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By jamie, October 7, 2011 6:59 pm

This week Little Mama really wanted cupcakes, but I was too busy to make her some. When we went to the grocery store (hungry, always a mistake – I might be able to skip grocery shopping next week!), I agreed to buy a six-pack of decorated cupcakes from the bakery – she was thrilled. “Two per customer,” I said, and “only one per day.” She and I enjoyed our two, but GB isn’t a fan of daily sweets, so on Day Three he still had one left. Sweet as could be, Little Mama asked him for the cupcake, and of course he gave it to her. She sat at her tiny table and chair, excited with her bonus dessert. Until she looked up and saw her daddy having ice cream. Then all heck broke loose, “I didn’t want a cupcake! I wanted ice cream!” Then she did something I found astonishing. She smashed the cupcake and then stomped into the kitchen to throw it away. Are you kidding me? Little Mama throwing away perfectly good cake?

Claire Dederer compares living with a three-year-old to having a terrible breakup – “Irrational tirades and operatic flights of rage are tempered with appeasing manipulation.” It’s a fun ride though, no? I read Chapters 15-19.

She mentions date night with her husband in this section (evidently her husband is going through something, possibly depression, during this point in the book, and she isn’t being much help to him): “Date night, like any kind of enforced fun, bore little resemblance to actual fun.” Sad. The other night I looked across the pile of stuff on the couch separating me from my husband (magazines, papers, books, remote controls, kid jewelry, washed and empty Dora yogurt containers, Wonder Woman costume…embarrassing) and thought maybe we should start doing a date night of some sort. So much for that. (We’ll think of something. I guess cleaning up the sofa wouldn’t hurt.)

Their daughter is getting ready to start kindergarten, and they check out every school in the Seattle area to find the perfect fit for their perfect little Lucy. I felt a tiny stab of jealousy because we are very limited in our kindergarten choices – the nearest actual “big city” is over an hour away, and it’s pretty slim pickings in our immediate area. [EDIT: I do not mean that we have terrible kindergartens here, just that we don't have lots of choices - Montessori, Tools of the Mind, dual immersion, Waldorf, etc., that they have in larger cities. I think I would be tempted to look into private schools if we had tons of private school options.] Lucy and her parents settle on a co op kindergarten, which vaguely reminded me of Sudbury Valley School, where there is no structured curriculum. I also reminded myself that I have always said my kids will attend public school, and GB agrees with me, which brings me to another point she mentions in this section – having a gifted child is a great excuse to send your kid to private school even if you have always considered such a thing a politically incorrect thing to do. She talks about how the children of all of her friends somehow managed to place between the 98th and 99th percentile on the kindergarten placement test – gifted children, every one. Oh well. Maybe it’s for the best that our choices are limited.

Oh. About yoga. Claire Dederer becomes a vinyasa enthusiast – I haven’t done “vinyasa” yoga, but I have done ashtanga – a lot – and vinyasa sounds pretty similar, where you do part of a sun salutation between each pose (that’s where the somersault comes in once in awhile). I felt really uncomfortable reading this part, and I think that’s because it reminded me of myself – I want my yoga to be really hard, so hard that takes every last ounce of my ability to accomplish it. And because I have always gravitated toward the more difficult types of yoga (Bikram and ashtanga/power yoga), it does bad things to my self esteem when the “easier,” more gentle kinds of yoga are too hard for me.

But I also remembered the first time I ever did ashtanga with a teacher – he did NOT go through the entire sequence with us. He skipped the postures that were too hard, and eased us in over the first several weeks. And I didn’t feel bad, even though I knew from my home practice (I used a book
– that was before you could just Google a DVD) that he was not showing us every pose. I don’t know, something might be shifting me in – I think I’m finally getting ready to try. I hope I am.

Scroll down for other posts about Poser:

Review
Part 1: Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses, by Claire Dederer
Part 2: Lonely Books
Part 3: Imperfect People are Just My Type
Part 4: Smashed Cupcakes and Date Night
Part 5: Running Away From Home
Part 6: Yoga Teachers, Feminism, and Big Words

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By jamie, September 30, 2011 2:57 pm

In recent years, I have been fascinated by some of the research being published social economics. I like the idea that some economists are interested in more than just capitalism and “the bottom line” (caveat – I have never taken an economics class, and I might be somewhat ignorant as to what most general economists write about), so when I heard about this book, I was excited to read it. The authors, Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson, are journalists rather that economists, so I figured the economics portions of the book would be just technical enough to teach me something without losing me.

There is some risk in thinking you can learn a great deal about marriage by reading a book – just as our children socialize us to be parents, our spouses socialize us to be marital partners (for better or worse). That said, it is always valuable to hear different perspectives, and this book is full of information and examples from other married couples. I actually finished the book over a month ago, and I still find myself referring back to specific concepts that can hopefully help us achieve (maintain?) marital bliss.

To research this book the authors conducted a huge survey, where they surveyed and then interviewed hundreds of people all over the United States, asking them detailed and personal questions about their marriages. Throughout the book, we are presented with case studies taken from these interviews; sometimes informative, and other times uncomfortably voyeuristic, these vignettes certainly keep the book lively despite its grounding in economics.

Particularly for those who think that marriage is a one-time deal, and that making someone part of your family means that you are intimately attached to them for life or longer, it might be challenging to think about marriage as an economic partnership. We might think of our marriages as “too big to fail” much the way some gigantic corporations do (some think this even as they are about to crash horribly, taking employees and shareholders down with them – some do not recover from these often avoidable catastrophes). Even if we think there is a zero percent chance that our marriages will end badly, it is definitely worth it to do what we can to make our spouse’s lives (and, by extension, our own) as happy as we possibly can.

I actually finished reading this book over a month ago, and I can say that it has made me rethink some of my habits and decisions. Housework still gets away from me at times, and I’m pretty sure GB would be happier if I spent more time on the treadmill and less time shopping (the book talks about both of these issues). And I want for him to be happy, and proud to have me for a wife (please don’t take that in a sexist way – in an ideal world we should all be proud of our spouses, no?). As I write this, I rededicate myself to doing my part to make my home a happy place to be.

GB generously agreed to read this book with me and blog about it from his perspective. He did a great job on the one post he wrote, which was a big deal, considering he is not too keen on sharing his life in this way with the entire world (even though it’s a pretty small world mostly consisting of our parents and friends). Now that I’m finished with the book, I will hand it back to him to use as he sees fit. This might mean you will read more about it here, or not. I told him not to feel obligated – putting oneself “out there” in a blog, even one with a very small readership, can be an uncomfortable experience for many of us (and is hardly the way to make my husband happier if he is only doing it because I asked him to).

Most of my criticisms about the book are not worth mentioning, with two notable exceptions. The first one is about sex. It’s unsurprising that a book about marriage would include mention of this topic, but these authors managed to overdo it. Not only did they devote an entire chapter to sex (the title was “Supply and Demand” – haha), they found as many opportunities as possible to turn the discussion in this direction. Most of the time it seemed as though they were trying to be funny – they did not succeed. Some of their quips actually made me feel embarrassed for them.

My other major annoyance is that the authors made it plainly obvious (and I’m sure this was unintentional) that the book was written for middle- to upper-middle class people. They did not really cover marriages of people who are so stressed out with trying to put food on the table that they probably do not have the luxury to complain about their less-than-perfect spouse. They also managed to include an unfunny joke about gentrification and several examples of “free spirits” (read “freeloaders”), all of which I found to be appalling.

Despite these missteps, I am not one to throw the baby out with the bathwater, so I recommend this book to anyone who wants to improve their relationship with their spouse or significant other. You might learn a few things about economics which may help you better understand some of the shenanigans major corporations engage in these days (given my lack of education in economics, I cannot vouch for their accuracy in this area, but you can probably learn enough economic theory to get you through a dinner party, at least). The book will also give you plenty to think about that can help improve your marriage or relationship, or keep it humming smoothly if you are already (or still) in a state of happy marital bliss (and you will learn about how these things can be cyclical – not unlike housing bubbles, so you don’t freak out when it’s not all roses and sunshine as time goes on).

Scroll down for other posts about Spousonomics:

Review
Part 1: Spousonomics, by Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson
Part 2: Yoga and Over-Cooked Chicken
Part 3: Unpacking my Suitcases
Part 4: Don’t Lecture Me
Part 5: Games and Bubbles
GB Part 1: Post-privacy and Marriage

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By jamie, June 2, 2011 12:18 pm

Hi Blog Friends! Greetings from the Bahamas! I have missed you, but have been enjoying my break. Because I am completely out of control, I am adding two new books this week. Yes, I know it is Thursday.

The first one is called Spousonomics: Using Economics to Master Love, Marriage, and Dirty Dishes, by Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson. It applies economic principles to marriage, and it’s funny so far. Geek Boy is flirting with the possibility of reading this one too and blogging his thoughts. We’ll see.

Speaking of GB, he HATES that I start a ton of books and then don’t finish them, and maybe you hate that too. So the other book I brought along on this trip is Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen. Don’t laugh. I bought this one back in January when I was possessed with the idea that becoming a master of time management is as simple as reading a book about productivity. I teach college courses and take care of my family, but I also want to fit a lot more into the average day.