Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

This week Sydney and I have had a number of opportunities to marvel at how different our kids are, at least thus far in their lives.  She has always had a rather suspicious, dark-eyed stare; he looks out at the world with light-blue eyes wide open.  When she started crawling and walking, she frequently tested surfaces by hitting her head against them; now that he’s at that same stage, he cries if his head touches anything as he moves about the room, even if that thing is just a piece of fabric.  She was never much of a cuddler, preferring to stand and sit and arch with a great deal of intensity until she could move about on her own, at which point she abandoned us in order to explore the world; he is much more interested in cuddling, and spends a good deal of his energy hunting us down so that he can pull on our pant legs and beg to be picked up and tickled.  Both are quite lovable, but in very different ways.  The only things they seem to have in common thus far is a big appetite.  Nathaniel has recently started watching mealtimes with great interest, so we’ve just started slipping him tastes of squash-and-fennel soup (he ate a fair bit of Sydney’s bowlful!), mango, and, today, a large chunk of apple.  Given that he gets pretty inclined to cry if it’s been more than an hour since he was fed, we might give him the opportunity to eat solids a bit more regularly . . .

Erin

Nathaniel is continuing the craziness that started up a few weeks ago and hasn’t let up since: frequent crying spells, particularly in the middle of the night, waking sometimes just 15 minutes after being put down for a nap (or for the night!), and the signs that usually indicate he’s hungry–but now it’s all the time.  He is getting up something like half-a-dozen times a night, which is making me long for the three or four times that was his norm before.  I’m swaddling him tightly so that he doesn’t roll over in his sleep, since I am often awakened at night by exploratory fingers in my eyes or around my nose as he uses me to stand up in bed.  Sydney and I are zombies and I am beginning to wonder about this whole breastfeeding thing: I’ve never been so sore!

We’ve just started giving Nathaniel a taste or two of our food, but we’re trying to be really careful not to give Katherine ideas, since she is all too ready to put things in his mouth.  Yesterday she gave Nathaniel her (tiny) carrot and grabbed the big one I’d given him to try out, and she did the same thing with the apple I gave both of them a bit earlier.  She seems to think that little babies get little things, and it’s really hard to break her of that notion!

So we’re extra tired and extra vigilant.

Erin

If you spend a significant amount of time online, then you really ought to watch this: http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html

“Take as long as you want on your revisions–until June, if you want to!”  So say my advisors during my final exam.

As I heard that I thought, “I bet that that will cost me.”  Sure enough, if I took until June I’d have to shell out an extra $300 to the graduate school before I finish up.  No thanks, people.

Erin

As you might have guessed, the kids and I made it home just fine on Friday.  We’ve been having some quiet family time over the weekend, and then we plan to get back into our normal routines tomorrow.

Both kids had been very fussy the day or two before we left Iowa, so I was quite nervous.  But we played our way through the first flight, Katherine valiantly walked nearly all the way to our connecting gate in Minneapolis (which is a looooong way), insisting on carrying her heavy backpack, and we settled in for the three-hour wait until our second flight, which was to leave a bit before 10pm.  The kids played happily for quite awhile, but, of course, there was some crying as he tried to go down to sleep for the night (despite the unhelpful environment) and she, ahem, flipped over the back of the chairs in the waiting area while playing.  So I got to be “that” mom with the screaming kids for awhile as I tried to console both little ones at once.  The airline claimed not to have any record of my having purchased a ticket for Nathaniel, so they made me buy another before boarding (I’ll be seeking a refund, pronto!), but that was the only real incident in our travel.

I was at the mercy of the airline for seating, but I did manage to get bulkhead seating, with a baby cot.  Katherine tried to sleep on the plane, but she just couldn’t get comfortable.  Nathaniel enjoyed sleeping in the little cot, and I am not sure how we would have done it without that little bed for him.  He doesn’t sleep unless he’s able to lie down, and my lap just isn’t big enough for him.  It was a very full flight, but the lady sitting next to our clan happened to be a wonderful, generous-minded grandmother, and she genuinely seemed to take the kids (smiles, cries, and all) in stride.  I hope to be such a tolerant seatmate someday.  Overall, the night flight was less difficult than the day-long one on our way over, since at least one kid was able to get in quite a bit of sleep.  But I know that it was hard on Katherine, and she has been sleeping long nights and long naps since we got back.  When we got to the border control, we were welcomed home by the guard (in his English accent), which was interesting!

Sydney had the house in perfect order when I arrived: everything tidy and clean.  It was a wonderful welcome-home present!  Katherine and I walked to the grocery store yesterday morning to pick up a few more things, and we took a long family walk to the meadow last night.  It is really nice to go striding down the streets again, knowing that I don’t have to park a car or latch one more carseat buckle.  But my arms are clearly feeling the additional exercise that life around here entails: lots of stairs up which to haul Nathaniel, and much pushing of a stroller that has a good 55 pounds of kid weight in it.  Sydney and I have both been making food again for the first time in a long while (he ate in college while I was away), and last night Katherine at a big slice of my zucchini-lime-hot-pepper pizza.

I had had plans for a rather idyllic life for a few days while we adjusted to life as a family again, but unfortunately Nathaniel has knocked that one down.  He’s been quite fussy, and his nighttime has been a nightmare for all of us.  Last night he was awake and inconsolable for a few hours (11:30-2:30), and all four Penners (and maybe our neighbors!) were up for it.  From the way he’s grabbing at his mouth we think it might be teething-related, but it certainly seems to have cost Sydney and me all of the well-restedness that our long time apart earned us.  And that’s only two nights!  We all slept in this morning and will hope for improvement on the Nathaniel sleep front soon.

Erin

I’m trying not to have a sense of doom about our flight back to England this evening.  Nathaniel has some tummy trouble that has had him up and yelling and fussing for long stretches over the last few days–particularly in the middle of the night.  He’s not pacified by feeding or bouncing–only by warm baths.  He’s also far more mobile than he was when he arrived, and I doubt he’ll be keen on sitting quietly in my lap.  I am not sure that we’ll be able to get a bassinet for him on the flight, either, and he doesn’t really sleep when reclined on a lap.  Katherine has managed to worm her way out of nap time in the last several days, so she isn’t really up on her sleep.  We’re also taking an overnight flight, and she doesn’t really sleep when she’s away from home.  See why I’m worried?

But the goal is to arrive safely in England, so, even if Sydney has to scrape me off the tarmac upon arrival and endure some glares from my fellow passengers, we’ll be glad if we just get there without serious delay or danger.

Erin

Erin

My brother, Adam, and I took Katherine to a nearby play center the other day.  Adam and I both carried cameras (and, as you can see below, we took pictures all while she played), but most of the pictures still ended up blurry.  Toddlers are just too fast . . .

I think the goal of this project was to build a house, but Adam, in typical fashion, focused on showing her destruction, rather than construction.  He penned her in and she broke through walls, laughing hysterically all the while.

I’ve been enjoying nice morning walks while I’m here.  Mom and Dad have been wonderful about taking Nathaniel for much of the night, so I’m feeling much less on edge than when I arrived, and we’re freer to take walks later in the morning than I can at home.  Yesterday it was gloriously foggy, and we enjoyed only sharing the quiet Iowa road with horses.

Erin

Here’s an interesting paper by researchers who modelled the behaviour of a two-party or coalition parliament and showed that such a parliament is most effective (in terms of number of laws passed and social welfare achieved) if a certain proportion of the legislators are randomly selected. The proportion of randomly selected legislators needed depends on the size of the majority of the ruling party or coalition. (The results are interesting, but you don’t actually want to read the paper unless you like lots of numbers in your reading.)

Randomly selected politicians would, of course, have another benefit: fair representation. The United States and Canada, for example, are ostensibly more or less democratically governed, but, of course, we all know that numerous classes of people need not bother running for office. It’s true that they can vote, but they can’t vote for anyone who is like them. Select politicians randomly from the population at large, on the other hand, and then everyone stands an equal chance. This is precisely why that ancient democracy, Athens, insisted on random selection.

The traditional objection to this is that random selection is wholly unbiased and we in fact want some bias. More precisely, we want some bias in favour of the smart and skilled. But … have you seen the recent GOP debates?

Maybe it’s time to reintroduce the drawing of lots.

Here’s an example of what Katherine and Nathaniel have to look forward to: http://www.newappsblog.com/2011/09/are-children-intuitive-mathematical-platonists-.html.

I can’t wait.