No answers...


Hayden has been reading the sports and weather in the newspaper for quite a while now. He started with the weather before he could actually read, just checking out the temperatures and the symbols to tell him whether it would be hot, rainy, etc. It's progressed to a full-blown obsession, where he reads every sports score, and insists on informing me about the inning by inning scores of the latest Cubs' game and who pitched how many innings, who got on base, blah, blah, blah. I want to encourage his love of reading, but at the same time, I'd read the classifieds myself before I'd read the sports section.


So you'll understand that I didn't notice him branching out beyond the sports and weather. But clearly, the boy needs some supervision, because just as there are things on TV you don't want your 5-year old to see, there are things in the paper just as bad or even worse. What do you do when your child asks you "why did the girl stuff toilet paper in her newborn baby's mouth and try to flush it down the toilet?" I gave him the only answer I could "It's an awful thing baby, and Mommy doesn't know why anyone would do something so awful."


From here on out, I'm only handing him the weather and sports. There are enough horrible things in the world to give us all nightmares, I'm not ready for my son to be sickened by them too.