Y'all a Bunch of Racists

By now I'm sure you've heard the main Republican attack against Barack Obama. Immediately after Obama's acceptance speech on Thursday night, CNN had the following headline: GOP says Obama's set is too much.

Seriously? That's all you got?

The attack is this: "The Temple of Obama. Barackopolis. Egobama."

And it's echoed across the internet and all conservative media outlets.

Yes, the biggest Republican attack against Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama is that he's an uppity black folk.

Seriously. You ever met a politician who didn't have a healthy sense of ego? You got any measure of how he's supposedly more confident than your average presidential candidate?

You should all be very, very ashamed of yourselves.

McCain/Palin

I hate to stomp on that adorable video of my kids, but I'm too stunned not to speak immediately. Here are my immediate reactions to McCain's choice of new Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

As an American:
I am horrified. McCain is very old - if elected he would be oldest President ever inaugurated - and he is not well. His Vice President needs to be ready to take the reins from day one, if necessary. Palin was the mayor of a city of 9000 in a remote state distant from the rest of the union in more than mere geography before serving as governor for under 2 years. With no national or foreign policy experience, in no way is she ready to be the President of the United States of America.

As a woman:
I am offended. In 2008, when there are more accomplished and experienced women in executive and legislative positions than ever before, the Republicans choose an inexperienced former beauty queen and think we'll vote for her just because she's a woman? This shows a profound lack of respect for women. (I felt similarly about Harriet Miers when Bush nominated her for the Supreme Court.)

As a mother of a child with Down syndrome:
I am saddened and confused. After facing the difficult news she did during her recent pregnancy, followed by having a child with special needs, surely she understands that it can be dark and difficult sometimes. Having been in the same position, I simply do not understand the desire to legislate (rather than educate) women into making better choices, let alone the strange belief that one knows what's right for all families. I simply do not believe that forcing women to have children they do not want is what's best for my child and others like her.

As a parent:
I am concerned. Most parents need to work to support themselves and their families. Others enjoy it and choose to work, which is wonderfully, incredibly fortunate. But choosing to go back to a very demanding job three days after giving birth, then launching an all-consuming run for the vice-presidency 4 months later, concerns me in any candidate, male or female. Especially with a child who has special needs. [Edited] What are family values?

God Bless America!

Friday Photo Blogging - Patriotic Edition



This is all awesome, like the way Ada says "America" and "God," but one of my favorite things is the way she turns toward Paul and the camera at the end and says, "Cheese!"

I Watched, and I Cried

Those who've been to one of our election year parties know that I'm a bit of a political junkie. 4 years ago, we rented a huge TV and put it in our living room (where we have no TV normally). It looked like we had a silver space ship parked in front of our china cabinet. We turned all the furniture to face the TV and hosted an official debate watching party, followed by an informal election night results watching party, complete with red-and-blue colored food and drink.

I've been burned out ever since. But Paul's engaged again this year, giving me unsolicited updates from electoral-vote.com and talking about when we should rent that monster TV again for our parties.

For my part, I planned a trip to Walt Disney World that will get us back in time to vote, but will ensure that we miss most of noise the week before election day.

But I am watching the convention, of course, and I did watch Hillary speak last night. Wow, that was a good speech. Solid. She sold it. She had me wanting to rush out and vote immediately. She made it clear that her loyalty is to the ideals she espouses from the stump and to the party, rather than to personal glory. She also made it perfectly clear that she could have been it. That speech was so energizing, so fabulous. She could have been the charismatic leader that the Democratic party wants and needs. Barack can, too, of course. And I'm sure he will prove it tomorrow night.

This afternoon I watched part of the role call. "From the great state of Maryland . . ." Look girls, cousin Abby is voting! "From the great state of Michigan . . ." Cousin Arria is voting! . . . "From the great state of Missouri . . . " That's me, that's me voting, one of those 6 little delegates for Hillary Clinton, that's me, I said with tears streaming down my face.

I usually cry at the Olympics, at every track and field event, regardless of who's running and what the outcome. Not this year; I was saving up. I also cry at political speeches. And I thought I was crying this year out of happiness for the party uniting, happiness for Obama's nomination, happiness for the democratic process. And I'm sure that was part of it.

But I was also sad. As a suited white male commentator on NBC said last night, it's already been 24 years since there was last a woman on a major party ticket. Assuming that McCain doesn't choose a woman as his running mate, it will be even longer before it happens again. That's a whole generation of girls - and boys - who've grown up without that example.

I believe in most of the policy positions of both Clinton and Obama. I am excited by both historic candidacies. I'm excited by Barack Obama, my candidate for president. But that doesn't mean I'm not a little sad, too.

The Little Girl Who Loved Pink

This morning, I ran into someone I hadn't seen in a long time.

Ellie and I first met Harrison Moss nearly 5 years ago, in the fall of 2003, when Ellie was a newborn at one of her first well baby pediatrician appointments. One of the nurses opened our exam room door - safely closed for flu season - and ushered in a couple of strangers, saying, "Oh, you have to meet Harrison. She's the most beautiful little girl, and she looks just like Ellie." In fact, for the next few years, those nurses would refer to Ellie as "Little Harrison," as did her first teachers and therapists.

I've come to be honored by the comparison, deeply and honestly, but I didn't start out that way. Before Ellie was born, I wasn't sure how much I'd love her. After she was born, I loved her immediately, deeply and intensely. But I loved her as an individual and was very uncomfortable around others with Down syndrome. Soon my love and acceptance spread to encompass all babies with Down syndrome, then, as Ellie grew, little children her age. I now hold every child with Down syndrome I meet in my heart with aching and tenderness. I still have a hard time around adults with developmental disabilities, but I'm sure I'll continue to grow.

When I first met Harrison and her mom, Jill, I didn't see the similarity between the two girls. First of all, Harrison was so huge, almost a year-and-a-half older than Ellie. Do you remember what that's like, when toddlers seem like scary giants compared to your first newborn? And she was not well. Harrison was born with the same heart defect Ellie had, but hers was more complicated. Her stunning blue eyes, soft white-blond hair, delightful smile, and sweet, alert presence were overshadowed for me, that first time I met her, by her blue-tinged lips and fingernails, her pale skin, her slightly clubbed fingertips, all due to poor oxygenation from her struggling heart. That's what you think my perfect baby looks like? I thought.

Jill and I took our girls to a monthly play group for young children with Down syndrome at the school both girls attended, and I got to know Harrison a little bit more. I couldn't remember feeling the way I'd felt when I first met this amazing child; I was blown away by how accomplished, how funny, how sweet, and how beautiful she was.

Eventually, she had the successful surgery that fixed her heart, allowed her skin to turn pink and healthy. But she never recovered from the surgery, and she died in February, 18 months ago, only 4 years old.

I ran into Jill this morning, outside of Ellie's new school. Once again, Ellie is following in Harrison's footsteps. First we chose the same pediatrician, then the same daycare/preschool/therapy team, then, finally, the same pre-K. And Harrison's little sister is now a student at the same preschool.

She's a peer model in a special ed class, since her mom wanted to give back to the same system that helped Harrison, and to expose her youngest child to other kids like Harrison, the sister she barely got to know. But she's also the only girl in her class, and there are no students with Down syndrome, which is not exactly what her mom wanted.

It turns out that there's an opening in Ellie's class for a typically developing child a couple of of days a week. I can't imagine what it must feel like for Jill, seeing Ellie, a little girl with down syndrome and a repaired A/V canal defect, one people have called "little Harrison," running around healthy.

It makes my heart so full that it hurts, and I'm the mom of the little girl I can snuggle every day, the little girl who's so generous with her hugs and says, "I love you, Mommy" whenever she thinks I need to hear it. I'll never tire of hearing it. Every mommy should get to hear that from her children, every day of her entire life.

Do You Believe in Fairy Tales?

Last night I watched the Democratic National Convention in the most perfect way. I sat on the floor, my back resting against the couch and my laptop on a little stool in front of me, working on a new short story (first draft complete at 2700 words, unlike my puny little 750 word homework assignment that was due today).

I watched Ted Kennedy's speech, then, later, Michelle Obama's. I didn't stick around for the political commentary between or after, I just watched and listened to the speeches, then turned off the TV and kept writing.

I really liked Michelle Obama's suggestion that we vote our hopes this year, not our fears. That was beautiful.

And I think that Teddy Kennedy did a wonderful job. I saw his wife redirect him as he started to walk the wrong way to the podium, I saw his shaking hands, I saw the looks of concern and anxiety on the faces of his family.

But he gave a great speech, and my heart ached a little when he promised to be there in January to see Barack Obama inaugurated.

It reminded me of a few months ago when I was thinking about the Kennedy political legacy, and how here is this family that has so much money and history but is so focused on giving back, helping others. And the whole Camelot fairy tale, and about how we want so badly for it all to be real, for our political leaders to be perfect. For these rich, privileged people who are so dedicated public service, who have this large sense of the responsibility they bear to the rest of society, to be strong and perfect in all ways. To not have affairs, drive drunk, abuse alcohol and drugs, lie.

That night, months ago, I spent some time on Wikipedia, looking up JFK's family: his siblings and their children and grandchildren, searching for someone with that magical Kennedy name who had the right biography. Someone with the moral fortitude to stand comfortably in the extremely bright spotlight in which we bathe our politicians, but who also has the charisma to lead us, to inspire us to believe.

I don't believe in fairy tales, but I want to. And if I am faithful to my own husband, is it too much to expect that he's faithful to me? If I don't drive drunk, if I've never done drugs or abused alcohol, is it too much to expect others in my community to do the same? Is all this too much to ask that of our role models and public figures? And is it ever OK to expect a higher standard?

When they fall short of their promises and our hopes, we feel disillusioned. So I am afraid to believe in Barack Obama. But I want to believe that, yes, we can.

Move On Dot Org

The Olympics are over and now it's time to move on.

For example, I need to clean my bathrooms again.

Hopefully, over time, my children will stop their annoying refrains of, "No volleyball, no!" and "No more 'lympics, Mommy!"

And, sigh, it's now time to move my focus from fun international rivalries in sport to domestic politics.

To help ease my way down that path, we all piled into the Cool Cool Car on Saturday afternoon and headed up to Springfield for the first public appearance of Obama and Biden. We didn't want to make Ellie skip gymnastics, so we didn't get there in time to actually see the speeches. But we heard them in the car while driving around Springfield. And then we loaded the girls into the stroller and walked around the old courthouse area, buying a t-shirt and enjoying the energy of the crowd.

It's also time to get back on track with other things. Tomorrow I start writing morning pages.

Ugly Butterfly

This afternoon, I was exhausted (my own fault, of course) and frustrated. My girls weren't exactly thrilled to be going down for their naps, but we all needed the rest. And the break from each other.

Ellie, exhausted toward the end of her first full week back in school, was particularly contrary. And she would not stay in bed.

Finally, I had Ada down. Not sleeping, but in her bed and quiet for a minute. Here was my 15 minute break! But no, here came Ellie again, complaining about a butterfly on her arm.

What?!

I sent her back to bed, carefully lifting all the layers of covers to check for bugs. Perhaps it was a spider that she brushed off without seeing it clearly? I saw nothing except the usual carpeting of toys.

She came right back out, holding her arm and complaining about a butterfly. Again. I looked at her arm; it was fine. I put her back to bed, a little more angrily.

The third time she came out complaining about a butterfly, I was really frustrated. I was just trying to go to the bathroom, pick up my book, get a glass of water, before joining her in her room and keeping her company while she went to sleep. Couldn't she wait a moment? She's 4-1/2 years old!

But she was really anxious, so I got over my frustration and listened more carefully. I set down my quarter-filled water glass and went with her to her room, sat down on the bed and tucked her in.

Almost immediately, a mosquito swooped in for the attack.

I smacked it against the wall, killing it.

"It's all done!" Ellie exclaimed, excited. But she was still a little freaked out. "Clean the wall! Clean the wall!"

And she wouldn't stay in the room alone while I went for a Kleenex. So, after I cleaned the wall and washed my hands, I took Ellie to my room and settled her on Paul's pillow. I lay down next to her, soothing her gently until she fell asleep.

And then Ada started screaming about being neglected in her crib for so long.

But just then Paul came home from work early! And took Ada with him to pick up our freshly repaired lawnmower (sorry about the ugly lawn this week, neighbors). So - I got to climb into my soft, comfortable bed, snuggle in with my favorite 4-year-old in the world, and rest for a while.

When she woke up, Ellie gave me a great smile and lots of cuddles. Then she saw a piece of lint on the bedding. "Butterfly!" she cried, with concern.

Wonderful afternoon.

Writers Fest 2008

On September 6, the Greater St. Louis Sisters in Crime chapter presents Writers Fest 2008. I hope to be there. Come and join me!

Do you want to be published? Do you want your book to sell? Then join us for a powerful one-day seminar featuring Todd Stone and P.M. Terrell on Saturday, September 6, 2008, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Steinway Piano Gallery Recital Hall, 12033 Dorsett Road, Maryland Heights.

In the morning, Todd Stone will present a new set of drills designed to make your progress on your book greater, faster and more rewarding. He'll help you complete your manuscript by offering practical instruction in plot, characterization, setting, drafting and revision.

We'll break for lunch--continental breakfast, snacks, beverages and lunch are included in your registration fee. We'll also have frequent comfort breaks and opportunities for you to network and have books signed by local authors.

After we eat, Patricia (P.M.) Terrell will help you get media attention for your books and get people into the stores to buy your work. If you are currently writing your book, Patricia will discuss tie-ins that will boost your sales. She'll also show you a geographic approach to touring to maximize your budget--and she'll introduce you to Virtual Touring.

Then Todd will wrap up the day by presenting Real World Revision. If agents or publishers have shown interest in your book, but not offered you a contract, this is exactly what you need. (If your book isn't finished, this will save you the agony of rejection!)

And of course, at the end of the day, you'll be taking home these precious resources: a copy of Novelist's Boot Camp in book or live presentation CD form (to be mailed to you after we duplicate it), a copy of Take the Mystery Out of Promoting Your Book, and great handouts.

Print out the form below, enclose your check or credit card payment, and make plans to be a successful author!

Name___________________________
Address_________________________
City____________________________
State & Zip______________________
Phone__________________________

□ I am a member of Sisters in Crime or Chesterfield Arts. (You pay $75.)
□ I’m not a member of either--yet. (You pay $85.)

After Sept. 1, a $10 walk-in fee will be added.

I prefer Todd Stone’s Novelist’s Boot Camp in this form:
□ Book □ CD—live presentation

Method of Payment:
□ Check (enclose & make out to Greater St. Louis Sisters in Crime)
□ Credit card
Circle one: Mastercard/Visa
Number:________________________
Expiration date:__________________

Mail to: Chesterfield Arts, 444 Chesterfield Ctr. #130, Chesterfield MO 63017 or call 636-519-1955

Pastoralis

Alas! It's late again. I've finally finished my homework (one day late) so you get a piece of that instead of insightful political commentary (who has Obama chosen?!) or adorable anecdotes about my children (they are both still perfect).

And, as always, a note or two about the Olympics:

1. If you missed this morning's women's volleyball quarter final between Italia and the USA, you missed a great show. USA! USA! USA! Bump-Set-Spike!
   
2. Obama's feel-good campaign ads almost don't bother me. (I like my Olympics without election year politics.) But McCain's incessant attack ads are really starting to tick me off.

Now on to a brief except from my 3-page description of a farm. I'm using my weekly homework assignments to write a short story. It's coming together out of order, all in little 2-3 page snippets, but it's been a fun new way to write. (For this excerpt, remember how much I love nature, and realize that my main character in this story shares an exaggerated version of that trait):

Steph turned the Volvo off the interstate onto a lettered highway, then a double-lettered blacktop liberally sprinkled with potholes, and finally onto an unpaved road that didn’t seem to have a name at all. Each road got noticeably windier and narrower, until Clara’s sense of being a speck in the middle of a big, open state was replaced by claustrophobia; the trees crowding in on the car limited visibility more than skyscrapers downtown.

They bumped along the gravel road for a while, stirring up such a trail of dust that Steph stopped the car in the middle of the road long enough to raise the retractable hardtop and ensure that everyone had their windows closed. Clara removed the blanket from baby Carrie’s face and took a deep breath of air conditioning.

For several miles, Clara had been noticing periodic columns of something along the side of the road. Bugs, she realized just before Steph accelerated again. There were swarming columns of bugs every few feet. She shuddered.

A large, white mailbox appeared on their right, hidden by the trees until they were almost upon it. The mailbox marked a dirt track leading up a small hill and into a thicket. Disregarding her shiny, green paint job, Steph turned onto the narrow path and plowed ahead. After only a hundred feet or so, they topped the rise and popped out of the undergrowth, finding themselves in an open area of closely mown prairie.

“Oh!” Clara said, surprised.

“Dad likes to mow before people come out here,” Steph said. “It keeps the bugs down.”

Tropic Thunder

I am very, very tired. And I have just finished as much of my homework as I can complete tonight, so I'm going to bed. Soon.

In lieu of creative, original content from me, I'm linking to an incredible review of the "best comedy of the summer," Tropic Thunder.

As you might or might not know, disability rights groups have called for a boycott of this movie. And it turns out that "un-PC Language" is not the worst of its crimes.

Autumn Is Coming!

Thursday was Ellie's first day of school. On the way home after dropping her off, Ada fell asleep in the car and made the transfer to her crib for a long nap.

I had two hours to myself, two hours to write.

And I had so much to say. All at once, the doubts of the last few months were shoved aside by the next scene in my novel-in-progress, one I'd been afraid to start for so long. It just seemed to overwhelming, until, suddenly, it wasn't.

After getting nearly 700 words into that scene, I opened a new document and sketched out the main character and seed of an idea for the novel I want to write this November, for National Novel Writing Month.

Now I just need to finish my current novel within the next month or two, so that I have time to work out an outline for the NaNoWriMo novel before November 1st. And maybe have time for a little break in there somewhere, to finish up a few essays and short stories I've got banging around in drafts.

Fall is in the air! In only 2 weeks, Ada will be in "preschool" two mornings a week and Starbucks will start selling pumpkin spice lattes. I'm poised to break out my new brown twinset and my creative energy, which somehow begins to peak as the year wanes.

Friday Photo Blogging

There is nothing better in the world than watching my two girls playing together.



Sadly, they were separated by the first day of school. (This is actually a silly face, not a sad one.)



But hilarity resumed after lunch!

My Future Olympian?

Actually, I'm surprised at how uninterested both of my girls are. Although they're both walking around saying, "Bump. Spike!" (I don't know why they always skip the set.) I record the late-night volleyball game and watch it in short spurts throughout the next day, so they're exposed to a fair amount of mommy's amateur commentary. Maybe in 2012 they'll be more into the Olympics-watching experience. I'm thinking they won't connect as much with the winter games, as they've never been skiing - or ice skating, so far. Plus we get so little snow here.

But at least they've stopped saying, "How about Monsters?!" every time we turn on the TV this week.

The Olympics Are Hard Work!

Man, this pace is grueling. I'm exhausted from sitting on my couch and watching so many hours a day of the Olympic Games. But there's not much I'd want to give up! Thank heavens for Tivo. (I don't have to watch McCain's attack ads or beach volleyball, which is almost as bad. And I can skip ahead to the last round in the synchronized diving.)

A note to people I connect with in real life, like my children: you'll hear back from me in a couple of weeks, after it's all over and I've slept it off.

In the meantime, here's some helpful advice: How to Recycle an Old T Shirt Into a Sexy Bikini.

Don't throw that oversized and sloppy old t-shirt out just yet. You can make a neat bikini out of it with basic sewing skills and a pair of scissors. Here is how.

On a related note: How to Get a Bikini Worthy Body.

1. # Start eating healthy food.

(and so forth)

Hey, I eat healthy food. I just eat a lot of crap, too. It's the Olympics! What better way to celebrate than on the couch with rotel cheese dip and tortillas?!!

Will Having Kids Make You Happy?

Having Kids Makes You Happy: FALSE

It's a great article, and not long. Recommended reading.

It goes without saying that I love my kids. I'd give my life for either of them without hesitation. If I had it to do over again, I'd have them. And so forth.

But.

I used to feel sorry for people without kids. A decision made in haste, repented in leisure, I thought. They'll be so lonely when they get old without kids and grandkids, I thought.

Those impressions die hard, but nothing has made me more understanding of others' decisions not to have children as my experience as a parent.

In Daniel Gilbert's 2006 book "Stumbling on Happiness," the Harvard professor of psychology looks at several studies and concludes that marital satisfaction decreases dramatically after the birth of the first child—and increases only when the last child has left home. He also ascertains that parents are happier grocery shopping and even sleeping than spending time with their kids. Other data cited by 2008's "Gross National Happiness" author, Arthur C. Brooks, finds that parents are about 7 percentage points less likely to report being happy than the childless.

and

"Parents experience lower levels of emotional well-being, less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions than their childless peers," says Florida State University's Robin Simon, a sociology professor who's conducted several recent parenting studies, the most thorough of which came out in 2005 and looked at data gathered from 13,000 Americans by the National Survey of Families and Households. "In fact, no group of parents—married, single, step or even empty nest—reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children. It's such a counterintuitive finding because we have these cultural beliefs that children are the key to happiness and a healthy life, and they're not."

A friend once told me that he wants to have kids because all the parents he knows have told him that they love their kids, that their kids are the best things that have ever happened to them, that they'd do it again. Well, yeah!

[W]hich parent is willing to admit that the greatest gift life has to offer has in fact made his or her life less enjoyable?

Parents may openly lament their lack of sleep, hectic schedules and difficulty in dealing with their surly teens, but rarely will they cop to feeling depressed due to the everyday rigors of child rearing. "If you admit that kids and parenthood aren't making you happy, it's basically blasphemy," says Jen Singer, a stay-at-home mother of two from New Jersey who runs the popular parenting blog MommaSaid.net. "From baby-lotion commercials that make motherhood look happy and well rested, to commercials for Disney World where you're supposed to feel like a kid because you're there with your kids, we've made parenthood out to be one blissful moment after another, and it's disappointing when you find out it's not."

The quoted studies also come to some interesting conclusions about why we might be less happy (marrying and having kids later, experiencing more years of pre-kids adulthood and career successes). But I'm still glad I'm a parent:

For the childless, all this research must certainly feel redeeming. As for those of us with kids, well, the news isn't all bad. Parents still report feeling a greater sense of purpose and meaning in their lives than those who've never had kids.

To my friend who recently (and cautiously) told me that she and her husband have decided not to have kids, I say, "I understand. Good for you for realizing that."

And to my friend who said that he wants kids because of what other parents tell him: I know you want kids for more reasons than that. But please know that there are things parents aren't telling you.

And, an important thing for all of us to remember: having kids won't fix us, any of us. It won't make us happy if we're depressed. It won't make a fragile marriage stronger. (In many cases, it can actually make a strong marriage falter. Like, you know, mine, a couple of years ago.)

But I'd still become a parent, if I had it to do all over again.

Personality Type

When I was a kid, my family went to Presbyterian Synod School at the University of Central Missouri every summer. If you've never been to a synod school, I hardly know how to describe it. We stayed in the dorms, the 5 of us in a 2-room suite connected by a bathroom. (I have no memory of where my youngest sister slept, though I bet she does! Lilsis?)

All day there were classes and workshops and music and art and . . . fun stuff. As a preteen and young teen, I was very excited by walking around campus, going to classes without my parents, and eating meals in a dining hall (with a soda fountain! and soft serve ice cream! our favorite was to fill a class with ice cream and cover it with every type of soda).

One year, when I was 13 or 14, my class took a Myers-Briggs personality test. I was an INFJ. My husband recently had many of his co-workers take a Myers-Briggs-type test as part of a team-building exercise, and I took it just for fun. You can, too!

Now, I am an INTJ. The difference? I used to be more feeling, now I'm more thinking. Well . . . yeah. I grew up! But seriously, this transition makes sense to me; as a teenager, like many teenagers, I felt everything so acutely. As I grew up, that toned down a bit.

I don't mean to suggest that adults who are "F's" are immature. But it makes sense as a description of me. The "Thinking" thing is a trait I've attempted to cultivate, practicing and concentrating and focusing on hearing, analyzing, and responding to arguments intellectually rather than emotionally. Both types are necessary, of course, but I made a conscious effort to shift my balance.

Anyway, I like the description of me (though it's not all accurate). And the suggested careers? Not so much!

INTJ - Scientists, engineers, professors, teachers, medical doctors, dentists, corporate strategists, organization founders, business administrators, managers, military, lawyers, judges, computer programmers, system analysts, computer specialists, psychologists, photographers, research department managers, researchers, university instructors, chess players. They have a particular skill at grasping difficult, complex concepts and building strategies.

E=2 Extraversion
I=9 Introversion
S=5 Sensing
N=15 iNtuition
T=12 Thinking
F=7 Feeling
J=16 Judging
P=3 Perceiving
You are an INTJ

The Parenting Olympics II

Welcome to the Home 2008 Games! Once again this year, The Sarahlynn Online Live Network has been granted exclusive media rights to cover the competition. The SOL Network proudly features both biased and emotionally manipulative coverage, unilaterally deciding which events and contestants merit sympathetic focus.
For today’s broadcast, we're focused on parents Paul and Sarahlynn.
And now, a summary of our medal count expectations to date:

Event: Creating the Children
Paul claims a lot of credit for his important role in this team event, but fans in the all-important “mothers” demographic throw their support behind team captain Sarahlynn for her notable endurance in the “incubator” and “finish line” portions of the contest.

Event: Going to Sleep
Despite Sarahlynn's early superiority here given her breasts body type, Paul has emerged as a strong competitor in this event. For the first time this year, this event will be staged in two different bedroom arenas for two different levels of competition: infant and preschool. Currently, Paul is competing more strongly in the “preschool” category, while Sarahlynn still leads in the “infant” room.

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

Event: Discipline
Recently, both competitors have begun work with new coaches, retooling their techniques. We look forward to this contest with enthusiasm, eager to see which experimental approach will win the day.

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 (Paul has registered a formal complaint at his exclusion from this category.)
In 2004, Sarahlynn and her former teammates memorably decided via consensus that no single gold medal would be awarded. Instead, all the women pooled their resources for group lunches and happy hours. This controversial event will be considered an “unofficial” part of the 2008 Games.

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.

Sponsored Olympic Moment:
These advertiser-friendly and emotionally manipulative editorials are shot in warm lighting and soft focus, profiling the amazing job Paul's and Sarahlynn's parents did in their day. They each 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.

All of these events are currently ongoing, but starting times are repeatedly delayed by contestants’ late arrivals. As for the rest of the coverage, while judging ceremonies may have already occurred in real time, your access to the results will have to await the network's leisure.

In our next segment, we will introduce several experts who will explain why “keeping score” in The Parenting Olympics is a bad idea. And then we will pelt the judges with soggy goldfish crackers.

Reprisal

In lieu of Friday Photo Blogging this week, I'm going to post an updated version of The Parenting Olympics. I wrote this post for the 2006 Olympics, when life was . . . well. I hardly know how to describe the difference between having one quiet, newly walking baby and having two very active, very young children, except with maniacal laughter.

8/8/08. Woohoo!

Presentable

My girls picked out some shorts last time we were at Target. They were from the boys section, but they are nice, knee-length, brown plaid shorts with a hint of light green, quite lovely, actually, and not nearly as short and tight as most girls shorts. So I corrected their size selections and dropped them into the cart.

A few days later, my mom arrived for a week long visit. "We need to go to the mall to get the girls some matching shirts for these shorts," she said on her first morning here.

OK . . . that seemed a little weird to me - the shorts are brown and go with pretty much anything, also, it has to be the mall? - but my mom seemed adamant so I didn't protest. Plus, she wants to buy stuff for my kids. Who am I to complain? (Of course I complain. But I still appreciate it!)

As soon as the new air conditioner was installed, on my mom's last morning in town, we finally made it to the mall. Except that we never actually made it inside the mall itself. We parked by one of the anchor stores, walked inside, found a 50%-75% off sale in progress, shopped more than we should have, then went home for lunch and a quick dash to the train station where my mom hopped her ride with about 30 seconds to spare, thanks to CONSTRUCTION everywhere around here.

Before leaving the mall, we did actually stop by the little girls section and get a couple of school things for Ellie that she can wear this fall, while it's still warm.

But the real reason for our trip to the mall became immediately apparent as we walked into the store. We were not there to shop for the girls at all; that was a ruse to get me into a clothing store. She'd been subtly mentioning wanting to buy me something and I'd been less subtly resisting. As we breathed our first grateful gulps of industrial-strength air conditioning, I said, "Oh, look, the fat chicks section." (That would be me. And that would be where we spent almost all of our shopping time. You know how sale racks are crowded with tons of size 0 and 2? Shopping in the fat chicks section is great because I get to be the 0 and 2. Or maybe the 4 and 6. And the stuff there is no longer matronly and ugly. But yet I still have to insult it, and myself, and millions of other women. Hmm. I need to work on that.)

I walked out of the mall with a pair of slack shorts, three blouses, a knit top, a sweater twin set, and a skirt. All cute, contemporary, flattering, and perfectly fitting. She paid for half and I paid for half, because what better to do immediately after buying a new air conditioner than to go clothes shopping?

I can't remember the last time I shopped like that, the last time I got so much new stuff all at once.

"I can't even put away the clothes I have now," I said. "I have clothes. My closet is stuffed!"

"Yeah, but how much of it fits?" my mom asked. (She has a point. Since my size varies, there are usually a couple of seasons worth of clothing in 2-4 sizes hanging in my closet at any given time.) "And besides, you need something presentable," she followed up. She stopped herself just short of critiquing actual pieces of my everyday wardrobe, but her significant glances at over-stretched necklines and unraveling hems did the trick nicely.

Yowch. Perhaps it has been too long since I've shopped for myself.


Note: Tomorrow is 8/8/08 and we all know what that means: THE OLYMPICS! Woohoo! Ladies and gentlemen, start your Tivos!

Time for Dinner - review

This is just a quick follow-up to my earlier post about Time for Dinner.

Verdict: highly recommended! We haven't worked our way through all the dishes, yet, but we've tried most of them (all but the Apple Butter BBQ Pork and Asian Chicken Stir Fry) and everything we've eaten has been very good. Great, even.

Not only is the food wonderful, but I'm finding it far easier to eat in when I can just grab a meal from the freezer. I was afraid I'd be unexcited by the prospect of eating frozen food and would want to eat out. Since all the meals sounded delicious and I was involved with preparing them fresh, this hasn't been a major concern.

Which is not to say that I wouldn't still be happy to go out for chips and salsa every night, though.

I'm Behind

I went to the Central West End tonight for a book launch party.

My fellow Sister in Crime, Angie Fox, just published her first novel: The Accidental Demon Slayer.


It's a great concept, a catchy title, an attention-grabbing cover . . . and is stocked at Wal*Mart and Target. I'm thinking Angie's gonna do very well her first time out of the gate! I mean, a gang of geriatric biker witches? What could go wrong?

And she did all of this with very young children. Wow.

I didn't stay very long at the party, though it was a great party. The venue is one of my CWE favorites, Brennan's, and the pineapple-habanero chutney served with triple cream brie was to die for. But the room was very very hot and crowded . . .

And I had work to do at home.

I'm working on a homework assignment that's due tomorrow, and am a little stymied because the assignment is uncharacteristically vague. I enjoy getting specific writing assignments and then figuring out how I can fit them into my WIP, which is sort of like working with a puzzle. I'm given the shape, but need to color it in. In this way, slowly but surely, I've taken lots of little pictures and created something much larger.

Anyway, this annoyingly imprecise assignment gave my mind free reign. And, sadly, my mind took off. It traveled so far afield that I came up with a better(?) mystery for the title/shell of my current WIP and another title/shell for the mystery I've actually been writing.

This might explain the problems I've been having with the writing - I've been trying to force a mystery into the wrong casing. And both stories might end up better in the end. But the route from here to to better is daunting.

Cool

Sadly, this is not a post about how hip I am. (I am not hip.) (But I am cool.) (Recently, I was hot.)

On Saturday, we got a surprise gift for ourselves, a brand-new air conditioner.

We've been battling with our A/C for a long time, and it finally conked out for good on Saturday. Only my visiting mother, staying in the guest room in the nice, cool basement, slept well on Friday night. The rest of us were up and down, hot and cranky, and tempted to join her. If it hadn't involved setting up a bed or two in the middle of the night, we might have done it.

Our A/C repair people open shop at 8:00 am, and my mom, bless her heart, rang as soon as they opened. She was watching the girls in the basement playroom while Paul and I caught a little sleep in our room with both the ceiling fan and a box fan pummeling us with tepid air.

By 11:30 we had a brand-spanking-new air conditioning unit working away at the back of the house, cooling us down and decreasing the humidity so that we no longer needed gills to breathe indoors.

Ahhhhh.

Of course, now that we're poorer than we expected to be, we should cancel our planned autumn trip to Walt Disney World. But we probably won't, because we're irresponsible like that. And we're feeling a little giddy. Because we're cool! And the heat index was 113 at 7:00 pm today!

Friday Photo Blogging

Well, it's Friday photo blogging and I'm visually speechless tonight.

Ada had her 18-month-check-up today. In honor of that event, here's a truly disturbing picture from just over a year and a half ago:



Don't worry; it gets worse:



I get quite large when I'm pregnant. All belly. One baby in there! Who was under 9 pounds! But my Ada is definitely a girl who knows what she wants, and apparently she doesn't like to be cramped.

Functionality

The poll's down. And very interesting results, by the way. Now that it's not cluttering up the sidebar . . .

Have any of you, especially those who visit Yeah, But Houdini Didn't Have These Hips directly via Internet Explorer, have any access problems?

I've had a complaint and wondered if the problem is widespread, and if it has anything to do with Blogger's poll widget. (It all works fine for me and I use IE.)

While I'm talking functionality, though . . .

Does anyone else have a problem staying logged in? I've got the recommended security settings for Internet Explorer enabled, nothing extra, but I can't stay logged in to anything when using this browser. (There's no problem with Firefox.)

Most peculiarly, I cannot use Google applications together: Gmail, Google Reader, Blogger, iGoogle, etc. I can only be logged in to one at a time. It's very annoying! (And has kept me from using iGoogle at all, lately, since my Reader and Gmail feeds are on my iGoogle page.) The problem seems to be worsening over time, even though I completely changed my virus protection software and deleted all my cookies.

Very annoying. Advice? (Other than using Firefox all the time. I have different sets of log-ins that I keep on Firefox and IE, so I use both daily.)

Nature

I have a difficult relationship with nature. In fact, I've often thought that the only time I'll be completely comfortable with it will be when I'm buried six feet under a bed of soft green grass, hopefully shaded by a beautiful old oak in a rolling, park-like cemetery. I like to think of kids running and playing around me, teenagers sneaking off to make-out nearby, and artists sitting on my headstone for a quiet and inspirational place to draw or write.

In the meantime, whenever I'm outside I'm terribly conscious of my surroundings, and not in a pleasant way. It's hot. It's muggy. It's cold. The sky is spitting at me. The wind is beginning to get distracting. What was that sound? Are there animals around? I'm a little afraid of pretty much every wild animal, up close. Have you seen the beak on a robin? Looks painful. Ohmigosh is that a bug?!!

You get the idea.

Still, I make an effort for my kids' sakes. I get excited by little natural discoveries, hide my fears when necessary, and even take them outside from time to time.

With mixed results. My girls enjoy being outside. And they don't seem afraid of it. But nor is Ellie particularly interested in our local fauna.

A couple of weeks ago, on our way out to the car after gymnastics, we found ourselves following a small toad.

"Ellie, look! A frog! Hopping down the sidewalk!"

The poor beast was, indeed, frantically trying to escape from us while being thwarted at every hop by an inconveniently placed retaining wall.

Ellie said, "There is is," without really looking, and lengthened her stride a little as she stepped over the toad.

Completely uninterested. Huh. Well, she was pretty tired after gymnastics.

A couple of days later, we were walking down a sidewalk next to some tall designer grasses on our way to the swimming pool.

"Oh, girls, look! A snail, right here on the sidewalk! See how he's got his shell right on his back?"

Ada was ambling over to take a look, but Ellie was closer. She reached down, plucked up the snail by its little shell, and, again without really looking, tossed it into the landscaping as she continued on her way.

Weird. Is she protecting me? Does my forced enthusiasm read as fear? Of a snail or toad? Surely not. I mean, a squirrel or dragonfly, sure. But a snail that's not even trying to touch me? Nah.

Mommy Drive By

When I've read Flea's accounts of the Mommy Drive bys she's experienced, I cheer when she stands up for herself in the moment. I anxiously read the comments for more stories and feel such sadness and frustration when parents are struck dumb in the moment, unable to determine how to respond until later.

If only life were like fiction and we all either traveled with scriptwriters or had pause buttons so that we could figure out the most appropriate response to the unexpected critique.

I had a couple of mommy drive bys today, but they were the stealthy non-confrontational kind. I actually prefer confrontation. Especially when I'm already mad. But these . . . it took me hours to put my finger on exactly why I was upset, let alone how I could have reacted differently.

The girls and I went to The Science Center today. We parked on the (free!) planetarium side and took the long walk (airplanes! airplanes!) over the bridge (truck!) to the main building. After a very little while over there, we were done. Done, done, done, exhausted. It hadn't even been an hour since we left our car, but we were very, very done.

In fact, Ada hadn't been willing to be set down all day. She's been in an up-up-up carry me phase for a while now. Ellie is 4-1/2, and I'm trying to get her walk more, rely on the stroller less. So we were stuck, blocks from the car, stroller-less.

Ellie was not cooperative. I have always hated seeing adults pulling small children along by the arm or wrist, rather than holding their hands. I always swore that I would never be that kind of mom.

Today, I was that mom. Holding Ellie's hand when she doesn't want you to is like holding spaghetti. (Ditto putting a shoe on her foot. It's an interesting effect of her low muscle tone; you'd be amazed if you've never tried it.) Every time I let go of her hand/wrist, she collapsed to the floor, doubled over, sobbing. She refused to move on her own, and no amount of coaxing, cajoling, supporting, bribing, or threat-of-consequences-ing (no snack in the car if I count you to 3!) was at all motivational. But the girls were exhausted, no one was having fun, and we had to get back to the car.

So I held Ellie by the hand/wrist and walked. She walked along beside me, sobbing loudly, drawing attention. Not everybody stared. As we'd entered the Center, we'd passed a another mom doing a similar quick exit with screaming child, but she just had the one child, whom she was able to carry. Ada screamed and tried to climb me whenever I put her down. And she's just 1, so carrying her is reasonable. Ellie will be 5 in October, and she weighs 41 pounds.

So I walked, Ada on one hip, Ellie attached to my other hand, and people stared.

Figuring that the potty might be part of the problem, I stopped at the family bathroom near the exit. A woman was just going in with a little baby, presumably to change a diaper. She saw us, hesitated for a moment, then went ahead. And took forever. She had to be in there at least 5 minutes, all while Ellie was on the floor outside the door, tantruming. But I knew that she needed to go to the bathroom and surely this lady would be considerate and quick, right? Wrong.

While we waited 2 different women came over to intervene with Ellie. Others were staring, and I'm sure had similar opinions about my parenting but restrained themselves from coming up to us.

I moved Ellie out of the way, near a wall, while we waited. She was sitting on the carpet, doubled over with her forehead to the floor, sobbing in her pretty blue dress and white sandals, outfit per her request. Ada was in my arms, dressed identically to her big sister, fussing sympathetically.

The first woman came right up to Ellie, knelt down next to her, and starting trying to comfort her. The second woman, a little later, was standing where she could see Ellie but not me. She started to approach, saw me, and said, "Oh, I assumed she must be alone."

"No, I'm right here," I said. "This is a tantrum."

"OK," she said, somewhat doubtfully, and walked away.

That wasn't so bad. But when coupled with all the stares, plus the first woman who came back two more times to try to comfort Ellie while we waited, it all made me very uncomfortable.

If I'd know how long the inconsiderate nanny woman was going to take in the bathroom, I'd have gone into the big bathroom (despite Ellie's tearful protests that she'd prefer the little bathroom) or even gone straight out to our van and pulled out the portable potty seat.

But I had no way of knowing that we'd be waiting for long enough to cause such a scene, so we waited.

Then we marched on out to the car, mommy still murmuring reassurances to the girls, carrying one and pulling the other along. I didn't walk too fast, Ellie had no trouble keeping up with me, but the moment I relaxed my grip she just melted into a puddle on the ground. So I didn't relax until we were at the car.

Whereupon both girls got into their car seats without protest and fell asleep before we were back on the highway. At 11:30 in the morning. Way before naptime. Of course, they both woke up when we arrived at home 20 minutes later. (And, indeed, Ellie didn't nap at all this afternoon, Ada only went down after lodging a short but shrill protest.)

I have no idea why they were so tired - we're coming off an unprogrammed and relaxing weekend and a normal night's sleep, and this was a relatively short outing. Alas. All things considered, I can't think of too many things I would have done differently.

But back to the drive-by. When relating the story to mama friends tonight, I finally realized what bugged me so much about the nice lady who kept trying to comfort Ellie.

1) She never addressed me in any way, and you simply do not approach a small child who's in the care of an adult without at least making eye contact and getting a smile or nod from the caregiver.

2) She was interfering with my parenting. Ellie was throwing a tantrum. I have read books about how to handle tantrums. I was consciously considering my approach and acting the way I felt was most appropriate for my child. For someone else to intervene countermanded my approach and she had no authority to do that.

If I had it to do over again, I'd step forward and reassure the woman that I was the mother and in charge, and that I was handling this tantrum the way I saw fit. If I were feeling nice, I'd thank her for her concern before dismissing her.

To close, a quote from my current favorite discipline book, 1-2-3 Magic, from Chapter 7: "What to Do in Public:"

Fear of embarrassment and public disapproval has at times made even the most competent parents forget what they're supposed to do, change their tactics, and crumble. Try to remember this basic principle: The long-term welfare of your kids comes before short-term worries about what others are going to think.

Look Into My Eyes

Once, at a restaurant, someone asked us a question indicating that she assumed we must have adopted Ellie. After all, she has blond hair, while both Paul and I have brown hair.

More humorously, after gymnastics one day a boy asked Paul if Ellie was Japanese.

A writer friend saw me out with both girls recently and asked about Ada, "Does she look a lot like your husband, then?"

Well, Ada used to look a lot like me, but she does look quite a bit more like Paul, now.

The eyes, though, the eyes are unique.

Paul has aquatic blue eyes, though the flash washes them out a little here:

He is now concerned about his unequal pupils. I tried to tell him that it had to do with their proximity and reaction to the flash, but he's now convinced that he has a brain tumor. (It was the flash. Though he did use 600 minutes on his cell phone last month . . .)

I have brown eyes. My eyes were . . . not brown until I was nearly three. They've been brown ever since, but a rather unusual shade of brown if I do say so myself. They're sort of redish brown around the pupil and greenish brown closer to the outside of the iris:


My dad has blue/green eyes, so Paul's and my kids have (roughly) a 50% chance of having light eyes.

Ellie's eyes are nothing short of stunning, even when over-exposed:

In person, they're even brighter.

Ada's eyes are the most mysterious of all. They're dark, and people often assume that they're brown, but they're not. At least, not yet.

They can be gray:

Or more hazel


And here, for no good reason, is a gratiutous shot of my hair:

As it looks a year after this nonsense:

Friday Photo Blogging

Paul, his dad, and brother-in-law re-screened our patio last week. It looks great, but mid-way through the project I noticed that I wasn't seeing any activity in the nearby robin's nest (see last week's pictures for comparison). It seems that the birds have flown the coop:


We actually had a great visit with Paul's family, and the girls and I are taking it easy this week, recuperating. We're also enjoying the cooler weather. Today it was mid-60's and rainy. Last week, it was hot.

In the heat, we went to the Missouri Botanical Garden, the park:




the swimming pool, Grant's Farm, lots of restaurants,


The Magic House,


and had some stay-at-home fun, too:


So, this week, we relax!

Work in Progress

Here are the first 250 words of a short story I'm working on (in very rough first draft form). This story shares the same main characters as the novel I'm still writing, a first for me. Actually, I have ideas for quite a few novels and short stories involving these folks. We'll see how that goes!

This story is called "Et in Arcadia, Ego." It reflects my love of the great outdoors.

Clara was crying freely.

“I think I’m going to die!” she said to her husband.

Clara and Jonathon lived in a quaint little town, but one surrounded by a large urban area, not farmland. Of course she’d smelled a pig farm before, but never from quite this close-up, never quite this poignantly, pungently.

“And if I don’t die, I’m going to kill Denise!”

Their friend since high school, Denise now worked in sales. The fact that she was very good at her job was evidenced by the fact that Clara and Jonathon were actually crammed into the back seat of her new Volvo convertible, suffering along winding country roads on their way to spend the day at Denise’s dad’s farm. The otherwise spacious back seat was crowded because Clara and Jonathon were separated by their baby’s car seat.

“I can’t believe we’re subjecting Carrie to this. I’m sure she’s losing brain cells with each breath!”

Actually, Carrie seemed quite content with the hot wind blowing across her face, despite facing backwards and being sheltered by an enormous sun hat and tiny sunglasses.

Jonathon laughed, which made Clara smile. She was not usually so melodramatic, but being silly could be fun. Jonathon leaned his head back against the head rest and let the wind toss his feather-light brown hair. It was actually kind of lovely being out on such a perfect fall day, Clara thought as she watched her baby and husband basking in the sunlight.

Did I mention? It's a murder mystery and the tone changes right about here.

Time for Dinner

This is how dinner works at my house. Every once in a while, I sit down with a cookbook. I have a bookshelf dedicated to these and don't like to reuse the same books too frequently, so they're in constant rotation.

I make a list of several meals that sound good to me, copying ingredients onto my shopping list (which is divided by section of the grocery store). I shop. I prepare dinner. We all eat together when Paul gets home from work.

This system works for us.

Our goal is to eat out one counter service/take-away and one table service meal per week, though we sometimes exceed our budget on food. Food, for those who don't know us well, is where our family likes to spend money. We all loooooove to eat; it's our favorite hobby. But this summer we've been trying to do more of our over-eating at home, rather than from restaurants. (Thank you, unexpected second car payment.)

I do solicit requests for dinners, and Paul cooks when he's home (and the vast majority of all breakfasts) but I get bored, trying to decide on new recipes to try that we'll all like. And I get bored with grocery shopping. And I get bored with dinner prep that lasts longer than about 30 minutes.

Solution!

Some girlfriends and I went to Time for Dinner tonight, and I think I'll be going back! Friends of mine have been before, but I never thought I'd enjoy the experience. I did.

Here's how it works. Every month, there's a new menu. You go online and choose which dishes sound interesting to you, and you schedule a time to go cook. (It can increase your pleasure to go with a few friends, and maybe bring along a bottle of wine.)

At the appointed time, you show up bearing a cooler or laundry basket for transporting food home. You pay and are handed a sheet listing each dish you've chosen to make. You wander through the dedicated food prep stations, creating each of your meals with the pre-prepped ingredients helpfully laid out for you. Then you wander away, leaving clean-up to someone else!

Each dish goes into a plastic bag, then into the freezer, but not until you've labeled it with the prep instructions. They have thought of everything!

Our meals for the next few weeks include:
Apple Butter BBQ Pork
Asian Chicken Stir Fry
Beef and Andouille Burgers
Beef Kabobs
Caribbean Salsa Chicken
Chicken with Artichoke, Lemon and Goat Cheese
Corn Casserole
Honey Ginger Salmon
Pork Tenderloin with Confetti Corn
Roasted Red Pepper and Spinach Quiche (tomorrow night)
Venetian Mac and Cheese
Triple Chocolate Brownies

Since I chose to prepare more dishes than time allowed, they even helped me! (And would have done it all for me, if I'd ponied up an extra $35.) Everything looks delicious. And I made it (some of it) myself! And the cost is comparable to what I would have spent on all those fancy groceries.

I'll have to let you know if it feels lame to eat food from plastic bags every night. I'm thinking maybe not, but that might be because I'm trying to do all this mom stuff and writing stuff and class stuff and summer stuff and visiting family stuff and I'm loving short cuts right now!

Also, check out the new poll (right).

The Doctor

The family is all still here (yay!) so tonight I have two quick lists in lieu of a more thoughtful post.

Reasons I should go to the doctor:

• The fourth toe on my left foot sorta hurts. And has for a few months. There's maybe something unhealed or infected way under the skin in the cuticle area. But it's not getting any worse and doesn't look bad . . .
  
• I've got this red bump on my left thigh. It's maybe an infected/ingrown hair and doesn't hurt but I don't like the way it looks. It's been there for . . . maybe 5 years or so?
  
• I was a sunscreen-free lifeguard for a long time. I should probably be checked out by a dermatologist, for a baseline reading, at least.
  
• I have plantar fasciitis (my feet hurt) and it's been quite a while since I've been to a podiatrist.
  
• My insurance company likes this kind of thing.

Reasons I don't go to the doctor:

• All these things seem pretty minor.
  
• I don't actually have a doctor, other than my OB/GYN. (I keep meaning to get one, but . . . )
  
• I'm really about to lose some weight, and then I'll feel better about going. cough.
  
• It's not worth going while I'm pregnant; I have an OB for that. And it seems like I've been pregnant, trying to get pregnant, or fat for much of the last 6 years. There was a window, after I finished nursing Ellie and lost weight, but I was trying to get pregnant with then Ada and soon succeeded. Oops.
  
• I have little kids and scheduling time without them is a challenge.

Sigh.

Friday Photo Blogging

I went into the front room to check my email the other morning (shortly before swimming lessons, hence the undressed children). When I returned to the family room/kitchen a few minutes later, I found Ellie in her booster seat, quietly reading a book . . . and Ada in the middle of the kitchen table:


Ellie and Ada at the splashpad at Kirkwood Park last weekend, shortly before Ada was run over by a small boy on an even smaller bike:


Our patio robin is trying again with a new trio of hatchlings:

Rejecting the (lamest of the) 21st Century

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that someone at the pool asked me if Ellie and Ada were my grandkids. Ah-hem. But what really makes me feel old is when new stuff catches on that I just.don't.get.

As you see, I'm relatively young and hip. I know how to separate words in a sentence with periods for emphasis. I blog and am not afraid of YouTube. I've tried messenger and think it's largely a useless time-suck, but I'm OK with that. (I think much the same thing about the telephone. Your mileages may vary.)

But Leetspeak? LOLCATS? Twitter?

Argh!

Never.

No, really, never. This isn't like blogging where I spent months frustrated that some of my favorite bulletin board posters were spending less and less time on the boards because they were blogging and reading blogs, and then jumping on the bandwagon myself; quitting all discussion boards cold turkey and starting this blog a couple of months later.

(In that case, I was mostly frustrated because I missed the company of some e-friends, as if a face-time friend started hanging around somewhere else instead of our usual spot. After a while, I decided on a change of scenery and ditched The Spot myself. And eventually I started running into several old friends from The Spot around new digs, Le Blogosphérè. Blogging is a very useful medium of communication for busy folks because one can read and write whenever and the posts are more static than in most electronic media (e.g. messenger, Twitter, discussion boards) and more public than email.)

I honestly don't get the appeal of Twitter. I understand what it is and how it's used (especially for businesses) I just.don't.get.it. Two main things: "micro-blogging" isn't my preferred form (to write or read) and also the subscription options. I think we spend far too much time contacting each other remotely anyway (cell phones, emails, texts, etc.) and should be dialing back on that and focusing more where we are in the moment rather than who's on the other end of the damn iPhone.

Egads, I'm a dinosaur!

Second, LOLCATS. Kill me now! First of all, I don't much care for cats. And if I did have a cat, I'd care a heck of a lot more for my own cat than for pictures of other people's cats. (I'm much the same way about my own dog and my own kids.) But I have no problem with people sharing pictures of their cats. Just don't email them to me unless I know you and your cat.

But lolspeak? Nooooooo! How is this cute? Why is this accepted by people who otherwise demonstrate signs of being older than 11? I don't like baby talk for babies, either, and even if I did I wouldn't post it on top of pictures of my (amazingly beautiful and adorable!) girls and submit it all over the internet. Ugh.

Finally, Leetspeak. 1337! Can I sit at your lunch table now? As an adult, I'm quickly irritated (me? never!) with things that smack of exclusivity for the main purpose of, well, just being exclusive and isolating, the whole in vs. out dynamic. It's so very junior high in the 1980's. I sat at that lunch table, and I've left it far behind, thankyouverymuch.

I'll let Wikipedia speak for itself, here:
[Leetspeak] is now also used to mock newbies, or newcomers, on web sites, or in gaming communities.
The term is derived from the word "elite"
often it is seen in situations where the argot characteristics of the system are required, either to exclude newbies or outsiders in general.
Unrelated annoyance: Another common feature of Leet is over-exclamation, where a sentence is postfixed with many exclamation marks.

No, thanks.

Please feel free to step on up in comments and defend yourself and your love of Twitter, lolcats, or l33t.

--n00b

This Is Why I'm in Two Book Clubs

I'm too tired to write much tonight. My parents-in-law arrived today for a week long visit (to be followed by Paul's sister, her husband, and their adorable baby for a long weekend). Yay!

But we were up very late last night, preparing. And I still need to create a grocery list so that I can shop in the morning. So, just quickly, then:

One of my book clubs recently discussed A Thousand Splendid Suns at its annual mother/daughter meeting. Afterward, everyone decided that a lighter read was in order for the next selection.

I just got the email listing three choices from which to choose our light, frothy, frilly, fun, beachy novel:
1) high school shooting involving multiple deaths and injuries
2) woman discovers husband is having affair (also involves her involuntarily being committed to an institution and threat of losing custody of their child)
3) heartbreaking love story beginning with adultery and ending with multiple murder (including that of children) based on a true story.

Whee!

Good thing my other book club is reading David Sedaris this month.

Athletic Sex in Gotham

Let me start by apologizing to all the people who've come here recently after searching for "athletic sex" or even "crazy athletic sex" and found only this post. I assume you didn't find what you were hoping for, and I apologize for wasting your time.

Thinking of writing and wasting or not wasting time, I thought I'd post a quick review of the first week of the Gotham Writers Workshop in which I'm participating this summer. First of all, I am enjoying the online class experience. The first "lecture" didn't knock my socks off (reading the lectures will take some getting used to) but I enjoy the Blackboard functionality, and this is my first experience with it as a student (rather than as a marketeer educating sales reps and demonstrating educational products directly to customers). Second, I like the other students (at least, what I know of them so far) and think they'll be a great group to work with. I look forward to reading their pieces and getting to know them a bit more.

I like the deadlines and accountability, and I'm using the weekly homework assignments (which go just to the instructor) to work on a short story featuring the same main characters as my novel-in-progress. I'm using the first two chapters of the novel as my two big class workshop pieces.

I haven't gotten instructor feedback yet, but most of my student colleagues have weighed in on my first chapter. Unfortunately, many of them didn't follow the detailed critique directions (including the directive to post some unique praise or criticism!). On the (huge!) plus side, they loved it! Most of the feedback has been glowing. Which makes me happy and motivated and might be worth the price of the class right there.

Deadlines/accountability + positive response to work = happily writing Sarahlynn.

The first and second people to respond talked about my opening scene, which has been driving me crazy and I couldn't figure out how to fix. After reading their comments, I had a big CLICK moment and I knew what to do. Yippee. I just wish some of the subsequent commenters had focused on other weaknesses in the work; I know there must be some!

(On the other hand, they loved it! They loved specific things about it! The had really flattering things to say about the writing, dialogue, pacing, mystery elements, and characters. Have I mentioned how great this feels?)

Now when the instructor weighs in with some more detailed critique, I'll be bolstered, ready, and eager to hear it. Hit me.

So far, so good.

PCUSA Bloggers

Some friends and I recently started a new blog, PCUSA Bloggers (where blogging is decent and in order). (That last aside is an inside joke for Presbyterians.)

Our intent is for this to be a Presbyterian community with a wide diversity of viewpoints represented from both contributing writers and readers/commenters. Currently, we have two pastors, two elders, and one lay member as contributors, though I expect that number will grow and change over time.

And, of course, one does not need to be Presbyterian, or even Christian, to read and participate in the discussion!

This is still a start-up operation - and we're tweaking the template - so please check in periodically to see what we've added in the way of new features and content.

End note: There is another unofficial PCUSA Blog, but the administrator there is no longer active, the email link is dead, the site/template cannot be updated, and there's only one remaining active contributor. I've talked with that contributor regarding my concerns about the site's original intent and he's agreed to start posting others' material as well as his own. (I am excited about that development, because I've been suggesting discussion topics for quite a while, but would still like to build a community with more direct contributors.)

Friday Photo Blogging

We had an excellent Fourth of July last week. We took the girls to a parade in the morning:

Then headed home for lunch and naps. During the afternoon we cleaned up around the house:



Then we had a few friends over for a casual BBQ. After we'd eaten ourselves silly, we piled into cars and headed over to Kirkwood Park for an amazing fireworks display:

Sexism Sells -- But We're Not Buying It

Well, this isn't what I was planning to post tonight, but I couldn't watch this without sharing it.

Via the Sisters in Crime July newsletter.



Sexism Sells -- But We're Not Buying It

When You Grow Up What Will You Be?

I was right; today was hard. And it's not looking like I'll be perfectly well rested tomorrow, either. Alas.

But I'm going to choose to focus on the positive tonight, instead. This is going to be one of those posts where I catalog the wonderful things my children are up to (in this case, Ellie) probably interesting nobody but myself (preserving for future reference) and possibly others who know my children well and follow their lives from afar, like their grandparents.

Ellie's been obsessed with a book they read a couple of weeks ago during beach week in summer school, called There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Shell. I could not find this book anywhere, so I ordered it from Amazon.com and surprised her with it today. It was like Christmas in July! She carried that book around all afternoon and wanted it read over and over and over. It was the only bedtime story she wanted her daddy to read, tonight, too. So cute.

I love her developing preferences. I also love that she started independent swimming lessons this week and is doing great! She's going into the water without me and without complaint (all those trips to the pool in June really paid off) and is participating appropriately with her class. Yay!

And after a few weeks of accident after accident after accident until I thought I might go crazy, she surprised me today by taking care of a major potty need all by herself. With no mess! This has never really happened before. Although she usually manages her own potty schedule, she still needs help undressing, getting onto the toilet, wiping, washing hands, redressing, etc. And she didn't quite complete all those tasks on her own, today, but by the time I realized that she was in the bathroom, the critical bits were finished. Wheeeee!

We had the best discussion yesterday, by the way. She started singing a Dora the Explorer song about what you want to be when you grow up (for some crazy reason, I bought her the 44 tune soundtrack for her second birthday. "I'm the Map, I'm the Map, I'm the Map, I'm the Map, I'm the Map!") so naturally, I asked her about it.

"Ellie, what do you want to do when you grow up?"

I want to work!

And drive!

Drive to work!

In Daddy's car! By myself!

How cute is this? How perfectly preschool! This child has special needs? Where?

Tomorrow's Gonna Suck

I'm taking a class through the Gotham Writers Workshop this summer, and the course went live today. That means that midnight was the first time I could log on and view course materials, including workshop schedules and critique due dates.

At 11:48 pm, I got a "Gotham Class Late Notice" informing me that I'd been chosen to go first and my piece for workshop was due before July 8th (yes, the first day of class) so I was late. Sigh. Not an auspicious beginning.

I should not have been surprised, then, by what happened when I tried to post my first chapter.

I went through and carefully edited a file to upload, making sure that everything was exactly as I wanted it. This took over an hour. I saved the document several times, because I'm careful like that. Then I closed the document so that I could upload it.

And when I clicked "Browse" on the Gotham BlackBoard site to find my document, it was nowhere to be found. I checked my whole computer; there's no record of the file. I tried to wake Paul, but failed.

Well, I guess my plans for 2:30-3:30am, previously involving some sleep, have changed.

Fuck.

(Update: found it, buried in an invisible internet temp file. Everything else I'd planned to do tonight (like figure out who keeps trying to log on to one of my credit card accounts) will have to wait until tomorrow. Off to bed.)

Cold Sores

I don't get cold sores. Neither do Paul, either of our girls, or anyone else in my family (mom, dad, sisters).

Apparently, this is somewhat rare, as most Americans do get cold sores.

It's not the end of the world, but cold sores aren't great things to get (see below).

It freaks me out (and frustrates me) when people with cold sores put their mouths (and sores) close to my children. This weekend, we hung out with a good friend who had a cold sore. This friend is great with the girls, babysits them, etc. And kept kissing on them this weekend.

It really bothered me, but I couldn't think of a way to bring it up without sounding like an ass (though I kept washing their hands and wiping them down with antimicrobial wipes, probably uselessly). Since it still bothered me the next day, I sent a brief email, as light and jokey as I could make it, requesting that this friend not kiss my kids with a fever blister.

I mentioned the situation to another friend, who seemed nonplussed. "It just never would have occurred to me that cold sores would be a big deal," she said.

Huh. Maybe this is just me (and the rest of my family) who takes this seriously?

A little general information on cold sores:

• "Cold sores are caused by the herpes simplex virus (HSV). There are two types of herpes simplex virus: HSV-1 and HSV-2. Both virus types can cause lip and mouth sores and genital herpes."
  
• They're very contagious, and can definitely be spread by kissing (and sharing cups and utensils).
  
• Symptoms can include pain, fever and malaise, sore throat, and swollen glands.
  
• The herpes simplex virus that causes cold sores cannot be cured. After you get infected, the virus stays in your body for the rest of your life.
  
• It can be worse in people who are immuno-compromised. Ellie doesn't have the best immune system in the world.
  
• Scientific American asks: Does Herpes Cause Brain Cancer? "The deadliest and most common type of brain cancer has a strange bedfellow: cytomegalovirus, a kind of herpes present in about 80 percent of the U.S. population."

I'd love to hear your opinion: was it rude of me to ask this of my friend? Am I completely nuts to not want this virus for myself and my kids?

Friday Photo Blogging

Last summer, all four of us went to the Missouri Botanical Garden once. There was a downpour and we got soaked. I mean really really soaked. Translucent clothes, saturated underwear, the works.


The girls and I went back a couple of times on our own and had no problems.

This summer, the four of us chanced the Gardens again, this time for a Niki night.

And, of course, it poured and we got soaked to the skin. It's a good thing we don't mind a little water!




And no, I don't watch What Not to Wear, why do you ask? I do have a sister and good friend who do, and they're both very happy to tell me that I should stop wearing ridiculously large, shapeless clothing. But I don't wanna!

Are They Better Mothers?

What am I doing wrong? Why am I so bad at this?

I used to ask myself those questions and wonder why other moms had everything so much more under control than I did. Scheduled children. Toys all picked up before Daddy came home. Sometimes, children fed and bathed and ready for bed when Daddy walked in the door in the evening to kiss them goodnight and maybe read a story or two.

Leaving aside for the moment the fact that that's not the life I want, the way I want to raise my children, the relationship I want my children to have with their father.

How do they do it? I am frequently worn to a frazzle when Paul comes home from work (an event I'm often looking forward to by concentrating hard on the second hand, wondering if the battery is dying or something). Toys frequently carpet the house, dinner remains unmade, and children need to go potty or have their diapers changed.

At least that's how it used to be. Now I have more of the answers.

Did you know that it's actually easier to do all that routine stuff (straightening, cooking, eating, bathing) sometimes? Did you know that it can be harder to fill long, cranky afternoons with undesired free play or programmed activities? Unscheduled time leaves more room for potty accidents, sibling bickering, messy toy box explosions, and boredom to set in. And scheduling activities for late afternoon cranky kids can be even more of a problem.

In our house, mornings are for field trips and other fun activities. Post-nap-time is a time for whining and picking fights.

"Hey, kids, pipe down for a bit. I'm trying to write an email." I'd feel like a pretty rotten mama for saying that. It might be different if my kids were, say, 17 and 20.

But, "I need you to go play in the other room for a few minutes; I'm busy cooking and it's getting really hot and dangerous in here." Who could feel guilty about that? What can be more important than preparing a nutritious, delicious meal for the children?!

I'm not talking about 4-hour gourmet prep sessions, but cooking can actually translate to a few precious moments of alone time. Ahhhh.

And early eating forestalls late afternoon whining. Baths are just plain fun. Perhaps those other mamas don't have it more together; they're just keeping their shit together in a different way than I am.

I always cook dinner during the afternoon now, and I've moved snack time to 4:00 to push off our family meal until Paul gets home at 6:00. The girls and I also pick up toys together in the late afternoon when everyone's getting cranky. If they get bored with that and bail to play in their own rooms, I get a double bonus: the ability to pick up efficiently and in peace, plus the possibility of a few minutes to myself if I finish quickly!

I am not bad at this. It just took me a little while to find the strategies that work for us, both for the natural rhythms of our lives and for the time we like to spend together as a family, eating dinner and playing before bed.

It also gets a bit easier as the children become older and more self-sufficient.

I (Briefly) Lost Ellie Today

A couple of months ago, we had trouble with Ellie running out into the street when she was supposed to be loading into the car. We coped with that using a variety of techniques, most effectively praising her for stopping at the end of the driveway to look both directions, which made her so happy that she'd come back when we asked her to do so.

I thought we were through with all that.

She did it again today, while I was bringing a load of library books and diaper bag out to the car. Moreover, she encouraged her little sister to come out into the street with her.

Naturally, I dropped the bags and snatched up Ada. We live on a very quiet street, and as there was no traffic anywhere around, I strapped Ada into her car seat before going after her Ellie, who had continued on down the block. She is 4-1/2, after all. She does know how to look for traffic and she was wearing a bright red shirt so she was hard to miss.

Before I started kindergarten, on the advice of her parenting books my mom had me walk to the grocery store, buy a gallon of milk, and carry it home (that was heavy!). But times are different now. And Ellie is . . . Ellie.

Less than a minute later, I was looking for her. Up the street: no Ellie. Down the street: no Ellie. Into the T-intersection 100 feet or so from our driveway: no Ellie in either direction.

She doesn't move very fast. Down the storm drains: no Ellie. I wasn't very concerned, honestly. I know our neighbors, no cars had come by, she had to be near.

She was. She had gone up to a neighbor's house and was peering through the front door, but she had not responded to my calls.

I considering not letting her go into the library as part of her punishment, but decided that would be more of a punishment for Ada and me. So she lost access to her dolls for the rest of the day (in addition to a 5-minute time out and NPR on the way to the library). Those who know Ellie know that this was a serious consequence, indeed. No dolls! All day!

We've been having some serious defiance issues lately. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.