Happy holidays

I just visited my own blog hoping there would be something new. Which I guess is a sign that I should write something.

We just got back home from a week at the in-laws. I am SO HAPPY to be home. I love my in-laws, but I will never again visit them for such a long stretch in the winter. I was going stir-crazy because they live in the middle of nowhere, their house is freezing, and since we were sharing a room with K, who needs a lot of light while sleeping to scare off the monsters, I didn't get a decent night's sleep all week. Between K, the lights, and the loud heaters that sucked all the moisture out of the room, I was pretty much awake between 3 and 4:30 a.m. every single night we were there. But, I spent a lot of that time mentally going through each room of our house and deciding what house projects I want to do on my day off, and since we weren't planning to get back until Sunday, I have two and a half bonus days to do them!

I shouldn't really complain, because my in-laws are awesome and the kids love being at their house. But I just spent a whole paragraph complaining anyway, because I can.

Yesterday it snowed. A lot. X romped around while I shoveled. K went out later with JW. I thought we'd spend more time outside, making snowmen and stuff, but the in-laws have this huge basement with all JW's old toys and it's hard to tempt the kids out of there.

Christmas was lovely. We stayed home and opened presents in the morning, and some relatives came over for an early dinner. K's favorite presents were a Megaman doll (sorry, not doll, "guy"), a joke book, and a Lego Ninjago Character Encyclopedia. X's favorites were an Elmo doll, a little foam Sesame Street armchair, a Plan Toys cone sorter, and five multicolored balls that we chased around for the rest of the week. By the way, the matching pajamas didn't work out -- most of them didn't fit right and are being returned. It was worth a try.

I spent Christmas Eve doing marathon baking, which was a luxury -- usually my limit is one recipe, which I inevitably screw up because one of the kids is always dragging me off somewhere or hitting the other one (X) or eating something inappropriate (X) or bugging me to pretend I'm an evil robot (K). I made holiday sugar cookies, which K declined to help me cut out and then decorated three of before getting bored. Both boys were excited to eat them, though. In preparation for Christmas dinner I baked the Heavenly Chocolate Cake Roll from Smitten Kitchen, except the rolling part didn't work out so well and it turned into a trifle instead, layered with thawed frozed berries and whipped cream sweetened with icing sugar and a little vanilla, and topped with white chocolate shavings. Not as pretty as the roll, but it was a hit and easy to make. And I made pumpkin cinnamon rolls for the third year running, and while I wouldn't kick them out of bed, I didn't love them as much as I should have. They were a little too sweet for me, and not quite as tender as I would like. I think next time I'll go back to my usual King Arthur Flour recipe. In fact, maybe next time will be soon... I think New Year's Day deserves a special breakfast, don't you?

Oh, and did I mention I had a day off? X's daycare was supposed to be closed January 2nd for some bizarre reason, so when I put in for my vacation, I said I'd come back on the 3rd. Then they came to their senses and said they would be open the 2nd after all, but I see no need to return to work a day early, so I get what I've been longing for... a day off, all to myself, with no kids!! There are so many things I could do. Make some progress on house projects, including those curtains that I bought the fabric for over a month ago. Extra-long workout. Take myself out to lunch. Watch Pitch Perfect. Finally use that massage gift certificate I got as a pregnancy gift. Run all the errands I've been putting off for months, including taking my consignment purchases to the tailor, my watch to get its battery replaced, and my necklace graveyard to a jewelry repair place. (This is a bag full of the half dozen necklaces X has ruined by yanking them off my neck.) Sit in a cafe and get lost in a book. Better yet, spend an hour browsing in a bookstore. The one thing I am determined NOT to do is waste my precious alone time by sitting on my butt surfing the web. I am so excited for my bonus vacation day. Best Christmas present ever!

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Applesauce

Here is a video of X saying "applesauce."

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K and X snapshot

I wrote this in an email to a friend about two months ago, in response to a question about what the boys are like:

How can I describe X? He is like an adorable little hurricane. He has this toothy grin that he flashes at everyone he meets. He is incredibly resilient -- even if he gets really hurt, he'll cry for five seconds, then get right back up and give you that grin. He does what he wants to do. If you tell him not to do something, he will laugh and do it deliberately. His favorite words are "shoe" and "circle." He will sit in your lap for an hour while you read him every book within reach. If something is on a flat surface, he will push it onto the floor. When he wakes up in the morning, he immediately starts jumping up and down and singing.

X and K are opposites in many ways. K wants to sleep with the lights on and the door open, X needs it to be dark and quiet. K loves to eat mangoes, X will only gnaw on the pit. I think the best way I can explain how different they are is by saying that when something bad happens to K, he gets upset and cries. When something bad happens to X, he gets mad and yells.

K is definitely more like me. I was also an overly sensitive little kid. Xis more like how I wish[ed] I could be. I don't think either one of them is really like JW in terms of personality.

But K is really fun and silly, and is a very curious little boy. He thinks about things and asks great questions. He loves to hear and tell jokes. He can't go five minutes without a hug.

They are both awesome kids, but very different from day one.

I wrote this a month ago:

X at 20-almost-21 months:

LOVES "Hop on Pop" and can recite long sections. Loves "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See," which he requests by saying, "At me! At me!" And in general loves books, books, books. But still cannot be trusted to keep them intact. Pats the floor next to him and says, "Sit." Still says no a lot, but occasionally grins and says, "YES." Still calls me Daddy most of the time, but calls K "GEE-YAH" and will shout for K when he hasn't seen him for a while. Does not care about the bedtime routine. He just wants to be put in his bed and he will take care of the rest. But he does need at least two pacifiers, and takes turns sucking on each one until he falls asleep.

K at 5.5:

Has grown out of his 4T clothes, but swims in his size 5 clothes. Loves kindergarten! And has been asking me some very sophisticated questions about the things he learns. Is obsessed with Lego Star Wars. Loves hugging his little brother. (K: "I hugged him so much he ran right into the couch!" Neighbor: "Are you sure you weren't wrestling him?" K: "No, we were hugging!") Just started playing with the little girls next door. Can't wait for more snow.

And here are some updates from now:

X: I already think of him as being 2. He has those screaming tantrums when he doesn't get something he wants, but he distracts himself and calms down quickly. (Yesterday when I took him to his room for a diaper change instead of reading him "Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late," he started to yell, but as we walked away he quickly resigned himself to his fate and began a running stream of, "Bye-bye pidgie. Bye-bye hot dog [the pigeon wants to have a hot dog party]. Bye-bye book. Bye-bye Daddy Kee-o. Bye-bye tree. Bye-bye ammals [we have an animal poster at the base of the stairs]," all the way upstairs.) Current favorite books are still "Hop Pop" and "At Me," plus "New Hat, New Hat," "Doggodoggodoggo," and one of K's National Geographic books about migration habits of zebras, crabs, and walruses. Favorite song is "EIEIO" (all one word).  He waves his hand at me and says, "Come, come." He started calling me Mommy! But now he sometimes calls K "Daddy Kee-o" even when JW isn't around. He copies everything K does, and chases K around the house. He says, "Night night" when he wants to hang out in his crib with his pacifiers for a while.

K: Got an "Encyclopedia of Good Guys and Bad Guys" as a present from Aunt Trousers (a blank journal with some instructions and a few guys drawn in -- thanks, Aunt Trousers!) and is determined to fill it up. So excited to spend Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Thinks it's hilarious to say "butt" (and tries to trick us into saying "underwear" by saying, "Can you put that under there?") When I went to his classroom this morning to decorate a gingerbread house with him, he showed great willpower in not eating any of the candy, until the very end when I secretly encouraged him to sneak a gumdrop. Every kid needs a little rule-breaking in his life.

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Self-compassion

I talked with my therapist about feeling anxious at work, and how that leads to procrastination. I told her that when I look at a mile-long long to-do list, at least half of which has deadlines like "ASAP" or "yesterday," I panic. I feel like I should be doing everything at once, and I can't focus and end up trying to avoid that panicked feeling by distracting myself. Then, of course, I feel worse knowing that I've wasted all this time instead of tackling my list, which has grown during the time I wasted.

I also mentioned that recently, I've gotten a lot of positive feedback and it's helped me feel less anxious. Quite a few people I work with closely have take the time to tell me that they like working with me and appreciate my work. It made me feel so much calmer to realize that even though I feel like I'm constantly failing and disappointing people, the people I work with are actually happy and think what I do is fine. They recognize that not everything can be done perfectly and instantaneously, and they really don't expect that (even if they do ask for it). I try to tell myself that I do what I can do and that has to be enough for people. But it helps to hear from others that it really is enough.

My therapist pointed me to resources on self-compassion. I was introduced to this idea when I started reading about nonviolent communication, and it's one of those things that seems so simple and obvious. Just... be compassionate to yourself, the same you would be to your friend or child. Stop the negative self-talk. Recognize that you are human and imperfect just like everybody else, and that's okay. Kristen Neff writes about this, and in the linked article she talks about the difference between self-esteem and self-compassion. If you have high self-esteem without self-compassion, you feel like you need to keep up this image of yourself, and if you mess up, you feel defensive and scared. If you have self-compassion, you can acknowledge both your strengths and weaknesses, and roll with the punches a little more. You can learn from experience without beating yourself up about it.

I think that's going to be my one New Year's resolution. Practice self-compassion.

Completely related: Check out this article from the Harvard Business Review (hat tip to JW): Stop Asking Women Why They Haven't Gotten Ahead. They interviewed a group of male business executives and a group of female business executives about why women haven't achieved parity in the workplace. The men pointed to structural issues. The women blamed themselves!

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Party crashers

K got invited, along with his entire kindergarten class, to a birthday party at a local kids' gym.

When we showed up on Saturday afternoon, K was a little hesitant and asked me to come into the gym with him. After a few minutes, he got into the swing of things and started enjoying himself. Meanwhile, I started chatting with some parents sitting next to me. About an hour into the party, I said to them, "Wow, your daughters really know their way around all the gymnastics equipment! Do you take lessons here?" "Yes," they said, "that's how we know Theo. How do you know Theo?" "Uh..." I said, "We know Katie..."

You'd think K would have mentioned to me that (1) he didn't recognize any of these kids and (2) the birthday girl was not there. We hightailed it out of there before the snacks and cake. On the way out, I apologized to Theo's dad, who laughed it off.

On Sunday, K strolled confidently into the gym, ready for Katie's party. Before he walked in, I caught his arm and verified that he did, in fact, recognize the other kids and the birthday girl from his class.

I teared up several times, watching these sweet, perfect little children bounding, laughing, and tumbling around the gym, squabbling with each other, running up to their parents for hugs, listening carefully to the teachers, excitedly eating cake. I can't imagine anyone wanting to hurt them. None of the parents talked about it. I don't think K knows, and I hope he has no idea until he is much older. But JW said that on Monday he needed extra hugs and said something about a "monster" and something being "broken."

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Salary negotiations

I have negotiated my salary at previous jobs. I have advised many other women to negotiate their salaries. But I have never discussed my salary with anyone at my current job.

Like most large firms, my firm has lock-step compensation for the first few years. The amounts aren't actually published anywhere, though. So every year, around this time, we get a letter saying, "Your salary for next year will be $X." I have no idea whether $X is the same for everyone in my class. I just assume it is. And I assume the only thing you would negotiate would be a bonus, but my hours have been low each year so I don't think about that.

It was news to me when another associate in my class mentioned we were off lock-step for next year. She also mentioned something I had brought up and said, "You should use that to negotiate your salary."

Today I was talking to two other female associates about this, and we all agreed that we had no idea how to negotiate our salaries, who to talk to, when to talk to them, or if this was even something that anyone else did. "Anyway," said one of them, "my hours aren't very good, so I don't think I deserve more." And the other associate said the SAME THING.

"Wait," I said, "All three of us think our hours aren't good enough, so we shouldn't negotiate our salaries? Do you think our male colleagues would say the same thing?" One of the other associates shrugged. "Look, I choose to work less. If they want to work more, they should get paid more." Which I agree with, and it just so happens that all three of us have small children and, at some point during the year, had worked a reduced schedule. But... do the men (the vast majority of whom have stay-at-home wives), on average, bill so much more? Or do they just not care? This whole conversation seemed so incredibly gender stereotypical, and I couldn't believe that ALL of us were saying we didn't deserve higher salaries. It's hard for me to imagine a man saying he doesn't deserve more money because he doesn't think he works hard enough!

I think I need to investigate this.

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MILP Roundup #281

It's over at Attorney at Large.

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More things that happened: Weekend edition

We had a busy weekend.

We had a playdate at our house with one of K's preschool friends. The parents asked how we managed to keep our living room so uncluttered and toy-free, and we told them the answer was ten minutes of running around before they arrived + a large box.

I baked corn muffins, but I made the rookie mistake of dumping cold milk into warm butter. They turned out OK despite the giant butter lumps. I greased the pan with bacon grease. Everything tastes good with bacon grease.

We had brunch at a friend's house, followed by playground time for all 4 kids. At the playground, they had a lot of fun running "obstacle courses," like "Run to the tree, run around it three times, roll down the hill, run to the swings and swing as high as you can, then hop over the see-saw and come back." Our friends' idea. I thought that was brilliant.

The boys got haircuts.

Before

After

We went to the library and got some new Elephant and Piggie books. We also read another cute Mo Willems book, "Hooray for Amanda and her Alligator!" And I read a book called "How to Raise Successful Children" or something that talked about how we're too focused on our kids' accomplishments and need to focus more on encouraging them to be self-motivated, independent, curious, kind, and respectful of themselves and others.

We went out to dinner and the boys got balloon animals, a bear for X and a snail for K. JW and I ate the most delicious thing ever -- bacon horseradish cream. (With oyster and leek fritters to dip into it, but that was beside the point.) I found this Rachael Ray recipe for cauliflower mac and cheese with bacon horseradish sauce that in theory, every member of our family might actually eat. I think we need to try it.

I crammed work into every spare minute.

JW printed out the envelopes for all the Christmas cards. (We were a few short. We need to order more next year, or cull our list. If you're expecting one and don't get one... sorry, we'll do better next year!)

I tried to clean out the basement, but I don't know what to do with all the miscellaneous items down there. We need to have a yard sale... but that won't be for six months. I need to figure out a place to put the stuff temporarily so I can make it into a room. We're generally good about not having lots of excess stuff, but these are either things we definitely want to keep but only need on rare occasions, or things that I would rather sell than give away.

X requested "E-I-E-I-O," over and over. He always wants the animal to be a duck. Also, when you ask X what a frog says, he replies, "RABBIT, RABBIT." (So I told him a rabbit says, "FROG, FROG.")

I read in Carolyn Hax's Hootenanny of Holiday Horrors a story about a woman who keeps drawing her SIL in their annual gift exchange, but they hate each other. Last year she got her SIL an XL T-shirt with a picture of a panda punching a guy in the face. That cracks me up every single time I think about it.

I had a dream that JW started dating someone who ran a hotel gift shop. Her name was Winter. I said, "But I thought we were going to be together forever," and he replied, "This is my chance to be happy. Don't you want me to be happy?"

K drew an Electric Octopus and explained, "It looks like he has a black penis, but that's really where he shoots electricity out."

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Things that have happened

Before yesterday's report card post, I took a long break from blogging. Here are some things that happened.

We had an awesome trip to NY for my big brother's surprise 40th birthday party. My frequent-flyer sister-in-law used her many points to book us a hotel room, and my parents decided it was too late at night and they would rather stay home and watch the kids. We went out with my brother and his friends, did lots of shots, stumbled back to the hotel at 2 a.m. and slumbered peacefully in the dark until 10 a.m. before going to meet the rest of the family for brunch. The last time we did anything like that was well over a decade ago. We laughed the whole way back to the hotel about how glad we were to get away from the kids and be irresponsible for one night. I couldn't believe my brother (who has a newborn) was still out. JW thinks there's something about Manhattan that keeps you in a state of arrested development where it seems normal to live in a tiny apartment with roommates and stumble home drunk even when you're well past your 20s.

We returned to NY for Thanksgiving. For the first time ever, it was a family-only dinner with everyone at one table, including JW's parents. (We are so lucky that our parents get along well!) The family friends who couldn't make it crashed our house for dinner the next day, so the leftovers got eaten. My SIL left at 10:30 for Black Friday shopping and didn't come back until the wee hours. I offered to go with her and was so glad she didn't take me up on it.

I did my Black Friday shopping online. We bought a Christmas tree. (Fake, just like both of us grew up with.) Before, we had this miniature artificial tree that, over the years, had developed a pronounced list and could barely stand up. The weekend after Thanksgiving, we decorated the new tree and the house, with the holiday Music Choice channel playing on the TV. We had a box of ornaments from JW's grandmother, who moved out of her house this year, and we realized that many of them had been gifts from other family members over the years. So now we have a tree full of family-made or gifted ornaments.

X started putting two words together, like "Sit down" and "Pafa go" (where did my pacifier go?)

K has been drawing ever-more elaborate pictures of made-up heroes and bad guys, featuring exploding buildings and word bubbles saying, "GET HIM!" and "DESTROY!" We decided to compile them into "K's Book of Heroes and Villains" as a Christmas present for the grandparents. (X brought home artwork from school yesterday, too: a smiling eggplant with googly eyes, a potato with little brown pieces of construction paper glued to it, and several handprint turkeys.)

The boys and I spent Veteran's Day in the woods, getting eaten by bears. Thank you veterans.


I went part time at work. I'll post about that separately. It's only been a couple of weeks and I'm still figuring it out. I also started going to therapy, which I may post about separately too. So far it's been helpful.

I went on a short business trip (and got to see some friends on the way). When I came back, I found that JW had told K that if he could stay dry for ten nights in a row, he would get Megaman X, a video game K has been coveting for a long time. For a while now, JW has been bothered by the fact that K still wears a diaper at night, and I've been saying that the pediatrician says it's normal and his body just isn't ready because obviously he wouldn't wet his diaper on purpose. Well... K completed his tenth dry night in a row yesterday. It is incredible how much this kid is motivated by external rewards. JW thinks he was just being lazy and using his diaper instead of going to the bathroom in the morning. The new rule is that if he wets the bed, he loses the game and has to stay dry for another ten days until he gets it back.

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Report card

We got K's first report card today!

We had a parent-teacher conference a few weeks ago where we got more detailed feedback. His teacher said K was very bright and a joy to have in class, had very advanced reading and writing skills, and draws detailed pictures. He is at around the same level as his peers with counting and math skills. Socially, he's doing fine, but sometimes gets his feelings hurt when classmates decide to leave what they're doing with him and do a different activity.

I know K is a smart, engaged, curious kid. I was a little concerned about his social development because when we pick him up, he's usually playing alone and sometimes he says something like, "Nobody wanted to play with me at recess." I also know how sensitive he is, and he doesn't yet have quite enough empathy to realize that other kids may be sensitive or shy too, or that another kid's rejection of a certain activity isn't  a rejection of him. But I also know that in preschool, it took him a long time to warm up and eventually he had a tight group of friends. And when I'm at school with him, other kids are always calling out to him as we walk by. His teacher wasn't concerned, so I guess we'll just keep checking in with him on how he's doing with friends.

K's report card is cute. It says stuff like "He identifies numerals to 20 by name and connects each to counted objects" and "He uses late invented spelling" (which apparently is a fancy way of saying that he makes up plausible spellings that capture the relevant letter sounds). It's strange seeing this very objective assessment of him according to standards for kids his age. I guess we should get used to it.


(This was also X's first experience with Jell-O... by the end it was EVERYWHERE)

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Mothers in the Legal Profession (MILP) Roundup #280

The weekly Mothers In the Legal Profession Roundup is hosted on a rotating basis at the Butterflyfish, PT Law Mom, Attorney at Large, Attorney Work Product, Today Advocating Tomorrow, Reluctant Grownup, and Magic Cookie blogs.

In this week's edition of the Roundup, covering posts for the week of November 27-December 4...

Better Together contemplates travel and a move.
Alice in Wonderland takes her little boy to the ER.
Izzie's baby Z turns two.
Legally Certifiable gets a compliment from clients.

And, we have some sub-roundups to round up...
Lag Liv rounds up dinner ideas.
The Attorney at Large rounds up her hat collection (#1: cloche edition).
Butterflyfish rounds up unposted posts.
Full of the Dickens rounds up Jacobisms.
Today Advocating Tomorrow rounds up a series of mini-disasters.
Yee-haw!

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