In case you hadn't noticed, posting has been on the decline here in the past few months. If I were my husband, I'd create some kind of cool chart showing how as number of children/number of paying articles due/general level of activity increases, number of blog posts decreases. But I am not my husband (because that would be weird, anyway) so I'll just state the obvious: life never gets any less busy, does it? You think to yourself, "Oh, once the baby's older I'll have more time," or, "Oh, when Beth is in preschool three mornings a week I'll have more time," but "more time" never materializes. And so the blog suffers.

All this to explain that today's post is actually cross-posted with my Facebook page. Everyone I know seems to be doing this meme, so I thought I better jump on the bandwagon, and while I was at it, provide some content for my languishing blog.

Enough with the apologies! On with the post:

Twenty-Five Things About Me

1. Since becoming a mother I have learned to type, do housework, and conduct telephone interviews while holding a baby.
2. Things I can’t do while holding a baby: chop onions, fix my daughters’ hair, or juggle.
3. I actually can’t juggle even when I have both hands free.
4. I really miss the camaraderie of working in a newsroom. Also having a place to work where I know I won’t be interrupted by small people crying and demanding crackers.
5. Things I don’t miss: working on Christmas Eve, the day after Thanksgiving, and other quasi-holidays that regular people get off; being assigned stories that I think are dumb and having to write them anyway (when you’re a freelancer you can Just Say No); and taking phone calls from people who think I have sullied their reputation/damaged their business/ruined their entire life by writing about them in the newspaper.
6. I love tomatoes; I hate ketchup.
7. Since I’ve been married I’ve taught myself how to quilt, bake bread, and can jam, applesauce and salsa. Just call me Betty Crocker. Or Martha Stewart. Or some other domestic diva whom I resemble not in the slightest.
8. It’s surprising how de-sensitized to disgustingness being in daily contact with other people’s bodily fluids will make you. “Oh, it’s just poop,” you think to yourself.
9. The one thing that still grosses me out? Vomit. That makes me gag every time.
10. I interviewed Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos Horta of East Timor.
11. Before being told he was coming to speak at my college campus, I had never heard of East Timor.
12. When I was 16 I couldn’t run a mile without gasping for breath.
13. I’m currently attempting to train for a half-marathon.
14. I have never traveled to a non-English-speaking country, although I would like to. I’m afraid that the citizens will mock me for being a dumb American who is fluent in only my native language, though. (my half-remembered high school-level Spanish doesn’t count).
15. I’m going to be in Puerto Rico for one day this spring. The Internet tells me that Spanish is Puerto Rico’s main language and English is only secondary there. Does that count?
16. My middle name, my maiden name and my married name are phonetically different only by the vowel sound. If I’d chosen to hyphenate my name when I got married, I could have been Jennifer Rose Rice-Rouse.
17. Rather than having any sentimental attachment to my maiden name, I always looked forward to changing my name. I thought it would be fun to get a whole new name.
18. I was slightly disappointed that I didn’t even get a new initial.
19. It is probably the only thing my husband has disappointed me in.
20. I knew he was the one for me when gave me “The Old Man and the Sea” for my birthday. When the guy you’ve been casually dating for only a couple weeks shows up unannounced on your doorstep bearing a Pulitzer-Prize-winning novella, that’s a good thing.
21. Does basing marriage decisions on your boyfriend’s taste in books make you a nerd? If it does, I’m OK with that.
22. I hate big spiders.
23. I am fine with snakes, as long as they are not poisonous.
24. Red is my favorite color.
25. That’s not very interesting, but it’s all I’ve got for now.

"Rules" are as follows: Post the fourth picture on the fourth folder of your pictures and explain! Oh yeah, and tag 4 more people.

Heather tagged me, so here goes:

This is the daughter of my dear friend, Connie, shown at the Woodburn Tulip Festival last spring. I like the way this photo turned out--the light, the long rows of color, and even the way the purple flowers in the field almost match the flowers on her shirt. It was a fun day with the kiddos, and it's even more fun because Connie and I have been friends for such a long time--since we were five years old. Our girls are almost that age now, and in the same preschool class. It's like drinking down a big cup of nostalgia every time I get a chance to watch their friendship blossom.

I tag Meg, Cassie, Treasure and Joanna.

Sometimes I think living with my 2-year-old is like living with Gandhi.

If Gandhi were tiny, blond, and EVIL, that is.

You see, she has absolutely mastered the art of passive resistance.

"Come here, please," I will say to her. Or, "Pick up your toys now." Or, "Time to get dressed."

And if she does not happen to be in the mood to do what I've requested, she immediately switches into civil disobedience mode. No yelling, "I won't!" or running away or even shaking her head at me. She just immediately starts holding her own little sit-in. Standing as still as a stone with a look of utter determination on her face, she silently protests the injustice of having to be a cooperative member of the family.

She is resolute. Warnings about forthcoming unpleasant consequences have no effect upon her. Although she does not actively oppose me, she will not comply until she is forced. She is fighting The Man, in her own 2-year-old way.

Too bad I have to be The Man in this daily little battle of the wills.

It was such a pretty day yesterday that even though it was nearing sunset, I told the girls I would take them to the park.

They were a little eager. Can you tell the weather hasn't been nice enough for a trip to the park in awhile?



Here's Beth, being amazed by the mad swinging skills of some older kids at the park.





Here's Lucy. Being beautiful.





I tried to take pictures of Evie, because I felt that she was being left out of this family photo opportunity. This was hard, because she was in the backpack strapped to my back. It's not easy to take a good picture of someone who is behind your back.







As you can see, the light was fading, so we had to head home.

The sky was at that perfect stage where it changes color minute by minute.



And we made a wish on a star on the way home.



(you might have to click on the picture for a bigger image to see the little star just peeking out at the top...but it's there.)

It's time to admit defeat.

'08-'09 is not going to be The Year of Enough Jam.

I tried, people. I bought two whole flats of fresh strawberries last June and turned them into sweet homemade jammy goodness. My grandmother supplemented my stash with a few containers of her homemade raspberry jam. I looked at those jars and jars of jam and thought that maybe, just maybe, we'd make it through the year without having to resort to store-bought jam.



It is now January.

This is all that is left of my once-mighty Stack O'Jam.



Clearly, I have once again underestimated my daughters' jam-devouring capabilities. I can barely put into words how much these girls love jam.

Here are two actual conversations from this morning:

Me: Lucy, what do you want for breakfast?

Lucy: I want jam.

Me: You mean you want some toast? With jam on it?

Lucy: OK, toast. With JAM.

*****

Beth, while eating her toast with jam: For my next birthday, I'm going to have a JAM birthday. And we can all eat jam! And we can play a game called pin the lid on the jam jar!

Lucy: Oh, sounds good to me.

I'm thinking next year I'll try to can three or four flats of strawberries. Even that might not be enough to sate their jam appetites. Will there ever be a Year of Enough Jam for these kids? Stay tuned for '09-'10 and we'll find out.

"Ah! A beautiful baby!"

The old woman's voice was pleasant, lilting, its syllables tripping up and down in a way no American voice could mimic. Her dark eyes were locked on my baby's blue ones, and Evie smiled back at her from her seat in the shopping cart.

"Is this your little brother?" the woman asked, bending down to speak to Beth, the oldest of the two girls flanking my shopping cart.

"No, she is our sister," Beth said.

"Ah, three girls! And beautiful ones, beautiful. Such a lovely family you are." The little old lady's hair was short and white and neat, her long dark coat buttoned all the way up to her chin, and her shoes were dark and sensible. "And do you love your little sister? Of course you love her! Such a beautiful baby!"

It was standard supermarket small talk, but something about this lady--was it the accent? The smile? The earnestness as she addressed my children?--seemed different. She beamed upon my children and I with the benevolence of a fairy godmother, and all four of us smiled back at her, stopped in our tracks in the cereal aisle, utterly charmed.

After asking each of their names and crowing over how beautiful each name was, the woman turned her sharp gaze upon me.

"But you are having a boy," she said.

I opened my mouth to inform her that I was not, to the best of my knowledge, having a baby of any gender any time soon, but she continued before I could say a word.

"If you have another one, it will be a boy," she said with a firm nod.

"I guess I'll have to tell my husband that and see what he thinks," I said.

"Yes. You tell him." Another nod. "You tell him Iraqi lady told you so. I am Iraqi, from Baghdad. You should have another baby, and it will be a boy."

And then, before I could ask her name, or how she got from Baghdad to the Shop 'N' Kart in Albany, Oregon, or how she was so gosh-darn sure I am fated to be the mother of a son, she gave another beatific nod. "God bless you," she said, and pushed her cart away from us.

"God bless you too," I called after her.

And, God bless us, if we ever have another one, and it turns out to be a boy, I will be forever certain that I met a prophetess today. An amiable, aged, Iraqi prophetess, right there in the cereal aisle.

I'm trying to make a connection here. It's a pretty basic one. One that probably all of you readers made so long ago that it's completely subconscious, now. But for one little 2-year-old in my house, mastering this concept is very hard work.

Here's what I'm trying to teach her:

The feeling of a full bladder? That means that you need to pee.

My oldest seemed to get this concept right away. The first time I ever put her on the potty at 18 months old, she went. This doesn't mean she was potty-trained early, though, because she's stubborn as all get-out and she simply preferred the convenience of diapers. She knew how to go in the potty if she chose to, however. It was getting her to make that choice on a consistent basis that was the trick.

(side note: everyone says, "Oh, they won't go to kindergarten still in diapers." And I suppose that's true. Since, A) peer pressure would probably shame them into it eventually; and B) you're not allowed to go to kindergarten still in diapers. But I think my kids would do it if it were allowed. They both seem to like diapers pretty well. I do not enjoy changing them, however, so potty-training it is).

My current student in the ways of the potty hasn't made the connection yet. She seems completely surprised and dismayed every time she has an accident. "Mama! I peed!" she cries, as the puddle forms around her feet. "I sorry, Mama!"

(side note: I am so glad our house is virtually all non-carpeted)

No, she is eager to please. She wants to pee in the potty. She loves the bribe (ahem--reward!) of candy that we offer her when she succeeds. She loves her Minnie Mouse underwear. She wants to wear them. But no matter how frequently we sit on the potty while I read her stories and ply her with lemonade in the hopes that we'll catch it at the right moment, it's still completely hit-and-miss.

There's some little switch that needs to get flipped in the brain. An aha! moment when the kid realizes: this feeling means I need to go potty. And she hasn't had that moment yet. Maybe she's just not ready, no matter how ready I am to have only one kid in diapers.

Too bad I can't just open up her pretty head and flip the switch for her.

By popular request (that means you, Alison!) I have edited this post to include not one but TWO adorable pictures of Evie shoving her beloved Cheerios into her mouth.




Evie is in the Cheerio phase now. If you put her in her high chair and toss a handful of those little circles of goodness down in front of her, she will squeal with joy and then get down to the serious business of shoving as many of them in her mouth as she possibly can.

She's pretty good at, and she never seems to tire of them. Or at least, not super-quickly. She can be entertained by Cheerios for minutes at a time!



I had been looking forward to this phase--feeding her baby food can be such a chore, and I love it when the kids can finally feed themselves. The Cheerios are one little step down a road toward less-then-total dependence upon me.



The thing is, that though I hadn't really forgotten how messy early self-feeders can be, I think I had blocked out the worst of it. Cheerios may be cheap, easy to chew, and entertaining, but they're also small. And fun for babies to throw on the floor. When I pick her up out of her seat, this is what I see. Everywhere I go, every step I take, I find them crunching underfoot.

Sometimes they get stuck to her clothes (or her hands, or her ears) and they fall off when she is in other parts of the house. I am finding Cheerios everywhere, people.

They are in all corners of the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the laundry room. From where I sit at my desk, I can see one on the floor not a foot away from me.

I haven't found Cheerios in my bed yet, but it's probably just a matter of time.

One more note about eating, and then I'll move on to something more interesting, I promise.

Do you ever read those articles in women's magazines that say things like, "Ten Secrets to a Slimmer You!" and Secret No. 1 or 3 or 8 is always, "Identify the source of your craving. Stop and think to yourself, 'Why am I eating this? Am I really hungry? Do I really need this?' You may be an emotional eater!"

Those are the stupidest articles I've ever read.

Of course I eat food when I'm not really hungry. If I ate only to fulfill my actual hunger needs, I probably wouldn't need to lose weight. It's not as if my feelings are secret; I know better than anyone else why I eat. When I'm tired or depressed or otherwise out of sorts, I have the conscious thought: "Gosh, maybe some ice cream would cheer me up right now."

And you know what? It does.

Another tip those articles always trot out: "Eat your favorite foods, but eat only a tiny serving. A few bites of chocolate taste just as sweet as a whole candy bar."

To which I think, "Are you kidding?" Sure, a few bites taste good, but the whole candy bar tastes better. When you experience a pleasant sensation, such as a delicious food, it's human nature to want to experience the pleasant sensation again.

Some people smoke cigarettes and other people drink and some people eat. Still other people have completely healthy ways of dealing with frustration and are skilled in practicing moderation in all things. That's what I'm aiming for here--finding those healthy ways of coping, and practicing the virtue of self-control. But simply reading a point in a bullet list pointing out how wrong I am doesn't do me much good. If it were that easy, we'd be a slender, peaceful, non-smoking, teetotaling, healthy nation. Last time I checked, that's not exactly a description of America. At least not where I live. So here's to bucking the trend, creating new habits...and ignoring smug women's magazines.

I realize that a New Year's Day post about resolutions is lame, and that a resolution to lose weight is the most boring and typical of all New Year's resolutions. But I'm going ahead with it anyway, and if you are bored by ot, you can return at a later date for a more interesting post.

I have resolved to lose weight many and many a time in my life. Probably every year since the age of 12 or so. I have had only rare and limited success.

However, this past year has been one of those times of success. All that time I'm spending at the YMCA has actually shown me some results; I've lost 20 pounds since having the baby seven months ago. Which is a good thing, because I was at the highest weight I've ever been, and I really needed to get rid of some of it.

Now, however, I seem to have hit a wall. I am pleased with my success, but I have more to go, and I've made no progress in a month, maybe more. The holidays, with all their yummy food, were probably part of it, as was the snowstorm that made it difficult to get to the gym or to get out and run.

The truth of the matter is, though, that exercise alone won't produce results. I have to eat less, too. And that's the hard part. Because I like food so much.

I used to think, when I worked in an office, that if I wasn't at said office, with all the temptations of the food table where people frequently brought in snacks to share, the co-worker with the desk drawer full of candy, and the vending machine full of sodas and sweets, that it would be easier to lose weight. I just wouldn't have any unhealthy food in my home, I reasoned, and that would be the end of my poor eating habits.

The reality is, eating habits have to do with self-discipline, not just with available food. If I want to eat, I can find things to eat. Consuming two or three granola bars, or a couple containers of yogurt, or a giant bowl of honey-nut Cheerios, or a couple cups of coffee doctored up with cream and sugar, can push un-needed calories into my body pretty effectively. Even if what you're eating is not technically "junk food," if you eat too much of it, you're still over-eating.

And so the only way I'm going to see continued results is if I Just Say No. No to the food that I don't need, that I eat when I'm frustrated, that I tell myself I deserve because the kids have been so difficult that day. I want to lose the rest of the weight that's accumulated over the course of three pregnancies more than I want the temporary happiness that yummy food will bring me.

It will be hard, because I really love yummy food, and eating it does make me feel good. For awhile. But I'm going to work on developing my woefully under-exercised self-control this year, and stop sabotaging all the good my exercise is doing me with the things I put into my mouth.

That's the resolution. I'll let you know how I do.