Nine years old is a good age to play jump-rope, dress up dolls, and maybe, just maybe, start thinking about boys as something other than totally gross. Wedding plans should be strictly the fairytales and pumpkin kind and definitely not the actual type. Unfortunately, there are those who think that nine is the perfect age for a young girl to get married.

In Britain, thousands of young girls, as young as nine, are being forced into marriages and schools are being asked to be ever more vigilant for children at risk and who suddenly stop showing up. "The youngest child we have dealt with was nine years old," said Jasvinder Sanghera, director of Karma Nirvana, a national telephone helpline for girls forced into marriage. "The girl told her teacher she was going to be forced to marry someone and initially she was not believed." Thankfully, the girl was eventually placed into foster care.

The problem is bad enough that the government operates a Forced Marriage Unit, jointly funded by the Home Office and Foreign Office. I don't know what kind of parent thinks its okay for a nine-year-old to get married. I have a thirteen-year-old niece and there's no way I would want her to miss out on her life just to satisfy some dirty old man's need to marry.

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It's every father's nightmare -- you wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of your teenage daughter's screaming and discover a naked man attempting to do who-knows-what to her. That's what sixty-four-year-old Robert McNally dealt with recently. During a struggle with the intruder, McNally got his arm around the man's neck and pinned him to the floor while his wife called the police. When the police arrived, McNally was still holding the man down. After McNally let go, the intruder was unresponsive and subsequently pronounced dead.

The man broke into the house through the girl's bedroom window and was wearing nothing but a mask and latex gloves. He was also carrying a knife, a rope, a gag, and condoms, according to police. It turns out that the man was David Myers, a former sex offender who had been living with his mother nearby. He had served ten years of a twenty-year sentence for sexual deviate conduct but had failed to register as a sex offender after being released two years ago.

Police are unsure whether the man died from being choked or from heart failure; Myers had a history of heart problems. The police said that it is unlikely any charges will be filed against McNally. It seems to me that McNally did exactly the right thing in order to protect his family and others'. And, despite the law that apparently says teenagers have to hate their parents, I'll bet McNally's daughter sure loves her old man right about now.

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I'm a big fan of finding new uses for things, and this is a great example. A two-year-old Australian girl, born with biliary artresia, was undergoing surgery to receive a liver transplant when Dr. Albert Shun found a problem. It seems that the adult-size liver was too big and was putting pressure on the girl's blood vessels -- a potentially deadly situation.

Dr. Shun came up with a creative way to solve the problem. "I rang my wife and asked her to go to Big W and buy me some ping-pong balls," he said. The doctor used the ping-pong ball to keep the liver off the arteries and relieve the pressure. "There shouldn't be any complications. We are in a unique situation in Australia because we have a low donor rate so we have to be adaptable," he said.

The young girl is now up and running about like a normal two-year-old. "She is so normal now. She is a happy kid," said the girl's mother. Sounds like a good use of a ping-pong ball to me.

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Louisiana State Representative John LaBruzzo is concerned about the future. He's worried for the poor of his state who cannot afford the children they apparently keep having and about the quality of future generations made up of the children of the poor and uneducated. "We're on a train headed to the future and there's a bridge out," said LaBruzzo.

His solution? Sterilization. He is looking at a plan to pay poor women a thousand dollars to get their Fallopian tubes tied. The plan would also cover other forms of birth control, including vasectomies for men (to avoid accusations of being sexist). His plan might include tax incentives for well-to-do, college graduates to have more children as well.

Before you accuse him of racism, however, he is quick to point out that there are more whites on welfare than groups and that the program would be completely voluntary. On the one hand, since it would be voluntary, those who don't like the idea can simply choose not to participate. On the other hand, it sure seems like a step closer to a world where only the wealthy and successful are allowed to reproduce.

My kids have never seen Cool Hand Luke, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, or even The Sting, the fun story of a big con that is my favorite of Paul Newman's movies. They do know and love, however, his Newman's most recent role -- the gruff-but-lovable mayor of Radiator Springs, Doc Hudson, from the Pixar film Cars. Sadly, Doc Hudson has gone on to that great dirt track in the sky. Paul Newman, known to so many for good looks, gorgeous eyes, and fine acting, passed away last Friday at the age of eighty-three.

Aside from his acting, Newman was also known for his gourmet-for-the-rest-of-us foods (I especially like his salad dressings and marinades). What we probably didn't think too much about when we're picking up a package of Fig Newmans or Newman-O's is that the profits from the Newman's Own line of foods goes to charity, including one of Paul Newman's favorites, the Hole in the Wall camps. These camps provide a joyous experience for and build self-esteem in children who suffer from serious illnesses. The organization was started by Newman and the organization calls him "heart and soul of Hole in the Wall Camps."

Whether you are a fan of his acting, enjoy his natural and organic foods, or admire his generosity and compassion for others, he will surely be missed.

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In the wake of the Chinese milk scandal, the European Union has banned the import of all baby food containing Chinese milk. Four babies have died and more than fifty thousand have become sick due to melamine added to watered-down milk. The melamine is added to cover up the lower protein content.

Unfortunately, it's not just milk that's affected. Milk is an ingredient in many products, including baby food. In order to protect infants, the European Union has put the kibosh on baby food containing Chinese milk. Any products containing more than fifteen percent milk powder will be tested before being sold, according to new rules taking effect today.

The World Health Organization and UNICEF issued a statement about the scandal, saying "Whilst any attempt to deceive the public in the area of food production and marketing is unacceptable, deliberate contamination of foods intended for consumption by vulnerable infants and young children is particularly deplorable." I couldn't have said it better.

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A family of nine children, ranging in age from one to seventeen, was left at a Nebraska hospital on Wednesday, thanks in part to the state's unique safe haven law. Generally, such laws are intended to protect newborn infants from being killed or left to die by allowing the parents to leave them at a hospital or police station without fear of prosecution.

That's the way Nebraska's law started out too -- but concern over arbitrary age limits led to the inclusion of the term "child" in the law, allowing it to apply to, some say, anyone up to the age of nineteen. The nine children left at Creighton University Medical Center were brought in by their father. "It was the parents not wanting to continue the journey with their kids," said Todd Landry of Children and Family Services, speaking of the older kids that have been abandoned since the law went into effect. In addition to the nine siblings, two other, unrelated, boys, aged eleven and fifteen, were also left at a hospital.

I can sort of understand a parent feeling the need to give up a newborn infant -- they may be unable to care for the baby or may not be ready for that sort of responsibility -- but I can't imagine abandoning a child older than that, let alone a teenager. By the time a kid is a year or two old, I would imagine that any parent would have bonded with them enough to make such an action impossible. And what about the kids? What sort of effect would this have on kids old enough to understand what's happening? It seems to me that Nebraska better start budgeting for a whole lot of therapists if this keeps up.

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If you've got a teen who hangs out at the skatepark more than the ballpark, leaves textbooks at home in order to have room in their locker for their skateboard, and would rather read Thrasher magazine than Playboy, then chances are, you've got a serious skateboarder on your hands. There's nothing wrong with that, of course -- I used to ride a skateboard pretty much every day, albeit more as transportation than as recreation.

The only thing is, skater life doesn't seem to be all that compatible with high fashion when it comes to interior design. That is, until now. Skate Study House has developed a line of furniture made with actual skateboard parts that would look at home in your teen's bedroom or in Martha Stewart's living room.

There are coffee tables, lounge chairs, and shelving units, but my favorites by far are the Astro Clock and the Hang Up, both of which incorporate skateboard wheels into the design. As for prices, well, if you want a price list you have to ask and if you have to ask... I guess I won't be hanging my hat on a skateboard wheel any time soon.

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This year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control is recommending that kids as young as six months receive the influenza vaccine. There are plenty of doses of the vaccine available -- 143 million -- so the additional kids do not represent a problem. Dr. Julie Gerberding of the CDC says that more kids vaccinated means fewer kids that will die, not to mention fewer "headaches with cranky children."

"It's a fact," Gerberding noted, "that the influenza vaccine saves lives by not only helping to prevent flu but also by preventing the serious complications that sometimes result from infection with influenza." The CDC is confident that the vaccine this year will "be on target", according to Dr. Daniel Jernigan, deputy director of the influenza division. Despite a less-than-ideal vaccine last year, there have been good matches sixteen of the last twenty years.

We'll likely get our kids vaccinated, including the baby if our pediatrician recommends it. Will you do the same?

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Want to save your marriage despite having kids? Remember this.