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Yesterday the dog had a bad case of diarrhea. It stunk up the house and took half a roll of paper towels and a ton of Simple Green to clean up. We're not sure what she found in the backyard that gave her such a major case of the runs. What we do know is that she has a tendency to do the same dumb things over and over again, so we're steering ourselves for another attack before long.

Tonight at dinner I told Ana that if she would eat half of her tuna fish sandwich, she could feed the other half to Daisy. When Ana finally put the last bite in her mouth, Kevin dropped the other half into Daisy's bowl. He was about to add his own leftover grilled cheese sandwich when I reminded him of our little incident from yesterday. A little tuna wasn't likely to re-irritate our dog's delicate gut, but cheese? And butter?

So Kevin extracted the grilled cheese sandwich from the bowl and dropped it in the trash instead. I hated to see the waste, but it beats cleaning up watery poo. Sometimes I think about all the things we're not allowed to feed our dog because it might 1) make her fat, 2) give her indigestion, or 3) choke her to death, and I have to believe that if third world dogs ever met her, they would think she's a complete nincompoop.

Labels: food, nablopomo, pets

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I don't know what possessed me to even consider buying clothes during this time of body limbo, but so far this pregnancy I've bought four blouses, a pair of ankle boots, and this dress. I find the collar irresistible. The fit is flattering too, and it isn't even from the maternity section.

I'm at 18 and a half weeks, far enough along for an ultrasound to determine the sex of the baby, so that's what we did today. The kids came along for the show. We all had a good time seeing the baby during the examination, but we couldn't tell if Alex and Ana were getting a brother or sister until the doctor started tilting me this way and that way to make the baby move. Finally we were able to catch a glimpse between the little legs and learn that we're having a GIRL.

I was unprepared for the flood of emotions that hit me as we left the exam room. You would think that this being baby number three, I'd be an old hand at this mothering business, but all the insecurities that I felt when I found out I was pregnant with Ana came rushing back to be revisited. What it all comes down to is this: can I be the role model that this baby needs? Because even if her personality ends up being nothing like mine, she's still going to look to me for clues on how to behave as her same gender parent. I guess after almost four years of mothering a daughter I still don't have it all figured out yet.

Labels: nablopomo, parenting, pregnancy, shopping

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Lately Ana's two favorite activities have been playing with an educational math game that a well-meaning person got for Alex (he's never shown any interest in it) and cutting and gluing paper. Tonight, as I cut pictures of tomatoes, avocados, and cans of chili out of a grocery store ad for her, I idly wondered whether there was a more boring job than the poor graphic designer who had to find the right clip art for each week's specials, unless it's the poor photographer that had to make the clip art in the first place.

As Kevin got ready to take Daisy out for an evening walk, I reminded him to take a golf club.

Kevin: I think I should take a Mag Lite instead.

Me: Why?

K: Last night this woman crossed the street when she saw me coming with the golf club in one hand and the dog in the other. I look TOO well armed.

Me: Well, that's not a bad thing. Forearmed is forewarned... or something like that.

Alex told Kevin that he wanted to be able to take fried rice for lunch like his friend Leo, so we bought him an insulated lunch bag and some plastic containers to make it happen. I can't believe it wasn't that long ago when fried rice would have been the last thing I wanted to take for lunch because all the other kids would have pointed and said, "Eew, what's THAT???" It's not weird to be Chinese anymore, not at Alex's school anyway.

Update: Alex's friend Leo isn't Chinese. Fascinating.

Labels: chinese, kids, nablopomo, pets

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For homework tonight Alex had to create a personal timeline of six significant events in his life. Here are three of them (from left to right): being born, being ring bearer in my sister's wedding, and his baby sister being born.

Our backups are a mess. For about a minute I was in a panic because all our pre-2005 photos were missing. Even after I figured out which hard drive they were on, it took me forever to find the ones Alex needed for his project. Now my eyes are totally irritated. Note to self: next time, take out my contact lenses BEFORE I start helping Alex with his homework.

Yesterday when I got to work, the student assistant on the first floor had the sad duty of informing me that all the elevators were out of commission. I groaned. The evil march up six flights of stairs wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't also woken up with a bad backache. As it were I think it just made things worse, and the pain stayed with me all day and all night, continuing until this morning, when I finally gave in and took a Tylenol. For the rest of today I was comfortably numb.

Short entry tonight. I need to get to bed to save up energy to climb up the stairs tomorrow. The elevators are scheduled to be out pretty much all day. This makes for the third outage during business hours this term. No worries, my building isn't falling apart; it's just going through a major construction/remodeling project. At least I'm only in my second trimester. If this happens again during my third trimester, I'll need to be carried up those stairs.

Labels: kids, nablopomo, work

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Earlier today I read this paper called "Growing up in a Material World: Age Differences in Materialism in Children and Adolescents" by Deborah Roedder John and Lan Nguyen Chaplin which I found rather provocative (synopsis at physorg.com). I could easily imagine there being an inverse correlation between materialism and self-esteem in adolescents and the authors demonstrated that nicely. What was even more interesting to me was the second study they performed which showed that when individual kids of various ages got a self-esteem boost in a peer-group setting their scores on a materialism test were quite a lot lower than the control group. In the most materialistic and lowest self-esteem age bracket, 12-13 years, the kids that were given an esteem boost had one-third the materialism score of the others.

As a parent of kids getting inexorably closer to this age, this is of great interest to me because I'm concerned with the rampant materialism/consumerism kids are experiencing today. While I can't make other kids say nice things about my kids I can, at least for now, try to ensure that they spend more time with their nicer, more supportive friends. As I told Julie when I sent her the link, we can definitely play a part in deciding who gets invited over to play!

Lately I've been trying to figure out how Julie comes up with so many ideas for conversation and her various blogs. It's the conversation thing, mainly - she's never without something interesting (and deep of course, anyone can gossip about the day's news) to talk about and I'm absolutely jealous. Today I read The Top 20 Ways to Come Up With Amazing Ideas and I started to see a pattern. Read a lot, listen, examine your life, question everything, the list has a whole lot of suggestions that describe my wife perfectly. I began to see exactly how her personality and habits make her such a great conversation starter. There does seem to be some hope for me though. As the article notes, "coming up with ideas is a skill [that becomes] easier with practice."

*I was able to read the entire study thanks to my uni's library. I'd link to the actual study but the University of Chicago Press doesn't see fit to provide even a brief synopsis before login so there's not much point.

Labels: nablopomo, parenting

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Is age 3 too young to experience unrequited love? Today Ana burst into tears because Daisy refused to come when called. She sobbed uncontrollably into my shoulder until I made her laugh, I don't even remember how, just one of those things that desperate parents do when they see their child unhappy.

Later Ana played with Daisy while I kept watch, occasionally glaring at the dog, daring her to break Ana's heart again, not that Daisy would even notice my glaring as something out of the ordinary. She already sees me as The Enforcer and tries to stay out of my way, except when I'm cooking. Then she can't help herself but come sniffing around my ankles, looking hopeful.

Other than making Ana cry, Daisy's second day home was uneventful. Kevin took her out for a couple of short walks, and she seems to be reacting well to them. If you've watched The Dog Whisperer or read any of Cesar's books you'd know that taking your dog for regular walks is his prescription for just about everything. During the morning walk Kevin was accompanied by Ana. During the evening walk he was accompanied by Alex, who took along a golf club at my insistence. Alex got a big kick out of that.

Today I did five loads of laundry. At one point I asked Kevin to hang up the stuff that needed to be line dried, and I went back inside to put away some clothes. I found a stray hanger and asked Ana to take it to Kevin.

Ana: Daddy, I have something for you!

Kevin: Oh yeah? What is it?

Ana: (holding up hanger) It's a hooker!

I also cooked a ton of chicken today, with enough garlic to drive away vampires from the entire neighborhood. This family is NOT getting sick this winter.

Labels: books, food, kids, nablopomo, parenting, pets

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Around 11:50 p.m. last night I realized I still hadn't posted the entry for the day, but I was so tired I didn't want to get out of bed, and so breaks my Nablopomo blogging streak. Ah well, I'll be a good sport and try to finish out the month anyway.

Yesterday morning Kevin rented a jackhammer. It's his second time renting this piece of equipment; the first time was over a year ago. The rentals were necessitated by several hundred square feet of really hideous cream and brown tile installed by the previous owner of our house. They didn't use ordinary thinset like they should have. Instead they had used some crazy substance called wet set mortar, which is why the tiles refused to come off with ordinary hammering and chiseling.

The first jackhammer rental was made after a lot of web research and second guessing. Kevin brought the thing home, put on a pair of eye goggles (after I reminded him to), crossed his fingers, and turned the thing on. It worked brilliantly -- one by one the tiles broke into pieces -- but man it was hard work. By day's end, all the tile in the kitchen and dining room was gone, but Kevin's shoulders and back were KILLING him.

Part two of tile removal took place yesterday, thanks to a LOT of help from Kevin's brother. Now all the tile in the entry and hallway is gone. There's a few more demolition projects in our future, but this one was by far the most backbreaking. I'm really thankful that Brian was willing to help us out. I feel like this huge weight has been lifted from our shoulders.

Now that the bathroom construction, bedroom improvements, and noisy tile removal are over, we're able to bring Daisy back home. She'd been living with my parents since the latter part of summer. Man, I'd forgotten how much stuff it takes to care for a dog. We filled up the entire back of the van with her dog crate, the wheeled 30 gallon plastic bin containing her dry food, and four big shopping bags filled with chew toys, blankets, and other accessories.

The drive home was noisy. She wouldn't stop whining, but at least she didn't freak out like she usually does. The secret? Half a dose of Benadryl. Once we got home she seemed relaxed. She had caught fleas from the mangy cats that my parents' crazy neighbors won't stop harboring, but Kevin's found a good flea treatment and got most if not all out of her hair. In a few days I'll take her to the vet to bring her shots up to date.

Labels: home improvement, meds, nablopomo, pets

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Here's a mind bender for you. Suppose twins were born on the day when Daylight Savings Time hits, one right before the time change and one right after we fall back an hour, which one is the older sibling? :)

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving! Ours was great. Lots of food and family. We ate in the dining room, which no longer has a bed in it. It's nice to sleep in a proper bedroom again.

Labels: home improvement, nablopomo

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Brian tagged me to reveal 7 random/weird things about myself.

1. I'm right handed, but I mouse with my left hand.

2. My biggest shopping weakness is $9.99 DVDs. Anything cheaper is probably a movie not worth watching.

3. I'm afraid of heights, esp. bridges and glass elevators.

4. I don't like to touch raw meat. When cooking I use rubber gloves.

5. I speed read. It still feels too slow to me. Next step: osmosis.

6. This year we celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary. I have socks that are older than my marriage.

7. When I was a teenager I was really, really good at making lists like this, but not anymore.

I tag my sister, my cousin, Rita, Cindi, Felisa, Stella, and Damon -- the latter three in hopes they'll revive their blogs :)

This was really hard to write! I hope it's easier for the folks I'm tagging!

Labels: memes, nablopomo

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One of Alex's good friends at school told him about this online game called Pokemon Crater, and now he's hooked on it. They've swapped user names but haven't friended each other yet. I'm sure that's soon to follow.

This is not the first online game Alex has played. There were at least two others before this. It didn't take him long to learn to ignore those flashing banners that pretend to look like video games or say things like, "You have won a _insert video game system here_ !"

Meanwhile, Ana hasn't outgrown our educational CD-ROM collection yet, but she's gotten hooked on a math game site that Alex's teacher introduced to us. No obnoxious banners there, thankfully. She likes to click around randomly and insists on playing 3rd grade level -- she probably thinks the number 3 stands for age 3 -- and I only said yes after she promised not to badger us for help. Her computer doesn't even have Internet access, so she has to switch off with Alex. It's probably best that way at least until we're certain she can ignore flashing banners. I wonder when that will be.

You have to see this adorable short film by Mud Films. It made my day.

Labels: kids, nablopomo, parenting, toys

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Today I got one of the limpest, clammiest handshakes ever from a fellow whose reputation had preceded him, and not in a good way. He could have redeemed himself quite a bit in my eyes by giving me a decent handshake, but no, he couldn't even manage that. It's the kind of handshake that reminds me why I married a real man.

See, aside from warm and firm handshakes, another characteristic I admire about real men is they don't hesitate when asked to go to the store to buy pregnancy tests or Maxi-Pads for their significant others. But even I have to admit that among things that I've asked Kevin to get from the store for me, this most recent trip to Target really took the cake. Because Ana had kept her Pull-Ups dry for weeks, I had promised her that she could have new big girl undies, and the guilt of not having made good on my promise was eating at me.

So, yes, I asked Kevin to go to Target to buy underwear for Ana, and the man came through with flying colors. Ana was THRILLED beyond words with her new Hasbro Littlest Pet Shop undies that Daddy picked out for her. She liked the Hello Kitty undies almost as much. Daddy got mucho kisses from the wife and the big girl that evening.

By the way, I updated our front page:

Labels: nablopomo, parenting

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Today Kevin and I spent the whole day installing flooring in our bedroom. We had the whole routine down. I swept the floor, prepped the waterproof layer, opened up boxes, and handed pieces to Kevin, and he measured them, cut them with the miter saw outside, then brought them back in and joined them into a row. Then we both grabbed the entire row and hammered it into the previous row. By night fall we had almost finished the entire room. The only section left is inside the closet, but unfortunately it's also the trickiest. However I have no doubt we'll have moved out of the dining room and back into our bedroom by Thursday. No more nightmares about having to set up the Thanksgiving buffet on our bed, hahaha!

Labels: home improvement, nablopomo

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Today the kids and I attended my niece Abby's 2nd birthday party. I'd bought her present weeks and weeks ago, a set of six pairs of Disney princess shoes, so it was only a happy coincidence that her party today was Disney princess themed. I was overjoyed that she liked the present. As soon as she unwrapped the box she wanted to try on a pair. Here she is wearing the Snow White shoes.

My sister's pregnancy is about a month behind mine. The poor woman is still nauseous all the time, so I don't think she was able to eat a single thing during the party. I, on the other hand, was able to add to my *ample layer of pregnancy fat* (see my post yesterday :P ) by ingesting large amounts of shiitake mushrooms that I picked out from the delicious chow mein my mom contributed to the buffet table, plus a couple of squares of Hawaiian pizza.

Kevin didn't attend the festivities because he was planning to paint the bedroom. He was also waiting on a guy to come move our air conditioner, which had been sitting askew during the entire construction project, blocking the walkway on the side of the house and making it impossible to wheel the trash bins into the backyard. Once the guy came, it was tedious how much of Kevin's attention he needed to do the job right. Kevin couldn't actually start painting until after dinner, but luckily from there it went fast.

Tomorrow we'll lay the flooring together. Hopefully that will go fast as well.

Labels: food, home improvement, kids, nablopomo, pregnancy, toys

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Today I went back to work still feeling under the weather, and everything that was bad became intolerable. The last straw was when a coworker saw me getting my umpteenth drink of water and joked that the reason I'm so warm must be because I'm now covered with a layer of fat.

"I'm not warm, just THIRSTY," I snapped. "I've only gained ONE POUND."

It didn't help that I had finally unpacked all my maternity clothes last night. I drink so much water during the day that my normal shirts can no longer handle how much my belly bloats out between getting up in the morning and going home at night, so today I wore an empire waisted maternity blouse with plenty of give in the belly. Even though several people commented on how cute it looked, I still felt self conscious, and the fat joke from that one insensitive git just pushed me over the edge.

Incidentally, I'm at 16 weeks and 5 days. Just 23 weeks and 2 days to go.

Labels: nablopomo, pregnancy

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I haven't been sharing many photos lately. Alex and Ana have been given a reprieve by the mamarazzi while she sleeps off the rest of this pregnancy. This morning I felt particularly awful and had to call in sick. I finally got out of bed at 11am feeling not much better.

This ultrasound is a month old. I didn't upload it at the time because I was almost too nauseous and tired to blog, let alone bother with the scanner, etc. During the exam the baby was very active, kicking and waving the whole time. This picture caught him/her holding a hand to the forehead. What a little drama king/queen! At the next ultrasound, which will be the week after Thanksgiving, we'll find out whether it's a boy or girl. Fun!!

Here's a picture of Alex and Ana from Halloween. Check out those cheesy grins. I couldn't get either of them to smile naturally. Now you see why they needed a break from my camera? :)

Here's a couple of shots that show them in a more relaxed state, watching a SpongeBob Squarepants DVD, probably about 10 minutes before we announced bedtime. There's another picture (not shown) with Ana propping her feet up on her brother's bottom. I had to tell her to take her feet down; meanwhile he didn't even notice. I guess that's how she got the idea boys can take the abuse.

Labels: kids, nablopomo, pregnancy

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Tonight I learned that the boy has been discarding the sandwich I lovingly pack in his sack lunch. Julie attempted to console me. "I'm sorry hon, it's hard work making those lunches every day." I reassured her that I was fine and that I think it's hard work eating the same thing for lunch every day. I remember what it was like eating the same ham sandwich and red delicious (Why the Red Delicious No Longer Is) apple every single school day for years. For whatever reason, as a kid it made complete sense to me that there was no point in trying to change the contents of my lunch. Eventually I stopped eating at school altogether and had lunch when I got home around 3:30. "No," I told her, "this is just one of many conversations I'll have with him about his lunch. He's really excited about trying a Zone bar tomorrow."

These days I alternate between wanting to try new restaurants or recipes and wanting the same thing over and over. Nobody could be happier than me that Julie has gone into nesting mode with a vengeance. She has been making the most amazing food every weekend in quantities that increase every time. Her beef with daikon soup has surpassed both miso and spicy beef tendon noodle to rest securely at the top of my personal pantheon of soups. I can't get enough of her Taiwanese sausage fried rice. I'm not the only one. Tonight after karate the boy was ravenous and was nearly giddy with delight when he got to feast on mama's fried rice when he got home. Sometimes we get so busy that there's no time to reflect on how outsourced our diet has become. Losing touch with the way food connects a family is a big loss for our emotional well-being.

Labels: food, nablopomo, parenting

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Within a few years after Alex was born, I found a great coping mechanism that every parent should develop: I ceased to care what anybody had to say about my parenting decisions with the exception of three people -- my husband, Alex's teacher, and Alex's after school care provider.

Why I would listen to my husband is obvious. He's Alex's dad; of course his opinions are important. The other two people spend more time with Alex than anybody else during the week, including us, and they are most likely to notice things about him that we don't notice.

To me, time is of the essence. I think that adequately explains why no one else made the cut. As for why I think other parents should follow my lead, it's because there is no way to win the parenting game, so you might as well make up your own rules. If you still doubt me, consider this question: should kids take music lessons? How about participating in team sports? What about volunteering for good causes?

If you're anything like me, your head is reeling at this point, wondering what's up with all this over-scheduling and what ever happened to good ol' daydreaming. Yet there are many kids who successfully participate in two or three sports AND take music lessons AND participate in Boy Scouts AND turn out perfectly well adjusted. As their parents would say, the proof is in the pudding.

See, there's no cattier conversation than one between two people with differing parenting philosophies. You just don't want to go there.

Despite my very personal decision not to participate in the parenting game, I've nevertheless found myself on the receiving end of a lot of unwanted cattiness, like the one about which school is better, or the one about piano lessons, or how about the one about Chinese school? Sometimes I get it from people who don't even have kids. It would make no sense for childless people to have opinions about parenting except that they were kids at some point, so one would suppose they're entitled to have their opinions. Still, I resent it when they foist it on me. Last year when I missed a meeting and explained that I was attending an awards ceremony where Alex was receiving the Academic Excellence Award for his class, one childless person snidely commented, "Does that even mean anything in first grade?" In response, I smiled and said, "I don't know."

Labels: chinese, nablopomo, parenting

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My current pet peeve is people ranting about retention vs. social promotion in U.S. public schools when they don't even understand the basic underlying issues. There aren't any simple answers, and I wish people would stop acting like there are.

Other than that, I greatly enjoyed my three-day weekend. (Happy Veterans' Day!) Yesterday a couple of Kevin's friends from work came over to hang out. The one who brought his Xbox 360 is now Alex's new best friend.

Today I didn't get out of bed until 10:30. After a leisurely brunch Kevin went to paint our bedroom. I tried to be productive as well. At first I tried to concentrate on a presentation for work tomorrow but after two fruitless hours I gave up and turned my attention to the kitchen, where I spent over four hours cooking enough food to last us all week, starting with dinner tonight.

The awesome thing is both kids ate without complaining about my cooking. It put me in such a good mood that after dinner I went straight back to my presentation and finished it. Yay.

Here's what I cooked: beef and daikon soup (using the slow cooker instead of the stove), potatoes au gratin, Taiwanese sausage fried rice, and chili relleno casserole. I haven't cooked regularly for years and now I've cooked every weekend four weeks straight. Must be something in the air.

Labels: food, home improvement, nablopomo, parenting, toys, work

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Nobel Laureate and economist Joseph Stiglitz writes about the economic consequences of this administration from a historical perspective. Oil and gold are at their highest prices in decades and the dollar is plummeting. Over two million adjustable rate mortgages are due to reset this year and next. What this country badly needs is a reining in of personal and governmental spending, even though it will almost certainly result in a recession. I hope our next president has the intelligence and the will to do what is needed.

"SimCity is entertainment that's unintentionally educational" says Steve Seabolt of EA Games. EA donated the original SimCity game to the One Laptop Per Child initiative which aims to provide inexpensive laptops to children worldwide. I'm glad more people are getting it - having fun is the best way for kids to learn. I learned basic boolean logic and circuit design when I was nine or ten playing Rocky's Boots on an Apple ][. The author of that software has links to emulators and disk images on his site. I'm downloading Rocky and the sequel, Robot Odyssey for Alex and Ana to play.

Labels: nablopomo, parenting, politics, toys

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We did some Veterans' Day weekend shopping today, including a stop at Home Depot to pick up a big five gallon bucket of paint.

Even though the bathroom construction is done, life in our house hasn't returned to normal yet. Kevin's been scraping the acoustic popcorn off the ceiling of our bedroom. It's not too hard -- you spritz the popcorn with water and then use a paint scraper to peel it off -- but Kevin says it smells like vomit. (Strangely, I don't smell a thing.) After the popcorn's gone he'll repaint the ceiling and then start laying down the new flooring.

Here's the hard part for me. Unlike Kevin, I actually enjoy painting, but unfortunately I'm not allowed near the stuff in my current state. This happened the last time I was pregnant too. We had designed these awesome magnetic walls for the dining room, but Kevin had to do all the painting by himself -- all five layers of it!

So here I sit, far away from the painting supplies, just twiddling my thumbs. Meanwhile we're still sleeping in the dining room, and Daisy is still living with my parents. Kevin hopes to finish the bedroom in a couple of weeks (at least I'll be able to help during the floor laying portion). The day after Thanksgiving Kevin -- with the help of his brother -- is going to do some very loud (i.e. dog unfriendly) demolition work in the house, but after that we should be able to bring Daisy home.

So other than paint, we also bought a lot of clothes. We navigated across four freeways for a special trip to South Coast Plaza because they have the only H&M with a men's section worth visiting in Southern California. Since I don't buy their women's clothes, I think of the place as Kevin's store and have thus dubbed the place Homosexuals & Metrosexuals. It's a fun place to people-watch and be people-watched. I had sat my pregnant butt down on the floor while Kevin wandered through the racks, and on his way back holding an armload of clothes to show me, Kevin caught a gay interracial couple smiling at me cradling a sleepy Ana and playing games with Alex.

For some reason Kevin's story reminds me of the time YEARS ago when I caught a burly truck driver looking at me cooing at little baby Alex at a fast food restaurant, waiting for Kevin to bring our food. The truck driver then turned to his equally burly friend and said, "Ever thought about having kids?"

Labels: home improvement, kids, nablopomo, shopping

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Recently a lot of the articles in the New York times have been making me LOL, like this one on why you don't really need to wear deoderant. Earnest science types always tickle my funny bone.

Speaking of washing one's armpits, as I was climbing into the bathtub last night, Ana insisted on joining me. After splashing half the water out of the tub, she tried to crawl on to my belly.

"Be careful, don't squish the baby," I warned her.

"Why?" she asked cheerfully.

"Because you might hurt the baby."

"But it's a boy," she explained.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"It's a BIG boy," she continued patiently. "I like boys."

Apparently Ana thinks we're going to have another boy, and somehow her big brother and daddy have given her the impression that boys can take all kinds of abuse.

So I tried again. "Well, don't squish mommy then."

"Okay."

Today on the drive home Ana told Kevin that girls smell like sweetie and boys smell like chicken. She then inhaled and exhaled loudly to express approval of her daddy's scent. I guess she likes the scent of chicken.

Labels: kids, nablopomo, pregnancy

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I spent about an hour yesterday cutting a mat and framing an enlargement I had printed for my office wall. I am always on the lookout for new ways to make my work environment more pleasant. so when I read Ugly Productivity: 5 Steps to a Distraction-Free Workspace over at Zen Habits today I was horrified. The premise is that the more beautiful your office is, the less time you will spend working and the more time you will spend contemplating the beauty you've surrounded yourself with. "A gorgeous workspace with a view invites longing glances at a sun-drenched lawn, a lingering visual tour across the spines of our book collection, and excessive fiddling with the trinkets and toys co-habiting our desk." Yeah, that's got me written all over it. Sigh.

Tonight I took Alex to Boys' Night Out at his school. It's an annual fund raiser event (along with Girls' Night Out) that gives the boys an opportunity to drag their parents to school for pizza and some educational lectures/experiences. The subjects this year were robots and rockets and the room was packed. Packed beyond overflowing, beyond any hope of finding seating, and very nearly beyond their ability to feed us. The robotics experts were faculty and students from the CS program I attended at the local uni and they brought lots of fun toys. The space exploration history expert was very entertaining and kept the kids captivated as well. Through it all though, I was thinking that they got forty or fifty primary school boys to show up for an evening science symposium and wondering how the same program will play tomorrow with the girls.

Labels: art, nablopomo, parenting, work

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Since discovering Elizabeth George I've been devouring volumes of her work, so much that I've been neglecting to watch the BBC show based on her books, the DVDs for which I keep renewing from the library. Don't get me wrong, the show is superb, but there's only so much you can crowd into an hour, and besides they always show the crime scene too many times for my taste. The books are just a lot richer in other kinds of details.

I got some news today that made Kevin want to celebrate, even though I didn't really consider it good news, more the lesser of two evils, like if the doctor said your extremely sore back was not a slipped disk, but Kevin said it was worth celebrating anyway because it could have been much, much worse, which was the honest to goodness truth, so we had a lovely meal to commemorate the event, and it all made me smile despite myself, so it was a good day after all.

Labels: books, food, nablopomo

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Can we please abolish daylight savings time? It's wreaking havoc with my mental wiring. I've been abnormally tired for two days straight, and with no caffeine to help me along, I'm just going bonkers.

Check out this 2-month-old environment-themed LA Times blog called Emerald City, written by long-time Angeleno, Siel. Her sense of humor drew me in immediately. I liked her slightly skeptical entry on slow food because as much as I've tried to get into the concept, flames and knives make it hard for me to relax while cooking too. Her other entries are in turn inspiring and helpful. I'm definitely bookmarking her link to this guide on personal care products for kids. Maybe it will help me find a kiddie shampoo that doesn't stink so bad like the ones at the supermarket.

Labels: los angeles, nablopomo

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Today we had a well-baby visit in celebration of making it to 15 weeks and out of the rather horrible (nausea 24/7) first trimester. Aside from the usual Q&A and the chance to listen to the heartbeat, it was results day for our first trimester screen. This test is supposed to give more accurate odds for the likelihood of Trisomy 18 and Trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome) than the older expanded AFP screen.

The age-related rate of these birth defects in the general populace is roughly one in a couple hundred. As we learned when we inquired about diagnostic testing for birth defects, the rate of miscarriage associated with amniocentesis is also roughly one in a couple hundred. Wow. We decided that we would avoid diagnostic testing unless the screen results came back strongly positive. Fortunately this turned out not to be the case as our updated odds turned out to be 1:10,000 for one and 1:7,500 for the other.

On the way home we talked about the fact that, despite all the new tests and whatnot, we're feeling pretty relaxed about this whole baby thing the third time around. The first time was stressful. Like waking up multiple times in the middle of the night to check on the baby stressful. The second time wasn't exactly a walk in the park but everything seemed more familiar and the paranoia levels more manageable. Now it's all good.

In other news, I could play with the Gracenote music map for days. When you put a music CD into your computer and your audio player does black magic and suddenly knows the album, artist, and track names, chances are it checked with Gracenote to get the info. It used to be called CDDB before it changed hands and it is one of the better sources of information about music that people are playing right now. As far as I know, the map is something relatively new - it allows you to select a region or country and it will display the current top ten bands being listened to in that area.

Select California and you get the usual suspects: The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen, J.K. Rowling, U2, Kanye West, Pink Floyd, 2Pac, Carrie Underwood, Linkin Park. Alright, how about India's top three? Linkin Park, Jagjit Singh, A.R. Rahman. Ukraine? Linkin Park, Enigma, Rammstein. Kazakhstan? Linkin Park, Genesis, Rammstein. Jordan? Eminem, Metallica, Linkin Park. Thailand? Bodyslam, Linkin Park, Clash.

Do we detect a pattern here? How can it be that in dozens of countries scattered throughout Europe, Asia, and the Middle East people are entranced by a Nu Metal band from Agoura Hills, CA? Is this really the music that unites the cultures of the world or a sign that MTV has taken us to the brink of Armageddon?

Labels: music, nablopomo, pregnancy

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The other day I had a several hours long conversation with an amazing woman that I've admired for some time now. If things go well we'll be working on a project together and this will be only the first of many awesome conversations. Anyway, among other things, we talked about how we raise our daughters, a topic near and dear to my heart.

She began with how long it took for her to convince her daughters that they were good in math -- YEARS!! -- because for whatever reason, getting A's wasn't good enough for them. I shared an interesting talk that I'd recently attended by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the concept of Flow, during which he said that even gifted youth don't study the STEM disciplines* in college unless they experience Flow in these areas during high school. This rang true in what she said about her daughters along with my own experiences, because Csikszentmihalyi also said that girls tend to get stuck on feeling anxious (i.e. getting A's) instead of enjoying the learning experience.

(Boys, on the other hand, are in danger of feeling apathetic, which is the exact opposite of Flow. Ask me nicely and I'll draw the whole spectrum of experiences leading up to Flow for you.)

Somehow we segued into how much more fun it is to buy clothes for little girls compared to little boys and the associated guilt in Being Girly.

I think a lot of educated women experience this guilt, but it begins much earlier, way back when we were the smart girls in school. The dumb girls were the ones spending hours on their hair and makeup while smart girls were not supposed to waste time on such frivolous activities. Many parents encourage this, of course, because they'd rather their daughters keep their noses in their books instead of going out with boys and getting pregnant. (I know that was a leap for some of you, but bear with me, some of them really think this way.) So it's quite a shock for the smart girls when they hit their 20s and 30s to learn that not only is it normal for girls (smart or dumb) to Be Girly, but it's EXPECTED, because their parents want grandkids, dammit. (Yes, another leap, but there you go.)

Talk about mixed messages. I hope to do much better than that by my little girl. For one, I feel absolutely no guilt about how much I spend on skin care products or on some of my more girly hobbies. I think that's a start.

In other news, reading French Women Don't Get Fat has inspired me to cook again. Tonight I made potatoes au gratin (a strangely fattening dish to cook after reading a diet book? not if you've read the book!) and Mexican chicken stew. Dinner reminded me why I had pretty much stopped cooking a few years ago. It was hell trying to get Ana to eat anything, and even the usually agreeable Alex ate only half of what was on his plate. I know it's supposed to take multiple exposures to get kids used to a new dish, but damn if it isn't disheartening to sweat over the stove for two hours only to have to do battle with your kids afterwards. At least Kevin liked the food. Ah well, more potatoes for the grownups, I guess.

Meanwhile, thanks to the potatoes or whatever I'm eating, I've gained the first pound of this pregnancy. I'm definitely showing now, need to unpack the maternity clothes soon. Also, I forgot to mention last week that I felt the baby moving, and so did Kevin. It was awesome.

(Sending happy thoughts to my sis. Maybe they think it's twins?)

*Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. If you work in higher edu you probably already know this is a Really Big Problem for the U.S. It will definitely hit everybody else between the eyes in a few years.

Labels: nablopomo, parenting, pregnancy

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Today was one of those days in SoCal that makes people from colder climes particularly jealous. 88 degrees in November, go figure. We drove over to San Marino to visit Doll House Lady in advance of their permanent closure on 15th December. 70% off everything in the store and they have some really amazing miniatures. I'm really quite amazed that we got out of there for under $100, it's not like I tried to stop Julie from getting more. She came home with a fantastic wood-burning stove and matching copper kettle, a hand cranked sewing machine with table and stool, and loads of other great finds. Now I just have to make the time between home improvement projects to finish the (much assembly required) doll house I got for her ages ago.

After the lilliputian furniture hunting, we stopped at the Santa Anita mall for food and a spin on the carousel. The kids rode Seal and Zebra, both on the upper level. I have a feeling they're going to start asking about a return trip soon.

If you have two monitors on your computer, be sure to check out this Lifehacker article. Years ago I had a Matrox dual output card which handled stretching the task bar in the drivers. These days I'm running AMD video and the single-monitor task bar has been driving me nuts. I'm glad I came across that article in my feed because it has lots of great suggestions for getting the most out of your dual display setup.

Labels: los angeles, nablopomo, shopping, toys

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When I tried to get a flu shot at my local pharmacy last month, I got turned away after disclosing that I was pregnant. "You need to get the preservative-free version," the nurse said. It was tougher than I thought to track down someone offering the vaccine without thimerosal though. I finally heard about a flu shot clinic just for pregnant women, and I went down and got the shot yesterday. My arm has been sore ever since, but at least now I'm protected.

This was the best advice I could offer for a friend who feels taken for granted: do what you can to preserve your dignity, stop giving pieces of yourself away, and save them for people who matter. I take tons of my own medicine and it works for me, but I don't know if it will work for her. Every person is different.

Labels: meds, nablopomo, pregnancy

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Night before Halloween Kevin and I exhausted ourselves in preparation. Around 10 Kevin started carving the pumpkins with his dremel in hopes of speeding up the process. Meanwhile, Alex wanted to wear the same costume that my mom made for him last year, but the belt had become too tight, so I laboriously sewed a replacement belt that would have taken anyone else 5 minutes, maybe less, but being the brilliant seamstress that I am, it took me two hours. We finished our labors around midnight.

The next day, Alex proudly wore his costume to school, and that night we decorated the front steps with the carved jack o' lanterns. A parent's love knows no boundaries.

Getting Ana ready was much simpler. We let her decorate her own mini pumpkin with markers, and she wore the Belle dress I'd bought for her quite prematurely when she was a year old. It's still about two or three inches too long. When Kevin took them out trick-or-treating she had to hitch it up to avoid tripping. It should last another year or five.

For about a month now we've been besieged by crickets. They keep coming inside the house and scaring the kids. For the love of Jiminy or maybe Cri-Kee from Mulan, we keep scooping them up and putting them outside instead of just squashing them. Have any of you also been experiencing an excess of crickets lately?

Labels: kids, nablopomo, parenting

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