all my children.

A circumstance I often find myself in is that of accounting for the major decisions of my adult life, or, more specifically, justifying why I don't have kids. This is most often to people who have kids, and to people who don't have kids and are also relieved not to have them yet, or ever. Because people who have kids (and zero contact with my career trajectory and higher education in general) haven't always held my achievements (which I am very vain about, in spite of their modesty) in equal esteem (and because baby showers and weddings present a particular kind of torment), I present them in terms they can understand:


My first child is 7 years old. Its name is Associates Degree. Boy did I do a lot of growing up with that first baby.


My second child is 5 years old.  Its name is Bachelors Degree. I really came to know who I was with that with that one, though I was still just a child myself. Like my first child, my second child was an easy baby.


Because I am pro-choice, my third pregnancy, A Demoralizing Job in Corporate America, was hastily aborted four years ago.


My third child is 2 years old. Its name is Masters Degree. I thought that one would kill me-- it had all kinds of complications. The doctor who helped me birth it seemed like a real jerk. In the end it came out fine, but let's be real, you can't expect that much from middle children and I totally get why some people choose just to have one child or none at all.


I'm pregnant with my fourth child. I'm hoping it's a PhD, but I'm not far enough along to find out yet. Like most people with four children, I will probably end up totally broke. I wish people would stop asking me when my due date is.

you know, for kids.

Esteemed COTGB Readers:

I love my brother.

I love Fat Tire beer.

I love bikes.

I love hats.

I even love kids.

Big Brother has ingeniously found away to fuse all those things together in a raffle for the ages. Please get thee to the Tacoma Bike Ranch ASAP to get your name in the hat- literally- to win a handmade piece of American folkart of the highest degree of craftsmanship.

If you aren't interested in checking out the hat, but would still like to give, you can donate to the Mary Bridge Children's Foundation and Big Brother's Courage Classic bike ride to help stop the cycle of child abuse and neglect directly through this link. Thanks for your support!

we are eating pepper and chips.

This one is sweeping the facebook these days and I could not resist. I love clever children.

giving the brothers grimm a run for their money.

The past few nights that I've been here I've had the privilege of getting to help Niece One get ready for bed.  I cherish those mellower, quiet moments with her as she moves from the intensity of play into relaxation and sleep.  The other night after reading a couple of books to her I asked her to tell me a story.  She is a precocious little person who enjoys books and the oral tradition of her grandmother's "when I was a little girl" stories-- not to mention constant interaction with her gifted storyteller of a father.  After I told my brother the story she told me, he suggested I share it here on my blog.  So here it is, as best as I can remember it:

Once upon a time there was a family, a mother and a father and a little boy and a little girl.  One day some bad guys broke into their house and wouldn't leave.  So the family fled to the beach where they bought a tent to stay in from the lightbulb store.  The bad guys turned into foxes and they tore the mother and father's sheets and they still wouldn't leave. The family wanted to come back to their house so they caught one of the foxes and cut him up into little pieces.  (at this point she seemed satisfied that the story was over, so I asked for a happy ending).  But the other fox still wouldn't leave.  Then that fox destroyed the little boy's sheets and the little girl's sheets, so the family used magic on the fox.  Then the fox went like this (she put a finger in each of her cheeks and pulled her mouth into a smile) and that's the happy ending.  The family got to move back into their house again.

Extraordinary for a three year old, isn't it?  I love that kid!

the beginning of the i'm grateful fors.

This is the most heartwarming story. Especially because it includes heartwarming pictures of little children trying to get a piece of the President-Elect. Isn't this the kind of guy you want at the helm? I'm grateful for Barack.

a barack a day: god's gift edition.

Good lord! (who in my life says that? why can I not stop saying that?!) Thank goodness it is after midnight so I didn't have to be all crazy barack a daying for a third time. I present to you a magical blog: Yes We Can (hold babies). I had a hard time picking one, but I like this one because who can resist going nom nom nom on little wandering fingers? No one. Not even Barack.


Now if you'll excuse me, my ovaries are crying and my latent Auntie Mel is threatening to buy plane tickets so that's about all the Yes We Can (hold babies) I can take. Only 6 days to go! Good lord! (who says that?!)

cuteness sandwich.

I was looking for something that would give me a pass for passing all this other saddie stuff that showed up on the internet. Here it goes:


Cuteness.

Now:
You may remember a while back I linked to some NPR reports on transgender kids. The Atlantic did an article too. It's interesting to me when theory meets science and people's real lives.

Jezebel linked to this article by a woman who went through what might be politically identified as a "partial birth abortion." It's really sad but after John McCain was so dismissive of women's health issues last night, I think it's important to emphasize that choice has a lot of faces. I'm sorry, but fuck you McCain, women's health does not belong in quotation marks. Excuse me while I get on my soapbox folks, but don't forget to vote. I'll leave it at that.

Yah, see, heavy stuff. Here's a unicorn.

quiet living in the tenement.

Are you surprised by the subject heading? Me too. Xiaoling's family arrived on Friday night and
after a brief chaotic settling in period that made me exceptionally "queen of my castle" cranky, things seem to have reached their equilibrium. While there have been some moments of hiding out at work, I do that anyways, so it's nothing out of the usual. I am still a little miffed that there were no formal introductions but so it goes. I have had absolutely zero interactions with the husband-- clearly he saw me in my primitive pre-coffee stupor and decided to steer clear for his entire journey. The kid is a completely different story.

She is totally quiet-- she has been watching tv since before I got home from work and I haven't heard a peep. Kid is stealthy and clearly used to being on her own. I don't think she speaks very much, if any English, and frankly I was unnerved that there is no way for me to really communicate with her because I really miss being around kids and she's going to be here for a while even if I didn't like kids. But we made a breakthrough last night, when she and her little friend encountered me on the swings at our complex's playground. Before that she had only stared at me with really wide eyes, but she seemed to appreciate that I was out to play too and slightly less of some strange person lurking around the apartment periodically bringing large piles of dishes from my bedroom.

She still stares at me with huge eyes-- this morning I had the yearning for cinnamon toast, so she watched me get out the toaster and go through the whole process. I had no idea I was so interesting (I know, don't let it go to your head Mel, you're not). The funny part was that after I retreated to my room with food and coffee I hear this little quiet knock on my door. In comes my little buddy with my toaster. So we are taking baby steps.

UPDATE: Kid, after much ponderance on the issue, chose to identify herself as Coco. She is making a shit-ton of noise so I have to rescind all of my "she is so perfectly quiet" comments. And it is making me cranky because this is grad student housing, not "make a shit-ton of noise" housing. Ugh. I am the worst kind of spoiled.

UPDATE DEUX: We are speaking English after all. woohoo!