fine dining

We found this table at a garage sale down the street. baby-j loves to sit at it and draw nowadays. He'll also have the occasional fake meal here. Here he is having tea with froggy.

And this shot was taken a few minutes later.

housiversary

One year ago today, P and I closed on our first house. We didn't move in until about a month later, but we've owned this house now for a year. A year! It goes so fast.

This picture was taken that day: March 24, 2006. I found it in my Kodak photo album with all the pictures from that day. I'm somewhat amazed by how much work we've done on the house. It certainly needs a lot more, but I would have completely forgotten how much we've done if we hadn't decided to run around the house and take lots of pictures of the vacant rooms and bare floors.

Baby-j looks so small here; he was only 7 months old then. Before having baby-j, I didn't quite understand why people referred to the age of small children in months, rather than in years and half-years. Part of the reason, of course, is to have space to mark the developmental milestones that occur in a child's life: first smile, first roll, first laugh, first crawl, first steps, first word. But there's something about marking time in months that slows the time, even a bit. Because when they hit a year, you can't quite believe it's only been a year, since those months added up so quickly and without your quite noticing, and your son has grown so very much.

I have my own litany of which baby-j is a part, and it's something like this: first apartment together, first car, first baby, first house. P and I have had 4 of the first, 5 of the second. I can't count higher than 1 yet for the last two.

...a new car!

Without this blog as a record, I wouldn't have realized that exactly one month after P and I debated the virtues of our respective automobiles, we decided to get a new one (well, new to us, anyway). We'll be doing a lot of driving this year, so we wanted something more reliable for my commute and for the family car, and so we got this:

It's a 2005 Ford Focus station wagon. I've wanted something with a hatch in the back ever since my (ok, my in-laws') Honda Civic died on us in 2000. I loved the idea of getting back to the Civic, and since a Honda is out of our price range and parts of it are too likely to be stolen, I've had my eye on the Ford Focus 5-door for a few years now. Add a kid to the equation, and our needs expanded the dream to station-wagon-length. However, its rear is still pretty cute: see?

This baby is supposed to get 32 miles per gallon on the highway, which--with my commute--is where it's mostly driven.

So let's gas 'er up and crank up the NPR.

book club

I recently sent along a letter from my friend M to continue an "informal book club." I was asked to send the letter to 6 people, who would in turn send the letter to 6 people each, and each of those people is supposed to send me a book. The idea is that each person only mails one book back up the chain, but gets 36 books total from the 6x6 people to whom he/she sent the letter.

Sound confusing? Well, the point is that I am supposed to have 36 books arriving in the mail, and I'm really interested to see what I get. I'm going to keep updating this page as a way to keep track... and to see how many of the 36 I get.

This week, I got 3:

1. Persuasion, Jane Austen
I love that I got this! I was/am a huge Austen fan, and Persuasion was always my favorite. I haven't read it in at least 10 years, though, so I'll have to add this one to my summer reading list.

2. Empire Falls, Richard Russo
I read this already a few years ago... loved it, though nothing can compare to Russo's Straight Man. I need to re-read that this summer.

3. Shopgirl, Steve Martin
I haven't read this one, but I'm definitely interested. And the person who sent this gave me the audio CD, which is GREAT for my long commute. Plus, Martin narrates it. (I've discovered that nothing kills the audio book experience faster than a crappy reader. Just "read" the audio version of The DaVinci Code and you'll see what I mean. Of course, it might not have been the recording on that one. Maybe I would have been eye-rolling at the book in print had I read it that way.)

March 16:
4. Moo, Jane Smiley
Ok--not only have I read Moo, but it was the book that I sent back the chain to the person on the back of my letter. Too funny. Well, I guess I got it back! :) P and I are starting to wonder about the kinds of books I'm getting. It may well be that I read the same things as the people to whom I sent the initial letter, and they read the same things as the friends to whom they sent the letter.

March 22:
5. Daughters of Copper Woman, Anne Cameron
I haven't read this yet, but am looking forward to it after checking out its Amazon page.

Sometime at the end of March:
6. Stones from the River, Ursula Hegi

7. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
I started to read this during my conference trip to Chicago and I am really enjoying it. Thanks, J! Now I need to find some time to finish it. So much fun.

So far I have 7/36 books, which is many more than I thought I'd get. Whoo-hoo!

towhead

Check out the hair on baby-j: it's coming in fast! It's probably not fast enough for him, though. He has total hair-envy when he sees other kids. He wants to grab it, run it through his fingers, smell it, yank it... oh wait, he's made the kid cry. We're working on that. Soon he will have hair of his own to brush, which will be a very good thing, because baby-j's way of wielding a hairbrush is a bit frightening.

baby-j's treadmill

I took this video last week of baby-j dancing on the "boot box." Actually, I think it was initially intended to store quilts and linens, but it's a perfect surface on which to bounce, as baby-j will demonstrate for you here.

ABD

Finally: I (successfully!) defended my dissertation proposal today (and even enjoyed it!). I've gone through one more hoop on the way to my doctorate. Now I "just" have the dissertation itself to write.

So it's official: I am ABD. My friend M forwarded me the All-But-Dissertation Survival Guide site a few years back and I took a look, thinking how nice it would be to even be considered "ABD." It feels a long time coming. I was realizing today as I roamed the campus that it's been 10 years since I began my M.A.

I like the picture on the top of that Web site, that guy on the mountain. He's all like, I finished my dissertation. And then he's all like, I think I'll wear capri pants because I'm done with my dissertation. And then he's like, I'll stretch my arms up real high, like this. And I'm all like, You go, Mr. Guy On Top Of The Mountain.

howdy pard-ner

baby-j has taken to flinging P’s belt all over the living room and kitchen, and he seems to enjoy it when I wrap it around his waist twice. The look is especially nice over pajamas, as seen here. I also have many of him wearing this belt with just a onesie, which I’m sure will go in his category of “Embarassing Pictures That Mom Took Of Me Before I Was Old Enough To Know To Run Away."

New words for baby-j include “tiger,” “oh man,” and “aye-yai-yai.” (I guess I’ve been saying the last two a bit too much lately.) “Cow” was the big word this morning. (“Cow. Cow.” “What does the cow say, baby-j?” “Cow. Cow.” “What about the sheep, baby-j? Aren’t those nice?” “Cow. Cow.”) The big word tonight was “door.” He’s had this one down for a while, but tonight it meant “I am going to close the door on you and you cannot come in.” Lately baby-j’s been spending the first part of the night on a mattress on the floor of his room, which is connected to ours (he can’t get to his room without going through ours) and he’s starting to take ownership over it. Hence, this use of the word “door.”

I started to get panicky that he was already--at 18 months!--closing me out of his room. Outside the door, I went through various stages: Oh, he doesn’t want me around any more. Then, Well, it’s a natural part of growing up. Then, You know, I guess I’m proud of him. After about 15 minutes of “Door. Door. Door,” he permitted me to enter, at which point I realized what he was doing in there, which had less to do with his growing up and more to do with his sitting down. And he had just taken a bath, too. Ah well.

and the winner is...

Will you vote for me for Miss Universe?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlZk9tGZz-Y

in which I share pics of baby-j

I've calmed down since my last post, which is good, because I truly don't intend to argue with feminist writers and drop the f-bomb in every blog entry. Maybe just every *other* blog entry.

Anyway, here are some recent pics of baby-j that I just love. Many thanks to D for sending them along...

a rant in which Naomi Wolf goes all "stepford wife" on me, and I cry

I was perusing an old New Yorker article by Margaret Talbot that P left out on the table today about Bratz dolls. We’re familiar with them because my 12-year-old cousin has had some for about 4 or 5 years now and in our pre-baby-j days, we had time to play with her and her toys. Talbot describes Bratz dolls, accurately, as having “large heads and skinny bodies; their almond-shaped eyes are tilted upward at the edges and adorned with thick crescents of eyeshadow, and their lips are lush and pillowy, glossed to a candy-apple sheen and rimmed with dark lip liner.” I can see the appeal of these dolls in that they look “ethnically indeterminate” (as Talbot describes them) and so, rather than being an African-American or Latina doll, they simply “convey difference.”

What disturbed me when I first saw Bratz was that (again quoting Talbot) “they wear the sly, dozy expression of a party girl after one too many mojitos,” and that to take off their shoes, you rip off their feet at the ankles. Really. Scared the hell out of me when my cousin showed me for the first time how to change from the stiletto sandals to the stiletto boots.

So I’m reading Margaret Talbot’s article, and then, out of nowhere, is a quote from Naomi Wolf:

...if I were betting on culture as a form of stocks, I would get out of skinny Barbie and into multi-ethnic, imaginative Bratz dolls.

Say what? That can’t be right. Naomi Wolf, who wrote The Beauty Myth, promoting Bratz?

I just had to check out the context of this quote for myself. Sure enough, two Google-hops later, I was reading the The Dove Report: Campaign for Real Beauty, where Wolf originally wrote the above in an essay for the Dove company.

If you read the entire essay, Wolf goes on...

And I would invest in Curves – the breakout phenomenon that welcomes women of all sizes into fitness – and not invest in liposuction equipment. Most of all, I would notice, for purposes that extend far beyond body image and physical self-esteem, where the future lies –not in the outdated image of teen girl struggling with bulimia, gazing at Seventeen and wishing she could look like a model so she could feel complete, but rather on the teen girl with a picture of Mia Hamm on her wall, both a prom dress and soccer cleats piled in her closet, who likes herself just fine, who thinks her mom is the most beautiful woman she knows, and who is listening to “Girl Power” and “Together We Can” from the Cheetah Girl’s CD.

I’m torn about the report itself, which appears to be rooted in the company’s latest “pro-age” campaign, which I certainly support, but research done by a commercial organization--regardless of what I feel about the results--always makes me skeptical. That’s another topic entirely.

So back to my point and never mind the fact that this essay was written in support of research done for the Dove company.

Hey, Naomi Wolf: What the f*** happened to you? Bratz? Curves? The organization whose founder backs anti-choice groups that have recently claimed abortions increase one’s risk of breast cancer? Promoting Disney's Cheetah Girls? Yeah, the Cheetah Girls don’t look like they’ve subscribed to the “beauty myth." Methinks Wolf has been possessed.

What's up with cloaking corporate interests in feminism?

Between Bratz and the Cheetah girls, it's clear that despite what Wolf writes in her essay, the beauty myth is still alive and well. It's just even more inclusive.

And now I cry.

valentine's day

Today was a snow day, which made for a wonderful Valentine’s Day: P and I got to spend it at home with baby-j. The neighbors came over in the morning and we got a chance to relax at home.

In other news, I submitted the final draft of my dissertation proposal and the defense of the proposal is set for March 5. Whoo-hoo!

In other other news, we laid out more money for my car, which was in the shop again this past weekend. I’m hoping that this is the last time it needs to be fixed for a while—in part because of the money, but also because I’m sick of defending my car to P in lame conversations. We almost came to blows this weekend over the most ridiculous fake-argument I’ve ever heard. I started in on how my car has served us well in the four years since we bought it used; P didn’t seem convinced... At one point, there was the following intelligent exchange:
“Don’t be dissing my car.”
“You’re dissing my car. Don’t be dissing my car.”
Um, yeah.

sweeties

My composition students are currently working on an essay in which they write about the rhetorical appeals of their chosen advertisement. I just had to share this one that a student sent along to me for approval. Hope you enjoy it.

my bag

The words are coming very very quickly. My current favorite is “yo-goo” for yogurt. Baby-j also loves my purse, which he calls “BAGG-EEE!” with glee. Actually, I always call it my purse, but it really is more like a “BAGG-EEE!” since it’s a kind of small messenger bag. I’ve had a version of this bag for a while, and I love it. I often move on for a few months to other purses—usually in my attempt to downsize and carry fewer things to work. As it stands now, when I head out the door for work, I take a rolling suitcase, my lunch box, my breastpump, and my purse--sorry, I mean my BAGG-EEE! I’ve worked to try to whittle down the amount of crap I carry back and forth to work, but since I’m usually gone for 12-13 hours at a time, these four bags are essential to the snacking, the pumping, and the rolling I need to do.

Tonight when I got home, baby-j was smiling from the window, and then as I got closer, he began to pant. I thought he was excited to see me, but then he kept on with the BAGG-EEE! BAGG-EEE! BAGG-EEE! until I had placed it on the floor and he could have at the cell phone and the Kleenex. Good times.

spoon dance

I've been a very bad blogger lately. No updates on baby-j. No updates on P. Well, until I have time to write more, I shall pacify my few readers with yet another video I uploaded last week. This is baby-j's spoon dance, cut short by an NPR report. Note that he does, of course, take a break from the spoondancin' to listen briefly to NPR.

(By the way, I do typically join him in the spoon-dancing and pot-banging, but I've spared you here.)

do you wanna rock?

Some readers of this blog have been asking for something like this, so here it is: baby-j in action. We got it on video.

good news

I got my sabbatical for fall! We found out on Friday. My first reaction was Wow, I’ll actually get to write my dissertation and finish this doctorate.

My second reaction was Wow, I’ll actually have to write this thing to finish my doctorate.

And so even though we had already planned to do so, P and I spent Friday afternoon checking out some daycare options for baby-j for September, when I begin this sabbatical and need some time without baby-j in order to write. We’re looking to get him there for four hours in the morning, four days a week. We’ve found a place for him that we really like: it’s brand-new (not so important to us), provides a lot of outdoor time during the day (pretty important to us), and would give him time to socialize with other kids (very important to us). And there are no “three strikes and you’re out” biting policies.

He’ll be 2 in September. That’s just crazy to me. Do I have to refer to him as toddler-j at that point?

froggy

This is a photo of baby-j watching his cousins skate during 1 of 2 ice-skating outings while we were in MI. The holidays feel long over, and I have to admit feeling generally a bit down.

Some good news, however: P just found out that a major journal is going to publish one of his articles! Whoo-hoo! We are so excited.

Baby-j also started swim classes at the local Y. He seems to really enjoy the water. Most of the time during the lesson, he bobs up and down so fast I can barely hold him. The teacher says he’s mastered his “froggy kick,” though I am not quite sure what that is. What he’s doing looks more like butterfly stroke from the chest down. If he weren’t in water, he’d probably be giving me bruises.

true story

At dinner the other night, I delivered the following admonishment:
“baby-j, we don’t bitch-slap our sippy cup with a green bean.”

daddy oh daddy

It’s been an exhausting past few days. We headed into NYC the other night to spend the night at the apartment of the wonderful and amazing D and N. I had to work the following day, and D (bless him!) took care of baby-j the entire day. P better get back soon--you hear me over there?--as baby-j started pointing to D and calling him “daddy.” Of course, he will often call me “daddy” too; I think the label is more an acknowledgement of a favorite person. We should all be as favored by baby-j as P is.

The trip was loooong (90 minutes there and then 2 hours back the next day), but surprisingly, baby-j was pretty good in the car. The silence was interrupted by a short, loud (but not angry) shrieks from time to time. I figured out quickly that the shrieks would stop if I changed the song on the CD. As the day grew darker, and time in between shrieks grew shorter, the song-switching grew faster. Happily we arrived home before I had to resort to keeping one hand on the CD player and one hand on the wheel.