I woke Ella during the night last night for a trip to the bathroom. Rubbing her eyes, she looked up and said to me right away…

Clifford has a big bone.

I miss the days that I dreamed about a big red dog…

And today is Ella’s third birthday. To celebrate, here’s a video of her celebrating her team’s latest work. Ella was born just a few days after what we now call around here, “2004”. Nice to know that a few days after every Red Sox World Championship, we’ll have something else to celebrate.

But on to another thing I wanted to write about. I actually wanted to write this post after Game 3 of the World Series, but didn’t have time before the boys pulled it off. But here it goes anyway.

An Open Letter to Terry Francona

Dear Tito:

I felt the need to get this off my chest once Game 3 of the World Series was in the books. I really can’t stand the amount of heat you take in this town. The nail in the coffin was an EEI caller (of course) the morning of Game 4 absolutely blasting you—for moving Dustin Pedroia down into the #2 spot. Never mind the fact that your normal #2 was not starting because of NL rules… or the fact that Dustin hit #2 most of the year… or that the new #1 (Tacoby) was red hot (and ended up with four hits). No, he though your head should roll over that.

I figured you needed someone to say what needs to be said. That for many of us, you are the greatest Red Sox manager in our lifetime. The only people that might not be able to make that claim were alive for Joe Cronin’s clubs.

It is not just this fan base that has this sick sense of entitlement since they jumped on the bandwagon three years ago. It is some atrocious members of the media that think the sky is falling with every loss. It is some of the personalities you have to deal with on the club itself—but you have been a master at making that no longer an issue.

Just remember that while the loudest ones out there are the ones that criticize, it is the quiet ones that truly appreciate what you have done for this organization and for the region as a whole. I sincerely hope you’ll manage in this town as long as you can put up with us.

Thanks,
adam

Oh, and one more complaint about Red Sox fans. I figured there’d be some good discussion on talk radio the day after the Sox won it. I turned it on. After three straight callers talking about A-Rod, I turned it off and flipped on a podcast about Red Barber.

Thanks to Uncle Mike and Auntie Shannon for getting Ella her first mitt for Easter!

Us: Ella, what are you going to be for Halloween?

Ella: Two.

Happy Birthday, baby girl. (BTW, she’s going to be a pumpkin.)

My (nearly) two-year old, Ella, has an oat allergy. She also has a dairy allergy and a peanut allergy. The difference is, a lot of people have those two. There is a lot of information out there and ingredients on packaging are strongly pointed out. For oat allergies, however, hardly any information is out there because it is so rare.

A while back, Brian Oberkirch made a post titled Organic Approach for Organic Social Media. You’ll see there that I left a long comment.

Two months later, this hits my inbox:

Hello Adam,

I saw a post that you put up for “whole foods, Organic Approach for Organic Social Media” and I noticed that you refered to you having a daughter that is allergic to oats. I have a friend with a little girl that just turned one and is severly allergic to oats. She is having a lot of trouble finding information on the oat allergy because it is so rare. Is there any information that you could share with me about any of your findings? It would be much appriciated! Thank you!

Since receiving this, I have been exchanging what I found helps in dealing with this allergy, first with the author of the email and now eventually the child’s mom directly. I just find it interesting that leaving a comment on a blog can lead to this type of information sharing.

I’ve also been toying with the idea of starting a blog just about the oat allergy since there’s *nothing* out there about it currently. Of course, if I implemented ever idea I’ve ever had… I would say here that I wouldn’t sleep, but I barely do that now!

Like I said… I have a (nearly) two-year old.

Go See It!

I’ve posted fourteen of my 1700+ digital photos of my daughter Ella on Flickr. It’s a small sample of some of my favorites, but I really just wanted to catch up a bit as I start to upload more recent photos. Don’t want you guys to think I haven’t been taking photos until now. On the contrary… there are gigabytes!

Visit my Ella’s Greatest Hits Group!