Hey, I grew up with first-person and commands. I want you to stop that right now and sit down now, young lady. Worked for me and my sisters.

Sometimes there’s no good way to do that that doesn’t involve Social Services, but that’s what I *want*.

My personal favorite awful-kid story comes from my own wedding reception, where a co-worker’s then-4-year-old daughter started rocking the table upon which sat the five-layer wedding cake a relative had meticulously slaved over for days.

“Sweetie, don’t do that,” another relative said. “You’ll tip over the cake.”

Replied the child, “*I* don’t care.”

I personally escorted her out of the building. No cake for you, punk.

his article, and it appears to be his own invention.

“Gay-vague” is a term that was coined by a business

journalist, Michael Wilke. The phrase appeared in his

reporting for Advertising Age from 1994-98.

Shouldn’t David Colman at least acknowledge this

source in his article? Without crediting the source,

is this plagiarism? “Gay-vague” is not a commonly used

phrase in the New York Times. It appears that only one

article from the New York Times archive used this

phrase, back in 1996.

Information about journalist Michael Wilke’s use of

the phrase “gay-vague” appears at the URL below:

http://www.medill.northwestern.edu/inside/2002/wilke.html

Sounds slightly incestuous!

Once when my 6 year old daughter began throwing an over-tired, over-hot fit while we were at the zoo, we found a shady bench and broke out the bottled water, and I told her that she had a minute to get herself under control, or else we were leaving. Of course, this had no effect at all, and then I had to “make good”.

As we exited the zoo my 9 year old son was keeping just enough distance so that he might not be associated with his screeching sister and his stern-faced dad.

And of course, the shady bench from whence we began our egress was way, way back in the zoo, so that our big exit seemed interminably long.

the funny part was all the little smiles (‘glad it’s not me!’) and remarks that other parents made as we progressed toward the gate. It was crowded that day, but folks cleared us a path.

The one nice thing is that I only had to use that threat once subsequent to that, and it had the desired effect

We live next to the playground/recreation center, and Doron was boy scout age when my older son was about three. My son and one of his little playmates were digging in the sand and such, when Doron decided to abandon the boy scout meeting, and come out to the playground. He scared off all the younger kids, and sat at the top of the slide being intimidating. At the time, my son was prone to mixing up the syllables in words, and he referred to Doron that day by the name we still use. He called him Rodan. Remember the Japanese flying monster?

(His mother) indulged him. She breastfed him till he was 6. She never restricted him in the matter of manners. For years, he would not sit down and eat dinner with her, she says, a bit regretfully. They were the closest of friends till he hit adolescence. She encouraged any interest he had, never judged him, never criticized him. There were no rules�not that he ever would have heeded them anyway: “I was pigheaded,” Doron says.

Sounds like time has told.

Recently we saw a less intellectually “special” kid climbing on glass shelves in a fancy shoe store. When the clerk asked the mother to please stop the kid from doing that, the mother complained that the shop should be “child proof” and that if her kid got hurt, she would sue.