Leo Clement

If there is a will... Leo will find the way! Every week, every day, and every hour, his brain is learning, growing and developing. So is his body. It's so awesome to watch. Recent skills of his include totally mastering sitting. He sits independently and is able to rotate his torso all over the place and keep his balance. Today at church the real test came when his loving sister dropped a pillow on his head and he didn't move a muscle, other then those he uses to laugh hysterically with, that is. Yeah, he's a tough dude, and on top of that he is into slapstick humor big time. Can't wait to watch my favorite Chaplin films with him! Other nifty things he has learned lately is to throw stuff, dump stuff out, and roll stuff across the floor. And all the stuff eventually ends up doing time in Leo's mouth. He's teething again, 'nuff said! Another skill is being better and stronger at standing. He spends a couple hours a day on his feet, whether it be in his ...

It's no coincidence that Thanksgiving takes place towards the end of one of the most difficult months of the year. And if you don't think so, then you definitely don't live in the northeast. Here, November is usually grey and drab: the strange place when the trees are bare and colorless, and the ground is frozen but not yet blanketed in a muffling robe of white snow. Known as the most sunless month, November is when the reality of a long cold winter starts to set in for keeps. Last November was pretty brutal for us. Between fighting seasonal viruses and depression from lack of sunlight, we were also gripped by the fears surrounding Leo's future, or lack thereof at the time. It was a bleak time and finding something to be thankful for was next to impossible. This year, it's easier to be thankful. But I still somehow manage to find my way into the classroom that belongs to the School of Hard Knocks. Once you have been accepted there, you are there for a good chunk...

Eyes: so essential, so precious, and so taken for granted. They are the "windows to your soul," and can express a plethora of emotion and feeling, in addition to the essential function of relating and translating the world in which we move. Eyes are the instruments of our perception, the gauge for our knowledge and the judge of our insights. The thought of losing that precious ability is one that is so horrifying to me, as an artist, that my lizard brain doesn't even dare to feature that even in a nightmare. My mind just doesn't go there . So that's why I'm calling docs and dragging Leo to appointments because there is no way that I will let him lose that gift. I mentioned previously that he was diagnosed with something called Bilateral Six Nerve Palsy. I actually have no idea what this really means, other then what wikipedia tells me . Unfortunately, rather then the straightforward case of simple cross eyes, which is a pretty easy fix, this is someth...

 We are all acquainted with the right brain, left brain terminology. Like we all know that all those doctors and lawyers and other success savvy folks are left brained, and that all the artsy fartsy, and "creative," or in other words, broke, people are using mostly their right brain. Well, a couple days ago, I was introduced to a theory that turned all the other right brain/left brain stuff on to its head. This theory, oddly enough (or not, because it's me after all), starts with horses. I know, here some of you who know me well enough to have sat through hours of horse talk, will roll your eyes and scroll down to see the pictures. The rest of you? You might as well read the post. Who knows, maybe it will spark a horsey interest, or at least some new trivia facts. To start, the brain has many sections and parts that work together and independently to keep us up and running, but to simplify the anatomy here, our cortex is divided into two hemispheres. They are connect...

Or something like that. I've been a little bit behind on posting up recent vids of the little lion man, so here are a couple in one go. Since the filming of these, he has progressed to saying mama pretty clearly and also meow when we prompt with "where's kitty," and many other sounds that could almost be words in Russian. It only stands to reason that the baby that was thought to be a non-responsive vegetable will be bi-lingual. That's our Leo for ya! Oh yeah, since this vid, his nickname for Nika is pretty much always: "Ahhh!?!"