either a lack of will on the parents part, laziness on the the parents part, or at least the wrong way with dealing with the time crunch that all seem to unnecessarily have in our post-modern lives. Me not making my kids learn how to properly tie their shoes or having them use cups with lids because I don't have time to clean up spills in the morning or afternoon or at dinner, expresses more about me than there ability to complete those tasks.

Both of my children are perfectionists and part of that may be genetic, but I know my wife has a tendency to couch things about school in a way that would lead to kids not feeling comfortable with possibility of failing, but I have to recognize that some of my actions in trying to make life run smoothly also does not allow them to go through the process of attempting / failing / learning / and eventual mastery of a task, which teaches them it's better not to try, or let Dad to it for me because I must not be able to do it.

Nothing builds confidence like overcoming an obstacle or mastering a task.

AGE DIFFERENCE

2010-09-24T10:36:00.002-04:00

There is a 2 year and 8 months difference in age between my two sons, aged five and eight.

So they are almost in the same age group, at least close enough that the younger one feels he can do what ever the older one can.

I noticed during the summer that they we having more problems getting along, as if my older son had grown into a new stage of development, basically he's not a little guy any more and his brother is. This is both physically and mentally, he has little tolerance for his little brother's stories, or his inability to keep up in Lego Star Wars for PlayStation 2, and pretty much dominates him in all forms of competition. This results in a lot of crying by the five year-old, because he never wins at chess, or any games that take strategy, and not only loses at sports but often gets hurt while playing those sports. This takes place even when his older brother is NOT trying to hurt him due to the older son's strength.

The frustration of the Kindergartner often leads to him starting conflict (arguing and whining as well as hitting and kicking) with his older brother, which had been resulting in physical retaliation from the 3rd grader. After a number of punishments my oldest son realized that he was getting into trouble on a regular basis even though he was usually only 25% to blame for the conflicts and it has finally dawned on him that telling on his brother is a much more effective way of dealing with the little guy's anger and frustration than hitting him.

This has not only resulted in them trying to get each other in trouble* all the time, but the younger son being punished much more often than he is use to. The five year-old is usually very confident, happy and positive, and does not get into trouble very often, so he sometimes seems incapable of dealing with being in the wrong. He was use to being the "good one" and when he was not he could goad his brother into getting in trouble with him or in his stead by tricking his parents with his wails of pain.

When he was an infant/young toddler he would bang his head when he was upset, which I "cured" by using the doggy training method of locking him outside in a shed, only kidding, I would smack a rolled up newspaper next to him as I saw him getting ready to bag his head and it would startle him. He would get made because he would be half way through his wind up to bang his head, get startled and look at me confused and try again, "whack" newspaper next to him again, and repeat until he gave up on the self harming action. Well now he has taken to criticizing himself, using terms that neither his mother or I use, "I am stupid/bad, I hate myself, etc." I have talked to my therapist about this, and even though they are now diagnosing very young children with depression since he does not show any other signs of being depressed this is most likely an attempt to get a parent to soothe him and tell him his is good etc. Which of course the first five or so times I did, so he learned that the way to get out of trouble is to be verbally critical of himself. Subsequently I just tell him that I have never said he was (whatever negative thing he just said) that his family loves him, but that does not change the fact that he smacked his brother in the face after loosing at FIFA soccer on PlayStation. That he is upset and or angry and that is okay but hitting is not allowed, he can go be alone scream or lay down, or punch a pillow but hitting is not an appropriate way to deal with being upset.

He is one of the happiest, pleasant to be around people I have ever known in my whole life, but the 5 to 10% of the time he is upset, man his anger is violent and something I will have to keep an eye on.

Not that I am interested in skipping any stages of their development, I have enjoyed all of them, but I look forward to when they are seven and nine and back in the same age group. Of course until the bigger one turns ten and becomes a tween!

Youth Soccer Slaves

2010-09-20T12:24:00.002-04:00

I saw this last documentary last week, didn't really raise my view of humanity.

Agents are getting Sub Saharan African families to pay them to take their teenaged boys to Europe to be seen by pro soccer scouts and either dumping them in Morocco and just keeping the money, or getting them to Europe and abandoning them if they do not get signed. To the point where whole youth teams have been abandoned after playing in tournaments in Europe. There are approx 20,000 young African footballers that are stranded, most from families without the means to get them home.

Preggers vs Boozers

2010-09-18T17:57:00.002-04:00

Whilst reading the first few chapters of my Social Work text book I am surprisingly learning all kinds of things about pregnancy, like fetal alcohol syndrome is the number one cause worldwide for mental retardation. Also alcohol is tied with heroin for the most negative fetal effects caused by commonly used recreational drugs. So don't listen to the old lady who tells you oh in my day we all had a few drinks and are babies were no worse off for it.

Starting over kind of sucks

2010-09-16T12:59:00.002-04:00

I am trying to get my reading completed for my first week of school, and I am just so damn slow, it's really frustrating! I am barely finished with my first chapter and I have another one and like five articles to read that I have to download off of the University website, but I have to get a NetID account which I have not done yet. My wife was like, that sounds better than having to buy an old Kinko's packet of copied text, and responded no way, I'd rather have everything in front of me so I can highlight it and read it anywhere rather than being tied to the computer.

Anyway I am afraid to blow through the reading like I would a novel of fiction because I really want to retain everything, but at this rate I will be weeks behind if I don't pick up the pace.

I just stepped outside and smoked a cigarillo while shooting some baskets on my kids mini hoop, which actually worked to chill me out, but not sure if that will help my reading tempo and comprehension.

2010-07-30T12:30:00.002-04:00

Kids Have Trouble Paying Attention? Video Games May Be to Blame

My friend's band for kids "StarFish" gets props from AOL:

Best New Family Road Trip Music

You can tell me it's okay

2010-07-27T21:32:00.003-04:00

A conversation my eight year-old just had with his mom, in light of us having lots of "grown up" conversations lately where we need the kids to leave the room and us being stressed out by the deterioration of our relationship with my mother:

SON mom is there something bad going on in your life?
MOM no
S you can tell me it's okay
M well there is but I am not going to tell you what it is
S is it bills, is it money, is someone dying
M no
S I can give you some money if that will help
M it's nothing that money can help
S if it gets worse will you tell me
M probably not
S dad said you'd tell me if it gets worse

2010-07-25T00:39:00.001-04:00

The Middle Class in America Is Radically Shrinking. Here Are the Stats to Prove it click link for full article

• 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
• 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
• 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.
• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
• For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
• As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.
• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of our national income.

Give me my time back

2010-07-07T21:57:00.003-04:00

I have been having dealing with some serious issues dealing with my mother, her interaction with my in-laws, her thinking that she can say and do whatever she wants once she becomes upset on top of a life time of other mommy issues which I will not digress into in this forum. The point being that I have been composing a letter to my Pop (step-father) about the issues that I am upset about, since the issues my mother are focusing on are pretty far off the point.

He wrote me a letter about what's going on so I wanted to get a few thoughts down in to the letter I was already composing. So rather than packing for my family's imminent vacation, or doing the dishes, or watching that netflix movie that my wife wanted to see that she will never make time for, so I need to watch it soon and mail it back or it becomes a waste of money, or giving the kids a shower like I am suppose to on Wednesdays, I am cranking out my random thoughts on current family events and 41 years of family dysfunction while temporarily verbally ushering out the kids from the office so I can concentrate, and keeping my eight year old at a distance since he is prone to over the shoulder reading.

Then my wife calls me into the bathroom because my 8 year-old is crying because of problems he is having in creative writing at art camp. They are working on a news paper and the class is for 8 to 12 year-olds, he doesn't understand what he is suppose to do and is basically afraid to ask questions. So her goes another hour of asking 5o questions to fully understand what is going on, partially reassuring him, partially kicking his ass about not coping out, telling him it is a teachers job to explain things to you, if you knew how to do everything you would not have to go to school, the teacher knows you are eight and do not know everything, everyone gets confused, everyone makes mistakes, if you spell a word wrong Google will usually come up with the correct spelling and ask you if this is what you meant to write, etc.

I really should learn to not procrastinate, because at the later moments of preparation for doing something I am damn near guaranteed that someone member of my family will do something unfathomable, become dramatically ill or die, really piss me off, one of my kids will hurt himself, have an accident not making it to the toilet or wet the bed, or a spider will be hanging over my wife as she falls asleep and she will scream for me to run to her rescue ...

2010-07-03T09:08:00.000-04:00

MEMORY TRICKS FOR BUSY OLD BRAINS

Is that why you yelled $#(%!!!

2010-07-02T20:37:00.002-04:00

A few weeks ago my 8 year-old son forgot a book at school he needed to study for a test. He was getting very upset. That same night I misplaced something and was yelling at myself about it.

I went over to him and said, "See there is no reason to get mad at yourself, everyone looses things even daddy, I just lost something too."

"Oh, is that why you just yelled 'shit'?"

"Uhm, yeah it is. You are not in trouble, but you are not allowed to say that word okay, I am sorry that you heard me say it."

Hold On To This ...

2010-06-25T08:25:00.002-04:00

My wife brought my youngest son into bed with me this morning before she went to work. It is the first day that both of my boys have off for summer vacation, so I do not have to get up as early as I have been. So I hug my son but then he realizes that his mother is leaving and he fully wakes up and starts to go after her. I let out a little grumbly moan of disappointment, and he turns back and says, "Hold on to this," and gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek and then proceeds downstairs after his mother. A few minutes later he asked, "Are you still holding on to it?"

Stream of Constant-ness / Pictures of You Two

2010-06-22T01:13:00.005-04:00

Today, well, Monday, was the first day home on Summer vacation for my 5 year-old.
The last two months he has been asking when will school be over and talking about how he is ready for school to be over.
And now that it is over, he spent the whole day talking about his friends, asking me to call his friends' parents to set up playdates.
I had forgotten that he constantly talks, non-stop, continuously, really, on and on ... I was checking emails and told him I needed to concentrate so I could finish more quickly so we could hang out, but being five he did not understand that what I said meant that he should stop talking.
So I had to ask him to stop talking for a few minutes, I did not blow up at him about it, though I know I have been short with him on this subject in the past, however I can remember how it stung being a child and my mother asking me to stop talking so she could finish paying some bills. I have never been an extremely talkative person, so she did not have to shut me up very often, but I can tell that the lack of rarity, or familiarity with being asked to "Just please stop talking for a minute," has not made it a more comfortable situation for my recent pre-school graduate.
This situation is some what of a trade off for not constantly having the TV on to distract him. I do not plan on the TV being his summer long companion so I just have to remember to be sensitive to his feeling and needs while he is not mature enough to be in tune with or situationally infer my feelings and needs.
At one point he said, "I just want to do anything with you." So I integrated him into my chores, unloading the dishwasher, sorting and putting away laundry, sorting change into piggy banks, etc. and he was into it, though not as much as being into playing of course, he did like the idea that he was earning "points" towards getting his allowance by helping me out around the house.

---------------

For some reason on Sunday on the ride home after seeing Toy Story 3 my kids were talking about my wife and I being dead. It may have had to do with us not getting them any candy from the concessions stand, or it may have had to do with the Andy character growing up, toys being thrown away, etc. As my 8 yr-old was talking about something with us being old or dead and the Toy Story plot, my 5 yr-old said, "When you guys are gone I'm just going to look at pictures of you two all the time."
I had a hard time not crying after hearing that.

I really wish my kids did not have a rather full understanding of death at such an early age. Although it may help them to deal with the issue better through out their lives.

Waitlist 2010 / Accepted 2011

2010-06-17T11:39:00.002-04:00

Oh yeah, I got wait listed for 2010 for the MSW program I applied to, and accepted if I choose to go in 2011, which is what I choose, I do not deal well with major life situations being up in the air, so I would rather know when I am starting rather than wait around for things to shake out.

Night and Day / Fear of a Wood Floored Planet

2010-06-17T11:13:00.002-04:00

I have been trying to get more sleep to enable me to be more productive during the day when my boys are at school.

Yesterday my pre-schooler said he stepped on a staple when he was at school and it went into his foot. He said they were had to take off their shoes and just wear their socks when they were practicing their dance routine for graduation.

He did not seem hurt, and his teachers are really good at informing us when the students get hurt, and I figured that he would be in huge amount of pain if he had a staple in his foot so I basically did not believe him, and made him continue jogging his laps around the house.
Twice a week I have he and his brother jog around our house for exercise.

At first he seemed in pain, but very quickly was back to normal so I thought he was trying to get out of doing laps.

Fast forward four hours and we are getting ready for the boys to shower and he complains about his foot and when we look he has a centimeter long dark wood splinter buried in his foot. I asked him if the teachers helped him and he said they did not. I asked if he told them and said he did not, "They would not help or do anything about it." I explained to him that he was totally wrong that they would help him, which they would.

FUCK I was so wrong in my assessment, I really should have looked at his foot straight away, which I normally would have done, being a bit of a worrier when it comes to their health, but we were outside and my gut was feeding me bad information.

It took us at least 30 minutes to get it out because my son operates on a dramatic level that is usually only seen in operas or from the mouths of young broken hearted teenage girls, he was wailing the whole time, often when we were not even touching his foot. He got himself so worked up that he was pouring sweat and shaking and screaming at the top of his strong little lungs.
And when I say we got it out, I mean most of it, the hole looks dark, so their may be another thinner sliver of wood in his foot or their is just dirty wood residue in the wound.

After all of this I still had to give them showers and shower myself, so being worked up from the situation I did not get to bed any earlier than normal.

Then this morning my wife wakes me up at 5:15 and says, "Our 2nd grader wet the bed and I am going to workout at bootcamp, so you have to get up and help him."
Great, my sleep was encroached upon at both ends.

My pre-schooler is now afraid of wood floors, which we have a lot of in our house. I spoke with the teachers at his school and they said that they will not make the kids take off their shoes anymore, and that they wish he had told them because one of them is an EMT and would have had no problem cutting out the splinter seeing how she has performed emergency surgery in the past.

So the morals to this story are when it comes to health issues always believe your kids, they may not communicate exactly what happened to them, but if they are bringing up an issue there is a very good chance that something is going on, and regularly remind your children to tell their teachers, baby sitters, basically what ever grown up is responsible for them at that time, when something bad happens, be it bullies, boo-boos or uncomfortable interactions with weirdos and to tell them right away.

Really, you are going to wear that?

2010-06-05T02:47:00.003-04:00

It has been hot and humid as all balls lately, and yes a world completely made up of testicles would be disgustingly clammy and uncomfortable, why did I leave the moderate and foggy shores of San Francisco?

My house is disaster post my preschooler picking up lice from his school, a situation like many that is so traumatic that even though there are tons of interesting and even funny stories generated from it, I just don't bother blogging about it in detail because living through it once was enough.

So my laundry in garbage bags in various places in the house and it is super humid so I am not phased by my only available shirt being a sleeveless Adidas t-shirt. It is not a tank top, I will not be exposing my hairy Neapolitan descended shoulders, it is just a t-shirt with no sleeves.

My five year old sees me after putting on the shirt and says:
Dad are you really going to wear that to my school?
Me: Yes I was planning to
Him: laughing, Into the school?
Me: thought bubble, "great I need to hit the weights more or maybe get my shoulder and arms waxed, or both."

Monday D-Day or G-Day

2010-06-05T02:45:00.001-04:00

I called the admissions department for the MSW program I applied to and they said they will start completing their review of the applications this coming monday.

Hits From the Palm: 2 year old notes about dying

2010-05-26T00:41:00.003-04:00

this passage has been sitting around in my palm pilot since at least 2008:

Before I had kids the idea of dying was palatable to me, you get old, you ware down, you kind of get tired of things in general, and then you're ready to go.

Now I find the idea that death is an inseparable part of life horrific, I guess I didn't love myself, or life in general nearly as much as l love my kids and wife because the idea of my children having to sit through my funeral is the most inconceivable heartbreaking things i can think of until i think about the fact that my boys will one day die as well.

I have come to understand the profoundly deep love that parents can have for their children, and there was no way to understand prior to having children, which isn't a put down to people without children, or a condemnation of their ability to love, somethings have to be experienced to be understood. It's like when you see a Hollywood rendition of an alternative lifestyle that you are familiar with; punk, stoner, club kid, whatever, and you realize that the writer has no first hand knowledge of their subject matter, "No self respecting punk would dress like that," or "Nobody acts like that when they are high."

Having a second child really taught me how one's capacity to love can grow exponentially.
I have always intellectually thought that one can have almost infinite love to give, but pre parenthood it was mostly tied to some sort of poly-amorous concept.

So basically I don't want to die, ground breaking I know.

2010-05-22T11:12:00.002-04:00

Sadly now I know why all children in 3rd world orphanages have shaved heads and the literal meaning of nitpicking, hasn't been a fun last 27 hours.

If they could always stay little

2010-05-14T11:26:00.002-04:00

The end of the school year is fast approaching and with it my pre-schooler's graduation. I am experiencing very different emotions with his graduation than I did for his older brother's. The first time around I was excited for my little guy to be growing up and heading off the primary school, now I am afraid that I will be balling at the graduation. It reason must be that this is my youngest and we do not plan on having anymore children, so will always be our baby, and if he is growing up then I surely must be growing old.
Also he is so damn cute and one day he will not be, in the same way at least. Public grammar school also means a less supportive environment for him, homework, dealing with bad kids, over worked teachers, and having to actually make it to school on time!

Excuses

2010-05-14T10:28:00.002-04:00

We've had a few deaths in the extended family, bad allergies and illnesses being passed around, I have mostly successfully patched the thin spots in my front yard and have had the backyard sodded, my 2nd grader was "recruited" for the local travel soccer team's U8 development academy, so with the rec league team I coach it's soccer four days a week including twice on Saturday!

I should be hearing about my graduate school application soon.

So things have been busy I will hopefully be able to get back to posting on a more regular basis.

Death in the family

2010-04-26T17:53:00.002-04:00

My mother just called me to tell me that a cousin of mine just died, she was in her 50's and had all kinds of medical problems, she recently had a leg amputated due to a childhood accident it had given her problems her whole life, she was actually happy to have it removed and was doing well beside her diabetes. It is ironic that she died from a heart infection stemming from a bunch of recent dental work, some medicine she is on was ruining her teeth and she finally got approval from medicare (or whatever med agency was helping her) to get her teeth worked on. So she was going back every week to make up for lost time. She was feeling bad yesterday and died while getting dialysis at 4pm today. My mother called me a half an hour ago, my wife won't be home for another 30 minutes, so I can't really reflect on this in peace cuz I got the kids and have to make dinner.

FUTSAL & SOCCER

2010-04-14T00:34:00.003-04:00

My big guy has been on a tear he had 5 goals in his last two futsal games, in one they were down 3 zip, he somehow got kicked in the face on the sideline in the first half, then after sitting out most of the half started the second and took a nasty fall onto the hardwood floor and sat out most of the second half, he pulled himself together and asked to get back in and helped lead a come back to tie game at 5-5 with two late game goals. He ended the season with a hat trick in a blow out season finale.

After opening the outdoor soccer season with a only an assist in a loss, he followed up with hat trick in our second game and two goals in the third game.

Porno comments

2010-04-14T00:23:00.004-04:00

I have been getting a number of comments to my postings on this blog in Chinese. I just commented to one of the comments asking that they post an English translation, then I remembered babel fish, in one comment they were talking about my tribe's milk? and here is a translation of another comment:

How does the big milk younger sister paste the chart area 0204 movie watching dew point autodyne immoral woman female student to console oneself the pornographic station adult to laugh at the av violent snares of love to like the video beautiful woman lascivious av adult pornography telephone spicy younger sister video chatting the sexual relationship sentiment color vcd self-consolation chart obscene beautiful adult forum Taiwan pornography forum adult chatroom autodyne bare female to paste chart video adult free a piece of movie Ms. av adult net adult pornography pornography Taiwan spicy younger sister vesicle the pubic hair pornography news bare female autodyne pornography movie a piece of forum sexual affection skillful beautiful woman to escape the bra personality color heaven av portrait pornography video to chat makes love the video adult movie bedroom drama sentiment color to chat the net hot sentiment color Taiwan female superior sexual affection secrets Taiwan av female superior masturbation self-consolation movie

Why would they post porno stuff to my blog, no one is looking at my comments section looking for porn

Budding Evil Genius

2010-04-13T23:40:00.002-04:00

My 5 yr-old son has really shown a propensity for manipulating his brother and test his parents' boundaries. The other day as we are leaving to take his older brother to school right before we get to the door he says uh-oh and pulls a lego star wars figure out of his pocket and very visibly puts it on the kitchen counter. His brother was already in the car. About three minutes into the trip he tells me that his brother has a star wars lego figure in the car, knowing that house toys are not allowed in the car with out parental approval.

I get on his brother's case about knowing he is not allowed to bring toys, particularly very small easily breakable ones that they love, in the car or outside of the house, and I point out that his brother remembered to leave the toy he was playing with at home.l

I forgot to have him hand the toy to me, so of course he took it into school anyway, and let some kid look at it at the end of the day and lost some rare character's light saber. After getting his teacher to unlock the classroom and let us look for it, to no avail, I tell him this is why you shouldn't bring collectible toys out of the house, and he says, "I wish I never listened to my brother." I ask why and he says that his brother told him they should sneak the lego figures into the car so they could play with them.

So he told him to bring it in the car, had me watch him not bring his in the car and told on his brother for bringing it in the car, all in a ten minute span. Sounds like a set up, right.

I asked my therapist, who has written a number of books on children, if she thinks it was possible that my 5 yr-old actually planned this out to set up his brother? She said yes particularly if he has done anything like this in the past. They both tell on each other all the time, and he has manipulated his older brother into adding him in a number of sneaky endeavors, the biggest of which usually involve snacks, like discovering a hidden cache of gummy fruits that were destined for birthday party gift bags and getting his brother to open them because at three years old he did not have the strength to do so himself. There was also the time where he showed his brother that they could eat Easter candy without permission if they hide the wrappers, again he needed his brother's help opening the candy.

So yeah, I think my little guy is capable of hatching a plan to get his older brother in trouble. Since then I told my 2nd grader to just tell me if his brother tries to get him involved in any other schemes that he fears will get him in trouble and sure enough almost once a day that little mind is hatching some devious plan to advance his goal of world domination over candy, toys and video games.

A side note to his thinking ahead, this morning he asked me if we were late to pre-school and I said not really and though he usually is pushing to make it on time, he seemed bummed, so I asked him, why did you ask and he said, "I want to be late, if we are late to school that means I don't have to go for as long." I said wow, yes you are technically correct.

CA shares rock bottom in U.S. reading scores

2010-03-25T09:59:00.001-04:00

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/03/24/MNCH1CKMAA.DTL

More than 1 million baby slings recalled

2010-03-24T12:29:00.001-04:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100324/ap_on_bi_ge/us_baby_slings_recall

We used a Baby Bjorn and it worked fine, however I would say you have to really careful about the position of your baby's head and neck, which you should be careful about at all times really.

School Board

2010-03-22T12:11:00.006-04:00

My 2nd grader goes to a school that has an international studies theme. The aforementioned cuts have resulted in his school loosing it's foreign language program, which only consisted of Spanish. I have heard that only one grammar school in the district, the largest, will keep it's foreign program. Now this does make some sense seeing how the highest number of students will have access to the program at this school. However, with our school's theme being international studies would not it make sense for us to have a foreign language program? My boys are worlds ahead of where I was at their age with Spanish, having started with some instruction in preschool and having it twice a week in grammar school. Back in my day we were not able to study foreign languages until high school which has left me knowing a bit of French and Spanish vocabulary but not being anywhere near fluent in either language. I mean if they had to cut science programs from all but one school wouldn't it make sense for that one school to be the Math & Sciences magnet school? It sucks too because though my son stresses out about it, he is doing really well in Spanish and is at the point where he can go up in front of the class and recite a couple of paragraphs of information in Spanish without reading off of note cards. That will be lost if he does not have Spanish at school for the next three to six years. Also he has interest in learning other languages, if he is able to continue Spanish for the next three years he can gain a pretty good grasp of the language and move onto learning another in middle school. It looks like another case where if parents can afford it they will have to dip into their own pockets and pay for private instruction if they really want their child to gain knowledge outside of the three R's, or learn a sport, or get daily exercise, or participate in the arts .... double merde!!

File Under, This Can't Be Good

2010-03-19T10:50:00.003-04:00

From the Office of (my town's) Superintendent of Schools:

(My Town’s) State Aid to Drop 60%

After months of awaiting word from (the state capital), (my town) was notified Wednesday that the school district will receive 60.1% less funding next year.

Fewer dollars next year – a total loss of $5,488,485 – means that some programs, services and staffing will have to be eliminated, school officials say. At public meetings over the past two months, administrators and Board members have warned repeatedly that there will be reductions in programs, services, and personnel, both in the schools and at Central Office.

The next meeting of the Board of Education will be on Monday, March 22, 7:30 p.m., in the ____ Annex.

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How does a School Board operate with that kind of loss of funds? One of the reasons we chose to move to this town was all of the diverse programs that the school have. I was looking to sign my 2nd grader up for his schools orchestra next year, who knows if that will even exist anymore after these cuts.

MERDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Windows Update

2010-03-11T12:18:00.003-05:00

After about two weeks away from it I am back to working on the essay for my graduate school application. Initially besides directly answering the basic questions that they require you to cover in the essay I had just been downloading all kinds of experiences, anecdotes, traumatic stories and whatever else from my life that I hope at revision time I could craft into a narrative that will convey that while I have not been working the in the field that I have chosen to seek a masters in and frankly I have not been working outside of the home practically at all for 7 years, I do have the life experience to meld with my undergraduate psychology degree that will make me a good candidate for being accepted into a competitive Master's of Social Work program.

So I am 75% through the unfettered emptying my brain of every possible story and angle that I could possibly use to help me with this essay, and after two weeks of snow storms, school closing, and just being generally busy, distracted, uninspired and then ultimately a little scared to stare at the screen tasked with writing an essay that will determine my future and career, I sit down today a couple of hours later than I planned and start trying to get the process going again. There are five questions that have to be answered, I'll focus on first one because it is shorter, more simple, basically why did you choose this program at this school?
After about 15 minutes of b.s.ing things finally start to flow and then bzzzap, the computer starts to shut down, fuck am I going to loose everything? I got a update warning when I first logged on, which I chose to postpone or delay or whatever the choice for do it later was, I did not realize that it would comeback and not give me another chance to approve or deny the update.

This gave me flash backs to college and my work as an editor when cpu problems usually meant if you didn't save the file as you were working you would have to do it all over again. Well luckily things computers are better than when I first started using them because after a couple of minutes everything turned it self back on and all of my updates to the essay were still there. Still it's a reminder to save my file as I go along. Seems like a good time to break for lunch

A History Of Chuck E. Cheese Violence

2010-03-02T22:44:00.000-05:00

http://grahamten.wordpress.com/2010/02/20/a-history-of-chuck-e-cheese-violence/

Screen Time May Take a Toll on Kids' Relationships

2010-03-02T22:43:00.001-05:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20100303/hl_hsn/screentimemaytakeatollonkidsrelationships

exactly

2010-03-01T21:48:00.004-05:00

I took our family car to the shop today for a few minor things and a weird whooshing sound that started a few days ago. It wound up being the water pump, which was going to take a few hours to fix, so I needed my wife to come home from work, so I could use her car to pick up the kids from school.
I told this to my 2nd grader as when I picked him up, but he often does not listen very closely. When we pulled into our driveway he said, "Where exactly is our car?"
I said, "It is exactly in 'town X on street Y.'"
He said, "Why did you say exactly?"
Me - "Because you did"
Him - "What does exactly mean?"

Research finds brain link for words, music ability

2010-02-24T10:34:00.000-05:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100220/ap_on_sc/us_sci_words_and_music

Dog's Company Keeps Missing Girl Alive

2010-02-24T10:32:00.001-05:00

Pet credited with keeping child warm in woods

Now I am seriously a cat person, but I do not know that cat would do this

2010-02-22T21:53:00.000-05:00

Why Househusbands Are the Future

More Daddy Rock

2010-02-19T13:27:00.003-05:00

My second grader recounted a conversation he had with one of classmates who is also on his basketball team,
"Does your Dad wear earrings?"
"Yes"
"Is he a rocker?"
"Ahh no, well yeah, yes he is."

---

That is better than my pre-schooler's friends who told me I was a girl because I wear earrings as I drove them after school to our house for a playdate.
I told them there logic was faulty, if that was true then what about this, "Do your mommies have hands?'
"Yes!"
"Do you have hands?"
"Yes!"
"Well you must be girls, you must be mommies because you have hands."

Rather than learning the error of their initial logic they all began hiding their hands in the sleeves of their winter coats to show me they were not girls.

Daddy Rocks!

2010-02-19T13:17:00.003-05:00

My boys were away at their maternal grandmother's for Valentine's for a few days, (cue porn music, bow-chicka-wow-wow) when they got home they were so excited to be back it was really great. Even though it wasn't boy's night, one of two days a week where we play video games together, I let them play Lego Star Wars II while I was making dinner.
I heard my big boy make a plan with the little one, "Let's go upstairs and say ..." I thought did he say ... then they march upstairs chanting, "DADDY ROCKS, DADDY ROCKS!" and gave me a big group hug.
It was really nice to see they missed me and being home, especially since their grandma's is a basically a rules free zone of constant TV, fast food, and not having to finish your vegetables to get dessert.

Now three days later they are back to making up songs about how I am mean because they can't play video games before school ("but Dad its an educational one!").

Crash!

2010-02-19T13:11:00.002-05:00

I am working on my Master's application personal statement right now and went from cranking rough draft of a heart felt retelling of my turbulent home environment and neighborhood growing up, memories flooding back, too many for this format but get them all down, edit it later. Making the connections of how these experiences led to my world view and how that world view will help me to help other and make the world a better place ... to I want to help people so they are healthy ... why are my answers so dumb now, oh, it's an hour past when I normally eat lunch and all I have had the past four hours is coffee, time for a break.

2010-02-15T13:21:00.001-05:00

The Childhood Obesity Dilemma: How Something So Simple Got Complicated

HONORS?

2010-02-15T12:55:00.003-05:00

I am currently filling out a graduate school application for a MSW, and there is a field that asks for honors. The first thing that came to mind was Dean's List, maybe but probably not those lame Key Club honors, but when I saw what they listed as the examples: ABRCMS, DAAD, FAMU, Fulbright, IRT Consortium; I realised that they might not view my lame Dean's List achievements as honors.
Any advice from ya'll out there on the "interwebs"?

I am definitely fearing that to get accepted to a competitive program I will need to put in a few years of dues working at DYFS to up my Social Work street cred.

Honestly if I could get a legit MSW from Git A Degree Online In Yr Boxers University, (GADIYB U for short) I would, but my research into those Online schools came up with them lacking, and a bunch of annoying sales-ish calls from "counselors" who seemed more like once promoted telemarketeers.

Duct Tape is there nothing you can't do?

2010-02-12T12:43:00.003-05:00

About a month ago I started noticing a scrapping sound every time I drove into or out of my driveway. After a week I looked under the car and saw that there is some kind of cover underneath the front of my car and it was coming loose.
With closer inspection I noticed that a number of screws had come out of this under-covering causing it to hang down. I kept saying to myself when the weather gets better I will try to do something about it.
The weather kept getting worse. Today I had to park illegally in a pay parking lot to drop my preschooler off at school. The lot was not shovelled out so I had to park on top of a bunch of hardened snow. It may just have dawned on you, but it did not dawn on me that backing up over said snow with this thing hanging from underneath the front of my car may be troublesome.
Well after hearing the crunch, followed by the now constant scraping sound I new cold weather or not I could no longer procrastinate on taking care of this issue.
I could not find any left over screws that fit the bill, so as it has on countless jobs before, duct tape leapt to the rescue, lets just hope it will hold up through the snow and sub-freezing temperatures.

Adjustment Disorder

2010-02-12T12:40:00.002-05:00

... don't ever take seven years off of working, damn near impossible to get your mind back into the regular work world groove, especially when you view it as a rut ... when i lost my theater rating / secret shopper / spy gig i should have looked to get something new right away ...

Adjustment Disorders

One Served

2010-02-03T14:11:00.003-05:00

About three or four months ago when my little guy was still four years-old he was doing that repetitive question asking thing they do when they want something. I do not know if they think they are wearing you down, if they forgot they already asked, or if they think you forgot they already asked about xy&z.
So after asking about xy&z a zillions times my son runs up the stairs and tracks me down thinking maybe asking me on a different floor will net a different result to his question. I have no recollection of what the question was, can I play video games, can I have a cookie, can I have juice instead of water are some of the usual suspects.
He runs up to me and I cut him off saying, "No honey," he interjects, "But Dad you don't know, I am asking about ...," I then finish his sentence, "You are asking about xy&z, which you have asked me about five or six times and the answer is still no."

His response, "Oh man, I just got served!" and dejectedly went back downstairs with his head hung low.

We had heard someone say, "You just got served" a few weeks prior to that, but my little guy had not used the phrase before or since.

2010-01-20T10:31:00.001-05:00

FREE SHIPPING TO HAITI IS A HOAX

too bad

They are trying to blame it on the girl! / God forbid we have knowledge

2010-01-19T20:11:00.003-05:00

I have this graphic novel bible from when I was a kid and my wife is as I type, reading it to the kids before they go to bed. She was starting at the beginning, you know on the first day, blah blah blah ... I did not realize that I had a problem with that story, well, I never thought the world was created in six days, but some of the creations of God seem to be out of order, but that's not the point here.
I over hear my wife reading about the garden of Eden and the forbidden fruit, and I began to rethink my "okay-ness" with teaching this stuff to my kids. I have always planned to teach them about Christianity because it is the religion of our culture and families, when they ask questions I answer them in a very non-fundamentalist way, the stories in the Bible are mostly stories that teach one how to live a good life that is respectful of others, and not an actual history. Some of it may have happened, some historial events probably did, but the main take away are the morals of the stories.
Once they get old enough to comprehend other theories on life and religion I will help them find something that suits them, we are sort of Episcopalians, if they like that fine, if not that's fine too.
So after the Adam eats the forbidden fruit, my 7 year-old says, "They are trying to blame it on the girl."
So I hopped up and went to the boys room to add my two cents, I said to my wife tell him the truth, she said I did they are trying to blame it on the girl, I said to him do you know why? Because women are evil!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Only kidding, I said because men originally wrote this story and rather than splitting the blame equally they chose to blame women, but it was really both of their faults. I was so proud that my seven year-old could see through the BS when so many adults can not.

One Legged Freak!

2010-01-14T12:11:00.004-05:00

My 2nd grader was walking down the hall at school and he saw a boy that he use to have Taekwon-do with. The boy does not have the lower part of one of his legs, I do not know exactly how far down his leg goes, but while they were in class together he use to have a prosthetic leg.

I can remember my son asking me all kinds of questions about the boy while his mother/nanny (?) was sitting next to us, I tried to answer them the best I could but I know I was over compensating because she was next to us and came of sounding like a PC PTA member that Mike Judge would make fun of on one of his cartoons.

Anyway, now the boy uses some form of crutches, I imagine it must be a financial hardship to keep buying new prosthetics for a growing child. One of my son's classmates saw the boy and yelled out to him, "Look a one legged freak!" My son told him that's not cool and told the teacher on him, she did speak with the boy, but my son was mad that he was not sent to the Principal's office.

I was really proud of my son for not only feeling compassion but for standing up for another person, not because they were friends (they are not) or he had anything to gain, but because it was the right thing to do.

Married in the Playground?

2010-01-14T11:58:00.004-05:00

My PreSchooler was worried that he was now married because a girl (the one whose name I confused when talking to her mother a few months back) was told by one of her friends that she should kiss my son, so she walked up to him while he was playing and kissed him on the lips.

He was truly worried that because of the kiss being on the lips it meant that he was now married, "I don't want to be married Daddy."
We told him that it was okay, he was not married and if she tried to kiss him again he could just tell her to stop before she got too close.

My older son was totally freaked out by this whole situation, long after my little kisser was over it, he was very indignant about it, "My brother is only four no one should be kissing him!"
My wife and I teased the seven year-old, "Why are you so concerned, what are you jealous that he had his first before you did?" As you can imagine that did not go over real well with.

Scientists link plastics chemical to health risks

2010-01-14T11:57:00.001-05:00

LONDON - Exposure to a chemical found in plastic containers is linked to heart disease, scientists said on Wednesday, confirming earlier findings and adding to pressure to ban its use in bottles and food packaging.
British and U.S. researchers studied the effects of the chemical bisphenol A using data from a U.S. government national nutrition survey in 2006 and found that high levels of it in urine samples were associated with heart disease.

Bisphenol A, known as BPA, is widely used in plastics and has been a growing concern for scientists in countries such as Britain, Canada and the United States, where food and drug regulators are examining its safety.

David Melzer, professor of epidemiology and public health at the Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, England, who led the study, said the research confirmed earlier findings of a link between BPA and heart problems.

The analysis also confirmed that BPA plays a role in diabetes and some forms of liver disease, said Melzer's team, who studied data on 1,493 people aged 18 to 74.

"Our latest analysis largely confirms the first analysis, and excludes the possibility that the original report was a statistical blip," they said in a statement.

BPA, used to stiffen plastic bottles and line cans, belongs to a class of compounds sometimes called endocrine disruptors.

The U.S. Endocrine Society called last June for better studies into BPA and presented research showing the chemical can affect the hearts of women and permanently damage the DNA of mice.

"The risks associated with exposure to BPA may be small, but they are relevant to very large numbers of people. This information is important since it provides a great opportunity for intervention to reduce the risks," said Exeter's Tamara Galloway, who worked on the study published by the Public Library of Science online science journal PLoS One.

URGING BANS

U.S. environmental health advocacy groups are urging a federal ban on BPA.

"There's enough research to take definitive action on this chemical to reduce exposures in people and the environment," Dr. Anila Jacob of the Environmental Working Group, a non-profit organization, said in a telephone interview.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is considering whether any action needs to be taken.

U.S. government toxicologists at the National Institutes of Health concluded in 2008 that BPA presents concern for harmful effects on development of the prostate and brain and for behavioral changes in fetuses, infants and children.

Canada's government plans to outlaw plastic baby bottles made with BPA. The charity Breast Cancer UK last month urged the British government to do the same because they said there was "compelling" evidence linking the chemical to breast cancer risk.

Experts estimate BPA is detectable in the bodies of more than 90 percent of U.S. and European populations. It is one of the world's highest production volume chemicals, with more than 2.2 million tonnes produced annually.

The Problem With Facebook

2009-12-12T01:02:00.002-05:00

I find that facebook makes me feel more lonely than connected, at best it gets me to miss old friends that I rarely think of otherwise.

How many friends from your past do you think about on a regular basis without being prompted by a networking website or old pictures?

My aunt and my cousin's tween daughter recently friended me on facebook, now it's like my Mom is watching me online, not that I post much on that site, but now I will have to monitor what I do if I do.

There is also a group from my High School called Dearly Departed that notifies me when someone dies from my school, I thought it would be just from my class, but it's like all years, so at least every week I get a message about someone who died, some of them surprisingly young, not the fun I'm looking for from facebook.