Children

Little Girl Refuses to Have Birthday, Stays Six Years Old

"Birthday13Slovakia1" by Jozef Kotulič - Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Birthday13Slovakia1.JPG#mediaviewer/File:Birthday13Slovakia1.JPG: Modified.

Suzanne G. Corbett, of Dayton, OH, known to her friends as Suzie, recently refused to have a seventh birthday: I like being six years old, and my mommy says that when I’m seven, I’ll have to be a big girl and won’t be able to eat my mud pies anymore. This is, perhaps, a typical […]

The Tale of the Dog

Salivating dog.

A children’s story Once upon a time there was a dog. A big, brown dog, with shaggy fur and yellow eyes. He was a very brave dog. When strangers came by his house, he would not run away. He would bark at them. “Woof, woof!” the dog would say. And the neighbours would run away. […]

How to Make Your Child Like Classical Music

The Old Violin, by William Michael Harnett.

If, like most people, you want your child to grow up cultured, or at least, somewhat fermented, one of the best ways is to make sure he likes classical music. Countless surveys1 show that children who like classical music grow up to become adults who like classical music, which means they are automatically smarter than […]

Some Statistics You Might Find Interesting

Largest number of simultaneous nose pickers: 1,293,2991 How often the average American™ belches: 17 times per day2 Average age at which the average American™ finds a permanent full-time job: 33.45 years3 Number of bubbles in a glass of beer: 12,394,1294 Percentage of those under twenty who value their Playstation more than their parents: 74.3%5 Percentage […]

The Frog King

In olden times, when wishing still helped one, there lived a king whose daughters were all beautiful, but the youngest was so beautiful that the sun itself, which has seen so much, was astonished whenever it shone in her face. Close by the King’s castle lay a great dark forest, and under an old lime-tree […]

Why Children Cry and What it Can Get You

A monstery shadow looming over a small child.

It’s a fractal of life: children cry. Some cry a lot. Some cry well into adulthood. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist (or a child psychologist)1 to figure out why children cry. They cry because they want a particular thing at that particular moment. Many inexperienced parents believe that to have a child crying […]

Spicy Food

Not so very long ago, I was wandering about at random with my children, when we happened upon a small market (or equivalent) selling a wide variety of spicy sauces, spicy condiments, spicy salsas, and, as far as I could tell, not much else. In a boldly calculated move to entice customers, the retail establishment […]

Charles Augustus Fortescue

Charles Augustus Fortescue Who Always Did what was Right, and so Accumulated an Immense Fortune The nicest child I ever knew Was Charles Augustus Fortescue. He never lost his cap, or tore His stockings or his pinafore: In eating Bread he made no Crumbs, He was extremely fond of sums, To which, however, he preferred […]