avocado8

NaBloPoMo

Ok, don't laugh, but I've finally signed up to participate in NaBloPoMo (nothing like waiting until the last minute, eh?). The reason I procrastinated for so long is that I wasn't sure I'd really be able to keep up the pace of 1 blog entry per day. Well, actually, that's not quite right. What I'm most worried about is being able to post every day here on avocado8 while also posting at least weekly on my hockey blog (I'm playing for a local women's team this season) *and* keeping my Flickr photostream up to date. Oh, yeah, and doing the job I'm paid to do during the day.

See? I'm already feeling overwhelmed again. The good news is that through Mrs. Kennedy's blog post about NaBloPoMo, I discovered dinky, who psyched herself up for a month of posting by formulating a plan—an editorial calendar, if you will. (Hmmm, seems to me that I mentioned months ago that I needed an editorial calendar, didn't I?) Well, here's my plan:

1. This post right here (it counts!)
2. Halloween
3. The Beaner's 3-days-overdue 23-month update.
4. That post about The Devil Wears Prada that I keep meaning to write.
5. A review of my new Fujifilm FinePix F30
6. Recipe of the week [I love this idea, because it can be repeated at least 4 times!]
7. Election day rants and endorsements
8. Book review of whatever was most interesting among my recent readings.
9. A review of a Philadelphia restaurant, park, or attraction.
10. Funny photo with caption/story.
11. ...

This does not bode well.

Halloween Roundup

Thank god for NaBloPoMo, or the Halloween update probably wouldn't be happening until next week.

So first, a bit of backstory. A couple weeks ago, Al and I happened to be at Toys 'R Us (I think we were buying a wagon to bring apple picking), and we spotted an incredibly cute Elmo costume in the Halloween section. It was labeled 6-12 months, I think, but Al tried to squeeze The Beaner into it anyway, just to see how it looked. It was obviously too short in the torso (The Beaner inherited a long torso from both me and Al), but otherwise it looked great. It became our mission to find a suit in The Beaner's size.

I checked on Amazon.com and found several suppliers of suits, but either the size was wrong, the size wasn't listed at all, or the price was astronomical ($52.99 for a toddler costume? are you kidding?). I noticed that the best-priced option was from Target, though the size wasn't listed. I tried the Target website to see if it offered more information, but I didn't see the Elmo suit listed there at all... so the next night we drove to the Target in South Philly to see if we could find one in the store. We struck out completely, but we got some cheap Kleenex as a consolation prize.

A couple days later I had a meeting-free morning, so I headed to the Target in Cherry Hill to pick up a few things (sandwich bags, baby wipes, pipe cleaners) and scout out the costume options. The Beaner was all cheerful when I walked into the garage... until he heard the car start, at which point he completely melted down. I stopped the car halfway out of the garage, and Hannah handed The Beaner to me through the driver's side window. I snuggled him and explained that I was just going to New Jersey, I wasn't leaving him forever, etc. etc., but he didn't cheer up until I asked him if he wanted to come. He nodded, and Hannah went back in the house to grab her shoes and bag. I continued pulling out of the garage, at which point Hannah returned and threatened to sell photos of me driving with my kid on my lap to the tabloids.

We arrived safely at Target 15 minutes later (The Beaner having been buckled into his carseat before we left the driveway), picked up our necessities (all except the pipe cleaners, which apparently are not as ubiquitous as they once were—to the extent that the teenage Target employee I asked about them referred me to the aisle with the Drano, and looked puzzled when I said, "no, the fuzzy wire things you use in craft projects"), and then headed back to the costume section. I did not find a zip-up Elmo suit, but I did find a furry Elmo candy pail and a sleeveless pullover with the same head as the zip-up costume we'd seen at Toys 'R Us. The pail was a huge hit with The Beaner, but the pullover... well, not so much. He cried when we tried to force it over his head, and I never did get the thing all the way on before admitting defeat and struggling to pull it back off again. "Too small!" The Beaner sobbed. "Too small!" (It was a size 3T, but it did indeed seem too small.) We bought the candy pail and the other stuff and called it a day.

On the way home from Target, Hannah and I brainstormed about other costume options. We came up with the idea of sending The Beaner out as Alphaboy, since that's one of his favorite segments on Sesame Street, and because we already have a bunch of foam letters (and numbers) that The Beaner delights in carrying around. "Letter P! Number 2! What happened to 3? Ooooooo, (V)W!" We figured Alphaboy's real costume (a hood and cape) would never fly, but that we might be able to sew, pin, or velcro letters to his shirt and pants and just call him Alphaboy.

As Halloween approached, I discovered that though Al applauded our creativity in coming up with the Alphaboy idea, he'd never really let go of the Elmo idea. When we found ourselves at the Christiana Mall in Delaware, where we'd gone to meet up with my sister, Al proposed that we check out the mall's seasonal Halloween costume store. Amazingly, only three days before Halloween, we found a zip-up Elmo suit in size 3T-4T. The Beaner only protested a little (mostly because we took his shoes off) when we tried it on him, though he began to whimper more loudly once we got him completely into it. The arms and legs were a bit too long, but the torso was just right. To me, however, the true test of whether the thing fit or not was this: "Are you going to wear this if we buy it for you?" I asked The Beaner. "No," he replied. I raised my eyebrows and looked at Al. "I still think we should get it," he said. I could kinda see his logic; agonizing over a lost costume opportunity was not what I wanted to be doing on Halloween night. I couldn't find a price on the suit, and thinking of the wide range I'd seen on Amazon, I asked what Al's threshold was. "$29.99," he replied.

The suit turned out to be $38.99, and Al still voted to get it. For me it was a bit tough to swallow, especially since I was fairly certain that The Beaner would not wear the costume willingly, but I figured what the heck: Maybe he'll want to wear it next year, or we can sell it on eBay next year, or something. And again, no moaning over lost opportunities. So I bought it.

Fast forward to Tuesday night. Al came home a bit early, and I stopped working at around 5:30 so I could set up the black light in the basement and check the lighting of the tombstones out front.

When I returned from taking the photo above (which is atrociously bad; I don't think I had the anti-shake setting on), I found Al and Hannah crouched on the floor, trying to stuff a screaming Beaner into his Elmo suit. I joined the fray, helping to fit the straps around his sneakers and fight his arms into their respective holes. After a few minutes of struggling, I finally grabbed my red-faced, tear-stained, partially-fur-clad toddler and brought him up to the full-length mirror in the living room so he could see how cute he looked. Al had tried this same trick in the store when The Beaner had whined, and it did nothing to convince him of how cute he looked, so I didn't know why I thought it would work now. And of course it didn't, not least because The Beaner's eyes were shut so tightly against the horror that he couldn't see himself. Realizing that the suit wouldn't last long, I left Hannah to do the final stuffing and zipping and went to get the camera.

After taking these photos, I scooped up The Beaner and tried to calm him down. He felt incredibly hot, so I took him outside (where it was actually not a whole lot cooler; it'd been in the low 70s during the day), and we started walking towards Coxe Park, where there's usually an informal Halloween gathering every year. He stopped crying when we got outside; we were about halfway down the block when he gave me the most pleading little look and said quietly, "no Elmo." I kissed his cheek and said, "you want to take off the Elmo suit?" He nodded and whispered, "yeah." I took him back to the house and stripped him of the suit, and Al got him a cookie from the cupboard. "Too hot," he said, referring to the Elmo suit. I looked at Al and said, "want to try Alphaboy? He's already wearing rocket-covered pajama bottoms, which seem superhero-y; I can get a t-shirt, and we can pin some letters on it." Hannah also leapt into action: "I have some extra felt from our pumpkin mask project," she said, digging in her bag. I asked her to cut out a large letter A, and went to fetch The Beaner's Red Sox t-shirt (it's navy, and worked well with the pjs when turned inside out). Al went in search of safety pins.

The Beaner started to wail again when I attempted to pin the lovely letter A Hannah had cut out to the front of his shirt, and he persisted in trying to tug it off. I didn't want him to rip his Red Sox shirt, so I said not to worry, I'd take it off. Then, when his back was turned and his attention was focused on his cookie, I quickly pinned the letter to the tag of his shirt. He felt me tugging on him and started to scream, but we distracted him with his Thomas trains, and I got away with the pinning.

Al then took The Beaner down to Coxe Park (where the festivities mostly included adults drinking beer and wine and kids running around in costumes), followed by trick-or-treating. The Beaner had been practicing saying "trick or treat" all day, but it turned out his "happy Halloween!", which we hadn't practiced, was much clearer. I sat out on the front stoop handing out candy (where I was joined by my next door neighbor, Olga) while Al and The Beaner went up and down the street; they rejoined me after only about 20 minutes, when The Beaner's pail filled up. (I had Al bring all the candy in the pail to work with him the next day. The Beaner doesn't need to know that Halloween candy lasts for weeks; as far as he's concerned, it's the one night of the year you can eat two pieces of candy IN A ROW, and then it's over.)

notice the cheeks full of Twix bar in the bottom right photo

We hung out on the front stoop together for quite a while, and then I took the Canon down the street with me to get some shots of various beautifully-carved jack o' lanterns. When I returned, Olga's husband Greg had joined Al, The Beaner, and Olga on the stoop, and as I walked up Greg plopped his witch's hat on The Beaner's head. The Beaner is no fan of hats in general (not even on other people), but he LOVED this one. Unfortunately the shot I took of him with a GIANT grin on his face is out of focus; in the dark, I didn't notice that the Canon had locked on the door handle behind him rather than on The Beaner's face. Fart. I did get a few more almost-as-cute photos of him in the hat, tho.

I don't know whether it was the magic of the hat or just the thrill of dropping/throwing items into a receptacle, but after donning the hat The Beaner joined in the candy distribution with gusto. At this point in the evening most of our trick-or-treaters were adults and teenagers, so the photos I took of The Beaner handing out candy seem like some sort of weird parody. Kinda like a greeting card with a photo of toddlers dressed up in wedding attire on it.

So anyway, despite the costume drama, we had a lovely Halloween. The warmish weather made it pleasant to sit outside and chat with our neighbors while handing out candy; The Beaner had a good time socializing and sucking on Tootsie pops; and the three of us got to go inside and eat homemade potato-leek soup together at the still-early hour of 7:15 when all the carousing was over. I'm already trying to think of costume ideas (for me!) for next year.

Alphabetical

I know I'm totally getting ahead of myself here—I haven't even written the 23-month update yet—but I have to write this down before I forget that it happened today. In the car on the way back from King of Pizza tonight, The Beaner said the entire alphabet all at once.

He's been saying it in segments for a couple weeks now—singing it, really—starting mostly at Q or S and then singing "now I know ABC next time sing w' me" after he hit Z. Tonight, however, he sang it like this:

A B C D E F G
H I J K ELMO P
Q R S
T U V
W X
Y and Z
Now I know ma ABC,
next time wonchu sing wit me.

That "ELMO" in the middle is what I was trying to prevent by enunciating carefully in the middle of every alphabet song I ever sang to The Beaner. Big Bird and Zoe and rest of the gang on Sesame Street—not to mention the singing ride-on toy my parents got him for his first birthday—have been undermining me, however, by pronouncing "L M N O" as "elemeno" when they say the alphabet. I found I didn't mind so much, though, when I heard my Beaner sing it all by himself tonight. ELMO P is fine by me.

23 Months

The Beaner turned 23 months old on Monday, which means he's approaching the age I've been telling everyone he already is. I often refer to him as "my two year-old", and I find it easier to say "almost two" when people ask how old he is, rather than saying "22 and a half months" or "23 months". It saves them some mental calculations. Still, when I stop to think about it, it's darn hard to believe that eleven months have passed since his first birthday. Is it my imagination, or did the second year go by more quickly than the first?

What the 23rd month was most notable for was more language development. The Beaner tends to repeat whatever we say, and he files away words—and especially associations—for later use. All month long I was reminded of the story my mom tells of the day she registered me for Kindergarten. When my dad got home from work, he asked me what I'd done that day, and I replied, "Mom cashed me in." It took them a few minutes to figure out that I'd heard the term "cash register" and the phrase "cashed in", and I'd put the two together in exactly the wrong way when Mom told me I was being registered. It sometimes takes me and Al a few minutes (or even hours) to figure out some of the associations The Beaner's making.

A recent example (though it did not occur in the 23rd month, it's fresh in my mind) is when I asked him last night if he was interested in getting pizza. Al and I had King of Pizza in Cherry Hill, New Jersey in mind, but The Beaner had something else. "Mukskick," he said. Hannah was just on her way out the door, so I called to her, "hey, do you know what 'mukskick' means?" She didn't. Neither did Al. "We're going to have pizza for dinner," I repeated. "Mukskick!" The Beaner repeated right back. Then it clicked: Al had told me that he and The Beaner had ordered a pizza from Pete's while I was away at MAX, and they'd also ordered a milkshake (Pete's is one of those joints that has EVERYTHING on the menu). To The Beaner, pizza meant he was getting a milkshake. "Oh, no, Beaner," I said, "we're going to the place in New Jersey. I don't think they have milkshakes there... but there's a Friendly's across the street. We can have a milkshake after dinner." The Beaner smiled and repeated, more clearly this time, "mukshake!"

So, right, back to the things that actually *did* happen in the 23rd month. October was the month The Beaner repeated not just words, but whole phrases—mainly things I've been saying to him for weeks without any idea of whether he understood me or not. Example? One day he said to me, "no shoes on the bed!" That's right! No shoes on the bed! He tells me this periodically, just to let me know he knows, even when we're in the kitchen.

When he wants me to put him down now, instead of saying "down" or "put me down," he says, "uh oh, too heavy!" (It probably doesn't take much to guess where he got that from; obviously I say, "I need to put you down now, you're too heavy," when my arms get tired.) And he's now obsessed with where everyone and everything is: "what happened to Daddy? What happened to Hannah? What happened to Mommy? Where did Daddy go? What happened to Buick?" and on and on. Usually I say, "Daddy went to work" or "Hannah went home", but sometimes, when he's holding up his Saab and asking what happened, I say, "you tell me! What happened?"

October was the month The Beaner surprised me by saying "mommy play hockey!" He now knows what a hockey stick is, and he delights in identifying it whenever he spots it in the car or the garage. He also likes announcing at random times, "mommy play hockey!" What he doesn't seem to like so much is me *leaving* to play hockey. If he's allowed to come he's usually OK with it, but if I start dragging my bag to the car without inviting him, he starts to cry. He also melted down in the locker room in Lancaster, PA last weekend when I tried to get dressed for a game. He actually threw one of my skates away from me to keep me from putting it on. "Shoes back on!" he wailed. "Shoes back on!" I don't really understand what he was so worked up about, and why all the gear scared him so (he also tried to tug off my hockey pants); he's seen me on the ice in it several times, and he always smiles and waves. I ended up having to hand him out to Al, who soothed him by saying, "want to go to Home Depot?" "Home DE-PO!" squealed The Beaner. It's one of his favorite places, next to IKEA. (He sometimes announces, appropos of nothing, "bye bye, Mommy." "Where are you going?" I'll ask. "IKEA," he says.)

In October we also went apple picking twice more (I think we finally got our fill of apples for the year), and The Beaner couldn't stop raving about it. He probably announced, "went apple picking!" to friends and strangers alike last month more often even than "mommy play hockey!" He loves looking at the photos of his apple-picking adventures, and he can identify the two kids he picked with on separate occasions. "Ga-vwin! Mad-i-son!" He also perfected his picking technique; he'd apparently paid attention when the farmhands at Honey Pot Hill told him to "twist, twist, pull" because that's what he said when he grabbed his first Granny Smith at Terhune Orchards a few weeks later. Of course, he said it while yanking as hard as he could, but it's the thought that counts.

I'll add photos to this post tomorrow, time permitting; I need to get the darn thing submitted now, or I'll have totally failed in my NaBloPoMo mission only three days in.

Maybe She's Born With It

As I suspected would happen, I'm actually finding it harder to blog on the weekend, when I theoretically have no other obligations, than I do during the work week, when I'm supposed to be, well, working. I can think of plenty of things to write about on the weekends, but finding the time to actually write about them is difficult because I'm on parent duty, and I don't want to be too selfish with my personal time. I already take advantage of Al's goodwill by baking, cleaning, reading, or running quick errands whenever I can on weekends. At the moment we're all in the basement, watching Kipper the Dog and other PBS Kids Sprout shows On Demand while The Beaner plays at our feet. Earlier today we walked to Reading Terminal Market and then did some shopping on Walnut Street together; while we walked, I composed the review of my new Fuji Finepix F30 in my head and discussed the outline of it with Al. I hope to get that written up tomorrow.

Today my post is about makeup. Because before we left for our walk this morning, I was standing in the bathroom, looking at the array of beauty products jumbled on the counter and wondering if anyone would care which products I used. Two things were running through my head simultaneously: (1) Such a topic sounds more like a LiveJournal meme than one of the writing prompts in Maggie's book (which I admit I've only read bits of; after this idea, it'd probably be a good thing if I won a copy of Maggie's book for participating in NaBloPoMo, and if I don't, I'm going to buy one myself), and (2) I wonder if anyone would still say "albino—needs to wear makeup or something" when I *am* wearing makeup, as happened to me in 11th grade.

So, without further ado, here's what's on my bathroom counter. What's on yours?

1. L'OREAL Visible Lift foundation in Soft Ivory (102).
2. Tea tree oil from Trader Joe's (used on zits).
3. Shiseido eye pencil in purple. I've been using this pencil (well, not this exact one; I've obviously bought replacements every couple years) since my mom got one for me for my birthday when I was in 8th grade.
4. No-name brand eyelash curler. Should have stuck with Revlon.
5. Neutrogena Rapid Clear salicylic acid acne treatment. I hate the smell of this stuff, but it's effective. Neutrogena stopped making the similarly-formulated but fragrance-free—and much larger—Clear Pore gel I used to use, and I'm allergic to benzoyl peroxide, so my options are limited. It royally pisses me off that I still get zits at age 38, especially with combination normal/dry skin.
6. No-name large brush for dusting off extra loose powder.
7. Neutrogena Skinclearing oil-free concealer. Another zit-fighter. It works to conceal zits for a couple days, and then my skin dries out so badly that it peels, and I'm left with a red mark that I can't quite cover up properly (though I try with #17).
8. Maybelline Expertwear eyeshadow in Crown Jewels. I wear eyeshadow probably 4 or 5 days a week; this is my choice about 60% of the time.
9. Maybelline Expertwear eyeshadow in Vanilla. I got this when I saw Carmandy on What Not to Wear repeatedly recommend brushing a sparkly white shadow just under your eyebrows and around your tear ducts to "really open your eyes". I almost never use it. I use the tray of Champagne shadow that's in #21 more often, usually on days when I don't feel like doing my eyes up nicely but don't want to look tired.
10. Maybelline Expertwear eyeshadow in Almond Truffles. This is the neutral shadow I wear 40% of the time that I do up my eyes nicely.
11. Trish McEvoy Sheer Blush 3 from 11 or 12 years ago. My friend Stacia Lynds was a makeup artist working for Trish McEvoy back when we both lived in the Washington, DC area, and I happened to stop in to Nordstrom one day after work when she was there doing makeovers. There was a lull in the foot traffic because it was dinner time, so she asked if she could do me. I said yes. When she was finished I wanted to buy something because she'd spent so much time on my face, so I got the blush she'd used. I wasn't convinced it was the right color for me, however, so I didn't start using it until about 2002, as an experiment. (I'd pretty much gone blushless since high school because everything I tried looked garish on me.) The first day I wore it, two women at work asked me if I'd lost weight because my face looked thinner. I was a devotee from that day forward. As you can see if you look closely, however, it's almost gone.
12. Trish McEvoy blush in Pick Me Up, bought about a month ago to replace the depleting Sheer Blush 3... which sadly (though not surprisingly), Trish doesn't make anymore. Pick Me Up is a little less sheer and a bit pinker, but Al says it looks great on me—very natural.
13. Revlon powder brush, used to apply blush.
14. Maybelline Great Lash mascara in Soft Black. I wear this non-waterproof mascara every few days, whenever I think it's unlikely that I'll cry, get wet, or play hockey.
15. Maybelline Great Lash waterproof mascara in Soft Black. My standard mascara; it's pretty bulletproof, which also means it doesn't come off all the way every night, and tends to accumulate. Hence the application of the non-waterproof variety, or no mascara at all, every few days.
16. L'OREAL Translucide loose powder in Translucent (956).
17. Almay Kinetin undereye concealer, used on zits when #7 causes major peeling. I never use it under my eyes.
18. d:fi pliable molding cream (for my hair). Technically not makeup, I know, but if my husband ever uses this list to determine which items to pack for a surprise weekend away, I want him to include the d:fi.
19. Cover Girl eye pencil in Midnight Black. Used when I'm not feeling the purple, or when I'm really angry. (I tend to go heavy on the eye makeup when I'm angry.)
20. Neutrogena Active Copper 20 SPF moisturizer. On days when I'm too lazy to bother with applying foundation, I'll just mix a bit of foundation in with my moisturizer and distribute as evenly as possible.
21. My makeup travel bag (a quart size Ziploc freezer bag). It's currently holding a small jar of foundation, a small jar of powder, a small Clinique sample jar into which I've put some Neutrogena Active Copper night cream, the Champagne eyeshadow, and a bottle of Optcon allergy eyedrops (never leave home without 'em).

Not pictured: What I take all this crap off with; namely, Olay makeup-removing towelettes and a homemade version of Neutrogena's discontinued alcohol-free toner (I'm allergic to the fragrance in the line that replaced it). My version of the toner is witch hazel with some glycerin, some tea tree oil, a drop of peppermint oil, a drop of rosemary oil, and in winter, a bit of olive oil.

Edited to add: I don't carry a bit of this stuff in my purse, btw. I apply my makeup in the morning and then forget about it. The only makeup-related items you'll find in my purse or pocket are a Natural Ice Original Flavor SPF 15 lip balm and, if I'm going somewhere fancy, a Neutrogena lip gloss in Coy. (I actually have a lip balm in a pocket of every jacket, vest, purse, or bag I own. There's also one in the kitchen, on my desk, in my nightstand, and in the car. I can't live without it.)

A Brief Review of My New Finepix F30

The day before I left for MAX, after dropping The Beaner off at sharecare, I went to the local CBOP Photo store and asked to look at point-and-shoot cameras that were small enough to carry in a pocket, that had image stabilization, and had the shortest shutter delay possible. I was shown three cameras: the Nikon Coolpix S7c, I think one from Casio, and the Fujifilm Finepix F30. I had also wanted to look at the Sony DSC-T9, but the store didn't carry any cameras from Sony.

Long story short, I narrowed it down to the Finepix. Even though the Finepix was a bit thicker and heavier than the other two cameras, I liked its ergonomics better (it was easier to hold, and the menu navigation was more precise), and I knew that my friends Jean & Sho got some really great shots with their Finepix F10. I also preferred the cables for charging the camera and downloading the photos to the cradles that were offered with the other two cameras (I often download photos on the road, and I'd rather pack cables than cradles). The Nikon really was a serious contender; I liked the thinness and lightness of it, and the LCD screen on the back was HUGE, but the placement of the non-extending lens meant that I was often sticking my finger in front of it. It's something you'd notice, obviously, if you were carefully lining up a shot, but the whole idea with a point-and-shoot is to snap quickly.

Which brings me to the biggest drawback of the Finepix, though it's a problem with every other point-and-shoot digital as well: the shutter delay. After shooting with the Canon 10D for so long, I can't get used to the gap between when I press the shutter release and when the camera actually captures the picture. The delay, though much shorter than with my old Olympus 3030Zoom, is still deadly when trying to capture the expressions and antics of a toddler.

He was looking at me a second ago, I swear!

The other problem I have with the F30 is the huge amount of digital noise in most low-light (and some not-so-low-light) photos. There might be a setting I can change to ameliorate this problem, and to be fair, the 10D also generates a significant amount of noise whenever I shoot in apeture priority or shutter priority modes, but it seems like the F30 could be a lot smoother when everything's set to Auto. (Click on the photos below to see larger versions on Flickr, where the noise will be really obvious.)

lots of noise with low light (left) and not so low light (right)

OK, so now for all the things I *do* like about the F30 . First of all, it's small. It's not quite so small that it can fit in my back pocket without me noticing it, as my cell phone can, but it easily fits in my purse, my coat pocket, or even the front pocket of my jeans. Second, while its shutter delay makes capturing toddler antics extremely difficult, its movie mode is amazing for the same purpose. It records sound well, the picture is incredibly sharp, and with a 1G XD memory card, I can record longer than I can actually hold the camera up.

This one goes out to all my fans in Hoboken.

Third, the built-in flash is excellent. Fuji prides itself on its flash technology, and rightfully so. I've never seen light look so natural with a flash before, and it does a fantastic job of lighting not only the subject, but the background as well. The Canon's built-in flash is dreadful by comparison.

Finally, downloading the photos and movies from the camera is wicked fast. I'm not sure if this is a function of the camera hardware or the type of memory (XD for the Finepix vs. Compact Flash for the 10D), but downloading is much faster for the Fuji than for the Canon.

Overall, I've been happy with my choice, although it would have been cool if I could have road-tested a few different cameras for a week and *then* chosen which one I wanted to buy. I imagine I'll have more raves and complaints about the F30 once I've been using it for a while, but I think I can guarantee that owning the F30 means that there'll be more Beaner videos on this site.

Shameful (But Sadly Not Surprising)

This shit just makes me SO FUCKING MAD. Not so much because it's being done by smarmy Republicans; I think I'd be just as mad if Democrats or Independents or Greens were doing it, although for some reason, it always seems to be the conservatives who pull this kind of crap. Actually, now that I think of it, it's more accurate to say that it always seems to be *radicals* who pull this kind of crap. There are some radical environmental and animal rights groups who I could lump right in with the crazy conservatives.

An excerpt from the article, which is about using an automated telemarketing system to push voters to vote for Republicans based on their answers to leading questions:

In Tennessee, after listeners are asked if terrorists should have the same rights as Americans, this comparison between Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., the Democratic Senate candidate, and Bob Corker, the Republican, is given: “Fact: Harold Ford Jr. voted against the recommendations of the 9/11 commission and voted against renewing the Patriot Act, which treats terrorists as terrorists. Fact: Bob Corker supports renewal of the Patriot Act and how it would treat terrorists.”

Now, my response to a question like that would be, "what the fuck kind of question is that?", and I imagine it would be the response of many other Americans, too (although some would probably say "heck" instead of "fuck"; I haven't quite learned to adjust my language now that I'm a mom), even those who happened to support Bob Corker. I worry about those folks who don't understand how biased, leading, and misrepresentative of the candidates' records such a question is, however. I'd like to think that we registered voters are all intelligent, reasonable, well-informed people, even if we disagree on many issues, but the last few elections have shaken whatever faith I had in this country's capacity for reasonable debate. I'm not just talking about the Bush years, either: Clinton's tenure was just as divisive and polarizing.

I'm hating my options this election season. I'm hating the animosity, the slander and libel, the mean-spiritedness and distortion of the current campaign and the several that preceeded it. I'm embarrassed for my fellow countrymen. And yet, I am proud to be an American and ever so thankful to have been born in this country. I can't quite believe that despite many, many missteps on both the domestic and foreign policy fronts, despite popular and unpopular wars, terrorism, depression, irrational exurberance, and despite rising religious conflict, this country is still the greatest democracy on earth. I choose to be hopeful, and to vote on Tuesday. And if I don't like my choices, I vow to do what I can to ensure better choices next time.

Go Away

Recipe of the Week: Banana-Chocolate Muffins

I've made this recipe twice already this week; it's a variation on my mom's recipe for banana bread, which she cut out of the newspaper years ago—probably like 20 or 30 years ago. I copied it onto a piece of paper from a World Bank notepad I horked from work back in the mid-90s and pasted it into the recipe book I've been building since 2002. My mom's copy of the recipe is the actual newspaper clipping, titled Blue Ribbon Banana Bread, taped onto a 3x5 lined white index card.

I've been making the recipe as written for years (in college I made it with something called Mummy Food—dates, figs, and cornmeal mixed together and extruded into little nuggets—and called the incredibly delicious result Mummy Muffins), but as I've been eating much less sugar and white flour in recent months, I changed it a bit when I made it this week. I know that adding chocolate makes the muffins more sweet, not less, but you don't need much chocolate to add a lot of flavor, and the chocolate makes the muffins taste amazing when served warm with butter (try splitting them in half and toasting if not serving them hot from the oven).

Banana-Chocolate Muffins

3 ripe bananas
3/4 c. sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1/4 c. butter, melted
1 t. baking soda
dash salt
1/3 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325°. Mash banana with a fork (or puree in a food processor, as I do), then stir in remaining ingredients in order listed. Spoon into paper-lined muffin tins or into stand-up muffin cups (you can find these at kitchen supply stores). Bake ~18-22 minutes for regular muffin tins, ~30 minutes for stand-up cups. Cool on wire rack long enough to allow removal of paper cups without burning your fingers, and then split with a serrated knife and serve with lightly salted butter.

I'm realizing now that I don't have a photograph of a finished muffin because we already ate both batches. (Oops!) I'll have to make more as soon as the bananas in the bowl ripen, and update this post with a photo later in the week.

Ouch

President Bush's press conference just started. Listening to him speak is like chewing hot food on the back left molar that desperately needs a root canal.

The Train is Leaving the Station

I mentioned a few weeks ago, I think, that Hannah would be leaving us soon. She went to a 3-days-a-week schedule in October (The Beaner goes to sharecare the other two days), and gave us notice that she'd be quitting entirely at the end of December. With her blessing, we started our search for a new nanny when Hannah went part time.

We ended up finding someone we really like who can work the exact days Hannah works now (which means The Beaner can still do sharecare), and she starts tomorrow. Tomorrow will be Hannah's last day. (They'll both be here to ease the transition for The Beaner and for the new nanny.) I'm excited about the new person—I really, really hope she turns out to be a good fit for all of us—but I'm kinda in denial about the fact that Hannah is leaving. It's hard to imagine Hannah not coming anymore.

I think the fact that she no longer comes every weekday has helped me get used to the idea that she won't come at all, but still, I will really miss her. I still think I never would have missed my first hockey practice if Hannah had been here that day, because we would have talked about it every time I went down to the kitchen. We're always chatting about politics or sports or women's rights or environmental issues or restaurants or travel or how she got that black eye and why I'm limping, what we did last weekend and what we plan to do this one while fixing breakfast or lunch. So despite the fact that I've had some time to adjust, I think I'm still going to be discombobulated when Hannah doesn't show up next week. The good news is that she'll still be available to babysit for us when we want to go out, and I know she'll come by to visit. She and the Beaner are great friends now (as are we), so she won't just disappear entirely.

I suspect also that she'll want to come by periodically to play with the new train set she bought The Beaner as an early birthday present. He was THRILLED when she gave it to him this morning, and it was a struggle to get him to leave it for a little while to go to the zoo. Al left before Hannah arrived this morning, so he hasn't seen the set in person; he asked me to take some video of it so he could see it virtually. I did that, and because I recorded for several minutes and wanted higher video quality, the resulting QuickTime movie is huge (13MB)... too big to include here on the blog. If you don't mind waiting a little while for the movie to load, you can click on the link below to see it.

The Beaner playing with his new train set (13MB)

At the Zoo

Oh, it's movie central around here these days, isn't it? This afternoon's movie is courtesy of Hannah, who, as I mentioned in my last post, took The Beaner to the zoo today. Somehow, she managed to capture The Beaner in all his glory in only 17 seconds (whereas I took like 5 minutes to record the train movie earlier today). The Beaner helped, of course; sometimes he just summarizes his entire personality, as well as recent developmental strides, in 30 seconds or less.

The song Hannah's singing (and The Beaner is bopping to) is "At the Zoo", from the spring (or summer? in any case, it was the Frog Collection) Music Class CD.

A Thai Goodbye

I was all set to write about the new coffeehouse that opened up in the former art gallery space next to the Please Touch Museum recently—I even had photos!—but we ended up taking Hannah out for dinner tonight after work, and I feel like writing about that now instead.

Hannah had recommended Chabaa Thai Bistro in Manayunk to me a few weeks ago, and Al and I had noted its location when we were in Manayunk a couple days later picking out tile for our bathroom remodel (more about that in a later post), but we had yet to make it out there for a meal. Well, tonight it seemed like the perfect place to go for a last-day-of-work dinner.

Of course, I'd eaten an incredibly late (and incredibly large) lunch, so I wasn't the least bit hungry, and The Beaner kept repeating "no Thai food, no Thai food, no Thai food!" all the way to Manayunk, but in the former case, that just gave Al some cover to order more than one entree and take the leftovers home, and in the latter, we just replied, "ok, no Thai food. We'll just have noodles and rice."

The decision to go out to dinner was a late one, and we didn't call ahead to make a reservation. We totally lucked out, however, in that the host agreed to squeeze us in before an 8:00 reservation. (He was at first reluctant to do so because he didn't want to hurry us, but we assured him we could eat in under an hour, and we did. It's not like you can linger over a bottle of wine when you have a toddler with you... and in any case, we didn't bring one with us to this BYOB.)

Since I wasn't hungry, I only sampled tiny amounts of the food, but I can attest to its freshness and especially its flavorfulness (is that a word?). Our waiter was friendly and efficient, and he and the restaurant totally win points for bringing The Beaner's Thai Fried Rice with Tofu out first, as if it were an appetizer. The intimate venue is definitely better for a couple or a foursome of grown-ups than for a family with small children, but we were made to feel just as welcome as any other diners.

Al had the Chabaa salad, which was like no Thai shrimp salad I've ever seen, with fresh mesclun mix, huge jumbo shrimp with a light brush of sweet-spicy glaze, baby corn, pineapple, peppers, and broccoli. I horked one of his shrimp, and it was delicious. Hannah ordered the Pinapple Fried Rice with Chicken, and it was presented as an enormous cylinder with the grilled chicken on top. Gorgeous (and delicious, according to Hannah). The Beaner had the aforementioned Thai Fried Rice, which he really enjoyed. He ate the broccoli and the cucumbers (which he calls pickles), and then he begged some pineapple from Hannah before snarfing down the rice. He wasn't so interested in the tofu tonight.

As for me, I ordered Al's second entree, the Pad Thai with Tofu, and basically let it sit there while I helped The Beaner manage his rice and vegetables. I finally tried a forkful and found it, too, to be fresh and tasty (and not at all pasty). When The Beaner was done with his rice he had a few forkfuls of pad Thai as well and seemed to really enjoy them.

Dessert was a pineapple ice cream made with coconut milk (and served in a frozen baby pineapple); the texture reminded me of the coconut milk-banana-blueberry ice cream that Matt made for us up in Maine this summer. The Beaner LOVED it.

When we left the restaurant, I said to The Beaner, "Thai food is pretty good after all, eh?" He shook his head and said, "no Thai food!" I said, "oh right, you just had rice and noodles." I think there are likely more fabulous rice and noodles in his future—especially if Chabaa offers takeout.

Oh, and that goodbye? As Hannah herself said the beautiful card she gave us at dinner, "it's not goodbye. It's just a change in the frequency of hellos."

Let It Slide

After my hockey game tonight I came home to collect The Beaner and then walked with him down to the Cherry Street Tavern to have a beer with my teammates. We got there before anyone else, so we went across the street to Coxe Park to play for a few minutes while we waited for everyone to show up.

The Beaner started with the littlest Little Tykes slide, then moved up to the larger Little Tykes slide, and then announced his intention of going down the huge metal corkscrew slide with the nearly-vertical ladder. "OK, I said, "I'll climb behind you." About four steps up, I got a little nervous—on my own behalf as much as The Beaner's. "Are you a little scared, sweetie? Because I'm a little scared."

"Yeah," he replied, but kept climbing. I climbed with him, one hand on his waist just in case he slipped or pitched to one side. When he got to the top, I did my best to hang on myself while helping him get into a sitting position. And then down he went. I knew from Al that he'd been down before, so I wasn't worried about the descent; it was the climb and the manuevers up top that scared me.

"Again!" he said when he reached the bottom. "OK," I said, and we began the climb again. About four steps up, he turned to me and said, "OK, Mommy?" in a tone that expressed concerned for my welfare. "Yes, honey, I'm OK." "OK," he said, and climbed to the top. I helped him get into a sitting position again, and down he went. I climbed down and went to meet him at the bottom. He held up a finger in a gesture intended to cut off any protestations I might be about to make, cocked an eyebrow, and said, "ONE more time."

And so we went up again, with him checking to see if I was OK partway up. When he got to the bottom this time, he just giggled and said, "do again!" Before I could make any serious argument against it, he was partway up the ladder again. "OK," I said, "but this is the last time, so make it count!"

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten!" said The Beaner.

After Game Delight

I had another hockey game today, this time at 2:40pm and at a rink 30 minutes away. It turned out that we'd be playing with a relatively short bench (only two lines) against a team a level up from us—and I'd forgotten to eat lunch because I was too busy cleaning the house right up until it was time to leave for the game. I actually had a cramp in my right hand from Swiffering.

I'll write about the game in my hockey blog tomorrow; the point of this story is that I spent the first two periods of the game skating my ass off (and the third trying to force my burning legs to skate faster), so by the time I got to the car I was starting to slide into that zombie-like state that's often brought on by extreme hunger. It's characterized by an energy level that dwindles so rapidly—in parallel with the ability to think coherently—that I end up not being able to figure out what I want to eat. And because I haven't eaten, I get weaker and more stupid by the minute.

The only thing I could think of that would revive me was a red clam pizza from King of Pizza, but I knew there were other options; I just couldn't get my mind to process any. I asked Al to pick a place for us to eat dinner if he wasn't interested in pizza (and he wasn't, since he and The Beaner had gotten a pizza from Pete's while I was out at my Saturday game). We were almost to the Betsy Ross Bridge exit when Al suggested Indian. I had no specific craving for Indian, but then, at that point I couldn't muster a craving for anything at all. I said fine.

We took the Ben Franklin Bridge over to route 70 to try a place called The Palace of Asia that was adjoined to a Holiday Inn (I think it was a Holiday Inn; it's just past the Bishop's View apartments on Route 70 East in Cherry Hill). We figured (or Al figured, since I was in no condition to do any figuring) that if it was closed or didn't look promising, we could always continue on to King of Pizza and get a clam pie to go.

It was empty when we arrived just shy of 5pm, but it was open, so we got a table. I ordered the Mutter Paneer, and Al got the Aloo Gobi; we also got a side of Raita and some Naan. Oh, and a mango lassi for Al and The Beaner. Mutter Paneer used to be my favorite Indian dish, but I haven't ordered it in a long time. I think I got a couple not-so-hot versions that turned me off to it, so my standbys have become Shahi Paneer, Palak Paneer, or a mixed vegetable curry. Well, either those or the buffet, where I get to try a bunch of different dishes all at once. Of course, my memory of my ordering habits could be faulty, given my weakened state and the fact that we haven't had much Indian food at all since we moved to Philadelphia, and even less since Minar Palace on Sansom was razed.

I won't bore you with recounting the number of papadums I ate while waiting for the real food to arrive (ok, it was two or three). I don't think the main course took unreasonably long to come out; it probably just felt long because I was starving, and I needed something more substantial in my belly than chick pea flour and mint chutney. In any case, it was worth the wait: It was the best Indian food I've had in a long, long time. The Raita was spectacular (though it's meant to be a condiment, I could have eaten it straight with a spoon), and the Mutter Paneer was a close second. The Aloo Gobi was also very good; Al would say it was even better than the Paneer, but I prefer a dish with gravy. I like my curry to sink into the rice. The only things that made the meal less than perfect were (1) the serious leak in the ceiling a couple tables over from us (it didn't bother us directly, but it was somehow worrying to hear a steady stream of water dripping into a giant trashcan, (2) The Beaner wasn't interested in anything but the mango lassi, and (3) he pooped while we were eating, and the bathroom did not have a changing table. Al ended up changing him in the car, in the dark, in a downpour. Not fun.

Since I was the hungrier of the two of us, I finished eating while Al did the changing, and then I asked that the remains be packed up while Al went to wash his hands. I also asked that an order of Kheer (rice pudding) be thrown in to go. The to-go bag arrived promptly, but for some reason the check did not; Al finally just took The Beaner out to the car while I flagged down a waiter and asked to pay the check up front. I still left a big tip because the waiters were so friendly, and because they'd brought The Beaner some chocolate ice cream at the end of the meal. (Surprisingly, he wasn't interested in eating that, either, though he did like feeding it to me and Al.) The total with tip came to $45—totally worth it, in my opinion. We still have another meal's worth of leftovers, and the Kheer (to which I added some TJ's brown rice and warmed in the microwave when we got home) was delicious.

We'll be going back again when the hankering for Indian food strikes (soon, I'm sure). We might try the weekend lunch buffet, or the dinner buffet on Monday through Thursday nights, just to sample as many dishes as possible (and to get our food faster, although the lure of amazing Mutter Paneer might make ordering off the menu the only serious option if it isn't available on the buffet).

Oh, and the restaurant wasn't empty by the time we left. Several Indian families came in for dinner, as well as a few non-Indian twosomes. Generally you'd look for good traffic *before* choosing the restaurant, but we didn't have time for that. I'm glad to see that we're not the only ones who appreciate what The Palace of Asia has to offer.

The Case of the Clingy Toddler

The Beaner is not a clingy kid. There are times when he doesn't want me or Al to leave him (for example, when I go to play hockey; for some reason, he loves to tell me and everyone else "Mommy play hockey!", but he doesn't actually want me to leave the house to play hockey), and he's been known to melt down if I try to run an errand in the car without him, but when I go up to work in the morning or drop him at sharecare, he gives me a kiss and a wave and says, "bye bye, Mommy!"

The last couple times I've brought him to sharecare, however, he's shaken his head when we arrived in front of the stoop with the red door and said, "no Muh-ma and Jess." (Muh-ma is his approximation of his friend M's name, and Jess is M's nanny.) Luckily, as soon as Jess opened the door and M shouted a gleeful "HI!", he forgot his reluctance and went inside to play. I wondered why he wouldn't want to play with M and Jess, especially since he's ALWAYS happy to see them on Fridays when Hannah and The Beaner meet M and Jess at the playground (or at our house, or wherever).

This morning I drove The Beaner (and Al) over to M's house because it was raining quite hard. When I went to pull him out of his carseat, The Beaner clung to the straps, shook his head, said "no Muh-ma and Jess!", and then started to whine and cry. It was horrifying having to pry his hands off the straps, but it got worse when we got inside. He WOULDN'T LET GO. M was happy to see him, and Jess was too of course, but The Beaner wasn't into it at all. At first he tried to convince me we should leave by pointing toward the door, and when I didn't budge, he just refused to participate. Jess tried every trick she knew (and she knows many), but The Beaner wouldn't let go of me.

I think if he'd jumped in and started playing, M would have too, and M's mom Tracey, Al, and I could have made our exits quietly. But when The Beaner went clingy, so did M, and it went downhill from there. It took over 20 minutes for Tracey and me to get out of the house (I'd sent Al out to the car as soon as Jess distracted The Beaner with a book), and when we left, The Beaner was crying and holding out his arms for me. I took one look at that weepy face and ran, knowing it was my only chance. If I looked at him any longer, I would have scooped him up and taken him home... and that wasn't in anyone's best interest.

I ended up sitting in the car for a couple minutes bawling in anguish, with Al rubbing my back supportively. I then got it together and drove Al to work, telling myself that The Beaner was going to be fine, that I did the right thing, and that he was probably happily watching Sesame Street and playing with M's toys within minutes of my departure. Still, it was incredibly hard, possibly because I have so little experience with this kind of situation. Every other time The Beaner's wigged out, I've just let him come with me to hockey or to the store or wherever. This time, I had to let go, and just leave.

Jess called in the afternoon to let me know that The Beaner was indeed perfectly fine five minutes after I left, and he got on the phone and told me himself "m' play with Play-Doh!" And when Al picked him up and brought him home this evening, he was cheerful and chatty and seemed to have completely forgotten the trauma of the morning. When I came downstairs from work, he sang, "oh look, it's Mommy! HI MOMMY!" and waved. "Eating gips," he said, holding out a grape to Al, who was sitting across the little table from him. Al clinked grapes with him, they shouted, "CHEERS!", and then The Beaner got up and gave me a giant hug. God, I love that kid.

Next Up: Refactoring, by Martin Fowler

I am running on a ridiculous sleep deficit brought on, not by NaBloPoMo—which I've actually been keeping up with rather well, don't you think?—but by The Blind Side, which I've stayed up late (past 1:30am several nights in the last week) reading. If you've read Moneyball (and if you haven't, click on that link and buy it right now!), you know something not only about baseball, but about how Michael Lewis can suck you into a sports story and make you want to know MORE. If you've read Moneyball, you're probably a bigger fan of baseball, certainly a better fan of baseball, and possibly even a fan of the Oakland As, whether you live in the Bay Area or not. I'd say it's a good bet you're also a fan of Scott Hatteberg, even though he's with the Reds now.

In The Blind Side, Michael Lewis does for the NFL offensive lineman (and more specifically, the Left Tackle), football in general, and Michael Oher in particular what he did for the Oakland As, baseball, and Scott Hatteberg in Moneyball. Namely, he makes you stay up all night reading. He makes you poke the person next to you to say, "did you know linemen only made $90K a year in the late 80s? I didn't know that" and "oh my god HE KNEW THE MATERIAL" and a bunch of other random things, some coherent, some not. He's made football announcers and sports analysts everywhere talk about the blind side the way baseball announcers now talk about plate discipline and on-base percentage. I've been catching most of my football on the radio lately due to Sunday hockey games, but I bet when I watch on TV this weekend, some on-air analyst will circle the pass rusher and the left tackle and make a point about how a block made that pass possible, or how a missed block resulted in that ferocious sack.

At the same time he's raising the profile of offensive linemen and left tackles everywhere, in The Blind Side Michael Lewis is also telling the story of Michael Oher, a poor kid from the wrong side of Memphis with incredible natural ability but no future—until he ends up at a Christian high school and finds himself adopted by a rich, white, evangelical family who give him the love and support (and the advantages of being part of the upper class) that had been utterly absent in his life. You'll shake your head in wonder a few times, you might cry through some of it, and certainly you will laugh your ass off in the section about the Mumford-Briarcrest high school football game. And you'll probably be checking to see whether Ole Miss will be on TV this Saturday.

I feel like a much more educated football fan for having read The Blind Side, and I'm glad I met Michael Oher through its pages. I'm also more than happy to be finished with it because dammit, I need some sleep!

Patent Pending

I just got word that the patent my colleague and I submitted for some work we did recently has been filed with the U.S. Patent Office. It'll probably be 2-3 years before it's approved or rejected, but in the meantime, I HAVE A PATENT PENDING. How cool is that?

Recipe of the Week: Homemade Mango Lassi

OK, this is so simple, I almost feel embarrassed posting it. However, I'm not sure many people would think to re-create a mango lassi at home, and I'm here to tell you: you can do it. It's delicious, nutritious, and much less sweet than the ones you get at Indian restaurants. (You can, of course, sweeten this recipe with a little sugar or mango syrup—check liquor stores for that—if you want.) I've made this for The Beaner for breakfast or a snack for the past three days; it's a good compromise when I'm trying to get him to drink milk, but he keeps demanding juice.

Homemade Mango Lassi

about 4oz. plain yogurt*
6 - 8oz. Trader Joe's Mango Antioxidant juice or Odwalla Mango Tango
1/4 - 1/2 c. mango chunks, room temperature
1/4 c. water or milk

* I like Fage 2% for myself; when I'm making this for The Beaner, I use the full-fat versions of either Fage or Trader Joe's Greek Style plain yogurt. You can also use nonfat if you prefer.

Throw first three ingredients in a blender and blend until mango chunks have pureed. Add water or milk to thin, if necessary (test thickness with a straw). Enjoy!

6 Paltry Bullet Points

You'd probably never guess this from reading my blogs, but I'm not very good at self-promotion. I hate updating my resume. I suck at interviews. "Focal reviews" at work make me cringe.

As it happens, my company is changing its review period to be in line with some financial reporting cycle or other (don't ask me which one; I love what I do and I'm thrilled to be contributing to the company's bottom line, but the financials confound me), which means we're going through a "mini-focal" right now. (We already did one back in March, or May, or July. I've already blocked it from my mind—and that one wasn't even too painful, since I was a new employee.) For this one I was asked to come up with a list of six major accomplishments since March... and it was a struggle.

It's not that I haven't accomplished anything (see the previous post in this category for one thing among several); it's that when I try to talk about these things, I feel silly. Tooting my own horn on my blog is one thing—somehow, I feel like y'all understand there's a self-deprecating wink, or a ridiculous grin, or some exaggerated-for-comic-effect chest beating involved, and that I don't take myself too seriously. Tooting my own horn for my official employee record feels too serious. There's no room for winking smileyface emoticons, so it all just comes out sounding blowhard-y.

I know this is how one "gets ahead" in the working world. I know that selling myself is generally essential to getting a decent salary in the first place, and then augmenting it on a regular basis. But it makes me uncomfortable.

I did manage (finally) to come up with six bullet points for my manager, who then suggested that I emphasize something that I thought hadn't really been worth mentioning in one of them. (Yeah, because why would you mention the amount of research and analysis—which you were uniquely suited to perform—that went into the project? Because you're an idiot who thought just anybody could have done it.) I edited the bullet point and sent it back to my manager, but the whole list didn't even require the reader to scroll.

So, why am I mentioning this now? Because someone else on the team also prepared a list of his accomplishments... and accidentally e-mailed it to the entire team instead of just to his manager. (The e-mail aliases for the manager and the team are alphabetically adjacent, and the auto-complete burned him.) Dudes, his list of accomplishments was three pages long. It included actual paragraphs as well as bullet points. It had categories. It gave me a serious inferiority complex.

The good news, if there is any, is that I think this person joined the team after the last focal, so this one for him is a "true focal", not just a "mini focal." It's possible he was asked to be much more thorough than the rest of us, to submit something more than a list of six accomplishments. Even if he wasn't, would I change anything in mine? Probably not. I'm (1) too lazy, and (2) too glad to be done with it to drag it back to life now. Yes, it'd be nice to get a raise. Yes, it'd be nice not to have "Lori is not working up to her potential" marked on my report card focal review. But right now, I think those six paltry bullet points are all I can manage. I'll try to work up some chest-beating bullet points with summary paragraphs next year.

11.20.06: Edited to add this photo of a sign I saw in NYC this weekend. It seemed appropos. :)

Hi-larious

Last night Al and The Beaner were playing one of The Beaner's favorite bathtime games: He hands a cup of bathwater to Al, who pretends to drink it and get grossed out. This game developed because The Beaner noticed he got a reaction—namely, ewwww!—when he drank the bathwater, and suggesting that he give the water to Daddy keeps The Beaner from drinking it himself.

When I heard how hard The Beaner was laughing with each pretend sip—and overreaction—by Al, I pressed the record button on my cell phone. Here's what I got:

A Weekend Away

We are leaving The Beaner. Not for good, of course, but overnight, for the first time. My mom came up on Friday to hang out with him and get used to his routine, to learn where the sippy cups are, which towel to use when getting him out of the tub, which jammies are his favorites and which ones he'll reject with tears of anguish, what he eats for lunch and dinner, and how to determine whether he needs a nap. Her sister (my aunt) will be arriving shortly to help out, and by the time anyone reads this, I hope we'll be in the car on the way to New York City.

This time away, alone together, is my birthday present. We'll be walking around NYC during the day, doing some shopping, taking some photos (oh, how I've agonized over whether to take the 10D—it's the first thing I think of when I think of New York: PHOTOS!—but I think in the end I will take the Finepix F30, since this trip's more about spending Grown Up Time with my husband than getting absorbed in shooting), and eating dinner at Nobu. Maybe we'll even get bagels and a New York Times on Sunday morning, and have breakfast in bed.

See you on Sunday afternoon!

Back From the Big City

We're back from NYC; I only wish I had enough energy to write about what we did. Our dinner at Nobu was excellent (and I have been craving lychee martinis ever since), we got to SEE A MOVIE sans kid, I finally got a chance to wear my black suede boots, and The Beaner had an awesome time with his grandmother and great aunt.

Tomorrow I'll write about what we ate at Nobu (I took photos of everything, but I'm not sure they captured the dishes very well—a point-and-shoot in macro mode with a flash in low light is less than ideal for capturing the beauty of well-plated yellowtail sashimi with jalapeño), and if I have time I'll also add my thoughts on the new Bond movie.

In the meantime, here's a self-portrait of us taken on 34th Street between 8th and 9th, I think.

Shout

I'm going to write about this because it's bothering me, and because I want to record that it's bothering me. I'm turning off comments; feel free to judge me, but please don't let me know you're judging me. I'm also really not looking for support; I think telling me "it's OK, you're not a bad parent" would almost be worse than telling me how awful I am. So for now, please don't e-mail me about this or comment on other posts because comments are closed on this one. I thank you in advance for your reserve.

Those who know me well know that I'm... well, if not easily frustrated, then at least more likely to blow my top completely when I *do* get frustrated. I have been known to start screaming and throwing every single thing out of the closet when I can't take it anymore, when the toilet paper isn't on top where I can get at it, and the Swiffer has fallen on my head when I tried to dig through the mass of pillows and diapers and Kleenex boxes to get to the damn toilet paper. I have hurled even the heavy freestanding toilet paper holder across the room in anger.

It is probably not that surprising to learn, then, that when The Beaner frustrates me—when I'm trying to get him in the stroller and he stiffens and fights me, for example, or when he flails his arms and refuses to put on his coat even though it's 30 degrees out—I shout. I yell things like, "YOUHAVETOPUTONYOURCOATIT'SFREEZINGOUTFORFUCK'SSAKE!" Yep, I not only yell, I often swear. Al doesn't do this, by the way, and he hates it when I do it, and yet I haven't been able to GET A GRIP and stay calm for more than two or three attempts at getting him into the stroller or fighting his arms into his coat.

Some days I can last longer than others; some days I keep my cool for five or ten minutes or more, but I find that eventually I get so frustrated that I either yell or cry. (In The Beaner's twelfth month of life, I cried a lot more than I yelled; I think now I'm less willing to get to the point where I'm crying out of frustration. I just want to yell and release the tension sooner rather than later.)

This morning I yelled at The Beaner when he wouldn't put on his coat. It was cold and windy (I was wearing my winter coat, a scarf, and gloves), and he fought us when we tried to shrug him into his orange fleece jacket. (We still don't have a proper winter coat for him yet.) He wouldn't wear his hat. He screamed and cried and said, "no hood!" when I tried to put his hood up. And I yelled. He finally stopped crying and went very still. I tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't answer me. It was the first time I was ever sure that he was pouting, that he was mad enough or hurt enough to give me the silent treatment. I finally got him to smile a bit after a few blocks, and by the time we got to M's house he had resumed eating his muffin, but I could tell he was still a little stung.

M's mom Tracey was still home when we arrived, and while I was getting The Beaner settled and Tracey was saying goodbye to M, Tracey reached for her coat. "PUT JACKET ON!" The Beaner screamed at her... and then he went back to coloring. My heart stopped for a second. M shrieked and started to cry, and Tracey tried to comfort her. Jess and Tracey both tried to convince M that it was OK that The Beaner was using her crayons, and that they could both color at the same time. No one but me, apparently, had understood what The Beaner had said. Tracey and Jess assumed The Beaner was yelling at M about coloring.

Jess said, "I think it's a power thing. [The Beaner] sometimes yells at M to intimidate her." I was horrified. This wasn't the first time The Beaner had yelled. The Beaner was yelling to intimidate and show who's boss. In other words, The Beaner was emulating me. My heart hurt. I felt a little light-headed. *I* had done this. My inability to control my frustration, my temper, was rubbing off on my child. I was teaching him that the one who shouts loudest wins. I think I knew that eventually the yelling would have some consequences, but I guess I figured I had time to sort it out—like I still think that I'll eventually stop swearing, once he starts repeating the cuss words. I shouldn't have let it come to this. I should have tried to get a grip earlier.

And, to be fair, I *have* been trying. I *am* getting more patient. I'm just not getting better at it fast enough. I don't think it's too late to turn it around, to explain to The Beaner that mommy was wrong to yell, that yelling isn't the way to solve problems. That I'm willing to listen to reason if he can explain why he doesn't want to do something, but that sometimes Because I Said So will have to be the final answer. I just won't yell it anymore. I will say This Is The Way It's Going to Be Right Now in a normal voice, and that even if he doesn't agree and yells and cries and stiffens and fights me, I will maintain my cool because I am an adult, because I want to set a good example of self-control, because I love and care about him very much. And because I don't want him becoming everything I hate about myself.

OMG

The transcript of a recent chat with my husband:

Recipe of the Week: Whole Wheat Cranberry Muffins

OK gang, it's probably obvious by now that I'm a muffin freak, and that I like to bake. When I cut waaaay back on sugar in the spring, I pretty much stopped baking entirely, but now that it's fall and the holidays are approaching, the baking has been making a comeback—I'm just using less sugar.

I baked another batch of banana-chocolate muffins last night so I could use up some of the uneaten bananas in our fruit bowl, and this morning I found myself craving... cranberries. Not bananas or chocolate; cranberries. I stopped at the Metropolitan Bakery on the way back from dropping The Beaner at sharecare (he smiled, waved, and said "bye Mommy!" after two minutes this morning, which is about as far from how he acted yesterday as is possible) to see if they had any whole wheat cranberry muffins or scones, but alas, no. (Ironically, they had pumpkin chocolate muffins, of which I already have a few in the freezer from the time I made Shani's recipe.)

I got some falafel at Mama's after an appointment at around 11:30am, but I never got over my cranberry craving. I finally went downstairs at about 1:30 and adapted my To Die For Blueberry Muffins recipe on the fly to create a cranberry muffin that would satisfy the craving.

Whole Wheat Cranberry Muffins

1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour*
1/2 - 3/4 c. sugar
1/2 t. salt
2 t. baking powder

*I put about 2/3 cup of whole wheat pastry flour (which is all I had on hand), 2/3 cup regular whole wheat flour, and 2/3 cup unbleached white flour into a bowl and whisked it together. (The original recipe called for sifted white flour.) I then measured out 1 1/2 cups from that bowl.

Preheat oven to 400°. Mix the above ingredients in a medium-large bowl. In a 1-2 c. glass measuring cup or a pint glass with measurements marked on it, layer the following ingredients, in order:

1/4 c. chunky applesauce (I used some from a batch I made on Sunday)
enough vegetable oil to reach the 1/3 c. line
1 egg
enough milk to reach the 1 c. line

Wash 1 cup fresh cranberries and roll gently in a paper towel to dry.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir 2-3 times. Add cranberries and stir 2-3 more times. (There might still be a few bits of flour showing, but most should be mixed in.)

Line 6-8 muffin tins with paper liners and fill, or fill 4 free-standing waxed-paper liners and place on a cookie sheet. Sprinkle with coarse or sanding sugar, if desired, and bake at 400° for 16-22 minutes, depending on number of muffins (more muffins = less time).

I'm Thankful I Made It Through The Day

3:28pm We're at my in-laws' house in Vienna, Virginia. The Safeway "Thanksgiving in a box" turkey is in the oven (and thank god it was fully cooked before it went in, because when we arrived it had been "thawing" on the kitchen counter for two hours, despite the fact that it hadn't been frozen when it was picked up this morning). We brought some yukon gold potatoes, some wild-caught king salmon, a bunch of asparagus, various vegetarian stuffings and gravies from Whole Foods, and some homemade cranberry sauce, cranberry relish, and butternut squash down with us to augment the box of sides that came in the Safeway box.

With my additions I am trying to relive that wonderfully cozy Thanksgiving in Truckee where Ken (a meat and potatoes guy), Al (a master of Thanksgiving cooking), Kristin (an omnivorous gourmand), Valerie (a virtual vegan), and I (a fish-eating vegetarian) pooled our culinary talents to create a meal everyone could enjoy. Everyone's plate looked different, and all looked equally beautiful. (I have photos somewhere; I should post them.)

5:45pm The kitchen is in chaos. There's a logjam at the microwave as we try to heat the butternut squash and the two different gravies and also try to keep the mashed potatoes warm. My mother-in-law does not approve of the way I've boiled my potatoes, and she cares even less for the combination pan-searing/steaming I'm giving the asparagus. "No water!" she shouts, when I sprinkle a bit over the oiled asparagus, and it sizzles exactly as planned. My salmon is under the broiler, but I'm already unsure it will satisfy; it smelled a tad fishy when I unwrapped it.

6:04pm The Beaner rejects turkey, salmon, mashed potatoes, butternut squash, cranberry sauce, stuffing, and milk. Instead, he demands eggs. We did not bring eggs. He ends up eating the bowtie pasta I'd shoved into the cooler at the last minute out of its Ziploc bag. He also eats two asparagus spears and shreds two more.

My plate looks the best, I think, but I'm not finding the fish very appealing. Is it really not as fresh as I'd hoped, or is wild-caught salmon just more gamey than I'd realized? I eat a bit, but not much. Mostly I scrape the cranberry relish off the top (I had an amazing salmon filet with cranberry-orange relish at the Pillar House in Boston one Thanksgiving, and I've associated this dish with Thanksgiving ever since) and scarf that down along with a mix of mashed potatoes, wild mushroom gravy, butternut squash, wild rice stuffing, and cornbread stuffing, and a few asparagus spears. This batch of relish is the best I've ever made, I think.

6:42pm Ugh, maybe a second piece of apple pie wasn't such a good idea. I probably just should have cut the first piece slightly bigger, since I only really wanted like two more bites. "That's when you just stick a spoon in the pie plate and pick out a couple apples," says Al. The rum raisin ice cream was an inspired choice, however (I picked up a pint, along with a pint of vanilla bean, when I went out to Safeway to pick up a meat thermometer shortly after our arrival). I don't think I've ever had rum raisin ice cream before, but ever since our meal at Nobu (I *will* write about it eventually, I promise!), which ended with a dessert of sticky date pudding and crushed plantains with whiskey ice cream, I've been wanting to put alcoholic beverage-flavored ice cream on any warm dessert that wanders by. In the absence of a whiskey flavored option, and with no way to make brandy-flavored whipped cream (I didn't bring a hand mixer with me), I decided to try the Haagen Dazs rum raisin over the surprisingly delicious Safeway apple pie. GOOD IDEA. (That small extra piece of pie, though? Bad idea.)

7:20pm The Beaner is running back and forth between me (in the family room, watching Tony Romo rack up tons of fantasy football points for my team) and Grandpa Cho (in the living room). I assume he's telling Grandpa the same thing he's telling me. "Hug!", and, once he's gotten one, "one minute. No, two minutes. I'll be right back in TWO MINUTES."

7:40pm We take a sweaty, napless Beaner upstairs for a bath. After the bath he tries to don his jammie shirt by himself. (He gets the holes wrong, but I admire his effort.) He's so proud of himself for almost getting it that he runs back into the bathroom to find his discarded rugby-striped shirt and tries to put that on, too. He now has two shirts on... but refuses to put on his jammie pants. I finally stand him on his head while Al pulls the pants onto his legs.

8:33pm The Beaner is sound asleep in his Pack 'n Play after watching a segment of Elmo's World "onna DVD". I am fighting with the cable modem in my father-in-law's office; I need to get my blog post up before I pass out to remain in strict compliance with NaBloPoMo. (It's not enough just to WRITE every day; you actually have to POST every day.) I have a major case of the sugar sweats from the carb-heavy dinner and the two pieces of pie + ice cream. I will be getting up early tomorrow morning and walking to the 7-11 to buy eggs for The Beaner myself. I'll also be eating a plain Fage yogurt for breakfast in addition to the eggs. Mmmm, protein. But now, good night!

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Toddler Time

It's 8:18pm, and I'm exhausted. I had a shower at 6:30pm and was ready for bed shortly after that, but I still had The Beaner to wrangle. (He went down about 15 minutes ago, the earliest he's gone to bed in weeks.) I've been Beaner wrangling all day, actually, though it wasn't quite as bad as it sounds. I think the fact that it's Black Friday had primed me for going with the flow; my expectations of getting anything on my list accomplished were already lower, so it was easier to relax and just spend time with the Beaner. (My normal mode is to try to get errands done while dragging him along, which isn't always the best thing for either of us anymore.)

My original plan was that we'd take two cars out in the morning so that Grandpa could buy toys for The Beaner's birthday (which we are celebrating with all four grandparents tomorrow), and then I'd stay at the mall with The Beaner, and Al and his dad could continue on to the golf course, where they were scheduled to play 18 holes at noon. That plan was foiled when Grandpa insisted we all go in one car and then come back. Of course, Grandpa's plan was somewhat foiled, too, when it turned out that the Toys 'R Us he was hoping to visit had become a Best Buy. We finally located a small, independent shop in Oakton, and Grandpa proceeded to buy The Beaner a HUGE truck, a medium-sized Lamborghini race car, and an Edward train from the Thomas stories. Al, who hadn't seen the train and the race car, also bought The Beaner a 1:32 (I think) scale VW bug. It was a little overwhelming.

We came back to the house, and Al and his dad left for golf. That's when I asked The Beaner if I could make him the promised eggs for breakfast ("no!"), and if he wanted to go shopping ("no shopping!"). Ugh. Go with the flow. Go with the flow. Go with the flow. I started flipping through the Weekend section of the Washington Post, and I noticed a feature on model train displays. I found one at Union Square in DC and formulated a new plan: We'd take the Metro from Dunn Loring to Union Station, see the model trains, eat lunch, and return. When I ran this by The Beaner, however, I got, "no ride onna train. Stay at gamma and gampa house." Are you sensing a pattern here? I asked him if he wanted to ride the train or go shopping about every 15 minutes, in case he changed his mind (as he often does), but I always got the same answer: "No. Stay at gamma and gampa house."

So we stayed in the house and played with the new VW for a while... and then he asked to go out to the car and get the Lamborghini. We played with that for about five minutes, and then he wanted to go back out and get the truck. TOO MANY TOYS, I thought. It seems like we're totally setting ourselves up for a raging case of Terrible Twos by giving him everything he wants and more for his second birthday; I can't imagine he'll appreciate what he has—or bother to take care of it—if Grandpa or Al or I am there to buy him something else. It made me feel icky. So I told him no, we weren't going to go outside and get the truck, that we had enough toys to play with inside.

That's when he opened the door anyway. "[Beaner]," I said firmly but still quietly, "we're not going out to get the truck. Close the door." "No," he said. Uh oh. "[Beaner], close the door." Beaner: "NO!" Oh, CRAP. Here we go: I've got to figure out how to get the upper hand here without yelling or wrist-smacking or otherwise losing my cool. How do I communicate that it is not acceptable to talk back like that, and get him to do what I want? I still have no idea, but this is what I did: I marched over to him, got down on my knees behind him, and hugged him so that his arms were pinned to his body. I told him he needed to listen to Mommy. I told him that it was not acceptable to shout—at me or Daddy or Grandpa or Mira, to which he added "or Jess". I told him he needed to shut the door. He told me no again, softly, and I said, "we're going to close the door right now." And I held out his hands for him and pushed the door shut with them. Whether this laid any groundwork for the future (positive or negative) I know not, but the episode ended there. He was smiling and playing with me again within seconds.

A few minutes later my mother-in-law announced she was going to take a nap, and I used this as an excuse to convince the Beaner that we should go out driving in the car and watch Elmo on the DVD player. (With no grandparents available as an audience, I figured he might find staying in the house less appealing, and I was right.) I drove to the mall, only had to search for about 5-10 minutes for a parking space, and then carried the Beaner down three flights of garage stairs to a mall entrance. On the way down, he said, "Ride the train?" Uh, Beaner, we're at the mall. "No mall. I wanna ride the train." Really? Because if I'd known that, we would have gone straight to the Metro station instead of fighting for a parking space. I told him we'd go into the mall for a few minutes, and then we'd ride the train. He said OK and added, "want french fries."

Luckily there was a steak & fry place at the entrance we used, so I had a cup of fries in his hands within a couple minutes. (Yes, since I was following Al's advice of just Spending Time With The Beaner and Not Trying To Do Anything Else—his secret to successful single-parenting when I'm out of town—I also decided to follow Al's M.O. of buying him whatever crazy crap food he wanted. I do understand that this completely contradicts the toy philosophy I outlined above, and that it might be putting my son's health in jeopardy to boot.) After that we shuffled at toddler speed to the Gap. There's something very Zen about moving at .25 mph and stopping every few feet to fish out a fry as hordes of holiday shoppers are rushing around you.

The Gap turned out to be far enough down one arm of the mall that after buying some underwear and stopping to hydrate The Beaner ("water, please", he said while I was getting my receipt), I abandoned all hope of making it to Gymboree and just shuffled back the way we'd come toward the exit. We made some woman in a Volvo very happy by vacating our parking space, and then we headed to the Metro.

I won't detail our parking adventures at the Dunn Loring station (they involved a Wonderland-type conversation with a parking attendant wherein she instructed me to go into the station to buy a parking pass... so I could come back and park and walk back to the station to actually take the train); suffice to say that we did eventually get parked and onto the platform. The Beaner yelled, "ALL ABOARD!" when he saw that a train was already in the station (heading the other way), which was good for a laugh. I taught him to watch the platform lights, which flash when a train is approaching. I showed him where to sit, and how to listen for the ding-dong that means the doors are closing. He discovered the window himself, and he delighted in looking out it until we went underground after East Falls Church. In short, the Metro ride in—including the transfer at Metro Center—was quite pleasant. So were the viewing of the model trains at Union Station, and the way The Beaner requested "pretzel, please" when we entered the food court.

His behavior took a turn for the worse when I treated him to a milkshake and then tried to take a sip myself. I didn't really want any, but I thought I should drink some because it was quite large—too large for a small child. He cried and grabbed the shake from my hands when I moved my mouth toward the straw. I said, "[Beaner], don't you want to share with Mommy?" Beaner: "No." Me: "Please share with Mommy. I just want a small sip." Beaner, sharply: "NO!" DOUBLE CRAP, I thought, here we go AGAIN, and this time in public. I decided to play the "it's either half or nothing" card. I told him he could share, or he could watch me throw the milkshake in the trash. He finally let me have some, but grudgingly. He whined and reached for the shake every time I picked it up... until he started getting full, that is, and he realized that there was more than enough left for both of us. At that point he started handing the shake to me and saying, "here ya go, Mommy." (By this time, of course, I'd had far more than I'd ever wanted, just so I could get him to practice sharing.) Eventually we each took a final sip, and I threw out the shake with 1/3 of it still left in the bottom of the cup. (I got his OK on this; I didn't do it as punishment.)

There were definitely a few other moments when, if I'd been trying to get actual errands done, I would have been tempted to shout at him or drag him along or otherwise lose my cool, but since I was going with the flow and moving on Toddler Time, I turned those moments into games instead. When he pulled on my hand and refused to get off the floor, we played a floppy noodle game that sent him into fits of giggles (and eventually got him walking normally again). When he didn't want to hold my hand, I turned it into a run-and-stop game of tag. And so on. It made for a much more enjoyable day. I can't run on Toddler Time every day, of course, but I'm thinking I should be setting aside at least ONE day a week to do it—errands and housework be damned. With all the changes that have been going on in The Beaner's life lately, and with a new developmental stage approaching, it seems like the best thing we can do for him and for ourselves is to really be in the moment with him as often as possible.

Three Things I Learned Today

We celebrated The Beaner's 2nd birthday with both sets of grandparents today. I'll have photos to post tomorrow (both of the cake eating/present opening and of other events of the past few days—I brought my work computer with me to my in-laws', and I can't download photos with it). In the meantime, I'll mention three things that occurred to me today:

1. Despite tales of terrible twos and willful guff, I have an awesome child.
2. I want to spend as much time with The Beaner as possible.
3. I want to spend a few days with my parents at Christmas, mainly to share the joy that is The Beaner with them.

Now that we're back in our own house, I'd like to go spend some quality quiet time with my husband. More news tomorrow.

Christmas Lists

I should be clear up front that I am *not* soliciting gifts with this list; rather, I'm just trying to have one spot where my family can go to find out what kinds of things are on my wish list (year-round, not just at Christmas time). The dilemma I've always had at birthdays and Christmas is that pretty much anything I wanted that was under $200 I'd already bought for myself, and anything over $200 was too expensive to request of anyone else. This year, however, I realized that there are a few lower-priced items that I always want or need but that I'm often too lazy to shop for myself, or that I buy in bulk once or twice a year, and as goofy as it sounds, I'd love to unwrap my favorite shampoo or a 12-pack of my favorite lip balm on Christmas morning.

So here's what's on my wish list this Christmas:

1. ~H2O+ Mint Ice Shampoo and Mint Ice Body Wash, both of which appear to be out of stock on the ~H20+ website at the moment. I bought sample sizes of these for my post-partum hospital stay and then got hooked. I stocked up when the ~H20+ store at the King of Prussia mall closed and they sold their entire stock at 50% off, but I'm now down to a single bottle of body wash in the closet.

2. Natural Ice Medicated Lip Protectant. I haven't been able to find this in any brick and mortar store in a couple years, so I usually order five or six of them when I order our replacement HEPA filters from drugstore.com. The site stopped carrying the filters about six months ago, however, and for some reason it feels weird to order just the lip balm, so I'm running low. Even if I weren't, however, I can never have enough of these; I have one in every coat pocket, in every bag and backpack, in the car, in the stroller, on my desk, and in my nightstand, and several of them usually run out at once.

3. Anything from my Amazon.com wishlist, especially the higher-priority items. (I just discovered that my favorite tea, for example, is available—in bargain bulk, no less—from Amazon, so there's no need to list it separately here.)

4. I can *always* use a Starbucks card (though I love the coffee, I already have a large stock of beans at home, so those I don't particularly need—it's more about the daily hot or iced drink, plus a Vanilla Milk for The Beaner). I also spend a ridiculous amount of money at Gap, Gap Body, and Baby Gap.

As for what The Beaner might like for Christmas, I've started an Amazon wish list for him, too. At the moment it mostly has books and Thomas trains on it; I'll add other things as I think of them, though I (and probably even he) would have no objections if he only received books for Christmas. He got a lot of great toys for his birthday, and I think it'll be a while before he tires of playing with any of them.

UPDATE: We all LOVE the battery-powered Thomas engine Al gave him for his birthday; it tows all the other wooden cars behind it (or pushes them in front) and makes for the cutest little train scene. Thomas is having trouble pulling all of the cars himself, however, so I've put a battery-powered James on his list. I've also added some sticker books, as he loves looking at and playing with the one sticker book he has now.

Al has made a couple Christmas requests, but as his list is quite short at the moment and I want to reserve the right of first purchase, I won't repeat what he's requested here. If he comes up with a longer list, I'll post it. :)

UPDATE: I'm still reluctant to post any of the gift ideas I have for Al. (He always claims he doesn't really know what he wants, so how could I possibly know? BECAUSE HE TELLS ME what he wants, all year long, and I write down what he says. I also check his nightstand for pages he's torn out of TIME magazine; sometimes they'll have reviews of books or products he's interested in on them. (The books I get from the library whenever I can, though.) These are his real wish lists: the one I keep track of, and the pile of pages torn out of TIME. The wish list he keeps on Amazon.com is essentially irrelevant because it's horribly out of date (he already has most of the items on it).

Here are a few hints, though: Al loves shopping at Home Depot and IKEA, and he's not a fan of knick knacks or clutter. He likes gadgets, but they have to be specific gadgets that he's taken a fancy to; you're better off not guessing here. He's a big fan of Bill Clinton's. He likes politics, sports, and travel. He's a Pittsburgh Steelers and Boston Red Sox fan. He's in need of a bike helmet (I'm not buying him one because he'd need to try it on to make sure it fit, but a gift card to a place that sells bike helmets, such as REI, would work). He loves watching television and DVDs, but at the moment he's got more DVDs than he can keep up with, so he's imposed a moratorium on buying any more.

Contrary

Yesterday The Beaner and I had a lovely day together. We walked (or rather, I walked, he rode in the black stroller) to the bakery to buy some bread, and then we trekked down to the Italian Market to buy some more panettone cups from Fantes (I need them for muffin baking). On the way back we stopped at Seeger playground and played on the little toddler gym for a while (I'll post video tomorrow if any of the clips are decent), had a sharing showdown with another little girl over a doll-sized umbrella stroller that resulted in wailing on both sides, and then continued on to the Corner Bookstore (I think that's its name).

I couldn't remember which corner the bookstore was on, so we did a couple loops through the Fitler Square area until we struck gold at the corner of 20th and Pine. The Beaner was a little rambunctious in the shop, but I was determined to find a few new books to give him for his birthday or Christmas. The first few queries I put to the decidedly staid and not particularly well-informed (at least about children's classics like Sheep in a Jeep) clerk ended in disappointment. Titles could be ordered, of course, but hello, that's what Powell's and Amazon are for.

I ended up picking out Maisy's Morning on the Farm, which seemed like it would be The Beaner's speed, and a tale about potty training that I can't remember the name of now. As I did at the library the other day, I inquired about any books about hockey that would be appropriate for the under-5 set; I was told that most books about hockey were for older kids (which is what I found at the library, too). I'm thinking I might have to write my own "Mommy Plays Hockey!" book. If only I had any talent at all for illustration...

I was poking through the Caldecott Honor winners looking for something appropriate for 2-3 year-olds, and The Beaner was pulling random books and flashcards and wooden brain-teaser toys off the shelves when the clerk held up a book with a Caldecott Honor medal on the front and said, "have you seen this one? It's really cute." I said fine, I'd take that and the other two books, and then I tried to corral The Beaner while she wrote out the titles of all my choices longhand on a receipt pad.

When we got home, I decided to spring the books on The Beaner. He rejected the Maisy book so vehemently he practically cried when I didn't drop it immediately. Poor Maisy! Next we moved on to the potty training book, which he had me read twice. Yay, a winner! Last, he reached for the impulse purchase: Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! Since I hadn't looked at the book in the store or even read the back cover, I didn't know what it was about. I got the gist as I read, however.

The story is about a pigeon who wheedles and cajoles and fibs and throws a tantrum, all in an effort to get you to let him drive the bus. It's supposed to encourage kids to say "no!" every time he asks, and, I assume, to experience the thrill of being the boss. Here, finally, is a chance for my kid to yell "NO!" and not get in trouble! Seemed like a cute idea... except that my kid didn't yell "NO!" every time the pigeon wheedled and cajoled. He said "no" the first time the pigeon asked, but on the very next page, when the pigeon said, "pleeeeease?", The Beaner said, "yes." I was all, "noooooo! We're not supposed to let the pigeon drive the bus, remember?" Pigeon: "Don't you want to let me drive the bus!" Beaner: "YES!" And at that point, it was pretty difficult to read any further, because the rest of the story assumed we were saying "no" at each page.

Honestly, I could do without the two-page spread where the pigeon promises to be my best friend and give me five bucks anyway.

A Variation on Ratphooey Pumpkin Muffins

I have another post for today in the works, but right now I'm eating an *awesome* pumpkin chocolate muffin, and I have to share the recipe. It's based on the one Ratphooey posted in October, which in turn was based on a Bon Appetit recipe from 1995. I tried the recipe once before, and it came out OK, but I made some notes about adjustments I wanted to make. This time I made them according to my notes—and I also ran out of whole wheat flour. Here's what I did:

Ratphooey Pumpkin-Chocolate Muffins #2

2 cups + 1 tablesppon sugar
2/3 cup grapeseed oil
3 large eggs
1 15-oz can of organic pumpkin from Trader Joe's
1 large spoonful of mashed butternut squash, left over from Thanksgiving
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 heaping teaspoon ground cloves
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
dash ground ginger
dash ground allspice
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/3 cup golden flaxseed meal
1/4 - 1/3 bag semi-sweet chocolate chunks (or chips)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Beat sugar and oil in large bowl to blend. Mix in eggs, pumpkin, and butternut squash. Mix flour, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, baking soda, salt, baking powder, and flaxseed meal in another large bowl with a wire whisk. Stir into pumpkin mixture in 2 additions. Mix in chocolate.

Fill 12 panettone cups with batter and place on a cookie sheet. Bake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 25-35 minutes (I think mine took 34 or 35). Transfer to racks to cool.

Serving suggestion: Slice in half and plaster with mascarpone. YUM!

More Clingy Toddler Woes

Is it a good thing or a bad thing for Clingy Toddler Syndrome that I work at home? On the one hand, it means that The Beaner has access to me if he really needs it. On the other hand, when he needs it often, it totally interferes with my work. And then there are moments like right now, when he really needs my attention, and I need to be in a meeting. Thank god I have a headset with a mute button, because he is downstairs with both Aura and Al (who's home sick from work today) screaming hysterically right now.

Meanwhile, I'm getting nothing out of the meeting because the crying is so distracting. Would I be better off just going downstairs and trying to comfort him? I'm not really angry about the current situation, but I *am* frustrated. Incredibly frustrated. And I think if I go downstairs, the frustration will become anger... and that won't do anyone any good. There doesn't seem to be enough of me to go around, and both my work and my child are suffering. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHH!

Advertising Bad Grammar

In a full-page ad in the Sunday New York Times, no less. Hello, History Channel? Hire a proofreader!

* This was obviously in the Sunday paper the weekend before Thanksgiving. We still haven't gotten around to reading the whole thing, so I just came across this ad this morning.

Let's Get Ready to Ramble

I actually started working on this post on Monday, but I didn't have enough time to make it coherent that day, and other events caused me to post something else, so decided to post it on Tuesday. On Tuesday I edited and added and tried again to be coherent, but again I ran out of time and other more pressing events were blogged about, so I put it off until Wednesday. On Wednesday... same thing. So here we are on Thursday the 30th and I can just go ahead and delete the original first paragraph that talked about how I was posting these thoughts on a month of posting daily a little early because the 30th was (is) The Beaner's second birthday, and I'd probably be posting about birthday-related stuff on the 30th. (Ha, ha! What was I thinking? Of course I will put all birthday posting off for at least a week, if not a month.) So anyway, I've kinda given up on being coherent. Here are some random/rambly thoughts about the past month of blogging.

Which is worse: All of us posting daily, or only 0.1% of us posting daily?
On Monday one of my work colleagues forwarded an article on Participation Inequality by Jakob Neilsen that included the following tidbit:

There are about 1.1 billion Internet users, yet only 55 million users (5%) have weblogs according to Technorati. Worse, there are only 1.6 million postings per day; because some people post multiple times per day, only 0.1% of users post daily.

This bit seemed relevant to NaBloPoMo, which is all about posting daily. (Aside: I wonder if we will throw off Technorati's numbers for November?) Why is it "worse" that only 0.1% of users post daily? I guess I understand that Neilsen is trying to make a point about participation on the web, and the fact that only 5% of web users blog and only a tiny fraction post daily supports the point that participation on the web is skewed toward a handful of users. But should we all be posting daily? At the end of it all, I think I'm in the "probably not" camp.

On the plus side, writing daily encouraged me to analyze events that I probably wouldn't have otherwise. I often process what's going on around me by writing about it—see six years of hockey blogging, not to mention many of the entries here on avocado8, for evidence of this—so the prompt to write daily has been extremely useful in what's turned out to be a difficult month of parenting. On the minus side, I often rushed to post a filler piece about something that really needed more mulling over just to remain in strict compliance with NaBloPoMo. I guess that's not a huge minus, though, since my normal M.O. would be to scribble some notes on a piece of paper and then not write about the subject at all. There's not much difference between the two, really... and if I post the scribble to my blog, at least I have a record that something happened, even if it's not clear what.

I've got a million of 'em
Despite my nervousness about filling 30 WHOLE DAYS with blog posts, I found I had plenty of things to write about. It's very normal for me to have 2 or 3 blog posts (or rather, potential blog post subjects) knocking around my head at any given time; what usually keeps me from writing daily is a lack of time to fully develop those posts, or a sense that maybe no one else is as fascinated with the topic as I am (although, to be honest, that hasn't stopped me before). I actually wrote two whole posts this month that I discarded completely because when I finished writing, they just sounded... dumb. Boring. Below my usual standard (which isn't even very high). I also posted twice in one day a few times, so in the past 30 days I've written more than 30 posts. There are also a few things that I intended to write about but haven't yet; how is it that I could have a bunch of thoughts about The Devil Wears Prada (both book and movie) sitting in my mental Outbox for nearly six months without writing them down? And hello, I took tons of notes and photos about our dinner at Nobu on the 18th, and I *still* haven't written about it. (That one's easier to explain: the photos are all on the downstairs Mac, and I spend the day upstairs. I've learned to download photos to my work Mac now so I can upload them to Flickr while I'm waiting for builds.) UPDATE SINCE I WROTE THIS ON MONDAY: I totally thought I had this problem solved last night—I uploaded the remaining dinner photos while I was downstairs doing laundry... only to discover that Flickr had timed out, and none of the photos actually made it into my stream. <sigh>

Welcoming positive feedback since 2000
In addition to writing in my own blog (and keeping up with my day job and parenting responsibilities), I tried to keep up my commenting on other blogs this month. I know how much it means to me when someone takes the time to comment on a post I've written, and sometimes a comment can even bring a recommendation or insight that helps break through some of the frustration I've been feeling about some situation or other. For example, Jane happened to use the phrase "getting down on his level" in a comment on the Toddler Time post, and it dawned on me how much The Beaner's 24th month and his 12th have had in common. I need to explore that further; at the moment, it just feels like a light has gone on over my head. (Thanks for that, Jane!)

Er, did I say "positive"?
I started out fairly strong on the commenting front, but over time I found I just didn't have the energy to seek out new blogs after a while... which actually brings me to some thoughts on the wider blogosphere, as well as back to my original question: Should we all be posting daily? I don't know how we'd all keep up with one another if we did... and honestly, I'm also not sure the quality would be sustainable. Since I'm often disappointed when the blogs I read regularly don't update as often as I'd like, I was surprised to find that suddenly some of my favorites weren't my favorites anymore when postings were coming on a daily basis. Mostly this was because the quality of writing just wasn't there anymore. I think I'd rather refresh impatiently for a couple days than read drivel daily, wouldn't you? (And yes, I knowingly posted drivel a couple times myself this month.)

As for the wider blogosphere (or at least that part that participated in NaBloPoMo), at the risk of calling the kettle black when I am most decidedly a pot, I feel compelled to confess that I found few gems whenever I went surfing with the NaBloPoMo Randomizer. For every blog I added to my RSS reader, I hit another 10 or 20 sites that were Not For Me. Some of these were well-written, thoughtful, original sites...on topics I wasn't particularly interested in. Others didn't differentiate themselves in any way (and some even went to so far as to remind me of the time I worked as a student assistant to a Spanish teacher and had to grade 30 papers that all started with the sentence, "As far back as 100,000 years ago, people were living in what is now Spain." After the first four papers, I reported to the teacher that I thought there was some cheating—or at least plagiarism—going on. After the next 20, I faced the fact that these students were just incapable of an original thought, or at least incapable of an original approach to a tired topic). If that sounds incredibly harsh, I don't mean it to be—just as, I'm sure, many of these blog authors never meant for anyone other than close friends or family (if even that small crowd) to read their blogs.

Moving on....
Back to the Neisen article for a second. He writes:

User participation often more or less follows a 90-9-1 rule:

• 90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don't contribute).
• 9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time.
• 1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: it can seem as if they don't have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever event they're commenting on occurs.

He goes on to say:

Blogs have even worse participation inequality than is evident in the 90-9-1 rule that characterizes most online communities. With blogs, the rule is more like 95-5-0.1.

It's hard to imagine that my readership extends so far beyond the people who actually comment; I had assumed that about 30% of the people who read my blog comment once in a while, and about 10% comment regularly. (And that may actually be the case, since my blog isn't particularly popular, nor is it the center of an online community.) It may also be the case that my commenters represent 100% of my blog audience, which would probably make Jakob Neilsen happy. I'm not sure active participation by a large percentage of a blog's audience is really necessary, however. Although I enjoy both making and receiving comments, I would write my blog even if I thought no one was reading it, and I get the feeling many others out there feel the same way.

In summary:

• I *like* the current level of participation in the blogosphere, and though I welcome new readers and constructive commenters, I don't plan to seek them out. (I do, however, tend to find RSS reader-worthy kindred spirits from among my commenters, so if you haven't commented yet and think we have something in common, please add your two cents! Chances are I'd enjoy reading your blog.)
• I'm not sure the number of daily posters is a good measure of participation on the web... although I guess it *is* fairly representative of the type of participation found in other online media. There will always be a few people who seem to spend ALL their time online, but honestly, it's the people who have lives outside the computer whose blogs I want to read. And generally, that means waiting a couple days between posts.
• I will probably try to post more regularly, if not exactly daily. If you see drivel posted here after today, it'll be because I couldn't help myself, not because I was forced to post it.
• Goddamn, the world needs more blog template options (and easier ways to change default styles). I actually hit 4 blogs in a row with the exact same Blogger template one day, and I thought the Randomizer was broken. It's bad enough that every blog author thinks she's being original by calling her site "my own little corner of the Internet"; do all the sites have to look identical, too?
• I hope the NaBloPoMo Randomizer or (something like it) stays in business; it's fun to cruise around the web that way, even if all I learn from my travels is that I'm not really missing anything.

And that's the end of that.