Say No to Violence Against Women

I recently learned about a UNIFEM campaign called Say No to Violence. According to UNIFEM, 1 in 3 women will be beaten, abused or worse in their lifetime. I remember before the war in Afghanistan, there was a lot of press about how the Taliban treated women and efforts to address it. But the subject seemed to drop off the radar.

Fortunately, UNIFEM is helping fight the abuse of women around the globe. You can help too, by signing the petition (in the widget at the end of this post). Their goal is 1,000,000 signatures by November 24.

For more information, take the following quiz and visit http://www.unifem.org/:

1. According to a United Nations report, how many women worldwide have experienced violence in their lives?
a. 1 out of every 3 women
b. 1 out of every 5 women
c. 1 out of every 10 women
ANSWER: (a) 1 out of every 3 women -- At least one out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime - with the abuser usually someone known to her. Perhaps the most pervasive human rights violation that we know today, it devastates lives, fractures communities, and stalls development.

2. What percentage of women who die by homicide are killed by a former or current husband or partner?
a. 20%
b. 50%
c. 70%
ANSWER: (b) 50% -- Based on several surveys from around the world, half of the women who die from homicides are killed by their current or former husbands or partners. Women are killed by people they know and die from gun violence, beatings and burns, among numerous other forms of abuse

3. In the United States, a 2003 report estimated that the direct costs of intimate partner violence were:
a. $900 million
b. $1.6 billion
c. $5.8 billion
ANSWER: (c) $5.8 billion -- A 2003 report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that the costs of intimate partner violence in the United States alone exceed US$5.8 billion per year: US$4.1 billion are for direct medical and health care services, while productivity losses account for nearly US$1.8 billion. Violence against women impoverishes individuals, families and communities, reducing the economic development of each nation

4. Which of these risk factors, for women aged 15 to 44 years, rates higher than rape and domestic violence?
a. Cancer
b. War
c. None rated higher
ANSWER: (c) None rated higher -- For women aged 15 to 44 years, violence is a major cause of death and disability. In a 1994 study based on World Bank data about ten selected risk factors facing women in this age group, rape and domestic violence rated higher than cancer, motor vehicle accidents, war and malaria

5. In a clinic in Zambia, how many HIV-positive women opt out of treatment due to fears of violence?
a. 20%
b. 30%
c. 60%
ANSWER: (c) 60% -- For many women, the fear of violence prevents them from declaring their HIV-positive status and seeking help and treatment. A clinic in Zambia reported that 60 percent of eligible women opt out of treatment due to fears of violence and abandonment. In 1998 Gugu Dhlamini was stoned to death by men in her community in South Africa after she declared her HIV-positive status on radio and television on World AIDS Day.

Happy Anniversary

Today is our 7th anniversary. 7 is the wool or copper anniversary.

After we got married, we decided we didn't need to give each other elaborate anniversary gifts, but we liked the idea of following the traditional anniversary gift ideas.

Year 1 is paper. I got Thom a book of poems. He made me a gift certificate to take me to Disneyland on a day of my choosing. (I had wanted to go for a long time and he wasn't thrilled about going, so this was a gift to me. We went the spring after our anniversary on a day it wasn't busy and got to ride Space Mountain 7 times - lines were 10 minutes or shorter.)

Year 2 is cotton. I got Thom pajamas and he got me a custom made sweatshirt that says "Humboldt Mathematics".

Year 3 is leather. I got Thom a leather picture frame and put in a picture he had taken of a tree on one of our vacations. He got me a leather bound book.

After three years of marriage, we bought a house. At that point, rather than surprising each other with gifts, we started picking something out together that we would keep long term.

Year 4 is fruit/flowers. We went to a nursery and got a flowering (silk floss) tree and 2 guava trees. The silk floss didn't survive, but we just started getting guava on both guava trees in the last year. Yum!

Year 5 is wood. We finally got a bedroom furniture set. From Costco.com. Setup and delivery included. Very happy about this one.

Year 6 is candy/iron. This was the first anniversary with a baby. We were lucky to get out to dinner (thanks to Lia and George). I looked around online for something wrought iron, but we never bought anything.

Which brings us to copper. One of our favorite metals. Thom has been wanting a wind sculpture ever since we saw them on a road trip in the southwest. And since they are made from stainless steel and copper, this seems like the perfect time to finally splurge and buy one. I think Aaron will like watching it. (That link shows how they look in the wind.) We get some nice breezes coming up off the lake so I think we should see a fair amount of motion.

Now I am waiting for my husband to come home with gourmet cheese, salami and bread - a treat for our anniversary. Last year, at the restaurant we went to, we had an appetizer with gourmet meats that was wonderful. We are trying to recreate it at home until we can get out to dinner again.

Guess who's walking?

Out little boy is all growed up. For the past week or so, he's been playing this game where he stands up against the wall by his electric keyboard, back to the wall, then tries to walk to one of us. Once we knew the game, we'd go sit just a few feet away. He'd take a few steps and then fall into our arms.

Yesterday, when Jan the PT was here, I told her about it and she wanted to see. So I tried putting him against a wall in the living room where we were working. And he walked to me. At least 5 steps. She was very impressed with him. And she was glad because at 18 months, he is at the outer limits of what is considered normal for learning to walk. She admitted she'd been getting worried. I hadn't been worried since he's shown so much progress and I didn't even realize she was worried.

After she left, we took the video below. I couldn't back up fast enough to see how far he could walk. He was so proud of himself and wanted to do it over and over.

So of course now all he wants to do is walk. Yesterday, after his nap we went out to run some errands. We went to the bank where he very reluctantly rode in his stroller. The next stop was to see Kim at Starbucks (where she also works) and to get a snack there. He really, really did not want to ride in the stroller, so I carried him across the parking lot (he wasn't too happy about that, either) and then let him walk with me. It's hard to stand in line with a baby that wants to constantly move. Three nice women offered to let him stand at their table with them while I got my coffee, but he just wanted to keep walking.

It's definitely a challenge now since he isn't just content to walk - he also wants to chart our course. Which is often counter to where we need to go. After Starbucks, we went to the library and when he wasn't going in the direction we needed to go, he screamed when I picked him up. That gets some stares - especially when you are in the library. I see a lot of that in our future. I've seen that mother with the child throwing a tantrum in public and now I am her.

This morning, Aaron wanted to practice his new skill. Over and over and over. He crawls over the the spot by the keyboard, uses the black cube to stand up, gets his balance against the wall, and then goes for it. And he tends to laugh most of the way.

He's getting very good at it, although he still wants one of us to hold his hand and walk around the house with him. My mom says now I'll wonder why I was in such a hurry for him to walk. But I really wasn't. I didn't mind that he wasn't walking when he was younger, but since the professionals told me he needed some encouragement, I did what I thought was in his best interests. And really, considering he is approaching 19 months, we've had a lot longer than most parents to enjoy the non-walking part of his life.

Voting

Despite the misting rain, we decided to walk to our polling place as we do every election. We vote in the garage of a house that is a 5-10 minute walk from here. We get there and Thom stays with Aaron while I go to vote. I tell the guy my last name, saying the first two letters several times. He looks at the white sheets in his rolls and says he doesn't see it. From where I'm standing, it looks like he wasn't on the right page - maybe a page or two before my last name would appear. I asked if he was sure, but by then, he was checking the blue pages and then the pink pages, and still doesn't find it.

I'm getting annoyed because I'm a registered voter and I've voted every election since we moved here 3 1/2 years ago, including the primary, so there is no reason for me not to be on the rolls. I asked him to check again, which he does, but he still holds the pages so I cannot see where he is looking. Usually, the poll worker has the sheets flat on the table and scans down the list where I can see.

Finally, without suggesting any of the other poll workers double-check, he offers me a provisional ballot. I refuse because a) provisional ballots are not counted tonight, they are counted after the fact, after they verify that you are a registered voter and b) I shouldn't have to cast a provisional ballot when I am a valid registered voter. I stepped aside to let the few other people in line vote while I talked to Thom. One of the poll workers asked if we had our voter pamphlets that list our precinct. We had left them at home since we've never needed them and knew how we were voting.

So we walk home in the misting rain to get our voter pamphlets. We drive back (at this point Thom is going to be really late for work - and it's raining harder) and this time, with the spelling in front of him, the guy finds our names on the rolls. On the white sheets, where I suspected they were. He doesn't apologize, but mumbles something about how he must have been looking under the wrong spelling.

When we got to the polls the first time, the guy in front of me was signing an orange sheet for a provisional ballot. I noticed maybe 8-10 signatures on that page. At 9:30 in the morning. I was surprised there were so many provisional ballots, but figured a lot of people must have registered late in the process. Now I suspect this half-wit polling worker just didn't search diligently through the rolls. I wouldn't be so annoyed with him if a provisional ballot was the same as a regular ballot. I think if you are going to work the polls, you should care enough to really verify that someone isn't on the rolls before offering a provisional ballot.

On the plus side, Aaron seemed to entertain the poll workers while I was voting. I heard laughter and when I came out, he had an "I voted" sticker upside down on his overalls. Only it was in Vietnamese. Which actually makes sense - I can't understand half of what he says, so I'm not surprised he knows Vietnamese.

Kissing and Talking

Aaron just started making kisses a couple weeks ago. One day, he was making lots of kisses while he was playing, so I tried to catch it on video. In this first video, he does one kiss, but the rest he is just playing with his Duplos (you can see how serious he is about it).

In the next video, we gave up on the kisses, and tried to get him to say a few words since we haven't been recording his voice. And the way he says words is so cute right now. At the end of this next video, he says Papa, which he always whispers for some reason. Also, for some reason, when I try to take video, he will often come over and hug me, as you'll see at the end of this clip.

Playing with Dolls and Bear

Aaron plays with one of my old Cabbage Patch dolls (shown above), my doll "My Friend Mandy" (a popular doll back in the day), and his bear that Grandma made him. Mandy isn't in any of the pictures here, but she was around. Kim took these pictures one day when she was watching him.

After lunch, if it is warm, Kim will take off Aaron's pants. They seem to end up on Bear.

I'm not sure what is going on above. But Aaron obviously loves playing with Bear.

Although the dolls and Bear "live" over with the rest of his toys, I often find them sitting on one of the dining room chairs after Kim has been here.

Aaron the Builder

When Aaron was about 15 months old, he was getting bored with the toys he had, so I went to Target in seach of something to buy that day (usually I will order toys online when I can, but I wanted something he could play with immediately). I found a set of 70 Duplos and even though it said they were for 18 months and older, I didn't think he'd choke on them, so I decided to try them out on him.

They were a big hit. It didn't take him long to figure out how they connect. At first he couldn't always get them lined up, but he knew which way was right-side up and we would help him line them up and attach them to the square blue 8x8 base that came with the set.

Within a moth or two, he would use up all the Duplos in his "buildings". Since the set of 70 had cost over $20, I decided to look on eBay. I'd had some success in getting him gently used clothing at great prices, and since Duplos hold up well, I thought it would be a good way to get a lot of Duplos at a good price.

And I was right. I found an auction by a woman who was getting rid of her son's Duplos from 1979. There were 175+ pieces, including a red barn, animals, cars, a tow truck, lots of little people, doors and windows, and a few other special pieces from a school-themed, town-themed and farm-themed sets. (You can see the red barn in the pictures above. Aaron builds on the roof of it.) With shipping, the total was just under $33. Some of the pieces aren't in perfect shape - the barn is missing one of it's handles, but most of the pieces which are just 2x4 and 2x2 bricks are almost indistinguishable from the newer ones. And the lot included a lot of special pieces that you can't buy new today.

He spends a good part of his day playing with his Duplos. Maybe we have an engineer in the making. When my sister found out he likes Duplos, she gave me a container full from her twins who have moved on to Legos, so we have plenty of building materials now.