Suburban (in)Sanity

The way memories are made

So I took my kids to an author signing last night, and I was reminded again about childhood memories take shape. Because I know that they will remember this night. We went to see author Shannon Hale, who has written several of our favorite books, including The Goose Girl and The Princess Academy. Which, by the way, are really excellent books and you should go out and buy them now. None of this "I don't read children's lit" baloney. Excellent books, doesn't matter the categorization.

So part of me wonders how much of a role I play in making these memories, because I have a feeling the actions I take and ways I talk about things is a big part of how they code memories for long-term storage. As if I needed something more to obsess about in terms of this ridiculously huge responsibility of raising kids! But I also think that they have a strong sense in themselves of what's special, why something is special, and they hold onto those things.

It probably helps/contributed that I was a giddy fan girl in this case. I just love the words Shannon Hale uses to convey her meaning. We listened to the above two books (and a third, Enna Burning) on audio book, and they were excellent. They're done by Full Cast Audio, which sounds fantastic because they use a cast to do the voice acting rather than just a single voice actor (not that single actors aren't great, but the cast lends a whole different dimension to the stories in my opinion. So long as they aren't classically-trained stage actors, that is. We did an audio book like that one and I swear they were projecting right though the back speakers and out the back door of the car!)

So I was arguably as excited as the kids were (plus Shannon Hale is a mom, a person "of a certain age" like me, and has had success in selling her writing...something I aspire to.)

But on these "special" days (like Anastasia's birthday last year, too) it's interesting to me how they act, because they totally get the specialness of the day, and while I worry that it is going to be a source of stress, instead they responded beautifully. Their behavior was great, even though we had to wait a long time for our turn to get our books signed. They also just got it, they wrote these heart meltingly cute notes to Shannon to give to her when we got our books signed (which she sweetly took,) they let me take their pictures over and over and smiled on command. 

On the way down, we talked about the books of hers we had read, Anastasia again astounded us with her amazing recall for place and people names and storyline details - we read Goose Girl last summer I believe and she had Princess Anidora Caladra's full name on the tip of her tongue.

During the author discussion, they listened and looked back at me at times (including when I exclaimed aloud at discovering that Shannon Hale's favorite book when she was younger was The Blue Sword, by Robin McKinley, which is my all-time favorite fantasy book.) Anastasia got the hang of the way the author was asking the audience to ask questions, and she eventually raised her hand to ask a question ("Where do you come up with the titles of your books?" which led to an interesting discussion about place names and how some books don't have titles until the very end, and how some books have different titles in different languages.)

I got them each one of her graphic novels - Rapunzel's Revenge and Calamity Jack which are both just full of awesomeness.  And we talked and talked the whole way home.

And to think, I was going to get a sitter. I would have missed this new indelible memory, these markers of childhood. True, the kids went to bed later than usual. Okay, much later. And I took them to school late today. Much later than usual. Oops. But, it was worth every second. 

Chores - they do a body good

The kids have been begging for allowances. I, personally, don't have the time/patience to deal with A) Making sure I actually have cash in the right increments and B) Doing so on a regular schedule, like weekly. Yikes. If I get to the bank once a month that's a big month. I'm on the all-plastic-all-the-time regimen here (but not the plow-yourself-into-unfathomable-debt kind. Merely the its-more-convenient-to-see-all-expenses-on-one-statement-and-pay-all-at-once kind.)

Two happy, well-adjusted kids who have a fair amount of responsibility at home.

However, I've been talked into this. I took advantage of the teachable moment to emphasize that allowances are given to kids who help around the house. The kids already have responsibility for emptying the dishwasher (one empties the top, one empties the bottom) - but for allowances, we had to step up the responsibilities and be more agreeable about helping out at home.

So, to the dishwasher, we've added:

- Emptying the kitchen composter into the compost bin

- Making lunches for school

- Putting out Daisy's (dog) breakfast kibble

- Taking Daisy out when asked

- and basically anything else I can think of that I can sucker them into. :D

So what have I learned with this grand experiment?

Holy cow. When you expect a lot of your children, they deliver! While there are plenty of whining moments around the school lunches, I attribute that to the timing (making them right before bed, everyone's already too tired. I need to get them going on this while I'm making dinner.) There's an occasional fuss about the dishwasher, but only verbal - usually while she's slouching over to the dishwasher and opening it up to get started. This existed before the allowance.

But otherwise - they both are being so great about their additional chores! Liam even asked me the other day if it was time to take the compost out! I have to attribute it to the fact that they appreciate having responsibilities, seeing as how I have not yet doled out a single cent (instead, I copped out and wrote up a mommy bank account balance statement for them each. What can I say - I haven't been to the bank in 3 weeks!)

Feeling extraordinarily insane...

It's the week before the kids' school auction. Last year at this time I had a client project and was working 20 hrs/week, so I didn't have as much time to spend. Two years ago and before, I had a preschooler/toddler/baby home. This year that preschooler is a kindergartener (when exactly did that happen??) and the projects I'd been waiting on haven't hit just yet, so auction it is.

Holy crap it's a lot of work.

Michelle is the awesome auction chair and her organization and detail-focus are just astounding to me. My brain is full and I'm only the official unofficial co-chair, so I don't have the full complement of Auction Contents, I just have like the cliff notes version.

And this leads me to yet another thought, which I got working on the other night and was relieved to discover some empirical evidence to support my hypothesis: Women are still plenty smart while pregnant, and motherhood seems to cause an intelligence boost. 

I swear the amount of intelligence and creativity it takes to keep up with a busy toddler is astronomical, and the demand increases, rather than decreases, as the kids age. Today as we were packing up to go after the kids played at Michelle's while we worked on auction things, we got talking about what a dictator is, who Hitler was, and what all that meant. Try to find age-appropriate explanations for all that for a group of kids aged 4-10!

My doggy is having her period

In case you had any doubts about my sanity, the fact that A) we got a dog recently and B) she hasn't been fixed yet and thus returned from her "doggy vacation" at her breeder's house in HEAT should solidify your impressions about my sanity...

Meanwhile, holy cow a dog in heat is disgusting. I promised not to complain anymore (not after I heard about my son's 17 year old gymnastics teammate who has Hodgkins Lymphoma and has started chemo. Nope.) but it's really gross.

But the thing that has me thinking is that for about 90% of the days this dog has been in heat (which I believe is up to 15/16, in case you were keeping track) she has just not been herself. She's been sleeping a lot, which is somewhat understandable since I restrict her movements at home (because it's GROSS!) and then she's not eating (is it because she's not moving around much?) but more than that...like how you know when your child is sick just by looking at them, she's just been off. Poor girl. She's a sweet doggy and hasn't changed in demeanor, but she just didn't seem happy the last two weeks. She's perked up all the sudden in the last two days and I'm hoping/praying that we're nearing the end (3 week cycles in whippets...oh the joys!)

But it reminds me of this Malcolm Gladwell article I've been reading (which will be the third point of evidence of my insanity since this is going to take some doing to connect the dots here...) wherein he mentions something we've known for a long time, which is that women in contemporary western societies now cycle MUCH more often than in the past, due to earlier onset of menses, later childbirth years, and fewer children (as well as less breastfeeding, which generally - though not always - inhibits cycles in women for at least some period of time.)

The Gladwell article makes this particular point:

But for most women, Coutinho and Segal say, incessant ovulation serves no purpose except to increase the occurence of abdominal pain, mood shifts, migraines, endometriosis, fibroids, and anemia--the last of which, they point out, is "one of the most serious health problems in the world."

And, in an attempt to tie this back to the doggy having her period, I wonder why people don't fix their dogs. Unless they're planning to breed the dogs and have baby dogs, aka puppies, why wouldn't they fix the dogs? At least the girls? It's so clear to me that my dog has not been herself during a big part of these last 15/16 days. She HATES the diaper contraption I've rigged up to protect my house from the grossness. She's lethargic, out of sorts, appetite is low. I wonder if the poor thing has estrogen-drop migraines!

Trust me, the spay appointment is already on the calendar.

I can kill cancer cells!

While not currently lactating, I have in the past.

This research is familiar to many in the lactation community, but it's always surprising how many people in the general population are unaware of some of the more magnificent benefits of breastfeeding and breastmilk.

The HAMLET substance found in breastmilk is lethal to tumors. This is useful seeing as how HAMLET stands for: "Human Alpha-lactalbumin Made LEthal to Tumour cells" Wouldn't it be embarrassing if HAMLET only maimed tumors instead of killing them?

You need to read about this, though, because honestly - this is what babies eat. Stuff that's so amazing it kills cancer cells. Please support the breastfeeding women you know, and even the ones you don't know, for that matter.

Pregnancy Pukies

There is something I always found curious about my pregnancies, particularly when compared to my sisters' (remarkably similar) and my friends' (not usually very similar.)

Now, don't hate me here. But we simply don't get the pukies in my family. Not even a little. My mom reports no morning sickness either, and she had five of us buggers. This turns out to be quite a relief because we all have some degree of puke-phobia (my oldest sister who is the one of us girls who is not a mom has it the worst of all and I hope she's stopped reading by now or she'll never forgive me!)

Perhaps my sisters will disagree with me, now that we're all past the 6 year mark since we were last pregnant they may have succumbed to revisionist history. BUT...as I recall, it just wasn't a factor. No riding in the front seat of the taxi to work (with a barf bag) like my friend who couldn't stomach the 5 minute train ride (personally I think the taxi ride may have been harder on her stomach, but since I didn't suffer from this, what do I know?)

No wondering if we were going to die puking, or ever eat again. No fear for our own sanity, nor our baby's health (truthfully, we might have had the opposite fear seeing as how ample pregnancy weight gain DOES seem to be an element of our family's genetic composition. Gee, thanks mom.)

But I have always wondered if it was just a freak coincidence or something about us that made us unlikely to get the pregnancy pukes.

Turns out there's an entire foundation dedicated to figuring out this question - the Hyperemesis Gravidarum Foundation. They are running a study to look for genes or risk factors that lead to HG, or the massive pregnancy pukes. Not just that occasional morning stomach upset, or a barf here and there, but the kind of morning sickness that you seek medical attention for.

They're recruiting more participants. You should think about participating.