It's Never Too Late for Resolutions
Or at least, that's what I'm telling myself: That just because I've waited until January 4 to make any resolutions at all doesn't make them invalid. Not allowing myself a resolution would sort of be like eating the whole bag of cookies because what the hell? you've already eaten four of them!, only the opposite... or something.
Anyway, is it absolutely crazy of me to resolve to post every day? I feel the same nervousness I did when I signed up for NaBloPoMo, so something tells me that this is indeed crazy, but also the right thing to do. Writing every day was a good thing for me in November; why wouldn't it be in January, February, March, etc.? I might not catch up with all I want to say with this resolution, but at least I will have *some* record of my life in 2007.
Speaking of having a record of my life, I've been uploading a gazillion photos taken over the holiday break to Flickr, with more to come. (Actually, I think I started uploading the ones from New Year's weekend before I finished uploading the Christmas ones, so my photostream will be slightly out of order.) I realized when we were in NYC over the weekend how LONG it's been since I've gone on a photo walk, and how much I've been jonesing for one. I tried to get a few snaps of the city while also documenting The Beaner's adventures with his cousin, aunt, and uncle, and the little I got only made the ache to go on a photo walk stronger.
I can't remember if I mentioned that the two-month period of bliss where The Beaner never woke up before 7:20am has ended; sometime in November we went to an erratic schedule of him waking anywhere between 5:45am and 8:45am (and usually on the earlier end of the scale). It's made getting up for a walk in the morning nigh impossible, but I'm thinking that I'm going to have to come up with a solution to that problem. I NEED my morning walks, dammit, and I think they could be a way to assuage some of the photography jones, too. If I could stay out for an hour, I could get a walk *and* some photos in at least once a week.
In the meantime, here are a few of my favorites from the NYC photos I've uploaded so far:
And oh! Before I forget: I got one of my most-desired items on my Amazon wishlist from Al for Christmas—namely, the Canon Speedlite 580EX Flash. I didn't use it for any of the NYC photos (too big to carry around when traveling with kids), but I tried it out on Christmas morning, and I'm going to try to practice more with it this week.
Failed Experiment #63
On Friday last week I was home with The Beaner, so I decided to try a day without diapers. He loved wearing underpants, and he peed every time I took him to the toilet... but he didn't quite get that he was not supposed to pee in his pants, too. After the second pair of underpants (and outer pants) got wet, he whimpered a little in discouragement. After the third pair got wet, he said, "I need a diaper." Ever since, we've been sticking with diapers—but doing our best to keep them dry with regular visits to the bathroom. He's been a total champ, and I'm hoping that the next time we try this, it won't be a failed experiment, but a successful one.
Past Tense, Big Concepts, and Course Corrections
Al and I noticed last week that The Beaner has started using the past tense properly. I'm never sure whether we notice it the first time he does it, or whether he's been doing it for a while and it finally sinks in with us, but in any case, he's now saying things like "I already ate," or "I saw grandma yesterday."
It occurs to me that we noticed his correct use of the past tense after we'd spent a week trying to explain the concept of time to him, and that maybe the two things are related. Well, I should probably clarify that we didn't give him a Stephen Hawking book and point to the sky; rather, we tried to give him some sense of when he'd be seeing Grandma and Grandpa. We'd say, for example, "on Saturday we're going to see Grandma and Grandpa. Today is Tuesday; Aura is coming today. Tomorrow—Wednesday—you'll see M and Jess; on Thursday you'll see Aura again, and also on Friday; and then on Saturday we're going to drive to Grandma and Grandpa's house."
Actually, that's all future stuff. Where'd he get the past from?
Time isn't the only big concept we've been working on. Along with his future in underpants, we've been talking about:
- how he's going to get a real bed soon (like maybe this weekend)
- death (my grandmother died on New Year's Day, so we explained that Grandma and Grandpa were down in Florida saying goodbye to Great-Grandma)
- where we live relative to everyone else we know
That last one came about because of the second item; I tried to explain that Grandma and Grandpa were driving down to Florida, and The Beaner kept saying, "no, FORD." He thought I was mis-pronouncing Ford. He even said, "I SAID Ford" in a rude and exasperated tone over and over, to our annoyance. We talked to him about that, too, but to help break the logic logjam, I grabbed my laptop and Googled for a simple map of the United States.
When I found one, I pointed to Pennsylvania and said, "we live here, in Pennsylvania." I then pointed out where Grandma and Grandpa Cho live (Virginia), where Aunt Lisa and Uncle Ken live (Maryland), and where Grandma and Grandpa live (also Maryland). I then pointed to Florida and said, "this is Florida. Grandma and Grandpa are driving the white Saab down to Florida." Al drove The Beaner's 1:43 scale 9-3 down the screen to demonstrate.
"No, I SAAAIIIIDDDD Ford."
Believe it or not, I did not lose my cool. I merely opened TextEdit (and ok, I almost lost my cool trying to figure out how to increase the font to a readable size), typed the word "Florida", hit return a couple times, and then typed "Ford". "FLOR-I-DA," I said, pointing. "This top word says 'Florida'. Down here is FORD. Flor-i-da, Ford. See how they're different? Can you see and hear how Florida is longer than Ford?" I then pointed to the map and repeated "Flor-i-da." He repeated after me and then said, "ahhhh."
When I mentioned Florida again the next day, he tried to correct me again, but I said, "no honey, I'm talking about the state, Florida. You know, where Grandma and Grandpa are right now." He smiled and said, "Grandma and Grandpa drove the white Saab to Florida. Grandma's white Saab. Grandpa drive a GMC." How we finally convinced him that the white Saab is Grandma's car, not Grandpa's, is another story—but at least he's got it straight now. Nice to know the big issues are taken care of.
Non-Marking: No Fun
When we were in Napa in the fall, we went to a great little toy store downtown to see if we could find something for Tony and Maria's son P and John and Kathy's son S. I asked about Huggy Buggies, the squishy little cars that Craig and Nico introduced us to long before we had a kid, that we'd bought for the Beaner's cousin when he was little, and which the Beaner now owns thanks to hand-me-downs. I love them because they're squishy—if he throws them or hits me with them accidentally, neither I nor the car gets hurt—and because they go really fast when pushed.
We were told at the store that they no longer carried Huggy Buggies; instead they offered Chubbies, which the salewoman touted as having non-marking wheels. I see now on Amazon that parents and kids everywhere absolutely love them, and my point here is not to criticize these cars, which are probably great. They just weren't quite what we were looking for. When I showed them to Al and said, "this is what they have instead of Huggy Buggies. They're non-toxic, non-marking, and dishwasher-safe!", he replied, "sounds like they're more for parents than kids."
And that's what I want to talk about now. While the Viking cars may indeed be the best toy ever for parents *and* kids, I'm a little dubious in general of toys that seem to be made more for parents than kids. Case in point: Crayola's Color Wonder markers and paper. The Beaner got a couple sets of these for Christmas, and we just tried coloring with them now. I do realize that it's possible that he had much more fun with them than I did (in which case I'd be proving the opposite of what I intended); it's possible that he *liked* coloring for a few seconds and then waiting a few seconds more to see what and where he colored. My impression, however, was that he got bored before the ink could dry and reveal itself.
Even if he wasn't bored, however, it seemed to me that the delayed gratification involved in waiting for the invisible, "won't draw on anything except the special Color Wonder paper!" ink just encouraged him to scribble rather than draw. He attacked the paper as if trying to get an out-of-ink ballpoint pen to write. I admit that I did, too, when my initial attempts to color within the lines were foiled by my inability to see where I'd just colored.
In other words, while I am in favor of delayed gratification in general, in this case the lack of immediate feedback was just plain frustrating. When I paint or draw or even color with crayons, it's a very Zen activity for me—and I've seen that same look of relaxed concentration on The Beaner's face when he's drawing or painting. I didn't see it with the colorless markers. He scribbled for a few seconds, gave me a look that said, "what's the point?", and spent the rest of the time playing with the caps on the markers instead. I think from now on, we'll stick to crayons and colored pencils and paint—the threat of marked-up walls be damned.
The Big Boy Bed
We've been talking about moving the Beaner out of his crib and into a bed for a while now, but this weekend we finally did it. After many discussions about whether to buy him a twin mattress and just try that out on the floor, or whether to just use the crib mattress for a little while to see how it went, on Friday or Saturday night I came up with a better idea: Why not take the relatively unused double/full size bed from the guest room and give it to the Beaner, move our still-serviceable queen up to the guest room, and get ourselves a new bed? We've been talking about getting ourselves a new bed for even longer than we've been talking about the Beaner's sleeping arrangements.
We agreed that this was a brilliant idea, and also that we should implement the plan in two phases (the latter was Al's sensible contribution). Stage 1 would be to move the double bed into the Beaner's room; if he made the transition from crib to bed smoothly, we could move on to Stage 2: shopping for a new bed for ourselves. As long as we don't host any company between Stage 1 and Stage 2—a very likely scenario, given that we rarely manage to lure guests to our home—we're all set. It was also Al's idea to leave the crib in the Beaner's room for a while, too, just in case. My husband is definitely a bet-hedger. Given that we'd have to take apart the crib to get it out of the room, any objections I had to this idea on principle were quickly overruled by the practicality of it. Plus, in the end I was able to arrange the room in such a way that the crib serves to block access to my project/framing closet—handy, since we weren't able to find an appropriate child lock for the closet doors in our first attempt.
Ah yes, the closet doors. I should back up a bit and mention that getting the bed into the room was just about the last step in the plan to move the Beaner from the crib to a bed; only putting the sheets and bedrails on it and setting up a little play area came after it. Before it came a host of child-proofing measures, including re-hanging the closet doors. I'd had Al take them off after watching far too many episodes of Clean Sweep in which the designer removed closet doors in favor of curtains. I was a little reluctant to admit, after installing the curtain rods and hanging the curtains myself, that I didn't really like the effect of the curtain-covered closets. Nevermind that they were absolutely impractical for keeping a toddler away from dangerous tools like the drill used for installing the curtain rods, a ridiculously large collection of frames and mats, various Exacto knives, disused calligraphy pens, heavy metal rulers, pins, boxes, bags, and bubble wrap. Oh, and the wireless router with a gazillion wires sticking out of it. (Irony!)
So anyway, task #1 on my list of childproofing measures was to re-hang the closet doors. #2 was to find a way to lock them (or at least one of them; the other could be limited to child-safe clothing and wee plastic hangers). #3 was to install a baby gate at the door. There's already a gate at the top of the stairs, but I need to keep the Beaner away from all the delicate, dangerous, and otherwise don't-mess-with-it stuff in my office, which is in the gallery space at the top of the stairs, just outside his room (which was formerly my office). For one brief moment I actually considered moving my office back into his room and putting his bed in the gallery space, but I decided it would be easier to keep him in his room than to keep him out of my office, the bathroom, and the guest room if he were out in the hall.
Al got the baby gate up first, sometime during the week, so that was checked off before the weekend. I'd also planned to clean out my project closet before hanging the doors, but then in a fit of laziness I decided that what was out of sight didn't really need to be cleaned. This brilliant plan was foiled when the closet doors ended up blocking access to the drawers of my IKEA utility cart, and I spent 30 minutes or so rearranging everything in the lower half of the closet so I could move the cart to the center of the space. By this time Al had drilled a hole through the wall to the gallery space, declared all the "manly" work done, and took the Beaner over to the Please Touch Museum so I could complete the transformation of the room from nursery to big-boy space.
After cleaning out the closets, I tackled the router-and-wires problem—and, at the same time, the rearranging of the cubbies. (Just about everything I did in this project involved killing two birds with one stone, it seems.) I unplugged everything, moved the power strip that had been in the second row of cubbies to the top row—where it will be out of reach for at least a couple months—and then started assessing what really needed to be plugged in, and where. I managed to get everything plugged into that out-of-reach power strip and put safety covers on all the regular outlets. (The power strip itself is plugged into an outlet that's behind the cubbies.) I then put a basket into the cubby with the power strip, so the Beaner couldn't see it.
The lamp is borrowed from the guest room; I wasn't able to find
one I liked at Home Depot or Bed Bath & Beyond on Sunday morning.
Next I re-routed the ethernet cables around the room and through the hole Al had drilled in the wall (they no longer cross the room, get caught in the door, or create a trip hazard at the top of the stairs). I did the same thing with a much shorter phone cable. I finally found a position for the router that allowed the ethernet cables (well, one of them, anyway) to reach their intended machines *and* the power cord to reach the power strip, but it involved scootching the dresser over to butt up against the cubbies. This turned out to be not a bad thing, as it allowed room for the HEPA filter to nestle into the corner by the heating duct (and, conveniently, keep the cables against the wall). It left nowhere for the backup box of diapers and pull-ups that we used to store between the cubbies and the dresser... until I finished the other child-proofing item on my list and cleaned out the dresser drawers (the top two of which were filled with random cables and wires from when the dresser used to be part of my office, back before I reclaimed the changing table as my project table). Now the bottom drawer of the dresser is full of diapers and pull-ups.
Finally, after dusting, Swiffering, and vacuuming, I was ready to move the bed in. I couldn't remember whether we'd decided to move just the mattress in or the mattress and boxspring, so I moved both. I used the boxspring to plan out where I wanted the bed to go—since the room is small, there was really only one position that made sense—and then I flopped the mattress down on it, stripped the existing sheets and mattress pad off it, and slipped on the vinyl mattress protector I'd procured that morning. I then re-mattress padded and re-sheeted the bed. I couldn't figure out how to install the bedrails (which had been in the guest closet since we removed them from our bed about a year ago), so I left those for Al.
Those are framed subway maps (NYC, DC, and London) and transit passes above the dresser;
on top of the cubbies is a series of Paddington Bear prints;
in the corner are two Underground signs and a photo I took in London;
above the bed are two photos I took in Rochester, NY (city of my birth and my mother's childhood) and an embroidered art piece that a friend of the family's who died of breast cancer made for me. She wrote around the rim (hidden by the eyelet border): "Remember your roots: they give you wings to fly."
Between the closets (see crib photo, above) is a series of photos I took in New York.
The theme of the nursery was "oh! the places you'll go!"
When Al and the Beaner returned from the Please Touch Museum, I was sweaty, and the room was ready. I'd laid the road rug that my parents got him for Christmas on the floor, and I'd moved his Lightning McQueen chair up to the side of his bed. He was amazed—and pleased—but still a little confused. "What happened to crib?" he asked. "It's right there, in the corner," I replied. "You're going to be sleeping in this bed from now on." He walked over and patted the crib, as he had just before he and Al left for the museum, and repeated, "But...I neena crib!" "Nope," I said, "You can sleep here on the bed! And when you wake up in the morning"—here I demonstrated by lying down on the bed and then sitting up, rubbing my eyes, hopping off the end, and then leaning over the gate—"you can say, 'Mommy! I'm awake now!'" He loved this idea, and he spent the rest of the afternoon pretending to sleep on the bed, pretending to wake up, and then hopping off the bed and leaning over the gate to shout, "Mommy, I'm awake now!"
He went to sleep at a reasonable hour last night—and man, was it SO MUCH EASIER to put him to bed. This was actually what made me think of the double-bed solution in the first place: I considered what my ideal putting-to-bed scenario would look like. Part of the reason moving the Beaner from a crib to a bed became somewhat urgent of late is that he's gotten so heavy and so tall that even holding him in the chair—our brilliant solution when he became too heavy to hold while walking around the room—became impractical (and uncomfortable). Worse were the nights where I'd finally get him to sleep in the chair, only to have him wake up when I tried to transfer him to the crib. I endured many arm cramps and numbness in the process of getting him down for the night. (For what it's worth, the reason I never cut him off and just put him to bed is that I *like* the snuggle time we have together at night. The poking and head-butting and arm pain I can do without, but now that I work full-time, I value any snuggle time I can get.) Anyway, putting him down now involves the two of us lying down on his bed for a snuggle, and then me getting up when he conks out a few minutes later. Simple.
I'd warned Al that transitioning from a crib to a bed might be a traumatic step for the Beaner, and that our nights might be disrupted now that he can just get up whenever he wants. Last night was a normal one, however; the Beaner went down at about 8:30 and woke up at 6:50, crying as usual for someone to come get him despite all the practice bounding to the gate and shouting, "Mommy! I'm awake now!". I now suspect that the real night terrorism won't start until he figures out, while still half-asleep, that he can get out of the bed himself.
One other thing that happened as a result of the room-rearranging this weekend: He discovered the box with the Build-A-Bear that his cousin MG made for him in it. She gave it to him as a first birthday present, but he hadn't shown any interest in it at the time, so I set it aside in the corner, next to his crib. When I moved the crib, he spotted it and said, "what that?"... and was totally enchanted. It kinda surprised me, given the indifference with which he treated it this time last year, but I guess now is just the right time. MG had gotten both a hockey outfit and a golfing outfit for the bear; it was wearing the hockey togs when we pulled it out of the box. The Beaner had me help him get those off him, starting with the helmet ("hat off!"), and he requested that the bear don the golf attire. He didn't think the round golf shoes looked big enough for the bear's giant feet, however ("too small!"), so he asked me to put the skates back on. We worked on tying and untying the skates for several minutes, and then he requested a comb. "Fixin' his hair," he said, repeating a phrase he'd heard in a Sesame Street song.
About Me
I spent TWO HOURS today trying to write a short bio for myself. I'm still not finished. Why, oh why can I not adequately describe my current position, experience, and expertise in three or four brief sentences?
Glorious Sleep Is in My Future
Remember how I said that the Beaner slept through the night in his big boy bed the first night? Not so the second or the third night. On Tuesday morning he woke up at 4:50am, crying from his bed. I proposed that we let him cry for a few minutes and see if he went back to sleep, but alas, it was not to be. I went up there and got into the bed with him.
After about 30 minutes I tried to sneak out, but he caught me and cried, so I got back in again and just gave in to the overwhelming tiredness. Both of us conked out again until 7:40am.
Last night the crying started at 3:00am, when I was at my most irrational. I've been known to fly out of bed to rescue my son from his crib at 3:00am despite the ban I've imposed on intervening in the middle of the night because something weird and maternal pokes me out of a deep sleep and screams A RESCUE IS NECESSARY. FLY, WOMAN, FLY! FLY UP THE STAIRS! Last night, the weird maternal finger of doom poked me out of a deep sleep at the sound of my child's cry, and I leapt out of bed... and informed the weird maternal finger of doom that "Iihavetopee. I HAVE TO PEE!" Which I did, and then, without stopping to consider whether it was sensible, I went upstairs to halt the crying.
I got in bed with the Beaner again, and the crying ceased. I did not attempt to sneak out this time, but neither did I fall into that blissful heavy sleep that I had fallen into the morning before. Instead, I fell into a restless, freezing half-sleep, and when we finally crawled out of bed at 8:15 (the Beaner hopped out himself—proving that he does indeed know how to do it), I did not feel rested at all.
This is why Al has been put on notice that if there is any crying before 6am tomorrow morning, it'll be his job to deal with it (or not). The weird maternal finger of doom can just go to H - E - double hockey sticks, because I am going to get a full night's sleep.
(I hope those aren't famous last words.)
The Missing Months
I didn't write a 25-month update on December 30th mainly because I hadn't written the 24-month/2-year update yet, and I haven't written the 24-month/2-year update for a few reasons. One is that privacy thing I first brought up back in September. Another is that his 24th month happened to coincide with NaBloPoMo, so I feel like that month got covered better than most others anyway. But for all I said here, there's so much more I didn't say, and mostly it's because of the third reason: There was a lot of upheaval in the 24th month, and I couldn't talk about it while it was going on. It was hard enough to deal with at the time; although writing about it probably would have helped me process everything, it also could have potentially hurt people who are very important to our family. I didn't want to do that.
Now that I have some distance from that time—and more importantly, now that we've survived it and come out OK—I think I'm ready to talk about the past couple months a little, starting with the similarities between the 24th month and the 12th. In re-reading my 1-year update, I guess what the two months had most in common was that they were damn difficult. I see from my own posts that I cried more in the 12th month (and I remember screaming incoherently a lot, too), and in the 24th I yelled more. It just required so much more EFFORT to parent in that 24th month than it had in the 23rd; add to that behavioral problems that cropped up left and right, and both Al and I were at our wits' ends most of the time.
I don't think it was until December that I realized why the parenting had gotten harder: namely, we lost our parenting partner, Hannah. Over the past year we had formed a sort of parenting triumverate, with Hannah taking about 40% of the childcare duties, and Al and I each taking about 30%. It was more than just child-watching/entertaining, however. Hannah really did talk about parenting issues with us. At first I wasn't sure how to take this; it actually made me a little uncomfortable, boundarywise. I realized after a little while, however—even before she came on with us full-time, I think—that I still had veto power over any proposal, and that Hannah had no desire to usurp my role as mom. We regularly discussed Beaner developments and brainstormed about strategies for getting him over various developmental humps. And even though Al wasn't there during the day, she made sure he got the "poop report" before she left each evening. (It really was a report about when he'd pooped, but it was also a "poop report" in the sense that she told him everything they'd done that day.)
Anyway, we lost Hannah in November. We knew it was a great loss for both us and the Beaner, but I think at first we thought of it like a good friend moving to another city. We didn't realize right away that what we'd really lost was the third leg of our parenting stool. When we did, it was a forehead-smacking moment: Oh, RIGHT! So THAT'S why parenting has been so much harder! And, as was the case in the 12th month, my frustration was mirrored right back at me by the Beaner. This time it wasn't just my frustration; it was Al's too. I was the only one shouting, of course, but all three of us were... the only picture that comes to mind right now is three hand-mixer blades coming together in flurry of thrashing, or maybe Laverne and Shirley having a slapping fight.
Luckily, the 25th month was a lot like the 13th: the calm after the storm. I held out hope that it would be, since I knew all that thrashing had to be good for something. It was: it helped us find a new groove. We learned to step up as parents, and I think not a moment too soon. I hope Hannah stays a part of our lives forever, and I know she'll always be a great friend to the Beaner (and to us). I also know that the timing was right for us to learn to do this on our own. (So many other things in our lives and Hannah's have fallen into place because of this change that I can't doubt that it was the absolute right thing at the absolute right time.) Jess and Aura still shoulder a huge part of the childcare burden—and are a huge part of the Beaner's life—but partly because they're sharing duties, and partly because we learned to Be Parents, things are different now than they were before.
There are probably a few milestones that I missed by not writing a 25th-month update, but I hope by writing daily I'll get caught up on most of them as the happen from now on. Here's to the third year of your life, kiddo.
A Leak of Faith
I never would have guessed when we met with our contractor in May 2006 about re-doing our tiny master bath that we wouldn't have a completed, more usable (but no less tiny) bathroom by the end of the year. Well, here it is January 2007, and not only do we not have a completed bathroom remodel, but we haven't even STARTED yet. Heck, we don't even have a PROPOSAL from our contractor.
Don't get me wrong; we love our contractor. He did a beautiful job on our kitchen in a reasonable (even short) amount of time. He did such a nice job, in fact, that he's been getting more and more work all the time. And, to be fair, we should have guessed that it might take awhile to get his attention; our front door and closet project took many more months to complete than we expected. We were thinking, when we talked to him in September, that we'd have a new front door by Halloween. Later we found ourselves practically demanding that the closets be finished before The Beaner was born (no such luck). In the end, we finally got our door installed sometime early in 2005 (I apparently didn't blog about it, and the first photographic evidence I can find of it is in April, but I'm sure it went in by February or March). So anyway, we should have realized that asking him to do our bathroom—especially when we had a smaller budget than he's used to in mind—might result in exactly the fix we find ourselves today.
In short, our master bathroom kinda sucks. The counter with the sink on it is far too low. We hate the sink (it's brown; the walls and toilet used to match, but we painted and replaced those, respectively; the ceiling still matches because I didn't have the energy to paint it white the day I painted the bathroom green). The laminate countertop uses a really busy pattern, and I've always hated the distressed-white cabinetry (which appears in every bathroom in the house, though I've painted one of the others plain white). Plus, as you can see from the first photo below, we don't have enough storage space. Although the bit of green you see on the left is the bump-in of a bedroom-facing closet that we use for extra toiletries and medicines, there's nowhere to store the ones we're actively using. Some drawers would be a godsend.
Our tub is worn; the washers in the tub/shower faucets are constantly being stripped (probably because of corrosion), causing them to leak; the water pressure is crappy (it's fantastic upstairs, so I'm not sure what the problem is); and bits of tile grout keep disappearing into the wall. And speaking of tile grout...I've never been a fan of the 1-inch ceramic tiles that cover the floor, mainly because the grout always looks dirty. Al used to like them, until they started doing this about a year ago:
It was me getting tired of kicking tiles around and tracking crusty chunks of tile adhesive into the bedroom that caused us to call the contractor about finally doing a remodel.
As mentioned, we replaced the toilet with a plain white model that was a little higher off the floor than the icky brown one when we did the kitchen remodel (because we had to fix a sewer pipe leak that necessitated removing the old toilet anyway); I painted the bathroom walls green to match the bedroom; and we added towel bars where previously there were only two towel rings that we hated (one, sadly, is still there because when I discovered the giant hole it left in the wall when I removed it, I put it back); and we hung that giant mirror because the previous owner took her custom, bejeweled mirror with her. Of those four changes, we quite like three of them: our remodel plan called for leaving the walls as-is (i.e., not trying to steal space from the closets, though we knew we'd have to repaint afterwards), keeping the towel bars and getting other hardware (i.e., faucet, possibly a shelf) to match, and keeping the toilet and getting a new tub from the same line. Al doesn't like the mirror, so we'll probably replace that.
So anyway, we're sick of our bathroom. We were a bit exasperated with our contractor by late summer and tried to find someone else to work with us, but everyone was busy and we had as much trouble getting other people to return our calls as we did our current contractor. In October our guy e-mailed us to say, "is it too late?", and we replied, "sadly, no." He sent us two designs, we picked one, we talked about whether to do an under mount or an above-the-counter sink bowl, and he said he'd send us a proposal. A couple weeks later I sent him info about the tile we'd picked out, and he replied that he hoped to get to the proposal that weekend. That was the last we heard from him, even though I sent him a gentle reminder in December in the form of a link to a few photos of faucets we liked.
About a week ago I said I'd had it. It's officially on my to-do list to find another contractor or to figure out how to do the project ourselves. Of course, my to-do list has been known to languish for a while, so I suppose you could say it's fortunate that Al noticed water oozing out of the caulk near the soap dish tonight while playing hide and seek with the Beaner. I went up to investigate, and I ended up prying off a bunch of caulk to see if I could detect where the water was coming from. My theory was that water was getting behind the tile through either one of the spots where the grout had popped out or, more likely, through a spot where the caulk had worn or cracked (yeah, our house is known to settle seasonally, and the tub hasn't quite recovered from the last settling). However, it was also possible that something behind the wall was leaking.
We talked about it for a few minutes, and we decided we were so sick of the way things were and concerned enough about what might be going on behind the wall that we were willing to knock a tile out to see what was going on. I got a hammer and started tapping... and after pulling out a tile and looking around a bit for the source of the flow, I finally hit on it: "I bet the caulk around the soap dish is leaking, and there's water trapped behind the soap dish." Al pried it out, and sure enough, it was full of water. We were thrilled that it wasn't something major going on behind the wall, but pulling out the tile and the soap dish was a huge leap.
It means that we'll be using the upstairs guest bathroom for showers and Beaner baths for the foreseeable future. And it also means, contractor or no, our bathroom remodel has finally begun.
Getting Things Done with Al and Martin Luther King
Today is Martin Luther King day, and Al has off from work. I do not, and neither do M's mother or our sharecare nanny, Jess, so the Beaner is at sharecare as usual today. This means that Al is doing what he would normally do on a Saturday if he had any control over his weekends anymore: namely, hitting golfballs, running errands, and tackling the larger items on his to-do list, like cleaning out the storage room.
The workbench has been groaning under the weight of impulse purchases from Lowe's and Home Depot, and the storage unit that formed the nexus of our stroller station from the days when I was a SAHM had become totally useless. (The stroller is still parked in there, but the system of bins and boxes I used to sort things that went into and out of the stroller based on where we were going or where we'd come from was less than obvious to our nannies.) And, of course, the storage room is also where we hang all our hockey equipment to dry and where we store our hockey bags; where the recycling bin and long-handled cleaning implements are; where the apple-picking wagon we only use in the fall is parked; where the hose we use to water the garden in the summer is coiled; and where the overflow items from the pantry and the bulk purchases of water, toilet paper, and paper towels end up.
Before (taken in November with the FinePix) and After (taken today with the Canon)
I just went down to the kitchen to drop off a load of plates and mugs from my desk and to tell Al of a brilliant parenting-related post from Matthew Baldwin, and he pointed out some of the finer points of his latest organizing efforts to me. I should note here that Al is absolutely brilliant at fitting enormous amounts of stuff into incredibly small spaces, and he takes particular pride in his organizational abilities. He thrills in pointing out how he's rearranged things, and I always feel awful when whatever he's done doesn't really work for me. It reminds me of all the times during the Dreamweaver 1.0 development phase when Ken E. used to run over to my cube to show me the latest thing he'd coded, and I'd cause a crash within seconds. "WHY DID YOU DO THAT?" he'd say, and I'd reply that that was just the way I did things. I mean, I wasn't trying to crash the app; I was just accomplishing my task in a way Ken hadn't thought of.
The same thing happens with Al's organizing efforts all the time: The true test of whether things will stay organized is whether however he's arranged them will fit my workflow. Areas that only have to cater to Al's workflow stay organized longer; ditto places we share but where are workflows are similar. Sadly, those places seem to be few. The kitchen cabinets, luckily, represent one area of shared workflow, though I actually think that planning had more to do with it than luck.
I think Al made a good choice by putting my tea up front where I could get at it:
And he also, for the most part, didn't touch the spot where I hang my hockey gear (he did temporarily move my gloves and knee/shin guards to my hockey bag, but there's still room to lay them out to dry after practice tonight):
Al is a big fan of bins. He organized our toiletry closet with them, and for the most part his system works well... except that he's grouped items differently than I would have, and sometimes the categories are a little ambigous. For example, does lip balm go under Dental or Skin care? Answer: There are a few lip balms in each bin. Luckily I don't need to find most of the things that are in labeled bins in the storage room; the labels are mostly for Al's benefit. "Of course I have a bin labeled 'Zip ties & Velcro, Compass & Car fuses, Bike tire kit'," says Al. "Of course you do," say I.
Aside from the cleaning and reorganizing of the storage unit, my favorite thing Al did today was hanging the towel bar/shelf that used to be in our master bathroom (and that came crashing down on my head one day when I was hanging a towel) in the storage room. I think it'll be a great spot to hang overflow hockey equipment, and Al has already stashed a wire bin on the shelf.
As part of the reorganization there was also some weeding, obviously. Al unearthed an unopened box of granulated Splenda, some expired Stevia leaf packets (which I threw out), and some Splenda packets. He also set aside the Graco stroller rain cover that we bought as a backup to the one we wore a hole through when we were using it with the Snap 'n Go... and that we never used because The Beaner outgrew the Snap 'n Go not long after. I put both items on Freecycle and got six requests for the Splenda within 30 minutes; so far, there've been no takers for the stroller cover. Huh. Tomorrow I'll be freecycling a KVM switch and some chili. Want to take bets on what will go first?
The Water Buffalo Story
I want this beautifully-produced video by the brother of a friend makes its way around the Internet, so I'll do my small part to expand its audience. Please go read the story behind the "Four Generations" water buffalo movie, and then watch the video. It's an amazing video, and an even more amazing story.
How Do You Do It?
I read the blogs of other parents on a daily basis, and despite knowing the favorite foods, least favorite activities, sleep patterns, and even the bathroom habits of many of the children of those parents (not to mention the parents themselves), I realized the other day that with a couple exceptions, I know very little about how these parents organize their days. Are they stay-at-home moms or dads? Do they go to offices during the day, every day? Only a couple days? Work from home? Who takes care of the kid or kids, regardless? What does a typical day look like for these other blogging parents, and how do they get through it?
For a long time I didn't really know Ratphooey's work/childcare arrangements, despite the fact that I read her blog daily and have interacted with her in person. I probably know the most about Juliloquy's daily routine because of her Day in the Life series, and it's been so cool to learn about it, not least because she also lives in Philadelphia and her Schmoo is a couple weeks older than the Beaner. I think what makes it most fascinating is that she goes into the kind of detail that other bloggers do not. I, for example, think that everyone MUST have figured out by now what my work/childcare arrangements are and what my routine is because I mention bits and pieces of it all the time... and yet, though I'm sure other bloggers would say the same about their lives and blogs, I'm here to tell you that I STILL HAVE QUESTIONS. Well, one major question: How do you do it? How does your family manage work/childcare/housework/all the other stuff that needs to get done?
I'm not sure I can answer all of that at once, but for the benefit of new and old readers alike, I'll try to give a snapshot. I'd love for other parents to do the same, either in the comments or in your blogs (leave a link in the comments if you end up posting about this!).
I guess I'll start with work. A summary of my work history is available on my about page; what's relevant now is that I work from home at a full-time job for a relatively large company. In other words, I'm a telecommuter rather than a freelancer. The rest of my team is based in San Francisco, CA (except for one other engineer who's also a full-time telecommuter; he's in San Diego). Al also works full-time, at an office here in Philadelphia. He's lucky to have a commute that takes 10-15 minutes, depending on whether he takes the bus or walks.
We currently have a nanny who comes three days a week at 8:30am and stays until 6:00pm. On these days, Al goes off to the office shortly after she arrives, and I start work anywhere from 8:45am to 9:30am, depending on whether I've managed to squeeze in a walk and/or what time the Beaner wakes up. I work upstairs in a messy office outside the Beaner's bedroom, and I generally stay up there whenever the Beaner and Aura, the nanny, are home. When I hear the garage door open and shut, I know they've gone out, and it's safe to go downstairs and get a cup of tea or something to eat. Although I occasionally do go downstairs while the Beaner is home and awake for the express purpose of giving him a quick snuggle, it's a dangerous proposition—I risk not being able to extract myself without tears. Still, sometimes it's worth it. Sometimes I really need it.
The other two days a week, the Beaner goes to sharecare. Enough people have looked at me quizzically or asked outright, "what's that?" that I'm starting to believe the term "sharecare" is not universally understood. Allow me to explain what I mean: We "share care" with another family that also has a toddler and a nanny. In other words, that family's nanny, Jess, takes care of both her regular charge and our Beaner, and each family pays Jess a slightly reduced hourly rate. This way, Jess earns more for watching two children than she would for watching one, and the two families each pay less than we would if we each had our own nanny. The kids love it because they have a regular playmate, so everybody wins.
On sharecare days, Al usually feeds the Beaner breakfast and packs his lunch while I get dressed upstairs. When I come down, Al does his final preparations while I get out the double stroller and make sure there are some Pull-Ups and a change of clothes in the Beaner's diaper bag (a clear plastic bag that I think a blanket came in). I then get the Beaner into his coat and into the stroller, and all three of us leave together. We usually try to leave by 8:45am, but sometimes we don't make it out of the house until 9:00. Al splits off at Market Street, and the Beaner and I continue on to M's house, which is a little over a half mile from our house. (If it's raining, the routine is a little different; in that case, I throw the stroller in the trunk and drive the Beaner over to M's house. It's rained on surprisingly few sharecare days; I think I've only driven him three or four times in as many months.)
The double stroller was a special purchase just for sharecare, by the way; it helps Jess get around to the playground and the Please Touch Museum with both kids. I don't think I've ever seen them both riding in it at the same time, however. Anyway, I usually spend anywhere from 5-15 minutes getting the Beaner acclimated at M's house (though yesterday he ran straight into the kitchen with M, so I left right away), and then I walk back home. I usually stop at Trader Joe's on the way and pick up a few things, and if I'm lucky I'm at my desk at 9:30am. If I'm unlucky, and the Beaner melts down (this really only happened during the month of November; he seems OK now), it could be 10am before I get to sit down at my computer.
The good news is that even though I often get a later start on sharecare days, I also usually get a lot of work done because the house is quieter. (I also tend to get some laundry done, too, because I can run downstairs to change loads whenever I want.) I also eat better, because I can come down and make myself something when I'm hungry, not get stuck eating corn chips, almonds, and LUNA bars upstairs because the Beaner's down in the kitchen, waiting to cling to my neck if I make an appearance.
Jess is only officially on duty with M until 5:00pm, so when M's mom comes home (or her dad, who like me works upstairs at their house) comes down, she packs the Beaner and his lunch and diaper bags back into the double stroller and walks him over to our house. They usually arrive anywhere from 5:20pm to 5:50pm; if it's earlier, they go downstairs to the basement to play. If it's later, they'll come up to see me in my office, and Jess will give me a rundown of how the Beaner behaved, whether he napped, and how often he went to the potty.
Whether it's a sharecare day or a regular day, Al usually comes home around the time the nannies are leaving, which is handy for me if it's not a payday—it means I have a couple extra minutes to finish up what I'm doing upstairs. My San Francisco colleagues seem to go on a tear after 4pm my time (i.e., after lunch their time), so I'm often consulting with one or another of them about a bug or a feature right when Family Time should be starting.
If it is a payday, at 6:00pm I'm downstairs writing a check. Al has written checks before, but I don't think he knows how to do the tax calculations if either nanny has worked more or fewer hours than usual. We have a service prepare our nanny taxes for us, and they give us a sheet with gross and net pay amounts for a regular week of work as well as a multiplier to use when the gross amount differs from the usual amount. Actually, it occurs to me that this alone might be news; from the postings on craigslist and other friends and nannies I've talked to, it seems that it's just as common to pay for childcare under the table. Although neither of us is likely to run for public office or be nominated for Attorney General, we wanted to be legal and above-board.
After the nannies have gone home, Al and I usually decide what to do for dinner (about 2/3 of the time we go out or order in, and the other 1/3 of the time I make something or we eat from the freezer). If we eat in we might go for a family walk afterwards or play in the basement together. Sometime between 7:30 and 8:30 we have bathtime, and sometime between 8:30 and 9:30 I snuggle the Beaner to sleep in his bed while Al cleans up the kitchen. After that I either work for another hour or two, we watch TV together (24, Friday Night Lights, Veronica Mars, Lost, or 30 Rock), or we have a Family Meeting. (We started meeting once a week before the holidays to talk about things like retirement planning, vacation planning, the budget, etc. Our first meeting, in November, was about benefits; our open enrollment periods happened to coincide, so it was a good time to figure out which health plan made more sense, how much to set aside for childcare FSA—the max, without a doubt—and healthcare FSA, etc.)
I'm running out of battery on my laptop, and in reading this out loud to Al I realize how boring it all sounds, so I won't bother covering weekends. Now, let's hear how you do it!
A Gift From the Grave
When all of my Uncle Bruce's affairs were settled at the beginning of 2006, I received a small amount of money from the estate. I was pretty conflicted about it, mainly because some hoops were jumped through to give it to me (the will did not explicitly say that I should get anything), and because although I appreciated the sentiment that each of Bruce's nieces and nephews should get something, I didn't need it.
So after agonizing over it for about five minutes, I set aside 1/5 of the money for the Beaner and donated the other 4/5ths to charity. I can't even tell you how happy it made me to give far more than I ever had before to the two public television stations that supply us with Sesame Street, the local radio station that produces Fresh Air, and a fourth organization that works to preserve the American Bald Eagle, Bruce's favorite bird. It made me so happy—and the two public television stations, in particular, downright ecstatic—that I've been wishing that I had another chunk of money to give away this year.
Enter my grandmother. Or exit, I should say. My mother's mother died on January 1 of this year, and I just got a letter informing me that I have inherited the exact sum that I received from Bruce's estate. Ironically, this time I'm feeling no conflict or agony, despite the fact that my grandmother and I have not been close since that time she flipped out on my sister and me at Disney World when I was 14. (Long story, but she scared the shit out of us, and suddenly I saw why my mom had been so afraid of her growing up.) I never quite forgave her for that incident, or for the pain she caused my mom, though I'm not sure she was ever really aware that the distance between us had more to do with me resolving to stay cordial but closed, rather than with actual physical distance.
Anyway, today I am happy to report that my grandmother is bringing happiness from beyond the grave rather than pain. The local PBS stations that were so thrilled to get larger-than-usual donations last year will be getting them again this year. So will Breast Cancer Action, and so will our local food bank, because as Al says, it pains him to know that people around us are going hungry. I feel like the Grinch on Christmas morning, and that my heart has grown three sizes today. I hope my grandmother, who probably would have considered such a sentiment "soft" while alive, is feeling a bit of the joy her gift is spreading.
Two Beaner Notes
Since I haven't been particularly good about posting developmental milestones in the past couple months, I wanted to write about a couple small things now, before I forget.
The Beaner finally learned to jump today. He's been leaping off curbs, doorsteps, stairs, and structures at the playground for months... one foot at a time. We would yell "jump!", and he would step off and start giggling, thinking he had jumped. We tried to tell him at first that it took two feet to jump, but after awhile we just cheered the big step and said to ourselves, good enough.
Well, tonight he started jumping with a vengeance—really jumping, with both feet. While I was unpacking my hockey bag on the landing outside the storage room, the Beaner jumped off the bottom step. I didn't see him do it; I just heard him squeal, "I jumped! I gonna jump AGAIN!" I said, "OK, but be careful," since the space available to jump in was tight. The second time he kind of chickened out and did a half jump/half step, and his indecision cost him: He ended up face-planting.
Undeterred, he assured me he was fine and got back on the step to jump again. He repeated the process over and over again, even after I'd said "OK, ONE more time" at least twice, and even after I turned out the light. I finally had to pick him up and carry him up the stairs to the tub.
After his bath, he wanted to try jumping some more. It totally reminded me of my childhood, of skills learned in giant breakthroughs and then repeated over and over again because I couldn't quite believe I'd mastered them... and also because I was afraid I'd forget. He jumped off the little stepstool at the foot of his bed about 20 times, occasionally falling backwards on his butt because he always landed stiff-legged, instead of bending his knees. I hadn't noticed the stiff-legged landings when we were downstairs, but as he was naked for half of these jumps and diaper-clad for the remainder, his knee position was obvious. I tried to demonstrate landing with knees bent, but he seemed only to be able to bend before he jumped and after he'd already planted, not as he was landing. Oh well: that'll just be the next thing to work on!
One night couple months ago, back when I was still snuggling the Beaner to sleep in a chair and then transferring him to his crib, I was trying to talk him down from a rather hyper state to a sleep-ready one. (He usually went in ready to sleep, but not on this night.) I forget how it started, but I ended up listing all the people who love him. "Daddy loves you, and Mommy loves you, and Grandma loves you, and Grandpa loves you, and Grandma Cho loves you, and Grandpa Cho loves you..." and on and on until he fell asleep.
Fast-forward to sleeping-in-the-big-boy-bed time. It's so much easier to put him to sleep now that I can just lie next to him and doze off myself while he settles down and starts in with the neck kneading. Usually all that's required is a few "it's time for sleeping" reminders, and then silence. Tonight I was actively trying not to doze off so I could get downstairs as soon as possible to watch 24, so I happened to catch something I hadn't identified as a pattern before: Not for the first time, I heard the Beaner whispering to himself, "...and Grandpa loves you, and Hannah loves you, and Daddy loves you, and Aunt Lisa loves you, and Mommy loves you..." as he drifted off to sleep.
Real, Actual Jury Duty
I reported for Jury Duty at the Criminal Justice Building this morning at 8:15am, my second time doing so since moving to Philadelphia in the fall of 2003. Last time I was juror #18 in a panel of 20 for a civil trial, but after a LOT of sitting around in the courtroom, eight jurors were chosen from among the first 16, and I was sent home.
This time I was juror #8 out of a panel of 40, so I knew that chances were good that unless one of the attorneys had a specific issue with me, I was likely to be chosen to hear the trial. I was indeed, though only two of the first 10 of us were chosen this time. I'm not allowed to talk about the case at all, so I won't, but I will say a couple words about voir dire. First, I was surprised how many people answered Yes to the question "Have you or anyone close to you been the victim of a crime?" I checked Yes because I've had two bicycles and a camera stolen, among other things, and Al had his car broken into outside my apartment in San Francisco. I was horrified to hear several of the other potential jurors report that they or their family members had been robbed at gunpoint, been the victims of home invasions or assaults, or had had friends or relatives who were murdered.
To the question "Have you or someone close to you ever been charged with a crime?", I again had to answer Yes, thanks to that underage possession of alcohol charge when I was 20, to which I pled NoLo and paid a fine. Stupidest thing ever, since the charges would have been dropped had I fought them at all, but I suspect I would have had to check Yes even so. (A couple other jurors reported being charged with possession of marijuana and having had the charges dropped.) I think the record of that "conviction" was expunged after five years—and it's now been nearly 19—so it's not something I mention on applications anymore (unless it's like a serious criminal background check kind of thing).
I kind of expected that there might be others in my situation, so I wasn't surprised to hear about the marijuana possessions of 1977 and "when I was 17". I was surprised, however, to hear one woman say that practically her entire family was currently encarcerated, and several others report that brothers or sisters had been convicted of felonies. One juror checked Yes for "Is there any other reason that you might not be able to serve as a juror?" and said when questioned about it that he was on probation. Another had a pending drug charge, the status of which he was unsure.
Here's what crossed my mind during voir dire: Is this what voir dire is like in all cities? Does everyone (or nearly everyone) check Yes when they're asked if they've been a victim of a crime or been charged with a crime? I have nothing to which I can compare this experience, given that I've only ever been through the voir dire process in one other city (San Francisco), and that was for a civil case. (That one was a whole 'nother kind of weird, since there were like 80 of us being questioned as a group by like 6 different lawyers who wanted to know stuff like "Have you ever been exposed to asbestos?" and "Have you seen the movie 'A Civil Action'?") It did make me feel like perhaps Philadelphia isn't very safe... or at least, parts of it aren't.
All in all, though, I'm excited about being picked for the jury. The case is only expected to last a couple days, so it's not too inconvenient, and I like the idea of doing my part *and* learning a bit about the workings criminal justice system firsthand. I'm a little bummed that one of my fellow panelists wasn't chosen (she was really cool), and that a couple people who were a little too chatty during voir dire were (dude, we don't need to hear the whole story of that time you were robbed at gunpoint; the judge just asked "what kind of crime was it?"), but in any case, it should be interesting...
Street Submission
I submitted a photo to JPG Magazine's issue 9, in the Street category, and they've suggested that I might want to "pimp" my submission on my site. I'm not much for pimping, but this *is* one of my favorite photos, so I'll present it for your consideration. If you think it's a good fit for the theme of "Street", please give it the thumbs up!
Maniacal Laughter In The Middle of the Night
In my last big boy bed update, I mentioned that the Beaner woke up screaming on nights two and three, and that Al was the designated soother for night four. Well, of course the Beaner didn't wake up on night four... and, in fact, has slept through every night since then until Monday.
On Monday night, he fell out of bed for the first time. I didn't hear the thud; I just heard the screams that followed it (and to which Al responded). [As I typed that last sentence, I heard his little toy Jeep fall over the side of the bed and hit the heating vent. :) ] When Al finally came back down after snuggling/sleeping with the Beaner for a couple hours, he said that the Beaner had fallen off the foot of the bed. It was hard to picture, given that he usually falls asleep stretched across the pillows at the head of the bed.
The next night I heard the thud; it happened just as I was "cueing up the Potter", as Al says. (We usually listen to the Harry Potter books on the iPod as we're going to sleep each night.) "What was THAT?" I said to Al. A few seconds later, my question was answered with toddler screams. Once again, Al responded. When he came back down, he said that the Beaner had apparently gotten thirsty and went in search of water... right off the end of the bed again.
Last night I tried a new strategy: I put a bottle of water next to the head of the bead, and I pointed it out to the Beaner as we were getting in for our nightly snuggle. "See this water bottle? I'm putting it right here, in case you get thirsty tonight." He seemed excited to have it nearby, and he went to sleep relatively quickly after I turned out the light.
At 3:30am, I awoke to screaming and assumed he'd fallen out of bed again, perhaps while reaching for the water bottle at the head of the bed this time. The instinct to fly up the stairs kicked in, and I raced up to the Beaner's room without waking Al. When I got to the door, I couldn't see anything in the room, so I swiveled my head blindly and said, "are you OK? Sweetie, are you OK?" There was a disconnect in my brain for a moment when it sounded like the crying was coming from the bed instead of the floor, and then I opened the gate and went inside, arms out and feeling around for the Beaner. He was indeed on the bed still, and as soon as I got near him, he threw his arms around my neck and dove for the pillows, dragging me down with him. I decided to go with the flow, and just said, "wait while Mommy gets under the covers." He was asleep in less than a minute.
I fell asleep, too, so I'm not sure how much later it was that the maniacal laughter started. It woke me, of course, and I think I said, "{Beaner}?" In response, he heeheeheed again. Er, OK. Quiet returned, and I dozed off again. Next I was awoken by crying. He didn't get completely worked up again; I think I was sleeping lightly enough that I heard the storm coming, so I was able to reassure him that I was still there and that there was no need to cry. When he started laughing again awhile later, I decided he was just having extremely vivid dreams, and that if I was going to be able to get up for court on time at 7:30am, I needed to go downstairs and get in my own bed. He ended up waking right as my alarm went off, no worse for wear.
I'm hoping tonight's a restful night for all of us, and that there's no falling or crying or laughing or snuggle-mugging. I don't have to be to court until 10am tomorrow, but it might be a long day—more on that once closing arguments and deliberations are over.
More on Jury Duty
First, a point of clarification and further explanation. The jury questionnaires (there were two) that I filled out prior to the trial were standard ones; every person who shows up for jury duty in Philadelphia fills them out. There's one page of 16 questions for criminal trials, and a page of nine questions for civil trials. The procedure, which is different in every jurisdiction, goes something like this in Philadelphia:
- As a potential juror, you show up at the Criminal Justice Building. If you're carrying a cell phone or a camera or a tape recorder, you give it to a woman in charge of several narrow file drawers. She puts your electronica into a small compartment and gives you a token with a number on it.
- You stand in line with a gazillion other people, waiting to file through the metal detectors. (It's just like airport security.)
- You hand your jury summons to one of the court officers as you head into the jury assembly room, and you're instructed to take one sheet from pile 1 and one sheet from pile 2. These sheets are the jury questionnaires.
- You get some coffee and a snack, if available (come early for best selection) and desired, from the coffee room, and then find a seat.
- You fill out both pages of the jury questionnaire, leaving the box for Juror No. blank (you don't have a juror number yet).
- Depending on how busy the courts are that day, either the first panel will be called right away and then you'll watch a movie where different judges clarify (or sometimes just repeat) the questions on the questionnaire for you, or vice versa.
- A court officer will call a panel. She'll start by saying how many will be in the panel (e.g., 40) and whether it's a criminal or civil trial, and then she'll read off the names. When you hear your name, you respond loudly, "HERE!", and then she'll give you your juror number.
- You write your juror number on either the criminal or civil sheet, depending on what kind of trial it is.
- When the officer is done reading names, she'll tell you the judge's name and the courtroom number. You write these on the top of your questionnaire; if you're not selected for the jury, and it's before 3:30pm, you'll have to come back to the jury assembly room—and at that point, they'll ask you where you've been. You'll need to give the judge's name and room number.
There's a lot more involved here, including lining up; getting your parking validated, if necessary; being walked up to the courtroom by a court clerk; etc. We ended up standing in the hall outside the courtroom for quite a while as the court clerk and the judge's administrative assistant collected the various copies of our jury questionnaires. The white copy goes to the judge, the blue to the prosecutor, and the yellow to the defense. The juror keeps the pink copy. Once you get to the courtroom, that's when voir dire begins. Every judge and every trial is different; you might be asked additional specific questions by the attorneys or the judge (such as the one Josie mentioned, about whether you're insured by State Farm; or the ones I was asked during voir dire for the asbestos trial, including whether we'd seen the movie A Civil Action), or the judge might ask additional questions about your answers to the standard questions.
In the voir dire for the trial I was on last week, the judge said to each of us who had indicated that we had children, "congratulations, I see you have [n] children. How old are they?" If the juror indicated s/he had adult children, the judge asked if the children worked outside the home (he had to clarify that he meant outside the home they now live in :). This was interesting; the questionnaire had specifically asked our occupations and those of our spouses, but with so many older folks in the jury pool, the occupations of immediate family members were also relevant.
As I mentioned, we were asked to expand on our answers about ourselves or someone close to us being accused of, witness to, or victim of a crime. The judge also repeated his pre-voir dire remarks about the fact that a police officer's testimony should be given no more or no less weight than any other witness' to anyone who answered that they'd be more or less likely to believe a police officer solely because s/he was a police officer; he checked a few questionable answers (did you really mean "no" here?); and he clarified for anyone who answered that they had a religious, moral, or ethical objection that if it was related to the death penalty (all were), there was no need to worry—the death penalty was not on the table here.
The attorneys asked no questions of us, though they may have of the few people who were called back to chambers because they didn't want to answer one or more questions in open court. Our judge was genial—the opposite of stern, I'd say—though he was very clear that it would take an extraordinary hardship to be excused from jury duty. Not being able to find child or elder care would not be considered a hardship (which makes me all the more glad I was not selected back in December 2005, when I didn't have regular childcare available to me).
So anyway... That basically brings us to the point where the jury was actually selected. I didn't notice it until someone mentioned it in the deliberation room, but apparently none of the wives of police officers (and there were four of them, I think) were chosen. The man who wanted to tell the story of his mugging at gunpoint was. The two jurors who'd had marijuana possession charges against them dropped were dismissed; I, with my underage posession of alcohol conviction, was chosen.
As for the trial itself, it was a tricky one. I won't go into all the details here, but it was a drug case; the charges were possession with intent to deliver (which I'd never heard of before) and criminal conspiracy (related to the first charge, since the defendant was allegedly delivering to someone). The witnesses for the prosecution were the policeman in charge of surveillance (the only one who saw the alleged delivery), and all the arresting officers. There was also some evidence entered by stipulation (i.e., agreement between the two counsels); namely, that if called to testify, the two police chemists who tested the evidence would have testified that the drugs were, indeed, drugs.
The witnesses for the defense, including the defendant himself, provided an alternative explanation of why the defendant was at the location; to us (the jury), that alternative explanation was plausible, so the only question was whether the surveillance cop saw what he thought he saw, was mistaken about what he saw, or lied about what he saw. As I said, it was tricky, and in the end, we ended up deciding that we weren't sure enough that the alleged transaction actually happened to convict. I think in a way I sort of epitomized the dilemma: I could see it both ways, and that, to me, seemed like the definition of reasonable doubt. A few people in the room thought the defendant was probably guilty, but that the prosecution hadn't proved the case; I honestly didn't know whether he was guilty or not. Either way, I hope the defendant took the Not Guilty verdict as an opportunity to start fresh and stay out of trouble.
The deliberations themselves were interesting; I saw it as my responsibility (even though I wasn't forewoman) to keep everyone focused. It's easy to get sidetracked on details that don't matter, especially when people make analogies to their personal experience. At times it must have seemed like I thought the defendant was definitely guilty, but what I was trying to do was make sure that all the evidence on which the case hinged was examined in enough detail that each juror could say either "that's enough for me" or "that ISN'T enough for me." In the end, obviously, we decided that it wasn't enough.
I think the most interesting part of the deliberations for me was in trying to get a point across regarding the difference between saying that you think a witness is mistaken versus saying you think he's lying. No one wanted to call the witness a liar, which seemed like a slur, but for the scenario being discussed to have occurred, the witness *had* to be lying. It took about four tries, but finally it clicked with the juror with whom I was debating, and it was kind of a breakthrough. I think it's important to be as honest with yourself as possible about why you think the way you do, so that you can communicate this to your fellow jurors. You may agree on specific points for different reasons, and I think the reasons should be out on the table.
I also think I would have enjoyed facilitating the deliberations a lot more if I didn't have to vote myself. I liked probing each question and point of view, challenging people to examine their motives as well as the evidence, but in the end it made it harder for me to sort out how *I* felt about the whole thing.
The judge came back to talk to us after the verdict was read in court, and in addition to thanking us for our service, he let us ask him questions. (He also had one for us: Namely, was the question we sent out—and that was answered in open court after the judge and counsel returned from lunch—the deciding factor? We told him that it was one factor, but not the only one; we were almost done deliberating by the time the answer came, and the answer just sort of confirmed in our minds the direction we were already headed. The reason he was curious? Apparently we all nodded when the answer was given. :) The only question I had was to whom the assistant D.A. was apologizing when he turned toward the gallery, shrugged, and mouthed, "Sorry." The judge said that one of the policemen who testified was sitting back there (I hadn't seen him).
The forewoman asked if the judge could ask the prosecutor and police for more evidence next time. He laughed and said that in drug cases it's often a case of one person's word against another, and that it's the jury's job to determine who's telling the truth, and whether the Commonwealth has proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Although I certainly would have appreciated more to go on, I did not share the forewoman's concern; not every piece of evidence can be corroborated, and it was our job to determine the truthfulness/accuracy and weight of each piece. I don't think a defendant should be found not guilty just because there's only one eyewitness account, and I do wonder if some people voted not guilty for this reason (several folks wanted to know why the surveillance officer did not take photographs or video of the incident and seemed reluctant to convict in the absence of such evidence). My reason was that I had a hard time judging the veracity of the eyewitness account, especially when weighed against the alternative scenario.
In any case, the judge encouraged us not to lose sleep over our verdict (something he said he tells juries that convict, too). More specifically, we were not to agonize over any niggling concerns that the defendant might, indeed, be guilty, or that we were contributing to the drug problems in Philadelphia by turning him loose. (If it's any comfort at all to those who thought he was guilty, I'd add: the drugs recovered—and there *were* drugs recovered from two non-defendants who were alleged both to have received them from our defendant and to have been observed selling other drugs—were confiscated. Those will not be returning to the street along with our defendant.) Despite this instruction from the judge, I have, of course, been agonizing over the details of the case and the deliberations ever since. I have not lost sleep, however, which in the end was my gut-check for deciding to vote not guilty: I knew I could sleep if I did.
Two Posts Worth Reading
I have a bunch to write about and hope to have time to do so later today, but for now I wanted to make sure these two posts by other women got a read. (I'm sure they will, since both blogs are far more widely read than mine, but in case you missed them...)
Stand-Off at Starbucks by Mom 101
The lie. by Alice of Finslippy
Both describe the crap that we as women put ourselves through. Why do we do this to ourselves and each other? It's a phenomenon I noticed long before I became a mother: that women often do not support other women. Or rather, we do, or we appear to, until such point as we ourselves feel threatened. It happens in the workplace all the time, and it happens outside it, too. The threat need not be real for us to come out fighting, either.
Anyway, something to think about... and mourn.