STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — After she ran out of wooden spoons, Nicole Hackenberg turned to the cheese grater.
Mothers everywhere will understand such threats, empty as they are: Cut down on the racket — or any other motherly complaint aimed at rambunctiously misbehaving children — or face drastic measures.
Keep in mind that the matriarch of the Hackenberg clan had four sons and no daughters; the kitchen-drawer supply of menacing wooden spoons had been exhausted long ago, one byproduct of a competitive family of athletic boys careening inside and out of the family's Palmyra, Va., home.
Pity the mother, but blame the father.