Half Changed World

As I explained in the first ever post on this blog, the name "Half Changed World" comes from the subtitle of Peggy Orenstein’s book, Flux.  Before I started the blog, I googled Orenstein’s email address, and wrote her to ask if she minded my using the name.  She responded with a very gracious note, pointing out that you can’t copyright a title, but  wishing me well.  Thus, when I received an email a few weeks ago from Orenstein announcing the publications of her new book, Waiting for Daisy, and offering me a review copy, I was happy to take her up on the offer. 

In Flux, Orenstein examined the changing expectations and experiences of women in their 20s, 30s and 40s, especially focusing on their choices whether to have children and whether to work for pay.  The not very hidden subtext of the book was her own attempt to decide whether to have a child, what it would do to her career, and whether she would regret it down the road if she didn’t.  Waiting for Daisy is explicitly about Orenstein and her husband’s decision to have a child, and how almost everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong (cancer, a molar pregnancy, miscarriages, failed IVF, a failed donor egg cycle) and the ultimate improbable conception of their daughter Daisy.  Or, as the subtitle puts it "A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night, and One Woman’s Quest to Become a Mother."

I have been fortunate enough not to have personal experience with the world of fertility treatment.  But I’ve read enough fertility blogs that little in Waiting for Daisy was a surprise to me, not the callousness of the doctors, not the way that the couple was sucked into more and more involved procedures, in spite of their initial ambivalence.  If anything, it seems like Orenstein may have had the ironic blessing of responding sufficiently poorly to medication that she and her husband weren’t tempted into cycle after cycle of trying.

The part of the book that moved me most is probably the description of Orenstein’s encounter with the Japanese ritual for mourning miscarried or aborted fetuses.  (This is a revised version of an article that appeared in the NYTimes Magazine several years ago.)  I also really liked the way that Orenstein writes about her anger at Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s "chicken little natalism" even as she feels herself turning into the "poster child" for Hewlett’s thesis.  She’s clear-headed enough to see both the big picture and her individual reality at the same time, and neither to believe that her life is prototypical nor to deny her own reality because it’s inconsistent with her story about the world.  So, yes, she did ultimately get pregnant with her daughter without medical intervention, but no, that doesn’t mean that infertile women will conceive if they "just relax."

This is a quick read — I read it over the course of a weekend.  While she covers some serious topics, Orenstein writes about them lightly.  I enjoyed the time in her company.

When people ask me what aspect of parenting has been the biggest surprise to me, my answer is always that I didn’t realize how much time I would be sick.  I’ve been coughing or sneezing pretty much constantly since the new year.  That’s why I don’t buy the argument that exposure to lots of germs in preschool means that kids won’t get sick later on — if that were true, I should be immune to just about everything by now.

It hasn’t been a terrible winter in terms of illness — no one has ended up in the hospital or the ER, which is my primary measure of success — but it hasn’t been a great one.  D’s been on oral steroids twice for his asthma, which doesn’t make me happy, although he seems to be doing much better now that we’ve increased his maintenance dose of Qvar.  We also have an appointment for him to see the allergist next week.  And N’s now on oral antibiotics for an ear infection, as well as a topical antibiotic for impetigo.  I feel kind of guilty about that one — we had assumed that he had just rubbed the skin under his nose raw from the constant drippage, but as soon as the doctor saw it, she said it was an infection.

And N was complaining about an ear ache for several days before we finally brought him in.  We got the memo that many ear infections will go away without antibiotic treatment, so were giving him advil and waiting and seeing.  But when his fever started to come back, I concluded that this wasn’t going away on its own.

I hate having to make these decisions.  This is why the Republican argument that the problem with our health care system is overuse drives me crazy.  I’m smart and well educated, but I didn’t go to medical school.  I probably err on the side of avoiding going to the doctor, because I know that there’s not much they can do for routine colds.  But this means that sometimes with hindsight I wish I had gone sooner.  It’s nuts to make it more expensive to bring a kid in for a doctor or nurse to take a look, just in case.  Because the one night that D spent in the hospital with asthma two years ago cost our insurance company more than all the medical treatment everyone in the family has received put together since.

Update:  N puked in the middle of the night.  Is it the Amoxicillan?  Or another bug?

Two years ago, I was horrified to read at Not Quite Sure that one was expected to provide Valentines for the kids at preschool.  I continued to pretend that I hadn’t gotten the memo, and didn’t worry too much about the one or two kids who did distribute them.

Two weeks ago, D’s kindergarten teacher sent home a letter saying that they wouldn’t be having a Valentine’s Day party, but that we could, if we chose, provide Valentines to be distributed.  The letter said that if we did so, we should provide them for all the kids in the class (and a list was included) and that they should be pre-addressed since the teachers didn’t have time to address them for us.

As it happens, we had bought a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts last month and they had included a pack of 12 donut-themed Valentine’s, each one with a coupon for a free donut. D thought this sounded like a fine idea, so Tuesday night he sat down and carefully wrote his classmates names onto the cards and signed them all.  Of course, there was no school yesterday, so the celebration was delayed.  After reading the V-Day posts at Uterine Wars and On Balance, I wondered what we’d be getting back.  Handmade cards with glitter hearts?  Bags of candy?

As it turns out, D received one bag of candy, two Cars-themed cards, one Spiderman-themed card, and one Thomas-themed card.  (All of these of the sort sold by the dozen at CVS.)  So we neither upped the ante embarassingly or fell short.  Does it make me a bad mommy to think that I’m going to look back on this nostalgically if we move to a better school district with more involved parents?

Because of the snow/ice I happened to home this afternoon to receive a call from the Obama campaign asking for a contribution.  The caller said that Obama of course cared about universal health care and getting out of Iraq, but that what was really different about his campaign was that he wanted to change the tone of politics.  I thanked him for the call, but said that the election was a long way away and I wasn’t ready to commit to a candidate yet.

I agree that the tone of politics is truly ugly these days.  I listened to a bit of the radio while cooking dinner tonight, and so caught a Republican Congresswoman saying that voting against the "surge" in Iraq meant that you were in favor of the terrorists winning.   Does she really believe this crap?  I’m not sure which horrifies me more — that she’d believe that half of Congress (and, more importantly, half of the country) supports terrorism or that she doesn’t believe it but thinks it’s politically effective.

And I’m truly appalled by the misogynist and frightening crap that Amanda and Melissa have been taking and that forced them to resign from the Edward’s campaign.  I want to repeat what Melissa wrote, because I think it’s important:

"There will be some who clamor to claim victory for my resignation,
but I caution them that in doing so, they are tacitly accepting
responsibility for those who have deluged my blog and my inbox with
vitriol and veiled threats. It is not right-wing bloggers, nor people
like Bill Donohue or Bill O’Reilly, who prompted nor deserve credit for
my resignation, no matter how much they want it, but individuals who
used public criticisms of me as an excuse to unleash frightening
ugliness, the likes of which anyone with a modicum of respect for
responsible discourse would denounce without hesitation."

Frances Kissling should not be the only religious leader who is speaking out against this, no matter what you think of Amanda’s original posts.

But I’m not sure that the quality of discourse can be elevated one-sidedly.  Obama makes a point in his book of how during his Senate race he told campaign staff to remove from his website language that suggested that all those who oppose abortion are motivated by a desire to control women.  And there certainly are those who truly care about fetal life.  But there’s also a bunch of people who seem to care a lot more about fetal life than about living women or children.  And always assuming that your opponent is decent and well-intentioned is as great a mistake as always assuming that your opponent is evil.

I want to tip my hat to Cecily, who does this about as right as anyone I know — keeping on talking with people who disagree with her on abortion, but consistently drawing the line at abusive language and behavior.  But you can ban trolls from your blog.  I don’t know what’s the right way to deal with trolls who get themselves quoted on NPR and the New York Times.

Sorry for the slow posting of late.  I’ve got a nasty cold, and haven’t had the energy to do very much.  Today I worked from home.  This was a good call because it meant I didn’t get stuck on the train delay this morning or the ice storm in the afternoon.  And I was able to sneak in a nap before dinner.  Much to my surprise, both boys had full days of school today — we’ll see what tomorrow brings.  If we move out of Alexandria, we’ll definitely miss being part of a school system that doesn’t shut down in the blink of an eye.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time lying in bed listening to the review copy I received of Norah Jones’ new album, Not Too Late.  Her voice weaves in and out of the music in a quite hypnotic manner, almost like another instrument.  Having listened to it three or four times, I’m afraid the only lyrics I know are those quoted in the review I read, but I’ve enjoyed it nonetheless.

I don’t know enough about music to feel confident about reviewing it with much more than a "like" or "don’t like," but of the music I own, Cassandra Wilson seems the closest in style.  And I was intrigued to see Wilson represented on a list of music that Jones has been listening to lately.

Given all the time I’ve spent blogging about housekeeping and feeling overrun by toys, I couldn’t resist a book called A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder.

The authors (Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman) acknowledge that there is such a thing as too much mess.  Their argument isn’t that all mess is good, but that we have such knee-jerk reactions against mess that we waste a lot of time, effort and money trying to maintain excessive levels of order.  They suggest that the money spent hiring professional organizers might be better spent in most cases on additional storage space, and that piles on your desk are an efficient way of keeping the most frequently used resources close to hand.

Except that this argument wouldn’t be enough to fill an article in Real Simple, let alone a 300 page book. So they throw in whole bunch of anecdotes that are loosely connected to the idea of mess. They hop around from subject to subject — touching on everything from classical music to the discovery of penicillian, from professional organizers to decentralized organizational charts to noisy cell phones.  I’d say that the book itself is messy, except that at other times the authors becomes excessively organized themselves, e.g. developing a taxonomy of messes (clutter, noise, blur, distraction, distortion, etc).

I’m happy to report that contraception is still legal in the commonwealth of Virginia, in spite of Bob Marshall’s efforts to the contrary.

• Planned Parenthood of Virginia explains the issue.

• And Not Larry Sabato discusses the political ramifications of the Democrats’ move to force a roll call vote on the bill.

Given how close this bill came to passing, sorry Bitch, but I’m not laughing.

Having survived our weekend of travel, I’m back with reviews of some of the products we used:

1)  Dramamine.  I decided to be proactive about N’s tummy and gave him dramamine before the flights.  I don’t know that it helped, but he didn’t puke on either flight.  But what idiot decided that chewable dramamine — which is most likely to be used by kids who haven’t figured out how to take pills — should be packaged such that the recommended dose for a small child is 1/4 to 1/2 a pill?  Particularly now that you can’t bring a knife on a plane? It doesn’t help that each pill is in one of those ridiculous bubble packs.

2)  The sit-n-stroll.  As a car seat, it’s a great stroller, and as a stroller, it’s a great car seat.  But it beats the pants off of trying to lug any other toddler car seat around an airport.  The weather was crappy on Friday, and we got through security 30 minutes before our flight was due to take off.  And of course our flight was at the furthest possible gate.  We strapped N into the seat and just cruised through the place at a trot.  (Our flight was delayed, so it turned out not to matter, but we would have made the flight if had been on time.)  You don’t want this as your only car seat — the seat belt has to go over it, rather than through it, so you have to refasten it every time you use it — but if you fly with a toddler more than once a year, it’s totally worth it.

3) Trunki.  I saw this ride-on suitcase for kids in a magazine last fall, and thought it was incredibly cute.  I found out that the MOMA store sold it, and suggested it to my parents as a hanukah present for the boys.  We’ve used them around the house (N adores using his to store all his treasures, and sometimes insists on sleeping with it) but this was the first time we tried them in an airport.  The good — the boys liked riding on them, and they charmed everyone who saw them.  The straps make them easy to carry when you hit the escalator and need them off the ground.  The bad — they don’t corner well, so they’re not good for when you’re really in a rush.  And the latches don’t stay shut.  Fortunately, we had used them enough to see the problem with the latches, and had bought luggage straps to wrap around them and keep them shut.

Update: when I wrote this post, I also emailed the company and told them the latches didn’t stay shut.  They asked me what colors we had, and I said one of each.  No further word, until late April, when replacement latches showed up — direct from the UK — with a cute letter saying that they’re sorry our trunkis were "feeling poorly."  The boys were just thrilled.

Update 2: Trunki is now listed for sale on Amazon, although they don’t seem to have any in stock yet.  Order it in blue or pink!

I’m fascinated to hear that both Amanda from Pandagon and Shakespeare’s Sister have taken jobs with the John Edwards campaign.  Amanda will be their blogmaster and Shakes will be their netroots coordinator.

I’m intrigued both by their choice of Edwards and by the Edwards’ campaign choice of them out of all the bloggers they might have picked. (Maybe it will put to rest for once and all that stupid "where are the women political bloggers" question.)  I’ve been fence sitting, but this might help push me off.  I need to think about it a bit.  (And yes, I know the election is nearly two years away.  My dad keeps nudging me that if I want to do something other than knock on doors, I need to pick a team early.)

It’s going to be very interesting to see how the internet affects this campaign.  It’s amazing how much the political landscape has changed just since the 2004 campaign.  Blogs weren’t ubiqitous and you tube didn’t exist.

Feeling frazzled, so you get some bullets tonight:

• The blog world is buzzing over the story of the family who got kicked off of an AirTran flight because the little girl wouldn’t sit in her seat and so the flight couldn’t take off.  Assuming that the story is being reported more or less accurately, I basically agree with Mir.  I can’t promise you that my kids won’t make noise, but I can get them in their seats.  And most of the parents commenting at On Balance seemed to agree as well.  But a few seemed to take it as an opportunity to vent their spleen about crying kids, which is a different story entirely.  Yeah, I’d rather not be trapped in an airplane with a crying kid too, but you don’t always get what you want.  Trust me, the parents are even less happy about it than you are.
• As it happens, we’re flying AirTran this weekend to attend a family event.  My boys are both quite excited about flying, and I’m hopeful that they’ll be reasonably well behaved.  D’s been on a 16 hour flight, so an hour and a half shouldn’t be a problem.  But of the 4 times that N has flown in his life, he’s thrown up on two of them.  We’re bringing a big box of wipes and extra clothes, but is there anything else we should be doing?  Is there a nonprescription anti-airsickness drug that is safe for kids and actually works?
• I’ve learned about a local farm that sells grass-fed beef and lamb and makes deliveries nearby.  After reading The Omnivore’s Dilemna, I want to give this a try.  But I have no idea what to get that a) won’t bankrupt us and b) will give us a sense of why it’s worth the extra money and hassle.  Here’s the price list — what should I get and how should I cook it?
• I’ve mostly stopped worrying about my stats, but I happened to take a look at them this afternoon and discovered that I got over 2,000 hits on Monday, which is about 4 times what I usually get and more than 2 times my previous high.  I think it’s because of this article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  This is far more than the increase in hits I got last year when quoted in the NY Times.  I think the difference is that the Post-Intelligencer used a hotlink to the post it referred to, which the Times never does.