If the guy is just asking about how people feel within the day-to-day effort, he might not be asking the right questions to get at what kids really mean to their parents.

The article is misleading -- he didn't do the study, but there have been at least 3 with very similar results. He talks about them his book, Stumbling On Happiness. Which is an excellent, fun read, btw. It's about why people are so terrible at predicting what will make them happy.

But the studies were about day-to-day (and moment-to-moment) happiness, because memory is extremely unreliable when it comes to how happy, or unhappy, something made you.

Anyway, here's a bit from a essay he wrote for Time about the parenting issue:

Our children give us many things, but an increase in our average daily happiness is probably not among them. Rather than deny that fact, we should celebrate it. Our ability to love beyond all measure those who try our patience and weary our bones is at once our most noble and most human quality.

[link]

Oh, I am bounteously blessed. I want back on wheat, and stat. Oh, and the energy to actually go to the stores and pick them up.

Speaking of energy, I got enough up to take in my popcorn maker. I forget that sometimes, just sometimes, it's not going to be a frustrating experience (well, not counting the traffic), and Bed Bath and Beyond just let me swap mine right there for a new one.

The resulting popped batch tasted the most cornful of all. It was very delish.

most everyone finds the pros worth the cons.

I would hope so. Although I suspect I'd be miserable now in love or not, I'd hate to think I'd be more miserable now in love.

I was gonna recommend Bluebird, ita. I haven't tried the others. I'm going to make green tea cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for my students tomorrow, but the cupcakes come from a box (TJs) and I haven't tried them before. eh, how bad could they be, right?

Noah is SO CUTE. And egad, when did Matilda turn into a toddler?!

As for kids and happiness, I think it's both. They drive me nuts sometimes, and yet no one else can melt away my bad mood more quickly or more completely. But parenthood isn't necessarily about happiness any more than marriage is, at least for me. They are about loving someone else enough to let their life become intertwined with yours. Sometimes that will be difficult, but it's also wonderful.

Around here is Cakelove, which you may know from Warren Brown on Sugar Rush on Food Network. Aside from the fact that they are expensive, they keep them refrigerated for the buttercream, so after you buy it, you have to wait for it to come to room temp before you can eat it. Annoying.

Well, I suppose you don't have to wait, but I enjoy it a lot more.

Bobby Flay did a cupcake Throwdown with the woman from this place in LA: [link]

So the shelf above the toilet strikes again. This morning, I accidentally flushed a bottle of Lancome moisturizer. Now, I'm wondering if that will clog, or just float out to sea.

Sue - we have one of those too! They're in cahoots!

Jesse, Auntie Em's is good! Not their cupcakes, which are just okay due to meh cream cheese frosting. Though their cupcakes are as big as my head. (okay, not really, but they are pretty huge).

But they make an amazing breakfast sandwich on pretzel bread. And they do occasional market dinners where they do seasonal foods, which I've heard is super yum. Otherwise they are mostly a lunch and breakfast place.

They were in the nice portion of my sort-of previous neighborhood. It was a good place to take the baby. Though the service sucked.

Sue, clogging would be SO SO irritating. We have one of those shelves also. Nothing is on it right now.

Today started out great -- I heard the street cleaning truck and rushed out to move my car, and got there =just= as the metermaid was getting out of her truck to ticket me. She very graciously allowed me to move it without ticketing!

I need to sign up for the e-mail reminders again. Over the winter, I got out of the habit of marking street-cleaning on my calendar.