Opinions for Nothing

Twin Babies

I'm working from home today. While I was on a conference call, the Flickr screensaver came up on the Apple TV. I have it set to show all of my pictures now. (I recently changed it. It was only baby pictures before, so I wouldn't see any pictures of my mom.) A few times, baby pictures came up and I couldn't tell which of my babies it was.

Here's one baby:

Here's the other baby:

Here's one baby:

Here's the other baby:

My Dad

My dad was 19 years old when he married my mom. She was 16 years old, and three months pregnant with me. My parents separated when I was five years old, and divorced when I was nine years old.

My dad wasn't known for his lawful behavior. He didn't make court-ordered child support payments. He infrequently took advantage of court-allowed visitations with his children. He did not adhere to laws prohibiting the possession, use, and sale of illegal drugs. Two of the three things on that list caused him to be in and out of jail for much of my childhood.

My dad was book smart without a college degree. After he left the Air Force, he was an engineering technician until the recession of the late-'80s and early-'90s. After that, he drifted from odd job to odd job, preferring those that paid cash so he wouldn't have to make child support payments. It's unfortunate that he never grew up.

When I was in college, I made peace with the fact that my dad was never going to change and never going to be the kind of dad I needed. He was family and I still loved him, but as long as I expected him to act like a father, I would be disappointed. I resolved to treat him like an uncle -- not even a favorite uncle. After that, we had a much better relationship.

Eventually, my dad paid off the back child support with an extended jail term. I was well into my 20s by then. When he was released, he moved to New Mexico to live with my retired grandmother. He had a steady job and had been promoted to a supervisory position when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Eighteen months later, at the age of 50, he was dead. Today would have been his 57th birthday.

My Mom's Birthday

My mom's birthday was just over a week ago. She would have been 54. I have been thinking about her more than usual lately, maybe because I can finally do so without sobbing.

Wardrobe In Memoriam

I convinced my mom to buy a green, animal print (sort of) top by Michael Kors a year or two ago. She rarely paid that much money for clothes, but it looked good on her and she needed to stop wearing such frumpy tops on the weekends. I tried on the same top, in a size larger, but it didn't look good on me. It made me look bigger than I was.

Today, I am wearing her top. It is one of the only things I kept from her closet. I'm glad it fits me now. I'll be a little sad when I am wearing a smaller size and it no longer fits, but then I will be able to wear a green sweater of hers that I kept.

Shutterfly Holiday Photo Cards

Every year about this time, I start to drool over the holiday cards on Shutterfly and I dream about getting a professional family portrait taken and being witty for a full page of a family newsletter. That particular dream has never come true. In fact, I don't think I sent out cards at all last year, since that was right about the time that THE WORST YEAR OF MY LIFE was starting. It's over now (I say, definitively, hoping to ward off any other bad things), and I am once again salivating over the holiday photo cards at Shutterfly. This year, I am actually going to do it. I have already scheduled the family photo session. Now all I have to do is choose a card.

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An Obituary for My Mother

Priscilla Jewell died Tuesday, May 18, 2010 suddenly and tragically in a car accident in Camarillo, California.

She was born Priscilla Elaine Buchanan on March 28, 1957 to Stanley and Pauline Buchanan in Oak Harbor, Washington. Priscilla moved with her parents and her four older sisters to Point Mugu in 1959 and to Camarillo in 1962, to a brand new subdivision on Edgemont Drive, which was then surrounded by lima bean fields. She remembered walking home with her sisters one day and losing a shoe in a mud puddle in one of those fields, which is now the Camarillo Community Center on Carmen Drive.

Priscilla graduated from Adolpho Camarillo High School a year early in 1974. She married her high school sweetheart, Joseph Lino LeBlanc, Jr. and gave birth to her first daughter, Michelle, in 1974 in Colorado. Priscilla returned to California briefly and then moved with her husband and her baby to Las Vegas, Nevada, where her husband was stationed with the United States Air Force. In 1977, she gave birth to her second daughter, Marie. Priscilla returned to Camarillo with her two daughters in 1980.

In 1988, Priscilla met Roger Jewell at Harley’s Camarillo Bowl, where he was the manager. They were in high school together and had friends in common then and when they became reacquainted so many years later. Roger and Priscilla fell in love soon after they started dating. After a long engagement, Priscilla married the love of her life in 1997.

There is nothing Priscilla loved more than spending time with her family. She enjoyed the large family gatherings held at her childhood home on Edgemont Drive and later, at her own house, playing games at the dining room table, and watching her grandchildren and nieces and nephews play in the pool. She cherished the quiet moments, too; time spent shopping with her daughters, playing with her grandchildren, chatting with her sisters, visiting with her step-son Chris, and her step-daughter Jennifer.

In the thirty years of her banking career, all of it spent with local banks, Priscilla worked with so many coworkers and customers throughout Ventura County. Earlier this year, Priscilla was promoted to Sr. Vice President at California Oaks State Bank, in Thousand Oaks. Recently, she studied diligently for, and was proud of earning, the designation of Certified Regulatory Compliance Manager. Priscilla was a conscientious, meticulous employee who never left a question unanswered or a detail undocumented.

Priscilla was loved dearly by her family, friends, and coworkers. She was the glue that held her family together and her loss leaves a hole that can never be filled. She was smart, loving, generous, kind, and thoughtful. She would have gladly given her life for her children and her grandchildren, and they are heartbroken to have seen it taken from her. Priscilla was a daughter, a sister, a mother, a wife, a grandmother, an aunt, a cousin, and a friend. This beautiful woman will be remembered and missed be everyone who knew her.

Priscilla Jewell is survived by her husband, Roger Jewell; her two daughters, Michelle LeBlanc Magoffin and Marie LeBlanc Molina; her step-children, Christopher Jewell and Jennifer Colegrove; her four sisters, Patricia Robinson, Peggy Buchanan, Penny White, and Pamela Geisler; her seven grandchildren, Kenna, Olivia, Molly, Liam, Curtis, Zoe, and Evan; and her aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, grand-nieces, grand-nephews, mothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, and sons-in-law. She is preceded in death by her father, Stanley Buchanan, and her mother, Pauline Buchanan, as well as her grandparents.

A funeral mass will be held for Priscilla on Tuesday, May 25, 2010 at 10 AM at St. Mary Magdalen Church on Las Posas Road in Camarillo. All are welcome to attend the mass. Her ashes will be interred a few days later in a private ceremony at Conejo Mountain Memorial Park. Arrangements are being made through Griffin Family Mortuary in Camarillo.

Call for Opinions: What is your minimum definition of cheating?

I received a comment on a five-year-old post about cheating at The Peevery. What is your minimum definition of cheating? Where is the line between cheating and inappropriate behavior?

This is what I think, but I want to know what you think.

I am now forced to broaden my definition of cheating... If you are in an exclusive relationship and you have a conversation or an encounter with someone else, if you cannot recount that conversation word for word to your partner or you cannot describe that encounter to your partner in detail without discomfort, then you have behaved inappropriately. It's like foreplay to cheating and it is going to earn you a punch in the mouth if your partner is me.

Read the whole post: Exploratory Poonani

More Toddler Tips: Raising a Talker

Oh, my goodness is my toddler ever a chatterbox. Thankfully, she can talk and talk and talk to herself. She does not always require a response. My kid is well ahead of the game when it comes to language development. Most people are confused about her age out in public. They think she is abnormally small for a three-and-a-half-year old, but she is two-and-a-half.

I have some background in early childhood education, and I have read twenty gazillion books on the subject, so I knew what I wanted to do to instill good language skills in my child before she was born. I'm not an expert on it by any means, but maybe you can benefit from knowing what has worked for me.

1. Talk to your baby all the freaking time

I am actually not much of a talker, so this was really awkward for me in the beginning, which is why I started practicing when my baby as barely a week old. I narrated everything I was doing ("Mommy's changing Kenna's diaper.") and everything the baby was doing ("Oh, Kenna doesn't like getting her diaper changed. Kenna is crying.").

I also held conversations with my mute baby. Ask the baby a question, leave time for the baby's response, and then say what the baby would respond if the baby were super freakish and could talk.

Example:

"Does Kenna want to wear her giraffe onesie today?" [pause]

"Oh, Kenna does want to wear her giraffe onesie. She loves her giraffe onesie."

I read something about kids not understanding pronouns until a certain point, so we always used names when talking to the baby, at least until she was using multi-word phrases.

2. Don't correct improper word usage

Once your kid does start talking, don't correct improper word usage or verb tenses. The goal is to get your kid to talk more, so you don't want to do anything that might make her feel bad, like telling her she is saying something wrong.

3. Repeat and model

When my toddler first started talking, I would repeat what she said, or what I thought she said, for two reasons. First, to make sure I understood her and, second, to model proper word usage and verb tenses.

Example 1:

"Jibber jabber cookie blah blah mama"

"Would you like a cookie? Oh, you do want a cookie."

Example 2:

"Jibber jabber cookie blah blah mama"

"Would you like a cookie? You do? Ok. Kenna said, 'May I please have a cookie, Mama?'"

I still do this but now, instead just trying to build my kid's vocabulary, it is also about using proper sentence structure. Also, I still don't know what the heck she is saying sometimes. She speaks pretty clearly, but if it is a word I've never heard her use before, I takes me a few tries to get it.

3. Don't use baby talk

This one is in every book there ever was, but there is some confusion as to what "baby talk" means. Baby talk refers to made-up words. It does not refer to using a high-pitched, sing-songy voice, which actually helps babies with comprehension and helps to calm them.

Example (not baby talk):

"Ohmygod you're so cute, I love snuggle your little neck and smoosh your cheeks and give you so many kisses." (I may have said this every single day that I was on maternity leave.)

Example (baby talk):

"Does my little shmoopykins need her dipey-wipey changed? Someone has a mess on her tushy-wushy."

You should not use baby talk mostly because you sound like an idiot when you do.

4. Have conversations with your child

This is harder when your child is a baby and you are holding both sides of the conversation yourself. It is infinitely more fun when your child can participate. This is a great parenting tip, not just for building language skills.

Have a conversation with your kid. Your entire relationship should not consist of you barking orders at your kid or even instructing your kid in a nice way. Your kid is going to need conversational skills in life and you are going to want your kid to talk to you about things as she gets older, so you might as get her used to having a normal conversation now, before she can resist.

This part is easy and it is enormously entertaining. My toddler cracks me up every single day. She is just starting to really pretend and tells me stories about monsters and her dolls and her friends at daycare.

One last note

I was talking to my hair stylist about some cute things my toddler says and she said she doesn't always understand what her nephew says, but that his mom seems to. She was worried about being able to understand her own kid when she has kids. I reassured her that she would understand her kid even if other people couldn't. It isn't like a psychic bond thing, it is just that your kid uses the word in context around you so you begin to pick up which words mean what because you are much more exposed to them than other people are.

Please and Thank You: Teaching Your Toddler to Be Polite

I get compliments about how polite my toddler is. At two-and-a-half years old, she greets adults by name; she says please, thank you, and you're welcome when it's appropriate (most of the time); and she is very complimentary herself ("I like yours shoes. They're so pretty.")

It isn't by accident that she is this way. This is behavior that I actively tried to instill in her from the time she was born. I have seen conflicting advice about teaching keeds to be polite so I think it might be useful for others to know what I do.

1. Model Good Behavior

I think this is a key step in teaching kids how to do anything. We say please and thank you to the toddler. When I ask her to do something, I say please. When she complies, I thank her. It's not difficult. I started this when she was a newborn so that I would get into the habit. ("Don't roll off the changing table, please. Thank you.") I read in a book that you should only model behavior and never tell your kid to say please and thank you since they will naturally pick it up, but I don't agree. Kids need prompts.

I compliment her every day and I compliment other people in front of her. I tell her she's funny, or I say that her hair looks cute, or I like the picture she colored. She says thank you, and she copies that behavior with others.

2. Remind, but Don't Demand

I read in a book that you should not force your tiny toddler to say please and thank you. You should remind them to do so and let it go. If my toddler forgets to ask for something in a nice way, or to say please, or thank you, I remind her, but I don't force her to do it right then. Using this method, her use of please and thank you gradually increased on it's own.

This was another thing I started when she was a newborn. It was a little ridiculous at first because I would be holding my tiny baby who couldn't even hold her own head up and I would say, "Say hi to Aunt Marie," and then I would say it for her, "Hi, Aunt Marie." But, at her two-and-a-half-year check-up, she greeted her doctor with, "Hi, Dr. Altmann," when the doctor walked in the room so, as ridiculous as it seemed then, it has paid off.

When I started this post, I thought there was more to it, but as I got into, I realized it really has been as simple as that.

Call for Opinions: What do grown-ups do for fun?

Jamie asks:

My husband and I have discovered that we are the most boring people on earth. With every day being a 12-hour workday we don’t have a lot of free time, but what little we have, we have no idea what to do with. When we were younger we loved to go out and party, but we’ve outgrown it. And we never replaced these activities with anything else. Also, all of our friends have either had kids or never grew up, so we don’t really associate with anyone anymore.

So, basically we have no friends (we both work at the same place and everyone here is either way older than us, or has kids, or is weird or all of the above) and no hobbies. All we do is sit and stare at each other going “What do you wanna do? I don’t know, what do YOU wanna do?”

Is there some sort of match-making site for couples in their late 20’s-early 30’s to meet other lame people with no friends? If not, there should be. It’s hard to make friends as an adult.

Anyone have any suggestions for hobbies? We are not athletic and are both very accident prone, so anything with sharp pointy things (like darts) or heavy things (like bowling) or physical activity (like, um, sports) is not good. Also, anything that takes a long time (we have no attention span), or involves weirdos (like Renaissance fairs or Civil War Re-enactment) is out.

This is a good topic, about which I have surprisingly few opinions. My husband and I watch TV, go to the movies, and hand out with family (I have lots) and friends (we have few). We don't have tons of free time, though. We both have long commutes. We have two small children. I am taking MBA classes. I have to blog, and tweet, and post reviews on Yelp or the world will end. My husband plays online games. We're both fat because we don't exercise.

Anybody have some ideas for Jamie?