January 2010 – Page 2 – My Truant Pen

Attention Citizens of the Commonwealth

Raise your hand if you like the fact that running for national elected office requires raising millions of dollars, which then indebts the recipients? Anyone? Anyone?

I’ve thought about this probably more than I need to, and I’ve come up with one, fool-proof, Constitutionally valid solution to this problem. We, the citizens of the United States of America, need to stop making our voting decisions based on paid media advertising. Then poof! All the need for money disappears!!

Our elections are not a media production, where we should vote for the best-produced and scripted candidate. It should not be the responsibility of our elected officials to motivate us to get to the polls. If you are a person who cares about the future of your country, and you are blessed enough to have a say in how it is run, it is your responsibility to educate yourself and make your preferences known at the voting booth.

Imagine a world where people spent even half an hour researching the positions of the candidates and then selecting the one who best meets their criteria of policies, ideology, background, and non-obnoxious speaking voice. (Ok, so maybe I have a few unique criteria for elected officials who will be interviewed regularly on the radio.) I know that asking the voters of America to spend half an hour or an hour to do research to figure out who they want to represent them is much harder than raising millions of dollars and hiring lobbyists, but with such an evenly divided electorate, if even a small block of voters started doing this, it might have a real impact.

For the voters of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, we can start doing this right now.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 19th we have an election for US Senator.

There are three candidates who will be on the ballot:

Martha Coakley is the current At tourney General for Massachusetts, and is the Democratic nominee.

Here’s her official website

Scott Brown is a Massachusetts State Senator and holds the Republican nomination.

His official website is here

Joe Kennedy (no relation to Teddy or JFK) is an independent who describes himself as “The Tea Party Candidate”

You can read his official site here

Unfortunately, while there is often a site offering a “by the issues” guide to voting for many major elections, I could not find one for the Massachusetts special election. The Boston Globe has a page that has links to several substantive issues, including transcripts of the debates and statements issued by the candidates.

Turnout for the special election is predicted to be extremely low. This is not “election season”. The campaign was short, but just long enough for Senator Kennedy’s death to have been a bit forgotten. The election keeps getting buried by other issues (the holidays, the economy, Tiger Woods, and now the tragedy in Haiti).

Voters of Massachusetts — you have something a million dollars of out-of-state money cannot buy: the right and responsibility to vote for the candidate of your choice.

Having done my research, I will be voting for Martha Coakley on Tuesday. Regardless of who you choose to vote for, I urge you to do some independent investigation, make a decision, and show up on Tuesday to cast your vote.

A quick update on ear-related issues

At 8:40 am on a bitterly cold January morning in New England, I bundled my 14 month old into his winter gear – with practiced negotiation passing the beloved cars from one hand to the other. Our journey was short – maybe a quarter of a mile. If it hadn’t been 15 degrees and windy with snow-covered sidewalks, I would’ve walked. Even 25 degrees and moderately clear sidewalks. But no.

I wrestled him out of the car and into the clinic. I think that until he can walk, I need to leave the coffee cup at home. If you know me, you know how much it PAINS ME to admit that there is ever a circumstance before noon that I might be parted from my beloved beverage. But 30 pound squirmy 14 month old makes it unusually challenging to keep my coffee upright.

I digress.

Thane was actually lovely in the waiting room. He played with his cars on the table “Vroom vroom!”. He lost a car behind a chair, managed to reclaim it, but was unable to extricate himself. I did not laugh, but politely extracted him. The ubiquitous office ladies with perfect manicures were unable to find our referral. I suspect this has to do with the fact it was submitted on one of those new-fangled computer thingies. My pediatrician verified that the information had been submitted and accepted, so I’m unconcerned. He has an iPhone and a brand new computer system and enough savvy to go around.

Then we went to wait in the office, and this was less lovely. The number of exciting things at boy-height made it imperative to keep him off the ground. Thane does not like to be kept off the ground. I contemplated the brightly lit “on” switch for the auto-clave and the child safety covers on the power strips and decided that someone around here wasn’t aware of just what would attract a 14 month old’s eye.

The doctor came in a very long 10 minutes later. Thane’s tonsils were pronounced “tiny”. (I think that’s good.) He looked in both ears. Shocking, he found fluid in both ears. (Duh!) He recommended surgery for ear tubes. He said that we’d schedule in 3 to 4 weeks for Boston. Done! I spent more time doing the exiting procedures than we’d spent in the exam.

And there it is. Sometime before Valentine’s Day, Thane will likely go into Boston for a very quick surgery. Apparently children are only “out” for about 10 minutes. They cut a tiny hole in the outer skin of the ear drum, vacuum up the offending liquid and insert a little tube to prevent the cut from healing over. Sometime in the next 6 – 18 months the tube will fall out of it’s own accord. The procedure is meant to help prevent ear infections (by preventing the buildup of fluid) until his face lengthens and the Eustachian tubes start going down instead of straight across.

I hope that this will make Thane slightly happier. Where he is right now, he can be a delight but… I am unwilling to take him anywhere. Dinner out is disastrous. The library was extremely hard to manage. He bolts, he pulls things off, he has a very firm idea of what he wants to accomplish and if thwarted will pitch a fit. He’s ok in the safety of our own home, or in any area where it’s acceptable to put him down and let him wander. Most of the time. Except last night, where he was 100% crying if he wasn’t being held and only 30% crying as long as I had him on my hip. Not Daddy. Not Emily. Mommy.

On the other hand, he is absolutely adorable. You should hear him say “cheese”! It’s awesome.

I love data

I usually think of myself as a liberal arts kinda girl — all about poetry and language and music and history. But back in high school, I took the ASVAB (the military’s aptitude test) in order to get out of class and (this is the real reason) because I always liked taking standardized tests. (I know! I’m sorry!). Anyway, the results of this test weren’t wildly surprising except one: I aced the code-breaking section. According to the military and my fuzzy 15 year old memory, I was unusually good at translating one list to another. It indicated that I might be a capable computer programmer. I scoffed.

And here I am, a computer programmer. Go figure. I guess what I’m saying is that my image of myself as a words only person is just that: an image. I actually do have this well of unappreciated ability in the less subjective. One of the places this shows up most is in data sets.

I just cannot resist real numbers. If it can be measured, it makes me happy. For example, as you may recall, I carefully measured and calculated my milk production while pumping at work, doing my best to note and avoid problems with my data set. Why? Um, because data is cool? And of course, halfway through you think of other data you should’ve collected (time spent pumping, quality of audio book being listened to, frigidity of server room and impact on milk production).

So for Christmas my brother bought me a Wii fit. It plays exactly into my weakness. Oh, the Wii throws off fantastic data! It has charts and graphs. How much of the time I spent in my workout was done using strength training exercises? How consistent have I been? How many calories did I burn doing X activity? What is my BMI, with a precision of 2. Love! Love love! Data! It gets even better for me, because I find data highly motivational. Give me a measurable objective and watch me make it and then exceed it by a little bit because, um, that’s just how I roll. So fantastic, right?

Well…. there’s just one problem. Let’s say I have half an hour to workout (aka: a miracle has occurred). Which activity is likely to produce the best fitness results: Wii fit, or a half hour fitness workout (I have a Bollywood dance workout DVR’d I’m dying to try)? Chances are the non-Wii workout will get my heart rate higher longer. But! But but! It won’t provide me with the delicious, delicious data I crave. I’ll have to go by estimates and feelings! Bah!

Exercise isn’t the only place where I face this conflict between the measurable and the likely more effective. This happens all the time in food. For example, which one of these is probably all-over better for you: the delicious turkey-burgers my husband made for dinner last night, or a frozen Healthy Choice dinner? Right. Homemade food from actual ingredients has numerous benefits over prepackaged “food” products – not the least of which is taste. Now, which one of these is easily quantified? That would be the prepackaged one, of course. On the other hand, this “from scratch” food may have nutritional surprises. I’m pretty sure that the turkey-burgers were pretty healthy, but what about the chili that I make about once every two weeks? I think it’s pretty decent nutritionally, but I could be wrong.

So I can rigorously and accurately count calories, or I can make my food from scratch.

The last time I set about losing baby-weight, I accomplished it through rigorous calorie counting in both intake and output. I believe that I switched the way I ate from a mostly home cooked to more prepared. That’s harder now, because there are more people eating the food we cook. I don’t think I’m willing to do that again. (Also, the site I used for calorie counting is still stuck in Web 1.0 and has a painful interface. Oh, for an iPhone with a food and exercise log app!) It will be interesting to see whether I can pull this off: reduce calories and exercise regularly without constant data streams and numbers. So motivational do I find numbers, I’m actually not entirely sure I can.

What about you? Do you love data or find it irrelevant or constrictive? What pointless data sets do you obsessively maintain? What are other circumstances are there conflicts between an optimal outcome and a measurable outcome? Which one do you pick when they are in conflict: optimal or measurable?

My charity of choice

Sometimes, figuring out the right thing is as hard or harder than doing the right thing. Take, for example, charity. Let’s say that you have $100 that you’ve decided to give to charity. Now what? What are your priorities? Do you give to the charity that is always bugging you (and, not coincidentally, spends a greater portion of the funds given to them on bugging people)? Do you prefer a local charity? Are you more interested in making sure people have food, or making sure animals in a shelter are not euthanized? Where would helping ensure a poor kid has a present under their tree fall in that spectrum? And what about the fact that $200 in a developing world can mean a matter of life and death for a child, where $200 barely scratches the surface of getting a politician whose policies you believe in elected? And then once you’ve decided that you want to help tsunami survivors in Indonesia, you need to figure out which organization is most likely to offer the greatest benefit to the actual survivors. This can be akin to rocket science.

I’ve certainly wrestled with this question a lot. Our church is by far our largest donation, which is likely true for many worshipers, and will continue to be true. I also regularly send a check to WBUR. I figure they are worth as much or more to me as my subscription to the Economist, and in a very similar way, so I almost see that more as a cost obligation than a donation. After that, I usually support the Greater Boston Food Bank. When Bad Stuff happens, I usually direct donations to help to the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance because I saw their work in Mozambique and know that they go about really smart disaster relief. I always make sure I mark my check for general funds, because it’s much cheaper and better to prepare for disasters than react to them (like stockpiling supplies in areas that have historically gotten cut off by flooding, to name one example).

But lately, I’ve been trying to “optimize” my charitable giving even more, and that’s required me to think about what is really important to me.

I’m particularly interested in:
*Decent quality of life for all the world’s people. To me that means at a minimum: basic healthcare, adequate water, sufficient food, safe housing, basic education
*Sustainability/climate change/making sure we all don’t die and civilization doesn’t collapse
*Reducing suffering for all people
*I also have a real soft spot for parents not having their children die. Every time I realize that people in other places love their kids as much as I love mine — but watch them die for lack of resources — my heart breaks into little itty bitty pieces.

Looking at those priorities, the most obvious solution seemsto be ensuring that every woman has only as many children as she chooses to have. Furthermore, helping women feel confident in having fewer children by making sure that the children she does bear have a good chance at surviving.

In America, we take as given our right to only have as many kids as we want. Don’t want more kids? There’s a myriad of options from the pill, implants, condoms, surgery or abstinence. Many of these options are NOT available to women in other countries, including abstinence. In Africa, rape is an ENORMOUS problem. Women often do not have the right to not have sex with their husbands, and in many war torn countries rape is used as a weapon of war. For a woman without contraceptives in place, this often means pregnancies and children for whom they do not have food, resources or energy. Many women still die in childbirth, leaving all their children orphaned. For other women, their only chance of feeding themselves and their children is sex work, which can often lead to more children and AIDS. Finally, nearly TWO MILLION children a year die of diarrhea alone. So parents in some cultures may have many children in the hopes that some will survive to adulthood to take care of their parents.

Shortly after I gave birth to Thane in a safe, well-stocked, well-attended birth in a sterile hospital with a bevy of medical professionals looking on, I read an article about an organization that was working to help make births safer by very simple safe birthing kits. You know, really advanced stuff like clean plastic sheeting and sterile razor blades to cut the umbilical cord. This same organization was also taking incredibly practical, sensible steps like creating ways to reduce diarrhea deaths and supporting the manufacture and distribution of female condoms that actually work and are affordable.

I did more research on this organization, called Path and found out that it has Charity Navigator’s highest possible rating for how it uses donations.

That’s when I decided that Path was my charity of choice going forward. For my giving priorities and values, this organization does the best job of making a real difference in people’s lives per dollar I can give. So for Christmas, the gift I asked for was the gift of reducing the number of parents who have to bury their children, or children orphaned by preventable causes.

What are your giving priorities? How do you decide between local or international giving? How have you found the charities you most believe in? Does the complexity of the question ever stop you from giving as much as you otherwise might?

These women love their babies as much as I love mine

The state of the boys

At this point in my life, the bulk of the things I have to talk about come from the kids. This isn’t a desire on my part: I keep attempting to read books, think deep thoughts, and have exciting experiences. But no kidding: it took me 45 minutes of concerted effort to manage to read a four page spread in the Holiday Economist about the last of the WWI vets. I had to insert several chapters of Danny Dragonbreath and about 20 up and down off the couches and at least one bribe to get that far — and that was with TWO other adults in the house.

Anyway, with five straight days at home, most of which were dominated by falling snow, I had ample time to familiarize myself with the two small people who rule our house.

I look perfectly happy here! You must be exaggerating.

Thane is at a really unpleasant stage. He screams. All the time. And demands to be picked up. He weighs a ton. And wiggles. This morning, for example, I had a few small goals. Namely, to eat a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, pack my lunch and pour my coffee. None of these things is done easily while holding 30 pounds of squirm. So there he is, weeping bitterly and banging his little hands against my thighs while I attempt to read the Economist article on politeness and eat my Cheerios (he was ignoring my MIL who would be happy to snuggle him). I pick him up, soothe him, and give him his favoritest toy ever: the empty milk jug and lid. He is happy. Then – oh horrors! – I move! To pour my coffee! He trails after me, milk jug in hand, weeping bitterly. I pour my coffee, pick him up, snuggle him, and place him on the floor next to a large pile of fun, plastic devices. He is happy. Then – the humanity! – I move! He tumbles after me, falling down as my legs move instead of staying where they belong (which is to say: with baby arms wrapped around them).

I give up and carry him, attempting feats such as “putting a coat on” and “packing my thermos” which really, really are better done sans baby.

And sometimes nothing I do helps. The other day I was attempting to (get this) put my clothes away!!!. I had Thane in my bedroom. One-handed, I gathered together a variety of toys, including the beloved milk jug. I sat next to him on the floor, touching. Bitter weeping. I picked him up. Bitter weeping. Nothing I did eased the heartache. ALL DAY. For FIVE DAYS.

I don’t know what’s up. Or rather, I don’t know which of the things is up. I called this morning to make an appointment to start the process of obtaining ear tubes. I suspect we might actually GET the ear tubes some time around his 18th birthday. Anyway, I really don’t think he’s feeling well, and I think his ears hurt a lot. But Tylenol + the analgesic drops I begged off the covering pediatrician over Christmas don’t seem to make much difference (although now my lips go numb whenever I kiss his fuzzy little head). I think it’s also a Stage. He wants Mommy. He wants 100% of Mommy, all the time. Daddy and Meme will do if Mommy isn’t in the room. But he just wants to be held. I don’t know if there’s anything else too… separation anxiety or 14monthishness or something, but it was really no fun. I had like 3 nice hours total with him, when he wasn’t horribly upset and was awake and playing quietly. I’ve already taken him to the doctor several times for “irritability”. I’m not sure if this is ear infection, normal stage, or if there’s something else wrong. Also, the kid is eating his body weight daily, and seems happier after he’s eaten more than any of the grownups. This is going on a bit long to be a growth spurt.

In happier news, he’s made a lot of verbal progress. I’m not convinced he’s hearing properly (see also: chronic ear infection), but he’s started pointing enthusiastically at the books he’s being read. He said “blue”, “Thane”, “Amen” and “Cheese” this week. (The cheese is HILARIOUS. The kid won’t say nose, but Mr. Moon sure will say cheese!) It seems like he won’t attempt many words he’s uncertain about, but he’ll use a word once or twice and then refuse to repeat. But I’m pretty sure he is using it once or twice.

Also, no kidding, the rinsed out milk jug is the BEST TOY EVER.

So if Thane has been a source of angst for me, Grey has been absolutely the best kid ever in the whole universe. Although well anesthetized with various screens and treats, Grey has been a delight. He’s been listening, and complying politely with requests. He played for like two hours out in the snow. He’s been super snuggly, requesting hugs and bestowing kisses. (Although usually when he gives me kisses they’re accompanied with instructions that said kisses are to be saved for his cousins Baz and Kay.) He’ll cuddle up while reading, and when I seem tired, he comes up to give me a “massage”. When eating a meal he doesn’t hate, he’ll say something like “Thank you, daddy, for making us this nice meal. It is super tasty.” I kid you not. We’re working on Christmas thank you notes, with me taking dictation, and they’re awesome. “Dear Grandma Jones, Thank you for the blocks. I like them a lot. They are awesome. It was very kind of you to give us such fun blocks. Dear Grey.” (Ok, so he hasn’t quite gotten the “sincerely” bit yet.) He and I had a fantastic time doing his new science experiments. He even helps with his brother — making funny faces to make him stop weeping.

In general, I’m having an AWESOME time being Grey’s mom. I feel like I’m falling down on the job being Thane’s mom — I just haven’t figured out how to help him. I hope I figure it out.

Cabin Fever

In my youth, I was heavily influenced by the great, classical writers whose influence will be felt down through the generations. I mean, of course, Erma Bombeck and Patrick McManus. What? You’ve never heard of them? And you call yourself an English major! Erma I’ll leave for another time: suffice it to say everything I know about maternity underwear I learned from her. Patrick McManus is the pinnacle of humorous outdoorsy writers. He wrote about the world in which I lived my youth — a world I left in the dust when I drove across a blazing hot country from my home in the shaded Northwest to arrive at a prestigious and ritzy New England college, dripping in history and “Natty Lite”.

I remember reading “Never Sniff a Gift Fish” in the log cabin my grandparent’s inhabited on the Cedar River, at a Boy Scout camp they ran (Camp Fremont). There were dogs milling about and arcane tools stacked in tubs in the corners. It was chilly and I don’t recall fireworks, which points to a Christmas visit. One of the prizes I unearthed in a back room was a stack of McManus Masterpieces. The great ones were there: “Rubber Legs and White Tail Hairs”, “They Shoot Canoes, Don’t They?” and “The Grasshopper Trap”.

Anyway, one of his brilliant essays talked about Cabin Fever. Go ahead. Go read it. I’ll wait.

Read it? Good.

So Monopoly, fudge and the old “Great Northern Railroad” calendar.

That, folks, is where we’re at here. I’ve been home since Wednesday, when it seemed like a good idea to work from home. Ha! Since then, I think it’s snowed three times? Four times? Yesterday, a day I was willing to venture out, I had to take two passes at getting in to my driveway because I turned the wheel, but the car was disinclined to go that direction. Today it was much worse. For the second time in three weeks we had to cancel church. I was very much looking forward to church. You know, people who don’t beg to play their DS or scream at me because they’ve lost the lid to their very favorite toy: the empty milk jug?

I suspect my mother-in-law is planning a break for it. She keeps talking about “packing bags” and “plane leaves tomorrow at 11, but you could probably drop me off now if that’s more convenient”.

Grey is bored stiff. I don’t blame him. I’m bored stiff too — or possibly that’s a side effect of the shoveling. Did I mention that all of us except Grey is sick with a sniffly cold?

You know the only thing worse than being bored stiff? It’s being bored stiff and not permitted to sit down and read a good novel because someone wants up on the couch. And down off the couch. And up on the couch. And down off the couch. And up on the couch…. and wait! Where is the lid to the milk jug?!?!?

At least Grey is now at an age where he can play in the snow while his father and I shovel. He had fun this afternoon, getting buried in deep drifts, throwing snowballs at passing cars and pretending to be cold. I didn’t take any pictures because I was afraid that no one would recognize the white-haired gnome.

Tomorrow it should be all done. The winter storm will pass. We’ll all head back to work and daycare for the long slog of serious winter. Thane will probably have to go back to the doctor because he’s not better. All the balls that were put down on the ground for a week will be picked back up and tossed into the air. I’ll dye everyone’s hair back to the normal color, and life will go on.

Let’s just hope this is the last of the snow!