De Stijl

And the Blocks were on Two Shelves, Not Three!

2009-09-12T10:47:00.003-04:00

Nora just started at a new school, which was, of course, a major transition. We checked out numerous books from the library about first days of school and new schools, visited the school, all that good stuff.

Nora was very excited before her first day -- to the point of being ready to go about half an hour early -- but got quieter and quieter on the way there and was well and truly freaked by the time we got there. But after five or ten minutes of getting used to the space she was reasonably cool with our leaving for work, and she seems to have had a great day.

At dinner, we had this conversation:

VICTORIA: Well, was school like you expected it would be or was it different?

NORA: Oh, it was so different! It was not the same at all.

PHIL: Wow! How was it different?

NORA: Well! The bathroom is NOT inside the classroom.

VICTORIA: ........

PHIL: .......

Nora the Uncouth

2009-08-28T20:03:00.002-04:00

[SCENE: Ext., Shadyside]

NORA: And so long to that snooty old restaurant! [ed.: that we walked by, not where we ate.]

VICTORIA: What's snooty about it? I don't think it's snooty.

NORA: It just is! It's SO snooty!

VICTORIA: Where did you get the idea that it's snooty?

NORA: My tummy told me.

The Cross-Cultural Appeal of Knitting Literature: An Anthropological Vignette

2009-07-09T01:25:00.003-04:00

PHIL: Hey, I know a lot about yarn!

VICTORIA: I'm sure you do, honey.

PHIL: I know alpaca.

VICTORIA: Yes, there is such a thing.

PHIL: And I know that silk has to be blended with another fiber in order for it to stretch.

VICTORIA: ????!

PHIL: See, I do know a lot about yarn.

VICTORIA: How the hell do you know that?

PHIL: I read that book about knitting with silk and cotton and things that aren't wool.

VICTORIA: You read No Sheep For You?! Why on earth would you read No Sheep For You? I haven't even read that yet. How have you read a knitting book I haven't read?

PHIL: It had a naked lady on the cover.

VICTORIA: Ahhhhhhhh. Okay. That makes sense.

Next She'll Be Complaining About Osteoporosis

2009-07-07T09:57:00.002-04:00

NORA: I'm four-and-a-half!

VICTORIA: That's right.

NORA: That means that I'm between plain four and five.

VICTORIA: That's right.

NORA: That means I'm middle-aged!

Nora and Salvador Dali Tell a Knock-Knock Joke

2009-07-01T11:15:00.001-04:00

NORA: Knock-Knock!

VICTORIA: Who's there?

NORA: Strawberry.

VICTORIA: Strawberry who?

NORA: Strawberry you glad I didn't say computer?

The Ethnically Insensitive Toy Grows Up

2009-06-24T08:55:00.002-04:00

So this morning, Nora was playing with Alphabet Pal, "the toy that says every ethnic slur but wop!," when she suddenly got very excited:

NORA: Mommy! Daddy! Guess what!

PHIL: What?

NORA: Alphabet pal just hung from a leaf in the shape of an upside-down "j"! And he made a cocoon! So that means that he is going to be a moth, and not a butterfly!

(Some children are obsessed with dinosaurs, and not that she's not obsessed with dinosaurs, but holy crap, the lepidoptera. No one but no one gets as excited about the ubiquitous cabbage white as this girl!)

Nora on Gummy Candy

2009-06-19T11:00:00.002-04:00

[SCENE: Ext., Carnegie Science Center. NORA and VICTORIA are sharing a box of Swedish Fish.]

NORA: What flavor are the orange ones?

VICTORIA: Orange. Orange gummy things are almost always orange flavored.

NORA: And the red ones?

VICTORIA: Cherry. Usually red gummies are cherry or strawberry. I guess sometimes they're watermelon. The yellow ones are lemon and the green ones are lime.

NORA: Occasionally, the green ones are basil!

VICTORIA: ...........

Pfffffft

2009-06-01T17:13:00.002-04:00

Signature sandwich my ass. I will lay my beefsteak tomato sandwich against your pimiento cheese monstrosity any day of the week.

In other news, I am a monster of charcuterie. Just ask me.

Nora Tells a Knock-Knock Joke

2009-04-22T11:36:00.001-04:00

NORA: Knock knock!

VICTORIA: Who's there?

NORA: Orange.

VICTORIA: Orange who?

NORA: The kind of orange that you eat!

Nora the Music Critic

2009-04-20T10:05:00.002-04:00

Nora on Stars: "The night does not start right in the middle of the day!"

Nora on the Rolling Stones: "Mommy, you were not born in a crossfire hurricane! That's not true! Stop singing that!"

Nora on Sarah Vaughan: "Well, I'm just not sure why they can't take that away from her."

Nora the Carnivore

2009-04-11T17:58:00.002-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Whole Foods, Meat Counter.]

NORA: Mom, I think every day should be a meat holiday.

[The CUSTOMER in line in front of VICTORIA and NORA snorts.]

VICTORIA: And what, exactly is a meat holiday?

NORA: Well! It is a holiday where you eat nothing but meat all day long!

CUSTOMER: I can get behind that!

[SCENE: Maison de Stijl.]

VICTORIA [to PHIL]: Nora told me that she thinks every day should be a meat holiday. What's a meat holiday, Nora?

NORA: Well! It's a holiday, and it's a day where you eat a lot of meat! But ACTUALLY, I think every day should be a BACON holiday.

PHIL: You are definitely my daughter.

VICTORIA: I tried to get Mommy to buy you and me chocolate-covered bacon at Whole Foods, you know.

Somewhere, Couthness Was Repealed at a Convention I Wasn't Invited To

2009-03-26T20:11:00.003-04:00

[SCENE: Le Target, Cafe. NORA is eating. A RANDOM GEEZER is sitting at the next table. VICTORIA puts a little popcorn on a napkin for NORA.]

RANDOM GEEZER: Is she going to eat all that popcorn?

VICTORIA: [slightly taken aback] Um, I don't know. It's up to her.

NORA [to RANDOM GEEZER]: I forgot, are you Jewish or are you Christian?

VICTORIA: [more than slightly taken aback]: NORA!

Nora Sets Me Straight About That Monkey

2009-03-16T23:57:00.001-04:00

VICTORIA: Hey, Nora! It's Litigious George!

NORA: (exasperated) No, Mommy, it's Curious George.

VICTORIA: Not Litigious George?

NORA: No, he's not litigious. He doesn't go around suing everyone, you know.

This Was Inevitable

2009-03-12T23:35:00.002-04:00

First Ravelry, now Facebook. I officially blame Craig. Not for the knitting social network. For the other one.

If you would like to find me but can't, it's probably because my search settings are somewhat restrictive. Just drop me a line through the usual channels and we can be all Facebook friendly and stuff.

Nora the Chef

2009-03-10T20:40:00.002-04:00

VICTORIA: We stopped at the grocery store so that we could get something quick to cook for dinner. Most of what we have in the house would take a long time!

NORA: Oh! What are we going to cook?

VICTORIA: Chicken. It was on sale. I'm going to make fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and either asparagus or broccoli.

[NORA thinks for a moment.]

NORA: Perhaps you should pan-fry it. That would be a delicious way to cook the chicken.

In Which My Daughter Pretends To Be AIG

2009-03-04T07:52:00.002-05:00

The other day Phil was sorting some coins to be rolled. Nora helped and apparently she was quite helpful -- sorting, counting, and paying a lot of attention to the task. So when they were done, Phil gave Nora the leftover pennies -- about seventeen cents or so. This delighted Nora. It delighted Nora so much that she gave Phil a dollar bill from her piggy bank to pay him for the pennies.

PHIL: I can't take this, munchkin. It's worth a lot more than your pennies.

NORA: But I want to give it to you!

PHIL: And I wanted to give you the pennies for helping me. They're yours. You don't need to pay me for them.

NORA: That's okay! I want you to have the dollar!

PHIL: Nora, this dollar bill is worth one hundred of those pennies. You only have seventeen pennies.

NORA: I will make it up on volume!

New Horizons in Children's Fashion

2009-02-26T07:32:00.002-05:00

I think there needs to be some sort of thing preschoolers and toddlers can wear that says "I picked out all my clothes and dressed myself today!" Maybe a jaunty hat or an applique. I guess a pin would be the most user-friendly. To be most effective, whatever it is would need to come in colors that have never come in nature and never will, except maybe in anglerfish. Think lime green and chartreuse and horrific shades of electric puce.

(Oh, since you asked: 1.) pink Valentine's Day pants with red, white and pink hearts; 2.) two shirts worn skater-style -- one a purple thermal shirt, one a yellow T-shirt with a tabby cat looking for a butterfly; and 3.) gray, purple, and blue argyle socks. Try wrapping your mind around that.

Hormun's Hermits

2009-02-25T00:58:00.002-05:00

VICTORIA: Hiya, Norepinephrine.

NORA: I'm not Nora Epinephrine! I'm Nora Gwoce G-R-O-C-E!

VICTORIA: I know that, silly goosekins! I was just making a joke because norepinephrine sounds a little like Nora.

NORA: What's norepinephrine?

VICTORIA: It's a hormone your body makes.

NORA: What's a hormun? What does it do?

VICTORIA: Oh, geez, I'm not sure exactly what norepinephrine does. I always get them confused. Something to do with your nervous system.

NORA: I know a great hormun MY body makes!

VICTORIA: Really?

NORA: Yeah! It's called SINGING hormun. You see, well, you go like this -- LA LA LA LA LA! -- and that's how you make singing hormun!

VICTORIA: That is a much cooler hormone than norepinephrine. But not one you will find in a biology book, unfortunately.

NORA: Sing, sing along!

Hair is for No

2009-02-23T10:50:00.001-05:00

Nora: Wow, Mommy! I like your hair today. It makes you look like a Lambeosaurus!

Not Everything Garners This Much Enthusiasm

2009-02-19T20:36:00.001-05:00

Nora: "I just put on my underwear! Holy cow! This is great!"

Glad We Cleared That Up

2009-02-17T17:47:00.002-05:00

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl, Chambre.]

NORA: What's the first letter in Cat Tai?

VICTORIA: Well, "C" is the first letter in "cat," and "T" is the first letter in "Tai."

NORA: No, I meant the kind that is sushi, not the kind that is our cat. How do you spell that Tai?

VICTORIA: Oh, honey, that kind of tai is not a cat. It's red snapper. But it's spelled the same way, t-a-i.

NORA: Oh!

VICTORIA: What did you think you were eating?!

My Child is Macabre, Pt. 483

2009-02-05T16:51:00.003-05:00

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl. NORA and VICTORIA are lying around in the bed. NORA is wearing a shirt with strawberries on it, while VICTORIA is wearing a black shirt.]

VICTORIA: I know what I would like to eat. I would like a strawberry from your shirt!

NORA: No. Those are not edible.

VICTORIA: Oh.

NORA: Hey, you know what I would like to eat? Blackness from YOUR shirt!

VICTORIA: I don't think that's edible either.

NORA: Then maybe I will eat skin! (giggles uncontrollably)

VICTORIA: ..........

Also, Nora has ordered me to write, "Of course, I love my Norasaur!" She also wanted me to write "Bob Loblaw," though I'm guessing not spelled in the Law Blog way.

Some Things That Would Not Have Been Good Super Bowl Drinking Games

2009-02-02T22:41:00.002-05:00

1.) Drink every time the commercial is not from Budweiser, Frito-Lay, Pepsi, or NBC.

2.) Drink every time the commercial makes someone in the room laugh, like, genuinely.

3.) Drink every time John Madden says something no one had thought of yet.

4.) Drink every time Troy Polamalu saunters, meanders, or dawdles.

You Know, I'm As Stoked About Tomorrow As Anyone...

2009-01-19T17:51:00.002-05:00

...but you could seriously make an awesome** drinking game out of the number of times I have heard the phrase "first black president" today on All Things Considered.

** here I am using "awesome" to mean "you would be hung over before Marketplace and swearing (or affirming) that you would never ever drink again."

The Official De Stijl Guide to Investigative Reports That Would Perplex Me And Yet, Not

2009-01-18T20:57:00.005-05:00

1. "Inessential organs: You're not really using them. Can you get paid for them?" (Ideally, to be accompanied by video of some guy in an alley carrying a Styrofoam cooler with "SPLEEN" scrawled across it in Sharpie.)

2. "Buddha's Hands: Who actually eats these, and do they scare cats?"

3. "Mo' Money, Mo' Problems: Are Some in Your City Making This Trade-Off? Should You? The Hidden Dark Side of Mo' Money Tonight on Action News 13."

The Best Postal Service Cover Ever

2009-01-11T22:42:00.001-05:00

Witness the power and glory that are Midnight Ukulele Disco!

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Navel Gazing and Anecdotes...

2009-01-09T18:58:00.002-05:00

....for two things you ought to read.

Herewith, thing one,

And thing two.

I think they're self-explanatory. But sad.

I Consider This a Dubious Use of Allowance, But It's Not My Allowance

2009-01-07T17:59:00.003-05:00

So we were at the art supply store today buying felt to make more cat toys and portfolios to store the profusion of art that gets created in this house I-don't-know-how, and Nora decided to spend the dregs of her birthday money and three weeks of her allowance not on art supplies, but on one of these. When I commented that, given her past history, I was really expecting her to buy a little clay or some stickers, the cashier noted solemnly that at least she was going to lick Communism.

I am not really sure what to say about that except that I also saw this product today at the same store and seriously contemplated getting it for my husband. (They also make related bandages, mints, and wristbands, in case you're looking for a present for that hard-to-buy-for carnivore in your life.)

My Daughter Has Strange Ideas About Noah and That Boat

2009-01-06T23:37:00.003-05:00

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl.]

NORA: Mom, can you get me a snack?

VICTORIA: Absolutely not. You just left half of your snack an hour ago, and besides, dinner is in twenty minutes.

NORA: But I am starving!

VICTORIA: You're not going to starve in the next twenty minutes, hon. I know it's hard to wait, but dinner is going to be soon, I promise.

NORA: But I am hungrier than a Noah's Ark!

VICTORIA: ........

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl.]

NORA: I am tired. I am going to take a nap!

VICTORIA: Really?

NORA: Yes, I am really going to take a nap this time. Will you read to me?

VICTORIA: I am happy to read to you, but I don't like it when you say you're going to take a nap just to get me to read extra books. If you want to hear a book, just ask me to read. Otherwise, you need to actually rest when you ask people to take the time to put you to bed.

NORA: No, I really am going to sleep. I am sleepier than a Noah's Ark!

VICTORIA: ......

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl.]

VICTORIA: Thanks for helping me put away those decorations, girlfriend.

NORA: You're welcome, Mommy! Now I will beat you down the stairs!

VICTORIA: I did not realize we were racing.

[NORA runs down the stairs.]

NORA: See, Mommy? I beat you!

VICTORIA: Yup, you sure did, sweetie.

NORA: Fortunately, I am faster than a Noah's Ark! Unfortunately, you are not faster than me.

VICTORIA: .........

In other news, just look what is happening this weekend. If this is half as bloodthirsty as mascot soccer, I am SO THERE. (Actually, we all know that I am there for this sort of thing no matter what, because as we learned with mascot soccer, half the fun is that there are only a very few top-tier mascots, and then it degenerates into mascots from grocery stores, pizza chains, and the Department of Transportation. High comedy indeed! And on ice?! Holy crap. This I must see.)

Is It Because I Lied When I Was Seventeen?

2008-12-19T07:20:00.005-05:00

[SCENE: Int., Voiture de Stijl. PHIL, VICTORIA, and NORA are en route to Tennessee.]

PHIL: This rain is awful.

VICTORIA: Yeah. I wonder if it's going to rain all day?

PHIL: You can check on my iPhone. Just look under my favorite links for Weather Underground.

[VICTORIA looks online and finds that, aside from a storm in the Southwest, all the precipitation in the country is following a line along the exact route we're following.]

VICTORIA: This is hilarious. [shows PHIL the map.]

PHIL: Your weather forecast by Travis!

Awesome, If You Want Dogs To Eat You

2008-12-17T21:30:00.002-05:00

I...I...I...what the focaccia?

We Don't Edgar Renteria

2008-12-16T14:48:00.002-05:00

But we Rafael Furcal.

If we had a hundred million then we'd...we'd rent them all!

The View From Here

2008-12-10T22:19:00.004-05:00

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl, Chambre. It is the morning before NORA's fourth birthday, and NORA has just tromped into PHIL and VICTORIA's room to say good morning.]

NORA: Mama, I love Dado!

PHIL: I love you too, Nora.

NORA: Dado, I love Mama!

VICTORIA: I love you too, Nora.

NORA: And I looooooooove civil disobedience!

Hoooo boy, does she ever!

Yes, spawn is now four, and is she ever four. Phil has the pictures, most of which involve candles and small children decorating chocolate cake with jelly beans and chocolate sprinkles. (The small children also helped me make homemade macaroni and cheese with Raclette and Emmenthaler, and it was, if I do say so myself, awesome.) I think we got at least one picture of Nora's birthday balloons, mostly because Nora insisted that they actually said "Happy Birthday, 4th Nora."

But I think what most sums up Nora's birthday for me was hearing the tromping of excited children upstairs, going upstairs to check on saidsame children, and seeing three children jumping on her bed, chanting in unison: "One kid at a time! One kid at a time!" I just shook my head and walked away.

They know the rules. They just.......oh, whatever. It's a party! I like a party.

Oh, and one more thing about Nora? She is almost five. "I am! Because when you are one, you are almost two. And when you are two, you are almost three. And when you are three, you are almost four. So I am four, and that means I am almost five." I figure by the transitive property of aging she is "almost paying for her own rent," which I am in favor of, though I have to admit I kind of like having her around.

Holy Crap What Is With Spawn?

2008-12-01T23:20:00.001-05:00

Are all almost-four-year-olds nuts?

Social Networking La-Dee-Dah

2008-11-25T20:46:00.002-05:00

I have finally given in and joined yet another social network. No, not that one (I'm sure I'll succumb eventually but it seems to suck up a lot of time for a lot of people I know, and if there is one thing I cannot afford it is a timesink), but Ravelry. So if you are a knitter or a crocheter or another fiber type, I am Norosaurus in honor of my favoritest dinosaur and one of my two favorite major yarnmakers. I'm also on LinkedIn (just look for me; if you're reading this you almost certainly know me personally) and Delicious, on which I'm StijlCouncil.

Back to your regularly scheduled navel gazing....

Proof I Am An Obsessive Knitter, Bad Mother, Inadequate Adult...

2008-11-24T22:42:00.004-05:00

...or all of the above.

So today I braved the grocery store to stock the larder for Thanksgiving dinner and went to a doctor's appointment, kiddo in tow because my childcare plan for the appointment fell through. On the way back I considered the dinner I was planning to cook and was resolved to put a big pot of soup on the moment I got in the door so I could get ahead on some of the household stuff until I peeked in the rearview mirror and noticed something shocking: spawn was totally falling asleep.

First thought: "Whoa." (Spawn is well past the days of a regular afternoon nap.)

Second thought: "If I take her home, she's not going to sleep. I can tell her she was obviously tired enough to fall asleep in the car so she has to take some quiet time, but that's not going to be a fun battle to fight."

Third thought: "What's the nearest place I can drive to where I can park, but still be certain she'll have rested long enough to be absolutely fast asleep? Oh, I should crank up the heat and turn up the radio now so that when I turn off the engine it'll stay warm for a while."

Let's just say I netted about forty minutes of knitting and Fresh Air out of the deal. Carpe nemam! Now I just need to push the state of the front entryway out of my mind until I get a chance to mop it.

Oh, and speaking of spawn:

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl, salle à manger.]

NORA: Dada and I built the city buses, you know.

VICTORIA: Is that so?

NORA: Yes. Dada put the tops on. He had a big ladder. And I had a smaller ladder so that I could build the rest. We built all the city buses! And we built you!

VICTORIA: You what?

NORA: We put you together with a ladder.

VICTORIA: I have a feeling my mom would be very surprised to hear that. I was born just like you were, Nora.

NORA: But then I built you to make you a big person. The workmen came and put the top of you on because I couldn't reach that high.

VICTORIA: Nora, I want you to think about something. You came out of my tummy. If you were around to build me, then how could you have grown inside my belly?

[NORA thinks for a moment.]

VICTORIA: This is what's called a paradox. Besides, I distinctly recall growing up, and there weren't any workmen involved.

NORA: But if there weren't any workmen, how did you become a big person?

(This? This is one of the questions I didn't study for before I went and had a spawn.)

Fun Things to Do with Google

2008-11-23T22:44:00.002-05:00

1.) Turn off safe search and set 100 results per page. Search for two unrelated words that sound amusing together. The goal is to find something that you and other players would think would turn up something vile and inappropriate and be pleasantly surprised when you don't get those sorts of results. If you get something x-rated, you lose. We call this game "honeycomb grandma."

2.) Take your favorite historical, economic, or political issue/organization/event. Add "conspiracy." See what comes up.

Barack Obama vs. Roller Derby

2008-11-23T08:33:00.003-05:00

So last night we took Nora to see the Steel City Derby Demons. It was a twin bill, with both the Steel Hurtin' and the B-Unit in action. (Phil: "B-Unit, as in 'B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-unit?'" Nora: "Mommy b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-u-knits!") Nora then announced that she wanted Daddy to play roller derby; when she found out that Daddy was not allowed, she asked me to play roller derby. We weren't sure what my name should be, but we're pretty sure my number should be K1P1.

Nora got into the game after a while. She started cheering. "Yay!" "Woo!" And then, at one point, she yelled at the top of her lungs what I can only presume was the most appropriate thing she could think of to cheer on Steel City:

"YES WE CAN!"

I assume the president-elect would approve of his slogan being co-opted for short-track roller derby.

Eponyms for Your Pleasure

2008-11-14T20:12:00.003-05:00

saxby (adj.) -- reminiscent of or having the qualities of a scandalous douche. Ex.: "Juxtaposing an actual war hero with pictures of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in an advertisement questioning the injured veteran's patriotism and resolve? Man, that's just a saxby thing to do."

siegenthaler (n.) -- something you read in Wikipedia that is obviously a salacious mistruth about a person. Ex.: "Yeah, I saw that in Wikipedia too, that Barack Obama went to a madrassa when he lived in Indonesia, but that's just a siegenthaler. You mean people actually believed it?" (hat tip to Phil on that one)

America

2008-11-05T11:33:00.001-05:00

Fuck yeah!

Nora Negotiates

2008-11-04T07:26:00.002-05:00

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl, Salle de Bain]

NORA: Can I take a bath?

PHIL: I'm going to take my shower first. Then, when I'm out of the shower, you can take your bath.

NORA: NO! I am the first person to be wet!

Vote

2008-11-03T21:31:00.001-05:00

Or I will kick you.

(Threats of kicking are generally against the rules here at Maison de Stijl, but I am making an exception.)

The Power of Semi-Positive Thinking

2008-10-30T08:11:00.002-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl. NORA, VICTORIA, and PHIL are eating roast chicken, rice and gravy, and acorn squash.]

PHIL: This is really good squash.

VICTORIA: Thanks!

NORA: Yeah, this is good squash. But I'm not eating it.

VICTORIA: If it's good, then why aren't you eating it?

NORA: Because I don't like it.

VICTORIA: That implies you don't think it's good.

NORA: It's actually not good. It's yucky.

VICTORIA: So don't eat it. You don't have to eat it if you don't like it.

NORA: Oh! Can I have more chicken?

PHIL: You've already had seconds. Remember, you can't have thirds until you finish up everything you started with.

[NORA eats a massive mouthful of squash.]

NORA: Maybe this isn't really yucky.

Too Many Pies, Only One Oven

2008-10-28T19:37:00.002-04:00

Apparently 60% of mothers of young children want to work part-time, as opposed to working full-time outside the home or staying at home with the kid(s) full-time. That squares well with what I've heard in-person from other moms. People ask, "What do you do?," so you give them the two-sentence summary, and if they ask to hear more about the nuts-and-bolts and the day-to-day arrangements (and they have young kids) they say something like, "That sounds heavenly! Working from home part-time? Sign me up!"

Here is what people don't know about the whole arrangement: it sucks ass.

This is not to say it doesn't have its good points. I started freelancing again because it offered a certain amount of flexibility. Daughter needs a bit of TLC? Unless I'm doing an interview or have to get some edits in before a deadline, I can spend her waking hours with her and spend the evening working. Head exploding again (and again and again)? So long as I get my work done on time and my kid gets picked up from preschool, no one (at least, no one who isn't related to me or a close friend) really cares.

But there are reasons freelancing wasn't a great fit in the first place. Those haven't changed. Plus, even though I am approximately 4.5 times as organized as I was before Spawn, there's a new wrinkle: between the nature of my job (I could honestly always be doing more), the size of my house, and the fact that my child makes 100%-extravert me seem antisocial, I never feel done with anything. I feel like a 75% mom, a 75% housekeeper, a 75% employee, a 75% friend, and a 75% volunteer. And 75% is a rotten place to be. It is close enough to decent that you feel like you really can do better, and far enough away that you always feel like you're drowning.

There's the oft-repeated advice to freelancers to close your office door and pretend work doesn't exist when you're "outside working hours," but when you have to fit about 15 to 25% of your work time into stolen moments -- moments when the spawn is otherwise occupied -- to keep up, that's not really realistic. And eventually spawn figures out that when you're on the computer, you're working and not available for fun. (Then, spawn gets angry, attempts to force herself onto your lap, and screeches, "I want to see a picture of BAWACK OBAMA! I want to see a protoceratops!" Then she threatens to spit if you remove her.) A job you can leave at the office has its good points. Flexibility not always among them, but good points nonetheless.

I'm not really sure what I'm getting at here. I'm not trying to say "parents who work full-time have it easier than those who work part-time!" or "parents who don't work have it easier than parents who do!" Unless you are one of the very small fraction of people who a.) do not work, b.) have significant amounts of child care, and c.) have significant amounts of domestic help, raising young kids is stressful no matter what your working arrangements. I think all I'm trying to say is that I'm a little sick of constantly being told that I have the perfect arrangement when it doesn't feel anything close to perfect. That's all.

On Obamania and Stereotypes

2008-10-21T19:33:00.006-04:00

As soon as Nora became aware of Barack Obama she liked to repeat his name over and over again. This is, I'm convinced, because it is a fun name for a three-year-old to say. It is ever so iambic!

She also knows what John McCain and Barack Obama look like (probably because when I am on my computer and not blogging or working I am obsessively reading FiveThirtyEight or Slate), so when I showed her this picture she was truly fascinated -- and more than a little concerned for Obama's welfare. ("That is John McCain! And Barack Obama! But what is John McCain doing to Barack Obama? He is trying to GET him! Are they playing a game?")

I did not, however, teach her how to recognize the Obama O (with the flag emblem inside). She picked that up on her own, as I discovered when I was driving somewhere with her and she announced, "Look, Mommy! That car has a flag for Barack Obama!"

Then, this weekend, Nora was helping me pack up some things for Goodwill. I had a newspaper out to read and pack things that were fragile. Nora pointed to a Pittsburgh Steeler on the front page and asked, "Is that Barack Obama?"

"Um, no," I said, and told her the name of whoever it was.

Given Nora's penchant for all things Obama, I got to thinking. Should Obama win, as FiveThirtyEight is predicting, he'll be President from the time Nora's four until she's eight. I certainly hope she gets positive messages from her neighborhood, her school, her home life, what she reads, etc., about the value of living in a diverse society. But something else that will certainly affect her perceptions of race as she gets older is that she will grow up with the status quo being that an African American policy wonk is the leader of the free world -- and for her, that'll be how it's been for the entire time she's been old enough to be aware. Despite the inherent problems of, for instance, model minority stereotyping, I have to think that's going to have a powerful impact on racial attitudes among her generation and kids who are forming their attitudes during a potential Obama administration. Whether that impact is that girls my daughter's age will attempt to use, say, passages from Lochner v. New York as pickup lines when the time comes for them to be flirting with boys remains to be seen. (According to Phil, that time is approximately 2034, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.)

It's Not Often I Get To Use My Favorite Line Twice in One Day

2008-10-19T19:33:00.003-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl. PHIL and VICTORIA have been decluttering, and NORA has been helping drive stuff to Goodwill with the help of a Koosh Ball, which she is now fiddling with on the couch.]

NORA: I am driving to pretend Goodwill!

VICTORIA: Sounds like fun.

NORA: Yeah! At pretend Goodwill, we give stuff away!

VICTORIA: Nice.

NORA: And they put itty-bitty eyes and mouths on HEDGEHOG BALLS like this one! Now we are at pretend Goodwill, and they will put a tiny mouth and eyes on this ball!

VICTORIA: Nora, do you know what a blog is?

NORA: A hedgehog.

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl. PHIL has been telling VICTORIA about a Salon interview about why the rest of the world thinks Americans are disgusting for using toilet paper.]

PHIL: ...Seriously, just Google "Washlet."

VICTORIA: "-et," or "-ette"?

PHIL: "-et." Just a warning, the website is very Japanese. I mean, it's not all "FABULOUS HAPPY WATER FOUNTAIN BUTT" with strobe lights and epilepsy, but still...

VICTORIA: Phil, do you know what a blog is?

PHIL: Oh, geez.

Nora Assesses Our Gardening Capabilities

2008-10-16T09:23:00.002-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Voiture de Stijl]

NORA: There is somebody gardening in their yard!

VICTORIA: Indeed.

NORA: Sometimes I help Dada garden. I am his gardening assistant.

VICTORIA: You sure do! I know he appreciates it.

NORA: I want to get a book about gardening from the library.

VICTORIA: We can do that. And we can also talk to people who know a lot about gardening.

NORA: Grammy and Poppy?

VICTORIA: They are very good gardeners, and so is Miss E. (the mom of one of her friends).

NORA: Miss B. (another mom she knows) is good at gardening too.

VICTORIA: Yes, she was gardening a little when we were at her house last week.

NORA: You are not very good at gardening.

VICTORIA: No, I am not.

NORA: Dada is not very good at gardening, but he's good enough.

VICTORIA: I see. That is a nuanced opinion, Nora.

Nora the Cheeky

2008-10-14T17:00:00.002-04:00

So Nora has a miniature version of a Doodle Pro that we got for a car trip to Atlanta and that now mostly lives on our refrigerator. I usually write a two- or three-letter word on there, keep it there until she's indicated that she's read the word, then write a new word on there. Every once in a while, she'll take it off the fridge and draw on it.

The other day, Nora and I watched an episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood while I brushed Nora's hair out after a bath, and I pointed out to Nora that the screen in Mr. Rogers's house said "Hi." While I was making dinner (Madeleine Kamman's cheddar and bacon souffle, yo), I wrote "Hi" on the Doodle Pro, and eventually Nora wandered in, took the Doodle Pro from the fridge, and sat down on the couch to draw.

When I came to a good stopping point, I went out to the den and asked Nora, "Did you see what was on the board?"

Without saying a word, Nora erased what she had drawn and wrote, "HI" and held it up. "Hi," she said, then went back to drawing. I just shook my head and went back to work.

Also, I am pleased to note that Nora has both internalized at least one basic principle of food snobbery and may finally be on the path to learning not to just eat salt (believe me, that has been a long, long road):

NORA: [holding up a toy measuring spoon] This has really bad ingredients for kids.

VICTORIA: What kind of ingredients?

NORA: Sea salt, and the sea salt is really bad for kids to eat.

My Child is Macabre, Pt. 482

2008-10-10T08:30:00.003-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl, Chambre. PHIL and VICTORIA and NORA are sitting on the bed as NORA cuddles BABY JANE DOE.]

NORA: My baby is hungry! [feeds JANE from a bottle.]

VICTORIA: You take good care of your baby.

NORA: Yeah, I love her! But she's a pretend baby. When I am BIG like you guys, I will have real babies!

VICTORIA: You are excited about being a mommy someday!

NORA: Yeah!

VICTORIA: Well, I look forward to seeing that.

NORA: No, you will be dead by then!

VICTORIA: Ummm, probably not. Chances are both Dada and I will be alive until long after you're grown-up.

NORA: Oh! [pause] Well, then, I want breakfast!

Nora Takes a Tumble

2008-10-08T09:51:00.001-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl]

[NORA runs and trips, falling flat on her face.]

PHIL: You okay?

NORA: [sniffling] I lost my balance!

VICTORIA: Oh, no!

NORA: It has all gone out of me!

[NORA lays on the floor for a minute or two.]

VICTORIA: You know, if you stand up, I bet your balance will be back.

NORA: Hey! It did come back!

[NORA starts running again.]

A Book That Doesn't Exist But Should

2008-10-05T15:32:00.001-04:00

The Epistemology of Global Conflict: A Knitter's Guide

Make Your Own Obnoxious Campaign Trope

2008-09-27T21:05:00.005-04:00

I started writing this during the "I have a . . . bracelet!" "Oh yeah? Well, I have a bracelet, too!" part of last night's debate. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed that every candidate for President, no matter what their party affiliation, uses the exact same formulation to show their common touch and how much "everyday Americans" want them to be President. To-whit:

"I remember listening to a story about a young woman in a small town along the Ohio River, in Meigs County, who worked in a pizza parlor," [Hillary Clinton] said during a stop in Cleveland, beginning a particularly grim tale.
"She got pregnant, she started having problems. There's no hospital left in Meigs County, so she had to go to a neighboring county. She showed up, and the hospital said, 'You know, you've got to give us $100 before we can see you.' She didn't have $100," Clinton said.
"So the young woman went back home," she continued. "The next time she went back, she was in an ambulance. It turned out she lost the baby. She was airlifted to Columbus."

She paused before concluding: "And after heroic efforts at the medical center, she died." The audience, as always, gasped.

(Source: "In Speeches, Clinton Often Veers to Dark Side," Washington Post, 4/3/2008.

Is it just Democrats? Nah.

I fight for Americans. I fight for you. I fight for Bill and Sue Nebe from Farmington Hills, Michigan, who lost their real estate investments in the bad housing market. Bill got a temporary job after he was out of work for seven months. Sue works three jobs to help pay the bills.
I fight for Jake and Toni Wimmer of Franklin County, Pennsylvania. Jake works on a loading dock, coaches Little League, and raises money for the mentally and physically disabled. Toni is a schoolteacher, working toward her master's degree. They have two sons; the youngest, Luke, has been diagnosed with autism. Their lives should matter to the people they elect to office. They matter to me.
I fight for the family of Matthew Stanley of Wolfboro, New Hampshire, who died serving our country in Iraq. I wear his bracelet and think of him every day. I intend to honor their sacrifice by making sure the country their son loved so well and never returned to remains safe from its enemies.

That's from John McCain's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, if you're keeping score.

So what if you're thinking of running for office and you don't actually have any contact with middle-class or working-class Americans? Are you doomed? Why, no! Use these handy Madlibs to create a speech that will show your empathy, your resolve, and your lack of out-of-touchness!

I understand what Americans are going through. Why, just last week I met Ralph, a struggling lawyer in Atlanta. Ralph was desperately concerned about being able to afford cases of wine, and who could blame them? What with the latest news about the economic bailout, and the situation in Russia, many people like Ralph toss and turn at night.

My opponent thinks that spending money on Social Security will solve all your problems. But it wouldn't help Ralph, and it wouldn't help Joe Bob, a single parent of one million kids in Chicago. Joe Bob despairs that the kids are learning about The Office when they're supposed to be learning about history, and that when it comes time for them to graduate, they won't be qualified to go to college or to seek work as musicians. And in the meantime, the bills for the kids' bottle openers are skyrocketing.

I understand the problems on Main Street and Dogwood Street. I understand the crushing problems facing Ralph and Joe Bob, and the problems facing you and your family. And just like Emily, a young child bravely facing measles, asked me to do when I toured the Children's Hospital in Washington, D.C., making sure that this nation is strong, looking out for working families, and tackling earmarks in Alaska will be among my top priorities when I am elected President.

Wow! I think this election's in the bag! Make your own self-consciously homespun campaign anecdote after the cut.

Here's the super-secret formula:

3 first names:
2 occupations:
3 United States cities:
1 household goods:
2 political issues:
1 country:
1 government program:
1 number:
1 popular television show:
1 school subject:
1 thing:
1 tree:
1 disease:

I understand what Americans are going through. Why, just last week I met [NAME 1], a struggling [OCCUPATION] in [UNITED STATES CITY]. [NAME 1] was desperately concerned about being able to afford [HOUSEHOLD GOODS], and who could blame them? What with the latest news about [POLITICAL ISSUE 1], not to mention the situation in [COUNTRY], many people like [NAME 1] toss and turn at night.

My opponent thinks that spending money on [GOVERNMENT PROGRAM] will solve all your problems. But it wouldn't help [NAME 1], and it wouldn't help [NAME 2], a single parent of [NUMBER] kids in [UNITED STATES CITY 2]. [NAME 2] despairs that the children are learning about [POPULAR TELEVISION SHOW] when they're supposed to be learning about [SCHOOL SUBJECT], and that when it comes time for them to graduate, they won't be qualified to go to college or to seek work as [OCCUPATIONS 2]. And in the meantime, the bills for the kids' [THINGS] are skyrocketing.

I understand the problems on Main Street and [TREE] Street. I understand the crushing problems facing [NAME 1] and [NAME 2], and the problems facing you and your family. And just like [NAME 3], a young child bravely fighting [DISEASE], asked me to do when I toured the Children's Hospital in [UNITED STATES CITY 3], making sure that this nation is strong, looking out for working families, and tackling [POLITICAL ISSUE 2] will be among my top priorities when I am elected President.

I Have Created The Best Madlibs Ever

2008-09-27T00:01:00.003-04:00

I think even David Brooks would call them "generic." But I need your help!

Pick one (1) category, leave your choice(s) in the comments, first come, first served. When they're done, I shall post the finished product in the grand De Stijl Madlib Madness tradition.

Three (3) first names.
Two (2) occupations.
Three (3) United States cities
One (1) household good.
Two (2) political issues.
One (1) country.
One (1) government program.
One (1) number.
One (1) popular television show.
One (1) school subject.
One (1) thing.
One (1) tree.
One (1) disease.

Posted Without Comment

2008-09-26T21:49:00.002-04:00

"I think the lessons of Iraq are very clear: that you cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict." -- John McCain

Nora Goes to College; Jane Goes to the Crapper

2008-09-23T22:03:00.006-04:00

Out of the blue, Nora has been bugging us to go to the Cathedral of Learning, so today I figured it would be a nice day to walk down there with her after she got done with preschool. It was a gorgeous day, and I figured it would be a good way to simultaneously spend some nice time with her, let her enjoy something she's been wanting to do, and, um, wear her out so that she'd decide to spend an hour or so resting in her bed doing puzzles during the late afternoon so I could work. (Foreshadowing: that last part of my devious plot did indeed work as planned, but I didn't exactly get to enjoy it.)

The entire way there, I told Nora I had a surprise for her and I wouldn't tell her what it was until we got there, but it was a place, it was somewhere she hadn't been before, and it wasn't somewhere I was expecting there to be toys or food. She was stumped.

So we got outside, she looked up, and squealed, "The Casthedwal of LEARNING! I am going to learn SO MUCH here!"

We went inside and Nora announced she was hungry and thirsty, so we stopped for a snack. I think this is when I put Jane in my purse. Then we had to find a restroom. I noticed as Nora left that her toilet wasn't completely flushed so I finished the job. We washed hands and left. Then, as we were walking down the corridor, Nora asked, "Can I hold Jane?"

I looked in my purse. No Jane. Gulp. I knew she'd been in my purse when I took Nora to the bathroom, so we hurried back in. The bathrooms were being cleaned .... and there was Jane, headfirst. In the toilet.

Nora was, shall we say, less than amused. She saw where Jane was and started bawling in the same way I would've expected her to react if, say, her beloved kitty cat had been skinned and roasted in the oven before her very eyes. The horror, the horror! The custodian, upon seeing this, announced that she couldn't imagine who had put the doll in the toilet and that had been about to throw her away if we hadn't come when we did. More horror and tears. I hurriedly explained that Jane had been in my purse and must have fallen out when I flushed. We found a garbage bag and wrapped Jane up thoroughly. This did not please Nora. I explained to Nora that it was my fault she had fallen down, that the garbage bag was to keep Jane from dripping all over everything and getting everything dirty, but that when we brought her home we would clean her thoroughly with detergent and bleach and make sure she didn't get smelly or mildewy, and that I would find a way for her to help. She took this remarkably well and calmed down almost instantly, and we had a lovely afternoon exploring the Nationality Rooms.

As much as Nora liked the Nationality Rooms, she was more impressed with all the people studying. I cautioned her when we were by the common area, "You need to be quiet here. All these people are studying," and she was. Studying was quite impressive to her. So much so, in fact, that when she came across a woman studying near the third-floor nationality rooms, she serenaded her. "Studying! Studying! STUDYING!" I think she may still be laughing.

After we left Nora put me through my paces as my pretend yoga instructor, but I am pretty sure that being around college students has rubbed off on her as by osmosis:

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl, Chambre.]

VICTORIA: Nora, why are there crayons in your room?

NORA: I will not tell you!

VICTORIA: They are not supposed to be there, and you know that. They belong with your art supplies.

NORA: But I was studying!

VICTORIA: Studying?

NORA: Yeah! I was studying DRAW.

VICTORIA: I see. Nora, I am glad that you love to draw. But, um, just because you want to study doesn't mean that you can spew the crayons willy-nilly. Keep them with the art supplies.

And as for Jane? Fingers crossed, she seems to be recovering nicely, though she smells like a mixture of bleach and Woolite. (She may actually come out of this debacle cleaner than ever if she escapes mildew.) I am a very lucky mom indeed that the Saurus doesn't require the presence of Miss Jane to fall asleep because otherwise, I could've been in for a long, long evening.

Also....

2008-09-23T12:01:00.002-04:00

...it is an extraordinarily peaceful thing to be working while "Two Silver Trees" plays in the background and a cat is purring in your lap.

As The Sun Sets on San Francisco

2008-09-23T11:03:00.003-04:00

Phil and I love baseball but have not kept particularly good track this season (the fact that our team dropped from mathematical contention a while back and the team in our adopted city has, well, been on a literally unprecedented string of alternately being mediocre and outright sucking hasn't helped, and then when you add the fact that we have neither Sportscenter nor a whole lot of time to listen to BPR these days, well....there you go). So this morning, we were discussing baseball while I dropped the lategoers to school/work:

[SCENE: Int., Voiture de Stijl. VICTORIA and PHIL have been discussing who's in, who's out, and have enjoyed much schaudenfraude at the Yankees' expense. VICTORIA is pleased, by the way, that schaudenfraude appears to be in Blogger's spell-check, apparently for occasions such as these.]

PHIL: What I want to know is, what's happening with the Giants?

VICTORIA: What do you mean? I mean, I know they're not close, but beyond that I have no idea.

PHIL: I was just wondering if they'd headed towards unprecedented levels of suckage. [Ed.: Nope, they're just mediocre-to-bad.]

VICTORIA: What I want to know is, is their average age older than you now?

PHIL: Hey!

VICTORIA: Well, you're outside of your seven-year peak, honey. I love you and all, but....

PHIL: Well, I have to admit, you're right. [assumes announcer voice.] The San Francisco Giants' Clubhouse, Now with a Neighborhood for the Memory Impaired!

[Much laughter.]

As it turns out, we were way, way off: the Giants are actually 29.6, which makes them younger than the Cubs, Mets and Phillies (all 30.1) and Astros (31.1). And as we unironically thought, no team is actually Phil's age (I mean, come on!) A few years ago, when we last researched this question, we mocked the Giants for being the only team whose average age was older than Phil (at the time, the Marlins were the only team younger than me, I believe -- I am now older than the D-Backs and a couple months older than the average Rockie and National).

Crafty Question

2008-09-18T08:32:00.002-04:00

If you were going to make a monarch butterfly costume, and your sewing knowledge consisted of "jack," how would you do it?

As It Turns Out, Nora Will Just Pick a School

2008-09-16T08:14:00.002-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Voiture de Stijl. VICTORIA and NORA have just dropped PHIL off and are on their way to the Toy Library to do some work. Well, VICTORIA's going to do some work. NORA already announced her plans to continue her methodical attempt to befriend every Pittsburgher under the age of five which, don't get me wrong, I greatly admire.

VICTORIA and NORA pass this school, which is supposed to be a very good private school but has also been an inside joke between PHIL and VICTORIA almost since they moved to Pittsburgh. ("Look, PHIL! There's NORA's future alma mater!" "Grumble, grumble, grumble.").

The VOITURE DE STIJL stops for some traffic and NORA can get a good look at the school.]

NORA: Mommy, that is a school, right near my preschool! See? In the windows? There are kids' drawings and I can see other kids' things. And there's a playground right there. So this is a school.

VICTORIA: Yes, that is a school.

NORA: Is there a kindergarten at this school?

VICTORIA: Yes.

NORA: I am going to go to THIS kindergarten.

VICTORIA: Um...

NORA: Well, I'm going to be four, you know. I could always just drive myself if it's too far away.

Caution: Nora is Not a Medical Professional

2008-09-13T13:54:00.005-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl. VICTORIA is peeling and seeding an impressive quantity of blanched tomatoes. NORA is examining VICTORIA with her doctor's kit.]

NORA: Now show me your eyes!

[VICTORIA obliges. NORA examines them with her mirror.]

NORA: They're healthy.

VICTORIA: Thank you.

NORA: Now show me your ears!

[VICTORIA obliges. NORA peers into VICTORIA's ears with her otoscope.]

NORA: They're healthy.

VICTORIA: Thank you, Dr. Nora!

NORA: I'm not a doctor! I'm just a protester.

It Apparently Means Many Things If It Has That Swing

2008-09-10T23:37:00.006-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Voiture de Stijl.]

NORA: Can I listen to jazz?

VICTORIA: Well, Marketplace is on the jazz station right now, but jazz will be on in a little while. Let's turn it on.
[A music bumper comes on.]

NORA: Is this jazz?

VICTORIA: No, it's a cover of "Just Like Heaven" by the Cure. (Appropriately enough, it turned out to be by Dinosaur Jr., Nora's "spirit band" in indie rock mythology.)

[A Dixieland jazz version of "We're In the Money" comes on as Kai Ryssdal says, "Let's do the numbers.]

NORA: Is this jazz?

VICTORIA: Well, actually it is. But it's not the jazz show yet.

NORA: Well, that's okay. It's JAZZZZZZZ!!!!

Oh, and this picture is a "before" shot, since blogger seems to only want to let me use one picture. Stay tuned for an "after."

Anticipation

2008-09-07T20:35:00.003-04:00

We hosted a little party yesterday morning for a few of the Norasaur's friends. Nora was very excited. She woke up a bit early (for her) and actually got clothes out without prompting -- we have a house rule that she has to get dressed and make her bed before going downstairs on weekdays and on weekends where we're going out early in the morning, a rule she's not thrilled with.

Phil and I got some things ready the night before -- we had shirts ready for the kids to paint, I made a fruit salad, there was much cleaning of the abode. And apparently I was feeling some anticipation too, because I had the weirdest dream about this party.

First of all, in this dream, we were living somewhere different. It seemed like a small, modern, very sparse apartment. Very mod, very kicky. It had a white spiral staircase with plasticy handles and a landing on top with a small dining room table where the four kids were having their snack. Near this table there was also a big screen TV . . . where Phil was showing the three-year-olds the first twenty minutes of Good Will Hunting (a movie neither of us has ever seen) because, as he said in the dream, "there isn't any profanity in the first twenty minutes, and the R rating was just an MPAA conspiracy to make sure Titanic won the Oscar." Which makes no sense given the number of R-rated movies to have won Best Picture Oscars, but . . .

Anyhow. If you know Phil, the idea of him getting all MPAA-conspiracy theory is one thing and the idea of him getting all MPAA-conspiracy theory on Good Will Hunting's behalf is another thing altogther. The twenty minutes I saw in my dream were not bad, by the way.

Sarah Palin Sounds Exactly Like Principal Victoria

2008-09-03T23:02:00.004-04:00

It's freaky, man.

Rudy Giuliani and Mike Huckabee gave fine speeches (Huckabee, though an excellent speaker, scared the bejeebers out of me during the primaries after I read a couple interviews with him, but I thought his speech tonight was pretty restrained and probably will be quite effective). But Mitt Romney's speech? What was up with that? It sounded like he cribbed an episode of Rush Limbaugh's radio show circa 1994. "LiberalsliberalsLIBERALSLIBERALSLIBERALS!!"

Nora Feels Pretty. Oh, So Pretty. And She Pities Any.....Um.....

2008-09-02T15:42:00.006-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl, Chambre de NORA. PHIL is helping NORA get dressed to go out.]

NORA: I want to wear a dress today.

PHIL: Okay. Do you want to wear the blue dress or the purple dress?

NORA: Well, Nathan likes blue.

PHIL: Then I take it you want to wear the blue dress?

NORA: [witheringly, as if she can't believe Daddy could have not figured out something so mind-numbingly obvious] No, I want to wear the purple dress. And I want to bring the blue dress so that Nathan can wear it!

PHIL: .........

[SCENE: Int., Voiture de Stijl. NORA and VICTORIA have just dropped off PHIL and are on their way to NATHAN's house.]

NORA: Oh, no! Mommy! I forgot something!

VICTORIA: What did you forget, hon?

NORA: I forgot to bring my blue dress!

VICTORIA: ..........

NORA: We should go home. Nathan really likes blue.

VICTORIA: Nora, it is very kind of you to think of your friend. But if he wants to wear something blue, I'm sure he can find something blue in his closet. His house is almost around the corner and I'd rather not be late.

NORA: Okay. But it's a really pretty dress!

VICTORIA: I'm sure it is, sweetie.

In other news, spawn had her first two haircuts ever this weekend. The first, being as it was self-inflicted, made it pretty clear that she'd made her mind up about getting the second.

New Horizons in Paleontology and Blog Dietetics

2008-08-29T09:05:00.002-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Sushi Too.]

VICTORIA: Nora, do you know what dinosaurs eat?

NORA: Well, I am not a dinosaur today. I am a NORA right now, and I eat people food.

VICTORIA: Duly noted. What do herbivores eat?

NORA: Herbivores eat leaves!

VICTORIA: They sure do! And what about carnivores? Roar!

NORA: They eat doughnuts!

PHIL: ...........

VICTORIA: Nora, do you know what a blog is?

NORA: A blog?! Well. A blog eats soup.

Two Things Worth Reading

2008-08-28T19:05:00.002-04:00

The one plus -- the only plus, actually -- about being stuck in bed so much with these stupid migraines is that I have been devouring books when my head has been allowing me to read. (When I have a migraine I normally have a Hobson's choice between taking lots of medication and being drowsy, nauseated, and dizzy -- but able to read and in less pain for fewer days! -- or taking less medication and being less able to read and more in pain but less drowsy and dizzy. I normally take choice 1 and the shorter duration headache unless circumstances dictate otherwise.)

What I have been devouring lately is educational theory and whatnot, since spawn is getting to that age and because it's pretty interesting just in and of itself. It is a time of great indecision: time to decide where to send her to school. (I'm sure she'll be pretty much fine wherever, but I do feel an obligation to look at all the places that are realistic options in terms of distance, even though chances are good she'll end up at the neighborhood public school around the corner next year. In addition to her neighborhood school, Pittsburgh has about forty-five million magnet schools in the East End alone plus about twenty million Catholic schools, and one or two private schools that are considered pretty low-key and affordable.)

So as usual, I have reading for you: a Harper's article adapted from Jonathan Kozol's The Shame of the Nation, and a really interesting article by Kathy Emery about the history of Freedom Schools in Mississippi in the mid-1960s and their potential relevance today. Most interesting if read together.

Nora the Olympian, Pt. 3

2008-08-27T20:57:00.004-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl. NORA, VICTORIA, and PHIL are looking at pictures from NORA's last birthday party.]

NORA: This year, I will be FOUR years old when I have my birthday!

VICTORIA: You sure will! What do you think you will be able to do when you are four?

NORA: I will be able to blow out the candles. And eat CAKE!

VICTORIA: Anything else?

NORA: I don't know.

[PHIL whispers in NORA's ear.]

NORA: I can VOTE, Mommy!

[VICTORIA whispers in NORA's ear.]

NORA: And I can drive the car, Daddy!

[PHIL whispers in NORA's ear.]

NORA: And I will be able to get a job, Mommy!

[VICTORIA whispers in NORA's ear.]

NORA: And I will be eligible for the NBA draft, Daddy!

[PHIL whispers in NORA's ear.]

NORA: And I can be a Chinese gymnast!

Nora the Olympian, Pt. 2

2008-08-26T15:22:00.005-04:00

So. Nora's favorite Olympic sports, in no particular order:

1.) Cycling
2.) Synchronized Swimming
3.) Diving, especially 10 m platform because of all the flips.

She liked a few of the other events (rhythmic gymnastics, some of the jumping sports, table tennis, beach volleyball) OK, but as far as Nora was concerned, those were by far the coolest things from the Olympics and the three things she practices constantly. We do not have a pool, but the small hall outside her bedroom will suffice for pretend diving and my bed is apparently "very deep water."

I think we watched the Men's 10 m Platform finals at least three times on NBC's website. The last time we watched it, Nora watched the whole thing and, without knowing the results, sat completely rapt and applauded every time Olympic Stud of the Day Matthew Mitcham -- and only Matthew Mitcham -- dove. (The best part was when his friend hugged him and said "Matthew! You just won the OLYMPICS!" So cute!)

At some point, though, she started paying very close attention to what the divers were doing:

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl, Chambre.]

NORA: That man is on his hands and not his feet!

VICTORIA: Mm-hmm. That is called a handstand.

NORA: I can do that!

[NORA does a NORA-style handstand, which is basically a very compact downward-facing dog against the headboard.]

NORA: Now it is time to dive!

[NORA does a somersault.]

VICTORIA: Wow!

NORA: I am a diver!

[NORA dives again . . . right off the bed.]

NORA: AAAAAAAAAHHH!

Nora the Olympian (and Critic)

2008-08-24T15:39:00.002-04:00

[SCENE, Ext., Gymkhana Gymnastics. NORA has just finished a week of summer day camp and has gotten a medal, as did all the campers.]

VICTORIA: Say, Nora, you got a medal! That's just like the people in the Olympics!

NORA: Yeah, I did! I knew I'd get one someday.

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl, Chambre. PHIL, VICTORIA, and NORA are watching the gold medal men's water polo match, which has just gone to a commercial. The commercial break is ending and we get a glimpse of the pool.]

NORA: Nooooo! I don't WANT to watch more water buffalo!

10 Stealth Kids' Songs

2008-08-22T11:29:00.000-04:00

So the other day I dropped Nora off at her friend Nathan's house while I was having a rough day with the perma-migraine. When I got back the kids were having a grand old time dancing (Nathan's mom is a dance teacher), but Nathan quickly decided that he wanted to hear a particular song he could only describe as "shake, shake."

My friend eventually found it:

VICTORIA: I was expecting it to be the song from Beetlejuice. "Shake, shake, shake, señora." You know, the Harry Belafonte song.

FRIEND: That's not a kids' song!

VICTORIA: What's wrong with it for kids?

FRIEND: Harry Belafonte isn't for kids!

VICTORIA: I take it you have never heard one of Nora's CDs. She basically just raids my iTunes and has me make a mix of what she likes. But I think calypso's great for kids.

(It really is, incidentally. There's some Lord Invader on the Smithsonian kids' album that's awesome.)

I do see the need to be careful, to an extent, about kids' music. We realized, as I've mentioned in this space before, that Nora was picking up the music on our CDs when she was two and started singing "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse. (Honestly, the "No, no, no," part is about the most natural part for a kid that age to sing, but I digress.) But honestly, to me there are a few things that make for a good song for a kid and they're not tied to subject matter about silly salamanders or that nonsense:

1. Something that repeats -- a refrain or a melodic bit. That seems to be the common thread between kids' songs per se and pop songs that kids (at least my kid) like.

2. Nothing that, if repeated, will get us a call from her preschool teachers. We do sometimes have Nora-songs with isolated instances of mildly "questionable" language she's not likely to pick up from the song (and even if she does she's not going to be running around telling her friends to go fuck themselves). I haven't even included those here -- these are all profanity-free (which is what keeps "Less Talk More Rokk" by Freezepop, one of Nora's favorite songs, off the list -- one use of the word "kickass" -- and "damn" keeps "Murder and a Heart Attack" off). I've also refrained from anything with a repeated lyrical bit like "I'm so tired of America" in Rufus Wainwright's "Going to a Town." Again, the "preschool teacher" test.

3. Bonus: A cool video on YouTube. A cool video is not enough to make a song (Nora adores the video to "Coffee + TV" by Blur, because it is one of the finest and best of all music videos, but it isn't really a stealth kids' song no matter how you slice it, despite the lack of objectionable material.)

So, without further ado, 10 stealth kids songs!

1.) "Acoustic Guitar," Magnetic Fields (Yes, someone actually imported this into Guitar Hero)

Spawn picked this up not from hearing the song itself but because it is one of the (many) songs I sing in the shower, so I figure it must be kid-friendly. Very easy to sing even though few of the lyrics (beyond the phrase "acoustic guitar") repeat. Nora also loves "All My Little Words" ("I want to hear the splendid butterfly song again!")

2.) "Chinese Translation," M. Ward

To me this has a bit of a Pete Seeger feel. Gorgeous song, beautiful video -- really beautiful video.

3.) "Hotel Yorba," White Stripes

If you were to ask Nora, especially about six months ago, she would probably have suggested that a list of this length be about 80% White Stripes. (Given that she, y'know, dressed up as the White Stripes for Halloween and stuff.) She loves a bunch of White Stripes songs -- "My Doorbell," which she has me play on the piano while she bangs her drum, "The Hardest Button to Button," "Icky Thump" (which has some saucy language), "Fell in Love With a Girl" -- but I picked "Hotel Yorba" because it's probably the easiest to sing and because, well, it's my favorite.

4.) "Run Runaway," Slade

So Phil decided to show Nora this video and now she is obsessed with it. Which led to the following conversation:

[SCENE: Ext., Frick Park, near playground. VICTORIA is calling PHIL on her cell phone.]

VICTORIA: Hey, Phil. I'm walking Nora to the playground and she started singing "See chameleon, lying there in the sun! All things to everyone! Run runaway!"

PHIL: Wow! That's awesome!

VICTORIA: I haven't even gotten to the awesome part. Then she held her arms out in front of her and announced, "WAVE CABER!!" and started pretending to wave a caber. She said, "WAVE CABER, WAVE CABER, WAVE CABER!"

PHIL: That is too cool.

Watch the video. It is total 80s cheese and it will all make sense.

5.) "Me and Julio Down By The Schoolyard," Paul Simon

I always assumed it was about homosexuality, but if it is good enough for Sesame Street then it is good enough for me.

6.) "Andy Warhol and the Honeybees," Walker Kong

So if I woke up one morning and suddenly discovered I were Wes Anderson, I would end my next film with my motley crew of characters walking slowly to some incongruous destination in slow motion with this song playing in the background. This is both one of my favorite songs and one of Nora's, and if it starts playing in the car, she will sing along perfectly with it.

7.) "(Nothing But) Flowers," Talking Heads

How many birds can you kill with one stone? Teach your kids to read, expose them to the awesomeness that is David Byrne, and foment a socialist revolution! What's not to like?

8.) "Science Genius Girl," Freezepop

Nora likes her some Freezepop. She says that she is a science genius girl. She has not cloned a human being, but she does have an imaginary friend who hates trees but whose favorite activity is climbing trees so that she can break off their branches. Make of that what you will.

9.) "My Moon My Man," Feist

Yes, "1 2 3 4" is the obvious candidate here, but when Jane asked Nora for help with this article, Nora felt differently.

SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl, Salle de Bain. NORA is in the bathtub.

BABY JANE DOE, MINOR: Nora, what are some Nora songs?

NORA: Well, I sing you Jane songs sometimes!

BABY JANE DOE, MINOR: What are they?

NORA: They are "Hush-a-bye," "Rock to Sleep," and "My Moon My Man"! Do you like those songs?

BABY JANE DOE, MINOR: I do! I love those songs!

NORA: They are all Jane songs! My moon, my man, so changeable and.....

10.) "Who Loves the Sun," Velvet Underground

I don't think this is on any Nora CDs -- though she did put "Rock & Roll" on one -- but c'mon. It's awesome, and will set your child down the path of singing "Venus in Furs" before the age of five!

And He Wonders Why This Is So

2008-08-17T00:07:00.003-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl, Chambre.]

PHIL: I took Nora to the park today, and it's amazing how many people stopped and talked to me. Maybe it's because I wore the "I <3 Hot Moms" shirt today. Or maybe it's just that in combination with the Frank Zappa mustache?

The Mylar Balloon of Constant Sorrow

2008-08-12T22:59:00.003-04:00

[SCENE: Int., VICTORIA's Parents' House, chamber. VICTORIA is in the bathroom and hears frantic crying from NORA. VICTORIA hears an adult or two comfort NORA, and VICTORIA leaves the bathroom.]

VICTORIA: Nora, I heard you crying while I was in the bathroom. What happened?

NORA: Oh, I'll --- I'll show ya.

[NORA takes VICTORIA by the hand and leads her to the other bathroom, where a MYLAR BALLOON lies deflated behind a small wastebasket.]

NORA: My balloon! It popped!

VICTORIA: Oh, Nora, I'm so sorry. You liked that balloon!

NORA: It went into the fan. I didn't want it to pop, but it did anyhow. [dramatic pause.] It was a time of great anguish.

[VICTORIA nobly stifles laughter.]

Yes, other than the potato kugeli, this was the highlight of my grandmother's 90th birthday.

Because I Am a Woman of My Word

2008-07-16T10:13:00.004-04:00

Top 10 Reasons Why the National League Should Adopt the Designated Hitter Rule:

10.) Because chicks do dig the longball and do not so much dig the "flailing aimlessly at the ball."

9.) I don't care if there's a Silver Slugger award for whichever pitcher manages to poke the ball past the infield, they still walk the guy in the eight hole to get to you EVERY TIME.

8.) Speaking of the eight hole, if Tony La Russa can't bat the pitcher eighth, he'll have to come up with something else idiosyncratic to do, like making Albert Pujols play catcher. Or having everyone wear the same number, or coming out in clown makeup. The point is, Tony La Russa being creative gives The Dugout something to talk about, usually implying that he's drunk as piss. Batting the pitcher eighth is trite.

7.) Because as much as you want them to, pitchers virtually never steal bases.

6.) Heck, you usually feel vague pity for them when they go for an extra base.

5.) Or when they hit a fluke into the gap in Coors Field and have to hoof out a triple just for the honor of it.

4.) And when it all comes down to it, the designated hitter rule does something rare in the current economy: it CREATES JOBS. Who wouldn't want to give deserving, hard-working baseball players jobs sitting on the bench for two innings or so and then whacking the ball around three times out of ten? Heck, it works for David Ortiz! Maybe it could've worked for...

3.) Quinton McCracken. (Isn't that the best name ever?)

2.) The point is, this is why the National League dominates the American League in interleague play. The AL has guys like David Ortiz available because they're going to play every game. The NL has people who are useful in double switches: backup catchers, fourth infielders, and defensive specialists. And people like Quinton McCracken, who are down but NOT OUT, y'all.

1.) And finally, as a Braves fan, I'm all in favor of keeping Chipper Jones out of the defense :). Unfortunately, I don't think Chipper Jones would agree.

I Am the Lorax. I Speak for the Teeth.

2008-07-14T08:19:00.003-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl, Salle de Bain. VICTORIA is brushing her teeth.]

NORA: Mom, how does your toothpaste taste?

VICTORIA: Minty.

NORA: Ohhh. Mine tastes Loraxy.

VICTORIA: What does a Lorax taste like?!

NORA: Fuzz.

VICTORIA: Excuse me. I have to update my blog.

NORA: Do not add that to your blog!

The Tao of Toilet Training

2008-07-13T12:48:00.002-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl. NORA had excused herself from the dinner table to go to the bathroom and has just returned to the table.]

VICTORIA: Did you remember to flush?

NORA: Oh! [runs back to the bathroom and flushes the toilet repeatedly.]

VICTORIA: That's quite enough!

PHIL: Nora, there are two kinds of fools: the one who never flushes the toilet, and the one who flushes the toilet twice.

New Horizons in Blocks

2008-07-09T09:15:00.001-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl. PHIL and NORA are building with blocks.]

NORA: Dada, I want you to help me build a block city!

PHIL: All right.

NORA: I will build Savannah.

PHIL: Sounds good.

NORA: Now, what does God look like? Can you build God for me?

The Facts of Life, Nora Style

2008-07-04T14:15:00.002-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Voiture de Stijl. NORA is nagging VICTORIA about getting a new baby brother or sister. For the record, ain't happening any time soon.]

NORA: The baby can just crawl inside your tummy, you know.

VICTORIA: Really? How do you think that happens?

NORA: It can just unglue you and curl up inside!

VICTORIA: Then what happens?

NORA: Then you get glued back together!

VICTORIA: That sounds ghastly.

Fragile Flower

2008-07-04T01:07:00.003-04:00

[SCENE: NORA and VICTORIA are walking out of NORA's preschool with NORA's friend NATHAN and his family.]

VICTORIA: Now, Nora, you need to hold hands in the parking lot.

[NORA attempts to hold NATHAN's hand, but is rebuffed several times.]

VICTORIA: It looks like Nathan doesn't want to hold hands right now, so you need to respect that. Hold mine instead.

NORA: Okay!

[NORA thinks for a minute.]

NORA: Nathan, why don't you want to hold hands?

NATHAN: Oh, because I'm so delicate, Nora!

It's even funnier if you know the kid in question, because while he is very sweet and gentle with his friends (especially the little girls), he is -- along with a certain nephew -- the most agile and athletic kid I can recall seeing of that age.

All I can say is, that is my new all-purpose excuse for anything. Be warned.

Hey, Y'all Early Adopter-Types...

2008-07-02T09:50:00.002-04:00

Do any of you guys use Twitter? Is it a flash in the pan or is it actually something that's a viable and novel means of communicating with people?

I know, I know, I should just experiment and find out for myself, but frankly -- it's crazy round here, y'all. I guess maybe I could've started a Twitter account and sent out something saying, "Is it worthwhile to use Twitter?" but that seemed a bit self-referential. Anyhow. Y'all's thoughts?

Nora the Anatomically Impossible

2008-07-02T00:05:00.004-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Chez Stijl, Chambre. NORA has BABY JANE DOE, MINOR under her shirt.]

NORA: I am feeding my baby milk from my breast!

VICTORIA: I'll bet she likes it! That's what babies drink.

NORA: She likes milk AND juice.

VICTORIA: I see.

NORA: I can feed her fruit juice from my OTHER breast!

Neologisms are Kewl

2008-06-27T22:04:00.002-04:00

This one comes from a friend of a neighbor of my friend Elaine.

Curbivore: someone who drives around on bulk pickup days and grabs decent-looking things neighbors have discarded.

ALSO, apropos of nothing in particular, be very wary of husbands who, when you have food poisoning, suggest you eat uni for lunch tomorrow. Very wary indeed.

There Needs To Be More Found Punditry-Poetry

2008-06-18T22:52:00.002-04:00

Because this that Phil sent my way today? Is made of pure, uncut AWESOME.

And do you want an MP3 of the song to torture your officemates and small children with? You know you do! Find it here.

Nora the Sorta-Prodigy

2008-06-12T00:57:00.002-04:00

There's a lot of lore -- some of it true, some of it apocryphal -- about the musical training of Mozart, the young artistic mind of Picasso, Einstein as a kid, whatnot. I've heard considerably less and have always been idly curious, though, about what Greil Marcus and Robert Christgau were like as preschoolers.

I no longer wonder.

I also think that "listen while you work to the best mix from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and today!" radio stations blow Nora's mind in such an entertaining way that I could almost -- almost! -- be persuaded to listen to them in her presence just for the anthropological value.

[SCENE: Int., Baskin-Robbins. NORA and VICTORIA are eating ice cream.]

NORA: What song is this, Mommy?

VICTORIA: It's called "Since U Been Gone."

NORA: I think they will play "The Golden State" next!

VICTORIA: That would be nice, but I don't think that's likely to happen, hon.

[NORA and VICTORIA eat some more ice cream until the next song comes on.]

NORA: What song is this?

VICTORIA: This song is called "Cruisin'." Huey Lewis and someone else are singing this version.

NORA: Hmmm. I think they will play the Acoustic Guitar song next!

VICTORIA: I will wager you anything you like in the world that that is not going to happen.

[NORA and VICTORIA continue eating ice cream.]

NORA: What's this song?

VICTORIA: Well, the song is called "This Old Heart of Mine." It's a Motown song originally, but this isn't the same person who sang it originally.

NORA: Who is singing now?

VICTORIA: I'm not sure. It sounds like Rod Stewart. [note: per Phil, that's exactly who it must've been.] Whoever it is, they're desecrating the poor song. It sounds terrible.

[NORA nods sagely.]

NORA: Mr. Rogers sounds like that sometimes .

VICTORIA: I am not touching that one.

[NORA AND VICTORIA eat a little more ice cream.]

[The next song, by Hootie and the Blowfish, comes on the radio. Nora listens for about three seconds, makes a face of despair and disillusionment, then busts out with:]

NORA: I was watching with one eye on the other side! I had fifteen people telling me to move, I had moving on my mind!

VICTORIA: Nora, you can't sing "Hotel Yorba" that loudly in the ice cream store.

NORA: But I want it to be on the radio instead of this song!

VICTORIA: Don't we all, honey. I do not blame you one little bit.

Nora the Songwriter

2008-06-06T08:46:00.002-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Maison de Stijl, Chambre.]

NORA: [singing] La, la, la, la, la, singing crowns! They protect you from the kitty, jumping on your head!

PHIL: Has the kitty ever jumped on your head?!

NORA: No.

PHIL: Are you worried she will?

NORA: The kitty doesn't jump on SPECIAL PEOPLE's heads. The kitty jumps on my head when I am bad.

PHIL: Then the way to keep her from jumping on you is to be nice to you.

NORA: No, I need a hat!

PHIL: You sound like a Republican.

Lo, I Am Lazy: More Noraisms

2008-05-30T22:52:00.002-04:00

She's actually been in rare form today, however.

Holy Crap, My Kid's Macabre

[SCENE: Int., Sushi Too. NORA has ordered her beloved tamago and ikura (salmon roe) while VICTORIA has ordered a few fish maki rolls.]

NORA: What are salmon roe?

VICTORIA: They're salmon eggs.

NORA: Ohh! That's what's inside them!

VICTORIA: Yup.

[NORA and VICTORIA talk a bit about VICTORIA's sushi.]

NORA: Mama, do all fish swim?

VICTORIA: Yes, they do, as far as I know.

NORA: [gleefully holding up one salmon egg] Not this one! [NORA eats salmon roe.]

Multitasking is for Dorks

[SCENE: Int., Voiture de Stijl. VICTORIA and NORA are talking about dreams.]

VICTORIA: Do you have dreams sometimes?

NORA: Yeah.

VICTORIA: What do you dream about?

NORA: I don't remember!

VICTORIA: You don't remember! That's actually really common. Most people don't remember most of their dreams after they wake up.

NORA: Does Dada dream?

VICTORIA: Yes, he does.

NORA: Does he have a hard time remembering his dreams?

VICTORIA: I believe so.

NORA: [suddenly skeptical] Hey, wait a minute! Dada snores!

[VICTORIA laughs.]

VICTORIA: Yes, Dada does snore. But he can snore and dream at the same time.

[NORA is entirely unconvinced. How do I know? Because she informed PHIL that he couldn't dream and snore at the same time after we picked him up.]

No, No, Just Monroeville

[SCENE: Int., Voiture de Stijl. VICTORIA and NORA are returning from picking up NORA's pictures in the burbs.]

NORA: It is crowded here!

VICTORIA: Sure is.

NORA: Are we in Switzerland?!

What Do Three-Year-Olds Gossip About, Anyway?

Finally, while NORA and I were driving home, we discussed the possibility of inviting some of NORA's preschool friends over for a cooking party next week, since her school's off. Which led to the following curious conversation starter at the dinner table:

[SCENE: Int., Casa de Stijl. PHIL, VICTORIA, and NORA are eating.]

NORA: When I have my picnic, the mommies and daddies should all leave so we can talk about you guys!

[PHIL and VICTORIA stifle laughter.]

NORA: [pointing to TAI the cat.] She can stay.

I Win At Parenting

2008-05-29T23:51:00.003-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Casa Groce. PHIL is sitting in a big orange chair.]

NORA: Dada, can you please hand me that guitar in the corner?

PHIL: Sure. [PHIL hands NORA the (woefully out-of-tune) guitar.]

NORA: [strumming] Acoustic guitar, I'm gonna make you a star! Get your picture all over the world!

PHIL: Are you singing "Acoustic Guitar"?!

NORA: I am singing "Acoustic Guitar" with the acoustic guitar!

Okay, sure, this doesn't mean that she'll be, like, up towards the top of Mazlow's Hierarchy someday, or that she won't become a meth addict or anything like that. BUT! She's totally taught herself her first Magnetic Fields song, before the age of four. And that makes up for a hell of a lot. Maybe not the meth thing. Nora, if you're reading this, don't do meth, capiche?

We Are Not Amused

2008-05-26T22:38:00.004-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Casa de Stijl. NORA has just handed BABY JANE DOE, MINOR, to PHIL.]

NORA: You have to make her talk!

PHIL (as BABY JANE DOE, MINOR): Ia, ia, shub niggurath! Black goat of the woods with a thousand young!

VICTORIA: PHIL!

PHIL: What? It's cultural literacy!

VICTORIA: You are a very bad man.

NORA: No, he's not!

VICTORIA: Yes, he is!

NORA: Dada, you are a good man! What does your shirt say?

[PHIL looks down at his shirt, which says "I <3>
PHIL: It says "I Love Mommy!"

[NORA looks at PHIL and then VICTORIA.]

NORA: Awwwwwww!

[VICTORIA gives PHIL the look of death as PHIL smooches VICTORIA.]

NORA: I think it is time for the FAMILY hug!

Posted Without Comment

2008-05-15T09:56:00.000-04:00

Rain = Nature's Vomit

2008-05-14T20:33:00.002-04:00

[SCENE: Ext., le Target. VICTORIA and NORA are walking towards the car. It is drizzling very lightly.]

NORA: It's starting to rain!

VICTORIA: Sure is. This is called drizzling, when it's raining just a tiny bit. You know, some people say in weather like this, that the sky is spitting.

NORA: The sky is PUKING! (laughs uncontrollably.) It is puking ALL OVER THE PARKING LOT!

(It's especially cute because "puking" is one of the few words that Nora mispronounces, along with "piano" --- they're "pluking" and "peeplano," respectively.) On the way home, I was told that the trees were disgusting because "they're POOPING all over the ground!" I have entered the "bodily functions are hilarious" part of the parenting journey.

Oh, and one more Nora story, because I'm boring like that and she has a future career in stand-up:

[SCENE: Int., Giant Eagle. The store is completely packed with octogenarians. In the midst of an aisle traffic jam, an OLDER GENTLEMAN in a wheelchair stops to dote on NORA.]

OLDER GENTLEMAN: Well, just look at you! Aren't you adorable!

NORA: Yeah.

OLDER GENTLEMAN: What's your name?

NORA: Nora.

OLDER GENTLEMAN: Well, have a good day, Nora. (wheels off.)

[NORA looks around and sees many more OCTOGENARIANS.]

NORA: EVERYONE! MY NAME IS NORA, OKAY? DID YOU HEAR THAT? IT'S NORA.

[Several OCTOGENARIANS chuckle. VICTORIA rolls her eyes and continues grocery shopping, resolved to have a little chat later about when it is and is not appropriate to make such announcements.]

Two Completely Unrelated Parts of the Same Observation

2008-05-12T19:49:00.001-04:00

PHIL: I wonder what a developmental psychologist would think of our child. We could do a poster presentation. "Nora: Great child? Or the GREATEST child?"

PHIL: I am not whipped.

Sometimes The Rules Change In The Middle of the Game

2008-05-12T14:29:00.003-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Casa de Stijl. VICTORIA is in NORA's room, putting away some toys and putting clean sheets on NORA's bed. NORA is playing in VICTORIA's room. VICTORIA's door shuts. VICTORIA perks her ears, but finishes what she's doing.]

[When VICTORIA enters her room, she sees that NORA has found VICTORIA's yoga mat, which VICTORIA had folded after cleaning to put away, and is sitting on it on the floor.]

NORA: We are having a picnic!

VICTORIA: Nora, the yoga mat is not a toy. If you want to have a picnic, you can do it on your green blanket [pointing to NORA's green blanket, which she's already brought into the room.]

NORA: But we're playing picnic here.

VICTORIA: I see that, but the yoga mat is only for yoga.

[NORA immediately assumes downward-facing dog.]

NORA: We are playing YOGA!

VICTORIA: ...............

[NORA assumes cobra.]

VICTORIA: All right. You can do yoga on the mat. Just remember to focus on your breath.

Your Faux-Latin Declension Lesson For Today

2008-05-09T21:21:00.003-04:00

Nominative: barista/baristae
Genitive: baristae/baristarum
Dative: baristae/baristis
Accusative: baristam/baristas
Ablative: barista/baristis
Vocative: barista/baristae

Now let's use these in sentences.

The barista made a tall cappuccino.
Barista fecit cappucinum altum.

I love the barista's boots.
Amo caligatas baristae.

I gave the barista some money.
Datavi argentum baristae.

I will pay the barista.
Debebo baristam.

I want to go to bed with the barista.
Volo cubitum ire cum baristae.

O barista! Your shirt is black and stylish!
O barista! Subucula tua nigra inlecebrosaque est!

The Perks Of Being Almost Forty-Two Months Old

2008-05-08T19:17:00.002-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Casa de Stijl. VICTORIA is helping NORA get ready for bed.]

VICTORIA: You're pretty big! You're three-and-a-half, you know.

NORA: Yeah! I can go by myself now!

VICTORIA: Where can you go by yourself?

NORA: Pacific Ring! I can drive! Can I drive?

VICTORIA: Um...........not quite.

PHIL: That goes on the blog.

Nora Is, Actually, Pretty Logical

2008-04-26T22:13:00.002-04:00

(also, she can count to 30, but that is not part of this story)

[SCENE: Int., Frick Park. VICTORIA is pushing NORA on the swings.]

NORA: I want to LIVE at the playground!

VICTORIA: You do?

NORA: Yeah!

VICTORIA: But then where would you sleep?

NORA: I would sleep at Toddler Town!

VICTORIA: But where would you eat?

NORA: I would eat at Toddler Town too!

VICTORIA: Where would you see your friends?

NORA: At preschool, of course!

VICTORIA: So you would still go to preschool! That makes sense, the city bus goes by here. What would Daddy do when he came home?

NORA: He would just come here and play, play, play!

VICTORIA: And where would Daddy sleep? I'm not sure he'd fit in Toddler Town.

NORA: He would sleep there in the BIG playground.

VICTORIA: And what about me?

NORA: You can sleep with Daddy too, in the BIG playground!

VICTORIA: What would we do when it rained?

NORA: I would have an umbrella and a raincoat and a HAT! We would all have hats.

VICTORIA: What about our kitty cat?

NORA: She could be an OUTDOOR kitty cat. She could chase butterflies and eat them!

VICTORIA: I see. And where would we cook dinner?

NORA: Well, we'd just have to go home to do that!

VICTORIA: But we couldn't do that! We'd be living here, so this would be home! But there's no stove here. How could we cook dinner?

NORA: Ohhh! (thinks for a moment.) I think we should live at home and VISIT the playground.

VICTORIA: I think that is an excellent idea. (kisses NORA).

Seriously, it was a most excellent conversation to have with her. It was pretty cool to just hear her working through everything.

Revenge of the Nerdette

2008-04-22T16:34:00.002-04:00

On some things I am very decisive. I always know what I want for dinner, or at the very least, that I am just not even a little bit hungry. And if I don't know, I just make polenta or risotto, because everyone likes polenta or risotto in this house and will always eat it.

Buying houses: decisive. We picked our current house quickly, which is good because we had one short trip when I was in Pittsburgh for us to all look together. Decorating said houses: decisive, but lazy. (I hate painting.) I do not, in general, bring paint chips home and mull over them for a long time. I do not, by the way, consider it a moral failing in the slightest if other people do.

In other ways I am not decisive, even a little bit, which is why I went to see a career counselor. I know I don't want to be writing forty or fifty hours a week when Nora is in school for full days (let's just say that on a Myers-Briggs, I get the maximum possible score for extraversion. Having a job where I'm holed up in my office all day with no one around but my cat isn't a great fit for my personality.)

So I spent a couple months going to a career counselor every week or two, discussing what I was most interested in, skills I wanted to use, values that were important to me and workplace culture issues I really wanted to avoid, that sort of thing. And after some research and discussion we came up with a list of ideas for extravert-type careers, mostly health things that would happen to coordinate well with what I'm writing about now, plus an action plan for further research.

At the second-to-last session -- after we'd done a lot of the discussion, the personality tests, the exercises, that sort of thing -- where I'd come up with a shortlist of potential careers to research further, I lamented that everything I was looking at would need a masters degree. "You had to expect that," she pointed out. "It's not uncommon, especially given that you've been saying that intellectual stimulation is important to you."

It's funny, though. I think back to when I enrolled in college and oh, the mistakes I made! Ai yi yi. First off, I accepted a music scholarship (for a few reasons) despite the fact that I was pretty sure I didn't want to be a musician. When I (as I suspected) dropped that major, I basically lost those classes. Then I flitted from second major to second major, partly because I kept getting interested in things that my school either didn't have real programs in (cognitive linguistics) or would've required me changing into other parts of the university with extensively different core classes (communication sciences and disorders). Ironically enough, with all the major changing, I ended up graduating with one of the two majors I declared when I enrolled.

At the time I graduated, I concluded that, had I known what I'd want to be doing then (being a Real Writer®), I would've been so much better off going to a small liberal arts school known for its writing program. Someplace like Kenyon or Oberlin or Sewanee. Now that there's a good chance that I'll be going to grad school in something that has significant science prerequisites (and at least one of the programs I've talked to is not willing to bend those), I now feel like the choice of school was fine, but I wish I hadn't decided to get the hell out of Dodge without finishing the biochemistry major that was one of the last second majors I was working on before I graduated.

In reality, the more I think about it, the more I think I should've followed my instincts and not gone at all. At least, not when I did. (This was, shall we say, not a popular opinion with my parents and with one or two trusted teachers I floated the idea with at the time.) My reasons for not wanting to go to college weren't high-minded or anything; I was burned out, didn't know what I wanted to do given that I wasn't set on music anymore, and most of all, I was just plain tired of being the youngest (I graduated high school at sixteen).

It's been (gulp) over ten years since I started college, and if I could go back and tell myself one thing it's this: wait.

I would contend that many middle-class kids coming out of high school -- probably a slight majority, if I had to make a more concrete estimate -- shouldn't go straight to college. This isn't to say that I think college is bad, or not worthwhile, or that they shouldn't go at all. Indeed, I think that the vast majority -- probably ninety to ninety-five percent -- would find it worth their while to enroll in college by the age of, say, twenty-three or twenty-five if they went this route.

There are, to my mind, exactly two reasons to go to college:

You're sure what you want to do with your life (or, at least, you're almost positive which field and you just need to refine the specifics) and a college degree -- or at least some coursework, or the contacts you'll make, or something about the college experience, if you don't intend to get a degree -- is going to be of tangible benefit in helping you get there.

You're at a place in your life where the idea of spending several years seriously engaged in stretching your intellectual capacity and working with brilliant people and exploring ideas for its own sake is appealing to you.

(I would contend, by this framework, that the vast majority of people who start college "undecided" shouldn't be there yet. I'd contend that enough kids are burned out from high school that #2 is a substantial issue, and if you're undecided #1 almost by definition doesn't apply.)

Finding yourself? Learning to live on your own as an adult? Craig mostly disagrees with me, I think, but I think that college is not an optimal place for these sorts of things for a few reasons. Mostly because the decisions you attempt to make for your future as a college student will stick a lot more than the decisions you'd make doing some of the other viable alternatives to college. Concentrate on finding yourself at the expense of coursework and, um, there goes your financial aid. Sixteen-year-old you decides to get a comparative literature degree because she's obsessed with reading, twenty-three-year-old you loses the ability to read fiction when she gives birth, twenty-seven-year-old you realizes that maybe she should've gotten that biochem degree after all (hi, me!).

There are options in between playing video games in your parents' basement and going straight to college just as a default choice. (I'd also add, as an aside, that if spending a year or so "just growing up" after high school replaces the recent trend of doing it after college, I'm all for it). There's AmeriCorps and other similar state organizations, which offer job training and education stipends. There's work or internships or apprenticing with someone in a field a kid thinks they might be interested in. There's working with a parent or with a favorite teacher at an old high school to come up with a year-long creative or research project, which might be a good option for someone who thinks they might want to be a writer or artist -- it's a good way to test or develop self-discipline, maybe with a part-time job on the side to pay rent. There's starting a small business. There's travel -- either with money saved up from part-time jobs, through parents' largesse, or through volunteer abroad or au pair programs.

The problem with college being a default choice, I think, is that you can get the most out of anything you do when you have a clear idea why you're doing it -- whether it's a job, an activity, or schooling. (Didn't everyone independently come up with the hypothesis that classes with attendance policies are the ones most likely to suck, because the professors feel like their lectures aren't compelling enough for you to come of your own volition?)

When you're talking about something like college, where your grades and your academic choices can follow you in both predictable and unpredictable ways as you grow and change, not knowing why you're there can be frustrating at best and miserable at worst. And when you get to the point where college actually can do you some good -- when you are pretty sure what you want to be when you grow up, or when you're not burned out from high school -- better not to have to undo the decisions you made as a halfhearted eighteen-year-old.

So, Nora? If you're reading this, don't worry about college yet. Don't even worry when you're a high school senior. You can go to the Sorbonne whenever you want. Seriously. Just don't ask us to pay for it. But that's a whole 'nother post.

Nora Has Goals and Aspirations

2008-04-19T00:11:00.003-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Voiture de Stijl. NORA and VICTORIA are driving along together.]

NORA: When I grow up, I want to drive the city bus!

VICTORIA: Really!

NORA: Yeah!

VICTORIA: What would you do if you drove the city bus?

NORA: I would tell everybody hello when they got on the bus! And I would stop all the time for people. And I would open the door, and drive all around, and drive downtown!

VICTORIA: It sounds like you would be a very good bus driver.

NORA: I would be the BEST bus driver.

[SCENE: Int., Voiture de Stijl. NORA and VICTORIA are driving along.]

NORA: There is a BULLDOZER driving along on the road!

VICTORIA: There sure is!

NORA: I want to be a bulldozer when I grow up!

VICTORIA: You do?

NORA: Yeah!

VICTORIA: What would you do if you were a bulldozer?

NORA: I would be really really loud! And I would scare little kids in cars!

VICTORIA: Duly noted.

This Would Get Me To Watch American Idol

2008-04-02T18:28:00.002-04:00

I've mentioned in this space before how, although I do not watch American Idol, I do follow American Idol commentary (mostly because my beloved Seester watches American Idol, and her friend Adam's blog has a weekly American Idol thread).

Last night, the topic of AI somehow came up as Phil and I were on our way home, and Phil, out of nowhere, came up with the absolute perfect way to make AI must-watch television. You ready?

Replace Paula Abdul with Christopher Hitchens.

The first time would go something like this:

[SCENE: Kodak Theater (or wherever they do American Idol these days). A HAPLESS CONTESTANT has just gotten through butchering a song.]

RANDY JACKSON: Yo, yo, yo, dawg. I don't know, man. It was just all right for me, you know? I wasn't quite feeling it.

[HAPLESS CONTESTANT nods dolefully.]

RANDY JACKSON: But you're still all right, dawg.

[Silence while CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS stares intimidatingly at the HAPLESS CONTESTANT.]

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Do you believe in God?

[HAPLESS CONTESTANT nods warily.]

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Well, there is no God. But it's too bad there's not. Because right now my fondest wish is to be consigned to whatever your religion's version of Hell is so that I could spend all eternity torturing you in the most exquisite of ways for whatever those horrid sounds were that came out of your mouth.

[SIMON COWELL stares at CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS.]

SIMON COWELL: I don't think I've ever said this before but . . . um, I actually think that was a little harsh.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS: Singers like that being allowed to exist is proof that there is no God.

SIMON COWELL: Oh, you're right, it was utter bollocks, but . . . wow.

[HAPLESS CONTESTANT walks over to RYAN SEACREST, sobbing.]

More Noraisms, Because That Seems to be All I Have Time For Lately

2008-03-27T09:36:00.004-04:00

[SCENE: Int., Casa de Stijl, Chamber. PHIL is getting ready to leave. NORA is eating breakfast.]

NORA: But you CAN'T go to work, Dada!

PHIL: I'm sorry, sweetie. It's time for me to go.

NORA: But you have to show me how the internet works first!

[SCENE: Int., Casa de Stijl, Chamber. VICTORIA is working. NORA is playing on the bed with her butterfly net.]

NORA: Your husband is not here.

VICTORIA: No, he's at work.

NORA: He should not be at work!

VICTORIA: You wish he were here instead, huh?

NORA: Yes, he's SUPPOSED to be showing me how the internet works!

[SCENE: Ext., Knit One. PHIL has said something completely uncouth and wrong.]

VICTORIA: I never liked you, Groce.

NORA: But of course you like Dada! He is your husband!

[VICTORIA, PHIL, and NORA laugh heartily.]

VICTORIA: You're right, Nora. I do like Dada. He's just not being very good right now.

[SCENE: Int., Target. NORA has decided she wants a clock, because her best friend has one and it is an exciting and wondrous thing, and PHIL and VICTORIA have decided this is reasonable, so NORA and VICTORIA are shopping for one with some Easter money NORA got from her grandmother.]

NORA: I want a DECORATIVE clock. No, I don't want a decorative clock. I want a FUNCTIONAL clock!

VICTORIA: That's probably better anyhow.

[SCENE: Ext., Casa de Stijl. NORA is unhappy about something.]

NORA: I am running away! And never coming back! I am running away and never coming back with my Mommy and my Daddy and Tai the Cat, and I'll bring Jane and Landon (one of her other baby dolls) and my polar bear and all my other stuffed animals in my backpack and we will all run away to Grammy and Poppy's house and never come back! So you can NOT make me go in the house!

PHIL: I am not sure you understand the concept of running away.

I'm Not Sure What The Biggest Mindfuck Of The Last Hour Was...

2008-03-19T14:26:00.005-04:00

It might have been...

1.) Attempting to thoroughly explain the concept of a "deadline" to the Spawn, who has at best a semi-firm concept of time;

2.) Saidsame Spawn's rendition of "Sixteen Military Wives" by the Decemberists. Here's the original (and if you've heard the song but not seen the video, you should watch this, because it is among the best of all music videos):

Nora's version begins "Sixteen Military Wives" then consists of her singing, in tune, every number she knows from seven on up, interspersed with the word "Military," the phrase, "America says it's so, it's so!," and "la-dee-da-dee-da-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dah." I am very tempted to try to record her singing it and send it along to the band, because it is just that funny.

3.) This conversation with Spawn:

[SCENE: Int., Casa de Stijl, Chamber. NORA and VICTORIA are eating lunch.]

NORA: Today I told everyone at SNACK at preschool that my daddy was FORTY-FOUR!

VICTORIA: Really?

NORA: Yeah!

VICTORIA: But honey, your daddy's not forty-four. How old is he really?

NORA: Thirty-five!

VICTORIA: He will be when he has his birthday in September. What should we do for Daddy's birthday?

NORA: We should get him an electric train and a workbench to build things with and a FLASHLIGHT!

VICTORIA: I.....um, okay.

Honey, if you're reading this, I think the message Nora took from William's Doll is that Daddy wants to be butch. I don't know where she got the idea that you want a flashlight.

4.) Or it might just be the theology lesson, which I almost posted as a moment of Nora-Zen:

NORA: God is in my tummy. God is also in your tummy, and Daddy's tummy, and the kitty-cat's tummy.

Your Moment of Nora-Zen

2008-03-14T21:10:00.003-04:00

"My baby likes two kinds of milk: cranberry-raspberry and hamentaschen."