Worry

I'm worried about Nora. I'm not sure at what point something is just a normal phase, or a rough patch, and at what point there's an indication of a real problem that needs real help. Nora's behavior is just terrible all the time, and she is melting down constantly. I mean, constantly. On Wednesday by the time Jake got home I told him he needed to take the kids outside IMMEDIATELY because I had just spent the past 10 hours listening to Nora either whine, cry, scream, or yell. I mean that almost literally. She had been doing it all day without any breaks.

(And when he took them outside, she proceeded to scream bloody murder until we finally relented and let her back inside with me, so that she could proceed to whine and fuss in the kitchen while I tried to prepare dinner.)

Today I came home to see that Milo had a giant scratch across his face where Nora had attacked him.

She's clearly not happy. She seems happy about school, and when I mention her teachers Nora will smile involuntarily. She's always cheerful and having a good time when we pick her up from school. She doesn't seem to have issues with going to school, and she's cheerful on the car ride there, looking forward to going. So I don't think school is the problem. Unless it's more that it is very, very taxing on Nora to keep it together all day long at school and behave for so long, and maybe she needs to let it out at home or something.

Maybe it is just too many changes at once, and she is reeling. They lost their nanny, they started school, they went into separate bedrooms, they switched from cribs to beds...all of this happened in the past couple of months. Nora does seem very insecure right now. It's like when she was a baby and wouldn't let me put her down ever. We're back in that situation where I can't even go to the bathroom without a meltdown. She's almost 3...it doesn't seem normal to be so clingy at this age. I'm worried that she seems so anxious.

Is this a symptom of something nefarious? What if Nora is being abused at school or something unthinkable like that and this is how she's communicating it? But if that were the case, she probably wouldn't want to go to school, right? I wish I knew whether this was normal. Milo has never behaved this way. He has meltdowns and so forth, but they seem like normal toddler stuff. He melts down, he gets over it, the end. He's generally cheerful. With Nora, she can start the day off on the wrong foot and then spend the entire day all messed up, she never recovers.

This is hard on me and Jake and Milo. It is upsetting and stressful to be in a house with so much yelling, screaming, crying, and whining. It wears on all of us. We are all exhausted and Jake and I are feeling like we're at the end of our ropes.

I am worried that life is going to be hard for Nora, that there is something about her constitution that makes things harder to handle.

I have to travel again this week, and then again the next. I'm also worried that this is bad timing for me to travel and Nora can't handle it right now. I feel bad about everything. Like maybe what Nora really needs to feel okay and secure is to just be with me all day every day. Like if I didn't work and spent 24/7 with her, then she would be okay. But because I work and travel, she is constantly insecure and feels like she can never let me out of her sight. It's so sad.

I wish I could take a year off and just give her that.

Deadlines

I am frustrated.

I am way, way behind on completing my 2nd signature article and submitting it. I keep pushing the deadline back...realistically, at this rate, it won't get out the door until the end of the semester.

What's my problem?

Everything else is deadline driven, which is my problem. I am co-writing a book on k-8 reasoning (writing to deadlines). I am co-writing a book on 9-12 proof (writing to deadlines). I am co-writing a chapter on inductive and deductive reasoning in adolescents (writing to deadlines). I am teaching and grading (highly deadline driven). I am advising 10 students (not really deadline driven, so much, but time consuming in terms of meetings and reading their work). I have eighteen (18!!) grants to review by Nov. 3 (why, oh why, oh why did I say yes to that?). Oh, and I forgot that I am also co-writing an article with a couple of authors for a particular journal (less deadline driven than the others, but with the pressure that comes with not wanting to screw over your co-authors). So of course my solo-authored article ends up at the bottom of the heap every week as I scramble to make all of these deadlines.

Which is dumb, because the thing that is the most important ends up getting pushed to the bottom.

In my old life, how I would deal with this would be to just work through. Stay at work late, work through the weekend, and slowly triage everything and get through the pile. I cannot do this sort of thing when kids need to be picked up at a certain hour and a family needs me there for at least part of the weekend. I work every evening after the kids are asleep, but by then I'm mentally tired enough that the only work I know I'll do well is sort of (comparatively) mindless stuff like grading or course prep, so that's what I do. My plan is to review grants every evening as well now, hopefully 1 per night if I'm diligent.

And then our house is a disaster because I moved my office down to the basement, which is to say there is a disconnected desk and printer and papers and boxes and light and chair and random stuff strewn about the basement waiting to be organized, and Jake's saying "we have a lot of work to do in the basement this weekend" and I'm thinking, uh, the basement can wait because I have 800 actual work things to do.

My problem is that I've got 80 hours worth of stuff to get done every week, but considerably less than 80 hours to do it in.

I just want to get signature article #2 out the door. I will feel better once it's out the door. Anyway, the kids are in bed now, so time to get started on reviewing those grants...

Money

I have never been a spender. Then I, Frugal McFrugalson, married Jake, Prudent Spartan Pennypincher, esq. And we lived happily ever after in our frugal world.

Until we had twins, and then we started paying for childcare. People, I spend more on childcare for the kids than it would cost to send them to the university where I teach. I could be paying two college tuitions for less than what we pay now. And that's for 4 days a week! I work Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays so that I can stay home with them on Wednesdays and give them a little break from school. Meanwhile I try to ignore the voice screaming inside my head "YOU SHOULD BE WORKING 6 AND A HALF DAYS A WEEK, NOT 5, YOU IDIOT."

Anyway, I am so tired of bleeding money. My paycheck is exactly equal to 4 things: Childcare, mortgage, groceries, phone/internet. When I pay those 4 things, I'm done. There is no more money.

But then I think, man, when these kids go to kindergarten? Which is full day here? Bus picks 'em up at 7:20 and deposits them back at 3? Holy crap, we are going to feel sooooo rich. Forget saving for college. Forget saving for the kitchen remodel we so desperately need as our 90-year old cabinets crumble to pieces in our hands and our fridge leaves things on the top shelf lukewarm and things in the crisper frozen. Instead I'm just going to cash my checks into dollar bills and get naked and roll around the floor in a giant pile of money.

There's Something About Milo

The other day I was dropping the kids off at school and a random little girl from another room, who looked a little younger than the twins, spotted us in the hall and yelled "Milo! That's MILO! HI MILO!!!" And she started gleefully lurching towards him. Her mother, who I've never seen before, said "Is that his name?" When I confirmed she hazarded a guess that her daughter must know him from the playground or something.

People just love Milo. I don't think this is just my non-objective mother stance that causes me to say this. This sort of thing happens all the time. Total strangers will see him and involuntarily smile. Milo has this kind of infectious glee at times, and he just bops around, bouncing, singing, his crazy mop of hair jumping around, and people see that and just can't help but smile. I get comments on how adorable he is all the time.

Milo was having a period during which he was totally melting down a lot, but that seems to be over for now (knock on wood). He's pretty cheerful these days. This morning both kids slept in, and when I finally went into Milo's room at 7:15 I saw him standing on his mattress looking out the window. He turned towards me and said, reverently, "Look at how pretty the sky is, Mommy! I like the evening sky!" (Any sunrise or sunset is called "the evening sky", likely due to a book of some sort). Milo was really, really psyched about the beautiful sunrise. He spent the whole morning watching the sky.

Milo is frequently concerned with the emotional state of other people. He'll often ask, "Are you happy?" Are you happy, Mommy? Are you happy, Nora? I'll say, "Yes, I'm happy. Are you happy, Milo?" "Yup!" he'll reply, happily.

Milo wears his heart on his sleeve. If he's upset, he'll collapse into a pile of tears. Loudly. But then 30 seconds later he'll wipe his face, and then say, "I'm all better now." Then he's up and running around. Milo is friendly, and loves to say hi to everybody. Every morning when we get to their room at school, which is called the Rainbow Room, (how cute is that), Milo literally bounces in. He's so excited to be there he just hops, hops, hops. His teachers grin at him.

One thing I really love about the kids' teachers is that they make a special point to greet Nora every morning, and to say, "I'm so glad to see you, Nora!" Then Nora bursts into an involuntary grin at this attention, and she blossoms, and I am so glad that she is with people who understand that she needs to feel special too. Nora is a little more shy, a little more reserved, but Milo, he just lays it all out there. "I'm happy today!" he'll announce, apropos of nothing. No wonder people are drawn to him.

Night Owl

Okay, here's what happens when Nora naps for an actual 2 hours instead of her typical 45 minutes.

She goes to bed at 7:30. At 8:15 I hear her crying because there is a bug. On her book. Wait...a bug on her...book? I go into her room. She's got a book open on her bed, and she has disconnected her night light and brought it to her bed so that she can read the book. There is indeed a ladybug crawling on her book.

She's basically doing the equivalent of reading under the covers. I thought kids didn't do that until they were, like, 6?

A lot of bumping and clomping around. I go back in at around 8:45 and Nora has 1 boot on and is walking around her room. The clomping sounds make sense now.

9:30. Another bug on her night light. More books strewn about. My stern warnings about how it's NIGHT NIGHT TIME and not time for reading books or getting out of bed apparently mean nothing.

9:45...things seem to be quieting down...for now...

Barnacle

Nora has been extra clingy lately. She wants Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy. She wants me in the middle of the night. She doesn't want me to leave the room. She doesn't like it when Milo gets up, because then my attention is diverted from her. She wants me to hold her all the time. Yesterday after Jake got home I tried to do some grading before dinner and she kept trying to demand that I hold her, she wouldn't play with Jake or Milo, and she dragged a chair to the table so that she could sit next to me (and complain constantly about how I wasn't holding her).

Sometimes I worry that her clinginess is born of insecurity and if I were just a stay-at-home mom who was with her every day, all day, she'd feel much more secure. So maybe I have brought it on by working and not being with her as much as she would desire.

For a long time we would describe Nora's clinginess as a phase, but I have begun to realize that this phase has lasted pretty much her entire life. I wonder if this is not a phase, and if Nora is just going to be one of those people who is super attached to her Mommy? I have to admit this doesn't sound entirely bad. I wonder if she's going to want to go to college in her home town so that she can stay nearby? Or maybe it is a phase of early childhood, and when she's a teenager and totally shunning me I'll wistfully remember back to when she always wanted to be near me.

She Teaches College

Every few days the kids' school sends us documents with pictures and descriptions of the things the kids are doing. They also transcribe some of the kids' talk and conversations, and send those to us as well.

Today the school transcribed the kids talking in art class when they were playing with clay. Here is what they sent me about what Milo said, verbatim:

I roll it! I have a knife to cut things. I’m gonna make just a roll. This is your hot dog. This is your big hot dog! Watch this! This is gonna be a shell. How do we make a roll? I’m gonna take a little piece off. There’s a roll. But there’s no people in here. I’m gonna make it. This is mine. I’ll try to do that. I want that big one. I'm chopping! I picked up the whole thing with my spoon in it! This is the cooker. I'm gonna cook this. I'm gonna make a macaroni. This is a big shell. I’m gonna cut this right there. My Mom’s a professor. She teaches college. I got a roll. It can go back and forth.

Weekend

Oh my goodness, the weather has been unbelievable this weekend! It was at least 80 on Saturday and we've had cloudless blue skies all weekend long. Sun, the mildest breeze, warm to hot weather, is it October or is it June? I just can't get over how beautiful it's been.

I walked to work on Sunday before lunch and savored every minute of that walk. A clear warm day in the summer is no big deal, but when it happens in October you know it's going to go away for a good 6 or 7 months soon.

It was Jake's birthday on Saturday and the kids understand that well enough to get excited about saying "happy birthday", having presents and cards, and cake. One of their classmates had a birthday this past week so they were totally up on the whole birthday thing. The spent an hour in the sandbox making birthday cake by filling up cups with sand and dumping them to form shapes.

What they don't understand, however, is that you are not supposed to act like a giant jerk on somebody's birthday. Nobody gave them that memo so on Saturday morning it was whining and tantrum central. It's just hard to say what is going to make these kids be in a good mood or a miserable mood. I think they didn't get enough sleep, and when they wake up on the wrong side of the bed, it's all over. Poor Jake did not enjoy his morning at all, despite our trip to the arboretum, complete with a beautiful trek through fields and meadows and then a hike into the shady woods.

It is funny how, when you are in the midst of dealing with difficult toddlerness, it is so specific and so universal at the same time. At any given moment, the crisis may be about how there is sand on the step, or her shoe is too tight, or somebody looked at him the wrong way, but all of the crises start to blend together and feel similar in nature. Extremely minor incident precipitates overdramatic toddler meltdown followed shortly by parental attempt at remediation. The nature and frequency of the meltdown may dictate the nature of the parental remediation, anywhere on a range from endlessly patient and comforting to ridiculously irritated and snappy. Saturday morning felt like an endless chain of these incidents.

And then, somehow, a decent nap or a fluctuation in the earth's rotational symmetry changed everything and the afternoon was delightful, enjoyable, lovely. We painted some furniture together and then went to a party in a neighboring town. The kids were energetic and adorable, everybody loved them, and they ate their dinners. They laughed, they played well together, they even delighted us with their conversation. On the car ride home Nora said two separate things that made all four of us crack up laughing, and I realized, wow, we're actually reaching the point at which we can all, as a family, laugh about the same thing. (Granted, that thing is on the level of maturity of laughing at the image of "Daddy riding poop", but it's a start.)

You just never can tell with these kids. They're like the weather in whatever-town-you-live-in-with-very-cliched-constant-weather-changes. If you don't like the weather, just wait 5 minutes. You just never know what you're going to get. Is it going to be a good day, a day that makes you glad you became a parent? A day you start to feel nostalgic about even as it's happening? Or will it be a day that makes you want to claw your eyes out? You just have to wait and see.

Picture Update

Gorgeous fall day today. It reached something like 75 degrees! The tree in our front yard is starting to turn:

This is what the kids do now when you ask them to smile. Bonus seasonal shot, Halloween is coming up after all:

Better check that gas gauge on the lawn mower:

This morning we went to a farm. We went on a hay ride (loosely defined), picked some pumpkins from a pumpkin patch, saw lots of animals (pigs, goats, sheep, donkeys, llamas, chickens, kittens), and played in the fields and playgrounds.

Here's a couple of good ones!

Can we get all of these pumpkins?

We got to feed corn to the goats:

This is how Hellen Keller learned her first sign, water:

I don't really know what this is, but gemstones are involved:

Friendly barn cat:

Hey, I'm driving a tractor!

Here are some recent bonus shots:

Sign of the times. Pumpkin decals and apples:

Oh and hey, I'm cute:

Running down the hill:

Swinging:

Hooray!

I feel like I live a much more seasonal life than I ever did before I moved here. Now our eating is much more closely tied to the seasons, eating apples and squash and brussels sprouts in the fall, soups and risotto throughout the winter, fresh tomatoes and fruit in the summer, asparagus in the spring.

Pumpkin patches in the fall, parks and lakes in the summer, sledding and shoveling snow throughout the winter. The seasons dictate our lives. Autumn is perhaps my favorite season (but it's hard to beat summer).

She is a Great (Female) Scholar?

So I am in a popular field, which means that in general there tend to be many professor jobs for people in my field, and it is not unusual for people to receive multiple offers. Things have been a little slower for the past couple of years, but still not terrible. Being in this field also means that even if you have a job, other universities will try to recruit you away from your current position.

This has happened a number of times to me, and I think it is a fairly common experience. This year another university has already been trying to recruit me in September, the only thing being kind of unusual about that is that it's happened so early in the year. It is not a university that is in a location that necessarily interests me a great deal, particularly because Jake doesn't seem super psyched about the location. However, there does happen to be a researcher there who is right up my alley. We do sort of similar things and I really like his work, and I know that collaborating with him would push me intellectually, which would be great. So, I have some minor interest because of that.

Anyway, I decided to be honest and say that I'm not likely to go on the market this year, but would be open to perhaps doing so next year. (Anybody at my institution not going on the market the year they go up for tenure, after everything that has happened...well, that would require more optimism than I have.) So anyway because I might potentially have interest in the future, this university is bringing me out for a visit under their visiting scholar's program. In order to do this they have to write a letter about the visiting scholar in order to secure the funds to pay for a visit. This letter explains why the scholar would be a good candidate for their university and why it is helpful to try to recruit the scholar.

So today they forwarded me the letter they wrote, and it kind of took me back a little bit. It was a great letter detailing all of the stuff they like about me and why I would be good for their job, but then at the end they also wrote a paragraph about how women are grossly underrepresented in the department that's trying to recruit me. So they wrote about how the women in the department need role models, and some of my research has also contributed to a better understanding about women's underrepresentation in this field. They did also say that I would be a top recruit regardless of my gender, but the stuff about gender and underrepresentation caught me by surprise. I realized, oh, wait a sec -- do they really want me because I'm awesome and a good fit? Or are they also under the gun to increase the diversity in their department, and they want me because I'm a woman?

And for some reason, and I'm not exactly sure why because I'm totally a proponent of increasing diversity and participation from underrepresented groups and all that, but still, for some reason, it felt kind of...crappy. I guess because I want to be wanted for being great, not for being a woman.

Easy Come Easy Go?

The state ruled against us in the unemployment dispute and we are on the hook for a little over 2K to pay to our former nanny in unemployment wages.

...What a drag. Like we're made of money. (We're not).

We could appeal, but there would be a hearing, witnesses called on both sides, and given that the people involved are all closely connected to each other in this neighborhood, it would be a mess. One that we're probably not going to bother engaging in because it kind of seems like the way the rule is written, we don't have much to stand on.

Still...what a drag.

But, you know, life isn't fair and all and I think about all the ways in which we have basically won the lottery. We're of course way, way more lucky than not. We have incredibly generous parents who give to us all the time. We have generous friends who have helped us out when we needed it. We have more than we deserve, really, we're rich beyond belief by the standards of most of the world's population. And, in the end, it's just money. I know that if something had happened on the day that Milo was endangered, if he had broken his neck or something, then I would have gladly, eagerly paid any amount to take that back. I would have been begging to have the situation be like this instead, where all I had to do was pay a paltry 2K and have him be okay.

My Own Failings

Jake is gone this weekend so I am on my own with the kids. Yesterday we had a nice evening, a good dinner, and a smooth bedtime. It is amazing how much my own attitude and outlook totally affects the kids' behavior. If I am sunny and engaged and make everything into a game, then they're happier and things go more smoothly. You'd think with that knowledge I would be that way all the time, but it is hard to do, so I back off a little bit, get lazy, and then the kids' behavior goes to hell.

This morning was a rough one for a while, then got better - but I could use that description for any given 10-minute span of time, really. Milo woke up crying and in a bad mood because he missed Daddy. Nora woke up happy but then wanted to sit on Milo's bed with us, and Milo wouldn't let her, which led to a tantrum. Here's how things go. Nora's sitting on my lap getting consoled because she's upset about not being able to be on Milo's bed. Milo tries to get a book out of his bookshelf but in the process he makes a whole stack of books start to fall over. He starts to freak out and yell and cry about it. I say I'll help him with the books. At that, Nora starts to freak out because she doesn't want me to stop holding her. Milo is freaking out because I am not instantly helping him with the books. I put Nora down, move 3 feet to adjust the books on the shelf (which takes 20 seconds), and at that Nora dissolves into an epic temper tantrum because I put her down. Fists pounding, screaming, crying, etc.

That's the way it always goes. It seems inevitable that at least one kid is going to lose his or her shit because I am not doing exactly what they want exactly when they want it. I know Nora's bigger issue is probably that she's hungry, so I go downstairs to make breakfast leaving her to have her giant tantrum upstairs. I listen to Milo wander around in circles in the kitchen complaining that Nora's screaming is hurting his ears. It hurts my ears too. Repeat said scenario a dozen times a day.

Sometimes I wonder, is this the age, or does the whole sibling rivalry thing make it a lot worse, or do we just happen to have a couple of real asshole kids?

We had a very nice morning at the Children's Museum. It is new, in a new location with a new design and it is totally snazzy and gorgeous. My favorite part is the rooftop area, which has a garden, a stream, grass, and a chicken coop. It has gorgeous views of the capitol building a block away and the lake behind it. The whole place is awesome and the kids love it, so they had a blast, and were happy. It's always better when we can get out and about and do interesting things. We ate lunch at the cafe there, and Milo and Nora enjoyed that novelty.

Back home everything devolves into another series of conflicts and ultimate chaos. If it's after a meal or not right before nap or bedtime, when the kids are fed and not tired, they can play together pretty well for quite a while. But if they're hungry or tired, forget about it. I went upstairs to go to the bathroom knowing full well that I probably had about 20 seconds before somebody started screaming. And so it went. They'll fight over anything and everything. Honestly the littlest conceivable thing (This gate won't close! He's looking at my ball! She's too close to me!) is cause for screaming, tears, and physical abuse.

If any adult behaved this way, even without the hitting, biting, kicking, or pushing, it would still be considered toxic and abusive. Imagine living with somebody who could go into a rage at any given moment for totally random things that you can't predict. Imagine hearing screams of rage throughout the day, every day. These things are still stressful even though they come from a toddler instead of an adult. Hearing somebody scream (or even whine) is physically stressful and misery producing. I can practically feel my blood pressure rising every time I have to listen to it. I actually think that is a big part of why I am so exhausted all the time. My body is probably dumping a crapload of cortisol into my bloodstream every time I have to deal with a toddler meltdown.

The only way I can cope with their insanity is to remember that these aren't two little adults. They're toddlers. (Preschoolers? Almost preschoolers, anyway) They lose their shit because they can't help it. An adult chooses to go into a rage. A toddler doesn't choose it, he or she just can't help it. It's really weird how babies are so compliant and happy and easygoing until they become, like, 20 months old or so, and then they become totally different people. Unpleasant people. There must be some sort of cognitive or developmental advantage to all of this negativity, although I don't know enough about child development to have any idea what it is. At some point, I imagine, they start to shift bit by bit and grow out of it a little. I hope. I can only hope.

And then there are sweet moments or poignant moments in which I curse my own failings as a parent. Like when it's surprisingly cold, all of the sudden, and windy, and Nora is panicking because she really hates the wind and I am trying to get her into the car but my unlock button isn't working. So I mumble shit to myself, sort of starting to lose it too because I too am a hater of the cold wind. And then once we're in the warm car, Nora says, earnestly to me, "We don't say shit, Mommy. We say goodness. Mommy, it's okay. It's warm now in the car. You're okay, Mommy."

Or when I hear Milo yell in fake exasperation at Nora, "I'm sick of this!" and my heart sinks as I hear my own words coming out of his mouth.

They are such a challenge. The fighting between them is the biggest challenge, so much so that when I spend an afternoon with just one of them it feels like a vacation. When they're together, and I'm refereeing, it's all I can do some days to keep it together.

I totally thought I'd be doing better than "keep it together" when I imagined having kids.

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

Two more of our department members are going up for tenure this year, and I had dinner with one of them this week. It was deeply depressing. As the night progressed I realized that he kept talking like it's a foregone conclusion that he won't get it. He's going on the market now and is hoping for a good job that he can take before the whole tenure decision happens for him, so that he can avoid it all together. It saddens me that we may likely lose a great colleague over this ongoing tenure debacle.

I am behind on my paper and never have any time to write it because of my book projects, article reviews, lesson planning, grading, project meetings, etc. I am kind of panicking. It is so hard to hold it together. I guess in work life I am also at the point where I'm just trying to hold it together. And not doing a very good job. Panic is ever present.

The other night Jake, exasperated and tired of all the histrionics, said "I can't wait until this tenure thing is behind us. I'm so tired of it." I said, "Yeah, it's been this way for...uh...a long time, hasn't it." He said, "When did we start dating? No, actually, I remember when I first met you, that first year, you weren't panicking about it. You were just excited about your job."

Hearing that made me sad. "You were just excited about your job." Once upon a time, I was just excited about my job.

Race and Space

I know that we're supposed to be talking to the kids about race, but I don't really know how to do it. So I end up doing it in really lame ways (I think). We have books about people of all different cultures and ethnicities, and we also have books specific about race, about how there are people of all different colors and isn't that great, etc. But it's hard to know what to say to a 2-year old. We're in the car, and we see African American kids walking to school, and I say "Look, those kids have brown skin, just like so-and-so (somebody they know). People have skin with all different colors! All skin colors are good! There are people with all different types of skin colors, and every color is pretty!" Duh. So, so dumb and lame. Then they'll say something like "My favorite color is blue today!"

Today we went to school and an African American dad held the door for us. I was holding Milo and Nora was walking next to me, holding my hand. As we passed right in front of the man, Milo said (RIGHT in front of him), "That man has a black face!" The man and I sort of simultaneously spoke. I said something super lame, like "That's right, everybody has different colored faces", and the man said, matter of factly, "That's right, I have a black face." I was thinking, God, he's probably so sick of crap like that, and now he's getting it from my kid.

I really have no idea what I should do in cases like that, or how I should handle it...should I apologize? The dad was quickly ushering his own kid into a different classroom, so he was on the move. I know I need to keep talking to the kids about it, but I'm probably not doing it in the best way. One of the little girls in the kids' class is Black, and it's not like Milo and Nora don't ever see or play with people of color, but it is interesting how Milo really seemed to be struck by it this morning with this particular dad.

And on a totally different note, here is one of the most wonderful videos ever of a family project. They decided to send a camera up into space attached to a balloon, and then retrieve it. What an amazing movie:

Homemade Spacecraft from Luke Geissbuhler on Vimeo.

Milestone

Nora and Milo's mattresses arrived yesterday, even though their beds have been through a mysteriously complicated process and probably won't arrive for several more weeks. (As an aside, I seem to be having bad internet-ordering mojo. I ordered an iPod docking radio for Jake's graduation, back in May, and it is currently slated to be delivered in November, after several delays. I ordered their beds almost 6 weeks ago. I guess some of these delays must be expected, statistically, given the amount of online shopping I do. In a small town like mine, most of my major purchases are online).

Anyway, we needed to get the kids out of their cribs and into separate rooms pronto since all of the laws of nature have been destroyed now that they can climb out. So last night we dragged their mattresses into their rooms and made up their new beds and for the first time in their lives, Nora and Milo went to sleep and woke up in separate bedrooms. On "big-kid" beds. They both slept brilliantly and woke up a half an hour later than normal this morning.

I had this other post all ready to go complaining about how I have to do everything myself, all the time, and this room switching / furniture moving / bedding purchasing / clothes organizing business is no exception. I've got to do a lot of that work this weekend, on my own while simultaneously watching the kids as Jake will be off partying at a wedding and family event. All of this is true, and it sucks and is massively lame and unfair, however, in the grand scheme of things it is not the important thing going on here.

The important thing is that the kids are now in separate rooms, and the cribs are going away, which feels like the last vestiges of babyhood. And I have very mixed feelings about that. All of their lives the kids have been together and moving very slowly apart. They spent 9 months squashed up against each other, and then after they were born they slept in the same crib, right next to each other, for 4 months, either in our room with us or eventually in their own room. And then until now they have been in the same room, waking up together every morning. They're slowly moving more and more apart, which I guess is a process that will continue as they get older, and it makes me feel bittersweet. They are becoming big kids, separate kids, with their own lives and toys and interests.

This morning the kids' teacher asked if they slept in the same room. She mentioned that when they go to sleep for their nap at school, they point at each other and tell each other goodnight.

They are growing up. But a part of me always remembers them together like this.

Snippets

Milo is in bed currently singing to himself, "Where is Thumbkin, where is Thumbkin, here I am, here I am..."

Tonight at dinner Nora noticed that her cup was the same color as the tank top I was wearing under my sweater. She said, "Hey, my cup matches your breast-thing!"

Noticing

The south in September is just lovely.

I am co-chairing a section for our big national conference this year and as part of that job I had to go to Houston to meet up with the other chairs to do the nitty-gritty work of arranging papers into sessions and so forth. Anyway, I noticed some interesting things on the trip.

-- I realized that I am totally the odd man out on this division, and yet never knew it before now. I've often submitted papers to this division instead of to our special interest group and they've always been accepted, but it turns out this group is actually really super cog-psych ish (which I am not). Not only that but they consider the work of a lot of my colleagues to not really "count" as research, and sort of see themselves as the protectors of those standards. It was a bizarre slow realization on my part what was really going on. Like, you show up just assuming people will agree with you and then you start to realize that actually they're all a bunch of Republicans or something, and you're the sole closeted Democrat. And maybe one or two of them are actually tea party members, starting to let the crazy out because they assume you're all on the same page.

That said, these colleagues were all quite lovely people regardless of their stance on research. It drove home what a big divide there can be between my field and ed psych, and in many ways I am lucky, so far, to generally not have to deal with the fighting that can occur across the groups. My mentor and I have a grant with an ed psych colleague at our institution and it has been a great experience to co-create a research project together and learn from one another's disciplines. Our ed psych colleague also happens to be a really smart, nice guy, which also helps.

-- When you are getting ready to go up for tenure, academics love to talk about that.

Both evenings turned into an ad-hoc counseling session about tenure, and believe me I was not in the mood for the conversation to go that way. I think that full professors like to dispense their wisdom, be helpful, proffer advice, and so forth. Part of this is probably related to my demeanor, because I tend to elicit that type of helpful stance from older men, but I think part of it is also this universal desire to bring out shared experiences. Everybody has gone through tenure, and they all want to talk about it, and give me advice in the guise of re-living their own past experiences.

In general I do not mind this phenomenon because I do enjoy the sense of camaraderie that emerges. People like to mostly give advice that borders on the self-help or spiritual realm at this stage in the game, things like, "you just have to take a Zen-like approach to it". One person asked me outright how many publications I have, which I found interesting in how unusual a question that is. Nobody has ever asked me that before. It kind of feels like somebody asking you how much money you make or how many sexual partners you've had.

-- Most people don't like humidity.

It was still warm and summer-like in Houston, and I was acutely aware of how it was going to be my last chance of the year to experience that warmth. I think the highs were in the upper 80s, and it was humid, but it definitely wasn't uncomfortable or oppressive. In fact, I loved it. We took a walk around the campus at night and it was just so perfect in every way. The warm, moist air, the crickets still chirping, the stillness that comes after a rainstorm, the art installations and statues silent in the darkness, it was incredibly nostalgic for me. I am not sure why this is the case because my town has humid summers, but there is a particular quality to southern humidity that is somehow different from what I experience in my northern state. It felt exactly the way it felt in St. Louis, where I went to college. And I just love that feeling. It is so comfortable, so gorgeous.

I've noticed most people don't agree, though, and find humidity to be oppressive. I didn't find the weather in Houston to be hot at all but my colleagues complained a lot about how uncomfortable it was.

And now I prepare to return to my northern state where autumn has arrived -- in fact, it arrived quite definitively on Friday. Thursday was actually a warm, humid day there, but that night the winds were up, and they blew in autumn so that we woke up on Friday to a crisp, cool morning. The leaves are turning and starting to swirl around in the streets, and there is that particular autumn scent in the air. I do love fall and am ready for knee-high boots and sweaters, so it's okay, but this weekend has been a treat, a joy, one last indulgence in summer before returning to autumn, to students and meetings and harried drop-offs, to real life.

Transitions

Nora cried today when I had to leave her at school. She didn't want me to go to work. Sometimes she cries like such an adult, tears welling up but she tries not to let it out. I felt sad for her. Her sweet teacher held her and hugged her as I left.

I went to the office to pay my bill, and then after 5 or 10 minutes I returned to the hall outside the classroom to look in the little window in the door. I saw Nora at the table, drawing on a piece of paper with another little girl. Her teacher saw me and gave me the thumbs up. She seemed fine. I slipped away without them knowing I had returned to take a quick peek.

The kids are going through so many changes right now. They lost their nanny (but they haven't even mentioned her once, in all this time), they are now going to a new school, they are transitioning to separate rooms and big-kid beds (if those beds ever arrive), their grandparents were here for a week and just left, their other grandparents are coming for the weekend, and Mommy is going away on yet another trip. It's a lot for any two-year old.

Suck at Work, or at Home? My Choice

When Jake would stay home with the kids, he'd stay home with the kids. When I stay home with the kids, that's my time to get crap done, because I have to work at least part of the weekend. So today we went to the grocery store, played in the park, and had a bath. I made three meals, two snacks, packed two lunches for tomorrow, and did dishes 5 times. I vacuumed the floor, did 3 loads of laundry, swapped out the tablecloth, and met with an advisee while the kids napped. I checked on the order status of the kids' beds and mattresses, responded to emails, packed the kids' nap bags for tomorrow, and got their clothes ready. Nobody else is going to take care of this stuff.

What I didn't do: grade papers, finish my book writing, or do any damn writing on my article (this is why I'm not going to get tenure - no fucking time). It's 8:15, I should now do those things...but damn am I tired...

1st Day of School

Getting ready to go to school:

Doing some art:

Working with scissors:

The kids had their first day of school today. It was a half day, and then on Thursday we'll have the first full day. The classroom is set up so that the kids can just do whatever they are interested in. All of the art supplies and other things are accessible so the children can decide to do what they want. They also have activities, for instance, today they had music class, but there is a lot of room for free play as well.

Drop off went well, no tears, and the kids were excited by all of the new things to see and do. Nora got a little sad during the middle of the day because she wanted me, but her teacher comforted her and she got over it fairly easily. I can only hope every morning goes as smoothly.

Both kids ate a large morning snack (this morning Chef Tom made fried rice), which meant that they didn't eat very much of their lunch. Milo used the potty 3 times. Nora seemed to enjoy the music; she told me she played the bells, and Milo played the drums.

I should have something poignant and profound to say about shifting to school, perhaps I should hum a few bars of Sunrise, Sunset, but I don't have anything in me right now. I'm still getting over the drama and stress of last week and preparing to travel again on Friday.

Hanging on

OMG, did you know that if you fire your nanny she can file for unemployment and then you actually have to pay that? Well, in our state, you do.

Something like 99% of the families around here pay their nannies under the table. We just had to be that one asshole family that does everything above board, and then gets socked with an unemployment claim.

Whatever! Friday the kids visited their new "school" for a while and had a good time. Friday afternoon I had a much-needed meet-up with my glamorous academic mom friend who is better than me in every way, shape, and form (and yet I still like her, go figure), and she told me to get a C in some areas of life. Because trying to get A+ in everything is killing us.

The funny thing is that I think I am getting a D- in a number of areas right now. We are kinda barely hanging on, here.

But it won't always be like this. If I get tenure, then when the kids go into kindergarten, I'll be on sabbatical. Imagine that...home all year. Kids in school (free!) all day. Hanging out with 5-year olds in the afternoon. It is something to hang on to.

Childcare

So, we went through an experience in which I decided that I had to fire my nanny. The details aren't important, but she used some judgment that I didn't agree with and it affected the safety of one of the kids. I just couldn't get past that, and so after a lot of agonizing and soul searching, I fired her. Which was, of course, horrible.

So the problem became, what next? I needed to find a new solution quickly. I immediately started looking for other nannies or caregivers, all the time getting eaten up with stress over what this might be doing to the kids. To have a sudden transition now? The one back in January was so hard on them. They cried for a month or more every time Buddy came through the door. To put them through that again? Ugh. I was eaten up with worry over the whole thing, not sleeping, not able to eat, crying at inappropriate times.

I talked to several possibilities over the phone, but wasn't finding a good fit, and we visited one very lovely man who has a neighborhood group care situation, and I could tell he was awesome with the kids but I wasn't super thrilled with his house. And then a friend told me that she thought there were still openings in the 2-year old room at this local preschool of the arts, so we checked it out and sure enough, there were. So we went to visit and it was AMAZING. It is the kind of place I'd love to hang out in every day. Gorgeous, clean, calm, beautiful, light-filled, big, filled with fish and frogs and birds and child-created art projects. They have a music room and an art room, and they dance, and they have wooden toys and a chef who makes fresh snacks daily, and the milk is organic, and the teachers are certified. The teachers are incredible and most importantly, Milo and Nora were enchanted. They were just taken with everything about it, eager to explore every new room, excited to play with the light table and the wooden instruments and watch the fish.

We spent the end of the tour in the "little kid" playground that has hills and lots of foot-bikes and logs to climb on and wind chimes in the tree and small benches and a giant sand box, and (this was a huge deal to Milo), a digger truck. Milo immediately went for the sandbox and spent the whole time happily playing in there. Nora sat on a small bench next to a little boy and told him "I have my brown shoes on!" When it was time to go, Milo got a little teary because he didn't want to leave. The whole time in the car he kept saying, "I want to go back! I want to go back right now!"

The twin whisperer watched the kids yesterday (I would have re-hired her if I could have, but she has a new commitment to a family with newborn twins who have just reached 5 lbs each). She went with us to the school and fell in love with it too. This was nice because I trust her judgment.

Best of all, they will let us do a 4-day a week contract, so that I can stay home with the kids once a week. This will be a little more affordable, too, as this place is incredibly expensive. I have seen a few different places and it really drives home that in some ways, you get what you pay for, which makes me sad because I think that all children should be able to be in a place like this, rich or poor.

If we luck out we could stay there until kindergarten, which means this is just one transition for them, which makes me glad. (They are applying to be a 4K location, as our district is starting up a 4K program). I am just so relieved that I will have a solution for the kids that is safe, healthy, beautiful, educational, pleasant, etc., and that they clearly like. I am so relieved.

It is funny how hard this hit me. It is not always easy for me to go off to work. I need to feel like I can trust whoever is taking care of M&N. I need to feel like they are in a good, healthy situation and are happy. When everything broke open last week, it was really rough. I felt so achingly sad for the kids, so wistful that I can't just stay home myself, so miserable about it all. I broke out into a rash. If I don't feel like my kids are set, then I can't do anything, I just become useless. Sometimes I think it's a miracle I ever get anything done.

For the first 4 months of the babies' lives they were cared for by us and their grandmothers. Then they had a nanny for 2 days a week until they were 9 months old, then they had a nanny for 3 days a week until they were 2 and a half years old, then in July it switched to 4 days a week. Now, at 2 years 9 months, they will go into a preschool setting 4 days a week, and we'll keep it that way for the next year. This time next year maybe we'll stay at 4 days, or maybe we'll switch to 5, we'll have to see. I'm glad that they slowly transitioned into more care over the years, and that we've had this opportunity to spend so much time with them ourselves while still working. It makes for late nights and working on the weekends for me, but I'm okay with that. I know that in 3 years, they'll be in kindergarten, and things will change all over again.

Pause

Dealing with a childcare crisis and I just have too much going on right now. Completely overwhelmed and bummed out. Back when I crawl out of this funk.

"I Could Crack My Head Open?"

Last night, I put Milo to bed in Milo's crib and Nora to bed in Nora's crib. This morning, I heard a lot of suspicious noises and then when I walked into the kids' room, Milo and Nora were in Nora's crib.

These beds can't come soon enough!

Traveling

I have a lot of travel scheduled for this semester: Laramie, bay area, and Houston in September, Ohio in October, DC in November, DC again in December. My first trip is this week.

I am going to try an experiment in which I leave my computer at home and take my iPad instead. In part I don't want to lug around my huge laptop because I am flying so much (My Town --> Denver --> Laramie --> Denver --> San Jose --> Denver --> My Town), and driving around a lot too (San Jose --> Yosemite --> San Jose). So carrying it around and worrying about leaving it in cars and hotel rooms is a bit of a pain. In contrast the iPad is light and small and easy to slip into a purse.

I have to give a talk, but it's kind of a short commentary type of talk rather than a formal research talk, so it's not clear to me whether I should have slides or not. But I am creating slides just in case, and thankfully the iPad does allow me to do this as well. I use keynote to create the slides on my computer, place it in dropbox, get it off of dropbox on the iPad, open in keynote, and voila! I have a special dongle that attaches the iPad to a projector. I have also found that it's a lot easier than I would have thought to edit and change (or even create) slides on the iPad itself.

I will have a lot of PDFs and documents to read through at the conference, and will need a way to take notes, but I have a nice notetaking app on the iPad and I have some good pdf readers. I haven't yet shelled out for Pages (like word) or any of the PDF annotating apps, because I haven't needed them yet -- I don't tend to do a lot of annotating directly on PDFs. But if I feel the need to, I'll just get Noterize, which is pretty cheap ($3.99 I think). My current note-taking app is free, and with my wireless keyboard I can take lots of notes quickly. I also have the ability to record verbal notes if necessary.

So, it'll be quite interesting to see how it goes without my computer! I will probably feel a little naked without it, but I think I can pretty much do everything I need to with the iPad, and having constant connectivity with the 3G network is a nice perk, too.

Famous Guy #2 is going to be at the conference (and I have to provide remarks on his talk, which is freaking me out), and we've been communicating a bit over email. I'd always heard that he was kind of a tough character but so far he's been incredibly nice and supportive towards me. I even shared that I've been having some difficulties writing my current paper and he said, "Let's be sure to talk. And perhaps you can share some rough drafts -- you never know what breaks a logjam!" How nice! I hope this conference is as helpful as I'm anticipating for helping me work out some tricky ideas that I'm struggling with right now. I know that once I'm there and in the thick of it, getting some valuable connections and some mentoring from FG#2, I'll totally not want to leave early like I have planned. But then once I arrive in CA and see my friends, I'll be glad I did.

My Skinny Boy

It's hard to fatten up a kid who will give away his ice cream sandwich so that he can eat some grapes instead (I'm talking about you, Milo!).

Autumn made a brief introduction this week, although it seems to once again be receding, but in the meantime I pulled out some old 24 month clothes for the kids. And now I have discovered a problem with Milo's pants. Now that he is in underwear and no longer has his giant bulky diaper, his pants won't stay up. Don't they make toddler-sized belts? (They don't). And, by the way, since toddler-sized belts don't exist, why do all of the pants have belt loops?

Yesterday we got the news of our colleague's denial, then we had our first graduate seminar. Then after the seminar we all went down to the student union to finish up an entirely unproductive Friday over beers. (Well, in my case, wine). Nobody could concentrate on anything. My mentor and I spent the whole time wondering what was going on and going through various "what if" scenarios. Like he always does, he spent some time emphasizing "but in your case, it'll be fine", but the words ring hollow to me now.

We ate nothing, but I drank one cup of wine, which I didn't even finish, and yet by the end of the afternoon I felt drunk. I don't know how that works. Then that evening Jake and I went to a very nice restaurant to celebrate our anniversary. They gave us complimentary glasses of champagne before dinner. Then they gave us little amuse bouches, rosemary crackers with mozzarella and truffles in olive oil. Dinner then began with candy onion soup with pine nuts, bacon lardons, and grape must. The next course was market heirloom tomatoes with grilled sweet corn and Maine lobster, lime-cayenne aioli, and pain blanc. The final course was line-caught fluke with toasted farro, bean and pancetta salad, shallot marmalade, and a ground cherry-pine nut pesto. Because I felt like I should, I also had wine with dinner, but it was probably a mistake because before the meal even started I felt exhausted and semi-drunk. Dessert was called chocolate mousse, but actually it was basically the biggest, fanciest s'more I've ever eaten. There was a graham-cracker crust, a dense, dark chocolate mousse, and a marshmallow top. It was outstanding and I couldn't finish it even though this is the type of place where you can't get your food boxed up to go. After dessert they brought out another little snack, a dessert version of the amuse bouche I suppose, with tiny tasty desserts.

I haven't eaten a meal like that in years and by the end my body was working so hard to process it that I could barely function. I fell asleep at 9:30 and woke throughout the night with a stomach ache. The food was so incredible, but I pay for it when I eat like that.

There have been many emails flying around today in the wake of this departmental event. My friend is handling it well, heading out of town to spend time with her nieces this weekend. "Friends and family, that's where it's at", she says cheerfully. I think I am shut down and just don't want to deal with anything. I need to prepare a statement and a talk for a conference next week. I need to pack and do laundry. I need to finish the section of a book I'm writing. I need to finish my stupid article. I need to do some last-minute things with my graduate course before I leave town. And all for what? So that I can lose my job in a couple of years? Sometimes it all seems kind of pointless.

Nerves

There are tenure disasters happening that I can't really write about, because it's not my story to tell. But it's all terrible. I feel so sad for the people involved, and scared to death about my own case.

Rody Horse

The kids have these horses called Rody horses, which look like this:

They are big, and they're meant to ride on. The great thing about them is that you blow them up and they can be any size, to fit a 1-year old up to a 4-year old. I thought the kids would love them, but they have never really spent much time riding on them.

Lately, though, they've been playing with their horses a lot, but not riding them, basically just treating them like enormous dolls. Tonight Nora was swinging it around and doing "ring around the rosy". Later, they pretended a huge box was a school bus, and they put both of their horses on the bus to go to school. Then Nora dragged her horse into the living room and said "My horse is going to pee on the potty. He uses the litter box." She then tipped him back so that he was peeing, and she said "He peed in the litter box! Good job, horsie! You get a sticker! You get...horsie underwear!" This cracked me up. When it was time to go to bed, Milo tried to push his horse up the stairs. He said "I'm making you go upstairs because you weren't listening, horsie." It's just a matter of time before one of them ends up putting their horse into timeout!

Storm

We had a big thunderstorm last night complete with giant crashing booms. Just as well because it woke me up from a nightmare about tenure. I guess it's fitting that I would have my first nightmare about tenure the night before our semester starts.

(What's messed up is that tenure is still a year+ away from me, and I am already having nightmares about it. It probably has to do with the fact that my mentor and I have begun some of the early strategizing and preparing of materials this week. Talk about a long process, getting ready to get started on it now, and the earliest I can expect a decision will be December 2011.)

Procrastination

I've noticed something interesting today as part of my role in a service task for our national organization. I've had to assign reviewers to proposals, and reviewers needed to complete their reviews by the end of the day today. They've had them for about 3 weeks, and last night we sent out a reminder email that their reviews are due. We asked them to have them done by "the end of the day tomorrow".

So now it's 5 p.m. today, and as I look at the statistics I see that out of our 134 submissions, 2/3 of them have not been fully reviewed yet, and 1/3 of them have been. So 2/3 of the submission still need to be reviewed -- at 5 p.m. on the deadline day! I knew people liked to wait until the last minute, but this is more extreme than I would have guessed. I find it kind of funny to note that pretty serious procrastination, down to the wire, appears to be the rule rather than the exception.

(Although just to be clear, I'm not innocent of this myself. Just last week I completed an article review only about an hour before the deadline, and I'd had it for 6 weeks.)

What I Did on My Summer "Vacation"

It's been a busy summer in the life of your typical tenure-track Mama. Here's what I did:

-- Traveled to Portland with the family for one vacation, and went "up north" to stay at the lake for some R&R for a second weekend trip.

-- Had two weekends by myself when the family took trips without me.

-- Finished and submitted an R&R, got one article rejected, revised it and re-submitted it, got the article accepted.

-- Finished analyzing the data for a second article (writing it now).

-- Completed revisions on a book chapter.

-- Outlined a co-authored article.

-- Hosted two work conferences for out-of-town colleagues.

-- Outlined two books.

-- Went through the big transition with the kids to lose their pacifiers, and I'm happy to say they are now 100% pacifier free (we went cold turkey).

-- Potty trained one child.

-- Traveled to Arkansas to be filmed discussing issues of teaching and learning particular math topics.

-- Finished a major consulting project developing online content for the professional development of Algebra II teachers.

-- Chaired or sat on the committees of 3 dissertations and 3 master's theses.

-- Developed the content for two new mathematics courses for in-service teachers while overseeing the development of the remaining three courses.

-- Received my first royalty check for a book I co-authored.

-- Wrote and submitted two proposals for the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

-- Organized and assigned reviewers to 134 proposals for AERA.

-- Transitioned my children from booster seats with trays to big-kid chairs at the dinner table.

-- Grew my first tomato.

-- Attended 10 project meetings.

-- Watched my children develop the concept of threeness.

-- Walked roughly 168 miles to and from work.

-- Attended one child's birthday party, one grown up's birthday party, a dozen playdates, one baby shower, and cooked dinners for three families with new babies.

-- Had several outings with good friends, ate delicious food, drank excellent wine, watched sailboats at the terrace, and listened to several great bands.

-- Visited countless parks and playgrounds.

-- Had one date with my husband.

You know us professors, we have it so easy, what with our summers "off"! By the way, I did all of this without getting paid a single cent from my institution. Fortunately, I do have national grants providing me with some salary this summer for doing particular research activities, but the month of August has been an unpaid month.

Dancing

Nora and Milo were having a grand old time chasing each other through the house this evening. It is so nice to watch them enjoy each other. Then Nora ran up to Milo in the kitchen, and he just stopped, listening to the song that had come on, and said to Nora, "Shall we dance to the music?" Nora said, "Okay!" and they started dancing.

By the time I started filming they were vamping for the camera, but it's still cute:

Crisis of Confidence

I am having a big crisis of confidence at work. I know that I need to just get over it and move on, and I'm starting to do that, but it is amazing how hard this is.

I am trying to write a paper that I view as my last big important-for-tenure paper. I need to get it accepted for publication before I go up for tenure because I intend to use it as my second "signature paper". This is one of two papers that everybody on the divisional committee will read (that tricky cross-disciplinary committee that keeps denying my colleagues tenure), everybody who has to write me an external letter will read, etc. So it needs to be, in my mind, a very good paper.

Moreover, my first signature paper, which is in review after an R&R in our field's top journal (oh please oh please oh please), is a very social paper. It represents my shift to attending to social processes in the classroom and how they support a particular type of mathematical activity. It is still a pretty mathematical paper, but its social nature represents a shift for me, an expansion beyond what I have done before. I feel like this next paper needs to represent the other side of my research, the highly cognitive side. So this paper is a conceptual analysis of an area of math learning that hasn't really been explored conceptually before. I see it as balancing out the first paper.

The issues are that it's hard to do well, and I am building on two big things. The first is the notion of a conceptual analysis, and I need to write a good enough paper that what I produce stands up to that term. I am afraid that it won't, and people will read it and say "You think that is a conceptual analysis? It is way more shallow than that, and you suck."

The other big thing is that I want to build on this very specific idea that this very smart and famous guy produced a few years back. But I am totally too chicken to really do that. Because I know they'll have him review the paper, and I'm afraid he'll say "You think that what you've done builds on my idea? You totally missed the mark, you completely misinterpreted my idea, and you don't know what you're doing." Lest you think this is just me being hysterical, this is actually completely realistic. In fact last year Famous Guy #2 (who is waaaay smarter than me, way older, an international leader in the field) did build on Famous Guy #1's idea. And Famous Guy #1 totally trashed him in exactly that way. He did say, "You missed the mark entirely, you messed up." So if Famous Guy #2 can't get it right, what makes me think I can?

This is further complicated by the fact that Famous Guy #1 is somebody my mentor is thinking of soliciting for a letter for me. So I can't go and write a crappy paper that incorrectly builds on his idea, now can I?

So, this paper has to a) be very cognitive and mathematical, b) achieve the status of providing a conceptual analysis of a new content area, c) correctly build on famous guy's idea, d) get accepted into a top journal this year, and e) be a "signature example" of what makes my research so awesome, i.e., totally showcase my awesomeness. Which is a hell of a lot of pressure to put on one paper. I am super afraid to write this paper.

That said, I'm just soldiering on, but it is really hard. It is hard and scary. I think I just need to tell myself that even if I don't get this paper accepted, it'll be okay, I could always fall back on a different piece to showcase my work. Just because I want it to be this one doesn't mean that I won't get tenure if it isn't, in the end, this one. But still, gaaaaaah. I have never experienced this much writer's block or serious self doubt in my work, and that is including the dissertation. This is the hardest paper I've ever had to write.

I have no idea why I overused the word "totally" so much in this post.

Sticker Shock

I just bought beds, a dresser, a night stand, a small bookcase/nightstand, a medium bookcase, and some canvas storage bins for Milo and Nora. Furniture won't ship for a few weeks, so there is still time to buy:

-- Bedding

-- Mattresses (I'm thinking of buying organic without the cancer-causing chemicals or flame retardants)

-- Comforters or quilts

-- Rugs?

-- A light for Milo

-- A nightlight for Nora

-- Wall decor? (But they seem to hate pictures)

Whose room gets the glider? What other things for outfitting a kid's room am I forgetting? I'm sure quite a bit. We already have a dresser for Nora and an old bookcase that I intend to paint for her. I was thinking maybe I would include Nora in deciding what kind of sheets and comforter she would like -- maybe I'll take her to the store with me. I already know that Milo would LOVE construction vehicle sheets, but I'm not quite sure what Nora would like.

This means we have to get rid of our futon, and find some place to put my desk and office things. Eventually I will use the sunroom off of our living room as my office, but right now it is the kids' playroom and I don't want them to lose that quite yet, as they are still too young. So I'll just be without an office for a year or two, which is a drag but will hopefully be okay as I tend to do most of my work on the sofa anyway.

Overwhelming! In just a month or so, they will be in their own rooms in big-kid beds!

(Why yes, I did find both of them climbing out of their cribs tonight, why do you ask?)

Cranky Pants

Well, Nora didn't have any successes in the potty today and just had accidents in her underwear. She didn't seem to have good feelings about the potty, so we're all done for now. It's back into diapers tomorrow. Meanwhile, Milo soldiers on. He's still doing a terrific job. I think Milo has the ability to sit down on the potty and deliberately relax in order to pee, and Nora can't do that yet. She can hold it, but she can't pee on command.

I also think the potty stuff has been upsetting her because she has gotten crankier and crankier over the past couple of days. Tonight she was an absolute bear. She just insisted on arguing with me over and over and over again. It's nuts. I hate to think what she'll be like when she is actually capable of arguing. She will not let it go! For instance, before bed she wanted to stand on a stool and try to touch the ceiling. I said no, and it's too dangerous, and she could fall, so no. And then she just can't let it go:

Nora: But I want to! I need a stool!

Me: I said no. Do you want to read a book with me? (Lame attempt at distraction)

Nora: Stool! Stool!

Me: Oooo, Milo, look at that train you're building! (Deliberate ignoring)

Nora: But I need something to stand on! I want to stand on a stool! I want to stand on a stool!

Me: (Gazes off into the distance and ignores)

Nora: Stool, Mommy! Stool! Mommy, I need a stool to stand on! I want one! (Getting teary)

Me: Nora, I said no. I'm not going to discuss it with you.

Nora: (Yelling) BUT I NEED A STOOL TO STAND ON! STOOL! STOOL! STOOL!

Jake: Oooo, do we have our own copy of Victor Vito? Look at that, we have a Victor Vito CD, should we play it? (Lame attempt at distraction)

Nora: I WANT A STOOL TO STAND ON MOMMY! I don't want to stand on the floor! But I don't want to! But I need something to stand on! I need something! I need a stool to stand on! I need it Mommy! But I want a stool!

Me: Nora, you seem to be operating under the false assumption that you are allowed to continue an argument with me after I have made my decision. Once I have decided, it is no longer up for discussion.

Nora: Don't use that word! Don't say that!

Me and Jake: (Trying not to laugh)

Nora: STOP LAUGHING! But I don't want to stand on the floor! I need a stool!

On, and on, and on, and on. Seriously, she doesn't give up. And once I say no I NEVER change my mind and give in. Even I'm not that dumb. I'm not going to give her the impression that all of this insane toddler-esque arguing actually works. Eventually I told her I was leaving the room and I would be back when she was done arguing.

Arguing with a toddler is like arguing with a crazy person. They don't follow the rules at all. It's like if I'm having an argument about whether we should put lights on the bike path in order to make it safer for people, and I say "As somebody who walks on the path after dark I would feel safer with it lighted, especially after the attacks on the path over the past year." And then the other person will respond, "But the sky is blue in the summer!!!" and then look at me expectantly, as if that disconnected statement has trumped everything and clearly won the argument. And then I'm all, uh, wait, what? And then the other person starts crying angrily and hurling random objects at my head.

I don't even want to think about what it's going to be like when Nora is actually capable of deductive reasoning and logical inference, and can formulate a real argument.

Conversation

At breakfast this morning, after Jake had already gone to work:

Milo: I'd like Daddy to hold me.
Me: You love Daddy, don't you.
Milo: Yeah. Do I love trees?
Me: I don't know, do you?
Milo: Oh yeah. It's really beautiful outside!