A remarkable thing happened, here in our little valley where nothing much seems to be going on most days, where the grasses have grown tall and the seed-heads keep them heavy and nodding, sleepy, especially in the late afternoons.

By then, the hot summer sun has slipped behind the ridge in back of the house; then, the light filters through the cottonwoods along the little creek and the sounds of the day seem to quiet, distilling to the essence of summer. The wind in the leaves, the occasional cry of a hawk, the faintest trickling of water from the spring.

A mood of tranquility, a spell of summer, until it's broken by the cries of my kids, "Mom! Mom! Mom! Come quick!"

I rush out the front gate, where I'm met by 3 out-of-breath boys. Carter, the oldest, holds in his right hand a butterfly net with a plastic orange handle. His left hand is squeezing the net closed. It's clear they've caught something and I peer through the mesh to see what it might be.

It's a frog.

Their excitement is contagious and my heart begins to race, too. I can't remember the last time I've seen such a thing, maybe never? My girlhood wasn't overly-full of frogs. I think about what a frog might need: a home, some food, rocks, water? Don't they eat flies?

I rush into the house and return with an empty plastic container, the kind that once held an enormous amount of lettuce. We poke holes in the top with a stick and Carter deposits the frog into the new, temporary home.

We form a semi-circle around the plastic container, regarding its contents. Even as we watch him (and I don't know why I think it's a him), he's watching back, 2 deep, brown froggy eyes trained on us.

He's not really green; he's more brown, but whitish underneath. There are large, black spots ringed with black circles on either side of his spine. His legs are thick with muscles and his toes are long and slender. He seems big to me, the size of my fist, or larger.

He tries to hop and the whole plastic container jumps with him. We all leap back. My middle son Avery raises his hands to his face, his mouth forming a wide, startled, Oh! And I have to agree: Oh!

It's amazing, to me, all of it: that we'd be here, the 4 of us, on this airy summer day; that Carter, who I remember so clearly as a tiny baby, has grown into this brave and confident frog-catcher of a boy; that his brothers are next to him, the babies I'd waited for and hoped for and even still, when they finally arrived, I was totally unprepared.

I remember everything--the days spent in and out of the NICU and my one wish, an unspoken prayer that was so simple, yet it seemed impossible: Please let my babies know this world. Please let them grow big enough to have a life outside this hospital air, these beeping machines. Please let them breath real air, let them feel the softness of a purple summer twilight.

Never once did I imagine we'd be here: it was a dream too big to hope for. And since then, there have been so many summer twilights, and I am greedy for them, my prayer now is like a child bumping 2 fists together, which is sign language for more. I want more--I want these days to last forever.

And the frog. Sometime back in the spring, when I was making scrambled eggs one morning, or buttering toast, he was there in the creek. When I fed the wood stove against the cold and the little boys practiced letters and numbers, he was there. When I swept the floor, or loaded the washing machine, or tucked the boys into bed, all the while he was there.

As my boys grew so did this frog, near us, touched by the light from the windows in the evenings, or the rumble of the Red Flyer wagon as we pulled it past the creek. Sharing the same sunshine when the spring turned to summer, and witnessing the same thunderstorms playing across the sky. And I'm reminded of how all things are connected. How even when we sometimes can't see it, wonders exist right outside the front door.

In the United States, we've tried to ban the word "fat" and have replaced it with the word "obese." This may or may not be having much of an impact on our nation or our youth as our waistlines continue to get bigger (while our wallets become smaller!). One person I know quite well, however, was in denial about his weight as a teenager until he saw a doctor write the word "obese" on his report during the physical he was required to get before he left for college. That person, at that exact point, took charge of his weight and his life.

Stupid things banned by schools(click thumbnails to view gallery)

As for the UK, Primary Care Trusts, or PCTs, are being guided to measure children's height and weight at ages five and eleven. Parents can choose not to participate, and so can their children. In the event that both do choose to participate, the measurements will be sent by letter to the parents and not the children. Naturally, a good portion of the obese children are not participating in the measurements, thereby negating the attempt to correct the situation. Children as little as seven years of age are being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, which was unheard of in the UK a decade ago.

What do you think? Should we go back to calling people fat? Should we call them obese? Should we only be telling their parents? Is there a good approach to any of this? I'd have to go with a quote from Aaron Neville on this one: Tell it like it is.

Pic by bethography - melting mama.

Newsflash--what you're feeding your children when you take them out to dinner is not healthy! A new report says that kids meals at top chain restaurants are full of salt, fat and calories. The restaurants in question are the likes of McDonald's, Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Well, to quote the ten-year-old me, who really enjoyed the kids meal versions of those restaurants: DUH! Items on the kids menu noted and tested were, for example, country fried chicken from the Chili's menu and the "Wacky Pack' from Sonic containing a grilled cheese, fries and a slurpie. Ok, two things. One, how is it that ANYONE serves this stuff to their kids for dinner? And, two, how could it not be apparent that things like country fried chicken are fattening and full of calories? You don't have to be FROM the country to know that anything "country fried" ain't that good for you.

Of the thirteen chains and 1,474 meal combinations possible, 93% of the meals exceeded 430 calories, one third of the daily calories suggested for children between the ages of four and eight. Sonic, KFC and Jack in the Box responded that they are striving to include healthier options for kids meals. This is coming from the people who chose to offer soda and cheetos as part of a kids meal om the first place. The report provides all the more reason to eat in. Money is tight in this economy, and, yes, even I give in to the temptation of eating or ordering out, but I do so knowing the caloric cost. Making things at home is cheaper and gives you more control of what goes into a dish and into your kids' stomachs. And, honestly, a lot of times it's tastier too.

Pic of kids meal by OctopusHat.

Is it ok to set potty training deadlines? I mean for ourselves as well as our kids. Way back when it seems children were potty trained pretty quickly. Now, common wisdom holds you wait until the kid is at least three or that each child takes as long as necessary for that child to, er, get on the pot, so to speak. On the other side of the coin, though, many children must be potty trained in order to attend preschool or daycare.

But when is the right time? How do you tell when the right time is for your child? Also, with that in mind, is it ok to set goals, of any sort, for your child? I have a friend who decided she was spacing her children apart enough so that she would never have two babies in diapers at the same time. This would mean the first one would have to be toilet trained by the time the second one came along. No way of knowing whether or not that would be possible, of course, as every child is different, but it's a noble effort.

I would love it if my sixteen-month-old son were potty trained by the time he hit two years old. I don't know if this is realistic or laughable. I don't even know when a good time to get started on the training is. A colleague of mine, who is from another country, said that in her homeland the children started toilet training as soon as they were able to sit up on their own! She said she knew of kids as young as six months being potty trained! And why two years old for me as a deadline? I don't mind changing two sets of diapers, but I do mind the cost (if I go with disposables). Also, the thought of only one child in diapers at a time has its appeal. Finally, maybe what it all comes down to is that it just seems like the "right" time.

What about you? Did you set deadlines for potty training?

Pack the following day's meals the night before.