Mood lighting

The lamp in our Hoi An hotel room.

christmas carp

the big vats of huge live bottom feeder fish are on the street!  it's christmas in prague!

academic fraud

After an investigation into the academic scandals at UNC, it was found that my professor from my semester in Cape Town, Julius Nyang'oro, was responsible for 'irregularities' dating back to 1997.

I think there weren't any big surprises there; just revealing more frequent problems and not limited to athletes. Because of my semester abroad, plus one more course in the spring, I have a minor in African Studies. I feel funny about announcing that now on my resume.

And also there is this description:

Nyang'oro's practice of getting approval for lecture courses that involved no lectures but a single paper due at the semester's end started in 1997 — just months after AFAM was elevated from a curriculum to a department. Martin said there was no solid motive, but he suggested Nyang'oro could have been trying to boost enrollment in AFAM courses as a way to grow his faculty. The investigation found patterns of faculty no-show classes that peaked in 2005-06 and then dropped precipitously — to near zero by 2009. That's the year that Crowder, who has been implicated in abetting Nyang'oro's fraudulent practices, retired.

My semester abroad was similar to what is described: minimal lecture, and a large single paper due at the semester's end. But we did have interesting guest lectures, and we did each have an internship. That said, I wouldn't describe the experience as rigorous. Did I get a lot out of it? Oh, yes. But was the actual course work very strenuous? Not really.

2 more days

we aren't prepared at all, but our flight to hong kong is on friday!  so excited!

paleo christmas cookies

last weekend i made some paleo-friendly christmas cookies, from this recipe.

because there is no real flour to hold it together, it was ridiculously difficult to get it off the parchment once you used the cookie cutter.  that was a bit sad.  but then for the last round i tried just putting the cookie cutter on the cookie sheet and kind of 'stuffing' the dough into it.  and it worked great!  it's not as fun (i didn't even bother trying to involve lumi in the cutting because both of us would have been very frustrated) but everyone in the family enjoys the shapes.  kimmo has this pig cookie cutter that he loves, so i try to make sure he has a few pig cookies every year.

the author suggests putting the cookies in the freezer and eating them directly from there.  that sounded absurd, but we tried it, and she is totally right -- that is the best way.

lumi doesn't seem to have skin issues or GI issues, so i don't think she is sensitive to gluten.  thus we're not pushing her to do the paleo thing. we still try to minimize the amount of bread she eats, but it's not worth creating an issue at daycare about.  and since i like doing cut-out cookies and normally it's fun for kids, i think i'm going to try to do a non-paleo recipe of heart cookies for valentine's day. lumi can take them to share with daycare, i guess.

santa took them

kimmo's sister had their annual christmas party this past weekend, and santa paid a visit. this is standard procedure, but what is great is that santa took the girls' pacifiers away! so now if the girls ask for their pacifiers, the parents can reply "santa took them away, remember?"

A Dance With Dragons

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

well, i enjoyed this. it's a wonderful story and he does a great job with these characters. if you like fantasy or soap operas or war-related stories or even fiction in general, it would be hard not to love this series.

though i wish i had had access to a paperback or electronic copy because i hated carrying this big hardback book on the bus.

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Food and liquor

I am eating at Lupe Fiasco restaurant!

'big bed' mishaps

last weekend we got a toddler bed for lumi.  it's adorable and she is excited about it.

except when we put her there to sleep at night.

she will happily read a book with me while lying in her bed, all tucked in.  but when i say good night, she starts crying and gets up, asking plaintively for the 'big bed', which means our bed.  we have a good wide bed, so it's not a problem if she sleeps with us, so we have been just putting her in there instead of having a battle of wills every night.  but she sometimes moves around while she sleeps, and last night while we were reading in the living room we heard a sickening crunch followed by very upset crying.  we ran in there to comfort her, but since the crunch sounded bad and she was crying more than normal (yes, she falls out of bed every couple of weeks), i turned on the light to check for injuries.  she looked ok, so when she calmed down i put her back to sleep, and she stayed reasonably calm and in one place most of the night.  but this morning one side of her face is decidedly puffy and there is a bit of a mark.  oops.

chilly

it's cold today in prague!  the high is -5.  it's also kind of dry and uncomfortable.  the skin on my knuckles tends to crack when it gets cold like this.

but i am fortunate that i have a warm place to work and a warm place to live.  it's one of the reasons i love apartment living -- they tend to be quite warm!

december book club meeting

last night was our december book club meeting.  most months we meet at a restaurant and discuss the month's book.  the december meeting had a different format -- it was a holiday party at a member's apartment.  her apartment is really fancy, and it was a lovely time.  the host is from the UK, and she supplied 'crackers', which i had never done before.  you pull it open with someone else, and there is a great popping noise, and then you get whatever is inside it.  these crackers had a little paper with a joke and some trivia, and a prize.

my joke:

why is that man standing in the sink?

he is a tap dancer.

(the jokes were all of this terrible quality.)

my trivia:

which animal doesn't have vocal cords, the kangaroo or the giraffe?

the giraffe.

a lot of the trivia was (naturally) UK-based, and there were questions about UK tv series, and things the Queen can do.  our group is about half british, half american, and we americans just followed along as best we could.

also, we each brought a book from our home collection for someone else to read.  then we traded around, and for the january meeting we will each read our different books.  i took 'black swan green' by david mitchell and i got 'the curious incident of the dog in the night-time' by mark haddon.

Teradata Christmas Party

Last week we went to the Teradata Czech Republic Christmas party.  It was a costume party and the theme was favorite profession.  People went all-out!  It was impressive, and I was embarrassed about my lack of effort.

The Tax Inspector by Peter Carey

The Tax Inspector by Peter Carey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

i enjoyed reading this, though it's not the type of story i normally enjoy. the characters are great, but i got emotionally involved and just got really stressed about it. toward the end i just wanted everything to end.

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bliss at home

we had a *huge* brunch at an argentinian restaurant with some lovely friends, and right now kimmo and lumi are sleeping it off.  the cats are sitting on the sofa where kimmo is napping.

me? i'm doing my weekly organization: planning the dinner menu for the week, sorting through receipts, and crossing things off my task list.

this is as good as it gets!

Book: Little Women

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

i finally read little women! i liked the book much better than the movie, which i had seen ages ago. the story seems a little more sensible, and i can understand why the book was so loved by generations.

will i read it again? probably not. but i would probably encourage kids i know to read it.

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i hope it wasn't enchanted and that i'm not going to abandon my family and mr. and mrs. beaver

i did a pretty good job keeping to the primal/paleo diet while we were in the US, especially considering the amount of treats i had access to on a daily basis. kathy even cooked red velvet brownies while we were in florida! but then this week i was completely derailed by an unexpected source. i have a student from ankara, and he brought turkish delight to share with the class. i tried turkish delight when we were in istanbul a couple of years ago, and was not impressed. but then this student comes up in front of the whole class and offers to share his culture with us.  it feels really rude to refuse like that! so i took one. and it was completely different from what i remember having in turkey; it was delicious!  it tastes like a mild marshmallow covered in coconut with a pistachio on top. 

i thought i was in the clear -- it was just a tiny bit of sugar.  but then yesterday he put the box out on our break table, and by the end of the day, i was stuffing them into my face like Edmund when he met the White Queen.

the box is still there today, but i have resolved not to eat any.  let's see.

great day for lumi

yesterday lumi had dry diapers the entire day at daycare (meaning that she consistently used the potty all day, not that she was dehydrated).  i shouldn't be so emotionally involved with this, but it makes me feel terrific.  she really knows what she is doing!  and our daycare people have a great connection with her!

the 5-year diary

my friend nikki gave me a 5-year diary while we were staying at her place in new york.  it has space to write about 1 sentence each day for 5 years. i can't decide whether i want to begin on new years day, or if i want to begin when lumi turns 2 (which is in early february).

now that i'm writing this, i'm thinking it makes more sense to start at the new year.  because it's possible that not every day will be about lumi.

Popular play mat

Nova, Lumi, and Kimmo enjoy Nova's play mat.

jet lag!

we got home yesterday at 19:30 after a wonderful trip in the US.  and today i'm teaching.  lumi did surprisingly well last night with her adjustments.  she woke up a few times crying, but it was much better than her experience in indy when we were adjusting to EST.

bryce courtenay

i just read that bryce courtenay died.  i really enjoyed reading 'The Power of One'.  

on the boats and on the planes

we're coming to america!

got a dream to take us there!

we're coming to america!

got a dream we're coming to share!

we're coming to america!

i can't do the whispered "today!" because it's actually tomorrow.  but packing has begun!

driving

i drove to work today, because it's getting colder and the commute yesterday was unpleasant and long.

i miss the reading time on public transport, but it's nice to be on my own schedule.

Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende

Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

really enjoyable story! the reading is easy and the characters are compelling.

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teaching

we're teaching new material today (new to everyone!) and it's fun.  figuring it out and working through issues together with the other instructor has been invigorating.

bad parenting

last night i yelled at a toddler i don't know.  

let me set the scene for you: a crowded kid-friendly restaurant on a saturday evening, the kid area has a play house and all ages of kids are playing and getting a bit crazy because they're having so much fun.  my 22-month-old was going in and out through the playhouse door, enjoying the open and close action and not really interacting with any other kids directly.  then one time she opened the door to go back inside the house, and a little girl who was inside (who was only slightly bigger, and probably was very close in age because my daughter is on the small side) was standing there.  and then she punched my daughter with a closed fist in the neck/chest a couple of times. i scooped up my daughter while blurting out "what the hell is wrong with you?!".

i am really embarrassed.  fortunately, i spoke in english and i live in a non-english-speaking country.  i had never been in the situation before, and i honestly don't know what i would have said if i were in an english-speaking environment.  i like to think i would have said "there is no reason for hitting!" or something along those lines.  but i honestly don't know.  i should have prepared myself for that months ago, but i just didn't.  and i feel awful.  thank goodness the little girl couldn't understand me. my temper was a little frayed because i had just cleaned up a crazy amount of shit in the bathroom (in the restaurant we had the first poo-in-pants accident since we started potty training and instead of remaining calm when i was trying to delicately peel off her pants so that the poo would fall nicely into the toilet, she panicked.  poo went all over the toilet seat, on the back of the toilet, on the floor, on her shoe, etc), but that is no excuse. today i have been practicing simply responding with a firm 'no!' in czech and i hope i'm ready to act like an adult next time.

but here is my question: what do i say to my daughter? i don't want her to hit back. i would like her to be comfortable getting out of violent situations even if she is mad. what should i tell her so she will have the appropriate script in her head? 

when a baby is screaming

oh dear god, this is us.

language acquisition

lumi learned the word 'big' earlier this week.  on monday, she was able to repeat "big leaf" back to me when she had a big leaf in her hand.  and then by this morning, she was able to generate that word and assign it as an adjective.  

also, she started using "'s" to denote possession in english, and the "n" for genitive in finnish.  so she says "äiti's phone" but "lumin maito".  

it's amazing to see this progression!

Obama reelected

Great job America! And great job Indiana and Missouri for defeating the women-haters!

florida elections

i know florida is having major problems with this election. part of that is disorganization, yes. but part of that is the ridiculous ballot. there were 12 (!) ballot measures to read carefully and then decide which you think is right.

and many of them were absolutely absurd. fortunately for cynics like myself, some of them had names including words like "freedom" which is a red flag for right-wing BS, so you know you have to read it *very* carefully. sure enough, the "religious freedom" amendment was about giving taxpayer money to churches.

but i have to complement volusia county FL on its election handling.  it was great! they sent me email confirmation of registering as absentee, and then they sent me email confirmation of receiving my ballot. impressive!

how is the hair up there

i love this hair style for lumi:

teradata 12 masters results

i got my td12 masters certification!  i'm quite proud.

beaver tourism

[giggles childishly]

things to do

today is my last 'play' day (where i'm not teaching but i'm at the office) for a while.  i will have 2 weeks of factory, then 2 weeks in the US, then 2 weeks of factory.  then i will have 1 week break, and then we go to asia!

so i'm trying to do a lot of little stuff here to prepare.

time management

i went to a seminar yesterday on time management.  i already am a GTD fan (though i certainly don't follow the program exactly), so it was interesting to hear other perspectives.  the one that was discussed heavily was "18 minutes" by bregman.  it was similar in that there is consistent review of big goals and then relevant plans for more details.  but one element not discussed is the "inbox" that is so crucial to the GTD lifestyle, and i think it would have been good to mention it.

but of course GTD appeals to really detail-oriented people, and this other one appeals to other personality types.  i suggested that kimmo take a look, and i think he's going to put some of the material to use. 

little women and the facts of life

i'm reading little women now on dailylit.com, after several unsuccessful attempts to get started.  i'm enjoying it a bit, but not as much as i had hoped.  could this be due to the fact that instead of picturing winona ryder as jo, i am picturing nancy mckeon?

nostalgia

i'm eating my way through a bag of dates now.  it takes me back to burkina days, except these are less dry.  delicious!

teradata 12 masters exam

i took the teradata 12 masters comprehensive exam today.  it kicked my ass.  normally i take these tests and i am challenged and i say "i failed it!" but then deep inside i know i probably passed it.  today, i have none of that confidence.  it was HARD.

this is from the driving instruction course that i have to take for work (italics mine)

Beware of driving with residual alcohol in your system!

If you leave an excellent party late in the evening or even in the early morning hours, it is more than probable that there will still be alcohol circulating in your blood even after you wake up. In such cases, the only reasonable measure is to examine your capability before driving by means of a detection device (a classic "tube", a digital alcohol tester).

trip planning

we're trying to plan our trip to hong kong and vietnam now.  it's a bit crazy, because i know nothing.  in helsinki, i would always check the lonely planet books out from the library for pre-reading, but that's not an option here in prague.

Groceries

We are trying a grocery service. Not just any grocery service, but one that has local, organically grown stuff. Last night we got our first package. We ordered a pork roast, and a "seasonal box". The box was full of fruits and vegetables like apples, pears, and carrots. And some random stuff like walnuts. I guess we need to buy a nut cracker now.

Autumn path

This is where I get off my bus when I come home.

what i do at work

my friend barrett half-asked about my job, and i think this is a good description of it:

my company makes databases.  like oracle, which many people have heard of.  but bigger and better than oracle!  and more expensive!  it's for storing *huge* amounts of data.  our customers tend to be enormous soulless corporations (walmart, ebay, amazon, and glaxosmithkline are a few). and what i do is teach our people how it works (how data is stored and retrieved and loaded and how to set up user accounts and privileges).  so i'm teaching, like i did in peace corps, except the people i'm helping are the moneyed elite.  am i the 1%?  no.  but my job is to help our people help the 1% further separate themselves from the 99%.  

in short, i am an asshole.  but i really enjoy the day-to-day of my work -- it's interesting and fun and i make good money which i don't donate enough of to causes i believe in.

Happy Halloween!

We carved pumpkins at the day care Halloween party!

having company

yesterday i was trying to do a poo on the toilet and lumi brought her little friends in to "go" as well.  during my sit i was joined by kartsa (a teddy bear), ernie (from sesame street), and vauva (her doll).  lumi stuffed them in the space between me and the back of the toilet and made the "sss" sound so they would pee.  it was awkward.

losing weight

today i brought my lunch instead of trying to eat a low-carb version of the lunch they serve here in the training center.  i fully expect to be thin and pretty by tomorrow!

the marriage plot

my first book club book!
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

i didn't enjoy this nearly as much as i had hoped to. the characters weren't lovable, nor were they very interesting. and the name dropping of authors was annoying.

but the most annoying thing was the time frames. for example, they move to pilgrim lake the last weekend of august, and there is lots of discussion about how pilgrim lake is with the parties and fun people, and then it all changes after labor day. that can't have been more than a week. if you just moved, you probably are getting settled and that atmosphere wouldn't have affected your thoughts of how the place is.

[spoiler]
and then in the last scene, mitchell heads to the 7am quaker meeting on sunday in a small town, but somehow stops beforehand to buy deodorant. where is this 24-hour pharmacy in 1983?



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stress

another sign i am stressed is that i haven't made a poo in 3 days.

stress

i feel very stressed lately, and shocked kimmo this weekend when i blew up at him over something completely stupid.  it just feels like i'm stretched very thin.  i'm trying very hard to be good at my job, plus a good mother to lumi, plus feed us all with good food, plus meet friends, plus keep up to date on reading.  i would also like to be a good wife, but i am definitely not being that.  i feel like i'm using a lot of energy trying to be patient and kind at work and with lumi and no patience is left over for kimmo.  so when he questions something i do or forgets something crucial, i just snap.  i don't know what to do.  i have looked at all the 'important' things and tried to find something to scale back on, but i'm not finding it.  i'm already not exercising how i would like to.  we have been watching downloaded tv shows (like downton abbey!) in the evenings and though that is significant time, it also feels like it's a way for kimmo and i to be together quietly without losing patience with each other.  maybe that's what has to go. 

this speaking baby of mine

lumi's speech is getting more advanced.

yesterday she said to me "so?"

work

work seems to be going quite well this week.  i updated a course to teach a new subject, and then started a follow-up program to the main course i teach.

parents meeting

we had a meeting at the day care place last night.  they talked about the kids schedules, and the learning philosophies, etc.  they did it mostly in czech, with some english and german parts.  for the czech, we were assigned a translator (one of lumi's teachers).  it was good to see how the program in the school has developed since it was just lumi there and the 'program' was just hanging out with her.

there was an exciting discussion about the lunches.  the price is going up, partially because they underestimated last year, and partially because the catering company is raising its prices.  they use a child-friendly company with mostly organic food, but the price per day will be 125 crowns.  this is about 6 US dollars.  not a small amount!  currently we only pay around 40 crowns per day, because the smaller kids get a half-portion (although they say lumi eats *all* of that so i think that may change soon).

however, there was also a fun icebreaker where they put a pile of toys in the center of the room and each parent had to pick the toy that they thought their kid would most want to play with, then tell who their kid was, etc.  we got off easy, because lumi adores dolls so we just picked the doll.  but anyway it became kind of a feel-good we-love-villa-luna discussion, because parents talked about how happy their kid was there.  and when it was our turn i spoke about how it's been challenging this first year living here in the czech republic where neither kimmo nor i speak the language and there are all these new things to figure out plus a new job, but no matter what was going on it was wonderful to know that lumi was happy and we are 100% comfortable with the people who take care of her.  and i got a little trembly!  her teachers were quite touched, i think.  lumi is a favorite anyway because she was the first kid enrolled at the daycare and she is very sweet-natured and open to being loved, and also i think the teachers feel this mothering instinct even toward kimmo and me because we're just bumbling along in prague.

the other good news is that we tried a babysitter for the first time in many months.  we had been a bit traumatized about how much lumi seemed to hate the babysitter we tried last december.  but this was great!  lumi cried a little when she realized we were leaving without her, but she seemed to really like her.  

failure

once again i missed yoga last night.  but i'm dieting and i'm feeling better.  and i'm trying to do push ups and squats and planks at home, which feels good too.

TD 14 exams

i took a TD14 beta exam this morning.  it was just the Basics exam, and the time allotted was 4.5 hours!  i took about 2.5 hours.  it was looooong.

downton abbey

we are now in the second season of downton abbey and enjoying the hell out of it.

Back at the hostel

At the Teradata office in Prague, there is a big group (100+) of consultants that work as labor-on-demand. The group is called the GCC, or global consultant center. Whenever a project in EMEA needs extra people for something like ETL, they can get a couple of trained Teradata consultants relatively inexpensively through the GCC. So these people are based in Prague, but most of the time they are scattered around Europe.

However, they have an all-hands meeting about once a quarter. There is one today. And the office is crazy: people who are rarely here are trying to get caught up on housekeeping (expense reports, what have you) and also catch up socially with each other. It is close to impossible to get any regular work done, and they atmosphere is festive.

It occurred to me this morning that the effect is strikingly similar to when we had events in Ouagadougou when I was in Burkina. The Peace Corps office would be swarming, and even though you only had 'a couple of things' to do, so did everybody else, so it was challenging. And if you wanted a quiet place to read/work/whatever, you were SOL.

It's cleaner than Ouaga in the Teradata Prague office, but otherwise I am nursing some heavy nostalgia right now.

baking a cake

i'm baking a cake today for kimmo's mother's sister's birthday.  it's chocolate and i'm stoked.

mummu!

kimmo's mother (mummu to lumi) and her sister are arriving today in prague!  we're excited to see them and to show them around a bit.

banning gay 'therapy' in california

this is great news: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19789505

hot yoga

last night i went to bikram yoga for the first time in many years.  there is a studio quite close to the office here in prague.  i feel really beat but terrific.  

i like the repetitive aspects of it -- every time you try to do the same poses but get better and stronger.  and though this is probably a direct result of the same-routine-every-time aspect, most of the instructors can give you really thorough guidance through each of the poses.  i need the constant reminders of how to correct my body, so i like it ("chin up! belly in! hips forward! thigh flexed! knee locked! weight on heels!").  

and i guess also i like being really really hot!  i'm going to try to go every week throughout the winter, and i know on very cold days the yoga room feels wonderful.

back from oktoberfest

we had a good time at oktoberfest, but i am not so eager to go again.  it was really challenging to get a beer on saturday!  we waited in a queue at one of the fest halls for almost 2 hours and then ended up going to a smaller hall for what turned out to be a nice meal and a cheaper beer.

anyway, it was wonderful to see the friends we met there, so it was worth it.

packing and planning

tomorrow we drive to oktoberfest!  so excited!

task clearing

a couple of weeks ago kimmo pointed out that my task organizing, which is supposed to help me do a lot of things but not be stressed out about it, is actually a source of stress in itself.  that thought really stuck with me, so i resolved to remove a lot of the 'should do' items from the list that don't really stand a chance with the current priorities (family happiness, making and keeping friends, work success, etc).  and so i am giving up on a few of my goals for 2012:

1. going on a number of hikes.  we had said 6.  and we do go for long-ish city walks, but we just haven't gotten there on actual hikes in the wilderness.  

2. learning some czech.  i know maybe 5 czech words.  but we don't plan to stay here forever and my higher priority is to learn finnish.

3. install different linux on home pc.  i'm on the work computer most of the time anyway.

book club

today i got an invite to join the exclusive IWAP Evening Book Club!  most IWAP (int'l women's association of prague) events are during the work day, and women who work outside the home can't join.  i have been wanting to join this group since i found out about it in january, but they try to keep it small enough to meet at people's homes, so there is a finite number of people permitted to join.  i finally made it to the top of the waiting list! 

of course, there's always the question of reading tastes.  the first book is "the marriage plot", which i had been interested in anyway, so that bodes well.

also: this marks the first time i am branching into contemporary books on the kindle, since i'm normally too cheap to buy anything but copyright-expired titles.  i reasoned that making some local friends would be worth the $10 per month for the book.

zoo

we went to the zoo again today.  lumi was super-psyched about all the primates.

and we went into the 'indonesian jungle' exhibit and they have bats flying around in a really low-ceilinged cave.  it was freaky!  they fly sort of right at your face.

another factory done

i just finished another 2-week factory class.  these are tiring classes!  i enjoy the actual work, but when i'm in the middle of these classes, i wonder if it's worth being seemingly unable to do anything else during that time.  i can even see a difference in lumi's language skills -- her english takes a dip.  it's depressing.  but i guess having a career i don't like would also be depressing, right?

pants

lumi hits the 20-month mark soon, which is when they say you can start actual potty training and not elimination communication.  i would like to really start then, and try to be diaper-free.  but we have some issue because lumi still can't really put on or take off her own pants.  her motor skills are on the whole pretty great, so i don't know if this is because we haven't been practicing this or what.  or maybe i'm missing the point and you still have to help with the pants at 20 months.

annoying

i have had two finnish kids' songs in my head all damn day.  and since they're finnish, i only know/remember a few words.

teaching with a new colleague

i'm teaching with a new colleague today.  presenting this material for the first time is hard, and he seems obviously nervous.  it's really hard to listen to, because i know i sound similar (as compared with the most experienced instructors).

humor

the onion's still got it.

Democrats abroad

I went to a voter registration party tonight held by democrats abroad. It was enjoyable - lots of interesting people and fun conversation!

Toys

We bought a gift for Nova today and the toy store was really fun.

wasabi

lumi ate some sushi today.  it wasn't her first time with sushi, but it was her first time feeding herself.  she loved it, and was picking up salmon rolls and putting them in her mouth, and taking a fork and eating rice.  and then she ate a forkful of wasabi.

we saw it happen -- dip fork, fork to mouth, put fork down.  during that little delay between the wasabi hitting the tastebuds and then hitting the sinuses, i took the fork from her and offered water.  then she started coughing really hard and looked really unhappy.  she didn't cry, which was impressive.  then i taught her the word 'spicy'.  and now she knows.

thursday

i currently use a backpack-style laptop bag, but it feels not less professional and more student-like.  i am considering shifting to a shoulder bag.  isn't lifting heavy things part of the 'primal blueprint' anyway?

ernie and burp

lumi enjoys sesame street characters a lot, and she can say 'elmo' and something close to 'the count' and also 'Ernie and Burp'.  

game of thrones

we're watching season 2 now, and it is quite wildly diverging from the book.  in a way, the large differences make it more enjoyable for me.  then i can stop worrying about how "that's not how it happens!" and can just enjoy it.

Teaching again

A long day teaching. I made a dumb mistake near the end of the day, which soured the otherwise pleasant return to work.

home

and we're back in prague.  it was a lovely wedding and it was good to see the in laws, and i think everyone is a little annoyed to be back in prague.

Nakkilassa

We are in Nakkila today. Heading to Pori in the afternoon for a wedding, and Lumi is going to spend the night at Mummu's place (her first night away from both parents!).

guilt

my mom left this morning.

it was a better visit than i'm used to having with her, because she had lumi to distract her.  but of course there are always challenges, and every time we say goodbye i feel guilty that i am not more patient.  

she lies (perhaps that's a strong way to say it because there is rarely malice involved, but how else do you describe saying untrue things?) and says and does crazy things that are not socially acceptable.  on one hand i can't seem to bring myself to respond positively toward them, because that feels like i am encouraging that kind of behavior and communication.  but on the other hand, since she's been like this for as long as i can remember, and she is over 60 years old, so i am resigned to the fact that she's not going to learn anything from my negative responses, or reflect on how her behavior affects her relationships, or change how she acts.  so our interactions are a major source of stress to me because i spend huge amounts of energy trying to control my temper, and after a few days of this all i am left with is exhaustion and anger and guilt and i can barely be civil to her.

so is there another way of dealing with this?

last day with grandma

today is the last full day with grandma.  it's been good, but i'm exhausted.

zoo

this afternoon we went to the zoo.  the usual favorites weren't very interesting today (wtf, lemurs?) but we went to the children's section and lumi loved riding the little train and petting the goats and riding a pony.

cesky krumlov

we just got back from cesky krumlov.  what an adorable town!  we visited the castle and the eggenberg brewery, and wandered around town quite a bit.

A Feast For Crows

A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

i did like this one quite a bit. the different POVs were interesting. i think my favorites were the parts set in dorne and braavos.

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Aim lower ... lower ...

This is from our shooting excursion today.  This is the shotgun portion!

grandma

grandma is here!  she arrived today and has already read a bunch of books to lumi.

my domestic life

kind of a boring day puttering around getting ready for grandma's visit.  i cooked meatloaf, and i feel frumpy.  and i have had a *lot* of acne lately, and i don't know why.  the water?  my washing technique?  the lotion?  stress?  diet?  

and lumi seems to have had a potty training regression, which we know to expect but is somehow always depressing.

social event

we spent a lovely afternoon with some kids from lumi's daycare and their parents.  it was really great -- lots of fun conversation.  and all of the other parents work at accenture, and they actually knew what teradata was before meeting us!

hair

i got my hair did today!  it's a darker brown with some ombre.

just a boring day at the office

but then a nice evening at home.  kimmo made us a huge salad with lots of watermelon on it.  and lumi ate kidney beans.  we are quite fortunate that she loves kidney beans so much -- all it requires me to do is open a can of them, rinse, then heat in a pan with a little thyme.  then we can keep them in the fridge and she will eat them cold.  she would probably eat them in a house, with a mouse, etc.

crayon sketch of a very hairy monkey in an ill-fitting tunic

i love news stories like this:

BBC Europe correspondent Christian Fraser says the delicate brush strokes of Elias Garcia Martinez have been buried under a haphazard splattering of paint.
The once-dignified portrait now resembles a crayon sketch of a very hairy monkey in an ill-fitting tunic, he says.

shooting trip

i just booked this for next week when my mom comes:

Programme B includes
4 rounds of competitive shooting: AK47 x 15 shots, M16 x 15 shots, Pump-action shotgun x 5 shots and Sniper riflex 5 shots. 
Private transport
English / Czech speaking guide
English speaking fully qualified instructors
Winning diploma awarded to the Top Shot !!
A sandwich and beer after shooting

It's going to be AWESOME.

game of thrones

we have started watching the 'game of thrones' series from tv.  i'm still reading the series, and i'm in book 4.

the series is fun to watch because it looks beautiful, but otherwise it hasn't been very satisfying.

horky

it's really hot today -- i heard the high was 37.  we had thought summer was on its way out and then blammo!  pool time!

prague pride

we went to a prague pride event today!  it was their kids' thing, and honestly it wasn't very fun for lumi.  but i think most of the stuff was directed toward older kids, and that's ok.  plus it was really hot, so kimmo could barely participate.

socializing

we spent a wonderful day today with another couple who have a kid at lumi's daycare.  we had a little hike in the forest, and a pleasant lunch, and then hanging out at their house while the kids played.  both members of the couple are a lot of fun to talk with and we're hoping to see them again soon.

more photos

we go in spurts with the picture-taking, and i want to do better.  we realized that we already don't have 'enough' documentation of lumi's early months.  i am now going to try to take at least one photo of lumi per day.  let's see how long i can keep the chain going.

gluten-free sucks

this gluten-free thing is not really working.  we have done 4 days so far, and if anything, i feel *worse*.  i know it takes time to get out of your system, blah blah blah, but the truth is that i wasn't feeling bad while i was eating gluten.  pudgy?  yes.  but bad? no.  and here is the thing: eating gluten-free in prague is really hard.  

it's not that it takes a lot of willpower, like if the gluten-free option doesn't look tasty but the gluten-full option looks delicious.  it's hard because it's really really difficult to find gluten-free food at a restaurant.  dinner and breakfast at home are not bad at all and of course there are a lot of options.  but really, when you're out it is hard!  and of course my czech language skills are terrible, but i know the word for gluten-free (bez lepkova!) and it doesn't seem to help.  most people don't know what that means, and even if you can explain it, sometimes people will say something has no wheat flour in it even when it does!  i understand that vegetarians here have a similar issue, in that they might get served something with ham chunks in it because it's just a small amount of meat, and meat is not the primary ingredient. i have seen people insist that there is no flour in a dessert even with a little cookie on it, because it's primarily fruit.

so when i finally find something, it's not actually all that healthy.  eating gluten-free is not like a low carb diet where you can just buy a hamburger and not eat the bun, because if the bun has ever touched the burger, that burger could have gluten on it, and the damage is done.  if you have an issue where gluten tears apart your GI system, you cannot risk that exposure.  so that only leaves potatoes, and vegetables cooked separately.  most czech meals come with sauce, and sauce almost always has wheat flour as a thickener.  soy sauce has gluten, so almost all asian food (again, in restaurants) is out unless you have the language skills to really specify it (and i do not).  what was available today?  i bought yogurt from the grocery store and then ate this potato-bacon-sauerkraut mix.  it was heavy and not very appealing, but i didn't know what else to get. i'm eating worse than ever now, and feel bloated (and the absence of bloating is supposed to be one of the great benefits of eliminating gluten from your diet).

so, what are the options?  i could bring my lunch to work.  this wouldn't be so bad now when i'm working in the office, but it wouldn't really work for the teaching days.  and also it would hurt our already scant social life if we couldn't go out to eat with people.  or i could try to switch to some other crazy diet, and then continue gluten-free with kimmo in the evenings if he wants to do it (though i'm not sure he is too eager, because he really misses the beer).  the beer is a big hindrance to low-carb plans in general.  maybe just eat muesli and yogurt at lunch?  i need to keep thinking about this.  in the meantime, however, i think i may drop this gluten-free thing.

i'm just a cliche

my student sent me some photos he took of the lumster. i like this one because i think i look like a typical mother. my kid isn't doing anything impressive, but i'm looking at her like she is a genius and like i couldn't be prouder.

Purchases

I bought a sewing machine. I only sold the old one last summer after I realized that I was not a seamstress, and had been only wishing to be handy with thread and fabric. But then a couple things came up recently, little repairs that were very tedious by hand but would have been simple with a machine. So I bought a used one for not too much money. Now let's see what I will do with it, if anything.

dieting

kimmo has been hassling me for a while about 'paleo' diets and how they are supposed to be healthier for you, etc.  while we were in finland (after i hit my customary ok-now-i'm-relaxed-so-i-will-list-45-ways-to-improve-myself thing on day 5) i suggested trying it for a couple of weeks when we arrived home.  he agreed and seemed eager...until i told him there was no beer involved.  i have no idea what kind of articles he was reading that made him think that paleo diets included beer, or maybe he just didn't think fully through the consequences of no grain, but anyway that is a daunting thing here in the czech republic where beer is cheaper than water in most restaurants.  i also wasn't looking forward to restricting my diet that heavily, so we decided to try to eat gluten-free for a couple of weeks to see how we feel.  i see that as a baby step to paleo, so it seems like a good idea.  yes, i know that doesn't include beer too (at least not regular beer, and gluten-free beer is challenging to find here), but we know the time is limited so we're going to see how it plays out for us.

we started today and both breakfast and lunch have been challenging.  he likes toast for breakfast and i like muesli, so i just sort of skipped it and had some yogurt at 10:00, and he skipped it and went to eat lunch at 11.  i don't know what he ate yet.  

a storm of swords

A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

still enjoying the hell out of this series, and the 3rd book was my favorite so far. i'm a bit embarrassed how upset i was when certain characters died and also how relieved i was when other characters died. and now the 4th is waiting for me...

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kofola

i'm having my first kofola today, a gift from a student.  he's not from the czech republic, but he said he had said to himself that if he can learn to like kofola then he can lived here, so he forced himself to acquire the taste.  the taste is vaguely medicine-y.

kofola is a cola sold here during the communist era. but even though coca cola and pepsi are now available, people still drink kofola happily.

traveling

tonight we leave for finland!  kimmo and i are both excited and i think even lumi gets that something is happening.  we looked at our family photos again last night to review.

a clash of kings

A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

i had lots of other stuff to do this week (work is quite busy, plus i need to pack for a trip) but every spare moment i got was instead spent with my nose in this book. it's great!

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2 more days

2 more days of work, then a 2 week vacation in finland.  everything seems to be coming together packing-wise, and we hired an adorable young woman to watch the cats.

melon

the hotel where i'm teaching has a wonderful selection of fruit with the morning and afternoon coffee breaks.  consequently, i have eaten a tremendous amount of watermelon lately.  delicious!

amazon transactions

a few weeks ago i ordered a dr. seuss 'lift the flap book' for lumi from a seller on amazon.co.uk.  i received a book from the seller, but it wasn't the right one.  i sent this email to the seller:

I ordered a Dr. Seuss book for a young child, and instead received 'Nine Proposals for the Reform of the Law on Unfair Dismissal' by Hugh Collins. The baby is not very interested in Employment Law, as you can imagine.
Please send me my proper book!
Thank you,
Angela Carpenter

fortunately, they are offering to try sending the correct book.  and i can keep the 'nine proposals' book free of charge!

sunday activities

we went to the zoo today, which means we have been twice on our yearly pass.  we still haven't broken even.

that said, the prague zoo is very cool!  they make it easy to see lots of animals.  the only sad part about the visit today is that the orangutans weren't out playing.

beroun

today we went with some ladies from IWAP and their families to a little nearby town called beroun.  it was neat to see their bears, a set of brown bear triplets that live in a park there.  also the company was great.  there was one family from the UK with two girls, and the girls took care of lumi all day.

fast week

i'm teaching again this week, and it has seemed to go quite quickly.  hopefully the weekend will slow down.

the lumster was in high spirits yesterday (probably because it was a sunny day) and she was wonderful to be around.  

family

i love this photo.

rss readers

i'm exploring alternatives to google reader.  i tried to use netvibes, but the refresh was quite slow.  a given item wouldn't show up until at least 4 hours after it had showed up on google reader!  now i'm trying feedly (which is still syncing with google reader, but a different interface) to see how it goes.

beers in class!

a student bought beers for everyone in class today (her phone rang, and that's the rules) and it's making the afternoon fun.

i spoke too soon

the shower was cold again this morning.

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

i quite enjoyed this book!

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modern civilization

the whole building has had no hot water since monday, but it's back today.  it's luxurious.

finished a book

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

i read this for the exact same reason as sarah wheatley. but also because my husband recommended the book, and i'm always shoving book recommendations in his face (not that he reads my recommendations, but what is marriage for if not to stake out and defend moral high ground?). anyway, i couldn't put it down and i wish i had read it earlier.

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Tourism

Today we went to the astronomical clock and the old Jewish cemetery. Lumi is having a lot of fun with her grandparents.

touring

another quite nice day: a couple of hours of work in the morning, then lunch at Grosseto, then afternoon cruise on the Vltava with Tom Kolisch!

visitors

a couple of calm days here -- grandpa and mama dollie are visiting and lumi is having a wonderful time.

Sunset from the balcony

gassy skins

the salad bar at the hotel where we are holding class has a beautiful selection of raw peppers.  i carefully avoided the green today but i'm still a little gassy.  i just read that removing the skin will avoid that, but maybe peeling bell peppers is too weird to do at lunch with coworkers.

new teeth

the lumster had 2 new teeth showing sunday morning.  she has 2 molars, we think!  one on each side on the bottom.

small victories

lumi doing a poo in the toilet makes it feel like the day is going to be AWESOME.

hot

it's 34 degrees today in prague, and we have 25 students in a classroom and the air conditioner doesn't cut it.  poor students!  this must be hard for them.

solving all the problems

lumi was really fussy this morning for some reason and wouldn't let me set her down.  i cuddled her as long as i could until i had to start the morning routine, but she was lying on the floor and crying in protest.  but then kimmo offered an olive.  she loves to put her finger in the little hole left by the pitting machine.  it cheered her up in no time.

girls in burkina

nice slideshow from the bbc:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18357253

watermelon in the morning

the hotel where my course is gives us a nice coffee break in the morning -- with good watermelon!

Long day

It was a long teaching day, then we took a tour of a potential training facility. I didn't get home until 19:30, just before bathtime. I felt like a shitty parent and a shitty wife.

the fountain

lumi has a horrific diaper rash.  i was in zurich for 2 days last week and one of those days turned out to a pooping spree.  kimmo has a very limited sense of smell, and doesn't pick up on poo that he is not expecting.   normally we let her run around in her pajamas and night diaper for most of the morning while she eats breakfast, so she can be in that night diaper for about 11 hours.  what i think happened was that lumi had a huge poo early in the night, which kimmo did not detect because he didn't smell anything, and then she was left to pee and roll around in that same diaper until 7am the next day.  and then when he actually cleaned her up, i'm guessing he didn't do a thorough enough job.

this means that i arrived home to find that she had a bright red rash all over her skin under her diaper, and something that looks like heat rash up to her belly.  it was painful for a few days, but it's healing now, after a lot of frequent diaper changes this weekend, plus diaper-free time, plus extra lotion and oil to help the skin heal itself.  but then after one day of daycare it again looked not so great today.  still not as bad as last week, but i think they were not as vigilant about changing her as we were, so it regressed a bit.  so at about 18:45 tonight i took off her diaper to let her run around and get some air in there.  she didn't have any accidents for about 20 minutes, but then when i was holding her she peed on me.  then i tried to take her to the potty but she insisted she was done.  then she peed again on the floor.  then she insisted she was done.  then she had a little poo on the floor.  again, i took her to the potty, cleaned her up, and she insisted she was done.  then she had a bigger poo on the floor!  i started to clean it up while kimmo took her to the bathroom to start the bath.  and then she peed one last time on the floor next to the bathtub while kimmo was trying to get the bath ready.

seriously, i have welts

i think i'm about ready to stop breastfeeding.  lumi loves it and i love it when she's gentle, but she isn't ever gentle anymore.  no biting, but she pulls (wtf?) and scratches, neither of which are pleasant.  she doesn't seem to do it maliciously; it's like a nervous habit to dig her nails into my skin.

but now we have to wean her, and don't really know how to do it with minimal trauma.

the parent i want to be, the worker i want to be

i read this article today. this quote really struck me as something i need to focus on now, when i'm on a new career path that i enjoy:

Most important is when thinking about the arc of your career to think not "when am I going to have to drop out?" but "how am I going to build in the flexibility to be the parent I want and the worker I want, and stay in the game?"

uto kulm

i'm at uto kulm in uetliberg, atop a little hill overlooking zurich.  it's stunning.  gorgeous!  and even the air is wonderful!

on the move

i'm going to zurich tonight for a 2-day meeting.  i'm taking the breast pump, but i'm not sure how it's going to go.  last time i went away for 2 days (munich in march) i used the pump but it's not as efficient as lumi is and my breasts were achy and too full by the second day.

confusion

me: we need to do a little shopping saturday to get some staples i didn't want to buy before we moved.

kimmo: what staples?  we have plenty.

me: (annoyed).  well, milk.  and rice.  and meat for the cats.

kimmo: but what staples?

it turns out that while i was using the term to mean 'basic supplies', he was thinking of office staples (and he's right that we have plenty -- we have two boxes, the contents of which were enthusiastically sprinkled over the living room last week by lumi).

Moved!

Thanks to Kimmo's efforts this week plus the help of a great moving company, we are staying in our new apartment in Prague 4 tonight. Lumster already seems to like it.

war and peace

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

i finished it! 8 months, but i finished it!

i actually enjoyed it a lot. the characters are for the most part interesting, and those parts went quickly. the war-oriented parts are sometimes fascinating and sometimes quite boring. the worst thing though was the last 5% or so is all philosophy of history, and discussing to what we can attribute actions in history. he spends *way* too long on what historians are doing wrong and a comparatively short time on what he thinks is the correct way to analyze history. and then, after what seems like page after page of needless minutiae of his argument, there are large leaps of logic that i think are unfounded.

i don't intend to read this book again, but i definitely enjoyed it.

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Ugh

I just ate a whole thing of gummi fruits.

Fatigue

First day of teaching TD Factory week 1 solo. And I am exhausted. It was lecture all day, and lots of questions.

packing

we're packing.  the first IKEA run has happened, and the new furniture is at the new place.  most of it isn't put together yet.

preferences

i thought it would hurt my feelings when lumi began to prefer kimmo.  they say it happens with all children -- there will be phases when she prefers the mother, then others when she prefers the father.  since i was the one breastfeeding her and getting up in the middle of the night with her and attending to most of her little needs, i felt i was intellectually prepared but emotionally unprepared to be passed over in favor of my husband.

but over the last week, she sobs when she thinks he's leaving, like when he goes to park the car and we stay in one place waiting for him to come back.  yesterday we were moving stuff and had a full elevator so kimmo decided to take the stairs and meet lumi and i down in the parking garage, but lumi cried for him to carry her, so i rode the elevator alone.

and instead of making me feel sad, i feel fucking fantastic.

bribery in the czech republic

this seems insane to me:

In the case of health care, 4 percent of Czechs have experienced bribery over a medical examination and 17 percent know about someone who met with a bribe.
Moreover, 5 percent of respondents experienced bribery when committing a traffic offence and 15 percent heard about it, the poll shows.
Up to 3 percent of respondents met with a bribe when a child was admitted to kindergarten, when passing an exam at a driving school, if they wanted a quick construction permit and in the case of results of a sport game.

i smell like pee

because during our commute from home to daycare, lumi peed a *lot*.  her diaper was soaked, her onesie was soaked, her tights were soaked, her skirt was soaked, the baby carrier was soaked, and my shirt was soaked.  

normally we put on the diaper and clothes not too long before we go, and we use a prefold or flatfold and a waterproof cover.  babies normally pee a lot more in the morning than in the afternoon or evening, and her little butt is pressed into the baby carrier, so instead of her diaper being able to act like a normal sponge, it's kind of like her diaper is a sponge that is being squeezed -- it just can't hold as much.  the commute can be long, so if there are 2 or 3 big pees, the pocket diapers can't handle it and it leaks onto her clothes.  we had a lot of soaked pants before we figured out that the 'old school' setup of diaper and waterproof cover is better for first thing in the morning.  though they are less foolproof, we use the pocket diapers for the daycare place because they are just as easy as disposable, so we don't feel like we are asking them to do a lot of extra work to use cloth instead of disposable.  

anyway, lumi of course had several changes of clothes in her little box at daycare, but i am stuck with my pee shirt at the office.  it's a striped shirt and it doesn't show, but seriously, i might have to come home because i can smell the pee myself.

feeling small

i went with lumi to get a vaccine today, and she was also weighed and measured.  she is small!  her weight is well below average and so is her height.  she used to be around 50 percentile.  i feel quite strange about it, and have been plotting all day how to get her to eat more.  the funny thing is that she eats quite a bit -- sometimes it's a bit shocking how much, and it's more than other kids her age.  but i guess we need to be better about getting her protein and things like that.  she loves kidney beans, so i think we'll start giving her those for breakfast.  and she is still breastfeeding 3 times a day (or more on the weekends when we are together during the day and if she feels like she needs it -- like when she was running around the house this morning and slammed into my knee and got a bloody nose, which was a totally awesome thing to do right before we went to the doctor), but maybe we should supplement more.

Of course

Naturally, one of the booths sold these cool inflatable camouflaged machine guns with 'USA' printed on the side.

detsky den

it was children's day sometime last week, and there were a slew of celebrations all over prague this weekend.  today we met with kimmo's friends (who have 2 young boys) and went to Zamek Berchtold ( http://www.zamekberchtold.cz/ ), where there was a carnival-ish thing going on.  there were a lot of old-timey cars on display, including a mercedes originally owned by ivana trump.  :)

moving

we signed a new apartment lease last night!  as of june 1, we will be paying for 2 apartments in prague.  but the old lease runs out on july 31, and the new place is much closer to lumi's daycare.

first haircut!

i trimmed the lumster's hair last night!  

she still has her baby baldness except in a couple of places and it was kind of weird.  there was one hair that was way longer than all the others on the side, and kimmo's mother even tugged it once, thinking it was stray lint and not realizing it was attached to lumi.

so i waited until she was happily splashing in the bath and i took some scissors and trimmed that one long hair, plus i took some volume off the baby mullet patch in the back.  i saved the hair in a little container that was a gift from sarah wheatley.  lumi didn't seem to care, and kimmo didn't notice (i even told him about it, but he forgot).

i thought i might feel all emotional about it, but i don't.  she looks a little neater, and i think that's good.

angry face

i'm sorry to report that lumi seems to have inherited my tragic trait of looking angry and accusative when she is merely confused.

i never realized i did this until i was almost 30 and my roommate nikki pointed it out to me.  it was at that point that i realized why so many people over the years have assumed i'm a huge bitch (plus i'm sure my personality doesn't help).  i have since been actively trying to control that and to keep my face more on the neutral side when i don't understand something.  i think i have made some progress.

anyway, we noticed this last week, and i was very sad to see that i had passed this on.  maybe i'll try to help her overcome this earlier in life.

headline of champions

'Number of extremely fat Czechs surging' : i like that it could be that several obese people are surging.  i picture them going on a rampage through the city, waving the flag of their people.

http://praguemonitor.com/2012/05/21/pr%C3%A1vo-number-extremely-fat-czechs-surging

suomi!

we're in nakkila now, enjoying a weekend with kimmo's mom.  we arrived on friday night, after 7 months away from finland.  that is a new record for kimmo!  

the great part was the kimmo's mother was matter-of-fact when we told her it had been 7 months, but then later when we were getting ready for sauna and she asked how long it had been since we last had a sauna, she was stunned and appalled that it had been 7 months.  it was the same reaction i might have had if someone told me that they hadn't trimmed their toenails in 7 months -- like we must be functioning poorly and suffering in some way.

i live for news stories like this

this 'news' story and accompanying photo are both terrific: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18100847

sounds about right

"Writing from a female point of view seems to be generally regarded as something more like writing from the perspective of a deer: you might get points for novelty, but it'd be impossible to get right, and who really wants to hear a deer narrate a story, anyway?"

http://www.powells.com/blog/guests/writing-across-gender-by-jennifer-dubois/

because ladybugs bring chocolate, i guess

yesterday was ladybug day.  

when kimmo arrived at her daycare to pick her up, the kids were playing outside.  the director came out with a square of chocolate and gave some to some of the other daycare teachers (nurses? nannies? what do you call them?) and then gave some to lumi.  kimmo and i are trying to not give sweets and salty snacks to lumi yet, so he asked if she gets chocolate often.

the explanation was "no, but it's ladybug day and all the children got candy."

kimmo let it go then, but now one of us has to have the uncomfortable discussion with the daycare people about not giving lumi sweets, even if all the other kids are getting it (i dread conversations like these so i "forgot" this morning when i dropped her off).  maybe tomorrow!

Dehydration

I drank a lot of beer Friday night at the beer garden and I am still not rehydrated. It is a weird feeling, like my whole GI system is sluggish. I suppose lots of herbal tea would help. Plain water would help too, but sometimes it isn't appealing straight from the kitchen sink, because it has a yellowish hue (i think it is from sitting in the pipes, because it goes away when we are actively using it a lot).

mother's day

it was a nice mother's day.  breakfast at home, then more touring of prague.  we went to the castle, then through mala strana and over the charles bridge, then staromestska, then the bar where they serve you beers via trains.

lumi and simo get along great!

Zoo

We had a nice trip to the zoo today with Kimmo's friends Lotta, Sami, and Simo.

DH, DD

i never read the pregnancy forums much when i was pregnant (except in a search for morning sickness help), and i certainly never posted anything myself.  now that we're experimenting with some different types of diapers, i have been wanting to get on some diaper forums for advice (best detergent in czech republic, etc).  but the acronyms are a huge turnoff.  i can get on board with SAHM and WAHM and such, because i know those would be annoying to type and retype, but the ones that kill me are 'DH' (dear/darling husband), 'DD' (dear/darling daughter), 'DS', 'LO' (little one, i think), and the like.  

chicken

i ate at KFC today!  i was stupidly dumbfounded by the 'menu', which had various 'deals' and pictures and no real list of options.  but the food was tasty and not too heavy, not including the soda that came with my meal.  i think i would go again for a quick lunch, if i can figure out which items i can buy individually.

lunch

i went out for lunch today with a few coworkers, and they took me to this really unappealing cafeteria.  they said it's for tram drivers (it's kind of in the office at one of the tram end stations) and it serves traditional czech food.  i was expecting meat in a brown sauce with a bunch of knedlicky.  but i got one of the best meals i've had since we came to prague!  it was a chicken breast with some cheese and roasted vegetables on it with a side of slightly sour cabbage and mashed potatoes.  i washed it down with a grapefruit-flavored soda.

Happy victory day!

Lumi and I are celebrating with a beer in the park.

i bet you can't even see a seal from 871 meters, even a big one

The UTO KULM in Zurich advertises that it is "871 metres above seal level."

failed environmentalism

since i'm enjoying the cloth diapering with lumi and trying different kinds and feeling generally smug about not producing so much trash, i thought i would try reusable sanitary napkins.  i bought a few from a UK diaper site that a friend raved about.  i haven't used them for full out menstruation, but i have used them instead of disposable panty liners.

i'm not a fan.  maybe i use the wrong kind of underwear or something, but they bunch up and move around and (maybe this is the most important thing) they feel like the drops of pee/discharge/end of cycle/whatever post-birth stuff i'm using a panty liner to absorb are staying wettish and closer to my body than they would if i just let my underwear take the brunt of it.  i don't like it!  fortunately at this point i don't need to wear one every day since the post-birth shrapnel and continency issues seem to have subsided, but i was sad to find that i don't like the hippie route in this circumstance.

in case you were wondering, i did attend class and properly earned my minor african studies

i spent the first half of my senior year of college as part of the Burch Field Research Seminar in cape town.  it was a wonderful time and i learned a lot.  it has been sad to hear more and more (as the story has unfolded in national sports news) how the professor who taught the seminar, dr. julius nyang'oro, played a huge role in the unc football academic fraud saga.

i remember dr. nyang'oro as a wonderful professor and that semester was full of incredible experiences.

http://alumni.unc.edu/article.aspx?sid=8822

why can't they just have the same notes in the same places?

i have been practicing on the keyboard lately, and i'm having trouble keeping the bass and treble clef notes straight in my mind. do i just have to practice until it becomes second nature?

i feel comfortable with bass clef from the baritone years so i can play those notes smoothly, and i can also play smoothly with treble clef when i'm just working on that hand, but reading both at once is very challenging (e.g. the first space means different notes above and below -- A on bass, but then F on treble, so when i see a note on the first space i have to think about which clef it is).  i know the FACE and Every Good Boy and All Cows and so on and if i'm quizzed i know the notes, but it's just that my mind can only handle one set at a time when i'm playing.

name

my new niece's name is zoe!

and today lumi seems to know how to unscrew a cap on a bottle, which means that there is a new layer of babyproofing we have to do around here.

new niece!

my brother and his wife have a new baby!  no name yet...

update: 4.43 kilos!  (9lbs 12oz)

it's got a nice ring to it

tomorrow is the scheduled c-section for my newest niece.  i called today to suggest the czech name 'blahoslava'.  it was one of yesterday's name days.  the boy version is 'blahoslav'.  fabulous!

roaming

we took lumi for a walk around the block after dinner this evening.  i need to talk to some more city moms about dealing with walking around the city with a toddler.  lumi is super curious and wants to see everything up close, including what's in the street.  i remember watching my suburban friends and relatives make a big deal when crossing the street and holding hands, like "OK!  HERE WE GO!  WE ARE GOING TO CROSS THE STREET!  HOLD MY HAND!  READY? YES? GO!"  but that seems ridiculous and impractical when you are crossing a street every couple of minutes because you have to walk four or five city blocks to get to the park.  i see a lot of toddlers in strollers, which of course solves this issue, but lumi loves walking out and about and it's nice to have her get a little exercise with an evening walk so i hate to stifle it and stuff her in the stroller or carrier.

walking

we went for a walk at tiché udolí ('silent valley') today.  it is a great park, and very easy to do with a stroller!

Beer garden season has begun

The weather is gorgeous and we had garden beers this evening. Even Lumi got into the spirit and sipped some water.

awkwardness on the train

my morning commute goes like this:

1. strap lumi on my front with the baby carrier

2. put on a coat

3. put my purse over my shoulder, trying to avoid placing the strap so that it would choke lumi

4. put my backpack (with laptop in it) on my back

5. go down the elevator to the ground floor

6. walk to the metro station

7. get on a green train toward the city center, refusing the seat that people are offering me because i only go 2 stops

8. change to the red line going south, looking around desperately for a seat that i *sometimes* get offered because someone kind sees that i'm carrying a baby

9. get off the metro

10. wait for a bus

11. go 1 stop on bus, refusing the seat that people are offering me

12. get lumi out of her outdoor clothes and settled in at daycare

13. wait for a bus

14. go 1 stop on bus

15. get on the metro (red line) heading back north

16. arrive at work

normally lumi falls asleep sometime during the red line part, and sleeps until we arrive at daycare, at which point she cheerfully wakes up and gives her caregiver a hug and gives me a halfass wave goodbye.  today, however, she was awake the whole time.  when she is awake, she likes to look around and touch things.  sometimes, that things she wants to touch are other people.  it's sort of sweet, because she likes to touch them and their clothes and bags and then smile and wave at them.  of course, most morning commuters are not so interested in interacting with a toddler, and their first thought is that someone is trying to pick their pocket.  fortunately for us today, the tough-looking dude with the interesting leather jacket turned out to be great with babies.

velvety eyes

i have a couple spanish students in my class.  i feel like i have to avoid them because they are so pretty!  their eyes are spectacular, all velvety and soft.

day 2 of class

class is still going well.  it's always interesting to talk to people from different parts of europe and see how different their teradata experiences are.

teaching

i'm teaching today in prague.  it's my first local teach!  and it's a much bigger class than i have done yet -- 27 students.

chili

in honor of what we hope is the last chilly weekend before spring is here to stay, we made chili today.

care package

i need to send a care package to my family in baraboulé, and i can't even think what to send.  tea would be cool, plus toys for the kids.  maybe candy?

Away with me

We just watched 'away with me' and enjoyed it very much. It is amazing how few movies I have seen since giving birth. I really miss the experience of goofy ro the theater.

official

i got approved for residency in the czech republic!  i picked up my permit today!

The work photo

there is a photo of the instructors for each class sent to the students (along with other course info about what software to install, etc).  i don't have a recently photo where i'm not holding lumi, so i asked kimmo to take a few. i'm a little more smiley in the first one, but maybe more 'professional' looking in the second.  i went with the second, but i don't know if that was the right choice.

IWAP

i went to an IWAP (international women's association of prague) meeting tonight and met some fun women.  it was at a glass shop called Artel.  very cool stuff!

feeling out of sorts

it feels like everything is off today.  i'm trying to drink herbal tea and hoping it will reset me for tomorrow.

shark

we had borrowed a nursing pillow from a friend in finland and we returned it before we moved to prague.  at that point we weren't doing those hour (or more) long feeding sessions, so it seemed manageable to do it without.  but then we bought this stuffed shark from ikea and it actually works great as a nursing pillow.  so lately when lumi wants some breastmilk, she picks up the shark and holds it near the armchair and stares at me and starts pointing at the chair.  i've got to remember to take a photo of it one of these days, because the shark is bigger than she is and it is a hilarious sight to see.

A wonderful pair

We skipped the stroller and carrier for our morning trip to our local café. Lumi walked happily both ways, smiling and waving to people and receiving smiles in return.

switched at birth

i listed to the 'switched at birth' episode of 'this american life' a few days ago, and the story is still haunting me.  the women did not find out until they were 42 years old, and one of the mothers knew the whole time.  can you imagine that?  it just blows my mind.

Yes, that will solve all my problems

I looked at crockpots online today, and thought about all the wonderful nutritious not-time-consuming meals I could cook with it. Could is the key word there.

I don't think I would use it enough to make up for the cost, but I still want one.

taxes

i just mailed my US tax forms.  two countries down and one to go!  fortunately, finland taxes are quite easy.

calm

the cousins left today, and it's sadly quiet around here.  i think even the cats miss the kids!

my head is itching

we just got a message that one of the kids at lumi's daycare has head lice.  i guess we're fortunate that lumi has no hair yet!  but now i feel incredibly itchy and i want to boil everything in our apartment.

On her feet

When we arrived to pick Lumi up today at daycare, she was standing and playing with some toys, and then when walked over to me quite calmly. It's amazing to see how she is already accustomed to walking and it's no big deal to her.

on feeling emotionally stunted

i enjoy pretty much everything i read by nicole cliffe, but her piece yesterday on children and happiness was especially meaningful to me. it's nice to be reminded that there are other people who feel similarly.

She's LOTS of fun, but I ... have not really been emotionally transformed? God, this sounds bad. I love her so much, but I love her like I love my parents, and my husband, and my best friends, and my 15-year-old mixed breed dog. Incredibly! Delightfully! Fiercely! But it's not a whole new feeling. She's like having a really high-needs roommate that you just couldn't picture living without.