Easter

First we dyed eggs, the night before.

Easter morning, the kids got up and opened a couple of presents from their various grandparents while I made french toast. I wanted to get some real food into them before the Easter baskets and candy hit. They got some trucks from Grandmom Lee and love them, even though it is no substitute for the real thing! (For instance -- once the kids were happily eating breakfast and Jake was downstairs, I used that opportunity to go upstairs and go to the bathroom and get dressed. And...yup. Only about 1 or 2 minutes in, I could hear them crying and screaming downstairs. Now that Grandmom is gone, I can once again no longer go to the bathroom without all hell breaking loose. It's so...tiring.)

Then the kids played with their Easter baskets and searched for eggs, both real and plastic, in the sunroom. They didn't really get the point of finding eggs, and Nora didn't want to put them in her basket, instead attempting to hoard them all under her chin. By the way, both kids were very excited to eat a hard boiled egg for breakfast, after having dyed them the night before. The verdict, however, wasn't positive: "I don't like egg!"

I did let the kids eat some chocolate candy from their basket and mini egg hunt, and it was wild. Nora had chocolate all over her mouth and was practically frothing in joy. Milo ate slowly and steadily. Both were just amazed at all of the chocolate they were eating. It wasn't exactly a lot, but to have it actually in their hands, in their control, was something pretty exciting to them.

At 11 a.m. we had a big neighborhood egg hunt in the park. Fortunately the kids got to go by age, so the 1- and 2-year olds were able to hunt for eggs first and each kid got 12 eggs. They were not hard to find, since there were hundreds of eggs lying everywhere, but it was still pretty funny how hard it is for Milo & Nora to spot and pick up an egg.

Here Milo found one!

Milo shows off his stash:

Nora displays her egg. The eggs had little toys or candies in them.

Here Nora is a little peeved that she has to stop hoarding eggs (limit was 12 per kid).

And THEN the most exciting thing happened -- the Easter bunny came! Here he is giving Nora some candy.

Nora couldn't believe it. This thing kept giving her candy! She had absolutely no shyness with him, once she realized chocolate was involved. If I didn't stop her she would have hounded him over and over again for more and more chocolate.

This is Milo looking up at the Easter bunny. He had this incredible look of joy and amazement on his face. He was so blown away by the Easter bunny.

Here the Easter bunny is hopping around and the kids are following him. They had a blast.

And then it was time for the Easter bunny to hop away. It was a funny sight, once the Easter bunny got to the road and crossed it, to see half a dozen parents racing for their kids to make sure everybody didn't run into the road to follow him.

See Milo kind of hanging back there? He stopped and watched the Easter bunny hop away, and then Milo just started bawling. I mean, seriously crying his heart out. It was so sad, he didn't want the Easter bunny to go away. Which is what he kept saying.

The Easter bunny really was magic to Milo and Nora. Other than the trauma of having him go away, the kids had a nice day. They did have an argument that night at dinner over Grandmom Lee's departure:

Milo: She went on a jet plane!

Me: That's right!

Milo: She went on a helicopter!

Nora: No, a jet plane!

Milo: No, a helicopter!

Nora: No, a JET PLANE!

Milo: A HELICOPTER!

You can imagine how it continued from there.

Tenure (also not about the kids)

The last few nights I've been waking up at 3 or 4 a.m. and then having a hard time going back to sleep because of tenure worries. Worries that have me literally breaking out into a cold sweat. Suddenly I'm worried that I won't have enough publications. At this point I'm writing what I'm writing, and I've got a game plan for what to put out when, and there isn't really time to make big adjustments to that plan. In other words, if my strategy all along has been flawed, it's getting to be a little too late in the game to correct it. All I can do is carry it out.

A word about my strategy. I have been writing big papers and publishing them in big outlets. By big I mean that my papers are literally long (lots of pages), and they reflect an enormous amount of data analysis. Sometimes a year or more of analysis. So it takes a long time to write papers. I have not been getting out "least publishable units", i.e. chopping up my studies into smaller papers to get more publications (but smaller ones) out the door. Instead, my strategy has been to try to publish good work in well-known outlets that will garner a fair amount of attention. There are strengths to this approach in a couple of ways. First, the quality of the work is strong. And second, the quality of the journals is high, which means you can make an argument for being a prominent person in the field.

There are drawbacks to this approach as well. The most obvious drawback is that the number of publications is lower than it might be under a different strategy. And so that number issue is what has started keeping me up at night. When you look at my CV, it looks like I've done a fair amount of stuff but then when I take a more critical eye to it, many of those things fall off the radar and cease to "count" towards tenure. For instance, book chapters don't really count. Books for practitioners don't count. Articles for practitioners don't count. And then the stuff that "counts" suddenly seems kinda small.

I know why I'm freaking out right now, it's because a colleague gave her "keep your job talk" last week to our department (we have to do this before we go up for tenure), and then had her publications up, and she has about a gazillion of them.

My mentor spent part of the morning talking me off the ledge. I can't even have a conversation about it without literally shaking, my hand trembling, the way I used to when I was in 8th grade and had to give a presentation to the class. He kept telling me that I have nothing to worry about. "I should make this into a podcast, and then when you wake up in the middle of the night you can just turn it on and hear, 'it's going to be okay, you're going to get tenure' over and over again," he said.

However, now? This afternoon? I am feeling sooooooo good right now. This is due to a little conversation I had today with the chair of the divisional committee (this is the committee that basically decides on our tenure once we make it past the dept. If they say yes on tenure, it's basically a done deal). Anyway, when he found out about my grant (which is called the NSF early career award), he stopped right away and he said "Whoa. When you have a career award, well, let's just say, it is impossible for the committee to ignore that." I said, "What does that mean, exactly?" and he said, "I mean, say there are some holes in a case. Not that there will be with yours necessarily, but say somebody fewer publications than we'd like to see, or maybe the teaching isn't so great, or whatever. If that person has a career award, then that's it. The other holes matter much less because it would be very hard to deny a person who has won a career award." So I'm all, "Holy crap, really?!?" and he says, "This is true across divisions. Physical sciences, biological sciences, it doesn't matter, if you have an early career award, that is huge. It will be much harder to not get tenure with a career award."

My mentor said, "See, now do you believe me? Coming from somebody like so-and-so, whose opinion has the weight of being chair of that committee? You must feel better now," and I had to admit, yes, today, I feel better.

This is not About the Kids

I just found a card from my 21st birthday. It's a homemade card with cartoon bunnies on it and it says, in English, "You are sexy girl. Let's play tennis." Then a bunch of stuff in Japanese which I can no longer read because pretty much the only kanji I remember at this point are the characters for "Japan" and the characters for 1-4. Which is pretty bad considering how many I used to know, once upon a time. But then I recall that once upon a time was, like, 18 years ago.

Anyway, this card reminded me of my 21st birthday, which I celebrated in Japan. I totally remember who gave it to me, too, it was one of the friends of one of my host sisters. This host sister was named Tomoko and for some crazy reason I kept thinking she was the older of the two sisters who I stayed with, even though she was the younger one. They were 19 and 21 and so sweet. They took me along with them on all sorts of adventures, we talked about as many things as we could considering my limited Japanese, and they taught me how to cook. And I taught them how to cook American food, which at the time was basically restricted to spaghetti with meat sauce.

On my 21st birthday they threw a big party for me and another exchange student, Sigal, whose birthday was the day before mine. This party had pink champagne, I mean, it was literally pink, which is something I've never seen before or since. There were also dainty miniature finger sandwiches with things like cucumbers in them, like what you might expect at an English tea, as well as Japanese foods and those desserts that look delicious but then actually taste like bean curd when you bite into them. The wild crazy drinking-legally-for-the-first-time aspect of 21 wasn't present because in Japan the drinking age is earlier than 21, and plus there are vending machines all over the place that sell beer.

It was hot and humid and as dusk turned to darkness I heard the clang of the guy walking around the neighborhood banging on the wood block. (I just googled this phrase: "Japan guy who bangs the wood block to remind you not to leave the stove on", and surprisingly did not receive a single relevant hit! I'm pretty sure that's why he went around banging that block every night, at least that's what I remember my host family telling me, something about preventing fires, but google has failed to provide a more satisfactory explanation). Anyway, it was a beautiful night, aesthetically, in the way that you can only have in Japan, in Kyoto, in the summer. Even the pile of little presents for me and Sigal was artfully arranged just so. (Of course there were presents. There are always presents for any event, big or small. I couldn't sneeze without getting a little present (omiyage, see, I remember something) from somebody).

Speaking of words I remember, here is another one: gokiburi. That is the Japanese word for cockroach. Not just any cockroach, though, these creatures were the size of mice (no, rats!) and they flew. Also, they were...meaty. Big and meaty and round. I seriously just gave myself a nasty shiver down my spine remembering these gokiburi. Whenever I saw one, I would just quickly walk the other way and pretend that our encounter hadn't occurred, as if I had just run into an ex-boyfriend and the breakup had not been amicable.

The summer I was in Japan, it was so humid that mold grew on my sandals during one rainy weekend. After that happened I set them out on my window ledge every day to bake in the sun. I studied hard (come to think of it, why?), I stayed up late, and occasionally I rode the Shinkansen to Yokohama to visit my old friend who would subsequently escort me to the beach at 2 a.m. so that we could sit on the dunes, look at the rolling waves, and talk about the future. Senior year. Graduation. Real life. Jobs. Careers. Stuff I didn't want to think about too much unless it was 2 in the morning and I could hear the waves crashing on the sand.

Living in Japan was exhausting to me, in the way it can be when you have to speak in a foreign language 24 hours a day. Or the way you have to concentrate really hard to make sure you're reading the signs correctly so that you get off at the right train stop. Most things generally flew over my head, and I never quite got the hang of the public toilets, and I grew tired of people in Kyoto getting up and moving whenever I sat down near them on the train. I couldn't understand why it was rude to blow your nose in public but acceptable to sit there and loudly hork up snot for half an hour straight. But then I would come home and watch my host sister take her cat by the head, pull his ears back so that he looked like he was traveling at great speeds, and say, "Do you want to ride the bullet train? Are you riding the bullet train?" Which was exactly what my dad used to do with our cat, substituting rocket for bullet train. That familiar action reminded me, we're all the same, everywhere.

The Little Things

Milo's question of the day: "Do worms kiss?"

(My question of the day: Do worms even have lips?)

Nora's tattle of the day: "Mommy, Milo's annoying me!"

(Get used to it for the next couple of decades, honey.)

Polite

After Nora correctly distinguished between a hexagon and an octagon,

Buddy: You're so smart, Nora! You're going to be talented and gifted!

Nora: Thank you!

My Little Fashionista

Leaving for work this morning, Milo noticed my jacket, which has two large buttons at the top. He said "Those are cute buttons, Mommy!"

Don't Look at my Poop!

Milo has grown shy about Nora seeing something of his, but it's not the something you might think. Milo doesn't like Nora to see his poop. Yes, his poop. His naked bottom is fine to display to one and all, but he is shy about Nora looking at his poop when I change his diaper. So now, when I change a poopy diaper, Milo says "Nora look away!" and then Nora dutifully turns around and faces the opposite direction, as if she were formally shunning him.

This morning I took the kids to a gym type place for little kids and I do believe that Milo would make a good gymnast. He is coordinated, for instance he can walk on a balance beam all by himself. But more noticeably he lacks fear. He will jump off a high platform onto a giant foam mat when kids twice his age hesitate. You need to have a certain daredevil attitude to enjoy gymnastics.

Meanwhile I was busy climbing up the rope to the ceiling, just to prove that I've still got it, middle aged body, cough, cracked rib and all...which is really not all that smart. Come to think of it.

Today was a beautiful day but it was somewhat marred by Nora's crankiness, which has been plaguing her since the time change. She can't seem to make herself go to sleep before 9 p.m. but she's still waking up at the same time. Also, it was marred by my FB post about the weather and an irritating know-it-all comment I got on that. I need some love, not obnoxiousness. I would defriend this person because she's consistently annoying, but she's my neighbor and I just can't do stuff like that in this stepfordy neighborhood. We're already the suspect family who doesn't always attend the 4th-of-July parade and barbecue.

It's 8 p.m. and Nora is still chattering. I think I'm going to put her in the pack and play in our room and see if that helps. Pretty soon she'll be too big for that thing, and then we'll really be in trouble!

Guilt

I can only hear "Mommy, don't go to work! Don't go to work, Mommy! Mommy stay home with me!" so many times before I start to feel lower than a grasshopper.

(For the record, they also beg Jake to not go to school.)

Fortunate

Tonight at dinner, Nora said "It's Tuesday. It IS Tuesday! I'll make it Saturday. I'll push the button and make it Saturday. Bing! (Makes a big flourish with her hands). I pushed the button! Now it's Saturday!" Holy cow, toddlers are trippy.

Milo just said "Mommy?" Yes Milo? "Mommy, hold you."

Also, today I saw flowers blooming. Crocuses and other little ones. In mid March! It's unheard of here! And it was 60 degrees out! And coming home from work I had to take off my coat and roll up my sleeves! Holy amazing early spring, Batman.

So in addition to my recent Career grant, I have also received another grant in collaboration with 5 other professors at my university. It's a postdoc training grant, so what this means is that we have received money to fund some postdocs for the next few years. This is great if we can get them (it is not always easy to hire postdocs in our field). Each postdoc will have a primary and secondary mentor, and will work on a number of different projects.

So anyway I was recently at a conference with a bunch of people from a bunch of other universities and I was describing the grant. One thing to note is that out of the six of us on this grant, I am the only assistant professor. All of the other professors are full professors. In addition, they're all well known. So at this conference, the folks from other universities kept noting in astonishment how lucky I am to be able to have this grant with the full professors, and how unusual it is that they would let me in on it.

And they're right, actually. In many other places, the postdocs go to the big famous people and the newer lesser known people can't get postdocs in their labs. Big famous people can often be territorial and not necessarily helpful to newer faculty. In addition, many of the people on this grant are from a related but different field from mine, and these two fields are known for not always getting along. So the other folks were also noting in astonishment that I can actually collaborate with these people from the related field, and that it's okay to do that.

Well anyway, this is one thing that is very wonderful about my job. We are an extremely collegial group. Ever since I got here I have been surrounded by talented, more senior people who have been so generous with me. They have invited me to collaborate professionally on different projects and have just generally been open, supportive, and helpful to me. It is actually quite rare, I think, this type of cross-disciplinary collaboration that we have. Sometimes I have to be around people from other universities to be reminded of how great I really have it.

I hope that once I am more senior myself, I'll do a good job of continuing the tradition of mentorship and collaboration with the newer faculty who join us over time.

Revise and Resubmit

We need two "signature pieces" for a tenure case. These are articles that every person on the divisional committee reads. They are also the articles that go out to external reviewers who write letters for our case. There are all sorts of unofficial rules about these pieces: they can't be from our dissertation, they shouldn't really be co-authored (unless perhaps the co-author is our student who didn't do much of the work), they can't be book chapters. They should ideally be solo authored journal articles in strong journals, and should make a significant contribution to the field.

I have been writing my signature pieces this year and last. I'm in the middle of writing my second one. I sent my first one out in September to our field's top journal. It is hard to get into this journal; the acceptance rate often hovers between 5% and 10%. So sending something out to this journal is a risky venture, but the payoffs are big, because publications in this journal are widely read and well respected, generally.

Anyway I finally got a decision back today, 6 months later. The decision is R&R which means "revise and resubmit". This lives sort of halfway in between an accept and a reject. It means that the reviewers had major concerns or things to fix, but they (or the editor) thought it was a good enough paper that if those things could be fixed, then the paper should eventually get published. So you are invited to revise the article to fix the problems, and then resubmit it, and the editor will have it reviewed by a subset of the original set of reviewers and usually a few new ones as well. The chances of getting a paper accepted after this process are higher than for initial submissions.

In graduate school I got the impression that an R&R is a very, very bad thing. So when I got my first R&R, I too was very upset. I was conditioned to see an R&R as a big failure.

However, I have gotten a number of R&R's since then. And what I've learned is that a) they're common, b) they mean you have a decent chance of eventually getting the paper published. I remember one time I got an R&R and I mentioned it to a colleague and she said "Wow, congratulations!" And I was like, huh? It's a good thing? It's funny how expectations can shape how you react to something.

Most of the papers I've published have been published after getting an R&R the first time. The revision process is good because reviewers' comments will help make the paper better and stronger. I believe in this process, but of course it's also daunting to start out the revision. Each time I do it, I look at the list of things to fix and it seems huge and daunting. In this case it will certainly require a serious revision. But I think it is doable. Interestingly, out of the 4 reviews, 2 of them recommended accept, 1 recommended reject, and 1 recommended R&R. My papers usually review this way -- the reviews typically span the gamut. The editor has the final decision.

The main frustrating thing about an R&R is the timeline. It took 6 months for this paper to get reviewed. Say I am incredibly fast and can resubmit it in, oh, 1 month. (That would be unrealistically fast, I think). Say it takes another 6 months. Even if it gets accepted in that case, that's 13 months between the initial submission and the acceptance. Then it is several more months before it is actually published. The incredibly slow timeline of these papers can be difficult and risky when you need publications for tenure. Especially at this stage in the game, for me.

Anyway, realistically, I was expecting an R&R. I was hoping for an outright accept, but to get that on the first try with this journal would be amazing. It's only happened to me once. I didn't really think lightening was going to strike twice. I was hoping it wouldn't get rejected. So this is generally a good outcome, if I'm patient. I think my strategy will be to revise this paper as quickly as I can and resubmit as soon as possible, then return to my other signature piece to get it written and submitted, hopefully sometime this summer. After those two extremely-high-priority tasks are done, then I can turn more attention to other stuff that needs to simultaneously happen, like a co-authored book chapter we're writing right now, and the two additional books I agreed to co-author for the NCTM series.

I think that all I need to do is a bunch of hard work, which is doable. I can handle work. It seems maybe possible to get it all done. We'll see. I'll probably start working on the revision tomorrow.

Weekend

Yesterday was uneventful. Grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry, chilling with the kids.

Today was gorgeous. Living as far north as we do, spring comes late. I fully expect at least one more snowstorm to come our way, but today felt like real spring. It was 50, sunny, and a lot of the snow is completely gone now. We spent the morning outside in the muddy park, and this afternoon we went to a Pi day party and ate a bunch of pie.

I need to start using the video camera more (i.e. my little digital camera) because it is impossible to describe Milo's charm. He has these adorable expressions, and huge eyes, and he is so endearing that everybody just falls for him completely. He's the kind of kid people stop on the street to coo over. Nora's easier to write about in some ways because many of the interesting thing she does are verbal, so I can relay what she says. Milo says interesting things too, but a big part of his charm is just his real-life charisma, which is very hard to convey in writing.

The time change has, of course, messed them (and by extension us) up. But at least it's in the right direction as far as sleeping in is concerned. Nora was up talking to herself until 9 and only fell asleep when I removed her from the nursery and put her in our room. Maybe it's the time change, or maybe it's the metric ton of berries she ate after dinner. Hmmm....

It was a nice catch-up weekend. Our house is still messy, but at least we have clean sheets, groceries, and a homemade creamy mushroom soup in the fridge. Onwards and upwards.

Sweet Milo

We have a book about a duck who likes to dance. One day her baby brother takes her tutu and she rips it out of his hands, and then he cries. There is a picture of the baby duck crying.

Milo kept looking at the picture and then he said "He's sad. What's he worried about?" I told him, "I don't know, what do you think he's worried about?" Milo said, "He's worried about the owl."

Milo will often say that he hears and owl and is scared, or sometimes he'll wake up and say he had a bad dream about an owl. Sometimes he reassures himself that he is inside, so the owl won't get him. We do get owls around here so it wouldn't surprise me that he hears them and gets scared by that. I guess he's working it out with the duck book. Milo's such a sweet little guy.

Why Can't I Get Better?

Awake at 3 a.m. because the cough that had been slowly, torturously getting better throughout the week is now suddenly getting worse again. It's hard to understand why this keeps happening...moving from starting to recover back to relapsing, over and over again. My doctor gave me a prescription for a broad antibiotic with the advice to wait a few days to fill it. She didn't think what I had was bacterial and so she only wanted me to fill it if I wasn't getting better. That was a couple of weeks ago. I didn't fill it because I felt like I was getting a little better each day, even if it was at a very slow pace. (And because antibiotics are such a drag). But I guess I'll fill it tomorrow and give it a try.

I feel like I've been beat up by a gang of thugs. Specifically, a bunch of thugs who kicked me over and over again in the ribs and the back. What's worse than a never ending cough, it turns out, is a cough that conjures up a sharp punch to the ribs with every inhale. A punch delivered by Mike Tyson wearing a metal glove.

And as long as I'm bitching and moaning endlessly here, I'm also going to complain about the fact that I haven't been able to run or do any meaningful exercise in ages, which is hell on my mood, my weight management efforts, and my self esteem. I know. I'm a giant baby with this stupid cough!

Why hasn't my body been able to effectively fight this thing off? I feel like it's not working very well these days. This probably has to do with things like sleep, and rest, and the impossibility of achieving either of these objectives ever. For instance, being wide awake at 3:23 a.m. and knowing I have to get up at 7. Or never taking a day off from work. Or traveling. But as I look forward, the weekend is filled with early mornings and laundry and grocery trips and toddler herding, and the week is filled with work and more of the same, and the months stretch out without any realistic opportunity to just fucking sleep in, ever. Jake more than pulls his weight but even when he gets up with the kids, he cannot manage to get them up, dressed, and downstairs without several bouts of high-pitched screaming. Earplugs only get you so far.

I know. It always seems worse in the middle of the night. It'll seem better tomorrow. I just don't want to start another 2-week cycle of exhausting, constant, painful, sleep-disrupting coughing. It is depressing me. I am always a terrible patient -- a total wimp. I would make the worst Victorian-era malingering heroine ever.

Homecoming

Here is an excerpt from Buddy's notes for the day. They went to the story time at a book store and had to go to the bathroom. "Nora did a play by play of everything that all of the ladies were doing in the bathroom. She is quite the character in the bathroom!" I can only imagine trying to go to the bathroom and hearing a little 2-year old's piercing voice saying "That lady is peeing on the potty!"

Yesterday the twin whisperer came and watched the kids because Jake had a class and I was out of town. She reported that Milo is quite the back seat driver. He said "You are driving too fast!" and "Slow down, please!"

There were some rain delays and other delays with my flights today so I got home just in time to read the very last story before bedtime. When the kids saw me, Nora said "Mommy came out of Washington, D.C.!"

Nora has an amazing memory. She remembers every little thing, so I have to keep that in mind and not promise too much. For instance, I have been thinking about a tentative trip out to WA after school is out and before Jake's job starts up at the end of June. So when I was preparing the kids for my plane trip this week, Nora said she wanted to go on the plane with me. I said that maybe this summer, when it is hot, we might all go on a plane together to Washington. Yesterday Nora mentioned this to the twin whisperer! She said "We are going to go on an airplane in the summer!" The twin whisperer asked where, and Nora said "To Washington!" I guess I need to realize that this stuff is sticking now, and the concept of "maybe" is not something that the kids understand yet.

Milo is the little social butterfly. At the library on Wednesday he went up to other people who were reading books to their children and just sort of joined in, and made friends with other kids.

It was so good to get home tonight and see my little ones. I always get neurotic and weird when I travel. I start worrying about all the bad things that could happen to them. Last night I had a nightmare that they were caught in a fire. I don't feel right until I am back and can see them again. I told them, I'm so happy to be home again with you! They both kept smiling these huge smiles and snuggling up to me. It feels great to be back where I belong, and I'm glad I don't have to go anywhere for another 6 weeks.

Putting on the Ritz

Here's Milo the morning that I left to go to a conference in Washington:

He's still into hugging the cat. Too much. Sometimes I wish our cat, Caspian, were just a little less sweet than he is. Caspian will never defend himself against a human, even if he's being actively hurt. If he would give Milo a little swat every now and then when he is being too rough, Milo would get the picture. He never tackles our other cat, Sam. Caspian sort of likes it, though. Jake and I have to go around and monitor how rough Milo is being and constantly remind him to be gentle with the cat.

Here's pretty Nora the morning I left:

We had fog in our town that delayed and cancelled many flights, but we lucked out and our flight to Washington was only a couple of hours late. It was a direct flight, so it was no big deal. I say "we" because there were actually 5 people besides me from my university on the same flight to this conference (and it is a small conference!), and a 6th person, my dept. chair as a matter of fact, flying to the metro area to give a talk.

This conference is being held in the Ritz Carlton, and I thought, oooo, fancy! It's right outside of the metro stop, so that's convenient. By the way, it's super warm here. Like 60 and sunny. It's awesome. As we were descending into the city I thought, what looks so strange to me right now? What am I seeing that's out of place? Oh...it's the water! The water is...water. It's not ice! Back home all of our lakes are still frozen solid. Out here, the water is water, and that feels like spring to me.

Anyway, the Ritz. I thought it was funny that we were staying at the Ritz. It is old school fancy. Not fancy like the modern, uber-chic boutiquey hotels I sometimes frequent at conferences, but fancy in the sense that there is a lot of marble around. And chandeliers. There is even a chandelier in the elevator.

So here is my old school room:

It's nice. Very comfortable bed. Here is the bathroom (more marble!):

Here is the luggage rack that is, I think, the exact same luggage rack that my mother owns. At least, I think so. It sure did look familiar. That is the sole reason why I took a photo of it. (Forgive these grainy pictures taken with my old point-and-shoot camera):

Last night we went out for dinner at a Lebanese place. It was very crowded and so we got drinks and waited and waited and waited for our table to become available. We were a larger group so it took ages, so we just kept drinking, and by the time dinner arrived we were both semi-drunk and starving. So then we ate a ton of food, rapid style, and by the time I made it back to my room I collapsed onto my bed feeling like an over-indulged, beached whale.

Today I had to give a talk and I thought it was kinda...meh. I don't think it was so great. Part of the problem is that I had to report on extremely early results that aren't all that exciting yet unless you place them within the larger context of the overall research project, which is hard to do in just 14 minutes. So I tried to do that justice, but probably ended up just communicating our not-too-exciting results. But that's okay, because today I also got official confirmation that my big grant, source of so much work and worry, has been awarded. Hoooooray! So I was all, whatever, I have my grant now!

Here is me after learning of the grant. That's a fist pump of victory right there.

Well, I'm off now to a celebratory dinner -- it's Vietnamese tonight. Sounds like fun!

This and That

Today was a misty, rainy, jump in puddles kind of day. The kids were busy dragging sticks through the muck and mud of the puddles when the local high school track team ran by -- half of them without shirts. (It was 42 degrees out. Not that warm.) Nora yelled, "Good job running, guys!"

Yesterday Buddy took the kids to the pet store, which they loved. Milo in particular really enjoyed the ferrets. He got to pet them. Today he has been talking about ferrets all day long. I'm just glad that they're not yet old enough to start begging us for a ferret.

Yesterday was a 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. work day. We had an advisory panel meeting and we had to take them out for dinner afterwards. We went to the very first authentic Chinese food that this town has seen. We were a big group (10) and ordered all kinds of things like crispy pork intestines and fish with the heads still on, and everything was covered in hot peppers. It was great and for some reason the spicy food really calmed my cough.

I somehow managed to bruise or crack a rib from coughing. Now every time I cough it is ridiculously painful. It also hurts to yawn, breathe deeply, and lift things, like toddlers, or suitcases. And I'm traveling to D.C. tomorrow. Maybe I will have a chance to rest on the plane!

Above: Nora's stylin'. And Milo actually has some hair! Here's a bonus video on manners:

Language

Milo, calling to me from the dining room: What are you doing, Mommy?

Nora: Mommy's watering the frickin' plants!

Oh well. At least we've trained them out of saying "oh shit" and "oh damn it", and I watch my language a lot more than I used to.

Buddy

The kids like to tell us about their day at the dinner table. It's awesome. Jake and I are talking about the district budget cuts and in the middle of that Nora pipes up "Did you play basketball with Buddy?" (That's her way of saying, "ask me if I played basketball with Buddy.") Oh, did you? "Yeah!" she chirps. Milo pipes in "I did slam dunks!"

The kids have a friend down the street named Millie. Buddy is good friends with Millie's nanny, so they get together and do things as a group of 5 all the time. Tomorrow Millie turns 2 so today Nora and Milo went over to Millie's house to bake birthday cookies. Actually first Buddy took them to the store to get some supplies. Buddy writes notes about the day and in her notes, she remarked "Milo wants a ball and a bat, and another ball, and another ball." Then they went to Millie's and baked cookies in the shape of "M" and "2". They also ate birthday cupcakes, and Buddy took some great pictures of the kids with cupcake mouths. (This was a rare treat, but it was, after all, Millie's birthday). Also, Buddy enacted a miracle with Nora and got her to eat (drumroll) mac 'n cheese! This is the first time in her entire life that Nora has actually eaten some pasta. I think eating lunch at Millie's is good for her because of the peer pressure. She sees Milo and Millie eating people food, so maybe she realizes it is a good idea.

Later they came back and played basketball and then read library books. Each week Buddy takes the kids to the library and together they pick out 10 or 20 books. Buddy keeps them at our house in a giant blue bag and we read through them. This is great for me and Jake because it is fun to read different books rather than the same ones over and over again. (We do plenty of that too). The kids also read a book that belongs to Buddy about helicopters. She brought it over because Milo has been talking about helicopters a lot lately.

Our house is also filled with CDs of children's music that Buddy owns. She has a lot of kid stuff up her sleeve. "I have things stashed everywhere throughout your house!" she told me cheerfully. It's true. She has some puppets here, as well as her CDs and books and who knows what else. She's always bringing over little things for the kids. Stickers, or crayons, or chalk.

Every day Buddy takes the kids on a different outing, unless they're sick. They go to the toddler gym, to story time, to the library, or the other library, or to Trader Joe's, or the city gardens, or the children's cafe. This morning, I meant to ask Buddy to give the kids a bath because I hadn't gotten around to it on Thursday like I'd intended to. But I completely forgot to ask her. Tonight when I came home, she mentioned that she had given them a bath because she had observed their towels still hanging in the same spot, so she knew they hadn't had one.

At this point I feel really lucky that we have Buddy. The Twin Whisperer still visits the kids on a weekly basis and often takes them on outings. She doesn't want to be paid for this, she just does it because she misses the kids and likes to see them. The kids still love that and talk about the Twin Whisperer. But now they're talking about Buddy too, and this morning when Buddy came, instead of crying, Nora said "Good morning! How are you?"

When Jake starts his job this summer and we finally have two incomes, we're totally giving Buddy a raise. She's worth every penny and more.

I bet the fish had a bad cough

Today I took the kids to work to visit with the secretaries for a while. They've been bugging me to bring them in. Nora clung to me and buried her face, but after some time she came out of her shell. Milo was happy to walk around and check things out. We have a fishbowl in the main office with a fish, so one of the secretaries said "Let's wake up the fish!" She got a long letter opener and poked what turned out to be the dead fish hanging out at the bottom of the bowl. One of the other secretaries said "That one died too?" A third secretary said "Don't said 'died' or 'dead' in front of the little ones!" The first secretary said, "He's sleeping, let's wake him up!" She poked him and prodded him, dragging the fish to the top of the bowl, at which point it slowly drifted down, down, down to the bottom. Milo and Nora loved this. Then they kept asking, "Can the fish wake up?", and then the secretary would drag it up with her letter opener and we would all watch it swirl back down to the bottom again.

I don't know when the right time to talk about death should be, but I agree it's probably not when we're in the office watching a tiny goldfish drift around in its bowl.

Later, in the afternoon, we hung around outside the house for a while. It was warm. Almost 40 degrees, and sunny. There are still big snowdrifts to crunch around in, but they are steadily melting, and the sidewalks and roads are bare. Dragging the garbage can back in from the street, I had a coughing attack that rendered me unable to breathe. Cough, cough, cough, cough, giant attempt at an inhale that doesn't seem to be working because my lungs are all closed up, cough, cough, cough. Milo and Nora are standing there saying "Don't spit, Mommy! Don't spit in the snow!" because I was spitting and choking and gagging with tears streaming down my face. Nora said "Breathe, Mommy!" as I wheezed through another ill-fated attempt to get some air into my lungs. All this, from a cold? It doesn't seem fair. I blame winter. Even the kids are still coughing.

Now I can hear them snoring over the monitor. One of them, I think Milo, is snoring like a cartoon, with a rumbling inhale and an actual literal whistling exhale, which I thought was only something you saw on Looney Tunes. I bet if I were to go up there right now I'd see a feather above Milo's face, drifting upwards as he whistles out, and floating back down as he snores in.

They don't make it like they used to

My doctor prescribed me some codeine and I took it an hour ago, but I'm still having uncontrollable coughing right this very minute! Plus I don't feel high at all, not even a little bit! What is with this lame, crappy codeine?

Failure

Today I got to work from home all morning. This is just another piece of freedom that I am slowly starting to regain post children, and it is wonderful. I had a lunch meeting close to my house so I stayed at home and worked in my upstairs office while the kids played with Jake downstairs. They are accustomed to Tuesdays being Daddy's day, so they accepted that I was unavailable. Then Jake took them outside and I actually had a quiet house, to myself! What a luxury! I love my little upstairs office. I love sitting at my desk and facing the window, which looks out onto our tree. I love watching the tree change over the seasons, from the full leafy greenness of summer, to the changing colors of autumn, to the bare branches of winter, to the buds and flowers of spring.

(We're still firmly in bare branch territory here).

Anyway, I am thinking about failure because I lost an election recently. I ran for a position in our national organization because my tenure committee chair told me to. He suggested it would be a good idea to get some national service on my record for tenure. I picked this particular office because it is kind of a smaller position, one that younger assistant professors run for (like me). The bigger-known full professors tend to run for the bigger positions. So my committee chair nominated me, and I wrote up my bio, and that was that. Until I found out that the other person running against me was...my advisor! So anyway, she won the election and I lost.

As it turns out, in the meantime I happened to be appointed to a different position for the same national organization that is more high profile anyway, so I think it is okay because I will have this other thing to show on my cv for national service. So in the end it is not a big deal.

But it got me thinking about how failure is something that is such a regular part of this career. Everything we do is a competition. We compete to get our conference proposals accepted. We compete to get our journal articles accepted. We compete for grants. Every part of my job is about being judged by other people. And failures happen regularly. An article might get rejected, or a conference proposal might get rejected, or a grant might get rejected. As the years pass I am getting a little better at dealing with rejection and failure. My work gets better as a result of incorporating the suggestions and critiques of the reviewers. I talk to my senior colleagues, well known people who show me their file drawers full of rejections. Those rejected articles were re-tooled, re-written, submitted elsewhere, and eventually accepted. So it is a natural part of the process, and judging by my successful colleagues, regular failure and rejection is part of the journey on the road to success.

This reminds me of a story about my mentor. He submitted an article to our field's top journal, and it was outright rejected. Not even a revise-and-resubmit, but full on reject. But he believed in his work and thought that the reviewers were wrong and had misinterpreted his data. (By the way, that level of confidence is, to me, a very gendered trait and one that is completely foreign to me. I regularly try to emulate this trait of his). So he rewrote the article, gave it a different title, and submitted it again to the same journal. That time, it came back as revise and resubmit. So he revised it again, resubmitted it, and they finally accepted it. And so it was published in our field's top journal, and now it gets cited by others. Of course anybody who reads this article doesn't know its history. They don't know about the first two rejections. All they see is the final result, which is a published article in this prestigious journal.

So that story tells me that when you are rejected or experience failure, you just have to keep going. You just have to keep trying. So that is what I am doing every day in my career.

Rejection and failure, I imagine, have different flavors pre-tenure than they do post-tenure. Right now, especially at this critical time junction, it is more important than ever for me to get articles accepted and grants awarded. So if I get a rejection now, it's hard to take it into stride because it is tied up in my "OMG this means I'm going to lose my job!" panic. Everything feels so high stakes right now, because I have to get certain things accepted or I know that I am not going to get tenure. But I wonder what it'll be like after tenure.

Us

Nora: Nora now pretty regularly says "thank you!" whenever we give her something. It is so cute. Neither kid seems to understand that "please" is something you say of your own volition. They seem to prefer the ritual of this exchange: "I need blah blah!" "How do you ask?" "Please?". Anyway, at least 'thank you' has made it into Nora's lexicon. She is also doing a lot of cute pretending these days. This morning when I left for work, Nora was "taking care of the horses" (we have blow-up horse-type things that they can ride on), which as far as I could tell basically meant dragging the horses to different various locations around the house. Nora's favorite book right now is "Days of Adventure!". I have to write it with an exclamation point because that's how she says it. She'll open it up and basically read it to herself.

Milo: Milo has no fear. He always has a few bumps and bruises, half of them on his head. He'll eagerly dive head first into anything. The other night he fell into the empty bathtub. These are the things he does. Milo has returned to his old standby, the ball, and is now making a habit of seeing how many balls he can pick up and carry at the same time. Milo also likes to cuddle with me and hug my belly at least once a day. In the evening I do my physical therapy exercises and Milo likes to climb on me, which makes them much more challenging. We have a CD with the "Wheels on the Bus" song and it has an extra rogue line in there about the mommys and the daddys saying "I love you". Because of this, Milo now says "I love you", which is so, so cute.

Jake: Jake is incredibly busy this semester. He works every night. Our spring break is at the end of March and today his brother called to see if he could go skiing. I have been encouraging Jake to do this, to take a weekend to have fun and get a break from everything, but he is worried that he won't have enough time and maybe he needs to just stay home and do the taxes and write papers. So far, thank goodness, Jake hasn't gotten this latest cold. That is our one saving grace right now. Jake has picked up the slack while I've been busy moaning, whining, and endlessly coughing.

Me: I have to travel next week. I just hope the cold and cough have died down somewhat by then. I co-authored a book for teachers a long time ago (I remember finishing most of the writing in December '06) and it is finally getting published this April. This book is part of a big series of books that the publishing company is putting out over the next few years. Anyway, I have been invited to co-author a second book in the series, which I agreed to do, but we haven't started yet. Then today I was invited to co-author a third book in the series! I haven't decided if I'm going to do the third one; it'll probably depend on the timing. These books don't do anything for my tenure case, so it is not smart to dedicate a lot of time to them. On the other hand, it's a good project that I support, so it's kind of nice to be involved. Plus, I do get a tiny royalty (2%).

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!