Naughty or Nice

Baby's recent behavior would probably fall into the naughty category. If Santa had the strength of will to actually stick to his rule, Baby would have gotten a fat lump of coal this year. But, Santa is, you know, a wimp, so Baby got hooked up in spite of the fact that Baby had to make multiple trips to the naughty chair between gifts.

Baby likes the naughty chair. In his world of changing diapers, changing clothes, and changing schedules, there is one thing that remains constant: when he throws something at Mom's head, he'll go to the naughty chair. When he is uncomfortable or he disagrees with something, he doesn't throw a tantrum, he just calmly picks up whatever object is handy, toddles over to Mom, and throws it at her head. Then he'll run over to the front door and wait for Mom to come storming over. When she arrives, he'll hold out his hand and wait to be lead to the naughty chair, which happens to be a step stool in the bathroom. Throughout this whole process, his face wears the calm, smiling expression of a child who knows exactly who is in charge.

Once he's established that the naughty chair rule is still in force and all is well with the world, he'll say, "Mommy, nice?" and Mom will lead him out of the bathroom. And he continues on his merry way.

I realize that there are two-year-olds who have worse problems, but, is there a way we can do this without me having to dodge flying objects a la President Bush?

Probably not. See, Baby often does things that are technically worthy of a trip to the naughty chair but not quite as bad as throwing things at my head. I'm just too lazy to stop whatever it is I'm doing to go into the whole naughty chair routine. I get annoyed when he pushes the buttons on the dishwasher for example, but it's easier to reset the buttons than it is to chase him down, march him to the naughty chair, etc. A Matchbox car imprint into my forehead will get me moving every time.

Old News

I watched the Godfather for the first time last week. I loved it.

Every once in a while I see a movie that I've always heard about and never seen, and I love it. I watch it ten times in a row. I watch the director's commentary ten times in a row. I send it back to Netflix and immediately put it back in my queue so I can be pleasantly surprised when my new favorite movie appears in the mail next year.

I think to myself, "This movie is so great. Why hasn't anyone told me about it before?" But then I slap myself in the forehead because everyone has told me about it before. I just ignored them. The question is, why did I ignore them?

Sometimes I put off watching, reading, or eating something that I know I'll love just because. I don't know why. Sometimes it's because I don't have the money or time for it. Sometimes it's because I don't have the energy to get hooked on something new. And sometimes I just don't. I know it's not human nature because Husband doesn't understand this at all. If he hears that a movie is good, he whips out his phone and immediately buys it. As you can imagine, my occasional reticence annoys him to no end. I also know that my mom and my sister do the same thing, so I'm not the only self-punishing weirdo around here.

Maybe it's because I'm saving it for Christmas . . .

Here is a short list of the things I know I will be glad I did that I haven't done yet:

Visiting England
Roasting a whole chicken
Watching "Firefly"
Using Mac makeup
www.pandora.com
Attending a J. Reuben Clark society meeting
Listening to This American Life
Seeing "Wicked"
Visiting a dermatologist

Here is a short list of things that I put off forever and couldn't believe I'd put off for so long once I finally tried it:

"The Godfather"
"Dr. Strangelove"
Audiobooks
Setting up my printer
Making my own bread
"The Office"
Cooking with fresh garlic

On the Bus from Boston

So, while I was getting on the bus from Boston (where we spent a wonderful Thanksgiving) to New York, I heard this man say something on his phone that I keep remembering. I love hearing other people's conversations. One of the many cool things about public transportation is the fact that it allows you to hear other people conversations. Nosey people like me can satisfy their nosiness without having to figure out the complicated procedure of wiretapping.

Anyway, so this man said, "I'm on my way to New York, and I'm going to turn my cell phone off because I just read an article about cell phones causing skin cancer, so I'll call you in about five hours." He's not the first person I've encountered who is concerned about their cell phone signals doing bad things to them. I just thought his response to this information was weird.

Let's say you discovered that cell phones caused skin cancer, no question about it. Would you immediately call your friend--on your cell phone--and tell him that you were going to turn your phone off for a few hours? No, because it wouldn't do any good. If your cell phone caused cancer in Boston, it will still cause cancer on the bus ride away from Boston. You can't reduce it's cancer-causing properties by turning it off for five hours as if you were preserving the battery. It would make more sense to find a pay phone, call your friend on a land line, and tell him that he can no longer reach you on your cell phone because you threw it in the Charles River.

Then, as I was pushing my stroller this morning, I thought, maybe this man didn't actually believe that his cell phone caused him cancer. Maybe, the article had made him a little nervous, and he needed some time away from his phone to forget about the article. It makes the man seem kind of overly sensitive to his own feelings, but it makes more sense than turning a phone off on the bus because you think that the phone will give you cancer during those four hours.

It would be like me calling Husband and saying "Hi, I'm taking a taxi home instead of a bus because I just watched 'Speed.'" Now, I don't actually think that the bus I ride home will have a hidden bomb inside it, but, you know, why worry about it? Why spend the bus ride picturing my broken body tumbling across the pavement amid burning seat cushions and twisted steel? Take the taxi and save the bus for a time when I'm not thinking about bus bombs.

Because I do not like to feel nervous, I choose to avoid horror movies where bad things happen to nice people like me. Because I do not like to feel nervous--and I would be lost, naked, lonely, and powerless without my cell phone--I choose not to look for any articles linking cell phones to skin cancer.

I Passed the New York Bar

I'm so happy.

Taxes

I don't think I've ever blogged about anything remotely political before such as taxes. I think my reticence stems from really wanting people to like me. I've decided to start voicing my opinions about politics more often. If it gets boring, I'll stop.

Husband got his first real paycheck a few days ago (oh, happy day!). A little more than one-third of that paycheck went to taxes, federal, state, and city. (Do any cities other than New York have a city tax? Just curious.) The amount we paid in taxes would have supported my family for three months while we were in school. Having that money slurped out of our paycheck like that made us do some fancy stepping to rearrange our budget. It also made me start thinking about taxes, especially in light of the coming election.

I started college directly after high school, attended law school directly after college, married during my first year, got pregnant during my third year, and stayed home to care for Baby for the two years after graduation. During that time, I was supported by the federal government in the form of Pell grants, loan subsidies, loan deferments, Medicaid, WIC coupons, and food stamps (not to mention the non-financial support of interstate highways, national security, consumer protection, national parks, etc.). So basically, when you hear the term "welfare mother," think of me. And think of about three hundred of my law school classmates who depended on all of these federal social programs and more. All of those former welfare recipients are now either working in excellent jobs or giving exceptional full-time care to their children.

Had I not been so supported, I am fairly certain that I would have taken a different path. I would have dropped out of law school and never gone back, chosen not to get pregnant for at least five more years, or chosen to put Baby in full-time child care precisely six weeks after he was born.

I am eternally grateful to a government that partially supported my decisions to get a terminal degree AND have a child in my twenties AND stay home to care for that child. My education is a gift that enriches my world. The last two years that I have had with my healthy baby cannot be measured or replaced. In me, the United States has an educated, patriotic, service-oriented citizen who will gratefully devote a significant portion of her life to the nurturing of American children and a significant portion of her family's income to taxes. Still, I'm humbled to realize that the government considers me to be an acceptable return on their investment.

There is always a lot of talk about certain groups of people having to pay more than "their share" of taxes. Over the course of our lives, Husband's and mine, I can only hope that we are able to pay much more than our share of taxes.

On the tail-end of a two hour nap

I'm starting to find my stride out here. Last week I was ready to plunge my head into my new gas-powered oven, I was so tired and unorganized. It's amazing what a couple of days of regular naps and regular night times can do for a mom. Funny that I feel like I'm finding my stride at six weeks exactly. That's precisely when I felt like I could handle the motherhood schedule after Baby was born. Something about getting through one full month cycle and half way into the next? I don't know. Maybe it's just because I bought a pair of nifty green shoes today. (I'll go ahead and give a little cyber wink even though the loose pun in the paragraph above was originally unintended).

;)

Or it could just be the season. Fall is pretty great, and fall in New York freakin' rocks. I will always miss my college hometown with its back to school exhuberance in the fall, but that doesn't mean I can't notice and love the about-to-get-started feeling that's fallen over this marvelous city. It makes every day a perfect day, and who cares that my internet is slow or my laundry isn't folded yet. The colors are changing in Central Park, and it looks to be just as beautiful as I had hoped. The political season has provided me another four years' worth of sheer spectacle, and I feel like we're on the cusp of exciting change. The posters and marquis are up for the new theater season. The rich old couples on the Upper West Side are starting to dress their tiny dogs in designer dog jackets. Husband just score some tickets to the Rangers game tonight at Madison Square Gardens.

Maybe in the coming weeks I'll put up some good posts about politics, law, or economics, but today I am full of joy that transcends any of these subjects.

Pioneers

When I was in elementary school, I think I read too many "Little House" books. It put me off pioneer/western media for a long time. I didn't hate pioneer stuff. I was just bored by it. Even after I married an enthusiastic amateur American Western historian, I still couldn't manage more than the briefest interest in the wagon ruts and sepia photographs that thrilled him.

Here in New York, I find myself fascinated with pioneers. Granted, I'm starting small: I haven't started a tourquoise collection, and I'm still not terribly interested in wagon ruts, but I did netflix "High Noon." And I'm looking for a good pioneer book to read (I have to be choosey because I don't want to pick the wrong one and never go back. After all those millions pageants, campfires, musicals, church talks, and how-to-make-butter-in-a-baby-food-jar lessons, it took a month in New York City to teach me how to relate to the pioneers of the American west.

I can understand what it feels like to see and seize an exciting and scary opportunity on the other side of the continent. I can relate to the desire to see my children grow up in a culture so different from mine, but one that I think will give them a good life. I can finally understand what it's like to be so lonely that I wonder if this whole endeavor was a bad idea.

I'm not saying that my little family's journey to New York has more than a fraction of the scope of the journeys of my pioneer ancestors. I'm just saying that I'm beginning to understand. And I'm proud.

Provo

I've been having "Our Town" moments all day today. For those of you who didn't attend their high school's production of this play, the most famous scene is one in which the main character, who happens to be dead, is able to see one of the days of her life. Appalled by how she was able to move through every day of her life without realizing how amazing it was, she can't stand to watch more than a few minutes.

I feel like my Provo self has sort of died, and, for the few days I have here before I move, I find myself wandering around glumly, wishing I had more time. This is the time of year that hundreds of Southern Californians in designer sunglasses descend upon Provo to attend BYU, UVU, and beauty school. They will spend the fall, winter, and spring loudly criticizing my city. Provonians are so totally lame. Provo is so totally ugly. The food is so totally gross. I don't think I ever really defended Provo to one of these people (we Provonians rarely do, prefering to let our fine city speak for itself at its own measured pace). Tonight, my last Sunday night as a Provonian, I would defend Provo with the ferocity of Monte Python's Black Knight: With blood spurting from the sockets where my appendages used to be, I would howl after my Southern Californian opponents, "Come on back and fight!"

For all its lack of political, ethnic, and religious diversity, Provo is bursting with gorgeously complicated people, and the more I work on figuring them out, the more I love them. They may be close-minded crazies, but they're my close-minded crazies. For all its dry brown summers and wet brown winters, the Provo landscape provides moments that make me gasp at their loveliness. Provo doesn't have any gourmet markets to speak of, but there are enough grocery stores for my mom to make some kick-booty lasagna and for Sweet's Island Eats to produce a menu on par with any similarly priced New York City restaurant.

I'm glad to move to my jewel of an apartment in New York City, I really am. If I didn't feel like it was a change for the better, I wouldn't be doing it. But I am Provo Portia, after all, and I am sad tonight to leave my home.

Never sick of words, words, words

Baby is getting some crazy language skillz. Every day he comes out with a word that I had no idea he knew. He loves learning new words, and he's constantly asking me, "whatsat?" Some concepts are a little tricky to translate into babe-ese. He really wanted to understand the blue and white "Y" I had painted on my cheek tonight for the Northern Iowa game. How to explain in terms he'll understand? "Face paint?" "Y?" "BYU?" "Yucky mess?" I tried them all. We'll see what sticks (besides the face paint, which ended up all over both of us after our bedtime cheek-smooshing ritual).

Sometimes it is heartbreakingly sweet to see the world through the language of a two-year-old. Today, before his nap, he announced, "I want to sleep." Well, now that I see it typed, it looks a teensy bit more enunciated than his version. His consonants are quite that developed, but his version was no more garbled than the PA system of New York's Metro Transit Authority. Anyway, I joyfully started carrying him to his crib for his nap, and then he said, "No. Spooky. I want to hold you sleep." Needless to say, I let the laundry do itself while I held him for forty-five minutes until he fell asleep.

See, I went so long, hopelessly in love with this little person, and so so so curious about what was going on in his little brain. Now that he can tell me, my satisfaction knows no bounds. I respond by doing, fetching, or feeding him what ever he asks.

And of course, there are funny language acquisition stories, which I have been looking forward to experiencing since forever. Example: While I was moving out of my kitchen, I handed Baby a picture I had on the wall of dried chipotle peppers. He squinted at it for a while, and then looked up at me and asked, "poop?" Now that word he pronounces as clear as a bell. Yes, dear. Mommy hangs pictures of poop on her kitchen walls. When we get to New York, maybe I'll replace that particular picture with one of arugula or something. Of maybe I'll stick with the chipotles. The image may be a handy reminder when I decide to tackle Potty Training.

The Apartment

For the last few days, the absence of bar studying has left a void in my stress-life. I have more than filled it by worrying about my New York apartment.

I have one, a New York apartment. My lease begins on September 2 and I will move in on September 3. This means that for one day, I will have legal possession of an apartment in a very nice location in Manhattan without actually living there. The proverbial ink is still wet on my bar exam, and I'm already living extravagently (for one day at least).

The apartment is adorable; the proximities to Husband's work, the Central Park, and the subways couldn't be better; the ward is fabulous; the landlord is a peach; the rent is (slightly) less than I expected; and we will have a dishwasher. But I still wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of night, convinced that I picked the wrong apartment.

When I whine to friends and family about my worries, they usually repond by saying, "so what if you picked the wrong apartment? There's nothing you can do about it now." Actually, there's one thing I can do about it now: I can stress about it. And when my monthly rent costs roughly the same amount of money as my wedding, I have a right. See, there were two really great apartments, and they were both good for different reasons. Now that I've committed to one of them, all I can think about are the reasons I liked the other one. I think this is called the paradox of choice, and I think I'd better get over it if I'm planning to live in New York City. If there's one thing New York has, it's options.

The Bar

The bar is over, and it is 99-percent out of my life. Little by little, I'm exorcising bar studying.

First to go were the posters. By the time we took the bar, we had about twelve posters and a smattering of Post-its decorating the walls of our apartment. Our family portrait was replaced by a summary of a corporate promoter's pre-incorporation liability. Our guests were greeted by a poster by the front door describing five different types of New York homicides. Baby and I memorized New York's defeasible fees while I served him his morning mush. After the bar, Baby and I spent a joyful afternoon coloring large pictures on the backs of the posters and turning them into "car slides." Then I threw them into recycling. May they meet a more fulfilling fate in their next incarnation.

Next I cleared all of the random study documents and programs from my computer desktop into an innocuous folder labeled "bar." I also removed all bar-related Web pages from my favorites list.

Once I mail back the study books (in exchange for a hefty deposit) and I get over the little post-traumatic stress flu I seem to have developed, this summer's bar study will be nothing but an ugly, fuzzy memory. Really, very much like pregnancy.

How did the bar exam go? Meh. Fine. I don't know. I don't really want to commit one way or the other until I know if I passed or not. I will say that the agony of the bar is not in the taking of it, but in the preparation for it.

The experience of taking the New York bar was fascinating to say the least. I think next year Baby and I may pack a lunch and lounge in front of the Javitz Center in New York City for the last couple of days in July, just to observe thousands and thousands of the most accomplished, privileged, and intelligent young people in New York muttering to themselves while clutching clear plastic bags of pens, pencils, feminine hygiene products, and "quiet snacks."

By the way, "quiet snack" clearly means something different for everyone. I saw one guy with about a dozen hard-boiled eggs in his clear plastic bag. While hard-boiled eggs aren't the noisiest snack in the world, I think it would be more than a little distracting to the people around me if, in the middle of the exam, I started chipping away at my tenth egg shell.

But that's just it, the bar brings out the weirdo in everyone. Some people wore law nerd tee-shirts ("I own Blackacre" or "This is my lucky bar exam shirt" or "Scalia is my hero"). Some people announced that they were wearing fresh-out-of-the-package underwear. One guy was running high-knee sprints across the back of the room during the multistate multiple choice section. Anything to give them that extra little boost. I don't think I did anything too weird. I guess I wouldn't really know though, if it seemed normal at the time.

And now it's done. There is a greater sense of closure for me now than there was when I graduated from law school. My feelings run along the lines of the typical graduation speech: When I can see past the nastiness of studying, I have a profound sense of satisfaction in doing a Very Hard Thing, followed almost immediately by an overwhelming gratitude for the scores of people who have taken care of Baby, Husband, and me over the last few months (years, really). Now I'm standing on the brink of an entirely different chapter for my little family. What I'm looking forward to more than anything, is the ability that my education, my degree, and my license will give me to toss back into the universe a little bit of Good.

Not Dead, but Barely Conscious

At this time in one week, I will be finished with the bar. The feeling is remarkably similar to the way I felt when I set my date with the hospital to induce labor two years ago. Even though I wasn't exactly relishing the idea of the birthing process, I could take comfort in the thought that I wouldn't be pregnant any more. I take enormous comfort in the thought of not doing practice bar exam questions and essays any more.

So, basically, this is just another reason why moms make great law students and lawyers: They have specially practice getting out of bed to face another wretchedly exhausting day, day after day after day.

A little over a week ago, I attended my last bar review lecture. It was, technically, the last formal lecture of my lifetime of formal education, which is quite a meaningful idea, really. That didn't stop me from spending half of the lecture scrolling through Manhattan apartment listings. And, really, if I had spent the entire lecture paying rapt attention to the lecturer, it would indicate that I might enjoy more formal education. And I would not.

Enough about bar study. Who wants to hear about bar study? No one. That's why I haven't had anything interesting to blog about for three months.

On the other hand, everyone is interested in hearing about the adventures of my fabulous baby. (That was a joke: I realize that not everyone is all that interested in my baby, but some people are, and talking about Baby makes me happy. And when I'm happy, everyone is happy).

Baby had his second birthday last week. His whiz-bang gift from his parents was a pair of red Converse high tops. Just picture that: A summer-buzzed, brown-eyed, scabby-kneed, two-year-old tearing around in red Converse high tops. Carrying a birthday cupcake. No need for a photo (although there will be one eventually on my other blog). I think you have the idea.

He is so cool. I'm a pretty cool mom, and husband holds his own on the cool department too, but we don't even hold a candle to Baby when it comes to cool.

I'm pretty sure a summer of non-parent caregivers has only made him cooler. Now, granted, two-year-olds are freakishly sponge-like when it comes to picking up words and social, but I think the fact that he has been exposed to a wide variety of people and experiences this summer has given him even more mental stimulation than he would have had with me. This makes me feel good. He's learning all kinds of nifty tricks through his babysitters' hard work. Yesterday, after an unwarranted attack on his cousin, he actually said "bah-weese," which (obviously) means, "sorry." He didn't learn that from me, (as if I ever say "sorry") but that doesn't mean I'm not ok with enjoying and taking credit for it.

I will not be updating this blog for at least a week. During that week, I am asking any and all who love me to direct some good karma in my direction, specifically in the form of prayers, but, you know, I'm good with whatever. There are bigger things in life than passing the New York bar, I know, but they are a little hard to imagine at this point.

Update on bar study and Baby-missing

Starting bar study was a lifestyle change for me, and I tend to deal with lifestyle change by developing new junk food addictions (Fritos, anyone?) and plunging myself into temporary mild depression. Depression lends itself to staying in bed while I wait for dishes to wash themselves and Baby to learn to refill his own sippy cup with soy milk. It doesn't lend itself to blogging, at least, not for me. I've learned that when I blog depressed, I get embarrassed, just as I get embarrassed when I blog while I'm delirious with happiness.

So if you haven't seen a blog post from me in a while, send me a box of cookies. It will always be appropriate.

I'm over the depression (I think). Now I'm just bored with this stuff. It's a special type of law boredom combined with the type of feeling you'd get if someone put you in the room with an elephant carcass and a fork and said, "go ahead: dig in." It's interesting, logical, illogical, maddening, and huge. And every two minutes or so, I miss my son.

How I miss my son. He now spends six+ hours a day, not with me, but with a few carefully chosen caregivers who nurture him with love, enthusiasm, and goldfish crackers. In the back of my mind, I know I should spend my few hours a day with him on "quality time," but when I do see him, I am too overcome with chest-thumping love to get out his educational flashcards. Instead, I just want to let him eat popcorn until his gums bleed and watch "Cars" until the saline fluid in his eyeballs dries up. I press my cheek into his sweet-smelling pokey summer haircut and stop myself from mentally reviewing riparian law.

This morning he looked up and me and said Pfutz? That means something, but I don't know what. He has an honest-to-goodness word, and I don't know what it is. Up till now, I've been the only one who knows his words.

Look, I'll prove it: Batz means "I want to watch 101 Dalmations." Poose means, "Please feed me soup or some other savory canned delight." Lala, depending on the context, either means "I need a drink of water" or "I'd just love to participate in the shower I can tell you're about to take." Mamoh mean, believe it or not, "let's get out the educational animal flashcards and throw them on the floor until we find the picture of the clown fish who looks just like our friend, Nemo." I can also tell you, with manic animation, the etymology and linguistic roots of all of those words, but I've learned from experience that my expertise in Baby-ese is only interesting to me, Husband, and, on occasion, a Grandparent. And now there's an entire word that I can't connect to anything in my Baby's universe.

What if it means, "Mom, I think it's time to thank you for sacrificing the heel of your sexy fire-engine red shoe by shoving it in a revolving door to prevent me getting knocked over while I paused to pick up a cigarette butt?" I swore I wouldn't miss it when he said that to me.

The point is that while I'm wrapping my head around the difference between notice recording statutes and race-notice recording statutes, I'm missing what I consider to be an enormously important stage in my baby's development. When people ask me if I plan to put Charlie in daycare while I get a full-time legal job in New York, I'm tempted to dip into my vast Baby vocabulary and say nononoNoNoNoNO!

Bar Study

Today is the first day of a the period of my life which I shall call "studying for the bar." Husband and I briefly reviewed all of the multistate subjects, just to get an overview.

Criminal law and torts are my old friends who still call me every few days, just to see what's going on.

Evidence sends me e-mails on my birthday.

Contracts is an acquaintance who looks familiar, but I could be remembering someone else.

Property law?

Stroller Selection

I'm on a quest for Baby's perfect New York stroller. Last summer, I borrowed a Maclaren Triumph from my generous sister-in-law. I used that stroller for most of Baby's waking hours. I used it as Baby's high chair, I carried my groceries in it, I rocked Baby to sleep in it, I took it to church, I rattled it across the cobblestones at Fulton Fishmarket, I bounced it down subway stairs, I plowed it across the Sheep Meadow at Central Park. The Triumph treated me well, but of course I found some minor problems. As a purely hypothetical example, it just might maybe tip over backwards if you hang a bag full of soup cans over the handles while you're grocery shopping.

As many New Yorkers have told me, shopping for a stroller is like shopping for a car (and nearly as expensive, I'm finding). In some ways it's even more difficult than shopping for a car.

First of all, for all of its excellent qualities, Provo is not a great place to buy high-quality strollers. There are lots of babies, yes, but people with money just drive their babies around in their SUVs and people without money can't afford to drop hundreds of dollars on a stroller for their hundreds of kids. You can find a not-too-bashed-up Graco at a consignment store for thirty bucks, it'll pretty much do yuh. So, if you're a Provonian in the market for a stroller that's very lightweight, very high quality, foldable with one hand, steerable with one hand, manageable over curbs, cobblestones, and subway stairs, your selection is limited.

Also, strollers are baby items, and the baby world goes through fads. For example, right now I am seeing a fad of dress-up fairy princess birthday parties among two through four-year-old girls. If little girls had these when I was little, they didn't invite me. Ruffly dresses with matching lacey panties are out. Monkeys and alligators in primary colors are in. Keeping this in mind. I have to wonder how much of the $900 on the price tag of the popular (well, popular in New York) Bugaboo Chameleon is due to the fact that it's trendy. Don't get me wrong: I'm pretty dang trendy, but not $900 worth of trendy.

On the Road

When I was in eighth grade I wrote a poem called "On the Road." I can't remember the whole thing now, but from what I do remember, it was pretty awful. I haven't written a poem in a long time. If "On the Road" is any indication, that's probably a good thing.

Anyway, today I really am on the road. Our family is in the fine city of Winnemucca, Nevada as we end the first leg of our road trip to California. By the way, "Winnemucca" is precisely the type of word Baby would say on his own, so I had high hopes of adding an extremely cool word to his vocabulary. Alas, even after multiple efforts to trick him into saying it, he failed to add it to his vocabulary before he fell asleep in his car seat.

Every time I go on a long car trip I promise myself that this time I won't read in the car (motion sickness, I know, nerd-alert) and I won't eat junk food (not a good combo with motion sickness). But what would a long car trip be without the combination of junk food flavored motion sickness? Not the kind of car trip I've ever had. So I spent my first hour in Winnemucca settling the Pringles and Nutty Bars in my churning stomach.

Baby is sleeping in the motel closet. He seems to like it. Hopefully he won't wake up with yet another hideous memory that will need to be repressed and then gradually drawn back into Baby's consciousness with the help of a kindly, parent-hating therapist.

Graduation

I know, I know, I've already graduated, but I was allowed to experience the full graduation experience again last week when Hubby graduated.

I think most people would agree that graduation day itself is kind of a mixed bag. With all of the emotions tied into it, wonderful, sad, and boring, it kind of comes out a wash. An emotion map of Hubby's graduation day:

1) I was stressed up to my ears, pulling all of the last-minute plans together for picture taking, video taping, calling everyone about parking, getting a babysitter, etc.

2) I was surprisingly moved with pride when the faculty and graduates marched in. I've been to dozens of graduations, but I still think the pomp and circumstance is really cool.

3) I was super nervous before Hubby's speech. I knew it was a good speech (I wrote about a third of it and edited all of it), and I knew that Husband would deliver it well, but I really, really wanted everyone to love my fabulous husband, and I knew law students are groomed to be a prideful, sneering lot.

4) I had a growing sense of elation as the speech was received with applause and laughter (the good kind).

5) After the glow wore off, boredome, boredom, boredom. The Provo Tabernacle is hot and the doctoral hooding ceremony takes a long time.

6) I had my usual crowds-make-me-nervous jitters during the reception afterwards, but luckily Hubby's talk and our upcoming move to New York City gave me and enviable two automatic topics of conversation with my hundreds of law school acquaintances. I was also sinfully proud of my husband.

7) The rest of the day is an exhausted blur. Dinner? Some kind of something at my in-law's house? So tired. Haven't truly slept in. Five. Years.

The next few days I watched my husband go through post-graduation depression. First it's "hooray, I have so much time on my hands, and everyone loves me!" Then it's "boo, I have so much time on my hands, my friends are all gone forever, and I'll never be popular again!" Now he's turning the corner to "hmm, I have so much time on my hands, maybe I'll engage in an interesting and world-improving non-law activity before I have to start studying for the bar." I have to hand it to him: It took me three months and a baby to get to that point.

For Reals, Sister

There are so many awesome blogs written by stay-at-home moms these days. It's one of those phenomena that makes the Internet worth all the porn. I don't have time to link to all of my favorite mom blogs (Baby's going to wake up any second), but read this one to understand (whispered, reverantly) naptime.

Lunch

I ate chicken for lunch, baked in a sauce made of mustard, orange juice, and brown sugar.

Baby ate Spaghetti O's, by himself, with a spoon.

We are both immensely satisfied.

No, no, NO

If I ever have a daughter, I will not let her be in a children's performing group that sings "Lady Marmelade." She can cry and scream and hate me all she wants, but I refuse to allow my nine-year-old to sing "Voulez-vous couchez avec moi?" to a human audience of any kind. I'll buy her a pony instead. I'll feed her through a tube if she goes on a hunger strike.

Yes, I know, there I go again, promising myself parenting choices before I am able to see them in context, like that one time I told myself I wouldn't allow my son to watch cartoons first things in the morning (hah!). But this time is different. Cartoons are cartoons. Onstage sexual invitations are different.

I get annoyed when people write anonymous editorials saying "I'm shocked and appalled that . . ." I think that people (especially Provonians) are far to easily offended and judgmental about stuff that isn't any of their business. So when I found myself shocked and appalled by a production that our family recently saw at Thanksgiving Point (scantily-clad nine-year-olds singing and dancing to "Lady Marmelade"), I had to carefully consider my feelings.

Here are my feelings: Adults can decide to sing and dance to "Lady Marmelade" if they choose. I'll think they are pathetic, but I won't comment on their freedom to so perform. If they do it in a movie as flamboyant and sweet-natured as Moulin Rouge, I'll even choose to attend and enjoy it.

Kids shouldn't.

Healthy as a Pig and Stone-cold Sober

Last year, 90% of the students who studied for the bar using the PMBR prep course passed the multistate section of their respective bars. I just got an e-mail telling me so. This is good news, considering that I will be using the PMBR prep course to study for the multistate.

Of course, when I read that statistic, I immediately began trying to rationalize the pass rate even more in my favor, attempting to disassociate myself as much as possible from those unfortunate would-be lawyers who did not pass. Some of them had debilitating handicaps such as blindness or pregnancy which affected their exam performance. Some of them went on Norwegian cruises rather than attend the PMBR review courses. Some of them were phenomenally stupid. Some of them abused substances, other than Kozy Shack rice pudding, which negatively affected their mental processes.

Since none of these things apply to me, my chances of passing the multistate section are probably higher than 90%, don't you think? Even accounting for the facts that (1) I am sitting for the bar two years after having graduated from law school and (2) I have maternal responsibilities for someone who is at least as distracting as a comfortable addiction to marijuana (I assume). I find myself grasping at even more outlandish potential reasons for not passing the multistate that do not apply to me: surely at least one of these non-passing students developed a kidney condition during the exam which forced him to excuse himself for multiple time-consuming and concentration-wrecking bathroom breaks. This happens to other people all the time, but it won't happen to me.

I'm ashamed to say that I developed this chilling method of reasoning in law school. That's what happens when you take a bunch of hyper-competitive, achievement-driven, unfeeling freaks and grade them on a strict curve. During the weeks before exams, I would look around the classroom, sizing up the members of my class. I would hear the news from my classmates and translate it into the potential exam performance: Lulu got engaged this semester, so she probably hasn't read for this class; George's wife had triplets, but, on the other hand, I heard he has a photographic memory; At least I know I'll do better than Trixie, whose entire family contracted leprosy last month.

The One and Only . . .

Yesterday, Baby and I watched Disney's, The One and Only Genuine Original Family Band. I hadn't seen it since I was a little kid. Here are my thoughts:

This was actually two movies rolled into one: The first was a romantic musical comedy about a girl and a boy who fall in love, get in a fight, and fall in love again. It was charming, but it felt kind of anachronistic. It's not that no one was making musicals in 1969/70, but they weren't making sentimental, patriotic, western musicals. I think singing and dancing with my family band in a barn is just about the coolest thing ever, but there were moments when even I felt a little embarrassed for the actors. Baby had no complaints though.

The other movie was a political/historical movie about living in Dakota at the time it was being considered for statehood. This plot was fascinating to me in 2008, and I wish they could have shaken off the musical romance stuff and gone into more detail with the story. Did I just say that? Hang on, I need to go watch "The Music Man" to straighten myself out.

Anyway, the whole story hinges on an the presidential race in 1888, when Cleveland received more actual votes than Harrison, but Harrison won the electoral college and the election. In 1888, the country was hugely divided between Republicans and Democrats, and this movie tried to illustrate that tension. I don't know personally, but I've read that the current political situation is the most violently partisan the country has seen since the Civil War. What was supposed to look ridiculous in the movie (interrupting a political rally?!!! defacing a portrait of a presidential candidate?!!!) looked like pretty typical politics to me. In fact, the most unbelievable part of the movie was the ending when everyone becomes friends in spite of their political differences.

My favorite line: "Well how do you like that? The Democrats win an election, fair and square, and the Republicans steal it out from under their noses." If they had put this in a movie today, it would have been an unfunny effort to make the movie Important and Timely. Instead, it was just plain awesome, like an unintended pun.

Rules of Evidence

Lately I've been brushing up on the federal rules of evidence. Husband (who is working much harder on them because he has a final in three weeks) can't stand them. I kind of like them. Every piece of information you want to enter into evidence is like a little puzzle, and you have to navigate the rules of the puzzle to get it in there. Sometimes I wish I could use them to direct my daily life. Here are a few examples:

Someone is telling me a long, boring story. Objection: Witness is giving an unnecessary narrative.

Family member is sharing an embarrassing anecdote about my childhood. Objection: The probative value of this information is outweighed by its prejudicial effect. (If the damage of the anecdote has already come out, you can ask that it be stricken from the record).

Customer service representative is telling me that my feelings of aggravation have no bearing on the question of whether or not the telephone company needs to return my money. Response: The emotional distress suffered by the witness goes directly to the question of damages.

Pompous honors undergrad does not want me to question his expertise: Response: I need to conduct a voir dire concerning this witness's qualifications to give his opinion on the subject of Everything.

See? Kind of cool. Sort of replaces social rules with legal ones. At least these ones are written down.

Cars

Baby loves them. They have been his favorite toys his whole short life. One of his first words was "car." He spends hours pushing them around on the couch cushions or rolling them down ramps. He takes baths with his cars. He sleeps with a toy car clutched in each little fist.

I thought all of this was kind of cute until it moved beyond generic toy cars to specific toy cars. His favorite movie is (duh) "Cars." While he still loves all of his cars, lately he's begun to show preference to the "Cars" cars: Lightening McQueen, Doc Hudson, Ramone, etc. (Would you like me to name them all? I can. Would you like me to quote the entire movie? I can do that too.). A couple of weeks ago he realized that one of his sets of pajamas had pictures of Lightening McQueen all over them. He spent one blissful evening watching "Cars," holding his Doc Hudson car, wearing his Lightening McQueen jammies. Every so often he's look the picture of Lightening McQueen on his tummy and gently poke it, sighing blissfully. Yesterday, he found his car pajama pants on the floor of his bedroom, and he followed me around the house saying "uuh?" until I took off his pants and put him in his pajama pants.

I never thought I'd be a mom who supported this type of behavior. I pictured myself explaining to my child that, no, we did not need to buy the Batman action figure just because he was on TV. Then I would direct my child's attention to his educational flashcards. This whole cars things really snuck up on me.

In Case You Were Interested . . .

No matter how I place Baby in his crib for the night, he always manages to fall asleep in the same position: on his back with his feet on his pillow. He also snores like a lawn mower.

I am desperately in love with him.

Audiobooks

All law students are required to buy and use a laptop computer. After three years in a constant feed of information and entertainment, I found I had developed a sort of attention deficit disorder where I couldn't do just one thing at a time, especially if that one thing was kind of boring. I began making lists and writing letters during talks at church. My laundry stayed in the basket until I had a movie I could watch while I folded. Nursing my baby every two hours was particularly trying: I would find myself tapping my feet, mentally reviewing the elements of common law negligence or the difference between direct and derivative shareholder suits while I sat waiting for Baby to finish up or fall asleep.

Stay-home motherhood is definitely a hands-on, eyes-on job, and this makes it hard to do two things at once if they both require either your hands or your eyes. My beloved laptop friend of three years, alas, required both. My ears and my brain, however, were almost always available and bored. I quickly grew to understand how my mother developed her addiction to talk radio. I might have done the same, but my (also law school-compounded ADD) husband convinced me to take up audiobooks.

I'm hooked. I listen to audiobooks while I'm playing with Baby in the park, getting groceries, doing housework, driving in the car. I listen to newspapers, novels, radio programs, podcasts -- I'm even taking Spanish lessons when I'm feeling pious about continuing my education.

One of the tricky things about audiobooks is that they are, in many ways, far more engrossing than printed material. Since I already had a habit of getting distracted by novels, this can be a problem. For example, right now I am listening to "The Beautiful and Damned" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It is about a bunch of wealthy, lazy, selfish people who I intensely dislike. I don't know how it ends yet (so don't tell me), but I'm really looking forward to the part where they all get damned. I would actually like to see one of them repent and reform, but since good old F. Scott never reformed, I can only hope for a satisfying damnation.

Today, I had a lot of errands to run, so I had several hours of listening to the beautiful and damned Anthony Patch and Gloria Gilbert sneering, whining, and drinking highballs. I felt like I've been hanging out with them all day. I think I was kind of rude to the clerk at Target, just because I wanted to push Gloria into a lake. I need to take a break and listen to something with characters I actually like. Unfortunately, all I have right now is the Wall Street Journal or NPR's "Justice Talking." Decisions, decisions. I think "Justice Talking" is more likely to keep me motivated while I wash the dishes and less likely to contain beautiful and damned characters.

Munchies

It's starting. I really need a treat right now. Something fried. A donut maybe. Or a fast food empanada. Mmm...

I've been here before. If my munchy craving isn't satisfied in the next couple of hours, I may call a neighbor to come over and babysit while I make a frenzied run to Krispy Kreme. She understands. If she can't make it, I just might spend an entire hour in the kitchen in the middle of the night making cookies. It's that bad.

Or maybe I can convince Husband to interrupt his studies to make a munchy run for me. I think he secretly loves doing that kind of thing.

I knew this girl in high school who had cravings for popular music the way I have cravings for food. She'd seriously run home during lunch hour because she had a craving to listen to Counting Crows. I never really understood that. If I have a song in my head, I might think "hmm, I like this song a lot," and if I happened to be near my computer, I might pull it up and listen to it, but it's not a driving compulsion for me. I haven't kept in touch with that girl since high school (she was kind of weird), but I bet she's really happy in the iTunes age. Immediate satifaction for all her music addictions for a dollar a song (or for free if you're not bothered by those pesky copyright regulations).

I guess the Internet is getting close to satisfying my munchy cravings. If I were craving pizza, say, I could go to Papa John's website and order something to be delivered. But I'm never craving pizza, and if I were, I wouldn't want a whole pizza. I want a single donut. I want to open iTunes, click a button, charge my credit card 49 cents, and have a warm glazed donus appear on this napkin I have ready right by the computer.

Could you work on that Man O' Steel?

Student Loans

This summer I am going to take the New York bar. Don't let me change my mind. Everyone tells me that I should be afraid, very afraid, of the New York bar. I heard a rumor that they systematically fail the bottom ten-percent of the students who sit for it, although I'm pretty sure that's a myth. Just between us, that's the least of my worries. I'll pass. I always pass. I'll study, and I'll pass. If New York systematically fails the bottom ten-percent, well, there's going to be one student who fails because this stay-home mom rocked it.

No, the thing I'm stressed about, the thing I've always been stressed about, is money. My little family has been living on student loans for our entire marriage. We sleep in a student loan bed; we eat student loan Spaghetti Os, we dress Baby in student loan diapers. After five years of this, we have a pile of student loans. Last month, I was so happy to cash our last student loan check. We were in the bottom of the Grand Canyon: still a ways to go, but it was all upward from here.

My joy was premature. See, we have to stay alive for four more months after our student loans run out but before Husband's new job starts churning out a salary. During those four months, we will be earning less and spending more than we have during any school semester: full-time bar study, child care, and private short-term health insurance on top of our usual expenses, without the extra pennies we bring in with our part-time jobs. And then there's thousands of dollars of fees to fly to New York, sit for the actual exam, and pay our bar memberships. And then there's the obscene pile of cash we'll have to scrape together for our apartment deposit in New York City . . .

I feel ill. Bottom of the Grand Canyon, yes, but now we have to ditch the donkeys, build a raft, cross the Colorado River, and then start back up.

So, more loans. A lot more loans. You could buy a really nice car with this four-month hunk of loans. If you were single and childless, you could put your bad self through law school. We will be paying these loans until we die. Actually, even if I die, the loans survive. Uh huh.

Going to take the bar. Still taking that bar.

Years from now, when pre-law Jane meets my two-attorney New York family, will she imagine that I strongly considered working through hair school this summer instead of taking the New York bar? Probaby not. She will admire my cool legal library, my collection of letters from all of the deserving poor I have helped, and my hugely intelligent children. And she'll take out loans to go to law school and become a lawyer. I want her to become a lawyer. It will make her happy. Eventually.

President's Day

My President's Day was pretty cool, I guess. Husband took Baby for most of the day, so that was nice. A great day off for every one.

But here is what I really want to write about: Most of the stay-home moms I know (I don't know many stay-home dads, sorry) had a disappointing President's Day. Not that they had high-flying expectations for President's Day, but I mean, they had bad days.

On this day, everyone is home when they're usually gone, and a ton of stuff is closed when it's usually open. While this may be fun for students, bankers, postal workers, etc., it's kind of a pain in the neck for a stay-home mom.

Let me explain it this way for all you non-stay-homers:

Suppose I decided to take my child and descend upon your place of work for the day. Baby and I have given ourselves a holiday from our normal activities, and instead we're going to take a break from our usual Monday activities and spend the day with you.

At first, you might think it will be fun: you'll be able to shoot the breeze with me, you can observe Baby toddling around, and maybe I'll even be able to help you out with whatever it is you do at your job. It doesn't take long, however, before I take over your computer (and the only chair in your office) to do some facebooking, and Baby is fascinated with your paper shredder. Then we start tracking cracker crumbs through the conference room, complaining loudly about the lack of a diaper station in the bathroom, wiping our noses on your sweater, etc., etc., etc.

Around lunch (which, of course, you will have to provide for us), you realize that you're not accomplishing any of the things that you needed to get done today. You think we're really cool, but we're kind of cramping your style today. But you can't make us go back home on the one day that we don't have to be there, right? And you can't send us outside to play because the weather is nasty, as it always is this time of year. So you bite your tongue and cowboy through it, hour after hour, knowing that tomorrow you will have tons of catching up to do, but secretly really looking forward to tomorrow if only because you'll be back to your regularly scheduled programming.

And then finally we leave, saying "Wow, you hardly do anything around here. We should come more often."

Happy Bald Eagle Day

The Great Salt Lake has too much carp, and once a year they suffocate them all to balance out the ecosystem. The upside to all this carp carnage is that it coincides with a bald eagle migration through Utah. Today we left Baby with Grandma and took a trip to Farmington Bay with my high school zoology teacher to look at the bald eagles. Bald eagles are so cool.

We probably saw, I don't know, maybe 70 eagles. There were a few roosting in the trees, or flying low, but mostly they were hanging out on the ice, digesting their carp. It's kind of hard to descibe how awesome it is to see these birds. They're huge for one thing, and their heads and legs are so white, and their beaks are so yellow. And they have these eyes . . .

Know what a bald eagle call sounds like? It's not a scream. It's a high-pitched peep-peep-peep. The best word this mommy can think of to describe it is "cute."

If you think you might want to get into birding, it's a pretty good idea to start with bald eagles. They are pretty easy to identify. If you're smart enough to bring your high school zoology teacher with you (and he happens to own a high-tech spotting scope), you might also be able to identify tundra swans, northern harriers, American kestrels, red-winged blackbirds, rough-legged hawks, pintail ducks, golden eye ducks, mallards, Canada geese, and common ravens.

And if your husband loves you, he will buy you a pair of binoculars and a good birding book so you can relearn how to identify the Utah birds you love before you move away.

Ways I Keep in Touch with Legal Society

So, sometimes people ask me how I keep my law-trained mind active in the profession for which it is trained. Tonight, I decided to make a list of the stuff that I currently do as a full-time mom that also keeps me up-to-date with the legal community. I was actually kind of impressed with the length of my list. I didn't think that I did that much, but now that I really think about it, I don't think a day goes by where I don't do something related to my legal career. As legal careers go, mine is sort of resting right now while other aspects of my life take precedence, but it's definitely not dormant. Anyway, here's my list:

My part-time job as a legal research assistant

Library books on law or legal issues (currently reading Lawrence Lessig's fabulous "Code 2.0")

My even smaller part-time job as a bar review company representative

Small legal favors for friends and family (usually variations on the theme of "talk to a real lawyer," but sometimes they actually ask me to do things that I'm qualified to do)

E-mail from various members of my law school class

My law student and soon-to-be lawyer husband's homework and exams

My law student and soon-to-be lawyer husband's extra-curricular mock trial stuff

Networking cocktail parties and dinners with my law student and soon-to-be-lawyer husband

Mentally calculating arguments in my favor for hypothetical tort, property, family law, or contract claims against my landlord, my son's gymnastics company, Provo City, my divorced friends, my pediatrician, my insurance company, etc. (I know it sounds nasty, but after law school, you can't help it, ok?)

My J. Reuben Clark Society magazine

My "American Lawer" magazine

"Justice Talking" on NPR (and justicetalking.org)

Helping pre-law students with their admissions materials

My audio subscription to the Wall Street Journal

nytimes.com

discourse.org

abovethelaw.com

Worrying about taking/passing the New York bar this July

MotherGuilt

I just finished a heartfelt, hilarious, profanity-riddled, and anti-conservative book on motherhood. I wouldn't describe myself as conservative, but 90% of the people I love do describe themselves that way, so the book made me think a lot about the author's issues with conservative American political and social life.

Her main beef seems to be that conservative, Christian, nuclear families thrive by teaching their mothers to be "obedient to everything except [their] own heart[s]." The result is that these mothers end up being so filled with guilt and suppressed rage that they go insane. Instead, she advocates that society teach mothers to be true to the goddess within themselves, meditate daily, buy organic, nurse in public, rage against the machine, and teach their children tolerance for everyone. Except abusive men and conservative, Christian, nuclear families, who should be whipped.

In spite of my Provo address and my religious affiliation, I'm down with the whole goddess-within, reflective, organic, nursing, revolutionary womanhood thing. Seriously. And I don't think mothers should wallow in guilt. But, I know for a fact that conservative Christians don't have the corner of the guilt market. Sure, I feel a pretty much constant pressure to keep my child morally safe, clean, and worthy. My heart will overflow with pride if/when I see him marrying and creating his own traditional nuclear family. And, yes, this pressure brings occasional twinges of what might be called guilt when he begin his Sunday mornings by watching "Cars" instead of "Special Witnesses of Christ." Not repressed-rage guilt, just I-can-think-of-better-things-he-could-be-doing-but-I-need-to-get-dressed-for-church-and-I-know-he'll-leave-me-alone-if-I-let-him-watch-Cars guilt.

I also feel a constant pressure to raise my baby to be a tolerant, peace-loving, freedom fighter. Baby's media choices will not include Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, or Anne Coulter as long as I have anything to do with it, but he's welcome to tune in to "Bowling for Columbine" or "An Inconvenient Truth" anytime he likes. I would love love love it if someday he marched on Washington for universal health care, livable minimum wages, gun control, environmentalism, feminism, affirmative action, etc. He can even borrow from my collection of leftist political buttons ("Well-behaved women rarely make history," perhaps?). I feel guilty that Baby loves trucks more than dolls, and he only seems to like books with characters that growl. Not repressed-rage guilt, just I-hope-my-liberal-friends-at-Ms.-magazine-never-see-the-inside-of-my-son's-boyblue-toy-box guilt.

See, like most moms, I'm trying to give my baby the best of everything, and when I realize that I could have done better, I feel bad. Sometimes I feel guilty about one thing, and sometimes I feel guilty about something else, but it's all based on the same instinct I have to give Baby the best life ever and to help him find pure and eternal happiness. I have enjoyed profound satifaction in the doctrines of my Christian church. I feel that my religious commitments to dietary restrictions, prayer, and scripture study have done me far more good than my political/social commitments to buy organic, engage in breathing exercises, and listen to NPR. Apparently, the author of the book I just read thought that the political/social stuff was the only stuff worth the guilt. That doesn't hurt my feelings; it's all good stuff. I just kind of prickle when she insinuates that the other stuff I'm trying hard to incorporate into Baby's life is not only a waste of energy, but it's bad for me and for Baby.

I think that we moms all feel the same amount of guilt because we all want be the same amount of perfect.

Provo Library vs. Netflix

The Provo Public Library has a wonderful service where you, the patron, put in your e-mail address and fill out a questionnaire about what kind of books you like to read. Then you submit it and it is reviewed by one of the library's fine librarians. Within 14 days, you will receive an e-mail with three to five personal recommendations. If you've already read these books, I guess you e-mail back and ask for more recommendations until the librarian gives you something you haven't read or tells you that there are no more books that fit your criteria.

Now, don't get me wrong--this was a great idea, and I think it is sweet as pie that somewhere, a librarian is lovingly trying to find me recommendations. (In case you're interested, here is the information I submitted:

Authors I like: Richard Russo, Anne Tyler, Lois McMasters Bujold, and Susanna Clarke
Books I don't care for: The Twilight series
Genre (choose one): General Fiction
Sub-genre (choose one): no preference (my choices were as specific as "science fiction books about time travel and vampires")
Plots (choose one): Character driven
Pace (multiple choices): Slow or fast
Main character: no preference (I could choose the gender, age, and ethnicity of my main character)
Setting: no preference (I could choose the country and I also had an urban/rural checkbox)
Tone (multiple choices): Inspirational, upbeat, quirky, deep, insightful, and I don't remember what else (I assume they won't find me a book that meets all of these tone requirements, but if they do, cool)
Turn-offs: Books that contain drawn-out descriptions of physical or sexual abuse
)

After I got my answers back in a confirmation e-mail, I realized that I probably wasn't the type of person who was supposed to use this service. I just want to read good books. If I could have chosen "no preference" for every category, I probably would have: fiction, nonfiction; slow-paced, fast-paced; vampires, no vampires; what do I care? I just want to like it.

I think this system was designed for someone who only wanted to read a fast-paced, depressing yet upbeat science fiction book about a 57-year-old time-traveling vampire who only visited rural locations in Vietnam. Written in the style of Charles Dickens, but not the style of Jane Austen. I must admit, it was tempting to put in just such a request, but I felt bad for the loving librarian who would be spending his time and my library fines, trying to take care of my specific but fake biblioneeds. Actually, if the librarian could find just such a book, I would read it (hello? wouldn't you?)

Netflix has a similar service that is about one hundred times smarter, faster, and more reliable. You rate tons and tons of movies, and they compare your ratings against their other ten billion subscribers. Then they instantly give you recommendations of tons more movies. If you've already seen these movies, you rate them, and they give you more recommendations until eventually you have tons of useful recommendations. So, for example, because I enjoyed "The Office: Season 3" and "Raise the Red Lantern," Netflix thinks I will also enjoy "Planet Earth." And they're right, I do. These movies have almost nothing to do with each other except that people who like one usually like the others.

The Netflix system isn't perfect (it gave me a lot of weird/creepy-looking recommendations based on my 5-star rating of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind"), but it's a lot closer to what I'm actually looking for when I want a recommendation. The result is that I'm seeing a lot of wonderful movies that I haven't seen before. I would love it if someone had the money in their pocket or love in their heart to put together something similar for books. I guess Amazon does something sort of like that, but it's not as slick as Netflix's. If someone will make a Netflix for books, I will pay them to use their service, and I will be happy.

On My Job

So, I think I might have mentioned that I have a little part-time job. I work from home while Baby is asleep. It took a while to get used to working at night when all I wanted to do was lounge on the couch with a heaping TV-full of Netflix Surprise. Luckily, I like the work I'm doing. I'm working from a research grant for a law professor who is researching an writing state and federal anti-pornography legislation.

It's been really fun to dig into legal research again, especially about freedom of speech on the Internet (or suppression of harmful material on the Internet, depending on your point of view). As you might expect, I am pretty strongly against pornography, but I am also pretty strongly in favor of free speech. While it's uncomfortable sometimes to read the pro-porn arguments, it feels good to be more informed about the whole issue, and it feels really good to be able to skewer the pro-porn arguments.

I'm pretty sure that I'm happier with a job than I was without a job, but I'm not ready to categorically state that stay-home moms will be happier with jobs because I know for a fact that some of them won't. Here are the things about my job which make me happy:

1) It takes intellectual energy and skills that I know I have
2) It consistently rewards me with both money and/or headpats
3) It doesn't make Baby's life any worse, and it probaby makes it better
4) It helps people

Other non-job things might also meet these criteria. I just read a fabulous book about a stay-home mom who spent every evening entering jingle-writing contests. I read another book about a stay-home mom in Africa who ran a medical clinic out of her kitchen. I know a woman who writes for multiple popular blogs. Another woman I know writes tons and tons of letters to her congressperson. My Relief Society president is a stay-home mom.

Now that I think about it, the happiest stay-home moms I know are the ones who do something on top of their momming. In fact, I'm pretty sure I can say I don't know a single happy mom who only takes care of her house and her children. It's not that House and Baby couldn't use all of my waking hours, it's just that House and Baby don't take intellectual energy and don't reward me with money or headpats.

Lessons

Baby had his first parent-tot swimming lesson today. There's something about seeing a little boy splashing around and laughing that makes you just want to kiss him right up. He loved it, and I consider the experience a success in spite of the fact that he didn't manage to master the skill of the day (kicking). He came home and had the easiest going-down-for-a-nap time he's had in weeks.

Baby has also been going to parent-tot tumbling. Basically, a local tumbling place opens early once a week and lets kids, five and under, come play on the equipment for an hour with their parents. Baby is really good at running up and down the ramps (he has a thing for ramps, as I think I've mentioned before), and last week he mustered up the courage to jump into the pit of foam rubber blocks all my himself.

Why, you may ask, is this woman putting her child in extra-curriculars before the child is even old enough for the "curricular?" Am I a competitive, pushy mother who must see her child succeed prodigiously at something? Am I a free-thinking mother who wishes to maximize her son's options by allowing him to explore interests at a ridiculously early age? Am I a bored mother with too much time and money and a willing child to use it up?

No. I am a mother who is tired of having a cranky baby with nothing to do on these January days except watch "Curious George" and "Learning About Numbers" for the millionth time.

Weddings

I just came home from a pre-wedding dinner for my cousin. Weddings are great. I wish my friends were still getting married all the time. The couple getting married is matchy-match perfect for each other. I'm pretty sure that no one thought that at my wedding, but everyone thought that at this one.

It's so cute. They will get married tomorrow, and then they'll get tons of presents including a set of plates with roosters on them which they will never take out of the box, and they'll set up their first little housey together, and then they'll fight like crazy about stupid things, but they'll realize how stupid they are and then they'll be even more in love with each other, and then one of them will go to law school and the other will help her study, and they'll go to Washington, DC for a summer internship where one will work for a public interest law firm specializing in legal services for disabled veterans and the other will work for a Latin American political publication, and then she'll get pregnant during her third year of law school, and she'll have to drastically change her career plans, and they'll have a baby who will change their lives forever . . .

I'm so excited for them. I love weddings.

And so another phase begins

My baby is graduating from Mommy-and-Me type playing with other kids to My-Buddies-and-Me type playing, where I just watch and let him do his own thing with the other kids. It's weird to watch him playing at day-care or nursery without my constant commentary ("Look, Baby, this is Nora! Say hi to Nora! Can you share? Share your truck with Nora? Hooray for Baby! Baby shared his truck with Nora! You want your truck back from Nora? Can you say please? OK, Nora has decided to play with the truck for a little longer! Can you be patient? Can you wait for Nora to finish? OK, Nora's all done now! Now you can play with the truck again! Can you say thank you? Thank you, Nora!"). Instead I watch through a little window in the door and hope my commentary about sharing, patience, please, and thank you will prevent him and the other children from being bullied, ignored, or ostracized.

Last night at the Extended Family Christmas Party, Baby toddled into the basketball court where a bunch of kids were playing a variation on dodge ball that involved rolling a volleyball under the volleyball net.

I watched from the doorway as Baby shuffled back and forth through the middle of the game. He was already in his feetie-jammies, and he was by far the youngest kid there, so I was a little nervous about potential slippings or clonkings.

Even though rolling a ball more than about two feet is beyond his immediate ability, he laughed and clapped for all of the other kids who did it, which they appreciated. And then the other kids were classy enough to stop the game and let him try to throw the ball. When he gave it his best one-year-old effort, they all clapped for him. Baby happens to think that all humans between two and four feet are about the coolest ever, so he was deliriously happy when they clapped for him. When the game dissolved into some kind of running around in lines game, they were so sweet about not bumping into him, but also running close enough to him that he didn't feel deserted. He loved it! I loved it! What a great party!

Non-Mom playing? Bring it on.

Sick Baby Christmas

I hope all ya'll had a Merry Christmas and that you're winding up the old year with panache.

Baby was sick on Christmas. It is sad to see an otherwise boisterous and energetic child drooping and flushed with a fever. Especially on Christmas when people actually want him to do cute funny things and they are finally free to pay attention to him. On the other hand, I have to admit that it was pretty blissful to sit in my big blue chair for an hour with a Baby's warm head on my shoulder and arms around my neck. While I read a book. This is something that could never happen if Baby weren't sick. Is it shameful to say that I secretly loved it?

Anyway, he's better now and back to his old boisterous self. All things considered, I would one-hundred times rather have a healthy boisterous baby than a sick snuggly baby. In fact, Husband called me this morning from Grandma's house to say "[Baby]'s being naughty again. It's awesome."

My Favorite Christmas Painting

This painting is on display at BYU's museum of art right now. It makes me ache.

Why I'm not a Homeowner

My really great landlord has spent far more money on my apartment than we've paid in rent the last few months. Since we've moved in, we've had our carpets cleaned, our windows replaced, our walls painted, our shower drains snaked, and our furnaces cleaned. On top of that, we have the apartment managers to take out the trash cans, mow the lawns, rake the leaves, even change the light bulbs. Then last week, the main sewage line for the house ruptured, dumping, you know, sewage into the unfinished basement. So we had more inspectors, a flood repair company, and plumbers come check it all out, clean it all up, and replace all of the plumbing.

Mind you, it hasn't been a picnic dealing with all of this home improvement, but it has made me really glad that we are renters and not owners. While I can appreciate the many wonderful things that homeowners enjoy, I am also experienced enough to also appreciate all of the nastiness associated with owning a little piece of paradise with faulty plumbing. And I've read enough property law cases to appreciate all of the really horrible things that could happen to an otherwise savvy buyer. And I don't have any money. So there you have it. No real property for me. Not yet anyway.

Every couple of years of my adult life, I graduate into another phase of adult development. First I would see all of my friends going through it, and then I would go through it (I'm a bit of a late bloomer when it comes to development). First all of my friends got married (and I became an expert on bridal shower gifts), and then I got married. All of my friends started having babies (baby shower gifts), and then I had a baby. Now all of my friends are buying houses (house warming gifts (if I get around to it, what with the husband and the baby)), and I'm getting nervous that I might catch the bug.

I think it's kind of weird for people to never want to get married, or once they are married to never want to have children. I can understand not wanting to get married immediately, and I also happen to think that anyone can have a happy life if they don't get married and/or have children. But isn't it a basic human impulse to want a committed relationship? And have children? When I hear about someone wanting to never come near these things, I can't help thinking they're being more than a little immature. Because I used to feel that way, but, like I said, I moved on to the next phase.

That's what worries me. I never want to own a house. No picket fence, no swingset, no vegetable garden. Is it a sign of arrested development to want to rent forever?

Earning His Keep

Baby is learning some chores. Here's what he's got so far:

1) Closing drawers, cupboards, and refridgerator doors
2) Putting his toys in his toy box (he also likes to put them in his crib)
3) Swishing the toilet brush around in the toilet bowl
4) Putting his feet in his shoes
5) Wiping a sponge around on the kitchen floor
6) Pushing the vacuum (with Mom's supervision)
7) Emptying the dishwasher (we're working on where the dishes actually go . . .)
8) Stirring mixing bowls

Isn't he cool? I think so too. No, I'm not interested in your questions about whether his doing these little jobs actually saves me time or effort. I'd also prefer not to consider whether his ability to obey and help with clean-up coincides with an increased ability to make messes. That's not the point, see? The point is that he is a happy, obedient, sweet-natured (if a bit over-inquisitive) little guy who makes his mother very proud.

Our Christmas Party

On Friday night I threw a church Christmas dinner party for 150 people. It was a success, but I'm still so tired. Some people get energized by throwing parties. I guess I do too, but only if certain elements are in place:

1) I have people helping me whom I trust to get things done
2) I feel like there's a really good reason for the party
3) I like all of the activities we're doing at the party
4) I have enough money to afford the party
5) I know and love all of the people who are invited to the party

So, for example, when I threw a surprise party for my husband's birthday, I loved every minute of it from the invitations to the food ordering to the quick cover-up when the babysitter wrecked the surprise at the last minute ("have fun at your surprise party!") Same thing when I threw parties and socials at the law school. By my third year, I'll tell you what, I had law school pizza parties down to a science, and I loved it, loved it.

None of the elements were in place for the party on Friday. This didn't mean the party was doomed to failure--it just meant that, instead of enjoying it, I stressed my guts out putting the party together. I didn't know the other people on my party-planning committee very well; I didn't feel like there was any particular reason to have the party exactly the way we did last year; I wasn't jazzed about a lot of the things we were doing; I was constantly worried that we were out of money; and I only knew the names of about 30% of the people there.

But like I said: it was a success. We found free decorations at the last minute, extra people came to help set up, we got a discount on the food, the other people on the committee turned out to be completely dependable, the numbers came out right for seating and food, and my parents had paid for eleven years of piano lessons so I could fill in for the background music when we forgot to bring a CD player (this also served to soothe my nerves while everyone arrived). Everyone left satisfied.

But it's all worth it for the one really cool thing that happened. I hadn't managed to get a Santa Claus to come to the party, which I was really sad about because I knew a lot of people wanted to have one (even though the traditional Santa's lap sitting is one of the things I think is unnecessary at a church Christmas party). Anyway, three minutes before the party started, Husband flew in with an S on his chest and found a Santa, a costume, candy canes for the kids, and a photographer. For free. While I was tinkling away at the piano. Did I mention that I'm married to him? And I love him wildly?

The Season to be Jolly . . .

. . . that I am not gearing for law school finals. At this moment, my living room is full of law students studying how narrowly tailored a law has to be before a state may use its general police power to infringe on a parent's right to direct the upbringing of a child. I am blissfully blogging away.

Law school was awesome--it really was, but Christmas is Christmas, not study-like-crazy time. I gave up seven Christmas seasons to test preparation. I missed every festivity, I did no shopping, I did no decorating, I made no baked goods, and I didn't look out any frosted window panes until the last day of finals on December 22 or so. That meant I had all of three days to get into the Christmas spirit. And I wondered why I was such a Grinch. It wasn't until last Christmas that I realized what I was missing.

Besides being just generally awesome, Christmas with a baby is a whole new holiday. For example, yesterday I dressed my baby in red pajamas that said "HO HO HO" across the bum. He has a little finger puppet nativity set that he plays with every day. I'm trying really hard to get him to say "Hey!" after I sing, "One horse open sleigh." He looks out the window every morning and says "'No?" meaning "May I play in the snow please, Mother?" Hello? Christmas spirit anyone?

Learning Playgroup Etiquette

Maggie, a character from the book "Breathing Lessons," thinks that the reason she wasn't a very good disciplinarian for her children was that she always felt pity for them. Anne Tyler, the author of "Breating Lessons," says that she rarely writes from children's points of view because she doesn't want her readers to have to relive the horrible period that is childhood. I wouldn't classify every childhood as horrible, but lately, I've been feeling a lot of pity for children in general, especially one- to three-year-olds who are learning how to be nice to each other.

Baby's been spending a lot of time on play dates and in nurseries, and, as I watch these kids, it's fairly obvious to me that kids don't naturally get warm fuzzies from being nice to each other. The only reasons they will share toys are 1) because they are modeling other, more dominant people, or 2) they expect some kind of reward for being good or punishment for being naughty.

It takes an enormous amount of self control for them to behave, and playgroup social rules are kind of complicated. You are encouraged to play with toys, but you may not take the toys from other kids, no matter how appealing the other kid makes the toy look. If a grown-up offers a toy to you, you should take it. You should not cry if you are sad, only if you are pushed on purpose, and then you must cry loudly if you want the wrong to be righted. If you are pushed, you must permit the offender to give you a hug and a kiss, even though the hug is just as likely to knock you down as the push. You may not push the hugger or run away. Snacks from Mom's diaper bag may be eaten, but you may not take snacks from other diaper bags or from other kids. You must share your snacks with other kids if they show an interest. Snacks may not be eaten once they fall in the sandbox, and sand may not be eaten either. You must clap after other kids successfully go down the slide or after someone sings a song, and you may expect other kids to clap for you, but you may not force them to clap for you. You must show interest in new babies in infant carriers, but you may only touch softly. The infants do not have to touch you softly.

Maybe I should use my legal training to draft a more formal statutory code for playgroup rules, complete with suggested criminal sentencing and civil penalties for the rule breakers and their caregivers. Hmm.

Anyway, Baby is learning these yet-to-be-codified rules surprisingly fast, but it breaks my heart to see Baby wrestling with his consuming desire to break them. When I snatch the truck away to give it back to Playgroup Buddy, he looks up at me with despair in his eyes, especially since, just as often, I'm taking the truck away from PB and giving it to him. Poor guy. I used to always be on his team, and now he can't count on my anymore. It's tempting to just stick up for him every time: take all the toys and pile them in front of him, steal snacks for him out of the other mom's diaper bags, etc. Hey, as long as the rules aren't written down, what are they going to do to us?

Instead of attending today's Activities Committee meeting . . .

Baby likes ramps. He likes to run down handicap acessibility ramps at a high speed toddle. If I squat at the bottom of the ramp with my arms out, he will hurl himself into my arms. This makes us both very happy, and we could probably repeat this process for hours without getting bored.

Kozy Shack

Today I ate an entire tub of rice pudding. I wouldn't consider myself a binge eater, but if there is a tub of Kozy Shack rice pudding in my fridge, I will eat it all.

I never plan on eating it all at once. In fact, I try not to eat it all at once. I get out a tiny bowl and a tiny spoon, I put a tiny serving into the bowl, I replace the lid, I put it in the back of the fridge, and I eat it my little dessert. Then I immediately wash my bowl and spoon and leave the kitchen to do something else. Ten minutes later I'm back in there, repeating the process. After I've had three bowls, the tub is more than halfway gone anyway, so I just give up and eat it straight out of the container, hoping Husband won't notice that it's missing from the fridge.

I guess I feel a little piggish after the whole process is over and I'm staring into the empty container ("Serves 6. Huh."). But, actually, I don't really feel too bad. I do this, I don't know, maybe four times a year. Other than this, my eating habits are pretty good: whole grains, lean proteins, and all that. I don't turn to the Kozy Shack to cope with depression or anything. Any guilt I feel about consuming six servings of dairy fat and simple sugars is overwhelmed by the reeling pleasure I get from this fabulous food. This afternoon is a beautiful memory for me, it really is.

Gluttony is sexy when it is restricted to only one food item.

Lurking Variables

Sometimes it's hard to distinguish motherhood from getting old. Most of the friends I talk to on a regular basis are moms of toddlers, but they are also all between 25 and 30. So there's this age variable lurking in the changes we notice in ourselves and one another. For example, I used to be a night person. Now I am a morning person. I didn't go from being a nighttime party animal to a 5 am aerobiciser, but I'm pretty sure I'm crankier at night than I used to be, and I'm less snarly in the morning than I used to be. This change roughly coincided with the birth of my child, and a lot of my other mommy friends feel like they've changed the same way.

Is there something about Baby that makes me less of a night person? Maybe his infant 2-hour feeding schedule beat out my tendency to burn the midnight oil. Maybe his constant toddling during the day wears me out faster than anything else I've ever done.

Or maybe I'm just getting old and I need my sleepies.

Another thing: I can't deal with scary anymore. I never really liked scary movies, but ever since Baby came along, even the DVD covers of scary movies disturb me. I feel about a hundred times more vulnerable than I used to. To offer a little perspective, I will tell you all the movie I watched on Halloween when I wanted to give myself a spooky zing: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Seriously, it's embarrassing. Baby? Age? Heightened exposure to television media?

And one more thing. My dentures need cleaning twice as often as they used to.

Just kidding. I don't wear dentures. I'm gumming along without them.

The Happiest Lady in the World

Here's the amazing thing about being a new-ish mom: Tons of Bad Things happen to you, things that no one can prepare you for because there are so many, and there's really no way of knowing which particular one will rock you the most. I thought I was tough as nails, but I surprised myself with how tooth-grindingly difficult it was for me to let my baby cry until he fell asleep in hiccuping exhaustion. I have never yet met a mom who wasn't totally blind-sided about some aspect of motherhood.

This morning as I was contemplating my saggy belly, I was thinking about when a woman is truly ready to have a baby. When I stopped taking my little packs of pills, I'm pretty sure I didn't think, "yes, I'm ready to say goodbye to my body, my peace of mind, my clear-headedness, my traditional career, my social life, and my independence."

I'm pleased to report, however, that I would have Baby again in a heartbeat. Right now he is padding around and around the kitchen table in his little mocassins, wagging his head from side to side and singing "ma ma ma ma." It is heart-breakingly cute. It's easy to say it's all worth it right now. Yesterday, Baby reached his hand into his poopy pants smeared his findings across his face, his clothes, and the carpet. I'd prefer to believe that he didn't get any in his mouth, but just between us, I'm not totally sure. Was it worth it even then, while Baby screamed and hung on my sweatpants and I scrubbed poop off of my carpet with a fistful of wet wipes? I have to admit, I had a brief picture of myself striding up the steps off a pillared courthouse in a tailored dry-clean only suit, carrying a tiny purse and a legal pad in manicured hands. No loans, new car, clean house, hot body . . .

Nope, still not worth it. That's how delirious with happiness this Baby makes me. I want to be completely clear about this. When I am confronted with dozens of Bad Things that I've never confronted before, I will tend to emphasize them. I think they are funnier/more interesting/humbler(?) than an uninterrupt stream of bliss. But the truth is that I am happy, so happy.

Family Vacation

Even without the groovy city of Seattle, the overdue visits with family and friends, and the unspeakably beautiful Northwestern fall scenery, our recent week-long vacation was an unqualified success: Baby learned the following things:

When he sees fish, he says "fshshshsh"

When he sees anything else impressive he says "o-o-o-o-oh!"

When he hears his Raffi CD, he responds to the "Brush Your Teeth" song with the appropriate actions and sound effects.

When he is allowed out of his stroller, he holds onto the side of it and pushes it along. This is a slow way to move down a sidewalk, but it gives him exercise, keeps him close, quells tantrums, and it's cute.

When other toddlers try to hug him to say they're sorry for knocking him down, he tolerates it.

When he asks for a cracker ("caw-caw?") he gives Mom adequate time to dig through the diaper bag to find one--or, if a cracker cannot be located, to change the subject to something equally enthralling.

When he doesn't like the food he is given, rather than howl, he rubs it into his hair, knowing that Mom will remove the offending food item just as quickly.

He feeds animals at petting zoos.

He sleeps for extended periods of time in locations other than his Provo bedroom: ten hours at his aunt's house and six hours in his car seat with no interruptions.

Dishwashing thoughts on a law school regret

One of the lectures in my international law class was about multi-party negotiations. The professor decided to illustrate the point of how multi-party negotiations were virtually impossible by giving the class a negotiation where a decision could not be reached without unanimity. At first she tried doing something with dividing money among the people in the class, but she only used ten one-dollar bills, and we quickly decided as a class to send someone across the street to the creamery to buy us all root beer floats.

Obviously the stakes weren't high enough. Law students care deeply about money--can we say student loans?--but ten dollars wasn't enough to really start a negotiation. We needed higher stakes. This professor knew that another thing (the only other thing?) law students care deeply about is law school grades. She told us that if we could unanimously decide our grades for the class as long as we used a 3.3 median. There were thirteen people in the class. If seven would agree to get 3.3's for the course, then the rest of the class could get 4.0's.

Most professors adhere to the 3.3 median rule by grading on a simple bell curve. Many people get 3.3's, one gets a 4.0, and a couple of students fail with a 2.6 or lower. I'd guess that no one in that class had ever gotten a 4.0 in a law school course.

This professor was a gutsy lady. She taught the feminism and the race relations class at Brigham Young University, after all (loved them!).

What followed was a nail biter of a negotiation. There was only one issue, and there was no range of values. Either you agreed to take the 3.3 or you held out for the 4.0. One by one, students agreed to take a 3.3. One student was a transfer student, and she just needed to pass anyway. Another student admitted that even a 3.3 could only improve his GPA. Another student was a lawyer seeking continuing legal education credit who just needed to pass. Another student said she'd be willing to do it just to see if the professor would really hold to her promise to skip the final exam. One student did it just to be nice.

After five students had agreed to take 3.3's in the course, the discussion turned personal. The students were actively seeking out those who shouldn't care whether or not they got a 4.0 in the course. A girl turned to me and said, "What are your plans after graduation, Ms. Portia?" She looked pointedly at my six months' worth of pregnant belly.

"Having my baby," I said confidently. Why didn't I just stop there? Why didn't I actually make the girl try to convince me that a woman who has a baby immediately after law school has less of a reason to deserve good grades in law school than a woman who graduated single and virginal like her taut-bellied self? Instead I continued, "But, um, that doesn't mean that I don't need good grades because, you know, someday, I might need to get a job, and I need a good transcript from law school, right?" That was it: My one fleeting chance in law school to publicly defend my decision to attend law school, succeed in law school, and work full-time for my husband and my baby and not for the American justice system. And I pretty much flubbed it.

I was thinking today about why I regret my missed opportunity to take a stand for educated motherhood, but I don't regret my missed opportunity to take a stand for fair and accurate grading of knowledge and ability in a law school course. We were basically assigning grades based on who was kind enough or apathetic enough to accept an undeserved 3.3. I don't think anyone mentioned any qualms about how ridiculous this was.

Frankly, this didn't bother me in the least. After two and a half years of law school, one thing I'd absolutely learned was that grades, while not exactly arbitrary, weren't fair. Why not base grades on students' kindness, apathy, or stubbornness? Was that really all that different from exams based on attendance? Exams based on your tolerance for sleep deprivation? Your typing speed? The accuracy of your bootlegged lecture transcript? (Sidenote: I had excellent attendance, a high tolerance for sleep deprivation, a zippy typing speed, a famously accurate lecture transcript).

Also, I secretly suspected that there was no way this professor would let us get away with it. Things like that didn't happen in law school. There were rules against antics like these. In the end, one of the deans reread the 3.3 median rule, and determined that our method of assigning grades was against law school rules, and we would have to take a final comprehensive exam. On which I got a 3.8, thank you very much.

And really, isn't that how lawyers roll? They don't really worry too much about the higher moral implications of their arguments because (1) the world of the law is pretty immoral and unfair to begin with, and (2) in the end, if you get too crazy, someone always steps in to keep things predictable, if not necessarily fair.

Some thoughts on changing seasons

Fall in Provo is pretty darn terrific. The weather is almost always perfect, and when it's not, it's never that bad. Yep. I'm sure enjoying the fall.

I'm getting ready for winter food. I love late summer food: zucchini, garden tomatoes, corn on the cob, etc. But when you have a lot of friends and family with Provo backyard gardens, you get your fill of it really fast. There are only so many ways to consume 20 pounds of fresh tomatoes. On to winter food: pot roast, mashed potatoes, hot chocolate, etc.

I used to also like fall for the clothes. I love wool pants and cashmere twin sets. I think it's a preference I picked up in law school when I realized I didn't have to continue wearing my Provo High sweatshirt anymore and I could start dressing like a grown up. The problem is that those clothes are dry-clean only. My baby is an average baby as far as tidiness is concerned, but that still means that dry-clean only clothes are not gonna happen. Even if I steer clear of Baby's high chair, he's still going to find a way to use my sweater as a Kleenex, napkin, towel, barf bag, or wet wipe. So the wool pants and twin sets stay in the box that they've lived in ever since I got pregnant. I wear sweatshirts and jeans.

I'm pleased to announce that the Provo High sweatshirt still fits just fine.