on chivalry

So, I had an interesting experience today that made me stop and think.

This morning after my class, I went down to the study lounge for an hour to work on a lab that is due tomorrow. I sat down at a table with a couple of other people who are in my class since it was apparent that we were all working on the same problem. In a couple of minutes two other guys in the class had also sat down at the table. They're friendly guys and they know their geology, but there was also swearing and one guy even belched. No, I didn't say anything, because I hate asking people I don't know very well not to swear.

Then I had to meet with a guy who was helping me to filter my water samples. I had never met him before, and I was surprised to find that he's the sort of guy who casually swears a couple of times per sentence. Anything possible was described using a swear word. This might be surprising, but he probably swears more than anyone I've ever met (although some people I knew in high school probably swear a lot more now than they used to).

Well, at one point I went upstairs alone to the Geochemistry lab to get something, and the postdoc who is, I guess, my advisor was in there and asked how things were going with the filtering. We chatted for a second and then he followed me out. As we got to the door he stopped, and then said, "Oh," as if he'd forgotten something, and then opened the door for me. The interesting thing was that for two hours I had been around loud swearing boys who weren't at all sensitive to the fact that I was a girl, so when he did that simple gesture it was kind of a shock. And then I realized how much of a difference it makes when men try to be sensitive to women.

I'm not really one to care if men hold the door open for me. I hear the stories of women who sit haughtily in the car until their date/son/husband realizes their mistake and opens the door for her, and I don't admire those women. I think it's very unkind to make men feel awkward like that. I know that Ryan has a lot on his mind, and I don't want to hurt his feelings by making a fuss if he forgets to open the door for me. I'm a big girl--I can open a door for myself. (By the way, my dad always opens the car door for my mom. Even when we were little and they had to get us out of car seats, he would walk all the way around and let her out before getting anyone else out of the car. That is also great. It's just different.)

But this was a reminder to me that it is still important to teach our sons to be sensitive to women. I think in our culture lately there has been this feeling that women need to be independent and that they want to be the same as men, but we need to realize that it does make a difference when men make an effort to be sensitive and thoughtful to women. (It's also true that women need to be sensitive and thoughtful towards men, but that is perhaps a different post.)

Something to keep in mind.

vultures on the lightning tree

A local law firm had their firm meeting outside of our apartment. We took pictures. This was after three of them had left.

Every time I look out our window and see this tree, I think of Catching Fire and the lightning tree in the arena.

Trunk or Treat party

So, we had a good time at the ward party. The kids napped late and it took a while to get them in their costumes, and then there was traffic because last night was the UNC vs. NCSU game, so we ended up getting to the ward party an hour late. We had just about enough time to eat a little bit and then go trunk or treating.

I decided to rebel and bring bean dip and tortilla chips. Since we were late, most people probably didn't even know it was there, but I got a few compliments, and one guy said, "You brought this? Oh, bless you." Check out the awesome spiders made of olives that I put on top:

Ryan took Kevin trunk or treating and Heidi and I passed out candy. Kevin didn't really get the concept until the very end. At one of the last cars he saw one of his friends and he walked right up and said, "Trick or treat, Edward!" He's so smart, but sometimes he can be so oblivious.

Here are the kids in their costumes: Kevin the mad scientist (accessories: old computer hard drive and an electrical cord) with Heidi the pink lab mouse

Ryan said that even though parents and dentists and doctors freak out about kids having all that Halloween candy, there's something magical for kids about eating their Halloween candy. He's right. So I'm trying to let Kevin enjoy the magic. Heidi got to eat some Starbursts and thought they were great.

Our ward party is tomorrow evening. So far the kids don't have any costumes, although the plan is theoretically simple to execute. I figured Kevin could be a mad scientist again, and Heidi will be the lab mouse. The mad scientist costume is spiked hair and a white Sunday shirt that doesn't fit Ryan, and the mouse costume is pink footed sleepers and mouse ears (that I somehow need to figure out how to make).

It looks like it's going to rain tomorrow night, which is good, because it means I don't have to feel bad that I'm not going to decorate the trunk. The closest I've ever come to decorating the trunk is draping a sheet across the floor of the trunk and dumping fake leaves (scavenged from a recent Relief Society activity) all over. Antifreeze got all over the sheet.

And if I'm ever in charge of organizing a ward Halloween Party, we're going to eat something besides chili and cornbread. There are all sorts of fun things you can make with a Halloween theme that taste better than chili, and I would love to have a chance to make them.

I guess I'm a party pooper.

Never get too attached to anything when you have kids, because they will probably break it.

Today Kevin ripped the door off of the cabinet attached to his chest of drawers. He showed me triumphantly when I walked into his room.

Lovely.

Did I mention that at the pediatrician's office the other day all the doctors and nurses were commenting about how sweet-natured he is?

Anyway, I forgot to mention it to RT before I left for my evening class. So when I got home I remembered and told him.

His response: "Really? Because Kevin told me that you did it. Now who do you think I'm going to believe--the mother, or the three-year-old?"

transit of Venus

Last June Venus passed between us and the Sun.You obviously don't want to look at the Sun to see a planet crossing it, but Ryan got out his binoculars and projected the image onto a brick wall so we could see it.

getting water samples

I am doing a project this semester with one of my former teachers. I am collecting water samples from a bog near the coast, and then I will be separating the Strontium out of the water. Then I will get to use a mass spectrometer to separate the different isotopes of Strontium from each other so I can figure out how much of each isotope there is. The Strontium signature in the water will give us an idea of what rocks the water has been interacting with, because the ratio of the isotopes tells the age of those rocks. Young rocks would mean it's just been interacting with seawater, which is what we would expect, but old rocks would mean that somehow the water in this area has been mixing with water coming from older rocks (like the ones farther west, where I live).

So we made a couple of trips out to the area to get my water samples. I was hoping to get two more from some lakes, but it got dark. I'm not sure if we'll bother to drive out again.

It was an interesting adventure and we had a good time. Beforehand I had to plan out where we would stop. I had to use Google Maps to find places where rivers, lakes, and creeks would be accessible. Ryan and the kids came along, which was fun. Ryan was a big help with finding all the places. It involved a lot of gravel/sand forest roads because most of the area is part of the Croatan National Forest. I'm guessing almost all of the people who use the roads are there to go hunting or fishing.

Here are a bunch of pictures:

Some interesting conglomerate rocks by the lakes near the White Oak River:



White Oak River at Haywood Landing:

There were some forest fires in this area a little over a year ago, and we could see the damage in several places. Here is a video of a burned area on the way to Great Lake:
http://youtu.be/HpWAwP1eki8





These are from our second trip:

Brice Creek:

Some of the places we stopped at were kind of gross (littered with trash and beer cans), and some had beautiful views. Brice Creek was one of the beautiful ones. It was part of a big and well-maintained city park (think big soccer field, three playgrounds, picnic areas, and lovely creek at the very end). The White Oak River at Haywood Landing was a nice one too.

 Neuse River at Flanner's Beach:

There were thousands of dead fish washed up on the beach here. I'm sure you can imagine the awful smell.

That strip of stuff parallel to the water in the picture below is all dead fish.

After the Neuse River we were going to find Catfish Lake. There was a sign that showed the road we were supposed to take and said we would reach the lake in 6 miles. But the map was not that great, and there was no sign to indicate that we were supposed to turn right onto this little road, so we drove right past our turn and ended up driving so far that we reached a paved road again, so we went back. I did get a sample from a creek along the way, though (it's my filthiest sample, even filthier than my Neuse River sample that has fish skin and bones in it). Then Ryan figured out where we were and we decided to try the unlabeled road, and that went along Catfish Lake, so I was able to get Catfish Lake too. There was a lovely sunset where we stopped:

Both times we stopped at Chick Fil A for dinner. Kevin wasn't especially interested in it the first time (until we traded his CD in for an ice cream cone--he did enjoy that), so I was a little surprised that on the way home he was asking to go there again. The second time he actually ate his entire dinner. Apparently he really enjoyed himself, because when we told him we were going to go look for more rivers he was pretty excited and kept talking about it.

I drove the whole time for our second trip. I didn't know I was capable of driving all day. That meant that Ryan got to be in charge of passing snacks to the kids.

It was a fun trip. Ryan and I got to talk a lot and it was fun to see other places in NC. The contrast in buildings was quite interesting. You could see rusty shacks, mansions by private lakes, well-maintained businesses, and not-so-well-maintained businesses all within close proximity to each other.

a post about Heidi

We often marvel at some of the ways the kids are different. If we tell Kevin to go put his shoes on, he doesn't even acknowledge that we've said anything, but Heidi will go get his shoes for him. When Kevin is playing Starfall letter games, he only seems to be interested in it because he can click things and see what happens (the draw of the technology). Heidi, on the other hand, is already trying to copy the sounds (puh puh puh, uh uh uh, mmmmm, etc.).

Heidi is fifteen and a half months old. She weighs 20 pounds according to the bathroom scale.

Heidi has learned a few new words:

• She says hi and bye if she's playing with a phone.
• She copies us if we make animal sounds--mainly "Woof woof!" and the elephant sound. She also tries to copy the way we growl, but usually it sounds more like she's clearing her throat.
• Mine!
• thank you
• shoe
• yuck/yucky
• dropped it
• bike
• ball
• She signs more and please sometimes, but usually she prefers to point and screech until she gets the right thing. A lot of the time she will sign more (which she does by pointing at her palm) and say "Ma" to ask for a drink.
• I did it!

Overall she's very pleasant and happy. Unfortunately she's also decided that it's fun to run away from me at the playground so she can lick doors or go in the parking lot, and she thinks it's fun to get us to tell her no. I suspect that she would be a much easier child if she didn't have such a mischievous older brother to copy.

One afternoon she woke up from her nap in hysterics. We finally resorted to using children's pain reliever, and she calmed down pretty quickly. But ten minutes later she was in hysterics again and I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I offered her all different kinds of food and it just made her more angry. I tried force feeding her frozen peas, thinking maybe it was teething. I tried ignoring her. And finally I took her out of her chair and went to carry her into the kitchen, when I remembered that when she got upset she was trying to climb into Kevin's chair, which he had pushed over by the counter to help Ryan with dinner. So I tried putting her on there. Lo and behold, all she wanted was to stand in Kevin's chair, by the counter, and eat crackers while watching dinner being cooked. Sometimes the things she wants are so specific and simple it's hard to figure them out, and the resulting drama is so odd when we're used to Kevin's kind of drama.

Heidi is also quite a climber. She lives to get on the table so she can look at me over the counter (and get to the un-disposed-of remains of meals).

A favorite game of hers these days is to chest-butt Ryan's knee when he's sitting on the couch, and then bounce off and giggle. In Ryan's words, "It's like being hit by a soft brick."

We're at an interesting phase with her hair. She lost all her hair on the front half of her head when she was tiny, which means that the back half is thicker and about an inch and a half longer than the front half. I can do a little ponytail to the side and put a bow in it, if she'll let me, but that's about it. I really only get around to fixing her hair on Sundays, if that. It's just that odd uneven stage where it's all sorts of different lengths and it looks a little scraggly. If she were a boy I would just get out the clippers, but since she's a girl I'll probably wait until it's longer and then get it all evened out.

She still likes to nurse every couple of days. I'm not sure how much longer she'll be interested, but I think we're getting close to the end. It's a little sad, but at the same time it's kind of a relief because I'm getting a little tired of it.

Stuffed animals are Heidi's favorite things to play with. If she's sad she will not be consoled until she has one to hug. When she gets up from her nap she tries to gather her two stuffed dogs, the duck, and a blanket into her arms and bring them all out of her bed. She likes to drape the blanket over her head and walk around with it like that.

Whenever she hears music playing she starts to wave her hands like she's directing the music.

a post about Kevin

Frequently used phrases:

• "Oh, by the way . . . " (He will tell long stories and start every single sentence with this phrase.)
• "So, here's an idea . . . "
• "Not cool!"
• He's trying to figure out time words, so he's experimenting with using them in sentences. I'm not sure he understands what they all mean, because sometimes he'll say something like, "I want to have a cookie . . . next week?" So he's learning how to use now, later, tomorrow, yesterday, and just a minute. He's also trying to figure out how to use somebody and something.
• Anything that seems desirable is now described as pretty. "How about we read this book? This one is pretty." "Let's play with my digger. It's pretty." "No, I want to wear this shirt [size 12 months]! It has a car on it. It's pretty."
• "What the! I JUST vacuumed!"

Cute things he has said:

• While the Sacrament was being handed to the deacons during sacrament meeting, he turned to me and whispered, "Is that the sucker-minute?"

What he's up to these days:

• Going to Kindermusik. He's having a good time and opens up a little more at each class. The first time he sucked his thumb and didn't really participate except to smile, but now he's running around more. It's kind of a different experience for him, and it seems like it is taking him out of his comfort zone, which is a good thing. He always likes to help put away the instruments and scarves and such after an activity. And he's starting to sing the songs sometimes at home. He loves listening to the CDs. It's fun to have an activity that I do with just him. Heidi stays home with Dad and takes her morning nap.
• Loving to sing Where is Thumbkin. I never know how Kevin will respond if I sing action songs to him. Sometimes he loves it, and sometimes he gets mad at me. But this is one he loves. He likes trying to lift the fingers individually. Last Sunday we went to a neighbor's house for a waffle breakfast and he triumphantly walked in showing how he can lift his pinky without lifting the other fingers.
• Taking his digger to dig in the sand at the playground every time we go out.
• Jumping off the table. He will count to five or six and then just stand there, and then finally after a while he gets the courage to jump off.
• Learning to use a computer. Kevin is learning how to use a computer mouse and he knows how to get to the youtube video of The Widow's Mite that the church recently put out. There's a button on the keyboard that Ryan has configured to go to scriptures.lds.org, and the video has been embedded on the website, so Kevin knows to push the button, then click the video to watch it. When it starts he always turns and says, "Look! It's Jesus God!" Sometimes he manages to get on youtube from there and watches all sorts of Mormon Messages, but he also knows how to just make it replay. His favorites are "swinging," "the wind" and "toaster." He also likes to play the free letter games on starfall.com and type "emails" on Microsoft Word. He's even getting pretty proficient at using the mouse on my laptop, which can be kind of tricky.
• Playing pretend with his toy animals. Most of the time it involves them eating or chasing each other, but sometimes they stand and chat.
• Calling me Marcelaine.
• Talking on his imaginary phone. It seems to be a flip phone, and he leaves it all over the place, so we have to help him find it if he wants to take it with him when we go somewhere. Usually it's a matter of him asking where his phone is, and we just have to pretend to pick it up off of the piano or table or something and hand it to him. It's fun to see him pretending to talk to people on his phone.
• Kevin has figured out that there is a gap in the piano where he can push things through. Worse, he knows how to open the panel on the bottom of the piano and get them out again. I've found toy screwdrivers and Heidi's toothbrush and pieces of paper in there. So if you're wondering what Kevin has taken apart lately, it's my piano. And opening the piano or poking things into it are now both automatic grounds for time out.

Videos (I hope somebody appreciates them, because you wouldn't believe all the issues I've had getting them to upload on Ryan's aging computer!)

http://youtu.be/mY_8YlEVsvw



http://youtu.be/ANO370hGtOc (Watch this one--it is so sweet.)



http://youtu.be/nkMFk-yYNn8

how I do laundry

Laundry is probably my favorite household chore. It's not my favorite thing to do in the world, but I don't mind it as much as other household jobs. Washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen are probably my least favorite. I don't really like touching dirty, soapy water. Ryan actually does a lot of the dish-washing around here.

I was just thinking that as time goes on it would be interesting to look back and remember how I did laundry when I only had two kids and I lived in a small apartment. So I'm going to write some things about how laundry goes right now so that someday I will have a record of it to read.

One of the interesting things about being the mom/wife has been realizing that what works for my mom doesn't always work for me, and that if I prefer to do things differently, it doesn't mean I'm doing it wrong (or that my mom is doing it wrong). This has applied to laundry. My mom washed everyone's clothes together and sorted them into darks, pastels, whites, and sometimes reds and greens if there were enough of those to wash separately. It works for her, and that's great. I tried to do that at first, but after Kevin and Heidi came around I realized I didn't like having so many people's clothes mixed together when I was folding the clothes. I also felt like it was silly to sort out everyone's clothes together by color when I was just going to be sorting them out later by person. So now here's how we sort out clothes: Ryan's clothes and my clothes are washed together, separated into colors and whites. Sometimes towels and jeans go in their own load if there are a lot of clothes. Sheets get their own load. Then Kevin and Heidi's clothes are washed in one big load, regardless of color. If we get some new clothes that I think will probably bleed their colors, I sort out the clothes by color for a few laundry batches. I've never had a problem with colors bleeding. Towels, washcloths, and bibs are usually washed with the kids' clothes, but sometimes they go with our colored clothes if needed, or they get their own load. As our family grows I will probably continue to do laundry by bedroom instead of washing everyone's clothes together. I like that all the clothes in a load go to the same room so that I'm not taking things all over the house with each load of clothes.

The diapers get washed every 2-3 days. We have 36 large prefolds, 24 infant prefolds, and a lot of covers. We also have about 50 cloth wipes that I made out of flannel (two 8 x 8 layers zigzag stitched together). I do a prewash cycle first, and then a regular cycle with detergent. We have metal wall shelving above the washer and dryer, and we hang the wet bags and the covers up there to dry. The diapers and wipes go in the dryer. No fabric softener. Before Heidi was born, we did medium loads, but now that we have two in diapers, we're doing super loads. I should note that for us, cloth diapers really aren't much more work than disposable because our dumpster is quite a ways away from our apartment building. I'm not joking when I say it probably takes an hour to take the garbage out if I bring the kids with me. I'd much rather dump some stuff in the washer every couple of days than be taking the diapers to the garbage all the time.

On socks. My mom likes socks pinned together. She learned the trick from my Grandma, who had ten children. I used to like it too. But then one day I realized that I would rather sort out socks than hunt down safety pins. (My mom would rather hunt down safety pins than sort socks.) Now I use mesh bags for socks. There is one mesh bag for Kevin and Heidi's socks, and one for my socks. This keeps everyone's socks separate from each other and they're less likely to get eaten by the sock monster at some point in the laundry cycle. Ryan's socks are all the same, except for two pairs of Sunday socks, and he doesn't care about mixing old ones with new ones, so I've never bothered with telling him to sort his socks in any way. He just gets his pile of socks, which he keeps in a pile in his drawer. The one problem with my method is that sometimes the mesh bags tend to disappear or be buried in a pile of clean laundry if I've gotten behind, and then everyone's socks just get tossed in the hamper and get all mixed up. If I can't find a match to a sock I always return it to its drawer anyway, figuring that eventually (usually the next time I do laundry) its one true love will find its way home. We'll see how well I like this method if I have six kids (right now two is plenty). But so far it's working well for me.

I don't think this is as much of a problem in the West, but here in the East it is a lot more humid, which means washcloths don't just dry on the counter if you lay them flat. The result is mildew, and the grey stains never, ever come out. I've found that the best way to avoid mildew is to hang wet things so that air flows on both sides of them. I have a metal basket in the laundry closet where I put washcloths and towels, and whenever I put washcloths in there I always hang them on the side first until they are dry. If they all just sit in a pile, they never dry and they grow mildew really quickly.

I like Shout stain remover. I used to use Resolve Spray n Wash because it was a little cheaper, but then I did laundry at my grandma's house and realized that Shout doesn't stink like Spray n Wash does, and then I was converted. We go through a lot of Shout in our house.

I always cut my dryer sheets in half all at once when I open a box. Half of a dryer sheet is enough. When we got married Ryan said that his mom always did that, and I figured it couldn't hurt and started doing it too. Not that dryer sheets are an especially significant draw on our bank account, because I think we've gone through maybe four boxes since we got married. So I guess maybe we've saved $4 on dryer sheets by cutting them in half. Yippee.

We have a very basic washer and dryer, but I've been very happy with them. I don't know if I'll ever go for anything fancier. The washer is a top loader. I know there are advantages to having a front loader, but I think the main disadvantage is that front loaders grow mold more easily, and that is a deal-breaker for me.

Ryan and I probably do about the same amount of laundry. If it piles up (which happens a lot) we sometimes have clothes-folding parties and watch a movie after the kids are in bed. I think the fact that I can watch a movie while folding clothes might be one of the reasons laundry is my favorite chore. Laundry also isn't a huge deal for us because it doesn't take that long to stick a load in the washer or transfer it to the dryer. Main floor laundry is one of my top five priorities in any place we live because having it on the main floor makes it so you can just do a step in the laundry process as you're passing by. I don't fancy the idea of hauling baskets up and down stairs. I also would love to have more of a laundry room. Right now we have a closet in a hallway, which makes things kind of a tight fit--but I'm not complaining. My great-grandparents were washing things on washboards with their hands.