Archive for January, 2010
The Little Guy woke me early this morning with news of snow. I told him it was ice and he should go back to sleep. He did, I think, but he was right; it was snow. When Miss Baby got up, she was excited. “Snow! It’s winter!” After she ate her breakfast, she wanted to go out and play in the snow, which she indicated by stripping off her PJs and diaper. She ran out of her room wearing only gloves, saying, “Outside! snow!”; I stopped her and told her she needed to wear more than that. She ran back to her room and put on flip-flops. That’s it — no clothes, just the accessories.
OK, so, once we got everyone dressed appropriately, we went out in the backyard. The kids enjoyed skating around on the snowy back porch, and then started tossing around the snow in the yard. Out of nowhere, Miss Baby flopped down and made a snow angel. I have no idea where she learned this; every other time she’s encountered snow in her life, she’s been freaked out by it. After that, we went around to the front of the house. The kids sledded down the driveway, happy as can be. After a while, we went inside for hot chocolate and cookies, and I washed all their damp clothes. We played inside for a while, then went out and sledded again. When I said, “Let’s go in for lunch,” they took off at a gallup. Miss Baby ran into the house, tearing off her wet clothes, calling, “Where’s my lunch?”
After lunch, while Miss Baby napped, the Little Guy and I baked cookies. When she came out from her nap, the Little Guy gave her a cookie, and she said, “Thank you for the cookie,” with no prompting at all. In fact, she ran into the kitchen and reached for a cookie, saying to me, “Cookie, Little Guy.” I gave her one, and she ran into the other room with it and gave it to him, saying, “Here’s a cookie for you.” She loves her brother, but this kind of generosity is atypical. They played together pretty much the rest of the evening, sometimes sitting and reading together, sometimes running through the house together, sometimes playing kittenwar on the computer together. He was having so much fun, he sat by and played with her throughout her bath. She didn’t want the bath to end, but she was happy to climb into bed with her books. Her favorite these last few days has been “The Salamander Room.” While I read to her, he spread himself out on the floor of his bedroom and read too. When I tucked him in, he was in a good mood, and enjoyed having several blankets piled on him.
A good day all around.
I’ve been a little homesick lately — the recent terrible storms in Southern CA are reminiscent of some winters when I was in high school, and facebook has heightened my sense of connection to distant friends, while simultaneously emphasizing the distance between us. I’m between sad anniversaries regarding my brother, which heightens my melancholy. Plus, I’ve lately realized that I don’t really have friends here. I have good, friendly colleagues, and I think I will grow closer to them over time, but my life-pacing (what else would you call it?) is a little off of theirs; I’m nearly middle-aged, but I have small children at home, so I’m caught between two demographics. This was less of a problem in CA, where waiting to have children seemed more common. There’s no one here I can call and say, “Let’s go shopping,” or meet for coffee. Now, I didn’t do that much back home; I did it with my mother, some, before she moved, but there were people with whom I was always saying, “We should do something sometime.” We rarely managed to get together, but we could at least talk about it. I realize that this is a silly non-issue; I have a good job, a wonderful DH, sweet children, and a comfortable house. I know this all sounds terribly ungrateful, but there it is. Soon, I will have a mountain of grading, and it won’t matter any more.
Well, tonight, I got an e-mail from a former student who is interested in the Jesus Movement; I was a child at Calvary Chapel in the 1970’s, so she wanted to ask me about it. I was baptized at Little Corona, and I figure Calvary Chapel is somewhat responsible for my rather hippie-ish conception of Jesus, but what I mostly remember is the music, so I found The Everlastin’ Living Jesus Music Concert on my MP3 player, which made for a nostalgic, if incongruous, companion to the Hongloumeng. Hey, I’m nostalgic, but I still need to prepare for class.
Yesterday, I took the Little People for a walk. The Little Guy wanted to go downtown to Linear Park, which is a historical trail along Cross Creek downtown. He thought it would be good because it’s historical (yes, on his day off, he wanted to do something educational). I was looking for free parking, and the Little Guy commented, “It’s good to save money. That way you have more to share with people who don’t have anything.”
He enjoyed the walk, and was intrigued by the homeless encampment we saw under a bridge, which resulted in more discussion. He had a good time, which only got better when we saw a highline truck repairing railroad track and then went by the railyard and saw actual shunting in progress. Oh yes, hot shunting action. Last night, he called to me from bed, upset that yesterday had been such a good day that there was no way the next day could improve upon it.
This afternoon, I was talking with him about Frederick Douglass. He was impressed that the book was historical and true. I told him about Mrs. Auld teaching Douglass to read, despite it being illegal. He thought that was strange: “But reading is good. Why wouldn’t they teach slaves to read?” I explained why, but he was intrigued by Mrs. Auld: “She knew that reading was good even though she didn’t know that slavery was bad.”
No, not Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
There’s an interesting article in the NYT regarding women working in Germany. It’s complicated, because the East Germans encouraged women to work by providing good benefits, child care, and all-day school. West Germans have long hung onto the old “Kirche, Kueche, Kinder” idea, with policies to match. They’ve noticed, however, that the current economic downturn has affected traditionally male-dominated fields more than female-dominated fields, and are now trying to encourage women to work. Money for parental leave (both parents), daylong school, better childcare, and the like are becoming more common in the western states.
I was particularly interested in their description of the labor market for women in the US:
American mothers do not have the same subsidized child care options, and must cope with the long U.S. summer school break. But they face less discrimination at work and more pressure to earn money to finance private health care and education for their offspring.
This is how they account for the fact that, over all, there are more American women in the workplace than German women. We work because otherwise, our children wouldn’t get healthcare. This reminds me of a conversation I had at cub scouts last week — the parents, all of whom are covered by military or veteran’s health care, were complaining about the incipient “socialization of medical care.” It was so frustrating; they have socialized care, and I know people with no insurance who are looking forward to medicare, so their criticism seemed a bit unfair.
Women, economics, health care…. It’s all connected.
Really. My health insurance changed in January — now we have Blue Cross Blue Shield, which means that there are more than 3 doctors in Fayetteville that will accept my insurance. Hooray! BCBS has a program called “Blue Points,” in which one earns points for eating fruits and vegetables, taking online health courses, and engaging in physical activities. My fellow ORU grads might remember aerobic points, but for those of you who aren’t part of that select group, let me explain. At ORU, all students were required to take PE every semester. This wasn’t as bad as you’d think — we had many excellent PE classes. I took fencing and archery and horseback riding, which are all good stress releasers. In addition to the PE classes, we were expected to earn weekly aerobic points. In my day, we tracked these with bubble sheets like those used for multiple choice exams. (The school seeks to educate the whole person, mind, body, and spirit, so this is to take care of the body part. Nowadays, I’m especially appreciative of an integrated academic vision like this, but that’s another topic for another time).
So, here I am, years and years after college, earning aerobics points. I’ve been raking my yard for the last several days, which counts. And last week, I did yoga, with Miss Baby’s help, which makes it aerobic — you have to take breaks from stretching to chase her around the house and get your mat back.
If I earn enough points, I can get a bike. But there are lots of other prizes, like gift certificates for Macy’s or J.Jill. This is pretty cool, I think.
Filed under: ramblingPosted: January / 18 / 2010
Today our pastor preached on the wedding at Cana, with unusually favorable commentary regarding wine itself.
But we also sang “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” which is one of my all-time favorite hymns. Last year, a friend of mine was commenting on a hymn we were playing in handbells, saying that she wanted it played at her funeral, which got me thinking. So, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” is on my list for my funeral, and, of course, “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”
So, those of you who think you might be showing up for that, practice now. I expect congregational singing.
Because, Miss Baby, she likes them all. Her favorite character on “Dora the Explorer,” the one she is most likely to imitate, is Swiper. Yes, Swiper, the one who is always stealing stuff. And lately, she often asks for “TV Bunny.” That’s Bugs Bunny (Yep, she’s into the classics). She studies his every move, and requests carrots. Tonight, she practiced saying, “What’s up, doc?”
I think we’re in for some trouble with this one.
I think that my cat is going senile. The other day he dashed into the livingroom and jumped up on the table under the TV, then looked up, confused. Back in CA, he would jump up on the CD cabinet, then leap to the higher TV cabinet, where he would look down upon us, enjoying his safety, especially from Miss Baby. I think he had been deeply asleep, woke up, and thought he was back in CA.
He’s had moments like that in the bathroom too. The master bathroom at the house we rented last year had the sink in a middle area, with the closet through a door on the right, and the bathroom through the door on the left. His box was in the bathroom. The master bathroom here is the opposite, and the poor kitty often sits in front of the closet door and meows pitifully. Sometimes I carry him into the laundy room, where his box is now.
I think it isn’t serious senility, but I think he often has the experience of waking up from a deep sleep and being confused about where he is. He just sleeps more deeply more often than most of us do, so he has the experience more often.
She wore the inflatable duck all day yesterday, in the bath last night, and to bed last night. She got up this morning crying for it — we’d taken it off her in the night and hidden it in the bathtub. I told her where it was, and she fetched it and wore it around all morning. We went outside for a while, but she fell off the swings — the inflatable duck got in the way.
She was chatty and happy all morning. At one point, she brought me a little towel from the bathroom. “Mommy, put the towel.” I asked, “Put it where?” “Put it there, on the milk.” She’d spilled her milk and wanted me to clean it up.
After her nap, she was grouchy — she actually slept. After two bowls of pasta, her mood improved drastically. We took the kids to the “Yummy M,” for ice cream and some time on the playground. (It is seriously cold hereabouts). Miss Baby ran and played, but was happy to take a break for ice cream. When she was finished, she was finished, though, and called out, “I love you, playground!” and ran off.
We had a near-incident at the playground. The Little Guy didn’t care for the way a little boy was treating Miss Baby, and threatened him: “That’s my baby sister, you be nice to her. I don’t want to have to hit you, but I will if you’re mean to her!” We called him away, and nothing came of it, but he was upset. “I saw him coming down the slide on top of her!” We explained that we appreciated him standing up for his sister, but that he was carrying it too far with the threats.
Meanwhile, Miss Baby was happily finishing off her ice cream.
We went to Pigeon Forge for a few days with the in-laws, and I slept with Miss Baby one and a half nights. The first night, she slept in her fetal position — spreadeagled and kicking my bladder. The second night, she shared a bed with the Little Guy, which we considered quite a coup. The third night, she slept with me again, but around four in the morning I noticed she was missing from the bed. I checked the other bed, and she was curled up between my DH and her big brother, cuddling her brother. So I had the bed to myself for about three hours.
