Supermom strikes again

Some things I did today:

1. Went to work: cleaned up laboratory, prepared class materials for next Thursday, taught 1 seminar and 1 lecture
2. Fetched my daughter from daycare
3. Delivered tax return to revenue bureau & got a little stamp that proves I did it
4. Bought groceries
5. Laundered diapers
6. Loaded, ran, & emptied dishwasher
7. Played with and prepared snack for my daughter
8. Walked the dog
9. All the usual (nursing, snacks, medicines, bedtime, etc.)

Why is it that some days I can do so much and other days I seem to accomplish nothing tangible?

civilized dining

My daughter has learned to feed herself with a spoon and (to some extent) a fork. She has also learned not to throw her dishes. She looks very grown up eating her food out of a bowl with a spoon. It is also a good deal less messy than her previous method of eating which involved, for instance, eating yogurt with her fingers (most of it somehow wound up in her hair). I am starting to envision my daughter as a little girl (rather than a baby or a toddler). This little girl has a thinner face and thicker, longer hair than my child as she actually is now. I want to say, "Hello little girl. I'm pleased to meet you. Would you like to stay for supper?" Of course, current version of my daughter can not answer questions in a civilized manner yet. Most likely, she'll answer with a frantic shake of the head and a firm "na"- bringing her mommy firmly back down to earth.

high fructose corn syrup

A friend's comments on high fructose corn syrup have inspired me to start reading food labels again (I’m sure I used to read them about a million years ago when I was single and childless). My husband was out of town last week, so I was looking for spaghetti sauce in a jar. I think I’ve figured out why I started making my own (not from scratch, but from canned stuff) to begin with: Every single jar had some kind of sugar added. Most had high fructose corn syrup. Why on earth would you add sugar, let alone high fructose corn syrup, to spaghetti sauce? Then I went looking for some cookies. I figured if I was buying cookies I should at least buy some that weren’t too terribly unhealthy, so I read the labels again and … all but one kind of cookie on the shelf had high fructose corn syrup! The ones that are marketed especially towards kids were the worst of the lot. I’m starting to consider the possibility of a food industry conspiracy.

Why?

Bird Counts

I'm not even sure I want a blog. I mean, who'll read it? Here's my first post anyway:

Yesterday, the univerisity's boat captain took my students and I out on the boat to do bird counts. It's not yet nesting season, and the morning session was kind of a bust. Puttering around the cays, we saw 4 species and a grand total of 10 birds. The afternoon was something else, though. We dropped anchor at a nearby bay, and walked through a bit of forest to a salt pond. I can't remember the last time I saw so many birds in one place. We stood with the trees behind us and the pond before us. The only sounds were bird calls and our own hushed voices. The birds took no notice of us whatsoever but went about their regular business of singing, eathing, and grooming. We counted at least 70 ducks. There were two species of plovers, moore hens, sandpipers, and more. I could float on this high all week.

I really love this planet. It's a shame our species is mucking it up so badly.