Updates

Its been a busy week here at the Naegle household.  Kristen has been working long and hard hours on her thesis and I've been doing everything I can to support her and take care of as many household and Davis related chores as possible.  Life felt a little more controlled and relaxed this weekend.

Friday we managed to watch a movie, and yesterday we had a great day, mostly indoors due to cold weather, with Davis.  Today we went to New Hampshire for breakfast / brunch at a Sugar House with friends.  Due to having our GPS in pedestrian instead of auto mode, we took the scenic route and after an hour and a half wait for a table had a very mapely breakfast. Davis got to tromp around and we all saw how sap is turned into maple sugar.  It was a good, but tiring day (mainly due to a very active baby and shorten naps).

On the way to the sugar shack:

Zonk: nap time.  He just barely fits in the larger car seat

Davis has been done a few very cool things in the last week.  His first words are "uh-oh".  As in "uh-oh, I dropped my food off the tray" or "uh-oh, I dropped my toys over the gate" or "uh-oh, I dropped my hat for you to pick up".  Its incredibly cute.  Kristen and I were both blown away when he asked for a specific toy yesterday.  We've had a few boxes from his Christmas toys lying around, either for storage or play (first picture below).  Yesterday, he pointed to one of the boxes (out of reach), then pointed to the mallet on the box.  When Kristen gave him the mallet, he was ecstatic, he got exactly what he wanted.  It was very neat to see.  He has been incredibly fun.

The box Davis pointed to when he wanted a toy shown on the box:

We've had a hard time keeping the mallet out of his mouth.  It is a perfect shape for teething (we think he has at least two new teeth coming in), but it scares us to see him walking around with it in his mouth.  One of his favorite bells is in toy timeout for the same reason.

About the have the mallet taken away:

Happy guy:

Davis continues to have lots of fun with his mega blocks.  He has gotten much better at building structures.  He is an accomplished pro at destruction, but has added basic construction to his resume.  I managed to capture a nice sequence of his building.

Done building, destruction time:

There are a few more pictures on our picasa web albums.

It's happening again??

The good news is that I feel a little more in control of all the work I need to finish today than I did on Friday.  Friday was a big low point for me.  It was taken up entirely by meetings, none of which are remotely related to the immediate task of writing up my final work and thesis.  Despite an absolutely gorgeous day Saturday, I found I was too stressed out to enjoy my time with John and Davis, so I spent most of the day Saturday and Sunday working.  Sunday I woke up feeling not-so-great and by the time the evening rolled around John looked at me and said "You better not give that presentation tomorrow".... my voice was starting to crack and sound like it was disappearing.  I had only just started to feel like I was over the laryngitis that disabled me for five weeks, which started in February.  Even up to leaving for Quebec and giving my thesis meeting I had been worried about losing it again.  The upside is that I learned a valuable lesson in February, that my health is more important than a meeting, so I canceled my presentation that was scheduled for this morning.  Luckily, the organizer was very understanding and hopefully we can reschedule in another week or two

Between Saturday and today I managed to completely convert one whole manuscript into a typeset form for my thesis.  That means that the other one that is already written will only take a day or two and that is an important perspective to have at this point!  Although I have a lot of new material still left to write, I at least feel like the task is a bit more manageable. Hopefully, by this weekend I might feel like I can take some time off, and maybe more importantly, that I can keep from losing my voice again!

Completely overwhelmed

In the last 16 hours I have been invited to talk at two different pharma companies about two different projects.  So in addition to John's checklist from last night, I now need to add those.  Additionally, I think he forgot to put on there that I have labs to contact in Seattle about a job.  It's fantastic that there is interest in my work, especially by potential employers, but I have no idea how I'm going to handle all of this.  Couple this with a server failure that happened Monday and is still an ongoing issue and I am completely and totally overwhelmed.  Oh, and I'm supposed to be mentoring a rotation student, but am failing miserably at that. 

Trying to breathe, but feel like I'm drowning.  I think I will have to break my cardinal rule and work while Davis is awake this weekend and hope that in the end it means I have helped get closer to both a job and a final thesis.

I can do it.  I will make it.

New Photos

Here are a few random snap shots from the last few days.  After seeing these pictures, and others, Kristen
saw that I had a few settings on the camera wrong, so hopefully we'll have less graininess in the future.

Going to daycare:

Trying to get the camera, again:

Wresting with his stuffed dog, on the pillows he pulled off the couch (we will get a video soon):

Trying to distract dad with a truck, while he reaches for the lever on the chair:

Carnivore:

Sharing with dad:

The Home Stretch

As of today, Kristen has exactly 5 weeks to finish and turn in her thesis.  It promises to be a busy 5 weeks.  A few of the big things on our plates for the next 2 months:

• Davis' first birthday
• Prepare poster / presentation for conference in Lisbon (Kristen)
• Plan and take a 1 week trip to Portugal and somewhere else in Europe (Both)
• Come up with a thesis title.  Current working draft is: "Biological systems and stuff" (Kristen)
• Write thesis (Kristen)
• Prepare resume (Kristen)
• Job Search (Kristen)
• Prepare thesis defense presentation (Kristen)

Most of these are typical things that happen at the end of a PHd.  We've certainly seen a number of our friends go through crunch time in the last part of their degrees, but it was kind of shock when we realized there were only 5 weeks left until her thesis was due. 

Kristen has been working very hard for a long time and it is hard to imagine where we'll find the extra time.   We're planning on taking Davis to daycare for an extra 3 hours a week which will help a lot, but it means trading off Davis time for work time for a little while.  

Our typical day goes like this:

• 5:30 - Wake up, hopefully sleeping through the night
• 6:00 - Parent #1 showers and gets ready for work
• 6:00 - Parent #2 takes care of Davis (fed, changed, playing - yay!)
• 6:30 - Parent #2 prepares breakfast for Parent #1, #2 and Davis
• 7:00 - Breakfast
• 7:15 to 7:30 - Parent #1 leaves for work
• 7:30 to 9:00 - Parent #2 and Davis time (yay!)
• 9:30 to 10:00 - Parent #2 arrives at work
• 5:15 - Parent #1 picks up Davis
• 5:30 - Parent #2 arrives home, starts dinner
• 6:15 to 6:45 - Dinner
• 6:45 to 7:15 - Playtime (yay!)
• 7:30 - Davis goes to bed
• 7:30 to 9:00 - John cleans, does laundry, chores, etc, Kristen works
• 9:00 to 10:00 - John on the computer, blogging / doing finances, etc, Kristen works
• 10:00 or 11:00 - Bedtime

Its going to be a busy and exciting time.

11 Months

Davis is 11 months today.  For some reason, I find it really hard to fathom that he is already this old (I know its young in the whole schema of things) -- it seems so much older than 10 months.

At 11 months, he:

• Prefers to feed himself than be fed.
• Prefers to eat the same things we do, rather than baby foods
• Walks much much more than crawls.
• Can stand up without assistance
• Sleeps through the night (about 7:30 to 5:30), most nights.
• Clearly communicate when he wants to be held.
• Vocalizes a lot, but doesn't really say "words".
• Love stuffed animals, loves wrestling with them
• Has outgrown a lot of newborn / 6 month toys
• Is very ticklish
• Has an amazing laugh
• Loves to move
• Is weened
• Has very little hair
• Has very very blond hair

His favorite foods (not ordered, largely depends on mood):

• Tofu
• Bananas
• Yogurt
• Waffles
• Cheese
• Potatoes

Here are a few recent pictures.  The last one is my new desktop background and makes me smile every time I see it.

Disturbed

I've had a lot of wonderful interactions here at the conference as well as some socially awkward ones.  I just finished dinner with my labmate and we were joined by another person from the conference who was sitting down to eat alone at a restaurant just next to the hotel.  He's a very nice guy and for the most part dinner was very enjoyable, but I find myself extremely disturbed by one portion of the conversation.  He works for a large company and so I was asking him how he liked it and I also asked him about recommendations for how and where to apply at this company.  I should put it in context that all three of us have kids that are less than a year old, and so we were discussing children.  But during his description of the company, he at one point asked me if I planned on having anymore children.  Well, to start, I don't think this is anyone's business, let alone someone who I have just met at a professional conference.  So I hemmed and hawed as I usually do when this question is put to me, since honestly, the answer is I don't know and the real answer I want to give is 'none of your business'.  Well, after hemming and hawing he said if you are going to have another kid, you should do it now, before you start work.

This is absolutely amazing to me.  What is wrong with our society that you can't just live your life as it suits you?  That you need to have your children at a certain time in order to minimally impact your career.  You know, if I went off to a company, I would be settling in for the long haul.  What is a 12 week maternity leave to a company where I plan to work for 10 or more years?  Does anybody who says this realize how ridiculous it sounds that I should just throw in having a second kid into my immediate future plans so as not to affect the potential decisions made about my promotion in a potential company that may or may not hire me??  I appreciate from his point of view that he was giving me some helpful advice, but it's absolutely amazing to me that someone would feel inclined to give me this advice.  It certainly makes me think twice about working somewhere that would make someone feel like that. 

You know the fascinating thing about pregnancy and childbirth is how detrimental it appears to people.  Certainly it requires some time off, but that's no different than the time off you might require anyway when you are hit by a devastating disease.  What's the difference?  That childbirth is optional?  Or are all employers going to ding your potential promotion when you have to take off time for something, no matter what it is?  Why the perception differences about life events that have the same relative outcome on your time at work?

Guess what world, I'm a person AND I'm an engineer/scientist and I will be both at the same time.  You can take it or leave it, but I suggest you take it.

Quebec conference highlights

I am in Quebec for a conference.  It's been tough being away from my family, but I've been staying busy enough that I'm managing.  Although, I suspect I'm coming towards the end of being ok and heading into homesickness mode in the next day. I'm dealing with it mostly by buying gifts for Davis and looking at pictures.  There's still two days and three nights left!  It's been a great conference for both scientific learning and discovery as well as networking.  It's a small conference meant to bring lots of people from different fields together, which is a wonderful way to learn about new areas that infringe on your own.  I have had some fantastic interactions with a variety of people in industry, labs, and institutions.  I've also gotten a couple of great job leads (two in Seattle!!!).  I'm not doing much fun stuff outside the conference since I really need to work, but I have gotten some yummy crepes and been on some good walks around the old town.  The weather has been great, just around freezing, but sunny.  I've taken my film camera with me on my walks, so I'll have at least one roll to develop when I get home.

Good news came this week too.  My poster was accepted to a conference in Lisbon!  So John and I are heading to Lisbon, maybe via Dublin at the end of April. 

I'm off to bed, because despite sleeping alone in a hotel room with no baby monitor, I apparently am trained to wake up at the times that Davis wakes up anyway.  I'll probably learn to sleep through the night just when it's time to come home.  I'm still amazed that a night owl like me can learn to wake up at 6am and start the day!!

New Photos

Kristen is away at a conference in Quebec for the next 5 days, so its up to me to take pictures of the little guy for her to enjoy while she is away.  The first few are from a walk to whole foods to pick up more yogurt after I left the lid off and Domino helped himself.  The second few are from a very tired boy waking up and not being ready to be awake -- Grammie rocked him for about 45 minutes while he got some much needed rest.

I've been here before, and I'll be here again

I have now spent 13 years in various layers of "higher education".  That's not quite half of my life, but it's close.  During that length of time I have learned a lot of things, but I've realized there's only one lesson that holds throughout all of it.  I thought when I graduated in Electrical Engineering that uniform lesson would be the ability to find a reference book.  That's right.  As an engineer there is no such thing as memorization (minus a few basic rules like V=IR).  However, when I started training as a scientist, memorization became important.  Many small epiphanies have been recognition of something I had seen before and most of my work is made easier by remembering, roughly (hey, I'm not a real biologist, I'm playing the middle ground), the structure of an amino acid or the short name for a protein.  So the ability to seek out information in a favorite textbook was not the tried and true lesson from these years.

No, the tried and true lesson is that deadlines happen, and every time we rise to meet them.  I realized life feels like an ocean of events.  Every time I know there is an event on the horizon, but far out there in time, I feel like a small person on a small beach looking out into a calm, blue sea.  Way out beyond the horizon is a wave forming, I know it's there, but I can't feel it, see it or touch it.  Then as it gets closer I can start to see the undulation of the formerly calm water.  Finally, when it's so close I can fear it, there it is a wall of water, churning below and breaking above.  Rarely has this vision been so apparent to me as it is in graduate school.  About a year ago, I knew that about right now, I would be wrapping up my Ph.D.  Which, come to think of it, accounts for roughly half of those 13 years.. At that time it seemed like a nice idea, and not too hard.  Then in September, I started to see the rocking of a buoy on the ocean.  Right now, this very instant, I am feeling the sand sucked out from under my feet. 

Mostly, this post is about personal realization and mental reinforcement.  Despite how I feel now, I have to keep in mind that there hasn't been a final exam, a project, or a thesis that I haven't been ready for.  It always gets done, because that's how humans work.  Goals and deadlines are a way to help us appreciate the calm seas after the storm. 

Deep breath...it might be awhile before I can come up from this next wave.

New Pictures

Kristen and I have been busy lately and neglecting the blog.  Kristen has her final committee meeting Friday and leaves for a 5 day conference on Sunday.  Her committee should give her permission to graduate by June and she has been doing a lot of work to prepare her presentation and work while at the same time creating her poster for her conference.  Between those two things, and her normal work load, she has been a little overwhelmed with work.  My mom arrives Friday to help take care of Davis while Kristen is gone and will be here for about 10 days.  That is a brief update with what is going on with us.

Here are few recent pictures of the little guy.  He is getting hard to capture with pictures.  Most of the time, he sees the camera and comes running (in a 10.5 month old way) to grab it and see what dad is doing.

There are more pictures in our online picasa albums.