Baby Ryan!!! so Happy everyone looks. Worth the wait!

and In all about me news, I had a very good doctor's appointment today. the last diabetes appointment was not good. I was not surprised, but it was discouraging. Happily in 3 months my Ha1c is improved and I lost some weight. It was very encouraging , because I didn't do that much. Being just a bit better might make things work the way I want .

in 3 months my Ha1c is improved

That's great news!

I just got to do some super-fun shopping: we have friends who are getting married in 12 days. R. is a transgender male-to-female; she hasn't yet had transition surgery, but is planning to have it soon. She is marrying S., who is a bio-woman. They're getting married now because R. is still legally a man. (Well, they're getting married now because they love each other, but they're also being practical -- if they're married when R. has the transition surgery, then there won't be any legal hassles for S. at the hospital.)

Anyway, R. is wearing a big white dress, and had the whole girly wedding dress-shopping experience, where she went to the bridal salon with some girlfriends and champagne and tried on big foofy dresses. (S., on the other hand, is having one of R.'s old guy-suits altered and is wearing that.)

So some friends are throwing a bridal shower for R., and I just got to go pick out lacy, frilly lingerie for her. Fun!

(The wedding officiant is a big gay leatherman with a Harley. S. said "Oh my god, we're going to kill our mothers!")

Aww. Adorable Ryan pics!

Male pattern baldness comes down through the female parent, though, so Wallybee's dad shouldn't influence Ryan atall. Um, hair-wise, that is.

I explained this to my MiL and she went back through HER family history of baldness--her father was bald, both her brothers were bald and she even had an aunt that was bald--when it's carried on both X chromosomes you're right fucked.

My maternal side has thick, beautiful bushels of hair. Owen definitely got my hair.

Male pattern baldness comes down through the female parent, though, so Wallybee's dad shouldn't influence Ryan atall. Um, hair-wise, that is.

If the gene is on his X chromosome, then it's on one of Wallybee's X chromosomes, so there's a 50% chance that it's on Ryan's.

Thanks Steph. and that wedding will not be dull.

It is oddly humid today.

There is a company making helmets so that babies won't bump their heads while they're learning to walk. [link] Their website even has a page of techniques for helping your baby learn to walk. [link] It's amazing that any of us survived toddlerhood.

The woman who let her 9-year-old ride the subway alone has a book out - she's interviewed in Salon here: Stop worrying about your children!

They talk about those helmets.

eta:

Kids have been toddling -- it's a whole stage we actually call toddlerhood -- ever since we started walking upright, which has been a pretty successful experiment for the human species. But now you're supposed to think that it's too dangerous for a kid to do without extra protection and without extra supervision and without this stupid thing you can buy.

There are kneepads that you're supposed to put on your kid because crawling is considered too dangerous for the knees, as if knees weren't built for crawling. That's why they're cute and dimpled and fat.

Everything that we do has a product that we can buy that's supposed to make our kids safer, as if they're born without the requisite accoutrements. Then there is something we can do as parents to be more careful, to be more protective. The assumption behind all of that is that if you are a good parent, you should be protecting your child from 100 percent of anything that could possibly go wrong, and if not, you will be blamed and Larry King will shake his finger at you.

How many toddlers suffer brain damage from falling their own height? Aren't they made bendy for a reason?

Fashion question. A friend has offered to buy me a dress for graduation and my party. What do we think of this dress for me? [link]