A boy’s will is the wind’s will And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “My Lost Youth” That’s a beautiful verse to me — not just what it says but the tempo of it . . . try reading it aloud and you’ll notice that you really need to slow down when you get to “long, long thoughts.” I have a boy of my own now, and I can also tell you that a boy’s heart is simple and pure, and just by asking him does he want to play some catch or something, you can make him the happiest person in the world . . . Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Kids
World Series Recap
Two World Series tickets: $220 Parking: $10 Program: $10 Souvenir apparel: $104 Rally monkey: $15 Two hot dogs, two sodas, one pretzel: $17 Watching home team win World Series, with son, after 41 years of futility: Priceless, baby. My son is 9, a little older than I was when my dad took me to my first Angels game somewhere around 1966. Read more →
Dusty Baker’s Kid
Isn’t Dusty Baker a little old to have a 3-year-old son? And if he wants to bring the kid to work, to sit him in the dugout during the World Series, couldn’t he for godsake keep an eye on the kid so he’s not running around home plate in the middle of play? I would have given anything to see that kid on the receiving end of a Ray Fosse-style collision. That would have been in my Top 10 Memorable Moments in Baseball for sure. Read more →
Tae Kwon Do
My son receives his tae kwon do black belt. Read more →
Personal Attention
I’m explaining to my son another advantage to being an only child: personal attention . . . “I don’t have to tell, say, four kids to shut up; I can just tell you to shut up four times as much.” Read more →
Baby Talk
One of my wife’s friends in Thailand has been trying for years to have a baby and finally did. Her typing and English are not so good, but her email I thought was quite affecting: My girl, JOOK-KRU,is so young, so I want to spend most time for her. I had a little trouble in first 5 months pregnancy. Now I feel very good, I think big trouble in my life was gone. As you know We see docter for 8 years continuiously and spend a lot of money for the problom. We get her by IVF technique. She is healty , try to climb to upatairs, always make loud noise. I think she can call ‘ mae’ or ‘mama’ or ‘papa’ soon. “Mae” means “Mom” in the Thai language. “Jook-Kru” means “little bird.” Read more →
1st Day of 4th Grade
We have Mr. Walker for 4th grade this year . . . I saw an article today: Do Kids Need MP3 Players for School? It seems obvious to me that they don’t, and why even bring it up, although a pair of my kid’s back-to-school pants actually came with a built-in MP3 player holder. His reaction: “Cool! . . . what’s an MP3 player?” Read more →
Geometry or Epistemology?
With school starting up in a couple of days, my wife is trying to get our boy in an academic frame of mind . She has him doing some exercises from a geometry workbook and of course he’s not interested. “I can’t tell if these lines are exactly alike,” he says. Holds the book up to his face. “They look exactly alike . . .” Call me biased, but turning the whole exercise into a philosophical problem, rather than just saying “I don’t want to do this,” is a pretty sophisticated plan of attack for a 9-year-old. Read more →
Talking to Your Kids
ME: I hope when you and Jeremy are over at Jessica’s house, that you include her in your activities, not just ignore her because she’s a girl and do your own stuff. HIM: Dude, she’s a STU-pido! Read more →
Introducing a 9-Year-Old to Van Morrison
I can hear her heartbeat for a thousand miles . . . “That’s impossible!” Read more →
Parenting Paradox
How do you love someone so much knowing that you’re going to lose them — that in fact you are losing them a little bit every day? Read more →
Watching the NBA Finals with a 3rd Grader
The Nets have new uniforms. See, it says ‘New Jersey’ right on the front. On Nets guard Lucious Harris shooting 2-for-23: “They’d be better off having Lucious Malfoy [a wizard in the Harry Potter books]. He could point his wand at the ball and make it go in the basket. Read more →
Ask a 3rd Grader
If Amelia Earhart were alive today, what do you think she would be doing? If Amelia Earhart was alive today, she would be doing things that are not dangerous because she would be 105 years old. Read more →
Welcome to Irvine!
Education is important in our community . . . Word came home last week that this year’s Stanford 9 testing starts the first week of May. Immediately, my wife got a call from another mom announcing that she’s cancelling all play dates through the end of the testing period so her kid can spend every waking moment on test prep. The gauntlet has been thrown! Meanwhile, in business news, thanks to the tech meltdown, office space vacancy rates in southern Orange County continue to hover around 30 percent. The screaming rent deals this creates were enough to induce the company I work with to pack everything up and move one off-ramp further south on the 405 . . . Read more →
Kidding Around
Parents who joke in a light-hearted fashion during tense or stressful situations may make their children feel more comfortable and accepted, less anxious, and more willing to communicate in a positive manner. This is according to a study done at Arizona State University. My kid’s reaction: “Go, Arizona State! If USC [where I went to school] is so great, why didn’t they figure that out?” Read more →
Are You Proud of Me Now?
Barbra Streisand’s mother died last week at age 93. The two had a strained relationship, as people sometimes do with their mothers. When Mom attended one of her shows in 1994 — she would have been 85 years old at the time — Barbra addressed her from the stage, saying, “Are you proud of me now, Mama?” I’m not a big fan of anything Barbra Streisand has ever done, but for articulating a lifetime of pain in seven words, you can’t do much better than that . . . Read more →
Andrea Yates’ Confession
Transcript of Andrea Yates’ confession This is very, very sad and hard to forget. You may want to just skip it. Read more →
Teaching Kids to Write
Having students write essays about books accomplishes three things. It makes them hate writing, because it’s such a fruitless, uninteresting assignment. It makes them hate reading, because even books they enjoy are turned against them. And it probably makes them hate thinking, because the kind of analysis they’re forced to do is so strained and dull. — Joseph Weisberg Read more →
Samuel Butler Meets Rusty and Andrea Yates
“Poor people! They had tried to keep their ignorance of the world from themselves by calling it the pursuit of heavenly things, and then shutting their eyes to anything that might give them trouble.” — Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh Related Links Transcript of Andrea Yates’ confession This is very, very sad and hard to forget. You may want to just skip it. Read more →
Students Lack Grasp of Science
Only one in five high school seniors has a solid grasp of science, according to the results of a national test released today. Related link: Having It All! Read more →