Girl Detective

Becca notes that while the bridge collapse is tragic, some of the media coverage of it is just pathetic.

Mom #1 is sitting far away with her partner and two kids. Mom #2 is walking by me, Mom #3.

Child of Mom #1, shouting: Mom, mom, mom, mom!

Mom #1 is talking to her partner and not answering the child.

Mom #2 (not in earshot of one, but very close to me): Sheesh! Pay attention to your kid!

Me: I think the needs of kids outstrip anyone’s ability to pay attention all the time.

[Mom #1 has acknowledged her daughter and they're talking.]

Mom #2, to me directly: Well, then, they should stop having them.

Me: It’s hard to know that until after the kids are already there though.

Mom #2: Well, I have four kids, and I give them all equal attention.

Me: You’re a braver mom than me! I only have two, and I can barely keep up with them.

I’m not sure why I felt I needed to defend Mom #1. Probably because I know that feeling of irritated fatigue that the multiple cries of “Mom!” can induce. But I also well know the judgment of Mom #2, and work hard to move beyond it, which is why I tried to nudge her toward empathy.

I’ve written this more than once, and I don’t mean to be a broken record, or up on a soap box. I write this mostly as a reminder to myself, since I can be incredibly snobby and judgmental (just ask my family):

Moms don’t need judgment. They need help. Polite smiles aren’t enough. If I see a mom having a tough time with a kid, I try to quell the judgment in my head, and offer help instead. I at least tell her that I know what she’s going through.

#56 in my 2007 movie challenge was The Bourne Ultimatum. Like its predecessors, it’s a smart thriller, well acted by a deep bench of good character actors. Yours is a three-part mission, should you choose to accept it:

1. Watch/rewatch The Bourne Identity
2. Watch/rewatch The Bourne Supremacy
3. Go see The Bourne Ultimatum in a theater

For this series, good things come in threes. The direction is fantastic, the pace frenetic, and the endings satisfying. Damon’s Bourne is like a crazy mishmash of the Midnighter and MacGyver, on meth. The three films are linked in story and images, so watching them in sequence yields more than watching them individually, or at long intervals.

Finding the original two movies on DVD may be difficult. There was a long wait list at our library, because over half the copies are missing. Two copies are missing from our video store. Three of our local Targets didn’t have the dvds in stock. We did manage to find one last copy of the three-disc set, The Bourne Files, at a Barnes and Noble. Less expensive than purchasing the previous movies on dvd individually, it was well worth it, though Entertainment Weekly says the new extras are a snooze. If you rent or borrow them, I don’t recommend the “Explosive Extended Edition” of Bourne Identity. The alternate beginning and ending weren’t used for good reason.

This has been a challenging week: Drake had a virus and was sick everywhere. He didn’t make it to the bathroom and peed all over me and the basement steps. I drank too much coffee and got so wound up I could barely function on my only day to myself this week. Drake and Guppy are constantly fighting and screeching. I tried to take them to story time at the library today, but Drake kept running around yelling. When I took him out of story time, he and Guppy ran in opposite directions in the library while I tried to check out, then a mentally ill woman began yelling and cursing at them.

Sometimes, I have the urge to crawl under a chair and curl up in a ball, like the baby wombat in one of our favorite picture books, Sometimes I Like to Curl up in a Ball. But my virtual penpal M, who writes at Mental Multivitamin, likes to quote this from Sydney J. Harris:

When I hear somebody sigh, “Life is hard,” I am always tempted to ask, “Compared to what?”

Yes, this week felt hard. But it wasn’t nearly as hard as it might have been if we’d been on the bridge at 6ish p.m. on Wednesday, as we usually are, heading into Minneapolis for new comics at Big Brain.

Life could always be harder, so it isn’t a good use of energy to gripe and dwell. As the teacher notes in yet another of our favorite picture books, Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse:

Today was a difficult day. Tomorrow will be better.

Fisher-Price is the most recent child product producer to announce a recall. This list is for all their recalled products, and the newest is for many licensed Sesame Street and Dora products.

I’ve been a Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl fan for years, and even Bookslut has recognized her genius.

OK, maybe genius is a little strong. But she’s a great food critic. I’ve learned loads from reading her columns.

In the wake of my post-partum depression, many parents of older children, my father included, shared with me that they’d found parenting small children very difficult, and didn’t much enjoy parenthood until their children were older.

I find it interesting that so many parents are able to admit this is retrospect, but so few of us can while we’re in the midst of it. I frequently find caring for my small children stressful. Their needs are greater than my capacity to meet them, and I often feel resentful that my own physical, emotional, and intellectual needs are indefinitely put on hold.

Yes, there’s joy and wonder, but there’s also a lot of poop (literal and metaphorical) to be dealt with. The ratio of sacred to mundane is so imbalanced that it can only be reckoned as apples to oranges, quality to quantity.

I don’t think it’s coincidence that so many women experience post-partum depression, and yet there’s still this taboo about admitting how parenthood is often harder and less pleasant than we’d hoped.

“Freezer Burn” Ten chefs remain, Rocco DiSpirito (looking suspiciously unlined in the face) was the guest judge for a cooking bee. Howie was right that there was too big a variation in difficulty. Who can’t identify bow-tie pasta by sight? Casey won immunity, and the chefs were sorted into pairs and challenged to create a quick-cooking frozen pasta meal. Hung smugly figured out how to do it, but didn’t have enough backbone to browbeat Joey (I know I’m mixing bodily metaphors) as J. later said needed to be done. Dale and Casey were cute and bubbly together, but it was clean that Tre and C. J. were going to win the challenge, as they were the only ones who paid attention and followed through on individually freezing the components. I was annoyed by Tom Colicchio’s challenge that truffles weren’t Mediterranean; no, then what are tartufo, chef? If even _I_ know the Italian word for it, then I think it’s fairly well known. The Sara and Howie pairing was a disaster. Neither communicated, and both swallowed their anger, though Howie exploded, as per his usual, when pushed too far. I was glad to see Colicchio not letting Sara off the hook for not participating. In the end, Joey went home. He and Hung had the worst dish (they sold none, as opposed to Howie and Sara’s 3), and Joey’s admission of his hard-headedness and inability to listen was honest, and probably sealed his fate. I was sorry to see him go. I thought Sara’s behavior much worse, and I like how pugnacious Howie and Joey are.

This show was one of the few I’ve seen that has practical application in my kitchen. I’ve frozen many a pasta dish, then struggled to swallow the goopy, mushy dish when it thaws. Par cooking the pasta, then freezing the sauce separately in little cubes is a simple and effective way to create a frozen dinner that can be prepared in minutes using only the stovetop, a boon in hot weather.

A bridge collapsed in Minneapolis tonight, but we were safe at home. Our thoughts and wishes go out to all those touched by this.

I have a good friend who is expecting her first child. She recently had the “I don’t have what I need, wait, what do I need?” episode that I experienced as my due date loomed. She lives in England, though, where registries aren’t as common as they are in the US. In many ways, I think this is a good thing. The baby industry, like the wedding industry, sprang up to distract parents-to-be from the imminent life upheaval with shiny, pretty things. And, like all industries, it succeeds because it generates both perceived need and desire.

Looking back, I only needed to procure two things to bring baby Drake home: a securely installed, safe-rated infant car seat, and an outfit for him to wear. (Dan Savage echoes this in his adoption memoir The Kid, and says that everything else can be purchased on the way home.) Our hospital sent us home with many of the things we would need, but different hospitals have different practices. Here’s a list of the things I really needed in those first, bleary post-partum days (along with what I think are the English terms for them), as well as some of the things I didn’t need, either right away or ever.

Books:

Baby Bargains: for what to buy and when
Baby 411: simple answers to most questions

For home:

Unscented laundry detergent. Does not have to be Dreft, which is scented. Wash the first-use baby items beforehand if possible.

For baby:

Infant car seat
1 pack diapers (nappies), size N
Alcohol-free, scent-free baby wipes
Diaper cream with zinc to treat rash; with petroleum as barrier to wetness (modern diapers do this really well, though)
Baby fingernail scissors and toe-nail clippers (buy separately not as part of kit)
Onesies or wraparound tops (vests)
3 swaddling blankets, best size was 40″ square in cotton flannel (rectangle is harder to swaddle, smaller than 35″ impossible to swaddle)
Bassinette/Co-Sleeper
A few newborn-sized sleepers (babygros), with zippers rather than snaps for easier changes. Zippers/snaps down both legs is MUCH easier to change. Some parents like the open-bottom nightgowns for easier night changing, but I found these bothered the babies; too unrestrictive.
Sleepsack if house is cold.
Bundle Me if weather is cold
Light, jersey-knit hat, even in warm weather
Baby mittens, not just for cool weather but to protect baby’s face from scratches till you can trim fingernails
Sling
Electronic thermometer for mouth, underarm or rectum, NOT ear
Bouncer
Soap: Dove Sensitive Skin
Very small, tight-fitting socks, or footed sleepers. Booties get kicked off immediately
Hooded towel and washcloth (smaller and softer than adult ones)
Baby monitor (OK, this is the crazy expensive one, but I swear we’ve spent so much on the Fisher-Price ones that always break that this one sounds dreamy)
Nursing pillow (The embarrassingly named My Brest Friend was my favorite from birth to six months)
Glider

For mom:

Nursing bra
Nursing pads
Lanolin cream
Healing pads
Sanitary napkins for postpartum bleeding, even after C-section
Hemorrhoid pads if vaginal birth
Easy-access pajamas for nursing
Ibuprofen
Stool softener (NOT bulk-forming laxative–different things!)

Didn’t need right away:

Pacifier, bottles and breast pump–not till weight gain established and nursing routine in place–two to four weeks
Stroller (Buggy or Pram) Depends on weather, but we didn’t use till 10 days; Zoopers have good built-in features
Rattles and other toys
Crib and crib mattress (four or five months)
Infant Tylenol and Ibuprofen
Outfits–buy next size from NB, (often labelled 3M or 0-3M)
Robeez (aka sock-keepers-on)
Two more hooded towels and washcloths
Boppy, for tummy time, sitting support, and for nursing older infant
Front carrier

Didn’t really need:

Special burp cloths (muslins); could have used dish towels; should’ve used black dish towels
Baby shampoo; our kids were born bald, plus Dove Sensitive Skin soap worked fine
Baby brush and comb; regular ones worked fine
Stuffed animals: most had choking hazard, also hard to keep clean, only a few ever made the cut to “lovey”
Changing pad cover; could use towels or one of myriad baby blankets
Gas drops; who knows if they work
Baby bathtub; could have just used kitchen sink. Newborns don’t need frequent baths.
Tiny drool bibs; needed food bibs at about six months

Didn’t need ever:

Crib bedding other than sheet
Mobile
Most items in baby emergency kit
What to Expect books
Gum numbing gel

Agree? Disagree? Did I forget anything?

My friend JV emailed me, wondering if my elder was screaming more than my younger, as his were. I replied that I am painfully, head-splittingly familiar with this scenario. Drake, at nearly 4yo, screams frequently. His screams are like grenades that set off adjacent sound bombs in Guppy, and soon we’ve got a full-circle echo screamfest. That is usually the point at which I think despairingly, “I like quiet. My life used to be quiet.”

My husband, G. Grod, theorizes that it’s because Drake has recently begun thinking ahead to what he thinks is going to happen. When things don’t go his way, he has only limited vocab and emotional experience to deal with it, so he starts to scream out his frustration. In other words, G thinks that he’s learning the painful lesson that “expectations are pre-planned resentments”.

I’ve got a very bare toolbox for the screaming. I try to empathize, use a calm voice and ask for quiet politely.

The more I communicate with other people, and other parents, the more I realize how non-unique we are. Yeah, we’re all individuals, but at some level, in many ways, we’re not. As the cook notes in one of our favorite picture books, Two Eggs, Please, “Different, but the same.”

The author of the blog, Semicolon, shares her experience that parenting three kids is the apex of difficulty, and has a lovely end to the post:

The wonderful part of this story is that adding another and another and another never gets any harder than three. When you realize that it’s really, truly only by God’s grace that any of them survive to adulthood, that each child is a gift, and that the molding and shaping and even educating that parents do is somewhat limited in scope and influence, and that as a parent you are almost completely deficient in the skills, patience, and wisdom that are needed to parent these children . . . well, then you can begin to relax, do the best you can and depend on God to fill in the gaps.

I might substitute community, the universe, or family/friends for God, but I take her point, and I only have two children. For me, two is the number that is beyond my capability. I am humbly reminded on a daily basis that I do not have enough skill or patience to meet all the needs of the family, much less the attendant wants.

As I’ve noted before, there’s ALWAYS too much to do. It’s how I handle myself in the face of this, though, that makes a difference on a daily basis. Traveling with the kids, I’ve told myself to enjoy it when it goes well, and not flip out if it doesn’t. This advice also works on a larger level, if only I can remember it.

Thanks to my friend, Blogenheimer, for a few more informative HP7 links, both of which contain lots of spoilers if you haven’t yet read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Finished ‘Potter’? Rowling tells what happens next

Stop your sobbing! More Potter to come, in which Rowling says she might do a Harry Potter encyclopedia. I think that idea would be a lot of fun if she serialized it somewhere and collected it later. Further, I bet that would make it available sooner.

After I finally finished HP7, I wanted to talk about it.

For further nerdish obsessing, my friend Blogenheimer suggested the Slate book club discussion of Harry Potter (warning: spoilers abound!)

I found the Entertainment Weekly Harry Potter issue curiously un-nuanced and borderline sycophantic. I enjoyed it anyway, especially this spoiler-riffic FAQ about the book.

From the Eastside Food Co-op:

Our family attended this last year and the year before. We had good food, and a good time!

Don’t miss the Annual Corn Feed at the Northeast Farmers Market on Saturday, August 11, 2007 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The Farmers Market is every Saturday morning through October from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the parking lot of St. Boniface Church at 7th and University NE.

It’s a great opportunity to shop, nosh a bit, spend time with your neighbors, and hear local music.

The Corn Feed features local corn at the peak of the season!

I’m in; how about you?

From Twin Cities Food Coop:

Eat Local Challenge to launch Aug. 15

You likely know the benefits of eating local food: it’s good for the local economy, the environment and for family farmers who adhere to sustainable farming techniques. Plus, you and your family enjoy food that’s fresher and more flavorful.

With so many good reasons to put local food on your family’s table, the 12 Twin Cities natural food co-ops are banding together and inviting their members, shoppers and community residents to take the Eat Local Challenge.

The challenge encourages community members to try to commit to consuming 80 percent of their diet — or four out of five food items–from local sources from Aug. 15 through Sept. 15 (a four-week period that just happens to be during peak harvest season for many produce items).

But don’t think strictly about fruit and vegetables. At your co-op, you’ll find a number of locally produced dairy, cheese, bakery, herbs and meat/poultry items as well. Just look for the round, green and black “Local” sticker or ask any co-op staff person for assistance.

We’re in the process of creating a number of in-store and online materials — including sample menus, shopping lists and in-season produce lists — to help you succeed. They’ll be available here and at your co-op by Aug. 13, so keep an eye out for them. Plus, we’re creating an online blog, which you’ll find on this website, so you can share your local food experience with others in the community.

We’re hoping this will be a fun, educational experience — one you may choose to continue beyond the “official” four-week challenge. And remember, there’s no contract to sign; it’s simply an honor-based system designed to help all of us make wise, thoughtful choices about the food we eat. So won’t you join us by taking the Eat Local Challenge?

I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I liked it. If you’d like to discuss, email me at

girl detective (all one word)

at

girl detective dot net

I was excited for today; I had many things I wanted to do. The boys were going to the babysitter, so I’d have the day to myself. Then Drake woke up whimpering and clutching his stomach. I told myself that it was because he was hungry (he eats so very little). He downed two glasses of milk, and has spent the morning vomiting them back up. The carpet, the stroller, and the couch have seen better days. And most of mine has been spent comforting him and cajoling him into the few things that might help. He’s dozing on the couch and I’m hoping that we aren’t in for a full 24 hours of this.

I’ve noted before that I’m remiss in reading things my husband G. Grod recommends to me. Last May, he forwarded me a link to an article at Salon about the Five Second Rule. In my defense, I was kinda busy. But a recent spate of articles about the five second rule reminded me that I needed to go back to the article at Salon, and I’m glad I did. I thought it was hilarious. Here’s a quick summary of the latest news on the 5-second rule (5SR):

In 2003, a high school student, Jillian Clarke, dropped gummy bears and pieces of cookie on smooth and rough tiles coated with E. coli. Food was contaminated in less than five seconds.

In April 2007, a group at Clemson published tests of bologna and bread on various surfaces contaminated with salmonella. Unsurprisingly, they found that contamination level depended on the type of surface, and the length of time of the food on the surface.

In May 2007, students at Connecticut College announced the results of their tests of wet apple slices and dry Skittles. They chose the college cafeteria floor as their bacterial environment. The apple slices showed bacteria after a minute, and the Skittles after five minutes.

Harold McGee at The New York Times formulated “the five-second rule, version 2.0: If you drop a piece of food, pick it up quickly, take five seconds to recall that just a few bacteria can make you sick, then take a few more to think about where you dropped it and whether or not it’s worth eating.”

After the Clemson study, Andrew Leonard at Salon saw the 5SR as a parenting tool, an “ability to create, in the person to whom these words are addressed, a sense of proportion and sanity and rough-and-ready competence to deal with the uncertainties and disappointments of life.”

Late to the party but pretending not to be (the Clemson study was published in April, not last month), Monica Hesse from The Washington Post notes that it’s not just about science, but sociology (how gross do you want to look to your friends), biology (how sick do you want to risk getting?), and situational ethics (how tasty is the food, and how nasty is the environment?)

My personal interpretation of the 5SR, which I’ve employed since I had Drake (many people mistakenly assume it’s the type of perspective that comes with a second child) is simply: is there visible dirt? If not, it’s good to go. Not scientific, but definitely practical.

Life Hack has a useful list of Ten Things for Concentration (Link from Scalzi’s Ficlets Blog)

I’m an aspiring writer, and a mother of two small children. I am easily distracted, and prone to feeling overwhelmed. This is a pithy list of good advice. I am heartened that I do many of these already: reduce noise, structure environment, isolate myself (I am typing this now on retreat, in a college dorm room by myself), try to get enough sleep, eat healthful foods, and avoid crappy ones.

This advice is not just useful for writers. It’s good for those who suffer from anxiety and stress, and for those who seek to simplify their lives.