It's Friday and the weekend has nearly landed - time for some vintage comedy from Monty Python's Meaning of Life. If you haven't seen this in a while - turn up the PC speakers (especially if you're are work) and sing along! Here it goes ... a great song for dads - "every sperm is sacred"! :-)

-Stef

Great news for our joint parenting eduction programme with Plunket which was specifically put together to get first time dads together to "talk shop" about parenting from a male perspective. We got awarded a grant by Sovereign Sunshine to help with the nationwide expansion of the programme. YAY!

The following story was covered by several publications yesterday. The text below featured in the NZ Herald yesterday:

A training and support group for new fathers has been given a $15,000 hand-out from charity fund-raiser Sovereign Sunshine.

OK - 5 days to go to Father's Day and here's a little clip from the youtube archives. Def Jam's Shihan on the very topic ...

-Stef

Hmmm ... some bar owners these days are getting very clever about getting their message through to parents.

Sign of the times?

(as seen on Marc Serena's blog http://www.lavueltadelos25.com)

-Stef

Who would have thought that the story of how fathers managed to get into delivery suites is documented in a book called “The Trouble With Women”. The book is the story of NZ’s Parent Centres put together by Mary Dobbie. As a dad who recently had the opportunity to exercise the right to be present during my son’s birth I am grateful for the numerous people who fought bureaucracy and ignorance so that fathers could be present during labour. No doubt this story is replicated the world over with many unsung heroes paving the way. In Wellington where I live, it wasn’t until 1972 that fathers were finally allowed in the delivery suites.

Over the past few weeks I have noticed how our little man started leaving bread crusts behind on his plate. At first I didn’t take much notice but after a while a realized that he does it on purpose (and not because he can’t bite it or isn’t hungry any more). It struck me as odd that he would this though since nobody in our house leaves bread crusts behind or cuts them off. Well – it took as a while to find out what was behind this new habit.

Call me a pedantic but for me there's something fundamentally wrong with not eating bread crusts (or even worse: cutting them off on purpose like some people do). It's like wasting food and the crust is a perfectly good part of the bread that can be eaten just like anything else. Especially when it's actually the healthiest part of a slice of bread (see research article here).

I came across this clip on youtube ... vintage Sesame Street and I just thought: what a great way to approach a potentially difficult subject and just chat about wheelchairs, handicaps and accidents.

-Stef

Hope you all had a fantastic Easter break with your kids - for many of us it's back to work now, so here's the final word on Easter 2009. (sorry I just had to post this one ...)

-Stef

The University of Auckland, Dept of Psychology is looking for participants in a study about men's opinions on issues relating to pre-birth genetic testing. This research aims to investigate men's opinions regarding prebirth testing for genetic risk for diseases and disabilities. Pregnancy-related issues are often stereotypically presented as issues for women only. In this study, we would like to empower men by giving them the opportunity of express their views on a topic which undeniably requires their involvement.

To learn more about the study and to take part, please send a blank email to prenatal@auckland.ac.nz.

Researcher:
Cecile Muller, Department of Psychology, The University of Auckland (Tamaki Campus), Private Bag 92019, Auckland.

Supervisor: