The storks

Sticky things for Valentine's Day and beoynd

Cute fruit labels courtesy of Twig and Thistle.  Print them on label paper, cut them out, attach to your husband's lunch items and relax, knowing that he is certainly being made fun of by all of his male coworkers if they notice this at all.  They probably won't, because I don't think guys read fruit labels, or even know they exist.  But still - cute.  And also - shows you care.

I love everything in Pimplemeees, but this Family Planner takes the pie.

 

Love these cute kids' tattoos from yet another Dutch shop.

The mouse and the cow

Daddy was working late today.



Wombat put his mouse in the school bus with all the pencils and said "Mouse is driving to find Daddy".

I said "Oh, Mouse, Daddy is at work."

Wombat said "Mouse is going to drive to Daddy's work to find Daddy!"

"OK".



Cow decided to come along for the ride. Because he and mouse are friends.



Mouse and Cow needed to drive the bus to Daddy's work, and so they needed to go outside....





.... but then they realized they didn't have jackets. So they couldn't go outside. And they were sad.





Then, they had dinner and felt better.

Wombat Speaks

He started saying "Of course!" instead of "Yes".  He says "I need" instead of "I want", but always adds "Please" at the end.  It sounds very managerial.

At Behinaha (on occasion of BaBa's birthday):

Scene: Benihana chef is making fried rice.  He heats up all ingredients separately, including the egg (splattered to look like a duck); Wombat watches intently and identifies the ducky.  Then, the chef scrambles everything together to make fried rice whole.

Wombat (loudly, with great indignation): He made a MESS!!
Everyone: chuckle
Wombat: (with indignation intensifying): A big, BIG MESS!
Me: It's true, he did.  Well, he made fried rice.  But you are right, fried rice is sort of a mess.
Wombat: (to chef): Clean it up!!

Drawing:

Scene: BaBa and Daddy are drawing pictures under Elijah's supervision.  He is bringing them paper and instructing them on what to draw.
Daddy: (showing Elijah a drawing): Is this good?
Elijah: (critically): A-hem. Hmmm. (turns around and walks away).

Aging
When asked how old he is, Elijah says "Two". When asked how old Daddy and Mommy are, Elijah says "Five".  When asked how old grandparents are, he says "Five".  Obviously, five is an ancient age to two-year-olds.  It occurs to us that his daycare has kids up to kindergarten, so 5 is the oldest age is has met.  We are, basically, pterodactyls from a prehistoric era.

Moodiness:
When something is not going his way, Elijah says "I'm saaaaaaaad".  He then pouts and sometimes plops down into a child's pose.  If you ask "What are you sad about?", he doesn't say anything, just puffs out his lower lip and sometimes says "Mommy also be saaaaaaaad?".  When things go his way again, he perks up and says "I'm happy!"  This interchange is especially heartbreaking when something he REALLY doesn't like happens - like washing hair.  He screams bloody murder each time we wash his hair, and one time, coming out of the tub with his hair freshly washed and his eyes still full of tears, he was sniffling and trying to compose himself and mumbling "I'm happy! I'm happy!".  Oh it just makes you want to give him the world.

And here is the cutest thing of all:


Don't like it from Olya on Vimeo.

It's a Jacket, Stupid.

Scene: Bedtime.

Iggy:  Elijah, it's time to go upstairs.
Elijah: Waaaaaah!  Noooooooo!

Iggy: Well, do you want to sleep down here?
Elijah: Yes.
Iggy: Get ready for bed then.  Where are you going to sleep?
Elijah: (points to a spot on our rug)
Iggy: Where is your pillow?
Elijah: (goes and grabs a small pillow; plops it on the spot on the rug)
Iggy: What about a blanket?
Elijah: (looks all around the room to find a blanket.  There are no blankets to be seen.)

Elijah heads upstairs.

Iggy: Are you going upstairs to get a blanket?
Elijah: Yes.
Iggy: No, no, you can't; you said you want to sleep here so you have to stay here.  If you can't find a blanket, then I guess you can't sleep here and we'll sleep upstairs.
Elijah (after a very, very brief pause): Daddy go get a blanket upstairs!


Iggy and I both silently applaud the kid for running circles around us and figuring out the logical puzzle we are trying to trap him in.  Iggy refuses to go get a blanket for Elijah. Frustrated and upset, Elijah collapses on his chosen spot on the rug.

Iggy (soothingly, grabbing a sweatshirt from a chair and draping it over Elijah): Here, Elijah; here is a blanket.
Elijah (takes a look at what has been draped over him): No! NO NO NO! (Throws sweatshirt off himself, gets up to his full height, holds the jacket like a piece of evidence at a crime scene and says, loudly, with a look of frustration, disbelief and a condescending voice).  THIS! IS! A! JACKET!!!!
Iggy: Let's play pretend that it is a blanket?
Elijah: NO! NO! NO, DADDY, THIS IS A JACKET!!

Iggy and I try not to crack up.  Iggy points at the sleeping bag in the corner.

Iggy: Ok, well, what about this? Is this a blanket?
Elijah: NO!
Iggy: Then what is it?
Elijah: (discovers he has no words to describe a sleeping bag.  But he is sure as anything that the word is not 'blanket'.  Getting more and more frustrated by the minute):  Aaargh... Ummm... YOU SLEEP ON IT!!!

Iggy and I redouble our efforts not to crack up.  Wombat is clearly really frustrated and cannot believe that we can't even tell the difference between jackets, sleeping bags and blankets.  Trying to diffuse him, I give him an actual blanket I just spotted on the couch.

Me: Here, Elijah, a blanket.
Elijah: (takes it with a sigh and goes to lie down with it over him.  Halfway to his chosen spot on the rug, changes his mind and runs back to Iggy): Look, Daddy!  Look! This! This is a blanket!! This.  This is.

Elijah shakes the blanket in front of Iggy demonstratively, until he is satisfied that Daddy had adequate time to memorize what blankets are.  And what they are not.

If he knew that nursing homes exist, I am sure he would be dialing the numbers to get Iggy and I into a facility for the mentally weak right now.  Thanks goodness we don't let him watch TV.

This word, "sacrifice"; I don't think it means what you think it means

What sacrifice means:
Doing something to your own detriment, only to benefit someone else.

What sacrifice does not mean:
A) Bullying someone else to achieve a goal you forced on them and then using their achievement as a feather in your cap.
B) Entrapment.

*************************************************************************
Last week, Ms. Amy Chua, a largely unknown professor at Yale thrust herself into the flames of the blogosphere by writing this article for the Wall Street Journal. She did it, of course, for money, as she has just written a book and what better way is there to drive sales than 15 minutes of fame? Her article espouses the virtues of hard-line parenting approach, illustrated by her own method of raising her daughters. Highlights include telling her daughters that they are garbage, forcing them to play piano/violin and never letting them have a sleepover, among other arbitrarily despotic things.  (Since the publication of the article, she has come out claiming that WSJ has completely misrepresented her book in the article.  The article, for which she is listed as the author.  A-ha. Sure.).

Many people gave strong opinions on the merits of this method, most notably Asian kids who have been raised so. Kristen has a great, articulate review, and Genghis Mom offers a brutal rebuttal. I do not want to add to their outrage, but I thought it would be interesting to compare the 'western' and 'eastern' approaches to parenting in the light of the recent literature (NurtureShock
, here we go).  Is there any merit to the Chinese approach?  And is it true that by torturing her children in this way, Ms. Chua is being a conscientious parent, sacrificing for her children, as she claims?

Ms. Chua's premise is right: many studies have shown that eastern and western cultures have fundamentally different approaches to intelligence.  Easterners tend to see it as a skill.  Westerners see it as talent.  Easterners believe it can be developed to any extent just through deliberate practice; you can't be "not good" at something - you must just be too lazy to practice.  Westerners, on another hand, see practice as having limited utility: if you don't have the innate talent, practicing is pointless as you'll never improve.

The truth is somewhere in between.  It turns out believing that intelligence is malleable has very powerful implications for your success - on this account, Ms. Chua is right as well.  It has been demonstrated that when students are praised for "trying hard" and "practicing" instead of "being smart", they work harder, stay with the problems longer and do better.  They believe that the amount of effort they invest makes a difference in how well they do, so they expand more effort.  This approach also has a secondary, interesting side effect: it separates how well you do from what you are.  If you believe you do well because you are smart, then failure is evidence of your being otherwise - and you end up being terrified to fail.  Such students will shy away from trying new solutions, from taking on difficult coursework, just because they are afraid to fail - a smart person wouldn't get a bad score on a test, so if you do you must not be smart.  On another hand, students who believe that their good performance is the result of their effort, not their innate talent, handle failure much better - they decide they must not have worked hard enough, and can walk away with their self-image intact.

So on the surface what Ms. Chua proposes is a good idea.  Praise kids for effort, tell them to work harder and they will be more likely to succeed.  Unfortunately, through the Chinese cultural prism, this approach becomes morphed into something counter-productive.  In Chinese culture  being lazy seems as bad a personal vice as being stupid.  And if you are not good at something, you must not have worked hard enough, and therefore must be lazy, and therefore, worthless.  Rather than allowing you to disassociate our performance from your self-worth, the Chinese Mom sends you back into the destructive spiral of "If I can't get this, then I'm a worthless human being", same as the western kids experience from feeling not smart.  To make things worse, the stance that ALL performance is due to your effort drives the child's risk of failure higher.

In any field, sooner or later you bump up against what your physical ability allows you to do.  In playing the piano, a player whose hand is large enough to reach over 1 octave will always out-play you, given the same amount of practice.  In ballet, a person with the right body type will always dance better than you, given the same amount of practice.  Even in intellectual fields, there will always be people who will figure out problems faster, understand concepts easier and learn new information more efficiently than you.  They are simply better built do to this.  You can expand exactly the same effort as those people, and possibly even more, and still never reach their level - simply because you are not as good of a computer.

Usually such effects show up when you get to the very top of a field, and pretending they do not exist makes for very bitter disappointment.  I was pretty good at dance when I was younger, but I had the presence of mind to realize that my body type was probably not going to be most suited for ballet.  And, given how I turned out, I would not be able to dance ballet even if I had the best technique in the entire world.  My body was going to look like it does no matter how many hours I spent in the dance studio, and I simply am not built for it. Prentending that this does not matter would have left me unemployed and exhausted after many years of training.  Prentending that how well you can think does not matter leaves many Asian kids unemployed and exhausted after many years of school.  In the words of Po Bronson, "Kids are being mislead into believing they're capable of futures they're actually unprepared for."

The truth is, anyone can get high grades in high school with effort.  Seriously, high school is easy. But when you use those high school grades to get yourself into a top-notch university, and a major in engineering, the game has changed.  If you have been getting those high grades by spending countless hours on each subject, then guess what?  You are going to run out of time.  There are simply not enough hours in the week now for you to be able to learn by sitting and reading until you finally get it.  Your classmates, being better computers, will understand this concept in lecture, without needing countless hours of studying just to grasp the concept.  What your Mom told you is not true: practice is not all there is.  Practice is necessary to become good at something, but on the path to becoming good in a subject, some people start farther ahead than others.

For this reason, it is counterproductive to pursue something you are not naturally good at: you are starting with a handicap, and the higher you make it in a field, the more pronounced and limiting this handicap is going to become.  The Chinese Mom method is terrible not just because it tyranically forces the child to work, but because it pays no attention to the field where the child is most likely to succeed.  Ms. Chua sets arbitrary, capricious goals for her daughters, and with a lot of expanded effort, her daughters achieve them.  One has to wonder what her daughters are actually good at and interested in, and how many opportunities have they missed to develop those unique talents while they were pursuing more feathers in Ms. Chua's cap.

But are Ms Chua's actions at least in good faith?  Is there really a sacrifice of sorts; is she doing this for herself and not for them?  Pushing your child as hard as possible is often called 'sacrifice' by parents.  No parents wants to be the mean guy, and you sometimes need to be to get the kid to achieve their potential.  But this is only true if you are pushing the kid on a path he himself has chosen, or at least shown promise in.  Shoving the child toward your own goals so that you can look good in your community is hardly sacrifice.

We also often hear 'sacrifice' used to get the child to pursue your goals in the first place.  To get a kid to comply, I have seen parents use ridiculous arguments, like how many floors they had to climb back in Soviet Russia to get their groceries back for the kids; how cold the weather was; how many jobs they held; how many hours they worked.  To the children of such parents, please understand: all of what your folks say is total bullshit.  It's not that they didn't work hard; I'm sure they did.  But they sure as heck did not do it for you or because of you.  If you weren't there, would your mother have had to climb fewer floors to get groceries?  Or would she have been unemployed?! Would the weather have been different? Hardly.  You did not ask to be born  - you parents chose to have you.  The decisions they made are theirs, and theirs alone, and to blame their past challenges on you in order to get you to comply is not sacrifice.  It's a guilt trip of the highest order.  It's called entrapment.  It's very common, and a very low thing to do to your kids.

*********************************
I do have Ms. Chua to thank for being able to articulate what I have long felt - that I have the privilege of being raised by not just good but extraordinary parents. My parents are extraordinary, downright strange, because my parents have never asked me to be something I was not.

I did not realize how much of a rarity that was until now.  All of my friends have been chided for not being what their parent wishes them to be. They were prohibited from going to the college of their choice, harassed for their pick of spouse, criticized for work status, ostracized for being gay, made fun of for the way they think.

Their parents do not see them as individuals. They see them as extensions of themselves.

My parents have never, not once, made such requests or judgements of me. They have always made me feel loved and supported as the person I am, and while they pushed hard to make sure I achieve high goals, they were goals on a path chosen by me.

My parents supported me throughout my childhood; they honestly shared what they saw as my strengths and weaknesses and tried to help me make the best of myself.  They encouraged me to think of what I wanted to become, which resulted in discovering that we had no connections to pull and no people to bribe to help me get into the right major in the right university (no matter how great you are academically, and I was pretty great, in Russia you must have connections to get anywhere). The realization that I was not going to be able to achieve what I said I wanted in Russia was a huge factor in their decision to come to the US. They left behind a very comfortable life, a guaranteed retirement, friends, success and everything they knew to give me a better shot in my life. (That, Ms.Chua, is a good example of sacrifice.)

I hope to be the parent that my Mom and Dad are to me. So to my boys, I solemnly swear that your father and I will never ask you to be something you are simply not. We will be hard on you. We will expect you to excel. We will demand hard work. We will not let you quit. We will be honest with you. But we will do all that to help you make the most of what you already are, not to mold you into something different. You are perfect the way you came. Work hard as you are, and you will find that is enough to succeed.

And, to Ms.Chua, remember: if you can't understand this post, you are not working hard enough. I would be happy to come over to your house and yell at you till 5am until you finally get it. We can even start now: you are garbage. And a failure. You are welcome.

Me talk pretty

Elijah understands two languages, but speaks mostly one. He speaks Rushlish.

He can speak Russian a little, but only with English grammar. He has Russian word vocabulary and pronunciation down very well, and there are some words he mostly says in Russian. He knows their English equivalents, but uses the Russian ones, which causes some confusion with other English speakers. He will just insert these into an English sentence:

Slon (Elephant)

Oleni (Deer)

Zevayu (Yawning)

Oblaka (Clouds)

Shina (Car Tire)

Letit (Flying)

Dyadya (Uncle, or just a random grown man; sounds frustratingly close to Daddy to an English ear)

Zoopark (Zoo)
Mashina (Car, Machine, any sort of robotic thingy)

There are many more, I just can't think of them right now. It gets even more fun when he starts to try to decline/conjugate these in the English manner (Olenis, Zevayued, etc). I really need to make a conserted effort to teach him two real languages, rather than one jumbled Rushlish.

The experts in this say you are supposed to assign languages to people - so there should be one person who only speaks to the child in Russian. The problem is, none of us speak pure Russian or pure English. We also mix the words, mostly use English grammar or, in Russian, conjugate English words acccording to Russian grammar, and any of us, if forced to use one language only in its pure form would have a hard time.

So how in the world are we going to teach the kid to speak properly, in two distinct languages? Has anyone else done this?! Help!!

Nobody sleeps alone

When we brought him home from the hospital, Wallaby slept really well. He would lay in the bassinet and nap for hours at a time. We could not believe our eyes. (Elijah did not sleep in the bassinet or any other stationary object longer than 15 minutes.) But, alas, by week 3 Wallaby has figured out that we are total suckers and started to treat us accordingly.

He will now only sleep when held, and screams as soon as you try to put him in a bassinet. And he wants to sleep ALL DAY. While held. I think his ideal schedule looks like this:

7:30am - 7:35am: Mom gets up.
7:35am - 7:30pm: Mom sits on couch and feeds me while I sleep.
7:30pm - 7:35pm: Mom gets up and swaddles me.
7:35pm - 7:35am: Mom sits on couch and feeds me while I sleep.

So Mom is getting nothing done during the day. Not even a nap, because I try to set him down when he falls asleep, then I fail, then I have to feed him again just to appease him. This is totally a Wombastic technique. Did they talk or something? Where did our good napper go?! Well at least he still sleeps ok at night: feeds around midnight, then around 3 and then sleeps to 7 or so, in the bassinet and all. Let's hope he keeps that up.

But, oh, every time I get up and shift him and sneak away, I feel SO guilty. It's so hard to let go of a sleeping baby!

Wallaby Birth Story

He was born on December 10, at 7:28am.  Made it in the nick of time.

I showed up at the hospital the day before, about an hour late for my induction, properly stressed about the whole thing.  Inductions are dangerous.  They increase the risk of ending up with a C-section.  They can be rushed and cause distress in the baby.  And they really suck in terms of pain.  Wombat was induced, and being hooked up to pitocin machine felt like someone knocked the wind out of you and then kept punching you repeatedly.  I was hoping to avoid induction with Wallaby, but there we were, week 42 rapidly closing and no sign of labor, and therefore, no choice.  With Wombat, I was at my wits end for how to delay induction another couple of days, and was very upset to have to go to the hospital and be messed with.  This time I didn't stress out as much as the first time: I kind of came to terms with it, and also I was just busy.  I ran out of the house an hour late after setting everything up for my parents to stay with Wombat and finishing up last-minute work items.  My Mom laughed and said that I was talking about giving birth the way you'd talk about going to a store "OK, I'll just run out and deliver the baby real quick, and then I'll be back and we can think of what to buy to cook next week...."

So I got to the hospital an hour late, got checked in, and after a while a midwife came by and offered some words of encouragement.  I didn't get my hopes up much, thinking that I've played this game before.  With Wombat, the induction started off on Cervidil, which did get contractions started.  Unfortunately, the contractions were not coming fast enough - they just started early labor, and they were getting more intense but not very quickly.  The midwife with me at the time suggested to try walking around to get them to pick up.  Determined to avoid pitocin at all costs, I made a big lap in and around the hospital, running all over the place, and got myself really tired just to get back and find out that contractions still have not become productive.  Midwife insisted on pitocin.  Pitocin was very ouchy.  I was already exhausted.  (No one tells you that to make it through pain you have to be well rested.  It takes a lot of energy and mental focus to deal with pain, it turns out.  If you are tired, your focus will be the first to go, and as soon as it leaves, you are done for).  After a few hours of feeling like drowning under pain, midwife said things still were not moving as fast as she'd like and told me we needed to break my water.  I asked for an epidural at that point.  Wombat was born soon after that.

So this time around, I was determined to not get myself tired out because, I told myself, let's face it - chances were pitocin was coming.  I was going to go through the whole Cervidil thing, have it (probably) start mild contractions again, then buck up and try to ride out the pitocin as long as I could.  It was important to go into it rested.  Midwife said "Sometimes with the second child, Cervidil does wonderful things, you never know".  That would be nice.

I got checked in, went to the birthing room, and on the first check, the midwife declared that I was at 4 centimeters.  This meant that I must have been having some contractions of my own and not feeling them!  This also meant that Cervidil had no point.  4 cm is as far as it will get you, and if you are already there, it will do nothing.  We decided to wait until morning; if nothing would happen, we'd start Pitocin then.  The monitor showed contractions.  I stared at it in disbelief.  The midwife suggested to strip the membranes to try to hurry things up.  We did.  I really still didn't think this was labor.

And then contractions came! They were very mild at first.  I walked around a little to try to get them to intensify, or at least to stay; I was really careful to not get tired out.  But they stayed! They became regular!  They came every 6 minutes and lasted 1-2 minutes each!  "Look at you!" said the nurse. By 11pm, I decided that I should go to sleep - I needed to be rested to handle labor, natural or pitocined.  So I fell asleep.

Contractions woke me up at 3am.  I've never been so happy to have something hurt in my life. I walked around my room to try and make them stay, or get more intense faster.  I was afraid that just like the last time, the contractions will be pronounced "not good enough".  By 5am they definitely became good enough for me; they took all of my concentration to get through. At 5am, I asked the nurse to call my midwife.  The contractions would come fast and really hard, and I was starting to feel the urge to push.  The nurse checked me and said we were at 6cm.  I remember saying that with contractions coming this fast, I really hope the midwife is not driving from Olney.

The contracitons on pitocin are very different from contractions you get on your own.  I know there are medical professionals who say that pain in natural labor and pain during induction are comparable.  I would like to punch those professionals in the face.  I don't know how to explain it, but contractions you get on your own do not cause you to go into panic.  They really hurt, but they somehow feel right at the same time.  It's possible to relax into them if you focus.  It's a lot of pain, but it doesn't cause you to tense up or get stressed out by it.  On Pitocin, relaxation was impossible and I felt panicked.  (This made me wonder if somehow natural oxytocin can cross the blood-brain barrier and shut off your fight-or-flight reaction, and synthetic oxytocin (pitocin) can not?) I would moan and grunt my way through contractions with Wallaby, and in my mind be perfectly calm.  I could hear myself make noise and sometimes it sounded like a song I'd sing to Elijah at bedtime; like a sad slow lullaby for the baby. 

 It did get bad enough a couple of times that I thought of getting an epidural.  What stopped me was remembering how, with Elijah, epidural made me loose all feeling of the baby moving (duh, I know).  It really freaked me out at the time; after 9 months of having the kid tumble around, suddenly you feel nothing.  All you have is the baby heart monitor, and you can no longer help the baby get through contractions by moving to be more comfortable yourself.  I hated that feeling.  So this time, when I thought of getting the epidural, I told myself "You won't feel the baby anymore if you do.  You won't be able to walk around with him if you do. "  So I didn't.  If the contractions took longer though, I probably would have caved.  

I don't know how much time passed between calling the midwife and the midwife arriving, but when the midwife got there she said we were at 9cm and it was pretty much time to push.  When she said that, I said "Really?"  She said "We are going to have this baby".  They started warming the bassinet, unwrapping the blanket, getting the lights, the whole thing, and in my head I just kept thinking  "Really? No, really?"

Really.  I'm not sure how long I had to push, but it didn't feel like very long.  It's weird: when it's time to push, if you try to hold it, the pain is really bad.  But if you do actually push, then it doesn't hurt!!  Crazy, but true.  It was a bit of pushing, and changing positions, and the baby was almost out (according to eyewitnesses at my rear end), but not out.  The midwife and nurse suddenly looked worried and, with no explanation and in very strict voices commanded to me that the baby has to come out.  Now. Then they shoved an oxygen mask on my face.  This breathed a lot of new energy into me in addition to oxygen, and I seriously started to push, contractions or no contractions.  And he came out.  And made a lot of noise immediately.  Poor kid. It turned out that he was facing the wrong way: toward my back, not toward my front.  I didn't have back labor, but apparently him facing the wrong way makes it hard, and sometimes impossible, to push him out.  The narrowest side of the head is the forehead, and when the baby faces your back, you have to get a wider side of the head out first.  Sometimes that's not possible, and when that's the case, they have to C-section the kid out.  They can't wait very long, because the umbilical cord is compressed in the birth canal, and the baby will become oxygen-deprived if he doesn't emerge quickly.  That was why my midwife and nurse had the very worried looks on their faces.  Thank lord Wallaby was able to come out.

After that bit of a trip down the birth canal, Wallaby was letting everyone have a piece of his mind, and I wanted to feed him.  They put him on my chest for a little bit, but then the midwife declared that she needed to do the stitches.  I couldn't feed the little one because I was twitching as she was doing it, so he ended up having to shriek for food for what felt like an eternity while she was doing her needlework.  As soon as she was done and Wallaby could eat, he fell asleep and slept the sleep of the just.  And I was so, so happy.  Happy that my baby was ok.  Happy that I delivered a kid all on my own, with no drugs messing with my baby and me.  Happy that he made it in the nick of time.  And really thankful to some higher power that made this happen.

Once he was fed, and washed, and swaddled, we moved to our Mother-Baby room.  It had  a window, and behind the window was the first snowfall of the year.   Beautiful, soft, gigantic snowflakes were rushing to the ground in the morning twilight, and Ingy and I stared at it for a while like it were a present.  "See", we said to Wallaby, "first snow of the season, just for you on your birthday".  He slept through it. :)

Nathan is here!

World, meet Nathan! He was born on 12/10/10, at 7:28am. December 10 also happens to be his grandpa's birthday, so I guess he really wanted to be the main gift. This gift will be hard to beat next year. (Coincidentally, the due date was on grandma's birthday).

After much deliberation, we named him Nathan Gabriel. Iggy looked at him and decided that he sort of looked like a Nathan. We really like the meaning of the name - "a gift from God". And this way both kids have Hebrew names, a matching set. (Iggy pointed out that it would be historically ironic to have one kid bear a Hebrew name, and another be a Roman. Ha.)

Nathan was born with blue eyes, chestnut hair (lots of it) and light skin. At 7 lbs 13 oz, he's about a pound bigger than Wombat at birth. So far, brothers are getting on ok. Elijah is very good with the new addition and is very concerned for baby's well being. He is also concerned with the baby taking any of his toys, but so far that's not in the cards.

And here we are, again.

My due date was November 27.

In surprise to.... no one, the baby has no intention of coming out on that date.  Or any date around that date.  Therefore, just like with Wombat, the midwives have launched their "WHAT TO DO WHEN YOU'RE POST-DUE" offensive.  As part of that exercise, I sat through a no-stress-test yesterday.

I'd like to mention that the no-stress part refers strictly to the baby.  The mother can get pretty stressed out by the test, and that's ok.  Like, for example yesterday, when Wallaby decided that the test is a great time to take a nap after some vigorous kicking exercises.  For the uninitiated, the no-stress-test is when they strap a monitor to your belly to check how often the baby is kicking (and how his heart rate does when he kicks).  If the baby does not kick enough (whatever enough is, I'm not sure), then you have failed the test.  I know. It's just like high school Presidential Fitness Test, but in utero.

Wombat was nice enough to kick like mad during the entire 20 minutes.  Granted, he spot-kicked the monitor, but still, he was nice enough to kick.  Wallaby, as I said, decided to ignore the test altogether and took a nap, which prompted the midwife to make a concerned face and send me to the hospital for a "semi-emergency" biophysical profile on the baby, just in case.  Of course, as soon as I sat down in the car, Wallaby started moving like a tape of aerobics exercises was playing in my womb in front of him.  Nice.

Anyway, a biophysical means an ultrasound, so I wasn't too against the whole thing.  I really liked getting a picture of Wombat's face when he was 41 weeks, and was kind of looking forward to getting a picture of Wallaby too.  I called husband to join me for this treat, and off we went.  In the hospital, they ran another no-stress-test (which they said worked out fine, even though I swear Wallaby wasn't moving more than at the midwives), and then shipped us off to the ultrasound.

And, as soon as the ultrasound was on, Wallaby did not move.  He was very still.  We had to zoom in on him, and when we zoomed on one of his hands, we saw.... him staring at his fist, folding and unfolding his fingers in a very contemplative manner.  Staring off into the distance.  Very poetic.  The poetic atmosphere was interrupted by the technician, who told me "Can you make him move, because if he doesn't, they'll keep you in the hospital".

I assumed "they'll keep you in the hospital" meant "they'll C-section this baby out of you", rather than, say, "They'll keep you and feed you lunch", so I became very motivated and sat up.  I've noticed that sitting up squishes Wallaby and he begins to squirm.  It worked, until he settled down again and (I assume) stared at his other hand unfolding.  Or something.  Finally, we got enough movement out of him to declare the biophysical a success, got our report and left.  Whew.

With the no stress test and the ultrasound (biophysical) behind us, now we wait.  Just like before.  Except hopefully not as long as before.  Next Monday is another no stress test, and 9th is the induction (with the 10th being the expected latest date of birth).  I don't know if we'll make it that long though; unlike Wombat, I think I am getting some contractions with this one already and the baby is riding lower.  I think he is going to head for the exit once he has finished doing long division using his fingers or whatever it is he is working on in there.

This experience makes me a little bit concerned about this kid's personality, I must say.  Wombat is cooperative.  Very.  Other than forgetting what his due date was (or possibly just being too busy with his personal womb beautification projects), he has cooperated the entire time and continues to do so.  Not Wallaby, it appears.  I think this will be the child that will have me going to the principal's office, explaining his latest shenanigans while he stands there angel-faced wearing an expression of deepest piety.

Women with no makeup (oh the horror)

This image has been making the rounds in the blogosphere (not to mention getting comments on Reddit, which Jezebel then picked up).  If you  have a daughter, show her these pictures.  These are famous, gorgeous models, with Laetitia Casta leading off the line up on top left.

The geeks on Reddit, of course, abused every single one  of  these pictures, calling the girls unattractive or worse.  Jezebel declared every single one of these pictures beautiful and every single one of the Reddit commenters a shauvinist. 

But the reality is just that these women are not ugly and not beautiful, they are just real un-airbrushed women with no makeup, taking a mugshot.  These are your driver license photos.  Your snapshots in a dimly lit room taken with a bad camera by a person who doesn't care.  We have all taken pictures like this.

When I was younger, I had professional photographs done for my birthday or some other occasion.  I can't remember the occasion, but it was an eye-opening experience.  The amount of makeup, lighting, setup, hair prep and direction was astounding.  (I got to the set wearing what I thought was a lot of makeup, only to have it taken off, be told that I should have worn some makeup, and then have about 5 pounds of it piled on).  Those pictures of me were gorgeous. The girl in them was stunning.  Except that I have never looked like that girl in real life, and I never will.  The girl in those pictures does not really exist.

Neither do the girls in photos you see in Vicky's Secret, or makeup and perfume ads.  Models are not very beautiful women.  Models are women who have bodies like hangers (tall and slim), making the clothes hang well, and who have faces that serve as good blanks for makeup (your features can't be too prominent; the face must be somewhat plain because then you can easily change it by changing the shadowing).  Really, that's all.  With the right makeup, the right lighting and the right angle, you can draw anything you want on that face.  You can make it look amazingly gorgeous.  You can then retouch that picture to make the beauty otherwordly.  And, published in every magazine across the land, it will tell every girl that she is ugly because she will never look like that.  Believe me, the model who took that very picture will never look like that either.

If you have kids, please talk to them.  Take your daughter to a modeling shoot when she is old enough, and watch her initial excitement draw down after hours and hours of hair, makeup and prep.  Have her see the drastic difference between the final product and her own reflection.  Explain to her that pictures lie.  Have your children play with Photoshop.  Get your son to know that girls in glossy pictures are no more real than Lara Croft.  It's ok to stare at those pictures for their beauty - as long as you keep in mind that they are nothing more than a Photoshop file.

Let's be Reasonable

The physics of parenting

Newtonian physics explained (as experienced by parents) by Christoph Niemann on his awesome NYT Blog, Abstract City.

Names: The Final Showdown

In case you are just joining us, I'm very pregnant.  Like, a month away from the due date today.  Now, we have been through this once before and we know that most baby stuff is overrated. There is very little that babies (newborn) actually need, except for Mom and a blankie and a binkie.  Seriously.  (Mom, on another hand, needs quite a few things, of which a case of wine is the most important).

But there is one thing all babies need.  A name.

We don't have one of those.  Still.  This is officially an emergency.

Here is our final list of names, with all we think of them.  Both first and middle names are probably going to come from this list, but.... which ones?!

Gabriel

We really love this name.  However, it has issues.  Or may be it's just us who have issues and the name is really fine.  We feel that it's too soft.  Too effeminate.   We like soft names for boys (Elijah, for example :), but we also like to give the boy a way to masculinize it.  Elijah can be easily shortened to the macho "Eli".  Gabriel has no such options.  The only nickname is Gabe, which is hardly masculine and (we think) doesn't sound very nice.  In online forums, many Gabriels say that often people expect to see a woman when they see their name written because... apparently Americans can't distinguish between Gabriel as masculine and Gabrielle as feminine?    And, as a final insult, the default tease for Gabriel is, of course, "Gay Gabe" which can't be fun whether you are gay or straight.  Actually, it's probably worse if you ARE gay.  Sigh.

But!  All of those name reviews are from people named Gabriel who are now adults.  When they were little and named this, Gabriel was not a popular name - but it is now.  It's number 25 in the US and climbing the charts.  There will definitely be multiple Gabriels in school, and may be (just may be) teasing someone with "gay" epithet is finally becoming really socially unacceptable?  Hopefully?  Is it getting to be taboo?  Several of our friends, when we said "Gabriel has an obvious tease option" responded "huh? what would that be?".  Are they right and are we overthinking it, or are they just adults and we still think like playground 3rd graders? Because we are good at that.  Sadly, events of recent weeks seems to suggest that harassing someone because of sexual orientation, or using sex-orientation insults to humiliate is still alive and well.  May be Wallaby's generation can make such bigotry as taboo as insults based on gender or race have become now.  But do we want to bet on that?  I'm not sure.

Anthony

Hm.  Overall good name, but we are not crazy about the nickname "Tony" that comes with it.   Also, I'm partial to "Antonio" variant of the name, because I think it sounds HOT and is a great way to be introduced to girls in bars (or boys! either way!).  But Antonio Flores does sound (while HOT) like you just crossed the border yesterday.   And it would still have the nickname "Tony" (or "Tony-O"?) that we don't like.  The Russian variant of this name is Anton, so we would be good in that department.  Anthony is currently name number 10 on the charts, and is always popular, so.... is it too bland?  It's also a name that's hard to tease.... there isn't really much you can come up with.

Simon

Iggy loves this name.  I hated it at first, and now it's growing on me just a little bit, but I'm still not sure.  It just feels so... nerdy.  In my head, Simon has to be a bookish type for some reason, and online reviews seem to say the same.  I think it might be hard to overcome the image that lots of people associate with this name.  On the bright side, though, there is no nickname (except for Si, i guess) and it's an easy-traveling, easy-to-spell name (except in Spanish, where Simon gets to be Si Mon to the delight of every 3rd grader on the playground).  All the potential teasing would involve nursery rhymes and old TV characters which, again, is not so bad.

Dante

We both really like the name, but it's heavily African-American right now, and also (according to sports teams rosters) seems to be heavily jock-inclined.  Our Wallaby is not going to be either.   There is, of course, the original Dante Allegheri, which is a bit more our speed.... but would Wallaby constantly be defying expectations by being a white, not-too-jocky (probably) type of guy?  Would this name fit? 

There is also no Russian (or any other language) equivalent - the name is quintessentially Italian.  Everyone the world over knows about it, thanks to Allegheri, but still.... other names travel better.  As far as teasing goes, this one is not easy to tease and is a pretty cool name overall.  It's not at all popular in the charts right now, so it will definitely stand out, and it should be equally at home at a bar or at a boardroom.  We think. You can definitely be a jock or a poet with it, but you do need a bit of flare to rock this name.  Will Wallaby have what it takes to own it and pull it off?

Roman

This was the first name that we sort of liked.  It has everything going for it - no nickname, sort-of-trendy with its '-an' ending, sounds sufficiently masculine and yet can be worn well by an artsy type.... it's all there.  Even has a Russian equivalent - it's exactly the same name in Russian, just place the accent on the last syllable instead of the first.  Not to mention that, when pronounced that way, the name (in French, Russian and loads of other languages) also means "A Novel" (as in a book). Swoon.  How romantic and intellectual.

But.... the latest association with this name is Roman Polanski.  Not so good.  Of course, Wallaby's generation will have no clue who Polanski was, and so it's probably ok.... but still has a bit of a bad taste for right now, no?  Also, Roman begins to sound like an adjective as soon as you add a middle name.  I mean, "Roman Gabriel" sounds like something you should be sprinkling Parmesano cheese on.  We don't know... this name has all the elements we are looking for, but somehow we just can't get very excited about it.

Well, that's the list.  One thing for sure - we will use the first and middle name to counter balance each other.  So, if the first name is a quirky one like Gabriel we are probably going to go with Anthony to give the kid an all-American "out" option.  If the first name is an all-American one like Simon or Anthony, then we will probably make the middle name Gabriel. 

But what should we pick? What do we do? What does everyone think of our concerns? Are we insane? (don't answer that last one).

This one's for the girls

Both of these are sort of girl-oriented and so have no place in my house.  They are too cute to pass up though, so if you have a little girl, check them out!

Read

A very cute, pull-the-flap, turn-the-wheels book for little girls about (what else?) shopping and dressing up and getting around in a big city.  It looks like it does a great job of introducing fashion as art and what little one wouldn't enjoy a flipbook build-an-outfit section?  This would make a great gift for a little girl into dress-up; check out this video from the author.


Decorate

Belle & Boo make delightful illustrations of a girl and her bunny rabbit.  Now, in addition to their adorable prints, they also make wall decals!  I am obsessed with vinyl decals currently and am trying to not cover my entire house in them, so if you have not had your first taste of this addiction then Belle & Boo should be a great intro.  Look:

I also really like that a lot of these stickers are not collages: they can be combined into a large collage, like above a crib shown in the picture, but you can also put them up individually.  You could hide a little whimsical bunny, dinosaur-riding kid or a balloon behind the bookshelf, or peeking out from a dresser. It's a great way to make the room more playful for the little one and still tasteful enough for you to love!  Come think of it, some of these may be boy enough for Wombat's room.  May be.  Possibly.  Ok. 

Make your own pop-up book

HearthSong carries this very very cute kit of blank pop-up book parts.  You get to put them together and write the story yourself.... and color your book!  As a pop-up book addict, I'm all over this.  Get yours here.

Oh-oh, he might be catching on.

Yesterday, we had this conversation.

Elijah (holding his toy dump truck): "fffffff-uck".
Me (cringing): "No, no, T-ruck.  Teeeee-ruck".
Elijah (giving me a sly look): "fffffffff-uck".
Me: "No! Teeeee-ruck!"

Elijah(with sly look turning to sly joy): "Fffff-uck teee-ruck!!"
and, before I can say anything else, he looks triumphant, throws up his hand and says:
"Ha! HIGH FIVE!!"
... and he high-fives me.  He looks very proud of himself.

I folded over laughing.  I couldn't help it.
So there you have it.  Not only does he say it, he now clearly gets that it sort of gets a rise out of people. Great. HIGH FIVE, Mom! Awesome job.

Pretty things from all over the web

Paper to Read

This Jerome K Jerome quote print is from Keep Calm Gallery.  I am the biggest fan of Jerome K Jerome ever.  If you want something hilarious to read, pick up a copy of 3 Men in a Bot (not counting the dog) - or, even better, read it online as the book is now old enough to have its rights expire.  I still have my old, blue, dog-eared copy that I bought for 5 canadian dollars at a second-hand book stand on a Nova Scotia trip with my parents.  I read the book in Russian translation first, then in English, and both were awesome.  Here is one of my favorite parts to give you a taste:

We got up tolerably early on the Monday morning at Marlow, and went for a 
bathe before breakfast; and, coming back, Montmorency made an awful ass 
of himself.  The only subject on which Montmorency and I have any serious 
difference of opinion is cats.  I like cats; Montmorency does not.

When I meet a cat, I say, "Poor Pussy!" and stop down and tickle the side 
of its head; and the cat sticks up its tail in a rigid, cast-iron manner, 
arches its back, and wipes its nose up against my trousers; and all is 
gentleness and peace.  When Montmorency meets a cat, the whole street 
knows about it; and there is enough bad language wasted in ten seconds to 
last an ordinarily respectable man all his life, with care.

I do not blame the dog (contenting myself, as a rule, with merely 
clouting his head or throwing stones at him), because I take it that it 
is his nature.  Fox-terriers are born with about four times as much 
original sin in them as other dogs are, and it will take years and years 
of patient effort on the part of us Christians to bring about any 
appreciable reformation in the rowdiness of the fox-terrier nature.

I remember being in the lobby of the Haymarket Stores one day, and all 
round about me were dogs, waiting for the return of their owners, who 
were shopping inside.  There were a mastiff, and one or two collies, and 
a St. Bernard, a few retrievers and Newfoundlands, a boar-hound, a French 
poodle, with plenty of hair round its head, but mangy about the middle; a 
bull-dog, a few Lowther Arcade sort of animals, about the size of rats, 
and a couple of Yorkshire tykes.

There they sat, patient, good, and thoughtful.  A solemn peacefulness 
seemed to reign in that lobby.  An air of calmness and resignation - of 
gentle sadness pervaded the room.

Then a sweet young lady entered, leading a meek-looking little fox-
terrier, and left him, chained up there, between the bull-dog and the 
poodle.  He sat and looked about him for a minute.  Then he cast up his 
eyes to the ceiling, and seemed, judging from his expression, to be 
thinking of his mother.  Then he yawned.  Then he looked round at the 
other dogs, all silent, grave, and dignified.

He looked at the bull-dog, sleeping dreamlessly on his right.  He looked 
at the poodle, erect and haughty, on his left.  Then, without a word of 
warning, without the shadow of a provocation, he bit that poodle's near 
fore-leg, and a yelp of agony rang through the quiet shades of that 
lobby.

The result of his first experiment seemed highly satisfactory to him, and 
he determined to go on and make things lively all round.  He sprang over 
the poodle and vigorously attacked a collie, and the collie woke up, and 
immediately commenced a fierce and noisy contest with the poodle.  Then 
Foxey came back to his own place, and caught the bull-dog by the ear, and 
tried to throw him away; and the bull-dog, a curiously impartial animal, 
went for everything he could reach, including the hall-porter, which gave 
that dear little terrier the opportunity to enjoy an uninterrupted fight 
of his own with an equally willing Yorkshire tyke.

Anyone who knows canine nature need hardly, be told that, by this time, 
all the other dogs in the place were fighting as if their hearths and 
homes depended on the fray.  The big dogs fought each other 
indiscriminately; and the little dogs fought among themselves, and filled 
up their spare time by biting the legs of the big dogs.

The whole lobby was a perfect pandemonium, and the din was terrific.  A 
crowd assembled outside in the Haymarket, and asked if it was a vestry 
meeting; or, if not, who was being murdered, and why?  Men came with 
poles and ropes, and tried to separate the dogs, and the police were sent 
for.

And in the midst of the riot that sweet young lady returned, and snatched 
up that sweet little dog of hers (he had laid the tyke up for a month, 
and had on the expression, now, of a new-born lamb) into her arms, and 
kissed him, and asked him if he was killed, and what those great nasty 
brutes of dogs had been doing to him; and he nestled up against her, and 
gazed up into her face with a look that seemed to say: "Oh, I'm so glad 
you've come to take me away from this disgraceful scene!"

She said that the people at the Stores had no right to allow great savage 
things like those other dogs to be put with respectable people's dogs, 
and that she had a great mind to summon somebody.

Such is the nature of fox-terriers; and, therefore, I do not blame 
Montmorency for his tendency to row with cats; but he wished he had not 
given way to it that morning.

We were, as I have said, returning from a dip, and half-way up the High 
Street a cat darted out from one of the houses in front of us, and began 
to trot across the road.  Montmorency gave a cry of joy - the cry of a 
stern warrior who sees his enemy given over to his hands - the sort of 
cry Cromwell might have uttered when the Scots came down the hill - and 
flew after his prey.

His victim was a large black Tom.  I never saw a larger cat, nor a more 
disreputable-looking cat.  It had lost half its tail, one of its ears, 
and a fairly appreciable proportion of its nose.  It was a long, sinewy-
looking animal.  It had a calm, contented air about it.

Montmorency went for that poor cat at the rate of twenty miles an hour; 
but the cat did not hurry up - did not seem to have grasped the idea that 
its life was in danger.  It trotted quietly on until its would-be 
assassin was within a yard of it, and then it turned round and sat down 
in the middle of the road, and looked at Montmorency with a gentle, 
inquiring expression, that said:

"Yes!  You want me?"

Montmorency does not lack pluck; but there was something about the look 
of that cat that might have chilled the heart of the boldest dog.  He 
stopped abruptly, and looked back at Tom.

Neither spoke; but the conversation that one could imagine was clearly as 
follows:-

THE CAT: "Can I do anything for you?"

MONTMORENCY: "No - no, thanks."

THE CAT: "Don't you mind speaking, if you really want anything, you 
know."

MONTMORENCY (BACKING DOWN THE HIGH STREET): "Oh, no - not at all - 
certainly - don't you trouble.  I - I am afraid I've made a mistake.  I 
thought I knew you.  Sorry I disturbed you."

THE CAT: "Not at all - quite a pleasure.  Sure you don't want anything, 
now?"

MONTMORENCY (STILL BACKING): "Not at all, thanks - not at all - very kind 
of you.  Good morning."

THE CAT: "Good-morning."

Then the cat rose, and continued his trot; and Montmorency, fitting what 
he calls his tail carefully into its groove, came back to us, and took up 
an unimportant position in the rear.

To this day, if you say the word "Cats!" to Montmorency, he will visibly 
shrink and look up piteously at you, as if to say:

"Please don't."

Keep Calm Gallery has some other very cool prints as well; the prices are steep but the typography and the quotes are just priceless. 

Paper to Write

Imprintables is a new Australian paper shop.  Well, at least new to me.  I love all of their cards - small sized, elegant and perfect for little announcements of big things.  Almost makes me a send-out-baby-arrival-announcement kind of girl.  Almost.  May be I'll use them for the next birthday party though!

Paper to Hang
 Kidlandia offers custom-printed maps for your kid.  Make your own pirate bay, world or country, customize all the place names with things your kid loves (including custom creatures, treasures, boats and swords) and make him king! Who would not love that?  I mean, I'm thinking of getting one for my husband.  Shhhh.  You can get these in vinyl sticker form, in stretched canvas, or as a printed paper.  To hang. 

Oh, and you can also order a plain, old, boring real-world map.  But I don't know why you would.  I mean, look at this.

No paper involved at all

And, finally, the Help Shop has some well-designed tablet tins for your perusal:

And don't forget to check out their Help, I'm Bored section, even if you are not.

Except I didn't say "Fudge"......

Elijah loves trucks right now.  For months on end, he's been screaming "TWUCK!! TWUCK!!" at the sight of any large vehicle.  Really cool.  He's into it. We got him loads of twucks.  All was well.

But now his pronunciation of the word "truck" has changed.  He is replacing the first two letters of the word "truck" with a clear, drawn-out, loud, well-enunciated F.
To further complicate things, he started speaking in short phrases at around the same time.  Which, so far, has produced some delightful gems.  Replace the first letter with a loud "FFFFFFFF" and you get the gist.

"Mommy, *uck!"
"*uck down!"
"*uck home!"
"Dump *uck!" (sounds a lot like 'dumb *uck', especially when mumbled while wondering off)
"Big *uck!"
"Fire *uck!"
And, of course, when he is really excited about a truck,
"*uck! *uck! *uck!!"

We have tried to practice prounouncing "truck" with him, but all that has done is made him yell "FUCK!" even louder.  So we stopped.  Now we just try to avoid the topic, but it's difficult given that the stupid things are all over the roads.  Who knew that things usually used to describe trucks in phrases are so interesting when applied to, um, this area.  We totally are at a loss for what to do - the only thing we can do, and probably will do, is to try to record him saying it so we can play it back someday for our grandchildren.

Someone please help us.