A few months ago, I wrote about women's choices not to negotiate salaries as a significant contributing factor to the wage gap. Turns out most of us have good reason not to:

The traditional explanation for the gender differences that Babcock found is that men are simply more aggressive than women, perhaps because of a combination of genetics and upbringing. The solution to gender disparities, this school of thought suggests, is to train women to be more assertive and to ask for more. However, a new set of experiments by Babcock and Hannah Riley Bowles, who studies the psychology of organizations at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, offers an entirely different explanation.

Their study, which was coauthored by Carnegie Mellon researcher Lei Lai, found that men and women get very different responses when they initiate negotiations. Although it may well be true that women often hurt themselves by not trying to negotiate, this study found that women's reluctance was based on an entirely reasonable and accurate view of how they were likely to be treated if they did. Both men and women were more likely to subtly penalize women who asked for more -- the perception was that women who asked for more were "less nice".
"What we found across all the studies is men were always less willing to work with a woman who had attempted to negotiate than with a woman who did not," Bowles said. "They always preferred to work with a woman who stayed mum. But it made no difference to the men whether a guy had chosen to negotiate or not."

I didn't negotiate my current job's salary- I was actually planning on making a point of doing so, just because of my interest in the topic, but the initial offer was higher than I was expecting and I grabbed it before they could change their minds.

Miracles of Photoshop

More comments here

Running to work, my brother suggests? Not going to happen. I was consistently running two miles every second day. Then it got hotter and I could no longer run at midday while A napped. I attempted to go early in the morning, but my body rebelled with dizziness and nausea, reagardless of whether or not I'd eaten. So the only option left was after 8 p.m., when it was cooler and the kids were getting to bed.

I stuck with that for a while, but after I started working, my at-home time obviously became much more limited. The thought of exercising during the ONLY time all day that I have to myself (and the only uninterrupted time I have with Dan) was decidedly unappealing. Even after I cut back to only running twice a week, it became a chore to be avoided, and I'm very good at avoiding chores. (The house has also been trashed since I started work, too- but that's another story.)

So I've decided to stop pretending that it's going to happen with any reasonable frequency, and have committed to running two miles once a week. That's manageable enough that I don't find reasons to avoid it, and it makes it easier to choose random days/ times that make sense (I went yesterday morning, for example, when we had unusually cool weather and Dan watched the kids). While this isn't going to increase my fitness level at all, I'm hoping it'll at least help maintain a reasonable aerobic capacity.

I do walk at least one and usually more like three miles a day, just through dog walks and trips around town and to and from the bus, so at least I don't feel as sedentary as I was last winter when A rebelled against leaving the house. And if I ever get my university ID card, I'll be able to use their gym facilities. They are decidedly inconvenient (I work at a different campus), but it's potentially a viable option for the winter- I might be able to add an extra couple hours to my work schedule to take the bus to and from there during lunch.

But running the five miles to work would be decidedly inefficient, given the potential time-consuming trip to the emergency room after my collapse in Washington Park.

My five-mile commute to work is frustratingly difficult to accomplish. I've minimized the need for it as much as possible by scheduling myself to work only three days a week, but it's still hard to cobble together a good plan.

I feel pretty good about driving in on Fridays- I work and shop at the nearby food co-op on the way home, so it's not really adding to the amount of driving we would do normally. (I don't LIKE the drive- due to nonexistent city planning, it takes 15-20 minutes through stop-and-go traffic to get here, but it's acceptable.) But I don't want to drive on Mondays and Wednesdays because (a) it seems like such an ecological waste; (b) I like to leave the car for Dan and the kids to use; and (c) I've already had one side-view mirror smashed from city parking, and don't want to increase the odds of more vandalism.

So I started taking the bus. It picks me up about a quarter mile from my house, and drops me off about a half mile from work. Factoring in wait and walking times, it takes me 45 minutes to an hour to get to work. I can't read on the bus because I get nauseous. And on the way home, the bus route does some funny circumnavigations so it drops me off three quarters of a mile from home, which sucks in the heat or rain. A coworker/ neighbor has been driving me in most mornings, which makes a huge difference, but I'm still stuck on the bus to get home.

Obvious solution: biking. A five-mile bike ride should be easily do-able. Problem: I'm terrified. I experimented with biking to the co-op ONCE last summer, and ended up turning around at the Albany city line. Through Delmar, it's reasonable (though inconvenient, and technically illegal) to ride on the near-empty sidewalks, and not terribly hazardous to ride on the road (despite the 40 mph speed limit and tiny shoulder). In Albany, though, it's rude to ride on the sidewalks (people actually walk on them) and I'm squeezed between parked cars and moving cars, which (a) reduces my visibility and (b) prevents me from veering off the road if necessary. I know a lot of people who bike in Albany regularly. While most of them do so without incident, at least a fifth have been hit- usually with only minor injury, but that's still really scary. (And there has been at least one well-publicized death this summer.)

So for now I'm sticking with the mooching rides/ bus combo, but I'm still looking for something better....

Hooper Mine

Biblical party costumes (Queen of Sheeba; Melchior or is it Kaspar?)

decadent cake

pinata (hot air balloon he helped make)

sister-made sign (click to see what the letters are made of!)

black raspberry pickers

boy in tree

catching up

C is still reading so much that I’m having trouble keeping enough books for him; we go to the library once a week, and can barely fit all the books we’re returning into the stroller. He’s going to be furious when school starts again and they cut into his reading time with inanities like lunch. We went bowling with the family for his birthday party, and while I couldn’t bring myself to make a birthday cake with SIX inches of frosting as he’d requested, the two inches of homemade chocolate frosting I put on there were perhaps the best I’d ever tasted.

I took him to see the Park Playhouse performance of Grease as one of his birthday presents, and while he had a good time (largely because he got to stay up until 11), I certainly regretted it. We only got there an hour early, so had to sit on a highly uncomfortable hill; as always, they had a pointless 45-minute intermission, dragging out the night even longer; the quality of the performance was not as high as others I’ve seen there; and not only is Grease not my favorite musical in the first place, but it was inappropriate for a seven-year-old to a degree that I’d forgotten. (I don’t think he really followed the plot too well or caught any of the obscene hand gestures, but I still wish it had been ANYTHING else.)

A went through a stretch of refusing to go to bed. While she’s still resisting it, and some nights not going to sleep until 10:00, it has improved a bit through a series of bedtime-routine modifications. She likes the babysitter we’ve hired for six hours a week, but still throws a fit when Kate comes because she doesn’t want Dan to leave. (He is awfully far away, after all, all the way upstairs working in the bedroom.) We’re happy with the sitter- she brings books and craft projects with her and is often even able to fit a Stratego game in with C while she watches A- but we’re not sure how timing will work out when she goes back to high school in the fall.

We went to Twin Trees with a group of friends for an absolutely gorgeous weekend. We’re always fascinated by our friends’ reactions to the place- never having groped around the closet in Gramps’ room looking for a dead mouse, they find it charming, and are too polite to comment on its obvious faults. They do note things that I never notice (the light-string in the kitchen which hits everyone else in the head, but I can walk right under; the eclectic game collection) yet take it in stride when C comes out of the bathroom, shouting accusingly- “You need to point the toilet handle down!! You’re wasting water!!”

Thanks to Nana and Yeye, Dan and I managed to go to a party together sans kids, which was highly exciting. It had a Biblical theme (because all of our friends are so devout) and not only was Mary Magdalene present to anoint feet upon request, but Melchior (Dan) appeared to distribute gifts (some of which were appropriate for children, some of which were not). Wanting an excuse to tell riddles, I was the Queen of Sheba. (The kids were miracles- we decorated t-shirts for them with water, wine, loaves, and fishes.)

Dan's been claiming he'll post pictures for a long time now, so hopefully he will soon!

Vanilla Bean closes this week.

100 words every high school graduate should know
All but 3 I'd fully understand in context, but there were a total of 12 I couldn't generate definitions of.

For their "best of" issue, the local daily newspaper asked local artists to compose and perform songs related to the area. The genres and quality vary, but regardless of listenability, I think it's such a cool idea! Link

Do hairy legs conform to the dress code?

I haven’t completely figured out the dress code for my workplace yet. Different people dress with different levels of formality, and I haven’t yet determined if we all can wear casual clothes or if only the admins and techs can get away with it. I’m fairly confident that I can dress down, too- so the standard dress code would be what a typical Delmartian would wear around town (a couple of ticks up from my standard wardrobe). I’ve been dressing up slightly more than necessary, largely because the clothes I own are split into two categories: ratty-clothes-I-wear-all-the-time or nicer-clothes-I-used-to-wear-to-meetings-and-conferences. The first set is out, so I’m working with the limited options provided by the second until I find some work-appropriate summer clothes that I actually like.

The new mystery I’m trying to solve is whether Unshaven Female Legs can be accommodated within the dress code. At my last job, I held off on wearing shorts or short skirts until I witnessed someone else (a man, of course) bare their Unshaven Legs, but after that I had no compunctions about displaying my own leg hair. Here, though, the workplace is less casual, and while I have indeed observed Men with Unshaven Legs wearing shorts, I have not seen any women wearing shorts at all.

At the company picnic last week, I was torn between exposing myself as one of those radical man-hating feminists who ignore their personal hygiene, or maintaining the nonconfrontational persona I’d been cultivating during my first few weeks on the job. I’d decided to go with shorts, but ended up changing into jeans just because it was cold- and it was a bit of a relief. So my Unshaven Legs have yet to be exposed to my coworkers.

Why don’t I end this silly dilemma by doing something crazy like shaving my legs? The main reason is my philosophical opposition to removing body hair- I feel that the standard of beauty that shuns body hair infantilizes women, and I will not be a part of its perpetuation. It could be argued that keeping my legs covered is of no use in subverting these norms, so I might as well just shave them, but I feel that displaying shaven legs would be expressing compliance with the standard. It’s like the difference between allowing other people to assume that you are, say, a Democrat, and going out and buying a Hillary ’08 shirt to perpetuate their error.

(I did shave under my arms last year for Brianna’s wedding, because the only dress I could dig up for it was sleeveless and I didn’t want to attract more attention at the reception than the bride. I still felt disgusted with myself.)

I also don’t want to spend the time or money that body hair removal entails, and the environmental impacts of the increased use of water/ soap/ razor blades/ plastic packaging are unacceptable to me. (Dan and I are currently bickering about the environmental costs of his facial hair grooming.) I’m truly taken aback when I hear playground chat about getting waxed every month, and when I see shaven legs it feels like I’ve entered some strange alien culture. Unfortunately, it is the one I live in, and I need to decide exactly what I’m willing to give up to subvert it. Even though I realize how piddling my “sacrifice” would be, it’s never easy to give up privileges….

spotted little goat

today was C's last day of school, and he had a half day. A was up at nana's house, so after lunch (and a game of Stratego of course) we decided to go for a bike ride to the local market to get some mozzarella for the pizza last day of school dinner...

while getting my bike out of the shed, I noticed a doe (a deer, a female deer) behind our back fence, only about 10 yards away. I was surprised that she didn't run away, and appeared to be really curious about what I was doing.

After I remembered that we didn't like deer currently (see previous posts about how they're eating the strawberries and lots of other plants at night), I clapped my hands a couple of times loudly and told it to "git!" That universal signal of unwantedness should have gotten it to leave, but it had more important things to worry about.

Luckily I called C over to see the deer up close, and it was then that we noticed the strange sound coming from the direction of RTTR's yard. Sounded like a creaking swing to me, just Rowan on the swing probably... but it wasn't that. Cadao said it sounded more like a cat. I can't really spell it, but it kept repeating, a descending "mainnnnnnngg"over and over. Luckily C still has his little kid powers of observation, and is somewhat patient with me, because he kept pointing, "don't you see the fawn--right there!" "Where?" "right there!" "where?" "Right there!!" (In my defense, I was looking for a standing fawn, and I thought it would be in the neighbor's yard).

But it was a little spotted fawn, in the corner of our yard right by the back and side fences, behind the big oak and the lily hill and under the ferns. The fences are about 4 feet tall, and this little guy (I swear it had tiny antler nubs, and was also the size of a baby goat--a little longer and taller but not as heavy as the groundhog that lives under our shed--hence the goat reference) couln't make it over that fence without a boost in my estimation. How did it get in? probably under or next to the very rickety gate next to the shed, since as soon as we got up close--first time we've been within 2 feet of a fawn!--it bolted straight for that gate.

This is where it almost turned tragic; it head-butted the gate (I'm telling you, this was half deer, half goat animal from a fairy tale; maybe it didn't come IN our yard at all on it's own, but was birthed right there in our yard a couple days before, and the mother just left it there in hiding to go and find food...which she did in our pea patch, strawberry patch, scarlet runner beans... The lily hill is so tall we would never have noticed the fawn, I didn't even when looking right past it, and Paco is even less observant than I am).

So anyway, it head-butted the gate, which, unfortunately, fell over right on the little deer. I ran over to remove the gate from it's poor crushed little body, but luckily, it was magical goat-deer hybrid , because as soon as I lifted the gate up, it kicked it's heels and bounded right towards its mother and both of them ran off through the back to the woods on North street, no doubt. It didn't even seemed phased or stunned for a second, let alone injured... wow! thank heavens (and I definitely have to fix that gate now).

So far that means just this spring in our yard we've had a newborn fawn, adult deer (based on the browse evidence listed above), a woodchuck the size of a riding mower, a large garter snake that doesn't slither away from people but goes toward them, squirrels, chipmunks, lots of insects, slug infestation, and plenty o'songbirds including our beloved Phoebes. The other year we had a black bear right behind our fence (the wall of green grows TALL in the spring/summer in our yard!), and supposedly there was a Fisher running through that general area this winter...

Not too shabby for the edge of town.

What's happening in your backyard?

Happy Summer Solstice tomorrow!

-Dan

In which C indulges my imagination

C: That cloud is shaped like a bishop.
S: Maybe someone's playing an enormous chess game in the sky.
C: (slightly embarrassed for me) Well, that's fun to pretend, but I think the water molecules just formed into that shape.

I've been drowning slugs in beer (Dan says it wouldn't be too bad a way to go), catching and releasing about 10 more a night, and replanting zucchini. I'm covering the strawberry plants with a tarp at night, but there's really nothing I can do about the scarlet runner beans. (Neither human nor dog hair has worked in the past.)

We're still getting one strawberry per person each day, plenty of lettuce, and enough radishes for Dan (since no one else wants to eat them-- I planted them because they look so cool. The "Easter egg" variety ranges in color from pale pink to deep purple.) The carrots never sprouted, so I'll replant as soon as I can.

The peas have blossomed and are begining to produce; a couple of our still-tiny tomato plants have also blossomed.

Still no food at the local farmer's market- maybe next week?

Dan and I had an excellent time at my 10-year college reunion-- we had considered cancelling the trip because of my sadness and stress and exhaustion, but are glad we decided to go. The University plied us with food and drink all day Saturday, and after dinner we went to Alex's (the same as always, except without the smoke) where an alum's bored spouse entertained himself by serving me some kind of fancy tequila all night. I think it may have been the first time Dan and I have had more than six hours all to ourselves since A was born, and it's the first time I've been away from her for more than 12 hours.

It was so great that we thought we should start doing it LOTS, but A apparently disagrees; she gave my parents a horrible night. Even our dog was high-maintenance, so I doubt we'll have access to any overnight babysitters for a while....

Last night, slugs ate much of what was growing in the fenced-in part of the garden, and deer ate more than half of the leaves of the strawberry and scarlet runner bean plants from outside the fence. I did manage to harvest four miniature strawberries, so at least we had a tiny drop of sweetness after Noah's funeral.

Deer in road leads to fatal crash on Mass Pike
My cousin was one of the unlucky ones. Goodbye Noah- we love you.

Since I never buy toys, I'm a little over-excited by my new mp3 player. It's so cute! And small! And it lights up! And it actually works the way it's supposed to! It's so little! And silver! And it has the same name as a character in the neverending fantasy series I like!

Dozens of strawberry blossoms-

but still no strawberries!

We have harvested chives and lettuce, but I'm really wanting berry season to begin....

running update

I've been going 20 minutes straight for the past three runs; the first and last five minutes still suck, but the 10 in the middle aren't so bad. And Paco has shaped up, too- he slows me down a bit, but he's mostly gotten with the program. Running continuously rather than alternating running with walking probably confuses him a bit less.

And my mp3 player should be here by Monday!

The job at SUNY Albany that I interviewed for last month finally came through! It's at the Center for Human Services Research, and I will be working on the outcomes portion of the study described here. I'll start in less than two weeks at twenty hours per week with full benefits (well, when the paperwork gets through, at least). We're not quite sure yet how we're going to cobble child care together- Dan does not want to cut his current work hours for at least a year- but worst comes to worst, he can catch up in the evenings if need be. Hopefully, though, we'll find someone to trade off kids at least occasionally for the summer, and get A into a half-day preschool in the fall. (We did the working-opposite-shifts-with-negligible-childcare for quite a while with C, and it was decidedly not fun- we hope to figure out something better soon.)

I'm thrilled to have found something that will take care of our health insurance (which has been stressful to deal with ever since I left PRA), keep my resume updated even if I don't stay there forever (I was getting worried that the four-year gap in my work history would make me permanently unemployable in my field), and give me an intellectual life outside of my family (I've been resenting Dan's work hours lately, but it was clearly more my issue than his).

I finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and am really inspired to make more of a point to eat local foods. The book focused very much on the pleasure and joy of eating mostly-local foods, rather than the difficulties and hardships. We're starting small, and Dan isn't completely on board, but my personal goals are to:

1) Only buy locally-grown fruits and vegetables from June 1st through November 1st. Exceptions: frozen peas (major convenience food for the kids that we don't want to commit to giving up) and lemons and limes in small quantities (I want lemon juice in my tabouli and Dan wants limes in his beer).
2) Process for the winter at least one vegetable/ fruit that we've never done before. Maybe we'll can tomatoes or pickle squash.
3) Learn to extend our growing season further into the fall, through cold-weather crops and good use of our cold frame.

The one chapter of the book I found disappointing was, not surprisingly, the one focused on meat-eating. Kingsolver and her family only eat animals that are treated humanely, and even raise and butcher some of their own. While I disagree with that choice, it is one I can respect as an ethical decision, even though it's following a different set of ethics than my own. (Eating factory-farmed meat, on the other hand, I can only view as an ethical decision if someone truly believes animals have no emotional needs and feel no pain- which of course would mean they are very stupid.)

So it wasn't so much her choice to eat free-range meat that bothered me, but the justifications that she used for it. She equates animal-harvesting with plant-harvesting, ignoring the obvious difference (sentience that we can recognize). She discusses how humans evolved to eat omnivorously (but doesn't mention how humans also originally evolved doing all sorts of things we now eschew, such as commit infanticide). She asserts that non-Westerners living in harsh environments require animals for food (irrelevant to most Americans' situations). She points out that farm animals can't live in the wild (the potential extinction of turkeys whose feet cannot support their weight is one that we should applaud). She fails to discuss hunting, arguably the most ecologically friendly and least cruel method of obtaining dead animals. She even contemplates the huge cultural void we'd suffer if there were no farm-animal-based nursery rhymes. Overall it felt like she was trying a bit too hard.

I just struggled into a pair of pants that fit me a month ago, and I must say that despite my understanding and acknowledgment of increased muscle mass, I do NOT appreciate the fact that the girth of my thighs has increased since I started running. (Doing 15-minute stretches now, at least- will try 18 tomorrow.)

Most of me thinks the Indian Lake Project (scroll to first entry) is completely fabricated, but its unsophisticated writing and lack of direction make me wonder if some of it might be real....

Barbara Kingsolver's most recent book, which I reserved at the library before it was released, has finally arrived. It chronicles her family's experiment of eating only locally-grown foods for a full year- something we've thought a lot about since hearing about the hundred mile diet last year, but that we haven't seriously implemented given the obvious restraints of our climate and- as the book points out- our current national food policy.

Some of our friends eat almost entirely local produce, living through the winter by planning ahead, canning and freezing, and relying on easily-stored foods like winter squash, potatoes, and cabbage. We make a point of buying locally- for example, choosing flour from Champlain Valley Milling and yogurt from Hawthorne Valley Farm and (I confess) ice cream from Stewarts- when reasonable alternatives exist, and we don't eat a lot of non-local fresh produce simply because we don't want to spend the money on it out-of-season. But many staples of our diet (almonds, rice, bananas, CHOCOLATE) are just not available regionally, and others we choose to buy non-locally (frozen vegetables, cherry tomatoes in February, tofu because the kids won't eat the semi-local stuff). But we certainly can do better, especially if we prepare for the looong winter before it comes. By the time I finish the book, I hope to come up with better-developed goals we can stick with for local food consumption.

I've only read the first few pages of the book, but was just blown away by the fact that 98% of the WORLD'S seed sales are controlled by SIX companies. Not U.S. sales- WORLD sales. Wow. And whenever I hear about terminator genes, I always think of them as the ice-nine of human food production....

It looks like the abandoned rail line by our house is finally being purchased by Albany County.

I'm running 8-minute stretches now, and don't know how much longer I can do it without music- I see an MP3 player in my future.

Happy last day of work, Dad! You're done with this (1980; he's the one with the beard)



and on to more of this!

Someone from Portugal visited our blog last week via a google search for "cornucopias tattoo."

This article, while it seems to be attempting to make the argument that maxing out retirement plans is better than paying off mortgages early, only serves to solidify my decision to focus on the mortgage. First, it hypes that "40% of homeowners would be better off!"- meaning, of course, that 60% would not. Second, it assumes that the homeowner has a mortgage large enough to make deducting interest worthwhile. For the second year now, our potential itemized deductions- including insanely high property taxes- have been less than the standard deduction. Third, our mortgage interest rate is relatively high and not reasonably refinanceable.

Finally, the outcome of the investment scenario the author presents (which is much more optimistic than ours would be) is a whopping extra $400 per year. Now, while I'm not one to pooh-pooh that amount of cash, I'm not all that impressed, either. Especially given that the typical readers of this article likely spend that at restaurants each month.

So we plan to use our tax refund to continue paying down the house, while we maintain our savings account with 6+ months worth of living expenses, and expect to worry about retirement when the kids make working for pay less difficult.

Never allow your child to have a playdate with this person.

I couldn't run until almost-dark on Thursday. I frightened more than a dozen deer, saw three bats, and heard a deafening chorus of peepers and toads. Maybe spring is finally coming?

The neverending rain early in the week flooded our basement; we still haven't quite finished drying it out yet. (In fact, there still seems to be some water coming in.) But we're almost there. More worrisome is the newly-formed pond in our back yard, which does not seem to be receding. We actually had mosquitoes arrive uninvited to our potluck last night- less than a week after we had snow!

facts of life

A: When I was a little baby I grew inside your sweater.

Boston and Snow and Back

We just returned from a weekend trip to visit our friends Heather and Josh in Norwood, near Boston. It had been about 3 years or more since we've seen each other, we realized, as they'd never met A! Both kids enjoyed aunt Heather and uncle Josh's company a lot; as they're good sports about playing chess with C (though Josh was able to beat C; a good thing for the happiness of the entire household this weekend according to Heather, as he doesn't take losing well :), reading and playing games with A, etc. Their new, energetic puppy Indy (short for Indiana--she has a shared stray/rescued Hoosier background with Paco; though Sarah and I are tempted to call her "Docta Jones!") and cat Dakota provided additional entertainment.

We spent part of the visit outside at a park and playground, took a hike around a large pond on Saturday morning, then spent the afternoon at the Boston Children's Museum which has been expanded and improved upon since we last visited, when C was A's age. Both kids found plenty to do despite the busy crowds...their favorites were probably "raceways" (a variety of tracks, ramps, rollercoasters, etc. designed for golf bolls to roll down), the "boats afloat" waterplay area, and the various things to climb on and through. The most intriguing engineering feat in my opinion, and C's supreme favorite, was the 3+ story "new balance climb" new climbable sculpture in the large atrium that was recently added to the museum's entrance area. There were no signs prohibiting adults, so I played on it as well. Like the inflatable maze/slide combinations as fairs and festivals, the only problem here was too many kids trying to go up (or back down) at once... Check it out here.

Our friends treated us to dinner at one of their favorite local restaurants that night, a Lebanese place with excellent falafel (even C liked it). Too bad we had to get the kids home before 8, the time on Sat. nights when the restuarant's weekly belly dancing show begins (seriously).

Josh has been homebrewing and winemaking in earnest the last couple years, and his "prohibition brewery" and "pleasant rock winery" have me impressed and inspired to do more homebrewing, and try my hand at real winemaking as well. I guess he originally got the idea that one could make good tasting, inexpensive beer on your own by sampling (along with Sarah's uncle Gene) a good portion of my homebrew at our housewarming party in 2001, so it's nice to see how far he's now come in this area...and he quite generously sent us home with wine and a good amount of homebrew to "get over the hump" until my next batches are ready to consume.

Now our school and work vacation week is officially over, and it's back to Monday again. It would help if the forces of Spring finally won out those of Winter...

happy Sprinter...or is it Wing at this point?
Dan

The job interview went well- I wasn't brilliant, but I wasn't completely idiotic either, and I suspect they'll offer me something within the next month. (How strange it will be to be working again....)

I was wholly unimpressed with the sleet and snow today. And didn't run.

Off towards Boston for the weekend- let's see how A manages THIS car trip!

Sick for a week, which derailed my running progress- I finally went out again today, seven days after my last run, and started again at square one. Demoralizing.

Potential job sort-of interview, sort-of not coming up on Thursday. If it goes well, maybe we should call Blossoms to try to get A a spot for the fall after all....

Just in time for Easter!

Chocolate deities.

C rode his bike without training wheels today! He's still not confident making turns, or starting by himself, but I'm betting that will all come within a week if we have time to get out and try it every day.

I had no idea that this year would hold so many changes for him- his face and body are looking decidedly more kid-like than toddler-like; his reading ability is exploding (he's reading Magic Treehouse level books by himself now, though they are slightly above his level); he's gaining the physical confidence to do many more things (bike riding, tree climbing, general risk-taking); and of course the arrival of his permanent teeth....

This morning I did the 2-ish miles in 21 minutes, despite making the mistake of bringing Paco with me. I'm not sure which was more annoying- the pausing to sniff (forcing me to pull him along when he ignored my call) or the stopping right in front of me and getting in my way. He did shape up for the last third of the run; I'm not sure if this was because he was tired or because he finally got with the program. He'll get one more chance on Monday.

C just lost his first tooth! He's been impatient for it to happen, and tonight he finally found a tooth on his tongue while he was brushing his teeth. Thinking it was a piece of popcorn (since we did have popcorn about two weeks ago, after all) he spit it down the drain of the sink, so we don't have it to save. But he was soooo excited. He hadn't even noticed it was loose before, and it turns out his other bottom front tooth is loose, too.

Of course I just had to go play tooth fairy all alone since Dan is off playing Twilight Imperium all night....

A couple weeks ago, I attempted to jog a mile or so and felt ready to pass out. My initial reaction was "running sure does suck; won't be doing that again anytime soon!" But then I realized that it really bothers me to be unable to handle such a mild test of endurance, and now I've set myself the goal of being able to go two miles without feeling awful. I'm starting out slow; this week I'm alternating 90 seconds of jogging with 90 seconds of walking for a total of 21 minutes. Next week I'm going to jog 2 minutes before walking 90 seconds, and I'm hoping to be able to up it to three minutes the week after that.

I don't know the exact mileages I've been covering, but so far (in my all of two sessions) I'm going approximately two miles in about 23 minutes, which I think is a decent combined walking/running pace. I do indeed feel awful afterwards, but I'm not pushing myself to the verge of vomiting, as I did in high school.

I'm hoping to reach my goal before it gets too hot- wishful thinking?

Bestest friends

S: Guinevere is going to come over tomorrow; are you excited to see her?
A: Yes! Hurray! (pause) Guinevere is a baby.
S: Well, she doesn't talk very much, but I don't think she's a baby because she can walk and do other things.
A: Like take people's toys. And put them in her mouth.

I've never seen the need to use pseudonyms or make any attempt to hide our family's identity on the Internet, but it recently occurred to me that our kids' privacy is compromised by that. I'm not concerned about stalkers, but over the next couple of years C's friends will start actively using the Internet, and it could be embarrassing for him to have them reading this. So over the next few weeks we're going to decide whether/ how to remove or anonymize our previous posts, and we'll try to avoid using the kids' names in the future.

C's science fair project- a maglev train! Thanks to Ye-ye, C got to make a really cool project using technology he "invented" when he was three. A lot of people at the fair were enthralled by it.

C had fun checking out the other kids' projects at the fair, but it was so crowded and overwhelming that he left early with Dan and A. That left me to stay 'til the end to bring his project home. Carrying everything back on the frigid snowy sidewalks, for which I was not appropriately dressed (because y'know- we DROVE there), was a bit tricky, but the view of the moon and stars made it almost worthwhile.

Report Cards and it's almost Spring (really?)

Well, C's report card came today. As the teacher had hinted on the phone earlier, it was very positive (only 3's and 4's--1-4 scale, and S's and E's) and they only had warm fuzzy things to say about him. Not that he doesn't deserve the highest marks for his academic achievements (though I suspect he'll be getting some N's for his handwriting neatness in the not-so-distant future, like I did in elementary school).

But it is interesting that they haven't noticed that he gave up doing homework for Lent. Well, actually it's been since some point in January that he hasn't done ANY homework. Most weeks he gets a packet with four assignments for M-Th, that consist of practicing writing spelling words and "word family" words, a math worksheet or two, and some other worksheet. He originally went on strike about the spelling words (he hated writing them each three times, then sentences), and since Sarah had just read--and I skimmed and made her summarize--Alfie Kohn's masterful The Homework Myth: Why Our Kids Get Too Much of a Bad Thing, we couldn't really see a good reason to force him to into it, or any of the other homework when he decided to just start recycling the whole packet each week.

Especially in elementary school, the idea that kids who are doing fine in school need to routinely do homework nearly nightly seems ridiculous, especially after reading Kohn's research and arguments. I can see why an occasional special project can't be done on class time, or why students who are really struggling to learn the basic concepts might need extra guidance or tutoring at home, but not C at this point, not this year. As most of you know we already have a fairly tenuous attitude towards public school (we plan to take it year by year, and reserve the plan to pull him out for homeschooling at any point it seems like the costs are outweighing the benefits), so it will be interesting to see what happens when at some point his teachers start keeping track of who is doing homework (assuming they care more than we do). Right now the students are responsible for putting their homework in the bin to be corrected, and then it gets put back in their mailboxes upon checking, and the students empty their own mailboxes into their folders to bring home.

In other news, we enjoyed hosting our monthly potluck on Friday. While it had been warm and melty and spring was springing a couple days before, Friday looked a lot like this instead. Four families still ventured out, and we had fun helping shovel and push cars afterwards to get them back home again. The weekend ended up offering up two more potlucks, so we now have a new record of 3 evening potlucks in a row, with essentially the same crowd... Reminds me of the mealshare situation we liked so much when we lived in Seattle, and had shared meals 6 nights per week.

I'll be going to Maine for a mentoring conference this weekend for work. Too bad the accommodations are so crummy :). It does mean a lot of driving, though...

C has his school science fair tomorrow night. We should have pictures/tales to share from that soon.

Enjoy the Spring Equinox tomorrow. The birds here are doing their best to pretend that the snow doesn't exist. Maybe it won't continue to for much longer.

peace,
Dan

I told A about these extra-fun special paints that are specially designed for using with your hands, and she seemed receptive. So I broke out the fingerpaints (I even had the cool fingerpaint paper), squirted some paint on, and started spreading it around with my fingers. She looked at me like I was insane- touching that MESSY stuff with my HANDS? Voluntarily? I coaxed her into leaning closer, and encouraged her to just touch it, for a second, with one finger, but she would have none of it. Finally I gave up and gave her a brush and a new piece of paper, and she was much happier. A tiny bit of paint did get on her hand from the brush, though, and even though she gamely recited, "these are special paints that are designed for getting on hands, so it's okay," she couldn't get past the horror and needed to stop to wash.

I suspect she'd be more likely to engage in actual fingerpainting if C joined in, but the flail-fest that ensues whenever Everything-Is-Mine Boy does anything around other children that involves any sort of equipment/ materials makes me hesitate to pull them out when he's home. Maybe when it's warm enough to do it outside and hose everyone down afterwards....

A's story

Once upon a time there was a cat and she went for a walk with her brother and her daddy and her mommy. And they went to the park and they had some snacks. And they said meow.

lunar eclipse cake

what kids create...part 2

what kids create on their own when they don't watch tv, part 1

little people bridge, brother built

conversations

A: I fell down. I fell down. I fell down. I fell down.
C: If you're going to fall, don't do it right in front of me because you get in my way.

C: W-X-Y-Z.
A: W-X-Y-C.
C: No, it's Z. W-X-Y-Z.
A: W-X-Y-C.
C: No, Alyra! It's Z! You have to learn the alphabet!
A: But I don't want to actually!

S: Firefly is The A-Team in space. With a western theme. And a whore.
D: Which would have made The A-Team even better.
S: They had a van, after all.

A: I don't want to drive on the wooden road!
S: The road is not made out of wood, it's just CALLED Woodin Road.
A: It is not made out of wood, it's just CALLED Woodin Road.
S: Yes.
A: The other road is called the plastic road.

game night!

We set out to find and play games all FOUR of us could enjoy together tonight, and brought down Turtle Picnic, a 24-piece puzzle, and an Uno-type game with cartoonish pictures of animals. Things started off fairly well with Turtle Picnic; while A needed to be pulled out of our box o' blocks and reminded what to do each time it was her turn, she understood the concept and indeed beat Dan twice.

Then we broke out the puzzle. A picked up a piece and C screamed, "that was my piece!" and spent the next ten minutes sobbing about how he was Just About To pick that piece up. All the parenting books claim that when you reflect back what your children say and functionally commiserate with them, they will feel heard and get over their issue more quickly. They lie. We specified rules for shared puzzle-doing (all pieces are fair game unless you're holding them; you may not hold more than two pieces at a time) and moved on.

And then the Uno game. We knew A couldn't do Uno on her own, so she was on Dan's team, which lasted about three rounds before she tried to snatch all the discards. We let her have them, but then the picture of the "sister monkey" disturbed her so badly that she refused to play anymore and wanted to do the puzzle again. We tried to do both simultaneously, but since she pulled all the puzzle pieces as far away as she possibly could get from that evil monkey card, pushing half of them under the rug in the process, it was difficult. That was when we realized it was time for bed.

All four of us went to the state museum today, and Dan's presence enabled A to ride the escalators AND the carousel with only small amounts of whimpering. But on the ride home, the kids reached new levels of complaintfulness. They both find it fun to whine in unison when we're in the car, and this time they started out by begging for ice cream (mind you, A has never HAD ice cream) before progressing to "the sun is in my eyes!" (despite sunglasses) and "I don't want you to sing that song!" which are all part of their Greatest Hits collection. But then, after a few moments of silence, A pouted, "My thumb is always sticking out!" And C joined in. Yes, both of my children complained of the evolution of opposable thumbs today.

Due to Dan's concerns of an impending escape attempt, we replaced A's maple crib with a pink plastic bear-shaped toddler bed. Except for the unfortunate effect on our decor, it has been a success- her sleep pattern has not changed and she still hasn't quite realized that she could get out of her bed when she's not supposed to. Thanks for the hand-me-down, Rowan!

lands end snow eaters

sledding in the blizzard

We don't normally have good hills on our street for sledding, but luckily the plow made some for Cadao today...

our boy is cool...

be my pizza valentine

Every few years, I stumble upon an issue of Ms. magazine and leaf through it. And every single time, I’m always disappointed.

This time, I didn’t have the opportunity to roll my eyes at the cover, because I’m reading an outdated and unsold discard (which also means it’s too late to write a letter to the editor that could potentially be published). My disgust begins instead on the very first page of content. A line graph that is intended to illustrate that women are not "pushing men out of college" was apparently inserted by someone who SHOULD have pushed for a better education, because it graphs enrollment in numbers rather than in percentage of the population. This is ambiguous because it does not in fact "prove" that men’s university attendance is not declining, since the percentage of college-aged men attending could indeed be falling even as numbers increase (because of population changes).

Just below, a bar graph compares the salaries of men and women, but does not control for important variables such as years in the workforce. This grossly exaggerates the differences to reach the expected conclusion.

What irks me the most about these graphs is that I suspect their conclusions are correct; I have read carefully-controlled studies of salary differentials and a real wage gap does exist. But putting these meaningless statistics out there weakens the message because to those of us who pay attention (and don’t think "math is hard" as the editors of Ms. apparently do), it looks like they’re trying to trick us with improperly-applied data. It makes doubters assume that the conclusions are false, because if they were true, why wouldn’t they prove them to us, instead of distracting us with truly pointless graphics?

On the next two pages is an article on NOW’s 40th anniversary, which lists all of the nice things NOW has done for our country. I didn’t read it closely because I find such articles boring. I find at least one such retrospective in every issue of Ms. that I read, and while that may just be chance and they’re really not in EVERY issue, I still don’t understand what purpose they serve. Perhaps in an attempt to justify itself, the article concludes: "Numerous battles have been won, but skirmishes for women’s rights always lie ahead. We still need NOW, as much as ever." Which sounds so much like the pat conclusions I used to finish all my essays in high school that I’m tempted to run out and buy an issue of Playboy because the writing is so much better.

Next up is a report on a woman suing a doctor for refusing to perform artificial insemination because of the doctor’s religious objections to homosexuality. The problem is, the reporter is (intentionally?) not clear whether the entire medical PRACTICE refused care, or if the doctor basically said, "I need to step down as your primary provider, but Hal in the next room can work with you." It is apparently too much to expect clear writing and reporting from a national magazine.

On the next page we learn that, thank God, "Michelle Selden won’t have to practice changing diapers any time soon." The item is about ending a school’s sex-segregated curriculum, which I’m all for (in part because the boys’ curriculum apparently focused on "pursuing and killing prey," which I feel they need rescuing from much more than the girls do from their classes). What I object to is the writer’s clear relief that Selden be spared the indignity of a class related to child care. The article points out that Selden is a certified scuba diver, firefighter cadet, and kung fu purple belt, apparently to imply that such a demeaning activity is completely inappropriate for her. In New York, both boys and girls are required to take home economics and shop. Given the tone of this article, I’m surprised there hasn’t been a huge outcry about the Board of Regents’ audacity in assuming everyone wouldn’t be hiring nannies to do all that stuff.

Later is an item addressing a Chinese bill to criminalize sex-selective abortions, which is an interesting turnaround given Ms.’s stance (articulated for the next EIGHT pages) that abortions should be freely available to all without social stigma.

Buried in the back with the book reviews (where the NOW article belonged), there is one fascinating article about how wage differentials can arise because women rarely negotiate salary during the initial hiring process or annual reviews. While my post-college work experience is pretty limited, it never actually occurred to me to negotiate my salary or raises- I always took what was offered. Whether this is actually "discrimination" as the headline claims is an interesting philosophical question.

Ms. is clearly not aiming for my demographic, though precisely WHAT demographic would find the magazine appealing is not clear. (Advertisers may feel the same way- while Ms. clearly accepts advertising now, there’s not much of it, and I doubt that the publishers consciously chose to limit it.) Are there any feminist magazines that include real reporting (unlike Bitch or Bust), good writing, and articles that don’t rehash the same topics endlessly?

Perhaps I should start my own. Because I’d want it to be really deep, the first issue would include a discussion of Maureen Dowd’s book jacket photo. I glanced at it when I was reading her book and did a double-take. I THOUGHT the book had implied that she graduated from college before I was born, but there was no possible way this woman could be more than ten years older than me.

Google Images soon provided me with a different picture, and I saw that while Dowd is indeed attractive, the book jacket’s photographer is also quite skilled at taking flattering shots. I thought black thoughts about the beauty culture we live in, about Dowd and/ or her publisher who chose the photo which really doesn’t look like her, and about my own insecurities which I suspect are part of the reason why I even noticed the photo in the first place. I thought kinder thoughts, realizing that if my image were going out to thousands of people, I’d want the most flattering picture possible, even if it- nay, BECAUSE it- conformed to the American standard of beauty, despite my disdain for it. How to fight the idea that women should all be young and thin and well-groomed when we all want to be?

why we stopped watching Smallville

D: The jock is going to fall through the ice.
S: There's going to be kryptonite in the pond, and he's going to turn into some kind of water or ice monster.
D: He's going to go around wreaking havoc, and hook up with Lana, and Clark is going to find out, and they're going to get in a fight.
S: There will be kryptonite nearby during the fight so Clark will be useless until they go somewhere else to finish the fight. And Clark is going to stand up Lana because he was incapacitated.
D: No point in watching the rest, right?

In the past three days, we have live-trapped and released (far away) five mice. And these are just the ones stupid enough to get trapped in out kitchen. Any estimates of the size of the entire colony we're hosting here?

Making gingerbread houses proved harder without those little milk cartons the library program uses every year... though C still enjoyed making and eating (the heavily laden path so far).

C gave A's "Scout" doll temporary hair for her to comb, when she wanted to be like her brother who, uncharacteristically, decided to comb his doll's hair.... (A was disturbed by the alteration, unfortunately, and returned the doll to her "natural" bald state...)

We're so far behind the times that everyone else on earth has probably already seen these movies, but for those who have not: do not waste your time watching either the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Star Wars Episode III movies. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory did not add anything terribly interesting to the old one despite its special effects potential, and instead of portraying Willy Wonka as a brilliant crazed misanthrope, Johnny Depp made him creepily Michael Jackson-esque. Star Wars was less than riveting, given that we all KNOW how it ends, and the only question it solved can be handily summed up in one sentence.

Dan returns from Peter Harris Clothes with more than the rarely-seen-in-his-size Levi's that were his goal.

S: You can not wear this shirt.
D: I haven't tried it on yet, and it's brown, so it goes with the autumn color palette I've been going for. Reds, yellows, oranges- well, except for the yellows.
S: You can only wear it if you've decided to be a "hipster" and wear it with irony. Ronald Reagan would have worn that shirt.
D: You can't tell without seeing it on. Begins to try on shirt.
A: Daddy you need to get a shirt on! You need a shirt on! Right now!
D: Wow, you're right! This would be awesome with a black-and-white checked jacket and ripped jeans! I can't return this; I should sell it!
C: Yeah! We'll sell it! We'll go back to Peter Harris and buy them all and open a store and sell them and make lots of money!

Even if you're not left behind, don't lose touch with those who were.

I picked the very last strawberry from the garden today, from a very hardy plant that succumbed to the cold just last night. My fall gardening failed completely this year, as some appreciative animal ate all my parsley and spinach the very day we pulled out the cold frame, but we have high hopes for an early start in the spring.

A is pretty cheery today after three days of illness-induced misery, but Dan and I remain very groggy. She tried to cheer me up, though. While I was eating lunch:

A: "We saw the moon when we went on walksies. Daddy told me about the moon. It was a waxing gibbous. It peeked out from the clouds."

S: "Do you want to see if we can find the moon before bedtime tonight? We can't see the moon right now."

A: "The moon is sleeping right now. The moon is sleeping in its moon-bed."

C's inspiration

Note the bow and arrow 

So let's say you're six years old and you wake up at 5:45 in the morning, but know that your parents want to sleep in until 8. What do you do? Well, if you're C, you'll page through a craft book to get ideas, gather the materials to construct your selection, and add accessories you deem appropriate. Then you'll pour some cereal for your father and wake him up at 7:59.

glazing with egg white, which helped them brown 

Fresh from the oven 

completed cornucopia 

cornucopias!

Cadao really really wanted to make our OWN, EDIBLE cornucopias so we decided to give it a try. Dan cut a batch of pizza dough into strips, and we wrapped them around forms made from mixing bowls and aluminum foil. They came out surprisingly well, and tasty to boot.

Buy your daughter a Brothelmobile this Christmas! For hours of imaginative play.

New- Puffs with Magic! (?)

A is 2 today!!

birthday cake 

- 

For A's birthday, I figured I'd make some clothes for My Little Abused Orphan so I wouldn't have to look at the old ones. The catch: I wanted A to be able to get them on and off herself, an I only wanted to spend an hour from start to finish. So the poor doll ended up with what amounts to a hospital gown (perhaps the ER let her wear it home from her last stay) and a poncho. The fitting unearthed another reportable offense- she has a heart tattoo on her arm, which had an armband glued on top of it. Pictures will follow.

problems with C's school

1) They play the same game in gym class every time they have it (twice a week).
2) They watch videos for library time every week.
3) His teacher has begun reading Magic Treehouse books out loud instead of the actual literature they started out the year with. These books are popular with the kids, but the writing is awful. I'm wondering if she's trying to fulfill the somewhat insane curriculum requirements by calling them "social studies," too, since they include history lessons which seem to have the same degree of inaccuracy as most elementary school history texts. I hope she comes to her senses soon.
4) C's bored silly of single-digit addition worksheets.
5) For "Veterinarians' Day," they told the kids that we fought wars to protect our country. Methinks that's stretching the truth bit considering the past 60 years....

It turns out that A's new doll must be of the "My Little Abused Orphan" line. The hideous pink headband was covering up two faint pink bruises on the baby's head, and it has a battery-operated implant that makes it not only cry continuously, but makes its cheeks glow red. Now I REALLY won't be able to sleep at night.

Every November, the church around the corner from us has an enormous tag sale fundraiser. This year, in addition to (our third) replacement bread machine, a sled, and a shelf for under the computer desk, A spied a baby doll. A hideous baby doll. A baby doll with permanently-attached pink polyester clothing, with a plastic head and plastic feet. Dan let her buy it, but it's so disturbing I'm not sure if I'll be able to sleep at night with it in the house.

Dan got a new guitar today. :)

Happy Halloween from planet zork... 

A likes shoes...(and pretzels)

C had a great "hunt" waiting for me when I got back home from Seattle on Tuesday night; "Xs" marked the spot where each clue was hidden, of course--one was even sealed in clear plastic outside, and the clue was in a yogurt container and buried under it... the prize at the end was the bracelet shown here.

we went to a halloween party at friends' on Sat. night... "woods spirits" 

Boo! (and scary face)... C's pumpkin

Every city should have a puppet lending library.

I got a book from the library titled Organizing from the inside out : the foolproof system for organizing your home, your office, and your life. Slipped inside it were five pages of notes someone diligently transcribed from the book. But given that the notes never LEFT the book before it was returned to the library, methinks that the previous borrower missed seeing the bigger picture....

what are we in for with teenagers?

At 7 a.m. this morning, C hopped out of bed, popped in a rap CD, turned it up loud enough that we could hear every word in OUR bedroom, and started dancing.