Nursing All Night Links

Surprisingly for me, I've found that the stunning wonders of all things pregnancy, parenting and true love related have something fundamental in common. This commonality is that I can't think of better words to express their awesomeness other than the cliches to which I used to turn up my nose and roll my eyes.

It is always darkest before the storm - I mean, dawn.

To wit:

• Add diarrhea to the list. For both boys.
• Ivo had only been asleep for an hour when he woke up crying that his eyes hurt. He could not/would not open them and cried and cried. It was soooo sad and a little scary. We figured it was conjunctivitis, cuz he's had it before and, why not? I got the drops that were left over and tried to force him to let me administer them. No dice - and the screams woke up Burl. So we had to give up. Ivo said his eyes needed ice, so we got him a cool damp washcloth which eased his pain. He rested and slept fitfully til 10am.
• This means Burl was up from about 1am-3am, at first playful and then cranky. He woke again at 6am, inconsolable. After some motrin he slept in my arms nursing til 9.

But, yay high speed internet and one-handed navigation! Here are some things I want to share and have easily accessible to me, for all different reasons, with all different people in mind.

• Nisha's Four Seasons by Bibi Lightbody, aka Brigitte the multi-talented polyglot. This is a beautifully made documentary about a Canadian busker in Paris.
• I’ve linked to this before – but it’s sooo good and none of my young-children/education-minded friends or sister - I'm talking to you Nic! - has said anything about it. The video is about an hour long – I watched it again late last night. Dr. Kuhl specializes in brain development and language acquisition – lots of her research is done at Shr Da in Taipei. The lecture is called Early Childhood Development: Early Learning, the Brain and Society.
• Alternatives to tv-links which got shut down a little while ago. I had great luck with Sidereel. I've been watching season 4 of desperate Housewives. I'm too tired to be embarrassed about watching a soap opera; a little lo-brow compliments the hi-brow. New and old tv shows plus movies – streaming on demand. Excellent for pacing around with an unhappy baby.
• Facebook and social engineering I have an account cuz several friends use it – but I don’t get the appeal and am not a fan…
• Google FREE Sketchup6 software is so cool. It's 3D imaging software that doesn't take long to learn and is easy to use. So much so that Sketchup has launched Project Spectrum.
• Eduism – a 3D virtual environment – there’s anatomy, sea world, dinosaurs.
• Alphabet animals in Bembo's Zoo. I showed this site to Ivo this morning and he LOVES it! Ivo also loves looking at books and spelling out the words he sees. He can read IVO, BURL, RYAN, SANDY and BIG! He accurately recognizes most letters most of the time and knows their phonetic component. He uses his fingers to make; T, X, L, V and 2. He knows the first letter of many words. He likes playing with his magnetic letters on the chalkboard. We play a game in which he chooses a word, I tell him how to spell it while he searches out the letters and places them in order. Interestingly, he has (almost) always known which way is right-side-up for letters and numbers.