it’s not about you

Despite her hard-won reputation as an astute businesswoman, Ms. Bartz found herself repeatedly skipped over during a recent meeting of business and political leaders in Washington. The reason was that the men at the table assumed that she was an office assistant, not a fellow executive. “Happens all of the time,” Ms. Bartz says dryly, recalling the incident. “Sometimes I stand up. Sometimes I just ignore it.”

Her plans had to be put on hold, however, when she discovered during her first week on the job that she had breast cancer. After undergoing a mastectomy, Ms. Bartz ignored her doctor’s recommendation that she recuperate for six weeks. She did not want to appear fragile or weakened, and she returned to work after four weeks. (Asked about questions tossed her way that a male C.E.O. would never receive, Ms. Bartz said that during a news conference shortly after she disclosed her cancer, a reporter asked, “Which breast?”)

OH MY GOD.

via the New York Times.

Parents of young girls (or boys):

This should scare the shit out of you. I know it did it to me.

A few quotes:

For generations, parents have been wailing “they’re growing up so fast,” while, according to many academics and psychologists, the smallest among us are being exposed to more and more adult themes at younger ages. The effect is impossible to quantify, but in the progression from Barbie to Bratz and beyond, much can be learned about how society has blurred the lines between children and adults, and sexuality and gender roles.

Handler’s great insight was to see that from the way girls played with paper dolls, there was a market for a doll that looked more like a grown-up, one who was pretty and fashionable. Barbie’s original target audience was 9- to 12-year-olds.

Today, the idea of 12-year-olds playing with Barbie dolls seems ridiculous. The “tween” market has exploded in recent years — to the point where designer Marc Jacobs is taking 12-year-old actress Dakota Fanning as the face of his spring 2007 clothing line. Chuck Scothon, president of Mattel’s Barbie division, emphasizes the multiple incarnations of the brand — “I always say, there’s a Barbie girl for every age” — but says that “Barbie toy strength is cornerstone for ages 3 to 7.”

“It programs them to do stuff they can’t understand and we don’t want them to understand — being sexy. They learn the appearance of sexy before they know what it means (bold mine).”

A 2000 study commissioned by the Girl Scouts of America called “Teens Before Their Time” concluded that “Physically, girls’ bodies are maturing earlier than ever before. Cognitively, they are acquiring information about the world at an accelerated pace. … The dilemma is that these same girls do not have the emotional maturity, nor do they have the information, to match their accelerated aspirations and expectations.”

Extreme gender divisions, she said, can hurt future relationships. “When you’re taught that what females are supposed to be are objects, you’re taught that happiness comes from being the right object, buying the right object, not from deeper, more internal, more meaning-making things,” Levin says, noting that doll play is where girls internalize that message. Levin worries that when it comes time for romantic relationships, both genders will have narrow expectations of each other.

Okay, so there are more quotables from the article and I have many thoughts on this, but will probably flesh that out in the comments section, so please comment. I know that saying so means nobody comments, but hey. This post has been marinating for too long and it’s time to get it up here. Or perhaps I’ll add an update edit to the post.

I wonder where Polly Pockets fall in that line… Not real sure, but I will guarantee you Judah will not be getting any Bratz dolls. I know what you’re thinking - famous last words. People thought we’d give up on the cloth diapers and electronic toys too, but we haven’t.

Judah has an imaginary friend. Her name is Honey. This morning Judah and Honey came up to me and Judah and I had the following conversation:

Judah: “Mom, she (pointing to Honey) wants to axe you something.”

Me: “Ask. She wants to ASK me something.”

“AKS. She wants to axe..”

“No, ASK. ASSSKK.”

“Akss. Axe. She wants to akks you…”

No, no. ASSSKK. ASSSS-Kuh.”

“Akkss…”

“ASK.”

“Mommy, she wants to tell you something.”

And the skeptics say it isn’t possible.

In an evolutionary twist, Flora the Komodo dragon has managed to become pregnant all on her own without any male help. She is carrying seven baby Komodo dragons.

“We were blown away when we realized what she’d done,” said Kevin Buley, a reptile expert at Flora’s home at the Chester Zoo in this town in northern England. “But we certainly won’t be naming any of the hatchlings Jesus.”

The boy kept me up almost all night last night. He nursed constantly and leaked through his diapers three times - enough to change his clothes, THREE TIMES. By this morning, the wet spot on the bed had me pushed over (to) The Edge.

He apparently wants to sleep curled up somewhere in my chest cavity, if his burrowing into my body in his sleep is any indication.

The next person who asks me “is he sleeping through the night yet?” might be on the receiving end of one of the phrases I said I was going to stop saying around Judah. What do you care? For crying out loud - even his pediatrician doesn’t ask me that! Stop trying to make yourself feel superior by comparing our children to each other. He’ll sleep through the night when he’s developmentally ready according to his needs and on his timetable. He’s not your child-rearing-book monkey. *&^%$#@!@#$%^&!!! (this really has nothing to do with anyone I know - I just feel the need to grumble about something - so, sorry - but it does annoy the crap out of me when people ask me that, FYI).

I have a blog post I’ve been working on for three days, and can’t find the time to finish. Does it tell you how crazy it is around here if I can’t even REMEMBER what happened on Monday?

Yesterday, I took Killian to his four month visit at the pedi’s office, and then we went from there to the Civic Center to pick up his birth certificate (finally) and we went from there, with the birth certificate, to the Medi-Cal office to update his information, which to me seemed kind of pointless, because I also needed to submit Joshua’s pay stubs, which means we’ll be losing the Medi-Cal, and I don’t see why I should shell out between 50 and 100 bucks for someone to poke around on my kid and declare him “looking great.” That’s just really pointless, if you ask me.

Every time I leave the pediatrician’s office, I feel like I’m an idiot. I told this to my dad on the phone afterwards and he just laughed. Why is that so funny? Don’t get me wrong - I really like our kids’ doctor. He’s nice, he’s amiable, he really gets kids, he’s very good at what he does, and he believes in being the doctor and letting the parents be the parents, and I respect that. And he’s got some GREAT chops. But when I told him that I didn’t see the need to continue bringing my kid in for all these visits if he wasn’t getting shots and he asked when I would like to bring him in and I said if he’s sick or when he’s a year old, he had to stop himself from laughing at me.

We’re compromising. I don’t have to bring him in for six, nine and twelve months. I can bring him in at eight and twelve months and then I’m hoping to skip the 15-monther, too. I think I’m just going to stop opening my mouth when I go in. It’s usually what gets me in trouble. I have a long history of running my mouth (that’s probably why I like blogging so much - I get to run my mouth off at whatever I want).

And someone in our house has been sick since we were in Texas. And now Judah’s is getting worse again and Joshua had a sore throat all night. I told him to stay away from me, since I just got over being sick since before Thanksgiving (he kept trying to hug me goodbye this morning and I kept leaning WAY off to the side). When I told the doctor that we’ve been passing something around since we were in Texas, and joked that I think we’re allergic to Texas, he laughed. At least THAT was funny. Well, you know. In a good way.

Okay, well this was supposed to be a short, I’m-still-alive-but-I-need-more-coffee-to-stay-that-way post, but it has somehow ballooned. I’m trying to compose a couple of posts on news items and actually include some real commentary for once in a long while, and it’s taking a bit. Stay tuned for that and for the letter I’m thinking about writing to the President. That should be fun.

My recent blog hiatus is due to the fact that I left town on Saturday to go to Houston for a few days to spend some time with my grandmother, who is now in nursing care. Cynthia alerted me to fare specials with American that were good for this past weekend, so I took the kids with me and flew to the Lone Star State. Joshua and I have been talking about getting a chance soon to go and see her, but flights are expensive this time of year, and we couldn’t justify the cost.

When I saw this special rate between DFW and SFO, we felt like we couldn’t pass it up. I had to book on Saturday and stay over a Sunday night. I was going to have to take both kids with me, since Joshua would have to go to work, so I decided to book the longest trip it would let me, which was until Tuesday. I got an early morning flight for Saturday, and a nighttime flight for Tuesday, to give me the most time.

I planned to land in Dallas, go to Waco to spend the night with the Rudds, lest I never be forgiven, go to Houston Sunday, and come back to Dallas on Tuesday in time to catch the return flight. After I booked everything, I tried several times to get ahold of my dad, and couldn’t. When he called me back later in the day I told him I was flying to Dallas on Saturday. I think he was pretty surprised. He said, “Well, I’m going to Houston Sunday through Tuesday.”

How perfect is that? Everything fell right into place. I asked Dad if I could catch a ride with him. I don’t think I actually ever hit the Dallas city limits the whole time I was there. I even got to have lunch with my immediate family as well, minus the two Joshuas.

I’ve been wanting to go see my grandmother to ask her about her family. I realized recently that I know very little about my mom’s side of the family, and that with my mom gone and my uncle otherwise unavailable, the only way to find out is to ask my grandmother. That’s hard, because as my aunt said, she is from the “silent generation,” and also, as I’ve found out, it’s not the prettiest history to have and she doesn’t want to talk about it. Add to that how I’ve been worried that she might not be around until the next time I make it to Texas and I wanted to make sure I got to see her and had a chance to record some of my family history. We recently bought an audio recorder for my iPod, and I wanted to get any stories I could that she was willing to share.

Ever since I was a little girl, my grandmother has always been giving away things of hers as gifts to us, and making sure we had spoken for anything of hers we wanted. She always did this at birthdays and Christmas, saying, “I wanted to make sure you had it, in case I’m not around next year.”

A year or two ago, Joshua and I had visited her and told her to knock it off, ribbing her that she’s been saying that for at least 25 years and look where it’s gotten her - it’s probably what’s keeping her around. She’s started having some health problems, and was placed in nursing care this fall. When we were in Texas in October, she had just been moved into a care facility. She got to meet Killian for the first time and see Judah again. I’ve never believed her for a minute when, after a visit, she’d thank us profusely for coming and repeatedly tell us she loved us and say she wanted us to know, “in case I don’t see you again,” or “in case I’m not around much longer,” but now…

Well, who knows? She might be around a lot longer, or she might not. She’s proven she’s more stubborn than we thought (shocker…). This time I told her I attribute it to her habit of not eating breakfast, just coffee (in that case, I should be around a LONG TIME as well). I just don’t want to have any regrets and felt I needed to go see her. And I’m glad I did. I hope to get to go again soon.

I can’t really explain why this is so important to me - to document as much as I can of my matrilineal heritage, the good, bad, or ugly - but it is. Perhaps I don’t really need to explain. There’s an irreplaceable missing link in my life, my line, my family, and what I do know right now is that I’ve felt more connected to my mom and I’ve felt more grounded in who I am over the past few days than I have felt in a long time. And you can’t put a ticket price on that.

I’ve been following the story of the missing Kim family since it first appeared in the news. James and Kati Kim, and their two young children, were on a work/play trip in Oregon when they went missing shortly after Thanksgiving. Kati and her daughters were found - I believe it was nine days later - with the family car by rescuers, but the search for James has been ongoing. He had attempted to go for help. They ran the gas on and off to power the heater, then burned their tires to stay warm. They ate what little snack food they had in the car, melted snow to drink, and Kati nursed both girls, to which a hospital nurse had credited the girls’ good health too.

Authorities found what they hoped were trail markers left by James, reportedly a pair of pants and parts of a map. I read that they just found his body about an hour ago. He didn’t make it.

I don’t know the Kim family at all, but they’re San Franciscans, and they’re a family, and they have two young kids, about as far apart in age as my two munchkins so this story has brought me to tears multiple times. To think about what you would do in that situation, how you would handle it, how to make that heart-breaking decision of whether or not to separate from each other to go for help. To second-guess yourself, no matter what decision you make. I can’t imagine what Kati, her children and their families are going through.

Kati lost her husband and those two girls lost their daddy. It’s terrible. It’s awful. There’s no way around it. I hope they find some comfort in knowing how many people are thinking of them and praying for them.

Also, they own Doe, a clothing store in Lower Haight, and Church Street Apothecary, a boutique in Noe Valley. It wouldn’t hurt things to patronize the stores in order to help support them. You can also go here, and donate through a website their family has set up.

Yesterday we went to a Christmas tree farm with my friend Jenni and some of her friends. The farm was about an hour north of the city, near Sebastopol. We got a CityCarShare and loaded up the kids and went. It was really nice to get out of the city and go for a drive - it ’s absolutely gorgeous up there. We even passed through Sonoma County, and saw a lot of winery fields. That makes me want to go visit wine country next season.

So shortly after we got to the Christmas Tree Farm, I lost my sunglasses. I cannot tell you how many pairs of sunglasses I have had in the last five years - they always either break, or I lose them. When Judah was just over a year old, Joshua’s parents took all of us to Seattle, where his brother Andrew lives, for a week-long vacation. We spent part of that in Canada, in Victoria. I lost my sunglasses prior to that trip, so while in Canada, I bought another pair. The VERY NEXT DAY, I was getting Judah either in or out of her car seat in the van, and while I was lifting her up, my head, with my brand-new, day-old sunglasses perched on top, hit the dome light over her seat and my sunglasses promptly broke right through one of the lenses.

I handed my camera and my sunglasses to Joshua yesterday at the tree farm while I stepped into the porta potty with Judah (couldn’t they have a real toilet? I’m just sayin’…). When I got out of the toilet, he handed me back my camera and I asked him for my glasses.

“You didn’t give them to me,” he said.

“Yes I did. I gave you my camera and then I handed you my sunglasses.”

“Well I don’t have them.”

“What do you mean you don’t have them? I JUST gave them to you.”

“Are you sure they’re not in your bag?”

“No, I handed them to you.”

So we checked the bag, and checked it again and checked the whole stroller, and the ground where he was standing and even checked the porta potty, even though I was 110 percent sure I hadn’t taken them in there because I distinctly remember handing them to him (why would I need sunglasses in a porta potty?). I was pretty frustrated at this point, because I KNOW I gave them to him and for the life of him, he couldn’t remember, and because I just bought those sunglasses TWO WEEKS AGO and had already lost them. I started back to the car to retrace my steps wondering where in the world they could be, when I saw them on a table by the tree-wrapping stand. One of the workers said someone had found them on the ground.

Good. I like them. And they cost me 15 bucks.

So later, Jenni found the tree she wanted (a three and a half foot little guy) and was trying to cut it down with a saw, but she wasn’t having any luck. She asked one of her friends to do it (whose name I keep forgetting) because, she said to him, “You’re a man.”

“Nuh-uh,” I said. “Don’t play the gender card! Give me the saw!” And I proceeded to cut down her small, little tree. Right before I bent down to start hacking away at it, I took my rings off my finger, and made a little bit of a show of putting them in my pocket, so I would remember where they were (do you see where this is going???). I successfully cut down the tree, posed with it, and then reached in my pocket for a tissue so I could blow my nose. Yeah. That’s right.

We walked back up the slope to get her tree all taken care of and ready to go home, and into the barn where they were selling popcorn and pre-cut trees and ornaments and homemade soaps and things. I remembered then that I had taken my rings off and reached in my pocket to put them back on. I quickly found my engagement ring (that was my great-great-aunt’s wedding ring from the 1930s) and reached back in for my wedding band, and COULDN’T FIND IT. Panic started welling up and I used one of the words I had said I was going to stop using around Judah (and think I startled one of Jenni’s friends in the process).

I started calling for Joshua over and over and he asked me what was wrong and I could hardly get the words out because this wasn’t real, I hadn’t really lost it, surely it was in that little fifth pocket on jeans (that didn’t actually exist on the pair I was wearing) and it had to be there because I did NOT just lose my WEDDING RING. But I did. He parked the stroller next to me and said he’d retrace our steps back to the tree where I had taken it off. I took the stroller and the kids and went to the tree wrapping station to look around on the ground and tell the workers I had lost my ring, in case anyone turned it in. Then I went back into the barn to tell someone there.

Apparently, I was not the first person that day to lose my wedding ring. The woman had me write my name, phone number and a description of the ring down on some paper. After I finished doing that and was talking to her to give her a more detailed description, Joshua walked up next to me and held up his hand…with my ring around his pinky finger. I put it back on, put my arms around him and immediately started crying. He said he found it right by the tree I had cut, under some branches. He said if someone had stepped on it, it would have probably been pushed into the dirt and he might not have found it.

In the car on the way back, he asked me what I was thinking and feeling when I realized it was gone. He wondered if it was different for me to lose it than if he’d lost his ring. I told him I didn’t know, that I was trying not to think about it until I had to. That we would do what we could to find it first, and if we had to leave without it, well, then, I didn’t know, since he did find it. He said he’s never taken his off, and then tried to, but couldn’t get it over his knuckle. I take mine off sometimes to do dishes, or cook, or when I used to go swimming. It reminded us of our friend Mark, whose ring looks like it’s slowly being absorbed by his finger. I don’t think he’s ever taken his ring off.

(By the way, Mark - Happy Birthday, man. What are you - 50 or something? Just kidding.)

So while we had fun at the farm, and Judah had a blast, what with the hot chocolate and all the trees and the tiny little horses and the hayride and all, it was a really weird day for me. We got back into the city, went to Trader Joe’s while we still had the car, and went home. We pulled into the garage and unloaded the car by the entrance to the building. While Joshua was putting all the kids and seats and groceries into the elevator, I pulled the car around and parked it in our spot. When I got out, I noticed that Judah’s trike, which had been locked up with our bikes, was just sitting on the ground. I thought maybe it had somehow gotten loose, so I put it back near the bikes for Joshua to take care of in a bit.

That’s when I noticed something was missing - namely, Joshua’s bike. I was in too much of a hurry to get back inside and help him get everything upstairs and unloaded and fed and to calm the crying baby, so I didn’t have time to inspect it. I asked him if he knew his bike was gone and he said, “My bike is gone?” and I said yeah, your bike is gone. I asked him if he lent it to Amy, who had come over the night before, to ride home on, and he said no, she rode her own bike.

Sure enough, someone had stolen it. Whoever took it cut through both of the cables that were locking our bikes to each other and to the fence. Which means someone had to have gotten into the garage and spent enough time to get through those cables (someone once tried to steal our bikes in Dallas and tried to saw through the cables with no luck - they’re pretty great cables). Mine was still there, we think because there is a U-lock going around the body and the back tire, so the bike can’t be ridden. Joshua was pretty sure he had used a U-lock to either do the same with his tire or to attach the two bikes to each other. I guess we had overlooked that.

So the trike and my bike were brought in and wiped down and are now going to be stored in our apartment - I have no idea WHERE, but hey. I have that been-violated feeling that I hate whenever something gets stolen or broken into, or one of the two has been attempted - times of which I have lost count over the past few years between bikes and cars. Arrgh.

What’s really frustrating is that we have two doors on which you must use a key in order to get into the building, and you have to use a clicker to get into the garage. To get out of the garage, you have to pull up to the exit door and get out and press the open button. Then to close it, you have to pull through and get out again and go press the button again. It’s a little annoying, but it’s not that big of a deal. We can’t tell you how many times we have walked by and the exit door has just been left open. It’s pretty frustrating, because we have always said that someone could just walk in and take something, and well, there you have it. They could also just walk in through the garage door and come into the building without needing a key. That’s something I am going to bring up with the landlord when he calls me back.

That’s pretty much the end of my story.

I have a doctor’s appointment today. Thank GOD. Cause I’m beginning to think my throat will swell up and eat the rest of me.

I have a bad history with my throat, and whenever I get an infection, I totally freak out. I’ve spent most of the past two days in bed as much as possible (which isn’t nearly as much as I’d like to, what with the chillens and all), trying not to swallow. I’ve been taking airborne, vitamin C, echinacea, doing saltwater gargles, doing nasal rinses, drinking lots of water and lots of tea with honey and lemon. I’ve eaten soups all week.

The spring before Joshua and I got married, I had a terrible cold I couldn’t shake for over a month. I know sometimes it can take that long to get over it, so I didn’t think much of it. Until one Sunday, my chest started itching. I thought I developed a rash from the necklace I was wearing, so I kind of shrugged it off. Until that night, when I got home, and was getting undressed for bed, and noticed the same rash had spread to my stomach and legs and up my arms. I don’t get rashes. I found a doctor the next day and was able to get in for an appointment.

The doctor told me I had scarlet fever. I asked him what causes it and he told me that if strep is left untreated it will become scarlet fever. I had just thought I had a cold - I had no idea I’d been carrying around strep! He told me if I had gone one more week without going to the doctor, I’d have been in the hospital. That was pretty freaky.

Then, when Judah was only three weeks old, I got a throat infection so bad, I couldn’t even swallow without crying, which also hurt. I didn’t have a doctor in Dallas, and we didn’t know what else to do, so we went to Parkland’s Ambulatory Care Clinic. We waited for HOURS, and I got a strep culture, which came back negative, but I was put on a round of antibiotics. The problem with antibiotics and a newborn is that most of the new ones aren’t tested for their compatibility with nursing, so I was given a ten-day course of something that tore up my stomach and made me throw up.

About halfway through my dose, it quit working, so I had to go back in to Parkland, be seen again, and get another antibiotic that was safe for nursing. This one also tore me up, and tore up Judah as well. She then got diarrhea for three weeks after that from the drugs, and then we both got thrush. Thrush is a yeast infection that gets passed back and forth from the mother’s nipples and the baby’s mouth. It’s pretty common for moms and babies to get thrush after antibiotics treatment. And it’s very painful, too. We spent a month clearing that up.

So I get really nervous whenever my throat hurts. I do NOT want to have to take antibiotics if I can help it. But if it’s strep or something, then I’ll need them. I just don’t want to have to go through either one of those scenarios again.

I’m so nervous.