daily life

How to Deal with Your Daughter's Hair (and why)

tony — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 14:21:09 -0700

Most guys would rather do anything else than read about hair styling, but if you've got a daughter, hair can be an important issue. Hair is generally seen as a sign of beauty for females, and this is impressed upon girls at a very young age-whenever they get a new haircut or wear a cute barrette, everyone tells them how pretty they look, so they start caring about their hair pretty early on. Plus, girls usually wear their hair longer, so at a minimum, your daughter's hair needs to be brushed through and styled in a way that keeps it out of her face (and the fingerpaints). So before we get to the issue of styling, here are a few pointers on brushing and combing long hair.

Wet hair: Comb through her hair as soon as possible after you wash it (and use a comb, not a brush). Once the hair starts to air-dry, it's harder to comb out the tangles. For girls with thick or very long hair, avoid tears with using conditioner or some spray-on detangler-you can get it at most drugstores or kids' hair salons. Also, for thicker hair, a wide-tooth comb works best.
Dry hair: If you're facing a serious case of bedhead, you need to work through those tangles with care. Take a handful of hair and hold it at the top, near her scalp, then use a comb to pick through the snarls. (It may be tempting to just yank through the tangles, but that technique hurts. A lot.) When all the tangles are out, give her whole head a once-over with the comb or brush.

While a quick brush-through and a barrette are sometimes enough, especially when you're late for school, you will occasionally be called upon to perform a little more artistry. Here are a few basic hairstyles for little girls, from easiest to hardest, and how to create them. (Note: Be sure to use elastics made for use on hair-you can get small ones designed for kids. But NEVER use a regular rubber band, or it will take scissors to get it out.)
Ponytail: Scoop up all of her hair with one hand, and with the other, comb through the hair on the top and sides of her head to smooth it out. You can make a low ponytail at the back of her neck, a high ponytail up at the crown of her head, or something in between. Then wrap an elastic around the hair. Put a ribbon or scrunchie around the elastic if she wants to look fancy. Once you've mastered that, you can also do a partial ponytail, where you just use the hair on top of her head and pull it back.
Pigtails: Pigtails are just two ponytails, on either side of the head. Begin by parting the hair into two sections. You do this by taking a comb, placing the tip at the top of the back of her head, and drawing a straight line down to her neck; make sure the part is straight and centered. Wrap each section of hair in an elastic, a little bit behind the ear, at whatever height she likes. When you're done, look at her from the front to make sure the pigtails are at about the same place on each side.
Braids: Braiding seems hard at first, but after you've done it a few times, it gets easy-it's just a matter of getting the pattern down. Divide the hair into three even sections. Take the right section and cross it over the center section. Then take the left section and cross it over the center section (which was formerly the right section). Keep alternating, crossing the right and left sections over the center section, tightening the braid as you go until you're a couple inches from the end of the hair. Secure it with an elastic. Check out this video to see how it's done. You can also make braid pigtails, parting the hair as described above and braiding each section separately.
French braids: Don't even try this until you've got regular braiding down pat. French braiding is a little more difficult, and requires a degree of manual dexterity, but little girls just love to have their hair French braided because it looks so pretty. You start by gathering a small section of hair at the crown of her head, and dividing that section into three. Then criss-cross each side section over the center section as described above, but the trick is that before you cross a side section, you add a little more hair to that section. It's not easy at first, but it's also not as hard as it sounds-and probably easier to understand if you see it.

Please note that some girls may have hair that requires more specialized treatment; for example, for girls with very curly or kinky hair, it may not be necessary-or advisable-to comb it through. With these girls, you may just need to call in some female assistance. But once you learn how to do a few cute hairstyles for your little girl, she's going to think you're awesome (and the women in your life will be pretty impressed too).

Longer School Day

Toby — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 04:15:22 -0700

More school: Obama would curtail summer vacation - From Yahoo News

By LIBBY QUAID, AP Education Writer Libby Quaid, Ap Education Writer – Sun Sep 27, 3:29 pm ET

WASHINGTON – Students beware: The summer vacation you just enjoyed could be sharply curtailed if President Barack Obama gets his way.

Obama says American kids spend too little time in school, putting them at a disadvantage with other students around the globe.

"Now, I know longer school days and school years are not wildly popular ideas," the president said earlier this year. "Not with Malia and Sasha, not in my family, and probably not in yours. But the challenges of a new century demand more time in the classroom."

The president, who has a sixth-grader and a third-grader, wants schools to add time to classes, to stay open late and to let kids in on weekends so they have a safe place to go.

"Our school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy and not too many of our kids are working the fields today," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

Fifth-grader Nakany Camara is of two minds. She likes the four-week summer program at her school, Brookhaven Elementary School in Rockville, Md. Nakany enjoys seeing her friends there and thinks summer school helped boost her grades from two Cs to the honor roll.

But she doesn't want a longer school day. "I would walk straight out the door," she said.

Domonique Toombs felt the same way when she learned she would stay for an extra three hours each day in sixth grade at Boston's Clarence R. Edwards Middle School.

"I was like, `Wow, are you serious?'" she said. "That's three more hours I won't be able to chill with my friends after school."

Her school is part of a 3-year-old state initiative to add 300 hours of school time in nearly two dozen schools. Early results are positive. Even reluctant Domonique, who just started ninth grade, feels differently now. "I've learned a lot," she said.

Does Obama want every kid to do these things? School until dinnertime? Summer school? And what about the idea that kids today are overscheduled and need more time to play?

___

Obama and Duncan say kids in the United States need more school because kids in other nations have more school.

"Young people in other countries are going to school 25, 30 percent longer than our students here," Duncan told the AP. "I want to just level the playing field."

While it is true that kids in many other countries have more school days, it's not true they all spend more time in school.

Kids in the U.S. spend more hours in school (1,146 instructional hours per year) than do kids in the Asian countries that persistently outscore the U.S. on math and science tests — Singapore (903), Taiwan (1,050), Japan (1,005) and Hong Kong (1,013). That is despite the fact that Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong have longer school years (190 to 201 days) than does the U.S. (180 days).

___

Regardless, there is a strong case for adding time to the school day.

Researcher Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution looked at math scores in countries that added math instruction time. Scores rose significantly, especially in countries that added minutes to the day, rather than days to the year.

"Ten minutes sounds trivial to a school day, but don't forget, these math periods in the U.S. average 45 minutes," Loveless said. "Percentage-wise, that's a pretty healthy increase."

In the U.S., there are many examples of gains when time is added to the school day.

Charter schools are known for having longer school days or weeks or years. For example, kids in the KIPP network of 82 charter schools across the country go to school from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., more than three hours longer than the typical day. They go to school every other Saturday and for three weeks in the summer. KIPP eighth-grade classes exceed their school district averages on state tests.

In Massachusetts' expanded learning time initiative, early results indicate that kids in some schools do better on state tests than do kids at regular public schools. The extra time, which schools can add as hours or days, is for three things: core academics — kids struggling in English, for example, get an extra English class; more time for teachers; and enrichment time for kids.

Regular public schools are adding time, too, though it is optional and not usually part of the regular school day. Their calendar is pretty much set in stone. Most states set the minimum number of school days at 180 days, though a few require 175 to 179 days.

Several schools are going year-round by shortening summer vacation and lengthening other breaks.

Many schools are going beyond the traditional summer school model, in which schools give remedial help to kids who flunked or fell behind.

Summer is a crucial time for kids, especially poorer kids, because poverty is linked to problems that interfere with learning, such as hunger and less involvement by their parents.

That makes poor children almost totally dependent on their learning experience at school, said Karl Alexander, a sociology professor at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University, home of the National Center for Summer Learning.

Disadvantaged kids, on the whole, make no progress in the summer, Alexander said. Some studies suggest they actually fall back. Wealthier kids have parents who read to them, have strong language skills and go to great lengths to give them learning opportunities such as computers, summer camp, vacations, music lessons, or playing on sports teams.

"If your parents are high school dropouts with low literacy levels and reading for pleasure is not hard-wired, it's hard to be a good role model for your children, even if you really want to be," Alexander said.

Extra time is not cheap. The Massachusetts program costs an extra $1,300 per student, or 12 percent to 15 percent more than regular per-student spending, said Jennifer Davis, a founder of the program. It received more than $17.5 million from the state Legislature last year.

The Montgomery County, Md., summer program, which includes Brookhaven, received $1.6 million in federal stimulus dollars to operate this year and next, but it runs for only 20 days.

Aside from improving academic performance, Education Secretary Duncan has a vision of schools as the heart of the community. Duncan, who was Chicago's schools chief, grew up studying alongside poor kids on the city's South Side as part of the tutoring program his mother still runs.

"Those hours from 3 o'clock to 7 o'clock are times of high anxiety for parents," Duncan said. "They want their children safe. Families are working one and two and three jobs now to make ends meet and to keep food on the table."

___

Associated Press writer Russell Contreras in Boston contributed to this report.

Too Much Information

Philmundo — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 08:50:28 -0700

by Phil Stott

The big news out here on Long Island this week has been of an alleged gang rape of a girl on the campus of Hofstra University that turned out to be a lie. Four guys were paraded in front of the media, their lives and reputations (not to mention those of their families) held up to scrutiny and judgment because of a lie told by one college student. Not 24 hours after the initial story broke-with news crews camped out on campus, and mug shots of the men concerned plastered across newspapers, computers and TV screens-it was over, with police now said to be considering bringing charges against the girl for wasting their time.

It's a case that's given me pause for thought both as a general member of society, and as a parent-and mostly because of volume of information I've digested in the past week, none of which has done me a single bit of good.

Too soon
First, I'm reminded once again of the double standard in the justice system: four innocent men have had their reputations seriously tarnished by one false accusation, from a "victim" whose identity we may never know. In the day and age we're living in, where information can get passed around at unprecedented speed, and where even our politicians have realized that telling a lie often enough can get people to start believing it, I can't believe that information like that is getting out, only for the guys to be cleared of all charges less than a day later. The key to uncovering the truth, apparently, was that police told the girl there was video footage of the incident: they couldn't have tried that before subjecting four innocent guys to a media perp walk?

Too early
Watching a news bulletin on the case before going to work on the day it fell apart (9/17), my immediate instinct was to cover my daughter's ears-and she's not even two, way too young to understand anything about it. The reason? In less than a minute-and with no warning of the graphic details to come-the news station went from talking about how the four guys had been charged with gang rape to explaining that the case fell apart because the sex between the woman and the four men had been consensual, something the guys had maintained all along. All this before seven in the morning.

Now don't get me wrong: I'm no prude. I curse with the best of them and have heard and said my share of downright offensive things. But I can't for the life of me understand how something so graphic is permitted on TV at a time when children are almost certain to be around. What, so I can't hear the "f" word in case it offends someone, but it's perfectly reasonable for me to have to monitor my TV before I've finished my first cup of coffee in case I end up having to explain the horrors of the adult world to a child? You tell me which is easier: correcting a child who repeats a curse word, or having to answer the question "Daddy, what's gang rape?"

At the end of it all, I'm left wondering if I really needed to know any of that information. Or if anything good has come of any of it. And my answer to both questions is the same: probably not. But I have learned a valuable lesson that will stay with me as my kids get older: there's no such thing as a "safe" time to forget about monitoring what they might be watching.

(photo: AP Photo/Frank Eltman)

5 Tips to Save on School Lunches

Philmundo — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 08:33:58 -0700

by Phil Stott

You know how it is; you want to give your child as healthy and nutritious lunch as possible, and to fill their lunchbox with all the things you know they enjoy, but all those juice boxes and pre-packaged snacks can really begin to add up. Here, then, are 5 ways to control the cost of what goes into Junior's lunch box while ensuring that you're not cutting down on quality.

Cut down the juice (or cut it out)

There are two important labels to consider when looking at juice boxes for kids: the one on the shelf in the store that tells you the price per gallon, and the one on the box with the calories and ingredients. When you check out the former, you realize that the bigger the container, the cheaper the contents become-the bonus of buying in bulk. So if you do send your kids to school with juice, get the biggest container of it you can find and portion it out into a reusable cup for your child every day. Also, don't be afraid to water it down (or cut it out altogether): that nutrition label reveals that most fruit juices have a staggering amount of sugar and calories, most of which your child is probably better off without.

Use leftovers

You're not too proud to parcel up the leftovers from one meal and haul them in for a cheap lunch at work, right? So why be afraid of doing so for your child? Obviously you don't want to send them in with something that's going to be too messy (leftover ribs, anyone?) or that will require any kind of preparation, but leftover slices of pizza are sure to be a hit, while things like chicken can be re-used in sandwiches.

Make your own...

No matter what food you name, it's usually cheaper and healthier to make your own version of it, even if it takes a little effort. And the best part: you can get your kids involved. Try making your own cookies or brownies for snack-time treats, or even your own soups for hot, healthy lunches (you might need to invest a little in a decent thermos, though).

Ditch the brown bags-and the plastic ones

Splash out a little on a lunchbox and a couple of plastic or (even better) metal containers for your child. Not only will they enjoy toting their favorite cartoon character or sports team with them every day, it'll also save you a bundle in the long run on all those plastic baggies and brown paper sacks.

The more adventurous (or less time-stretched) among you may want to try stepping it up a notch on your kids' lunches as well. For that reason, I offer the following link to a phenomenon I read about in the New York Times recently: kid-friendly bento boxes. Be warned, though: you may well end up feeling like the most inadequate parent in the world.

Ask your child what they want

Remember getting to school as a kid only to open your lunchbox and find that you hated what was inside? I got caught on more than one occasion trying to ditch my sandwiches in the lunchroom trashcan. Don't have your kids going through the day hungry: talk to them about what they'd like-and about what worked and didn't work. One of the big treats when I was growing up in Britain was to get a jelly sandwich with one of these cookies in it-ridiculously unhealthy, but really good. What my mum didn't realize, though, was that if she put the sandwich together in the morning, the jelly caused the cookie to get mushy. Solution: pack them separately, allow the child to assemble (the same goes for any sandwich where one ingredient has to stay crispy).

Getting Ready for Soccer

Philmundo — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 07:52:26 -0700

by Phil Stott

With the fall soccer season starting any day now (if it hasn't already), I thought I'd take the opportunity to offer a few words of wisdom on outfitting your child. Hopefully they're not too late and, even if they are for this year, there's always next season!

One of the benefits of soccer-and it's something that's struck me more than once in the 20+ years I've been playing the game-is that you don't need much in the way of equipment. Once you've got a ball, some cleats, and a pair of shin guards, you've got pretty much everything the pros have. Having said that, it's still possible to spend way more than you need when outfitting a child for the coming season. Part of the aim of this guide is to make sure you don't do that.

The ball

Those of us who have been playing the game for a while know the difference between a 32-panel stitched leather ball and the top-flight, seamless synthetic numbers the pros use (with this being the current holder of the "daddy-of-them-all" title). A 5-year old learning the game will not. A 12 year old who's been playing the game for a few years might know the theory, but it won't matter; the top-of-the-line technologies only benefit the best players in the world. How much truer do you want a shot that only travels 30 feet to fly?

Aside from the cost, the major thing you want to keep in mind when selecting a soccer ball for a child is size. Adult-sized balls (no giggling at the back!) are marked with a 5, with size 4's being appropriate for those between 8 and 12. Under 8's, meanwhile, will probably fare best with a size 3.

The cleats

It's difficult to know what to recommend with cleats, because once you achieve basic functionality, the rest is about personal style. The kids' models I've seen range as high as $80, but there are perfectly serviceable models out there for as little as $15. Just make sure they fit-a cleat that's too big will only impair your child's ability to control the ball (because they won't be able to feel it). Also, be sure to find out where they'll be playing the majority of their soccer-turf fields require a very different cleat than a soft grass field. But don't be pressured into buying a whole new pair of cleats for a single game on a different surface-turf shoes will work just fine on grass provided it isn't too slippy, while running shoes also work in a fix for turf.

Shin guards

The cheapest thing you'll have to buy, but essential for keeping your child's legs safe from all those other flailing limbs out there. There's really only one choice to make when picking a shin guard: ankle guards or no? As someone with a history of ankle problems, I like the extra feeling of security I get from the models that have an ankle guard attached to the shin portion. It also stops the shin guard from moving as much when you run. Best bet: get your kid to try a couple of pairs on and see what they like-some will be put off by the additional bulk around their ankle, or the strap on their foot.

Extras

Times have certainly changed from when I was learning to play the game. Back in the day, you took your cleats to games in a grocery bag inside your school backpack, and hoped you remembered your shin guards into the bargain. These days, there are specially-designed backpacks that even have carrying pouches for the ball-perhaps the only "must-have" additional item I've come across, if only to ease organizational headaches for parents. That's not to say, however, that there aren't other things that would be a good idea. A cheap ball-pump is a must, as are the thickest-soled socks you can find-in soccer cleats you need all the cushioning you can get. All the costly practice aids out there, however-the balls on strings, the boards to bounce a ball off, the goal for the back yard-can be replaced by one simple thing: the side of a house and a touch of imagination.

Post-vacation resolutions

Philmundo — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:34:43 -0700

by Phil Stott

Here's a tip I just learned on vacation: if you want to get to know your kids' personalities, spend two weeks in a car with them. Having just got back from a road trip with my 20-month old daughter, I'm blown away by just how much of her own little person she's become-and mostly while I've been too busy working/commuting/doing other stuff to notice.

Crossing from New Jersey back into New York on the final day of my family road trip was something of a bittersweet moment. While part of me was ready to get back to work and the order of my day-to-day life, another part of me could have kept going in the car for weeks longer. (Admittedly, there's a little more of me to go around for all those feelings after the trip-despite packing a cooler and vowing to stop at supermarkets for fresh produce as often as possible, the lure of the fast food outlets often proved to be stronger and easier than the desire to get off the highway and find a healthier alternative.)

The part of me that wanted to stay in the car is the family-loving part of me. I learned so much about my daughter, and about how she interacts with my wife, and what she likes and dislikes, and her own little sense of humor, that I could happily have spent much more time there wrapped up in that little cocoon. And that's despite a lot of things: the kids CD's that we set to repeat one song over and over (made worthwhile when Maeve spontaneously serenaded us with three verses-who knew there was more than one?-of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" right as we were crossing back into Long Island); the challenge of finding and storing something as basic as fresh milk; the interrupted nap times that come from living out of a car; the constant schlepping of the Pack and Play from the car to a hotel room and back again.

In the end, there were several factors that have made me glad to get back to my daily life. Diet, as alluded to above, is one of them. Structure (for me, but especially for Maeve), is another. And, having not seen much more than 10 minutes of news per day and having had no internet access at all for much of the vacation, I was eager to get back to a state of feeling connected to the wider world. Whether that makes me a bad parent or not, I don't know; all I do know is that I need a certain amount of "adult time" to keep me from feeling like my brain is turning to mush, and 17 straight plays of "Wheels on the Bus" doesn't quite do it for me.

Like all good vacations, then, I've returned refreshed, and with some new goals-both for my work and my family life. Driving through Indiana, Southern Ohio, and West Virginia (we took the long way home from Wisconsin) and seeing signs proclaiming that the latest section of road work was being funded by the stimulus bill has made me more grateful than ever to still be in the same job I had before the recession started, and I'm determined to take advantage of the new opportunities presenting themselves in my office as the turnaround begins (assuming it's the real thing, of course).

It's on the family front, however, that I've realized I have most work to do. The older Maeve gets, the more I realize that I want and need to be involved in her life, and in learning and shaping who she is as a person. Having been introduced to facets of her personality that the hours I work hadn't allowed me to see before, I'm determined not to turn into the guy who only has time for his kids two weeks every year. That's going to involve me taking a long look at my priorities and making some tough choices and sacrifices, but the more time I spend as a Dad, the more I'm coming to realize that that's exactly what sets the good ones apart from the great ones.

Daddy I Want

stublandford — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:15:43 -0700

Again our cast of characters -

Me (The Daddy)
The Bean: Age 7
The Butterfly: Age 5
The Loving Understanding Wife

About an hour after I'd finished Daddy I Want to go to the Beach, I was supposed to take the Bean and the Butterfly to eat at our favorite (read closest) Mexican restaurant, La Parilla. This usually involves the girls eating cheese dip for dinner; however, recently The Bean has started eating refried beans. Go figure.

In the book, the main character (Lily) won't go to the beach until her sandals, her Mermaid Barbi, her swim goggles, etc are found. By the Daddy. Lily waits and paints her toes while the Daddy looks high and low for Lily's belongings (she doesn't feel the need to help).

Lily is based loosely on The Bean. However, in this instance, it is The Butterfly's turn at bat.

Get this: I announce that it's time to get in the minivan (the convertible is in the shop, I swear.) The Bean is all excited. She dashes to the garage and proceeds to strap herself into her car seat (yeah, they grow up so fast, but it can be very convenient).

But The Butterfly throws a fit. She doesn't like the dress she's wearing. She wants the one that Grammy got her. She shrugs when I ask what it looks like.

So we go through her closet and the laundry room. I don't have a clue what I'm looking for, but somehow we find it.

Get your Crocs, I say. Let's go, I say.

No!

Crocs are stupid. I want my sandals. SANDALS!!!

Stop me if this sounds familiar.

The Butterfly proceeds to sit on the floor and not help. So The Bean (she's come back inside wondering WTF) and I do a room-by-room search for sandals.

We finally find them and go off for a wonderful meal of beans, cheese dip and Margaritas.

Savvy Daddies Worldwide

The Health Care Bill

Toby — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 05:56:28 -0700

Greetings Dads,
What is the deal with the healthcare bill? There is so much from both sides, I cannot digest it. http://tiny.cc/prAbe Any Dr., Nurse, Hospital admin, medical salesperson, etc that would like to share an opinion? Is it true those in Washington are rebuffing this plan for themselves to stay on their current plan? If it is so good for the people, why not for them? I do not want sides, I want information please.
This is one of the biggest votes in history and I want to make sure that we (and our politicians) have all the data. Again, please do not use this topic to post your political opinions, forget about Red and Blue states - we need to be UNITED! I, and other Dads, need to hear from those inside the Healthcare system so we can make the best decision for out families.
Thank you for your posts.
Cheers,
Toby

Au Natural, Baby

Philmundo — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:27:03 -0700

by Phil Stott

It's a beautiful summer's day, at last. We've got one of those inflatable wading pools set up for Maeve, with a few inches of water in it. She's splashing around happily, naked as the day she was born, and my wife and I are sitting on lawn chairs, cold lemonades in hand, supervising the whole affair. After a while, a few of the neighbor children appear; word has spread about the "pool party." Their parents follow close behind, bringing yet more refreshments and lawn chairs, and pretty soon the whole affair turns into a neighborhood event, eventually topped off with a communal barbecue.

Sounds pretty idyllic, right? It was, until I went to work the next day and stumbled on a New York Times piece that made me aware of the strength of feeling that exists over the whole issue of children being allowed to roam naked. Not that I'd heard any comments at the "party," but it struck me in hindsight that, despite there being other kids there her age, Maeve was the only one who'd been allowed to go au natural by her parents.

Reading through the Times piece, it struck me that the issue surely can't have figured too much in the concerns of my own parents; Scotland boasts the kind of climate where exposing your skin to the elements-even in summer-is much more likely to provoke a bad case of goose-pimples than sunstroke. Regardless, I have clear memories-aided by documentary evidence that shall never make its way anywhere near this or any other website, if I have my way-that my brother, sisters and I were permitted to spend as much time without clothes as we wanted as kids. With my wife's family having been of a similar persuasion, the "issue" never even crossed our minds.

I'm inclined to think that the "controversy" over the subject is something that is drummed up only because the words "naked" and "children" when seen together can seem faintly shocking. Indeed, in searching for the Times piece, those were the words I typed into my browser as search terms (along with "NY Times"). Seeing the search I'd done (which yielded the result I was looking for and-thanks to the safe search feature-nothing untoward), my wife remarked that anyone seeing the computer screen "might get the wrong impression." If that isn't a sign of the times we're living in, I don't know what is.

Along with the Times article, my search yielded the perfect antidote: an article extolling the benefits of naked time for babies. Among the reasons: time to air out body parts that are ordinarily trapped by diapers, and time for them to discover their own bodies-both of which seem pretty important to me.

As for the issue of how other adults react, it so happens that my two cents were rather neatly summed up by a psychologist cited in the Times article: "If someone has an overly strong reaction to seeing young children running around naked, it tells us about their own hang-ups, their own inner conflicts." Not that we'll be letting Maeve run around the mall naked, but in the vicinity of our own house, I really don't see a problem. If someone else does, well, all I can do is refer them to the above quote.

And as for the one legitimate question raised by the piece: "When Do They Need a Fig Leaf?" Unlike the need to ingest vegetables, this is one issue that I'm prepared to actually let Maeve have the final word on: whenever she feels like she needs to start covering up.

Do words matter?

Toby — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:34:38 -0700

Greetings dads,
There is a local case here in MA that received National press - the arrest of Harvard professor Gates.
Here is a link to it that includes the police report: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/23/police-officer-obama-butt-arr...
I do not want to open a can of worms of who is correct; I would like to discuss the President's words. He said that the Cambridge police acted "stupidly."
Each day, my wife and I work to teach our children how to communicate, and we cannot stand them calling anyone stupid. Again, not taking sides for or against the President, the Professor, or the Police, should the President of the United States done a better job of choosing his words?
I look forward to your comments.
Cheers,
Toby