Chewing Gum in the Shower

Yesterday I was feeling a little broke, so I started to mentally list the things that I loved to do which were free or cheap. Chewing gum in the shower topped the list. I love to chew gum in the shower. Is that gross of me?

If you've never chewed gum in the shower, you should. (This thing is fun, and fun is good).

Eating junk food while watching late night television was also on the list. I can't remember what else was on the list. It wasn't that long of a list.

Babysitters Club day

I can still tell you every permanent member of the Babysitters Club. There's the originals: Kristy, Claudia, Mary Anne, and Stacey. Then there are the members who get added on in the later books: Dawn, Mallory, and Jessie. I think Mary Anne's boyfriend Logan becomes an honorary member at some point. I promise, I haven't picked up one of those books for at least seventeen years, and I haven't been reading those books to Baby. I don't think I was really obsessed with them either. I'd admit it if I had been, I really would.

Isn't it weird what you remember from the time you're a kid? Doesn't it sort of freak you out when you realize that you can still sing every word of every song from "The Little Mermaid," but you can't remember what happened on last week's episode of "The Office" (just kidding, I could NEVER forget what happened last week on "The Office")? But, you get my point, right?

Today reminded me of a Babysitters Club book. It was about Kristy's younger step-sister, Karen (why why WHY do I remember her name) who has a really bad day. She spends the whole day counting all the horrible things that happen to her, and in the end of the book, her mom takes her out for ice cream, which evens the scales slightly. Oh, sorry, I should have given a spoiler alert.

I had a really horrible day. I was depressed like only a stay-home mom can be depressed, and ain't nobody can be depressed like a stay-home mom. And then at about 7:30 or so, things started looking up. And now, here I am, happy as a clam.

It helped that I was able to watch "The Office." With a bowl of ice cream. And a biggish lump of cookie dough.

Fire Marshall

Husband is officially the fire safety coordinator of his floor at the law firm. I think this is hilarious. Sometimes when I'm having a bad day, I think about this and I start to giggle. Here is a list of things that are NOT true about being fire marshall but that I WISH were true about being fire marshall:

1) Everyone has to use the title "Fire Marshall" when they address him
2) He is going to stage a fake fire in the building that everyone thinks is a real fire and which will result in a mandatory CPR course for the people in his office where further highjinks will ensue
3) He has to wear a badge and a fire hat to work every day
4) He got this job because his real name is Nerdy Von Nerditron and he constantly talks about what a good hall monitor he was in elementary school

Poor Husband to have such a mean, mean wife. Maybe I'll make him feel better by giving him a greater position on prestige in our home. I know: I'll strip Baby of the title of Apartment Fire Marshall and give that to Husband instead.

Subtraction

I have a little friend whose favorite subject in school is subtraction. She is seven years old. As I was dying of boredom today, trying to model proper napping behavior to Baby, I started thinking about subtraction. When I compare subtraction to addition, division, and multiplication, I think it's my favorite.

Now, for the family of talkative math enthusiasts who read this blog, I respectfully request that you (temporarily) mentally block everything you feverishly studied from 4th grade on. Try to remember how you felt about "math" back in elementary school when your teacher would give you mimeographed worksheets of arithmatic for homework. There were no negative numbers, no imaginary numbers, not even any fractions or decimals. Just sturdy round numerals lined up in neat little stacks.

Addition was easy. Stack five blocks on six blocks and you get eleven blocks. Add three more and you get fourteen blocks. Subtraction was a little more interesting. Instead of stacking blocks, you were knocking them off, sending them to block heaven. It took a little more thinking than plain old addition. Let's face it: It still takes a little more thinking. All that borrowing from the tens column to subtract from the ones column. That's tricky stuff. But it's usually not too tricky to do in your head.

Multiplication was pretty cool for a while, but after you memorized your times tables, well, then it was just spitting out the memorized answer. And if it was something you didn't memorize, like double or triple digit multiplication, it was just plain hard to do. It wasn't something that you'd want to do in your head unless you were my dad, who could do anything in his head.

And division was a pain from the very beginning. You were supposed to use backwards multiplication for short division, which made you go cross-eyed. And for long division, you were supposed to employ a senseless torturous process that involved arrows and "remainders." Blech.

Yes, subtraction. Still my favorite.

Stroller Rage

New York City brings out a psychological phenomenon in otherwise mellow mothers. We call it stroller rage.

I've never had road rage. In fact, I don't understand road rage. People who suffer from road rage confuse me. When I drove, if I yelled and screamed while driving, it was because I accidentally turned onto a one-way road or something. I cause road rage, I don't suffer from road rage.

When I'm pushing Baby around the city, there are some areas of the city that I have learned to avoid. Times Square is one of them. When I'm walking Baby in Times Square, I turn into a mean, mean person who does mean, mean things. Let's say you're a young bachelor who is desperately in love with his lovely girlfriend. You decide to take her to take her on a super-date to New York City. While wandering around Times Square you realize that Times Square would be the perfect place to present your girlfriend with the engagement ring that you've been carrying around in your pocket for weeks. You stop. You take a long look into Girlfriend's eyes. You clutch both of her hands. You step away, and drop to one knee.

Suddenly your clutch on Girlfriend's hands is wrenched apart by a swinging diaper bag. Before you know it, a mom and baby come between the two of you. Your moment, the moment you had hoped to relate to your grandchildren, is ruined forever. As you stare at this heartless woman, disappearing through the crowded, you hear her yelling over her shoulder, "This is New York City, buddy. Six million of us actually use the sidewalks to MOVE."

That woman is me.

Making scents of it all

It's a teensy bit dorky to title an entry with a pun, but it makes me feel witty, and I'm the boss around here.

I don't wear perfumes very often. I love scents, and I remember and respond to aromas as much as the next human being, but I guess I just haven't found a perfume that smells the way I want to smell all the time.

Right now my apartment smells like coconut curry. We had Indian food for dinner. It is a lovely smell when it comes steaming out of a kitchen, but it is not lovely when it clings to clothes and people. One time in high school I gave my friend a hug and she smelled like curry. I remember thinking it was gross.

I had a boyfriend once who always smelled like the hand soap that BYU used in all of its dispensers. BYU's soap wasn't bad smelling, it was just generically soapy. I'm glad he was so meticulous about washing his hands, but he must have really piled that soap on because he always, always smelled like that. Looking back, I think there was something kind of unsexy about that smell. Maybe that's why BYU used it.

You know what smells kind of good? Sweaty babies. Not sweaty kids, they stink almost as bad as sweaty adults. But babies, when they're still little milk monsters who wear over-warm jammies with feet attached, mmm-mmm. Go find one who just woke up from a hot afternoon nap. Find one whose mom bathes him pretty often but who doesn't lather him up with scented lotions and powders. Just bury your nose into his armpit and breathe in deep.

I know someone who naturally smells like unbuttered, unsalted popcorn, but not too strongly. That's a pretty good way to smell, day in and day out. But if I smelled that in a perfume bottle, I think it would turn my stomach. Actually, if I found a perfume called "popcorn" I don't think I'd open it.

From the Grouch Couch

It's really hard to plan fun activities to toddlers or cub scouts when you are a cranky mess.

Someone needs a snack and a nap, and it's not Baby.

Ash Wednesday

I don't think I ever saw anyone recognize Ash Wednesday with a ash mark on their forehead while we lived in Provo. I had read about it, but I didn't know it was really ever practiced. Well, it is in New York. I've probably seen twenty people today with the ash marks on their foreheads, including a stilettoed and iPhoned twenty-something, a homeless woman, and an NYPD officer.

Even though my religion doesn't commemorate Ash Wednesday in any particular way, I find the practice quite wonderful. I love seeing people showing outward signs of inward religious beliefs.

Nowadays, I think it also shows courage for a person to do so. It probably doesn't take quite so much courage in New York City where there are so many people from different religions milling around. I rarely notice anymore when I ride the subway with Muslim women wearing headscarves or Hasidic Jews wearing beards and side curls. If I do notice I enjoy it very much.

What I Loved about the Oscars

There were more than a couple of things I hated about the Oscars this year, but right now I'm basking in a post-Oscar glow that is overwhelmingly positive. Here are the highlights of the 2008 Oscars for me:

The hot chocolate, doughnuts, and ice cream that I inhaled while the glitterati of Hollywood had to endure a six-hour fast in the Kodak theater

The list of movies coming out in 2009 (which I can look forward to Netflixing in 2010)

Hugh Jackman's joyfulness and Australian-ness

The shout-outs to the actors and movies that weren't nominated for anything (which made the nominees look pretty good, by comparison)

Tina Fey plus Steve Martin

Freida Pinto's blue dress

The Meryl Streep worship

The realization that Amanda Seyfried had three simultaneous fathers in Mama Mia! and three simultaneous mothers in Big Love

The accountants from PricewaterhouseCoopers taking a cute nerdy stroll down the red carpet

Home Decorating

Today I framed six little pictures to hang in the hallway of my apartment. It's 2:15 in the afternoon, I have a sink full of dirty dishes, I haven't prepared my cub scout den meeting, I haven't ironed Husband's pants, I haven't SHOWERED, but I am content. See, that's the nice thing about being completely inept, craft-wise. The small victories give an enormous sense of accomplishment.

I don't have much excuse for being such a home decorating idiot. As a rules-following Utah Mormon girl, I have probably received more training in this area than 95% of U.S. women. I have hot glued ruffles on things that should never have ruffles. Things like toilet seats. I have painted and written on wooden blocks of every conceivable shape and size: a pumpkin for "Happy fall, y'all," a rainbow for "Every day is a gift," a sled for "Whooshing you a Merry Christmas." Now that I think of it, that rainbow was pretty darn gay-rights/AIDS-awareness for an ultra-conservative Mormon youth group. Maybe it's still in my parent's basement somewhere.

My apartment, which should be cluttered with wooden wall hangings and potpourri sachets, is cluttered with toy cars and peas. The peas aren't always there: Baby got a little carried away with his lunch. I'll clean them up after I take a shower. The toy cars are always there.

Quote from my sister' phone call

"Oh look, there's money under my rug! But it's not American money. It's Swedish money, and the rug's from IKEA. Maybe the rug created it."

Preschool

You might call it a preschool or you might call it a loosely organized babysitting co-op. I call it a preschool because I dig it when the other kids call me "Teacher."

Every Tuesday and Thursday, Baby and I get up at the crack of dawn and hustle to the Upper West Side for preschool. Five moms trade off hosting a week's worth of preschool in exchange for a month's worth of toddler-less Tuesday and Thursday mornings. It's a good trade in theory, although it's complicated by snow storms, germs, and conflicting schedules. In our four weeks of preschool, there's really only been two days where I've been able to enjoy alone time.

With a little bit of advance planning, hosting preschool for two and three-year-olds can be a total kick. As long as they're well-rested and well-supplied with graham crackers, they'll be up for anything. When I started running out of ideas, I just made them spin around in circles until they fell down. While I was spinning I got another idea (jumping on a mini-trampoline with toy cars). Baby is a little behind the others in his ability to sit still and listen to a story or learn a lesson, but he's getting better.

The best preschool moment, I think, was the week that we made noodle necklaces. When the moms came to pick the kids up, one of the boys told his mom to kneel down and bow her head. Then he pulled the noodle necklace out from behind his back, placed it over her head, and said, "Mommy, this is a present for you. You look beautiful." Then he kissed her on the forehead. I should add that he did all of this according to the strict instructions that I gave him while we were stringing the uncooked rigatoni on the dental floss. We even practiced. Am I the best preschool teacher ever or what?

True Beauty

I'm kind of lacking ideas to blog about today. Maybe I've been watching too much reality TV (hello? can we say embarrassing guilty pleasure?). I was going to do one of those list-y blog-y things where in the end you tag 200 people who are supposed to do the list-y blog-y things on their respective blogs, but I don't even have an interest in that today. My blog will remain a list-y blog-y virgin for yet another day.



Yeah, it must by the reality TV. Has anyone seen that new "True Beauty" show? After I watched the first episode, I got off the couch and slipped on the pile of brains that fell out of my head during the hour that I had watched it. Did I watch it again the next week? Yes, yes I did. I could give my excuses (nothing else on TV, DVD player maddeningly broken), but that fact remains that I watched it.



The idea of the show is that the contestants think they are being judged on their outer beauty, but they are actually being judged their outer beauty plus on . . . something else. The hosts say it's actually their inner beauty, but I'm not sure that's what it is. Basically, the judges watch all of the hidden video of those two contestants looking for moments when they fail to throw away litter or they belch really loudly. The person who does the greatest number of bad things gets kicked off and the person who does the fewest number lives to belch another day.



So, you see, at the end of the show, we will know who of this group of reality TV wanna-be stars was either the person with the fewest awkward moments or was so fabulously gorgeous that their inner beauty was never called into question.



I happen to think that "True Beauty" is actually based on a concept with a lot of potential. I mean, inner beauty, that's a pretty interesting topic and arguably one that has been fascinating smart people (people like, ahem, myself) for ages and ages. College courses are taught on the subject (although they are typically given names like "Philosophy 301: Ethics"). If someone gives hugs and snuggles to a complete stranger who falls off his bike, what does that mean, really? If someone who hardly has any money donates some of it to a fake charity, what does that mean?



I would have failed a lot of the inner beauty tests that the show sets up. When grown man falls off a bike, I honestly think, "you know, the biggest injury that guy just took was the hit to his pride, so I'm just going to walk on by and pretend that he did that on purpose." When someone at a table in a public place asks me to donate to their charity, I occasionally donate, but I usually don't. There may be people who live in the middle of New York City who give money to everyone on the street who asks for it, but I'm not one of them.

When I tabulate the multiplicity of ugly points to my character, my failure to donate to table-charities actually falls pretty low on the list. In fact, my tendency to watch pathetic reality TV shows comes a lot higher on the list than my failure to donate. Do I have my priorities mixed up?

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.