Perfect Number of Children

I have been contemplating how many children I really want.  I have 7 siblings. Growing up in a large family gave me a pretty good idea how families really look like: very social, constantly changing, chaotic and loud. I really doubted that I myself would ever aim for 8 children. Perhaps 3 or 4 children - that's not too many, right?  And having four children is much better than three, otherwise there will be "middle child syndrome". The middle child will always be too young for some benefits and too old for others while always being "old enough" for chores or obligations. I have read that parents tend to praise the first-born and pamper the youngest and forget about that middle child. With 4 children, this wouldn't be such a problem. The children would group into pairs of two oldest and two youngest and no one would feel left out. So it absolutely makes sense that 4 children is the perfect number of children. Right? Well, yes, if I wasn't fond of having hobbies or a night off or anything like that for the next several years.

Not having any children was never an option. If nothing else, I would have adopted. Otherwise I would feel like I'm missing something from my life. I guess I could have waited a few years, but the odds of having a healthy pregnancy and a healthy child are greater as a younger parent, so it would have been irresponsible to procrastinate and postpone something that was inevitable anyway. Only having one child is almost like not having children at all. There would be no kids playing in the background. Only one depressed and lonely child who is forced to hang out in the adult world all alone. Having two children is nice, but when one person is away from home, it will be so quiet and empty. That's not at all how I imagined my home of the future.

I have read that four children is "a lot of work" but it's rarely explained what it means. I assumed they mean the effort of getting children fed, washed, etc. My logic had seemed very solid: when kids are a bit older, they don't need to be looked after so closely. I now realize that TIME is the biggest deficit. Even with 2 children it's suddenly so difficult to find free time. So the logic has changed into: when kids are a bit older, I wouldn't have time to look after them because I'm busy with their younger sibling. I wasn't too fond of the involuntary independence I had as a child. It would have been nice if I hadn't been so solely responsible for my life and everyday problems from quite early on. Parental guidance seems like a good idea.  But if I have half as many kids as my parents, then my children would get twice as much attention and time from their parents as I did from mine. Maybe it would be even better if there were only two of them and they got four times as much attention and time.

Erkki's opinion matters as well. We had this talk a long time before we got married. I said four, he said two. I said, "compromise: three!", he said, "let's review after the first child." and after the first child he said, "lets review after the second child", and after the second child he said, "lets discuss this another time.".  Now suddenly I was saying "okay, 3 will be enough" and he was still stuck on 2. So now the number is between 2 and 3. If a couple is between 0 and 1, then it's easy to decide what is fair they should have that one child so that their heritage is preserved. Between 1 and 2 they should go for two because most people with that experience say that it sucks to be an only child. Between 2 and 3 it's just preference. Between 3 and 4 is "ah, to hell with it - it's already so chaotic and loud that one more child won't change much.". But that means that even I admit that 3 children means chaos! Maybe that's why I prefer 3: family is supposed to be somewhat chaotic! Besides, it also makes family life dynamic and interesting.

I feel that the choice between two and three is mostly up to me because 3 is already the compromise number. If he says "2 kids" and I say "4 kids", it wouldn't be fair for him to wait a few years and add, "2 kids and that's FINAL!". But do I really want a third child? I know it's such trouble to take care of a baby/toddler, I know my life stops for a while and my career suffers. It's more difficult to travel with 3 children and it's more difficult to find a babysitter. It's also more time-consuming to drive them around when they get hobbies and it takes a lot of effort to make sure they have decent clothes. It's just so troublesome to have any children, it really is! My life would be so much easier if I just didn't have to worry about any children ever.  I would also end up sad and lonely, but it would still be an easier life. I know a person who aspires to slack off as much as possible and seeks ways to do that efficiently but most people aspire to be happy. I knew there would be no happiness without children but does it really matter if it's two or if it's three. My genes have been passed on already, why repeat the process?

I wouldn't mind being pregnant again. The second pregnancy was quite exhausting but I still felt very comfortable with pregnancy. It felt somehow so positive. You know the instant good will you feel when you hear someone is pregnant? Well, I felt that about myself, which seems weird in hindsight. It would be sad if that was my last time to ever be pregnant. Giving birth is a different story. I wouldn't want to repeat that. The  early baby time was really nice with Liisa. She really made it easy. She is very easy to calm down and she's just amazing. Siiri was an easy baby and Liisa was three times easier! She sleeps well, eats fast, has a good appetite, is active and totally adorable.  But I lost a year. Completely lost it and I can't ever get it back. I barely see my friends, I'm constantly busy with children and their food and playtime, their safety and their outdoor time. It is nice that I'm usually the first person to see their development but I don't develop at all. I'm risking mental retardation here.  I have stopped thinking about how it might look and I just go with the flow. I baby-talk with my children and it doesn't even feel unnatural anymore. Okay, to be honest, my kind of baby-talk still follows certain rules. I use real words and I simplify things a little, but I explain the world like it is. Siiri likes it when I explain bacteria to her and I'm already starting to use key phrases when talking with Liisa. But I still usually talk in such a way that even a (very smart) 3-year old could understand me and it's increasingly difficult to switch over to adult conversation. It will pass when children grow older but would I really want to go back to square one with another baby?

Due to my education and career plans, another baby couldn't possibly be planned sooner than 4-5 years from now. For some people it seems like a perfect pause between two children but to me it seems horribly wasteful. In 4-5 years I will have finally got my life back and I can go to the movies, conferences, restaurants, tropical islands... And then I ruin it all with another baby whose world breaks apart when I walk to another room. But then again, I have several female friends who are currently either single or simply don't have children yet. Maybe they'll have children in a few years and then having kids will be the social thing to do. Besides, I'll have more opportunity to pay attention to the third child when older children are a bit older and no one will feel left out. But I won't be able to travel for years and I will have to spend a lot of time at home.

And just to make it clear, with each child I lose years of my life. Not only because of the time dedicated to only them, but also the time when I'm so stretched thin with all the toddler care topics in my "free time" that I barely get to concentrate at work. I miss the freedom to stay in the laboratory until late evening.   I won't have that for years to come. Having a family is such a disadvantage in science.

In every logical way, it makes sense to stop at two. We'd have more time, money, easier life, I'd have a better career, we can buy nicer cars, stay at better hotels, travel to nicer places and the list goes on and on. There is no reason to have a third child, especially after several years of pause when the girls are already becoming quite independent. So why can't I really picture a future with only two children. Why do I keep making excuses to fit another child into my life. To be fair, I can't picture it with three children either because I keep imagining all the things I've lost because of that one choice. Not being able to make up my mind is really stressing me out. I won't have the answer until 4-5 years from now. Of course I know that nature and health can't be planned, so any plans might be changed at the last minute. I'm leaning towards three. Feel free to comment and discuss whether it's better to have more children or less.

Lack of Life but Fun

My life is standing still while I get to observe Siiri and Liisa change every month or week or even every day. Some skills are learned gradually while most skills come as a surprise. I didn't know Siiri knew any numbers in English before she just listed ten first numbers. It took weeks for Liisa to learn to crawl and then move on all fours but only one hour of professional exercise was needed for her to become twice as fast. One day I was worried that she will go to the other end of the room when I turn around for a few seconds, then she had one hour of a baby exercising and the next day she needed as much time to go to the other room. One more hour of exercise later she started pulling herself up every chance she got. She just turned 8 months and she can already pull herself up and stand!   Amazing physical development! There's usually a balance between physical and mental development: baby is either talking or walking early. I'm not too worried about her being early in physical development and late with her mental development because at 7 months old, she started saying "mommy" (emme). She hasn't quite decided what it means: mother or milk or "something good", but she definitely says it deliberately and sometimes repeats it after me. 

Siiri's sleeping has gotten a lot better. She usually sleeps at our bed now. Here I must admit that my views on co-sleeping have changed. It's a perfectly good way to get as much sleep as possible. I feed Liisa in bed and usually fall asleep while I feed her at night, so she sleeps in our bed very often. Now how can we tell Siiri that Liisa can sleep in our bed, but she has to sleep all the way in another room at the other end of the apartment, all alone. We can't tell her that without excluding her and being totally unfair. I still think it was a good idea to put Siiri in her own room when she was 6 months old. Otherwise she always woke up when we went to sleep and then it was not at all easy to cradle her back to sleep. When she slept in her own room, me and Erkki could at least talk before falling asleep. But now Siiri often sleeps in our room and seems a lot less stressed. Perhaps it gives her a sense of belonging to the family. It is way too crowded in our bed - it's just not meant for 4 people!  - but Siiri falls asleep quite easily and lately hasn't had many night terrors.

Liisa falls asleep super easily. I never cradle her to sleep. I refuse to do it after Siiri had gotten so dependent on it that we had to do it several times per night. Well, except if you count the times when I use Ergo Baby carrier to carry Liisa around until she falls asleep. That's the Plan B when we have visitors and Liisa is over-tired.  I don't want to spend much time in the other room just reading the news on my phone next to Liisa even though I know she would finally fall asleep. But that's how I usually do it: I only have to lay by her side and she falls asleep. It never works for Erkki. He does have to cradle her if he wants her to fall asleep. You might think - sure, it makes sense because he doesn't have milk. Actually it's not about the milk. When she has already eaten, she lays next to me, peeks to make sure it's really me, and then closes her eyes and soon falls asleep without any fuss. With Erkki, she opens her eyes, looks at Erkki and gets annoyed that I'm nowhere in sight.   She's a really low-maintenance baby when she's with me, but she sometimes gives other people a hard time. She's very attached to me and it will be difficult for me to go back to school in September.

Learning to drive is going well. We still haven't given up and haven't crashed any cars. The entire first driving lesson I drove around in an empty parking lot. And I've actually finishes most of the obligatory amount of lessons three years ago. It wasn't about not being able to drive. I was simply not willing drive on the road after my previous experience with it. The second lesson started off in another empty parking lot where I was making circle after circle, testing breaks, getting used to using the correct lights and trying to get used to sitting "in the wrong seat". The ever patient driving instructor commented that we should to circles to the other side as well. I did that. Circle. Circle. Bigger circle... He looked like he was suppressing a yawn and finally asked me, "Shall we go on the road now?". "Okay, lets go." Oh my god, I was so nervous when I drove where he told me to drive and I was trying not to panic. Surprisingly, he commented very little. He observed, advised and answered questions but there was no constant nagging, differently from my first driving instructor. It occasionally even feels good to drive. Now I've had a few lessons and last time I was already driving completely different kinds of circles - traffic circles! I even drove on one of the scariest circles in Tartu. I drove out of my lane once but didn't kill anyone.  That has to count for something.

Driving school has one big flaw. It takes up a lot of time. It's basically 6 hours per week of extra time. Erkki's parents help during the theory classes and we take turns with the driving lessons. Erkki has his lesson first, then finishes in front of our home, he comes up to our apartment, I go down and get in the car for my lesson. This way we don't need to find a babysitter for each driving lesson and kids are never left unsupervised.

Other than learning to drive, occasionally going to the doctor or dentist and rare social events, my life is totally on hold. I have so little time to think about it that I'm not too sad. It's just a grim reality, why feel sadness. I just try to take the most of my current situation. I've pretty much mastered sweet yeast dough and even my 50% graham flour dough rises almost as well. Soon it will be rhubarb pie season again. All my creative energy goes into purees! "How about oat-apple-plum for breakfast? And cabbage-beef.... and carrots!.... and... potatoes? Cabbage-beef-carrot-potato! She'll love it."  Liisa eats quite well and she drinks water very well, which is very useful. Making purees takes a lot of time but it's good not to depend on jars of puree that I can't even pick out myself (because usually Erkki goes to the grocery store).

Siiri got accepted into a kindergarten which is quite close to our home. She'll start in august. She's very excited about it even though she's still very suspicious of boys. She's convinced that "boy" doesn't want to do anything that she considers fun and she even says that she wants to make "boy" cry. She wants to pick up "boy" and throw him and make him sad. Me and Erkki have no idea which boy she really means but she always makes an exception to boys who are friendly and she sometimes mistakes inconsiderate little girls for boys. I wonder when I should show her drawing of body parts to explain that "boy" isn't synonymous with "inconsiderate or annoying child". Siiri's tendency to sometimes mistake boys and girls makes me think that perhaps we did something right. When Siiri sees a little person with a blue shirt playing football, she doesn't assume that it must be a boy because of stereotype. ( = two boys sparring?)

I keep talking about one kid or the other one, but what do I do in my free time... In my VERY little free time... As meaningless things as possible. Anything that still leaves me free to just get up and react to the situation at home. On special occasions I play Mass Effect 3 but last time I fell asleep  with the Xbox remote in my hands after 15 minutes of game time. Yes, preserving my life has currently completely failed. I have no life at the moment. I just hover from month to month, enjoying the chaotic yet strict schedule of nap-times and puree meals and baths and dishes. It will be a wasted year, but not at all a bad one.

People Use Stairs

Liisa is sneaky. For a really long time she was very calm and relaxed. She could spend a long time playing on her own and I only had to talk with her from distance so she would let me cook or drink my coffee or do what I usually do around here. Now it turns out she was just preparing me for her real plans. Less than two weeks ago, during two consecutive days, she learned to both crawl forward and to sit on the floor unaided. Now her movement patterns have changed a lot. When I put her down, she pulls herself up to a sitting position, I turn my back to walk toward the kitchen and off she goes, straight toward the corner of the carpet  ("Tasty-looking. Must chew, must have a taste!"). I run and catch her before she takes a bite and pick her up and put her back in the middle of the floor. She sits up to find a good next target. I turn around and she's already speeding toward the glass table to play with a table wheel ("Oh, I bet I could jam my little fingers right here..."). I go and put her back in the middle of the room and a moment later she darts off toward the music system wires so I rush to put her back in the middle of the floor. After about 10 times she finally starts crying and pouting as if to say, "You never let me do anyyyythiiing fun!".

I'm such a masochist sometimes: I went back to school to get my driver's licence. We went with Erkki and we'll try to do it at the same time, so we'll both be newbie drivers together. I'm really anxious about it all. OH MY GOD, THEY WILL MAKE ME DRIVE A CAR!!!!   I'm trying not to over-think it and I shouldn't have to worry that much because this time I picked the school much more carefully. I have only had one theory lesson so far and most of the time I was trying not to think about actually driving because otherwise my heart skipped a beat. I'm pretty sure that when I'm actually driving, my body will have to find a way to get over the fear, otherwise my head would explode. Faced with a choice between relaxing and my head exploding, my brain will probably choose the first option.

I think I'm too sensitive to adrenaline. I get really shaky when I'm startled, like some easily-scared old lady. Differently from old ladies, I appear to be an adrenaline junkie at the same time. Why else would I go back to driving school. I get shaky when I'm in a high place (e.g. glass elevator on a high floor) and I find it exhilarating and fun.  Most people love roller coasters for the same reason, and for me it takes much less stimulus to become very shaken. Giving a university lecture was truly scary, to be honest, but I never seriously considered declining the opportunity. Most of the time it's exhausting to be shaken very easily and to have so much adrenaline, but I wouldn't want it to keep me from living a full life. Perhaps that's why I often do things that I find really scary*. I find driving REALLY scary and I'm going back without anyone forcing my hand. I mean scary in the sense that even thinking about it threatens to give me a slight headache. Perhaps the sane thing to do would be to never drive again, but sanity is over-rated. Being able to achieve something that seems impossible when you start has much more value for me.

*Except getting friendly with spiders! NEVER! Keep 'em away from me.  Nasty horrible icky eight-legged monsters.

Everyday things keep me so busy that I barely notice that I get out so rarely. I usually use Erkki's help to go to the dentist or to the doctor with only one kid but that doesn't count. Going out with the kids doesn't count either because it offers me no sense of freedom.  I do go out with them when the weather is nice. All that "fresh air" (urban slang for pollution, dust and allergens) is great for children - prepares their immune system for life. Even going to a grocery store is like an event. It's usually not worth the effort to go to the store myself so I regularly just tell Erkki what I need. It's also not worth the stress to go to a restaurant with two small kids so I look up recipes to get some variety. Erkki has managed to make the perfect steak for us recently. As we found out, all the cooking websites that discuss it, say that a well done steak is inedible and a complete waste of perfectly good meat. We put it to the test and left the meat much more pink and it was incredible! Absolutely deliciously amazing, dark pink, almost red on the inside. I hadn't had a decent steak in a restaurant so it was the best steak in my life. But I was talking about not going out so often anymore. Erkki told me that restaurants in Tartu don't offer steak that good and I totally believe him. So I don't mind staying in. I feel comfortable here and I'm definitely too busy to get bored.

Siiri is mastering long sentences. I hadn't really thought about it, but each sentence type has to be learned individually. "Mommy doesn't know, whether she wants it or not.". "This looks orange, but actually is pink". There is no logic behind such specific sentence structure. There's only experience and lots and lots of practice. It's been a while since she started saying simple long sentences "Apple is red and pear is green". Recognizing the second part of the sentence as the opposite is trickier. "It's almost bed-time, but Siiri doesn't want to go to sleep". Now that Siiri is becoming much better at expressing herself, she is more able to explain her thoughts.

Siiri really makes little difference between reality and fiction. She has a vivid imagination and when she explains events or plans, sometimes her plans turn into obvious wishful thinking. Like a couple of days ago - we were having a wonderful discussion about wings. I explained to her that wings are essential for flying "...Butterflies have wings and that's how why they are able to fly. Birds also have wings and are able fly. But people - do people have wings?". She said, "Yes, we do".  I said, " No, people don't have wings. Angels and faeries look like people, but they have wings. They can fly. People don't have wings. But can people fly?". Siiri said, "Yes, we can!". I said, "No, people can't really fly without a plane, or a helicopter, at least not outside the dreams. See that sewing machine on a really high shelf, barely below the ceiling. If I wanted to reach it, could I fly there?". She said, "Yes!". I said, "No, I would have to get a chair and climb higher to reach it." She said, "Mommy will get a chair and Siiri will climb higher and higher and higher (pointing at her planned route) and I will reach and get the sewing machine." Although I never brought her the chair and even I couldn't climb there like that, it was very clear that she was convinced that she could. I said, "It's too high. You'd need a stairway to get up there.". She said (while gesticulating and pointing), "Lets go to the playground and lets get the stairs off of the slide and then put the stairs here and then I can climb up-up-up and then get the sewing machine!". Nice plan!

Liisa is just as gadget-crazy as the rest of her family and she likes anything that she can chew. I try my best to make sure that she doesn't combine her two interests. Her biggest wish in life (besides her mommy close by) is to taste my phone. Whenever I set my HTC Desire (big colorful screen) down anywhere near her she goes ecstatic, trying to get her hands on it without any delay. Siiri's favourite toy is still iPad and she often uses it when we're not in the same room. In the morning Siiri wakes up long before we do and then plays with iPad. She does tend to watch too many cartoons early in the morning, so I tell her to do "something else" after I have woken up. She sometimes draws or plays toddler games. It's oddly pleasant to notice when girls like boyish things. Siiri loves big machinery like tractors and other heavy farm machinery and heavy construction machinery. She knows all the cranes that were used on one construction site nearby ("And then they took the small blue-and-red crane away and then there was big yellow crane again"). One time we stood on a sidewalk (holding hands) for 10-15 minutes just so Siiri could stare at a crane. At that moment I felt really proud that she was so obviously girly with her bright pink winter jacket and so obviously happy just staring at a small yellow crane across the street. 

Greedy Dictatorship

I'm bothered by ACTA. It is ridiculous that there can be any law (or international treaty) that can be forced on people against their will. It would make sense if we had a dictator. Or maybe it shows that democracy is just an illusion. Democracy should motivate politicians to always pick the most popular option, so they could get re-elected. In reality it's not like that at all. I'm starting to think that a democratic country is not ruled by the people - it's ruled by money! Money and the rich people. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against rich people. They earn their money with an unusual skill set or personality and there is nothing wrong with that. The dream of being rich is a great motivator for people and often people who don't need to worry about paying their pills are the ones who have time to see the bigger picture and help improve the society.

But some rich people are greedy and evil.  There are greedy and evil people among people of all social backgrounds but people with very limited resources can do less harm. For example, I feel very uncomfortable with banks making ridiculous amounts of profit while poverty becomes more and more widespread. Some of that money should have been invested back in the society. I also hate monopoly and how it influences prices. Similar to monopoly, I hate it when all the biggest companies make an agreement to sell some product type for an outrageous price. It basically what Hollywood movie companies have done. They have decided that it costs about $10 to see a movie and about $20-$30 to own a copy. It's way too much, considering the low level of quality they offer. And now people have no say in this. Sure we can watch an indie movie in stead... Wait a minute, those cost about as much money. How about local movies? Those cost EVEN MORE! I haven't seen any Estonian movies from the last 10 years because I'm not willing to pay $30 for an obscure low-budget movie.

Actually I'm being silly. I don't even KNOW most of the Estonian movies because it's irrelevant knowledge. I don't have access to the movies anyway and there's no point in simply checking up what different Estonian actors do to earn their wages. If I can't see the movie, I couldn't care less.  The few times I've seen new Estonian films being sold in the movie store, they cost at least as much as the newest most expensive multi-million dollar Hollywood movies.

As far as Hollywood companies care, I don't have access to their movies either. I can't go the the cinema because it's not worth leaving the 6-month-old exclusively breastfeeding Liisa to someone else to look after. Liisa is great when she's when me, but she's difficult with everyone else. When I get home, she giggles non-stop for at least 5 minutes. It's especially remarkable because of the contrast: Liisa giggles joyfully while Erkki is so exhausted from carrying her around the apartment for the entire time that I was gone. I know Liisa gives other people a hard time when I'm not at home so I wouldn't want to leave home for 3-4 hours just to see a movie that probably sucks anyway.

Movies are shown for only a couple of weeks in the cinema and that's only if the movie even reaches my home town. A few years ago there were only a handful (2-4 at a time) of movies being shown. Now it's actually 11 different movies in the big cinema! That's actually pretty good. At least it's a good start for people who can go to the cinema (unlike me). It doesn't help anyone who wants to see "Groundhog Day (1993)" or "Shawshank Redemption (1994)", but it's a good start. I'm sure there are millions of people worldwide who would love to see those old movies. Some of those people would even pay to see those movies. Physical real-life movie stores are limited with actual space (rooms, heating and shelves), so it would be impossible to sell all the movies ever made in a real store. Too bad it isn't possible to make a virtual shop where the space is unlimited   ... Oh wait. It IS possible. Just some people never bothered to do it. At least not here.

Some people are just so damn greedy, they are willing to turn away money!  There is no legal way to see most movies. Hollywood knows that old movies aren't really worth much so there's not much profit in selling them. Thus the only option for people to see old movies is to download them illegally. I have no problem with piracy as such. (OH MY GOD, Lock up the door, Lawyers are coming to get me!!!)  There aren't even any "lost profits" to calculate if the product wasn't being sold anyway. It's not morally wrong to WATCH A MOVIE! In my opinion, it's borderline immoral to watch a downloaded movie while it's still being shown in the cinema, even if you think it will probably suck. I mean, if you're in such a hurry to see it, consider supporting the makers of the movie by seeing it in the cinema. The problem is that only the most popular old movies are available even for pirates and even those often have bad file quality.

Why it's even an issue is that a lot of excellent culture is being lost and forgotten forever. Hollywood companies have decided that they never want anyone to see their movies ever again. Not only do they make their old movies unavailable for viewing, they actually go around prosecuting anyone who makes them available. The analogy would be when a writer grows tired of his earlier works and tells his manager to stop selling his earlier books.  And then goes insane and starts going around burning down book stores that might still have a copy of his book.

And the sad part is that there is nothing we can do. Downloading movies and music is a bigger crime than killing someone because it's not people who influence politicians and laws. Laws are being written and lobbied by rich people who are too greedy to see the big picture.

Pirate Party, if you're ever created in Estonia as well, you have my vote.

Other news: I found Mickey!  I actually found the mysteriously hidden stuffed toy! It was well hidden in Siiri's room, in a cupboard where we keep leftover diapers. I had looked there, but obviously not well enough. Siiri was overjoyed, as was I. Several days later she still sometimes happily announces, "Mommy found Mickey!". It's her favorite toy again and she often sleeps with Mickey by her side.

Siiri has gotten even better at that sleep thing. Usually the final step is for me to lie by her side until she dozes off. A year ago I would have sworn I would never do that, "Nearly 3 year old has to be old enough to fall asleep by herself!". Now I know that it's simply the fastest way to get her asleep and as such, it's well worth the effort. I only lie there about 10-15 minutes, browsing the Internet (I love my HTC!  ), and shush Siiri when she does or says anything that would make her less sleepy. Really, counting sheep or even just counting numbers doesn't help anyone fall asleep if they count out loud!

Liisa is growing fast. She's now 6 months old and 7,8 kg and 68 cm. She's very social and very calm. The best part: she lets me sleep! Liisa goes to sleep about the same time as Siiri, then wakes up when I go to sleep and want to eat and then falls asleep and sleeps until the morning. Her morning can sometimes begin at 7 a.m., but usually it's around 8:30, which I can live with. I haven't written much about Liisa, but the truth is, she's perfect.  I don't have any problems with her crying or breastfeeding. She is doing well and she's really cute. She has now learned to stretch her toes to her mouth and her socks are often damp from being chewed on. She's showing signs of teething, but no teeth are visible and she it doesn't wake her up at night. She had two vaccine shots a couple of days ago and now has a slight fever. Once it's gone down, I'll start with solids. Then Siiri will have a problem: she's afraid of noisy machines. Over all, life is good.

The Mystery of Mickey

Kids are nice. Their world is completely different from the grown-up world. Liisa (now 5.5 months) shows it by being obsessed with things to taste. When I put her down, she quickly turns to her stomach, looks around and goes for the closest thing that she could put in her mouth. Usually it's one of her chew-toys but it can be anything from a pillow corner to a paper tissue. Siiri is still very much amused when she tells me, "Liisa tried to eat my pajama pants.", even though it happened a couple of weeks ago.

Liisa has grown a lot. A couple of days ago she learned how to crawl!  She crawls backwards and doesn't quite realize she's doing it but she moved half a meter or even more in minutes. That means I have to be careful with letting her sleep in the large bed while I'm not there to notice her wake up and crawl towards the edge. Liisa is a delightful baby. She's very cheerful and smiles a lot. She lights up whenever Siiri pays attention to her and she loves seeing Erkki after a long workday. It's odd - I didn't think she would perceive the time Erkki is away but she is especially happy to see Erkki when she hasn't seen him all day. I'm not jealous of the smiles Siiri and Erkki get because Liisa is the cutest when we're alone. She tells me long stories (gooo-gaaaaaaa..brrrrr...ghhhhh) and I repeat what she says and she is so happy that we're communicating. I don't remember if I used as much baby-talk with Siiri. I know I sometimes mirrored her sounds because she always had a positive reaction to it, but I think I enjoy it even more with Liisa. With Siiri I felt silly making odd sounds and I was afraid it would lead to me being a silly baby-talking mother. ("awww looky at cuuute doggy woof"  ). There will be a time when we forbid dumb baby-talk around Liisa as well, but it will be months before she actually starts learning words so I can baby-talk all I want.

Around 4 months of age, babies start noticing the world around them. I suspect their eyesight improves a lot very quickly, but they also learn to analyze their surroundings better. That's the time when many babies have trouble breastfeeding or sleeping because they're just too distracted. Fortunately Liisa is a very easy baby to breastfeed. She eats quickly and fusses very little. Unfortunately, falling asleep got a lot more difficult in the last month. I really wanted to avoid one major mistake that we did with Siiri - cradling the baby to sleep. It was okay when Siiri was very tiny but it was horrible for my back when she weighed 9+ kg and had several naps each day. I refused to cradle Liisa (except when she was already over-tired and very sad) because I know where it will lead. I was so sure I don't want to cradle and sent Erkki to Google for alternatives while I was with the sleepy baby. He returned looking quite grim. "Internet proposes two solutions: either cradle them to sleep or let them cry until they fall asleep". That's very bad!  I tried to intuitively find a third solutions and I did: when I lie next to Liisa, she is very vivacious and playful and tries to engage me in a conversation... and then falls asleep. I don't know how it works because she doesn't seem to get any sleepier but right now it seems like a good solution. I get to browse the Internet on my HTC Desire while I wait for Liisa to suddenly magically fall asleep.

Siiri's world is quite different. A couple of days ago I woke up to the sound of Siiri running around the apartment saying, "Mickey, Mickey,Mickey, where are you? I'm going to find you. Where are you hiding?". It would be great if she found Mickey because Mickey is completely lost! We live in an apartment so it can't be that easy to make a 10-15 cm stuffed toy disappear without a trace. Siiri looked for it, Erkki looked for it, I looked for it. I checked under every closet, I took a flashlight to check behind the closets, under the beds, in all the drawers, behind the curtains, etc. I looked everywhere! It wasn't even such a big deal - Siiri has other toys that are also her favorites - but I was sure I would find it if I looked in the right place. Usually Siiri hides everything under her bed. She hoards hair clips and small toys beside her pillow and some of them  fall under the bed. Once every two weeks a cleaning lady comes and helps us (I absolutely hate washing the floors). The last time she found 8 hair clips, 3 hair bands, 4 tiny dinosaurs and a tiny angel figurine under Siiri's bed. No Mickey: of course I knew that because I had checked already. I have no idea where Mickey is. Siiri sometimes plays hide and seek with Mickey even though the game is quite one-sided.

Siiri is very smart. She loves to learn new things and absorbs information from anywhere. At her age (2.9 years), she's supposed to be able to count to three. She counts to twenty! And she counts to 12 in English. She can also translate the numbers directly, "There are six pens, "six" (in English)" so it's not just a sequence of words that she memorized. She knows all the colors, and some of them also in English. She can read all the letters and some symbols (e.g. +, ?, !) and can write some of them although she doesn't yet understand how letters make words. She's supposed to be able to draw a simple circle. She knows most shapes and can draw circles, triangles, squares, sphere (identical to the circle, so I have to ask which one she drew) and today she made a (slightly crooked) parallelogram (Estonian rööpkülik). "Mommy, look, I made a parallelogram".    I can't help but think that her fondness for numbers and geometrical shapes will lead to good mathematical skills. She just really loves numbers. If she ever gets an imaginative friend, it will probably be "three".

I didn't really tutor her to know all that stuff. We played with letter cards a long time ago, and she learned English while watching videos on YouTube. There are some rather harmless "educational" videos targeted to English-speaking toddlers that she watches while I'm asleep or busy with Liisa. Siiri also has an amazing memory and a really vivid imagination. Just last week she was telling me how when it is summer, we will go to the beach: Mommy, Daddy, Liisa, Siiri together, we'll apply sunscreen, play by the water with lots of toys, Siiri will have a bikini, etc. Her story was full of details that she remembered from the summer but it also included Liisa, which is nice.

Siiri has been falling asleep a bit better now.  Lately I expect her to fall asleep in 30-90 minutes. It sometimes takes longer but overall we have so much more time during the day, she's better rested, wakes up less during the night and is more enjoyable to be around. I'm supposed to be better rested as well, but both me and Erkki have been really sleepy lately. It's a comfortable kind of sleepiness. Lately all soft surfaces just seem so much softer and exercising feels like too much effort.

During the global ACTA protest day, I went to the protest in Tartu town hall square. It was freezing but well worth it. Estonians just suck at protesting. I was hoping to yell protest slogans with the people (over 1000 people were there) but the most activity was when we bounced up and down. I also gave a signature against ACTA on the Estonian petition (~7400 people) and the Avaaz letter to EU Parliament (~2.5 million people). I've done all I could do. Now I can just sit back and wait for either the next wave of protests in the summer or for the treaty to crumble and disappear.

By the way, recipe recommendation. I forgot to tell Erkki to bring more fresh yeast and eggs so I can't bake anything with a yeast dough. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to. So I found a recipe that used up most of the almost-too-ripe bananas and the last egg in the refrigerator and was easy enough to have Siiri join me in the baking process.

Banana bread (simplyrecipes.com)

Ingredients with European units (and sugar amount adjusted to European normal sweetness, 50% of original)

3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
80 g butter, melted
100 g sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda (I used 1.5 tsp of baking powder in stead)
Pinch of salt
190 g of all-purpose flour (I used 9,8% protein flour, no. 405)

Smashed bananas, added melted butter, then beat the egg and added sugar and vanilla, then in third bowl mixed flour and baking powder and salt. Combined ingredients, poured in a buttered bread pan and baked at 175 C for 1 hour.

Really little effort and super delicious. Next time I'll add chocolate chips and a shot of espresso/Kahlua like the comments suggest.

Time Wasted

Today it has taken nearly 5 hours (and counting) to get Siiri to fall asleep. Two and a half hours before her nap and nearly the same time before her night sleep. It is so annoying. Like truly annoying to the point that I'm ready to lock her in her room and just ignore her when she's supposed to sleep and then unlock the door when she's supposed to be awake. We can't do that but I'm allowed to dream, aren't I? 

Siiri's nap kept happening later and later until it was usual for her to still be awake at 3 p.m. That's the time when most kids her age have already woken up from their nap. It didn't make sense to even start putting her to sleep before 1:30 p.m. and the one and a half hours waste was all in the daily plan. Then sometimes she kept resisting sleep until 4 or even 4:30, so for a while we didn't even try anything until 2 p.m. Then she fell asleep even later and woke up a couple of hours before her evening bed time. That didn't work either so we put her to sleep earlier again. It seemed that no matter what we do, it takes 1.5-2.5 hours for her to fall asleep. Now we're trying something different - for a couple of days now, we have set her sleeping times to the recommended 12 a.m. and 7 p.m.. That's 3-4 hours earlier than she's used to.

The bed-time routine is great and I really don't see why it doesn't work. I start by getting into pajamas. Then I wash her teeth. Then she gets to select two stories or fairy tales from her books. If she selects really short stories, I usually read a third short story. That takes about 20-30 minutes. Every other day Erkki does that, but it's deliberately identical. Sometimes she wants to play with a snow globe while I'm reading, but usually she tends to wander around the room and comment what I'm reading. Sometimes I get her to stay put and lie in bed, but that doesn't make any difference so I don't enforce it much. When stories have been read, she lies down, I tuck her in and we wave good-night. The routine is the same for both nap and night time sleep. And then 3 minutes later Siiri is jumping on her bed. I order her to lie down. 2 minutes later she wanders away from her room, I order her back in her room.   Then she spends 10 minutes talking and playing with her stuffed toys.  I treat this as "at least she's in bed", but then she gets bored with that and walks out again. And that goes on for a couple of hours until I get irritated and short-tempered and whenever she even makes a beep, I don't even bother going to her, but I just yell from another room, "Siiri, back to bed, right now!". And then eventually she is so sleepy that she just crashes in her bed, because that's where she happens to be.

So why is it so bad if she spends such a long time falling asleep. I could just, you know, get used to it and not have a problem with it. Well, it's not that simple.  When it's sleeping time, we don't play or eat. I don't teach her anything, she doesn't practice drawing or play with Play-Doh. It's pointless wasted time. It's my life (or Erkki's) and Siiri's just ticking away completely uselessly. I don't get to concentrate on anything because every 5-10 minutes I get to order Siiri back to bed. (I guess now you see the potential usefulness of getting a lock for her door, except there's no bathroom there.). When I'm in the other room putting Liisa to sleep, Siiri takes advantage of the situation and wanders around and then starts playing with the volume of her voice: shrieking softer and louder. When I was cutting Liisa's hair while Liisa was asleep, Siiri came out and casually woke up Liisa with pointless talk. That was one time I was really pissed off and didn't want to talk with Siiri for a couple of hours. I totally see the enjoyment I would get from physical punishment. I really have a cruel streak in me.   Some parts of my childhood have taught me to be cruel because to me it seemed that everyone else is cruel too. That's not completely true but I do still have to work on my temper. Physical punishment would be a bitter sweet revenge for not going to sleep at the right time: but that sounds way too mean for any good parent, so I won't do that.

I don't have any plan. Currently it seems that Siiri falls asleep when I am already cranky and on the verge of losing my temper, so perhaps I should start this way.  Brillint idea, eh? So when I read her the fairy tales and say good night, I can add, "and don't you dare getting out of bed, or I will hide all your toys and you won't see them until you wake up. And if you get out of bed again, I start throwing them out the window. One. By. One." Or I could take a devil's mask that I could buy in some carnival store and put it on and not take it off until after she falls asleep, so that she could be too scared to come out of her room, and while I wear it I could be really mean and angry. Or I could do it easier and "accidentally" start watching horror movies after her bedtime, so that when she wanders out of her room, she happens to see them and won't ever dare to come out of her room at bedtime ever again. (Except when she starts having nightmares and runs out of her room screaming...  ) I don't know. All of it sounds like a good idea at the moment. Anything sounds better than 5 and a half hours (yes, that's how long it finally took) wasted during an otherwise perfect Sunday. Half of that time Erkki was the active party, the other half I was the active party, not none of that time we could spend together, just watching something together or having a meaningful conversation. Today Liisa was in a foul mood as well, so even browsing the net was not easy. I didn't find any useful information how to improve nap times. It seems like we've already tried everything.

Any ideas?

PS! Liisa is doing really well. She learned to turn to her stomach before she was 4 months old and now she turns on her stomach whenever possible. She does't interfere with Siiri's daily schedule much and sometimes she's even helpful in getting Siiri to fall asleep. Siiri is still much more likely to wake up Liisa than the other way around (ratio about 4:1).

Even Greedier Bastards

After my last post about Internet piracy I discussed the topic with Erkki and I also kept reading about it. I found out some things worth sharing.

It is possible to buy games online through Steam. Well, actually I knew that before but I don't use it myself (I only play games on Xbox lately) and I forgot all about it. With all the criticism I have about how the world works and how piracy is caused by the lack of fast, simple and affordable supply, I should have mentioned Steam so I will correct it right now.

Steam is an online game platform. You log in as a user and you can download and play a very wide variety of games. What they get right: Their wide selection of old games easily completes with what pirates have to offer and, even better, they sell all the well-marketed new games. This allows even the people living in nearly abandoned countryside to legally purchase games that would definitely be found in the local store. Now piracy is no longer the only option for them (aside from not playing at all or ordering a physical copy and praying it gets delivered intact). There is one thing that they do perfectly: they let people pre-download games and when it's finally the release date of the downloaded game, people get the codes to start playing it. Excellent. Ingenious!    they have understood that people can't wait so and that their servers would be overloaded during the release day of major games if everyone started downloading at the same time. But... (of course there is a 'but') ...they might be the greediest bastards of all. 

Steam sells the new games for the full price. They do occasionally sell games with huge discounts but the normal prices are just what you'd expect from a new game: €30-€60. "What's wrong with that?  ", you might wonder. Sure you don't get a physical disc or a manual, but that affects the price very little and who needs those anyway. What's wrong is that you buy the game only after you sign a contract that the games will only be for PERSONAL use. That does not include a wife and a couple of kids. If you let your wife/husband play with your account, you're actually breaking the agreement.  I don't know how that is even possible because such user agreements just can't be above marital law. What's mine is Erkki's and vice versa. Sure, it doesn't apply to all things, for example I have no right to modify or delete Erkki's Facebook account or to even view his e-mail accounts but the games he buys on Steam are just as much bought with my money. If it's really possible to sign an agreement that makes those games belong to only him, then why do people even bother signing prenuptial agreement before they get married. One of the partners could just sign separate agreements so that all the best things he buys only belong to him/her.

Actually, I realized there are things like membership fees which only belong to the person who signs the contract. If the husband joins a country club that has huge membership fees, it still doesn't make the wife a half-member. Same with gym membership cards. I have no idea what would happen to a World of Warcraft account during a divorce if the non-player spouse wanted half of it. There was some case where a woman deleted her husband's WoW account and was fined, so I guess the account is worth something. But maybe Steam is selling something completely obscure, like the right to play a game. However I think about it, I'm sure Steam found a legal loophole which justifies the "personal only" agreement, but never in a million years would I believe that they actually thought couples will buy two copies of each game that they both like. Or 4 copies if their kids also like the game. So basically they set up a system that guarantees that there will be people all over the world violating the Steam agreement.  That means Steam sows as much morally bad Internet behavior as the overpriced game industry in general. Or in other words, they re-define what to consider immoral: is it immoral to break a end user agreement? What if it's a stupid and unfair agreement?

Also, Steam games or accounts can't be sold (agreement violation), which makes the games relatively even more expensive. In Europe that's not such a big issue but in USA there are stores that actually buy back the used games and sell used games for (I would guess) a reasonable price.

Another beef I have with Steam is the regional pricing and availability of games. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, for example, costs €49.99 in Europe, €46.14 in USA, and €41.92 in UK. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is even worse, costing €49.99, €23.06, or €35.93, respectively. The EXACT SAME GAME. Just as much data is moved across the Internet, except some people have the privileged to pay more for a game they can't re-sell or let their spouse play. And it gets even worse. Erkki bought and pre-loaded Skyrim  on Steam. When it was the release date, he came home, eager to start playing, except there was a surprise. At the last moment, after his purchase, the game had been changed to "unavailable" in some parts of Europle, including Estonia and several other countries. And presumably it was all fair because Estonia is some weird country anyway, where people live in mud huts and walk around in waist-deep mud in extreme poverty.   Why would they want to play games anyway...

I'm not against Steam as such. I think it's a great start. If they enable family accounts and combine the regions, then it would all be great. And if they keep experimenting with game pricing (cool information about pricing experiments), maybe games will end up being affordable to average people and gaming piracy will become something that only poor people do.

Damn I took so many words to describe all the subtle ways how Steam secretly sucks. But there is another thing I wanted to discuss: Estonian Authors' Society, EAS (Eesti Autorite ühing, EAÜ). Most countries have similar organizations that work towards ensuring that artists get the profit they deserve and people don't break copyright laws. The idea behind it is very noble and I give them my respect for making sure that people who sing professionally actually get paid for what they produce. As you can guess, I wouldn't mention them only to praise their cause. In stead, I'm mentioning to bash their means. EAS collects money from all the digital songs (8-12%, with a set minimum fee for a song), they collect money from TV-channels and TV broadcasters (for showing channels with copyright material, they collect money from all the empty CDs sold in the store because they COULD end up having copyrighted material on them (8%), they collect 5% every time a painting is sold, they collect money from concert organizers, night clubs, restaurants with background music, etc. Basically, they get their dirty little nails behind every cent they can hoard to themselves. In the year 2008, they collected over 70 000 000 EEK.

And now it gets tricky - they only pay out  fees to registered members for registered works of art and only for the member's contribution in that work of art. A song is 50% music and 50% words, so if the singer didn't write the ENTIRE song, they won't get the entire money for it. And even if he did, he still had to pay 25% that was already removed  "for representing the author's rights". EAS has some partner organizations abroad as well, so they pay some money to them as well, for the authors that are registered with them, but there is still a lot of authors who are "being represented" but don't receive the money that EAS has collected on their behalf. Even the artists who are supposed to be paid, often have to contact the organization to get the money, otherwise it will go unnoticed. For that reason, in 2008, EAS distributed only 26 000 000 EEK to it's members. 

I would call that robbery - they take from everyone and only make it seem like they are giving it to the people who deserve it. Their website has listed several people who owe them money, including for Anne Veski's solo concerts and a child protection day event in a park. I wish I was making it up. They're like the ultimate bad guy, taxing a person's own solo concert and robbing money from child protection day events. They should just rename their organization Musical Artists For Indulgence Association. 

This "helpful" organization sets a minimum price for all songs sold online, increasing the price and thus encouraging piracy. One online music store in Estonia just went bankrupt because they couldn't pay those fees. EAS started asking for 12% which was too much for the store. It would be less tragic if Microsoft music store Zune were being distributed to Estonia, but they're not. EAS is also famous for having videos removed from Youtube. That includes any video that looks slightly dubious and they don't check if any copyright laws really were broken. One guy found that his own video of him singing his own song was removed by EAS "just in case". It was in the news recently. EAS also inhibits any fringe cultural events that don't make much profit but have to pay to EAS. If you've been to a place called Genialistide klubi in Tartu, you might not have noticed that it's a "night club".  At least that's how it's being taxed by EAS.

I hope it gave you something new to think about.

Also, almost forgot. There are no movie rentals in the 100 000 people town I live in. I guess everyone buys the movies in the mall (selection is mostly made up of 3-10 year old movies that no one ever wanted to buy) or rents one of the 77 movies in Elion digital rental (if they're Elion clients). Or they just watch movies on TV, because they know that commercial breaks are for their own good, so they can be up to date with products sold in stores.