I Heard the Owl Call My Name: 11/30/06
What does one do for a friend who has only a year or two to live? Do you coddle him or challenge him? That's the premise of I Heard the Owl Call My Name. The bishop who is faced with this question, chooses to send his young ill vicar off to the hardest and most remote parish, a small village in British Columbia. The book covers the remaining months of the vicar's life without dwelling on his situation.

Instead, the book focuses on how the vicar learns the culture of the Kwakiutl and likewise how the Kwakiutl begin to slowly accept that the outside world is beginning to seep into their culture as their children seek education outside of the village.

Here is my BookCrossing Review:

I Heard the Owl Call My Name is a tender story about two cultures learning from each other as seen through the eyes of a young vicar sent to Kingcome, a village in the Pacific Northwest. It's one of the few books where neither culture is favored in how they are portrayed. Both have their good bits and their bad bits. Characters have good days and bad days and are allowed to grow into well rounded individuals.

Cereal:
One of the trickiest parts to being a parent is knowing when my children are ready to try something new, especially infants. The last bunch of days Harriet has been fussier than usual and waking in the middle of the night to nurse, something she hasn't done in weeks. She is clearly going through a growth spurt and she seems to be far more aware of her surroundings as well so there must be some brain growth going on to. The nursing sessions though haven't been satisfying her as much. She's been getting grumpy whenever the three of us sit down to a meal or when one of us is cooking.

On Tuesday she started chewing on my finger, not sucking as she had been, but actually chewing. I realized that she was acting like Sean when he wanted to move to solids. Current recommendations for infants is to introduce solids at four months at the earliest or six months at the latest. When Ian and I were children, solids were introduced around two months of age but a small percentage of children had problems with aspirating their cereal.

The baby books and online sites tend to agree on when to try solids. They suggest looking for these signs:

• Baby has good neck support and control
• Baby is interested in food that parents are eating
• Baby is chewing rather than sucking

Since Harriet was showing all three of these signs, we decided to try her on some rice cereal last night. We mixed it up with a little formula (as I've not been pumping) and gave her a taste. She loved her first bite and gave me a huge grin. She then opened her mouth up and asked for more. She ended up eating about ten spoonfuls of cereal and slept happily through the night.

This morning when we were having Malto Meal for breakfast, she started fussing again even though I had nursed her. So I made up another little bowl and while she didn't eat as much as the night before, she still ate more than I expected. She's all smiles when eating cereal. She hasn't spit any of it out and seems to have the chewing and swallowing down.

Steps: 6000