The Season of the Child?

I was reading blogs yesterday morning and came upon Kathryn's piece called Wretched, about a dead newborn found in a trash can in Austin. I read it and felt miserable. How do things like this happen, I think, here in the United States, land of plenty.

And then I read my own newspaper.

Lansing police are close to wrapping up their investigation into the fatal shooting of a 22-month-old boy.

Police say Todd Hodges shot his son Thursday night and then shot and killed himself early Friday after a nine-hour standoff with police.

They plan to reinterview the boy's mother and check toxicology tests and autopsy results on Hodges.

"The facts are straight forward," Lansing Capt. Raymond Hall said. "We just want to go over it one more time before we close out the case. This is typical for any investigation of this nature."

Amy Hodges told investigators that she and her husband were arguing about a lost wallet when he struck her and then shot their son, Hall said.

Isn't Christmas supposed to be the Season of the Child?