Huge Fabulous Congratulations are in Order!

The Lintefiniel one caught the Blog Baby Bug!

Precious cargo due in mid-November (the BEST time to be born, IMHO)

Drop in and wish Jen and Beau the best!

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Spawned

The Phinlet is here!

Boy 8lbs 14ozs, born between 1 and 2 am this morning, all other details are classified.

Mom and Babe are fine.  No word yet on the Phishy.

Congrats to all the family!

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Eat this Coach K

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Sad Friday

Two of my favorite bloggers called it quits yesterday.

I can't say I fault them, as both of them want to spend more time with their families, but I will miss them both very much.

Take a moment and drop by and tell Cobb and Margi how much they will be missed.

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One for Mikey

Chris Muir Rocks!



Thanks Chris!

Mikey has been moved to a rehab facility, and as usual, he's impatient to go home. To help out Mikey and his family, click the button on the sidebar or go here.

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Speaking of better things to talk about....

Just found out that the reason I haven't seen one of my students in two weeks is because her soon-to-be-Ex took off suddenly, and absconded with the kids....

She knows where he is and is getting together the resources to go after him and get her babies back.  But she's had to take a leave from her job and drop out of school for the semester.

If you're the praying type, put in a good word to whatever benevolent deity you worship for Michelle S. and her babies, will you?  Thanks.

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And also from the baby department...

Announcing the arrival of:

Congrats to Mom Dana, Dad Mike, big brothers Adam and Thomas, and big sister Kayla! 

h/t Lindsey's future MIL

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She's here!

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The Waiting is the Hardest Part...

Jay and Deb were off to the hospital this morning around the time I fell asleep (2:30 am in Cali, 5:30 am in MA), and we should be hearing news any time now...

Yay Valerie!

PS Bonus points to anyone who can tell me where the post title comes from!

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Happy Birthday!

To the King of Crapblogging, Aciddude!

And many more, my friend.

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Today's the Day

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Happy Birthday!

To one of the sweetest ladies of the blogosphere!

Funny lady, new mom, and all-around great person: the fabulous Margi!

Millions of hugs and kisses to you and all your boys on your special day!

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Oh the Irony

Journalist and Blogger Michael Yon has consistently been one of the most strident voices in support of our Troops and the marvelous things they do in Iraq that don't get reported elsewhere.

You know the old saying don't sh*t where you eat?  Well, it looks like the Army is doing just that.

You may remember that Michael took this picture of a US soldier cradling a young Iraqi girl in his arms.  This picture was even nominated as one of Time Magazine's Best Pictures of 2005.  However, the Army released the photo on its own initially, without Michael's permission and under the false attribution "AP/US Army".

Since last fall, Michael has been trying to claim the rights to his own photograph, including any compensation the Army recieved for its publication, and has been denied.

According to the Boston Herald, the Army is denying his claim based on their assertion that the

""hold harmless" waiver that [he signed at the ouset of his trip] absolved the government of responsibility for any "injury" Yon might suffer as an embedded blogger.
    The army also said that Yon uploaded his photo onto government computer servers, creating an "implied license" agreement for the Army to distribute the photo.
     Yon, who's become something of an online celebrity because of his vivid battle dispatches from Iraq, said the Army's arguments are "preposterous". The injury waiver applies to physical wounds, not copyright infringements, he said.
    He added he gave the Army permission to use the photo for purely internal purposes."

Michael Yon has consistently supported our troops and brought their stories to light out of his own pocket, having recieved no compensation for his time in Iraq, funding his trips to the Middle East on his own.  By denying Michael his due compensation for this photograph, the Army is, ironically enough, shooting themselves in the foot by preventing one of their best weapons in the battle of public opinion from reloading.

If you support Michael and his mission, link this post or these posts, and tell his story.  Write your congresspeople and senators, too.  Especially if you are a Massachussetts resident, like Michael.

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My Hubby ought to appreciate this...

A quick perusal of the referrals to my site shows that I am #1 on Google for "my DH".

Which of course means that he is #1!

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In honor of the day...

©2006, King Features Syndicate

Six more weeks of winter is great, as long as it's six more weeks like this

Although I do miss the snow.....

Oh, and Happy Birthday to my B-I-L M, as opposed to DH's other brother (in-law) M.

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Hello, Grandma?

Glenn links to this interesting post at Dr. Helen's site about Grandparents who don't have time to grandparent, based on this article. He asks if these are the same parents who were too busy to be parents, and Dr. Helen wonders if the lack of relationship between children and the extended family keeps them from understanding close human interactions or makes them believe that love is really only about material things. The answer is: well, DUH.

I can just see these women who don't want to be Grandma. Twenty years ago, these were the self-obsessed, career driven mothers of my friends. Trying to be there for the after-school pick up and the PTA, but not worrying overly much if the kids had to walk home or the PTA brownies came from the grocery store. Too busy with their own lives to consider that the "safe" neighborhood the kids walked home through was still dangerous after dark, that the grocery store brownies told all the other kids that you didn't really care, that you were too busy for your kid.

And Hell Yes, we made fun of those kids.

The 80s was all about the Superwoman. Could Mom work outside the home and still have a clean house and take care of the kids? The consensus was that something had to give. For a lot of these women, it was the precious moments with their kids, the small kindnesses that mean so much, and the closeness that the rest of us shared with our moms. Yet they fooled themselves that because the house was clean and the kids were doing well in school that they could have it all.

Somehow it was never important to be there, to make time. And now that their children are parents, these now grown-up children realize what they missed, and they want that for their own children. So they make time, they skip meetings and make brownies, they ask Grandma and Grandpa to spend time with the kids, and they are still disappointed.

But it's more than that. Being Grandma is being old. Hell, most of our grandmothers were at least in their 70s. For the most part, they weren't active, independently wealthy, and still working in their chosen career. Our grandmas were cooks and knitters and nurturers, with their silver hair and never ending fount of kleenex and hard candies. Today's grandmas are tech-saavy, go to work every morning, and command respect outside the home. If you were a balls-to-the-wall coroporate type, would you want to be called ANYTHING that brings to mind a blue haired woman in a rocker?

And being Grandma is an imposition. After all, it wasn't their choice to have babies, toddlers, and children around again. Their kids did this to them. The author of the article even says this in reference to her grandchildren:

Look, I'd love to nip over and whisper secrets into 1-month-old Maggie's ears, or to dress 2-year-old Ryan in the black leather jacket I bought her recently and take her to look for late blackberries in Golden Gate Park on my bike (with its deluxe new kid seat). But I have a job. I'm a reporter, I have two books to write, a husband who wants to go to France, and I just bought an investment property in Portland, Oregon. I love my grandchildren, but being a grandmother got added to my to-do list.
[emphasis mine]

Added to her to-do list. As if she only is Grandma because she has to be. As if she never expected her own children to grow up and have children of their own. Maybe she just doesn't see her own children as self-actualized individuals with lives and loves of their own. Or maybe she didn't want her children to be tied down the way she was. Another Grandma in the article is quoted as saying (paraphrasing here) that while she loves her grandbabies and wants to be a part of their lives, she's not willing to give up her life to deal with them.

If being a grandma is so damn inconvenient, it's a wonder some of the parents of these grandkids were even born so their moms could be grandmas. Hell, Roe has been the law of the land for more than 30 years.

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Yippeeeeee!!!

Peanut's Home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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I'm ready for my close up, Mr. DeMille....

Meet Margi and Koolaid's little Peanut.  Mommy's home, but baby is going to stay in the NICU to bulk up a little. They'll let him go home when he hits his fighting weight

Congrats again, you two.  You did good!

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Memo to the Moms to be out there...

Specifically those of you close to the finish line (Deb, Dana, Mrs. Phin, etc.)...

Don't let this give you any ideas about bringing another blog-baby into the world this week

Welcome to the world, Barrett Elijah (Paladin)!  You must have been in a real hurry, to come out after only 7 hours!

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Even better!

More encouraging news about Mikey!

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