The Science Toys site is great fun to browse through. Take a look. I'm sure you'll find something that makes you think, "oh! I want to make that!"

Here's a recent photo of Paloma, Lyle and me with my mother.

It was taken at the start of May on the occasion of a significant birthday (my Mom's).

Have you ever tried Google Whacking? It's a great time waster and it really exercises your vocabulary. The trick is to find two words which, when submitted to the Google search engine, return exactly one page. It's harder than it looks. Putting the words in quotes is not allowed. There are a lot of web pages out there that are word lists. If your single, solitary result is a word list then it is disqualified. Here's one of my successful whacks: australopithecine nicety.

How do you measure the progress of a child with developmental delays? We've just been through the exercise of creating an Individualised Education Plan (IEP) for Lyle. Part of the process involves setting goals for his teachers over the next year. Initially his speech and language teacher had set his goal to be that he would learn twenty words over the next year. Sam, a friend of ours who attended the IEP meeting with us, pointed out that language acquisition was very important to us and that the goal seemed a bit... well... lightweight. We talked with his teacher again this morning and pointed out that even though it was generally agreed that Lyle had been slacking in the new word acquisition department this year he still had demonstrated the generally correct use of 16 new words since the start of January. Even assuming a linear curve he should still be on track to gain mastery over 30 words in the next year. She rewrote his goal to be 40 words (!) plus some adjective/noun combinations. We will, of course, accept either spoken words or signs as counting towards the total.

Paloma and I went to look at the Del Mar Preschool this morning. I think its full name is something like "The Del Mar Preschool for the Severely Handicapped". I hate applying that terminology to Lyle. Yes, he has some developmental delays (mostly in language acquisition but in other areas as well). But he's so bright! And happy. The preschool itself seemed like a nice continuation of the program he's in currently. Caring adults nurturing children in a rich and stimulating environment. He would ride the bus to get there.

Lyle got glasses yesterday. His ophthalmologist has been telling us for quite some time now that he is far-sighted. If we don't correct it now he runs the risk of developing crossed-eyes. Paloma got the frames from an organisation called Blind Babies Foundation. I guess I should link to a picture here but I haven't posted yesterday's photos yet. Well I will. Someday. If I decide to continue with this blog.

Dramatis Personae

Bernie - that would be me, the writer, husband of Paloma, father of Lyle
Paloma - my wife, better half, mover and shaker, mother of Lyle
Lyle - our son, two years and nine months old at this time, former preemie, with some developmental delays