Sent from my iPhone
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Cleaning house with baby
Montessori says to let children be involved in the cleaning-up process. Mine prefers to dump the trash can onto a freshly mopped floor, and to dip her fingers into the mop bucket and lick them. #montessorifail
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Baby signs and early communication
Before Heidi was born, we had grandiose plans for her education and our role in it as Awesome Parents. We were going to read all the baby sign language books! We were going to learn all the signs! We were the super awesomest ever. Of course, it hasn't exactly happened that way. Baby signs never really ended up on the top of our priority list once she was born. We enthusiastically signed at her for a couple of months after she was born, on the expert advice that babies begin learning communication from Day 1, and met with zero indications of understanding. Our baby would not be a signing protegy by the age of two and a half months, so sign language went on the back burner. We'd bring them out occasionally, find no response, and forget about them again.
This summer (8-10 months old) she has begun to blossom into her own personality. She clearly wants what she wants, and began to become frustrated with us for not reading her mind. Out came the signs again.
I am officially a much bigger believer in windows of opportunity than I used to be. We have been signing "more" (which we also use for "hungry")
and "drink"
and "all done"
for somewhere between two weeks and a month. As of three days ago, SHE SIGNS BACK! "All done" is more of hands opening and closing than wrists turning, but it's clear what she means, which is the whole point anyway.
And we are officially on a quest for more signs. If she can tell us when she's hungry, thirsty or done, why not when she's sleepy or bored or wants to pet the dog? Some interesting resources that we will definitely be checking out:
Baby Sign Language Academy
babysignlanguage.com
signingbaby.com
Ryan (before she was born): But why baby signs? Why not just become fluent in regular ASL and sign everything around her?
^ proof that the SuperAwesomestEver syndrome comes from him, not from me. Why bother doing ANYTHING if you're not going to do it ten times more enthusiastically than EVERYBODY ELSE?
This summer (8-10 months old) she has begun to blossom into her own personality. She clearly wants what she wants, and began to become frustrated with us for not reading her mind. Out came the signs again.
I am officially a much bigger believer in windows of opportunity than I used to be. We have been signing "more" (which we also use for "hungry")
and "drink"
and "all done"
for somewhere between two weeks and a month. As of three days ago, SHE SIGNS BACK! "All done" is more of hands opening and closing than wrists turning, but it's clear what she means, which is the whole point anyway.
And we are officially on a quest for more signs. If she can tell us when she's hungry, thirsty or done, why not when she's sleepy or bored or wants to pet the dog? Some interesting resources that we will definitely be checking out:
Baby Sign Language Academy
babysignlanguage.com
signingbaby.com
Ryan (before she was born): But why baby signs? Why not just become fluent in regular ASL and sign everything around her?
^ proof that the SuperAwesomestEver syndrome comes from him, not from me. Why bother doing ANYTHING if you're not going to do it ten times more enthusiastically than EVERYBODY ELSE?
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
End of a (Facebook) Era
So Facebook's online security sucks, in case anybody reading this recently crawled out of the primordial ooze under their favorite cozy rock and didn't already know. I'm kind of amazed at what I have thus far been willing to put up with in the name of Having Internet Friends, including whining to my husband until he fixed my computer over and over again when it crashed from the rampant viruses. (I thought buying an antivirus would, you know, protect against viruses, but Ryan informs me that hackers are sophisticated SOBs that actually deliberately find loopholes and margins in antivirus programs, and find devious and sneaky ways to still infect your computer. JERKS.) But then somebody honest to goodness hacked my account. I received an email notification that someone had logged in from somewhere where I definitely do not live, and that they recommended that I change my password.
CHANGE MY PASSWORD?? Their internet security sucks so much that someone who doesn't even know me was able to access my account, and they think changing my password will make me feel all safe and bubbly again? How about fixing their encryption and hiring an antihacker team to protect their customers' privacy with all that money they're making from selling our information to every marketing company on the PLANET?
But I have absolutely zero confidence that anything of that sort is in the works for Facebook, which is notorious for hoarding information under fuzzy small type about who actually owns it and changing its terms of use and privacy settings with no courtesy notification so that suddenly they have the right to publish your list of favorite songs and most commonly discussed topics all over the internet with no consent from you, and when you take them to task for it, they say, "No, no, we don't! your security is important to us! See? You can go to your security settings and opt out of it at any time!"
FED. UP.
And here's the thing: it's not even that I care about the information I chose to share on the internet being available on the internet. I have a blog, for goodness sake. (Ryan: And now Big Brother knows that you have a baby and that you're pregnant again! Me: HELLO? Social Security Administration? SoonerCare? THEY ALREADY DID.) But if I chose not to share information with the world (such as my personal email, which I had to give Facebook to have an account, and which they decided to put on my public profile in defiance of my privacy settings just by conveniently changing their interface), or if I wished to use the internet to communicate semi-privately with someone and didn't wish to suddenly have all my conversations plastered on my friends' homepages where they wouldn't even need to go to the trouble of stalking me to find them, Facebook said, SCREW YOU, WE WILL DECIDE WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR INFORMATION. And by the way, you can't even close out your account, because we will keep all your information and continue to use it however we see fit, and if you ever have a momentary relapse, you'll find it all there safe and sound, ready to suck you back into the vortex of social networking obsession. We will make it as hard as humanly possible for you to delete your account, but we'll pretend on our sign-up page that it's easy by conveniently calling it "deactivation" instead of "deletion."
Muahahahaha, Mark Zuckerberg chuckles over his steepled fingers.
By the way, Steven Mansour claims that there are exactly 2504 steps to closing your Facebook account. After working all day to close mine, I think he may have forgotten one or two. And all Ryan and I accomplished was deleting my photos, friends, pages, groups, and two months of status updates. Gah.
In case anybody didn't realize the severity of this situation, let me clarify that I have to hand-delete FIVE YEARS of status updates one by one, curser on the x and click. Repeat. Ad infinitum.
To compare, all I have to do to delete every Blogger post I've ever written is to click the "delete blog" button.
Which brings me to my solution to the problem: Google-based social networking, because Google lets me retain ownership of my information, and if I decide that they don't deserve access to it anymore, they let me delete it. So they use it in the meantime to put ads on my sidebar. Meh. If that's the cost of a free service, I really don't care. I just want the right to decide what I share, and to be able to change my mind later and be assured that it's gone.
I'm kind of in mourning for my Facebook account. I have five years of my life there. I have (had) an extensive network of friends and acquaintances, most of whom I occasionally stalked, but some of whom I actually really enjoyed conversations with. Not all those people are on Google+, and most of those on Google+ aren't talking very much yet. Living in the middle of nowhere, Facebook was a very important source of social interaction for me. But my security is more important. All I can do now is try to convert people to Google+ so that I can have updates to obsessively check again.
Please, Google, don't get too greedy for your own good. Google+ and Blogger have my current loyalty because of your security policy. I will delete all my information from Facebook if it takes me a month, and if you go the way of Zuckerberg, don't think I won't do it to you too.
CHANGE MY PASSWORD?? Their internet security sucks so much that someone who doesn't even know me was able to access my account, and they think changing my password will make me feel all safe and bubbly again? How about fixing their encryption and hiring an antihacker team to protect their customers' privacy with all that money they're making from selling our information to every marketing company on the PLANET?
But I have absolutely zero confidence that anything of that sort is in the works for Facebook, which is notorious for hoarding information under fuzzy small type about who actually owns it and changing its terms of use and privacy settings with no courtesy notification so that suddenly they have the right to publish your list of favorite songs and most commonly discussed topics all over the internet with no consent from you, and when you take them to task for it, they say, "No, no, we don't! your security is important to us! See? You can go to your security settings and opt out of it at any time!"
FED. UP.
And here's the thing: it's not even that I care about the information I chose to share on the internet being available on the internet. I have a blog, for goodness sake. (Ryan: And now Big Brother knows that you have a baby and that you're pregnant again! Me: HELLO? Social Security Administration? SoonerCare? THEY ALREADY DID.) But if I chose not to share information with the world (such as my personal email, which I had to give Facebook to have an account, and which they decided to put on my public profile in defiance of my privacy settings just by conveniently changing their interface), or if I wished to use the internet to communicate semi-privately with someone and didn't wish to suddenly have all my conversations plastered on my friends' homepages where they wouldn't even need to go to the trouble of stalking me to find them, Facebook said, SCREW YOU, WE WILL DECIDE WHAT TO DO WITH YOUR INFORMATION. And by the way, you can't even close out your account, because we will keep all your information and continue to use it however we see fit, and if you ever have a momentary relapse, you'll find it all there safe and sound, ready to suck you back into the vortex of social networking obsession. We will make it as hard as humanly possible for you to delete your account, but we'll pretend on our sign-up page that it's easy by conveniently calling it "deactivation" instead of "deletion."
Muahahahaha, Mark Zuckerberg chuckles over his steepled fingers.
By the way, Steven Mansour claims that there are exactly 2504 steps to closing your Facebook account. After working all day to close mine, I think he may have forgotten one or two. And all Ryan and I accomplished was deleting my photos, friends, pages, groups, and two months of status updates. Gah.
In case anybody didn't realize the severity of this situation, let me clarify that I have to hand-delete FIVE YEARS of status updates one by one, curser on the x and click. Repeat. Ad infinitum.
To compare, all I have to do to delete every Blogger post I've ever written is to click the "delete blog" button.
Which brings me to my solution to the problem: Google-based social networking, because Google lets me retain ownership of my information, and if I decide that they don't deserve access to it anymore, they let me delete it. So they use it in the meantime to put ads on my sidebar. Meh. If that's the cost of a free service, I really don't care. I just want the right to decide what I share, and to be able to change my mind later and be assured that it's gone.
I'm kind of in mourning for my Facebook account. I have five years of my life there. I have (had) an extensive network of friends and acquaintances, most of whom I occasionally stalked, but some of whom I actually really enjoyed conversations with. Not all those people are on Google+, and most of those on Google+ aren't talking very much yet. Living in the middle of nowhere, Facebook was a very important source of social interaction for me. But my security is more important. All I can do now is try to convert people to Google+ so that I can have updates to obsessively check again.
Please, Google, don't get too greedy for your own good. Google+ and Blogger have my current loyalty because of your security policy. I will delete all my information from Facebook if it takes me a month, and if you go the way of Zuckerberg, don't think I won't do it to you too.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Language Acquisition
Tonight, much to her daddy's delight, Heidi demonstrated her ability to follow directions. She fetched a toy halfway across the living room before she was distracted by a shoe. (I didn't specify that her attention span was particularly long.) Daddy reminded her about it, though, and this time she brought it straight to him. Later, he instructed her, bizarrely, to put her finger into the filtered-water spigot so that she could feel the water spray around it. And she did, several times. Far be it from me to squelch learning, of course, but Daddy was wise to volunteer to clean up the mess himself anyway.
It was an evening of much language-acquisition elation. Which led to this conversation:
Him: I told her I wanted the red toy! And she went and brought it to me! And handed it to me when I asked for it! And stuck her finger in the spigot when I told her to, without me even showing her how!
Me: Well, they say babies understand words a lot sooner than they start to say them.
Him: I know! It's awesome!
Me: So we should probably start watching out for those four-letter words...
Him: Yeah...
Because there are some forms of language that just aren't acceptable in preschool, guys.
This has been your daily lesson in parenting. Tune in next time for more tips on how to be better parents than we are.
It was an evening of much language-acquisition elation. Which led to this conversation:
Him: I told her I wanted the red toy! And she went and brought it to me! And handed it to me when I asked for it! And stuck her finger in the spigot when I told her to, without me even showing her how!
Me: Well, they say babies understand words a lot sooner than they start to say them.
Him: I know! It's awesome!
Me: So we should probably start watching out for those four-letter words...
Him: Yeah...
Because there are some forms of language that just aren't acceptable in preschool, guys.
This has been your daily lesson in parenting. Tune in next time for more tips on how to be better parents than we are.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Lemon ginger BLTs!
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Reverse SAD
You know, I'm used to hearing about Washingtonites and Oregonians getting depressed because of the weather. How lucky I am, I've always heard, to live in a place where the sunny climate would perpetually engender positive emotions.
Ha.
One reaches a point in 100 degree weather when the sunlight just fails to revitalize. It begins sapping energy, moisture, happiness and the will to live. When it finally began to rain on Tuesday, the realization that I had clothes on the line could in no way detract from my joy in the long-awaited nourishment. In fact, since then I have been putting clothes on the line on purpose in hopes that they will be rained on.
Three days so far. Three blissful days of overcast, drizzly, cool weather. I can walk outside without feeling the need to recover afterwards. The fallen leaves from the drought now soaked with rain give the illusion of fall. It's not fall yet, but while the weather lasts I can pretend. I hope it lasts till December.
Sent from my iPhone
Thursday, July 28, 2011
What Happens When You Don't Have Private Health Insurance
I opened up my blogger thinking, "I should post about what we did this weekend!"
"What DID we do this weekend?"
"Wait. It's Thursday?"
"So it's almost the weekend?"
My life apparently revolves around these brief and blessed breaks from getting up at 5:30 am to send the husband off to work.
So since we actually did nothing last weekend except going into town, which is an Event for us nowadays, I'll write about What Happens When You Don't Have Private Health Insurance.
I've been pregnant twice before. I lost the first baby at 10 weeks pregnant; the second baby is the one you see all the pictures of. For both previous pregnancies, I did not have health insurance, and had to go to Hastings, the free Indian hospital.
Except I'm white. The Indian hospital only cares about me when I'm pregnant, because Ryan's Native American. And won't see me unless I have a doctor's note that I'm pregnant. (Walmart pregnancy tests don't count; I asked.)
So here's the vicious circle: I can't get healthcare because I can't prove I'm pregnant. I can't go to the doctor to get the magical proof of pregnancy because I have no insurance. I'm going to Hastings BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE INSURANCE. They won't see me because I can't prove I'm pregnant.
(Or get on SoonerCare so you can go to a private hospital, which is what I plan on doing this time. They still want a proof of pregnancy to give you pregnancy insurance, though.)
The solution? Pay cash for a fancy Ob/Gyn pregnancy test; get the rest of the prenatal care free. It costs $17.50.
But this pregnancy? I got to the window, told them I need a pregnancy test and I'd be paying cash, and instead of smilingly handing me the clipboard, the two ladies at the window looked at each other uncertainly and one said, "ummmm, do you have SoonerCare?"
"No, that's why I need the pregnancy test, so I can get on SoonerCare, or go to Hastings, or something."
"Welllllllll, if you're paying in cash, it'll be $55, but if you apply for the SoonerCare Family Planning plan, you're automatically pre-approved online, and it'll be free."
"WHAT??? It was $17.50 the last two times I did this!!"
"Yes, but we're not allowed to do a sliding scale with our charges anymore, and we're now required to charge you a $37.50 office visit fee too."
thankyouhealthcarereformIHATEYOUitsallyourfaultistilldonthaveprenatalcare
And the SoonerCare online application doesn't work. So I can't go take a pregnancy test. So I can't get the health insurance I'm supposedly entitled to, as a pregnant mom under a certain income level. I can't even go to the Indian hospital where they treat Native Americans (not me, of course, but the baby) for free. If I got strep and needed to get antibiotics or my baby might die, I would just be stuck. Or beg my pharmacist father in law for smuggled antibiotics. Or something. Because I don't have $55 to spend on peeing in a cup so someone can dip the exact same litmus strip in it that I bought at Walmart for $4 and tell me what I've known for thirteen weeks.
You read that right. Our new wonderful healthcare reform is requiring my local Ob/Gyn to charge $55 for an uninsured woman to get a proof of pregnancy so that she can get insurance. It's requiring the health department to charge $45, they said at the clinic. What used to cost a price that made me take a luxury or two off the next grocery list now costs enough to make me take all our produce and dairy off the next grocery list.
It was kind of Oklahoma to begin offering the family planning insurance, which covers pregnancy tests. It would sure be nice if they'd get their website working, so that I could get approved for the family planning insurance, so I could get proof that I'm pregnant, so I could get full insurance, so I could, you know, go in and finally hear my baby's heart beat and be reassured that he/she is growing enough. Or I could drive *back* in to town by myself during the day, which is a burden when you live in the middle of NOWHERE and which we usually do after work or on weekends together, fill out the papers at DHS and wait two or three weeks or however long it takes them to get around to it just to be allowed to go pee in the cup.
Because *this* is what our healthcare reform is really doing for everybody who doesn't work at a job that provides health insurance: SCREWS US OVER. Yeah, I love you and your assumption that everybody worth anything works for Corporate America too. Man, I can't wait until I have to pay a *fee* for not being able to afford your crappy insurance. And whatever's available from the government for those who can't afford it is probably going to be very similar to Hastings: traumatic to a degree that I would almost rather give birth in a parking lot next time.
So whose brilliant idea *was* it to outlaw a sliding scale for cash customers, so that those who came in with money instead of Blue Cross/Blue Shield cards would no longer be able to afford to be seen? Or to put so many burdens on the insurance companies that they had to raise their premiums to levels that regular people can't afford anymore? I mean, the system sucked before, but it sucks way worse now.
Wow, that was supposed to be a funny story and totally turned into a political rant. I guess I need to go put my grumpy pregnant butt in a hot bath with a fantasy novel.
*NB: Full Disclosure: When Ryan heard my horrified gasp of "FIFTY FIVE DOLLARS?" he said, "whatever, just do it." I was the one who decided, not that we didn't have the money, but that we needed it for other things more. We're not destitute. If you were getting ready to take up a collection for our poor impoverished family, we'll still take it, though.*
"What DID we do this weekend?"
"Wait. It's Thursday?"
"So it's almost the weekend?"
My life apparently revolves around these brief and blessed breaks from getting up at 5:30 am to send the husband off to work.
So since we actually did nothing last weekend except going into town, which is an Event for us nowadays, I'll write about What Happens When You Don't Have Private Health Insurance.
I've been pregnant twice before. I lost the first baby at 10 weeks pregnant; the second baby is the one you see all the pictures of. For both previous pregnancies, I did not have health insurance, and had to go to Hastings, the free Indian hospital.
Except I'm white. The Indian hospital only cares about me when I'm pregnant, because Ryan's Native American. And won't see me unless I have a doctor's note that I'm pregnant. (Walmart pregnancy tests don't count; I asked.)
So here's the vicious circle: I can't get healthcare because I can't prove I'm pregnant. I can't go to the doctor to get the magical proof of pregnancy because I have no insurance. I'm going to Hastings BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE INSURANCE. They won't see me because I can't prove I'm pregnant.
(Or get on SoonerCare so you can go to a private hospital, which is what I plan on doing this time. They still want a proof of pregnancy to give you pregnancy insurance, though.)
The solution? Pay cash for a fancy Ob/Gyn pregnancy test; get the rest of the prenatal care free. It costs $17.50.
But this pregnancy? I got to the window, told them I need a pregnancy test and I'd be paying cash, and instead of smilingly handing me the clipboard, the two ladies at the window looked at each other uncertainly and one said, "ummmm, do you have SoonerCare?"
"No, that's why I need the pregnancy test, so I can get on SoonerCare, or go to Hastings, or something."
"Welllllllll, if you're paying in cash, it'll be $55, but if you apply for the SoonerCare Family Planning plan, you're automatically pre-approved online, and it'll be free."
"WHAT??? It was $17.50 the last two times I did this!!"
"Yes, but we're not allowed to do a sliding scale with our charges anymore, and we're now required to charge you a $37.50 office visit fee too."
thankyouhealthcarereformIHATEYOUitsallyourfaultistilldonthaveprenatalcare
And the SoonerCare online application doesn't work. So I can't go take a pregnancy test. So I can't get the health insurance I'm supposedly entitled to, as a pregnant mom under a certain income level. I can't even go to the Indian hospital where they treat Native Americans (not me, of course, but the baby) for free. If I got strep and needed to get antibiotics or my baby might die, I would just be stuck. Or beg my pharmacist father in law for smuggled antibiotics. Or something. Because I don't have $55 to spend on peeing in a cup so someone can dip the exact same litmus strip in it that I bought at Walmart for $4 and tell me what I've known for thirteen weeks.
You read that right. Our new wonderful healthcare reform is requiring my local Ob/Gyn to charge $55 for an uninsured woman to get a proof of pregnancy so that she can get insurance. It's requiring the health department to charge $45, they said at the clinic. What used to cost a price that made me take a luxury or two off the next grocery list now costs enough to make me take all our produce and dairy off the next grocery list.
It was kind of Oklahoma to begin offering the family planning insurance, which covers pregnancy tests. It would sure be nice if they'd get their website working, so that I could get approved for the family planning insurance, so I could get proof that I'm pregnant, so I could get full insurance, so I could, you know, go in and finally hear my baby's heart beat and be reassured that he/she is growing enough. Or I could drive *back* in to town by myself during the day, which is a burden when you live in the middle of NOWHERE and which we usually do after work or on weekends together, fill out the papers at DHS and wait two or three weeks or however long it takes them to get around to it just to be allowed to go pee in the cup.
Because *this* is what our healthcare reform is really doing for everybody who doesn't work at a job that provides health insurance: SCREWS US OVER. Yeah, I love you and your assumption that everybody worth anything works for Corporate America too. Man, I can't wait until I have to pay a *fee* for not being able to afford your crappy insurance. And whatever's available from the government for those who can't afford it is probably going to be very similar to Hastings: traumatic to a degree that I would almost rather give birth in a parking lot next time.
So whose brilliant idea *was* it to outlaw a sliding scale for cash customers, so that those who came in with money instead of Blue Cross/Blue Shield cards would no longer be able to afford to be seen? Or to put so many burdens on the insurance companies that they had to raise their premiums to levels that regular people can't afford anymore? I mean, the system sucked before, but it sucks way worse now.
Wow, that was supposed to be a funny story and totally turned into a political rant. I guess I need to go put my grumpy pregnant butt in a hot bath with a fantasy novel.
*NB: Full Disclosure: When Ryan heard my horrified gasp of "FIFTY FIVE DOLLARS?" he said, "whatever, just do it." I was the one who decided, not that we didn't have the money, but that we needed it for other things more. We're not destitute. If you were getting ready to take up a collection for our poor impoverished family, we'll still take it, though.*
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