Objectivist Round Up

The Playful Spirit is hosting this week's Round Up.  Head on over now, ya' hear?

Deck Builder PeopleGuys

The deck builder PeopleGuys have been working at my house for two weeks now. This was my big summer home improvement project, but it took me until now to get the thing started. We're tearing out the rotted old wood deck and patio in our backyard, and replacing them with a new wood deck with stairs, and a concrete patio to cover most of the back yard. I'm paving paradise (not!) so that I have as much man-made material surrounding me as possible. Grass, plants, and all the bugs and mud that go with them can be had at the park.

The day the workers arrived, Sam and I spent a lot of time watching them. They tore out the old deck so quickly - it was amazing. Sam was very concerned that the deck builder PeopleGuy would fall off:



I also got a kick out of this dude wearing a dress shirt and vest:



These guys never wear gloves. They use their bare hands to saw, to pull up the splintering wood, to shovel - everything. I get to teach Sam what all the names of their tools are (I had real trouble remembering the word "crowbar") and to gently note how hard they are working and what an improvement this is going to be. This is educational stuff! Every day on the way home from school Sam asks me if the deck guys will be working. I think she is fascinated.

Here is what our back yard looks like now, which is really not much worse than it was with the wood patio:



We had some back luck in the beginning - they had to order more wood, I had to move our cable box, one of the workers got sick, then it rained. Otherwise, they'd probably be done by now. But as it is, we've needed to actually walk the dog for two weeks for him to do his business, and it will probably be two more. What a hassle! But once the project is complete, we'll be able to let Toby out from the main level of our house, and he can go down the stairs to the yard. (We don't have stairs now outside, so we have to go to the walkout basement to let him out.  I find this appallingly inconvenient.)

Despite the delays, they've made a lot of progress.  Here is the deck now:



I'll post some photos when the project is complete. It's super-exciting - we're adding almost 600 square feet of outdoor space to our home and I won't have to look at that rotting hulk of crap anymore. And as a bonus, I get to shop for new outdoor furniture.  Woohoo!

Rules

We don't have a lot of rules in our house for Sam.  Mostly, we correct inappropriate behavior when it arises.  We don't have a "rule" about speaking kindly to each other - when Sam yells or whines we just remind her that she is more likely to get our cooperation if she uses kind words and a friendly tone. We don't have a "rule" about bringing dishes to the kitchen when finished - when she forgets, we just remind her.  If she doesn't want to do it, I tell her that I'll have to do it for her, and that if I have to keep doing things for her, I might start to think she is not ready for so many responsibilities. (Responsibilities are a positive thing in our house - I guess almost the positive way of stating rules - and Sam does not like to lose them.)

When we do have rules, they tend to be transitory.  We use them to move Sammy along from one set of behaviors to the next.  For example, we have a rule now that she must look both ways and check with an adult before crossing the street, but the rule used to be that she had to hold an adult’s hand.  We also have a rule that she can’t jump on the couch.  She only needs a “rule” because she used to jump on it but now she is too big and that’s a tough transition to make.  The rule makes it easier for her to deal with.

One set of rules we have is The Dinnertime Rules.  We had to make rules because dinner was becoming an unpleasant nag-fest every night:  "Sam, stop banging your fork. Sam, don't spit your food in your milk.  Sam, don't pour your milk on your plate. Sam, stop interrupting."  Seriously, this would be the entire conversation every night and I realized that it was my most dreaded time of day instead of the idyllic family time that I had always envisioned.

So I wrote up The Dinnertime Rules on a whiteboard:



We started with the first five and added the rest as they became problems (the last one is mostly a joke – we do all of this with some humor – but yes, she was biting the table).  We explained that, in order to enjoy our meals together, we all needed to follow some rules (and yes, Adam and I ask to be excused if we leave the table before the others).  Sam understands this and she loves the rules.  In this case, clear structure and guidelines were necessary to break her old habits.  I mean, she did all of these things when she was younger and it was developmentally appropriate.  It was really hard for her to understand that she couldn’t keep spreading mashed potatoes in her hair forever. We had to send Sam to her room quite a few times in the beginning, but now we mostly just have to remind her.  Come to think of it, it’s probably time to get rid of these rules.  A whiteboard is a parent's best friend!

More Nepotism

Adam was interviewed for the Wall Street Journal's blog, Digits, about how his work relates to the current lawsuits over smartphone technology.  Pretty much the whole article is about Adam and his work and he is quoted extensively.  Cool!

What Smartphone Makers Can Learn From the Sewing Machine Patent War

Weekend Update

There was no Family Movie Night this weekend because it was jam packed with other fun stuff: school field trip to a pumpkin patch on Friday, then a two-and-a-half hour nap, dinner and bonfire at friends' house Friday night, Objectivist discussion group Saturday morning, another nap, Halloween party Saturday night, sleeping in late this morning, and of course, the grand finale: Trick-or-Treating tonight!

After a year of talking about how she would be either a witch, a ghost, or a monster for Halloween this year, Sammy saw the princess costume at the store and there was no turning back.  I can't really blame her - the dress lights up and everything!  After she decided to be a princess, she insisted that Adam be a prince, which I thought was just about the sweetest thing ever until tonight, when she kept yelling at Adam, "I turned you into a frog!"  Well, it's still pretty sweet.

I decided to stick with scary and go with the witch.  I intended to do the whole green face paint thing but my nose was raw from the sneezy allergies of October, so I had to count on whatever ugliness I have naturally.



I think the last time I really dressed up for Halloween was about 10 years ago when Adam was in law school.  (He dressed as a judge, and I as a prisoner. Ha ha.)  We've enjoyed handing out candy and oooing and ahhing at the kids' costumes since then, and Sam has Trick-or-Treated the past 2 years, but I think we're entering a new era of big-time Halloween revelry that I hope will last at least another decade.

There's candy stuck between my teeth and The Monster Mash stuck in my head. It doesn't get much better than that.

Accidents

Sam is going through a little potty training regression.  She's had four or five accidents in the past month or so, including one at school this week.

This confirms my claim from last year that what she was having then were NOT accidents.  I don't know why other parents talk about regression and accidents so much, and are so concerned about it.  All the potty training materials warn you about accidents as if they are a horrifying thing that will make you freak out and lose your mind.

But having accidents implies that the child normally uses the bathroom, and that there are exceptions here and there.

Hallelujah for accidents!  I never thought I'd live to see the day.

Lupus and Lipo

For those of you who are just dying to be updated on my other health quest sagas, here is a quick report.

I'm not going to get liposuction until I'm sure I'm done with pregnancy. Both plastic surgeons I interviewed thought I'd be disappointed if I did it now.  And now that we're going forward with donor egg, there's no time, energy, or money for this project.

I repeated the bloodwork to test for lupus and everything remains negative. Since I found out that my fourth miscarriage was another trisomy, it is less likely that lupus is involved in my fertility issues.  And this means it is less likely overall.  Again, because we're going forward with donor egg, I am limited on what kinds of drugs I can use, so empirical treatment is on hold.  I saw a rheumatologist but she was a terrible doctor.  I couldn't get a word in edgewise so we never even discussed lupus.  I'm not exaggerating - this doctor never even found out what my pain symptoms are.  She had her own agenda and her own questions and she was a complete waste of time.  She ended up ordering an MRI of my right foot because that was the only place on my body she seemed to hear me mention as having pain.  After speaking with my concierge doctor, we agreed that I'd go through with the MRI since it's been a long time since I did this, and it might provide some evidence of psoriatic arthritis (another suspect).  There's not much else we can do while I'm working on getting pregnant anyway.  I just hope that I'll be able to stay on the new NSAID (diclofenac) through the cycling process, and into early pregnancy if we get that far.  After that I might be in a world of hurt.  But I'll deal with that if and when it comes.