— 1 —

“Standing in the rain.” I spent yesterday morning standing in the rain to support middle school kids in their walkout. Details are here.

— 2 —

Attending a birth. Someone sent this letter to Dear Prudence and asked her to arbitrate in a situation between a mother-in-law and her daughter-in-law, in which the mother-in-law is butthurt that her daughter-in-law doesn’t want her in the room while she’s giving birth. However, her own mother is permitted in there and the mother-in-law is crying that this is *SOOOOOOOOOO* unfair that she’s being made a “second-class grandma”, even going so far as to call her daughter-in-law’s parents to make them badger their daughter into changing her mind. The son and daughter-in-law (as well as the daughter-in-law’s parents) are furious with her and she can’t figure out what she did wrong.

Prudence excoriated her (quite rightfully) for being an entitled shrew because childbirth is not a spectator sport. Someone decided to do a running Twitter commentary on the issue and then George Takei picked it up. Let’s just say that Uncle George’s fan base was not siding in favor of the mother-in-law and excoriating the misguided people who attempted (badly) to argue in her favor.

So, for the sake of any readers of this blog who might argue in favor of the mother-in-law, let me put this in words you might be able to understand: Childbirth is a private medical procedure. It is a part of life, but not one which many people want to share with their mother-in-laws, women who didn’t freaking *RAISE* them and take care of them when they were sick. If you decide to make this a hill to die on, prepare to lose a relationship with your daughter-in-law, your future grandchild (your daughter-in-law is not stupid enough to let your son take her child to see you), and likely your son because you will have demonstrated that you have no intention of respecting the parents’ boundaries for their family, especially their children.

Capeche?

— 3 —

Tickling my funny bone. I know this is clickbait, but it’s funny clickbait.

— 4 —

Triennial IEP meeting. To be compliant with IDEA, the school must do testing every three years to make sure that special education is still appropriate. This year, I discovered that someone had put the wrong date in the computer as to when Daniel was due for his triennial evaluation and this meant that we had to pull everything together in a very short period of time. Thankfully, Daniel has an amazing IEP team and we made it. The meeting was Wednesday and while it was painful in some ways, there was positive progress and we have good IEP goals for next year. His gross motor skills have also improved enough that he is being discharged from physical therapy, which is definitely a positive step.

— 5 —

If you’re interested… March for Our Lives is a march dedicated to talking about gun violence and sensible gun control. (**NOTE** Sensible gun control does not mean that we are taking away everyone’s weapons, but rather discussing appropriate legal regulations that would allow people to own their weapons, but do a better job of keeping them from falling into the wrong hands. I want to make this abundantly clear.)

If you’d like to attend a local one or find out more information click here. There are marches being held on March 24th on 6 continents, which I find pretty amazing. If this is not of interest, feel free to ignore it. 🙂

— 6 —

Lenten meal ideas. Need some vegetarian/vegan meal ideas for the next two weeks? Click here.

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Duuuuude… The results of the astronaut twin study with Scott and Mark Kelly are out and apparently, long-term space missions can alter our DNA.

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.