This weekend was mostly about the house and kids. Well, I did read two interesting things. One was David Brooks’ review of Blink in the New York Times Book Review. The other was an article, “What Do Women Want?”, which seems to indicate that there might be a growing left-right consensus for more social programs to help women with kids.
Other than those moments with the brain, the rest of the weekend was spent nursing enormous guilt for wheeling my clueless young son in a little car into an operating room. With a big smile and a trusting disposition, he jumped up onto the table. He obeyed the nurse and breathed into a gas mask, until right before he went under, when he began to fight with the doctor. They had to restrain him for those last few moments of consciousness. They escorted me, sobbing, back into the waiting room where I managed to lose my wedding ring. Jonah is not so happy in his post-tonsil world, and I fear that he’ll never quite trust me again.
On Sunday, my niece was baptized, and we had a lovely lunch with family and friends.
Today, we took the kids for a quick excursion to a furniture outlet. It’s high time to be a grown up and buy some real furniture. Not IKEA pressed board shelves and not furniture that spent some time in a dumpster.
My former neighborhood in the city was home to many graying, German-Jewish ladies who came here many years ago to escape the Nazis. Dr. Ruth was the most famous of my neighbors. Sadly, they are passing away, and their daughters leave their old lamps and chairs out on the street. Now, these objects are in my livingroom. I imagine that at night, when we’re all asleep, the original owners of my things gather round in their chairs and play a nice game of Mahjong.
However, it is time to push the ghosts out. The chairs are falling apart, and the lamps wobble. We are beginning to recover from our financial fiasco, aka graduate school, and I think we can afford a new table or two.
Apt. 11d 
Ooh, real furniture. I got lucky and inherited a couple of nice pieces from my grandmother. I was reminding Mr. Geeky that we bought our bed when I was pregnant with kid number one. Really? He says, has it really been that long? And we have the grad school thing too. Two years ago, when I took my current job is the first time in 15 years of our being together that one of us hasn’t been in grad school.
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We’ve also kept an unofficial chart of our progress into adulthood by the pieces of furniture we buy. Last year we bought a bed–our first, non-hand-me-down, non-used, all-our-own, bed. And this after 11 years of marriage. Kind of embarrassing, when you think about it.
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On the tonsils — did you hear Garrison Keilor this last weekend?
On furniture — this week I hope to buy a real chair, of wood with cushions and everything. Joy!
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We still don’t have a bed. Just two mattresses on the metal frame that came with them. That doesn’t bother me too much. But we need a table that seats more than four. The boys need a bunk bed. A coffee table to put our feet on. No big deal. It is sure is nice to be able to mix our our dumpster finds with some solid things. I actually like the ecclectic mix of stuff around here, but it helps to ground all the junk with a few good pieces.
Grad school kept us all in college dorm mode for so long that it is very fun to play grown up now.
The trouble is that we have quite expensive taste.
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Our kitchen table wobbles and the chairs are held together by Gorilla Glue, which expands when used, so not only are they held together by the stuff, hardened globs of it are a decorating feature at the joints of the chairs. But we just bought new family room furniture, and Partner had your same rule: No more pressed board furniture. It’s lovely. I hope you got some good stuff. I think perhaps the Crate & Barrel winter sale might still be on– that’s our particular weakness.
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“Family-Friendly” Policies
Via Laura at 11d, I found this article from The Public Interest by Neil Gilbert on what makes a policy
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