American Millionaire

John and I went to see Slumdog Millionaire last night. The movie was incredibly well done and told a poignant story of two people desperately trying to be together while incredible circumstances keep them apart. Although entertaining, it was more thought provoking. At the close, tears came to my eyes as I thought of the little orphaned children who live in squalor in India. This movie shows the normality of poverty and lack of freedom that exists in other parts of the world...circumstances that we know very little about. As American's most of us have a world view that everyone lives as we do. It is normal that each household has at least one and most likely two cars. That the Jones' must be kept up with, it is appropriate to spend upwards of $5 on a specialty coffee drink, and that owning a home is some kind of right have become normal attitudes in our culture.

I left the movie feeling incredibly grateful and, frankly, more than a little ashamed. How much of my life do I take for granted? A lot. What small things do I spend time and energy whining about? Plenty. What more can I do to become more charitable? Much. Here are some statistics to consider.

Nearly 80% of India lives on half a dollar a day.
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSDEL218894

Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.
At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.
http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats

In these days of economic unrest we should all consider what we can live without and what we can afford to give to those in need. Believe me, I am not standing on a soap box. I know that I have not been doing my part and that my family can and will give more. I hope you will too.

Stella is 6 months old!

Our little Stella is 6 months old now. Time goes by so fast. SHE SLEEPS THROUGH THE NIGHT! Bedtime is 8:00 pm and she gets us up at 5:00 am to eat. It is HEAVEN! She scoots along on the ground and seems to be making progress towards sitting by herself and crawling. She is playing with her toys more and more and loves to hear herself scream. It used to be a high pitched, ear bleeding, trill, but is now an "Incredible Hulk" like wail that makes her face turn crimson. Strange little thing isn't she? She loves to laugh...and I mean laugh. Full belly grabbing, rolling on the floor, cackling laughter. Mom will say something as benign as "Yummy" and she will burst out with gale force laughter that makes us all laugh in response.

Stella had been venturing into solid foods, and I have been making my own baby food for her. She has tried squash, peaches, sweet potatoes, pears, banana, rice and oatmeal cereals and green beans.

At her 6 month check-up she weighed 15 lbs and measured 27 1/2 inches. She is in the 40th percentile for weight and off the charts at over 97% for height. That means that less than 3% of babies her age are as tall as she is. We hope that this trend continues and that she gets her mom's height.

We recently made the small trip to see Great-grandpa Ross along with Grandma Ross, Aunt Charity and kids. He seems to be doing really well at 96 years of age and wisdom. It was so great to see him and show him our cute babies.

A few weeks ago Uncle Mike (John's brother)and Aunt Julie visited us from South Carolina and brought all of their kids. It was so great to see them. We miss them very much and were so glad to catch up and see how the kids have grown.

Aunt Holly (John's sister) and family came down from Olympia, Washington last week to visit recently. We got to finally meet Peter who just turned 1. It was a lot of fun to visit with all of them and catch up.

Uncle Andy moved to Burbank, CA recently and we miss seeing him all the time. The good news is that he will be up to visit every 6 weeks or so.

We are doing well all in all. My pain medicine delivery system (aka pain pump) surgery has been pushed back again to 3/28/2009. We are a little frustrated, but are very excited as the trial went so well. For the trial they injected 0.2 mg of morphine directly into my spinal canal. The 12 hours that followed was the most painless that I have experienced in over 7 years. It was blissful and I was giddy! Too bad I had to stay in the hospital for observation...if I had my way I would have taken a long walk with John, Stella, and Frankey.