More random pictures

Davis and Ansel:

Davis and Megan:

Domino making himself comfortable in the boppy:

Davis and Kristen:

Davis working on crawling with his butt off the ground:

Davis:

On his way to the camera:

Wall decorations in his room:

Kindermusik class

Over the summer, when I didn't have any meetings, I worked at home on Tuesdays and Thursdays and took the afternoons off to spend with Davis. John and I talked about putting him in daycare for just four days of the week and I would take a day off each week, but in the end we opted for full time care with the flexibility to take that day anytime we wanted (four day a week care would have required us to take the same day off each week). Since we started daycare, almost two months ago, I haven't taken any time off to have a play date with Davis. Today it changes. We started a Kindermusik class that meets at the maternity/baby store near us. It actually worked really well. Daycare had Davis freshly diapered and well fed when I picked him up at 12:30. We headed to the class that started at 1:00 and then he was home and taking his afternoon nap by 2:30. Since his afternoon nap was three hours, I still managed a full day of work (especially since I'm working tonight as well...as usual). It was fantastic to take him to a class full of kids and music to have some fun and expose him to a new situation. The kids of course are all adorable and fun to watch. It's also nice to see how different they all are. There was one little girl who was talking nonstop (just a couple of weeks older than Davis). Another one was walking around the room (13 months). Then there is Davis. Seeing other kids his age makes me realize what a mover we have. I couldn't keep him still...even during bubble time, which is supposed to be relaxing since they dim the lights and peacefully blow bubbles. Well, Davis couldn't wait to touch them all. He basically cut a swath through the landed bubbles as he commando crawled his way across the room, from one burst bubble to the next. He's going to be one high energy toddler! It actually puts something our pediatrician said in perspective. She was giving us the what to expect information and said pretty soon it would get harder to diaper him. John and I just looked at each other with the same thought: "Oh God, it could get worse??" Right now, diapering and dressing him feels like wrestling an alligator, one covered in oil. My hope is he's a little ahead of the wiggle/rolling/crawling curve and this is as hard as it gets. The realist side of me knows it will only get harder.

Random Pictures from today

Davis update

As Kristen mentioned in her earlier post, Davis had his 6 month check up last week. He is a happy and healthy boy and is developing all the time. He continues to work on his crawling and can go wherever he wants. Recently he has been making bee-lines for both the cats and the door to his room. Today, we got our act together and started a serious baby proofing effort. I spent today installing gates, bolting shelves to the wall and installing covers over the electrical outlets.

Davis has been drooling a lot and has been sticking his tongue out a lot. We aren't sure if this is due to teething, a random developmental change, or the cold he has had for the last couple of days.

Without further ado, I give you Davis and tongue crawling in the newly baby resistant living room. He was very interested in the camera and at one point got a hold of the strap.





Tonight Kristen is out enjoying tacos and margaritas with her girlfriends. She is taking a well deserved break after a long and crazy week.

Da-da-da-da-da

Today Davis said Da-da-da, which we encouraged, and so he continued to say it for about twenty minutes! It's so exciting to hear the first syllables of what will become words!

Yesterday, Davis had his 6-month checkup (although he is about 6.5months now). He is healthy and happy. Less happy today since he had four shots yesterday, but he's not doing too bad. He is now 20lbs 13oz and is 27 and 1/8".

We just got back from brunch with our yoga mom friends, babies and their spouses. The kids are doing great. One is already starting to walk at 9months! After that we took Davis to Barefoot Books to get some new reading material (although he may not tire of the same books, Mom and Dad do). We had bought one book from there before and really liked it, so we went back for some more.

It's raining today and so we'll be staying in. John's babyproofing the living room and I have some baby food to make. We're hoping to get outside tomorrow to enjoy the beautiful fall foliage.

MRC Cross

This Sunday, I did my first bike race in 14 months. I hadn't planned on taking this long off of racing. However, with the combination of 12 weeks off for medical reasons and having less time to exercise and train due to Davis' wonderful arrival, I'm just now getting back into cycling.

This weekend, the Minuteman Road Club hosted a cyclocross race in Wrentham. There are a lot of nearby cross races, but we didn't have any plans for Sunday, and if the weather had cooperated, we could have all gone shopping at the outlet malls afterward. However, toward the end of the week, it became clear that the weather would not cooperate (the forecast was for 40 degrees, rain and 18 mph winds) and I would have to go to the race alone.

The race itself was pretty uneventful. I arrived about 80 minutes early, registered, pre-rode the course a few times and sat in the car to keep warm. The weather wasn't as bad as predicted (rain but no wind). I knew right away that the course wouldn't favor me: lots of long sections where power is better than skill. Right now, I have some fitness, good bike handling skills, but not a lot of power so I just aiming to have fun.

About 50 people showed up for the race and I lined up mid-pack for the start. This would be the closest I got to the front. After a few delays for cars on the course, we got started a few minutes after 9. We started on a 100 meter gravel uphill with two sharp lefts onto a grassy section of the course. After a switch back and a long straightaway, there was a log barrier, followed by another grassy switch back section, a set of barriers, single track through the woods and more grass sections. I managed to stay mid-pack until the single track widened enough for people to pass me, then it was just a matter of riding my own race and enjoying the technical challenge of the grassy / muddy corners. I was pretty demoralized to see a lap card with 3 laps to go when I expected 1 to go, but that just meant two more laps to enjoy riding my bike. On the last lap, I was able to take a beer feed -- something I've always said I would do if it was available and I was so far off the back it wouldn't matter. I think I finished about 40th of 50. It was great to finish the race with my teammate cheering "Welcome back John Naegle" when I crossed the line.

After the race, I chatted with my teammate for a few minutes before cleaning up and heading to the outlet malls and Ikea. With the shopping it ended up being a long day and I missed a lot of weekend time with Davis. My next race will probably be in mid-November and hopefully Kristen and Davis can come cheer me on, or pass me beer feeds.

The many faces of Davis

Tooth #2!

Last night Davis must have had his second tooth push through. Now both lower front teeth have come in.

This weekend looks like it will be pretty relaxed. Brunch with Megan and Dave at our favorite breakfast spot, then maybe a hike and some clothes shopping for Davis. Sunday, John will be doing a bike race not too far from here.

Why life is very very good

Daddy was taking of pictures of Davis in his very cool cow bunting when I walked into the room. The smile on his face when he saw me is what makes me giddy to be a mom (specifically Davis' mom).

Is that a virtue or a flaw?

One of the things that might need to get cut from my life, may never have been in my life if it weren't for a basic personality trait of mine, which begs the question of whether it's a virtue or a flaw (or both given context?). This pretty unassuming email came across my desk that they are re-instituting a formerly dead group called GradMoms. The name is mostly self explanatory, it's a group of graduate moms at MIT and they were hosting a lunch. Sounds good to me. During maternity leave, and now beyond, I really enjoyed talking to other people in a similar situation. So I went. Somehow, by the time I had left the hour lunch, I was now in charge of setting up a wiki to keep track of tackling a large issue at MIT, the lack of affordable daycare and support for graduate students with kids. How does this happen, that I go to a lunch and come away with a task. Another layer of things in my life. I'm fascinated and really want to help the cause of bettering support for graduate students with kids at MIT. I understand that change won't help me since I'm graduating, but change here translates to change other places. When I started graduate school, MIT was the only school with a graduate student maternity leave policy. Did that affect my decision? Definitely. I knew I would be hitting my thirties before I finished graduate school, and it was nice to know there was support should I decide to start a family while there. What's happened since? Other schools (like Stanford, Harvard, etc.) have instituted similar policies. So a change at an institute that has to compete for the same pool of graduate students can propagate. When you create a better situation for families in graduate school, you inherently create a more diverse pool of candidates at the faculty level and hopefully then you'll see change at the faculty level for support of work-life balance. So on and so forth, the domino effect of improvement.

Those are my reasons for wanting to be involved, however, already I have cut out exercise to attend more meetings and cut out my own work I do in the evenings to get this stuff up and running. I don't have enough free time anymore to simply add new projects..new projects take away something from my life. So does helping create change when it comes at the expense of my own family and health worth it? Or is it better for me to try and survive my own trials and tribulations? One would think I could do a little bit to help, but this is where my personality conflicts with such a thought. At a second meeting this week, it was clear no one was really in charge..so guess who took charge...yup, me. I saw inefficiency where there could be decisions..so I let my bossy side take over and steer the group to a hopefully productive outcome. The outcome for me? More work, less time.

Done with pumping session #2 for the day.. see you later.

Something's gotta give...but what?

Today is Thursday. That means I can leave early for work and Davis and Dad have a morning to themselves. I've been toying with the idea for a while that if I'm up feeding Davis at 4am, ending around 5am, that I should just get up and head to the gym. This is the first day I attempted it. Unfortunately, my usual bus doesn't even start running until 6:30am, so today I headed to Mass Ave to catch a different bus that supposedly runs every 10minutes. After waiting for 20minutes I realized I should just go catch my normal bus. Only problem is now there isn't enough time to work out, but I have to go to the gym anyway to shower! So here I am, post gym and shower, with an extremely short workout, in the bathroom of the chemistry building pumping milk (since I have to pump three times on days I head in early). A meeting I should be in has already started and after that is another meeting, then PT, then a flu shot clinic, another pumping that will be later than it should because of PT and meetings. Productive work won't even start until 1pm today (or later?)..then another pumping, then home.

Today is unfortunately kind of typical for me now. A tradeoff between all my responsibilities at work, a drive to do my own actual work, taking care of my body and my health, and being with my son, who is honestly, the best thing in this world in my opinion. What can give? Something has to, and so far I'm not crazy about what has (time with John and my own health and well being is usually what goes first). Can I alternate meetings occasionally, skipping some on a schedule? Do I need to be less involved in other things (like the Gradmoms group and teaching spinning..I've already realized this has to be my last semester teaching cycling at the athletics center)? Do I need to just come to a realization that I can't work like I used to? Do I need to go ahead and continue working at night after Davis has gone to bed and maybe set one night aside of just John and Me time?

Done pumping...time to head to meetings now. Wish me luck!

A cold October cow

It was cold this morning, so I bundled Davis up in his fall/winter bunting to take him to daycare.

A day off

Today, Kristen and I both took the day off from work. With our daycare closed, at least one of us had to take the day off so we decided to make it a three day weekend. Unfortunately, it didn't feel like much of a vacation day. We spent most of the day cleaning the kitchen trying to eradicate the Indian Meal moths that have been pestering us for a long time. To give you an idea of how much we cleaned just the kitchen: I pulled the stove out of the cabinets and cleaned under it. If it doesn't solve the problem, at least we have a fantastically clean kitchen.

We did have some fun. This morning, we took brunch to our friends Josh and Courtney who have an 18 month old and a 1 month old. After cleaning we went for a short walk in Menotomy Rocks Park in Arlington. We also made pumpkin-pie ice cream, which I can report is awesome.

Here are a few pictures from the day:

Hiking at Menotomy Rocks Park:

It is definitely fall:

By the pond:

Kristen gave Davis a measuring cup to play with. He had a blast:

Happy 6-month birthday Davis

Davis is six months old today! We went to the same arts and craft store today as we did on the day I was in labor to get some knitting needles for a hat for Davis. John remarked how interesting it was that we could know exactly where we were six months before. Six months is a fun milestone in the baby food timeline. Davis has now graduated from single food types, to mix food types. We now have things available to us like: corn AND butternut squash, green beans AND rice. I'm still making the majority of his food, but the jars give us a chance to try some stuff out before we invest a lot of time in making it. Top foods: Carrots, applesauce, and peas (but not split peas apparently). In addition to food, it's incredible the skills Davis has developed: commando crawling, sitting, eating on his own with a spoon (about a 25% target success rate), new vocalizations, rolling (I mean rolling, like whenever he wants, wherever he wants), swapping toys between hands, and memory. There's no such thing anymore as distracting him with something else. If he was after the cord on the baby monitor, you can't just hide it and show him a bear or an elephant..no, nothing will do but the cord. Also, cat feet and tails are excellent fun. Amazingly, Domino hasn't learned that there's a pretty unique giggle that immediate preceeds his tail being grabbed. He may one day...hopefully soon. I can tell that Domino is fighting an internal battle between his wanting to be near people and his NOT wanting to be near a flapping, squealing, grabbing Davis. One day, I know they will be great buddies.

Life has been incredibly busy lately, busy to the point that I can't remember to do basic things, like get my flu shot .. hm, and there was something else. Davis has been doing much better this week, it seems his fussy behavior was more likely due to a cold than to teething, since he's doing much better now but doesn't have any new teeth. John and I are very excited for the three-day weekend (John is taking off Columbus day from work). Yesterday, we went for a hike with our friend Dave and then had friends Bill and Sonya over for dinner (and more importantly, for one of Sonya's homemade desserts). Today, we went apple picking again, since my favorite apples are Mutsu, and weren't yet in season the last time we went. Turns out they STILL aren't in season, we were a week to two early. However, we had a nice time enjoying the gorgeous weather. Pictures from the weekend (so far) here. We went to a farm that we had visited last year when Grammie Jill was in town. John and I remember it quaintly, having yummy apple cider donuts, candied apples and a petting zoo. Well, we're not sure when exactly we went last year, but this year was quite different. The entire place was a zoo. We were able to pick apples since the fields are so big, but the line for candied apples and the shop were crazy. We picked our apples and headed out. The drive was gorgeous though, the beginning of fall is definitely here!

Tomorrow we get to take brunch to our friends the Apgars (baby Liam Apgar is only one month old and older brother Mack is a year older than Davis). We haven't seen them since just after Liam was born and they'll be moving soon to Conneticut. We don't know what we'll do with the rest of the day, maybe go downtown? What is for certain is that we will be waging an all out war with Indian Meal moths. We've been going at battling them for a while now, one infected bag of oatmeal/beans at a time. But now, now it's personal. No dried fruit will be left unturned, or corner unswept. Meal moths watch out, now I know it's either the freezer or the oven for you!

High chair time

This last Friday we took Davis out to dinner for the first time in several months. We decided on a whim (as with most parenting decisions it seems) to go to dinner with Davis instead of getting take out (neither of us felt like cooking). We tried to go to our favorite pizza place, but they were closed for a private party (hello 10% off coupon). Instead we ended up at the Mexican restaurant a block from our house. Davis had his first meal out in a high chair instead of in our laps or the car seat. We had a table by the window and he enjoyed watching people come and go. Fortunately, the Zocalo has very fast service and we were able to feed him, eat and get home before he got too fussy.

In the high chair, sampling the table:

Eating:

Playing with the spoon:

An hour in the life of Domino

Today we setup our point and shoot camera to capture an hour in the life of Domino. We planned to capture more, but the memory card ran our of space. This video is captured by taking one frame every two seconds.

Here are the highlights:

0:04 - Head down
0:24 - Big move
1:06 - Nose moves above tail
1:09 - Nose moves under tail
1:13 - Left shift

And the big show:

May date and Lisbon here I come!

I had a meeting with my adviser on Sunday about my graduation plans..I think we now have a great plan! I'm actually going to plan to defend in May and graduate then, which is a relief. The specifics that need to go into my dissertation are now very well worked out (pending, of course, agreement of my committee members). Also, we had a great conversation on potential follow up postdoctoral work that was quite illuminating and exciting.

Also, my adviser reminded me of a perk of graduate student life..international conferences. I'll be attending a conference in Lisbon at the end of April. John's thinking about bringing Davis to join me. This is another great thing about not graduating until the end of spring..one more conference!

Breaking News: That might be Dr. to you sooner than we thought

So in the past couple of weeks I've had extensive conversations with friends about my graduation plan, which to now has been aiming for June. This deadline was going to include finishing off some purely computational work that I have been doing for a long time and then to work on an experiment to support one of my computationally derived hypotheses. However, it's painfully clear that I would not be able to do the hypothesis justice in such a short amount of time. On the other hand, I have had lots of indication from my adviser and some committee members that my work to now (once I wrap it up) would be sufficient for my Ph.D. I've emailed my advisor (traveling currently) and he's given me the green light! I'm meeting with him on Sunday to work out the details (like when I should finish by and what will I do after..like stay as a postdoc and do the experiment anyway, or abandon it all together, or change adivsors, etc.). But, whatever happens, it means that I will be graduating *hopefully* well before June with this new goal. In fact, I might be able to finish by the February degree deadline if I get my butt in gear..which I'm going to do, right now.

Davis is a mover, but not a napper

Tomorrow marks the end of Davis' fourth week in daycare. It's had it's ups and downs, for Davis and us. We are definitely quite happy with the daycare, they do a good job of communicating with us about his day and I like the environment and the toddlers all seem really happy and well adjusted (they've all been there since they were infants). Unfortunately, Davis has gone from napping well, then poorly, then great, and now not at all. Ten minutes, that's how long he napped for today. It's making for a pretty cranky baby at daycare and at home too. My hope is that this cycle of napping corresponds with a new tooth getting cut (since he napped well, then not well, then his tooth came in and he napped great!) Now he's showing signs again of teething, yanking on his sippy cup while he bites down, drooling (more than usual!) and general fussiness. I hope that's what it is, we're running out of ideas for how to get him to sleep better at daycare. On the other hand (and knocking on wood as I type one handed), he's sleeping very well at night these days. Many nights he's sleeping from 8pm to 4am. Occasionally, he'll wake up one other time, but this is a vast improvement compared to waking up 4 or 5 times a night.

Davis is really making strides in his moving ability..he has his parents in a big hurry to baby proof now. We'll set him down in one place and then turn our back to get a diaper and he's half-way across the room! It's not crawling so much, but it's a cross between a commando style arm pull and a butt hike with a lunge. In any event, we aren't prepared for it. The other thing Davis is excelling at is eating. Tonight he ate an entire jar of carrots followed by a big bowl of applesauce. It seems we keep refilling bowls now because we underestimate the amount of food he wants. Last night it was 3/4 of a banana instead of 1/2!

A few days ago, I went for a haircut in Arlington and swung by the consignment store. I found this costume there and couldn't wait to for Halloween to try it on him. He, of course, wanted to eat it.