A Pre-Shop Run at the Tennis Court

This is Abby stretching her legs in the park across from Jake's school before our big shopping excursion today. She, Mike and I went to a new store in Culpepper, called Aldi, which is a cross between a CostCo and a grocery store. Everything there is 25-50% cheaper than other stores, they said, so we thought it was worth a try. (Many of my very smart friends are saving huge bucks doing couponing but I do not have the patience for that. My head spins just reading what they did to save money!)

Anyway, we liked it! The money we saved in chicken and turkey costs alone will make it worth going regularly. I actually found the link to it on the Duggar's (18 kids and counting) site. Aldi is a great place to buy in bulk but I also liked that you can buy small quantities too and they are super cheap. Only downside is selection is limited and somewhat unpredictable. We stopped at Target and Food Lion to fill out our list for the next 2 weeks of meals.

Oh, and we also finally bought an extra freezer to store food in the garage and it was delivered yesterday so now we're stocked up on essentials for some time to come. And after all that shopping, tonight I was inspired and cooked the best chili we've ever had. Even the kids loved it! Abby was actually crying at me before it was done to give her more tastes. We ate half and froze half. Yay!

Sick, Sick, Sick

So, we're going on 3 weeks of Abby being sick here and I've had quite enough. I'm sure she has too! We've had colds and congestion and ear infections and two different antibiotics and crying all day and hives from head to toe and crying all night. Poor little thing. I'll feel more like writing when we get to the end of this lousy spell.

On the other hand, I just got word from a friend of mine in SF that her daughter was diagnosed 3 weeks ago with leukemia. They are moving back to the city to do her radiation therapy and trying to reorganize her older sister's life. Puts things in perspective - a few hives and a few nights of lost sleep suddenly seem really quite ok.

Still, we're tired. Wish us well soon!

To go with our feeling of general wackiness in the universe, here's a funky photo Jake and I made with the webcam last weekend. He loved the special effects options.

The End of Summer

OK, it's official. I ran into traffic on the way to and from the gym this morning at 6:15am! The impatient nasty tailgating kind. Not what you normally find around the lake during our lazy summers. And I saw Melissa putting Aiden on the schoolbus on my way home. So cute.

It's now 8:15 and Jake is off to his first early morning of school and Abby's downstairs playing with Tara. I leave for my first trip to Duke tomorrow. I don't even know if I have any dress pants that fit me. My head is swimming with to-dos.

Yep, summer's over.

Gearing Up For Work

Just a note that summer is slipping away and it's becoming sadly clear that my nice long maternity leave is about to actually end. I've really enjoyed it this time!! My syllabus and readings for Duke were due this week, and I've begun work on a new project at Duke that has, gasp, real deadlines and milestones. We've put together a job description for a research associate and will be hiring one soon. The Columbia teaching will start in January.

People are inviting me to conferences, to do other contract work, and I have to admit to them that I am, in fact, working again. Ack! Though in fact, I will be doing to part-time dance I've been doing for well, um, about 7 years now, wow. Working 2 days a week and taking care of the kids 3 days a week. Though it will be a much tighter division of time now, made possible by a new babysitter who starts next week. The good news is that I will get to travel again - weekly to Duke and to other locales from time to time, and I really do love that. Someone invited me to speak at an event outside of Portsmouth, NH in December and I noticed today that the incredible hotel they're putting us up in has a day spa. I think I need to reserve my massage now!!! (and yes, I WILL be scheduling my flights around the spa's hours.)

So here's to working. The satisfaction and identity that comes from doing what you love is good for me, and ultimately, good for my family. Not to mention that income! And just as important, here's to great hotel spas (and great babysitters!)!!

Run of the Mill

Today was more or less typical day. Had a quiet early morning with Abby, then went to Nikki's to buy her double jogging stroller, then to the new cafe for a quick jolt of decaf and being out. After lunch with the boys, Abby did her 45 minute nap trick again and wouldn't go back to sleep in her crib, so I put her in the ducky swing, and she was out. That is, until in my zeal to do some reading on how to get 3-4 month old babies to nap longer I accidentally knocked over a framed picture right next to her head! NOT the way to get her to nap longer, clearly! Which she told me, in no uncertain terms.

After nap time, Jake and Mike took Grandma Fran on a virtual tour of the house with the webcam, and Abby and I went to the library and got Jake a slew of new books. She slept there and in the car, and was happy. Mike fixed us all a quick pasta dinner, and after tons of huge smiles at the dinner table, Abby had a huge crying fit that seemed to last for hours, but was really about 45 minutes, both before and after her bath, which she kind of liked. But the minute the bath towel touched her skin, she went off again. She went stiff as a board, turned beet red, and kept pulling my hair out at the roots! She was inconsolable, hungry but rejecting the bottle. I remade it from scratch and tried 3 different nipples. She was clearly trying to tell me something, but I was not getting it. Mike tried too - no difference. I think maybe the first one had something wrong with it and after that she was just all in a tizzy. It finally ended when she accepted her pacifier, had her belly rubbed, and fell asleep in my arms, her little fingers curled around my index finger. Whew. She woke up 45 minutes later and finished the same bottle with no problems at all, and went back to sleep. Double whew.

A bunch of emails were waiting and now it's after 9pm. How do the days go so fast? I am tired and wishing I had more time to do the things I put on my lists every day. I did absolutely nothing I had planned!

Grateful Day

Oprah says that she tries in her journal to write about what she is grateful for. So here goes:

Today I am grateful to have such wonderful, supportive friends. An hour with them at pleasant grove was all it took to make me feel social and loved.

I am grateful for old friends, like Heather, who wrote nice things on my blog and new friends, like Kristin, who gave such genuine appreciation for my comments on hers. And close friends, like Ash, whom Jake, Abby and I visited today in their driveway and we caught up on new baby happenings. I’m hoping we get to walk and picnic on Friday with our expanded clans and fancy new double strollers!

I am grateful to have such a creative little boy who insisted on playing with clay with me after naptime today, and then put everything away by himself. And to have such a responsible and involved one, so intent on helping to give his sister a bath, that he did practically every step for me except dunk her in the water!

And I am grateful that I was able to give Mike more time today. With just a Jake pick up from school, some clay time, and a walk outside with both kids before dinner, I was able to change the whole shape of his work day. And he was so very appreciative!

I am grateful to have my little girl too. I sometimes still cannot believe she’s really here. We sang and read books at bedtime tonight and she was really alert and aware. Her smiles warm my heart. You can see they come from her spirit, not just her face. She is a happy girl.

And I am a happy mom.

Highlights of our Week:

Wednesday was Abby Day. Abby and I had a day out. We left after a bath and a meal for each of us and spent the day picking up things from friend's houses, shopping, and stopping in various places to eat. She was a total pleasure - sleeping whenever in the car, and charming everyone she saw. She got the most attention at Lowe's -- EVERYONE smiled at her there and she loved looking up at the things in the tall aisles from in her infant carrier. It was a nice day.

Friday was Jake Day. I spent the morning at Jake's school. There was a coffee chat for parents with the school director that I attended and then I observed Jake in his classroom from behind a one-way mirror for about an hour. He was working on a sawing "work," quite intensely, the whole time I watched him, until it was time for group. He was using a tiny safety saw to cut pieces of cardboard. He clearly loved it, and several of his friends came to sit across from him and watch or do their own work. The only time he got up was to get more cardboard and to continue working. When the lights flickered and it was time for group, he put the sawing work away carefully and then sat down and watched intensely while his teacher Amee sang songs, read stories about chickens (they have a long term project involving some incubators and some chicken eggs) and told stories. He did not sing, but he was clearly engaged.

He went out to the hallway to change out of his slippers and I heard him ask for help with his shoes. And when Amee called his name for lineup, he got up and grabbed his friend Stuart to come stand next to him. They filed outside for playground time and after about 5 minutes of chatting with his teacher's helper I went out to play too. He was so glad to see me! He screamed "Mommy!" and came running to give me a big hug. I played with him in the sandbox for about a half an hour and the interaction between the kids and me and him was the most interesting part of the visit. They talked to me incessantly, all wanting to tell me things about what they do there, where the bees are, how they dig for earthworms, what to do when the girls didn't want to play with them, etc. One little girl stared straight into my mouth and told me in a very puzzled voice that I had lost an adult tooth! (which is true!) They were wonderful kids, and Jake was very comfy there. On the way out, he showed me where he sits to wait for us before pick-up. It was a lovely visit. He observes a great deal, according to his teachers, but is absorbing a lot that way. And I could tell he's also made himself at home in a nice social circle there too.

Saturday was Family Day! And the four of us ventured out for the first time to a new place with a car full of supplies. We went to the Walton's Family museum in Schuyler for their spring festival. It was supposed to be 85 degrees so we were in shorts and Abby was in a bubble sundress but when we got there it had turned cold and rainy so the whole event had been moved inside and we loaded on our sweaters and blankets for A and strolled in through some huge puddles. Still, there was live music and food and lots of little rooms to visit and we had a nice time. Jake was exhausted and told us so and just as he fell asleep on the way home, Abby started to screech with hunger! We stopped to feed her and then stopped at the Eagles' Nest to feed us. A great time was had by all.

Today is Sunday and we are all tired.

Oh, and the other highlight this week is that both Duke and Columbia have contacted me about teaching for the year and someone else wants to incorporate me into a great new project. It is nice for the maternity-leave mommy's ego to know that I am still in demand for something other than feeding, changing and comforting!

Abby is Alert

In the past week, Abby has woken up!

She now has regular periods of quiet alertness throughout the day. Right after her meals, she wants to study faces, and will spend 15-20 minutes smiling and flirting with us. Her huge crooked smiles are absolutely delightful. We are totally smitten.

Right before getting sleepy again, she likes to watch toys, and has been studying the fishies on her Aquarium swing, the ducks on her duckie swing, and smiling and cooing every morning at the red dog on her bathroom swing. He has a smile painted on and she seems to know it. She also did a few successful minutes in the butterfly gym yesterday, smiling and staring at Mrs. Sun ( a Jake favorite).

Here are some recent pix:





The duckies twirl in a circle and are really fascinating.




Here she is sitting up. She's also spending a lot of time leaning forward so she can practice keeping her head up. She loves looking at things from her new position, and sometimes bends all the way over forwards to study her feet.



Unfortunately, not every experiment in new movement is successful.



Still, her favorite place to nap is on me...




Yay, alert little Abby!

Abby is 2 Months old!

... and is gracing us with some really nice smiles!

They are hard to catch on film - she tends to offer one and then will not be cajoled into repeating it.

The big news of the past week is that I found a way to calm Abby down during her evening fits of colic. From about 5-7 weeks, she was crying bloody murder every night from 6 to 9pm. I tried everything and everything I did seemed to make it worse. Even holding her close. And even leaving her alone for a few minutes. She was clearly overstimulated and nothing helped. It was extremely wearing and it was starting to really get to me. As well as keeping Jake up and annoying all of us through the repercussions of that. So I did some research and between 2 books with hugely different philosophies, I found a solution.

Book #1 was the Baby Whisperer. Actually it was getting the second book in the series that did it. I used the first with Jake but needed a refresher on finer points. I ended up rejecting a lot of it for now, at least, but I think quite useful is the notion that babies need a routine that repeats itself at regular intervals throughout the day. You can be really flexible, but the pattern is the same: eat, activity, sleep. I was doing the cycle already (And Abby has been fed on demand, but has naturally followed a nearly perfect 2 hour cycle during the day since about 3 weeks - she eats every 2 hours) but I had not paid attention to Abby's sleep pattern. When I actually looked at what she was doing, I realized she was not sleeping more than in 20 minute chunks all day long! Sometimes she was up for 2 full eating cycles in a row. Not because we were keeping her awake, but because she couldn't settle herself to good sleep. By 6pm, she was beside herself tired. And on days where we took car trips and she slept longer, the colic crying was reduced. I realized I needed to help her sleep more and better during the day.

(Note: I tried the calming techniques in this book first and they didn't work at all - in fact, they made things much worse. I think they are much better suited to older babies, despite all the hoopla in the book about getting babies on a 3 hour, crib sleeping routine from when they are three days old. Abby wanted none of it!)

Book #2 was The Happiest Baby on the Block.
This book has saved my sanity. It has a very long intro to some very simple techniques about how to quiet and calm a crying baby. Unlike everything else I tried, it works! And it works fast too, which is amazing. By doing the 5 S's in this book (they are listed in the materials I got from the hospital when she was born but the extra instructions in this book make all the difference), I can quiet Abby in 3 minutes flat, and often have her asleep in 10. The key to all of it is a very tight swaddle, which I had stopped doing at about 2 weeks. She protests, but I was wrong to listen. She is, in the lexicon of the Baby Whisperer, a spirited child, and is able to work herself into a frenzy just by letting her arms flail around. Without that disturbance, and with some other distractions for her little brain, amazing things are happening!

Now I regularly put Abby in her pjs around 6 pm right before Jake comes upstairs to go to bed, and then when she starts her colic caterwauling, we go downstairs, I swaddle her and do the other S's and she is asleep in less than 10 minutes every time. I put her in her swing in the den with me (swinging is an S!) and then at bedtime I move her to her bassinet. For the last 6 nights she has stayed asleep from 6:30 to midnight or so this way! Last night she went until 2 am! I am amazed. Thank you to Harvey Karp for this simple but powerful little book. I have used other ideas in the book to help Abby sleep during the day too - I feel like I know what she needs at this age better than I ever did before. She now has regular naps in all sorts of places: swings, bouncy seats, car seats, crib; whatever is convenient for us with the right technique works for her too. It has made me feel like a supermom. I know I can quiet her with these techniques at any time, day or night, and she will be happy.

So, that's been my big obsession of late. Here are some photos from the past 2 weeks:



She likes her baths now very much. After the first one, during which she yelled, they've all gone well. I tend to do them in the morning, right after my shower, when the bathroom is warm and full of steam. I try to clear her nose this way every morning too - she sits in her swing and naps while I shower. She's been having a terrible time breathing at night and steam is so much easier than the aspirator (which makes her howl).


I didn't realize how much her eyes are glued to me until I saw these pictures. She will stare into my eyes intensely sometimes during her meals.


An interesting expression!



This is Abby's official 6 week couch photo. We did this with Jake, taking his picture every week on the couch with his stuffed giraffe. The minute I put her on the couch, Abby got stiff as a board and screamed. It was such a pleasurable experience I have somehow forgotten to do it since!



I like this one. You can see how chubby she's getting, as well as more alert and coordinated. She does try to hold her bottles about half of the time, and actually does quite often! And I love this little sailor outfit.


This may have been the tail end of a smile!



And this one is from today. She laid huge smiles on both her Daddy and me all morning.
What a ham!

One-Handed Webcam pix

What can you do with one hand while feeding a baby?

Well, my life of late is all about this question. It turns out you can do a lot. You can watch TV, listen to the radio, read email (and answer it V-E-R-Y slowly), play web sudoku, play web boggle (though that is thoroughly frustrating, trying to type words one-handed against a time clock), read a magazine or a book if you got yourself propped correctly before the meal started, eat your own meal (trying not to drop pizza/chicken cassorole/lo mein noodles/hot tea, etc. on top of baby), have a conversation with a lazy preschooler who won't get out of bed, talk on the phone, spend lots of money shopping online, and even, it turns out, write blog entries.

But today, I discovered a novel one-handed activity - using the webcam. I was able, during Abby's 2-3pm feed (did I mention she's a very slow and frequent eater?), to take a few new pix of her and me, find some older ones, and edit a few. It made for a surprisingly satisfying creative endeavor. Below are some of the results:



Jake and me about 6 months ago



Grainy black and whites are especially flattering!



My hair, uncut since October, and fueled by pregnancy hormones, has gotten super long!


Mom of Two - Zoning out


My sweet girl


The two of us

Sleeping Beauty

Abby somehow manages to show a great deal of personality - even with her eyes closed!

My Girl

Abby is Here!

On Saturday morning, my water broke while I was sleeping, at 3am. After a call to Ashleigh to come stay with Jake, a whirlwind drive to the hospital at 3:30 am with contractions coming every 2 minutes, and being coached through a very intense hour of natural labor by my amazing doula Cathy, our beautiful baby girl, Abigail Louise, made her appearance shortly after 5 am on Saturday, January 12, 2008.

At 38 weeks' gestation, she weighed 8 pounds 12 ounces, and was 21 inches long. She was 4 weeks later than her brother, and more than 2 and a half pounds bigger! And unlike him, came out with no drugs, no cuts, and no vacuum. She suckled like a champ within the first hour, and her dad made it home to be with Jake within 5 minutes of his waking up close to 7:30 am. We couldn't have designed a smoother entrance for her into our family. My doula was incredibly complimentary, practically giving me an award for my calm, controlled demeanor. I don't know who she was kidding. I was a wreck, it just all happened really quickly! I'm just glad to not have to EVER give birth again!

I stayed in the hospital for 2 days and nights, and Jake and Dad visited Abby and me daily. Jake got big brother stickers and announced to all he met that he was a new big brother. He keeps asking - "where's my baby?"

We are home now, and adjustments are being made all day long in every way. The cats are puzzled by the new smells and Hannah insists on hopping into the bassinet to claim it, so she is banished from the room. Abby is finding it difficult to sleep alone and adjust to a world that is not 98 degrees. She also has a little jaundice and is sleeping with a bili light tonight. I am learning to breastfeed for the first time (since Jake was so early he could not), and am finding that incredibly challenging (and painful!). The good news is that Abby is a voracious sucker and soon it should all turn around. Jake is finding the presence of continual needs of another person somewhat new and frustrating, though he is concerned about her crying and wants to help often. Mike is doing all the heavy lifting and manual labor around the house, a superdad if I ever saw one. We were all tired and cranky much of the time today.

Still, we are the real deal: a new family of 4 (plus two feline furballs) who are incredibly blessed and lucky. Mike and I both found we were looking at Jake differently today: his every physical capability compared to the newborn state he came in seems a small miracle. Then we look at our new daughter and are filled with awe for what she will become and what we will get to share with her along the way.

New Bed

Jake's new bed arrived yesterday, in the middle of a day when he was very sick and had a very high fever. Still, he seemed excited and kept asking if this was the day it was coming, so we decided a) not to cancel delivery and b) not to insist that the crib be removed from the room. If I had a 103 degree fever I wouldn't want to be forced to sleep in a new place either! We figured as long as the bed made it into the room and he accepted this, we'd have made progress.

So, Jake woke up early from his nap, and then shortly after the delivery truck called to ask if they could deliver early. On hearing this news, Jake happily announced they must have known he was excited and that's why they were coming early!

After about 40 minutes of watching them install the bed, he asked that his animals and blanket be put in and started loading his pillows in and jumping around. By bedtime, he was very clear though that sleeping was to be done in the crib, which does still fit in the room with the bed, though just barely. At 5am this morning, he woke with another very high fever and accepted my suggestion that we lie in bed for a few minutes instead of sitting on his chair. It was SO much more comfortable for me with my big belly!

Today, he got some new balloons and he asked to read books in his new bed, with the balloons. He does like it very much! We do too!

First Day of School

Mike and I were clearly more nervous than Jake for his first day of preschool today. We were both a little stressed last night. We wanted everything to be perfect!

On arrival, he insisted on holding his plastic box of extra clothing himself, and once he started talking to two teachers, he didn't even look back to say good-bye to Daddy. He was too busy telling Amee and Bonny that his slippers were in the box, that he wanted to put the box in his cubby himself, stay for snack and go play in the playground. All at once.

Mike called me to tell me that all went well with Jake's first drop-off and I, of course, 28 weeks full of hormones, burst into tears. My little boy, so ready for school! I hope the next week is as positive. My friend Melissa came by this morning and said that her son had a great time in the first week and started complaining the week after, before adjusting the week after that.

In any case, I will say this: the house is EXTREMELY quiet!!

Follow-up from 1pm:

Apparently the rest of the morning went fabulously well. Mike got to observe behind the one way mirror for about 10 minutes around 10 am and Jake was playing/working very intently on cutting and some other activities by himself and just asking for help from time to time. Mike said it was like he had been in that classroom for months.

They said he was “very atypical” and all agreed he could go for the full 3 hours tomorrow. He announced to Mike that he wanted to go back and play in the playground!

He did come home VERY tired and kept saying he was. I put him down for nap early and he seemed grateful. I think he was more nervous than he had let on!

What A Mom Can Do While Alone

So what did I do with 4 days alone while Jake and Daddy went to Grandma's house? I tried to do things I will not be able to do for another year or so when the new baby arrives. And at a pace that was my own.

So, while Jake and Mike were gone, I managed to:

-clean my entire office, purging two huge bags of papers, organizing all my current projects, and rearranging the furniture so the room is more spacious,

-oversee the construction (or deconstruction) of the wall between our den and kitchen, so that now we have a nice big window that lets in light, allows us to view kids from the kitchen, but is still high enough to provide safe closure for when we want the kids to play safely by themselves. This included measuring for the hole, removing all toys from the den and food and items from the kitchen that could get dusty, and then after they were done, touching up the kitchen walls and woodwork as well as those in the front hall and stairway with shiny white paint,

-do an errand for my friend Jacki who's sick and drop it off at her house

-attend bookclub at Jen's for A Thousand Splendid Suns

-go to my 23 week ultrasound where I got lovely 3d pix of Baby Girl, and then argued with my doctor an hour later about what gestational diabetes is and what to do about it:


Me: I seem to be gaining weight rather rapidly over the last month. Do you think my gestational diabetes has kicked in? Should I start measuring my blood sugar levels?



Him: Don't worry about the past, just watch what you eat going forward. Otherwise, you could end up with a baby that is prone to obesity. Just don't eat Ben and Jerry's except for once a week. And only eat a FEW Oreos before going to bed.



Me: But I rarely even eat sugar!! I haven't looked at an Oreo in over a year. (bursting into tears, deep breath.) You don't seem to understand, I've been trying to control this all along. But my body seems to not be able to process carbs correctly. That's my concern. Do you think I should put myself back on the strict gestational diabetes diet?




Him: (Blank stare. Silence. Pause.) Well, we could do another glucose tolerance test if you want to sit for an hour today.



Me: (thinking: jesus, he does not know a damn thing about gestational diebetes, does he?) yes, please!


so then I hung out for an hour afterwards doing my THIRD glucose tolerance test of this pregnancy, and put myself back on the strict diet, cooking myself gestational diabetes friendly meals for the rest of the weekend.

-have dinner out at a new place and shop at 3 new stores,

-put together (finally) the scrapbook of cards and pix from Jake's birth that have been sitting in my closet for 3 years (!),

-have a long bubblebath by candlelight,

-take naps every 3 hours or so, whenever the mood hit,

-rearrange the contents of our dining room cabinet to better organize bills and papers,

-watch about 15 hours of TV, including gobs of Oprah, Designed to Sell, Divine Design and a silly movie with Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton and Amanda Peet that was so forgettable, I already forgot the name!

-purge the house of clutter so that our housecleaner could do the best cleaning she's ever done, including shining the kitchen floor which she cannot do when three pairs of feet are tromping through it for lunch,

-ordered a new bedroom set from Grand we'd had our eyes on for some time,

-ordered a new bed for Jake

-used spot cleaner to remove all the stains from all carpets, upstairs and downstairs,

-went for two nice long walks,

-wrote in my journal, and

-wrote a poem.

Most of all though, what I got from my break was not a list of accomplishments, but a sense of space and air. I did what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. No schedule, no commentary, no distractions.

It was, in a word, divine.

Sunday Fun with Soap

Jake had a bad runny nose today, but seemed restless so we wandered outside. We decided to wash his little tykes slide set with some dishsoap and the hose, and the making of bubbles became all-absorbing. He spent over 45 minutes scrubbing and bubbling! And ended the exercise by covering his hands with bubbles and giggling as he wiggled them and got us all wet. It was a nice Jake and Mommy morning, for the day before my b-day.

Finally, December

It's finally December, it's finally less than 70 degrees here and I am finally over my cold. It took about 3 weeks. How many people have a deathly cold in 75 degree weather? I was hacking like a fiend at my dr's appt last week and she put me on antibiotics which seem to have started to nip it, finally. Whew!

Despite my cold, I spent most of last week watching Jake while Mike worked against his intense project deadlines. It was a nice week, actually. We did our grocery shopping on Monday, in town at a new store that allowed Jake to ride in style - in a big red fire engine with two steering wheels (for him) and a great seatbelt (for me). He kept turning around to tell me, "buy, Mommy, buy!" which basically meant: "Stop reading labels Mommy, we need to keep moving!"

We went to Kindermusick on Tuesday morning and he had a real blast there, playing drums and dancing with a scarf. I worked on Tues afternoon, 1-5, getting several of my class guests set and discussing the content of their visits with them. And I read about 10 business school cases to see which I wanted to replace in my class. We called grandma that night and Jake loved talking to her. On Wed am, we went to a new playgroup over at Ashleigh's, and Jake played very independently and happily. We also spent lots of our warm afternoon time at the playground, where Jake played with friends he knew nearly every day. On Friday, we spent the windy and rainy morningat the local library, a thrift store, and out to lunch with Gram and Ashleigh at the sandwich shop overlooking the golf course. A very social week!

Then I spent all day Thursday and the entire weekend working on my course for next semester. From 8 am to 6pm for two days straight. Mike got lots of Jake time and I got nearly the whole first coursebook done. Felt hugely satisfied last night and sat down in front of the TV to discover only reruns of Desp. Housewives and Brothers and Sisters. My one weekly night of the pleasures of network TV, ruined.

We also turned down another photo client this week. We're way too busy to worry about another shoot this month.

Jake has spent the week playing with a small tractor he got at the dime store nearby. It rumbles and moved by itself and he wants to take it with him wherever he goes. I think of all the holiday toys we picked out and look at this $1 toy that thrills him and wonder why we bothered!

My Sister's Keeper

At my mom's club book club session tonight we had a great conversation about My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult.

It's about a couple who finds out that their 3 year old daughter has cancer, and on the advice and help of their doctor to implant the perfect embryo, they decide to have another child so they can get a perfect match of cord blood to save her. The story takes place 13 years later, as Anna, the second daughter, tired of being the child who exists to save the first, refuses her fourth major medical procedure: donating a kidney to save her sister.

There are many other plot twists, but the critical questions came through very starkly:

• Can you ever love your children equally?
• How do you balance the interests of one child with another in the same family?
• As a mom, or a dad, how dedicated and obsessed should you be with saving your dying child?
• Is it ethically right to conceive and grow a child with the thought of organ and tissue donation?

The family in the novel was an extreme look at these issues, involving a court case to allow the 13 year old to wrest medical power of attorney from her parents (which she won), a pyromaniac older brother trying to get attention from his firefighter father, and a big, big lie that is revealed at the end of the story. We were all quite disgusted with the mother of the story, who was truly dismissive of her other two children in the guise of saving just one. She decided she had to be in control of saving her daughter herself by giving birth - misplaced heroism as one Mom insightfully pointed out. But the issues about balance, ethics, and genomics were very real.

We had two nurses and one pediatric nutritionist in the group. They had lots of very interesting stories to share abuot real families and how they deal with sick children. It turns out the latest thing is training parents to deal not just with their sick kids but their whole families. It's common for the sick children to be infantilized, spoiled, and developmentally behind their peers, and for the other kids to become quite troubled as well.

And no one could answer my question about whether they'd consider having a child to save a child. Everyone seemed to be saying, I don't want to be like that mother, but it would really depend on the situation, wouldn't it? What if that were the only thing you could do to save your child? I found this both understandable and quite frightening.

We're Sick!

Jake and I both had slight fevers today. Which meant he made out like a bandit. Got to have Didi and his bottle with him all day, ate only his favorite foods (we are so thrilled that he'll eat at all when he's feverish), watched an incredible amount of Blues Clues and Baby Einstein, and good for me, took an almost 4 hour nap. He was still cranky at dinner, trying to get away with throwing a handful of shredded cheese on the floor, turning his bowl of peas upside down on his slice of bread (both were worthy of experiementation but unworthy of being eaten), and finally, laughing huge uproarious belly laughs that warm the soul until you realize they can only be the creation of an extremely exhausted child. These were his reactions to both Daddy and Mommy trying to kill an errant but vastly annoying mosquito flying lazily above our dinner table. He laughed and laughed, even after Daddy smushed the culplit on the ceiling and then wiped off the remains, and kept repeating "More do!" By snorty time, our after bath mostly quiet play ritual, he downed a children's tylenol and motrtin cocktail, and seemed to have a second wind, playing with his car garage and his new Fisher Price train set, doing a few long run and jumps into a folded-up feather bed, and finally getting tucked into his crib at around 9pm. LONG DAY!!