Stuff, mainly unrelated

Well, I have a mountain of laundry to fold, but I wanted to check in with you, by which I mean, of course, reflect for my own purposes with little consideration given to my audience.

Last night we went on the Sacred Heart Christmas home tour, which is always fun and is a family tradition. Zadie was kind of a butthead for the first two houses, but then we had a talk and she got better. She was particularly interested in some mannequins in one of the houses. I was enchanted by the ideas of "outdoor living" presented by some of the homes. There were many covered decks and pergolas with beautiful outdoor furniture, ceiling fans, fireplaces, pizza ovens... sigh.

Some of the decorations were really eye-catching. One was super-glittery/shimmery/spangly/sparkly and in a very art deco fashion. Another was all made of natural materials, like lilies wired to branches and persimmons piled in vases.

But you know, tonight we decorated our house. There's no theme. Our tree has ballerinas, Alice, G.I. Joes, PowerPuff Girls, Shakespeare, and is topped by Marvin the Martian. It is, as tradition dictates, quite lopsided. The place is lousy with nutcrackers. But you know, it's so pretty I kind of want to cry. And none of those other houses made me feel like that.


Hey, also? We made milkshakes, and I think that is going to have to be a new tradition. I mean, cocoa and cider are awesome, but milkshakes? The bomb!

*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

A few days ago, when we were home sick, we walked to Trader Joe's. Zadie loves to push their "customer in training" carts, and I like it, too, because then she's sort of contained. Anyway, the three of us were walking around the aisles, and Sweetie and I were picking things up and putting them in the little cart. At one point, Zadie walked away from the cart, walked straight to a bag of popcorn (one of her favorite treats), and put it in the cart, just as we had been doing. I had an impulse, and I was briefly of two minds. First of all, I am firmly of the belief that my kid is darn cute, and watching her make her little purchase was frickin' adorable. But my parenting impulse was of the "no-no" variety. I was thinking that a responsible parent would set limits. Kids can't just put things in the cart at will. They need to ask, to get permission, to understand that choosing groceries is a grown-up thing. But I suppressed all that and decided not to say anything. There was something I was proud of about her action. I mean, she wasn't being sneaky and she wasn't begging. She was just a part of our family, and our family was out shopping, choosing things to take home. She had agency, and she had power within the family, and she knew her choices were respected. I am cool with that.

I sometimes struggle with parenting. I mean, not just on the days she won't nap. With parenting philosophy. You know, I really like attachment parenting, but I can't get too gung-ho about it -- she LIKED the swing, and I was personally done breastfeeding before she was. I also don't want her to grow up in such a touchy-feely/loving/everything-you-do-is-awesome environment that the first time she stabs someone with a pencil at school, she is surprised by negative reactions to it. Some of the parenting articles I read say you shouldn't tell them to say thank you, or encourage them to express appreciation for presents they don't like. There's this assumption that if you value their real feelings, then they'll develop empathy on their own and want to say thank you sincerely as they grow older. That's awesome, I guess, but kids who are old enough to talk about the indricotherium at the Academy of Sciences are old enough to say thank you, even insincerely.

Anyway, so I read, and I talk to people, and I end up mostly winging it. But on Thursday she got her treat of popcorn because she knew she was part of the family, and today she put laundry in the washer because it was family cleaning day, and she knew she was part of the family. I think we're on the right track.

Fairly Fruitless Morning

Given that just a week ago I was thanking my lucky stars for having things like a car that runs, I hope you'll permit a little griping.

My car's service has been approaching, and it is finally time. I decided to go in early this morning (going on a work day is almost impossible, timing-wise) in the hopes that we could avoid the rush. We didn't. We waited in a line of about twenty cars for twenty minutes, and still no one had even come out to take our information. I backed out and left. I wouldn't mind so much except that the dealership moved from right across the street from my work to the next town over, so we blew a whole hour driving out, waiting, and driving back.

Then we came home to do a bit of cleaning and then were off to soccer. Apparently Z has been better about following her coaches' instructions, but the other kids are still, in general, more likely to be on task and to follow instructions. But it would appear that having two substitute coaches is just the thing to throw all the two- and three-year-olds right off course. I overheard several mommies and daddies whispering things like "I know, honey, but Coach Mary will be back next week. If you don't want to play today, we can go home." Many a reluctant toddler held a sit-in on the tree roots.

Then we went to Costco, which wasn't awful, but I take Zadie mainly because she loves the samples. Here is what was available sample-wise today. A bit of biscotti, a cracker with cheese stuff that she didn't like, a chunk of plain corn tortilla, two kinds of coffee, a medicinal drink, and a 1/2" piece of bacon. Usually she gets five or six big samples of things like spanikopita or burrito bites or tri-tip or corn dogs. She dropped her tortilla chunk, ate the bacon and biscotti, and that was it. Also, they didn't have the sausages we buy, which are WAY cheaper there, so I was hoping we could get them. Oh yeah -- and it is starting to look like this is the second year in a row that I won't be able to find the light clips to hang the Christmas lights.

Then we went to the little Italian grocery center, where there is a pet store, a beauty supply shop, and a dry cleaner. I needed, respectively, cat litter, lip balm, and two items dry cleaned. Unfortunately, the worst radio station in town (Mix 96) was having some sort of promotional thing, so every parking spot was taken. I finally saw a guy pulling out of a spot, so I waited and turned on my signal. The man working at the taco stand stared right at me, pulled out a barrier-thing, and as soon as the guy pulled out of the spot, he plopped the barrier right in the middle of the spot. I left. It took some amount of restraint not to flip him the bird.

Finally we got home and I started my cleaning, much later than usual. While I cleaned, Zadie peed through her clothes twice. I also spent about 20 minutes chasing after puffballs of cat hair to no apparent effect. I moved the furniture a bit to accommodate the Christmas tree and discovered about twenty spots on the floor that appear to have at one point been Jamba Juice, but have now lacquered themselves to the hardwood.

On the bright side, Mom and Boompah were awesome enough to rent a truck and go get Christmas trees, so we should be able to put ours up soon, maybe tonight!

One more thing to do before nap time -- go get groceries. Better clean up the monster and get ready.

Take care, all.

Zadie video

This went on for about 20 minutes. It started when we suggested going to the Seymour Marine Research Center in Santa Cruz. She was, to put it mildly, excited.

How do we teach reading comprehension?

I got smacked in the face with a really hard question this week. "How did you do that?" It was in regards to my making meaning out of an EB White essay. How did I do that? I just did! I don't know how I did. But shit, that's the essence of teaching right there. Have you ever had anyone try to teach you something and say "then you just do it, you know? Just like this..." and then they flip the pan or knit the stitch or do the kick flip or whatever, and they've done it, but you still don't know how? A good teacher wouldn't just be able to do it -- they'd be able to teach you how to do it, too. And I wasn't sure how. I'm still not.

Task analysis is something that comes up a lot in teaching. The idea is that you have to break down a task into its parts. Something that we take for granted, a student may not. An example from my "Exceptional Child" class (special ed) was getting a candy from the machine. For us, we just go do it -- we don't have to think about the instructions. For someone with special needs, you might have to tell them to walk into the room, locate the candy machine, find the candy they want, locate the price, get the change out of their pocket, count out the coins until they have the right amount, put the coins into the machine, locate the number of the candy's slot, punch the number into the machine, get the candy out, and retrieve their change (if any).

The idea of task analysis can be applied to almost anything, from writing a sentence to using the Pythagorean theorem. You really have to break it down, though -- it seems unreal to non-teachers, but many of my kids have to be told to get out a pencil, open the book, etc. That's part of the instructions that I have to remind them about or they won't do it. I actually say "Okay, now get out a new, clean sheet of paper" several times a day.

That's not true of my honors kids, of course. They write down the homework in their planners. They do the reading. They know how to write an essay. They're smart. They're good kids. They're well-versed in the routines. But sometimes when it comes to making meaning, they run into a brick wall. Last year, we read Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale." In it, women's choices are taken away and they live in near-slavery. The narrator's voice clearly evokes the pain of those affected. And from that, you could probably tell it was a feminist novel, right? They couldn't. Their minds went, "Women are treated badly, therefore this is an anti-feminist novel." I actually made a flow chart for them that said something like "Is one group oppressed? Yes/no." "If yes, does this seem like a bad thing? Yes/no" "If yes, the author is probably arguing AGAINST oppression."

I think part of it is that literature has been really sidelined in our schools. It's no longer the three Rs, but there's history, science, P.E., art and music (if they're lucky)... In some ways, we've really raised the bar for kids -- they sit for HOURS of tests in Kindergarten. When I was in Kindergarten, I could read, but many of my peers couldn't, and it wasn't a big deal. We had play time and snack time and naps, and stories read to us. Now they sit in a circle and make the sounds on flash cards: "Fff -- aaa -- nn. Fan!" The technical aspects of reading are very much focused on. They learn to read, but do they learn to understand, to appreciate? I don't think so. Knowing what I was asked to teach in 8th grade ("The fat cat sat at a mat. Tam sat at a mat."), I doubt most of the kids are exposed to literature. I read "Frankenstein" in class and "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" for fun. These kids read informational writings in class and nothing for fun. Not all of them, of course. I'd say that of all the kids who enter our school from junior high, 85% aren't very good at reading and don't like it. 8% have been taught well by passionate instructors, and another 7% are fired up with their own passion, although a lot of times that's for vampire romances.

At our own school, I really respect my principal and my colleagues, although I disagree with them on one important point: While I do think it's important to get them to read ANYTHING and to teach them to write well enough for college, I also think good literature is important. They'll say dismissive things like "Who reads Shakespeare anymore?" Well, ME! And every English major and probably a lot of humanities and liberal studies majors. And I have many more privileges than my students do -- I am white, solidly middle-class, a native English speaker, and I lived in a relatively safe neighborhood. But I also lived with a single mom, went to one of the worst high schools in town, was a slightly troubled punk rocker, and had terrible grades for the first two years of high school. I don't think anyone would have picked me out of a crowd and said "Yeah, she'll be an English major, get an MFA, win some awards for her poetry, edit two literary journals, and teach honors literature courses." So it peeves me when someone looks at my students and says "It's not like any of these kids are going to be English majors." (Yes, it's an actual quote.) I can only think, why the hell not?

But back to making meaning. Here's what came up the other day. We read an essay by EB White. The conceit is that he's feeling ill, and he is lying in bed surrounded by several books and articles by democrats he admires. He is also thinking of his long-dead beagle, Fred, who used to insist on hanging out in bed with him when he was sick. After describing Fred as hyperbolic, overly dramatic, and adventurous, he writes:

He was a zealot, and I have just been reminded of him by a quote from one of the Democrats sharing my bed--Acheson quoting Brandeis. "The greatest dangers to liberty," said Mr. Brandeis, "lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." Fred saw in every bird, every squirrel, every housefly, every rat, every skunk, every porcupine, a security risk and a present danger to his republic.


Now, there's a lot going on in there. The dog is personified. There's repetition, a list that goes on a bit too long, some challenging vocabulary ("insidious encroachment"), and some hyperbole of his own. But it still made perfect sense to me. Fred represents the "men of zeal," and those guys are a danger to liberty. I liked the whole essay, but particularly this. It feels so current and relevant because of things like the Patriot Act and the TSA grope-downs.

The kids didn't see it that way. They saw that Fred represented the Democrats. One thought that the writer was writing using the persona of the president. Some didn't know what to make of it. Nobody at all figured out that Fred was the men of zeal. It may be that they don't know what "zeal" and "zealot" mean, but damn it, they should have looked them up, right?

This is where the question came up. How did I know? And, well, I just knew, you know? I mean, he says Fred is a zealot, and then he throws down the quote about the men of zeal. It would be like if I said "Pop stars are dumb. Britney Spears is a pop star."

One of my kids, bright and cocky, then suggested that I show them how I did it, that I model reading a passage and making meaning out of it. I do this all the time in my remedial ninth grade classes. We talk about the skills of a good reader -- making predictions, visualizing, monitoring and repairing comprehension, etc. Then I'll read them a passage and stop to say "Oh, I wonder if Rodrigo will try to help?" "It seems like Rodrigo and Ana are brother and sister." "Whoops, I was wrong -- now I can see that they're neighbors." "He did try to help! Good, I was right!" "I can picture the frost-covered grass." And so on. But can I do it with more challenging texts and more subtle clues? Or is this my kick-flip, the thing I can do but not teach?

I took today and tomorrow off because I'm really sick. I wasn't going to take time off at all, but my doctor essentially ordered me to. She was printing up a note for work even as I protested that I really couldn't take time off. She looked me in the eye and said, "You are a source of contagion to your co-workers and your kids. Stay home!" So I am. I have a reliable sub, and I know it'll be okay. But come Friday, I'm going back, hopefully feeling better, and I'm going to try out this modeling thing. I think it's going to be a challenge. Teaching kids to make meaning can't be the only thing I teach, and really, you could spend the whole two years of the course trying. But it is probably the most important thing I could teach them, so I'm sure as hell going to give it a shot.

Even at 6:30, she's hysterical

She called for me at 6:30, and she has hardly stopped talking since. We went through about ten dresses trying to find one that was acceptable, and when we did, she had a long, appreciative monologue about it. Something about, "this is my BounceTown dress, and it has a horse on it to show that it is my BounceTown dress, and I share it with all the other girls because I'm nice because you trained me to be nice."

Then we went into the kitchen, where last night I had baked cookies. She wanted a cookie immediately.

Me: I think maybe later.
Z: But cookies seem like a good breakfast.
Me: No, but we'll have one later today.
Z: After breakfast?
Me: More like after lunch.
Z (Thinks for a minute): Can we have lunch instead of breakfast?

All right, off to make the coffee.

Thanksgiving, part 2

Hi RE and Kimberly! I didn't intend to beg for comments, but getting them was lovely.

Zadie looked adorable today, but I forgot to take pictures. Thanksgiving with my family was wonderful -- and they had actually taken some pains to make several dishes vegetarian.

I may have the creeping death that my family has been passing around. It would be hard to argue, at this point, that I don't at least have a cold.

For the record, my sweet potatoes were a hit (although in an attempt to get Z to have at least part of a nap, we were about 15 minutes late, and several people had already gotten a plate by the time I put them out). My aunt Joy said she liked the marshmallow version, but no one else seemed put out. Two of my (young, bachelor) cousins even asked for the recipe, seeming surprised that they were that sweet on their own.

Okay, so that's that. I know people (ahem, Dad) think I'm silly when I complain about not getting enough done, but I'm definitely not getting anything done this vacation. I pretty much took care of Z for three days, exercised, cooked, and ate today, and if I'm reading the old cards correctly, I'm about to spend a couple days nursing a cold of my own.

Enjoy your time off if you have some. Enjoy everything you have to be thankful for.

Yours,
CM

Thanksgiving

I don't know how to do this every year without starting to sound like Ann Landers, but I am truly grateful for all I have, and I have SO MUCH. Did you know I have almost 40 living family members within twenty miles? And both my parents are within two miles? And my husband's family is almost all just one state away. Heck, we can see almost everyone (with the exception of my maternal grandma) without getting groped by TSA.

So yes, I am thankful for family, for my home, for my job, for all the people who are so good to me, for California weather, for fresh food, for a reliable car, for making it through this recession relatively unscathed (we actually both took pay cuts, but his ended as mine started -- that's got to be a blessing, right?), for my wonderful friends, for living in this country, for the good health of almost everyone I know, and for all the little things I don't have to worry about, like heat, electricity, clean water, and so much more.

There went that daily blogging thing

Oh well, I had like one comment in three weeks, so not like you guys were on the edges of your seats. Anyway, I haven't blogged for a couple days 'cause it was early Thanksgiving, then Z wasn't going to sleep readily and blah blah.

Zadie funny of the day: I was in the fabric store and she wanted to be in the wrap (baby carrier thing for hippies). It wraps under her butt, and had apparently gotten a little wedge-i-fied. I was absent-mindedly singing her little things to the tune of "The Little Drummer Boy." It was all just mundane stuff like "I think that you are cute, pa rum pum pum pum." Or "Let's look at Christmas stuff, pa rum pum pum pum." Right on cue, and in tune, Zadie sings "My butt does not feel good, pa rum pum pum pum."

She's been a bit sick, so we haven't left the house much. I've been trying to entertain her with non-TV things, but I'll admit that the kid is awake for like 14 hours a day -- sometimes we revert to video mode. She loves this DVD I got her called "The Little Travelers," about a family who travels the world. In this one, they go to Iran, and the whole thing is narrated by the two daughters, who are 5 and 9. It's super-cute, very kid-friendly, and pretty educational, too. Zadie loves to pretend to be the girls, and she has even asked me if she could be "the little Iranian girl." It's like "Yeah, no problem, babe."

We actually wrote an email to their contact on their web site, and just a few hours later we got a reply (which I think is personal and Sweetie thinks is a form letter).

Anyway, some of the other things we've been doing include learning to finger-crochet (she is not good at this), and sticking labels on everything we own, including one that reads "Daddy." I know she's just memorizing, but now we ask her what the signs say, and she yells "table!" or "vase!" or whatever. As we were winding down last night, I had just one slip of paper left, and I asked her what she wanted it to say. She chose "I love you," and we put that one on her dresser so she could see it.

So, I may have mentioned that at a traditional Thanksgiving table, I sometimes don't have much that I can eat which I also like. Sweet potatoes are covered in marshmallows (which have gelatin), green beans are covered in mushroom soup (which has chicken fat), some mashed potatoes are made with stock... I'm like "I'll have a roll and some salad! Oh, the salad has bacon bits in it? That's cool... I'll have two rolls. I love rolls!" Anyway, I'm subverting the dominant paradigm tomorrow by bringing the sweet potatoes myself. And there shall be no cans involved, as I do not like them. Also? No marshmallows. But my sweet potatoes will rule, because they will be well-seasoned, and if people don't like it, they can eat a dick*. Happy Thanksgiving.

*So I made this ginger syrup which is super-good and Sweetie made a cocktail with it, and I finished it off because he is a lightweight and then I made another one because it was delicious, and although I would consider myself neither drunk nor tipsy, I can acknowledge that I would not normally suggest that anyone in my family eat a dick, because I love them very much. Back to the regularly scheduled giving of thanks tomorrow.

Ah, hardware stores

I love hardware stores. I mean that totally sincerely. I like Home Depot least of all, but I could, if I had nothing else to do, wander around the aisles there for hours. I like the geegaws, I like the cleaning supplies, I like the ideas I gather for projects. I like paint samples. I like latches. I like the chain you can cut off the roll. I like big bins of nails.

Anyway, I have always had a favorite hardware store. As a kid, I liked to go to the one on Stockton Blvd. by Fruitridge. They had a lot of little flashlights and knives by the counter. When I lived downtown, I loved P&M, the one on Broadway with the Jack Nicholson picture in the window that also had a canoe hanging outside for a while. Not only did that one have good tools, they had a ton of weird extraneous things like dental tools.

When I actually moved closer to them, I found myself going to the hardware store around 17th and Broadway. They never made a key that didn't work.

When I moved back to the neighborhood closest to the Fruitridge one, I actually went to Home Depot more often, mainly because we were doing a lot of big projects to the house. But I still went to that Ace, and the bonus was that next door, Manor Drugs was a funky little drugstore.

Now that I'm in East Sac, I go primarily to East Sac Hardware. Forget what you've been told about them being unhelpful: they're grizzled and abrupt, but they help. And they also have a bunch of cool kitchen gadgets and now, stationery! Seriously, what's the way to my heart? Kitchen gadgets and stationery. I like them as much as I like hardware stores, so the combination is really appealing.

But throughout all these years, or at least since I have lived on my own, I have heard that there's an Ace hardware downtown. I'd complain about not being able to find something, and someone would recommend Ace. Unfortunately, there's some sort of Bermuda triangle effect on people's memory about the location. I'd ask where it was, and I was always given vague answers. Literally no one could ever give me cross-streets. I believe I even looked in the phone book once under "Ace," and couldn't find it (it's apparently called Capitol Ace). People would also often include a comment like "if it's still there." I wrote the place off as mythical and never went.

Today I went to East Sac to find a peg to hold up a kitchen shelf. We have no idea how it got lost or where it is, but the effect is that the shelf has been held up by two stacked cans for months. One can is beef broth, which I'll never use, but I keep having to rotate out the second can because I want to use it.

Anyway, the shelf peg I need is called a "KV shelf clip," and they didn't have them at East Sac. But Home Depot's advantage is that they have SO MUCH shelf space. Surely they'd have them. I mean, I've seen similar clips elsewhere, so it must be pretty standard. Nope. I even asked for help, and the girl suggested I try the internet.

I did. They are available, but a bag costs $4 and the shipping is $7. Now, I'm a sucker, but not a one-peg-for-$11 sucker. Leave that for the government. Anyway, I thought I'd call Emigh, which is far but is a cool store. Then I remembered the mythical Ace. With the power of the internet, I found it quickly and called. Not only did they have them, they had them in four different colors. I drove down. Even though it's on "the grid," there was ample free parking. And the place is AWESOME!! They had tools, paint, kitchen gadgets, fancy cleaning products, canning supplies, bicycle parts... I want to go back and just wander the aisles. I ended up buying not just my pegs, but also a Charlie Brown Christmas window cling and a Mrs. Meyer's hand soap.

Ah, well there you go. You knew I was a nerd, but not a hardware store nerd, right? I actually had to explain to Zadie today that in some households, it's the daddies who like to fix stuff! LOL. No offense, Sweetie!

VACATION!!!!

When the superintendent first said he was getting rid of Presidents' Day and making us work the last Friday of the year, but giving us Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week off, I thought it was unnecessary. But you know what? Now that I'm facing nine days off in a row, I think I can totally dig it.

Zadie is having a slumber party and Grandma and Boompah's, and Sweetie and I went to a neighborhood restaurant (where we split something very like a white Russian for dessert), then to the CSUS geology department's rock auction. I'm not really a geology girl, but I could appreciate several things, namely, the prettily polished rocks, the awesome names of some of the items*, and the good people-watching.

Regarding the last, there was a surprising amount of theatricality at the auction. Several people were in tuxedoes, and others were in little black dresses and looked as though they were unused to the idea. One gentleman was actually wearing a top hat, and one young lady clearly had a fall** in her hair of the type actors use in musicals (I kept expecting her to break out into song).

There were also your REI types, your old hippies, a large number of unsightly*** science nerds, and the academics. A few of those big-belt-buckle guys were there, too. It was really a mix.

Then we came home, and, due to my big fat mouth, played the Metallica version of Guitar Hero instead of the normal version. The Metallica version seems designed to give me carpal tunnel syndrome.

I am hoping, both for Zadie's sake, Grandma and Boompah's sake, and my own sake as her primary caregiver tomorrow, that Z has a restful, uninterrupted night's sleep.

*Like "spherulitic tuff."
** They look like the picture below right.

***Okay, I'm being judgmental, but the room seemed pretty heavily weighted towards those who had neither struck gold in the genetics department nor made strides in the hygiene and styling department.

"I'm starving!"

That is becoming one of her most-used phrases. Keep in mind that this kid typically eats like a teenage boy, but she hasn't gained even one single pound in a year. I know I've done this recently, but it just blew my mind again today.

She woke up before 6 am, starving. Sweetie gave her a bowl with Kashi, Cheerios, and raisins, plus a chocolate milk. She asked me for sausage, and I gave her a sausage patty. Later in the morning, she went to Costco with Grandma, where she had several samples (normally enough for lunch -- five or six samples of, say, half a dolma or a big meatball). Then they got home and she had a regular lunch. Shortly thereafter, she announced that she was starving, and she had a whole Z bar (like a Clif bar for kids), which she wolfed down in a few seconds.

At home, she had about 2/3 of a cup each of rice and refried beans topped with cheese, guacamole, and salsa. Two hours later, she pranced out of bed to announce that she was starving again. I thought it couldn't be possible, but I offered her a few things (all savory -- no desserts), and she took me up on a corn dog, so I heated it up for her, and she ate every morsel. Finally she is sleeping with a full tummy.

Unless you knew my kid well, though, what I really don't mention is that she probably burns 3,000 calories a day in jumping, running, tumbling, climbing, etc. She is the world's most energetic kid. Mom said she was bouncing off the walls today, and I had to restrain myself from asking, "literally?" Because it wouldn't surprise me if she was just throwing herself at the wall, bouncing off, laughing, and doing it again.


Oh my goodness, tomorrow is my last day of work before our newly-extended Thanksgiving break, and tomorrow night is date night for Sweetie's birthday, so Zadie is having a sleepover at Grandma and Boompah's. Woo! Whatever will we do?*

*Probably play Guitar Hero.

Whoops, missed a day

Okay, this one goes out to the lady at the gym who is there about once a week at the same time as I am.

You are clearly determined to burn some calories, as you HAUL ASS on the elliptical. Unfortunately, your workout is frequently interrupted by you spilling your coffee on the little drink tray we keep between our machines. I have water on my side. You have water and coffee on yours, and twice now you have spilled the coffee. Can I just mention that one time you busted ass for several minutes, burning 86 calories, then spilled your coffee, cleaned it up, and left? I'm not sure that you're aware that there are 20 calories and 1.7 grams of fat in a tablespoon of half and half, which you appear to use in your coffee, and you frequently have two cups. I'm just saying... I personally couldn't drink coffee while I worked out, but you may be better off spilling that shit.

Oh and also? Leaning forward at a 120 degree angle to read your magazine is probably not good for your back.



Heh. This reminds me of when we used to blog at People Under the Stairmasters, which Suzanne invited me to join, and which is how I first got to know Suebob, Des, and Alex Elliot.

Just writing down what she's saying again.

When we have Greek sandwiches, we don't have guacamole. I love guacamole. It has spicy tofu in it. I want teriyaki dinner. Can I have popcorn? I want you to write some more. But I like to jump and dance! And bounce... And play. And jump. And I like to go on adventures. I like to go on adventures because it's nice to go on adventures. But lions are usually on adventures. Scary lions! Scary lions! No, silly lions. [Me: I'm going to be done now.] I love you. You can't be done.

Folkie

Yeah, so when I was a kid, my parents had the Peter, Paul and Mary album "Movin," and I listened to it incessantly. I still know almost all the words by heart to every song. I sing to Zadie all the time, and I didn't feel like I particularly sang "A Soalin'" any more than any other song. But when we were in the car yesterday, I started to sing it and Zadie fussed. I asked what was wrong, because she usually likes it. She said she was sad that I was singing it alone. I stopped after every line and let her sing the next one. To my surprise, she knew pretty much all the words. I do love the song, but I didn't really expect Zadie to love it the way I do. Somehow, though, she does. Check it out.

Giving the oven a workout

We had a good day today, though uneventful. We had bread and jam and cheese for breakfast, as a pseudo-Iranian meal. I gave Zadie tea, and I totally forgot that A: she's sensitive to cinnamon and B: the Good Earth tea totally has cinnamon in it. But I remembered when she guzzled her tea and ended up with a Joker-like red grin across her face, plus lines down her chest and on her legs where it had dripped. I threw her in the shower to wash her off. It doesn't seem to bother her at all, but it freaks me out to see such a strong reaction to such a common ingredient.

We went to the farmers market, and today I put her in the old back carrier. I thought she'd be too big, but she wasn't, and I thought she might fuss, but she didn't. In fact, it was a GREAT choice, since I didn't have to carry a wiggly thirty-pound kid and a heavy bag of produce. Then we went to the playground, and she had a great time. And when she had to go potty, she yelled that fact to me and took off running for the car (where we keep the travel potty). So no accident! After that, we went to the gym, then she requested Jamba Juice for lunch, so that's what we did.

At home, I decided to just cook. I made the dinner rolls for next week's family dinner (and they came out great!), a batch of Sweetie's favorite cookies, my food for this week's lunches, and pumpkin muffins. And then I made dinner! We're having another theme week, and this week is Iran. I made two stews, one with yellow split peas and tomato, and another with spinach and herbs. We ate them with Iranian rice, although I've made better. Then we read a Persian Cinderella story, and then it was bedtime. I did try to squeeze in a nap, but it wasn't happening again today. I insisted on 30 minutes of quiet time, which she sort of observed. I don't know why she hasn't been napping lately, but hopefully it's just a phase.

I can't believe I had four days off and it feels like I got so little done. I really envisioned at least getting some crafting done. Well, soon enough I'll have nine days off, then not quite another week will pass before I have two weeks off. It's just hard to be a working mom, to feel like I never have enough time with her, then when I do have some time, to do such a shitty job of it. I mean, in four days I didn't get her to take a single nap! Ah, well.

Dinosaur bread

She didn't nap, and it was horrible, and then she didn't want to go to bed, either, and we fought through putting on pajamas and brushing teeth. And when I asked her why she didn't want to sleep, she said it was because of the dinosaur bread.

I suggested that dinosaurs didn't have bread, both because they didn't have fire, and because they didn't have opposable thumbs.

She countered that dinosaurs loved bread.

As a bread lover myself, I admitted that if dinosaurs had happened to overlap with humans at a time when humans had figured out how to make bread, they might have liked bread.

And then I thought, what the fuck kind of conversation am I having here?

It's the sleep deprivation. I can practically see her in her little lab coat, consulting her clipboard and checking off "dinosaur bread experiment, 11/13/10."

I have a lot of ideas for creative writing tonight, but I'm FREAKING EXHAUSTED. It looks as though all my crafting and baking projects have fallen through this weekend, but I did get out to see an art show, and I did paint the bathroom. And we went ice skating. That's all something.

Even optimists have bad days.

In short, I drove all the way out to Bradshaw to go to the Persian market. It was closed. Their phone number was disconnected. Their hours weren't listed.

We went to the midtown bazaar, which was fine. We went to Dragatomi, which was fine. We went to Sugar Plum Vegan, which I was really looking forward to, but I forgot they were cash only now, so we went across the street to the Golden Bear. There, I had to fish a chunk of foil out of my iced tea, our frittata only vaguely resembled what we had ordered, and Z wouldn't sit in the tall chairs, so I had to eat with my left hand, which caused me to drip ketchup on myself, staining a beloved t-shirt. And the meal, which we split, came to almost $20.

Then I drove way the hell across town in another direction to the other Persian market, which did have what I needed. But their bag was flimsy, and when I got it out of the car, my pomegranate molasses dropped and broke.

Maybe I'll move to Australia.*

*Joking. It's from the book "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day."

Growth and growth and chatter.

Pre-school was a trip. It's been six weeks since I've attended, and she missed twice due to illness (well, sniffles) and once they went to a pumpkin patch instead of school, so really only three classes have passed. But a routine has been set! A schedule is followed! There are procedures! My kid knows and follows them, even anticipating them. It's kind of freaky.

For example, at clean-up time, some other people had begun to clean even before the scratchy LP music had come on, and Zadie joined in, happily cleaning both her mess and a nearby mess she had not contributed to. When all the toys were picked up, although the teacher had made no announcement, Zadie grabbed the hands of two other children to form the song circle.

It was fun otherwise, too. She played with play-dough, ran a toy ambulance down a ramp a couple times, made a painting, helped put a puzzle away, put stickers on a paper bag, and a few other things here and there. She's such a leader sometimes (okay, bossy), and today she marched right over to two kids and announced what they were all going to do. It's nice to see her enjoying school so much. My favorite moment was during "If you're happy and you know it." She sometimes has a bit of a delayed reaction, but she's incredibly enthusiastic. So the third verse, which involves shouting "hooray" went something like this:

Miss Kelly: If you're happy and you know it, shout hooray.
Kids: Hooray.
Zadie (three times as loud as everyone else, and jumping): HOO-RAY!!
Repeat.

She is eating like a horse again. She goes through these phases, and she usually grows an inch overnight, but she never gains a single pound (she hasn't in a year). Anyway, just for your edification, today she had:
Breakfast: Two scrambled eggs and two slices of bacon.
Snack: apple slices and goldfish crackers.
Lunch: macaroni salad.
Snack: 1/4 persimmon, crackers, cheese.
Dinner: Brown & wild rice blend (about 1 cup), 1/3 cup broccoli, 1 meatless Riblet.
Dessert: 1 cup frozen yogurt (I didn't mean to pour her that much, but it came out fast, and she ate every bite).

She also ate an entire bagel and a banana for breakfast yesterday. That's more than either her father or I had.

By the way, she has turned into a world-class chatterbox. I swear, sometimes it keeps her from sleeping because she just HAS to talk more. I went to get the video camera today, because she wanted to help me do the laundry, and as she put wet items into the dryer, I heard this:
"Oh, I'm just putting my nightgown in the dryer so it can be warm and dry. Why did you buy this nightgown for me, Mommy? Oh, here is my Rapunzel shirt. I just got it. It has long sleeves. Here are my underpants. They are wet from the washer. We had to wash them because they got dirty. This is my skirt that I wore to Old Sacramento. Where is my holiday dress?" And on and on and on. Unfortunately, I didn't get back with the camera in time (I think my absence distracted her), so I didn't catch the laundry monologue. You'll just have to trust me -- she rarely runs out of things to say.

Bible, Bruce Lee... whatever.

I was feeling like the theme of the day was the quote I've often heard: "Fall down nine times, get up ten." I thought it was Bruce Lee who had said it, but I didn't just want to attribute it to him without being sure, so I looked it up. Yeah, it's from the Bible. Whoops!





Anyway, we went ice skating today! Zadie totally embodied that quote today, because no matter how many times she fell, she just got right back up. Only once did she even fuss a bit, and that was when she landed in a big puddle and got soaking wet. She did really well, standing up without help and making a beeline for the ice (even before I had managed to get my skates on). She started out by holding both of my hands, but when I needed to straighten up, she held one hand for a couple laps. Several people commented on how well she was doing for how young she is. I was really proud.

Unfortunately, the ice rink's policy is apparently to run two-hour sessions beginning at the even hours, and even if you come at 1pm and pay full price, they don't mention that they're going to throw you off the ice in 45 minutes. Honestly, there's nothing wrong with the policy, and it makes perfect sense why they do the two-hour sessions. It just pisses me off that there's NO signage, nothing on the web site, and no one verbalizes it to you until they're throwing you off the ice and you ask. We were both disappointed.

Also today I painted the bathroom. I had done it a couple years ago and done a piss-poor job, frankly. There were several spots where I didn't get good coverage, even though I did two coats and several touch-ups. It needed to be completely re-done, and since we had just gotten the tile done, a new toilet, had the towel bar moved, and gotten a light fixture (that one's older, but still...), it seemed like this was the perfect time to do it. I started at about eight and was done by about eleven, although I still had some clean-up to do this afternoon, and there may be one more touch-up spot on the ceiling. Now the whole room looks totally finished and awesome!

Zadie wants to blog, too. Here's what she has to say to the world: I love you. I love Grandma, but you're cute. And I like you. Because I love it. And I love you. And guh-bwah. Shagwah. I shab you because it is nice to shab people. Why are you writing my answers up? What are those answers? And you are cute. I love you. You're cute! I love you. Paint! Since you painted I got myself dirty. Painting is dirty, because caw! I love you, world! [ed. Z runs screaming around the room for a minute, then comes back.] I love the world. I love you a bushel and a peck!

Yay, pictures!

Well, obviously these pictures aren't as nice in terms of quality as the ones from the other day, but they sure show my kid's personality.


Ready for soccer.


She chose the outfit.


And she chose this outfit, too.


Clearly, it made her happy.