Category: Kids & Cute Stories

NewMexiKen’s very own parents eloped on this date 62 years ago. She was two weeks past 17, a senior in high school. He was 19 and in the U.S. Navy.

I don’t think getting married at 17/19 is a good idea, but I’m sure glad they did.

From The Smoking Gun — Virginia grade schoolers accidentally served alcohol at lunch.

Dear Abby,

I recently read your column advising grandparents on “tough love” for grandparents to give misbehaving grandchildren, whose own parents let them run wild. I have followed your advice, and enclosed a picture demonstrating my technique when my grandson just won’t behave while I’m babysitting for his parents. They have told me not to spank him, so I just take him for a ride, and he usually calms down afterward.

Sign me,

Tough Love Grandpa

Grandpa (aka NewMexiKen): What do cows do for a good time?

3-year-old grandson: They go to the moo-vies.

Hey kids, this is Elmo’s new song
I say, hey kids, sing and dance along
E-L-M-O
E-L-M-O

(To the music of Y-M-C-A)

Update: In fairness, NewMexiKen must report that none of the Sweeties is eligible to vote (none is a felon, they’re just too young) and that one of the six parents involved disagrees with this endorsement.

Via Jesus’ General, Gerber joins the baby food as discipline crowd.

Background here.

Update from Jill on Mack, now that he’s tall enough for every ride at the Magic Kingdom —

I tell my three-year-old son about our sudden plans for a trip to Disney World next month. I elaborate on the rides we’ll visit. I tell him that we’ll be able to watch giraffes graze from our hotel room. I also mention that our hotel has a huge pool with a big water slide.

I pause for his response.

“Is there a hot tub?”

The official oldest Sweetie, Mack, has reached a significant milestone in life. He is now tall enough to ride every single attraction at the Magic Kingdom except Space Mountain.

From The Washington Post:

Hot sauce adds a kick to salsa, barbeque, falafel and hundreds of other foods. But some parents use it in a different recipe, one they think will yield better-behaved children: They put a drop of the fiery liquid on a child’s tongue as punishment for lying, biting, hitting or other offenses.

“Hot saucing,” or “hot tongue,” has roots in Southern culture, according to some advocates of the controversial disciplinary method, but it has spread throughout the country. Nobody keeps track of how many parents do it, but most experts contacted for this story, including pediatricians, psychologists and child welfare professionals, were familiar with it.

The use of hot sauce has been advocated in a popular book, in a magazine for Christian women and on Internet sites. Web-based discussions on parenting carry intense, often emotional exchanges on the topic.

The book, Creative Correction: Extraordinary Ideas for Everyday Discipline, is by actress/mom/author/Christian Lisa Whelchel (Blair on Facts of Life).

uggabugga took a look at the Amazon.com reviews for the book (he includes no quotes from those who liked it).

We took a look at the Customer Reviews over at Amazon to get a sense of what Lisa Whelchel’s book, Creative Correction (pub. Oct 2000), advises. Here is what we found:

• … she mentions spraying water into the face of a toddler who has a temper tantrum. I’d feel like I was treating my child as a housepet if I did that.
• … she mentioned things like letting a child go without a meal for failing to do a chore. I do believe strongly that you should never threaten to withhold food from a child, for any reason.
• What kind of sadistic things is Lisa Welchel trying to communicate to parents? How could making a child run thru dog crap teach him to have a more spiritual walk.
• I would like to know how burning your childs favorite possesion will help them in any posative way at all.
• The example with toilet water is to put water from the faucet in one cup and water from the toilet in another. With the child watching, pour the water out and pour some koolaid or juice in each cup. Ask them which cup they want to drink out of. The lesson here is that talking “dirty” has lingering effects.
• [Whelchel uses] Bible verses to tell your children that if they look at bad things ravens will peck out their eyes.
• Lisa Welchel’s “correction” ideas are not only frightening, they’re mad!! I fail to see how pinching a child’s tongue with a clothespin will help that child learn about the love of God, the compassion of Jesus, or the Truth of His Spirit.
• Got a kid who yells in public? Make him hold his tongue–literally, with his fingers.
• At one point her son is honest enough to admit that he’s angry at her after she’s been away for a long time and plans to then go out again that evening. Does she tell him she can understand why he feels that way? Does she make arrangements to spend time with her kids after a long absence? No, she threatens to beat him if he can’t promise he’ll “be good” for the babysitter.
• … can you imagine … making a child stand still and not move until he’s ready for bed?!?
• Using schoolwork and the Bible as forms of punishments is a terrible idea.
• … absolutely frightening in every way. please spare your children the torture and emotional abuse that this woman’s children must suffer from these insane ideas. i can’t believe that any normal human could believe that these punishments could be anyway helpful to raising a healthy child. if you must read this book, do it only for the sheer humor of this woman’s ludicous ideas…no seriously it is hilarious.

And finally, this Word From The Author:

I have three children, ages 8,9 & 10, including a son diagnosed with ADHD. It was out of sheer desperation that I came up with many of the discipline ideas in this book.

Observations:

• Chauffeuring three (of my four) grandchildren really sharpens the old defensive driving skills.
• Thomas and his friends the other railroad train engines act like a bunch of petulant children — which I suppose is the idea.

Simply mind-boggling. A dad blogs his premmie’s first days — with photos and video. Eric was born on July 4th in just his 24th week; one pound, seven ounces.

Link via Boing Boing.

NewMexiKen will now take off his blogging hat and resume playing games with one of The Sweeties at Dragon Tales.

My mother’s uncle, and her guardian, was born in Conlogue, Illinois, on this date in 1888. I knew him as Grandpa, usually written as G’pa. A salesman through most of his career, after tough times during the Depression he established a successful insurance agency in Detroit in the 1940s and 1950s. Despite his success, his office was in the dining room, then in the second bedroom of a small apartment — a great place for a little boy to play “office”.

G’pa was a conservative, staid almost austere man. His favorite activity — other than work — was telling “stories” (jokes we would call them), none of which were ever off color and a few I can still remember hearing. He was good at the telling and no doubt that was part of his success in sales. Ironically though, it didn’t seem to serve him well in the Army, a time of his life he particularly disliked — but then he was a 29-year-old draftee.

Lee Cook sold the insurance agency when he was in his early 70s, but couldn’t retire. He continued trying to sell this or that, without much success. It was sad to see him so frustrated. (I learned then that I should have a blog when I retired to keep me busy.)

Grandpa’s been gone more than 30 years now, but I still miss him.

That’s the mayor petting yet another potential young voter, Tulivu, a 2-month-old lowland gorilla new to the Rio Grande Zoo. From The Albuquerque Tribune.

From dooce

For the past four days Jon and I have been running a division of the Betty Ford Clinic as we try to break Leta of her crippling addiction to the pacifier. We’ve taken away her cigarettes, her heroin, her daily 64 oz Diet Coke, and from the resulting hours of weeping and gnashing of the toothless gums you’d think we’d taken away her will to live.

John & Belle Have A Blog tells a cute story about Zoé, and the photos alone are worth a click.

While getting out of the car, the 3-year-old scooted into the driver’s seat. Told it was time to go, he replied, “Ok. I just wanted to call someone a jackass.”

It could be worse. It’s a good thing he doesn’t ride around with his grandfather.

dooce continues to be about as enjoyable to read as anything around.

From Steve Harvey in the Los Angeles Times:

Leslie Hutchens writes: “When my daughter was young, I taught her the ‘This Little Piggy’ rhyme on her toes. When she got old enough to recite along with me, I was very amused by her version, which went: ‘This little piggy went to Target; this little piggy stayed home.'”