I like this recipe for pasta sauce. It's very similar to my mom's. I have to try it with the sage. I think pasta is back in vogue.
Yes, I'm guilty of checking my e-mail, while running on the treadmill. Gotta stop that. The multitasking backlash intensifies. Check out these cute coffee shops that are all about the coffee and conversation and not the laptop.
Redshirting increases. Jonah, a June baby, is the youngest kid in his class.
Apt. 11d 
My birthday is in July so I was always among the youngest in my classes. I liked it, and am certainly glad I didn’t wait a year. While there might be individual cases where staying back a year could be helpful, I suspect it’s a silly fad that does more harm than good in most cases. (If you’re younger than most, you might drive to school less, go out late less, go to bars less, etc. So, it may well be safer, too.)
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There was an article earlier about the youngest children in a grade disproportionately getting the ADHD label:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-08-17-1Aadhd17_ST_N.htm
The youngest children in a grade are 60% more likely to get an ADHD diagnosis than the oldest children in the grade.
I have a June birthday and I don’t think it ultimately did me any harm being one of the youngest kids in my class, although I think I was fidgety and inattentive in early elementary school, and being younger probably only aggravated the situation. My 8-year-old has a July birthday. While she breezes through her academics, she has trouble with attention and handwriting (she has the pencil grip of a bear cub and I am planning to ask her 3rd grade teacher if occupational therapy is in order). Possibly this stuff would be less of an issue if she were a little older, possibly not. It’s definitely a relief that her younger brother has a March birthday so he’s entering kindergarten at nearly 5 and a half.
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My younger sister has a late, late December birthday and was almost certainly the youngest in her class (redshirting not having been a phenomenon in the late paleolithic when she was in school). She was also her high school class’ valedictorian.
The administration at my youngest sister’s Catholic school pressured my dad and stepmom to keep her back a year (do it or leave the school was the bottom line, I think). She was completely bouncing off the wall by the end of high school (at 18+) and thinks it was a net harm to her.
Anecdata, but I’m not holding mine back.
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I skipped a grade, so I was definitely the youngest. That said, I was a Feb birthday in a school with a Dec cutoff, so I wasn’t *that* young. My best friend, for complicated reasons that had nothing to do with academic performance, had actually been held back, so she was a year and a half older than me.
My kids are both among the youngest in class, being June/July birthdays. I had thought about having E skipped, but with all his AS issues, it didn’t seem best to move him to a more challenging social situation. I thought perhaps he would prefer having the greater academic challenges, but his psychologist pointed out he’d probably master those too and still be bored and acting out.
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“My kids are both among the youngest in class, being June/July birthdays.”
Teacher/professor babies might disproportionately cluster in the summer and late spring months, making them especially likely to be relatively young compared to classmates if not redshirted.
There might also be a post 9/11 blip. As I recall, when my daughter (a July 2002 birthday) was in preschool in Washington, DC, just about half her classmates had either June or July birthdays.
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“Teacher/professor babies might disproportionately cluster in the summer and late spring months”
Yep. My daughter was planned. E wasn’t…. But I do call him my 9/11 baby. I haven’t told this story? Short version: I was trying to get pregnant in August 2001. I was a day late on 9/11, but by the end of the night, I’d gotten my period (or had an early miscarriage–I was pretty ill for 3 days with worse-than-usual cramping). Then, I decided to go back on the pill and we used backup… except one night we didn’t. I assume. I really don’t remember. And in early November, I tested pregnant.
I also have a story about Rite Aid, teenagers trying to buy alcohol, and me buying a pregnancy test, but I’ll spare you all that one. 🙂 I’ll just leave you with the knowledge that in Maine, you can buy alcohol in a Rite Aid.
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I’ll just leave you with the knowledge that in Maine, you can buy alcohol in a Rite Aid.
That is easily in the 95th percentile of cheerfulness for knowledge.
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