There was a coronation on Saturday, one that brought a new princess into our midst. No, not Kate - Merida from the Pixar movie Brave. Merida is the outspoken, arrow-shooting, boyfriend-shunning princess in the Oscar-winning Pixar movie. 

It seems just like Anne Hathaway's character in Princess Diaries, Merida had to get a makeover before the powers-that-be at Disney would allowed her to join her princess-y sisters.

Left: Merida from the movie. Right: Made-over Merida

Share and share alike. It is one of the tenets of childhood. And yet, forced sharing is coming into question by some preschools and parents of little kids. 

There are preschools in the US that have written down 'no sharing' policies. They do not force kids to share their toys, instead they have multiples of popular items, or they tell kids that they have to wait their turn. They say that forced sharing creates a feeling of entitlement in the kid who wants -- and gets -- the toy. 

When we travelled to France a couple of years ago, I noticed that there were kids in every nice restaurant. But these kids weren't chatting nicely with their parents while eating their salade chevre and foie gras, they were all playing on a device.

I wondered if that was a worthy trade-off: kids get a  sense of a formal restaurant and have to eat the food, but they get to immerse themselves in their screen so the adults can have a conversation without disruption.

A Washington state family of five got a surprise on their restaurant bill -- but it was a good one -- the owner had given them a well-behaved children discount.

Or at least that is what he typed on the bill. The discount actually came in the form of a bowl of ice cream for the kids to share. 

Laura King says her kids ages two, three, and eight, are comfortable in restaurants. She said they were just behaving as they normally do when eating out. She was surprised and delighted by the receipt and a friend put a photo online.

And then it went viral. Along with the question, should restaurants offer well-behaved kid discounts?

In my 13 years of parenting, I have watched more hours of kids TV than I can count. Often the shows don't even register anymore. Or at least they only register when they are offensive because of overly sexualized and rude conversations (see Zack and Cody and many others).

When my daughter started watching Doc McStuffins, I thought, that's pleasant. And forgot about it. But after reading this article about how Disney Junior's Doc McStuffins has started a movement amongst African-American female doctors in the U.S., I'm planning to putting it on 24/7.

It is so easy to be maudlin and overly sentimental about parenting. I look at pictures of my kids when they were very little and it physically hurts me to see their chubby cheeks and twinkly eyes. I miss the snuggles and the non-sequiters. I miss the randomness of their tiny minds.

So in an attempt to shore up against wallowing in memories, I have been thinking about the things I do not miss about having really little kids.

I love and hate strollers. I love that they make going from point A to point B a lot easier; but negotiating them through crowds, small doorways and over snowdrifts can be very stressful.

The most stressful is getting a stroller on to public transit. I don't know how people with strollers fare in other cities, but in Toronto the transit system is very difficult to use with a stroller. Most TTC stations do not have escalators, and streetcars and buses have stairs and are crowded. 

A UK mum watched her son play with a water gun on a beach holiday over Christmas and made a realization -- and a vow. She would take a stand against "kiddy consumerism" and not spend money on her son in 2013 (except for on medicine).

His clothes will be hand-me-downs, his diapers with be reusable, he will eat the same food as the rest of the family and his activities will be play-based with friends. Hattie Garlick is nervous, but she is even going to cut his hair herself.

Do you remember GeekDad's list of best toys ever?

1. Stick
2. Box
3. String
4. Cardboard Tube
5. Dirt

I wonder if an iPad will ever make that list. 

"I think," I tell my husband, "that he has THE FLU." Dun dun dun DUNN!

I then immediately come down with guilt for not schlepping my 12-year-old son to get the flu shot out of sheer laziness on my part. 

"Maybe it is just a cold," says my husband. "And who cares what it is?"

And then hit me. As long as the kids are sick but not overly sick; why should I care if it is the flu or a cold? Just because the government has released more Tamiflu; and flu season has been "nasty and deadly and normal"? This does not mean we are in a pandemic, or that I should panic, because that's the nature of influenza. (I don't do well in pandemic season, one day I will write about our SARS experience that left me scarred forever).

So, I set off to find the differences between the common cold and flu: