My Commonplace Book

This wouldn't have happened if eudyptes had been her driving instructor.

JASPER, Ind. -- A 15-year-old girl crashed her SUV into Jasper High School during a driving lesson, causing $50,000 in damage, police said.
       
Jordan M. Sander was practicing Sunday afternoon with her father, John C. Sander, in the school's parking lot.

She was making a right turn when the sport utility vehicle went over a sidewalk and into the north side of the building, police said. Neither Jordan nor her father was injured. No charges were filed.

The accident also caused about $3,500 damage to the SUV.

After an inauspicious start, my day yesterday got much better when I went to see phoenix_glow's new baby, Brianna!

Phoenix is always fun to be with, and Bri is absolutely gorgeous! She's four months old already, but I hadn't seen her yet because Phoenix and the rest of the family have been passing around to each other all winter.  I gave Bri a matching hand-crocheted set of a baby blanket, jacket and hat that I got for her last November at our church's silent auction. I didn't know what on earth to get for a third baby -- I figured Phoenix would already have everything she could possibly need! -- so I thought something handmade from the church we both attend would be more special that something store-bought.

Unfortunately Bri was sleeping most of the time I was there, but I did get to see her (and hold her!) for a little while before I left. What a beautiful little girl! She's a very happy, easy-going baby with a gorgeous bright cornflower-blue eyes and a knock-em-dead smile. And she smiles often! I played peek-a-boo with her and she loved it. Every time I said "ahhh, boo!" she'd startle, and then give me a huge, cockeyed grin. And then she'd stare at me waiting for the next one. It was so cute!

Also cute, but not nearly in the same league, is Phoenix's Roomba! I'd never seen one in action before, so Phoenix turned hers on for me so I could watch it for a few minutes. It is so cool! She has it on a timer and it cleans the living room and dining room every morning from 10 to 11. The floor was quite clean, so it must do a good job! She also has a Scooba, which she says does a great job in the kitchen and bathroom. Now I'm dying to get one of each!

After I left Phoenix's house I went to the library to return a book. I got three more, and did something I've never done before -- I filed a "request for reconsideration" of a recently purchased book.

I took out one bird book and two travel books. The bird book is Songbird Journeys: Four Seasons in the Lives of Migratory Birds. It looks really good, and I'm looking forward to reading it!

The travel books are Insight Guide: Alaska and Cruising Alaska: A Traveler's Guide to Cruising Alaskan Waters & Discovering the Interior because I'm going on a cruise to Alaska this spring!!!

I'm really starting to get excited! I'm going with my kids, woofiegrrl and her partner A, on an inside passage cruise. The main stops are Juneau, Ketchikan and Skagway, and for our obligatory foreign port our last stop is in  Victoria, BC from 6 pm to midnight, where I'll get to meet ms_interpret and her family!

I can't wait to read the books! I started the cruising one last night but I haven't gotten to read any more of it yet.

In my post about the beaver that was found in the Bronx River, I mentioned a baseball field that I saw on the satellite map.

I can't believe that baseball field is still in exactly the same place it was when I was little! That was the bottom of our sledding hill -- when you zoom in the satellite view you can see that it's a pretty steep slope from the sidewalk of Bronx Park East down to the baseball field. Even the backstop fence is still in the same place ... I remember it vividly because I had a very scary experience there when I was about 7 or 8.

( Cut for possible TMI or triggering )

This is the text of a freecycle post I saw today:

WANTED: formula/milk coolers

These are the kind that are given away in the free diaper bags at the hospital after birth.  The cooler is a small black bag with a zipper on top and two pockets inside for slipping freezer ice packs into.  The freezer ice packs are also included, and I would appreciate these also.  I am going back to work, and need these to keep baby's milk cool while on the go.

I was really annoyed. Not at the post -- it's fine. But I'm upset by the idea that even in the 21st century, hospitals are allowing this type of freebie to be given away. It's obviously coming from a formula company for the purpose of keeping bottles cool, since nursing moms don't need to carry bottles around or worry about the safety of the baby's milk!

In this case it sounds like the mom is probably pumping and wants to keep the bottles cold on the way home from work. But nobody is going to spend the money on such nice things to give away free just to make life easier for mothers who pump, which gives them no return on their investment.

momomom, what freebies does your hospital give to new moms when they go home? Do you have any say in whether they should get inducements like that to make formula feeding easier? What about you, shannonwest -- what did you get? phoenix_glow, I'm not sure if you're going to be in a hospital or not, but if you are, I'll be interested to know which one and what they send home with you in that regard.

I don't object to mothers making the choice to use formula -- it's none of my business what another woman decides to feed her baby. But I do object to hospitals continuing to give every new mom packages full of formula coupons, bottle coolers, and all sorts of stuff designed to subtly nudge the mom into using formula.

phoenix_glow posted in her journal about a show that was on TLC last night profiling the Duggar family -- those people in Arkansas with 16½ kids.

I saw part of that. I was looking for The Daily Show but it wasn't on, so I surfed around a little bit and saw the show about the Duggars. But it bothered me so much that I couldn't watch it, and after about 15 minutes I turned it off and went back upstairs.

I feel so sorry for those kids. As a letter to the Knoxville News points out:

No one can have 16 children and them receive enough attention from the parents to really feel loved as a child should. It's difficult enough in today's world with just 2 kids. It must be pure selfishness that makes people have so many. My question is what was she having them for? Slave labor? It may be no one else's business but she certainly didn't call for enough privacy in the matter to tell the media not to cover her situation. She's simply asking for criticism.

The regimentation in that household is positively frightening. The kids' first free time of the entire day comes at 4:00 pm -- unless they're the one preparing dinner that day or still need to practice the piano ("seeing we have to take turns with one piano to 11 students!"), in which case they don't get any. They all have to wear matching colors every day ("Mon- red, Tues- blue, etc") in order to reduce laundry complications.

In addition to 2½ hour naps, the young children are required to

learn self-control & obedience by sitting quietly on a blanket playing with a few toys. The key words are ‘sit’ & ‘quiet’ ... This one tip has changed the atmosphere of our home tremendously. We don’t have little ones tearing up the house as often & getting into things while we are busy.

Occasionally, we still have those moments, but over all the little ones are content. This frees us to be able to accomplish more in our day! We have since, transferred this training to other areas, such as sitting during worship services, shopping trips & when visiting with company…etc. It’s teaching them responsibility (knowing & doing what both God & others are expecting of them) at an early age.

Very convenient for the Mom -- every mother dreams of what it would be like to be able to say "Sit! Quiet!" and be able to enjoy a church service or get through the whole supermarket in peace. But as tempting as it is, that doesn't mean it's okay to train children as if they were rambunctious puppies and order them "Sit! Quiet!" at your convenience. Children need the freedom to act like rambunctious puppies sometimes -- just as rambunctious puppies do. If you read their complete daily schedule, these kids seem to spend an unnatural amount of time sitting quietly and attending, even the littlest ones ... right down to the hour of "Bible time with Daddy" that begins at 9:00 pm. "Often our little ones will fall asleep as Daddy begins Bible time, still they love to be with us at this special time. Bedtime is 10:00p.m."

Technically everyone has the same bedtime, from 18 to 0 years old, but of course the older ones actually stay up a little later since they have to put their younger siblings to bed. The parents go to bed too, but they have their own job to do: making more babies.

Instead of having a life, the older children are forced to become parents at an early age:

Our daily routine begins with personal hygiene (get dressed, brush teeth, comb hair, etc…). Each older child has a younger buddy or two that they help. ... [Each] older child & their buddy work together to clean their jurisdictions ... the older children help their buddies with their studies in phonics, math, violin & piano [before they start their own studies].

I can't imagine the soul-destroying limitations these children are growing up with -- both the older ones who are weighed down with way too much responsibility, and the younger ones who will never know what it's like to have a mother who cares for them.

My late husband Tom's older sister was 8 when the next child (Tom) was born, and three more kids followed at 2-3 year intervals after that. Their mother had other interests, so Carmel was given the responsibility of raising her four younger siblings. She changed their diapers, fed them, gave them baths, watched them ... from age 8 until she left home at age 18, she was their primary caregiver.

It destroyed her life. She vowed never to have children because she had already put in her time wiping snotty noses and filthy bottoms, as she put it. Since this was the mid-20th century and the family was very traditional and strictly Catholic, the only way she could see to avoid getting married (which meant having kids, since birth control was forbidden) was to become a nun. So she went into a convent.

But of course she made the wrong choice for the wrong reason, so it didn't take. In the religious turmoil of the 1960s, when so many nuns were leaving convents, Carmel did too. Now close to 40, she wanted desperately to get married and find out what she had missed -- but she was too inexperienced with life and too needy, and she was never successful at dating. She died a very lonely, very bitter old woman.

The younger children in the family were also affected by growing up without a real mother. Their parents were working class immigrants, and their mother's primary activity was to keep the house spotless. That was too important to allow inexperienced children to do. So when Carmel was in school and little toddler-age Tommy wanted to go out to play in the yard, his mother would put a little harness on him and tie him to a stake out in the yard like a puppy so he would be safe and she wouldn't have to leave her chores to sit outside on the porch. Carmel told him decades later that he didn't know how weird that was, and would eagerly put his little arms up to have the harness put on ... just like a puppy.

It's different if a parent dies. That's devastating for the family, but in a different way:  The kids understand why it's necessary for them to take over some of the burden of taking care of the family. It's having a mother who makes herself unavailable to you for one reason or another and delegates the responsibility of raising you to an inexperienced older sibling that I think is damaging.

Sadly, these kids are growing up so isolated from the world -- no school, no television, no friends -- that they're growing up thinking their experience is normal, and will probably replicate it with their own kids because they don't know anything else ... the same way more obvious forms of abuse are propagated from one generation to the next.

And that's why I feel the right to comment on the way someone else is raising their children -- because I think it is abusive, albeit in a different way than more overt forms of abuse. The mother is addicted to having babies, and doesn't care about what it does to them. She has talked herself into the idea that this is good for the kids -- for example, she says of making the kids all wear the same color every day, "We call it our ‘homeschool uniforms’. We feel unified & more serious about school, like a team!" If she feels the need to put a good face on a practical reality like dress color requirements, maybe she's trying to keep from admitting the inappropriateness of the whole situation to herself.

Their oldest child, Joshua, is 18, so all of them are still living under their parents' thumb. As time goes on, I'd be delighted to hear that at least one of those kids left home, moved to the city, got a couple of tattoos and became a bartender or an actor or just about anything. They'd probably be disowned, but it would be worth it to them to be free. Sadly, most, if not all, of them will never make it.

woofiegrrl and I -- who have both been formally diagnosed with ADHD -- have both debunked the scarelore surrounding treatment for this disorder.

A behavioral disorder that afflicts both children and adults, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is marked by hyperactivity, impulsivity and an inability to concentrate. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 2 million children in the U.S. suffer from the condition, with between 30 to 70 percent of them continuing to exhibit symptoms in their adult years.

Few people (Tom Cruise and his ilk notwithstanding) question the efficacy of other drugs for "behavioral" conditions such as depression and psychosis. But thanks to the Scientologists and conspiracy theorists -- some of whom are using their MDs to get rich by writing and disseminating scarelore -- there is still confusion about treating this "behavioral" condition with pharmacological drugs. It's sad that so many people fail to understand that all behavior is influenced, if not caused, by brain biochemistry.

Now recent studies have revealed new information about the ways in which stimulant drugs for ADHD affect the brain, and also show that the disorder is seriously undertreated.

( Details and links )

Children should not be forced to struggle with behaviors they cannot control that are caused by a biochemical imbalance in the brain. Meredith has benefited enormously from taking medication for her ADHD. It was unknown when I was a child -- my parents called me "Miss Perpetual Motion" and complained frequently that "you have no stick-to-it-ive-ness!" I think my life would have been very different in some important ways if medication had been available in those days, and I hope good science continues to overcome the scarelore about medication for ADHD.


( Full text of third article )

I want to keep track of this article so that the next time I read about some kid being given an award for 100% attendance all through school, I can rant with authority instead of just growling.

Parents: If your kids are sick, keep them home! Do not spread germs to the entire class just so your kid can get a cheesy award -- or so you don't have to take a day off from work to care for them.

I'm not even addressing the ethics of forcing, encouraging, or even allowing a sick child to drag herself to school and struggle through the day. That's a child-rearing issue, and I suppose it's your own business. But your kid is making other kids sick, as well as reducing the teachers' effectiveness by forcing them to deal with your tired, cranky, unwell kid. And that's everybody's business.

Classrooms are the No. 1 germiest workplace, and sick students are to blame

( Full text )

Do you think this magazine cover is offensive? Disgusting? Shocking?




I think it's an absolutely beautiful photograph, and it makes me very nostalgic for my own nursing days a quarter of a century ago. It's aimed at illustrating the controversy surrounding breastfeeding in the US, discussed in an article in the magazine.

And apparently it is quite a controversy. In a reader poll about the cover, a quarter of responses to the cover were negative, and Babytalk received over 700 letters, more than for any article in years.

Several readers said they were "embarrassed" or "offended."  One woman said she "immediately turned the magazine face down" when she saw the photo. The mother of a 4-month-old said, "Gross, I am sick of seeing a baby attached to a boob." Another said "I had to rip off the cover since I didn't want it laying around the house."

The mother of a 13-year-old son said, "I shredded it. A breast is a breast -- it's a sexual thing. He didn't need to see that. ... I'm totally supportive of [breastfeeding] -- I just don't like the flashing. I don't want my son or husband to accidentally see a breast they didn't want to see."

I think that's ridiculous. I was a "lactivist" long before there was a name for it. There were no laws in those days to protect a woman's right to breastfeed in public, as there are now. (In fact, in Kansas -- of all places! -- the state has actually printed up cards that mothers can flash in the face of anyone who tells them to stop nursing. The card states, "Kansas License to Breastfeed in Public — It's the Law." Babytalk has a similar breastfeeding-rights card that anyone can print out and use.) So there were times when I was forced to stand around in a bathroom to feed my baby.

But only when I was forced to. The only way I could eat out with my restless, hard-to-soothe infant was to nurse her at the table, holding her with one hand while eating at the other. and I did so many times. At the mall there was a lightly-traveled side wing where I sat on a bench right in the middle. I was always discreet -- I wore clothes that would allow me to drape my top strategically over Meredith's cheek to conceal my breast -- but I resisted hiding the entire procedure.

Babytalk editor Susan Kane says the mixed response to the cover clearly echoes the larger debate over breast-feeding in public. "There's a huge Puritanical streak in Americans," she said, "and there's a squeamishness about seeing a body part -- even part of a body part."

"It's not like women are whipping them out with tassels on them," she added. "Mostly, they are trying to be discreet."

But apparently, even in the 21st century that's still not good enough. In a 2004 survey, the American Dietetic Association found that more than half -- 57 percent of the 3,719 respondents -- are opposed to breastfeeding in public, and 72 percent think it's inappropriate to show a woman breastfeeding on television programs. Yet I'm sure many of these same people blithely watch TV shows where breasts can be seen in a sexual context!

Breasts are, first and foremost, for feeding babies. They're also important erogenous zones, but that's a secondary function. When I went to the zoo a couple of months ago, I sat on a bench in the main lobby of the visitor center watching silent video clips of Tai Shan, the baby panda. Two feet away on the bench, another woman was sitting, and nursing her baby. I would have liked to say something to show approval, but of course I couldn't -- but I did start a conversation about the video, just to show I was comfortable with what she was doing.

In most of the rest of the world, breastfeeding is accepted, if not expected. I wish Americans would grow up.


ADDED: While answering a comment, I got to thinking: Except for the baby, you wouldn't even know that was a breast. Try to visualize it without the baby -- it could be an elbow for all you can see of it!

Do those parents ever take their husbands and children to an art museum? Or do they make sure the husbands' and little ones' eyes never fall upon a Rembrandt ... a Degas ... a Titian ... a Rubens ... or a Michelangelo -- oh, those Renaissance masters were bad boys. Tsk, tsk, tsk. And speaking of Michelangelo, better not take those impressionable children (and men) to the Vatican, where they might see the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Look at works of the great masters, and then look at the magazine cover again, and tell me: The cover is inappropriate, how?


( Full text )

There aren't too many people who can say they caught onto water skiing before mastering the potty, but 22-month-old Cole Marsolek can -- or he will be able to, once he can talk.



This is so cute! There's a video at the link, too!

conuly, do you know about this?

Call to Action: NYS Regs Allow Schools to Use "Aversive Interventions" on Children

In June, the New York Board of Regents approved "emergency regulations" that permit public schools to use aversive behavioral interventions and time-out rooms as consequences for behavior of children with disabilities. These regulations went into effect on June 23, 2006.

According to the New York regulations, "aversive behavioral intervention" means:

(i) application of noxious, painful, intrusive stimuli or activities intended to induce pain such as electric skin shock, ice applications, hitting, slapping, pinching, kicking, hurling, strangling, shoving, deep muscle squeezes or other similar stimuli;

(ii) any form of noxious, painful or intrusive spray, inhalant or tastes;

(iii) withholding sleep, shelter, bedding, bathroom facilities or clothing;

(iv) contingent food programs that include withholding meals or limiting essential nutrition or hydration or intentionally altering staple food or drink in order to make it distasteful;

(v) movement limitation used as a punishment, including but not limited to helmets and mechanical restraint devices;

(vi) the placement of a child unsupervised or unobserved in a room from which the student cannot exit without assistance; or

(vii) other stimuli or actions similar to the interventions....

Electric shock?? Withholding bathroom facilities?? Withholding essential nutrition and hydration?? The Supreme Court just told Bush that these things constitute torture and he can't use these techniques on adult "enemy combatants" ... but apparently the schools in New York are allowed to torture autistic and other disabled children!

I hope this is just exaggerated and incorrect scare lore ... but it's probably all too accurate. =sigh=

(found in chungjik's journal)

After the wettest June in DC history -- weeks of rain, rain, heat and humidity, rain, hot air, rain, floods, and even more rain, the weather here for the last couple of days has actually been comfortable enough to open the windows!

Having the windows open means I can hear all the sounds outside, which is a mixed blessing.

As I write this, at about 1:00 pm, the third car alarm of the day is sounding ... beep ... beep ... beep ... beep ... beep ... beep ... beep, on and on. I don't understand why people's car alarms go off so frequently here. There have only been four or five cars stolen from the area in hearing range in the 20 years I've lived here, so they're obviously not being broken into. Maybe they're being jostled, since townhouses have parking lots rather than individual driveways, or people fumble when unlocking their own car. But it's very annoying, especially when the windows are open and it happens three times in as many hours. And right now someone else appears to be honking for someone to come out, because I also hear another honk - - honk ............ honk - - honk ................. honk - - honk at the same time but in a discordant rhythm and pitch. It's not pleasant.

When I first opened the windows I heard a steady roar from some kind of machinery going across the court. I couldn't see what it was, but I saw a hose snaking into a house, so someone was probably getting their carpets steamed or their ducts cleaned or something. That was pretty annoying for awhile. And every so often a large truck comes through. I don't know why there are so many big trucks with noisy air brakes and loud, poorly tuned engines coming into this court -- there are only 46 houses in here -- 90 if you count the other half of this development (since I'm right next to the circle that divides the two large square courts). I always think it's the trash truck, and then I realize "No, it's the wrong day for that.

But on the other hand, with the windows open I can also listen to the experienced, virtuoso Gray Catbird in whose territory I live, singing his "musical ... pleasing and indescribably beautiful" song, as well as the House Wren who's building a nest in my wren house right outside the window of this room. He sings his bright bubbly ringing song [mp3 file] all day long, trying to attract a female to his new nest. (This will be his second brood of the season -- he chose the new wren house put up by a neighbor four doors down for his first brood, and I felt slighted; but I could still hear his songs so I was happy. I could even hear the babies peeping when I went for the mail, and I'd stop to peek in once in a while. I'm even happier to have them right here, though -- I hope he's successful in getting a mate!)

Another sound I've been hearing ever since I opened the windows hours ago is children's voices calling "Ice cold lemona-ade! Fifty cents! ... Ice cold lemona-ade! Fifty cents!" I finally took two quarters and went out to look. A pair of enterprising young girls had set up a folding table in the circle everyone has to pass through to get in or out the development. Every time a car comes by -- a frequent occurrence -- they give their call, as loud and ringing as any bird on territory. I went over, and as I approached the older girl saw me coming and sang her "Ice cold lemona-ade! Fifty cents!" right at me. I grinned and held up the two quarters, and she immediately took a cup and brought it over to me.

It was good (Crystal Light, I was informed), and I didn't mention that it was far from ice cold; in fact it was only slightly below air temperature. (They didn't have any ice out there -- it probably had been ice-cold when they brought the pitcher out, but that had obviously been awhile ago.)

They said they've made over $30 dollars so far -- $15 for the 10-year-old, who is trying to earn enough to buy a big stuffed horse she's seen in some stores, while her younger sister (who turned 9 so recently that she said she was 8 at first) told me she doesn't care how much she gets. It turns out that they have to pay their parents $3 for supplies (which I heartily endorse), so I guess that's coming out of the 9-year-old's share ("but she's done a lot more of the work," the younger one explained).

While I was chatting with them and drinking my lemonade they sold a few more glasses and said the pitcher was almost empty. I guess they went in to make some more because there was only birdsong for awhile, and when I heard them again they were calling "Ice cold lemona-ade! One dollar!" I don't know if they were giving full cups (my large plastic cup was half full, which I thought was a fair portion for 50¢) or just raised their prices, but I didn't hear that for very long. I guess business wasn't too good at that price or they got too hot and tired and quit for the day -- they did tell me they were planning to be out again tomorrow. If they are I'll buy another cup from them -- they're cute, and exceptionally well-mannered:  When the 10-year-old handed me the cup, I said thank you and she said warmly, "Enjoy!"

And that's what I'm doing -- both the lemonade and the open windows.

A full-time stay-at-home mother would earn $134,121 a year if paid for all her work and a mother who works outside the home would earn an extra $85,876 annually on top of her actual wages. To reach the projected pay figures, the survey calculated the earning power of the 10 jobs respondents said most closely comprise a mother's role:  housekeeper, day-care teacher, cook, computer operator, laundry machine operator, janitor, facilities manager, van driver, chief executive and psychologist. Employed mothers reported spending on average 44 hours a week at their outside job and 49.8 hours at their home job, while the stay-at-home mother worked 91.6 hours a week.

You can find out how much your own job as a mom is worth based on how many kids you have, where you live, and how long you actually spend at each task at Salary.com's What is Your Mom Worth? page.

Loving a baby is a circular business, a kind of feedback loop. The more you give the more you get and the more you get the more you feel like giving.
                        —Penelope Leach (20th century), US child development specialist

Here are the pictures from my walk today! I actually took them, got them sorted and uploaded and captioned and everything, and am posting some all in the same day!

It's spring!

( Wildflowers, cherry blossoms, daffodils, a cardinal and a cute kid )