Our Little Missionary

On Sunday, Thomas's CTR 5 teacher gave each member of his class a little Book of Mormon in a little bag with their name sewn on it. Pretty impressive. When I was a primary teacher, the kids were lucky to get a blank piece of paper to color on at the end of class.

Well, it just happened that the next day I was scheduled to go to school with Thomas (it's a cooperative preschool where each parent helps out roughly once a month). That also meant Thomas got to bring something for show and tell and he picked his new Book of Mormon. I think it's pretty cool that to Thomas, going to church and talking about going to church is just part of his life. He doesn't think anything about it. The kids in his preschool are from a pretty wide range of religious backgrounds and they're fine discussing it with each other. Go kids! (Though the art teacher could use a little help. I thought her presentation on Hanukkah* this winter left a lot to be desired and I'm not even Jewish).

Anyway, I videoed Thomas's presentation. The full video runs a little over nine minutes and was huge, file size-wise, so I chopped it up into thirds. The three videos are below.

(Note: While I think it's adorable, I'm fully aware that this is the kind of video probably only family could enjoy. The camera work is a little sketchy, there's plenty of background noise, and it contains the extended ramblings of a four-year-old. Like I said, I think it's very sweet, but just be warned.)







*I was the helping parent during Hanukkah on their art day and the school's art instructor was having the kids make construction paper menorahs with gold sparkles for flames. She had brought a Hanukkah book with her, but had apparently failed to actually read it because the story she told went something like this: "Well the Jewish people were fighting with the Syrians and then it came time for Hanukkah and the Jewish people were afraid they wouldn't have enough oil to light their menorahs, so Hanukkah almost didn't happen, but then they discovered they had enough oil for eight days, so they got to celebrate Hanukkah and they called it the Great Miracle."

Thomism

Thomas: I wish I had four arms and two feet
Me: You already have two feet
Thomas: Oh. I wish I had ten heads, so I could watch every TV in the world.

Gordon B. Hinckley 1910-2008

I was a high school senior when Hinckley became president of the church and so he is probably the prophet I remember best, but I think that he transcends my mere memory as an extraordinary man. He always exuded moral strength at the same time as self-deprecating humor, spiritual forward-thinking as well as temporal concern with the lives of the members of the church. He traveled all over the world to ensure that he met as many people as possible, that they knew him and that he knew them. He also presented a real outreach of the church to news organizations and members of other faiths, to let them know who we are and what we represent, not the least of which is friendship and fellowship.

My grandfather, E. Keith Loosli, was a year older than President Hinckley, and died just a touch younger. In many ways they resembled each other--strong men of faith who put their family and community ahead of themselves (in Hinckley's case, his family and community comprised the entire church). A year or so before my grandfather's death, we were together at a family christmas party and I was looking at out at my grandfather's impressive amount of progeny. I asked him something along the lines of, "How do you feel having had so much in your life?"

His answer has stuck with me and seems to apply to President Hinckley now. He said, "This is what comes from living the teachings of the gospel" and read to me a scripture from D.&C. 121:

Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men and to the household of faith and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distill upon thy soul as the dews from heaven. The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever.

Baby's first haircut

Okay, so Sethie isn't really a baby anymore--he's walking and talking and pulling down all the books off the lower shelves, but it was hard to see him in the barber's chair with his little feet only just reaching the end of the seat itself and not think he was just so very tiny. Anyway, we took a quick video of the abuse (does any kid like having his hair cut? Ever?). Don't feel bad for him--he got plenty of cookies to assuage the pain.

The final product:

For Grandma

My mom requested proof that little Seth is actually taking some steps, so after a few failed attempts to get him to perform on camera (and in a relatively clean house), I managed to capture this. There you go, Mommy!

Thomism Redux

In the car this morning:

Thomas: "Mommy, you can come see my babies if you want."
Me: "Babies? What babies are you talking about?"
Thomas: "My babies when I'm a grownup daddy. You can come visit them any time you want."
Me: "Oh Thomas, I would love to come see your babies when you're a grownup. That would make me very happy."
Thomas: "If you're not dead yet."

Thomism

Thomas: "Mommy, when I'm a grownup, I won't live with you anymore, right?"
Me: "I hope not!" Laughs. "But yes, you're right. When you're a grownup you won't live with me anymore."
Thomas: "Because you'll be dead."

Tagged

My long-time friend Robin tagged me and has only harrassed me a little bit to respond, but I'm easily intimidated, so here goes:

10 years ago (Jan 1998):
I was midway through my junior year of college and applying for summer internships (I eventually went to the University of Iowa's comp sci program). I was breaking up with someone. I was lolly-gagging around my parents' house for winter break (I'm sure they would be glad to get rid of me soon).

5 things on my to-do list today:
1) pick Thomas up from preschool
2) make an appointment to register him for kindergarten
3) do laundry
4) take Thomas to his playdate this afternoon
5) get in a few pages on my novel

Snacks I enjoy:
1) sushi
2) chocolate
3) ooooohhhh chocolate
4) mmmmmmmmmm chocolate
5) did I mention chocolate?

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1) pay off our debt and any family and friend debt (note this is family and friends that existed BEFORE the billionaire status. Late emergers need not apply)
2) start a college scholarship program for girls in the sciences
3) get a building named after me at my alma mater (Simpsons reference: "Yale could use an airport").
4) invest in programs like the Gates Foundation that places aid where it is needed and that requires positive progress from those who have received the aid.
5) invest in programs like FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) which help ensure that U.S. Universities live up to their purpose: intellectual (not just superficial) diversity, open discussion (even if some are offended), and preserving the sanctity of individual conscience.

3 of my bad habits (only three? Wahoo!)
1) Resistance to housework
2) Procrastination
3) Uncontrollable yawning when I am bored (apologies to our Sacrament meeting speakers)

5 places I have lived
1) Tremonton, UT
2) Bryn Mawr, PA
3) Ithaca, NY
4) New York City, NY
5) Princeton Junction, NJ

5 jobs I have had:
1) I have not actually had five jobs
2) Pizza maker
3) Temp worker at AT&T
4) Computer programmer
5) Freelance writer (does this really count?)

5 things people don't know about me:
1) I generally hate talking on the phone. I am getting better at it, but I am just not a phone person. I like to get to the point and get off. There are a few exceptions, but they're rare (Slease!)
2) Nate and I met online.
3) I like to read celebrity gossip
4) I once considered becoming Wiccan (chalk this one up to standard college too much time and too little serious responsibility)
5) I still love the movie "The Last Unicorn".

I tag Eddie, Heather J., Anali, Kendra, and Teresa.

Wii wish you a Merry Christmas

I realize this is very late getting up, but, frankly, so am I. I've been couch-ridden for the last few weeks after rupturing a disc in my back not once, but twice, around Christmas and New Year's. Oy. I can now tolerate sitting at the computer. Yay! Stay tuned for "The Day It Was Finally Easy to Dress Myself" and "Widen Your Stance: How I Relearned to Load My Dishwasher".

Here are some videos from Christmas morning. A big thank-you to faraway relatives who sent packages, especially for the kids. (Note, any intolerable camerawork is my fault. I forgot that while you can rotate the camera to take tall pictures rather than wide ones, rotating the camera to take a "tall" video just results in a sideways one. Sorry Mom and Dad!)

Christmas morning, Thomas coming downstairs to find what Santa left for him

A present from Thomas's cousin Matthew

A present from Sethie's cousin Jessica

A present from my parents

A present from Nate's parents

Presents to the kids from Gram and Grandpa Poulsen

Oh and the title for the post refers to the fact that we also got a Nintendo Wii for Christmas which is now providing many many hours of post-Christmas merriment (which saved me during my couch-ridden days from just staring slack-jawed at the TV. Instead I stared slack-jawed at the TV while repeatedly shaking the "Wii-mote"). I'll leave it to Nate, if he wishes, to post how he managed to secure a Wii during the crazy holiday shortages (Note: Interestingly enough, it was not from the Nintendo World Store in NYC, despite the fact Nate works a mere block away from there).

Sethie plays a mean boxing match on Wii Sports. If I can manage to capture it on video, I'll post that a little later.

A very late Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

Santa takes time out for the little guys...

A few weeks ago, Thomas wrote a letter to a Santa (well, he dictated and I wrote it). Here's a video I took of the event pre-posting.




In case you missed it, Thomas asks for "Geotrax with Eric", which is a new version of the Fisher-price electric train set we have and he also asks for two "Scoopadivos"*, which in the letter he explains are for both him and his little brother, which is bound to win him points with the big guy (can a four-year-old be that calculating?).

Well, we did in fact post his letter. A little while ago he asked me how we would know if Santa had gotten it and I said we would just have to assume the post office did their job and got it to him.

Well did they ever! Yesterday a letter came in the mail addressed to Thomas with the return address "North Pole". Here's a pic:

The letter is hand-written and says, "Dear Thomas, Santa got your letter at the North Pole and he knows how good you have been this year! Be sure to get to bed early on Christmas Eve...he'll be coming to your house! We've been so busy getting ready for the trip! Love, Santa's Elves and the Reindeer"

Thomas almost fell over with delight when he got to open this. Let me just say a very public thank you to Santa's elves and reindeer who took time out of their very busy schedules to make a little boy so happy.

*Thomas is famous in our house for inventing creative names for toys he loves. He currently has a Transformer here that broke, but he wouldn't let us throw it away. He determined the broken Transformer is known now as "Bedaton" (pronounced by him as "Bed-a-tahn"). He also has a small plastic rabbit he calls, "Rescue Apartment Bunny", presumably because it rescues apartments? "Scoopadivo" is his name for small Chubbies truck with a scoop on the back that he got when he turned 3. He lost this truck at the beach this summer and was absolutely devastated. We looked around local stores to see if they had any to replace it, but we haven't been able to find one. He's really hoping the big guy will come through for him Christmas morning.

They're coming for us!

Nate and I were making dinner last night when we heard a series of loud "pops". Now, most suburbanites would probably assume a backfiring car or some such, but of course, we thought they were gunshots. As they say, "You can take the people out of New York, but..."

Turns out someone was doing an enormous fireworks display somewhere very close to us. We could easily see the fireworks over the tops of our neighbor's trees. I took some pictures, but they turned out terrible because our motion-sensor light outside comes on if you so much as exhale in proximity to it, but it was very nice to stand out on the porch and watch the display.

Especially now that we know no one was trying to kill us.

Let's Not Go to the Poulsens' House

'Tis a silly place.

Trick-or-Treating on its last, candy-seeking legs

Last night, Thomas got his first real dose of trick-or-treating. We took him two years ago, when we lived in Ithaca, around the woodsy neighborhood of six-plexes we lived in, but he was only 2 1/2 at the time and the idea was a little fuzzy to him. Last year, we were dealing with a preemie newborn and also, fond as I was of our NYC neighborhood, I'd as comfortably taken him out around there after dark on Halloween night as I would to hand him off to an overly friendly stranger on the subway, saying "Thanks for offering to babysit!"

We figured, though, our new digs in Princeton were more than safe enough for him to do a round of houses with us in tow. You can imagine his excitement. Here is one night out of the year where any random adult answering the door will give you candy, no strings attached. You don't have to earn the candy by doing chores and you don't owe them anything after you leave. They're just giving you candy! For showing up at their house! It's craziness! It's the greatest kids' night of the year!

Here's a video of Thomas's first door-knocking experience (warning, video is pretty dark on account of it being night-time and whatnot):



We weren't the only trick-or-treaters on the block, but we did notice a certain dearth of kids. So, in fact, did the candy-dispensers who gave whole handfuls to Thomas, presumably to get rid of their stashes. At one house, the woman answering offered him the candy bowl and Thomas, being polite I can only suppose, actually took just one. She said, "Oh you should have more than that!" and proceeded to put several fistfuls of Spongebob gummy hamburgers into his bag. At home, we noticed the bowl of candy we had set out on the front porch had lost a certain amount of sugar poundage, but it wasn't empty and once we were home, no one else knocked on the door the rest of the night (it was barely seven o'clock when we walked in the door).

What's going on? From friends and family all around the country, I'm hearing the same news: the death knell of trick-or-treating has been sounded. Most people are speculating that it's a safety issue, which made sense to me in New York, but out here in quiet suburbia, I'm genuinely puzzled at the idea. Is the greatest kid's night of the year actually doomed? When I was a kid (warning, nostalgia alert), I used to roam around my hometown from dusk until...well if not dawn, at least a lot later than 7 pm, usually with a few friends. We'd hit all the big candy givers and avoid spoilsports (like the town dentist) who gave out apples and pencils. Even after we stumbled home exhausted, we'd sit up the remainder of the night scarfing and cataloging our booty.

I'm devastated that this tradition might be disappearing. What do people think? Is the picture the same everywhere? Is there any chance of a revival?

My current, and possibly future, ninja turtles hope so.

Thomisms

Thomas and I are playing Peggle together.
Me: "Wow, great shot there, Mr. Thomas!"
Him: "Thanks, Mr. Two-Brains."

Enjoying Our Stunted Agricultural Tourist Traps

Ah, the Northeast American tourist farm. If you live out this way, you know what I'm talking about: the apple orchards and the pumpkin patches where you take the kiddies every fall and pick your own produce. While you're at it, you can take haywagon and pony rides, feed plump goats, navigate through corn mazes, and buy cider donuts. We started going to these places about three years ago when our friends Sarah and Josh invited us out to their parents' place in the Poconos. We visited a little farm there mid-Oct. with its own apple and pumpkin picking, along with a children's playground, animals to be fed, and painted boards with holes in them where your child can stick their head through and you can photograph them being a cow or a tree or some such (every farm is required to have one of these). Here's a few pictures from our first farm adventure:

Thomas didn't really understand the concept then of "stick your head

through", so after numerous attempts to get him to go around to
the other side, we finally just took his picture anyway.

Apple-picking (and eating) in the orchard

Clearly, he wants THIS pumpkin

This is also the scene of my crime. I can't really post the footage here because this was before we owned a camera that could take .mpg movies. We had a clunky old separate videocam then and, in my defense, it required a lot of attention to operate it to avoid ending up with videos that would induce motion sickness. Here's the set-up: the feeding apparatuses for the animals at this farm consisted of a small rubber conveyor belt with a plastic cup attached to them. You bought the food, natch, then placed it in the cup on the conveyor belt. A little crank at your end would "convey" the plastic cup through the fence to the goat-side where said animal would presumably gobble it up. I had been trying to get Thomas to do it from the time we arrived, but two-year-olds are famously difficult to reason with, so right before we were to leave, I decided I would try one last time and capture the magical event on camera. Nate, Sarah, and Josh had all headed to the checkout with our apples and pumpkins, so Thomas and I lingered behind, newly purchased food pellets in hand. The moment swims, hauntingly, in my mind.

The evidence of the events following is probably still sitting around in a box of old videotapes, but the footage goes a little something like this: The camera shows the conveyor belt. The camera switches to Thomas standing off to the side. My own hand appears in the scene with the food pellets, depositing them in the little cup and my voice urges Thomas to come turn the crank. Camera switches to Thomas toddling over to the conveyor belt and my hand taking his and bringing it up to the crank which I proceed to help him turn. Camera switches back to the little food cup starting on its wobbly way to the goat salivating on the other side of the fence.

And then...a little child's scream. Camera goes wild, whirling around. My voice shouts, "Ah! Oh no!" Camera tilts to the side. Everything goes black.

In my effort to capture us rustically feeding goats through some contrivance presumably created to keep the kidlets at a safe distance from gnashing goat teeth, Thomas's fingers had gotten stuck in the conveyor belt. When I turned the crank (which I wasn't watching because I trying to videotape the moving food), Thomas's fingers got turned with it, rolling on the belt around the underside of the metal wheel. He was screaming hysterically. I dropped the camera and tried to pry his fingers out which just made him scream louder. For all I knew, they were broken. Finally, in a gleaming moment of reason amid the panic, I thought to turn the crank in the opposite direction, rolling Thomas's fingers back out. Lucky for us, the rubber of the conveyor belt was relatively soft and so even as Thomas's fingers had become trapped between it and the wheel, it gave way and didn't crush them. In the end, they were okay. Still, more than a little shame-faced, I abandoned my quest to video him feeding the animals and carried him, still sniffling, over to meet up with the others. The goat never got his food.

This story demonstrates a little of the trouble of trying to live an approximation of the rustic life for a few hours on an autumn Saturday. As Daniel Gross points out in this Slate article, these farms really aren't that rustic. Like an amusement park styled up to look like the Old West, these are tourist money pits whose actual agriculture is so stunted, they would be incapable of surviving if not for their annual fall "harvests". And frankly, the set-up is a genius of American capitalism: instead of paying pickers, they actually charge people to come and pick their own. And the people do come. When we lived in Ithaca, we visited a place called Iron Kettle Farm at least four times over the fall (and no children or goats were harmed in the filming of our memorabilia). Even the name is hokily evocative: the only iron kettles at that farm were for sale in its over-priced giftshop.

Yesterday, we loaded the kids in the car (we've got two now! Yay, more fun!) and headed out to Terhune Orchards for more of the fake rustic same. At this point it's reasonable to ask why, if I'm so down on these places, do we keep going? The truth is, I'm not down on them. I love them. I think they're adorable. I happily charged into their cornmaze even though it turned out to be not so much of a maze as just some rows of corn. Sethie's stroller even got trapped as we tried to force our way down one too-narrow aisle and he yelled angrily until I could manage to finally free him. And their food was so overpriced, we forewent all but the cider donuts and opted to pick up some hotdogs on our way home and cook them on our own backyard barbeque (which, dogs and buns included, was cheaper than if we had bought just one hotdog at the farm).

Still, Thomas got to ride a pony and when I told him he looked like a right cowboy, he held up an arm and shouted "Yeehaw!" We managed to find a lovely round pumpkin that's hanging out in our kitchen now awaiting carving, and even Sethie got in on the cider donut-eating action. And not only did it get us out and about in some beautiful fall weather, it inspired us to spend a little more family time in the backyard grilling hotdogs, playing soccer, and turning our faces into the chill and sharp-scented wind heralding a not-too-far-off winter. If it sounds idyllic, romantic even, it was, for all that its rusticness is a veneer. So are carriage rides in Central Park, but snuggle under the blanket with your honey during one, and you'll feel your heart swell.

Here are some pics and videos of our family farm fun (both Iron Kettle and Terhune):

Thomas tackles the cornmaze at Iron Kettle Farm Oct. 2005

Sethie makes a friend at Terhune Orchards Oct. 2007

Thomas "milks" a "cow" at Terhune Orchards 2007

Thomas wants to get in some Halloween fun a little early...

Today when I was driving Thomas to preschool, we were stopped at a light across from a small Baptist church that also runs a preschool. Thomas pointed out the window at the church and said, "Mommy, I want to go to that preschool."

Me: "Why is that?"

Thomas: "Because they have a cool playground!"

I looked out the window and had to bite my lip. "Uh, Thomas, that isn't a playground. It's a cemetary."

Him: "What's a cemetary?"

Me: "Well, it's a place where people are buried after they die."

Him: "Buried? Where?"

Me: "See those large stones all over the yard? The people are buried under them."

Him: "Really? Can we dig them up?"

Me, trying to dissuade him without creeping him out: "Uh....they are buried quite deep down, about six feet. It would be really difficult to dig them up."

Him: "We could get a shovel."

Me, trying even harder now: "Well, their families paid a lot of money for them to buried there. It would be really rude to dig them up."

Him: "We could put them back when we're done. No one would know!"

At this point the light changed and I stepped on the gas. Next thing, Thomas is saying, "Is Alex going to be at preschool today?" and happily kicking his legs against the seat, having already forgotten all about his plan for exhuming corpses. Yay.

Thomasisms from Dad

Thomas is becoming increasingly aware of gender differences, both actual and perceived. He is also starting to have fun with wordplay, something Mara and I quite enjoy.

At the diner, munching on a cheese toasty:

"Hey Daddy?"

"Yes Thomas?"

"Boys don't like girled cheese sandwiches."

Freeing Pink

My friend Grumpator had this link on her blog to an article about reclaiming the color pink for women (and women gamers in particular). Now if you spend a lot of time in children's clothing departments, like me, you wouldn't think pink had gone out of style in any way. In fact, head to the barely-adolescent Claire's store like I did this last week with my nieces and you would think middle school girls might as well be spray-painted from head to toe in pink--it would certainly be cheaper than plunking down cash for thousands of cheerily pink accessories a girl can deck herself out in these days.

But other than identifying semi-gender-neutral-looking babies as XX and as a way for newly pubescent females to advertise their sex to oppositely-pigmented males, pink really does have a bad reputation. It's the brand of girlishness, the mark of blank-eyed giggling, the hue of "math is hard", the stamp of non-threatening femininity. You can see why feminists would snarl at the color: it's an expression of everything they have been fighting to overcome. Pink says, "I am a girl and all the insipidness that that implies."

The article's author tells the story of how she came by her first Gameboy Advance (a handheld gaming device): a boy returned it to the store because it had a pink cover. In fact, he didn't even return it in order to get a new one: at the time GBA's were so popular there were no other ones in stock. The boy was willing to give up his chance at what was then a real advance in personal gaming just because the cover color was, frankly, too girly.

The author's--and just about any woman's--natural reaction is defensive indignation. Isn't this proof that no matter how far women come in this world, we will never overcome this idea of "girl = weak"? A pink-covered GBA plays the same games as a black-covered one. The only reason a boy might give up his chance to own something like that must be a perpetual, deeply-rooted, cultural misogyny.

Well, yes and no. The truth is that, for years, the feminist movement, however flawed, has been breaking down gender barriers--for women. Not for men. The reason: being the "fairer" sex, the "weaker" sex, meant acquiring masculine traits--clothing, careers--as a step up in the world, a move toward equality from the standpoint of an underclass. That means traditional femininity still reeks of that underclass and the cultural landscape that holds it that way is far more ruthless with men who are willing to cross those barriers than women. Dress your girl like a boy and she's an adorable "tomboy". Dress your boy like a girl and he's an embarrassing "fruit".

Truth is, I can only feel sympathy for the boy giving up an awesome new gaming device because likely his only other option would have been to walk into open degradation by anyone who saw him using it. And that's males and females, women and men, girls and boys. Because equality still means masculinity and when we as women aspire to it, we acknowledge that we want to leave femininity behind, as a lesser, a garishly pink reminder of weakness and frailty. No wonder that for all the inroads we've made in a man's world, men are still standing far outside the door to ours.

The song "When I Was a Boy" by Dar Williams starts out as her lament about moving from a free and boyish childhood, where she could climb trees and scratch her knees, into an overly feminized adulthood where she's offered skimpy clothes to wear and has to have a man walk her home to keep her safe. The turning point in the song is where she admits as much to a man, saying, "I have lost and you have won." Instead of ending there, the man gets a chance to also lament the small expressions of femininity that he has been forced to leave behind in order to be considered manly now:

Oh no no, can't you see
When I was a girl
My mom and I, we always talked
And I picked flowers everywhere that I walked
I could always cry
Now even when I'm alone, I seldom do
And I have lost some kindness
But I was a girl too
And you were just like me
And I was just like you

I'm not advocating a gender-neutral world, which doesn't seem possible or even desirable. Our current sexual dichotomy is part of what makes life so very interesting and exciting. But I do think that the human race would be better off if ideas traditionally thought of as feminine--nurturing, kindness, compassion, gentleness, sensitivity, emotion--were as accessible to men as wearing pants is to us. And maybe femininity wouldn't be seen as weakness; something for women to flee and men to avoid any appearance of. This is not an exclusively male bias. Note that the author titled her post as "reclaiming pink". Clearly she once shunned pink for the very reason the GBA-returning boy had, something she was angry at him for. And how often have we said, "It would be nice to have a sensitive man", then watched a man cry and secretly thought, Oh, grow a pair.

Let's not reclaim pink. Let's free it.

One Year Later...

When I was kid, I found it very difficult to fathom that time would always keep going forward. I couldn't get my head around the idea that I wouldn't just stop aging at some point--say my mid-twenties perhaps--and be able hang on around there for an indefinite period. Seriously.

The inexorable march of time has befuddled me again. Exactly one year ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with a splitting headache. I was thirty-two weeks pregnant and had been sick for all but maybe two months of that. The morning of 10/2/06, a Monday, I told Nate I wasn't feeling well and he spontaneously offered to stay home from work with me, which is a testament to how terrible I must have looked because Nate is not a spontaneous "take-off work" kinda guy. I spent most of the day in bed feeling ill, but nothing specific, just a general malaise. That night before going to sleep, I sat on the bed and put my head against Nate who was standing in front of me. I said to him, "Ever have a feeling that something is wrong, but you just can't articulate what it is?"

Around 1 am, I woke up with the migraine. I've been a migraine sufferer all my life, but this was unlike any headache I had ever had. I woke Nate and he called my doctor who told us to come to the hospital.

Well, most people who might be reading this know the story by now: the headache was an indication of a huge spike in my blood pressure and a symptom that I had developed full-blown pre-eclampsia. Unable to get my symptoms under control, they induced me the next morning and little Sethie was born about two months before his time.

I think, though, that he and I both knew that time would come for him early that year. He had developed enough to breathe room air, and only spent about two weeks in the NICU, barely a week more than I spent in the hospital. He has grown so briskly in this last year that looking at him now, it's hard to believe he was ever so small.

Once again, I just can't get my head around the fact that some day he's going to be a grown man--he acted like a newborn for so long that I half-expected him to stay that way indefinitely, my infant Peter Pan. I still don't get time. Its endless forward push seems as alien now as it did when I was little.

And speaking of little...Happy First Birthday my little Sethie, who fills my heart with joy, who blesses me every day with his sweet temperament, his contentedness in my arms, and the ruthless way he tears into whatever food he can manage to get his hands on. That's my boy.

My wife is the best birthday present I could ask for

Hello my friends and family:

Thanks for the many birthday wishes - I will be returning phone calls over the next few days on my way home from work/school. Please forgive the late responses - wife and the boys kept me busy busy.

In addition to the beautiful poem in the below post, Mara gave me an excellent birthday celebration. Saturday was full of adventures and delicious food (including a penuche cake), topped off by a walk on the beach. As we sat together watching the blood-red harvest moon rise over the ocean, I was reminded once again of just how lucky I am.

Best to all,
Nate