if only because some of my family members that are checking the site regularly might be confused by all the strangers commenting, i’ll point out that this site is getting quite a bit of ‘traffic’ from boingboing. i’m not going to even try to explain boingboing to my nana in machias, maine ( maybe it helps to know that xeni, the person who posted the link, also does occasional work for npr? ) who is getting the daily update after it’s printed out, but suffice to say, boingboing has a very large readership and there are many, many, many more people rooting for eric.

in fact, between the “regulars” who’ve been visiting the site for years and are patiently waiting for me to go back to more boring topics, the scads of family members that are hitting ‘refresh’ every ten minutes, the many moms ( and a few dads, likely ) from nursingmom.net ( the thread was graciously started by my sister and it’s amazing to see it take on a life of its own ), the dads from daddytypes and everyone else from from bloggingbaby, i think it’s safe to say that eric developed quite a large support network. and what a varied network it is – i imagine everyone bumping elbows at his nicu release party, saying chummy things to each other.

i obviously knew that his story might interest a few people beyond family and “the regulars”, but i really had no idea that so many people would find it so captivating.

update: so, why is this site still “up” after already exceeding my monthly bandwidth quota, even before getting the boingboing treatment? because michal over at cornerhost is a true gentleman ( and fascinated by the story, i suspect ). so, in a certain way, you could say that this site is being brought to you by michal and you should remember that when you’re looking for a hosting provider with a “human touch”.