IOWA

Well, tonight, we stay at Davenport, IO. It iss pretty modern that along Iowa highway 80, all the rest areas have the wireless internet connection.

Iowa has a lot of hilly farmlands, not as flat as I thought.

We visited John Wayne’s birthplace, those covered bridges in Madison County that were in the movie featured Clint Eastwood (?) and President Herbert Hoover’s birthplace and his burial site in West Branch, IO just west of Davenport.

Guess what, Mom even won $38 in the casino along route 80 called Prairie Meadows.

My house is a disaster area. Please call FEMA.

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This is what my house looks like a lot of the time. Why is the bicycle in the middle of the living room? Well, I had to bring it inside before it got fogged with pesticide which kills mosquitos and prevents us all from having dengue fever. Vince has been playing “fort” which he, unfortunately pronounces it “fart”. Sigh.

Such a beautiful day!

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The light was so nice today, such a change from the stormy weather we’ve been having for about a month now. I took a picture of myself while waiting with Edda for the MRT. Kate and I have a weekly morning get together while Vince is in school.

Our Last Day Working in Denver, CO

Today is our last day working in Denver, CO. Too bad, there is no relatively permanent job here. This is a lovely city with beautiful snow capped mountains on the westside. People are friendly too.

Well, we are heading to Chicago tomorrow and will stay there for the weekend to celebrate the Chinese New Year (Year of Dog) with Uncle Louis and a good friend of Mom. May be Aunt Helen.

After that, we are heading to Washington DC for a party with friends with cancer. Try to cheer them up. Life is always not perfect, for some reasons.

February 6th, we will start working at Aiken, SC. On the road, probably we will check our laptop occasionally. Cell phones are always with us.

Great, we are going to visit last State that we have never visited before – IOWA.

Product designer request!

Hello! Anyone there? I’m looking for a product designer! (Psst – that’d be you – Donald).

Hey bro, I could use some help here. I’ve been trying to teach Edda to drink from a straw with very little forward progress. This is really the first step towards weaning her, she’s not taking any liquids except from me and I’m tired of it. So what I’ve been doing is putting a plastic straw into orange juice, holding my thumb over the end and capturing some liquid in the straw and then placing it into Edda’s mouth and releasing the suction and she usually sucks the liquid into her mouth OK. There are a few problems with this..

  1. When Edda sucks from the straw, the liquid is on the “bottom” of the straw, my hand is usually above her head at the “top” of the straw trying to maintain the vacuum and she remembers this position and can’t translate this to sucking a straw from a cup in the normal cup/straw position.
  2. When I place the straw in the “normal” cup/straw position, she tends to bite the plastic disposable straw and mangle it so it doesn’t really work.

So I was wondering if you could make a contraption for me…

It would involve a cup with 2 straws protruding from it. I would blow in one straw and Edda would be at the other straw and so the cup/straw would be in the normal position and I could force liquid into her mouth and maybe she’ll learn to drink from a straw. I have seen her at least twice pull liquid from a cup through a straw, but she can’t remember to do it again.

A few requirements:

  1. Non-breakable parts
  2. Washable parts
  3. Rigid straws.

Jeremy says that you can go to Target and buy a sippy cup that has a straw in it and drill a hole in it and blow into the hole, but I want it a little more easier to use. Can you help me with this? I’d need it as soon as you could make something. Thank you! Thank you!

Little Miss Edda

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We’re trying to improve Edda’s eye contact as a first step for speech therapy. At meal times, we hold a spoonful of food right up to our eyes and wait until Edda looks at us to give her the food. We’ve been doing this for a few days now, it was the first suggestion given to us by the speech therapist, it’s going OK, but mealtimes are slower.