January madness

I spent most of the Christmas vacation visiting family members (actually my husband's family). It was pleasant and relaxing, and would have been perfect hadn't I gotten a really nasty sore throat on Christmas day. After some attempts to find a doctor who would be willing to make house calls, I found some antibiotics at home and just took them for a week. I'm happy to say that I'm feeling well and the rest of the family enjoyed perfect health.

Now the situation is as follows:
1) a long boring job I had planned to do during the vacation is still to do;
2) I'm teaching 8 hours/week, on two advanced courses that require a lot of preparation;
3) there are a number of funding deadlines in the very near future;
4) there are overdue papers to write;
5) there are submitted papers to rewrite;
6) there are a million of recommendation letters to write;
7) my daughter is getting dental braces soon;
8) my husband has communication issues with a student and needs (and gets) help;
9) I still have to plan a scientific trip which involves getting a visa.

On top of this, we are having the most appallingly bad (cold/windy) winter in 10+years..

I just want to curl up somewhere and sleep until spring comes.

Long Weekend

I spent the weekend in another town, visiting an old friend who has a daughter the same age as Hamster; I'll call her Mulan because she's smart, full of energy, and (despite her prettiness) her behaviour doesn't quite fit feminine stereotypes. Also like Mulan, she's a beloved only daughter.
Mulan's dad and I had been a bit worried preparing this vist; both girls are a bit shy, and their common language (and Mulan's native) is one that Hamster is not quite fluent in. The food and accomodation planned were also very different to what Hamster is used to.
But the girls positively surprised us. Hamster ate all the new food, and just didn't ask for seconds of things she didn't like; she let Mulan braid her hair, and they bathed together without a problem. Mulan let Hamster use her bed, and slept on a foldout on the floor; she didn't complain ever about Hamster's hesitant speech and funny accent, and willingly repeated at a slower pace many of her own sentences.
There were some difficult moments, usually related to a lack of food, or drink, or both, but they didn't last long. And I'm proud to have been with Hamster as she saw her first mummy and her first blue whale skeleton. We're now trying to plan a visit from the Mulan family to our town.
I think we need to be more courageous in traveling with the kids. Apparently the twins also behaved very well during the men-only weekend.

Yesterday evening

I picked up Hamster at home, picked up her friend Celtic and Celtic's mother, and proceeded for pizza dinner plus movie. The movie was Mamma Mia!, and ours where the only children in the cinema (at the 8.15pm show). They enjoyed it a lot, although not as much as we mothers did - we got a few more jokes, or so I fervently hope.
Hamster claims she can understand part of the lyrics in the original without reading the subtitles.
I have now ordered the dvd together with a copy of Priscilla, the Queen of the Desert. I will need to discuss with PrinceC whether the latter should also be shown to the children, or at least to Hamster.
Celtic is so named because when she started going to Hamster's daycare center she was described by one of the cafeteria cooks as "she looks like a celtic princess". Celtic is very tall for her age, has a fair complexion, green eyes and wavy blond-red hair. She also wears glasses.

Blog Technique - Family Names

I've decided that I need names for people in the blog, and that the system of numbering people, while mathematically sound, is confusing me (especially as the students are heading into the double-digits).
Hence, C#1 will be henceforth called Hamster: this was her nickname when she was a baby, because of how round her face was. My husband will be PrinceC (for Prince Charming, which is how he looked like when we met - no similarity with any Wildean character is implied, although he does age well).
I'm still working on nicknames for the twins: I'm tempted by Shout for C#2 and Whine for C#3 but am afraid that it might sound negative :-).

Back to everyday life

This week is the first normal week. All students are there, everybody has reached (I hope) their final office, and I have no official travel scheduled for the next few months.

On the other hand, my private life is full to the brim. Tonight, dinner at S#9's with my whole family (he actually likes kids) and his mother - who's a math professor herself. Tomorrow, to the movies with C#1, a friend and the friend mother. We will see Mamma Mia! Next weekend, London tour with C#1. Next week, I'll be part of a theatre show, reciting part of the declaration of the rights of women. This last event is particularly pleasant, since it's a direct effect of female lobbying, namely having dinner with most of my female colleagues (unfortunately, though more than half were present, we didn't need a particularly large table).

Now I just have to finish two overdue projects, but I find it incredibly hard since all I want to do is work on my New Pet Project. I have even chosen what journal to send the paper to :-).

Oh, and there are no comments at all about the Obama election because I tend to talk when I'm grumpy.

Big changes

Actually, big changes are usually evident to the outside world: a member more or less in the family, a new abode and/or job. Here nothing so momentous has happened, but still a feeling of revolution is dominating me.
The most obvious event is that the twins have started school. C#2 has already achieved basic reading skills (in the native language, which is one where the connection between written and spoken is almost bijective).
C#3 is not so far, but on the other hand he's officially the second best player of "Fusball" (Tischfussball/calciobalilla) in our household, and I have to concentrate pretty hard to maintain my leading position. At least the long hours of training in my university years have now helped me gain the respect of my son.
My daughter C#1 is taking both english and german lessons this year. Since the summer she has obtained a weekly allowance, and yesterday she spent some of it for the first time. She bought a "Teach yourself spanish" book. All I can say is that deep in my heart my 8-year-old self is dying with envy.

But the main change is that I'm putting order in my life, inside and outside. I've organized my new bedroom, formerly known as family storage area (what used to be mine is now C#1's). I'm not yet done, but I'm on my way to have a snug home office. And I've reorganized my office. Not only can one finally see the floor, and the cleaning ladies have actually started to clean it, but I know what's where - well, there are still some piles of junk I have to go through, but I'm definitely improving.

Last week I had my first (small) political victory in my current "leadership" position (the one half of my colleagues thought I was unfit for). This required a lot of organizing, but I'm quite happy with the result and especially with my choice of allies. And a colleague told me that I've managed to change my speech style: he said I sound much more professional.
I'm also starting to work together with the very few other female professors; that's particularly useful since we're distributed across fields and can give each other inside information on what the other groups are thinking.

And tomorrow I'm going to a conference: I have a pleasant and productive week in front of me.

Busy days

Yesterday I had an administrative meeting. It started at 9.30 am, paused for 15 minutes for lunch, and at 4pm the rest of it was rescheduled for tomorrow morning. This morning I lectured two hours; I'll spend most of the afternoon doing oral examinations, and I'm giving a talk tomorrow afternoon.

I spent last Saturday socializing with C#1's schoolmates and their parents, and Sunday caring for two more kids than usual while their parents took an afternoon off. They offered to have my kids Monday evening, so that I could have a date night with my husband. When I arrived home Monday in the late afternoon, C#1 had sprained her foot, so my friends took care of C#2 and C#3, while we spent our "date night" queuing at pediatric emergency ward (five days of rest, than good as new).

I definitely need summer vacations, but that has to wait until mid-July.

Plannning research time

I thought I had a great idea, namely to leave my schedule completely free on fridays. For some reasons, fridays there are less students around, so I figured out it would be a great day for getting some research done.
Two fridays in the last four turned out to be vacations/strikes (at school, which means I can't work). Today all seemed fine and promising - and when he woke up, C#3 couldn't walk. Well, he could walk a tiny bit, limping, and crying with pain.
So I called the pediatrician, and he squeezed me in at 9.45am - which means we got in at 10.30, and out at 11. Current diagnosis is arthritis, and I just spent some time looking up several versions of arthritis on wikipedia. None of them looks any good.
C#3 is home now; he feels better after some medication, and nanny is with him. Still, I somehow can't think of research at all. Unless it is on medline, that is.

Sunshine

This morning was a bit more work than usual, since C#1 had a guest for the night, her tall, blonde friend CelticPrincess. It was hard to convince them that bedtime had arrived. This morning, however, they behaved very well and went to school on time. We might soon organize a double visit, with CelticPrincess' brother (aka CelticPrince) also spending the night - he's the same age of C#2 and C#3, although significantly larger.

I spent some time organizing the children's summer activities, the family vacation, and booking visits to a house we may want to buy(!). I then gave a lecture, talked to a number of students, and have yet a few more meetings before I go pick up C#1 (who has two extracurricular activities on wednesday afternoon).

What is really really useful is my new computer, my first tablet pc. What used to be my own lecture notes, scribbled on several sheets of paper which promptly got lost, is now an editable file which all of my students get a copy of. Which means that in later years the same notes can be used for self-study, or to organize a student-run seminar. I just wish I had bought it earlier.

And if next weekend the weather keeps good, it's time to go to the beach. I love summer, even when it's still spring.

Long time no see

A lot has happened since. Students S#3 and S#4 graduated, and they got postdocs for this year and next year. Also, S#6 who's graduating in 2008 already has an offer (and more to come - he has done a great job). S#6 had a brilliant idea, with a great statement and a bogus proof. I hope that soon she'll get the proof right. S#7 is also doing pretty well. So altogether I have now three students, since S#6 will probably never graduate, but become a brilliant teacher instead.

I got some administrative responsibility, which I'm making a mess of, but not worse than the previous holder.

On the family front, C#1 likes gymnastics much better than she did basketball. She has a new maths teacher and her problems with the subject seem to vanish; nevertheless, she seems to have inherited my reading style and not my math love.
To give you an idea, she got one 350-page book as Christmas present. She finished it yesterday morning, and at lunch time she was on page 250 of the second reading. She doesn't look like me at all, but she's definitely my daughter :-).

C#2 speaks german fluently, if rarely. He still can't write his own name, and complained that Santa brought a game with letters but none with numbers. C#3 is trying to write more and more, and we're confident that a breakthough on the diaper-in-the-night front is also near in time.

We had a lovely Christmas + Boxing Day, just the 5 of us plus nine-year old neighbor J as a bonus elder sister. We played bingo and Monopoly and two different versions of Labyrinth (ours and hers) and baked cookies and ate them. C#2 expressed as further wishes to Santa that C#3 stop crying so much, and that mama would tickle him (C#2, that is) more often. The second wish has been granted :-).

Mostly, I'm wondering whether to move to a scientific blog in my actual name. I feel that there are not enough women scientists blogging in their own name, and there are not enough mathematicians of any gender. Speaking of which, I'l include two great examples of math blogging: the latest John Baez, with a commented list of free math books online, and John Armstrong with a lovely "Yes, Virginia" Christmas post. Of course if I could write like either of them (both in style and depth) I would definitely blog under my own name.

In related news, C#1 figured out that it's not Santa that brings the presents. She looked very proud of herself, and not shocked at all.

Season change, or lack thereof

I have finally finished selecting, washing, drying, folding and sorting the children's old stuff. Since I haven't done this basically since the birth of the twins, it was not only a herculean job but emotionally draining as well. As I dug deeper into the layer, smaller and smaller outfits came to the light, many of them still looking pretty new. I kept wondering where my lovely babies had gone, and who the big boys infesting my flat could possibly be.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to arrange immediate dispatching, so many boxes and bags are now lying around all over my bedroom and livingroom. A few of them contain also clothes of mine, including the elegant (and, you guess it, good-as-new) outfit I wore for my graduation - in my country we just wear nice clothes, nothing specifically academic. Hopefully all the boxes etc will be gone by tuesday: I can't help being a bit envious of Twice and every other mother of twins enjoying being part of such a group.
After all the work, the children started insisting that we go to the beach. Normally it's way too cold so late in the year, but the sun was shining, and I was exhausted... I decided, why not? The children bathed in very low, very warm water due to extremely low tide. I went with them, water until my knees, clean as it never is during summer, and basically all for us. We spotted crabs and fishes of various dimensions, and a large selection of shells. We stayed until the sun started setting.
On the way home, the twins fell asleep; after a quick dinner, all three are now peacefully sleeping.
It was a wonderful way to say goodbye to the summer, enjoying the calm sea and perfect limpidity of water and air, with dozens of sailing boats and behind them, in a bluish haze, the hills (and the factories, but maybe one needn't be too precise).

Intense week

I didn't do any research this week. I spent several hours doing support to the students. I should be happy that they are getting productive, but this means a growing pile of mostly badly written and occasionally wrong theorems accumulating on my desk.
I wasted an outrageous amount of time doing university politics. I may or may not have an official administrative duty in the future (I hope not), but I will have to invest a lot of time doing brown-nosing, which is the officially certified method to get poitions in one's own field in my university. It is very sad, but I'd rather submit to the indegnity that have my student suffer from me being overworked; plus, one deserving young person will get a good job, if I play my cards right. Still, part of me hopes to move eventually to a better and more honest place, if one exists.
I dedicated some time to maternal activities: I went to a meeting with the schoolteachers, planned a birthday party, and (drumroll) finished sorting and packing the enormous backlog of no longer needed clothes in our flat. Plus, I managed a trip to Ikea and bought a large amount of no frills storage funiture; when it will be delivered (by Ikea) and mounted (by WS, with some paid assistance) I expect a much neater household. I already reorganized C#1's clothes cupboard, and the twins' is due tomorrow. Mine will have to wait for a new, unbroken cupboard. I am still overdue in organizing the children's extracurricular activities: C#1 wants to try a new sport, for which she needs a medical certificate, C#3 will do violin, or swimming, or both, and C#2 will most likely sit on a chair and suck his index finger.
Next week I'm off to a conference, and after that courses start. I am wondering when I'll start to do research again, and hoping that it won't be too long.

Parents undressed

Slate has an article with the fascinating title "Are children harmed by seeing their parents naked?". The article itself is even more fascinating, since it completely avoids the question in the title. It starts by declaring that no studies exist, so in a sense the answer is "we don't know".
It then proceeds to say that younger children may not notice and in any case will not remember, so they should be no problem.
Mercifully, it also mentions that breastfeeding doesn't cause trouble, at least at age 12 months. I can't say anything about later ages since my kids decided to stop breastfeeding not much later than that.
It then goes on to discuss possible problem mentioned by adolescent psychiatrists. However, no evidence is given for such problems. It finishes by explaining at what age children want to stop using the other sex's bathroom, and what age girls don't want to be bathed by father any longer.
There are a few points I would like to raise. First of all, it should be very easy to study children of nudists, and see whether they have any specific sexual trouble. After all, there are plenty of people who go vacationing in nudist beaches with children.
Then, it should be possible to compare americans with northern europeans, who are used to seeing grownup nudity (e.g., when people change bathing suits on the beach they don't cover up).
Finally, a few remarks about my own kids. We are raising them as I was raised: going to the bathrrom for solid reasons demands a closed door, since concentration is required; any other activity does not prevent the use of the bathroom by the rest of the family. If you think this is crazy, try to grow up in a household with only one bathroom and see where this leads you.
My children know how they differ from each other, and from us. We have explained that grown ups have hair under their armpits and between their legs, that men have a larger didi then boys, and that girls and women have a didi so small that it's hard to see. We also explained that women need a diaper on a regular babies, since they loose blood; this is the blood which forms a nest for a baby inside the mother, and when it has been there too long and no baby needs it, it gets thrown out before it goes rotten.
My kids are squeamish about using the "wrong" public toilet, and they insist that their clothing and haircut corresponds to societal standard for their gender. They also prefer to pee privately, I suspect (but have only circumstantial evidence) so as not to use toilet paper.
I always saw my parents naked, and I grew up more or less normal. Or maybe I didn't, and haven't noticed yet.
However, one question about this article is really, really important to me now: is there a way to make sure boys do not want to be bathed by mommy anymore? I certainly wouldn't mind sharing the bathing duties along gender lines: C#1 showers on her own, needing only a look to check that all the shampoo has been rinsed from the head, while the twins resist and C#2 has still a strong opposition to having his hair washed. Had I known for sure that less nudity in the household would have led to me avoiding bathing duties for the twins, I would bought a burqa years ago.

Good mothers

With my usual delay I noticed a very good post at Tertia's So Close with an awesome list of comments.
Many mothers (fathers are mysteriously, or maybe not so mysteriously, absent) argue repeatedly the same point: that as a mother you do your best, and have to work with the child/children you have. No a priori method works in all cases, and different children have different time schedules for reaching benchmarks like sleeping through the night or stopping diapers/pacifiers/bottles.
Mothers of twins have an even clearer understanding of that, since they often behave in totally different ways: even same sex twins do that, and I understand even identical ones.
I think the post above should be mandatory reading for every first-time pregnant woman, and for any of the many people who are always ready to criticize other people's educative methods.

Half and half

I spent this morning being a mother. Or maybe a Übermother, considering that I had three guest kids visiting: one girl the age of C#1 and two boys the age of C#2 and C#3. I managed to do two washing machines, hang one and a half, clean up the kitchen, and prepare enough lasagna for everybody: all this in my spare time from the main activity, i.e., preventing the kids from killing each other and destroying the flat.
I am pretty proud of myself, and view this as an investment in the future (at some later day, the parents of the guests will be taking care of my kids). I only regret that I didn't get to eat any of the lasagna, so I had to grab a sandwich and a coffee before facing the afternoon as scientist.

• 2-3pm: discussion with the consultant for european grants. I did learn something, in particular that I just missed a deadline, but also that there is a very interesting call coming up in January 2008 and one in May. I just can't believe I can produce a decent proposal in time.
• 3-4pm: student S#6 tells me about the new reference he has found, and the progress he expects to make about that. We discuss some projects about how to organize his work in the next months.
• 4-5pm: S#4 and I go through the Nth version (for N>100 - she has at least one a day) of her thesis. Some of the major problems have been solved, but she still has a writing style too close to physics. Improvement is evident and I try to be optimistic.
• 5-6pm: S#3 and I go through his proof of something which I thought should be obvious but ended up not being so. It seems this time he has really fixed it, but some further adjustments are needed (especially "easy" details). I hope for best and we plan to meet again on friday.
• 6-6.50pm: S#9 tells me he has finished working out the details of the proposition we discussed last time. The result is pretty much of the kind I hoped it would be. I outline what the next steps are supposed to be, and we start discussing the table of contents of his thesis. He might have proven everything he needs to prove before Christmas. Then we discuss which techniques he should use to prove the remaining steps. At 6.50pm his alarm goes off and he tells me I should go home. He is that considerate.
• 6.50pm: I call WS and ask him to go home. I also tell him what edibles our refrigerator and our deepfreezer contain.
• 6.50-7.30pm: continue discussion with S#9, including which school/conferences he should attend and when precisely he needs to have a readable, preliminary version of the thesis ready - and why.
• 7.30-8pm: wasted time on the internet in a desperate attempt to unwind. I feel like I don't have a brain any more.

Many thanks to Sciencewoman for having this idea of charting down how to use your time.

Home improvement, and other weekend employment

I spent a lot of the weekend planning changes in the way our flat is organized. It is reasonably large, at least for the standards of the country I live in, but it's totally messy. Some of the cupboards don't open and close properly, and a few drawers are really in bad repair.
I don't have the time to go looking in different shops, plus WS and I like Ikea furniture anyway. So I spent several hours over the weekend searching the Ikea catalog and checking online whether the stuff was actually in the store. As usual, the store nearest to where I live has only about a third of the stuff listed on the catalog, so I will have to face a really long drive.
WS does most of the mounting, but he hates choosing. So I just took all the measures, made plans, ad showed him a list with the final result. He then suggested a few changes, but basically approved: we have known each other for almost two decades and can estimate pretty well what each other likes.
The main aim I have is that the children learn to keep their own stuff in order: to do that, they have to know where things should be put, and everything has to be easily accessible. Some signs of slow improvement are already visible: they did put away some toys, after being asked and being told which box they should use. I also did some tidying up so that now all the Duplos are together (I should buy Legos soon, I know - but I first need a good box!).
And I can't very well complain that they don't keep the books in order when there's entirely too little shelf space for their books to fit in. I wonder how other parents face this problem; C#1 laments that she doesn't have enough books, that she has read them all and is totally bored.
I spent a couple of hours supporting WS's mood, too. This involved listening at length to the precise symptoms of his latest ailment (he hurt his own shoulder doing sports) and hearing all the details of his latest research project, which is very far from the overlap of our scientific interest and required really a lot of focussing on my part.
I also spent two hours helping a visiting colleague who is going to be here for a month: I picked him up at the station and showed him around, politely explaining that yes, some people here might speak english, but he shouldn't count on it. Maybe I shouldn't have done that, since he's not visiting me at all, but I felt kind of sorry for him; the person who invited him will not be back for a few more days.
Finally, I am proud to say that with ten days still to go, the list of stuff to buy for the new school year of C#1 (which has been stuck on the fridge since June) has now been completely ticked off. Everything is ready. Fall may come now.
Still, I hope I will manage to go the seaside next weekend.

How much housework should children do?

I just read an article on the Guardian about a topic I have recently given a lots of thought to: children and housework. As a totally spoilt only child, I never did much. I helped preparing the table (at 7-8), filling and emptying the dishwasher (at 10-12), and keeping my stuff in order whenever I was yelled at.
I didn't make my bed since my grandmother found I couldn't do it right anyway. I never cooked anything or used the washing machine; only halfway through my teenager years I discovered how the vacuum cleaner works.
As a result, or maybe not, I am a total slob. My dream is to live in a room-and-board situation when someone else cooks for me, washes, irons and folds my clothes, and cleans up my room. Funnily enough, this is precisely how I lived in my years as a student, and I loved it.
So I feel kind of awkward asking my children to do anything. Still, I think I will soon start having C#1 prepare the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher, maybe introducing symultaneously a weekly pay. That's what my parents did: the money I received was supposed to be payment for my household work. Is 7 old enough? Should I wait until she turns 8?
As for C#2 and C#3, I have started yelling at them to put away their toys, with as good as no success. I am also meditating a "from now on you wipe your own ass" official declaration when they turn 5, but maybe I should wait a bit longer. I'm just so fed up with it.
Anybody has thoughts or suggestions on this? WS is not able to give competent advice, since he never helped much in the house either, and his mother is the only woman I know who's even more of a slob than I am (thankfully, or he would find it very hard to live with me).

Making order

The week now closing has been nonexistent from a research viewpoint, due to excessive time spent with the children. So I did other things.
I started tidying up the clothes and shoes cupboards at home. I sorted through piles of stuff which doesn't fit any child in my household anymore, and divided the better (to be given to friends with younger kids) from the not so bad (to be donated to charity) from the bad, which I threw away. Having empty space is a lovely feeling, and I hope I can keep going.
It is a lot of work, though.

Family work in a man's words

Via Salon, I found this lovely article on the New York Times. It's about a work-from-home dad who complains about how much timewaste a family actually is: in particular, how much times goes wasted in small daily emergencies. Nothing new there for me, now.
I occasionally wished I had known about this before the children were started. Maybe I would have reconsidered WS's suggestion that being an only child could have positive sides. I will try to remember this next time I compare my publication list with that of scientists with spouses who take care of all this extra work.
I actually do a bit more of my fair share, but then WS does more of the routine tasks because he hates the emergencies even more than I do. I am also ashamed to say that reading the article made me think "How long have the children gone without seeing a pediatrician?".

It's not an end, but a beginning

Here the world as we know it has come to an end. If I were writing german I would say that we have a Super-GAU (it roughly means the worst possible disaster, one which is out of control): the nanny took an extra, unauthorized-but-paid week of vacation, and the summer camp canceled the current week. So we (or, in this case, I) have the kids with me the whole day. Of course the weather, hitherto perfectly sunny, has decided to turn bad precisely this week.
I spend part of my time doing children shopping for the winter, like school stuff, shoes, and clothes, and some in my office, trying to get something done while the kids sink in an orgy of DVD's. All this interspersed with playground hours and organizational meetings with other parents for childcare and birthday parties.
A very beautiful essay I read long ago (I can't even remember what language it was in, much less the author), suggested that "It's not an end, it's a beginning" is a good guideline for any official speech: at a graduation ceremony, at a wedding, a retirement party, and even at a funeral. It applies well now, as the academic new year's eve approaches fast.
In particular, I used the occasion of being stuck in my office with a blaring cartoon movie to tidy it up and make order. I produced four large boxes of waste paper and three bags of junk, and my office looks much much better now.
I asked WS to throw away it all for me while I staid in the office with the children. He did it after receiving the following instructions: the boxes of waste paper go in the paper recycling bin; the bags of junk go in the general junk bin; you have to go there with the car since it is too far away to walk; the car is in the parking lot. Sometimes my spousal interations vaguely remind me of computer programming.
As I type, the children are colouring cartoon pictures on my desk, and I am trying to concentrate on doing some marginally useful work. I find it very hard to concentrate with all kids in the same room: legend has it that Euler could do research while kids played on his lap, so in principle it's not impossible (maybe that's how he got to publish as much as he did).
This year is really supposed to be a new beginning for me. I am reducing the number of students to a level compatible with my advising ability, I am going to spend some research time abroad with the whole family for the first time since the twins were born, and I am hopefully going to do some serious writing, both in research and on expository matter. I am cautiously optimistic. Happy New Year to everyone!