Guilty as Charged

Some people have recently implied that I haven't updated my blog in a while. Well, okay, true enough.

Things are good. Dee and Buddy are thriving. Dee turned 4 in September and is just a smart little cookie. She reads fluently (!!) and is a nonstop source of questions and curiosity about how the world works. (It's exhausting.) Buddy is going through the tantrums associated with not quite being able to express himself the way he wants, but his language is developing, and my parenting skills regarding tantrums are quite well-developed, seeing as this is the second time around for this for me. (See, "It's exhausting," above.) So he is also good. He'll be 2 in January (?!?)

I am a little bit past the age with Buddy where I was with Dee when I got pregnant again. I am NOT going to get pregnant again, but the number of people around me who are pregnant with, or have recently had, child #3 are causing twinges. Mostly, though, I have mourned the loss of my future fertility. And my hands are pretty full as it is.

I am teaching three different classes this semester, and it is kicking my ass. A few more weeks, though, and I have a month off, and then in January I'll be teaching just one upper-division lecture/lab combo class (for 8 units!) so that is going to help out a lot. I'm hoping to have time to breathe.

My Dad just turned 60, so I flew up to Washington for the party. My sister just got engaged. My Mom is dealing with some medical issues. And the kids have recently brought home 2 separate upper respiratory viruses and shared them around the house. I have 16 people coming for Thanksgiving dinner. Life is full. I am well, and grateful.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

DD's Meme:

All we need is a little LOVE! This award is about sisters uniting together and giving others some love because life is hard and who couldn’t use a little love? The rules for this award is simple. 
I LOVE YOU = 8 letters which gives you 8 rules:

Here are the rules:


1. Thank the person who nominated you for this award and write a little bit about why you love them. That would be DD from Mama Said Knock You Out. She is never afraid to be who she is. It is so wonderfully refreshing!
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.

3. Link to the person who nominated you for this award.

4. Nominate no more than 17 people who you love or you think could use some love.

5. Write one word (you can only use a word once) about what you love about their blog.
6. You cannot nominate someone who has already been nominated-the love has to spread to all.
7. Post links to the blogs you nominate.

8. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know they’ve been nominated.

I have a giant pile of lab reports currently eying me from my desk, so I'm going to have to punt here, and say if you're still reading this, and you want to participate, consider yourself nominated!

DUPLO Danger

Gee, Mommy, I'm sorry. I didn't MEAN to give you a black eye when I whacked you with my oversized LEGO blocks yesterday.

Eighteen-months-olds are dangerous.

Vocabulary

Scene: Dee is coloring with her new set of 50 crayola markers. As she finishes with a color, she shoves it all willy-nilly back into the package. I am idly tidying the markers back into their individual plastic slots.

DEE: Mommy, what are you doing?

MOMMY (absentmindedly): Oh, don't worry, sweetie. Mommy's just being anal.

DEE: That's okay, Mommy. You're just a little bit anal.

MOMMY: Thank you, dear.

Postscript

I also don't regret my policy of always buying washable ink markers.

And How Is YOUR Day Going?

This:




is why I do not regret the money I spent on this:

Mothers, Part 2 of 2

So my mom (Hi Mom! How are ya?) was down here visiting last week and we got into a random conversation about what I'd do if I suddenly had a lot more money. I told her about an idea I'd had ages ago about starting some sort of free/nominal fee service for pregnant women on bed rest in the hospital I spent so many weeks in myself.

Bed rest is horrible. There's no other way to describe it. While everyone around you is making variations on the same joke ("Better get that rest in now before you've got a baby to take care of!!!" "Gee, I sure wish MY doctor would tell me to go lay around in bed for a while!!!"), you are lying in bed, terrified that your baby is going to die, wondering if it was because of something you did, and your body is slowly going to pieces. Your muscles atrophy, various medical staff poke you with a variety of needles as part of your treatment, and everything seems set up to deprive you of any and all chances of actually getting any of that rest you’re supposed to be getting. (Hello! 4 AM! Time for blood draws!)

There was a flier up in one of my hospital rooms about a service where someone would come to your room and give you a massage or a pedicure or something else along those lines. I’ve occasionally thought since then that I’d like to set up some way for women in the perinatal unit to have access to something like that without spending a fortune, especially as the bed rest may be unexpectedly depriving them of a large portion of their income (as indeed it did for me). Mom (Hi Mom! How are ya?) and I talked about this for a bit and then moved on with the conversation.

I guess it’s been percolating in my mind since then, because as I was administering an exam to my lecture students this week, I found my mind returning to the idea. Looking back, while a massage for my aching back would have been fabulous, an even better gift would have been to have been aware of, and had access to, the ALI community from that hospital bed.

(Side note: this exam marked a new first for me. One of my students actually FELL ASLEEP during the exam. I glanced around, and there he was, arms crossed, chin resting down on his chest, fast asleep. In much the same position my mom (Hi Mom! How are ya?) assumes when she falls asleep in front of the TV. So, I was at a loss. What’s the protocol? Do I ignore him? Poke him? Stand immediately behind him and clear my throat loudly? Plus, am I really THAT boring? Fortunately for Mr. Sleepy, he woke up on his own after about 5 minutes as I was pondering getting the guy next to him to elbow him in the ribs. Always the professional, I pretended not to have noticed anything amiss as I giggled into my coffee mug.)

Anyway, while he was snoozing and the rest of the class was working on my (fascinating, engrossing, and brilliant) exam, I got to thinking. These days I do the majority of my blog reading from my iPod. It certainly would have been handy, while curled up on my left side, towel rolls, pillows, nurse call button, IV line, fetal monitoring cords, etc. all carefully arranged, to have been able to surf the internet on a tiny handheld device instead of trying to perch a laptop sideways somewhere in this mess. Also, not everyone can afford a laptop. Or an iPod for that matter. The hospital does have free wireless for patients. I'm sure a large number of women who land in the hospital on bed rest were just wandering through what they thought was going to be an uncomplicated pregnancy, and they probably aren't aware that all of you wonderful ladies are out there blogging.

So, here was my thought: scrap the whole personal grooming idea. What women on bed rest need is (1) a loaner iPod, and (2) a handout with a few starter blogs listed on it (I bet Lost and Found and Connections Abound would probably be enough, but say there were five or so to get your feet wet, plus the link to March of Dimes, Sidelines, etc.)

What do you think? Any obvious refinements? Pitfalls? Do you think nonprofit status and a nicely phrased letter to Steve Jobs would get me 25 free iPods? Oh, wait. I guess not.

And seriously, ASLEEP during an EXAM??? This is college, people! Good grief.

Mothers, Part 1 of 2

I'd like to extend a warm welcome to Michele, who is the author of comment #5 on my previous post, and also happens to be my...





...wait for it...





my mother!

Yes, Mom found me. EARLY LAST YEAR, people. Talk about lurking!

So, some housekeeping. As you might imagine, I immediately searched my archives for any references I'd made to my mom (Mel's search engine is wonderful for this, by the way) to see if I'd written anything terrible about her, which apparently I had not. (But I MIGHT HAVE. She being such an EVIL LURKER!!!) I do seem to have mentioned in several places that I kind of like her. A little. That is, I used to... before the DELURKING.

My mom has a wonderful blog of her own, Bell Street Journal, which you can find here, or alternatively through the link in her comment. It's mostly about her artistic pursuits and her extensive travels. She occasionally mentions me there, and Dee, and Buddy, and H, and where we live, all by our real names. And there are photographs. (Next she'll probably post a map to our house, as well as what expensive electronics we own and where we hide the spare key.)

As you can see by my very sporadic posting, I'm not really going anywhere with discussion of my (retired) uterus anyway, so I thought I may as well take this opportunity to come out of the closet, remove things from my archives that I really wouldn't want certain individuals I know to encounter (cough*BROOM*cough) and blog a little more openly.

On the other hand, I don't really want any of my students to find their way here. So, I have been pruning my archives accordingly, and I will continue to use the pseudonyms I've been using for everyone all along. But I guess I can now admit I'm an actual person with a mother:



Isn't she cute? She says she's 5 feet 3 inches tall, but we all know she's exaggerating by an inch. People that are 5'2" find it much easier to unobtrusively LURK.