Hooray for Science and Medicine!
In a devastating blow to the anti-vaccination community, another study has been released showing no linkage between vaccinations and autism.  This follows a previous evaluation that found that mercury-based thimerasol is also not the autism culprit.  It is tragic that so much energy has been wasted on proving that the MMR vaccine was a smoking gun instead of focusing that time on more autism research, and that in the process parts of the world had to experience new breakouts in measles, mumps, and rubella.

I won't be surprised if the spectrum refutes these new findings and continues to discourage vaccination, and I find that likelihood so disheartening.  Yet there has never, ever, been a causal relationship shown between vaccination and autism.  I hope that the latest information will start to convince people that vaccination is both safe and medically necessary - not just for themselves, but for everyone.

And now....for some Meganisms
Megan has been cracking us up recently with the things that come out of her mouth.  Sometimes I have to remind myself that she's still only three years old.  Some of the latest gems have included:

- After being told she couldn't have playdoh because she'd gotten in trouble with it...."Mommy, I want something squishy to play with, like Playdoh."
- When trying to tell us she was hungry..."I want something healthy that's an eater thing."
- Her new description for the Noggin channel..."I want to watch kids tv."
- Out of the blue, after I'd gotten her a nighttime drink..."Thanks, Pops."  (so I'm Pops now?)
- A recent conversation:
Megan: Those two princess dresses are similar.
Mommy:  Did our child just use the word similar?  You're right Megan, those two dresses look alike!
Me: Who knew our child understood similes?
Megan:  Not similEEEE, Daddy.  SimilARRRR.

Not to be outdone
As much as I forget that Megan is only three years old, I have an even harder time remembering that Emily is still just 19 months.  The teachers at school had at one time started referring to Emily as Baby Einstein, and I can certainly see why.  She's been working on potty training for over a month now, and while she has a bit of a ways to go, is getting to be very consistent with using a potty at home.  I think it's caught her current classroom off guard as they don't typically teach potty-training to the kids until their 2+ class.  Some of the other parents have been trying to encourage their kids to catch up, but we keep trying to tell them it's not a development race.

Emily has also gotten to be very advanced verbally.  Her afternoon teacher has told us that she is the only child that is enunciating the word "Yes" instead of yeah or yah or even less intelligible responses.  As far as words, I know there are plenty she doesn't know the meaning of yet, but she has decided that she wants to parrot every word I say.  Let me tell you, Daddy has to be very careful with the things that come out of his mouth when everything is repeated back at him.  My favorite part about Emily being so vocal is the singing.  She is a big fan of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and "The Wheels on the Bus" - both of which she loves to sing along with Mommy and Megan.  I die of cute any time the three of them sing in unison.

I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned it, but a few years back a friend of the family gave us a wonderful gift of an upright piano.  My own personal talent with the piano is limited to a half-speed version of "Heart and Soul" that Lissa taught to me, but then again, I've never been much of a musician.  That's how I know that Emily has gotten her musical inclination from her Mother.  At nearly every opportunity, Emily pulls out the piano bench, climbs up to the keys, and treats us to her own little concerts.  What I find so fascinating, again based on the fact that my musical ability is nearly zero, is that despite not knowing how to play and without any instruction, Emily has figured out how to make melodies.  I mean, I'm fascinated by the fact that she taps the keys with her fingers and creates something that sounds good.  Sometimes she will want me to sit on the piano with her, and she will grab my hands to have me push down the keys for her; directing my fingers to each note so that I create the song that she wants to hear.  I get such a great thrill out of that father/daughter time, as the tone-def bumbler and the prodigal maestro create a touching role reversal.

It seems like more and more often, I can turn to face Lissa at the end of the night and honestly tell her, "We've done alright with these two kids."  Dang, I'm lucky.

Aren't you unemployed yet?
You know, I rather expected to be, but I'm not.  It hasn't been noise-makers and balloons, but I continue to be employed for the time being.  The company "demoted" me to operations and engineering, so now I work under one of the guys that I used to have a role over.  From a status perspective it's been a hard hit, but it is strange because my demotion requires a salary increase to stay in the current salary range.  It seems that the demand for engineers has gotten ridiculous of late, and so the salaries are increasing at an exponential rate.  Now that my title has been changed back to engineer, my salary was too low for my experience and qualifications.  So, demotion and massive raise.  It's bizarre.

That's not to say the company has necessarily become significantly more stable of late.  There are still some big question marks for the long term, but I haven't gotten too down about it because of the opportunity that has come with it.  First of all, the time "in the trenches" of doing real engineering again has already paid off in a month by teaching me a lot about control systems that I didn't know before.  This was a common complaint I had about my experience and background when working in consulting, but now I'm starting to get the fundamental experience that I was lacking before.  I also work for a licensed engineer again, and he's willing to sponsor me to get my license in the fall.  I've been talking about wanting to get my professional license for....let's see now....oh, eight years.  It's pretty thrilling to have the stars align just long enough to get that opportunity.

I think if I can get a year of experience with control systems engineering and my license in the process, I will have come out ahead on this demotion thing.  That is, of course, unless I find something better along the way.  I guess I'm just saying that the situation will be good for me if I don't find a newopportunity out there, and if I do find something that's a step up, even better.  That takes a lot of stress off me and the family.