New Baby!

Say it with me now AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!  Yes it's true a brand new baby girl has joined our circle of friends.  She is, of course, as precious as can be.  This is a good thing given the time she's about to give her parents.  Having a baby kicks your butt harder than anything else I've ever encountered. The struggle not only makes you stronger, but it also helps you to appreciate what you have all the more.  Welcome to the world little one.

Back from The Far East

Whew!  We're back again from our big adventure.  We took two plane rides there and two back, and the baby was a trouper the whole way.  She did not cry or run screaming down the aisle even once!  We had a lovely visit with Uncle and Auntie, and we even got to see a little of New York City!  The baby loved Central Park and The Metropolitan Museum of Art the best.  Now we're back to real life and tons of laundry.   

Banned Books Week

I know, I know I'm being very bad on the housewife front these days.  I promise to get back to homemaking quite soon, but I just had to mention one of my great passions: books.  Or to be more specific banned books.  Last week was National Banned Books week; the time when we remember that not all ideas are free.  Many people are shocked to learn that books are regularly banned in the United States today.  Most of the time this has to do with parents complaining about books being too much for their child, so they want to strip the book out of a whole classroom, library, school, or even district. 

I do not understand the logic at all.  I absolutely do not want my little girl to read Slaughterhouse Five because she is too young to understand or cope with the very adult themes.  However, that does not mean I want the book removed from the library.  It turns out that my niece, who is much older than my daughter, would benefit very much from reading that book.  Why would I want to remove it from a situation when it can be appropriate and beneficial to so many readers?  It boggles my mind that anyone should be so self-centered that they would try to ban a book just because it doesn't suit them.  You don't see me trying to ban all the sports books or westerns from the library!

Anyway, this is banned books week, as I said, and these are the top ten most challenged books according to the accounting of the American Library Association.

The 10 most challenged titles of 2010 were:




And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Reasons: homosexuality, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: offensive language, racism, religious viewpoint, sex education, sexually explicit, violence, unsuited to age group

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Reasons: insensitivity, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit

Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
Reasons: drugs, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit

The Hunger Games (series), by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: sexually explicit, violence, unsuited to age group

Lush, by Natasha Friend
Reasons: drugs, sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group

What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones
Reasons: sexism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich
Reasons: drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint

Revolutionary Voices edited by Amy Sonnie
Reasons: homosexuality, sexually explicit

Twilight (series), by Stephenie Meyer
Reasons: sexually explicit, religious viewpoint, violence, unsuited to age group

School Search Part 3

I am very happy to report that school #5 DIDN'T SUCK! Yay! Not only that, but it does not require kids to be potty-trained either. It's greatest downside seems to be that it doesn't open until 7:30am which is too late for me to take her and then get to work on time. This is not a problem as long as M can take her. I don't exactly know what we would do for those few days a year when he was sick or away. With some careful planning, it has the potential to work.


The classrooms were mostly bright and cheerful even for the littlest kids (why do some schools think that babies won't notice if their surroundings are grim?) and I actually saw baby dolls, books, and even a picture of a bunny! They are big on napping (not all schools are), and the kids eat lunches provided by their parents (easier to ensure the vegetarian thing and avoid Ritz crackers). The biggest, most wonderful part is the play yard. All the classrooms open out onto a really fabulous play yard. It's huge, it's full of trees and other mature plants, it has all sorts of great play equipment (some schools have none), and it just makes you feel like you would want to run around and play. When we arrived, we even saw one teacher playing running games with some of the kids. This is the first place we visited where I could picture our girl being happy there.

Mark Bittman's New Book

I’m working my way through another Mark Bittman book, The Food Matters Cookbook, and it is just as good, if not better, than his previous ones. In the past, “foodies” and “greenies” were never found in the same place, and when they were, fighting ensued. It was taken as read that a person who really cared about delicious food couldn’t possibly be interested limiting or altering food consumption. After all, if this hand-made salami tastes SOOO good why would I ever consider NOT eating it?

This is where Bittman is a genius. He has the foodie credentials, but he also has a passion for re-thinking our patterns of consumption. He advocates a reduction in meat-eating because the average American eats more than 200 pounds of meat per year which is an unsustainable level for our country and our planet. He also considers processed foods to be an evil that is causing obesity and illness in much of the population. Of course none of this is news, but he’s pulled together a very sensible and delicious answer to the current food problem.

Did you know that if the average person ate just three fewer servings of meat per week it would be the carbon equivalent of taking all the SUV’s in America off the road? Pretty amazing stuff if you ask me. Besides, if we all swapped our burger and fries for something better, imagine all the weight we might lose as well. It’s a win-win situation to say the least. His book includes 500 recipes that will surely help to steer us in the right direction.

School Search Part 2

School #4 was frightening. I wanted not only to clutch my child and run, but also to grab up all those other poor children who actually had to attend. People often say that they didn't like the "feel" of a place, and I used to think that was such a painfully non-specific way to describe things. Now I understand. Waves of depressing were practically rolling out the door. For starters, this school is housed in strip mall right next to a Chinese restaurant. This means that the whole place smells of eau de frying mixed with old pee. Add to that the poorly groomed teachers, their poor English skills (native speakers all), the huge tvs in every room, and the general air of disorder and grubbiness, and it was just not a pretty picture.


I should have known from the very first since the lobby attendant called ahead in the classroom to let the teacher know we were coming (no other school did this). The teacher then had a chance to get the children together and give the most impressive activity she could muster. It was listening to a book on tape. At the end of the book, one child tried to sing along to the final song and was told by the teacher to be quiet. Did I mention the menu? Ritz crackers and "froot" juice constituted most of the snacks. I could go on for hours. This is what is wrong with America.

School Search Part 1

Daycare center #1 was housed on the grounds of a Catholic church. I carefully inquired before we went as to the religious content of the school and was reassured that it was secular in every way. What we did not expect was the level of orthodoxy, not in religion, but in the Montessori method. Now there are many ways of interpreting the teaching of Maria Montessori, but in this school it meant no toys (only “work”), no cuddling (“we want them to be independent so they won’t grow up to be drug addicts, criminals, or obese”) and no color on the walls or furnishings. While it wasn’t dirty or scary or creepy, it was not the kind of place I wanted to leave my little girl. The expensive car (vanity plate “school”) in director’s parking spot also didn’t help.


Daycare centers #2, #3, and #4 were quite a wide range of experiences. We saw them all on the same day, so it was quite easy to see the differences. #2 was not bad at all. In fact, I think it’s my top pick so far. It is a strict Montessori, but very clean, bright, and even elegant. It also had the benefit of being extremely close to my work which would make me feel so much better about leaving her if I know we are very near each other. The downside of this school is mainly potty training. They require it, and our girl will not even be two and half by the time she has to start. Dicey to say the least.

Daycare #3 was fine. Pretty much everything about it was fine but not wonderful. The littlest kids were housed in a smallish room with a reasonable number of activities sprinkled around. The teachers were friendly, and all the teachers had been with the school for many years (the best feature in my opinion). It was a little shabby, a little drab, and the outdoor play area was downright sad. Aside from that, the biggest downside is that this school runs on a school year schedule, but not the same schedule as my school. This means that there could be whole weeks where her school was on vacation while mine was still in session.