Welcome back to IComLeavWe. It stands for International Comment Leaving Week, but if you say it aloud, doesn’t it sounds like “I come; [but] leave [as a] we”? And that’s sort of the point. Blogging is a conversation and comments should be honoured and encouraged. I like to say that comments are the new hug–a way of saying hello, giving comfort, leaving congratulations.

Here is the vital information, pure and simple (a more detailed set of rules follows below the list):

• The list opens the 1st of every month. It remains open until the 21st. You can add yourself at any point. The list is open to everyone in the blogosphere–blog writers and/or blog readers.
• Add yourself to the list by filling out this form: the September list is now closed.  The October list will open 9/27.
  
• Click here to cut-and-paste this bit of code to add to your sidebar (if you have the old code from another month, remove it and replace it with this one). You need to add the icon or a link to the current list on your blog (see below) and will not be added until it’s up.
• Commenting kicks off every month on the 21st. Please mark it somewhere (calendar, post-it note taped to your computer…), though I will be sending out an email reminder on the 20th. Commenting week runs from the 21st to the 28th. Every day, leave 5 comments and return 1 comment for a total of 6 comments. You are highly encouraged to choose the blogs you comment on from the participants list below, but this is not required.
• I will send a second email on the 28th to remind you to remove the icon from your blog.
• Read below if you want to find out about Iron Commenters.
• The commenting ends on the 28th. We catch our breath and the whole thing starts again the next month on the 1st. Drop in and out according to what is happening in your life between the 21st and the 28th.

1. Stirrup Queens (twins, books, writing)
2. Look No Tubes (parenting after IVF)
3. Growing Griswolds (infertility, ivf, thoughts)
4. A Little Blog about the Big Infertility (endometriosis, loss, balance)
5. It’s Just a Box of Rain (parenthood, post-adoption, balance)
6. The Bickerstaff Blog (pregnancy after loss)
7. Gypsy Mamas Misconceptions (ivf, mexico, young)
8. The Infertility Voice (donor egg/IVF, 2ww, first cycle)
9. A Greater Yes (EA, infertility, parenting)
10. The 2 Week Wait (infertility humor TTC)
11. The Unfair Struggle (mfi, speedskating, life)
12. The Question Now Becomes… (donor conception, mfi, life)
13. Ready For My Bundle (ivf, soon-to-be single mother by choice, 2ww )
14. Not a Fertile Myrtle (male factor, adoption, over 40)
15. Non Sequitur Chica (infertility, home improvement, weight loss)
16. A Half Baked Life (food, mindfulness, parenting after loss)
17. Baby Steps to Balance (ivf, healthy living)
18. Bébé Suisse (miscarriage, ttc again, switzerland)
19. It Is What It Is (Or Is It?) (pg w donated embryos, pg @ 46, possible IC)
20. Stupid Stork (ivf, infertility, shenanigans)
21. The Idea Girl (food, family, crafts)
22. Why Not Us? (infertility, general, life)
23. Waiting For Baby (vasectomy reversal, IUI, PCOS)
24. I’m Just Ducky, Thanks (surrogacy, rpl, fear)
25. Breathe Gently (pregnancy, IVF, PCOS)
26. Happiness at the Core (neonatal loss)
27. Journey with Endometriosis (high risk pregnancy, endo, infertility)
28. My Bum Ovaries (premature ovarian failure)
29. Waiting to Expand (ttc #2, infertility, miscarriage)
30. Hobbit-ish Thoughts & Ramblings (parenting after RPL, books, cooking)
31. Unexplained Rantings (infertility, rpl, life )
32. No Baby Ruth (toddler, pcos, ttc#2)
33. Writing for Life (ivf#3.1, expat life)
34. Feeling Beachie (life, humor, husbands and wives)
35. Bun in the Oven…easy…right? (PCOS, ttc, blogs)
36. Our Journey Through This Lovely Life (ttc, adventures, life)
37. what a day for a daydream (FET #1, endometriosis, unexplained IF)
38. MRKH Musings (surrogacy, congenital infertility)
39. Still Trying to Conceive (infertility hope faith)
40. (In)Fertility Unexplained (pregnancy, unexplained infertility, life)
41. Sweet Dreams are Made of This (adoption, recipes, life)
42. Our Adventure through Infertility (IVF, male-factor, life)
43. Reading Each Page (infertility, pcos, life)
44. Life As I Know It (twins, toddler, life)
45. ginger and lime (ivf, infertility, food)
46. A Page In My Book (family, differently abled children, IF/MC survivor)
47. Wandering Wonderment (family, politics, local news)
48. More Room in My Heart (dor, ttc#3, ivf#6)
49. We Are Learning To Make Fire (unexplained infertility, life)
50. Team Harries Beats Infertility (faith, hope, azoospermia)
51. If You Don’t Stand For Something (MFI, geekiness, general life ramblings)
52. awaiting baby w (ivf, fibroids, infertility)
53. Creating a Family (infertility, adoption, adoptive parenting)
54. My IVF Journey (IVF, infertility)
55. My Hopeful Journey (journaling for fertility)
56. IUI to Roux-en-Y (pregnant after WLS)
57. A Journey of Emotions (first IVF, photo challenge)
58. The MomTini Lounge (helpful parenting tips)
59. His plan, our journey (infertility, faith, fur-babies)
60. Just Cycling Along (IVF, TTC #1, endo)
61. Worth The Wait (infertility, ivf #1, nurse)
62. Thought Provoking Moments (life’s lessons unwrapped)
63. Hope in times of uncertainty (icsi ivf, pregnancy, pcoc/hypothyroid)
64. The Barreness (ART, infertility, ponderings)
65. Lori Does Maryland (IVF, loss, parenting)
66. More Salt (loss, miscarriage, TTC)
67. The Quest for the Golden Egg (infertility, IUI#1, TCM)
68. IVF Over 40 (advanced maternal age)
69. MissConception (twin loss, pregnancy, pcos)
70. The In Between (recurrent miscarriage, infertility)
71. Something Out of Nothing (MFI, first IUI, unemployment)
72. Glitter & Rainbows (infertility, life after ART, crafty)
73. Fit to Parent (adoption, parenting, health)
74. Comatised (family, marriage, love)
75. Our Pathway to Parenthood (FET #1, hope, God)
76. Our Growing Gardunn (pcos, secondary rpl, septum)
77. The Journey Through Life (TTC after loss, IUI, parenting)
78. Three Quarters Full (infertility, parenting after IF, life)
79. Whitney & Erick (surrogacy, RPL, travel)
80. All Grown Up (parenting, open adoption, grad school)
81. Hiding Scars in my Yarn (loss, memorial, crafts)
82. The Closet Infertile (IVF #1, secondary infertility, TTC)
83. RollerCoaster To MommyCoaster (mom after infertility)
84. Pretzles and Chocolate (family, photos, thoughts)
85. Infertility Unexplained (IVF, infertility, CCS)
86. The Barren Librarian (clomid, infertility, marriage)
87. for all the things we hope for (endometriosis, infertility, doula-ing)
88. An Engineer Becomes a Mom (adoption, infertility, parenting)
89. One Day at a Time (adoption, life, school)
90. Tales From Our Yellow Brick Road (pregnancy, ivf, rpl)
91. Living Our Miracle (embryo adoption, premature ovarian failure, motherhood)
92. My Hormonacoaster (secondary infertility, 2nd trimester loss, FET # 3)
93. Journey to the Finish Line (IVF, humor, everything)
94. Hapa Hopes (FET, endo, life)
95. From Gutter to Stars (therapist, infertility, adoption)
96. Upper Middle Mom (parenting after IVF, twins, PPD)
97. Wistfulgirl’s World (foster care adoption, infertility, life)
98. Return To Go (medicated cycles, PCOS, unemployment)
99. Dear Finley (neonatal loss, grief, life)
100. I Am The 15% (IVF, life, depression)
101. Who Is This Fertile Myrtle (secondary infertilty, loss, IVF)
102. the September list is now closed.  The October list will open 9/27

Q: What if I miss a day?

A: Catch up the next day by doubling your comments–12 comments instead of 6.

Q: What if I have two blogs? Can I sign up twice, listing both blogs?

A: Yes, but you also need to double your comments. If you have two blogs listed, you should be leaving 12 comments per day.

Q: What is an Iron Commenter?

A: Not for the faint-of-heart. People who wish to be an Iron Commenter and be entered on the Iron Commenter honour roll need to leave a comment on every blog on the participants list (exceptions are blogs that require you to have a special log-in, such as some LiveJournal accounts or other similar situations). You can spread out this commenting any way you wish over the whole week, but the final comment needs to be left by midnight on the 28th (EST). Reaching Iron Commenter status is done on an honour system. Please email me if you earn Iron Commenter status so I can add you to the wall of honour.

Q: Why do I have to add that bit of code to my sidebar?

A: The code is the latest icon (the icon changes colour every month so you know that you’re on the right list). This month, the icon is red, the next month it will be green, etc. The reason is two-fold: (1) it enables more people to find out about IComLeavWe and (2) it gives you easy access to the current list once the commenting week actually begins and better ensures that you’ll use it. Too many times, people sign up and forget to actually do IComLeavWe and this icon gives you a daily reminder (with the dates on it) every time you open your own blog. The icon is linked back to the current list. On the 28th, remove the icon from your blog. A new one will be created for the next month.

Q: It’s the 23rd and I just saw this for the first time on my friend’s blog! I want to join the list–why can’t I?

A: Because IComLeavWe happens every month, once the list is closed, it’s closed. If you’re finding out about this on the 23rd, you can’t join the current month. But leave yourself a note to check back in a week on the 1st and you can sign up for the next month.

Q: You said the list closes on the 21st. Well, it’s still the 21st where I am. Why aren’t you moving my information onto the list?

A: All dates and times are U.S. Eastern Standard Time (UTC/GMT -5 hours). The list closes around 11 p.m. EST on the 21st.

Q: What if no one comments on my blog and I have no comments to return?

A: Well, that really doesn’t happen for the most part, but in that case, simply choose another blog and add an additional comment. The goal is to hit 6 comments daily as a minimum. Going over that is fantastic and encouraged.

Q: Mel, my question wasn’t covered at all. What do I do?

A: Email me; I’m quite friendly. It helps to place “IComLeavWe” in the subject line. You could also check this post which contains the history of IComLeavWe and see if you can glean anything there.

Looking for the comment section? It has been closed on this post. Use the form in the directions to add yourself to the list.

I cleaned out the twins’ book bags at the end of the last school year. After I emptied their binders of their contents, I told them that I was going to put them back in their bag and they could reuse them the next school year. Because I’d feel like an asshole putting these perfectly good, albeit scuffed binders in a landfill even though I totally understood their crushed faces. One of the sole joys of school is decorating your Trapper Keeper.

Which is why I always wanted a solid coloured one (vs. one with a picture) — so I could write all over it in Sharpie. (I also wrote all over my Keds with ballpoint pen, starting with that rubbery ridge around the side of the shoe and slowly moving onto the canvas when I ran out of space.)

I usually started planning out my binder decorations in the summer. All binder decorations began with a solid base of a 50/50 split between inside jokes with friends (you know, the sort that you hoped someone in class would read on your binder and wonder what it meant and just how much fun you must be to write such crazy, amusing things) and song lyrics. If you planned early enough, before anyone had touched pen to Trapper Keeper plastic, you could coordinate the inside jokes across your binders. The same went for song lyrics. You didn’t want to have the same song lyrics — that would be stupid. But it was nice to have similar song lyrics. Such as two different Violent Femmes songs. Or maybe I’d go with The Smiths and another person would go with The Cure.

You never never never wrote the name of someone you were dating on your binder because (1) your parents wouldn’t buy you a new one if you broke up and you’d be stuck looking at that person’s name all year and (2) even if your parents were crazy enough to buy you a new binder because they felt sorry for you, you’d have to redo all of the song lyrics and inside jokes. So no names of boyfriends/girlfriends.

The other rule of the binder was that you never wrote on someone else’s binder. Writing on their pink rubber eraser — totally within the boundaries of decency. But never on their binder. Your binder was like your face; it was the face of your school supplies. (Secondary only to the paper bag book covers our mothers made for our textbooks which were also decorated within an inch of their life. I cannot even explain the horror of the year my mother purchased book covers instead of folding them out of old grocery store bags. The paper was glossy and everything smeared.)

No one wanted to save their binder because so much changed over the summer. The inside jokes changed. New songs were released. You saw movies and wanted to write a new list of actors and actresses names on the inner flap. Which is why I threw out the twins’ classroom dividers (in their school, each child gets a manilla “wall” to put up between desks during exams) that they had decorated with Junie B. Jones quotes and proclamations of love for the Beastie Boys. I knew they would want new ones come September to decorate with… something else. Who knows what will be classroom divider or binder-worthy this year? It’s been a long summer.

The twins’ binders are the sort with a plastic sleeve over the vinyl front, providing a small gap in which to slip a decorated piece of paper. I saved last year’s decorations and swapped them out for a new piece of blank paper (that I predict will be covered in doodles by October).

So sorry kids, you’re stuck with the same damn binders for a second year in a row. Get used to it. I suck.

How did you decorate your school binder/book covers/locker when you were little?

I love falafel in small quantities, but I hate the smell of fried foods, so I’ll never make them in the house.  It’s been over ten years since I fried something.  But my friend had a post on her Facebook wall about a baked falafel recipe and said they were fairly decent, so I decided to give them a try.  I made hummus and tehina and Israeli salad.

And homemade pita.

And then I pulled together her baked falafel recipe which turned out to quite good and barely made the kitchen smell.

The perfect moment actually came with the chopping of the salad. I was telling Josh a story about making salad with my aunt while in Israel, and the next morning, I woke to a friend request from her on Facebook. Which made the universe feel incredibly small and cozy; that you could think of someone halfway across the world and tell someone else a story about them, and that person would somehow sense that and friend you on Facebook.

For other perfect moments, visit Perfect Moment Mondays.

For people who want the recipes, the Israeli salad is just cucumbers, tomatoes, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper (amounts are fairly meaningless; it’s all done to taste).  The pita bread is King Arthur flour’s recipe.  The baked falafel is a modified version of this one.

And just to see if this food quirk is weird or common: do you like or dislike the way your kitchen smells after you fry food?

It has been summer of the fallen hero.

A few weeks ago, Jonah Lehrer resigned from the New Yorker after admitting that he had fabricated quotes said by Bob Dylan in his recent book which explored the concept of imagination.  This act of fraud followed on the heels of other acts of self-cannibalization, a sort of greyish writing crime that matters more and more in our pouring of Google juice.

You see, if I write a post for a site and they publish it, part of that contract says that I cannot publish that work elsewhere.  So if I lift my own copy — something I wrote, mind you — from site A and then repackage it with a few new sentences here and there for site B, I am self-cannibalizing, self-plagiarizing.  A long time ago, it was frowned upon in creative circles; a magazine paid for an article and they expected to receive and retain an original article.  But in this day-and-age, Google might punish a site for having duplicate content, so the self-cannibalism becomes not just a regurgitation of the mind but a mark against a site.

Publications stopped working with him.  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is recalling his book.  And people everywhere asked why.  Why would someone who was clearly talented derail his own writing career?  Jonah Lehrer’s writing still would have been impressive if there had been less of it.  If instead of regurgitating an article, he had simply said, “you know what?  I have nothing to say at the moment.”  Or if instead of fabricating quotations from Bob Dylan, he had simply shaved off the fat lies in that book.  I’m sure Imagine still would have been an enjoyable and fascinating book to read if it were a few quotes shorter.

It really makes you wonder what makes someone take a risk like that?  Especially when he had the talent — he had it in excess — just perhaps not to the exact level of excess that he was aiming to present to the world.

*******

I used to enjoy teaching Knut Hamsun books.  He’s sometimes called the Father of Modern Fiction, though I wouldn’t be surprised if you hadn’t heard of him.  People get squeamish when it comes to Knut Hamsun.

He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1920.  And then he became a Nazi sympathizer and wrote articles in support of Germany and sent his Nobel Prize to Goebbels.  He wrote a eulogy for Hitler after his death and there were treason charges which were later dropped.  And now people don’t totally know how they feel about Knut Hamsun.

He is clearly a talented writer.  There is probably no book that will affect your mood more than Hunger.  Reading that book is literally an interactive experience; there is nothing else like it.  And yet he has this craptastic personal life that extends beyond his Nazi affiliation.  How much should you care about the artist himself if the art is that good?

I mean, is it unethical to love a piece of art created by a murderer?  Or does becoming a murderer render your art anathema?  And where do we draw the line: what crime can a person get away with and we’ll still love their work, and what crime is too hideous to ignore in order to enjoy their art?

Even as a Jewish woman, I teach Hamsun because he clearly illustrates all the hallmarks of modern fiction.  I think it’s impossible to talk extensively about modern fiction without mentioning Hamsun, even though I’ve been in plenty of classes where I’ve seen it attempted.  I know plenty of people who refuse to read him.  But in the case of Hamsun, I’ve been able to separate out the writer from the book.  I’m not sure I’d always be successful in doing that; and I’m not sure how I feel about myself excusing Hamsun just because his books are so damn good.  I mean, I can think of plenty of actors who do not get a free pass to shitty things they did in their personal life, and I refuse to see their movies.  And yet I drop all that lofty ethical reasoning when it comes to Hamsun.

*******

I heard on Thursday night that Lance Armstrong wasn’t going to fight the doping charges anymore, and he would be stripped of his Tour de France wins and Olympic medal, barred from ever coaching in the Olympics or racing again.  As far as I know, he still maintains his innocence; it’s the antidoping agency that states he is guilty.  The refusal to fight could be a silent admission of guilt, or it could be an exasperated throwing up of hands in the air as if to say, “no medal is as important to me as my time and sanity.  Do what you choose, but I’m going to go live my life.”

If Lance Armstrong did dope, he’s just another Jonah Lehrer; a man with obvious talent, who would have excelled anyway, though perhaps not to the level he did excel by cheating.  And I’m thinking that there must be some pretty good evidence that he doped.  I’ve yet to read an article that maintains that he’s innocent.  Most are approaching the discussion from the fact that he is guilty, but it then asks the reader to disregard the doping and look at the bigger picture of what he has accomplished beyond biking.

Because unlike Lehrer, Lance Armstrong is symbolic of a movement, one that extends far past the individual.  No one can deny that his celebrity and success in bike racing raised awareness and research money for cancer.  He has made such a huge difference in the fight against cancer.

But what happens to Livestrong when the leader of the movement both lived strong through some moments in life and lived… well… maybe not so strong perhaps through others?  Wasn’t he inspiring because he had cancer and then won 7 Tour de France titles?  Would we have been drawn into his story if he had cancer but then placed twentieth in the Tour de France?  I’d argue that it would be just as impressive a feat, but I could see the general public needing the win in order to glom onto the story.  But who can really hold him up as a role model anymore?  The antidoping agency says that he cheated in order to get ahead.  Unlike magicians who let the audience know that while they’ll never reveal their secret, we’re all in on the fact that we’re watching a trick, Lance Armstrong maintained for years that what we were seeing was reality.  And it probably wasn’t.  And that sort of sucks.

The story of Lance Armstrong falls somewhere between Lehrer and Hamsun, somewhere between the individual and the collective.  Lehrer’s actions affect pretty much only himself (though obviously also affect individuals who read misinformation or publications who received regurgitated content) and Hamsun’s actions affect the whole of the world aching from a massive war.  And somewhere in between, Armstrong’s possible actions are both a statement about the self as well as the destruction of a hero; and the world’s psyche can’t really afford to lose its heroes even though it happens again and again and again.

Do you think you could still wear your Livestrong bracelet after this, or does the word seem a bit hollow now when you consider the possible actions of the founder?  Do the actions of Armstrong not matter when it comes to the bigger picture of encouraging strength, since the sentiment is good even if the speaker couldn’t follow it?

Personally, I think this is a Hamsun-like case for me.  Livestrong seems to be a great organization, and the actions of the founder shouldn’t get in the way of the important work they’re doing, which exists separate from Armstrong.  And yet I also understand anyone who is disillusioned, who feels as if they were cheated in buying into a story that wasn’t true.

It’s the end of summer; I can’t really deny that at this point.  We even have leaves crunching underfoot outside.

I am in the throes of “just one more.”  The ChickieNob always adds a few to whatever number I tell her is sufficient.  “We can stay for five minutes,” I’ll tell her, and she’ll counter, “how about ten?”  If I give her two cookies, she’ll ask for three.  She gets this quality from me.  If Josh is rubbing my back, I wait for him to stop and then I ask for him to get out just one more knot in my shoulder so I can extend the backrub by a few minutes.  If we are leaving an amusement park and I’ve negotiated one more ride, I also know that I will be asking for one more beyond that before we leave the gates.

I am a horder of experiences.  I always want more of anything pleasant.  And summer is pleasant; not having the twins at school is pleasant, having a loose bedtime is pleasant, dropping everything to go lie on the beach is pleasant.

Last weekend, we went to a baseball game.  I realized as we drove there that we were nearing the end of the season.  That we maybe had room for one more game, so I started campaigning for one more game, and Josh granted me one more game.  When we got to the park, it started raining and we crouched down in the food row, shelling peanuts onto a napkin and reading Harry Potter 3 aloud.  The rain kept coming down and the game was held off for hours.  Part of me wanted to go home, especially once this man dropped his damn container of barbecue sauce on my jeans and then insisted that it didn’t touch me (like hell it didn’t, old man, like hell it didn’t).  And then the other part of me was a mixture of cheapness (we paid a lot of money for those seats!) and moreness (just one more game!).  If they hadn’t played, that more I had just negotiated would be moved into ready position, and then I wouldn’t have gotten an actual one last game.

We stayed.  The Nats won.  We left the park with me trying to figure out how I could extend summer just a little bit more.  Like one more week, please?

*******

Can we speak for a moment about Chocolate Cherrios?  I bought them.  I became that woman who buys Chocolate Cheerios and then stares at the other pictures on the back of the box while she eats them, dreaming of Cheerio concoctions.  What would a bowl of half Dulce de Leche Cheerios and half Chocolate Cheerios taste like?  THERE ARE PEANUT BUTTER CHEERIOS.  People, there is a whole world of flavoured Cheerios that I never knew about until a fateful trip to the cereal aisle this summer.

Back in my day, there were two kinds of Cheerios: plain and honey nut.  Plain was your everyday Cheerio; honey nut was when you were feeling fancy.  But now there are something like 12 Cheerio flavours.  Do children today know how good they have it?

The twins actually won’t eat them.  The Wolvog doesn’t eat any dried cereal, and the ChickieNob isn’t willing to forfeit dessert to have them. (I’m not willing to let them be her breakfast.)  Good.  More Chocolate Cheerios for me.  I’ve been eating them as a snack before bed.  Oh my G-d, they are so good.  They are so insanely good.

I think they must put drugs in them because why else would a woman in her late thirties be writing about Cheerios in this manner?

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “I Just Feel It” (For the Love of Baby Liam)
• “Another Sports Analogy” (Something Out of Nothing)
• “Deleting Your Blog is Like Going Back on a Promise” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, St. Elsewhere
• “Friday Night Leftovers” (Life As I Know It)
• “Irrelevant” (Mrs. Spit… Still Spouting Off)
• “Thank Yous” (Stumbling Gracefully)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Happiness at the Core has a beautiful post about being asked about her necklace which contains her daughter’s footprints.  She explains: “I began to wonder why I was so relieved when someone didn’t ask about my necklace.  I love talking about Maya so wouldn’t I welcome questions about my necklace?”  It is a post about holding her daughter, who died shortly after birth, close to her heart, and finding out that the right words came to her when she needed them.

Return to Go has a post about a trip to find a cabin that appeared in a book.  The book mentioned a cabin in the woods where people became pregnant, and she held this knowledge in the back of her head until this moment when they happened to be on a trip in the very same area where this cabin appears AND she was ovulating.  You’ll need to click over to discover if they ever found the cabin.

Writing for Life has a post that made me smile about meeting up with two bloggers and riding home feeling embraced.  She writes: “Again it’s about recognition, belonging, understanding and support. Also, we didn’t have to talk about all things infertility and loss all day long, we already knew each others’ stories. Of course it came up but we also got to know different sides of each other with a promise to meet again someday, hopefully soon.”  I love it when people pop through the screen, and you meet them in the face-to-face world.  Embraced is the perfect word to describe those connections.

Lastly, Something Out of Nothing has a post set on the nearby college campus.  As the campus springs back to life with the new semester, she writes, “It made me think, One day, Hubby and I will be dropping our child(ren) off at college, helping them get settled into their dorm room. They’ll be making new friends, coming home for the holidays, venturing into their adult lives.  And it felt so very far away.  But then, so does holding a newborn in my arms.”  It’s a post that while tempered by reality is filled with hope, filled with possibilities.

The roundup to the Roundup: My awful habit of “one more, please?” Chocolate Cheerios are insanely good.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between August 17th and August 24th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.