What's up with our fellow beings in the blogosphere?

I have witnessed him labor endless hours and felt the brunt of every moment. But I am so incredibly proud of DH whose second book, Taking on the System: Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era, is out today in book stores and on Amazon.

Please help this loving husband and father make the best seller's list. I know I am biased, but I enjoyed it much more than Crashing the Gate. The writing was tighter and anecdotes punchier. It is a very accessible book -- even for that Republican family member of yours!

The Oprah Winfrey Show had an expert to explain how fear is actually a gift that can save your life.

Parent Center just re-published the five signs that you are in labor.

Via ParentDish: A 16-year-old boy from Raleigh, North Carolina, dropped out of school to play Guitar Hero for a living. His parents told the News&Observer that they do not believe in a "one-size-fits-all parenting." What do you think? Would you let your talented teen gamer drop out of school? In all fairness, the boy is being homeschooled, although it sounds like he spends the majority of his time playing Guitar Hero.

Also in ParentDish: Rumer Willis, the daughter of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis, said she does not like her unusual name.

The blog Respect Rx and the Girl Scouts of Colorado are teaming up at the Democratic National Convention in Denver next week to host leadership workshops for high school girls.

The last of 9-11 charity money is drying up, according to Strollerderby. Also in Strollerderby: How do you keep kids engaged in an activity? What would you say if your seven-year-old wanted to quit the swim team?

I've always thought it was kind of ridiculous that all the trappings of adulthood come at 18 except the right to purchase and drink alcohol. This morning, over 100 college Presidents signed a letter calling for the drinking age to be reconsidered, so apparently I'm in good company. They go a step further, however, and lay out some good, common sense safety reasons why the current drinking age is not working.

"Kids are going to drink whether it's legal or illegal," said Johns Hopkins President William R. Brody, who supports lowering the drinking age to 18. "We'd at least be able to have a more open dialogue with students about drinking as opposed to this sham where people don't want to talk about it because it's a violation of the law."
...
"How many times must we relearn the lessons of prohibition?" the statement says. "Adults under 21 are deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military, but are told they are not mature enough to have a beer."

If I have one complaint about my trip to New Hampshire, it is that I have had ZERO downtime except for the wee hours I watch the Olympics with my parents. It's all good though. The kids and I have had a fabulous time.

Thanks to fellow MotherTalker Katie, I even got to get out to Concord for a girls' lunch!

Due to an unusually rainy summer, I have gotten to enjoy an especially green and lush New Hampshire. Just look at my sister Nidia's backyard in Manchester. Manchester, with a population of 107,000, is northern New England's largest city, by the way.

I have gotten to know more places than when I actually lived here. Long gone are the days my bored high school friends and I would hang outside a bowling alley to smoke cigarettes. As it turns out there are a lot of things to do in New Hampshire especially for families.

If you ever find yourself with the kids in southern New Hampshire in the summertime, Don Ball Park in Derry is worth a visit. My kids had a blast with its many play structures and splashing around in water. Photos on the flip:

Lists, lists and more lists. MSN Lifestyle just released another list, this one on how to foster a love of learning in your home.

The article offered anecdotes on each point, but here is the general overview:

• Fill your child's world with reading.
• Encourage him to express his opinion, talk about his feelings, and make choices.
• Show enthusiasm for your child's interests and encourage her to explore subjects that fascinate her.
• Provide him with play opportunities that support different kinds of learning styles -- from listening and visual learning to sorting and sequencing.
• Point out the new things you learn with enthusiasm.
• Ask about what he's learning in school, not about his grades or test scores.
• Help your child organize her school papers and assignments so she feels in control of her work.
• Celebrate achievements, no matter how small.
• Focus on strengths, encouraging developing talents.
• Turn everyday events into learning opportunities.

What other suggestions do you have?

What's up with our fellow beings in the blogosphere?

Ladies' Home Journal had a Q&A with Barack and Michelle Obama on women's issues.

Adoptive mom and MOMocrat PunditMom took on Sen. John McCain for his answer -- or, non-answer -- about orphans at a forum hosted by the Rev. Rick Warren. Did any of you catch it? I actually caught the second half with Obama and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Warren's questions, while steeped in scripture, were tough and fair. He asked the same exact questions of both candidates, which I think should be the norm in all political debates.

Liz Rizzo over at BlogHer linked to a New York Times story about couples marrying and divorcing for health benefits. Also in BlogHer: Elana Centor reveals two dirty secrets of working for yourself -- cash flow problems and paycheck envy.

The Root listed some of the world's largest websites that are being blocked by the Chinese government. But for the technically savvy, there is a way around this wall.

Via Feministing: Women's eNews had an article about the Iraqi women who have fled to Syria. Whenever I hear people say that things are swell in Iraq because we haven't had that many casualties this month, I point to articles like these. There are simply no more people left to kill. Also in Feministing: Check out Black Conseco's awesome rant about the discrepancy in news coverage between black and white missing children. My favorite line: "Nancy Grace doesn’t have an aneurysm on camera when LaToya goes missing."      

On people you want to smack: As if Jennifer Lopez did not have enough on her plate with 5-month old twins and a career as a singer, actress, producer and fashion designer, she is now training for a triathlon, according to Celebrity Baby Blog. Want to feel worse? She doesn't even have nannies, and instead, relies on her mother and sisters to babysit. She must rely on them a lot.

CityMama has had a hard time finding the silver lining in large swim classes. Like her daughter Bunny, Ari, too, is interested in taking classes this fall. What would you recommend for a four-year-old?

To the chagrin of U.S. patrons seeking European sperm donations, the U.S. government now prohibits such transactions for fear of mad cow disease -- even though there is not a single case, in which the disease was transmitted by sperm, according to the Washington Post.

The restrictions on sperm from Europe were among the steps the U.S. government took in the wake of the mad cow outbreak in Europe in the late 1990s. In rare cases, people who eat meat from infected animals develop the fatal, untreatable illness called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. The ailment is caused by an infectious mutant protein that slowly eats away brain tissue. Some people have been infected through contaminated surgical equipment and transplanted tissue, such as corneas, but there are no known cases of infection from sperm.

Before the restrictions went into effect, two sperm banks -- California Cryobank in Los Angeles and Cryos International in New York City -- imported sperm from Denmark. The Nordic donors were popular because of their blue eyes and blond hair, and their tendency to be tall and have advanced degrees.

"The demand was huge," said Peter Bower of Nordic Cryobank of Copenhagen, which had supplied California Cryobank. "In addition to being tall and well educated, their motivations for donation are quite sincere -- they want to help childless couples. They tended to sell out very fast."

With California Cryobank's and Cryos's supplies virtually depleted, Nordic Cryobank filed a petition in June asking the Food and Drug Administration to lift the restrictions.

"The risk is insignificant," Bower said. "There's a huge demand, and the FDA is essentially saying to these patients they can't choose the characteristics of the children they want, even though there is absolutely no scientific evidence on their side."

Bower cites one study that concluded that getting mad cow disease from sperm is far less likely than being killed by lightning.

The article was peppered with anecdotes of women of Nordic descent who already had one child through a donor at Bower's bank, but are now unable to secure sperm from the same donor to have more children. They really wanted their children to have whole siblings.

This issue probably registers low on the FDA's priority list, considering there are many available American donors. But the Post did a good job conveying how personal a choice motherhood really is and why these women would fly across the world to seek it.

I've been a tad MIA from my usual blogging habits as of late mainly because I haven't had any new revelations to discuss- work kind of sucks but I'm working on it and while it's time consuming I'm trying to keep from poisoning myself with whining about it- positive thoughts only. DD and DH and doing great, summer is ending and school is starting for our household but we aren't exactly at the stage where that is a life-altering kind of event.

What has struck me, and struck pretty hard, is that DH and I are officially in the red when it comes to finances. I'm still a bit stunned about it, keep going back to the spreadsheets and the bank account and keep expecting the math to be different. But there it is, in black white and red. Our expenses have surpassed our income. It may seem a silly thing to be so surprised by- I'd be foolish to think that our lack of funds is anything less than average now a days. But until last week, I thought we'd be tight but at least ok.

I wish I was referring to the eating-out, movies on the weekends, new toy for Lily kind of expenses too, but sadly no. It's an unholy combination of tuition increases for Lily's preschool, grocery bills, the cost of insurance at my job and gas. Good grief, the gas bill has tripled- I'm driving further to work, the prices seem pretty stagnant around the $4 mark, and it hurts.

Via The Motherhood: The Detroit News had a comprehensive story about the debate surrounding the licensing of midwives.

The laws vary from state-to-state, but Michigan, for example, does not license certified professional midwives (CPMs) who do not hold nursing certificates.

The debate centers not only on where a woman should give birth, but also on who's best qualified to perform the delivery. Experts with the AMA (American Medical Association) and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists say a hospital is the safest setting because it offers the best resources to handle unexpected complications. And, they say, physicians and midwives with a nursing background are best suited for the job.

That stance has outraged midwife advocates who say nursing certification isn't necessarily a prerequisite for a successful home birth. They say home births are a safe alternative for women who choose them -- some for religious reasons, some because they prefer more privacy and less medical intervention.

The issue is complicated because states have different rules regarding use of midwives, and there are several different levels of midwife certification. Some include formal nursing certification, some do not.

The medical community's scrutiny is focused primarily on a category of midwives without nursing certification known as Certified Professional Midwives, or what some call lay midwives. CPMs are credentialed by the North American Registry of Midwives, which is not a medical group.

CPMs differ from Certified Nurse Midwives, who have formal nursing certification and most often practice in hospitals or medical centers, not homes.

Nurse-midwives are licensed in all states; only about half the states license CPMs. Michigan is among those states that do not license CPMs.

Midwife advocates want all states to license CPMs to offer them credibility and legal protection. But the medical groups worry about that because they are only required to deliver 40 in-hospital births before they are certified, and that they don't get enough training to handle unexpected problems.

Of course, I’m late to the action in wishing the Material Girl a very happy 50th birthday party. I’ll never stop being a Madonna fan, even though I miss her earlier incarnations as scruffy mall-rat/club girl. I respect her longevity, her ability to assimilate new trends and styles, and most of all, her fantastic business sense. In an article I recently read, the author pointed out that both Madonna and Michael Jackson turn 50 this month. In the 80s, they ruled the pop charts; almost 30 years later, Madonna’s still there, but MJ has long faded.

Her half-century mark has been a prime opportunity to evaluate her as a musical institution, and of course, it’s not all flattering. But it can be funny – Camille Paglia, one of my favourite social commentators (even though I only agree with her about 50% of the time) had this to say in Salon:

On the pop front, Madonna's life has been passing before our eyes like a decadent German expressionist film. There's been a tabloid avalanche: rumors about Madonna's rocky marriage; a flirtation with a juvenile if humpy New York Yankee; an accusation of alienation of affections from the baseball player's furious wife; the release of a tart memoir by her brother, Christopher Ciccone; horrifying paparazzi pix of Madonna's wan face looking as resculpted as a plastic doll. With a New York magazine cover story on the new plastic surgery, Madonna has become the poster girl of android metamorphosis. This has hardly been a dignified run-up to her 50th birthday -- the big party for which has just been postponed because of the latest in a series of mysterious injuries leading to the launch this month of her world tour.
[...]
Listening to Madonna's latest CD, "Hard Candy," was a melancholy experience. There are several interesting songs on it, but musically, it retraces old steps, and the overall effect is uptight and claustrophobic.

Even as a wife and mother, Madonna can't seem to escape an adolescent angst and self-absorption. Yet the CD's brassy cover image, with that ostentatiously exposed crotch and hard-bitten face lolling its tongue like a dissolute old streetwalker, is still hammering at sex as if it's Madonna's last, desperate selling point. Sex for sternly workaholic Madonna has become a brittle concept rather than a sensual reality, a monotonous compulsiveness diverting her from artistic self-development.

¡Qué grosería! Cuatro hombres con machetes subieron a un bote en Guatemala y mataron un turista Americano y herieron gravemente su esposa, según Associated Press. Nancy Dryden, de 67 años, quien es la esposa del muerto, Perry Dryden, de 66 años, dijo que los asesinatos les reclamaron dolares pero la pareja solamente tenía quetzales, la moneda nacional de Guatemala. ¡Qué barbaridad!

La CNN cubrió lo malo de Los Juegos Olímpicos en la China. Las autoridades Chinas han bloqueado muchos sitios de internet y han prohibido llegar a los Juegos las activistas y sus familiares. Además el gobierno Chino ha manipulado estatísticas sobre el nivel de contaminación en el país. ¡Otra barbaridad!

Mas de un cuarto de Hispanos en los EEUU no tienen acceso a un médico y 83 por ciento dependen sobre la prensa para información sobre la salud, según El Paso Times.

El Washington Post hizo público los oradores de la convención demócrata en Denver que tomará lugar el 25 de agosto.

¿Qué más hay en las noticias? ¿Qué tal con ustedes?

I was 7 years old during the first Olympics I remember clearly, watching Nadia Comanechi win her all-around gold medal. I did my best to imitate her with the few skills I had - mostly cartwheels - no doubt to my family's irritation. My daughter is also 7, and I'm starting to see the awareness awaken in her, as she watches divers, runners, equestrians, gymnasts, all giving their best.

And yet, they still inspire me. In my sport, equestrian, there are many athletes at the top of their game in their 50's, so technically, it's still not too late. But to see women my age and older being so successful in the most athletically demanding events, like Constantina Tomescu-Dita, of Romania, with a teenage son, run a marathon so impressively, is a big-ol kick in the pants.

I love it!

Baby Center recently doled out advice on how to handle the teasing of a gifted child. A gifted child in preschool that is.

If your 2- to 4-year-old child is upset about being teased, you can:

• Sympathize. Offer love and support and a warm hug, and tell her you're sorry that her feelings were hurt.

• Ask for information. Try to find out who said what, when, and where.

• Explain. Your child probably doesn't realize that children tease other children for many different reasons, and dislike is only one possibility. You can help her learn that children may tease others because they are envious, or they think teasing is harmless. Sometimes teasing is even a way of saying "I like you."

If the teasing persists tell the teacher, Parent Center suggested.

But my reaction to this article was the same as this poster: "Teasing in preschool about being smart??? Really????"

Can a preschooler really fish out the eccentric smart kid in class? If this has been your experience, please do tell!