Skool Rulez

After a night filled with crying out in pain from the tummy blues, Sylvie was dressed in her fineries for day two of school. Sibel and I walked her to the door of the classroom and without turning back, Sylvie grabbed her teacher's hand, wobbled into the classroom and sat down for circle time. I was so proud and thrilled to see Sylvie so confident and enjoying herself.

I took the train into the city, picked up some office supplies at A.I. Friedman and headed over to the East Village. I stopped into Taralucci y Vino to make some work phone calls and to practically inhale what continues to be the best pain au chocolat I've ever had. From there, I ran into Commodities and picked up some commodities (olive oil, bread, cereal). Ran into an old friend from the Tompkins Square Park dog run and opted to not tell her about Sylvie. I didn't have 45 minutes to explain. Instead, Michael and I headed over to Flushing, again, but this time our fancy US Open tickets actually got us past the front gate. I kept a tally as to how much money we spent on bottled water, sharing fish and chips and so forth but it's sickening. We saw some incredible men's matches and then landed amazing seats in the first ten rows to see Venus and Serena Williams kick some ass. Foremost, they are HUGE. I mean Lawrence Taylor, William "The Refrigerator" Perry huge. I think Serena might be over 200 lbs of muscle.
We had a great day although I did have to park myself on the floor outside the stadium to get some work done. I still plan on writing a letter to the USTA publicity office because they failed to help out Tomorrows Children's Fund when Kathy called them last week. And they failed to help us when we had the Great Ticket Fiasco of 2009 on Saturday. And then we had to pay $18 in order to park so far away that it required a shuttle bus to bring us back to the stadium even though the closer lots were completely empty. Who knew that Lexus owners got free parking; we would have switched cars with my mom.

In the meantime, Sylvie was having a BALL with my mom and dad. They went to Abma's Farm to say hi to the animals. Home for a quick bite to eat and then over to Van Saun Park where not only did Sylvie ride a pony but she also got to tour the little barn and meet all the pony's and miniature horses. Sylvie was on Cloud Nine. While she was thanking my mom for making the "perfect dinner" friends Andy , Catherine and their two daughters came over. Boy we missed them a lot last week.

Clearly we've been affected by huge medical bills since February and grateful that we have medical coverage. But I empathetic for the medical professionals who are also being shafted by insurance companies and seldom brought up in discussions in regards to overhauling the system. Just to be clear, imagine if we had a sick child and had to wait a month for a basic diagnostic test like an MRI... And fortunately, my 'bigger' small company provides a very good insurance plan because that same plan would cost Michael's small business a LOT more. Now you know how we feel about health care.

Until today, the doctor side or how it's affecting the next generation of doctors has been pretty underreported. I was thrilled to see an article in The New York TImes today about medical students who spent time in the field with patients whose treatment was structured around ability to pay, ordering unnecessary tests as protection against lawsuits, hectoring specialists into seeing Medicaid patients, matching patients with prescriptions on Wal-Mart’s $4 list and lastly treating a crazy volume of diabetes, hypertension, obesity, depression. Oh yeah, I forgot-- and in general pediatrics, the practice the student joined saw 45 kids daily per pediatrician. Read it here.

I also wanted to provide the links to The New York Times article on cinnamon oil and antibacterial properties of oils/herbs/etc.
Dr. Rosen is quoted in it. Read it here but if you really want to know more about The Secret of Thieves, check out The Whole Child Center blog.

I had to call there today to ask about Sylvie's um, hemorrhoid. I was so excited to call there instead of the Reuten Clinic! Karen suggested we stay our course with the Colace & senna but add 1 tsp of flax oil 2x daily. Will try tomorrow. I might need to wear safety goggles.

I don't know who is more excited about preschool tomorrow, me or Sylvie!