Happy third birthday to Gus and Gibson! I've been looking forward to this day when they could play with all the "ages 3+" toys without choking on anything. Ha ha! Actually, they have stopped putting everything in their mouths, so I suppose that's a good sign.
Language
I am not really concerned about them having a speech delay anymore, because they chatter all the time. One issue is that they still use "me" as a subject pronoun, instead of "I." So far I'm just continuing to model correct grammar without making a point to correct them. I figure they'll catch on eventually. In the meantime, it makes for some adorable expressions.
Gibson, tearfully at the park when trying to describe a snack, "No me know me talking about!"
(Turns out, he wanted to eat bunny grahams)
They use the word "love" frequently
Me: Please don't bite your brother
Gibson: But me loooove bite Gus!
I hand Gus a sandwich on an orange plate.
Gus (frowning): Ahh! No me love orange things!
They haven't started asking "why?" yet, but they do ask a lot of questions. Lately, they want to know what everything eats, including animals, plants, the cast of Octonauts, and non-living things like rainbows. Their syntax is, "Mommy, giraffe-es eat?" (The plural of giraffe is 3 syllables)
Pronunciation of some sounds is hit or miss. My current favorite word is "zizzors" (aka scissors)
Physical Milestones
We gave them balance bikes today for their birthdays. They rode around at the park for quite awhile without any major incidents. "Rode" isn't the right word - it was just walking with the bike underneath them. But it actually went better than I thought, so I'm sure they'll be zooming around before long.
They can run fairly fast without tripping.
Potty training hasn't been successful yet. We have a September deadline or else they can't start preschool, so yeah, better get on that soon...
Fine Motor Skills
They make tiny little blobs out of Playdoh.
They're doing better holding crayons/markers, except they don't like to be constrained to decorating only paper.
They are starting to grasp the concept of water color painting.
Personalities
We continue to see unique personalities develop.
Gibson likes to be silly. He is usually resilient and adaptable.
Gus is the rule enforcer. He's got a tender heart.
They are both playful, enjoy music, and are a bit wary of new people.
Overall
They have become little kids. They like babies, but they definitely don't consider themselves babies. They are more interested in playing with other kids at parks and etc. With them starting preschool in the fall and our family hopefully moving to a new home, I expect we'll see all sorts of changes in the year ahead!
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Friday, June 1, 2018
Where to Be Rich in LA
House hunting brings out the demographer/sociologist in me. I haven't lived here long enough to have a total handle on what are the "good" and "bad" areas, but I'm starting to get some ideas.
(I apologize in advance for all the feathers I'm about to ruffle.)
Areas that are good tend to have:
Areas that are bad tend to have:
You know what I see as the main differences on these lists? Socioeconomic status and race. So if I ask myself, "Where should we live?" what I'm really wondering is, what kind of white people are we? Statistically speaking, our income puts us in the third quartile for Pasadena (between 50-75% of median). I feel awkward calling myself rich, but I think it might be true.
Then I see these lists like "Best Places to Raise a Family Around LA" which should be titled "Where Rich People Live." I mean seriously, #1 on the list is Manhattan Beach, where the average sales price of a three bedroom home is $1.8 million. So I guess my family is richer than we are poor, but we're not rich rich.
The point I'm trying to make here is that one can't just choose to be rich. In many cases, the deck is stacked against you from the start. And we can't keep using socioeconomic status as a proxy variable for everything in life. Which leads me to the following scatter plot:
(If that's not displaying properly on your device, or you'd like to see the supporting data, click here.)
What are we seeing in this chart?
A correlation between a school's rating on Great Schools and the percentage of its student body that is low income, which means qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. (As an aside, that is really poor around here because there's no adjustment made to the calculations to factor in cost of living in your particular area within the lower 48 states.)
What are we not seeing?
A large portion of the not-low-income families in Pasadena that are not represented on this chart, because their children aren't enrolled in these schools.
Pasadena Unified School District has kind of a mixed reputation around here. In the 1970s, the district was ordered to bus students to end de-facto segregation, a bit of history I haven't found anyone too eager to talk about. As of 2016, only 55% of students living in PUSD boundaries attended public schools. The rest are in charter, private, home school, or transfer out of the district. At the same time, there are several schools with new magnet programs focused on STEM, Arts, and IB, and they also offer dual language options. I'm familiar with a group called Pasadena Education Network that seems to be doing good work towards promoting integrated schools. So overall, I'm observing some positive trajectory.
Where should I try to buy a house, then? (I mean, assuming we stay in Pasadena. We also have been looking around Glendale and Eagle Rock, which is a whole other ball of wax.) To complicate matters, PUSD offers open enrollment, meaning that if you don't want your student to attend your neighborhood school, you can go through a lottery system to obtain a seat for your child at a different school. So it doesn't even really matter, school-wise, where we buy because we can put the kids in a different school. We just have to give them a ride.
But you see that? How privileged am I that the need to provide transportation daily to/from a school a few miles away wouldn't even give me pause? We are a two parent family with only one of us working outside the home right now. We have the resources to pay for a vehicle, gas, and insurance. I'm not trying to work two minimum wage jobs just to keep food on the table here. And I have the mental bandwidth to think about all these things two years before my kids will even start kindergarten.
What a world we live in.
If you want to learn more about these topics, here are some resources I recommend:
(I apologize in advance for all the feathers I'm about to ruffle.)
Areas that are good tend to have:
- Rich people
- White people
- Maybe Asian people
- "Good" schools as defined by a score of 8+ on Great Schools
- Well-funded public services
- Crime that is not overt
Areas that are bad tend to have:
- Poor people
- Brown people
- Black people
- Asian people who aren't integrated into mainstream American culture
- "Bad" schools (scores 1-3)
- Poorly funded public services
- Visible crime, graffiti, gangs
- Noise and/or pollution
You know what I see as the main differences on these lists? Socioeconomic status and race. So if I ask myself, "Where should we live?" what I'm really wondering is, what kind of white people are we? Statistically speaking, our income puts us in the third quartile for Pasadena (between 50-75% of median). I feel awkward calling myself rich, but I think it might be true.
Then I see these lists like "Best Places to Raise a Family Around LA" which should be titled "Where Rich People Live." I mean seriously, #1 on the list is Manhattan Beach, where the average sales price of a three bedroom home is $1.8 million. So I guess my family is richer than we are poor, but we're not rich rich.
The point I'm trying to make here is that one can't just choose to be rich. In many cases, the deck is stacked against you from the start. And we can't keep using socioeconomic status as a proxy variable for everything in life. Which leads me to the following scatter plot:
(If that's not displaying properly on your device, or you'd like to see the supporting data, click here.)
What are we seeing in this chart?
A correlation between a school's rating on Great Schools and the percentage of its student body that is low income, which means qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. (As an aside, that is really poor around here because there's no adjustment made to the calculations to factor in cost of living in your particular area within the lower 48 states.)
What are we not seeing?
A large portion of the not-low-income families in Pasadena that are not represented on this chart, because their children aren't enrolled in these schools.
Pasadena Unified School District has kind of a mixed reputation around here. In the 1970s, the district was ordered to bus students to end de-facto segregation, a bit of history I haven't found anyone too eager to talk about. As of 2016, only 55% of students living in PUSD boundaries attended public schools. The rest are in charter, private, home school, or transfer out of the district. At the same time, there are several schools with new magnet programs focused on STEM, Arts, and IB, and they also offer dual language options. I'm familiar with a group called Pasadena Education Network that seems to be doing good work towards promoting integrated schools. So overall, I'm observing some positive trajectory.
Where should I try to buy a house, then? (I mean, assuming we stay in Pasadena. We also have been looking around Glendale and Eagle Rock, which is a whole other ball of wax.) To complicate matters, PUSD offers open enrollment, meaning that if you don't want your student to attend your neighborhood school, you can go through a lottery system to obtain a seat for your child at a different school. So it doesn't even really matter, school-wise, where we buy because we can put the kids in a different school. We just have to give them a ride.
But you see that? How privileged am I that the need to provide transportation daily to/from a school a few miles away wouldn't even give me pause? We are a two parent family with only one of us working outside the home right now. We have the resources to pay for a vehicle, gas, and insurance. I'm not trying to work two minimum wage jobs just to keep food on the table here. And I have the mental bandwidth to think about all these things two years before my kids will even start kindergarten.
What a world we live in.
If you want to learn more about these topics, here are some resources I recommend:
- How America's Public Schools Keep Kids in Poverty (TED talk by Kandice Sumner)
- Follow Integrated Schools on Facebook
- "The Problem with Great Schools" inspired me to write this post
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