Louis CK and Conan

To the Rescue

I know, we can't expect miracles, but I do still feel this man is going to help guide our country through this very tough time.

History Is Now

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each one of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.

-- Robert Kennedy

Land of Lincoln (aka read more Orwell)

I remember years ago my brother Tommy pointed out to me how developers often take a beautiful site, chop it down, dribble concrete over it, add a few saplings, turn it into a shopping mall or a subdivision and then name it after what Once Was There. Caribou Crossing, Deer Path, Lush Meadows, Apple Tree Orchards, Fertile Farmland, etc. In fact way back in the early 20th century when Frank Lloyd Wright was designing houses in Oak Park he coined his style "Prairie,"even though the prairie was far from Oak Park and almost completely gone already. I think George Orwell captured this phenomenon perfectly with Doublespeak and Newspeak. Who could not think of 1984 when our arch enemy seamlessly switched from Iran to Iraq, or when we ended up with The Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security (seriously, someone from the TSA threw away Liam's teething toy on a flight to Arizona, even though I had printed out the page OFF THEIR WEBSITE that specifically said the teething toy I brought was "approved." He couldn't actually come up with any explanation of why he had to throw it away, or why their website said he didn't. Let's not even get me started with them throwing away his mini bottle of Vitamin Water but not his mini bottle of Apple Juice.)

Anyway, I live in the Land of Lincoln. This doesn't refer to the U. S. President who was actually born here (Reagan) but the one who lived and worked here for many years and went on to become one of our greatest presidents. Lincoln had flaws, he definitely did. But what he did for our country was so exceptionally awesome we can try to forgive those flaws and revere him for keeping the country together and abolishing slavery. Those are pretty huge accomplishments. So I think our state motto is a fine one. But for some reason I'd always thought that while Chicago had it's sordid pay to play ways (somehow slightly romantic, in a Godfather-view-of-the-Mafia way, and I did like getting Kennedy out of it if that's indeed how it happened) somehow Illinois was above that. Boy was I wrong. What is WITH this place?!?!

This Roland Burris thing is really the last straw. I distinctly remember watching him say he would offer himself as an unscathed choice for our state, to be a voice for us in the Senate while we sorted out the whole Governor debacle. I distinctly remember him saying he would not seek a second term, and that he was done with politics but he just saw that his state needed him and so he was going to be here if we wanted him. I thought, well that's a stand-up guy, that Roland Burris. What a man, coming out of retirement like that, taking one for the team. As soon as I heard him say, after he'd been appointed, that he was considering running again in 2010 I knew something was up. The news barely even commented on it, even though they KNEW he said the exact opposite a few weeks earlier. One commentator said something like, "well he has to say that to be able to get anything done and be taken seriously," and I wanted to buy that but I couldn't. I think I'm with the Trib and the Post in wanting him to resign, which of course he won't, but I don't know what we'd do then. Have a special election we can't afford? Here's an excerpt from the Washington Post article, "Under Fire, Burris Refuses to Resign Senate Seat" by Peter Slevin, dated February 18, 2009, :
In a sworn affidavit dated Jan. 5, Burris said that before late December, "there was not any contact between myself or any of my representatives with Governor Blagojevich or any of his representatives" about the seat.

On Jan. 7, Reid said Burris seemed "candid and forthright." He noted that Burris would testify the next day to a state House impeachment committee and said the answers would be "very important."

Burris was asked under oath on Jan. 8 by state Rep. Jim Durkin (R) whether he had spoken about the Senate seat with anyone "closely related to the governor, including family members or lobbyists connected with him." Durkin named six individuals.

After conferring with his attorney, Burris said he had spoken with "some friends." Asked again, he named only Lon Monk, a former Blagojevich chief of staff.

That was the end of it until the Chicago Sun-Times revealed a new Burris affidavit on Saturday, signed and dated Feb. 4, that revealed conversations with five Blagojevich advisers, all of whom had been named in Durkin's question.

The affidavit disclosed three talks with Robert Blagojevich. Burris said he told the governor's brother that he could not contribute to a future Blagojevich campaign because it could be seen as an attempt to "curry favor."

At a Sunday news conference, Burris said for the first time that Robert Blagojevich had asked him in October to raise money for the governor. He said he replied that he could not do so "because I was raising money for other candidates, and to call me back after the election."

On Monday, however, Burris told reporters that he had "called some people about trying to see if we could put a fundraiser together . . . They said, 'We aren't giving money to the governor.' " When Robert Blagojevich called in November, Burris said, he told him of his efforts and suggested that they consider going to others.

By the time Blagojevich called a third time, Burris said, he had decided that it would be wrong to raise money or contribute money.

"I mean," Burris told reporters, "that should give some indication of my commitment right there to get out of pay-to-play."

Oh puh-lease (that's my comment.) :o)

Odds and Ends

A family friend told me when I was pregnant with Brendan that having two kids is not double the work, it's triple (thanks for the timely advice - haha) Anyway the point was that you'll get the coat on one kid, go to get the coat on the other and in the meantime the first kid has taken the coat off and spilled orange juice all over himself. So True!!! Fortunately I have to admit that Liam and Brendan are so sweet and really try so hard to be good, that it pretty much couldn't be any better than it is for me (ok, well Brendan could sleep, but fortunately I know from Liam that sleeping issues do someday get resolved. The things I hear about when kids are jealous of each other or violent toward each other or just mean, that would be hard to deal with.) Anyway, two kids is a lot of work. (9 kids? Wow, I do think EVERY day "how could my mom have done that!?!? Double WoW!)

Anyway, I won't lie to you - multiple kids is hard work. But it really does get easier as they get older and play together more, etc. etc. However, getting sick is waaaaayyyyy hard. Liam picked up a cold last weekend and has a double ear infection and Brendan got the cold a couple days ago. As far as the cuteness factor of two kids with colds, that is pretty high. Somehow when they are your own kids with stuffy/runny noses, little kid sneezes and Ferris Bueller smiles there is nothing cuter in the world. (When it's another kid I sort of feel horrified and revolted :o) ) Kissing their puffy wet cloud faces is blissful, in spite of the germs. Even waking up with them in the middle of the night to comfort them makes you feel good (especially when Eric wakes up with them most of the time :o) .) But when it's a GI bug, that is a level of Hell straight out of Dante's Inferno. I am not kidding. That is the WORST of the WORST that we have experienced yet. That is when you seriously think there is NO WAY I could do this if I had even one more kid. So I am trying to stay sort of positive with this cold (which by the way when we asked the doctor if Liam's 3 colds this season PLUS the GI bug was bad, she said ACTUALLY 7 to 8 colds a season is the norm for little kids. Ahhh!!!)



Anyway it's going to be a loooong week. I work tomorrow night, I work Thursday day I have to lead my class on Thursday night, which is a ton of work but I am the first to do it so I am looking forward to having it out of the way so I can concentrate on my lit review, I work Saturday and Sunday, I lead the book club Monday night (and I still have a couple hundred pages to go on the book, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. It's a great book and I wish I had more time to digest it) and then I work Tuesday night and then I'm back to my regular schedule for a while. Of course I think that's when Eric goes on call, but... I just reeeeeaaaaallllly hope I don't get this cold. That would be the kicker.


Here's Liam making a face like an ewe from his magazine:

Am I Really Getting Really Old?

I was reading this article in the Trib about Stevenson's high school paper and I felt this wave of "wow this is absurd!" wash over me. I had wanted to write a post earlier about newspapers and the current state of. Hopefully I'll still write that post, but this is something I just can't wrap my brain around.

What I think is absurd is that there are parents going to the board meeting complaining that the Stevenson High School paper is now going to be reviewed before being published. I am all for a free press. In fact I think it's an absolutely integral part of our country, which is why I am extremely worried about all these presses shutting down and my local paper ceasing to exist. But I do not see why a High School paper WOULDN'T have prior review. This "Hooking Up" issue, at least to me, is NOT akin to students in the '60s wearing armbands to protest the Vietnam War. This is just so strange and I'm trying to see A.) how Maine South would have dealt with this (because I just cannot picture a hooking up issue even getting published) and more importantly B.) why parents would be outraged that now this paper is going to have prior review and C.) what the previous process for publishing a paper at this school was.

I haven't read the actual paper and I'm going to check around online and see if I can find it. Maybe there's more to it than it seems from the Trib article. I think a lot about this new generation of kids. That's partly because I am old and more so because I am a parent and I wonder what kind of world my kids will grow up in. I think constantly about how I can raise my kids not to succumb to that angst-filled "my life is so empty" crap that comes from growing up with so much and distancing your comfortable self from the plight of the literally millions and millions and billions of people in this world who really need help. People in our country and beyond. Because the enormity of what needs to be done is so expansive, that if there are ways we can help then that is what we should be doing. To me it seems that if you are spending all your time entirely wrapped up in your own life, you are doing a disservice to yourself and your community and our world. And what does this have to do with this h.s. paper issue? Well part of it's a non sequitur soapbox. But it slightly ties in to the idea that I think the students writing the paper are still young and still need guidance and still need boundaries and therefore the adults at that school and all schools should absolutely be reviewing the paper. Kids need guidance because they don't always know what else is out there, beyond their own life. (Hence the penchant to get all wrapped up in it - yeah it's a stretch.)

From the Trib article it seems there were basic violations of journalistic ethics in this issue of the paper. Violations which should have and could have been caught prior to publication. Should have and could have been caught by ADULTS. These mistakes could be a great tool for teaching. A school paper should be an introduction for curious students to get a feel for why papers are written and how papers are written, etc. etc. This should be a place where students can see the great power of the press, the great need for having a press. But students, especially in high school, are in school to learn. And they need to learn the fundamentals first before they can become e.e. cummings. This bizarre idea that, for instance, English papers should be evaluated on "content only" and not on grammar and spelling is wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. The idea that math concepts like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division can be "close enough" is wrong. It's the wrong way to teach and the wrong message to send, in my humble opinion. Also, from working at Cameron and trying to help 8th graders who cannot add, subtract or multiply to do Algebra, I have to say this is setting kids up to really hate school.
And in all of this I am not even addressing the content of the paper. I haven't read the paper and wouldn't comment on it until I read it, but I just hope that there was more than shock as the intention behind this issue, because I think it's hard enough for kids to navigate the teenage years without the endless focus on sex being hammered into them at every angle, including the school paper. The remark from the school spokesman about one part being a "how-to guide for sexual predators" is definitely disturbing. If it was an insight into what's going on at their school, ok fine. But there's a fine line that needs to be walked with this topic. Again I haven't read the issue so I don't know what was going on there. I just hope we can elevate society and get younger people excited about the power to serve others and participate in the world, rather than get so absorbed in their own day-to-day lives. I think an important step in that process is for educators to realize they play an important role in the formation of their students, and their job is to teach. Where errors exist, teachers need to address them. High school is a place of preparation. It does no one any good to mollycoddle kids so that when they get out into the real world they think their going to be a rock star because they're so kickin' at Guitar Hero.
Does that make any sense? I'm playing that lack of sleep card if not. Please don't grade this paper and send it back to me all marked up where you found the run-ons and lapses in logic. :o)

why...

Are babies born with fingernails and without teeth? Why do some parents not really know if their kids are or are not teething, whereas my children apparently have chef's knives stabbed into their gums on and off for 7 or more months? Why did Liam randomly get a cold yesterday afternoon, when one second before he was fine with his clear cute little kid voice and then all of a sudden he has a cute stuffy kid voice? Why is my house always at the pit of disorder the night before my mother in law is going to come over? (No, don't answer that one. It's probably always this way but I want to keep humoring myself.) Why am I not sleeping now when I have to wake up early tomorrow?

It's 9:48 on a Saturday

And I feel like it's 1:30 in the morning. Well technically it was 9:48 but that was yesterday and I did go to bed soon after and so now today is Sunday.
I don't understand what is really happening with the stimulus and what the best course will be for the country. It seems like both sides are making good points and I just had hoped it was going to be a big unanimous bipartisan effort to get us back on stable ground. The doom and glooming of this whole process is really unsettling.
In other news, a search was on last night for Liam's monster trucks. And I quote,"I just recognized that I had losted my monster trucks for a bunch of days and it was like "Hmm...where could my monster trucks have been?" Fortunately said trucks were eventually located in the car. Phew.
We are thinking about getting a dog. Maybe a boxer. I'm sure it'll add a cleanly, organized calm and financial surplus to our lives, the likes of which can hardly imagine. One dog we liked that we found on a boxer rescue site said she needs a fenced backyard. We had been thinking about getting a fence, but it wasn't high up on the list. In fact Eric wasn't sure he even wanted one. Hopefully the Senate and House, in their infinite wisdom, are allotting $200,000 to our home improvement fund. I'll have to remember to write Barack about that. I love that he hasn't forgetten about me and is still writing. :o)
Brendan is still waking up a million times a night, but Eric is getting him back to sleep. And nursing is down to just 2 - 3 times a day which is good. Of course I was at a shower yesterday and heard from one woman who has three kids, all of which slept through the night from 2 weeks on, and one woman who has a 6 month old who sleeps 12 hours a night and takes four 1 hour naps. Both said they gave cereal early, whereas I gave breastmilk only for the first 6 months. And look where that's gotten us. :o) To be fair Liam slept through at 4 months, but I wouldn't say he was a great consistent sleeper until he was 2. But by that time we had Brendan, so now we see the reason for the very tired Donna we know today.

Backfiring?

I really hope it's not the case, but after a number of days of huge progress eating solid food,limiting nursing and going down for naps and bedtime really good without me or nursing, Brendan has started to cry and call out for me when he's about to go to bed. Two steps forward, one back. Argh. On the plus side he is making huge mental steps and I cannot even believe how much he knows and how hard he's trying to talk and how good he is at communicating. It's very exciting to watch.
Also I wanted to blog about some of Liam's funny malapropisms. There is one he just said yesterday that I cannot for the life of me remember, but others include:
going shopping at Old Maybe, taking the Elevator Train to Wrigley Field, and singing that famous Weezer song ""Family Hills" that's where I want to be."
Tonight we were reading an issue of his magazine Your Big Backyard and it talked about how flamingos are pink because they eat food like shrimp and water plants that have a red pigment. The corresponding picture was one of those "Can You Find Five Things Wrong with This Picture" and one of the flamingos had some blue feathers. Liam said "and that flamingo must be very special because it ate something with blue pigment and that turned some of its feathers blue."
Also the funniest thing in the world is watching Liam attempt to make the faces of the characters in his books and magazines. The first time he started doing it I was worried cause he was making this strange face and not responding when I asked him what he was doing. Then finally he told me how he was making his face look like Arthur's. He also has a Sesame Street CD and he did a similar thing where he started singing weird and then he told us he was singing like Big Bird, who has a "strange voice." He was pretty good too. A young Billy Crystal perhaps? :o)