"If you cannot convince them, confuse them." - Harry S Truman

John McCain has named Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, to be his choice for VP.

I post this here because she's kind of the ultimate working mother: She has five children - Track (18, serving in the US Army), Bristol (17), Willow (13), Piper (7), and Trig, who was born on April 18, 2008 and who has Down syndrome.

Apparently she returned to office three days after giving birth.

I have a lot of thoughts about this, but I have to admit that my first thought was "its no wonder we have no decent maternity leave in this country, with examples like this." My second was "do I want someone making decisions about an entire state as a three-days post-partum hormonal mess?"

My third thought was ... why does that matter to me?

"Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong." - Churchill

We are back from a wonderful and restful vacation. However, there is one small problem: my son still wants to sleep in the tent, so bedtime is composed of me wresting with my (tall for his age, and strong) two year old, who wants to "go sleep in the tent".

Robert Wadlow, the tallest man who ever lived (he was over 8' 11" when he died, due to a problem with his pituitary gland). Wikipedia You may have heard that Sandy Allen the tallest woman in the world, died on Wednesday. (I'm going to connect this up, I promise.) Reading about her led me to the Wikipedia piece on has a helpful chart showing his height at a variety of ages, where I learned that at the age of 4, Robert was 5' 4" tall. Think about that for a moment: a normal, curious, four year old boy, the same size (and, I assume, strength) as an adult.

Wikipedia does not reveal the name of Robert Wadlow's mother. I wish it did. (Ah, here we go - Addie and Harold Wadlow.) The physical challenges of parenting this child must have been enormous (and he had siblings!) yet by all accounts Robert grew up to be a true gentleman.

Addie Wadlow, I was thinking of you today as I wrestled my son into his bed. I hope I do as well by my average child as you did by your exceptional one.