We enjoyed a family dinner at my aunt & uncle’s house — various of us contributed Mexican dishes, and we ate until it hurt.
Here, Maya plays dominos with her grandpa — he stacks them up (like a good engineer), then she knocks them down and eats them, of course (like a good baby).
Maya’s normal screeches and squeals are starting to take more the form of talking and babbling! Yesterday and today have also been “tongue” days (she does this every couple months — has a day of sticking her tongue out constantly), so lots of the talk is combined with chewing on her freakishly long giraffe tongue.
…is the most important skill for the future, according to a NYT editorial (requires registration) by Thomas L. Friedman:
O.K., one ninth grader in St. Paul asked me, then “what courses should I take?” How do you learn how to learn? Hmm. Maybe, I said, the best way to learn how to learn is to go ask your friends: “Who are the best teachers?” Then - no matter the subject - take their courses. When I think back on my favorite teachers, I don’t remember anymore much of what they taught me, but I sure remember being excited about learning it.
Sound advice, in my opinion. I know that I grew up thinking that I hated history. Not true, let me tell you…but it was certainly not fun when the football coaches were teaching it at my high school. Chemistry and physics, on the other hand, were great fun because of the mad scientist type personalities of those teachers! Once I got to college, this reversed…I had a fantastic history professor (in a small honors section) and boring science teachers.
A few weeks ago, one other thought about history hit me. Until college, history was almost exclusively the history of war. No wonder I didn’t enjoy it! Later, teachers (and travel) connected history to the human element — sociological and anthropological perspectives on the past. That, I found interesting.
Just musing…
By the way, at the doctor’s office, they weighed Maya at 13 pounds, 12 ounces — with clothes on — so she was likely right about 13-1/2 pounds.
It’s been more than a week since my last post, and I’m feeling behind. Oddly, the problem isn’t a lack of things to blog about; if anything, I have so MANY things to post that I’m not sure where to start!
I’ll start with this — Maya had a sudden onset of a fever last Wednesday evening. She seemed fine, then out of nowhere was just on fire! Her temperature registered at around 102, and remained high (with no additional symptoms, other than clinging like Saran Wrap…well, and not eating much) through Thursday. We went to the doctor’s office on Friday, just to discover that her fever had vanished. Within another day or two, a red rash appeared all over her chest and back.
My diagnosis is Roseola — the symptoms all fit, and she honestly seemed just fine otherwise. The rash is gone now, and she’s getting back to being a little less in the hold-me-all-the-time frame of mind. As innocuous an illness as Roseola is, its symptoms can inspire so much worry!
. . .