Baby

Summertime is a prime season for babies — for anticipating them, having them or just watching them go about their napping, toddling and drooling business. Maybe we just see more babies this time of year, perspiring in their jogging strollers with their fitness-oriented parents, sitting in laps on lawns with their melting snowballs, or being held aloft in front of frighteningly toothy giraffes at the zoo. Whatever the reason, you can't escape the abundance of babies in the summer, and it's delightful because these mini-humans remind us that life is a journey that is unpredictable, joyful and sometimes just plain gross.

Oh holy snuggly, cuddly, chubby, Swiss mountain cuteness! This Saint Bernard puppy is playing with its mother Phybie at the Saint-Bernard kennel in Martigny, Switzerland. The kennel is the oldest breeding center for the Swiss dogs. The puppy is one of four born on December 18.

Just what is this little cub up to? Good thing its mama is there to catch him or her. The spectacled bear, just four months old, was playing at the zoo in Cali. (Tremarctos ornatus), born in captivity four months ago, is seen with its mother at the zoo in Cali Zoo in Colombia.

A young red river hog named Thomu, an animal which is also known as a bush pig, stands next to his mother, Dagamba in their habitat at the Berlin zoo on August 12. The piglet was born at the zoo on July 16. In the wild, red river hogs typically live in herds of six to 20 members led by a dominant boar. Photo by TOBIAS KLEINSCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images.

I am in total agreement with Kim R. Filer ("Authorities too quick to kill rescued baby fox" May 7). This poor baby fox was doomed from birth. First by an accident that put him in harm's way and then by "authorities" who had to show their big nasty hand of power to kill. How sad for those who have so little care and empathy for creatures who are at mercy of men who couldn't even take a week to see if the fox was a rabies carrier before snuffing out his little life. Mary-Jo Dale, Baltimore Text NEWS to 70701 to get Baltimore Sun local news text alerts

"The first kick I took was when I hit the ground. " -- Bruce Springsteen, "Born in the USA. " So now, Jonah has received a lesson in How Things Are. He is 19 months old. Sitting on his mother's lap on a recent Delta Airlines flight on approach to Atlanta, he was doing what babies tend to do on airplanes, particularly airplanes that are changing altitude. He was crying his little head off. Shut that "n----r baby" up. Those were the alleged words of the alleged man in the next seat just before he allegedly slapped the baby with an open palm, leaving a scratch below his right eye. The alleged man, 60-year-old Joe Rickey Hundley of Hayden, Idaho, denies this sequence of events and pleaded not guilty last week to a charge of simple assault.

It's not every day that a person makes a selfless and heartfelt donation to a hospital. It's even rarer when it comes from a teenager. Thirteen-year-old Cassidy Schirmer is the exception. She chose to complete her National Junior Honor Society service project by donating to the Greater Baltimore Medical Center neonatal intensive care unit. Schirmer got the idea from a family friend who works for the hospital. The Bel Air eighth-grader hosted a "virtual" baby shower online, raising $300 to purchase supplies.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a story about Malcolm Majer's encounter with "baby thugz" on the old Falls Road. Mr. Majer, a young artisan who designs and makes cool things with metal in a shop in midtown Baltimore, took a stone to the forehead while riding his bike to work one afternoon in August. The stone came from one of a bunch of children, boys and girls who appeared to be between 9 and 13 years old, on the side of the road, near the Baltimore Streetcar Museum. Mr. Majer called 911 from his cell phone and, while waiting for cops to arrive, decided to follow the children as they walked up Falls Road.

Remember how President Barack Obama promised he would heal the planet and make the seas stop rising?  Well, it turns out the president does have a special, magical touch. It's just not with the environment. It's with babies.  The White House recently put out this video of a crying baby whose family had come to see the president. First Lady Michelle Obama couldn't comfort the child, but the second the president held the baby, the crying stopped.  Now, can that magical touch work with the American people a second time around?