Nov. 9-13 Flu activity: There were few reported absences because of flu-like illness in Bayfield and Durango schools.

Thursday: In-school vaccination clinics in Miller Middle School and Ignacio junior and senior schools.

Friday: In-school vaccination clinics in Bayfield and Durango high schools.

Saturday: 4:30-7 p.m., La Plata County Fairgrounds Extension Building.

Populations: Children 14 years and younger*; people as old as 64 with chronic health conditions; pregnant women; parents, siblings or day care providers of children 6 months and younger.

*Call San Juan Basin Health to find out if vaccine availability has expanded additional eligible populations. FluLine: 247-5702 ext. 1520. Web site, www.sjbhd.org.

The following is from columnist and blogger Rachel Turiel:

Today is Prematurity Awareness Day. Hundreds of bloggers have dedicated their cyber-platforms to the topic of prematurity today. This is our story:

I used to be scared of flying. The mysterious creaks and clatters of take-off unleashed a surge of adrenaline and the thought “that’s the airplane wing, detaching.” I learned to watch the flight attendants; surely if something was amiss, their faces would reveal it.

It was like this too in the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit), where my son Col (rhymes with soul) spent his first 101 days. The nurses were my barometer of safety. They knew Col better than I, and for much of Col’s time incarcerated in an incubator, it seemed he belonged partially to them and partially to some otherworldly force, like he was still tethered to the invisible weave of the entire universe. (My mom used to say to Col when he was a just a wide-eyed crumb of a human, “You’re so wise now. Soon you’ll be forget everything and become very silly”).

Col was born in the dark night of a new moon under florescent lights in a room containing no less than 14 people. Dan snipped his umbilical cord in a brief moment of normalcy before Col was whisked to the neonatologists table, where 6 angels in green scrubs performed modern magic on Col’s tiny body. After my clinging placenta was torn from my uterus by a resident who looked like she’d just graduated high school, I fell into a quick, dreamless sleep. It wasn’t until the next morning that I saw my firstborn; the child who—born at 25 weeks gestation—should still have been back-flipping through the salty water of my womb. This doll-sized baby, my son, had a ventilator plunged down his impossibly narrow trachea and an IV threaded into his bead of a bellybutton. Another IV was sunk into his arm, which was barely 5 inches long and the width of my ring finger. His head was covered in slick hair of indeterminate color, and his eyes were not yet opened. Lanugo—that embryonic fur of the womb—covered his body. He was 13 inches long and 1 pound, 12 ounces. Read more.

With winter clearly upon us, I remembered this plea from local mom Audrey Crane on behalf of the Family Center:

They actually have a waiting list of children who need winter coats and boots. I brought smaller items, since my kids are small and so what they outgrow is even smaller, but they also need stuff for older kids. In particular there are 3 teenaged boys on the waiting list, who could even take a smaller men’s coat. So if your husband is a smaller man and has something he doesn’t wear, they may be able to put it to use.

 So if you’re cleaning out your kids’ closet, this organization would be a very worthy recipient. The center can be reached by calling 385-4747.

Below is a post about a “nomadic family” that appeared in the New York Times’ Frugal Traveler blog. I can’t say something like this hasn’t crossed my mind. Especially when I did this story last year about local homeschoolers, many of whom talked about taking extended trips with no concern for the school calendar. For those of us in the rat race, those two weeks of vacation go like the blink of an eye. And time and money pressures are shrinking American vacations even further. You’ve gotta admire families that throw caution to the wind and the bags in the trunk.

Q&A With Jeanne Dee, the Nomadic Family Traveler

By MATT GROSS

Stories about traveling with children – like my column last week on taking my daughter, Sasha, on a frugal day trip to Washington, D.C.— always generate intense reader responses. For every positive comment (“Thanks for the great post!” wrote bklngirly), there’s invariably a negative one (“Maybe a visit from Child Protective Services is in order!” wrote Ellen Domeir). Which is why I’m amazed by SoulTravelers3.com, which chronicles the adventures of the Dee family — Jeanne, 57, Vince, 56, and their 9-year-old daughter, “Mozart” (they prefer not to give her real name).

The Dees travel the world on a budget, with no end in sight — “like summer vacation forever,” as Ms. Dee put it. Read more.

As I mentioned when I started this blog about a half a year ago, it is an experiment born out of my desire to commune with other parents about the issues that matter to us most. Over the months I’ve learned a lot about your interests and concerns and am happy to report that readership has continued a slow march upward. But this remains a labor of love (I volunteered to assume it on top of my regular reporter duties and so my compensation is in kudos, which don’t buy groceries but do build job satisfaction), and I find myself constantly wishing I could give it more love than I have time for.

So in the interest of providing you with consistently fresh, interesting and pertinent material, I’m seeking guest bloggers. This could be people who would contribute once, occasionally or regularly. The subject could be an event, activity or issue. Posters can offer advice or solicit it (on sensitive subjects I could honor requests to withhold identification if that was the only way to bring a worthy subject to light). If you run an organization that serves children or families, here would be a great place to let people know what’s going on. It would be nice, too, to get the voices of parents of teens or tweens on here because I feel I’ve neglected them. Ultimately I think this will be a great way to open the conversation and bring in a broader spectrum of perspectives. If you think you might be interested, click here to send me a private message. I look forward to hearing from you.