Speak Up for SAY

Mattel Toy Company is suing Super Duper Publications, makers of products for children with special needs, for their use of the words "SAY" and "AND SAY" in seven registered trademark product titles. Super Duper Publications have been making speech and language therapy products for children with autism and other disorders for over 20 years.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered Super Duper to pay $1 million of its profits and $2.6 million in attorney's fees to Mattel, a $5.4 billion a year company, to remove SAY and AND SAY from seven product titles, and destroy $500,000 of special needs products because they have the words SAY and AND SAY on them.

Why would Mattel do this? Because in 2004, Mattel decided people were likely to become confused between Super Duper's SAY therapy materials and a toy Mattel made in 1963 called SEE 'N SAY.

Large business trademark abuse like this must stop. Please help change this situation by contacting Mattel and speaking your voice to have the courts vacate the judgment against Super Duper. Also, we will no longer be purchasing any Mattel toys in light of this poor decision. Do your part and speak up for SAY!

http://www.speakupforsay.com

Visit the Super Duper website at: superduperinc.com

MoD President's Award

Lucy is a top youth walker in the Indiana Chapter and she ranks number 74 in the United States. She received the 2010 March of Dimes President's Award. We are proud of her for raising awareness for prematurity and birth defects. Go Lucy!

Corduroy

We told Lucy that purple corduroy pants are back in style this year, she seemed pretty excited about it.

Zipper Club Anniversary

Today, Lucy celebrates her 1 year open heart surgery anniversary. What an amazing and challenging year it has been for all of us. We have been through so much and had many ups and downs, but I think we have learned a lot and are much stronger from the experience. At the time, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. A 46 day ICU visit.

Lucy went into surgery that morning at 6AM, and after a grueling 10+ hour surgery, we were told that the repairs looked good and they were going to try to start her heart again. The doctors initially had an extremely difficult time getting Lucy off of the heart-lung bypass machine. Third time was finally a charm, but by that time Sarah and I both needed our own machines to keep our hearts beating. A huge weight was finally lifted off of our chests nearly 10 hours later.

At around 6PM, we were reunited with Lucy for the first time and little did we know that our prison-like Pediatric Intensive Care Unit room would become home for many weeks to come.

After reading back what we wrote during that time and seeing now just really how sick she was, it's a miracle that she survived surgery. It's something now that we, the doctors and even her heart surgeon can joke about. We all love you Lucy! Happy Anniversary!

(Lucy’s heart surgery documented on Flickr)

Synchronized Maracas

Lucy in a pool, playing her maracas on a ball. It doesn't get much weirder than this.

Indianapolis Zoo

Lucy had a great time laughing at elephant poop at the zoo. Unfortunately, we were too early to feed the giraffes and have Lucy scream at the sight of a giraffe tongue, so we'll have to save that excitement for the next visit with our video camera.

Chubs

Office Work

Lucy has recently began to sit up on a bench all by herself. She also has about the straightest posture of any kid we've ever seen, so she's expecting a trophy for that soon. We have been working to get her to bare more weight into her knees and ankles, so that we can just skip the crawling phase altogether and go straight to qualifying for the 100m sprint.

At this time, Lucy is busy at her coffee table office, arranging similar shaped blocks into buckets. Her secretary urges you to leave a message after the beep.