Back with a vengence

Soooooooooooooo...

It's been a while since I posted. Don't bother looking for my last one; I want to spare you the search through the archives. I'm sorry.

What's my excuse? Laziness, work, broken computer? Probably a combination of all three. I just got my desktop back up and running again after a long hiatus. Something with Vista and my NVIDIA card. Fortunately, after a half-off ATI card sale I'm back on the information super-hiway.

I'm going to spare you with a lot of idle chit-chat and re-telling of quasi-humorous anecdotes. Instead I'm going to commemorate my glorious return to blogging with this incredible video of Aidan dancing to Sly and the Family Stone. Jessica says it reminds here of the "Elaine dance" from Seinfeld. Enjoy.

Easter Bunny visits Italy!!

Here are a couple of pictures of Aidan at Easter, finding eggs in our yard and coloring eggs with Joel.
One quick story- I tried to tell Aidan the religious and secular meanings of Easter, so I said that easter was when the Easter Bunny brought candy and also when "Jesus got his boo-boos," since there are many public crusifixes around here and he has seen Jesus hanging on the cross. I thought I did a good job, until he told someone at church Easter was when "The Easter Bunny got boo boos on his neck." Uh, close enough...

Italy is a dangerous place...

A few weeks ago, Aidan bumped into another kid at school and his front tooth was damaged. It wasn't falling out, but it was slightly moved to the side, which was a big concern since it had previously been damaged when he fell in the bathtub in Korea. After being reassured by the Italian ER doctor that it was fine, we went home. Just over a week later, he was hit in the mouth AGAIN at school, this time his poor little tooth barely hanging on by a thread. We went to the dentist on post, and it had to be... pulled. In an awesome parenting move, I cried a LOT at the dentist's office, probably more than Aidan, who was very brave and cheered up with just a popsicle on the way home. In my defense, I am nine months pregnant at this point...hormones, etc...
Then, last Sunday, Joel leaned over to give Aidan a kiss at nap time, and Aidan poked him in the eye. We ended up going to the Italian ER around midnight, and Joel was told he had a pretty bad "corneal abrasion." Four days of eye patches later, he is finally starting to drive again, and is spending less time acting like a vampire, sitting in the dark with his eyes closed.
Consequently, protective eyewear and a mouth guard are strongly suggested for all visitors.

Peanut EXPLOSION!!!

Since we're behind in our posts, I'm going to try to catch up some and post some pictures that I have been meaning to get up here. This one is the aftermath of Aidan jumping into a large shipping box full of styrofoam peanuts, which then exploded at the seams, sending styrofoam dust all over the kitchen. It took me days and days to get it all picked up, but it really did look like fun!

Those college students think they're so special...

This is kind of old, but I wanted to write a post about this news story, which states that college students today are more narcissistic than any previous group since 1982, when they started doing the survey.
First, I take issue with the questions they are using to determine if students are narcissistic. Some of the statements that participants agreed/disagreed with were “It is important to be very well-off financially” and “If I ruled the world, it would be a better place.” I don’t really see how agreeing with these statements determines a person is narcissistic. There are many reasons that a college student might state that it is important to be financially secure, including the fact that they are currently incurring huge debt just by being in college, and are often living hand-to-mouth while they are in school. Neither of those implies that the person is abnormally self-obsessed, just that money and their future earning potential are important issues for them at that point in their lives. As far as running the world, with the current state of international affairs, it is hardly surprising that students feel that they could make positive changes. Again, does that mean that these students are narcissists, who “lack empathy, react aggressively to criticism and favor self-promotion over helping others,” as the article states, or could that be positively interpreted as students are taking a greater interest in world affairs, and have opinions about how to improve things? That sounds like empathy to me.