I needed our kids' birth certificates recently, and noticed a sticker on the back I hadn't seen before. It reads:

THIS CHILD IS A NATURAL PRODUCT AND LIKE ALL NATURAL PRODUCTS MAY CONTAIN VARIATIONS AND MINOR IMPERFECTIONS. YOU MAY NOTICE DIFFERENCES IN SIZE, COLORATION, BUILD, AND PERSONALITY FROM OTHER CHILDREN. THESE VARIATIONS AND IMPERFECTIONS ARE PART OF THE NATURAL CHARM OF A CHILD, AND ARE NOT CONSIDERED DEFECTS. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO REMOVE THESE NATURAL IMPERFECTIONS, AS IT COULD INADVERTENTLY DAMAGE YOUR CHILD.

Scooter left yesterday for his first extended trip away from home. He's spending a week with his (childless) aunt and uncle in Ohio.

It was my job to ferry him to the airport, while She Who Puts Up With Me stayed home with the twins (I think I got the better deal, since the air conditioning at the airport is far more powerful than the stuff at home). It turns out that in the post-9/11 world, one of the few exceptions to the "passengers only past security" rule is for people dropping off or picking up unaccompanied minors.

So I got to partake of that lost ritual of an earlier age, saying goodbye to a loved one at the gate. When they began preboarding, I handed Scooter off to an airline employee who escorted him onto the plane and to his seat.

I have to admit that my heart skipped a little as I watched him disappear down the jetway, his backpack full of reading material, talking to the matronly gate agent.

We know that if we do our job as parents and all goes well, there will come a time when we have to say goodbye. We can only hope that when that time comes, our children have the wisdom and skills to make their own way in the world, and that they will return at their own time and on their own terms.

Until then, we practice for that day with little goodbyes. Like the first day of school, the first trip alone down the jetway is a little goodbye. Scooter may be only seven, but he was very ready to take this step.

I'm not so sure I can say the same for myself.

We just got back from our summer vacation: one week (plus one weekend) of the Great American Road Trip to Yellowstone and back, with one-day layovers in the Black Hills each way. We stayed in a nice ski resort in Jackson Hole, a place which would have been unaffordable in February, but which was quite the value in early June.

When we got back Sunday evening, we asked the twins what their favorite part of the trip was.

Was it the tour of Jewel Cave? Seeing the Crazy Horse monument? The hotel with the big water slide?

Was it seeing the geysers and mud-pots of Yellowstone? Or the Grand Tetons?

Was it riding the tram to the top of a 10,000-foot mountain? White-water rafting? Seeing the re-creation of a gunfight?

Was it the Reptile Gardens and the demonstration of gator-wrestling?

No. The twins' favorite part of the trip was "the driving."

Next year, we'll just drive around the block a few hundred times and save a ton of money.

Poets evoke the laughter of children for images of joy, happiness, innocence....

None of these poets have ever heard my children laughing.

The twins have a very special laugh, a sort of hyperkinetic Beavis-and-Butthead laugh crossed with a donkey's braying that anyone--parent or not--will instantly recognize as meaning only one thing: These children are up to no good.

It might be some toy meeting an undeserved fate, carefully arranged sewing supplies strewn across the floor, mud footprints on the carpet, or some bit of mischief I haven't yet seen. The laugh is always the same: heeeeeheeeheeeeeeheeeee.

And my reaction is always the same: "Where's the neighbor's cat?"

"MOMMY! WHAT'S A LIBRARY VOICE?"

It took the librarians several minutes to stop laughing.

Help Drew Recover

Drew's mom is a friend of a friend. Drew is a 17-month old who suffered a stroke shortly after birth, and now requires expensive therapy to have anything close to a normal life. I have some idea what they must be going through. One of our twins had some (fortunately minor and temporary) breathing problems shortly after birth, and had to have supplemental oxygen for the first few days of his life.

Those were anxious days. There are few things I've experienced that are harder than having two babies but only being able to bring one home.

But where my son's lungs just needed a few more days to develop and he's now a bright, active, and healthy preschooler, Drew's problems will be with him the rest of his life. Even though there was probably nothing anybody could have done to prevent it, that burst blood vessel in his brain will forever shape the lives of his parents.

Becoming a parent is not the same as having a child. When you become a parent, you commit yourself to do whatever is in your power to protect and care for your child. Some people who have children never become parents because they never make that unbreakable pledge, and some people who never bear biological children are still parents just the same.

Most parents never have to test that commitment, though every parent knows that someday he or she could be called upon to sacrifice anything and everything for the sake of that young life (at least until he turns 18 and you can kick the bum out of the house).

So far, I've been lucky. I've never had to sacrifice more than a few anxious days and modest sums of money.

Drew's parents are not so fortunate. But they're willing to do what it takes to make their son's life a little better. And so far, they've not been asked to give up anything more than material things.

This blog entry is just for the grandparents. Everyone not related by blood to my children will probably get nauseated by the end of the third sentence. Grandparents, though, being what they are, will soak up the entire thing.

We had Scooter's Parent-Teacher conference yesterday with his first grade teacher. Last year in kindergarden we had a lot of, um, issues to deal with.

Things like hitting other kids, fighting on the playground, not listening to the teachers, that sort of thing. So we approached this year's conference with some trepidation. In addition to Scooter's first grade teacher, his music teacher, PE teacher, and the principal (or "Head of School" at Blake likes to title the position) attended the conference.

She Who Puts Up With Me and I were outnumbered two to one.

The first thing Scooter's teacher said after we all sat down was, "Well, I really haven't seen any of the problems I was warned about. Scooter gets along great with the other kids, they all look up to him, and he's only had one incident since school began."

Then: "He loves to read. He'll read anything I put in front of him. I haven't figured out his reading level yet, but he's at least a second grade level."

And: "When we are doing classroom activities, he's very focused. He'll usually finish early, and ask to do more."

And: "He's clearly mastered all the math skills we expect of a first grader. He had no trouble with any of the tasks I gave him."

And: "When we have self-directed learning time, Scooter likes to write. That's very unusual for boys in first grade, and he's a great example for his classmates. He says he's working on a book, and here's the table of contents he wrote."

And: "He's always trying to help his classmates. Sometimes when he sees one of them misspell a word, he'll offer a correction. Usually he whispers so as to not embarrass the other child. This is sometimes annoying to the other kids, since they want to figure it out for themselves."

And so it went for the first 25 minutes of our half-hour conference. Page after page of class projects and assignments, each completed well above the expected standards and accompanied with glowing words about how well he's doing this year.

Finally, in the last few minutes of the conference, the music teacher spoke up. "I'm a little concerned," he offered, "because Scooter tends to be disruptive in music class."

"And he likes to yell a lot in gym," added the PE teacher.

Is that it? I thought. A first-grade boy who likes to yell in gym and is sometimes disruptive in class? If that's the worst thing his teachers are concerned about this year, then we've got a lot to be proud of.

Of course I didn't say that. I nodded solemnly and agreed that this disruptive behavior would have to stop, and we'd work on ways to bring it under control.

I waited until we were in the parking lot before doing my victory dance.

Think you've got your hands full as a mother? Calculate your Macho Mom score! Its easy and fun! Go for the high score!

Step 1: Calculate your Base Score

a. Give yourself 100 points for every child. For purposes of calculating your Macho Mom score, adopted children count the same as biological children.

b. Add 100 points for every child under the age of 12 months.

c. Add 50 points for every child in diapers.

d. Add 30 points for every boy under the age of five.

e. Add 30 points for every girl between the ages of 13 and 18.

f. If you are actively gestating, add 50 points for every baby in-utero (i.e. if you are carrying twins, add 100 points). If you are in labor at this moment, add 500 points for each baby you are currently giving birth to.

g. Subtract 100 points for every child not living with you (i.e. grown children, children at boarding school, children in juvenile detention, etc.)

h. Add 200 points for every "special needs" child. For purposes of calculating your Macho Mom score, a "special needs" child is one who requires ongoing medical care or has a significant physical or mental handicap that requires constant attention.

i. Add 30 points for every ADD child.

j. If you work full-time, add 100 points. If you work part-time, add 50 points. If you work more than one job, or a job that requires lots of travel or extra hours, add 200 points.

k. If you have full-time in-home childcare (i.e. nanny, grandparent, etc.) subtract 100 points.

l. If you have overnight childcare (night nurse) subtract 150 points.

m. Add 10 points for each child who is into a dangerous sport or activity (hockey, skydiving, rock climbing, etc.)

Step 2: Calculate your Multipliers

a. If you are single and unattached, multiply your score by 2.0.

b. If you are married, but your husband is a worthless slob who never helps with the kids, multiply your score by 1.5. If you are married but your marriage is doomed, multiply your score by 1.75.

c. If you are unmarried, but in a stable, long-term committed relationship, multiply your score by 1.1 (not being judgmental, but being married gives you specific legal and financial protections).

d. If your children have any "honorary aunts" (childless friends/relatives who gladly babysit and/or do special stuff with your kids at least once every few months), multiply your score by 0.95 for each honorary aunt.

e. If you have twins, triplets, or higher order multiples, multiply your score by the number of kids you carried in your womb simultaneously. If you have more than one set of multiples, repeat this step for each set of multiples (for example: if you have twins, multiply your score by 2.0. If you have a set of twins and a set of triplets, multiply your score by 2.0 and then by 3.0).

f. If your children have grandparents in town who are able and willing to babysit, multiply your score by 0.85 for each set of local grandparents.

g. If one of your children has shouted "I hate you Mommy!" in the past 48 hours, multiply your score by 1.1.

h. If you have had a solid week away from all your children in the past three months (i.e. vacation without the kids, extended business trip, etc.) multiply your score by 0.75.

i. If you have ever had to choose between buying food or paying for a doctor's visit, multiply your score by 2.0.

j. If you are regularly hornier than your husband/partner, multiply your score by 0.25 since you're obviously not too stressed out or tired.

k. If you have visited Chuck E. Cheese in the past week, multiply your score by 1.1. If it was for a birthday party, multiply your score by 1.25.

Step 3: Compare Scores

After you've calculated your base score and factored in all your multipliers, the number you're left with is your Macho Mom score. Compare notes with your friends and neighbors to find out who's got the most hectic, stressed-out home life. The one with the highest score gets to sing the Macho Mom song, just as soon as I figure out what the words are.

The houses on our block light luminaria every Christmas Eve. This tradition has been going on as long as we've been living here (now almost eight years), and our little cul-de-sac usually gets 100% participation.

Last night, Scooter suddenly disappeared just before bedtime. After several fruitless minutes of searching, She Who Puts Up With Me noticed that all the luminaria in front of our house were dark. "Hadn't those all been lit?" she asked.

The light (metaphorically) went on. I threw on my jacket and shoes and charged outside. Sure enough, Scooter was halfway down the block, systematically blowing out the candles in all the luminaria.

I made him ring the doorbells for each of the neighbors whose candles he'd blown out, and apologize. One neighbor wasn't home, so Scooter will be going back today.

This morning, Scooter woke up to find coal (charcoal briquettes) in his stocking. Of course he knew why.

But the frustrating thing was that the coal didn't phase him in the slightest. Even after I explained that he could get actual presents instead of coal once he finished his restitution, he merrily continued playing with the black, sooty stuff. I finally had to take it away from him, since he was making such a mess.

Ah, parenthood.

Dropping Scooter off at kindergarden this morning, I made sure to give him a big hug and tell him "Mommy and daddy both love you very much."

"I love mommy, too, and I like you, daddy."

I put on my best mock-hurt frown. "You mean you don't love me, too?"

"I like you, too. I just like mommy more."

And with that, he was out the door.

[Note: Filed under "Parenting" not "Politics" because, well, that's where I felt it belonged.]

There is no doubt in my mind that the No Child Left Behind act, as it stands today, is a terrible piece of legislation. It mandates mathematically impossible levels of performance from schools, based on achievement tests which focus only on the 3 R's, and imposes draconian levels of punishment against public schools which fail to meet these goals.

The inevitable outcome if NCLB is unchanged by 2014 (when schools have to have 100% of students meeting minimum test scores) is that nearly all the country's public schools will fail to meet NCLB's mandates, and face penalties. It is simply impossible to devise a meaningful achievement test which 100% of students will pass. But in an effort to stave off the inevitable, public schools are likely to cut all programs not covered by achievement tests, including things like music, drama, "gifted" programs, and advanced-placement programs. Those things cost money, and there's no incentive under NCLB to cultivate the best students, just keep the worst ones from failing.

Some on the left have suggested that NCLB is really an underhanded way for conservatives to impose a school voucher system (long an item on the conservative agenda). It is worth noting that under a NCLB-mandated voucher system, the private schools receiving vouchers would not have to meet the requirements of NCLB. But that's a different issue.

The Real Problem with NCLB
The more fundamental issue with NCLB, however, is not that it sets impossible goals on public schools. And I don't accept the premise that the people who wrote NCLB intended to destroy public education: more likely, nobody really understood the law before it passed (not surprising, given that it is 670 pages long).

The fundamental, core problem with NCLB is that it is based on a faulty premise: NCLB assumes that the problem with public schools is that they lack incentives to improve, and have no way of measuring success. The entire law is built around measuring success and creating incentives to improve.

Measurement and incentives are not an unreasonable way to improve many things, especially in the business world (where lack of motivation and underperformance are constant struggles). Given that many in the Bush administration come from business, it isn't surprising that they would latch onto this standard business solution as a way to fix education.

But anyone who has spent much time among professionals in public schools will quickly realize that motivation is not lacking: teaching is such an underpaid, demanding job, and requires so much education that few teachers would be there if they didn't have strong personal reasons. And those internal motivators are far more powerful than money. [Aside: Students, on the other hand, often lack motivation. Sadly, even though they're the ones being tested under NCLB, they're not the ones who get punished when they fail to perform.]

We also have myriad ways of measuring the relative and absolute performance of schools: graduation rates, college entry rates, advanced placement scores, SAT scores, dropout rates, and so forth. Nor has there ever been any problem getting this performance information into the hands of parents. If you doubt me, call any real estate agent anywhere in the country and ask which neighborhoods in his or her area have the best schools.

So fundamentally, NCLB attempts to fix public education by adding measurement and incentives; yet there's not been any lack of either in the past.

So What Is Lacking In Our Schools?
If we already know how well the schools are doing, and public school teachers have always been (for the most part) highly motivated, then what ails our educational system?

You could probably write books on this topic, but I believe it comes down to two things: parental involvement, and resources available to the schools.

One of the most important predictors of educational success is parental involvement. Simply put, the more time and attention parents put into educating their children, the more likely the children are to succeed. This is true at both the individual level (involved parents increase a student's likelihood of success) and the collective level (more involved parents lead to a better school). I don't have any great insights into how to get uninvolved parents involved (it probably depends on the reasons why parents aren't involved--and therefore will be very dependent upon the particular neighborhood), but I suspect that there are relatively inexpensive solutions.

The other thing missing is resources. I don't just mean money (though most public schools could certainly use more of that), but also things like helping teachers learn best practices from each other, making sure parents understand the importance of their roles, and basic stuff like making sure everyone has sufficient supplies, textbooks, etc.

Where Do We Go From Here?
There's no doubt in my mind that NCLB won't survive in its present form. Once punitive measures start kicking in, the political winds to reform the law will be like Ivan, Jeanne, Frances, and Charley all rolled into one. After all, parents vote--and there's a lot of them.

In the meanwhile, however, I expect it will be a messy few years, with a lot of collateral damage inflicted on the schools as they try to make the best of a bad situation.

What we really need is an Every Parent Involved Act, to educate and motivate parents to be involved in their schools and remove barriers which might be preventing them from being more active. Then we need a No School Left Behind Act, which will make sure the schools in poorer neighborhoods have the resources they need to provide a safe and effective learning environment.

Then, perhaps, we'll be attacking the real problems in our public schools.

"May Your Children Be Just Like You!"

The Mother's Curse is simple, but powerful. I've known practically since the day he was born that Scooter is the fulfillment of my Mother's Curse against me. I was a very difficult child to raise: never particularly obedient, too smart for my own good (sometimes literally), always challenging authority. My parents went through a decade of frustration, expense, and tears on my behalf.

Nevertheless, I think I turned out OK (eventually). When we were expecting our first child, my mother could sometimes be seen cackling with glee: payback time was here.

And my mother was not disappointed. Scooter is everything I was as a child, and I expect it will be a difficult few years.

What I didn't appreciate, though, was just how powerful the Mother's Curse is, and how many generations it spans. It hadn't occurred to me before, but last week I asked my mother the obvious question:

"Mom, was I the fulfillment of your mother's curse against you?"

I think the question caught her off guard. Mom's eyes widened in surprise, and she laughed as she realized she was trapped: "Yes, you were, and your grandmother never got tired of reminding me."

And thinking back on some of the family stories, my mother was most likely the fulfillment of my great-grandmother's curse against my grandmother. I come from a long and distinguished line of problem children.

But somehow, we turn out fine. My grandmother, as a single mother in the 1950s and early 1960s, focused her energies on traveling around the world and making documentary films. My mother turned towards public service, with 12 years in the state legislature--well-respected on both sides of the aisle--followed by her current stint on the Twin Cities' Met Council. I hope that I enjoy equal success in my chosen path as an entrepreneur and businessperson; and that my own children do likewise, however difficult their first ten years may be.

What could be more traditional on Mother's Day than Daddy convincing the kids to serve Mom breakfast in bed? When the oldest is five, and the twins are two, there's a limit to what the kids can do. Besides, Scooter (the five-year-old) was sleeping in, just like mom. With the twins pacified via a DVD of Bugs Bunny cartoons, I assembled a breakfast of fruit crepes, then woke Scooter to help deliver it.

We carried the tray upstairs to a delighted and not-very-surprised She Who Puts Up With My Kids. [Note to longtime readers: I am referring to her this way just for today, and you shall soon see why.] [Note to not-so-longtime readers: The kids are actually ours, except when they're misbehaving, at which time they're mine.]

This was when the metaphorical wheels came off the metaphorical bus.

I returned downstairs to get breakfast for myself and the kids. When I got to the kitchen, however, it was yellow.

Yellow floor. Yellow cabinets. Yellow walls.

Yellow toddlers.

In the middle of the yellow, the twins were pushing rags through an enormous puddle of paint while cheerfully babbling about "cleaning up the mess," in that special way of two-year-olds. The primary effect of their efforts being to make sure that the yellow completely covered every surface. A 16-ounce plastic paint container lay broken and empty at ground zero.

Every so often as a parent, there are times when the sheer enormity of the magnitude of the disaster your children have wrought leaves you momentarily stunned.

My initial impulse to shout "No!" had little effect on either the paint or the twins, who looked as though they would be next on the list for liver transplants. After that, it...took...a...few...moments...to...get...my...mind...around...the...scope...of...the...mess.

Breakfast would have to wait, for everyone except She Who Puts Up With My Kids.

Prioritizing, I first cleaned off the twins' hands and feet enough that they wouldn't track cheerful footprints all around the house. Then the twins went upstairs. She Who Puts Up With My Kids had a very short Mother's Day Breakfast, as I dumped the kids on her so I could clean up the kitchen.

Fortunately, it was washable kids' paint, which comes off with soap and water. After twenty minutes, most of the yellow paint was off the kitchen and down the drain, though it did leave a sunny ring around the sink.

Pine-sol, I discovered, is very effective at removing the residual stain from the kitchen floor. When She came downstairs, she asked if I had been using turpentine. Perhaps it is because we get to visit actual pine trees with some regularity, but Pine-sol has never smelled much like actual pine to me.

After breakfast, the twins' apparent liver disease was cured with a bath. The bathwater looked noticeably yellow, too, by the time we were done.

The happy ending is that we were able to trade this story of Mother's Day woe for a few hours of babysitting from the grandparents. Even the yellowest cloud has a silver lining.

Being a Dad is hard work, and nobody ever knows how to do it at first. In the hopes of helping my many friends who can now call themselves Dad (and the mates of my many friends who can now call themselves Mom), here is a distillation of some of the things I've learned through five years of experience.

1. Any action repeated three times is automatically funny.

2. All children are half angel and half devil. The angel they inherit from Mom, and the devil from Dad. Disputing this rule will only get you in trouble with Mom.

3. Babies are capable of ballistically launching any substance produced by the human body. The possible exception is earwax, only because I haven't seen it yet.

4. Dealing with screaming babies and poopy diapers for days on end will make Mom appear more radiantly beautiful than ever. Be sure to mention this.

5. After becoming a Dad, you will discover entire segments of the economy which you had no idea existed.

6. Even when you think your child can't possibly become any cuter, s/he will.

7. You will eagerly anticipate your baby's first words. Six months later, you will wish s/he would shut up for a while.

8. You will eagerly anticipate your baby's first steps. Six months later, you wish s/he would stay put.

9. A 36-inch tall toddler has six-foot long arms.

10. Anything you say will be used against you. In public. At the worst possible moment.

11. Children are much better at pronouncing profanity than anything else.

12. As long as your child is growing, playing, and learning, everything else is secondary (forget Harvard for a few years).

Scooter was horsing around at preschool late yesterday afternoon, and a hula-hoop he was tossing around the gym managed to knock a trophy off a high shelf. The trophy broke, and our attempts to fix it were ineffective: a couple of plastic bits which held some screws on had snapped.

"When there's an accident, and it's your fault," I explained, "you need to do something to make it up and say you're sorry. What do you think you can do to apologize for breaking the trophy?"

"I could say I'm sorry," Scooter suggested.

"No, I don't think that will do. That was a pretty special trophy you broke, so I think you need to do something to really show how sorry you are."

"I could give them all my money."

"This is one of those things where money isn't good enough," I suggested. Besides, the dollar or two (mostly pennies) in his piggy bank wouldn't go far towards repairing or replacing the trophy.

Eventually, we decided to cook a big batch of chocolate-chip cookies and bring them for everyone in his preschool class and the staff. He did most of the work (well, at least 51%), and we divided the cookies into two bags. Scooter wrote two apology notes on giant sheets of construction paper, and I added a translation of his preschool handwriting.

This morning, we took the two bags in. Scooter gave one to the receptionist for the staff, and the other to his morning teacher. Neither had yet heard about the late afternoon incident, so he explained that he had accidentally broken the trophy, and the cookies were his way of saying he was sorry. He also explained in great detail and with much enthusiasm just how yummy the cookies were.

We have learned, if nothing else, that some lessons are tastier than others.

Saturday was the 2nd birthday party for the twins. We had all the relatives (and I truly mean all the relatives) over, served a big dinner, and had presents galore. Only one thing was missing: the twins.

Perhaps it was the late hour, with the festivities starting at 5 PM, or perhaps it was the disappointment at coming home after an afternoon spent at the Zoo with Grandma and Grandpa. Whatever the reason, the twins decided that they were going to be grumpy, and no amount of reading stories, games by Grandpa, or offers of succulent cake could change their minds.

So, while the rest of us enjoyed a beautiful turkey and barbecued bratwurst (this being close to the coldest night of the year ), the twins sat morosely in front of the tube watching a Bob the Builder video, the only activity we could find which would calm them.

Later, they did decide to join the rest of the party, and enjoyed ripping wrapping paper to shreds. A small amount of cake was also consumed, though we'll be working on leftovers for the next month.

Originally, the theme of the party was "Two-Two Twain," but we decided that we should've gone with "It's My Party And I'll Cry If I Want To."

There's probably few things as heart-wrenching as watching your own child being sick and miserable. Thankfully, we live in an age when these childhood illnesses are rarely life-threatening, but our primitive parental instincts are still calibrated from a time when half of all children didn't make it to their tenth birthday.

Scamper has been firmly in the "Miserable" column since last Thursday, when he was sent home early from preschool with a temperature. Since then, he's been up and down: better on Friday and Saturday, but worse on Sunday and today.

We kept both of the twins home on Friday, and they both slept for 18 hours straight (1 PM Friday to 7 AM Saturday). On Friday, all but three kids in the twins' preschool class were out sick, out of about 15. Skeeter, as you may recall, was home sick on Tuesday, but by Saturday morning seemed to have made as close to a full recovery as any child makes this time of year. Scamper still had a cough on Saturday, but seemed to be doing OK.

Sunday, Skeeter was fine, but Scamper was still under the weather. When we put the twins down for their naps at 1 PM, Skeeter was up again by 4, but Scamper slept all the way through to this morning. As he slept, we noted that his breathing was fast and shallow, and he would occasionally have little fits of coughing.

We'd been through this before, with Scooter, our older son (now 5). Scooter's first few winters were miserable, with several bad respiratory infections, and a regimen of albuterol and steroids for several months. Since then, Scooter's been healthy as a horse, and hasn't had any really bad winter illness since his third birthday.

So, when Scamper woke up coughing, congested, and miserable this morning, there wasn't much question that he'd be going to the doc. We were able to get an 8:40 appointment (they keep several slots a day open during the winter months for sick kids). The doctor confirmed what we'd already known, that he's got a bad respiratory infection, and an ear infection to boot. Prescription: antibiotics (for the ear infection), albuterol (to keep his airways open), lots of fluids, and lots of rest. In a few days, he'll be back up and running us ragged again.

Today is the second time this week I've had to bring one of the twins home from preschool early because of illness. I suppose one nice thing about having twins is that you know the incubation period of every childhood illness down to the nanosecond.

This particular bug seems to last about 24 hours, comes with a mid-grade fever and one incident of upchucking. The incubation is 48 hours. Skeeter had it on Tuesday, and was better by Wednesday afternoon. Scamper has it today.

Fortunately, an afternoon home with the kid isn't totally an afternoon away from work anymore. But it also means a lot of time to update the blog entries. Scamper, meanwhile, has watched the same Bob the Builder video three times so far today. Poor kid.

Scooter's 5th birthday party was this past Saturday. We learned our lesson from prior years, and dispensed with the structured activities, competitive games, and oh yes, Chuck E. Cheese.

Instead, we had Scooter and several of his friends over for two hours of five-year-old mayhem. A few balloons provided a solid 45 minutes of entertainment, as well as Scooter showing off his (small) collection of computer games. The one planned activity lasted perhaps five minutes.

The most gratifying part was watching Scooter play host, making sure all his friends had fun, and nobody got left out. He also thanked everyone for the presents, without being asked (much).

Considering how terrible his "Terrible Twos" were, this is proof positive that children do, in fact, learn.

Scooter visited Blake's Kindergarden this week, as part of the admissions process. This is the same school I went to from 8th grade on, and the experience was a little surreal.

Three of my high school classmates (out of about 100) are now working there, two as elementary-level teachers, and one as the assistant head of the middle school.

In addition, many of my teachers are still there.

This is sounding a lot like one of those "English Boys School" novels, where Little Tommy is the eighth generation of Windmyre-Smythes to go to the same school, and everyone still remembers Tommy's dad and grandad as boys, and there's a portrait of Tommy's great-great grandad in the Great Hall from when Richard Windmyre-Symthe III was captain of the rugby team (as an aside: the "Harry Potter" novels are a direct descendant of this genre).

Even though I was the first in our family to go to Blake, my younger brother and sister both followed me. In part, this is what drove my sister's college selection process: she wanted to go "anywhere they've never heard of our family." I guess my brother and I made an impression.

Here's the kicker: as I was leaving, someone I knew from my investment banking days ran up and said hi. He ran the corporate finance department at the firm I was with for a brief period of time, and quit about the same time I did.

"So what are you doing here?" I asked, "Didn't both of your kids graduate already?"

"I'm teaching 4th grade now," he told me.