Cold Spaghetti

…to Gwen! Have a high flyin’ day!

Who would have ever thought that I’d be recognized in an article in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism — for, of all things, assistance in biostatistical analysis! Wow. And I thought Ali was kidding.

This article from the Gambit gives a very interesting discussion about childcare, childcare in New Orleans, and has a bit about Abeona House (the daycare we’ve been working to start). It offers a great discussion about the importance of childcare.

Now that I am officially “taking off” from the world of the academy (or at least letting my mind wander a bit from it), I have come up with a pre-Kate arrival goal:

To catch up on the documentation of Will’s life thus far.

To accomplish this goal, I must:
– Finish Will’s scrapbook to cover his first year of life. (It currently covers 1 month.)
– Compile a photo album for the rest of the events in his life to the present.
– Organize and date the digital archives of his photos and videos and burn them on to CD.

(Fingers are crossed that I actually complete any of the above before going into labor. Fingers are crossed that I actually complete any of the above before the end of the summer.) I started today by completing the grueling task of taking the *many* assorted photos I have of him, looking them up through the blog archives and ofoto folders to determine when they were taken, and write a date on the backs. Since I print and then give away all the “good” ones, I made an ofoto order to fill in some gaps.

When Paul is here and “relaxing” from the rigor of the housework he’s now doing, I hope to get him to master the video we have of Will. We don’t have much, the tapes are only hapharzardly dated and some cover months, and I have lost sleep wondering if we’re taping over older moments and/or not taping enough. It would be a real treat to have everything in order — how organized and cool would that be!?

In the past few weeks, Will has gone from stringing words together to speaking in fairly complete sentences. Accordingly, Paul and I have wasted no time in teaching him some finer, musically and culturally inspired phrases to add to his ever-growing collection of gems. (Gems would include things like “Mommy making poo-poo?” and “Daddy make stinky toot.”)

Here is an incomplete list of some of our favorites:

– Boom shaka-laka!
– You da man! (Answer him, “No, you da man!” and be prepared for many, many repetitions.)
– Get back, Jo Jo! (Think of the Beatles.)
– Get down and boogie!
– Kathmandu! (Okay, this isn’t really a sentence. I just love that he throws around the capital of Nepal in conversation.)

… and our favorite:
– Domo arigato Mr. Roboto

After taking him for a haircut yesterday evening, my Dad and Will met Mom and I at Ruby Tuesday’s for burgers. While we were walking out, Will, following a bit too close and going a bit too fast, tripped over my Dad’s heel. Splat! — he landed in a spread eagle sprawl on the pavement outside the restaurant door.

Tears followed. I scooped him up for an inspection. The vertict: a new addition to his hundredth scrapped knee; this time there was blood. Little man finally hit the skids hard enough to cause a decent boo-boo.

I put him in his car seat so I could inspect it better. “I gotta boo-boo, Mommy!” Will cried, followed by, “Make feel better, Mommy,” asking with his lower lip out as far as it would go. I explained what I was doing (getting a napkin wet with water and dabbing his knee lightly) and said that this would take away some of the sting. His tears settled into some light heaves and he agreed, “feels better.”

In an attempt to give him some options (one of our new household child development initiatives) Granna asked him: “Will, who do you want to drive the truck home? Granna or PapPap?”

Without missing a beat, Will took a little sobby breath and said, “Will. Will drive.”

I have: A topic. A relevant, unanswered research question. A good study location. Contacts (good ones) in that study location. A generous potential (likely) funder with an approaching deadline. A good committee.

What I realized last week that I *don’t* have: The all-encompassing drive and obsession to do said study.

In a big “oh shit” moment, I realized that while I’ve been pursuing all that makes sense in terms of laying out a dissertation, thinking that my “ah-ha” moment would come along the way, the bottom line is that there has been no epiphany. No sudden relevation, no “Portrait of the Artist” moment of looking out at a girl on the beach, no moment of deeper meaning, of knowing. In truth, my life is very much constructed by these watershed experiences. I look to them to supply the incredible drive that characterizes who I am. Without that drive, I lose a little hutzpah.

All of this explains a little of why I’ve been in the dulldrums lately. I do find myself wondering if my lack of spark is a pregnancy thing. Am I just too tired to feel motivated? Is being back in New Orleans, in the house, neighborhood, and city I love, too overwhelming? Carl, my chair extraordinaire, faced my admission of funk with usual foritude: “Your reactions are perfectly normal.” I spent the last week deciding whether or not to submit… Carl’s suggestion: submit if you think you might want to do it, don’t submit if it’s a definite that you don’t.

The bottom line is that I can’t decide anything right now, so I’m not submitting. Paul and I spoke long about this — it pushes back our return to Peru* and even puts our return in question. I think I just need time. The plan was always to take the summer off to be with the baby. I’ll reconnect more formally to the University for work in the fall and go from there. It’s a radical move off the track that I so carefully and thoughtfully laid out. (I’m not following the plan!) The whole thing has made me feel like a total flake. (Loving friend’s response: “Ha. You, Holly, are hardly a flake.“)

Pushing the possibility of “flake” a little further, I’ll paraphrase Barbie: Dissertations are hard.

*An aside on the subject of our going back to Peru: anyone following the elections? I have to admit being a little worried. Having been evacuated from India, I’m a little sensitive. We are watching with serious interest.

In case you’ve missed it, Paul has been giving an incredible play-by-play on his impressive gains in the home-fixin’ department. Considering we’ve lived almost two years with paper taped to the windows and doors, cracks between baseboards and floorboards that reach over a 1/2 inch, and horrible dirty beige oil paint on every darn surface… his work signifies a serious change in our lives. (Note that we’ve been working our doompkas off doing other things, like building a kitchen, a bathroom, and re-wiring the entire house so that it doesn’t spontaneously errupt in flame.)

I’m certainly sorry that I am not there to help. This is just the sort of thing we would work through together in our pre-kid world. Go Paul — please send him encouragement!

*I am both envious (and maybe a little sad?) for anyone who can read this title without breaking out in song. “Yes, we can!”

While Paul works on the kids’ room, I’m doing my own baby prep here.
Bags are packed, although a few outstanding things remain to be done (finish putting the car seat together after washing the covers, waiting for a package to arrive with baby’s required head support, etc.)
If you haven’t put some guesses into the baby pool, please do! No identification is required. I’m going to put a print out in the baby book.
Finally, announcements are ordered (or at least pre-ordered). They are a lot like Will’s in style and make and I can’t wait to see how they turn out after Kate’s arrival.

One of the things that makes military families different from other families is that we learn to be incredibly flexible. Things are always changing and we adjust. When it comes to holidays, our family would sometimes change holiday dates in order to celebrate certain special moments together. We’ve done it so much over the years that it is now second nature. The importance is family, tradition, and togetherness — not the calendar.

We’re putting this to practice this year as well. Easter is simply not convenient today. (Dad has a client he’s with today; Paul is in NOLA working on the house.) So, we’ll celebrate next weekend when we all can be together (minus Kate, who we hope will enjoy the holiday floating in my belly).

Easter Bunny, please take note.