True Ancestor: Middle Daughter Gets Bit

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Middle Daughter, possessed of a globe-trotting volunteer spirit, has become infected with something else: malaria.

Sometime during a couple of fun, eventful weeks teaching English in a small school in Tanzania; a brief "safari" (really just animal sight-seeing); and a Passover Seder in Dar es Salaam with most of the other Jews in the country), she must have been bitten by an infected mosquito. Despite having religiously taken her anti-malaria medication, she got the illness nonetheless.

People live with it and recover from it all the time. However, she won't be home until mid-May, at which time she faces gum surgery. Will they perform gum surgery on you if you have malaria?!

Having a kid that's sick on the other side of the world is a horribly helpless feeling. What can you do, short of helicopter parenting (of course, helicopters can't fly that far).

In other news, closer to home, Gabe continues to round into fine form as a left-handed pitcher. The neurosis surrounding the development of young baseball players has become so shrill, I e-mailed the coach of the Freshman baseball team at the high school Gabe will likely attend.

I asked him: Does a kid really have to play travel baseball and skip camp if he wants to play in high school? Does he really need lessons in this, that and the other? What does the parent of a 12-year-old who loves baseball need to do -- and not do?

To his credit, the coach said, 'Let him play and have fun. Don't worry about it.'

The coach was also Middle Daughter's gym teacher; he said to send his regards to her.

And I send her whatever healing vibes I can, in these anxious few weeks before she finally comes home.

--T.A.