Livingston, I Presume

Just call her Julia

The last time I attempted to make a fruity, chocolaty quick bread, it didn't go so well. Apparently all I needed was a little help from my girl and the recipe from Dan and Audrey at Uncornered Market. Emerson demonstrates the process:

Step 1: Obliterate some ripe bananas, preferably with an old-timey potato masher.

Step 2: Abscond with as many chocolate chips as possible.

Step 3: More chocolate chips, of course.

Step 4: Batter down the hatches!

Step 5: Engulf your whole arm in oven mitt.

Step 6: Beam with delight over your creation!

"These f**&!in' guys!"

Have seven minutes? Want to get really pissed off? Watch this:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
These F@#king Guys - Goldman Sachs
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Who's afraid of screen-free?

Yeah, that'd be me.

In the not-so-distant past, I had an article published in a major women's magazine about the virtues of TV Turnoff week (which is now Screen-Free Week to make sure that we can't cheat and stream Glee on our computers). What's more, I actually followed the AAP guidelines of "No TV under two". We kept our television in a cabinet with doors, and when Connery was awake, the cabinet was closed and that was that. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Second children will do that to you (as will four-times-daily nebulizer treatments for a three-year-old kid).

Now it is Connery--brainwashed by his teachers and peers--who is trying to enforce this no-screen week. I made him no promises, particularly since I am playing single parent at the moment with Chip out of town most of the week, but I feel strangely guilty about turning on the TV. Hence the blogging. It's work, right? Not entertainment screen!

The resolve was weakened further by Emerson's diagnosis today with rotavirus. Joy! She was so uncomfortable today that the best I could do for her was to hold her on my lap while she watched Sesame Street. All the while I was thinking back on that research that showed that TV was more effective for managing pain in small children than mother's kisses are. Don't judge me. There was plenty of kissing, too.

Maybe tomorrow will be the day I can unplug everything. Or not. I'm keeping my options open.

Boy jock

I remember standing next to the edge of what seemed an impossibly high play structure in Lion's Park willing myself to jump off. The goal? To break my leg. I was eight years old, and a broken leg sounded far less painful than another go-round with the Presidential Fitness Tests that were looming. If you're a graduate of any American public school, you'll know what I'm talking about. Six athletic events that will tell you--and everyone else--whether you are a Fit Winner! or a Fat Loser.

That I still remember all six--The Mile, the 50-yard dash, the shuttle run, the standing broad jump, the bent arm hang, and sit-ups--should tell you how indelibly the process is welded in my brain. Of the six, I could manage a good showing in sit-ups alone. My nemesis was The Mile--running four times around Lincoln School, trying to keep up with one of the "good" runners and failing miserably. I don't think I was ever anything but dead last. Built for speed I am not, and when that was combined with asthma, it's a wonder I didn't have the courage to follow through on the leg-breaking idea. The two weeks of testing in the fall and spring of each year were some of the most dreaded in my young life.

All of which is a long way of getting to the ironic bit. Connery came home from school yesterday in a state of high excitement, having taken part in his first-ever Presidential Fitness Contest (apparently it's a contest now, not a test). He scored in the top range on his first test--sit-ups--and was gunning for the top in the other events to come. "Not many first graders can get the award, but I think I can do it," he told me. "We get to run a mile!"

I am so relieved that he is excited about these tests. May it ever be thus. May he always be the kid who can finish strong. On the other hand, I am bemused to think of his joy in this movement when I contrast it with how terrible the very same events used to make me feel. Based on physical activity alone, Connery is no more "fit" than I was at his age. If anything, he may get a little less physical activity than I did simply because I was raised in the good ol', go-out-and-play 1970s. I did ballet and ice skating and basketball and martial arts and biking; he does soccer and basketball and scootering

The difference is that Connery is, most mysteriously, built like a miniature professional athlete. The kid's got washboard abs and visible muscles in his legs, arms, and shoulders--at 6! Despite his asthma, he can run for an hour and barely get winded. Watching him makes me question how he could be of my genetic material, akin perhaps to the person who can't carry a tune in a bucket seeing her child become an opera star.

So we'll train like he wants to. We'll go to the park and let him do pull-ups and measure out fifty yards and have him run back and forth. And I will never, ever let him know that he is freaking me out by succeeding in something that I never could.

Many happy returns

So, uh, did you all have a nice break? What a coincidence! So did I! Obviously, that whole Pita-making process wore me out more than I realized.

In neglecting to blog for more than a month, I completely missed getting to talk about how the U.S. is now totally a socialist utopia in the manner of Karl Marx and Adolf Hitler. All hail the Glorious Leader! In all seriousness, the un-hinged-ness of the opponents of the very modest healthcare reform is alarming. I'm going to go with NYT columnist Frank Rich here and say that it's not REALLY about the healthcare.

Also in national news, the ever-unbiased Heritage Foundation has found that the United States is less free on account of the whole socialist thing (H/T Gabriel Winant at Salon's War Room). Winant juxtaposed that alarming news with the report issued by left-wing propaganda machine Forbes.com that the average U.S. citizen pays more into Federal taxes than companies like GE and ExxonMobile do. Not a higher percentage, mind--a higher actual dollar amount:

"The most egregious example is General Electric ( GE - news - people ). Last year the conglomerate generated $10.3 billion in pretax income, but ended up owing nothing to Uncle Sam. In fact, it recorded a tax benefit of $1.1 billion.

Avoiding taxes is nothing new for General Electric. In 2008 its effective tax rate was 5.3%; in 2007 it was 15%. The marginal U.S. corporate rate is 35%."

Don't mind me. I'll just be over here paying my taxes, as required by law. Tell me again why I should shoulder a larger burden than a multi-national corporation? I'm just not getting it.

In personal news, we weathered spring break with a big assist from Nana and Papa, who hosted Connery for the first week (meaning that yes, there was more than one week involved!) of spring break. The best comment about this vacation came from a Tweet from thehighsign: "Looking forward to the end of Spring Break, also known as the Fortnight of Blithe Disregard for Parents' Jobs." Onward to the 13 Weeks of Bright, Sunshiny Disregard!

My brother and his wife had a beautiful baby boy named Kennedy, and we got to meet him when he was just four days old! Connery thought he was excellent, while Emerson thought he was competition.

Let's see. What else? We used part of our tax refund (thanks Exxon!) to rejoin the gym, and last night, I attended my first-ever Zumba class. I believe that Zumba is Spanish for "aerobics with better music and hilarious flailing about in a semi-rhythmic fashion, especially when your heritage is Northern European." It would be much better if the mirrors were on the ceiling, where you wouldn't have to look at them. It's hard to Zumba when you're concentrating most on avoiding a glimpse of your own pastiness in the ever-present wall mirrors.

If you've made it this far, you should be rewarded with some pictures of cute children. Luckily, I have a lot of those. Pictures, not children. You didn't miss that much.