I didn't bring my son to work today, even though it was take your child to work day. I didn't think I'd get much done, what with all the crying and pooping. And that's just from me - I'm sure my son would have done some of that, too!

How do you raise your children to be nice people?

There are several blog entries I've been wanting to write for a while. At some point I'm going to get to the one about turning 40, even though I may really be 50 by then. But at least I can trick people into thinking I'm younger.

Anyway, one quicker entry I wanted to write is this...

Everyone tells us our son is cute, and he is. But when he gets to the age when his personality starts to really develop, how do we teach him to be a nice person?

There's a line between being firm when teaching your kids to do a certain thing, and being so firm that they rebel and do the opposite. I guess most parents figure it out as they go, and reassess over and over again. There are some kids who aren't very nice when they're younger but gradually figure it out. We've all met them.

Things like rewarding good behavior and being strict about bad behavior are important, but more important is showing why, so they understand your reasoning.

How do you teach your kids right from wrong, particularly in how they treat other people? Stefanie Klein had an interesting blog entry about this a while back that I wanted to link to, so here it is.

Sports talk

HUBBY (watching Mets game): They're winning 4-0!

ME: Are they playing the worst team in baseball?

HUBBY: They ARE the worst team in baseball.

Baby's first seder

Street shots

Nice little ditty

Is it just me, or are there some interesting songs featured in commercials these days? I guess because of the internet, you can find out what song is being used a lot more than you used to.

Right now there's a Tide/"Future friendly" goods commercial that even shows the "Shazam" logo on screen, so you can put your iphone up to find out what the song is. I simply put Tide/Future friendly song into Google and found it.

And here's another song I liked from a commercial last year.

Ah, spring.

(The second one is the original. I played around with it on my computer to get the first one; not sure which I like better.)

Nice new review

I saw that someone visited my website today from Jamaica. Does that mean they're on vacation enjoying my book by the warm beaches? It's a nice thought.

Anyway, I saw there's a great new review on a site called Bookshelf Banter. Excerpt:

She is the most over-thinking over-thinker I’ve ever heard of, and coming from someone like myself, who overanalyzes Every. Single. Thing, that’s saying a lot! It was so much fun to empathize with another over analyzer and see how her brain flits so quickly from one line of thinking to the next. For example, in one scene Carrie starts wondering if polkas are Polish so she looks it up in the dictionary, next thing you know she goes off on some tangent that leads her to wonder about gypsy moths.

Back to the beach

Cape May shots from when we were there in 2009.

Saw this last time I was in NYC.

they should make cherry m&m's.

oh, the internet sez they did already. for a limited time.

A lovely review of my book

Thanks, Random Ramblings blog!!

Eggsellent

Eggs Edessa, Americana Diner, East Windsor, NJ.

An excellent breakfast to start what was a great day.

Oh, oh, domino

A photo of one of my favorite pastimes as an adolescent. I set this up on our dining room floor in Freehold.

The show "That's Incredible!" made these domino setups popular. Note: That's also the show that made the phrase "Don't try this at home" popular. But I tried this at home. It didn't involve blowing anything up. Actually, there was one holiday season when two different game companies were selling colored domino sets to capitalize on the craze. I got the Incredible Domino Rally for Hannukah. My friend Missy got the other one. I forget what it was called, but her parents got it for her because it had 600 dominoes...little did they realize that the dominoes in that set were teeny-tiny. What a ripoff!

Stuff on my camera...

Column for my college paper in which I made the case that every student should have access to e-mail. From around 1992. Bold stance, no?

Smoked gouda mac and cheese I made on Monday when I was off. Conclusion: Really not worth the hour to buy the ingredients and cook it. Sometimes from scratch or homemade just ends up wasting time. It was ok, but I could have probably picked it up at a restaurant somewhere and still saved money and effort.

Short story I wrote in high school. Will explain later.

Blogfan Sam writes:

I think you should have kept it "hivernating".. perhaps spelling it to show it's not a mistake, like HIVEernating or hive-ernating. Maybe you would have gotten an A instead of a B (or a Bee). Just a thought, revisit that story and turn it into a children's book.

Response:

Good idea! It would get a lot of BUZZ!

At least not everyone rejected me.

...thank you, Muffin!

Another found item, this from eighth grade. I think this is from Holmdel Happenings. The only nice thing to happen in snooty ol' Holmdel. I got a $50 savings bond.

Yay!

They only rejected me later. What a tease.

(See more new stuff below.)

One writer's beginnings.

I actually wrote "hivernate," but then I realized teachers would just think I was making a mistake, so I corrected it. Dang.

Yes, it's all for the best

"If at the moment you are wondering if all of your efforts have gone for nought, I can't blame you. But I hope that in time you will come to realize that is not so. Whatever disappointment there may be at not gaining admission to Princeton will eventually pass. What will remain and stand you in good stead the rest of your life are the admirable personal qualities and accomplishments that came through in your application."

It might as well have started, "Dear Shitster..."

P.S. The hubby says: "April 12, 1989? I was in eighth grade!"