Happy LeapDay!

It's the International Year of the Frog. Seriously, folks, we've got to take care of the frogs.

Bike safety

The kid has a bike helmet now. (You may have noticed her unsafe status in the previous bike pictures.) She's thrilled. It has a design of pink and purple flames. I asked the salesguy to show us ALL the designs, after he initially pulled out only the two pink options, but Dutch picked the pink and purple one without hesitation. She told me the afternoon when we bought it, "Mama, I like my helmet because it's purple. The second reason I like it is because it keeps my head safe."
Then she insisted on wearing it to daycare the next day. Watching her run around the bus stop with her helmet on made me laugh so hard that my ribcage got sore...

House guests

This weekend, we are hosting two stuffed animals, two picture books, and a journal, courtesy of Dutch's daycare. Every weekend, one kid gets to take home this package, and we're supposed to record in the journal the critters' adventures with our family. The animals are a hippo and a tortoise, and they go with these books. The books tell the true story of an interesting animal behavior oddity, but the books themselves are painfully poorly written and incredibly tedious. Especially on the 45th reading. Cook has been dragooned into playing "Haller Park" (the name of the wildlife park where the real animals live), which entails repeatedly re-enacting the whole story ("Now let's rescue Owen from the ocean!"). We are grateful that the whole package goes back to daycare tomorrow. Now, however, we're under pressure to generate an interesting contribution to the journal. The first kid who took them home (we're only the second family to host) took them to ballet class AND gymnastics class. We've just been feeding them lots of plastic tea.

What did you say?

Dutch has an incredibly annoying habit that is making both me and Cook feel like tearing our hair out. After someone speaks to her, there's about a 50% chance that she'll say "What did you say?" - which can mean one of many things:
1) I didn't hear you.
2) I wish I hadn't heard you, because your question/request/statement does not interest or please me.
3) I don't understand.
4) I'm not done with whatever I was doing/thinking/saying before you so rudely interrupted/distracted me.
5) My brain is off in DutchLand, and I cannot be bothered with your petty earthling concerns.
6) I'm curious about what will happen if I say "What did you say?" eight thousand times in a single weekend. If your brain explodes, can I go live with somebody more fun?

SAD

It's another sunny day! I feel giddy with sunshine. One advantage of living in the Northwest is that you really get to reap the mood-altering effects of sunshine when you get it - it's like a potent hit of something. Crack? Amphetamines? With my limited drug experience, I can't get the metaphor right, but it's pretty terrific. Everybody seems to be more cheerful, and we all smile at eachother, maybe a little manically.

It's spring, for sure (as Dutch says). Leaf buds and crocuses and daffodils, and frogs in the swamp. The bugs are coming out, too, especially in the sunny spots. Our building, as well as being the dampest building in which we've ever lived, seems to be an overwintering refuge for insects. Last weekend, when this sunny stretch really got going, about 15 ladybugs and other beetles appeared in our window frames, much to Dutch's delight and my mild consternation. We've been lunching on our sunny steps whenever possible, and on Monday a bee came over from the flowering bushes in the courtyard and tried to pollinate Dutch's plate. It's been a nice week.

New bike, sunny day.

Ooze, plus politics

We're keeping Dutch out of daycare today, because she is covered in slime. She's oozing mucous from her eyes as well as nose, and coughing like she plans to dislodge a lung. She seems to feel okay, and ordinarily we'd cross our fingers and treacherously leave her at daycare anyway, but they've had some amazing outbreaks lately (diarrhea, vomiting, pneumonia, pinkeye, mysterious rashes, etc.), and they've been sending home cranky notes telling parents to KEEP THEIR SICK KIDS AT HOME. So... I'm taking a sick day, because Cook's Mondays are always booked full up.

Cook and I were just talking the other day about the Kaiser (yay Portland!) childcare program during WWII - here's a quote from some totally random webpage :

In addition to the Federal sponsorship of child care during World War II, a unique program began in Portland, Oregon in 1943. The Kaiser shipyards opened a child care center at the entrance of each of their two shipyards. In building the centers, they hoped to reduce the rate of absenteeism among their working mothers. Henry Kaiser built the centers, which were the world's largest child care centers and were in operation 24 hours a day. These centers had a nurse on site for children who were ill, and also provided hot meals for mothers to take home with them. The centers were models of child-centered construction, built around a courtyard with wading pools. The playrooms branching off of the courtyards had large windows and window seats that allowed children to watch the construction taking place in the yards. Cost of the care was shared by parents and the Kaiser company. In the two years they were open they served 3,811 different children (Gordon & Browne, 1996).

How awesome does that sound? Today I could drop Dutch off at the childcare infirmary, and in the afternoon I could pick her up along with a delicious hot dinner.

Hmm.. maybe we could implement some kind of universal daycare system that included care for sick kids. No parent would have to take a sick day from work to care for a sick kid. I'm not even asking for hot dinners here. Just think of the savings to the nation through keeping the workforce working... come on, presidential candidates!

So I went to check out the candidates' websites.

• I am delighted to find that Barack Obama, if elected, will PERSONALLY care for Dutch! - "Obama will also provide affordable and high-quality child care to ease the burden on working families."
• Hillary Clinton will not provide that personal touch, but she will also somehow deliver childcare services unto the people - "...she will invest heavily in proven strategies to get all children ready for school, including...Quality child care and Head Start."
• John McCain's website has nothing on childcare. Not even vague platitudes (see above). Gosh, I guess I won't be voting Republican this year.

Anyway, I'm not getting my hopes up. But maybe tomorrow Dutch will be a little less disgusting, and I can get back to work. I sure am glad I don't have a job that will fire me for taking time off to care for my child.

Love

Underhanded sneak

Dutch is thrilled with her Valentine loot. She received Candyland from the Big Cooks, and now Cook and I have each played with her once. We're already developing different strategies, based on our personalities. Cook lets Dutch win, as quickly as possible, because the game bores him to tears. I, on the other hand, am too competitive to manipulate the game so I can lose faster. I don't mind losing, but I don't like losing on purpose.


But the kind of losing I REALLY don't like is losing due to chicanery, even the preschool version, and... Dutch CHEATS!!!! This is the first competitive game she's gotten to play which she understands well enough to cheat. I came back from a brief break to find her blithely shifting her pieces* substantially farther down the track. She understands what she's doing, and she is entirely unfazed by getting caught. (Luckily, she also sometimes gets confused about direction, and moves backward, which probably balances out the cheating.)

*I say pieces rather than piece because she likes to play with two pieces at once, "because they're friends". I though that was kind of adorable... for a CHEATER!

So sorry, no time to put my body upon the gears. I must drive my SUV to the antique store and make a few small gestures.

I saw an ad in yesterday's New Yorker for Toyota, or specifically for Toyota's greenwashing program. It was 4-page spread advertising Toyota's hybrid SUV, some sort of Toyota-sponsored environmental program to be shown on TV, and Diane Keaton. The inner 2 pages featured a photo (selected by Diane Keaton), a dippy quote from Diane Keaton, and this ghastly statement: "Diane Keaton celebrates the nature all around her by doing her part to keep our world a greener place by picking up items left at the beach, buying antiques, and driving a Toyota Highlander. She believes the key to living green is small gestures that might become habits, 'encouraging a new way of accepting responsibility for the well-being of our planet.'"

I cannot believe that Toyota believes anybody is rock-stupid enough to think that Diane Keaton's beach item-retrieval activities (what is THAT all about? Would it tarnish the brand to say "trash"?) and fondness for antiques actually reflect any kind of environmental ethic. Or that the spectacularly weeny suggestion that we might make small gestures which might encourage civic and environmental responsibility reflects any kind of environmental ethic.

I looked back at the ad after being annoyed by it all day, and I realized that the dippy quote actually more or less translates to: "Nature will last forever, no matter what," which suggests a more sinister reading - perhaps Toyota is trying to communicate that we (and Diane) can do whatever we like, and nature will recover? Anyway, it's either sinister or hideously condescending and venal, and either way it sucks.

Also, I can't figure out if she's pretending to be a scarecrow in the first picture, and somehow that just wraps the whole hideous package perfectly.

I hope Diane Keaton trips over a sixpack ring next time she's beach combing in her scarecrow outfit. And I hope Toyota's executives have transformative dreams tonight, and tomorrow launch their plans to turn it into a pedicab company.

See?

This is a typical morning scene. Notice the set jaws and bleary eyes...

Relaxation skills

Everyone should spend some time watching this:

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/NorthAmerica/default.cfm

It's inspiring.

Hiking vs. Walking

We got out to the wildlife refuge this weekend. It's a nice place (though unfortunately named), bluffs and a wetland/landfill down by the river, and it's only about half a mile from our new apartment. The weather was cool and damp, but not actually raining, qualifying for Beautiful Weather status on my current emotional barometer, and we all had pretty serious cabin fever. Actually, Cook and I did - Dutch, as usual, wanted to stay and do her projects, and only reluctantly agreed to go when I threatened her with the loss of the lemonade she'd earlier been promised as a with-dinner drink. Then she insisted on being carried all the way there. Then she informed us that her bladder was full and insisted on being carried all the way home to pee. Then she insisted on being carried all the way back to the refuge (I grimly insisted that we had to go back post-pee, though we were all pretty damn cranky by then). Then she joyfully walked and hopped and ran for 45 minutes, without complaining or asking to be carried, as we strolled around the trails. I'm sure there's some lesson here about Children's Innate Love of Nature, or at least This Particular Kid's Love of Puddles. At any rate, it was lovely. It didn't rain. We inspected decomposing logs. We heard frogs! About a billion of them! They're not gone yet! Of course, we had to carry the kid all the way home again, but it was worth it.

I was just looking at the wildlife refuge website, and was surprised to find that they list WiFi as a park amenity. No doubt the migrating birds find that very handy.

More about mornings

We wake up at 6:15. Yet, somehow, we don't get out the door until 8. Many people, unencumbered by children, get out the door within 20 minutes of waking up. Many people encumbered by children get out the door within an hour of waking up. For us, though, an hour and 45 minutes is pretty much the minimum necessary time. The first problem is that Cook and I are lazy morning people, and we like to dawdle and read and drink coffee in the mornings. The second problem is that Dutch HATES leaving home. She loves her daycare (and in the afternoons she hates leaving daycare, too), but she loves being home so much, and dislikes transitions, and that overwhelms her ability to remember that she loves daycare. So we have to pry/cajole/threaten/trick/bribe/drag her out the door every single day. EVERY SINGLE DAY. This takes a substantial amount of time (that Cook and I would of course prefer to spend leisurely sipping our coffee, if not sleeping or getting to work early), and we cannot find a way to do it that doesn't involve major effort. Maybe if we got up much earlier and carried her to daycare while she was still asleep...

Shh...

I'm alone! At home! The sun is shining! (I capitalized "sun" when I first typed this, which gives you an idea of how it feels to have the sun shine in February in Portland. No doubt I'm sliding down the slippery slope to heliolatry.)

Dutch and Cook went on a marathon grocery-library adventure (I took Dutch on last weekend's iteration of that adventure, and we were gone for nearly three hours, including a 30-minute wait for one of the buses - the life of the carless parent is not an easy one), so I have the place to myself. I'm supposed to be writing a paper, but instead I'm blogging and obsessively adjusting the placement of all our wet laundry to maximize the surface area exposed to the sunshine. I've also been moving all our houseplants around so they can dry out their poor mildewed pots. (This apartment is desperately damp. My hair hasn't been so curly in years.)

Hm. I guess I should write that paper.

Demography

I forgot to mention that I was wrong; the guest lecturer talked about demography, not economic analysis. It was really interesting, in spite of that failing. Also, the speaker had the most amazing beer belly - he was skinny except for this huge ball of fat on his abdomen. (I hope it wasn't a tumor or something horrible, but he seemed pretty hale and hearty.) I had to concentrate on not staring at, but I learned some stuff anyway.

Also, I'm pretty sure I passed the quiz.

Like the womb, except with playdough.

It's the end of Dutch's first week fulltime at her daycare, and we can confidently say that the change is a raving success. She loves it, and we looooooove our free time. After all my terrible daycare angst of the fall, it feels so wonderful to stroll out the daycare door knowing that the kid will have a terrific day. There will be books, music, playing outside, walking to cool places like construction sites, doing crafty activities, playing with friends. There will be space and permission to hide under the loft if you need to be alone, and there will ALWAYS be an adult with time to cuddle or talk or help. Every day we know that she will have a good day (even the hard days are good days).

Now, because I'm wired that way, I've moved on to taking this for granted and wishing that she could stay in this thrilling but safe place forever.

Delirium

I have finished the two assignments due this week, and now I have to start thinking (after I get out of class at 9 tonight) about the quiz tomorrow for which I have not studied. Not only have I not studied, I have not done the relevant readings.

However, I'm feeling weirdly chipper. Light-hearted. Maybe it's just severe sleep-deprivation. (Portland's pedestrians should be grateful that I have no car tonight.) Somehow, even though things are totally bonkers, I feel... cheerful. Not exactly optimistic, since I see no prospect of my life calming down any time soon (and hello, I'm contemplating adding two MORE credits next quarter!). Not empowered, since I'm behind the ball on both work and school. Not content, since my family life is just as chaotic as my professional and academic lives. Just... cheerful. Okay with everything.

Somehow, I'm even looking forward to tomorrow morning, and the usual morning looniness involving two sluggish parents, one kid who hates leaving home, and a bus that leaves at 8 AM. And I'm looking forward to getting to work and tackling (or not) some things I've been procrastinating. And I'm looking forward to tomorrow afternoon's class, including the quiz. There's going to be a guest lecturer to talk about doing an economic analysis of a community!

One day at a time, I guess. And no operating heavy machinery.

Still Not Dead

Just seriously busy. The computer ate my homework last night. Back soon.