Thursday, March 29, 2007
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Government efficiency strikes again
I am very much put out at the Department of State.
I realise that they have a lot on their hands, and that they didn't ask for the recent revisions to the passport law - Congress did - and that they are utterly swamped right now, but this takes the giddy biscuit, as Bertie would say.
We dragged ourselves out of the house with a two-day-old baby to get her passport photo taken and then spent about two hours at the passport agency ironing out the wrinkles on her application. At that time, we were promised the passport within six to eight weeks. We had exactly nine weeks to spare, so we chose not to waste the extra money on the expedited fee.
Twice now I've checked up on the status of the application. The first time it had been received. Now it has been forwarded to the processing agency in, of all places, NH, and the email reminded me that it takes up to ten weeks to process a passport now.
This makes me livid. We applied well before the crunch, and I know that they're busy and working overtime, but they need to process the applications in the right order, so that the people who were promised an eight-week turnaround will get it. If my (daughter's) passport is delayed because they're focusing all their efforts on the emergency passports of people who didn't plan ahead as well as I did (and they stand to rake in substantial fees from these ones, of course), well then!!!
I realise that they have a lot on their hands, and that they didn't ask for the recent revisions to the passport law - Congress did - and that they are utterly swamped right now, but this takes the giddy biscuit, as Bertie would say.
We dragged ourselves out of the house with a two-day-old baby to get her passport photo taken and then spent about two hours at the passport agency ironing out the wrinkles on her application. At that time, we were promised the passport within six to eight weeks. We had exactly nine weeks to spare, so we chose not to waste the extra money on the expedited fee.
Twice now I've checked up on the status of the application. The first time it had been received. Now it has been forwarded to the processing agency in, of all places, NH, and the email reminded me that it takes up to ten weeks to process a passport now.
This makes me livid. We applied well before the crunch, and I know that they're busy and working overtime, but they need to process the applications in the right order, so that the people who were promised an eight-week turnaround will get it. If my (daughter's) passport is delayed because they're focusing all their efforts on the emergency passports of people who didn't plan ahead as well as I did (and they stand to rake in substantial fees from these ones, of course), well then!!!
Friday, March 16, 2007
The big sister
Perhaps you can't tell, but her lips are pursed, because the finger puppets are kissing.
This girl loves shoes.
Did I mention that she is obsessed with shoes?
A bit of role-playing never hurt anyone.Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Monday, March 12, 2007
Jane-isms
Jane has recently become obsessed with playing hide-and-seek. She will put anything out of view and then query 'Where go? Where go?' with a finely accomplished look of astonishment. One time she pulled her sleeves down and then asked me, 'Where thumb? Where thumb?' And then she goes off into fits of giggles at her own cleverness.
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Today when we were shopping, Jane was sitting in the front of the cart while I pushed it. Unless occupied with a cookie, she usually does not like to sit still, and sure enough, before long she was asking me 'Up! Up!' I told her not now, maybe later. After a moment she reached her arms out and said, 'Mama! Hug!' I could see where this was going, but it was so cute that I couldn't resist. And when I leaned forward, she put her arms around my neck and begged again, 'Up! Up!' Clever, that one.
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The wallpaper in the bathroom is decorated with letters, and for the last few nights Michael has pointed out a few of them to Jane as he brushes her teeth. I thought nothing of this until a couple of days ago, when Jane was 'reading' her book, The Runaway Bunny. Suddenly she got very excited and started exclaiming, 'B! B!' Sure enough, she had spotted the B on the cover. She recognised the As too. We have taught her up to J, and only since then did I learn that we are supposed to start with lower case letters rather than capital letters. Oh, well. At this rate, she'll learn them both before long.
*************************
Today when we were shopping, Jane was sitting in the front of the cart while I pushed it. Unless occupied with a cookie, she usually does not like to sit still, and sure enough, before long she was asking me 'Up! Up!' I told her not now, maybe later. After a moment she reached her arms out and said, 'Mama! Hug!' I could see where this was going, but it was so cute that I couldn't resist. And when I leaned forward, she put her arms around my neck and begged again, 'Up! Up!' Clever, that one.
*************************
The wallpaper in the bathroom is decorated with letters, and for the last few nights Michael has pointed out a few of them to Jane as he brushes her teeth. I thought nothing of this until a couple of days ago, when Jane was 'reading' her book, The Runaway Bunny. Suddenly she got very excited and started exclaiming, 'B! B!' Sure enough, she had spotted the B on the cover. She recognised the As too. We have taught her up to J, and only since then did I learn that we are supposed to start with lower case letters rather than capital letters. Oh, well. At this rate, she'll learn them both before long.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Mid pleasures and palaces
I've been delighted to discover how very pleasant it is to stay at home. In the weeks since Ella's arrival I've felt happier and more content than ever, much to my relief, as I was afraid that cabin fever would strike. But it hasn't.
After Jane was born, I was so fearful of falling into postpartum depression that I made a point of getting out pretty much every day. She was small and portable, so it was no additional inconvenience to haul her along with me everywhere, and I strung my errands along most inefficiently to make sure I had an excuse to go somewhere. That was all well and good, but I knew that with the arrival of a second one my strategy wouldn't work so well. Taking into consideration a wiggly (and much heavier) toddler with a much more complicated car seat as well as the portable (but still requiring both hands) infant car seat, it seemed that it would almost be more trouble than it was worth to get out and about. That, combined with the fact that Michael takes the car for the carpool 1-2 times a week and I am certainly not about to strap the cars seats into the truck, means that we end up staying home several times a week. And I am thrilled to find that I just love these kinds of days.
It's very satisfying to settle the day's chores early on (and I've scaled back my expectations to a reasonable level, meaning that if I keep up on the dishes, laundry, and basic cleanliness we can let the rest go until the weekend) and spend a happy morning playing with Jane and Ella, the latter having just started smiling and the former already learning to read. I'm experimenting with meal plans to make kitchen time simpler and more Jane-interactive, so that's fun and exciting. And I am finally, finally catching up on sorting all our digital pics and ordering them online. Right now I am keeping current with the Ella pics and am caught up to Christmas '03 on the general folders. This a huge project that I should have tackled long before, but I am finding that breaking it down into manageable tasks makes all the difference. The great thing is that I'm placing these orders with various online promotions, offering anywhere from 10 to 50 free prints, which means that it's already broken down into bite-sized chores for me. Whenever I have five minutes I'll pick up where I left off, click through the pictures in the folder, and save the ones I want to print to a temporary folder in the desktop. Then whenever I get another freebie offer, I select the next 10-25-whatever prints from the folder and voila! Pictures arriving in the mail every few days, with very little effort on my part.
I was effusing to Michael the other day about how wonderful our lives are right now and how happy I feel ('Of course that's just the happy hormones from nursing but still!!'), and wondering whether that was a bad sign. Of course contentment is a good thing, but is it healthy for me to be feeling happier as my sphere shrinks? Culinary adventures are all very well, but I don't want the high point of my day to consist of a crock pot success. I should hope that feelings of accomplishment would stem from overcoming genuine challenges, not just from deflating my goals to an easily achievable level. Fortunately I am still able to converse with him rationally and sympathetically about issues at work, so I know I am not totally losing my connection with the outside world. Still one wonders.
After Jane was born, I was so fearful of falling into postpartum depression that I made a point of getting out pretty much every day. She was small and portable, so it was no additional inconvenience to haul her along with me everywhere, and I strung my errands along most inefficiently to make sure I had an excuse to go somewhere. That was all well and good, but I knew that with the arrival of a second one my strategy wouldn't work so well. Taking into consideration a wiggly (and much heavier) toddler with a much more complicated car seat as well as the portable (but still requiring both hands) infant car seat, it seemed that it would almost be more trouble than it was worth to get out and about. That, combined with the fact that Michael takes the car for the carpool 1-2 times a week and I am certainly not about to strap the cars seats into the truck, means that we end up staying home several times a week. And I am thrilled to find that I just love these kinds of days.
It's very satisfying to settle the day's chores early on (and I've scaled back my expectations to a reasonable level, meaning that if I keep up on the dishes, laundry, and basic cleanliness we can let the rest go until the weekend) and spend a happy morning playing with Jane and Ella, the latter having just started smiling and the former already learning to read. I'm experimenting with meal plans to make kitchen time simpler and more Jane-interactive, so that's fun and exciting. And I am finally, finally catching up on sorting all our digital pics and ordering them online. Right now I am keeping current with the Ella pics and am caught up to Christmas '03 on the general folders. This a huge project that I should have tackled long before, but I am finding that breaking it down into manageable tasks makes all the difference. The great thing is that I'm placing these orders with various online promotions, offering anywhere from 10 to 50 free prints, which means that it's already broken down into bite-sized chores for me. Whenever I have five minutes I'll pick up where I left off, click through the pictures in the folder, and save the ones I want to print to a temporary folder in the desktop. Then whenever I get another freebie offer, I select the next 10-25-whatever prints from the folder and voila! Pictures arriving in the mail every few days, with very little effort on my part.
I was effusing to Michael the other day about how wonderful our lives are right now and how happy I feel ('Of course that's just the happy hormones from nursing but still!!'), and wondering whether that was a bad sign. Of course contentment is a good thing, but is it healthy for me to be feeling happier as my sphere shrinks? Culinary adventures are all very well, but I don't want the high point of my day to consist of a crock pot success. I should hope that feelings of accomplishment would stem from overcoming genuine challenges, not just from deflating my goals to an easily achievable level. Fortunately I am still able to converse with him rationally and sympathetically about issues at work, so I know I am not totally losing my connection with the outside world. Still one wonders.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Monday, March 05, 2007
Yes, we have no bananas
The local Kroger store (about which I have raved before) often marks down ripe bananas. Since these bananas are very cheap, and since they are usually marked down at exactly the stage of ripeness that I like (just starting to turn brown and spotted, meaning the flesh will be perfect and sweet), I usually buy these up in droves whenever I see them. They stay at the perfect stage of ripeness for at least two or three days, by which time we will have eaten them up, either straight, in smoothies, or sliced over chocolate ice cream. The occasional banana that escapes us pops into the freezer for hibernation until next time we make banana bread.
This weekend I bought a bundle of bananas and I discovered, upon reaching home, that one of the bananas was bruised and blackening. Knowing that its useful lifespan would be short, I started to peel it to make a smoothie, only to discover that the half that had been bruised was black and slimy. I showed this to Michael in disgust before throwing it in the trash and grabbing another banana with which to make a smoothie. When Michael saw me drinking the smoothie, he made some comment on my inability to let things go to waste.
Me: No, I threw away that banana. Even I wouldn't eat that!
(Michael gives me a significant look.)
Me: Okay, even I wouldn't feed that to Jane!
Michael: Ah, that's more like it.
This weekend I bought a bundle of bananas and I discovered, upon reaching home, that one of the bananas was bruised and blackening. Knowing that its useful lifespan would be short, I started to peel it to make a smoothie, only to discover that the half that had been bruised was black and slimy. I showed this to Michael in disgust before throwing it in the trash and grabbing another banana with which to make a smoothie. When Michael saw me drinking the smoothie, he made some comment on my inability to let things go to waste.
Me: No, I threw away that banana. Even I wouldn't eat that!
(Michael gives me a significant look.)
Me: Okay, even I wouldn't feed that to Jane!
Michael: Ah, that's more like it.
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