I love Halloween!

Check out the staff pictures on Heather's work site. Just for today, so hurry!

And here are Heather's and Amy's scary costumes.

NaBloPoMo

Cool idea. I think I can manage one kid picture a day for the month of November.

Mixed bag

This weekend was fairly extreme. We had a blast at the NMAI's Día de los Muertos festivities. Here's Liam chilling in his skater skelly shirt.


And I coaxed Thea to reluctantly pose in front of a very cool altar.



Then later we went to Rock n Romp, which is always a blast. Even better, it was the Halloween show. Thea and Lila were both dragons.


I got Thea a cute poodle costume that she isn't wild about. She has explained to me, patiently, that although she does like it, she doesn't like it for her. (That's a quote.) So we let Emma borrow it.


Insanely cute, right? I keep having to remind myself, Thea's costume isn't about me. Liam's, however, is.


Not that he got a lot out of the show.

Dashiell is dressed as Dash from the Incredibles. Clever! Rosie was a very pretty princess of some sort, I think. That seemed to be the theme of the night, princesses and dragons.


Thea really liked the show. She was a bit overwhelmed at first, as always, but after a while mellowed out and bobbed along to the music while sipping her drink. She's totally my girl.


Lastly, it isn't my story to tell, but this scared the hell out of Rosie.


Yesterday was awesome; today, though, was the worst. Todd woke up in excruciating pain around 12:30am. An hour later, when Todd started throwing up and looking like he was going to pass out, we called Don, my new best friend, to come over and stay at the house while I took Todd to the emergency room.

Here's a tip: know the route to the nearest emergency room before there's an emergency. I got lost on the way, and Todd, writhing in agony, sweating, throwing up every few minutes, nonetheless had to hold it together enough to get us back on track. Totally not cool.

The diagnosis is kidney stones and a bad infection. The up side: hillbilly heroin and Cipro!

Not to be all "poor me" when Todd is seriously suffering, but being a single parent on two hours of sleep SUCKS.

While I look for my camera ...

Here's a photo of us when Liam was about two weeks old. I was rocking him and singing to him in the kitchen when Thea came in. She stared at us for a second, then turned around and ran out. I was afraid she was jealous or something. But she was just going to get one of her baby dolls to rock and sing to, too. She's just under two here.



Here's another:


I look extremely post-surgical-partum, but Thea is adorable. And you can see our old kitchen floor. Good riddance!

"Stanley Kubrick, one of the greatest directors of all time (although not quite as good as Michael Curtiz)"

Best. Screen test. Ever. Oh the hubris, oh the humanity....



Okay, after this, I swear, it'll be back to being all about the kids. Especially since it's Halloween weekend!

Face blindness

Did you catch the article on Wired.com on face blindness? ("They can see your eyes, your nose, your mouth – and still not recognize your face. Now scientists say people with prosopagnosia may help unlock some of the deepest mysteries of the brain.") Fascinating stuff.

The researchers have a website, Faceblind.org, that describes their research and offers two face recognition tests, one on celebrities, one on normal faces. On both, people normally get about 85% correct.

On the celebrity recognition test, I got 97% correct, missing only Tony Blair's face (and I thought it was him but wasn't sure; I do love pop culture). On the normal faces, I got only 74% right. According to the test, "If you scored less than 75% on this test, this may indicate face recognition difficulties."

Maybe it explains why there are certain people who remain big beige blobs to me, no matter how many times I'm introduced to them or how often I see them at parties. I seriously cannot recognize them out of context. While I'm sure eventually I'll recognize them, it's still very odd.

But in combination with the celebrity thing? Hilarious!

Well, it's a victory-ISH

I think it boils down to "separate but equal," basically. Here's a statement from the Garden State Equality e-mail list that sums it up. I love the Scarlett O'Hara-esque statement I bolded. Hell yeah!

**********

STATEMENT ON TODAY'S RULING

from Steven Goldstein, chair of Garden State Equality

Those who would view today's Supreme Court ruling as a victory for same-sex couples are dead wrong. So help us God, New Jersey's LGBTI community and our millions of straight allies will settle for nothing less than 100% marriage equality. Let decision makers from Morristown to Moorestown, from Maplewood to Maple Shade, recognize that fundamental fact right now.

So today, without missing a beat, Garden State Equality announces that Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo, the Assembly Speaker Pro Tem, joined by Assemblyman Brian Stack and Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, will introduce marriage-equality legislation. Thousands of us will now hit the streets, the phones and the hallways to get this legislation passed.

As the late Lt. Laurel Hester and too many other cases across New Jersey have shown, half-steps short of marriage -- like New Jersey's domestic-partnership law and also civil union laws -- don't work in the real world. Hospitals and other employers have told domestic-partnered couples across New Jersey: We don't care what the domestic partnership law says. You're not married.

That's why it wouldn't matter if the legislature added all the rights in the world to the current law without calling it marriage. Marriage is the only currency of commitment the real world universally understands and accepts.

We're not seeking marriage merely for some moral, ethereal victory. We're seeking marriage because New Jersey has proven that marriage is the only way a gay civil rights law will ever work in the real world.

New Jersey's marriage equality victory!

Right on! I'm happily shocked and shaking. Apparently it's not an unequivocal victory, but it's a victory nonetheless.

October 25, 2006, 3:15 pm

New Jersey’s Gay Marriage Ruling

By The Empire Zone

Same-sex couples must be afforded the same rights and benefits enjoyed by opposite-sex couples, under the New Jersey State Constitution, the State Supreme Court ruled today in a long-awaited decision. It gave the State Legislature 180 days to amend the state’s marriage statutes to include same-sex couples or allow civil unions.

Living room at the bottom of a pool

I'm painting (currently, as in, I should really get back to it) the living room to better go with our new dining room. I love the color; it's very bottom-of-the-pool.

Just a smidge autistic

My score was 24. Huh.



What's your score?

The Motherhood Manifesto

While I'm waiting for the server to come back up on a Very Important Deadline Day (!!), here's something that's been running around the hamster wheel of my brain lately....

I heard about The Motherhood Manifesto when it came out in May and thought I should read it then, but was too mired in the real-life issues it talks about to give any attention. I had just come back from maternity leave and was having a tough time at work. I ended up leaving my job after being chastised by my boss when I had to leave a nonessential, informal meeting that dragged on past my usual quitting time. My boss, also a woman, said that I should have stayed, even if it meant picking up my kids from daycare late (which becomes a logistical nightmare), and then pointed out that other parents in the office were able to handle the juggle better than I was. I thought was an odd thing to say to me given that the other parents in the office had stay-at-home partners or nannies.
I thought a lot about the criticism, wondering if it was warranted, but concluded that my major offense was in giving the appearance that my kids came before my work, or maybe even just any acknowledgement that I had kids. I know that if I had stayed there, I would have felt pressured to choose between employment and my kids. As it was, I was left with the sense that I wasn't doing right by anyone -- my family, myself, or my job.

Side note: It all worked out great. I got the job I applied for the night my boss was such a freak. It pays more, is 10-minutes from my house, has a shorter work-week and relatively mellow atmosphere, and has a daycare and gym on-site. And I *love* my co-workers. Win-win!

I've also been thinking about feminism, motherhood, and the "maternal wall." It's incomplete to say that gender inequity keeps women out of the board rooms. It's more like, breeder women are at a serious disadvantage; with sleep deprivation and the attendant lack of focus and competency, inflexible schedules, and restructured priorities that come with baby-making, forget about competing with peers. It's a struggle to even keep up.
Anyway, here are some random stats that I find interesting from an interview with one of the writers of The Motherhood Manifesto:

• Women with children make about 73 cents to a man’s dollar, single mothers make an average of 56 to 66 cents to a man’s dollar, and women without children make about 90 cents to a man’s dollar.
• With equal resumés, equal job experience, and equal education, women with children were 44 percent less likely to be hired than women without children.
  
• And they were offered an $11,000 lower starting salary on average.
• A study in The New York Times a couple of years ago that used Census data and found that a parental couple comprised of two men are the most likely to have a stay-at-home parent. Second most likely: male and female. And the least likely is two women. You can just look at it right there and say: Economics. Men don’t face a wage gap, and don’t take a fatherhood penalty. In fact, on average, men’s wages go up when they have children.

Interesting, though, I'm not entirely sure about the last point, that men don't face a fatherhood penalty. Maybe that was true a generation ago, when father's weren't as involved with their kids as they tend to be these days. A friend of mine formed his career before kids and has a great job and a lot of responsibility, but he's definitely getting some kid-related flack.

This is blowing my mind

Not that I'm surprised about the power of Photoshop. But damn!

Go here now. And here.

Wow.

Liam is 11 months old today

We celebrated by going to our favorite diner for french toast and Greek food with Sue and Lila. Liam saw Sue talking on her phone and immitated her with his lizard.


"Hello? Hello? I can't hear you. My connection is terrible."

Ruth Barnet's style is a little like Leonora Carrington's

The observant Heather pointed out that Ruth Barnet's style is a little like that of Leonora Carrington, surrealist painter and author of one of my all-time favorite books ever, The Hearing Trumpet.

Things we love

Yesterday we went to the Sugarloaf Craft Festival in Gaithersburg. We only saw about half of the 450 exhibitions there, but there was some pretty great work mixed in with the usual mediocrity. I bought a miniature painting by Ruth Barnet that I think is awesome. She teared up selling it to me. I teared up buying it.


(This photo doesn't do it justice. The colors are really bright, and it's, of course, not blurry.)

On Saturday our book group met for Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants, which we all liked a lot, and had Akio's grilled chicken wings, burgers, and rumaki, which we all loved (especially me; it's like an addiction, I canNOT get enough of Akio's grilled meats). Thea played Alanna's tiny piano.



And Liam has a new favorite toy. It helps him walk, but on our slippery new floors (bamboo in the new dining room, not yet finished) he really runs. He has so much fun with it that Thea sometimes steals it from him to see what all the fuss is about.



Todd, sadly, isn't loving much of anything these days because of a terrible, lingering cold that is bordering on consumption. But he has high hopes for the Sudafed I brought home yesterday.

Our new kitchen floor

Marmoleum rocks! Getting it put in could have been a better experience, just because it was done the morning after a sleep-over with Lila and we were also watching Emma for breakfast while Heather B. had a landscaping job. The workers, billowing plastic over the doorway to the kitchen, and loud noises kind of freaked the girls out. We coped by all putting our hands over our ears and screaming real loud while the saw was on. ("Today's secret word is: BZZZZZZZZ-EEEEEEEE!!") Thank god I didn't have a hangover.

Thursday night at Ikea

Happy National Coming Out Day!

(I always thought she was saying "I'm coming OUT so you better get this party started.")

The arrow of time

This is very cool. Maybe 10/10 would be a good day to start our own, since hindsight is 20/20 and this is sort of looking at the past from the future. Er, or something.

"The arrow of time, 30 years"
by Diego Goldberg

"Thirty years ago, before we could even imagine all the things that were going to happen, Susy's mother asked me to shoot a portrait of both Susy and Diego to put in her bedroom. A year later, on the same day, we decided to do it again, that is how the Arrow of Time got started."

Marmoleum floor

Todd says the workers are at the house now putting down the new floor. We're getting bamboo in the new dining room, and blue marmoleum tile in the kitchen. (See picture at left.) We wanted an eco-friendly flooring that wouldn't be too hard or too brittle -- it's inevitable that I'll drop a cast iron skillet on the floor -- and Jeff suggested it. He's our house renovations project manager. Is that the right title? He's a friend of Nick's who basically handles all scheduling, hiring, materials gathering, and oversight. He rocks.

We ordered the tile from a catalogue, sight unseen, and it's kind of weird. Marmoleum is made of linseed oil, rosins, and wood flour, so basically it's paper. And it really feels like paper tiles. But it's apparently so environmentally friendly that we don't really care. Plus, it's got to be better than the carpet that's in the kitchen now.



Who puts carpet in a kitchen? When I spilled a bottle of salad dressing on the floor and was complaining to Alanna that it would never come up, she pointed out that I could steam-clean it. In my world, though, that's the same as never.

New shoes

Sue and I went out yesterday, leaving the kids behind for a day unencumbered by tiny people. We didn't do that much, just walked around Dupont, went shoe shopping, got a hot donut at Krispy Kreme, and had a mediocre Indian dinner. But it was incredibly nice. So, so, amazingly, incredibly nice.

Anyway, I learned something interesting about myself: I love patent leather with an depth of feeling that is a little embarrassing.

Are patent leather clogs as ridiculous as I think they are, and why does this make me drool?

Pony ride!!

This was a dream come true for Thea. She rode four times.

Blurry Saturday night

While Todd goes out to dinner with friends, Liam feasts on paper.

Inked

What is it with Thea coloring her arms all the time? Is this because of our tattoos? Jeez.

The Nietzsche Family Circus

Found through Nina's blog: The Nietzsche Family Circus pairs a randomized Family Circus cartoon with a randomized Friedrich Nietzsche quote. The last one is my favorite.

Music for one apartment and six drummers

Infectious (like that rash on my arm):



I think at the end this is saying that drummers are like destructive toddlers.

Everything's fine

Liam's ear tube surgery went off without a hitch. We had to be at the hospital at 5:45 am, so our wonderful friends Sue and Don took Thea for a sleepover. It went really well. The only time Thea said she missed me was when she was going to bed, and Sue was pretty sure it was a stalling tactic.


Thea and Sue (who is making Liam laugh)

As for me, I managed to hold it together pretty well, in large part because of the immense kindness of DDM, who talked me through what the anesthesia experience would be like. (Knowledge is power, yo.) The only time I lost it was when the very nice nurse asked me, sympathetically and supportively, how I was holding up.

If I were a normal person with normal emotional responses, I'm sure I would have smiled bravely and said something like, "Great, thanks." Nope, instead of being a rock for my kid, I burst into tears and I think freaked Liam out a little, who looked rather worried as he patted my stomach through the bars of the gurney. Thanks a lot, Nice Nurse Lady.


Liam in his wee hospital gown

So now we'll start sleeping through the night, right?

Bummer

Liam has his surgery tomorrow, and the news on CNN is seriously depressing. Let's focus on this instead:



I love Cute Overload.

Liam stares into the light

Liam in my favorite space pjs
Originally uploaded by kellygo.

This is a picture from the other night. Liam is wearing his cute space jammies and shaking a bottle of pills. I look haggard and have various effluvia on my shirt.

Me and Thea

Me and Thea
Originally uploaded by kellygo.

You can see Liam in his stroller, Todd sitting next to me, and my arm holding my phone in the reflection of my shades.

Two more teeth

Two more teeth
Originally uploaded by kellygo.

It's impossible to see, I know, but they're there, his two front teeth.

Liam's ear infection kept him up most of the night again and he's been a little cranky today, poor little guy. His cranky is still incredibly mellow and good natured, though. He's such an awesome kid!

Mellow Sunday

Mellow Sunday
Originally uploaded by kellygo.

Hanging out in the yard.

Velvet and Velveeta

Velvet and Velveeta
Originally uploaded by kellygo.

Here Thea's pretending to be Velvet, from National Velvet, her and Todd's favorite movie. I asked her the name of her horse, and I swear she said "Velveeta." My daughter is SO COOL.