Actor Ethan Hawke welcomed a baby girl into the world July 18th, according to his representative. Hawke and his wife, former nanny (to his kids with Uma Thurman) Ryan Shawhughes, are proud parents to Clementine Jane Hawke. Clementine is the first child for the newlyweds and joins siblings Maya Rae and Levan Roan, Ethan's kids with Uma Thurman.
Mara Buxbaum confirmed the happy news. Hawke and Shawhughes married a month ago. Hawke split from Thurman in 2004, and it is alleged that she may be pregnant as well.
Hugh Jackman is no stranger to parenthood. The X-Men star is dad to two children and remembers what it was like to be a new parent. One thing he didn't care for was all the advice lopped at him. As a result, Jackman has endeavored to decline from offering parenting advice to other new parents. He is refusing to offer advice to new mom Nicole Kidman (and new dad Keith Urban). Nicole and Keith recently welcomed daughter Sunday Rose into the world. No word on whether or not they actually sought advice from Jackman, but if they did or do, they ain't gonna get any.
Jackman did go on to say that he received one bit of useful advice from the man who helped deliver his son--never to rock the baby. According to Jackman, if one does this one will spend one's life doing it. He declined to offer this information to his Australian compatriots.
What do you think? Did you appreciate advice when you were a new parent or did it annoy you like it did Hugh Jackman? New parents, regardless of whether or not they're celebrities, have a lot to learn about raising a baby. Ultimately, there's only one way to do it, and that is to go through it and learn from experience.
Sometimes, a little vice makes all the difference. No, I'm not talking about drugs or sex or anything like that. I'm talking about things like playing escape-the-room games or surfing real estate websites to find the perfect (or at least affordable) vacation home. Or, in Stefanie Ilgenfritz's case, watching soap operas.
She writes, in the Wall Street Journal, about her secret love of soaps and how she looks forward during the week to watching her taped episodes on the weekends. For me, it's the occasional game (usually one posted on Lazy Laces) or reading some of my favorite webcomics (like xkcd or Questionable Content) or looking at houses for sale in the Russian River area and fantasizing about taking the kids up to the river on the weekends.
I'm sure there are just as many such guilty pleasures as there are parents, but these sorts of harmless fun -- while not exactly getting the chores done -- help us all keep our sanity. And, as I learned a long time ago in another life, you have to care for the caregiver.
Bullying, unfortunately, is a fact of life for many kids. Even funny man and former Saturday Night Live star Will Ferrell had to deal with bullies. The star of the soon-to-be-released Step Brothers says when he was a kid he was taunted by a neighborhood bully.
This teenage bully was unique in that he threatened to shrink Ferrell and even carried around a vial of some sort of powder to prove he was capable of doing so. Ferrell claims he was so traumatized he had nightmares about being shrunk. Hopefully he didn't watch the televised presentation of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. That would have pushed him over the edge!
Who came to the rescue? Says Ferrell, his mom eventually made the kid come clean that the powder would not, in fact, shrink anyone. Ferrell grew up to be a major star. The bully? Who knows. But I wonder who's feeling small NOW! Moral of the story? We all deal with bullies and we all get past it. If we're lucky our moms will set things straight and, if we're really lucky, we'll grow up to be household names. Take that, bullies!
Welsh actor Sean Connery has left his son out of his will. According to his ex-wife, the reasoning behind this is that his son, Jason, should provide for himself.
Jason is now forty-five years old, so one would hope he indeed is able to provide for himself. And, in fact he is. According to reports, the father and son fell out after Jason threatened to drop the family name--the reason behind the fight in the first place. Jason works as an actor and director, gigs his father claims he got only because of his name.
According to Connery's ex-wife Diane Cilento, the relationship became strained after Connery cut off the money to his son. What would you do? If you were in a position of power or influence, would you open doors for your children, or would you make them work for it all? Or, would you do something in between?
Here's the good news: Disney is finally creating their first African-American princess. Here's the bad news: They just can't seem to get it right. The first version, The Frog Princess, was scrapped due to complaints that it was too stereotypical. The princess, named Maddy, was to be a chambermaid who worked for a spoiled white woman. Maddy is saved from a voodoo magician by a white prince, with help from her voodoo fairy godmother.
Disney's second version -- The Princess and the Frog --is still a musical set in New Orleans, but the company is keeping mum on most of the details. The heroine will be a 19-year-old named Tiana, and the film will be set in the Jazz Age. Disney says, "Princess Tiana will be a heroine in the great tradition of Disney's rich animated fairy tale legacy, and all other characters and aspects of the story will be treated with the greatest respect and sensitivity." Let's all hope they do exactly that.
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Though my girls have gone in and out of the Disney princess phase, because one arm of our family is Ojibwe, we've never let them see Pocahontas. Unlike Cinderella, Ariel, and Sleeping Beauty, for example, Pocahontas was a real person, and Disney didn't do history any favors when they fictionalized the events that took place. Though Tiana isn't a historical figure, I really do hope that Disney pays attention to the opportunity they have in front of them, and turn out a movie that's sensitive, appropriate, and fun, all a the same time.
Feist's hit song 1234 might not be what you want to use to teach your little one to count -- she leaves out a couple numbers on the way to ten. For an upcoming appearance on Sesame Street, however, she's changed the lyrics to focus on learning to count just to four. Stick with what you know, I say. In advance of the clip appearing on the show, it's made its way to YouTube.
Feist apparently enjoyed her performance with the Muppets an awful lot -- she told reporters at the Juno awards that "it was the best day of my life. I'm sorry Junos, but the Muppets trump everything!" Who could blame her, after all? Once upon a time, performing at Carnegie Hall was the hallmark of success, but if you ask me, getting to be on Sesame Street beats that hands -- or flippers, or paws, or whatever -- down.
For someone who had little to say about her pregnancy, Minnie Driver is certainly opening up these days. She won't reveal the name of the baby's father and she has no plans on finding out the baby's sex before the big day, but she has a lot to say about the rest of parenting.
The actress recently revealed she has no real plans to stay with the baby's father and is seriously considering single motherhood. Now she admits she is prepared to be a "chubby" mother as well. As opposed to other Hollywood starlets who look like they were never pregnant to begin with (Keri Russell, I'm talking to YOU) or those who hit the gym moments after they shed the placenta and worked out frantically to reduce their size, Minnie has no plans to do anything other than be a mommy! Take that, Kate Hudson! (Hudson gained seventy pounds with son Ryder.)
Driver says to plan on seeing her around Malibu, and to plan on seeing her fat. As most of us realistic gals know, it takes a year to put it on, and heaven knows it can take at least a year to take it back off--if we ever do. Nice to hear someone from tinsel town taking a breath of reality! I doubt Minnie will stay 'chubby' as she likes to call it, given that she gained a ton of weight for her breakout role in Circle of Friends and lost all of it, but only time will tell. I just wish someone would advise Minnie she doesn't look fat now that she's pregnant--she looks fantastic!
Who should decide whether a book is age appropriate for your child? Is it you? Is it her teacher? How about the librarian? What about the entire education system? Or, perhaps the publisher? In a move that is sure to gain controversy, publishers are attempting to put age-appropriate information on the covers of their books.
The guidelines would be much those of the movies, which determine what may or may not be appropriate for someone of a given age. Authors among others are vehemently against such guidelines. Among them is none other than J K Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books (the movies of which naturally are advertised with such guidelines). Also among them is Philip Pullman, the author of the His Dark Materials books on which the movie the Golden Compass was based.
Pullman perhaps put it best when he said that by adding age limits it would exclude a group of readers and that he doesn't want to do that. I would imagine the last thing an author would want is to have fewer readers of his books! Look, I read Clan of the Cave Bear when perhaps I was a little too young to fully understand it--but I turned out all right. I think books are different than movies, somehow, but I can't put my finger on it. I don't know how I feel about age guidelines for movies--those don't mean anything anymore as the studios use them to get more viewers--but I can't say I champion the idea of putting restrictions on books. Henry Miller will spin in his grave!
Lots of flowy summer tops couldn't hide what the media was desperate to know: Would Jennifer Garner become a mommy a second time? Well, after months of such tops and much speculation, Violet's mom has finally come clean.
The star of television's Alias series and husband actor Ben Affleck are expecting their second child. According to reports, Garner is five months along. The news, as usual, came from a surprising source. Rather than being from Jen's own mouth, it came from Victor Garber, Garner's Alias costar who also presided over her wedding to Affleck.
No word yet on whether the new bundle to be is a girl or a boy. Heck, with the way things are going these days it could very well be twins on the way! Congratulations to the expectant couple!
Do you like baseball? Any kind of sport? What about traveling or other activities? If you said yes to any of the above, do you enjoy doing so with your spouse? A new report from a set of studies, some of which have been going on for more than a decade, seems to think that if you do, your marriage has more of a chance at surviving. You know the old saying "those that play together stay together?" Well, turns out there may be something to that after all. Howard Markman, co-director of the University of Denver's Center for Marital and Family Studies, believes that having fun with your spouse is essential to your marriage.
Seems like a no brainer, sure, but when was the last time you went on a date with your spouse? That's one of the questions asked of couples by Markman and Scott Stanley, the other co-director of the study. The results were interesting, especially when they found out that women and men have very different views on what constitutes a date. The last time you spent time with your spouse could seem forever ago due to the economy, raising kids, demanding careers and commutes, among other things. Still, I think any married couple will tell you it's critical to have fun in your shared lives if you want to get something meaningful out of your time together.
According to another study, marital interaction is actually on the decline. Paul Amato, a sociologist at the Pennsylvania State University, surveyed over 2000 couples in 1980 and another set of roughly the same amount in the year 2000 and found that the number of couples who consistently participated in leisure activities together declined. The good news? Markman, in a separate study, noted that cities with major league baseball teams had a divorce rate 28% less than cities who wanted one but didn't have one. Why? Well, it certainly gives married couples something to do! No comment on whether or not the couples were happier if their teams won the pennant.
Actor, comedian and some-time eyedrop commercial maker Ben Stein, who once offered America the chance to win his money, has written a funny and telling article over at the New York Times. Most of us know by now the man who is most famous for asking over and over again, "Bueller?" is an economics genius, but did you hear what he has to say about love? Well, according to Mr. Stein, there is an economics to love, too.
Take for example what he says about junk bonds: "High-quality bonds consistently yield more return than junk, and so it is with high-quality love." I think we can all agree we've had that junk bond love experience and Ben perhaps knows what he's talking about. They're great for the short term, but they won't--and don't--last. Stein likens this to dating someone with a ton of problems and thinking you can change that person. Of course, he also notes that it's impossible to do that unless you control the market.
Stein also said something that is sure to stick, at least with me. That is that one should "fall in love in haste and depart at leisure." This means that once you've found a winner, whether in love or in a stock, that you stick with it. Commitment is everything, as is nurturing. This is true of love of and for adults, but I would bet the same is true of parenting. Fall in love with your spouse, fall in love with your children, and do everything you can to stay in love with them. Good advice? I'd say so--and take that payout to the bank.
Actor Kevin Costner recently revealed his fear of fatherhood almost cost him his marriage. The Tin Cup star, already father to three children, was unsure of his ability to be an effective father to the children new girlfriend (now wife) Christine Baumgartner.
Christine made no bones about her desire to be a mother, and Costner admits it kept him from marrying her for years. Then the actor made a stark realization: lose a gorgeous young woman who wants to spend the rest of her life with you, or have another kid.
The pair wed in 2004 and Christine gave birth to the couple's first child, son Cayden, in 2007. I can appreciate Christine's candor--so many couples fail to discuss the crucial element of children before they get married. Either you want them, or you don't--and it's best to make that clear before you take a trip down the aisle. Looks like Christine got to have her cake and eat it too.
Humanity has done its best to destroy itself, but didn't succeed completely -- a few plucky individuals have survived and have banded together to rebuild society... It's not an uncommon theme; in fact post-apocalyptic tales are a whole sub-genre of science fiction, with recent films like the Terminator, Matrix, and, of course, the Mad Max series bringing them to the mainstream. These darker tales can be fun, exciting, and even enlightening.
What's new about the genre, however, is the number of such stories aimed at kids. Jeanne DuPrau's "Books of Ember" series, for example, coming to the big screen soon and featuring Bill Murray, is about a group of kids who have to figure out how to survive and save their civilization. It's aimed at pre-teens. Even Pixar's Wall-E is a sort of post-apocalyptic tale, with the title character doggedly trying to clean up a world too polluted for humans to live in.
So are these darker tales appropriate fodder for kids? "We have more ways of ending the world than we had before," explains DuPrau. "These are big, hard truths that are facing kids, and they need to know these things."
"There's a direct connection between things [kids] may do and the end of the world," notes author Michael Grant, whose novel "Gone" tells the story of a world where everyone over the age of fourteen has disappeared and the kids are left to fend for themselves. "When I was a kid hiding under the desk from Russian missiles, no one ever said, 'Here, Michael, here's what we need to do to avoid that'."
In reading books like this, I always focused on the adventure of post-disaster survival, rather than the lessons to be learned from the disasters and ensuing chaos, but perhaps kids need these lessons more these days. We do have a lot hanging over our heads now -- economic collapse, war, political instability, global climate change -- so perhaps kids do need an outlet for dealing with the word as it is today.
For two years straight, And Tango Makes Three was the top most challenged library book, according to the American Library Association. This year, however, another book might just take that dubious honor away. Uncle Bobby's Wedding is a story of a young guinea pig who is worried that her uncle's impending marriage will spell the end of her good times with her uncle. He explains that instead, she'll have two uncles to have fun with.
And therein lies the rub -- Uncle Bobby is marrying his boyfriend Jamie. The first of what will likely be many complaints was filed recently and ended up in the lap of Jamie LaRue, Director of the Douglas County Libraries in Castle Rock, Colorado. LaRue considered the challenge and responded with a well thought out, reasoned answer that he then shared on his website. That's a very good thing, because LaRue came up with exactly the right answers.
In his response, LaRue addresses the challenge that the subject of gay marriage, despite being incidental to the story, is inappropriate for young children. "I think a lot of adults imagine that what defines a children's book is the subject. But that's not the case. Children's books deal with anything and everything," he writes, noting that "what defines a children's book is the treatment, not the topic."
LaRue determines that the book "is a children's book, appropriately categorized and shelved in our children's picture book area." He goes on to explain that "if the library is doing its job, there are lots of books in our collection that people won't agree with; there are certainly many that I object to. Library collections don't imply endorsement; they imply access to the many different ideas of our culture, which is precisely our purpose in public life."
His response is well worth reading, even if only to remember what libraries are all about. It really is, however, a masterpiece of reasoned explanation. Hopefully, it will be widely read by librarians and serve as a precedent when other challenges come up. Kudos to Mr. LaRue for understanding the role and value of libraries and my thanks for standing up for what's right.
Sometimes, a little vice makes all the difference. No, I'm not talking about drugs or sex or anything like that. I'm talking about things like playing 
Here's the good news: 
Humanity has done its best to destroy itself, but didn't succeed completely -- a few plucky individuals have survived and have banded together to rebuild society... It's not an uncommon theme; in fact post-apocalyptic tales are a whole sub-genre of science fiction, with recent films like the Terminator, Matrix, and, of course, the Mad Max series bringing them to the mainstream. These darker tales can be fun, exciting, and even enlightening.
