Chinese Parenting Tip?

My sister-in-law Anna is currently teaching English in Yinchuan, China. While she was back in the states for the summer, she related to us several stories, anecdotes and cultural differences. One of the things I found the most interesting (and disgusting) is that babies in China wear split pants-not diapers. They therefore relieve themselves wherever and whenever they please, whether it be in a building, in public, on the streets, on a bus, etc. This is completely socially acceptable. What is even worse, the parents are not expected to clean up after their child when this happens. The defecation is just left in its place until a worker cleans it up.

Fast forward to today when I was at playgroup with a group of moms. One of the moms, Jess, shared that she was also in China (in Yinchuan, too) a few years ago and related the fact to the rest of the moms about the split pants and babies going to the bathroom everywhere. I knew all of this since Anna had told us this summer, but then Jess continued and told us this: starting when babies are born, the mother whistles every time the baby goes to the bathroom (assuming they catch the baby in the act). After a few months, the baby associates whistling with going to the bathroom. Then, whenever the mom is somewhere where it is more convenient for the baby to go to the bathroom, the mom holds the baby out in front of her and whistles, and the baby goes to the bathroom! They train their kids like Pavlov's dog! I don't know whether to be shocked or impressed. I guess if I was too poor to buy diapers, I'd think of a way to control where and when my baby went to the bathroom, too if I could. I still can't believe that it is not expected for the mom's to clean up after their babies though. It's one thing to be too poor to buy diapers. It's another thing to walk into a building and have poop on the floor.

What I learned: Chinese mothers train their babies at a very young age to go to the bathroom on cue.

The Second Time Around

When I was pregnant with Avery, I spent a lot of time thinking about being pregnant and reading up on pregnancy, birth, parenting, babies, etc. I also had the "luxury" of having a boring and mindless job which gave me plenty time to think about things all day. For example, I would wonder if the baby was a boy or a girl, what he/she would look like, what my baby could hear, what he/she was feeling, how was my birth going to go. etc. I basically thought about nothing else for nine months and in return, I was super prepared for the pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. I was really educated on a lot of different topics I never knew much about, like unnecessary medical interventions, breastfeeding, babies' sleep cycles, co-sleeping, slings, and attachment parenting. I was ready to be an awesome mom (and would like to think I am doing a good job!).

Now that I am pregnant again, I discovered how little I think of baby #2. The obvious difference is that instead of sitting at a desk doing data entry for 40 hours a week, I am now taking care of a toddler full-time and clearly don't have as much time to daydream about whose eyes my baby will have. But is that really the only reason I don't think about it that often? I wonder if it's because it's easy for me to think, "I already read all the books and did it once before so now I'm a pro and know everything." As I was thinking about this today, I realized that it is really bugging me that I don't feel as connected to my baby yet like I did with Avery (in utero I mean) because I think that since I was reading all the books while I was pregnant I learned about things as they were happening and could relate. Now that it's been almost two years since I've read some of those books, while I've retained a lot of the knowledge, all of the little details are what I feel like I'm missing about my baby's developments and milestones.

I am suddenly worried that I am short changing my second child already and he/she hasn't even been born yet. I never want to do that (as I'm sure most parents don't want to do!) and while I'm sure I'm being overly paranoid about the effects this is having on my unborn child, I still feel like he/she deserves more attention, at least mental attention, than I am giving him/her now. I have therefore decided to go to the library (hopefully tomorrow) and get some of those books and read them again (Go Dr. Sears!). I know that it's going to be impossible to match the excitement and novelty of my first pregnancy and birth because everything is so new and you don't know what to expect. But that doesn't mean I know what to expect for my second child, or any subsequent children for that matter. While my medical knowledge and parenting style will remain the same, each child is uniquely different and I need to start remembering that now, yes, even in utero, so that my second child can feel special and unique from the get-go. I'm not giving birth to Avery #2; I am giving birth to another child. Yay!

What I learned: I have been too busy to realize and fully appreciate the presence/miracle/person-hood of my second child (coming soon!) and there is no good reason for me to not be actively thinking about this child as I did for Avery. I need to get on it!

The Sing-Off

***SPOILER ALERT***

This post is about the finale of The Sing-Off. If you have not yet seen the season finale and plan to, do not read any further!



Tonight my mom, Avery and I watched the season finale of The Sing-Off. This is one of my favorite shows because A) Ben Folds is a judge, B) the singers have real talent and are entertaining and C) I love a cappella music. As an extra bonus, since Avery loves music and singing, it's so much fun to watch it with him because he dances along and claps and gets so excited every time the music starts. But back to the point-this show is awesome. I was very disappointed though with two of the group's final performances (Urban Method and Pentatonix). Since this week doesn't matter since the votes were in and tallied, it seemed like the groups just didn't practice, which for a finale show, regardless if the performance matters or not, you would think that it would feature some of the best performances, and some of them were just crappy.

With that being said, the show was still awesome, especially when Ben Folds performed Not the Same with the Dartmouth Aires. In the end, I really wanted Pentatonix to win, for Dartmouth Aires to be second, and Urban Method to be third. And I was right! I love it when I'm right (or I guess, when most of America agrees with me). I am sad that the show is over and that I have to wait until next fall to see it again.

What I learned: Pentatonix won The Sing-Off and America and I agree on something!

Side Effect of Pregnancy?

Tonight I attended Advent by Candlelight at my church. It was a beautiful event that included desserts, finger foods, wine, singing and a short program. In the program, we watched a "music video" of a song that Amy Grant wrote about how Mary felt being the mother of Jesus. The video however was just scenes from the movie The Nativity Story with the song playing over it. The scene specifically was when Mary and Joseph arrive in Bethlehem, Mary is on the verge of giving birth, Joseph has to find a place for her, they find a stable as a last resort and she then gives birth to Jesus.

I don't know if I can blame this on the fact that I'm pregnant or the fact that I am now a mother and have experienced childbirth and the joys of motherhood, but it took every ounce of self control I could find to not break out sobbing while watching this. It's pathetic, I know. But seriously, I don't know how I held up. I think this might be the first time I've seen a movie or anything with a scene like that in it since I gave birth and so it's hard to tell what the cause of my emotions really was (although truthfully, I'm sure it was a little of both). But in the end I saved my dignity (not because I would have lost it had I cried, but I would have lost it had I burst out audibly sobbing, which is what would have happened had I not been successful in containing this welling up of emotions).

What I learned: Being a mother/being pregnant makes me appreciate/empathize/remember when I watch things with other mothers/pregnant women, which apparently leads me to gush with almost uncontrollable emotion. Great?! (<-- insert interrobang here)

Rivalry

Anyone who knows anything about college football knows that the greatest football rivalry of all time is the University of Michigan and Ohio State. This is not an arguable point. Today, they played again for the last game of the season (which they have been doing since 1935). As a Michigan fan, I know (and have witnessed) that the last few years have probably been the roughest in U of M history. It's been painful to watch the past few years as we switched coaches and tried to match the right players with the right coaches. This year however, we were set to come back.

Going into the game today, Michigan was 7-2 and Ohio State was 6-5. Not only was our record clearly better but we were clearly the better team. However, as most people know, this oftentimes makes no difference when it comes to huge rivalry games. The rivalry itself voids out all preconceived notions of who will win based on the performance of each team for the entire season. So going into the game, it's still anybody's game.

This game was stressful to watch. Michigan let Ohio State score. Michigan let it get too close for comfort. I was beginning to think that they were doing this to keep the fans on the edge of their seats for dramatic effect. We should be winning, and winning by a lot. In the end, Michigan pulled out a win, 40-34. Phew. Even better? We broke a 7 year losing streak against Ohio State. Hail to the Victors!

What I learned: The Rivalry has been the last game of each teams' seasons every year since 1935 (with the exception of 1942, 1986 and 1998) and Michigan had lost the last 7 games against Ohio State. I guess I didn't realize it had been that long because I didn't want to think about it being that long. Good thing we turned that around today!

Stats

Today, Jared was bragging about how many people have looked at his blog, specifically how many people have looked at his blog that live in other countries. I thought he was making this up because how on earth would he know that? In turn, he thought I was joking that I didn't know this was something anyone with a blog can check. So again I didn't believe him. He proceeded to show me the "stats" tab on my blog that shows not only how many page views, but what countries the page views originated from, what internet browser the blog was viewed on and what operating system was being used. It's like I can stalk my own blog. As of today, here are the stats for page views from other countries:

Russia: 37
UK: 6
Germany: 5
Peru: 1

This makes me really curious to know if my blog was A) viewed accidentally, B) came up in a Google search and clicked on, only to be backed out of after they realized it was not what they were looking for, or C) there are genuinely people in Russia who stumbled across my blog and are reading it. If C is true, I would love to know!

What I learned: You can find out a lot about the people viewing your blog...except their intentions.

Stuffing

Growing up, we always had stovetop stuffing for Thanksgiving. I assumed everyone did. I had never had anything different. When I married Jared, his parents came for Thanksgiving the first year and brought their homemade dressing. I was so leery of this that I bought and made stovetop as well. I love stuffing and didn't want to miss out on this yummy dish and for some reason thought that I would not like this "weird" homemade dressing (I mean, it's even called something different!). But of course I loved it and immediately felt bad that I had made back up stuffing. They have brought this homemade stuffing with them every year now and it is delicious.

This year, I stuffed the turkey myself, something I had never done before. For some reason I thought it was more involved than literally just stuffing the dressing into the gullet of the turkey. There's a giant, empty cavity and you fill it. The end. Now I feel silly that I always said I had never stuffed a turkey before and opted for someone else to do it.

What I learned: I learned how easy it is to stuff a turkey.

Medical Exam

Jared and I decided to get more life insurance on me through his work just because it is so cheap compared to any other insurance I can get (apparently insurance companies think fibromyalgia has some effect on life expectancy making life insurance expensive to get for me). However, for spousal coverage, you still have to submit to a medical exam which involves a medical history questionnaire, a urine sample and a blood sample. A person comes to your house to do this an it's only supposed to take 30 minutes.

So the questionnaire asks probably a hundred questions about your medical history. I only had two of the things they ask about- asthma and fibromyalgia. For each medical condition you have, they ask about 20 more questions. In consequence, the medical exam took an hour instead. I can't even imagine how long it would take for someone who is even remotely more "sick" than me. I think I am generally a healthy person and it took so long to do the questionnaire. What about someone in their 60s who has had a few more medical problems? It would take hours to fill out that survey!

I guess I simultaneously felt less healthy than I really am (seeing as a medical history seemed so involved and took so long for me when I felt like I was healthy and it wouldn't take too long) and also thankful that I am not more unhealthy. There were also extensive questions about the medical history of my parents and siblings and I realized how healthy our family really is. Granted, we're all still relatively young, but still, we are so blessed to be in good health and not have any really bad health issues.

What I learned: My family is blessed with good health, despite me feeling momentarily like a "sick" patient when filling out a medical history :)

Work

I started my new job last Friday and I worked again today. It is so nice to be learning new things every day that I would normally not learn. I am learning how to use a lot of different programs and how to do a lot of things with digital photos. I have found that I really like doing everything Sarah has given me to do even though others (including Sarah) think that some of the work is tedious and/or boring. I love it. I also really like having a list of things to do and then doing them and getting to cross them off the list. These all might seem like  really silly things to like or get excited about, but I like it! I am enjoying this job so much and can't wait until I feel more comfortable with Macs so I can do a lot more and stop asking silly questions like "how do you scroll down when there's no scroll bar?"

What I learned: I really like my job and actually look forward to going, which I have never felt in any job I've ever had (and I've had 8!)

Bathtub

For our Christmas present this year, my wonderful in-laws decided to fix our horrible bathroom window. Apparently, in 1926, it was normal to have a full size wooden window IN YOUR SHOWER. The wood on the frame is completely rotted and the wood and slats under the plaster are as well. It's gross and unsightly and I hate it. So after debating whether or not to do replace the window with glass block or to just tear it out, cover it up and get a tub surround, we decided on the latter. My dad and Jared were able to take out the window, board it up and put siding up on the outside of the house (you would never know a window was ever there!) last night and this morning. Then today when my father-in-law Del arrived, he and my dad ripped the tile and plaster out of the tub area, put in sheet rock and applied mud to all the seams. Then Del and I went to Menards and Home Depot to buy the tub surround.

Our tub, which looks like a normal tub, is 64 inches long, meaning we need a tub surround that is that big. After looking at both  of these stores, we found that apparently the standard size of a tub is 60 inches. We're not sure if the tub is original to the house, but regardless, the space for the tub is obviously original. People surely weren't bigger back then, nor did they opt for bigger things than were necessary, so I can only assume that standard tubs used to be 64 inches. Well this is all fine and good except that we need to buy a tub surround that fits! We finally found one at a second Menards that is 63.5 inches long...hopefully we can somehow compensate for that half an inch with the other pieces. I never would have thought it would be so hard to buy a tub surround. The good news: the bigger one was cheaper than the one we were going to originally buy by $45.

The tub surround is going in tomorrow and then our bathtub will never look gross again...assuming I clean it regularly :)

What I learned: Our tub is larger than standard size, and I always thought our tub looked small...

Learning

I find that some days I learn a lot of things and take mental note of them, only to realize when I sit down to write my blog that if  I wrote down the things I learned, they would each be a sentence long. Sometimes you learn a fact but there really isn't even context to write about how or why you learned it. Today I feel like I learned about 12 things, but none of them are worth writing about and I am racking my brain to try to think of what to write.

For example, I learned that you can freeze black eyed peas. We bought a huge bag and wanted to make them all and then freeze them to save us from having to make a lot of small batches because you have to soak the beans for a few hours and then cook them for a few hours. I wanted to make sure you could freeze them, and sure enough, you can. That seems too boring and trivial to write an entire blog about (as I'm typing this I'm thinking about other posts I've written that I'm sure were trivial and boring as well...so maybe it doesn't really matter).

As another example, I learned that scientists found a way to breed mosquitoes who are born with a certain gene mutation that makes it necessary for them to have antibiotics to live. Obviously they will not get antibiotics and will therefore die. The implications are enormous: if you can decrease the mosquito population in areas where mosquitoes carry infectious diseases like malaria and dengue fever, you could save millions of peoples' lives.

I guess these maybe are just as mundane as other things I've learned on other days, but today just seemed like a day of random facts without much substance.

What I learned: A lot of things, including that you can freeze cooked black eyed-peas and that it might be possible to kill off lots of mosquitoes to save peoples' lives.

Phone

My phone has had a "low storage" icon on it for a few days now and it's been annoying the crap out of me trying to figure out how to get the icon to go away since it seems as though I have plenty of storage available on my phone. I tried a few things myself, but nothing changed. Then I asked my dear friends Ben and Angela (who have the same phone as me) and they had a few suggestions, but still, nothing! I asked Neal to look at it or try to figure it out, which he said he would but he's been working and I haven't seen him since the icon appeared. Then tonight I was at my friend Charlie's Birthday party and John, Mr. Verizon Wireless Manager, was there. He had a few suggestions, and viola! It's fixed! Thank you John. You made my day.

As a side note, I found out my cousin is pregnant and due in June, 6 days after my other cousin, and 3 weeks after me! Three cousins and three babies in three weeks. Awesome.

What I learned: How to fix my phone.

Monarchs and Other Things

Today I started my new job as the administrative assistant at Fresh Frame Photography (I actually don't have a title or know what it would be, but based on what I will be doing, it's closest to that, so I'm going with it). I learned a LOT, not just at the job, but throughout the rest of the day. Here are a few snippets.

1. I learned how to scroll on a MAC.
2. I learned how to "right click" on a MAC
**Disclaimer: I am completely computer literate. I just am a PC, not a MAC, so I didn't know how to do a lot of basic things because I've used a MAC all of two times in my entire life.**
3. I learned how to take screen shots of damaged files in Light Box.
4. I learned how to do basic exposure editing in Light Box.
5. I learned that you can order monarch butterflies online and that you keep them refrigerated to keep them alive before releasing them. Ok, this one needs a little more explanation.

In looking through some wedding pictures to find damaged files, I saw that a couple had given everyone an envelope of sorts. Inside each envelope was a monarch butterfly. I was astonished-how did they get these butterflies to stay in the envelopes? How long were they in there? Sarah (my employer) informed me that you can order them online for mass release at special events. They come to you a day or so before your wedding (or whatever event you are using them for) and you keep them in the fridge or in the insulated box they come in. Because of the colder temperatures, they "sit" with their wings together and "hibernate" so they don't need food or water for a few days. Then the day you need them, you take them out of the fridge an hour or so before you plan to release them to give them ample time to warm up and unfold their wings, and presto! Everyone opens their envelope and the butterflies are released! How cool is that? Here's a website to prove it: http://www.mrbutterflies.com/instructions.htm

6. Jared and I went to see Immortals after learning that they changed the movie times since the last time we looked. We were supposed to see J. Edgar. We both realized that neither of us were in the mood to see blood and gore and violence...too late. The movie wasn't bad, but it was not the movie we wanted to see. Boo.

7. I learned how to play a new game at game night called Reverse Charades. It is exactly what it sounds like and it was very fun and I don't really like normal charades. Basically, everyone on your team but one person stands up and tries to get the one person to guess. There is a timer and your team just has to get through as many cards as you can. I think it's more fun because you don't feel like you're on the spot and having to act goofy in front of all these people as you are doing it with your whole team.

What I learned: See above (since they're all spelled out pretty clearly this time).

Choir

Tonight at choir rehearsal, we were asked to sing at all three services on Sunday when the schedule clearly states that we are only singing at two of them. This might seem like an odd thing to complain about but seriously, it's hard to get out the door at 7:15 to make it to church for warm up at 7:30 when your child doesn't usually get up for the day until 7:30 or 8:00. Luckily for us, my mom can get him ready and take him to church once he wakes up so that we don't have to wake him up to feed him and get him dressed when he is still tired and trying to sleep. But then I feel bad not getting my own kid ready for church or even bringing him to church. With that being said, I am excited for the services as it is Christ the King Sunday and we are singing some great music and best of all, there will be brass!

What I learned: I have to sing for all three services on Sunday; it'll be a long morning.

Childish Gambino

Today Jared showed me a clip from Jimmy Fallon's late night show (I always get mixed up what all the late night shows are officially called). The clip was of his musical guest, Childish Gambino. I have never heard of this person/group and was wondering why Jared wanted me to see it. Turns out, it's a rapper who's real name is Donald Glover, the guy from Community! While I am seriously behind on watching Community, I still love the show and love the actors in it, so it was really cool to see "Troy" rapping hardcore on Jimmy Fallon's show. As for his rapper name, there is a website that's a Wu Tang Clan name generator and he said that once he put his name, Donald Glover, in the generator and it said his rapper name was Childish Gambino. So he went with it. Awesome.

My name would be: Mighty Ambassador. Funny how true that is to real life...

Try it yourself! http://www.mess.be/inickgenwuname.php

What I learned: Donald Glover is not only a funny actor in Community but he is a rapper and started out as a screenwriter for The Daily Show and 30 Rock. After looking him up on Wikipedia, I found out that he is from Stone Mountain, GA and went to Rockbridge Elementary School which was the school I would have gone to if I lived 5 miles in a different direction! And he is my age so we could have been in the same class! Crazy!  Haha, okay, so not that probable, but still, super cool. Also, my new name is Mighty Ambassador.

Heartbeat and Job

Ok, so maybe the things I learned today are more things that I did, but if they have never been done before, then you learned something, right? I think so.

Today we heard the heartbeat of our second child. Somehow I think it was more unreal than the first one. I think with your first you are so excited that of course you tell everyone before you hear the heartbeat and don't think of anything bad that might happen. This time around, for whatever reason, I was more hesitant to announce that I was pregnant and decided to wait until hearing the heartbeat to announce it to the world (which I will do on facebook this week). Of course everything was normal and fine and I am indeed pregnant, but maybe because I'm chasing my toddler around all day, I don't spend all day thinking about the prospect of having another child like I did when we were having our first. I'm sure this is a phenomenon felt by most mothers with more than one child. Needless to say, we are still just as excited and were very happy to hear the heartbeat for the first time today.

Secondly, I got a job! Ok, again, I didn't "learn" this in the academic sense, but I learned from a friend that she was hiring and she called to ask me if I wanted the job, and bam, job accepted. I start on Friday and work 10 hours a week. I am so relieved to have found something so flexible and perfect.

What I learned: I am indeed pregnant with child #2 as evidenced by a strong and steady heartbeat this morning. I also am worthy hiring material.

Oh Brother

SIDENOTE: Some of you may have noticed that my posts weren't actually posted on the day that they are for. I think I failed to explicitly mention that I was on vacation in NC for 10 days and stayed at a place without internet access. Every night I typed up my blogs but only posted them every few days once I went somewhere with internet access. I meant to explain this earlier (in case any of you were racking your brains over how I posted something the night before but you didn't see it until the next night, because I know that all of your lives hinge on getting a new post from me) but failed to. So there it is. This post was also written on the correct day and not posted until the next day. Hopefully, this will be the last post that will have to be backdated!

Onto new frontiers! Today I taught my brother Blake how to play San Juan and he promptly beat me. This wouldn't seem like that big of a deal except that when I was in NC I taught Alex how to play and he beat me...three times. Apparently as much as I love games, I can't even beat people who have never played the games before and who I taught how to play! Now I usually don't win games because I most often play them at game night with the Sonnenbergs (who live and breathe games) and my husband, who is also awesome at games. I am completely okay with this as they are better than me and it is expected and I still have fun. But my brothers don't play games that often and now they're beating me, too! Maybe I should chalk it up to the fact that I'm such a good teacher, I teach them good strategies that work against me. Or maybe I just have super smart brothers. It's probably a little of both.

What I learned: My brothers are smarter than me :)

20 and counting?

While looking on cnn.com to get caught up on the news since I haven't been home to hear what's been happening for the past week, I saw there was an article about the Duggar's, the stars of the reality show 19 and Counting, the family with 19 children. I have never actually seen an episode but I can gather that most people have still heard of these people. They just announced that they are expecting baby #20. Of course most of the article was about how they have all these critics, especially after her last child was born at only 25 weeks and Michelle had preclampsia and was in serious condition herself after the birth (the child is now 2 and perfectly healthy). I understand. It's easy to tell people who have 19 children already that they are crazy and that they are helping overpopulate the earth, etc etc.

However, if you look more into their story, you will find a family who lives debt free, built their own home, home-schools their children, raises loving and respectful members of society and is completely self sufficient. Michelle is a stay at home mom and the dad, unfortunately named Jim-Bob, is in real estate and gets to spend a lot of time at home with the kids because of his flexible schedule. While I don't think I ever want to have anywhere near 20 children, I think they are a great example of how to do things right. Imagine if more people in our country lived how they live and the effect that would have on our economy. People are so burdened with credit card debt and find it so necessary to own a home that too many people own houses who shouldn't. The Duggars also spend a ridiculous amount of time with their children. Think of the effect that has on society, when children get attention, love and care constantly from both parents.

When people say they have to work on two incomes and that kids are so expensive and that they can't possibly afford x, y or z, it's usually about choices. I think that the Duggars have made really good choices when it comes to what they find important (family, not things), how to raise responsible children (financially and socially) and how to do it all without making millions of dollars. They are an example more people should follow (except maybe having the 20 kids part).

What I learned: The Duggars are having baby #20 and are a great example to follow when it comes to fiscal responsibility and raising a family.

9-9-9

Without getting too political, because I know how much people love discussing politics, lets just say that I kinda thought that Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax proposal was a little ridiculous. I have also seen multiple graphs from economists that show that almost 90% will end up paying more taxes than they do now, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, except that the top 1% of Americans will actually end up paying hundreds of thousands less in taxes, meaning that the rich will pay even less taxes than they pay now, which is less (percentage-wise) than most Americans already. This is a good graph to show it:

http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/9-9-9-in-one-really-long-graph/

Anyway, I haven't really heard or understood anything about this plan that I thought would be good except the basic idea of a flatter tax rate and a much simpler tax code, which of course would be great. Just to explain as simply as possible what it is for those who aren't following the race, the 9's stand for a 9% income tax (to completely replace the current tax code), a 9% corporate tax rate (which is really a business-transaction tax), and a 9% national sales tax (this would be paid on top of whatever state sales tax you already pay).

I just read an article in Time that explains that the U.S. is the only rich country in the world without a national sales tax or value-added tax (VAT). In other countries, this works really well because it's pretty tough to pull off tax fraud if there is a consumption tax because simply, if you buy anything, you pay a tax, the end. Also, Americans more than any other country, buy too much and use credit way too often. Other countries moderate this behavior by having the consumption tax. The article states: "The government will always get less of behaviors it taxes and more of what it subsidizes." What a simple way to put it.

While I still don't like his plan, the idea of a national sales tax is great, assuming that the income tax code is simplified and changed so that the poor don't carry too much of the tax burden. I am all for paying taxes because as much as people say they hate paying them, we would all be way worse off without roads, public schools, social security, medicare and all the other public services we are used to.

Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1952 said, "Many people consider the things which government does for them to be social progress but they regard the things the government does for others as socialism." When it comes to taxes, I think that's something everyone should keep in mind. Herman Cain's plan would be terrible no matter which economist does the numbers, but it's worthwhile that he is putting forth the idea of a national sales tax, and more important, a simpler tax code. I hope Obama jumps on that idea at least!

What I learned: Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax plan, while economically terrible, isn't as crazy as it sounds when you boil it down to the principals.

Munchkin

Yesterday Alex taught me a new game called Munchkin. While you aren't technically supposed to play this with only two players, we did just so I could learn it and because Alex really wanted to play. The game was not only really fun but it was really funny. The cards are hilarious and have outrageously funny pictures on them. I failed to use my learning of this new game as the thing I learned the day I learned it. However, today I went to Alex's local comic and gaming store upon his recommendation and found that it had the largest collection of Euro games I have ever seen in person. Half of the store had games and comics and the other half is just filled with tables and chairs where they hold many different gaming events weekly. I'm wondering why a small town like Davidson, NC has a store like this and Milwaukee doesn't. I looked for Munchkin to see how much the game was ($24.99) and saw that there was an entire shelf dedicated to the game with at least 16 different expansions. I am not exaggerating. I went to their website and there are actually 16 expansions as well as additional dice game additions, accessories and a board game (it's essentially a game with just cards). The original game comes with 168 cards and some of the expansions have 112 cards and are NOT stand alone games. Man, I can't imagine how many cards you can play with if you had a few expansions! Anyway, this is definitely a game I want to own. Any game that is fun already and has expansions means that you can play it endless times without it getting old. Now if only I had some disposable income to buy games.

What I learned: Munchkin has 16 expansions which could lead to endless hours of gaming fun.

The Symphony

Anyone who has met Avery most likely knows that he loves music. He dances, claps, sometimes even tries to sing along. In church he even dances to the psalms when they're in a minor key. Avery has been to a few choral concerts and has enjoyed them and been quiet except for when he occasionally tries to sing along. But, Avery has never been to a symphony concert. Tonight we went to the Davidson College Symphony Concert and he loved it! For the first two pieces he just stared in awe and listened intently. But then there were two songs with a bass soloist (singer, not the instrument) and while he liked it, he sometimes tried to sing along so I had to take him out until it was over. He wasn't loud and obnoxious by any means, but loud enough that we left so as to not be rude to everyone else.

It is intermission now actually and I plan on taking him back in towards the end since I just don't know how long his attention span will last (plus he gets antsy and wants to crawl around, specifically towards the stage). The last piece is Finlandia by Sibelius, one of my favorite pieces so I don't want to miss it. Plus, I think Avery will love the drums in that piece. So it's anybody's guess as to what Avery will prefer-singing, drums, piano, band or orchestra. Start making your bets now!

What I learned: Avery likes the symphony.

Gas Station Coffee

So this morning my mom, Alex, Avery and I planned to head into Charlotte to go to an aviation museum and to check out a used book store that supposedly had over 20,000 books (we went and not only was it super small but it wasn’t a used book store…we think the website we found it on was misinformed or mixed up the name of the bookstore with another one and we went to the wrong one). Anyway, we had to leave by 9:00 and long story short, I didn’t have time to eat breakfast and was super tired besides. So we stopped at a gas station so I could get some coffee and donuts. My first mistake was deciding to get one of those cappuccino drinks instead of just plain coffee (honestly, I don’t really like coffee, I’m more of a tea drinker, but gas stations don’t have that and I didn’t want pop at 9am so coffee was my only option. Oh, plus I’m poor/cheap and didn’t want to spend $5 on one at Starbucks, so gas station coffee it is!). Many times I have gotten these drinks at my local Speedway in Milwaukee and they have always been decent and drinkable. I decided to get the English Toffee and a bag of Krispy Kreme donuts since it was only $.50 more to buy a bag than to buy two donuts.

I get to the car, wait the obligatory 10 minutes to try the coffee (I always burn my tongue) and man, it’s gross. I mean, not only does it not taste anything like the English toffee I get from Speedway, but it takes like liquid sugar with syrup in it. I try to drink more but just can’t do it. It’s undrinkable. I can’t decide if I’m more mad at wasting a dollar on a gross drink or that now I won’t have any caffeine. Lesson learned: don’t be brave when it comes to gas station coffee.

My second mistake was getting donuts for breakfast. After trying to consume that gross sugar-filled drink I tried a donut, which of course is sugary and sweet. After the coffee though, the sweetness is making me nauseous and I can’t bring myself to eat the donut either. I know I don’t usually like sweet things for breakfast, so what was I thinking? Clearly I wasn’t, which is why I needed the caffeine to wake me up. Gah!

What I learned: Don't trust gas station cappuccino machines and don't eat sweet and sugary things for breakfast.

Proletariat

I started to read the Communist Manifesto while here in North Carolina since I finished the other book I brought. Now this might make me sound stupid but I had never really known what proletariat meant. Let me clarify-I might have known at one time but have forgotten and always assumed it had a complicated meaning and never bothered to look it up because I thought I would just forget the meaning anyway if it was long and involved. So I never have. But because I was going to read the Communist Manifesto, I figured now would be the time to look it up so that I would understand what I was reading. So I looked it up and it means: The working class. That’s pretty much it. Really? Man, I feel stupid now that I never bothered before. I mean, there can be more specifics, like usually it refers to workers who do manual labor or who work in industry as opposed to other areas of work. And it can also be even more specific than that and can refer to the absolute poorest class and/or people that don’t own any property and have to sell their labor to survive. But more or less, it just means working class. From now on, I guess I’ll always look up words that I’m not quite sure of the meaning.

What I learned: Proletariat refers simply to the working class.

Games I Don't Enjoy

Today I learned how to play a new game called Clever Endeavor. The main gist of the game is that there are 6 clues, starting with harder ones and ending with easier ones, and you have to guess a person, place or thing. Most of the clues are puns or a play on words that you often don't understand until after you know the answer since the guesser doesn't get to read the clues. My mom has several games that are similar to this, including Guest Host and The Biography Game (although both of those are just guessing people). I play these games and never enjoy them but just thought they were not my favorite. After playing Clever Endeavor, I realized that I actually don't like playing them at all. This might not sound like a big deal, but I LOVE playing games, so to realize there are some I don't like at all, rather an entire genre of games I don't like at all, is weird. I do better at games like this that have clues that are mostly facts instead of puns (like 20 Questions), but still those aren't my favorite. I think another reason I don't like these games is because most of them were made prior to 1990 meaning that not only do I have a hard time with the clues and references but often don't know the people. I always finish the game in last place and often feel dumber than I did when I was in Calculus in high school.

Later in the evening, Alex and I played Agricola and I felt better...and smarter.

What I learned: There are some games I don't like playing, and that's okay.

Punctuation Mark

Tonight I was playing Outburst with my mom and Alex and Alex got the category: Punctuation Marks. He easily got all ten answers. He then proceeded to tell us all about this article he read about lesser known punctuation marks, one of them being the Interrobang. This is a mark that is both an exclamation point and a question mark. Why is it that no one knows about this particular mark? It seems that I have very often put a question mark followed by an exclamation point at the end of a sentence because I wanted to portray both meanings. However, since that is clearly not academic, I save it for things like personal emails and Facebook entries. Come to find out, there’s a REAL mark for this exact thing.  Who knew‽

What I learned: There is a punctuation mark that incorporates an exclamation point and a question mark.

Scenic Drive

It was a beautiful fall day-the sky shone bright blue, clouds dotted the horizon, the sun was brilliantly shining off of amber trees-it was a sight to behold.  As we drove, the view improved. The trees were covered in golden, red, orange and some yet unchanged leaves. There were rolling hills offset with fields, quaint farm houses nestled in valleys and horses roaming open plains. Miles and miles passed and still, the sight continued. Where was this picturesque paradise? The farmlands of Wisconsin? Northern England? Somewhere out East? No. It was West Virginia.

Now West Virginia receives a lot of flak for being, well, West Virginia. I’ve driven through parts of West Virginia before, but not on this road. We were on Hwy 35 driving from OH through Charleston when we beheld this marvelous stretch of American Road. When the scenic view ended, we were also surprised to see how picturesque Charleston, WV was. The capital was built along the Kanawha River and cut into the Appalachians. There are dozens of bridges spanning the river, guiding traffic to opposite banks of the city. The freeway wound through the city giving drivers and passengers gorgeous views of both sides of the town. As we were leaving the city, the capitol building greeted us, a beautiful dome rising above the river. I really wanted to stop and walk around the city. I have to admit, I can’t wait to drive back this way in a week. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so surprised going someplace (sorry if there are any West Virginians reading this; I mean no offense). It was seriously one of the most beautiful drives I’ve ever taken.

What I learned: Despite it's reputation, West Virginia is at least a beautiful state to drive through.

Movies Beginning With Y

My mom likes to play guessing games. I suppose you could say that I like playing them as well. While we were on the road today (my mom, Avery and I left this morning to drive to North Carolina to visit my brother Alex) and while Avery was napping, we decided to play a guessing game. Here's how it goes. The first person names a movie-Shawshank Redemption for example. The next person then has to come up with a movie that begins with the last letter of the previous movie, so in this case, an N. Simple, fun, and makes you think. Except there are an overwhelming number of movies that end in E, N or Y but there are a lot less movies that start with these letters. E and N we didn't get stuck on too badly, but after only about 10 Y movies, we were stuck. When we got to the hotel, we were determined to find more movies that began with Y since there clearly had to be more that neither of us could think of. Turns out, there just aren't that many movies beginning with Y. You would think there would be more movies that started with "you," "your," "young" or "yellow" but there aren't. I guess next time we'll just have to think of movies that end with different letters in order to keep the game moving.

What I learned: There aren't that many movies that begin with "Y."

Health Insurance

I worked in an insurance billing office for over 7 years. I'd like to think I know a bit about insurance, how it's billed, how to read bills, how it's processed, how to appeal. etc. I also know that for someone who didn't work in insurance for 7 years, health insurance can be very confusing-the bills, denials, discounts, copays, deductibles, test codes-all of it to a non-trained eye looks like gibberish. On top of all of that, if someone believes they have been billed incorrectly or their claim was processed incorrectly, etc, it is even harder to figure out how to appeal.  There are various numbers to call, a lot of transferring between departments, different letters or forms you might have to fill out-I understand why a lot of people don't bother and just pay the bills they get.

Fortunately for me, my experience in insurance gives me confidence when dealing with claims.  Also fortunately for me, I have never had a huge issue with my insurance that warranted me having to do anything other than pay the bills I received. I have been very thankful for this.

However, now I do have a problem with a bill (regarding Avery's emergency room visit). So Jared and I called UHC and were surprised to find that the first person we talked to was helpful, knew the answers to our questions and promptly gave us the address to send an appeal to. Not only that, but we didn't even have to fill out a form, send copies of bills, nothing. Just a letter. It seemed too easy. So today I was finally getting around to mailing out this letter and noticed that the address to send appeals to online is different than the address that the guy at UHC gave us; one was the appeals office in Atlanta, the other in Salt Lake City. Knowing how long insurance companies can take when you send the right information to the right place, I decided to just send the letter to both addresses. And then, just to be safe, I attached a copy of our insurance card and a copy of all three bills we are appealing. I guess I decided that sending just a letter probably really was too good to be true.

What I learned: Never trust insurance companies.

Organizational Chaos?

I really like being organized. I really like organizing things, like putting things in neatly labeled files or folders and arranging things on shelves and in drawers. Weird, I know, but it's true. As much as I like organizing however, I think I realized something about myself today. I tend to be really organized at one point, and then I let things pile up to ridiculous heights. My desk will be COVERED in papers that need to be filed, stacks of thank you cards I need to write, a folder of medical bills, old programs and ticket stubs, receipts, random notes-all these things in chaos on my desk until one day I just can't take it anymore and I organize to my heart's delight.

I LOVE it. I love going through the massive stack of random papers, sorting them into piles, filing things away, putting other things in folders, rearranging things in my desk until it's all perfect once again. And I always tell myself, I will never let it get that bad again. I just need to take a few minutes every day to put things away (like I do so well in the rest of my house, which is kept meticulously organized and put away at all times despite having a toddler) and it will always be clean and organized...and then it never happens. I let it pile up again and then 6 weeks, 2 months or more goes by and I have to take hours to get it all organized again. This has happened so often that I think I subconsciously do this on purpose so that I get those few glorious hours of organizing every so often. I create the chaos so that I will have something to organize. Should I be seeing a therapist?

What I learned: I like organizing so much that I create messes so that I can later organize them.

I Am Braver Than I Thought

Everyone who knows me well knows that I enjoy singing.  I am in three choirs-the large choir at church, the motet choir at church (usually consists of 8-12 people) and the Lutheran A Cappella Choir of Milwaukee.  Also, if you know me even better, you might know that I suffer from severe stage fright.  This means that it took me a long time (and I mean long-probably about 3 years) before I didn't shake with terror every time the motet choir sang in front of church.  I even get nervous still when I go to communion.  It's bad.  Because of this crippling fear, it took me a long time to even get the nerve to audition for LAC, but in the end I did and made it.  At that moment, that was the bravest I'd ever been in my life (pathetic, I know).

So this year, LAC is performing at Trees of Hope, a fundraiser for the Leukemia-Lymphoma Society (http://treesofhopewi.org/get-involved/events/). Our choir director asked if a few small groups would get together to perform a few songs as well as the choir performing as a group.  I was asked by another choir member to be in their quartet! I was so honored with the request (apparently when the guy was trying to decide who to ask, a few choir members suggested he ask me) that I said yes.  Once I got over the excitement of being so singled out, I realized what grave danger I was in.  I had just agreed to sing with only three other people in front of hundreds of strangers...cue heart attack.

Tonight our quartet practiced for the first time while the rest of the choir was moseying in and surprisingly I was quite confident singing and did not feel nervous. As soon as I just focused on the music and saw that a)it was easy so at least I knew the chances of me messing up were slim and b)I was at least not singing by myself, the fear melted away.  I got caught up in the joy of the song and just sang it like I was singing in church.  I even got the added confidence of the director saying it sounded really good and it was just our first time through sight reading!

Anyway, I know this may seem foolish and petty to some of my friends who perform music and act in plays all the time, but for me, this was a huge step. I really thought I would crumble under pressure and instead I thoroughly enjoyed myself.  Now, let's hope the same remains true when we sing it in front of strangers on November 18th!

What I learned: I am capable of singing in a small group in front of people.