Nanny in NYC

Moving On Up

2006-10-06T11:19:00.000-07:00

I've officially moved on over to my own url. You can officially now find me at NannyInNewYork.com or NannyInNYC.com. (Why both? Well, I'm not the most decisive person, sometimes.)

If you have me bookmarked or link to me on your own site, please update my url. Also, I welcome any comments on the new site.

Thanks for your continued readership!

PostSecret

2006-10-05T10:18:00.000-07:00

A great site to check out every once and a while is PostSecret, an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.

They are sometimes funny, sometimes frightening, but always entertaining. This one, I think, is a good example of all three of those qualities:

I found this one there today and thought, in keeping with my breastfeeding themed rants, I'd include it for all of you:

I've never lactated in my life (thank god, really, it would be very inexplicable and rather inconvenient!) but I feel I understand the sentiment perfectly.

Technorati Tags: Breastfeeding, PostSecret, Secrets

Poor Spelling Has It's Advantages

2006-10-05T05:38:00.000-07:00

I am the number one search result for the term "Muchkins." It really confused me until I realized what I'm sure is painfully obvious to the rest of you.

CNN is Officially On Notice!

2006-10-04T10:34:00.000-07:00

I've decided to take a page from Stephen Colbert's book and start an On Notice list. And fittingly, today, CNN has managed to slide perfectly into the top slot. They reported today that "A baby sitter bungled her first day on the job" when she mistakenly picked up the wrong 5-year-old child from his elementary school in Long Beach, CA. The babysitter bungled her first day???? What about the parents who didn't think it important that the person responsible for their child actually know what said child looks like?

A police sergeant assigned to the case made the following statement:

"There's a lesson here, . . . What an opportunity to tell parents to talk to their kids, and communicate with their caregivers. This young child was full of trust, and he sees an older, caring adult and just walked off with that person."

And while I don't disagree that what he says is in fact a valuable lesson for parents and caregivers alike, the actual lesson here is INTRODUCE YOUR BABYSITTER TO YOUR CHILD. It might only take once, but facial recognition is a rather important element to this job.

Technorati Tags: CNN, Irresponsible Journalism, Parental Neglect

Wednesday Goodie Report

2006-10-04T04:28:00.000-07:00

I regret that I don't get to spend enough time on the Lower East Side. There really are so many cool streets to explore, but my flight path through the city just doesn't usually include this area. But, I was lucky enough to need to pick up Jill at her friend's house yesterday, so Luke, Drew and I went early so that we could wander around a bit. (Ok, the boys weren't so keen on the idea of "wandering around a bit", but I made it worth their while.)

At the corner of Broome and Orchard there is a sweet little cafe called 88 Orchard. It's directly across the street from The Tenement Museum and the coffee is excellent.

They do in fact have cozy seating downstairs, and it's a good thing too, because now every time I head into a coffee shop I'm afraid the I Saw Your Nanny crew is watching me sip a caffeinated beverage while my charges scrape paint chips off the wall and eat them. I got my much needed caffeine fix and the boys got oatmeal cookies, which made them quite happy (take that ISYN!), and downstairs they could run around and not bother anyone, which was nice for all involved.

If you aren't a coffee fan, they have a great selection of tea as well. I love the little tea display at the counter. I'm a sucker for tiny labels.

Technorati Tags: New York City, Coffee Shops, Lower East Side

Favorite Place #1

2006-10-03T16:31:00.000-07:00

I snapped a few pictures this weekend of a house that I'm absolutely in love with. It's on Tenth Street, and it simply couldn't be cuter. I now think there is nothing better than getting a Vespa to match your shutters (or vica versa).

Technorati Tags: New York City, Architecture, Vespa, Greenwich Village

Much Anticipated (by me) Changes

2006-10-02T05:02:00.000-07:00

This weekend my new website has begun to take shape. Please go and check it out at Nanny in New York.

The official switch to the new blog should happen later on this week. Of course I'll keep this one up for a while to redirect visitors. If you have me bookmarked or you link to me on your own blog, I'd love it if you would switch my address as well.

I welcome any feedback you might have on my new site. It was designed by Peggy at Ciao! My Bella! Custom Website & Blog Design. If you're in the market for design services, I highly recomment them.

I Saw Your Nanny

2006-09-29T07:06:00.000-07:00

Last week I stopped to get coffee before Luke's music class. Next to the register in the little shop we frequent there is a display of Slim Jims which I don't believe I've ever given much thought at all. Luke, on the other hand, has apparently been giving them some thought, or at least decided to that day, because he looked up at me, pointed clearly at the Slim Jims and said, "Lukey like dat!". To which I immediately replied, "No you don't, you've never had one," and I proceeded to purchase my coffee--as if that was the end of the conversation.

But, of course, Luke was not so easily persuaded. He stood up in the stroller and began chanting "Lukey want dat! Lukey like dose!" He went to that critical point of shrill hysteria almost immediately. I stood there in the store thinking. I knew he had to be making it up. There was no way his parents had ever bought him a Slim Jim. Truckers eat Slim Jims, not proper little boys. But, after tears and a near tantrum, I gave in! I felt defeated and like a terrible nanny, but I just couldn't handle the tirade that day.

As we left the store, with Luke sucking happily on a chemical treated stick made from god knows what animal byproducts, I was terribly frightened that someone would see me. Who wants to be that nanny? The meat byproduct nanny? Not me, that's for sure!

And now, thanks to a recent article in the New York Times about conflicts between nannies and parents over the feeding of children, I am too well aware that Big Brother is watching. In my case, Big Brother is the website I Saw Your Nanny. On it you will find people reporting every imaginable nanny offense, but the majority go something like this one:

White, brunette nanny with very bothered disposition who took two children about 2 & 4 into starbucks so she could get a coffee at a kind of busy time. Nanny also selected some sort of bread type pastry and waited for a seat. The children had nothing, not even water. The nanny sat and had her coffee and pastry and kept correcting the children who were not content to sit still in a coffee shop on a busy Saturday morning. (Why were they even asked to?). The boy was blonde (and needed a haircut unless he is trying out to play a younger brother on The Suite life) and his name was Daniel. He called the nanny "Em" ( I think). I wanted to tell the nanny to take the kids to the park and plop her butt on a bench so that the kids could at least run around! It is a beautiful day outside. And no, taking a break at Starbucks is not a bad thing, but it seemed rather obnoxious for the children to sit there with nothing!

Without going to the archives I counted 7 postings that all involved the, apparently shocking, offense of drinking while caring for children, and yes, that's drinking coffee!!

I can't really work myself up to be outraged over the site, though. Reading all the various posts was good fun, and the comments seem to be frequently written by people who are sane and realize that frequently caffeine is a large part of enthusiastically caring for children. Plus, I will admit that I've seen behavior (by nannies and mothers) in the parks that is abhorrent to me. Perhaps I'll become a contributor . . .

Technorati Tags: Nanny, Parenting, Whistle Blowers, Slim Jims

Because I Haven't Mentioned Breasts in a While

2006-09-27T07:50:00.000-07:00

This month Toys R Us employees at the Times Square flagship store made a big mistake. They allegedly harassed a mother who had stepped into an "out of the way" place in the store to breastfeed her 7-month-old son. Unfortunately for them, Chelsi Meyerson, the mother, is the daughter of a "'high-ranking official' in La Leche League". It will be interesting to see how this one plays out.

Meanwhile . . .

Here are a few of my most favorite pieces of public art. Notice a theme?

This is a sculpture by Louise Bourgeois on the lawn in Wagner Park. It's entitled "Eyes" but, I must say, I see something entirely different, especially since I've never known a pair of eyes to have raised pupils. Also, in researching her work I found this passage:

Deeply symbolic, her work uses her relationship with her parents and the role sexuality played in her early family life as a vocabulary in which to understand and remake that history. The anthropomorphic shapes her pieces take--—the female and male bodies are continually referenced and remade--are charged with sexuality and innocence and the interplay between the two.

which makes me quite believe that my interpretation of her art holds some authority.

I snapped this photo during one of Luke and my jaunts to DUMBO. I haven't yet discovered the artist's name, but I love that it's pink and so wonderfully proportioned as to make me feel that my waistline isn't quite so much in need of slimming as I often fear it is.

And finally . . .

As my friend DJ says, "If one glass of red wine is good for you, well, then a bottle must be even better!", so if one set of breasts is good, then a set of 8 must be very useful indeed. This statue would come in handy for nex year's Nurse-In.

Technorati Tags: Breast Feeding, Breasts, Public Art, La Leche League, Toys R Us

Shameless Self Promotion

2006-09-25T16:08:00.000-07:00

Mary Tsoa of Mom Writes recently published a posting on Blogher entitled Nanny Blogs: Thoughts from a Village for Hire in which she mentions yours truly. She's wonderfully complimentary, and I'd like to stroke my ego some more by quoting her at length:

And as childcare professionals and early childhood education specialists, most nannies also provide insight to dealing with "problem" kids and challenging situations. Oh, and problem parents, too! Besides learning about kids, I usually learn something about myself when I read a nanny blog.

Mary mentions some great nanny blogs that I'm a fan of, including Pragmatic Chaos, Adventures of a Nanny and Chronicles of Nanny-a. She also points out two new nannies that I'm not familiar with: Gnarly Nanny who blogs at A Nanny's Diary and Mary P. who blogs at It's Not All Marry Poppins as well as being a contributor to Partners in Parenting and In the Trenches: Life with the Challenging Child. I'm adding both Gnarly & Mary P. to my must read list.

Technorati Tags: Nanny Blogs, Blogging, Blogher, Childcare, Nanny

The Axis of Utility and Transit

2006-09-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

This morning Luke and I witnessed an event which only very rarely occurs in the life of a toddler obsessed with various forms of transportation, especially trucks. We went to visit the Fire Trucks, which is something we like to do frequently. The firemen are very nice and occasionally they'll let Luke basically disappear into one of those huge boots they wear.

Today, just as we arrived to gape at the big red engine, a big red ambulance pulled up right outside the fire house.

And, as if that wasn't enough transportation excitement, a moment later the big trash truck came rumbling by followed closely behind by a school bus.

I felt very glad that a helicopter did not choose to zoom by overhead, because had it, the poor kid's head might have exploded from excitement.

Technorati Tags: Fire Engine, FDNY, Ambulance, Transportation, Utility Vehicles

The Teardrop Park

2006-09-20T21:49:00.000-07:00

The weather has been so beautiful this week it has made me lament that summer really is over. Most of the fountains in the parks don't work any longer (although some do, despite the fact that Labor Day has come and gone) but the ice cream trucks are reliable, they don't respond to a calendar date and you can pretty much count on them to stick around through October.

Luke, Drew and I spent about 3 hours this morning playing at the Teardrop Park. I love this tiny little place! It's truly a perfect spot with so many little nooks and crannies for exploring, and yet only 1.9 acres completely surrounded by high rise apartment buildings.

despite the fact that we've been going to The Teardrop Park for two summers now, we discovered a little path that we'd not ever noticed before. It is right off the North Lawn and the path is almost completely obscured by bushes. I only saw it because I went to retrieve the ball from where Drew had thrown it, into said bushes.

When we followed the little flagstone path it led down dramatically, and the bushes close in around you until, especially if you're four feet tall or shorter, you feel completely surrounded by wildlife. I, all 5'5" of me, even felt for a moment as if I'd been transplanted into some forest far away from Manhattan.

There's a big long log (which, obviously didn't fall there, but it's a great touch regardless) where I sat down while the boys dug deeper into the shrubbery. There are big boulders to climb up on, and delicate little flowers hidden in the shadows.

If there were a perfect little stream with minnows and a few salamanders running through this tiny hidden path, I'd have to vote it my most favorite spot in the entire city. But as it is, it's pretty high in the rankings without it.

There's a great article from the New York Times that was in the paper around the time that the park opened. You can read about it here (it's the second story on the page). The arcitechts of the park really understood that monkey bars, swings and slides are great, but that kids really love a place that they can play secret games, imagine that they are in far away places, and escape from the city for a bit--just like us grown ups want to every now and again.

Technorati Tags: NYC Parks, Playgrounds, Tribeca, Teardrop Park

More on Head Lice or Yes, I Have a Crush on John Hodgeman

2006-09-18T10:57:00.000-07:00

Back in June I told you about the fact that head lice are now resistant to 80% of over the counter remedies, but luckily The Daily Show's John Hodgeman addressed the issue of getting rid of the lousy things on last Wednesday's show.

So, go ahead and wake your children up and put them in front of the television . . . er, I mean computer.

I hope none of you actually took me seriously, just the submarine imagine freaks me out, and that's about the tamest thing he suggested.

Technorati Tags: Head Lice, John Hodgeman, The Daily Show

Preparing for Winter

2006-09-13T18:20:00.000-07:00

The weather was beautiful today! I actually needed a sweater for all but a few hours, and that felt so wonderful. I do love summer, but it has nothing on Autumn. I love pretty much everything about the fall.

Luke, Drew and I had occasion to be in Washington Square Park this afternoon (largely due to the Cold Stone Creamery addiction I picked up while on vacation (the stuff is worse than crack, promise me you'll never touch it!). We found ourselves fascinated with these huge holes that were scattered all over the place.

It seems hard to believe, but they were dug by squirrels! We watched as one very industrious little guy enlarged and deepened one of his holes and then chucked at least 25 acorns down it.

If you are used to suburban or rural squirrels, you might as well consider urban squirrels a completely different animal. New York City squirrels know no fear. They will come right up to you and if you happen to have food that they think looks good, they will not be shy about requesting that you give them some NOW! I get very nervous around squirrels like these, mainly because when I was growing up my father told me repeatedly about a little girl he'd watched get her finger bitten clean off by a squarely. One of the last things I ever want to do is have to call Mrs. G. and report that I'm in the emergency room because Drew's finger is in need of reattaching.

Luckily, that was not an issue today, perhaps because the ground is littered with "food" so the little guys don't think they need to pester us for our ice cream (not really a squarely delicacy anyway) or bite off our digits. They seemed perfectly content to let us watch them as they worked to get ready for winter. It's probably just a formality for them anyway, the park is as full of discarded food in January as it is in August, I would imagine.

Then again, I'm not a squarely, so what do I know?

Technorati Tags: Washington Square Park, Greenwich Village, Squirels

In Memoriam

2006-09-11T17:09:00.000-07:00

This article hangs in the hallway of Drew's school. The first time I read it, years ago, I cried. I think that was the one and only time I allowed myself tears over the events of September 11, 2001.

This day is a confusing one for me. I did not lose anyone on 9/11, nor did anyone whom I am close to. Also, I love the neighborhood I work in and it exists as it does today in large part because of the attacks. I did not have a personal relationship with the towers. At face value I have nothing to mourn. And yet I cried when I read about the Washington Market children and thought of them in the weeks and months following that day, so I know that I do mourn, in my own way.

I mourn the loss of innocence, from the children, my city and my country. Once gone, it is something you can never regain.

Weekend Update or What I Stole From the Emergency Room

2006-09-11T02:34:00.000-07:00

Somewhat (although not exactly) like a mother, a nanny's work is never done. That is especially true when the nanny in question has friends prone to odd medical conditions. This Saturday, instead of lounging in some beautiful cafe having brunch with a wildly attractive, incredibly intelligent man (or 3 close girlfriends, but hey, a girl can dream, right?) I spent seven hours in Bellevue's Emergency Room.

Really, though, I cannot complain. It was exciting, there was medical drama, (mildly--not wildly) attractive interns, relatively decent vending machines, and all around good people. Shout outs to Miriam and Raoul, the best orderlies we could ever hope to be wheeled around on a gurney by. (Although, since Hannah and I just assigned Raoul the name Raoul because we never asked his name, he's not going to know that it's him. Sorry Raoul--we think you're cool whatever your name is.)

I attempted to document the entire process with my camera, however, two large police men were sent over to Hannah and I around hour number two to tell us that, "Everyone knows you can't take pictures in the Emergency Room." I meekly put my camera away and decided not to quibble with them, despite the fact that, clearly, not everyone knows that. Before my journalistic efforts were shot down I did get a few good ones.

Here are Hannah and Raoul right before Raoul wheeled her up for her (completely unnecessary) chest x-ray. Doesn't look like Raoul knows you can't take pictures in the Emergency Room either.

Here's a close up of Hannah's arm where the poor intern assigned to her tried desperately to find a vein. Notice that Hannah is about the whitest person alive. She doesn't have veins apparently.

This is bad Hospital art.

I know this picture is a bit fuzzy, but it's a rubber glove dispenser. Everyone at Bellevue wears the coolest purple rubber gloves. I fell in love with them immediately and I managed to smuggle 3 pairs out in my bag! I have no clue what I'm going to do with them, but they are purple, they are awesome and they are mine.

Hannah is much better now, and the crack team at Bellevue, led by Dr. Goldfrank (exactly what you'd want in a Chief of Staff, he could join the cast of Grey's Anatomy in a heart beat), diagnosed the cause of the intense pain that sent us to them in the first place: massive gallstones. We saw them clear as day on the ultrasound (run by Bernard, a radiologist who was very cute and declined to give us his last name) like two little golf balls rattling around inside Hannah's apparently unvital organ. It seems that her gallbladder will soon be coming out. I'll keep you up to date on what she does with it once it's liberated. It's bound to be good, whatever she does.

Technorati Tags: Gallbladder, Gallstones, Emergency Room, Bellevue

Kiki Strike and the Shadow City

2006-09-08T08:15:00.000-07:00

I recently finished reading Kiki Strike and the Shadow City, the debut novel of Kirsten Miller, a Manhattan Ad Exec turned young adult writer. I had anticipated the release of the book after reading this article in the May/June issue of TONY Kids, about Miller and her characters who are anything but girly-girls. It was fitting that I discovered that particular TONY Kids issue while waiting for a pedicure with Phoebe (one of my old charges, now 10). Her mother and I got pedicures that day, but Phoebe refused, because only girly-girls paint their nails and she has made a life choice not to give in to the lure of nail polish and all it's attendant evils.

The book is a fun read, although it's a little difficult (as an adult, at least) to suspend disbelief about some of the activities the 5 "delinquent Girl Scouts" engage in. This includes climbing down through sewers and secret passages into an underground "city" below New York, making millions of dollars through the sale of a rodent deterrent device, opening their own businesses, planting various IEDs (that's improvised explosive device, for those of you who's friends don't make them watch CNN constantly) and showing absolutely no respect for their curfews. Ok, I guess there's no suspension of disbelief needed for that last one.

Kirsten Miller knows that "ya gotta get a gimmick," so each chapter ends with how-to spy and detective tips such as "How to Catch a Liar", "How to Follow Someone Undetected" and my personal favorite "How to Take Advantage of Being a Girl". Let's just say that it on some level I was kind of sad that I didn't have some secret Manhattan mystery to solve, otherwise I might have grabbed dark glasses and a trench coat and been off on an adventure.

It is, however, a first novel, and it shows--most obviously in the dialog and the slow start. I still enjoyed it, and as most 9-13 year-olds aren't quite as critical as myself, I wholeheartedly recommend it. It would be an excellent read to prepare for a trip to the city. The epilogue details real "secret" spots in the city, such as "Lost" Cemeteries, Hidden Houses and Castles.

Special thanks to Liz B. at A Chair, A Fireplace and A Tea Cozy for giving me a great shortcut to the links above.

Technorati Tags: Children's Fiction, Historic New York, Young Adult Fiction, Kiki Strike, Kirsten Miller

Now I Hear This Sound in My Sleep

2006-09-08T02:39:00.000-07:00

What kid in America doesn't have a book about baby animals? Luke has 30, easily, and he'd like me to read them all to him one after the other in quick succession until I'm so hoarse he can pretend he doesn't hear me when I yell for him to stop flushing the toilet repeatedly. Luckily we've gotten to the point that I no longer have to "read" the books anymore. All I have to do is point and say "What's that?" and he says "Cow" or "Duck" or what have you. Then I ask, "And what does it say?" To which he replies "Moo" or "Quack", etc.

In the past, when we've gotten to the bunny rabbit page, instead of asking the second question I'd say, "Bunny rabbits don't make a sound."

But, apparently that's a lie!

Not only do they make a sound, they make a horrific sound, one that I curse Heather B. Armstrong for introducing into my life. Now I dread going to sleep for fear of dreaming of all the irate rabbits who I may or may not have done unkind things to while they were my pets.

Technorati Tags: Rabbits, Ungodly Noises, Animal Sounds

A Walk With Luke or Why I Need a Drink Tonight

2006-09-07T15:59:00.000-07:00

One of the things you learn early on with children, especially those under three years of age, is that a walk, despite whatever purpose you might think it has, is a purpose unto itself. Unfortunately for the kids I work with I've been a New York walker long before I was an actual New Yorker. I walk fast. I walk fast to work. I walk fast on pleasant Sunday afternoon strolls. It's not uncommon for my friends to physically restrain me in an effort to get me to walk at a normal pace.

When I walk with Luke I know that if I let him out of the stroller to walk along beside me it's quite possible that a 5 minute trip will turn into 55 minutes as he examines every cigarette butt and fire hydrant intensely. These are the times when I call him puppy (and no, his mother doesn't know about that nickname). So, when we left the house to go and pick up Sam & Jill from school today, even though I can push the stroller there in 22 minutes door-to-door, I left an hour and a half early.

It's a very good thing I did.

At the corner of Spring and Greenwich, beside the bar that's beside the The Ear Inn (I can't remember it's name) there was an old foosball table. This thing had seen better days, but I thought Luke might enjoy the little men spinning around on their posts, so I held him up to see. I spun one of the bars to make them spin. I pushed the handles back and forth to show him how each row could move. Then I put him down and thought we'd continue on our merry way, and perhaps we'd have a chance to stop for a little snack at the Chocolate Shop. Luke, however, had other plans.

THIRTY-TWO MINUTES is exactly how long it took me to decide that violence was the only way this situation was going to resolve itself. I pleaded, I cajoled, I pointed out, now that I wasn't holding him up, he couldn't see the little men. None of it mattered. That table had poles that could me moved in and out, they could be twisted, the could be pulled quickly toward one's head (conveniently at the same level as the poles) so that it bashed against one's skull and needed kissing.

Luke had never known greater fun than this old, dirty foosball table and I was the mean ogre who wanted to take him away from it simply because the waiters inside the bar were starting to look at me standing there talking to what they could only assume was myself because Luke, the foosball fanatic, wasn't visible from the other side of the table.

So finally, I grabbed him. He screamed and kicked and generally acted as if I was the scary-abductor person with candy they warn you about in 3rd Grade assemblies. I've gotten pretty good at holding him down in the stroller with one hand while I buckle the straps with the other, so in a few minutes we were finally back on our way, headed towards school. Luke screamed the entire way and I only got him to stop by getting him a lollipop.

I comfort myself by remembering that feeling one is a complete and total failure at one's job is a sign of sanity.

Technorati Tags: Foosball, Walking, Temper Tantrums Downtown New York

Blogging from the Floor While Curled Up in the Fetal Position

2006-09-06T04:21:00.000-07:00

Thanks to A Little Pregnant for the heads up about a London newspaper article which reported yesterday that the first womb transplant is expected to occur within the next two years.

Apparently IVF is not an option for a woman who's uterus has been damaged because of injury or disease, so womb transplant would give hope to many women who wish to carry their own biological child. The article was difficult for me to get through, just because the idea makes me kind of want to double over and protect all of my vital organs, not that I think they'd take my womb--the operation uses an organ from a dead donor--but just because the idea is so very . . . ick! I don't feel that way about the concept of heart or liver or kidney transplants. I wouldn't want to watch one of those operations, but I'm fine reading about them. Something about the idea of scalpels around that particular part of my body just strikes my roll-into-a-ball reflex. I don't like thinking about Caesarean sections either (the only delivery choice, apparently, if you have a womb transplant).

But, now that I've unfurled myself enough to reach the keyboard, I have to say that I really don't like the idea of this operation becoming widespread. I understand that I have not gone through the traumatic experience of trying and failing over and over to conceive a child. I know that the instinct to pass on one's own genetic material is quite strong. I know that I cannot stand back in judgment of what others choose to do with their bodies. I know all these things. But, I also know that for every mother who cannot conceive there are hundreds of children who need homes and parents and love. These are children who already exist. Children who don't require costly operations, drugs, hormones, injections, scars and pain.

I wouldn't want to be the one who stands in the way of science (especially since it's impossible for me to stand in the way of science--I'm not that big) but I hope that before this incredibly expensive operation is ever performed the doctors do their best to present all of the options, especially the non-medical ones.

Oh, and is it just me, or is this picture WAY creepy:

Technorati Tags: Pregnancy, Procreation, Adoption

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2006-09-05T13:41:00.000-07:00

Years ago when Staples began it's tradition of truly exceptional Back to School commercials, my mother simply could not get enough of their "Most Wonderful Time of the Year" ad. You remember the one, an ecstatic father glides up and down the Staples' aisles gathering notebooks, pencils and pens, while his poor children trudge behind him as if they are prisoners on their way to the gas chamber. The commercial has no dialog, just the joyous strains of that beloved and oft used Christmas tune.

I always found it a bit odd that my mother thought the commercial was so hysterically funny. Usually that kind of thing fits into the "it's funny because it's true" category, but in our household the Back to School season was anticipated by all members, not just my parents. In fact, my mother dreaded Back to School night and the other duties associated with her children's return to school, while my sisters and I loved shopping for school supplies and clothes.

Notoriously I would only want to buy sweaters, wool skirts and warm tights when my mother finally got around to the task of school shopping. Oh, and saddle shoes, I couldn't get enough of saddle shoes even though they were dreadfully out of style. I don't think any of my peers really appreciated my sense of truly classic style . . . but I digress. Inevitably I'd dress for my first day as if it was November 31st, despite my mother's warnings, and by mid morning I'd be wishing I still had my bathing suit handy.

It makes me rather sad that the G. children don't go school shopping with their mother. They don't really do much shopping at all with their mother, and believe me, I don't blame Mrs. G. for that at all, kids are nightmares in stores more often than not. But school shopping seems like such an institution to me that I was really surprised to find not every family feels the same way. Clearly, though, Staples seems to being doing well, and still pushing it's wares this time of year, so many American families must still cart everyone to the store to partake of this cherished (by me, anyway) ritual. And although their ads may never again top the beauty and simplicity of that first one, they still seem to be cranking out noteworthy commercials, at least according to my mother.

Technorati Tags: Back to School, Staples, Advertising, Shopping

Be Back Soon

2006-09-02T05:55:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!

If you're a regular reader, or just plain observant, you've noticed that I haven't written recently. Hopefully, as it's prime vacation season you've been understanding and not deleted me from your blog-consciousness. I'm on various vacations, my own and those belonging to others. I'll be back on the 5th, just in time for Back to School!.

In the meantime, I hope you all have a wonderfule weekend!

Annie

Please the Men and the Muchkins Too!

2006-08-15T06:52:00.000-07:00

So, it probably won't surprise you much to find out that I'm an avid Martha Stewart reader, perhaps I've even mentioned it before, I will be a loyal consumer of her products pretty much no matter what she's indicted for. This past month's magazine had a very simple granita recipe (although, now that I know something about granitas, it could have been much simpler) in the Good Things section, and it has set off a minor revolution in my summer cooking patterns. They're amazingly easy! Plus they make you feel like you're not only cooking, but also doing some grand kind of science experiment in your own freezer. I cannot praise the whole concept of the granita enough.

I don't want to make gross generalizations about the city I live in, but for the most part we're a city of foodies who don't cook. We care about the quality of our food, but rarely have the time or inclination to make it ourselves. That's why I always like to think of the ritual of making a boy dinner as my own personal dating piece de resistance. Problem is that recently my routine has gotten a bit stale, and although I'd perfected some dishes and they work well for me, others just really didn't fit the bill, such as my standard first dinner desert, individual molten chocolate cakes ala Jean-Georges (as seen on Martha, of course). First of all, it's a winter dessert, which makes sense because I first made it in during a very cold January for my first ever "I'll make you dinner" event. Secondly, it's unnecessarily difficult for the end of what can be a stressful meal, and that's a time when you'll probably want to be focusing on your company instead of on cooking.

Thankfully, I have discovered the granita. After the kids and I made a yummy strawberry version I started thinking about how much the granita is like the water ice I grew up loving. I was surprised that it seems to be a NJ area treat that I can't find in NY. My favorite flavor of water ice is Root Beer, and the minute I thought about root beer water ice I knew I'd have to try a root beer granita. It's so easy! Hence, the Root Beer Granita Float is now my new "I'll make you dinner" dessert. It's so easy (enough to bear repeating), even easier than the epicurious recipe (no need to freeze for four hours, if your root beer is already cold & you're only making it for two, 40 minutes is all you really need as long as you agitate it every 10 minutes). But it looks very sophisticated, especially if you add the cookies, 'cause it's all about the details.

After just the float idea I was a granita devotee, but I managed to take things a whole step further this weekend when I invented the Mojito Granita (granted, now that I've done a little research, I realize that I'm not the first person to come up with this idea, but it was in fact an original idea on my part, so just because people have been doing this for decades, maybe centuries shouldn't detract from my own personal brilliance, right?). All you have to do is start out like you were making a regular mojito, first take

- two small handfuls of mint
- the juice of 2-3 limes
- 1/2 a cup of sugar

and muddle that together until the sugar is mostly dissolved. Then pour in a cold 1 liter bottle of club soda and strain the whole mixture. (You might be tempted to skip straining it because the mint will look pretty, but believe me, it browns super quick, it's best to take it out now and use a sprig as a garnish at the end.) Pour the liquid into the largest metal baking pan you have and put it in the freezer at least 2 hours in advance of when you want to start drinking. Give it about 30 minutes to set and then take a fork and scrape the sides and break up any big frozen pieces at least every 20 minutes. When the whole thing is frozen you're done. Take it out, spoon it generously into glasses and pour 1-2 oz. of rum over the granita. It's delicious!

Technorati Tags: Mojito, Dessert, Recipes, Cooking, Kids Cooking

Ladies: Evolution Favors Us (as if you didn't already know that)

2006-08-10T18:13:00.000-07:00

Attractive parents are 36% more likely to produce female offspring than male. That is according to evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa who interviewed 2,972 randomly selected young adults who were parents in 2001 and 2002. Kanazawa is in no way surprised by the recent births of both Shiloh Jolie-Pitt and that other baby born into that cult.

The reason for this trend is simple, if you're Kanazawa, that is.

Because men value physical attractiveness more than women do when looking for a mate, good looks increase the reproductive success of daughters much more than that of sons.

And . . . it gets better:

His theory also suggests that, over time, women should have become more attractive than men. These data confirmed his hunch. More than half of all women in the sample -- 52 percent -- were rated as "attractive" or "very attractive," compared with 42 percent of the men.

This news doesn't seem to be getting many men down, however. Apparently, if it's ok that I'm judging based solely on the hysterically informative and delightfully oversexed blog of the Wilmer Valderrama of Scientists, they see this as a glass half full situation.

Technorati Tags: Evolution, Gender, Sex, Parenting

Thursday Goodie Report

2006-08-10T05:44:00.000-07:00

Luke and I have been taking a kind of Mommy and Me yoga class with Bernard, a little boy we met at one of the Battery Park playgrounds, and his mother. It's a great class and I've been enjoying the structure, because I'll blow off my own yoga class in a heartbeat, but it's hard to blow things off when you know you the consequences will be having to deal with a very disappointed little boy. The class is in Dumbo, an area of Brooklyn right across the Harbor from Lower Manhattan (Dumbo = Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). It's not the easiest part of Brooklyn to get to from Tribeca, but we've actually worked out a pretty cool schedule for Mondays and Wednesdays.

So twice a week Luke and I get on board the Water Taxi at the World Financial Center and take the 1/2 hour ride which does a little pirouette in front of the Statue of Liberty (I guess more tourists than commuters actually ride this thing) to the Fulton Ferry Landing in Dumbo. I find the ride a little on the icky side because we have to stay inside the boat and can't go outside to get a little air (there's a height restriction of 41 inches, I think). I don't get sea sick, per se, just a little queasy. Luke, on the other hand, can't get enough of the boats and the water and the novelty of not being on land anymore.

Dumbo has a ton of little jewels if you are in the market for goodies. (I'm going to have to devote a serious post to Jacques Torres sometime soon.) Today, however, Luke and I are obsessed with the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory. It's in a cute little former fireboat house and if you've come to Dumbo via the Water Ferry, you really can't miss it because it's right there at the ferry slip. I've never tasted a better peach ice cream, and usually I don't love fruit flavored ice creams, but this one simply can't be missed.

I've read that all of the toppings served at the BICF are made by the pastry chef of The River Cafe, which is right next door. I just recently had dinner at The River Cafe and will have to post about that as well because it was a fabulous meal, perhaps the best I've had in my ten years of living in NYC. Luke and I didn't really indulge in any toppings, because usually we're ice cream purists, but now that we know who has a hand in making all the yummy looking sauces, we might just make an exception on Monday.

Technorati Tags: Brooklyn, Ice Cream, Dumbo

Us and Our Shadows

2006-08-09T07:29:00.000-07:00

There is this great piece of public art outside the Bubble Lounge on West Broadway, if you're nearby you should definitely check it out. It's made out of pixilated vinyl tiles and it simulates the actual tree's shadow. The kids really got a kick out of it, and I was just fascinated. It's beautiful to catch sight of as you walk up to the building Most people can't help but get down close to the ground to look and even touch the image on the ground and up the side of the wall.

Also, if you aren't carting around the younger set, Bubble Lounge is an excellent place to sip a little bubbly and feel very cosmopolitan as you peer out the window at the poor souls who are carting around the younger set and not sipping bubbly.

Technorati Tags: Public Art, Tribeca, Downtown New York

Warning: Flatulence is Flammable

2006-08-09T04:13:00.000-07:00

If you like funny things, milk, milk related humor, or life you must go and visit the listing for Tuscan Milk on Amazon. Maybe I'm late to the party on this one, and if that's true I'll accept my "You're so writing about last month's links" emails and comments with good grace. On the off chance, however, that I'm the first one to point these wonderfully ridiculous reviews out to you, I think you will not regret clicking & reading.

Oh, and for the record, Milk does do a body good, it's not all hype. (Except the lactose intolerant, and you know who you are.)

Technorati Tags: Milk, Ecommerce, Humor, Product Reviews

Only in New York

2006-08-08T03:12:00.000-07:00

As a New Yorker who lived through both the day September 11, 2001 and the continuing aftermath, there are many new things that I have had to grow accustomed to. For the most part these changes have become just a part of daily life, something that I now almost take for granted, or don't notice much at all. Some of these things include police checking backpacks sporadically on the subway and showing my ID to gain access to the office buildings where my friends with "real jobs" work.

However, there are some things that I never, ever felt like I would get used to. One of those things was the presence of National Guard troops in places like Grand Central Station. I honestly believe that I, as an American citizen, should have the inalienable right to get my coffee, grab the paper, stroll through GCS on my way to work and NOT be accosted by a fully loaded massive machine gun that probably weighs more than the two-year-old I cart around all day. It's really weird, but when I see them I almost always feel suddenly guilty. It makes absolutely no sense. I think you will believe me when I tell you that I have never, ever, ever contemplated anything that could be considered (even by the most partisan, activist of judges) as a threat to National Security. And yet, when I see large contingents of heavily armed camouflaged men I suddenly feel like they're all looking for me, that they all know I've done something terribly wrong and that I deserve to be hauled off to some secret CIA Prison.

Needless to say, I've been very happy working in downtown New York precisely because of the lack of a large military presence. So, you can imagine my consternation when, on my way down to Rockefeller Park with Luke yesterday morning I encountered this:

Instantly my pulse rate went up. "What could possibly be wrong in the park?" I thought. Then I immediately wondered if they were on to me. I'd tossed my coffee cup into the trashcan on the subway platform carelessly this morning and it had hit the rim and bounced out. I was in a hurry and I didn't go back to pick it up. Was that a prosecutable offense? Did they suspect? Did they know?

But, as I steeled my nerve to continue on the path through the crowd of service men, I suddenly became a tiny bit suspicious myself. Several of the camouflaged men were smoking. An inordinate number of them were women. Several had sodas and were lounging on the park benches. And then, as I was still puzzling over the inconsistencies before me, I heard the strident, but still oddly musical tones of that particular affected, brazenly effeminate Chelsea accent. I am very proud to say that I managed, amid my own personal paranoia, to put all the pieces together before we rounded the corner and saw the craft service table.

So, does anyone know what kind of movie they could possibly be filming in our sweet little innocent park that would need such a large platoon of scary looking soldiers?

Technorati Tags: National Guard Troops, Post-911 World, Movie Sets, Rockefeller Park

Coolest Person of the Month

2006-08-07T18:03:00.000-07:00

This is a painting by the artist Nicole Buffett. She is 30 years old and lives and works in San Francisco. She spoke in June to Jennifer Luden on NPR's Morning Edition about, among other things, being a nanny and her love of working with children in various other capacities.

She is the granddaughter of billionaire Warren Buffett, and the interview was largely about money and the idea of inheritance. Warren Buffett and his late wife, Susan, are of the opinion that passing on dynastic wealth serves only to weaken one's children. When Buffett announced last month that he would be giving away 85% of his fortune (estimated to be about 42 billion) it was a major blow to the large and vocal groups in our government who believe that we should eliminate the estate tax because of the terrible burden it places on that poor & lamentable group: the wealthiest 1%.

The Buffetts sound like the coolest grandparents ever, at least from Nicole's description. Her late grandmother, especially, seemed to have had a great influence on her life. Below are her "Five Sayings", the most important things she wanted her grandchildren to remember:

1) Show up
2) Tell the truth
3) Pay attention
4) Do your best
5) Don't be attached to the outcome

(I have to admit, I don't really "get" number 5. If anyone cares to venture an explanation, I'd appreciate it.) Nicole credits Susan with the seed of inspiration that led to her husband's precedent setting philanthropic estate planning. Twenty years ago Fortune Magazine quoted Mr. Buffett as saying "that a very rich person should leave his kids enough to do anything but not enough to do nothing" and Nicole, it seems, is grateful for that philosophy.

Technorati Tags: Warren Buffett, Inheritance, Estate Tax, Nicole Buffett

Have I mentioned that I Heart Dooce?

2006-08-07T03:14:00.000-07:00

One of the best parts of Dooce is her monthly newsletters to Leta (rhymes with Pita). This month was no exception. The following passage almost made me wet myself:

One afternoon last week your father and I took you to the grocery store, and while we were standing in the parking lot loading bags of food into the back of the car I set you down so I could help lift a jug of orange juice. After turning my head for only two seconds to look at the car I glanced back at you only to find that you had found a cigarette butt on the ground and had put it into your mouth. A discarded cigarette butt. Some mothers would be mortified, and I felt a little bit of that, but the strongest emotion I felt was gratitude. I was so glad that there wasn’t someone nearby taking photos because then I would have to explain why I let you smoke cigarettes. And the truth is pretty simple, really: We’re country. My Mama used to let me smoke cigarettes while I sat on her lap in the front seat of a moving vehicle. Many times she would accidentally hit a raccoon with the car, and we’d take it home and put it in the refrigerator. No big deal.

And for those of you, like my mother (I bet), who don't get the reference, I have only this to say: Watch more crap TV.

Technorati Tags: Dooce, Parenting

A Few Choice Words About "Obscenity"

2006-08-06T19:26:00.000-07:00

I was Mommy-Blog browsing this evening and just found this article via Baby Powder. It was published on Friday, the same day that "Lactivists" staged a "nurse-in" on the A train here in NYC.

I'm not going to go on an all out rant about this because it's late and I don't have the energy, but I do not want to let this moment slip by without at least commenting on it. In the article (about the pictured Babytalk cover) women--GROWN WOMEN--used the following words to describe their feelings toward a woman nursing her child: shocked, offended, horrified, embarrassed, and others described the picture as "gross" and "disgusting". Something is wrong with a country where a network television channel can show a blood and semen spattered corpse in the 8-9pm timeslot but if they dared to show a woman nursing a child the FCC would come in with obscenity fines.

On Friday I almost wished that I was a lactator so that I could fly into lactivist mode. It is true that I hate the government telling women what to do with their breasts. But even so, these are the words I would pick to describe how I feel about women who think breastfeeding a child is obscene: amazing, outrageous, ridiculous, astounding, unconscionable, abominable, inconceivable, astonishing, incredible, unimaginable, odious, repugnant, rotten, unthinkable, implausible, preposterous, improbable, contemptible, despicable, inconceivable, unbelievable, incredible . . .

Technorati Tags: Breastfeeding, FCC, Indecency , Censorship

Best Trick Ever!

2006-08-06T12:18:00.000-07:00

I'm a big walker. I always have been, according to my parents (who are relatively truthful people). I can walk for hours on the weekend, and usually do, just aimlessly wandering through the farmer's market and making my way down through various neighborhoods, popping in and out of shops at my whim. It's the best and most consistent exercise I get.

This weekend was no exception to the walking rule, in fact in some ways I overdid it a bit (but in that nice no-pain-no-gain way). I did, however get off to a bad start on Friday evening because of my own stupid vanity and a VTB (very tall boy). I'm a dedicated flat-wearer. I don't own a pair of heels--with the exception of some fall boots, but I don't count them as their big and sturdy and don't make me feel as if I'm tottering around like a twelve-year-old playing dress up in her mommy's closet. But I did, however, recently pick up a pair of comfortable looking wedges to give me a bit of a boost. For the most part they are comfortable, but breaking in any new pair of shoes can be difficult. We went for a leisurely stroll through the village to gawk at real estate we'll never be able to afford (although, perhaps I shouldn't jinx either of us in that way, 'cause who knows?) and I got two pretty decent sized & painful blisters.

The next day I didn't make the situation any better by heading off on a long walk through prospect park. Even though I'd brought bandaids they didn't help because within 10 minutes of putting one on I'd suddenly look down to see it mysteriously gone or just hanging by one little sticky fraction of an inch, leaving my poor blister exposed to agonizing friction.

That is when I had an Eureka! moment. I realized that the pain came from the rubbing of leather strap against irritated skin and the point of a bandaid was to put a barrier between the two. I was all out of bandaids at that point, but what I did have (and almost always do have with me at all times) was a little tube of Vaseline Lip Therapy (better than any chapstick that exists, in my opinion). I smeared a little vaseline on the blister and viola! no more painful friction. It worked like a charm, and I bet any kind of lip gloss would work just as well. Of course there are some limitations to the possible uses of this trick (and yes, this post's title is a bit of an exaggeration) but I couldn't have been more tickled at my own problem-solving genius. We all need days like that from time to time.

Technorati Tags: Blisters, Shoes, Walking, Vaseline

You Are How You camped

2006-08-04T12:13:00.000-07:00

Here is a great article about kid's reactions to camp and what that can (perhaps, maybe) predict about their personalities in adulthood. I liked it a lot, that is, until I came to this paragraph:

Some people really, really enjoy camp. I wish I could tell you that these people grow up to be really, really normal, but they don't. You know who I'm talking about. These are the ones who wept uncontrollably when the papiermache numbers spelling out 1967 were set ablaze on a little raft that a camp counselor, under cover of darkness, towed stealthily to the middle of Lake Weecheewachee on the evening of the last group sing. These are the people for whom childhood represented the zenith of human existence and everything that followed an anticlimax. The women--they're mostly women--usually end up in abusive relationships with pathologically angry men who eventually abandon them and pay child support erratically, if at all. If the person who really, really enjoyed camp is a man, then he is unlikely ever to develop an intimate relationship and on occasion may be spotted in the back of a police cruiser speeding away from a grade-school playground.

Yes, that was me, the uncontrollable weeper, although it wasn't 1967 on fire, of course.

For the record, I've never been in an abusive relationship (well, at least not physically abusive, but everyone's a little emotionally abusive from time to time, right?). And, other than the excerpted section, the article is a funny must-read.

Technorati Tags: Camp, Camping, Childhood, Abusive Relationships

Weekend Update --or-- City Chick in the Country

2006-08-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

So why am I doing a weekend update on a Thursday, you ask? Simple: I'm ridiculously lazy.

I was visiting my country cousins this weekend (a gross misrepresentation of the facts, as the actual cousin I was visiting actually lives in Boston, and my aunt & uncle's town can hardly be called "the country", but I'm attempting to establish a theme) and we paid a visit to the local 4H Fair. The only other 4H Fairs I've attended were in Ohio when I was pretty young, so this was a rather fresh experience for me. The day was unbearably hot (as all the days apparently are going to be for a while now) so that put a bit of a damper on the experience, but all in all it was fun and definitely a step out of my ordinary weekend routine.

One of my favorite booths had an incubator with newly hatched and hatching chicks. I remember having eggs/chicks in my 2nd or 3rd grade classroom, but somehow in that time I'd forgotten how long it take those little guys to escape from their shells. We were at the fair for several hours and the ones who'd just started to break free when we came in were still at it when we left.

Two other things that I really loved seeing were the equestrian events and the huge rabbit displays, but oddly I took no pictures of either the horses or the bunnies. I guess sometimes when you're enjoying yourself you forget to stop and document yourself. Oh well.

My mother's favorite event were the Pig Races. I'd heard about a company similar to the one at the Fair on NPR, so I was pretty interested in seeing them as well, Frankly, who doesn't love a pig race?

After the piggies raced there were white and black duck races (I'm not sure why they segregated them). I almost enjoyed them more because of the cute way the ducks waddled. All the animals involved were really eager to get to the finish line, it made me wonder if they're drug addicted farm animals just looking desperately for their next fix. I tried to dismiss this thought.

The cutest animals, in my opinion, were these two kids (as in baby goats). They looked so soft, but sadly I never got to pet them. There was a mob of children in front of their pen and I couldn't quite bring myself to push through them to get at the kids. Sometimes I hate maturity.

We also saw a Wilbur look-alike who was in fact Some Pig (oh, ok, he was pretty much just a pig, but he won a blue ribbon, so there's got to be something special about him).

The food was standard fair-fare, but I had a yummy Peach Cider Slushy on our way out that made getting into the car that had baked out in a field for several hours a tad bit bearable.

Technorati Tags: 4H, Farm Animals, Pig Races, Goats

Change is Inevitable

2006-08-02T08:28:00.000-07:00

The month of August will be a time of big changes for this little blog, they've already begun and we're only in day two. The blog formerly known as Nanny in New York is now Nanny in NYC. I know, this is such an earth shattering development that it's taking you a while to wrap your head around the concept, right?

The reason for the change is simple: some [exploitive deleted] guy claimed the domain nannyinnewyork.com. It really got me very upset. I was busy procrastinating over whether to make the change or not, taking my own good time, assuming that since it was available two weeks ago it would remain available until I chose to act. And then this [exploitive deleted] guy sweeps in and steals it from me! The nerve of him. And I bet you that he's not even a nanny.

I visited the site to see what it's being used for and found it's just one of those advertising redirect sites. There was a link, however, to an email address that said "Buy this domain!" So, I sent an email and set in motion the following chain of communication:

ME:

Hi!
I'd like to buy this domain name.
Thanks,
Annie

[ED] GUY:

If you can pay by today using PayPal I'd be willing to let it go for $7500. I'd also entertain other offers.
Thanks,
[exploitive deleted] Guy

ME:

I'd be willing to pay about $40, seeing as how yesterday it would have cost me about $2.
Thanks,
Annie

[ED] GUY:

I could do $6000, but this site gets tons of traffic, so I wouldn't sell it for less.
Thanks,
[expletive deleted] Guy

ME:

Then you are welcome to it!
Thanks,
Annie

So, I've cut my losses, and I'm feeling pretty good about being Nanny in NYC, it's got a nice ring to it. This time I did no dawdling & I actually posses the domain (feel free to change your links, bookmarks, etc. to nannyinnyc.com). It's a nice feeling and I'm actually making progress toward my liberation from Blogger.

Check back tomorrow for the beginning of polling for my header photos. I hope you can all contain your overwhelming excitement until that time!

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Email, Domain Names, Change

Bloodshed

2006-08-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday was the birthday of the author Cormac McCarthy. It's not an event I would have noted, in this forum or elsewhere, were it not for the fact that I heard the following quote from Mr. McCarthy on a day when I was contemplating the both the concept of conflict and the reality of the violence it can cause.

There's no such thing as life without bloodshed. I think the notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony is a really dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it be that way will enslave you and make your life vacuous.

I will not even begin to address what Mr. McCarthy might have to say about the current conflicts in the Middle East. I never really intend to get much more political than, perhaps, pointing out Steven Colbert pointing out the little girl giving President Bush the finger. My thoughts were more about an issue much closer to home: sibling rivalry.

I have two younger sisters and we still fight like, well, sisters. When we were younger the intensity of the fighting was much stronger, of course, now the fights are really just vestiges of old conflicts. I doubt that either of them would ever put the other's hand through a plate glass window ever again.

These days it's Jill and Sam who's rivalry takes up much of my thoughts. The fight like cats and dogs, like Tom and Jerry, like Punch and Judy, or whatever other fighting duo you'd like to add to this list. The thing is, they're great friends when they aren't fighting. They can play with each other for hours at a time in peace and harmony. But those happy times have absolutely no bearing on how they behave the moment one gets angry with the other. In fact, it seems to me that the nicer they've behaved prior to fighting the more nasty and heated the battles that follow will be.

As much as I wish I didn't have to deal with the screaming, crying and inevitable injuries that come of Jill and Sam's fighting, I do believe that it serves a major purpose for both of them. Am I a better person because I fought with my sisters? I kind of think so. If nothing else, my sisters are responsible for eliciting in me the most violent, homicidal rages of my lifetime. I suppose that in and of itself isn't much of a service, but they also taught me to control that rage, and that's invaluable.

Mr. McCarthy, I think, is correct that life without conflict does not exist (I happen to try to live mine without bloodshed, but I've inflicted a couple of gaping wounds in my time, so I can't argue with his point very effectively). As much as I hate listening to the sounds of the G. children learning to control the rages of violence that every human is afflicted with, I think they're learning lessons that every person MUST if we wish to live in a relatively bloodshed-free world.

Technorati Tags: Conflict, Sibling Rivalry, Family Dynamics, Siblings, Fighting, Rage, Anger Management

Here's Where I Admit to Being a Geeky Kid:

2006-07-25T16:08:00.000-07:00

Guess what? I was one of those kids who was into dinosaurs way past the age when it was cool to be into dinosaurs. I had a computer game that was a simulation of an archaeologist's dig and I wasted priceless hours where I could have been learning to match my lipstick to my belt or other useful tid-bits that would have been so much more important when I hit my teen years. Instead I was learning about the Mesozoic period and what a carnivor is (turns out, it's me). That information has not been helpful even once past the age of twelve.

My favorite dinosaur is and was the Triceratops. I'm not sure why, other than it's just plain cool.

Listening to the news this morning brought me back to my dinosaur days, despite the fact that the news was not about dinosaurs, but rather a creature that lived a mere 12-million years ago. Archaeologists in Australia have recently unearthed the fossilized remains of a bird they have nicknamed . . . wait for it . . . the Demon Duck of Doom!!. It's a bird with close ties to the ducks that waddle around every single pond and lake of America--and the rest of the world, I assume--except with scissor-like jaws made for slicing into flesh. I worry about letting Drew near the squirrels because I'm petrified he's going to actually catch one some day (the kid is quick--pigeons present no challenge to him), now I'm grateful there aren't anymore DDDs roaming the earth. Central Park is dangerous enough as is.

Among the scientists other discoveries were two varieties of Killer Kangaroos, one with "wolf-like fangs" and the other with "big, powerful forelimbs" used for galloping. That's kind of a scary idea, because the normal kind of kangaroos we're used to seeing today aren't really known for their gentle side.

Marty the Monster, for one, is immensely relieved that natural selection bred the killer instinct out of the Roos:

Technorati Tags: Archaeology, Fossils, Australia, Dinosaurs, Evolution

Everyone gets 15 Minutes

2006-07-24T12:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I stopped by the park to visit a bit with the kids and Mrs. G. It's nice to be able to spend time with them occasionally when I am not the responsible party. Of course, I still lend a hand if it is needed, but ultimately I'm not the one getting the dirty looks when Drew up-ends a bucket of sand on some poor unsuspecting baby or Luke terrorizes kids twice his size by stealing their toys and curling up in a ball around them potato-bug style when we try and make him give them back.

Anyway . . . while sitting on the wall with Mrs. G. and the other Mommy-types I had my first celebrity sighting of a truly twenty-first century variety. It wasn't Jon Stewart and his two adorable munchkins who do in fact live in the neighborhood (they're one of the main reasons I drop by the park on the weekends when I could be elsewhere drinking). Instead, I'm fairly sure I had a peanut sighting. (For those of you who don't go and read every blog I recommend, the peanut is the offspring of MetroDad.)

It was so strange to be faced with this odd reminder that I live a double life. I blog here under a pseudonym and I'd never post pictures of myself or the children because of that fact, but the truth of the matter is that I am a real person and I do live and work in an area that--despite being one of the largest cities on earth--is in fact just a series of small, intimate neighborhoods. I wanted very much to go up and speak to Mr. MetroDad, tell him how much I've enjoyed his blog (especially due to the rocky start we got off to). If I did that, though, I'd compromise my own anonymity, and that wasn't a risk I was willing to take.

I could have simply expressed my enjoyment as a reader, and not a fellow blogger, but would that have even been appropriate? I NEVER EVER go up to celebrities that I see on the street. It's like an unspoken New Yorker's creed, a very East Coast ethic. I always assume that celebrities would like not to be bothered, no matter what complimentary thing I might have to say about them. I'd like also to assume that the celebrity would assume that I'm very secure with who I am, secure enough to not even care that they're in my proximity, despite their fame and extreme good looks.

I suppose that seeing the MetroDad family caused me to re-examine why I am doing this. The main reason is that I want to connect with people in the realm of ideas, and in that respect the internet really serves me well. However, I don't live within a vacuum, and these things will happen from time to time. Also, the truth of the matter is that connecting really isn't the only reason I've been blogging for these past few months. I am interested in my own form of fame, but I'm trying to control the shape it takes. My hope is that I'm not fooling myself about what is and is not possible on these "internets" we're all so fond of.

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Fame, New York City

It's like Thunder and Lightning . . .

2006-07-21T14:06:00.000-07:00

Now, I've done some internet dating, and all in all I think it's an excellent thing. That being said, I simply can't get behind the pay sites like Match or eHarmony. The little contact that I've had with men on sites such as those has not been positive, so, unless you're interested in getting married tomorrow (and you a'int picky) I don't recommend them.

One thing that I did love about Match is the table below:

During the brief period of time when I used the site I had one absolute rule: If thunderstorms didn't turn you on, you were clearly not worth talking to.

I really don't know of anything much better than a hot, sticky summer day that ends in a violent, windy, loud, crazy storm, and I believe I've felt this way all the time. Kids are often frightened by thunderstorms, but it's that delicious kind of fear that happens only with the sudden awareness of something so much bigger and stronger than yourself. Luke cowers at my feet when the thunder roars, and it's clear from his face that he's truly terrified, but once it passes his smile is more than relief.

On some level I'm even a little jealous of those out in Astoria and Westchester who are currently without power. I was in heaven during the massive power outages of 2003. Sure it was hot and we didn't have AC, but there was such delicious chaos and that unique togetherness that a community feels only when it is forced to come together.

When Luke and Drew and I opened the windows this afternoon so that we could put as little space as possible between ourselves and the violence of nature all three of us found it (yes, for a third time) delicious.

Technorati Tags: Weather, Lightning, Storms, Internet Dating, Fear

The Color of Thursday

2006-07-20T08:19:00.000-07:00

My favorite candy, available at Economy Candy.

Day Lilies at the Hudson River Park.

A broken and abandoned bucket.

Taxis coming and goiing.

The Daisy Table at Ceci Cela.

Matchbox Cars, some of the best designed toys ever mad.

Tellow Jack-in-the-Pulpits (I think, any flower experts out there?) at the corner store.

Tuesday Goodie Report

2006-07-18T05:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took Jill, Drew & Luke (Jill was home from camp with the summer sniffles) to get "tea" with one of my friends. We cabbed it over to the Lower East Side because after brunch on Sunday I'd been reminded of two places that are must-gos with the kids. The first was Teany, which is co-owned by bald, political, progressive musician Moby. It's a tiny (big surprise) tea shop that's completely vegetarian and largely vegan but remarkably yummy. They have a tea service with sweet little sandwiches, yummy scones and little deserts including a chocolate-mousse -like thing which is sooo good, but vegan, which makes me wonder what exactly is in it. I do try to avoid questioning things I like too much, though.

On another day I will devote the proper amount of time to Teany that it deserves, but today I want to talk about our second LES stop: Economy Candy. The store, which has every kind of candy, nut and chocolate that you can imagine, has been operating continuously on the LES since 1937. The kid's eyes simply bugged out over the variety and abundance of candy that EC has to offer. Jill actually went into an overload state where she simply couldn't even begin to decide on what ONE thing she wanted to claim as her treat.

Finally, after I threatened that we would go home with nothing, she chose a selection of pink and purple pastel M&Ms. I told her that they definitely fit in with her personal aesthetic, which I then had to try and explain! Why don't I keep my mouth shut?

I also realized, too late, that it was a completely masochistic thing to introduce Drew & Luke to Pixie Sticks, but you know, when in Rome . . .

I found the massive display of candy cigarettes very tempting for the nostalgia sake and the fact that I've always just loved those weird chalky sticks of sugar. Unfortunately, their political incorrectness is pretty undeniable.

The best part of the whole excursion, for myself and for the kids, was that it was 100% sanctioned by Mrs. G. I think she liked the romance of the place and the way it fits into the Tenement history of the LES.

Technorati Tags: Candy, New York City, Lower East Side

Weekend Wrap-Up

2006-07-17T07:27:00.000-07:00

So, I haven't commented much on this fact as of yet, but the truth of the matter is a Nanny does not live on sweet days in the park alone. In fact, I have a social life of my own, one that doesn't include children, diapers, screaming, or laundry. I'm devoting today's post to a completely child-free activity: the Lower East Side brunch. (As opposed to the Brooklyn brunch which, even on the best of days, can only be described as child-dominated.)

My friend M. picked out Essex on Essex Street between Rivington & Delancy Streets because she'd heard that they had a great brunch deal: $15 for a brunch that includes 3 drinks (Mimosas, Bloody Marys or Screwdrivers). It was an easy sell.

From the outside Essex is totally unassuming, but inside it's airy, modern and--after 12 noon on a Sunday--completely packed. We did not make a reservation (who makes a reservation for brunch?) but luckily our wait was only about 30 minutes, but that's mainly because we were a group of four overly aggressive New York women who were desperately hungry.

The service at Essex was wonderful for this one reason: immediate carbohydrates in the form of yummy onion bialis and alcohol.

They pour the mimosas from a pitcher like water or beer, which is such a wonderful thing. They are on the weak side, but that was ok with us because they flow incredibly freely. We were supposed to pay $3 extra for every drink over the 3 we were entitled to, but we estimate that our glasses were refilled at least 5 times.

The food at Essex is a fusion of Latin and Jewish cuisines. The menu is large and includes such gems as Seared Diver Scallops topped with a crispy potato pancake and a poached egg and a Calabaza Salad with mixed greens, sheep's milk cheese and roasted pumpkin seeds all topped with grilled chicken or steak. M. picked the Mexican Motzah Brei which I sampled and highly recommend.

A. picked the (absolutely huge) Banana-Chocolate Chip Pancakes and C. chose the Spinach, Tomato and Sheep's Milk Cheese Omelet. But the day's winner (as determined by me) was me. I paid the upcharge of $3 to get the Lobster Eggs Benedict. I was a little wary because I don't like Smoked Salmon Eggs Benedict, but my concerns were put to rest the minute I sampled the dish. Lobster and hollandaise is a perfect combination. I probably will never be satisfied with plain old regular Eggs Benedict again.

Our waitress told us that the day to come is Saturday because on Sunday, as we observed, the place gets ridiculously packed. Essex has been added to the very short list of truly exceptional brunches.

Technorati Tags: Brunch, Restaurants, New York City, Eggs Benedict, Lower East Side

I wish I paid more attention in German Class

2006-07-13T10:50:00.000-07:00

What is going on in this website? It's a German childcare agency, right? But the pictures make it look like the girls are available for other services after the kids are asleep. Is it a joke? If anyone reads German I'd love to know.

Hump Day Goodie Report

2006-07-12T10:04:00.000-07:00

So, it's Wednesday and we all need a little extra treat to get us over to the sunnier side of the week, right? Today Luke and I were on our own all morning (Drew is doing Gymnastic Camp in the mornings at Elite--it's a great program, if you're in the market) and we decided we needed an indulgence.

We were down by the river and I didn't want to cross back over the West Side Highway just to get something yummy to eat, so instead we popped into the Pan Latin Cafe which is located right at the corner of Chambers Street and River Terrace. I've passed the place by daily for over a year now, but somehow I've never stopped in until today. Now, however, that I've given it a try I think it'll probably be one of our regular stops.

The coffee was great (iced today, it's icky hot!) and the very nice counter person let us sample the Guava Cream Cheese Bread Pudding which was so very yummy! The register is surrounded by a huge variety of chocolates, which is lovely to see, always, but one of the great unexpected items we found was a basket full of beautiful bright colored balls. I assume they're for handball, but Luke was very happy just to chase one down the ramp to the park and watch it disappear into the river through a storm drain. Easy come, easy go!

I bought some Guava muffins and I ate mine as we walked down to the park. Luke licked his, and smiled, but didn't really eat it. It wasn't until we got down to the lawn that I realized he had a master plan. He held out his muffin to a tiny bird and said "feed birds!" Before I knew it we were attracting all the winged creatures of the park. All in all, a happy Wednesday morning for all involved.

Fairy Tale Endings

2006-07-11T17:30:00.000-07:00

On Monday I picked up a few books at the library, including some for Sam & Jill, despite the fact that they were not with us. One of the books I got for Jill was The Little Mermaid and Other Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Anderson. She tends to gobble up Fairy Tales (like any self respecting little girl should) despite the fact that her mother has made it clear that she finds the messages in some of the stories to not be politically correct. I wrote my college thesis on the importance of fairy tales as our last truly living mythology, so this is one area where I'm not inclined to back down. I think fairy tales are such a wonderful cultural legacy that I find it very easy to dismiss the fact that getting the guy is often the highest point a female character aspires to in most of the genre. I think today's growing girls are sophisticated enough to juggle fantasies of being both Cinderella and Madeleine Albright (or Condoleeza Rice, of course).

But, I digress. This post is not about feminism, it's about tinkering with the endings of classic literature. Jill was quite shocked this evening when I read the title story to her. Quite shocked, of course, because she's already seen The Little Mermaid a la Disney. So, to hear that at the end of the story, instead of wedding the prince of her dreams on the deck of a vast ship, our heroine instead "threw herself from the ship into the sea, and thought her body was dissolving into foam" incensed Jill to the point of tears. She wasn't crying because of the little mermaid's pathetic end, she was crying because she felt cheated. I know because I've felt that way before.

It's always a rule of mine to read the book first before seeing any movie adaptation and it has almost never served me wrong. I say almost for this one (somewhat blunt) reason: this Hans Christian Anderson crap is an exception to the rule. It's a wonderfully moral story (here is the full text, if you'd like to read it for yourself) but an incredibly moral story isn't, in my opinion, what kids want or need. I spend all day correcting the G. children's manners, reminding them to think of other people's feelings, trying to get them to make unselfish decisions. I respect the fact that, at the end of the day, they just need to kind of bliss out and let their little ids go wild. That's where the Grimm type fairy tale comes in. The reward the little mermaid gets at the end of the HCA tale (becoming the equivalent of wind sentenced to 300 years of doing good deeds in order to earn and immortal soul) is basically meaningless to a child who has a hard time contemplating how long it is until Friday.

It's really very sad. The book is beautifully illustrated and the details are rich and compelling. The sea witch--who feeds toads and snakes from her own mouth, as one would a bird from your hand--is better than anything Disney's ever created, including Maleficent. The moral, that nothing can be gained from throwing away your own life for a dream, is certainly practical. It just has no pay off at the end, and I'm angry with myself for not remembering my own feelings when I first read the truth for myself. I could have spared Jill the loss of her little mermaid delusions.

Oh well, she still believes in the tooth fairy.

Questionable Morality

2006-07-11T06:48:00.000-07:00

My friend G. says that at least one post about the Google Ads generated by the "content" of one's blog is inevitable. This is my second, but I feel it's worth proving G. right twice in order to point this out:

It appeared shortly after my post on Addiction. How immoral is that? I know that a search engine cannot exactly be held to standards of a thinking, feeling human with a conscience, but really people! What if this was the blog of a recovering Vicodin addict? Would it still generate these kinds of ads?

Tom Otterness

2006-07-10T07:10:00.000-07:00

In thinking about a personalized blog design I spent a lot of time contemplating what images would be the most meaningful to include in a masthead. I mentioned in an earlier post that the artwork of Tom Otterness is very high on the list. Here are a few that I simply love. They were all taken at Rockefeller Park (a section of the Hudson River Park).

Luke loves the Dodo Bird statue, which is also a fountain. It's in a shady area of one of the playgrounds, and the water fountains only rise about 6 inches off the ground, perfect for babies who don't like to be splashed.

I love the detail of the bottle in the Monkey Mama's hand in this statue. Plus, the little people remind me of Doozers.

I'm determined to find out a bit more about Mr. Otterness's work. I'll share what I find out, especially if it explains his fascination with enormous animals and tiny little affectionate-looking people.

Technorati Tags: Tom Otterness, Public Art, Photography, Parks, New York City

Addiction

2006-07-07T08:08:00.000-07:00

I've always considered myself to not predisposed to addiction. Now, I've never dabbled with any truly addictive substances like heroin or cocaine (and I'm not willing to go that far to prove my point). I have, however, smoked cigarettes occasionally since I was in high school. There were times, like summers when I worked as a waitress, when I would smoke several cigarettes a day for months. But once I left the job to go back to school I never looked back and didn't even think about needing or wanting to smoke. I've always liked that smoking was an ability I had as opposed to a habit. When in the company of those who smoke, I can smoke as well if I choose to, but I've never paid for that ability with any of the adverse effects of addiction.

It seems, I've been getting a little too cocky about the differences between my abilities, my habits, and my desperate vital needs.

It has been one of those mornings. Everything went wrong. My alarm never went off, so I was rushing from jump. The train sat outside the Jay Street station for, like, ever before finally moving on to the island. Sam and Jill both were so uncooperative during breakfast that Mrs. G. threw up her hands and disappeared into her bedroom (not that I wouldn't have done the same in her place) so I was scrambling around to get us all out to the bus for camp in time. Then, after a quick trip back to the apartment to grab the diaper bag, Luke, Drew & I headed off to the S. house for our standing Friday playdate. When we got to the S.'s we found their house in disarray because of a horrible tickling accident (I'm not joking, it was a horrible tickling accident had caused the Phoebe S. to bang her head into the metal rimmed kitchen table. Her mother passed us in the lobby with Phoebe on the way to the hospital (4 stitches, and she's doing fine now). So I stayed with the youngest S. while their nanny took the middle one to his music class. By the time she got back I just was not feeling well.

So I made my excuses and packed Luke & Drew up in the stroller and headed back to the G. apartment. Once inside I tried to get the two little guys to play quietly together, but of course that didn't happen. They both wanted my attention and were going to extreme lengths to get it while my headache just got worse and worse. At one point, while on the phone with some political organization that had called to solicit money from Mr. G., Luke kept crying "Annie uppey! Annie uppey!" so I picked him up and held out the phone to him to whine loudly into. It worked, they quickly said they'd call back later (probably during dinner). But, once I was off the phone, Luke refused to go back down on the ground. He did his koala bear impression by gripping my body with both his arms and legs and not letting go. When I realized I wasn't going to be able to talk him down, I leaned over so that his little back was on the ground and yanked his little tentacles off my shoulders and waist. As he screamed at me and I yelled at him it dawned on me:

Annie has not had her COFFEE!!

I'm not one of those people who you can't talk to in the morning until they've had a caffeine infusion. I'm a happy alert morning person. I wake up early, even without an alarm clock, even on a lazy Saturday morning (not the most attractive trait, unfortunately, if you happen to be dating me--I've been told). But coffee is a natural part of my mornings usually. I've always just assumed that it was because I love coffee, not because I need coffee. I thought I could stop any time. I thought that a busy morning could be accomplished without chemical aids. I thought that I was in control of both my mind and body. I thought all of this, and I was terribly wrong.

I've rectified my caffeine deficit. I'm feeling much better. Luke has forgiven me for dumping him on his cute little ass. All is right with the world.

Technorati Tags: Addiction, Caffeine , Coffee

Unfortunate Exclamations

2006-07-06T12:08:00.000-07:00

Yes, Luke has had a pretty bad diaper rash for about a week now. And yes, it was mainly caused by the consumption of way too many strawberries that the G. family had picked themselves over the weekend at a farm on Long Island. And yes, it's a nice thing to see that the rash is clearing up and the diarrhea is gone.

But none of that excused this statement which I hope to never utter again:

"Wow, Lukey, those are some attractive looking poopies!"

Technorati Tags: Diarrhea, Diaper Rash

So Jealous!!

2006-07-06T08:06:00.000-07:00

Through the strange, sick little world that the internet creates for us all (or, alternatively, through the strange, sick little world my hedonistic, morning-sangria consuming friends creates for moi) I found MetroDad: Poppycock from a Cocky Pop. This man is a real life Grup, no question about it. This is how he describes himself:

I'm just a 35 year-old NYC guy writing about his journey into fatherhood. . . . Ever since I found out my wife was pregnant with our daughter, I've spent countless nights contemplating how to raise a beautiful, kind, intelligent, well-adjusted child in New York City. And also trying to figure out how to do that while retaining our hedonistic lifestyle. . . . Though I'm entering my late 30's, I can still rip backhands down the line, hit a curveball, ski the bumps, shoot in the low 90's and rain 3-pointers. At the same time, I'm starting to forget things, I can't see my ass without my glasses and I've most definitely lost the ability to party on back-to-back nights.

From just a quick perusal I found it to be really well written and the kid is just so damned cute as to make checking back on a regular basis an imperative!

One of his recent posts was about this New York Magazine article about parents who have contracted to have tree houses built for their children and paid six-figure prices for them.

I know that I'm supposed to be totally against this kind of gross materialism, but I simply can't work up to that. These things look so cool that my overwhelming emotion is jealousy. I want one!! I'll trade my tiny apartment right now and gladly "rough it" in one of those "tree houses" any day.

Technorati Tags: Treehouse, Dump Trucks, Grups, Blogs, Parenting

Productivity

2006-07-05T09:41:00.000-07:00

How did you spend your morning? Did you file an expense report? Get four loads of laundry done? Come up with a great idea to solve that big problem your whole project team has been obsessing over? Good for you!

Guess what I did this morning? Can't guess, well here's a visual clue:

Yup, for forty-five minutes this morning I stood out in the rain with two enraptured little boys. Drew and Luke love the trash truck and today we stumbled upon trash/dump truck nirvana.

We stood on Greenwich Street and watched this particular trash truck pick up, lift, dump and then put back seven dumpsters! Each time the truck would lift one we would all chant "Up! Up! Up!" and when it reached its apex we switched to "Dump! Dump! Dump!"

The general consensus, especially once the truck left and we engaged in some serious puddle jumping, was that it was one of the most productive mornings we've had in quite some time.

Technorati Tags: Trucks, Dump Trucks, Trash Trucks, Puddle Jumping, Wasting Time

Thinking about Design

2006-07-05T05:59:00.000-07:00

Those of you who are frequent visitors to this site have noticed that over the past week I've switched my template several times. I'm unhappy with the options that Blogger is giving me and limited by my own ignorance when it comes to web design. Therefore, I've decided to seek outside help. (Thanks JGS for the tip, I've always like the look of Two Okapis so I've contacted Ciao! My Bella to begin my design search.) So, expect to see continual changes here until I find something I'm happy with.

This weekend I picked up the first copy of Blueprint: Design Your Life, a new Martha Stewart magazine. For the record, I'm a Martha fan, and no indictment or guilty verdict will change my enjoyment of her various media outputs (except that pet guy, he kinda freaks me out). The magazine, like many these days, is basically a shopping guide. It even includes a leaf of nice graph paper so that you can "design your life" which I think roughly translates to "jot down what you simply cannot live without". That, however, doesn't really bother me. I consume a great deal of magazines, and mainly I don't do it for practical reasons. I do it because I love to fantasize about all the wonderful things I could do if I had more money, time, money, space, money, etc. Blueprint is definitely going to become one of my monthly must-reads.

Since I was already so primed to be thinking about design elements, I fell immediately and deeply in love with the font the magazine uses. It's called Fling and I could totally see a Nanny in New York masthead with that font over one of my pictures of the Tom Otterness sculptures in Rockefeller Park.

While looking into the font I found a great little blog called D.I.Y. Kids. The projects on the site look totally do-able, and use mostly materials and objects that we have on hand, which is a wonderful thing on a gross rainy day like today. Today we're going to try the watercolor masking tape squares. I'm not sure that Luke, Drew & I will actually get so far as to decoupage anything (can decoupage be an active verb?) but they're totally into the idea of making our own stickers.

Technorati Tags: Web Design, Blogging, Blog Templates, Martha Stewart, Magazines, Crafts, Fonts

Happy 4th of July

2006-07-04T20:17:00.000-07:00

Perhaps it is odd that this is only occurring to me now, but I realized today that I have given precious little time on this blog to mentioning one of the best parts of my job. It's not the wonderful experience of watching four beautiful children grow and learn. It's not the intense feeling of contributing to something larger than myself. No, one of the best parts of my job is that at the end of the day, I leave those beautiful children behind.

This came home to me as I lounged this evening watching the fireworks light up the cloudy New York skyline. I watched them with adults, good friends, none of whom wanted a juice box in the middle of the show, or who needed suddenly and inexplicably to go to the potty.

It's strange that my affection for the G. children, at times, is only equaled by the relief I feel at the end of a day's work when I get to leave the cacophony that the house sometimes becomes. One day, one day the children will in fact be my own, and then I suppose that I will be so blinded by love that I won't mind the fact that there is no escape, no end to the job that is motherhood. For now, however, I'm no glad to be simply the nanny, and enjoy my noisy, explosive entertainments in the peace a quiet that can only be achieved outside of a four-child household.

Technorati Tags: Motherhood, Children, Fireworks

Time for a Change

2006-07-02T13:20:00.000-07:00

For a while now I've been wanting to update my blog's look. Unfortunately I'm only moderately computer literate, and not at all literate when it comes to web design and HTML. So, it seems I'm stuck with the existing blogger templates because all of the sites that generate templates from your own photos and content selections end up looking quite messy.

I'm happy with this new template, however, and if you like it as well you should check out Blogger Templates where you'll find a nice selection of alternatives to the templates available on the Blogspot.com.

Maybe I'll make another stab at learning to design at least my own banner to celebrate my 100th post. (This is 75, so I've got a little time to work with.) In the meantime, let me know what you think about the new look of NINY.

Thanks!

Technorati Tags: Web Design, Blogging, Blog Templates

Ciao Bella!

2006-06-29T09:02:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Luke and I wandered down to the World Financial Center with the expressed purpose of visiting the brand new Ciao Bella Gelateria.

I made the mistake of asking "Do you want to go and get ice cream?" while we were still at the apartment, so the walk down along the river through Rockefeller Park was marred by the constant repetition of "Lukey ice cream! Lukey ice cream!" in an increasingly panicked tone. But, despite his fears that the world might end before he got his ice cream, we did arrive. Usually we can spend hours looking at all the big boats in the North Cove but today we rushed on past to get to our sugar fix as fast as possible.

The selection is pretty big. After I obtained a sweet, tiny cup of simple strawberry for Mr. Luke (and he was suddenly, blissfully silent), I sampled took my time Hazelnut Biscotti, Malted Milk Ball and Fresh Mint.

In the end, however, I settled on what I'd come in search of a sugar cone of Triple Espresso. I love coffee ice cream, and for conventional purposes Bryers is my favorite, but the Ciao Bella Triple Espresso Gelato is a wonderful indulgence.

Here's one caveat about the CB brand, it's a wonderful indulgence, yes, but not an inexpensive one. Luke and I both ordered the smallest sizes, and I was kind of shocked when I handed the cashier a 10 dollar bill and all I got back was a couple of coins.

On a hot sticky day like yesterday was, there is almost nothing better than sitting with my little man in the air conditioned Winter Garden eating gelato and people watching. Our favorite find of the day was this tour guide who, unlike most of the WFC tour guides who carry big red umbrellas to make themselves easily seen, he chose a huge green light saber. We told him he was very cool as we exited the building & headed to the water park.

Technorati Tags: Gelato, Ice Cream, Downtown New York City, World Financial Center

Thursday Morning Rant

2006-06-29T07:23:00.000-07:00

You want to know what I hate? I hate Pediasure!

Have you ever seen their commercials, the ones that ask, "Are you worried that your children aren't getting proper nutrition?" Every time I saw those ads (past tense, I'm so beyond watching commercials these days) I wanted to scream at the TV, "THEN YOU SHOULD FEED THEM BETTER!"

I have a personal pet peeve (a bunch of them, really, but just this one for today's purposes), I absolutely despise it when parents try to disguise their own shortcomings by pointing to their children's behavior. If I had a dollar (inflation) for everytime I heard a parent try and explain that their child is simply a picky eater and won't touch this and that I would not have to worry about money all that much. The reality of the situation is that it's worth more to these parents to make compromises with their childrens' diet than to put in the work that it takes to teach their children to eat right.

Here is the truth as I see it: every single child is a picky eater. If they could control what they ate on a daily basis, scurvy would set in within a month. Neophobia (literally, fear of the new) is a naturally occurring stage in a child's development. It serves to make newly mobile kids adverse to actually consuming all the new things they come in contact with (and inevitably put in their mouths).

So, all parents are facing an uphill battle when it comes to getting their offspring to eat their veggies, it's not just the parents of the "picky" eaters. But, you will absolutely never hear a mother at a coffee clutch say, "Yes, I know that little Jenny probably shouldn't eat a bagel three meals a day, every day. It's just not worth it to me to work on her diet. I'd rather spend this time with her when she's cute and it's so easy to make her happy by giving in to her every desire. I'm not going to think about how she'll be 200 lbs. at 15 and a likely candidate for Type II Diabetes."

Pediasure does serve a very good purpose for children with specific dietary issues, but parental laziness is not a specific dietary issue.

Technorati Tags: Nutrition, Children's Nutrition, Meal Replacements, Picky Eaters

I love this!

2006-06-27T18:48:00.000-07:00

. . . perhaps a little bit too much.

For an explanation/more on this visit Full Metal Attorney (from whence I stole it).

At least he never suggests grilling them.

Technorati Tags: Pie Charts, Children, Kids, Vomit

Sex & the Single Nanny

2006-06-26T12:02:00.000-07:00

Don't get excited, this post really has nothing to do with sex, per se. I just loved the title.

In reality, today's topic is dating. I've already talked about how I am a bit of an anomaly, as a college educated, white, American-born Nanny, so I would hope that it isn't difficult for you to imagine that the type of man who dates college educated, American born, twenty-something girls does not often find himself dating a Nanny. This doesn't really bother me all that much because I enjoy my job and am not embarrassed by it. The only challenging thing about it is that when I say I'm a Nanny, the subject of children, family (and because it goes along with those two, marriage) seems suddenly and inappropriately present.

In the past I've handled this by going very academic. I talk about what a grand experiment children are and how I am very interested in how generational trends in raising children effect economics, politics, etc. It usually works because presenting a topic for debate is a winning tactic with the kind of men I date. The question for me then becomes, how do I introduce the man in my life to the very important non-academic aspects of my job: the children.

In my last relationship I had middling success with this. I was working for the P. family at the time. They have two children who I absolutely adore. At the time they were about 7 and 9 and I had reached the point where I enjoyed spending time with them both on and off "the job". So one day, shortly before Christmas, I took them out on a weekend to go shopping and see a movie, and I invited G., my boyfriend at the time, to go along with us. We went to see Peter Pan (which I highly recommend, by the way) and everything went very well until the final moments of the film. The last line of the movie is a voice over by Wendy. She is explaining how the Lost Boys, each in their time, would come to her and she would help them find loving homes because, she explains, "Every child must grow up. Every child except one." To which G replied (very loudly, people several rows away turned around and looked at us) "Michael Jackson!" He got a lot of titters from those around us, but Phoebe (the 7-year-old) gave him the fisheye.

After the movie I left Phoebe and Jack with G. while I went to the bathroom. Big Mistake! I was gone less than 5 minutes, but when I returned to them G. was looking uncomfortable and sheepish (not so odd, in and of itself, that was kind of his constant demeanor) and Phoebe was glaring at him with undisguised scorn and suspicion. Apparently, while I was gone, shrewd little Phoebe had asked what exactly G. meant by his Michael Jackson comment. G. had stammered a bit and finally come up with this gem, "Uh . . . you should ask your mom." Then he amended that to "Or, you could ask Annie." So, having explained this, she did just that.

"Michael Jackson was very famous from the time that he was about 5 years old," I said, "and because he spent his childhood working instead of just being a kid, he is trying to make up for it in his adulthood by having his own amusement park, zoo and other things like that."

Phoebe was quite satisfied with this answer, but, because she's not at all a slow child, she quickly came to the next obvious question. "Why couldn't he tell me that?" I gave her the only answer I had, "He's a little weird." Not surprisingly, she had absolutely no problem accepting that.

This incident was really just a bump in the road of getting the kids and my boyfriend to be able to relate to one another, and it definitely got better as time went on. Like with so many things, G. was training for the next phase of my dating life. Now, I know what red flags to look for and what amount of wariness is reasonable and good. He's also served as a wonderful base line from which to tell what is par for the course and what is exceptional behavior.

So, when a cute, interesting boy pulls out a wallet full of pictures of his niece and nephew and walks me through each one with increasing delight, I know I'm dealing with a truly exceptional man.

Technorati Tags: Dating, Children, Kids

Feeling a Little bit Crafty, Part Two

2006-06-26T10:02:00.000-07:00

Here is the doll base that I found for Miss Jill's birthday present. It's from Fire Mountain Gems, which is a Must-Know site if you like to bead or do most any kind of crafts. (This is the best product they sell, for my money.) A true DIY-er would make the doll base herself, but I'm so daunted by this task that I was thrilled to find this simple, bendable base. My sewing skills are much more straight line oriented, a doll was truly a frightening prospect.

Once the doll arrives, I will face the task of clothing & accessorizing her. The finished doll, if I'm lucky, should look like this picture to the right, although I'm creeped out by dolls with minimal faces, so I'm going to get creative with eyes and lips and nose. I don't think I can embroider them, as the doll is already constructed, but maybe I'm wrong, so it's at least worth a shot. Also, I definitely think that shoes are called for, although I've not gotten any hot ideas about how to construct them yet.

Also, despite the fact that Jill would probably be thrilled with the calico look, I'm thinking I might try and update the ensemble a tad bit. She's very into pink and I just love the combination of pink and gold. I picked up this fabric recently at Lonni Rossi Fabrics near my parents' home, and I love it. I think the scale is off for a doll this small, so I might need to do some more digging to find the right fabric, but I'll use this swatch as inspiration, at least.

Technorati Tags: Crafts, Doll Making, Sewing

Feeling a Little bit Crafty

2006-06-23T07:17:00.000-07:00

Jill's 7th Birthday is fast approaching. When it comes to the kids in my life I generally try and get them exactly what they want for their birthdays, to the best of my ability (and wallet) of course, and I tend to get them books only for the winter holidays. I do it so that during the holidays, when everything is pretty hectic, I can make one trip to Barnes and Noble and be done with a good chunk of my shopping.

Last week Jill and I were discussing plans for her upcoming party and I asked her outright what she'd like me to get her. While she was thinking about it, I added, "If you'd like me to make you something, I will." I was thinking about the beaded necklaces we'd been into lately, or a small knitted blanket, because I've been playing around with knitting needles lately. Her face lit up at this idea, but she surprised me when she said, "Yes, a doll!"

It immediately brought me back to Christmas circa 1983 (give or take), and Jill was in luck because she absolutely loves stories. I told her that the year I was her age exactly all I wanted for Christmas was an Annie doll, as in Little Orphan Annie. Obviously I felt very akin to Annie (and Anne of Green Gables as well, but I'll save that obsession for another day) and movie the had come out only the year before so she was very big that holiday season. On Christmas morning my mother proudly unveiled the doll that she had worked for months to make. Sadly, I don't have a picture of the actual doll, but she was 36" tall (a little bigger than me at the time) and carefully made from this McCall's Pattern:

From the first moment that I laid my eyes upon her I hated her with a passion. I hated her from the tip of her red yarn hair down to her real black patent leather shoes. Why? Because instead of the doll my mother had lovingly made from hand, I wanted this:

The store bought, plastic, probably made by children in a Cambodian sweat shop Annie Doll. I am, of course, ashamed to admit it today, but I cried bitterly and I think I may have actually yelled at my mother something like "I don't want your stinking doll! I won't play with it and you can't make me!"

Jill is clearly a much more enlightened and much less commercial child than I was.

Technorati Tags: Crafts, Annie, The Movie, Doll Making, Commercialism

Warm Fuzzies

2006-06-21T07:01:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot this week about empathy and how it is slowly developing in my little Lukester. The kid has an unusually sensitive head and doing things like washing behind his ears and cleaning off his sticky face are always a chore. Now that he has a huge mop of hair (that mommy doesn't want to part with just yet) hair brushing has become a daily headache. Yesterday I had the brilliant idea of letting him brush my hair before I tried to go to work on him, so that he'd see that it's not an "Owwie-owwie!" as he'd been insisting it was.

Big mistake.

The first time I brought the hair brush, with both our hands on the handle, toward my head he looked at me, shocked. The second time he screamed out "No, Annie! Owwie-owwie!" and pulled the brush away from my head. Then he threw it in the bathtub.

It really got me thinking about the little guy and how much more he's aware of these days. We still have a great deal of trouble getting him to not hit his brothers and sister, especially Drew, but all in all he's really developed a sense of the people around him and how they have feelings separate and different than his emotions. I started doing a bit of research about how empathy develops in infants and it brought back a lot of very sweet memories from the time when Luke truly was a baby.

I found an Australian site simply called Raising Children which gave a nice break down of the early stages of empathy development. Reading it convinced me that Luke is way above the curve when it comes to his emotional progress (as he is with so many things, of course). According to the site, at around 13 months

more than half the children had tried to hug, pat, or touch another person when they were showing distress. Scientists call this "pro-social behaviour" which means that they not only responded to the emotion they saw, but they made an attempt to help the other person feel better. This doesn't mean that children this young showed empathy all the time--they didn't--but it shows some early signs of empathy.

This made me remember April of last year, when Luke was only seven months old, and I had my worst day ever. I came into work bleary eyed and groggy, having been up crying all night after breaking up with my boyfriend of almost two years. In retrospect it was amazing that I made it into work at all, but I guess I knew that ultimately I'd feel better with something to occupy my mind. Not only did I feel better, but when I went into Luke's bedroom to get him up for the morning he looked me right in the eye and then put his hand up against my cheek. He patted me gently while holding my gaze as if to say, "Everything's going to be all right, Annie." We spent most of that day cuddling together, and not only did work occupy my mind, but Luke's sudden and unusual concern was truly healing.

Of course, other things are developing in Luke right along with the empathy. Things like jealousy and anger and greed, but those are emotions we all share, so I guess I won't begrudge him his share of those as well. Especially as he's the youngest of four, the kid will need to be able to stand up for himself as much as he needs to understand his tormenters--oh, I mean siblings.

Technorati Tags: Child Development, Empathy

Like No Other

2006-06-20T11:22:00.000-07:00

The G. children, as a general rule, do not watch TV. The watch videos or commercial-free, pre-recorded shows from PBS on Friday and Saturday evenings only. I think that this is a perfectly find state of affairs, for now. They're blissfully ignorant of many products, food items, toys, etc. that they would only hear about through television commercials, so Mr. & Mrs. G. and I hear less whining in stores for specific purchase requests. All in all, I'm a fan of this policy. Just not today.

Today I actually brought, on my computer, a commercial for Sam & Jill to watch. I found about the commercial (which is European) after reading a little about Jose Gonzalez, who I'm simply crazy about right now. His song, Heartbeats, is the music in the commercial, and it fits the footage wonderfully.

If you have QuickTime on your computer, I highly recommend you go here to watch the commercial, but for those of you who don't, I've included it below (but in considerably poorer quality, so the colour which is the whole point of the commercial, is kind of lost). The kids and I watched it over and over. It's wonderfully peaceful and exciting at the same time.

After I finally said that we'd watched it enough, and it was time to do something that didn't involve us all scrunched up around my tiny computer screen, Sam asked the obvious 8-year-old question, "How'd they do that?" I said simply, "They can do wonders with computers, almost anything you want." He looked at me with awe, as if it was me who could do anything I wanted, and seemed very satisfied with my answer. BUT I WAS WRONG!!

There are no special effects involved. When I tried to scare the video up on YouTube, I found this:

I felt so very Mr.-Rogers-at-the-crayon-factory when I showed it to the kids. It's a bit slow to begin with, and it runs over 6 minutes with a lot of thick British accents talking about the wonders of Sony, but it's really cool to watch. I especially loved hearing the thunderous roar the balls made coming down the street, not at all a peaceful sound.

Technorati Tags: Sony, Bravia, Advertising, Jose Gonzalez

Summer Camp

2006-06-20T08:03:00.000-07:00

Next week Sam and Jill head off to day camp in Westchester, NY and in a couple of weeks one of my former charges is leaving to go to a Canadian summer camp for three weeks. You know what? I am SO JEALOUS!! I loved camp when I was a kid, I loved camp when I was a counselor-in-training, and I'd be a counselor in a heartbeat if I could afford to now.

I first went to sleep-away camp the summer before third grade, so I was about 8 years old. My mother still talks about my first letter home, which went something like this

Dear Mom,
I am so miserable. I hate it here. The bugs are eating me alive. The food is terrible. I miss you a lot.
Love, Annie

P.S. I don't want to come home.

Slate has a great article up on their site right now about the idea of sending six-year-olds away to overnight camp and it's, surprisingly, pretty much for the idea. Apparently there has been a slow but steady increase over the past few decades of programs for 6 and 7-year-olds. One reason for the existence and popularity of these programs is that children that young actually have an easier time adjusting to camp-life and experience considerably less homesickness than children who go away for the first time at 10 or 11. Also, the perception of parents who send their children away to camp as being uninvolved or looking to off-load their kids so that they can have an affair or get a divorce or just run amok for a few weeks in the summer is pretty much entirely a myth. The parents who send their kids away to camp at a young age are overwhelmingly parents who loved camp as children, plain and simple.

Maybe by the time I have kids I'll be able to send them off by five!

Technorati Tags: Summer Camp, Parenting

A Belated Father's Day One-Liner

2006-06-20T04:14:00.000-07:00

You'll always be my Dad. That's one thing the casinos can never take from me.

Courtesy of those crazy jokers at Shoebox.

The Family that Smokes Together . . .

2006-06-19T05:36:00.000-07:00

I have been involved in several family conversations about giving children an allowance, and I'm not really sure what my feelings are on this one yet. I like the idea of having the money you give your children be totally for them and not tied to any kinds of chores or expectations, so that they can have a little security in that small amount of mad money--but I understand the arguments against this as well from parents who want to instill a work ethic in their children as soon as possible.

I can, however say this one thing with total certainty: Your children are ABSOLUTELY not ready to receive their allowance in marijuana until they are old enough to withstand questioning by the police. I think that's usually around 16, not 11.

Technorati Tags: Marijuana, Parenting, Child Abuse, Drugs

Go Ahead, Sue Me!

2006-06-16T10:25:00.000-07:00

I truly believe that we live in an overly litigious society and that a large majority of the lawsuits that are brought by people alleging "emotional distress" or similar damages are ridiculous. However, I was not at all annoyed by this lawsuit. In case you don't know the story, Claudia Muro was arrested because of "nanny-cam" footage that seemed to show her violently shaking the 5-month-old child in her care. After Ms. Muro spent two and a half years in jail the charges were dropped because the Boca Raton-based Tyco Fire & Security finally admitted that the footage was time-lapsed, causing smooth motions to appear jerky and violent.

I hope that whatever court hears this case awards Ms. Muro a large amount of money. She lost her job, reputation and over two years of her life. She definitely deserves more than that lady who spilled coffee in her lap.

Technorati Tags: Nanny, Lawsuit

EWWWWWWWW!!

2006-06-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

I've kind of always viewed head lice as a right of passage for kids. Everyone educated in the US Public school system can remember being taken as a class to the nurse to have her go through your hair with a tongue depressor thingey looking for the tell-tale knits. But apparently the head lice have gone rogue and are now resistant to 80% of over-the-counter remedies.

Warning: Actually going to the link and reading the article might make you all itchy. That's how I feel, at least.

Technorati Tags: Children's Health, Head Lice, Evolution

Big Words

2006-06-14T08:32:00.000-07:00

When I was a new reader I'd often come up against a word that I didn't know. When this happened I'd inevitably go to my mother and say "What does prosimian mean?" Instead of simply replying, "Well Annie, prosimian is a suborder of Primates that includes various primitive groups, lemuroids, lorisoids, and tarsioids," my mother, with the same of infuriating lack of compassion towards an inquisitive but fundamentally lazy mind, would say "Go and look it up."

Now that I'm the one being asked about words like "rogue" and "contrary" that Sam & Jill should definitely know, at least by the time they're old enough to be out at Denny's at 3 AM, I am trying to keep in mind the need for instant gratification that growing brains feel.

Google makes this pretty easy with their SMS features. All I have to do is text "define:" and then the word we're wondering about and I get an almost instant message back with all the definitions I'd get doing a regular Google "define" search. Plus, the kids think I'm oh so tech-savvy.

Technorati Tags: Google, Cell Phones, Mobile Technology, Vocabulary, Education

My Breasts, My Body

2006-06-13T12:43:00.000-07:00

During college I did a great deal of evening and weekend babysitting. Mostly it was for new parents and their infants and I quickly noticed a profound difference between the breast fed and the formula fed babies. The latter had way more stomach problems, they spit up constantly, cried considerably more after feedings, were often medicated for gas from birth and they were more prone to colds and other bugs than their breast fed counterparts.

Despite the very unscientific nature of these observations, it was enough to convince me that when I became a mother myself I would do everything within my power to make sure I was able to breast feed, at least for the first few months.

That being said, there is simply no way I will stand for the government telling me, or any other women, what to do with our breasts!! And, according to an article on the cover of the science section of today's Times, that is what the Department of Health and Human Services seems to be leaning toward. This spring they launched

a two-year national breast-feeding awareness campaign that . . . ran television announcements showing a pregnant woman clutching her belly as she was thrown off a mechanical bull during ladies' night at a bar--and compared the behavior to failing to breast-feed.

I won't argue with the idea that it's better to breast feed, and sure, there are some health issues that may arise because of choosing not to, but risk seems and incredibly inflammatory word to use in this situation. It seems chosen specifically to illicit guilt in women who might, for whatever reason, want to bottle feed.

So many things are more risky than not breast feeding! Strapping your infant into a seat and then hurtling him through space at rates of 70 or 80 miles an hour, as most parents have no problem doing, is far more risky than not breast feeding. Taking your children to MacDonalds on a regular basis seems to me (although, technically I have no proof for this one) also far more risky and harmful. Swimming! Sun exposure! Second hand smoke! Need I go on?

But what is more disturbing to me is that this article represents not a problem, but just another symptom of a much larger looming sickness that I'm afraid will soon come to a head in this country. In May the Washington Post reported that new federal guidelines

ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves -- and to be treated by the health care system -- as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon.

So, according to the government, from day one of a young girl's first menstrual cycle until menopause sets in she should take folic acid supplements daily and never smoke or drink.

I first heard about these recommendations in Dan Savage's Village Voice column, where he so eloquently said,

Color me paranoid, but ordering American women to regard themselves as "pre-pregnant" opens the door to prosecuting women who harm their fetuses by failing to regard themselves as "pre-pregnant." How long until "women should" becomes "women must"? Does that sound paranoid? Well, so did a war on contraception once.

Oddly enough, Bush's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn't urge straight men to regard themselves as existing in a perpetual state of "pre-fatherhood." Smoking, obesity, asthma, and diabetes could seriously hamper a man's ability to do the heavy lifting that comes with fatherhood. But Bush's CDC doesn't seem that interested in regulating the behavior of all those fat, smoking pre-fathers out there. Gee. Isn't. That. Weird.

I do not think it's paranoid to fear the idea of our country nationalizing the bodies of women of childbearing age. Countries have done it before, and I would not put it past the US. Just months ago conservative groups were gearing up to oppose the new HPV vaccine, a vaccine that would stop the spread of the number one cause of cervical cancer because they claim it will be seen as "as a license to engage in premarital sex". I suppose that on some level these people (yes, I said it THESE PEOPLE) feel that a young girl who engages in premarital sex deserves cervical cancer. They wouldn't ever say it, of course, but THESE PEOPLE are the same ones who will spout enraging phrases like "pay the piper" in abortion arguments.

Sadly, the time has not yet come when we can sit back and expect that we live in a world where equal rights will beaffordedd to women in the same way as men. The only way we can ever get to that point, and I do believe we will, is by remaining active in the causes that are important to us. I am an American woman, and as such, I will fight for my right to breast feed my child, and Amy's right not too. I'd much rather raise my child to have a mildly compromised immune system or be gassy and cranky for 12 months than to raise her in a world where the government values her control over her body less than a boy's.

Technorati Tags: Breast Feeding, Civil Rights, Pregnancy, Gender Issues

More on the Potty Issue

2006-06-13T02:50:00.000-07:00

So, I've become the girl who gets emailed links by her 20-something-single-no-thoughts-of-children-in-their-heads friends all about Potty Training. Somehow I can't really see this development in my life as a good thing, but I will admit that I most certainly asked for it.

Here is the thing: YOU CANNOT POTTY TRAIN A CHILD IN ONE DAY!!!

Dr. Phil can't do it and this Potty-Pro certainly can't either. Potty training is literally about training and strengthening muscles and the connections between them and the child's brain. It simply can't happen in one day, as much as we may dream that it could or should.

I suppose that if you want to sell a book or promote a prime time TV special, praying on American parents desire to have their lives be easy & uncomplicated is the way to go. But people, are we really buying this crap? Sadly, I guess we are.

Most Obvious and Unexpected

2006-06-12T09:12:00.000-07:00

I admit that it is certainly an example of perversion in my own character that makes me enjoy the following story, but I think I'm pretty much ok with that.

Late last year a British convenience store was the first business to use the "Mosquito", a "machine that emits an annoying sound that only youths can hear" which is designed to deter underage loiterers. When I heard about it then I thought it was somewhat mean and very degrading, but I didn't dwell on it too long, as I mainly worry about my own problems and don't intend to spend much time ever hanging around outside Welsh 7-11s.

This morning, however, I was very happy to hear that the degrade-ees have become the degraders--well, sort of.

British school kids are now using the sound as a text alert that they don't have to turn off when they're in class. Now, would I be happy about this were it being used in my own classroom (if I had one)? No, probably not. But that's a bridge to cross when I come to it. For now, I'm simply loving the irony.

Technorati Tags: Mobile Technology, Technology, Cell Phones, Cell Phone Rings

Britney & the Manny: Why can't it be true?

2006-06-12T05:30:00.000-07:00

So, after criticizing Ms. Spears and recommending that she seek out a Baby PR professional I was so very excited to read this in the Defamer. Sadly, Perry Taylor, 28 year old former Naval Academy graduate, is simply a bodyguard (and an attached one, at that) and rumors that Kevin is jealous of the stroller-pushing, Sean Preston-holding, better-looking, and less-skeevy Taylor are supposedly exaggerated. But really, how could he not be a little insecure?

Even if the gossip is mostly untrue, I still see this situation as an improvement. I don't see it as a coincidence that lately there have been no car seat blunders and no baby/drink mishaps. Perry's strawberry blonde presence is clearly a good influence on all, as I see it.

Technorati Tags: Britney Spears, Child Care, Manny, Body Guards

Explanatory Video

2006-06-11T15:12:00.000-07:00

As Americans we have to bring something exciting and dirty to cultural imports, right?

Technorati Tags: World Cup, Soccer Moms, Soccer, The Daily Show, John Hodgman

Quidditch and the World Cup

2006-06-09T13:43:00.001-07:00

Luke had his first tumbling class today, so I took advantage of the time w/o the little guy to meet up with a friend who was in the city for the day. We met up at Puffy's Tavern and I got to watch him drink a pint while I sipped a glass of water (picking up a toddler from tumbling class with alcohol on your breath is a no-no). They were playing the first match of the World Cup, and many of the people who were there had clearly come for the sole purpose of watching the match. Which got me to thinking . . .

I think when the generation of children that Sam & Jill belong to are young adults soccer might be bigger here in America than most of the sports that dominate ESPN's lineup at present. It's ubiquitous. Most every child I know (and that's a lot of kids) plays soccer. It's much more in keeping with the middle class dominating values of teamwork, sportsmanship and the "everyone is a winner" spirit than baseball, basketball or football. It's a global sport, and the pre-9/11-George W. Bush mindset that believed one could get away with not considering the world outside the US is a thing of the past.

But the two most important reasons why soccer is soon going to be a major US sport have very little to do with sports themselves. Those reasons are Harry Potter and Tivo.

Fundamentally, if Harry Potter is down with something, it's bound to become cool to American kids. But, although we have everything else, Uncle Sam, sadly, can not provide an experience even closely resembling the Quidditch World Cup in the level of excitement, anticipation, international involvement or excuse to make judgmental and often inflammatory generalizations about other countries. So what option does the US youth have but to turn to the World Cup? Gosh, Harry even made being the outsider who's come to the party way late and ignorant of the whole experience an OK thing to be (as long as you catch on quick, of course).

And finally, Tivo & DVR systems are becoming so widespread in middle class American households that during the Winter Olympics this year I had to spend close to 45 minutes explaining to an alternately irate and tearful Jill why it was simply IMPOSSIBLE to fastforward through the boring parts of LIVE television. A televised baseball game is absolute torture to the child who's used to clicking through every commercial she's ever come up against. Soccer is the perfect answer to this problem. There are two halfs with one break in the middle, no endless time outs. It's the obvious choice in terms of live sporting events for the media expectations of the kids we're currently raising.

Plus, there is the added benefit of casual sex, at least according to John Hodgman. Explanatory YouTube video to come (hopefully).

Technorati Tags: Soccer, World Cup, Quidditch, Tivo, Harry Potter

Back from Vacation and Ready for a Good Night's Sleep

2006-06-05T16:02:00.000-07:00

Hello again! Sorry for the extended absence, but in the life of a jet set young New Yorker, these things do happen. (Or perhaps I just had a bought of laziness, you can believe as you like).

Anyway . . .

While I've been on break I've been hearing a great deal in both the media and from parents (they're simply everywhere you go these days!) about new news on the infant sleep front. Last month Dr. Richard Ferber published an updated edition of his famous/infamous book Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems which had some of his devoted fans, such as Emily Bazelon, fearing he'd gone soft:

The dismaying advance word about the new edition of Dr. Richard Ferber's totemic book, Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems, was that the nation's best-known sleep expert had gone mushy. Oh no, I thought, feeling betrayed. My husband Paul and I succeeded in training neither of our children according to Ferber's method. Still, his parenting book is read and reread in our house, because we rely on Ferber for backbone. So, it would be traitorous for the doctor to retreat from his claim that it's an act of necessity and virtue to tolerate crying (in precisely measured doses) as your child figures out how to go to sleep at night and stay that way.

So, basically, from what Ms. Bazelon goes on to say, it seems that Ferber is still Ferber. He's softened his delivery only, not his stance on limit setting or the basic idea that it is not a terrible thing to allow your child to cry (up to a point, of course) during the process of getting them to fall asleep on their own.

To be perfectly honest, I don't like the way Ferber's ideas have been distorted and applied to very young infants. In my opinion, children under three months old do not benefit from being allowed to cry for long stretches of time. I'm all for letting your infant child fall asleep in your arms and I simply do not believe that doing so will have an affect on setting up healthy sleep patterns after three months. In my experience, rocking a child to sleep becomes less and less effective with the age of the child. It's natural that the tiny baby who fell asleep so sweetly in your arms at two months will be different at four months when your face and body and voice are more engaging to him than soothing.

However, I am willing to admit that I could be a little bit wrong . . .

Psychologist Ian St. James-Roberts published an article this Monday in the journal Pediatrics which details his experiments with three different sets of sleep strategies--the first experiments ever to offer up real evidence based advice on the matter. He had three sets of parents:

The first group was made up of women in Europe and the United States who were aligned with a natural-mothering network: They held their newborns 15 to 16 hours per day, breast-fed on demand, and co-slept with their babies.

The second group, in London, was much more structured in its approach to baby care, setting up schedules for feeding and naps. Overall, the London parents had about 50 percent less contact with the babies than the "natural-network" moms.

The third group, made up of moms in Copenhagen, Denmark, split the difference between the two more extreme approaches. They carried their babies a lot during the day, but typically did not sleep with them or rock them to sleep and kept a structured sleeping and eating schedule..

The results, put very simply were this: The "natural mothered" babies fussed considerably less during the first few weeks of life, but were horrific about sleeping, even at 10 months most weren't sleeping through the night. The London group's babies cried twice as much during the first weeks but settled into healthy sleep patterns much more easily. The Copenhagen babies were the "just right" group, crying much less than the London babies, but sleeping just as well.

It's really not all the surprising, I suppose, when you get down to it. I'm very quick to point out to parents that elementary school age children simply love rules and structure and are most comfortable when they're getting a great deal of both. I guess babies aren't all that much different.

A Day in the Life

2006-05-26T11:52:00.001-07:00

Long ago, back before I had a cute little [brand and model withheld] phone, I used to make rather dramatic statements such as "Cell phones should make calls, not play music or take pictures!" Well, that was then and this is now. I love the camera feature on my phone. Don't get me wrong, I have a very cute, very nice digital camera which was a great and unexpected Christmas present from one of my cooler friends, and I take great pictures with it. I just don't carry it all the time. (If I did, chances are it would have been lost or taken a dive off a pier, knowing my life.)

So, for everyday purposes I snap pictures on the phone. They aren't the highest quality, as I've said before, but they do the trick and it's so easy to share them.

Here is one of my favorite downtown sites. As Luke and I headed out to the park yesterday we snapped the clouds drifting over Greenwich Street. I love the way they reflect in some of the more new and shiny buildings (the most prominent one is 7 World Trade Center).

We headed into Washington Market Park, passing the newly planted Sweet Peas (ok, that's a guess, I'm not sure what kind of plant they are, but it's a flowering vine-y thing). I told Luke that it will be fun to watch them grow and climb up the fence. Surprisingly, the idea didn't seem to thrill him all that much. He was more interested in ripping his way out of the straps tethering him to the stroller.

We also snapped some pretty pansies (those I'm certain of) just inside the park entrance. We're working on learning the color purple and we've already nailed the concept of yellow.

And, finally, behold: a little slice of heaven. Coffee and mini fruit pastry from Ceci-Cela enjoyed by the sandbox's edge.

Overheard In New York

2006-05-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

I love the site Overheard In New York and I've always wanted to be the observant type of person who has their ears to the ground enough to hear the little gems of conversation that make the site. Like this one:

Pregnant woman to 3-year-old son: Do you remember what happened last time you licked the subway? That's right. You threw up.

--4 train

Unfortunately, I am often in my own little world, having conversations in my head, and I miss the hilarious things that the New Yorkers around me must be saying.

Yesterday, however, I had the earbuds out of my ears and I was tuned in to the world around me. It was perfect timing.

I was getting a chocolate milkshake to go at our friendly neighborhood soda shop (the pictures are from my camera phone, so they don't really do it justice). It's usually a zoo, so I don't bring the kids here alot, but it's fun to peruse the candy counter.

While I was waiting for my order I couldn't help but listen to the conversation being had by three women (mothers, I assume) who were talking rather loudly in order to be heard over the 7 or 8 kids they had with them. One of the mothers was talking about two girls who were available to babysit. (I'm paraphrasing, of course.) "They've just moved to the city, one wants to be an actress, the other's into some kind of fashion design. They just graduated from Brown and they're from wealthy families, but they just don't have their own money right now. So, they're desperate for work."

"Great," one of the other mothers said, "so they'll steal my clothes."

It was weird. She said it like it was a simple statement of fact, one of the negatives to consider before hiring these girls, like finding out they aren't First Aid certified or English isn't their first language.

Should I not be surprised to find out that it is an accepted fact that one of the drawbacks of hiring college educated girls from good families to care for your children is that they'll steal your stuff? Should I list on my resume: I have excellent written and verbal communication skills and I will not root through your closet. Or, should I just chalk these mothers up into the "Nanny Diaries" type women who I'd never work for in the first place.

For now, I'm going to go with the latter.

2006-05-22T17:48:00.000-07:00

I have this intense fantasy about the library I will design for my own child. There are so many books that have been special to me, and believe me, they will be special to my child. Let me say that again for emphasis. They WILL BE SPECIAL TO MY CHILD. Ok, that felt good.

I found a site today as I perused the mommy blogs I came upon the widget that I'm now sporting (look left). Library Thing is a personal online catalog of books--the books you're reading today, the books you own, all the books you've ever heard of, whatever you'd like to use it for. One could, say, start a catalog of all the books they will eventually read to their child.

The site features are quite fun. The search engine pulls info from over 45 Libraries and the Library of Congress (in addition to Amazon for a little of the $$, of course). And users "tag" each book with category markers such as magical realism, dirty books, political theology, animal literature, etc. There are all the obvious features as well, like reviews, rankings and a truly entrancing zeitgeist. I'm working on my catalog as we speak--it's almost like an iTunes like grouping of all the literature that matters to me.

Little Drew-or-Frankie-or-Phoebe-or-Jack-or-Abbey-or-Seymour will be so set literature-wise.

Edit 5/23: No, not really.

Britney--Way Beyond the Need for a Nanny

2006-05-22T05:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, as G. and I walked to the new the new Red Hook Fairway, I got to talking about certain mistakes I'd made long, long ago in my first incarnation as a Manhattan office girl. Long story short, I was fired from this particular job and I carried around the guilt and shame of the experience for quite some time. I told G. as we got spattered with intermittent rain, that I'd finally realized that I was 22 then. While I still wished things had gone differently, I now know that I was very young and I really did the best that I could.

Luckily, that job did not require responsibility for another human life. If it had, and I'd screwed up in some way that caused harm, that would follow me for the rest of my life. Which brings us to today's topic . . .

Poor Britney! I mean, I really do feel for her. Honestly, I'm not sure if I was 24 I would be able to cope much better than she seems to be. (Although, I would love to think I wouldn't be in that situation in the first place.) Clearly, at that time I was the type of person who did get in over my head, allow my problems to pile up, employ denial and make pathetic attempts to cover my tracks once I'd made a mistake. I was not good at asking for help and that hubris was my biggest downfall. Britney seems to be in a similar place--except she's doing it in front of the paparazzi and to a living child.

All the blogs that I read lately about the Spears-Federline family recommend that Britney get a new nanny--PRONTO! And while this sounds like a good idea, I really think she needs to go one further. She needs a Baby PR Firm, if there is such a thing. She needs someone to look at her as she's about to head out the door, someone who can diplomatically but firmly say, "Why don't you hand me the baby or the drink. There are alot of people with cameras outside."

The Baby PR person can say things like, "Why don't I look up the California state car seat laws before you head out in your convertible." Or, baring that she could say, "Don't have Sony Music executives make any kind of statement about California car seat laws before we actually know what they are. They might make you look foolish."

The girl, young and stupid though she may be, has money. Money, although it may not buy love or fidelity, will buy you someone who's job it can be to make sure you don't look stupid and child services doesn't take your kid away.

More Cuteness

2006-05-19T13:35:00.000-07:00

From the pet store window on 10th St.

"Oh please don't go -- we'll eat you up -- we love you so!"

2006-05-18T19:27:00.000-07:00

Back, oh so long ago, when I was being wooed by my good friend J. (that term "good friend" should be a clue as to how successful he was with that task) he had an interesting way of dealing with my preoccupation with children. "Do you like babies?" I must have asked at some early point in our relationship, because his response became a running and much belabored joke: "Yes. Grilled."

It's true, young love can make even cannibalism funny.

I couldn't help thinking about J. when I read today's entry on Dooce. Now, I say the following with this caveat: postpartum depression (like many specific forms of cancer) is NOT FUNNY. That being said, I was very amused to hear her thoughts on the idea of giving pregnancy and all that it entails another go.

Only recently have I started to have that baby itch again, have I wanted to put the shiny, bald heads of infants in my mouth. I think that'’s a good sign because it means I've been able to forget a little bit of the sting of those first six months and am now at a point where I would even consider going through it again. I'm the one at the neighborhood party grabbing the babies off their mothers' laps because the urge to bite their nubbly ears is too overwhelming. Wanting to eat babies is a good indication that I have healed.

Isn't it, though?

The honest truth of the matter is that I didn't love babies when I first met J. I liked the idea of babies. I liked the hopefulness inherent in the fact that we, as a species, still have them. My preference for children, however, leaned more toward the walking, talking, reasoning varieties you find in models over the age of 5. (BTW, according to J. children over the age of 5 are considerably too tough to even contemplate eating, grilled, steamed, sauteed or by any other method). It has only been over the past 19 months that I have fallen head over heals for babies and all their wonderfully edible ways.

But what is it that makes the idea of just gobbling up a baby such a universal idea (to women, at least)? When Luke does this little stompy dance he's gotten into doing lately whenever he feels he's not getting 100% of my attention I can hardly contain myself--his cuteness is absolutely edible. It's so common to hear people coo over him and say things like, "I could just eat him up" and it makes perfect sense--but why? Most people don't say that over other cute things like kittens or Tucker Carlson.

Trying to make sense of this by going to the mommy blogs was such a bad idea. They're (as with most things) black and white, either saying the phrase is creepy and stinks of Hansel & Gretle imagery, or gushing over their own children's oral fixations. The best thing I found was the following musings by writer/mom Melissa Lipscomb

Maurice Sendak knew what he was doing when he had the monsters in Where the Wild Things Are tell Max, "Oh please don't go -- we'll eat you up -- we love you so!"

I'm sure that's what Alec would say if he could talk. He's taken to biting with alarming frequency and great glee. He has four teeth on the top and three on the bottom; my legs and shoulders are covered with asymmetrical teeth prints. When [he] bites me, I say, "No biting," and he assumes a look of utter confusion. I imagine he's thinking, "But I love you!" Clearly he derives great satisfaction from sinking his teeth into me.

So, sadly, despite it's seemingly universal usage, I suppose the impetus behind the impulse will remain a mystery for now. But for those of you who might worry, yes, I never ever leave J. alone with Luke.

Here's a link I found on my "edible baby" search with pictures even I found too disturbing to actually be funny. I include the link despite that fact mainly for my mother. It's right up her alley--she loves Halloween, complicated recipes and cutting open baby dolls. Enjoy Mom!

How I Screwed Up my Sisters or How Sam's Bound to Screw Up Luke

2006-05-17T09:58:00.000-07:00

Like one of my favorite journalists, Slate.com's senior editor Emily Bazelon, I am endlessly fascinated by birth order in families and how it affects behavior and personality (as I mentioned last week). Last week Emily wrote a piece on Slate about a few recent studies that delve into the effects of birth order on children. Prior to reading this article I had thought in ways similar to Ms Bazelon:

Birth order is one of my favorite explanations for behavior. It's the rationale for why I'm bossy (I'm an oldest) and for why my older son Eli tends to be assertive and rule-conscious while my younger son Simon veers toward mischievous. Older children are supposed to be more aggressive and domineering, younger children more rebellious.

But apparently, the new findings suggest that outside of the family environment, these birth order personality tags fade away.

In one study, researchers watched siblings play and observed how the older ones run the show, "often by playing aggressively," as Judith Rich Harris recounts in her new book No Two Alike. Then they watched the same children playing with peers. The older siblings didn't dominate their peers more, and the younger siblings didn't dominate less. Similarly, studies of the effect of birth order on test scores, education, and earnings have collectively failed to account for differences in children's achievements.

So, sadly, both Emily and I seem to have been duped by yet another misconception of common wisdom.

But--that is not to say that birth order accounts for nothing at all, in fact, quite the opposite. According to the results of these studies, younger siblings are considerably more prone to "risky behavior" such as drug and alcohol use/abuse, playing with guns, premature sex, and crime. Why? There are two theories. First,

older siblings make their mark by introducing their younger sidekicks to smoking, drugs, sex, and guns. Forget about older siblings as positive role models. What's far more prevalent, apparently, is premature exposure--pointing out the best spot to sneak a cigarette or buy beer underage.

Then, of course, there are Mom & Dad (you really didn't think you'd get out of this without being blamed for something, did you).

Parents may also contribute to younger sibling delinquency, wittingly or unwittingly, by cracking down on firstborns but running out of the energy to do so when the later-borns hit their teens.

As an oldest child (who was an absolutely perfect example for her younger siblings, mind you!) I think that the latter explanation is much more to blame (that is, until I have my own children, then I reserve the right to change my mind).

Luckily, this phenomena is only observable in early life. By around the age of 30 older and younger children are pretty much indistinguishable from one another in the realm of risk behavior. The major exception to this, however, is cigarette smoking, which speaks not to any family influence, but rather to the seriously addictive nature of nicotine.

When all is said and done, however, I simply don't buy it. Of course the anecdotal evidence I've gleaned in my short life wouldn't stand up to these scientific studies, but Iconsistentlyy observe character traits in people thatcorrespondd to their place in the family. Is it all in my head? Perhaps, and I guess I can handle that. In some ways even if it's completely disproved, I predict we will still hold onto the concept. In a way similar to how some of my friends insist on calling themselves "left brained" or "right brained" despite the fact that the idea that the two hemispheress of the brain play different roles in thought was disproven long before they were born, I believe we will go on applying these misconceptions to our daily lives. Things that help us order and classify people in simple ways are soooo hard to let go of.

Spatulatta: Mother's Day Sunrise Salad

2006-05-12T08:39:00.000-07:00

For the first time since we entered the much talked-up twenty-first century, I finally feel like I'm living in the home of the future. Well, at least the kitchen of the future. Remember the promises of Epcot's Future World and the Jetsons? Well, we're one step closer, and just like the Bible has always led us to believe, a little child has led us there.

Actually, two little children.

Nine-year-old Isabella Gerasole and her seven-year-old sister Olivia are the hosts of the vlog Spatulatta: Cooking 4 Kids Online. They are the first ever webcast recipients of a James Beard Award, and believe me, it is well deserved. The website is wonderfully easy to navigate (designed literally for children to use) and the recipe demonstrations done by the two girls and their "helpers" are simple, informative and incredibly easy to follow. This site has made my laptop one of the greatest tools we have in the kitchen these days. Check out their Mother's Day section.

Luckily the G. children are not picky eaters, but they're kids, so they each have their own food aversions that vary from day to day. The likelihood that they'll eat a particular meal is increased a huge amount by the simple act of participation in making the meal. Spatulatta makes things fun, so tech savvy (which makes everything taste better, don't ya know), and simple enough for the most kitchen-clueless kid to follow. And it's a great site to peruse just to get in the mood to cook. Check out their outakes--so cute!

Freakonomics

2006-05-11T09:06:00.000-07:00

I am a sucker for drawing connections between things such as birth order and personality. Often, if I'm being frustrated by someone who seems to be acting blind to those around them, I'll think (or say) something like, "Only child, I bet." And, as I spend all day with a truly adorable little clown, who just happens to be the youngest of four children, I'm acutely aware of the ways in which he seems, day after day, to be more of a glutton for attention.

Other correlations, however, also really get my blood flowing. Once, in my dorm room, I made a group of friends sit through a reading of 200 adjectives. The words were all descriptors of the 12 zodiac signs, and I instructed my subjects to mark "agree" or "disagree" when I read each word. Consistently each one of them "agreed" with the words that described their sign more than any of the 11 other signs. Is this proof that your birth month directly affects your personality or just proof that if you grow up thinking that you're an Aries and so you're "daring" and "impetuous" you might, in a dorm room under duress, agree that you are both "daring" and "impetuous"? Who knows, maybe.

Or perhaps, the solution is even more obvious and unmystical.

If it is, one day it will appear in the NY Times' Freakonomics column. Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt are self proclaimed "rogue" economists who take seemingly mystical coincidences and, both in their bestselling book and their Times pulpit, reveal amazingly simple explanations. This week they tackled "The Birth-Month Soccer Anomaly", which, honestly, I'd never heard of before this article, but is fascinating nonetheless. Apparently, a huge percentage of elite European soccer (football) are born within the first three months of the calendar year.

On recent English teams, for instance, half of the elite teenage soccer players were born in January, February or March, with the other half spread out over the remaining 9 months. In Germany, 52 elite youth players were born in the first three months of the year, with just 4 players born in the last three.

Weird, huh? Does this mean if I eventually give birth to a bouncing baby in January I should shell out the big bucks at Models, but not bother if I pop one out in November?

Apparently, no.

As an explanation the Stev/phens site the work of Anders Ericsson, "a 58-year-old psychology professor at Florida State University" who began his career in "nuclear engineering until he realized he would have more opportunity to conduct his own research if he switched to psychology". I highly recommend you read the article, it's very interesting. For the purposes of brevity I will sum up Mr. Ericsson's work this way: Remember when your mom said you can do anything you put your mind to? Now there is scientific proof that she was correct.

Next month Ericsson & his colleague will publish a 900-page book that attempts to debunk the commonly accepted idea of talent. "Or, put another way, expert performers — whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming — are nearly always made, not born. " The rogue economists are quick to point out

This is not to say that all people have equal potential. Michael Jordan, even if he hadn't spent countless hours in the gym, would still have been a better basketball player than most of us. But without those hours in the gym, he would never have become the player he was.

So what does all of this have to do with soccer players birthdays? It's so simple, it's almost funny. Youth soccer teams are organized in age brackets, and, especially in Europe, the age cut off for each bracket is December 31st.

So when a coach is assessing two players in the same age bracket, one who happened to have been born in January and the other in December, the player born in January is likely to be bigger, stronger, more mature. Guess which player the coach is more likely to pick? He may be mistaking maturity for ability, but he is making his selection nonetheless.

I love things like this. It's so obvious when you know it, so seemingly mystical when you don't.

Everything Old is New Again: Lip Syncing

2006-05-10T06:41:00.000-07:00

Some of you, I'm sure, remember my fear that teaching the G. children to sing along to Outkast might endanger my job. Well, luckily, both G. parents were kind of amused by their children's new found hip-hop sensibility (although, it's so sad that they're forced to cull this sensibility from me, a little white girl who grew up listening to musicals). It seems that my employers are not as square as I might have imagined. Mrs. G. likes there to be music playing practically at all times in the house, but she's apparently not at all concerned about what kind of music. This was such great information to discover!

Last week I was inspired by a piece on Slate.com by Sam Anderson called The Fab 4 Million: YouTube and the Neglected Art of Lip Syncing. For those of you who aren't familiar with YouTube, here is how Anderson describes it:

it's like the largest talent show in the history of the world crossed with your boring uncle's home video collection. You can see virtuoso guitarists playing TV theme songs, college guys pretending to be repulsed by ice cream, a robot dancer who might actually be a robot, and (for some reason) a girl eating an apple. There are kids' bands covering inappropriate songs, James Lipton reciting bad rap lyrics like they were Keats poems, and endless footage of George Bush's awkwardness at press conferences. If you like home video of iguanas, you have about 70 choices. The site has no organizing aesthetic or agenda. It's a kind of anti-TV-network: an incoherent, totally chaotic accretion of amateurism--pure webcam footage of the collective unconscious. It can be a little overwhelming. And its users add 35,000 videos every day.

His article went on to talk about how YouTube can be used to chart the rise of pop phenomena, such as, in this case, lip syncing.

The article points out several of the great lip syncing clips to be found on YouTube, such as

upside-down chin syncers, a guy channeling a Counting Crows song through his homemade Kermit the Frog puppet, and at least five different people re-creating, move for move, Tom Cruise's underwear sync from Risky Business.

But the penultimate lip syncers on the web today, according to Anderson, are two Chinese boys who call themselves . . . wait for it . . . Two Chinese Boys!

They've posted a handful of popular videos, each of which follows the same rubric: The boys sit side by side in a dorm room, channeling bubble-gum pop while someone works obliviously behind them at a computer. Their coordination is impeccable, especially during harmonic call-and-response, and they are unparalleled at creating the illusion of really feeling a song's high moments. They're a classic comic duo: The guy on the right is streetwise, fluent in hip-hop hand gestures and facial expressions; his partner is wistful and sensitive (he occasionally pretends to cry).

Here they are, for your viewing pleasure:

I've shown Sam & Jill these videos in hopes that they might be inspired, and it did the trick & then some. So far, with my iTunes collection and Mr. G.'s video camera, we've put down to tape Istanbul (Not Constantinople) originally a They Might be Giants song--now a G. Family EXCLUSIVE! (very EXCLUSIVE, as I won't ever be uploading it to the internet) and we're working on their version of Fall Out Boy's Grand Theft Autumn/Where is your Boy Tonight?.

Granted, their routine is not as smooth as Two Chinese Boys, but they're young, we've got plenty of time to hone their skills. I'm not sure what it is exactly, but nothing in the world, I repeat, nothing in the world is as funny as watching yourself "sing" your heart out on TV when everyone knows that's not your voice, but it looks like it is. Such a simple premise, really, and yet, so powerful.

This is gonna keep us busy for weeks!

DIY

2006-05-07T19:12:00.000-07:00

I was the recent recipient of a great DIY gift this weekend. I own an iPod Nano (in pristine white, 'cause I kick it old school) and one of my former charges gave me a cover he'd made out of an Orbit Gum Box.

I love this kind of project and apparently this one isn't so difficult to recreate. Just download the template and follow the instructions. Creative kids can probably think outside the gum box and come up with some pretty cool cases.

(None cooler than my Bubblemint Pink, though--thanks A.!)

Minding our P's & Q's

2006-05-05T10:31:00.000-07:00

Luke is talking up a storm these days, and while his most entertaining conversations are still the ones he has with himself--that kind of stream of consciousness babble that so closely mimics adult speech that you almost think he's saying something interesting and not just random syllables--he's getting much better at actually "using his words" to get what he wants.

So, of course, now that he's achieved this great milestone, what do we go and do? We change the rules on him. I feel for him, I really do. A month ago we thought it was so wonderful to have him say, in his baby lisp, "ap-a-ju" when he wants apple juice or the insistent "Ou! Ou! Ou!" when he wants to be released from the stroller. But that was a month ago, and now that he's got simple demands down pat, we've thrown in the wrench of PLEASE and THANK YOU.

This has led to some pretty silly exchanges, and since I don't frequently indulge my impulse to tell "cute Luke stories" in this forum, I don't feel bad about doing it today.

We've gotten to the point that when he runs into the kitchen yelling "zip-ee" over and over (translation=sippie cup) he will, when prompted to "Say please", say "peeze." But he will not say "zip-ee, peeze". I'm not sure where the disconnect comes in, but he frequently can only repeat the last word that I've said to him. Yesterday we sat on the floor together and had this exchange:

Luke: Zip-ee! Zip-ee
Me: Say sippie, please.
Luke: Peeze
Me: No. Say SIPPIE, please.
Luke: PEEZE
Me: No. Say SIPPIE, please.
Luke: PEEZE!!
Me: No, say both.
Luke: Boff

(For those of you concerned, that little bout of cuteness did get him the sippie cup with no further coaching.)

Today, at snack time, Luke scarffed down the cheese stick I'd given him and began to insistently chant "Drape! Drape!" (grape) This time, instead of saying (the kind of played-out) "Say please." I decided to take things up a notch. I said, "What's your magic word?" and suddenly I had this kids attention like never before. I don't know who taught him to recognize the word magic, but clearly his expression said that finding out that he, Luke, in fact has a magic word was a pretty big deal. I've never felt so disappointed in myself when, sheepishly, I had to admit to this sweet faced child, that his magic word was nothing more than that meaningless syllable we've been making him repeat over and over again for the past few weeks. Honestly, it was as if I were watching a piece of his innocence just chip off and float away.

Then he threw grapes at me.

The Rabenmutter and the Consequences of Choice

2006-05-05T05:30:00.000-07:00

The rise to power of Angela Merkel, the woman at the head of Germany's conservative Christian Democratic Party who recently ousted Gerhard SchrÃ¶der to become Germany's Chancellor, has highlighted the little discussed but very real hostility the Germans have for working mothers. Ms. Merkel is not a mother herself, but she has appointed Ursula von der Leyen, a physician and mother of seven (the whole family is pictured above in all their blonde glory), as minister for family affairs.

To her critics, many of whom belong to her own conservative Christian Democratic Party, Dr. von der Leyen is Germany's latest incarnation of the Rabenmutter--a driven creature determined to impose her own superhuman lifestyle on women who can neither deal with it nor afford it.

(Despite the fact that birders will tell you ravens are excellent mothers, the imagery of the phrase is pretty potent, I feel.)

These critics argue that German women understand the importance of motherhood and shouldn't want to leave their children for personal fulfillment outside the home. It is Dr. von der Leyen's viewpoint, however that seems to be supported by the facts. She is quoted in a recent NY Times article as having said:

The question is not whether women will work . . . They will work. The question is whether they will have kids.

And the answer German women have been giving to that question for the past few decades is a decided "NO".

[Germany] now has one of the lowest birthrates in the world. The number of children born here in 2005 was the lowest in a single year since 1945. If the trend holds, the population will decline 17 percent by 2050--hobbling the economy and an already-strained social system.

Those numbers speak to a new trend in feminism, it's not the militancy of our mothers that drives women of the twenty first century, but rather a practicality that says to the patriarchy "If choices must be made, we will make them. Just don't expect them to be the choices you'd like us to make."

Recently Anna Quindlen, in her back page column in Newsweek, eulogized the way things were in a world before there were so many choices for the women of the western world. She did so through a review of the book The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler. Of these girls who went away, Quindlen says

I knew instantly who they were: the girls who disappeared, allegedly to visit distant relatives or take summer jobs in faraway beach towns, when they were actually in homes for unwed mothers giving birth and then giving up their children. They came back with dead eyes and bad reputations . . . And they came back riddled with pain and rage and an unspeakable sense of loss.

She contrasts this with the choices that face girls who find themselves in the same situation today

A pregnant 16-year-old might . . . have the abortion. Or she might have the baby and raise it with her family's help, or give it up for adoption after handpicking the adoptive parents and drawing up a contract allowing her to visit the child from time to time. It's a whole new world, in which female sexual behavior is no longer a moral felony.

As a child of the eighties and nineties, I can hardly wrap my mind around the ways women must have lived their lives in the pre-Betty Friedan, pre-Roe v. Wade, pre-bra burning era. The overwhelming emotion seems to have been resignation. Beyond choosing a husband, what decisions did these women take responsibility for? I'm sure there were a myriad of daily responsibilities, but overall there must have been such a feeling of helplessness and anxiety.

Ok--here's the quantum leap in my argument, ready?

That's what I observe in my friends today, that overaching anxiety about a world where they have little responsibility, little choice, little role. Which friends, you ask? Those would be my male friends. Maybe it sounds like a crazy observation, maybe I just have very anxious male friends, but honestly I feel that what I once took to be character flaws in an isolated few, is actually an epidemic among the men of my age group.

Here's an anecdote, by way of example: I have a good friend who works freelance and really enjoys the freedom it allows him to have over his schedule and his life. Recently he began working on a 2 month project at a company he'd worked for when he was right out of college. At dinner last week, when I asked how things were going, he slumped his shoulders and sighed. Then he began to relate how all of his colleagues who had worked with him there before had been coming by his cubicle to tell him how glad they were that he was back and how they'd all rallied for him to get this project. "I'm afraid they are trying to get me to come back permanently," he said finally, with real paranoia in his voice. When I informed him that he was the only one in control of where he works or doesn't work he smirked and shrugged, like, "Of course I know that." But at my words the fear had dropped from his voice, and I knew that before he didn't know.

I know that is pretty much an extreme example, but it wasn't in any way an isolated incident. My male friends operate in continual states of assumed lack of free will. They don't steer their own courses through career, relationship or recreation. They are constant critics of other people's choices, but when it comes down to making their own the eyes glaze over and they're ten times more likely to go with what they feel people want them to choose rather than what they want themselves. So they end up in jobs they don't want, doing favors they wish they weren't, going on trips when they'd rather stay home, staying home when they'd rather go on trips, getting a dog they hate, staying in a relationship with a girl they've long stopped caring for, living where they wish they didn't, and not understanding why no one respects the decisions they're not making.

And how did they turn out this way? I'm not sure I have the complete answer just yet, but I really believe it comes down to the politics of choice. In my generation choice was given to the girls and the boys were left out in the cold. It was hammered into the heads of girls that they could do anything, be anything while the boys were taught idiotic phrases such as "No means No" which were meant to give them protection and moral guidance. But those phrases were predicated on lies and halftruths and I don't think it took teenage boys very long to find that out for themselves.

I know I just have to live with the generation of men I've been given, but what about the generation I'm helping to grow up? Maybe I've just frightened myself into seeing it, but I swear that I already feel a sense of angry uselessness from Sam, and he's only 8 now. It's hard to teach things like discipline and control to a child who believes his actions have no consequences.

But I refuse to believe that one of the genders must be sacrificed. There is no reason why we can't have strong women and men grow up together, right? Equality is not a goal that I'm interested in giving up anytime soon.

Urban Scavenger Hunt, Part Two

2006-05-02T09:11:00.000-07:00

Jill has a friend who lives in Brooklyn and on Friday the boys and I took her out there for a visit. While she played Luke, Drew, Sam and I explored one of my new favorite places, the Greenwood Cemetery. I don't have any creepy associations with graveyards, and this one is such a gem!

Once again I used the camera as entertainment and turned it over to the boys with instructions to go out and find their own names on the tombstones (and their "names", which was a little confusing to them, but they embraced it nonetheless). Here are our findings:

There are a great deal of weird things going on at the cemetery, and I'm definitely going to have to go and explore one day sans children. I have thing feeling that, without 3 screaming boys, it would be such a peaceful place. The views of Manhattan are gorgeous, and some of the memorials are wonderfully strange and beautiful. I highly recommend it as an excursion if you're nearby.

Oh Britney!

2006-05-02T06:32:00.000-07:00

Here is my favorite Defamer quote from last week, and possibly all time: "Having determined that it would be impractical to fire herself as mother . . . Britney Spears decided to dismiss the baby's nanny." No one likes to lose their job, sure, but I'm hoping that Ms. Spears' nanny knows how much of a blessing (not even in disguise) this is for her.

Now, of course, there is no way to know truth from fiction here, but clearly the child fell and clearly Britney, as a first time mother, was upset about it. Is there really a fractured skull involved? I highly doubt it. Kid's heads are pretty tough, I know this from incredibly personal experience. All the buzz since the incident has been about professional baby-proofers, doctors, and specialists that have been hired to consult on little Sean Preston's security, and from this buzz we've gotten some pretty hilarious (if also dubious) quotes, such as:

The doctor advised her not to leave Preston on any high surfaces where he could roll off," an insider told the ITW, which also reports that Spears was so impressed with the sage advice that she wanted to hire the doctor full time, but he told her that it wasn't necessary.

But somehow, under all of this, there is so much going on that is not funny.

So, I want to personally wish the next Spears/Federline nanny good luck. She's got to not only protect the babe from gravity but also its parents. It's a tough job. I wouldn't do it.

Urban Scavenger Hunt, Part One

2006-04-30T18:44:00.000-07:00

The theme of this past week was most definitely "DON'T put that in your mouth!"

On Thursday, while juggling Luke and the double stroller and attempting to maneuver both Jill & Drew through the turnstile of the W. 4th subway station I accidentally knocked Jill's cinnamon raisin bagel with smoked salmon cream cheese (a combination which brings to my elementary school friend Mindy Wissman, who loved the equally disgusting raisin bread with cheese Whiz, oh Mindy Wissman, I wonder where you are today & if you still have such strange tastes) onto the floor of the subway station. Jill picked it up, brushed off the little bits of paper that had stuck to it and proceeded to chow down. I think I actually screamed. Then I told her a cardinal NYC rule: if it hits the ground of the subway it must be dead to you. No exceptions.

Luke, who no longer likes to just sit passively in his stroller, has taken to walking beside me as we go about our daily errands and to the park. It's kind of cute, although it takes us 5 times as long to get anywhere. What isn't cute is his habit of picking up every little thing that he sees on the street and attempting to taste it.

So, to combat this little habit I got creative. I've taught Luke how to operate my camera and now, instead of picking up the garbage we pass, we just document it and move on. Here are a few gems from our weeks collection:

A styrofoam cup in the grass

Lottery ticket

Cigarette butt (I've got more than 20 pictures of similar butts)

A sickly pigeon

And finally, a picture that shouldn't need any explanation:

The Land of the Rising Sun

2006-04-25T07:21:00.000-07:00

People often ask me, both here in New York, and when I'm out of town, if I feel that raising kids in the city is a good idea and if it's the choice I'll make. I've developed a kind of rote answer to both questions. I usually point out that by raising your kids in the city, you (to a large extent) limit your children's exposure to the top two killers: cars and privately owned swimming pools. (The statistics are fuzzy, some sites say airway obstruction is the number two and drowning is third--but either way, both are high on the list.) But ultimately, kids are happiest when their parents are happiest, so live where you want to live.

That being said, it's better here.

Why? Today's reason is International Exposure, or more specifically, Asian markets.

Now, I know, kids all over the country (ok, kids all over certain parts of the country--I guess I can't comment on those reddest of states) are snacking on sushi and edamame at that's being sold in their local grocery stores and ballparks, and that's a great thing. But suburbia doesn't come close to the kind of Japanese snack nirvana that the Asian markets of Manhattan, in and out of Chinatown, offer.

Pocky sticks are a staple snack item in the G. household. They're a crowd pleaser, travel well, come in tons of flavors, and aren't overwhelming (meaning, I can hand some out at 5pm when the whining frequently starts and not worry too much about spoiling dinner appetites). They can, on occasion, be used as a kind of weapon, but you could say that about a lot of different snack items. Also, the Asian markets are the place to go for innovative gummy candies. You name it, they've made it into a gummy candy. Admittedly, some of the flavors aren't suited to your average American kid, but it's easy to avoid all of the "black sesame", "bean paste" and "green tea" flavored goodies.

Today's find, however, was the greatest Japanese snack food find yet, at least according to those with me when we discovered it. Yan Yan is like a deconstructed Pocky Stick--but so much better than the original because of the element of control. Basically, you get the sticks (oddly enough, they are made with cheddar cheese) and then the "cream" to dip them in. We chose the chocolate/strawberry combo. They made me think of Fun Dip (one thing I dare not ever introduce to the G. children, unless I decided I don't want this job any longer). Basically, I'm all for any snack that will also occupy the kids for a couple of minutes. We're always in need of "something to do". (Although, is it that kind of thinking that's gotten the country into an obesity epidemic? Uh-oh.)

Anyway, on the bright side, the Yan Yan ingredients list read much better than your average store bought cookie. There is no partially hydrogenated whattsit or monosodium glutate. The most suspicious ingredient on the list was "vegetable fat" which, in my mind, is avocado. The Yan Yan didn't taste like avocado, though, so I'm guessing that I'm just not up on cookie ingredient lingo. I'm not going to lose much sleep over that, though.

Joy

2006-04-24T18:21:00.000-07:00

I stole this from Dooce because it amused me and my own photoshop skills are non-existent. Also, I thought it was a pretty good lead in to a discussion of an upcoming "joy" of child rearing that is steadily heading my way: POTTY TRAINING.

Let's be honest for a moment. I don't want to potty train my own children. I'd really love to farm the whole process out to someone like this lady if I wasn't troubled by things like self respect and skepticism. Anyway, it was kind of a rude awakening when I realized that this unpleasant task will soon be completely on my shoulders for a child who I didn't have the "joy" of physically bringing into this world.

Now, don't worry, Luke and I will get through this together. I've long ago learned that no matter how messy things get everything can be washed and sanitized and, as a last resort, thrown out--so I'm not all that turned off by the physical processes involved. My problems are more with the mental and emotional steps, and more importantly, all those emotional "don't's". There are so many ways you can go wrong!

Here's my biggest hurdle: shame. You don't want the kid to be ashamed by the whole ordeal, right? You want him to know that Everyone Poops and he is just doing what comes naturally. Wonderful sentiment, I'll admit, but here is where it goes wrong: Shame happens naturally! Luke is the product of a nurturing, caring family and a loving nanny. No one has ever even implied to him that the little packages he produces are abhorrent and dirty. (I do, often, tell him that he's a stinky boy--but he loves that! Nothing makes him laugh harder. Sometimes he comes and presents his little behind to me with a questioning look & a maniacal grin. "Stinky?" he asks, and there is only one appropriate response.) But even so, he now disappears to behind the sofa every time he needs to have a BM. He gets angry with me if I come and look for him while he's doing his business. Even though a bathroom door (unfortunately) is never closed in the G.s apartment, Luke has very definitely gotten the message that his little presents to us are unwanted.

And you want the truth about this? IT'S A GOOD THING. Shame is a motivator. Yes, what you made is stinky & disgusting. Yes, it is wrong that I have to clean it up. Yes, it belongs in the potty where it can be flushed away and not thought of again. Yes, everyone poops and yes, everyone hides it.

That being said, I'm now going to backpedal a bit. I'm all for instilling a certain amount of shame over the act of defecation, but mothers of America should try their hardest not to make their poor little boys ashamed of their special little boy parts.

But, if there are any of you mothers out there who disagree with me, this product is for you: Pee-Pee Teepees.. I know that necessity is the mother of invention, and I will admit that there is a tiny, miniscule, infinitesimal need for this product. I've been hit twice by an unwanted spray in my long & venerable career (well, ok, in my career). It wasn't pleasant, I'll admit, but was it so terrible that I'm going to keep Luke's wee-wee tented at all times, sending the message that his little member is something I never want looking me in the eye because it's unpredictable, mischievous, and potentially very messy? Perhaps I'm just coddling him, but I really think that's a message much more appropriately delivered by his first girlfriend in 16 years or so.

In the Groove

2006-04-22T07:01:00.000-07:00

I have held several different kinds of jobs in my life. I've worked as a cashier, a waitress, a psychometrist, and the obligatory range of administrative assistant jobs--in addition to having worked with children since I was about thirteen. In each one of these jobs, no matter how mindnumbing they may have been, I experienced times when I was truly "in the groove". It's a wonderful feeling, like a melding of you and your job to the extent that you become seamless for a few moments or hours. As I've never worked in any field where I'm isolated from other people, the "in the groove" feeling is increased by the fact that other people feed off the feeling.

As great as ITG felt in all of those jobs above, nothing compares to being ITG as a nanny. I think it's mainly because, in those few moments (and believe me, they don't come that frequently) when everything is clicking I experience such a feeling of wholesomeness that everything in the world seems right and good.

Yesterday, after school, I took all four G. kids and two of Sam's friends out to what we call the River Park (technically Hudson River Park, or Battery Park, I think). The three boys had their mits, balls and bats and they ran out on the lawn immediately on arriving at the park. (They're all on the same little league team, and they are super serious about baseball.) Jill and I spread out the picnic blanket and took out all of the various snack items (Annie-nanny's personal rule: never leave home without food to feed at least twice the number of people you are actually responsible for) and the miscellaneous balls, wiffle bats, bubble blowers, buckets, etc. that we'd brought with us. (I would so love to show you how the stroller looks when we leave the house on trips like these. I'm sure we way exceed factory recommended weight loads.)

Jill and I threw balls to Luke & Drew while we chatted about school and her upcoming first summer of SUMMER CAMP!! (much anticipated). Luke and Drew rooted through the flower beds and I ignored the glares of Parks Dept. employees. We went and got popsicles from the ice cream truck and for a few minutes there was blessed silence as everyone dutifully sucked and licked their respective frozen treats (and once or twice their brother's).

It was heaven, it was perfect, and therefore, but the laws that govern children, there was no way it could have ended except badly.

I'd packed up everything that we'd brought, given out 10, 5, 2 and 1 minute warnings that WE ARE LEAVING THE PARK, and everyone was moving in the proper direction. It seemed like, for once in my time with the G.'s I might manage to bring the peace and goodwill of a happy park outing back into the apartment so that Mrs. G. doesn't continue to believe that I fabricate all my tales of harmony among her offspring. But of course there was a ill-timed swing of a baseball bat which struck the remains of Jill's Kimpossible popsicle (the kind with bubble gum for eyes) and splattered it across the pavement.

For a few seconds, it was as if everything moved in slow motion. Jill turned to see the ice cream mess on the ground, then swung her head around to glare at her brother who still held the bat which dripped purple ice cream. She took a deep breath in which I swear to you, she grew a few inches and her teeth got longer, and then she lunged. I thank god that the bat Sam was holding was just a wiffle bat, because I can't really blame him for defending himself against the 40 lbs. of flaming rage that was Jill at that moment. He hit her upon her head approximately 4-6 times before I was able to dump Luke roughly in the stroller (where he'd refused to go before) and grab both the bat and Jill. She screamed and struggled in my arms for what seemed like ages, but which was probably only a minute or two. This was more than enough time for Luke to realize that he was not strapped in and pitch himself head first onto the sidewalk. Sam decided that since I was comforting Jill & had de-batted him, that I was taking her side, and he burst into angry, self-righteous tears as well. David & Creed (Sam's friends), increasingly uncomfortable by this scene, tried to head on to the apartment by themselves and just narrowly escaped being hit by the same ice cream truck that I blame for this entire mess.

When we finally made it home to the calm, but (to my mind) clearly judgmental, Mrs. G. we were, as a group, tearstained, bruised and angry and I had to say the same words that I say so frequently, "We were having a wonderful time . . . until"

Harmful UV Rays vs. Harmful Social Stigma

2006-04-20T19:02:00.000-07:00

Everyday Urbanbaby sends me an email. I usually ignore them, and when I make the mistake of actually reading I frequently regret it. That was the case a few days ago when I learned about Frubis, a product UB would like me to believe is truly essential.

Now, I'm sure I could apply myself to my job a tad bit more and go that extra mile to make sure that Luke's retinas are protected from the sun's harmful rays at all times. But I have to tell you, I would keep him wrapped up in a blanket from head to foot long before I subjected him to the shame of Frubis baby sunglasses. No self respecting baby would be seen dead in them. Look at the kid in the ad! That baby is going to be pulling it's head out of a locker room toilet in 8 or 9 years, you mark my word.

The Frubis ads are a bit sensational as well:

Last year, I saw a young 6-year-old boy on a Friday afternoon that was poked in the eye by a branch while playing in the yard. When I examined him under the microscope, I was expecting to see a scratched cornea, but was disheartened to find that the branch had completely penetrated through the cornea and had severely damaged the lens, causing a white cataract to form. Frubi Shades are made with a tough polycarbonate material that offers great protection from flying objects and lenses made of glass are usually tempered and treated so as not to shatter when struck. The bottom line is that wearing good sunglasses can prevent serious injuries, so wear them!

Perhaps I should ask Mrs. G. if she'd like me to encase Luke, and the other kids while I'm at it, in a coating of stainless steel. They'll be the most indestructible kids at the park.

At the Zoo, Part Two

2006-04-19T19:10:00.000-07:00

Monkey Butts.

Why do we love them so?

Jill & Sam (and even Drew lately) prefer not to say "butt", instead they say "bootie". But however you say it, monkey posteriori are hysterical. I'm afraid that my (mental) notes are not very complete, and I don't remember the name of this particular monkey species, but they have snowy white butts that they can display fairly well from both in front and behind. Now, to an eight year old boy, that is a skill to be envied!

At the Zoo, Part One

2006-04-19T18:27:00.000-07:00

This is a Giant Elephant Shrew:

I have a great fondness for them because a year or so ago my father took me to the Zoo while I was home visiting. He was very eager to show me something, but he kept it a secret until we arrived in front of the GES habitat. Then he reavealed the GESes to me with great gusto. They stared at me. I stared at them. Then my dad told me that he believes that I will be reincarnated as a GES. He grinned, like this knowledge was a gift, something to cherish.

Jill & Sam absolutely loved this story. Although, it took a good long time to explain reincarnation and they now believe my father is some kind of warlock.

Here's what you get . . .

2006-04-19T06:25:00.000-07:00

. . . when you turn your camera over to a 4-year-old:

The pavement

The pavement seen under Drew's tummy

The (rather unorganized) closet

Hummus on my ass

Holy Week--Easter Sunday Edition

2006-04-16T04:22:00.000-07:00

So last week I went through all the machinations of trying to resolve my deep seeded Easter Bunny guilt, with really very little provocation other than a cross-denominational request for egg dyeing. (Yes, that's my SAT vocabulary sentence for the day.) And now that it's Easter Sunday and the Easter Bunny has actually visited my home (well, to be honest, he hasn't so much "visited"--it would be considerably more accurate to say that my mother begrudgingly put out a hastily put together bowl full of Jelly Bellys while muttering to herself that all her children are over 20 and she shouldn't have to do these asinine things anymore, but I digress) I really wonder what exactly I was fussing about.

I think mainly I would like to see myself as contributing to the G. children's education, including their religious education, in every way I can. Possessing a more appealing religion seems to me almost like a transgression, when viewed with that goal in mind.

This is a big deal to absolutely no one involved with these children except me, and I think the reason has much more to do with my own children than the Gs. I'm still at the point where I fancy that I'll be able to control my children's education with an iron fist. In the part of my brain that listens to reason occasionally, I know that by the time I have these mythical children, I'll be older, wiser, and much more inclined to delegate. Or at least, that's the generally accepted knowledge, right?

But what if I don't get older & wiser? What if I stay the person who wants control every detail of her children's existence? Gosh, this post was supposed to clear up my questions from a couple days ago, and now I've just brought up a bunch of new questions I have no time to answer. Oh well, the "Easter Bunny" is requesting my presence for breakfast . . .

But before I go: The "Passover Bunny" courtesy of Jack McTamney.

I will not be replaced by a robot!!

2006-04-15T11:40:00.000-07:00

Philip K. Dick, a science-fiction writer who I was not formerly familiar with, wrote a short story (published in the collection The Book of Philip K Dick, 1973) about a robotic "nanny". The story describes the "nanny" as having

been built in the shape of a sphere, a large metal sphere, flattened on the bottom. Her surface had been sprayed with a dull green enamel, which had become chipped and gouged through wear. There was not much visible in addition to the eye stalks. The treads could not be seen. On each side of the hull was the outline of a door. From these the magnetic grapples came, when they were needed.

Now, (as much as I absolutely adore the idea of grapples!) this story is way too science-fiction-ey to be believed, right?

No, wrong! (Why else would I be writing this?) According to Technovelgy.com, a website devoted to the convergence of science and fiction, "Yujin Robotics of Korea, among other companies, will be introducing nanny robots this fall".

These "robo-nannies" seem to really just be the next step in the popular TV-as-nanny device employed in many, many American homes as I write this.

One such product, the iRobi, is described as an internet-based family robot. iRobi can take and edit photos, combine nursery rhymes with robot dances, provide fairy tale-based tutoring and even accept your custom programming.

Ultimately, it doesn't sound like they're coming anywhere close to Rosie, but still--I feel like it's almost pointless to voice my problems with this. Believe me, I'll be the first one to tell you that I heart Robots--but there is a huge difference between vacuuming under the bed & keeping Jr. from sticking his fingers in the socket.