Apple sauce is for the wild and daring
It has recently come to my attention that I am viewed by my students and potentially others as "sweet."  Even more damning, "midwestern." I regularly get comments on student evaluations such as "Dr. Flaherty is a really sweet lady." and similar.  Last week the projector refused to work at an inopportune time during one of my lectures.  As I cursed under my breath, one of the students heard and gasped.  "Dr. Flaherty!" he said. "I do swear." I told him, with a smile.  "I'm a grown up." "I know," he replied, "But you are just a sweet midwestern mom!"
This lead to a little bit of self-reflection. Lets see... Woman in her thirties with three kids and two dogs. Clean house.  Drives a minivan.  Obsesses over sleeping schedules.  Does laundry every night.  Likes to cook.  Has "date nights" with her husband in which they do things like make pickles and watch old television shows on DVDs.
GASP.  Is this what I have become?  Where is my edge? My mystery?  My ability to surprise people with all of my interesting juxtapositions and uniqueness? Instead, I have become a very traditional and yes, very midwestern, wife and mother.  There is little trace of someone who once skinny dipped and hitchhiked and could still cook a damn fine dinner if she made it back in time before heading to the bar.
How do I get that edginess back and persuade my students that I am not as boring and definitely not as sweet as I appear?    Should I start wearing black leather to classes and spit on the students?
Is this what happens when one becomes an adult (and yes, I realize that I have probably made that transition too, but I can only handle one crisis at a time)?
Patrick and I discussed this today.  He seems to feel that even if we move to a different region of the country, I will continue to be wholesome, sweet, and perhaps less midwestern, but still a wife and mother.  Of course, my quest to be wild, dark and dangerous is hampered by the fact that we spent the morning picking apples and I am now canning apple sauce and apple butter.  I fear that food preserving, even with the presence of boiling water, is extremely midwestern, very sweet, and probably wholesome. Gosh darn it, whats next?  Oh wait, I still have buttons to sew back on to Mariel's coat.  And then I will go to bed early....

4 months old!

Holden is officially 4 months old!  If you happen to see Mariel, you will find out that she also turned 5 and a half on the same day (September 10).  She has been telling everyone, which leads to much confusion as the rest of the world does not routinely celebrate half birthdays like we do.

Here is our big man:

 17 lbs and 6 oz (about 90th percentile) and 25 inches (about 50th percentile).  Maybe a football player?

The Accidental Expert
For some reason, a mother of three seems to be considered by many people as an expert in parenthood.  I am suddenly being asked by many people- friends, colleagues, complete strangers- how one "does it".  This is NOT an exaggeration. 
Store cashiers have asked me for labor advice, how to lose baby weight, and about strollers. At one store, the cashier really wanted to discuss her boyfriends ambivalent reaction to her pregnancy... and this was with a line of 5 people behind me.  
Colleagues want to know how to balance work and kids (My answer: there is no such thing as balance in your life.  And if there was, it is likely that you are not a well calibrated scale, anyway).   How to decide what is the best job for them? (Oddly, my answer is that the best job for them is actually up to them to determine, and has nothing to do with what anyone else thinks.  Given our professional obsession with what other people think, this is NOT the acceptable answer in academia.)
 But here is the question: Why does the third child, who is really just born and has not yet given me too much trouble, make me an expert?  I did not get all of these questions with two kids, and certainly not from strangers.  All that I have proven by, say, going to the grocery store with three kiddos in tow, is that I am both fertile and still capable of going out in public... is our bar for parenting so low that this counts as an accomplishment? 
At a conference last week I met a well known scholar who in a panel discussion mentioned the question of balancing work and family.  Her next comment was something about her eight kids.  I'm sorry, eight?  I think that the next time someone asks me for advice, I will refer them to her.

Does this count as modern art?

Mariel enjoyed her first week of kindergarten and was very happy to go back this morning.  She literally ran down the block to get to school.
She must have seen a puppet show or learned something about plays, because she spent most of the evening staging shows in our front room.  While some of the plays were very understandable and reasonably scripted...

Mariel: DAD.  This is going to be a grandmother and a granddaughter.
Dad: OK
(Scene begins)
Barbie 1: Hi! I am the grandmother.
Barbie 2: Hi Grandmother.  I am the granddaughter.

....others were a bit different:

Mariel: Is everyone ready?
Mom, Holden, Noella, Noella's baby doll, and Dad, all sitting in the audience: Yes!
Mariel: OK
(tiny stuffed pig rises over the back of a chair)
Pig: OINK.  oink oink. OINKY.  oink. (this continues for some time)
(tiny pig disappears, large stuffed frog purse appears)
Frog: Ribbet.  Ribbet.  RIBBET RIBBET. (and so on)
(Frog disappears to subdued laughter from the audience.  Tiny blue fairy appears)
Fairy: I am a fairy. I sit (fairy falls off the chair, reappears).  LA LA LA.
(fairy flies away.  pig emerges briefly, then disappears)
Pig: Oink! oink.

We are undecided as reviewers.  Is this modern art?  Avant garde? Or a production in clear need of subtitles?

The Last Day and the First Day

For Mariel's last day before school started she got to stay home with me.  We started out with a "big kid" breakfast of a cheese omelet and coffee milk.

Then she got to decide what we would do for the day.  She picked the zoo, with a very specific combination of birds, butterflies, and zebras.  She also got to try taking some pictures with my camera. 

 The Bird House at the zoo, like several of their structures, is a beautiful old building.  Depending on the mood of the toucans, it can also be exceptionally loud inside.  Monday was a loud day, and I think two of them may have been having an argument.

 When we walked out, we were surprised to see a peacock looking in.  I am not sure if he was teasing the birds inside or wishing he were one of them.

 Tuesday morning was the first day of school! 

It is hard to take an individual shot of anyone when there are younger siblings involved. Noella insisted that she should get to do her hair in a headband AND have her picture taken in front of the door with Mariel for the first day.

 Here is Mariel on her own:

 And the lunch, which she ate most of.  Their lunch time is so short, she said she ran out of time and ended up eating most of it at snack time in her classroom later.

 In front of the door, but with her backpack on:

 And then outside by the Avery sign.  At this point, I should mention, it was about 7am.  School does not start until 8:15 or 8:25, and you absolutely cannot be there until after 8...

 To kill some time, she drew this picture of herself on the first day of school:

 Finally, it was time to walk over to school with her friend, Simon.

 Students go to the gym for a morning meeting everyday.  Parents are forbidden from entering the gym; only kids and teachers and staff.  So, she and Simon held hands and marched themselves in. 

 She was so excited, she almost forgot to say good bye!  No tears from her, that is for sure.

And when I picked her up from the after school program, she asked if she could stay and play longer.  It sounds like the first day of school was a success!