1. K1 was all about the pink and the dolls when he was wee. We wondered, but didn't restrict at all. If, at some point, he had said he wanted to live as a girl, I was prepared to go there--I did think, when he was very early school-age, about how I would go about such a transition for him, if he were adamant. Heck, I even had an insane conversation with my sister in which she said (and she is probably more liberal than I about most things) I should probably be trying to curb this behavior and I said um hell no. He is who he is.

2. That cochlear implant controversy is no less real now than it was a decade ago, and making the decision for the child is no less difficult. My colleague is trying to balance things for her kid (implant, and sign, and speech therapy, and time in solely Deaf environments--it's a fairly complicated situation beyond all that) and it's a hell of a balancing act.