Picked up this link from the Freakonomics blog: “I think the study of economics makes you relatively immune to cognitive dissonance.”
If I say Iran has a legitimate economic reason for building nuclear reactors, because experts agree Iran is running out of oil, it will be interpreted as anti-semetic. If I say the evidence for evolution that is available to me personally, as a non-expert, looks sketchy, it is interpreted as an argument for creationism.
The author sums up an appearance of Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg on the Bill Maher show. He states all the points Lomborg made and all the ways Maher and the other guests misheard him.
It drives me crazy insane when I try to tell somebody something and can tell that they are not hearing what I am actually saying but what they think I am saying. I never thought of it as an example of cognitive dissonance, though.
Last month, I took some photographs of The Liz Wood Project at Paradise Lanes for their cd Spare Time. I was waiting to post my favorites on Flickr until the cd came out. I don’t think they’ve had the release party yet, but Jimmy said they are already selling it, so the cds are in circulation.
I started GJ’s birthday scarf last night. I think it took me twenty minutes to re-learn how to cast on. I knit two rows.
I had a couple of moments of surreal at Sophia���s birthday party on Saturday. Jody Young and his wife were there with their daughters. The last time we saw them, it was in the waiting room at Gadsden Pediatrics when Ben was there for a monthly check-up and so was their wee one Tova. What makes it surreal is that Jody and I sat next to each other in��� I wanna say fourth grade, but it might have been fifth. Anyway, elementary school, people!
Crazier still, Karen was there with her daughter Emory, who is what, three years old? Karen is little sister to Sharon, my best bud growing up. Karen wanted to play with us when I was over at their house, and as sisters are wont to do, sometimes Sharon would let her and sometimes not. I recall that the three of us once piled onto Karen���s bed and played Candyland.
And now, we have the kids.
Yesterday, I sat with Ben in the nursery at church. He was happily banging on a little drum with a slotted spoon. I listened for the sounds of church, the faint chord strains that said the message was over and the worship team had taken to the stage again.
So many times over the years was I in the nursery, corralling little ones who wanted to go out and find their parents, waiting, waiting for the service to be over. And then yesterday, there I sat, the mom, free to come and go as I please.
P.S. Ben���s 6-month stats: 18 pounds, 2 ounces, 27.5 inches long (according to the ���net, that���s between 50-75% for weight, 75-90% for height).
Dad and Patsy kept Ben yesterday evening so that I could do some errand-running. I got the sweetest little hat for Sophia, emerald green yarn to begin GJ’s birthday scarf and returned the Halloween costumes that came from Old Navy. While I was in line, I saw a baby at the next register. “That looks like Sophia,” I thought. Lo and behold, it was.
So in my baby-less hours, I ran into Cindy and the kids and then Zach at the Moxie. I stopped by there before getting Ben to look at hair magazines. I would like to grow my hair out a bit, but that seems ridiculous when so much of it is growing back in after the post-partum mega-shed. I’m not in the mood for a super-short ‘do these days, so what am I gonna do? Mull it over.
When I got to Dad’s, Ben had finally given up and fallen asleep. I told Patti yesterday how unpredictable the mister is in the evenings. It all depends on when he ate and whether he slept in the afternoon, but I’m not with him then, so when I pick him up from daycare, I can’t gauge when he’s gonna want to eat or sleep. Some days, he falls asleep in the car on the short trip home. Some days, like yesterday, he resists a nap and just waits to sleep through the night.
And was he out last night. He didn’t wake up when Dad put him in the carseat. He didn’t wake up when I changed his diaper. He didn’t even blink when I removed his onesie. They must have played an exhausting session of patty cake over there.
Dad says that in his disposition, Ben is much like I was as a baby. Generally, happy. When he gets upset, it usually comes on pretty quick and he seems to have little patience for you to remedy the situation. Then, once the problem is solved, happy again.
The part where he must be in constant movement and refuses to wind down for a nap? That comes from Kris.
I lamented that when I was pregnant, I didn’t get any weird cravings. I wanted to have a story to tell Ben later about all the bizarre stuff he made me eat. “I ate a lot of breakfast foods” doesn’t really cut it.
Instead, I have a lot of foodstuffs that will remind me of Ben as a baby. Such as…
Crab Cakes. I’d never had them, but while I was on maternity leave (and Kris was still home on paternity leave), we flipped open a cookbook and found a recipe for crab cakes. We made them as a birthday dinner for his mom and have made them a couple times since.
Highlander Grogg coffee. Liz and Chris brought us some for feeding their cats, and Kris liked it so much, he ordered some more. It’s great, but I have now officially had Too Many Cups of it.
Green Apple or Watermelon Extra gum. Post-pregnancy, I felt like I always had bad breath and carried a pack of one of these flavors with me at all times.
Lean Cuisines (vegetarian flavors only). I’m sure I had a Lean Cuisine sometime in my life before Ben, but it had to have been over 10 years ago. I got a couple when Kris went back to work, because I thought they’d be an easy way to eat for one. I’ve been eating at least three a week for lunches, because how easy is it to pack a lunch when you just grab a box out of the freezer?
Eventually, as I do, I will tire of these things. And then someday, when I drift back to them, I’ll connect their smell/taste with that time in my life where I became a mother.
My mom would have been 58 today.
Happy first birthday to Sophia Norris.
Kris says no more trips if we only get to stay two nights. (Ben in the car seat for 5+ hours = not fun for anyone.) But we did have a good time, and I posted some of the bazillion pics we took.
When I picked Ben up from daycare today, Cherish mentioned his tooth that finally broke through the gums. I was like “what are you talking about?”
His gums have been a hard ridge for weeks, and Kris’ mom had commented on how you can almost see the whites of the teeth below the surface. But sure enough, today if you rub your finger over his bottom gum, the tooth is on its way out. Neat.
Well, knitting class at TLC started up again last night and I missed it. I knew about it in advance, even bought crock pot fixins so dinner wouldn’t be an issue. But as the week began to unfold, I knew I needed the evening for downtime.
But Laura, you say, knitting is only an hour! Plus drive time, plus parking lot chat time… plus pick up Ben from daycare and get home and rush… and suddenly I feel hurried and hurried equals harried and not fun. I want to go to knitting, but I want to do a lot of things.
As it was, I missed knitting, but I did have a nice dinner, a nice walk and Kris and I watched a Netflix movie.
Maybe a more practical goal would be making it to knitting at least once a month.
I do know what I want my next project to be: a scarf for GJ’s birthday.
