Mother of the Year

I'm expecting some sort of notification any time now, is this sort of thing fed-x'd or what?







This morning I took Burl for his MMR vaccine. We happily entertained ourselves amidst a sea of sickies... Burl was weighed and measured. He is 10kg and, well, I can't remember how tall he is or what his head circumference is - that info is in his baby book (mother-of-the-year). Last time Burl was at the dr, he was 11kg. They always weigh babies in their diapers, clothes and shoes -on a scale that has always seemed ridiculously imprecise. About ten minutes later, the nurse wanted to weigh Burl again and then told me he's not growing. Ridiculous. Especially when what her concern should have been is that Burl appears to have lost 9% of his body weight in a little over a month.







After about 40 minutes, it was our turn. The dr did a thorough exam; normal temp, testicles, internal organs etc and then told me that Burl has acute otitis medea in his right ear. This means no MMR vaccine and now for some reason - I think cuz they'd already prepared the shot under his name - I have to take him to the health department once he's been better for a week.





Blah blah, blah. So, poor little B has been cooking up a heavy duty ear infection and I just thought he was cranky and rubbing his ear cuz he was teething... Mother of the Year...





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Links of interest:

• Lots of buzz lately about the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Among his many titles, Moon heads the Federation for Universal Peace, he and a delegation are in Paraguay traveling with Neil Bush. Here's a Salon article from June 2004 that stuck in my head ever since. An example of the US policy of democracy-for-a-handful-of-wealthy-megalomaniacal-zealots. Hail to the Moon king: The deeply weird coronation of Rev. Sun Myung Moon in a Senate office building -- crown, robes, the works -- is no longer one of Washington's best-kept secrets. By John Gorenfeld The author has just published a book called Bad Moon Rising
• For my favorite fantasist: Otto von Bismarck at the Bat The fight for the soul of my fantasy-baseball league.
• For Fun. An excellent article about one of the redeeming aspects of US culture. Simpson Family Values
• For shame. There are more slaves on the planet now than ever before. Hear Leonard Lopate's interview with Benjamen Skinner, author of A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery

Update: Ivo and Burl Celebrated My Half-bday Last Saturday

Saturday 22 March was my half birthday. It was also the day Ryan had to draft players for his fantasy baseball team. I've said it before and I'll say it again, fantasy sports require a massive commitment of real-time attention. So, Ivo, Burl and I spent the morning playing at the Science Museum and its environs. Both Burl and Ivo got a dinosaur, we read books at Caves and saw some kind of magic show at the McD's in the museum. While the performers were getting ready, they were blasting kids music in English and Chinese. During one Chinese song, Ivo said, "I like this song, they have this song at my school!"

Links (links should be good) to videos of this year and last year's half-birthday fun.

Burl and Ivo Walk on Water: Ivo and Burl playing nicely (almost) together!

Burl and Ivo Eat Half-Birthday Cake: In this video, Ivo had just been singing all 3 happy birthday songs he knows, and I was hoping to inspire him to break out in song by prompting him with his least favorite. I thought he might tell me, as he often does, "No! Don't sing dat song" and then sing the one he wants to hear. But, no dice...

• Ivo and the cake he and Grammie Gail prepared last year at this time...

Ivo LOVES everything about birthdays but the cake and candle ceremony is joy! Throughout the lighting, singing, blowing - Ivo's already clutching the disposable spears used as cake forks in Taiwan. Also, I'm not 28 (anymore)... I'm 38-1/2. I think it's important to represent but I also think my age is mine to disclose or not. I don't expect people will be asking me my age as much when we move to Canada as they do here, but I am only gonna get older, so the question may make me squirm just a bit more. When people from whom I want to retain my privacy ask me I tell them, "I'm 25 - the same as my waist." 'Course that's in inches... But, it must be acknowledged, people usually have no idea what I'm talking about anyway. I'm not prepared to say this is just a language thing either:)

Ivo and Burl All Day All Night

Busy day today and I'm typing sideways over nursing Burl so it's gonna be mostly pics.

Ivo is learning how to somersault which he calls "circlesault." He also calls the rocking horse "seahorse" cuz he's conflating see-saw and rocking horse. Cute.

Pics of Ivo and Burl with Karin, Alison and Tessa at *bux yesterday. Burl has been rocking the Chicken Littles!

Pics of Ivo and Burl at Dylan's today with Baby Maya and Heather. The grounds of their building boasts a playground, swimming pool (not pictured), orchid garden and dozens of white plaster Greek style nudes. CLASSY. This sort of private public art is a favorite in Taiwan.

Pics of Ivo and Burl at the dentist's office play room today. They had a great time there. I'm adding it to the list of free places with a/c to take the kids to play!

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April's Vanity Fair is so good!!!!!!!! In addition to reminding us that the whole "torch relay was first cooked up by Nazi propagandists under Joseph Goebbels in preparation for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin," William Langewirsche's article on the upcoming Beijing Olympics asserts that a coming Chinese century is doubtful because "no one turns to China to learn about anything but China itself" and "as wages and production costs rise, and China loses its special appeal to manufacturers, the lack of invention is going to sideline this country. The paradox facing China’s leaders is that they cannot encourage the fix without as a result being removed from power."

Never Say Never... BabyDaddy!

I meant to post/link to this a few days ago - I got to it from a link at Feministing - and I just saw it in a Chinese language paper at Heather's house...

In an amazing article from The Advocate titled Labor of Love , it's Thomas Beattie, the (world's first) pregnant transman!

Wow! Walk a mile in his shoes.

Awesome!

Ivo & Burl: Scenes that Should be Flipbooks

#1 Ivo and Burl converge on Papa

#2 Ivo attacks the ball, distracted by mud on his jeans (first time he wore complicated pants since potty training - yes, that's a colorful anecdote! Jeans are blue.)