Talking Turkey and Other Traditions

When the children were very young, just to be silly and to mess with them a little (because it's in the contract) I told them that in order for the turkey to thaw properly for Thanksgiving, it needed to be talked to.  Like houseplants.  Seriously.  Every time they opened the refrigerator, or it wouldn't be ready for Thanksgiving.  And, of course, the earth would implode if they didn't get turkey for Thanksgiving.  (This year they started audibly pining for Thanksgiving on November 1st.  It's a new record.)

 

I was VERY persuasive. 

Wonder of Wonders

I came home to a miracle, recently.  Seriously - rainbow across my living room, blue birds singing on the windowsill (well, yellow finches, it is Minnesota).  I even thought I heard the soft refrain of a choir of angels in the distance.  That kind of miracle.

If I had known a miracle was in my future, I wouldn't have run errands that afternoon and missed the first half of it. 

But then, I think the miracle occurred expressly because I wasn't there. 

Navajo Code Talkers WW2

Come away, human child...

The University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum is not the sort of place I'd normally be eager to take my Celtic hoard.  I like gardens, and my children  appreciate being outdoors. But, as I've said at other times, my children's appreciation of things tends to be of a physical rather than emotional or mental nature. Flowers tend not to survive such appreciation. However, the experiences of one of my friends intrigued me; and I was assured that this Arboretum could survive our visit. 

 

Oh, it was a beautiful afternoon. (Click on a photo to enlarge it.)

Come Vacation In Sunny...WWII

I seem to have developed a penchant for personal summer themes.  Actually, it's more that I obsess about topics. 

 

I get curious about something cultural or historical and then can't leave it alone until I've devoured everything that I can get my hands on about the topic.  And to make matters worse, I then feel compelled to feed my newly acquired subject mastery to family and friends in little tidbits of trivia until they're screaming.  I usually manage to avoid tormenting complete strangers; but heaven help you if you're in a public building standing next to me near an exhibit that I've recently researched.  I do apologize.  I just LOVE knowing things; historical things especially.

 

This summer I've been devouring the WWII section of our local library. 

Ya Can't Just Throw Meds At It

The New York Times recently published its analysis of raw data from the Center of Disease Control's latest Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder survey.  We don't get the CDC's official analysis until later this summer, but the NYTimes was happy to publish its own conclusions now.  In the NYTime's opinion the data indicate that ADHD is grossly over diagnosed, enabling the pharmaceutical industry to develop sales of ADHD medication into a multi-billion dollar business.  The paper cited 'experts' who attribute this excess to a three-fold cause:  a) general practitioners who either don't know or don't care to complete the complicated and time intensive diagnostic process; b) overzealous pharmaceutical advertising bent on bolstering the western pill-popping approach to wellness; c) parents so desperate to give their children an edge toward success that they demand stimulant medication unnecessarily.

I'll start with C.  As a parent who agonized over the decision to give her children stimulant medication, I'm almost insulted by the NYTimes' third suggested cause.  Even though this was the item they used an expert to ratify with official comment; no one I've ever known who has children with ADHD has ever been eager let alone demanding to put their children on medication.  Medication is expensive and inconvenient; only works for about 60% of the population; and always comes with the potential for serious side-effects.  Never mind the fact that by itself, medication is not anywhere close to enough to counteract all the effects of ADHD on a person's life.  I resent the accusation that parents are now eager to drug our children to make them academically successful. 

Parts of A & B, however, have some merit, but not entirely in the way the NYTimes suggests.

I'm Gonna Need Some Dragons

We have a short family history of mild sleep disorders. When I was a child, I thoroughly enjoyed my parents' stories of times when they caught me sleep-walking around the house and one time in particular when they caught me at a critical moment in my mistaken attempt to use a kitchen chair as the toilet. LH, as a child, hardly slept. He refused naps after infancy and was up half the night as a child. Two of our daughters have similarly disconcerting nocturnal behaviors.

O Death, Where Is Thy Sting

Last Sunday was my turn to give a talk in Sacrament Meeting. Preparing to give one of the sermons for Easter Sunday was quite harrowing. But spending the weeks before Easter reading about and pondering the Atonement of Jesus Christ was so wonderful. The Lord even began preparing me before I got the assignment. At the beginning of the month, I substitute taught in our high school students' early morning seminary (New Testament) class. Two of the themes from those lessons factored directly into my talk. So cool. I wanted a record of the talk here.