Given that Henry's first marriage lasted longer than his second through sixth marriages, put together, I fear that there is a lot more bodice-ripping to come.

The problem may be that this bit of history is so well-known to anybody who cares that it's hard to do anything fresh or interesting with it.

I just wanted to point out that the quote about male pregnancies in SF is misleading. In "The Left Hand of Darkness," all the inhabitants of the planet Gethen are ambisexual -- capable of playing either the male or the female role in reproduction. There are no men (except the hapless Terran narrator), but there are people in what we would consider stereotypically male roles who get pregnant, e.g. "the king was pregnant."

There's also Octavia Butler's story "Bloodchild," which she called her "pregnant man story." And there's Elizabeth Lynn's "The Man Who Was Pregnant," which is goofy fun. In John Varley's "Nine Worlds" stories, people change sex often, and population laws allow every individual to have one pregnancy. As for automating the process, I hereby refer you to the Vorkosigan books, by Lois McMaster Bujold. Pretty much any reproductive wrinkle you can think of, SF writers have tackled it. I am personally skeptical that the process will be automated any time soon, though. I mean, we haven't even made a really workable artificial heart yet. A functioning placenta supplied with the appropriate hormonal soup to accomplish normal development is a pretty daunting task, and how would you test it?

Focusing on what the article says about gender distorts its overall topic, which is the differences between history and fiction and how they've been defined. The thing I found most interesting was the way the discussion of "facts" and "truth" circa 1800 seemed so...post-modern.

This may be one of those situations where it pays to be lazy. We can't be bothered to keep up with the latest in baby stuff, so we just read our daughter the same books we were read as kids and give her the same kinds of toys to play with. We buy her almost nothing new. 80% of her clothes and toys are gifts or hand-me-downs, and good deal of the rest is bought second-hand. About the only thing I always buy new is shoes. We're the demographic that a lot of this baby paraphernalia is aimed at, but we hate to shop.

Our daughter watched essentially no TV until she was two, and now she mainly watches nature videos. She particularly likes the BBC "Life of Birds," which is not made for children. ("Look, the owl is eating a mouse!")

Btw, play pens still exist, they're just called "play yards" now. They have mesh instead of bars, so they look less like little prisons, but the effect is the same. You can also use a crib or a bassinet as a play pen, and a lot of people do, they just don't call it that.

I live in the heart of Silicon Valley, where many people have more money than they know what to do with. I have never felt criticized or ostracized because I haven't got the latest baby stuff or a high-tech stroller. (As a side note, I rarely see Bugaboos here -- expensive jogging strollers, yes; Bugaboos, no. The first time I ever saw one was when we spent a week in Manhattan last year.)

Also, what's with all the mentions of "flyover states" and "flyover country"? I never hear this term anywhere except online, used as a stick to beat the supposedly snobbish coastal types. Can we retire the sterotype of sophisticated city dwellers vs. yokels, and also the stereotype of indulgent coastal elites vs. down-to-earth midwesterners?

This suggests a good method for getting rid of any Bush appointee you don't like: just start a rumor that they're gay. The possibilities are endless....

Okay, avast2006 wins the prize.

About six months ago, I heard two four-year-olds arguing about the anatomy of a statue of the bear at the playground. "It has a penis," said the boy. "No, it has a vulva!" said the girl. Actually, it had neither. But I was glad to hear them using the proper (non-euphemistic) terms.

My daughter is two, and mostly what she wants to know about is body parts. The weirdest thing we've run into is that I wear an insulin pump, which is attached to my body with some plastic tubing. My daughter knows she's not supposed to play with mommy's tubing -- but she also seems to think that everyone has tubing, so she will often suggest "that's tubing" when she doesn't know the name of a body part.

As to when to talk to kids about sex and how much detail to go into, it really depends on the child. Some kids don't want more than a simple explanation, and you shouldn't force more detail on them than they want. On the other hand, sometimes key details get left out -- usually having to do with *why* people have sex.