I’ve noticed a trend among parents I know with young children lately—the phenomenon of the parent finding a little bit of pre-child person in themselves again. One dad I know has taken up running 5K races, another couple has both taken up running half-marathons. Ok, so that’s a wee bit overly ambitious for me, but then I wasn’t a runner before I had a child so it’s not likely I’m going to be a runner now. I returned to horseback riding this spring and for that one afternoon a week it’s like I’m my old self again. Before marriage, before child, before post child weight gain that while it went away left my body a completely different shape than it started. It’s nice to remember that the person you started out as is still in there for a few minutes.

Okay I admit before a few weeks ago I had never heard of Ralph’s World (www.ralphsworld.com), headed up by Ralph Covert, a long hair rock star with an electric guitar whose groupies are mostly between the ages of two and five.

            I confess, since then, I have found myself singing along and rooting for Edward the Tap Dancing Elephant as he questions whether he’d made it to stardom.

I dropped Will off at school this morning for what will be his first day back after what I think was a cold, but who knows given the current germ climate around here. Everywhere I turn lately someone thinks they have the H1N1, their child has croup, their child might have H1N1 or they have the plain old flu.