Last week was Thanksgiving. I roasted a turkey, hosted family and was appropriately thoughtful and appreciative of the love and gifts in my life. That means that now I can talk about something not quite as deep: celebrity baby names.  

I went to baby shower a few weeks ago and since the hosts had the sense to skip the really awful baby shower games, they had a celebrity baby name contest. They provided the kid's names and we had to guess the famous parent. Boy were there some doozies:  Jermajesty (Jermaine Jackson's self-centered kiddie moniker), Prince Michael I and Prince Michael II (the late King of Pops' sons, of course), Pilot Inspektor (funnyman Jason Lee's son's non-funny name) and of course, Apple (Gwyneth Paltrow's daughter's fruity name). 

I understand that celebrity moms and dads are scrutinized from the moment their progeny's arrival is announced. I understand that being famous means that celebrities get a free pass with a lot of things--food, clothes, tickets, airline upgrades--but I don't see why celebrities' children have to suffer the results of their parents' inflated ego. Certainly Jermajesty's name has been the punch-line to many a classmates' jokes. Poor Pilot probably already knows what he doesn't want to be when he grows up and Apple Martin has likely heard so many fruit salad jokes that she wants to toss her cookies. (Don't worry, sympathy for Apple can be found here.)

I'm sure many of these children are ensconced in glamorous private lifestyles and societies who cater to their big names and little desires, but don't these kids have to move out, go to college and get a job one day?  If these parents ever want their kids to leave the nest, they should consider how the name Diva Thin Muffin looks on the top of a resume. Also, what kind of nickname do you give a child named Bronx Mowgli?  Bronxy?  Nicknames are supposed to be cute abbreviations of grown-up sounding names, not odd abbreviations of really weird names that will never sound grown up. 

I don't have subscriptions to any celebrity-following magazines (unless you consider deliveries of Wired Magazine an indication I follow celebrity geeks) and I can't say I follow, nor can afford, celebrities' wardrobes or vacations. Considering I had to give my children names that would be understood, if not pronounceable, in three languages, I couldn't name my child after a celebrity baby even if I wanted to. I do feel for those little tots, but you know that celebrity baby name game we played?  I won. How do you like them apples, Apple?

Do you like some celebrity baby names?  Would you consider naming your child after one of those babies?  Since the names of Twilight characters have increased in popularity, would you be on Team Jacob or Team Edward?  (Leave it to me to ask the probing questions.)  Answer in the comment section below. 

Long ago, I read a book by Barbara Kingsolver called the Poisonwood Bible.  In it, a family travels as missionaries to the Belgian Congo in 1959. I remember that people of the village wanted to see what the family had inside their home, seemingly yearning for the possessions they had brought from the US. I remember thinking the narrators didn't have much; pots, pans, simple clothes, limited toys and a few personal belongings. Yet, after a tragic occurrence, the mother decides to leave Congo and starts setting all her family's items outside her door. It is then I realized how many *things* the family had that those around them didn't. The abundance and diversity of those pots and pans, toys, and clothes were not necessary for daily life in Congo, nor anywhere really. I was shocked by the realization that though the family seemed to have few possessions, they actually had plenty and neither the narrator nor I appreciated it until it was too late. 

It's that realization that makes me re-examine my life from time to time. I look at my friends with huge houses, swimming pools, two cars and glamorous vacations and feel envy. I live in a two-bedroom apartment that does not have a basement, attached garage, (not that we have a car), or a den to be found. I yearn for a guest room so my guests don't have to share the room with two early-rising children. Of course, I appreciate our huge windows over-looking the Hudson River and the greatest city on earth (not that I'm biased or anything). The hours spent there counting boats, helicopters and kayakers with my children is precious to me. But I also need to appreciate that I have a two bedroom, period. That it is filled with books and toys, largely given to as gifts from people who love us. We have a kitchen filled with dishes and gadgets so I can spoil my children with waffles on the weekend. We have a refrigerator filled with food to be cooked and fretted over as I celebrate this Thanksgiving as a first-time host to my mother and eldest sister's family. I should be thankful that I have my mother here to help me cook the turkey using the same recipe she used for decades. 

I was looking for articles to guide me how to teach the kids--who are still so little--to be grateful and I came upon this:  Teaching Kids to Give Thanks  / 4 Dos and Don'ts for instilling gratitude in your kid.  I liked the author's suggestion that we be grateful for intangible gifts such as: compassion, humor, companionship, and love. My children love their toys and books, but they are lucky that they have a dad with a hilarious sense of humor and a grandmother with a great skill for storytelling. They have an Abuelita who sings them songs and five cousins whose sense of compassion for their family and community is admirable. They have an aunt who flew to be my side when they were born and a grandfather with incredible patience for playing with trains. These are not gifts that can be bought, but gifts earned by being compassionate, kind and loving in return. That is a lesson which we can all appreciate.

Judging by the media's coverage of pregnancy and babies the last few years, it seems that the biggest fear faced by women after getting pregnant, is not only how exactly the baby will get out, but how they will lose the baby weight. As soon as a celebrity announces her pregnancy, pictures are shown of her with her "baby bump" as she is "rocking" high heels  (here, here or here) or a designer dress on the red carpet, all noting how good (i.e. small and slim) she looks. Should that celebrity gain more than the 23-35lbs women are supposed to gain, well then that's another story. Jessica Simpson gained 50+ pounds during her pregnancy and even though I dislike her very much (probably partly because I'm jealous of the gazillion dollars she earns every day), I feel badly for her. She did say she gained the weight because she ate “Kraft Mac n’ Cheese, Pop Tarts, Cap’n Crunch. Everything filled with sugar” but if my pre-baby weight was as scrutinized as hers, I might have done the same. If you missed the obsession with her weight gain, Jezebel kindly gathered 109 Headlines About Jessica Simpson's Baby Weight.
 
I'll tell you why women gain "too much" weight when they're pregnant:  they're miserable. They're tired, they're achy, they're scared, they're puking and the one thing that makes them feel better is a pint of ice cream. Or a milkshake or a bag of cheese puffs. Every day. They can't drink alcohol, soda or coffee, nor are they allowed to eat sushi (oh the horror!) or soft cheeses!  Body parts they never thought about suddenly hurt too much to make it to the gym. During my first pregnancy, people said it was great that I (supposedly) only gained weight in my belly. People would crow at me, praising me for my non-weight-gaining magic skills. You know why I didn't gain too much? Because I got sick a lot during my first trimester. I continued to get sick throughout my pregnancy, I had bad heartburn, didn't know what to eat sometimes and my appetite was unpredictable. I never even got that middle trimester of energy and tranquility and glow-iness. I would have rather gained the weight and been less miserable. 

Of course, some women gain weight because they're happy. They're happy to not watch their waistline for once.  Happy to have someone else (supposedly) burning 300 calories a day for them. They see this as an opportunity to do something differently. With maternity clothes mostly labeled as small, medium and large, made with elastic waistlines and expanding tops, there is a certain freedom to being pregnant.  

I would love to judge all those moms that gain lots of weight during pregnancy, but I can't. I know how hard it is to make good decisions about food all day when there is so much going on. It's also hard to predict how your body will react to said food or the millions of other changes going on to prepare for a growing baby. I've had very slim moms tell me they gained 70 pounds, largely because of fluid retention. Their fault? Nope. Moms who didn't gain weight because they were nauseous the whole time. Their credit? Nope. Just because a baby belly is out for everyone to see doesn't mean the public should get to comment on how big anything is. I can't tell you how many times I've heard variations of these comments: Your butt does/doesn't look big, so you must be having a girl! Your hips look wider/narrower, so you're having a boy!

I remember one of my male, single friends saying how impressed he was with a woman working out very hard in his spin class and how impressed he was when he noticed she got off the bike and realized she was very pregnant. The praise he lavished on her--along with his comments about pregnant women letting themselves go--were echoed by lots of people (men) who were never going to be pregnant and never going to be judged for the weight gained while pregnant. I don't know why they cared so much about the weight of pregnant women they didn't even know.* 

My advice to all  of you pregnant or soon-to-be pregnant friends and celebrities (there are *so* many celebrities that read this blog, I'm sure) is to eat as healthy as often you can, for as long as you can. When you need to indulge, do it without guilt. If someone has the gall to judge you for what you've just ingested while incubating a small child, please smack them upside the head and tell them the baby made you do it.

*These same people seem oddly invested in whether women breastfeed and whether they should be exercising throughout the pregnancy, but that's for another post.**
**If all those chatty people--and media hounds--redirected their energy from being horrified about baby weight to, say, being horrified about the duration of maternity leave in the US, I bet legislation would change quite quickly.

How did you feel about the weight you gained during pregnancy?  What kind of comments did you receive--positive or negative--that stuck with you?

It's election day and, believe it or not, it did not occur to me to write about the elections until a former classmate (and father of three) suggested it to me. But then I thought, "I don't know enough about politics! I can't espouse the candidates former voting records! I don't know the electoral counts of every state! What will I say?" As it turns out, I'll say what I know. 

I know that my parents were immigrants from South America. My father came to get his undergraduate degree, graduated, went back to South America long enough to marry my mother, and came back to get his Master's and PhD. My mother, who at the time had limited knowledge of English (though her French was good!) and had little family in the US, learned to drive, improved her English and worked hard to raise five children as they moved from Texas, Michigan, New York and Maine before settling in Ohio when I was five.  

Even though they were not raised here, my parents knew more about American governance then than most Americans know of South American politics now, in the global age of the internet. They also knew what injustice looked like and when they spotted it, they tried to change it. I remember growing up in small town Ohio and hearing them talk about  the Vietnamese refugees and finding ways to help them. They talked about President Carter and what he was doing in the early 80s. I remember my father building houses for Habitat--long before it was cool--and joining their board. And I remember them campaigning every electoral season. My parents would put up signs on our lawn, distribute them to others, they'd attend local rallies, and work behind the scenes for months on behalf of Ohio governors and senators in-the-making. My twin sister and I would make TV dinners and eat alone on the nights that they were gone. If they were campaigning on a weekend night, we would stay up late choreographing elaborate dance routines to show them upon arrival.  

My parents would write letters to the local newspapers--my mother usually editing my father's writing--that would often get printed. My parents were never involved to get attention nor were they looking for the glamour that party supporters look for now. No, they wanted to make a change. They wanted justice. They wanted the person who was going to make things right to be put in charge. I don't remember them telling me to fight for my beliefs, to right wrongs, to stand up for others; I remember seeing them do it. Not just every four years, but every year, every day.  

My mother became an American citizen when I was in sixth grade. She had retained her Bolivian citizenship for years, but she decided it was time to give it up because she wanted to be able to cast her own vote. I was a newly-minted 18-year-old when I voted for the presidential election for the first time. Since I was away in college, I called my parents to tell them I had voted, excited I had finally joined the electoral process.

Though I am not as passionate about campaigning, I am passionate about being informed and fighting for what I think is right. If I don't, my children may not enjoy the rights and freedoms I think they deserve. I hope that I can be the example to them that my parents were to me. 

My mother--still an ardent political activist--already voted this morning. My son got to see me vote today for the first time. I can't wait until he can debate politics and I especially can't wait until he calls me to tell he's voted for the first time.

Did you vote? What will you teach your children about political campaigning and the electoral process?

As most of the world knows, Hurricane Sandy hit the east coast and left havoc in her wake. Even though I've been woken by earthquakes, huddled in basements during tornados and watched volcanos erupt, I was in awe of the water that rose above the Hudson during the storm. As my husband and I looked outside the window at about 6pm last Monday,  the water was lapping at the sidewalk. By 8pm it had flooded the street and by 9pm the water was crashing over the fence--which stands about four feet tall- along the water's edge. I had expected some flooding, but hadn't envisioned the river rising so high. 

The scariest thing about watching my street become one with the river wasn't that my neighborhood was completely flooded, it was knowing we were the lucky ones. The building in front of us had dozens of recently evacuated apartments on the ground floor that were being engulfed as I watched. I knew several families in low-lying areas whose basements were being swallowed by the river. While we lost cable and internet access, most folks in our neighborhood lost power and, as we learned days later, many people lost their homes and loved ones.

For us, the days leading up to and after Sandy were an opportunity to hit the reset button. We stocked up on groceries. filled our tubs with water and listened to the weather reports on TV until we couldn't listen anymore. Growing up in the midwest where snow-days were cause for celebration, it was fun to tell Monkey that he didn't have school on Monday. After two months of shuttling him to school at 7:30 in the morning, languishing in our pajamas was a luxury. My husband worked from home and even though he was busy toiling at the computer, the kids loved having him in close proximity. There was no opportunity for outside distractions because the clouds looked threatening and – as I saw for myself when I stepped outside - winds were almost strong enough to knock people over  

As the storm hit in the afternoon, we watched with amazement as the water began to rise and we even let Monkey see the water pouring over the street before he went to bed. The lights flickered on and off, but it wasn't until the kids were both asleep that we lost cable and thus lost access to internet, television and our home phone line.  

Thankfully our radio kept us informed and I had sporadic text messages coming through so we could keep in touch with family and friends. Without errands to run (and nowhere to go), we filled our time working on tasks that we never had time to complete. I sorted through the kids' clothes and filled bags of hand-me-downs to give to friends. I glued Monkey's wooden bike back together, hemmed pants and did a lot of baking and cooking. Instead of being stir crazy with both kids stuck inside all day, it was a relief to have no obligations besides to each other. 

On Tuesday afternoon the whole family bundled up to take a tour of the wreckage.  All the playgrounds were closed because of downed trees and scattered river debris. The supermarket and drug store had floors littered with items swept off the shelves. Cars on the street were covered with leaves and dirt, while the cup-holders inside were filled with river water. That evening we were able to host a playdate for friends who needed to charge their phones as well as a change of scenery.

The next day friends got together again for pancakes at my place and a Halloween party across the street since all related festivities had been canceled and schools were closed for the week. The closest tunnel to NYC was closed, the PATH train that runs into New York was (and still is) closed and driving curfews were imposed, which meant everyone was working from home so long as they had internet access. Because of that, Sandy ended up being an opportunity for our family to spend time with our beloved neighbors instead of rushing by them, promising to get together soon. 

When our cable returned and I was finally able to see the devastation that had taken place in the other boroughs, I was horrified by the extent of the damage Sandy had inflicted and grateful that we didn't have to salvage our home, our streets, or our health from the wreckage. In the last few days I've donated items to organizations and given the workers outside some treats in appreciation of their hard work. It's not much, but once the kids are back in school, I hope I can donate not just items, but time and effort. Tragedies like this teach us to revaluate what we have, share kindness and to hold our loved ones close. We've been reset indeed.

What did you learn because of Hurricane Sandy or a past similar experience? How would you prepare differently next time?