Think Partnered Parenting Is Hard?

As I was driving home from work last Wednesday, Ellie allowed me a few minutes of NPR. I'm always glad to catch All Things Considered, and I often enjoy the essays they feature. But the one I heard last week really pissed me off.

Think Partnered Parenting Is Hard? Try Going Solo.

At face value, it seems to make sense. I mean, of course solo parenting is hard. I can't imagine it, myself. I'd have to move to be near family, at least while the child(ren) are too young to help out much.

But single mom Lori Gottlieb went way beyond anecdotes about the challenges she faces and jumped straight into dissing partnered parents. To be more specific, she has it in for married mothers.

I say "married," not "partnered," because the stories she relates don't sound like healthy partnerships to me.

My husband never lifts a finger to help out around the house or with the kids unless I specifically ask him to do a task.

My husband refuses to change a diaper.

My husband will watch the kids so that I can go out from time to time, but he calls it "babysitting" and acts like he's doing me a big favor.

That sort of thing.

You don't know how lucky you are to have a man do anything at all, Gottlieb suggests. When these "great catches" divorce their whiny, harping wives, she'll be there to snatch them up in an instant. No, sadly I am not exaggerating.

Here's the thing, Lori. You went into this parenting thing as a single parent. But a married woman in the 21st Century has a more reasonable expectation of a true partnership, where men aren't "babysitting" or "helping out" with their own homes and children. Men today can be - and should be - full participants rather than spectators in their own home lives.

It's one thing to feel bitter about doing chores when there's no one else around to do them. But it's quite another thing when you're running around the house trying to take care of the child and do everything else while a large lump snores on the sofa.

I get that Gottlieb was trying to be funny. Hah hah. Perhaps she wouldn't have sounded like such a jackass if she could have been clever enough to write a pithy piece about the difficulties of single parenthood without lambasting women who expect partnerships with their husbands and exonerating men who are just flat-out lazy and inconsiderate.

This passes for feminism today?

Bluster

Some poor woman who was just doing her job called me this evening. She was from Charter Communications and at first I was very excited to hear from her. Then I realized that she was trying to sell me on VOIP.

"This is a very bad time. You don't want to talk to me about this right now. See, my cable has been out for almost 4 days. I am absolutely not interested in any additional services from Charter at this time."

"Oh! I'm sorry. Have you tried to call-"

"I've tried to call everywhere. I can't get a live person. I can't get an estimate of when they expect the service to be restored. I feel sorry for you having to call people in this area tonight."

It turns out that the cable came back this evening before Lost, and Paul has had good luck finding the Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday shows we watch online. But this is April sweeps; a very bad time to be without TV with no warning. I would have been fine if it had been at the end of the week, but we typically record our favorite shows early in the week and stretch them out all week long. The third to last episode of The West Wing ever. Gray's Anatomy. 24. House. Good stuff.

What happened is this. On Sunday afternoon, after I awoke in a panic, I harried everyone out the door and into the car for an emergency trip to Target to pick up a present. It was beautiful outside: sunny and in the low 80's, with just enough breeze to keep things pleasant.

I knew exactly what I wanted in Target and we broke records getting into and out of the store. We exited into a strong wind from the west and an ominously black horizon. "Wow, that storm is coming up quickly," Paul said.

We drove a few blocks to Ellie's friend's house, and parked at the corner to sign the gift cards. Tree branches started whipping around and the first drops of rain started to fall. We pulled up to the house, where festive balloons danced gaily, tied to the picket fence. Then they fell. I looked at the car's thermometer and saw that the temperature had dropped 30 degrees, right along with the barometric pressure.

I ran to the house to drop off the present in a downpour and had a hard time opening and closing my car door. Moving boxes and new leaves were blowing everywhere.

When I got back into the car, we switched from toddler tunes to NPR, often a controversial move. We learned that a thunderstorm with "extremely strong rotation" was in Valley Park, the suburb just southwest of us, moving northeast at 55 mph.

We decided to drive into it and head on home. Home is only a 4 minute drive from Ellie's friend's house, or it should have been. Paul managed to run us into a couple of dead ends and strange meanders. He never quite approached the speed limit. I was about to push down the gas pedal myself with the wrapping paper roll.

When we got home, the sun was coming back out; the storm had passed us on the road. And we'd missed the worst of it.

If we'd been at home, we would have been down in the basement like sane people. We wouldn't have noticed right away that the wall on our neighbor's garage - just 15 feet or so from our carport (the only place where our house is close to a neighbor's) had pulled away from the rest of the structure.

The "strong rotation" had ripped the whole wall out a bit and strewn contents of their garage over our back yard. Amazing. We were very lucky. But somehow the weather announcer's suggestion that we hop out of our car - in the downpour and with tree branches flying all around - and lie in a ditch with our 2-year-old until the storm passed over us just didn't sound very appealing. I figured we had a better chance in the steel Passatt with its safety glass and 8 airbags.

I bet Paul doesn't groan at me so loudly the next time I wake everyone up to go downstairs when the sirens go off. I used to live in Kansas, where they take tornados very seriously. In Missouri they seem to like crying wolf with the sirens. Fortunately, we have a poofy couch and cable in our basement - most of the time, anyway.

Sweating Up a Storm

My feet hurt. For many years, I've gotten intense pain in the soles of my feet when I'm rollerblading, playing beach volleyball, kickboxing, standing for a long time in pretty shoes, or squatting.

I toughed it out, stopping to stretch my soles over a coke can like I was taught in ballet class years ago. But I wasn't having cramps. My arches were falling and my tough gal routine was not helping them at all.

So about 5-1/2 years ago, I pretty much stopped doing those things that hurt. I did not, however, stop eating. And since inline hockey and kickboxing were my major forms of exercise, and my life was getting increasingly sedentary and stressful, it's no surprise that I started to gain weight.

5-1/2 years ago, I got married. Soon thereafter, my sister had her brain tumor crisis. Then I started a stressful - but fun! - new job. We got a dog. Bought a house. And Paul left to work in Michigan for 10 months, home only on weekends. I kept eating. And not exercising. Everything hurt my feet. And I was too busy, anyway.

For the last 5-1/2 years, I've gained more than 10 pounds per year.

I'm a big believer in exercise over diet. Eating's just too darn fun to quit. Lots of people pledge to lose weight, but get sidetracked along the way. I always felt that I'd start losing weight as soon as I was really ready, and that I'd be successful. It turns out that I wasn't wrong.

In early January of this year, I started doing the South Beach Diet. No sugar, no white starches (white potatoes, white rice, white bread, white pasta, etc.). I knew that it would hurt for a while: Kriegers fries! Yummy sweet baked goods! Easy Mac! Bagel Bites! But eventually it got to the point where being me, and being fat, was even more painful. And the thought of a year on a diet was less painful than the thought of years ahead of me as I was.

My increased weight was affecting my energy. It wasn't helping my poor feet. My blood pressure was still good, but it was higher. I wasn't falling pregnant easily. I wasn't feeling very sexy, either. I knew that I was not being healthy. I missed my strong, healthy body. I decided that it was time to get it back.

South Beach wasn't the immediate miracle for me that it's supposed to be. The weight didn't trip over itself in its hurry to leap from my body in Phase I, as it was supposed to. After a couple of weeks, I transitioned to the more comfortable Phase II, and I began to exercise. I have a cross-trainer in the basement and I worked my way through Sex and the City on DVD.

As I'd hoped, exercise was the golden bullet. I started seeing great results. So I relaxed the diet a tiny bit - once a month I'm allowed a meal out that's not entirely within the diet, though I'm still not bingeing. And I increased the exercise. 20 minute workouts became 30 minute workouts became 45 minute workouts most nights of the week. An episode of Gilmore Girls is 45 minutes including the credits, and I'm zooming through Season I on DVD.

In well under 3 months I've lost more than 30 pounds.

I carried a heavy bag around today, and it occurred to me that just weeks ago, I was carrying that much extra weight with me everywhere I went. Amazing.

I still have about 40 pounds that I'd like to lose, and things are going very well. I'm going to keep doing a general South Beach-like diet until I have retrained my body to stop at enough and not crave the binge. The more I exercise, the more I see that line clearly. I'm loving the way the exercise makes me feel, though I still find the act itself boring and the sweat distasteful.

And the silver lining to the whole not-pregnant thing is that every month I test negative, that's one more month I have to concentrate on getting back into shape before I have to start moderating my diet and exercise to safely incubate a small life.

Recognizance

Here in St. Louis we have a very cool (free!) alternative paper called The Riverfront Times (RFT). Each week, they highlight a "blog of the week," and a couple of weeks ago it was me. They highlighted my Parenting Olympics post (which, I might add, did not translate well onto newsprint without the HTML formatting).

I thought this was pretty cool, so I wore my super phat Snapshirts t-shirt everywhere I went for a week to see if I'd get recognized. (Not really. But I did wear it to the library for Story Time.)

I found out that I was featured because a friend of a friend read it and told him and he called Paul and, well, you see. Anyway, I went along in my way, always a little surprised when I start to tell a story to someone and they've already read it here. In fact, today I got a wonderful surprise hug at work from someone who read my last post (though obviously not at work! who would do that?) and thought I could use it.

But today for the first time I got recognized. And that was interesting. I mean, it wasn't a true stranger recognition. I worked near this person years ago and she read about "Sarahlynn" and thought, gee, I don't know too many "Sarahlynns." But until I post a picture of me that's not two years old, with me hiding behind my daughter, I'm not likely to be truly recognized in public by the multitudes.

So, anyway. I see that the snapshirts link doesn't really work. That's too bad. I totally love my shirt and want to order another one someday. Like, a smaller one. Yay! But more on that tomorrow.

In the meantime, about my constant companion, anxiety. I'm starting my first ever yoga class on Thursday, with a friend so I know that I absolutely have to go. This is good. I signed up for a yoga class once before. I consider it a charitable donation since I didn't attend a single class. But this time, I'll be downward facing dogging on a weekly basis. And then perhaps this knot formerly known as my stomach will relax occasionally.

You know what? I think maybe sometimes it feels good to just be just a little bit unravelly.

I Am So Sorry

I have been off my game for a while. I've never been the most organized person in the world, though I have my spurts. And I work best on a tight deadline, so I often pull it off at the 11th hour, keeping up appearances. But lately . . .

It's easy to blame it on anything else. Paul was gone for 8 days and I was focused on the house/Ellie/everything else. My toddler picks up everything I set down and hides it. My house is too small/doesn't have an office so that I can keep things organized.

But the truth is that I've been stuck in my own head for a long time. A few years, maybe. And while I have periods where I have everything, everything, everything under control, when I am a thoughtful friend, when I am ORGANIZED, well, there are far more times when I'm so turned inward and paralyzed that I can't see beyond the tip of my own nose.

And a prodigious nose it is, too.

Last weekend I didn't RSVP for a baby shower until the night before, although I already had a present. Today I missed the tea party in celebration of the second birthday of one of Ellie's friends.



I don't know how many other children were invited. I do know that I was looking forward to it. I know that our absence must have been notable. I know that I feel like throwing up. I know that - for once in my life - I have no excuse. And this was something that might effect *Ellie* and one of her important relationships in the years to come.

I need to keep the house cleaner. I need to keep on top of the paperwork. I need to find someplace to file things. I need to finish the basement playroom so that we can relocate some toys and actually walk around our house again. I need to be more focused at work. I need to continue losing weight. I need to work on my book(s) so that we can have money to pay down our debt and continue our home improvement projects - including my dream office. I need to be pregnant. I need to be pregnant. I want to be pregnant. I'm scared to be pregnant.

***

Update: I'm feeling better about this afternoon, and I think it all worked out OK. I talked to Ellie's friend's mom, and she was amazingly cool. The early afternoon tea party birthday party was a real success. We took the little girl's present over this evening (during a surprise tornado!) then went out to dinner with them. Afterwards, we went back to their house for a reprisal tea party with just the two girls, and we all had cake. It was lovely to visit, and the girls both really enjoyed their "pearls," white straw hats, feather boas, and tiny plastic tea set. So cute.

8 Days

I don't think this will be too difficult in a few years. Sure, a lot of it will stay the same. Ellie is already sure of what she wants and when, so that part is not likely to change much. We already have a busy schedule and drive hither and yon all day. There are other things to worry about with older children, of course, but I'll be worrying about them regardless of whether or not Paul's home.

And let's be honest. Dealing with issues like Transition to the School District and IEP and Service Coordination isn't exactly relaxing.

But in a few years, my child will be able to dress herself, to get herself a drink and a snack, to not need me to get up with her every time she needs to potty . . . and sit with her reading books and singing songs for however long that takes.

I love the alone time together. I love doing stuff and talking and sharing experiences. But the increasing self-sufficiency is awesome.

On a related note, in response to everyone who said, "Be careful what you wish for" with the walking, well, Ellie's been walking all over the place for months now. And it's better than I dared hope. I have never, ever, not even once wished to have her weak-legged again.

Not when she's walking off the mark at the photographer's over and over again, not when she plops down in goose poop in the school parking lot, and certainly not when she runs down the driveway, stopping right at the edge of the street, then leans out a little further and shouts, "No!"

Other amusing Ellie anecdotes.

On our way to this morning's playdate, Ellie's one toy to take with us in the car was Backpack. On our way to tonight's dinner out with friends, her one toy was a paper grocery bag from Whole Foods.

Ellie is so empathetic. She doesn't like to be left alone at the table to eat (which occasionally happens, like when I'm still cooking the side dishes or pouring drinks). She assumes that Lizzi must feel the same way, so she likes to sit on the floor right beside Lizzi while Lizzi's eating her dinner. Sometimes she reaches out to touch her gently. Fortunately, Lizzi doesn't mind this from Ellie. Priceless.

I wish I'd taken a picture of that, and one of Ellie looking melancholily and contemplatively out the car window while listening to Simon & Garfunkel this evening. I would have given anything to know what she was thinking.

Hey! Paul will be home soon!

The Glass Pane

When I was young, we lived in a gorgeous old manse(2). One of its many charming details was a glass door in place of a screen one, complete with individual panes.

We loved running around that old place. One summer day when I was about 6-1/2 and my sister Jessica was about 4, she was chasing me around. I wanted to run outside, so I headed for the front door. The heavy, wooden inner door was standing wide open and I ran for the glass door with one hand extended, straight out in front of me. I hit the handle perfectly and continued on across the porch and down the front steps.

Jessica mimicked me exactly, but several inches shorter.

Her extended right hand went straight through the glass pane.

My mother assessed everything quickly from the kitchen, where she was washing dishes. Quicker than humanly possible, she grabbed a retired cloth diaper from the plastic bin under the sink. Still holding her dish towel, she ran to Jessica almost before the glass finished falling. She grabbed Jessica's arm and wrapped her hand in the towel and diaper, then herded all three of us - Grace would have been 1 at the time - into the old green van parked at the curb.

Oh, that van. Three tones of green on the outside, with shag carpeting and wood paneling on the inside. Gorgeous.

Before you could say, "Bob's Your Uncle" we were off for our pediatrician's office up at the hospital. We were all jammed into an exam room with the old doc and his wife, the nurse, before I fully registered what was going on.

They removed the wound's dressing. There was no blood.

We have some dispute on the details here. My mother insists that the skin must have been broken because they gave Jessica a tetanus shot. I believe that they did so to humor my mother; my sister was only gently scratched.

Regardless, it is hilarious in retrospect and at family gatherings into perpetuity. And if it happened today, we never would have made it to the doctor. At the end of the business day, my poor mom would have been still out at the curb trying to secure 3 lively young children into safety seats in that van.

Pause. Slam.

It was one of those moments where time stood still. I felt like I had all the time in the world to see what was happening and prepare for it. I had run through the sequence of events dozens of times and knew exactly what movements to make to resolve the situation quickly, but it was only a fraction of a second.

Ellie and I were headed out to run a couple of errands and have her bangs trimmed. I was putting the little potty chair into the trunk, chatting with her all the while. I reached up and pushed the trunk lid down. Then she shot out her little hand and rested it on the back of the car, right in harm's way.

I saw it coming and I just had to wait. There was a moment of silence after the big bang, while she looked up at me, right into my eyes. Then she started screaming. I didn't waste a movement. My hand was in my pocket pressing the trunk release button on the key fob almost before she started screaming. I was swearing and clutching her to my chest while running for the house as the tears started to come. I was cuddling her on the couch with the phone in one hand and a bag of frozen peas over her fingers in the other hand just seconds after it happened.

My mother was away from her cell phone. Paul was unreachable, en route to Mississippi. I had to wait an unusually long time to get through to a nurse at Ellie's doctor's office.

But within 2 or three minutes, she had stopped crying. She allowed me to pull on each of her three smashed fingers (middle, ring, and pinkie on the left hand). She opened and closed her fist for me. She gripped my finger firmly, and held the peas to her own hand, very seriously (missing the injured spot, but solemn all the same).

The nurse said that at this age, little finger bones are harder to break than they will be in just a few short years' time. My mom pointed out that Ellie's natural joint flexibility (looser tendons and ligaments) meant that her hand bent back further, minimizing damage to the bones.

Within minutes, the only sign of any drama was a slight redness from the cold peas, and a tiny bruise at the base of the middle and ring fingers.

We made the hair appointment, ran our errand, and played at the park on the way home. A few days later, she still seems perfectly fine. Whew.

While we were out, I bought her a pair of crocs - pics to come shortly. As you see, I've laid the groundwork for a reward system that's sure to cause both of us much grief in the short, medium, and long term. But I slammed her tiny hand in the trunk.

Blue Decorator

Blogger Housekeeping
I'm sorry that the viewing and commenting functionality here has been so . . . temperamental. Hopefully Blogger will fix itself soon. Also, Paul is going away for 8 long days. That means that my guestroom will be getting a work out - hear that, you violent creepy Internet lunatics? I won't be here alone! - and since the computer is currently in the guest room, blogging might be a little spotty for a while. But now on to the chatty stuff.

One of Earnest's suitemates was a very good friend of mine. This guy - let's call him Randy - never did anything wrong. He was a squeaky clean future politician, but he still somehow managed to be fun. I spent most of one school year on the foot of his bed, playing Super Nintendo. Maybe my standards were low.

One unusual thing about Randy is that he had a long distance girlfriend. This girl was his date to the junior prom, and stuck with him through four years away at college while she went to the Big U in their home state.

Every year, she'd come to visit during her spring break and clean Randy's entire room, including washing and ironing all of his laundry.

I kid you not. I liked the girlfriend just fine (well, eventually) but I thought this was a little weird. I also happened to know that their relationship was . . . er, uh . . . they weren't doing the nasty.

I liked to help my buddy Randy prepare for his girlfriend's visits. Like one year, when he went to the airport to pick her up, I decorated his bedroom.

I draped lingerie around his suite, especially in his room. And I'm not talking about plain cotton panties. I put condoms under his pillow and porn peeking out from under his mattress. Bras shoved under furniture where she'd find them when she dusted and strip poker cards (illustrated!) placed hither and yon - I had a blast.

I thought I was really really funny. I can't believe she asked me to be a bridesmaid at their wedding; she's definitely a better woman than I.

I never got those poker cards back, either.

Black and White

Now that my mind is rehashing the blank old days, I've got a couple more college stories in my head. But first I have another post about racism. I know, I know, it's not Blog Against Racism Day, but blogging against racism only on its designated day is like studying Malcolm X only in February. The only thing worse would be to never do it at all.

I tend to hang out with mostly progressive folk, and sometimes I forget how it's still OK to be unapologetically racist in some circles. And I'm not talking about Klan circles.

I am part of a network of parents of kids with Down syndrome who offer support to new parents of babies with Down syndrome. The volunteers get together at least quarterly for training and to talk about the issues our families are dealing with.

In our group, there's one white man and one black woman; the rest of us are white women. Two of the new mamas we're supporting are African American teen mothers living with their own parents. Both were assigned to the African American support parent. What does she have in common with these two new moms? Not so much more than the rest of us; she too is an educated, middle class, happily married suburbanite. She was an adult, already established in her career before she had children.

Another volunteer was assigned to a new mom who lives in a bad neighborhood. She was quite open about just not feeling safe visiting this new mom. No biggie; pick a nearby park or McDonald's, right? But maybe she brought it up because she was hoping to be excused from working with this new mom? Surely not.

A third volunteer reneged on one of her families - an inner-city black family - because they "didn't have anything in common" and wouldn't be able to relate to each other. We all have children with Down syndrome. That's what we have in common. Who else did she think might relate better to this new mom in need of support?

I'm not shocked that people feel this way. I'm shocked that people just say stuff like that, right out loud, without cringing. Man. I'm used to a generous dose of liberal guilt with situations like this.

But before I get too high on my horse, I have a confession about my own racism.

When I was a kid, I went to a school that was extremely racially diverse for central Kansas - or anywhere. In 5th grade, the girls were into playing hand clapping games on the playground. The dirtier the lyrics the better.

There was one song, Rockin' Robin, to be played by 4 participants, that was a group favorite. I always liked it because it was so dirty, with lots of cussing. Forbidden. It was years and years and years later that I realized that it is also incredibly racist. Among other verses:

Went downtown, to buy a stick of butter
Saw James Brown, sh*tting in the gutter

[Note that I had no idea who James Brown was at this point. And even when I did know, it took a long, long time to put it together.]

Saw a piece of glass
Stuck it up his *ss
Never seen a MotherF*cker run so fast

Mama's in the kitchen, stirring that rice
Daddy's in the attic, shooting them dice
Brother's in jail, raising hell
And Sister's on the corner selling Fruit-Cock-Tail.

Nice, yes? What does it mean that it's apparently a traditionally African American rhyme (and this is the context in which I learned it)? I'm thinking that's a bit different than if a group of suburban white girls were singing it. Also, it seems that we added bad words to our version to make it worse.

But the context is no excuse for my continued ignorance.

Tomorrow, more pranks and pics.

Stream of XXciousness

After 6 days with laryngitis, I finally have my voice back today. I'm a little hoarse and I can't sing, but I can talk and not elicit "poor baby"s from everyone I speak to. What is the correct way to punctuate that "baby?" It's not technically correct to say "babies" in quotation marks because no one refers to me in the plural. Especially now that I'm losing weight and I'm not pregnant.

Which reminds me. A woman I know announced today that she is pregnant. In her defense, she's waited a long time for this news (her son is 3-1/2) so this isn't one of those irritating situations where someone is ambivalent about being pregnant and gets there on the first try.

And my last friend who did get pregnant on her first try lost the baby, horribly.

Another woman I know is scared about going in for a hysterectomy next week.

A woman she knows is about to have either chemotherapy or a hysterectomy for her second molar pregnancy.

I have another friend whose daughter is about to turn two. They nearly died two years ago, from a placental abruption.

And this isn't even going into the most common cause of death for pregnant women.

So much can go wrong. So much. Being a woman is no cakewalk. Especially since we're still expected to bake most of the cakes. (The above referenced group discussion about hysterectomies turned into a commiseration session about how few of the husbands could do more than scramble eggs for dinner, putting pressure on the women to recover quickly for surgery.)

On a happier note, I really enjoyed a couple of hours of having two babies today, when I picked up Oliver from daycare and kept him for a bit. He and Ellie did a great job playing together and both seemed to have a blast:

Pepper

We were having dinner at Applebee's tonight, when the music reminded me that I could be a real asshole in college. I'm sure I'm all better now, though.

The summer between high school and college, some high school buddies and I went to see Stone Temple Pilots, playing with Butthole Surfers and The Flaming Lips, at The Aragon Ballroom in Chicago.

One of these high school buddies was my high-school-graduation-night to fall-of-senior-year-of-college boyfriend, and he's the one who really taught me how to be an asshole. He was a champ at that, and he was also funny as hell.

My sophomore year of college, I became friends with a really good guy who was most decidedly not an asshole. Of course, he wasn't really all that funny, either. You win some, you lose some. Let's call him Earnest. Things were great, until Earnest started "dating" one of my roommates senior year.

They didn't date in the usual way. They didn't even date in the abnormal, college way. They had a unique style of dating. They didn't talk much. When they did, it was in high, squeaky voices through stuffed animals. After they had been "dating" for about 6 months, around Valentine's Day, he asked her if it would be OK if he kissed her on the cheek. Seriously.

The unusual nature of this relationship, I believe, came mostly from her. And she did not approve of me. I kept irregular hours. I didn't iron my jeans. I had - gasp! - been seen drinking modest quantities of alcohol. It was suspected that perhaps I kept company with my boyfriend at indecent hours.

By senior year, we were all living in a really nice dorm consisting of "suites" for upper-classfolk. We had a living room, bathroom, and four large (single) bedrooms. A cleaning person came in regularly to refill the toilet paper and clean all the common areas. It was amazing. Like most of the living spaces at Wash U, our dorm was co-ed, though each suite was single sex.

Since my roommates all went to bed early, I spent a lot of time downstairs in the suite where my (ex)boyfriend lived with our buddies, including Earnest.

This was all a little awkward once my suitemate convinced Earnest to dump me and his own suitemates. We played Nintendo late into the wee hours and ordered pizza nearly every night. Clearly, we were a menace. Earnest began staying shut in his own room and ignored us as much as possible.

Well, Earnest was regular as clockwork. Every evening at about 10:00, he'd disappear into the bathroom for an extended period of time.

My (ex)boyfriend took to BLASTING the Butthole Surfers as loudly as possible during while he was in there. How rude. I though it was hilarious.

One night we shoved a car air freshener under Earnest's door after he went to sleep. The smell was nauseating even outside of his room, and he did not look well all the next day. I'm still laughing.

Ah, good times, good times.

I still miss Earnest, but I'm still mad at him too.

Social Secretary

I did not meekly role over and accept a traditional gender role.

***

For years I was the one who paid all the bills, just like my mom does.

I have 3 semesters of college Calculus, some of which I took in high school, deciding only when faced with Diff Eq that I didn't want to be a math major after all.

But paying the bills was hell for me. I put it off to once a month, always at the last possible moment before the phones or power or whatever might be shut off, before pulling out the calculator and starting to work. It took me a swearing and sweating 4 hours to get all the bills paid, including calls to the bank to transfer funds or calculate late fees. It was hard hard hard for me.

Paul, on the other hand, went several years without going to the doctor or dentist because he couldn't bring himself to make the appointments. He chose a roommate based solely on the fact that the guy had lots of friends who were always coming over so that Paul didn't have to do any work in order to have people around frequently - who cares that they weren't necessarily his friends?

Eventually, of course, we decided to merge and purge responsibilities. I took over the social calendar and Paul took over the bills.

Over time, we've relaxed things a bit. It's just not practical for me to schedule Paul's medical appointments because I don't know the schedule of his incessant meetings at work. And as bad as I am about revolving debt, he's even worse. He can blink and there's suddenly an insurmountable balance on a credit card I'd forgotten we even have. So I'm going to be more involved in that stuff.

But I'm still responsible for maintaining the family calendar, and I try not to cringe at the utter predictability of it when he asks me, for the 3rd time, "Honey are we doing anything next weekend?"

Occasionally, Paul offers to take on the responsibility of making plans. And that has - at best - mixed results. He might buy tickets for a show months in advance, but not ask around for a sitter until 2 days before the curtain. He might cancel plans at the last minute and not realize that it really isn't considerate to the people who rearranged their schedule to watch Ellie.

And, as with tomorrow, he might start to set something up, then never follow through with the friends we wanted to have over for dinner and games. Alas, alack. Sometimes I still get frustrated. But today I'm all equanimity. Today I'm content with how bad I am at some things, and how it's only fair that Paul gets to be bad at some things too.

For the people we inconvenience, though, I am truly apologetic. If you are still free Saturday night, I am planning to make enchiladas and peanut butter and jelly cookies, all South Beach style, of course. Or, if you'd prefer, I'll have a large pot of chili going in preparation for my entry into a contest on Sunday and I'd be happy to try out my experimental recipe on you. I'm tentatively calling it CornFire, not for the timid. But I warn you that I'm still relatively new to cooking chili from scratch, without the cheater starter seasoning packet.

***

We still make sure that we take turns driving, though, so our kid(s) won't grow up thinking that daddy always drives when we're all in the car together. I've gotta draw the line somewhere.

Crawling Out from Under

. . . or Counting Chickens

Late Monday night I had my last episode, though I was still queasy and worthless all day on Tuesday. Ellie woke up for an emergency toddle shortly after 5:00 am on Tuesday, then kept us busy for a couple of days. Fortunately for all, Ellie didn't get as sick as I did, possibly not even as sick as Paul, who worked on through his bout with this junk. Also fortunately, she developed a strong preference for using the potty rather than a diaper. And, at the first opportunity, she brought me a pull-up rather than a diaper as if to signal that she's about done with this baby stuff.

Ellie was right as rain on Thursday, when I decided to get something else. I've had a lump in my throat for several months that I "affectionately" refer to as my snot clot. It abruptly decided to start causing problems, including progressive sore throat and rapid loss of voice. Today was even worse. But surely tomorrow will be better. And things are much less painful when I am very quiet and constantly sipping ice water.

So, the Blogger server that hosts this blog deciding to crash and be down all week was actually good timing. I wasn't here anyway. I hope that you all were out enjoying the wonderful weather!

The Parenting Olympics

I intended to write this one weeks ago, when it was more timely, but here it is now. I'm often late. Except with my period. I am starting to feel better, by the way. Wahoo! But on to the Parenting Olympics.

Unfortunately, it's hard to get an accurate look at the big picture in the Parenting Olympics. Our access to individual events is filtered through a single blog network, NBC-style, featuring biased and emotionally manipulative coverage, with one party unilaterally deciding which events and contestants to focus on sympathetically.

In this case, we're focused on Paul and Sarahlynn, with a few notable exceptions.

And now, a summary of the medal count to date.

Event: Going to Sleep
Despite Sarahlynn's early superiority in this area given her breasts body type, Paul has emerged as the stronger competitor in this event.

Event: Potty Training
Despite Ellie's the fans' strong support of Paul, Sarahlynn pulls ahead with consistency and enthusiasm. Neither competitor is performing at Olympic levels here, I'm afraid. Hopefully we'll soon see a big improvement.

Event: Coping while Tired
This competition has been fierce in places (cough cough) but Sarahlynn emerges the clear victor. Judging is closed and no disputes are currently being heard.

Event: Balancing Career and Motherhood (some categories are single-sex)
There is a strong showing in this category by the women Sarahlynn works with, and it has been decided via consensus that no single gold medal will be awarded. Instead, all the women will pool their resources for group lunches and the occasional happy hour.

Event: Enriching Activities
Sarahlynn took an impressive early lead in this category, but lately both contestants have been floundering. Neither seems motivated and both seem exhausted. I don't think they're in the proper shape for such a long-haul event. Frankly, they're competing for the bronze.

Northern Sun Olympic Moment:
[insert 2-part, emotionally manipulative editorial shot in warm lighting and soft focus profiling the amazing job Paul's and Sarahlynn's parents did in their day. Conclude with tearful modern-day contestants revealing their fears that they are doing but a pale comparison of what their parents did before them.]

Event: Reading and Singing
After the short program, all contestants forfeited rather than compete in the extremely repetitive long program.

Event: Extreme Sports, including child balancing and very short range tossing
Paul is the clear leader in this area, but a protest has been lodged by the opposition that these events are unsafe and should not be included in the competition.

Event: Toddler-Assisted Walk (an endurance sport)
All contestants in this category have complained of back pain

As for the rest of the coverage, while it may have already occurred in real time, your viewing of the competitions and results will have to await my the network's leisure.

A Roll a Day

Well, I have a stomach bug again. I've been running at the wrong end for more than 48 hours now and I feel like hell.

But on the bright side, I'm only 1-1/2 Newsweeks behind now, and my diet has been effective this weekend.

Paul and Ellie had a great trip to the park yesterday, and a nice outing to the movies this afternoon. To my great surprise, Ellie watched Curious George in its entirety, while sharing a bag of popcorn with her daddy. This is my daughter who is uninterested in the TV unless Dora the Explorer is on, and even then she might only be good for 15 minutes of concentration.

It's spring here now. I know this because of the warm temperatures, the beautiful thunder storms, the obnoxious news coverage of the storms, the fuzzy buds on the magnolia trees, and the first shoots of the crocuses poking up from the earth, it's true. But also I can tell that it's spring because the bugs are back. Surely bugs themselves are tangible evidence of evolution - set in motion, if you will, by the Creator.

Why would God design a world in which I have to contend with both insects and diarrhea when things are otherwise so lovely?

Seventh Heaven

After A Million Little Pieces, my next review is the obvious choice: The WB's family drama 7th Heaven. No, really. Stop laughing.

I didn't watch this show at first, then I got into it. It was a good show for a number of reasons. First, most television shows hinge on the whole misunderstanding plot device. So often I just want to take all the characters, sit them down in a room together, and force them to talk it out. No shorthand, no awkward conversations in which all the characters say "him" but never the guy's name so they each think they're talking about someone different, etc.

7th Heaven never did that. Early on in each show, the principle characters always had open and good communication about whatever the issues were, and the plot developed from there. How refreshing. And the parents were always so unfailingly mature and responsible. Also refreshing.

And the issues the show raised were fantastic. Years ago, the did an episode on The Lost Boys of Sudan. Well before 9-11 they did a wonderful show on the plight of women in Afghanistan under the Taliban.

Also, although the show is very Christian, with a minister father and at-home mother, it was also quietly progressive. The parents talked a lot about their partnership. They talked everything out, respected each other, made decisions together, backed each other up when dealing with the children, etc.

Then the show jumped the shark. The parents were suddenly as flighty and gossipy and irresponsible as characters on any other show. Miscommunications abounded. New characters were introduced, and a series of strangely good looking teenagers came to live with the Camdens. The writers were clearly bowing to ratings pressure from conservative Christians. The show became almost unwatchable.

Unfortunately for me, I find it almost impossible to give up a show once I've started watching it. (This is why I'm very careful about starting new shows.) And so I learned something lovely this year. 7th Heaven has been cancelled (only 6 more new episodes!) and the writers are returning to the show's roots.

The obnoxiously patriarchal Kevin has left the police force to be an at-home dad, while his wife Lucy (yes, the formerly obnoxious and air-headed teen) is a minister. Yes, a female pastor. Stop the presses! And she's been openly ambivalent about having another baby. Yes, a professional woman who's willing to discuss putting her career ahead of her family, or at least not being whole-heartedly excited about kids kids and more kids.

The 7th Heaven website links to a teen pregnancy prevention site that advocates education on contraception as well as abstinence. Yes, folks, there's far less kowtowing to the religious right this season.

It's not perfect, but it's better. I'm glad it's going out on a note far less sour than those played in the previous couple of seasons.

Weird Night

I had so little energy last night that I could barely stay awake long enough to get Ellie to sleep. In fact, I didn't quite make it. I decided to take a quick doze on the couch while Paul took his (second) shift with Ellie, so that I could be awake for a little workout, a little TV togetherness, a little email checking and blogging, then a little picking up of toys later on.

But Paul came out from Ellie's room and wanted to watch TV Right Away, so I was banished to the bedroom. And night-time naps in bed never work. So I spent the whole night in a weird sort of twilight half-sleep. I was still in my nice slacks and shirt for work, not to mention the underwire bra. I didn't brush my teeth or wash my face. This is all very unusual for me. I have very specific nighttime Routines that I must follow or surely the world will spin off its axis.

Then Lizzi decided that she wanted to go outside at 4:30 am. That turned out to be good timing on her part, because it started storming shortly after 5:00 am. And then Ellie woke up because she needed the potty. This was all me, of course, because I'd gone to bed so early.

So now it's 7:30 am and I've already been up for 3 hours (sort of all night, in fact). I've worked out; I've taken my vitamins; I'm on my way to the shower. I feel very odd. I'm hoping for a nice long nap later on today.

But on an unrelated note, Ellie has started doing a new adorable thing lately. She'll roar like a lion, then put her index finger against her lips and say, "Shhhhhhh," then laugh like it's the funniest joke in the world. And it kinda is.

Blog Against Sexism Day

I was reading Ms. Magazine in the airport on a business trip with a coworker a few years ago.

"What's that?" he asked. He'd heard of Ms. but thought that it was another "lipstick and fashion" rag.

This started us talking about feminism, and, of course, sexism. He doesn't believe that it exists.

See, our office and indeed our whole industry is predominantly female, at least down in the trenches. Sure a significantly skewed percentage of management is male, but his boss and his boss's boss are both women, so that's where it stops for him.

He doesn't feel powerful. In fact, he feels pretty powerless. And he's been sexually harassed at work. So women are as successful as men in corporate America now, and sexual harassment is an equal opportunity experience. Didn't you see that Demi Moore movie?

His experience is a microcosm for all experience. He doesn't see sexism, so it doesn't exist. Hell, even those strippers he likes to visit over on the east side make more money than he does. That's empowerment. And women like looking at strippers too, dontcha know.

This went on forever and was going nowhere. I wasn't going to change this guy's whole worldview in one afternoon. I ended the conversation politely but firmly and excused my pregnant self to get a bite to eat. He came along and talked at me while I ordered and waited for my food. I excused myself to go to the ladies' room, then sat on a bench and talked to my husband on the phone, waiting for the guy to give up and go back to our gate.

Pretty soon, he called into the bathroom after me, "worried" that our heated discussion might have caused me some harm in my "delicate condition." He's a critically acclaimed "really nice guy."

Oh yes. Sexism is so dead.

Having it Together

When I was in college, someone told me that I always looked neatly put together, even when I was in jeans and an untucked t-shirt. Looking back at old pictures, I think that she was right.

Somewhere along the way, I've lost that. As I sit in a group of women who look undeniably crisp, I try to think of ways that I could get that undefinable togetherness back.

I could lay out my clothes the night before. I could do more laundry, instead of waiting for Paul to do it. I could listen for the dryer to finish so that I could pull things out and fold or hang them right away. I could iron occasionally. I could wipe my shoes down each night with a wet wipe, and polish them regularly. I could go for actual haircuts regularly instead of getting discount trims semi-annually. I could wear make-up more frequently.

I'm sure that all this would help, along with improving my posture and continuing to lose weight. But really, I think the schlumpy factor is a big one. I think a lot of it is attitude.

A Million Little Truths

I knew about the controversy surrounding James Frey's book, A Million Little Pieces, before I read the book. When I first heard the allegations that he fabricated parts of his memoir, all I knew about the book was that it had a good title, great cover design, and was shelved prominently at Borders.

So I didn't have the opportunity to feel as betrayed as those who read the book believing that it was 100% true. But there are two other reasons why I don't feel terribly angry by what Frey apparently did.

First, I sympathize. I want to be a writer very much. I can hardly imagine working so hard, pouring so much of myself into a novel, and having it rejected by publisher after publisher. When Frey's agent told him that his book might be more successful packaged as a memoir, rather than as a novel, of course he jumped at the opportunity to sell it.

He should have taken out the bits he added for drama and interest in the novelization. He absolutely should have. But maybe he thought those parts were what made the story as compelling as it is. Of course he was afraid of having it rejected yet again. He was wrong to leave in the fictionalized parts. But I sympathize with how he must have felt.

Second, I think that the lies he chose to tell say as much - or more - about Frey than a strictly truthful version of his story would tell.

Sure, addiction is horrible and messy and ugly and far from glamorous, as Frey tells us in gritty detail. But Frey can't resist the temptation to make himself, his life, his experiences larger than life, less pathetic than they really are.

Frey may have been a skinny white kid from an upper middle class suburban family, but he is such a badass that the biggest, scariest, meanest criminals are all scared of him. He didn't meet an Italian or even a mobster in rehab; he met a mob boss. He didn't meet a lawyer or even a judge; he met a federal judge.

Addicts lie. Addicts can't be trusted. Addicts lie. Frey tells us this repeatedly in his book, and he underlines this fact with the way he chooses to tell his story. He is not cured. He is still an addict; he's just not currently smoking crack.

And The Smoking Gun's coverage of Frey's lies struck me as much more petty and spiteful than a simple recounting of fact and fiction - which would have been more helpful, by the way.

I did find quite a bit of humor in Frey's self-aggrandizing style, including his FTBSITTTD tattoo (F**k The BS It's Time To Throw Down), so I borrowed the tat for a bookmark I created for my bookclub, listing our hosting order in addition to a lovely picture of our suburban mom selves from our Christmas wine bar gathering last December. I called us a Book and Fight Club, which sounds about right.

Arrivederci, Olympics

Nearly a week after the rest of the world said goodbye to the Torino games, I just finished watching the closing ceremony. And, sadly, it occasions another edition of the Biased Media Watch.

The ceremony was lovely and appropriate.

Until the end.

I don't understand what Ricky Martin was doing there. Avril Lavigne is Canadian, Andrea Bocelli is Italian, but Ricky Martin . . . ? Whatever. Odd but not offensive.

His backup dancers dressed like very cheap biker babe whores? Unacceptable.

Here's a lovely, formal-but-fun ceremony celebrating, oh, world peace, collaboration, and athletic achievement. Sport. And then . . . it gets all nasty and women are back to being eye candy sex symbols again. Back to reality, folks.

And . . . I couldn't find a single news article that mentioned it.

Spuds

I'm back from San Antonio, where it was lovely and warm. Or so it looked from the cabs. Sadly, I only ate in my hotel and only walked around hotels, conventional halls, and airports. But it was a good trip nonetheless! And it felt amazing to hug Ellie so tightly tonight. Paul made black bean flautas for dinner last night, and I had the leftovers when I got home. That's the closest I got to authentic Tex-Mex cooking this week.

At the same hotel as the convention I attended, on the same floor as our exhibit hall, was a convention for the United States Potato Board. The first thing I could see as I came up the escalator was a long table covered with dozens of bowls of potatoes. There was a poster of the Mr. Potato Head balloon from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade on a brass stand outside the meeting room. And, best of all, they were there for the 2006 Chip Seminar! Clearly, I'm in the wrong field.

Finally, a note from my new series on the The Biased Media Watch (The BMW).
Former Congressman Gets Eight-Plus Years
By SETH HETTENA, Associated Press Writer
Note how the convict's party is never directly identified, only implied, and that late in the article? Guess what party "Duke" Cunningham belongs to. Now note how two other congressmen-turned-convicted criminals (news stories 4 and 18 years ago, respectively) are identified by their parties in the article. Guess which parties they belong to. Uh huh.
Seth, honey, your bias-cut slip is showing, dear.

Fiesta

OK, I have a queue of draft post ideas as long as my arm, but they're going to have to continue to wait. I'm off for sunny San Antonio for a couple of days (business trip) leaving Paul and Ellie to hold down the fort here. Barring a free internet cafe in my hotel, I'll be blogging again when I return.

I still need to shower. I leave for the airport in 3 hours. I haven't slept. I am an idiot. Good night!

My Publisher

Well, it got really late and I got really tired and I still have my book club book to finish. (Review coming very soon, like it or not.)

So instead of a real post, I'll just do a plug for a product in which I sadly have no personal stake. Jessica first turned me on to My Publisher Bookmaker, and it's awesome. If you've always wanted to have lovely books of organized photos but hate scrapbooking, this is totally for you. Especially when they have their 2-for-1 sales!

The Mondays

Happy Monday, everyone!

It has been an incredibly busy weekend. On Friday afternoon, Paul, who is a very young elder at our church, left for a weekend session retreat. I finally got Ellie to bed around 10:30, after which I had a little snack while watching some Olympics - I'm now three days behind coming out of this weekend - and cleaned the house. I tried to read a little of my book club's February selection before passing out.

On Saturday morning, Lizzi decided that even though Ellie and I wanted to sleep in until 7:00, we should all get up around 6:00 like normal. Then some friends came over to play, which made things better. They left, and Ellie napped.

Ellie has had a rough week. I wonder if she's still getting her 2-year molars, because it took over 3 hours to get her to sleep most nights last week, and her only naps involved being in bed with me while I sang to her or rubbed her back whenever she woke up enough to realize that I'd stopped. I hope that this week is better; she had a long nap today and we got her to sleep in about an hour tonight. That's still too long, but it's better.

After Ellie woke up on Saturday afternoon, we met some other friends at the park for a windy playdate, then they came home with us for an evening of fun. Paul met us after his retreat, and we all went out to dinner. Then we played with the kids until bedtime. For a wonder, both toddlers were asleep by 8:30, leaving the grownups to play games four hours. After our friends left, Paul and I passed out again without accomplishing anything on our weekend To Do list.

Sunday morning came too early, as always. We went to church, after which we had a reception for our beloved youth minister, whose reserve unit is shipping out to Iraq. His wife - also a friend - is stationed here and will not be going with him to Iraq or to the base where he'll be stationed for 2 years after returning from his year-long tour in Iraq. Man. Wow oh wow. I really admire and respect what he's doing: the soldiers over there must really need good Chaplains and he's great, but this will be incredibly hard on him and on his family. This could easily become a whole post on its own, so I'll leave it there for the moment.

After naps, we met up with still other friends and their toddler for dinner then rejoined back here for sugar free desserts and toothless coffee drinks.

I finally watched the women's figure skating final, then hopped onto the computer to do this before bed.

***

In closing, I've had to restrict Anonymous comments again, since unfortunately this blog has gotten some trolls who feel most comfortable spewing hate anonymously. I apologize to all of the non-trolls who don't have Blogger accounts and are inconvenienced by this. An explanation is over in the Passionate Posts section of the sidebar, if anyone really wants to search it out. I don't intend that post to be something for most of you to read, but it's a good place to point the trolls who come here just to tell me how wrong I am.

Shout Outs to Blogger Comments

Thanks to Blogger Comments, the super cool duo of my sister-in-law and her husband are coming to visit! They're going to take care of Ellie while Paul and I get some stuff done around here. And spend some quality time with us too, of course. Wahoo!

OK, now you go.

Oh, Oh Olympics: Rants and Raves

Rant:
The announcers who talk about "these girls" when referring to the female athletes, especially when they're referring to "these girls" in their 30s. (I can understand it a little better when they're actually talking about, say, young teenage gymnasts.) Ditto for the announcers who make it sound like they're advertising Ladies' Night at a bar when calling the women's competitions.
Edited to add: and what's up with the anchors? Where's Mary Carillo? She got to do much more coverage in Athens in 2004. That extended time-fill improvisation she did on badminton should have won an award.

Rave:
Shaun White. This guy is an amazing athlete and his personality shines. He glows with Olympic spirit and good sportsmanship. And he was born with a serious heart defect, Tetralogy of Fallot. He has had two open heart surgeries, and will need to take prophylactic antibiotics before he has his teeth cleaned at the dentist's for the rest of his life. But look at what he's done. Powerful.

Rave and Rant:
Bode Miller and his detractors. Miller is also an incredible athlete, but I feel sorry for him. His many critics have been suggesting that he's a let-down and a failure to have not won Torino gold. There's no shame in placing as highly as he has in this field of competitors at the Olympics. Moreover, many many people are criticizing his "work ethic." I have some thoughts about that. First, I defy most of us to meet his work ethic. Miller competed in something like 136 competitions and took something like 1 weekend off in preparation for these games. That's not slacking on the couch, folks. And what about the party-animal rumors? I don't think that Bode skis a mental run. I think he fears overthinking his events, something many athletes fall prey to. I suspect that Miller performs best as an underdog, and to cope with all the hype, he sets himself up to be coming from behind. It's not an unusual strategy, and it has often worked quite well for him. And again, there's no shame in placing 7th or 9th in this field.

Rave:
Michelle Kwan has handled herself with composure and grace as always, even in the face of critics like this asshat "mental health professional" (pity his clients!) who tells her "You're too old for the gold. Go home and rock that cradle." Sexist implications aside, he's flat wrong about her skill. Kwan is one of the most graceful and talented skaters in the world, still, today. And she has a lot more pressure on her than do some of the younger skaters, of whom not much is yet expected. Still, she holds up under the pressure, never cracking, rarely falling. And she put the team ahead of her ego, refusing to skate while injured.

Gentle Criticism:
Lindsey Jacobellis. Jacobellis had an incredible day. She had the gold locked up, and with it she would have clinched a U.S. lock on 4 snowboarding golds: men's and women's half-pipe and snowboard cross. But she celebrated early, hot-dogged a method air, and fell. She won silver. I don't blame her for showing off. I don't blame her for denying it in the first interviews. And I admire her for having the guts to sit down with that jerk, Bob Costas, to admit her mistake. I wish her luck in future competitions. But the Olympics aren't just another competition. Olympic athletes represent their countries in this competition moreso than they do anywhere else. I wish that Jacobellis had acknowledged that she let down her country (or her fans at home, if you prefer) with that unnecessary move, rather than just saying that she has "no regrets."

But I gotta go. I'm still two nights behind!

Oh, Hi!

In my fantasy world, someone will drop a pile of money in my lap and say, "Here! I insist that you use this to build that home office you've been wanting."

Because in my dream world, the computer isn't stuck in the guest room, rendering it inaccessible when we have company staying with us.

Neither is the computer sitting on the kitchen table, as it did for about a year after Ellie's nursery rendered my office obsolete.

And I can have a room with a door, a large computer desk, file drawers, and horizontal surfaces upon which to place my beloved piles. I am a pile person and I like to be a relatively neat person, two traits that are incompatible when aligned with my mother-of-a-toddler persona. What could possibly be more fun than removing papers from the top of the coffee table? Apparently, very little.

Where is the Big Pile of Money fairy? The only fairy I've seen around lately is the Big Pile of Dept fairy, who pays us regular visits. We don't discourage her company, though, because we have a really cool basement bathroom and neato retaining walls to show for it. We do wish that this fairy twosome would work in tandem, though.

Anyway, I'm here again!

And it was lovely having my mom in for the weekend. We went to The Magic House and The City Museum. The Magic House is exactly what it claims to be, and The City Museum is the sort of place that I can't believe really exists. I mean, who would insure them? Who would let their kids climb around that death trap? The City Museum is the sort of place that should be required for all children, but is all too often discouraged in favor of safe activities.

And on Sunday we spent a fun afternoon with Paul's high school best friend and his wife.

So, I'm full of excuses, but the truth is that mostly I've been watching the Olympics. I'm glued to the tube! But I'm two days behind, so don't tell me what happened.

Deep Thoughts, Not By Jack Handey

Here comes some strange writing that sounds melodramatic:

Some periods of time have a really distinct identity that's strong enough to effect everyone who lived through them. For example, everyone talks about the radical 1960s, either with approbation or derision. But the fact is that the 1960s changed "us," both as a society and as individuals. I was thinking about how the 1960s changed forever the way we - as a society - see the world. Jim Crow, justice, peace, feminism, civil liberties - these are some big issues.

But what of the children who grow up during these distinctive periods? Certainly, they were more effected than the adults, who were already formed by the times of their own upbringings and are usually malleable in slighter and more subtle ways.

What, then, about me, a child of the 1970s? And my youngest sister, a child of the 1980s? Surely we too were shaped by the times of our childhoods, if perhaps not so dramatically.

In thinking about the 80s I wonder about that decade's legacy: me first; high maintenance beauty ideals; a shiny, happy face, country club coke parties replacing reefer around the campfire.

The children of the 1980s are now adults. How will they change the world?

One very interesting thing about children of the 80s and beyond - and I'll include some children of the 1970s in here too, for those like myself whose sexual awakening came in the later 1980s and beyond:

We see sex and death as inextricably linked. We see sex as dangerous in a way that mere birth control cannot address. How does this change us? How will it change the world?

***

And now you know what I jot in my notebook late at night when I'm curled up in a hotel bed on a business trip. Thank goodness I'm alone at these times and everyone else is spared my rambling "deep" thoughts. Until now.

Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day with a toddler:

Last night was spent staying up far too late trying to exercise, relax, and have some "me" time. "Happy Valentine's Day, sweetie"'s were exchanged well before the adults crashed into sleep.

This morning came far too early, with a short parental Valentine's power struggle regarding who had to get up with the beautiful toddler (Mama won, as usual, by playing dead and teaching her to cry for Dada in the morning).

In addition to her precious giggle, the toddler's Valentine's offerings included such gems as trying to get into the shower with Mama, flooding the bathroom in the process, and throwing lots of tomato sauce on the - formerly very light - family room carpet.

Still, it was a warm, lovely, sunny day, and after an hour of PT outside, Mama managed to have a lovely romantic dinner ready when Daddy got home from work. The beloved toddler slept through dinner, then battled sleep until after 9:30, nearly 2-1/2 hours post bedtime.

The romantic dinner - heart-shaped meatloaf included - was eaten by Mama and Dada on the couch in front of the Olympics, in shifts, while the candles rested unlit on the dining room table with the condiments.

Presents were exchanged. Candy was not.

"Me" time commenced shortly before 10:00 pm, setting up a similar tomorrow.

Hug the One You're With

Bye-bye, Rose. I hope you're feeling better.

This week's Grey's Anatomy kept asking, What would you want to do, if today was your last day to live?

I really like what Moreena has to say about living every day as if it's your last. "You just can't live life that way, not really."

She's right. But sometimes it's good to remember to pick up that child who is driving you crazy and squeeze her until she squirms away, just breathing in the perfection of her hair and skin for as long as you can.

The Last Name Thing - Part II

What a wonderful discussion below about The Last Name Thing! Thank you to everyone who's been chiming in. I have a couple more things I want to add:

In some ways, The Last Name Thing is more controversial than abortion. In part, this is because most of the people having the discussion are progressives, and most progressives already support a woman's right to choose abortion but are divided on the Last Name issue. Many people who are otherwise quite liberal are OK with women not taking their husbands' names, but only if it doesn't affect their own families.

Certainly, most people don't want to legislate against women keeping their own names. But neither do they want to talk about it.

"It's my choice," is where the discussion often begins and ends.

And that's true. It is our choice as adults to decide what we want to be called.

It is also my choice if I want to wear a cute little pink t-shirt that says, "Math is hard." It's my choice if I want to be an at-home mom.

My point is not that choosing to take your husband's name is equivalent to walking around with "Juicy" on your butt - I don't believe that it is! - but rather that our choices are not made in a vacuum. There's significant social pressure on us to choose what we choose, and our choices effect others.

So while I support my friends who've changed their names, and will vigorously defend them against anyone who's judgmental about their choices, I also think it's important to talk about why it's so often the husband's name that's so freely "chosen" for the family name.

I want it to be more of a real choice for my daughters.

Poacher

OK, I have a follow-up post with my thoughts relating to the Gender Traitor post below (and the discussion that follows!) but they'll wait for tomorrow. For a little Friday flare, I have a short story from my day today.

***

I found my purse lying on the floor, and it had clearly been searched. My wallet was open on the floor next to the purse. My mobile phone, which had slipped through a hole in the lining of the purse, was still in place.

As I placed everything back into my purse, it seemed that all was accounted for. Except -

There was the lid to my chapstick, not a foot away from the purse. The chapstick itself was nowhere to be seen.

I found it later tonight, in another room, completely eaten.

I don't think it was the dog.

Gender Traitor - The Name Thing

The one in which I criticize other women and feel bad about it.

On a one-on-one basis, I get the name thing. I get the desire to have a single, simple family identity embodied in a name. I get the desire to lose the name of an abusive father or a despised ex-husband. I get it. I'm sympathetic.

But in the bigger picture, sometimes it frustrates me. It frustrates me that it's still the "norm" for women to change their names rather than the reverse, or some combination involving give-and-take on both sides. Some months after I got married, a woman at work - someone I didn't know very well and who doesn't know my husband at all - sent me an email saying that she almost didn't recognize me because my name hadn't changed. I mean, really!

That's small potatoes, though, because what really frustrates me are the professional ramifications. More specifically, how it effects me at work. I want to contact someone in the licensing department in Philadelphia, but I can't just shoot her an email or look her up in the company directory. I can't find her in the system because she got divorced and I can't remember her new last name.

One woman I worked with had 3 last names in 10 years. That's actually not so uncommon: single, married, divorced, remarried. I work with a lot of women. It's hard for me to remember names at the best of times, and when I have to remember the revolving names of dozens or hundreds of colleagues, it's just impossible. I was looking around the room during a meeting today, and saw several women whose names have changed in the past few years. It's very hard to keep track of women at work.

The thing is, I know and understand the stories of lots of these women. This one got divorced, that one got remarried, I love them and I understand why they changed their names. I am sympathetic. But why do they have to change their names at work every time?

At what point does it become unprofessional?

At what point does it begin to effect the way all women are seen in a professional setting?

Is there a point, after some arbitrary milestone, when a woman might decide to keep one name - a birth name or another one - just professionally?

When does the personal become political?

Is the personal ever really just personal?

"You Can't Be Both Catholic and Pro-Choice"

Of course you can.

This is a bumper sticker I see around St. Louis quite often, usually on the back of a pick-up truck or mini-van driven by a man. Aside: Most anti-abortion bumper stickers I see are on vehicles driven by men or older woman. "Sure, easy for you to say," I always think.

But you can absolutely be both pro-choice and Catholic. The only reason this is a point of contention is that Catholics have been confusing religion with the law since the early days of the Church.

Here's how to be both at once:

• Never, ever, under any circumstances, choose to have an abortion, even if it kills you.
  
• Actively work from within to change the church's position on legislating the issue.
  
• Aggressively work to improve women's choices so that fewer feel that they have to choose abortion.

See, it's pretty simple.

As I wrote in the comments to this post, a leading evangelical Calvinist Christian theologian, Richard J. Mouw, recently wrote:

[T]his does not mean I want to impose "Christian culture" on everyone. God desires that people freely acknowledge [God's] rule and that they freely offer their lives of obedience to [God]. Nothing is gained when we impose specifically Christian standards on people who do not acknowledge God as the ruler over all things.

There will always be conflicts between what our religions guide us to believe and what the popular culture around us believes. In these situations, it's the responsibility of religious folk to uphold our religions.

The reason I have never committed adultery is because I believe that it's wrong, not because it's illegal. I don't need a law requiring me to "honor my father and my mother;" I know that it is the right thing to do. If you feel that abortion is wrong, don't have an abortion. Help other women so that they feel less need to choose to do so. But don't legislate your religion onto those who do not share your religious conviction.

This is what I would have posted, if I hadn't missed this year's Blog for Choice Day.

The Gift of Tears

That was the title of this morning's sermon at church, and it got me thinking about crying.

It's one thing to sing It's All Right to Cry and to give that advice to others. It's quite another thing for me to apply it to myself.

I don't think that I know how to cry without trying not to cry.

I wonder what would happen if, next time I am sad about real life, not a book or a movie, rather than fighting down the tears and calling up my requisite sarcasm, instead I told myself that it would be OK to just let loose.

I bet I'd dry up like the Sahara because I wouldn't know how to do it.

You've Come a Long Way, Baby

Tonight my husband told me that my new trouser socks are "really sexy."

In honor of this new progression in our relationship, I thought I'd share with you five things that you might not know about me.

1. When Paul and I first started dating, "our song" was Closer (NIN).
   
2. I used to work in a liquor store. I was in charge of stocking the girlie mags (and everything else).
   
3. Women warned me about Paul when we were getting together, telling me that, er, his motives were impure.
   
4. I was on the drill team in ninth grade. Yeah, half-time shows with pom pons.
   
5. I was on the homecoming court one year, and was a "Jr. Princess" at another dance another year.

In my defense:

1. We didn't really analyze all the lyrics.
   
2. It was the only job I could find one summer. I got in trouble more than once for organizing the porno mags in alphabetical and date order, rather than having the newest, hottest titles front and center.
   
3. That was mostly sour grapes.
   
4. We did a really cool James Brown number. I could say that I loved to dance, but it's also true that I loved wearing that skirt to school. No use denying it. I had to give up drill team sophomore year when it conflicted with Jazz Band.
   
5. Yeah, and then my parents moved us at the end of my sophomore year. No bitterness here.

Party People in the House

I used to go see Ani Difranco twice a year, in Chicago and in St. Louis.

Then I didn't go to concerts very much for a while.

But I'm back, baby. We went to see Dora the Explorer Live!: Dora's Pirate Adventure just over a week ago, and we're going to see Ralph's World in a few weeks.

Yeah, I rock. I just gotta find my hemp do-rag.

***

On a happy note (punny! hah!) Ellie has started singing along.

At Musicgarten, a music class we attend once a week, we sing a song that mostly consists of "La la las" and Ellie la las along. We also sing a drumming song that sounds like, "Ray ba tay, ray ba tay, ray ba tay boom. Boom, boom, boom-boom-boom." She sings, "Tay tay tay Boom boom oom." At home, there's a song on one of her lullaby CDs that songs to me like, "Baloo baleery, balooo, baleeeery." I sing it to her when soothing nonsense is in order, like in the middle of the night. One night last week she started patting my back and singing, "baaooo, baooooo" to me. I burst into laughter, which probably didn't help my cause of getting her back to sleep.

Be Fri / est ends

I might have spoken too soon about the rolling out of bed. I did find Ellie near the heating vent last night, mostly hidden behind the rocking chair. And Paul found her there again tonight. So perhaps this is still a work in progress.

But to balance that, there's something else I should have added to yesterday's list of happiness. Ellie will not eat fried foods, and her hands-down favorite food right now is broccoli. Oh, yes, she loves her pasta. But she doesn't plead for it like she does for "oppoli?" several times a day. I never want this to end.

***

Most of the kids in Ellie's class are there for preschool in the morning, including lunch, then nap at school and play in the afternoon until their parents come pick them up. Ellie and another boy are usually just there for the morning preschool part. Guy's mom often comes to pick him up at about the same time I pick up Ellie.

I was so glad when Guy moved up to the "2's" room because he and Ellie got along well in the "older toddlers" room. They're even better friends now, it seems, possibly because Ellie can walk and keep up better. It's really just been gross motor that's held her back at school.

Guy is typically developing, but he's still learning English. I'm guessing that he and his family are from Israel. I have no idea why Ellie and Guy have formed such a bond, but it's the cutest thing.

Today when Guy and his mom exited the classroom into the hallway after us, he unleashed a mini-torrent of English or Hebrew at his mom. "He wants to walk with Ellie, hold hands like this," she explained.

So I took Ellie back to Guy and they walked down the hallway hand-in-hand.

Priceless.

Maybe Golden Grahams

I am tired. So very, very tired. And it's late. But!

1. Ellie stopped rolling out of her bed by the middle of last week.
   
2. Now it's a behavioral issue involving convincing her to stay in bed.
   
3. Tonight she climbed into bed and fell asleep on her own (after much rocking, reading, and singing on my part and some crying and beating at the closed door on her part).
   
4. Everyone is healthy.
   
5. I led a discussion this morning on the authors of the four gospels, and I think it went well.
   
6. I actually exercised today and didn't die; I might try it again tomorrow. I've had to adjust belt holes, so something must be happening. But I am really craving a box - yes a whole box - of sugary cereal with milk. And I don't usually eat sugary cereal, with or without milk.
   
7. My Valentine's present for Paul had better turn out kickass cool, after it's all said and done.
   
8. It's impossible to look at this face every day and not smile.

A Very Good Read

Do you read Egotistical Whining? If not, you really should check her out. She's been on my sidebar for ages, but probably doesn't get enough attention way down there. Seriously, read her. She's awesome!

How 'Bout a Mouth Full of Chiclets

I've been walking around all day looking like I had a knuckle sandwich for my mid-morning snack.

At about 9:00 this morning, Ellie started coughing. I gave her some medicine for her congestion (almost 7 months since she caught "this cold;" we're going for a world record) and for the cough. The constant coughing was sad, so I made her some sugar-free hot chocolate, thinking that a hot beverage might help. Thankfully, I tested it before passing the cup to Ellie. It was very, very hot. I was startled and splashed it, burning my tongue and the skin from my upper lip to just under my nose on one side. It's very attractive today, but will probably be even more attractive once it scabs. Here's hoping.

Regardless, the medicine and hot chocolate failed to stop the cough, which also kept her from napping. Eventually, Ellie crashed and napped hard from about 4:15 until I woke her for dinner. I stayed up foolishly late last night and was exhausted today, so I'd been in a semi-somnolent state all day despite the gorgeous weather (in which we walked briefly, never fear).

She ate well, bathed well, played well, and went back to sleep well at bedtime. She woke up screaming a little while ago with a 102.5 degree fever, by far the highest she's had since we acquired the necessary equipment to measure such things (a good ear thermometer rather than one of those useless underarm ones).

Poor Ellie.

***

Here's an unrelated rant on diet. I'm on one. I hate dieting, but it's obviously necessary at this point. I'm a firm believer in exercise to control weight, and "moderation" is the only diet I really believe in. But things have been far beyond "moderation" for some time now, so desperate steps were necessary.

Paul's dieting too, and it's going well. To clarify: it's going well for him. My weight's been stagnate for a few weeks despite closely adhering to the plan. I know the solution: exercise. So that's the background.

I got a call from my mother-in-law last weekend. She asked how the diet was going and I said that it was going really well, etc. She talked to Paul the next day and they had a very similar exchange. She said that she was sending a care package for the three of us.

The package arrived yesterday. It had 2 outfits for Ellie (so cute!) and, and . . .

• Sprinkles. Like for cookies.
  
• Heart-shaped cookie cutters.
  
• Two large bags of M&Ms, one with peanut (for me) and one plain (for Paul).

Seriously.

On Sin

In the Garden of Eden
I was thinking. A lot of people think of women as weaker in faith, or more susceptible to sin, or unqualified for religious leadership, or simply as symbols of temptation because Eve was the one who ate of the apple, then offered it to Adam.

It seems to me that the opposite conclusions are more appropriately drawn from the scene, if you choose to read it literally.

Eve was tempted by Satan and succumbed. Adam was merely tempted by Eve. Doesn't that imply that Adam was more susceptible to corruption?

In the Las Vegas Airport
A friend loaned me a book by Richard J. Mouw called Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport. It's a Dutch Calvinist theologian's response to a scene from the 1979 movie Hardcore in which a dour Dutch Calvinist tries to explain his religion to a Pagan prostitute. He does a lousy job of sharing the message in a manner appropriate to his specific audience in the airport and to the late 20th Century audience more generally. Mouw has set out to write the response that the movie character should have given, if he really wanted to reach his audience.

I must admit that I know very little about Calvinism and "Reform" Christianity. In fact, I thought that most of us Protestants were "Reformed" and that Presbyterianism was based on the teachings of John Calvin, so what's the difference?

A lot, it turns out. For example, Dutch Calvinism is based on the TULIP doctrine.
T = Total depravity
U = Unconditional election
L = Limited atonement
I = Irresistible grace
P = Perseverance of the saints

I have only read the first two letters so far, but I have problems with both.

As far as total depravity goes, I have a hard time reconciling "love your neighbor" Christianity with the belief that we are all inherently depraved, though capable of some good acts. I prefer to think of most of us as inherently good, though tempted to commit evil acts from time to time. I'm still working on this one. I am willing to stipulate that every aspect of our lives is touched by sin. And that's not a pretty thought.

As for unconditional election, I have a hard time with the author's suggestion that we can determine who has been chosen for eternal life with God by the gifts they are given in this life. He gives the example of a Midwestern American woman raised in a Christian community and given the tools to foster her spiritual growth from a young age, versus a woman born in a small village in North Korea without the same supportive Christian community. My concerns are:

1. Who are we to assume we can know the mind of God? How can we know who is selected?
   
2. I don't think we can assume that only Christians will be elected, given that according to Calvinist doctrine, none of our own actions can merit salvation.
   
3. I am seriously uncomfortable with the implication that those selected by God will be born into wonderful families and live wonderful lives. That's too much of a short and slippery slope toward othering our neighbors. And it's too close to justifying the evil that befalls so many of us.

This has been an interesting read so far, though.

Ellie's Great Big Week(end)

Paul Learns a Lesson:
On Wednesday afternoon, I picked up Ellie from school and took her to Paul's office before heading out to the airport. As we were transferring Ellie from my car to Paul's, he said, "Say goodbye to Mommy because she's never coming home!"

I know!

Apparently, he thought that she wouldn't understand. Oh, but 2-year-olds understand so much more than they can communicate verbally. She communicated her understanding to him in this case by crying. Then having a very hard time going to sleep that night. Then being up from 3:00-4:30 am. Both Paul and Ellie were very glad to see me when I got home.

Baths Are More Fun With Friends:
A friend's husband has been working and playing long hours, and she was going a bit stir-crazy at home with the baby. So she came over for dinner on Friday, then she and I left the toddlers with Paul and went to a movie.

The evening was great fun, at least for the women and children. I enjoyed seeing The Family Stone - OK, I would have enjoyed seeing just about any movie in a theater - and the kids enjoyed each other. I liked the way the writers handled the sibling relationships (so real) and really enjoyed how one of the characters (and actors) was deaf but it was no big deal. For once there was a character with a disability in a role that wasn't all about the disability.


Riding the Rails:
On Saturday, among many other things, we removed the crib rail from Ellie's bed and replaced it with a small toddler bed rail. Everybody was very excited by this development, and Ellie and I practiced having her climb up into bed to "go night night," then wake up and come wake up mommy. I went out after Ellie went to sleep (more on that later) and checked on her when I got in around 3:00 am. She was curled up, fast asleep, on the heating vent on the floor. She'd rolled out of bed and off the pillows we'd piled up to prevent just such an occurrence. Getting her back to sleep in the bed was a bit of a chore.


Tonight she went down much more easily. I went in to check on her around 11:30 pm, before I made the weekly grocery run. I heard her breathing, but didn't see her anywhere. She was fast asleep under her bed!



Theater is Art!
There were so many other things this weekend, but I'm too exhausted to type them. We did go see Dora the Explorer Live!: Dora's Pirate Adventure this afternoon. We got off to a rough start, since I made a mistake and bought tickets for yesterday's show instead of today's. We did get seats at the last minute, but were up a bit higher than I would have preferred. Ellie loved the show, regardless, so I should probably quit beating myself up about it. I'm beginning to suspect that I need more than 3-4 hours of sleep a night. Alas.

An Apology:
Finally, I want to apologize to Jessica. She kindly invited me to a "Girls' Night" at her house on Saturday night, and I was unspeakably rude. I showed up very late. I invited another friend to come along with me. I didn't bring any food. I talked way too much. And at one point, with a growing sense of horror, I realized that it was 2:30 am and I was still sitting in her living room talking! I kept her up all night! I should be fined. Jessica, if you ever invite me out again, I promise to behave slightly less like someone who never gets out of the house. I am so sorry.