OMG WTF

Today one of my FB friends, who I graduated from high school with, who is actually 2 months younger than me, FOUND OUT THAT SHE IS GOING TO BE A GRANDMOTHER.

I have 2-year old twins and I am old enough to be a grandmother!

It is hard to believe I am that old, but I am!

(THAT MEANS YOU COULD BE A GREAT GRANDMOTHER, MOM)

Can I Make it to 2011?

The distance between me and an irresponsible person has decreased to zero.

I used to be annoyed at people who couldn't keep to deadlines, get their stuff done on time, show up when they said they would, keep their word, etc. You agree to do something, you do it. End of story. I have typically been an on-time or, almost always, an ahead-of-time kind of worker.

But it turns out all you need is 2 kids, 2 book projects, 1 book chapter, 3 articles, 1 grad class, 15 grant reviews, 1 national service task, 5 trips, several sleepless nights, not enough childcare, and a few illnesses sprinkled in here and there to totally become that person who drops the ball. Now I get it.

You Can Take This Place and Shove It

This morning I got up ready to finish packing my bag to head to DC. I unzipped Nora's pajamas to find that, hmm, she had a giant rash all over her chest. Weird. Disturbing. A phone call later and she had a 10:30 doctor's appointment, which Jake would have to take her to because I needed to leave for the airport at 11.

A couple of hours later the rash had already spread all over the rest of her body. Jake was freaking out. "What if she can't go to school tomorrow? I'll have to miss work!" I thought about canceling my trip, but I didn't think her rash was a virus. Nora wasn't sick in any other way. I spent the morning with the kids and mostly spent that time holding Nora and reading to her and cuddling with her, and responding to her sorrowful little remarks about how she is going to be sad when I leave. I talked about how I would be sad too but then I would be so happy when I came back in just 2 days and got to see her again. And how happy the Twin Whisperer was going to be tomorrow evening when she picked the kids up from school. It kind of worked, but it was a stressed out morning for Nora.

We put the kids in the car to go to the doctor's and after I belted Nora in, she grabbed hold of my collar and said, "You can't leave, Mommy, I'm holding onto you. You can't leave me."

Yeah. Ouch.

I thought it was mothers who were supposed to lay guilt trips on daughters. How does she already have this down like a science, and she's not even 3?

So I pried those tiny fingers off of me and sadly kissed my crying, rashy child goodbye. Blech.

From the airport I called Jake to find out that the doctor thinks the rash is a reaction to an antibiotic Nora has been on for 7 days (Amoxicillin). Apparently you can get a delayed reaction like that. So the only treatment is to discontinue the antibiotic. And give her Benadryl if she's uncomfortable. She can go to school tomorrow. I feel slightly less guilty.

So yeah, I feel crappy, but on the other hand I am doing a service task that I really like doing. Reviewing grants is a huge time sink (and in fact I only just finished my last one on the plane), but I like having a say in determining what types of research our government is funding. I think that is an important thing to be willing to do. Also, I have to say, I always love being in D.C. I come here a few times a year now and really like the city. It feels so good to be in a real, honest-to-goodness city. I love the Metro. I love being able to get around so easily. I just like it here.

Unlike my stupid b.s. state that just elected a state house, senate, and governor who are all going to, undoubtedly, totally decimate our university budget (more than it already has been, that is) and go after our pensions. Seriously I am getting sick and tired of our stupid, fucked up, backwards state. Jake and I have been having serious talks about leaving, and where we would go. We keep trying to figure out which city would fit the bill for us:

-- Blue city in a (preferably) blue state

-- A climate I like, which means it doesn't rain all the time, it does snow in the winter at least a little, and it gets HOT in the summer. And no, 72 degrees is not hot. Oh, and there are more than just pine trees around. And it is not the desert.

-- Decent sized city, i.e., not some teeny podunk town in the middle of a bunch of cornfields (i.e. a place like Champaign-Urbana does NOT count). Doesn't have to be huge like Chicago, but big enough to support, say, an Apple store would be nice.

-- In an area affordable enough that we could actually buy a house without bankrupting ourselves, or having to live in the super outlying suburbs and commute an hour each way. So this eliminates places like the bay area, Seattle, much of the northeast, etc.

-- Has a climate and culture such that our kids aren't going to turn into little fundamentalist Christians just by going to school (or aren't going to get convinced that they're going to hell if they don't go to church). So no bible belt areas.

-- Has a university where I could work.

So...hmmm. Does a place like this even EXIST in the U.S.? Seriously I'm not sure. I think that the town we live in is generally one of the best combinations of place needs and job needs that I can think of. I can definitely think of cities I'd rather live in, and I can think of a couple of jobs that might be better, but the city/job combo is a hard one to get right. But frankly the job has been getting worse and worse and worse at an institutional level due to increasing cuts and increasing rules from the legislators. 30 years ago, our university used to be 60% funded by the state. Now it is 17% funded by the state. And in that intervening time, the legislators' attempts to tell us how to do our jobs and make rules for us has increased and increased as their funding of us has gone down.

So...yeah. Who knows what is going to happen. But I'm pissed off and disenchanted.

Oh no, she said.

I'm totally the bad mom at school, I think.

To wit: Friday was our first ever Parent Teacher Conference (tm). I mean, you only have one First Parent Teacher Conference ever, in your kid's life. And I missed it. I was in Columbus, Ohio eating bad conference food and trying to stay awake during plenary speeches. I know! I suck.

And then today was a weird day. Milo freaked out at school for some reason. There was a man outside the kids' classroom window on a ladder, doing some repair, and when Milo saw that man he just lost it. He became hysterical and was crying and crying for Daddy, and wanting to know where Daddy was. He seemed afraid. He has never been like this at school before. They called Jake. When I called back a bit later, he had fallen asleep in his teacher's arms on the playground, which is also very strange.

I was talking with his teacher about all of the things that was going on for Milo over the weekend (me being out of town, Halloween, grandparents visiting, crap food full of HFCS and total overstimulation, lousy sleeping, etc.) Then I mentioned I'm going out of town again this Wednesday. And she was all, "Oooooh. No." Big sounds of foreboding in her voice. And then I said weakly, in my defense, "Well, it's a short trip. I'll be back Friday." But I got the feeling the damage was done.

I was relaying this anecdote to Jake tonight. He was kind of indignant that anybody would have an issue with what I do. He said, "Well, not every mother can be unimportant!" Hah. Frankly it is nice to have somebody be a little bitchy on my behalf sometimes! One very nice thing is that Jake is always 100% on my side when it comes to my job. He never questions it or questions what I need to do to do my job. (I do enough of that questioning myself, right?) He is more of a cheerleader for my job than I am. It's nice to have somebody on your side when you are secretly realizing that you suck because you are abandoning your babies two weeks in a row.

Happy Halloween

I am having identity whiplash today. Just spent 3 days at a conference doing conferency things, seeing wonderful old friends and meeting new ones, getting very excited about talks that related Piagetian-esque models of children's mental structures to mathematical structures (for instance, the structure of children's iterating, partitioning, and splitting schemes is isomorphic to a loop, but is not quite a group), staying up too late and getting up too early, and getting elected to an office I didn't even know I'd been nominated for. And then I got back on a plane and came home to the children and my husband and my in-laws and everybody was getting ready for our Halloween extravaganza. And then the Twin Whisperer came by, and our neighborhood had a big party in the park, and Nora actually ate pizza (!!), and then we went trick-or-treating.

Here is a lovely picture Jake snapped of the kids and the Twin Whisperer.

She is so wonderful. I miss having her in our lives on a daily basis, but we still see her every week or so. The kids miss her too, and ask about her, and this evening when she left Nora cried. (I must be tired. I just misspelled "cried" twice.)

The in-laws were supposed to stay for the party and then to answer the door as we took the kids trick-or-treating. But then my MiL had some sort of episode over a perceived slight, I'm not sure, and they took off unexpectedly. But we made do, and Jake answered the door and I took the kids around our street. As soon as Nora got her first candy bar she immediately opened it and started eating it. Imagine her walking down the street with chocolate drool dripping down her face. Classic preschool moment.

Then we got home and yes, I let them eat some candy at the table, until I finally cut them off and said "If you want any more to eat, you can have grapes." Milo said, "Halloween is my favorite!"

This year, my dear, I think I agree with you. Seeing the excitement of Halloween through the kids' eyes was something else.

My mother, by the way, made those incredible costumes. She is so talented. Everybody commented on them and several people remarked "She should go into business!" Milo and Nora are so lucky, just like I was as a kid.

Doc Students These Days!

Am I the only person who gets emails from totally random doctoral students at other institutions basically asking me to do their work for them? This happens once every few months. It is so obnoxious. The one I got today basically said "I'm interested in this topic that you've done research on for my dissertation. Could you please send me appropriate references that will inform me about this topic?" Sometimes I even get requests to send somebody papers.

I always want to respond in a nasty way to these. Something along the lines of "It's called a literature review. This is part of the job of writing a dissertation. Don't ask random professors to do your work for you." Also, where is this person's advisor?

I don't ever send nasty responses to these inquiries. I have fantasies about doing so after tenure, but I probably won't then either.

I'm Tired of Trying to Be Nice

Today I dissed my grad students and told them I would only meet over the phone and not in the office so that I could stay home and write. (I am not as mean as that sounds. I meet with my students all the time.)

So I stayed home all day and got most of my pieces of Ch. 1 written for the proof book, which is a big relief. (The book only has 3 chapters, and Ch. 1 will be the longest). It was an awesome setting for a writing day because it was super windy, grey, and rainy outside and it was warm and cozy inside. I have set up my office in the basement and it is nice and cozy down there. Laundry chugging away nearby, mushroom barley soup simmering on the stove, yum.

Now back to reviewing grants. I spend a lot of time reading the work of people who are way, way smarter than I can ever hope to be and then being simultaneously inspired by the incredible ideas and intimidated because I'll never be like that. But then sometimes I forget that those people don't represent, like, all of academia. And then I'm reminded that there are a lot of people out there doing shallow stuff.

There has been a grant I read that was outstanding and brilliant, but then it got labeled as a conflict of interest for me and so I can no longer review it and will have to leave the room when it's discussed. Oh well. I hope it gets funded.

Conference travel Thursday, grant review travel next week...better get back to work!

p.s. Tomorrow my big outing with the kids for our "at home" day will be a trip to the doctor's to make sure Nora doesn't have bronchitis or croup or pertussis (yes, she's been vaccinated) or consumption or whatever the heck is making her hack her lungs up every night, poor thing. If we're lucky we'll get flu shots too. Whoo boy, lucky kids! I'm sure they're going to just love me tomorrow.

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.

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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.