Posts from — December 2010

A long time ago, I considered getting a masters in Library Science but didn’t go ahead with the degree.  The reality was that I didn’t want to do the majority of the job — the research, the book purchasing, the archiving.  What I wanted to do was work in a local library — someplace small — and check-in and out book as well as reshelve.  And that was it.

The library in the twins’ school mentioned that they needed a volunteer, and I jumped at the position.  It is exactly what I wanted and nothing more.  I reshelve all the books that come in and lovingly move books back to their proper spot when I find them out of place.  I look up titles for students and help them navigate the Dewey Decimal System.  And I use this rockin’ scanner to read the barcodes and check out books.

When I have nothing to do, I slip a book off the shelf — usually something I read when I was a child — and read behind the desk.

It’s an idyllic life.

The youngest kids have a library card with a bar code I can scan, but the older students simply tell me their last name and I look it up in the computer.

Sometimes, when I type in the last name, more than one choice pops up.  Sometimes it is clear that the boy standing in front of me is not Mary, so I’ll go with the male name that shares that common last name.  Sometimes I ask if the other person is a sibling, and it almost always is even with the really common last names.  And then the kid rolls his eyes and says, “that’s my little brother” as if it’s really painful to admit that the other person is related to him.  And sometimes, if the child is younger, they’ll proudly say, “that’s my big sister!” and be thrilled to pass along this information.

This girl was standing in front of me, ready to check out a book, and she mumbled her last name.  Two names popped up — both girl names — and I asked which one she was.  She looked confused, so I said the two names aloud and she looked at the computer screen, pointing to the correct one.

As I checked out her book, she admitted that one of the choices was obviously her first name, but the second choice — which belonged to someone else — was also her middle name.  Which is why she had been confused for a moment.

And since this girl had an unusual last name, and I assumed that the girls must be related, I asked if her parents had given her sister her middle name as her sister’s first name.

Again, the girl was confused and she told me that the other girl in the machine wasn’t her sister.  It was just another girl in another grade; someone she only knew existed because other people had thought they might be related at school.

“My sister died a while ago,” she said.  And after the words left her mouth, she looked shocked at herself, like she couldn’t believe she had said that aloud.

I told her how sorry I was and she looked stricken by that as well, as if she couldn’t believe that I wasn’t going to change the subject.

And then she grabbed her book and ran from the desk.

And it stuck with me all day.

Almost 200 people have already submitted to the Creme de la Creme.  The December 15th soft deadline is quickly approaching, and this is your penultimate kick in the ass to submit before this deadline passes.  What does the December 15th deadline mean?  That your blog post will be up on the list on January 1st.  Anything that comes in December 16th–January 31st will go on the list, but it most likely won’t be up there when the list first goes up.

There are about 2600 blogs on the blogroll, but only a predicted 300 or so will be on the list when it closes (rough estimate based on submissions so far as compared with past years).  So if you haven’t yet submitted, and any of these are your excuses, I’ve provided you with my response to your lack of participation.

I’m not going to submit a post because I’m too cool for school and I don’t do that kumbaya crap even though I like you Mel and I’m going to read the list on January 1st.

Listen up, Missy.  Er … actually, I don’t have anything harsher than “listen up, Missy” in my pocket for this one.  But seriously?  If you think your blog is too good for this list or that you are somehow better than everyone else, it might actually be best if you stay away.  This space is a welcome table where everyone sits on the same plane.  And I don’t want that energy here.

The energy I want is the sort we brought to the What If project, with 450 thoughts coming together to show the diversity of our experience.

I’m new to blogging, and I feel shy.

You are putting your inner most thoughts out there for the world to read: you are not as shy as you think.  Oh!  You mean that you don’t feel like you belong yet.  Well, that’s all the more reason to participate.  Here’s a door into the community — one that is wide-open for you to walk through — and it’s a chance to meet a lot of other bloggers as well as have them find you.  Be a part of something: throw a post onto the list.

I’m so busy.  I want to do this, but it’s like #64829 on my to-do list.

I get it.  This time of year is busy.  And something like this has to fall low on the to-do list.  But you don’t have to stress about it or do it alone.  Have people help you with the choice.  Grab a handful of posts you like, construct a blog post asking people to vote, and voila — you have your submission for the Creme de la Creme.

I think this list is stupid, and I don’t want to be part of it.

Totally valid reason not to participate.  But I have to ask, why are you reading this blog?  I mean, the list is definitely an offshoot of my blog and all the thoughts contained within.  I’m not sure how you can enjoy the blog, but not enjoy the list.  Or why you bother to read something you don’t enjoy, learn from, find support within, etc.  I just don’t waste my time like that, so I’ve always been fascinated by people who do.

I’m now parenting, and I feel shy submitting a post from this year even though I often still mention infertility, loss, or adoption.

Parenting is the desire or goal (or was the desire or goal) of everyone on the blogroll.  And reaching parenthood doesn’t erase all that came before it.  I personally like seeing a range of posts on the list — from those still in the trenches to those parenting after infertility or loss.  I try to ensure that the blurb that comes after gives people a heads up about the contents so they can skip over any that sound too painful to read in their current state (though hopefully they will double back and read them later).  Please do submit because your viewpoint is still valid and necessary.

I closed my blog in 2010 and it feels strange to now submit something to the list when I don’t want new readers.

Then perhaps don’t look at this list as a way to catch new readers.  Look at it as a goodbye to your old readers; a parting gift.  If you wrote even one post in 2010, please include it on the list.

Thank you to everyone who has already submitted.  And I declare today International Go-and-Bug-Your-Favourite-Blogger-to-Submit Day.  Ask people you read if they’ve submitted, and suggest your favourite post if they haven’t.  Tweet about it, Facebook about it, blog about it.  And make sure that everyone in the ALI community knows that they’re welcome.

How do you submit to the 2010 list (and yes, the post needs to come from 2010)?  Read this post about the Creme de la Creme list and follow the instructions.

Yesterday morning, at 9 am, Paz swung by the house to pick me up and we took a girls’ road trip up to Hershey — 2 hours away — to meet up with M.  We ate chocolate (though not enough), dragged Paz on the ride, and then had a four hour lunch at this tiny restaurant.  The day rocked so hardcore.

I’ve known M and Paz for almost 4 years, and being with them is like putting on a pair of black swingy pants — totally comfortable but not in a boring sit-on-the-sofa-in-sweats sort of way.  These women are do-ers and thinkers and sassy and funny.  They are the type of people you can fall into a four hour lunch with and still emerge with things to discuss on the ride home.

We know a lot of face-to-face people in common because we’re all in TOOTPU, but we also overlap with hundreds of bloggers that we all virtually know.  For instance, I was finally able to share the thought I have every time I go into the bathroom at Chocolate World — I think of Julie and her dislike of people using their foot to flush a toilet and how someone has invented a public toilet to send a clear message about dirty shoes and flushing.  And rather than say, “who is Julie?” everyone nodded and said, “what do you think of hovering over toilets?”

The topic of those who have stopped blogging came up too, and Paz and I mused on the many reasons why people close their blogs.  Sometimes it’s clear — the story has ended, the person got too busy to write, they were a sporadic poster to start with and now you’re not sure if they’re done writing or if this is just one of their long pauses.

But we were musing more about the ones that don’t have a clear ending.  The person posted regularly, didn’t seem to be at a natural break, and simply said, “goodbye!”  And then they disappeared into the ether.  Every once in a while, they pop back into a comment section, but they transition from writing semi-daily to not writing at all.  And it just makes you wonder — how do you lose that routine and not miss it at all?  I am not talking about the people who switch blogging spaces, but the people who stop writing altogether and float away after having a pretty regular writing routine.

Which bloggers who used to squat in the blogosphere do you miss now that they’ve moved on to other things?  Who do you wonder about?

And on that note, help me out with the blog closure section of the Creme de la Creme list.  Is there anyone you can think of who closed (not moved, but clearly said goodbye to readers, closed a blog, and stopped writing) in 2010?

On Thursday morning, my son announces that he wants to buy lunch at school. They are serving pizza — one of the 6 foods he currently eats — which he claims “looked good” when he saw it on someone else’s tray earlier this month. I suspect the real reason he wants to buy lunch has to do with the fact that his kindergarten teacher has a song she sings each morning for the lunch buyers that includes their name (it really is a catchy song — I sing it all the time in the house) whereas she says the names of the lunch bringers. I am sure this is a matter of time constraints since there are more bringers than buyers, and the song is used to work teaching moments even into the mundane classroom business tasks, but the song has a strong pull. Most kids ask to buy at some point just to hear their name sung out to the class.

I could lie and say that I have nothing against school lunch, but I have a lot against school lunches, even though I remember the joy I felt the few times I bought lunch when I was little. I mean, come on, it’s a rite of passage. Not just the eating the strange and plastic-y food stuffs (because you can get that at home with a bag of Doritos), but the standing in line, the smell, the pride in having your own money to spend. He wants to show me that he’s responsible. That he can go to the kindergarteners’ version of a restaurant, order his meal, and pay for it (with money I gave him) … ALL BY HIMSELF.

I should want to encourage this because it certainly saves me time to not have to make food or pack the lunchbox or wash the reusable lunch equipment — even if it’s just for a day. It’s a responsibility thing for him, but it’s a break for me. A cheap break at that — lunch only costs $2.50 per meal.

So those are the good parts about buying lunch — responsibility for him, a break for me — so why does his request to purchase lunch strike such fear in my heart?

When we were taking a tour of the school last year, we swung by the lunch room and the guide told us about the lunch routine. She started ticking off some of the things kids can buy and when she mentioned the pizza, she touched my arm with concern and said, “I don’t want you to worry, but the cheese isn’t real cheese. It isn’t dairy.”

I’m not sure why I would be worried about cheese being made from milk. Frankly, I was worried about why it wasn’t made from milk. I inquired what the cheese was if not dairy, and she shrugged her shoulders and said, “I don’t know.” And while I was fairly calm over the idea of pizza, THAT was what freaked me out.

Because I think we’ve all seen enough of Jamie Oliver’s tears to know that there is very little food in school lunches these days. There is food stuff. There are chemicals and strange preservatives. There are schools that have started making healthful choices, but even with those healthful choices, you simply can’t provide meals to that many kids that match the quality of what can be made in small batches at home.

Canned or frozen vegetables are used because the school staff doesn’t have time to individually shell peas. My pizza at home has homemade, high-protein dough, homemade tomato sauce, and real cheese. Their pizza at school comes shrink wrapped in plastic. And I can’t expect more than that because it’s a small staff who need to put out many meals. And they do it well and they do it within a small budget, they just can’t compete with homemade food.

A friend who has a first grader was over this summer and she warned me about school lunches. “I ate there once,” she said. “The menu said it was serving mac-n-cheese and green beans. Then the food came out on the tray. The mac-n-cheese was inexplicably smothered in an additional layer of sour cream and shredded cheese. The grey, canned green beans were covered by a pool of cream of mushroom soup and another layer of shredded cheese. This was not food. This was a heart attack waiting to happen.”

I am cognizant of the fact that if you live in America and you don’t live in an underground bunker off the grid, your child will be exposed to junk food everywhere they turn; and that junk is the stumbling blocks towards good health. It is so much easier — and tastier — to allow yourself to fall over those stumbling blocks than it is to pick your way around them. Junk food tastes good. I’m sure this pizza will taste great and he’ll want it several more times. And there’s nothing wrong with eating that junk food every once in a while, but it’s a slippery slope. Just as you can’t eat just one Pringle, it’s hard to taste junk food and go back to eating the good stuff — especially when you’re still surrounded by the junk food. In my experience, junk food went from every once in a while to a daily struggle not to consume it. Even if I restrain myself from consuming it by not stocking it in the house, I still think about it. Junk food can be as bad as any addictive drug.

So I don’t want to start down this road because I’m not sure how to temper it, how to keep a rein on what he’s consuming until he can make good choices for himself. I want him to love his body and treat it right, much like how expensive car drivers croon over their vehicles, giving them the best gasoline, the best oil change service. He loves to cook with me, and I want him to always choose that slow food that we took time to make well over the fast food that fills the body, but provides little nutrition.

And an additional issue is that out of the house, my kids eat vegetarian. They can tick off what they can eat and what they can’t, but school lunch creates a sticky zone. They serve chicken nuggets and veggie nuggets on the same day, and my son mentioned wanting to buy the veggie ones. Yet he would never be able to tell the difference between the two if he was given the wrong one. I was told that when they serve pancakes, sausage comes on every plate. And we just don’t eat food that has been on the same plate as meat, much less pork. It becomes a matter of assimilation vs. ethics — I want them to be like all the other kids at school, but I also want us to stand by our beliefs regardless of where we go (at least until they’re 16 and we’ve told them that they can do as they please, meatwise).

And then there are food allergies. My twins have mild allergies, but still, I don’t want them exposed to their food allergens. They won’t necessarily know if something contains one of their allergens. It just feels like another bomb in this potential minefield.

On Friday morning, I put $2.50 in a sealed envelope. I write a message to his teacher on the front of the envelope and mention that I’ll be volunteering in the school library that day if there is any problem. When his class marches down the hallway to the lunch room, I give him a little space to get his food all by himself — after all, responsibility is one of the good points about this — and then sneak into the lunch room to wait for him.

Except he doesn’t come out of the lunch line.

So I tuck back into the kitchen area to see what is taking so long, and he is paused by the cashier station, unable to remember his pin number. I quickly call it out so he can punch it in, and duck back out again to give him his space. He marches proudly past me, clutching his styrofoam tray (the environmentalist in me cringes at all the single-use items): a slice of pizza, a bag of baby carrots … and a bottle of chocolate milk.

Except my son is allergic to chocolate milk.

I mention that to the supervisor, and she admits that my son told her that he was allergic, though he took it anyway because water costs extra. I quickly pay the difference, rush to grab the milk off his tray, and pass him the water he requested. It is all of my fears realized — that he wouldn’t remember the pin number for his account (though the adults in the lunch room could help him with that one), that he would take the wrong food (though I was there to catch that before it ended poorly), that he would eat the least nutritional, unenvironmentally-friendly lunch possible (no helping that).

But he loves it.

He sits there with his lunch, proudly eating it while talking with his friends. He radiates pride. It is as if he has just completed an Iron Man. And if I can buy that for $2.50, even with the hit his body and the environment takes in the process, it feels like a small price to pay for the occasional responsibility-building experience.

I walk out of the building and call my husband. And I cry on the ride home; because he is suddenly so grown-up, so mature, so not-my-little-baby anymore.

And just maybe, behind the nutritional arguments and the environmental arguments and all the other arguments against school lunch that I pull from my bag, my real problem with buying lunch is the process of letting go. Of letting them take control of their own destiny and knowing that I need to let them age away from me and my packed lunches.

One greasy, dairy-free slice of pizza at a time.

Do your kids buy or bring lunch at school?

Cross-posted with BlogHer.

The twins and I started reading Harry Potter together.  And before you start screaming, “but six is too yoooooooooooooooooooooung” (because this has been screamed at me about 12 times in the past few days), I agree with you if my kids hadn’t been already exposed to the Disney World of Parental Death.

I just don’t see the first book of Harry Potter as appreciably different from letting them see Finding Nemo, and since most of the fear-inducing moments are tucked into the end chapters, we also have the option of ending early.  For instance, the twins have now seen the ballet Romeo and Juliet 300 times, and they still don’t know that the kids are going to kick it at the end.  When they want to peek into just what goes down in the mausoleum, I’ll continue letting the tape run.  Until then, in our world, Juliet is very much alive and dancing.

Watching them process Harry Potter has made me wonder if the book is a drug.  I know that it’s my go-to stress read, but it’s also interesting to watch this look of bliss cross over their faces as I read it aloud, as if they’ve taken a particularly nice drag off of a joint.  And maybe it’s seeing that bliss and not fear that tells me that they’re ready for this book.

I have started to keep a running list of their questions and commentary, since I know they’ll want it when they’re 87-years-old and I allow them to read Book 7 (I’m fine with book 1 right now, but we’re not touching book 4 and on until they’re past elementary school but which I mean, entering the nursing home years which is about the same time that I’ll finally allow them to date).

The ChickieNob has already wondered if perhaps Voldemort mistakenly gripped the wrong end of his wand when he tried to curse Harry, shooting the curse on himself.  When I informed her that it was actually love protecting Harry, she smiled politely and said, “I think we should wait and see if I’m right about Voldemort just holding the wand wrong.”

The Wolvog, meanwhile, always the good Jew, wanted to know what sort of bacon Harry was frying up for Dudley’s breakfast.  Was it veggie bacon, or was it that other kind?  You know, just in case Harry popped out of the pages and invited him into the book for a nice brekkie.

But the most pressing question: why doesn’t JK Rowling describe what the inside of brick looks like when they’re going onto Platform 9 3/4?  Doesn’t she understand that the world (or, at least the ChickieNob) has been waiting forever to know what brick looks like on the inside and here was a missed opportunity to inform us?

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One of the drawbacks to doing the Creme de la Creme is that my mind is always off to somewhere else in the year, and I miss everything happening in the blogosphere now.

Therefore, I apologize if something huge happens and I read the post two weeks later or miss it entirely.  Take pity on me and if something huge is happening, email me.

That said, it really rocks to know as you sit down to read that everything you’re going to read is going to be amazing.  I mean, if I’m in my Google Reader, some things grab me, some things don’t.  But in the Creme de la Creme spreadsheet?  Everything is thought-provoking or emotional.

Oh, and this message also serves as your reminder to take some time this weekend to pick your post and submit it.  December 15th is the last day to submit where you get the guarantee that you’ll be up on January 1st (everything submitted after December 15th will go up, but it will take time).

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The Weekly What If: What if you had to be married to someone famous (living or currently-dead-but-not-dead-for-the-sake-of-this-question) and easily recognizable, who would you want it to be?  Consider the attention that person would get from fans that you’d have to contend with, how their fame would impact your life, etc.

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And now, the blogs…

Built in Birth Control has a post titled “You May Not Understand” about the nurse turning off the monitor when the staff knew that she was going to lose Ayla and Juliet.  She painfully writes, “i felt my girls kick and bubble and turn. how could i tell them it was their last day, their last hurrah? why did i have to let them go so easily? you would think the one thing in the world you would be able to, absolutely need to do is fight for your childrens’ lives, right? i should have been able to motherfucking fight.”  A deeply emotional and beautiful post.

Another sad one — Magnolia Queen has a post about her unfulfilled due date which fell this week.  She muses on the idea of whether someone is a mother if her child “never made it into their arms.”  It is about asking for someone to be counted, to have their existence recognized and honoured.

A Second Line started peeing on sticks one day after transfer.  She admits: “I just seem to be going through the motions like a robot, and don’t feel in control of my own actions.”  But really, you’re going to have to click over to see what the parrot did to the stick (and I like her mindset of letting her impulses guide her for the time being).

Lastly, I end with a bit of happiness from The Journey to Baby G.  She describes infertility swallowing all of her other thoughts as “our trouble TTC situation had begun to eclipse all other parts of my life in recent months until it seemed to swallow everything else up and was the only thing left, standing at attention in the middle of the room, our unborn children occupying all of my thoughts and dreams, just begging to be conceived.”  Where she finds joy is unexpected, but it’s also the fact that she can recognize that unexpected joy and what it means to how much she has held on to who she is in this process.

The roundup to the Roundup: We’re reading Harry Potter.  I’m waist-deep in the Creme de la Creme.  Answer the Weekly What If.  And lots of great posts to read.