Mad Scientist ~ by Jay

I am grateful that my husband has a sense of humor and knows how to use power tools.

My Three Sweet Cubs ~ by Tigermom

Happy Halloween everyone.

Gotta help supervise costume putting on.

Then load up the candy.

A Rich, Full Day ~ by Jay

Wake up, watch ESPN recap of the Yankees game last night. They still won. Life is good.

Eat breakfast, appreciate the cup of coffee Sam pours for me.

Forget to take the coffee with me, appreciate Sam again for bringing it out to the car when I swing by after dropping Eve at school.

Make it to work in time to hear the night shift sign out, meet the visiting PA student, see the patient who arrived last night, see the other patients, write most of those notes.

Spend 20 minutes on the phone doing volunteer work for my favorite professional organization, recruiting someone to step into my leadership position.

Go do a nursing home visit, get back in time to debrief with the PA student.

Sit down to do some overdue charting on home patients, discover the entire electronic system is down. That's not helpful.

Have lunch with the nursing staff and hear what everyone is doing for Halloween. Lots of vampires and goblins and one or two plain ol' ghosts.

Evaluate and write orders for the first new admission of the day. Arrange for two more patients to be admitted. Try to get the EMR up again - no dice.

Take some time for a chat on the phone with an old friend.

Manage to get the EMR open for about five minutes, not long enough to actually do any charting.

Review a chart for which we're being denied payment. Find no clear reason why Medicare shouldn't pay us. Try to figure out something polite and coherent to write, since GIVE US OUR MONEY, YOU IDIOTS doesn't seem quite appropriate.

Wonder what happened to the patient who was supposed to be picked up at 2:30 at the hospital, four miles away, and who has not arrived at 3:15.

Go to team meeting, hoping I can leave right afterwards to be home in time for Eve's Trick or Treat party at 5:00. Give up on that idea when the 2:30 patient arrives at 4:15.

See the new patient, talk to three of her seven children, write orders, write a note. Manage to get my hospital EMail open and write a signout note to my partner. Call Sam at 5:10 to say I'm leaving; arrive home at 5:35 to find six giggling fourth graders in various costumes on the swing set. Also find two other moms, who were expected, in the kitchen drinking wine. Find another mom, not expected, and teenaged daughter in the living room. Ask Sam who they are; he doesn't know. Turns out someone decided to hang around after bringing her daughter. Invite her in to join the rest of us in the kitchen. Say "of course!" when she asks if her niece can join the party (as niece is dropped off in front of the house). Pour myself a glass of wine and add a pizza to the order.

Send giggling girls (and older sister and cousin of guest) off to trick-or-treat with the other moms when it becomes the clear the pizza order will take longer than expected. Feed them pizza when it arrives and send them back out again. Swallow my response when one mom says "of course, we won't let them eat any candy until we get back so you can check it all first". Clean up paper goods and party detritus while they're gone. Send guests home, allow Eve to eat whatever candy she wants without checking it, and get ready to go to 60s Halloween Dance Party featuring our drumming teacher's band. Eve changes from a vampire to a hippie, Sam puts on a long wig, I slip a set of love beads over the work clothes I haven't had time to change and we're off.

Arrive at the party to discover that, technically, they don't allow anyone under 21 into the building. Wink and nod when they tell Eve she's 21 tonight. Dance with Sam and sing alone while Eve pretends not to know who we are. Bring her home at 10:00 and tuck her into bed.

Do the dishes, clean up the rest of the party debris, realize I haven't written my gratitude post for the day. Think back over everything that happened today and realize I am grateful that there is nothing scheduled for tomorrow.

Say goodnight.

Gratitude ~ by Jay

I am grateful for thoughtful, generous colleagues.

Gratitude ~ by Jay

I am grateful for recliners, laptops and hi-def TVs.

(now if I can only watch the the Yankees come back from the 2-0 deficit...)

Phew ~ by Jay

This morning Eve has a bit of a cough and a scratchy throat. No fever. Slept all night and is going to school.

No fever = no flu.

At least so far....and for that I am grateful.

Uh-oh ~ by Jay

Tonight we went out for pizza - one of Eve's favorite foods. She had a big snack at aftercare, and said she wasn't that hungry, so we only ordered one slice for her.

She took one bite, put it down, and said "my stomach hurts". Looked kind of punky. Just sat there and sipped her soda while Sam and I ate our dinners, and then came home and went droopily upstairs to watch TV.

No fever, no nausea, no cough, but sudden onset of symptoms has Mommy worried about H1N1, which is rampant around here. Tomorrow Sam is supposed to leave the house at 6:30 for a meeting two hours away. I have two home visits, a meeting, and a resident joining me, plus one patient who came in tonight and hasn't yet been seen and one scheduled to arrive tomorrow morning.

This is the part of parenting that (so far) I hate the most, the part where I feel irritated with my kid because she had the temerity to get sick and foul up my schedule. That's not how I want to respond to Eve, ever. And maybe she's not really sick; maybe she just had too many cheese crackers and too much apple juice this afternoon. We'll see, and we'll manage, but evenings like this always remind me that, as Tigermom says, it's all a house of cards that could come crashing down around us any second.

I am grateful that Eve is as healthy as she is, and that we live in a time when my biggest worry about a sick kid is that I'll have to miss work.

Gratitude ~ by Jay

I am grateful that Sam lets me borrow his computer when I am so tired that I leave mine at work.

I've decided not to drive back and get my laptop, but to accept this as an opportunity to take a night off (well, after I'm done with this) and crawl into bed with a book.

Conversations with Families ~ by Jay

When we came in last evening, there was a flutist playing in the lobby.

Yes. She comes about once a month. We love to have musicians at the Hospice when we can.

Any musicians?

Why do you ask?

Well, we're part of a steel drum band. My son used to play with us, too, before he got so sick. Would it be OK if we came and played for him?

I don't see why not. How many pieces?

Usually 12, but we can cut it down to 10.

Could you play outside? Your son's room opens on to our back patio. If the weather is good, we can open the French doors and you can be right outside, just feet from his bed.

Sure, we can play outside. You'd really let us do that?

We would be honored to have you. Just tell us when you want to play. I'll make sure it's OK with the staff, and if you come when I'm off this weekend, I'll come in to hear you.
___

And that's why I went to work on a Sunday, to hear a steel drum band play for one of their own. They played everything from Amazing Grace and Jesus Lives to My Girl, Matilda and an Elvis medley. Eve and Sam came with me. We sat on a bench in the back garden and soaked up the sunshine, and the music, and the grief, and the love.

I am deeply grateful for the gifts of my work.

Here's a steel drum sample to brighten your Sunday.

Saturday Gratitude ~ by Jay

I am grateful that I am not on call.

We Did The Mash ~ by Jay

Tonight was the Haunted Hop at Eve's school. Picture a gym full of costumed elementary-school students and their parents, fueled by soda, cupcakes, hot dogs and pizza. Lots of vampires, cheerleaders, princesses, zombie cheerleaders, pirates, and Michael Jacksons, along with the occasional mummy or ghost. Lots of screaming. Lots of running.

Eve is dressing as a Vampiress (her locution) this year. Discovery of the night: plastic fangs a) hurt and b) make it hard to eat cupcakes.

I am grateful that the Haunted Hop comes but once a year, and is now over.

Shh, Don't Tell ~ by Jay

I'm typing this on my work computer using Firefox.

I love Firefox. I love tabbed browsing. I love AdBlock Plus. I love the way Firefox restores my tabs when I close and reopen it. I like the way the bookmarks work. I love that it's not IE and the pop-up blocker actually works. I love the way it offers to remember passwords without an annoying dialog box.

IE is the browser that was on this computer when I got it, and I've been grumbling about it. I didn't think I could download software to this computer but I figured it was worth a try, and five minutes later I was running Firefox. No one told me not to, after all. Of course, I didn't so much ask.

I am grateful for Firefox.

Cozy ~ by Jay

About 15 years ago, someone told us about flannel sheets. Sam and I like to sleep in a cool (some would say cold) room, but no one likes a cold bed. Flannel sheets are not cold. Flannel sheets are cozy. Flannel sheets + a polar fleece blanket = cozy(squared).

That's where I'm headed after two very late and interrupted nights - up to the nice cozy bed with the pretty quilt and the luscious new pillow.

I am grateful for my bed.

Good night.

Gratitude ~ by Jay

I am grateful for baseball in October.

Long Day ~ by Jay

Any day that starts with my beeper going off at 5:30 AM when I'm not on call is going to be a long day, and this one lived up to its inauspicious start. Lots of patient/family complexities at work. A delay on our ongoing (still ongoing) renovation project. The babysitter involved in a fender-bender with Eve in the car. Eve in tears before dinner over her scores on a practice standardized test. Just...a long, tiring, emotionally wearing day, topped off by a Yankees loss that ate up the bullpen, again.

On my way upstairs to take off my work clothes and put my feet up, probably in bed with the flannel sheets and the quilt to keep me warm.

I am grateful that this day is over.

Well, That Was Interesting ~ by Jay

Hello. I'm calling from a market research firm and we're asking people in your area for their opinions about health care. Are you willing to participate?

Yes.

Do you have health insurance?

Yes.

Is your health insurance provided by Medical Assistance, Medicaid, or the Veteran's Administration?

No.

Is your health insurance provided by Medicare?

No.

What is your current age?

49.

Do you or anyone in your household work for an advertising agency, a market research firm, or a health insurance company?

No

Are you or is anyone in your household a physician?

Yes.

Thank you. That's all of my questions for today.

Negotiations And Love Songs ~ by Jay

Negotiations and love songs
Are often mistaken for one and the same. (Paul Simon, Train in the Distance)

Turns out Simon may have been wrong; negotiations and love songs may actually be one and the same. That's what Sharon Meer and Joanna Strober write in their new book, Getting to 50/50: How Working Couples Can Have it All by Sharing it All.

I haven't read the book, but Courtney did, and her review on Feministing quoted the authors:

Working couples need to problem solve more than 'traditional' couples with one breadwinner simply because daily planning tends to be more complex. But the ongoing negotiation and interacting is its own kind of intimacy--common ground, common interests, common life.

I read it to Sam, who said "Well, yeah". And then "Duh".

We negotiate everything. Hey, when two facilitators are married, this is how it goes: check assumptions, identify needs, set priorities, make a plan, carry out the plan, check in afterwards and debrief. With the aid of Google Calendar, we can now make plans without talking to each other, but we sit down every Sunday morning and talk through the week - who has to leave the house early? Who will be out in the evening? What nights are we having dinner together (followed by the subset negotation of what are we eating and who is going to the store)? In the course of that conversation, I hear about the high-stakes grant-allocation meeting coming up for Sam, and he finds out that I have to drive 60 miles each way to a meeting on Wednesday. We also have a chance to notice that it's been a week or so since we've spent an evening doing something together, and plan for that, too. On a good day, we finish the conversation feeling more connected to each other and more aware of the stresses and rewards of our respective work lives.

On a bad day, one of us feels resentful and unappreciated - still happens, but nearly as often as it used to happen before we started checking in on Sundays. That was about two years ago, when I started working full-time and suddenly we found ourselves in the kitchen on Wednesday evenings with no plan for dinner, and no food to cook. We were also eating the same thing every week, and we were bored. So we started out planning our meals on Sundays, and pulling out new recipes, and gradually it expanded to be a check-in about the entire week.

It's not just Sundays. We negotiate how we spend our evenings, how we spend our weekends, who does which part of the kid duty and who deals with the dogs/cars/house stuff that comes up. Some things are a given - he does the yard work, I pay the bills - but even then, we need to speak up about the time we need to do those chores. It's taken us a long time and a lot of arguing to get to this point, but it was worth it.

Courtney mentioned one other point from the book: women have to truly let go of the notion that they are inherently more fit to parent, that they can simply do it better, by virtue of being women. Yes. This. Parents don't need to be interchangeable - you don't need to play the same games or have the same approach to soothing the baby. You don't even need to agree about how to dress the kids. You do have to be able to both take care of the baby's (and child's and teenager's) basic needs, and you need to trust your partner to do so, or the whole 50/50 thing won't work.

It can be done. Sam and I are not really all that special. We do have a different financial relationship than most married heterosexual couples, since I earn more than he does and I always have, even when I worked part-time and he worked full-time. It never made financial sense for me to quit my job, even if that had appealed to me. Sam never wanted to be a SAHD, and there was no social pressure to suggest it, so we never really considered having a stay-at-home parent. We had to find a way to manage two careers. So we did.

I'm glad there are voices out there saying that it is possible - and beneficial - to share responsibility for household work and paid work and childcare. It's not the One True Path. There is no One True Path, no single family structure that is Best for Everyone. But there are more viable options than we usually allow ourselves to see.

Lazy Sunday ~ by Jay

On a lazy Sunday I have enough time to poke 'round the internet.

Where I find things like this:

(actually, I'm quite sure there isn't anything else quite like this)

Gratitude ~ by Jay

I am grateful for a well-stocked larder.

Vote For Dawn~ by Jay

Dawn blogs over at This Woman's Work. She's adoptive mom to Madison in a completely open adoption, and her honesty about the complexity and depth of adoption is just stunning. Stunning. I learn from everything she writes, and even when it's sad and scary stuff, I feel encouraged to move closer to doing the right thing for Eve, and for Laura, and for ourselves.

Dawn's up for "Best Adoption Blog" at The Bump, and she deserves to win - so vote for her here. It may not be the simple smiley everybody-wins story of adoption that we want to hear, but it is the story we need to hear.

Go vote.

Gratitude ~ by Jay

I am grateful for unscheduled Saturdays.

Conversations With My Daughter ~ by Jay

Did the Tooth Fairy come?

.....yes.

What did she bring you?

Mommy, I know it's you.

OK. Does that mean we should stop being the Tooth Fairy now?

Well, you can stop pretending to be the Tooth Fairy, but....

But we should still give you money when you lose a tooth?

Yes.

Conversations With My Daughter ~ by Jay

Mommy! I lost another tooth!

I see that. It's been a while

Mommy, can you talk to the Tooth Fairy for me?

I don't know, sweetie. We don't see the Tooth Fairy - she comes after everyone is asleep.

I want to give her a message.

What's that?

Could you tell her to bring me two dollar bills instead of dollar coins?

Doesn't she usually bring one dollar?

Yes.

Why would she suddenly bring you two dollars?

Because she's nice. She's the nicest tooth fairy ever.

Gratitude ~ by Jay

I am grateful for the gifts my father gave me, the most precious of which was his unwavering love and support.

I miss you, Daddy.

Gratitude ~ by Jay

I am grateful for Calvin Trillin.

Beep, Beep ~ by Jay

The only metaphor I can come up with, I'm afraid, probably says more about me than it does about my subject. And I shudder to think what Freud would have made of it. What I keep thinking is that maybe men have an easier time adjusting to wearing beepers. I mean, what's a beeper but an appendage, worn below the belt, which periodically calls attention to itself in the most peremptory way imaginable? You can be surrounded by friends or enjoying a quiet moment alone, and there goes your beeper, embarrassing you, startling you, and demanding to be satisfied. I mean, in the last analysis, the real problem with the beeper is that it's meant to be your servant, and instead you find yourself its slave. So maybe men do find this more natural. - Perri Klass, M.D., writer and pediatrician

I've had a love/hate relationship with my pager for 25 years. As a third-year medical student, I was thrilled. It was a signal that I was becoming a real doctor. Even as an intern, I didn't mind it, but the bloom was off the rose by the second year of my residency. I realized that other people got to leave their desks and their phones and go have lunch; I never got away from my pager (this was before cellphones, young'uns, when people really were sometimes out of touch). I was delighted to leave residency and hand in my pager. For three year I only carried it when I was on call. Ah, freedom.

Then we moved here and I left my office practice for a hospital-based clinician-educator position, and of course they issued me a pager the first day. Two weeks later, I was on call for the weekend and it was nice and quiet - until I went in to work on Saturday and found charts full of notes saying "Paged Dr. Jay, did not respond". Huh? Turns out my pager didn't have the range to reach my home, 25 miles away. Oy.

Since then I've managed to co-exist with my pager relatively peacefully. I've even come to appreciate its qualities: it can be turned off and left behind when I'm not on call. I can choose when to return the calls I receive. There's one number to reach me - simple, straightforward, works every time. Still annoying to have this thing on my belt that makes noise, but I can live with it. I have no choice, after all. Last week I put in a request for a new one when the four-year-old pager I'd been carrying started to give me odd, random character strings.

The old one hadn't been working all that well, so I wasn't particularly surprised when my cellphone started ringing yesterday afternoon. "I've been trying to page you" said one nurse after another, "but I guess it's not working". I called the operators and they said oh, yes, they had the new one - expect it to arrive tomorrow via interoffice mail. They'd activated it already.

Wait. They activated the new pager - and deactivated the old one - without telling me, and then sent the working pager through the mail. Overnight (we're in a separate building miles away from the hospital). It arrived this morning, and I could hear it beeping in the envelope as it sat on my desk. Apparently no one noticed or cared that the mail was beeping.

The new one is smaller, easier to read, and quieter than the old one. I am relieved that the nurses can reach me again; I won't wake up tonight worried that someone needs me and can't get me.

So this is something I never thought I'd say: I am grateful to have a working pager again.

Public Service Announcement: H1N1 Edition ~ by Jay

You should not get medical advice from the internet.

Since many people do anyway, here's my attempt to put actual, valid information out there.

It's already flu season here in the US and has been since last spring. Cases of H1N1 flu (also known as swine flu) have been reported in almost every state, and have reached epidemic levels in many locations. Some officials believe we will have a pandemic. Reported mortality is higher than any seen since 1918.

Time to panic, yes?

No.

This is not 1918, or even 1976. This is 2009, and our surveillance, diagnosis and communication systems are the most sophisticated they've ever been. We have unprecedented attention from the media, so everyone is alert. We don't know for sure what explains the higher mortality rates, but I believe that the most serious cases are being tested and the less serious are not, which is skewing the data.

OK, if we're not going to panic, what should we do instead?

Start with good hygiene - wash hands frequently. Don't share utensils. Stay home if you're ill.

And at least consider immunization.

But wait - haven't we read some scary stuff about the flu shot? You can get the flu from the shot. And the H1N1 shot is even worse - it's new. It's been rushed into production. It has nasty additives and preservatives in it. It's an unknown and the government is pushing it on us. Vaccines destroy the immune system - everyone knows that.

Not so much.

The actual flu shot does not contain any live virus - whether it's the seasonal flu or H1N1, you can't get the flu from the flu shot. You might get an achy arm, or (rarely) a headache, but you won't get the flu. The nasal spray (FluMist, in the US) is an attenuated live virus vaccine, so it is possible to acquire a mild case of flu from the mist.

The H1N1 vaccine has been created using the same technology used every year for the seasonal flu vaccine. Some vaccines use adjuvants to increase the immune response, but none of the H1N1 vaccine used in the US contains adjuvants*. Some people are concerned about thimerasol, a mercury-based preservative used in minuscule quantities in multi-dose vials. While there's no evidence supporting those concerns (and there have been large, high-quality studies done), there is single-dose thiomerasol-free vaccine available.

If you usually get a flu shot, there's no reason to be concerned about the H1N1 vaccine. If you don't usually get a flu shot, well, you'll have to decide for yourself - but this vaccine is no more or less dangerous than any other vaccine for influenza, and vaccines in general are among the safest things we prescribe. A healthy immune system will be activated by a vaccine, not destroyed.

I'm the daughter and granddaughter of doctors. I'm also the daughter of a woman who had polio at 17 and thought she'd never walk again. My grandfather watched children die of diptheria; he sat up nights with patients who had measles to make sure they could still breathe. No one in my family has ever questioned the value of immunization, and that's not because we're tools of the drug companies or unthinking government shills; it's because we know what it was like before the vaccines.

Reasonable people can disagree about the appropriate level of government involvement in health behavior. I can understand the civil-liberties argument against the state compelling people to do something - anything - with their bodies. I have no patience with the voices of panic and conspiracy, the voices that tell us to put ourselves and our children at risk for no good reason.

I've had the seasonal flu shot and will have H1N1 vaccine when it becomes available here. Eve has never had the seasonal flu shot, but I am considering taking her to get H1N1, simply to reduce the chance that she'll be out of school for a full week (required by our district if kids get the flu this year). She's had all her other immunizations on schedule. Last year there were four cases of polio in our state, and that scares me more than all the H1N1 information combined.
____
* The adjuvant most often mentioned is squalene, which is purported to be related to a variety of conditions including lupus, ALS and Gulf War Syndrome. The connection is, to be blunt, bunk - it's based on one study which has never been replicated and which was performed by someone with a financial interest in a squalene-detection test. Thimerasol has been reported to be associated with autism, and while there are some basic-science researchers who think they may find subtle immune-system abnormalities in autistic kids, the mercury connection has also been found to be false.

Gratitude ~ by Jay

I am grateful for homemade applesauce. Mmmm.

Fun With Spellcheck ~by Jay

No, I did not suggest that the patient consult a paleontologist. What, is "pulmonologist" such an unusual word?

Gratitude ~ by Jay

I am grateful for the end of weekend call.

Gratitude ~ by Jay

I am grateful for lazy Sunday mornings.

Seriously? ~ by Jay

Fillyjonk asked for comments from women who've never had a man continue to interact with them after she made it clear she wasn't interested.

And she got a bunch.

Really? Never? Never, ever, not even once had a man keep talking to you after you picked up your book, or looked away, or walked away? Never once?

Wow.

I think of myself as relatively immune to this stuff. I'm fat, and while I used to be thinner I've never been thin. I spent enough time in New York City as a teenager to learn how to walk as if I'm going someplace, fast. It doesn't happen all the time, but it still happens. It happened in high school (along with being pawed in the hallways), it happened in college (along with nearly being backed into a pool of water by a couple of guys at a party), and it happens now when I'm trying to eat lunch. It's not always about being hit on (although that still happens, too, most recently in my examining room, by a patient) but it is always about the expectation of availability and accommodation.

I'm glad to hear it isn't a universal experience. The women who've never had this happen live all over the US (and in Canada and New Zealand and elsewhere) so it's not regional. They're in their 60s and their teens and in between, so it's not generational. I can't accept the idea that some women exude a "don't fuck with me" vibe that effectively, and my own experience tells me not being conventionally attractive doesn't explain it, either. Just luck, I guess - and I don't really think we want to entrust the comfort and safety of half of humanity to luck alone.

The Wayback Machine ~ by Jay

Do we laugh or cry?

Gratitude ~ by Jay

I am grateful for medical transcription and word-processing programs.

Gratitude ~ by Tigermom

I am grateful for 2 cubs who are cleaning the kitchen and for Tigerdad who is getting the youngest cub ready for bed while I read blogs.

Gratitude ~ by Jay

I am grateful that I have a raincoat that fits (and can't say enough about Junonia clothes and service).

Is Honesty the Best Policy? ~ by Jay

That's the question at Motherlode today. Should you tell your kid what you did with drugs and alcohol back in the day?

Lisa Belkin quotes a study from the Hazelden Foundation that says yes, you should. The kids want you to. Teens in the study say they'd be less likely to use drugs if their parents told them about their own experiences. And once the parents do come clean, the kids still see them as role models.

Well, that settles it...or does it?

What if you smoked some weed and drank some beers in high school and enjoyed it? And still got decent grades and played sports and got into college? Is that really the kind of story you want to tell your kids?

Whenever I hear a "should parents do this..." question, I wonder "what's the goal"? What are you trying to accomplish? Can you drug-proof your kids by telling them that you smoked some weed in high school? Is it even possible to "drug-proof" a teenager? And if it is possible, is it desirable?

Teenagers have the most finely tuned bullshit detectors on the planet. Lie, and they'll know. They may not know what the real story is, but they'll know they're not hearing it. And their minds will fill in the blanks, or they'll pretend to take you at your word and decide you're impossibly naive and couldn't ever understand the complexities they face. If they think you're lying, why should they be truthful with you?

It's easy for me to say "be honest" because I have nothing particularly incriminating to tell Eve about my youth. Sure, I drank before I was 18 (18 was legal then) - wine and sherry with my parents, screwdrivers when I was out with John. I never got drunk (seriously, never). And that was it. No pot. No coke. No pills. No hash brownies (although they were a staple of the spring picnic when I was in college). Not even vodka in the parking lot at high school dances - why drink bad vodka in the parking lot when you can have good wine at home? When Eve asks, I'll tell her the truth.

I won't tell her the truth because I think it will immunize her against experimentation, or addiction. I will tell her because I value honesty and openness in our relationship, and I want to model that for her. I will tell her so we can map the territory - to say "this is something we can talk about". I will tell her so that she has fewer reasons to dismiss me as closeminded and out-of-date, to preserve at least the possibility that when someone offers her vodka in the parking lot, she will be able to tell me about it and we can work it through together. I will tell her because I trust her, and I trust our connection.

Eve will certainly drink alcohol, starting at our table in her mid-teens, when we will pour her a glass of wine for kiddush if she wants one. She may smoke pot; she may try other things. I hope she makes good choices about all of it. If I could spare her all the pain of human mistakes, I would do so, but since that's not possible, I will do what I can, which is be fully myself and own all of my behavior. My goal is not to get her to "just say no". My goal is to accept her and love her and support her no matter what she chooses, and to do that, I have to be honest with her.

Gratitude ~ by Jay

I am grateful for cancelled meetings.

Things I Could Do Without ~ by Jay

Not the video, which is adorable, but the title (which I've appended below the clip in case it doesn't show up)



Are Women Born Like This?

Because One Baby = All Women. Of course.

Gratitude ~ by Jay

I am grateful for unexpected chances for fun, and gracious colleagues who cover for me while I'm having it.

Sex Ed ~ by Jay

The wonderfully psuedonymed Wildy Parenthetical has an interesting post up at Hoyden About Town. WP is a cultural theorist who, among other things, teaches a course on gender and sexuality at uni in Australia. This presents a great opportunity to challenge the heteronormativity of secondary school sex ed. Check out hir post for a very entertaining description of an in-class conversation - reminiscent of my days teaching residents how to take a sexual history.

At the end, WP asks how do you think sex ed ought to work? Not just in school, but in general. How do we prepare kids - and adults - to negotiate sexual relationships without coercion, with equal access to pleasure for both partners, without shame?

My answer is that (at least at first) you don't talk about sex. Actually, you don't talk much at all if you're the teacher. In my perfect world, sex ed takes place in a small group, which meets regularly over time. There's a facilitator who can provide guidance and help the group members find information, but the goal of the group is to serve as a safe place to explore relationships. Once safety is established and ground rules are agreed on, the conversation can evolve and group members can learn from each other and reflect on their own experiences, and eventually the talk can work around to sex.

Information is out there. In order to make use of and accurately assess the information they get, kids need to have the chance to really experience their own feelings and think about their assumptions and the assumptions that underly our cultural norms about sex.

I'd be delighted if Eve had a group like this in school, but I'm not holding my breath...so we'll do our best at home, answering her questions and supporting her explorations and trying to help her see that there are options beyond the narrow boxes of femininity and masculinity that she sees around her. We tell her (yes, at 9) that yes means yes. Never too soon.

Sex ed is important, but I want my daughter to have relationship ed, too.

Gratitude ~ by Jay

I am grateful that I don't have to use Windows for anything other than work.

Conversations With My Daughter ~ by Jay

After Eve saw Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

So how'd you like the movie?

It was so cool. We saw it in 3-D so it looked the food was really coming out of the screen.

Awesome.

There was this guy, and he couldn't invent anything, but then he made the food come down and everyone liked him. And there was this girl, and she wanted to be a weather scientist when she was younger, but everyone made fun of her so she took off her glasses and ponytail and decided she didn't want to be smart anymore. And she liked the guy who made the food come down, and he liked her. So he told her he thought she was pretty even with her glasses on, and then she put them back on and could be smart again.

In Which I Go Home Again ~ by Jay

This is not the first time I've sat at my mother's kitchen table on a Sunday after spending Saturday with John. Not the fourth or twentieth time, either. There were so many other Saturdays and so many other Sunday mornings, the warp and woof of my days when I was sixteen and seventeen.

It wasn't a date, just a cup of coffee with John and his wife - a cup of coffee that lasted for three hours of conversation and laughter. John and I filled in some of the gaps in our memories of adolescence, and we started sharing the pieces of our adult lives: how they met. How Sam and I met. Our work, our kids, our homes, how we're coping with aging parents. Sometimes we just sat and grinned at each other, and laughed again. How amazing, to be sitting here after 25 years. How wonderful.

When I planned this weekend - visit with Mom to go to a concert, and a chance to see John while he was visiting his mother - I was a little afraid that it would be dislocating, that I would feel like a child again. That's not the experience I'm having now. I feel as if the layers of my life are settling into place. I am my adult self, but with a missing piece restored. A piece I hadn't even realized was gone - no, that's not right. I'd grown so accustomed to the loss that I didn't notice it any more. I always knew I'd left a piece of my heart with John. Now it's back, and has expanded to hold Sam and Eve and John's wife and kids as well.

A complete circle, coming back home again.

And for this I am deeply grateful.

Why I Love My Husband ~ by Jay

Because when we're talking about this article over breakfast, and Eve asks what we mean about the financial benefits of marriage, this is Sam's answer:

If I didn't have a paying job, then I could get health insurance from Mommy's job because we're married.

And even more: when I comment on this, he looks at me strangely and says "what? It's the obvious example".

I love that man.

Gratitude ~ by Jay

I am grateful for Shabbat.

Gratitude ~ by Jay

Is grateful for happy moments with Eve.