Fire Breathing Dragon Mama

Uproar over new Lego Friends sets

2012-01-10T21:56:00.005-05:00

So, I've been hearing (well, mostly reading online.. and making myself) a lot of fussing especially from mostly Adult Fans of Lego (aka AFOL) about the new Lego brand "Friends" line that is targeted specifically at girls (read what you may into the fact that my biggest problem with it is NOT the gender stereotyping of the activities presented - my biggest issue has to do with functionality of the humanoid figurines. I've always been much more of a nerd than a feminist.). Even given that, I was still surprised to get the following email from change.org - and really bothered by the level of inaccuracy in the claims they make about the product. It concerns me because now I will be questioning the veracity of the claims they make about much more important issues than children's toys (though, as a sociologist-in-training specifically interested in child development and symbolic interactionism, toys are a VERY important issue to me - ESPECIALLY those that are targeted specifically to one traditional stereotype subset of gender).

The text of the email was:

Tell LEGO: Stop marketing sexist toys to girls

Dear Ahmie,

Iconic toy brand LEGO recently launched a new line of toys meant just for girls -- but two young women, Bailey Shoemaker-Richards and Stephanie Cole, think the products are unfairly "dumbed down" for girls.

The new line is called LadyFigs, and it's made up ofbusty, pastel-colored figurines that come with interests like shopping, hair-dressing, and lounging at the beach. The uninspired toys even come with pre-assembled environments -- so there is no assembly (or imagination) required.

Bailey and Stephanie say they're frustrated that LEGO is pushing outdated gender roles on girls and cheating them of the opportunity to build and discover. So they took to the internet, blogging about what they call the new "Barbielicious" LEGOs andpetitioning the toy company to lose the sexist LadyFigs line and go back to empowering both boys and girls with its original products. Click here to sign Bailey and Stephanie's petition today.

LEGO hasn't always thought its toys were only for boys. In the 1980s, the company was actually celebrated for a major advertising campaign that spotlighted a young girl and her LEGO creation with the tagline "What it is is beautiful." But since then, LEGO reversed course and decided to market its products only to boys.

The company claims its research shows girls just don't appreciate the original LEGO line. But Bailey and Stephanie argue that with LEGO's renewed emphasis on boys -- featuring only boys in its ads and stocking products in the boys' aisles of toy stores -- it's no wonder young girls wouldn't think LEGOs were meant for them.

Bailey and Stephanie's fight to get LEGO to return to its gender-neutral toys is already making waves, with the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and Time weighing in on the issue. But LEGO is stubbornly holding its ground and told Business Week that the LadyFigs launch is a "strategic" move to "reach the other 50 percent of the world's children," as if girls have never been part of LEGO's focus.

Public pressure can prove LEGO wrong. If enough people sign Bailey and Stephanie's petition, it could convince LEGO that the new LadyFigs are bad business and the company should return its focus to empowering boys AND girls with toys that inspire creativity and innovation.

Tell LEGO to stop selling out girls -- sign Bailey and Stephanie's petition today.

Thanks for being a change-maker,

- Shelby and the Change.org team

My reply (which I suspect may have gone to an unmonitored email address - I didn't research who to reach Shelby specifically yet and am unlikely to get a chance to tonight - hopefully I will remember to do so tomorrow) was:

I don't know if this message will ever be read, but I feel the need - as an Adult Female Fan of Legos and mother of three sons ages 7 and under, to clarify some inaccuracies in your email.

First, the sets do NOT come pre-assembled. Basic investigation reveals that they are full of standard bricks in addition to the human-esque figurine. The other parts are standard Lego products, and work fine with any of the other sets they've made in the last 30 years and beyond for the most part. The tools are the same size as standard minifig tools, in fact most of them are actually from the same molds as long-existing parts, just in new colors. The $10 sets have about 80 pieces each, of which only four are the humanoid figurine. Many AFOL (Adult Fans of Lego - gender neutral but mostly males) plan to buy the sets and get rid of the dolls, because the sets themselves are actually quite a nice assortment of parts. The Cafe set will be finding its way into our own expansive Lego village. These sets actually have more complex builds than many of the sets targeted to boys or gender-neutral over the years (many of which are in our own large personal Lego collection). For instance, the Harry Potter series sets often had large prefab wall pieces that offer much less repurposing flexibility than what is in much of these sets (though as a caveat: that's not apples-to-apples entirely, as I have not had chance to examine the most expensive set currently on offer on the Friends line - the house may have the same pre-fab walls like much of the Castle/Kingdom/Harry Potter sets used; I can't tell from pictures). They are comparable in complexity, from all appearances, with the currently offered Superheros line Lego is offering.

Secondly, Lego refers to them as "mini-dolls" not "LadyFigs".

Third, this is just the first few sets to come out. Barbie didn't become a doctor or an astronaut for a LONG time after she hit shelves, I would predict that Lego will be having its Friends in space much sooner (and the new Series 6 Collectible Minifig set features a female surgeon along with the uber-pink blond-bombshell-in-space that I affectionately refer to as "astrobimbo"... baby steps, I guess...). Given that Lego is headquartered in a country that is lightyears ahead of the US in pretty much every indicator of social inequalities (I say this as a sociologist-in-training), I trust them to advance the cause of women pretty rapidly. The "Olivia" character seems a pretty competent budding scientist with a well-stocked personal lab (including microscope) in which she appears to have built her own robot, "Mia" with a little imagination becomes an animal rights activist, and "Emma" has a nice complex design studio that is NOT dumbed-down (yes, she appears to be designing fashions, but swap out the "whiteboard" piece - it is a standard shape available without the printing on it - and she could be a budding architect with the rest of the stuff in the $10 set... this would be the ONE time I am sorry to NOT have had a sticker instead of a pre-printed brick come out of the box).

As for Lego being in the "boys" part of stores, every Target and Toys R Us I have been in in the last decade has a "Lego aisle" (if not several) that has nothing but Lego products, many of which I, as a female, have considered as interesting as my husband and other Lego fans in my social circles have.

I do not hold Lego innocent in this at all - I am actually working on an academic research project that will hopefully be a published academic journal article about what I believe are the REAL roots of the "lack of affection" girls have for the standard minifigs - number one problem being the horrible gender imbalance in the Lego Minifig population (it's less than 20% female, and the female offerings generally are not as interesting and detailed as the average for the male offerings). I do believe Lego made many missteps in this new Friends line. I am severely irritated that they have less articulation in their joints than the minifigures do (their wrists don't turn, their legs don't move independently, and they can't lean backwards - I do not believe that evolution should reduce functionality) and the shape of the feet is problematic with positioning in relation to built components on baseplates, and they can't sit on the studs/pegs of the bricks and be locked into position like the minifigs can - all of these are functional design problems that they should have solved before going to market if they wanted to prevent the severe negative response they've gotten.

My personal opinion is that the company AND consumer base would have been better served by first bringing the standard minifig population into gender-balance via offering all-female minifig packs (similar to how they offer "battle packs" for various lines), making some new female face and torso designs, and releasing those as well as the already-available minifig hair pieces in every color option through their online pick-a-brick store at minimum (as a box set assortment similar to they have done with "community workers" and the "fairytale figures" sets for retail shelf purchase would be a good move too). THEN work on evolving the minifig - taller, rounder, more humanly shaped like the mini-dolls without losing the functionality of the minifigs, ESPECIALLY if it meant they didn't look somewhat anorexic (I do commend them on giving the mini-dolls a more realistic breast size than many other dolls-with-breasts on the market over the years, but those arms are scary-skinny in relation to the hand size, and the skinniness of the arms is why the physics of a functional wrist don't work). It is the lack of functionality that makes these mini-dolls less appealing to my 7 year old son (who, when given free reign to build three minifigs for $10 at our local Lego store generally goes for female minifig parts without prompting since he knows intuitively that he doesn't have as many of those as the male parts on offer). When looking at the Friends sets on the shelves at our local Target, once he realized they were actually Lego products (he was more confused by them not being in the Lego aisle and mini-dolls than by the actual content of the sets or color of the boxes), he was actually quite interested in playing with them. I have video recorded his initial impression at the store as well as his initial reaction to the mini-dolls themselves, and have his permission to share those publicly.

I will be reposting this message on my blog. I believe more discussion is better, all around, and that nothing is furthered by folks going off on a crusade based upon faulty first impressions.

Thank you for reading.

Ahmie
Mom, writer, Sociology graduate student, and AFOL - amongst other things.

I will be uploading the videos of my eldest child Liam (age 7.5 years) and his reaction to the products shortly and will edit this post to include the link when I do. If you have thoughts to share with me about this, please do so here on my Blogger blog (http://dragonmama.blogspot.com) instead of on Facebook or Google+ or wherever this might be reposted, so that the conversation stays in one place visible to all interested participants.

Ahmie

edit: update - after kids fell asleep I did some googling and sent a @ message on Twitter to ShelbyKnox with a link to this blog post, hopefully she sees it and comes to engage here, if time allows. She sounds like a busy woman.

Reflections on living with a stamina disability

2011-11-03T14:25:00.001-04:00

For background, if you haven't read it already, you should read the wonderful "Spoon Theory" that is out there on the internets, written by a woman with Lupus. I'll be referencing it a lot though this post.

This is my first-ever post using the Blogger app on my Android, so if it's glitchy please let me know. If I know people are reading this then maybe I might possibly be encouraged to use more spoons on posting here a bit more often. Or not. My spoon supply is very limited.

Christine, author of Spoon Theory, does a very good job of explaining the stamina issues that come with chronic pain. I. Really wish more healthy people who care about those of us who are disabled would read that post, and review it frequently if needed. Recently I have had community members I care about deeply making demands on spoons that I just do not have to give them. At the moment, I am in the middle of a semester from hell in my graduate program. I barely see my eldest child because he is in full time school during the day, getting out after 3pm, and I have to leave for class by 5:30 three nights a week, to be out past his bedtime. In that scant 2 hours, I need to recover from taking my other son to and from his half-day pre-k and picking them both up (my youngest stays with my caregiver while I stay out of the house between dropping off and picking up my 2nd son - dropoff is at 12:30 and then I am back in the line for pickup no later than 2:30 even though he doesn't get out until 2:55ish because otherwise I'm too far back in the line to have any hope of getting to my eldest near the time he's dismissed). I have been sleeping poorly due to the stress of school, kids' school issues, husband's school issues, community issues, and general health issues that hit me like clockwork this time of year (quite litterally, I generally feel like a two story tall clocktower may have fallen on me overnight most mornings starting around Autumn Equinox and letting up if I'm lucky sometime before Spring Equinox - this would be why I've been so drawn to the Persephone myth for so long, this has been my reality since some time in elementary school).

I keep trying to explain to people that I need to reserve my stamina, my spoons, for my studies and my children. I haven't been able to work on my novel much for over a month because of other life stuff interfering and taking the little time I have for THAT beloved activity away from me, which means I'm not recharging very well either.

To help people understand, here are a list of things that take one "spoon" worth of energy from me:
§ Going up a flight of stairs OR down two flights of stairs (in other words, I can go downstairs, realized I forgot something, go back up to get it, then back down and I'll have used two spoons)
§ brushing my hair (it's a holding my arms over my head thing - braiding it takes about half a spoon, putting it in a bun maybe a third of a spoon)... This is why I keep my hair long. If I keep it braided, I don't have to brush it as much as I do when it's short. The texture of my hair is such that it tangles very easily when it's loose (which means if you see me wearing my hair down, it's a sign that I think the event is worthy of several spoons above and beyond actually attending).
§ walking approximately 100ft.
§ getting in and out of a vehicle, especially without down-time between (long drives with cruise control on are much less demanding on me than running several errands in a row).
§ sitting in an unpadded chair for an hour (i.e. in class, at a restaurant, pew, my own dinner table...).
§ because I am also dyslexic - reading certain types of text, especially "footed" fonts and certain text sizes, or with columns or tables or other visual tracking distractions - costs about a spoon per hour. The same is not true of reading when I can adjust the font and keep the visual distractions around the text to a miniumum, which is why I am so fond of ebooks on my portable devices - that is a way to recharge and recover spoon for me.
§ washing my hair. I'm not able to do this independantly at this time because my knees, pelvis, and shoulders are all too unstable. I need to sit on a shower chair, which I can't always get into the tub on my own (that will cost me a spoon alone). If I have to stand in the shower, it will be more like 5 spoons and I will likely need several hours to recover to be able to do anything that requires me to be more upright than sitting in a recliner (in otherwords - this turns into Facebook or recharge reading time, or very grumpy Ahmie from being annoyed that she's not getting ANYTHING accomplished time). It also is dependant on temperature control - if one of my kids opens the bathroom door and hits me with a gust of cold air mid-shower, that will cost an extra unexpected spoon (I can't lock the bathroom door because it is very old, just a slide lock, which would prevent someone from being able to come in and help me if I needed assistance getting out or if I were to fall). Not being able to shower at will without having to put a lot of thought into it is something I do kinda resent about my disability.
§ washing a sink full of dishes (though I actually generally enjoy washing dishes, the standing and arm movements are painful).
§ vacuuming, if the floor is already clear of toys and such
§ Standing still on a hard surface, or in shoes, for more than a few minutes (this one generally hits me later and is why I use my scooter at church so much - by the time I realize how long I've been standing while engaged in a good conversation, I've spent almost all my spoons for the day and need a nap).
§ since my right knee went out in June, driving where I need to switch from accelorator to brake pedal frequently such as downtown driving or rush hour costs me about a spoon every 10minutes.
§ cuddling with my kids in a way that keeps me from changing positions for more than about 10min. I always try to keep several spoons reserved for them anyway, or invite them to snuggle me while I'm laying in bed (which recharges spoons instead of costing them, but my day doesn't generally allow me to have enough downtime to fill their snuggle needs that way exclusively, especially with being out past their bedtimes three nights per week)

There are a lot of other little unexpected things that quickly deplete my resources in ways that surprise others (even my husband of 12 years). Personally, I prefer to focus on ways that I gain spoons instead. A few of those are:
§ crocheting... For some reason the movements involved are something I can sustain for extended periods of time, and it's so good for my mental health to have a physical SOMETHING that comes out of it.
§ writing via computer (handwriting is something I avoid as much as possible, it is not worth the spoons with as illegible as my handwriting is). This is anything from participating in an online community via Facebook or email lists, to writing fiction or even non-fiction (but only if the non-fiction doesn't involve having to move around a lot to search out references in physically printed materials - the movements of that drain me quickly). Feeling like I understand others, and that I am understood, is invigorating to me.
§ getting a chance to practice compassion for others instead of always being on the receiving end. This is what I love about my church community so much - I feel called to practice unconditional compassion there... I do wish sometimes that certain members wouldn't make it such a challenge to follow the line of compassion without being taken advantage of and potentially abused...
§ receiving feedback that something I've done has made a positive difference in someone else's life - this of course is made more likely by the above behaviors, but sometimes it comes entirely out of the blue and that random feeling of being valued is so good at recharging me that I try to make sure I give others honest positive feedback as often as I can. I don't do empty compliments, but if I can give a kind, personal word and brighten someone's day just a little I know how big an impact that has on me personally so I try to do it for others when I'm not too wrapped up in how many spoons I still have compared to how many I would need to get through the rest of what I want to accomplish that day.
§ sleep, of course... Though the restlessness of sleep with chronic pain makes that one a little hit-or-miss... Sometimes a nap will help me recover a few spoons and make it through the rest of the day before bed, sometimes I'm down for the count. I can't generally predict which it will be when I lay down. And some mornings it takes me close to an hour to really have my body cooperating with the whole getting-out-of-bed-without-falling-on-the-floor concept.
§ caffeine... But this one is dangerous. I love coffee but I can only have caffeine certain times of the day, or I will have even more problems sleeping at night. On average, it takes about 7 hours for a cup of coffee to wear off enough for me to sleep. Coffee feeds my muse, if I drink it too close to when I need to be asleep, I will feel a near compulsive urge to write as my brain starts getting close to dreaming. I've tried writing in bed to solve that, but that does bad things to my back.
§ problem-solving, but only if the problem is REALLY resolved. Tengram puzzles, troubleshooting a problem (personal, technological, physical, etc - doesn't matter) through to resolution, that kind of stuff leaves me feeling energized. Feeling like stuff is still at loose ends after repeated efforts to solve the problem would be exactly the opposite though, so I am wary of using this one.
§ watching my children play... Unfortunately it doesn't recharge me as fast as some physical environments deplete me, so it's a careful balance too...

I hope this gives some insight into what my life is like... And maybe a little inkling into what life is like for others who have stamina-limiting disabilities (yes, my friends with mental health issues, I mean you too!). If you care to share your own drains and recharges, or ones that you've noted about me that I haven't listed here even, please do. A more full understanding of the world around us is what I'm aiming for here, after all. It recharges me. :)

Symbolic Interactionism (original poem)

2011-10-27T23:39:00.005-04:00

meant to post this yesterday when I wrote it but was battling migraines (and still am, I've been hiding in a dark room for the last 6 hours and am too wired up from the caffeine that helps with the migraine pain to have any hope of getting to sleep anytime soon), then more crap hit the fan today that added a few lines to this from a totally different direction. I share this response to the forces that keep trying to hold me down, in hopes that others who feel that they're being held down and back might find it and find strength to push back through my words.

Whoever you are, you are not what others present you to be. You are more than the sum total of their opinions of you. Find your inner core reality, find something to LOVE about yourself, and stand upon that foundation when they try to knock you down. Then go look for that inner core reality worth loving in those around you, help them find it and stand with them. This is the way to real strength, from what I've lived.

Here's the poem:

Symbolic Interactionism

"You're so stubborn" you declared
as if not knowing where
I came from - this dissolution
of dissatisfaction
is not a symptom of mule-headedness.
I cannot confess
upon my knees,
nor begging will you see
for the scraps you've ever thrown my way.
I have put away those days
where I longed for you
and not some substitute
teacher, role model worth
the intentionality of my birth.
Decades of my always being the one
to bring the olive branch home
only to have you turn it into a switch
- the scars still itch
when I forget my self
and allow ghosts to dwell
within my heart crying "if only..."
but that path got too lonely
and I left it long ago
when I decided to blaze my own -
who cares if bridges burn
if they lead nowhere? So I learned
to release my hate, sadness, and resentment.
Now all you are to me is a disappointment,
a distraction from other priorities
that have taken over my loyalties.
Looking my way, you see
what you always wished to be
but you were unwilling to do the work
so resent my reminder of your worth.
I stopped crying for you a lifetime ago,
yet there is one more thing you should know.
When you called me stubborn, you were wrong.
I'm not JUST stubborn, I am strong,
beautiful, intelligent and kind.
And you can no longer claim what's mine.

(started 201110261401 added to 201110272338 - those are date/time marks for the curious YYYYMMDDHHMM)

Dear grumpy old male customer at Best Buy

2011-08-21T14:53:00.002-04:00

I don't know what it was about me that made you feel entitled to interfere in my interaction with my four year old child while he was trying to figure out a game on an iPad. Perhaps it was simply because I'm female and you feel entitled to criticize anything any female does. Perhaps it was my attire (jean shorts, a Toy Story t-shirt, and sandals) that had you make assumptions about my social class, education level, church-going habits (we had attended a service on bullying at our church just a few hours before this, ironically), or marital status (tho the simple gold band around my left ring finger should have been a giveaway there). Perhaps it was my disability since I had positioned my mobility scooter in such a way as to shielding my child who was seated on the floor from becoming a tripping hazard - maybe you even assumed he wasn't mine since I am not able-bodied.

Whatever your "logic" was for stepping in to criticize my child and me for his sitting on the floor playing a game on the iPad, it was flawed. The fact that you were clearly a bully used to getting your way when you go to boss someone around was revealed in your refusal to back off and mind your own business after my REPEATED requests that you do so. That you then felt the desire to call in other authority figures - first suggesting the manager of the store, then even the POLICE, over a simple matter of a four year old playing with a floor model iPad in a place of public accommodation, revealed you to be not just an asshat, but a proud wearer of a scrotal necktie. The store staff was NOT thrilled with having to intervene and TELL you to mind your own business and look at a (GASP) different iPad, seeing as there were THREE on display. Your little stalker behavior of coming across the parking lot as we were loading my scooter and children into the minivan (yes, I saw you coming, and yes, the cell phone in my hand had 911 dialed with my thumb under the "call" button) was a total dumbass move and you're lucky I had the restraint not to throw the van into reverse and run your ass over, since it had taken quite a bit of restraint earlier in the store to keep from running your feet over with my scooter or braining you with my cane (though it seems like the tissue in that cranium might have been soft enough to not be much effected by the level of blow my limited arm strength is capable of delivering, so it wouldn't have really been worth the paperwork involved).

You should also count yourself lucky that I didn't video your ass and post you on YouTube, you twit. I refrained from even taking a picture of you to post here on my blog & Facebook feed.

Instead, you sarcastically wished us a nice day and I wished you a good life. Elsewhere. Preferably measured in air miles. And hopefully you'll think twice (or, heck, maybe even think FIRST) before harassing anyone who matches any of my demographic characteristics again. Because if you keep it up, sir, SOMEONE is gonna open a can of whoopass on you that your old brittle bones won't be liking. And of you invade someone's space the way you did mine, they well might be able to justify doing such to a jury, depending on who witnesses it.

Just sayin'.

Sincerely,

The DragonMama

On my 7th World Breastfeeding Week as a lactivist

2011-08-04T22:25:00.005-04:00

I type this with my 14mo asleep across my lap, nuzzled up to my breast while his father snuggles the older two into unconsciousness. I'm exhausted but felt the need to post something, this may be rambling nonsense so preemptive apologies if it gets too tangenty.

It's been a wild seven years since my first, first week of August(aka World Breastfeeding Week) as a breastfeeding mother in 2004. Back then, my state didn't recognize the legal right of my baby to eat wherever he was when he happened to be hungry and I could have been asked to leave a store for feeding him. Now, I still might get hassled for it but at least there's a law in place (thanks in very small part to Liam and I going down to our state capital to testify for the legislation). Teeth to it would be nice sometimes.

We just got back from an exhausting trip to NYC (whose state law does, incidentally, have "teeth" - there's at least a stated fine for harassing people for breastfeeding) where we stayed with my bro-in-law, visited with my mom-in-law's friends (NOT my idea of a great time after driving 500 miles in 11 hours with 3 young children, to have to then drive MORE to sit around a table for more than an hour while people socialized in a language I can't understand... but... whatever. I got to see the Harry Potter exhibition with my kids before it leaves the continent so I can't complain TOO much, right?). The baby H.A.T.E.S. his carseat, and is only somewhat mullified by playing music (when I want to be listening to audiobooks, of course). I had just got a new cell phone (my first Android, because my 2.5yr old Blackberry was dying), and had a new stereo installed in the van so I could do hands-free calling, and wound up streaming music from my phone through the stereo via bluetooth since it was easier to switch back to the audiobook if Little Bear allowed me to. Luckily my kids don't insist on listening to "kids music" (Liam's favorite song is by Dave Stewart from the Eurythmics, Del's current favorite song is by Alanis Morrissette, and Col tends to want Take to the Sky by Tori Amos, which is a b-side from Little Earthquakes and my "theme song"). I wasn't even sure what was ON my cell phone's memory card, I'd just copied everything over from the Blackberry since I used some of them as ringtones. Turned out to have some stuff that made me sentimental, and brought out a little of the militant lactivist/DragonMama in me, possibly to the chagrin of some of the other people in the restaurants we dined in bwahahahaha (no you obnoxious Jersey Shore types, I'm NOT interested in your parenting advice as your inappropriately dressed teens act like total cretins in public, thankyouverymuch).

The music pulls me back to my younger, more-steamroller-than-diplomat days (err... yes... I *have* gotten better about it, believe it or not). I find that I've needed to find a balance point between the assertive no-I'm-going-to-do-what's-right-up-yours-if-you're-gonna-try-to-oppress-me attitude (tho yeah, that still comes out... pretty much daily, to be honest) and the let's-see-if-we-can-find-a-win-win-compromise-that-doesn't-make-me-want-to-vomit-from-compromising-my-integrity end that I fear I may have to cultivate if I ever want to be a college professor. Motherhood has really helped me learn to SEEK that balance point more, even if I still tip to the former quite often.

I had Tori's From the Choirgirl Hotel album playing today while running errands. The album was written after the musician had a miscarriage. I don't think I've listened to it beginning-to-end since becoming a mother myself. I almost started crying during Playboy Mommy. It hit me hard when I first heard it, years before Liam was conceived, but now it reminds me of how very blessed I am to have had uneventful pregnancies and healthy children (especially since we had a friend's 4 year old daughter in the van with us - the friend is newly pregnant again currently, had miscarried a very wanted child shortly before I conceived Col then got pregnant again, the new baby will be less than 2 years younger than that baby). It made me think of the bonds motherhood has formed between me and other women, both child-bearers and not, and how much it has made my maternal line mean to me.

This has also been on my mind today because my mother forwarded to me an article written about my grand-uncle (maternal grandmother's brother, my grandmother is the only one of her siblings to ever marry, her siblings were like additional grandparents to me), which deeply touched me that my uncle's work has survived to be appreciated more than two decades after his death. I wonder what kind of ripples my own life's work will have. If long after I'm gone someone has such kind words to say about me that my descendants can come across, that will tell them that my life was well-lived. I wish I knew more about Uncle Norvin, I hope that my descendants will know more about me (and that I'll live long enough to know more about them... he was only in his mid-60s when he died, I was in kindergarten).

The milk of human kindness flows in many ways, but our babies deserve it first from their mother's breasts. How, in this scary economy, can we make that possible for more women? I am blessed to have had the privilege to breastfeed my children full-term (biologically - other mammals do not wean their young before they have enough teeth to eat a full adult diet... ponder that the next time you hear someone say "that baby is too old to be breastfed". If they're still young enough to have jars of baby food marketed to them, they're still young enough to be fed the way they were born expecting to be nourished). How can we be more kind in a meaningful manner, with mothers who have so many barriers to the way they might want to live? How can we make it possible for the cashier at the grocery store (who mentioned that she is hoping to have another child while commenting on the coolness of the baby carrier - a traditional Chinese style one - we had with us) to breastfeed her own for as long as she might like to, without making her feel like we have no understanding of the complexities of her life that just BEGIN with the chaos of her work schedule? Meaningful, PAID parental leave when a child is born would be part of it, but making breastfeeding mothers feel welcome and accepted in public places instead of abiding the mentality of the few that breastfeeding should only be done at home, behind closed doors - that'd be a start, I think. We've got such a long way to go. I hope that we get there before I'm a memory like my uncle.

Done

2011-07-10T14:09:00.001-04:00

Woman, I am done with you..
Your twisted life and misaligned stars,
cloud of doom following wherever you are,
inescapable chaos of your own creation,
drama and pity and tribulation
ongoing despite every intervention,
accusing others of your own guilty facts,
twisting past kindnesses into salacious acts.
Any agreement with you is like a demonic pact!
An assistant becomes someone to throw bricks at.
Someone helps you ten times, you trump by helping once -
to continue on like this I'd be a dunce.
My milk of human kindness that was down to the last ounce
spilled on the ground when you called me a fraud.
Now like so many others, your perminent departure I would applaud!
Woman, I am DONE with you.

I loathe cell phone shopping... bring on the bathing suits

2011-06-24T23:06:00.003-04:00

I am extremely finicky about my cell phone for several reasons, as folks who spend any time with me in face-to-face interactions tend to find out. OK, I'm extremely finicky about anything I spend more than about $10 on, especially if it comes with recurring expenses, truth be told.

I'm also rather annoyed that AT&T is buying T-Mobile. I've liked T-Mobile, we've been with them (well, with the company they were before they were T-Mobile and then with them) for seven years, since we moved back to Cleveland. They've given great customer service, the cell reception has been pretty much flawless unless I'm in an area where NO ONE gets cell service (and I often get it even where others don't, somehow), and their pricing structure has been quite good. I have not heard such glowing reviews from friends who have had AT&T, plus AT&T does lots of not-so-great things politically that I really don't want my household's money going toward, so I've been looking at alternatives.

And now we run into the problem. The problem isn't so much that other companies are charging too much for their service. Really, none of them has a plan that fits the way we use phones in our family well. We are heavy on the text, light on data - my mother is the only one of the five of us on the plan right now who even has data service - and VERY light on the phone conversations except for my mom and mother-in-law. We could seriously get by with all 5 of us on a plan with 1000 minutes shared as long as there were free nights and weekends. Toss in with Sprint that free nights start at 7 (I think that's what the girl just told me at the store?) and you can call any mobile number in the USA, any carrier, for free and we could actually probably get by with about 500min between all of us, and that's with my mom using her cell phone as her primary phone number. But they don't offer a plan with less than 1500 minutes that has data, don't have non-smartphone that meets my needs (and only one of the smartphones even really does and I didn't really like the way it felt in my hand), and the cheapest family plan would cost us nearly double what our current Tmo bill is.

URG!!!

Considering going pay-as-you-go with Boost or Virgin, but then I still am stuck with the phone-not-meeting-my-needs problem, though I think we would at least save money monthly, possibly. My father-in-law really doesn't need a phone with monthly minutes at all, one that we have to pay for every minute would be fine since it's just for emergencies and Boost lets you do that for 10 cents/minute from what I saw on their website. My mother-in-law only needs voice since she isn't English-literate enough to text if people WERE using proper English instead of txtspk (seriously, she calls us EVERY TIME we send her out to get toilet paper to spell out the name of the brand and make sure she's getting the right one.. Q-U-I-L-T-E-D N-O-R-T-H-E-R-N). My mom is addicted to her iPhone and likely isn't following us if we leave Tmo anyway from the last I heard (tho the Sprint girl said they're getting iPhones this fall so who knows).

So why am I having such a problem with phones? Ahhhh... here comes the REAL rant.

There are no effing mom-phones! I can get mom JEANS, mom UNDIES, mom BRAS... mom MOCHAS in won't-burn-the-kid-if-you-spill-it-on-them temperatures... holy crap the new 2011 Honda Odyssey seems like it may actually have been designed by an entire TEAM of mom-engineers, it's like the wet dream of any mom with 3 or more kids, I swear I had a little momgasm crawling aroud that thing in the fall when my 2007 Odyssey was in for a recall repair. LOTS of other aspects of the commercial world that CLEARLY have a little thought into at least SOME of the options that demonstrate "a mom of small children had some say in how this product came out". KUDOS to all of them. Cell phone manufactuerers? As far as I'm concerned, across the board FAIL at the moment and for the last several years.

Why? What would a mom phone have that is lacking in pretty much every single phone on the market right now?

A.) Don't make us sacrifice the goddamn QWERTY keyboard layout to get single-button-push speeddial. I do NOT mean push-button-to-speak voice recognition speed dial. How well do you think THAT works when you've got a toddler shouting for a fruit roll-up and the baby crying in the background? Yeah. Wonderful. I need to call my husband and ask him, in the space between the baby's shrieks, to please pick up an extra pack of bandaids on the way home. With the vast majority of phones on the market right now, to do that I either sacrifice QWERTY to have just the basic numeric keypad or I have to tap a crapload of times on a screen or slide-out keyboard to get to his entry in my addressbook (assuming that I have no yet had the braincells to rub together to think to put him at the top of the addressbook by putting a number before his name... why he won't be FIRST in the addressbook appears below). I sent fewer than 10 text messages in the NINE YEARS I had a cell phone before I got a QWERTY phone. I have been a touch typist since I was 16, my brain does not think ABCs when I'm trying to spell out a message, particularly when sleep deprived and covered in various forms of goo from my offspring.

B.) WHY THE FUCK CAN'T I HAVE A QWERTY FLIP PHONE?!? There have been, as far as I am aware, essentially THREE flip phones made in the last SEVEN YEARS that have QWERTY keypads: the LG Lotus (there were a couple different versions of this, I forget how many), the Blackberry Flip, and (currently the only one on the market and I *think* still being manufactured) the Blackberry Style. Why am I so obsessed with a flip form-factor? Multitude of reasons.

I close it and I know I hung up on the asshole that I currently want to strangle while I bite my tongue HARD to keep from dropping repeated f-bombs in front of the little featherless parrots flocking around me at every waking moment. The primary screen and keyboard are also protected as I throw the phone in a full-out Momtrum when those moments are REALLY bad. On my more calm, rational, sane days, the flip action protects the phone's main screen & keyboard from damage from being in my pocket, or used as a teething toy when I don't get it out of the baby's reach fast enough (or he just outright picks my pocket without my noticing it - his brothers act as distraction decoys quite well).
The pacifier in my pocket does not randomly decide to make a social call on whoever happens to have a name that starts with A in my address book (and as someone with an A name and the 2nd letter being earlier than most other A names so I wind up at the top of most of my friends' address books, pocket/butt dialing is rather a big pet peeve of mine). Sure, I COULD key-lock the phone, if I remember... or I could set it to automatically key-lock really quickly (which then annoys the shit out of me when I'm trying to use the phone amidst the distractions of aforementioned small children and take too long to dial the next number in the phone number I'm trying to read off a paper/computer screen and have to do key-unlock THREE TIMES in the process of trying to make ONE GODDAMN PHONE CALL - yes, this was my life before I switched to flip phones, and I made the switch when my eldest was barely a month old). For anyone reading this, regardless of phone type, a suggestion a friend gave me and I BEG of anyone with me in their phonebook to make: make the first entry in your address book named 1111 and enter your own cell phone number into it. At least then if you pocket-dial (or let your kid play with your phone - I don't let my little gnawers TOUCH mine but I have friends that apparently have better replacement plans on their phones who let their toddlers play with the devices, which results in my getting a lot of preschoolers breathing deeply in my ear) you're just annoying yourself with long somewhat intimidating sounding voicemail messages from your pocket contents. Keep the lint fairies happy and they won't threaten you with a shiv, that's my experience.
More mundanely, the sound quality on flip phones had generally been better than other phones, particularly for those of us who can't go around constantly wearing devices that are simultaneously electronic choking hazards AND diminishing our ability to track the suspicious little sounds of our kids causing chaos around us. I have to hold my phone to my ear when I'm using it, or use speakerphone (which I do when I'm driving, it's also why I have a different ring tone for pretty much every single person who calls me on a regular basis. If my general ring tone rings while I'm driving, it doesn't get answered. If I know who is calling, it depends on traffic conditions and how much that individual has annoyed me in the last week). I've tried at least half a dozen different bluetooth options, not a single one functions well enough for me to wear for an entire day while with my kids.

C.) Why the hell is it, when any phone even comes CLOSE to meeting mom-needs, it gets slapped with the crappiest camera of the entire line the manufacturer is putting out? Come ON! A mom-phone needs more than 1.3 effing megapixels. Don't be a jerk, cough up the 5-ers. I'm so damn tired of carrying around a separate camera. Since my iPod Touch is only a 2G, I have three electronic devices for a day out -cell phone, iPod in case the kids get bored or [insert sound of choir of angels] all three of them fall asleep at the same time in the car so I can get a little pleasure-reading in via the Kindle app, and the point-and-shoot camera. I'm actually waiting to see what the iPod Touch 5G has to offer in the way of a camera, if it's halfway decent (my husband has a 4G and I'd like better than that camera, thankyouverymuch) I will actually spend money on an Apple product for myself for the very first time in my life (and I've been a full-on techie sometimes employed in the field since 1993, no n00b here).

D.) I've never seen this one, but if some engineering folks at a cell phone manufacturer (or even just programmers) happen to read this and the above criteria were satisfied... an ability to LET my kids play with the phone when doing so will prevent them from sounding like a pack of rabid banshees while we wait in line at the post office that also locks them from all the other features of the phone would be WONDERFUL. I have an iPod Touch (which I got for free for opening a bank account last summer - I'm really not a fan of Apple after being a computer repair tech in the 1990s when they were proprietary-EVERYTHING and the bane of my existence... and I still pretty much hold the opinion that Macs are great computers only for people who can't be bothered to learn to actually learn to use and maintain a REAL computer... that's not a disrespectful thing, I understand that others live lives that keep them too busy to learn to defrag and such, and out-sourcing basic tasks via surrendering to having many fewer options in hardware and software with the tradeoff of that being that they've gone through more rigerous testing, that's totally our call. Me? I find going into the innards of my machine and cannibalizing it a very gratifying experience and I know how to set up software to run the maintainance tasks on a schedule without my having to think about it. And I prefer to be able to access a shitload more software, including more shareware and open-source stuff, and would install a Hackentosh if for some bizarre reason I needed to. Instead I triple-boot my main desktop with Ubuntu, Win7, and WinXP... it's usually logged in on Win7 since that's what we've got the most software for more family members running under). I would love an iPod preschooler-friendly app (or even *gasp* baby-friendly one... yes, I let the 13mo play with the Tesla Toy app on my iPod) that requires touching the screen in a specific sequence to get back out of the app. Pretty Please? Available on Android too? And can I get an Android phone that meets all of the above demands...er... requests?

Some manufacturer make this phone and you will not be able to keep them in stock. Don't be assholes and keep it locked to a single cell carrier or we may hunt you down to do many unpleasant deeds. It can even be the ugliest phone ever made, since we're generally all about the plastic protective covers anyway (pretty sure that's the only reason I've NOT had to replace my phone every six months or so, I'm OBSESSED with keeping the protective cover and screen protector on my devices). Don't even bother making them in multiple pretty colors. Glow-in-the-dark keys? Yeah, that'd be PRIME, since we use the phone to call the doctor at 3am and don't want to wake the baby by turning on a light to see the keys. Nice bright screen that works well as a flashlight - also a plus, similar reasons (our cell phones become flashlights for finding the baby in the dark nearly every night, particularly since the blackout curtains went up). Oh, and water-resistant... yeah... and durable to being teethed on, without little pieces that are likely to come off quickly and go down a baby's gullet.

Is all this REALLY too much to ask? Surely you can do it, for us, the loving moms of the world? You know, those people who tend to be the ones who make sure the cell phone bill actually gets paid in a timely manner?

Any other moms have features that would be in their dream mom-phone? And no, I don't think dads have quite the same criteria in phones, from what I've seen. I'm totally cool with getting clued in on what FATHERS would love to see in phone design too. All you iPhone fanatics who value form over function - uhh... go shove a sock in some orifice and twiddle your touch screens. I heard enough of your ranting about teh uuuuhgly of the Blackberry Style when it came out.

First Birth (original poem by Ahmie Yeung)

2011-06-20T01:23:00.002-04:00

I thought I had posted this ages ago but a search of my blog is not pulling it up anywhere. I had also meant to share it on the anniversary of my eldest's birth 3 weeks ago, then got distracted while looking for it on my hard drive. Today isn't any particularly special day - my 2nd son's birthday is in a week and I'm posting this now so I don't forget then. Just went looking for something else to do while my computer works on uploading wedding pictures I took for my friends on Saturday (almost typed "yesterday" then looked at the clock and realized it's after 1am so it's Monday now). The numbers at the end are my time stamp for when I finished it - year.month.day.hour.minute (approx). Hopefully it's readable, it's posted as an image because the formatting doesn't translate to web otherwise and the alternating of straight against the margin then undulating in a somewhat random pattern was the way I experienced my labor (I never fell into a regular pattern... not in 3 unmedicated, intervention-free births. Just not the way I roll ;) ).

Copyright is mine, yada yada yada... don't be an ass, ask first before reposting and don't try to claim it as your own.

Birthyversary thoughts & ponderings

2011-05-22T02:37:00.001-04:00

This is long and rambly and was composed on my BlackBerry when I should have been sleeping and had taken quite a bit of cough syrup so... Here's some salt grains for ya.

525,600 minutes ago I was tossing and turning in bed, pondering what it would take to get the postdates baby I was carrying past my highly annoyed psoas muscle and out into the world. Apparently what it took was tipping into the astrological sign of Gemini and little bear reaching a full 9lbs (my heaviest of my 3 sons at birth by more than half a pound). Less than 6 hours later (less than 3 of which even my own self or husband recognized as 'go time' labor-labor - I was in denial that I was in transition until the baby crowned, and he was fully out half a contraction later) I was holding this beautiful, challenging, wonderful, continuing-to-do-things-in-his-own-time enormous little sucker to my breast, in awe that yes, I really DID manage to pull that hat trick again without any real assistance required, gimpiness not holding my body back in the least from this primal function. And I also found that we've gone 3 for 3 - all boys.

Each pregnancy people have asked what gender I am hoping for. I say with complete sincerity what I hope for is a healthy child - physically, mentally, spiritually, every way knowing that this child is perfect and loved however they are. I honestly mean that. And I joke sometimes that, being raised Unitarian Universalist in a very liberal town, what nature didn't give me some day a surgeon might and I truly honestly am fine with that idea if that is the path one (or more) of my children is destined for. I love them each uniquely, totally, and unconditionally. I would not trade any one of them for anything in the universe (though goodness and people who read what I write regularly know that I am totally open to loaning the older two out for extended periods some days, but Bear stays near until he's weaned and that's not gonna be any time soon from the looks of things).

All of that is deeply and utterly true. But I won't lie and say that I do not long for daughters also.

When Liam was born, before we were even transferred to the recovery room, I informed Garvin that I wanted 5 children. That is still part of my body knowledge. I was still in that trippy birthy semi-psychic feeling state and it rang true to the core of my being then and does to this day. I hadn't really had a strong set feeling on how many children I wanted before then, but the number has always been more than 3 - over the years from childhood until that moment, it ranged from as high as 8 to as low as 4. I don't know that we will wind up with 5 children (heck I don't know that we'll wind up with 4, we're not trying for a while yet and Garvin's not really talked into #4, but he wasn't really talked into any of the other 3 until I was pregnant so I take that with a huge grain of salt). I do know that, if we don't have 5, a part of me will always feel like there is someone missing, or several someones.

I am hoping to have another child around my 36th birthday or shortly thereafter (Decemberish 2012), from my calculations I can finish my master's degree by then at the latest (likely can finish it by August 2012 I think), then switch into PhD mode the following August with baby already likely well established on supplemental solids while being able to be away from me for a couple hours while I attend or teach a class (which was the big problem returning to school this past August. Bear and my breasts were NOT able to be separated without leakage and angst on both our parts for the duration of my classes' required face time before he was about 5 months old. He was 3 months old the day the semester began. Problematic.). And possibly baby 5 might happen after the PhD (or when it's close to bring done - gotta say, I wouldn't be totally against defending my dissertation in a similar manner to the way the creator of Hathor the Cow Goddess did, if I am remembering the story origin properly).

So does the gender of the next one(s) matter to me? I cannot lie. I pray with every ounce of my being that I have at least one biological daughter.

It is nothing against males, it is nothing against my sons. It is not a desire to have a little living doll to dress up (I suspect if I DO manage to have a daughter, her eldest 2 brothers and paternal grandparents as well as several other individuals will completely fill that niche, hope she doesn't mind too much). It's not a desire to play dolls/dressup/paint nails/etc with a little girl (I do that with my sons plenty already).

What it is, is lineage and biology and longing to experience from the other side what I experienced while my own mother was present as I birthed my 2nd child (the only of the 3 she made it to). As he was emerging from my body I had this mental image of still being connected to my mother's womb via my own umbilical cord and placenta, with her still connected to her mother the same way, and back and back and back into history, each birthing in different ways and different settings and all connected and sharing in that experience of continuing life. I was (and still am) profoundly aware at that moment that the cell that had grown to be the baby I was birthing had already been within me when I was in my own mother's womb. When we, as women, are pregnant with daughters, we are three potential generations at once. When we carry our wonderful sons, it is just him and mom - the cells that could potentially become our grandchildren won't form for well over a decade (hopefully more than TWO decades, thankyouverymuch I don't feel any need to be a cronologically young grandmother, I will still be plenty mentally youthful for grandkids that don't start arriving until I'm at least getting close to 50 or even 60. No rush, kids). It is wonderful to be just mom and son. But it somehow doesn't feel as much as though my sons are MY lineage the way daughters would be. This is partialy patriarchal leftover bs, yes, but in some way I do feel that my sons belong more to my husband's family tree than my own. Part of that may have nothing to do with their gender (my husband has his family tree documented for 29 generations, including our sons. I can only name 3 of my great-grandparents, 4 if I look up the name of the maternal line great grandfather whose name is totally slipping my mind, and I do not know with any surety even what nationality the maternal line pair were. Other side were German immigrants and I know little else about them other than that and their names. My family didn't do so good a job of making sure my generation got our stories and history, my father immigrated as an infant and his parents never seemed to want to talk about their time before coming here when I asked them, seeming very uncomfortable whenever they did answer some of my questions). I cannot really find my definition of self in my family history, so maybe that is why I am so obsessed with finding it in my family legacy. I have joked that I might be a changeling, for the little I seem to resemble my biological family in aptitudes, interests, passions, etc (I do resemble my father's side pretty strongly physically, as does my middle son, so I'm fairly confident there was no human mix-up at the hospital). I am also very comfortable with long term goals (heh. I informed Garvin sometime in our first year of marriage or so - 2000 or earlier - that we would be having our first child in spring 2004 and I picked birth years for the next 3 while I was pregnant with that one). That is what birthing a daughter is about to me - that potential to be a part of the long chain of wombs, going backwards and forwards in an inestimatable spiral, mother to daughter to mother. The thought of being the definite end of my specific line wounds me.

If I never have a daughter, I will mourn that lost legacy chain even as I love every subatomic particle of my sons. I hope that my sons will understand that. I never loved them any less for their gender, just differently, just as I love them differently for their individual quirks and moods and favorite colors (really, Del, you didn't HAVE to test that devotion by picking pink as your favorite, did you? ;) ). I will love any grandchildren I am blessed with, via any methods, just as fiercely. Liam's temperment and personality is so similar to my own that we share something deeper than I may with a daughter. I suspect that in adulthood he will be able to predict me (and me him) better than anyone else on the planet. Del startles me with his physical resemblance to my own childhood pictures and poses and delights me daily with that. He is a wonderful natural mimic and such a sensitive soul (ok sometimes, often, WAY over sensitive for my comfortable grip on sanity) that I know he will be an amazing human being as he matures. Col is still a tight little bud of a personflower but the spark of cheeky independence in his eyes combined with a loving sweet possessiveness he and I share, for lack of a better way of phrasing it - he is somehow the most 'mine' of the three, the most mamababy still. Liam was everyone's baby, he loved me best but not by much. Del had a stronger orientation toward Liam and Daddy as a baby, he only really wanted to be with me to nurse, otherwise if Daddy was around he wanted Daddy to hold him or to be on the floor playing with his brother. Col definitely lays claim to ME as his primary person, and that is our special thing at this point, and it fills me with joy even though it can be annoyingly inconvenient at times. I adore my children and I will adore any grandchildren I am someday blessed with through these sons, whether by birth or adoption or whatever. I am passionately in love with my family and what my family will become over course of my life. They are my greatest treasures and the absolute best part of me is that I am their mother.

But yes. I do hope for a daughter. My elder two sons both ask about having a baby sister at random times. They adore their baby brother (their most frequent disagreement in the evenings is over who gets to spent extra time with the baby) so hopefully if they read this some day they will have already understood what my sleep deprived medicated rambling here is trying to say, but just in case does cause them pain I ask that they forgive their very human mother. If they do have a sister, I promise I won't love her MORE simply because she bears a uterus, just differently as I love all my children's unique traits and the past & future adventures we will share. And I will be no less supportive of the women who bear me any grandchildren, through my sons or daughters (hopefully those women won't think I am too overbearing to be around at those precious times, but if my presence is not an asset I vow to step back and let them do as they must, regardless of if they are my own child or not).

Just please, universe. Don't make me be the one to break the chain. If my daughter(s) don't themselves become mothers I can accept that if it is their choice (or mourn with them if it is not by choice). All this may not be as big a deal to them. Who knows. It is to me though, enough that it is keeping me from sleep past 2 in the morning on my baby's first birthday. In honor of the blessing of three times birthing so wonderfully, I felt the need to share this part of my inner self. It is my prayer that I will someday get to celebrate my chain continuing in like celebration. That is all.

Facebook says this is offensive

2011-04-06T16:20:00.004-04:00

I think it is a demonstration of utilitarian artistry.

The chain mail was made by a friend of mine at my request, and apparently my 6 week old having a meal during a wedding is offensive. (baby Col's ubercool newborn chain mail vest was made by the same couple, as far as I know they're not taking orders being busy with their OWN wedding planning)

Methinks someone is just jealous that they're not cool enough to have a chain mail nursing bra & newborn layette, or the guts to wear AND use one. Wanker.

I'm also pretty sure I know who the WOMAN who reported the image is. A breeder who spends more time complaining than being a role model worthy of the title "mother", who told me to go fuck myself for standing up for a friend of mine when she went off on her.

Guess what?

Don't fuck with the lactivist in the chain mail nursing bra.

Or her friends.

Or Doctor Who fangirls.

Welcome to your last year of binary dates

2011-01-01T11:14:00.004-05:00

Yes, I'm totally embracing my nerdhood in this post. Not exactly "New Year's Resolution" worthy as I've been embracing my nerdhood in various ways for a while (years, if not decades - depending on your perspective and what parts of me you've come to know). One "New Year's Resolution" I'm making is to try to post here more often (this is being posted on my blog, which cross-posts to my Facebook profile, for those of you confused since I am very active on Facebook).

Last Veteran's Day (November 11, for you ingrates who don't bother to spare a thought about those brave folks who defend your liberties on one of the few days set aside for them in our American calendar) it occurred to me that Veteran's Day 2011 will be a very cool date to write out (11/11/11)... it then occurred to me that this past Vet's Day (11/11/10) was the last binary day of 2010 (when all days in the short form of the date are either 1s or 0s). Then the thoughts just totally did a pile-on and I realized that 2011 is likely the last year I'll be able to write dates in a binary format a few times for the rest of my life as I don't really expect to see the year 2100 (possible, but living to be 123 seems rather unlikely. I would turn 124 at the end of 2100).

So all this pondering made me feel like I should do something to more than just say "huh, that's somewhat cool and interesting" every time I notice that the date is binary this year. I've decided that I will take a moment to send wishes of pure contentment to those who see things in a more binary way than I typically do (you could say I'm a bit more hexadecimal than binary I guess... see, the nerdiness just keeps on coming aren't you glad you continued reading???). Not just people I disagree with or don't particularly like (yes, I'm giving YOU a hairy eyeball, Speaker Boehner), but also friends of mine with mental health conditions that can seem rather binary at times (bipolar comes to mind immediately, and there are some aspects of OCD that can be kinda binary too). So if that happens to fit you, if there's something binary about a label applied to you (even if you don't feel at all binary yourself!), I hope you'll feel a little psychic hug from me whenever you write the date and it's all 1s and 0s.... and also if you look at a digital clock on one of those days and notice that IT is only displaying 1s and/or 0s ("or" being appropriate in this case since some folks have digital military clocks that actually display 00:00 once every 24 hours) - maybe consider noticing that the clock is displaying that way on a binary day could feel like a friendly little psychic kiss on the forehead AND hug from me since it's an extra special little quirk of a moment.

So why am I wishing contentment instead of happiness? There is reason for this distinction. I think our society is actually a bit messed up in its seeing the "pursuit of happiness" as a be-all-end-all thing... Happiness is nebulous, undefinable, and fleeting. As a species, anything that seems for a a moment to make us "happy" we seem all too quick to habituate to and be taking for granted in the blink of an eye. Happiness has become a commodity to be sold, almost as much as in the episode of Doctor Who during David Tennant's tenure when he took Martha Jones to New(to the Nth) New York and street vendors were trying to sell him "Happy Happy". Happiness has become linked to that which is disposable in our society - we are a culture of Happy Meals and the associated Made in China plastic crap. I wouldn't consider it a blessing to wish happiness like that on someone, particularly someone who already has an abundance of everything that SHOULD, theoretically, bring happiness - wealth above 90% of other individuals in the world, alleged freedom and equality under the law, and at least one person who gives a crap about their continued existence (me).

For those who have so much, I wish contentment. I wish them, for moments on a regularly occurring basis, to see all that they've got going for them and be content with it instead of constantly trying to acquire more and better and living in a constant state of low-level fear of losing any of what they have. I wish for them to realize how even a small portion of what they have could sustain those less fortunate - here in the U.S. and abroad - for a significant amount of time. I wish for them to take a moment to calculate what percentage of the necessary monthly expenses their pleasure discretionary expense of the moment might cover for a family less fortunate (for reference, the average monthly rent around my home is about $600 for a 2 bedroom unit with bathroom, kitchen, living, and dining rooms. Heating bills in the winter can run between $50 and $200 per month to keep such a home at 68 degrees while occupied, depending on how often someone is home and how well insulated the place is and how old its windows are, so someone who finds themselves confined to the house due to poor health in a poorly insulated place with old windows is really financially screwed unless they can qualify and obtain financial assistance... guess what? That's kinda us, only we don't qualify because my husband makes "too much" money while I'm home with the kids - "too much" in this case being a few hundred dollars a month above our recurring expenses [mortgage, payment for the family van & vehicle insurance, utilities, student loans, food, etc - not luxuries]).

Even with all this, I am content. Even with my physical disabilities that make that van a necessity not a luxury (without it, I would barely be able to leave the house, I can't physically get in and out of the 1991 Honda Civic my husband uses as a commuter car). Yes, there are other things and adventures I'd to have, pleasurable activities I'd like to do that I am prevented from doing because of lack of resources (financial, health, stamina, etc), but my ability to experience the pristine moments real happiness that flit through my life on a regular basis as I hobble from one splashy puddle to another of contentment is not in any way inhibited. Even when I do it in a mobility scooter on days (too frequent recently) when my legs aren't being cooperative.

That recognition, of how good we all really have it, is what I wish for everyone else.

May you be so blessed... and pass it on. Happy New Year.

Parental Censorship

2010-12-27T15:03:00.001-05:00

Fairness. It's a concept near and dear to the hearts of children everywhere, particularly those with politically progressive parents I suspect. So of course my 6yr old gets on his 'NO FAIR!' Binge days quite often.

How's a progressive parent to resond?

'Life's not fair' - nah, that's a bit undermining and depressing, politically speaking. Let's not go there.

'I'm sorry you feel that way' - while it may be how the book-writing-pop-psychologist experts would like me to respond.... Meh.

'Shh! Don't let the overlords hear you say that! If you manage to get to the age of 18 complaining about unfairness everytime you don't get exactly what you *want* when you have everything you *need*, I will be deemed a failure as a momster and have no choice but to eat you for dinner. I'm trying to watch my weight and you'l totally throw that off and THAT is not fair!'

Heh... Little bugger ran off before I could finish my evil monologue. Foo.

f my grad program, not my life

2010-09-16T23:36:00.001-04:00

Having an absolutely craptastic day. Woke with my system so out of wack every little bad smell had me wretching & actually vomiting a couple times. Hubby hadn't managed to get 3yr old dressed before he left the house (he's about as sleep deprived as I am, maybe moreso, so not really surprising even though the extra to-do item on my morning list couldn't have been on a much worse day it turns out). Eldest kept returning to our part of the house for various and sundry last minute items before his grandfather was walking him to school, in rain that was setting off more of my symptoms so no way I could drive him & have any hope of making it to class on time (and hubby and I have had talks about 1st grader staying w grandpa in mornings & not coming into the part of the house where little brothers are still trying to sleep- days when I have a morning class I really need to delegate as much as I can if I have any hope of actually making it out the door before totally exhausting myself). He came back to me a total of five times this morning, more than any other day previously (grandpa has been walking him to school since last school year, not new proceedure). I called my care provider (who comes to my home to help me with getting kids in van then goes to campus with me, caring for my 3yr old at a kid-friendly space while I *try* to attend class with the baby), she made effort to get to my place a bit early in case my eldest actually needed a ride to school on top of everything else, luckily spotting him walking with grandpa as she was enroute to me.

I still hadn't managed to dress myself by the time the care provider arrived, still waiting for the pain med to fully kick in before trying to make those contortions. She helped get the 3yr old dressed & baby diapered & such but we were still clearly cutting time close by the time we were all seatbelted in the van. Sent a message to the prof's email from my phone via MMS telling her I was running late as the care provider buckled kids in the van. I hadn't managed to feed myself or the 3yr old so tried to swing thru BK for breakfast sandwiches, sat in the drive thru line behind just 4 cars for more than 10min before being handed food. Finally on the way, we made good time and I actually managed to drop off the care provider and 3yr old and get to the door of the parking garage for my class just before the class actually started.

Once again my ID card did NOT let me into the garage, a problem I had notified the Access Services office of 2 weeks prior. I called them on my cell while sitting there and they kept telling me the card should work. A building staff member happened to be outside and see what was happening (I *think* he was coincidentally the person who authorized me via email to have access to the elevator from the parking garage a few weeks ago, interaction with him resulting in my hitting my head against my desk repeatedly when he suggested I should take my scooter out thru the garage entrance into oncoming traffic that can't are me thru the door using a finicky sensor my scooter might not be large/heavy enough to trigger anyway, to then go halfway around the building to get up the ramp at the front, down the hallway to the elevator whose shaft is about 10ft from where my van is parked a floor below, to get to the 3rd floor where my classroom is about 20ft from the elevator. Instead of just giving me access to entering the elevator from the basement and locomoting no more than 50 ft instead of well over 500 in possibly inclimate weather that might damage my scooter and was the reason I paid EXTRA for an indoor space to begin with. Yeah, my opinion of his mental facilities is great and the self control to not lit into him exhausting my already low reserves. I only kept it in check by reminding myself mentally repeatedly that I'm not 100% sure it's the same guy).

So I was already pretty flustered and not at my mental best when I pulled into the handicapped parking space. I then proceeded to apparently use the power LOCK instead of unlock, locking keys, cell phone, scooter, and most importantly 16 week old BABY in the damn van. I immediately went to the campus emegency phone mounted on the wall by the elevator (10ft from the van) and called campus police for help. Then I sat on the ground next to the van, trying to keep my physical pain and anxiety in check while waiting for the officer to arrive. Luckily the baby had fallen asleep just before we got off the freeway and slept thru the whole thing, he hates his carseat and frequently screams the entire time he's forced to be in it. Well, he slept thru the more than 20min it took the officers (a second arrived, who turned out to be one I knew well and liked from undergrad time 10yrs ago) when they succeeded in getting the door unlocked finally, it set off the car alarm and that woke him (verifying he's at least not totally deaf - been having a few concerns lately that I intend to bring up at his well-baby appointment on Monday). By this point, I had been standing (on concrete no less) for at least twice as long as I can generally handle on a GOOD day so my pain level was at least double what it had been when I left the house AND I could feel a panic attack looming from having had to keep it together while my baby was trapped (I am good in a crisis but as soon as the danger is passed I lose it pretty quickly when I let go of the self control). I sent a message from my phone to instructor and the dean of the program letting them know what happened and why even tho I had made it to the building I wouldn't be making it to the floor my class is on, then called my care provider to tell her I was on my way to her location and in no shape to drive.

I got to the parking lot of the building where she and my 3yr old were, barely holding back tears. As soon as I shifted the van into park, I lost the last bit of my control, and fell forward onto the steering wheel shaking and sobbing from the physical pain & stress. A stranger saw me and came up to make sure I was all right & safe, she gave me a bottle of water she had (which I used to take more pain meds, being JUST with it enough to realize taking them with the coffee I had with me would NOT help fend off the anxiety attack/nervous breakdown), and she stayed with me until my care provider and son came out. I managed to get a grip on my control again before they came out (it took a bit to pull him away from his activity) so I wasn't sobbing like that in front of my toddler at least (not that that does much to offset the shame I feel at having been that out of control in front of a stranger! She really was a lovely human being, people like her happening to be there when need hits makes me believe in guardian spirits or angels or whatever you want to call them. She was black and had a non-native-English-speaker accent, her demeanor reminded me strongly of my German grandmother who passed away when I was 16 though she looked nothing like Granma obviously). When my care provider arrived, I had moved to the back seat and was holding the baby. I had calmed down enough to realize that trying to feed him before the pain meds got more digested & into my blood/milk would be a good plan, so I fed him in the van before heading out.

Essentially, my productive day (at least as far as my grad program goes) ended as a possibility within 30min of the time the 2hr class I was scheduled to be in started, abrupt aborted dispite my best efforts to attend. Yet I'm facing an automatic failing grade because my inability to attend dispite my best efforts is held in equal regard with 'oops I overslept' or 'too hung over to attend class' or 'I screwed up and double-booked myself for an appointment at the same time as class' repeat absences, absences that would indicate a student who places much lower priority on *being there* than I have demonstrated.

They might give me a F for this oppressive Oppression class, but I'm starting to not really give a flying F... What the F do they know about daily, hourly, inescapable even when surrounded by 'my kind and kin' oppression - oppression from one's own body rebelling against one's aspirations? That they use my baby's need of me as the focal point just pours salt in this wound - the irony that the ONE thing my body does properly and naturallly without fuss or real difficulty- gestate, birth, and nourish babies - that's what is the focal point for acts of oppression upon a physically disabled student. That F-ing burns.

This post has taken nearly 12 hours of constantly interrupted time to compose on my cell phone (haven't had the energy to pull my laptop out of my backpack where I put it this morning to take to my non-class for lack of instruction). Sorry if it's a bit of a jumble in parts and phone may have auto-corrected oddly in spots that I missed fixing. Thankful for Blogger's post by email tool filtering out extra stuff since I don't have a data plan, this was sent via MMS

should I "journal" for class here?

2010-08-23T13:15:00.002-04:00

OK, I'm taking an Oppression and Social Justice class this fall (I'm in graduate school part-time at Case Western Reserve University's Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences working on a Master of Science in Social Administration, Community and Social Development focus - or "at CWRU's MSASS for an MSSA in the CSD track" for the alphabet soup fans - in case anyone who reads this has missed the "Ahmie went back to school" news last academic year). One of the main assignments for class is to keep a journal, writing at least one page per week. I suck at journaling on a regular basis as anyone following my blog knows well, but the length ain't an issue AT ALL... I plan to blog my journal entries instead of just writing them privately because I love having others on the journey with me (especially when I'm finding the journey annoying and obnoxious like I feel being TOLD to keep a weekly journal is, expect snarkiness). My question is, should I blog here (on my dragonmama.blogspot.com blog that cross-posts to FB), should I just post them as FB notes, or should I post them on a separate blog (I have a separate tumble-blog that I could use) so folks are only seeing the posts if they specifically want to see it? If no one gives feedback asking me to do otherwise, I'll probably post to Blogger with auto-cross-posting to FB since I find it easier to find my older posts (to later copy-and-paste them into the format the professor wants handed in). I'm also trying to decide if I *should* be doing this in a semi-public blog (you can find this one on Blogger by searching for my name or primary email address, but not my school email address). Other option is to do the blogging under my pen name (which I'm mildly protective of and only a few people know that's me - if you're a blog follower or FB friend and want to know then ask and I'll tell you privately). Already have a blog, website, FB account, etc under that one and can do similar linking/cross-posting, but might be a little more protection of the innocent so to speak.

Oh, and as for my writing, I finished the first draft of my novel last summer just before getting pregnant with Col. I haven't finished the first edit yet so I haven't let anyone else read it (tho there are a few trusted folks I'm thinking of just giving up on trying to edit it before showing it to - basically, people who I consider close family regardless of lack of DNA-sharing). I have two other very fleshed out stories in that same universe planned out, a few short stories planned in that universe (a few characters from the 1st one appearing in the others, but different main characters), and another storyline that is compatible with the universe of the first group but seems to want to be its own series that has been growing like a freaking wildflower in primo compost in my brain for the last month or so (that's the vampire one for those who know about it).

Baby Col is 3 months old as of yesterday, doing wonderful, very sweet-tempered baby even with some reflux issues (he doesn't spit up but I'm nearly positive it's partway up when he gets hiccups after nursing, as he REALLY gets unhappy when he has the hiccups). Big brothers are being wonderful to him but not always wonderful to each other (mostly fighting over time/space with the baby, ironically) and the biggest problem I'm having with sibling issues is keeping 6yr old from picking 3mo up off the floor when I set him down for a little tummy time. Baby spends most of his time in adult arms/babywearing just to keep from having him constantly poked by his brothers.

um.. yeah.. update re new baby

2010-08-06T16:45:00.002-04:00

for those who didn't already hear thru other channels, i gave birth to a 3rd healthy boy, Lincoln "Col" Cheuk-Hou Yeung, at home on 5/22. He was 9lbs at birth and is within an ounce or two of 13lbs (depending on how recently he has eaten in relation to losing ounces out the other end) at 11 weeks old now. Newborn pictures here, more recent ones of just Col here, ones of me & all three kids in breastfeeding-friendly chainmail (no joke, it was made by our friend Ian), and pictures of the family at Cedar Point. Still haven't got around to writing the birth story but will probably post it here on Blogger when I finally do (which I *think* still cross-posts to FB, where I post/interact much more regularly for anyone reading this who hasn't already friended me on there).

A midterm question

2010-03-01T15:20:00.001-05:00

One I'd really like an answer to from my Research Methods prof:

A researcher observes two important variables under study of a subject in a control environment & notes a correlative relationship. Researcher believes the correlative relationship to be causitive. The issues under study are far outside the life experiences of the researcher, and the observed behaviors go against established traditions. Without further (qualitative) investigation, the researcher jumps to a conclusion and rushes to disseminate the findings, complete with firm intervention recommendations, with outright claims that the reported causitive variable was an independent one. Upon dissemination, questions are raised over whether the 'causitive' variable was truly such, and even over whether it was a relevant variable in the observed effect at all. Questions are also raised over if some of the variables cast off as extraneous might not have been actually confounding variables, or even the true causitive one(s). What is the appropriate professional response from the researcher?

One social researcher's view

2010-01-26T16:00:00.001-05:00

I don't know if it's being back in academia or that I've been in a major writing phase of my life for the last year or so, but I've felt the pull to write up a metaphor for how I look at social research issues for a while now. I find myself with some rare quiet moments (and lacking access to the readings I need to do for my next class) so I'm going to give this a shot. This entire post is getting composed on my BlackBerry so excuse weird typos - and please point them out in comments so I can correct them!

The most apt metaphor for my current views on social research issues is that of building construction. Every building, no matter how cookie cutter prefab, has individual differences that make it unique. Most buildings have a lot of variation, subtle and not, from the buildings around it. This is how I view individual adults - a lot like buildings, particularly homes. Being friends with a lot of fans of remodeling, I'm well aware that any 'finished' home may not be nearly as finished at some point in the future, as the internal workings (aka inhabitants and. visitors) are apt to change things over time. Even so, general asumptions of similar situations, future outcomes, and such can be compared and predicted with some level of accuracy amongst homes share similar characteristics such as building materials, age of appliances, quality of insulation, etc. As such, similar generalizations can be made/predicted between groups of people who share similar characteristics (age, gender identity, parenting status, household income, and so forth - generally with a better level of accuracy when there are more areas of similarity between individuals being studied). No comparison or prediction is going to really be 100% (houses or people) because there is no realistic way to keep all the various ways the individuals can differ matching, and any mismatch between individuals studied (or the study group and another outside individual looked at later in relation to the study's findings) introduce potential errors in the comparison/prediction.

My real interest, personally, tends to lie in looking at those particular aspects of life that introduce variation, with an eye toward improving future 'construction' techniques/environments. I see the structure of the individual 'building' as existing very much in its environment and as a result of those involved in its construction - directly and indirectly. In building construction, some of these differences could be the underlaying/surrounding geographic features (solid bedrock, flood plain, fault line, high erosion, etc), the quality of the materials used in the foundation/construction/remodeling, the skill of the construction workers/archetects/etc, and variations in building code requirements between areas (which often have variations related to risks that are particularly more of an issue in one local over another, often related to the geographic conditions) .
With humans, the geographic issues are the society/culture/etc the individual exists in. Building materials quality is the quality of nutrition and other basic survival needs the individual has had over time. Construction worker 'skill' is the direct effects of important others who have been part of the individual's life (parents, teachers, mentors, lovers, etc) and whether any of those relationships have been exceptional in any way (good or bad - optimal nurturing relationships all around, long history of abuse from multiple important others, and everything in between). Variations in building codes overlaps with community assets and support structures that often have a much less direct/obvious impact on the individual but may have had an effect if looked at in relation to other individuals without that asset (such as access to quality heath care improves overall community health, which has the impact of less likelihood of an individual being exposed to a dangerous communicable disease even if they are overall healthier than average, accessa to free public education improves the intellectual environment of children regardless of their participation in it by usually bringing along other related assets such as public libraries and more others capable of sharing information that may have otherwise been outside of the individual's awareness).

Since I am generally much more davinsted with prevention than remediation of issues, I focus most of my attention on the construction (aka developmentalist) part of things, so this metaphor ma not fit quite as well with researchers focused on other aspecthe human experience. I do, however, feel quite strongly that keenh in mind how all these different factors affect and shape every individual differently is a very important thing to bear in mind for ALL research involving human subjects, so are it here in hopes of furthering a discussion not just between social researchers, but also with 'lay' people who may wonder why so much effort and time is out into studying social issues (and a bit of a idea why publication & dissemination of findings can take so long - often only to have some fundamental aspect of society change and render some aspect of the research outdated!). I hope, if nothing lar, this has given some insight to people curious about me regarding one of *my* (many) obsessive interests ;)

Hospital Gifts

2009-12-28T17:50:00.004-05:00

Let's say that, to entice women to give birth at a specific hospital, the hospital started giving away really nice baby sleeping device to every family that birthed there. While the mom and baby were at the hospital, the baby would become accustomed to the sleeping aid, which would serve to sooth the newborn to sleep quickly and keep them asleep longer. Some were concerned that there could be potential negative side effects - such as newborns not gaining weight appropriately due to not waking often enough to feed - but the manufacturer, hospital, and society in general assured the new mothers that the device was a godsend and would help them get that thing they were constantly being told they'd long for in the coming months: a decent night's sleep.

There's one drawback to this "free" sleep device, though. It only comes with a starter battery that will last for less than a week after discharge, then the replacement batteries cost about $150 per month. And the babies have been trained to really want the device in order to go to sleep by the time it leaves the hospital, so much so that it will reject (with very loud screams) any other method used to try to get them to sleep.

Mothers are pressured - subtlety and not-so-subtlety - to use the device, in some cases being called names if they chose other methods to get their newborns to sleep and willingly "suffer" through the many night-wakings. More hospitals start feeling market pressured to provide this wonderful "free" gift to new families and institute them, until almost every baby born in the country spends their first few unconscious spans of post-birth life in one of the sleep devices.

A few hospitals start to rebel against this trend, instead teaching new parents how to sooth their newborns to sleep in their own arms, only to be criticized for not giving a nice "free" gift to new mothers who live in poverty.

Think this sounds surreal? Guess what... it's what we've been doing as a country for decades, only with infant formula/breastmilk instead of sleep device/mother's arms. And yes, people raise a rukus when hospitals stop giving away the "free" formula samples to new families, even though "free" breastfeeding education, training, and support would save the families more than a THOUSAND DOLLARS in just the first year of the child's life on groceries alone. But we tax-payers get to pay for a lot of that formula instead. Where's the ruckus to do what's right for babies and poor families from the start? Some WIC agencies will provide a breastpump for new moms if they ask for one, but from what I've heard it's a LOT easier to get the "free" formula than the breastpump, and many times the pumps given are inadequate and inefficient (which results in the moms falling back to using formula instead out of frustration).

Can this situation be changed? Only if more of us demand better for American families and stand up to support them instead of looking the other way - or worse, harrassing the new moms who DO try to breastfeed when that happens to be in the presence of others.

Do your part, for us.

Handicap-accessible bathroom stalls

2009-08-25T09:06:00.004-04:00

So my twittering/Facebooking about my annoyance with an OBVIOUSLY able-bodied tween using the only handicap-accessible bathroom stall out of 7 stalls (5 of which were empty) at Cedar Point has a fellow UU accusing me of being closed-minded because maybe the young lady (who, I must first inform you, SKIPPED out of the stall past me without so much as an "oops, sorry!" as she headed back out toward the middle of CEDAR POINT - where a disabled person would have needed some assistance - cane, wheelchair, scooter, something - to get to from either entrance) had an "invisible disability" that lead to her needing the hand rails, thus excusing her making an actually, obviously disabled person wait to use the ONE toilet that was safely usable. The fact that the person having this discussion with me is able-bodied enough to vend at various events and is calling me out on behalf of her "disabled friends" and because she took some "Right Relations" seminars at our denomination's annual conference is irritating me a bit (I've been in chronic, daily pain since I was 10 years old - 2/3rds of my life - and have actually done advocacy work with various disabled populations since I was a child, up to and including this week when I've been interfacing with my local school district on behalf of another disabled mother and her child, who lived with us for a week earlier this month).

So, I've decided that I will make a little list of who it doesn't irritate me, personally, as a disabled person, to see coming out of a handicap-accessible stall when I've had to wait with my legs crossed to keep from making a mess on the floor when there are other stalls available for people who don't need the rails.

Other disabled people who use some kind of assistance to move (cane, wheelchair, etc)
People with small child(ren) in the stall with them (I totally understand not wanting/being able to squeeze into the regular stalls)
People changing a baby's diaper (tho it annoys me greatly when the establishment puts the diaper changing station inside the accesible stall, it's obvious that sometimes they don't have any other place to put it safely because of traffic flow)
People who are in pain (as someone who regularly tries to hide the amount of physical pain I'm in, I can tell when someone has a sore back and needs to use the rails even if they're only temporarily disabled and don't need a walking assistance tool)
Pregnant women (the body dynamics of pregnancy make it hard for many women to stand up without something to leaver on)
Obese people who can't get the door of a regular inward-opening stall closed around themselves
Able-bodied people who take the accessible stall because all the regular stalls are already in use

Those are the ones that come immediately to my mind, there are probably others. Now for the list of people who get the hairy stink eye when I see them coming out of a handicap-accessible stall:

unattended kids who skip/run out of the stall without so much as an "oops, I probably shouldn't have used that one" when they see a disabled person waiting
teenage girls in groups who go into the handicap-accessible stall for more than just a pee
mothers who let themselves be bullied by society into breastfeeding in the stall (I swear I'm filing an ADA complaint against a store if I ever get delayed using the toilet because of this - just hasn't happened yet tho I hear from plenty of women who are told that's where they should nurse their baby if the need arises in a public place, and I did have my local YMCA tell me last winter that I should have gone to the family changing room/bathroom to feed D after someone complained about me nursing him in the WOMEN'S locker room)
women in heels so high there's no way they'd be able to walk if they actually had knee/hip problems

Those are pretty much the only ones that I actually give stinky-eye to (well, I wouldn't give stink-eye to the nursing mom, I'd give her some contacts for learning her and her baby's rights and offer to help her become more comfortable nursing in public - tip #1 try nursing in front of a mirror to see how little is actually visible, even without a blanket/cape/whatever.). Having been "invisibly disabled" for over a decade before I started needing a cane (and still getting comments from people occasionally when I park in a handicap-accessible parking space because apparently even when I'm dressed in a grubby t-shirt and sweatpants, the cane looks like a fashion accessory) I'm actually pretty likely to assume that the other person has an actual need for the stall's handrails or width. However, there have been several times (including last week at MSASS orientation) where the person coming out of the accessible stall to see me waiting there has actually apologized for their thoughtlessness in using that stall when regular ones were available. Some people really do just use them because they have a preference for them, not a need for them, tho I don't really get that (maybe it's the shiney of the metal hand rails?), without even thinking for a second that other people have a greater need for that stall than they do (at least, until visibly confronted with the evidence of their thoughtlessness). Thoughtlessness and lack of courtesy is pretty epidemic in our society at times, and this isn't exactly an issue people talk about, even when they're discussing manners and courtesy. This is also evidenced by how many times I've been (or seen some else obviously disabled - cane, walker, wheelchair, etc) in a women's restroom line and how rarely the person(s) in front of the disabled person will let the disabled person "skip" in line if the handicap-accessible stall comes available. At least 80% of the time (yes, this is something I'd actually like to quanifiably research), the safe-to-assume-able-bodied person walks right into the handicap-accessible stall and the handicapped person has to let people skip in front of THEM as the regular stalls come available while they wait for the able-bodied person to be done in the ONE stall the handicapped person can use. This isn't because there are so many "invisible disabilities" out there, the numbers just don't work out for how often this kind of thing happens. This is a factor of the me-first, oblivious to the actual needs of strangers around us, mentality of our culture (which, in addition to various other places, I've also encountered as a breastfeeding advocate - the "wants" of non-breastfeeders to not have to see "that" in public are assumed to be more important than the NEED of a baby to eat when it's hungry. The emotional discomfort/squeemishness of an adult who could walk away or look somewhere else are often given higher priority than the physical discomfort and basic need of a baby unable to help themselves). Personally, I refuse to excuse and enable thoughtlessness and discourtesy in our society by not offering any rebuke when someone crosses the line like this. And give me a break, it's just the freakin' stink eye! I don't even say anything to the "offending" party, and for all I know they're mildly Autistic and don't recognize the facial expression anyway (to be clear: mild autism is not generally a disability that requires the accessible stall - I know enough people with mild autism to know that as many cases as otherwise able people, they can use a stall without the rails... moderate/severe autism is of course another story). I'm not verbally confronting people as they come out of toilet stalls, I do have better things to do with my time (usually, at that moment, it's taking a pee).

What I'd really love to see is a world where ALL public restroom stalls have hand rails for people who need them. A lot of people who need the accessible stall would be able to use the other stalls with just that one little addition, the extra space isn't actually needed in many cases. My church has gone partway there - there are two stalls with rails in the women's bathroom, one that is large enough to easily maneuver a wheelchair/scooter and one that's standard stall size, and the changing table is not in a stall, plus there are two other family restrooms. Not sure how the accessibility is in the men's room but I know they've got a diaper changing station in there and I'm pretty sure it's not in a stall either.

Until then, it'd be nice if people would reserve the accessible stalls for people (such as those in my first list above) who actually need them.

Sweat (Original poem)

2009-08-02T16:43:00.001-04:00

Pouring panting plaything of the gods

Body tossed with time and tension swollen with life

Melting point breaking point weighing the odds

To stay or go, beads break through & leak my internal strife

Time to fill know the drill

different every time

Head back one more lap

before holding what is mine

Now the real work begins

IT'S A LIVE!!! ALIVE!!!

2009-06-29T09:29:00.002-04:00

OK, yeah, I've done it again - gone on over a month without an update. It's been a hectic month, to say the least.

On May 5th I became co-chair of the Lakewood City Schools Phase III Construction Project District Configuration Sub-Committee. Yes, this was something I volunteered to do, it was (is - the last meeting of the subcommittee is tomorrow) annoying as hell at times, but I really do feel like it was the most important thing I've done outside of the creation and well-being of my little family. Lakewood City Schools is reducing from 7 elementary schools down to 6 due to lowered enrollment and Ohio not giving us as much funding (Ohio says we only need 6 elementary schools so they'll only contribute toward the cost of 6 elementary schools). 4 of the 7 existing schools have already been remodeled in the last couple years, so that left 3 to look at to figure out which one(s) to close (there was a proposal to close two of them and open a new school geographically between them where there is currently a city park smooshed between the train tracks and a strip mall - I don't think I need to tell the reader exactly how popular THAT idea was with everyone aside from the person proposing it ). If current decision making process that I was being strongly encouraged (almost to the point of arm bending, but not quite) to use is any indicator, the decision making process for the prior remodels/renovations was rather flawed - as evidenced by two of the schools already done having DRASTICALLY lower percentages of households with enrolled children in them than the other two (one has 4.1% of households in its boundary line having enrolled children, the other has 6.9%, the average for the district as a whole is 9.4% and all 5 of the other schools in the current configuration are at or above that average, with those two removed the average for the remaining 5 schools is 10.9%). There are certain powers within this city who would really like to see one of the schools in particular (the one in the highest-child-density district, ironically) closed, bulldozed, and redeveloped as commercial property. This seemed like a rather bad long-term plan to me, so I went in search of data months before becoming co-chair to check my gut reaction to that plan. What I found demonstrated that it wasn't just a bad idea, it also could potentially wreck our happy little you-better-walk-cuz-there-ain't-enough-parking already existing commercial district if it encouraged families to move to the perimeter of the town to be closer to the elementary schools, reducing foot traffic to the shops (and also discouraging them to keep their spending in Lakewood, since if they live in the perimeter in all but one of the other elementary school boundaries, they've got really easy access to Big Box stores just across the town's boarders - and most parents with little ones, if they're going to have to load up the car anyway, they're going to go where they can park ONCE and get the majority of what they need without having to go inside and outside repeatedly in likely inclement weather). So I went in search of hard data, got access to the census data and a lovely person at the county auditor's office who crunched data in highly sophisticated mapping software that I didn't have time to learn to use (tho apparently there's some decent stuff available open-source), I learned Google Earth to a fairly high level of proficency and counted LOTS of expanding dots (dots representing enrolled children, geocoded into Google Earth so if I went over them with a mouse they expanded so I could get an accurate head count). I also found out that Mandell School of Applied Social Sciences aka MSASS (at Case Western Reserve University, aka CWRU, my alma mater) turns out not just social workers of the knock-on-doors or therapy kind, but also of the policy wonk kind. We'll see tomorrow and in August/September what others make of the data I've gathered and crunched, but the MSASS saga continues in the next paragraph in a life of its own.

So, the dean of MSASS, Gover "Cleve" Gilmore, was my undergrad prof for both statistics (a challenging class since I wasn't aware that I have mild dyscalculia - you mean EVERYONE doesn't have to do every equation on the calculator 3 or 4 times to get the same result twice???) and research design (which I totally rocked, thankyouverymuch). He and I had been in occasional contact in the time in between and he very much still remembered me when I asked him if he could put me in touch with someone who could help with the census access stuff I was seeking for the above project. As I think I mentioned earlier in this blog, I'd applied to CWRU's Sociology graduate program (or did most of the application, at least - never took the stinking, time-wasting, back-throwing-out GRE) but was not hearing anything encouraging on the funding for part-time study so kinda let it drop (there's no way with my fatigue, physical disabilities, and family I could manage full-time study, a fellowship, AND not be a danger on the roads and/or zombie mommy, so the being safe on the roads and human with my family won). Cleve encouraged me to apply to MSASS, pointing me toward their Community and Social Development degree (policy wonk heaven I think, if only I could manage to do the dual degree with the law school at the same time *sigh* yeah, that's not gonna happen). Deadline for the Sociology program for fall admission was back in April so it never occured to me that MSASS's deadline would be so late - TOMORROW, JUNE 30TH! Sooo... I've got most of my application completed, just need to spend some time today updating my resume (which I haven't done since sometime around 2001, so, yeah, WAY out of date - nothing I've been doing in the interum has required a resume so I hadn't bothered to keep it up-to-date). I've also gotten 3 spiffy new recommendation forms filled out, and I'm planning to hand-deliver everything non-digital today. It'll be nice to finally meet Churyl, the lovely admissions lady I've been emailing back and forth and apparently sending into bouts of active laughter in the office with my weird sense of humor (which I see no need to hide from anyone, even someone responsible for helping decide if I get into grad school or not). I'm getting everything in on time for consideration for fall admission, though if the funding isn't there for me to go part-time (I *might* try full-time study if there's scholarship/work-from home fellowship promised, just can't deal with communting and family safely on top of ~40hrs outside the house). If funding looks more promising for starting in January (aka "spring" semester), then I'll do that instead.

In addition to all that, we've also celebrated Liam's 5th and Delano's 2nd birthdays and gone to Cedar Point twice and Kalahari Indoor Waterpark-Resort-and-Spa once (the 3 night stay at Kalahari was paid for by Garvin's work's sponsors or something, he was at a conference there while the kids and I were playing in the water). And I got myself a new laptop that I'd been drooling over for over a year (HP TouchSmart tx2) which I'm typing this up on (the keyboard is very nice, the tablet conversion with multi-touch will come in more handy while reading massive amounts of hopefully online journals for grad school, and it's small -but not too-and light and has decent battery life).

I will make another post with links to kids birthday party pictures soon. Haven't had time to organize and upload anything for ages.

OH, and if you're seeing this on Facebook and waiting for a response from me I haven't been ignoring you - I've not logged in to FB since around Easter, everything on my profile there has been posted via conduits (aka my cell phone, cross-posted by Twitter, or from this blog). I'm going to try to make some serious time to work on my novel in the next month (I want to complete it before the end of July) after getting this grad application finished, plus spend time with my family, plus sometimes post on my blog, Facebook priority comes in around this slot. I'll be back eventually.

May Day 2009

2009-05-03T22:36:00.001-04:00

Wrote this at a Beltaine (Celtic May Day) celebration today. I've known a good number of the folks there since 1994 (if my calculations are correct - end of my junior year of high school I think but due to medical problems I had back then my memory is poor so may have been 1993). The first time I went to one of these, my mom and then-just-turning-5 brother were with me, and it really struck me that now my own firstborn is roughly the same age my brother was then. That is a major part of the inspiration for this poem. First draft, unedited, written aroung 5:30pm today.

Half a life ago
or maybe two
Under a sky
Almost blue
Clothed in time
And ribbon
We danced the
Summer in
Young without
And within
We help the
World begin again
Faces new and
habitual
Essential parts of
ritual
Bellies filled with
Divinity
Have waxed and waned
repeatedly
The earth dances
round the sun
Lives ending
and begun
We gather here
Rain and shine
To be blessed
and our selves divined
As long as
memory lasts
our futures
will adorn our past

This pic of D reminds me of my dad

2009-04-22T16:13:00.001-04:00

Just took this, not exactly sure why, but something about the look on his face reminds me of my dad. I think it's in the eye expression.

Instigator (another original "poem")

2009-03-29T11:24:00.001-04:00

When I was young
the great big They
called me an Instigator
slur-like and slanderous
as if I would amount to
Nothing
and there was w real problem with that.

I have grown beyond them
And embrace my instigation
personification
arms thrown open to the universe
I let myself in
and stir up trouble that needs some stirring.
I am the Official Nobody
and gleefully fulfill my role.

I have found
Everything Essential
in my Nothingness.
Perhaps not comfort for myself
(and surely discomforting for others)
but always
Instigating
Progressing

And that ain't Nothing.

(written on my bberry during the sermon at WSUUC)

Urg.

2009-03-27T07:52:00.005-04:00

So today is one of the every-other-Fridays that Liam doesn't have school in his pre-k program. Usually I'm having to drag him out of bed at 7:45 to get dressed and fed before I drag D out of bed at 8am to change his diaper and let him get his favorite "stick cheese" (aka string cheese) out of the fridge on the way out to the van to get Liam to school at 8:30. Today? No school, Liam was up past bedtime yesterday with no nap, and still the little bugger wakes up at 7:10 AND proceeds to wake his little brother up for a rousing game of tickle-wrestling on the bed around Mama trying to figure out where the kids' snooze buttons are (why doesn't that Vulcan trick work in real life, dammit!?!). I had just been contemplating sneakily getting up and trying to get some writing done when Liam head-butted his brother awake. And they're both in a very rough-and-tumble mood today, which isn't doing good things to my Fibromyalgia trigger points that they keep bumping into (because, you see, they're also both in a very SNUGGLY mood, so they're squirm snuggling which is driving me insane, I keep yelping when they knee/elbow/head-butt one of my trigger points).

In other news, my in-laws made it home safely from their month in China yesterday evening. I skipped my last Migun visit (I'd paid for a month of unlimited visits) to go pick them up at the airport (which is also why I'm not so well physically today, that thing really does improve my physical function pretty drastically - we're planning on purchasing one shortly, hopefully in the next week. G and I need to set up the space where it will "live" first and make sure that spot actually has an electric outlet). Hopefully the whole family will use it as my MIL is developing a bit of a hump-back from bending over a sewing machine daily for 30+ years, my FIL has bad knees from standing at a garment press for a decade (and being nearly 70), Garvin's been complaining of upper back complaints, and then there's me. Visitors will also be welcome to use the bed if they'd like. Reminds me, I need to search for one of their centers in the DC area to visit while I'm down there so that my mobility stays as good as possible while traveling.

OH! and while my in-laws were in China they got me something that I've been wanting from there for AGES. Harry Potter in Chinese. Entire series in a very nice box. I didn't ask if it's traditional Chinese instead of simplified (I had specifically asked for Traditional, Simplified I could actually have gotten myself from Amazon for a reasonable price, but they sent a cousin to get it so I'm not positive). Much joy there. I'm going to try to set my FIL up with a voice recorder (likely one of our Sandisk Sansas that has been seeing much less use since the BlackBerries got here and I found media player software that's audiobook friendly for mine), and ask him to read the books in Cantonese for us. Yes, he knows it's primarily for me (I'm hoping to use it as a language learning tool - I still have less than 50 words in Cantonese after nearly 13 years of knowing Garvin), but they also want the boys to learn Cantonese, not just Mandarin (which is all that is taught locally - there are a couple Chinese School - weekend class things - around, but they're Mandarin and while my in-laws speak it, they are primarily Cantonese speakers and Garvin speaks almost no Mandarin, his Chinglish is Cantonese-English). I'm going to try hard not to press the point that by the time the boys are actually old enough to enjoy the story and it's nuances, he may no longer be around to read it to them. I think the helping out with his own mother-in-law's declining health (which is what they were in China for - she had surgery and isn't doing too well) likely has his own mortality on his mind enough that I don't need to say anything. Certainly has his mortality on MY mind enough, at least. His sibling group has been fairly long-lived, but I also get the sense that the others lived less hard lives than he has. He still has several older siblings living (he's 9th youngest out of 10, numbers 6-10 are all still alive, 2 died a few years ago and I think 1 died last year, 5 died I think when I was pregnant with Liam - at least I think I'm keeping the time straight. I know one of them died when we were still living in the first place in Cleveland when Liam was tiny, maybe that was 5? All three of these were brothers, for what it's worth - I met 5 who lived in California and I can't remember his English name, I called him the Cantonese version of "Father's Older Brother #5" which is what Garvin calls him, uncle 2 was Uncle Joseph who lived in Toronto and reminded everyone strongly of my own paternal grandfather in appearance when we watched our wedding video with them - and my own grandfather is named Joseph too so it was rather erie. Uncle 1 I never met, he lived in China or Hong Kong still). I just realized I think he only has one older brother living now tho - Uncle Peter (Uncle #7), who is in New York and was a doctor until retiring about a decade ago. Very social and vivacious man, which adds to his life expectancy. He actually comes across as younger than my FIL by several years, at least to my impressions. My FIL has at least two older sisters still living (6 and 8, both in Toronto), I can't remember if there's another older sibling I'm forgetting about, and Uncle 10 (Uncle Kevin) is still in very good health in California (retired school teacher, also very outgoing and seems much more than 2-3 years younger than my FIL) My FIL is very much an introvert - to the point if it wasn't for the language/culture barrier I suspect he'd be diagnosed with some variant of social anxiety disorder, he tends to go into his shell and hide from new people/situations for a while. It's bad enough that sometimes I think that his marriage may have been semi-arranged or at least very heavily nudged by other family members - my in-laws are distant cousins, she's told me something about going to live with his mother to help out with things when she was a teenager, might have been when she attended seamstress school I'm not sure - she's rather vauge with the details, I think she thinks I'd not understand as a westerner but I really do want to know and understand so I can share that part of the family history with the kids.

Woah, what I have time to reread of that is REALLY rambling and probably hard for anyone else to follow but the kids have been climbing all over me and bumping keyboard buttons that have almost resulted in losing this post a couple times, so I can't reread/reorganize it to make it more sensible at this moment. Welcome to the way my brain works.

Easter Egg Roll WOOT!

2009-03-26T14:37:00.006-04:00

So my obsessive-compulsive... er... PERSISTENT... button mashing finally yeilded results. I don't know who the moron was who decided that releasing tickets to an event geared toward elementary school aged children ON A SCHOOL/WORK DAY was a good idea (hint guys, there's a reason that these have traditionally been released the Saturday before) but after feeling a little forlorn about my chances of scoring any tickets at all when I realized at 8:05am this morning that they'd been released (and snatched up rapidly) at 8am (while I was dealing with an extra kid, one of Liam's classmates' moms had a substituting job this morning and her hubby is out of town, so I said I'd take him to school for her, I've been carpooling him to his grandmother's house after school this week - yes, those of you who knew me in high school reading this, I'm still the queen of the carpools, tho I make sure there are enough seatbelts and booster seats for my passengers now). Anyway, after obsessively checking the site throughout the day, I happened to hit it at just the right time and scored tickets for the 4 of us to the Group D (1:15-3:15 I think) section. I'd been putting off making firmer travel arrangments (and plans for other things to do while in the area) until after I was sure we'd have the tickets to get in - if we hadn't, we still would have come down but I was thinking of maybe coming for the following weekend as a long weekend instead.

Now we need to figure out where we're spending Easter Day, up here in Cleveland or down in the DC burbs with our old friends who haven't seen Liam since he was a month old and have yet to meet D (err... some of them might not even know he exists as I'm rather bad at sending out the holiday cards... as in, 2008s are still mostly sitting around here somewhere, not quite sure where I stuck them but I guess I'll mail them out now with this news LOL).

Here's the screen cap so you know I'm not foolin' - I "redacted" the order number and my email address so someone doesn't try to steal my hard-won tickets.

Note to any administration folks who might stumble upon this - next year, do a lottery. Allow submissions online and via regular mail so that people without internet access aren't cut out (er... classism anyone?). Require that they send in a picture of all the people who will be attending (photocopies accepted) to limit scalping potential and visually verify there are children at least of approximately appropriate age in the picture since there allegedly has to be a child under 10 in each group.

Now I need to pester them even more about the handicap accessibility issues... wheelchair + lawn area + two small children = this should be interesting....

Driven by the Past (original poem)

2009-03-24T12:07:00.002-04:00

To a place I never drove before I feel driven
by the blood in my veins
Pulled by bones set in space
Ages ago in a place
All I wanted to do was leave
When there
The air was stiffling
Of all I longed to be
But my memory
Is foggy with
Years and maturity
I chauffeur myself with passenger-eyes
Back into a past I thought
Long suppressed
If not healed.
Before I only approached
Under duress
In distress
Of what might come.
Now I will myself forward
Into this past
So much less intimidating
With years and grown inches
On my side
The child I was peeks out
From where she hides
Quietly in my soul
It's all so much
less
than I remembered it.

2009.3.24.11.55

(this was written after stopping by to look at the house my dad bought after divorcing my mom when I was 2. The novel I'm writing takes place about 1/4th mile east of that area, from my distance estimating abilities. Suffice to say I didn't enjoy the time spent with him during his court-determined visitations and don't remember much of that time very fondly.)

Found the digital things

2009-03-22T17:51:00.002-04:00

Well, after searching both desktop hard drives and the laptop earlier, I thought I'd lost the notes and early writings I'd done on my novel. Then it occured to me to check the NAS (network attached storage) drive and lo and behold, there they were - and in the documents folder with my name on it none the less (which is separate from the one the whole family has stuff stored in and one just for Garvin). None of my other writings (poetry, fanfiction, old short stories, etc) was in there (tho all that was in other places where I *thought* I'd also had my novel's notes). Very strange. Turns out the character that was bugging me so much for a name had never actually been named in the first place (tho her mother had). I spent the time at church today borrowing the computer of one of the staff members (couldn't get wifi working on my bberry there, need to ask if there's a network key or something, or I would have tried to search for names on it instead). Decided on a name for the daughter and her mother, and the new name fits the mother better than the one I had intended to use. So now the characters aren't shouting "YO! Beeautch! Wha's ma name?" in my head anymore at least (my characters insult me on a regular basis, but in a friendly familial way I promise. And they don't actually talk with such coarse language in the novel. They are not gangsta, just playin).

Anyway, while searching for the stuff from my novel I found this very short story that I wrote sometime in high school (guessing probably senior year - 1994-1995 - due to the mention of Woodstock '94, and Garvin is sure that I wrote it before we met in early 1996 as it wasn't familiar and I generally force him to listen to listen to me read any new writings aloud). It made me laugh to read and thought it might give others a chuckle too. Please note that, dispite being a retelling of a fairytale, it is NOT suitable for children!

Rapunzel Gets a Makover
Ahmie Polak (my maiden name)

No, it didn't happen "once upon a time." That is too kind for the characters of this story. To me, this story begins "once upon a 1970's..."

There was a couple, I won't say man and wife, because that would have angered the wife, a woman's lib fanatic, made her feel that I was insinuating she was less than the man in some way. This couple had been together for some years, and had decided that the time was right in their carreers for them to have a child. Unfortunately, nature didn't agree, and they had trouble concieving. The problem seemed to lie in the man's underpants, and possibly in the fact that he was a little too, shall we say, generous, with the contents therein. He had a low sperm count, partially from overuse, which wasn't always with said female half of the couple. And it also bears relavent that Belinda, the woman with whom the man was wasting his limited excesses with, was barren. Belinda, while not a witch by modern standards, was a bit on the psycotic side, given to fits of insane, jealous rage. When she learned that "her" man was trying to have a child with the "other" woman, she, to put it nicely, became quite irrate. Actually.... she threw herself, kicking and screaming, on the floor at the man's feet and swore, if he didn't give her the child his wife would soon carry, that she would tell the dear woman everything and help her sue him for every penny he had. Considering the man had been in the Senate for a number of years, this amounted to much more than he cared for the public to know about. Petrified of the consequinces of a scandle, expecially since it was an election year, he promised that he would somehow give the child to Belinda after it was born.

It came to pass that the woman gave birth to a baby girl, but she never knew any more than that about the child. The senator calmly and smoothly had arranged that shortly after the child's birth, the mother would be told that it had been stillborn, and the child would be delivered to Belinda. The woman wept and tore her hair, nearly distroying a few hours' work from the beauty parlor, when she heard that her child was dead. We must remember, nazi-feminists do have feelings too. The man comforted her and promised they would try again, but of course, the woman refused. She looked at him with tear-stained eyes, black splotches of mascara running down her face, and exclaimed "Can't we just adopt???"

After seeing that the woman was properly and completely sedated with rather stronger-than-nessissary medications, the man went and spoke to Belinda.

"You've got what you've wanted. Now get out of here, and never come near me again, or I'll make you the sorriest woman on the face of the planet."

"Of course. What more could I possibly want? Except some money to raise this child with," she said, with a rather frightening smile.

Digging into his pockets, the senator took out his checkbook and wrote her a check for five hundred thousand dollars [editing note: back then, that was a lot of money, right?].

"And don't come looking for any more than that, unless the kid wants to go to college or something."

***

Belinda raised the child as her own, claiming to have given birth to her at home. Since she was a loner and rarely came out of her house, even less so during the nine month period when the other woman had been pregnant, no one had noticed that she had not gained an ounce during that interum. The child was named Rochelle and raised as if she were the queen of the world, until, spoiled and ignorant, she actually believed it.

Rochelle was perfect, at least in her own and Belinda's eyes. She always had all the solos in choir (more because the choir teacher was terrified of Belinda than any actual talent on Rochelle's part) and the leads in the school play. She had long, thick hair that Belinda let her start dying blonde and perming when she was only four years old. She was quite stunning, in a self-centered, completely unnatural, early 1980's sort of way. And it came to pass that, as she grew older, Rochelle became quite the little snob, eventually having no friends at all - which she blamed on their "imperfections" - and wound up spending a great deal of her time in their penthouse apartment watching MTV and trying to dress like Madonna. Nothing could have made Belinda happier.

Things went on like this for, sadly, an extremely long time, and it wasn't until around 1992 that things started to change. This was the year that Rochelle entered high school, and one of the most miserable years of her life. Rochelle discovered boys, and it didn't start with just any dweeblie boy. It started with the guy who played center for the school's boy soccer team. To say this guy was hot would be like saying that Bevis and Butthead are idiotic. This guy defined the word hot, but in a different way than the guy Belinda would have approved of. This boy, who's name (as if it were important) I might add was John, was the head-freak of the school. He started wearing grunge clothes before everyone else started to and sporting long, dark purple hair. While this may not sound too great looking to someone over the age of twenty-eight, he was also blessed with a body that would have put a young Hulk Holgan to shame and a face with a close resemblance to Keanu Reeves. Rochelle actually swooned the first time she saw him look right through her.

John didn't go for girls like Rochelle, ones that still made love to their hairspray bottles for forty-five minutes each morning and only wore clothes from the GAP. He perfered girls who didn't bother much with grooming (though he would turn and bolt if they didn't brush their hair and teeth and at least bath occassionally), and liked the look of girls who shopped mostly at thrift stores. Now, Rochelle may not have been the brightest girl in her classes, but every female of every species quickly adapts and learns how to lure and snare the males in elaborate courtship rituals, sublte and demure or agressive and deadly, and Rochelle was no different. She noticed which girls in the hallway John would notice, what they wore, how they did their hair, and soon began emulating it, much to Belinda's horror and dismay. Rochelle went grunge. She had her overly-permed hair straightened and dyed black, and stopped her thrice weekly trips to the tanning parlor, opting instead to hide in dark rooms to achieve the death-palor look of the girls that John aproached. She started giving her clothes to the Salvation Army, then shopping there for hours at a time when Belinda thought she was at the mall. Basically, Rochelle started to look like a rag-a-muffin. And she started to go by the name "Roach" to the people who suddenly started speaking to her. Belinda was stunned. Belinda tried grounding her. John noticed "Roach" and started hanging around her. Rochelle was on cloud nine.

One Friday it so happened that John's scheduled date became ill, and so he asked "Roach" if she would like to accompany him to the poetry reading he was going to. Rochelle, eager to get her claws into the delicious John, quickly accepted, and blew off Belinda's attempts to keep her at home. When John arrived on his Harley, Rochelle swung her leg over the back, held on tight with one arm, and waved goodbye to Belinda. Belinda knew then that she had lost her little fluffchick forever.

In the days and weeks that came after, John took to the task of expanding and enlightening Rochelle's horribly crippled and empty mind. He showed her local bands and helped her understand the lyrics. He took her to the art museum. He took her other places and did other things with her that I don't think it would be appropriate to mention here, using certain other objects that are just as unappropriate to mention. Let me just say that certain companies of certain products not advertised on most public telivision made quite a few dollars off of John and Rochelle at that time. Rochelle became a new person, interesting and intellegent, and actually won John's heart. Finally, John asked Rochelle to run away with him and elope. Rochelle agreed, and they left that night, taking little more than a change of clothes and a Harley that was in desperate need of a tune-up. Last time they were heard from, someone who had gone to school with them saw them at Woodstock '94, bickering and fighting over the screams of a small baby that Rochelle was trying to breastfeed.

[wow, I was a big fan of the word "and" in high school. Sorry for the typos, this was a plain text/Notepad document and I didn't run it through a spellcheck, and cut-and-pasting seems to have FireFox ignoring the errors in it - I did catch a few.]

Cute or ....?

2009-03-22T14:09:00.001-04:00

Garvin thinks this Domo thing is "horribly cute" and especially so in costume. I think it looks like a nightmarish anthropomorphized lump of feces with sharp, nasty teeth that appears here to be laying a trap for the poor unsuspecting Easter Bunny. What do you think?

Now I'm blogging at Target. Help. Me.

URG! Misplaced digital things

2009-03-22T09:05:00.003-04:00

Well, since I've actually been working on my novel again recently, I went looking to find the files of stuff I'd already written on it a while ago (possibly two years ago now, can't remember if I've written any text of it since D was born... primarily just doing plot planning and research since it takes place in Cleveland). Thank goodness I set up a blog under my pen name and posted the stuff I wasn't horrified by the quality of there, so I can retrieve it. I've been working on a scene with two strong secondary characters (next door neighbors of the principle character with frequent interactions with her) and I can't remember what I had decided to name them, and it's bugging the heck out of me. Getting really tired of calling them "woman/mother" and "girl" and I'm getting to the point in the text when they should really introduce themselves by name to my principle character. Urg. Off to my tumbleblog to see if I can dredge anything up there, and my two favorite name meaning websites (behindthename.com and thinkbabynames.com). If you're curious about what I'm writing, I'm really only willing to share details with people I know in real life. Contact me via my primary email address and I'll give you access to where I'm keeping an online repository of it. If you don't know my primary email address, you don't know me well enough to read it anyway, sorry.

I have a feeling I'm going to be writing on my bberry instead of paying attention to the sermon at church today. Sorry Rev. Kathleen, I'm sure it'll be a lovely service! But since I woke up and wrote a poem as soon as my eyes were able to focus, seems like it's a writing day today not a sit-and-listen day.

Their Feet (original poem)

2009-03-22T08:09:00.001-04:00

New
Tiny, curling
In constant motion
They hike their wiggles
into my heart's deepest spot

Growing
now running
Circles and cycles
Flying so fast ahead
I struggle to keep up

Gangly
Shy stumbling
Testing new ground
Still twirling and whirling
But to catch another's eye

Sure
Steady grace
Distance is growing
At an unbearable pace
They move forward into history.

2009.3.22.8.05

(for Gabrielle and Beverly, and their parents, in honor of their 14th birthday. Look, Mike! No rhyming couplets!)

I needed to hear that...

2009-03-20T13:41:00.001-04:00

A local friend who is also a FaceBook friend took one of those FaceBook quiz things, this one about "what is your theme song" and got a resulting song she was unfamiliar with but I know well - Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten". I heard it on the radio the summer before D was conceived, and it quickly became one of my favorite songs. I hadn't listened to it in ages, but looked up the YouTube link to forward on to my friend and rewatched the music video for the first time in ages. I really like the video, and the song's lyrics really put my current situation in perspective, and the music is very uplifting to me (and makes me dance even when I don't really intend to, which is not a bad thing). For those unfamiliar, here's the link:

YouTube - Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten

Teaching the interplay of SES and life

2009-03-19T19:06:00.001-04:00

So i've been thinking about teaching and missing it, which has me thinking up random lesson plans on various topics I how SOMEDAY to have the qualifications to teach classes in (sociology and edging into social psychology). One of my undergrad profs used Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in sociology methods class, which is a bit of the inspiration for this idea. The book just couldn't hold my attention at that time for some reason - I actually found the standard course textbook much more engaging (I think I just didn't mesh, at least at the time, with the author's narrative style - I'm generally much more tollerant of different writing voices in non-fiction than fiction, I'm a very picky fiction reader and it's hard to predict what I will or won't like at any given point, and a book I can't stand at one point can wind up being one I reread several times later)

So I was thinking about how much more I might have gotten out of a lesson that involved fictional characters I actually cared about and that sparked an idea for a lesson on how demographic characteristics shape the options people are presented with in life and the choices that they are likely to make given those options. What I would do is allow students to pick any work of fiction they were familiar with, as long as at least one classmate was also familiar with the piece (and they could be movies, TV or books, or even very involved video games for all I care, though the character picked has to have a very developed 'canon' backstory, and no religious texts so as to avoid letting the subject get THAT potentially explosive) so that their peer can help verify their interpretation (especially for pieces that I am unfamiliar with). They are then to describe the character's background demographics and explain how that interplayed with a major choice/decision/pivotal interaction in the story. Then they are to give examples of how the options the character was presented with may have been different if single background details (of the student's choice) were changed. Then if several were changed but they still had the original plot option presented, how may they have reacted differently?

Now describe yourself the same way, pick a pivotal moment in your own life, and analyze how your background set you up to be presented with that option. How might you have reacted differently if a few of your own background variables were changed? What background characteristics in your life made the option even possible? How many of your background traits do you think you could change and still have the option presented at all?

This is a 'game' I play with myself (and fiction characters I care about - this is why I write and enjoy Harry Potter fanfiction so much!) and feel free to try it yourself. I'd love to read what you come up with even if you don't consider yourself a social scientist.

To Fly or Stand (another original poem)

2009-03-19T18:23:00.001-04:00

I need a wing to be taken under
I desperately want to learn to fly
It's not fear I feel of distant thunder
But a longing to undestand why

I need a source to draw upon
That will flow unerringly
When my strength is nearly gone
Something, somehow - carry me

I need to stand firm on my own
As the ground shifts below my feet
I need to know that I have flown
Whatever future I may greet.

(my brain seems to be trying to work things out in rhyming couplets lately, not exactly sure why buy that is how things are coming out. I *have* written plenty of non-rhyming poems in the past. Maybe it's the Migun bed - you guessed it, i've written this one on it too!)

The Whos and the Whats

2009-03-18T21:11:00.001-04:00

So I'm still struggling with the idea of grad school and, per my nature, am sitting around thinking and rethinking about it (no, I don't think I'm *overthinking*!) because I still don't feel like I have enough information to really decide if now is the right time or not. Delano doesn't make the best conversation partner for sussing this stuff out, I'm too distracted to really think about it while alone with both kids and too exhausted by the time at least Liam is asleep so Garvin can help me sort it out in my head (he is usually exceptionally good at that, which is one of the top ten reasons I married him. His listening skills, when he puts them to fill use, are downright sexy). So here I am, sitting in the middle seat of the minivan w D while waiting for Liam to get out of class, blogging about it on my blackberry.

I think most of what it boils down to is figuring out if getting the PhD is part of who I am or what I am, and it's feeling like a very borderline issue at the moment.

The who parts are the parts that would essentially destroy me (at least mentally for an extended period of time) if I were to lose them, or in some cases even just lessen their role in my life below a certain threshold. At this point in my life, the most obvious and primary of these is my role as parent. There is a definite minimum threshold of time I must spend with my children to maintain basic sanity (tho I am also very aware that there is a maximum too, but since I'm still nursing there's a time limit of physical comfort away from the nursling, about 6 hours at this point. Pumping doesn't help because for me it's a combined physical/mental/emotional thing once it kicks in I get very single-minded about *needing* to be with my baby). Being married to Garvin falls into this category too, as do my spiritual beliefs, ability to think to a certain depth, and take care of the most basic of my own physical needs (I found the lower limits of that one when I herniated the lumbar discs before getting preg w Liam - being unable to handle my own toileting independently for an extended period of time did BAD things to me mentally). Basically those components, when added to the basic needs of food and shelter, are needed for me to feel like *me* . They are essential to WHO I am.

Other characteristics - gender, sexual orientation, physical dis/abilities, class, race, politics, college graduate - these are fundamental aspects of WHAT I am, but if any one or several, even maybe all, were flipped somehow, I think I would still be essentially the same 'who' (that is, if somehow those changes happened now - I recognize how much many of those attributes have shaped who I have become through their constant presence growing up, just that the loss of any of them would not be devistating to me and lacking a few of them I think I could have developed as much as I am at this point, though it may have taken longer! The physical disabilities have been particularly potent teachers).

So, the question I'm still trying to figure out is: is the PhD a who or a what? One of my undergrad profs pulled me aside toward the end of my education and told me something along the lines of "people think you earn a PhD. They're wrong. You *become* a PhD. It generally takes years of graduate training to teach students to think like a PhD. You already think that way, getting a PhD will primarily be a matter of paperwork for you.". That was back in the spring of 1999. It's now 10 years later and I definately haven't stopped thinking that way - in fact it has just become more intense and pervasive. Back then I had to intentionally turn it on, now it's my default setting - I look at everything around me as data to be analyzed and interpreted, as often waking up needing to jot down a research idea as a writing or photography project one (and I've been writing and taking photographs longer than I can remember - started both before I was out of single digits age-wise, fiction and non-fiction writing, wrote first poem I think when I was 10 but I could be forgetting an earlier one, the first one I remember was about my sister who was born that year). My ability to communicate visually (which encompasses both writing and photography, and other tangental primarily visual arts I partake in) is closer to a who than a what, though I'm not sure if it's a who component because I've never had to test it - writing tools are always readily available (though I get pretty frustrated pretty fast if I have to handwrite things, my handwriting is attrociously bad because my hands cramp up, to the point I have trouble decifering it myself after a few paragraphs, and I can already type faster on my bberry than I can handwrite legibility). Photography-wise, I get grumpy without easy, ready access to a digital camera (I am very spoiled in this aspect, next month marks the 10th anniversary of the purchase of my first digital camera, and the thought of even going back to film, much less hand-drawing, is enough to make me feel slightly queasy right now). I think those aspects of my life, if suddenly made even less accessible, would at least throw me into a deep depression (as anyone who had to put up with the fallout from the hard drive crash in our main computer in October 2007 could probably tell you - I dropped out of a lot of online activities for a while then because I was just too emotionally devistated from the loss of some of the digital photographs on that drive that I hadn't had time to back up yet before the sudden crash - specifically D's church dedication and G & I renewing our vows, both a month before the crash - to the point it set off a major Fibromyalgia flare from the stress and I couldn't deal with any issues outside my household for a few months from the bad health spiral - didn't help that G was also stressed from grad classes he was taking and the developmental points the kids were at and lots of other mental and physical stressers).

I also have always committed myself to living a life I won't regret later. A big part of this is from spending so much of my childhood with mysterious medical symptoms that were not clearly diagnosed and a mother who tended to catastrophize the symptoms in front of me enough that I did sometimes wonder if it might be something terminal. Since the doctors took years to figure it out (the full puzzle as I now understand it wasn't put together until I was a few years out of college when a physiatrist off-handedly mentioned that I was clearly hypermobile and that the body mechanics involved were triggering myofascial pain, which was likely more of what I was dealing with that Fibromyalgia per se, so we finally worked out that the hypermobility, which I was born with, set me up for fascia and muscle issues, which triggered the Fibromyalgia, which triggered the chronic fatigue, which triggered the immune issues, which doesn't help the ear infection issues, which triggers the audio processing issues - elegant how it all works together, eh?) I came to the decision when I was in my early teens that I wasn't going to waste my limited energy living life in a way that I might regret later, so I've had the thought of "how would I likely feel about this decision on my deathbed?" as a guide much longer than your average never-terminally-ill 30-something (to the point I sometimes get mistaken for a senior citizen online), and it's the first thought I have about any decision that will have obvious ramifications lasting beyond the next moment. Not that I don't sometimes still make bad decisions, but at least they're not made lightly so I forgive myself for them ;) one regret at this point is that I didn't go straight into head school from undergrad, but then G might not have become a teacher and that is so clearly his calling that it lessens the regret I have about not earning my advanced degree already.

So, on my deathbed, will I regret if I never earn a PhD? Due to the lack of ability to conduct some of the research in my head that I think has significant potential to better the lives of many people and lessen suffering, yes. I think I would. However, that still doesn't answer if NOW is the right time to start, as the timing affects my children and they are too young to voice their opinion (and, I definately feel that I WOULD regret not having at least one more child, likely more - I somehow feel like I am "supposed" to have two daughters, to the point that it feels almost like they're missing sometimes because they're not conceived yet). I haven't been able to get clear answers/ideas of how much on-campus time will be involved (I know full-time is 3, 3 credit hour courses plus a 1hr/wk seminar, but there is also a fellowship involved to have tuition covered in full and I don't know anything about that beyond the expectation of 20hrs/wk of work -don't know if the hours are flexible, if telecommuting is possible, etc, which makes it difficult for me to figure out if my health can tolerate it with the added demands of mothering small children, and that gets me right back to the only part that REALLY scares me, that I might drop the ball as a mother by pursuing the degree now). I inquired about going part-time at least to start, to make sure my health can tolerate it beforre jumping to full-time, but the answer I got was that would have to be entirely self-funded and that's just not an option (unless some independantly wealthy person I'm unaware of is reading this and wants to find my degree), on a teacher's salary and with the extra classes G has had to take for licensure, we're still paying on existing student loans and can't take on more, especially ones that don't immediately increase job security or employability (I haven't the foggiest clue as to my chances of earning enough to pay back the loans upon completion, especially being totally unwilling to relocate - which plays large in my lack of interest in tenure track. All I really want us to be affilliated enough to do my research and teach some - I really do love teaching and miss it - I don't really care about much beyond that, and if I can hook up with other researchers at more prestigious universities for that part, I'd likely be quite happy teaching at a community college. Not against the idea of some public speaking gigs either as I rather enjoy public speaking - one of my other anomalies is a total lack of fear of public speaking).

Anyway, I'm still feeling very conflicted about this and have no idea how to sort it all out beyond writing it here so I can examine it more outside my head. If anyone has any advice/input/perspective to share, please comment. Maybe there are other options that just aren't occurring to me because my brain is set on this one path, I'm willing to be re-routed! This post has taken all day and at least 3 sittings to write, so it's a bit disjointed. Hopefully I've caught all the SureType typing prediction oddities.

Overwhelmed Juggler (original poem)

2009-03-16T17:30:00.001-04:00

I have too many balls in the air
and no idea how to juggle
more like I'm playing dodge ball with myself
Hands over head, don't I even bother to struggle
As another ball pelts and makes a welt.

(Another one written on my bberry while on a Migun bed. No I am NOT bipolar)

Having a bad day

2009-03-16T11:17:00.001-04:00

D was up every 2 hours last night so I slept like crap. Then woke up to find the stiffly nose from yesterday had morphed into a sinus cavity full of bloody snot. Yum. Not moving around so well from sleeping poorly so barely got self & kids out of the house in time to get L to school, thank goodness no call for carpoolling the other kid this morning. Drank a cup of coffee at home then got a medium McDonald's coffer, now sipping on a tall mocha espresso from Starbucks trying to stay conscious until L is out of school (t minus 15 minutes, I'm sitting in the van in the school parking lot typing this on my bberry). Sinus pain is worse to me than labor pain (but then again, so is about 80% of the pain I experience on a weekly basis). Am very grumpy. D passed out in his carseat about 10min ago just before I determined Starbucks was needed.

I'm frustrarted by how little got done around the house this weekend. The place is rarely tidy - I'd love it to be but just don't have the physical stamina and refuse to constantly clean up after my husband, especially because I don't want my sons to grow up expecting a woman to clean up after them. Then when I think like that I gett really grouchy at my MIL for fosyreing that unconscious expectation in my hubby (she still does it, then criticizes me for not cleaning like she does).

I decided I need to do something proactive about getting more organized because the chaos is just stressing me out too much, so I'm listening to David Allen's "Getting Things Done" on the speaker of my phone while writing this. I think a good plan might be to listen to it again after every other audiobook I listen to so as to get more constant reminders. And/or I might just make myself (and hubby) listen to it at night (I do not sleep well in too quite environments - too much time in bad neighborhoods as a kid gets my brain to interpret every little sound as a possible intruder, trying to wean off TV on all night and can't sleep with music on either as it just makes me twitchy). Garvin can use the tips too anyway.

Kids coming out of school more later.

My Own Midwife (original poem)

2009-03-14T14:50:00.003-04:00

I will midwife my self
Reach inside and bring a new me to birth
Shape my own world so different from Earth
With eyes open wide and glowing with worth
Life flowing on with rapturous mirth

I will find sustainance within my own breast
Rise above the sludge that mires the rest
I'll filter the toxic and consume the best
Always preparing for what will come next

(composed on my BlackBerry while using a Migun
thermo-massage bed after putting an audiobook
on pause first - I am the queen of multitasking!
This IS how I relax.)

Accomplishing something

2009-03-13T13:12:00.002-04:00

Not feeling well and thought creating something might improve my mood. Had yarn handy so made.this Ravenclaw intarsia crochet thing (it's sideways in the picture unless I figure out how to rotate it on the phone). Pattern from Leaky. Thought I'd make a cell phone cozy out of it but it's a bit too big so no idea what I'll wind up doing with it. But I did something today, right?

Test mobile post

2009-03-13T11:00:00.001-04:00

Blogger FINALLY responded to my mobile register attempts so this is a test post from my bberry. Not sure how it will show up as author, if it will mark these as mobile posts at all, but the predictive writing software on the bberry can make some amusing errors sometimes (as demonstrated on my twitter feed) and I'm usually splitting my attention so I don't always catch the errors to correct them - can't exactly touch type on this thing to watch what is showing up on the screen & often need to switch to kid monitoring mid-word so can't reread before sending to catch the errors.

These are sent via mms so I may post pictures tha way also. Hopefully it'll allow me to blog a little more regularly by freeing me from needing to be at a desk/computer to post (I spend a lot of time sitting in my van with D sleeping in the back seat while L is at school in the mornings, then they are energetic together in the afternoons and need closer supervision now that L doesn't nap most days, so I'm pretty zonked by the time G gets home and/or desperately want to be out of the house since I can't really manage both kids alone in unconfined areas with my physical limitations. I get really starved for adult conversation/interactions when D has napped several mornings in a row. When he stays awake I often hang out in one of the motorized carts at Target with him in a front carrier just to be out around adults, but he's getting too heavy for my back to tolerate carrying him and too curious to appreciate being restrained).

Not sure if there is a character count limit on mms messages like there is on txt messages so this is kinda testing that too I guess.

Yes, I'm still alive

2009-03-12T14:11:00.003-04:00

OK, so it's been ages and ages since I've updated this thing. My hands have been rather full with the kids and other offline stuff (as well as other online distractions) and I haven't felt motivated to blog. I got a BlackBerry Flip a week and a half ago, which prompted me to finally sign up for a unlimited messaging plan (I've had a cell phone since 1999 but I can count on one hand how many txt messages I sent before 10 days ago). Since I tend to be out of the house with D while Liam's in Pre-K in the mornings (which is also why I've been too exhausted to blog - being out with a mobile toddler is a lot of stress for my back so I've been pretty zonked out when I get home, then tending both kids prevents much blogging). I've been using Twitter heavily since getting the BlackBerry, I much prefer typing on it to typing on a standard phone keyboard (my brain thinks in QWERTY not ABC1 DEF2 from being a very fast touch typist for more than half my life). I've just installed the widget on this blog (to your right on the screen) so that my Twitter updates will appear here, and you can follow me directly on there (as well as see the various things I've tweeted in the last 10 days - all 80+ things I've tweeted in the last 10 days *blush*). http://twitter.com/dragonmama (same username, convenient, eh?).

I've got a draft of a post for here that has details of what I've been up to for the last year, including pictures, but I'm getting significant glances from D right now so don't dare try to work on that. Tried to just snap a picture of D's significant look but he reaches for the camera (aka my bberry in this case) instead of giving me the same look again. Not as easy to be stealthy with the cell as it is with the regular camera for some reason.

Chimp-in-Chief speaking

2008-03-19T10:15:00.003-04:00

Man, as if Barack's speech yesterday wasn't great enough on it's own (even according to his political opponents who bothered to watch/read it - apparently Hillary couldn't quite squeeze in the time), the current pResident goes on television today to tell us all about how morally "right" the Iraq war is/was on the 5th anniversary and couldn't have made the contrast between himself and Barack more stark if he'd tried. Seriously, the man is either too nearsighted (ironic, eh?) or dim-witted to use a teleprompter I guess because he has to look down at his PAPER script after every sentence, and his body language is so staged to look "strong" you can almost hear the person in his ear saying "now, pound your fist on the podium".

I believe it's important to pay close attention to politicians, more so when you disagree with their actions so you can try to head off their intended actions (my inner Hermione-watching-Umbridge-speak-at-the-Feast) but damn, I was EAGER to turn on the darn Doodlebops for Liam about 5min in.

Del's sick, had a fever over 100 yesterday but seems to be considerably better today, hopefully he'll be calm enough for me to get some work done. Haven't even had the mental energy (much less free hands) to reply to emails for a few days since I was sick myself this past weekend. Someday I'll catch up, right? *sigh*

VP Pelosi?

2008-03-13T18:28:00.003-04:00

So Pelosi was speaking today and saying "Democrats will have a Dream Ticket" but said it won't be Obama/Clinton or Clinton/Obama. The woman had a total cat-who-ate-the-canary grin on her face while saying it. I'd be willing to bet dollars to cents that she's been tapped to be Obama's VP, and she'd be a much better VP than Hillary (Pelosi has been in the US House of Representatives since 1987, Minority Whip, then Minority Leader, now Speaker of the House, opposed the war from the start, matches Barack's record very well in most areas from what I got scanning through her Wikipedia entry). That would work very well, as it totally undermines the support base behind Hillary without having the divisiveness Hillary brings to the VP slot - Pelosi is another woman "of a certain age" BUT she's got REAL national government level experience that she EARNED FOR HERSELF (and nicely she's seemed to "grow a pair" recently in arguing with Bush, she's been a bit too polite to him for my taste since becoming Speaker). If it really is about it being "a woman's turn" to Hillary's supporters, Pelosi is also a woman so that argument loses steam, and asking Pelosi over Hillary is easily explained because Hillary made the argument for it - Pelosi has more security experience, more experience PERIOD, and brings the "big state that Barack lost" of California legitimately (instead of the "big state" of NY as a carpetbagger).

Garvin saw the video too and agrees with me - she was just smiling WAY to big for it to be someone else who has been tapped. Watch for it. I don't think he'll announce anything of the sort before he's officially the nominee delegate-wise, but if you start seeing a sudden large number of superdelegates announcing support for him, it's been announced behind the scenes. Mark my words.

For those who still aren't feeling too terribly committed one way or the other, a graphic I made for you:
(that's formated 6x4 if anyone wants to print it out, I'm planning to print one and stick it in a magnetic 4x6 holder to stick on my van)

In other news, Del finally had his two bottom teeth pop through the gum line in the last few days. He seems really less than thrilled with the two weird, hard, sharp things in his mouth that he can't get out. NOt been doing good things to my mental funcitoning, lack of sleep combined with fibromyalgia flaring up (which it has been, off and on, since October - I haven't been at my normal energy levels since then) and I'm a bit off my game to say the least.

Real patriotism is holding government responsible | www.tennessean.com | The Tennessean

2008-03-10T13:30:00.000-04:00

too busy to post my own words so sharing some i found particularly inspiring...

Real patriotism is holding government responsible | www.tennessean.com | The Tennessean:

...I'll let you in on an oddball gesture of mine. Each Sunday, at the end of ABC's This Week when the Pentagon-released names of recently fallen soldiers scrolls down, I stand up from where I've been sitting and, misty-eyed, salute the names. It's corny, I know, but the idea of 20- and 30-somethings dying far away in an unnecessary war touches me at the core, and I feel the least I can do is stand and honor in some way their sacrifice.
Let's examine the thinking of the roughly 30 percent of Americans — the so-called America-lovers — who still support the war. Theirs is a world view painted with broad brush strokes — their country is always right, good, moral; those who oppose us are all bad guys, sometimes with no distinction — "terrorists" "extremists" "insurgents" — all to be done away with; even when we err, it is always in good faith, never with ulterior motives. And if we want someone else's oil or want permanent bases, their astonishing attitude is "So what?" This world view doesn't allow the other guy, Iraqis in this case, to be entitled to the same nationalism, pride and fighting spirit that we claim for ourselves.
Frankly, I wish I could inhabit this island even temporarily, if only because it would be easier. To actually be acquainted with the messy realities of Iraq is to feel a range of emotions — anger, outrage, sorrow, shame.
I have a theory on why some people feel this way. Some of it is a combination of exceptionalism and arrogance, but some of it has to do with what is sometimes evident to outsiders — the dichotomy between the American people and their country's foreign policy — the former are some of the most straightforward people in the world, and the latter can sometimes be devious and hypocritical.
It is for this reason that some Americans are unable to believe that the genial Mr. Bush can be capable of a dishonest war, and that their leaders may not have been entirely honest with them. Hence the denial, delusion and tortured rationalization.
But as Barack Obama has reminded us, dissent is a higher form of patriotism.
If we lose that, the terrorists win. If that happens, they'll follow us here. Then, maybe hopefully, they'll drive out those America-haters and Third World liberals.

Saritha Prabhu of Clarksville is a Tennessean columnist. E-mail: sprabhu@charter.net.

The Obama Movement - Kool-Aid Drinking or Redpill Swallowers?

2008-03-05T15:22:00.000-05:00

Cross-posting and linking to my blog entry on barackobama.com

As Obama supporters, we've been being called Kool-Aid Drinkers for a while now from all sides, and some people within our own ranks are starting to use the term as if it's a good thing. Please stop. The reference to Kool-Aid Drinking either refers to taking LSD or, more often, to committing suicide as a show of support to your leader ala Jonestown - here's the Wikipedia entry about it - this is NOT a label we should be casually applying to ourselves!

I believe a more accurate label for us is Redpill Swallowers, a reference to Redpills from the Matrix Movie Trilogy - here's the relevant Wikipedia entry

"This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the Bluepill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the Redpill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes." -Morpheus to Thomas Anderson before he became Neo, from the film The Matrix, first released in 1999.

Exiting the Matrix can be traumatic, particularly to those who have lived in it for too long. It's scary. Change is unsettling and uncomfortable. Sticking with what you've always "known" is so much easier and more comfortable. This is part of the Truth behind HRC's appeal, especially amongst those who lack the education or even language capabilities to investigate her claims and so take the Bluepill way and take HRC at her word, taking comfort in the Clinton Machine's familiar spin cycle.

Me? I'm just another white woman GenX red-pill swallower here. And damn if it ain't one bitter, jagged little pill. Leaves an ache in your trache as it goes down, but it's the only medicine that will keep you awake and alert. It's this alertness, this intentional exiting of the Matrix that the politics of the past has created for us, that will produce change. It needs to be about more than just one man. It needs to be about us, at our most awake, alert, and attentive. It needs to be about We, the People, taking back our country.

Yes, we can.

Swallow the Redpill. It's not a placebo. The side effects are exactly what our country needs. The Bluepill is the path to ruin, individually and collectively.

Send the upcoming state's citizens as many Redpills as you can. It's definately not about Kool-Aid.

Liam may have thrown out Barack's back

2008-02-18T18:25:00.001-05:00

We went down to Youngstown to hear Barack speak today and got to grant Liam's months-long wish to hug Barack... and may have thrown the poor man's back out since Barack didn't just hug him, he picked him up! And Reuter's got the picture, nonetheless. It was a long drive and annoying with getting detoured in both directions (I90 was a parking lot getting there then missed the exit for I80 on the way back) and Del wasn't entirely impressed (he cried and then fell asleep toward the end of Barack's speech, so didn't get to meet him and Garvin was too far to take pictures of Liam and me and Barack, so I had to take the pictures myself from sitting in the borrowed wheelchair from church - sciatica is acting up really bad again). I'm copying and pasting the picture here in case the link doesn't last but the link is included here too.

Top News Photo | Reuters.com

"Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) strains to lift William Yeung, age 3, of Cleveland, Ohio during Obama's "Keeping America's Promise" rally at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio February 18, 2008. REUTERS/David DeNoma (UNITED STATES) US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN 2008 (USA)"

Clare's blessingway

2008-02-16T19:17:00.002-05:00

Today I hosted a Blessingway for my bestmama-friend Clare. It went well, and since folks seemed to like it I've posted the text of the script I wrote for it here - all of the text was written by me except for the part that everyone had assigned parts, that part was written by Clare. It was sacred and secular at the same time, and seemed to go over well with all who attended. I'm fine with folks borrowing bits of it to host a Blessingway for another expectant mother, I'd like to know that you borrowed from me for it tho.

Barack sweeps the Patomac Primaries

2008-02-12T23:19:00.003-05:00

Well, Barack has won DC, Maryland, and Virginia all by at least 60% from the look of things. From the pundits doing the math, it appears that he now has more than a 100 delegate lead over Hillary, even when the superdelgates are included. Even more interestingly, even if you count in the popular votes she got in Florida and Michigan (remembering he wasn't even on the ballot in Michigan and didn't campaign in Florida even tho she did a little), he STILL leads in the popular vote!

I just think it's fantastic that this happened on Abraham Lincoln's 199th birthday. So we joined the "money bomb" and Garvin and I both donated $5.01 to the campaign (since Lincoln appears on the $5 bill and the penny).

Here's hoping we'll celebrate Lincoln's 200th birthday just after celebrating the inauguration of President Barack Obama!

Feminists switching their support from Hillary to Barack

2008-02-12T20:39:00.000-05:00

ouch.

Breast milk contains stem cells (ScienceAlert)

2008-02-11T20:41:00.000-05:00

Breast milk contains stem cells (ScienceAlert): "team cultured cells from human breast milk and found a population that tested positive for the stem cell marker, nestin. Further analysis showed that a side population of the stem cells were of multiple lineages with the potential to differentiate into multiple cell types. This means the cells could potentially be “reprogrammed” to form many types of human tissue."

Obama speaking about Atheists and the role of religion in politics

2008-02-10T22:28:00.000-05:00

Link

I'm not sure but I think this must be an earlier speech - he's showing his college professor roots here, not the rally-sermon style he does now. Really good to listen to tho.

And really, another reason I'm so pro-Obama... I could see him imitating FDR's "fireside chats" with a weekly podcast, and that would be so damn cool. ;)

Romney suspends his campaign, I play with Photoshop

2008-02-07T13:22:00.000-05:00

7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable | Cracked.com

2008-02-06T13:39:00.000-05:00

7 Reasons the 21st Century is Making You Miserable | Cracked.com

excellent irreverent article... wonder if i can get my ministers to read it and maybe *gasp* realize the implications it has on the worship format they've been using. *sigh*

More like Mother's Milk with DHA and ARA... and... oops...neurotoxins... and life-threatening diarrhea...

2008-02-04T14:02:00.000-05:00

Shesh, at what cost are these "good for the economy" corporations making their profits?

Link to full article on Ibfan

Here's the fun excerpts:
"When I worked in the hos

pital´s neonatal ward, the nurses all called it ´the diarrhea formula´," says Sam Heather Doak, LPN, IBCLC, from Marietta, Ohio. "We´ve seen infants, tiny little humans, with diarrhea that just wouldn´t stop after being given this formula." For infants, virulent and long-term diarrhea is considered a serious and life-threatening medical episode.

...

But laboratory-produced DHASCO and ARASCO (Martek´s names for their proprietary oils) are materially different from the fats found in a mother´s breast milk. Martek´s products are extracted from fermented algae and fungus, with the use of the synthetic solvent hexane, a neurotoxic chemical. They contain only 40 to 50% DHA and ARA, with the balance being sunflower oil, diglycerides, and nonsaponifiable materials. Some of these components are not found in human breast milk, and the triglycerides carrying DHA and ARA are not identical to those found in human breast milk—and have never been part of the diet for human infants. [bold added]

No, Mr. Romney... there's no need to ban the bags.... just let them keep advertising to people at one of the most vulnerable times in their lives. Corporate interests must be protected, especially once we achieve universal health care in the USA. [end snark]

Oh the irony, the delicious sweet irony

2008-02-01T13:01:00.000-05:00

So now, MoveOn.org, the progressive group that formed during the Clinton impeachment trials to encourage congress to just "move on" to the work of the people, then to censure and move on (and which I've been a member of from very early on, as a disclaimer) has now officially endorsed Barack Obama for president. I love the irony, an organization specifically started to oppose the treatment Bill Clinton was receiving by our then-Republican-majority congress, is now overwhelmingly endorsing Obama. In order to endorse either candidate, they required a 2/3rds majority of their members who voted to support one candidate over the other. Barack got more than 70% of the vote.

Here's his response (which came in so quickly that they got it before they finished writing up their announcement to the membership, making me guess that he was hoping/anticipating the endorsement and had it pre-written):
"In just a few years, the members of MoveOn have once again demonstrated that real change comes not from the top-down, but from the bottom-up. From their principled opposition to the Iraq war—a war I also opposed from the start—to their strong support for a number of progressive causes, MoveOn shows what Americans can achieve when we come together in a grassroots movement for change. I thank them for their support and look forward to working with their members in the weeks and months ahead."

GObama GObama GO!

Obama Super Tuesday shirts

2008-02-01T10:20:00.000-05:00

So the Obama Store now has a bunch of t-shirts with the names of the states participating in Super Tuesday on them (one each, would have been more fun to do one shirt with all of them to me, but whatever - here's the link) . Makes me happy to be an Ohioan, our shirts will be so friendly ;)

Here's my take on it:

and it looks like they're starting to get restocked on things, may need me a long-sleeve Obama t-shirt... we don't have may long-sleeve t-shirts in this house... lalalalalala...

The opposition

2008-01-31T14:35:00.000-05:00

Why I think it's so important that breastfeeding activists be ACTIVISTS and speak out against the underhanded tactics of formula manufacturers, and why we need to start being a lot more intentional and strategic in our efforts to eliminate their undermining of our children's health.

Moms Feeding Freedom - Feeding Your Baby

Don't see a problem with anything on that site? How about this: it's owned by the International Formula Council. Hidden agenda, anyone? Don't believe me? It's right there in the first sentence of their "who we are" page:

MomsFeedingFreedom.com was made possible by a grant from the International Formula Council.

The editing of the site is attributed to a woman named Kate Kahn, who they make no bones about having no lactation expertise - she's a journalist. And from the statements given as "facts" given on that site (especially common sense reasons women don't breastfeed, which are almost all lack of education issues not physiological ones), not a very good one. Not that I've been overly impressed with the quality of journalism lately while watching the presidential campaign news and seeing several candidates be totally ignored while getting a decent percentage of votes in early primaries and caucuses. No, the news never creates the story. Never.

But, of course, women need a "Guilt-Free Zone" when she's "not able" to breastfeed her baby. And yes, they DO go so far as to say:

[A]ccording to the Mayo Clinic, while "breast milk is best, formula-feeding is perfectly acceptable. Sometimes exclusive breast-feeding isn't possible or practical. Until age 1, formula-feeding is the next best choice." [emphasis added]

Funny, the World Health Organization and others disagree. Formula is the fourth best choice. First being milk directly from mother's breast, THEN mother's milk pumped, THIRDLY the milk of another human mother. Commercially prepared artificial baby milks just out-rank homebrews of various concoctions of things like goat's milk and honey (which some argue are actually better for the child and funny enough there hasn't been much research to prove either side correct).

That website was written extremely strategically. Lactivists need to really start returning the favor. The "who we are" would give you the impression that the two women organizing this site are breastfeeding activists. You need nothing more than their own words in print and some critical thinking skills to see how much undermining they're actually doing. Then add to it that they're doing it for pay and what do you have? What I have are questions about what these two women's definitions of "successful breastfeeding" are - and a guess that it's breastfeeding that winds up with the baby on a bottle of formula at least part-time before it's first birthday. They'd lose their paychecks otherwise.

Bebe Gras

2008-01-30T20:02:00.001-05:00

So I've had this image in my head for a while and haven't found time to track down another mom to pose for me and wanted to just do it, so I had Garvin take this picture of me on January 27th to commemorate 7 months of nursing Del:

The beads are actually from New Orlean's Mardi Gras 2005, 2nd hand from one of Garvin's coworkers that year that earned them "the old fashioned way". I made the mask.

If anyone wants to model for a reshoot of this image with their own baby, I'd be happy to oblige - wound up doing a lot of cropping and the lighting wasn't to my liking because I couldn't exactly set it up properly before the picture was taken... as it is I'm sitting on Liam's sidecar bed, that's the bedroom wall behind me, so not too shabby of a picture after some photoshopping ;) I would have liked to have had more of Del's legs in the shot - he's got such lovely chunky thighs, at least you can see one, but his chubby little feet are so sweet! Ah, well, here's a picture with his foot (as well as mine and Liam's), the title of this one is "Our Best Feet Forward"

Speaking of feet, John Edwards, the candidate I was supporting the most whole-heartedly, has stepped off the campaign trail. Obama was always a close second to me, rising more every time I heard him actually speak about issues (instead of just vague ideas like "hope" which, while I appreciate, I need something more concrete from a candidate). I'm now joining Liam in his support of Obama.

Del's a growing boy

2008-01-28T16:09:00.000-05:00

Garvin's got a bad cold (most likely viral according to the doctor) and asked me to make him an appointment. I tagged along with Del so we could weigh him since I haven't bothered to make his 6mo well-baby checkup since he's doing fine and we're delaying vaccinations, so a $15 copay seems a bit of a waste just to weigh and measure the kid and chat with the doctor (who I really like and enjoy spending time with outside the office - we're both Potterheads). They don't mind me coming in and weighing Del on my own and mark in his chart how much he weighs when I do that. I usually forget to measure him, but he's growing out of his clothes so I'm pretty sure his growth isn't stunted or anything (he's currently wearing a lot of 9-12mo stuff, generally fits his torso length and has long enough legs to keep from riding up enough to expose bare flesh to the cold weather while being carried about). So, Del's gained about a pound since I last weighed him between Xmas and New Years (I *think* it was the day he was 6mo), when he weighed 18lbs 2oz. He weighed 19lbs 2oz today and was 26.24 inches long (took the time to measure him on the exam table between when the nurse did Garvin's intake and when the doctor came in to see him since I knew where she keeps the measuring tape). According to the WHO breastfed baby boys chart, he's about a standard deviation above the mean in weight. All the stupid online calculators that give you percentages seem to be using the CDC ones that are primarily formula fed babies so they aren't giving an accurate percentile (saying 49th percentile I think). Del is also working hard on learning to crawl, he gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth, sometimes intentionally lurching face-first to the floor repeatedly to propel himself forward inchworm-style. He's very good at maintaining a sitting position and has been since around New Years (was sitting up before then but leaning on his hands). Now he's also working on trying to get from a laying down position to a sitting position - if he's semi-reclined (say, leaning back on the boppy or my arm) he can usually get up to sitting by himself, and he rolls to the side and tries to push himself up but hasn't quite managed it yet.

Just wanted to make sure I remembered to record this SOMEWHERE since I'm horrible at remembering to record things where I'll find them again. Clare, looks like borrowing the carrier carseats from us will be NO PROBLEM - they only go up to 20lbs, at this rate Del will grow out of them well before Monkeypuzzle arrives.

Seven-Word Wisdom

2008-01-28T10:53:00.001-05:00

Clicking around the internet (which is about all I'm capable of some days when Del is kicking the keyboard off my lap every few seconds), I came across an article on the NY Times website (which may or may not require a login to read, sorry) about Seven-Word Wisdom, which they turned into a little contest. Synopsis: the point was to write 7 words of sage advice in the form of 3 haiku-like sentances - 2 words, 3 words, 2 words. The concept was based upon the original by author Michael Pollan, who wrote "In Defence of Food" complete with the catchy edict "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." The winners were:

Read Pollan. Take his advice. With salt.
Make promises. Don’t break them. Find loopholes.
Seek wisdom. Think for yourself. Avoid maxims
Enter contests. Don’t ignore rules. Try again.
Ate plants. A big heap. Still hungry. [that was the grand prize winner]

I found it rather interesting that all the winners (and the vast majority of the ones I scanned through of the 1000 replies that constituted the contest entries) stuck with periods for their sentences. No other punctuation. Had I seen the contest before it closed, my entry would have been:

Hit wall? Stop, look around. Find door!

This comes partially from a recent conversation with Serena about strenuous physical activities (marathons, fighting with foam weapons, giving birth, that kind of thing). I've heard many people over the years talk about hitting "a wall" and then you break through it and get a huge endorphin release/high. I told Serena then when *I* hit a wall, my usual response is to stop and reassess exactly where I was heading and if possibly there may be a more sane way of getting there instead of trying to be the Kool Aid Man. This has been a bit of a problem for me, all my life but especially recently. I haven't just been feeling like I've hit a wall, I feel like I've been talking to one and hitting my head against one repeatedly. Through thorough testing I have proven to myself that I am indeed not the Kool Aid Man and finding doors is a much better way of moving around walls. Brainstorming, experimenting, and problem-solving are my way of finding doors. Now if I can just get the rest of the household to try these doors instead of all the damn wall hitting that's been going on with the very strong-willed children we've managed to produce and the personality conflicts between adults. Interesting to note I'm the only member of the household who doesn't have high blood pressure. Hmm.

Random thoughts on fish and politics

2008-01-16T10:44:00.000-05:00

Just me blathering about the "conventional wisdom" being bandied about by our presidential potentials...

Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day.

Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.

Unless, of course, he's allergic to fish, in which case you may have just committed involuntary manslaughter.

Give a woman a fish, she'll find a way to feed at least a family of five for three days.

Teach a man to gut and clean a fish, and you turn him vegetarian.

Or the Republican strategy: teach a man to fish, then allow your corporate cronies to pollute all the fish-carrying waters with heavy metals so that anyone who actually eats the fish they catch becomes literally retarded enough to vote Republican. Then find as many ways to monetize the act of fishing as possible through requiring expensive licensure, which requires only very specific and exorbitantly supply-and-demand-priced-out-of-the-middle-class fishing tools be used. (I never said Republicans are stupid, just that they more closely resemble Sith Lords than the Christians they portray themselves to be).

I prefer land food. 99% of seafood makes me horribly nauseous. I'll just find/enlarge/dig a pit and chase deer and other such game into it, is that a viable alternative?

Mind Survey

2008-01-15T13:52:00.000-05:00

Mind Survey

We see politicians on the news, in debates and in commercials, and we make decisions about who will lead the country. But how do we really form impressions of these people? We are interested in finding out how people perceive a number of American politicians.

First you'll meet the cast of politicians you'll be rating, then you'll pick a survey. Each 10-minute survey is about a mental ability--such as the ability to feel joy, to think, or to feel pain. Your job is to judge pairs of politicians to say if one has more of the ability.

dearth of posting

2008-01-14T13:08:00.000-05:00

i've not been posting because i just haven't had the energy or free hand - yes singular - due to both kids needing three adult hands each lately. the fact that i've been at my lowest energy point in years (since before liam was conceived) really doesn't help matters, i've been surviving on caffine and dark chocolate just to be concious enough to meet their basic need s while alone w/them for weeks now (not their optimal needs mind you - several ec misses to the point of leaking diapers, baby crying for a while before i can move sufficently to pick hi up off the floor,l liam hearing "mama hurts and can't do that right now, give me a few minutes" and winding up going to the corner for testing limits i've been too out of it to be consistent enough with - hey, the kid's getting good at counting to 30 due to all the practice in corner time, bright side, right?).

when i feel like this, i tend to dive into reading. my attention span w/the kids distracting me has sucked too bad for fiction (tho fanfics where i don't need to learn new character names/environs would probably work, i would feel too guilty not reviewing what i read so i've abstained). i've generally been able to use the mouse via the arrangement i'm positioned inthe profile picture here - the computer i'm writing on is to my right and when del isn't kicking my arm too much i can use the mouse on the right side armrest, especially facilitated when liam is also sleeping (which is what the blob to my left is in that picture). a site i've been particularly enjoying is youjustgetme.com, where i am currently ranked as one of the january best at guessing stranger's personalities (especially those of of psychpology professors - i scored .79 on DrZ and .8 on Pennebaker). from there i took the typing personality test (typing for 15min straight while alone with the kids just didn't hhappen, had to get up several times for liam as well as helping the baby back to his favorite toy twice before finishing with him in my lap nursing). still managed to type 970 words - which considering that that is still more than 64 words-per-minute would impress people if i didn't around 100wpm when not distracted (at least i used to, haven't tested my speed since becoming a mother). here's a cut and paste of that analysis:

Self-analysis dimension	Your data	Average response	Your level
Physical appearance	1.96	2.35	normal
Family orientation	2.27	1.59	normal
Social connections	1.13	0.76	normal
Achievement Striving	2.68	2.68	normal
Religion and spirituality	0.10	0.28	normal
Optimistic orientation	1.44	2.32	normal
Negative concerns	1.34	1.13	normal

Overall, you wrote 970 words in the 15 minutes.

Physical Appearance. High scores are associated with using physical descriptions of faces, bodies, physical health, or manner of dress. People high on this dimension tend to judge themselves and others on their looks.

Family Orientation. People high on this dimension tend to think about their immediate family and loved ones at high rates. They think about family links more than others in defining who they are. Note this could be due to the fact that they have very positive experiences in their families or because they have very negative experiences.

Social Connections. High scores reflect an awareness about how individuals interact with other people. It's not about what you're like around people, or even if you like to be around others. High scorers simply judge the world more than others based on social style and connections.

Achievement Striving. People concerned with achievement are thinking about success and/or failure; about striving for the future or about how they are meeting or not meeting their goals.

Religion and Spirituality. People who score high on this dimension think about religious and spiritual issues more than most. They could be deeply religious, agnostic, or athiest. Whatever their beliefs, however, they are thinking about them more than most people.

Optimistic Orientation. People high on this domain tend to see themselves and others in a generally positive light. They tend to weigh their worlds along a continuum of very positive to not at all positive. Note that this is very different from seeing the world from positive to negative.

Negative Concerns. People who score high on this dimension are often worried about important aspects of their lives. It is not uncommon for them to see the world as a potentially threatening place. Not only do they tend to see themselves in a negative light but they have the ability to judge others negatively as well.

The Big Picture: The above interpretations are based on a new mathematical text analysis strategy developed at The University of Texas at Austin by Cindy K. Chung and James W. Pennebaker. It is intended to provide feedback about the DIMENSIONS along which people think. If you judge yourself along a certain dimension, you are more likely to judge others along that same dimension as well.

What if you did not score high or very high on any of the dimensions? In fact, 20 percent of people who do this assignment score in the normal range for everything. This simply means that the computer didn't find anything along these particular 7 dimensions. Hopefully, in the years to come, this system will become more sophisticated and will provide more detailed feedback. In the meantime, think about the dimensions of life along which you see the world. The computer might not be able to catch it but you probably can.

Questions about this project? If you would like to know more how the computer program works or are interested in the nature of personality feedback in general, contact Dr. Pennebaker.

i f you're interested in taking the test yourself (it's free), the direct link is: http://www.utpsyc.org/personality/ - there are other tests linked off there which I'm also taking (free hand permiting)... here's the feedback from the first one on the website's list so you can get a sampling (and it did take me significantly more than 5 minutes wtih the kids distracting me):

Psychological Feedback from Demographic Information

Our lives are shaped by our families, hometown, and various early experiences. These earlier life experiences influence our current health and life orientations. This demographic questionnaire attempts to tag some of the major issues and experiences. From questions such as these, we can get a sense of who we are.

Early Childhood Experiences: Family harmony
We all experienced very different childhoods. Some are pleasant and loving, others are meaningful, others are full of conflict and sorrow, most are a combination of these things.

Your score on the Family harmony dimension (which ranges from 0 to 18) is: 4. By most estimates, you do not consider your childhood as particularly easy or harmonious. There were clearly periods of upheaval and tension. However, there are also signs that you experienced some happiness and growth. Most people who had difficult childhoods ultimately triumph as adults.

Social Connections
Across all of psychology, one of the most powerful predictors of physical health, happiness, and quality of life is a person's social connections with others. The more time a person spends with others, the better.

Your score on the Social Connections dimension (which ranges from 0 to 40) is: 22. You are HIGH on this dimension. You clearly care about your friends and seek to be closer to others in your social circle and community. Your general social patterns are a marker of good mental health.

Breaking out: Trendsetting
Some people lead lives that are relatively stable, traditional, and conventional; others are more risky in their thinking and behaviors. Although trendsetters may sometimes be a bit more "wild," they can also be leaders in business and culture.

Your score on the Trendsetting dimension (which ranges from 0 to 50) is: 20. Good news. You are MODERATE on this dimension. There are several things that you do that are unconventional. At the same time, you are firmly grounded in reality. Your approach is probably maximally healthy.

Health Orientation: Current health
There are many ways to think about physical health. There is often a confusion about the difference between people's current health with prospects for health later in life. For example, if you are under a great deal of stress right now, it may cause health problems in the next few weeks but there is no strong evidence that it will predict health problems 30 years from now.

Your score on the Current Health dimension (which ranges from 0 to 10) is: 2. Your current health score is in the LOW range on this dimension. This suggests that your health habits aren't too good right now and that you have likely been feeling sickly in the last week or so. Current health problems are often the result of stress, poor health habits, and exposure to bacteria or viruses. If this is a unique time in your life in terms of health problems, the odds are that your health problems will soon pass. If this is a recurring issue, it might be helpful to stand back and reflect what factors may be contributing to your health issues.

Health Orientation: Longterm health
How you feel today is only weakly related to your health 20 or 30 years from now. The Longterm Health measure takes into account broader statistical factors such as daily health habits, your sex, social and economic markers, and other factors in estimating your longterm health prospects.

Your score on the Longterm Health dimension (which ranges from 0 to 13) is: 6. In terms of longterm health, your profile puts you in the GOOD range. Some things you can do to improve your longterm prospects (e.g., exercise, don't smoke, eat moderate amounts of healthy food, have an active social life), others you can't (be a right-handed female).

Fortune Cookie Fun

2007-12-16T14:37:00.000-05:00

We went out to dim sum yesterday because my bro-in-law is in town and this crop of fortune cookies was greatly amusing to me, especially when I continue the phrase that it came printed with (treating the period as a semicolon or an ellipse)... The part in italics is the rest of what the cookie should have said.

Mine was:
Learning to shrug is the beginning of wisdom... now get crocheting since you've not been finding the shrugs for nursing tops, make them yourself (something I'd been planning to do anyway, thank you fortune cookie)

Garvin's was:
Faith is the key to finding the answer you're looking for; the question, of course, being "where'd I put my keys?"

Del's (which I ate for him) was:
You are a practical person with both feet on the ground; but you are much cuter with one foot in your mouth.

Liam's was:
The seeds of an idea you planted long ago are about to blossom; this cookie serves as fair warning to your parents.

Marvin's was:
Your luck has changed. A new opportunity is about to present itself. We didn't say it was good luck - your flight has been canceled. (true story)

And we're not sure which of the other two were my husband's parents, not sure whose was whose but both of them kinda apply sometimes ;)

You are affectionate and loyal to those you love; to those you don't you're seen as a bit of a jerk.

Good fortune takes preparation and turning off the damn television set every once in a while is a good place to start.

Now Liam's running around screaming and driving everyone batty gotta go.

I keep wanting to post but not getting to it...

2007-12-07T17:03:00.000-05:00

For the last week and a half or so I've been fibro-flaring and the kids extra demanding (probably because I'm not giving them enough positive attention - I've been a bit of a snappish momster for some points). My birthday happened, I've uploaded pictures of it (as well as November - the pictures website is actually up to date through this afternoon right now - the new profile picture here on Blogger was taken today). However I've already been interrupted 5 times in trying to get THIS blog post written so little wonder the long one I wanted to do for my birthday (which was Monday, it is now Friday) hasn't been done. Garvin just interrupted me for the 4th time this paragraph, it's not just the kids. I'd throw a pillow at his head RIGHT NOW if he wasn't carrying the baby. I'm feeling rather grumpy and behind on a lot of stuff including emails.

Anyway, what I HOPE to post about in the next 24-48 hours are my new year resolutions. I've decided it makes more sense to do those on my birthday instead of on some arbitrary date on the calendar (which January 1 is - *I* didn't set that date as important, did you?). I have several, they're not so much resolutions as goals for the year I am 31, and I've started on them even if I haven't been able to commit them to my freaking blog. Seeing as two of them directly relate to writing, this is rather ironic and ominous.

Time for another cup of coffee before I start screaming again. Both kids are pulling the "I'm not napping unless in physical contact with Mama" routine which does NOT work well with fibromyaglia trigger points. Oh, and Garvin just dropped the f-bomb over something in the other room, should probably find out why, but he's holding the baby and I can see the baby and the baby is not crying so I'm not feeling entirely concerned at the moment aside from wanting to wash his mouth out with soap since Liam is conscious and in earshot. *sigh*

3 Years, 1 Month, 1 Week, and 2 Days with Two Treehuggers (take 3)

2007-11-21T12:00:00.000-05:00

Well, we re-shot the pictures of Del (twice, actually - I didn't like the way the ones I took Monday afternoon came out so we redid it Tuesday afternoon with Liam running around... bet the daycare folks are just LOVING us now). Here's the final image (at least, I think it's the final image... ;) )... formatted for 8x10 printing so don't go trying to print it at 4x6 or it'll crop their heads off.
And for those trying to do a careful facial feature comparison, here's a close-up of their faces (note that Del is 9 days older than Liam was when his part of the picture was taken):

Yes, they look like brothers, but they are far from identical. Liam's mouth isn't nearly as wide as Del's, Del's eyes are also wider-spaced and lighter in color than Liam's, Del's ears stick out a bit more than Liam's (as do mine), their eyebrows are different, Del has a more pronounced chin whereas Liam's jawline is more rounded like his daddy's... both have fairly full lips like both of their parents (but shaped more like mine)... they MAY have the same nose shape when they grow up but that's hard to determine as there is much less nose shape variety among babies than there is among adults (Liz I believe will concede that fact?).

Garvin's baby pictures are all in the house, I'm going to ask my mom to bring mine over so I can scan them in and compare them to the way the boys look as babies. I do think Del resembles me more than Garvin from the few baby pictures of myself that I have. Liam's been "mini-Garvin" in appearance pretty much all along (but he's "mini-Ahmie" in personality). I'm suspecting Del is the reverse - looks more like mama but personality more like daddy, especially anytime we've been someplace where people Del's never met before want to hold him. Liam was always pretty happy with that idea, would happily coo if we were playing "pass the baby" before we even got our coats off. Del takes longer to warm up to people and "come out of his shell" (my sweet little turtle baby), if we try to let others hold him too soon he cries and if we wait a bit so he can warm up to them he will still glance around to reassure himself that mama is within a few feet every 30sec or so.

They're such wonderfully different little people!

Fun with toddler Signing

2007-11-20T13:41:00.000-05:00

I've been more intentional in Signing with the kids since Del was born, especially since there is a hard-of-hearing baby at our church. So with lunch I was trying to get Liam to practice his signs for fruit. He had a pear (which he doesn't quite understand the distinction between a pear and an apple so I'm trying to help clarify that for him), so I Signed "PEAR" for him (left hand with the fingertips all touching and pointing upward, pull the fingers of the right hand from the base of the left's fingers and up toward the fingertips, indicating the shape of a pear).

Then he wanted an orange, which he couldn't remember the Sign for (you open and close your right hand in front of your chin). And then he was saying something about an Apple while Signing "candy" instead (Sign for "candy" is the index finger of your right hand poked into your right cheek and twisted, like you're drilling a hole in your tooth. Apple is Signed by making a fist with the thumb up along the side of the closed fingers - forming the ASL letter A - placing the thumb of that handshape near the outer side of your mouth and twisting a little, so it's a similar location and motion). I tried to correct his Sign by Signing and saying "you mean apple not candy, right?" And he said yes then tried to imitate the Sign for apple... by tapping the finger-side of the same handshape against his cheekbone several times.

And then he got very confused as Mama nearly fell over laughing.

That's the Sign for "menstruate".

Pretty sure his comprehension of anatomy isn't quite THAT advanced yet. Nor do I remember him learning that one on the Signing Time videos...

Poorly targeted Gmail marketing

2007-11-19T12:40:00.000-05:00

Damn this pissed me off, you'll probably have to click the image to view it full-screen to see exactly why:
In case you still can't read it even on the larger view, the adbar (upper arrow) has an advertisment for HOOTER HIDERS... the email list I was marking messages as read in is a BREASTFEEDING ACTIVIST ORGANIZATION (of which I'm a founding member - this is a large part of what's been distracting me from blogging and most other online activities for the last 2 months - I've been working behind the scenes on FirstRight.org and designing the website... plus we had a serious hard drive crash that I'm still not completely ready to talk about - emotionally - quite yet).

ARG! *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk* I really like Google generally *sigh*

Wonder if we can get sponsorship to get advertising for ourselves in Google (especially that specific location) when the word lactivist appears in emails... hmmm.

3 Years 1 Month 1 Week With 2 Treehuggers

2007-11-18T16:41:00.000-05:00

Had to share, life's been crazy and as it is I'm typing this with a fussy Del in my arms....

That's Del on the left and Liam on the right (exactly one week younger when the picture was taken). Del's picture's not so good because it was taken with my cellphone camera, the Kodak isn't working for some reason (thought it was that our battery charger went fubar but we went and got "for digital cameras" alkaline batteries just to take the picture and it still won't turn on *sigh* testing a bit more with rechargables from a different charger before contacting Kodak - at least it's still under warranty but CRAP right at the holiday season is NOT when I'm most patient about this!).

People keep telling me how much the boys look alike. Neener neener, no they DON'T!

Oh, and behind Del is the new RE wing of our church (construction was completed just before he was concieved), behind Liam is the old RE wing of our church. I'm not sure if it's the same tree or not, there were two trees in front of the building before construction, one is now gone and I can't remember which one I took Liam's picture in front of 3 years ago.

A Child's Tears

2007-10-18T12:03:00.000-04:00

a lot's been going on that I'm not quite ready to blog about (nothing life-or-death, no marriage trouble, the boys are fine), I was taking a break from brooding to do something constructive, unpacking a box of books that'd been sitting on the bookshelf for months and came across a book of poetry written by my grand-uncle, who died when I was in kindergarten or first grade. The book says it was published in 1982 (self-published I think) so it was close to when he died. His death was sudden, in his bedroom, I think a heart attack or something. This particular poem really fits well with the school shooting that happened in Cleveland last week so I thought I'd share it both as a sign of respect for all touched by that, and in memory of my uncle. And just as I was about to compose this blog entry I got an email that a friend whom I haven't seen in a while just lost his dad so this is for Neil too.

A Child's Tears by Norvin Pallas
A Child's tears are quickly dried,
the night's dreads are thrust aside,
the sun's rays again will warm,
the rains end like any storm.
The bruised knee will soon be loose,
and pride soothed with apple juice.
The strayed thought will be retrieved,
and time's march is ill perceived.
The day ends with Mother's kiss;
all doubts melt to dreamless bliss...

Except once I saw a child,
his face not reposed nor wild,
a blank page with nothing writ,
the eyes dulled, doors to the pit.
For fate's shaft too deeply bore,
and naught now can hurt him more.
All warmth oozed out through the breech -
the probe taught all it could teach -
a lost heart with naught inside...
This child's tears could not be dried.

Rest in peace, Asa Coon. May your peers learn to live in peace and be offered the opportunities peace requires.

WOOHOO! Med. exam mom won her appeal!

2007-09-26T17:03:00.001-04:00

Congrats to Sophie Currier on winning her appeal (title is a link to the yahoo news story)! I'm so glad the appeals court judge gets it - accommodation to one issue (dyslexia/ADHD) doesn't preclude the need for accommodation for another (breastfeeding)... and shame on the medical examining board for discriminating against her in the first place, they should have gotten it without the need for a lawsuit. Hell, her pre-existing learning disabilities make her need for the extra break time INCREASE, not decrease - "oh, other breastfeeding mothers have taken the exam without needing extra break time" - yeah, but were they ALSO dyslexic and suffering from ADHD and needing extra testing time for those issues? If they're fast test-takers anyway, they probably made it through the test sections fast enough to go pump/pee/eat/whatever without NEEDING to ask for accommodations.

What if it'd been someone with dyslexia, ADHD, and fecal incontinence issues? Would the extra break time so they could change their undergarments on a regular basis have been questioned?

Go Sophie! Can't wait to see what advances in pathology you bring to the world, I have faith that you're going to go on to great work.

Presidents commenting on their lap dogs in September

2007-09-21T23:22:00.000-04:00

This is of my own compiling, I sent it off to MoveOn.org in case they found it amusing enough to use as an ad. At the very least it would be a fantastic comic strip - but alas, I cannot draw.

"...I think I have a right to resent, to object to libelous statements about my dog."--Sept. 23, 1944, FDR referring to his lap dog Fala while addressing the Teamsters Union

"And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it." --Sept. 23, 1952, Nixon referring to his dog Checkers while addressing the nation on television.

"It's one thing to attack me. It's another thing to attack somebody like Gen. Petraeus." --Sept. 18, 2007, Bush referring to his lap dog Gen. Petraeus during a White House press conference.

Free speech IS patriotic.

Northern Ohio's turn for breastfeeding discrimination

2007-09-14T13:23:00.000-04:00

As reported in the Toledo Free Press a breastfeeding mother was told to leave a store for nursing her child discreetly... urg. too tired to type more around Del at the moment (who is on my chest being refluxy as I type).

Apparently lawyers don't like to be made to look foolish

2007-09-11T22:30:00.000-04:00

I was looking online for information about the case of Sophie Currier, who is suing the National Board of Medical Examiners for not giving her sufficient breaks to pump for her four month old baby during the 9 hour long test and stumbled upon a lawyer's blog shooting off his mouth on the subject. I tried replying to his rant and he basically just got insulting pretty quick, accusing me of ranting (as anyone who reads this blog regularly knows I am, in fact, quite proficient at - but I was not doing in this case... I was debating him point-by-point in a somewhat verbose manner, which shouldn't be so unusual to a lawyer.

The link to his blog entry is: http://hacklawyer.net/?p=426#comment-3676

In case he's the type to delete the entry, I'm reposting it here with my reply and his rebuttal, and including my reply that he declined to publish and the two email exchange we've had over that. I don't well tolerate this kind of idiocy from someone in a position of authority ;) So I'm taking my first amendment free speech rights as seriously as he's taken his.

It’s as simple as . . . what?

Sophie Currier holds a doctorate in neuroscience from Harvard University. Not only that, she has completed her studies at Harvard to acquire a medical degree. She is poised to acquire a prestigious residency at Massachusetts General Hospital but cannot accept it until she passes her medical exam.

When she took it the first time, she petitioned the National Board of Medical Examiners for “accomodations” (read: more time to take the exam) because of her dyslexia and attention deficit disorder. She was granted this consideration, allowing her to take the nine-hour test, which allows for breaks of 45 minutes) over two days instead of one. Even so, she failed. She blamed this on her pregnancy which she says put extra pressure on her. She’s now poised to take it a second time and she wants an additional 60-minute break on each day. She says she needs this time to pump breast milk for her 4-month old daughter.

Ms. Currier petitioned the Board for this additional break time, arguing that she needed the extra time to pump milk to avoid breast engorgement and mastitis, an infection stemming from blocked milk ducts. The Board turned her request down, explaining that it could only accomodate conditions covered by the Americans With Diabilities Act. The test is scheduled for Saturday, September 15.

This past Thursday, Ms. Currier filed suit in a Massachusetts Superior Court, requesting that the trial court order the Board to grant her this extra time, plus a private room with a power outlet so she can express her milk in private with an electric pump. She also enlisted the help of Dr. Alison Stuebe, a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and a member of the Acadamy of Breastfeeding Medicine (I had no idea). Dr. Stuebe wrote to the court that “forty-five minutes is insufficient time for a nursing mother of a 4-month old to eat, drink, use the restroom and to fully and properly express breast milk using an electric pump two times over the course of eight hours. If Ms. Currier is forced to delay taking the exam, it will cause her significant hardship by delaying her ability to earn a living and to begin repaying school loans, and possibly leading to the loss of clinical knowledge and skills.”

The case, scheduled to be argued on Wenesday, September 12th, is considered to be a harbinger of things to come because more and more women are studying medicine than ever before. Three exams must be completed before applicants can become doctors. Thus, these rigid requirements are running headfirst into the biological demands of these many female test takers. But think about the precedents set if the Board accedes to Ms. Currier’s additional requests. Who’s to say that the Board must then make accomodations for any applicant who can document a particular medical condition which might require additional time and effort to attend to? How about the man (or woman) with irritable bowel syndrome? What about the person who can document persistent migraine headaches? These unfortunate folks never really know when these things are going to hit. What if I could document a history of chronic depression and the need for additional time to handle complicated tasks given the debilitating effects of depression.

How about if Ms. Currier just takes the time to attend to her four-month old daughter like any other responsible mother would, wean the child off breast milk and then take the test, complete with your “accomodations?” For an individual who obviously has spent her entire adult life in school, a few more months devoted to raising her infant child is not going to ruin her future nor can it seriously be argued that the hiatus will threaten the loss of her intellectual mastery of all this knowledge.

But what’s most troubling about Ms. Currier’s litigation is the suggestion that the Board’s refusal to accomodate her “condition” is some sort of persecution of a protected minority class. And the truth is this: complaints by the traditionally disabled - the deaf, the blind, the paraplegic - have accounted for only a tiny share of these kind of ”accomodation requests.” The overwhelming majority of them comprise those who claim such dubious disabilities as ADD, visual and oral processing diabilities, dysgraphia (really bad handwriting), ”phonological processing,” dyscalculia (math disability). I could go on but I assure you I’m not making this up. So as the ranks of the learning-disabled swell, so too the number of boutique diagnoses. And now this.

Ms. Currier explains that “this is as simple as ducking into the bathroom to pump milk.” If that’s the case, why the need to file a lawsuit?

2 Responses to “It’s as simple as . . . what?”

Ahmie Says:
September 11th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Here’s the relevant section of the ADA here:
Sec. 12189. Examinations and courses
Any person that offers examinations or courses related to applications, licensing, certification, or credentialing for secondary or postsecondary education, professional, or trade purposes shall offer such examinations or courses in a place and manner accessible to persons with disabilities or offer alternative accessible arrangements for such individuals.

The ADA does NOT stipulate what disabilities are covered and what are not. This woman has just finished medical school through a pregnancy, where I’m sure that everyone she came in contact with told her how important it is to give her baby ONLY BREASTMILK for at least the first six months (logically, the time limit is when the baby has teeth to eat solid foods, not an arbitrary calendar date based upon the average age babies have two bottom and two top teeth - individual variation should be taken into account). Denying her request for time to pump and keep up the caloric intake required to sustain breastfeeding, as well as deal with the output issues from the increased caloric and fluid intake required to sustain breastfeeding, is discrimination and impacts not just her but her young child who is dependent on her ability to lactate for nutrition.

I am myself both disabled (mobility issues due to hypermobility, joint problems) and entitled to extended test time to allow me to move around so my joints don’t lock up from extended sitting when I took the GRE. THe same issue has resulted in my not being able to sit for jury duty (I wanted to, actually), and I do have a permanent handicapped parking license plate. I am also a breastfeeding mother, nursing my second child (11 weeks old tomorrow) as I type this. Pumping takes varying amounts of time depending on the mother, the pump, stress levels, etc and is rather unpredictable. She could well require 45 minutes to achieve full emptying of her breasts, especially if she is stressed, hungry and dehydrated.

As to your supposition that taking time off to care for her child won’t have repercussions on her career - oh really? Do you speak from personal experience? Considering how horribly undervalued mothers are in the United States in general, your claim is invalid at its face. Women who are mothers are the reason that the wage gap between men and women is still so drastic - non-mothers actually earn very close to what men earn. It’s the gaps in our employment that legitimize the discrimination in pay we receive. She has a prestigious residency waiting only for her to pass this test and is prepared to take on that demanding work while also doing the demanding work of mothering an infant. Only this test and the barriers it puts to her HEALTH stand in the way. If she were to develop mastitis from the lack of accomodation in taking the test, or if she wound up having to suppliment with formula due to not having enough milk/supply issues from not being accomodated (and yes, one or two days CAN make that big of a difference - I’ve had supply issues for a few days from taking a single dose of Sudafed with my first, add on that she’d be starting her residency soon after and her risk of ongoing supply issues once started is exponential).

The way you state your arguments, you really sound like one of those “women should be home, barefoot and pregnant” types. Society has progressed several decades beyond that and women will not accept going back. The only issue that I have with her claim is that it’s not JUST her rights that are being violated, it’s both her AND her child’s rights that are being disregarded.

Please do a little research on aspects of breastmilk and production before you rant about a topic you clearly have no experience dealing with. A good place to start is llli.org - the website for La Leche League International. There you can also find the text of the laws in this regard. For instance, if she had been in NY when this happened, she would have been covered by NY state’s breastfeeding protection laws, which are written into their civil rights code and have specific penalties for violations. “Pregnancy-related conditions” are covered under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. No stretch of the imagination required to view lactation as a “pregnancy-related condition” and so it is, by logic if not by name, included in those provisions prohibiting discrimination.
warrenclark Says:
September 11th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
As a father of a severely hearing-impaired daughter who has never once requested special treatment at anything, relying on her own strengths and acquired talents, I know the difference between a disability not of one’s choosing (blindness, deafness, paralysis) and one which is elective, like getting pregnant and demanding special considerations. I think there is a huge difference. Let’s not forget that Ms. Currier has already been given extra consideration and it did her no good. And what’s wrong with recommending that she simply devote six months out of her life for the benefit of this child rather than subordinating everything for her career? It’s a choice, pretty much what life is like. And just who’s on the rant here?

I can't find the exact text of my reply to him, but I pointed out that 1.) I'm a Signer and have been in and out of the Deaf Community for years, being Hard of Hearing (Central Auditory Processing Dysfunction) myself so the fact he refers to his daughter as "severely hearing-impared" is telling to me. People can be blinded, deafened, and paralyzed due to their own stupidity - does that mean that they are therefore not worthy of accomodations because their behavior was "elective"? And that lifetime wage losses that I'm facing, staying home with my kids while they're small, are well over a million dollars - given that the woman in question already holds a PhD and just finished medical school, if she doesn't get her license and finish her residency she's going to have BIG financial hardships. Also pointed out she was 8.5mo pregnant when she took the test the last time (and she didn't fail by much), only having 45min of break time over the course of a 9hr test with nearly full-term fetus sitting on a rapidly shrinking bladder - BIG distraction that could easily have cost her a few points and maybe she wasn't aware that she was protected by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act at the time, in addition to the ADA (she has learning disabilities including dyslexia that garnered her extra test time, but not extra break time).

His reply to those points via email:

Warren Clark

to me

When you cut through all the BS and see that the real
complaint is about all the millions at risk, I see what
your priorities (and Ms. Currier's) are. I need say no
more. Hard of hearing indeed. No shame at all.

Your response is not worthy or publication.

WLC

And my emailed response to him:
well, I've got my own blog to publicize it on then. And "Hard of hearing indeed" so you're also an audiologist now? Wow are you talented, sir. There are not "millions at risk" here, there is gender equality and fairness at risk here. And I think the real problem you're having is a woman is making you look like an idiot.

a link to a new story about this issue is at
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/general/view.bg?articleid=1030870

Three wishes and horror stories

2007-08-10T10:12:00.001-04:00

I've got the Food Network on for Liam (he's become a huge fan of "Man Cook" aka Alton Brown) and the related commercials. There's this stupid commercial for the local cable monolith where the wife comes home to find the husband has just made three wishes from a genie - all for the cable co's products of course - and the wife is thrilled about it. Ick. While this commercial was on I was browsing through emails to one of the email lists I'm currently active on and one of the women on the list was family friends with a family in which it appears the wife/mother has just murdered her husband and two young sons, the elder of which had been the email list poster's child's first friend. It hits hard, stories like that, especially with the connection to this other family. I don't know how I would react if something horrific happened to a family I care about (not that I would ever dream that either spouse in the families we're friends with would ever be capable of such a thing!).

The commercial being on got me thinking about all the sci-fi stories about "three wishes gone wrong" even when people wish for universal/world peace and such (which usually turns into the world/universe becoming a police state with severe infractions for any transgressions). So I've thought about what my three wishes would be. I wish them for the whole world, but especially for anyone reading this.

I wish every being in the universe to feel personal, unconditional love from at least one other being.

I wish every being in the universe to experience complete emotional contentment on a daily basis.

I wish every being in the universe to care at least as much about others as they do about themselves.

Liam insists he needs company to potty, gotta run.

Profile of a Harry Potter fan: Michele Herman

2007-08-09T15:14:00.000-04:00

Profile of a Harry Potter fan: Michele Herman

That's my friend Chele, who I used to beta for (translation: I edited her fanfiction) and who co-founded PhoenixSong.net with me, Aibhinn, Sherri and another lady who has dropped out of the fandom last I heard and may prefer not to be named, her name is still off the founder's page per her request).

I'm not active on the site currently (took time off when Liam was born, then moved 4 times in 2.5 years, the last one when I was pregnant with Del... gee... how did helping with a very active fandom site manage to fall off my priority list?), but I'm eternally proud of it and everyone who works to keep it in existance. I hope to go back to being active on it soon, as well as to writing. And boy, I need to update my founder's bio! It doesn't even indicate that LIAM was born, I was still pregnant with him last time I updated that... oops.

Anyway, the interview with Chele was too cool not to share (and have a way to find it again later).

home again home again

2007-08-06T12:32:00.000-04:00

Wow, did that "Comfort" Hotel wind up SUCKING ANAL CAVITIES. We lasted until Tuesday there before we just couldn't take it anymore. Advice to anyone reading this: avoid Comfort Hotel Airport North (near the western edge of Toronto) . I was ready to do inappropriate things to the general manager with my cane by the time I walked out the door, even tho he had comped our entire stay at that point (which only happened because he was stupid enough to deal with a customer he already knew was dissatisfied in the lobby during check-in when other customers were right there, instead of having enough braincells to realize that talking to someone who is pissed off is better done OUT of the earshot and visual range of people about to give you money. Duh, you have an office with a door on it for a reason, moron. Give me an audience that I know will increase my chances of getting my way and I'm GOING to make a scene as it's the fastest way to get out of there.).

The hotel chain's policy is that if they can't improve a situation that is their fault (such as the room having no AC, and the first of four rooms with two beds each that I could find that WASN'T like sitting on a trampoline - out of 8 beds, ONE had a box spring in good enough condition to not to continue bouncing for 30 seconds if I sat on the side of the bed - one bed out of 8, and the room it was in the AC didn't work... it was cool enough at night with the window open but we had to vacate the room by about 10am or suffer in a sauna, we wound up wandering a mall 2 days in a row to try to let Liam spend some energy before going to elderly auntie's house). Saturday the front desk morons (who couldn't figure out how to get extra pillows without help from housekeeping who wouldn't be back until morning, mind you) promised me that the AC would be fixed on Sunday. Sunday evening, AC still not working and no sign anyone had even been in the room. Complaint, offer to switch rooms yet again (yeah, after the hassle of getting the kids set up in the rooms to begin with - I'd unpacked and settled into that room on the promise that the AC would be fixed! Del's co-sleeper is a PAIN to set up with getting the security strap between the matress and box spring). They promised it'd be fixed Monday. Monday night was a repeat of Sunday - didn't even look like anyone had been in the room, AC still not working. They promised it'd be fixed Tuesday (and still didn't offer to comp the room per their own policy). I checked with the front desk girl on Monday at noon, she said she'd just spoken to the repair guy and he was on his way. The last straw was they had posted that there was hallway renovation going on for the 3 floors above us (which I ASKED meant noise for where we were since I'd specifically requested a QUIET area for the children when I made the reservation), then without warning they were hammering on the wall NEXT TO THE DOOR OF OUR SUITE while we were trying to get Liam to take a nap. Garvin complained, I waited a little bit then pulled out the video camera (it'll be on YouTube soon, I promise) and filmed the jerks working in the hallway right outside our door then took the camera down and showed the front desk lady to ask if that fit her definition of a "quiet room"... she told me the GM had ALREADY TOLD THEM they couldn't work on that floor since the guests hadn't been warned. I went back upstairs and the people doing the work had heard no such thing (and were also using words I'd rather not have my 3yo start repeating, such as calling each other "retard" - I'd actually rather he says "shit" and "damn" than "retard" given our family's history and where my mom works). We left a little before 3pm.

Oh, and top that off with the fact that the pool and hot tub advertised were closed until sometime Monday (we got there Saturday).

The housekeeper was lovely though, a very considerate lady with a Jamaican melodic accent I could have listened to for an hour happily.

When sleeping on an old full-sized sofabed mattress on the floor is preferable to staying two more nights in a hotel room, you know it's bad, right?

Contrast that with the Sheridan in downtown Toronto, where our beds were actually smaller (the Discomfort Hotel had 2 queen sized beds, Sheridan was 2 fulls), not actually any more comfortable aside from not being trampoline impersonators, but the staff was WONDERFUL. Every single person in any way connected with the hotel was a absolute pleasure to deal with, from the bellmen to the registration people to the servers. Absolutely fantastic service (though significantly more expensive, especially when you add in the $35/day parking - but it's downtown Toronto where parking is horrendous and connected via ACed underground to the biggest tourist attraction in the city - Eaton Centre - so not a big suprise). I wish I could afford to stay there when we're in Toronto visiting family, tho it's horribly inconvenient to where Garvin's family lives - it's only about 15 miles away but takes 45min to drive when traffic is minimal, which isn't the case during most of the day. Two of Garvin's extended family members have offered to let us stay with them in the future (which I wish Garvin had ignored his mother and asked in the first place instead of winding up staying with someone in an emergency situation instead), including the family that put us up while there, so hopefully we won't have a repeat of this with another hotel anyway. Last time we were up there, family members/friends (can't keep relations straight on his side sometimes) lived in the next building over from the Auntie G's parents were staying with and their building had a "guest suite" that we stayed in with Liam but they've since moved, unfortunately. Basically it's hotel-like rooms in the same building as their condo, complete with the other amenities found at most hotels such as a business centre and concierge service.

The conference was amazing (though spending 3 hours per day with Garvin in transit for childcare really dampered it for us, I'm strongly encouraging HPEF to try to find a way to facilitate on-site childcare for future conferences, even if it's just pointing parents to an online forum area for them to make their own arrangements for care-sharing or whatever). Steve Vander Ark's presentations were worth the cost of admission alone to me (we went to all 4 hours he presented and video recorded them thankfully because there is no way the audio will capture the majority of the presentation - he's a very kinetic speaker). Other presentations were wonderful too and I got to meet a lot of interesting people (and my screenname was recognized by a few even tho I've been absent from online fandom for the better part of a year now). Oh, and Ali who I made the Chudley Cannons stuff for was there WEARING IT!!! That was totally cool to see my creations being worn by someone I'd only corresponded with online. We literally kept bumping into her (bapping her with the borrowed wheelchair when we turned around several times). We bought the audio recordings of all the presentations because there were so many that we either couldn't get to because they were at the same time as others, or that were so good we wanted to be able to hear them again (as well as being able to share some of this information with church folks so they can get an idea of what I'd like to see us accomplish on a smaller scale - I really think Symposiums are the UU equivalent of the standard "cultural festival" hosted by other churches like the Greek Orthodox ones). Now I just gotta find out what Steve's speaker fee would be.... ;) I *think* he said he's in Grand Rapids, MI which Google thinks is a 4.5hr drive...

Plotting plotting...

Oh, and I got my HP personal fansite "decorated" finally before heading up to Toronto... I'm trying to sepearate it out from my real life/mommy stuff so people who aren't really all that interested in my HP fanaticism don't get inundated with it so much here (tho this is my primary blog so it'll still be here, sorry ;) )... if you want to see more of my Potterheadedness and read my fics, head over to www.astartesfire.com for links to those.

traveling to Toronto

2007-07-29T11:48:00.000-04:00

Blarg. Hotels are not fun with two small children. The drive up was OK though each stop, of course, took almost twice as long as when it was just Garvin and me - left the house around 11am, got to Garvin's aunt's condo at about 6pm, so not really bad time considering last summer when we made the drive we hit traffic from hell, total stop for extended periods of time, and it took probably just as long even tho we made the rest stops as brief as possible. This is only the 3rd time we've driven to Toronto from Cleveland, so not a lot to compare it to, but the time we drove up while we were in college (for Garvin's cousin's wedding - my first time meeting the extended Yeung family and it had Karioke involved - fun story for another time) it only took 5 hours. I'm not so much about the journey when there are people waiting for us to get somewhere.

Liam and Del both did well in the rented minivan (which, weirdly, has a DVD entertainment system but manual windows and doorlocks), we wound up stopping 3x I think, maybe only twice, to feed Del and streetch and potty. Liam made it the whole way in a dry pull-up (aka "buzz") then wound up wetting the bed this morning. Nice to let someone else change the sheets.

The hotel we're staying in is OK. Took a while to find an acceptable room as for some reason when they went bed shopping for the place they went to the trampoline store instead, to the point that the first room we were in I laid down to nurse Del and the amount of bouncing from just HIS little movements and mine was enough to make me motion sick. No good. Took trying 4 different rooms, 3 of them had trampoline-like beds and the one we wound up picking instead (less bouncy bed) the AC isn't working. But it's on the 10th floor and has a window that isn't low enough for Liam to climb out of easily (he'd have to at least move the chair over) so we opened the window. As much of an environmentalist as I am, I really don't trust the damn screen window to keep my climbing toddler from his doom so I'm really hoping they get the damn AC fixed today like they said they wood (it's noon and no sign of the repair guy yet so I'm feeling a it pessimistic).

Email reply from Prophecy, Liam's not even allowed to go to the wizard rock concert. Good thing he's too young to be disappointed. Garvin doesn't seem to actually enjoy the wrock that much so I may actually leave him in the hotel room with both boys, take my cell with me so he can call me if Del needs me, and go by myself (or take Del in the sling with earplugs). Or, as I suggested to Garvin, maybe Nai-Nai can watch Liam at the hotel at least one day and he can drive her back to Auntie's condo in the evening. I'm really looking forward to the conference, just wish childcare wasn't such a hassle. If I'm ever part of planning one of these, I'm going to insist that they investigate on-site childcare options. There are enough HP fans that are parents with children too young for a conference, time to be inclusive people!!!

Well, I think everyone's ready to head out now so that's it for now. Hotel has free wifi so that's cool at least.

Just finished Deathly Hallows - spoiler reactions in comments

2007-07-21T23:49:00.000-04:00

Well, I wasn't entirely accurrate in my predictions but not bad on the whole I think, better than 50-50 I guess.

Posting spoiler stuff in comments just in case, but seriously, if you've not finished the book what the hell are you doing reading MY blog? Go finish the damn book!

I can't wait to see what she writes next. Rumor is that it's for a slightly younger age group, so hopefully Del and Liam can grow up with a series while they actually remember it instead of just looking at pictures of their tiny selves at release parties (I'll post pictures to the photo website).

A warning for folks who haven't read the book yet and may read it aloud (or listen to the audiobook) with young children - there is swearing in this book. It's a war. It's not pretty. It's a bloodbath. The people who deluded themselves that there would only be 2 deaths in the book from what JKR said were kidding themselves. It's a freaking wild roller coaster that I wouldn't have traded a minute of, but damn was I glad to be able to take breaks and snuggle my kids and I think the lactating hormones helped a bit with coping. Damn. I cried several times, but she brilliantly mixed in almost as many times to laugh. As much as I still dearly love the series, Liam and Del (and any younger siblings) will DEFINATELY have to be of a certain maturity level before I really let them have access to this book, especially. It is really emotionally challenging. 11 year olds are going to be really torn up. But bless her, she left us our fan fiction options, even with the epilogue included I'm still sprouting ideas.

Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows - or - Priorities, Priorities

2007-07-20T07:31:00.000-04:00

Well, I've had very strong theories about what's going to happen in the last book(s) for ages (saw Harry and Ginny hooking up pretty much from the first time the boy got on the train, sorry all you Harry/Hermione shippers out there). I just haven't had a chance to sit down and write them where other people could access them for a while, but figured I better get to it, and trying to get it done before Liam wakes up (Del's in a sling on my chest as I type as he's having a fussy morning after a fussy night - reflux and/or indigestion I think from all the grunting). People who have had Harry Potter conversations with me know these aren't things I'm making up after reading spoilers or something (I've actually read no spoilers, mostly from lack of time - I read spoilers for the last two books judiciously).

Should be no surprise that I'm racing to get this up when I still haven't written up Del's birth story yet to people who know me, right? *blush*

I'm posting the theories as the first comment to this post so it doesn't potentially spoil anyone who stumbles upon this and doesn't want to read that kind of thing (but wants to read my other random ranting for some reason? Must be a relative looking for baby pictures - haven't updated those in a couple weeks either, sorry!).

edit: wow, even trying to keep it short, typing up my Potter theories in Word (so I could spell-check and auto-save in case Del projectile-spit-up on the keyboard or something) wound up being 5 full pages at 12 pt font with 1" margins... so be prepared for a very long read before you go read the theories I posted as the first comment to this!

personality matrix

2007-07-17T16:05:00.000-04:00

Sabrina did one of these (not sure if she wants random folks who read my blog adding their insight into her personality, so I'm not linking to it) and so I did a new one (apparently I did one as "Ahmie" but then forgot to tell people was there - from the words selected I'm *pretty* sure that was me too). So I did a new one as dragonmama that reflects how I'm seeing myself right now as opposed to whenever the heck that was.

No more time to type right now.

edit because I don't feel like making a new post: went to the LCs at a nearby hospital today to buy a Medela nursing bra off them. Weighed Del. He's now 9lbs 9oz! Eek! He was 9oz even 6 days ago at his 2wk checkup.

edit because of MFB - he was 9LBS not 9OZ at his 2wk appointment. doh.

ok ok i'll post something postpartum

2007-07-13T13:09:00.001-04:00

baby is here (in my lap as i type)... little baby boy Del (short for Delano, like the president) was born on 6/27/07 at 7:17am after 3.5 days of labor and close to 10 hours of on and off pushing (back labor and psoas muscle issues are a nasty combo). he was born at home, Garvin caught him. 7lbs 12oz, 19in long at birth. 9lbs and 20.5in long at his 2wk checkup this past Wednesday. breastfeeding like a champ, obviously. saw his first movie on Wednesday evening (HP&OOTP, what else?) with Auntie Serena, our family doctor and her family, and the family of one of the other doctors in the practice (10 seats, 11 people including Del, all together). i'll be posting the birth story on the yeungs.us website and putting the link in under the link to family pictures to your right, so it doesn't get buried as I get back to posting more regularly. pictures of Del and the rest of us are already up in in the family gallery tho I haven't added any in about a week now. Will try to add more later today. Need to make some phone calls to settle travel arrangements for Prophecy before I space out again.

Someone else's fantastic blog post

2007-06-22T07:37:00.000-04:00

Really, there's only one blog that I generally bother to check regularly that is maintained by a "stranger" (well, at least someone whom I've never met in person and with whom my first contact was via their blog). It's the blog of TheLactivist.com - http://thelactivist.blogspot.com. Her most recent post found here was really something I needed to read after the emotions of the last week (as blogged below and other things not mentioned, at least as of yet - don't worry, Piglet and the rest of the in-house family is fine, as are all of our good friends to the best of my knowledge, and I'm still pregnant tho SO ready not to be anymore at this point, I'm ready to be able to hand the baby to someone else for 5 minutes or so now!).

Weird little coincidences have been cropping up in my life lately and Jen the Lactivist's post is just the latest (well, I've only been awake for about an hour so far today anyway - yes, I'm having trouble sleeping, no I do NOT enjoy being conscious at 6:30am for no necessary reason when my hubby is home and can be delegated care of the toddler so I could sleep more but my body isn't giving me a choice in the matter... please don't let this mean I'm about to bear a morning person! AAAAAAACK! Is that horror music I hear?!?).

Liam's awake (sort of) and spread himself across my lap (using the loveseat's armrest to hold the keyboard)... trying to convince him to go wake up daddy but it's not working. Must go fidget.

I said it in my comment on Jen's blog but I'll say it again here (for myself and for you guys to repeat as needed): You don't need to be Wonder Woman to be a Wonderful Woman.

Live your day in wonder, at least for a few minutes, for me, OK?

Googling myself, finding Father's Day 2006

2007-06-20T08:34:00.000-04:00

I don't think I posted this here last year, but for those who didn't know, last Father's Day I served as Worship Associate and delivered 1/3rd of the sermon. Here's the text of what I said, in tribute to Garvin (since I was in a bit of a nesting snit and kinda blew off Father's Day this year).

Fathers of the Future
A Homily by Ahmie Yeung
Sunday, June 18, 2006

West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church
Rocky River, Ohio

In counting my blessings, which I try to do on a fairly regular basis, the constant presence of a strong male role model in my childhood is, unfortunately, absent from that list. I, like too many of my generation, was raised by a single mother struggling to do her best with little societal support. My father left us for another woman when I was two years old, the same age my own child is now, which is why there wasn’t a picture of my father in that slide show – while searching for an appropriate one of the two of us to use, I found plenty of my cats but none of myself with my dad.

The realities of growing up without much involvement from my biological father have had many varied effects on the person I’ve grown to be, not the least of which is an irresistible urge to growl and snarl when I hear self-righteous politicians talk about “defending marriage” and “strengthening families” by denying the status of “marriage” and “family” to people based on the genders of those involved. Nothing they’re proposing would have stopped my dad from walking out on us. Nothing they’re proposing makes my own husband a better father than he already is.

With the decisive lack of positive male role models in my gene pool, I was left to seek elsewhere for the kind of guidance that I felt an inner need to obtain. I was not raised as a regular church-goer, so I don’t have any wonderful stories of someone like Wayne here stepping into that role and guiding me through the rough patches that I weathered. I did, however, have some absolutely wonderful male public school teachers. In a typically female-dominated job of elementary teacher, I was blessed with the presence of three men who, for the years I knew them, filled a whole in my life during the daytime hours that went far beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic. Mr. Koester, my 6 th grade teacher, has the honor of a spot in the slide show tribute during our offering today, for being a positive role model of not just a male caring for and teaching children, but also as a spouse. Mr. Koester was the husband of the school’s physical education teacher. Watching the two of them interact - in their joking manner somewhat reminiscent of our own Bill Pearson’s humor – as he’d pop in to say “hi” during PE classes throughout my 6 years at North Star Elementary in Colorado, and then in my final year when she would occasionally be waiting for him in the hallway at the start of lunchtime, showed me a way of families working together that has shaped my own relationship with my husband nearly 2 decades later. I also honor and remember Mr. King, to whom I wasn’t assigned, who took me into his class’s embrace when one of his students, a friend of mine, was killed by a drunk driver in 5 th grade. His kindness started to heal my torn young soul, though it didn’t stop me from pouring every drop of alcohol down the drain when I got home. He listened when I spoke of the pain and fear I had that something like what happened to my friend’s family could happen to my household, where I only had my mother in the surrounding hundreds of miles. I see similarities of spirit between Mr. King and Jeffrey Lee, in the way he always leaves anyone he speaks to feel heard.

So, where has this lead me? Well, for a long time it lead me to really ignore the third Sunday in June as just another date on the calendar, sometimes in the last decade of couplehood remembering to send off cards to Garvin’s father and my own. Father’s Day really didn’t become a solid concept for me until two years ago, when Garvin got to celebrate his first Father’s Day as a dad before I got to celebrate my first Mother’s Day as a mom, since Liam was born between the two marks on the calendar. When I was young, I worried that I would follow the usual trend and marry someone like my opposite-gendered parent, but looking at my husband the similarities between the two men, my own father and my son’s father, are extremely limited – they’re both English-speaking men who married in their twenties and had their first child at the age of 27, and both of them are fond of science fiction and modern technology gizmos. But the similarities pretty much end there. Believe it or not, it actually wasn’t until I started thinking about what could I, someone who grew up with an absentee father, have to say in front of a church on Father’s Day, that it dawned on me. I did marry my surrogate opposite-sex parent. I married a teacher. May he go on to teach his own students, and our son, much more than just the information covered in their textbooks. Our own children, and his students at school, couldn’t ask for a better role model.

When in distress, go statistical

2007-06-20T07:51:00.000-04:00

I'm such a Hermione.

Anyway, analysis of stuff going on inside my head since the news of the last post.

From the dates of the emails my uncle forwarded me, it looks like my sister wasn't released from the hospital for at least 3 days after the birth, which suggests she may have been the 3rd of my generation to birth via c-section (out of 4 of us thus far to have children). The baby is the 5th child of it's generation on that side of the family (as far as I know), and the one I'm carrying now will be the 6th (again, as far as I know). Liam was the 3rd born of his generation, but the first to be born vaginally (and also the first to be born in wedlock). One of my cousins who had a c-section (actually the first to birth of my generation) has since had a second child via VBAC (and had married her firstborn's father in between births).

So, as long as I'm not missing someone (I do also have male cousins and a brother, who presumably could have impregnated a girl that I'm not aware of - there are 15 members of my generation on that side of the family, 7 of us are female and one of the females is mildly mentally retarded, 3 of the girls are daughters of the uncle who informed me of my niece so I'm pretty sure if he'd had another grandchild he would have mentioned it on the phone, his eldest daughter - my only cousin older than I am - has been married for a few years now), and presuming that I'm able to birth this child as easily as I did Liam, and if I'm right about my sister's situation... out of the 6 members of Liam's generation, 3 were c-sections (50% section rate). All three of the other mothers of my generation were also 20-21 years old when their first babies were born (I was 27 when Liam was born). And all three of them had the constant presence of their fathers in their lives throughout their childhood (two of them are products of "intact" parental marriages and the other cousin has a very actively involved father).

I'm just marveling at the statistics a bit more because I don't fit in with them than any judgmental thing about unwed mothers or anything like that (heck, my mom had her second kid out of wedlock... my only real issue with it is how much more of a struggle it makes everything).

Another interesting factoid... of the 6 kids in Liam's generation, 5 are multiracial (apparently the father of my niece is Hispanic, and one of the cousins that has kids is herself half Puerto Rican, her kids' father is Mexican). Considering my paternal grandfather had a hissy fit and disowned my aunt for a couple years over her relationship with said Puerto Rican uncle (to whom she is still married ~30 years later, mind you - out of the 6 kids in my dad's generation only the two girls are still on their first marriages... 1 of the boys never married and my dad is on his second marriage, which has lasted ~27 years now)... I find it a little ironic that the majority of the great-grandchildren (thus far) of this guy are multiracial. This is my dad's dad, so you see, my dad comes by his dickwadness honestly at least. Like I mentioned in my comment response to Serena, we're taught how to cut one another out of our lives early and well in this family.

Oh, and since I blogged about it before... another interesting note. I've not cried about this finding out I'm an aunt thing. I'm a little surprised about that, since at this point the hormones have me crying over random commercials on prime time television. It's a dull ache but not the stabbing pain I thought it might be. I'm angry, but not surprised enough to be upset I guess. My dispassionate response at the moment is making me wonder how I'd have taken it if I'd heard a member of that side of the family died instead of being born.

Apparently I'm an aunt - or reason number 2349873450725 my father is a dickwad

2007-06-19T21:19:00.000-04:00

So I just got off the phone with my uncle in Virginia, whose middle daughter is getting married this Saturday (obviously we can't make it to the wedding). We had a nice conversation about why my father hasn't seen his grandson since June 2004, and it came up in conversation that apparently my sister had a baby girl on October 25, 2006. Born right around when I was starting to suspect I was pregnant this time around (I tested positive for pregnancy at home 2 days later). My uncle forwarded on the emails with tons of pictures, my father and his wife are apparently "SOOOOOOOOOO" thrilled with their little granddaughter (not kidding, the emails that were allegedly coming from my father's email address had the extra vowel thing like that going on, but they were signed with both his and his wife's names and I'm willing to bet that she wrote them because I've known her to use his email address before even though she has her own). How nice that they're celebrating when they've not bothered to even CALL me and see how we're doing, and there was clearly no attempt to include me in the email they sent out. Yes, he has my email address. He has my mother's phone number. He made no attempt.

Fuck him.

Seriously. Why do I bother feeling a sense of loss over not having this jackass in my life? I really do sometimes think my kids are better off believing that the majority of that side of the family all died in a train wreck or something. I've been wondering how I'm going to explain the absence of all these people from our lives that are in our wedding pictures, especially the ones that are clearly "extra important people" (i.e. my dad's other two kids, my dad) in the pictures that have very few people in them. I was fascinated by my parents' wedding album in early childhood, I remember pulling it out and thumbing through it even though my parents had been divorced for years by that point (they divorced when I was 2 1/2). That's the major concern I have. How am I going to explain this dickwad's absence to my kids? I just know the day isn't too far off when Liam asks me "who is that man putting a necklace on you, Mama?"

Fucking dickwad. It's a shame I'm too old to claim to have been a sperm bank baby.

Awake too early and really pissed at my spouse

2007-06-18T06:25:00.000-04:00

You know, there's a REASON I tell the guy to do things a certain way. Like advising him to discuss Chinese names for this baby back in late February, before his father went to visit his brothers (who speak English better than he does), instead of being an idiot like last time and avoiding the subject until my last month of pregnancy. But no. Mister Conflict-Avoidant couldn't quite seem to bring up the discussion until the last few days, when I'm even CLOSER to my due date than I was when we had the big blow up about Liam's Chinese name (for those who don't already know, the first time they got Garvin's cousin to email me an attempt at spelling it for the birth certificate, the email I got said my firstborn son's name should be Charmin. Yes, exactly like the toilet paper. And it resulted in a big screaming argument over long-distance phone lines and me throwing slippers and such at walls until *I*, in all my resplendant late pregnancy patience, suggested we go with the Mandarin spelling and pronounciation instead, which is how the child came to have Zhuo-Ming on his birth certificate instead of a brand of toilet paper since his DADDY wouldn't fucking stand up and say "NO" to his grandfather about this).

So what's the problem? This time the suggestion for the second character (first is determined by generation) is Yin. For boy or girl. The way that the English-to-Cantonese websites spell the boy version is Cheuk-Yin. Not so bad, right? Here's the problem. When my fluent-Cantonese-speaking in-laws say Liam's name in Cantonese - Cheuk-Ming - it sounds to my English ears like "Chirk-min(g)" (the g is barely there). Now let's say it together with Yin instead of Ming... "Chirk-yin"... sounds an awful lot like "chicken" to me, especially after watching way too much Robot Chicken before going to bed last night (hey, it was the Star Wars special. Twice) and waking up to release a lot more liquid than I usually do into the toilet at 5am, making me wonder if I've sprung a little bit of a amno leak. Then going back to bed and having the baby get the hiccups... which distinctly felt like pecking at my lower uterus.

So I kicked Garvin out of bed at about 5:45 in tears after repeatedly trying to go back to sleep only to visualize giving birth to a baby boy covered in downy little white feathers every time I closed my eyes (ah, the joys of a pregnant brain). His dad is usually up at 5am anyway, I told Garvin that if *I* can't sleep because of something that is quite distinctively and avoidably his fault, there's no fucking way in hell he gets to sleep in either. He's downstairs now talking to his dad (maybe his mom too, don't know if she went into work early today or not). I don't feel the need to be part of the conversation but I swear, if he doesn't come back with some acceptable-to-English-ears options, if this baby is a boy his middle name will be Charles (after my grand-uncle who was the family photographer - sorry, Uncle Chuck, but I don't like your name enough for a first name). And I'm NOT going through the fuss of changing the name birth certificate later. The argument last time about "It's a good name in Chinese" stamp-stamp-stamp-pout-pout (from Garvin's father's end of the conversation - that was about all he'd say on the subject) doesn't hold water. They call Liam by his Cantonese name in public pretty much at every opportunity. I'm NOT having them call my second son what sounds like "chicken" in public. The kid's not growing up in Hong Kong, it's growing up in a ~95% native-English-speaking suburb of Cleveland (and that other very small minority of non-native English speakers are mostly Spanish speakers - if there are more than a handful of non-US-born Asian families in Lakewood I'd be surprised, from what I remember the census said there were ~800 Asians total in the suburb, quite likely including hapas like our kids).

The fact that Garvin's parents WON'T be refering to a second grandson by his English nickname doesn't help matters at all - the name we have picked out is Delano, Del for short... well... Del sounds like the Cantonese word for "throw away" (aka disposable). So they'll likely be relying on the Chinese name even more than they do for Liam (who I'd estimate gets called Cheuk-Ming about a quarter of the time by them, when they're just around the house... when we went out to lunch with their Cantonese-speaking friends from church, it was more like 80% of the time at least).

I consider myself a very patient preggo that my husband is not severely bruised at this point in time. I didn't even smack him repeatedly with the pillow. Especially considering that Liam was projectile vomiting last night for no decernable reason, setting off the mama hormones and preggo nose quite nicely, part of the reason that I didn't get to sleep until after 1:30am in the first place... so all this is on about 3.5hrs sleep (minus a bathroom trip and wake-up-in-pain-with-a-shin-splint in there somewhere).

Yup, still pregnant

2007-06-10T20:09:00.000-04:00

Just had a bit of a busy week "organizing" (what a misnomer when it comes to something I do, eh?) a Potter-Fest at church yesterday, so I've been non-responsive to unrelated emails and haven't posted in the flurry of last-minute preparations (such as making Questionable Quality Quidditch Supplies and a few dozen chocolate frogs and such).

Just realized that some folks don't know about (and a couple other reader/lurkers need to update their email addresses with) the yahoo group I set up when I was expecting Liam. If you'd like an email notification when the baby is born, you can subscribe to the email list right here:
The group is set to only allow moderators to post and any replies go to the list owner (me) so you won't get spam through it. I'm planning to make folks who are/plan to be present for the birth into moderators so any of them can send off an email to the group when they've got a free hand to do so (assuming that Garvin and my hands will be rather busy with the then-two extrauterine kiddos). I'll post the full birth story here so that folks who DON'T want the gorey details on that email list just get the basic stats (tho I'm considering making the folks with blogger accounts that are likely to be here for the birth temporary editors or whatever it is on this blog so they can post the gorey details here from their perspective if they'd like ;) ). If only Blogger had the feature like LJ does that you can hide part of the post so people have to click on it to get the "spoiler" information or whatever... I think there's a way to do it but I haven't figured it out yet. Whatever.

Feet are very swollen, pelvis is unthrilled with the abuse I've been putting it through and I keep getting charlie horses at night (3x last night, not fun, poor Garvin got screamed at for not using the right technique to help because it wound up further pissing off my psoas muscle in the process - I yelled at him more last night than I did during the entire 5 days of labor with Liam I think). Other than that the baby and I are fine. Baby's been getting hiccups at least once a day noticably lately and is wiggling it's knees and feet in my ribs as I type this.

Any day now, little one, any day now.

Breastfeeding in public

2007-06-01T14:40:00.000-04:00

Probably getting more obsessed with this concept since I'll be doing it again so soon (when Liam could handle finger foods I "weaned" him from nursing in public because it was simply too hard on my arms/back, so it's been probably almost 2 years since I've nursed in public regularly). I was sorting through pictures to upload to our online photo gallery and came across many pictures of Liam nursing (gee, considering the percentage of his time he spent doing it, big surprise there). None of them have us covered, and the ones in public places you pretty much have to KNOW what you're looking for to realize what you're seeing (which is part of the argument I have with "certain people who shall remain nameless" about how "no one ever does THAT in the US" - yes, they do, you just look right past them without realizing it...)

So I ask you, which is more discreet... this type of breastfeeding in public:

(both of the above images are swiped from commercial websites wanting to sell you these nursing covers, which I have problems with on two counts - one, it furthers the idea that breastfeeding is something that should be hidden and hence bottlefeeding is more "convenient" and two, it's just another way to commercialize motherhood and make money off of people's insecurities, so I'm being evil and not linking to them. After looking through a few hundred results of google images for "breastfeeding blanket", "breastfeeding cover", and "breastfeeding drape" I couldn't find a SINGLE NON-COMMERCIAL PICTURE of a mother covering herself with a blanket to nurse - surprise surprise).

Or are these more discrete:

(funny, i think I'm wearing the same outfit both times, the first one he's less than a month old because that was when we still lived in Virginia, the second one he's about 2 months old at the Feast of the Assumption)

Yes, I'm using a sling in both pictures, which adds to the ease of being discrete, but I've shown an equal amount of skin when not using a sling, just can't find those pictures (the one that wound up in the Plain Dealer of me nursing Liam at the CWRU bookstore would be an example).

I swear I'm going to take one of the five trillion receiving blankets we have around here and write on it in big red letters "HEY LOOK I'M BREASTFEEDING!" and keep that in the diaper bag in case anyone gives me crap this time, see if that makes them more "comfortable".. or at least it'd be fun for a photo-op ;) I've got a couple lactivist pictures that I want to take floating in my mind as it is. I'll post them here when I do them (one of them will probably be in the coming weeks while I'm still pregnant).

A good reason NOT to use those "private nursing areas" in malls

2007-06-01T13:20:00.000-04:00

Breastfeeding mother groped in mall

In Australia, a mom of a newborn was approached and sexually assaulted by some sicko in one of those "family rooms" that "breastfeeding friendly" retail locations are becoming increasingly fond of. (granted, the baby was a WEEK OLD and Mama may have still been adjusting to the whole task of breastfeeding and desired the extra privacy, and this particular instance the room is also a baby changing room so she may have just been multitasking - frequently right after needing to be changed a newborn needs to nurse, after all, so I totally give her the benefit of the doubt)

Think about it, if she'd been sitting out in a chair in the middle of the mall, would this have happened? Most likely not, or at least someone could have come to her aid sooner.

If malls really want to have those separate areas, they need to make them MUCH more secure for moms out by themselves, such as by stationing a security guard nearby and/or having cameras WITH AUDIO that someone is PAYING ATTENTION TO installed, in case of such an event. The one example locally of such a separate room that I can call to mind (Great Northern Mall, North Olmsted, Ohio) is set WAY back down a LONG, infrequently used by non-parents hallway between a major department store and the side of some other stores. A woman screaming for help in such a place would only be heard if someone happened to be in the hallway about to enter, or possibly through the wall to the store next to the room, but would they know where the call was coming from? Would they react? The social psychologist in me knows human nature too well to think they would jump to the rescue, even if they DID realize where the call for help was coming from - human nature assumes "someone else" will do it, especially in a place with paid security staff.

This is why I will NEVER use one of those rooms off all by themselves, without another adult with me. Too vulnerable. I'd rather nurse right out in the open in the middle of the main hallway where the staff can see if someone is harrassing or ASSAULTING me! And I'll change diapers in the regular restroom, thankyouverymuch, which have much higher traffic than those special rooms do. Even at Babies R Us kind of stores. THIS is why we need to demistify breastfeeding and work to make it common and acceptable to do it in public instead of locked off in "private" areas.

Supreme Court says Equal Pay for Equal Work is only good for 180 days?!?

2007-05-31T15:15:00.000-04:00

I'm so outraged I can't even forward an email properly, so here's a cut-and-paste of what the automatically generated "forward the message on" thing is when you sign the online petition... I'm flabbergasted by this!

****end Ahmie's actual ability to write about this sanely & without profanity****

I just signed a petition in response to the recent Supreme Court ruling that was a huge blow to equal pay for equal work, and I hope you will too.

THE LOWDOWN ON THE ISSUE & PETITION LINK: The Supreme Court just told Lilly Ledbetter, a 60-year old "fiery mother of two," that even though, for years, she was paid between 15% and 40% less than her male counterparts on the management team (a fact she learned late in her 19 year career), she could not make a claim of workplace discrimination. Why couldn't she make a claim? Lily Ledbetter learned about the pay discrepancies too late. The court ruled that claims must be made within 180 days after the pay is set. But how many of us know what our co-workers make? In fact, it's illegal to ask in many states.

Justice Ruth Ginsburg wrote the dissenting opinion for the 5-to-4 decision, and in it she asked Congress to overturn the ruling and clarify the intent of the law. Several Congressional leaders are already stepping forward to counter this outrage by drafting new fair-minded legislation. Let's get behind them so they can pass this legislation immediately.

SIGN THE PETITION & PASS IT ON: Tell Congress, "We Need Equal Pay for Equal Work--it is good law, make it enforceable!":

Sign the petition and then pass it on to friends so we can build support for the Congressional leaders who are stepping forward to right this wrong. Frankly, they need our help--because as the Washington Post reports, business groups, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are applauding this dangerous, short-sighted ruling.

CITIZEN VOICES ARE CRUCIAL: Citizen voices are going to be crucial to giving leaders the "political capital" they require to fix this problem. Here's what several of the key leaders who are fighting for us have to say about the ruling:

"Yesterday's Supreme Court decision reflects a poor understanding of the real problems with long-term pay discrimination," said Senator Harkin. "Most new employees feel less comfortable challenging their salaries, and it is very difficult to determine when pay discrimination begins. Furthermore, a small pay gap tends to widen over time, only becoming noticeable when there is systemic discrimination over a period of years. I look forward to working with my Senate colleagues to ensure every worker receives the paycheck he or she deserves."

"Unless Congress Acts, this Supreme Court ruling will have far-reaching implications for women, and will gravely limit the rights of employees who have suffered pay discrimination based on their race, sex, religion or national origin. All Americans deserve equal pay for equal work and it is our responsibility to get this right," said Senator Clinton.

"This week's Supreme Court decision sends a dangerous message about the value of pay equity in this country. It is unacceptable that women and others would be limited in their opportunities to stand up for themselves and for their families. I am proud to team up with my colleagues to right this wrong," said Senator Mikulski.

"As Justice Ginsburg suggests, the ball has now fallen into Congress' court and we intend to address this ruling," said Representative George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. "The Supreme Court's narrow decision makes it more difficult for workers to stand up for their basic civil rights at work and that is unacceptable."

*Don't forget to sign the petition and pass it along to friends and family as well. Let's support the Congressional leaders who are coming forward to right this wrong. Sign on here

Best - The MomsRising Team

p.s. Have you experienced workplace discrimination? What happened? Share your story and experiences at: http://www.momsrising.org/node/536

p.p.s. Want to read more about it? Here are some good articles:

- Washington Post

- CNN Money

- New York Times

Thank you!

(note: edited by Ahmie to make the links clickable and to keep them from stretching the screen)

8 things about me

2007-05-31T14:30:00.000-04:00

Ok, so Jennifer (the Lactivist) tagged me... serves me right for posting comments on her blog that rival the comments on this thing I guess ;)

I have no idea if I can actually come up with 8 things that every single person who regularly reads this blog doesn't already know... And given how long I've been online (14 years as of sometime in June), it's frightening how much information about me is already available online, especially for those who know my pre-marriage name(s) and the various online aliases I've used over the years.

I'll give it my best shot...

1. I aspire to learn carpentry and car repair. I'm ashamed of how little mechanical skills I actually have in the "real world usefulness" category. Somehow having mad skillz at crochet, photography, baking, and lactating just don't seem enough some days - probably because I fully expect Liam to break houses and cars and need to be able to fix them.

2. I can't deal with music on an extended basis, my skin starts to crawl if I have to hear music for more than a couple hours, even if it's music I like.

3. I feel an overwhelming sense of joy when I watch someone enjoying something I've created (see "mad skillz" of #1). It's an emotional/physiological high about equal to that of nursing Liam when he was tiny and new and didn't try to break my nose.

4. I want to go skydiving or at least hang-gliding. But not over water (not afraid of water, just really don't like the smell of large bodies of water).

5. Sometimes I feel an overwhelming sense of longing for specific people I'm really not sure I ever want my children to be around. These specific people are not good for my own mental health either. I still miss them desperately sometimes. Hint: several of them are in my wedding album.

6. I am terribly addicted to television. As much as I can't stand music for extended periods of time, I have trouble sleeping without noise and light changes. This is a really bad habit but it's worsened with the frequent bathroom wakings followed by insomnia I'm currently experiencing in the pregnancy. It doesn't really matter what's on (as long as it's not music or violence), but I need SOMETHING to distract my ticking brain at 3am when I'm trying to settle for the 4th time that night. Audiobooks aren't working at this point but I'm trying to go back to them instead (they're a little TOO interesting).

7. I realized at a church service recently that I'm more afraid of losing my memories of my children than of losing them physically. I think I could cope better (not well, but better in some sense) with losing a child (terrifying, horrible thought that it is) than I could with realizing that I was losing my memories of them and facing not recognizing them at all, as I watched my great-grandmother go through. Someone said at least I wouldn't realize that I was forgetting, but from having been around people in early stages of dementia, I do think that the majority of them realize that they are losing it. The thought terrifies me more than anything. I'm trying hard not to cry.

8. Which brings up the other thing about Ahmie that doesn't come up much I guess... I HATE crying (not other's crying, my own). The feeling of prickling tears behind my eyelids infuriates me, partially because I know that I'll likely wind up with a sinus and ear infection if I don't reign it in, as well as the "beaten by a professional boxer" feeling I'm physically left with for days afterwards, and partially because of the mental weakness and vulnerability others perceive in it. The strength of my mind is the thing about myself that I most admire, and it's too easily dismissed when I start crying. I don't discourage crying in others, nor see them as weak when they cry (I do try to comfort anyone I perceive to be in emotional distress, tears or no). I also get really pissed off and lose respect for anyone who DOES treat me as mentally weak or vulnerable when I'm upset and it's one of the few things someone can do to *me* to get on my bad side (I'm more likely to get pissed off at people for things they do to others and shrug off things - at least eventually - that they've done to me). Tears limit my ability to be pro-active... I think that's what it boils down to.

So, how many of those did you folks who actually read this thing already know? Is ANY of it new information???

I tag Sabrina because she's been talking about others instead of herself, Clare because she's a great person even when Willow isn't around, and Garvin because - shesh - it's been nearly a YEAR since the guy's posted on his blog! COME ON!

Serena, I didn't tag you because I can't remember the link to your blog ;) I'll ask you for it next chance i remember, or post it in the comments and consider yourself tagged too!

Why I hate trying to delegate work...

2007-05-29T11:51:00.001-04:00

Ugh. So I tried to delegate some of the "job" (entirely volunteer) of getting podcasts up for my church to someone that was suggested by one of the office staff members. I'm trying VERY HARD to be patient and not blow up at this person, which the pregnancy hormones and frustration with being alone with a toddler with approximately 300 times my energy level NOT helping maintain my cool even when the temperature DOES stay below 75 degrees... I had specifically asked this person to follow the steps in the tutorial I created (I even did a long and short version of the tutorial in case people involved were total beginners or a bit more experienced). Apparently all that the person retained was "this is the username and password, log in and click the words create content then audio" - the files that are getting created are NOT being named according to the naming conventions I specified (which enables them to be sorted by the date of service instead of whatever random order the files were actually created - it's too easy to have a stack of CDs get out of order when they get backlogged, which of course they did as soon as I tried to job share... I'd been getting them created and uploaded before I left the building before this, then none got created for over a MONTH because the CDs kept disappearing so I couldn't do it myself... *headdesk* *headdesk *headdesk*). The URL Path isn't getting set to ANYTHING so the URL winds up being something random instead of something the office staff who upload the text of the sermons to the main church website can predict and incorporate easily into their workflow. And the title line's been being changed instead of leaving it to the code that I had inserted to take the information from the ID3 tags.

Classic case of RTFM, and since in this case *I* created the "FM" in question, I'm fuming. But it's "just" a volunteer thing, so I can't get mad, right? Grr.... *I* am doing this as a volunteer... donating space on my own server, paid for the domain name registration myself (it's totally separate from the main church website, over which I have zero control), I took the time to create the instructions and try to organize it to be user-friendly (for the end-users, uploaders, and office staff)... and it got ignored by the first person to agree to help. I created all this so that if I get totally distracted with the new baby, I can hand the job off to someone else and trust that it will be done similarly to how I'd been doing it for continuity of the users (mind you, some of these download counts are already indicating that about 1/4th of the number of people showing up on an average Sunday are also listening online - we generally have ~200 people on a Sunday morning and a lot of the download counts are over 50, it's only been online since January and I think it wasn't even mentioned in the church newsletter until April... plus the download counts get reset when I mess with the back-end stuff sometimes).

So... what do I do? I'm trying to gently get through to this person that it needs to be standardized for several reasons, but I'm not sure it's getting through. I'm trying to remember if it was this past Sunday or the Sunday before that we spoke during coffee hour, but the other person hasn't taken the initiative to go in and edit the parts that they did wrong yet, so I'm trying to fix it up since I was working on some back-end stuff anyway (while waiting for Liam to snooze so I can work on the other computer where I'm doing some graphic manipulation that's sitting in a partially finished state - love that ctrl-s key combination). I'm not the most diplomatic person by nature, and I've been known to totally steamroller people when I get going, so I'm trying not to piss this person off so much that they decide they don't want to do it at ALL, but at the same time, I'd rather no one else was messing with it if they're not going to do it in a way that actually saves my having to redo it all anyway, ya know? *sigh*

Well, for those readers who DON'T actually go to church with me (or who missed those Sundays) at least one of the services I delivered is up on the website here... notice the standardized URL with the date of the service . I may be a narcissist and upload the others later if I feel like it, I really should probably be working on my own photography website more (I plan to advertise for portrait customers toward the end of summer, if we get the the attic studio set up enough for people to come here at least some of the time). My hosting company increased the storage and bandwidth drastically (from 5gb storage and I think 100gb transfer per month to 200gb storage and I think 2000gb transfer per month, as well as dropping the yearly subscription price by $5) so I'm feeling some momentum to actually accomplish stuff on the sites... I've been uploading pictures to yeungs.us, working on getting Garvin's family tree (which is all in Chinese, of course) uploaded so the extended family all have access to it, but that's been not working for some reason.

Liam's asking for apple juice, gotta go.

Kudos to Target for being supportive of breastfeeding

2007-05-26T10:42:00.001-04:00

I wanted to make this a separate post from the "baby stuff" one before, this is something that makes me so happy I'm actually tearing up a bit at the minute after having called Target's help line (for lack of another appropriate looking number) to say thanks directly. For once, I've found some major marketing from a large company that actually supports breastfeeding, mirroring their "actions" with their words/press releases... in fact, considering that particular press release said that women are welcome to breastfeed "discreetly" in their stores, I'd say this is actually even more progress since that press release (this part of the post has been edited).

As I mentioned in my last post, I created a Target registry for the Piglet. I don't remember them doing this when I was pregnant with Liam (though there was a LOT going on then so I may just have forgot), but this time around they handed me this really well printed full-color THICK catalog of baby gear with reminders of the "important" stuff to include on the registry. I got something similar from Babies R Us too, pretty standard. I shoved it into the bag of the few household items I'd picked up and took it home, intending to just let Liam look at the pictures of babies and such.

Well, I actually sat down and looked at it, and color me impressed. The first checklist in the catalog focuses on nursery stuff (crib, mattress, bedding, etc etc etc), but right there fourth from the bottom the Ahmie happiness starts: nursing pillow. Hmm. Cool to call it that instead of just "baby support pillow" or something a little more neutral. Moving on, two page full-color artistic spread of Boppy pillows on page 31, they say "feeding" without distinguishing which kind (and yes, Boppy pillows are wonderful for bottlefeeders too! They're one of my favorite baby items). Still happy Ahmie. A few pages down on pg 34 is that little padded "keep the comforter off the newborn" Close & Secure Sleeper, which makes nervous parents more comfortable with co-sleeping (which also helps with early breastfeeding) mixed in with the crib mattresses and such. Ok, flipping on... first time I spot a bottle, page 39 (also has a pacifier) mixed in with a bunch of baby clothes. No big, they're pretty ubiquitous in our culture, and plenty of breastfeeders have bottles also "just in case" or for when Mom's away (we have a stockpile, barely touched since Liam hated bottles). Another bottle isn't pictured until page 65, when it's used to illustrate a possible use of one of the pockets of a "behind the carseat" organizer (also shows a stuffed toy and a few other items in there). In the meantime, I have seen several happy looking children (with more racial diversity than you're likely to see outside of one of the big cities on the coast - the four parent/child pairs on page 55's baby carrier page has a Caucasian mom/baby, an Asian mom/baby, a medium complexion mom/baby that I think are Latinas, and an African-American DAD/baby - double kudos for showing an actively involved daddy, tho I do wish they had a little more sling and carrier style diversity... Mama really wants an Ergo but they're not available on any of the places I've seen baby registries, and the sling shown doesn't look terribly comfortable for mom... none of them are as easy for breastfeeding as a plain old ring sling, that's for sure). Oh, and mixed in with those happy, racially diverse children, there have been at least 3 sippy cups I've spotted between bottles... in other words, in a BABY registry, I've seen more sippy cups than bottles by the time I'm about halfway through the catalog. It gets better. Another little bottle is mixed in at the bottom of "stuff that fell out of the diaper bag" spread on pg 66 (understandable reference there), an inexplicable pacifier amongst a very creative display of what looks like playing cards showing off the "matching sets" (to show how you can have your play yard, stroller, carseat, baby swing, and high chair all color/pattern coordinate)... then it's on to baby toys, more pictures of happy pre-solids age racially diverse babies and a total lack of bottles in the pictures!

Another bottle isn't shown until pg 88, and in pride of place above the bottles is a (manual) breastpump. Yes, there are containers of formula on the same page (four of them, in fact, including two single-feeding bottles of Nestle Good Start Supreme), but the breastpump is sitting ON TOP of them, one of the formula bottles is on it's side... psychologically it conveys the idea that pumped milk is superior! In the checklist for the section, breast pump and nursing accessories are listed. formula is not!

It's here in the feeding section that I get really impressed. For starters try to help with picking bottles for people who plan to switch-feed (breast and bottle feeders) with sticking the Avent Naturally bottle in there (Avent claims that their silicone nipple mimics the shape and feel of the breast, which I don't entirely believe - Liam actually seemed to dislike silicone nipples and Avent and Playtex nipple shapes aren't all that different... most breasts I've seen are more shaped like the old-fashioned Playtex nipples than these over-rounded-edge ones they're selling now, but I don't have any memorable experiences of trying to nurse off a breast to compare nursing off a bottle with, maybe we can get a better product review from Liam someday). Following the two page spread of bottles is a two page spread of formulas (2 per page), pg 94 i a cluster of Nestle Good Start's various packaging (including showing how a bottle nipple fits directly on the probably 4oz bottles in the first picture that had the breastpump on top) and there's a powdered formula dispenser advertised with the bottles on page 95. Page 96 is the Enfamil spread,pg 98 is the Similac spread (including the Organic one front and center), various cute bibs with a bottle laying on one on the opposite page, then a 2 page spread of pacifiers (and I know plenty of breastfeeding moms that use those... Liam wouldn't use them consistantly until he was teething but boy did I wish he'd take one sometimes!).. then we're at the breastpumps. A page of "natural feeding 101" on page 102 gives an overview the different styles of pumps (single vs. double, manual vs. electric), the facing page has Medela supplies (including in pride of place the favorite pump of many of my nursing friends, the Medela Lug...er... Pump in Style at the standard price of $250, and the new Medela Swing that actually has me intrigued, but not intrigued enough to spend $150 when I have other pumps that I know work for me already). Turn the page and you get a two-page spread of Avent pumps, the manual ISIS on the left and the motorized ISIS iQ Uno and iQ Duo on the right), along with breast pads, microwave sterilizer, Avent-brand bottles and another inexplicable pacifier *shrug*. Next page has the pump that I actually own - it's rebranded by Lansinoh, but that's the Ameda Purely Yours in a different color (I bought mine off the lactation consultant when Liam was born) along with more storage supplies, creams and nursing pads, with the Evenflo Comfort Select dual on the opposite page (I haven't looked at it in more than 2 years but I *think* the other pump I bought was the single-side version of that pump, once I figured out I was doing most of my pumping while nursing on the other side and having the motor attached was easier to deal with than juggling baby, touch-the-breast pump bits, and motor somewhere off to the side usually on the floor). Next page is the Playtex double electric pump, with the First Years models (a double electric and a manual) on the facing page, then we're on to the diapering section.

So did you catch it? It's hard to keep count, I know, but tabulating the above that means that branded formula appeared on six pages (seven pages if you count the formula dispensor - it has powder in the chamber but no brand indicated), including the first picture that had the pump on top of the formula). Breastpumps appeared (including the first picture with the formula and the drawn illustrations of the differences between pumps) on NINE PAGES! They actually gave more "screen time" to breastpumps than they did to formula manufacturers! OH MY GOODNESS THIS IS PROGRESS! Yes, there are lots of pictures of bottles with white liquid in them, but the only time that you KNOW it's formula in there are in the two pictures that have a label on them (forgot to mention that Enfamil had their single-serve bottles pictured too). For all we know (and especially since I'm a photographer myself), it could be diluted white glue in the bottles (that's what they usually use in the pictures on cereal boxes, in case you didn't know - real milk isn't high enough viscosity to hold the "pose").

The cherry on top? In 125+ pages, there's not a SINGLE IMAGE of a baby and a bottle on the same PAGE, much less of a baby drinking from a bottle.

We've come a long way, babies.

Next step, I'd love to see a picture of a mom actually USING one of the nursing pillows, in one of the gliders they sell, with baby's face snuggled to her chest, shirt tucked in for modesty is fine (heck, that's how *I* nurse at home to minimize the blood loss from little nails!). Which just made something else occur to me - even tho I've seen them for sale in the stores, those silly nursing cape things to "discreetly nurse" weren't advertised in the book! Oh, and they could start carrying non-pajama nursing tops... and advertise nursing bras in the catalog too... those would be nice additions ;)

Feel the same way? Here's the number I called to say thank you (it's the registry help line, couldn't find another more appropriate number and the lady said she's able to send the message along easily - they're so happy to get compliments instead of complaints, it makes a Customer Service Rep's day, I speak from experience here). The number is 800-888-9333, select baby registries (I think 2 in the prompt) then 0 for an operator. They'll ask you specifics about whose registry when you're first connected to a human, but you can probably just tell them that you're calling with a general compliment about their registry process or something (I did tell them my name and let them look up my registry since I have one currently). The more compliments they get, the more likely they are to keep up the good work and even take further steps!

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