More Things that Really Happened

Happened today:

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Also really happened today - Dani learned a new word.

She was playing with a Dora book when she stopped, pointed to the cover, and said (translated by me):

Dani: Look, you can see Dora's penis!!
Me: ..... What???
Dani: You can see her penis! *giggles*
Me (pays more attention to the book): Honey, that's called a belly button.
D (glares): No, it's a penis. *Lifts shirt, finds her own belly button* Look, I have a penis, too!
Me: You have a belly button.
D: I have a penis! On my tummy!
Me (proving that even veteran parents can make boneheaded newbie mistakes, like issuing a direct challenge to a two-year-old): THAT IS NOT A PENIS. It is a BELLY BUTTON. You don't have a penis at all, only boys have penises.
D: I HAVE A PENIS!!!!
Me: *smartens up a minute too late, stays quiet*
D: *leaves room singing loudly about the penis on her tummy*
Me: *starts mentally preparing self for an interesting conversation with the preschool teacher*

Back to school

Remember when I mentioned that Monday would be Parent Liberation Day? It was not.

Instead, it was the day of waking up early to feed S before getting Adi to the bus stop and then sticking around for a parent-child event that turned out to be a school assembly where parents were welcome to sit in the hallway outside and crane their necks for a view of their precious child being marched on stage with his/her class to get an official welcome from the principal.

To be fair, the other parents found it very moving. 

Then I had to head back to get S from Viggie's work, where she'd been acquainting everyone with her views on how the world is a dark, miserable place full of nothing but suffering. I interrupted her message of despair to bring her with to pick up D (early pickup), making it just in time for D to sprawl herself on the dirty pavement and refuse to move as other parents pranced by with their happy offspring (D couldn't decide what she wanted more - to not stay in preschool, or to not go home with me. It's a tough life.).

I forget the rest of the day. 

Today I had a full two hours of quiet in the morning. Unfortunately, I had to use 45 minutes of it dealing with my own upcoming school year, at Open University. 

Open University is great. The problem is, the administrative system was designed by a team with the collective IQ of a turnip. A turnip whose mother quietly despairs of it ever amounting to anything in life.

For instance, I want to update my credit card information in order to pay them.

"You can't," explained the helpful Open U hotline worker.

"I can't?"

"No, I can't change it by phone."

"But I can't do it online, either."

"Right."

"So where can I do it?"

"Well, if you had a personal code, you could leave a voicemail message with the Registration Center.Then someone would call you back, and you could tell them by phone."

"I don't have a personal code."

"I could send you one by mail. It would get there in a couple weeks."
"I need to register today."

"Yes, I know."

"So is there anything I can do for today?"

"I could send you a personal code."

"But it won't get here on time."

"Right."

"So what could I do for today?"

"Do you have a personal code?"

This went on for a while, with a secondary loop developing in which I noted that if I were a new student I could just enter a new credit card number in the online registration forms, and she helpfully pointed out that I am not, in fact, a new student. In the end, it turns out she may not be able to send me a personal code after all, because I haven't updated my address, and I can't update it without a personal code. She did, however, give me the fax number for the Registration Center. Apparently they'll read your fax even if you don't have a code.

In the meantime, I'm leaving the payment on my old card and hoping they charge me in the 72 hours before it expires. As for the change of address, I plan to sneak into our old building every couple of days to check for textbooks. It can't possibly be harder than trying to deal with the helpline again.

But I persevere, because other than the system, and the helpline, and the textbooks, and several of the courses, and some of the teachers, Open U really is great. And it's the only school where I can attend class while being used as a human trampoline, which is a matter of great importance.

And really, my time learning there has changed my outlook on life. Now when I'm standing in the park tomorrow with S screaming and D sitting on the pavement saying "DON'T WANT!" instead of getting irritated I can remain calm, happy in the knowledge that whatever else happens, at least I don't have to deal with Open U for another four months. 

Snan and Alirsnan: A Tribute

This post will be a tribute to Snan.

Let me explain about Snan: Snan is my twin sister. Unusually for twins, we were born three and a half years apart. I was born first, not that it helped me any.

Of the two of us, I am the athletic twin. However, due to my great humility, and my desire to see my sister enjoy her accomplishments without them being overshadowed by my own, I've been hiding that fact very very (very) well for the past 24 years or so.

A few months ago when Snan came to grace us with her glittering, other-worldly presence, it was noticed that I had perhaps gone too far in hiding my true, athletically gifted nature. I was - how to put it - approaching the rounder end of the human-body spectrum.

In stepped Snan, with her failproof weight-loss plan. That, and her disturbing enthusiasm for dragging me on long walks up tall hills.

Seven months later, I am pleased to announce that I have reached my weight-loss goal, which was more or less "be that size I was before so that I won't need to buy too many new clothes." So the time has come to thank Snan. And since I've been investing all my money in "quick turn on the air conditioning before we all melt" lately, I've decided to express my gratitude in blog form. Specifically, with a feature called "Snan and Alirsnan," in which I will explain the subtle differences in our approach to life.

SNAN and ALIRSNAN: the Health Edition 

SNAN knows it's important to stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water.

ALIRSNAN considers water to be basically a less evolved version of coffee.










SNAN frequently exercises using her erg machine.

ALIRSNAN uses her elliptical machine, just not always for its intended purpose.

SNAN stretches after every workout to keep her limbs healthy and limber.

ALIRSNAN figures that if she just waits a few minutes, somebody will stretch her limbs for her.







SNAN makes sure to get plenty of sleep. No amount of exercise and healthy eating will keep a body healthy without it!

ALIRSNAN is asleep on the inside, does that count?

SNAN believes in "a sound mind in a healthy body."

ALIRSNAN thinks that sound minds are way overrated.

Moms and Dads

The difference between moms and dads, even when both very much love and enjoy their precious children:

A Tale of Daring and Bravery

This is my kitchen, as it looked yesterday morning:

Those light brown things up above are the cabinets, the dark brown ones are the counters. The big beige rectangle in the middle is a pole that was built in the middle of the kitchen for no particular reason.

The light blue things are clean dishes, the rectangle to the left is the door to the closed balcony, where we keep the gray thing, which is our stove. And the little black dot halfway up the door frame is AAAAAAHHHH COCKROACH RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't like cockroaches.

Just to make it clear up front, it's not like I get cockroaches because my house is dirty, or anything. We live in a humid urban environment, so there are zillions of cockroaches just living their little disgusting lives outside on the street, and sometimes they get in the house. It could happen to anyone.

Also, my house is filthy. It's just filthy in an unrelated kind of way.

So I saw the cockroach, and my first thought was, I have to call Viggie. Viggie is in charge of cockroach disposal. He has helped me take care of dozens of cockroaches. The conversation usually goes like this:

Me: I need you to kill a cockroach RIGHT NOW.
Him: Where?
Me: AAAAAAHHH it's HUGE!!! It's COMING FOR ME!!!
Him: WHERE?
Me: I saw it last night, at about two in the morning. I think it was in the kitchen, or maybe the living room.
Him: Are you sure it was a cockroach?
Me: It was definitely a black thing.
Him: So you need me to kill what you think was a bug, that you saw a few hours ago in what you think might have been the living room.
Me: YES. And NOW. Because it's COMING TO KILL ME.
Him: I... uh... already killed that one.
Me: Oh thank God.

I did briefly consider avoiding bothering Viggie at work by just not going into the kitchen for the rest of the day, but the problem is, it wasn't just dirty dishes and stuff in there. My ice coffee was in the fridge (you can't see the fridge in my picture, but trust me, I would have been directly in the cockroach's line of sight, assuming they have one).

But then, as I looked for my perpetually-misplaced cell phone so I could make the call, I had a realization: we had a can of cockroach poison in the kitchen. And then a second realization: perhaps I, too, was capable of handling the cockroach. As long as I didn't have to go anywhere near it.

So I boldly edged my way nervously into the kitchen, trying to keep my whimpering quiet enough that the cockroach wouldn't hear. My hand found the poison. And then I leaped forth in an epic moment in which courage triumphed over fear, and danger brought forth the true greatness of the human spirit.

The cockroach ran between the counter and the wall, and I felt confident that it was dead. Probably from laughter. That counts too.

In the end I had to bother Viggie at work anyway, so that I could tell him about my noble efforts on his behalf. I could tell from his silence that he was overcome by awe.

Then I had to rewash the dishes, because some idiot had sprayed cockroach poison near them. That part went fine, except for the normal fear that the cockroach I (possibly) killed had become a zombie, and was RIGHT NOW AS I STAND HERE assembling an army of zombie cockroaches to come after me (you have that fear too, right?).

And then I got to enjoy my ice coffee. (<-- this is how all stories should end)

Really Happened part Whatever

Really happened this evening:

Consider Yourself Warned - Q - Questions

Kids like to ask questions. Not as much as they like to order people around, but it's still up there.

There are three kinds of questions:

1. Tough questions. These are the questions that you had hoped to somehow get away with never answering, whether because you don't know the answer or had just hoped your child's mind was far too worry-free to be thinking about such things or both.

The most famous is "how did the baby get inside you?" That one's not actually so hard to deal with. You just have to use a natural power that all parents, without exception, have somewhere inside - the ability to bore the daylights out of your child.

"That's an excellent question!" you tell them. "I'll tell you right now! But first, we're going to need to learn some anatomy. Do you know what anatomy is? OK, I'll explain. It was originally a Greek word... "

By the time you start explaining the concept of DNA, they should be long gone. And if not - well, the human body is complex. Complex enough to fill months of lessons, or even years.

The toughest question I have been asked by one of my kids, to date:

I'm still not sure how to answer that one.

2. Repetitive questions. These are the questions you hear over and over and over and.... For obvious reasons, about 99% of the questions you hear will be repetitive questions.

The most famous is "are we there yet?"

Repetitive questions are caused by a simple biological fact: the question-asking mechanism in a young child's brain has a runtime error. Somehow, a really obvious infinite loop got through quality control.

"Are we there yet" is one of the most annoying examples of this, because it's usually asked while you're sitting in traffic, or waiting for the bus, and don't want to hear anything but the whoosh of air past the window of a quickly-moving vehicle.

But it's not the worst, because wherever "there" is, in today's world you'll probably be there within a day.

No, the worst is when a small person with frosting smudges on their face and shiny new still-unbroken toys waiting for them in the living room asks you:

The only answer that will break the loop is "tomorrow." Enjoy the wait.

3. Embarrassing questions. Not questions that embarrass the child, of course. From around age 11 anything and everything - but mostly you - is humiliating, but until then, very little embarrasses them. Certainly not their own questions, no matter how inappropriate, inadvertently suggestive, or unknowingly racist they may be.

The more embarrassing the question, the more people will be around when it is asked, and the louder your child will say it.

Yes, one of mine really asked that. The person she was talking to was - what else? - a teenage girl. Exactly the age and gender best suited to hearing unintentional criticism of their weight....

I remember that back when I was a teenage babysitter, a three-year-old with a pregnant mother once asked me, "Is there a baby in your tummy, too?" I told him no, and smiled at the cute question.

He followed it with "So why is your tummy so big, then?"

Maybe there's an endless chain of embarrassing questions, working its way through the generations, making sure everyone gets insulted by a child at least once in their lifetimes, and every parent has a cheek-burningly awkward moment to live through.

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Some of you may be thinking, "But you're forgetting something! What about questions asked out of a genuine thirst for knowledge?" I didn't include those because, other than the way they make you feel like a moron because you can't remember the answers to even fourth-grade science questions like "how does a windmill work," dealing with them is pretty straightforward.