I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but my baby LL has been replaced with a little boy. And when I say "boy," I really do mean gender-stereotyped boy. He likes playing in dirt. He says "vroom! vroom!" while pushing toy cars. He is fascinated by trucks and airplanes. He is fearlessly obsessed with climbing to death-defying heights. He believes that chairs are for jumping off of, or flipping over, but rarely for sitting. He loves trains (and since the only television he's ever seen has been Packers games, I can't blame it on cartoons like Thomas). Even though he's still in the drunken-sailor Frankenstein-on-brand-new-legs phase of learning to walk, he has somehow already learned how to run. He figures out how toys work without our help. And he has this breathlessly happy, excited way of saying "Daddy!" that both melts my heart and makes me a bit jealous. (He says "Mama," too, but not out of excitement. He says it when he wants something. As S is fond of saying, LL clearly thinks of the word "Mama" as a command, not a name.)
He has also started cultivating his fiercely independent side. He has enjoyed holding his own spoon during meals for quite some time, but it was mainly ornamental (and a convenient teething toy between bites of food). Now he is actually feeding himself -- he uses his spoon for actual conveyance of food, dipping it into bowls and then bringing it to his mouth, repeatedly. It would be more effective if he didn't flip the spoon over every single time on its way to his mouth, but it works quite well for sticky foods that can just be licked off. He hates diaper changes. He hates putting on clothes. He hates that there are objects in the house that he is not allowed to handle and/or chew on. (Chanukah candles were a problem. He got really pissed that we wouldn't let him touch fire.) He is obsessed with electronics. He will only listen to books that he has chosen himself and handed to us, often turning to the exact page that he would like us to read first. He hates being thwarted. For a long time, he barely noticed baby gates, but now he shakes them angrily with his hands and shrieks in frustration whenever he encounters one. He also shrieks when he finds that his ever-growing body doesn't fit somewhere it once did, like in narrow gaps between furniture, or underneath small tables.
We took advantage of his desire for independence by finally changing LL's bedtime routine. For more than a year, we have ignored the advice to put him down in his crib "sleepy but awake." Early on, we just didn't have the fortitude to deal with the screaming that ensued. Then both S and I came to love the snuggling time that we got with LL by rocking him gently to sleep every night. The sleep experts all claim that soothing your child all the way to sleep will rob him of the ability to learn how to put himself to sleep, resulting in a baby that needs your help to fall back asleep every 3-4 hours, all night long. But these same experts say that a baby that can sleep for at least six straight hours without calling for help has definitely woken up and gone back to sleep by himself at least once during that time, and LL was sleeping for twelve straight hours almost every single night, so we were pretty sure that he had figured it out on his own. Nevertheless, S and I decided that it was finally time to stop rocking him all the way to asleep at bedtime. Partially this was planning ahead (waaaaay ahead) for possibly having another baby. Partially it was because the uncertainty of not knowing how long it would take to get him to sleep was becoming a problem. Mainly, though, it was just that LL had gotten so big that he doesn't fit lying sideways in my lap and I couldn't comfortably move him around while cradled in my arms. The bedtime transition went surprisingly smoothly. The first night, he screamed for exactly 15 minutes after we put him in his crib and closed the door behind us. (To be clear: this was screaming, not crying. He was not sad or upset. He was mad.) The second night, it was five minutes. He has rarely protested at all since then, other than a few shrieks when we leave the room, just to make sure that we know that this is not his preferred method of falling asleep.
He is finally starting to show some interest in "adult" foods, so we've been able to cut back a bit on the purees. Current favorite foods are cottage cheese, meatballs, grapefruit, tangerines, rice crackers, and spinach nuggets. (Spinach nuggets, by the way, are exactly what they sound like: they're like chicken nuggets, but with spinach instead of chicken. He is bizarrely fascinated by them.) He still rejects most of the common toddler foods like scrambled eggs, macaroni and cheese, avocado, bread, and pasta. But every once in a while he surprises us, like last week when he gobbled up an entire bowl of my broccoli orzo stew.
We took LL to the zoo for the first time, where he became obsessed with kangaroos. He hugged every goat in the petting zoo. He was very popular with the goats, possibly because he had smeared so much oatmeal in his hair at breakfast that he smelled deliciously like oats. At one point, he became so surrounded by goats and sheep that a zoo employee came over because she was afraid about him getting freaked out and trampled, but he was giggling so hard that she let them be. He tried his best to climb into the bear enclosure. He did not understand why he was not allowed to hug the bears.
S's company shut down for the holidays, so we have been enjoying lots of family time. I've gone into work a few times, but mainly just to work on job applications. Yep, I have now officially applied for several tenure-track assistant professor gigs. I'm also still working on two papers that I'm hoping to submit in the next few weeks, but I've decided to enjoy my time with S and LL and worry about the paper starting in January.
Happy 2010!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
It Begins Again (Almost)
Know what I picked up yesterday? A prescription for Clomid. I'm not planning on starting a medicated cycle until mid-January at the earliest, but Dr. M called it in to the pharmacy now so that I can start it whenever I like. I just pop a pill, call his office to schedule the necessary monitoring appointments, and we're off.
I'm both excited and totally freaked out about it.
S saw the prescription and just shuddered. He's excited about having another child (and he's even more excited about trying to get me pregnant, silly man!) but he's quite possibly even more nervous than I am about the whole doped-up-on-hormones thing. I was quite the emotional freak show the first time I took fertility meds, and neither one of us is looking forward to doing it while we also have a gazillion other things on our plate. (But then, we had a gazillion things on our plate the first time, too, not the least of which was that S was recovering from surgery and going through a ton of physical therapy, which isn't true this time around, so at least that's something.)
Complicating things a bit: LL is suddenly very possessive of me. It's as if he can sense that we're trying to create some competition for him, and he wants to make clear that he, and only he, is the center of my life. If S and I hug in front of LL, he inevitably comes over to us and inserts himself between us, pushing S away from me and hugging me himself. S tried giving me a back rub this weekend, and LL kept pushing S's hands away from me, then patting my back with his own hands. It's really very cute, but the more it happens, the more I worry about how he'll react to a baby sibling.
S and I babysat on Sunday for our friends' daughter, partially as a favor to them, but with the additional motivation of watching what LL would do as we cared for another child. The baby is eight months old and immobile, so it helped that LL could just move away from her if he wanted some space. At first, S and I sat on the floor beside the baby, and LL crawled around us. He played with toys, he handed toys to the baby, he asked us to read books, he handed books to the baby... all was well. He behaved perfectly, and didn't even mind sharing his toys. (It helps that the baby brought one of her own toys, and LL thought it was the most awesome toy he had ever seen, and she let him play with it.) When I picked up the baby to go change her diaper, though, LL got a little suspicious and crawled after us. (It probably didn't help that I was using his changing table, in his room.) He watched us very closely the whole time. But, he was ultimately okay with it, and returned to his play.
Then I put the baby in LL's high chair to feed her dinner. And LL freaked out. We're not sure if it was the fact that she was in his chair, or the fact that she was getting food and he wasn't, or the fact that his mommy was the one feeding her. Whatever it was, LL decided that he had been patient long enough, but now things had gone too far. He grabbed onto my legs, he shrieked and whined, he tried to physically pull me away from the baby. I kept talking to him, and leaning down to give him kisses and hugs between feeding spoonfuls of banana and oatmeal to the baby, but he just got more and more upset. Eventually, S picked him up and took him to his room. Once he was behind closed doors with S, with me and the baby out of sight, he calmed down. And after the baby's dinner, when I carried her into his room to let them know that we were done, he seemed fine. Except that he later refused to eat his own dinner at first, rejecting every food we offered to him, while staring suspiciously at the baby sitting on the ground playing with his toys.
Part of me knows that this wasn't exactly a fair test. If we are lucky enough to get pregnant again, we'll have time to prepare LL for the new addition, rather than having a baby just appear at our house one day. LL will also be at least 9 months older by then, and better able to understand things that we tell him. The baby would have its own "stuff," at least during the first several newborn months, so LL wouldn't have to share his toys so much right away. LL would have time to get to know a new baby from the start, when the baby is a lump and there are other people to play with, so he might not view a new baby as "competition" until after s/he has been around for a while.
Still... it seems that we should really start interacting with more children, so that LL can get used to seeing us around other children.
Also, it was hard, but I thought that S and I handled it very well ourselves. We watched both kids, got them both fed, did several loads of laundry, and cooked dinner without too much hassle. There was one moment when S was clearing a clog in the washing machine and I was holding the baby while trying to wash potatoes and LL was in his high chair screaming because he was done with his raspberries and wanted his next course right now... and S called from the laundry room, "You know what? Let's only have one kid!" But you know, overall, it went well.
I'm both excited and totally freaked out about it.
S saw the prescription and just shuddered. He's excited about having another child (and he's even more excited about trying to get me pregnant, silly man!) but he's quite possibly even more nervous than I am about the whole doped-up-on-hormones thing. I was quite the emotional freak show the first time I took fertility meds, and neither one of us is looking forward to doing it while we also have a gazillion other things on our plate. (But then, we had a gazillion things on our plate the first time, too, not the least of which was that S was recovering from surgery and going through a ton of physical therapy, which isn't true this time around, so at least that's something.)
Complicating things a bit: LL is suddenly very possessive of me. It's as if he can sense that we're trying to create some competition for him, and he wants to make clear that he, and only he, is the center of my life. If S and I hug in front of LL, he inevitably comes over to us and inserts himself between us, pushing S away from me and hugging me himself. S tried giving me a back rub this weekend, and LL kept pushing S's hands away from me, then patting my back with his own hands. It's really very cute, but the more it happens, the more I worry about how he'll react to a baby sibling.
S and I babysat on Sunday for our friends' daughter, partially as a favor to them, but with the additional motivation of watching what LL would do as we cared for another child. The baby is eight months old and immobile, so it helped that LL could just move away from her if he wanted some space. At first, S and I sat on the floor beside the baby, and LL crawled around us. He played with toys, he handed toys to the baby, he asked us to read books, he handed books to the baby... all was well. He behaved perfectly, and didn't even mind sharing his toys. (It helps that the baby brought one of her own toys, and LL thought it was the most awesome toy he had ever seen, and she let him play with it.) When I picked up the baby to go change her diaper, though, LL got a little suspicious and crawled after us. (It probably didn't help that I was using his changing table, in his room.) He watched us very closely the whole time. But, he was ultimately okay with it, and returned to his play.
Then I put the baby in LL's high chair to feed her dinner. And LL freaked out. We're not sure if it was the fact that she was in his chair, or the fact that she was getting food and he wasn't, or the fact that his mommy was the one feeding her. Whatever it was, LL decided that he had been patient long enough, but now things had gone too far. He grabbed onto my legs, he shrieked and whined, he tried to physically pull me away from the baby. I kept talking to him, and leaning down to give him kisses and hugs between feeding spoonfuls of banana and oatmeal to the baby, but he just got more and more upset. Eventually, S picked him up and took him to his room. Once he was behind closed doors with S, with me and the baby out of sight, he calmed down. And after the baby's dinner, when I carried her into his room to let them know that we were done, he seemed fine. Except that he later refused to eat his own dinner at first, rejecting every food we offered to him, while staring suspiciously at the baby sitting on the ground playing with his toys.
Part of me knows that this wasn't exactly a fair test. If we are lucky enough to get pregnant again, we'll have time to prepare LL for the new addition, rather than having a baby just appear at our house one day. LL will also be at least 9 months older by then, and better able to understand things that we tell him. The baby would have its own "stuff," at least during the first several newborn months, so LL wouldn't have to share his toys so much right away. LL would have time to get to know a new baby from the start, when the baby is a lump and there are other people to play with, so he might not view a new baby as "competition" until after s/he has been around for a while.
Still... it seems that we should really start interacting with more children, so that LL can get used to seeing us around other children.
Also, it was hard, but I thought that S and I handled it very well ourselves. We watched both kids, got them both fed, did several loads of laundry, and cooked dinner without too much hassle. There was one moment when S was clearing a clog in the washing machine and I was holding the baby while trying to wash potatoes and LL was in his high chair screaming because he was done with his raspberries and wanted his next course right now... and S called from the laundry room, "You know what? Let's only have one kid!" But you know, overall, it went well.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Toddlerhood!
LL is climbing on everything, and he's like half an inch away from being able to open doors. He's addicted to peek-a-boo, and has developed a dramatic flourish for when he throws his arms wide to reveal his face. He blows on food when it's too hot. He can more or less feed himself with a fork. But most exciting of all:
LL is walking!
Wait, "walking" is a bit strong. LL is taking five steps or so before carefully falling gracefully to the ground! Yes, he is now the definition of toddler. The Friday before Thanksgiving, he consented to take some steps while holding onto somebody's hands. (Before that, he would only take steps while holding onto furniture. Other human beings were apparently not stable enough to trust with the support of his 24 pound frame.) On Sunday, he let go of me and took two steps to S. On Monday, he rested. (Learning to walk is very hard work.) After saying a cheerful "hello" to his auntie, S's sister, on Tuesday, LL spent the entire afternoon insisting that Auntie and I sit on the floor a few feet apart from each other so that he could toddle between us. By Wednesday, our house was packed with all of the visiting in-laws, and everybody had to be very careful not to trip over LL, who was pulling himself up on any and all available legs and then setting off across the open floor before falling prostrate onto the ground, usually right in front of an older relative carefully balancing a heaping plate of food.
In related news, Thanksgiving was fun and busy and entertaining and frustrating and stressful, and thankfully, it is now over. S's family has some weird dynamics, and even after ten years, I'm still getting used to it. Also, S's childhood friend, D, who has known his family for a long long time and often spends Thanksgiving with them, was with us for the week and drove me crazy. (As an example: Friday afternoon I had just finished serving lunch to 20 people, for the third day in a row, and finished prepping dinner for the same 20 people, for the fourth day in a row, and finally gotten LL to nap, and my house was still full of guests but they were happy and entertaining themselves for a change, and I sat down to relax a little for the first time in forever, when D came over to me and told me that he and his wife wanted to go shopping but they didn't want to bring their two-year-old with them, so they were going to leave him with me for a few hours. And then they just left. And the two-year-old was in a strange house filled with people he didn't know, and he freaked out. And I spent the next two hours trying to calm him down and reassure him that mommy and daddy were going to come back for him real soon. Because in addition to hosting tons of family for 5 days and cooking a ridiculous amount of food, I was apparently running a holiday baby-sitting service. Also, D arrived at our house on day four with a horrible cough, and when we asked him about it, he said that he'd been really sick for a while now, but he'd been masking it with cold medicine so that he could still come over for Thanksgiving. He'd run out of medicine, so he couldn't hide it from us anymore. Jerk. Yesterday, LL started coughing. Shocking, right?)
On the plus side, S's family was totally charmed by LL, who really ramped up the cuteness for the week. No traces of separation anxiety -- he was totally equal opportunity, playing with everybody and going to the park alone with aunties and uncles that he hadn't seen since he was three months old. He even spent a good hour with a particularly grumpy uncle, handing blocks and stacking cups back and forth and clapping enthusiastically whenever the uncle smiled at him. I even got to see the first half of the Packers game while the turkey cooked (go Pack!) and LL wore his little Packers jersey and cheered for every first down, and crawled around the room tugging on people's legs to make sure that they knew that they were supposed to be clapping. He is scarily comfortable being the center of attention.
So, we survived. Everybody is now back safely at home, our fridge is full of leftovers, and we're slowly putting the house back together. I told S that I'm not cooking again for a month, but I'll probably break down after a few days of pizza and spaghetti. We won't have to host Thanksgiving for at least 6 years (longer if S's sister gets added to the rotation, which will probably happen soon). So, the next time we host, LL will be in grade school, we'll probably be living in a different state, we could have another child, and theoretically, I could have tenure somewhere. Freaky!
I'm feverishly back to working on job applications, with the hopes of getting all of the materials done by December 10 (a little over a week from now). If I can hit that deadline, I can turn my attention to a paper that I'm trying to finish, hoping to get it done before Christmas. If both of those things get done on time, I will be free of work obligations through the December holidays. S's office shuts down between Christmas and New Year's, which gives us an 11-day stretch of vacation during which we will both be free. Amazing! We had been planning on staying home and relaxing and playing with LL for that entire time, but we're starting to feel a little guilty about not bringing LL to visit family, so we might travel for New Year's after all.
Deadlines are looming. No more break time for me. Back to work!
LL is walking!
Wait, "walking" is a bit strong. LL is taking five steps or so before carefully falling gracefully to the ground! Yes, he is now the definition of toddler. The Friday before Thanksgiving, he consented to take some steps while holding onto somebody's hands. (Before that, he would only take steps while holding onto furniture. Other human beings were apparently not stable enough to trust with the support of his 24 pound frame.) On Sunday, he let go of me and took two steps to S. On Monday, he rested. (Learning to walk is very hard work.) After saying a cheerful "hello" to his auntie, S's sister, on Tuesday, LL spent the entire afternoon insisting that Auntie and I sit on the floor a few feet apart from each other so that he could toddle between us. By Wednesday, our house was packed with all of the visiting in-laws, and everybody had to be very careful not to trip over LL, who was pulling himself up on any and all available legs and then setting off across the open floor before falling prostrate onto the ground, usually right in front of an older relative carefully balancing a heaping plate of food.
In related news, Thanksgiving was fun and busy and entertaining and frustrating and stressful, and thankfully, it is now over. S's family has some weird dynamics, and even after ten years, I'm still getting used to it. Also, S's childhood friend, D, who has known his family for a long long time and often spends Thanksgiving with them, was with us for the week and drove me crazy. (As an example: Friday afternoon I had just finished serving lunch to 20 people, for the third day in a row, and finished prepping dinner for the same 20 people, for the fourth day in a row, and finally gotten LL to nap, and my house was still full of guests but they were happy and entertaining themselves for a change, and I sat down to relax a little for the first time in forever, when D came over to me and told me that he and his wife wanted to go shopping but they didn't want to bring their two-year-old with them, so they were going to leave him with me for a few hours. And then they just left. And the two-year-old was in a strange house filled with people he didn't know, and he freaked out. And I spent the next two hours trying to calm him down and reassure him that mommy and daddy were going to come back for him real soon. Because in addition to hosting tons of family for 5 days and cooking a ridiculous amount of food, I was apparently running a holiday baby-sitting service. Also, D arrived at our house on day four with a horrible cough, and when we asked him about it, he said that he'd been really sick for a while now, but he'd been masking it with cold medicine so that he could still come over for Thanksgiving. He'd run out of medicine, so he couldn't hide it from us anymore. Jerk. Yesterday, LL started coughing. Shocking, right?)
On the plus side, S's family was totally charmed by LL, who really ramped up the cuteness for the week. No traces of separation anxiety -- he was totally equal opportunity, playing with everybody and going to the park alone with aunties and uncles that he hadn't seen since he was three months old. He even spent a good hour with a particularly grumpy uncle, handing blocks and stacking cups back and forth and clapping enthusiastically whenever the uncle smiled at him. I even got to see the first half of the Packers game while the turkey cooked (go Pack!) and LL wore his little Packers jersey and cheered for every first down, and crawled around the room tugging on people's legs to make sure that they knew that they were supposed to be clapping. He is scarily comfortable being the center of attention.
So, we survived. Everybody is now back safely at home, our fridge is full of leftovers, and we're slowly putting the house back together. I told S that I'm not cooking again for a month, but I'll probably break down after a few days of pizza and spaghetti. We won't have to host Thanksgiving for at least 6 years (longer if S's sister gets added to the rotation, which will probably happen soon). So, the next time we host, LL will be in grade school, we'll probably be living in a different state, we could have another child, and theoretically, I could have tenure somewhere. Freaky!
I'm feverishly back to working on job applications, with the hopes of getting all of the materials done by December 10 (a little over a week from now). If I can hit that deadline, I can turn my attention to a paper that I'm trying to finish, hoping to get it done before Christmas. If both of those things get done on time, I will be free of work obligations through the December holidays. S's office shuts down between Christmas and New Year's, which gives us an 11-day stretch of vacation during which we will both be free. Amazing! We had been planning on staying home and relaxing and playing with LL for that entire time, but we're starting to feel a little guilty about not bringing LL to visit family, so we might travel for New Year's after all.
Deadlines are looming. No more break time for me. Back to work!
Monday, November 23, 2009
Status Memo II
Busy busy busy don't have to time to stop must get through the next week... month... 6 weeks. But as busy as things are, they are getting better. Not so much better that I have time to write an essay, but enough better that I have time for another set of bullet-point-ish paragraphs.
Sleep: We're getting some. Not a ton, but hopefully enough. LL isn't completely reliably sleeping through the night, but he's doing it most of the time. He still seems to be sleeping more lightly than usual, so we've instituted some desperate "please oh please don't wake the baby!" measures that we normally try to avoid. He's mid-transition from two naps to one, which isn't helping. S and I are going to bed earlier and earlier ourselves to compensate, as much as that has been possible while also getting done all of the work and chores on our ever-present to-do list.
Health: I'm probably at about 85% right now. Definitely getting better, definitely still a bit weak. I'm still having some nerve pain, but it's at the Advil-can-help stage rather than the Vicodin-barely-works stage. And my fever is gone. Sleep is my friend.
School: A carefully worded email to AdvisorA has brought her back into my corner. "Hi! Remember me? Your student who is graduating very soon? You don't have very many former students out in the world, and it would really help your reputation if the ones that you DO have don't hate you. Also, it would help you if they had really good jobs that you could brag about. Can you perhaps think of some ways in which you could help me to get a good job and not hate you?" (I'm paraphrasing. She seems to have figured out the whole "helping me will help you" part mostly on her own.) She's suddenly super psyched about helping me to find an awesome job.
Jobs: Interview number one, at a mature mid-sized company doing some fairly cool work, went really well, despite the fact that I had a fever of 101. (In general, I don't recommend interviewing while delirious with fever. But my particular delirium convinced me that I wasn't impaired at all, so I didn't reschedule like I probably should have.) Luckily, the CEO loved me, and has all but promised me a job offer. He loved me so much, in fact, that when I told him that I didn't want to make any final decisions until March or April, so that I could see what happens with academic positions, he said, "No problem; we'll make the offer and you can hold it until you're ready." I'm not sure whether this job is something that I'd want to do, but it will be good to have something in hand while I look around. Most of my effort is going into applying for tenure track assistant professor jobs. Applications, for the most part, are due at the end of the year. I'm frantically working on application materials now. (CV: draft done, being reviewed. Research statement: 20% done. Teaching statement: 80% done. References: three confirmed, lining up two more. List of schools to apply to: currently at 9.) Hence the 6 weeks of busy busy hell.
Thanksgiving: Everything that could be made ahead has been made. Two 18-pound turkeys have been ordered (I'm roasting one on Wednesday, the other on Thursday). The house is clean, and the furniture has been rearranged to accommodate all the extra people. Other than a small list of fresh vegetables and fish that I'll need to buy on Wednesday, all of the shopping is done. By the way: yes, fish for Thanksgiving. S's family is from Hawaii, so poke and lomi-lomi salmon are required dishes at Thanksgiving. Also, seaweed salad and fried saimin and arare and spam musubi. When I host, I also add Jewish favorites like brisket and noodle kugel and mandelbrot (my grandmother's recipe, with chocolate jimmies). This is all in addition to the traditional turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and pie. Can you see why it's good that we only have to host once every six years or so?
The Thanksgiving guests all arrive tomorrow. Happy Turkey Day to all, and to all a good night.
Sleep: We're getting some. Not a ton, but hopefully enough. LL isn't completely reliably sleeping through the night, but he's doing it most of the time. He still seems to be sleeping more lightly than usual, so we've instituted some desperate "please oh please don't wake the baby!" measures that we normally try to avoid. He's mid-transition from two naps to one, which isn't helping. S and I are going to bed earlier and earlier ourselves to compensate, as much as that has been possible while also getting done all of the work and chores on our ever-present to-do list.
Health: I'm probably at about 85% right now. Definitely getting better, definitely still a bit weak. I'm still having some nerve pain, but it's at the Advil-can-help stage rather than the Vicodin-barely-works stage. And my fever is gone. Sleep is my friend.
School: A carefully worded email to AdvisorA has brought her back into my corner. "Hi! Remember me? Your student who is graduating very soon? You don't have very many former students out in the world, and it would really help your reputation if the ones that you DO have don't hate you. Also, it would help you if they had really good jobs that you could brag about. Can you perhaps think of some ways in which you could help me to get a good job and not hate you?" (I'm paraphrasing. She seems to have figured out the whole "helping me will help you" part mostly on her own.) She's suddenly super psyched about helping me to find an awesome job.
Jobs: Interview number one, at a mature mid-sized company doing some fairly cool work, went really well, despite the fact that I had a fever of 101. (In general, I don't recommend interviewing while delirious with fever. But my particular delirium convinced me that I wasn't impaired at all, so I didn't reschedule like I probably should have.) Luckily, the CEO loved me, and has all but promised me a job offer. He loved me so much, in fact, that when I told him that I didn't want to make any final decisions until March or April, so that I could see what happens with academic positions, he said, "No problem; we'll make the offer and you can hold it until you're ready." I'm not sure whether this job is something that I'd want to do, but it will be good to have something in hand while I look around. Most of my effort is going into applying for tenure track assistant professor jobs. Applications, for the most part, are due at the end of the year. I'm frantically working on application materials now. (CV: draft done, being reviewed. Research statement: 20% done. Teaching statement: 80% done. References: three confirmed, lining up two more. List of schools to apply to: currently at 9.) Hence the 6 weeks of busy busy hell.
Thanksgiving: Everything that could be made ahead has been made. Two 18-pound turkeys have been ordered (I'm roasting one on Wednesday, the other on Thursday). The house is clean, and the furniture has been rearranged to accommodate all the extra people. Other than a small list of fresh vegetables and fish that I'll need to buy on Wednesday, all of the shopping is done. By the way: yes, fish for Thanksgiving. S's family is from Hawaii, so poke and lomi-lomi salmon are required dishes at Thanksgiving. Also, seaweed salad and fried saimin and arare and spam musubi. When I host, I also add Jewish favorites like brisket and noodle kugel and mandelbrot (my grandmother's recipe, with chocolate jimmies). This is all in addition to the traditional turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, and pie. Can you see why it's good that we only have to host once every six years or so?
The Thanksgiving guests all arrive tomorrow. Happy Turkey Day to all, and to all a good night.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Status Memo
Thank you for all of the encouraging comments on my last post. It's good to get kicked around sometimes and reminded that worrying about contingencies does very little good. Just take one step at a time and keep moving forward. I'm working on it. Here's my status:
Teeth: LL is up to 14 teeth. All 8 incisors, all 4 canines, both top molars. The bottom molars seem to have receded a bit for now, so we're hoping for some relief. It seems that, at just under 14 months, he is almost ready to rip apart steak. Gnaw the meat right from the bone. He is a toothy force to be reckoned with.
Sleep: We finally took LL to the doctor because his sleep was getting worse and worse. We were dosing him with every child-safe medication we could get our hands on (Motrin, Tylenol, Benadryl, teething tablets) and he was still waking up by midnight every night and refusing to go back to sleep unless held upright in the glider by a loving and perfectly still parent. After several weeks of sitting upright in the chair for 6+ hours at a time, averaging only 3 hours of sleep/night for myself, something had to give. The doctor noted a little fluid in his ears (but no infection) and gave us prescription ear drops to add to the nightly regimen. He is now finally breaking through. Two nights in a row now, he hasn't needed us at all. It could be that his ear pain is resolving. It could be that the troublesome teeth broke through. It could be that he's just ready to be sleeping again. Don't know, don't care. Sleep is good.
School: AdvisorA is officially ignoring me. I don't know if it's because she found out about the funding thing, or if she just doesn't care. I haven't spoken to her on the phone for months. When I send her an email, there's typically more than a week's wait for a reply. I've been trying to set up a phone conversation with her for the last two weeks, and it still hasn't happened. Her latest "effort" earlier this week was an email that said she was available at 4:30 this afternoon, was I free then? I saw her email within an hour of her sending it, and replied that 4:30 would be great. A day later, she replied that by the time she saw my email, she had scheduled that slot with someone else, sorry, but she might be available sometime on Friday. I should just wait by my phone between 9am and 1pm on Friday, because she might call me then. Or she might not. Um, thanks.
Jobs: I have two job interviews. Yippee! Here's to hoping that LL lets me have more than 3 hours of sleep the night before.
Health: I came down with a horrible virus this week. Quite possibly the worst I've ever had. Not flu, but really really ugly. Like, attacking my nerves ugly. When I finally saw my doctor today because good lord I feel awful, she was a little shocked by how bad I was, and asked me if I was under any stress or missing sleep lately. Heh. I summarized the above bullet points, and she prescribed meds. And urged me to sleep, as if that's something I have control over. And told me to expect to feel like crap for several more weeks. At least the prevailing medical opinion is that I am not contagious, so I can continue my ridiculous life while I convalesce.
Thanksgiving: So far, I have made two briskets, one noodle kugel, one sweet potato casserole, two cranberry nut breads, two pumpkin breads, and one poppy seed cake. They are all happily snuggled in the freezer, awaiting the upcoming holiday. Spinach bars and mandelbrot are next. Twenty out-of-town relatives arriving in twelve days, and staying for a week? Bring it on!
S asked me this afternoon how in the world I'm still on my feet. I'm not entirely sure. One step at a time, right?
Teeth: LL is up to 14 teeth. All 8 incisors, all 4 canines, both top molars. The bottom molars seem to have receded a bit for now, so we're hoping for some relief. It seems that, at just under 14 months, he is almost ready to rip apart steak. Gnaw the meat right from the bone. He is a toothy force to be reckoned with.
Sleep: We finally took LL to the doctor because his sleep was getting worse and worse. We were dosing him with every child-safe medication we could get our hands on (Motrin, Tylenol, Benadryl, teething tablets) and he was still waking up by midnight every night and refusing to go back to sleep unless held upright in the glider by a loving and perfectly still parent. After several weeks of sitting upright in the chair for 6+ hours at a time, averaging only 3 hours of sleep/night for myself, something had to give. The doctor noted a little fluid in his ears (but no infection) and gave us prescription ear drops to add to the nightly regimen. He is now finally breaking through. Two nights in a row now, he hasn't needed us at all. It could be that his ear pain is resolving. It could be that the troublesome teeth broke through. It could be that he's just ready to be sleeping again. Don't know, don't care. Sleep is good.
School: AdvisorA is officially ignoring me. I don't know if it's because she found out about the funding thing, or if she just doesn't care. I haven't spoken to her on the phone for months. When I send her an email, there's typically more than a week's wait for a reply. I've been trying to set up a phone conversation with her for the last two weeks, and it still hasn't happened. Her latest "effort" earlier this week was an email that said she was available at 4:30 this afternoon, was I free then? I saw her email within an hour of her sending it, and replied that 4:30 would be great. A day later, she replied that by the time she saw my email, she had scheduled that slot with someone else, sorry, but she might be available sometime on Friday. I should just wait by my phone between 9am and 1pm on Friday, because she might call me then. Or she might not. Um, thanks.
Jobs: I have two job interviews. Yippee! Here's to hoping that LL lets me have more than 3 hours of sleep the night before.
Health: I came down with a horrible virus this week. Quite possibly the worst I've ever had. Not flu, but really really ugly. Like, attacking my nerves ugly. When I finally saw my doctor today because good lord I feel awful, she was a little shocked by how bad I was, and asked me if I was under any stress or missing sleep lately. Heh. I summarized the above bullet points, and she prescribed meds. And urged me to sleep, as if that's something I have control over. And told me to expect to feel like crap for several more weeks. At least the prevailing medical opinion is that I am not contagious, so I can continue my ridiculous life while I convalesce.
Thanksgiving: So far, I have made two briskets, one noodle kugel, one sweet potato casserole, two cranberry nut breads, two pumpkin breads, and one poppy seed cake. They are all happily snuggled in the freezer, awaiting the upcoming holiday. Spinach bars and mandelbrot are next. Twenty out-of-town relatives arriving in twelve days, and staying for a week? Bring it on!
S asked me this afternoon how in the world I'm still on my feet. I'm not entirely sure. One step at a time, right?
Monday, November 2, 2009
Midlife Crisis
I hate making big life decisions. Hate it. But you know what's even worse? Making lots of big life decisions all at the same time.
I'm graduating in June, and that reality is standing just a few months in front of me, with a giant cliff behind it. I need to look for a job, but applying for jobs requires knowing where we want to live. (We would like to settle somewhere within a day's drive of some family, and our current location does not fit the bill.) Looking for a job also, to a large extent, requires knowing how soon we want to have a second child. So I'm facing decisions on three fronts: having another child, choosing a city, and deciding on a career. And I'm completely frozen with the enormity of deciding all of those things at once.
I'm in that dangerous mid-thirties territory where fertility starts to drop, and it's not like I was exactly fertile to begin with. (It took more than two years to get pregnant with LL. I'm naively hoping that this time will be faster, but I'm not naive enough to think that a second pregnancy will come without a whole lot pain and intervention.) It seems incredibly stupid to wait to have a second child if we're sure that we want one. The only reason to wait would be for career reasons, but ultimately, if we end up unable to have a second child because I didn't want to disrupt my career path, I'll hate myself. So, we're starting to try for a second child. Right now. We're giving it a few months of the old fashioned way, but we're planning to make an appointment with Dr. M sometime around February or so.
That decision is actually the easy one. More difficult is ... how the hell do I handle a potential pregnancy while also facing a career crossroads? In general, I think that looking for a new job while also trying to get pregnant is one of the stupider things I've ever done on purpose. Because one of these things is guaranteed to happen:
1. I'm pregnant while I'm interviewing for jobs. Everybody in the world advises against this. Nobody gets job offers while pregnant. Why would I make the job hunt even harder, when I'm already looking for a job during the worst recession of my (or my parents) lifetime? On the plus side, if I do manage to get a job offer this way, at least I can strategically plan my first day of work (X months after my due date, where I get to pick X without worrying about maternity leave).
2. I'm pregnant during the first year at a new job. "Hi! Thanks for hiring me! I'm going to immediately need 6 months off." Awkward.... Particularly if I end up in one of those all-too-common fixed-length academic jobs. Taking a two or three year position, only to immediately leave for six months, seems cruel. And a fantastic way to burn bridges.
3. I'm undergoing fertility treatments during the first year at a new job. All the awkwardness of #2, with extended hormone imbalances thrown in for fun.
4. I don't get any job offers. Not the worst thing in the world, I guess, but it does mean that we can't move. S is totally willing to move to wherever I get a job; he would telecommute to his old job for a while, if they'll let him, until he can find a good local job. But there's no way we would move to a city where neither of us has a job, because that would be financial suicide. So, in this scenario, I'm unemployed, so we need S to keep his current job. So, we can't move. But we'd still be trying to get pregnant. Either we succeed in getting pregnant, in which case we will be raising two small children while living far far away from all family and simultaneously looking for a job for me. Or we don't succeed in getting pregnant, in which case I will be going through fertility treatments while looking for a job while being a SAHM while being depressed about my years in grad school going to waste.
All four of these options sound bad to me. Bad bad bad. The first one is the best of them, but it's still not that great (and the least likely: I quickly get pregnant AND I get a great job offer? Sure. Like I have that kind of luck).
Everything basically comes down to this: I'm terrified about the future. I've never before felt this uncertain about where I want my life to go.
It speaks volumes, I think, that I'm writing my dissertation and planning my defense, but those two things are the things in my life that I am least worried about right now.
I'm graduating in June, and that reality is standing just a few months in front of me, with a giant cliff behind it. I need to look for a job, but applying for jobs requires knowing where we want to live. (We would like to settle somewhere within a day's drive of some family, and our current location does not fit the bill.) Looking for a job also, to a large extent, requires knowing how soon we want to have a second child. So I'm facing decisions on three fronts: having another child, choosing a city, and deciding on a career. And I'm completely frozen with the enormity of deciding all of those things at once.
I'm in that dangerous mid-thirties territory where fertility starts to drop, and it's not like I was exactly fertile to begin with. (It took more than two years to get pregnant with LL. I'm naively hoping that this time will be faster, but I'm not naive enough to think that a second pregnancy will come without a whole lot pain and intervention.) It seems incredibly stupid to wait to have a second child if we're sure that we want one. The only reason to wait would be for career reasons, but ultimately, if we end up unable to have a second child because I didn't want to disrupt my career path, I'll hate myself. So, we're starting to try for a second child. Right now. We're giving it a few months of the old fashioned way, but we're planning to make an appointment with Dr. M sometime around February or so.
That decision is actually the easy one. More difficult is ... how the hell do I handle a potential pregnancy while also facing a career crossroads? In general, I think that looking for a new job while also trying to get pregnant is one of the stupider things I've ever done on purpose. Because one of these things is guaranteed to happen:
1. I'm pregnant while I'm interviewing for jobs. Everybody in the world advises against this. Nobody gets job offers while pregnant. Why would I make the job hunt even harder, when I'm already looking for a job during the worst recession of my (or my parents) lifetime? On the plus side, if I do manage to get a job offer this way, at least I can strategically plan my first day of work (X months after my due date, where I get to pick X without worrying about maternity leave).
2. I'm pregnant during the first year at a new job. "Hi! Thanks for hiring me! I'm going to immediately need 6 months off." Awkward.... Particularly if I end up in one of those all-too-common fixed-length academic jobs. Taking a two or three year position, only to immediately leave for six months, seems cruel. And a fantastic way to burn bridges.
3. I'm undergoing fertility treatments during the first year at a new job. All the awkwardness of #2, with extended hormone imbalances thrown in for fun.
4. I don't get any job offers. Not the worst thing in the world, I guess, but it does mean that we can't move. S is totally willing to move to wherever I get a job; he would telecommute to his old job for a while, if they'll let him, until he can find a good local job. But there's no way we would move to a city where neither of us has a job, because that would be financial suicide. So, in this scenario, I'm unemployed, so we need S to keep his current job. So, we can't move. But we'd still be trying to get pregnant. Either we succeed in getting pregnant, in which case we will be raising two small children while living far far away from all family and simultaneously looking for a job for me. Or we don't succeed in getting pregnant, in which case I will be going through fertility treatments while looking for a job while being a SAHM while being depressed about my years in grad school going to waste.
All four of these options sound bad to me. Bad bad bad. The first one is the best of them, but it's still not that great (and the least likely: I quickly get pregnant AND I get a great job offer? Sure. Like I have that kind of luck).
Everything basically comes down to this: I'm terrified about the future. I've never before felt this uncertain about where I want my life to go.
It speaks volumes, I think, that I'm writing my dissertation and planning my defense, but those two things are the things in my life that I am least worried about right now.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Teeth
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: teething sucks. Big time. I hear from friends that some babies aren't bothered by teething, most are only bothered by the first few teeth, and even more are only bothered for a day or two. LL is not one of those children. When he's sprouting a tooth, he is a screaming no-sleep mess for weeks. (He's still charming during the day, for the most part, though the never-ending sleep disturbances all night long for weeks at a time do take a toll on even the most cheerful toddler.) I'm not sure if it helps us or hurts us, but LL also tends to get his teeth in waves. He got the last six of his eight incisors all during two tumultuous months. After a brief break, he is now working on molars and canines. In the last month alone, he has sprouted four of them, and two more are threatening to break the surface any day now. One the one hand, that is an awful lot of pain for a little guy to handle all at once. On the other hand, I suppose it will be nice to get it all out of the way.
As a total aside: on the advice of my dentist (who was shocked when I told him that LL is 13 months old and already has 12 teeth) we bought LL a normal toddler-sized toothbrush, instead of using the fingertip infant brush that seemed to just give LL a reason to bite us every day. He loves it, and is getting very good at brushing his own teeth.
LL is still waking up every single night. We dose him with Motrin before he goes to bed, and like clockwork, he wakes up six hours later when the medicine wears off. The Motrin seems to dull the pain enough for him to sort of fall asleep, but it clearly leaves enough pain that he's sleeping very lightly. He's normally a deep sleeper, but lately, he wakes to every noise and then wants company while he tosses and turns and chews on his hand and moans slightly as he tries to go back to sleep. Though we had never really done it before, we've started co-sleeping after he wakes in the middle of the night. I figure, if he's going to want one of us to keep him company until dawn, we might as well all be horizontal. This strategy is leading to an increased quantity of sleep for everybody, though a decreased quality of sleep for me and S. But I'm so horribly sleep-deprived at the moment that I'm willing to take quantity over quality, at least for a while. Maybe just until the last four canines and molars come in.
In happier news, LL increased his vocabulary this weekend. His repertoire had included: all done, mama (or rather, "Mom-Mom", which I find charming), dada, dai (Russian for "gimme", approximately), dah (Russian for "yes"), no no ("nah nah!"), and when he's feeling particularly communicative: again. (Sadly, it's sometimes hard to distinguish "all done" and "again," leading to a very frustrated LL.) Many children say "dog" early on, but instead, whenever LL sees or hears a dog, he barks. It's a very obvious "arf! arf!" sound. He also does a fairly convincing "ee! ee! ooh! ooh!" sound when he sees a monkey. Either we've been spending too much time making animal sounds and not enough time actually identifying the animals by name, or LL is just a born performer. Either way, in a move towards providing names for the animal kingdom, LL has now added the word "bear." Between wall paper, pictures, books, clothing, and stuffed animals, our house has approximately 8 billion bears in it, so LL is getting lots of opportunity to show off his new word.
LL has also suddenly developed a taste for exploration. For a long time after he learned to crawl, he refused to do it outside. If we put him on a blanket in the grass, he stayed on the blanket. Which was kind of handy, actually. Now, he has discovered that sidewalks are fun. If I set him in the front yard, he takes off for the sidewalk, then proceeds to visit all the neighbors. If I can just teach him to stop trying to take headers off the curb, he'll be ready for his own paper route or something.
As a total aside: on the advice of my dentist (who was shocked when I told him that LL is 13 months old and already has 12 teeth) we bought LL a normal toddler-sized toothbrush, instead of using the fingertip infant brush that seemed to just give LL a reason to bite us every day. He loves it, and is getting very good at brushing his own teeth.
LL is still waking up every single night. We dose him with Motrin before he goes to bed, and like clockwork, he wakes up six hours later when the medicine wears off. The Motrin seems to dull the pain enough for him to sort of fall asleep, but it clearly leaves enough pain that he's sleeping very lightly. He's normally a deep sleeper, but lately, he wakes to every noise and then wants company while he tosses and turns and chews on his hand and moans slightly as he tries to go back to sleep. Though we had never really done it before, we've started co-sleeping after he wakes in the middle of the night. I figure, if he's going to want one of us to keep him company until dawn, we might as well all be horizontal. This strategy is leading to an increased quantity of sleep for everybody, though a decreased quality of sleep for me and S. But I'm so horribly sleep-deprived at the moment that I'm willing to take quantity over quality, at least for a while. Maybe just until the last four canines and molars come in.
In happier news, LL increased his vocabulary this weekend. His repertoire had included: all done, mama (or rather, "Mom-Mom", which I find charming), dada, dai (Russian for "gimme", approximately), dah (Russian for "yes"), no no ("nah nah!"), and when he's feeling particularly communicative: again. (Sadly, it's sometimes hard to distinguish "all done" and "again," leading to a very frustrated LL.) Many children say "dog" early on, but instead, whenever LL sees or hears a dog, he barks. It's a very obvious "arf! arf!" sound. He also does a fairly convincing "ee! ee! ooh! ooh!" sound when he sees a monkey. Either we've been spending too much time making animal sounds and not enough time actually identifying the animals by name, or LL is just a born performer. Either way, in a move towards providing names for the animal kingdom, LL has now added the word "bear." Between wall paper, pictures, books, clothing, and stuffed animals, our house has approximately 8 billion bears in it, so LL is getting lots of opportunity to show off his new word.
LL has also suddenly developed a taste for exploration. For a long time after he learned to crawl, he refused to do it outside. If we put him on a blanket in the grass, he stayed on the blanket. Which was kind of handy, actually. Now, he has discovered that sidewalks are fun. If I set him in the front yard, he takes off for the sidewalk, then proceeds to visit all the neighbors. If I can just teach him to stop trying to take headers off the curb, he'll be ready for his own paper route or something.
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