Cold Spaghetti

Will drinking out of Dad’s water bottle (water bottles are a new fascination… beware baby backwash.) Paul took this picture during their afternoon trip to the Zoo.

How does a PhD student with a family plan her life and career? Here are the answers that we’ve come up with so far….

The current plan:
– Stay here this summer. I turned down projects in Peru, South Africa and Kenya to stay here and study for comps. Advice from those who know is to stay focused and in New Orleans until comps are done. So, I’m taking this advice and speeding up my program.
– I got approval to do the last of my advanced biostats through independent study… so the summer will be a rough time of advanced evaluation design methods (ie: the class where you only “speak greek” — tau, lambda, beta, etc.), regression, and (the REALLY scary one) categorical. Just to give a sense of the scope… these are usually three separate classes.
– Finalize my committee over the summer.
– Apply for funding for preliminary data collection for the prospectus.
– If I feel confident from the summer, take comps in October. (They are offered in October, February, and June.)
– Celebrate the completion of comps with a TRIP in October/November! (Current plan is to take the invitation to go to New Delhi, India, and visit Bela Auntie, Raja, and Chiya.)
– (Hopefully) have some funding at the start of the New Year.
– Current top contender for 2006 research destination… Lima, Peru.
– Work on prospectus over summer 2006.
– Have a baby in late summer/early fall 2006.
– Have six months with baby during which I’ll only work part-time and continue to work on prospectus, apply for disseration funding, and finally present the prospectus.

That is a far as we can see right now and so many things could change (I decide to use secondary data at either stage, we don’t get pregnant, we get pregnant sooner/later, etc., etc.) After this, it will be collecting disseration data, doing the disseration, defending, and graduating. Too hard to see that far right now! As adventurous, enthusiastic, and curious as I am, it will be interesting to see how closely I follow this plan.

Besides, all plans can and should be altered as learning opportunities arise!

Will helps me take a break from work with a game of pinball!

Will cheers while we play a game of pinball! Will is very good at firing the ball!

Will laughs and splashes with PapPap.

– 24 x 80: dimension of our house
– 30: estimated number of outlets Paul has replaced in the house
– 9: estimated numbers of *new* outlets Paul has installed
– 1000: estimated number of feet of electrical wire Paul has pulled through the house
– 4000: estimated number of MP3s downloaded on our phatbox
– 16: number of dollars I paid for my new (second hand) Kate Spade purse
– 13671: size of the birth population I am currently studying
– 9044: number that is actually coming up when I run my models
– 2: number of hours Will usually naps in the afternoon
– 3: number of poopy diapers yesterday

Will is fresh from the pool and ready for dinner! Granna made pork chops with celery and carrot gravy, fresh green beans, corn, and brown rice. Will ate a whole bowl with everything and even had room for vanilla pudding dessert! Impressive — especially considering that he ate a scrambled egg for breakfast, tuna fish salad sandwich and pear for lunch, and had multiple snacks including crackers, an apple and cheese curls. Wow!

Will and I are in Mobile this weekend. Mom is sick, but up and helping to watch Will while I work. I took a break this afternoon and took Will to get a haircut and then to pick up his clothes from Children’s Cottage.

Will was truly an angel through the entire afternoon. It was well into his naptime, but he played (adorably played, actually — he made everyone around stop and look to comment on how darn cute he was babbling away while he played) and was patient while I tried different outfits on him for size and shopped around.

The downside: Children’s Cottage either hadn’t pulled our order or couldn’t find it. (I’m guessing couldn’t find it… the staff was a little short on organization.) So, some of the outfits I had picked out weren’t available in Will’s size. Another downside is the outfit I had chosen for the wedding had a problem — the pipping on the shirt was black, not navy, so it didn’t match right. Apparently it was a manufacturer problem as all of the outfits in the 24-month size had this problem. Back to the drawing board on the wedding outfit front.

The upside: Everything was 25% off! Plus, it was a nice store full of adorable pieces and we were able to get some wonderful outfits that weren’t featured on the website. We walked away with three beautiful outfits (one is on order and will be in after a week or so) and a pair of white dress socks. (And one poopy diaper.)

Top Three Favorite Bumper Stickers:

3. NO C.A.R.B. (Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Bush)

2. Republicans for Voldemort

1. Be Fabulous