Random Pool Pictures

Emily was being a good sport letting Julia pour the bucket of water repeatedly over her head.

That would be my nephew Jack there with Julia. It's no wonder they have been mistaken for twins.

Julia quite happily displaying her treat from the icecream man. Poor Sponge Bob was minus an eyeball for this shot, thanks to Julia. And look, a bug decided to jump in for the picture too (right arm).

Truly Shared Parenting

A long, but interesting article on shared parenting.

On The Medical Front

Today was Katherine's 8 year check up at the doctor. We were a little behind (she should have gone in January which would have been a year from her last appointment) but late is better than not at all. She gained 5 pounds and grew 4 inches in a year and a half. We talked a little bit about the bed wetting because, despite my best efforts not to let this happen, she continues to be embarrassed and concerned about it. Based on her history with blood sugar issues he recommended a urinalysis and culture and the girl who can pee at the drop of a hat? Couldn't go. So, we brought it all home for her to do here, and I will just bring it back. The doctor was as charming and humorous as usual. The sad news is that he will be retiring in September. I am a little sadder about this than I would be under normal circumstances, I think because he was my pediatrician as a kid from the age of 2 on. I am going to specifically request that my kids files get passed right on to his son, Dr. B the second, who we have seen a few times and really like.

In other sort of medical-related news I went ahead and sent in the E2 form to the Autism Research Institute based on my observations of Julia. They score it free of charge which was nice, and I just figured it would give me a baseline to go by. The results were exactly what I thought they would be. She scored a -26. What this is means is that it would be unlikely she would be diagnosed officially with autism, but that she would be described as "autistic-like." Not quite sure what the difference is but I think it means that she displays some, not all of the traits of an autistic child. The exact description said this: "Children who score -16 or lower on the E2 form are generally not regarded as truly autistic, but instead are typically described as "autistic-like," has many autistic characteristics," etc. The lower the score, the less likely the child is to be diagnosed as autistic. Please note that most "autistic-like" children will also benefit from the highly structured educational programs that have proven beneficial to autistic children. Form E2 should not be used to exclude children from appropriate education." It was interesting to have the form scored professionally regardless, and it will give me something to share (beyond what I have planned already) with her developmental pediatrician at her appointment next week.

Conversations With # 1 and # 3

With Emily:

Emily: "Mom, are we Democrats or Republicans?"

Me: "Well Emily, you can be whatever you want to be, but I am registered as an Independent."

Emily: "Hmm, maybe that's what I'll do when I am 18. That way I can just vote for whoever I think is the best as far as Presidential material goes."



With Julia (who demonstrates a clear understanding of who's in charge...imagine that from a 4 year old!)

Julia (to me):"I have to follow my Mommy's rules or I will have to go in a time out, right Mommy?"

Me: "Right, Julia."

Julia

She fell asleep on the couch last night and, at one point, while sleeping, managed to sort of step off of the couch and end up in this position.



I left her there long enough to grab this photo, then moved her back up.

Book Meme

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.

2) Italicize those you intend to read

3) Underline the books you LOVE.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma - Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

Hmmm

Here's an interesting article linking sleep apnea to bedwetting. Katherine does have some symptoms of sleep apnea including frequent snoring, mouth breathing, night-time coughing (not all of the time)and night sweats. It might be an interesting avenue to explore any way.

Speaking of Katherine, she was a little under the weather all day yesterday and ended up throwing up right before she sat down to dinner. It was kind of strange really because while she was kind of "blah" she didn't actually seem sick per se. She was fine for the rest of the night and today so I am guessing it might have been weather-related...like maybe she was slightly dehydrated? Who knows. She seems better today regardless, and I have been doing a better job of making sure all of us keep hydrated.