Fussbucket

by Stacey

Believe it or not I still read parenting books. I know that some people take this to an extreme, reading the advice of far too many so-called experts, but I have found that a few good ones can actually be very helpful. Parenting is hard. I don’t mind asking for input now and then.

The book I’m currently reading is called, “Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child,” by John Gottman, a kind of famous University of Washington professor of psychology who specializes in marriages. In fact, supposedly he and his team can sit down with a couple and predict within minutes whether or not the marriage will end in divorce. Yikes. I wouldn’t want to end up at a couples dinner party with him. I can just see the after dinner party games now.

Anyway, the book talks about the importance of empathy in parenting and not dismissing children’s feelings, especially their negative emotions. He advises parents to help children identify words to describe their big, scary emotions (such as anger, fear, and sadness) and to help them develop skills in coping with these feelings. Thus, they end up with emotional intelligence and go on to be wonderful, happy, successful human beings.

Yesterday when I was riding on the bus home from work I had an epiphany of sorts related to this. It came from a humor column in August 4th issue of The New Yorker, called “Play Nice” with the opening line, “If adults were subjected to the same indignities as children.”

PARTY

Zoe: Dad, I’m throwing a party tonight, so you’ll have to stay in your room. Don’t worry, though—one of my friends brought over his father for you to play with. His name is Comptroller Brooks and he’s roughly your age, so I’m sure you’ll have lots in common. I’ll come check on you in a couple of hours. (Leaves.)

Comptroller Brooks: Hello.

Mr. Higgins: Hello.

Comptroller Brooks: So . . . um . . . do you follow city politics?

Mr. Higgins: Not really.

Comptroller Brooks: Oh.

(Long pause.)

(Zoe returns.)

Zoe: I forgot to tell you—I told my friends you two would perform for them after dinner. I’ll come get you when it’s time. (Leaves.)

Comptroller Brooks: Oh, God, what are we going to do?

Mr. Higgins: I know a dance . . . but it’s pretty humiliating.

Comptroller Brooks: Just teach it to me.

That just made me laugh. But this next one is funny in that Homer Simpson, “It’s funny cause it’s true!” kind of way.

GARAGE

Lou Rosenblatt: Can I drive your car? I’ll give it back when I’m done.

Mrs. Herson: I’m sorry, do I know you?

Lou Rosenblatt: No, but we’re the same age and we use the same garage.

Mrs. Herson: No offense, sir, but I really don’t feel comfortable lending you my car. I mean, it’s by far my most important possession.

Brian Herson: Mom, I’m surprised at you! What did we learn about sharing?

Mrs. Herson: You’re right . . . I’m sorry. Take my Mercedes.

Lou Rosenblatt: Thank you. Can I come over to your house later? I’m lonely and I don’t have any friends.

Mrs. Herson: Well . . . actually . . . I kind of had plans tonight.

Brian Herson: Are you excluding him?

Mrs. Herson: No, of course not! (Sighs.) Here’s my address, sir. The party starts at eight.

Lou Rosenblatt: I’ll show up a little early.

Mrs. Herson: What’s that on your face?

Lou Rosenblatt: Mucus. I haven’t learned how to blow my nose yet, so I just go around like this all the time.

Mrs. Herson: Oh.

Lou Rosenblatt: I’ll see you soon, inside your house.

Maybe it’s not just kids who need to develop emotional intelligence. Although Lou Rosenblatt’s kid really ought to teach him how to blow his nose. It’s not that hard.

by Stacey

Working women who miss work for infertility treatments are now one step closer to having legal protection from job loss under laws that guard against pregnancy bias in the workplace. According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, a federal appeals court has sided in favor of a woman’s right to sue if she loses her job for missing work due to in vitro fertilization.

In the first decision of its kind at the federal appeals-court level, a three-judge panel in Chicago found women who need time off work for infertility treatment may invoke the Pregnancy Discrimination Act as potential protection against adverse action. The ruling came in a case involving Cheryl Hall, a secretary who was laid off after taking time off for in vitro fertilization, then asking for more. Without ruling on the merits of her case, the court last month set a precedent by giving Ms. Hall a green light to sue her former employer for pregnancy-related bias.

I didn’t know this before I read the article, but the erratic nature of IVF can wreak havoc on the schedule of a working woman.

Some procedures require women to report to a clinic several days each month for blood tests or sonograms. Retrieving eggs from a woman’s uterus is usually done with a general anesthetic, requiring recovery time. Some doctors order bed rest after embryos are transferred to the uterus. Women who have long commutes to work or a clinic, as Ms. Hall did, may need extended time off.

The article says Ms. Hall’s physician ordered her to stay in bed for several days after an embryo transfer in 2003; she took about 20 days off, court papers show. The procedure failed and she was approved for a second leave to try again; “my boss knew everything that was going on with me,” Ms. Hall says in an interview. But her supervisors singled her out for layoff before the second leave, citing absenteeism for infertility treatments, court papers show.

Courts in other cases have held that because both men and women experience infertility, sex-bias protections don’t apply. In this case, the court held that because only women undergo time-consuming in vitro fertilization, they may be protected by sex-bias law. Treatment for men usually takes less time.

The ruling suggests women will have to worry less about the “repercussions of taking time off for IVF,” says Eugene Hollander, Ms. Hall’s attorney. While the decision applies only in Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin, it could influence other courts or, if a conflict arises, trigger a Supreme Court petition, the article says.

The ruling expands a trend toward recognizing infertility as a medical problem; 13 states have laws mandating insurance plans to pay for in vitro fertilization, says the Pacific Research Institute, a think tank. Also, more employees are seeking time off for treatment under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act; this law, which entitles covered workers to up to 12 weeks’ unpaid time off, may apply in some cases if a doctor certifies the treatment is for a serious health condition.

I wonder whether this would have implications for health insurance coverage of these procedures. Does health insurance typically cover this now? I seem to remember about five years ago there was push back from the insurance companies over whether or not infertility was a medical condition.

by Stacey

I really enjoy watching the Daily Show and I especially like the show’s only female correspondent, Samantha Bee. Over the winter I noticed that she looked pregnant. Indeed she was.

She recently had her baby, a boy named Fletcher.

Samantha Bee with her daughter Piper

Samantha is married to Jason Jones, who is also a Daily Show correspondent.

Bee with Jones on the DS.

When speaking to eTalk about Piper’s appearing on The Daily Show Jason said, “If there’s anything we learned, is that we didn’t get enough money for our daughter’s appearances on the show. This son is going to rake it in.” The couple met while working together in Canada, saying that they “bonded through our mutual dislike of the children, which is ironic because we’re raising some now.”

Those guys.

Thanks to Babble’s Famecrawler for the tip.

by Stacey

The Olympics are coming! And along with the nail-biting tension and excitement of competition come all those heart-warming/wrenching human interest stories about the athletes. According to a post on Salon’s Broadsheet, this month’s Cookie magazine has a preview feature of a few of the athletes who are mothers and say that pregnancy improved their athletic performance.

Multiple medal-winning swimmer [Dara] Torres found that carrying extra weight and altering her training routine while pregnant ultimately improved her performance instead of slowing her down: “Once she gave birth and was back in the pool, her trainers were startled by her increased flexibility, and her coaches were stunned by her new speed in the water, the result of all the swimming she had done while freighted with Tessa and some 36 extra pounds.” Just over a year after giving birth, she won gold at the U.S. Nationals and twice broke a record she’d set at age 15.

Oh yeah? Well just a year after giving birth, I could down twenty espresso shots and still fall asleep while waiting for the light to turn green. That was something I couldn’t do before I had kids.

[Melanie] Roach, meanwhile, found that having three babies in a relatively short time allowed her to revive a weightlifting career she’d thought was over. After becoming the first American woman to lift twice her own body weight in 1998, she was injured too badly to compete in the 2000 Olympics, where she’d been expected to medal. Chronic pain and depression followed, but pregnancy actually offered some relief from the constant pressure on her injured back. She began some light training again while pregnant, started seeing a chiropractor and eventually — after getting herself back into competition — had back surgery. This past May, she won her spot on the 2008 Olympics team, an achievement she believes would never have happened if she hadn’t had kids.

The Broadheet writer had this to say in response to these admittedly cool stories:

When so much of the news about postpartum life is bad — sure, you’ll experience the greatest joy you’ve ever known, right alongside crippling depression, diminished bladder control and a decimated body image — it’s really refreshing to hear about women for whom childbearing led to both greater career success and an improved relationship with their own bodies. Good luck at the games, moms!

I have to agree. I’ll be rooting for these mamas to win the gold.

Personally, there’s no way I’d say my body is better after going through pregnancy and childbirth. What about you? Is your body worse off, about the same, or better than ever?

by Stacey

In a couple of weeks my family will embark on our annual summer vacation to Cape Cod to visit my husband’s family. It’s always fun to see my in-laws and to spend time in a beautiful place, but it’s not a vacation like the ones we used to take. Just like at home, we still have to get up at the crack of dawn, make sure our kids are fed, napped, and entertained. By the end of each day, we’re beat.

According to this column in Newsweek, while family vacations may not be restorative and relaxing, they do play an important role in children’s lives.

Those were the vacations of my childhood—often a 1,500-mile drive between Minneapolis and Teaneck, N.J., to visit my mother’s family. There was no air conditioning. I hardly ever remember getting out of the car. Unencumbered by seat belts, my brother and I roamed into each other’s carefully guarded back-seat territory and bickered until one of our parents lost it. We stopped at motels with pools and ate “picnic” dinners in front of the TV. But they’re some of the best memories of my childhood. (”I don’t remember it quite so fondly,” says my mom.)

“What kids remember about their childhoods is not setting the table,” says Susan Rugh, author of Are We There Yet? The Golden Age of Family Vacations. “If you want your kids to have memories, you have to take them on vacation.”

It makes me glad to think that my kids will remember things like fishing with their grandfather, playing on the beach with their cousins, and eating lobster on the side porch with the entire family. That makes it worth the effort.

Do you enjoy your family vacations? What do you think your kids will remember most?

by Stacey

Sorry I went missing last week, but when you hear about the week I had you’ll understand.

Last week actually started three weeks ago when the woman we’d hired to watch our kids while I was at work sent me an email saying she was skipping town in the middle of August. Her marriage had been on the rocks for a month or so and in order to save herself from falling into a pit of despair she decided to move to New York.

Despite my disappointment I actually thought this was a great idea and I admired her for having the courage to do something so adventurous (she’s never even been to NY) in the midst of a very sad time for her. So okay, she’s leaving and she has my blessing.

But shit. Now I have to find a new nanny. I join an online service that let’s you post a profile describing your family and (for a fee) let’s you search the nanny database they’ve got. You send emails, they send emails, if you like each other enough you might get together, etc, etc. The experience was as close to online dating as I’ll ever get.

Everyday at work became an ongoing click over to my email to see if anyone had gotten in touch. Is my dream nanny waiting for me in my Inbox? Please, please make it so!

Many phone interviews and four in-my-home, meet-me-and-the-kids interviews later I thought I’d found the one. I went on a camping trip last weekend thinking I’d seal the deal with her early last week.

But when I got home I found a delightful email waiting for me from a woman who sounded even more perfect. I called, we chatted, she was great, we made a plan to meet. That was Sunday.

Monday, after I take Sage to swim class which involved chasing my other son Sascha around the periphery of the pool for a half-hour, I went to a very fun three-hour brainstorming session in the evening with a bunch of other people to help a friend come up with a new name for her company.

Tuesday, the last-minute nanny comes over and I like her. Later that night I decide that she’s the one I want to hire as long as her references pan out.

Wednesday, I spend my lunch hour talking to last-minute nanny’s references. Thankfully, they are good. Immediately afterwards, I call her and make an offer. She accepts. Yay! Then I call the other person I was going to hire and tell her she didn’t get the job. Boo. Then I send my current nanny an email telling her that Friday is her last day because the new nanny wants to start right away. Double boo.

Later that evening, my neighbor and I drive around the neighborhood spying on people’s fences because we’ve decided to split the cost of a fence that divides our yards to make it friendlier. We end up standing in the dark in the backyard of a guy who has given us a bid for the job, talking fences. We hire him and he says he can start the next day.

Thursday, my husband and I take sick time off of work so we can bring Sascha to the hospital to get tubes put in his ears and his adenoids taken out. Some of you may remember we did the same thing with Sage a few months ago. I end up in the operating room in a paper jumpsuit trying to coax Sascha to let the anesthesiologist put a mask over his mouth to knock him out. As Sascha contorts his body and cries, the doctor remarks, “He’s a fiesty one.” Tell me about it. My husband calls him The General.

Friday, the new fence is installed and it looks great. That night we get a babysitter and go out with some friends who are visiting from out of town. At the bar I gulp down a martini and then drink two glasses of wine with our meal. I will say that did take the edge off what was otherwise the busiest, most exhausting week of my life.

But now I’m back. So what’s up with you?

by Stacey

My friend Harriet writes the Well-Mannered Traveler column on MSNBC.com and she’s looking for input from parents for a story she is working on about unaccompanied minors on airplanes. She’s looking for some stories and advice from families who may have sent their kids on planes alone.

Anyone?

If you don’t want to post in the comment section, send me an email at staceyatfussbucketblogdotcom and I’ll pass it on to her.

Thanks!

by Stacey

No one makes you take a common sense test before you have children, but sometimes you have to wonder if maybe they should. According to this AP story, a family court judge in New Zealand had a nine-year old girl renamed, figuring she’d suffered enough with the name her parents gave her.

Are you ready?

Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii.

It’s a bad name and I’m sure she’s glad to get rid of it. According to the girl’s lawyer (she was involved in a custody dispute), she was so embarrassed by the name that she never even told her closest friends what it was. Instead she asked everyone to call her “K.” Her new name is undisclosed to protect her privacy.

“The court is profoundly concerned about the very poor judgment which this child’s parents have shown in choosing this name,” [the judge] wrote. “It makes a fool of the child and sets her up with a social disability and handicap, unnecessarily.”

Ya think?

In his ruling, [the judge] cited a list of the unfortunate names. Registration officials blocked some names, including Fish and Chips, Yeah Detroit, Keenan Got Lucy and Sex Fruit, he said. But others were allowed, including Number 16 Bus Shelter “and tragically, Violence,” he said.

I’m not really getting why it’s okay to name your kid after a bus shelter and not okay to do it after your favorite meal on the menu, but whatever. What is up with these parents? I gotta tell you, it is hilarious to give your kid a ridiculous name. I mean, how funny can you get? It’s just a riot. I can’t stop laughing.

by Stacey

Yesterday evening we took the kids to Cyclefest, a Seattle-based event that included beer on tap, loud music, lots of people wearing spandex, and a giant screen set up on the grass to watch the Alpe d’huez stage of the Tour de France. (For more on that go to my husband’s great blog about bike racing.)

Part of the evening’s activities included a treasure hunt for kids that covered a pretty wide scope of the public park we were in. The kids rode their bikes to find the different clues that were located in boxes at places like the pea patch and the basketball courts.

While we were at the pea patch, I noticed a young girl riding her bike by herself. She didn’t seem worried, but she did seem to be looking for something. I asked her if she was okay and she said yes, but then I noticed she kept riding around the same area near us.

Cut to the chase, she had in fact gotten separated from her mother. Just as I was about to embark on the walking search to find her mom, she asked if I had a cell phone. Of course I did and she suggested we call her mother. Brilliant!

She told me her mom’s cell phone number and within minutes they were reunited. It was so helpful that she knew the phone number. I don’t know why it hasn’t occurred to me before to teach Sage our cell phone numbers, but now I am definitely going to do that.

Is this a no-brainer? Do your kids know your cell phone/home phone numbers?

by Stacey

Background noise from television can disrupt preschoolers’ efforts to sustain attention while playing with toys. According to this Reuters article on MSNBC.com, researchers report in the current issue of the journal Child Development, this disruption can happen even if the little ones don’t pay much attention to what’s on the TV.

In a controlled setting, the research team led by Dr. Marie Evans Schmidt of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children’s Hospital Boston observed 50 children, who were 12-, 24- and 36-months old, play with a variety of age-appropriate toys for one hour. For half of the hour, a television was on in the room, showing an episode of the adult game show Jeopardy! with commercials. During the other half hour, the TV was turned off, the article says.

They found that when the TV was on in the background the toy play of the children at every age was disrupted, even when they paid scant attention to it, glancing at it for only a few seconds at a time and less than once per minute. When the TV was on, the children played for significantly shorter periods of time and the time they spent focused on their play was shorter, compared with when the TV was off.

“Background TV, as an ever-changing audiovisual distractor, disrupts children’s efforts to sustain attention to ongoing play behaviors,” Schmidt said in a press statement. “Even though the effects of background television on play behavior found in this study are small, they may have a cumulative impact through large amounts of exposure at home,” the investigators wrote. “These may include poorer cognitive and language development and attention deficit symptoms.”

Pediatricians recommend no TV for children under age 2, yet studies show that three quarters of very young children in America live in homes where the TV is on most of the time.

We’re not big daytime TV watchers in my house, but I wonder about the effects of radio in this regard. I listen to NPR a lot, especially in the mornings and when I’m cooking dinner. Even before I saw this study I’ve wondered whether the background noise from that was distracting to my children as we read books to them or play with toys on the floor.

I know that I can’t concentrate when there’s background noise. It’s not surprising to me to hear that kids can’t either. I think part of what’s interesting about this study is it shows how much concentration kids actually put into play.