...for the lack of H1N1 vaccines! We (meaning Bee and I) took baby J to the pediatrician for a well-baby visit. He got the round of usual shots for a baby his age, but they were OUT of H1N1, so I didn't have to go through my "I only do the immunizations that my kids have to have in order to get visas for traveling some day when they're bigger" schpeal that I've done so many other times. Hooray!
One of the questions that I asked while we were there was about J's funny little pirate-ish crawl. I say pirate-ish, because it's sort of like a peg-legged pirate. He reaches with his right arm, and pushes with his right knee (so with his right side he's lifted up, like you think of when a baby crawls), but on his left side he crawls using his elbow and a straighter leg. The pediatrician looked at me and said "when he crawls? He's barely six months old!" I said yes. She said not to worry about a-symmetrical crawling until he's about nine months old. So that's good. He can keep on being a pirate. :-)
On a totally unrelated note, I hate preparing for qualifying exams. One of my friends (who is a much better student and had much more time to prepare than I will!) just failed his quals. He has the exact same committee as I do. This does not make me hopeful. Add to that the fact that I'm in this sort of endless "I'm building my lists" phase, during which I do nothing but add to a bibliography of things that seem important but I have no way of knowing because I've never done this before...and well, I feel even less like I belong in a PhD program than usual!
Friday, October 30, 2009
Monday, October 12, 2009
Good weekend
This weekend was good...we managed a nice combination of outside, inside, and in-between things.
Outside, we went to the farmer's market, the orchard, and out to Yellowwood. I'm always a little sad when the farmer's market starts to wind down....first you see the selection dwindle a bit, then fewer and fewer vendors come until I'm buying from folks I didn't buy from in the summer. But the music was still good!
At the orchard we tasted some delicious apples I had never heard of before. They're called "hidden rose" apples. They were selling them by the peck, which we can't use because it would go bad before we ate that many....but the dad in the family that owns the place recognized us as familiar faces when he was ringing up our stuff (on the till that doesn't process credit cards or checks!) and let us toss a couple into Bee's bag. I like to get a bag of apples there, even though it's a tad more expensive than at the store, for a couple of reasons. 1st, they're a local place owned by a really cute young-ish family, and they do lots of work toward feeding needy people in the community. 2nd, they have the best cider I've ever tasted...well, except maybe for place we used to go with Mamaw. 3rd, they do organic growing. It's nice to know that my kids won't sprout extra eyes from eating their apples. 4th, the apples are small! Like the size they're supposed to be. Which means that Bee can eat a whole one, with no waste involved. Always good.
We were a little early for good color at Yellowwood, but we had fun skipping rocks, and climbing the "mountain" (the dam for the lake).
The inside stuff isn't as cool, but it's stuff that makes me happy. I told my friend Julie that she solved all my problems by keeping my kids for a couple of hours on Saturday. We painted a dresser for Bee (the dresser, paint, and new paint brush all totaled less than $40....not bad for a dresser). Which means we could take apart and put away the changing table and put Baby J's clothes into Bee's old dresser, put Bee's clothes into her new dresser, and move the furniture so the kids are in the same room and we have our room back! YAY!
Besides the painting, we also went food storage shopping. We bought so much bulk stuff that the guy at the market threw our salt and vinegar chips (which I loved but Ben didn't think were so stellar) in for free! Another YAY!
To top it all, (even though it's not really the weekend it's still good!) Bee was good and obedient in her ballet class today. It made me smile.
And that's about it!
Outside, we went to the farmer's market, the orchard, and out to Yellowwood. I'm always a little sad when the farmer's market starts to wind down....first you see the selection dwindle a bit, then fewer and fewer vendors come until I'm buying from folks I didn't buy from in the summer. But the music was still good!
At the orchard we tasted some delicious apples I had never heard of before. They're called "hidden rose" apples. They were selling them by the peck, which we can't use because it would go bad before we ate that many....but the dad in the family that owns the place recognized us as familiar faces when he was ringing up our stuff (on the till that doesn't process credit cards or checks!) and let us toss a couple into Bee's bag. I like to get a bag of apples there, even though it's a tad more expensive than at the store, for a couple of reasons. 1st, they're a local place owned by a really cute young-ish family, and they do lots of work toward feeding needy people in the community. 2nd, they have the best cider I've ever tasted...well, except maybe for place we used to go with Mamaw. 3rd, they do organic growing. It's nice to know that my kids won't sprout extra eyes from eating their apples. 4th, the apples are small! Like the size they're supposed to be. Which means that Bee can eat a whole one, with no waste involved. Always good.
We were a little early for good color at Yellowwood, but we had fun skipping rocks, and climbing the "mountain" (the dam for the lake).
The inside stuff isn't as cool, but it's stuff that makes me happy. I told my friend Julie that she solved all my problems by keeping my kids for a couple of hours on Saturday. We painted a dresser for Bee (the dresser, paint, and new paint brush all totaled less than $40....not bad for a dresser). Which means we could take apart and put away the changing table and put Baby J's clothes into Bee's old dresser, put Bee's clothes into her new dresser, and move the furniture so the kids are in the same room and we have our room back! YAY!
Besides the painting, we also went food storage shopping. We bought so much bulk stuff that the guy at the market threw our salt and vinegar chips (which I loved but Ben didn't think were so stellar) in for free! Another YAY!
To top it all, (even though it's not really the weekend it's still good!) Bee was good and obedient in her ballet class today. It made me smile.
And that's about it!
Monday, October 5, 2009
Ballet day
Thankfully, today went much better than the last ballet class. I've reconsidered the disowning.
Because of last Monday's fiasco (which I don't think I'll ever even be able to talk about entirely on here), we've worked on revamping some things....like time-out in her room instead of the time-out chair (thus eliminating further "look, I'm getting out of the chair" power plays), quiet time instead of nap time (eliminating the fight over a nap, and resulting in her putting herself down about half the time), putting her food where she can get at it herself when she wants it (in a lower, reachable shelf in the fridge, eliminating the "now you're sitting down with J latched on and milk letting down, I think I'll ask you for my juice!" stuff), and just generally trying to not be quite as compulsive about control as I have been for the last three years!
She's enjoying the independence, I'm enjoying the lack of headache, and things are going much more smoothly at our house. And when battles that deserve to be fought (like not laying on Baby J, going to bed at bedtime, etc) come up, they seem less like a crisis, are more quickly resolved, and leave us both with energy to talk about them instead of just getting mad.
So while it was a painful day a week ago, it has resulted in good and (I think) inspired things. At least something productive came out of it all!
Because of last Monday's fiasco (which I don't think I'll ever even be able to talk about entirely on here), we've worked on revamping some things....like time-out in her room instead of the time-out chair (thus eliminating further "look, I'm getting out of the chair" power plays), quiet time instead of nap time (eliminating the fight over a nap, and resulting in her putting herself down about half the time), putting her food where she can get at it herself when she wants it (in a lower, reachable shelf in the fridge, eliminating the "now you're sitting down with J latched on and milk letting down, I think I'll ask you for my juice!" stuff), and just generally trying to not be quite as compulsive about control as I have been for the last three years!
She's enjoying the independence, I'm enjoying the lack of headache, and things are going much more smoothly at our house. And when battles that deserve to be fought (like not laying on Baby J, going to bed at bedtime, etc) come up, they seem less like a crisis, are more quickly resolved, and leave us both with energy to talk about them instead of just getting mad.
So while it was a painful day a week ago, it has resulted in good and (I think) inspired things. At least something productive came out of it all!
Thursday, October 1, 2009
What I used to want to be when I grew up
A long time ago, I wanted to excavate fossils. As my job. And I wanted to discover new dinosaurs and anything I could about what we used to be like.
This article is really cool. It reminds me of a story that we read in Prof. Pratt's class. (I must be honest and admit that I don't remember which one, but I think it was by Pardo Bazan) And it makes me just a teensy bit sad that I'm still in graduate school poring over books and not out digging in the dirt.
This article is really cool. It reminds me of a story that we read in Prof. Pratt's class. (I must be honest and admit that I don't remember which one, but I think it was by Pardo Bazan) And it makes me just a teensy bit sad that I'm still in graduate school poring over books and not out digging in the dirt.
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