It's easy to quit smoking, the old saying goes. I've done it plenty of times.

I picked up the habit just a few years ago, a byproduct of where I was spending my free time. But when I got married last year, I decided to quit. And I did, for a few weeks. And I picked it up again. And I quit again. And I "secretly" kept going.

Turns out I wasn't kidding anyone. That smell? Yeah, kids smell it too. And they may be polite about it to your face, but they find it disgusting.

The other day we were walking into a restaurant and saw a woman sitting out front, smoking a cigarette. It was downright scary. Her skin was actually gray. I don't know what caused it, but the girls and I looked at each other and knew that the cigarette she was smoking couldn't have helped.

"Remember what you just saw if you ever think of taking up smoking," I said when we were far enough away from the smoker.

"I know," Pax said. "Lucky thing you stopped."

Ouch. She knew. I had kidded myself into thinking that the girls didn't know I had been smoking every day. Just stop in the early afternoon, and by the time you get home, no one will be the wiser, I thought. The girls weren't that dumb, thank you very much.

I really have stopped smoking. Haven't had a cigarette at all since July 11. They say you take it one day at a time, and that's true at first. But after a while, you do stop thinking about it. I don't remember what was "fun" about smoking, but I do know what's fun about being a husband, being a stepfather, anticipating biological fatherhood. To blow that away for the "pleasure" of a puff of smoke? Not me. Not anymore. Too much to live for.

> Discuss this entry

Some college presidents believe 18-year-olds are mature enough to make rational decisions about how much to drink.

More than 100 have lent their support to the Amethyst Initiative, which theorizes that the drinking age just encourages those under 21 to binge and break the law with their fake IDs. If 18-year-olds can vote, enlist in the military and serve on juries, they say, why can't they order at a bar?

Some big-name universities have signed on, including the presidents of Dartmouth, Duke, Ohio State, University of Maryland and Syracuse.

Do you think the drinking age should go down to 18? Or do you think the higher age prevents car accidents and stupid decisions?

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I was accepting the fact that my 11-year-old will get her first cell phone in the next year or so, but a new warning is giving me pause.

The director of the University of Pittsburgh's Cancer Institute, Dr. Ronald B. Herberman, told his staff last week they should limit their cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer. He said children should only use cell phones for emergencies because the phones' electromagnetic radiation could affect their developing brains.

Although lots of studies have shown no link between cell phones and cancer, cell phones have not been around long enough to study their long-term effects. I have a feeling we aren't going to like what we hear 20 years from now about these toys that have become so important to us.

But it's also become almost impossible to raise a kid today without giving them a cell phone. Even if you tell them not to use it too often and to use a headset, they are going to do what they want when you're not nearby.

What kind of limits have you placed on your kids' cell phone use?

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My wife, Shola, and I see doctors differently. I avoid them; she sees them as a resource. To me, it’s a challenge to stay out of the doctor’s office; she sees a doctor's visit as a faster route to good health. Neither is wrong, but they inevitably conflict when it comes to parenting – as they did this week.

Rowan, our 7-month-old, gets sick regularly. He has bronchiolitis, and the pediatrician says he’ll get sick on and off until he’s 2. The tricky thing is to figure out when his routine illness is turning into something else. And this week Alexander, who’s 2, got a double ear infection. Then Rowan started pulling on his ear. And just to make matters more complicated, Rowan is teething. So the question arose: should Rowan visit the doctor?

I said no. My reason wasn’t medical. I was falling back on my hardy Midwest upbringing. I’m sure I went to a pediatrician as a kid, but I have no memory of it. Heck, I wonder if our “gentleman’s farm” in Central Illinois even had heat. So I protested that Rowan didn’t need to see the doctor, and cited the evidence from my childhood. Yes, Shola responded, “that’s why you can’t hear now.” Fair point, I thought: I do like the TV much louder than she. So I relented, given that winning this argument essentially involved putting our child at risk.

So I took Rowan to the pediatrician, which thankfully did not take all morning. She checked him and pronounced ears “perfect.” He was sick, but in the familiar way. So I enjoyed a moment of pride – we didn’t need a doctor after all! (This reaction, of course, is nothing to be proud of.) But then the pediatrician offered this line: “It’s hard to tell when his congestion gets more serious, so you were right to bring him in.” Ah, so close to victory!

Later that day, as I gave Rowan a bottle, something else happened. He pulled at his ears.

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The West Broward Family YMCA is giving free water safety and swim lessons to young children this month. The first session runs from June 16 - 20, and the second session is June 23-27 at the center, 20201 Saddle Club Road, Weston.

Participants do not have to be Y members to receive the lessons.

Pre-K lessons are 3:15-4:15 weekdays; kindergarten and first-grade lessons are 4:15-5:15 p.m. weekdays.

For information call 954-424-9622.

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Dry drowning. Ever heard of it?

I hadn't until my brother passed along the following link. A 10-year-old from South Carolina died this week, more than hour after he had gone swimming.

Apparently, during his day at the pool, water accumulated in his lungs. He walked home with his mother, talking normally, and then went to bed because he felt very tired. He never woke up.

About 3,600 Americans died from drowning in 2005, according to the latest figures by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). An estimated 10-15 percent of those were classified as "dry drowning," in which death occurs up to 24 hours later because of water entering the respiratory system.

As the summer swimming season kicks off with the end of school this week, I'm keeping this story top of mind. My hope is to teach my 3-year-old to swim this summer.

Any tips on good private instructors or classes for pre-schoolers?

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My almost three-old-year old daughter, Ana Isabel, caught a cold at Mommy and Me. And she brought it home, promptly sharing it with her little brother, Lucas Emilio, who is five weeks old.

Not exactly the kind of sharing we would like. Nonetheless, we never had to deal with a sick Ana at this age since she didn't have other little children brining home germs.

Lucas mostly sounds congested and he makes a lot of noises when he sleeps. Before this came on, he was sleeping in three and four hour stretches, which was great for a kid his age. Not any more.

We have a suction bulb that we use to clear his nose. And we prop up his body so the mucus can drain when he sleeps. I know some say a humidifier can help loosen up the congestion.

But is there anything else that we can do to deal with a cold in baby at this age? I know drugs are out. A tired and sleep papa would welcome any suggestions.

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We have a new member of the household: a nebulizer. It arrived a couple of weeks ago after our baby, Rowan, got bronchiolitis.

He takes his medicine, albuterol, two or three times a day through the nebulizer, which allows him to breathe it through a mist.

Our 2-year-old, Alexander, was at first scared by the apparatus, but now finds the chicken design on the mask funny and announces that it’s time for “Rowan’s medicine” when he hears the machine’s loud humming kick on.

Bronchioloitis appears among babies at day care, which Rowan started at 3 months. But I’m curious about other people’s experience with albuterol. Rowan seems to be OK with taking it, but I doubt that will last. I gather that bronchioloitis can last up to age 2. Our good friends talked about getting to the point of having to hold their daughter down in order to use the nebulizer.

Have people found it worked? What’s been your experience? Any side effects from the medicine?

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Just in time for Mother’s Day, a Bal Harbour plastic surgeon is releasing a new children’s book: “My Beautiful Mommy.”

The illustrated book helps walk little kids through understanding why Mommy wants that tummy tuck, breast augmentation or nose job.

“But you’re already the prettiest Mommy in the whole wide world!” reads an excerpt from the book by Dr. Michael Salzhauer posted on Newsweek's Web site.

No matter. Mommy doesn’t feel that way.

I’m doing my best not to pass judgment. (I’ll leave that to all of you transPARENT readers and those of the parenting bloggers at our sister newspaper, Orlando Sentinel.) Not my job.

Let me just say I’m happy I have a son. I can only imagine how difficult it would be for a young girl to deal with a Mom who is struggling with body image issues.

Believe me, I have my share of those. But my son is more interested in cars and robots than whether Mommy is upset that she still can’t get into her pre-pregnancy jeans. I have often thought about how mindful I would have to be about making seemingly innocuous comments (“Do I look fat in this outfit? I look pregnant!”) if I had a daughter.

For all you mothers of daughters out there: How have you handled the issue of body image? Any inadvertent missteps?

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Our 16-year-old daughter, a vegetarian, has recently read the book The Omnivores Dilemma, by Michael Pollan.

This New York Times bestseller opened her eyes to food additives, including high fructose corn syrup, MSG, hydrogenated oils, artificial colors, flavors and sweeteners. Pollan, a science and food writer who has conducted tremendous research into where our food comes from, suggests a mantra we should all live by: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

By food, he means food that would be recognizable to your great-great grandparents in the 19th century. Food that comes from real plants and animals that are fed what nature intended for them to eat.

Abby vowed on Easter Sunday that she would no longer eat any bad food additives. Her chocolate bunny remains unopened. She printed a list for my reference from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a group of liberal, activist scientists concerned about our food supply .

Meanwhile, daughter No. 2, who will eat meat and has no compunctions regarding high-fructose, multicolored “food,” gets insanely painful migraines of unknown source. The neurologist’s recommendation: No food additives. No peanuts. No chocolate. No caffeine. No hard cheeses.

And my husband has slightly elevated blood pressure, so low-sodium for him.

I challenge you to walk in my shoes for just one trip to the grocery store. Try reading the labels on everything you buy. High fructose corn syrup is everywhere: In crackers. In jelly. In waffles and cereal. In strawberry cream cheese. Artificial sweeteners are in almost anything labeled “low” or “no” sugar. MSG is in packaged soups, taco seasoning, salad dressings and lots of mixed spices. You’ll see long lists of things that turn out to be benign vitamins in bread, but then there’s BHA or BHT. There are sulfites in bacon, sausage and frozen turkey and chicken products.

Sodium is loaded into soups, canned vegetables and almost every prepared food. Cold cuts have all kinds of complicated-sounding preservatives. Tuna has traces of toxic metals such as mercury which might trigger migraines.

Do you know how hard it is in the 21st century to sustain yourself on a 19th-century diet?

We’re managing so far. But even with the no-additives diet, our younger daughter has been sidelined with a migraine for the past two days.

I guess I really am going to have to take that no-peanuts edict seriously. But what do you put in a lunchbox for a kid who cannot eat cheese, peanut butter, cold cuts or tuna?

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Ana Isabel is two and half and hates shoes.

It doesn't help that my wife, who is nine months pregnant, often has swollen ankles and feet at this point. So she often ends up either barefoot or putting on sandals.

I'm the one always insisting that Ana put on her slippers or shoes. And it's not just about dirty feet either.

The other day Ana was walking with a noticeable limp. She favored her right leg.

Of course, I feared the worst. I worry that her bare feet hitting the cold, hard tiles in the house could have a detrimental effect on their development. I know that when I walk barefoot for too long, it hurts my feet.

We later realized that when Ana slipped trying to climb onto our bed in the morning she banged her ankle against the bed frame. It swelled for two days, but it's better now.

Still, it seems to me that Ana sometimes has a misstep in her walk.

Am I crazy or is it only natural for a toddler to reject the restrictions of footwear? Should papa stop being a fuddy duddy and just let Ana run wild bare foot?

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Lily, our kindergartner, had her first experience with vomit this week. Of course she has thrown up before, but not that she remembers.

"That's disgusting!'' she wailed while crying and looking down at her macaroni-and-cheese pile on the bathroom rug. (Apparently she did not chew her food, because the noodles were intact.)

She didn't even know to throw up into the toilet.

"Use the toilet!'' Bob urged.

She pulled her pants down and sat on the toilet.

"Do you have to go the bathroom?'' I asked. "No,'' she said.

I guess it's not a human instinct to regurgitate into the toilet. One has to learn these things.

Every time she threw up she cried in shock and horror as if she'd never heard of, seen or imagined one's dinner from the night before suddenly flying out of one's mouth, mixed with bile and acids.

All this provoked an interesting discussion about what terminology should be used to describe the act of blowing chunks. I told her it was called barf. Bob objected to this.

"It's puke,'' Lily told us.

I think that word is even grosser.

Vomit might very well be the word in the English language with the most synonyms. Here are a few:
upchuck
barf
vomit
hurl
ralph
purge
puke
hork
buick
spew
regurgitate
throw up
toss your cookies
lose your lunch
toss a sidewalk pizza
tango with the toilet
make modern art in the toilet
have a technicolor yawn
expunge the contents of your stomach
bare your guts to the world
become a multicolored organic fountain
revisit your breakfast
vomit your victuals
drive the porcelain bus
perform peristaltic pyrotechnics
paint the town red.. and green and orange and pink
have to say "that tasted better going down than coming up"
burp to the ninth power
make the janitor get out the ol’ sawdust bucket
find out just how acidic your stomach contents are
greet your guts
pray to the porcelain god

Those are from the Urban Dictionary.

Also, I believe that if you asked most parents, the only vomit they would ever consider touching in this world would be their own kids'. It's just one of those disgusting things you get used to doing when you have kids. Am I wrong?

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Two weeks ago, a mother told the Broward County Commission that when her son was two, he started acting like a girl. The child is 7 now, and they've been raising him as a daughter.

The mom showed a photo, and said her child was diagnosed with a gender disorder at age 3.

She was speaking about this because the county was passing a law giving protection against discrimination to transgender people.

I am really torn by this. My heart bleeds for this little child. But I can't help but think a parent should not make a decision that profound when the child is that young.

I don't know much about gender disorders, and I would imagine there's a lot of debate out there in the medical world about it. It just seems possible that the little boy was just playing around. I know I had a very long tomboy phase where I refused to wear skirts or dresses and hated girly stuff. I even had a pair of very boyish shoes I was quite proud of. Nothing with a pointed toe was coming near me.

Thank God my mother did not decide to take me to a therapist -- no telling what I would have said in there.

I know a little boy who wears his sisters' dresses. I'll bet it's not uncommon. Maybe if his mom fed that desire, he'd become even more girly. I don't know. Maybe I'm exhibiting the ignorance of the masses on this. I know they say the suicide rate for transgender kids is really high. Maybe it's because they're forced to remain a gender they don't want to be.

When this kid the County Commission was told about was two and the mom would say, "good boy,'' he would respond with "no, mommy, good girl!'' Then he started wanting to leave the house with a wig on. He stole his mom's makeup, he wanted his fingernails painted every day.

I just don't know what to think about this, except to be heartbroken.

To summarize the debate on this: Is your true self in your body, or in your mind? And even if it's in your mind, is the mind of a 3-year-old capable of knowing what it ultimately wants to be?

Keep reading for the full text of her testimony. It's captivating, really.

And here is a website with more information:

Family Acceptance Project

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Now there's another chemical we have to worry about in shampoos and packaging, a yucky sounding stabilizer called phthalates.

A new study shows more than 80 percent of infants have been exposed to phthalates (pronounced THA-lates), which have been linked with male reproductive problems. Phthalates are also found in cosmetics, children's toys, vinyl flooring and food packaging.

I don't have boys, but I am confident that anything connected with reproductive problems in one sex applies to us all. And I know the FDA "has no compelling evidence that phthalates pose a safety risk when used in cosmetics," according to one of their spokesmen, but I am not going to wait 10 years for them to announce that yes, it was true.

A couple of weeks ago, I went through all the shampoos and lotions in our house looking for parabens, which some studies have linked with breast cancer. Now I am going to scan the microscopic ingredient lists to look for phthalates, which are labeled DEP and DEHP, when they are labeled at all.

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We rid our house this week of yogurt-covered raisins.

The seemingly benign snack, an on-and-off favorite of my three-year-old son’s, almost killed our beagle, Chico.

Late one night this week, Chico managed to get into my son’s diaper bag, pull out a sealed Ziploc bag of yogurt raisins and chew a hole through it. When my husband stumbled upon him feasting on top of our bed, it was hard to tell if Chico had eaten two or twenty.

What happened next could be best described as pet pandemonium: My husband panicked, remembering a passing conversation with a friend years ago that raisins, grapes and chocolate can be toxic for dogs. He searched the Internet and read that as little as seven raisins can be lethal.

We had to do something. Little did I know it would involve making my dog throw up (by giving him 3 tablespoons of hydrogen peroxide) and sifting through the vomit to count just how many raisins he may have eaten. Those were the instructions of the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center, which, by the way, also charged my credit card $60 for the advice.

The final score for the three-hour ordeal: 49 raisins! (Beagles are known for their insatiable appetite.)

The next morning we took Chico to the vet to run some tests to make sure he wasn’t showing signs of renal failure. They came back clean.

We dodged a bullet on this one. Our dog is a member of our family, my son’s brother, as he calls him. But the scare served as a good wake-up call: We’re re-checking our childproof locks and making sure the cabinets are kept securely closed.

And we’ve said goodbye to yogurt raisins.

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My three-year-old son had his first dental check-up today – and he was a champ. It didn’t hurt that the office was decked out in safari décor, with bamboo-framed flat-screen TVs blasting Disney favorites like Monsters Inc. and Ratatouille.

Oh, and did I mention the three videogame stations?

What I loved best of all was the way the hygienist and dentist talked to my son. They explained every tool, prefaced every action with a gentle warning, and let him participate by holding the suction device. He even agreed to wear sunglasses to keep the bright light from hurting his eyes. (If you knew my son, you’d know that he’d rather do just about anything than wear 1) a hat 2) sunglasses 3) stickers.)

Despite the smooth visit, I left the office with some homework: Regularly floss my son’s teeth and give him fluoridated water to drink. I’m on board with the flossing. But I have mixed feelings about the extra fluoride. I figured fluoride in toothpaste was enough.

How did you handle the fluoride issue with your kids?

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The only thing worse than dealing with your child's complete and utter emotional meltdown is doing so while trapped in a car on a roadtrip.

Which is what happened to us this weekend.

Over the years, I've come to realize that when a child's mood suddenly alters for no good reason, oftentimes there's a physical cause.

I've talked to Lily's pediatrician and he agreed that she probably has low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia.

I wish I'd known this when she was an infant, because she really showed signs of it back then. Basically, if she misses a meal, she loses her mind. Her blood sugar drops too low, and she cries uncontrollably.

As an infant, that meant if she didn't get fed before she was really hungry, she no longer wanted a bottle. She just wanted to scream at the top of her lungs for a half hour.

Now, it means if she gets over-hungry and -- even worse -- consumes candy on an empty stomach, she has a nervous breakdown until we can force a peanut butter cracker down her throat.

Here are the symptoms I found on a health website (I'll put the pertinent one in bold):
Shakiness, dizziness, sweating, hunger, headache, irritability, pale skin color, sudden moodiness or behavior changes, such as crying for no apparent reason, clumsy or jerky movements, difficulty paying attention, or confusion, tingling sensations around the mouth.

It's sad to watch, really. This time Lily started sobbing in the back seat during our drive to
Jacksonville. And once she gets on a crying jag with low blood sugar, she can't stop. And life seems miserable.

"I don't want to be in this family,'' she sobbed. "I'm going to live in the woods!''

She's only 5. I don't think living in the woods is an option in Broward County, anyway. There are no woods.

"This is the worst day of my life,'' she cried.

"Ditto,'' we were thinking.

I always carry my handy dandy peanut butter crackers, since I finally figured out what was going on. And we made her eat one, and sure enough, her half-hour dismal state of emotion was over.

I doubt there are any parenting counselors who would advise that when your child starts crying for no reason, you say, "Here, eat! You'll feel better!''

But in this case it works.

There are plenty of websites where the problem of hypoglycemia is discussed.

I learned that a symptom of a hypoglycemic episode during the night is nightmares. Lily has those on a regular basis.

I always ask her what she was dreaming. The other night she told me her nightmare was this: a bad guy was trying to hit her with a pillow.

Ahhh, to be a child.

Here's one of the stranger 'triggers' I ran across on the Web:

"If an older child drinks alcohol on an empty stomach.''

Ummmm, OK.

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I spent a few hours this weekend reading the labels on our shampoos, conditioners, deodorants, moisturizers and other cosmetics and throwing many of them in the garbage.

I was looking for an ingredient called "parabens" that a friend told me have been linked to breast cancer. And most of them did contain parabens, with terms like "methylparaben," "propylbaraben" and "benzylparaben" in microscopic print.

According to the Breast Cancer Fund, parabens interact with estrogens and accumulate over a lifetime. Here's a scary statement from their Web site about parabens in antiperspirants: “Frequency and earlier onset of antiperspirant/deodorant usage with underarm shaving were associated with an earlier age of breast cancer diagnosis.”

It looks like it shouldn't be too hard to find shampoos without parabens; I only had to toss a few of those from our house. But all our sunscreens had them. I may have to make a special trip to the cosmetic section of Whole Foods when the weather gets hot again.

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Another day, another new study on TV and toddlers.

The latest released this week found that children under 3 who watched shows that involved violence –- even the seemingly harmless “bonk” on the head in Tom and Jerry –- were more likely to develop attention problems five years later.

The researchers at the University of Washington found that educational shows, such as Sesame Street, had no correlation with future attention problems.

Doesn’t seem all that surprising. But it’s nice that researchers are finally acknowledging the difference between TV shows, as opposed to simply saying all TV is bad.

What shows are off limits in your household?

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My son recently had his three-year check-up. And, as usual, the doctor asked whether I wanted to give him a flu shot. I had fully expected to do so, until I asked whether the flu shot contained the ingredient thimerosal, a form of mercury used in small amounts as a preservative in many flu vaccines.

It did, so I turned down the shot. And now I’m feeling guilty about it as I search for other places where I can give my son a thimerosol-free flu shot, which he had received the past two years with other doctors.

Aside from typical jitters of injecting mercury into my son’s veins, there’s the larger concern that has been raised in recent years: Some researchers and patient advocacy groups have charged there is a possible link between thimerosal and autism. As a precaution, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the U.S. Public Health Service in the late 1990s agreed that vaccines given to children should be thimerosal-free (or have only traces of it).

The only exception? The flu vaccine.

Some say the possible benefits of getting a flu shot (even one with thimerosal) outweighs the possible negatives. But I’m not so sure.

Just because the ingredient hasn’t been deemed “unsafe” is not reason enough for me to expose my son to it. It reminds me of the recent controversy over cold and cough medicine for young children: The medicine hasn’t been labeled “unsafe,” but that didn’t stop drug makers from pulling certain brands from store shelves until further study.

So tell me: Am I making a mountain out of a molehill?

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While writing a story about Jazmyne Robinson, a Pembroke Pines girl who called 9-1-1 after her brother went unconscious in the family pool, I asked the Baby Otter Swim School to give me a water-safety checklist.

They caution (correctly) that nothing makes a pool completely safe, but they sure provided a heck of a list, perhaps the most complete I've seen. Here are their "layers of protection":

1.) Parental supervision
2.) 4- to 5- foot fence around pool and a closing gate
3.) Fence around yard
4.) Telephone by pool for emergency use only - call 911
5.) Proper safety equipment near pool - a "Shepherd's hook." You never want to jump into the water to make a rescue because you can become a victim as well.
6.) Pool water level as high as possible so edge of pool can be reached by small child
7.) Alarm chime on exit doors to pool area
8.) Know CPR
9.) Swimming lessons
10.) Know how to turn off pool pump if swimmer gets caught in drain.
11.) Proper drain cover
12.) Remove all toys or rafts in pool when finished swimming.
13.) Cover for spa
14.) Teach safe pool rules to your children.

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I noticed a long time ago that after giving my kids cough medicine, their coughs were unchanged.

I wondered what was in these concoctions that they had absolutely no effect. Now I see I wasn't imagining this.

A Food and Drug Administration panel has proposed banning these medicines for kids under age 6 because of health risks and little proof that they work. And they apparently don't work for adults either. The American College of Chest Physicians recommended last year that people with coughs take antihistamines instead of cough syrups.

The most difficult part of all this is what to do with a kid who's coughing. You feel so bad for them and want to help them. My kids want me to do SOMETHING if they're sick, even if it means giving them these placebo medicines.

Will you give up cough syrups now? Or do you think they really work?

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If 40 percent of Creed's schoolmates are on free or reduced lunch, then why do they all have cell phones and braces?

As some of you know from earlier posts, we gave in to the pressure and bought Creed a cell phone this summer when he turned 12. I've resisted his begging to improve his "plan,' and I put only $15 on this pre-paid phone every month. That doesn't allow him enough minutes to actually use the thing for phone calls. Which is fine!

So I hear a lot about "everyone'' having better cell phones and cell phone plans than he does. He said that in comparison to his peers, he is "low-tech.''

Now I come to find out that the other "right'' he and his peers think they have is to get braces. You know, orthodontics. The thing that only the rich kids had when I was little. The thing my parents said we could not afford, and thus, I did not get.

I took Creed to the orthodontist yesterday, and of course they suggested he wear them for 18 months for the low price of $2,400.

This was no surprise. If I drove a new car to a car lot, I would assume the car salesman would come up with a reason for me to buy another new car.

No different at the braces factory. Creed's teeth aren't even crooked, but the guy pointed out that his least straight teeth are the ones that show the most! Gads!

I was wearing my new "Don't Tase Me, Bro,'' t-shirt, and the orthodontist laughed but then admitted he didn't get it. Then when he saw that Creed also had a t-shirt, he said, "oh, so you're a t-shirt family?'

Yeah, we're a t-shirt family. WHATEVER!!

Then he told Creed that his face is pretty and he could pass for a girl. Then he asked why in the world we call him "Creed.'' What kind of nickname is THAT?, he asked.

It's his middle name.

We'll probably go ahead and let Creed get braces. But first I had to tell him that he and his peers at Seminole Middle School, if they indeed 'all have braces,' are just a bunch of spoiled American brats who apaprently cannot afford to pay for lunch but are entitled to have perfectly symmetrical teeth.

"Do you think that in Third World countries, the children are running around saying, 'I need braces so I can have a perfect smile?' '' I asked Creed last night on the way home. "No, they're saying, 'I'm starving. I haven't eaten in two days! I need food!'' I told him.

"Is this a Third World country?'' Creed asked.

"No, but even in this country, poor kids don't get the privilege of braces.''

"Are we poor?''

"No! But I want you to know that you don't have a right to braces. You're only getting them because you're a spoiled American brat.''

That was good enough for him.

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