Give me a break

Bloomberg's breastfeeding initiative will require nurses to give a lecture before signing out formula to new moms in the hospital. Formula will have to be approved by hospital personnel like medication.

You know what? Stigmatizing formula use in the hospital with post-partum, hormonal mothers who just gave birth is not going to help them. It is, however, going to make them feel like shit. Breastfeeding initiation rates in the hospital right after birth are really high. Lots of new moms, like me, who had to use formula in the hospital are already beating themselves up about it, believe me.

The trouble is not that moms don't start out breastfeeding in the hospital. The trouble is that they don't keep doing it. Breastfeeding rates at 6 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months drop dramatically. If you really want to fix that problem, stigmatizing formula use in the hospital isn't going to help as much as implementing policies that would actually make it feasible for women to breastfeed. Policies like, dare I sound like a broken record, generous parental leave. Mandatory break time for pumping. Lactation support. That mom who has to go back to her janitorial job 2 weeks after giving birth and who doesn't have flexible hours, break time to pump, or refrigeration access at work doesn't have any way to keep breastfeeding. Give me a break.

As somebody who basically tortured herself for months and months over breastfeeding, which by the way was really fucking stupid and pointless, I am totally behind the scientific fact that breastmilk is best for babies. Of course it is. And I am damn proud of how I managed to accomplish that against some pretty steep odds. But frankly, the health deficits from not breastfeeding are small to the point that they're difficult to measure. And they are completely dwarfed compared to, for instance, dietary habits once kids start eating solid food. Or healthy childhood sleep habits. Or not being born early by a scheduled c-section. Or having enough activity in their school day now that time for PE and recess has been cut. So I'm still pretty fucking suspicious of campaigns that shame and stigmatize women for not doing something without providing them with the societal-level, institutional supports they need to do it. I'm also suspicious of this focus on breastfeeding, which just so happens is extremely difficult to do unless you have an unusually flexible job or are a stay-at-home mom, when there's not a lot of energy focused on the other stuff that seriously affects kids' health. I'm also suspicious about how a lot of people seem to take it as a moral issue, and have no problems moralizing on the notion that breast is best. All of that smacks of a paternalistic attitude towards women, a belief that we know better than they do when it comes to how to care for their own babies. I am suspicious that we would not be adopting the same paternalistic attitude about something specific to men.

Most women are rational creatures who respond to the pressures around them. If they're not breastfeeding, it might be because there is a good reason. It might be because they haven't had access to information or education about breastfeeding. It might be because they don't know how, it's intimidating, none of their family members did, and they don't have access to support structures to teach them. It might be because their jobs don't provide that kind of flexibility. It might be because there is a problem with how their baby latches or with milk supply or other legitimate issues that make it almost impossible to succeed. If Bloomberg really cared about increasing breastfeeding rates for real, not just initiation rates, he'd launch a campaign to address these real systemic barriers to breastfeeding. But that's a lot harder to do than making nurses lecture new moms in the hospital, I guess.

If This is the Future, I'll Take It

I would just like to note, for posterity, that this morning involved zero fights, tears, or screams. Both kids were fully dressed by the time they came downstairs. After breakfast, I risked taking a shower while they played. When I came back down, they were playing a board game together and not fighting about it! This was the first time they've ever played a board game with just each other (rather than all of us playing as a family).

5 Completely Disconnected Things

1) I did end up taking that walk, but I went at 8 p.m. instead of 5 p.m. Instead of sacrificing cooking, I sacrificed watching Star Trek. (Why yes I do love Star Trek).

2) We are refinancing our house again. At first I thought, really? Again? But the closing costs are ridiculously low ($400) and we're getting a rate of 2.875%! That's insane! We're switching to a 15-year mortgage (from a 20) and my mortgage payment will go up only $14/month.

I always go back and forth on paying down the mortgage faster versus taking that money and investing it instead. Jake would say to do the latter, which I know is typically the smarter thing to do, especially now when our interest rates are so low. On the other hand, investments haven't been that great either, plus I am kind of clueless and intimidated about all that stuff. So far we've taken mostly a middle-of-the road approach by getting shorter-term mortgages but not overpaying each month, and making investments.

Suddenly I feel freaked out because there are all of these articles out now saying that we need to save something crazy like 2 million dollars for retirement.

3) Milo: Nora! Nora! Call me a bad name!
Nora: Poopyhead!
Milo: I know you are but who am I?
Nora: No I'm not!
Milo: No. You're not supposed to say anything. You're just supposed to laugh.
Nora: Ha. Ha. Ha. (Totally fake laugh)

4) I have been having a big long drama with a paper I'm writing. The drama is almost entirely internal, and it stretches back several years. This latest instantiation cropped up last month when I gave a talk and famous dude criticized my work for not doing a specific thing. But meanwhile, I'd been working on this paper that does the actual thing that he said we're not doing. So then I thought, once I'm done with the paper, should I see if he wants to read it?

So it's been hard to write the paper because I imagine him reading it and saying how much it sucks. He has a reputation of being like that. However, I powered through and finished a draft, and I solicited advice from colleagues about whether to send it to him. General consensus was that I should, and even though the feedback will undoubtedly be harsh, I'll hopefully learn something from it. (And I'm strong, I can take harsh feedback). At worst, he'd at least be eliminated as a reviewer (assuming he reads it), which would be a good thing.

Meanwhile I talked to my friend's husband about it - the husband is famous dude's student and collaborator (ABD, living elsewhere). The husband said, send it to me first, and I'll read it with his perspective in mind. So I did. Then he said, how about we talk on the phone about it. Ugh. (Much easier to get difficult feedback by email). Anyway, yesterday we talked on the phone and he gave me over an hour of his time and was extremely helpful in his feedback. It was so generous of him, and it'll help me do one more revision of the paper before sending it to famous guy. I am so grateful for his thorough feedback and eagerness to talk through these ideas with me in such detail!

As time passes and I become more connected I realize how much of successful scholarship is about connections. It's not all just sitting alone in an office thinking deep thoughts, although that's a big part of it too. It's generating ideas with potential collaborators, it's reading one another's papers, it's discussing who to send something to for a friendly read, etc.

5) For 8 years I've been meaning to paint the trim in our master bedroom. The previous owners did a quick and dirty paint job on the walls and didn't tape the trim, so the white trim has splashes of yellow on it. Other parts of the trim are grey from a previous paint job. Last year we replaced our windows so now they're a different color from the trim.

I recently ordered some custom roman shades to fit into our windows, and today we finally took down our old broken shades and painted the window trim, so that we can put the new ones up tomorrow. Each new thing we do makes us more reluctant to leave, that's for sure!

Milo, this morning: Mom I have to tell you thank you for not farting.

Uh...you're welcome?

From the dept. of random: If I have never met you, then I'm not going to go to your wedding shower or your baby shower. Maybe that makes me a cold hearted asshole, but come on. We've never even met. Also? We do things fairly in my house. That means that if you know my husband, or are family with my husband, then my husband is the one who is in charge of getting your gift. Not me.

Today I was so impressed with the kids' swimming. They both swim underwater a little bit; they can propel themselves the couple of feet from their instructor's arms to the steps on their own. Nora does this better than Milo. However, their swim school is not moving them to the next level class next year, because they haven't made enough improvements to be ready. It's like they got an F in swim class! Ack! They're being held back! However, I don't think it matters because they're both learning more and more each week. I felt sad for them and a little defensive, but of course haven't told them anything and am just letting them enjoy swimming and make progress on their own timeline.

Feeling gross from too much indulgence last week when my friends were in town, I'm trying to do something active 6 days out of 7 for the next few weeks. That's either going to the gym, running, biking, or, if I'm not up for those, at least taking a nice little 4-mile walk. However, today is my day home with the kids so I can't do anything until Jake gets home at 5. So will I be able to take a 4-mile walk this afternoon in triple digit temps, and sacrifice making dinner to do it? Sometimes it still feels like a puzzle with no answer when I try to fit in everything I need to do. Inevitably something needs to be sacrificed to something else, and then I just end up doing nothing at all to the fullest.

Here are the kids after swimming today:

This is Nora's drawing of a library in the sky, and two planes approaching the library. Also there are two suns. She's starting the science fiction theme early.

She also enjoys practicing her name.

They Said

Nora: I'll be back in a minute, Mom. I have to go deal with Milo.

Milo (to Jake): Hey, those books were in my room old man!

Retreats, Reunions, and Friends

It was such a privilege to have my 5 colleagues and friends in town last week to write together. I got to know all of them better, and in one case, I got to know somebody for the very first time! We have a lot of connections in our research but somehow had never met before now. Now, after 3 days together, I feel like I know her, and she is lovely. They are all lovely and I was especially grateful to be able to spend a whole week with my friend who was here since last Sunday and have her spend time with Jake and the kids.

Another one of the women who was here is somebody I've known since grad school. I first met her when she was hugely pregnant with her twins, who are now 12. It was so fun to have her meet my kids and interact with them. She has a third child who is 4, like Nora and Milo, and she remarked a few times that she sort of feels sad and sorry for her third child because she is not a twin.

We ended the week with loose but enthusiastic plans to repeat our writing retreat next year. One of my colleagues has already volunteered to host us in her city, which is centrally located. It'd be so great to make this an annual event!

Just as exciting, in less than 2 weeks I get to go spend the weekend in the bay area! My old teacher friends are having our reunion, which we have most years, or at least every other year. There are 7 of us and one of us just had a baby last month, so we are traveling to her (she lives in San Francisco). I can't wait to meet her little baby, and to see everybody! I am also looking forward to returning to the bay area - I haven't been in a couple of years, and always enjoy going back.

W^3

We are smack dab in the middle of our writing week. I am so glad we decided to do it! For one thing, it's been productive. I totally haven't been doing the thing I thought I'd be doing, so far. But instead, I finished one paper, then decided to turn it into a conference proposal, which I wrote and submitted in a day. Then I worked on another joint conference proposal, and now I'm working on a third conference proposal (different conference).

But more important than that, in many ways, has been the opportunity to build camaraderie, collaboration, support and friendship. That has been so wonderful. Our first two colleagues who were here left this afternoon/evening, and the second set of two colleagues arrived this afternoon.

One thing I hadn't thought a lot about ahead of time was how much this opportunity meant to our newest (in the field) colleague. We have a range of people here, from somebody just 2 years out of grad school to an associate professor several years ahead of me. It meant a lot to the newest colleague to be included with some more senior people. I am so glad we included her, and love the idea of continuing to do things like this to support people at different stages in their career development.

Writing Retreat

So this coming week we're going to have a week-long writing retreat! Maybe we should give it a name? Anyway, my friend is coming out on Sunday morning and we get to hang out and check out the town and spend some time with the family. (Unfortunately it's still supposed to be hot and dry here, which is a drag.) Sunday night and Monday night she's staying with me, and we'll write on Monday. Then we'll write on Tuesday, and on Tuesday afternoon two additional colleagues are coming to join us. They're all going to stay at a hotel halfway between my house and campus, and we'll all write together on Wednesday and Thursday. On Thursday, our first two colleagues leave, and two more colleagues come into town. We'll keep writing on Friday and Saturday, and the second set of colleagues fly out on Saturday evening and Sunday morning. And my original friend is staying until Monday afternoon, so we can do more fun stuff together on Sunday!

It's crazy the number of meetings I've had to cancel or say no to for next week. I'm only keeping one meeting on Monday afternoon because it's relevant to the paper I'm going to be writing, but other than that, it'll be only writing. This has already shown me how much every day is interrupted by non-writing events. For me this is hard because in order to get any significant work done, I really need big uninterrupted chunks. Preferably an entire day, or at least half a day. I'm not the kind of person who does well writing in 1 or 2 hour blocks interspersed with other activities. It's too hard to get back into it after an interruption. This week, for instance, I have had at least 2 meetings every single day, which really makes it hard to keep up writing momentum. And it's summer! Why am I meeting so much? (It's mostly students who need help as they work on their prelims / proposals / masters theses / dissertations).

I have been working hard to try to finish up summer paper #1 these last couple of weeks so that I can have that off my plate and do something new for the writing week. I've gotten a bit behind due to getting sick last week, but I'm almost done with it. Next week, my goal is to write summer paper #2 from start to finish and have a draft by the end of the week. That might be completely unrealistic, so we'll see how it works out, but it's nice to have a goal. I won't be starting from scratch, because I do have a conference version of the paper to work from, but I'll be expanding it greatly (from 14 pages to 40+ pages). Meanwhile, my post doc is working on summer paper #3, and my grad students are prepping new transcripts to do the analysis for summer paper #4 (which realistically will be fall paper #1). At any rate, if we can get the first three summer papers out the door by the end of the summer I'll feel pretty good.

I'm excited about writing, but even more I'm excited about getting to spend time with my friends and colleagues. I'm looking forward to being able to talk, hang out, go out to dinner, share our writing issues, and basically just spend time with five other awesome women in my field!

Dirt Clods and Fish Heads

Yesterday evening we went to a party for our friend who had a birthday. It was held at a park adjacent to the lake, and there was a pavilion with a band (our friend plays the harmonica), and there was a playground nearby as well. With a giant field of dirt. Everything is dusty because we're in a drought and it's been super hot for a month, so all of the grass around here has died and turned brown. It looks like California. This is the first time I've ever seen this here. The corn is not doing well. Our plants are in terrible shape. Everybody's garden is in terrible shape. Usually our town is super green all through the summer, but this year has been a little odd.

So anyway, we end up at the playground with all the other parents of little kids but Milo spends 90% of his time playing in the dirt field. Like, literally picking up giant clods of dirt and throwing them. Or kicking them like balls. Just making a giant mess of himself, having a blast running around in the dirt with a couple of other little boys. I mean, his whole face is covered in dirt, his clothes are filthy, his shoes are filthy. This one lady had a child who looked younger, about three, who also wanted to go play in the dirt field with Milo and a couple of other boys. She wouldn't let him. He said, "Why not? Why do those other kids get to play there?" She said, "Their parents think it's okay." Then she looked at me.

I was like, come on. It's summer. They're kids. It's just dirt. We'll pop him in the bath when we get home. Who cares?

Later we wandered down to the lake. I'm looking out over the water, enjoying the scenery, and then Milo says "Hey Mom, look at this!" And I look over and he's holding in his bare hand a fish head. Not, like, a new fish head, but a fish head that is so old that it's mostly a fish head skeleton, a fish skull I guess you would say, but still with some of the rotting fish flesh on it. The rotting flesh fish skull was huge, almost as big as Milo's head. Oh my god, how disgusting. Jake said, "Go wash your hands off in the water!" So he plunges in there, with his dirty sneakers, and thrusts his hand into the hot lake water, steaming with milfoil weeds.

Look, between rotting fish skulls and dirt clods, I'll take the dirt any day.

Merit Pay

For the last 6 years we've had no cost of living raises, no merit raises, and then we had furloughs (temporary pay cuts) and then starting last year a permanent pay cut. But, every year we do a yearly merit exercise where we have to report on our productivity (how much we've published, the talks we gave, the service we did, what our teaching evaluation scores were, etc.) It's a time-consuming exercise for the 7-person committee who ranks every individual faculty member in the department. They read through our reports, they read some sample publications for each person, and then they rank each of us on a scale of 1-5, except it's really a scale of 1-10 because they'll do stuff like give you a 4.5.

So anyway, in the past few years people have been grumbling about doing this exercise, which is also time consuming for each of us to put our reports together, when there hasn't been any money for merit raises anyway. The justification for continuing to do the exercise is that they use a formula that combines your score for your current year with your average score for the past couple of years, to even out the natural ebbs and flows in productivity. So I guess the idea was that we'd need that historical merit data should money ever come back for merit raises.

This year, however, there is money for a small (I think 2-3%) merit raise! The legislators released this money with the stipulation that it is to go to at most 1/3 of the people on campus. So 2/3 won't get any raise at all. Which is kind of interesting to me, actually, because there's a new human resources proposal out now which has as a recommendation a total doing away with cost-of-living raises, which have admittedly been theoretical rather than actual in the past 6 years, and a complete reliance on merit pay alone to get raises. But if it only ever goes to the top 1/3 (however you measure that), I guess it'd kind of suck to be a decent professor, better than 60% of your peers, but never get any raise year to year, not even for a cost of living increase.

(This is why new assistant professors come in making a lot more money than people who have been around 5-10 years. Those people's salaries have stagnated while the budget for new salaries goes up each year so that we can successfully recruit new faculty.)

Anyway, Mentor was curious what'll happen to this merit money. How will it be allocated? Will the chair just use the formula we've established based on our merit exercise and use that to determine the top-scoring 1/3 faculty? He asked our chair, who cryptically responded "I have a list of people in mind." What does that mean? Meanwhile, there is a recommendation that people who have received market adjustments in the past couple of years (like me) not be first for consideration.

Which is fine, because I did get that raise, plus I am getting my tenure raise now, so I'm in good shape. However, if this is the only year for a while that the money will come for merit raises, it's bad timing on my part. For the past several years I've gotten a perfect 5 out of 5 on my merit rating, but that probably won't last. It made sense that I did that in the years leading up to tenure, but it's a pace that probably isn't sustainable forever. Too bad that I'm probably not going to be eligible this time around since my scores put me on the top, but easy come, easy go.

I have no idea why people are against cost of living increases. Isn't that, like, kind of normal in most industries? Like, you get more pay over time the longer you've been there? Maybe people don't like it for professors because they're worried about that mythical tenured deadwood I hear about sometimes. In our department there is one guy who isn't really research active. He's close to retirement and his salary is lower than an assistant professor's salary. It's less than half of what our strongest full professors make. So I guess you can coast on your research after you have tenure, just putting your time in on teaching and service, but your salary will suck.

Review: Extra Firm Tofu

 I took the photos off the camera Nora uses today. There were a number of interesting ones (and one disturbing one in which I look like a real-life giant). I've noticed that Nora has a self-portrait series featuring her feet:

Meanwhile, I decided to try giving cooking with tofu a try. I have never liked tofu and usually when I order a dish at a Thai restaurant (the kind you can get with chicken, pork, shrimp, beef, or tofu), I'll order it with tofu and then ask them to hold the tofu. I've only cooked with tofu once or twice in my life and thought it was gross.

I decided to give it another chance in the form of spicy basil tofu. This looked like a simple dish featuring everything I like (except the actual tofu): basil, bell peppers, red chili peppers, garlic. I chose extra-firm tofu and really squeezed the heck out of it onto the paper towels to get out as much moisture as possible. Then I squeezed it some more, and then some more. I cut it before squeezing it to maximize the moisture removal. 

Then when it was time to stir-fry the tofu I fried it in a tablespoon of peanut oil with the chilis and garlic on very high heat. I let it sear the tofu on both sides and get a little brown, which really firmed it up. Add in some bell peppers and some summer peas (my addition), basil, and a light sauce and it actually turned out to be awesome.

Conclusion: Tofu is good if cooked properly in the right kind of dish. I enjoyed this dish a lot, rather than just tolerating it. The peppers and peas were so fresh and crisp - they only need about 2 minutes to become perfect and bright. We threw the tofu dish together with some rice and that and a fruit salad made for a perfect vegan summer meal. Milo liked the tofu as well, eating several pieces. I'll definitely make this again, with just one modification next time: I'll let it sear just a little bit longer to make it even more brown and firm on all sides.

We Are Idiots, Part 134

Just a hint to any parents out there who might possibly be as dumb as us, although it's hard to imagine any such people even exist: If dad gets a tick on him, don't mention that at dinner. Don't ruminate out loud about how we'll have to check the kids over for ticks, piquing their interest about what ticks are and how they suck blood. Don't explain to them about how some insects drink blood for their food. Especially don't mention anything about how ticks burrow into skin.

Unless, of course, you want a freaked out kid up all night worried about how there are ticks inside of her.

Sometimes I think that the hardest thing about being a parent is when you're sick but you still have to take care of the kids.

Hot

It's like 104 degrees right now as I write this, and humid. People are freaking out. We get some hot weather in the summer, like in the 90s, but for most of our summers we have weather in the 80s usually. So this weather is pretty unusual for my part of the country. This is more like D.C. weather, or southeastern weather...or St. Louis weather.

And you know what, it is totally fine. I have been biking to work instead of walking. I feel like I need to do that because I get so sweaty outside walking that it'd be rude to show up to work drenched in sweat. It's a short (7 minute) bike ride, mostly coasting on the way to work, so it's not too bad. But otherwise, my work is air conditioned. My house is air conditioned. My car is air conditioned. We are lucky, lucky, lucky.

On the 4th of July the power went out. We were actually out in the park with our friends, and then I came home to find that I couldn't open the garage. I thought there was something wrong with the garage door but it was just a power outage. Our friends were worrying about the power outage lasting a long time and told us we could sleep at their house, but I knew we'd be fine in the basement, which stays cool naturally. Anyway, the power was only out for 20 minutes. We have amazingly good power consistency here, knock on wood. This is only the third time, I think, that we've lost power in the 8 years I've lived here and it's never been for more than an hour. What a contrast to people back east who have been without power for days!

The hardest part about living in extreme heat and humidity without air conditioning has always been sleeping, for me. When I was in college, we lived in a 3rd floor walk up without any air conditioning. It was probably a few degrees hotter inside the apartment, if that was even possible. The weather I'm experiencing now as an unusual heat wave was just what we called "summer". It was hard to sleep when it was so hot. I used to have a spray bottle with ice water by the bed, and I'd periodically spray myself with it to cool down. At some point, fans stop helping. It just feels like you've got a giant hair dryer blowing on you.

At night I would pick out my clothes for the next day and then put them in the freezer. The next morning, I'd take them right out of the freezer and put them on. It was a refreshing 30 seconds or so.

It was uncomfortable, but you got used to it. I think it's harder to get used to this weather now because we're so used to air conditioning.

Birthday pictures

There was a parade at school.

And red, white, and blue popsicles.

It's fucken hot here!

I got a haircut today! Also, I am trying to show off my huuuuuge muscles. Look out! It's like I'm the hulk! I will crush you! Arrrrrr...

All I Want for my Birthday is a Healthy Tooth

When I am nervous about something, even subconsciously, I get stomach problems. In fact I might think that I'm coming down with something only to realize oh, no it's just that I have to give a talk. Things that create stomach trouble:

-- Giving talks
-- First day of any new class
-- The dentist

I really hate the dentist. Now I have to get a root canal and a crown. That is three separate long appointments spread out over the summer. I'm sure it'll be completely terrible. Also, it's not covered by my insurance anymore, so it's going to cost $1200. Thanks, evil governor, for making our insurance simultaneously more expensive and lousier!

(Silver lining - at least I got my wisdom tooth out last year before the insurance changes kicked in. That probably would have cost a crapload of money if I'd waited until this year.)

Great Day

Today was a great day. Jake was all freaked out because it was supposed to be 100 today (although my computer only said 94), and I said, why not go to the pool?

We woke up, and the kids played in the park with Jake while I took a morning run before it got too ghastly hot. I recently downloaded the free app Map My Run (works for walks too) and was pretty psyched to discover that my pace is the same as what my average pace was back in San Diego 9 years ago. Not blisteringly fast, not even fast or medium fast, but definitely faster than, like, a year ago! Between walking and running I do 12-16 miles a week which is, I know, basically nothing. But I also have my gym class twice a week on top of that, and it's pretty much what I can manage right now what with working and the kids, and it feels nice.

Then I took Milo to the grocery store and he was completely delightful, like he always is at the store.

Then after the kids' nap we packed up our stuff and went to the pool, which was super fun. It was in the mid nineties and the pool was like bathwater, not at all cold, and I've got the only two kids on the planet who still start shivering and shaking after 10 minutes. They'd both be literally shivering all over, with blue lips, but insist they were fine and wanted to stay in. I made them get out every so often and warm up in the sun. Our friends joined us with their baby and everybody had a great time. Thanks to swimming lessons both kids really enjoy being in the water now, even though neither of them is even close to swimming. Nora was great about putting her face under water and taking risks and trying to swim a little bit. She has perfect form, floating on her back, but she still sinks like a rock. Milo does too. I think the fact that neither of them has any protective fat means they sink and get cold, but they still have a blast.

We had so much fun that we stayed through dinner time, eating apples and peanut butter and cherries, plums, and homemade granola bars, and only left when it was bedtime. Driving home at 7:15 it was still 91 degrees out.

Milo: Summer is my favorite season. And winter. Summer and winter. And fall.

Me too, Milo - but especially that part about summer.

Deja Vu

CSN&Y reminds me of college. So does 98 degree humidity...but also CSN&Y. I know, we were total retro ironic hippies. Especially my first college roommate. She was some sort of genius who graduated high school at 16 and wore her hair long and never drank, preferring to smoke pot. Now she's a SAH mom who homeschools her kids and raises chickens and has a gluten free recipes blog.

My roommate had a project with her dad when she was in high school. Together they found a non-functioning Morris Mini, and they bought it and then repaired it and got it into working condition. She took this car to college with her, even though freshmen couldn't have cars, so she parked it on the street and had to move it every night between 2 and 3 a.m. (This was not a problem given our lifestyle).

This thing was little.

The driver's side was on the right. When October came, we got fall break, which was basically a Friday off. My roommate was from Chicago so we decided to drive from St. Louis to Chicago with another friend of ours in that Morris Mini over fall break. It was a 6-hour drive. It was a lot of fun. It was very exciting for me and the other friend, Chad, to be going on a road trip on our own. It was less exciting for my roommate, who had had basically enormous amounts of freedom and autonomy for a number of years already, to a degree that impressed my teenaged self. Somehow we ended up with only one cassette tape in the car, which was Deja Vu by CSN&Y. And we listened to that same tape over and over and over and over again on the trip.

Nowadays the idea of driving from St. Louis to Chicago in a 25-year old Morris Mini is not my idea of the best time, but for an 18 year old, it was truly outstanding.

(Not off Deja Vu, but still a good one):

0. The kids got haircuts!

Before:

After:

1. My chair told me he got a letter confirming my tenure from the board of regents, after I asked him about it about 18 times. (I never got any official notification at any stage of the process). So now it is official! Hooray!

Yes, at other institutions professors are usually notified (usually at every stage of the process). Of course, at other institutions it's also not unusual to publish some sort of standards for tenure, and some information about the process, instead of everything always being super secret the way it is on our campus.

2. Last night Milo and Nora were playing in the park with their next door neighbors, two girls 5 and 8, who they love playing with. Milo had his iron man mask on. They were being super heros. It was time for the girls to go, and the younger girl chased Milo to hug him goodbye. He ran away. She pursued. He tripped and fell, prone on the grass, with his iron man mask over his head, defenseless as she caught up to him and hugged him. Yes, it was as cute as it sounds.

Milo is being kind of weird these days. He cries really easily, much more so than is typical for him. At the same time, he's a total dick to Nora. I'm kind of at my wit's end with all the fighting and bickering. Even today with all of my interventions there has been kicking from each kid, privileges lost, a door slammed on somebody's foot...it never ends. Seriously, save me from the fighting.

Remember when they were all cute and innocent? *sigh*

3. There have been some news stories about how U.S. kids are super spoiled. I think this is kind of true and kind of not true. Kids are loaded up with more and more stuff than ever before. Toys, sports equipment, phones, computers, clothes. Kids have also become accustomed to having adults at their beck and call, instead of the other way around. Middle class or upper class kids may not be doing the kinds of chores they were doing a generation or two ago, because those chores may be outsourced now (people hire house cleaners, gardeners to mow their lawns, etc.)

At the same time, kids now have about three times as much homework to deal with as we had when my generation was in school. They're expected to be in a lot more sports and other activities. They're busier, always being shuttled from one activity to the next, staying up late to complete their homework. My kids aren't even in elementary school yet but I'm totally against this homework arms race. I don't think it helps kids at all.

So, Milo and Nora are 4 and a half. At this age we make them clean up their toys, admittedly in a pretty haphazard way. They also have to make their beds every morning, put their clothes in the laundry basket, and they clear their places after each meal. Before meals I have them put their placemats out. Is that enough chores for their age? I have no idea. Maybe they should be doing more, but it's not clear to me what the more would involve. They both help us when we clean the house, because they're still at the stage where they think that's fun. They don't get an allowance. I was thinking of maybe instating an allowance when they're 5, to the tune of perhaps a dollar a week. Or maybe 50 cents a week?

It's funny to see how they each deal with their little tasks. Nora is better at remembering to bring her plate to the sink after a meal. Milo has to be reminded more often. Milo is fastidious about making his bed every morning. I never have to tell him. I have to tell Nora every morning, and she balks at it, complaining that it's a big job. I'm hoping that her pissing and moaning reaction about this now, and learning that she has to do it anyway, will teach her some discipline so that we won't be dealing with teenage levels of pissing and moaning at every unenjoyable task when they're older. But that's probably wishful thinking.

However, last night I decided to publicly (in front of Nora) talk to Milo about how proud I am of him for making his bed every morning without me asking. And lo and behold, for the first time ever, Nora came down this morning informing me that she had already made her bed! She was very pleased with herself.

Last night Milo tore his Spiderman sticker. This is a sticker he got at the audiologist's a few weeks ago. He was so, so upset about this. He cried for about half an hour about this sticker. We did lots of cuddling and hugging to make him feel better, but it didn't 100% do the trick. After he went to bed Jake said maybe he'd try to find Milo another Spiderman sticker the next day. I thought, that sounded like a good idea. Then I thought, maybe after swimming I'd take the kids to the store and see if we could find a Spiderman sticker.

Then I slept on it, and woke up, and realized oh no, that's actually a terrible idea. As much as I want to make Milo feel better about his sticker tearing, I don't think that us fixing the problem for him the very next day would be good for him. It's better for Milo to experience the sadness of tearing his sticker, no matter how much that stinks, and then get over it on his own without his parents making it all better right away. I think I read that somewhere in a parenting book. That parents make the mistake of fixing their kids' problems, so that kids never experience the little heartbreaks that are a natural part of life, and then you end up with bigger kids and adolescents and adults who are completely unequipped to handle any hardship whatsoever. So if your kid is being careless and drops his ice cream cone, parents might be tempted to just get them another one right away instead of letting the kid experience the disappointment of losing his ice cream. So on reflection I decided to not get Milo another Spiderman sticker, and let him just get over it. We comforted him with hugs and cuddling, but we didn't make the problem go away by replacing his sticker.

Anyway, he hasn't forgotten about it today, but he seems more or less over it.

Summer Sunday

Oh, hey, you know what happens when you go over to your friend's house on a Friday night and let your kids run around wild with their kids all night, and they end up staying up until 11:30 p.m. because all the parents were having too much fun drinking wine and beer? We get one totally unaffected child, and one complete mess of a child. Nora was fine on Saturday and even skipped her nap. Milo was a disaster - anything less than his daily 14 hours of sleep and he falls apart completely!

Funny phrase that Milo has learned that he uses in a totally inappropriate way: "Doubt it." So, like, I'll say, "Nora, what'd you do in school today?" She'll say, "I made a painting." And Milo will say, "DOUBT IT."

Tonight Jake grilled some black bean burgers on the grill and then we ate dinner outside on the patio table, which the kids thought was the most fun ever. I do enjoy listening to the cicadas just getting started and looking around at the sky and the trees while eating dinner.

I had a very interesting conversation with my friend, my friend who is super powerful and impressive in a way I'll never, ever be. (She's on leave from our department to do a stint in the white house - she's on the President's advisory panel.) Anyway, she and her husband are kind of ticked off at the lousy treatment my area is getting from our department, and her take on it was that I have a choice. Choice one, I can continue to eschew the political bureaucrat's lifestyle and just hunker down and do my stuff and, at best, cultivate a culture of personality where I'll have my own cohort of grad students every year but not much more. Choice two, I can be all political and shit, having strategy meetings with key members of the department, meeting with them one on one and sucking up to them before important votes to make sure I've got the votes on my side, and focus on building not just my career, but a program. In other words, thinking programatically instead of individually. Because in our department, that's how you have to operate in order to make any real progress at all. This includes things like going to certain public meetings and lectures when the dean will be there, sucking up to her and provosts and other administrators, and basically building up a cache of goodwill over time.

The reality is that as the senior member of my area, this should be Mentor's job, but he's not going to do it. So I can either choose to do it, and think big, or choose not to do it, and accept that I'll probably keep running into the same roadblocks year after year after year.

So...do I want to build a career, or do I want to build a program? Do I want to build and maintain an individual lab, or do I want to build and maintain a system?

I have been reflecting on the past year or so that I need a different kind of mentor now. Not a research mentor, but more like a mid-career mentor who can teach me how to deal with bad deans and frustrating bureaucracies. My friend's year and counting at the white house has taught her all of this stuff, and now I am getting this advice that is probably true and valuable advice. Of course, it's not at all what I want to hear.