Not much, or, Otherwise dull

There has been a lot happening but none of it is worth writing about. I am doing my day to day and that is pretty much all I can say about it. 2009 has become, as the kids say, old and busted. I am looking forward to the New Year and whatever it brings me.

Reunion.

Michael Arquero was one of my closest friends in high school. We were together pretty much ever weekend for three years, since we were both in band, and cling together like desperate lovers is what band people do. When we went to college, he landed in Detroit at art school, and I ended up doing whatever it is I've been doing for twenty years. Well, we both showed up at the HN reunion, and this is how we looked. Not too bad. And no, he wasn't pinching my rear in this picture, although his wife alleged that we were smiling like he was.

Three, or, Glad that's over with

Then......

Now.

No one tells you when you have premies what it's going to be like, because they don't know what the outcomes are going to be. They don't know....heart problems? Asthma? Cognitive delay? Speech problems? Vision problems? It's a crapshoot, really. And throw the multiple thing in, and it's even more of an over under. Somehow I managed to have two kids at 33.3 weeks who are super smart, funny, talented, polite, coordinated, interesting and very much their own identities despite the twin situation. I got lucky, and I know it.

And no, the serene smile on my face wasn't the glow of motherhood. It was the constant pump of morphine into my back. Sorry to burst your bubble. :-)

Tired, or, The Latter Days of Summer

I haven't had much to write about in the last few weeks because I am afraid I have gotten rather boring. Same day, in and out. The children are interesting. Emma is pretty much potty trained. She also has croup, which stinks, but at least she scores popsicles on demand. I joined a gym and went to yoga tonight. Whew! Is it hard work. I know I'll feel it tomorrow. School starts for all the girls on 9/1, and for the first time in four years I'll have three uninterrupted hours to myself four days a week. I am alternating between being alarmed and a little skittish and basking in the glory of solitude. I think this might be my last year of stay-at-home.....the call of the classroom is growing, even if I only get a job at a local college teaching 101 part-time. I feel I've been too long out of the game. Who knows.....

More pictures to come......just..........tired.

Bawlmer, or, Hi, Hon

Here are some photos from one of my new favorite places, Bawlmer Murrylin. It is a wonderful combination of metropolitan snazz and pink flamingo chic. I didn't see John Waters, but I did walk around Johns Hopkins, which I believe would be a wonderful place for Emma. Vaccaro's has the best cannoli in the world, and the quick access to DC cannot be underscored enough...thank you, God and Congress, for the National Portrait Gallery.

Gift from the Sea, or, God Bless AML

Here's the thing about traveling. I like it, but it's a lot of work now. I have to clear my calendar, which means finding someone to do all the legwork with the kids, manage the house, etc. I have wanted to go to Baltimore to see my BFF Lynn in her Louise Jefferson de-luxe apartment in the sky, but absolutely could not go with my family. The kids would fill up that space like wild dogs on a skiff. So after reading Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea, I was inspired. I would go on vacation alone, and everyone else would make it work. Of course, there was quid pro quo...Bill could have his own vacation too, to a place of his own choosing. It just so happened that both vacations occurred in June, but that actually worked out too. By half year mark, I think we were both tired and needed a regroup.

I will post more about Baltimore another day, when I have pictures to narrate. But here's what I will say on the general topic of vacationing alone: do it. Do it at least once a year. Do it for a weekend, or three or four days. Do it to a place where someone you know and love lives, so that you're not lonely. Make your own schedule. Eat what you want. Don't call home too much. Read a crappy book while you're there. Breathe a little. I did, and wow, I feel like a million bucks.

Around the House, or, Now Look What You've Started

This is my new corner project. See that nice Home Organizing book on the counter? That's no accident. I love this counter and specifically asked for it when we redid the kitchen. I envisioned it as my own little workstation. Well, look what's happened. There's a maraca, a dolly gurney, a PECS card for the potty, some random catalogs, the girls' hair do dads, Viewmaster thingys, my phone charger...this space is officially Not Working. I need to get stuff off the counter, get a file folder thingy on the wall, get something cuter to handle my supplies (bags of pens, staplers, tape, etc. is not getting the job done).....the wall that surrounds the fridge is tall and narrow and perfect for quick-view stuff, like a cute bulletin board, or something. I don't know. All I know this, this spot makes me a sad panda. And that's not what we're going for.

Grobles gave us some plants at our chinese-cambodian-italian dinner last night so I spent all morning putting them in, watering them, and the re-organizing everything else in the yard so that it looks weeded and clean. It's hard to admit that I can't have the backyard I really want (no grass, just plants and a path) because the kids need the space to play, but my day is coming. In the meantime, these new hosta and legolaria are going to have to whet my appetite for better yard days ahead.

Well, that's over with, or, 6 weeks to training camp

I'm sad about the Cavs but not surprised because, well, this is Cleveland, and we all carry a perpetual sports sadness with us. Somehow, somewhere, we got the malochhia from some Sicilian widow, and now we can never win the big ones. At least now there's essentially a break from sports around here, since we've been off the Tribe since, I don't know, 2004 or so, and football doesn't start to heat up until mid-summer. Then I get to listen to groans of "the Browns stink!" for 16 weeks. Awesome.

For Jim, or, Take That, Crankshaft

So Grobles and I share hosta every year, which is a nice tradition and saves everyone's plants. Hosta do need room to spread out and fill in, otherwise their root systems seem to get a little cramped and they don't do as well. This year my plants sprung up overnight and are more massive than ever. My front plants are enormous and I already see opporunity to split in the fall. I planted those large purple things in photo 2 last fall as an experiment (they're bulbs) and am so happy I did because look at them! Big full heads, great color. I needed something tall and not green in that corner. Also liking my solid-stripe effect along the drive....not everyone's choice in design but I wanted to mix it up.

Jim joined a garden club, a la Crankshaft, so these photos are especially for him.

http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComick.mpl?date=20090327&name=Crankshaft

bell hooks, or, why am I inside writing when its 80 degrees in Ohio?

Why don’t I like bell hooks? For me, it’s more difficult to explain why one would like her. In some circles, not liking bell hooks is like being down on chocolate and puppies. There is sort of a sucking in of the breath, a wide-eyed stare. “But don’t you find her….transformative? Doesn’t she speak…the TRUTH?” No. I don’t think she does. And when she aligns herself with Paolo Friere, who I find much more accessible, I feel a strain of annoyance. These two are not from the same planet, let alone the same philosophy.
In homage to David Letterman, I will now state the top 10 reasons bell hooks does not impress.

1. Anybody who is that obsessed with the world bourgeois needs to just go have a beer. Seriously. When she talks on p. 178 about silence and obedience in the classroom being a bourgeois value, I wince. I don’t see how creating a classroom which has space for everyone to have an equal chance to participate in a mature, respectful, sensitive way is bourgeois. It necessarily means that when one person is talking, other people are not talking. This also means that we speak to each other like adults, without yelling, being emotional, without anger. hooks criticizes this practice mercilessly. Does this mean that in her class, people get to talk over her? Not listen to her? If she stops to ask them to wait their turn, is she sinking into the bourgeois? How can learning take place in public chaos?

2. She makes sweeping generalizations about class, race and culture with no attempt to quantify them. “From grade school on, we are all encouraged to cross the threshold of the classroom believing we are entering a democratic space . . . “ Really? Are we? Because I have to say, when I entered Sr. Catherine’s sixth grade room at my grade school, there was no mistaking who ran the show. It wasn’t me or any of the other uniformed kids fumbling our way through being eleven while sitting in a tyrant’s classroom. There was no democracy. I don’t know who “all” these people are that hooks knows who enjoyed that kind of thinking, the kind that makes a kid feel important and participatory in the education process, but that wasn’t my experience. And because she writes in narrative, she of course doesn’t bother to cite much of anything as far as other people’s work. I might as well be reading her diary.

3. She defends bad classroom behavior with “those of us from working-class backgrounds may feel that discussion is deeper and richer if it arouses intense responses” (187). Since the classroom is really a microcosm of the larger world, I guess hooks feels the same way about more public encounters as well. Those kids kicking the bleepity bleep out of each other in the playground? Well, they’re just having a deeper, richer discussion about who looked at whose girlfriend or who wore the wrong color to school today. Intense doesn’t have to be aggressive, ugly, threatening, violent. I have been in classes with people who subscribed to hooks’ ideas about “deeper and richer” discussions. These are the people that hold the belief that if they merely talk loudly enough, they win. Unfortunately for them, they’re often saying nothing, just making empty shouting.

4. Her discussion about the benefits of segregated schools for black children—that in segregated schools, black children are encouraged to learn, whereas in desegregated schools, they are encouraged to obey—was probably true in hooks’ personal context as a Southern child. However, she puts forth a very dangerous subtext here, which is that only black teachers can and should teach black children and only in all-black schools, regardless of what our Constitution frames out for us. I’ve met people who believe that and believe it with fervor, anger and open hostility. A certain high school in Cleveland is full of those people. They are doing more damage socially, intellectually and spiritually to their students than they can possibly imagine.

5. “I see many students from ‘undesirable’ class backgrounds become unable to complete their studies because the contradictions between the behavior necessary to ‘make it’ in the academy and those that allowed them to be comfortable at home, with their families and friends, are just too great.” (182). Really? This is her explanation for underperformance by SES students? Not, “they came in with poor study habits and low reading performance because their parents didn’t model for them” or “they lived in a poorly resourced district, so we have to plan ways to creatively and appropriately fill their gaps” or even the highly controversial “they continue to live in neighborhoods where their friends and often own families demonize success.” Here’s the thing. I want kids in risky living and economic situations to school their way to success. I know that they often require a lot of academic and social supports to do so, and I believe it is the university’s job to provide those supports, free of charge. But let’s call it what it is. The university cannot tolerate kids coming to class late, unprepared, wanting 100% accommodation while putting forth 0% effort. That is not support. That’s codependence. If that’s how they “feel comfortable” at home, doing whatever it is they want to do whenever they want to do it, and not adhering to rules and requirements, fine. But don’t complain that they are not hirable and not university material and that it’s everybody else’s fault. In that case, you got what you paid for.

6. Stop, stop, stop using the catchphrase “academy.” It’s irritating and by the time I get through six or seven pages of reading I’m just rolling my eyes.

7. She acts as if heterogeneity in a classroom is somehow a newfangled idea that she is unwilling to trust, sort of like my 74-year old mother with a new TV remote. “If we can trust the demographics, we must assume that the academy (eye roll) will be full of students from diverse classes, and that more of our students than ever will be from poor and working class backgrounds.” Well, yes. That is probably true, even if hooks distrusts the data because it was probably analyzed by some white guy in a polo shirt in some university office somewhere (I know that guy at CSU, his name is David Crumb, and yes, he is polo shirted every day). Every classroom is inherently heterogeneous, even if every kid sitting in every seat is black or if every kid is white. Teachers who overlook that are missing a big part of the picture. hooks acts like she invented this idea. Hmm.

8. “The scholarly field of writing on critical pedagogy and/or feminist pedagogy continues to be primarily a discourse engaged by white women and men.” (9) Again, no citations for this statement, no references. Who knows if this allegation is actually true. The subtext of course is that we should be dismissive of whatever is going on in critical pedagogy right now because it is still being represented by the oppressive class. I’m just glad somebody is still talking about feminism and I don’t care what they look like.

9. “My pedagogical practices have emerged from the mutually illuminating interplay of anticolonial, critical, and feminist pedagogies.” (10). I don’t know what this means. I think she’s just blowing smoke here.

10. “Teaching is a performative act . . . our work is not meant to be a spectacle.” This is true. I am not here for anyone’s entertainment. Teaching is all business for me, although it is immensely enjoyable and I often feel the buzz that actors must get when they know they are working the crowd. This is about the only thing in the hooks readings that doesn’t finagle my spine a little. Why can’t she be more like this and less like that?

That’s my last paper for this class. It’s 80 degrees, my children are outside playing, and I am tired from 15 weeks of serious, productive work. If we had read hooks earlier in the semester, this paper probably would have looked very different….but, knowing me, probably not.

West Side Wonderland, or, Why Does This Place Even Get a Zip Code?

So my old friend from HN, Jeanette Fiedler Habyl Botsch, had a thing at her place on Sunday and I went. We hadn't talked in about 15 years but that's what happens in the world of Facebook....people find each other. Jeanette and I were tight for three years. She let me drive her car, we were in band together (yes, even band camp), sleepovers, you name it. Lots of stories there. Well, on the way to her place on the 1-4-8 in West Park I took the long way and drove down Lorain Ave. I stopped at Fridrich's to see how much a senior bike would cost me ($400) (in full disclosure, I was also tight with Keith Fridrich of the aforementioned, but he lives in Vegas now), the Kmart at 150th to buy garbage bags, in Jeanette's house, where I met that unusual animal, and finally to her door, where she looked as good as ever. Not a wrinkle.

The west side, at least off Lorain, is terrible. Terrible. Rarely have I seen places as run down and decrepit, and people, I lived in Camden NJ for two years. Jeanette is on 148th temporarily until she buys her ex-husbnd out of his share of their 3000 sq. ft. hosue in North Ridgeville. It's a good thing. I don't like the idea of having to go into Lorain County to see her, but my Lord. If I don't see that area of the city again in my life, I don't think I will suffer much.

Cleaning Again, or, That's going to be some garage sale

I read an article by Erin Rooney Doland, editor of www.unclutterer.com. In it, she noted ten things that will help you get rid of your stuff. The trick is changing the way you think about your stuff.

Here's where it gets complicated for me.

I was raised by a Depression baby who was raised by a immigrant who is the world's leading authority on what she calls "frugality." I call it hoarding. My grandmother has her size 2 dress from her second wedding in 1953 (as well as the matching size 4.5 shoes), every cookbook the Pillsbury Bake Off published, every weird thing anyone ever gave her...you name it, she has it. My mother is also a keeper; her tag line every time I try to get rid of something is, "But you used to be so interested in [Irish history, Strawberry Shortcake dolls, Elvis]." Or worse, she will cluck her tongue and say, "Didn't [Grandma, Auntie, some old boyfriend's mother who got it at a garage sale] give that to you?" And back it goes to its home, where it remains, dust collecting and sad, waiting for an owner who will love it.

Not anymore.

Stuff I don't like is going away. Stuff that irritates me. Stuff that is worn, ugly, dirty, dated, impossible to coordinate, stuff that was given to me by dead people and people I don't like (often the same genre).....stuff I don't need, stuff that doesn't speak to my soul, stuff I will never again use professionally (lots of books fall into this category....I've held an M.A. in English for 13 years now, and I highly doubt that I will ever write the kind if literary criticism I did during that time in my life....so why hold onto 24 volumes on James Joyce? Just so people can peruse my bookcases and see them? Even I'm not that vain).

I am having a garage sale on June 13. I am going to bill it "The Best Damn Garage Sale You Will Attend This Year, and If You Miss It, You Will Be Sorry." I am selling it all....books, toys, the kids' cribs (hopefully I can unload them on Craig's List first), baskets, old ugly dishes, decor I hate...I am not fooling around. I can break the cycle of stuff insanity now. My kids deserve it.

Survived, or, Gentlemen, Start Your Coffeepots

So it's been 39 days without coffee or ice cream. Upshot: lost 12 pounds, cleaned out my caffeine-addled liver, didn't have to pee 14 times before 10 am. Downside: even I admit I was cranky for a few days, but it didn't affect me physiologically in other ways--no shakes, which many people said I would have. I didn't crave other caffeineated items--I didn't start swigging Coke, for example. I pretty much switched to decaf hot tea in the morning and water the rest of the day and I was good.

Did I learn anything spiritually? I have to admit, no.

Do I feel like I'm a better person? Again, no.

Do I feel like I wasted my time? No. It was a good test of mettle, anyway. Labor was way, way harder.

Would I do it again? Lent is like taxes...every year you have to deal with it.

Plan for the morning? that coffee is going on at 7 am, rain or shine. Stop by and have a cup with me.

Poor Angie, or, Suck it Up, Girl

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,511470,00.htmlFor eight years, I had to live in George Bush's America. And it sucked. This guy and his BFF Dick "I'm smarter than you because I say I am" Cheney ignored any damn part of the Constitution they wanted, including that wee bit about the powers of the Executive Branch, the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment, and giggled about it like schoolgirls on the back of a field trip bus. They violated the Geneva Convention, told the Red Cross to shove it because they dared to state that the US was committing torture, and gave the Saudis, Wall Street, and anybody else who could make them money a wink and a smile and let them go about their business. And what happened if you said anything that could be remotely construed as criticism of their policies? You were un-American. You were against freedom. You weren't a patriot. You didn't honor the sacrifices of the men and women who serve in the military. You didn't honor 9/11. People I know, right now, believed and continue to believe this crap because George Bush sold them a culture of fear. And I had to listen to this dumbass stutter, strut and mispronounce "nuclear" for the better part of my thirties. And get re-elected. Unreal.

So now there's a guy in the White House who actually thinks that the Constitution is a good idea, that torture is a crime, that real freedom and patriotism means you're allowed to disagree with your government and they won't punish you for it, like tapping your phone, or looking at your mail, because after all, we're better than Stalin or the Gang of Four. But according to Texan and card-carrying GOP babe Angie Harmon, having Obama in the White House means she can't disagree with the President or else the media will call her a racist.

People still fear being called a racist, I suppose. It's a knee-jerk thing that nobody likes to talk about. However, is it worse to be called a racist by a tabloid media that makes up news and publishes "stories" that everyone knows is bullcrap, or is it worse to be called un-American and anti-patriotic by your own President, the same guy who seems to think that the FBI is his secret police and that, like Richard Nixon, whatever he does is legal because he and his lawyer say it is?

I think I know.

Brown, or, This is Terrible

It was time today to bring out my summer things from the back of the closet and put a lot of heavy winter clothes away. I dumped out everything from my drawers and did a big clothing sort on the floor. Slowly, a disturbing pattern began to emerge. Everything that was ugly, worn out, misshapen, pilled, faded or otherwise wholly unwearable unless you're changing the oil in the car was brown. Light brown, dark brown, olive green brown, off brown, dirty tea cup brown. This means that I have been wearing this brown clothing all winter to the point of exhaustion, and it is so disheveled that I can no longer stand the sight of it. I used to have all cute clothes. This is not the example I need to be setting. In walks Emma.

"What is this?" she asks, swirling her tiny pointer finger at the mess on the floor. "Who did this?"

"I made this mess," I said. "These are Mommy's clothes."

She stared. First at the clothes, then at me. She made a face.

"I don't like this," she remarked, still swirling. "I don't like this at all." She paused. "This is a big ugly mess."

"Yes, Emma. It is."

More staring.

"Put this in the trash." And with that, she walked off in search of her twin.

When the two year old knows that your clothes are ugly, it's time to move on. I bought a pink lipstick today, wore a red tank top under my standard black t-shirt, and felt better immediately.

Ho Ho Cake, or, It's Not So Bad Not Eating Ice Cream

So my Lenten deal of no coffee and no ice cream is going ok. Coffee is still very hard, especially in the mornings, and decaf tea just doesn't give me the kind of kick I'm usually looking for. The girls have taken to playing "coffee" with their little wooden coffee maker and I am the first one they come looking for when they have just poured a fresh "cuppa cuppa." How sweet.

I'm not really missing ice cream, however. I have somehow turned my off-ice-cream 40 days into an exploration of other desserts that are equally nice, if not more so. Case in point: cream puffs from Presti's and this giant Ho Ho cake at Grobles'. Presti's cream puffs might as well be heaven sent, and this Ho Ho cake is so decadent, so rich.

I don't feel bad about the caloric intake of these items, because they are few and far between. I'm not going to Presti's on even a weekly basis, much to my own and the girls' chagrin. And the Ho Ho cake was a nice treat. Nice, indeed. I could have wrestled Bill for the last of it tonight, but Lent is, after all, about restraint.

What I write about in my "free" time, or, the revolution is coming

I have no idea what goes on in my head when I don’t understand something.

From Curriculum: Creating the Metacurriculum

In the five articles we read for this mod, no one turn of a phrase created a more succinct image than this. Imagine the speaker as a cartoon character, sitting in front of a text—any text—with the ubiquitous dialogue balloon over her heard and nothing in it but black scribbles. Every student has felt this kind of mental paralysis at one time or another. The content causing the trouble could be anything: fractions, Shakespeare, inert gases, the Rule Against Perpetuities. The challenge for students and their teachers becomes how to step back away from the discontent and decide how to approach the material in a fresh way, a workable way. Metacognition and its ally, metacurriculum, offer learners and their guiders tools to create spaces where thinking about thinking can be explored, discussed, and implemented. My position is that any subject can and should be “metacurriculum-ed” to meet the needs of diverse learners in a progressive school culture. The issues we need to frame in order to accomplish “metacurriculum-ing” include how to rebrand core content, how and what students would benefit, and how to sell it to a very demanding yet change-fearing public.

In “Curriculum: Creating the Metacurriculum” Perkins notes that Schoenfeld’s study on problem management yielded interesting results. Mathematics students who can self-analyze with such prompts as, ”Am I making progress with this approach?” or “How can I check my answer?” are better inquirers and users of mathematical principles. In “Teaching Intelligence,” Perkins also quotes Binet on the subject of self-analysis, noting that students need “mental orthopedics” in order to learn how to learn. Perkins wraps up the trifecta with a solid observation in “Content: Toward a Pedagogy of Understanding” that such understanding is not “either you get it or you don’t”; this approach is narrow, old-fashioned and wholly unworkable in today’s school culture. One way to move students away from this closed-ended world of being good at a subject (or not) is to rebrand the way we in effect market the discipline. Mathematics, rather than being a rote course of study that covers principles and formulae, transforms into a course on problem solving that utilizes mathematical principles to illuminate larger metacognitive concepts. No student likes to think of himself as a “bad problem solver,” yet this same student might too willingly put himself in the category of being “bad at math.” Take math out of the prime slot and shift the emphasis to, as Perkins describes, thinking about options, what has been tried, what worked, what didn’t and why, what is always right (Pythagorean theorem) and why that matters in the larger scope. Schools could use numerancy as a medium for conveying the larger metacognitive processes that extant mathematics curricula purports to illuminate but clearly fails to do, given the state of mathematics scores in many districts. The proposition is radical, certainly; it would change not only the way mathematics is taught but how mathematics teachers are taught to teach it. The end result, however, could be a whole new class of students who, because they can solve problems, can complete complex mathematical proofs with low frustration and high achievement. More importantly, these same students, because math was just media, could walk their problem solving skills out the classroom door and transfer them to social studies, science….or, just maybe, real life.

Could any student benefit from this remarketed, freshened up version of the American school curriculum? I posit yes. In “Teaching Thinking and Problem Solving,” Bransford, et. al. compartmentalize the IDEAL approach (identify, define, explore, act and look & learn) to problem solving. This method is so straightforward that it could be communicated even to kindergartners, who, having survived toddlerhood with all its developmental lurchings, could be led to understand it. Children are natural explorers; whether in struggling with bringing the abstraction of language down to the concrete (child holds up unfamiliar object and asks, “What is this?”) or in examining natural phenomena (“when the sun goes to sleep, the moon is awake”) children want to make sense of their environment. This is true even of children with differentiated learning needs, who also crave structure and order but may require an alternative route to create this kind of meaning for themselves. If the notion of problem-solving as paramount is highlighted in early childhood education, the results of the investment will begin to pay dividends almost immediately. Rather than suffering from the disconnect so many students experience on encountering higher-order skill based courses in middle school, children would be able to bring with them their intellectual suitcase of problem-solving techniques and expand on them to meet the new demands that the curricula imposes upon them. Again, the idea of redesigning early childhood programs to emphasize not preacademic skills but pre-LIFE skills (ideally, through play, which is how children learn best) is taking the train in the complete opposite direction of where we are going now (how many times have we heard, “kindergarten is the new first grade?”). However, for many children, particularly those on the autistic spectrum, teaching preacademic skills are for naught if they can’t expand their problem solving techniques in simple, everyday play situations. Would a play-based, problem-solving preschool without the esoteric trappings of, say, the Montessori method “go” in today’s climate? The bigger question is, why couldn’t it?

This brings up the last point in this exploration of metacurriculum, and that is the hard sell. Perkins and Grotzer rightly note in “Teaching Intelligence “ that instruction can help people to think better . . . such effects would not have the broad generality or the persistence of IQ.” If all we are concerned about as a culture is the quantifiable, then yes, my suggestions about revolutionizing curricula are but academic musings. But if we want, as we purport to want, children who can grow into adults who can solve problems, fix things, figure things out, get the job done, then isn’t teaching the process of solving, fixing, figuring, and getting really key? Don’t then the petty disputes between the disciplines become collateral to the bigger issue: producing great thinkers? A student who can think greatly—bigly—widely about many subjects can self-select the one she wants to uncover more deeply. Because she is a great thinker, she chooses more wisely, with better forethought, perhaps more enjoyment, and ultimately, with more long-term success. Making the paying public believe that exploding the curricula we now have isn’t academic terrorism is indeed a hard sell. Quantifiably, however, the data we get back from so many school districts is uniformly discouraging. Perhaps imploding what we have would actually be an opportunity to build an oasis in an existing intellectual desert.

Sisters

Here I am with the Deputy Grand Matron of District 3, Sherry Kita, and her Grand Page, Judi Pisczak (standing) of the Order of the Eastern Star in Ohio. In other words, my friends and coworkers from 2006. Our girls have sure come a long way.

My mess, or, why can't this house stay clean?

Yesterday morning I spent 42 minutes walking around the house cleaning. This doesn't mean I was sweeping, or dusting, or doing dishes. I walked around the house picking up random things from the floor and putting them back where they are (theoretically, in my world view) supposed to go. Among the things I found just lying around:
1. One dress up shoe, purple, presumably Helen's.
2. One play TV from the dollhouse. Emma insists it's broken because it won't turn on.
3. One child's sock, purple (no idea where the mate is)
4. One sticker, floral, with sparkles
5. Mardi Gras beads, green, metallic
6. 6 play frogs, various colors, which are supposed to live on a bench in my kitchen, but had somehow migrated to the Sesame Street playset
7. One Little People person, Maggie, under the front hall cedar chest
8. One Snow White diaper, shoved into a doll buggy, presumably to hide it for safekeeping
9. One Bonne Bell lipgloss, mine, with a tooth divet in it. Emma doesn't believe they're not candy
10. One half of a blue plastic Easter egg. Again, no idea where the other half is, or how it even got into this house.

All I want is a clean, streamlined Scandivian-style house. What I got is an evolving, completely thrown together, always interesting mishmosh house. Not House Beautiful material. I love it, but man, when will I stop scrubbing dry erase marker off my kitchen wall?

My Solitary Life, or, Anne Morrow Lindbergh got it right

We had a dance party for the girls yesterday with about 8 other neighborhood friends. (see 9.39 for photos). It was great getting ready, although I did fall into "hurry up hurry up" mode, which Bill really dislikes. After the commotion of working the room, and visiting with friends, it was nice to have the house quiet. This morning Bill took the girls to the zoo and I am just trying to wrap up my perpetual loose ends. I have always had a big interior life...I think I am essentially an introvert in that way, because big parties and going out isn't my idea of a lot of fun. There are days, like today, when my brain is telling me that I need solitude. I really believe, as AML did, that women can't manage everything they have to manage if they can't manage their own internal space. The struggle between constantly being on call and wanting silence creates a sad inertia, especially this time of year, when warm fresh air is infrequent and the house walls are giggling with dust, cracks, torn wallpaper and dull decor. I have read the new IKEA catalog about 20 times, imagining what I could do IF....and that can get depressing real quick. Having 120 precious minutes to myself, even without coffee to accompany me, can be just the thing the therapist ordered.

D Day plus 2

I think what I miss about morning coffee is the ritual of it. Filling the basket, getting the water. It certainly isn't having to use the bathroom 20 times before 10, or know that I way loaded up on calories on stuff that doesn't give me a nice full feeling. I also miss the way the house smells like morning when coffee is on. A whistling tea kettle is nice, but that doesn't signal the beginning of a day to me. I don't think I'm cranky or at all unhappy biochemically. I don't think I need the caffeine of coffee the way others need nicotine, for example. I just miss the representation of it, the idea that about half a billion other people in the world start their mornings the same way, and that I was a part of that little community.

Oddly enough, ice cream has not been a challenge.

On the home decor front, we are rethinking the bathroom color to a warm cocoa, because we have blue edge tile and I think brown and blue is an incredibly sleek, modern combo. I am also thinking of ways to get more space in the girls' room. It may involve-gasp--a bunk bed. Stay tuned.

D-Day

The first day of no coffee hasn't been terrible. Ellie skipped nap and didn't want snack (amazingly) so by 5:15 she was super squirrely. The twins were okay, except Helen reiterated her new line, "I don't want to listen to you!" at a moment when I didn't find it particularly endearing. I ran out of steam at 8 and laid in my bed for a half an hour, sort of asleep, sort of not. I don't know if that was an effect no caffeine or if my brain just needed a quiet place.

I also stayed true to my no-ice cream rule, which is hard, because Ellie likes a few bites before quiet time.

I have heard that if you do something for 21 days it's a habit. I have 20 years of coffee to unlearn in 40...will I go back to it like an old sheepish lover? Will I be resigned to only being a social drinker? Or will this experiment lead to a total foregoing of one of the longest relationships I have ever had?

40 days and counting, or, Coffee, I hardly knew ye

I haven't done anything for Lent in a couple of years. Two years I was pregnant and did not feel it was in my best interest to restrict my diet. I am just sort of in limbo with Church requirements because I'm not sure anymore whose interests they are serving. But this year, I decided to give up both coffee and ice cream for the entire 40 days.

Here's the thing with ice cream--it just tastes good. I like it.

But coffee.

I love. Love. Love coffee. I have had at least one cup every day (except when I was pregnant) for the last 20 years. I cannot tell you how much I anticipate that pot filling up every morning with hot, glorious brew. And it's not just coffee. It's the cream, the opaque beauty of it dropping into the cup plip plop, and the sugar. Well, Splenda. Which is just Splendid (damn marketroids).

It's a zillion calories a day I don't need. Let's not talk about the caffeine. Because I need to be MORE jazzed up, right?

My blood pressure is too high and I would like to be 20 pounds less by the first family wedding of the year, which is July 19.

And I have my 20th HS reunion this year. Don't even get me started on what that will cost me in dermatology and dental bills.

So I am giving up two things I love as a sacrifice for Lent, but ultimately the sacrifice benefits me. Does it count? I don't know if I can have the theological argument about it and win. But at least I might be off Sular by June.

Frustrated, or, I thought I was smarter than this

I do not understand iTunes. I don't understand why it just doesn't just work like I think it should, i.e. buy song, pop in a CD, burn said song to CD, have music--->will travel. There are all kinds of "support" pages for my trouble (people, I just want to listen to Kelly Clarkson in the privacy of my own van). So now Bill has to get involved in my learning curve, which can cause all kinds of problems for me if HE gets frustrated that I don't understand (anyone else have a husband who, when you say "my computer is doing X" just pulls at your chair and says, "MOVE"?)

I want things to work the way I want them. I want stuff to work at my intuitive level. Why is that so hard?

Goodbye, friend.

Miss Wendy was Ellie's dance teacher last year and the twins take her class with one of her colleagues, Miss Nancy. As you can see, Wendy was a young, vibrant, beautiful mother, teacher and inspiration. I can't even believe that I have to write that we lost her this week. I took this photo of her in April.

Wendy is her own shining star now.

One done.

The finished result....functional and FREE, since I haven't painted them yet (when the weather breaks and I can keep the side door open I'll freshen the up). One job off my list. We start the bathroom tomorrow!

The shelves were pretty grody, I have to say. Too long ignored.

An unworkable mess. All these stuff will either live in the garage, on shelving in the basement, or got pitched.

Just for the record.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28939439/

http://www.newsweek.com/id/182355

So now the truth about this octuplet mess is starting to leak out, as the truth inevitably does, and I have to say I am pretty horrified at this turn of events. Initially, I was thinking, well, this woman must have gone to pretty serious lengths to either get pregnant or maintain a pregnancy. Just from having friends who have gone through various kinds of fertility therapies I understand that not every embryo in an IVF situation takes, or not every monthly Clomid cycle will ultimately end in a multiple birth. Chances are better, sure, but it's not a guarantee. So when the octuplet story initially broke, I imagined that this woman was childless, the clock was clanging, her doctor was perhaps a little more aggressive than I would have wanted (but everyone likes the doctor they like)....and she ended up with 8, and for a lot of reasons, many of which I don't personally understand, she decided to carry them all, presumably because she wanted to (in her mind) maximize her chances of having any babies, and probably for some religious reasons thrown in.

Oh, how wrong I was.

This woman has six living children. It wasn't that she had six pregnancies and lost them. No, no. She has delivered six living human beings. They are living in her house. She isn't childless. She is the exact opposite of childless. She has 200% more children than I do, right now. And yet she sought fertility treatments? And some clown who probably bought his medical degree from some school in Granada gave it to her? And gave her EIGHT EMBRYOS right off the bat? For what? To prove it could be done? To put this woman in a position of having FOURTEEN CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF SEVEN? Does anyone else see how utterly insane and unworkable this situation is?

I had twins. It wasn't eight. It wasn't even three. It was two. And Ellie was 15.5 months old when they were born. And I will tell you right now that it's a good thing I took lots of pictures the first year of the twins' life, because I almost remember nothing from it. There were plenty of days where I had 2 hours' sleep, for days in a row, for weeks in a row. Helen couldn't digest anything with lactose in it and until we switched her to soy she never slept more than 45 minutes straight for about 8 weeks. You have no idea how horrible it is to have a premature baby who can't, won't sleep. And then Emma was on a completely different schedule (and I was nursing her) and let's not forget Ellie, who still was a baby herself. And I had lots of help, paid, unpaid, related, unrelated but might as well be. I wasn't trying to do it by myself, although Bill did have to go back to work and I had to figure it out. I didn't go to the grocery store with all three of them until the twins were about 6 months old. I didn't really go anywhere for about six months because the twins were small, I needed to avoid the possibility of RSV, and Ellie wasn't a confident walker, so how was I going to manage in public? We easily did 30 to 40 diapers a day some days for a long time. Formula is $25 a can--and one can maybe lasted us a week? I don't even remember. The Target bills were just horrific.

And here's the upside--my twins were a decent size for their gestational age (4.9 and 4.5, in birth order) and had no medical problems. None. Helen came home at a week. Emma had one episode of heart arrythmia and had to stay in the hospital five extra days. That was it. No GI tubes, no heart monitors, no nothing. My c-section was standard, nonemergent, and I recovered normally. Yet I have met women at the rehab hospital where Ellie gets OT who had twins the same gestational week (33.5 weeks) whose children have cerebral palsy, are deaf, have seizures, had major heart defects, had collapsed lung, you name it. One woman lost one of her twins to bowel necrosis and the living child has epilepsy. This is aside from any trouble the mothers had after delivery, like hemorraging or other complications. And all I did was walk away with two super healthy kids, typically developing, and sassy as hell. I can't explain it. That's the miracle part, for me.

But what has happened in California...I don't think I would call it a miracle. I don't think I know what to call it. I think some serious investigating needs to be done into this doctor's decisionmaking process. I definitely think social services needs to be on call to get this family on track, because they do not even know what they are in for. Would I give this woman a psych eval? You betcha.

Just because science makes it possible for something to be done does not mean it should be done. I don't feel good about anything in this octuplet story. I don't think babies should have to start out life at under 2 pounds, in incubators, unable to be nursed or held. In a single or even twin situation, sometimes that happens, although doctors are really good at getting that NOT to happen. In a super multiple situation, over five or six babies, it's sort of a given. Is that fair to these children, to put them at risk for stroke, cognitive delay, major organ malfunction? Just because science said, We can do this?

Winter Fun, or, Lord, it gets cold here

No, I didn't take the kids out in -9 degrees. But as soon as the temp crept up towards 25, out we went on Sunday. The snow was powdery, so no snowman, but we had a good time flopping around and making snow food in their play house, which stays outside. Everything went great until Helen took off her mittens, got cold, got upset and cried, threw up from being upset and crying, and had to be put to bed at 11:30 am. The funny thing is that being in the snow is as fun as I always remembered it to be, and I regret not playing in it more every year. I won't make that mistake again.

Finally.

Sick by the numbers

This flu I have had is the sickest I can remember being in my adult life. I know that sounds dramatic, but I am not by nature a sickly person, and I don't count painful or lengthly post-childbirth maladies, even with a c-section, as being "sick." Here's the score on what has gone on since Wednesday, when this thing really blew up:

5 number of days I have been wholly incomprehensible, incoherent, and otherwise cognitively disengaged

8 number of pajama/housepant/tshirts that I sweated through, unsuccessfully, in an attempt to break my fever

8 number of showers I took to facilitate this effort plus get the fever gink off me, as well as drain my ever-pounding impacted sinuses

5 number of meals I ate, in order: soup, 1/2 a bowl of coco puffs (a mistake, and Emma ate the other half), toast (also a mistake, the texture of bread nearly killed me), soup, and soup

6 cups of tea, which went down ok, but because I wasn't eating anything, gave me a little heartburn on top of everything else

1 box of tissues

4 packs of nighttime theraflu, which saved me

3 kids who still love their unfun, sick mother

6 average number of daylight hours I was passed out on the couch or in bed

1 vaporizer, which like a birdbrain I didn't remember we had until today, when I should have been using it all weekend

1 great husband who took care of everything, and therefore saved my universe

Sick, or, Sick

I don't have a lot going on right now because I have the flu. The full body ache, fever, lay around the house flu. And yes, I got the flu shot, which my mother accused me of NOT getting (as if it's my fault that I am down for the count). I was sick enough that Bill had to take a sick day to care for the children, who I was absolutely unable to care for. Thanks, Bill. Everyone was happier for your efforts.

Happy New Year

In case you think all I do is follow the kids around and take their pictures, be assured that my plate is quite full with plans for the house this winter.

1. Refigure the basement. Here's the thing: we probably have a good sized working basement space (not counting the finished part, which is the kids' train room). But it's definitely not used efficiently. Bill had mentioned moving my washer/dryer over, building himself a new workbench (Family Handyman has plans for one) and then setting up a a dry goods/large cookware storage unit where his big, bulky, unwieldly so-called "workbench" is currently. Well, I'm all for it. I would like a nicer wash area, including a new slop sink. I would like big, sturdy shelving for stored can goods, soups, sauces, etc. (Sometimes Zagara's has sauce 5/$5.00. Well, who can pass it up? At the same time, who can store it? Exactly). I have an enormous lobster pot that has been inexplicably living in the attic because I have no where to put it. Insane. We need a better system. So this is hot on the agenda for me.

2. I think the time has come to admit that the main bathroom has to be dealt with. The wallpaper is peeling back, there's mold growing behind it (yes, it's visible, and yes, it's gross, and yes, I know it. Believe me), and the sink has a leak problem anyway. We have all the hardware for it--when Expo went out of business Bill cleaned them out of the hardware we knew we'd need for it. Well, I just don't think we can postpone it any longer. I posit that we strip the wallpaper, clean and Kill's the walls, and paint in one or two bright colors (I vote for deep cobalt and hot orange). Fix the sink, change the hardware, and move on. We are not talking a Groble-sized bathroom redo. That is not in the plans for...well, a long time. But we have been in this house now 7 years in February, and I believe that my patience for the floral-stripe-monstrosity in the bath has come to an inevitable end. I'm also hating the window treatment. So, the time has arrived.

3. We have built in cubbies just inside the side door (which also needs replaced). I have a yearning to get the junk out of them--this is stuff that should technically live in the garage, like car cleaning accessories, and planters, and fill dirt--paint them, and use them as a pseudo-mud room area for the kids' shoes, which now live in a planter basket in my living room. Yes. You read that right. Also insane. The cubbies we have are totally wasted on what we use them for. The children are old enough--and Emma is bossy enough--to be able to manage their own cubby for shoes, hats, boots, etc. and not trek filth through the house. Ellie does it at school! She can do it at home, and so can the little ones. This is also a project about which I am hot to trot.

Here are some links to my ideas. Enjoy.

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/878025/index.cfm?clg=32&bnrid=3180501&cm_ven=FRO&cm_cat=Shopping&cm_pla=default&cm_ite=default

Colors: cobalt glaze, orange zest, sweet apricot and glacial tint from www.behr.com