How to eat a gingerbread man

I told K I had brought home a gingerbread man for him. I wasn't sure if he would know what it was, but apparently this is something every kid knows. "I can't wait to see the gingerbread man!" he exclaimed, hopping out of the tub.

When I gave it to him, he took a big bite out of the head. "What are these?" he asked. "His buttons." "I will eat those buttons!" he declared. "Next, I will eat this." (The scarf.) "Next, I will eat these." (The eyes.) "Next, I will eat this." (The smile.) And he proceeded to do just that, eating all the decorations and only incidentally taking bites of the cookie.

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Sitting around

There are dishes in the sink and toys all over the floor.

There are a few last holiday cards that need to be sent.

There are cookies to be baked.

There are gifts I still need to buy that need to be delivered on Wednesday.

I have a work assignment that I could easily do from home.

I should pack for the holiday weekend at the in-laws'.

And yet, I spent the evening sitting around with my laptop after K went to bed. I didn't even do something mildly useful like go to bed early.

I keep thinking that I'll have time to do all this stuff tomorrow. As if Future Me is any less lazy than Present Me.

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Talking about God

I don't believe in God. It's not that I don't believe in anything. I just don't think there's some supernatural being who created everything, or is in charge of everything, or is watching over you to make sure you're being good. And I certainly don't believe that you need a book or a God to teach you right from wrong.

Before we got married, I agreed that we could raise our kids in the Catholic church because JW felt strongly about it and I didn't. My one requirement, which JW agreed with, was that I wanted them to learn about different religions and learn to respect everyone's beliefs. (Which is a little un-Catholic -- I still remember a mass I went to where every few sentences, the priest intoned, "This is The Truth.")

K was baptized but has rarely been to church since. I tried taking him to the local Unitarian Universalist church a few times, but he made such a fuss each time that I gave up. Maybe when he's older.

K has this book called In Every Tiny Grain of Sand: A Child's Book of Prayers and Praise. It was a very appropriate gift from his godmother, and it has lovely illustrations and prayers and poetry from all sorts of different traditions. I just can't bring myself to read it to him. When he was a baby we used to just look at the pictures and talk about them, but now he points to the words and says, "Read that." And reading out loud to him, "Praise to thee, O Lord," or "We open our hearts to Brahma" just feels weird.

A friend recently told me that her husband talks to their kids about God the same way he talks about Santa: "Some people believe in him." I guess I'll end up using the same approach.

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Free!

Even though I like my job, I feel this sense of euphoria when I leave the building. At the end of the day, I take a few steps out the door and then break into a sprint. I know it looks silly, so I restrain myself when I'm leaving at a reasonable hour and there are other people around. But today, lateish on a Friday night, I ran as fast as I could all the way to the car.

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Winter boots

I bought K some green snow boots off Craigslist a few weeks ago.

"They're BEAUTIFUL," he exclaimed. The rest of the day, he said to everyone we met, "Look at my boots! Aren't they BEAUTIFUL?"

He's worn them every day since. He refuses to wear any other shoes.

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Rugelach

I've always loved rugelach, but found it too intimidating to attempt myself... until this year, when I decided to make it my main Christmas cookie. I looked up a bunch of recipes and realized it sounded easy -- make a simple cream cheese, butter, and flour dough in the food processor, chill it, then roll it out, sprinkle on toppings, and roll up and cut the cookies.

As they say on the Island of Sodor, "Disaster lay ahead." My dinky food processor couldn't handle the dough. After choking on the first cup of flour, the blade came loose and I ended up with goo on the bottom and flour on top. Then I decided to dump it into a bowl and mash it up like meatloaf. (Why?) I ended up with a buttery, cheesy mess. Finally, I grabbed the pastry blender (again, why? And why did my baking instincts suddenly desert me?) and blended it up into a smooth, unctuous dough, instead of the crumbly ball I was supposed to have. I wrapped it up to put in the fridge and tasted a little that stuck to my hand. It tasted SALTY. I remembered that the store had been out of unsalted butter, and I figured I'd just compensate by omitting some salt when I baked. Oops.

Now I have a sink full of dirty dishes and a salty goo ball in the fridge. But I will persevere.

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Christmas train

K has been asking to read "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" over and over lately. "Halloween was a long time ago," I said. "We should get you a Christmas book."
"Christmas TRAIN."
"Christmas train?"
"We saw it at the store," said K, "but we didn't buy it YET. It's for Christmas. Santa will bring it."
"Is this true?" I asked JW. "Is Santa going to bring him a Christmas train?"
"That electric train we saw at Home Depot with Santa riding on top?" he asked K. "That was two weeks ago. You still remember that?"
K nodded.
"I don't think Santa is planning to bring you that train. What if Santa brings you something different for Christmas?" I asked.
He looked dismayed. "But I LIKE trains!"
I dropped it. But now I understand why he kept asking to go to "the store" instead of going home from school.
I told this story to CT, who suggested telling K about the time Santa brought a dish sponge, or a bottle of eyedrops, or a computer adapter, to give him the idea that Santa just delivers random objects. I'm going to try it.

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Two years, nine months

Dear K,
You're nearing three. You speak in full sentences, tell us stories, and offer explanations when we don't understand. You probably won't want to hear this when you're older, but you are such a sweet little boy. When I pour your milk without spilling, you exclaim, "Good job,Mommy!" You ask for "more snuggles" when we start to leave your room at night, and no matter how upset you are, you're always ready for a hug. And you carefully pick out toys to share with your friends, thinking out loud about which ones they would like best.
You also give unsolicited compliments. My favorite was when I put on my fuzzy red sweatshirt, and you gasped and said, "You look beautiful!" (I'm pretty sure it was the resemblance to Elmo.)

Since you were a baby, I've asked you to tell me what's wrong instead of whining and crying. And it's sunk in. You are far more likely to tell me "I'm angry!" or "I feel sad," and let me know why than to yell and hit. I love that. Of course, you do yell and hit sometimes, and sometimes we yell too. Nobody's perfect.

You've always hated having your state changed (as Daddy and I, former computer science geeks, like to think of it), but lately it extends to never wanting to change your clothes. It takes a huge amount of effort to get you out of the house in the morning.

For a long time you weren't very interested in sweet stuff -- you'd get excited over a cookie, but after two bites you'd get bored and walk away. But you've discovered candy. Lollipops are your favorite. Unfortunately, they're everywhere. Every time you see one, you beg for one and throw a tantrum if we say no. (You are sweet, but you're still two.) And just last week you had your first M&M in some poorly monitored trail mix. I didn't realize there were M&Ms in there until I heard you say, "I LIKE THAT!" and smelled chocolate on your breath. You requested M&Ms for breakfast every morning for a few days, and somehow managed to identify the bag of M&Ms in the grocery store checkout and begged for that too. As you will discover, Mommy has a major sweet tooth, and I feel like a hypocrite sometimes for denying you. But it's part of my job to make sure that you don't eat candy for every meal.

Despite your burgeoning love for candy, you are such a good sharer that you only ate one lollipop out of your trick-or-treating haul and parceled out the rest to everyone in the house, warning your grandparents: "Don't eat the wrapper. Mommy will unwrap it for you."

Some of your current K-isms:
"K, you're so contrary." "I AMN'T!"
(Crash!) "What did I did??"
You tell a long story or let out a stream of gibberish. Then you ask, "What did I say?" and expect us to repeat it.
You point to characters in your books and expect me to come up with dialogues between them. "He said?" "He said... 'Hey! That's my dinner!'" "And she said?" "She said... uh... 'I will eat it all up!'"
You also point to characters and ask, "How does he feel?" on every page. It can take half an hour to read you a ten-page board book.

The rest of the family thinks it's funny when you say someone is "cross" or "pleased." (The influence of Thomas the Tank Engine.)

When you see something scary, which doesn't happen very often, you yell, "WHAT'S HAPPENING? WHAT'S HAPPENING?!" You were upset when you saw a scary scene from Scooby-Doo on the plane, but you seemed to accept my calm explanation and forget about it. I was surprised when you described the scene in detail about two days later. I didn't think you had understood what you had seen, and I had gone out of my way to tell you that the people were dressed up in costumes and were only pretending to attack. But you either didn't buy it or didn't see fit to include it in your story.

In the "be my echo" category: When I say I can't or won't do something, you say, "Try." If I'm refusing food, you say, "Try it. See if you like it." (And sometimes you add, "If you don't like it, I will eat it.") You have also incorporated several other Mommy-isms into your repertoire: "That makes sense." "That seems like a good idea."

You're getting so big. You even scrambled your own eggs this morning! I feel like I know how to be your mom right now, but we'll be entering new territory once you turn three. I hope I can keep up.

Love,
Mommy

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East, west, home is best

We lived in the SF Bay Area for a year or two and spent a decade longing to go back. But on a recent trip for a family wedding, we were both over it. Too many cars and too much traffic; too many strip malls; everything looked too shiny and new. Even the city didn't seem nearly as exciting as it did when we lived there. I guess we've become New Englanders.

We've also been looking for a larger place in our town, but the more we see, the more I realize how much I like our little house. Our open floor plan is a rarity around here, but it's invaluable when we're trying to fix dinner while K plays. Many of the houses we've looked at don't have garages at all, let alone an attached garage, and forget central air. If I could just add a bedroom to our house, get decent  heat in the winter, and pick up the entire place and move it to a nicer neighborhood, I'd be happy. Anyway, we're not in a hurry.

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Conversations with K

This morning...

K: Apples grow on trees. But berries do not grow on trees. They grow on bushes. SO, if you EVER see a tree... (looks uncertain and then walks away)

Last night in the tub...

Revisiting the "Sing After Me" song after not singing it for months:
Tra la la (Tra la la)
Mi mi mi (You, you, you)
Ha ha ha (NO NO NO)
Hee hee hee (HO HO HO)
Pick a peck of peppers (Pippapippapippa)
Fiddle diddle dee (Fiddle diddle dee)
Be my echo (Be your gecko)
Sing what I sing (I will!)
Follow the leader and sing after me (looking annoyed: I WILL!)

A few days ago...

K: You're sick. I am the doctor.
Me: Oh doctor, I feel terrible. Can you help me feel better?
K (offering a handful of coins): Some money?
Me: Are you sure I shouldn't get a lot of sleep, or drink plenty of water, or take some medicine instead?
K (handing me fourteen cents): No. Here is a hundred dollars. Now you feel much better!

Halloween...

At the first house, after much cajoling to try trick-or-treating: "MOMMY! They gave me CANDY!"

At the second house, where they left the door open and K walked right in and started to climb their stairs: "K! Where are you going?" "I'm going to get more candy!"

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I love you more

Me: I love you a LOT.
K: No. A little bit!
Me: No, a lot! I love you bigger than... Jupiter!
K: I love you bigger than Saturn!
Me: I love you bigger than the sun!
K: I love you bigger than the moon!
Me: I love you bigger than INFINITY!
K: I love you bigger than THE TUB!

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Thank you, Columbus

And thank you, The Firm, for giving me my first Columbus Day off since high school. JW had to work, so there was no hope of accomplishing anything. Instead, K and I just hung out all day and did whatever our little hearts desired. We hopped a bus to Harvard Square and browsed in a bookstore for a while. We chased birds and spotted mushrooms growing. We had a picnic while listening to a guy on the street sing and play guitar. K dropped a few dollars in the guy's bucket. When I asked K if he was ready to take the bus back home, he said, "No bus! Walk along and hold my hand." So we skipped naptime. I bought him a lollipop and we wandered the streets a while longer. When we got home, we did a little gardening and had an early dinner and bedtime.

It's been so long since I had an agenda-less day. We're always rushing around trying to get things done, and I'm always herding K. Into the bath! Diaper change! Time for school! It works, more or less, but this was a much-needed holiday.

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More work lessons learned

Maybe this will be an ongoing series.

Lesson #1: Read every word (and then some).

Lesson #2: Find someone who's done it before and ask them, no matter how straightforward it seems!

I was assigned to do what seemed like a fairly simple corporate transaction. I asked the paralegal about the procedure and the appropriate forms to file, and drafted the necessary documents.

Just before filing, I called a senior associate who had done a similar transaction to ask about one of the documents. "You're doing what?" he said. Then he told me to think twice. Apparently there's some bizarre omission in the relevant state's law that allows all sorts of transactions similar to this, but not this particular one. The state will actually accept it -- which is why the paralegal handed over the documents -- but the problem is that there's no statutory authority, so the firm could never give a legal opinion saying it was valid.

So, after drafting, and making sure the requirements were met, and going over everything with the client, we had to do it in a completely different way. Which was a little embarrassing to explain to the client. (The partner, luckily, took it in stride: he said, "Well, that'll be a huge write-off, and a lesson for us.")

Moral of the story: Always ask an experienced lawyer!

Actually, there's a hidden lesson #3 in this: Don't ignore things that seem strange or problematic.

This is another one I have to keep learning over and over. I see something (like an omission in a statute) and think, well, that's weird, but I guess it's okay because [nobody else seems to think it's a problem] [it seems like you should be able to do it this way] [there's probably a perfectly good reason that I don't understand]. Besides, everybody is so busy that it doesn't seem worth bringing up something that seems so minor.

Invariably, it comes up later. Duh: we're lawyers. It's our job to sweat minor details.

Note to self: Write it down. Bring it up. (Although in this case, I actually did bring up the weirdness in the statute -- just not in a way that flagged this particular issue, which I wouldn't have been able to identify on my own.)

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Daily routine

My periodic posts describing our daily routine are probably boring for readers, but I like looking at them when I go back to my archives -- they remind me of what life was like when K was smaller. Our current routine:

5:30 a.m. - I wake up, exercise, shower, fix K's lunch if necessary.

6:30 a.m., if we're lucky - K wakes up. We hang out in bed and read books for a while, then he gets up and drinks some warm milk and we play with trains. This morning he threw a blanket over his head and chased me around the house, yelling, "Woooo! I'm a ghost!"

6:15-7 a.m. - JW wakes up, showers, goes to work.

7:15-8 a.m. - Breakfast. Usually some combination of whole grains, fruit, nuts, cheese, and/or eggs. Today it was Quaker Oatmeal Squares, pasta with beans, a mango which we shared, and a plum. (I was impressed that he ate the pasta. He asked for it repeatedly and then didn't want to eat it, but I reminded him of all the conversations we've had recently about wasting food and he wrinkled his nose and ate half the bowl. That's some serious self-discipline for a 2-year old.)

8-8:30 a.m. - Brush teeth, change clothes, try to be out the door by 8:15.

8:15-8:45 a.m. - Unless it's raining, walk or jog to school, pausing to look at cats and trucks and to say hi to neighbors. I push K in his blue car while he calls, "Go fast, Mommy! Go faster! Go faster than ever!" This morning, whenever I slowed to a walk he counted to ten and then yelled, "Ready, GO!" At school, I stow K's food in the fridge and his backpack on the hook and give him a kiss goodbye, then walk or jog home pushing the empty blue car. Invariably someone comments on how I lost my kid.

8:45 a.m. - Quick change, hop in the car, head to work.

4:30 p.m. - JW picks up K and somehow manages to make dinner. (I miss doing afternoon pickup, but I do NOT miss the stress of having to cook something healthy that K will eat while he's hanging on to my leg and whining for a snack or for me to come play trains with him.)

6:30 p.m. - I get home, on days I don't have to work late. K is usually close to done with his dinner.

7 p.m. - Bath time. K likes it when I pretend to dunk him in headfirst.

7:30 p.m. - Thomas time.

8-8:15 p.m. - Books (lately, nursery rhymes and "Go, Dog. Go!") and bed. JW comes in for a goodnight kiss, then I turn off the lights, tuck K in, sing "Rainbow Connection" and rub his back a little and say goodnight.

8:15-10 p.m. - Mommy and Daddy free time, in which dishes get done, phone calls made, meetings attended, etc. And occasionally we get to watch TV or play Beatles Rock Band.

10 p.m., if we're good - Bed.

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What gets you a date

The OKCupid blog is awesome -- it's full of statistical analysis of people's online dating behavior. Check out this dating flowchart, and this analysis of what language in an initial message gets you a reply. Then head over to Ana's blog to give her some online dating advice.

I am a little tempted to sign up for OKCupid just to get one of those flowcharts. Here are more.

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My board of advisors

Right around review time, I got a phone call from the department chair that threw me for a loop. I couldn't concentrate after that, and went around knocking on people's doors saying either, "Did you get the call?" or "I got this call... what should I do?"

I talked to a few other associates who were in the same boat, and then to some partners and senior associates who I thought would give me good advice. And I think they did. After making the rounds, I felt better -- not only about the actual issue, but also because I realized that in the short time I've been at the firm, I've built up a little panel of advisors. I think senior associates are actually the most valuable members of that panel, since they're in a position to know a lot about the firm and how it works without feeling like they need to hold back.

When I first started, one of my goals was to build an internal network. I've noticed that asking more senior people for career advice is a great way to do that -- I learn a lot from them, and it makes them feel more invested in me. In our firm, and I would guess in most firms, senior associates are in demand. If you get them on your side, their work ends up trickling down to you.

All of this sounds very calculating, and I do genuinely like and value these people. This experience just made me realize how important these relationships are for my career.

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Weekend baking

Tonight: Chocolate chip cookie dough. The trend these days is to let your dough rest for 36 hours before baking. It only took about ten minutes to mix the dough, and then I stuck it in the fridge. Done! Delayed gratification -- what a concept. I've been into the idea of having all sorts of pre-baked or pre-assembled meal components in the freezer, and this is part of my plan. After the resting time, I'll bake a few, make the rest into a log, and stick it in the freezer so that we can produce freshly baked cookies for guests.

Earlier: Popovers, second attempt. I used half Wondra flour this time, and added lots of freshly ground pepper and some herbes de Provence. They puffed up beautifully and had a perfect souffle-like texture on the inside. Unfortunately, I had neglected to grease the muffin tin. We ended up pulling the tops out and eating those, and then soaking the pan so we could scrape the bottoms down the garbage disposal. At least the tops were good. Third time will be the charm, hopefully.

Last weekend: Arepas and pajeon (Korean scallion pancake, or at least a bastardized version of one). I think I liked both of them better than JW or K did. (K, alas, rarely appreciates our cooking efforts and prefers Goldfish crackers to muffins fresh out of the oven.) Tomorrow I may try Chinese-style scallion pancakes. Also on my list: these buttermilk oatmeal muffins.

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Too much two

Lately I've been feeling a little toddlered out. I've been gritting my teeth at behavior that I would normally shrug off, or even find charming. (For example, today I woke up at 6 a.m. to a rhythmic chant of "WIPE MY SNOT. WIPE MY SNOT.")

Maybe that's why this NYT piece by Tim Kreider, a single man in his forties, resonated with me:

Most of my married friends now have children, the rewards of which appear to be exclusively intangible and, like the mysteries of some gnostic sect, incommunicable to outsiders. In fact it seems from the outside as if these people have joined a dubious cult: they claim to be much happier and more fulfilled than ever before, even though they live in conditions of appalling filth and degradation, deprived of the most basic freedoms and dignity, and owe unquestioning obedience to a capricious and demented master.

I have never even idly thought for a single passing second that it might make my life nicer to have a small, rude, incontinent person follow me around screaming and making me buy them stuff for the rest of my life.

Then again, this part is also true:

But there are also moments when some part of me wonders whether I am not only missing the biological boat but something I cannot even begin to imagine — an entire dimension of human experience undetectable to my senses, like a flatlander scoffing at the theoretical concept of sky.

Back in my pre-child days, I had so much free time that I used to wish I could occasionally trade places with my future harried mom self and give her a break while spending a lovely evening with my future offspring. (One of the often overlooked advantages of time travel: free babysitting!) It's been a while since I thought about that, but today I wished that I could trade places for one day with the mom of teenaged K. She would probably be nostalgically thrilled to wipe snot and read "Babar and the Scary Day" ten zillion times in a row. And even though I'd miss him yelling "You're Cookie Monster. I'm a cookie!" and running around with no pants on, I would happily hang out with an older K, eye-rolling and all. I bet by the end of the day, my future self and I would be glad to switch back.

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Socks on

"NO! Don't take my clothes off. I don't want to get in the tub!"

"Do you want to take your socks off by yourself, or should I take them off for you?"

K considered, and then replied: "I just want to keep my socks on."

Argh! That "do you want X or Y" trick is a staple in my parenting repertoire. I knew it wouldn't work forever. I just didn't think he'd figure out so soon that he could invent a third alternative.

Another recent K-ism: he has no problem loudly and repeatedly saying NO, until I ask him an actual yes-or-no question, like "Do you want to go for a walk?" Then he replies, "Uh, I don't think so, Mommy. I don't think that's a good idea."

He's also been saying "I don't know" a lot, even to things he clearly does know. He figured out that we would stop pestering him to think for himself and just tell him the answer if he says he doesn't know. But we eventually caught on and now we're back to pestering.

We got a digital clock for his room (to reinforce a new rule: wake-up time does not start until 6-0-0! Don't make any noise until the first number is 6!) and he has become interested in numbers, reading them off signs and boxes and whatever we see. But he usually reads them backwards. He often reads letters right to left, too. We've been reading to him so much for his entire life that I was a little surprised to realize that he didn't get the concept of reading from top to bottom and left to right. But of course, I don't move my finger as I read, and he's looking at the pictures. He is starting to make out the letters and can read a few words (on, off, go). I've been attempting to read a little in Bengali to remind myself how hard it is to read when first you have to figure out what all the letters are.

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Memo to myself

On the subject of being a corporate lawyer, here is a lesson I've had to keep learning over and over again:

NEVER STOP READING.

Don't read just the first page of a document and conclude that it's not what you're looking for.
Don't breeze through a provision, assuming that it's identical to all the other provisions you've seen in the same type of agreement by the same party.
Do not ever skip a single word in an email or letter. In fact, read those three or four times.
When reading a provision in an agreement, read the entire section and skim the entire agreement.
When reading a statute, skim the entire chapter or at least look through the table of contents.

I read a haiku on someone's blog once (I thought it was googiebaba, who has demonstrated haiku talent, but couldn't find it on her blog) about how the writer was bored and exhausted, but must pay attention to every word, because that's her job.

Maybe writing it here will help it to finally sink in.

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Being a first-year corporate associate

Part of the reason I haven't felt inspired to post lately is that I am now an employee. My days don't vary that much and I'm wary about my blog being discovered and scrutinized. But I remember being eager to hear what being a junior corporate lawyer is really like.

Here's what it's like: I spend my days drafting agreements and consents, explaining things to people over the phone, and looking at spreadsheets and trying to figure out where all the numbers come from. A good chunk of the time, I'm doing something I have never done before, which can be anxiety-inducing when it's something with potential consequences like a securities filing. Sometimes I have three different people looking at what I produce, all of them giving me conflicting instructions. Sometimes I wish I could get someone to look at what I'm doing. I sit around for half the afternoon and just as I'm contemplating going home, I start getting phone calls with assignments that have to get done by the end of the day. (The end of the day really means the end, as in, when I'm too tired to stay awake any longer.) I do a fair amount of pro bono work with nonprofits, lots of venture capital financings of private companies, and the occasional random health care / FDA / hedge fund assignment. Like all the other associates, I worry about job security and whether I'm contributing anything useful. I like my job most when I'm interacting directly with a client (and actually know what I'm talking about) or when I can see the big picture of helping a nonprofit get tax-exempt status or helping a biotech client raise enough money to get through its next round of clinical trials. I like my job least when I'm feeling isolated in my office, needing guidance but not being able to find anyone to talk to me. I feel like there are so many different areas to learn about that it will take me years and years to get any real expertise. At the same time, I know there are documents I can draft in half an hour now that would have taken me three hours a few months ago.

It doesn't sound terribly exciting, and when I read PBB I feel like I should be doing something with a bigger impact, like maybe practicing corporate law isn't fulfilling my true lawyerly potential. I do help people. But not, for the most part, people who wouldn't otherwise be helped, and not in such an immediate way. Anyway, I am turning my altruistic inclinations in other directions for now, and I like the job so far.

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Or if you only have five minutes

Watch this video, K's current obsession.



It's from They Might Be Giants' new album Here Comes Science, which has been on constant rotation in our house since it arrived last week. Many of the songs are a little advanced for a 2-year old, but that hasn't stopped K. ("Mommy, what's DNA?" Uh...)

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What you should do with that twenty minutes of free time you manage to scrape together over the course of three days

Read this story.

(I just kept it on my iPhone browser and every time I had to wait for anything, I would read some more.)

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Catching up

I think this is the longest I've ever gone without updating.

Life has been uncomfortably busy. Both JW and I are involved in major projects outside of work. 

K's 2.5-year doctor's appointment went smoothly, thanks to the "I Go to the Doctor" story in his "About Me" Childcraft book. He's still asking to read the story, days after seeing the doctor. K has grown 1 inch and gained 2 pounds in the last 6 months. He drew in his breath to yell when he got his flu shot, but what came out was "Stickos?" (which the doctor had wisely offered while giving the shot).

Things I have been thinking / learning about lately:

Boston public school choice.

Handwriting.

Playback Theater.

Beginning guitar. (I can play three songs now!)

Books I have read:

The Perfect Fruit by Chip Brantley. Now I know all about the stone fruit industry.

Something Missing by Matthew Dicks. I loved this book. It's been a while since I read a novel that I loved. It's about a career criminal who gets to know his "clients" so well (by making regular acquisitions from their homes) that he finds himself noticing things that are wrong in their lives and trying to fix them. 

Things I have baked:
Pumpkin oatmeal muffins with apricot preserves from the Moosewood Cookbook. I left out the oil by accident and they were still good. Plus, they use pantry ingredients. The preserves made a little hole in the center of each muffin, though.
Zucchini, carrot, and pineapple cake. Was supposed to be muffins, but I couldn't find the muffin tin. Got rave reviews.
Spinach and basil muffins, with heavy modifications to this recipe. I liked them and would make them again. I'm not sure how everybody else felt -- they were probably expecting more traditional muffins.
I guess I've been on a muffin kick. Planned for today: Nancy Silverton's bran muffins. (Also, empanadas and salted caramel ice cream. We're having friends over for dinner.)

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Big boy bed

For the first time in months, a weekend stretched out before us with no plans. We had plenty on our to-do list, but no agenda.

Still, I was glad when JW, who had been lying on the coach bemoaning the latest of a series of minor illnesses, suddenly sat up and said, "Let's go to Ikea and buy K a bed." (#212 on the list.) Within ten minutes we were all in the car. A few hours, many mattress bounces, and several plates of Swedish meatballs later, we returned home with a Minnen extendable bed, a Sultan Sova extendable mattress, and Barnslig Rand sheets.

While JW assembled the bed, I bribed K with a strawberry lollipop to sit still for a haircut. (Which I was quite proud of. Maybe not salon quality, but no tears or tipping involved.) K was excited about his bed and kept running in and out of his room, climbing into bed and out again. He even said he'd sleep without a pacifier tonight because he was a big boy now.

K became nervous when bedtime rolled around. He kept requesting more books, demanded his pacifier, and got up twice during his bedtime song.

He's been asleep for a little over two hours now. We'll see how it goes.

Update: First night went smoothly. Naptime required a little intervention and was shorter than usual. Second night started off the same as the first, with repeated requests for one more book and one more song. But so far, so good. (Haircut update: I noticed a small bald spot above one ear, but he doesn't care, and I saved twenty dollars.)

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Interview with a 2-year old

Q: How was your day, K?
A: Good. It was not bad. It was good.

Q: What was the best thing that happened to you today?
A: I wanted some water and Mary gave me a cup of water.

Q: What was the worst thing that happened to you today?
A: I cried and cried.

Q: Why did you cry and cry?
A: Because I had snot in my nose.

Other things K has been up to lately:

- Getting chased by monsters.

- Wearing our shoes.

- Simultaneously playing as many instruments as possible.

- Inventing a complicated game where two plastic people wait for the bus but instead get picked up, and dumped out, by every wheeled toy in the house. This game takes about half an hour to complete and makes quite a mess. It also requires extensive commentary by the plastic people, voiced by me. I have tried to get K to take over this duty but he insists, "SAY!"

- Crashing engines into barbershops, thanks to a Thomas story we read. The other day he formed his grapes into a rectangle and announced that they were an engine. "Is the engine going to crash into the carrots?" I asked. He gave me a withering look. "Those are not carrots, Mommy. That's a barbershop."

- Taking all the kitchen utensils out of the drawer, naming them, and then putting them all back. As a result, he knows that an offset spatula is for frosting cakes.

- Reciting his books. This is the end of "The Cat in the Hat Comes Back," where Little Cat Z takes the Voom off his head to clean up the snow. (Of course, if you've never read the book, this will be totally incomprehensible.)

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Post-bar reading list

I read my last non-law book at the beginning of May. I don't remember what it was, but I do remember thinking, "This is it. No more pleasure reading until after the bar."

On a mini-vacation with CT, I bought three books. I rarely buy books (except for K), but I was feeling indulgent. There was one I was particularly excited to read. But even though I've been bringing it everywhere with me, I haven't opened it yet. Somehow it feels daunting to start reading for fun again after so long.

Here's my post-bar reading list:
The Perfect Fruit: Good Breeding, Bad Seeds, and the Hunt for the Elusive Pluot by Chip Brantley
Something Missing by Matthew Dicks
How to See Europe on Fifty Cents a Day by Lee Meriwether
The Nine by Jeffrey Toobin
When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management by Roger Lowenstein
Shakespeare Wrote for Money by Nick Hornby
The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments by George Johnson
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

And some holdovers from my previous list:
Opening Skinner's Box: Great Psychological Experiments of the Twentieth Century by Lauren Slater
Your Brain Is (Almost) Perfect: How We Make Decisions by Read Montague
Family Planning by Karan Mahajan
Things I've Been Silent About by Azar Nafisi
Songs Without Words by Ann Packer
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

The books I did manage to read from my previous list were not that exciting, for the most part. American Wife was an interesting fictionalized look at Laura Bush, and was about as sympathetic to George W. as a liberal can get. The Dissident was well-written but slow-moving and sort of odd in that I was never sure whether the "twist" at the end was supposed to be a twist or whether you were supposed to know it all along. The Position had such an intriguing premise -- parents write wildly successful Joy of Sex type book starring themselves, what happens to the family? -- but turned out to be your typical divorce/dysfunction book.

One of these days I will get over my fear and start the pluot book.

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Tiny violin

I bought it off eBay after K kept trying to play my violin and ruined one of my bows (but actually made some vaguely musical sounds in the process). It took forever to arrive. I made the mistake of telling him that the mailman was going to bring him a little violin. I didn't mention it again, but for weeks every time we got a package he would ask, "My violin?"

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Money

Ana wrote about her views on money. I agree with nearly all of them, but for different reasons than she wrote about.

1. Rules for expenditures.

Ana judges the wisdom of an expenditure according to whether the time will appreciate, depreciate, or retain its value. This makes a lot of sense, but I think of this as the "disposal value." In other words, how much will this item be worth to me when I don't want it anymore? I base my decisions about spending almost exclusively on the use I'll make of the item. How long will I need/want it? How often will I use it? How much satisfaction will I be getting out of it per dollar? I think about the "use value" rather than the disposal value.

For instance, we renovated our kitchen pretty soon after moving into the house. Will we make our money back? I think so, but I'm not sure. I don't care that much because we enjoy our kitchen every day and we could afford it at the time, so the expenditure was worth it.

2. Rules regarding displays of wealth.

Ana says displays of wealth are rude because to be gracious, you shouldn't make others feel bad that they have less. Again, this makes total sense, I've just never thought about it in quite this way. I've always thought that displays of wealth are tacky because they show that the person doing the displaying has their priorities way out of whack. When I see someone wearing some huge logo I think, "It's okay, you don't have to prove anything to anybody. Go home and put on something that you actually like."

Also, on wearing logos in general, Ana says "Why on earth would someone want to be a walking billboard that basically says 'Rob Me!'?" True, but I'd stop at "walking billboard." I am a human being, not an advertising space for a brand.

[Omitting lots of rules in the middle.]

9. Money doesn't make people happy.

Ana's point here is that you don't need money to impress people, and that "it's a means to an end." I agree with that. But honestly, money does make me happy. It makes me feel secure to know that we have enough savings that we won't be in crisis if one of us loses our job or gets sick. It makes me happy to be able to give money to people in need. It makes me happy not to have to scrutinize every purchase, to feel that I can buy anything I need and enough things I want. I don't think this is a huge difference in attitude, but it gives me a higher sellout threshold than Ana.

I guess all of these rules about money assume some basic ideas: that you don't buy things that you don't need (or really want AND can afford); that you don't spend beyond your means unless absolutely necessary; and that you have some sense of having enough and aren't consumed with the idea of money as an end in itself.

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Salary negotiations

Over at Starting to Melt, Cee asks whether she should negotiate her salary.

I wrote her a long comment (with a resounding YES), but here's my personal story. I didn't negotiate at one of my early jobs because a friend who worked there told me it was a small company and they probably couldn't afford much. I just asked them to match my previous salary and was happy they did. I really wanted the job and didn't feel I had a lot of leverage to negotiate anyway.

I was one of the few software engineers at this company, which was moving toward a mainly web-based model after years of producing print materials. That meant I got lots of responsibility very quickly. After a year or two, we started interviewing more engineers. My manager was careless and left an offer letter in the printer. I happened to see it when I was picking up my printout. The offer was for $13,000 more than I was making.

I had interviewed this guy. He had similar qualifications to me, but two years less experience. Meanwhile, I had worked my way up and was now in charge of one of the major product lines. I was furious and felt that I had been taken advantage of. (Which was true in a way, but I had also never asked for more.)

I scheduled a meeting with my manager and, without mentioning that I had seen the offer letter, outlined my accomplishments and told him that I wanted a $13,000 increase over my current salary. He pointed out that this was a large percentage. I said that I knew, but felt I was being substantially underpaid.

He came back with a counteroffer: an $8,000 raise now with an additional $5,000 raise in 6 months. I said I felt this was fair. He said, "You do? I mean, uh, that's great." (Did I mention he was careless?)

I learned that it's always worth it to negotiate salary. Negotiating doesn't mean making a demand and threatening to walk away. It's a request for more. If they turn you down, no big deal. If they give you everything you want, you probably should have asked for more.

Salary follows you for a very long time. At your current job, every raise and bonus will be based on a percentage of your salary. If you start out lower than others at your level, you'll end up a lot lower at the end. The fantastic negotiation book Ask for It by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever(reviewed here) makes this point over and over -- not negotiating in the beginning has a huge effect later in your career. At subsequent jobs, your new employer will always try to find out your previous salary as a starting point.

There are lots of tips out there for how to approach this negotiation, but in a nutshell: build up your case with your own qualifications and some objective standards for what the salary should be, then state your case matter-of-factly without apology or ultimatum. Remember that this is a business transaction. It is intimidating, but don't be scared because you're afraid they'll think badly of you. As long as what you ask for isn't totally inappropriate for your position, negotiating will show that you're capable of asserting your worth.

(P.S. - My story isn't meant to be a how-to -- I put myself in a bad situation, and while I'm glad I tried to get out of it, I probably could have handled it better. The story was just my wake-up call that I had to stick up for myself because nobody else would be making sure I got the best deal.)

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New car

We test drove a car. I think this is our official entry into the market.

JW has been asking when we'll replace our ancient Saturn for over a year now. During school, I could use the excuse that we couldn't afford it. Lately my standard response is, "When it explodes."

Our car has virtually no resale value, but it's worth something to us. It's been fully paid off for close to a decade. It gets us from Point A to Point B. It still gets good mileage. It starts up almost all the time. Sure, it shakes at speeds above forty, and you can hear it coming from a block away. And one of the speakers in the stereo system has been blown for years. And it's been in about four accidents, two of which involved replacing most of the parts. So what if you can see nails on the outside where two pieces used to be connected, and there's a big crack above one wheel, and one of the side mirrors falls off if you look at it wrong. The car still works.

JW played the baby card ("what if K were in the car and something happened?") and that started to sway me. I was finally convinced when, as I got out of the car after the test drive, a piece of the door came off in my hand.

"This car has served us well," said JW. "It's taken a lot of abuse over the years. Let it die peacefully."

So I guess we're looking to buy a car. I hate buying big expensive things.

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Everything I hate about Long Island in a neat little package

As I drove down the six-lane highway past miles of strip mall, a kid in the car next to me stuck his head out and kept screaming at me, "HEY! HEYYY!!! SEE HABLA ESPANOL! SI! SI!!" F*** you, kid. You too, Long Island.

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Done with the bar exam

Wrists still work, although they need some rest. The essay day was okay. There were one or two essays where I read all the way through the fact pattern and got to "What are the rights of the parties?" and hadn't spotted a single issue. But when I thought long enough, I could come up with various ways for everyone to sue each other. I think that means I'm ready to be a real lawyer.

The criminal law essay involved a guy who hired somebody to kill his pregnant wife. When the wife saw the killer trying to break in, she grabbed a knife, yelled "I'll take this into my own hands!" and stabbed herself until she fell down unconscious. What deranged mind came up with that one?

Immediately after the bar, I checked my email and learned that a close family friend had died. So I didn't feel much like celebrating. I called my ER doctor brother, who told me she was hit by a car and gave me some unnecessarily gory details. That made me feel much worse. I guess the result is the same, but it was comforting to think that she died peacefully. When I heard how violent her death was, it seemed so random and unfair.

She was one of my parents' best friends. She helped take care of me when I was little. Her house was always open to all the kids in our community, and when we grew up we would still gather there every Thanksgiving. She had a grandson who was almost the same age as K, and would trade stories with me whenever I talked to her.

Today I'm going to Boston to return my bar books and iPod. Tonight we're driving to New York for the funeral.

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I did the MBE and it wasn't so bad

Done with Day 1 of the bar exam.

Yesterday I blew off the last few study items on my list and took a mental health day. I finally used the birthday gift certificate from my sister-in-law and got a massage and my first-ever facial. Then I went to see a movie, and spent the evening hanging with the family. At night I slept like a baby (meaning I woke up a few times, but got back to sleep) and woke up feeling relaxed and back to my old self. Which meant that I was honestly happy, not just convincing-myself happy, that the bar exam was finally here and I could stop spending every spare moment answering multiple-choice questions.

I got there a little early and took a walk around. A comparison between the bar exam and labor popped into my head -- both take lots of preparation and are anticipated with horror, but once you get through them, they're done and you never have to think about them again. (Until you get to the next state or kid.) But then I realized that labor was the most excruciating pain of my life and there was no way the bar exam could compare. I've given birth. I can handle way worse than this.

These thoughts comforted me while I ate a second breakfast. My main concern with the MBE morning session was eating enough. When I'm hungry I get distracted and can only think about food. I ate enough to focus during the morning, but in the afternoon there were lots of criminal law questions and those distract me too. I always start imagining myself as the criminal defendant and daydream elaborate scenarios where I plead for justice or scheme to evade it.

The exam conditions were more humane than I expected. The proctors were nice, we had plenty of room, the bathrooms were clean, nobody seemed to be freaking out. The actual test was tough, but so similar to the Barbri practice tests, right down to the typeface, that I felt pretty comfortable.

I finished both sessions way early, earning glares when I was one of the first ones to walk out. (I did check some of my answers, but I didn't think I was going to change anything and I really wanted to leave. So I left.) Between sessions, I walked into the city and treated myself to a fancy lunch.

The best part was when I got home. JW opened the door with a big smile, and K exclaimed, "Mommy, I bought you some ice cream!" And he did, too!

So, to quote Dr. Seuss, today is gone, today was fun, tomorrow is another one. I think tomorrow will be brutal. Not just because it's so much more material. And not just because, unlike today, I doubt I can crank out five essays in two hours. Given my past wrist problems, I will be medicated and possibly bandaged and am hoping that I will finish the day with full use of my hands. Wish me luck.

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Optimism

Yesterday morning K put up stiff resistance to leaving the house. I set up the stroller while he ran around inside. When he became interested in the door hardware, I seized the opportunity to pull his shoes on while explaining how the door worked. Relieved that we were finally ready to go, I hustled him outside and told him to listen for the click when the door closed, because that was the sound of the door hardware clicking into place.

You know what else happens when the door closes? It locks, and you need a key to open it again. I had carefully checked to make sure the key was in my purse, which was just inside the door, right next to K's backpack containing everything he needed for school.

I walked K to daycare, formulating a plan. If JW couldn't bring me a key, I would walk to school or to the library. It was hot and it would be a long walk, but at least I'd get some exercise. I could find a computer with free Internet access to look up bar study materials or track down a friend willing to share, and I could stand to skip eating for one day.

I borrowed the daycare phone and called JW, who couldn't leave work. I told the woman who runs the place my tale of woe and she immediately said, "How can I help? We'll take care of K, of course. And let me give you some money for the bus." "Oh no, it's okay," I replied, "I can walk to school." "To Harvard?" she said. "That's much too far." She handed me a ten dollar bill and said, "You can buy yourself lunch too."

I walked home to check the back door, then waited for the bus. When it finally came, I asked the bus driver if he could make change for a ten. He told me I could only get a bus ticket good for the remaining $8.50. "But this is the only money I have," I said. He shrugged. "You can get off at the next stop and ask somebody for change."

So I got off. I sat down on the stoop at the side of the diner and started to cry. I'm being silly, I thought. So I'll get change. Big deal. I should just be grateful that Dina lent me the money in the first place. I have a plan. And all of this is my own fault anyway.

I pride myself on staying calm and keeping things in perspective. When I have a problem, I figure out a way to handle it and accept what I can't change. I am an optimist, sometimes annoyingly so. I focus on the positive in every situation and am grateful for it. This is why when people ask me how law school / work / studying for the bar / motherhood is going, I honestly tell them how happy I am and how much I enjoy it. Life is good. My problems are very small in comparison.

But for a few minutes, I sat there on the side of the road and cried. Just for a few minutes, I let myself acknowledge that the bar exam was in two days. I was locked out of the house with no books, phone, or wallet. We had received terrible family news recently. JW had been sick. I had re-injured my wrist and hadn't been sleeping well. A work situation had been hanging over my head for weeks and I didn't like how I was being treated. And the stupid bus driver wouldn't even cut me a break.

Just for a few minutes, I squelched the little voice that said, Yes, but K is fine and JW is starting to feel better and you're fine and everything is fine, and look how nice Dina was to you, and that total stranger who stopped and offered to lend his cell phone, and aren't you grateful that even when you have nothing but the clothes on your back there are so many places you can go and people you can turn to. All that is true. But for a few minutes it felt good to let myself be stressed out.

I think there's a continuum between optimism and denial. If you convince yourself that everything is good, then it must be true. Maybe I was heading too far in the denial direction. But isn't all this in the "accept things you can't change" category? Feeling stressed and upset is unproductive if you can't do anything about it, isn't it? But maybe my mini-breakdown today showed me that feelings don't have to be productive.

(And thus, I learned a lesson, meaning it was a good thing that I cried on the sidewalk. Also, it is good that I have been up since 3:30 a.m. because now I have time to blog and exercise.)

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Library!

I abandoned today's Barbri session after about fifteen minutes, deciding that studying solo was far preferable to hearing some guy drone on and on about the rules of evidence. Cutting through the law library on my way to the student center, I looked wistfully up toward the fourth floor reading room where I spent so many hours napping in a comfy armchair (and occasionally studying). I decided to ask the librarian if she would let me back into my favorite study space, just for the day. "You're an alum?" she asked. "Here, let me get you a library card." And she handed me a permanent pass to get in! (Apparently all the June grads get an email about this. What else do they tell them that I'll never know?)

I know most people are perfectly happy never to return to their law library, but I love this place. When I graduated, I felt like I would never find such a perfect work space again. Knowing I can work from here whenever I want, forever, made my day.

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Those Harvard guys

In conversation with somebody from town, JW told him that I was studying for the bar. "Are you doing Barbri?" he asked. "A friend of mine from Suffolk was doing that, and this guy from Harvard asked for his notes because he missed class. Can you believe that? He was pretty annoyed, but he gave him the notes. The Harvard guy never went to class again and just studied from my friend's notes, and he passed the bar!"

"That's not right," I said. "I wouldn't have given him the notes for every class."

"No, it's not right! My friend was really upset. And you know what else? My friend has been practicing law in Massachusetts ever since. The Harvard guy didn't even become a lawyer -- he left to go work at a think tank or something."

"A lot of Harvard people see their degree as a stepping stone to something else," I replied.

"Yeah, those Harvard guys don't stick around, and half of them don't even practice law."

"Those Harvard people," I agreed. "You can't count on 'em!"

"So where did you go to law school?" he asked.

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Five years, part 2

Part 1 left off at K's birth. When I think about it now, life with a newborn seems sort of awful, but apparently at the time I didn't think so (except for the C-section recovery part). Which is good because we may just do it again one of these days. I did spend most of my 29th birthday in tears, but they were wiped away when my baby gave me his first smile.

After a few months at home, I went off to my summer jobs at two different firms. My mother came to stay with us for the summer to look after K, and I learned about the joys of pumping at work. I made several career decisions that summer: I picked a firm, turned away from patent law, and discovered that maybe I did want to be a corporate lawyer after all. And reaffirmed that I do not have what it takes to be a stay-at-home mom.

In the fall, K started daycare and I returned to school. (And CT got married!) K was a tiger for his first Halloween, and got his first haircut a few weeks later. Despite my chronic sleep deprivation, which made me feel like the semester was going to be a washout, it turned out fine in the end.

Life seemed to accelerate once K finally started sleeping through the night (at 10 months old, god help us). Winter term. Spring semester. K turned 1 and started walking. I turned 30 and decided life was good.

I returned to The Firm for the summer and pondered being a tax lawyer. They let me take a vacation day to pretend-graduate with my class, but it wasn't much fun. I had my last summer vacation, during which I sprained my ankle twice, did too much work, and met my niece.

During my last semester of law school, I interned at the AG's office, took some fun classes, and fed K butter. K said "Mommy" for the first time and dressed up as a bat for his second Halloween. K took his first shower. Oh, and history was made.

I graduated from law school (more or less) and, after a few weeks off, went back to The Firm for real. I learned a lot in my first few weeks, but also found the lack of autonomy a little frustrating. The first few months have worked out well in terms of work-life balance, possibly because I haven't been terribly busy. But, along with my fellow MILPs (WILPs?), I continue to struggle with assumptions about women and part-time work both at The Firm and in the profession.

Meanwhile, K turned 2 and dressed up like a duck for the Mother's Day parade.

And now I'm studying for the bar exam, which is less than two weeks away. I should be studying, anyway, instead of taking this trip down Memory Lane.

I started writing this blog because I wanted an outlet to write about law school, but I love that I've also found a community and friendships. So if you've read this far, thanks for sticking with me!

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Five years, part 1

Five years ago today I wrote my first post on this blog.

I had just decided to disrupt our comfortable lives by applying to law school, after months of soul-searching about what I really wanted to do with my life. I applied to five schools, three in Boston and two in New York. After lots of worrying about money and moving, I got into school right down the street. I quit my job, took a summer vacation, and started law school. I adapted pretty quickly to student life and survived 1L year, getting through classes, exams, moot court, the summer job search, and an unsuccessful law review write-on.

Looking back, I can see that I became MUCH more laid-back about law school after getting pregnant, which, if you're keeping score at home, happened during 1L exams. During my Torts exam, to be exact. Don't worry, it was a take-home. Pregnancy kinda sucked, even though it had its moments. I was in my second trimester when I started my 2L year. Doing OCI during a heatwave while pregnant was an adventure. As the semester drew to an end, I got excited about the baby (and realized I didn't want to be a corporate lawyer).

Winter term provided a needed distraction from the third trimester, and I was a little wistful when I saw everybody heading off to class in the spring. Especially since I was just sitting around waiting. And waiting. And waiting. And wishing he would come out already.

After a long and eventful labor, out came K!

As it turns out, it takes a long time to recap five years, especially when you should be studying for the bar, so part 2 tomorrow...

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Two weeks

The bar exam is exactly two weeks away.

Until now, I've been feeling pretty laid-back about the bar. Standardized tests are the one thing in life that I totally know how to do. I am constitutionally incapable of walking into a test unprepared. Besides, this is Passachusetts. A friend told me the pass rate last summer was something like 90%. "When have you ever been in the bottom 10% of anything?" he asked.

I'm starting to feel my very first twinge of anxiety. Possibly because I was hanging out with fellow bar-takers last night, something I've been mostly insulated from since I've been studying on my own. Or maybe because I lost my Evidence notes. Or maybe even because now that I'm on leave from work, I have nothing to distract me. (Benefit #2 of working full-time while studying.)

Anyway, at this point it's just a twinge. Two weeks is plenty of time, and that friend was right. No way are 90% of the people in that room going to know more than me.

Back to work.

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Done with bar lectures!

Does it reflect badly on my career choice that the only bar subject I found intolerably boring was Corporations?

At least it was also the subject I knew the most about.

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We drew engines all morning

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Weekend baking: soft pretzels

From Smitten Kitchen. Despite the wow factor, I have to admit I prefer the ones from the street cart. And I'm less tempted to eat five of those in a sitting.



These took about four hours from start to finish, with about an hour of active time. The process is very similar to bagels -- after an initial rise, roll the dough into strips, shape, poach in boiling water with baking soda and sugar, and then glaze and bake.

I'm not used to baking bread. The rolling part went against all my baking instincts to avoid over-handling the dough. You would never knead cake batter, because you don't want to develop the gluten. But of course, bread is supposed to be chewy. I just need to develop a different set of instincts for anything with yeast.

Upcoming on my to-bake list: rolls of some sort (maybe Parker House rolls?), bagels, cinnamon raisin swirl bread. (Probably not all before the bar.)

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K's joke

K (knocking on my leg): Nop, nop
Me: Who's there?
K: Nobody.
Me: Nobody who?
K: Nobody is at the door.

He made up this joke himself.
Don't quit your day job, kid.

Another favorite K-ism of late: he'll start fake-crying and when I ask what's wrong, he'll say, "A monster ate my breakfast!"

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Prince Philip

Speaking of fraud as grounds for annulment, the Barbri family law lecturer (Schechter, my favorite) told a story about a woman who tried to get her marriage annulled because her husband was not, as he had claimed, European royalty. No dice.

A friend took the bus from New York once to visit me at college. When she arrived, she showed me a photo of her seatmate, "Prince Philip." He was an African prince who had moved to New York to experience life on his own before ascending to the throne and untold riches. (Does this story sound familiar to anyone?) He proposed that she move in with him and become his concubine. She could eventually move back to Africa with him and live in the palace and he would buy her a car. The photo showed Prince Philip with his wife in a mostly empty apartment with a TV on the floor, and had his phone number written on the back.

I guess she couldn't marry him, anyway, so it wouldn't do her any good if lying about being royalty were grounds for an annulment.

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What I learned from half a lecture on family law

1. It's called a "shotgun wedding" because the pregnant girl's father would march the baby daddy there at gunpoint. I never knew that.

2. You can marry your cousin in Massachusetts. But you can't marry your step-grandparent, your in-laws, or your grandchild's spouse. (So K's future child's future wife is safe.)

3. You can get an annulment for fraud regarding an essential aspect of the marriage. Lying about your religion, about your sexual proclivities, about whether you're able to have kids: all fraud. Lying about your salary, job, or economic prospects: not fraud.

This immediately called to mind the NYT article I read a few months ago about the woes of Westchester wives who were bitter that their Wall Street husbands were now unemployed and asking them to spend less. The wives all protested that they were keeping up their part of the deal (presumably, checking the Nannycam, making sure the kids were suitably Prada-clad, and attending regular Pilates sessions) but the husbands were no longer keeping up theirs. One of them literally said, "This wasn't what I bargained for." I think she would disagree about whether economics are an essential aspect of the marriage.

Class-baiting aside, I think the idea that economics are never an essential aspect of a marriage is a pretty romantic view for the state to have. If someone claims to be a millionaire and it turns out they're in massive debt and you just hitched your finances to theirs, shouldn't you be able to get out of it if you want to?

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Lessons from the simulated MBE

Or, what not to do for the actual bar exam:

1. Go to bed at midnight the night before. Wake up every hour and a half until being forced out of bed for good at 5:30 a.m.
2. Lose your watch.
3. Arrive at the exam five minutes after it starts...
4. ... without any #2 pencils.
5. Leave half an hour early during both sessions to enjoy the beautiful weather.

I still haven't found my watch. Anyway, I've been meaning to buy a cheap digital one for the bar. I will remember to pack some pencils, and JW agreed to drop off K at daycare on the exam days. So that should take care of #2-4. I have to check my hedonistic impulses for #5, which will probably be the hardest. As for #1, at least now I know that even if I'm sleep-deprived during the real thing, I won't just pass out like I do sometimes during my practice sessions.

I haven't actually graded the thing yet. I'm confident that I kicked ass, and I can keep thinking that until I grade it, so I have little incentive to find out the truth.

On the way out, a friend said she was relieved to be done with the grueling day. "It wasn't so bad," I replied. "We had a long break at lunchtime, and now it's 4:30 and we're done!" "That's because you're working," she pointed out. "You're used to doing stuff all day." So I guess there is an advantage to working full-time while studying. You get in the habit of sitting in a room concentrating for hours on end.

I took a long walk through the city to the T station, got home at 5:15, and hung out on the deck with my boys. JW grilled and I helped K do "gardening" (sweeping pine needles off the deck with a paintbrush, which is much less messy and more suitable as a pre-dinner activity than actual gardening). We were completely done with the bedtime routine by 7:30, half an hour earlier than usual, and curled up in bed with "Cars and Trucks and Things That Go" for a nice long read. Now I'm sort of looking forward to the bar.

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A rant about the law

Studying con law. Just like in law school, it pisses me off.

Take state action, for instance. The only way to know what constitutes state action is to memorize all the relevant decisions and guess about the rest. For instance, we all (assuming the only people who read this blog are lawyers) read Shelley v. Kraemer, the case where the Supreme Court decided that it couldn't enforce a restrictive covenant on private land.

Supreme Court, I don't like racial discrimination either. But this is an entirely private transaction. How can it constitute state action?
We are the government, and if we enforce a racially discriminatory covenant, we'll be acting. See, it makes perfect sense.
Okay. But then, isn't everything converted into state action, because the minute you ask the court to strike down or uphold it, the government is acting?
Hey, ever heard of the "case or controversy" requirement? Get in line.

More than any other subject, con law is all about the whim of nine people. All right, not whim. The carefully considered and researched but frequently inconsistent and undeniably biased, because nobody can be totally objective and ignore their time and place and life experience and ideology, view of nine people.

Even if you leave the Supreme Court out of it, the law is frustratingly hard to pin down. Laypeople get into trouble because they say, "I read the law, and here's what it said." But did you read the annotations, the cases, the regulations? You didn't realize, did you, that "exclusively" actually meant mostly and "company" only included domestic for-profit businesses incorporated under a specific chapter?

Recently I read part of a statute that said something like, "Provisions of this chapter X only apply to other chapters as expressly provided in those chapters." In the other chapter, it said, "The sections of chapter X that apply to this chapter are 1, 5, 12, 15, 18, 23, and 45." Pretty straightforward, right? I didn't find any law interpreting this and so I replied to the partner who asked me that no other sections apply. He asked me to double-check, so I emailed the entire group. Nobody had a definitive answer, but I got three responses back saying, "I've never been sure, would you tell me what you find out?"

I understand that this is why I'm employed, but normal people without special degrees and research tools SHOULD be able to read the law and understand what it means.

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More Statute of Frauds

Bar studying continues apace. Next week I start my leave from work!

K has been helping me. "Hey, K," I'll say, "do you want to hear about the Statute of Frauds?" He always says yes, and when I'm done listing all the types of agreements and defenses, he says, "More Statute of Frauds!" That kid has always had a massive attention span for his age.

By the way, did you know that fetuses are considered people for purposes of Massachusetts homicide statutes? How is abortion legal, then?

Speaking of controversial political issues, I can't wait to hear the real reason that Sarah Palin resigned. It's bound to be something juicy.

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Bar study update

Toddler.
Full-time law firm job.
Studying for the bar exam.

Any two out of the three would be plenty, but all three at the same time is... challenging.

Work has been heating up, which would otherwise be good except that I'm getting way behind on my studying. Two different partners have talked about pulling me in on big projects -- I had to tell one of them that I wouldn't be around in the time frame that she needs me, and I need to talk to the other one to make sure he knows I'll be out for half of July. Where was all this work a month or two ago when I was sitting around wishing for something to do?

I'm two days behind on the Barbri lectures and about a week and a half behind on the assignments. Every spare moment I have -- at least, when I have the mental capacity to process -- I'm studying. I pop in the headphones to listen to the lectures as soon as I step out the door in the morning and while I'm waiting for the elevator on my way out of work. Last night after K woke me up at 3 a.m., I stayed up and studied until 4:30. I've done the 3 a.m. studying multiple times, in fact -- I can't get back to sleep like I used to. Too much going on.

On the bright side, it's good to be billing some hours and I'm still enjoying the bar studying. I think I'd be miserable trapped in a room for 4 hours every day, but walking along listening to somebody talk about wills on the iPod is fine with me -- it's like listening to an audiobook. And in a way I think it's good to have work to distract me from studying. (But if you have a choice, part-time is definitely the way to go.)

Once July 31st rolls around, I'll have so much time I won't know what to do with myself. I can renew my efforts to learn to play piano. I can read BOOKS again. We can finally watch the entire season of Lost that we have stored up on our TiVo!

Meanwhile, I'll cram in as much as I can. I'm taking a few weeks off before the bar exam and I'll try to catch up then. But for now I am much busier than I would like.

(P.S. - Please don't tell me, "Don't worry, you'll do fine." Did I say I was worried? No. I just said I was taking the bar exam. And if you want to tell me your personal bar story, I'm happy to hear it, but leave out the "All I did was X, Y, and Z, and I passed, so you'll pass too!" This is not helpful.)

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Point seven

Met a Very Important Partner from another law firm. Somebody asked how many lawyers at his firm. He answered, "243.7."

"Point seven?"
"If you count up the people working part time."
"Oh, I thought it might be because one of the attorneys is eight months pregnant," I joked. (I acknowledge it wasn't all that funny, but that's what popped into my head when I heard the point seven.)

He looked alarmed and laughed while putting up his hands in a "whoa" position as if I had said something wildly inappropriate, and replied, "You can say that, but I can't."

Then it was my turn to do the alarmed laugh. "Was that offensive? Sorry, I didn't realize."

I'm not sure whether he heard me, but he said, "I have to know someone pretty well before I tell an off-color joke."

Off-color? After racking my brain, I can only think of three ways this could be remotely offensive:

1. Any reference to pregnancy is taboo. (Pregnancy typically results from sex, thus off-color?)
2. Reference to baby as .7 of a person is offensive. (Maybe he reads those church brochures that chastise you for saying you're "going to" have a baby, because from the moment of conception you already have a baby.)
3. He thought I meant that the pregnant attorney herself was only .7 of a person.

None sounds plausible. (Unless he thought that by #3 I meant that somebody close to having a baby might take maternity leave and be gone for a while, and so they wouldn't add up to a full lawyer? In which case, he really shouldn't have laughed at all.)

Anyway, I guess I should have kept my mouth shut. Next time I will limit my conversation to the weather and appropriate legal topics until I have a sense of what the person considers "off-color." Then I'll let loose with my best jokes about the pregnant attorney, Bill Clinton, and the Pope.

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Potty time begins

"I'm ready to poo!" said K this morning.

He has never announced this before. Usually he'll play quietly by himself and avoid attracting my attention after he poops, to put off the diaper change as long as possible.

"Do you want to poo on the potty?" I asked him.
"Yes!" he replied.

Once we got his diaper off, he didn't want to sit on the toilet. I can't blame him. But I asked if he wanted his own potty, and he said yes. Actually, he said, "Thomas potty." I did some research and ordered him this frog potty instead. I explained that the Thomas potty had hard plastic pieces that would scrape him, and he agreed to accept the frog potty instead. (And once again, I'm so glad K is not a baby anymore. It is such a relief to deal with a relatively rational person who understands what you say.)

My niece's birthday party was this weekend, and one of her presents was The Potty Book for Girls. K found it and asked me to read it three or four times in a row. I am pretty sure that's what inspired today's foray into pottydom.

I don't think we're going to push potty training, but I guess we'll start thinking about it and encouraging him to use the potty when he feels like it. So far we haven't actually "trained" him to do anything -- he learned how to walk and eat with a spoon and drink out of a regular cup on his own. Maybe using the potty could be another thing that he decides to do by himself? That's what I'm hoping, anyway -- I keep hearing all these things about feeding your kids salty foods and setting a timer and making them sit on the potty every half hour, and it all seems a little excessive and kind of unfair for the kid. If he's still in diapers by the time he's three, I'll think about using the official training techniques.

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"Avoid marriage"

The Internets are abuzz with news of Sandra Tsing Loh's divorce and, more specifically, her anti-marriage essay in the Atlantic (which I first came across through Amber).

So here's what I got out of this piece:

• Marriage requires too much work.
  
• So much work, in fact, that most people just don't have the temperament for it.
  
• Women are especially unsatisfied because they are expected to initiate and/or do most of that work.
  
• We in the U.S. tend to overemphasize the importance of marriage, and have an unrealistic view of it, leading us to have a high divorce rate.
  
• Married couples in their 40s and up rarely, if ever, have sex.

Leaving aside the last item, of which I have no personal knowledge, I think she makes some good points. (Side note: JW said this article made him throw up. Those were his exact words.) I agree that many people enter into marriage with unrealistic expectations and without understanding the work it's going to take, and that eventually they find themselves unwilling or unable to keep their marriages going. And I agree that it's a good idea for people to think carefully about whether they are suited for marriage, and to consider alternatives without being stigmatized.

It's scary if you think she's saying that this breakdown is inevitable, that after a time your marriage just wears out and you can't bring yourself to rekindle it yet again.

But I can't believe that, because among all the reasons she lists for staying married (for the dual income, for the kids, to avoid being alone, to prove that we can) she never once mentions her actual husband.

So, I do think post-divorce anti-marriage screeds tend to be a little reductionist: my marriage failed, so marriage is a bad idea. But it didn't make me throw up.

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