No Child Left Behind - Broken From the Beginning (Facebook)

Back in 2010 or so, I created a Facebook Group specifically for bitching about and spreading information on the negative effects of the No Child Left Behind Act. This was a terrible policy and law brought to us by the George W. Bush White House, and it needed to be repealed or heavily overhauled. This did happen in 2015, when NCLB was replaced by the Every Student Succeeds Act.

My main complaint about the NCLB was that while it had a laudable goal of improving schools, the actual method seemed to be draconian in nature. For any schools or school systems that struggled, the method seemed to be to restrict or narrow their budget. Reduce federal or state funding for any school that didn't improve. But that's not really how education works. If a school system is struggling, they need MORE money and support instead of less.

I had forgotten about the group I created, as it didn't really go very far. I'm archiving some of the links I posted here just for my recollection. Most of them were to similar groups with similar goals.

• Missouri Assessment Program - this was likely an unofficial local business page automatically created by FB and managed by no one.
• President Obama's 'No Child Left Behind' Overhaul Plan - Associated Content - www.associatedcontent.com/article/5728900/president_obamas_no_child_left_behind.html - domain down - but here's a more official page.
• And for this one, I said "Oh, yay. Your children's private information is being shared with the military thanks to the NCLB Act. This site deserves a page / group of it's own. Read more:" - Leave My Child Alone
• I posted: "Quote posted May 2007:
  With support for NCLB/Helter-Skelter faltering in Congress as the country wakes up to the stupidity of the change strategies and the damage being done to its schools, No Child Left has accompished its goal, the repeal or drastic amendment of the law. Publication of the journal stopped with the May 2007 issue but the site will remain as an archive of articles exploring the distortions, simple-minded thinking and fraudulent notions hidden within this dangerous experiment."
• I posted: "This site was active prior to 2007/05 and was dedicated to revision of NCLB. In that month, they posted an update that they had reached their goal of bringing attention to the issue. I'm not sure I agree, but this looks like a good place for more information." No Child Left - Committed to Repeal of NCLB/Helter-Skelter - nochildleft.com - domain down
• I posted: "There are three groups on Facebook called No Teacher Left Behind:" and only one of which was still live at this point.
• I posted: "A well-established group with shared goals." - Leave No Child Behind?? - and then I commented that I wished I'd found that group first before creating my own.
• And I posted a link to another group: Abolish NCLB (No Child Left Behind)

That was fun, if I recall. It was short-lived and I closed the group shortly thereafter. This probably marked my first foray into getting heavily political on Facebook. Perhaps I just needed to do something more than rant.

Hey wait... Why am I back on Facebook? More about this later...

I Forget How Long I've Been Off Facebook

Was it October? Anyhow, I've been logged out of my Facebook account and it's been 'deactivated' since some point several months ago, likely October. And it has been great for the most part. In fact, my account has been on-and-off deactivated for most of the last year. There were a several instances where the account got unintentionally reactivated. For example, if you connected your Spotify and Facebook account back in the day and could at the time use your Facebook account to log into your Spotify account, that was semi-convenient. But then you separated them so you could still use Spotify after deactivating Facebook. And then later you log into Spotify, but mistype your password... it recognizes that your username was once connected via Facebook and tests this method. This attempt fails to log you into Spotify, but it does use the cached user and password token on Facebook behind the scenes. Despite not going to the Facebook site intentionally, you get a "Thanks for coming back to Facebook!" email as a surprise. When I get mad about that, I don't even know who to vent my frustration at.

But I've been taking an extended break from Facebook and enjoying that quite a bit. Is social media great and a powerful force connecting all of humanity in a new and amazing way? Or is it a cesspool of boiling atrocity where all of the worst of humanity feeds off each other's insecurities ad nauseam? I used to think it was the former. More recently, there are some days I think it might be the latter. But more rationally, more realistically, it's likely somewhere in between in sum total. Seventy-thirty? Sixty-forty? Fifty-fifty? I don't know, it depends on how you measure it. And it's a highly subjective thing anyhow. A multiple set of gray shades.

When the FB account would get reactivated, I'd often just deactivate it again right away. But a few times, I did browse around for a little while just to reaffirm my conviction that I'm not missing anything too important. And I do miss that certain connection with long-distance friends and family. Especially around the holidays these past few weeks, I've felt a bit un-tethered. But not enough to keep my account active.

I could list my reasons for avoiding Facebook, but they are many and some I don't want to share. There will be specific people who will surmise that it was something they said/did/posted, but it was not any one person or entity that soured the experience for me. There were several "last straws" and they couldn't be ignored in sum total. Maybe this will be permanent. Maybe not.

Note that I'm still on twitter, so this isn't exactly a completely closed moral stand against all social media, just Facebook. We'll see how long that lasts.

Update

Not even two days after I posted this and I am listening to the morning NPR radio show 1A, which I do lately. And they did a special program on The Psychological Effects Of Signing Off Social Media. In the recording, which you can listen to still, they discuss some important questions.

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2013: Year in Review (Facebook)

I mentioned yesterday that there was once again another "Year in Review" page available on Facebook for 2013. I wrote about the 2012 "Year in Review" when it first came out and in revisiting that post today, I was reminded about why I had the foresight to archive my favorite highlights from that page. If you visit the page I linked to in that post (https://www.facebook.com/yearinreview/), all you'll see is THE MOST RECENT year's review, not the 2012. In other words, it would appear their plan is to update this feature every year with your most memorable moments and the previous year gets replaced. Had I not saved my favorite data / details from that page, it would be lost to me now.

And now I'll wade through 2013's page and pick out stuff that I agree was memorable and important. I honestly recall being more amazed at the automated page for 2012 and this time around I'm pretty unimpressed. But is that a reflection of the feature OR a reflection of my year? I can't give a scientific answer, but I'm going to blame the technology here by default and just leave it at that. Here goes.

2013: Year in Review

The first post highlighted was from the first week of the new year, when I shared my good news about starting my job at Integrity. I'd actually been working there since mid-December but the company blog post with my name and photo hadn't been posted quite yet. It was all pretty cool, but about a week or so later that job opportunity dried up. That happens with contract positions. I did like that job quite a bit, but it wasn't exactly a perfect fit. Not the best note to start with.

One theme in 2013 was paperwork. A few weeks later, I'm complaining about being asked to "fax" something to our mortgage company. This post garnered a lot of debate comments, but I stand by my original statement. It's the 21^st Century and no one should be forced to use a fax machine anymore when there are readily available better options. Would you believe that the paperwork was only just accepted and properly processed by same-said mortgage company this past December? This has been going back-and-forth for longer than just this year though so it's not wholly unexpected.

By February 19^th there was a job interview option that I was very excited about at Zeis Group. Lots of other things were happening too in my life which made that a crazy dramatic month I'd rather not relive.

I started at ZG on March 6^th as an Online Marketing Specialist.

In April, we had another successful family photo shoot with JLL Photography taken downtown. I'll have to share some of these pics later.

In May, I joined the "Biggest Loser" contest at work and dropped quite a few pounds. I won that round actually, ending up just under 250 pounds. I have hovered around that, but continue to lose a little bit at a time. I may have gained a little during the holidays, but I never want to be over 250 again as long as I live.

Other pictures I was tagged in during June include a Dirty Soap Benefit show at the coffee house, the SIDS Run/Walk, and a few more family photos.

The fireworks for July 4^th were spectacular. It was especially fun to really enjoy them with Sammy for the first time. I posted this:

My son, age 3, was loving the fireworks and squealing happily at every report and fire flower. This is the highlight of my night. No one is so hipster or jaded they can't at least enjoy fireworks a little, but seeing my son enjoy them for the first time he was really old enough to appreciate them, gave me an all new appreciation of amazing pyrotechnics. Your children show you world in a new way.

Later in July, I noted that my appearance on Google Street View had been published.

In August, we were forced to accept the fact that we were registering our first-born child for ... *gasp* high school! Reese was nervous at first, but I'm really proud and amazed at how well she has adapted to these changes.

This past September, Dirty Soap found even more gigs at a new place called Foam where we fit in really well.

We had another family photo shoot in October and this time JLL took us downtown to the graffiti wall where I'd been once before with DS.

The band also had a new gig place in November at Sonny's in Soulard, which we really impressed for Octoberfest.

And... that's about it. I think I must have subconsciously adapted a more subdued amount of posting on FB in 2013. My life in general has had some really great things happen, but I seem to be playing those moments closer to my chest than I've done previously. If I look at the Friends / Year in Review page, I can see a few other highlights I want to document here. Reese got a medium-to-major part in the Fall Play of DRACULA. She played Flora, who is the maid of the female lead. She ... Well, I have no words I can really use to describe how proud I was of her during those moments. Our friend Heather started a new job as a 4^th grade teacher.

And there you have it, Facebook's view on the most important points of 2013. Not wholly extensive, but certainly a few important highlights.

2012: Year in Review (Facebook)

Today I noticed that Facebook has a new feature showing snippets and photos from the past year as some sort of summary.

A look at your 20 biggest moments from the year including life events, highlighted posts and your popular stories.

"Big moments" include life events, posts you've highlighted, popular posts you've been tagged in and popular posts you've shared.

Since Facebook is ephemeral and my blog is less so, I thought I'd post some of the moments and photos and reminisce with a little bit more detail. I'll try and repost all the photos and stories with more details, but this could turn into a really long long post if I get too carried away.

33 Friends Added This Year

I'm not one to brag about a large number of friends on Facebook. Feels weird. If the number gets too high it begins to look artificially inflated. I'd rather have a small set of really close friends than a large set of loosely-associated acquaintances. Additionally, some folks (including me) get carried away with some Facebook games that encourage you to share/invite as many friends as possible into the game to get more bonus "widgets" of some kind. So you end up inviting folks you barely know to be on your friends list. I'm well aware of this and have fallen victim to it sometimes. However, I've not jumped up and done a 'friend-purge' as some folks are wont to do. It is what it is.

However, I was honestly surprised that the number of friends that I'd added this whole year was as high as 33. I'd had this idea that I've previously added all the friends in my life that I already knew and it was not going to increase much. Who are all these people? I thought as I looked them over.

The large part of the group are folks I met and became fast friends with when I joined the band Dirty Soap. Funny enough, I was actually looking on Craigslist for a used car when my old PT Cruiser died. I got bored with not finding the right one and kicking scammers around, so I browsed other areas like musicians and web designers. I found a band looking for a trombone player and we got along great. I did find a car eventually of course, thanks mostly to my brother's help.

Dirty Soap at Eddie's Pub

Dirty Soap had quite a number of gigs over the summer. And it was some of the most fun I've had in years. It's cliched to say it made me feel young again. Since the fall things have dried up a bit since most of the gang is away at school in various places. I'm hoping and expecting we will get back together in the spring.

Dirty Soap: June 6, 2012

The band had a number of photo shoots that our different photographer friends wanted to take for us, so there's plenty of fun shots. Some of the best ones were really popular.

Other new friends on my account were a few family, work or church friends that I was finally catching up with.

38 Pages Liked This Year

This number was lower than it seemed to be in years previous. Obviously, I liked the Dirty Soap page, but I was also administering the page part-time, so it makes sense. I was also liking other bands that we met and partnered with, locations we played at (like St. Charles Coffee House) and similarly related stuff. Additionally, I created a few pages for work at SoTel Systems, including MTR. Other than that, I've actually streamlined out a lot of the "Likes" that I subscribe to on Facebook as it was getting a little overblown. Most of the new ones from this year are related to projects my friends are working on or other businesses I'm close to.

For instance, one of my friends Vinnie from back in the Network Solutions days (2008-ish) has a home studio which he's working on building up. He helped Dirty Soap a bit with one gig where we needed a bassist to stand in AND he helped us start a project to record a demo set (on indefinite hold). He has also entered a few contests this year with remixes he's done in his basement of raw tracks.

I've got another buddy Ian, who has been doing music and mixing for what's probably just as long. Even back in high school, Ian always struck me as a guy who juggled a lot of projects and over the last year I liked at least three separate pages for projects he worked on.

• Spring Clock Wonder
• Arjuna Sound
• Freefall Effect

Check out Ian on the drums/bass at the beginning of this in-process clip for a project that Arjuna Sound is doing.

Did I forget to mention previously on my blog that I did a one-time guest shot on a project that Ian did in 2010? Ian sang in a band in high school called Since Hector Was a Pup. In 2010, Ian and his brother Wade put together a new album called 2010: The Year We Forgo Contact. At the time, I asked if he needed a Trombone on anything and he did. You should check out the whole album, but you can hear me on the following track.

I've learned quite a bit in the last few years and I cringe a little hearing myself on that track now. But that's me. The rest of the song and album are awesome. Hmm, this is technically a flashback to 2010, rather than topical to 2012. I'm getting off-topic. But it occurs to me I hadn't mentioned this back when it was relevant.

Let's see, what else? Regarding FB pages, there was at least one other band I tried out for after most of Dirty Soap got busy with school. I met and played briefly with the folks from Bullseye Womprats. They are a class act, good people with more of a pop dance band. I did my best, but ultimately they decided to add a trumpet player instead of a trombone player. That's okay, they gained at least one new fan.

More Photos?

After the new friends and new likes, the year is summarized by a bunch of highlighted images posted by me.

That looks pretty random. This was a cool abstract image I'd made using Aviary advanced suite, which as I've blogged about before is now gone. Still, I use this as a fun background for my online portfolio --which at some point I'll get around to finishing.

Holidays are always a fun time for family. Here's my extended family on my dad's side. This is what Thanksgiving looks like at my Aunt Jeannie's house which is always one of my favorite spots. If it's possible, here's an almost bigger group at the Arconati Family reunion, which was this past summer. My dad's a fan of group shots and despite the grumbles, so am I.

And speaking of family photos, the year would not be complete without another photo shoot with JLL Photography.

This past year also has a momentous occasion in that we finally returned to our church home once again as reconstruction completed on Ferguson Christian Church after the tornado in 2011. It was a long wait, but it was worth it. We had a fun revival weekend when the building first reopened and things are really great right now. I don't actually have photos that I took, but a few news crews showed up to interview and I think I can find some of those. Here's probably the best one...

The fact that my wife is one of the folks interviewed does not affect my bias at all. Of course, she played a part behind-the-scenes getting the interviews set up and writing the press release. Here's another interview.

This has also been the year when my son Sam has started to get into everything.

After seeing this next photo, you may ask yourself if that's my son sitting between two girls, but that would be a redundant question because I'm telling you now that it is. Third kid from the right. Like a boss.

Something that Facebook didn't include on my retrospective wall; my brother-in-law got married to his long-time fiance this year. Congratulations to Nate and Beth! Do they look like it was freakishly cold? Even in October in Chicago? Yes, it was ridiculously cold.

What else has been happening this year? My daughters keep getting smarter and taller and I keep getting prouder. My wife keeps getting skinnier and I get luckier (yep). This spare tire I'm carrying keeps getting smaller then bigger again with the wrong frequency. But I am taking better care of myself in small strides and making new commitments to less of too much. We also have a guinea pig named Vicious. Random.

So all-in-all, a very good year. I'm filtering these stories through the Facebook tool, which admittedly did okay with surfacing some of the best and most popular posts and photos relevant to me. I said goodbye to one job and am picking up a different one this next week, so the end of the year will meet me at a really great spot. I may or may not post again before 2012 is kaput, so in case I forget; Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Retrospective 2009

I decided not to make an actual New Years resolution this year. Doing so has never really been my style. And when I have made some public or private resolution, it has never stuck and I've just ended up momentarily disappointed. It's good to have goals and it's good to have benchmarks, but January 1^st is just not good timing. I may change my mind by next year at this time, but we will see how that goes.

That all being said, I did plan to do a lot more writing this year. I even thought that perhaps I'd aim for at least one blog post per day, or more conservatively one post per week. But now we are a week,.. two weeks, three weeks, a month worth of days into the new year and I've not published a thing... At least, not here on my personal blog (more on this later).

It should come as no surprise to anyone that knows me that I've been rather busy these last few weeks. Stick with me a moment and I'll get a good retrospective on my life and my family's life for last year put together and that will be a good starting point for this new year.

January

If you recall, one year ago was when it seemed that everyone -- and I do mean EVERYONE -- got Facebook for Christmas. As a blogger, web site hobbyist and general technological snob, I'd resisted the lure of both Facebook and Twitter with a bit of misappropriated disdain. I thought, Why would anyone who already has a blog or website (or multiple blogs and websites) need a micro-blogging service? I used social bookmarking through Delicious and StumbleUpon but that was it. Up until January of last year, I'd lumped them in with MySpace and ignored them.

But then my wife signed up for Facebook. Her coworkers were on it and had bugged encouraged her enough that she signed up. I soon followed and I felt like a bit of a sheep to do so. And I have regretted my previous snobbishness on many different occasions. The site provides a simple way of reconnecting with old friends from college, high school or wherever. But it also has a lot more than that. And it's free. I haven't used my dumb Classmates.com account in years, for the simple fact that every other feature I tried to use they asked me to sign up for their paid service. Facebook is free and it really is the "database of everybody" in addition to all the fun integrations, games and applications that exist there. For instance, a link to this blog post will appear on my wall moments after I publish through Blogger. My Delicious and StumpleUpon accounts are also integrated.

It's cool. But in fairness, one of my first posts was to reference that Facebook as a website had become THE biggest name on the Internet, just like AOL was 8 years ago. Everyone has an account on Facebook, just like AOL 8 years ago. And Facebook will be around forever, just like ...Oh, oops.

Okay, enough about that. The other much more important thing that happened in January was that Lisa and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. That evening was entirely too awesome for words. Whereas I had help with some of the arrangements --my dad got us the room at Harrah's using his club points-- I planned the whole darn thing and it turned out pretty well. As I sit here typing away, the next big item on my to-do list is to plan our 11^th anniversary for two weekends from now, which probably won't be quite as involved but to my mind still needs to be special for my special lady. &heart;Lisa&heart;

February

My niece Lillian and I both have our birthdays in February. Lilly will soon be THREE YEARS OLD! I'll be turning 34 this year, which is much less exciting compared to three. I'm not really bothered this time around by getting older. I think it bugged me last year and even the year before, more than it ever had before. But this year all I can muster up is a shrug for reaction. Meh! Perhaps I'm just happy with where my life is right now.

March

More birthdays for our extended family happened in March. Both Linda K. and Zöe V. share this month. Lonny and Tami had their son Bryce, so there is one more birthday. Additionally, both of our kids got invited to birthday parties for their friends at school. On some weekends they were double-booked! There was also an awesome Orchestra concert for Reese.

April

It's getting to be a regular thing that both Lisa and I sing in the Easter Cantata every year. I never thought of myself as a singer, but it's fun. Also in April of 2009, as in 2008, we had a day at the cemetery celebrating Lucas on his birthday.

May

More birthdays happened in May. I still can't believe this, but my oldest child turned 10 years old! Olivia had her Girl Scout Bridging ceremony and then school went to break for the summer.

Although Lisa and I knew for a few weeks, May was when we announced that God had answered a prayer we'd had for several months. Lisa was once again pregnant! So began a whole new journey and chapter of our lives that I'd given up hope of coming true. There was a lot of worry and trepidation that immediately settled into my mind, but trust and faith have been carrying me and still do.

For more global news, May was when the news regarding Swine Flu, the vaccine that was being developed for it and possible shortages started making the rounds everywhere you looked. My dad had some ruminations on the news and how it echoed the 1976 flu season. I came to understand that my parents' experience of the vaccine from that year was rather negative. I'd vaguely heard the story before as a youngster, but suddenly it was topical again.

I also took a day off work to be one of a dozen Career Day Presenters at the elementary school where my mom is the counselor. This was a really fun, empowering day for me.

Right before May ended, my brother and his wife Kelly had a new addition to their family, Sophia Louise Arconati. She was so adorable and it was starting to look like a really good year for new babies.

June

We began going to very regimented doctor appointments for Lisa that would eventually get as regular as every two weeks and more. Due to Lisa's diabetes, previous c-sections and so on, she has one of the best medical teams due to her high risk status. Still, not a day went by without a few moments of worry.

There was a week of PROBE for Reese, a week of VBS for both my girls and Isaiah V.'s birthday rounded out the month.

July

This is always a busy month for birthdays in addition to Independence Day. Lonny, Kelly, Lisa and my great-aunt Ruby all celebrate their birth in July. Lisa's folks came down to visit us for about a week and to see the fireworks. For the very first time, Reese went away to summer camp for an entire week! My mom, my wife, my kids and I also spent an entire week at the time-share at Lost Valley Lake. Come to think of it, we were also joined by my aunt and uncle for a few days.

August

My step-brother Lonny and his wife Tami came into town from New Jersey for a baby shower for their son Bryce, who was born in March. Lisa's dad and her twin siblings Kate and Nate have a birthday in August. My little brother Jon also was born in August. If you want to know a weird coincidence, Jon and my wife's siblings were all born on the same day. Of course, Jon was born years earlier but they all three share a birthday. And yes, I'm aware of the fact that twins are normally born on the same day. The coincidence is that my little brother ... oh, nevermind!

Going back to Lost Valley Lake for a moment, you may have seen the news in August when the news was the fire at the main sports complex. It's a pretty big deal for them and a little weird considering that they had another large fire that gutted an entire building back in 2004. It's bad luck and they are just in an area of the county that fire departments have trouble getting into. A lot of people in St. Louis have been to LVL over the years. But for our family it was a little more eye-opening to see because we had just been swimming and playing mini-golf at that very building only a few weeks earlier.

September

Lisa and I had planned a second trip to LVL for a weekend in early September. It was just us four: Lisa, myself, Reese and Olivia. Well, four and a half, if you count the pregnancy. We got a chance to see the completely destroyed building. We spent hours swimming at the pool and had tons of time for fishing. Both my girls caught fish. Even my wife caught a fish with my pole while I was walking back to the car to fetch the cooler. I caught nothing except mud and weeds! At night, we slept in a rented trailer and told ghost stories around the campfire. I told a few that I know, but Olivia made one up completely on the spot that was very involved and in depth. I wish I'd written it down.

By this point in the year, it was clear that Lisa was growing with pregnancy and this was really going to happen. I mean, we had been watching the baby's progress on regular ultrasounds and everything was going smoothly. But in the back of both of our minds, it still seemed so unreal. We waited silently for the joke to be revealed. We waited for some sort of tempering mildly bad --or really bad-- news. We held our breath and waited for the other shoe to drop...

Something I should mention is that when you have infant loss, there is a blissful ignorance that you no longer possess. The veil of security, the idea of invincibility and the boastful claim that "this will never happen to me" is no longer possible. We'd experienced loss of an infant, and we'd also experienced miscarriage. So we could no longer be blissfully ignorant, even if we wanted to be.

Near the end of September, I was let go from my job at Network Solutions. My former coworkers and supervisors may still read my blog, as so many of them are still my friends on Facebook. I'm not going to bad-mouth or complain about the company, though others have done so both privately and publicly. Things happen and (allow me this analogy) like a recently divorced marriage, accusations of blame could be tossed around recklessly. In reality, it may have been time for both parties to part ways. But hey, that's just the truth for me and should not reflect on the confidence of my buddies in their jobs or of any of NetSol's clients (who hopefully don't read my blog anyhow). For my own personal reasons, this change to my life might be the best possible news in the long term.

October

The first financial thing we did prior to wading through the unemployment benefits stuff, was to call our mortgage company and reapply for the Homeowner Affordability and Stability Plan. We had initially applied back in the summer at some point, but our combined wages were too high. Now that I was not gainfully employed, it was very simple to ask them to reprocess our original application and we got a positive result quickly. Our monthly payment was reduced by about $400/month. By the end of the month, I was also earning unemployment benefits through Illinois and it was a good percentage of my previous wages. I haven't computed it to the exact dollar, but I feel like I'm actually ahead if you don't consider the medical and other associated benefits.

In the job market, I knew before I started looking that things weren't great. But I began to find some new avenues that I hadn't considered before on various smaller job boards as well as Craigslist. Realistically reevaluating my skills, I've begun to look at my favorite role as more of a designer, developer and consultant with tons of small business expertise that I have not yet been able to fully wield. This is opposed to or in addition to my more limited role as a technical support software expert. I've mentioned that I'm reading Covey's First Things First and using it to Dream Big. This is only one of many reasons why.

Halloween was lots of fun. Thinking historically, this holiday is becoming less of an open door-to-door kind of day and more of a closed party style of day. We hung out with the VanMeters for a little while once again this year and then we gathered candy. There are two houses around the corner from me that throw a combined open house. They barbecue hot dogs, have a half-barrel of punch and some teenagers actually put together one of the worst punk-rock bands I've ever heard. They have a "stage" and even closed off part of the one cul-de-sac for a mosh pit of sorts.

November

My dad, my mother-in-law and my daughter Olivia all have November birthdays. I believe that both Ryan and Heather also have their birthdays in November in addition to their wedding anniversary. Against our better judgment, we caved to Olivia's request to have her birthday at Chuck E. Cheese. We celebrated Thanksgiving at my Aunt Jeannie's house with the traditional hike.

During the hike, Olivia was complaining that her feet hurt and she wanted me to carry her. In a joke, I said something about Bilbo not needing to be carried for his whole adventure to reach the Lonely Mountain. One of my cousins asked with some suspicion if she would even know what I was referring to. And that's something else I'm proud of from the last year. By Thanksgiving, I'd been reading to the girls from the Hobbit every night. We normally read something right before bedtime, but this was the biggest and longest book we've read so far. I started reading from J.R.R. Tolkien's great work after Reese had gotten so excited about the Percy Jackson series that she found. Reese likes Tolkien just okay and usually it lulls her to sleep. But Olivia listens with rapt wide-eyed attention! She asks questions too and is so taken with the characters that she is writing her own version in a little pocket notebook, which she calls the "girls version".

Lisa continued to grow more pregnant and the baby continued to grow in complete health. After a minor scare which proved to be nothing, we decided to find out the gender of the baby. We had originally planned to wait until the end and be surprised. But we changed our mind and until the technician confirmed otherwise, I thought we were going to have a third girl. Instead, I was floored that we would have a boy! I would have been happy either way, but admittedly we wanted a boy.

December

My mom has a birthday early in December. My son, who's name was going to be Samuel, was also going to be born in December. Plans for the cesarean section and the hospital stay were firmed up. A last few ultrasounds and other tests were performed and everything was great.

An interesting scheduling act was performed as the date approached. Lisa's due date was the 20^th, but the doctor we prefer was only available on Wednesdays, so that meant scheduling the birth for the 16^th which was a perfect time for us. However, we were also going to be singing in the Christmas Cantata, which was scheduled for the 13^th, the previous Sunday. Lisa even asked to do a short solo. In the past, my wife had scheduled c-sections for both girls, but she went into labor a few weeks early with Lucas. There was a very real possibility that Lisa would go into labor early and we'd miss it.

Ultimately, the day of the performance came, we sang and when the service was over, Lisa was still pregnant. The last few weeks of pregnancy are always the most uncomfortable and seem to take the longest. Even so, the feeling that this was all so unreal and precarious made the whole nine months actually fly by way too fast. It seemed like I was still reeling from the fact that the tubal ligation reversal was in fact successful, and then to learn the news that we were going to have another son... and then:

He's pretty dang handsome isn't he? Samuel Joseph Arconati was born 21.5in tall and weighing 8lbs 5.1oz. And he just keeps on growing.

In the days that followed, Lisa's mom and sister came down from Chicago to see Sammy and to stay with us through Christmas. They arrived two hours early, Lisa was still in the hospital with Sammy and I'd had about four hours of sleep. My mother-in-law, who I adore on most occasions, immediately started barking orders at me in regards to home maintenance. In the end, it was all sorted out and all was forgiven. I did get some sleep later on and I got a cleaner house in the bargain, just in time for Samuel to come home.

The girls spent the night with my mom on New Year's eve (a tradition, it seems) and Lisa, Samuel and I spent it with each other just doing nothing but a bit of cuddling.

Overall

Throughout the entire year in 2009, there was much more involvement with all kinds of activities for the girls. In addition to Pioneer Club, the girls were both involved in Girl Scouts and Reese joined chorus and Celebrate Children (think show choir) at school, in addition to Cello in Orchestra.

We continue to read from the Lord of the Rings series at night among other books, and I'm eagerly anticipating the day we complete them so they can watch the extended edition DVDs. I've been watching the bonus features when the girls go to sleep and it's really sinking in how huge these stories are.

So it was a pretty great year throughout. The highlight was getting to hold my son for the first time and to realize that he is alive and healthy and vital. And the moment I saw his face I knew he was not Lucas. I'm still worried, and I will likely continue to be until his first birthday. But I'm not as panicked as I expected to be. Our little family of five is complete and blessed and together. I will continue to thank God every day for these "small" miracles, which by my account are not small in the least.

If you've really read this far, it should be counted a Herculean task for which you should be proud... or perhaps ashamed, depending on your perspective. I can just hear you saying "There's 20 minutes I'll never get back!" Thanks for your time and I pray also that God blesses you this new year at least as much as he's blessed me in the old.

Now to see about getting some sleep...

I Have The Facebook

Sounds kind of like a contractible and misunderstood illness, doesn't it? Well, I've gone and signed up for Facebook as of today. I was being an elitist snob about it until my wife got interested in it from her friends at work.

I predict I will be addicted to it quite shortly.

Update (a few months later): I saved this post on the listed date, but forgot to publish it until just now. My prediction came true, just in case you wanted to know. Or hadn't you noticed a lack of meaningful blog posts?