Month: November 2012

Hope’s Bill: Progress

A bill inspired by Hope is headed to the governor’s desk (or whatever surface the governor uses to sign acts into law).

Earlier today, the Ohio House passed Senate Bill 135, which designates September as Craniofacial Awareness Month. The Senate passed the bill back in May, during a session in which Hope got a nice round of applause from the lawmakers. This has been an interesting process to watch since The Civee first gave testimony on the bill more than a year ago.

I could go on about how great this is, but I think the Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s Cleft Lip and Palate Center’s Facebook post put it best:

(And yes, the Christina referred to in that post is The Civee).

So thanks to The Civee, Senator Kearney (and his staff) and the team at Nationwide.

But that’s not the only cleft-related item. Today, I found out about Smile Trek, a journey undertaken by Marine Winston Fiore, who walked 5,000 miles across Southeast Asia to raise money for cleft surgeries. Fiore took the walk with fewer supplies than I have in my car trunk and used his Android and Google Maps to plan the trip. I don’t see anyone with an iPhone walking 5,000 miles across Asia. It’s an incredible story, check out the video:

And finally, here’s a picture of Hope and Luke:

King Tom

Columbus Ohio: City of Red Lights

I’ve lived in Columbus for almost 13 years. Driving here is different than around the New York area, where I grew up. There are some reasons why driving is easier, but there are a number of other factors that make it more difficult and aggravating.

While most of those reasons have to do with other drivers, there’s been one that’s annoyed me particularly lately: the fact that most of the city’s traffic lights are not synchronized. It’s a simple concept: if you’re driving one direction down a major street, the lights turn green one after the other so you don’t get stopped by red light after red light.

I work downtown, so I deal with this everyday. But yesterday afternoon it really got to me as we were driving home from COSI, a simple drive down Broad Street to Fourth Street to I-71. On that drive, we went through ten intersections with lights. We were stopped at red lights at seven of them. I’m not talking about drive to the light and come to a rolling stop and wait the two seconds for the next light to turn green. What happened with most of these lights was as soon as one light would turn green, the next would turn yellow, then red right as we got to the next light.

Downtown Columbus is not the most hopping place, especially on a weekend. There’s no reason for a quick ride to be punctuated by stops at seven red lights. There are small towns able to synchronize their stoplights. Why can’t Columbus?

King Tom

Learning to Move

Luke is almost five months old and he’s starting to do a lot more than just lay around.

Hope is very happy that her younger brother notices her. Luke will often laugh when she makes a funny noise or tries to joke with him. When Hope was Luke’s age, The Civee and I read every book or website we could find to know where she should be developmentally. We knew exactly what milestones she should reach each week and celebrated every one.

But with that a few years in the past and Luke being our second child, we are more relaxed. We don’t have all the milestones memorized. We don’t need to. We are happy he is where he is and celebrate each new accomplishment when it comes. Having two kids takes up more of our time, but it’s great watching them together.

And just as Hope was moving around as soon as she was able, Luke is ready to follow in her footsteps. Luke likes to stand up, whether it’s in his exer-saucer or Johnny Jump-Up. We think in the past week he’s spent more time in the exer-saucer than Hope did all the time we had it out for her. Hope is more interested in the exer-saucer now, showing Luke what each one of the distraction gadgets does.

But Luke isn’t content to just stand (with assistance) in one place. He enjoys time on the floor, is able to roll from one side to the other (and will roll all the way across a room if given the space). Luke is also starting to work on his crawling technique. Take a look (and I am aware he’s drooling. He’s a teething four-month-old. It happens):

I can’t remember the last time The Civee or I picked up a baby milestone book. And it doesn’t matter. Luke is developing and it’s something Hope, The Civee and I are able to enjoy. He’s happy. And he keeps us entertained.

 

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