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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Summer solstice 2013: Longest day, best Mercury-spotting

This year's summer solstice,?Friday (June 21) at 1:04 a.m. EDT (0504 GMT), also features a rare chance to see Mercury, the planet usually obscured by the sun's glare.

By Geoff Gaherty,?Starry Night Education / Space.com / June 20, 2013

Land of the Midnight Sun: The sun sets just before 1 a.m. on June 16, 2013, in Anchorage, Alaska. Daylight in Anchorage will peak on Friday, June 21, with 19 hours, 21 minutes on the summer solstice.

Dan Joling / AP

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Don?t miss your chance to see Mercury in the night sky as the northern summer kicks off.

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The last few weeks have provided an unusually fine opportunity for stargazers to spot the elusive?planet Mercury?because the planet has been in close proximity to brilliant Venus, and, earlier, Jupiter as well. However, the opportunity is now coming to a close as Mercury passes its maximum elongation from the sun today (June 20) and begins its rapid drop towards the horizon, passing between Earth and the sun on July 9.?

For the next few nights, Mercury will be a tiny speck just below Venus. It is closest to Venus on July 20, slightly less than two degrees away, but will also be very close one night earlier or later.

The best time to see Mercury is about half an hour after local sunset. Any earlier, and it will be lost in the sky's glare but much later and it will be too low to see. It is most easily spotted with binoculars, but once you've located it, the planet should be relatively easy to see with the naked eye.

This week also marks the?summer solstice, on Friday (June 21) at 1:04 a.m. EDT (0504 GMT). The sun will reach its most northern declination, marking the middle of summer in the Northern Hemisphere and the middle of winter in the Southern Hemisphere.

Because the sun is as far north as it can get, it is above the horizon in the Northern Hemisphere as long as is possible. At local noon, it will be as high in the sky as it can get. These two factors combine to create the maximum solar heating possible in the hemisphere.

In the Southern Hemisphere, the opposite is true. The day is as short as it can get, and the sun is low in the northern sky, giving little warmth.

If June 21 is the "midsummer" or "midwinter" day, why is it that we always think of the seasons as beginning on this day? It's because it takes time for the sun to have its effect, causing the seasons to lag behind the sun, making the hottest days of summer (or the coldest days of winter) come a month or two after the solstice.

The solstices have always been important dates for humans. Most calendars mark the beginning of the year close to the winter solstice. Determining the exact date of the solstice was important to fix the calendar, and structures like?Stonehenge?in England were built to make accurate measurements of the sun?s rising and setting points.

Editor's note: If you snap an amazing photo of Mercury in the night sky, or any other celestial object, and you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, please send images and comments, including location information, to Managing Editor Tariq Malik at?spacephotos@space.com.

This article was provided to SPACE.com by?Starry Night Education, the leader in space science curriculum solutions. Follow Starry Night on Twitter?@StarryNightEdu. Follow us?@Spacedotcom,?Facebookand?Google+. Original article on?SPACE.com.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/science/~3/sU-bP7S-q1A/Summer-solstice-2013-Longest-day-best-Mercury-spotting

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Snowden's stealthy exit: How WikiLeaks and maybe Russia helped

The fugitive National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden has sprung yet another surprise. He's on the move, and reportedly traveling to Cuba, and then perhaps on to Venezuela or Ecuador, via Moscow.

Mr. Snowden left his temporary refuge in Hong Kong Sunday morning, just one day after the US government charged him with espionage and launched an urgent effort to extradite him from the former British colony. He boarded an Aeroflot flight to Moscow, and news reports say he has an onward ticket with the Russian national airline to fly to Cuba on Monday.

In addition to the clear suggestion of official Russian aid with the fleeing whistleblower's logistics, Snowden appears to have received help from a more kindred source. WikiLeaks tweeted Sunday that it had "assisted Mr. Snowden's political asylum in a democratic country, travel papers and safe exit from Hong Kong."

RECOMMENDED: Do you know anything about Russia? A quiz.

Kremlin authorities earlier hinted that Russia might be willing to grant asylum to Snowden. But President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists Sunday that he knows nothing about the NSA leaker's travel plans.

Authorities in Hong Kong announced Snowden's departure Sunday in an official statement that noted he had left "on his own accord for a third country through a lawful and normal channel," and added that US authorities had already been informed.

The statement said the urgent US warrant to arrest Snowden could not be carried out "since the documents provided by the US Government did not fully comply with the legal requirements under Hong Kong law.... As the HKSAR [Hong Kong] Government has yet to have sufficient information to process the request for provisional warrant of arrest, there is no legal basis to restrict Mr Snowden from leaving Hong Kong."

The statement included an extraordinary passage that may go far toward explaining why Hong Kong, which does have an extradition treaty and good relations with the US, appears to have turned so uncooperative in Snowden's case: "Meanwhile, the HKSAR Government has formally written to the US Government requesting clarification on earlier reports about the hacking of computer systems in Hong Kong by US government agencies. The HKSAR Government will continue to follow up on the matter so as to protect the legal rights of the people of Hong Kong."

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said in a statement Sunday that his organization was providing legal and logistical help to move Snowden to a safe haven in a "democratic country."

"Mr. Snowden is flying in an Aeroflot aircraft over Russian airspace, accompanied by WikiLeaks legal advisers," Mr. Assange said.

Upon arrival in Moscow he will be "met by diplomats from the country that will be his ultimate destination. Diplomats from that country will accompany him on a further flight to his destination," he added. The third country is still not named, but experts say it's most likely to be Venezuela or Ecuador.

"Owing to WikiLeaks' own circumstances, we have developed significant expertise in international asylum and extradition law, associated diplomacy and the practicalities in these matters," Assange said. "I have great personal sympathy for Ed Snowden's position. WikiLeaks absolutely supports his decision to blow the whistle on the mass surveillance of the world's population by the US government."

Snowden's latest revelations, published in Hong Kong's South China Morning Post on Sunday, indicate that US intelligence agencies have been hacking Chinese mobile phone companies to steal millions of text messages.

Russian security expert Andrei Soldatov, who edits Agentura.ru, an online journal that focuses on the secret services, says that in addition to granting Snowden safe passage to Cuba on an Aeroflot jetliner, Russia may have played a deeper role in helping to arrange his flight.

He suggests that the Kremlin's English-language satellite news network, RT, which enjoys very close relations with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, could have used its offices to help Wikileaks hook up with Snowden in Hong Kong,

"There are reports that Assange's assistant, Sarah Harrison, is flying on the same plane with Snowden," says Mr. Soldatov. "Involvement of RT would make sense, since RT has close cooperation with Assange, and he did a series of programs for them last year [Russia gives WikiLeaks' Julian Assange a TV platform]. The involvement of WikiLeaks requires no explanation. It wants to maintain itself as the key center for all disclosures of the kind that Snowden brought to the world," he adds.

Soldatov says Russian assistance is also logical, for wider reasons than just an opportunity to stick it to Uncle Sam.

"Russia and China have been involved in a so-far unsuccessful struggle to change the rules of the Internet, by taking control of it away from the US-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and giving its functions to a wider, non-US-based entity," he says.

"The Russians and Chinese have been posing, for these purposes, as big defenders of Internet freedom. This political context helps to explain RT's close relations with WikiLeaks as well.... So, it makes sense for them to help Snowden too. Russian authorities see an opportunity to present themselves as the new center of refuge for whistleblowers against US dominance in Cyberspace. It's a coup for them," he adds.

RECOMMENDED: Do you know anything about Russia? A quiz.

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Monday, June 24, 2013

10 Things to Know for Monday

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Monday:

1. EDWARD SNOWDEN IS ON THE RUN

The NSA leaker flees Hong Kong for a layover in Moscow before he'll to fly to Cuba and then seek asylum in Ecuador, WikiLeaks says.

2. NELSON MANDELA IN CRITICAL CONDITION

"The doctors are doing everything possible to get his condition to improve," South African President Jacob Zuma says.

3. WHY THE TALIBAN KILLED 11 MOUNTAIN CLMBERS

The Pakistani group said the deaths of the 10 tourists and their guide are revenge for a U.S. drone strike that killed a Taliban leader.

4. DAREDEVIL CROSSES GORGE ON TIGHTROPE

Nik Wallenda walked on a 2-inch-thick steel cable, 1,500 feet above a river near the Grand Canyon.

6. KERRY PRESSES INDIA ON GLOBAL WARMING

"The irreversible climate challenge is speeding toward us, crying out for a global solution," the U.S. secretary of state says.

6. SUPREME COURT'S OPTIONS ON GAY MARRIAGE

The justices could strike down state laws that limit marriage to heterosexual couples, uphold gay marriage bans, or say nothing meaningful on the issue.

7. AFGHAN BOMB SCHOOL FIGHTS WAR'S LEADING KILLER

Hundreds of soldiers train to disarm Taliban-planted bombs that kill and maim thousands each year.

8. GIRL SCOUTS NEED MORE THAN A FRIENDSHIP CIRCLE

Their woes include declining membership and revenues, a dearth of volunteers, and rifts between leadership and members.

9. WHAT MEDICS LEARNED FROM GETTYSBURG

A Union Army doctor introduced the ideas of an ambulance corps and three tiers of field hospitals.

10. TWINKIES TO MAKE A SWEET COMEBACK

Hostess reopens its factory and plans to have the snack cakes back on shelves July 15.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/10-things-know-monday-104352258.html

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Taliban offer adds urgency to Idaho POW rally

HAILEY, Idaho (AP) ? The tearful mother of the only known U.S. prisoner of war said Saturday she's feeling "very optimistic" about his eventual release after his Taliban captors offered last week to exchange him for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl's mother, Jani Bergdahl, spoke to about 2,000 people gathered in Hailey, his hometown, in a city park where he played as a toddler and little boy.

About 400 in the crowd arrived astride motorcycles, adorned in leather and patches commemorating America's military missing in action.

Bowe Bergdahl, 27, was taken prisoner in Afghanistan on June 30, 2009. First Jani Bergdahl, then his father, Bob Bergdahl, who accompanied the motorcycle procession on his son's 1978 dirt bike, spoke for a combined 15 minutes about rejuvenated hopes that their son's now-four-year ordeal will soon come to a joyful close.

"We are feeling very optimistic this week," his mother, before addressing her son directly. "Bowe, we love you, we support you, and are eagerly awaiting your return home. I love you my son, as I have, from the first moment I heard of you, the never-ending, unconditional love a mother has for her child."

Buses also brought POW-MIA activists to the event from as far as Elko, Nev., some 230 miles to the south.

Though yellow ribbons on Main Street trees and "Bring Bowe Home" placards in Hailey shop windows are a constant reminder of the 27-year-old Bergdahl's captivity, organizers of the event said the Taliban offer has lent an addition element of urgency ? and hope ? to Saturday's gathering.

Many in the crowd said they were Vietnam veterans; some of them supported the proposed prisoner exchange without reservation.

"Give them their guys and get our guy home," said David Blunt, of Elko, Nev., who said he served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam as a medic. "Bring our guy home. He's suffered enough."

Bergdahl is believed held somewhere in Pakistan, but the Taliban said they would free him in exchange for five of their most senior operatives at Guantanamo Bay, the American installation on the southeastern tip of Cuba that's housed suspected terrorists following the Sept. 11 attacks.

The militant group's exchange proposition came just days ahead of possible talks between a U.S. delegation and Taliban members.

Bergdahl's father, Bob Bergdahl, urged those gathered at Hailey's Hop Porter Park to remember everyone, regardless of nationality, who had suffered during the 12-year conflict in Afghanistan that began following the Sept. 11 attacks.

He described his son as "part of the peace process."

"I wish she was the only mother that was suffering in that way," Bob Bergdahl said of his wife. "Mothers all over the world are suffering because of this war, and I don't forget that for even one day."

He addressed his son's captors in Pashto, the Afghan language he's learned since Bowe Bergdahl went missing.

Bob Bergdahl, who has grown a beard and wore all black at Saturday's event, said that while he is physically in Idaho, he's living vicariously through his son, having set his cell phone to Afghan time, in a bid to share as much as he can his son's experience in exile.

Both mother and father talked of Bergdahl as an adventurer, a young man who once helped crew a sailboat through the Panama Canal, disembarked in San Francisco and then rode a bicycle south along the Pacific Ocean to meet family in Santa Barbara, Calif., 350 miles away.

He joined the military at 22 because "he honestly thought he could help the people of Afghanistan," Bob Bergdahl said.

On June 6, the family said it received its first letter from their son in his handwriting in four years, ferried through the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The circumstances of his capture aren't completely clear, though U.S. officials on July 2, 2009, told The Associated Press a soldier had been taken after walking off his base following his duty shift. For some of the motorcycle riders who participated Saturday, those details are something to be sifted through later, after Bergdahl is safely in the arms of his family.

"He didn't go over there on his own," said Randy Danner, a former U.S. Air Force member from Mountain Home, who rode his motorbike to Hailey with a group called the Green Knights. "No matter the circumstances, for our men and women over there who have put themselves in harm's way, we have a duty to support them in any way we can."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/taliban-offer-adds-urgency-idaho-pow-rally-081600377.html

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Sunday, June 23, 2013

Western, Arab states to step up Syrian rebel support

By Yara Bayoumy and Amena Bakr

DOHA (Reuters) - International opponents of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad agreed on Saturday to give urgent military support to Western-backed rebels, aiming to stem a counter-offensive by Assad's forces and offset the growing power of jihadist fighters.

Assad's recapture of the strategic border town of Qusair, spearheaded by Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, and an expected assault on the divided northern city of Aleppo have alarmed supporters of the Syrian opposition.

The U.S. administration has responded by saying, for the first time, it would arm rebels, while Gulf sources say Saudi Arabia has accelerated the delivery of advanced weapons to the rebels over the last week.

Ministers from the 11 core members of the Friends of Syria group, agreed "to provide urgently all the necessary materiel and equipment to the opposition on the ground," according to a statement released at the end of their meeting in Qatar.

The statement did not commit all the countries to send weapons, but said each country could provide assistance "in its own way, in order to enable (the rebels) to counter brutal attacks by the regime and its allies".

The aid should be channeled through the Western-backed Supreme Military Council, a move that Washington and its European allies hope will prevent weapons falling into the hands of Islamist radicals including the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.

Ministers from the Friends group - which includes Western and Arab states as well as Turkey - also condemned "the intervention of Hezbollah militias and fighters from Iran and Iraq", demanding they withdraw immediately.

As well as fighting in Qusair, Hezbollah is deployed alongside Iraqi gunmen around the Shi'ite shrine of Sayyida Zainab, south of Damascus, while Iranian military commanders are believed to be advising Assad's officers on counter-insurgency.

SAUDI SPEEDS UP SUPPORT

Two Gulf sources told Reuters that Saudi Arabia, which started supplying anti-aircraft missiles to the rebels on a small scale two months ago, had accelerated delivery of sophisticated weaponry.

"In the past week there have been more arrivals of these advanced weapons. They are getting them more frequently," one source said, without giving details. Another Gulf source described them as "potentially balance-tipping" supplies.

French military advisers are already training the rebels to use some of the new equipment in Turkey and Jordan, sources familiar with the training programs said. U.S. forces have been carrying out similar training, rebels say.

Rebel fighters say they need anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons to stem the fightback by Assad's forces in a civil war that has killed 93,000 people, driven 1.6 million refugees abroad and cost tens of billions of dollars in destruction of property, businesses and infrastructure.

Louay Meqdad, spokesman for the Supreme Military Council led by former Syrian army general Salim Idriss, said it had received several batches of weapons.

"They are the first consignments from one of the countries that support the Syrian people and there are clear promises from Arab and foreign countries that there will be more during the coming days," he told Reuters Television in Istanbul.

A French diplomatic source said Paris would increase non-lethal aid such as communications equipment, gas masks, night vision goggles and bullet proof vests. It would also provide assistance with military strategy and battlefield intelligence.

"All this has already started," a Western source said. "Broadly speaking, Western nations will do this, while Gulf Arab nations will deliver the weapons. It's a division of roles.

"If the northern front receives enough material and non-material support quickly, it could soon be equivalent to thousands of men, or even tens of thousands," the source added.

Idriss himself told Al-Jazeera International television on Saturday that his men were still lacking "effective air defense" against Assad's planes and helicopters.

"That's why we are asking for shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles ... and anti-tank missiles, modern ones with long range," he said. "We need it yesterday ... because the regime is trying to recapture the whole country."

The increasingly sectarian dynamic of the war pits mainly Sunni Muslim rebels against forces loyal to Assad - who is from the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam - and has split the Middle East along Sunni-Shi'ite lines.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Hezbollah's role transformed the conflict "into a much more volatile, potentially explosive situation that could involve the entire region".

"Hezbollah is a proxy for Iran, supported by Iran, and obviously Hezbollah has decided to become involved in this in a very, very significant way," he said, declining to give details about what weapons Washington might provide to Syria.

Tehran, which says it supports Assad economically and politically, criticized the Doha participants.

"If a meeting leads to weapons being put in the hands of mercenaries and terrorists in Syria, prolonging the killing in Syria and bringing destruction, we are against it," ISNA news agency quoted Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi as saying.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani of Qatar, which along with Saudi Arabia has been one of the most open Arab backers of the anti-Assad rebels, said that supplying them with weapons was the only way to resolve the conflict.

"Force is necessary to achieve justice. And the provision of weapons is the only way to achieve peace in Syria's case," Sheikh Hamad told ministers at the start of the talks.

The meeting in Qatar brought together ministers and senior officials of countries that support the rebels - France, Germany, Egypt, Italy, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Britain and the United States - although the fractured Syrian opposition itself was notably absent.

Sheikh Hamad said all but two countries had agreed on the kind of support to provide to the rebels. He did not name the dissenters, but Germany and Italy have both said in the past they oppose arming the rebel brigades.

The United States and Russia, which back opposing sides in the conflict, hope to bring them together for negotiations originally scheduled to be held in Geneva this month but now unlikely to take place before August.

In northern Syria, rebels announced an offensive on Saturday that they said aimed to capture the western districts of the city of Aleppo from government forces.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported heavy clashes near the town of Safirah, south-east of Aleppo, as Assad's forces sought to secure a supply line north towards the city from the central province of Hama.

In Damascus, the army sustained a bombardment of the eastern rebel-held district of Qaboun and soldiers clashed with rebels in the Barzeh district, the Britain-based Observatory said.

(Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton in Doha, Ayhan Uyanik in Istanbul, John Irish in Paris and Yeganeh Torbati in Dubai; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/putin-warns-arming-syrian-rebels-conflict-widens-083445291.html

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JJ Keith: When Parenthood Makes You Want to Scream

When out and about with my kids, people sometimes tell me, "Cherish them while they're little," or "You'll look back on this time fondly." Half of the time I think, Of course! My precious love dumplings are going to grow up so much faster than I can imagine and someday I will desperately miss this time of being so wholly symbiotic with these spoils of love. And the rest of the time, I want to snarl, "If you want something to cherish, then why don't you get over here and wipe a butt, pal." Even on the calmest day of parenting my two complicated, unpredictable and baffling children, my feelings are contradictory: I don't want to ever be away from my kids, except for all the times that I desperately want to be away from my kids. And, actually, I can feel both things simultaneously.

I first realized the intensity of that duality one day a few years back, when, with the jolliest of intentions, I packed my then 2-year-old daughter and my 6-month-old son into the car and set off for a nearby kid's museum. It was a sunny day, warm enough for my toddler to gambol around in the museum's artificial creek and for my baby to get in some primo kid watching. But then, like so many of my best laid plans, it went awry... and quickly.

As soon as we got there, we made a beeline for the toddler play room, where, not five minutes into our visit, my daughter pushed a newly walking baby down, and it was not an accident. Trying to be a good parent, I knelt down to her level with my baby in the sling and cooly said, "No. You cannot push babies. No pushing." Totally in control, I removed her from that part of the museum and took a snack break so she could reconnect with her inner honey bear.

We moved on to wading in the creek, but as soon as we got to its cement banks, my baby began crying with DEFCON 1 intensity. Before having kids, I didn't understand how deeply affecting a baby's cry is, how completely it frazzles a parent's brain. When one of my babies is crying, I can't deal with my keys not fitting easily in a lock, my misplaced water bottle or a sticky stroller brake -- and I sure as shit can't deal with a misbehaving toddler. Their cries have an almost magical ability to empty my brain of any thought other than them, which I suppose is the point of a baby's cry.

As my son continued to wail, I checked his diaper (clean and dry), offered him a pacifier (he spat it out), felt his forehead (cool), burped him (no burps) and even made that shushing white noise sound that the Happiest Baby on the Block guy does (no dice). Meanwhile, my toddler was yanking on my pant leg and whining because she wanted me to take her clothes off so she could play naked -- something that would surely result in us getting 86'd from the kids' museum, which would not be a memory that I cherished.

We were already struggling, but then my toddler saw an older boy throwing rocks in the water and copied him with her inferior aim, nearly hitting a little girl. The look of horror on the mother of the girl's face was quite justified. I knelt down to my toddler with my screaming baby still on my hip and firmly said, "No. No throwing rocks. See that girl? You could hit her and it would hurt. Don't throw rocks." My daughter screeched, pulled away and hurled rocks in every direction like a maniac. Clutching my wailing baby in one arm, I caught my toddler by the shoulder. I pried the rocks out of her meaty little fist and went in an inch from her face and seethed, "We're leaving since you can't play nicely." I fastened my still-screaming baby in the stroller and stuffed the tantruming toddler into the sling, even though my toddler belonged in the stroller and my baby in the sling. (All I could think was CRYING.) Steering the stroller with one hand, I got my two sobbing children out of the museum and back to the car. It was an epic three-way meltdown; certainly one of the less pleasant hours of my life.

I wasn't always chill when I only had one kid, but that first year with two was brutal. It was nearly impossible to stay on top of my daughter while also taking care of her baby brother.

On the way home, my toddler was so contrite that I felt like a mean old bully for not giving her another warning before bailing. She repeated, "No throw rocks. Sorry. No throw." But my baby had no such regrets (by virtue of being a baby), and wailed during the entire drive home. I reached back to offer pacifiers and bottles. I patted his head, shushed and cooed, but he wouldn't let up. And so, three blocks from home, as I was stuck trying to make an unprotected left at a dysfunctional Los Angeles intersection, as one kid sob-chanted her apology, as the other one wailed for reasons I just couldn't figure out, I screamed. I screamed like the banshees of yore, screamed like a lady who might need to reconsider the importance of "fun outings" with her toddler and baby. It was a scream that demarcated "losing it" from "lost it." When I finally stopped to take a breath, I heard that my scream had, of course, frightened the kids, resulting in more screaming (which I deserved).

I once wrote something about how annoying it is when people without kids judge parents. A friend rightfully pointed out that no, everyone can have opinions about parenting because we have all been parented, even if we haven't become parents ourselves. This is true, but after deliberating for a few years, I've decided that much walking of many (mountainous) miles must be done before one can say to a parent with certainty, "I would never do that." For one thing, I was sure that I would never go to Crocs's website for any purpose other than to mock the "shoes," but damn, dude, one day they were having a hell of a sale, I got free shipping and those plastic monstrosities are perfect for little kids. The crow, I am eating it and not just because of aesthetically bankrupt footwear choices.

When we finally got home from the museum that day, when we'd all stopped crying, I busted out our dirty, misshapen kiddie pool and let my toddler romp around in a few inches of water. She was naked as a cherub and shrieking with delight. I dipped my toes in as my baby nursed. The three of us shared a pouch of pureed mangos. We chatted about pee-pee, potties and bunnies. My baby licked my neck like a kitten (he still does that now as a 2-year-old -- it's one of his quirks).

Sometimes, the most pleasant things come after the least pleasant things, like all the bad feelings get used up and all that's left is not necessarily joy, but at least contentment. However we came by it, that afternoon was sunny, we were together and I cherish it.

A version of this appeared on JJ Keith's blog.

Follow JJ Keith on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jj_keith

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jj-keith/when-parenthood-makes-you_b_3322774.html

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