I want to give you ample warning that right now may not be the time that you want to read Ariel Levy’s piece in the New Yorker about giving birth to her son at 19 weeks.  It is hard to read.  It could be impossible to read if you are in a certain frame of mind.

But that is the thing about written pieces; they can wait for you.  They can wait until you are ready to read them.

Josh told me that he thought maybe I shouldn’t read the piece tonight.  I was in such a good mood, or a neutral mood.  He didn’t want a weepy mess before bedtime.  But I read it anyway.  Because I thought it was important to read it.

She writes of her loss,

But the truth is, the ten or twenty minutes I was somebody’s mother were black magic. There is no adventure I would trade them for; there is no place I would rather have seen. Sometimes, when I think about it, I still feel a dark hurt from some primal part of myself, and if I’m alone in my apartment when this happens I will hear myself making sounds that I never made before I went to Mongolia. I realize that I have turned back into a wounded witch, wailing in the forest, undone.

I’m not a mess.  Maybe I would have been if I had read this without warning.

Instead, I’m just quiet.

Every year on 11/11, we state our wishes, and every year, a few of them come true.  While so many wishes are out of our hands, a few of our wishes are within the realm of possibility, and it is so much fun to see people jump into each other’s lives and make dreams come true.

Here’s how this works:

(1) Make one wish in the comment section (and don’t believe that stuff about how if say it aloud it won’t come true. That is precisely when the parts that are within another human being’s control can come true).

(2) Then leave a comment on the blog of the commenter directly before you (so it’s a chain. #2 comments on #1, #3 comments on #2, etc. If the commenter above you didn’t leave an address, just go one above that. The point is to find new blogs/leave a comment – not stress).

The first person who comments on this post gets a free ride and does not need to leave any comments. The last person who comments on this post gets … screwed.

It would be nice within your comment to refer to their wish (if it ties in to the post you read and comment on) and if you can grant any part of it, to do so. If you can’t, because their wish is outside of human control, don’t feel badly. But if you have the power to grant a wish, why not do it?

In years past, people have seen each other’s wishes and realized that they have the power to fulfill it. And did so. Which is pretty damn cool.

Image: Pascal via Flickr

 I opened the Lego Wedo program and stared at the blank white screen.

“This isn’t what it’s supposed to look like,” I explained to the principal. I was in her office, planning Hour of Code for December. We were planning to use the Lego Wedo set with the kindergarten and first graders. They’d build Lego robots and then program them to talk and move.

I tried closing and opening the program again, the equivalent of the Fonzie jukebox punch, but the screen remained white. Much to my relief, the principal suggested that we pull the Wolvog out of class to fix it for us. I would have never suggested it myself, but I had secretly been hoping that someone would come along and solve this problem for me.

He popped into the office, took a look at the laptop, and informed me that either Flash was interfering with the program, or more likely, I had outdated software since I had only upgraded it on the Mac. Then he took his chipper little self back to third grade reading.

At home, I left the number for tech support up on my computer for days. Okay, weeks. I knew I had to call tech support in order to get the software upgrade sent to me, but it seemed like an overwhelming task in comparison to simple-for-me activities such as cooking or writing. It would mean uninstalling a program and reinstalling the new one.  Fine, not a big task in the grand scheme of things, but I just didn’t feel like dealing with it.

As I was brushing my teeth one morning, I realized what I was doing. I was waiting — like Snow White and her prince — for my geek to come.

My subconscious game plan was to leave this task until last minute and then ask Josh to take care of it. It’s a strategy that has worked well for me in the past. I often hand over pieces of technology to Josh and say, “please fix this” even though he technically has less technological knowledge than I do. What he lacks in capabilities he makes up for with confidence and a willingness to try things out until he figures out what works.

Once I realized that’s what I was doing, I sucked it up and dialed Lego’s tech support number. Within fifteen minutes, we had uninstalled and reinstalled the new software. Easy peasy with the guy’s instructions over the phone; not really something I should have dragged my heels on for weeks.

There are plenty of other places in life that have higher stakes where I’m willing to jump in feet first and take a chance. Parenting comes to mind. I rarely question my parenting choices or drag my heels despite not having any special child development knowledge. I don’t think twice before playing with recipes despite having no culinary training. There are too many places in life where I don’t wait for someone else to come along and do things for me including home repair. I am more comfortable charging ahead with redoing our bathroom on my own than I am calling Lego Wedo support. What about technology makes me so nervous?

Is it because until recent years, girls weren’t encouraged to engage in the STEM fields so we got the message that we should look but not touch (and certainly not do anything as hands-on as actually taking care of our own computers)? Or is it that technology is actually more difficult than raising human beings or creating a new recipe from scratch? Uh… no.

But now that I’ve identified the problem, there is no way in hell that I’m going to let the ChickieNob grow up waiting for her geek to come. I’ve taken out the snap circuits and we’re starting there; teaching ourselves tiny projects from the booklet. It’s right on par with our lack of technological knowledge, and it’s a good starting place to build from; getting comfortable with sticking our hands amongst wires and switches. When we realize that we haven’t electrocuted ourselves (can one electrocute themselves with snap circuits? I’m not entirely sure), we’ll move on to more difficult things until the day when we’re soldering our own motherboards.

Hey, a girl can dream, right?

Were you taught to wait for your geek to come, or were you encouraged to explore the STEM fields?

cross-posted with GeekDad

I have a cold.  I refuse to take any cold medicine because it would interfere with having my eyes drip incessantly which I think adds to the visual package when I limp dramatically into a room and moan, “I’m sick…”  I like to remind the kids that I’m sick no fewer than eight times every half hour.  I would do it more often, but I don’t want to be annoying.  I like to remind Josh that I’m sick every time we communicate by text so he has a long string of written reminders of my illness.

And now I’m telling all of you so you will pity me.

I am sick.

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The BBC had a very interesting report on discrepancies in IVF success rates based on race.  The article states:

Overall, 35% of ethnic minority women successfully conceived and gave birth after IVF compared with 44% of white women treated at the clinic between 2006 and 2011.  This was despite all the women appearing to have favourable chances of having a baby, based on factors such as the quality of their egg reserves.

That 35% statistic is an average.  Middle Eastern women have the lowest odds (21.4%) and South East Asian women have a slightly better rate of live birth (38%).

There isn’t a clear-cut reason given for the difference in success rates, and the rates seem to be an average per cycle vs. overall success after more than one cycle.  But even without answers or a plan forward, I thought it was worth pointing out.

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The 2013 Creme de la Creme is trucking along.  There are currently 61 on the list with over a month to go until the hard deadline (December 15!).  So, are you on the list yet?  Extra love to people who submit early!

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Adoption Retrospective: Show Me Despair and Uncertainty” (Portrait of an Adoption)
• “One More Chapter” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Lori!
• “I Don’t Know What to Do with My Hands” (A Single Journey)
• “Remembering” (The Barreness)
• “According to the Internet, I Am Lazy…” (Stephanie Snowe)
• “You Are Not Weak” (Grow Baby Grow)
• “Get Over It” (The Koob Triplets)

Okay, now my choices this week.

A Good Mother has a wonderful post about pausing to take everything in, even during the terrible moments in life.  It’s a piece of advice we hear often in regards to happy occasions: weddings, graduations.  Take a moment to step back and soak it all in.  But it’s important to always take those moments: during the awful times and the mundane times and yes, the good times too.  It’s one of those posts that we need every once in a while to serve as a reminder.  Have you paused today?

A Woman My Age has a post about Buddhist chanting and why she does it.  After rolling through the everyday stressors — big and small — she comes down to the heart of why she chants: “And so…. this is why I chant.  Not for deliverance from life’s problems or a magical solution, but for insight for a better way to lead my heart and life.”  I love this post.

Nuts in May is queen of the title.  She is so skilled at framing the post through the title, this time “Not Enough Tea in All the World” before launching into a litany of why she is posting infrequently.  And it contains such beautiful little nuggets as “Fuck 2013. Fuck it exceedingly.”

Lastly, Magpie Musing takes us on riff of leaves, from those of absence to the ones falling from the trees.  She moves from HR to books — both the ones she’s reading, the ones she asking you to donate, and the ones that are free for the taking.  It’s a nice spiral on a theme.

The roundup to the Roundup: Did I mention that I’m sick?  IVF success rate discrepancies.  The 2013 Creme de la Creme opened: is your post on the list?  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between November 1st and November 8th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Image: IntelFreePress via Flickr

We have a law in Maryland: no hand-held cell phones in cars and no texting while driving.  I would personally love a simple no-cell-phones-in-cars law full stop.  No checking to see who called you while you’re at the traffic light, or just downloading your email quickly and scanning it to see if so-and-so wrote.  If it were up to me, I would even ban speaker phone conversations in cars (because yes, a conversation over the phone is different from having a conversation with someone who is in the car).  We have a personal rule of no cell phones in cars, and we ask that everyone who drives our kids refrains from using their phone while our kids are in their car.  But at the very least, I would love drivers to follow that bare minimum of the law: no hand-held cell phones and no texting while driving.

SO WHY DO I PASS PEOPLE DOING BOTH THESE THINGS DAILY?

I understand people are busy.  I understand that sometimes people want to multitask in the car and take care of two things at once, such as returning a call.  I know there are people who would never get a chance to speak to X, Y, and their friend, Z, if not for calling them during their commute.  I get that people are waiting for information, I get that people have kids somewhere and they’re worried that someone is trying to reach them because there is an emergency, I get that people are curious.

But even with all that, I would ask you to stop using your phone in the car.  Because no matter how well you think you balance it, you probably don’t.  Because all those people who drive around distractedly, who rear-end other people by accident, who merge poorly, who switch lanes without signaling, who sit there reading a text message after the light has changed instead of going — all those people — they think they can drive and use a phone at the same time too.  And clearly, they cannot.

Driving a car is a difficult task.  It is an enormous responsibility.  You take everyone else’s life in your hands when you get behind that wheel.

Please show care for the other people in this world and put aside the phone for the moments when you’re in the car.  Check it once you’ve parked, or pull over to the side of the road and call someone back.  Use those minute in between to focus on the road so we can all get from Point A to Point B.

You are an adult, and I can’t tell you what to do; only what I wish.  And I really wish that everyone would put down their phone the entire time they’re behind the wheel.

I’m sure there will be someone who will suck in their breath (or whatever the equivalent is to priming their fingers) and tell me about why they must use their cell phone in the car.  How I absolutely do not get how vital it is that they use their cell phone while driving.  That they’re only sending a quick text at a red light.  I don’t know how to respond to that, except to sum up this entire post with a single word: please.