SprogBlog

craziest week ever summed up

2009-09-27T11:21:00.003-05:00

When I pronounced this the craziest week ever last weekend I had no idea it was about to be blown even crazier by changing Aidan's school mid-week. That was an awesome surprise. The week was further complicated by my boss' Visa application for Kazakhstan that had me in and out of the UN during the Security Council meetings and Free Iran rallies. This week, much sleep was lost, many cabs were taken, and last-minute acquired babysitters saved nearly every day. In all the chaos, there's a lot of wonderful sharing I forgot to do. Here are a few of the highlights:

Saturday/Sunday: Aidan pulled two teeth in one weekend! He is self-proclaimed 'rich' in country money. This time the Tooth Fairy brought him currency from Ghana, Kenya, Canada, and Honduras--along with a few dollars to grow on.

Monday: Kelly, a friend I grew up with, visited NYC all the way from Hawaii to see the U2 concert. She is a very dedicated fan. All week long she came along UN General Assembly events around Columbia. It was great to see her after so many years.

Tuesday: Ellie's school open house was hilarious. Her teachers talked in their super excited teacher voices the entire time. They had the grown-ups go through Morning Meeting, which included singing and acting like moose. They've launched a new website to showcase daily photos of the kids and suggest ways for parents to have better conversations about the school day. Love them!

Wednesday: The U2 concert was euphoric. The concert experience of our lives. Seriously. Have you seen the photos?

Thursday: Aidan's school open house (note, he had just started this school the day before) was great. The school is a very nice environment, located across the street from the American Museum of Natural History. This school has a very active parent group that raises at least $500,000 each year for extra classroom assistants and equipment, so you can imagine meeting after the teacher left, in which parent leadership positions were voted on and commitments for fund raising were solicited.

Friday: Catch-up day from all the things we had to push off through the week. Soccer, piano, homework, playdates, etc.

Saturday: This was the opening day of WSSL soccer season. Aidan's game was in Central Park at the exact same time that Ellie's game was on Randall's Island. The weather turned cool just a few days too soon, so everyone had to wear long sleeves under their jerseys. Even though Ellie is at the age group that officially doesn't keep score, she came home announcing that she won 9-5 and she scored one of the goals! She is fearless this year, but also a little social. Aidan has a similar weakness, in his addiction to trash talk, but he was also a fantastic goalie--saving six goals with dramatic dives at the ball. But, he is not quite understanding 'off-sides' in this first year of following the rule. Do we have any friend volunteers who would like to come watch soccer games at our place and explain?

Sunday: The best part of the kids' soccer schedules that have them playing on the same day is that we have Sundays off. We turned down playdates, stayed inside, and proclaimed it Do Nothing Sunday. Pancakes and football kicked off our celebration!

another healthy soccer snack success!

2009-09-27T11:01:00.004-05:00

Let me tell you how happy it makes me when the kids eat my basket of muffins faster than the other guy's box of chocolate chip cookies. Those kids loved the muffins so much, one asked his mom to ask me for the recipe. I had kind of winged it, but last night I wrote it out, just to reinforce her son's healthy food choice (and my own pride, clearly). Full disclosure: it's adapted (to be better!) from a recipe.com, less healthy recipe. The other great thing about this was how fast it was to make. Aidan and I had less than an hour to get out the door and we were able to cook this, get dressed, and find the missing shin guards. Enjoy!

12 large muffins or 30 mini muffins:

* 1 1/2 cups flour (I mix half white and half whole wheat)
* 1 teaspoon baking powder (2 for fluffier muffins)
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 3 large bananas, mashed
* 1/4 cup raw sugar
* 1/4 cup molasses
* 1 egg
* 1/3 cup butter, melted (can reduce butter by replacing half
with safflower oil)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Greece muffin pans, or use paper liners. Sift (or just stir with a fork) together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt; set aside.
2. Combine bananas, sugar, molasses, egg, and melted butter in a large bowl. Fold in flour mixture, and mix until smooth. Scoop into muffin pans.
3. Bake in preheated oven. Bake mini muffins for 10 to 15 minutes, and large muffins for 20 to 25 minutes.

good signs

2009-09-25T17:04:00.003-05:00

A growing issue at Aidan's old school was the books he was allowed to read. The classroom books were all at the third grade reading level and he was not allowed to bring any books from home. One day, he found _My Side of the Mountain_ in a school supply closet and took to reading it over and over for entertainment. This is a book he read here at home two years ago. On the forth day of school John and I had a meeting with the teacher to work out a solution to this and a few other problems. We asked if we could donate books to her classroom that were on a more challenging reading level so he wasn't breaking her no books from home rule, but still had books that challenged him. She said that would be fine, that she just needs the rule to keep the kids from bringing things like Harry Potter books. She continued that it was so sad to see third graders acting like they could actually read Harry Potter. Keep in mind this was a "G&T" classroom. It was all John could do to say, you're right: he read it as a first grader. But we smiled and said we would probably just send science fiction.

One of the aspects of his new classroom Aidan excitedly reported first was that there is a Harry Potter basket in the reading shelves.

He also had to ask me for clarification on his math for the first time in years. As we looked up angle vortices together, I was quietly beaming that he is learning something in math that we didn't teach him ourselves.

Last night was parent night at Aidan's new school. John and I were eager to see the facilities. Unlike his old classroom, this one included working computers, plenty of books, a working air conditioner, and a smart board. For the past two years John and I have cringed as Aidan and Ellie's parent nights displayed wide disparities in quality. It was so lovely to finally see Aidan in a classroom that is just as great. Plus, his teacher is a petite little spitfire with her altruism out on her sleeve. She had the contribution-happy adults well-behaved and listening. I think she'll handle third graders just fine.

Big News

2009-09-21T22:19:00.005-05:00

Late this afternoon Aidan was admitted to Anderson! We received an email notice around 5:30 today saying unexpected attrition opened up a spot for him. This has been our top choice school for the past three years--ours and practically every other family within their 72-zipcode-wide catchment. We're so very excited for him! ...And yet there are a few caveats. He is reticent to leave his friends, his chess team, his long-sought after year as _not_ the new kid. We weighed this against their 100% excellent test score rating and their spot as the top school in the state--among the top in the country.

We have promised continued playdates with his buddies and a 'transition party', where he can mix his worlds of old friends and new. Soccer, through AYSO rather than the school, is a mainstay onto which he's holding tight. At least those friends won't change at all.

We gave him the option of taking a half, or even a whole day off before diving into this new world, but he choose to face it head-on. He wants to go first thing tomorrow morning with all the other kids. John texted the school coordinator (by now, at 8 pm), who texted back right away that the doors open at 8:10 and she'll be there waiting for him.

My beautiful, brave boy. I am hoping for all the best for him and this amazing new opportunity. Wish us luck-

craziest week ever

2009-09-21T22:14:00.006-05:00

Sure, there are some white spots--most of that is John's research time, which gets added into everything else. But it's the overlap that really gets us!

Marteani review

2009-09-19T20:42:00.001-05:00

Strong on two fronts!

-- Post From My iPhone

Marteani night!

2009-09-19T16:47:00.000-05:00

Facebook, after all, is still worth something. A friend shared this drink, and tonight we are trying it as soon as the kids are all in bed. I love that it is designed for my favorite spirit, Tanqueray gin. John is hoping we can make it w/o the egg white. We don't have simple syrup so, as you can see, it's turning into our own cheap adaptation before we even get started. I'll let you know how this turns out...

Steeped in fine cocktail lineage, this drink gets its kick from tea / Gin and Earl Grey form the base for a new martini: "Earl Grey Marteani

Adapted from a recipe by Audrey Saunders, co-owner of Pegu Club in New York City.

INGREDIENTS:

1 1/2 ounces Earl Gray Gin Infusion (see recipe)

3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice

1 ounce simple syrup

1 egg white

1 lemon twist, for garnish

Lemon Zest Sugar, for garnish (see recipe)"

password alert

2009-09-17T09:46:00.001-05:00

With a heavy heart, I want to make a little announcement. John and I have decided to password protect the blog. If you already have a gmail account, this is a fairly simple process. If you would like to be added to the "approved" list of blog readers, please send me an email or comment below.

free running update

2009-09-14T11:44:00.003-05:00

So, let me add a giant caveat to start very slowly with this. I stressed my leg tendons, apparently, and mistook it for soreness. So, while I thought I was working out my lactic acid in my lower legs and ankles in the days after that first run, I was actually giving myself a nasty case of achilles tendinitis. It's now been 5 days with no exercise at all and I don't think I'll be able to run in this Friday's Columbia 5K Fun Run that celebrates the new academic year. Who knows how long it will be until I can wear high heels again!

:(

'R' is for Recession

2009-09-12T16:34:00.000-05:00

Elmo's mommy got laid off. In case you miss it, the show is online here.

Sesame Street's 'Families Stand Together: Feeling Secure in Tough Times' -- latimes.com: "...Racially, economically and generationally diverse before 'diversity' was cool, 'Sesame Street' spoke to children and families who were not part of the white middle class that dominated the medium, while broadening the horizons of those who were. Even the music broke all conventions.

All of which makes tonight's 'Families Stand Together: Feeling Secure in Tough Times' all the more poignant. Forty years after 'Sesame Street' lit up the children's branch of social revolution, it's now seeking to provide stability in the midst of economic collapse [...]"

slipping under the radar: Saturday

2009-09-12T16:06:00.006-05:00

A tropical storm escaped the notice of the national weather service this week. Yesterday, John and I mused that this crazy deluge weather sure seemed tropical in nature, and sure enough, last night on the news the meteorologist showed the rotating thunderstorms around a clear eye wall as northern New Jersey got a direct hit. New York is technically outside of the tropical zone, making it an extra-tropical storm, but it was never noticed or named.

The same thing happened a few weeks ago when a tornado tore through Riverside Park, down 105th Street, and into Central Park where it wreaked unprecedented havoc. Without Doppler radar picking up on the event, it was called a storm with tornadic-like winds, but as a person who grew up at the edge of the Llano Estacado, I know tornado damage when I see it. Giant, hundreds of years old trees that watched over playgrounds hundreds of feet below shady leaf covers were suddenly gone. Over 500 trees were destroyed in one small spot of the park--just around the baseball and soccer fields in the North Woods if you know the spot--while just a block away no damage occurred at all. Bark was ripped off the trees that survived.

From a child's viewpoint, a Saturday is the worst day of the week for a tropical storm. The children sit indoors, playing near the windows just to be as close to outside as they can. They rupture their little environment with noise and emotion in lieu of the swinging, climbing, and running that would erupt on any other fall weekend day. We try to assuage their loss with an offering of library.

Vivien, for one, is happy to have the rain. All day she is surrounded by her siblings, their noise, their random barrages of kisses and hugs. She plays on the rug, slowly wandering through one toy's textures and then trading it for another. John and I watch over her from the vantage point of our laptops. Peer reviews dominate the bulk of our attention, with the small exceptions of pancake brunch and an afternoon trip to the library--maybe we'll watch a movie soon.

The unnamed, but nonetheless name-worthy storm passed in the middle of the night and rain bands are forecast to dissipate tomorrow morning, leaving a perfect fall day in their wake. So far, this fall is marked by very peculiar weather.

overheard

2009-09-10T13:17:00.003-05:00

Ellie was showing her playdate buddy her giant wall map. She pointed to a spot and said she likes New York because it is the biggest city in the country. He replied, "You know, it's not the biggest city in size but it's the biggest city in population."

His mom's an urban planning professor. She would be so proud!

Ellie's in the New York Times!

2009-09-10T12:56:00.000-05:00

The First Day of School, 2009 - The New York Times > N.Y. / Region > Slide Show > Slide 7 of 10

pictures!

2009-09-09T09:37:00.001-05:00

school year 2009 - a set on Flickr

special effects: Ellie's first day of first grade

2009-09-08T19:55:00.007-05:00

You know the camera trick: the one all too popular this year where the camera speeds up its zoom-in too quickly, adding a little zigzag to produce an extra crazy feeling? That's what this day is like.

Seven days ago we had our warning. Ellie's two first grade teachers made their "home visit" to our apartment, remarking on every little Ellie artifact with extra excited emotion that could only be produced by adorable, young teachers in their early twenties. Their hearts are really in it. Still in it. Hopefully in it for the long hall. They both like to hike so they especially loved Ellie's story of her summer vacation: "I hiked into the Grand Canyon! Want to see my fossil?" She also showed them her pai ntings of the striated variations on the Grand Canyon's walls, which are legitimately striking in their depth.

You would think that with six and a half years and seven days' warning, we would be ready, but we're not. Time waits for no parent. We have bought the requisite first day of school dress and the requisite new school year shoes--just cute enough to be girlie and just rough enough to keep up with the boys--and we have set the requisite hair in the pink foam curlers. Ready or not, tomorrow morning, that little girl is going to walk into her elementary school doors and enter the first grade without us.

She is brave and vulnerable all in the same instant. In her face I see the beauty of a butterfly's wings and the fierceness of a mama tiger. She is the 'artist scientist' of her dreams, at once discovering and painting the world with her love. I just hope the world is worthy of her art, love, and intrigue.

I came home late this evening from class and found El and John curled up in bed, talking about her night-before nerves. This year, the first ever for her, she is a matriculated student and already knows friends on the first day, but this somehow became an object of anxiety for her little brain: "but I'll know them all already!" Maybe she just needs something to blame for the flutters in her tummy. Everything will be fine. She loves her teachers already--after all, they love hiking, too!

The President's Speech to our kids

2009-09-08T16:48:00.004-05:00

We were at a class social for Aidan's school today and missed President Obama's speech, so we watched it together tonight on the eve of the first day of school for New York City kids. If you have a chance, check it out here:

If you're too busy with the back-to-school chaos to watch, here are some highlights:

I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself. Every single one of you has something that you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That's the opportunity an education can provide.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents and your skills and your intellect so you can help us old folks solve our most difficult problems. If you don't do that -- if you quit on school -- you're not just quitting on yourself, you're quitting on your country.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life -- what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home -- none of that is an excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude in school. That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. There is no excuse for not trying.

I know that sometimes you get that sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star. Chances are you're not going to be any of those things.

So today, I want to ask all of you, what's your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a President who comes here in 20 or 50 or 100 years say about what all of you did for this country?

And to that small but very loud minority who decided to keep their kids home from school today to protect them from the President's 'socialist agenda', I guess the only thing your kids learned today was that you shouldn't listen to people you don't agree with. I'm sure the brilliant pundits at Fox news and talk radio are poring over the President's speech today (transcript here) and will soon provide us with the sections they think would be so harmful to our children. Those who actually read it, even Newt Gingrich, seem to think that if anything it was an appeal to what some might call 'traditional values' of hard work and individual responsibility. All I can tell you is that if John McCain were president right now and gave a speech like this, I'd send my kids to school and tell them they'd better take notes.

Playground fb

2009-09-06T17:04:00.001-05:00

-- Post From My iPhone

free running review

2009-09-06T16:29:00.002-05:00

I was hooked on the idea a year ago when Vivi's leg braces' creator, himself Indian, said he just doesn't see the leg, back, and neck problems back in his home region like he does here and he attributed that to the cultural practice of going barefoot. With his training in physiology and a lifetime of anecdotal evidence, he felt a foot strengthened by navigating uneven surfaces without the protection of a hard soled shoe in turn protects the body.

Last week the NYT took notice of the same idea, in the form of a running trend called free running. While I would prefer the Vibram Five Fingers shoe, I found a very cheap pair of Nike Free shoes on ebay and decided to dive in.

The theorists behind this field argue that shoes have interfered with the natural running gait and you'll actually learn to run better if you have less shoe. Running Shoes Guru said: "Experts say that while running barefoot you are forced to naturally improve your running gait and and the same time strengthen foot and legs muscles." Right about now, after a 2 1/2 mile first run in my Nike Frees, and after an epsom salt bath to try to ease the strain, I'm still feeling those foot and leg muscles pretty clearly.

Running in the shoes felt awkward, but some part of my brain must remember this from childhood days of naturally running freely because I quickly caught on, landing my steps on the pads of my feet and rocking off the toes. I felt like people were staring, which might have been my imagination because the shoes don't look that altogether different. My steps were notably less bouncy. Some part of me kept expecting a small boy to pop out of the bushes, Emperor's New Clothes style, and yell, 'That woman's feet are naked!"

About two miles in, just after the hill on Riverside between 97th and 103rd, my arches gave up their battle all at once, signaling the game with pain up the back of my calves. I walked the last blocks home. I might take to the old shoes for a few days to give those muscles a break, but I'm heartened and hopeful that free running could actually work.

signs of the season

2009-09-04T21:35:00.004-05:00

starting to fill up again...

the real welfare queen

2009-09-04T20:14:00.006-05:00

Salon pointed out this week that the undeserving are again the target of political attacks against health care reform. I felt a unique, intense anger to my core at this statement. I was motivated to share the story of my own 'undeserving' daughter.

This morning John and I were awakened in the pre-dawn hours by Vivien's cry out as she suffered a seizure. John reached over to the cot we keep next to our bed and felt her body: "stiff as a board," he later told me, already rigid from the petite mal seizure that overtook her tiny body. She felt hot from the tale-tell fevers that cause the overwhelming majority of these attacks. Every little cold, every new tooth, anything that could possibly raise her body temperature causes a seizure. We try to minimize the seizures from the children's awareness. Sometimes they tell us they saw Vivi 'spitting'. John canceled meetings and I went late to my own, half exhausted from the toll of taking care of a sick, seizing baby all night and morning. By noon, El was also sick--adding to the difficult day.

Even the smallest illnesses have costly consequences for our sweet baby girl--and this is exactly why she is such a liability that insurance companies exclude her from coverage. Health insurance companies operate by a simple equation that balances risk of costly illnesses within the insured population with the chance that healthy people will pay premiums and have nothing happen. This is why legislators working toward insurance legislation compromise are thinking of requiring even the healthiest get insurance--they want to even out that equation. People like Vivien knock the equation off balance. She is the type of young woman that really 'takes advantage' of the system: reducing the overall cost of her healthcare with the numbers of children that don't suffer disability, who don't get seizures with something so simple as a late summer cold.

It is a good thing education doesn't follow the profit equation. We, as a capitalist society afraid of socialist principles, would make people pay for their education--not in taxes applied evenly, but as a fee per user. We would identify the children that learn easily, with one teacher in over-crowded classrooms, and charge them less for their education than others. We would exclude the children that thrive in smaller classrooms with more one-on-one attention, the children that might need special services, such as ESL. We would lose the societal benefit of the gifted, the artists, the special children that take extra resources precisely because they are so special. We would do wrong by the children that did no wrong, aside from being born with a brain that operates slightly beyond the bell curve. The risk equation works well for the profit industries, but it falls as an injustice when applied to a commonly-accepted public service. Health care should be accepted as a public service, rather than a profit-baring enterprise. This equation should not be used on human lives.

Vivien is covered by NY public insurance right now as a factor of our poor student lifestyles. When John and I get real jobs again and no longer qualify for this benefit Vivien will be excluded from coverage as a pre-existing, high-risk condition. Right now, our society doesn't choose to take care of people like her. I hope we can change this, but a select group of popular conservative news watchers might just kill it. In that case, John and I wouldn't stick around to stay poor enough to keep qualifying for the bottom of the barrel coverage. Instead, John and I, our highly applicable graduate educations, our future tax paying careers, and our exceptional children will have to leave to another country that takes care of people like Vivi. I hope this country fights to keep people like us.

check-ups

2009-09-03T20:05:00.003-05:00

El and Aidan had their new school year physicals this week. El shot up from the third to tenth percentile in height and Aidan remained at about the fiftieth percentile in height. El went from off the bottom of the curve in weight to third percentile in weight while Aidan remained tenth percentile in weight.

Aidan's psoriasis has all but completely cleared up. Our pediatrician was as surprised as we were. The western sun over the summer is the likely curative. But we also had our share of mineral baths along the trails.

Interestingly, El didn't do too well on the vision test, but our pediatrician said children famously do poorly on vision tests on this age and it has nothing to do with their vision. This false positive effect comes from spurious interference from issues like mixing up 6 and 9 or b and d. She said if El showed any social signs of vision problems in the classroom or if next year's test also had issues we might consider glasses. I loved her response. I technically 'need' glasses, but refuse them because I think they'll just make my eyes weak and I can keep working to see things better. She reinforced my own opinions about the tendency for hyper-responsive peri-medical industries like vision and dental to go a little too far, too fast.

I hesitate to add this bit for his own someday opinions, but (throwing caution to the wind) we got the puberty talk for Aidan. The average age of puberty onset for boys in the US is 9-12. Signs begin in the testes, then night emissions, then the hair, voice, and skin problems that cue in the general public that our little boy is, well, neither (cue the 'ah, mom!').

This year will go down in posterity as the year of the Swine Flu talk. John said we are pretty sure the kids had it in June and the pediatrician quipped, 'yeah, I think the whole city did.'

The NYC school physical includes lots of emotional development interview-type questions. At earlier ages they centered on self help, like can you tie your shoes or put on a coat by yourself. This time, she asked Aidan what school he went to and he gave her the cross streets--to our amusement. She asked Ellie if she drinks juice and she said never, Aidan said almost never. We got lots of cues that the kids are doing really well. In a city of over-achievers and high octane parents, I really feel that, so far, we've threaded the needle of just right. At least, I know they're healthy.

progress report

2009-09-02T19:54:00.000-05:00

1. Have tired of card games, even Scrabble. Summertime games seem to be passing. Football season will save us.

2. Dinner at the table going well! We've also begun tackling slang during dinnertime discussions. 'Gonna' and 'arright' are primary targets.

3. Floor time continues to be a success, but also a harrowing insight into the children. Just when we think things are going well, we realize El's headaches from this past year are likely tension headaches. She's internalizing issues at an alarming rate. Near bedtime anxious thoughts are racing through her head--we just didn't know because it's too often a busy time that gets rushed by. Floor time should help with this, too.

4. Vivien is amidst a giant developmental leap that has made her down right naughty. I never thought she would be capable of naughty, but we've got complex emotions like jealousy of another child in my lap and banging things on the floor to get our attention. She's also taken to intentionally hitting her head, which is common with disabled children, but can turn pretty nasty.

journey back to the wilderness

2009-08-31T16:21:00.006-05:00

On vacation we thought a lot about the people we wanted to be after we returned home. It's one thing to read and write every day, eat well, exercise often, be joyful and child-centered, etc in the middle of the forest, but quite another to do these things back in NYC. We made a lot of plans for following our ideals, even in the heaviest of the semester and the darkest of winter. Now that we're returned, we're trying to get back to the basics of home life.

The whole thing is harder than we expected. The city just doesn't often lend itself to these particular aspects of living well. We tend to bark and bite at the little issues that come up instead of talk and interact. We fall into the schedules of busy-ness before ensuring our productivity. I know we're not alone in our experience. The other night, walking home from a picnic dinner on the still-green sledding hill in Riverside Park, we ran into a neighbor walking home from his own family's outing. He'd left early, frustrated and needing a bit of a time-out. He'd just returned from a summer's vacation in Europe. Together we commiserated about how hard it is to come back to the real world.

Aspiring now for small steps rather than the ideal life, we're eating well, even if we are all too often eating on the floor watching a show rather than at the table together. John and I are going to the gym daily, but we haven't taken the kids out bike riding once. In our attempt to address our inadequacies here, we're trying hard to act more like we're on vacation. Card games and reading together make great activities, even in a Manhattan apartment. We're trying to wake up as interested in starting our day with the children as we did when breakfast was cooked over a campfire.

We are returning to the Dr. Greenspan method of Floortime as a salve for school-aged children and their emotional development. I tried it for the first time since the vacation after a particularly negative day with Aidan a few nights ago. I sat on the floor with him in his room, making opening statements that invited his reflections on his world. He cuddled close and said he didn't like feeling powerless when he got in trouble and lost his privileges. I was tempted to talk about how he should make better choices if he didn't like their consequences, but I bit my tongue, per Floortime rules, and let him elaborate. I asked him how it feels when that happens. He answered, "Like I'm still trying to get out of the Grand Canyon." He thought about the image in his head and added, "and there's a big growing gate at the top, and someone throwing boulders down the trail." It was a beautiful example and I knew exactly what he meant. There was a very difficult stretch at the very end of the trail, with steep switchbacks and bright, hot sun. We could see the end was near, but we could also see how hard it would be to get there. It was comforting to know he's still using our vacation to feel better, too.

omg!

2009-08-24T09:10:00.002-05:00

El got her first email address this summer and has easily added this new technology to her social realm.

Late last week El lost a playdate after some naughty behavior and this weekend her little six-year-old girlfriend sent her a message saying: "Dear Ellie, sorry about the consequences."

new drug for infantile spasms

2009-08-23T11:41:00.002-05:00

Interesting new development this week for treatment of infantile spasms and complex partial seizures:

FDA approves first drug for infantile spasms

It also comes with this video on infantile spasms, that does a nice job of covering the issue without getting lost in platitudes: