LizaWasHere

Josie Likes Robots. And We Have News!

I got Noah some incredibly cool stacking robots for his birthday. He likes them ok, but Josie LOVES them.

I wish you could hear the sounds she makes when she sees them.

The other cute verbal thing Josie has begun doing involves Noah's favorite obsession, Bakugan. The way Josie says "Bakugan" is indistinguishable, even for me, from her word for nursing. Only context helps. If she's pointing at the TV or at the actual Bakugan toys, presumably that's what she means. If she's tugging on my shirt, sobbing, or clutching my leg, presumably she's after me.

ON MONDAY SHE STARTS AT NOAH'S SCHOOL! In their wonderful, amazing, charming, delightful, educational, healthy snackful, scary grape candy free toddler program. Woot! Woot! Woot!

Here's Noah at a birthday party for 2 brothers who go to school with him. The parents bravely invited all of the children in both brothers' classes. Noah is second from the left, not enjoying the photography process.

And.

We made another offer on a house.

The house in which we live right now.

It is a duplex, and we would continue renting 1 unit, while hopefully insulating and finishing the attic so that it becomes part of the usable space of the house. (Whether that's offices, master suite, playroom, bedrooms, or what, we aren't sure yet.)

In the long run, we'd move into the upper 2 floors and rent the ground floor unit, but until the nice family upstairs insists on leaving, they can stay in their current space. (We might even try to find a way to convince them to stay longer.)

Ok, time to go meet a beautiful precious baby and potential future Smith College classmate of Josie's. And her mother.

And Then We Had Heart Attacks

Josie took a stage dive off of the changing table today.

She landed headfirst, getting a huge abrasion on her forehead, and a smaller one on her nose.

It was one of those horrible moments, where you turn and see the worst part, but you can't move fast enough to stop it.

I know better.

I shouldn't have left her on the table. I only stepped 2 feet away, to grab a pair of pants I'd set on the edge of the laundry basket. But it was far enough.

I turned my head back just in time to see her hit the floor headfirst.

That rates right up there among the worst moments in my life.

She had a few moments of shock before starting to cry inconsolably, although within about 5 minutes, she'd calmed down considerably and we were the ones freaking out. And in spite of her apparent improvement, we headed for children's hospital within 10 minutes of the fall. 

(Lucky for us, they have an urgent care situated between the parking deck and the ER. Since she was calm and happy, and the giant abrasion on her face was not swollen, I decided to go with urgent. If they recommended ER after examining her, so be it.)

Naturally all she wanted to do in the waiting room was climb on the furniture. But the wait wasn't bad, and Jill caught up with us (she waited at home with Noah for Grandma to arrive) between the nurse exam and the doctor. She got to hold Josie during the exam, ask questions, etc, for herself instead of just translated through me.

Although we're supposed to keep an eye on Josie for the next 48 hours, she seems to be doing ok. She didn't even flinch or pull away when the doctor was pushing the actual abrasions on her sweet little face. And she was walking, pulling on things, trying to climb, etc. Less chattery than usual, but it was a new place and she'd had a short nap.

Poor little booboo. 

The Incredible True Adventures of Liza's Wallet

My wallet had some wild adventures on Friday.

The day started out ordinarily. Not much past 7:30 am, the kids and I bundled into boots and coats and hats and mittens. I grabbed my keys, wallet, and Josie, and herded Noah out of the door.

Noah was not in a good mood. Indeed, he was bratty and difficult from the moment it was time to brush his teeth all the way through my returning to the car after dropping Josie at day care.

I think that's why I was distracted.

Instead of getting my wallet tucked deeply into my front jacket pocket, before buckling Noah into his car seat, I must have set it down on top of the car. Then I irritatedly buckled Noah in, and fumingly walked around the car to get in myself.

I drove off without another thought.

Josie's drop off was uneventful.

Noah's drop off was slower and more challenging, but not awful. When the weather is mild, the kids play outside for a few minutes before school -- Friday was just barely out of that range, and Noah chose to go inside. That means that parents are asked to go in with their children to help with the unbundling process. (In a very Montessori way, which means that we nag our individual children to take off their own hat, and mittens, and boots, and snowpants, and jackets, and to hang these items on their hooks. They are supposed to do these things for themselves. It takes approximately 800 years for Noah to do them, but he's not alone.)

Then I drove to my Christmas errand destination and discovered...no wallet.

I scoured the car looking for it.

I drove back to Noah's school, hoping I'd put the wallet down on the "cold lunch shelf" next to his hook.

Nope.

The school bookkeeper helped me look around the coatroom, but with no luck. 

I scoured the car again.

Then I drove back to Josie's school, to check the driveway and ask if anyone had turned it in to them.

Nope.

I scoured the car a third time.

Then I drove home. 

In my heart, I believed my wallet was in Noah's coatroom. I believed a child had pushed it under something, and that it would be uncovered after lunch when they went outside to play.

I explained this to Jill, who found the whole thing alarming. (Not that I blame her.) I insisted that I was going to wait until afternoon before calling everyone in creation to cancel everything.

Jill observed that around 8:30am, the fax line rang 3 times in a row. Like maybe someone had found my wallet and looked up our land line number, but couldn't get through because of the fax machine. We agreed we should probably buy a cheap phone for the land line, for this kind of circumstance.

Around 10 am, my phone rang.

It was a security person from the Milwaukee Public Library, asking if I'd lost my wallet.

I was stunned. I hadn't gone anywhere near a library.

No no, he explained. He didn't have my wallet. Someone had called the library, having found my wallet, which included a business card belonging to the library director. The security person was trying to track me down on behalf of whoever it was that found my wallet. But that person had only left a message with the library, so he wasn't comfortable giving me the finder's contact information.

I understand. That's good security and privacy practice, and I was impressed.

Of course, I also wanted to go find my wallet.

"Please feel free to give the person who found it this number!"

Mr. Security agreed, and then excused himself to answer a call, which he thought was from the finder of my wallet.

Moments later, my phone rang.

"Hi, this is Nick. I think I found your wallet."

Nick was driving a city street sweeper. He told me where he was, and that he would be there for about 10 more minutes. 1 minute later I was in my car, driving towards Nick and my wallet.

First, let me say that Nick refused to take any money for finding it and tracking me down.

Everything was still in my wallet. (Not that I looked until later.)

He apologized for going through it, but because the listed phone number had been a fax machine, he didn't know how else to reach me.

I said thank you approximately 50 times. And got his supervisor's name, and his last name, so that I could write a thank you letter. 

Then I asked him where he found it.

On the street. Roughly 6 blocks from my house. Just past the second turn I make when driving to Josie's day care. He thought it looked clean, like it had just been dropped. He was surprised he even noticed it, but something about it caught his eye, so he picked it up.

Merry Christmas, Nick.

Thanks for giving me a Christmas miracle.

What a Week

Let's see...

I'm now on week 6 of being mostly sick. Still trying to cough up a lung, horse antibiotics notwithstanding. And I can't hear properly, especially out of my left year.

Josie's vocabulary is beginning to explode: apple, choo-choo, milk, moo, woof-woof, baby, eye, nose, mouth, and hair/ear are new words in the last 2 weeks. Also cookie and all gone. And her hair is a mass of ultrafine curls that I want to eat up with a spoon.

I had a couple of meetings with professors at the UWM School of Information Science, who generally said, "It sounds like what you really want to do is teach. Why not just go straight into the PhD?"

So now I'm trying to figure out if that is what I want to do.

I mean, that's true. That is what I want to do.

But getting an MLIS is a much more flexible degree. I could actually be a librarian. And/or, I could then go for the PhD and become a lawyer teaching librarians about law and policy issues. Plus I could probably find a job as a librarian of some type in Milwaukee, where I want to live. Odds are not quite so strong with the PhD.

The MLIS, with thesis option, would take 33 credits. In theory, I could do that in 1.5 years; funding could slow it down to 2.5. The PhD coursework is also 33 credits, plus 4 core classes from the MLIS. The PhD requires more intensive seminars, so the coursework would probably be more like 2.5 years, then pre-dissertation essays, then dissertation. Let's call it a 4-5 year process for the PhD.

Walking through that, I've realized that I don't want to be in school for 7 or 8 more years.

If I could pound through the MLIS in 1.5 years, maybe.

Unfortunately, the very interesting prof who wants me to work for her, has a grant that doesn't allow student research assistants to get tuition remission. (Um,granting agency? WTF?) Which means I'll take home less than the cost of 2 3 credit classes per semester. And that's not counting books, parking or the bus, or anything like that.

The odds of getting funding that includes tuition remission are a lot better in the PhD program.

I dunno.

I'm working on lining up all the application materials for both, so that if it comes to it, I can make an informed choice.

And in the meantime, I continue trying to build the law practice. Check out this article I wrote for the December issue of Wisconsin Lawyer.

Lots of Excitement in These Parts

Syndicated!

First of all, a post I wrote for Deep South Moms about the Scholastic vs Lauren Myracle censorship issue was selected for syndication, and has now appeared on the news web sites of the Chicago Tribune, Raleigh News & Observer, Hartford Courant, Sacramento Bee, and oddly, Cleveland's Fox News affiliate TV station, along with approximately 15 other news websites around the US. 

Whoooo!

Although Scholastic has taken a step away from their originally reported homophobia, by agreeing to place Luv Ya Bunches in Middle School Book Fairs this spring, I'm thrilled that this piece got picked up. The inclusion in Middle School Book Fairs seems unlikely to succeed in selling the book -- I've read it, and it's about 5th graders. Kids read aspirationally -- they want to read about kids who are older than they are. I can see 3rd or 4th graders loving this book -- but not so much 7th graders.

Also, Scholastic has not yet addressed Ms. Myracle's claim that she was asked to make the lesbian parents in this book into a heterosexual couple. If this happened, what are they doing to make sure it doesn't happen again?

A Hot Topic!

Last week, I was part of a great talk organized by Wired Wisconsin. The talk, Government 2.0, was designed to help government employees and elected officials think about how they can use social media tools to connect with and better serve their constituents.

I'm scheduled to do another event with Wired Wisconsin in a couple of weeks, and a Continuing Legal Education webinar with the State Bar of Wisconsin in January. Although the webinar isn't on the State Bar calendar yet, they anticipate it being such a hot topic that they've asked if I'll repeat the session live at their annual conference in June.

And in what I know you really care about ...

My Kids Are Cute

Noah has a new favorite song. In spite of Jill's best efforts, it isn't Michael Jackson or even Weird Al. It is Queen's We Will Rock You. (And it has RHYME!)

Josie is trying to walk, both out in public and at home, and also oddly loves having things on the back of her neck. 

None of my Halloween pictures turned out. Josie was the cutest penguin ever, and I bet she'll let me put her back in the costume again. Noah was an inflatable Superman, but he didn't like the inflating fan noise, so he was a deflated inflatable Superman.

What a Month

This has been a crazy month, one of the most chaotic and exciting I can remember. In no particular order:

• Josie was sick with an evil, nasty coughing whiny illness. Home from day care for days and days. Clingy like you would not believe.
• In the middle of all that, she started taking independent steps. I don't know that you can really all it "walking" but she can definitely manage 2 steps in her intended direction before falling on her behind. And the expression on her face when she manages to stand up all by herself without holding anything? PRIDE!!!
• I had a surprise visitor -- a dear friend whom I haven't seen in roughly 10 years. Kathy is the mom of my childhood best friend, Katie, and although her visit to the midwest was too short, it was amazing to catch up, to hear how Katie spent her Major Birthday earlier this year, and just to see Kathy.
• I was interviewed by the amazing women of Blog Talk Radio's The Publishing Insiders, on the subject of the new FTC Guides for bloggers and the advertisers and companies who work with them -- specifically, we talked about book bloggers and the book publishing/marketing industry. You can listen to the podcast. I was also interviewed by the ABA Journal for a forthcoming article that I will tell you all about when it gets published.
• Jill found out she's getting a nice raise. Which is always appreciated, and in my humble and unbiased opinion, more than deserved!
• Noah and Josie were totally overwhelmed and delighted by seeing The Wiggles live -- and in great seats. Thank you, PBS Sprout! A review will be forthcoming.
• I did a speed visit to Madison to purchase a ton of children's books for our school library. It was amazing! This week, our school is holding their book fair, so I've been drowning in children's books. This makes me very happy.
• Noah and I checked out a new church, which was waaaaaay too small for us. But the people were nice, and I have to admit, I enjoyed spending a nice long Lutheran service with Noah in my lap, being sweet and affectionate. (Even if he did refuse to look at The Little Golden Book About God, because it looked like "a girl book.")
• I made delicious and super-easy beer bread. But the first try was sort of a disaster. By which I mean that burning butter lead to clouds of horrible smoke emitting from the stove leads to the fire department showing up at the house. I cut down on the butter when I tried again.

The Wiggles Are Coming to Milwaukee! Win Tickets!

UPDATED TO CLARIFY: The ticket contest is on my review blog: Things I Like. Leave a comment there for a chance to win tickets to the Milwaukee show, thanks to the nice people at PBS Sprout!

I can't explain the amazing power that The Wiggles have on toddlers and preschoolers. The closest analogy I can provide is that they are like catnip for small children. And they are coming to Milwaukee in less than 2 weeks - Sunday, October 18, at 1:30 pm at the Milwaukee Theater.

By The Numbers

7 8 9: Number of times Josie has thrown up this evening
6: Number of tops I have worn this evening
5: Number of pairs of pjs she has worn this evening (+1 original daytime outfit)
5: Number of sponge baths I've already taken this evening
4: Number of times Josie has fallen asleep this evening
3: Number of pairs of pants/pjs I have worn this evening
3: Number of rooms where Josie has thrown up this evening
2: Number of times Noah seriously acted out while this was going on
2: Number of loads of laundry generated from this cleanup process so far
1: Number of full blown baths so far, thanks to the magic of polyester fleece pjs
0: Chance that Josie will be going to day care tomorrow

Bed. Now. Before she wakes up again.

What a Fun Weekend

We had a fantastic weekend. The only things that would have made it better are if Jill's job had not required 10 hours of overtime last week, and if our young friend Alex had not gotten sick.

On Friday, Noah and Josie spent the night at Grandma & Grandpa's. Much pizza was eaten, many balls were played with, giggling and chattering abounded, and there were only an average number of 3 year old meltdowns.

And with all that freedom, did we have date night?

No. See frustrated job requirements above.

But I went out with friends who were visiting from out of town, and many of our friends who were here. I ate Ethiopian, shouted over the buzz at a loud bar, and generally had a kid-unfriendly time. While Jill worked.

When I picked up the kids on Saturday morning, I thought they were going to refuse to leave. They have Grandma & Grandpa wrapped around their little fingers.

Then we went to "the gear museum" with our good friends Dave & Liz, and their son Alex, and Patrick, and his kids Sam & Maggie.

Noah would live at the gear museum if he could, bathing with the small manta rays or maybe in the how-water-gets-clean exhibit, eating nothing but cheetos and pink juice from the snack store, and sleeping in the ship berth beds. Apparently he isn't alone, since we ran into 2 of his friends from school. I hope the other kids liked it too.

After some quiet time at home, Noah and I went to the hotel where our friends were staying, in the hope of going swimming with Alex. Unfortunately, after we all got down to the pool, Alex had a sick boy meltdown. We swam anyway, with Alex's daddy, then returned to see if Alex was feeling better. Judging from the bouncing and cheezit consumption, the answer was yes. Unfortunately, by the end of dinner, that was no longer true.

Once Noah was asleep -- in record time -- and Josie settled down, I went back out to meet up with another out of town friend. We determined that I had not actually seen Todd & Francis since their wedding, 13 years ago! It was fun catching up with them, reminiscing with Todd about our crazy high school adventures, and realizing how lucky we were and are.

On Sunday, we hit the playground with a re-recovered Alex and his parents and grandparents. Noah bossed everyone around and played "baseball" with Jill, Alex, and Dave, which Alex tolerated with awesome good humor. (We all were especially amused when Noah declared that he wanted Mr. Dave on his team. Um, buddy, your This Mommy went to college on a softball scholarship, while Mr. Dave and I were on the chess team. You sure about that?)

Alex has quite a batting arm! He hit the ball more often than not, even requiring the adult fielders to do some work to retrieve it! (Noah was a little bit of a poor sport over Alex's finesse. Hopefully he'll grow out of it.)

Josie joined the baseball players not too long after she figured out the rules.

The rules of baseball, according to Josie, are:

• Each person positions themselves in the dirt, 8-12 feet apart.
• Occasionally someone throws the ball, and other people hurry toward it.
• In between ball throwing times, you can pivot on your butt in the dirt, and also grab handfuls of it to toss in the air.
• If you are really lucky, you can stick some dirt or small rocks in your mouth before you get caught.
• Hide your friends' wallets/id so they can't get back on an airplane and go to Boston, so they have to stay here and hang out with us more and more. Oh wait, that wasn't Josie's rule. That's mine.

Needless to say, it was bath night and an early evening at our house.

Josie started at her new day care today. It was a little hectic at the beginning of the day -- I think she'll be going on the later side of the morning whenever possible.

Imaginary Brothers, One, and Ending with a Bang

On Friday, or maybe it was Saturday, Noah informed Jill that he has a brother named Rowan. Rowan is exactly the same age as Noah, and they share a birthday in March. (Not when Noah's birthday is, but who's counting?) Rowan also likes to play racecars, drink orange juice, and eat hot dogs.

So far Rowan has been a pretty well behaved imaginary brother and I am a fan. Because Jill spends way more time than I do watching shows about people who inadvertently move into haunted houses and are driven out by their deceased former residents -- who terrorize their children and mess with their electricity -- she is a little more skeptical about Rowan.

Rowan doesn't seem to be around much when Josie wants to play with Noah, which is probably good. Josie LLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVVVVVVVEEEEEESSSSSSSS her big brother. Her first word in the morning, as soon as she's fully awake, is usually "Noah?" Accompanied by pointing to his room. And the moment she hears him, she drops whatever she was doing and turns toward the sound of his voice. Or his racecars. She wants to play with what he's playing with, poke him, play "talking" games with him, and generally interact with him in every way she can imagine.

I love her age right now. Josie is so communicative, smiley, funny, and playful that I want to die from the cuteness dozens of times per day. If she isn't trying to get someone to make noises back and forth with her, then she's bringing a toy to me so we can hide it and find it and hide it and find it and hide it and find it, or poking my face or body until I play "Josie, where's your foot/hand/head/belly?" with her. And if we're in the car or I am across the table, how about a rousing game of Peek A Boo?

This will probably be my only post this week. My temp gig wraps up this week with a big trial, starting tomorrow. I'm working through the trial and winding up the rest of the work I've been doing on Friday.

As of Monday, I will be a full time entrepreneur.

I'm scared, but mostly I'm incredibly excited! And I'll tell you all about it next week.