Lift Up Your Hearts!

Three years ago I read and reviewed Lu Hanessian's Let the Baby Drive, and recently my thoughts have been returning to that insightful book.  Today's Frazz brought it again to mind.

Hanessian's son began talking when he was 10 months old; combined with her habit of careful observation and her incessant efforts to understand him, this revealed amazingly sophisticated thought processes behind seemingly random or rebellious behavior.  Banging a spoon on his high chair tray, as infants do, he proclaimed, "Mah-mee!  I'm chopping wood!"  When he was three years old he went through a frightening phase of what to all appearances was open rebellion, but which she was able to trace to his terror that he might lose her, as he had "lost" his daddy during a two-week business trip, and as the water goes down the drain and never returns.  When she dealt with his fear, the misbehavior took care of itself.

When we began homeschooling, I tried to insist that Janet show her work when doing math problems, as I had done as a math tutor and college math Teaching Assistant.  If the teacher can't see how you got the wrong answer, what can he do but mark it wrong?  How can he understand where your thinking veered off course and steer you in the right direction?  However, my effort to elicit from Janet the thought processes behind her answers merely resulted in extreme frustration for us both.  Because I was a homeschooling mother and not a classroom teacher with 30 children to deal with, I was able to discover that, like Caulfield above, she knew all the answers, but could not express how she got them.  They were just there.  Much later she did develop the ability to follow her own thought processes and explain them in proper mathematical logic; in the meantime, by not being forced to learn by rote the educationally-accepted methods of doing math, she developed her own advanced ways of mathematical thinking, which served her well through her college math degree and beyond.

The connection between this and Hanessian's work is the realization that the actions of children, whether babies or students, have meaning and logic, if we will only take the time and effort to understand. I've been relearning that lesson, particularly as I observe two-year-old Noah.

Faith is three days old and mother and daughter are doing great.  Heather is healing rapidly, faster than with any of her other births.  Faith is a champion nurser.  Eating, sleeping, and looking adorable are her primary activities, but she also likes to look around and has quite decent head control for a three-day-old.

A nurse came to visit (part of the package with the Midwife Center) and seemed happy with everything.  She did a heel stick on Faith for the PKU and other testing, and as soon as she did, Jonathan and Noah jumped and stood by their sister like knights—they weren't allowed to fight off the nurse, however.  The main problem was not the heel stick itself, but trying to get enough blood for the tests required a lot of heel manipulation and squeezing, and Faith's cry was clearly more from anger than from pain.

Dad-o had to fly back to Phoenix, but Grammy and Papa popped in from New Hampshire, thrilling the two boys and soaking up as much "holding time" with Faith as possible given that their visit was actually shorter than the driving time.

Church people have been generous with meals and if they keep up this rate and quantity very long, Heather and Jon will have meals for six months.  :) 

Sunday night was a difficult one, but last night went better.  We're all a bit sleep-deprived, but it's not entirely Faith's fault.  I, for example, went to bed early tonight then stayed up to write this post.

Instead of writing something more interesting, say about Life with Grandchildren, here's a quick post on another column from The Occasional CEO about the advantage of face-to-face encounters even in today's global economy.

Click on a picture to see more.

Early and middle labor:  Heather's still smiling, and the men are assembling a wheelbarrow.

  

Proud big brothers and daddy

  

Happy aunt, happy mother at home

 

 Faith Elizabeth Daley!

On Saturday, September 6, 2008, at 6:35 p.m., Heather delivered a beautiful baby girl!  She weighs 9 lbs. 3.5 oz. and is 20.75 in. long.  That may sound like a big baby, but she's a pound lighter than big brother Noah at birth.

The name of the newest member of our family, the first girl in over 26 years, is

Faith Elizabeth Daley

Everyone is very happy and doing well.  As time permits, I'll publish a longer version of the story, and you can follow it from a more direct perspective on Heather and Jon's blog.

...by not writing something of my own, but I can really identify with this Occasional CEO post and thought you might be amused.

Jon:  If you had to pick, would you rather have a live mouse or a dead mouse in your house?

Heather:  A dead mouse.

Jon:  Then I have good news for you!

I'm tired and have too much to do.  Therefore, I'm procrastinating.  I'm putting our guesses about Little Baby Daley's arrival here where it's easy to update as they come in.

JW:  September 1, 11:00 p.m., girl, 8 lbs. 5 oz.

DL:  September 2, boy, 10 lbs. 2 oz., 22 in.

JMD:  September 3, 3:00 p.m., 9 lbs. 15 oz, 21.5 inches.

PW:  September 4, 3:00 a.m., girl, 7lbs. 12oz.

SS:  September 4, 19:56, boy, 4210 grams, 51 cm (7:56 p.m., 9 lbs. 4.5 oz., 20 in.) 

LW:  September 5, girl, 8 lbs. 8 oz.

HD:  September 6, 6:00 a.m., 9lbs. 8 oz.

SL:  September 6, 9:06 p.m., boy, 9 lbs. 6 oz.

NA:  September 9, boy, 9 lbs. 9 oz.

More to come.

No time for something more thoughtful at the moment, but I saw this and can't resist passing it on.  Check out this genetic map of Europe, and read the New York Times article that goes with it.

Fascinating!  I'm very much looking forward to the new genealogical DNA tests that will come from this.

...and as far as I'm concerned, Hurricane Season can end right here.  Tropical Storm Fay's path is looking suspiciously like that of Hurricane Charley, and most of us would just as soon not relive that part of 2004.

Thanks for your prayers.

I think maybe I know why no one has commented on my new bookshelves.  They're currently located under "Welcome" in the side panel.  They are on my machine, anyway.  But I just discovered that not everyone can see them.  My question is, can anyone?

Years ago, when a friend recommended Airborne for staving off colds, I was skeptical, as I always am with such claims.  But after reading the ingredients and deciding they wouldn't hurt me (and I'm past the age of worrying that what I ingest will hurt someone else), I tried it.  And it worked.  Repeatedly.  The number and the severity of my upper respiratory tract infections were drastically reduced, even though I was travelling and visiting young children, two definite risk factors.  One year I had none at all.  Zero.  At the time, I exclaimed to all who would hear, "Maybe it really works, or maybe it's just the Placebo Effect.  I don't care.  I'm quite willing to pay a dollar a tablet for something that 'doesn't work' but so obviously improves my health."

The Federal Trade Commission disagrees, claiming there is no evidence for the efficacy of Airborne's products, and requiring the company to issue refunds for the price of up to six packages to those who request them.  That won't include me.  Not only am I not certain that $30 would be worth the paperwork involved, but more importantly, I don't see how I could in good conscience ask for a refund when the product worked.

Even Steven Gardner, director of litigation for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which was part of a class-action lawsuit against Airborne, admitted, ""It is pretty much impossible to prove that it didn't prevent a cold if you don't get a cold."  And that's the point.  Doctors, lawyers, and the government can worry about advertising claims and scientific proof of efficacy, but my concerns have a narrower focus: if I don't get a cold, that's good enough for me.

Speaking of the Placebo Effect, here's an interesting story on how it relates to exercise and fitness.

Okay, I'm being really lazy today and merely posting a link to someone else's post, but there are too many other things to attend to, and John C. Wright has another good one:  Albino Jesuit Assassins ... IN SPAAACE!  I mean, really...with a title like that....

Anyway, enjoy!  I have to get on with life.

When an article from my "to blog" backlog, a recent post from one of my blogging contacts, and an article from the most recent issue of a magazine I respect all converge, I can take that as a good suggestion for today's post.

Jennifer Fulwiler writes the Conversion Diary blog (formerly "Et Tu?"), which I've featured before (here, among other places).  This is her article in America.  John C. Wright is a science fiction writer.  It was his blog post that alerted me to the First Things article.  Read his introduction, but don't settle for his summary of the article.  Instead, read Mary Eberstadt's The Vindication of "Humanae Vitae" yourself.

This is bound to raise the blood pressure of a number of readers...but very thought-provoking.  I can testify from experience to the coercive pressures of the Malthusian movement.  It was the Global Warming of its time:  part valid concern, part bad science and worse economics, all hype and politics, but a nearly irresistable force.

Perhaps it will turn out to be no more than a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy to blame so many of the problems that now beset us on the great sea change half a century ago in societal attitudes toward the purpose, meaning, and regulation of sexual activity, fueled by the availability and use of contraceptive technologies. But it certainly bears investigating, for those who can bear the thought.

Whatever you think about John Edwards, he isn't stupid, and choosing to admit his adulterous affair while our attention was focused on the Olympic opening ceremonies was probably a smart move.

Russia isn't stupid, either.  They couldn't hope to invade another country without generating some controversy, but doing so while the eyes of much of the world and even more of the news media are on events in Beijing gives them a good chance of being ignored, at least long enough to accomplish their purposes.

Jim Balk was my World Cultures teacher in high school.  I don't know what was supposed to be covered in a course with that title, but we didn't learn much about the cultures of the world.  Somehow I would have expected a broad survey course, which this wasn't.  Whatever I've learned about ancient Greece and Rome, Chinese history, African civilizations, and the history and culture of almost anywhere else in the world—which isn't much—I had to learn outside of school.

What Mr. Balk did instead was cover in detail two areas of the world of special importance in the late 1960s:  the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.  No doubt he figured that if his students were going to have opinions on the events of the day they might as well be informed by the history, religions, customs, and politics of the region.  He was also big on current events, and tried to make us lazy, self-centered teens pay attention to events of significant import, such as the American civil rights movement, and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.

I wasn't one of Mr. Balk's greatest successes, I'm sure.  Oh, I got A's in his class—I knew how to do homework and take tests—but didn't develop an appreciation for history until long after I graduated, and am not much better than I was back then at paying attention to the news.  (To be fair to myself, I think I might do better with the latter if news reporting were less about hype, gossip, entertainment, sensationalism, and trivia.)  But I actually learned in his class, learned both facts and ideas that are with me to this day, which is a lot more than I can say about any other of my history classes.

Therefore it is not surprising that the Russian invasion of Georgia made me think of Mr. Balk.  If I were in his class today I know he'd be making me keep a diary of the event.  He'd force me to turn my eyes from the Olympic glories and pay attention to an event that may turn out to be as significant as Germany's pre-World War II acquisition of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia.