Toddler

A day-care center operator entered a surprise plea to a child abuse charge for allowing a toddler's burns to go untreated for hours after her husband had plunged the girl into scalding water. Kathryn Rodgers, who entered the plea after a second witness had testified against her, was not offered a plea bargain, Deputy Dist. Atty. Ryan Rainey said, and she could face up to six years in prison when she is sentenced on Jan. 11.

The Italian head of the corporate parent of the LensCrafters optical chain has made his 2-year-old son one of the wealthiest toddlers in the world, according to weekend newspaper reports. Italian newspapers said Leonardo Del Vecchio gave his son, Leonardo Maria, a 24.4% stake in the family holding that controls eyeglass maker Luxottica, parent of LensCrafters. They said the shares are worth more than $555 million.

THE TODDLER slept late on Saturday, his little gift to the rest of the family so tolerant of his toddler quirks. Like when he filled in some spots on the beagle one morning with pink Magic Marker. Or the occasional missed appointments with the potty. He's trying, that's the important thing. I mean, who gets everything in life right the first time? "Just look at all those Kennedy kids," I tell the toddler. "OK, Daddy." "You'll do better," I tell him. "I will?" he asks.

He only knows a couple of words -- "Mom" and "cat" -- yet his sentences seem to run on for days, starting on Tuesday and ending, say, on the following Thursday. He punctuates them with sighs and sneezes, foot-stomping and a form of toddler charades that reminds me of the way people run when their clothes are afire. The baby's favorite story, or at least the one he tells most often, is of falling off the chair and hurting his drinking hand.

A 2-year-old girl who was found dead in Athens this weekend had been in foster care along with her mother, who is also a minor, authorities said Sunday. The girl, who was identified as Jasmine Granados, was found after firefighters were summoned about 2:50 a.m. Saturday to a residence in the 1200 block of West 93rd Street. Officials with the Los Angeles County coroner's office said Sunday that an autopsy was pending. Meanwhile, the circumstances of the girl's death remained murky.

Orange County Sheriff's Deputy Richard Cain has been fired after being found negligent in responding to a meter reader's August phone calls to check out woods. In December, the meter reader found in the woods the remains of Caylee Anthony, a toddler missing since summer. Caylee's mother is charged with murder.

An attendant at a Canadian eatery who was sacked for giving a 16-cent bite-sized doughnut to an agitated toddler was given her job back after wide media attention and a number of complaints. Nicole Lilliman, a single mother, said she was dismissed from a London, Ontario, outlet of the Tim Hortons coffee and doughnut chain after video cameras captured the 27-year-old giving a Timbit to a toddler. "It was just out of my heart. . . . I should have gone to my purse and got the change, but it was busy," Lilliman told the Toronto Star newspaper.

A Johnstown, N.Y., toddler still in diapers has a growing reputation as a pool shark with a mean bank shot -- even though he has to stand on a chair to reach the table. Two-year-old Keith O'Dell Jr. has pool-shooting videos posted on YouTube, has his own website ( www.poolprodigy.com) and is the youngest member of the American Pool Assn. The son of pool-playing parents, the toddler recently traveled to Las Vegas to put on a demonstration for the governing body of amateur pool. Keith now plays on a regulation table.