The Tooth Fairy's Been Busy

Teeth

No teeth.

Happy Birthday, Grandma!!!!!!!!!!!!

We hope you have a great day. We're glad we got to see you dance at the state fair. We had a terrific day. See -

Tweaked

Yeah, that is OBaby's new word. Last night we were talking about "movie magic" (how they make things that didn't really happen look like they happened). She said, "Oh, yeah, they took a picture of him jumping, then tweaked it a little to make it look like he jumped over the whole pool." Um, yeah, they did, but how did she know tweaked?

"I just thought it seemed like the right word."


All I can say is that I sincerely hope her first grade teacher is up for the challenge.

What 4 Years Old Looks Like

New TB Testing Keeping Kids, not TB, out of the US

The USCIS (Immigration) and the Center for Disease Control have enacted new regulation for the testing of TB in immigrant populations. While the desire to protect US citizens from being exposed to TB is certainly a need, there has been an unintended consequence to the new regulation. Children legally adopted by US citizens are being denied their visas. One of these children is the newly adopted daughter of my coworker who is in Ethiopia right now, trying to figure out how to bring his child home. She does NOT have TB, but she must be tested, and the test results take at least 6 weeks. She had been legally adopted before her parents were told she would need to be tested. So now, they are the legal parents of a child who cannot enter the US. They are with her now, and naturally do not want to have to leave her, but at the same time, they will eventually have to return to the US because they have to work and they have a 2 year old son (also from Ethiopia) waiting at home.

All medical evidence indicates that children AT LEAST up to age 7 are NOT contagious, EVEN if they have active TB AND after 2-4 weeks of treatment NO ONE is contagious. The new regulations do not apply to citizen children who live abroad, even if they live in TB epidemic areas. Also there are no rules to prevent someone with active TB from entering the US on a tourist visa. Please consider signing the petition below. It only takes a couple of minutes and while it may not affect you personally, it is affecting my friend and his family.- Please feel free to forward this on- the more people who voice their concerns the more likely to get a solution that protects both the child and the country.

Build Families, Not Barriers Petition