I heard the most amazing thing on a playground today.. I'm forty-one years old. I have never hung out on playgrounds, not since I was a kid, so I haven't been tracking kids. In fact, I avoided them a lot before I had one. Don't get me wrong. I met and enjoyed several children. But the abstract CHILDREN concept never really appealed to me. That said, I was on a playground today, and was watching several kids. One of them looked like the buck-teethed smart aleck in Top Gun. He was about 8 years old and bigger than the other kids. They were all climbing on the climbing thingie and playing around. All of a sudden, a naked-as-a-jaybird two year old walks up. Grinning from ear to ear. The Top Gun kid yells GROSS, and yells hard at the baby. GROSS GROSS GROSS GROSS. You're NAKED. The baby smiles and begins climbing up the play structure. The older kid is yelling at the top of his lungs. Another kid, a rugged, kind of ordinary looking kid, looks up from the sidelines and yells "He's not gross. He's my LITTLE BROTHER." The first kid yells "he's GROSS. You can see his butt and his privates and everything." The baby is still playing up in the structure. The second kid comes over, tilts his head to look at the older kid, and yells "He's BEAUTIFUL." smile.... Then he turns and yells "Go Jake! Go Jake! Go Jake!" to his little brother, and again says, "he's BEAUTIFUL." Wow. People sure are raising their kids differently nowadays than they were when I was growing up. That's GREAT. My kudos to the unknown parent. - k