From the bad parenting department

I hope that the snake in this picture was well fed before the picture and not after.

Given that pythons like to squeeze and eat tiny mammals, I am not sure I would have put my baby mammal so close to one.

President Obama seems to like kids

I know there is the hoary cliche that politicians must like babies and go around kissing babies to get votes, but these photos of President Obama and some of his staff's children seem to show that he genuinely likes and is comfortable with kids. He must have gotten good practice with Malia and Sasha. It may also be that he is a young president, still rearing his own children, in contrast to the past several presidents.



These children from at the U.S. Embassy in Bejing look absolutely delighted to meet the president, and every single kid seems preternaturally cute.



I like this photo of him playing peek a boo with a staff member's daughter. It makes him seem human, just like the rest of us.


Here he is with the very cute granddaughter of Nancy Pelosi. The baby steal the scene with the angel outfit. Who wouldn't want to hold that angel baby, even if he were president.

Now for us to wrangle a legitimate invitation to the White House so that Linus can meet President Obama while he is still his cute baby self (before he turns into a cute toddler).


(via the Whitehouse Flickr pool, children at embassy, peek-a-boo, baby angel)

Linus swings at the cabin

Linus is on his first vacation trip to Lynn's family cabin in Escanaba, MI. Here he is on his first swing enjoying himself.

He also has a pretty nice baseball themed outfit on. We are working on getting him a swing set at his house at home.

Not the father son portrait I am aiming for.

I joke that when Linus was born all of my cuteness went to him and now I am left looking like this. Here is a case where another Daddy retained all of the cuteness he could.



I am so tempted to reproduce this ridiculous picture but I hope some of you out there find some way to restrain me. Perhaps with some advice in the comments.

(via Awkward Family Photos)

Cute baby photos increase lost wallet return rates

Apparently having a picture of a baby in your wallet makes it more likely that it will be returned to you, according to an unscientific study performed in Edinburgh. The wallets had no money in them, but did have either a baby picture, puppy photograph, a family picture, an elderly couple or cards indicating donations to a charity. In addition to those, wallets with no photographs served as controls. Forty wallets were left in various locations and the return rates noted.



The chart shows that, at least according to these results, the baby picture resulted in the highest rate of return. Commentors on BoingBoing describe a good extension to this study in which wallets containing baby photographs of varying attractiveness and differing amounts of money could be used to better quantify the baby photo effect.

Now to get wallet size photos of cute baby Linus for my wallet protection and return system.

(via BoingBoing, via the Times online)