Mystically Nonscientific

I just lost an hour's worth of blog post and I'm mad but better I still finish it today than someday.

A couple of friends of mine have been into astrology lately. Not the kind where random people get paid ten bucks to make up something for the newspaper horoscope column. I mean the kind where people have their sun sign , Moon sign, Mercury sign, Venus sign, and also influences from sextiles, semiquadrats and oppositions between different planets in the Solar system. It's so complicated and requires so much memory that I don't expect to ever really understand it fully, especially because I'm not convinced it's even partly true.

Lets avoid the word "pseudo scientific" and lets just say that no one has ever really been able to scientifically prove that astrology is true. Yet most people believe it even a little bit. I read on Wikipedia that astrology has been around for more than a millennium and it has had a huge influence on our culture. Makes sense, especially because astrology (horoscopes and such) and astronomy (physics of planets) used to be united under astrology. I might be very unfaithful to the entire scientific community with my next thought, but don't you agree that it's truly annoyingly arrogant of scientists to scavenge through a huge field, pick out the most reliable parts, steal them and then act all smug , "Bhahahahaaa, you astrologists don't have anything you can prove!".

Well, astrology hasn't been proven and it seems like people treat it as greatly inferior to religion. At least religion can make you feel good because it makes you BELIEVE that you ought to feel good, not like astrology which only tries to explain the entire world and all the people and events in it. I don't suppose there's many daily newspapers that print "A Daily Prayer for All Mayor Religions" and not many that DON'T print a daily horoscope, which helps people of all sun signs make serious everyday decisions, for example, whether it's a good day to buy socks.

I like mysticism too much for a biologist. I still can't really ignore that my in depth astrological chart says I could have mystical abilities and another planetary pattern indicated that I have a tendency toward (mystically) sensitive mind. I also find it very flattering that my chart describes a mentally superb person with great intuition, full of original ideas, highly intellectual, energetic, practical, and most flattering of all, it describes a natural born propagandist who can pass forward information in a way that it can't be ignored. On the other hand, it describes a person who is very stingy with money and relies on constant stability. When I had read the entire thing, I had a feeling that the stars are really favoring me!

By the way, if you can read Estonian and this all made you curious, then I suggest you try www.horoskoop.net, pick "sinu horoskoop" and then fill out the form with your exact birth time and place. I'm sure there are similar websites in English as well.

Astrology is just a recent interest, or rather, it's an old friend I bump into once every few years. I never know how long the interest will stay fresh. Soon I'll find myself talking with someone who barely knows me and when I talk about my hobbies, I will rather mention that I cross stitch, which is a very stereotypically boring hobby for people with no grasp on the century we're in, and I will avoid expressing any serious interest in astrology with the fear of sounding silly and dumb. And then I will tone down how much I spend time with it because I can't even talk about it.

It's a real nice change to not breastfeed or grow anyone inside me - at last I get to party without obsessively counting glasses and staring at my watch. I went to a great party on Thursday and I went clubbing til the morning with my sisters on Saturday.

Today I had one of those super productive days when things just get done and more got done than I'd usually plan for three days. The vast amount of energy was all fueled by procrastination. Tomorrow I'm doing a really scary procedure in the lab and so much could go wrong. I could perhaps help my situation a little if I go over my notes again in detail, but I really didn't want to do that because I know it would do very little good and it would make me more nervous, so in stead I made sure I have something else to do while quilt kept gaining on me whenever I slowed down too much!

PS! Today I saw two young boys messing about in the car park outside our house. It looked and sounded like they were spray painting the pavement next to our car, but I only saw them huddled there next to the car. It was odd that boys this young would get their hands on spray paint so it caught my attention. Really I thought it must be something completely innocent but I wanted to take a sneak peak anyway. When I stepped toward them, they ran. As it turned out, those boys were letting air out of our cars tires. Oh so it wasn't spray paint after all. If I ever see them near our car again they'll be sorry. What a pair of apes!

Controlled Crying Method

The most controversial thing we've done while raising Siiri is using controlled crying method to get her to sleep better. I keep analyzing our reasoning and trying to figure out if I've done anything immoral or has it really been worth it.

You might remember that the first months of Siiri's life we reacted every time she cried even a little. We decided crying is bad for her and we have to help her however we can every time she cries. It worked just fine until she started loathing going to sleep. She had 3 naps during the day (she must have been 8-9 months) and she woke up a few times per night. With her weight increasing she got too heavy for me to cradle to sleep several times each day. Erkki helped when he could but during work hours and night time it was mostly just me (except when I was so exhausted that Erkki woke up even before I did). But even then I kept cradling her to sleep.

Then things got even worse - Siiri needed help falling asleep but when we tried to help, she protested. I remember using my last strength to cradle her to sleep while she screamed and wriggled because she didn't want to go to sleep. It took me up to 30 minutes to cradle her asleep and even then she sometimes woke up an hour later. Enough is enough - the situation clearly wasn't for anyones benefit. The worst of it was that Siiri was starting to depend on it, so when she woke up for even a moment at night, she cried louder and louder until someone helped her asleep, and she kept crying while I was helping her. Sometimes she was wriggling so much she risked falling out of her sleep-deprived mother's arms.

We started with the controlled crying method carefully, trying to ease into it. We made a bedtime routine which ended with a lullaby. It was going well until Siiri realized that we only sing lullabies when it's bed time. After that she started screaming when she heard even a couple of notes of it. We tried staying in the same room to make her feel less abandoned but she spent all her time displaying how upset she is at us by crying extra loudly and not even trying to fall asleep, so our presence just made things worse. Besides I had planned to stay calm so I don't make falling asleep even harder but I became fidgety after having spent 10 minutes in an intolerably noisy environment and that wasn't helping anyone. Then we tried to at least leave the door open so she doesn't feel like a prisoner in her bedroom, but then she saw all that awaits her on the other side of that bedroom door, and cried even louder because she couldn't reach it.

So finally we settled into the approximately 10-minute long cycle. We signaled that it's bed time (bed time routine!) and we sang a lullaby, and then closed the door behind us when we left. It seemed important to portray a very calm aura even though it was very stressful for us. Siiri cried and tried to get us to stop this nonsense but we just occasionally, perhaps once every 10 minutes, went to her to say a few kind words and to offer her water. It took a couple of weeks to get used to it but then it all worked out. It usually didn't take her more than 20 minutes to fall asleep in this way, which is FASTER than when I cradled her. When she woke up during the night it was because she was hungry and even then fell asleep faster.

This sort of changes work best if they're universal so we tried not to make too many exceptions, at least not without a good reason. The worst time was when we were visiting Erkki's relatives. Siiri had settled into one nap per day but this time she also had a second nap not long before bed time. So when it was bed time, she was habitually sleepy but unable to fall asleep. It didn't help at all that she was supposed to sleep on a mattress on the floor and she constantly went wandering. We tried several things to get her to fall asleep - until we let her cry alone in the room for a while (after making the room safe). It was probably more stressful for me than it was for Siiri. There were too many curious people coming to spy why Siiri is crying. There were too many people coming to check if they can perhaps save the day and I was explaining to them that Siiri is already able to fall asleep if she chooses so. I told them I can't FORCE her to fall asleep and I can't help her if she doesn't want to be helped. Maybe it was just in my head, but I felt like I got at least a couple of looks saying, "what kind of a mother are you?!". Eventually it turned out that with enough determination, a baby can be rocked to sleep against her will if she's sleepy enough. All in all, it was a very uncomfortable situation.

I also told our babysitters about how we put Siiri to sleep. I told them that they may do the same. One babysitter asked, "But don't you cradle her at all anymore?" "no, I haven't done that in a while. It just doesn't work on her when I cradle her. It doesn't help her fall asleep faster, it just makes her more dependant on my presence when she needs to fall asleep." I kinda left it up to the nanny how she puts Siiri to sleep, but hinted that controlled crying might be better because it's more consistent for Siiri and she does know how to fall asleep on her own, even if she doesn't like it. So when I came home, the nanny said she put Siiri to bed like I suggested and Siiri was asleep in less than 20 minutes. She also said it was ghastly and said something along the lines of her not being used to this sort of thing and preferring cradling. The way she said it sounded very judgemental in an annoyingly polite way. Damn it, girl, you don't even have children! I was very polite to her and have never called her again.

So, what I'm trying to say is that even though it wasn't what I had planned for Siiri when she was younger, and it wasn't always easy, we used controlled crying method and it was much better than the alternatives. There was even a study about it recently which concluded that controlled crying method or sleep training doesn't lead to later emotional and behavioural problems. Sleep problems often don't magically go away when the child gets older and by ignoring the problem, the child might not grow out of it until they're 4 or 5 or something. I think there a lot of important stages in child development during those years and it's certainly not good if the child spends all that time being constantly somewhat sleep-deprived and the mother is almost always stressed. That could easily be worse than letting the child cry a little.

"The findings form part of a longitudinal study by Murdoch Childrens into infant sleep, which has shown intervention during infancy significantly reduces sleep problems in children and depression among mothers during the first two years of the child’s life." source

Before I intervened, Siiri was cranky not only during the night but also during the day. I didn't even know she was being cranky until sleep training started working and she became much happier during daytime.So perhaps sometimes it is best to simply let a baby cry. It's certainly not something I'd advertise as the best option for all babies but sometimes it's much better than the alternatives.

Epilogue: months after we started sleep training, Siiri almost seems to like going to sleep. She doesn't cry when I place her in her crib, and one time she actually cried when I didn't put her in bed fast enough. She no longer tries to force me to take her out of her crib whenever she sees me so it doesn't bother her if I stay in the room. I keep her company by quietly reading my book in the same room. I'm not sure she needs it but I think she likes having me stay in the room, as long as I don't make any noise. She sometimes smiles to me while resting her head on her pillow. I give her water whenever she asks and then she puts her head on her pillow and falls asleep without crying.

Books

I've started reading books lately. I never really fancied reading when I was younger. I remember reading a 200-page book completely voluntarily when I was around 15 and it seemed like a big thing. I was very proud of myself for years because I had READ A BOOK during my summer vacation. No one had forced me. Yesterday I finished Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy that consists of three books (DUH! ) that have 2130 pages altogether.

Yes, I might enjoy reading a good book but I can't help but count the pages. Assuming my reading speed hasn't improved much, it took me 71 hours to read this one trilogy. For comparison, Naruto original anime series was 9 seasons and 220 episodes. With each episode only 23 minutes, it would take a little over 84 hours to watch the entire series from beginning to the end. So was it really worth the time? I can tell you that Naruto series gave me a lot more emotion. It was intense - there were times I giggled manically about silly cartoon romances, there were times when I were sitting on the edge of my seat at the end of the episode and when it ended, both me and Erkki said in unison, "Next episode!". With this book trilogy the feeling was never this intense. I got an inner nag, "want. to. know. what. happens. next." and then I casually took the book and continued reading. At the very end I even preferred reading to watching a TV-series.

After finishing, I'm not sorry for the time spent and it really was a very good book. Well, it must have been good because I read it. I'm very picky about books and if it kept me intrigued long enough to finish it, then it must have been very good. And when I finally did finish, I took the next book in the queue: Brent Weeks' "the Night Angel trilogy". Another 2000 pages, here I come. I've actually read the first book a long time ago. I even mentioned it in my other blog: San Diego travelogue last days. It's the book with the bad-ass 11-year-old who is just so cool that it gives me goosebumps. The "second" book I bought from San Diego, Raymond E. Feist's "Magician: Master", was so horrible that I made it Siiri's first paperback fantasy novel. It was her practice book when she could barely fold the pages and hold herself back from licking the book.

The worst book I've ever really tried to read was "Myrren's Gift" by Fiona McIntosh. It's even worse than "Magician: Master". It just kept getting worse with the courageous hero squeezing through the toilet hole to escape a fight and with the long self-pity thought descriptions and awkward conversations where the main character is still praised for being eloquent and charismatic. The best book I remember reading was "The Last Wish" by Andrzej Sapkowski. It's a collection of stories about one monster hunter called the witcher. I can't even remember why I liked it so much. I just know that when I read the book I felt I had truly been missing out on a lot during all that time when I avoided books. This book is the reason why I've been trying out so many books ever since. So perhaps it's fair to call it my favourite book even though I can't even remember why it's so good.

I haven't talked about Siiri for so long. She learned to walk and then she started practicing walking faster and faster. I've even seen her spinning on foot until she gets dizzy. Having confidence in her walking skill has made her a lot more adventurous. Just recently she followed me around as much as possible and suddenly I'm following her around. She's very independent and opinionated and I really like that about her. She keeps learning new words and forgetting old ones so her vocabulary stays pretty much the same. She can use a spoon and she has even managed to take a sip from a mug without help. Usually she tilts the mug too much and pours water all over herself so I rarely let her practice. She has gorgeous yellow blond hair that's really soft and I haven't seen anyone her age who has as much har as she does. I'll soon be able to make two pony tails. And she's so vain! She found my bracelet in my drawer, took it to Erkki and extended her arm with a demanding tone. She waited until Erkki had put the bracelet around her arm and then walked in front of the mirror and started to admire the bracelet around her arm, looking at it from different angles.

With my long days in the lab Siiri has become more demanding of my attention and I've started to miss spending time with her. So when I get home, I take Siiri out to the sandbox behind my house. Yes! A sandbox right outside. I didn't know about it until I got an SMS from the nanny mentioning that they're playing there. It turns out it's always been there. It was simply abandoned and had some plants growing in it. And, because of this sandbox I realized that I'm much worse at calmly relaxing than I thought - I've started to weed it and throw out any leaves or twigs. I'm about half done and it looks much-MUCH better than before. ...And I always wondered about parents fixing up things for their children. I never thought I'd be such an activist. I even had my book with me but I was too busy to read.

So I guess I'm still not a book person even though I've been spending so much time reading lately.

Cat Person

I'm not very fond of dogs. They bark and drool and bite. One time me and my sister were taking a scenic shortcut through a patch of trees near our home. There were only a couple of houses there on the hill so we didn't expect to run into anyone. We didn't expect to find two insane dogs charging at us either. My first instinct was to stay calm and not to run but this tactic didn't seem to work. When the dogs had already crossed half the distance to get to us, and they were getting awfully close, me and my sister turned and ran. Dogs chased us quite far from their owners house. I got away clean but one of the dogs bit my sister's leg and ripper a hole in her JEANS. Fortunately the wound wasn't very deep and my sister did not get rabies!

The owners must have simply left their gate open because there was no owner nearby who could have been walking the dogs at that moment. Dogs wore collars but no leashes. We later heard that those dogs are often running around free. So basically the owner leaves the gate open for the dogs to crap in random places and charge young girls who are taking a walk. How is that right? If I didn't hate paperwork so much, I would have gone to the police to file an official complaint. Such dogs should be put to sleep. Or perhaps it's the owners who made the mistake?

I started thinking about it when I read an article about Estonians being too prejudice about dogs, calling all dogs dangerous even if there's no clear reasoning for such an opinion about a particular dog. Well, ALL DOGS ARE DANGEROUS! Dogs have the instincts of a killer, whether or not they've killed someone already. They're carnivores and they have evolved to attack. Horribly, they are more likely to attack those who they are not too terrified of and those who make them angry - for example, little children who want to pull on that furry tail or those cute killer ears. Especially with children's throats and faces so conveniently close to those sharp and pointy teeth. Happy little dog owners might think that sort of thinking is indeed prejudice, but when you think about it, even dog owners themselves say revealing things about their pets, such as, "My dog is so good with children. He hasn't tried to bite them even once!". In my opinion it's about as good as someone describing an employee, "She's such a good employee. She hasn't stolen from me even once!". Such a comment would make sense only in a world where employees are assumed to steal and dogs are assumed to try to bite children.

Perhaps calling all dogs potential killers is just as good as calling all people potential killers. That second one is, of course, also a true statement. It's not at all unusual to read about a disgruntled employee killing a few people and then themselves. One moment it's a normally functioning average person and the next moment body bags are being zipped closed. The scary part about most murder news is that most of the murderers were perfectly normal people until they suddenly killed someone. Some "normal" people look more like potential killers than others: a twitchy looking man with prison tattoos is worse than a friendly Sunday school teacher, even if neither of them has killed anyone. I would rank a vast majority of dogs in the more dangerous group. Just as the twitchy prison guy, dogs can suddenly flip and attack for no apparent reason.

When I think about it this way, I'm not completely sure why anyone would get a dog. There is perhaps one good reason: a dog is a legal weapon. As far as I know, it is completely illegal in Estonia to attack someone simply because they are on your property. Even attacking in self defence is an iffy topic and I wouldn't try it unless it's absolutely unavoidable. However, it's perfectly legal to keep a dog that requires a sign, "beware! Dog will bite!". Perhaps people wouldn't need dogs if they could just put up a sign, "Beware! I'll shoot you in the leg!" . For some reason the first is a common sign, the second one is not so typical, even though the damage could be similarly bad. Unless it's war time, there is very little excuse for anyone to own a gun "just in case" but too many people keep a dog in their back yard to ward off strangers.

How can I bash dogs so much and not even mention cats... Well, cats are just as dangerous, perhaps even more so, but cats are much cuter!