The Biggest Loser: Checkers Edition

Among the gifts JP received for Hanukkah this year was a checkerboard that I picked up at the dollar store. Last night we played for the first time, and not surprisingly (I hope), I won. Unfortunately this disturbed JP quite a bit, and the end of our two checkers games included some tears, a rather …

Scooters, Cooters and Teachable Moments: Sasha’s 2nd Birthday

You know what’s worse than being home sick from school? Being home sick on your birthday. Unless, of course, you’re not really all that sick, so you get to enjoy your birthday presents. Which in Sasha’s case were/was a scooter. I don’t know if this is just a New York thing, but the three-wheeled Mini-Kickboard …

I Hate Veggie-People

As in, please see nearly all articles published on the Internet about parenting. Your daily dosage, from Babble, in this article on “one mom’s refusal to lie about vegetables.” Apparently, if this article is to be believed, my son JP hates vegetables because I didn’t convince him that the amusing phonics of the word “rutabaga” …

Chinese Students ‘Cheat’ Better Than U.S. Students

Look, I’m not saying that the Chinese students who got insanely good scores on the recent international standardized tests were cheating. Oh no. Certainly not. Don’t you see those quotation marks up there around the word “cheat”? I’m definitely the last person to suggest that the many news reports and anecdotes I’ve heard about Chinese …