Weekend

It was a long, tiring weekend, the kids are better, but I have been sicker than ever. The end.

Well. Yesterday the twin whisperer came by to visit and took the kids to the library for a couple of hours. This particular library has a great kids area with a giant castle. It was so nice to get a quiet morning.

This afternoon Nora took an almost non-existent nap so after she got up I took her to the public gardens. Of course everything is under the snow this time of year but they have a giant conservatory and going there was the best dollar I've spent in months. It was about 85 degrees in there, and super humid. I breathed more easily, my cough quieted down, and Nora had a blast running around and watching the fish and the birds and the plants and trees. When we went in, Nora's hair was straight. By the time we left, it was a giant mess of curls. So cute.

Buddy likes to style Milo's hair into a mohawk, which is also super cute. His hair sort of naturally does that anyway because he has more on top than anywhere else. I don't know where Milo got his white-blonde hair but it sure is nice. It also has a frizzy, kinky consistency that is unlike anybody else's.

Bitch, Ph.D. wrote a nice blog post about milestones. Her point is that the important child milestones are the ones that allow parents to regain their freedom step by step. Among those she lists are wipes his/her own butt, reads for pleasure, can make own lunch, and bikes to/from school. We're a ways away from those but I'm appreciating the fact that they more or less feed themselves these days. I'm also looking forward to them a) feeding themselves responsibly (i.e. I could step away from the table without food ending up on the ceiling), b) playing independently, c) not minding if I cook dinner instead of hold them, d) not minding if I go to the bathroom. Those four things alone will greatly enhance our quality of life at home. Or I should say, my quality of life, since they don't really give a shit if Jake goes to the bathroom or cooks dinner.

Good, Bad, Nice, Awesome

Good: We have been seeing some potty action! Milo has peed in the potty twice, and Nora has peed in the potty three times. She did it last night. And today, Milo pooped in the potty! Hooray! I feel like they're kind of behind on the potty thing, but they've generally been a little slow with physical development so I think it's a normal trajectory for them. They didn't crawl, sit, or walk early either. They're definitely in the normal range, but it's the slower side of normal, which is okay.

Bad: I am sick again too, and it's all sort of blended together since I never stopped coughing from the old cold. Spring can't come quickly enough. So. Tired.

Nice: I have a friend who is on sabbatical right now. She lives in my neighborhood and we have this crazy thing where we keep trying to get together and it is so hard to coordinate schedules. I have this, that, or the other scheduled during lunch. She has these obligations on these days, I am out of town that other day, and we're scribbling and searching through our calendars and the next thing you know it's like 6 weeks before we find a time when we can get together. In fact, I have this same dilemma with most of my friends. The academic ones are constantly traveling, and we always have a million things going on, plus childcare, and the next thing you know months have slipped by and we haven't gotten together. Then we find some miracle shared free time together, have a blast, and vow to do it again soon, and the next thing you know months pass again.

It's pathetic that my life is too scheduled and hectic to have friends.

Anyway, my sabbatical friend and I finally found some common time today for coffee and it was great. I look up to her because she's smarter than me, funnier than me, and is living out my hopes -- tenure, sabbatical, and on the same time frame as me (2 kids, 2 extra years on the clock). She gives me hope that it is doable and serves as a reality check that it might be okay.

Who knows if it will be -- this is a crazy roller coaster of emotions and I know this kind of stress isn't healthy. But it's just 2 more years. It's important to remember that even if it doesn't work out, it'll be okay anyway. We'll move. Or else we won't, and I'll drop out of academia and do something else. I'll still be me. We'll still have our family.

Awesome: For the first time ever I got perfect scores across the board on my course evaluations. The students rate us on a scale of 1 to 5 for 8 different questions and your average score (4.23 out of 5, or 3.87 out of 5, or 4.72 out of 5, etc.) is tracked and noted each semester. Anyway, last semester I got 5 out of 5 from every single student on every single question! Sweet.

Standards Change. A Lot.

We are stuck at home today because the kids are sick. Again. Nora kept asking to go to the toddler gym but I can't expose everybody else to this, so the poor kids are stuck here. I think Milo had about a week of health and Nora hasn't had any, because she never stopped coughing completely from her old cold. Now the new cold has joined us. Do these kids go around licking things in public when I'm not looking or what?

Last night I was sound asleep, halfway through the night, when we suddenly woke up to Milo crying at 3 a.m. We stumbled into the nursery, and he was standing up in his crib. I started comforting Milo and telling him that it was okay, when suddenly I thought, why am I standing in a puddle? Where did this puddle on the floor come from? It turns out Milo's diaper had leaked and the pee had run down his pajama leg, out his foot, onto the mattress and finally onto the floor.

So Jake changed Milo while I cleaned up the floor and changed the sheets and mattress pad. We put him back to bed, and then crawled into bed ourselves. It was only at that point that I realized, hmm, it's not like I washed my foot or anything. I've got a urine-covered foot in bed here. But I was so tired. Oh well. It's not like it's poop or anything.

My Program Officer Called

Ring, ring!

Me: Hello?

NSF Program Officer: Amy, it's NSFPO. Look, there's a problem with the budget for your grant. (Sounds dejected).

Me: (Heart sinking). Oh?

NSFPO: Yes, in years 3 and 5 you have international travel, but you don't say to which country.

Me: Oh. Uh, I was just planning to go to [well-known international conference] or [other well-known international conference].

NSFPO: Oh. I guess they probably don't know where those will be held that far in advance, huh?

Me: Well, let me look at the website. Uh, this one says Taiwan in year 3. I don't know for year 5.

NSFPO: Okay, that's fine. I'll just put Taiwan. I just need to put in a country code. It doesn't really matter which country code I use.

Me: Oh. Uh...okay. So, uh...any news for me?

NSFPO: It's all going to be fine. Don't worry.

Aaaaaa! This is killing me! Until I receive official word that the grant is coming through, I won't be able to relax.

It's All Happening at the Zoo

This morning:

Milo: Daddy's sleeping!

Me: That's right. Daddy's tired, and he needs to sleep.

Milo: Daddy needs a friend!

Tonight at dinner:

Nora: I saw some flamingoes!

Me: You did? And what color were the flamingoes?

Nora: ...Red!

Milo: Actually, they're pink! Actually.

Also, getting ready to go the zoo:

In the primate house:

Nora was mostly interested in splashing in the puddles:

Milo liked to walk in the snow:

Milo is more willing to walk around holding our hand:

That's a big tiger!

Here the tiger is looking at Nora and licking his lips:

A fun day at the zoo!

Edited

The tenure system is an extremely effective silencer for the people who don't yet have any power. My motto has been to basically keep my mouth shut for the past six years.

Also, my NSF program officer told me that my grant proposal is caught up in an administrative backlog and he can't get the people up the pipeline to act. He told me "don't worry", which makes me worry. I am worried.

The Twin Whisperer found a pair of Stokke Tripp Trapp chairs in a consignment store. These are chairs that grow with babies/kids all the way to adulthood, and you can pull them right up to the table. They are very well designed. But they are way too expensive to buy new, especially two of them, so I went with the cheap and ugly booster seats instead. Anyway, these used ones were a great deal so I snatched them up. Tonight we let Milo and Nora eat at the table like big kids. Milo did a great job. Nora did a terrible job and made a huge mess. So I'm putting the chairs away for a few months and we'll try again later. I just don't have it in me to deal with the crazy messes that they make at the table. At least in their booster seats it is more or less confined to the tray and easy to clean up.

Milo's obsession with balls has more or less disappeared for the moment. He's just into all sorts of things now, but not balls in particular. His love of Caspian endures, though. He is also really into music and climbing stuff and garbage trucks. Both of the kids are into trucks in general.

Nora has become argumentative. I didn't even know toddlers this young could argue the way she does. For instance I might say "It's time to get our coats on," and she'll say "No! It's not! It's not time to get our coats on!" Or I might say, after she attempts to bite her brother, "We don't bite people, it's not nice," and she'll say "It IS nice! It IS!" Also, Nora keeps trying to tell me what to do. So she might want, say, oh I don't know, to play with a vase of flowers while we're eating dinner, and my response to that request will be no. And then she'll say "Don't say no, Mommy! Say yes!" Or if I'm trying to cook dinner she'll say "Go out of the kitchen, Mommy! Go into the living room and sit on the sofa and read a book!"

I have tried to explain to Nora the way it works, i.e., I am the parent, she is the child, therefore I tell her what to do and not the other way around. And also she is not allowed to argue with me like that. But for some reason it's not really getting through. Hmmm...

Tonight Jake was remarking "Nora is so bossy and she always thinks she knows everything. I wonder who she gets that from..."

Who Do I Think I Am?

Never mind. Better safe than sorry.

Comfort Food

I am blue. It is February. Time for a comfort food meal.

Tonight I made my childhood favorite, an old 50's-style tuna noodle casserole. Well, it's not quite that bad, no cream of mushroom soup involved in this one. Instead it calls for an old fashioned white sauce with butter or margarine, flour, and milk. Add tuna, onions, and some bread crumbs and you're good to go. Nothing fancier than salt and pepper. The ultimate kid food, and one kid actually did like it. I added a spinach salad with apples, walnuts, and feta, and it was actually a decent meal.

I feel a little better, anyway.

I need to remember to take a picture of Milo's hair after his bath, when it is most visible. Milo's hair is white-blond and curly. It's the cutest thing ever, especially in combination with his big blue eyes.

Today I was reading a book to Nora about 5 pumpkins and I counted them with my finger. Then I asked, can you count them? Nora said "No! My finger is too fancy for counting!"

Well, la di da!

Sad

Ugh, still so sick. At the tail end of this thing and yet Nora's fever returned tonight and so did mine...what is this bug? February blows.

Our department always tells us that we will get tenure, because people who are in trouble in the tenure area are counseled about that ahead of time, years ahead of time. So that there are no surprises. Except...we have had a surprise. A big surprise. So something went wrong. And if something went wrong this time, how confident am I supposed to be when everybody tells me that my case will be fine?

One More Thing

The kids can recognize four words now: "Milo, Nora, Hi, and Cat". Their names are no-brainers but I've only done "hi" and "cat" a couple of times, a long long time ago. Like, months ago. Then today the kids found the magna-doodle and wanted me to draw all kinds of letters and eventually I started writing words. I tried "Hi" and immediately Milo knew what it was. Same for Nora and "Cat". I couldn't believe it. It really goes to show you that kids at this age have an amazing, unbelievable capacity for learning. It clearly is so, so superior to what we as adults are capable of. Today I introduced the word "Dog". We'll see if they remember it next time (I bet they will).

Language

Curse you, eco-friendly 100% recycled paper Whole Foods tissues. It's like blowing your nose on a newspaper. The entire family has red noses wiped raw at this point. Next time I'm springing for the eco-unfriendly Kleenex with lotion built in.

Meanwhile...

The kids' language development never ceases to fascinate me. I find it to be a great example of generalization, which is something that I study (in relationship to math) for my job.

The first super cool thing I remember is how Nora figured out how to communicate that she didn't like something. This was last summer when she was about 19 months old or so. Nora knew the phrase "I like it" and would use that a lot, but didn't know the word "don't". One time I was trying to get her to eat something (of course), I think it was a piece of fruit or something, and she kept shaking her head and saying no. Finally she paused and then said "No I like it!" I thought that was brilliant and got the point across perfectly.

Now the kids are at an age where they are generalizing the rules of grammar, and of course because our grammar system isn't consistent, they say things that aren't grammatically correct. (But they're logically correct). My favorite one is when they say "It's mys!" instead of "It's mine!". They do this because they know that this book is your book, so "it's yours"...therefore if this other book is my book, then "it's mys". Makes perfect sense.

And of course the kids do the more typical toddler type errors too, for instance, today Milo said "I falled off the sofa!" Again, makes perfect sense because he has generalized that you put an "ed" on the end of a verb to indicate past tense.

I have often thought that it's got to be such a challenge to make sense of the English language what with all of our exceptions and special rules and so forth. I thought that Japanese was a very easy language to learn in contrast to, say, French because it is so consistent. There is no such thing as an irregular verb. It's fascinating to me to watch the kids demonstrating their ability to generalize rules in order to make up new words and new parts of speech. Sometimes it ends up being correct (I kicked the ball) and sometimes it ends up being incorrect (I felled off the sofa), but it's always logical.

Some Days are Crap Days

Frustrating day at work today. Things are happening that directly affect me and my group but we are being shut out of the process. I don't know why we're being treated so poorly, but it's got us mad, and I just feel...mad.

On a bright note, one of my masters students successfully defended her thesis today. She did an awesome job and it was probably the smoothest defense I've ever seen.

On a dark note, I spent literally the entire day in meetings and did not get a single lick of "real" work done. The fear, the dark dark fear (you're not writing enough, you're not going to get tenure) always comes very close to the surface on days like today. How is it that I worked a full day, am completely exhausted, and yet did not move myself even one centimeter closer to tenure?

I am so sick of living in constant fear of losing my job. And I have 2 more years of this.

Home. Making spicy cajun pasta with vegetables for dinner and the kids are clinging to my legs and screaming for me to hold them. It is not safe. The pan is very hot (to blacken the vegetables). Jake has to drag them off into the sunroom and shut the door.

I am angry because the pasta sauce is not thickening up the way it's supposed to. It has broth, white wine, and some cream. But it isn't thickening. And I'm too harried / rushed to do what I should do, which is whisk some cornstarch with cold water and add it to the sauce to thicken it. Instead I dump all of the vegetables back in and the sauce and then angrily stir it around as it fails to thicken.

And then Nora WHINES and whines as I'm trying to get dinner on the table and I'm seriously going to lose it. I tell them all that if she doesn't stop with that insanely piercing, loud, never-ending whine/cry, I'm going to have to leave. Because I am seriously going to have to leave. I'm mad about work, I'm mad about the pasta sauce, and I can tell that I am on the verge of yelling. Nora sort of calms down and I avoid yelling.

The kids are sick, Jake is sick, I am sick. We are all sick.

Study

A new study out says that boys born through IVF with ICSI (as Milo was) may face infertility problems. I was thus-far unaware of the connection between male infertility and length of ring fingers. Haven't yet checked the length of Milo's ring finger...

Edited to add: I checked Jake's fingers and he has a ring finger shorter than his index finger (unusual in males, reflecting a female pattern). In addition to infertility, it turns out that this finger ratio issue is connected to a whole host of things, all as a result of the amount of testosterone a fetus gets during development. For instance, there is even a link to finger length ratio and whether both men and women are gay. The most concerning to me is that men with Jake's finger ratio patterns are at a much higher risk of an early heart attack. (!)

The kids still have fevers, but seem to be feeling better today:

103.8

Nora's fever this afternoon. :( With medication I've only been able to get it down to about 101.6. Poor thing. Then she threw up a little bit after dinner. I could tell it seemed to be a likelihood and fortunately had a bowl on my lap.

Nora just wanted to be held all day. Milo seems to be feeling better but he does still have a fever of about 101. Three days seems like a long time to have a fever. Maybe I am just a worrywort. Both have a nasty cough. Sleep is a challenge.

It is nice to have kids who are now getting old enough to be able to talk a little bit about what's bothering them. Throughout dinner and afterwards Nora kept saying her tummy hurt, which is why I had the bowl handy. Of course, she also constantly tells me that her mouth hurts, which may be true, but she also says it because she likes the taste of medicine and always wants me to give her more medicine. So it's funny, you get information from them, but the line between truth and fantasy is non-existent so sometimes you might not be getting anything useful.

I hate it when the kids are sick.

I Have a Fever, And the Only Prescription is More Cowbell

Milo is probably the sickest I've ever seen him (which isn't saying much, thank goodness). Fevers and a terrible cough and a never-ending stream of snot. I'm a little worried. RSV is going around the town. I'm just waiting for it to strike Nora down.

Talking to the kids is sometimes like a weird drug trip. Tonight at dinner Nora told us this whole story about falling down the stairs.

Nora: I fell down the stairs! And I bumped my head! And I cried on the stairs! Did you fall down the stairs?

Me: Did you?

Nora: I did! Did Milo push you on the stairs? Milo pushed you. And then I fell down. And I bumped my head and I cried. Did Milo pull you off the stool?

Me: Did he? I know he did that weeks and weeks ago...

Nora: He did! Milo pulled you off the stool today!

Me: Milo, did you pull Nora off the stool?

Milo: ...I like strawberries!

Ow

This morning I packed up the kids to go to the toddler gym. It is so cold and crummy outside that the toddler gym is a lifesaver. The kids get a big place to run around in, climb, play with other kids, and just get their energy out. So, I changed their diapers, put on their sweaters, put on their coats, consoled Milo after Nora shoved him on the stairs, changed Milo's socks because he stepped in some water, got their shoes on, got them strapped into their car seats, and drove to the toddler gym.

But the parking lot was full, and I had to park several blocks away on the street. I was also concerned because there was a giant 6 foot high pile of snow between the car and the sidewalk, and I couldn't just leave one kid in the middle of street while I got the other kid out. So I got Nora out (she was on the street side), put her on the sidewalk, and told her to stand right there and not move while I got Milo out. Then I walked back to the car and was getting Milo out of his seat with one eye on Nora the whole time, making sure she wouldn't run away down the hill or something. Which is probably why I slipped and fell into the giant snowbank while I was holding Milo.

The instinct when you're holding a kid, or anything valuable probably, is to save the thing you're holding at the expense of breaking your fall. So I had a bad fall and now my knee is killing me. Also, I did sort of drop Milo enough that his pants got wet in the giant snowbank, so he was pretty upset about that. So I had to carry him the whole way there, also holding Nora's hand because she kept slipping on the ice, and I felt like it took half an hour to walk (limp) a couple of blocks. Fortunately I had a spare pair of pants in the diaper bag, and so the kids got their toddler gym morning after all.

The sheer logistics of doing stuff sometimes just overwhelms me. The kids are still a little too young to be good about staying put or sticking close to me, so I want to have physical contact at all times when we're in parking lots or streets. This is the kind of thing that I know will continue to get easier and easier. It is already a lot easier now than it was a year ago, when I had to load them both up into a stroller just to get from the car to any building. At least now they can walk. And as they get older, they will get better at being safe when walking, and one day the time will come when they will even be able to get themselves out of the car. And put their own coats on. And their own shoes. And their own mittens.

**************

Milo woke up from his nap with a 102 degree fever. Poor little guy. They just got over being sick. Also, I am mentally sending out apologies to every family who was at the toddler gym this morning and got exposed to whatever Milo has. Man. I didn't know.

My So-Called Life

Man, I totally forgot what a drag this whole no-sugar thing is. I also forgot that I've totally done this before for way longer than a month. I did it when I was pregnant and had gestational diabetes. But it was worse then, because I couldn't even eat something like fruit or rice or pasta without the necessary accompanying protein. No, you can't have an apple, but you can have an apple with a giant hunk of CHEESE. Yuck.

Poor Jake. When I was gone the kids really pushed him to the limit. Nora bit Milo on the neck -- hard -- so hard that he has a giant bite-mark-shaped scab on his neck. (He took a toy from her). Apparently Jake asked her why she did that, which is kind of a ridiculous thing to ask a 2-year old but I can understand why a parent would be pushed to say "Why did you bite your brother?!?" and Nora said "I need to!"

I think it is definitely time for time-out. I just have to figure out where to have it. If it's in the sunroom with all the toys, they seem kind of happy to play in there. But if it's on a stool up against a wall or something, they're too young to stay put. Maybe up in their room, but it seems like too much of a delay to march them up the stairs -- not immediate enough.

The kids apparently also threw their food, and at one point Milo deliberately dumped a cup of milk onto himself. Then he egged Nora on to do the same thing. I asked Jake if he lost it and yelled at them (which I have almost never observed him do), and he said yes, saying "They're lucky they didn't get a beating." (He's kidding -- we don't spank our kids or hit, period. We never have, and I hope we never will.)

I said, "Well, we just have to keep at it and be consistent. It'll get better eventually. I hear things get better when they turn 4." Jake said "I would rather die than deal with two more years of this." Poor guy -- sounds like it was a lot to take when I was gone. It's like having two of them is way more than twice as challenging, since so many of the troubles come out of their conflicts with each other, including fighting over toys/space and competing for attention. And when they're not fighting, they're egging each other on to do things like throw food, spit, or otherwise wreak havoc.

I hope this stuff is normal and not a sign that we are messing up as parents! I don't let them get away with these things so it's not like the kids are running around without any limits or anything. I guess they're at the age where they have to test those limits every 5 minutes.

On a bright note the kids were mostly fine today, and dinner was a more-or-less calm affair. The kids went to toddler time at the library today and Nora didn't cry, and she even participated in the songs, making the hand gestures and so forth. Buddy found a program on the internet for toddlers to identify letters and shapes, and she told me that she was amazed at how quickly they can identify those things. "They sure are smart," she said...but if they're so smart, why are they still crapping their pants?!?

Which reminds me. This morning or last night Milo had pooped and his diaper had come undone. So when I unzipped his pajamas I found the poor kid literally smeared with poop from waist to toe. There was a tangerine-sized turd nestled against his ankle. Kind of smooshed into his foot. So we started off the day with a nice bath. Milo was remarkably patient and good-spirited about the whole thing.

Time Warp

A happy turn of events enabled me to change my flight to an earlier one today and get home just as the kids were finishing up dinner. They excitedly exclaimed that Mommy went on a trip on an airplane, and then they came home! Nora then went on to tell me that Grandma and Grandpa came to visit today...and they brought presents! (This happened over a month ago). Then Milo added in "Santa came today! He brought presents!"

Wow, how long was I gone? I thought it was just 2 days but now I'm not so sure!