Hannah claps. There’s this song I sing her, from our baby signing class:
Hello Hannah and how are you?
How are you?
How are you?
Hello Hannah and how are you?
How are you, today?
Come on Hannah and clap your hands.
Clap your hands.
Clap your hands.
Come on Hannah and clap your hands.
Clap your hands, today.
I added the second verse because Hannah likes the song so much, and it gets boring to sing one verse. Also, I figured that hand clapping was a sign that would be easy for her to learn and sign along.
So yesterday, I was making some of my cheesecake granola bars, and Hannah was fussing. So first I sang her Hannah in the Banana Tree. And she was way into it, more than normal. Normally she smiles at me like she’s happy to have me paying attention to her and entertaining her. But this time she was jumping up and down in her exersaucer, rocking out. And then I sang Hello Hannah and how are you? and she instantly started clapping along. She was so pleased with herself.
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I’ve ordered myself a doumbek so I can take drumming classes. I spend a lot of money on belly dance and belly dance related pursuits. Classes start in two weeks too, and that’ll be some money, ’cause I want to take the advanced class, and choreography. I’d also really like to be taking some flamenco this fall (in fact, I think I might have made a deal with my favourite belly dancing person that we should take flamenco together), but I think if I’m drumming, I have to put off flamenco for the new year. Sigh.
Wait’ll you see this doumbek though. It’s SO beautiful.
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Speaking of money, I’m excited for going back to work. I’m so, so broke right now. I mentioned a couple times this last week how, when I go back to work, I’m going to be making more than Ian now. So my family thinks I’m a big braggart. But what I didn’t get to explaining is that I’ve chafed a little bit over the last couple years that for most of my adult life I’ve done the same work as Ian and supported more people, but my jobs have expected more of me and paid me less. I’m certainly not saying he doesn’t work hard. He’s a total hard worker, and a model employee, the kind of guy who only notices that it’s five o’ clock because everyone else is leaving. But the jobs he’s held have had pretty reasonable expectations of him. And, whether the pay was reasonable or not, it has generally been 25-35% higher than mine.
I can’t clearly correlate that difference to our genders, there are a lot of factors — including time he’s spent working for the public sector where expectations and pay are so codified, that gender-gaps in pay have all but disappeared, but also the pay is much higher. And I can point to male coworkers who have had comparable pay histories to mine. However, looking at the worst jobs I held, where the expectations were far-out-unrealistic and the pay was miserable, I don’t think it was any accident that they pretty much only ever hired women for those positions.
I think it also chafed that, when we were evaluating the costs of daycare, the only other viable option was that IÂ could not work. It wouldn’t make sense for Ian to stay home, because we’d be giving up a higher salary.Â
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When Ethan was a baby, he used to flail his fist wildly when he was nursing. So I took to holding his fist, with his fingers wrapped around my thumb, while I would nurse him. He still had to flail a bit, but he didn’t get so wild, and I could control his trajectory a little bit. So eventually, I would play this game with him, where I would bring his fist up to my face in slow motion, and when it got to my face, I would whip my head back making a “PSHHHHH” sound, as of a fighting blow being struck in a movie. And he would stop eating to smile or giggle for a minute, and then go back to eating. It amused us.
Someone suggested that it was a bad game to play with a baby, suggesting that hitting was fun. But I was like, “whatever, it’s a slow motion connect between the fist and the face, and if he starts hitting, I’ll stop playing the game.” And he never did. And I ended up playing the same game with Rachel. With the same result — a smile, or a giggle, and then a return to eating.
Today, I started with Hannah.
Hannah was the first baby to instantly see the cause and effect. She smiled (no giggles, ’cause that’s not how she rolls), and then she started to pummel me with her fist. “Do it again, do it again,” essentially.
What a smart cookie.
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