San Fran bans toys in some fast-food kids meals

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

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!"

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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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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 ...

MEMORY TRICKS FOR BUSY OLD BRAINS