Okay

Okay, well back to something more upbeat, this morning I had an article accepted into a practitioner journal, which was pleasant. It's always nice to get a little piece of good news. It'll come out in May, and I have another one on the docket for April publication, and a book chapter is getting published in March, which is nice. So if I can just get that journal article that won't die accepted, then I'll be happy. (The editor keeps telling me she wants to put it in the July edition, which would be awesome). I submitted the revision. It wasn't too much -- at least the revisions get quicker and quicker each time.

Nora is sick today, so Jake is staying home with her. Colds and flus become less prevalent in the spring and summer, right? Right?

In other child news, it is really interesting and difficult to try to explain big ideas to little people. For instance:

Nora: Where's the earth?
Me: We're standing on the earth. The earth is what we all live on.
Nora: In Caillou the kids were standing on the earth and it was spinning around.
Me: Actually, the earth does spin. It's spinning right now. It's just so big that we can't feel it.
Nora: (Eyes me suspiciously)
Nora: But where's the earth? I don't see it.
Me: The earth is underneath us. You know when you're outside and you're standing on the ground? That's the earth. Everybody lives on the earth.
Nora: But I can't see it.
Me: Um....

We were driving in the car during that conversation so I couldn't make use of visual aids. I wonder if I showed her a picture of the earth and then told her that it's the same thing that we live on if that would make any sense at all.

Also, time is a difficult idea for them and the kids can't conceive of anything that happened before them; or rather, they can't conceive of a time when they weren't here. So if we tell them a story about when we were little, they'll ask "Where was I? Was I staying at home with Daddy?" I'll say, "This was before you were born" but they totally don't get that. Also, Milo thinks that when he grows up and gets big and can be a Daddy, then Daddy will become little.

A concept like marriage is hard to explain too. Milo saw a picture of me yesterday and said "You look married in that picture!"

The other day I got my hair cut. Milo was the only one in the family who noticed. He definitely has opinions about things like haircuts, eyeglasses, and clothes. In fact, yesterday morning he was being very pissy at breakfast because he didn't like my sweater, and he demanded that I take it off (which I did not thank you very much).

Nora keeps asking if there are any more numbers after the biggest number she knows (20, 30, etc.) She also likes to talk about time and age, even though she doesn't really know what they mean, like "twenty o'clock". However, I was pretty psyched last night when Nora correctly counted 6 pistachio nuts without any repeats, tapping each one as she counted off the number. Now she will arrange things in a line so that she can count them properly.

I have had a realization about why I need to use this blog to complain so much about tenure, but that's a topic for another day.

I am frustrated

Things are just not going very well this week.

Today I was looking forward to our dept. committee voting on allowing me to send my tenure case up to the divisional committee in December. I had double-checked with my mentor to make sure that everything was in place and it was on the agenda, and he assured me it was. I was nervous because he's traveling today and so couldn't be there in person to argue for them passing this. (I personally am not allowed to do it, he has to do it for me in his role as my tenure committee chair).

Then today I found out that they actually didn't vote on me at all. I hadn't made it onto the agenda. So I asked my dept. chair what was up. She said, "Mentor didn't prepare the materials! I gave him the checklists and so forth but he didn't prepare them!" I reminded her, "This is for next year in December, not this semester." Then she seemed a little confused and said, "Oh, actually the department doesn't really have to vote on that. You and Mentor just have to make sure that everything is in place for that to happen at the right time." And I said, "Oh, I thought the dept. did have input on timing especially in years when there is more than 1 person going up in order to spread the work around and maximize the chances for everybody to make it." And then she paused and said, "Hmm -- I'll email Mentor about this."

My fear is that we'll be working to prepare my case for December, I'll be mentally prepared to have this over in December, and then in the fall in Sept. or Oct. the department will then decide that actually it's better to put me up in May in order to make it easier for the other candidates to have success (there are 3 of us going up next year). And I think I will lose it if that happens, because I'm already on the edge and I just can't wait any longer at this point. That's why I want a vote on it now, to get it on the record that the dept. said I could go up in December.

I am frustrated that nobody really knows how the exact process works, that the process is different from department to department, that the rules and requirements are different depending on who you are and what the "tradition" is, and that there is no transparency at all to this process.

Here is another example. It used to be the case that for all of your co-authored articles you had to submit letters from your co-authors detailing the percentage effort breakdown that each of you contributed to the conceptualization, the data collection and analysis, and the writing portions of the paper. You had to do this for every co-authored paper no matter how far back (for instance, I have some co-authored publications from 2002, and we would have to get letters from my co-authors on these papers).

However, this turned out to not be very helpful or informative so the divisional committee did away with this rule. There were too many discrepancies and how do you know which story is the right story? BUT. They are telling me I still need to do it. There is a perception in our dept. that this is still the rule. So I showed them 2 cases from last year from two of my colleagues in related departments, and how their cases didn't have this information, and they did get tenure. The divisional committee did not require this information from them. But apparently it doesn't matter -- Mentor said, "Well, I guess this is how we do it in our department", so they are making me do it. That makes no sense. Is there a consistent set of criteria or not? (Obviously not).

In many ways I wish that preparing a tenure case was simply the responsibility of the candidate alone. Nobody is going to care about this as much as I do. Nobody is going to be as on the ball about it as I am. I can't make other people do things in a timely manner, avoid procrastination, or be as careful as I would be about it. But the case has to be written by my committee, not by me, and this means relying on other people to be responsible and careful about the whole thing. There are some obvious flaws in this system.

Wow

Oh, super awesome. The editor is making me revise this manuscript again in light of her (brand new) set of questions. For the record this makes the 4th R&R. I think this editor doesn't believe in A&R (or maybe she just doesn't believe in it for me, who knows).

Oh ha ha ha

The editor has returned my paper again with a new set of questions. I've been publishing for 10 years now, and have never experienced anything like this. This is quite remarkable!

Stupid Winter

All of my friends in town are posting FB updates with pictures of the thermometer or complaints about how cold it is. It's somewhere between -10 and -15 out. It was cold enough (and I was lazy enough) that I copped out and took the bus to work instead of walking, because I didn't want to deal.

Why am I here anyway?

Mentor is gloating about leaving for a week to visit LA and San Diego...I am pissy. Those damn full professors and their "vacations".

I remember I had a vacation once in January. We went to Aruba. It was sort of a delayed honeymoon 4 months after we got married. It was so warm, and there were gorgeous birds all over the place and drinks with umbrellas in them and turquoise water and colorful fish. I went snorkeling and saw an octopus.

I miss San Diego.

Potty Training and Jokes

I think it was just recently that I was complaining about how Nora is already 3 and yet not anywhere near potty training. Ever since Milo trained in August and Nora wasn't able to, we just held back, went back to diapers, and decided to wait. Until what, I wasn't sure, some magic time when she'd be ready maybe. All along I've asked her if she wants to pee in the potty or wear underwear, and the answer has pretty much consistently been no. So I've taken her answer and haven't tried to push it, instead just letting her wear diapers.

Until Saturday. On that morning, for some reason, Nora decided she wanted to wear underwear. Then all day long she wore her underwear and peed in the potty. No accidents. Same on Sunday. Same on Monday. Same on Tuesday, even at school (peeing in the dreaded potty at school, which previously she'd repeatedly told me was something she could not do). And ever since - underwear, even at nap, and no accidents. I guess Nora basically called the shots on this one. She waited until she was ready, and then she decided to potty train herself overnight. I still have no idea what sparked the change for her on Saturday morning -- maybe she wanted to wait until she knew she could do it right! Who knows.

Oh, and Nora told her first joke today (obviously one she'd heard from somewhere):

Nora: Mommy, what kind of fish chases mice?

Me: I don't know, what kind?

Nora: A catfish!

A couple of days ago Milo also told a joke, and it was obviously one he'd made up:

Milo: Daddy, I'm a girl!

Jake: You are?

Milo: Yes, I have no penis!

Jake: What happened to it?

Milo: It's in the snowbank! (Hilarious laughter on the part of Milo and Nora)

Milo: That was a joke Daddy!

Uh...if you say so.

3 a.m.

I wonder if, after tenure, the insomnia will get a little better.

Tenure Checklist

Mentor just sent me a point checklist for the tenure process. It goes like this:

1) Determine when you'll go up to divisional committee and begin to prepare the case.
2) Write the case and select the two signature pieces.
3) Determine list of external reviewers.
4) Solicit letters from external reviewers.
5) Revise the case in light of the external letters.
6) Submit the case and letters to the personnel committee. Committee will vote.
7) If the vote is positive, submit to executive committee. Executive committee will vote. Need a 2/3 majority.
8) If executive committee vote is positive, review all elements of the case for final revision.
9) Send case to the dean for approval.
10) If the dean approves, revise case again for preparation to deliver to divisional committee.
11) Deliver the case to the divisional committee.
12) Give your phone number to your dept. chair.
13) On the evening of the divisional committee meeting, after the meeting is over, the committee will call your chair on the phone and inform him or her of the vote. This may happen well into the evening because the meeting could last for hours.
14) Chair will call you to tell you the result of the vote (i.e. whether you got tenure). The decision could be "yes", "no", or "needs more information".
15) Divisional committee sends official letter to the dean with the committee's decision.
16) If the vote was yes, then it will be formally accepted by the Provost, the Chancellor, and the Board of Regents.
17) Then you officially have tenure.

We are at Step #1. The real decision happens at Step #13-14. That day, the day the divisional committee meets, is when your case is really decided (assuming you already passed the department vote). If the department decides to allow me to go up to divisional in December, then my Step #13-14 will happen in December. The meeting usually occurs in mid-December, around the 10th or so. Steps 15-17 are more formalities and will take the rest of the spring semester, so tenure isn't actually official until the following summer.

I kind of like how the whole thing goes down with this phone call. The committee chair calls your department chair and informs him/her of the news, and then your department chair calls you. So you're sitting around all day waiting for this phone call to deliver the news of your entire career future. So dramatic! So nerve-wracking! Sometimes I wish I could skip ahead to that day, to that phone call, and see what happens.

The "needs more information" option would be hell, I think. You think you're going to find out that day, with that phone call, but then they need more information and would need to meet again a month later to decide? Then you'd have to go through the drama of waiting for THE PHONE CALL twice? What a nightmare!

Parent Teacher Conference

One of my project assistants was telling me a funny story. He and his wife attended their first parent-teacher conference a couple of years ago when his son was two. The preschool teacher was looking at a list of standards, and she mentioned that his son didn't walk backwards yet, which apparently was on the list, but they shouldn't worry, it was fine, and he would eventually be able to do so. My research assistant and his wife started sharing startled glances with one another, whispering to each other, "He can walk backwards, right? I'm sure he can! I'm pretty sure I've seen him walk backwards!" As soon as he got home that evening, he asked his son to walk backwards, which his son did with no problem.

Today was my first parent-teacher conference (on the parent side of the table, that is) and it was quite different from what my project assistant described. No checklist of standards -- this is a much more touchy feely preschool that is interested in nurturing the children's interests and abilities. The teachers care about their social and emotional development and we talked mostly about that.

One interesting challenge facing both kids is finding a way to connect with the other children when there is something of a language barrier. The teachers described both Milo and Nora as verbally adept, which is great in that they can share conversation with each other and the teachers, which they do, but it doesn't work very well to share conversation with the other children yet. Nora gravitates towards the older children in the school when she sees them in the hall or the bathroom (and they like to cluster around her and try to "help" her with things because she is so tiny). There is one other child in the class who is developing a vocabulary similar to Milo's and he recently had a nice conversation with Milo at lunch about the numbers on their shirts. The teachers photographed this exchange and it was so adorable, Milo and this other boy were cracking up and having a delightful time. One of the teachers' goals is to foster a friendship between Milo and this other boy, as they've noticed that they play together a lot.

I like the fact that this is the type of thing their teachers are attending to and thinking about, in contrast to some list of standards or skills. What's most important at this age, I think, is helping the kids connect with others socially, enjoy themselves at school, be good citizens, develop confidence in their ability to do things, and explore the world. Not meet some checklist of milestones like "walk backwards".

Milo, much more than Nora, is willing to play in the midst of all the other kids and be a part of the group. I had been wondering whether Milo and Nora were aggressive with the other kids the way they are with each other at home, but apparently they are not and it is even somewhat the reverse in that Milo will defer to the other kids or let them take something away from him. I wonder if this is why he instigates things with Nora so much at home. Nora, on the other hand, is much more likely to want to be off doing her own thing, such as creating a painting. She will play with the other kids too, but not as much as Milo, and she is not as social as Milo. So one goal is to help her become a little more outgoing and confident in her interactions with the other children. I think as it is now she much prefers interacting with the teachers, who she loves.

This reminds me of a note I found once in Jake's old memorabilia from his own preschool assessment: It said "prefers self play". Maybe Nora just takes after Jake in that way.

The teachers mentioned that Nora loves to teach people. One day she figured out how to use a big long stick to twirl a hanging mobile around and around, and the children gathered around her as she showed all of them how to do it. Another day they went out onto the playground and put out a bar and Nora hung upside down on it, which awed the other kids and they wanted to do it too. So Nora set about trying to teach them how to do it. The teachers said that Nora likes to be the little teacher and tell the other kids what's what -- hmm, sound familiar?

I don't think the teachers are going to be emphasizing academic skills like letters and reading and math with the children at this point. They prefer to follow the children's interests as a class, and they encourage a lot of artistic expression like painting, dancing, singing, etc. This is probably just what they need right now. Nora and Milo are barely three, and I'm not convinced that pushing them into academic skills at an early age is the way to go. They are definitely interested in letters, shapes, and numbers, and their teachers interact with those interests and encourage them, so it's not like they don't get that. (They get it at home too. Nora has begun asking which word in which when we read a book; Milo always asks what letter various words start with; Nora likes to skip count with me where we alternate 1-2-3-etc. up to 20 or 30; Milo likes to spell his name and Nora's name out loud at breakfast; The kids like to have me make words on the fridge and they can recognize several words like Milo, Nora, Cat, Sam, and Hi. So they do get exposure to literacy and numeracy, but in a way that is initiated by them and follows their curiosity, which is how I think it should be.) I feel comfortable doing this stuff with them at home, but I am much less adept at fostering artistic expression, so I think their school environment is a great complement to my natural inclinations.

I do sometimes wonder how the kids are going to do socially when they get to school. The verbal gap they're experiencing now may continue as they get older (or it may not), and it could be increased by the fact that Nora and Milo will be "old" kindergarteners (5 and 3/4) when they start. They'll probably be in a room with some kids who are barely 5. I am a little worried about this sometimes, that it might not be all that great for them to be some of the oldest kids in the class when they start. I had always figured that would be a good thing because of their small size. Even though they'll be the oldest, I bet they'll still be the smallest. So especially for Milo's sake, I don't think it would help him socially in the long run to start him early and have him always be the very smallest boy in the class. But sometimes I do wonder if waiting until they're 5 and 3/4 would be waiting too long. We do have the option in our district to enroll them early if they are deemed ready (and this includes physical development, not just academic development). I guess we'll see when the time comes.

I can anticipate that the combination of being unusually small and talkative little buggers might be an ongoing challenge for the kids, because it was like that for me. People *always* assumed I was a lot younger than I actually was (this continued up until I was about 30). So, as a kid and a teen, this also included people assuming that I would be dumber than I was (because they thought I was younger), and then being surprised. You always get underestimated by random adults when they think you're a couple of years younger than you actually are. Even now, random adults are constantly remarking on what great talkers Milo and Nora are, and I bet this happens because people probably assume the kids are barely 2, not 3. I kind of wish the kids were more normal sized, but what can you do?

Anyway, one last thing I'm really happy about is the fact that the teachers at the preschool are going to stay with the same group of kids next year as they move up into the 3-4 room. So next fall the kids will be in a different room at school, but they'll be with the same group of kids, and they will have the same teachers. This is awesome because their teachers are wonderful!

OK

I submitted my revisions to that never-ending article today. We'll see how that goes.

It's very interesting to think about how a journal article becomes a community event. This piece is not the same article I wrote a year and a half ago. Even though all of the words are mine, many of the ideas and changes and justifications and new structures didn't come from me, or at least not me alone. So who exactly wrote this article?

Also, does it work this way for everybody? Or is it more so for junior scholars, like me, or for people who are branching out into something of a new and unfamiliar direction, like I did with this paper? I mean, if one of the top dogs in our field writes an article, it's hard to imagine it going through as much change as mine has gone through so far. Is that because of who they are, or because of how good their work is right off the bat, or some combination?

I am one of those people who tends to lose their appetite in response to a lot of stress or grief. Then it becomes sort of a self perpetuating cycle, as loss of appetite results in eating less which results in having a smaller appetite and so forth. Not that this is a major problem or anything, because I can afford to have it happen. But since it's been a while, what with having been sick and all, I am starting to miss a little bit having a better appetite. You tend to forget that having an appetite is connected to the ability to enjoy and savor food (at least it is for me).

Jake took this picture of the kids today. Sometimes they still ask to go to sleep together in the same bed. (This is on the trampoline, though).

Cute

After a late night, Milo slept in until 8:30 this morning (sadly Nora didn't get the memo). I walked into his room and asked, "Did you have a good night's sleep?" He said, "Yeah! I was thinking about that party we went to. I was dreaming about that party. I want to go back to the party now."

Nice Busy Day

Today was an interesting day in contrasts. Milo has been very crabby with a cold, and he's not been sleeping that well which I'm sure doesn't help. So he woke up all cranky and fussy and out of sorts. But we decided to go sledding this morning to take advantage of the new snow and the sunny day, and to heck with whining kids. (Milo doesn't have a fever, just congestion, so he seemed okay to go sledding). And he did enjoy it. Nora took two runs and then declared herself done; she didn't want to do any more sledding. But I take that as progress seeing as how last year she wouldn't even sit on the sled or walk in the snow voluntarily. Today while Milo and Jake went sledding over and over again Nora was mostly content to tromp around in the snow and make snow angels.

But my the time we were ready to head back home, man. The whining. The bickering. The yelling. The complaining. It was endless. Jake said, "Have I died and gone to hell?" Because that's what it felt like. The kids were such irritating crabs all day long. They fought, they wouldn't share, they screamed, they were just a giant pain in the ass.

Moreover, their naps weren't so great which didn't have me happy because we had a party to go to after dinner. It was a department party at a senior professor's house, and let's just say, I didn't consider it optional. And our babysitter got strep throat and had to cancel, so our plan was to bring the kids for a couple of hours and hope for the best. (The invite did say "children warmly welcomed", or else I wouldn't have brought them, so I was just worried because they had been crabby and I knew they'd be up past their bedtime).

Well, I shouldn't have worried. All that crabby miserableness was suddenly turned into delightful charm once the kids had an audience. They were cute, energetic, funny, they jumped around and danced, everybody laughed and said they were adorable. Also, Nora decided to wear underwear today ("dark pink is my favorite color Mommy"), and she actually peed in the potty at the party! No accidents! One of my colleagues said "Hi, Milo, how are you?" and Milo responded, "I'm getting bigger!" Total charmer. The kids were just great and I was glad that I had the chance to show them to people.

When we got home Nora mentioned before bed, "Actually, my favorite color is dark grey!" These kids' favorite colors change on a daily or hourly basis.

Inception

I used to have a recurring dream throughout many years of my childhood. In my dream, I was at my grandmother's house, and since this was the most joyful time I ever had as a kid, I was always very happy in my dream. But then, in my dream, I would begin to wonder if I was in a dream. I would go back and forth, trying to figure it out, and then I would always decide that I wasn't dreaming, and that it was real. Then, I would wake up, and realize, oh, I was wrong. It was a dream. And I would experience this incredible sense of disappointment.

One day I was puzzling over this (when I was awake), and I realized a very simple rule. If I'm ever wondering if I'm dreaming, that means I am. Once I had that realization, every time I ever had a dream in which I was wondering if I was dreaming, I would realize I was, and then I would immediately wake up.

All of this is to say, Inception is one hell of an awesome movie.

p.s. Milo is sick.

Generation Gap

Me: Hey, that's the woman who was in Moonlighting.

Jake: What's Moonlighting?

Me: Uh...never mind.

Jake: Was it a movie?

Me: No, it was a t.v. show with that woman and Bruce Willis. Cybill Shepherd! That's who she is.

Jake, under his breath: A liiiiittle before my time.

This reminds me of before we were married and one time I started talking about my first computer when I was a freshman in college. It had 640K and a 5 and a quarter inch disk drive and as I'm rambling on about this Jake gets this weird, disturbed look on his face and says, "Wow, you ARE quite a bit older than me..."

(I was reminded of this earlier this week when one of our post docs had to miss a meeting because she was at some programming workshop for a language I'd never heard of. And I mentioned how the last language I really knew was Fortran, which caused both of the other (older) PIs on the project to start reminiscing about how they still had to work with punch cards when they were in college. The whole punch card thing must have been a huge pain in the neck because I swear I've heard more stories from random people in my life about punch cards and dropping the punch cards and mixing them up or having one of them be wrong...)

Which reminds me of this:

GAAAAA!

Jake and I are idiots and I am super embarrassed. Because we are idiots. But mostly I blame Jake because really it is his fault (of course).

When the kids moved into beds, we dismantled our cribs. We then gave crib #1 to our friends who are expecting a baby in May. A few weeks later, we gave crib #2 to a grad student in my program, also expecting a baby in May.

But somehow, all the hardware went to our friends. So crib #2 people had no hardware. So we had to get the hardware back from our friends. Except then there was a missing bracket, which we then had to retrive from our friends. So that's 2 retrieval trips for crib hardware. But...there are STILL two missing pieces. Our friends don't have them. Neither does my poor, pregnant grad student. So I am this total asshole who has given her grad student a completely useless crib with two vitally important missing pieces. ARGH.

So tomorrow I get to clean out the garage, in the snow, to make sure that the pieces aren't in there. And if they aren't, this weekend I'm going to buy her a damn crib because I feel so guilty and embarrassed for being such a giant asshole (although I would like to point out that it was my HUSBAND who transferred the crib AND ALL THE HARDWARE to our friends in the first place.)

There is really no rhyme or reason to this photograph of Milo, who thought it'd be a great idea to run around after his bath in nothing but Nora's red boots. Milo has made his first pet request: A bunny. Not gonna happen.

Red boots

Okay, I had to report this cute thing. If you look at the picture below you may see that Nora is wearing red boots. She LOVES these boots, which are on loan from the twin whisperer (they belonged to her daughter).

Meanwhile, even though the kids are in bed by 7:30 each night, I know that might not mean they're asleep by then. I can tell this by the occasional stomping around I might hear, or by the fact that when I check on them before I go to bed I'll often find piles of books on their bed where none had been before. Or occasionally one of them will be sleeping with a toy.

Tonight around 8 I suddenly heard some clomping around on the ceiling, the suspicious sound of little feet getting out of bed (thud), scurrying across the room and back (pitter patter pitter patter) and then silence (back in bed?). Tonight when I checked on Nora I figured out what she had been doing -- retrieving those boots. There she was, curled up asleep with the boots neatly placed on her pillow, right next to her cheek, one hand resting on them.

Preschool Party

Today we had a class party at preschool with kids and parents. It was a breakfast party, which was a little odd, but it was so nice to just scoot the kids out the door without having to deal with the whole breakfast eating at a snail's pace (just hurry up for crying out loud) morning ritual. Instead we went straight to school and ate pancakes, fruit, yogurt, biscotti, and bagels. (Well, okay -- pancakes and fruit.)

Nora allowed me to dress her in a skirt and tights in honor of the party. Then Milo really wanted to wear tights too. So he wore tights under his pants, and was quite pleased about that.

As we pulled into the parking lot Nora said, "I'm so, so, so, so excited!"

Tonight Milo pulled a b.s. routine on me that I thought only a bigger kid would do. He got angry at Jake for something and said "You're BAD!", then saw me giving him the evil eye as a result. He said, "I didn't say bad! I said bat! I said he's a bat!" Suuuuuure, buddy.

Me: Nora, let's sit on the potty.

Nora: Um...I'll go potty at 10 o'clock Mommy. (She has no concept of clock time).

Nora: I pee in my diaper. I can only pee in my diaper.

Me: But you pee in the potty sometimes, don't you. You did that a lot this week.

Nora: But I mostly can only pee in my diaper.

I keep waking up at 1 or 2 and then staying awake for a couple of hours with crazy anxiety racing through my brain. I'm hoping that eventually I'll have to crash and get at least one night of sleep. It's too bad my doctor won't give me any good sleep drugs. It's also too bad I've basically lost the ability to drink much at all...

Garbage Day

Me: What days of the week do you remember?
Milo: Thursday, Sunday, Garbage day...

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

Milo: When I am grown up I'm going to stand on the stool all by myself! And drive a garbage truck!
Nora: When I am grown up I'm going to ride Mommy's bike, and eat cupcakes!

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

Jake, muttering to himself: This is such a stupid piece of --
Me: Let's not say that in front of the you-know-who (I was actually thinking of the word "stupid", as I don't want the kids to call people stupid)
Jake: What was a bad word?
Nora: Shit, crap, damn it...

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

Lately Nora has decided, usually towards the end of dinner, that she needs to go potty and then she has been able to go to the bathroom and pee. Hooray! This is huge. I hope it is sort of starting to sink in for her, the more times she's able to successfully do it. She is very pleased when she can. However, she still wants to wear a diaper and still seems to have some sort of confidence or mental block issue about the potty. So far I am not pushing it (although I'm sure Amy Chua would simply tell me to just threaten, belittle, withhold food from, and yell at Nora until she learned how to use the potty, but I prefer the non-abusive route.)

Milo has regained his appetite, much to my relief, although he is still way too skinny. We have 3 weeks until their check-up, and I hope he puts on a little flesh by then. Yesterday Nora asked for a piece of my avocado sushi (it was very simple, just avocado and rice and nori) and she actually ate some of it and declared "I love sushi!" Progress.

Although I have not gotten over my funk, I have dealt with it enough to once again begin revising the Paper That Will Not Die (tm). I think I am starting to experience the mental and emotional despair and ennui that accompanies the beginning stages of burn out. But of course, I can't burn out this year. I keep telling myself that just because things suck right now, it doesn't mean they'll always suck.

Depressed

The editor is going to have me revise this paper a 3rd time.

[Most of the post removed because I am paranoid and you never know and the last thing I want to do is inadvertently screw myself.]

Persevere. Don't give up.

Stress

[Edited to protect the paranoid, i.e., me.]

This stressed-out rant brought to you courtesy of "crafts". Nora loves doing art and crafts now, including coloring, painting, cutting, play dough, etc. I can tell the kids are getting older and more independent because I can sit with them at the table while they color and draw, and I can be on my computer or read something and it generally works out. Something like this would have been impossible a year ago. So, things really do get easier.

Milo: I love winter!

Nora: I like spring.

I am sort of wondering if all that stuff about stress and immunity really is true. My immune system seems to be totally broken. Maybe it is stress. And it is only January. A full year of tenure b.s. to go.

Okay, off to go gargle now to try to get rid of that sore throat...(gargling break brought to you courtesy of Caillou).\

I Love All the People

Here is Nora in that dress. She loos like she's doing some sort of cheerleading move or something.

Tonight right before bed she sang a little song: "I love my Mommy, I love Grandmom Lee, I love Papa Greg, I love Milo, I love Daddy, I love all the people, I love everybody..."

I have a wicked sore throat and swollen glands. Seriously, how is this even possible? I am still coughing from the last cold. I don't understand how I could be sick again. It seems totally impossible, and beyond the pale. Seriously. WTF.

Familiar dread: how long until the kids get it? When will I have to stay home with them? Will they get it at the same time, or separately, requiring me to stay home twice as long? Which work projects will suffer as a result?

I just...words fail.

Not a Girly Girl

Nora is totally not into dolls. (However, she loves her new little dollhouse and tiny people in it, and we are composing a thank-you note soon to Grandma Lori & Grandpop Bob. It was a hit!). But big dolls, not so much. She also will not allow me to put her hair into pony tails, or put barrets or bows into her hair. Nora's favorite activities are basically reading books and coloring/drawing/painting. She also won't let me put her in dresses, and she doesn't like her mary jane shoes, always opting for her green sneakers instead.

Jake's mom got Nora a doll and a stroller for Christmas. Since that time, Milo has stuffed it full of stuffed animals and likes to push them around. Nora has mostly ignored it. Last year I got her some dress-up clothes, including some frilly tutu-like skirts and things, and I gave her this old (fake) mink stole that has been in the family for a long time, but she has zero interest in any of these things.

The ponytail and braid thing is just a losing battle. Even if I get one into her hair, she'll pull it out. But tomorrow I am going to attempt to get her into a dress by telling her that it's a tunic or a long shirt. This is a gorgeous little dress that my mother made for me when I was Nora's size, and I want to show it off at school. We'll see how this goes over!

I don't know why Nora eschews girly things so much. Maybe it's because she has a twin brother, or maybe she's just fundamentally not into it. Who knows. I'm okay with it, and of course being more tomboy-like than not will probably serve her well in many areas of life. I'm cool with Nora being who she is, and so far at least there's no worry about princess crap.

It'd be nice if she'd let me do her hair once in a while, though!

Happy Half Birthday to Me

This morning we're driving to work in silence, both kids seem to be spacing out, and then randomly out of the blue Milo says "I'm not going to cry when you drop me off at school." Well, okay then! And sure enough, he didn't. The kids seemed pretty psyched to go back to school.

Last night Jake said, "You're the only person I know who keeps track of your half birthday." Whatever, I notice things! For instance, I know that Jake's birthday is on the same day of the week as my birthday, which is on the same day of the week as Christmas.

Anyway, I'm 39 and a half, so only 6 months to go to 40! Woo hoo!

Today I went to the eye doctor and like every time, I have high eye pressure in the pre-glaucoma range, sort of like being pre diabetic but with respect to glaucoma. The numbers 10-21 are normal, 22-25 are high, and 26 and above is glaucoma. (Do I recall what these numbers measure? No I do not.) Anyway, my number is 24 but 2 years ago it was also 24, so that seems like a good thing. My doctor, who is a super nice guy and somebody I always enjoy being around for his grandfatherly jovialness, took a careful look at me and said "do you have a thyroid problem?" This is not the first time a doctor has asked me that question. But I probably don't.

Apparently there isn't really anything you can do about impending glaucoma (unlike diabetes), other than not drinking a shit-ton of coffee, which, check. I don't drink coffee. Also, I shouldn't take all of those medicines (like anti-histamines) that say "don't take if you have glaucoma." This is actually easy enough to do because Jake also has glaucoma in one of his eyes, this is due to the fact that his eye is severely damaged as a result of a traumatic eye injury when he was 2. So we already screen medications for that in order to protect his damaged eye.

Jake is more or less blind in his right eye which I didn't really notice until a few years ago. This is most noticeable to me when he is driving and I am in the passenger seat. I realized at one point that he can't really see me when I'm in the passenger seat. This totally has some advantages, for instance, I can eat something, like a piece of candy, without him noticing and perking up and asking me what I'm eating and if there is any more of that.

Anyhoo, I needed a new prescription and new glasses so I tried on 800 different pairs of glasses only to reluctantly settle on what was probably the most expensive pair of glasses in the room. I tend to keep glasses for 5-10 years so I don't see it as a tragedy to spend extra on a pair of frames.

Today I have been working from home and it has been HEAVEN. No kids, no husband, only slightly annoying cats, no students knocking on my door asking me to do stuff for them, just me and my manuscript. Speaking of which, I have consumed my lunch, so back to work.

Sunday at Work

Without doing too much information about poor Milo, his tummy seems to be doing better today. Now we're on to project fatten him back up.

The kids are going to have to shift back into an earlier schedule with the resuming of school tomorrow. They've grown accustomed to sleep in until 7:30 or even 8! It has been pretty nice.

Today I am writing an article that a practitioner journal invited me to write. I agreed to do it back in September and we negotiated a January deadline. I found it strange and amusing that this particular journal invited me to write an article because it is without a doubt the journal I have had the most trouble getting my non-solicited articles accepted into. Anyway, the article is about how to promote proof at the middle school level, and it's pretty fun to write. So far.

Sometimes I worry about all of this writing I've been doing this year for teachers. This is part of the "service" part of my job, reaching out to the teaching community to translate my research into practical ideas and tips for the classroom. Ethically, I think it is the part that matters most, because my work is ultimately aimed at improving math instruction and learning. Why bother doing all of the fancy research if it never gets translated for teachers? But at the same time, it is probably kind of unhelpful or even harmful for the tenure case to be doing this. Every hour I spend doing something like this is an hour not spent creating a theoretical or empirical article about deep ideas and showing that I am an important researcher (or whatever).

Anyway, I don't know. I've been doing it because people asked me to, and because I do think it is important and it matters. But sometimes I wonder...

Worry worry worry

How do you know when a kid is too skinny?

Jake has been dressing Milo for the past week or so, but this morning I got him dressed and when I pulled off his shirt, I was shocked. His ribs are showing everywhere -- not just on the sides, but on the front of his chest, too. His shoulder blades are sticking out. His arms are a lot skinnier than Nora's, and that's saying something.

About a week ago Milo got sick and it was a stomach thing, with diarrhea, and fevers, so he hasn't been eating much all week. I thought he was mostly better but he still doesn't want to eat hardly anything. And of course now that I saw how emaciated he is, it's all I can think about. At what point does too skinny become dangerous? So today I made what I thought would be a delicious milkshake smoothie, with fruit and ice cream and cream, but he wasn't really into it. He wasn't interested in eating much of anything all day, and who knows if this is because his stomach is still off, or because I've ramped up the pressure (which I know is counterproductive) because I'm freaking out about him being too skinny. All day long he kept saying he had to go to the bathroom, but he was never able to poop, so that could be part of the problem too.

All I know is that it drives me crazy to see him so thin, and make all kinds of good fattening things for him, only to hear him say "My tummy is full" and "I don't want anything to eat" before the meal even begins. Just a few bites of things here and there, that's it. He didn't even want to eat his chocolate snowman after dinner.

Jake said, well, he's staying hydrated (he's had plenty of milk today), and he's not throwing up or anything, and his energy level seems okay. So I guess if he were getting too malnourished he'd probably show it in his behavior, I guess. I hope. I know I can't make him eat. Today proved that, because I tried my darndest and it just backfires every single time.

I don't know if I should call the doctor, or what. I mean, what can they really do other than hospitalize him and put a feeding tube in him? If his stomach feels yucky, then it just does, and I know what it's like to have no appetite. Maybe I'll take him in on Wednesday if he hasn't gotten better. The thing that makes this worse is that we're going to have to take them in for their 3-year check up soon and I'm dreading the weigh in, especially now that I can tell Milo has lost weight.

It's enough to drive a parent insane to have a kid who is way too skinny but then won't eat. Not even milkshakes, not even pancakes with syrup, not even chocolate for God's sake. Honestly, I'd feed him anything right now just to get some fat and calories into him.

Here We Go

Oh, hey, Milo is sick and Jake is sick, in the never-ending run-on sickness that has lasted longer than this sentence, but on the bright side my parents were here saving our lives so that we could cope and I could get some stuff done. On the not-so-bright side, now they're gone and we have to start coping on our own like grown ups. Boo.

Nora has developed some sort of epic pout behavior. I didn't even know a mouth could stretch in that way. Meanwhile poor Milo says, pathetically, "I don't feel well" and "I have a headache" and "I have a sore throat" but then, in a teeny little sad voice, "But I'm getting better."

Mentor has given me a list of tasks to begin the process of putting my tenure case together. This list has a lot of things on it, but we're starting off with the easy things, the busywork type things like gathering together syllabi, relevant teaching examples and exercises, lists of current and former graduate students, lists of committees I've served on, etc. There is a big list of stuff to compile while we also begin the intellectually substantive work of crafting the case itself, a lengthy supported explanation of what my research is and why it rocks (oh and why my teaching and service rock too). There is a page limit for the total tenure case, but I've heard that people don't always adhere to it. That page limit is 150 pages.

Meanwhile I have a list of things to do this semester besides writing the tenure case:

• Finish co-authored book #1 (we're sending the first draft off for review on Jan 1, hooray!)
• Finish co-authored book #2
• Complete and send off manuscript for a major paper I've been writing for, oh, ever
• Write and submit manuscript for small invited paper for a teacher magazine (Due Jan 7)
• Complete the syllabus and planning for brand new graduate course I'm co-teaching
• Teach said course, grade stuff, read stuff for the course, etc.
• Complete final draft and submit NSF co-authored grant (due in Jan)
• Prepare and give a talk at Michigan state (late Jan)
• Prepare and give a talk at conference in New Orleans (mid April)
• Prepare and give a talk in the math dept (early April)
• Prepare and give a talk at Virginia Tech (late April)
• Finish IRB and school district IRB applications (sooner rather than later)
• Collect data in a 3-week teaching experiment with 8th-grade students (was hoping for Feb, but probably March due to IRB delays)
• Continue advising my 10 grad students (8 who are in the process of writing)
  

This is a lot for one semester, so it's going to be another busy semester. But last semester was busy too and I was able to accomplish a lot, like co-authoring one book, half-finishing another book, revising an article, revising a book chapter, traveling to conferences, planning a new course, teaching my grad course, working on my new article, and submitting a co-authored article.

It's the busiest and definitely most stressful year of my career so far. Waking up at 3 a.m. with an anxiety attack is basically normal right now. But I am heartened by the fact that if I can actually get through this semester, a fair amount of my tenure case will be done, and this summer and next semester the to-do list will be much smaller. As the emotional stress of dealing with the tenure case will ramp up in that final semester this fall, at least the practical stress of having too many things on my plate will diminish somewhat, which will be good.

I feel like we're in the last stretch now, the final 6 miles of the marathon.

Also, Jake and I have decided that after this whole tenure thing is behind us, we're going to take a real, honest-to-goodness vacation. One in which I do not bring my laptop.

New Year's Resolution

A set of emails between me and Mentor (yes we use a lot of smiley faces):

Me: "Hi, BTW did [dept. chair] ever respond about letting me go up to Divisional in December? It would be pretty nice to have that date and know that 2011 is my year. :)"

Mentor: "Yes indeed she did. Still needs Personnel's approval, which should come at the next meeting. So make your New Year's resolution now! :)"

Me: "Hooray! I am starting to get excited. I know we have a long road to go, but I am excited about it. :)"

Mentor: "Me too!"

So, my New Year's resolution for 2011 is to get tenure.

Preschoolers are Moody

Today after lunch Milo and Nora were in such great moods. They often are for that half an hour to an hour after a meal and before nap or bedtime. Today Milo kept running around telling Nora he loved her, telling me he loved me, and hugging and kissing Nora. Nora was into it as well, and this is like two stars aligning that...er...never align. After their little love fest they settled down into playing some complicated game in the sunroom together with coins and puzzle pieces, happily playing and pretending together while I did the dishes. At some point they both raced down into the basement to find a moose there, laughing hysterically.

This stuff is awesome. It's just so unpredictable.

Small children's moods skyrocket up and down within the space of a couple of minutes. We can go from laughing to tears and screaming and back again over something as mundane as who is standing too close to the heater vent, no that's my heater vent, not your heater vent! On any given morning I'm never quite sure if I'm going to encounter a couple of cheerful children, a couple of inexplicably pissy children, or one of each.

The up side is that when things suck you can bet that they'll probably change before too long. But the down side, for me, is that I find this unpredictability and moodiness extremely stressful.

I don't really do well with moody people. As a child it stressed me out a great deal, had me tiptoeing around always afraid of setting something off, something I could never predict. I felt like I was always walking on eggshells and I would literally tiptoe around trying to avoid being noticed, trying to be as invisible as possible, flying under his radar. And as an adult it still stresses me out. I had one boyfriend in college who was the moody type and it just reminded me way too much of how out of control I used to feel as a kid. You never know what you're going to get, and you never know what will set a person off. So you can't count on any particular day necessarily being a "good" day. The good days can be incredibly good. But the bad days can come for no discernable reason at all. It was too much for me.

Jake is a super even keeled person and this is very reassuring to me. It makes me feel secure and I feel like I never have to worry about what he's going to be like. Like any human, of course, he does have bad moods but they're not frequent and they're pretty predictable, for reasons that I can anticipate and that make sense to me. Also, Jake's behavior when he's in a bad mood is just that he gets quiet and a little withdrawn. That I can handle.

Once when I was teaching school, one of my fellow math teachers was a little short with me one morning. It was a very minor thing and it didn't even bother me, but then she said, "I'm sorry, I'm just in a bad mood today." And I thought that was awesome. I realized, oh! You can just be upfront about the fact that you're in a bad mood? That is totally great, it alerts somebody to what's going on, it makes them realize that it's not anything they did and it's not about them...what a great way to communicate! I loved it that she said that. (That college boyfriend would never have admitted that he was in a bad mood.)

Nora and Milo cannot, of course, express that. Or rather, they do express it, but in much less pleasant ways, like endless whining (Nora) or random throwing of objects or screaming outbursts (Milo). The other night Milo did something I've been trying to keep him from doing (he called Nora a "bad girl", which drives me nuts), and I stopped him and he just lost it and screamed, "I HATE THIS!" I could totally relate. I actually love that he said that, that he is beginning to be able to use words to talk about how he feels when he feels lousy, to communicate it in some direct, descriptive way. It seems like the more they can talk about it when they're not feeling so great, the more they'll grow up to be like that math teacher colleague of mine and less like that college boyfriend.

And me, I just try to roll with it and not get too freaked out over unpredictable moodiness which is, I have to imagine, part of the developmental sphere of preschoolerness, and doesn't necessarily mean that it'll be like this forever.

Maybe it's just good practice for the teen years.

My life is glamorous

As I'm cleaning Milo's bottom in the living room after he decided to take a dump in his pants: "Mom, don't get poop on your fancy dress!" (My fancy dress was an apron).

Target Date: Dec 2011

My tenure committee met today, and we decided to target my case for divisional committee for their December meeting next year. (The committee meets once a month starting in December, so your case can be decided as early as December or as late as May).

We have to get the department to agree to let me go up in December, which they may not necessarily do because they're going to be strategic about which case to put up when. Probably 3 of us will go up next year and the idea is to maximize chances of success for all three of us, so my needs alone won't determine when my case goes up. But I hope they'll let me do it in December.

I can tell I'm ready, because I want it to be done. I have reached the "screw it" phase, and don't want to wait until, say, May even though that might mean one more article on my cv. It would be a Merry Christmas indeed next year if it came on the heels of a positive tenure decision.

Mentor and I will begin writing the case this coming semester. It'll take several months to compile everything and get the case written. We'll solicit external letters in May. They'll come back in August. Then it's onwards and upwards.

Random little things from my meeting. My committee consists of 4 people whose job is to craft my case and guide me through tenure. Two of those people are current or recent divisional committee members. One was chair last year (the year that very committee denied my colleague). Anyway he kept going back to my career grant. He said, "It's very hard for the committee to ignore a career award," and "The career award is the jewel in the crown." Dang I'm glad that grant came through. It's a little freaky to realize how capricious it all is.

The other member, who is currently on the divisional committee and herself received tenure about 6 years ago remarked that if her case had gone up under the current committee, she absolutely wouldn't have gotten tenure. And this is a person who -- well let's just say she's very well known and well respected and is now an internationally successful leader in her field. It strikes me as obvious that any system with this much variance is inherently flawed.

Scattered Thoughts

Preschool is on holiday for 2 weeks. The way we're working it out this week is, I worked today (Sunday) and will go to work tomorrow (Monday). Jake works Tuesday and Wednesday. I work Thursday, my folks come that day. We'll both take Friday (Christmas Eve) off.

I like working on Sundays because nobody is ever in the office and I get a lot done. Today I finished final edits on an article (which is heading out the door, hooray), reviewed and revised a chapter for a book I'm co-authoring, reviewed and revised a chapter outline for a different book I'm co-authoring, and wrote a letter of recommendation.

Tomorrow I have my tenure review committee meeting, then another meeting about a grant application that's due on the 27th, then a phone conference with the co-authors of book #1, then a meeting with a student. The phone conference may be interesting because I don't have much of a voice.

I am feeling sad for Nora right now. All I ever did was cough this weekend, it was scary and upsetting for her, and then I couldn't do my normal thing like read books. Milo is not a fan of this either, but because Jake is his favorite parent he is primarily okay. But since I am Nora's favorite parent she is all freaked out and not pleased and cried and cried when I had to go to work. She is so sad. Poor thing.

After (sort of) sleeping on the couch all night so that I could be propped up and give Jake a chance at sleep, I went back to bed at 8 a.m. for a long nap. I had to tell myself, "You are not being lazy. You are sick. You need to sleep. You are not being lazy." It worked, I fell asleep and then had a dream in which I was in labor with a baby girl. It was Dec. 22 in my dream and the kids had just turned 3, and I was thinking, Nora will be a big sister and Milo will be a big brother to our new baby girl. Seeing as how Dec. 22 is 3 days away I hope this doesn't mean I'm one of those freaky people (aka Peggy in Mad Men) who can have a baby full term and never realize they're pregnant. I have never understood that and it seems literally impossible unless you're in some sort of serious denial.

Both kids desperately need haircuts. Will I manage to fit that in this week with everything else? Time will tell.

Everything Hurts

Today we got a Christmas tree the easy way. (There was no chopping down involved. No tromping through the snow.) I got a lot sicker today, which seems kind of inexplicable. I used to think of myself as a really healthy person. The cold or flu that would down everybody else for a week would pass through me in 3 days. Now it's the opposite, and I consistently get sicker than anyone else for longer and always end up with bronchitis. I was up between 2:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. what with the coughing and all, and later this afternoon I just crashed. I slept in the living room while the kids went crazy and Jake got dinner ready and only woke up to the sound of an ornament crashing and breaking on the floor right in front of me. (It was an egg. A real egg that had been hollowed out and painted.)

Milo was super psyched about the tree and decorating it and everything. Nora was kind of in the dumps today, so she was less jazzed about everything but still enjoyed opening up each ornament and hanging it on the tree.

I think the preschool teachers were a little confused about what holiday we celebrate because Nora had mentioned that we didn't have a Christmas tree, and Milo said that for the holiday he got "dry bread". I still have no idea what "dry bread" means or what he was referring to. (I wanted to wait until after their birthday to get a tree to try to separate birthday from Christmas somewhat.)

The kids' preschool teachers are older women, one seems like maybe she's in her 50's (she has grown-up kids) and the other is maybe in her 30s. But they also have an afternoon teacher who comes in who is clearly pretty young and doesn't seem like she has her own family yet. Nora loves all three of them. So on Friday I finally screwed up the courage to ask the afternoon teacher if she ever did any babysitting, and she said yes, all the time, and she'd love to watch Milo & Nora. So that is a good thing.

Things I used to do when I felt like ass: Sleep, watch t.v., lie around in bed, drink 7-up or ginger ale with crushed ice cubes.

Things I now do when I feel like ass: Laundry, making lunch, grocery shopping, hauling a Christmas tree into the house, grading, etc.

I kind of wonder if this is why I cannot get healthy this year. But these things have to get done.

I thought of something good to write about. This year I got a new winter coat. My old one was kind of falling apart so it was time for something new and I'm talking about the extreme winter coat, the one you haul out on the coldest days. Must be long, must be down. So I bought the Land's End Chevron Coat and oh my gosh I cannot say enough good things about this coat! This coat has totally changed everything. It is seriously the warmest coat I have ever had. It goes all the way down to my knees, has fleece cuffs and a fleece neck, and this awesome big hood that fits over my hat and acts as a wind break for my face.

So the first time I wore it was when our weather changed quite abruptly to Very Cold (tm). And I live in a place where we have a lot of Very Cold days, for many months, so you need to have the gear for it. Anyway, I was walking to work that morning and it was about 4 degrees out. Jake was going on and on about how cold it was going to be. I walked outside and I thought, hmm, I guess they were wrong, it's totally not cold at all! Then I pulled my hand out to put on my glove and I realized oh, it is cold. I just feel super warm because I have this amazing crazy warm coat! And it's not like I didn't have down coats before, I did, but this one is like an order of magnitude warmer. It is so warm that if I have it zipped up and it's warmer than about 20 degrees, I get hot.

So anyway, I feel very happy about my warm, snuggly coat and its ability to keep me more comfortable in the winter. It really goes to show that something as simple as a properly warm coat just makes a ton of difference in your quality of life.

I know this is boring. I can't help it. I don't have anything interesting in me. This is my 3rd bad cough of 2010...enough is enough. I am too tired to keep going! I know, complain, complain, complain. At least none of my limbs have been chopped off. It could be worse.

Hmmmm

All of this sickness and lack of family nearby and winter crap has me thinking about the fact that Portland State just advertised a job in my area. Portland is where my cousins and aunt and uncle live, as well as a couple of friends from high school and a grad school friend. It is on the west coast, much closer to all of my family. Driving distance to my sister and (more or less) to my parents.

Upon first reaction Jake gave it a thumbs down saying PSU wouldn't pay me enough for us to afford to live there. Which is probably true, we probably couldn't afford the house and neighborhood similar to what we have now. But still, it has me wondering and it is kind of tempting...

WHATEVER

I have to stay home tomorrow with one or two sick kids (I hope it's just one, because the fighting makes the day so much harder). This is what, the 5th time I've done this this year? The 10th time? I've lost count. All I know is that I haven't taken an evening off in weeks, I'm constantly sick myself, I'm dragged into the ground, exercise is a thing of the past, and yet I'm still behind on work. And it's only December. We're only getting started with the flu and cold season.

This is truly untenable, but there is no decent solution in sight. I could take them out of school and lose a month's tuition and try to find a nanny again, but I feel like they've had enough change in their lives. Plus, school is good for them. When it's not trying to kill them with viruses. And it's hard to find part-time babysitters who can work on any random day with no advanced notice when a kid gets sick.

How do other people do this???

Okay, well, it's 7:30 so back to work. I told myself I'd give myself 15 minutes of fun between 7:15 and 7:30. I have to spend every night trying to make up for what I lost during the day...

They're 3 but one of them is sick

Last night I burned the first batch of cupcakes for the kids because I was upstairs dealing with a child in bed and didn't hear the beep go off. Seriously burned them, they all had to be thrown out. Then I had to start all over again. Such a mess. Then as I was hurrying downstairs my slippery socks slipped out from under me and I fell hard on my back and on my wrist. So now I'm in a world of hurt. I can tell nothing is truly hurt or broken, I'm just a sore mess, and feeling pissed off about it.

Today I brought mini cupcakes and cups of berries to the kids' school for their birthday. They were so excited to have me there for snack time. By the end of the day, though, Nora was a miserable mess who didn't want any dinner. I took her temperature before bed: 104 degrees. It really is true that the illnesses are so frequent that they just blend into each other. Nora hasn't even stopped coughing from her former illness (neither have I). And tonight both Jake and I have sore throats. I knew the kids would get sick a lot, but I really underestimated what it would be like. I also didn't really think about how this would mean that I would be sick all the time too.

Milo is still cheerful and healthy...for now.

Also, apparently he saw me writing about Nora's name and didn't want to be outdone, so tonight he wrote "HI" and then said, kind of surprised, "Hey! It's a Hi!" It is awesome to watch these kids begin to make sense of words and symbols.

p.s. The cat just took a dump in the dining room. WTF?!? We have enough problems!

Birthday Future

I leave work a little early, walking through the crisp cold air in the darkness, a flashing light on my backpack to warn cyclists on the path that I am there. My phone vibrates as I pull my hat on: Jake has texted me, "Kids asked for Thai, so I ordered curry and noodles. Should be here by the time you arrive. Hurry home!" I step up the pace a little bit, thinking about that soft fluffy rice and the golden curried potatoes swimming in sauce. A few light snowflakes begin to fall on the bare street.

The house is lit up when I walk up the driveway, and as I open the door the warmth and delicious aroma of Thai food hits me in the face. Christmas music is playing. I sit down to take off my boots and my scarf, and Milo comes racing into the kitchen in his socks, sliding around the corner. "Mom! It's supposed to be a blizzard tonight! We're going to have a snow day tomorrow, I just know it!" "Huh," I say, "Well, it was starting to snow just now. So, you never know, I guess." I shrug off my backpack and walk into the kitchen, where Jake is setting out plates and cups. He grins over the bags of takeout and glances over at Nora, perched on the bar stool and studiously writing something.

"Hi Sweetie," I say, kissing Nora's head. "Moooom," she drags it out into two syllables, "I'm busy planning out our day tomorrow, since we're not going to have school." "You two seem awfully confident," I say, hoping they won't be too disappointed if they don't get a snow day for their birthday. Milo bounces around the kitchen, and says "We're going to make it happen. We're wearing our pajamas inside out tonight, and we're going to sleep with spoons under our pillows." "And we're going to flush an ice cube down the toilet," Nora solemnly informs me. "It's guaranteed to work!" says Milo. I ask, "If it's guaranteed to work, why don't you do that every night?" Milo rolls his eyes. "Well of course it wouldn't work if we did it every night!"

As we eat our dinner the snow falls more heavily, and Nora and Milo are bursting with excitement. They flush the ice cube down the toilet, put their pajamas on inside out, and shove spoons beneath their pillows. The snow swirls around the house. I kiss each of them good night, and I tell Milo "We'll still have a great birthday tomorrow, even if you do have school. Don't forget, we're having the skating party at 3:30." He looks at me seriously. "We're not going to have school tomorrow, Mom. Just wait. You'll see."

That night Jake and I stay up late. He watches a movie while I finish up some last-minute grading, sipping on a mug of hot chocolate. A fire crackles in the fireplace. The snow keeps coming, the flakes huge and thick, and just before I head to bed at midnight, the text comes to my phone: "All schools in Dane County closed for Thursday, December 14." I'm relieved and excited. I knew the kids would be fine either way, but starting their birthday with the excitement of a snow day instead of the disappointment of another school morning was going to make the day extra special.

By the time I wake up, the light is filtering in through the windows, and I can smell pancakes downstairs. Looking outside, I see a whopping foot or more of snow, but it seems to be done for the morning. Our little drive is completely snowed in; the plow hasn't come by yet. I check my email to find out that the university has also closed down for the first time in 8 years. I think back to how the last time the university closed, the kids were just turning 2 and Nora cried every time we took her out into the snow.

I wander downstairs and Jake has a plate of pancakes on the table. "They're already outside skating," he tells me. "They ran over to Millie's and Rueben's and rounded them up for an impromptu game on the ice." I glance out the window and see the kids skating on the rink. I open the door for a moment and the cold air hits, as do the sounds of excited voices and laughter on the rink. I pause for a beat and every moment of their lives slams into me: The doctor's appointments. The injections. That first ultrasound, when we saw two tiny beating hearts, and I started sobbing in relief. The IVs. The 2 a.m. feedings. The reflux. The diapers. Potty training. The first day of school. The accidents, the bumps and bruises, the visits to the emergency room, the worrying. The kisses, the sudden hugs, the tiny hands gripping my own.

I mentally try to stop time, to remember this, all of it. Because I know that the next 10 years are going to go by as quickly as the first 10 have, and I'm going to turn around and they'll be all grown up.

Realization

I have a kid who can recognize words, count, and practically write her name, and yet the simple act of peeing in the potty seems to elude her. Doesn't this seem a little backwards? Dogs can be potty trained. Cats can be potty trained. Why can't (or WON'T) my obviously bright kid bring herself to pee in the potty? Sheesh.

p.s.

There should be a special circle of hell for editors who make you add 8 separate significant things to an article, and then tell you that it is too long and you need to trim 5-10 pages. Seriously.

Grocery lists and letters

Today the kids got some paper and decided to make grocery lists:

Nora: I'm getting cilantro, cupcakes, and juice. That's all I need!

Milo: I'm going to put 45 things on my list.

Amy: What are you going to put on your list Milo?

Milo: I'm going to put strawberries on.

Nora: I'm going to buy a lot of things in my store Milo!

Milo: I'm going to get strawberries and cupcakes because it's my birthday.

Amy: What else is going on your list Milo?

Milo: Milk.

Nora: Juice!

Milo: I like maple juice.

Nora: There's maple syrup in my juice Mommy. I'm gonna bring yummy juice! So. Do we have pasta? Do we have pasta Mom?

Amy: Yes.

Nora: So we're going to have pasta, meatballs, ketchup. That's what I need at the store.

We had to shovel out from a snowstorm today. It wasn't as much as everybody thought it would be, but it was a good heavy 6 inches or so. Luckily we now have helpers:

I was just looking over photos and saw that we had a big snowstorm on the same date last year too.

So I have this iPad game that has kids trace the letters for various words like "cup", "cat", and "owl". (Actually just those 3 -- it's the free demo version). Nora has been playing it. She also knows how to draw an N, because her name starts with N. But today, she took a piece of paper and told me she was going to write somebody's name. So I said, "Okay, write your name". So she said "N" (and wrote an N), "O" (and wrote an o), "R" (and then didn't write an R, probably because it isn't in that free iPad demo so she hasn't been writing Rs), and "A" and then she wrote an A! I took a picture of it: You can see the N, the O, a space for the R with nothing there, the A, and then some scribbles. I had no idea Nora could practically write her name.

R's are going to be tough, though, because letters with curves are tough. The kids much prefer letters like M, N, and H.

I can hear Milo playing upstairs in his room with his new teaching clock from Grandma and Grandpa instead of going to bed. But I am too tired to walk up there just yet and put a stop to it -- maybe in 5 minutes...

Sniffle

Last class of the semester today. They were great students, and I will miss them. That is all.

Bad Host

So I have this philosophy that I shouldn't do Jake's social work for him just because I'm the woman. The type of work I'm talking about is remembering his relatives' birthdays, sending cards to his relatives, dealing with presents etc., and preparing for their visits. These are all things I do for my own family and friends, and Jake never does that for my family or friends (because why would he?), and these are things he did for his own family and friends before he ever met me, of course. So I don't believe I should suddenly start doing them just because we got married.

However, if you're going to follow this philosophy, you have to be willing to look like an asshole.

So there is that downside. The problem is that everybody assumes these things are my job. My take on it is, I have a job. In fact, I am and always have been the primary wage earner for our family. My job is the far more demanding and stressful one. I do not believe it is then also my job to keep track of his extended family's birthdays or prepare grocery lists and shopping before they visit. That should be Jake's realm.

But if you're married to a guy who doesn't really give a crap, and probably won't do a whole lot, then you have to be willing to just accept that. Because I'm not going to nag him to do that stuff. The nagging becomes its own job. But if I'm not going to do it myself, and I'm not going to nag, well then, I have to be willing to look bad. And be negatively gossiped about.

For instance, consider my baby shower. This was a shower that some of Jake's relatives threw for me. During this shower, Jake's mother started telling everybody that if they ever visit us, they had better be prepared to bring their own food with them because we won't feed them. I was pretty embarrassed. I think she had visited somewhat recently and Jake hadn't prepared a formal meal plan for breakfast, lunch, and dinner that weekend. He had made stuff for dinner but breakfast and lunch were more "fend for yourself" situations where he had their favorite cereal and bagels and fruit on hand, but he did not, you know, make an omelette. They were put out by this (they expect hot cooked meals 3 times a day plus mid-afternoon snack and cocktails). Ever since, my MiL has told the extended family that I don't cook and I don't prepare for guests and we never have any food in the house. So now I have that reputation.

And I guess they're right, in a way -- if it's Jake's family, I do expect him to do the heavy lifting and the preparations, the same way I do for my own family and friends. So I guess it's fair to say that I am personally a lame host, because I shift it all over to my husband. But still, it is kind of an embarrassing reputation to have, but it's something I have to be willing to accept in order to not take on all of this extra CEO-of-the-house work that I do not want to do just because I am the wife.

So I am writing all of this because Jake's parents are coming this weekend, just for 48 hours. I asked him if he had thought at all about what he would feed them on Friday for dinner (he hadn't), or the rest of the weekend, and maybe he should consider doing some grocery shopping. So tonight he reluctantly went to the store. First he called his folks to see if they wanted anything particular. And mostly his mom is concerned that there will be a birthday cake. Jake said, "Well, Amy is going to make cupcakes on their actual birthday, which isn't until Tuesday you know, and bring them to school. Because Nora asked for that specifically, and the kids are pretty excited about the idea of cupcakes." And then a bunch of silence. And then "But..." and "Yeah, but..." and "Well, maybe, but..." etc. Basically his mom is worked up because she wants us to bake a cake this weekend. Even though their birthday is not this weekend, and they don't want cake, they want cupcakes. She wants a cake.

Enter asshole Amy again. I basically said, you want to make a cake, go for it. I'm going to be spending the weekend doing my last-minute frantic revisions on my paper that is due Monday the 13th. I'm not going to be spending that time baking a cake. However, the down side of this stance is the inevitable gossip. Amy's not even making a cake for her kids' birthday!

Good Morning

I just have to note the amazing fact that the kids have had a great morning at home today. They played by themselves (together) a fair amount without fighting hardly at all. I heard one argument about a fire truck, but they resolved it on their own. There were no tantrums, screams, or whines this morning. They helped me do the laundry, and then they did some painting, and then they helped me make and freeze a bunch of waffles. Milo enjoyed watching for the green light on the waffle iron to come on to tell me they were ready. They ate a great breakfast, had a little waffle snack in the middle of the morning, and then had a good lunch. They did lots of pretend play and just generally were delightful and cheerful.

I really hope this is a glimpse into the future. I know they'll always fight, and there will be wrinkles, but just watching the kids happily play on their own for 20 or 30 minutes is a huge delight and relief to me.

It's only getting up to 21 degrees today, so I don't have much energy or desire to take them out. Which I think is okay -- now that they're in school 4 days a week, busy busy busy, it can be nice to have a calm, relaxing, stay-at-home day in the middle of the day. It's nice to go out on errands or little trips, but for today, we're just staying inside and playing. I felt like I should note the fact that for once, both kids actually had a good day.

Deeply Exploring

Here is a picture from our weekly newsletter from the kids' preschool. The caption reads, "Nora deeply explores the qualities of color and line as she paints at the easel and at the tiny table."

I bet you didn't know my kid was deeply exploring the qualities of color and line. I didn't either. That's what the school is for, I guess. It is, after all, a preschool of the ARTS. So, they are super into dance, drawing, painting, sculpting, music, storytelling, etc. They are not, by the way, into math.

I think this is a problem in general but isn't a problem for my kids. I can handle the math at home. I definitely cannot handle the arts, so I'm glad somebody else is taking care of that.

Fleet & Farm

I am still really sick. Too sick to really remember anything cute the kids did this weekend, even though they did do cute things. I'm pretty sure.

I made good progress on my paper revision today. This has made me very, very happy.

One thing this tenure-track life has robbed from me is the ability to just be sick. To be sick and stay home on the sofa with tissues and cold medication and a good book and nap. To not work on deadlines and travel to and from DC and meet with students and teach my classes.

That is an element of "balance" I would like to regain after all this is over.

Milo's favorite animal is a tiger. Nora's favorite animal is a penguin, which was news to me. I got a tiny tiger and a tiny penguin for their stockings at Fleet & Farm today while I was there picking up cracked corn kernels for the kids' sensory table at school. Because the thing that makes sense for me to spend my Sunday morning doing is poring over various elements to go in sensory tables as I cough bloody phlegm into my tissue and mentally pore over the next set of revisions I will do to my paper. Because that is how I should be spending my time. I kind of hate myself right now, that I am doing bullshit things like that.

You really know you're in the midwest, though, when you spend some time in a Fleet & Farm. You can pick up a Christmas tree, a set of waders, ammo, and deer feed all in the same spot.

Addendum to last post

One of the people in a grad class I teach is actually a visiting scholar I am hosting from China. From our skyping session she noticed that I have a cold, so she sent me the method her family uses to cure a cold: Fill a giant bucket with very hot water. Put your feet in it. Keep the water hot. Stay there for about half an hour until you're sweating all over. At the same time, drink some boiling water with ginger. Then get a good night's sleep.

Sounds more pleasant than swallowing giant horse pills, maybe I'll give it a try!

Weird Things from my Trip

1) Well, I already shared the weirdest thing, which was my colleague outing himself as the dreaded Reviewer A. Man! Still getting over that one!

2) Also, on my first night I needed to get a can of soda to drink some pills with. (Sounds healthy, doesn't it). Anyway, I have an issue with swallowing pills. It's lame and it's basically that I have never mastered this basic adult competency of swallowing pills. If they're little I can handle it but if they're big it can be a problem. I have all of these weird factors that have to be in place, like I can't swallow a pill with just water, it has to be something with a strong flavor like orange juice or carbonated soda. I have to have a morsel of something to eat to chase down the pill or else I'll feel a lump in my throat all night. Even with these things in place half the time I fail at swallowing the pill and will gag it back up, slamming my hand down on the table with emphasis, arching my back, leaning way back to get gravity to help, trying to wrangle that thing down my throat.

So anyway I went to the vending closet to get ice and soda. It was a literal closet. The bottles of soda were $2.50. Crazy! But I was desperate. I plugged my 10 quarters into the machine. But nothing happened. I hit the button. No soda came out. I hit the change button, but I didn't get my change back. I didn't have enough change to try again with another machine. Hmmm, not good. I needed my cold medication to go to sleep.

Then I noticed that there was a weird handle on the machine that was...out. I started twisting it. It twisted and twisted and twisted. And then as I was twisting it, the machine opened up right in front of me! I peered in. It was empty, no bottles. It wasn't even running. No wonder I didn't get my money back. Then I realized I could open this other little door to get my money. So I did, and then piles and piles and piles and piles of coins spilled out onto the floor, creating a huge pyramid of coins!

So I picked out my 10 quarters, and then put the rest of the coins back into the machine, which was a pain, and then closed it all up, and twisted that handle again and again to secure it, and then walked up to the next floor and managed to successfully get my bottle of soda, swallow my pills (no gagging), and go to bed.

3) Our hotel is literally 2 blocks from the White House. You can look down the street and see it there, all lit up. You can wander up to the gates and gaze upon it. I should have brought my camera. Our hotel is in a totally great location.

4) I think one of my work friends, who is married, is trying to have an affair with another of my work friends, who is recently not married. It is weird and disconcerting for me to watch this play out; it plays itself out at conferences since they are in different parts of the country.

5) I taught my class remotely by Skyping in. The classroom has a laptop hooked up to a giant smart board. It worked surprisingly well. I could see everybody in the class and they could see me, and we could have a conversation that way. However, the internet connection started to get wonky towards the end and this was a significant problem.

6) My eye started hurting and getting all bloodshot and then pus started leaking out of it. So I guess it's just part of the virus that M&N gave me. Pus eye and all. Attractive, huh. I finally caved and started taking my gigantic impossible-to-swallow antibiotic, because I draw the line at pus-sy eyes.

7) (Gee, wonder why no colleagues ever want to start up affairs with me? Must have something to do with #6 and how uber-sexy I am what with the leaking eyes and all....)

Feeling a little better

Milo: Mommy can we watch a Caillou video?

Me: Okay...

Me: Wait...did you ask Daddy already?

Milo: Yeah.

Me: What did he say?

Milo: ...Mommy I love you.

[Milo gives me a big hug]

This is suspicious because Milo isn't exactly a font of unsolicited affection. We go downstairs.

Me: Did Milo ask you if he could watch a video?

Jake: Yeah.

Me: What did you say?

Jake: I said not until I get back from the store.

Why that little! I thought that was a big-kid gambit!