Daddy, Papa and Me

So, Emma now says she wants to be a scientist and at teacher who teaches science. Just like her Papa :). Her Daddy is a teacher of English, so she'll be following the family tradition :D. We'll see how long that lasts!

Which reminds me, about 6 weeks ago Emma wanted to know how "people got on the continents." Commenter Yolanda suggested a book, Tree of Life: Wonders of Evolution. So we ordered it. The day it came Emma insisted I read it to her. Three times. I liked the book, it explains natural selection and evolution in a way a 5 year old can understand (see below). It does get a bit 'mystical' for my tastes at times, but it's for a five year old :). So, I thought Emma got it, I was sure of that the next week.

Earlier this year I mentioned that we had a banana tree that was blooming!! It was planted as a dwarf, but well.. it was anything but. It grew nearly 35 feet tall. I've ALWAYS wanted to cut this tree down. I found it out of place, too large and wanted to plant something else there. But my dear husband and neighbor loved the tree. So, it stayed.

Till today.

Well, as you can see it came crashing down this weekend. I guess the 'flower' just got too big. It never fruited, just kept getting bigger and bigger... till it came crashing down. Now the sun has returned to our courtyard and I can start planting again!! :)

Andrew Sullivan has been gathering bad experience stories of American custom/border officials. He posted one about a same-sex couple having troubles, Dan Savage wrote in to say:

Filed under: things I never knew.
Did you know that earwax, or Cerumen, is either wet or dry? And that this difference is cause by a single mutation in a gene? (wet being "dominant") And that Europeans and Africans have mainly wet cerumen and East Asians and Native Americans have mainly dry cerumen? And that this same mutation (that causes dry cerumen) lowers perspiration also?

I didn't, but I found it interesting because,

In our new search to go "offgrid" in the city (ok, as much as possible, we'll never actually go 'off grid"), we started today with getting our house stuffed.

My friend did this to her old house earlier this year and already notices a reduction in heat use, reduction in sound, etc.

This photo here is the 'stuff,' recycled newspaper treated with boric acid. More.... (photos should work now, they were a bad format earlier).

I know, that was a short 13 years ago... but it's hilarious and makes you realize how fast things developed!

A category 5 cyclone (hurricane) is headed straight for Bangladesh and Eastern India. Based on past experience, a storm this size hitting low-lying, densely populated Bangladesh could kill thousands, perhaps tens of thousands.

Strangely, it's not on the CNN, NYTimes or even BBC].

Here is a link to the Bangladesh Red Crescent Society for donations. They are going to need them.

A Laptop that is. One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) has developed a laptop that is under 200 dollars for education in disadvantaged areas of the world. They have a program going on right now (you've got about 10 days) where you can buy one (usually reserved for development projects), if you buy one to be sent to one of those areas. Why would you?

To spread awareness, Family Pride (now known as the Family Equality Council), has an "adopt a rainbow" action. Make a pledge to:

Educate one friend about the foster care crisis Volunteer one hour of time with an adoption advocacy organization Or donate $10 to a related charity

I'm going to pledge 5 rainbows: two friends, one hour of time and 20 dollars. Make some pledges now!

Hmm, does actually adopting count towards a pledge :).

Shannon linked to a blog entry by Amber about a NY Times adoption blog entry.

I just spent a lot of time reading the NYT entry, the linked one and many others. She might have been "late to the party," but as usual, I am very late and I don't have much to say except two 'contrarian' statements.

This is a repost from 3 years ago. I'll rewrite this someday, but I hope this shows you why Thanksgiving for me is the greatest of American holidays...

Perusing my blog neighorhood (blogs I read, like) this holiday weekend I came across several that had qualms, misgivings or reticence about Thanksgiving as a celebratory holiday.

I have no qualms, misgivings or reticence at all, not one iota. And neither did my grandmother of native descent. Read below.

So, the boys were over for their weekly exchange night on Friday (Emma went there last night). They got out the old music toys Emma had (we need to update them :) and started making up songs and music spontaneously.

When asked what the name of this newly formed band was they decided on "The OME EMO Super Singers." correction, see below (E, M and O being their initials).

Hmm, a little practice and they might go far!

If you ever wonder why network news is losing it's viewers and why more and more young people are watching shows like The Daily Show or reading blogs to get their news, it's because of this:

more in the continuation...

Sara just posted a "Pay it Forward" post.

The idea?

The first three people to post a comment to _any_ of this weeks entries AND promise to either a) do the same on their blog or if you don't have a blog b) promise to make a post on THIS blog as a guest and do the same, will get a free hand-made gift from me. It might be knitting or food or something. And like Sarah, I won't promise it soon, it might be months from now (I STILL owe someone a washcloth.. I have knitted it.. I just need to actually send it), but it will happen.

Like I said, you don't need to comment here, in fact I'd prefer you comment on another post (on topic even!) and just let me know you did it for this too (I'll see it on the right and know it was one of the next three.

From what we gathered from our trainings, from well-meaning family or friends and from readings, adoptees can have such a great sense of loss from adoption and feel so greatly 'other' that they lack a self-esteem and identity that birth children have, that it leads to other issues.

It's a myth.

Or at least that is what a recent meta-study is showing.

So, as is our tradition every year (well, the last three anyway, the first in 2005 and now one of her favorite movies), the day after Thanksgiving we go to the Sound of Music Sing-a-Long with family and friends (about a dozen of us this year). Of course you sing along, but you boo the bad people, shout at Maria to look at the curtains, wave edelweiss etc. It's a lot of fun. Emma loves it and this year she had a special treat.

Sorry, I am not buying it. Brian Williams wrote a blog post in 'explanation' of his comment that we are in an 'era where marriage is under attack.' His explanation?

We just misunderstood him.

A friend took a video of the contest Emma was in. It's not easy to see Emma, she's about 1 minute 30 seconds into the video, she's wearing a brown skirt and white shawl. We are still looking for people who took photos!

Yesterday seemed to be "teach your daughter about presidential politics" day. She saw a photo of Hillary Clinton and asked who she was. I told her that we are in the process of choosing a new president and there are a lot of people who want us to choose them. Hillary is one of them. I then showed her a picture of Obama. I explained (as simply as I could) what the difference between the two is. I asked her who she'd choose for president. Her answer?

"Her"

"Why honey?"

"Because she's pretty and has a nice green dress."

I told Daddy and Uncle Jim and their response:

"Sounds like how a lot of the electorate chooses their candidate"

Sadly, based on a few questions asked in yesterday's Republican debate, they might be right.