More Pictures

Here are a few other pictures and a video from our beach trip, Mother's Day, and other moments in our lives. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to get the video to rotate so you'll see Callen dancing at the wedding of one of my grad students sideways : ).

The first 2 are from Mother's Day.

The next few are from our trip to Atlantic Beach in early May. The first few pix are of some of my cousins.

Callen loves the beach, especially the water!

This is me, Callen, and our dear friend Dianne from Maryland as we're getting ready to go on the double decker tour bus in Beaufort, NC.

Here's Callen dancing at the wedding.

Would You Pay ...

to check your luggage? I heard the other day that American Airlines has imposed a fee to check even one piece of luggage, and the fees get higher the more bags you check. What is the deal with this? I understand gas prices are high, but you know I haven't been on too many flights lately that weren't jammed packed with people (including my first one today). I find it hard to believe that all of a sudden AA has to impose this fee. Sounds like a greedy CEO to me. I plan to avoid flying AA and other airlines that adopt this policy. I'm not one of the weekly business travelers but I do tend to travel several times a year for work and pleasure. I wonder what would happen if we all said 'heck no, we won't fly your airline.'

This really disadvantages individuals who are frail, have mobility problems, etc. who choose to check their luggage so they won't have to struggle with lugging it through airports and having to heist it into overhead bins. Also, what about parents with kids? We already have enough stuff to carry that it would be impossible for us to even think about doing carry-on luggage.

What about you? Will you pay to check your luggage?

Shelia (in Dallas on the way to Santa Fe and DEFINITELY NOT flying American Airlines!)

Too Good To Last?

Callen slept till 4:30 AM - can that be considered sleeping through the night? When she woke up, she was AWAKE for the rest of the night/morning! A child that awakens at 4:30 AM is never in a good mood as you try to help them get ready to start their day... Let's hope tonite and tomorrow are better!

One Night Down...

Yes, Callen FINALLY slept through the night again for the first time since we returned from our trip to NC 2+ weeks ago! Oh, I so hope it continues!!!! Send good thoughts our way so that our little girl continues to sleep through the night.

Catching Up on Pix

Some pix from our travels the past few months. I'm horrible about actually getting pix off the digital camera. I finally uploaded some today - 197!

Here's Callen in Seattle at the big music place (I forget the name now, but it was founded by one of the Microsoft founders - not Gates). Maybe Callen will grow up to be a drummer like her Daddy.




Here's Callen playing on our trip to Seattle.













I hope you can see the bright green color of the moss on these trees. It was amazing! We drove from Portland out to the coast one day and the color of the moss was so vivid. I'm sure my camera didn't do it justice.

Off the coast of Oregon are these huge rocks sticking out of the water. Very different appearance than the East Coast. A neat trip!

Callen eating a treat at her Valentine's Day party at her school, after just having had a haircut.

Callen at our condo in Atlantic Beach, NC in March.

Momnesia

I knew I wasn't going crazy! I've said ever since Callen was born that I felt like I was in this fog for the first 6-9 months at least. I still have trouble remembering things and I need to make lists to help me remember moreso than I used to. I saw a blog posting and a related link to this video on the Juggle blog the other day and had to post it here. Hope all the moms out there find this useful.



Click on the link on the website to show the video. I had trouble trying to get it to embed on my blog. There's usually a short ad before the video starts.



http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/23501326/

The Sleep Saga

continues unfortunately.... We heard a slight noise on the monitor last night but then it stopped. A couple of minutes later we heard Callen screaming. I rushed into the hall heading to her bedroom but then noticed the crying was coming from DOWNSTAIRS! My heart leaped into my throat as I pictured my daughter laying in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. Luckily she hadn't fallen. However, she had made her way downstairs and been scared by one of our cats. This is the first time she's ever gone down the stairs at night like this in the darkness. We calmed her down and put her back to bed a couple more times before she finally stayed down. Luckily we have a door at the top of our stairs that we can lock. I'm sure the cats didn't like not being able to come upstairs but at least our little wanderer couldn't try it again last night. I had so hoped she would be back into decent sleeping patterns by this point....

Every Time We ...

go on a trip and Callen ends up sleeping with us rather than in a separate bed, it is always hard to get her back to her normal sleeping patterns when we return home. This has, once again, been the case this week since she and I returned from the beach on Sunday. Every night she has had trouble going to bed. We put her in bed, she gets up several times, wants to come to our bed, etc. It has been at least an hour later than normal when she's finally gotten to sleep, only for her to wake up usually 2-3 hours later and come into our room.

Before we went out of town she'd really gotten better about sleeping through the night in her own bed. Now, we're up all during the night and end up pulling her back into our bed b/c we're too exhausted to do anything else. I know we need to just keep putting her back in her bed and/or let her cry it out again, but I keep hoping she'll get better and not keep waking up. Any other suggestions?

Shelia (very tired from not sleeping well any of the past 5 nights)

"It Matches My Shirt"

Callen and I spent the night in Douglasville, GA last night on our way home from NC; we heard the tornado sirens all night (very scary!). This morning at breakfast, a hotel worker was passing around small boxes of mints. We took 2; Callen originally took the blue one. A few minutes later she said: "Mommy I want the green one; it matches my shirt." I just laughed. What an amazing little girl! I'm so glad I'm her mommy!

I hope all mommies have a great mommies' day!

Obama as the Antichrist - Huh?

Some of my cousins who are quite a bit older and younger, from rural NC, and evidently even more conservative than I remembered them being, joined me and Callen at the beach for part of the week. Yesterday as we were driving to Harkers Island (see map below), one of my younger cousins asked me who I was going to vote for this year. Having forgotten how conservative some of my family members are, I nonchalantly said 'either Hillary or Obama of course'. My young cousin of 14 said 'you are?'. I could tell she was shocked by my statement. This is also the cousin who later said that she thought that a woman could be a good VP but that men would make better Presidents. Notice I said, that SHE said this. I just don't understand how a woman of today can think such a thing. I challenged her on this and she, as you would guess, had no good rationale for why a woman would not be as good or better in the role of President as a man.

My older cousin who was also in the car noted that she wasn't sure who she was going to vote for. Although she is registered as a democrat, she proceeded to say negative things about both Hillary and Obama and positive things about McCain and Nader. In the course of our conversation, she said that a lot of people believed that Obama was the Antichrist. She went into elaborate detail about how the signs were there. I just wanted to laugh this was so absurd. She later said that her minister had recently pulled up 'all the info' on all 3 candidates (Hillary, McCain, and Obama) and given the info in his sermon the prior Sunday. I would have loved to heard what he said.... It just really amazes me how racism and sexism continue to invade all aspects of our society and how people just do not see it.

As another cousin who was with us at the beach noted - you should never discuss politics and religion with others. How true indeed - especially when the 2 things are so intertwined in the south.

Regressing to the Null?

Ok, a bad pun -- usually we say to the 'mean'. However, Callen has regressed to not using the potty at all since she was sick last week. I don't know what to do. She won't even try to go to the potty. I don't want to force the issue and make her want to use the potty even less (if that is actually possible). She was doing so well, especially at school. Any suggestions for how to reverse this negative trend?

XO Laptops in Birmingham

Some of you may have noticed the link I put on my blog to the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Organization a while back. This is the organization that developed the XO laptop for children in 3rd world countries.

The mayor of Birmingham, AL implemented a program to purchase an XO laptop for each child in grades 1 - 8 in Birmingham City schools, in an effort to eliminate the digital divide in Birmingham and help to better prepare youth for work in the increasingly technologically driven economy. Birmingham is the first school system in the US to disseminate the laptops on a large scale. The results from Birmingham will be useful for other cities across the US who are thinking about similar dissemination projects.

I sat in on some of the training conducted in Birmingham last week by the OLPC staff members. I was really surprised at the quality of the XOs and the range of things the XO can do.

I submitted a grant to the National Science Foundation back in January to fund a study evaluating the impact of the XO dissemination program in Birmingham. It was recently funded! Over the past few weeks my team and I have worked hard getting everything finalized for the study and then surveying students at the pilot school. We'll follow up with the students again in the fall. I think our findings will be beneficial for educational, governmental, and academic communities as we assess the educational and social impacts of the XOs.

Fever, Fever, Go Away

We got a call Wed. afternoon that Callen was running a high temperature. I rushed to pick her up and take her to the doctor. She has strep; doctor gave us an antibiotic and said she wouldn't mind taking it. Yeah right! It is white liquid and smells fruity. Taking it in a spoon doesn't work; taking it in milk worked once; hiding it in juice - oh no! We even tried mixing it in ice cream but she must have smelled it or something as she would have nothing to do with it.

My poor baby! I hope she's getting better. She's eaten almost nothing for 2 days until dinner tonite. Callen and I are in Atlantic Beach; my friend Dianne came down to spend a few days with us. We went out to dinner and this is the first meal where she's eaten more than 2 or 3 bites in 2 days.

Any suggestions for getting her to take her medicine? I hate the idea of holding her down and forcing her to take it. If she got even a quarter of her dose today I'd be surprised. Please send advice soon! Thanks.