Rain

We're having a veritable heat wave here. It warmed up above freezing this weekend and rained off an on the whole time. This was so awesome (I thought...) because we have giant piles of snow everywhere, and the rain is getting rid of some of it. Our roof had some ice dams and the rain finally got rid of them; this morning I stepped outside to enormous chunks of ice on our door step, and by enormous I mean one cubic foot chunks. Ridiculously huge! If anybody had been standing on the door step when the ice fell, that person would be deader than a doornail.

It was so nice to have some warmth in the deepest recesses of January. It could easily be 15 below right now, but instead it got up to 40 degrees and there were, of course, people running on the bike path in shorts. Yesterday morning I employed my latest toddler-control tactic, which is divide and conquer. The kids are fighting constantly now and it is driving me nuts. Recently I wrote about how Nora doesn't physically attack Milo, and she must have gotten onto the blog and read that and resolved to do something about it. Because now, when Milo tears a toy out of her hand (about every 5 seconds if I'm not right there to physically stop him), Nora will a) bite him, b) push him, c) box him about the ears, or d) all of the above. It's like a multiple choice test from hell. Then Milo screams and cries in pain and anger, and Nora is already screaming and crying in anger from the toy snatching, and I continue to die a little inside.

So...where was I? Oh right, divide and conquer. The kids do best when they can get out and do various activities, keeping too busy to fight. So in the morning I took Milo grocery shopping and then we went to the shoe store so that he could get his foot measured (5.5). There was a train table at the shoe store, and a giant stuffed tiger, and Milo was in heaven. There was also a tv playing a cartoon. Milo saw it and said "music on the computer!". This is because his experience with videos comes from the times when I will load up a you tube Sesame Street clip on my laptop. These pretty much always involve songs, so Milo calls it music. Anyway, he had a great time, and so did I.

That afternoon after their naps I took Nora to one of the local libraries. All of the libraries around here have kid areas, so we played with the toys and did some coloring and read some books. Then it was time for Nora's snack so we went to the coffee shop next door and Nora sat at the table with me and ate her snack and drank her milk like such a grown-up little lady. It was truly lovely. As we walked back to the car through the fog and mist I commented to her how wonderful the weather was, what with it being so warm and moist and all.

The kids always melt down before dinner. I don't know how to fix that. Snack, no snack, late snack, early snack, dinner appetizers, no appetizers, it doesn't seem to matter. They melt down and then one of them is usually a mess at dinner, and there is pretty much always crying involved, and it sucks. Usually at least one kid refuses to eat stuff. Sometimes at least one kid refuses to eat, period. By the end of the meal I am always barely holding it together, one giant raw nerve.

This morning, Sunday, I woke up after a night of solid rain. I got on my running clothes and pried Milo off of me, him crying and demanding that I hold him and going into full-on tantrum mode at my attempt to leave the house (this is what I go through whenever I want to do any damn thing), and finally make it down to the basement to get my shoes on and...squish. Water. Under my feet. Everywhere. Our basement had flooded. I can't even get into how much this sucks, especially since the last time this happened we thought the water was coming in through the chimney and we fixed that problem. Run cancelled, morning shot to hell, spent simultaneously trying to take care of the kids and clean up the water in the basement. The kids were a wreck all day today. I mean, constant crying and yelling. Both wanted to be held all the time (it's like a competition) and when one parent is sopping up water, the other parent cannot physically hold both kids at once, and it's just a mess. By the end of today I had just about reached the end of my rope. And now we have to do something about the basement, right after we've tapped ourselves out what with building a bathroom and all. We can't even figure out where it's coming from.

Sometimes it seems like everything is just crumbling to pieces a little bit at a time. Anything I clean gets messy and destroyed in a day. Any step forward with the kids is followed by a couple of steps backwards. Any attempt to do something healthy and enjoyable for myself is foiled by emergency room visits or flooded basements. Tonight Jake remarked that we just have to hold on until...and I said, until what? Because when, exactly, are things supposed to get easier? He had no answer. Just hold on, he said.

(Of course I'm being melodramatic. It's not always terrible. There are cute times too.)

What Travel Means

It's spring (semester) and that means travel, to NSF review panels, PI meetings, and academic conferences. What do trips mean? Hopefully no trauma for the family in my absence, but in these terrible, horrible, no good, very bad twos, who knows! Trips also mean trying to eat healthily in airports and at conference buffets, checking out the hotel workout rooms, and then collapsing into bed and watching trashy tv at night after gorging on unhealthy meals with my colleagues and totally failing to get on the treadmill.

Most of these trips involve me getting up and giving talks about my work to big (or small) rooms of people, so a gal has to look good. I always get the itch to do some spring conference travel shopping in January and February. It's time for short jackets over cotton knits, long black slacks with a slight boot cut, silver earrings, trench coats in spring colors, and pencil skirts. I dress to look taller than I really am. I used to dress to look older than I was, but now I'm plenty old enough so I just dress my age.

Sadly, my tastes tend to be way out of line with my more modest professor lifestyle and salary, so no Fidji shoes this year. But some day...

On a less frivolous note, I am nervous about traveling right now because the kids are so whacked out. Nora cries when she has to sit in her chair at dinner time (1 foot away from me) rather than right on my lap, so who knows how she'll do when I'm in a whole other state. Milo has also recently begun to grow oddly clingy to both me and Jake. The kids are fighting like cats and dogs and my god, the crying. The yelling. The tantrums. It's unbelievable. I really hope that there is something about this age, and this is normal, rather than our two particular kids happening to be a couple of giant assholes. Nora tends to do fine without me once I'm gone, so I think the kids will be okay, but I'm worried about poor Jake having to deal with the tempest that is newly-turned 2 without a wingman. I'm pretty sure I'd lose my cool if I were doing this on my own for a few days.

I recently turned down an interesting trip in which I could have made some pretty good money but the task required 5 days of work, so I would have had to be gone for about 6 days or so. When I mentioned it to Jake his head turned around 360 degrees, so I wisely backed away from that idea. I can't blame him -- a week is just way, way too long to fly solo with the kids every night. After the kids were born I accepted almost none of the travel opportunities that came my way. At this point I accept maybe about half of them. Every time I fly I feel guilty about who I am leaving behind. This kind of travel is beneficial to a person's career, and every opportunity I turn down is -- well, it doesn't help my reputation, but that is the reality of being a mother. It's a compromise I'm totally happy to make, especially since in the end I'm kind of a home body anyway.

I also view travel differently now than I used to thanks to my home life. The things that were previously tedious, like being in airports or going from hotel to hotel, are now luxurious to me. I have a 2-hour layover? Sounds great, time to have a little snack and maybe actually look at a magazine! And if anybody screams or cries, it is not my problem and I can just walk away. In the hotel I can watch tv (we don't have tv at home), which is a guilty pleasure, and I can enjoy the exceptionally rare experience of solitude. When I get up in the morning, the only person I have to get dressed and fed is myself. Like I said...luxury. Everything feels a little decadent.

It's odd how you can simultaneously revel in those little joys and luxuries of being without your family while simultaneously missing them so much it is like a physical ache. The other side of airport travel is that I find my eye wandering to every baby and toddler I see. I want to pick them up. I suddenly miss the heft of a child cradled in my left arm. I do inane things like sift through pictures and videos on iPhoto, looking at every snapshot I've taken of the kids over the past year. It is a luxury to travel, and it is a joy to come home. Like drinking deep from a well after a long period of thirst.

Stressing Me Out

8:45 -- Bedtime was an hour and a half ago but the kids are still wide awake and wired. They are keeping each other up, throwing stuff, losing their pacifiers, looking out the window, and having weird conversations. For instance:

Nora: Uh oh, spettigos! Say 'uh oh, spettigos' Milo.

Milo: Okay. Uh oh, spettigos!

Or,

Milo: Noonah's looking out the window! (Repeat 50 times)

Nora: Talking like a zebra!

Milo: Say 'talking like a zebra' again, Noonah.

Nora: Talking like a zebra!

Milo: Say it again!

Nora: No, I already said it!

Or,

Milo: One, two, five, four, counting to four. (Singing Feist song) OoooooOOOOO, counting to four. OoooooOOOOO, let's count some more.

[Giant crash]

Milo: Oh, Noonah! Oh Noonah baby!

Or,

Nora: [coughing fit]

Nora: I coughed. Excuse me!

Meanwhile Jake just finished a movie on his laptop and had this commentary:

Jake: Oh for Christ's sakes you can't just play some groovy tunes over footage of crap nothing and call it a movie!

I have 10 grant proposals to review in the next couple of weeks and it is impossible for me to get this work done when the kids are going nuts instead of sleeping!

This stresses me out because they're going to be cranky and tired tomorrow, because I wonder if they'll still be up when we go to bed, thus keeping me up, and because I wonder if this is the start of something that will require us separating them. Which would mean losing our office, and I don't want to lose the office space yet.

-- As of 9:20 the kids were jumping up and down in their cribs like maniacs. I finally separated them and put Nora in a pack and play in our room. I can hear Milo over the monitor:

Milo: Noonah! Noonah! Noonah! Noonah! [Sounding upset]

Milo: Nora's not in the crib. [Sounding calmer]

Milo: [Singing] Noonah, Noonah, Noonah, Noonah...

It's finally starting to quiet down now. Sheesh. Oh wait, I was wrong. Milo is getting more and more upset. Calling out for Nora, me, and Daddy. Nora fell asleep quickly once I removed her from Milo's mania.

-- 10 p.m. Rocked Milo in the glider for 15 minutes. He calmed down and finally relaxed for the first time all night. Put him back in his crib and he is at least quiet now.

-- 10:30. Both kids finally asleep.

It's strange that it was Milo who was completely wired and unable to sleep, and keeping his sister up. Usually Milo is Mr. Sleep. I've never seen him try to climb out of his crib, but I've seen him try to climb into his crib several times. Historically all of the sleep drama has been with Nora, and things are so different now that Nora is on medicine for reflux. It has been a night-and-day difference. Even like tonight, when she was awake, she hasn't cried. Before, as soon as she woke Nora would cry, hard, and I think it must have been because she was in pain. Once we put her back on the reflux medicine, at I can't remember, 21 months or something, Nora started sleeping through the night for the first time ever. I am so, so glad that she isn't suffering any more. It's only now, many months later, that I don't go to bed in constant fear that tonight is going to be one of those nights where we're up for hours, Nora is inconsolable, and things end with me getting puked on. Any time either of them makes a peep or a cry in the middle of the night, though, I am instantly wide awake, heart pounding, adrenaline coursing through my veins, thrown right back into the bad old days of nighttime agony.

Weird stuff like this is why I have a sleeping problem.

Hate

There is nothing I hate more than dinnertime. HATE IT.

Slow Parenting

I was reading a blog in which some of the commenters were sharing their experiences in starting up various clubs for their elementary-school children. In one case, a mother started up a Lego club, and in another a mother started up a board-games club.

My reaction to this is, WTF? Now you need a club to play with legos and to play games? Can't you just, you know, play with legos? Or get together with your friends and play some games? We seriously have to make a club for this? And not only that, but the kids themselves aren't making the clubs, their moms are doing it for them?!?

This is so not me. And I don't think it has to do with the work/SAH divide either -- even if I weren't working, I highly doubt I'd be organizing clubs like that. I do think there's some benefit to leaving kids alone to play on their own every now and then. To make up their own games and roam around in giant feral packs in which they blow conch shells and steal Piggy's glasses.

I'll let you know how this plan plays out if my daughter ever consents to playing on her own, without Mama holding her or watching her. If it works out, I envision relaxing afternoons on the sofa, reading magazines and sipping iced tea whilst the children play happily at their own games.

So in theory, I espouse a more laid-back, hands-off approach to parenting in contrast to the hothouse environment in which many kids find themselves these days. But I have also realized lately that it's easier to philosophize about this than to put it into action. In particular, there is the issue of preschool. This fall, the kids will be 2 years and 9 months old. Too young for preschool right? I never went to preschool that young, nor did my peers. But in my neighborhood, all of the parents start sending their kids to preschool at age 2.

I don't believe there is much of a benefit to this -- or rather, I think there would be benefits, but they'd be outweighed by the costs in terms of the kids getting sick all the time, the hassle it would introduce into our lives to be up and out the door by a specified time each morning, and, mainly, the stress it would pose for Nora. My insticts tell me that Nora won't be ready. That she will cry and rend her garments, and I don't want her to end up the Piggy of the group. Also, the kids will only be TWO. Can't they go to preschool when they're 3 years and 9 months? Our city will have 4-year old half-day kindergarten by the time they're 4, and full-day kindergarten when they're 5, so it's not like there isn't a whole hell of a lot of school in their near future.

So, I don't think it makes sense to send them to preschool this fall, but it has turned out to be harder to stick by this than I thought it would be. The kids have friends in the neighborhood, and those parents are spending this month visiting the various preschools and getting on the various waiting lists. Open houses are in January and I'm not attending them. I am the lone resister. Come fall, the other parents will be posting pictures to FB of "Caleb's first day of school!" complete with backpack and lunch pail, and meanwhile Nora and Milo will be busy trying to shove a crayon up each other's noses.

They might also play with some Legos, but damn if I'm going to start a club.

Bullets of Bullets

• Milo has a fascination with my belly. I don't know if it has anything to do with my occasional remarks that he and Nora used to live in my belly when they were very tiny babies (sex ed starts early here, yo), but I doubt it, because he's been interested in my belly since way before he could talk. As a small baby he used to dig his hands into it and grab my loose folds of belly skin. (Sexy. I know.) Now that he's older he'll ask "Where's Mama's belly? Where's Mama's belly button?" and if I'm lying on the floor he'll ask "Want to hug it?" Then he'll gently place his soft, soft cheek against my belly. He's such a sweet boy.
• My throat hurts and I'm tired and achy, but mostly tired. Endlessly, endlessly tired. It is just the new normal, I guess. Always tired. Never any time to rest. Crawling through a giant pile of oatmeal. My doctor gave me some Ambien and I tried it one night, and seemed to sleep well, but the next day I still caught myself nodding off at my desk. So what's the point if I don't feel rested during the day?
• Nora has a cold (don't know if it's unrelated to the rash). Tonight over the monitor we could hear her coughing and sniffling and making these little grunty distress noises as she tried to fall asleep for over an hour. She never cried or asked for us, but was clearly tossing and turning for ages as she struggled to fall asleep. She's finally asleep now, poor thing.

Laura tagged me to make a list of 10 things that make me happy. That's a good thing to focus on! Here are 10 things that pop into my mind without a lot of thought put in to them:

1. Milo's belly hugs.
2. Nora and Milo's morning conversations between themselves before we all get up.
3. The last 5 minutes of a good workout, and that feeling when I walk in the door all loose and spent and energized.
4. Cuddling with our two cats, Sam & Caspian.
5. Evenings "off" (when I decide not to work) with Jake after the kids are in bed and we can cuddle up and watch a movie together.
6. A good, productive writing day at work, when I feel like I've really accomplished something.
7. Time spent with friends...meeting up for dinner, or having folks over for drinks, or stealing a couple of hours to meet up with a friend at a coffee shop. Yesterday I did this with a work friend and after 2 hours and a bottle of wine I walked out into the crisp evening air with a feeling of joy in my heart.
8. Great music.
9. Walking home on the bike path, and that moment when I go under our little ivy-covered stone bridge, and emerge on the other side on my street, with my house up ahead, and the park in the background, and seeing Jake in the kitchen window.
10. Going to bed at night with the knowledge that I can sleep in as late as I want the next day. (Last time that happened was, er...about 9 months ago or so).

Rash

Nora has a rash all over her back and a little bit on her chest. We called the doctor and based on the description of the rash, the nurse said to just watch it over the weekend. It's not hives and doesn't look like chicken pox. It actually looks like a bad heat rash but I'd be surprised if that were it given our weather. I tried to take Nora's temperature today (rectal thermometer) but she was having none of that. I didn't know a child could clench so tightly. Time to invest in a new thermometer for the kids.

I hope the rash is nothing...

Discipline

I've been reading about discipline and trying to figure out what is appropriate for a 2-year old and I realize, the one who I'm struggling with regarding discipline is Milo. Nora basically has one discipline issue, and that is whining (and the associated fake crying). I'm trying to talk about using a big girl voice, I pretend I can't understand her when she's whining, but none of these tactics are working all that well. She whines and fusses because she's stressing out or freaking out (basically when I don't hold her because I'm trying to cook or something), so I don't think she's very good yet at being able to tone it down.

Otherwise, though, Nora is a good listener. She doesn't throw stuff. She doesn't try to kill the cats. And she is not aggressive with other people, i.e., Milo. If some egregious act is perpetrated upon her, she's basically a verbal responder. She'll yell and cry about how Milo took this that or the other from her, and yell at him to give it back. But that's about as bad as it gets. Nora also responds well to suggestions like putting away her toys, and is eager to help. (However, I have to amend this to note that since writing this, Nora did kick Milo in the face, so things aren't all perfect for her!)

Milo, though...ah, Milo. The kids' strengths are so different. Milo is great with other people, not at all shy, and he is friendly and outgoing. This makes things like nanny transitions a piece of cake for Milo. But he is also the one who keeps doing things that have me diving into the books to figure out the "right" way to discipline him.

Milo is very aggressive with Nora. He constantly snatches things out of her hands. He just goes right after her and grabs whatever it is she is holding and tears it right out of her tight little grip, causing her to scream and yell. He does this all the time. Milo has also been known to do things like forcibly pull Nora off a stool, making her fall and hit her mouth. Milo also still throws his food during mealtime (an old standby) and throws his toys (rarely these days, at least). Most of the discipline stuff comes out of sibling rivalry with Nora.

Okay, so two-year olds aren't so great at logic yet. They need immediate consequences that are gentle and delivered with empathy, but get to the heart of the infraction. Every time I see Milo trying to wrench something out of Nora's hands (or hitting her hand to get at it), I obviously prevent him from doing it. But is it also time to maybe put him in time-out for a minute? The consequence for a 2-year old needs to be pretty clear cut. So lately I've been making him sit down wherever he is for a few seconds, to calm down. Usually at this point Milo is angry that I have foiled the success of his toy-snatching plan. So at this point my lame discipline attempt is a) prevent toy snatching, and b) gently sit him down for a few seconds until he calms down. Oh, and I'll have him apologize to Nora.

We also do talk about empathy a lot, or rather I'm trying to foster empathy and I talk about how angry and sad Nora gets when Milo takes his toy. I also talk about how happy Nora is when Milo gives her something or lets her keep what she is playing with. The empathy stuff seems to be working better than anything, and has spurred both of them to give things to one another and spontaneously share more than they used to. Usually after a few minutes with whatever toy Milo wanted, I'll then ask Nora if she's ready to give it to him, which she often is.

Well anyway, these reactions on my part haven't really extinguished the behavior so maybe I should be doing something more. I don't know. The toy throwing is easy -- if you throw a toy, you lose the toy. No lecturing or anything, just a sad "uh oh, toys aren't for throwing, we have to say bye to the toy". Then I'll encourage Milo to throw a ball if he wants to throw something. This strategy has worked pretty well and Milo doesn't throw toys much anymore.

Throwing food at dinner, however, is something that drives me nuts and he keeps doing it. I know that part of the problem is that I haven't yet resorted to the most logical thing to do: "Uh oh, you're throwing food, looks like dinner is all done for you" and immediately get him down and end the meal. My reluctance to do this is because he is still on the cusp of underweight and not a great eater, and also I think Milo would like to get down and end the meal. So I'm not sure if it would extinguish the behavior, or if it would just encourage it. But what else to do? One thing we do is as soon as he starts throwing something, we immediately take it away and he doesn't get that food any more. But usually he only throws because he's not interested in that food anyway.

One thing Milo responds to very well is having choices. I love this technique. If he doesn't want to go upstairs to get his diaper changed, and starts wailing and fussing and refusing to do it, I'll ask "Do you want to walk up the stairs yourself, or do you want me to carry you up the stairs?" He'll respond with a cheerful "Walk yourself!" and boom, problem fixed. I'm trying to remember to give the kids choices all the time, not just when I'm trying to fix a problem or make them do something they don't want to do.

The choice thing with Nora sort of works, but she definitely views it with suspicion. Sometimes she clues in to the fact that she is not a huge fan of either choice.

I think one reason I am trying to read about discipline is that I don't have a lot of confidence about what is fair and appropriate for a two-year old who has such limited concepts of time, cause and effect relationships, logic, consequences, etc. I feel pretty confident about how I'd deal with a 5-year old, or an 8-year old, and once we're in the pre-teen and teen years, I feel very comfortable with that since I have so much experience with older kids. But something that is reasonable to a 5-year old is obviously not going to be reasonable for a 2-year old who doesn't even really get the notion of "tomorrow" and "yesterday". So what is reasonable? It's tricky. I don't want to raise a couple of assholes who are undisciplined and think they can behave rudely to people. But I also don't want to spend a lot of energy doing discipline techniques that only confuse or upset them.

Any advice welcome from anybody, as long as you're not my mother in law.

To end on a sort of funny note, Nora has started to develop this behavior that's...I don't exactly know how to describe it. It's not exactly manipulative, per se, and it's not completely dishonest, but it does involve some thinking ahead. For instance, she loves to have medicine because it tastes good. Nora has also noticed that when I figure out that she has a tooth coming through and she is in pain, I'll give her some Tylenol. So now, even when she doesn't have a tooth coming in but gets a hankering for some of that sweet medicine, she'll say "My mouth hurts." Big pause. And then, like it's a totally new idea that she just came up with on the spot, "Want medicine?" Like oh, hey, uh, my mouth hurts. I wonder what we can do about that. Hey, maybe some medicine? How's that for an idea?

This morning the kids were downstairs with Jake and I went upstairs to take a shower, which Nora did not appreciate. She really wanted to be upstairs with me, and she was fussing about it and crying some. Then she went to Jake and said, "Want to sit on the potty? Want to pee in the potty?" Jake was all, okay, great, I'm glad you told me, let's go! Thus taking her upstairs, which is where she wanted to go all along. As Nora's climbing up the stairs I hear her chattering her little inner monologue, totally blowing the whole "potty" cover: "I'm going upstairs to see Mommy! Mommy Mommy Mommy! I'm going to see Mommy in the shower! [maniacal laughter] Mommy!"

More Updates

Today at the library Nora was using the children's computer. She picked up the mouse and said "This is my iPod." She then said "I'm using the computer, I'm at my office!" There were some moms there who were cracking up and asking the Twin Whisperer how old Nora is.

Tonight at dinner Milo took a dump in his diaper. His face got bright red, and he clearly exerted effort, and then when he was done he said, "Excuse me!" Jake and I cracked up. Just something about saying "excuse me" after crapping your pants at the dinner table is comedy gold.

On a somber note, today was the Twin Whisperer's last day, and starting on Wednesday we switch over to the new nanny, who I'll call Buddy, for lack of a better pseudonym. The Twin Whisperer initially only intended to stay with us until the kids were 1, because she specializes in babies (and can get a much better hourly rate doing night-nurse duty with newborns). But she loved the kids, and they loved her, and we love her, and she stayed. Each time a new semester would come, she'd commit to staying one more semester. Her plan was to leave in January after they turned 2. She has another gig lined up and at 60, I think it has been getting very tiring for her to chase after two toddlers. So we found another nanny, and liked her, and offered her the position. And then the Twin Whisperer said "well, maybe I could stay longer..." but we had already offered it to Buddy and I didn't feel that it was right to go back on our word. The Twin Whisperer understood that completely, and plus we really want somebody who can commit to them long-term until they go to school, so that we can minimize transitions. Buddy can do that and the Twin Whisperer isn't in a place where she knows what she'll be doing in a year or two...I think she is secretly hoping and praying that her daughter gets pregnant, so that she can jump into full-time Grandma mode!

So, anyway, the Twin Whisperer is moving on and we are all very sad about it. She was sad today, but hid it well from the kids. She is coming back next week to go with me to the toddler gym one morning, and she'll continue to visit and babysit regularly, because she loves the kids so much. And on my end, I just couldn't have asked for a better nanny. She has been so wonderful for our family. The kids adore her, she is so warm and energetic and smart and always has great ideas for things to do with them and how to handle them. She has taught them so much and I attribute most of their knowledge and incredible verbal skills to her. She has also been incredibly reliable, honest, trustworthy, and industrious. We really, really lucked out. Honestly if I had to rank who I think it would be best for the kids to be with during the day, I'd place her as #1 and me as #2. She's just so darn good at it.

Buddy is younger and Nora is going to need some time to warm up to her, but she seems perfectly lovely and I hope it'll work out fine. Her former family is actually the family that the Twin Whisperer worked for before she moved on to us, so Buddy is following in the Twin Whisperer's footsteps again. The Twin Whisperer takes kids when they're babies, and then Buddy takes over when they're toddlers and preschoolers. I know that Buddy will be great, but of course nobody is like the Twin Whisperer, so it's a sad day today.

Weekend Updates

I love it that I can actually have little conversations with the kids now about what they did during the day. Some of it might have happened, some of it might have happened weeks ago or not at all, but it's great to even get to this stage. Tonight at dinner:

Me: So, did you take a bath today? (This happened just half an hour ago with Jake while I cooked dinner)

Milo: I did!

Nora: Nora took a bath too!

Me: What did you do in the bath?

Nora: Played cups!

Milo: I blowed bubbles!

Earlier today while reading books, Nora sneezed. Milo said, "Excuse me!" (We're working on learning politeness phrases, but obviously still have some work to do!)

Before bath when I was in the kitchen, Nora walked up to me. "Mommy don't cook. Mommy come out of the kitchen. Go into the living room and read a book." She's getting bossy these days.

Whenever Jake and I start to laugh (this is especially at the dinner table) Milo will get visibly upset and say emphatically "No funnies! No funnies!" Sometimes he'll even cry. He likes to laugh himself but seems upset when we laugh...maybe he thinks we're laughing at him?

This morning I woke up and turned on the monitor to see if the kids were awake yet. I didn't hear anything for a while and then heard Milo say "Where's Noonah?" Nora said "I'm right here! I'm right here, Minetone!" (Her latest nickname for him is Minetone. Milo still likes to call Nora Noonah on occasion).

So Awesome

Yesterday Jake had a job interview. They told him that they would make a decision sometime in the next couple of weeks. But today, the very next day, they called him up and offered the job!

This is great news for Jake because he has been so worried that he would graduate and there would be no jobs. He is preparing for public service jobs, which typically mean state government jobs, and our state is just like most these days, with serious money problems, furloughs, and layoffs. The jobs are few and far between. To get this job offer is a huge deal for Jake, and for us. If he takes it we will become a two income family! Hooray!

It is not his dream job, but it is a good job that interests him. People typically grow in this position and sometimes use it to launch into other areas. Jake hasn't decided yet if he'll take it, but I suspect he will. The job will start sometime in June after he graduates. How wonderful for him to be able to relax and know that he will have a job waiting for him! The amount of energy Jake has devoted to worrying about the future job situation has not been trivial, so to get a job offer this early in the game is a wonderful thing. I don't even know where he'll devote his worrying energy now.

What a great day for Jake, and what a relief.

Now With Profanity

Good old Milo. He's so open to any new person these days, always ready with a smile and willing to be goofy to show off in front of his new friend. I remember when the kids were babies it was Milo who was much more shy, and I worried about him far more than Nora. I could hand off Nora to anybody and she'd be fine, but Milo would cry in the arms of a new person.

But now, they've switched places and poor Nora is not having an easy time these days. The timing is bad. She's trying to adjust to a new nanny while also simultaneously having dealt with a solid week of in-laws in the house, who stress her out and frighten her. There's nothing wrong with them, they don't go around yelling or hitting or anything, they mostly just want to play with the kids and love them, but the problem is that they're new and Nora is just not down with new right now. So it has been a solid week of hell for me and Jake, a week of way more work than usual because any time we're home we need to be holding Nora. It made it hard to make dinner, go to the bathroom, eat a meal, exist, etc.

Nora's clingyness lingered today even after the in-laws left. As soon as Milo got up, she wanted to be held and threw a tantrum when I had to change Milo's diaper (since I cannot simultaneously hold Nora and change Milo). And frankly, I've had it. I've had it. My god, the whining, the sort of fake crying with no actual tears but plenty of heartache, the loud, grinding, never-ending noise of it, the fact that I have to choose at any given time between holding a 20-lb squirmy toddler in my tired arms or listening to that noise again. And those books that tell you to ignore the whining/crying, or tell the child that you can't understand when she uses that voice and can only understand a big-girl voice? Those books can go fuck themselves. I am doing that stuff and it is not working. It just results in more and more whining/crying, and Nora getting more and more upset, and did I mention that I have had it?

Not to mention, I miss being able to interact more with Milo! It's great to hold Nora and all, but when it's all the time that means I don't get to hold Milo, or play with him as much, and I'd like to have some time with Milo too. Nora, however, seems to believe I am her own personal bitch. Not to be shared.

I've had it. Thank god parents come in teams. I am so lucky to not be a single parent because I don't know how I would keep it together if Jake weren't there when I need to leave the room and calm down. Or in the case of tonight, leave the entire house and just get the hell out of there for an hour or two. Okay, I had to work too, but my god, I just can't take it anymore. I am at the end of my rope, and so is Nora, and I really hope she starts to chill out soon or we're all going to go up in a ball of flames or something. Seriously.

What the...

I have just read this sentence about 8 times. Still can't parse it:

"This analysis of data provided two overarching categories were distinguished for both academic and social behavioral components between students’ interactions, skills, knowledge and information needed to move to more advanced levels of mathematical thinking are identified."

Note to students: You cannot write a paper by randomly stringing together a bunch of high-falutin' sounding phrases!

New Year's

Things are exhausting right now because with the in-laws here, Nora is seriously clingy and not willing to play with them or let me or Jake out of her sight. Milo is doing well and loves all of the attention. Nora, however, is feeling very insecure and any time my MiL walks into the room or approaches Nora, she cries and demands that I hold her. This makes it really hard to cook dinner (which I have to do every day this week) or get anything else done. Last night we left the kids with the in-laws and went to a party. The party was awesome, but I think we might have pushed things too much in leaving the kids with the in-laws because Nora just freaked out and is probably more clingy today as a result. Poor kid. She just doesn't seem to feel safe in the world right now. So I'm holding her all the time. One day she won't want to be held all the time, and I'll probably miss it.

Meanwhile I've been thinking about last year's resolution...

2008 was basically a year of coping, trying to make it from one day to the next. 2009 was a year of recovery. I had gained weight in '08 (or, I guess, '07, with the pregnancy and all) and didn't feel ready to do anything about it until the babies were a year old. I was too busy just making it from day to day.

By 2009 I was ready to try to regain some control over my body, and I've been working on that all year. It's gone pretty well. I lost 12 pounds but my real goal was something more like 16, so maybe that goal wasn't realistic in this new post-baby body I have. But maybe it is, because I could have done more in '09. I did re-discover my love of running and exercise, and finding (making) the time for it has been a very positive thing. I changed how I eat. I could probably change some more. I put on a few pounds during the hectic time in the fall and over the holidays, but now the holidays are over so I am working on taking them off again. The way I see it, this is a journey that isn't going to end. I will always have to be somewhat deliberate about my choices if I want to stay fit.

So I see 2010 as a year to continue the changes I made in '09 and maybe even to shift from recovery to thriving. When New Year's 2008 arrived, I could barely even walk around the block, and was in constant pain. It was months before I was able to walk anywhere without serious back pain. So I have come a long way in 2 years. I have a complicated relationship with fitness now because my body is so messed up and simultaneously aging. It is clear that my belly is never going to recover or look "normal" again. In addition, I am getting old, so sometimes I feel like I am just way past my prime and ready to be put out to pasture, so why bother?

My reasons to bother are more about feeling strong and fit now, rather than looking good, I guess. Those reasons are more motivating now since the whole looks thing is just a losing battle. But it does feel good to feel strong. To be able to run. To be more in shape. To have more energy. And it feels good when I am at a lighter weight, it feels better in terms of how my body does running, how my clothes fit, etc. So, the work continues. I have been continuously working on this for a year now and feel motivated to keep going, which I think is a sign of the right attitude -- dietary/exercise changes can't be temporary, right? It has to be a lifelong thing.

I struggle with guilt and time, like every mother. I am either parenting or I am working. Taking the time to exercise means burdening Jake with extra childcare duties, and I feel guilty about that. I also feel guilty about taking the time away from the kids because I'm already away from them enough when I am at work. It feels indulgent, it feels a little wrong to take that time, but it is important for my health and well being, so I'm going to keep doing it. The solitary days of grad school, when I could work out every day and create whatever schedule I wanted for myself, those days are over. (Man, that was luxurious). The shape of it has changed now, the shape of my life is completely different now, but I can still focus on fitness, just in a different way. Fitness as an element of a balanced life is what I want to continue for 2010.

A Decade in Review

2000 saw me ringing in the new year in Seattle. I was teaching at three different colleges, driving around constantly in terrible traffic, living in a funky little house in a beautiful city I kept thinking I should like, but couldn't bond with. I spent a lot of time trying to talk myself out of being miserable.

I was lost in a non-career, not sure where to go next or what I wanted to do. I wanted a family but my husband did not, and I mourned over that a lot. I kept trying to talk myself into the life I had, kept trying to convince myself that it was a good life, since all of the pieces seemed to be there. It looked like it was supposed to be a good life. But I didn't feel good about myself, and I didn't like who I was becoming. I was lost.

So that year, I applied to grad school, picked up and moved to San Diego, and started a new life on my own as Steve stayed back in Seattle for one more year.

San Diego was the kind of city I didn't expect to like, and I saw it as a temporary sacrifice in service of attending the right grad program. But I turned out to love it. It was beautiful and the weather was always perfect and there was plenty of hiking and running and beaches to be had.

I got divorced, grieved for a long time, and struggled with life while I was in grad school. I learned how to live alone for the first time in a decade. I cut all of my hair off. I also made wonderful friends, got published for the first time, got into shape, ran a half marathon, and eventually became truly happy.

My four years in San Diego gave me sunshine, excellent Mexican food, wonderful people, gorgeous beaches, and trips to Arizona, Utah, Alaska, New Orleans, St. Louis, Seattle, Chicago, and Hawaii. It also gave me a PhD.

I then once again picked up my entire life and started over again, moving from beautiful, sunny San Diego to a funky little town in the upper midwest which I love even more. I got a job. I became a professor. I bought a house.

I met Jake, the best thing that ever happened to me, 2 days after I moved to this town, and a year later we were married.

My time in this new town has given me my dream job, wonderful colleagues and friends, and trips to Aruba, San Diego, San Francisco, Houston, Denver, Virginia, Florida, Kansas City, Rhode Island, Michigan, Washington, Ohio, Kentucky, Oregon, Idaho, Minnesota, and DC. I got published some more, won some awards, got some grants, and came into my own as a professor. Jake left his business, shifted careers entirely, and returned to grad school. I have now lived here for 5 and a half years, which is longer than I've lived anywhere as an adult. It feels great to settle down and it is my greatest hope that we will be able to continue to live here for a long while.

After years of struggle, this decade also brought us the most precious gift of our lives, Nora and Milo.

And the rest, as they say, is history.

Epilogue: The decade taught me that life is too short to accept a life of quiet resignation. I had to give everything up before I could gain what I really wanted in life, and before I could become the person I wanted to be.

It was worth it.

I can't wait to see what the next decade brings!

We've had a nice, relaxing 4-day stretch here with the kids.

Hah ha ha ha ha! Just kidding. But it's been nice. On Thursday we took the kids to the small fancy mall so that they could run around and see Santa. Imagine my disappointment when Santa's appearance was cancelled due to poor weather conditions! Fortunately, the kids didn't care and were perfectly happy to watch the giant animatronic gingerbread men.

Christmas was a mostly enjoyable affair other than breakfast, in which Nora, who has decided that she dislikes all breakfast foods, threw her bowl of prunes onto the floor. But otherwise they enjoyed the day and it was lovely and festive. Nobody ended up in the ER, which was pretty much the benchmark I wanted to achieve. That night after they went to bed we watched the 6th Harry Potter movie (finally). It was awesome. There was a scene in which Dumbledore had to drink the evil water to get at the Horcrux, and Harry had to force it down poor suffering Dumbledoor's throat as he writhed in agony and begged Harry to stop. Jake said "Hey, it's just like feeding Nora!"

It rained on Christmas and on Saturday that turned to snow, so we had a day in the snow, shoveling and walking around and making snowballs and even doing a bit of sledding. The children are still highly suspicious of sledding activities. I bought the kids a book about going to the potty and this has become a quick favorite, although it hasn't translated to any actual success in the potty. Nora is, however, interested in helping her little toy figurines go to the potty. This evening she spent a fair amount of time playing with a tiny fireman and saying things like "Let's go to the potty, fireman. Can you do it? Can you pee in the potty, fireman? Now let me change your diaper."

Sunday we went to the Capitol building and looked at the giant Christmas tree there. It is 2 stories tall and there is a train set running around it. The kids liked the train and Milo was particularly captivated by the elevator. He went up and down the elevator a number of times. Later we read Frosty the Snowman over and over again, and Milo has now reached the point at which he pretty much knows all of the words to the song. That kid loves songs, and singing. When we read the book he'll say "Mommy don't read it, Mommy sing it! Sing it!" So then I'll start singing and then Nora will say "Mommy don't sing! Don't like it!" (Bite me, kid.)

By the way, it is a bizarre and annoying habit the kids have developed in which they argue over who gets to do something that they could both be doing simultaneously. Like singing. We're in the car, and Milo will start singing a song, and then Nora will cry out "NORA'S singing right now!", and she'll start singing, and then Milo will yell "It's MILO'S turn to sing right now!" and Jake and I are helplessly saying "You can both sing at the same time" to no avail, as they get into a more and more heated argument about whose turn it is to sing. It's not just singing they do this with, too, it's other things that make equally little sense, like, I don't know, jumping, or putting their hands in their pockets, or whatever. It's as if any action either child does is not an action that the other child is allowed to do at the same time.

This weekend I did a lot of grocery shopping because the in-laws are coming soon. This stresses me out because they eat a ton of food (a solid 3 cooked meals a day plus at least 1 snack, plus cocktail hour), and I feel ill equipped to properly procure, plan for, and store all of this food. I've already thought of a couple of additional things I'll need to get, and I think no matter how much I get/prepare it won't be enough, but I'm giving it my best shot. Jake and I tend to be more of the cook dinner and take-care-of-yourselves for breakfast and lunch kind of people (usually eating leftovers for lunch), so the concept of cooking 3 fresh meals every day is overwhelming to us. Even when we visit at their house, the sheer amount of food is overwhelming, often resulting in stomach aches. I have been reading books about remodeling not-so-big houses, and thinking about all of the ways we would like to change our house and especially our kitchen, when the day comes. In our remodeled kitchen fantasies, we will have enough room to store food for when in-laws come to stay!

I didn't do much work over this extended weekend, and it's been pretty nice. Relaxing, sort of. The only problem is that if I go a few days without working, I start waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, with anxieties of tenure racing through my fevered mind. So, it's probably time to get back to work.

Conversations

Me: Is it time for dinner? (Semi-talking to myself). What should we have? What shall we start with?

Nora: Nora starts with N!

***********

(At Breakfast)

Milo: Nora, eat your french toast! Eat your french toast, Nora! Nora, eat it! Nora, eat your french toast! Eat it, Nora! Eat your french toast, Nora! (This went on for a long time until she finally got fed up).

Nora: NO! I'm angry!

Christmas Time is Here

Two years ago I have no idea what we did for Christmas. I have little memory of the day. There are photos showing that we dressed the babies up in holiday outfits and put them under the tree:

I think we might have opened some presents at some point. It seemed like it was late at night by the time we got around to that, but I'm not sure. The whole thing is a blur. An exhausting, sleep deprived blur.

One year ago we spent Christmas morning packing up the car, and we spent Christmas day driving to Jake's brother's house, eating lunch at a truck stop Burger King. We spent Christmas night alone in Jake's brother's house because his entire family went over to somebody else's house for dinner, so we ate my leftover tuna casserole from the car ride and spent the evening watching old Star Trek re-runs.

But this year...

This year, it's Christmas. Santa came tonight once the kids went to sleep. They know that tomorrow is Christmas but have no idea what's in store for them. Tonight we lit candles and drank wine and listened to Christmas music, and we both can't wait for tomorrow. It really feels like Christmas tonight, and I couldn't be more excited.

We have the best Christmas presents ever:

Merry Christmas, from us and ours to you and yours.

Names

Oh no, we tried not to but ended up picking a super trendy name! This article describes "Milo" this way:

"There’s something contagiously cheery about names that, like ‘hello’ and ‘cheerio,’ end in the vowel ‘o,’ and Milo—which bears a resemblance to the happy word ‘smile’ and the celebrity-inspired hottie Miley—is definitely the one heading up. After first appearing on the Social Security list in 2001, it’s been climbing ever since, showing a 297 percent increase and a slope of 67."

At least Nora isn't on the list. I guess it might not be a bad thing for Milo to become a popular name because right now we do sometimes get remarks (mostly from Jake's uber-midwestern family and friends) about how they've never heard the name "Milo" before, and is it Italian?

Conversations and Fights

Nora: (Pretending with a tiny tea cup) I'm eating tea!
Twin whisperer: You're eating tea? Usually we drink tea, but today you're eating it. What does the tea taste like?
Nora: ...Peanut butter!

This morning Nora was pretending to drink tea again, and I asked her what kind of tea it was. She said "sweet potato tea!" I'm pretty sure this gives insight into Nora's favorite foods: peanut butter and sweet potatoes.

Last night Milo and Nora starting playing in a black shoe box of Jake's. They were taking turns getting into the shoe box and pretending to drive it like a car. Lacking a word for the shoe box, I guess, they started calling it a "dindle". Later I could hear them fighting over the dindle. "It's my turn to get in the dindle right now!" "It's Nora's turn right now!" "Milo's turn with the dindle right now!"

I swear, you get a single scrap of paper, a used tissue, anything, and they will fight over that one lame thing in the midst of dozens of toys.

The Future is Bright and Shiny

I've been thinking about my methods students. They are seniors in college who are student teaching part time, and next semester they will be student teaching full time. Today they presented some of their work on their electronic portfolios, and I am blown away by how awesome they are. Seriously, these people are coming up with incredible lessons and assessments that frankly I never thought about back when I was teaching. Their thinking at this stage, at the very beginning of their career, strikes me as way more sophisticated than mine was at almost any point of my secondary teaching career.

I am truly amazed at not only the creativity they display in coming up with outstanding lessons -- ones that have little to no relationship to the teacher's edition of their texts, since those pre-planned lessons are almost uniformly lousy -- but also at how reflective they are about the whole process. Some of them have even started up teaching journals in which they reflect at least once a week on how their teaching is going, on a particularly good or bad class, so that they can learn from their experiences and chart their growth over time. They also create their own assessments that move far beyond a standard book quiz or test to actually assess a student's understanding instead of just his or her procedural competency. The students are collaborating with each other to develop a bank of really good lessons that they've already tried out in class, complete with modifications based on how it went after their trial run, and today we talked about starting up a collaborative website to house these lessons.

If all new teachers came out of their teacher ed program as thoughtful and as well prepared as this batch, I would be ecstatic about the future of education. I would love to have my kids end up with any one of these methods students at some point in the future. I can already tell they're going to be amazing teachers.

Today

When I arrived here I made friends with a number of other brand new professors in my "cohort" -- people who all came in the same year I did. My best friend from this group got tenure today. She totally deserves it, she's an awesome scholar with a great record. The amount of work, thought, sweat, and tears she put into her tenure case over the past 6 months or so is mind boggling.

It's weird to think that in an alternate universe, it would have also been me getting the news today.

Fingers Crossed

So regarding this grant proposal, an NSF program officer let me know that I won't know anything official for quite a while -- it could be a couple of months.

But...

Here is the way the process works. First, the proposal goes through an external review. Academics and other experts from around the country are flown into DC and they form an external panel, and that panel reviews a batch of grants. Individual members of the panel who are the primary reviewers for each particular grant write up detailed reviews, and the panel discusses the grant as a group and rates it in terms of its competitiveness.

The most competitively-rated grants make it to the next level of review. This is the cross-divisional NSF review, and this process is mysterious to me, but I imagine they go through a similar procedure. If it makes it through that level of review, it then goes to the program officers for a particular division, and the program officers have to review it to see if they want to fund it and have the money to fund it.

If the grant makes it this far and the program officers review it positively and decide that they want to fund it, then they develop a set of questions for the PI (that's me, the person applying for the award) to answer. Receiving questions is a very, very, very good sign -- it means the grant reviewed well and the NSF wants to fund it. It's not a guarantee of anything, because after the PI answers the questions, the program officer has to write up a report, a number of different people have to sign off on it, and ultimately the division director has to approve the funding of the grant. So, it's not a guarantee of anything, and it's premature to advertise the news or celebrate or anything like that. Everything still has to progress through the official channels. That said, I've never heard of somebody getting to the questions stage and not getting funded. (Not saying it doesn't happen, though. It might.)

So at the risk of jinxing everything, I am going to share here in whispered tones that I got questions last week. I then had a very encouraging phone call with my program officer. Let's just say, I'm not opening the bottle of champagne yet, and I'm not sharing the news with my colleagues yet, but I'm secretly doing a little happy dance. Today I finally turned in my responses to the questions, and now I get to sit and wait with bated breath. Fingers are crossed...

So How Was Your Day?

Just a quickie: I just love how Milo is starting to tell me stuff about his day now. It's like he's a real person and everything, and we can actually have a conversation about something that happened to him. It's amazing. Last night at dinner:

Me: So, Milo, what'd you do today?
Milo: (Pause) I made snow angels!
Me: Wow...really? Wow, you made snow angels? That's new.
Milo: I layed down in the snow!
Me: Did Nora make snow angels too?
Milo: Yup.
Nora: I don't like the snow. (Nora did not in fact make snow angels, as it turns out)
Me: So what else did you do today?
Milo: I have a little bump on the head! I got the staples taken out!

Okay, those things happened days ago, but still...

Weekend

Christmas lights on the house: Check.
Basement cleaned up: Check.
8 bazillion loads of laundry done, folded, and put away: Check.
Sheets changed and beds made: Check.
Shopping: Check.
Grocery Shopping: Check.
Snow suits procured: Check.
Child-friendly butternut squash soup made: Check.
Children completely rejecting soup: Check.
Taking kids out to play in the oh so fun snow! Check.
Nora refusing to touch the snow: Check.

I got almost everything done, other than hang the wreath, because I can't find it, because it is not hanging in the storage location where it belongs, which means somebody put it away last year and it wasn't me, which means it is who knows where, but other than that, everything got done. Almost. What am I forgetting? Oh, rest. I forgot rest. But there will be time enough for that when the kids go off to college.

Traditions

This week we went to a Tudor Dinner, which is an annual tradition at my university with a 76-year history. It is sponsored by the philharmonic chorus and is quite elaborate, involving bowls of wassail, the presentation of a (fake) boar's head, lots of caroling, a full dinner, and flaming figgy pudding at the end.

The dinner is held in the great hall of our student union (which is nicer than it sounds -- the union is on a lake, and the great halls are quite elaborate and fancy). After appetizers and wassail, the choir sings some songs and then we all sing carols together before dinner. After dinner we also have group carols, and this is absolutely awesome. It sounds cheesy, but actually the sound of 350 people singing "Silent Night" together in a giant hall is a beautiful thing.

On the night of the dinner it snowed for the first time, which really added to the festive atmosphere. It was so pretty to see the snow falling on the lake while singing carols in the great hall against the backdrop of a crackling fire.

(Figgy pudding, as it turn out though, is not my favorite!)

On the 23rd there is a community Christmas Carol singalong at our local performance hall with the great organ. Everybody comes together to sing and the event is something that kids enjoy. It starts at 7, which is Nora & Milo's bedtime, but once they get a little older I think it would be a great Christmas tradition.

In addition, our neighborhood starts up a caroling group every year, and they go around caroling right before Christmas. I haven't had enough free time to join this group yet, but I enjoy hearing them when they go around the neighborhood.

I want to build traditions for M&N that go beyond presents and include special things we get to do at Christmas, like baking special things, putting up lights, and singing certain songs. Song strikes me as a great way to celebrate the season.

A Toast

Once upon a time when I was a beginning graduate student, my advisor and I wrote a paper together. We submitted the paper and then eventually got the reviews back. One of the reviews was a really nasty review. I particularly remember the phrase "this paper reads like it was poorly translated from German." The review was unhelpful and mean, and as a green researcher, it stung. I didn't realize reviews could be like that.

The second review was not memorable, but then I read the third. It was long, several pages, and it was critical, but extremely helpful. The critique was fair and appropriate, and the reviewer outlined a number of specific changes we could make to fix the paper. He also signed his review (reviews are almost always anonymous), so we knew who he was. This reviewer (I'll call him J) really put a great deal of time into thinking about our paper, and ultimately we made the changes he suggested which turned it into a much better paper.

I remember thinking about the contrast between the three reviews and deciding right then and there that I wanted to follow J's model of reviewing. J was a very prominent figure in our field, but he was so generous with his time and ideas, and that generosity ended up being extremely helpful to us. I decided that I wanted to be a scholar like J.

Later he came to our university to give a talk, which I found really interesting, and then we took him out to dinner and stayed out late drinking wine and talking about ideas. One of my fondest memories of J is from a conference in Hawaii. On the last day of the conference we had a luau, and I remember him sashaying across the dance floor, a lei on his head, another around his neck, and a drink in each hand. "Amy," he said, "it's nice to see you let your hair down, both figuratively and literally!"

Three years ago in May J retired, and then that July he was out for his daily run, and he was hit by a truck and killed.

This week I was part of an advisory panel meeting for somebody's grant, and most of the members of the panel knew J well -- they had known him for decades. The last time J visited our town, he gave a very nice bottle of wine to one of our panel members, T. T kept the bottle of wine, waiting for an appropriate time to open it and drink it. This week, when all of us were gathered together, he brought the bottle to our meeting and at the end of the day, he opened it so that he could share it with the people who had known and worked with J. We raised a toast to J and then drank the excellent wine, sharing our favorite stories of him and fondly remembering all that he had done. He was an extraordinary person. It was a great way to end the day.

Milestone

Nora's budding art talents continue, and today she created her first actual picture. I sat there watching her as she drew a circle and then said "and here are the eyes, and the mouth, and the hair," drawing each in turn. First ever picture!

Now I was going to upload my adobe acrobat version in which I label these things so you can tell where they are, but the file got huge and blogger freaked out, so I will have to describe it instead. The face is tilted 45 degrees to the left. The eyes are the two dots at the top flat part of the face, and the mouth is the sole dot (or scrawl, I guess) below. The hair is that clump on the right hand side of the face, extending out quite a bit.

In the second picture Nora drew a "B" and said "B for Milo", and I was all, huh? The Twin Whisperer said "Oh that's because I always say 'B for brother Milo'." Okay. I have pointed out the "B" in this picture by adding a red arrow and a circle around it.

Now Nora is super into trying to make letters. She tries, but can't really, so she'll create some sort of scrawl and then hope that it's made a letter. If so, she'll say what she thinks it is, and if not, she'll ask "What letter did Nora make?"

Milo is not currently interested in drawing or writing. He is more into books right now. All he ever wants to do is have us read books to him. Milo's other current interest is to take empty boxes and put them over his head and then wander around the house laughing. This sort of thing is why Milo always has a bruise or a cut somewhere. The kid is so active, always on the go.

Milo and Nora seem to have created nicknames for each other. Milo is perfectly capable of saying "Nora" but half the time he prefers to call her "Noon-ah". Nora likes to call Milo "Milot". Sometimes she likes to call herself "Norup".

Conversations

I love it that the kids are actually starting to have little conversations with each other now. This morning I heard over the monitor:

Nora: Where'd Daddy go, Milo?

Milo: (Unintelligible -- I think he was just waking up)

Nora: Where'd Mama go, Milo?

Milo: She went to work!

Nora: She went downstairs! Mommy's downstairs!

Then tonight at dinner:

Nora: I don't like that moth on the ceiling.

Milo: It won't hurt you.

Calgon Take Me Away!

I'm dying here. Several projects have reached the critical stage: book chapter (due, in fact overdue, but fortunately more or less done), research talk (have to write), brand new grant that I'm doing with two colleagues (due Dec. 17 and we haven't started and I will have no time to work on it before Dec. 7), letter of recommendation (due Tuesday), class prep and grading (due Tuesday).

I was holding it all together (barely, sort of) until a brand new time-sensitive task landed on my desk and needs to be done this week as well. It's a big task, and super important (I'd rank it as more important than anything else I've got going on), but I didn't find out about it until Wednesday. Getting the task was a VERY happy surprise but that task has thrown everything else off.

Oh, that and the fact that our dining room table broke on Saturday night in the middle of eating dinner. I mean the leg literally broke right off, and our entire meal slid off the table, wine glasses full of wine and all, everything crashing onto the floor in a giant mess of food, wine, and broken glass. So now we have to buy a new table and that is not something I have time to shop for, but needs to be done quickly because we can't live without a table, but I don't want to just get any old thing because a table is a big deal and I want one we can be happy with long term, and and and!!!

And I think M&N are either getting sick, or are teething, but they've both been insanely crabby today and I just about lost it with them about 100 times. I am so tired of hearing whining and crying. Honestly, sometimes toddlers suck.

Such is my venting session, now I'm going to bed for a while. Everything is going to be somewhat better by the end of the week. And come Dec. 17 (or whenever my grading is done, probably after that), I am totally going to take some days off. Like several days, in a row, completely off. I'm going to do something just for myself, like shopping or something, something I haven't done in ages. I don't know what, but it's going to be great.

Babies

The first 45 seconds of this trailer? That is so Nora and Milo. Can't wait for this movie to come out:

The Dream Versus The Reality

One of the reasons I looked forward to having kids was how we would create holiday traditions together, and the holidays would take on a new meaning. Thanksgiving and Christmas have not been that big of a deal for me in adult life. There were times when they were pretty painful, but mostly they were okay but just...non-events. If I wanted to see family, I had to travel. If I wasn't up to traveling, then I'd have to spend the holiday alone, which I did sometimes, and it was fine. I remember my first Christmas here I spent the day by myself touching up the paint in one of the upstairs bedrooms and eating Lucky Charms. It didn't bother me, but it's also not exactly your typical Norman Rockwell portrait.

I imagined that once we had kids, then we would have an excuse to stay home and create our own traditions, make our own big dinner, have our own exciting Christmas, and so forth. Having 4 people in the house instead of 1 or 2 makes it seem like a holiday is an "event" in the way that it's not when I'm sitting in my pajamas watching old episodes of Sex and the City on Netflix. I've been saying all month how excited I am about Christmas, how we're going to get a tree, and decorate everything, and the kids will know enough to be excited about stuff being different and novel (but still too young to understand about Christmas), and we'll make the same cookies my mom made each year, and it'll be great great great!

I felt the same way about Thanksgiving. We begged out of going to anybody else's house and instead planned our own nice meal, because I couldn't think of anything more awesome and cozy, just hanging out with the kids and Jake, cooking all day, listening to music, and enjoying being together. Jake is so fun and relaxing to be around that hanging out at home with him is automatically sort of festive. So that was my image of our Thanksgiving holiday.

In reality, just as I was heading out the door for a run, Milo tried to climb the back of our barstool and fell backwards, the stool crashing on top of him, gashing the back of his head open on the claw foot of our dining room table. So instead of spending the morning running in the cool 40 degree weather, I spent it in the overheated emergency room with one freaked out little boy. Who, to his credit, did amazingly well as the minutes stretched into hours and we skipped both his snack time and his lunch time. Despite that, Milo handled everything just beautifully, charming all of the nurses and doctors, even charming the guy cleaning the hallway floor, who chased after us to let me know how cute Milo was. He had a CT scan and two staples to the back of his head, and was declared good to go. It was a very rough day for him.

Then in the afternoon as I attempted to cook a giant dinner while two toddlers got increasingly cranky and clingy, I thought, why did I think I could do this? Why didn't we just go over to our friends' house, where M & N could play with their buddy Rueben, and I could have brought a few side dishes and called it a day? Instead I wanted to do this sweet family thing, but I forgot that anything with 2-year olds is not really sweet, it's hectic and annoying mostly, especially when they're fighting over the same toy and both decide to start screaming at once just as my gravy starts to boil.

And here I've been saying how much I'm looking forward to a family Christmas, but now I realize, it probably won't match my storybook image, at least not for another year or two until they exit the frenetic toddler stage.

At dinner Milo gamely tried the turkey, the green beans, the rolls, the squash, and the cranberry sauce. He wouldn't touch the mashed potatoes or the stuffing or the pie. Milo actually ate a substantial amount of cranberry sauce and roll, so that was a semi success. Nora would only taste the gravy, and refused to touch or consider anything else.

I keep vastly underestimating how insanely hard it is to deal with two toddlers. That said, despite everything, it was a great Thanksgiving. And, despite everything, I am still looking forward to our cozy family Christmas.

I just hope we stay out of the ER.

Striving

The potatoes are boiling, so I have some time here. Hopefully what I'm about to write will make sense, but, I just broke a fluorescent light bulb so perhaps I am suffering from mercury inhalation. Anyway...

I have a friend from graduate school who is one of the most cheerful people I know. Oh, sure, he's haunted by demons like the rest of us, but he's exceedingly cheerful about it. When we were students, I'd have him and other friends over for dinner and we'd sit up late into the night talking about stuff like our crazy professors, whether reality can be directly discerned, whether we were ever going to find jobs, and Buddhism.

My friend is the most enthusiastic Buddhist I know. He comes from a country in which most of the people practice Buddhism, and he is pretty serious about it to the point of trying really, really, really hard to adhere to certain dietary restrictions despite his incredible love of chicken. My cheerful friend attributes his cheerfulness to his ability to give up desire and live in the moment. He believes that attachment causes suffering and so he is not attached to any one person, thing, way of life, or...anything really. Because of this lack of attachment he loves all people, instead of just loving some people. His day-to-day journey is focused on leading a desire-free life, which enables him to accept what comes and take joy in every moment. He is a delightful person to be around, and he is incredibly generous in spirit and in action.

I would make a terrible Buddhist.

Many parts make a lot of sense to me, particularly the stuff about compassion, and about living in the moment, but I cannot wrap my head around the desire-less part of the whole thing. Part of what makes life so beautiful to me is the presence of desire, regardless of whether it is fulfilled. To me, desire is closely wrapped up in ambition, and in a sense of striving, trying, pushing, struggling to achieve something special. Desire is also about a sense of yearning, and I find that yearning to be poignant and meaningful. Life is exciting in part due to desire and the struggle to achieve -- at least for me. Even with something as commonplace as love, I've always embraced the struggle inherent in loving from afar, loving in a manner that could ultimately be unrequited, which is okay from my point of view, because the very act of loving, regardless of its consequences, is joyous. The painful parts of these experiences heightens the joyful parts for me.

One of my mentors refers to the type of struggle people engage in when becoming profoundly stuck in a problem as "intellectual agony", which he later re-termed "joyful agony." He wanted to capture how worth it he finds the agony that we experience when we, for instance, spend a week trying and failing to create a proof. I know exactly what he means, which is probably why I majored in math. That agony is terrible but the occasional epiphany that follows it is so sublime. It makes everything else worth it. And even without the epiphany, the agony itself is so deeply gut-wrenching that it reminds you that you're alive, that the very struggle itself is meaningful. I have many memories of maddening frustration as I worked and worked to try to understand something just beyond my grasp. It could be infuriating, but I also remember how alive I felt during those times. And how beautiful the crisp fall day would appear to me when I emerged from the bowels of some dusty building on the quad, how everything about the world struck me as almost painfully perfect, down to the very breeze hitting my face. All of these feelings are intimately related to desire to understand, to achieve, and the keen, joyful ache that such a desire evokes.

I'm not the kind of person who does well with setting modest expectations. The downside to this is that the disappointment that comes when I don't achieve what I set out to do is sharp and painful, and sometimes embarrassing. If I don't expect too much, then I can be pleasantly surprised if things go well and avoid harsh disappointment when they don't. This might lead to a more even-keeled, calm demeanor.

On the other hand, I think that at times my ability to whole-heartedly embrace my desire serves to push me a little bit more. It makes me try a little harder, work a little more, and it might make it a little more possible for me to achieve the things I go after. So, it's risky. I feel like I am wearing my heart on my sleeve in kind of a pathetic way. My cards are on the table. I want to do a good job as a mom and a wife, I want to do right by my family. But the scarier stuff is that I want to be able to have a family and simultaneously get tenure at my R1 university. I want to get the fancy high-stakes grant (oh, how I want this grant). I want to get my signature piece published in my field's top journal. I want to do work that really matters. That changes how people think. That changes how we teach. The kinds of things I want are likely to make me fall flat on my face, so it's kind of hard, and a little embarrassing, to put it out there like that. But I want these things.

I want to struggle. I want to work at things, to try to do something hard that I don't know if I can achieve or not. The uncertainty is scary (can I do it?), but the struggle makes me feel like my life is worth something.

I want, I want, I want.

Every Mom Thinks Her Kids Are Brilliant...

See this picture? See all that drawing and scribbling? And then see the big thing in the lower left corner of the magna doodle? That thing that looks suspiciously like an "M"?

Today Nora was drawing with the magna doodle, over on the other side of the room. Then she carefully produced that thing we see in the lower left corner, all by herself, and said "M for Milo! M for Milo!"

She is not yet 2. I think it's a pretty snazzy M for not yet 2.

**********

Speaking of Milo, tonight he was on the changing table seriously inspecting his toes. The kids are currently fascinated with getting the fuzzies out from between their toes these days. Go figure. Anyway, Milo's busy doing that but Jake is trying to change his diaper, thus interfering with Milo's intentions. Milo says, irritably, "I'm trying to work here!"

Awesome Stuff Middle Schoolers Say

Amy: Could you walk pi feet?

Kid: Pi feet...well, yeah, but it's gonna be like really really hard to figure out whether it is exactly pi feet.

Amy: Okay. So, is really really hard the same as impossible, or would it be possible?

Kid: Almost. Almost.

Amy: Almost possible?

Kid: You never know what, uh, technology's gonna come up with these days. Because they're coming out with iPhones and everything.

Getting Ready

This weekend we were once again blessed with gorgeous weather. Today it actually reached 60 degrees! Yesterday it reached the low 50s, and given that December is just around the corner, we'll take it. The Thanksgiving ingredients are procured (mostly), the kids are all worn out from spending the entire weekend in various parks, and our soup-of-the-week is sitting pretty in the fridge.

As the holidays approach, with the season of eating and all, I've ramped up my exercise schedule. Once the kids shifted to only one afternoon nap I started avoiding my weekend morning runs because I felt guilty about leaving Jake with them. But I realized, if I'm ever going to run, it has to come at the expense of something. It's not like I can create time out of thin air to secure an hour for working out, so if I have to do it as the kids romp around in the park with Jake, so be it. He doesn't mind and they seem fine, so I don't know why I was feeling so guilty. Today at the halfway mark I ran into 3 of my neighbors and joined them for the rest of the run. Everything goes so much quicker and easier when there are people to talk to.

This afternoon found the whole neighborhood seemingly in the park, enjoying that last gasp of nice weather. The kids played with a bunch of their friends, we talked to their parents, and then came home to a house fragrant with the scents of lemon grass and coconut milk. It gets dark early now; it's just about all the way dark by 5 p.m. I like this, because it represents the changing of the seasons and the warm, cozy feeling that comes upon us when winter is at the door. It makes us all come inside and spend our evenings at the hearth, one eye on the pot bubbling on the stove. (Well, okay...this scene would be better if we actually had a working fireplace. But still.) The kids munched on "appetizers" of cheese and meatballs while Jake and I drank mugs of mulled cider.

Autumn is such a great time of year, even late autumn like right now before the snows come. It's still warm enough to be outside without being in pain. It's warm enough for skirts and knee socks, for knee-length boots and short coats, for cotton sweaters and jeans. The time for mufflers, mittens, layers, long underwear, wool, and flannel will come soon enough. For now, we just enjoy the season.

A couple of pictures from last weekend (when it was colder):

What we think, what we say

You have to understand that this conversation occurs about 80 times a day:

Nora: Where's Daddy?

Me: He's at home.

Nora: Where's Milo?

Me: He's right next to you.

Milo: I'm right here!

Nora: Where'd Grandmom go?

Me: She's in Washington.

Nora: ...(brief pause as she tries to think up something else)...Where's Daddy?

Me: You already asked that one, kiddo.

Nora: Where's Daddy?

Me: I don't know, Nora, where is Daddy?

Nora: He's at HOME! Where's twin whisperer?

Me: She went home. She'll be back on Monday.

Nora: Where'd Milo go? Where's Milo?

Me: I don't know, Nora, where is Milo?

Nora: He's right there! ...Where's Daddy?

Me: OH FOR THE LOVE OF GOD YOU KNOW WHERE HE IS NOW YOU'RE JUST MESSING WITH ME YOU LITTLE --

Just kidding. I just think that part.

Well, we have to buy a new dryer. And I am a week (and counting) behind on a book chapter. And I have to serve on an advisory board in a couple of weeks, taking me away from normal work for 2 days, and I also have to give a talk in the middle of that. Oh, and I've agreed to submit yet another NSF grant that is due super soon (Jan 7th) with 2 of my colleagues, and serve as the PI. When is all of this going to happen? I am letting Jake deal with the kids tonight so that I can stay late at work, but every time I do something like that I feel super guilty. I wish there were 2 of me.

But that isn't what I wanted to talk about...I am noticing that the kids are doing some interesting, weird cognitive stuff lately. For instance, they still don't realize that pictures in books are only pictures. So sometimes they want to hug the pictures of various animals, and if something in a picture really interests them, like a ball, they want to pick it up. Yesterday we were looking at a book with a picture of a drum and a mallet, and Milo wanted to pick up the mallet and bang the drum. I keep telling them we can't because it's just a picture, but they obviously don't get it!

The other interesting thing is their lack of understanding of relative size. Nora keeps trying to take her doll's clothes and shoes and put them on, even though they are way too tiny. She keeps asking me to help her put on her doll's shoe (which is big enough to hold my big toe, but that's about it). Yesterday at play group the kids had a doll house and it had a bridge that was about 3 inches wide and 8 inches long. Nora wanted to walk on the bridge (and even tried).

The other night at dinner Jake and I were talking about something or other and Milo piped up by telling us "I saw a wizard today!" I couldn't figure out what he was saying for quite a while. A wizard? A lizard? What was he talking about? He continued, "I saw a wizard in the park today!" The twin whisperer had taken them to a special toddler park, but we still had no idea what he was talking about. Regardless, it is a new milestone that Milo is starting to talk about something that happened to him in the past, telling us a story of his day. I thought that was cool. The next day I told the twin whisperer about it and she confirmed that indeed there is a giant stone statue of a wizard in the toddler park, and Milo had been fascinated by it. So he actually successfully communicated some interesting aspect of his day to us!

What Next?

We've got a giant load of diapers washing right now, and our dryer just broke.

Touche, dryer, touche.