Busy.

Very, very busy.

I don't know what tidys are, either, but I haven't been squeezing any. I can't even keep up with the dishwashing, let alone the tidys.

Moving on from the discovery that people come to my blog looking for poorly-spelled porn and mysterious body parts.

Dutch had her first acting class tonight, and came home pretty enthused. Apparently, they played games titled "Dead Fish," and "Happy Kitten/Sick Old Cat."

Household suggestions for next week's games:
Brendan - "Trench Warfare"
Cook - "The Winter of 1917"
Me (catching on late to the joke, and unable to come up with any innovations) - "Ooh, ooh, I know! Spanish influenza!"

Food for thought

A blog I read often posts a "keyword salad" of search phrases that have led people there. I just went over to look at my Google Analytics website and found that I've got a few weird ones of my own. Here you go. Ponder these.

"squeezin big breast milk"
"women sqeezing their tidys"
"romantic buttocks squeezing"

(Cook points out that just posting this list will probably increase my hits!)

Spooky

The scene: The adults are finishing dinner. Dutch has been excused and is in the living room playing with play-doh. She comes over to me with a blob of green play-doh.

Dutch: Mom, look! This is the future!
Me: That green play-doh is the future?
Dutch: Yes! Squeeze it, and you will understand!
Me: Oh.

I squeezed it. I still have no idea what she was talking about.

Bullets

I don't like being unprepared. One of the more disruptive things that parenting has done to my life is that I'm unprepared a lot more often, and I often end up being knocked off my trajectory. On Tuesday, I was all ready to have a nice day of doing homework, broken up by a free Pilates class at the new, spiffy, rec center. Then Dutch barfed on the bus on the way to daycare.

On Thursday, I was all ready to have a nice day of homework and class, broken up by a free lapswimming session at the new, spiffy, rec center. Then I remembered (while entangled in Dutch's hair, attempting with extremely limited success to make a "braid crown") that Dutch was due at an eye appointment in 45 minutes. 1.5 hours (and two missed bus connections) later, Skipper, Dutch, and I arrived at the eye doctor. I don't like being unprepared, and I HATE being late.

Somehow, we're very busy again.

Updates:

• Skipper loves baths. LOVES them. We made the mistake this week of running a bath for Dutch and letting Skipper see it, and she got royally pissed off and insisted* on being put in it. When it's time to remove her from the bath (she has eczema, so we try not to let her soak), she gets even more pissed off. When she's in the bath, she windmills her arms nonstop, in order to maximally splash everything around her, screws up her little face into this ferocious grimace, and yells. This is apparently how she expresses great delight.
• Cook and I have demonstrated our Fabulous Parenting Skills by deducing this week that Dutch is much more likely to be Not Horrible if we make sure she's getting enough sleep and exercise, and snacking often enough. Amazing! It only took us five years! I wonder how long it'll take us to actually follow through on this knowledge consistently.
• I've started swimming again, at the new, spiffy, rec center. I LOVE it. As much as Skipper loves baths. I love it so much that after my Thursday morning of shuffling the kids around, I found myself with only 40 minutes left before my class, and rather than spend that time eating my lunch and finishing my reading for class, I sprinted to the rec center to cram in a short swim. That's not normal behavior for me when faced with an easy excuse for forgoing exercise.
• Skipper still won't eat more than a few bites of solid foods at a meal. She also still hates daycare. She is, however, making all sorts of other progress, and thinks she has made even more than she has.

No other news!


* By "insisted" I actually mean "hollered 'LADDLE DADDLE DADDLE DADDLE!' while writhing so much she had to be put down on the floor and then making a valiant attempt to climb into the tub"

Choice Chart Director Yes in 2010!

I've written a lot about my struggles with Dutch's negative temperament. She frequently responds to small unpleasantnesses or obstacles in what looks to a non-negative person like an insanely disproportionate way, and it's exhausting and awful for her and for everyone around her.*

I'm reading a book that has all sorts of helpful tips, and I've already begun deploying them in a seat-of-the-pants kind of way, with some success. The basic approach is to give Dutch the tools to handle her negative-ness in a ... positive way! We're supposed to recognize and affirm her feelings (because they're REAL and painful, even though it seems ridiculous to me sometimes), help her recognize that the negative part of her brain is talking really loudly in her head, and give her ways to dial down that voice and come up with coping strategies.

The book suggests that you name the negative voice something like "The Critic" or "Mr. Meany" to give it a separate identity from the child. Dutch's negative voice, named in an on-the-fly attempt to deploy the book's strategies during a crisis, is ... "King No." It's kind of James-Bond-meets-Disney. But IT WORKED. She seems to be at an ideal age and personality point to seize on the idea that there are characters in her head who talk.**

This is how a recent crisis of Dutch's unfolded, my first opportunity to try some spiffy new negativity-combat tools. We had to go to her eye appointment, for which she was unprepared because I'd forgotten about it until the last minute. She realized suddenly that this meant that she would be unable YET AGAIN to be Choice Chart Director, a new classroom task that she was VERY excited to have been assigned for the week, but had been unable to do all week due to various circumstances. She freaked out. She said things like "This ALWAYS happens!" and "I will NEVER get to be Choice Chart Director!",*** and I tried to remember everything I'd been reading. We talked about how King No was making her feel like the problem was overwhelming, and how she was having a really big bad feeling, and she could hold onto that feeling until she was ready to poke it with a pin and deflate it and listen to Princess Yes. Princess Yes helped her identify the problem and some solutions.

I also got to model some coping techniques myself, because I was feeling all stressed out about being late (did I mention I HATE being late?) and told Dutch that I was feeling bad, and worried that the eye doctor would be angry, etc., and we discussed the actual likely consequences of our lateness, and the fact that the worst that could happen was that the receptionist might be irritable with us and we might have to reschedule the appointment. Which, Dutch pointed out, would actually be good, because then she could be Choice Chart Director! Of course, what actually happened was that they were very nice about our lateness, and we didn't have to reschedule. And Dutch got her tenure as Choice Chart Director extended another week. Princess Yes wins again!

Anyway, we've been using it a bit as necessary. We're also been leaning harder on some other stuff we'd already been trying to do. We sometimes force the whole household to report on the best thing that happened to each of us during the day.****I tell lots of bedtime stories involving kids trying new, hard things, and having to struggle with feeling incompetent.***** We try to emphasize praising effort over accomplishment. Etcetera etcetera etcetera.

*She's not like this all the time. But it happens a lot.

**Because there ARE.

*** This is called "globalizing" in the book - taking the problem - today I'm not going to be Choice Chart Director - and globalizing it to -my life is ruined! I think most of us do this at least occasionally. There's plenty of stuff in the book that's useful for me to use on myself, too!

****This is an exercise that, while fairly awkward for four cynical adults, inevitably proves to be interesting and make everybody feel a little happier.

*****Another bonus of trying this stuff on Dutch right now is that she's the perfect age - old enough to understand a story like that and yet young enough to not be disgusted by the transparent propaganda.

Rodia Lite

The scene: Dutch, Skipper, and I are riding on the bus home. Dutch is apparently thinking about the group art project her class is currently working on.

Dutch: This weekend, I would like make some small Watts Towers.

Me: Um... http://www.flickr.com/photos/javelina_in_austin/3942967067/

Dutch: I want to show Marcia how I can make small Watts Towers.
Me: Ah... (suppressing giggles)
Dutch: I will need... do you know where we have a good supply of tiles?
Me: Bwah hah hah hah hah! (laughs so hard that everyone on the bus turns to look)

Life in the Commie Anarchist House

I've been meaning to write something about our unusual communal living situation. I find it very hard to explain to people. We live in a house that belongs to another couple. We share the kitchen, living room, dining room, basement, internet connection, yard, etc. We have our own three rooms, plus bathroom. They have their own two rooms, plus bathroom. We pay them rent. We take turns preparing dinner and doing the dinner dishes. They sometimes play with Dutch. Every day, somebody has probably just made some baked goods, and is happy to share.

It's a weird setup. I've never met anybody doing anything quite like this. I know plenty of people who have lived with other adults in shared houses, but never people quite so old, and never people who had kids. So far, it's working pretty well. We have our own designated spaces, and none of us invade the private rooms of the other family (except Dutch, when we're not paying attention). We still all seem to like each other okay, so far. Brendan and Emma are eccentric and interesting, avowed anarchists whose hobbies tend toward the cozy, like quilting, canning, doing sudoku, watching bad TV, and reading good literature. Happily, all our eccentricities are not conflicting, so far. The only disadvantage is that we don't really have a nice evening hang-out spot, but that's not a problem most of the time, since Cook and I both have to work after the kids go to bed anyway.

And the dinner thing is kind of awesome. Not only do we not have to cook dinner every night (I think we're all saving money and energy with this arrangement, and getting to eat different sorts of food), but sitting down to dinner every night with people who are not members of the family has an amazing civilizing effect on us. Cook and I have to step up to the plate and smile and make conversation slightly more scintillating than the sort of bare minimum how-was-your-day and oh-there's-something-we-need-to-do-about-the-kids sort of conversation we would be likely to have otherwise. Dutch has to behave better than she would otherwise. And after we finish eating, there's a sweet, brief period of just sitting there chatting before one family goes to the kitchen to wash dishes and the other family disappears into its den. I find that this provides me with two major benefits. First, I have to take a few extra minutes and just be a human being, instead of dashing off to read a chapter or write a paper or whatever. Second, I get an opportunity to see Cook and Dutch and sometimes even myself in a more positive light. Cook is really funny, something I sometimes forget when I see him only in stressed-out mode. Dutch can actually be charming, something I'd decided was out of her repertoire, and is even slowly improving her manners.

It's not a permanent solution to our housing problems, and I can see how it could get really uncomfortable, but it's given us some real rewards beyond the rent savings.

Living

I just learned last week about the concept of a "housing wage," which is the monthly income that would allow a household to rent a 2-bedroom apartment at 40% of the median rent for the area. This measure is of limited utility, given that a "household" could be a single person or, say, a family of eight. Some people are advocating for looking instead at how much money is left over to spend on housing AFTER a family pays their other necessary expenses (like... oh... childcare!).

A "living wage" in Portland is apparently $27.30/hour for a family of two adults and two kids. I make $12/hour. Cook makes more, fortunately. But all our jobs are temporary, and I doubt we reached that threshold for the year in 2009.*

My goal for 2010 is to ensure that our family earns a living wage all year. My hopes, of course, are grander, but I think this is a nice solid goal.

Next week, my further adventures in downward mobility!

*Note to self: must do taxes.

2010

About 10 days ago, I wrote up the beginning of a post about what happened in 2009 ("I gave birth, and finally read The Brothers Karamazov," etc.). I just deleted it, though, because it was really boring. Apparently, 2009 was a pretty boring year. Also, I haven't yet finished The Brothers Karamazov, having gotten sidetracked by the rental of Project Runway, Season Five.

This weekend we've been cleaning, cooking, and finally doing long-neglected nesting things like hanging up pictures. Tomorrow we're all going back to work/school/daycare, and it feels like the real beginning of 2010. I think it'll be a good year. I plan to finish reading the damn book, at the very least.

What's WRONG with me?

Why am I blogging when I should be in bed? When I've been up for 19(?) hours, most of which I spent on planes and in airports? I don't know. I guess I just feel like I haven't really arrived here yet, and somehow writing about it will help. Or something.

Anyway, we had a great vacation. I don't really have much to say about it. (Look at the pictures!) The Big Cooks were wonderful hosts. They spoiled us all with delicious food and tons of Dutch-entertaining* and Dutch in particular was so sad to leave.

We had a pretty crappy trip home, though it went relatively smoothly. Skipper was That Baby You Hate On the Plane, and shrieked and writhed in desperate exhaustion for most of the trip from Chicago to Portland. I'm sorry about that, everybody on the plane. She was really, really sad. Dutch, on the other hand, silently watched some terrible Renee Zellweger movie that probably scarred her for life, and then silently fell asleep in an insane yoga posture with her back arched and only the top of her head touching the back of her seat. Then she stoically endured being woken by the really loud announcement of the descent, the kind-of-scary and turbulent landing, the schlep through the airport, the schlep on train and bus, the final third-of-a-mile walk home in the rain... Dutch isn't generally inclined toward stoicism, so we were very grateful.

We came home to find a heap of wonderful boxes and cards! Thanks so much to all of you! It was difficult to get Dutch to bed, what with all the clothes to wear and books to read and flat princesses to play with.

Also, when we got home, our housemates welcomed us home and presented us with the dinner they had kept warm for us in the oven, AND a holiday gift - coupons for hours and hours of Dutch-sitting.

Happy New Year! I have high hopes for 2010, since our first day started and ended with kindness and generosity. That's got to mean something. It's okay that I still haven't finished The Brothers Karamazov, right?

*Grandpa Big Cook put in some time sitting in the middle of the living room holding up a tent with his head so that he and Dutch could be Antarctic explorers. That may be a record in the grandparental kindness books.