Words, words, words

I've been meaning to make a list of all of Paul's words but I haven't yet and today I realized it's in a way too late--he's moved on to phrases.

We take Sylvia to school on the bus. Paul's been saying bus very distinctly for a while. He's also had a little phrase he says before bus a lot of the time. Today I finally understood he was asking me if that was our bus. When I told him no, he said some different phrase before bus that I'm pretty sure was him repeating the idea that the bus wasn't our bus.

Gads, I'm slow.

I don't know a lot about human development, but it's been clear for a while Paul has more than just words in his vocabulary, that there's a structure to what he's saying. Much of what he says sounds like gibberish to me, but it's consistent gibberish so it's obviously language. I don't know enough about language acquisition to know if he's making up the syntax or if he's trying to copy us more advanced speakers, but it's obvious he knows instinctively there's a structure to talking and he's imitating or creating it himself.

I know I loved watching Sylvia go through this language acquisition phase. It's just as much fun to watch the second time around.

Stung

Sylvia was stung by a bee today. The experience was certainly not one she'll want to experience again any time soon, but the thing that struck me most was that she was at least as distressed by the news that the bee would die after stinging her as she was distressed by the pain. She's my little softie.

It's been a pretty good week. Sylvia went to school quite happily on Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday (which is typically my most ornery day) was pleasant all the way around. After a delicious and nutritious dinner we even went to the park as a family, where Paul herded ducks and Sylvia wanted to swim with them.

Thursday was similarly low-key, and today (other than the bee sting) has been mellow. I let Sylvia watch pretty much as much My Little Pony as she wanted, which is closing in on four hours, I think. She's outside now playing in water with her brother, taking a break from TV since it was "making her dizzy."

Let this be a lesson, mom: don't let big sister walk around with big sticks

Yeah, any time TV makes you dizzy, it's probably time to take a break.

At dusk I saw

I finally downloaded pictures off my camera. Looking through them I realized it's been more than a month since I'd downloaded pictures, which means I haven't shared any of our pictures from our last days in the states or any of our pictures from our first month here in Australia. Somewhere in the back of my mind I was aware of this, of course, but it's really truly obvious when I go through the pictures exactly how much I've neglected to share with anyone else.

Oops.

So, I'll post some pictures here, probably some on Facebook as well. Let y'all see how much fun we had in our final days before leaving and what our life's like down under.

I know we've only been gone a month, and we're so busy here I don't really have the time or emotional space to get sad about leaving. Still, there were some definite twinges of nostalgia looking over the pictures we've taken. Anyway, here are a few for your enjoyment. I'll post more...eventually.

Checking out the dinosaurs at the LA Museum of natural history

That's the plane we rode to Australia

What's summer without watermelon?

Taking the bus to Sylvia's Kindy

They have fish!

My sweet girl! (pre-black eye)

Journey to the other side of the Earth

We have completed our journey through the center of the Earth and emerged on the other side in the hamlet of Adelaide, Australia. I will not bore you with the details of our travails across boiling rivers of molten lava, through underground seas filled with the most fantastic of beasts, and through enormous caverns filled with beautiful crystals twice the height of a man; suffice it to say, we have arrived safe and whole.

True to astral predictions, it is summer here, and a very pleasant one at that. Other predictions (namely, that the citizens on the other side of the world walk on their hands) have proven fortunately false. I am glad I will not have to re-learn to type with my toes as this will speed my return to writing and corresponding with those of you we have left behind in our beloved homeland.

With much affection,

Mrs. H-------

Unpublished

Today I got an email from ResearchGate (a sort of facebook for scientists) that started,

"Kristine, what happened to all the research you didn't publish in 2012?"

Ouch.

Yeah, I know, I didn't publish anything. Thanks for the reminder ResearchGate. Now how do I unsubscribe?

Reading further, the email is actually offering to let you upload unpublished datasets and manuscripts so you get feedback and "credit" for things that aren't peer reviewed. It's kind of a nice thought. There are plenty of datasets that I will never publish because they're incomplete or don't tell a good story, or just don't fit in with the stories I do want to tell. 

But oh, man, it stings when an automated email comments on your lack of productivity.

Stress relief

You know, I've been stressed lately. Moving does that to me; moving to another country seems to make it exponentially more stressful.

I just got an email, though--we have a place to stay once we get to Adelaide. YEAH!!!


I think I felt my blood pressure drop 10 points.

Equilibrium

Too bad none of those kindergarteners had conceal and carry permits.

Guns don't kill people. People with guns kill people.

I'm not going to post either of those as Facebook updates. They're too harsh, too on the nose, too crass.

Here's the deal: we (currently) live in a country with as many guns as people, most of them concentrated in the hands of a few people who really like guns. Most of those people don't want to get rid of their guns because, hey, they're responsible (and they are) and guns are fun (also true, again for some people) and they cost a lot of money. People who own guns probably feel safer, even though statistically they aren't, and that sense of security is something many people cling to.

I understand.

I also understand that if you outlaw guns when there are so many guns out there already the only people who will have guns will be the criminals. We've saturated enough of the market that changing the gun laws now will result in a disequilibrium condition for some number of years in which gun violence will rise, disproportionately affecting law-abiding citizens.

I don't like the equilibrium point we're existing in right now, though. I don't like living in a place where a certain number of public places will just get shot up every year. With this equilibrium condition we have to simply accept the 30,000 gun deaths every year. Is that really where we want to be as a society? I guess so.

My fear is that the "equilibrium" in which we currently reside isn't really an equilibrium. My fear is that we're trending toward a society in which it becomes increasingly necessary to own and carry a gun. My fear is that we're becoming a dystopia in which the second amendment right for militias to arm themselves turns all of us into de facto militia members or nameless, faceless victims of violence.

Again, glad I'm moving to Australia.