Child's play...

As some of you know, I have been sick for the last week. I only made it to work for four hours before today, so that would be the reason behind the uncharacteristically sporadic blogging this week. Most of my time has been spent watching re-runs of "The Big Bang Theory" and "Gilmore Girls," eating juice popsicles and throwing horizontal and rather pathetic temper tantrums. 

I'm not the best sick person; I am in no way stoic. And when forced to take care of myself while ill, I tend to revert back to childhood, spicing my whining and kicking the bedcovers with some decidedly grown-up swear words. In fact I had a bit of a temper tantrum this morning (vertically) when I realized I was better enough to go back to work. 

So it amused me when several of the stories I had for today involved children's stories and toys. 

The photo for the post today came from the accompanying Yahoo! News story about the possibility one of Aesop's fables may have been true. Famous more for their moral lessons than their veracity, one of Aesop's tales - "The Thirsty Crow" - may actually have been based in fact. The aptly named Christopher Bird of Cambridge University in England completed an experiment with three rooks and published the results in yesterday's issue of "Current Biology." Turns out rooks are capable of dropping stones into a tube of water to make the water level rise, just like in the fable...

The Fort Worth, Tex. Star-Telegram had a snippet in Wednesday's paper regarding a recession angel who, by investing in a toy store just before it closed, saved not only a woman's livelihood but brought joy to the area children. Sandy Challinor had decided to close her toy store due to economic worries and high operating costs, but on the second day of a three-day, going-out-of-business sale that brought browsing children to tears, an anonymous investor contacted Challinor and offered to help keep her going.

MSBNC.com posted a story a little while ago on American veterans who are bringing joy to foreign children. Former US military living in a retirement home near Denver, Colo., have banded together with a charity to make toys to send to children in some of the poorest regions in the world. This video highlights the distribution of toys by the Georgia National Guard to a destitute region just outside Kabul, Afghanistan. The smiles on the little boys' faces at the 2:05 and 2:13 marks are beyond precious.