Why I love Three Year Olds

The scene: our living room sofa, last night. I am cuddling K and trying to watch 24 with cje.

Me: "ugh, I feel so sick to my stomach after eating those cookies. I think I'm going to puke."
K: sits up all perky, "I'll go get you a puke bowl!" Gets up and runs to the kitchen.

And Merry KwanzaHannuMas!

Happy Halloween!

Rest in Peace, Edwina

Edwina Froehlich January 5, 1915–June 8, 2008 Edwina Froehlich of Inverness, Illinois, co-founder of La Leche League International and co-author of The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, which has over 2 million copies in print, died at 5 am on Sunday, June 8, 2008 at Northwest Community hospital in Arlington Heights after suffering a stroke on May 25. In 1956, Edwina Froehlich and six other women met in Franklin Park, Illinois to share information on how to successfully breastfeed their babies. The group quickly attracted the attention of other women and became an organization called La Leche League. “In those days you didn’t mention ‘breast’ in print,” Froehlich once said. “We knew that if we were ever going to get anything in the paper we would have to find a name that wouldn’t actually tell people what our organization was about.” The breastfeeding support group took the Spanish name for milk as its name. From these roots grew La Leche League International, a breastfeeding support not-for-profit organization, which has groups in every U.S. state and in 68 different countries. The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding has been translated into eight languages and Braille. Betty Wagner Spandikow, another of the seven Founders of La Leche League International, said after meeting Edwina Froehlich for the first time, “Everything she said I agreed with. All evening I listened intently as Edwina talked. She was so vivacious and interesting.” Edwina was a member of the Board of Directors of La Leche League, and at various times served as Secretary, Treasurer and Vice Chairman of that group. She also worked at La Leche League International as Executive Secretary from 1956 until her retirement in 1983. Edwina, according to her co-founders, had an indomitable spirit. When difficulties stood in the way of La Leche League she said, “We are not going to let this kind of thing get in the way. This is a problem that we are going to have to live through, and work through, and resolve, so that we can continue to do what we originally set out to do—help mothers successfully breastfeed their babies.” Born Edwina Hearn on January 5, 1915 in Bronx, New York, she attended Mundelein College in Chicago, Illinois, later married John Francis Froehlich and had three children. Preceeded in death by her husband in 1997, she is survived by her three sons: Paul Froehlich, David Froehlich and Peter Froehlich; three daughters-in-law and nine grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Edwina Froehlich Memorial Fund, La Leche League International, 957 N. Plum Grove Road, P.O. Box 4079, Schaumburg, Illinois, USA 60168-4079, phone 847.519.7730, www.llli.org. The memorial service celebrating the life of Founder Edwina Froehlich will be on Saturday, July 12 at Elk Grove High School, 500 W. Elk Grove Blvd., Elk Grove Village, Illinois 60007. Edwina Froehlich Memorial Fund Breastfeeding INFO See New LLLI Apparel Edwina Froehlich January 5, 1915–June 8, 2008 Become a Member Become a Leader

Another One Bites the Dust- or, First I Was Riding My Bike, Then I Wasn't- UPDATED

The phone rang last Friday as we were expecting our friends over for dinner..... it was C.. "I fell off my bike." He'd been riding his bike to and from work (6 miles!) to stay in shape, reduce his carbon footprint, and save gas. He hit a part of the curb at a weird angle and his bike went one way and he went the other in front of a Wendy's on Peachtree Road. He needed stitches in his chin and ended up with a broken radius (it was a stable fracture so he only needed to wear a sling for the weekend) and sprained his wrist and elbow and had some pretty gross road rash. The bike is fine, however.

He was tough through the stitches (didn't hurt that the PA who did them was pretty and kind) and were out of there in less than 4 hours. Thanks the the B/S family for caring for and feeding our kids! He is healing well and will be back at the orthopedist in a couple weeks for follow up. He's got a new pair of glasses on order out of the episode.

Thanks for all your well wishes! Carlton is mostly healed up, and will see the orthopedist this week for follow-up (his wrists are not quite back to normal). Just to be clear, he DID have on a helmet, or else things could have been a lot worse! In fact, I had to clean little tiny bits of black bike-helmet foam out of his PORES on his forehead where his head and the sidewalk were the bread of a bike-helmet sandwich.

Trash to Treasure

I found an old coffee table in a neighbor's trash can just as I was thinking of wanting to do a bench project for her piano recital that we could donate to the Girl Scout hut.

We painted it up in a McKenzie Child style in colors that match the GS hut decor (!) and it turned out pretty cute. I still need to put a coat of polyurethane on it before we take it over there for permanent use. Meanwhile, it's our piano bench, and I need to keep looking for one that matches OUR decor :-)

Bonus- you can see my kitty Butterscotch in the background of the top picture.

M: Bassist Extroirdinaire

Here is M with her Bass teacher, Mrs. B, after her spring recital. She played "Country Dance." As a funny aside, K told Mrs. B that she looked like a mermaid (which she sort of does!). Maren was accepted to a Jazz workshop put on by professors and students from the Jazz Program at the Juilliard School of Music this summer, which is very exciting. The culminating performance is Friday night, June 20, at 6 pm, at North Atlanta High School, and is free, so if you like Jazz music, come on down.