On Going
Image by ethan.john
Took this on M mode. After a long conversation with a fellow photog on Reddit, I'm going to try it out more often. We'll see.
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She, of course, doesn't mind that she was up for the hours of 2am to 5am last night. I took the day off because I'd be worthless at work, and staying home to help Cori seemed like a plan.
Lack of sleep, as the insomniacs among you can probably attest, does strange things to your head. Ideas for blog posts hit me at random times and then leave without permission. I forget or outright don't remember things that I normally would. Annoying to be sure.
She could not really be any cuter, though. So there's that. Soon, I hope to be able to make fun videos like "What Does Nora Like," illustrating our attempts to get her to smile and then laugh on cue. I cannot wait until she starts solid foods. I will probably go to the store and get like a billion different foods and come home and blend them all and tape her trying them and make a little montage of her goofiness eating for the first times.
I wish I was capable of napping.
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The iPad and Kindle turn out to be pretty revolutionary, though I wish they more easily supported multiple users. All these new-fangled electronics end up being amazing with a baby around.
Some sample baby-related uses that we have found fantastic: The Fire and our phones make great one-handed readers while carrying Nora around the house; our phones are excellent white-noise producers; the iPad and iPhone have apps that are just high-contrast images that she loves to look at; the iPad's dictation feature makes it possible to send email and messages even when burping her or otherwise occupied; looking up random facts about babies and answering the all-important "is this normal" question at 3am is pretty easy when we have 4 internet-enabled handheld devices sitting around the house (not to mention 2 laptops).
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I think we're going to pay off the house. It just seems like the right thing to do right now. We need to sit down and make ourselves a budget first, but I think even after we do that it will be a good thing. We'll be left with the normal 6 month emergency fund and no major debts. Seems good. Seems amazingly for being only 30 years old.
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Good god damn some things are Hard now that I'm back at work. Being away for 9 hours a day means I get precious little Good Time with Nora. I'm biking home from work again just because it saves me 20-30 minutes and lets me give Cori that much more of a break.
It leaves basically no time for taking pictures during the week.
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By all rights, she's doing better than some. Some tidbits from baby books that are working for us.
* Babywise: The Eat-Wake-Sleep cycle is magic. She doesn't need the boob to fall asleep. She doesn't need to co-sleep with us. We aren't really doing the more draconian portions of this program because we don't really think it's necessary, but good lord some portions of it are just downright godsends compared to others in our position.
* Happiest Baby on the Block: I'm not even sure the Five Esses aren't bullshit, but they work for Nora and even if they didn't, it gives us something to Do when she cries and merely picking her up isn't enough.
* No Cry Sleep Method: This is like the anti-Babywise, anti-Cry-It-Out book. It's all about gradual change. It's already helped Nora fall asleep without the pacifier and in her cradle more often (she likes to fall asleep in our arms mostly) and we continue the gradual change.
* The AAP book: This is the ultimate, "Is My Baby Normal?" book. It's readable and concise where it needs to be and it's obviously the most science-based authority on baby development. Just a fantastic resource. Considering I picked up our previous-edition copy for literally , I'm happy with it.
I'm sure there are more but as I said, I space things.
The King’s Speech Raises Awareness of Language and Speech Disorders
Image by University of Maryland Press Releases
by Carla Andrews-O-Hara
Contact: caohara@umd.edu
COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Every once in a while a film grabs your attention and holds you captive. Through story, imagery, and emotion it touches the very heart of the human condition. The King’s Speech, the story of King George VI’s struggle with stuttering in the years leading up to World War II, is such a film. At the 83rd Annual Academy Awards, the film was nominated for twelve Academy Awards and won four, including Best Picture. But the attention the film has drawn to stuttering will soon pass and the media will move on to the next big thing. Not so for the professionals working in the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences who have dedicated their lives to making a difference to people with language and speech disorders like stuttering.
Nan Bernstein Ratner, Ed.D., CCC-SLP and Vivian Sisskin, M.S., CCC-SLP are among those making a difference. They are leading experts on stuttering and through their comprehensive approach to speech-language pathology they combine state-of-the-art teaching, research, and clinical services to help people develop strategies to better manage their speech, while also building their confidence.
Ratner and Sisskin are quick to point out that there are a lot of misconceptions about stuttering, including the idea that stuttering is a result of a traumatic childhood.
“There is no cure for stuttering,” Sisskin points out, “but there are ways to manage your speech. This isn’t just about hiring a ‘speech coach,’ it’s about long term therapy built on outcomes that we hope last—and that takes time and thoughtful attention.” Sisskin shared the following insights in a recent National Geographic article entitled: The King’s Speech—The Stutter Truth:
•In The King’s Speech, Colin Firth’s character concludes that early traumatic experiences and neglect may have been the source of his stuttering. While experts are still unaware of its exact cause, they have ruled out “deep-seated emotional conflict” as a trigger for stuttering. In fact, feelings of anxiety, tension, and fear of speaking are likely the result of stuttering, not its cause.
•Fifty to sixty percent of people who stutter have a genetic predisposition to stuttering, suggesting that it is a kind of neurophysiologic disorder that runs in families. In fact, it is relatively common for children to experience some form of stuttering, and eighty percent of them recover without any help.
•In the film, the king tries a variety of unconventional methods to improve his speech, including stuffing his mouth with marbles, shouting swear words, and rolling around on the carpet. While these methods rarely exist in practice today, some of the film’s other linguistic exercises are indeed effective. For example, breaking sentences into smaller linguistic units, reducing time constraints, and heavy pausing and phrasing are helpful in inducing temporary fluency in speech.
• When treating patients who stutter, there are two main goals in therapy: First, working on motor aspects of speech in order to move toward the ultimate goal of comfortable, forward-moving speech; second, tackling the psychological constraints that result from stuttering. People who stutter tend to perform what is known as “mental gymnastics,” going to great lengths to avoid communication. It’s important that those who stutter learn to stop hiding and overcome feelings of embarrassment, frustration, or incompetency.
In a New York Times article Ratner supports these insights by stating that, “While communication disorders and speech delays may be predicted from a baby’s babble or developmental trajectory, we really have not been able to find indicators of stuttering before the first day it emerges. Everything looks fine and suddenly it doesn’t look fine. That’s why some psychologists in the last century proposed, wrongly, that stuttering was caused by early childhood trauma, or poor parenting.”
"What The King's Speech got right is that stuttering is a lot more than just repeating words. It’s much more about being ‘blocked’—wanting to say something but unable to get the words out." Ratner said. "It's very debilitating; it's actually a handicapping communication disorder."
Language and speech disorders can cause tremendous emotional turmoil resulting in a lifetime of struggle. The King’s Speech helped raise awareness and as David Seidler, Academy Award winner for Best Original Screenplay, stated at the Awards Ceremony, “I accept this Award on behalf of all the stutterers throughout the world. We have a voice, we have been heard.”
Ratner and Sisskin have recently conducted numerous interviews with a variety of media outlets including ABC News/WJLA-TV7, National Geographic Magazine, Agence French Presse (AFP), Voice of America, YahooNews.com, LiveScience.com, New York Times, and others; many of which are also accessible online.
The University of Maryland’s Hearing and Speech Clinic at College Park has provided speech, language and hearing services throughout Maryland and the D.C. metro area since 1949. Located in LeFrak Hall, the Clinic is operated by the Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences as both a training and research facility of speech-language pathology and audiology services to over 2,000 people per year. Clinic facilities include several modern research laboratories that provide the latest and most technologically advanced services, including group therapy for stuttering.
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Queens
Image by TEDxNJLibraries
I brought to the TEDx event our family-created game Sleeping Queens. Sleeping Queens at the heart sybolizes my deep belief in nurturing whole families and creating the legacy of strong family ties.
My daughter, when she was 6 years old couldn't get to sleep one night because she had an idea in her head about queens who couldn't get to sleep because kings kept waking them up. She pictured the Strawberry Queen, the Rose Queen, the Ladybug Queen, the Cat Queen, and many other queens all lined up in their beds trying to get to sleep. My daughter, now 13, told my husband and I her game idea all those years ago, and as a family, with our oldest daughter play-testing too (our baby son helped by not eating the cards!) we worked on her game idea for months and then approached a game company who loved it immediately and licensed it from us.
Sleeping Queens has been on the shelves of toy stores for 5 years and is now available world-wide and has just recently been translated into Hebrew and Czech. By spending lots of time with our children, attachment parenting them, and letting them lead us in their homeschooling journey we are raising confident, lovely, smart, and caring people which the world so greatly needs.
--denise evarts, mother-artist
I am... Peter Gabriel in the Darkness :-)
Image by DavidDMuir
I was led by ~ JP ~'s picture - Yeah Baby - to the the i am... a record cover pool. What a brilliant idea!
Album covers are shiny! This caused problems when taking pictures with a flash. A few were tried without flash and this is the best one (I think) as the head and shoulder matches really well. However, it's a bit dull and blurry - story of my life: it's all dull and blurry. :-)
I've also posted a version taken with a flash.
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