Daddy, Papa and Me

The first Advent Sunday was this past weekend.

The beginning of the Season of Hope. As in years past, we celebrate advent with an advent calendar. Each day that Emma opens the Advent calendar offers a small treat for her and a small treat for someone else. In past years I wrote down 24 different small acts of charity or kindness we were supposed to do that day. It had not worked out that well (Emma resisted some), so this year we are having Emma think of them. So, before we open the calendar day, Emma thinks of some small act of kindness and then we do it. Saturday it was "Build a home for someone who needs one."

(more on Advent and the season below)

Well, apparently she was. Honey looks like, based on some research, to be as an effective tool as any in alleviating a cough for kids.

Saw this recently. Brad Pitt is building houses for Katrina victims in NOLA's 9th ward. You can go to the site, Make It Right 9, and choose a part of a house to sponsor. A perfect interactive way to 'build a house for someone' as Emma decided to do for an Advent activity.

A little over a month ago David over at Family Equality (formerly Family Pride, the ones that sponsored the Easter Egg Roll) asked me if I would be a co-blogger for their blog. He's been doing SUCH a great job there, so I'm not sure what I'd add... :)..but I said I'd love to.

So, it's official as of today. I'm a co-blogger there. All I can say about my co-bloggers is they are out of my league. Yikes, I'm either honored to be in their company or a bit cowed, not sure which.

Don't worry, I won't be abandoning this blog. In fact, if anything, this will make me post MORE here (cross-posts, thinking about it more, etc). I'm looking forward to it.

And believe it or not, I'll be a co-blogger soon on yet ANOTHER blog, this time about genomics (nothing to do with GLBT families :). I'll announce that when that becomes official.

Who would have thought 10 years ago I'd be doing all this 'blogging' stuff (well, ah.. no one, the term hadn't even been coined yet).

Emma lost her first tooth on Tuesday. It's been wiggling for over a week now and every day Emma has asked me to check it and see if it was ready for pulling. She SOOOO wanted that tooth to come out. It's a big deal. It's like a coming-of-age. All the older kids in her class have started having their teeth come out. It means they are getting to be 'big kids' with 'big teeth'. For Emma, this is a sign she's becoming a big kid.

Tuesday we had a dentist appointment (she had to get some cavities filled :( ). I took this opportunity to tell Emma that if the dentist thought it was time to come out, we could have it pulled out. You see, this was my cowardly self allowing someone else to cause pain. I have been pushing this off for a while. I was hoping it would just fall out. I couldn't bear pulling it and hurting her, even if she wanted it so badly to come out.

Well, while under the laughing gas (can I just say, she acts so goofy under the influence, and that's saying a lot since she's naturally goofy), the dentist pulled it!

She's so proud...

Usually I'll crosspost (put the post here and Family Equality), but today I'll just post a link to my first post on the Family Equality Blog. Not particularly insightful or original, but there it is.

Reader's Digest Version: Huckabee said that redefinition of marriage has destroyed civilizations. I want proof please.

(a link from a friend...) So, some article comes out suggesting that divorce hurts the environment and 'marriage advocates' have a field day. What those same 'marriage advocates' forget to remember (because they also usually don't advocate MY marriage, is that the same reasoning suggests that gay marriage will help the environment:
Blue Mass. Group:: "Save Marriage, Save the Planet"

Check out my nephew, Chad's, blog. He and his wife, Lorry, joined the Peace Corps and are teaching in Palau (Micronesia). He's teaching biology, she's teaching English. They are having quite the experience! I'm jealous: Musings from Micronesia

Ever since Watson made the demonstratably unfactual remark that 'Africans' are less intelligent as a population than 'Europeans', I've wanted to say something. I haven't. There is a lot that connects here with me both scientifically (I'm a molecular biologist and study genomics) and personally (our daughter of course is African American, but I also have African American ancestry, as small as it is). At some point, I'll write about my thoughts when I've developed them a bit more.

But this bit of news is not only ironic, it's illustrative of the difficulty of using IQ tests of Americans to determine 'racial' differences, one difficulty of many. A researcher has found that Watson's genome, which he recently had mapped and made public, is of 16% African descent.

As the post ends:

Those who join Dr. Watson in complete D.N.A. openness may be wise to remember two lessons from this episode: think before you speak, and also try to memorize all six billion letters of your genetic code.

Towleroad has an interesting post up today: Genre Fakes Cover Story to "Sell" Idea of Relationship Longevity.

Apparently, Genre had on their cover two 'hot' men in a long-term relationship. Inside the magazine they 'profiled' these men and how they kept their relationship together. The articles gave tips on making your marriage last 'forever'.

Only...

Well, not really.

I told Emma yesterday that I had to leave tonight for a one-day business trip. She was not happy. She starting crying like I was leaving for months and hugged me and then said "You're my favorite Papa" (and yes, you are my favorite daughter :D). She then went and told our pet parrot and fish that I was leaving and loved them even so.

Talk about guilt trip.

She calmed down, but right before supper last night...

The Arctic ice cap melted more and faster this year than ever before in the historical record. Now scientists are saying it might be ice-free in 5 years, a few decades earlier than previously predicted. Studies just out suggest Greenland's ice cap too melted more and faster this year, than any previously recorded year. As the title of this article says, it's an ominous warning: Ominous Arctic Melt Worries Experts - Technology on The Huffington Post

This is a great blog and today's post about how to make a draft stopper from trash is great: Juggling Frogs

ANd here is a great photo gallery of christmas gift wrappings out of trash.

When I get emails forwarded to me from family and friends warning about some email virus or making some political point about immigration, I always check Snopes. Many turn out to be false, like the two I linked above which I've gotten in the last couple months from well meaning family or friends.

But every once in a while I get one that is true.

Yep, it's official:
Uruguay OKs gay unions in Latin American first
| International
| Reuters

And greetings for any other holiday you celebrate or not!

I won't be posting for the next few days, but I hope you all have a great weekend...

and look forward to an amazing new year!

o, a few days before Christmas, Emma lost her second tooth. She was ecstatic. She carried around all day and then carefully put it under her pillow for the tooth fairy.

Only the tooth fairy forgot to exchange it for a dollar. BAD tooth fairy.

The look on poor Emma's face as she was standing in the bedroom door, tears streaming down her face. She said, between sobs, that the tooth fairy forgot. She then recounted, between sobs, how she stayed up half the night checking to see if the tooth fairy had come and taken her tooth. She said she'd turn on the light when she thought she'd hear something, and then pretend to go to sleep.

She was SOOOO disappointed, no.. much stronger than that. Oh we felt so horrible for her and not so happy with the tooth fairy! (slap self ten times).

But it gets worse.

As if anyone cares who I endorse. Just writing this for future reference of our grand children.

I'm just going to say this off the bat, the three main candidates (Edwards, Clinton, Obama) have very similar positions and, for the most part, I agree with them (though they tend to be less liberal and more liberal in some parts). The distinctions between their positions are minimal in my view. The only one who has distinctly different positions is Kucinich. His positions on gay marriage and other issues is why people like Terrance at RepublicofT support him. But my decision has come to this: Which one do I think would make a _good_ president, one the country needs. I don't think Kucinich will make a good president, at all, for the reasons this man states and more. Thus I won't vote for him.

That leaves the other three...

This is a screenshot of my desktop. It is a shot of the Earth as it is right now, as the sun is rising on the new year of 2008 West of where I live and people in Eastern Europe and African are just starting to celebrate the new year.

I love this desktop. I never tire of watching the earth rotate, the clouds change and night change to day. There is something that strangely meditative, mystical even, watching it progress through the day. Knowing that as the sun is setting here, it is rising on people in India, China and Siberia just, somehow, makes me feel a part of it all.