Now girls listen up here’s how you live a long and happy life:
Never ever jump out of a moving car.
Sebastian, at 7 to his sisters aged 5 and 3 respectively.
Archive for the ‘ Kids ’ Category
Advice to get you through the week
Monday, February 20th, 2012Parties and parties
Monday, February 20th, 2012This year we’re trying to cut down on presents. For one, our kids don’t have a tremendous amount of need. But even more I’m not sure the best way to celebrate birth and to say “I love you” is to shower that child with gifts. There are surely better ways, or at least more moderated ways.
For the older kids we’re going to cut back on parties too. But for Arden, turning three, we didn’t want to trim back against her expectations too much. Especially since at three it’s hard to hear anything but “no parties”.
So she had three: One with our family, one with friends and one with Jenn’s extended family which happened yesterday.
She’s three!
Monday, February 13th, 2012
Lately at bedtime Arden’s been asking for me to tell the story of when she was born. Then for the stories about her siblings being born. It’s become her nightly routine. Fitting, because today is her birthday which makes me mindful of her birth.
Three years ago today on a Friday morning Jenn woke me with the news she was in labor. Because Jenn’s previous labor was so quick we were ready with plans to make sure we didn’t need to risk life and limb to get to the midwife in time. We called her mom to come over. Then, because her mom lived two hours away, we called our friend Stephen. He’s only 10 minutes down the road. He still wasn’t close enough.
ALmost immediately after we made the calls, Jenn realized she was ready to deliver the baby. So I put in a movie for the kids and drove her 5 blocks to the birthing center. Then I drove home to wait for Stephen. He showed up a few minutes later and I returned to Jenn’s side. The first thing the midwife told me is that she should’ve been pushing, but wanted to wait for me. She did wait for me.
Less than half an hour later, we had a beautiful new baby. I think we were both expecting a boy, because I checked three times before I was ready to proclaim we had a daughter. That left us stuck on names though. We loved the named Arden, but anticipated using it for a boy. But after very little discussion we realized that was the name for our little girl.
Now she’s not so little. Sure she does little things still. She pronounces it “flamily”. Her shoes are nearly always on the wrong feet. More often its the glimpses of the older Arden that stand out. Her tendency to structure the world around her. How she pays attention to emotions and always looks to tend to the downhearted.
Today she is three. Tomorrow she’ll be grown up. In between we’ll get to help her and love her and challenge her. What a lucky pair of parents we are.
How do you solve childhood obesity?
Friday, February 10th, 2012On Saturday morning Jenn and I are going to hear Michelle Obama speak at a Let’s Move event that our church is hosting. Their goal is to “[solve] the challenge of childhood obesity within a generation.” Their sites states their means to achieve that goal involves parental education, better school meals, family access to better food and helping kids become physically active.
According to the US government, there are 75 million children in the States. 30% are overweight or obese. So how do you get 25 million kids to be healthy?
It’s not an impossible problem to solve. Nations at war suffering energy shortages convinced 100% of their populations to conserve through the adoption of daylight savings time. The US had a similar health problem in the 40s. When the US ran it’s first draft boards more than 10% of the first million draftees were rejected because of malnutrition.
To solve that health crisis the United States turned to artificial vitamin fortification of bread. The defense industry and the baking industry joined in a huge propaganda campaign to push children and parents both toward buying the enhanced bread. The campaign was successful and the combination of industry change and behavior change lead to a major shift in American diet.
What’s the modern solution? School lunches would be a great place to start. But Congress voted against that as a place of reform with a weak bill initially aimed at reforming school lunches that, among other failures, counts pizza as a vegetable. The bill was signed last month and the subject is unlikely to receive further legislative attention soon.
What’s left? You could try to convince parents to feed their children better. Or children to eat better. But that’s been happening for years (food pyramid anyone?) and doesn’t seem to work. You could try to shame snack manufacturers to reform their ways, but they’re the ones who ruined the new school lunch law.
So we’re left with hope. Which isn’t nothing. And I’m left with a sense that something more radical is required or we’ll have an increasingly unhealthy youth population who turns into an even less healthy adult population.
Do we start college funds for every child and fund them based on health? Right now we scholarship for intelligence and work ethic but as a matter of public costs don’t we have as much incentive to have a healthy population?
Do we genetically alter negative calorie vegetables to taste like candy so that kids reach for CelerSweet after school instead of a candy bar? Ban cars so that everyone has to bike or walk or run everywhere? Reinstate the draft and make everyone spend a high calorie burn weekend training monthly for the National (Waist) Guard starting at 12?
Regardless, the idea that 25 million kids are in bad health should motivate every one of us into some action. It’s unlikely it would impact the whole but at very least you can feed your kids well, play with them outside and make sure everyone sleeps. That, and hearing what the First Lady have to say on Saturday, are my plans for now.
Sick kid, well kid
Friday, February 3rd, 2012With babies fevers come and go pretty often. Last December while Jenn was dealing with a little cold of her own, Augustin seemed to come down with the same bug. Nothing that seemed serious- just a cough and some congestion and a fever. We took him to the doctor, kept him on Tylenol and after a couple of days he seemed to be getting better and we headed to St Pete to spend time with Jenn’s mom.
The next morning when Gustin woke up the left side of his neck was swollen. Really swollen. The kind of swollen that looked wrong. My mother-in-law, Carol, works at All Children’s Hospital in St Pete so she called a doctor she was friends with at the hospital for recommendations for a local pediatrician. After a few minutes with an wonderful pediatrician (Dr Donna Sperber) we headed to the hospital.
Gustin was a miserable kid. We were pretty concerned because Dr Sperber sent us to the hospital over concerns of meningitis. After an hour in hospital the doctor had ruled out both cancer and meningitis. In fact, the first thing he said after bring the ct scan results in the room was, “It’s not cancer.” It’s a weird feeling of relief to hear that when it wasn’t even a possibility we’d thought of.
Instead he had an infection in his lymph nodes. Still a scary experience but much less serious (and more certainly treatable) than some of the alternatives. For two nights he stayed in the hospital. Jenn stayed with him while the kids and I crashed with my mother-in-law. During the days Jenn and I would trade off, and for two days we had our regular family dinners in the hospital. Because Carol has worked there so long we’d been to the hospital many times to meet her for lunch. Being there with a kid in a room was a much different experience.
After a week on antibiotics the swelling was almost gone. His spirits perked back up before that and after a month his neck was fully back to normal. We were lucky on a number of counts, not the least of which was having this happen in St Pete. All Children’s is a fantastic hospital and the care we received from their staff was extraordinary. Jenn’s mom only lives ten minutes away too, which is far superior to the 45-minute drive we would’ve had to the Orlando children’s hospitals. Tending to four children can be tricky business, but with Carol’s help and our proximity to the hospital I can’t imagine how a serious illness and weekend hospital stay could’ve been easier.
Spot the wonderkid
Thursday, February 2nd, 2012This Valentine’s Day the wonderfam has a special I-love-you message. With family and friends all over the country, we’ve decided this year to just put our faces on the packaging for some seasonal swag at Target. This way while you’re walking down the aisles for milk or a new Michael Graves whisk, you can see the wonderfam and know we love you.
One of the two packages is a little easier to find, so to give you incentive to go hunting for it at Target, here it is:
The other package is trickier. It’s a tough find because our photo is smaller relative to the package size. So let’s make this a bit of a scavenger hunt: First one to find us on the other package (not pictured here) gets some Wondermade Valentine’s Day wine & chocolate marshmallows. Post proof via twitter (@wondermade) or in the comments. (You are out of the running if we’ve already shown you the packaging or told you exactly where to look. )
Five, a fifth time over
Sunday, September 11th, 2011Fittingly, Harper celebrated her fifth birthday this year with five parties spread out over the month. She’s a remarkable girl, full of vim and vigor. We’re lucky to have her and if you’ve had the good fortune to spend time with her you’re better for it.
Best day ever
Monday, August 29th, 2011“This is the best day of my life”
Harper, on her birthday.
