Light and Momentary

The Good Thing About Pregnancy Insomnia

Petely and Joe slept on the pull-out couch last night (so much more fun than going to bed in the usual spot), but Petely woke up confused and calling me at 4:00 or so. I couldn't get back to sleep after I got him settled, so I stayed up and finished my draft of chapter two. It is emphatically a draft, because my advisor and I haven't spent a ton of time hammering out the details of the measures I will use and because I have a lot to learn about multilevel modeling between now and the time I try to persuade my committee to pass me, but hey! it's submitted!

The boys all woke up around 7 and we piled into a heap on the pulled out couch to read Pippi Longstocking. After a while they scattered and I turned on the stereo -- first "As Cool As I Am" on loud repeat (nothing sends cobwebs scuttling away in terror like a nice loud didgeridoo), and then "The Joy of the Lord" on equally loud repeat, which is a weird pairing but it works for me -- so I could clean. The boys did a pretty good job on the bathrooms while I played Attila Scourge of Dustbunnies. I cannot conquer the Caucasus but by God I can vanquish dirt.

Today I should also vanquish some piles of paper and pummel the checkbook into submission, and perhaps I will squeeze in a nap somewhere because 4am is really danged early. Don't know if that will work (no rest for the scourgely) but we'll see. I have three posts in my draft folder that I'm hoping to finish up now that both my chapters are drafted -- those last thoughts about the wacky caseworker, why I'm not willing to shrug off the locker room nastiness, and a reflection on our friend, the confidence interval (stop laughing! confidence intervals are too our friends!). I am sure I will have a truckload of revising to do in the weeks to come, but regardless -- both the chapters I need for my preliminary exam are drafted!

It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon

I persuaded the checkbook to balance and the washing machine came back from the dead again. I am caught up on laundry but for one load of clothes that needs folding. I turned 38 yesterday and have been enjoying Carrie Newcomer's new CD, a gift from my husband.

My early research project director accepted my revisions (I did not succumb to the temptation to include a couple of knock-knock jokes to see if she was actually reading the revised version), so as soon as I get comments back from the two people kind enough to proofread it for me, I'll get it printed up. Dissertation ho! (I hope it's clear that it's ho the interjection, as in Yukon __, not the noun.) On Friday my advisor, to my immense surprise, said I should consider myself done for now with reviewing the literature and move on to drafting. (Then she gave me ten more papers to read, but I'm not really complaining.)

Joe is visiting my in-laws this weekend and I am missing him something fierce. It's very quiet without him. Baby, on the other hand, is getting rowdier, thumping me harder and more often. I had persuaded myself that either I had an anterior placenta that was keeping me from feeling movement or else something was wrong.

In a few weeks I am taking the train to Chicago to meet up with all of my college roommates. We are going to see Melissa Etheridge, whose early albums were pretty much always on the turntable or in the tape player (aren't we old?) when we were living together. Funnily enough, three of the five of us are married to the men whose antics inspired us to belt out "Like the Way I Do" with such passion. (I bet I can still recite all the words to that one, though I haven't heard it more than a decade.) What were you listening to in college?

I will leave you with a recipe for the Best Sandwich in the History of the World, a sandwich I've made twice in the past week after thinking about it for a year: pan bagnat. Over and out from Lake Wobegon, where the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.

Snippets

You guys know about my aikido black belt, yes? And I've posted before about our top-of-the-line home security system, that wails minatorily when someone even approaches the house with bad intentions? I mention this because my husband is out of the country for the week, and I would hate to have to beat the stuffing out of any stalker types who happened to read this post.

Alex is away at Scout camp this week also, which means I am the only person in the house whose age is measured in double digits. I'm not used to that. It was bad timing to attempt to discontinue the Unisom I've been taking for nausea. I'm almost better, I thought to myself, so I'll probably be fine. OH MY GOODNESS, I was not fine. I think I'll keep right on taking the drugs.

On Friday I am defending my early research project. If I pass, all I'll have left to do for the PhD is my dissertation. (My department abolished comprehensive exams shortly before I entered the program, intending to replace them with something as yet unspecified, but the students in my cohort don't have to take exams or do the mystery new thing either: coursework, early research project, dissertation, we're done.) In order to pass, I should probably prepare for the defense. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten past drawing cracks on a picture of a highway for my opening slide (see above re: only adult in the house and still throwing up).

While things are quiet I should probably work, not blog, so I will leave you with a quick random scramble.

Pete already has the lawyerly tendency that drives me so crazy in his oldest brother. Friday night I said, "Guys. You have to stop running around the house." He replied, "Me not running around house, Mama. Me running across house."

Oh, silly me. Running across the house is A-OK. (She said sarcastically.)

One of the kids on my caseload has the largest tonsils I have ever seen, and I have been trying for months to get a more informed opinion about them. I need to see his velum, which doesn't seem to be doing its job properly, but it's hidden behind his tonsils. His pediatrician has not seemed to be concerned in the slightest about these tonsils that meet in the middle, but the mom finally wangled an ENT referral. The ENT took one look and said, "Oh, those have to come out." He scheduled surgery for a few days later. I could not help but wonder if the pediatrician would have been so laissez-faire with a child who had good insurance. (Here's a tonsil picture if you have only a vague idea where your tonsils really are -- they live in between the two arch-y things you see in the back of your mouth (more properly known as your anterior and posterior faucial pillars). They should not, just in case you wondered, meet in the middle.) But I'm hoping the surgery makes a difference for him.

A pair of mourning doves built a nest on our front porch, and the mama sat on that egg for weeks and weeks. I felt some sympathy for her because she starting setting her eggs right when I found out I was pregnant. I would watch her up there in the cold April wind and think queasily, "It's hard work to help a baby grow, isn't it?" I kept watching and watching, waiting for little baby peeps from the nest. But there were never any peeps. This weekend they gave up. I peeked inside the nest, after weeks of trying to stay away from that corner of the porch, and saw one perfect-looking egg. I should probably toss the nest, because rotting egg is not something I want that close to my house. There's something so sad about an abandoned nest, though.

All right, time to get to work. Wish me luck!

Monday Monday

Hey, what are you doing today?

Elwood took the kids out for the whole day. The whole day! I have a house to clean, laundry to fold, a poster presentation draft to finish, an early research project write-up to get to my ERP director, and articles to read for my advisor. (I'm aiming to get to candidacy before the baby arrives. We sat down on Friday and drew up a schedule. I'm excited about it.)

I think I'm going to keep a record of my day here so that if I spend half an hour reading blogs at least I will have to admit it. Want to play?

I figure most people in the US and the UK are out enjoying the holiday today, but jump right in if you're so inclined.

Snapshot

Tonight Pete was fighting sleep but in the sweetest way. He was snuggled in next to me, signing "I love you" and patting my cheek gently.

Joe read me a book for the first time -- what a treat! It was a library book about the duck-billed platypus. He sailed effortlessly past "mammal" and "mouthful" and "worm." I haven't pushed him to read to me because he's made a big fuss about not being a good reader. I was astonished.

Marty told me after bedtime prayer that he wants to be a priest, and also that he lies in bed every night and worries before he falls asleep. I promised to see what I could find to help him with that. Any ideas?

Alex and I butted heads ALL DAY LONG, but we said a peaceful goodnight and I have some ideas about how to cut down on the head-butting. We get along best when it's just the two of us.

Elwood offered to take the kids on a road trip tomorrow, allowing me to stay home and work like a crazy woman!

I am much, much less sick. If normal is New Orleans, I spent the last month in Chicago. Now I'm in Memphis -- not all the way back home but at least I can see the magnolias blooming. I can't even tell you how nice it is.

Spitting Distance

Really, I could finish up my papers today if I just put my mind to it. Nausea's not too bad; house is empty except for me and the reptiles. But you know how work stretches to fill the time allotted? The work is stretching.

I called my friend around the corner to see if she was free for coffee, thinking that would motivate me to get finished. She's not home. I've been trying to think of something fun I could do when I get through and I'm not coming up with anything really thrilling. Walk to the used bookstore and buy something fun to read during Petely's nap? Pick up some cute sock yarn and cast on a new pair? Go get a new spring haircut? Got any ideas for me?

One of the things that worried me about being pregnant and in grad school is that pregnancy has a terrible effect on my brain. When I was pregnant with Pete, one of the boys said exasperatedly, "Mom, you get forgetfuller the pregnanter you get." He hit it on the head. Yesterday I was trying to do one of the puzzles in the NYT magazine and COULD NOT think of what word could be spelled c_ewy. I was utterly baffled. Crewy? Clewy? What kind of crazy words are those? Then I plugged it into OneAcross.com and felt like an idiot. In another example, I have a prenatal appointment scheduled for next Monday and I REMEMBER writing it on the calendar. Except it's not on the calendar. What did I write it on? The mortgage coupon that I put in the mail? (Wait, I didn't pay the mortgage yet this month.) The September page of the calendar? I think I'm going to have to call and see what time I'm supposed to be there. I wrote it down carefully, knowing how flaky I can be when I'm pregnant, and then I forgot where I wrote it. Yikes.

Thankfully, I think I'm hanging in there with the work I'm doing for school. It's possible that I'm writing sentences about Whorfian claims and metarepresentational competence that will cause my professor to laugh mirthlessly (or cry) when she reads them, but I think it makes sense. I think. And now I'm going to go write some more, so I can do something fun afterward. Something. I just need to figure out what.

Day of Rest

I used to think it was crazy and anachronistic to keep Sunday as a day of rest. I remember a friend of mine in college said he'd decided not to study on Sundays, and I thought he was heading for academic probation in a matter of weeks. I can't remember exactly when I decided that I'd give it a try, avoiding unnecessary work on Sundays, but it's been a real gift.

A couple of loads of laundry will be necessary work today, because yesterday was a bad enough nausea day that I couldn't countenance it then. I'm hard to please with this nausea thing: too much and I think "can't do it can't do it"; too little and I think "dead baby dead baby." Today I am in a good spot, nauseated enough to feel pregnant but still able to enjoy the sunshine and knit lazily on an applied I-cord border for that blanket I've been making. (Was going to post a new picture of it, but the camera is full of pictures taken by Pete: random toes, random carpet, random bedding.)

I'm getting there on those final papers, probably about halfway on the page count even though some of it's pretty rough. Eight weeks tomorrow.

Milestones

Today was the last session of the last class I will take. It's been a great class, one which has completely shaken up my ideas about what infants understand and how they learn. Today my project director said that my early research project is "in excellent shape," and I should be able to defend shortly. Today I also finished my follow-up data collection. As I thought might happen, I'm back in marginally significant territory. Maybe a few more responses will trickle in; maybe I'll do some one-tailed tests. Or maybe I'll just defend with marginally significant results.

In the next week I have 12-14 pages to write, and I'll be done with the semester. Then I will take a nap. Then I will fold some laundry, unless it has buried me alive by then. It's been a tough couple of weeks.

Any Roofers Out There?

I have shingles. I think I'm too young to have shingles, don't you? The nurse practitioner was rather grim about shingles, offering me narcotics along with the antiviral drug. I declined the narcotics for now. We'll see how it goes.

Why I drove almost 1100 miles in a 33-hour period

That's my newly-baptized nephew and his big sister, with their daddy and my two older boys, who were *fabulous* about all that time in the car. I was going to go alone but I'm glad I didn't. :-)

Clue Phone

Remember the wacky professor who taught my first stats class? He used to say, at least once a week, "Ring ring! clue phone!" He'd answer the imaginary phone and explain the folly of whatever idea he was critiquing. I woke up this morning to the ringing clue phone: when I am as tired and discouraged as I was last night, the only thing to do is go to bed. Weeping may endure for a night, and all that. Blogging the discouragement doesn't get me any further forward. Ergo, poof!

This weekend I am going away with Alex and Marty for a family event, leaving the younger guys here with Elwood. Early next week we are having some work done on our basement which is supposed to dry out the leaking. Then we'll move the Legos downstairs, which we hope will end the hassles over getting them picked up so that no one sprains an ankle walking through the middle boys' room.

I am drinking a positively foul cup of coffee. I do not like black coffee -- I can drink it but it's more penance than pleasure. I did not discover until after my pot of coffee was brewed that we are out of cream, out of milk, out of canned evaporated milk. I considered putting yogurt or Alfredo sauce in the coffee, but then I discovered, way at the back of the fridge, a can of sprayable whipped cream from our Mardi Gras sundae party. It wasn't that it had gone bad (which makes a person wonder -- what are they adding to cream to keep it stable for more than a month?), but nonetheless I think I might have been better off with the yogurt.

Maybe Pete and I will take a walk downtown and get a replacement. It's been warm here for a few days, which makes me wonder if there will be crocuses and hyacinths peeking out. Perhaps even some brave forsythia? Blooming forsythia, I do believe, is good for the soul.