Suburban (in)Sanity

Yes, will work for food/free t-shirts - Mozy for Moms

I'm a Mozy subscriber. Don't know what Mozy is? Which rock did you say you've been making your home under? Is it comfy there? Are all your photos and emails and notes about your children's cute behavior at summer camp nice and safe and secure under that rock you got there?

No? Hmm...if only there were some sort of solution...

Oh, yeah, that's right. Check out Mozy. (Yes Jen, I'm still talking to you. ;) You sign up, set up some software on your computer(s), then let it run. It'll back up your entire machine, and then set up incremental backups to take only what has changed.

If you ever suffer a catastrophic computer failure including, but not limited to, the baby pooped on the keyboard and it was liquidy like and it shorted out the motherboard, the kids let the iguana chew on the cables and are now crying over their dead iguana, you threw the computer out the window at the forth note this month from the school nurse asking you to pick up your child who has a 98.8 degree fever, your house spontaneously combusted, just like your mother always said your room would if you didn't pick up your dirty clothes once in a while, you drop it over the side during a trip down the rapids in a zodiac, or you go to take the laptop + cords somewhere, but the cord got tangled on the knob of the desk and as you stood up suddenly and moved to the left, the computer cord jerked the computer out of your hands and down in a dramatic fashion to the right, then the floor, where it lands on the corner, conveniently the same corner that the hard drive is located in. The whirring, click, clunk sound gives you your first indication that maybe something has gone wrong. [1]

At any rate, don't stay living under that rock. Go sign up for Mozy. It's a smart investment, even if you're anal like me and backup your files locally to an external hard drive. If your external hard drive fails (which mine recently did) you're toast. Or if your house goes toast, there goes your external hard drive in the wreckage.

And, you know, collect yourself some cool mommy swag [2] while you're at it. Yes, I am being paid one (1) t-shirt (tee) for this blog post. You should take into consideration the fact that anything I wrote here may be under the influence of a mom desperate to get something, anything really, for nothing. Shh, don't tell the Mozy guys that I'd do this without the promise of the free tee, okay? Our secret. Do that secret mommy shake. [3] Thanks.

[1] This last one has actually happened to me and I paid more than $800 for data recovery for all my eldest's baby pictures.
[2] I'm partial to the Mom 2.0 design, so do me a favor and order something else. Even if you're not expecting a baby, it can be our little inside joke on all your friends and family, and your surprised husband. It'd be so embarassing if we showed up at the grocery store in the same shirt otherwise. Much appreciated.
[3] Dude, stop shaking. We're all jiggling in places we shouldn't be. Maybe we need something other than a secret mommy shake. How about an eyebrow raise? Yeah, the secret mommy eyebrow raise. Good, good.

My poor, neglected blog

I leave it languish here now, forgotten in the flurry that is twitter and facebook status updates. I can no longer thing of 500-word length blog posts, all my thoughts have become boiled down to 140 character phraselets. I am becoming a cliche.

Ah, well, I'll try to change. It's summer, after all. If nothing else I could talk about my garden, which with all the rain we've been getting is looking just lovely, thanks.

Liam with Easter presents

One of the best pictures of Liam in recent days. He's getting so grown
up.

Easter gifts from Grandma

Don't get faux burned by the faux fire!

Simul-fire in the Illini Union where I'm attending a conference.

That thing that must not be named

Conversation with my 7 year old today:

Him: "Mom, can I do that thing now?"

Me: "What thing?"

Him: "That thing I can't say. The thing you said if I ask about one more time that I can't do."

Hmm...does that count as asking one more time?

Me: "Oh, *that* thing. Sure."

FWIW, it was just asking to look at the app store on the new iphone. He's a geek at heart already! Age 7. I'm so proud!

Another one of those gender differences things, or just kid differences

As I was folding the laundry [1] I was in a hurry and didn't feel like turning rightside in the pair of Anastasia's socks that were inside out. I paused for a moment, considered it, and tossed the paired-up inside out socks into her basket.

The rationale?

Maybe because she's a girl, or maybe it's just because of who she is, she'll see inside out socks and simply know that she should turn them rightside in before she wears them.

I would never do this with Liam's socks.

[1] with, wah, nobody to talk to. <shakes head at Shelly, who should have used her extra-sensory perception to realize I was a'foldin...>

You needed kids...

My five year old was asking me the other night, in the  midst of bath tasks [1] about the work of having kids. It started with some questions about how much work it is to be a mom [3] And then in her special way, because as I've said before she's always trying to explain her world, she decided to explain why it is that we had kids.

So her explanation went something like, "You needed kids because you just wanted more people around you loving you than just cats and a husband."

Well, I have to say I'm much relieved that she didn't want me to be one of those cat ladies. [4]

And then while I was writing it down in one of many notebooks I keep around expressly for capturing this kind of cuteness, she said, "Mommy, is that your cute thing book?" Yep, you caught me, darling, I'm writing it down in my cute thing book. Mainly because my brain can't be relied upon to retain critical information on a short-term basis, much less non-life-or-death content. Ah, that mothering mind. I can do thirteen things simultaneously but don't ask me to remember anything more relevant than getting the library books back on time. [5]

[1] Which is one of my least favorite parenting tasks, second only to cleaning up kid puke.[2]
[2] Thank heavens the kids seem to have inherited my iron stomach instead of their daddy's namby-pamby one. That man goes down *hard* 1-2x/year with some stomach ailment, and man he pukes LOUDLY!
[3] Glad someone's paying attention! Although...it was probably because I was griping, see [1]
[4] Who knew there were entire websites devoted to them? I suppose I would be one, my college friends even predicted it back a hundred years ago.
[5] Crap. Mental note - 7 year old's library books due back tomorrow. Yes he's old enough. Yes he still forgets. Yes I'm a good mommy and help him remember. Yes he's responsible about *other* things in his life and accepts consequences for when he forgets assignments at school, but I try to help him with the books because he's just so darn dejected when he has to miss out on picking out a book because his haven't been returned.

Open note to the mom at the grocery store whose kid was having a tantrum today

You are a good mom. You were calm. You were patient, even though your 8ish year old son had one shoe on and one shoe off. You didn't tell him, "You're making a scene" or worse, "You're embarrassing me." You didn't try to wrestle him, for which I'm glad because I'm pretty sure in his excited state he could take you. You were just there for him. Close. Calm. And moving toward the door as fast as conditions would allow. He is lucky to have you for his mom.

I bet you were feeling frustrated. Ashamed. Angry. It's certainly one of the hardest things we do as moms to keep that from boiling over. It was probably all you could do to stay calm, but you did, and I wanted you to know I admire you for it, and I learned a little today. I'm going to try to be more calm, more understanding, more patient with my kids. Thank you.

And an open note to the idiots behind me in the ATM line who don't want to have kids, or don't want to have kids who throw tantrums like that.

You're right, it's best if you don't procreate. Particularly with each other <shudder.>

Five year old spelling

Anastasia has these little books they do at school, one for each letter. She's up to Letter "T" There are pictures on each of the little pages, and the kids get to color the picture, then try to write what word it is below.

This week, for the T book, we have:

TABAL
TANT
TADE
TIAR
TOTBrHAH
TUB
In case you needed the translations, here you go:

Table
Tent
Teddy
Tire
Toothbrush
and, of course Tub

Jamie Ford's book on the table at B&N Geneva, IL

My online writer buddy's book is out! Congrats, Jamie.

What a difference three and a half years make

I distinctly recall having to hold Anastasia down to give her liquid medicine when she was a little younger than two. There was screaming, yelling, tears. Sometimes she'd even cry, when she wasn't trying to put my eye out with a well-placed kick or elbow.

Let me tell you, it was a good day in the doctor's office when we determined that she was able/ready to do chewable tablets when she got sick or needed something, rather than the nasty liquid that she tried her level best to squirt straight back into my eye after I'd rammed it into her mouth.

Well fast forward a couple years, and now she tells me, about the medicine she's taking (omnicef liquid) - "Mom, that tastes terrible!" (emphasis hers) - while she's pushing the plunger to put the rest of the medicine in her mouth. She makes a face, then "I need some water to wash this taste out of my mouth!" and off she goes. It's definitely aided by the coolness factor of the Target liquid medicine dispensing system (have to go to target.com, pharmacy, then to ClearRx, Liquid Meds to see - but trust me, it's worth it.) Insert measuring syringe, turn bottle upside down, pull back plunger, medicine fills with no fuss. And looks really cool!

Meanwhile, she's counting down the days she has left to take the medicine. And continues to take it without a fuss, just a face. I wish someone had told me back then I just had 3 years left to tough out. Might have saved me a few gray hairs...

My cat doesn't want me to work today

Deep thought for the day

There's a lot of purpose to the work of being a mom, even when it sometimes feels like there's no point.

Your iPhone as your Life Remote Control

My friend Mark has a really interesting blog post about how your iPhone (or other handheld) is quickly becoming the remote control to your life. He doesn't say it exactly that way, but what he said sparked this idea in me, which I think is a really interesting one. Ubiquitous computing, it's often called. We used to dream of this and do funky demos of imagined software that could, for instance, automatically add milk to the shopping list when the last of the milk is taken out of the refrigerator (or when the last swig is left swirling at the bottom. That's got to be user-configurable, right?)

That was 13 years ago. Where are we today? In many ways we're way beyond that. Back then everyone was just starting to carry cell phones, they were just becoming portable instead of those monstrous luggable ones. But I still don't have a computer on my refrigerator. Of course there are and have been some models, but let's be honest, I don't want to replace a $2500 appliance just so I can make sure I have milk in the fridge when I want it. Come to think of it, I don't get milk from the grocery store anyway - it's delivered from the local dairy that doesn't do GMOs and antibiotics and growth hormones and stuff. And when I want to change my order, I call the helpfully memorable number (1-888-Milk-to-u) and ask the nice person on the phone to change my order. They can make a permanent change to my standing every 2-weeks order, or they can make a one-time change (helpful when pies are on sale...)

But enough about my positive customer-service digression, point is - I think that maybe back in the 90s we were thinking about it wrong. We were thinking about inserting all these devices *into* existing appliances. Instead, it looks to me like the technology horizon is an augmentation one. Add Apple TV to the home network. Use your iPhone in new ways through apps (iPhone developers - here's an idea: use the input from the camera to scan bar codes...or even just photograph and search peapod's database. Actually, peapod take note - you could make me a customer just by giving me that cool feature. I've wanted to be a peapod customer for a long time but somehow haven't managed to yet...) Augment your home technology system instead of replacing non-wired devices. Add wifi speakers. Sure, when things crap out, replace them, but otherwise our portable devices are going to open up more opportunities for us than I think anyone was dreaming about back in the 90s.

Bingo madness!

What it means to have a wired president/white house

I don't even know how to begin assessing what it's going to mean to have a truly wired president, a truly online White House. But I continue to be amazed at the things I'm finding.

Just a few bits from today:

Obama's Linked In Profile (take a particular look at current job...)
The whitehouse.gov twitter feed

The whitehouse.gov blog (our president/the administration has a blog!? Maybe this existed before, can't say I was a frequent visitor to whitehouse.gov in the past, but there's some really cool stuff on the whole whitehouse.gov site now.)

Anyway, too much to absorb and process for one night, but a start. A very very interesting start.

Bottomless pits

Maybe they're growing, or maybe it's the winter "must pack in calories" survival instinct kicking in (wouldn't be surprising after the weather we've had lately) or maybe it's just that they don't eat enough during their school day, but my two children just put back:

Child 1 (age 7):
1 banana (with 1/2 teaspoon sugar sprinkled on top - something I used to have as a kid)
1.5 mini-bagel (even tried some cream cheese, nothing short of miraculous for He Who Won't Try New Foods. But that explains why it was only 1.5 bagels and not 2. He rejected the second half after trying the cream cheese, deeming it "good" and then putting it aside. Um, doesn't help me much if you try new foods but then don't want to actually eat them...)
Unknown quantity of pretzels
1 banana with sugar [1]

Child 2 (age 5):
1 mini-bagel with cream cheese
Unknown quantity of pretzels with 2T hummus
1 banana with sugar [2][3]

[1] Why yes, now that you asked, I am wondering if the child will be constipated later, but not really going to worry about it now.

[2] This was after having fruit-loops with milk as a snack at after-care at school.

[3] She just went back for a go-gurt. [4]

[4] Make that two. Yikes. Guess I don't need to feed them dinner!

Trying out a new look, and kids in grocery stores

So I'm trying out a new look with backgrounds and things. Haven't tweaked the look/feel of this blog in ... er, ever, so it was about time. I just liked the colors and contrasts of the header so - there's your deep thoughts for why. It is vaguely indicative of suburban bliss, isn't it? And it reflects one of my primary thoughts about moving out here - you can see so many stars. Not that I'd want to do any of that star-huntin' now, I'd get frostbite in all sorts of places, but at least I know the stars will still be there when the weather improves.

Meanwhile, the kids ended up having 5 days off in the last week, a fluke of school scheduling and uber-cold weather (which doesn't affect our kids much since we're an all-commuter school, but we're tied to one of the local districts on school closings - when they close, we close.) But because the days off fell unexpectedly, I hadn't gotten the grocery out of the way so the kids accompanied me to two different stores during that time. (yes, it's the suburbs, I have the luxury of shopping at more than one grocery store - you can be jealous if you want. I mostly find it annoying because I have to go to store A for producs 1-29, but store B is the only place where products 30 and 31 are sold, so I might as well get products 5-17 there...and then by the way product 32 is on sale at store C and we're running low enough that we should really stock up - the sale is that good and it's on the way to store B...)

The thing I realized, after a solid 4 months of grocery shopping on my own, is that the kids really get in the way while shopping! I kept tripping over them, bumping into them, or them bumping into me with the cart. They kept being where people wanted to be (apparently I am raising two very oblivious short people...didn't know that...) and otherwise just being inconvenient. And it occurred to me that I'm getting very crotchety and cranky in my old age.

Technology pergatory

Nothing is working. ISP "service interruption", sluggish response to
my outgoing iPhone messages (no idea if this one will go out), low
signal strength from WAP, help! I'm trapped in 1995!

Sent from my mobile phone.

Other people read these things?

I love to write, and it's just one of those things I do without a huge amount of thought devoted to "my public" - e.g., anyone who cares what I write. I write what I want to write, the kinds of things I would like to read (particularly the kinds of things I would have liked to read when I was a teen and the only girl/person I knew who read science fiction at all.)

So the fact that anyone is interested in reading what I write is still a bit surprising to me. When they like it, well, you can knock me down with a feather. So I was very excited (poof, down on the floor) to get a message today from Eric Reynolds at Hadley Rille Books who put out the Return to Luna anthology that my story Apples on the Moon appears in. He gave a link to a great review of the whole anthology. But not only was it a great review of the whole anthology, but the guy read my story and actually enjoyed it! The tagline he came up with was perfect, as it dovetails nicely with the way I refer to the story[1], "wacky teen hijinks on the moon."

[1] Turns out most writers do this too, and rarely do our personal titles have anything to do with how the stories are actually titled. I have, in no order, the sniper story, suburban mom teleporter story, wacky teen hijinks on the moon, wacky eggplant hijinks on the moon, mr. nobody, and the man-boy story aka manling story active right now in my repertoire, and the teens on a space station novel project, not to be confused with the kid on a spaceship (she's only 11) novel project. Good times. 

Questioning vegetarianism, kid-style

Our family is vegetarian. Technically we're ovo-lacto-pesce vegetarians, because we do consume dairy and eggs, and the occasional bits of fish (usually battered and shaped into convenient little sticks...) But we're vegetarians. The kids have never had meat (unless by accident that we don't know about.) DH and I have been meat-free since July 2002 (there's a funny story there but for another time.)

The kids have *never* questioned our family's decision not to eat meat. We have always explained it to them that we think that there are enough foods around that we don't need to kill animals to get our foods. We're lucky to live in a time/place where we can eat and be healthy without having to eat animals, etc. Yes, there's some hipocracy around the fish but you're just going to have to let it go. I have. And yes, when the kids are older (still haven't defined "older" - somewhere north of 13 I think...) they are certainly welcome to choose to eat meat, though our household will likely remain meat-free and they'll have to figure out some way to procure their meat elsewhere.

Over the years, I've heard funny stories from friends who have had my kids over for meals, one almost ill-fated trip to McDonalds when Anastasia wanted the "Chicken Nuggets" thinking they were the faux-meat "chik'n nuggets" we get from the grocery store, but even at 4 she knew to ask if they had meat in them and then changed her order to a grilled cheese sandwich. I've overheard my kids telling others they don't eat meat, turning down hot dogs without even making a funny face, I'm so proud. And every year when one or the other of them does a unit in school about the food pyramid or dinosaurs, we get extra conversations at dinnertime about being herbivoires and how our protein box on the food pyramid has nuts and eggs and cheese in it.

Still, as vegetarians I know it's important to make sure we're getting a balanced diet. We all take vitamins as a bit of insurance, even though our doctor tells us we eat better than anyone in his practice. Today we were shopping for new vitamins. After a conversation with aforementioned doctor last week I discovered that the Gummy Vites, which I had finally caved and purchased for the kids after two failed $10 bottles of grocery-store kids vitamins had been summarily rejected by the wee folk, contained no iron. Not sure if you know this, but there's plenty of iron in foods like steak, burgers, tuna (yeah, right, I'd like to see you try to sneak a tunafish sandwich past my kids...) Some in iron-fortified cereals and grains. And of course some naturally occurring in fruits and vegetables, but not in great quantities, and, as it happens - mostly in foods my kids don't prefer like raisins, egg yolks, blackstrap molasses, and avocados. Just because they eat all kinds of fruits and vegetables doesn't mean they're not picky. Heck, I don't like those foods either.

Iron and B vitamins are the main risk areas for vegetarians. Liam was iron-deficient as a baby. This isn't something to toy with. Rats.

Well, luckily we were out of the gummy vites by then. The kids were both with me when the doctor told us there's no iron in them - something about accidental overdose concerns perhaps, or getting iron to take on that cute bear-like form (should have read the label better, but there's only so much label-reading you can do when you're buying your third $10 bottle of vitamins in two weeks...) So he suggested the natural regular vitamins from the health-food store, his kids like them.

Off we went to the store today. Again with the conversation about why we can't get the gummy vitamins (which the health food store has a version of, I'm sure better for them with less sugar and crap in them, but still no iron...) Again with the conversation about being herbivores. Again with me explaining how because we don't eat meat we should be careful about iron and thus we need the bigger crunchy kinds of vitamins.

So Liam (who is now 7, going on 15) says, "Well how about if we become omnivores? Then we won't have to get vitamins with iron in it."

Have you detected the flaw in his logic yet? The big gaping hole you can drive a buffalo through? "But Liam, if we were omnivores, we'd have to eat meat."

You should have seen the look on his face.

Meanwhile, the crisis was averted because the really awesome health food store (The Fruitful Yield) has VITAMIN SAMPLES! What an exceptionally good idea. Everyone tasted the kind we picked out, voted the vitamins as tasty, and off we went with our new $10 bottle of vitamins. And a crisis of vegetarianism conscience averted. Phew.

You get what you pay for

The picture doesn't do it justice, but this is what you get when four boys (ages 8 and under) show up at your door and offer to shovel your driveway. Can you see the snow lines every which way, and more importantly, the vast quantities of snow still on the driveway? I went out eventually (this picture was after the boys had been hard at "work" for more than 20 minutes) and helped organized the well-meaning and hard-working if a little chaotic boys. They were adorable, but turns out when you pay $1 per kid, you get...well, a chaotic haphazard shoveling job. But it sure beat shoveling alone. They were worth it for the comic relief. :)

And yes, I'm now finished shoveling for the second time tonight. Sigh. It's going to be a looong winter. Hope Santa brings us some good video games.

The back cover

My name is at the end of the second to last line of the first group.
So very cool.

My book arrived!

My story, Apples on the Moon, pages 155-166. So exciting!!!!

Crossing a parenting coolness threshold

We just stayed in the car an extra 5 mins after getting home from dinner with the kids to jam to Fat Bottom Girls (and other select hits from Daddy's shuffle.)

We know we've arrived because Anastasia kept shushing us.

Holy splits, batman

Liam can almost do the Chinese splits (at least that's what we called
them growing up - now they're called middle splits)

In my other life

One of several "covers" I have is that of a lactation support provider (breastfeeding information and support.) Through that affiliation, I was asked to be a breastfeeding expert on NewParent.com magazine. They've just relaunched the website and my first few answers are up! Check them out.

Fun, cool stuff. Stay tuned for more writing news. All three of you. ;)

In case you were wondering

Leaving the earbud in the car in 23 degree weather, then inserting earbud into ear upon reentry to car 2 hrs later leads to...an inner chill that is hard to describe. Like having an ice cube in your ear, but only it doesn't melt. I suppose then a chilly earbud is superior to having an ice cube in your ear, but only just.

I just had to...

Fish my daughter's poop out of an overflowing toilet with a soup can and surgical gloves as my only protection. There is no bottom to the depths of my love and devotion. At least it wasn't a tornado poop. And I did manage to suppress the urge to vomit. Which would have made the whole process a lot messier.