So I now have a five-year-old. Apparently a year does make a difference, because I was a thousand times more pleased with the birthday decisions he made this year than with those he made last year. This year, James and I made cupcakes to take into his preschool class, we spent the afternoon at the Strong Museum, and we had dinner at Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse, a family favorite, mostly because of all the dead animals on the walls, but also because of the really delicious steaks.
We had a fun experience at Bugaboo -- not only did we get a free dessert for James' birthday, but we got a free meal as well, because our waiter sucked. First, it took at least 15 minutes from the time we were seated for him to amble over to our table; then he forgot our salads. Those things weren't really a big deal to us, but they felt so badly about it, and kept apologizing, and the manager came over to offer to deduct the price of one entree (not even James' meal, but one of the expensive meals!). They were feeling so guilty that we didn't have the heart to tell them that they forgot to include James' fruit with his meal. Our waiter had a terrible hairstyle -- bleach blonde, bangs to his chin in the front, short and spiky all over the back -- so we joked that maybe his bad hair was distracting him from his serving duties. (I have no problem with people styling their hair however they like, but I also have no problem with making fun of people who choose to style their hair in ridiculous fashions.) Overall it was really a nice meal, made that much better by the free entree.
Now I'm debating with myself over whether or not to throw James a birthday party. I know I sound like a terrible mother, but... I don't really want to have a birthday party. And I already told him we'd have one, so I'm even more terrible if I don't go through with it. But there are the issues of who to invite (and who to leave out), when to have it so that most kids can come, and what to do with a bunch of four-and-five-year-olds. But I've got to decide if I want to have it this weekend. Part of me is just hoping that James will forget, because it's so much easier not to have a party. But then the Terrible Mother Guilt kicks in. I guess I should probably just suck it up and have the party.
Overall I think he did enjoy his birthday. He had one disappointment, though -- the free cake at dinner was chocolate. Can you believe this is my kid? He insisted that the cupcakes we make for school be vanilla with vanilla frosting, and that's what he's requested for a cake as well. If I hadn't birthed the kid myself, sometimes I really would wonder if he was mine.
09 January 2007
birthday recap
08 January 2007
2004:
2006:
06 January 2007
maybe i'm just secretly immortal
I was randomly looking at my blogger profile today, and something looked wrong to me. Wait a minute, I thought, I wasn't born in the year of the Rat. I was born in the year of the Cock. Then I saw my age: 250? Haha, I thought, somehow an extra zero got tacked onto the end of my age. When I logged in to fix my age, though, I saw that it wasn't my age itself that was messed up, but my birth year. Which was listed as 1756.
Now, there's no way I made that kind of typo. I don't know what's going on, but I think it's pretty hilarious that 1756 is even an allowable number to be entered into that box.
(I also think it's pretty hilarious that I take a paragraph to tell what could basically be a one-line story, but maybe that's just me.)
05 January 2007
home again
We are home from the west coast, happy and tired, and after two days, still adjusting to east coast time. We had a nice relaxing vacation, full of lazing around and playing video games (I finally got to try Nintendo Wii, and it's as fun as everyone says -- and good for the kiddos, too), playing board games, watching movies (mostly kids' or family movies: we saw Happy Feet in the theater, and at Greg's parents we watched Cars, Over the Hedge, The Fox and the Hound (which still manages to make me cry after all these years), The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, The Sword in the Stone, Wallace and Gromit's Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and Batteries Not Included*, which we found in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart [which I only shopped at for lack of other options, really] along with Short Circuit. Score! And let's not forget the quintessential Christmas movie, A Christmas Story.), eating lots of delicious unhealthy food, and other things that probably contributed to a significant holiday weight gain. It was nice to see Greg's family again, and always fun to hang out with his siblings.
The holidays were nice, too. It was a Star Wars Christmas -- the boys got cool gifts such as Star Wars Transformers (which impressed Greg's friends as much as our kids), Star Wars blankets (made by Greg's sister), a lightsaber video game, Star Wars potato-heads, Star Wars action figures... am I forgetting anything? It was a lot of Star Wars stuff. George Lucas makes his living off of people like us. And New Year's was nice, if not terribly exciting. We spent it at Greg's grandparents' house with his family, where James had his first taste of champagne (accidentally! I thought it was sparkling cider!) and Greg and I stayed up long into the night playing games with his brother and sister.
The other notable event on our trip was the flight home. We hit the worst turbulence I've ever been in , and it was actually really scary. Three times I had the stomach-dropping feeling you get on a roller-coaster, and I wasn't the only one, because the third time was accompanied by a collective gasp from my fellow passengers. Greg comforted a slightly freaked-out James while I held on to a sleeping Evan for dear life during the shaking and jumping around. Scary. But obviously we made it through safely.
I didn't take many photos, mostly out of laziness, but the few I did take, I'll try to post on the Yahoo site this weekend. I'm probably forgetting to mention a lot of things, but now that I'm home I have more time for the Internet and I'm feeling an urge to blog after my short break. Of course, every time I say that my mind immediately goes blank and I can't think of a single thing to write about. But Kim's latest post has inspired me to write a similar post soon, and I'm hoping to get together a review of 2006, and James' birthday is coming up in a few days, so as long as I take the time to sit down and write, I will have things to write about.
__________________________________________________________
*Guess who wrote Batteries Not Included? Brad Bird, of The Incredibles and Iron Giant fame -- two of my favorite American animated films. And I thought he couldn't be any cooler.
18 December 2006
on modesty and responsibility
Okay, so blogging is obviously the last thing I should be doing right now, but I do need the occasional break from laundry and errands and packing. And I've actually got a real post in mind today! It's something that I've come across repeatedly lately, and something to which I've already admitted being somewhat shallow about, but it's provoked a conflict between my maternal side and my feminist side, which usually manage to co-exist quite nicely, but once in a while I run into a hurdle.
One of the biggest reasons I've always been a little bit sad about having only boys is the clothes. Sure, I have an adorable neice who I can buy clothing for, but I hardly see her, so it's not quite the same. Boys' clothes are all dinosaurs and rocketships and vehicles and sports, which gets pretty old pretty quickly. But girls have skirts and dresses and lots of colors and styles and accessories! (Like I said, shallow. I should probably just get a doll.)
But for a while, I've been noticing a trend in girls' clothing. Styles that used to be marketed only to adult women have started being marketed to teenagers, and now pre-teens and younger. It's always been the case, I think, that little boys' clothes are imitations of men's clothing, and now girls' clothes are starting to imitate women's clothing. The difference, though, is that there's an element of sexuality in women's clothing that doesn't exist in men's clothing, and that sexuality is beginning to trickle down to younger and younger girls. There is something that really makes me uncomfortable about seeing young girls in halter tops and miniskirts and teeny bikinis, about seeing thongs and tiny bras in the girls' department in a clothing store. It's not that I think girls shouldn't be comfortable or wear whatever they want to, but I think that the sexualization and objectification that is imposed on adult women by American culture shouldn't be pushed onto young, pre-sexual girls.
I've been browsing some parenting blogs lately, and recently came across the Moms for Modesty statement. I agree with a lot of what they say: encouraging modesty and refraining from sexualizing girls, teaching girls to value inner beauty, supporting retailers who sell age-appropriate clothing. But one part of their statement really caught my attention: "I believe that it is unwise and unfair to taunt boys and young men by permitting my daughter(s) to dress in an immodest manner. "
As a mother of boys, I have a real problem with this statement. Sure, I believe in keeping girls' clothing girlish, but not because I believe that girls have any kind of duty to protect boys from being "taunted". Something I firmly believe, and which I've already begun to teach James, is that you cannot control or change the behavior of anyone else; all that you can do is control your own reactions to the behavior of others. I believe it's unwise and unfair to assume that all boys will react the same way to seeing a girl dressed "immodestly", and I also think it's unwise and unfair to expect girls to have to predict and prevent the emotional and hormonal reactions of boys. I think it would be far more effective to encourage boys to control themselves no matter what a girl is wearing.
This attitude is something I've seen before, primarily from right-wingers and particularly from religious types. It's this idea that men and boys are somehow unable to control themselves in the face of hormones, and so it's the job of women and girls to lead them not into temptation. It reminds me of a conversation I had with a former neighbor of mine, which makes me cringe every time I recall it.
We were talking about this very issue: modest clothing for girls, and particularly teenage girls. She was in favor of modest clothing, not, apparently because of any benefit it might have for the girls involved, or even because of her religious views. No, her husband had told her that men are so visually stimulated, much moreso than women, that to see a young girl in a midriff-baring top drew his attention not only to the exposed skin, but to the suggestion of skin covered as well. In my neighbor's words, seeing a teenage girl in revealing clothing at the mall turned her husband's thoughts to that young girl's vagina. She believed that girls should dress modestly to prevent the visual temptation of men.
I was pretty appalled, and practically ran home to ask Greg whether that was really a universal male quality, as my neighbor's husband claimed, and Greg was as weirded out as I was. Either Greg is a very convincing liar, or my neighbor had managed to convince his wife that his disturbing reactions were not only not disturbing, but normal and typical. And perhaps he really does believe that all men are like him. But my experience tells me that this is not true.
So as a mother, as someone who thinks children are exposed too soon to the ugly things in this world, I would like to see young girls dressing more girlishly. The rampant sexuality of American pop culture is creeping into younger and younger minds, and I'm really uncomfortable with that. Women are objectified at young enough ages already; we don't need to lower the bar. But as a feminist mother of boys, I believe that women and girls are deserving of respect no matter what they're wearing. To focus on and disparage the clothing choices of a person is to show disrespect for that person. I want my sons to be able to look at a girl in low-rider jeans with exposed thong and see her not as a walking vagina, but as a person. Above all I want my sons to understand that they are responsible for their actions. If a scantily-clad girl turns their heads and inspires lustful thoughts, she is not responsible for the emotions her appearance has invoked in them. My sons are the only people responsible for the thoughts that run through their heads, and how they express those thoughts.
To expect a girl to alter her appearance in anticipation of the reactions of boys is like expecting a restaurant to eliminate desserts from its menu for fear of exciting the gluttons. It's an unfair burden to place on girls, and it excuses boys from taking responsibility for themselves. If I were a man, I think I'd be a little insulted at the implication that I am unable to control myself in the face of temptation. So let's give men and boys some credit here -- human beings, regardless of gender, are capable of controlling themselves. The idea that they're not is harmful to both girls and boys.
17 December 2006
beginning to feel like christmas
We are two days from leaving for Washington for Christmas with Greg's family, and we just had an early Christmas celebration with my mom, and we have been listening to Christmas music and watching Christmas movies and finally, finally it is starting to feel a little like Christmas around here.
I don't know whether it's the lack of snow, my refusal to set foot inside a mall, or if I'm just too busy planning this year, but I really haven't been in the Christmas spirit much at all yet. So it was a little surprising to feel so festive this weekend for our early Christmas.
Some photos:
The "Christmas Eve" spread I prepared (with lots of help from Wegmans)
The boys waiting to open gifts on "Christmas" morning
James modeling his new Star Wars t-shirt
The Christmas stocking I knitted for the boysYes, I knitted only one Christmas stocking for my two boys, because I am a self-taught knitter who makes lots of mistakes, and this was the first thing I've made that wasn't a scarf or a simple hat. Regardless, I'm pretty pleased with my handiwork. I was also pretty pleased with my "Christmas Eve" dinner -- the first I've ever prepared. Just let me say, thank goodness for prepared foods at the supermarket, because it was very tasty and I barely had to do a thing. Also, cranberry-cinnamon goat cheese on French bread? Quite possibly one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten, ever.
But the best part of the weekend was watching my boys enjoy their new toys, and seeing the imaginative ways in which they played with them. Little people riding stuffed dragons, Superman fighting Storm Troopers, Batman as part of a plastic ham and cheese sandwich. They make me laugh.
Today and tomorrow will probably be devoted to cleaning and packing before we leave in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. I'm making no promises about the quantity or quality of my blogging until after the new year. So until next time, whenever that may be.
14 December 2006
this is a little too early
Today in the mail I received a package with a letter informing me that it's time to register my child for kindergarten.
Kindergarten!
Okay, even though we're still less than halfway through the school year, the nursery school he's currently at starts holding open houses and accepting applications in January every year, so I know it's not really too early. But there's an element of competition to nursery school that doesn't exist in public kindergarten, where they have to take everyone whether they like it or not. You wouldn't think they'd need so much advance notice. But no. I've got a 12-page packet full of forms (mostly health information) to fill out before scheduling a registration appointment for early January.
The biggest problem with all of this, of course, is that our future, our summer and fall of 2007, is one big ol' question mark. We don't know when Greg will finish his PhD. We don't know where we will be living or when we'll be moving there (though we recently got a notice that we're expected to move out of student housing at the end of August next year, so we'll be moving sometime before then). Now I have to start worrying about kindergarten preparation, without knowing where James will be going to kindergarten? No fair.
Luckily, James is not interested in or excited about kindergarten at all, so he won't be disappointed by the uncertainty. I don't know why exactly, but so far he's pretty resistant to the idea of kindergarten. First he said it was because he didn't want to learn to hold a writing implement correctly, but now that he's got that down, he's coming up with other, seemingly random, excuses. Today he doesn't want to go to kindergarten because he doesn't know any math or science (incorrect -- he knows a good amount of both for his age) and he's worried about having too much homework (I'm guessing this comes from being good buddies with a 2nd grader). So I suppose he'll be relieved if I can't get things together to register him for kindergarten. Which, really, is not a serious worry. I know he'll end up going to school somewhere, and I'm fairly confident that he will love it.
But this is just another thing to add to the list, another item to cram into those summer months that are already starting to look a little crowded. I am not really looking forward to that.
11 December 2006
weekend highlights
My sister and I had a nice little mini-vacation in Washington DC. We managed to pack a lot of interesting things into one day and one morning. I'd have to say that my personal highlights from the weekend were the museum in Ford's Theatre, and the Vietnam War Memorial, for many reasons. I was also impressed by seeing the Constitution in the National Archives, and the FDR Memorial.
Ford's Theatre was a lot more interesting than I was expecting, and I was expecting it to be interesting. I was kind of amazed by the quantity of memorobilia, and it was startling to see just how widely Lincoln's death was mourned, how passionately and deeply people felt about his assassination, especially when I imagine what the reaction would be if the current president were assassinated. Not that there wouldn't be a lot of grief from many people, but I can't imagine loving a president the way people loved Lincoln in his time.
The Vietnam Memorial affected me in a surprising way. Seeing photos of young soldiers propped up against the base of the wall really drove home the fact that the Vietnam War is really not that far behind us. To think that some people visit that memorial because they are still grieving someone close to them was sobering in a way that the WWII memorial, for example, was not. It is a part of our past yet still very present for many people.
I hadn't even known before my trip that there was an FDR memorial, but it's really quite large and beautiful, with four separate outdoor "rooms," one for each term of his presidency, and lots of waterfalls and inspirational quotes carved into the stone.
Other notable events for me:
- Falling in love with Van Gogh's painting of Roses, which I'd never seen before, as well as delighting in many Monets in the National Gallery of Art
- Eating swordfish, gnocchi, and pomegranate for the first time
- Being photographed with R2D2 and C3P0 (my kids were so excited to hear about that)
Being surrounded by so much history and government was kind of inspiring -- especially seeing the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights in the National Archives. It was a reminder that despite how dissatisfied I may be with the current government, there is a tradition in this country to be proud of. I guess I felt some faint stirrings of patriotism in my cynical little heart. And now I'm really looking forward to going back some time, to taking my kids to all of the museums and monuments and memorials and teaching them about history, democracy, civic pride.
Oh, my, I believe I'm getting a little starry-eyed here. Anyway, it was a nice weekend, a much-needed break from my wonderful (yet demanding) children, and some quality time with a person I love. There are photos (lots and lots of them -- we got a new, huge memory card for the camera last week) posted on my Yahoo page if you're interested in seeing how goofy we were.
Edit: I can't believe I totally forgot to mention the amazing Rembrandt exhibit we saw, and an equally amazing exhibit of Bibles before the year 1000. Both fascinating -- could have easily spent hours looking at each.
08 December 2006
friday photos
We have our first real snow! This was the view from my back door this morning:
I like to joke that the first snowfall of the year immediately makes everyone forget how to drive. You either have someone inching along at 10mph on clear roads because there's snow on the sidewalks, or you have someone who's forgotten to brush off their windows and mirrors flying past you, spraying slush, at 20mph above the limit. People instantly become idiots on the road.
This morning, my friends, I became one of those people. I was rounding a curve and when I hit the brakes I started to slide. So I let up on the brakes but I couldnt' change direction or I would've hit another car. So I crashed into the curb. Luckily the only injuries were a hubcap knocked askew, and a little bruising to my ego. I suppose, though, since that's the closest I've come to a traffic accident in 9 years of driving, I'm still doing pretty well.
Yesterday I decided to try to take Christmas photos of the boys, since I'll need to send out Christmas cards in the next week before we leave for Washington. Well, here were a couple of the better photos to come from the photo shoot:
04 December 2006
ethical compromises
As I mentioned yesterday, sometimes when you're on a budget you have to make compromises that you wish you didn't have to. This is something I've struggled with for a while, and I know my sister has written about this before as well, though I couldn't find the post I was looking for after browsing her archives this afternoon.
It's a conflict that's hard to resolve at this point. Ideally, according to my values, I would like to support local businesses, support businesses which are socially and environmentally responsible, support environmentally friendly and sustainable agricultural practices, and avoid giving my money to those businesses or organization that espouse values contrary to my own. With that in mind, I went on Saturday to check out a local craft fair: Metro Justice's Alternative Fair, which was offering "fair trade, earth-friendly and/or locally produced goods that support a just and sustainable world." I was hoping to find some holiday gifts for the people still left on my shopping list.
And at first I was enchanted -- it was a progressive's ideal alternative to the mall. There were lots of booths for progressive organizations -- the ACLU, the Sierra Club, CodePink -- and other booths full of handcrafted gift items, as well as homemade treats to eat. But as I wandered around, I began to get more and more discouraged. Sure, I would love to buy organic fair-trade Peruvian coffee beans, but on our graduate-student budget, it's more practical to buy beans of questionable origin for half the price from the local coffee chain. There were some gorgeous hand-knit scarves, but I could knit something almost as nice myself, for less money. Everywhere I turned I saw things I would love to buy in support of the principles I believe in, but it seems you have to be a wealthy progressive to do so.
I got so frustrated that I left after only twenty minutes or so, and nearly cried on the way home. It's frustrating that the default products in this country are mass-produced by workers who are either exploited or underpaid, and support corporations that use every loophole on the books to evade social responsibility. Ethical business practices are not the norm. Caring for other human beings and for our earth are not priorities for the business world -- the bottom line is money. And when you don't have much money, you have very few options about who you're giving yours to. This is why we bought our Christmas tree from the Boy Scouts, and why I shop at the Salvation Army -- both organizations discrimate against homosexuals, a position I'm not keen to support with my business, but their prices are hard to beat, and on our budget, that's really the deciding factor.
All of this is on top of beginning to read The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, which, like Fast Food Nation and other books of that genre, has me desperately wishing we could afford to buy produce and meat from sources other than corporate farms and agribusinesses. It's depressing that the morally and ethically responsible choices are not available to everyone, but only those with enough dough. And sure, within a year, once Greg gets a job, we'll have enough money to start buying grass-fed, free-range beef or sweatshop-free apparel, but the fact that my circumstances will change doesn't do anything to address the problems that require one to pay more to be an ethical consumer.
I don't know whether there's a real solution to this problem. Our country has long been promoting quantity over quality: consumerism is vital to our culture and economy, and more and bigger and cheaper are always better. It's a culture that focuses more on money than on people or the earth, and I worry that we're too far along this path to make any meaningful changes any time soon.
03 December 2006
sunday photos
We've been having a busy, fun weekend. Yesterday we got a Christmas tree --after shopping around, finding some very expensive (and beautiful trees), we bought one from the Boy Scouts, despite their anti-gay position, because when you're on a limited budget, sometimes you have to compromise your convictions. That's a post for another day. Anyway, here's our tree, which James helped decorate, and which Evan has not yet tipped over, and not from lack of trying:
Then today we met some friends at the science museum. We'd never been there before; we'd always assumed that James was still too young to get much out of it. But we had some free passes, so we went and found out that it's really a lot of fun for all ages. They have a really cool dinosaur exhibit right now, and lots of interactive things to do there.
Which is scarier, James or T-Rex?
Evan found a dinosaur just his size.
James, spinning.
They called this a kaleidoscope, but it was really a mirrored enclosure. Still looked cool.
29 November 2006
who is this kid?
I thought it was pretty amazing when Evan recently started sleeping through the night. No crying until 6am! I didn't think it could get better.
But today after lunch, I told Evan it was naptime, and instead of screaming and crying "NO!", Evan said nicely, "Naptime. I tired. I go bed." And he laid down happily in his crib for a nap.
This is the kid who has had sleep issues from day one. Who, for months, could not go to sleep without being rocked and/or nursed. Who sometimes had to be held for an entire nap because putting him down would wake him. Who woke up as many as 6 times a night for the first seventeen months of his life. And now he goes down nicely for a nap without crying? He sleeps through the night every single night?
Somebody must have pulled a baby switcheroo, because this is bizarre. I'm pleasantly surprised, but suspicious.
20 November 2006
baby's first song
Tonight was Evan's singing debut. Do you recognize the song? (If you're not into toddler entertainment, you won't, but the other parents reading this might be able to tell what it is.)
16 November 2006
shallow and superficial
The title of my blog post refers to me. Or does it? You be the judge.
Is it wrong that I don't allow my four-year-old to leave the house in sweatpants? I know that kids' fashion is different from adults', and I know that he's more comfortable in sweats than anything else. And lord knows I'm no fashion icon -- c'mon, I'm a feminist: comfortable shoes only, and of course, at the initiation ceremony I had to turn over all of my bras for burning.
And I don't care if he's really fashionable. First, we don't have the money for him to be really fashionable; second, I love the weird mismatched clothing combinations he occasionally comes up with. Maybe I'm just having flashbacks to my own childhood -- I can remember being teased for my clothes as early as the second grade. I guess there's nothing inherent in sweats to provoke teasing. But it's hard enough growing up poor without advertising it to the world by dressing like a hobo.
Okay, writing my thoughts out has helped me come to a definitive conclusion: I'm shallow and superficial. I think I really just don't like the sweats because they reflect poorly on me; like, can't I send my kid out of the house in something other than grubby gray sweatpants? I'm sensing some sort of lesson about parenting here... something about allowing your kids to do harmless things that make them happy even if you don't quite approve, or something like that.
What do you know, I've turned sweatpants into a learning experience!
10 November 2006
seven months early
Baby update! I took Evan to the doctor's this morning (a couple of months late on his fifteen-month check-up), and this visit, combined with my own recent observations, have convinced me that Evan's brain is somehow seven months older than the rest of him. Physically, he's right on target. Actually, believe it or not, my formerly roly-poly little boy, who was once in the 90th percentile for weight, is now in the 15th percentile for weight. He still looks chubby to me, and the doctor said he's still growing normally, but his growth has slowed dramatically.
But mentally, the boy is a different story. The doctor told me that his speech is like that of a two-year-old (which sounds right to me; James, my textbook child, was not speaking as well as Evan does now until he was at least two). He's starting to put words together into sentence fragments ("more drink, please" or "TV watch Elmo"). And we've noticed in the last week or two that we're really starting to get into the Terrible Twos. Evan's two favorite words, currently, are "no" and "mine", and he uses both, often together, with alarming frequency.
And the tantrums! "No" and "mine" figure prominently in the tantrums, which are a reaction to all kinds of evil deeds by his parents and brother, such as when James tries to kiss him or when Mama tries to feed him peas (at one time, his favorite vegetable, but now apparently a form of torture). And this baby knows how to do a tantrum -- throwing things, ear-splitting shrieks, flinging himself down on the ground and flailing. We occasionally worry that he's going to hurt himself, but thankfully we've so far avoided any spills down the stairs or falling down onto anything too hard.
The older Evan gets, the more I realize what a wonderful baby James was. I feel a little guilty, because any other parent who has asked me about the Terrible Twos has heard from me that they're not really that bad, because even though the screaming and crying are annoying, you can understand where it's coming from, because your baby is frustrated or impatient or over-stimulated or whatever. And that was all true, for James. His Terrible Two behavior stemmed from two things: 1) he couldn't really communicate with us until he was two or so, and so got frustrated trying to tell us what he wanted or needed, or 2) he wanted to be very independent from a young age, and insisted on doing things for himself, therefore getting angry and frustrated if we wouldn't let him, or if he couldn't do what he was trying to do.
But Evan? Evan has finally taught me the true meaning of the Terrible Twos. Half the time we can't figure out what he's screaming about. Or his screaming seems all out of proportion to whatever it is that's upsetting him. We're working on trying to prevent these outbursts and tantrums, but since it's hard to know exactly what will set him off, this has been kind of difficult. And he's too young to really discipline; the best we can do is try to calm him down and distract him.
So, this is Evan at 17 months. Physical health: normal. Verbal development: outstanding. Emotional development: pretty normal, but driving us crazy. Maybe the fact that the Terrible Twos came seven months early means that they'll be gone by the time he's actually two. One can only hope.
Oh, but let's not forget the best news of all: at 17 months Evan is finally, almost sleeping through the night! He actually did two nights in a row, and last night he woke up screaming once (yes, really screaming) but was quickly settled with a cup of milk. Now that I've posted this on the old blog, I'm sure he will wake up 47 times tonight just to prove me wrong, but hey, that's what kids do best.
08 November 2006
election reflections
Happy Election Day, a day late. I hope everyone got out and voted yesterday. We got to our polling place at 8am, so that Greg could vote before traipsing off to Ohio for work, and James assisted me in the voting booth while Evan charmed all of the old ladies volunteering at the polls. I love voting -- it makes me feel like I'm important, like I'm part of something great. Of course, in a state like New York, my individual vote doesn't matter much, but I still like being part of the whole process.
Overall, I'm pretty pleased with who America elected yesterday. Here in New York, we are finally being governed by a Democrat, Eliott Spitzer, who I'm a little bit in love with in a political-admiration sort of way. We re-elected Hillary to the Senate, and you know, as much flak as she gets, and as much as she panders to the center and right, I still support her. I still admire her. My Republican Congressional representative was barely re-elected, unfortunately, but it was a pretty close race, so that makes me a little bit happy.
But the big news, of course, is that the Democrats took back the House of Representatives (and maybe the Senate), and for the first time ever, we have a female Speaker of the House. Ever since Nancy Pelosi appeared on my radar a few years ago, I've admired her as a strong, liberal woman with real progressive values and a backbone. I'm thrilled that she's in a position of leadership, and I'm excited that she is actually in line for the presidency! Of course, that's obviously a long shot, but considering that it's been more than 100 years since a woman first ran for President (thank you, Old Toad Trivia Night, for that piece of information), it feels good to think that the presidency is finally realistically within the reach of a woman. And not just Pelosi, either, but we're at a point where there is serious speculation about a woman -- Hillary --running for president, and perhaps actually being elected. I know the chances of her being elected are debatable -- I love her and even I'm not sure she could win -- but it's definitely a possibility, and given that there are two years between now and the next election, I think it's too early to predict.
And speaking of women, the other piece of news that's exciting to me is that the voters of South Dakota rejected the abortion ban. I guess the three guys protesting abortion outside the hopital in the rain this morning (such dedication!) didn't hear about that, because if an abortion ban didn't fly in a place like South Dakota, there's no way it'd ever pass in New York.
All in all, a pretty eventful and satisfying election. I don't have any illusions about the Democrats suddenly turning America around and heading in the direction I'd like to see -- I'm registered as an Independent because most of the Democrats aren't far enough to the left for my taste, and they're typically as bad as the Republicans in terms of conviction, integrity, honesty and reliability (or should I say, the lack thereof) -- but I'm pretty confident that they won't do worse than the Republicans have done, and that's at least a step in the right direction. Or maybe not a step so much as just not going any further in the wrong direction, but still, that's important.
Update: Rumsfeld is resigning! And I thought things couldn't get any better!
03 November 2006
friday photos
Halloween photos, a few days late, due to the illnesses and recovery periods of all members of the family. There aren't any pictures of Evan because he was still under the weather; the closest he got to a costume was wearing his Tigger pajamas, and he did not cooperate for photos.
The delicious bloodshot-eyeball cookies we made
James, after helping scoop out pumpkin guts
James with our crazy jack o'lantern
Pirate Greg and Super James
25 October 2006
adventures in single parenting
- We got a package yesterday, and the first thing James did once the contents were removed was to dump out the foam packing material all over the floor. Evan's reaction to this was to stomp all over the peanuts (as we call them) and turn them into tiny little foamy flecks all over the floor.
- Evan woke up approxiamtely every hour last night.
- James threw a fit this afternoon (I can't for the life of me recall what he was upset about) and when he refused to go to his room I carried him there and held the door shut while he pounded on it. (This makes him sound like a monster, when really he just inherited his mother's tantrum gene. The tantrums are very, very unpleasant when they happen, but thankfully quite rare. And for me, they are good practice in patience.)
- I had just gotten the boys into the bath tonight when Evan pooped. So I got the boys out of the bath, drained the tub, cleaned the tub, refilled the tub, and put the boys back in the bath. Evan promptly pooped again. That was the end of bathtime. In the time it took for me to go get Evan a diaper, James had pulled all of the blankets off of my bed.
- Evan's current favorite activity is to pull the board games off of the shelves in the living room and dump their contents all over the floor.
This is very bad when it comes to the household duties. For example, the peanut pieces are still all over the living room floor because to vacuum them, I would first have to pick up the living room. And who knows what kind of messes the boys would make while I was thusly engaged. Besides, when I do have the time to get some housework done, I work on the never-ending pile of dirty dishes, because of that whole eating thing.
Hey, you know what else is great? Greg called tonight to tell me that he'll be in Colorado an extra day because bad weather is preventing them from taking good solar readings, which is the purpose of their trip. Excellent.
And now that this is starting to sound a little whiny and bitter, it's time to wrap it up. There have been plenty of nice things about the last few days, sure, but it's easier to dwell on the negative when I'm feeling tired and cranky. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.
22 October 2006
updating
It has been raining and/or gray outside for almost an entire week, and I'm getting tired of it. Greg is, at this moment, competing in an Adventure Race in Pennsylvania, and after coming home late tonight he'll be leaving tomorrow for Colorado, for work, for four days, so I'm single parenting for close to a week. I had my last ultimate frisbee game today, and we barely had enough players so I played almost the entire game, so I am tired, but in a good way.
So things are okay. I haven't had the blogging urge lately -- partly I'm feeling sluggish and uninspired, partly I'm feeling guilty about how often I update the blog versus how often I write personally to people. (You thought my blogging was infrequent? Try waiting for an e-mail from me: you can watch water boil, watch paint dry, and you'll still be waiting for me. Maybe I have some kind of disorder. I refuse to believe I'm just incosiderate.) I'm thinking that if, instead of writing a blog post every day, I write an e-mail, then I'll be caught up on my correspondence in a week or two. No reason I can't do both, I suppose, but I'm trying to prioritize, which has never been one of my strengths.
So, long story short: I will not be attentive to blogging this week, and possibly after that.
(But who knows? Every time I say I'll update, I don't, and when I say I won't, I do. It seems to work out that whenever I have the time, I don't have any ideas, and vice versa. Sorry to leave you hanging like that, but if you know me, that's the kind of thing I'm good at. Indecisiveness.)
16 October 2006
ending my absence
James and cousin Molly among the pumpkins at a local farm
James and a pony at the same farm
At the waterfront in Salem, MA
The boys with Aunt Ren and some monsters at a street fair
Aunt Ren and her nephews outside the Rainforest Cafe
