Five Years Cancer Free

Posted on by

Regular readers know that I have often posted about my desperate intellectual infatuation with the literature of David Foster Wallace. And an occasional video from an awesome band who created a beautiful in memorium piece for him.

This new homage to Wallace is just freaking awesome.

…

Happy anniversary to me. And here’s hoping everyone else who has gotten or will get a cancer diagnosis lives to find some joy. In something. Anything. I’ve found an awful lot in five years. And a geek-fest homage to my favorite book is delicious icing.

I am too old for this

Posted on by

Here’s the short version, because you have places to be and I’m exhausted.

I tell Peanut in advance about dentist visit. He’s been a handful of times, always has easy cleanings. It’s never easy convincing him, though. Have I mentioned, maybe a thousand times before about his strong opinions and his desire to be in control and his spiritedness? Yes. Spirited. Highly. And it takes my every trick to get him to open up. For the four minutes it takes to gently clean a small person’s teeth.

So I tell him. Week before, day before, day of. Explain we have a full day and I need him to move past the “I’m not going” to get his clothes, get in the car, go into the dental office, sit down, open up, and let the nice, gentle people brush, count, and paint his teeth. (No sealants with BPA. Don’t worry, people of the interwebs.)

Drive thirty minutes to appointment. Toddler gets foreshortened nap. But it’s worth it, right, to not have any downtime and to have an overtired seventeen-month old, because Peanut will have clean teeth. But he clams up. I relay his pre-appointment-specified requests to hygienist: no bib, real names for tools not lame kid-friendly names, mix mint and chocolate flavored toothpastes. Fine.

Nope. Won’t do it. I’m gentle for a while, I allay his fears. This is quick, this is easy, this is gentle. You’ve done this before. Then I remind him the dentist present in the car is only for people with professionally cleaned teeth. Ditto the playdate later. These are not new threats/bribes. Though this is my first bribe attempt, I knew enough to set up the bribe earlier and keep the promise consistent throughout.

40 minutes in we say he’s running out of time. 45 minutes in he says okay but refuses to sit down. I take him home, and I’m pissed. I make a return appointment before storming out.

At one point I tel P that we’re going to go back in three days and if he doesn’t submit I’ll have them hold him down. It takes about one minute to realize how terrible that is, so I change it to we’ll go back every single day after school with no playgrounds and no playdates until your teeth get cleaned.

At home, later, I say that we have another appointment for Thursday. Will you do it? If I drive all that way and pay I want to know you’ll do it. I would rather let your teeth get holes and fall out later than waste my time, money, and energy now. I want you healthy, I want you able to eat, I want you to feel proud of all that brushing. I want you to like the dentist, damnit.

“Please. Will you let them do a cleaning?”

“Yes. They can sweep the floor.”

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, he can just buy dentures with the money from his comedy career.

In which I go all Yosemite Sam

Posted on by

Frickafracka galldarned fanglewrangle pifflepoffle…

[UPDATED 8/21]
Searching for a child-sized non-toxic backpack for Peanut is some serious bullsh*t. Almost all the backpacks out there have PVC and lead, and I’m furious that I have to work so hard to find that most companies are a bunch of corner-cutting liars, thieves, and jackweeds. Not shocked, mind you. Mad.

Phthalates were banned from children’s toys in 2008 (but not other children’s products). PVC (vinyl) and small amounts of lead are allowed in the manufacture of children’s toys and in other products. Despite the hazards of PVC, shocking number of school supplies are still made of this toxic plastic, including binders, backpacks, sheet protectors, paper clips, and rain gear. And offensive as that is, since none of the parents I know are willing to buy products that invite their kids into the worlds of asthma, reproductive problems, cancer, obesity, ADHD, and learning disabilities; lunchboxes and backpacks with PVC have lead, too. That’s because PVC is made with heavy metals. Bonus, special for you today: (at least) two toxins for the price of one! (and don’t get me started on cadmium)

Sorry, what? They’re making stuff for kids to carry around and touch and eat from that are not free of lead or PVC? What the frickafracka glippidygloppedy…

Here’s what I’ve found (in my copious free time for such nonsense):

DwellSmart’s backpack is bigger than a toddler pack and smaller than a big kid pack. PVC-free and non-toxic. Cotton and whatnot. Thank heavens. Also? No chance my kid will want it. I would. But he likes bold and designs. And glitter and sequins and stickers and neon lights on everything. [sigh]

Dwell Studio offers some nice retro-esque prints and an ideal size.

Cute packs for big kids and for little kids by Beatrix are just the right size and fit our non-toxic requirements.

Ah, hemp. Can’t go wrong with natural fabrics, right? Rawganique has a whole selection, including a mini backpack just the right size. As with DwellSmart, small problem with the lack of kid-friendly prints or design. Perhaps they could add just a sweet cotton applique or stitched design? My kid would choose either if they had a stitched robot on the pocket.

Fluf Organics has my personal favorite kindergarten nontoxic PVC-free, lead-free, phthalate-free, BPA-free backpack.

Not Quite:
Wildkin pack-n-snacks are PVC-free, phthalate-free, and BPA-free but don’t specify lead-free. They say they comply with legal standards. That pretty much screams “probably has lead but don’t sue us because we didn’t promise it didn’t” to me. There’s a big difference between lead-free and lead-compliant. Lead compliant means within the legal limit for lead. Federal standards for lead is less than 100 ppm (if they actually found that level feasible, having proposed lowering it from 300 ppm. So complying with federal law means less than 0.03% to 0.01% lead. Lead free, however, means no lead. Given how much energy I’m investing in these kids, I prefer lead free.

Crocodile Creek has some backpacks that are PVC-free, phthalate-free, and BPA-free. Again, they say they comply with legal standards. Less than 100 ppm lead.

Hanna Andersson has a line of PVC-free backpacks, too. They will only say they comply with lead and phthalate regulations, which does not set my mind at ease. Plus, they don’t have any without pink and purple right now, though, and my long-haired, nail-painting, pink-loving son has enough hurdles entering kindergarten that I’m not showing him these.

High Sierra has PVC-free backpacks (and tents, which we found as we searched for a four-person tent [shout out to Butter, y’all!] But I can’t find one for kids and their pack-finding tool at the High Sierra website is broken, so I’m mad at them.

SafeMama, the guru of hunting down companies until they weep and admit their eco-toxic ways has a cheat sheet for us. Naturally.

But everything else out there is too big for my kid or too toxic for anyone.

[aside: if you have someone larger than a kindergartener, you might be interested in this link from Be Safe Net. That, plus SafeMama’s cheat sheet, might lead you to High Sierra and Jansport and Patagonia and Timbuk2 and Ecogear. Maybe not. If you have a smaller dude on their way somewhere important, like school or day care or from one room to another, you’ll check out Mimi the Sardine and Skip Hop zoo backpacks. And CBHstudio, which has the most adorable backpacks I’ve seen, PVC-free, BPA-free, phthalate-free, lead free. Maybe you’ll make your own backpack. Maybe you can send me one and I will be grateful.]

Frickafracka…we’ll see which of the five options I found that work for us, DwellSmart, DwellStudio, Rawganique, Fluf Organics, or Beatrix.

Why can’t we just go to local stores and buy things that are safe?

Good point, sir.

Posted on by

Me: Peanut, get your shoes. We have to go.
5YO: Mom, we don’t have to go.
Me: Good point. We don’t have to. We should and I want to.
5YO: But I don’t. So I won’t.

***

Me: Butter, feet on the floor please.
1YO: [laughing] Nah nah nah.
Me: Feet down, please. Tables are dangerous.
1YO: [laughing, running for other side of table] Nah nah nah.
Me: Yes, yes yes.
5YO: Mom, you just told him yes to climb. That’s confusing him.

***

Me: Peanut, we need to clean this up before bed.
5YO: Well, we don’t need to. You just want to. So you do it.
Me: Well, I don’t want to play with it, so maybe I’ll just give it away.
5YO: No you won’t. We need toys.
Me: You don’t really need it. You want it.
5YO: No. You’re wrong. I need it.

***
You, young man, make excellent points. Now go make them to your new teacher, heaven help her.

Best spam ever.

Posted on by

“Just have actually present your blog post reverse thus i carry without a doubt felt enjoying consider this method around a typical. Along at the base have access to a numerous ideas the following well, i savour watch for until this planet wide working experience necessary. Take all the outstanding career!”

Nicely said, spammer.

New paradigm

Posted on by

My best used to be much more than just good enough. My best used to be fabulous.

Since becoming a parent, my best is never good enough at home, at work, at school…in life overall. And that feels awful.

I used to submit before deadlines. Now I have no control over time and am late with work.

I used to speak articulately. Now the most basic vocabulary eludes me.

I used to balance everything from budgets to fitness, academia to consulting. Now I am being thrown off the teeter-totter daily by the overwhelming ball of regurgitated mess that is my life.

I used to bob and weave and take curve balls as they came. Now I can’t come up with an appropriately disastrous sports cliche to express my being clocked in the melon hourly by all the foul balls thrown at me.

I used to have self confidence borne of deliberate effort and measurable success. Now I fake it until I’m called a big ol’ liar, which is pretty much daily.

And most of my communications—text, email, post, and letter—have errors I don’t find until hours after the message is sent.

Who the hell am I? And how much worse will it get?

This week in Naptime

Posted on by

The big guy has had his last day of preschool. Two years of a loving, supportive, superb play-based outdoor/indoor extravaganza of exploration and choices. He has, in the past month: lost a tooth, learned to tie his shoes, and ridden a bike without training wheels. It’s killing me, but I guess he is ready for kindergarten. [sob] I’m worried about the unfortunate things kindergarten has become and the heart-wrenching ways it affects boys, but here we go.

The little guy is a flirty goofball of performance and projects. He’s only saying a few words, but he signs dozens of words and has fabulous grasp of social relations. He has a great sense of right and wrong and has no problem telling an older child to “knock it off,” to “give it back,” and to “step off or I will bite you.”

It’s killing me, but I think he’s ready for night weaning. [sob] We believe in nursing on demand, we believe in nighttime parenting, we believe in compassion. And I miss sleeping. I need to edit, I want to write, and I have to think. I haven’t slept more than three hours at a stretch since he was born. Between teething and ear infections he’s been up every two hours for a long damned time. Of course, night weaning doesn’t equal sleep. His older brother night weaned at 18 months (forcibly, as a last resort for my sanity by Spouse, who spent three months awake trying to lovingly convince Captain Stubborn that the milk goes away during sleep time). That willful, opinionated Peanut didn’t slept through the night until after he turned 3. Butterbean seems more willing to nightwean. The few times I’ve said no, he cries an angry cry for 30 seconds then lies down and falls asleep. [sob] I don’t like facing this milestone.

But, as with shoelaces and two-wheelers and kindergarten, we have to try. Because sleep and writing and editing and half days with only one kid might make things a lot easier around here.

Wish us luck, would you?

In defense of the MA in Lit

Posted on by

So, all over the Internet are hysterical darts being thrown at S&P who, according to many experts, got the downgrade right.

And at the crux of the vitriol is the “liberal arts guy with a masters in English literature, who never studied economics.”

So? I have a Master’s in English lit. It requires a decent amount of logic and reasoning. And when a country brings in too little money to pay for what it spends, but can’t get its leadership to close that gap by, for instance, raising what it brings in and lowering what it spends, I would downgrade its rating, too.

Which, for the record, the lit MA guy didn’t do. He’s the spokesperson, y’all. He’s in charge of the words. You know, the part English majors know a lot about. The econ people watched the numbers and cried foul. The Lit guy told the world.

Shoot the messenger? That’s English literature, too. (Or Greek. Don’t believe everything you read on the Interwebs. I don’t see anything about harming messengers in Henry IV part 2, oh unfettered misinformation depot known as wikipedia.)

Another to-do list

Posted on by

To Do. (NB: This week. Seriously, hurry up already.)

1. Reconfigure novel. Move scenes to where they should go. Trim or add to make perfect.

2. Teach toddler to sleep better. Teething is no excuse for waking eight or nine times a night. He’s clearly doing this on purpose.

3. Polish journal article #3; Submit journal article #3.

4. Make pasta from scratch. Freeze.

5. Submit novel.

6. Practice Alexander Technique while awake at 11pm. 1am. And 2am. And 4am. And 5am. You don’t have to fix yourself, though.

7. Speak with sleepless toddler about his bad attitude.

8. Start college fund for kids. See if 529s accept dryer lint as deposit.

9. Write journal article #4. While writing, judge self for not doing this sooner.

10. Update LinkedIn profile and start self promotion blitz.

11. Get lots of contract editing work.

12. Learn to quilt. And cross-stitch.

13. Start etsy for sarcastic handmade stuff.

14. Complete lots of contract editing work.

15. Choose languages to learn for PhD program.

16. Practice bass. (NB: not the fish. Try sleeping, maybe, after perfecting bass. No…as I said, not the fish. Get some caffeine, maybe, while practicing bass. Seriously, what is it with you? Not. the. fish. Why would I list “practice a fish” on a list of things to do? Come on.)

17. Speak with self about bad attitude.

18. Learn two languages. as jump start on PhD requirements.

19. Design and print photo albums for grandparents’ holiday presents.

20. Arrange for sitter next month for Date Morning. Date Night means paying sitter to ignore sleeping kids, which Spouse and I do really well.

21. Write second novel.

22. Sell baby stuff on craigslist.

23. Make microloans.

24. Get part time job with great benefits.

25. Apply for PhD program.

26. Get grad school loan. Sell soul or children to ensure retirement out of debt.

27. Quit job with a year of 401k savings. That should be enough for retirement.

28. Complete PhD program.

29. Write third novel.

30. Floss more often.
Using Alexander Technique.
While composing music.
And doing gluteal exercises.

Lemming Alert

Posted on by

This is driving me crazy. I’ve gotten three emails this week, forwarded from people who ought to know better. The content of these emails (which rail against Congress for giving itself special privileges) has been widely debunked, yet intelligent people seem exceedingly gullible about what friends forward to them. America, laws were passed in the ’80s and ’90s to curtail what these people are sending hoax emails about. Since those laws were enacted, Congress does not get special health care, does pay into Social Security, and does adhere to the laws it passes.

So why are people still circulating ridiculous and hysterical emails about passing Constitutional Amendments so Congress can’t have special privileges? Because we’re all mad at Congress. Easy one. But significantly, nobody ever tells people that the emails they forward are wrong. Recipients politely file the email in the Trash folder, or blindly forward it on.

Whenever I get an email that has been proven false by snopes.com or urbanlegend.com or factcheck.org I reply to the sender with links that show their friendly advice or entreaty is wrong. Gentle, polite, simple information that there are places where you can actually research horsesh*t that the Internet sends you.

But several days later I heard people call into an NPR discussion about a potential third political party. Callers were asked to name a simple plank on which the party would run. And at least two listeners suggested that Congress be forced to adhere to the same policies, laws, and taxes as other Americans. I guess they got the same email. And they then believed it, internalized it, and wasted their chance at a real political reform position by spouting ridiculous nonsense.

People, people, people. Please do your research before you get your panties in a bunch about something. And, Media Outlets? Maybe your producers, who screen the calls, could also do a quick Google check of the bullsh&t coming in via callers.

I know nobody’s happy with Congress right now. I’m really angry, too. But that shouldn’t be fuel for falsehood and unsubstantiated rumor.

Do your homework. Then go email all your friends about how things need to change.

You had me at “tubby little cubby”

Posted on by

I avoid Disney movies like the plague. Nasty sarcastic little characters that teach kids without repercussions how to tease and call people names. Lurking menaces that terrify my kid. Dead mothers that set up a premise of orphan kid on its own. And gender stereotypes that have stepped way over the border of obscene. You know I won’t let my kid watch most of the stuff out there. He’s never seen a movie in the theater (we tried Horton but he was too little for a whole movie; he walked out 15 minutes in because he wanted to run around outside).

So I hesitated about seeing Winnie the Pooh. I read the reviews (all stellar) and thought about how Disney had ruined Pooh over the years. The bear himself (atrocious, orange, perky), the TV show (dastardly, trite, uninspired), and the books (“gee, Dora is popular, so how can we make the Hundred Acre Woods less British and more WonderPets-esque?”)

And then I watched the trailer. No menaces, no sarcasm, generally sweet characters whose biggest flaws are ebullience and gloominess, neither of which is foreign to a 5 year old. More important, no teasing or sarcasm or nastiness. Just sweet friends trying to pursue tasks that are very important to them. Finding honey and whatnot. Ought to be harmless, right?

So we went. And I’ll tell you I was teary one minute in. This film honors the Milne books by shooting the opening sequence in the real, non-cartoon bedroom of Christopher Robin. The slow sweep through his bedroom tells us explicitly that the imagination of a small boy is the source of all the animals’ adventures. That language is in the magical phase of newness and fluidity. That what we will see comes directly from the love and creativity of one boy.

And the first view of the Hundred Acre Woods reveals that the film is quite aware of its textual origins. At various points throughout the movie we see the set piece, outside the frame, of the book from which the narrator is reading. Drawn )not CGI-looking) images of Pooh and Piglet and Tigger bounce into the words of the text, knocking the type-set alphabetic characters into the story. Throughout, we know that the formal language of the narrator/book and the misspelled, painstakingly printed language of the animal friends are the two worlds Christopher Robin straddles as he learns to read and write. (sob)

The movie was fun. It was sweet. It was smart. And it was honest in a way that almost no Disney films are. It was a movie of a book of a turning point in children’s life.

And it was just perfect this weekend, one month before Peanut starts kindergarten. As his tooth wobbles and his letters stand proudly (and occasionally backwards) on his art, labeling and naming and telling stories.

Winnie the Pooh was exactly what I’d hoped. It was childhood captured in a moment of joy and imagination and song; supportive of healthy, adorable, bookish childhood. How can that be wrong?

Phew!

Posted on by

Wanna hear something nice? Nice things are welcome, aren’t they, even on snarky, whiny blogs?

Well, a dear friend had open heart surgery today (his second in eight years) and he’s coming out of the anesthesia right now.

That, to me, is quite nice. When a strong, sweet, awesome teenager full of potential and spirit makes it through what seems both scary and routine (until it’s your kid and you’re waiting for more than six hours just outside those closed doors and then it’s not even a tiny bit routine) and you get a post-op report and hear that his lungs are happy and his heart is happy and his body is beaten but soon to be happy…that’s nice.

Hang in there, buddy. You’re doing really well.

Yay for fun on the Interwebs

Posted on by

Ah, the link post. You’ll forgive me when you see and read these…

Hilarity and awesomeness in this post rooted in mocking a cat lover. Please try to laugh quietly. Not sure you can, though.

An interesting game where you can try to balance the federal budget by honoring your priorities. See how much you can cut, or add, or raise, or lower debt, taxes, spending at this Marketplace Money citizenship game.

And, to round it out, a shocking and adorable and, have I mentioned, jaw-dropping video from a girl and her science project.

Children for fun and profit

Posted on by

Just kidding. They’re only sometimes fun and rarely offer profit.

But having kids is kind of fun once they have interests, since the engaged parent learns stuff they’d never care about otherwise. For instance, I know the name of every stinking truck on the planet. Thanks, Butterbean.

Peanut and I were talking about animals, and I had to do some research to answer his questions. Here you go. Enjoy. Tell your kids. You’re welcome.

(Source: Interwebs, various sites. I’m not in grad school anymore, yo, so screw MLA and APA citation requirements. You’ll take what I give you and you’ll like it.)

(Fine. If I say Harvard’s database of bionumbers, will you shut your coffee hole?)

(NB: the Interwebs are full of liars and cheats, so tell your kids this information only if you’re used to telling them stuff that will get them mocked by the smart kids at school.)

Ahem.

The most plentiful species on earth is an ocean dwelling cyanobactiera called Prochlorococcus.
The most plentiful animal species is krill.
Half the global biomass is prokaryotic bacteria, a shocking amount of which are subsurface.
There is more cattle flesh than humans flesh by about 50%.
And there are 108 ants (which is only three times the total biomass of humans, except in my house, where those little effers outweigh even me.)
And the aquatic crustacean copepods constitute the largest animal biomass; though krill have more animals, the copepods weigh more.

So speaketh the Interwebs.  Please, for the love of Sleep, do not cite my blog for a paper you’re writing for school.
Because I’m not a scientist? Okay, sure. Use that one.
Because my research is shoddy now that nothing matters and nobody cares? I’d prefer you kept that between us.
Because I made up half this data? No. I didn’t make it up. I just didn’t cross check it or proofread it or really pay much attention beyond getting it posted so I can go to bed.

Mmmmmkay?

Not so fast, Internet

Posted on by

%&$*^#!

I had this brilliant idea. See, I’m trying all hard to dump my emotional and intellectual frump, and I’m trying to make my life more efficient. I have a few hours here and there to write, so I do. I have a few hours carved out for client work, and I’m pushing hard to fill that time. I’ve recently sequestered a few hours a week for exercise, and I’m actually doing it. Hell, Interwebs, I’m actually reading again. Because I was exhausted from whining that staying at home for my kids meant there was nothing left of me. IT was time to change! Part of the July revolution around Naptime is that I wanted a crafty project to fill my two evenings with Spouse and Netflix. Watching a movie is a great joy and a collossal waste of time for someone who cannot abide sitting still. So I knit or sew or do something handsy while I watch.

And after I saw the local yarn bombings and was inspired to craftiness again, I had a brilliant idea to cross stitch snark whenever the idiot box is on. To make little pillows that say “Shut Yur Piehole” and “Bah Humbug” and “Y’all Don’t Come Back, Ya Hear?” So I searched online to find out how to cross stitch (You shut your whore mouth: sometimes my great ideas are for things I don’t know how to do. That means I’m growing while you’re busy…getting good at things you already know how to do. So you can sound better on your LinkedIn profile than I do because you “stick with projects” and “finish what you start.” Shut your talking place.)

So a quick search on DIY cross sticth revealed this site for Subversive Cross Stitch. And this book for Subversive Cross Stitch. And this blog for Seriously Seditious Stitching. Complete with feminist and disestablishmentarian gallery.

Let me get this straight, so I can phrase it with action verbs for my resume: haven’t cornered the market on bad attitude, am way late to the snarky home crafts game, will be stuck watching a movie with Spouse while knitting a plain ol’ scarf, now fully aware how petty my ideas and goals are, given the long tradition of kickass revolutionary cross stitch?!

Fathereffing hell! You see why my fathereffing frump is hanging on me like a cheap suit? I can’t catch a break in this goldanged side-project-that-takes-away-from-my-other-projects game!

Stupid effing Internet.

Now wait one crafty-mama minute. I have it. Brilliant. While I was ranting to you delightful people, another option came into view. I’m going to go work on it for one week. In the four hours designated for such a project. And if what I think will happen actually happens, you’ll be the first to hear about it.

Oh, there will be snark. Mark my words, Interwebs. I will use my powers for fun and profit if it kills me. Which it won’t. Cuz if I can thrive, staying at home for more than five years with a child who ranks right up there with the highest of the highly spirited, if I can keep snark alive without sleep for four of the last five years, if my brain can survive the years away from academia and awesomely creative careers that used to feed me, I can damned well find a way to turn a profit from my bad attitude.

See ya in a few, dear readers. Cross your fingers and your stitches and your Ts, and I’ll be on my way soon.