On a more positive note, A.J. has learned how to ride his bike! I had him put his bike facing downward on a hill and told him to start pedaling as quickly as he could once the bike started to move. Once he mastered that, I gradually had him start off on surfaces that were more and more level. Now he can start off at will; I no longer have to balance his bike for him so he can start riding! Yay! Next task: to teach him to stop his bike by using his brakes rather than dragging his shoes on the ground.

A.J. also served himself breakfast for the first time this morning! He dragged a chair over to the refrigerator and got down a box of his favorite cereal then opened a small carton of shelf-stable milk and poured both into a bowl. Yay! Maybe tomorrow morning he’ll let my husband and me sleep in now that he knows he can feed himself ….

I’ve been playing around on Facebook lately. It’s a useful tool to maintain social ties, especially with people who live far away, but it is a real time sink!

We’re supposed to go boating with some friends today. I want to socialize, but I’m not sure I want to go out in the 90-plus degree weather we’re supposed to have today. I’d better start making a lot of ice ….

What I thought

• the day it happened,
• the next day,
• a few days later, and
• about two weeks later.

Here’s hoping today will be a good day.

As you can see, I’m at home now but still not fully unpacked from my recent trip.

Generally I try to update my avatar every few days to reflect something I’ve been doing or experiencing. While I was in Taiwan, for example, I set it to show a person carrying a backpack who was surrounded by lots of buildings and cars. Traffic in Taipei is pretty frightening; staying in lanes appears to be an option when driving, and a lot of the population uses motor scooters that don’t necessarily stop when the lights are red. As my Culture Shock travel guide phrased it, driving in Taiwan is a “Taoist” experience ….