Lift Up Your Hearts!

Mallard Fillmore hits the nail on the head again. One can as easily subsitute "president" for "congressperson."

Elevated temperature is dangerous for developing babies; pregnant women should avoid electric blankets, heating pads, saunas, and hot tubs, should reduce high fevers, and—I wouldn’t have thought of this—should limit exercise to levels that don’t cause their bodies to overheat.

The birth process itself is amazingly good for babies. Some of the advantages require actual passage through the birth canal, but some come earlier in labor and thus it is recommended that even for planned Caesarian sections the mother be encouraged to undergo at least the early stages of labor. When compared with babies delivered by c-section, vaginally delivered babies take their first breaths sooner, experience a more rapid rise in blood oxygen levels after birth, are less likely to have respiratory problems, are better able to maintain their body temperatures, have larger reserves of glucose, and have better reflexes, muscle tone, and sensory responses.

Touch is enormously important to babies. Infant massage, long practiced in India, has been shown in several studies to promote physical, mental, and emotional health as well as brain development.

The dads are right. Dads fling their babies around in the most frightening manner while the babies crow with glee and the moms cringe. Of course proper precautions must be taken to protect the baby’s neck and brain—no one is advocating “shaken baby syndrome"!—but stimulation of the child’s vestibular system confers enormous developmental benefits. In one study, babies ranging in age from three to thirteen months sat in a researcher’s lap and were spun ten times in a swivel chair, each spin followed by an abrupt stop. The babies experienced spinning on both directions and in three different positions, to stimulate each of the ear’s three semicircular canals. After four sessions a week for four weeks, the results were clear. Compared with control groups (one with no treatment, another where the child sat in the researcher’s lap but did not spin), these babies showed clear advancement in both their reflexes and their motor skills (sitting, standing, crawling, walking). One set of three month old twins was split up in the study, and by the time they were four months old the one twin had control of his head and could sit independently, while the control twin was just beginning to hold his head up.

Babies are aware of odors in utero, are calmed by the smell of amniotic fluid, and prefer to nurse on a breast moistened with amniotic fluid.

Back in the days when women assisted in (or even soloed) their own deliveries, their hands were probably covered with amniotic fluid, which was then transferred to the breast as they attempted their first feedings.

Babies as young as six days can distinguish the smell of their own mother’s breast from that of another lactating woman, and even formula fed infants prefer the smell of an unfamiliar nursing mother to that of a non-nursing woman. Infants are also comforted by the scent of their own bodily secretions, which is why a well-chewed blanket or stuffed animal makes such a good “transitional object,” and why having them washed is so upsetting to the child.

It is interesting that children in non-Western cultures do not show as much attachment to these kinds of comfort objects as Western children, perhaps because the former continue to have a great deal of touch and olfactory contact with their parents. (They often keep nursing and sleeping with their parents well past infancy.)

Hearing, too, is acute in the womb. Newborns have been shown to recognize, and enjoy, sounds they heard before birth, from Dr. Seuss stories to concertos, and can distinguish not only familiar voices but also familiar languages.

The evidence for the superiority of breastfeeding is simply too overwhelming to summarize. For the baby’s physical, mental, emotional, intellectual, social, immunological, and every other kind of health, there is no arguing that breast milk—and the nursing process itself—is by far the best. One thing I hadn’t realized was the preponderance of evidence that breastfeeding makes babies smarter. Even after all efforts to correct for other variables, such as home environment and parental attitudes, there is compelling evidence that breastfed children are developmentally and cognitively superior. So that’s my problem….

Our local library has a subscription to Ancestry.com, the genealogical research site. Unfortunately the response time is slow, and one day a couple of months ago I was working near enough the “New Releases” shelf to do some browsing during the otherwise interminable wait between entering my request and the return of the results.

The bright cover of Brett Kingstone’s book caught my eye. I was not impressed by the title, which sounded Limbaugh-esque and evoked images of conspiracy theorists. I brought the book home, thinking Porter might enjoy it, but did not expect to read it myself. It didn’t sound like my kind of book.

Porter picked up The Real War Against America in the evening and hardly came up for air until he finished it several hours later. It was obviously compelling, but why would I want to read a book that caused my husband to come to bed, spluttering with anger, at three in the morning?

But read it I did, and if I knew better than to read till nearly dawn, I did find it hard to put down. The tale of Super Vision’s struggle against international piracy takes place (mostly) in Orlando, and it was delightful to recognize familiar places, events, and people. Of the story itself I had heard nothing previously, perhaps because much of the action took place while we were in Boston. Nor were we prepared to find the name of a friend pop up in the middle of the book, a friend who though mentioned only briefly was close enough to the events to assure us that this is no right-wing propaganda piece but a true story, no matter how much it reads like a made-for-TV action movie.

Brett Kingstone’s entrepreneurial adventures started in a dorm room and eventually grew into the Super Vision company. If you’ve never heard of Super Vision, you’ve certainly seen their fiber optic lighting products, from Disney World and Times Square to the Moscow airport, from children’s toys to gigantic signs, from swimming pools to Christmas trees. You have seen Super Vision’s products, I say—and you have probably also seen the Chinese counterfeit products that nearly destroyed the company, the visible result of an unbelievably brazen scheme involving common thugs, company traitors, crooked bankers and lawyers, a bureaucratic legal system that favors the criminal over the victim, and an evil Chinese businessman who might have leapt full grown from Ian Fleming’s head.

I had never given much thought to intellectual property theft, beyond making a reasonable effort to respect copyrights. Nor have I had much experience with the American legal system. But just as Hurricane Katrina convinced me that the quality of local government really matters, and that nothing is an adequate substitute for personal effort and preparedness, this tale of untruth, injustice, and perversion of the American way has opened my eyes to a threat as dangerous as any scheme of Osama bin Laden's. Without economic freedom, few other freedoms can stand. And when legal victories are ultimately won by those who, like the “house” in a casino, have the funds to drag out the process until they bankrupt their opponents, what hope is there for justice?

Justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter. Truth is nowhere to be found, and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. (Isaiah 59:14-15)

As promised elsewhere, I am finally printing the recipe (actually, a couple of recipes) for Bay Punch, absolutely the best drink in the world to serve with pizza.

Bay Punch was invented by John Lefor and Chip Nimick for Pizza Night at the Towne House computing center at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York. The name came from the original pizza source, Bay & Goodman Pizza. It did not change even after we switched to Cap'n Tony's Pizza. The traditional punch bowl is a large dishpan. John says that if it tastes as if it needs more pineapple-orange, add more cranberry, and vice versa. The punch is better if it ages a bit before serving. We used to start making it just as someone left on the 45-minute round trip to get the pizza. Another tradition is the punch ladle, a simple soup ladle, which must be hung on the outside of the punch bowl, and woe to him who puts in inside, where it will slide down and disappear into the drink. Of course this is all tradition—Bay Punch tastes great in a traditional punch bowl, too. But you must squeeze the limes and lemons, not just float them artistically on top.

Original Recipe
96 ounces Ocean Spray cranberry juice (two 48 ounce bottles)
46 ounces pineapple orange juice (used to be one can; it's hard to find that way now)
8 limes (I usually use only 6, but this is the original recipe)
2 lemons
ice

Slice limes and lemons into 6ths, lengthwise. Squeeze juice over ice in large punch container, dropping squeezed sections into bowl as well. Add cranberry and pineapple orange juices, adjusting to taste; stir well.

Notes:
I've tried to use other brands of cranberry juice than Ocean Spray, but have never been satisfied with them. Pineapple orange juice can be hard to find, and orange pineapple isn't the same. In a pinch I've mixed orange juice and pineapple juice. Be sure to let the punch "steep" before serving, which allows oils from the fruit to seep into the drink. If there is any punch left over, remove fruit and any remaining ice before storing, or you will end up with a dilute, bitter liquid.

Faster, Easier Recipe, a very close substitute for the original, easily resized
96 ounces Ocean Spray cranberry juice
42 ounces pineapple orange juice
3/4 cup lime juice (I find the Squeeze-eez brand by Concord Foods the best tasting)
3/8 cup lemon juice (also Squeeze-Eez)
1 1/2 teaspoons Boyajian lime oil (we discovered Boyajian citrus oils in Norwood, MA, and they are the key to the success of this recipe)
3/4 teaspoon Boyajian lemon oil

Mix ingredients very well; this is necessary to disperse the citrus oils. Serve over ice, preferably with a pepperoni and green peppers pizza...I'm on my way over!

Some people appear to "get it," including Shirley M. Tilghman, the president of Princeton University, who said "The goal of a Princeton education is to prepare young men and women to take up positions of leadership in the 21st century. Of course, the word 'leadership' conjures up images of presidents and C.E.O.'s, but I want to stress that my idea of a leader is much broader than that," and "There is nothing inconsistent with being a leader and a stay-at-home parent. Some women (and a handful of men) whom I have known who have done this have had a powerful impact on their communities."

So do the unnamed university officials who "said that success meant different things to different people and that universities were trying to broaden students' minds, not simply prepare them for jobs."

But some people, however well-educated, are still clueless, such as Peter Salovey, the dean of Yale College, who bemoaned, "What does concern me is that so few students seem to be able to think outside the box; so few students seem to be able to imagine a life for themselves that isn't constructed along traditional gender roles."

This generation has faced overwhelming pressure, promotion, and downright propaganda against the idea that making a home and caring for a family is an important, valuable, and respectable career goal. No matter what it may look like to the older generation, even the smallest move towards home is radical thinking for today's college students. What consititutes "outside the box" depends very much on which box you are in, and what color chains you are wearing.

There’s a special advantage to having visitors who are comfortable with your household arrangements and routines. Many guests who want to be helpful are stymied by the fear of doing more harm than good, and in truth it’s often easier to do something myself than to explain how someone else can help. During this visit, however, I was delighted to turn around and find chores done as if by one of those Scottish “broonies” that gave their name to the younger Girl Scouts. On the last morning of their visit, I, the grandmother, was able to enjoy swimming with Jonathan; when we finally climbed out of the pool, Heather had packed and loaded the car, put away all of the toys and books, washed the dishes, done a couple of loads of laundry!

Jonathan’s speech is very efficient. He generally speaks in two or three word phrases, eschewing for the most part pronouns, articles, prepositions, and verb tenses. “Fly a plane!” can mean, “We’re going to fly in an airplane,” “We flew in an airplane,” “I want to fly in an airplane,” etc. It would be a mistake, I believe, to think that because he does not use certain parts of speech he does not understand them, for his receptive vocabulary is tremendous and he is quick to pick up on subtleties. What’s more, it appears that what he actually speaks is not what he thinks he is saying. When trying to understand him, if you parrot back to him the syllables you have heard, he often appears confused, as if he’s sure that’s not what he uttered.

I had much less difficulty understanding Jonathan’s speech than I had expected, based on my experiences with hearing him over the telephone. Context helps a lot, as does learning the few words in his vocabulary that bear little resemblance to their English equivalents. I find it interesting that while most of his vocabulary is quite easy to understand, those words he has been using the longest retain their original form, such as “wye” for water. [Update: In the week after their return home, Jonathan suddenly started using prepositions and pronouns consistently.]