The Doings Report

Oh, where to start?

As mentioned previously, MJ is now a licensed driver. She is very excited, and we are already reaping the benefits: she gassed up the car and made a run to the library one day, and today she took herself off to the beach for a last-minute gathering there that Frank and I c/wouldn't muster the gumption to attend.

Papa Tom received a cancer diagnosis that was initially pretty scary, but the news since then has all been good. It hasn't spread to his organs and it is a slow mover, which means he can live with it for years and years. He'll have one round of radiation next week to kill a tumor on or near his spine that is causing him pain. Other than that, his treatment will be drug-based, noninvasive and pretty easy. We are all so relieved!

The girls and I spent Halloween in Oregon while Frank held down the fort here. Halloween night, the girls were trick-or-treating with friends at "The Winch," a house in Portland occupied by once and future NBTSC'ers. Aside from MJ the Very Sexy Cop, they were all characters from their friend Zephyr's recent and much-loved novel, The Tomato Soup Chronicles. Chloe was Dr. Vincent and Lani and Qacei were Toxic Teen Lesbian Zombie Vampire Chainsaw Bitches. Yes, really.



I spent Halloween night at the Wahoo Winkler Bed and Breakfast and got to go trick-or-treating with two of my favorite girls, Vivian and Sabine. It was lovely! This is how conversations at doorsteps went:

Neighbor: "Oh, a zebra and a fairy!"
Vivian (firmly): "I'm a pixie." Then candy would exchange hands and the girls would run down the walk to greet us.
Sabine: "This is SO fun!"

Sunday, MJ, Chloe, Qacei, and I continued down to Corvallis for a visit with the Golds. Mary cooked (!), Karma the dog entertained, and some of us got a decent start on our NaNoWriMo attempts.

Monday, we attended a party at Diana's to celebrate Holly's 18th birthday. Scotty and his friend Jack played some music, I ran around with Jack's son, Miles (~4), and we all ate goodies and wished Holly a fond farewell. She is moving on to England for her next adventure.

I had a date with niece Ella Tuesday night, a belated celebration of her sixth birthday. We went shopping at Toys'R'Us and then came back here for some mac'n'cheese. It was so fun, I've decided to make Birthday Date Night a tradition with those nieces and daughters who are interested.

Chloe came down with the flu. It must have been the swine flu since, according to CDC stats, that's just about the only flu out there right now. She had fever for one day and head and body aches for three. That was it. So far, the rest of us are fine.

We have been in self-imposed quarantine the rest of this week, though. It's been pretty nice!

Hormones

I was privy to a fairly innocuous but nevertheless unfortunate comment about teens on Facebook today. A friend of mine, evidently after a small detonation in her house, had posted self-encouraging words about honoring her daughter’s will and just continuing to love her. A friend of hers responded with this:

Welcome to the teenage years! I think, regardless of upbringing, something temporarily happens to brain cells during “teenage” years. It’s payback time being on the parents’ side of it now. :-) I’m happy for the personal growth it creates in all of us...young & ‘old’.

Uh huh.

I don’t know what prompted my friend to post as she did. But I do know, with absolute certainty, that she is not dismissing her daughter’s emotions and desires as merely the product of biological development. To do so would be EXACTLY THE SAME as responding to a woman’s anger by saying, “Oh, is it that time of the month?” Anyone who has ever tried this tactic knows just how well it goes over (and by the way, how is your concussion doing?).

It’s disrespectful, and it’s dismissive. And since most kids can’t get away with braining their parents, it creates in them intense feelings of powerlessness.

This friend of a friend is not really wrong. I get it. In general, teens are experiencing surging hormones and undergoing some significant brain development, especially in the area of impulse control. And biological processes can definitely make our responses more intense.

But none of that changes the fact that the person in front of you is feeling frustrated, or sad, or excited, or angry for a reason. A nonbiological reason.

The other day, MJ was irritated with me.

Let’s stop there for a minute because that’s just what this woman did. She heard my friend’s daughter was upset and started talking about biology. Sorry, but upset+biology is not enough information! She forgot to ask "Why?"

The other day, MJ was irritated with me because I was criticizing offering some golden nuggets of wisdom about her driving. I got irritated with her for being irritated. We snarled growled snapped reacted to these irritations and then gave each other the silent treatment took some time to cool off.

Hey, it happens (and yes, it is often my fault).

Later, we were able to talk it over and move on. But just imagine for a moment how much harder that would have been if I had thought or, heaven forbid, said something like, “This is just hormones getting in the way” or “Her brain isn’t developed enough to understand what’s really going on here.”

My skull and I are so glad I don’t think that way!

I can’t say MJ is glad because I don’t know that it has ever occurred to her that someone might try to dismiss her feelings because of her age. Good grief.

Oh, wait, I forgot what culture I live in. Yeah, she's probably glad.

What we've found is that the undeniable hormonal changes and brain development of the teen years don't ever explain away the emotions our teens feel or the desires they have. Knowing this helps us treat their experiences with respect, and treat their concerns as real and valid even when—no, especially when—we don't quite understand why a given issue is so important to them.

This is so cool!

XKCD's timeline graphs of some popular films. Click to see them big enough to read the very cool details.



Original on XKCD

Red Alert

"According to WHO, 28 countries—including Croatia, Ireland, Kuwait, and Portugal—have lower maternal mortality rates [than the United States]. Forty-one countries have lower infant mortality rates."

"Even in an elective cesarean, a woman is almost three times more likely to die than in a vaginal birth. Beyond the immediate health risks, having a C-section decreases a woman's chance to become pregnant again and doubles the risk of an unexplained stillbirth in later pregnancies. In 2 to 6 percent of cesareans, a doctor accidentally cuts into a baby. Babies born from an elective C-section are twice as likely as babies born vaginally to end up in neonatal intensive care."

From this article in the Utne Reader.

Warning: The article opens with a disturbing birth tragedy.

Gotta have it

Yes, he is real. Starting in April 2010, your kid can have her (or his) very own Sugar Daddy Ken to go with those anatomically optimistic Barbie dolls.

Want not

White House Kitchen Garden yields over 740 pounds of food

Friday fill-in

1. It was a dark and stormy night, but they didn't let that stop them.

2. She was swearing off romance novels, so I offered to take the books myself.

3. Rushing out, I noticed I was once again caught up in somebody else's schedule without regard to my own priorities, so I slooooowed down. And then I was late, and the world came to an end.

4. Are the Greybeards playing again?...I think I heard a howl!

5. Shhhh... The grownups are listening.

6. Put down the liver and give me something good to eat!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to our last NaNoWriMo-free evening for a while, tomorrow my plans include driving, writing, mooching, and perhaps some trick-or-treating, and Sunday, I want to be with good people in a good place!

Waste not

Some pretty sad sights in here. (Click Hide on the first image to get rid of the text, then click the arrow to the left of the image to move through the slide show.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2009/jul/19/food-waste?picture=350496027

Cruisin'

Well she got her daddy's car
And she cruised through the hamburger stand now
Seems she forgot all about the library
Like she told her old man now
And with the radio blastin'
Goes cruisin' just as fast as she can now
And she'll have fun, fun, fun
Til her daddy takes the... minivan?... away.

MJ passed her driving test today (on her first try!) and is now a licensed driver. She and Chloe are out rattin' the streets.

My inner control freak is, well, freaking out. Huh. So that's what this feels like.

And we may never recover from the insurance increase. :-)

But I'm very happy for her. Freedom! What a glorious thing!

Late night is all right

I love common sense. Here is an excerpt from M.S. Beltran's article in HEM, Homeschooled Teens Can Rest Easier.

I suppose the old "early to bed, early to rise" adage held true in days when people had to get a tremendous amount of work done when the daylight was available. But in this day and age, with electric lights and a host of other modern conveniences, we are no longer reliant upon the sun's appearance. Many families now have one or more parents working late shifts, with varying schedules; why in our sleep-deprived society should these parents sacrifice a couple of extra hours of much-needed rest in the morning to force children to rise at a more "proper" hour? Is it really beneficial to the child?

Not necessarily, science is showing. During puberty, the hormone melatonin that induces sleep is released by the body at a later hour than during the pre-pubescent years. Dr. William C. Dement writes in his book, The Promise of Sleep (Dell Publishing; ISBN: 0440509017): "...there is a change in the biological clock during the teen years. Adolescents tend to be classic night owls, staying up late and sleeping in late. This pattern is caused by a biologically driven shift in the circadian cycle that gives teens a troublesome kick in alertness at about the time the folks around them (younger and older) are getting sleepy and going to bed. Most teenagers will not start feeling sleepy for an hour or more after adults do." (p. 117) In essence, asking teens to go to bed and rise early as they once did naturally is asking them to fight their own changing biological clocks.

All grown up

This is my 1004th published post on this blog. I meant to notice when I hit 1000, but I blew right on past it. I don't think these milestones mean much more than that I like the sound of my own voice, but we'll tie it in with this post by declaring that my blog is officially a grownup! I'm sure that will be as meaningful here as that label is anywhere else.

I wasn't going to do the meme for grownups that is going around, but as so often happens, Frank has inspired me. Here are my responses.

Tired of all of those surveys made up by high school kids? Here's a list of questions for the people who are a little older. Copy and paste into your own note, then answer the questions. Finally, tag your friends (including me, please!). The usual thing, in other words.

If you're reading this, consider yourself tagged.

1. What bill do you hate paying the most?
Our credit card, which we use for convenience (especially for groceries and gas) and then pay off each month. I dislike paying this one for three reasons: it is our largest bill, it comes with the threat of significant late fees, and it is not automated. So far, these things haven't prompted me to switch to using the debit card, but that's always a possibility.

2. Do you miss being a child?
No.

3. Chore you hate the most?
Most chores are not as bad as I make them out to be when I'm avoiding them. However, I hate—HATE—cleaning pans in which bacon has been prepared. If Frank weren't willing to do this, we would only have bacon at IHOP.

4. Where was the last place you had a romantic dinner?
I'll just steal Frank's answer here: Romio's Restaurant, nice local Italian-ish place. Last nicer romantic dinner was Ruth's Chris.

5. If you could go back and change one thing what would it be?
I would attachment parent and radically unschool from the beginning of my kids' lives.

6. Name of your first grade teacher?
I don't know. I don't remember her at all. First grade was the school year after my folks split up, and I understand divorce is a common cause of a little amnesia in kids. Also, I was only at that school for one year, so her name wasn't reinforced in my memory in later years.

7. What do you really want to be doing right now?
Figuring out how to cope with my big lottery win.

8. What did you want to be when you grew up?
Writer. I toyed with being a lawyer, and I actually took some classes toward a degree in computer science, but writing was always the real dream.

9. How many colleges did you attend?
Two so far, Washington State University and the University of Washington.

10.Why did you choose the shirt that you have on right now?
I'm still in my nightshirt. It's pretty old, so it's really soft and loose, and it has long sleeves. Cozy!

11. What are your thoughts on gas prices?
I don't expend much energy thinking about gas prices.

12. First thought when the alarm went off this morning?
I woke up before my alarm this morning, so my first thought had to do with the coffee I drank yesterday that probably contributed to my restless night and early morning.

Frank said, "I think I heard Ronnie's alarm. I dunno why she sets one." I know! I know! I set one because I need to check e-mail first thing in the morning in order to check for new job listings from the agency.

13. Last thought before going to sleep last night?
I wondered how long Frank was going to stay up.

14. What famous person would you like to have dinner with?
Jon Stewart. President Obama.

Those are both people whose political philosophies are very close to my own. I like to think I could nudge them a little closer.

15. Have you ever crashed your vehicle?
I've dented my vehicle, and my vehicle has been crashed into. Oh, yeah, one time I did the crashing but it was still the other guy's fault. He pulled out in front of me and then stopped. At a green light. I actually discovered the one situation where you can rear-end someone and not get a ticket for it.

16. If you didn't have to work, would you volunteer?
Not so far, or rather, not any more than I do when I am working. Most of my efforts toward improving the world involve writing checks and spreading the word on the Interwebs. I devote a fair amount of time to promoting unschooling; I think it's one of the very best things I can do for humanity.

17. Get up early or sleep in?
Whatever. I am not fond of early wakeups, but my day has 24 hours in it no matter what.

18. What is your favorite cartoon character?
I always liked the roadrunner.

19. Favorite thing to do at night?
Read. It's probably my favorite thing to do during the day, too. :-)

20. When did you first start feeling old?
I don't feel old.

21. Favorite lunch meat?
I loved Frank's oyster answer. My favorite sandwich at Subway is the Subway Club.

22. What do you get every time you go into Wal-Mart?
A headache! Ba-doom.

I haven't been in a Wal-Mart in years. Change that to "the grocery store" and my answer is "milk." Change it to "Target" and my answer is "something more than was on my list."

23. Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual?
I don't think it's necessary—commitment to a partner is not dependent on (or guaranteed by) marriage—but I certainly don't think it's outdated.

24. Favorite movie you wouldn't want anyone to find out about?
If I actually had one of these, I would refuse to answer this question, but I'll play along.

I have a soft spot for "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" with Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees. Pure, glorious, spangled cheese!

I discovered recently that some people actually hate "Weekend at Bernie's." This is inconceivable to me. I love that movie. Terry Kiser should have had an Oscar for his performance as Bernie. Oh! And I should have included Bernie's frozen smirk in my list of memorable movie smiles.

25. What's your favorite drink?
Varies by situation. For breakfast, orange juice. For thirst, water. For a pick-me-up, a caramel macchiato. For taking the edge off, a Mike's Hard Lemonade or a strawberry margarita.

26. Who from high school would you like to run into?
I'd like to know what Colleen Campbell is doing. Paging Dr. Campbell!

27. What radio station is your car radio tuned to right now?
I don't often get to control the radio. When I do, it goes to KZOK for some classic rock. When the commercials come on, I drift until I find a song I like.

28. Sopranos or Desperate Housewives?
Neither. I don't like soap operas any more.

29. Worst relationship mistake that you wish you could take back?
Frank knows.

30. Do you like the person that sits directly across from you at work?
N/A.

31. Have you ever had to use a fire extinguisher for its intended purposes?
No.

32. Last book you finished reading?
I think it was "Black Hills" by Nora Roberts. It was pretty good, not her best.

33. Do you have a teddy bear?
I suppose technically my teddy bear belongs to MJ now. But I do have three little lions and a cuddly bat. They are very popular with my younger visitors.

34. Strangest place you have ever brushed your teeth?
On a boat!

35. Do you go to church?
For weddings and funerals.

36. How old are you?
44.

Sunday system check

• What I'm reading: Sandra Dodd's Big Book of Unschooling
• What I'm listening to: AC/DC "Hell's Bells," "Back in Black," and "You Shook Me All Night Long"
• What I'm watching: Sunday Night Football, Cards vs. Giants
• What's for dinner: pork chops, mashed potatoes, veggies

Schrödinger's rapist

In an open letter to nice guys everywhere, Phaedra Starling writes:

"So when you, a stranger, approach me, I have to ask myself: Will this man rape me?

"Do you think I’m overreacting? One in every six American women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. I bet you don’t think you know any rapists... Consider: if every rapist commits an average of ten rapes (a horrifying number, isn’t it?) then the concentration of rapists in the population is still a little over one in sixty... How do I know that you, the nice guy who wants nothing more than companionship and True Love, are not this rapist?

"I don’t.

"When you approach me in public, you are Schrödinger’s Rapist...

"Fortunately, you’re a good guy. We’ve already established that. Now that you’re aware that there’s a problem, you are going to go out of your way to fix it, and to make the women with whom you interact feel as safe as possible."

She continues with five things nice guys can do to help. Read her whole post.

Health care for all

"Because in one party, in one demographic, in one protest movement, we are all brothers and sisters. We are united in membership in the party that insists that every chance at life be afforded to every American seeking that chance.

"We are united in membership in the party that insists on the right of everyone to the startling, transcendent blessings of the technological advance of medical science. We are united in membership in the party that is for life, that is against death, that is for lower premiums, that is against higher deductibles, that is for the peace of mind that can be provided only by the elimination of the fear that cost will decide whether we live or we die!

"Because that's the point, isn't it? It is hard enough to recover, to fight past pain and to stave off death, if just for a season or a week or a day. It is so hard, that eventually for you, for me, for this president, for these blue dogs, for these protestors it is so hard to recover, that for all of us there will come a time when we will not recover. So, why are we making it harder?"

Keith Olbermann, "Countdown" 10/7/09 segment 5 of 5

Friday fill-in

1. The crickets sing but not in Washington.

2. I love you, sunshine, wherever you are.

3. I want to get far away from the people who are mean to their kids (and take their kids with me).

4. Pigs can't fly; this was a dream.

5. But as for me, I'll trust my kids.

6. What I come from is only a fraction of what I am.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to Sharona on Monk and the premiere of White Collar, tomorrow my plans include a full day of fun, and Sunday, I want to enjoy Sunday!

Chloe's WABAC machine

Chloe just found the diary she kept during her final months in school before we started homeschooling. She says she devoted five pages to complaining about my insistence on her going to school one day in October even though she was sick. Three months later, we were unschooling.

This is why I don't plan too far ahead.

This is too funny

It's pretty impressive, too! Be patient, the funny part starts about a minute in.

Chit chat

After a long Twitter-free spell, I have been tweeting again the past couple of days. My desire to communicate minutiae seems to come in waves, and for whatever reason (etiquette?), I do not wish to use Facebook for these tweetish communications. (My status updates on FB tend to be about chunks of time—e.g., "Ronnie Maier has her kids back!!"—rather than random moments here and there—e.g., "I am trimming my toenails.")

But what do I do when my desire to blab details exceeds my tweet tolerance level? I write a megatweet blog post, obviously. It probably makes for pretty boring stuff, but I suppose Blogging Without Obligation means I'm not obliged to be especially interesting.

I read "The Five Languages of Love" tonight. I first heard about this book from Beth Fuller and have been enjoying a broader appreciation of all Frank does for me since then. It's been lovely to take every clean dish as an "I love you." You know? But now Frank and I have both figured out our official Love Language profiles, and it turns out that "Acts of Service" isn't his love language any more than it is mine. Oh, well, I still appreciate those clean dishes.

Interestingly, Frank and I scored almost identically for our profiles, with "Physical Touch" and "Quality Time" tied for the top position. Gary Chapman, the author, says partners don't necessarily enjoy such fluency in each other's love language, so this might be a contributing factor to why Frank and I get on so well. It also seems possible that one of us started out with one of those as primary and the other with the other, but that after more than two decades of adjusting to each other's needs, our priorities have been adapted.

The other two languages are "Affirmations" and "Receiving Gifts."

Chloe and I went to the library this evening and each brought home huge armloads of books. Hers are mostly about getting into college, something that is very much on both girls' minds right now. Mine are mostly about geology, just because.

I missed House and Castle last night. (Monday is "guys named after buildings" night on TV.)

Our house still smells like bacon, 14 hours after breakfast.

After a surprisingly pleasant couple of days, the damp is rolling in again. MJ has been hogging the "We're season ticketholders and don't you forget it even if we might want to after that game against the Cardinals" Seahawks throw blanket, so I'm sitting here wrapped in the dragonfly-dotted fleece blanket I won in the LIFE is Good silent auction last May. Cozy! All in all, though, I'd rather be in Arizona with Uncle Scott. (But I still wouldn't root for the Cards.)

If I'm still not working in November, I'm thinking about doing NaNoWriMo. But I might settle for NaBloPoMo. Both girls are also contemplating NNWM, so we may find ourselves entering into some serious computer negotiations. Anybody got a laptop we can borrow for a month? If not, I'll have to encourage Chloe to resume her nightowl thing. ;-)

Not being that much of a nightowl myself, I'm done now. Good night!

You're free to go, but put down the candy bar

So, Jessica has sailed off from Sydney on her circumnavigation attempt. I can imagine the clutch of fear her parents felt watching her go, and I give them props for letting her go anyway. But it's hard to reconcile that feat of courageous parenting with this note from Jessica's blog:

"For a while again this afternoon we were completely becalmed... It's been so long since I've had any time just to take it easy for a while and the freedom was amazing, no deadlines, nothing to rush off to, I can eat whatever I like whenever I like, no one to send me off to bed!"
(emphasis mine)

I can't imagine trusting my kid enough to SAIL AROUND THE WORLD without assistance but not trusting her enough to choose her own food and bedtime. Oy.

Coping with traditional parenting

Pulling this out of one of my Good Vibrations posts so I can link to it directly.

Strangers in a Strange Land chat. Shonna and I hosted this circle chat yesterday. We went in hoping to encourage and benefit from some brainstorming about how to help other people's kids when we see them being victimized by harsh parenting. I think it went pretty well. Here are the tools we discussed. Which of these is the best to pull out in any given situation will depend on the situation and your resources at the moment.

• Empathize with the parent. We've all been there in that overwhelmed moment, and we all know snapshot moments do not necessarily reflect the whole of the parent-child relationship. Also, those of us (yours truly) who started out as traditional parents can (should be able to) empathize more than most.
• Validate the child's experience. A small verbal expression of your understanding of the child's perspective can provide a lot of comfort to the child, and it just might help the parent make a shift, too. For example, suppose you see a child in a store crying because he's been denied candy or a toy. You can say, "It's hard to see all these cool things and not be able to take them home, isn't it?"
• Say "I've been there. Here are some resources that have helped me a lot," and then hand over a card that lists a few of your favorite parenting Web sites. This one lets you immediately withdraw from the situation; the parent doesn't have/get to respond.
• Say (even if it's not true), "You know, the exact same thing happened with us. Here's what worked for us..." and then describe the parenting that you wish you were seeing.
• Interject with a little comment that might jolt the parent into taking a breath. My example was Count to a million, Mom.

Click here to see the second edition of "Coping with traditional parenting."
Also see Transitioning from the traditional - tips for moving toward more peaceful parenting.