Saturday, June 30
Wednesday, June 27
Tuesday, June 26
Monday, June 11
Summer Time & the living is easy
The lil monkey gets wet in a rain puddle left over in the playground, Connor comes along for the ride.
Sunday, June 10
Congrats....
Andrew, Robby & Mommie Joey added new Baby Boy to the family at 3am
YIPEE!!!! Can't wait to meet the lil bugger when we are in SF!!
Friday, June 8
Too Cute
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| Hancock Park 2007_06_08 |
Thursday, June 7
Dragon Boat Festival
This is coming to Boston this weekend ....
Festival Legend
Traditionally held on the fifth day of the fifth moon on the lunar calendar -- late May to mid June on the solar calendar (June 19th for 2007) -- the Dragon Boat Festival commemorates the life and death of the ancient patriot-poet Qu Yuan who lived from 340-278 B.C. Qu Yuan was a minister who advocated reforms in his home state of Chu. The King refused to listen to Qu Yuan's advice and instead banished him from the state of Chu. In exile, Qu Yuan wrote poetry expressing his concern for his country and people. In 278, when Qu Yuan heard that his home had been invaded, he drowned himself in the Mi Lo River.
The people of Chu rushed to the river to rescue him. Too late to save Qu Yuan, they splashed furiously and threw zung-ze, steamed rice wrapped in reed leaf, into the river as a sacrifice to his spirit and to keep the fish from Qu Yuan's body.
Since that time, some 2,000 years ago, dragon boats are raced on rivers in China and people throw zung-ze into the river to honor the memory of Qu Yuan.
Even before Qu Yuan, the fifth moon was a time of danger. With the hot and wet weather of the summer came the perils of plagues and diseases. Parents embroidered designs of tigers eating poisonous insects on children's clothing to protect them from evil spirits. In addition, children wore herb and spice filled amulets around their necks to ward off insects. Chinese people consider themselves to be the descendants of dragons and so during the fifth moon feel it is appropriate to paddle boats with dragon designs and make sacrifices of zung-ze to cajole the river dragons.
EXCERPT FROM THE MOUNTAIN SPIRIT“The man in the mountain, fragrant withsweet herb, Drinks from the rocky spring,shaded by pines and furs.You, my lord, arethinking of me, but then you hesitate.The thunder rumbles and the rain darkens;The gibbons mourn, howling all the night;The wind whistles and the trees are bare Iam thing of the young lord; I sorrow in vain.”Qu Yuan
Festival Legend
Traditionally held on the fifth day of the fifth moon on the lunar calendar -- late May to mid June on the solar calendar (June 19th for 2007) -- the Dragon Boat Festival commemorates the life and death of the ancient patriot-poet Qu Yuan who lived from 340-278 B.C. Qu Yuan was a minister who advocated reforms in his home state of Chu. The King refused to listen to Qu Yuan's advice and instead banished him from the state of Chu. In exile, Qu Yuan wrote poetry expressing his concern for his country and people. In 278, when Qu Yuan heard that his home had been invaded, he drowned himself in the Mi Lo River.
The people of Chu rushed to the river to rescue him. Too late to save Qu Yuan, they splashed furiously and threw zung-ze, steamed rice wrapped in reed leaf, into the river as a sacrifice to his spirit and to keep the fish from Qu Yuan's body.
Since that time, some 2,000 years ago, dragon boats are raced on rivers in China and people throw zung-ze into the river to honor the memory of Qu Yuan.
Even before Qu Yuan, the fifth moon was a time of danger. With the hot and wet weather of the summer came the perils of plagues and diseases. Parents embroidered designs of tigers eating poisonous insects on children's clothing to protect them from evil spirits. In addition, children wore herb and spice filled amulets around their necks to ward off insects. Chinese people consider themselves to be the descendants of dragons and so during the fifth moon feel it is appropriate to paddle boats with dragon designs and make sacrifices of zung-ze to cajole the river dragons.
EXCERPT FROM THE MOUNTAIN SPIRIT“The man in the mountain, fragrant withsweet herb, Drinks from the rocky spring,shaded by pines and furs.You, my lord, arethinking of me, but then you hesitate.The thunder rumbles and the rain darkens;The gibbons mourn, howling all the night;The wind whistles and the trees are bare Iam thing of the young lord; I sorrow in vain.”Qu Yuan
Monday, June 4
Sunday, June 3
What do stay at home moms do
from a recent column from the Washington Post.
The author is Carolyn Hax (sent to me from a mom friend this morning)
When you have young kids, your typical day is:
constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed;
to keeping them out of harm's way;
to answering their coos, cries, questions;
to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear;
to keeping them from unshelving books at the library;
to enforcing rest times;
to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head.
It's needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.
It's constant vigilance,
constant touch,
constant use of your voice, c
onstant relegation of your needs to the second tier.
It's constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends, well meaning and otherwise.
It's resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone's long-term expense.
It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything - language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.
It's also a choice, yes. And a joy.
But if you spent all day, every day, with this brand of joy, and then, when you got your first 10 minutes to yourself, wanted to be alone with your thoughts instead of calling a good friend, a good friend wouldn't judge you, complain about you to mutual friends, or marvel how much more productively she uses her time.
The author is Carolyn Hax (sent to me from a mom friend this morning)
When you have young kids, your typical day is:
constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed;
to keeping them out of harm's way;
to answering their coos, cries, questions;
to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear;
to keeping them from unshelving books at the library;
to enforcing rest times;
to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head.
It's needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.
It's constant vigilance,
constant touch,
constant use of your voice, c
onstant relegation of your needs to the second tier.
It's constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends, well meaning and otherwise.
It's resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone's long-term expense.
It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything - language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.
It's also a choice, yes. And a joy.
But if you spent all day, every day, with this brand of joy, and then, when you got your first 10 minutes to yourself, wanted to be alone with your thoughts instead of calling a good friend, a good friend wouldn't judge you, complain about you to mutual friends, or marvel how much more productively she uses her time.
Saturday, June 2
Re: Vaccines
Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper
From Monday June 4, 07 Boston Globe ...
...Now, vaccine makers are again threatened. Lawyers will argue that either the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine or a mercury-containing preservative (thimerosal) in vaccines or the combination of the two can cause autism. This theory has been advanced on television shows such as 60 Minutes, in popular magazines like Time and Newsweek, and on national radio programs such as Imus in the Morning. Most prominently, the mercury-causes-autism theory has been advanced by a parents advocacy group called Safe Minds -- a group now at the center of the litigation.
Certainly there is plenty of evidence to refute the notion that vaccines cause autism. Fourteen epidemiological studies have shown that the risk of autism is the same whether children received the MMR vaccine or not, and five have shown that thimerosal-containing vaccines also do not cause autism. Further, although large quantities of mercury are clearly toxic to the brain, autism isn't a consequence of mercury poisoning; large, single-source mercury exposures in Minamata Bay and Iraq have caused seizures, mental retardation, and speech delay, but not autism.
Finally, vaccine makers removed thimerosal from vaccines routinely given to young infants about six years ago; if thimerosal were a cause, the incidence of autism should have declined. Instead, the numbers have continued to increase. All of this evidence should have caused a quick dismissal of these cases. But it didn't, and now the courthas turned into a circus. The federal and civil litigation will likely take years to sort out.
Autism can be a heartbreaking disorder, often draining parents emotionally and financially. Although many promising genetic, epidemiological, and biological studies have been published during the past few years, autism remains a disorder without a known cause or cure. This has been enormously frustrating for parents.
It would be nice if there were someone or something to blame. We could blame the government and use the federal vaccine compensation program to pay for care. Or we could blame vaccine makers, and get them to pay in civil court. But if vaccine makers -- faced with large awards for a problem that wasn't their fault -- make the same decisions they did in the early 1980s, all American children will suffer, including those with autism. Then, we'll have only ourselves to blame.
Paul A. Offit, MD, is the chief of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine currently licensed in the United States, and the author of "Vaccinated: One Man's Quest to Defeat the World's Deadliest Diseases."
From Monday June 4, 07 Boston Globe ...
...Now, vaccine makers are again threatened. Lawyers will argue that either the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine or a mercury-containing preservative (thimerosal) in vaccines or the combination of the two can cause autism. This theory has been advanced on television shows such as 60 Minutes, in popular magazines like Time and Newsweek, and on national radio programs such as Imus in the Morning. Most prominently, the mercury-causes-autism theory has been advanced by a parents advocacy group called Safe Minds -- a group now at the center of the litigation.
Certainly there is plenty of evidence to refute the notion that vaccines cause autism. Fourteen epidemiological studies have shown that the risk of autism is the same whether children received the MMR vaccine or not, and five have shown that thimerosal-containing vaccines also do not cause autism. Further, although large quantities of mercury are clearly toxic to the brain, autism isn't a consequence of mercury poisoning; large, single-source mercury exposures in Minamata Bay and Iraq have caused seizures, mental retardation, and speech delay, but not autism.
Finally, vaccine makers removed thimerosal from vaccines routinely given to young infants about six years ago; if thimerosal were a cause, the incidence of autism should have declined. Instead, the numbers have continued to increase. All of this evidence should have caused a quick dismissal of these cases. But it didn't, and now the courthas turned into a circus. The federal and civil litigation will likely take years to sort out.
Autism can be a heartbreaking disorder, often draining parents emotionally and financially. Although many promising genetic, epidemiological, and biological studies have been published during the past few years, autism remains a disorder without a known cause or cure. This has been enormously frustrating for parents.
It would be nice if there were someone or something to blame. We could blame the government and use the federal vaccine compensation program to pay for care. Or we could blame vaccine makers, and get them to pay in civil court. But if vaccine makers -- faced with large awards for a problem that wasn't their fault -- make the same decisions they did in the early 1980s, all American children will suffer, including those with autism. Then, we'll have only ourselves to blame.
Paul A. Offit, MD, is the chief of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine currently licensed in the United States, and the author of "Vaccinated: One Man's Quest to Defeat the World's Deadliest Diseases."
Friday, June 1
One Year Check Up Today
So the boy had his one year visit today (nice cause today was his due date). The doctor LOVED him, of course & said that everything is looking great. He has been cleared to eat everything except choking hazards (ie raisons) and peanut butter -- Hello Strawberry ICE CREAM!!!
Vital Stats:
His Head is a nice 46.5 cm - smack dab on the 50th percentile line - up from the 25th percentile at his six month visit.
His Weight is 20lb 10 1/2 oz's (We might have turned his seat around a touch too soon) - Putting him above the 10th percentile, but not in the 25th yet - the same as at his 6 month visit. He is a lean boy & I am free to feed him lots of fatty foods if I want.
Length is where he's been putting all of his energy clearly because he stretched out and measured a whopping 31" - 3 inches of growth since his nine month appt. On length he left his prior trajectory right along the 50th percentile and Jumped over the 75th percentile line -- so he's lookin' long & lean.
Then he got the shots, but he did really good & only cried for a minute or so & was babbling to me like nothing happened as we walked back to the car. We celebrated the big morning by going out to Dana park with Xander & Gabe for a quick picnic and some time in the waterpark -
the boys are very cute together - Emily (Xan's mama) took photos & I'll post one if I can get it from her. Now he is napping in the stroller & I am going to get us ready for Grandpa Phil's Big Birthday Weekend Shindig!!!!
Vital Stats:
His Head is a nice 46.5 cm - smack dab on the 50th percentile line - up from the 25th percentile at his six month visit.
His Weight is 20lb 10 1/2 oz's (We might have turned his seat around a touch too soon) - Putting him above the 10th percentile, but not in the 25th yet - the same as at his 6 month visit. He is a lean boy & I am free to feed him lots of fatty foods if I want.
Length is where he's been putting all of his energy clearly because he stretched out and measured a whopping 31" - 3 inches of growth since his nine month appt. On length he left his prior trajectory right along the 50th percentile and Jumped over the 75th percentile line -- so he's lookin' long & lean.
Then he got the shots, but he did really good & only cried for a minute or so & was babbling to me like nothing happened as we walked back to the car. We celebrated the big morning by going out to Dana park with Xander & Gabe for a quick picnic and some time in the waterpark -
the boys are very cute together - Emily (Xan's mama) took photos & I'll post one if I can get it from her. Now he is napping in the stroller & I am going to get us ready for Grandpa Phil's Big Birthday Weekend Shindig!!!!
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