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.