a post about nothing, and a cute story

I say i am going to post more but then i find i do not have time, or much to say besides whiny rants. By the way i am feeling much better about the previous issue since my mother's ire has now gone on to other things. It always does, and cycles back, and whatever.

Today is the first 'snowy' day of the year, though it is not truly snowy as there is almost no accumulation. Snow flurries blowing all over, though. Really feels like winter....it is so dreary and grey. I went to the gym in the morning & i have my lamp on & i am taking my vitamins (which my mother informs me that i am taking too much Vitamin D as they just changed the requirements back down, since it causes kidney stones, or something. Must look into that one of these days.) Not feeling terribly chipper but not feeling that bad either -- at least not down like these kind of days used to make me feel. After all, i have on great lipstick, so how bad could i feel? It is early in the winter, yet. We will see.

Yesterday i made some good progress on knitting Chloe's horse sweater & am really in the final stretch now. I could finish this week, if i keep knitting. So at least ONE Christmas gift will be done in time.

Here's a funny story: I was pulling spring bulbs out of the garden this weekend, and the kids were digging in the holes i was leaving behind. The ground was already partially frozen (broke a shovel, goddamn it, but at least it was not my favorite one) and the boys were absolutely amazed at the ice -- you know, those spiky bits of ice that form underneath the mulch late in the fall. I remember loving playing with those as a kid too. And they were digging for earthworms, of course. I said 'i don't think you will find very many, it is pretty cold already.' But they did find some.

M: Look! I found a worm! It is a big daddy one!
C: Look, boys, i got one too! I found the little baby one!
T: But where is the mommy one?
C: Oh, she's probably out shopping.

whine rant, i shouldn't post it here.

My mother heard some guy talk on the radio about his new book about cancer so she called me & left a message "i heard such-and-such a dr talk about such-and-such a book and he says that if you don't eat green vegetables you will get leukemia. It is your responsibility to change C.'s eating habits so she eats vegetables otherwise she will get diabetes AND leukemia. I am very concerned about her health." Then when i got home with them (this was Wednesday) she jumped immediately on me (in the 10 minutes i had before i had to leave again for work) and is telling me that it is my fault, that she will get sick, that the only thing to do is to deny her all foods except fruits and vegetables because then she will be hungry enough she will start to eat them and blah blah blah. Of course in that 10 minutes i also lost my temper and yelled at C. for making a noise and confiscated her toy catalog and sent her to her room screaming. Apparently the useful thing about having kids is that you can take your frustration out on them and they can't do anything about it. Because for the kid, it can be framed as a righteous punishment (for interrupting and making a tiny noise) whereas if you take your frustration out on an adult, it has consequences. Me, i'm a great person.

OK, yes, it is a problem that C. does not eat fruits & vegetables. Yes C. is a fat kid. Yes, she has miserable dietary habits and is very stubborn. We have forced her to eat vegetables & then it is a huge drama to get even one bite down & she literally makes herself throw it up. And yes if we gave her nothing but fruits & veggies eventually she would eat it because she was hungry. But i do not believe this would translate into her EVER eating them when there was anything else available, and i actually believe it WOULD translate into her hating vegetables for the rest of her life. Which would do much more harm -- because when she is older she will be making her own food choices.

However, even if she never ate a vegetable for the rest of her life, i do not believe this means she would DIE FROM LEUKEMIA. Sure she might, but SO COULD YOU. Who the hell says something like that to someone who already had a kid die? Oh i forgot, that one doesn't count, silly me. UUURRRRGGGHHH. Now i just want to cry again.

Fuck this. I am going to go to the gym and run really really fast for a long time until i no longer care anymore.

funnies

OK, not so good with posting on the blog. I am back to writing-a-post-in-my-head-and-never-posting-it. Sigh!

But i had to get some of these down from this week:

T. on monday, when i picked them up from preschool: "Mommy! You made me a dangerous sandwich! Don't do that again! It's DANGEROUS!"

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C. on A.'s 18th birthday: "i want to get A. a real birthday present, i never got him a real present before. A video game, with tanks in it. He likes tanks. It has to have tanks, and turkeys...gobble gobble...gobble"

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me, trying to round up screaming little kids: "C! Stop it right now! Stop being a chicken! STOP!"

C, crestfallen: "You mean i can't be a chicken ever again????"

me: "um...well, at least not until tomorrow."

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We were in the car, stopped at a light next to a big billboard which featured the singer Rhianna dressed up in some kind of barbed-wire bondage gear.

T: "Mommy! Look! There is a bad person!"

Me: "What? Oh, uh, yes, she does look kind of scary in that picture."

T: "Mommy! She gonna steal our car!"

hum

I miss writing here. I suppose i ought to start writing here again, then, right? Actually i do have some to say, but right now i don't have a computer at home. My laptop died months ago and i have no real desire to put any thought into getting another one, so i have been using everybody else's. With three computers in the house, it seems silly to buy another one out-of-pocket. Mom just got a cute little Mac, too, so i have been playing on that. But yet i don't want her to find my blog of course -- not that she's particularly tech-savvy but it is a risk. I suppose i could just use it and wipe the history every time. What a pain.

Right, now i'm babbling. But i am doing better, and i hope to be on here more soon.

Driving through one of the more unpleasant neighborhoods in Detroit:

M: This town is all broken.

me: Yeah, the whole damn town is broken. And ain't noone gonna be able to fix it.

T: No! I will!

on hiatus

OK, clearly i can't seem to post anything here. So i am going to stop pretending that i might. I don't know, there is no crisis in my life but every day is very long and full of much conflict. So i'll be off here for a bit...maybe just a few weeks, maybe longer. We'll see. I am sure i will come back eventually.

blah

i still have no garden pictures. i haven't had the heart to take any. The garden looks pretty, though. I'll try to get some up soon. Right now maybe i will take a nap, because the boys are taking one.

balderdash

I've been going to the gym for a month and i haven't lost a single ounce. I am way way behind in my teaching/grading. The papers i have been grading are dismal. A hit the dh the wrong way at kung fu practice & now dh has a fracture in his orbital lobe (bones around the eye) & needs surgery. My mother put my cell phone in the washer. I keep telling her NOT TO DO THE LAUNDRY because shit like this always happens, but, uh, noone ever listens to me so why should that be any different? C's tea party was rained out last weekend & next weekend probably noone will come because it is a holiday weekend. The patio furniture hasn't come yet, anyway. M & T are ridiculously bad-tempered....could be molars coming in. The new car is flashing "maintenance required". I finished C's dress that i was knitting and it looks lousy because she is currently rather pudgy. So, what, now i need to put the 5-year old on a diet too?

OK, i'm just complaining. It's monday, i can complain. It's the start of a new week. This week will be better, right?

probability and statistics

Statistics. When you draw the right card, you can quote them with glee. When you draw the wrong card, they are worthless. And people commonly say that you can make statistics mean anything you want anyway. Which is, ahem, probably true.

Statistics, of course, are largely based on ideas of probability. But what is so fascinating is that you can also make up probability scenarios which are mathematically correct but somehow also seem largely meaningless, or counterintuitive, or just plain WRONG. Here's a great example:


Probability can Bite

If you don't want to read the article, the synopsis is this: If i say "I tell you I have two children and that (at least) one of them is a boy, and ask you what you think is the probability that I have two boys." the answer is 1/3. However, if i say "I tell you I have two children and that (at least) one of them is a boy born on a Tuesday, and ask you what you think is the probability that I have two boys." the probability changes to 13/27....which is quite different, closer to 1/2 than 1/3.

WTF, that doesn't make sense at all!


Fine, ok, the numbers are correct. But you can hardly convince me that it is relevant that one boy was born on a Tuesday. You know, i have always hated probability because of shit like this. But at least it helps me not worry about it so much.

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I thought about this some more. It helps to actually do the calculation (which i did just to check it...and to make myself understand it. I can't really believe any conclusion from one of these probability problems unless i draw it out myself on a probability tree.) What we have here is basically a variation on the Monty Hall problem. It illustrates nicely a few important things that must be kept in mind when faced with any and all probabilities/statistics --

1. Any information at all changes your sample space (mathematically speaking, that is).

2. The way a question is stated can radically change the answer.

The only thing this problem lacks is something to help us remember that:

Correlation does not equal causation!

For that we need to change the problem to include a baby born dead (on Tuesday) to a mother who is poor, smokes, and doesn't brush her teeth!

I got nothin'

In the garden, i mean...i realize i haven't posted pictures for a few weeks. That's 'cause there is nothing to post, really. It's been rainy, and cold, and a few things are blooming & holding through but it's a quiet time. Bearded irises have opened in Nicolas' garden and a few white roses...we are waiting for the roses to start blooming but with this cold weather we have been having it will be a few weeks i think. It is supposed to be nice this weekend so i will try to get out there with the camera and take some pics.

Meanwhile, it is somehow a crazy, busy time. Not more than usual, i suppose. Just the change of schedule (summer semester started, i have to teach, blah, because i lost my grant, blah blah blah) so that takes a little time to get used to. Dh is away this weekend visiting his mom, because her best friend died this week after a long and gruesome illness. We should probably all have gone -- very close family friends, my MIL was at her bedside with the family when she died -- but that is a huge undertaking and would have involved taking my mom too, and honestly my mother should be kept far away from any situation in which anyone is grieving because there is no knowing what stupid-ass thing is going to pop out of her mouth next. I feel bad to be missing the memorial, though.

Right, i should probably get to work here.

prescription

I was rather struck by this comment, left on one of these many NY Times stories about depression and psychoanalysis:

"As a psychotherapist for 20 years, who once was myself a patient, I must protest the drugging of America in the name of healing. Certainly, in some conditions such as true schizophrenia and severe bipolar illness, appropriate medication can be a life-saver. But for most people, psychotropic drugs are a chemical straitjacket which keeps the patient in a debilitating situation which needs adjustment, such as a dysfunctional marriage to a tyrant (needs divorce) or employment by a sadist (needs a job change). Anxiety and depression are nature's way of making us so uncomfortable we are motivated to alter out situation. To be blunt, so far as I'm concerned, prozac and ritalin are glorified pot and cocaine; such med should be used very judiciously; getting enough sunlight, exercise, involvement with loving people, meaningful work, and healthy eating are my prescription for most of my clients, as well as for myself."

Yeah, i think he overstates the case a little there. Still, i am mired in my own unhealthy moods and i tried drugs already and that didn't work. So it seems to me that the prescription at the end is not such a bad one at that. In fact, if i *could* just be a little more active, and find myself some `meaningful work', i do think that would go a long way toward solving my problems.

So i started going to the gym, like honestly, really i am. This is embarrassing -- i have a payroll deduction to give me access to the gym at school, which i signed up for seven years ago. In that seven years, i had never once even been in the gym building.

Well, my summer schedule is a little different than the usual one, so i started to go to the gym in the morning. I went last week, and this week i signed up with a personal trainer once a week so i *have* to go now. It's good. It actually does help the mood, helps the anger. It would be great to lose weight and be in shape and not flabby, but my goal is not so much weight loss but just to be mentally healthier. The trainer says i eat badly and drink too much. Well, that is true. He said we would work on that.

So my plan is to get into a rhythm so that when the winter hits, i still go, and i hope it will help. That, and the sun lamp, and doing some real work, is my plan for next winter. And if that isn't working, then back to the therapist/psychiatrist to try another med if i have to.

wish i could do that

C: Manuel got in trouble today, he kicked Mickey in the back!

me: Oh, that's bad. Did he get time out?

C: NO, mom, we don't have time out in school! You know that! But he got on red.

me: Ah yes.

C: Well, he was already on yellow because he poked Maggie at naptime. And then when he kicked Mickey he got on red.

me: So, remind me, tomorrow will he start on green again?

C: Yes, we each start on green every day.

me: But you stayed on green all through March, you got an award for that. And for April too!

C: Yeah, but i was just on yellow the other day.

me: Really? What did you do??

C: I don't remember, but me & Maggie got yellow.

me(with a fair amount of skepticism in my voice): You don't remember what you did?

C: Nope. My head has erased it out completely.

me: That is a very useful skill.

Coccinelle is here!

rosepetal texted me -- Coccinelle arrived safely this morning!

Congratulations to the whole family!

She said she may not be online for a little bit, so i think we may have to wait for a picture...

my new toy

I broke down & bought a spinning wheel! Used, but it is MINE NOW. Heh. I've been practicing spinning every night.


here i am playing with it (C. took these two pictures, i am not responsible for quality)It's not terribly relaxing when you don't know what you are doing.



This is yarn i spun & my teacher plied when i was taking my lessons. I made this on my teacher's wheel. I bought the roving from ColorBug Yarns on etsy (though i actually bought it from her in person last month when the Yarn Harlot was giving a talk at the Detroit Public Library)

Looks like art yarn, eh? Very, uh, artistic. In all likelihood i'll never knit anything from this because it'll look like crap knitted up, even though it's actually quite pretty sitting on my kitchen table. I have had enough experience with art yarn to know these things...

This is some gorgeous corriedale/mohair/silk roving that i bought at the spinning guild meeting last month. It sits on my mantle laughing at me. I don't want to screw it up so i am practicing with some boring white wool that the lady threw in free with the spinning wheel. The boring white will become a vest for T, and the gorgeous blue cloud with flecks of pink & yellow will become a scarf for me. Eventually.

Spinning takes some time. I am going to ply the first of the boring-white tonight, maybe there will be pictures soon.

front beds

It's the first year for these beds, so they are rather thin looking. Still, some pretty stuff in there.
'Ding-dings' is what T. calls these flowers.
They are Frittilaria imperialis rubra maxima. I just hope they keep blooming in years to come; my mom says she had them years ago & they rarely bloomed.
This is Frittilaria acmopetala, from the previous post, but now open.
Narcissus 'Thalia' and Tulipa marjoletti.
These tulips are pretty but they don't really look like the advertised picture. Ah well, c'est la vie.

catch-up pictures

These are from early-mid April.

Tiny beauties -- Frittilaria michailovskyi. They are like 6 inches high.
C. planted an apple seed. Her mother said, 'it won't come up'.
Another frittilaria -- this one is acmopetala, it's planted in the front garden. I thought even the bud was pretty.

The lenten rose (helleborus orientalis) did open during lent, though it was just a few days before Easter.
The original plant seeded some babies a few years ago, and this is the first year they bloomed as well.



The little daffodils
The border in Nicolas' garden
general pic of the backyard

Tulip whose-name-will-come-to-me-later.


Pansies to plant!

for Catherine

Bleeding hearts in Nicolas' garden, yesterday 4-11.

so sad

I am sending much love and many kind thoughts to my friend Catherine.

I haven't been able to post anything here all weekend & i don't suppose i have much more to say now. My mind boggles at the unfairness of it all. Just...boggles.

Goodbye, sweet baby.

i need to upload pictures

I am very pleased with the back garden! Lots of things coming up & what a delight! Of course i spent an inordinate amount of money on all those things coming up so it's kind of funny, it was rather the spree. I am totally annoyed with the front, though -- nothing blooming but one daffodil. Sigh. Well, it's the first year there.

We got a new car finally so i don't have to drive the truck anymore. Or, rather, dh's mother got a new car, and we bought her old one. I wasn't exactly thrilled by this, because it seems that at some point we should grow up and stop driving our parent's cast off old cars. But as of yet, this time of growing up seems not to have arrived. In fact, it gets worse -- my mom actually is the one who PAID for the car. Talk about an ego blow! But i couldn't get financing for less that 8% since the car is 7 years old. She even says i don't need to pay her back, since she is living in my house rent-and-expense free, after all. I am not so sure how i feel about that, though i do tell you it makes more sense for me to pay down my own debts rather than give my mother money that will just sit there doing nothing. So maybe i will just write her an IOU and put the money back into my home equity loan.

It's a nice car though, top-of-the-line Lexus SUV. It even has navigation & satellite radio & a dvd player -- stuff i would never ever pay for. Dh says i am an idiot to worry about the brakes, that they fixed the supposed problem, so i am not worrying any more. I am happily driving around in my big fancy gas-guzzling mommy-mobile, and reveling in the fact that at least it's more stylish than my big old dented gas-guzzling pickup truck.

I am feeling better, depression-wise, as one would expect as March goes out the door (BYE BYE and GOOD RIDDANCE) and April comes. We have been overall having great weather too. I am still not really feeling normal or functioning at a good level but i can tell i am getting better.

Day 24 -- egg hunt

Day 23 -- Happy Easter

Day 22 -- cookies

These photos are actually from a few weeks ago, when we did a random act of kindness for Thomas's birthday.
We made cookies to take to the fire station for the firemen.

I was just planning on making chocolate chip, but C. insisted that they be fire-engine shaped cookies.
So we made butter cookies, and i let the kids help & play in the dough without regard to mess.

By the end, the mess (not yet pictured here) was indeed epic.



But we got some cookies after all, and took them down to the fire station. C. also drew a picture to go with it. Most of the firemen were napping upstairs, but the fellow who was there let the kids sit in a fire truck. The real trick was getting M. out of the fire truck, because the boy was sitting in the driver's seat and having a real blast. I unfortunately did not get any in-focus pictures of that, though i had the camera, since it was quite difficult to corral the three of them. Next time, i will bring another adult!

socks

Well, i finished the socks, and bought new shoes in their honor as well. I finished them last week, actually, it has just taken me a while to get pictures.

Day 21 -- first tulips

okay, i know this shot is overexposed. Oh well!

Nicolas' garden on his birthday

This is the first year i can take a picture of Nicolas' tree without trying to cut out the garage in the background!
We had a few unseasonably warm days, so the pussywillows are blooming out a bit earlier than usual.




roses are starting to leaf out

and daffs are making an effort

I hope to see some tulips before too long

Here are the bleeding hearts coming up. They are really a most brilliant green at first!

Day 20 -- Spring

A sign that spring is truly here -- the first daffodils opened today! This is Narcissus 'Little Gem', and they weren't kidding about the 'little' part. They are 3 inches high! I have never seen such tiny ones. The catalog shows them blooming profusely with grape hyacinths, and i planted them as such...but see no grape hyacinths anywhere close to blooming.

Day 19 -- fuzzy

I am taking spinning lessons and this is the roving i bought to practice on. It is nice to play with something pretty, but mostly what i am learning is that i totally suck at spinning. Practice, practice, practice. It's not fun, though. I don't anticipate knitting anything out of my own homespun for a long time...or, maybe, not ever. Heck, a person can't be good at everything, right?

at the mall

One of the things i really like about blogging is that when you write down (at least some of) those cute things the kids do, you can go back later and read them -- because i do forget, i forget everything. For example there are huge piles of work on my desk right now that i am conveniently forgetting about. Moving on...

Anyway, a recent post of Beruriah's reminded me that i haven't actually posted any cute kid stories recently. So here's one...more of a saga than a story, really.

A few weeks ago, my mother wanted to go to the big big outlet mall. So we went -- she and i and M & T. They are almost 3 now, and they get very restless in the stroller, so i thought, ok, why not take them on their leashes instead?

(yes, i still keep them on leashes. The leashes are cute, they look like this and honestly, once you've have a toddler run into the street while you are running after the other who is running in the other direction....freaking forget it. Leashes it is. I never used them with my singletons but twins are a different ballgame. They like them, anyway, we call them 'backpacks', heh heh.)

This was rather a mistake. Actually it was just fine for most of the time, except when they were getting tangled up in the clothes racks and screaming and whatnot. They do love to walk. They walked all the way down the length of the mall to the food court (it's nearly half a mile!) and played well in the play area and went on the merry-go-round and saw the big fish in the big tank at the sporting goods store and even got to feed them. A great time was had by all. But then, we had to walk BACK to the car, that half-mile back and it was already two hours past nap time. It was going to be a long walk. I just can't carry both of them very far anymore because they are more than 30 lbs each. My mom had a huge pile of packages she was toting, so she couldn't carry one either.

They were walking along like troopers, when we passed a deserted mall kiosk that was advertising insurance. Car insurance. Allstate. And HOW do you suppose these kind, wonderful people at Allstate were advertising their car insurance? With TOY CARS, of course. Beautiful, shiny die-cast metal toy cars in a locked display case at precisely toddler eye level.

Oh, that's a great idea.

So there we had a massive meltdown, with me continually repeating (to the delight of many onlookers) "But we can't buy these cars! These people aren't selling cars! They are trying to sell you CAR INSURANCE" while the two-year old boys run around me, wrapped in their leashes, screaming for the cars and trying to break into the display case.

Thanks, Allstate.

So finally M calmed down enough to walk, and i had to drag T screaming away. T quickly got tired of being held and taken away, and tired of struggling with me, so he looked at me and SLAPPED me full force. (to the delight of many onlookers, of course. Who were just on the edge of their seats, waiting to see if i slapped him back. I swear, i am a walking reality show.)

Anyway, we managed to find a place to sit, have a little talk, have some drinks that were left over, and get it together to walk back to the car. It really wasn't that far at this point. I gave them their cups, and they trudged along, holding them tight. We finally came to the first store, the one where we left our car, and were going to walk through it to the exit on the other side.

When T recognized the store, he looked at the floor and said "Squares. I lay down squares."

And he did, he laid down on the tile floor and refused to move any further.

"Go on, get up, it's not much further," i said. "Look at M, he is still going, he is so strong."

"No." said T.

I picked him up.

"Ya", said M. "I strong. I so strong. I sad, but I strong."

And he walked to the car.

7

Happy seventh Birthday, sweet boy.

sad

You would expect me to be sad with Nicolas' birthday coming up, and thinking of the babies' birthdays who have just passed -- Thomas and Emma and several others who no longer read here -- March is a month full of birthdays and death days, it seems. But today i am also sad because an internet friend, Christa, has died suddenly in a horrific car accident, leaving behind her loving husband and two six-year old boys. Kerrie and Karin have already written a lot, and in fact i did not know Christa that well. Or, i would say, she did not know me that well, since i have never participated that much at MISS. At least, i have never posted that much, though i have spent countless hours reading the boards there and it helped me so much through the darkest hours of my grief. I knew her from her posts, and we were of the same cohort -- she lost her twin girls Alexa and Caitlynn a few months before i lost Nicolas. She was always so kind, and funny, and supportive of everyone. I am just so sad for her family, for her two little boys.

Day 18 -- Surprise!

Denise sent me this beautiful little dolly in the mail! It was such a surprise! Thank you!

I let C. open the package and she was very taken by the fact that the doll is stuffed with lavender and smells very lovely. She asked all kinds of questions -- what is lavender, where did Denise get it, how did she get it in the doll, why is there a butterfly on the back? "I assume the butterfly is for Nicolas," i said. "Denise also had a baby who died, her name is Emma. Her birthday is near Nicolas' birthday."

"Her baby died? Like Nicolas? Why did she die?"

"For the same reason, which is no reason. We don't know why. Sometimes it just happens."

"Some times. But not all the time."

"Yes, thank God, not all the time."

Of course in the end she wanted the doll for herself. "Well, actually," i said, "it's for me, but i'm happy to let you share it. You can keep it in your room tonight, and i will keep it in my room tomorrow night."

"How about", said C., "I will keep it for FOUR nights, and then YOU can keep it for four nights."

"Okay, that sounds good."

I picked some crocuses for the picture, and they look very sweet on C's vanity too. Perhaps i should also put a vase of flowers in my own room, eh?

sock surgery

I was very proud when i finished my first Clessidra sock, but even so there was no denying that there was one small problem.

The heel flap was way too big.

Way, WAY too big, as you can see here. Using seed stitch on a heel flap isn't a good idea...well, it wasn't MY idea, i was following a pattern & hoping it would do. Well, it didn't do, at least not for me; so i cut it out.
Really, i snipped carefully, and figured i would unravel it, pick up the side stitches, and reknit the flap with the cable pattern. The 'unravel it' part was harder than i thought.

See, apparently when you pick up the stitches on the side of the heel flaps, you twist them...so they don't just unravel. I had to thread the long end of the yarn all the way through the little loops at the end. When i realized i would have to do this, i considering brutally cutting out the heel with my scissors, but i couldn't do it.

Which was a total error, because it took me three hours to unravel it. Three HOURS during which i could not MOVE because i would then end up with an ungodly knot from hell. ARGH, it makes me tense just thinking about it again.

But i did it. Then i continued the cable through down the flap, turned the heel, and kitchenered the whole damn thing back together.

For me, that's a good kitchener. Usually they look like total crap when i do it, this is not actually that bad by my standards.
Now, if i only had the second sock done, i could actually wear the buggers.