#'s 5, 6 7 and 7 1/2

During our trip to Galveston, I powered through a bunch of books. So I continue my quest for 25 this year with the following:

5) Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink Ph.D.: this book was basically a regurgitation of tons of studies this guy has done about how and why we eat what we do. Some pretty interesting tidbits in there, including that children of big families tend to eat more, faster because of the "you snooze, you lose" mentality regarding dinner and snacks. As the only girl in a house of three boys and a dad with a big appetite, if there was something yummy in the house, I learned to eat as much as I wanted as fast as I wanted, lest it be gone the next time I was hungry. Unfortunately, this rarely applied to fruit or vegetables, but instead to poptarts and doritos. Those things never lasted more than a couple of hours in our house. The most notable example of this phenomenon occurred when "we" ate all of my brother Mike's birthday cake (I believe I was in college at the time, so it wasn't me, and I'm pretty sure that the bulk of that cake was digested by my father, having likely forgotten it was anyone's birthday). Anyway, an interesting book, and I think there might be some noteworthy items in there for Andrew's thesis.

6) Fieldwork, by Mischa Berlinski: my first work of fiction in the group. This is the story of an American journalist bumming around Thailand while his girlfriend is there teaching English. He gets caught up in the story of a female anthropologist imprisoned for murdering a missionary. She commits suicide right after finishing a couple of papers on life inside the prison. It was a pretty good book -- I got through all 300+ pages in about a day and a half, but the ending was somewhat anticlimactic. Tons of build up to some incredible ending, but then just kind of fizzled. Maybe I read it too fast and missed something. But still interesting. Almost made me want to move to Thailand. Definitely made me happy I'm not an anthropologist.

7) Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer: admittedly, this was re-read. My brother had borrowed it and I had run out of books to read for the ride home, so I just re-read this one. And I loved it -- again. I came home and dug around for more of the stories of the other climbers and the backlash against Krakauer for his alleged finger-pointing in the book. I actually don't think that he was blaming anyone in particular, and I think he did a decent job of accepting some blame himself, which he may or may not deserve. He was one of the first ones down, seemed to be physically one of the best off, both before and after the summit, but he didn't take part in any way in any of the rescue efforts. He even left Beck Weathers lying in the tent freezing and started down on his own, apparently on the advice of the other climbers, all of whom concluded Weathers was going to die anyway and they would have enough trouble getting down on their own. So, it might be that Krakauer is a self-centered douchebag, or maybe he was just crazy tired and doing his best to stay alive. Never having met the guy, nor having ever tried to climb anything higher than Crowder's "Mountain" (read, "big hill"), in Charlotte, I'm not going to judge. Regardless, he writes a great book.

7 1/2) The Rape of Nanking, by Iris Chang: This book describes the events surrounding the Japanese takeover of Nanking, China in 1936. By conservative accounts, the Japanese tortured and massacred at least 200,000 Chinese (some estimates have it as high as almost 400,000), most of whom were civilians, including women, children and the elderly. I had to stop this one halfway through, to stave off the inevitable nightmares and depression. There has been lots of backlash against this book -- no doubt Chang had an agenda. She's a Chinese-American whose grandparents have fled Japanese invasions. So, she's pissed. Specifically, she was taking issue in the book with the fact that Japanese war criminals were never prosecuted for the atrocities of Nanking, nor has the Japanese government ever atoned or apologized for the brutality that occurred there. The descriptions (many of which included pictures) detailed the murders and rapes (including rapes of pregnant women, which the Japanese soldiers completed by using a bayonet to slice open her abdomen, rip out her intestines, then the baby, then bayoneting the baby; sons being forced to have sex with their mothers; fathers being forced to rape their daughters). The Chinese were allegedly beheaded, burned alive, buried alive, eaten by dogs, etc., etc. Lots of Japanese historians question the death count (although independent agencies have estimated, conservatively 260,000) and the mode of death. But it seems fairly solid that in six weeks, Japanese soldiers individually killed more people than those killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. I'm not necessarily saying one was better or worse than the other, but ever since I was a kid and learned about those bombings, I've been ashamed, and I've questioned how America and humanity could ever engage in such an act (this is the same guilt I carry about the Japanese internment during WWII, slavery, the massacres of Native Americans, etc. -- in short, I'm ridiculously naive and idealistic). But now I have a little more perspective -- the Japanese weren't saints themselves, nor were the Chinese. But my feelings about escaping to an island somewhere (it used to be an igloo, but my love for winter is fading quickly...), shunning my national identity, avoiding politics and commercialism and materialism, has been strengthened significantly.

My children don't speak English

Matt and I thought we were teaching them how to speak and understand English as their native language, but we can now see that we were wrong. The common English words and phrases listed below are utterly incomprehensible to our children. Following the English phrase, I will include our perception of what Noah & Luke hear us to be saying.

1. "Don't ask me again" = ask me again in 3 minutes, but this time with more intensity.

2. "Please aim for your pee pee into the toilet" = try to hit the wall, the floor and even the shower curtain, depending on your angle, but do whatever it takes to avoid the toilet.

3. "Please go put your shoes away in your room" = throw your shoes into the middle of your room while you stand in the hallway.

4. "Please just leave me alone for 10 more minutes so I can finish exercising" = stand next to me for the next 10 minutes screaming "NOW NOW NOW!!!"

5. "Luke, you cannot have your mimi [pacifier] if you aren't sleeping" = stand there, close your eyes, and make snoring sounds, but under no circumstances let go of the mimi.

6. "Go wash your hands" = put your hands under cold water for 1.2 seconds.

7. "If you don't take a bite to at least try what mommy cooked for dinner, you aren't going to get any dessert" = push your plate away screaming, then crawl onto mommy's lap, cuddle her adorably, and ask if you can have your dessert now.

8. "For the love of God please pick up these legos before one of us hurts ourselves" = this one seems to have no translation whatsoever. Such a phrase repeatedly falls upon deaf ears. I think the vaccuum cleaner bag is the new lego container. But if those boys think I'm sifting through that nastiness (again) to find their missing lego piece, they're nuts.

9. "Ok, but this is your last one" = you can have as many as you want, so long as you continue nagging mom!

10. "Relax, just relax" = Louder! LOUDER! DON'T STOP NOW!!

#3 and #4

Today I wrapped up two books. First is I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson. I'm a huge fan of his, having read A Short History of Nearly Everything, Lost Continent, and, one of my all-time favorites, A Walk in the Woods. This one did not disappoint. It's a compilation of the columns he wrote for a British newspaper when he moved back to U.S. (Hanover, New Hampshire) after having spent the past 20 years in Britain. Here's my favorite passage. He's describing his attempts to find a winter pastime in New Hampshire, and here he's taking his daughter ice-skating:

And I do know how to skate, honestly. It's just that my legs, after years of inactivity, got a little overecited to be confronted with so much slipperiness. As soon as I stepped onto the ice, they decided they wanted to visit every corner of the pond at once, from lots of different directions. They went this way and that, scissoring and splaying, sometimes getting as much as twelve feet apart, but constantly gathering momentum, until at last they flew out from udner me and I landed on my butt with such a wallop that my coccyx hit the roof of my mouth and i had to push my esophagus back in with my fingers.

"Wow!" said my startled butt as I clambered heavily back to my feet. "That ice is hard."

"Hey, let ME see," cried by head and instantly down I went again.

And so it went for the next thirty minutes, with various extremities of my body -- shoulders, chin, nose, one or two of the more adventurous internal organs -- hurling themselves at the ice in a spirit of investigation. From a distance I suppose I must have looked like someone being worked over by an invisible gladiator."

Admittedly, this strikes a cord given our recent recreational activities. Great, quick read.

I've also just finished How to Practice; the Way to a Meaningful Life, by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Interestingly enough, this one wasn't quite as entertaining as #3. I was interested in learning a little more about Buddhism, so when I came across this on an endcap at a Target, I figured, "what the hell" (because, of course, all life-changing spiritual awakenings are prompted by purchases off an endcap at a major discount department store). I figure there are two kinds of people who would read this book, a) those people who wanted to read something by the Dalai Lama, to learn more about Buddhism, b) those people who were interested in putting themselves on the path toward enlightenment. Now, not everyone may know which category they fall into when they open the book. I was keeping an open-mind. I mean, I have been to that one Buddhist meditation retreat (it was three hours long, and I spent the final two hours and 45 minutes thinking about how incredibly uncomfortable I was having to sit criss-cross-applesauce), AND Buddhism seemed to do a lot for Tina Turner (at least according to Angela Basset's performance in What's Love Got to Do With It). So I was thinking, at least superficially, maybe I should get on board.

Well now, having finished the book, I can safely say that I am the "learning more about Buddhism" type. I'm not sure that the path to enlightenment is easily navigable for a stay-at-home mom in suburbia. Not that I didn't get what His Holiness was saying (ok, well, I didn't get all of it), but it's just that that shit seemed really hard. For what it's worth though, the tenets of Buddhism seem to come down to one thing: help others, and if that's not possible, do no harm. That's something I can aspire to.

For parents of young children

This article speaks to me, in what I aspire to as a parent, and in what I am horribly guilty of as a parent. And on this particular subject, it should be noted that I always negotiate with toddlers.

"Snack Time Never Ends," The New York Times.

I LOVE the Twin Cities!

I think I've done a post like this before, but this time of year, when it's currently -2 and there's been a foot+ of snow on the ground for more than 6 weeks, and spring is still several months off, it's important to remind myself of how awesome this place is. So,

Oh Twin Cities, how I love thee. Let me count the ways...

1. Last night, I needed a haircut, so I made an appointment at Juut's New Artist Academy. They use only Aveda stuff and have locations throughout the metro. Before you get your cut, you get a scalp, shoulder & face massage. Then, when you're having your hair washed, you get to lie down on a BED! And then you get a great cut (the people there are already stylists -- this is the graduate school of hair). All for $25!! Friggin' awesome.

2. The salon was in Uptown -- an area of town for people who think they are cool and want to be cool, but aren't quite hip enough to live in the really up-and-coming areas, like Seward. As I was driving around that neighborhood, I couldn't help but notice all of the great places to shop & eat. There's Falafel King, a spot that hearkens back to Matt's love affair with that shwarma place in the Village. There's Penzey's -- a specialty shop for spices and seasonings that are absolutely phenomenal. There's Bryant Lake Bowl -- a bowling alley & restaurant that is touted all over local sustainable living guides for it's eco-friendliness in its menu and practices. And there's a ton of consignment stores, non-chain coffee shops, second-hand bookstores & music stores and ethnic restaurants. I can't wait for warmer weather so we can load up the boys and go spend an afternoon wandering around.

3. Also in that neighborhood is French Meadow Bakery, so I stopped on my way home to get the Mr. & I some fancy desserts. I got a slice of a cappuccino chocolate torte, a tres leche cake and a passion fruit truffle (sorry sweetie, I ate that on my way home). They were wonderful, and we just ate them slowly and relaxed while we watched the State of the Union. Yum.

4. Anything that I have considered doing with my life (as a career), there's a school here to help me get it done. There are tons of options for me to get my master's in education (including a teaching fellows program), there are two acupuncture schools, there's a program for homeopathic medicine, there's a university that is offering a master's in holistic health sciences, which I could do jointly with a master's in social work. The yoga studio a couple miles away where I go offers instructor training -- a complete program for 200- or 290-hour certification. One of my only requirements when Matt and I were talking about where we wanted to move was that it be a place with opportunities for me to explore what I wanted to do professionally (this is the biggest strike for me against the little town in Vermont that we were considering...). Anyway, as it turns out, I've pretty much decided just to take the bar exam here next February and open my own practice -- yay! I'll specialize in family and adoption law, but to the extent I'm comfortable, I'll do some general stuff, too -- simple wills, health care proxies, formation documents for small businesses, etc. We have lots of friends and I know lots of people who can give me the connections to make this happen, and I'm actually kind of excited. The Twin Cities is this metropolitan area made up of little communities that are pretty self-serving. Several of our friends here in SLP actually grew up in SLP, and went to the same schools their kids go to. It's got a small-town vibe, with the benefits and opportunities of a bigger city. So I'm pretty confident that I can do this on my own terms. I will NOT be a slave to deposition schedules or motion practice or partner demands. I'll probably not make too much money, either, but I'll be in control of my own career.

5. Last weekend, sweetie and I took cross-country skiing lessons in a great regional park about 15 minutes from our house. There are three park options close to us that have groomed x-country trails that are even lighted at night. Next week I'm going skiing around a lake in the woods at night with a friend of mine. As much as I'm starting to feel the Vitamin-D deprivation, I am thrilled that we live in a place where this is possible. All of these parks have ski rentals (for $8), and the class was only $17 a person for two hours of instruction. This city (county? state?) is incredibly devoted to helping people get outdoors and enjoy what nature has to offer.

6. And along those lines, we're in love with the bike trail that we can hop on less than a 1/2 mile from our house. That trail can take Matt all the way to his office, or to get on the Grand Rounds, which encircle each of the major lakes in Minneapolis, or out to Lake Minnetonka, the huge resort-like lake that's a few miles in the opposite direction. It even goes right past Noah's school, so this spring, when we can get that boy riding a two wheeler, I can put Luke in the trailer and we can ride bikes to drop Noah off at school. Our neighbors do that all the time in the warmer weather. How awesome?

7. And speaking of schools, do to a recent structuring of the schools in SLP, our kids are going to be going to middle school now for grades 6-8 (instead of just 7-8), and the middle school is a block from our house. I'm so excited that our kids are going to get to walk back and forth to school -- that was something I always wanted to be able to do when I was a kid, but couldn't. AND, SLP's high school was just ranked #1 in the state -- a state which is consistently ranked high in the nation for education.

8. There are a gazillion ice-skating options all around us. Noah is doing lessons on Saturday mornings at the Rec Center (where the boys could also do rink rat hockey, swimming lessons, soccer, and through which I can do yoga, zumba, knitting classes, meditation classes, classes on thrifty grocery shopping, estate planning, gardening, cooking, and a million of things). But then we have all gone skating together, too. Last week we tried Oak Hill park, which has two small rinks -- one with a wall and the other with hockey nets, and then a track that encircles both. It had a great warming house where you could buy hot chocolate to placate your sons while mommy took one more loop outside, and there's also one of the best sledding hills in the city right next to the rinks.

9. 2 and 1/2 hours to Duluth & Lake Superior, 4 hours to the Boundary Waters, 10 hours drive from the Black Hills! A day and a half to Yellowstone!

10. CSAs -- in Charlotte, I had about three or four to choose from. Here there are about 20-30 to choose from. Sure, the growing season is a few weeks shorter (I got my first delivery in Charlotte toward the end of April; here they don't start delivering until the second week of June), but you get more root and cold-hearty vegetables, so that's the trade-off.

11. Co-ops and farmers' markets galore! I have 5 different co-ops that are within pretty easy driving distance for me. And our favorite farmers' market is the Mill City market. It is situated right in the middle of the old flour milling district on the Mississippi River. When developing the area, they did a tremendous job of preserving some the architecture and history of that area. But there's also the Guthrie Theater right there, parks, bike lanes, etc. And most importantly to the boys, there's a very nice Hmong man there that makes balloon animals. And most importantly to Matt, there's an incredible food stand that makes, reportedly, the best crab cakes in the city, and truly the most delicious donuts we've ever had. But when we don't feel like going all the way across downtown, we can go to a smaller little market just a couple of miles away -- it's the kind of place where the farmers stand behind their table to get to know your name when you're a repeat customer.

12. Early childhood education here is unlike any other place we've lived. There's mandatory pre-K screening to identify any developmental issues early. There's ECFE, which is a combo of parenting classes and preschool that almost everyone participates in. There's preschool programs subsidized by the city (Luke goes to one of these), and they have several options designed for low-income families, kids whose parents both work, and kids who need extra help. Luke's teachers talked to me about a little speech therapy for him, and they arranged for a specialist to come to his class to evaluate him. If he needs help, the cost will be covered by the city, as will transportation to and from sessions if we need it. For kindergarteners, the school identifies kids who may need a little extra help, and keeps them for an hour and a half after school ends, feeds them lunch, gives them an hour of small group instruction, then takes them home on the bus. Again, all free of charge to the parents.

13. Hennepin County libraries are awesome! I don't know anyone who doesn't go regularly. They even offer passes to all of the museums, zoos, etc., so you can check one out and go to any of them free of charge.

14. Westwood Nature Center, a block from our house, had an adorable Halloween party that we went to with friends, and the kids loved it. There's a mile and a half loop around the lake, there's a playground set in the woods, and there's a nature center that has playgroups, rents snowshoes, and hosts weekday classes for preschoolers, and week-long camps throughout the summer, in addition to workshops, hikes and programs designed for the whole family.

15. The restaurant options here are awesome. Tons of local, sustainable food options. Restaurants on the water and in high rises. Every ethnic choice you could hope for. And several of them try very hard to make kids welcome, at least during certain times (brunch, early dinner, etc.). Sure, there's still a line outside of the Olive Garden on a Saturday night, and we will admit to eating the at the Chili's down the road more often than we care to admit, but we have big aspirations for the culinary adventures we will embark upon when we don't have to bring crayons and legos with us.

16. The kite-flying festival on (frozen) Lake Harriet, the MN Zoo, the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, the Walker Sculpture Garden, Eagle's Nest, tree-house like playgrounds, countless beaches where the kids can wile away hours playing the sand and trying to catch minnows, the REI with the kids' play area, the Lake Harriet-Lake Calhoun trolley, the MN State Fair, the Science Museum, fruit-picking orchards and fields galore, Prairie Home Companion, Liberty Custard, cheese curds, fire stations that give free tours AND rides for kids' birthday parties, Park Tavern Bowling Alley, and countless other things that we haven't even discovered yet.

17. The large airport 20 minutes away where we will go in less than a month to fly to Galveston, TX to visit my brother. We're using frequent flier miles, we'll get free lodging with Matt, and it was 70 degrees there two days ago, with no snow in site. Perfect.

I love my nieces

I love Kaia (almost 7) and Audie (3 1/2) for many, many reasons, not the least of which right now is that they allow me to live vicariously through them, both as a former doll-obsessed little girl, and a mother of two boys. My nieces, God bless them, love American Girl Dolls. Today I just bought Kaia, whose 7th birthday is Sunday, the pet bunny that belongs to her newest doll, Julie. This is Kaia's 4th American Girl Doll -- she has Kaya, Kit, Ruthie & now Julie. This probably means nothing to most of you, but it takes me back to my Cabbage Patch Kid days, in all their glory.

This summer when Mike, Kerri & the kids were visiting, Kerri & I made the trek to Mall of America (something I am generally loathe to do), so we could give Kaia a special trip to the American Girl Doll store. Her doll Kaya, who is an American Indian, was having some hair issues, and the store has a beauty shop (oh yes). So Kaya was attended to by a professional AGD hair stylist. She was changed into a spa robe, placed in a salon chair, and given the works. She got beautiful new braids AND got her ears pierced (Kaia had also just gotten her ears pierced).

And anyway, while we were there, I got to look around. Oh, how I longed to be a little girl again. I fell in love with all of those dolls! They're so interesting! My favorite -- and the one I really want for my birthday this year -- is Rebecca. She's a Russian-Jewish girl in 1914 in New York City, and I love her. I tried to persuade Kaia to get her next, but she opted instead for Julie, the little sixties flower child. Hippie. I'll have to start working on Audie, -- maybe she'll cave to the pathetic requests of her Aunt Mary.

As I write this post, my two sons are selecting, over and over again on On-Demand, the Lego Indiana Jones show, while playing with there Indiana Jones legos. Noah is home sick today with a fever, a bad cough, and "little drops of throw-up." And Luke, who's lazing around in his pajamas, just announced, "Ok, I give up. I need to go pee-pee." [Pause] Ok, now I gotta go wipe Luke's butt.

Mother Guilt

Mothers of young children are encouraged to volunteer in the classroom (be in the kindergarten or preschool one, in my case). I was a room mother for Noah's preschool class in Charlotte, and he seemed genuinely happy to see me when I appeared in his class. But at the same time, he seemed to prefer to hang out with me (yes, I am that cool), and nervously engaged in the activities of his classmates, and only when I prodded him. As an example of how our presence affected his behavior:

When he was 3, his teachers invited all of the kids' families to their holiday party. My parents and Uncle Mark came, too. First we all did some crafts together, then ate Christmas cookies -- you know, the usual preschool party stuff. And then the kids were going to do a little concert. The teachers gathered all of the toddlers at the front of the class for their performance. Noah quietly sat with his classmates, starring at us, but when the music started, he subtley turned around, bent down and stuck his little butt in the air. He stayed that way through the whole thing. All 12 of the other children, their smiling faces beaming proudly toward their parents and family, sang and made the requisite adorable arm motions, except our kid. He just bent over with his ass in the air. 12 happy, shining faces and one ass. As the other parents stared at each other, wondering whose kid's ass was ruining a perfectly good photo op, my beet-red face and giggling gave me away. In any event, I think (hope?), he wouldn't have done that if we hadn't been there, so I tried to limit my attendance at school so I didn't negatively affect his mojo.

But all of that is just an aside. The real story is that today, I didn't have any errands to run during the 1 hour and 15 minutes I have in between kid pick-ups, so I thought I'd hang out in Luke's class for a while to help out, watch him play, etc. We're trying to decide what kind of preschool we should put him in next year, so I wanted to observe him in action and see how he behaved in this setting. (His teachers swear to me that he is an angel in school, despite my frequent apologies for his stubbornness.) I had asked him a couple of months ago if I could come to school with him, and he firmly answered that I could not, because school was just for little kids, not mommies. Fine. But this time, I decided not to ask permission and just do it. After we got him situated (cup in the bucket, frog with his name on it in the basket, jacket in the locker, etc.), I was just standing there, asking him what he was going to do first -- art table, puzzles, etc. He looked at me in confusion and said, "Mom, why are you still here? You need to just leave."

I calmly told him I wanted to stay so I could play with him and help his teachers, and he said "No, just leave."

My first instinct of course was Ouch. But then I rethought that. From one perspective, it should actually be perceived as a good thing that my kid doesn't want me at school. It means he feels safe there, he feels a sense of personal identity -- that is his turf, and he's independent and self-possessed enough to function just fine without me. These are, in fact, all good things -- exactly the qualities I want to instill in my kids. And what's more, what the hell was I complaining about? Not getting to hang out with 15, 3 year-olds for an hour? Had I gone mad? I know that a good mom is supposed to be thrilled to volunteer in her kid's class, but I've never claimed to be a "good mom" (the best I am hoping for is just not to raise total assholes), and I've hardly been beating down the schools' doors to volunteer my time. And here my kid was kind enough to let me off the hook. I only get 3 hours a week to myself, damn it. So I headed down the street to the bakery, ordered a banana pecan scone and a coffee and read a book. Perfect morning. Thanks, Lukey.

(That being said, I came home and emailed Noah's teacher to ask when would be a good time for me to come there (in my very mature way, I'll just hang out with the kid who actually likes having me around). And, I recently appointed by the town school board to sit on its committee on Human Rights, so "check" on the to-do list item for community involvement and volunteerism. I'm so pathetically susceptible to guilt.)