Things I've Learned This Week

• When your five year old son calls you because "there is crazy pee" in the bathroom, bring a towel when you go to investigate.
  
  
• Do not join a committee that deals with a controversial college-wide program if you care about the program and you have strong doubts about the leadership ability of the committee's chairperson.
  
  
• Do not schedule appointments with students to take place on the day before spring break, even if it was their idea.
  

The kids weigh in

Dalton: I don't want another baby in the house.

Me: Uh, OK, why?

Dalton: I don't want there to be a baby in the house.

Me: We aren't planning on having another baby. Is someone at school getting a new brother or sister?

Dalton: OK. If someone tells you to have another baby, don't listen to them.

Dr. H: OK.

Me:, Dalton, is someone at school getting a new brother or sister?

Dalton: If someone tells you not to have another baby, listen to them.

Dr. H: OK.

Curie: But what if you don't know?

Dr. H: Well we would know.

Curie: But what if you didn't?

Me: Mommies usually know.

Curie: But what if it is a surprise?

An awesome conversation with my daughter

Curie: Where does space end?

[discussion involving planets, galaxies and universes, scientists and more questions]

Dr. H: Hey, Curie, you ask really good questions, maybe you would like to be a scientist someday?

Curie: Oh! Maybe I will be a scientist princess!

Me: That's a good idea!

Curie: Mommy, can boys be scientists? Or just girls?

Me: Both girls and boys can be scientists.

Curie: Really, because I've never seen a boy scientist. Only girls.

Me: Daddy's a scientist and he's a boy.

Curie: No!

Dr. H.: A social scientist.

Curie: He doesn't look like a scientist!

Me: Really, he is. His college degree is in computer science, and his graduate degree is in psy..

Curie: Mommy! You are just making this up to play a joke on me!

Me: No, really, he is. And we know lots of boy and girl scientists.

Kindergarten Marketing

The kids started Kindergarten this year. The school has a number of seemingly reasonable ways to stay in contact with us. Each child has a "parent-teacher communication folder" and we've signed up for the school and district e-mail messaging system. More often than not, these tools are used for fundraising. The kids have been in school two months and already I have thrown out jewelery catalogs, gift wrap catalogs, spirit wear catalogs, market day catalogs, book fair catalogs, gift card order forms, gift catalogs, catalogs from companies who will make products of your child's artwork, and countless others. The kids participated in a walk-a-thon during school which we received a donation sheet for, without any indication what the charity was. It was the school. I guess that was supposed to be obvious. Every "backpack e-mail" from the district is a list of upcoming events. Most of them are " It is Suburban-School-District-101 night at X, X will donate $Y of your purchase to SSD 101!" or announcements about the catalogs being sent home. On top of that, the kids came home the other day singing the Fast Food Song.

About the Cat.

Curie: Where did Alex go when she died?

Dr. H: We don't know.

Curie: Why not?

Dr. H: Well, no one knows what happens, it's one of the great mysteries of life.

Curie: Where do people go after they die?

Dr. H.: No one knows that either.

Curie: Why not?

Dr. H.: Well, as I said, it's one of the mysteries of life. No one who is alive has gone through it, so no one knows.

Curie: The people at Kids' Club know.

Dr. H.: What?

(Kid's Club is the afterschool program run by the local park district.)

Status Updates

What my childless friends say in their facebook status lines:

Lori slept 'til 2:45 pm today and it felt really good.

Gavin desperately in need of a 3 mile run, a hot tub, and a sushi lunch. Luckily all this is attainable.

What my friends with children say in their facebook status lines:

Hannah is wishing that her toddlers understood that she was running the bath that they want so they would stop screaming

Cathleen just finished cleaning up sleepover puke. Nothing worse than cleaning up another child's puke.

He's always been an asshole

We saw my father the other day, a short stopover on a road trip back from my mother's. At one point, he picks up a very large large flashlight and shines it directly into my four year old daughter's eyes.

"OW! That hurts my eyes!" Curie yells at him.

He laughs.

"Why did you do that?" she demands, clearly confused.

He doesn't know what to say for a minute, then he makes up something about trying to shine it on the wall behind her.

Curie scrunches her eyebrows in the way that she does when she doesn't believe you.

My dad is one of those men who grew up with a bunch of guys who think insults and teasing are funny. Anyone who says otherwise is "too sensitive" and quickly becomes a magnet for further teasing. Sometimes he is funny. Most of the time he is just a dick. The truth is, I don't like him very much.

He is not my biological father. He married my mother when I was six. They divorced when I was twenty six. He adopted me when I was ten. No one asked me. Not that I am still annoyed about that or anything.

My daughter is a lot like me, with one small exception: she has all the assertiveness I wish I had.

Everything you've imagined about ball pits is true

Near our home in suburbia is a commercial indoor playground. We've gone a few times when the weather has been bad and we desperately need an outing. Dalton loves the place. Within seconds of arriving, he disappears up into the colorful complex, showing no fear of heights or any anxiety about getting lost. Sometimes he waves at us from some tube or porthole at the top, other times he reappears at the ground level, allowing us to catch only a glimpse of him before he disappears up another climbing tower.

If we haven't seen him for a while, we will climb up into the complex itself. Invariably, he sees us first, usually from halfway across the thing, several levels away, with no clear path between him and us. He'll say something like "I'll come find you," and then will inexplicably appear in front of us 30 seconds later, laughing.

I love seeing him there. It is almost like he was born to live in a three dimensional maze.

Curie is more tentative, and she wants Dalton to stay with her and play on the lower levels. She yells at him to come with her. He indulges her some of the time, playing in the ball pits, jumping in the bounce room, riding dinosaurs in the toddler area. Then he disappears upward again. Sometimes she follows him part way, going just a little farther each time. She yells at him to stop and come back down with her, but by then he is several levels away, climbing through some tubes or riding down a slide, too far away to hear her. Then he arrives at the bottom again, often around the same time she does. Then they are off again onto the dinosaurs or into the ball pits.

The last time we were there, they emerged from the ball pit and Dalton came over to show me a pink ball he'd found; it was one of only a handful of pink balls in a forest of blues and reds and greens and yellows. I took the opportunity to straighten out his clothes, and noticed something odd.

"Dalton, why are your pants wet?"

"Oh! I peed a little!"

As we left, I glanced at the ball sanitizer machine and wondered how often it is used.

It's my party and I'll _____* if I want to.

Dr. H: What do you want to do for your birthday this weekend? Anything special?

Me: Well, we are going out to the theater the night before.

Dr. H: I know, but would you like to do anything special on your birthday? I'm offering to watch the kids by myself if there is something you would like to do.

Me: OMG, I could really use a day at the office.

 

^{* work}

An Observation

Mother animals in the Dora the Explorer universe misplace their baby animals all the time. This seems like it would be evolutionarily maladaptive.

Moments in time according to Dalton and Curie

Yesterday: Anytime between birth and the last time he or she slept

This day: Today

Tomorrow: Anytime after the next time he or she sleeps

A long time: Anytime longer than 2 seconds

Too long: Anytime longer than 0.5 seconds

Yesterday a long time ago: Anytime between birth and about three weeks ago

Every day: Anything that has happened at least one other time that he or she can remember

A little while: As long as he or she wants to.

Veto

My kids vetoed the matching bug costumes I purchased and insisted on going as witches. I have boy-girl twins. They have not been introduced to the words "wizard" or "warlock" - hence they are both in dresses. It isn't the first time.

More Questions I Have Trouble Answering

From Dalton:

"How do girls pee if they don't have penises?"

[We attempt explanation]

"NO! There's no hole the pee comes out of, it comes out of my penis!"

From Curie:

"How did Dalton and I get out of your tummy? Is there a hole?"

[I attempt to deflect with description of how babies usually coming out on their own but sometimes a doctor does surgery to get them out]

"So, but normally there is a hole?"

[um, well, yeah]

"Do I have one? Where is it?"

[points to her bellybutton]

"Is it here?"

[uh, no]

"Well where is it?

[Starts looking all over her own body]

[time passes]

"Well?"

[Eventually come up with something brilliant about the babies being inside a uterus which opens up when the babies are ready to come out. Decide clarification about cervix versus uterus and details of the vaginal canal are not necessary to satisfy four year old.]

In the restroom at a salad bar restaurant

Take four year old boy-girl twins, the use of proper formal terminology, and a current fascination with imagination and things either really big or really small, and this is what happens. (As related to me by Dr. H. after taking our daughter, Curie, to go potty.)

Curie: Boys have penises

Dr. H.: Yes.

Curie: But girls don't have penises.

Dr. H.: Yes, that's true.

Curie: But girls can pretend to have penises!

Dr. H.: Um, I guess so, yes.

Curie: I have a penis!

Dr. H.: Okay.

Curie: I have a really big penis!

Dr. H.: Okaaay.

Curie: It reaches all the way to the door!

No word on what the other patrons in the restroom thought of this interaction.

Not really what I was expecting

Dalton: Here you go!

Me: What?

Dalton: Take this!

Me: Uh O.K. What is it?

Dalton: [Hands me a booger]

Me: Ew!

Some numbers from a weekend wedding

Number of days between finding out about Dr. H's brother's wedding and the wedding itself: 20

Number of times this wedding has been scheduled: 2

Number of times this wedding has been canceled: 1

Number of times we have purchased plane tickets for this wedding: 2

Hours spent this weekend engaged in air transit with two children under four: 16

Minutes children slept during this time (combined total): 6

Minutes required to check into hotel room at 2 a.m. Saturday morning: 35

Hours spent driving in rental car with two or more children under four: 5

Number of children of mine who are girls: 1

Number of children of mine who wore dresses to the wedding: 2

Hours spent away from home this weekend: 46

Number of suitcases arriving home with us: 0

Another one

The other day, a worker at the kids daycare asked if we were planning to have any more.

I'm forty, so it is now or never.

So, we're thinking, probably never.

(Don't worry, I know the window of time is diminishing at an astronomical pace, and even if we did decide to go forward right now, there would be no guarantees.)

It is a complicated issue. We always said two, even before we were together.

Once we were together, the picture was even clearer, with only the little hiccup of anovulation to worry about. I gave H the number run down: This is my fertility issue, so first we try Clomid, it has an X% chance of working and if it works, a 10% chance of twins and and Y% chance of multiples where n>2. (At the time, I knew the numbers) Then, if that doesn't work, we go on to Pergonal, which for this situation, has a Z% blah blah blah. Full disclosure. We joked about twins, and "getting it all done at once." In fact, any time we imagined our future family, it was us and a set of boy-girl twins.

So, one could argue, we have the family we always dreamed of. So, what is the problem?

Even more puzzling, right before we started trying, I suggested we could consider stopping at one.

So why the ambivalence about stopping at two?

I think there are a few reasons. The first is that incredibly heady feeling of looking at these creatures and thinking, "Wow, we made those!" (I know that is a totally cheesy thing everyone says.) But it really does blow my mind, on a molecular and probabilistic level as well as a psychological one. Biochemistry just works - somehow putting all those molecules together to grow a baby. And, if I had not rushed back from that conference, making my colleague skip a meeting, it may not have worked that month. Indeed, we may have conceived a different set of twins on a different month, or a singleton, or even triplets. The ability to open up this set of possibilities again is enticing.

Another reason is not having the birthing or nursing experience that I wanted. (I'll write about this some other time.) I keep reminding myself this is not a good reason to have another child. Nor is the fact that I like the idea of using all the information I've acquired about pregnancy, birth and newborns again.

There are the other positives of course - the joy and amazement of watching a baby turn into an actual kid, Curie and Dalton having a little brother, having no regrets.

This last part is perhaps the crux of it. I am annoyed this decision can't be revisited later. In a really short period of time, my eggs will have had their day, and that, as they say, is that. It seems unfair that this is the case for women, but not for men. I object to the idea that the universe has put me in this position. If we had only had one the first time, I think we would have absolutely tried for a second by now. But given that we already have two, another seems frivolous. Not to mention tempting fate again - the chance of having a second set of twins is not insignificant.

Many of the cons about having another child are obvious: sleep deprivation, daycare $$$, less time, stretched resources, having to purchase a vehicle that will hold three (or more, gasp) carseats, age-related concerns and the like.

However, for me, I think the biggest drawback is starting all over again. We've made so much headway: We may have finally bought our last package of diapers. Dr. H and I often get enough sleep. We are starting to be more productive at work again. We even occasionally have a chance to talk and laugh about things which are not logistical in nature.

My dean, herself a mother of two, said to me "you won't believe what a difference it makes to your life transitioning from preschoolers to having kids over five" A former colleague and I had an opportunity to have lunch and catch up last week. He's a very involved father of three. "You are entering the best phase - the next eight years are the best part."

I really can't see hitting the reset button and heading back to level one, especially when we are four years in and on the verge of being in the zone.

.....

Hat tips to two academic bloggers who inspired me to write about my thoughts on this: Addy N. expecting her second child after a long break following her first, and Trillwing considering whether or not to stop at one.

More on the potty-training front

I must confess that despite my discomfort, this peeing standing up thing has its advantages.

Me: Dalton, do you have to pee?

Dalton: No!

Me: Really?

Dalton: No!

Dr. H: Dalton, you haven't gone in a long time and you are running around holding your penis. [Dr. H is rather analytical that way]

Me: Are you sure you don't have to use the potty?

Dalton: NO! I don't WANT to use the potty! [starts to cry]

Me: Dalton, I have an idea. Do you want to try peeing in the potty standing up?!!

Dalton: Yeah! [smiles, laughs, runs into bathroom, and immediately pees in toilet]

I must thank EarlytoBed as it was her comment on my previous post that made me try to use my son's interest in peeing standing up to my advantage. On a completely different subject (women, science, sexism) check out this amazing story from her blog.
 

Ill equipped

Recently, I've been wondering if I would have a four year old still in diapers. Everyone says boys take longer, but the summer and that four year mark is coming up fast.

Fortunately, I'm now feeling optimistic. A week and a half ago we had a breakthrough, and now Dalton is going to the potty quite often.

This is all great news.

After starting this process somewhat late, he seems to be forging right ahead into new territory. For the last few days, he has been insisting on peeing standing up.

I feel totally unprepared, and completely ill equipped to deal with this.

Dalton: "I'm going to pee in the potty standing up!"

Me: "Uh, okay. Are you sure you don't want to sit down?"

Dalton: "Yeah! I'm going to stand up!"

Me: "Okay"

I leave and say to Dr. H. "I have absolutely no idea what to do. You go."

Maybe I just need a little more time to adjust to the idea.

Helpful Hint

Do not attempt to make pancakes in the shape of an animal you have never successfully drawn by hand.