1m2aSandbox

Monday morning Cora woke up crying.
She’d had a horrible dream the night before, so I raced
upstairs to her worried that it was a continuation of that
nightmare.


“Hey, hey, Mommy’s here,” I soothed as I ran in.
Cora was still curled up in a ball, back towards me. As I lay down
next to her she rolled into me and melted, still whimpering and
sleepy.


I stroked her back. “What’s the matter, puppy?”


“I just realized,” Cora sobbed, “That when
I’m a mommy I won’t ever get a hair snuggle
again!”

“Mommy, Gamma, come see a special
show we’ve got going on! And you have to come sit on the
floor in the hallway to watch it!” Maddie and Cora called
downstairs Friday afternoon.


My mom and I came into the hall, mystified. Of the hundreds
(literally) of shows we’ve seen in my house, none have taken
place in the hallway. But there on the floor were two floor
cushions, so we obediently sat down and sat back.

Am I the only person who feels like summer
is just whizzing by?


June was a blur of teaching for me, so that hardly counts. Then it
was all-hands-on-deck getting ready for our vacation, then a week
in Florida (I know, I know, quit whining), and now that we’re
at the tail end of what feels like our first real week of summer
vacation, I’m looking at the calendar and realizing
it’s almost over.


Ok, not really almost over. But I estimate we’ve got maybe
two good weeks left before we have to start thinking about
back-to-school shopping and returning to the school morning
schedule. And frankly, that just doesn’t seem fair.


Don’t wanna, don’t wanna, don’t wanna.

I remember when I was young, and going on
vacation was inextricably linked with getting to eat
“vacation food”: junk food that would normally never
pass my mother’s inspection was allowed on vacation, and we
got to indulge in that rarest of pleasures – eating out.
I’m not saying we gorged on piles of refined white sugar, but
the usual restrictions were loosened, lifted slightly, and became
part of the pleasure of the vacation.


Ah, how things change when you get older.

Of course, Cora woke up sick on Tuesday.
Of course. My little vomit comet.


Whatever's ailing Cora, it comes out as throwing up, and yesterday
was no exception. No fever, no other symptoms - just a stomach not
even able to tolerate water. So we had to give Cora Pedialyte - one
tablespoon every fifteen minutes - all day long, while listening to
her beg for water or ice.


Did I mention the cable repair man was at the house for three
hours?


Which means my day looked like this:

When I was a kid, I felt like the world
revolved around me – in a completely non-egotistical way.
Life simply seemed to be filled with rooms full of people who
became animated when I walked in, and shut down when I left. The
whole Life Story thing was, to me, supremely interesting, and I
felt like everyone else existed to be supporting characters in my
movie.


I couldn’t have put this into words, of course; it was
something that I simply felt – a sense of being the center of
the universe. And I don’t think I felt like I deserved it or
was incredibly special or chosen for this great event as much as I
felt like it’s simply the way it was. From my point of view
– which, admittedly, was clearly biased – everything
was important as to how it related to me, or affected me. If I had
to put a title to points of my life, they’d be such things as
“Jennifer Goes to Camp” or “A Young
Ballerina” or perhaps, in an after-school special sort of
thing, “Jennifer: An Angry Teen”.


Even as I got older and realized it wasn’t so, I still felt
like I was penning a very cool story as I went about my daily life.
My travels, my shows, my life felt interesting to me, a story that
still (surprise surprise) revolved around me and, later on, my
husband – as a co-star. Though I still got first billing. I
felt like a real-life Seinfeld, or Raymond, or Dick Van Dyke, or
Mary Tyler Moore. I’m not saying I thought I was God’s
gift to anything – just felt like the story revolved around
me. In an appropriate way.


And then I had kids.

In a study just released a few days ago
that many people in the medical community are calling a "complete
game changer" on how they deal with autism, environmental influence
was found to play a much higher role in causing autism than has
ever been thought.


The study found that about 38% of autism risk comes from genetics -
with environmental factors accounting for an astonishing 63%. The
New York Times, as well as many other national papers, published
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/05/health/research/05autism.html?_r=2&emc=eta1"
target="_blank">articles that have rocked many people's
worlds. The medical community will be absorbing this impact for
years, and the study will result, many experts feel, in a complete
paradigm shift in how people look at - and strive to prevent -
autism.


And if that's not enough, href="http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/newscience/prenatal-vitamins-lowers-autism-risk"
target="_blank">another study just recently released shows
that taking a prenatal vitamin at the time of conception cuts the
risk of autism in HALF. Half. Talk about big numbers.


I encourage you to take some time and href="http://healthychild.org/blog/comments/new_research_links_autism_environment/"
target="_blank">read the articles - it's big stuff
happening right now.