7 Quick Takes

1. First, a confession: I never finished Anna Karenina.

I had barely cracked the cover, when it started to overwhelm me. Every night I'd glance over at the night stand and see that stack of copious pages and I'd groan--knowing I should dig in so I could finish within my allotted library rental time, but knowing, too, that I never would.

Then I'd choose the baby name book or a devotional or I'd just turn out the light and roll into my soft bed for slumber.

I returned the book. I'll get back to it someday. Meantime, perhaps I'll try to tackle one of Tolstoy's shorter works.

2. We moved our coffee table out of the middle of our livingroom.

Now our little table has sort of melded in with the toy corner and serves as the perfect surface for tea parties, snacks and coloring.

And, in the center of the room we now have extra room for wrestling and T-ball.



3. I set some goals for L's year of preschool-at-home this week. I'm so excited about continuing the work we're doing on handwriting, pre-reading, pre-math, art and science. I'll share our favorite tools and resources as the year progresses.

We started in with this little teaching guide from Scholastic.

It is important to me that we use living books as our jumping off points for lessons as often as possible. Last week, author/illustrator Lois Ehlert's books served as inspiration for creating collages with stuff we collected from the beach and we also made this cool chart of the birthday flowers of our friends and family members.



4. After literally years of intermittent practice, L learned to both whistle and wink this week. Now, I suppose, she's ready to hail a cab if the need should ever arise.

5. I've kept a pregnancy journal for each of my children for various reasons.

For one, it was good therapy during morning sickness with my first born, when I became particularly disenchanted with the whole idea of self sacrifice for what felt, at the time, like a tiny parasite.

It also lets me write candid messages about my hopes and adoration for my unborn child, whom I hope will one day be interested in reading those thoughts.

And I also like to record a bit of history, so the baby knows a little about the social and political context into which he or she was born. Tiny Baby, our third, certainly is coming into the world at a dynamic point in history--what with our first African-American president currently in office and a global economic crisis on our hands.

This leads into my next quick take.

6.

As I've clipped news articles to paste into the pages of Tiny Baby's journal, it's caused me to confront my own awareness of politics and popular culture. Including articles about Michael Jackson's death was a no-brainer. He was a musical icon in my lifetime and his music impacted my life directly as a youngster.

But when I took the scissors to yesterday's articles about Sen. Edward Kennedy, I quickly realized I had no working knowledge of Sen. Kennedy's life or legacy. I had no idea what Chappaquiddick was. I was ill informed about his hand in civil-rights legislation or his fight for government-sponsored health care. What I knew was what I learned in SNL sketches, which depicted him as a notorious red-faced blowhard.

So yesterday I got to reading a wide range of takes on Sen. Kennedy's contributions and character. I learned a lot. For an interesting twist, I'd recommend reading the spiritual take Pastor Richard offered about Sen. Kennedy on his blog.

7. On circumcision. This week the CDC is lobbying the American Academy of Pediatrics to take a stronger position on routine infant circumcision in light of new research that shows a lower risk of contracting HIV in men who have the procedure done. This is big news, and certainly grabbed our attention as we prepare for the birth of another baby.

We could argue about this on many fronts--it's a topic wrapped up in all sorts of religious, ethical and health-related questions. In the end it's still a parenting decision and we're all entitled to making that on our own after gathering the facts. Regardless of what the AAP recommends, the decision to cut or not to cut will likely remain a choice for us here in America.

What troubles me is looking at the broader global health issue. When I think about how HIV has killed off huge populations in Africa--chipping away at the members of young families just like mine--a possibly hopeful procedure at fighting the virus could be a vital tool in getting a handle on its rampant spread.

In our country, this is a matter of making an informed decision--one in which N and I are still confident about erring on the side of less surgical intervention. Our hope is that teaching our children about appropriate and healthy sexual relationships later in life will be enough to protect them. But in a part of the world where people look at sex very differently, and many of them don't have access to basic medical care, should we at least take strides to make routine circumcision available along with the other HIV education pieces being established? Could it be a helpful tool for fighting the disease? What are your thoughts?

Thanks again to Jen at the Conversion Diary for hosting this Friday carnival. Love it!