It seemed like this was a particularly brilliant week for all your blogs. I kept reading things and thinking, “I have to SHOUT THIS FROM THE MOUNTAINTOPS!!”

Black Sheeped‘s post “Post in which I finally discuss my feelings on baby-making” reminds me so much of my own thoughts before I had children.

Bub and Pie‘s post “My Family Values” is probably one a lot of people are going to link to. The “my job”/”not my job” format appealed to me, and I felt like the post focused some of my unfocused thoughts about parenting.

Amazing Trips‘s post “Calgon, Take Them Away” made me literally laugh audibly (LLA), and captured some of the crazy I’ve been feeling around here lately.

Learning to Love Life in a Tiny Town‘s post “Funk” made me wonder if we’re all in sync because of the moon or the season or a blogging virus or something.

Hello, Self‘s post “Kiddie Coaster” reminded me of the great fears of pregnancy, and the longing for a little window so I could peek in and see if things were okay.

Messing With Texas‘s post “You Are Smart; I am…Not Intelligent: Version 1 of…??” made me LAUGH, and also made me remember the one time I went on a plane trip with a child…*shudder*

MO Mommy‘s post “Unforgivable” brings up a very important design flaw. I mean, WTH?? They must be doing it on purpose, but why oh why? Is it that they HATE us?

Ms. Congeniality‘s post “This Too, Shall Pass” made me hope that 1985 will sit down and have a little talk with my children, too, when the time comes.

Purple is a Fruit‘s post “Damning Evidence” is like every time we go to the pediatrician. Elizabeth refused to WALK at her 2-year check. Edward started screaming when the nurse marked his height on the paper with her pencil, and he didn’t stop until I was writing a check for the co-pay.

Under Construction‘s post “Blocks, compliments of our cherry tree” blew out entire circuit panels in my differently-craft-abled brain.

And I’ll bet I thought your post was totally amazing, too, and the only reason I didn’t include it is that it was after 1:00 in the morning and I didn’t know what the hell I was still doing up. So go ahead and include a link in the comments section to the awesome post I didn’t include because I was asleep.

I can’t believe that with all the baby name fans around here, practically no one is leaping on the opportunity to tell Jen what to name her baby.

I was lecturing my childless sister-in-law about baby names, explaining bossily which names she may and may not use for her hypothetical future children, and then anxiously explaining that I was kidding and actually thought that people should use the names THEY want and not let other people boss them around, and then going back and saying, “But seriously, don’t use _____.” I was hoping she would give up the goods on her favorites, but it did not work. She holds her cards close, my sister-in-law.

At one point during the discussion, she said, laughing, “Braden is a NAME?” Well. YES. And in fact, if you were to combine all the spellings (Braden, Brayden, Braeden, Bradon, Braydon, Braedon, Bradyn, Braiden, etc.), you’d see it was in fact a fairly common name, and getting more common all the time. But it was the first my sister-in-law had heard of it.

This reminded me of the times I’ve heard people say, “When we used the name we didn’t know ANYONE with that name. But then suddenly EVERYONE was using it.” I think the trouble is that most people don’t pay much attention to baby names–and don’t know many babies–until they start having babies themselves. Then during pregnancy they hear a name that sounds so fresh and new–oh, BRADEN! what a great name!–and it’s just the cutting-edge sound they were looking for. And then it’s a surprise to find so many Bradens out there already. Even if you DO know a lot of babies, you might not know the ones being named Braden.

The other problem is that as a culture we all tend to turn toward the same names at the same time. What sounds fresh and new to one person is likely to sound fresh and new to a whole lot of other people, too. When William was in preschool, there were two Emmas, two Abigails, and two Isabellas in his class. Also: two Williams.

I am very interested in baby names, and I’m a big fan of the Social Security baby name site (you can track the rising/falling popularity of a name for each year since 1992 [edit: thanks to Lucy who pointed out it goes back way farther than that now: back to 1880. Pardon me while I go play on the site all day]), so finding a second William in William’s class was no shock to me. After all, the name hit the top ten the year William was born, and had been headed steadily in that direction for years. But the mother of the other William was upset, saying that when THEY used the name there were NO Williams but NOW there were Williams EVERYWHERE. The mother of one of the Isabellas told me the same thing about Isabellas.

Here is what I’m wondering: how many people does this happen to? Did it happen to any of you? Did you choose a name thinking it was highly unusual, and then find out it was common? There’s nothing wrong with common names: I like them for many reasons, and in fact I deliberately choose them (I liked the name Henry back when I was pregnant with Rob, but wanted it to be more common before I used it). But I would think that if what you wanted was something unusual, it would be upsetting to find it wasn’t.

And here’s my second wondering: Has it happened to any of you more than once? Or was it “once bitten, twice visiting the Social Security name site”?

Good thing we like common names, or we’d have been a bit peeved about the “Henry” thing.

Okay! *brisk clap* New exercise goal! The new plan is to continue to exercise three times a week for about half an hour–but to gather a selection of choices so I will be less bored/discouraged. I’ve got jogging/walking as one possibility (not “to 5K” anymore, but just jogging and walking for half an hour), and then I added a Tae Bo DVD, and this morning I tried a new DVD: Crunch Super SlimDown Pilates Yoga Blend With Ellen Barrett. Sounds like a cereal, doesn’t it? Or a trail mix, maybe.

I’d never tried pilates, and in fact I was saying it “pie-LAY-tees,” so saying “pih-LAH-tees” feels like saying vahz instead of vase. I’d tried yoga only once, and quit after about 5 minutes of irritating music and irritating spacey white chick who was clearly under the mistaken impression that getting in touch with her ancient spiritual side made her less of an irritating spacey white chick. Um, no offense, irritating spacey white chicks!

This DVD was way better. The instructor is nice, and she didn’t irritate me, and her instructions were clear and had to do with the exercises rather than anything I was supposed to be doing with my mind or anything I was supposed to be “becoming one” with. You know how some instructors seem as if what they’re saying and doing represents the entire contents of their brains? Ellen Barrett seems more like this is her job and even her life’s work, but that she could probably participate in other activities or say other words.

The difficulty level was perfect: I couldn’t do all of the exercises, but I felt reasonable hope that I’d be able to if I kept working on it–and I could do enough of them that I didn’t feel like I’d wasted 30 minutes squinting at the screen trying to figure things out without getting any actual exercise.

I would like to point out that I am awesome for persevering with this, especially since my weight! it continues to climb! This is so wrong! I am clinging to what Black Sheep said in the comments section of the post on weight–that exercise is still good, and that it is still making my heart and lungs happy, even if it is making me spit death at the scale. Fie on you, scale! Pistols at dawn, you bastard!

Have you seen any of this Signing Time with Alex and Leah stuff? It is a huge gigantic hit at my house. I’d never heard of it, but when I went on a trip back in June, I needed something for Edward to watch on the hotel TV in the morning while I was getting ready, and I turned it to old reliable PBS, and this show was on–and pretty soon I wasn’t getting ready anymore, I was watching the TV with Edward.

I don’t know what it is about this show, but it’s so mesmerizing, and its characters so likable, that our entire family is now learning sign language signs. Elizabeth has a speech/articulation delay, and the signs have saved us from several difficult situations already. She doesn’t say the “ck” sound in words (she can say it separately), nor does she say the “r” sound correctly, so a word like crackers comes out more like “ah-ahs.” She was working up to a blue fit over it until she learned to knock on her elbow while saying “ah-ahs”: now we understand her immediately.

But that’s not really the main reason we’re learning it. The main reason we’re learning it is that it’s fun. Paul and I once tried to learn sign language (long ago, before we had kids), but we got so bored, and we didn’t retain the signs very well. This show is different, and we find we remember most of what we learn. Well, especially because the kids want to watch the DVDs a billion times.

The show isn’t on all the PBS channels yet, but the Signing Time site has a link you can click to see if it’s in your area. You can also order the DVDs, either on the Signing Time site or on Amazon.com. BE AWARE: the first three DVDs have been re-released to match the later DVDs, so make sure you get the “revised edition.”

My mom has a set of the flash cards and she says they’re GREAT: glossy and wonderful and easy to use. Our library has three of the board books and they’re great too: large for board books. I like the DVDs best, though, because I think the show is magic (um, not to oversell it or anything). The books and flash cards are good for reviewing what you’ve learned on the show.

Edited to add: the show/cards/books all use ASL (American Sign Language). Many “baby sign” programs use made-up signs and aren’t intended for use after the child is talking competently; the Signing Time stuff teaches real ASL, the kind a deaf person would actually use. Children can talk baby talk in sign language just as they do in spoken language, but the show teaches the real signs and then shows a bunch of kids and adults doing the sign various ways, from a babyish version to a kid version to a grown-up/master version.

Also, the show teaches mostly individual words, not sentences.

This is a fun test to take: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles/. It tests whether you can tell a fake smile from a real one. I got 14 out of 20 correct.

Listen, just because the Millicent debate was a long time ago doesn’t mean you can’t still vote. But right now we have another name to consider. I realize I am not pregnant and so have no reason to be thinking of baby names, but it’s a hobby, okay?

All right, get ready to speak your mind on my new Baby Girl Name of Great Interest. I’ve been saying it again and again for two days now, and I think I love it. As with Millicent, this makes me feel a little shy about presenting it to you, since maybe you will say “BLEH! YECK! GROSS! Oh, I HATE it!” But bravely I tell it to you anyway: Beatrix.

Discuss.

You would think that, as a mother of five, I would be immensely relieved to have two of the five off to school all day. But I am not.

Part of it is nothing but practical: Rob and William can be given tasks as if they were little remote-controlled cleaning machines–albeit extraordinarily inefficient ones I’d return to the store if I’d bought them for this purpose. All summer I could say, “Get the dustbuster and vacuum under the high chairs” or “Put all those toys back into the playpen” or “Put this dishtowel in the laundry,” and they would do it. I must have been giving out orders casually all day long without even noticing: with Rob and William back in school, the floor is littered with toys and towels, cereal and socks. It’s oppressive and depressing.

Also, they voluntarily played with the twins, and they did it more than I’d realized, because now I’m scraping bored twins off every surface. Rob could even lift a twin out of a crib–so if Henry was nursing when Edward and Elizabeth woke up from their naps, Rob could go get the twins up and give them cups of juice. Now it’s a choice: do I listen to Henry cry, or do I listen to the twins crying? Choose your own soundtrack!

And Rob and William could be trusted to watch the twins for short periods of time, like when I needed to pee or when the laundry needed to be cycled. A few days ago, while I was changing Henry’s diaper, Edward somehow magicked out of the ether a brown permanent Sharpie marker and used it to color on my yellow recliner. Yesterday he did the same with a black Sharpie, and also crayoned a clipboard. He must be squirrelling away any unattended weapons of destruction, then waiting for his opportunity to strike.

But it isn’t just the convenience of having minions to do my bidding. Another part of it is something I haven’t experienced since William was a new baby and Rob was a toddler: the unpleasant feeling of being trapped in a house where no one speaks your language. Without me knowing it, Rob and William were fulfilling some of my need for sentient companionship, for people to talk to–even if all they were saying was “HE HIT ME!” “NO I DID NOT!” and all I was saying was “Settle down now, I mean it” and “You are TOO WILD, go to your rooms for fifteen minutes.” Now I’m here all day with people who can’t even tell me what they want, or understand when I tell them what I want. I feel like the only intelligent life on this planet, handmaiden to the apes.

my planet

Semi-Desperate had her cute cute cute baby boy! Go say congratulations!