achieve!

Garrison Keillor closes each "Lake Wobegon" portion of Prairie Home Companion with this line: "Lake Wobegon, where the women are strong, the men are good looking, and all of the children are above average."

It's fair to say that PC's dad and much of his family grew up in a version of Lake Wobegon. Though I would not admit this until I was at least 21, the show's keen understanding of small town Minnesota/America along with Keillor's sense of humor and love of song attracted me to PHC. He's a bit sneaky and more than a little judgmental in his humor, but you forget that because the sonorous voice and "aw shucks" authenticity are disarming. But what is he saying about Lake Wobegon? We know it's impossible, by definition, for all Lake Wobegonian children to be above average, which is the clue that this is satire on the idea of perfect kids and the parents who would raise them. It's a joke made at the expense of those of us who push our kids too hard, who are too tied up in whatever given metric is being used to measure them (from height/weight as babies to SATs as teenagers). Keillor is telling us that the metrics are worth reconsidering. To push even further--he is saying that it is a vice to push for that kind of perfection in the first place, to make all these measurements.

How could it be a vice to push your kids to achieve a better SAT? Well, I can only imagine how we'd react if PC comes out "below average" in school or the Pinewood Derby or in something else a few years down the line. Even if I logically know that being "below average" in something is "normal," I'm also sure that such a mark would motivate us as parents to try to help him do better. This is because in my experience metrics like these are really not neutral observations of some phenomena, they're commands. To talk of averages is to make measurements against others, which means there's an impulse toward competition built in and a slew of cultural expectations attached. Average. It's a vice to push for perfect children not just because it's devastating for them to feel continually like they fell short, but also because expecting perfection leads us to underappreciate how our shortcomings make us unique human beings. To expect perfect every time is to corrode the soul. There are ways to lose with grace and dignity.

I'm sure that some parents need to step away from the child a bit, but for most of us, this is a mistake. A laissez-faire brand of parenting abdicates responsibility and forfeits the millions of little opportunities parents have to teach kids about the world. While some parents need to let the kid breathe a bit, most of us need to "get in the way," just not at the expense of our kid's well-being and a healthy sense of their own abilities. I suspect that parents of Lake Wobegon know this, and that they probably report that their children are above average with a wink and a nudge.

their own Everest

Last month the marathon came to lola and lolo's front door. Though I could watch golf on television for hours, I have never really watched a marathon on TV, attended one, or, least of all, considered running in one. My god, why would anyone run in a marathon? We were about to find out. Maybe.

Hearing runners talk, I know part of the answer--for many people it's like a hike to the peak of Mount Everest, a way to set and achieve goals that lends a person a sense of accomplishment. Of course, in order to realize this sense of accomplishment, you have to spend oodles of money and risk death (Everest) or train your body for at least six painful months for four consecutive hours of nonstop forward progress during which there is no guarantee that what is left of your body won't fall apart completely (marathon). It's an easy choice, right?

No. It's a brutal and misguided choice and your body is not going to be happy. That's probably why it also confused Jean Baudrillard, the French critic. JB compares marathon-running to the moon landing, having children, making a sexual conquest or committing suicide: things people do primarily to say I DID IT! It's interesting that he also sees in running a form of publicity for life: the marathon is a "demonstrative suicide, suicide as advertising: it is running to show you are capable of getting every last drop of energy out of yourself, to prove it ... to prove what? That you are capable of finishing. Graffiti carry the same message. They simply say: I'm so-and-so and I exist! They are free publicity for existence" ("America," p. 21).

The marathon gave PC and the rest of us a chance to witness what happens when people can't afford to hire a Sherpa and die a lonely frozen death in some remote stretch of Nepal. When Outdoor Magazine doesn't decide to send you up there with loonies to watch them die and write award-winning books about it like Jon Krakauer. When they decide to run a marathon.

This raised some questions. What do you do when watching a marathon? And if you clap, given that these people just decided to inflict unimaginable and unpredictable pain on themselves, for what, exactly, are you clapping? Most people can't breath, mind you, and a wave back isn't a great option, so your wave is actually a weapon that makes you culpable should this or that runner die. You have to think twice. Do the people in front deserve more vigorous applause than the ones at the back, who are clearly going to Walk this Damn Marathon If They Have To so they can say they Did It? Or is it the other way around? I mean, didn't the big butts at the end achieve more than the group of skinny East African men that floated by doing sub-five minute miles?

Lola and Lolo live on mile 11--literally. And as we stood there for an hour or two, spotting a familiar face now and then, a feeling of superiority slowly enveloped me. They had decided to run and I had decided to clap for awhile before going in the house and eating breakfast. I had my philosophical musings; they had the mythical "wall" of Mile 20 to look forward to. And perhaps a t-shirt loved ones could put on them for a visitation before the funeral.

We knew that the closeness of the marathon's path to the house meant that we'd have to pursue alternative parking spots. So on the morning of the suicide march I mean marathon we parked about two blocks away, put Buford on a leash, strapped PC into the stroller, and made our way. As we assumed proper spectator positions, I heard my name (with title, meaning it was a student) shouted unexpectedly from a seven-wide throng. I was able to spot, ever so briefly, smiles on the faces of two former students gliding down the street in complete comfort, pausing their conversation with each other to yell my way. Freaks. Would it help to know they were both Division I scholarship athletes on the swim team? Maybe a little. There was far less talking and much less athleticism as the hours rolled on.

Beyond my feelings of superiority, the best part of the marathon was realizing that the alternative parking meant, for a moment, at least, that PC was in the marathon too.

tooth fairy

Two days ago PC cut his first tooth. It was kind of a big deal, bigger than we thought it would be. It really puts the bite into a jaw grip that was already formidable without sharp things.

According to the Internet, teeth are important for three main reasons:

1. Teeth bite and chew food so that it is small enough to be swallowed.

2. Teeth help you to form words so that you can speak properly.

3. Teeth show when you're happy. Everyone smiles when they're happy. If you have nice clean, healthy teeth you have something to be happy about!

Well said, Internet.

everybody loves the shopping mall

One of ours puts up a monster, White House-inspired tree.

susu - so good

When my school switched from serving cartons of milk to those self-serve upright milk machines we were allowed to drink as much milk (chocolate-skim-2 percent) as we wanted. The new machines were so popular that some students, usually boys, would end lunch by simply parking next to the milk for an extended..........eh......nursing. Perhaps it was a way to talk to people as they approached the machines, perhaps it was early party-boy behavior with milk standing in for beer, or maybe these boys from Stearns County, many of whom lived on dairy farms, just felt a connection to home. A friend from Paynesville reported the same phenomenon in his school. There, they referred to milk as magic.

On our milk front: In September we were serving July milk (a great month for milk, btw :), but in December we are only one month ahead. It's just harder for a mom to pump and store and work a full time job, without spending a weekend also pumping. The timing works out well. As the dates on the stored milk catch up to us, and we feed PC more solid foods, we face the end of breast milk in PC's diet. It's been a good run, now we move on to some formulas. Any good recommendations?

Remember, this stuff has to be good, considering that the old milk probably made us better Americans.

day in the life

Spent milk shooters

6:15 handoff
6:45 awake to see mom off
6:45-8:00 shake out cobwebs, playtime
8:00 eat food food
8:20-8:35 calm down for nap time
8:35 - 9:10 nap
9:10 - 9:35 play time
9:35 - 10:45 milk shooter, stroll to park w/Buford & Kevin, playtime
10:50 - 11:50 nap and playtime
11:50-12:20 milk shooter followed by failed attempt at nap
12:20 -- 13:07 holiday songs and playtime
13:07 - 13:35 umbrella stroller walk through neighborhood
13:35-13:55 final prep for departure
14:00-15:20 feeding w/ mom at lola and lolo's / playtime
15:25- 16:15 car / home nap
16:15 - 18:00 food/rest/mommatime
18:00-19:15 grocery and office store
19:15-19:40 food food and playtime
19:45 wind down / tank up for bedtime
20:30 lights out

first food food

baby stats

Our morning looks funnier now that it's over. I was downstairs online when C dropped the boy in my lap to start our morning routine. Typically after the hand-off it's a diaper, an outfit, play time until C's ready for work, then out to the truck and departure. Today, halfway through the especially voluminous diaper I ran out of wipes. Bad timing. And since you can't leave PC unattended at the changing station, C had to come over while I ran off for supplies. Of course the tea water was blaring before I made it to the wipes, so I had to abort the trip and get that. The drama.

The last meeting with the pediatrician was all about the great big world of solid food. It's time for us to get out the spoon, make decisions about organic v. the other kind, and learn the differences between stage one/two/three eating. I think between the two of us we have it covered--the mini-lecture Dr. P delivered in our sit-down was packed.

All the food is apparently needed to fuel the big changes in crawl-ability and general mo-bility we are told to expect over the next three months.

family

Twas a slow November for blogging, but eventful nonetheless. Last week Grandma A. came for a wonderful week-long visit, which gave me the opportunity to stay home and be a full time dad for the first time since this summer. And more importantly, it gave PC's long-distance grandma a chance to snuggle him for extended periods. Thanks for the help, grandma!