Cost of Living
Does it really cost that much to have a baby? Of course not. It's sort of like weddings. If your goal is to get married, it's cheap. If your goal is to outdo and impress your friends, it's expensive.

Just look at the things in this article that few, if any, people need:

• Breast pump, bottles, etc: just take the baby with you. This also saves on babysitter costs.
• Baby classes: that's crazy. If you want to expose your baby to Mozart, switch on the radio. If you're really concerned about brain development, you can get all the ideas you could want for free from the library and Internet.
• Picture taking and distributing equipment: OK, we may be a bit derelict in this department. We are going to get a digital camera one of these days, really we are. And we don't have the expense for everything else needed to distribute them because we already have it. So I can't be too critical here.
• Books at $20 apiece: Thanks to aunts who know how to shop thrift stores, we have a good, low-cost collection. We also have several library cards.
• New car: huh?
• First birthday party: Give the kid some paper to crinkle up, cake to smash in his face, and adults acting like lunatics to watch, and he'll be happy.

Babies are the craziest thing to spend a lot of money on, because a) they have no idea you're doing it and couldn't care less as long as they get fed, and b) there is so much perfectly good baby stuff out there for next to nothing, because of all the people out there who are spending thousands of dollars on stuff for their kids--and then they only have two, so it's still in great condition when they're done with it.

Time to hit the garage sales again.

Very Bad Advice
A test-prep company is planning to do formal testing to find out exactly what minor activities (choice of food, clothing worn, etc.) might boost scores a few points on tests like the SAT.

This is all well and good, but the conventional advice on the side contains one very erroneous piece of advice: avoid candy.

Right before I took the bar exam, I was told on good authority that the secret to passing was consuming sufficient chocolate. Though not customarily much of a candy-eater, I procured a bag of chocolate. (I did not steal it. Or, of course, pay for it. Someone had leftover Christmas candy, I think.) I dutifully consumed chocolate at each break. And I passed. Now, how can you argue with that?

And Speaking of Democrats . . .
Reminds me that I saw a picture of Ted Kennedy in his youth a few weeks back. He actually was quite a handsome fellow in those days. Tragic what a lifetime of liberalism will do to someone.

Following the Democratic Convention Closely . . .
Via Dave Barry, of course:

"The convention continues tonight, with the theme being: ''Making America Stronger through the Strength of Strongness.'' The idea here is to convince doubtful voters that the Democrats can be trusted to be tough on terrorism and won't create some kind of feel-good liberal bleeding-heart program like enrolling terrorists in bowling leagues.

Emphasis on this theme will continue through Thursday night, when, to climax the convention, an actual live terrorist will be released onstage, and John Kerry will beat him senseless with a hockey stick, after which John Edwards will sue him."

The Real Difficulty
I have been reading what is probably far too much on the merits of scheduling babies or not. I try to follow a perfect balance. (Translation: I do things the way that suits me.) Abbey is generally quite happy eating every three hours or so, but will go longer at night, and I don't have a problem if some days she decides she needs to eat more often. Some days I need to eat more often, so why shouldn't she?

The main things I would like to establish is going to bed at the same time (however many times we eat thereafter) and getting up at the same time every day, and not being awake between nighttime feedings. We are doing pretty well, except that she seems to prefer sleeping from 7 to 9 p.m., and then waking between 9 and 11. Tonight we are working on staying awake until 9.

Any schedule I might try to implement, however, has a fatal weak point. Me. If I don't wake up at a certain time, she won't either. (Unless, of course, she happens to be hungry.) One cannot schedule a baby more than one is scheduled one's self. So what do the schedule people do about that?

Comments on Comments
I'm trying out a new comment system that allows anyone to post as somebody besides "Anonymous," even if they don't have a blogger account. It's the "Comment" link on the left. The old comment format is on the right. Try them out and see which you prefer.

Unfortunately, I haven't had this all along, and I don't want to lose my former comments. So it looks to me as if I will have to have two comment possibilities from now to the end of time. Is it worth it? Or does anybody know how I can change this short of re-entering all the comments myself?

Non Sequitur of the Day
The following paragraph appeared in a letter to the editor in our local paper:

"In 1663 a Bible was translated for a Massachusetts Indian tribe and shortly after that the Puritans killed the Indians. Then came the witch trials and years of religious bigotry."

Apparently it's translating the Bible that creates the urge to kill people. Hey, that would cover all the wars in Europe since the Reformation! We would all be better off if the Bible had stayed in Latin.

The rest of the letter makes about as much sense.

A Modest Proposal
This is a lengthy but worthwhile article on the current state of family law. Many good points on the problems with the current no-fault divorce system. Where else in life can the one who breaches a contract still go to court with no prejudice against them and ask for all the benefits from the contract? Why on earth have such a crazy system for the most important agreement in life? (The article proposes one answer: the more divorces there are, the more divorce lawyers and courts and social workers there are.)

No-fault divorce was sold because people shouldn't be "forced" to remain married. But it's no  more fair to force them to get divorced. At least the marriage they voluntarily chose at some point.

The fad for "covenant marriage" laws seems to have passed. But I see no reason why people shouldn't accept a simple, fair proposal with no religious trappings: treat marriage like any other contract. If two parties both want to rescind the contract, they can do so on whatever terms they want. But otherwise, the one who breaches the contract can claim no benefits under it and may be liable for damages.

How would this work in real life? There would basically be three potential divorce scenarios:

1. Both parties want to get divorced. They would draw up their own divorcing contract, negotiate between themselves who gets the kids, the house, etc. The court would then certify and enforce this contract, freely negotiated between the parties.

2. One party breaches the marriage contract in some way other than filing for divorce. (The classic grounds for fault: adultery, abuse, abandonment.) The other party can, if he or she wishes, file for divorce by establishing one of those grounds for fault. If they establish it, they are presumptively entitled to the children, the house, child support, etc., since they were injured by the breach of the marriage contract. (The other party can of course keep their own personal belongings and may have an equity claim to some portion of the marital property, as would be the case under any other contract.)

Some would say that this puts us back to the bad old days of evil, acrimonious divorces where everyone's dirty laundry is aired. Yes, and we're so far from that now. Does the name Jack Ryan ring a bell? Especially when children are involved, all that dirty laundry is going to be aired anyway, even if it has to be soiled for the purpose at hand.

3. One party wants a divorce but the other does not, and no fault is shown. In that case, the party who wants a divorce gets one--but that's all they get. In fact, they may be liable for damages (alimony, child support, etc.), to the extent the other party can prove them.

Now, there's nothing religious about that treatment of marriage and divorce--just simple, straightforward contract law. Who could object? And it would result in a nosedive in the divorce rate, as people discovered it wasn't worth the cost to go off and "find themselves."

And on the side, it might dampen the push for same-sex marriage. If marriage really was marriage, would they want it?

Get 'em while they're hot
An article in the Wall Street Journal today on political memorabilia said the hottest market is in very limited-edition materials:

"Very local buttons, such as Hockly County Texas Democrats for John Kerry, can fetch as much as $150 new mainly because so few are made," dealers say.

Loyal readers of this blog, for a limited time, have the opportunity to purchase a special, limited edition, "Carrot Duchy for Bush" pin for the low price of $100. After all, there's only three of us, and there are probably more Hockly County Texas Democrats than that. So you can hope to double the price when you resell on Ebay!

Turning into a Jewish mother
I have a new ambition for my children. I want one of them to be a scientist. (In fairness to them, I won't be particular as to which one. Of course, I only have one so far.)

I have always had an interest in science, including two first-prize winning exhibits at the State Science Fair in grade school. And I grew up in a family that heavily emphasized the creation/evolution debate. I think we owned every book the Institute for Creation Research and Answers in Genesis ever published. There's even a book on science in my current reading stack.

But I bet anything I might attempt to say on scientific matters would sound to anyone with any scientific training like people who've watched two videos on the topic sound to me when they start discoursing on the Constitution. Those who look down their noses at the scientific knowledge and interest of the evangelical community at large may be arrogant jerks, but they do have a point. There's a great deal of room for improvement.

I don't like just having vague ideas about things . . . I want to know. And if I can't know, I'd like to be related to someone who did.

Thus my real motivation for having children is evidenced. I have too many things that I'm interested in and must make more people and warp their minds so they will go out and do them for me.

 

Requiem for Brain Cells

Shortly after noon I turned on the oven to heat lunch. About one I told my sister, "We should go eat--I'm sure the food is hot by now." I went into the kitchen, opened the oven, and remarked, "I'm sure the food would be hot by now if it had been in the oven instead of in the refrigerator." It worked just as well as she was then able to reach her goal of finishing the crib skirt before lunch. (The nursery looks quite charming thanks to her work. Now we just need a sunflowery quilted hanging on the wall over the crib.)

A little bit later I noticed Abbey was soaking through all cloth in the vicinity, and realized I had completely forgotten to change her at her last feeding--two hours earlier.

I tried taking a nap this afternoon to recharge my brain cells. I'm not sure how much it accomplished.

But I probably needed it. Because I am trying to resolve an anomaly in Abbey's schedule. She was quite happily functioning on a three-hour feeding cycle, with the ability to stretch longer during the night. Somehow this longer stretch at night always threw the schedule off enough that this longer stretch would only put us down to one feeding every other night, and on the alternate nights, she would wake up hungry at 3 a.m., giving me just enough time to feed her, get her back to sleep, and drift off to sleep myself before the alarm would go off at 4:30 and I'd have to get up to feed DOB and get him off to work. I found it very difficult to arise under these circumstances.

So my theory was that if I fed Abbey every night about 9 or 9:30, she would sleep until 1 or so, then I could feed her, and she'd sleep to 4:30 and all would be well. So tonight I woke her up at 9 and fed her. As custom for her last evening feeding dictated, I sang her a few songs and put her in bed. Her eyes were wide open. She cried. And kept crying. Intermittently for the next two and a half hours. She's not crying now because I'm feeding her. But what is up with her? Did someone bring her a latte?

And tomorrow, how do I stay awake enough to keep her awake to keep this from repeating?

Top Five
 
Last night we (my sister is still visiting) got talking about meeting famous people and came to the conclusion it seemed pointless to wait a long time in line merely to shake hands with anyone. Given the opportunity to actually sit down and talk with them, however, we all had plenty of famous people we'd like to meet.
 
So the challenge is: list the top five living, more-or-less famous people you'd like the opportunity to have a prolonged conversation with (or if the thought of talking to them is too intimidating, to be part of a conversation they were having with someone capable of intelligent dialogue with them).
 
Here are our lists:
 
QOC:
1. Justice Scalia
2. Thomas Sowell
3. J. Budziszewski
4. Paul Johnson
5. Mike Antonnucci
 
DOB:
1. William F. Buckley
2. Robert Novak
3. Chief Justice Rehnquist
4. Thomas Sowell
5. Jesse Helms
 
DOB then made a second list, in no particular order:
Mel Gibson
Margaret Thatcher
President Bush
Curt Schilling
Haley Barbour
 
Becky didn't finish her living people list, but so far she has:
1. Elisabeth Elliot
2. Ben Rich (The guy in charge of Skunkworks, the stealth plane project)
3. Whoever runs the logistics at the White House
 
Then we decided to come up with a dead people list, too.
QOC:
1. G. K. Chesterton
2. C. S. Lewis
3. Winston Churchill
4. Deborah (from Judges)
5. Jane Austen
 
DOB:
1. Abraham Lincoln
2. John Adams
3. Senator Robert A Taft
4. John Bunyan
5. David
 
Becky:
1. Hudson Taylor
2. Winston Churchill
3. Ernest Shakleton
4. Joseph
5. Jonathan Edwards
 
Clearly DOB favors politicians, Becky favors people who run things, and I favor writers. Although it seems redundant to want to talk to a writer, since one already has their books.
 
Anybody want to post their own list?

Summertime
Last night we stopped at a farm and bought fresh sweet corn. I sat on the back steps and shucked it. We had it with chicken pasta salad, coleslaw, and apple waffles. (My visiting sister reminded me of this trick for when one doesn't have the time or right pans to make muffins.) I felt like a kid again, probably too much so as DOB had to remind me that we do in fact have air conditioning and can't just leave doors open at random to increase the feeling of fellowship while shucking corn.
 
The only thing missing was a picnic table to eat at under the prickle ball tree.

Flashbacks

One of my former law school classmates had an essay of his chosen as a model answer by the New Jersey Bar. It's been nearly three years since I last took a bar exam. It's been almost two years since I thought about bar exams. (DOB took his bar in July 2002.) And yet, somehow, just reading the first few lines brought it all back. "Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought . . . "

Both bar exams stand out vividly amid the mush of memories of 2000 and 2001. I guess traumatic experiences have a way of doing that.

Gotta Dance

The New York Times today covers the efforts of same-sex couples to be allowed into competitive ballroom dancing.

It may seem a bit trivial to make a fuss about the symbol when the substance is so far under attack. But symbols are important, at times of more immediate importance than reality. They provide a lens to understand the reality.

Ballroom dancing, as Henry Tilney pointed out in Northanger Abbey is, and always has been, a symbol of marriage. It is the exclusive union of one man and one woman for a mutual purpose. It beautifully illustrates the complementary nature of marriage: Men lead and women follow, not because men are generally better dancers, but because someone must lead and within the parameters of the dance it makes sense for the man to do so.

Submission in the dance does not lead to the man trampling the woman, but empowering her to do things the man could never do, and she could not do alone. It brings to mind that old line, "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did--only backwards and in high heels" that beautifully illustrates the strength and grace of the traditional woman's role.

(Can a Baptist speak so warmly about ballroom dancing? But after all, any Baptist objection to it is based on the grounds that it provides such an excellent symbol of marriage that it ought not to be engaged in promiscuously. So the analogy holds.)

Even those promoting same-sex ballroom dancing acknowledge that it's a different art form than opposite-sex ballroom dancing. A man can't move the way a woman does. The leader-follower relationship must be changed. And even the emotional dynamic of the relationship symbolized influences the dance. Two men dancing is not the same thing as a man and a woman dancing. And thus the symbol draws us back to the reality.

I'm reminded of C.S. Lewis using the analogy (and another Jane Austen insight) of a ballroom dance in analyzing why women should not be ordained in the church. He argues that, on the fringes, one can treat men and women as interchangeable--that at a factory or at a ballot-box their sex indeed does not matter. But the closer you get to the center, to the realities at the heart of the universe, the more important the distinction becomes.

Ballroom dancing is the symbol of a symbol. Marriage and the church hierarchies are symbols of the reality. I doubt we will fully grasp the reality symbolized until we look into the face of our Father (not Mother or Parent) in heaven. But it has something to do with otherness. The delight of one person in another like himself could be merely narcisstic. Sex shows us the potential for delight in someone different; indeed, that part of the delight is the very differentness. Equating a same-sex relationship with an opposite-sex relationship hides the reality that God planted within human beings when he made them male and female: that although He is not like us, yet He desires us.

Baby Book Update
OK, this is not supposed to have happened yet. Last night I left Abbey lying on her tummy on the bed while I quickly went in the other room to get ready for bed. She was in a state where she was not pleased with the world, no matter what position she was in, but the tummy is supposed to be more calming. Instead she just cried and flailed her arms and legs.

Then I heard DOB saying, "You can't do that anymore." I came back in and sure enough, she had flipped herself over on her back, perilously close to the edge. She was still crying just as hard.

She's not supposed to be doing this for two or three more months. Maybe it doesn't count because it was an accident.

And now how am I going to park her when I need to run do something?

Menu Mysteries

Why is it that telephone menus always offer you the final option of "For all other inquiries, press '0' or stay on the line and your call will be answered in the order it was received"?

Does pressing '0' somehow nudge you up in the lottery of phone menudom? Or is it just there to satisfy compulsive control freaks who have a need to feel like they are doing something?

What's In a Name?
So now it turns out McCain-Feingold might prohibit car dealerships from advertising before the election. That is, car dealerships founded by a candidate who is running in that election. Ironically, the seat targeted is none other than that of Senator Feingold himself.

Mr. Darrow doesn't even seem to run the dealerships anymore--CEO is his son, of the same name. So isn't it arguable the name doesn't refer to him, but to his son? And if that's not permitted what's next: suppose a candidate happens to have the same name as a notable business, but no actual connection to it--will the business have to take their ads off the air?

At least Feingold's campaign doesn't seem to want to make an issue of it. But the Common Cause fellow still thinks that name recognition is inherently evil. So I have to ask: What about Senator Feingold's name ID? (Which is being spread even by tales of his opponent's legal quandries.) Isn't that an unfair advantage? Perhaps we should require incumbents to change their names every election cycle so that everyone runs on issues alone.

Baby Blues

All right, I concede, DOB was right. If you dress a baby in blue, no matter how gender-neutral the decorations, everyone will think she's a boy. Next time we go out I will have to dredge up something vaguely feminine.

I still think it's wrong. Who says girls don't wear blue? I have a sister who rarely wears any other color. (Of course, at 19, she has other indicators of her gender than color-coding.)

Technological Advances
Even in pre-parenthood days, I could not help but notice that the primary selling point for any particular brand of disposable diapers was how their latest advances helped keep baby comfy and dry.

Today I received a Pampers ad extolling a new line of products for toilet training with an exciting new feature: they stay wet so that baby will be uncomfortable (and hie him to the potty chair next time).

Online Identities
We have been referring to Abbey by her real live name long enough. Obviously if DOB and I have online identies (actually a whole host of them, but only one each for purposes of this blog), she should, too.

The question is, what? I am inclined toward picking a title that can apply to all future offspring, with the addition of a number. Two ideas that come to mind:

Hobbit (H1, H2, etc.): She's short, cute, and likes to eat six meals a day (and two a night). She also has big feet, but they are not hairy.

Duckling (D1, D2, etc.): It just seems logical to me that the inhabitant of a duchy should be a duckling.

Any thoughts?

NPR Covers the Kerry Campaign

Since Abbey likes classical music, I turned on the radio (she started bobbing her head up and down in time with Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2). But then the news came on with the following report on the Johns first joint campaign stop, today in Cleveland, Ohio.

John E: "The American people are going to reject the negative campaign tactics of the past and embrace hope and opportunity, because this is America!!!"

Reporter: John Kerry then attacked President Bush for high gasoline prices.

John K: "The days are over when we put a single young American in harm's way over foreign oil."

Apparently the irony was wasted on the reporter.

My weird aunt has posted a beautiful and sad poem on tomatoes (and government). Go read it.

The Fifth of July

DOB's family celebrated Independence Day yesterday. DOB and his brothers staged a brief play which seemed to be about the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere's ride, and the Battle of Lexington. It was short on scripted dialogue and long on cardboard box throwing and air gun firing. I got to light the lanterns in the belfry (flashlights behind the refrigerator).

Afterward they experimented and discovered that all six of them could, in fact, fit inside a dryer box.

The reason they had a dryer box is because our old dryer (inherited from DOB's parents and nearly as old as he is) started shooting sparks on Saturday. Providentially, DOB's dad and brother were standing in the utility at the time, working on drains and such. (The drains work great now, btw.) So the house did not burn down, and since it was Saturday DOB could drive right down to the appliance store where we bought the washing machine, held out the manual and said, "Get me the one that matches this." He was out the door with our new dryer in five minutes. And now we have a matched set, even! With the current diaper situation, going even one day without a dryer was not an option.

The Fourth of July
Traditions are the sauce in which a medley of years blends together into a single dish called the "Fourth of July."

Traditions string every Fourth from infancy to last year into one grand meld of sand and green water, fried chicken and orange bowknot rolls, relatives I don't know and those I do, squealing bottle rockets and Uncle Walt's harmonica that still lingers over the festivities though he's been gone for a decade. I still have my blue checked jumper and red t-shirt that matches the rest of the family.

Indeed, it is the Fourth's that weren't spent at Aunt Winnie's that stick out in my mind. The year we were waiting for Sarah to be born (she wasn't born for another week, but one of our cows had a calf that day, which we named Uncle Sam and revised to Aunt Samantha when we got a closer look). The year Dad had to work and we watched my weird aunt's friends come close to lighting Grandpa's field on fire. The year I spent most of the day in a hotel room in North Carolina, wishing DOB was online. (I did go to a quite enjoyable party that evening, where I learned several hilarious equipment-free games and that yellow squash makes a terrible pie.)

Last year was the pinnacle of Fourth of July celebrations. DOB came out on one of his rare visits before the wedding. The day was perfectly warm, dry, and sunny. (Generally in Washington summer weather arrives on the Fifth of July.) A musician was playing celtic harp on the ferry up to Whidbey Island. We rowed around the lagoon and got ourselves marooned on a floating dock until some distant cousins came to the rescue. The food was all as it should be, though we almost missed the homemade chicken and got stuck with the stuff somebody picked up at the deli. In the evening we went down to camp to watch several kids under slight supervision by the camp director and my brother (who are technically too old to be kids) set off fireworks wildly in all directions. We narrowly escaped being struck by an errant explosive--instead it hit the camp director in the seat of the pants, to the delight of all.

But this year all that was very far away. We made it to church with Abbey for the first time (though just for the potluck and afternoon service). I couldn't find anything patriotic that fit and seemed suitable for nursing. (Abbey wore her Fourth of July outfit, though.) The potluck was good, but nobody knows how to make orange bowknot rolls out here. We were too tired (well, Abbey and I were) when we got home to go to the band concert or fireworks display in town. So we went to bed. After Abbey went down we tried singing some patriotic songs and that helped, but it still didn't feel much like the Fourth.

Over the next few years no doubt we'll blend our own sauce of traditions that Abbey will look back on and think, "But if we don't do ________________ it won't feel like the Fourth of July!"

Rising Temperatures
It's being alleged that ads for "Farenheit 9/11" might run afoul of campaign finance law. It is not an absurd interpretation of the law--it shows the absurdity of the law itself. If you can't run ads saying "Bush is evil," you can't run ads saying, "Come watch our movie about Bush being evil." Is this an infringement on free speech? You bet.

Somebody--maybe Gephardt, I forget--commented during the adoption of the campaign finance law that we couldn't have both free speech and fair political campaigns. True indeed. Freedom is never fair. It just so happens under the Constitution of our country that freedom is protected, not some abstract "fairness" standard where every campaign is equally funded and has equally clever ads.

It's possible Moore will get a free ride by being part of the media, which further underscores the problems with this law. Since when did the media have a greater right to free speech than the rest of us? What does one have to do to get in the protected "media" class? And if the government decides who the "press" is, how much freedom of the press do we really have?

Upholding the campaign finance law has to have been one of the stupidest and most dangerous SCOTUS precedents of recent years. There's a reason the First Amendment is First--free political speech is our first line of defense against every other abuse government might deploy. Unfortunately under current First Amendment law, political speech, the bastion of a free nation, is less protected than erotic dancing, whose benefit to society is only slightly less dubious than its relevance to "free speech" at all.

On an only slightly related note, is it just me or is "Farenheit 9/11" a really dumb title? I assume it's a takeoff on "Farenheit 451" (which I haven't read but my sister says it's good), which made sense: the temperature at which paper burns as the title for a book about bookburning. But what kind of temperature is 9/11? .8182 degrees?

Midnight Screaming in Perspective

We received an email this morning from one of the other couples in our birthing class. Their little boy was born a day after Abbey . . . and has been in NICU ever since, due to meconium inhalation and pulmonary problems. They're looking forward to bringing him home this weekend.

I can put up with any amount of screaming to have my baby here with me.

She didn't scream at midnight last night, although she did have quite a fussy session this morning while she was supposed to be blissfully sleeping so we could get DOB off to work.

The Duke Returneth
DOB has finally found a way to work blogging into his schedule. So go check it out. This has been precipitated by the discovery of Blogger's email posting function, so that he can simply email the text he wants to the site. For some reason this makes him feel that it is easier to post, although I have trouble understanding why, since the email posting function always messes up the formatting and he winds up having to tinker with it via the regular posting format anyway. But whatever works, I guess.

Once Upon a Midnight Dreary . . .
After giving us two nights of sleep, Abbey is awake again. Not screaming, but I have taken her out of the bedroom just in case so that DOB can get his sleep. My theory is that it's just too hot. I have her in a very fuzzy sleeper because she has wet almost everything else, and I just discovered the A/C had been turned up to 78. So I have turned it back down and am waiting for coolness to ensue.

In other household news, the slow-moving drain situation has reached crisis proportions. I pulled a growing bean plant out of the bathroom sink plug yesterday. Nasty.

Doing Our Part
Someone has finally run the numbers on the impact abortion has on electoral politics . . . and the news is bad for liberals. Turns out that people who believe that abortions are good are more likely to have them. And that people who don't reproduce don't pass on their values. The end result is more power to conservatives.

Abortions are quantifiable; unquantifiable but equally significant for this purpose are the numbers of children never even conceived because of an anti-life philosophy. I bet the ideological skewing is similar. Liberals can babble on about "it takes a village" and "children are our future," but the reality is babies aren't made by villages and those who are never born have no future. Bearing and raising children is a task that inherently skews conservative. It is the ultimate form of conservation--passing on the human race.

It's good to know that life still is stronger than death. And that while I change diapers I'm also doing my own small part in saving the country. ;-)

Ode to Sleep
Yes, somehow, someway, Abbey made it through the night without a single scream. (This is not, of course, the same thing as sleeping through the night, except for Papa. But hey, he doesn't get to nap so it comes out OK.) We're not sure whether it was the change of sleeping location, change of feeding schedule, or simply the result of fervent prayer, but we happily accept it.

She has developed a new trick. She loads up a diaper, then waits for Mama to decide it is time for a change. Carefully she waits for the precise moment when the fresh, clean diaper has just been pinned in place, stares absent-mindedly off into space, as if contemplating the future of Social Security . . . then Whammo!

Then she waits until Mama has changed her again and just sat down and gotten comfortable, and she loads up a third.

Since I only have 12 newborn-sized diapers, I'm having to wash them once a day (and I'm wondering if we'll make it that far today). I'm grateful for two things: 1) I'm using cloth, otherwise I'd see dollar signs ringing before my eyes every time she does this 2) she's not a boy. If she were, I feel certain he would know not to wait until the diaper was on . . .

Important Diaper Developments
A diaper in Israel saves a baby's life by absorbing snake venom.

The critical question not addressed in the story is: disposable or cloth? My guess is cloth, since disposable diaper technology creates ever-trimmer packages, while the layers of cloth necessary for a one-year-old would fend off the fangs of any snake.

Also on the cloth diapering front, the internet is a wonderful thing. Where else are you going to get advice on how to wash your first load of dirty diapers at 3 a.m. when you suddenly realize you are running out? There's always Grandma, of course, but she needs her sleep.

Gray Hair Check
As if becoming a father wasn't enough of an aging event, DOB received a solicitation for membership from the AARP last week.

It would make sense that they had somehow confused him with his father, but he never issued a general forwarding order from his parents' address. So we can rule that out and just conclude he's turning into an old fogey.

Until he reminds me when my birthday is relative to his . . .

Drumroll, Please
For all those who have been anxiously waiting, we now have pictures.

Many thanks to Aunt Bettie and Uncle Steve for coming by and taking them. Many kudos to Abbey for surviving a bath and a picture taking session with nary a whimper. She made up for it later.

More 2 a.m. Musings
Abbey (that's how it's spelled, yes we know that's the building) has a strange propensity for screaming from 2 to 4 in the morning. Now we know crying is common in babies, but the precise timing of this had us mystified. Especially since she is otherwise the most incredibly even-tempered baby in the world. (She took a *bath* yesterday without uttering a peep.) She ordinarily sleeps through vaccuuming and puts up with the gaseous troubles of infant life with scarcely a murmur. Yet somehow in the middle of the night the slightest discomfort becomes agony.

So last night we developed a new theory. The only significance we can find to the timing of her discomfort is that it coincides with her birth. She starts getting noisy about 1:30, when I started pushing, and quiets down shortly after 4, when she was born. Perhaps she is suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress syndrome and having flashbacks.

Now that we have this theory we're not sure what to do with it, but perhaps it will at least serve to console us that we are not doing something horribly wrong.

Life With Baby

No, we still don't have any pictures. Any kind soul who wants to donate a digital camera to the cause will win the nation's gratitude . . . ;-) We can assure you she is extremely cute. Her head is not smooshed and her skin is not blotchy.

The weirdest thing about being a new parent is the strange obsession you develop with another person's bodily functions. ("Hooray, she's had her designated number of dirty diapers today!")

My mother's preferred lullaby was the words "Bye, oh baby" sung over and over to the tune of "Come, Thou Fount." Ronald used to object to these words as being lame. However, at two a.m., they provide a great relief to a mind unable to process any greater lyrical complexity. At two a.m. it is too difficult to remember what Papa's going to buy you if the looking glass gets broke.

It's a Girl!

Abigail Judith
4:11 am Tuesday, June 22, 2004
7 pounds, 11 ounces
20 inches long.

We're all doing fine. Except tired. Really tired.

When I gave the baby permission to wait until Wednesday, I didn't mean he could start labor immediately and then wait until Wednesday to actually been born.

I've been having contractions since Friday night. During the night they'll rise almost to go-to-the-hospital levels (which since we're only five minutes from the hospital, is a pretty high level.) And then they'll back off again. But never quite go away.

This is getting very annoying. Also very sleep-depriving.

But one must cope somehow. I'm trying to reset my goals. There's a lady at church who was in labor for two weeks with her oldest. So my new goal is to beat Mary Kappas and labor for three weeks.

All right, I traded in a Looney Tunes crib set for some gorgeous sunflower fabric to make curtains and a crib skirt out of. The baby can wait to come . . . till Wednesday, say.

I dusted. I got the boxes out of the nursery. I organized the sewing.

If this baby doesn't come soon, I'm going to have to . . . gulp . . . sort paperwork.

Thumb Twiddling
All right, the nesting instinct has struck and cleaned and redecorated the house. (When DOB arrived home yesterday, he thought I had arranged a surprise party or something.) And still no baby. Now what am I supposed to do?

Dust . . . I haven't dusted yet . . .

Protective Warnings
In other news on the adventures of teenagers, a radio announcement this morning started out with, "Police are warning citizens of the dangers of breaking into pools." The story continued with the tale of some teenagers who had broken into a public pool off-hours, one of whom had dived into the deep end and then, apparently, remembered that he could not swim.

I don't know how much danger there is in breaking into pools, but there is a whole lot of danger in being an idiot. When are they going to start issuing warnings on that?

Threats to Chickens
Some teenagers were convicted of animal cruelty for beheading chickens, out of curiosity over whether they really would run around 'like chickens with their heads cut off.'

Now, I'm all for punishing them for theft, and cleaning out coops is a good part of it--but reading a book on animal feelings? Does any chicken raiser out there really want to contend that chickens have feelings?

They should have been punished by being put on the butchering detail. And then frying the chickens up for dinner. That would have satisfied their curiosity in a hurry.

Groan
< whine >This baby weighs a ton. I can't believe it's still a week and a half to my due date. Everything hurts.< /whine >

They've arrested someone in Cincinnati for plotting to blow up a mall in Columbus. Good but disturbing. I was relying on being in "flyover zone" as my primary terrorism defense.

Progress
I put all the baby stuff away yesterday; today I must write thank you notes. (My wedding thank you note experience has been sufficient to convince me of the urgency of doing thank you notes immediately, before people move or forget who you are.)

I am also working on a letter to the editor in response to a Howard Dean column in our local paper, in which he complains that the richest, most advanced country in the world doesn't have the universal health care system that even poor countries have. Liberals apparently believe that wealth is distributed randomly over the world, like water, and that all we need is a more equitable irrigation system. Wealth is more like those endangered species they want to protect: it only flourishes under the right circumstances.

Ignorance is Sub-Blissful
Saturday night we watched the movie Miracle, about the 1980 US Olympic Hockey Team. It was a great movie, and I thought as we watched it that my enjoyment of it was not significantly diminished by my total ignorance of hockey. Until we got to the critical game against the Soviets. I saw the tension building up as the US team valiantly overcame the Soviet's lead, but I saw on the scoreboard that there were only three periods and remained calm, figuring, "This is nothing--the really tense period is yet to come."

And then it was all over. And thus I discovered that hockey usually only has three periods, unless the game is tied at the end of the third.

That really is all you need to know about hockey to enjoy the movie. But it would have helped if I had known that much.

The Key Curse Strikes Again

Only this time it wasn't me who had the key problem. It was the ladies who were unlocking the church for the baby shower on Friday night. The pastor, who was out of town, had given them the key and a tutorial, but due to some key/lock conflict it apparently requires divine assistance to actually turn the lock. The ladies successfully unlocked the deadbolt, but couldn't get the key out--and since the same key was needed to unlock the doorknob, we were stuck. I remarked brightly that at least we weren't having a thunderstorm at the moment, but they told me to be quiet. I began to wonder if we would have a baby shower in the parking lot.

After some loud Baptist prayers, ten or fifteen minutes of fiddling, and the application of a pair of pliers, the key came out. Unfortunately it came out leaving the deadbolt locked. But they were wiser this time. First they unlocked the doorknob, then they unlocked the deadbolt, and they left the key in the deadbolt for anyone who wanted to attempt it while we went inside.

After that the shower proceeded uneventfully, but enjoyably. We got a lot of sleepers and blankets and bibs and similarly useful things. Our favorite is a Snoopy sleeper. The outfit going to the hospital is a striped gown with a coordinating blanket with little animals. (Like you really wanted to know all this.)

Meanwhile, DOB and his dad had been plotting for weeks to spend the evening working on assorted chores involving power tools and moving large items. They misled me by asserting that the boys would come up on Saturday to do these tasks, while Friday night DOB would go down there to watch a pirate movie with them. I was utterly confused when DOB's dad and brothers left the house abruptly just before I left with the female portion of the family for the shower, but was quite thrilled to arrive home and find everything done. Thanks to another brother going to pick up our car on Saturday, that left us with a very enjoyable Saturday to putter around and clean stuff up.

Just in case you wondered

I'm not in labor. I'm sitting around waiting for the nesting urge to strike and clean up the house for me.

Profit is Theft
Yesterday's WSJ had an article about grocery stores selling "fair trade" produce, like bananas and coffee beans, where a certain minimum price is guaranteed to the grower. It seems that the wholesale costs for these globally-minded products are generally only slightly above those of normal produce. Yet many grocery stores will mark them up significantly more than they would mark up the normal produce. (One example: bananas for four times the price of regular bananas, sixteen times the price of what the farmers receive.)

I suppose in the scale of evil, exploiting stupid rich Europeans and Americans is less evil than exploiting poor farmers in Costa Rica. But there's a delicious irony in thinking that these folks who think the trade system is inherently evil are unwittingly giving their money to blatant profiteers.

If these folks would think just a little harder they would realize free trade is fair trade--if no one is coerced into the transaction, it's fair. Yes, farming, like every other pursuit, has irreducible risks--sometimes crops are good and prices low; and other times prices are high and crops are bad. The best way for people to be insulated against these risks so that they don't starve in the off years is through rising affluence, which only comes about through freedom. A tight year from poor crop sales is a good sight better than starving from poor crops.

Strange Coincidences
DOB's calendar at work has been eliciting compliments and remarks. What a cool coincidence that it has a picture of Ronald Reagan featured this month!

Apparently people had yet to notice that it's a Reagan Ranch calendar that, surprisingly enough, features a picture of Reagan every month.

Timing is everything

Thanks to the efforts of siblings-in-law, our garbage disposal is now functioning, the freezer is orderly and full of food, the baby equipment is clean, and my bags are packed.

Now the baby can come.

Last night I insisted it could not, even when I had contractions for three hours.

Although it would be better to wait until after the baby shower on Friday . . .

I knew this would happen

Over the weekend we assembled the baby's bassinette (really the basket off a baby swing), which has previously held seven other Richmond babies. We have it in position beside where I sleep so I can practice not tripping over it at night.

I find myself looking over at it as I pass and wondering, "Hey! Where did I put the baby?" Then I remember that I have not actually given birth yet, and thus cannot possibly have misplaced the baby.

Oversight

Oh! How could I forget to mention it? I got an article published this weekend. 'Tis an online publication, which is less thrilling than print, but it's still the very first time I've gotten something published entirely unaided by others. And it was fun.

I was searching the library catalog for a WWII movie about a British war effort to deceive the Nazis, called something along the lines of "The Man That Never Was."

The video was not there, but the list of possible equivalents included the following:

"Man, the measure of all things"
"Man, the hopeful primate: The conditions of human evolution."
"A man to call my own"
"A man to marry"

The first two make for an amusing refutement of secular humanism, but if I weren't already married I would find the last two disconcerting.

A Call for Male Leadership in the Church

Yesterday DOB and I were driving to church and found ourselves behind a woman in an SUV. She was driving too fast to pass. She was also applying eye makeup for several miles. This made us nervous and relieved when she finally pulled off at a gas station.

Perhaps we are extrapolating too much, but it seemed likely to us that she was driving to church--where else in the countryside merits eye makeup at 9:30 on a Sunday morning? (I suppose she could work at the gas station, but I find it hard to believe that such wages could support a brand new SUV.)

Now, if a man had only been taking her to church, the road would have been a safer place. She could have applied her eye makeup without endangering the rest of us. If men won't go to church for other reasons, we must appeal to them to go for road safety.

(What about the possibility that there was no man in her life? Ah, but if there were more good Christian guys out there, she wouldn't have that problem . . . )

Tort Reform
One subject Stossel touched on last night was the evils engendered by trial lawyers, a topic always near and dear to the hearts even of non-trial lawyers like us.

The problem is how to reform the problems with the tort system without making matters worse by further government tampering. Of course, the tort system uses the power of government to enforce its results, but it has a certain market element which ought to be maximized. If it were properly run, it would be a much better means of regulation of dangerous activity than alphabet soup agencies.

But few people besides trial lawyers would argue that it is properly run today. I won't bother to repeat the litany of complaints, but will plunge in to analyzing proposed fixes.

First, a framework. The goal of the tort system should be justice. In an ideal scenario, the injured party recovers from the guilty party a sum corresponding to the amount of his damage. The guilty party is punished in proportion to his culpability--but no more. The tort system should be set up to seek this result.

Unfortunately, it seems that the current tort system is set up to seek the result that the "injured" (or not) party recover as much as the "guilty" (or not) party can afford to pay.

Now to proposed fixes:

Loser Pays: If a person brings a lawsuit that fails, they must pay the costs of the party they sued. This has a lot going for it. Right now, the tort system works rather like a gambler being given someone else's credit card in a casino. They might not win, but they really haven't got much to lose. This distorts incentives for bringing a suit. A true free market in lawsuits would provide consequences for bad choices in lawsuits as well as rewards for good ones. "Loser pays" would do this.

Theoretically "loser pays" could dissuade some legitimate plaintiffs from bringing suits that they would have a hard time proving; but it would prevent the much more widespread evil of innocent defendants being compelled to pay up rather than face the costs of a hollow victory after a drawn-out lawsuit.

It's also the rule in every other country. And it seems analogous to the rule about false witnesses in the Bible: If you bear false witness against someone else, you suffer the punishment you would have brought upon them.

Capping Damages: If actual damages are proven, they should be paid, no matter how high they are. That is part of recompensing the innocent and punishing the guilty. Arbitrary caps on nebulous items like pain and suffering might be less problematic, since you cannot put a monetary value on those anyway.

But capping punitive damages is less important than seeing that they are used only in appropriate cases. Punitive damages are supposed to be used only when evil conduct is shown. They should never be used for mere negligence. Nor should they be used except for personal injuries; for economic injuries, compensation is enough.

Abolishing Joint and Several Liability: Joint and several liability means that if four people caused you damage, and you only sue one of them (who was at most 10% at fault), you can recover 100% of your damages from them. They then have the possibility of recovering the rest of those damages from the other culpable parties, but in reality probably won't because whatever considerations kept you from suing the others (they don't have any money or aren't easily subject to suit) will probably keep the defendant from recovering, too.

Here the two objectives of justice come into conflict. We can either ensure full compensation of the victim, or punish the guilty party only in proportion to his fault, but not both. In my opinion (I think DOB still differs with me on this) the latter goal is more important. Life sometimes prevents us from recovering all that justice might demand. But if we force a party to pay damages of which he is not guilty, we have used our legal system to perpetuate a second injustice. And remember that these "evil corporations" that are always being held liable because they have the money are employers and producers of goods--damage to them creates damage to countless others. If they deserve to be put out of business because of their malfeasance, fine. But businesses should not be punished merely because they have money and are easy to sue.

This all reminds me of the story of an American lawyer who was guest teaching a class in an Italian law school. At the end, a group of students approached him and one asked, "Is it true that in America if you fall down on the sidewalk you can sue and win a lot of money?" The American replied that it was. The students began talking excitedly in Italian. The American asked, "What--do you all want to go to America to be lawyers now?" "No," replied the spokesman, "We want to go to America and fall down on sidewalks!"

I Blocked John Stossel's Limo
Last night we drove up to Columbus to a very elegant event celebrating the Buckeye Institute's 10th anniversary. John Stossel spoke (not Jim Tressel, a football coach, which was what DOB thought I had said).

DOB gave me the task of picking where to sit, which is always a delicate task in a crowd. The temptation is to either find a place with someone you know and sit by them (in which case you never meet anybody new) or to pick a place at an empty table and see who comes (but if the room is already mostly full, chances are good you'll be stuck by yourselves). I picked a half-way full table as near the middle of the room as we could get without getting into the tables reserved for groups.

It turned out that the gentleman whom DOB sat next to was someone whom he had worked on an opposing campaign from nearly a decade ago. And who lives just a short distance from where he works now. Soon they were swapping political critiques and tales like old cronies.

Stossel's speech was good (thoughts thereby inspired in a later post), and dinner was good, but we did not win the giveaway of a chartered flight for eight to Atlantic City. Oh well.

DOB was trying walking with a cane for the first time since the latest injury. We were pleased with it overall--it looked more distinguished than crutches and nobody blamed me for beating up on him. However, it made walking slower and more painstaking than with crutches, and we accidentally parked on a relatively distant side of the hotel. Plus, the hotel driveway was paved in bricks, which looked elegant but were awkward to walk on.

So when we made it to the front door, I volunteered to get the car while he finished up a conversation. As I brought the car around, I realized that John Stossel and the Buckeye dignitaries were loading into a limo on the left side of the drive. I pulled up as far to the right as I could and got out so DOB could drive, leaving the car running and, in an instinctive effort to avoid locking the keys in the car, the driver's door open.

DOB was still talking and I watched and realized, too late, that the car door was blocking the middle space in the drive, which the limo would have to get through to get around another limo in front of it. One of the valets came along and held the door almost closed so that the limo could squeeze through.

John Stossel was whisked back to ABC to continue his noble work, and I did not lock the keys in a running car. All was well.

Return of the Disposal Monster
Longtime visitors to this blog may recall we had garbage disposal troubles at our old apartment. Therefore I approached the one at the house with great tentativeness, only throwing down small, easily digested items.

It handled these with grace and ease. Over time, I became more daring. Ultimately, overconfident. Yesterday I tried to have it consume several orange peels and two cauliflower cores simultaneously. It proved too much. Although it continues whirling around, spewing fine bits of food into the sink, the water will not go down.

Fortunately nothing has rotted yet, so the house just smells like I've been making several gallons of coleslaw. But the future does not look bright. DOB wants to remove the garbage disposal altogether so that the temptation is gone.

I want a compost pile. Curse these over-manicured neighborhoods.

Hand Signals

I had already waved farewell to DOB in the garage this morning and returned to the office to opened the drape, as is my custom. I noticed he was only as far as the driveway, waving and gesturing to me. It looked kind of like the odd gestures he makes at his brothers when they stand at the windows and watch him leave, so I made some back. Instead of driving off, he continued to gesture, more and more wildly.

Finally I realized there seemed to be some significance to the gestures. I ran out the front door. He rolled down the window.

"You look cute making those gestures," he said, "But I need my glasses."

That explained the ring-around-the-eyes gesture he had kept repeating.

At least this morning I remembered to remind him to comb his hair. It's hard to keep track of everything at this hour of the day.

The Time is . . . Near

According to the doctor, today I am officially at full term (37 weeks) and may proceed to have a baby any time I feel like it. And I *still* don't have things ready, although Kristen was here all day yesterday filling our freezer with baked goodies.

One of the pregnancy magazines in the doctor's offices had a feature on the dreams pregnant women have. Apparently at this stage women often dream of things like deep water that signify surrendering to labor.

I haven't had any dreams about deep water, but I did dream last night about having the baby. It all happened so fast that we were out in the parking lot, heading home, before we remembered to check the gender of the baby. (It was a girl.) There was also a great crowd of people when we went back into the hospital to check out properly, including most of my friends and relations. In the crush, my youngest brother bumped into me and refused to admit it. So I punched him and sent him sprawling.

I'm not sure what significance a dream like that has. Considering that my youngest brother is six feet tall and over 200 pounds, maybe it signifies aggrandized visions of my own strength to help me make it through labor. I'm not sure where this latent hostility is coming from, though.

Just in case you wanted to know

"Hola! Mi nombre se Inigo Montoya. Mataste a mi padre. Preparate a morir."

Annoyingly enough, the Spanish voiceover and the Spanish subtitles are slightly different. This is the voiceover version, which sounded cooler. Except for the greeting he gives at the beginning, which I don't know and can't find, so I had to stick with "Hola!"

Expecting June

DOB's eldest younger brother still goes to his family's former church in Cincinnati, while the rest of the family has joined us closer to home. Yesterday we were enjoying the family Memorial Day picnic when the following conversation occurred:

Brother: Folks at church are wondering when June will arrive.

DOB (puzzled): It's tomorrow.

Brother: Karen's due tomorrow?

DOB: No, tomorrow is the first of June. That's when June arrives, on the first.

Brother: I didn't ask when *June* arrives, I asked when *Junior* arrives.

Murdered by Pirates is Good

We spent part of the weekend remedying DOB's ignorance of The Princess Bride, which he had never watched. (Inconceivable, I know.) So now he knows the virtues of the MLT, the key distinction between "mostly dead" and "all dead," and why you should never go up against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

We are hoping, before the DVD returns to the library, to watch enough of it in Spanish to get down the Spanish words for, "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

Christmas Cookies

While out for my morning constitutional, I spied a garage sale and naturally was loathe to pass it up. Sure enough, not only did it have a charming assortment of baby clothes (ah, if only I knew Baby was a boy, they had the greatest little tool outfits), it had a practically-new spritz gun for $2! So I bought it.

Spritzes are those little fancy-shaped pressed cookies that turn up at Christmas. Most people, unfortunately, are only familiar with the generic white kind (perhaps with colored sprinkles for the truly venturesome) and have no idea of the varieties possible. Over many years, my family, in their relentless pursuit of Christmas cookie perfection, has developed countless striking varieties: green peppermint trees with chocolate drizzle; lemon stars with poppy seeds; cherry hearts; poinsettias, complete with leaves and yellow centers; coconut snowmen; gingerbread; orange dipped in chocolate. And then there were the stranger varieties, like the Little Green Men we made the year I accidentally put too much blue icing in the too-yellow coconut dough, and wound up with green rather than white. The next year we refined this concept and made Grinches, with little peanut butter Max the Dogs.

I love spritz. They are easier than rolled cookies and fancier than bar or drop cookies. They are vaguely Scandinavian, although they're more widely appropriated now than, say, krumkaka (which I still haven't attempted on my own, not even with my snazzy electric griddle).

And no doubt my weird aunt and older sister are recoiling with shock to imagine me thinking about Christmas cookies in May, when I ordinarily scream with horror if the topic comes up before November. (Well, I scream then, too, but I don't think it premature.)

I have installed a new template. I like it. Except it doesn't have an obvious spot for links to other blogs. I'll have to make one. But first, dishes call.

Cool Developments

Marsha has succumbed and joined the ranks of bloggers. She hasn't had a chance to post something of substance yet, but brilliant thoughts are no doubt coming soon. Also her template is very elegant. I might have to change mine.

DOB and I have been invited to go (free) to the Buckeye Institute's Evening with John Stossell next week. Way cool. (Even cooler will be if I can get some research work from them.)

The granola Kristen made on Wednesday is delicious. Can't believe this is the same rolled cereal we gagged down hot all winter.

Testing again to see if comments are working.

Pirates Who Don't Do Anything

I spent yesterday reading Treasure Island from cover to cover while watching my sister-in-law make granola and cookies and tortillas for when Baby arrives. The Treasure Island frenzy was on DOB's insistence, when he discovered I had never read it. (After reading it, I think perhaps I might have once, but if so it was when I was so young that I didn't remember what happened, anyway.) Great fun.

The degree of laziness was due to a slight cold. Not a very impressive excuse, but when you add slight-cold-tiredness to eight-months-pregnant tiredness to long-trip-over-the-weekend tiredness, you achieve a fairly high degree of tiredness.

I'm feeling a little better today. It's my day to do office work, although at some point I must go face the pile of dishes.

Also, my order of diapers just arrived.

Vermont: An Endangered Species

So it seems that the National Trust for Historic Preservation has listed Vermont as "endangered," due to a sinister threat from Walmart.

One could mock the arrogant elitists who think that other people should be forced to pay more at quaint stores. More power to those who are happy paying more for their bread and butter, but some of us are working hard to stay alive out here.

But I have a sneaking sympathy for the elitists, just the same. I mourn the passage of the oddities of the world. Certainly a life raising sheep in the Scottish Highlands, or busting sod on the vast prairie, or fishing in small, leaky boats is not one I'd choose over a life of relative comfort in suburbia, but I still can be sorry that those times have passed and want to preserve the beautiful things that ordinary people were able to make out of adversity.

I do shop at Walmart, every week as a general rule. But until last month I religiously bought my meat at Wilson's Meat Locker down the street from DOB's family, where the owner knew my name and inquired about how the baby was doing. The meat wasn't as cheap as I could have scrounged by scouring sales, but it was reasonably priced, from local sources, and I don't think any chain store would have offered me bottom round roast for the same price as chuck just because they were out of chuck. (Indeed, they wouldn't even offer me Orville Redenbacher popcorn for less when they were out of store brand, leading to a tragic Sunday night without popcorn.) But last month the shop went out of business after several decades. As I went in to pick up my last meat order, I heard the owner on the phone, griping, "I could never charge enough to make up for all the hassle of running this business these days."

The real threat to small businesses does not come directly from big businesses underselling them. Walmart undersold Wilson's, but Wilson's had its own niche that offset Walmart's price advantage. The threat comes from government regulations that make it too difficult to operate a business. A huge chain can spread out the costs of complying with the government over a much greater area, lowering its costs (and thus allowing it to lower its prices while still making a profit). Further, a big business has the clout to lobby for exemptions.

It doesn't take too much imagination or research to come up with more advantages big businesses have that are due to government interference rather than some supposed excess of the free market. "Eminent domain" takings of private land to then be resold to private developers. Restrictive zoning laws that melt away in the face of a large potential tax base. Special grants to assist businesses and special tax breaks to help only the favored few.

The trouble is, it's those people who are now clamoring against Walmart who created the regulatory system that favors the large and the powerful businesses over the small, local ones. Government interference, no matter how well-intentioned, will always serve the interests of the large, the wealthy, and the well-organized, because they are the ones who have the resources to figure out how to get on the state's good side. Whereas the free market just might favor the guy down the street who cuts you a special deal on roast.

Another Birth Story

I wonder what the childbirth instructors who are busy training husbands to help would think of this one. (From Mrs. Mike, an Indian midwife is talking to the wife of a Mountie.)

"Yes, you think of your next baby. I have ready for you." She reached over the table and fumbled in an open cupboard. "Many hundred babies I am the first to see. And only one die. Every one I save with squaw root." She chuckled. "You take every day, and I tell you, when baby come you not even know it, no! Once I play good joke on Louis, my husband, I am near my time, big like vinegar barrel. I am cooking dinner. I say, 'Louis, we need wood!' He say, 'We have plenty.' I say, 'Louis, chop wood!' He look at me and shrug his shoulders. I turn my back, take big chew of squaw root. He pick up ax, walk out. Let me tell you, when he come back with split wood, there is twins in the bed, and I am back cooking dinner. But he is a man, he is blind, he sit down and eat. 'Coffee strong enough?' I say. He say, 'Yes.' Then both babies cry. He look around! 'Sacre bleu!' he say French. He run to bed. Where they come from? He hit his head with both hands. It was good joke, Mrs. Mike, best joke I ever make."

Things Brewing at Home

A warm weekend in an unsupervised house is likely to result in some surprises for the homeowners when they return. One of which was that I forgot to take out the garbage before I left. Bleck.

On a more interesting note, my Viking former co-worker will be gratified to learn that I think I made mead over the weekend. At least, I had a watered-down jar of honey used for pancake syrup that has gotten foamy and developed an odd, unhoneylike smell. It doesn't smell like Drano, though, so I don't think it's gotten all the way there yet.

No, I'm not going to taste it.

I Left My Car in Hicksville

The weekend meeting of the Ohio Young Republicans in Toledo went well. DOB presided over a smooth debate of rules and platform, including a lively but cordial discussion on our position over gay marriage. I was duly elected secretary and took a lot of notes on the back of programs, because I had forgotten to bring any notepads. However, I understand the expectations for secretary in the League are relatively low, showing up being sufficient for me to rank among the most dedicated. We ate well and had a room with a great view of the fireworks shot off at the ballpark each evening.

On our way home on Sunday, we had made plans to visit a friend in Hicksville (it's really on the map) and attend her church. On the way down, the a/c quit, then funny noises and smells began to arise, and at last we pulled over just outside of town and the car died altogether. I threatened to go into labor on the side of the road just to round out the experience, but Baby seemed content to stay put.

Over the course of the afternoon we found a mechanic who diagnosed a blown head gasket. We were still over two hours from home. But to make it there we wound up going the other direction, into Indiana (througha terrific thunderstorm), to rent a car at the nearest airport. So we arrived home very late, very tired, and considerably poorer than we had budgeted for. (We will probably have the mechanic up there fix the car and have someone bring it down next time DOB's family goes to Michigan.)

But, we were home in one piece! And now I must go deal with the aftermath of the trip. I might go make the bed. Then again, I might just crawl back in it.

Brief Update

A gazillion things to do today, and limited energy to do them with, as we are leaving for a Young Republican convention in Toledo this afternoon. Some random updates:

We finished birthing class! Now we know everything we need to know. Ha! Anyway, we now know what the Fetal Heimlich Maneuver is, and I bet you don't.

To keep you occupied while enhancing your economic knowledge, play "The Tragedy of the Bunnies." I wish I had designed something like this, but I never could come up with enough justification for buying Flash software.

Ten thousand blessings to the person who invented air conditioning. We have finally had ours serviced and turned on. Life is beautiful. I can actually eat supper again.

Government is Evil, er, Stupid

DOB and I have different generic words of disgust. I usually describe things I despise as "evil" or possibly "gross," depending on their nature. DOB, on the other hand, uses "stupid" across the board. I have to admit, though, the anti-government thoughts running through my head today fit "stupid" better than "evil."

1) My good friend Marsha, whose only threat to civil society is her borderline anarcho-libertarian views, is being forced to pay a significant fine for the "offense" of owning up to a forgotten handgun in her purse after the airport security failed to catch it. She is the most conscientious person I know, and so of course she must be fined for her honesty. What, exactly, does this accomplish for national security? Obviously the logical thing for her to do next time she forgets her gun is to keep her mouth shut and hope all the remaining security screeners are equally inattentive.

2) My father has owned a small farm for over 30 years, kept more for the purpose of relieving stress and occupying children than out of any attempt at monetary gain. Now he wishes to divide the farm so that my brother can build on a portion of it. As expected, this involves incomprehensible complexity and expense in surveying, satisfying wetlands concerns, zoning issues, etc. The icing on the cake, though, is that he has now discovered he is supposed to have a "farm plan." Not only that, but the "farm plan" is being developed by some bureaucrats who came out and briefly surveyed the farm. (Fortunately Dad got the manure shed cleaned out before they came.) How soviet can you get? A brief survey of the county website indicates that this plan is tied in to getting the tax break for having agricultural land, but why is it not sufficient to prove that you have, in fact, used the land as a farm? Do the bureaucrats really think we can't farm without their all-wise guidance?

Then again, maybe "evil" is the better term.

Extreme Ironing
New sport of the day: Extreme Ironing. The idea is to take an iron and ironing board to some remote location and iron there.

My thought? Ironing on Mount Everest is nothing compared to trying to get a shirt ironed while getting dressed, cooking breakfast, packing lunch, and making the bed, all with a 20-minute deadline. And in this sport, the quality of the ironing matters. (I have my doubts that garments ironed underwater come out very crisp.)

For experienced athletes, add toddlers underfoot.

The Monday Morning Housewife Pentathlon: coming soon to an extreme sporting venue near you.

We invited another couple from church over Saturday night and got to try out having small children in the house for the first time. (They have a 3-year-old, a 1-year-old, and one due later this summer.)

1. I might wash the sliding glass door once this summer, but next year it will be pointless.

2. A house that one can traverse in a full circle is an incredible asset that, by itself, can keep small children amused for hours. When you add a dad to chase, no other toys are needed.

3. Small children suffer minor injuries once every 20 minutes and major ones once every other day. Eventually you cease to be traumatized by it.

4. Throwing an afghan over one's head creates a surprisingly effective hide-and-seek location.

Household Mysteries

I was moving the load of towels from the washing machine to the dryer, when I found a paintbrush. A regular old scummy paint-the-wall paintbrush.

How did it get there? Where did it come from? What was it used for?

Fortunately I didn't see signs of paint all over my laundry, but it is still disturbing.

Another mystery, although perhaps not so deep of a one, is the bathtub drain. It seems to have been designed to catch the maximum amount of hair and then entangle it in such a way that it cannot be removed. Perhaps the purpose is to prevent the pipes from being clogged. But why should I applaud this endeavor when the effect on drainage is exactly the same?

Maybe it has a way to easily come apart and take the hair out, but the only sign I see is a big rusty screw in the middle that I don't have the nerve to touch.

In Which I Visit the Library
I stopped at the library on my way home from DOB's office yesterday. At last I could resist the allure of the children's section no longer. I wound up with seven books from there, which isn't too excessive, I suppose, if you ignore the little detail that my oldest child can't even look at the pictures yet. (Most of them were song books, though, and he can hear music. And no doubt he will benefit greatly in later life from the fact that I now can learn all the words to "Do Your Ears Hang Low?")

I love libraries. I wish they weren't an evil government socialist program. I would pay for them if anyone would offer a paid one. (Actually my sisters are working on just that. But it will be on the other side of the country, so it won't help me assuage my conscience.)

Architectural Evolution

One of my favorite morning walks is down a nearby street that has a uniquely charming assortment of houses. If you look at it, you realize that the houses were once all roughly alike, a row of little white squares, probably built in the early fifties and probably still lived in by many of their original owners.

But the passage of fifty years has changed much. Different folks have added on to their houses in different ways. A porch here; gabled attic windows next door; a pop-out window on the house next to that. Some brave souls painted theirs a soft yellow with blue trim. One yard has a spectacular flower garden; another has a great climbing tree. The overall effect is lovely and not at all monotonous.

This gives me two thoughts. One, although I thought I liked variety in a neighborhood, I have realized that a truly charming neighborhood needs a certain amount of commonality, too. Adobe next to tudor next to ranch next to victorian is too much. It's good that there tends to be common elements in homes built close together (dictated by the history and geography of the location), but each interpreted by someone different.

Second, perhaps there is, after all, hope for the modern monstrosities of planned communities. Perhaps someday, after the restrictive covenants expire and the aesthetic committees die off, things will begin to change. Time and human ingenuity (not wholly supressed by mass-production) will soften the edges. Someone will dare to use a paint color that is not a shade of beige. Someone will abandon their structured flowerbeds and put in an overflowing cottage garden with a white picket fence. Someone will discover that big front porches are still an essential part of a home. Little changes, here and there, will turn the monotony into a canvas on which variety can be displayed.

Minorly irritated

Our birthing story went over well, despite being six times as long as anyone else's. (Apparently I took "story" too literally; no one else included dialogue or even stream-of-consciousness reflections.) So that was good. We have all been such good students we will get done a week early, so next week is our last.

However, I seem to have lost my mind entirely today. I forgot to pack DOB's lunch, so he is having to subsist (as far as I know) on a biscuit with jam left from breakfast. And today is the day he works late. Also today I was taking him in all his pens and his special flag mug to keep them in, and I foolishly thought I could carry that and two large, heavy upright file sorters. And navigate three doors unassisted. So I broke the mug.

I promise, DOB, I am not still upset at myself. Just very slightly perturbed.

Norwegian Birth Story

Today's assignment for birthing class is to write our anticipated story of birth. I'm not sure what the purpose of this is, since the one thing I'm fairly certain is true about birth is that it doesn't go according to predictions.

Still, the assignment is putting me in mind of some of my favorite literary birth stories. Particularly this one, from Mama's Bank Account. The setting is a Norwegian immigrant family living in San Francisco in the early twentieth century; this scene closes the book with the birth of Mama's first grandchild.

*************
I was at school teaching the day they took Christine to the hospital, and when the telephone call came, I got another teacher to take my class and hurried over there.

Mama was waiting for me in the hall.

"They will not let me see her," she said simply.

And her eyes were as stark as they had been on the long-ago day when Dagmar had been wheeled down a hospital corridor away from her--as the time Papa had been so ill.

We waited together outside Christine's door until Nels and Frank came out.

"How is she?" Mama asked anxiously.

Nels shook his head and Frank took hold of both of Mama's hands, as if for comfort.

"But what is wrong?"

"Christine believes," Nels said hopelessly, "that she is going to die."

"But--is she?"

Frank looked down at Mama's hands for a long time.

When he looked up, his young face was gaunt. "She is. Unless she gives us some help. Nothing we say--She's not having an easy time. Now she's given up completely."

Mama took her hands out of Frank's and straightened her hat.

"I go in," she said.

"I'm afraid it wouldn't do any good, Mama," Nels said. "It might even be bad for her. One look at your face--"

"Then I will change my face. Like this. See?" Mama smiled valiantly.

Nels put his arm around Mama's shoulder. "No."

"But I'm her Mama."

"And I'm her brother and Frank is her husband. We love Christine, too. Believe me, we're doing everything we can. We're doctors."

"Yes," Mama said mildly, "But have you ever had a baby?"

And with that, she marched directly into Christine's room, beckoning me to follow.

Christine's face was white and still against the pillow.

"Mama?"

"Yes, Christine."

"Oh, Mama, will you take my baby--afterwards?" Christine's voice seemed caught in her throat. "We children were so happy, so safe. Mama, will you?"

Mama walked over to the window and raised the shade.

"And what," she wanted to know, "will you be doing while I'm raising your baby?"

"Tears coursed down Christine's cheeks. "Didn't they tell you? Don't you know? I-I won't be here."

"And I always thought," Mama said quietly, "that Katrin was the dramatic one."

"Mama! What do you mean?"

"I remember now, Christine, that you are the stubborn one."

Christine buried her face in the pillow. "Oh, you still don't understand. I'm going to die!"

Mama's voice was even. "I had five children. And with every one, I too was certain I was going to die."

"But I know. I'm a nurse."

Mama walked over to the bed and looked down at Christine.

"Perhaps," she suggested, "It will be better if you stop being a nurse and start becoming a mother."

Christine closed her eyes and sighed wearily.

A student nurse tiptoed in with a tray. "Though I don't suppose," she whispered compassionately, "that she'll be able to eat a thing."

Christine moaned softly and Mama said, "Please leave the tray, anyhow."

After the nurse had gone, Mama took the silver covers off the dishes and poured tea from the pitcher. I saw how her hands trembled, and I stepped back against the wall so that Christine could not see the tears in my eyes.

"Will you eat, my Christine? There is chicken here. And mashed potatoes."

Christine moaned again.

"I will feed you if you like. Perhaps you will try to drink a little of the hot tea?"

Christine shook her head, but did not open her eyes.

Mama said, "Is a shame to waste good food."

And Mama sat down by the tray and slowly, methodically, she began to eat Christine's lunch.

Christine's eyes flew open. "Mama! What are you doing?"

"Eating your lunch."

"But--but--" Christine sat up in bed. "How can you sit there and eat when I'm-- Mama, aren't you worried about me at all?"

Mama shook her head stoically. "You are doing fine. You are just like me. I never could eat, either."

Then Christine began to laugh to herself. She laughed between the spasms of pain, while Mama helped her walk back and forth across the room, and she was still smiling when they wheeled her into the operating room, where she was safely delivered of a seven-pound baby boy.

When Nels came out and said that Christine was fine and that there was nothing more to worry about, Mama's hands stopped trembling.

She leaned on my arm, though, as we walked down the hall to the glass-paned nursery.

A nurse held up a tiny blanketed figure and Mama peered at the wrinkled, yawning little face.

"I think," she said, "he has Papa's nose. And--yes, he has Christine's mouth."

"Oh, Mama! As if you could tell! He looks like a little boiled lobster."

"Why Katrin--he is a beautiful baby. As you were. All my children were beautiful babies."

My thoughts were back in Christine's hospital room.

"Five times," I said wonderingly. "Five times. And all you went through raising us--"

"It was good," Mama said.

"How can you say that? Why, I can remember times, Mama--"

"It was good," Mama repeated firmly. "All of it."

We always have tossed around the idea of doing this for our opponent's campaign, but never actually have.

No time to ramble today--brothers-in-law coming over to mud the kitchen walls so they can be painted. (At last!)

Random Observations

1. Relaxation is where you find it. Rational people might not think that a man on crutches and a woman seven and a half months pregnant would find hiking at the lake the best form of relaxation. But it was fun. And yes, we were both too tired to see straight afterwards.

2. I have now learned how to open the gas cap on the station wagon. This has been a long source of frustration for me, culminating two weeks ago when I spent ten minutes at the attempt and finally gave up. DOB gave me lessons on Saturday and had me practice until he was sure I had grasped the principle.

3. Distressing news: Abigail is one of the top ten girl's names. How could we have sunk so low as to choose a popular name?

4. Yard sales are cool. This weekend I found assorted pristine cotton baby outfits and blankets, three fabric sunflowers that match the bedroom, and a very sturdy little wooden rocking horse. Total expenditure: $5.

Happy Birthday, DOB

Today is the Duke's 25th birthday. We are celebrating by relaxing. It's probably our last chance until his 50th.

Thoughts on a More Somber Note

I thought what Linda Chavez said about the Iraqi prisoner issue struck most true. My gut reaction on hearing that many of the accused guards were women was, "Wait a minute, women don't do that kind of thing." They don't . . . unless they're trying hard to prove that they can be "one of the guys." Women are wired to want male approval. If their situation and the character of the men around them makes it impossible for them to attain it in traditional ways, they will use whatever means they have.

Hey, I remember being a junior high tomboy, first becoming dimly aware that male attention was desirable, and proceeding to beat as many boys as possible in arm-wrestling contests. Eventually the boys got bigger and I had the sense and training to realize that this was not the most effective approach. (I debated them instead. But I wound up marrying the guy who could out-debate me. ;-) )

Systemized killing of human beings is a disgusting, but sometimes necessary, job. It is a distinctly masculine job: physically, hormonally, emotionally. It is the antithesis of giving life, which is the exclusive province of women. The more women are assigned to perform that job, the more they have to deny who they are. Yet they are still young, surrounded by attractive young men, and earnestly desiring male attention. So some of them try to get it by out-guying the guys.

Women could tame the Wild West because they could go to the West and still be women. They could even take up arms on occasion, when they were defending their own homes and families, without denying that role. But women can't civilize the military, which by nature is anti-civil and anti-life. What they can do is abdicate their role as an outside check on what the men do.

And now, for a complete change of pace . . .

Everybody should get dressed up in Elizabethan garb and do the Hokey Pokey:

O proud left foot, that ventures quick within
Then soon upon a backward journey lithe.
Anon, once more the gesture, then begin:
Command sinistral pedestal to writhe.
Commence thou then the fervid Hokey-Poke.
A mad gyration, hips in wanton swirl.
To spin! A wilde release from heaven's yoke.
Blessed dervish! Surely canst go, girl.
The Hoke, the poke -- banish now thy doubt
Verily, I say, 'tis what it's all about.

Unplanned Parenthood

In our first getting-to-know-you interview with our doctor, several months ago, things went amazingly smoothly. We were prepared for a clash of philosophy on how best to conduct childbirth, but none arose. But I wasn't prepared for how jarring I would find one of her questions for us:

"Was it planned?"

We looked at each other sheepishly. Sure, we had hoped to have children someday. And we were well aware that they were liable to occur. But planning was something done with spreadsheets and calculators; it seemed too formal of a word to apply to our laissez-faire approach. And, truth to tell, we had been a little surprised at our rapid success. Yet without the imprimatur of the word "planned" it sounded as if we were being irresponsible.

But something else bothered me, which I am just now putting my finger on. The question and distinction by themselves unconsciously reflect the disregard our culture has for childbearing and even for children.

The former distinguishing mark of a problematic pregnancy was an "unwed" pregnancy. This drew a clear-cut moral line based on an outside standard: if you were married, getting pregnant was acceptable; if you weren't, it wasn't. Sure, married women often found their pregnancies inconvenient, but then, most of life is inconvenient. You deal with it.

An "unplanned" pregnancy, in contrast, draws no moral distinctions except one of self-actualization. Does this baby fit into your goals? Did he make a previous appointment on your schedule? Is he meeting your current perceived needs? If not, then clearly you have a problem. If he is, then there is no question of the morality of your actions. With "planning" the primary concern, babies cease to be ends and become means.

The other evening, DOB and I were discussing one of those no-brainer studies that stated that, although babies could hear in utero and talking to them is fun, no evidence showed that prenatal education programs would make them smarter. What seemed strange to us was that people would go to such lengths--but then, DOB pointed out, it's a symptom of this attitude towards children. How many people nowadays have children to reach some other goal of the parents, whether it's to keep up with their friends, gratify their own egotism, attempt to patch the void left by an unsatisfactory marriage, or simply because children, like SUV's, are a proper accessory to middle-class life? So naturally people whose childbearing purpose is intellectual exhibitionism are willing to try anything to give their child an edge--whether it helps, hurts, or is indifferent.

The "planned" distinction also drives a further wedge between sex and childbearing. Chances are very, very slim that the people involved didn't know where babies come from; yet we expect that we should be able to indulge in any pleasure we want without accepting the natural consequences. We call people who try to indulge in food this way bulimic. And it's a mindset with severe consequences, both physical and psychological.

But food was meant to be digested, and sex was meant to make babies. And sometimes it happens despite all our "plans."

I've seen what happens afterwards; the mothers sitting together, one whispering with the tiniest edge of resentment in her voice, "Of course, this one was a big surprise." The child seems to be ignoring the dull adult conversation, but can the attitude not affect them?

Planning, is, of course, a good thing. We're all for it. We like our spreadsheets. But the planning should be for the babies, not of them. When you got married, you issued an open invitation. Make plans for your guests, but don't greet them with the announcement that you would have preferred it if they hadn't come.

This Week's Project . . .

. . . is to lay out a four-page newsletter, for which I have, in the way of material, one rambling essay on the many delightful activities of one out of 20 clubs, which must be condensed down to bullets; one bullet-point list on the features of the state convention, which must be expanded into a feature story; one very brief feature on Ohio's tax climate, which I wrote myself; and an oddly-designed picture of an elephant that I hope will pass muster as a logo.

No responses yet to emails requesting info/articles from people who are supposed to be supplying them. Can't get the printer to work.

I forget just how hard this is. Not the editing and design hassles so much as just plain writing. How hard can it be to come up with three paragraphs paraphrasing a tax study? To write a brief update on what a club is doing? Maybe I'm just frustrated with the mundaneness of the material. It's not the Great American Novel, it's just a club newsletter.

On the other hand, material shouldn't dictate all the limits. Maybe Julia Childs couldn't come up with the greatest of gourmet dinners with ingredients in my kitchen (sorry, no wine for the sauce), but what she cooked would still be well done. It might be macaroni and cheese, but the noodles would be cooked to the perfect tenderness and the cheese sauce would have no lumps.

If I'm writing macaroni and cheese, I want it to be good macaroni and cheese. I suppose that means I just need to go stir the sauce harder, instead of bemoaning the lack of gruyere.

Brrrrrr

There was frost on the house roofs this morning. This would not be so bad except that, in the interests of saving money, we are attempting to turn the gas furnace off for the year. (So far DOB has managed to turn the gas off, but the instructions are inadequate as to how to get the pilot light to stop burning. It's better than the other way around.)

Also in the interests of saving money on the more common warm days (not to mention the freshening of the air in the back bathroom, which the former owners very imprudently carpeted), we generally have some windows open. Sometimes they don't get shut soon enough.

We did manage to get out of the warm bed soon enough not to have to test whether the savings in energy were offset by the costs of being late to work.

Alas, I don't even have a big pile of dishes to wash while soaking my hands in warm water.