Shannon Phillips

Thomas the Tank Engine episodes aren’t overtly educational in the way Sesame Street is, but Robin loves them and I let him watch an episode most days, generally while I’m cooking dinner. He’s also watching one right now because I’m putting off going to the park in hopes that weather will clear up.

One thing I do appreciate about the Thomas episodes is that they are really explicit about emotions. “This made Thomas cross,” or “James was feeling very proud,” or “Emily was pleased,” are common refrains in the stories.

I read something the other day about how moms are much more likely to talk about emotions to their daughters than their sons—for instance, a question like “Why is that baby crying?” from a little girl would provoke a kind of story, and more engagement from the parent: “I don’t know, do you think he’s tired? Maybe he’s hungry?” While the same question from a little boy more often provokes reassurance, but not explanation: “That baby is fine, honey, his mommy is right there.” I can’t find it now, of course, so I have no idea if it was a rigorous study or just some educator’s vague impressions, but I made a mental note to talk more explicitly about emotions with Robin. So, I kind of like that the Thomas show is reinforcing that.

However, other aspects of the show just make me laugh. Firstly, the society of the Island of Sodor is pretty weird: Sir Topham Hatt is running some kind of railway monopoly, and clearly making a killing at it too, despite the fact that his terrifying, sentient, self-willed engines seem to make life a living hell for the poor commuters who rely on them for transportation. (And what jobs are these masses of people moving back and forth from? There doesn’t seem to be any big cities on Sodor, just quaint little towns like Tidmouth, which might support a few shops and farms but certainly aren’t housing large office buildings or major industrial complexes—with, I guess, the notable exception of the ice cream factory).

Also, most the episodes have morals to them, and while most of them are pretty obvious and unobjectionable—”Work goes better when we all pull together”; “Being polite to your co-workers gets the job done better than treating them rudely”; “Even the smallest and least glamorous jobs are important”—they seem to knit together into an ideology preparing children to take their place as docile, obedient worker drones in the Glorious Society of Sir Topham Hatt. Of course the central conceit is about train engines whose highest aspiration is to be Really Useful, so it’s unsurprising that most of the morals revolve around hard work and taking direction well, but…listen. Right now Robin is happily humming along to a chorus of sweet little English children, singing one of their little Sodor ditties:

Patience is a virtue
So it never hurts to
Take a little time to see
Sir Topham Hatt has taught you
And you know you ought to
Be as patient as can be
Happy waiting patiently

That’s right. Thomas the Tank Engine is teaching my child about the virtues of queueing. We’ll see if it sinks in next time I have to go to the post office!

(Credit: This picture was taken by KungFuStu and hosted on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kungfustu/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

This is a pretty ridiculous thing to worry about, but as San Francisco celebrates the Chinese New Year, I’ve been looking up Davy’s horoscopes: aaaaaand they’re not particularly auspicious.

Let me start by saying that I’m not a believer in astrology in the way people mean when they ask if you “believe in” these things—no, I don’t believe that the pull of the planets has a direct affect on brain chemistry, or anything like that—but I’m attracted to complex symbolic systems of all types, and I do think that we cannot help but use the folklore of our societies as we define ourselves. For instance, I was born in the year of the Dragon—a fact I learned early from the place-mats in Chinese restaurants—and that knowledge has affected me to a certain degree throughout my life.

I have also had at least one experience with Eastern astrology that I just can’t explain. I had a really difficult time in my freshman year of college; it all culminated in a suicide attempt towards the end of the year that landed me in the psych ward for a brief time. It was without a doubt the worst period of my life. My dad was on a Fulbright to Korea at the time—going, he said later, a little bit crazy with worry and the inability to do anything from so far away—so when I got out of the hospital he sent me a ticket to Seoul.

By the time I came to Seoul I was already on the mend. I had made up my mind to live—a decision I never had to revisit again—and my three weeks in Seoul were a great affirmation of the surprises and wonders that the world yet held for me. One of the things we did during that time was to visit an astrologer. (I learned later that the Korean and Chinese zodiacs are the same.)

This old man, he asked me nothing except the exact time and place of my birth. He wasn’t a cold reader. He didn’t fish for information: he wasn’t actually interested in hearing from me at all. He just consulted a lot of charts and papers, and then started talking. He was specific and accurate: one of the things he told me, quite matter-of-factly, was that I had just emerged from depression and danger of death. Then he gave me some herbal recommendations for balancing out my health, and sent us on our way.

So, I guess this is all a long-winded way of saying that I consider myself neither a believer nor a skeptic when it comes to astrology: I mostly just think it’s interesting.

And as it turns out, 2010—year of the Yang Metal Tiger—is something of a “jinx year” in the Chinese calendar. The traits associated with the tiger (courage, ambition, a competitive streak) aren’t well-balanced by the metal element: according to chinesefortunecalendar.com, “We can image that 2010 is a Tiger wearing armor. This Tiger doesn’t like armor on the top its body and keeps jumping around. For safety, we should keep our distance from it.”

Additionally, “Tiger has the potential to become vigorous, ferocious and cruel. So Tiger is a symbol of power and authority. This kind of personality is good for the leadership [but] With the inflexible and destructive personality, Tiger has very poor people relationship, especially, with family members. In traditional customary, Chinese family don’t invite people born in year of Tiger to involve private wedding ceremony.”

Where Robin is a Yin Fire Pig, a well-balanced sign pointing to an amiable and loving temperament, the Yang Metal Tiger is associated with great courage but also extreme combativeness. The metal element only makes the naturally ferocious tiger sharper, inflexible, and more reckless: not a great combo. Plus, Sam, Robin, and myself are all born in Fire years, but Metal doesn’t like Fire.

Astrologically, 2010 is forecasted to be an angry, tense, and violently unpredictable year. Sorry! It’s just what I’ve read! And of course those born in this year (supposedly) risk inheriting these qualities.

At least Davy’s due date will make him a Cancer, a feminine water sign that’s supposed to have a tendency toward caution. I’m mixing Eastern and Western systems with wild abandon here, but I’m glad that his sun sign will provide him with some much-needed balance. I guess he’s also going to need extra water and earth influences around him to balance out the metal/fire conflict he’s born into.

I dunno. If I do end up with a combative little white tiger cub in Davy, maybe I’ll drag him to Chinatown and see if I can find an old astrologer to prescribe some herbs. It worked pretty well for me.

Robin had his two and a half year checkup yesterday too: it was pretty quick, in and out, boom. He’s 35 inches tall and 28 pounds, which puts him in the 35th percentile for height and the 30th percentile for weight. So he’s on the small side, but his growth curve is normal and the doctor described him as a “well-nourished child,” which is always what a mom likes to hear.

Language-wise he’s still a little bit behind, although he’s making steady gains and the doctor says that’s the most important thing. Ideally we’d be able to understand about half of what he’s saying at this point; I think we’re only at about 20 percent, although my guess is that 40 percent of what he says is actually intended to be English. The doctor advised us not to worry so long as Robin’s language skills continue to progress. He gave us a little printout of Robin’s vitals that says “no major problems” right at the bottom. So we have it in writing!

Robin’s once again crossed one of those invisible thresholds of growth: lately both Sam and I are prone to look at him, look again, and exclaim “When did he get so big?” He can climb in and out of the bathtub now on his own, although generally he’s wise enough to wait until one of us comes over to give him a hand. He doesn’t fall down so much when he runs: and I love to watch him run, I love the way he throws himself heedlessly forward and just barely manages to catch himself with every step. It’s a full-body expression of the enthusiasm with which he approaches the world.

He’s talking more too. This morning Marlis walked over him in the bed and he said “Uh-oh! Why why why meow?” Translation: “What’s that cat doing and why did she step on me?” (He can say “kitty” and “doggie,” but he prefers to refer to a cat as a meow and a dog as a woof-woof, I think because there’s less confusion between the words.) Anyway, so he’s now using three-word sentences, and it’s even possible to have extended conversations with him on a subject, although these conversations tend to veer randomly into left field. He’s also still very likely to form a sentence with a recognizable English word at the beginning and at the end, but a stream of baby babble in the middle. I wonder if that’s what we sound like to him?

He’s developed an interest in letters, fueled, I think, by his ClickStart games. When we’re walking around he’ll often stop to point at signs in shop windows, picking out the various letters: he does the same thing when Sam wears a tee-shirt with writing. Though he often gets confused between Y and V, or C and J, he’s pretty reliable about identifying most of them. If you ask him to find a letter on a keyboard, he’ll press the right one about 75% of the time. I’ve been impressed enough by this development to let him play the ClickStart more often: he loves it intensely and he’s clearly learning from it, and it gives me time in the mornings to drink coffee and update my blog.

The head-banging behavior that vexed us so much has dropped away almost entirely, discarded at pretty much the instant he figured out that throwing his sippy cup on the floor provokes a better reaction from us. (We have to clean up whatever liquid dribbles from its top, so we really don’t like this behavior—but there’s definitely some part of me that notes and approves of his increasingly sophisticated efforts to communicate frustration and anger.) Now if we do something that pisses him off, like picking up his toys, he’s very likely to run into the kitchen to grab his sippy cup just so that he can come back and throw it on the floor in front of us. This is annoying, but also hilarious.

His great pet peeve—people who say the same thing at the same time—remains in place, but he’s grown a bit more tolerant of accidental lapses. I’m even allowed to sing along to the music sometimes. (Sometimes not.)

He has a well-developed sense of the things that are his, and no sense at all of the things that belong to other people. For instance he’ll eat off our plates liberally, but he will scream and yell if I take anything from his plate, even if it’s a portion of food that’s gone untouched for hours. Similarly he’ll often grab books that we’re reading, but try and take anything in his grasp and he’ll respond with an immediate and full-throated howl.

I should say, though, that with other kids he’s a bit more well-mannered. He’ll often run up to kids in the park that have interesting toys, and try to reach for them: not violently, thank goodness—just tentatively and with a smile, in a kind of ‘oh that’s cool, can I see it?’ way. When other kids pick up his stuff he doesn’t usually get mad, but follows them around and watches carefully.

He’s getting better at initiating games with the other kids—mostly he just runs up to them and smiles, or offers them his ball, and often a kind of impromptu game of tag will result. The rules of Toddler Tag are a bit incoherent, but the main points are that all players assume that all other players are It, and mommies are always considered safe. Each player wants to be chased, so will try and get as close as possible to another player in order to catch their attention: of course, this is often perceived as chasing behavior, provoking the other toddler to run, shrieking with laughter, to their mommy. The game usually ends when the players get distracted and wander off.

I’ll try and take another picture of Robin soon. All that’s on my camera right now is this cityscape I snapped over the weekend:

So, with another baby on the way, I think I’m gonna have to change the title of the blog again.

And although this started as a pregnancy & parenting blog, it’s already expanded to cover more topics—cooking, writing, local history, etc. I’d like to post more about writing in the future, maybe start putting up book reviews and things like that. But there will still be pictures of the kids and recipes and so forth. So my question is…what should I call it? Anybody got a suggestion for a snappy blog name?

Yesterday Robin and I got caught out in the rain when we were at the park. Robin registered his displeasure as the raindrops hit his head:

Robin: Oh! Oh! Moooomeeeee!
Me: Sorry, buddy, I can’t turn off the rain.

A pause, then:

Robin (hopefully): Daddy?
Me: No, your daddy can’t turn the rain off either.

I thought that was pretty hilarious. If Mommy can’t do it, Daddy probably can!

So, I recently stumbled across a scholarly article: “Pathways of Decision Making Among Yucatan Traditional Birth Attendants,” Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health July-August 2004. The authors are Barbara A. Anderson, E.N. Anderson, Tracy Franklin and Aurora Dzib-Xihum de Cen. Anyway, I thought it sounded awesome so I got the article.

It is pretty interesting. It centers around interviews with six Mayan-speaking parteras serving rural villages in the Yucatan. It talks about what their role is in childbirth and how they respond to various complications: herbal baths and a traditional form of massage called sobada are, along with prayer, common responses. (Interestingly enough, soaking tubs and massage are two of the most commonly recommended strategies for managing labor among Bay Area moms and doulas as well.)

My favorite passage from the article is this one:

The parteras favored adolescent motherhood. “Men don’t want old women. By age 20, her body will not open up,” said Lucia. They placed strong emphasis on nutrition during pregnancy. “The mother must eat even if she vomits. Otherwise, the baby is born skinny,” explained Alicia. They all agreed that the husband must provide foods that the pregnant woman craves or else he would be responsible if the baby died. There was good consistency in the identification of the most important foods to consume during pregnancy: chicken, eggs mixed with orange juice, squash, and chocolate.

Although I’m well past twenty, I agree heartily with that bit about the husband being responsible for running to the corner store at 10:30 to get chocolate ice cream. It’s ancient wisdom of the Maya, you can’t argue with that. Also, I was inspired by this piece to eat another bowl of the leftover squash soup that’s sitting in the fridge, so, go me.

5:56 pm:

Sam isn’t home yet, but Robin is sitting on my lap to watch the State of the Union speech webcast from the New York Times. He seemed very interested when I caught a glimpse of the First Lady in the crowd and gasped, “oooh! Is she wearing purple?”

“Ooo!” Robin said.

Then the Congress whoever-he-is-guy announced the arrival of the President’s Cabinet. “Is the hot one, Peter Orzag, there?” I wondered aloud. “Not that we care. He’s a bit of a dog.”

“Woof woof!” said Robin.

Best. Political commentator. Ever!

(Slithery Lizard, by contrast, has gone to sleep. Her commentary is perhaps the most trenchant.)

6:25: I find myself persistently distracted by Joe Biden, over the President’s right shoulder. How does he decide when to nod gravely, when to purse his lips, when to cast his eyes skyward? It must be pretty hard to know you’re on national TV and yet not be able to do anything but vary your facial expression by minute degrees.

Nancy Pelosi, of course, doesn’t have that problem, her face having been frozen into that of an Egyptian death-mask decades ago. And I say this as a person who likes Nancy Pelosi.

6:28: President Obama said “railroads,” more than once! Even so, Robin is bored and wants kiwis.

6:35: Robin is crying (I guess he didn’t want kiwis after all?) but I’m pretty happy with the President’s insistence on pointing out that this broken country is one he inherited. Yet he’s following this with boilerplate jingoism. Yes? Are you going to keep talking about how much Bush sucked or are you going to finally do something about it, Mr. President? Talk about health care, and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. MY TODDLER DEMANDS IT.

6:37: My god, they just booed him for suggesting that climate change exists. Listen, I know there’s maaaayyyybe some slight room for arguing that climate change is or is not man-caused. But that it exists? Only utter morons—and apparently Republican Congresscritters—are willing to stake out that position. I can’t frickin’ believe that our nation has come to this.

6:49: The pizza came (yyyeaaahhh, I’ve already broken the meal plan I drew up just a few hours ago), and the elevator is still broken, so we had to walk down and get it. Apparently Obama is talking about health care now? And again he’s underlining that it’s really Bush’s fault. That’s all very well, but you still have to pass health care reform, you know that right?

I dunno, maybe I missed it because I was stuffing my mouth with pizza, but I don’t get that he knows it.

6:54: Sam is home now and adding his own translation. President Obama: the deficit was blah blah blah when I took office. Sam: “‘When I took office’ means ‘when Jackass left’.” President Obama: bipartisan commission on deficit shot down by Congress, therefore I’ll do it by executive order. Sam: “I can do this committee thing that nobody likes by executive order, but ask me about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and I’m suddenly powerless.”

7:03: Invoking the Republicans’ conscience. Good luck with that.

7:06: Al-Qaeda spiders? Dear God no!

7:07: Complete withdrawal from Iraq by August? Really? I don’t believe it. I just don’t. Talk’s cheap, Mr. President, and you’ve promised a lot. I’m judging you by your accomplishments instead.

7:13: This year, he says, for Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. “This year.” Again—I’m gonna believe it when I see it.

7:16: “No wonder there’s so much disappointment.” Ya think? Pass the frickin’ health care bill. Close Gitmo. End Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Until you do the things you promised to do, Mr. President, I am no longer impressed by speeches.

7:20 Blah blah god bless america blah blah blah.

I’ve been feeling the wee tadpole (actually a Wee Bell Pepper, according to my pregnancy guides) move about for a few weeks now, but today she (we still don’t know, but I’m going to optimistically say “she”) must be swimming closer to the surface: when I’m sitting down, I can feel her kicking where at the part where my protruding lower stomach leans against my lap. It actually feels less like a kick and more like a slow, prolonged dragging. I think I’ll call her Slithery Lizard for now.

This article is fascinating.

In completely unrelated news, Robin still loves his ClickStart, and I think the little games are actually helping him learn his alphabet: lately he likes to stop and point out letters he sees on the street, like signs in shop windows and stuff: he’ll wait for us to name the letter, and then point to another one, until we have identified all the letters on the sign. It makes walks a lot longer, but it’s an encouraging thing to see.

I’ve also concluded that playing on the ClickStart doesn’t have a negative effect on Robin’s behavior, so long as he also gets to spend at least an hour running around at the park. I really like the ClickStart system: it feels like the closest we can get right now to the computer out of The Diamond Age.