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. 

Good news

We had two pieces of good health related news this week.  John's xray and blood work were normal! Also, Davis had an EKG and a chest x-ray to make sure his very slight heart murmer is benign and indeed those were both normal. 

Grandma and Grandpa sent Davis his very own phone yesterday.  He can dial on it and make it ring.  We'll try to get a picture of him with it held up to his 'ear', which really just means he's holding it somewhere on his head.  John and I swear he was trying to say hello when it rang.  Certainly, he was chatting on the phone. 

Unfortunately, the weather looks to be bad this weekend, but we'll try and make the best of it!  I definitely need a mental break as I head into the next few very crazy weeks.

That is some good walking

It seems I am forever composing blog posts in my head, but rarely do they make it into writing.  I hope to do a better job of that in the future, but below are some disconnected thoughts and updates regarding the last couple of weeks.

Davis is a walker!  A couple of weeks ago, he took his first steps, and he has been exponentially improving on those first steps.  For the first week or so, we could get him to walk if we sufficiently motivated and distracted him.  However, he mostly felt the need for the safety of an object to hold onto, despite whether or not it actually provided him any support.  This last Friday, for the first time, while we were playing in his room, he stood up and walked to me!  John and I are amazed at his ability to learn things so quickly, from a few steps to crossing a room in the matter of a couple of weeks.  John has just posted a video. 

One of Davis' favorite things continues to be books.  However, we do a lot less reading of the books these days.  Mostly Davis enjoys pulling the books out of the book box and handing them to us.  Then we open the book and Davis turns the pages until it's time to move onto pulling the next book in the box.  During one of these sessions, Davis saw me put something in his laundry basket.  He then took everything out of the book box and put it in the laundry basket.  This makes us realize that we need to be VERY careful about what we do and say in his presence, it doesn't take much for him to pick up on things.

Kellie, one of the daycare providers, told me a story this last week when I picked Davis up.  Apparently, he likes to pull every single car out of the box of cars they have at the daycare.  He methodically pulls one out at a time and places it on the ground.  When he finally gets to the last one, whatever one that is, he runs off to play with it.  Davis and his partner in crime, Roxie, can take apart the daycare in a matter of minutes.  In exasperation, Kellie told John yesterday that they will be working on the skill of putting things away soon.  John suggested they pull out a laundry hamper.

A couple of weeks ago marked an increase in fussiness for Davis.  We believe it's a combination of him being sick at the time as well as his increasing frustration at not being able to communicate.  Who knows what it really is, but we have noticed that Davis is getting very good at communicating to us what he wants recently.  We have attempted using a few signs with Davis in the hope of giving him some tools before he's verbal to aid in his communication.  His sign for 'more' looks like clapping and tells us that he's ready for more food at the table.  However, when combined with his refusal of one type of food and his insistence for 'more' we've been able to figure out he may not want cereal, but he definitely wants the pancake sitting in front of Mom.  He is also able to clearly tell us when he wants to be picked up and when he wants to be put down, when he wants a book read to him, and when he wants you to play peak-a-boo.  It's such a joy to see him turning into a person with real preferences.  Current preferences include blueberries and tofu.  We've watched him eat a half pint of blueberries in one sitting and pick around everything on his tray to eat every morsel of tofu, and ask for more. 

Domino is not nearly as enthused as we are at Davis' newest form of mobility.  Davis continues to treat Domino like his stuffed animals, which entails throwing his arms around him and tackling him.  Sometimes if he can't get close enough for a tackle, Davis settles for a head butt.  Domino continues to be amazingly calm around Davis and I've only once had to deter Domino from nibbling Davis after a particularly rough tackle.  We continue to monitor their interactions closely and lock Domino out of Davis' room at night since we know Domino lacks the better judgment to not go in there.  Despite all of his overly-enthusiastic attention, Domino continues to lavish attention on Davis.  The moment his door opens in the morning Domino races into the room.   One morning when Davis woke up late, Domino paced outside his room for about an hour.  Our night time ritual includes chasing Domino out from under the crib.  Someday they will be the best of friends.  Lilly continues to claim safe harbor, far away from the reaches of Davis.  The only exceptions to this rule is if she is forced to choose between a room with a baby and a room with a vaccuum or when there is a particular bit of enticing food on the highchair tray.  Davis is more than happy to share food with Lilly.

I am extremely busy and quite overwhelmed at work.  I have had some great results recently, and although I know I will wrap this work up, the idea of wrapping it up in time for my final committee meeting (now less than two weeks away) is a bit of a shock.  This is in addition to submitting an abstract for one conference and preparing a poster for another.  I think underlying all of this stress is the idea that in less than two weeks I will be away from John and Davis for a full five days!  This conference marks the end of breasfeeding for us.  I think it's a natural ending for it anyway, but it's still an ending to what has been a large part of my relationship with Davis.  A couple of weeks ago I discontinued pumping at work and we began introducing formula to Davis.  Today, we cut out one feeding, leaving just one last feeding.  This one will be the hardest to break since it's the most emotionally-tied one for Davis.  After a long and exciting day at daycare, Davis nurses as a way to reconnect and to calm down.  Some nights this ends in a quick catnap before dinner.  We'll be dropping this feeding when I leave and I'm not sure John is very excited about the potential reprocussions.  Our hope is that out-of-sight, out-of-mind will apply in this case and it will be the easiest way to wean.  If we are wrong, well, let's just say I'm glad I won't be around to find that out.

John had his six-month post-radiation checkup yesterday where he had a chest x-ray and some bloodwork done.  We will find the results out later this week.  His cancer and treatment have been on my mind a lot lately.  Someone we know is battling breast cancer and seeing her go through surgery and treatment has brought all the history of John's own fight to the forefront again.  It's a strange feeling that I can't explain or shake, but seeing someone else battle something more aggressive makes me feel like we got off almost too easily this time around.  Comparing aggressiveness of John's cancer with someone else's makes about as much sense as what we heard multiple times during his diagnosis and treatment, which was "Testicular cancer is extremely treatable, if you were going to pick a cancer to get, this is the one to pick".  Clearly, this isn't how it works, but yet people feel compelled to tell us that, much like I feel compelled to worry more now than I did since seeing someone else go through something harder to treat.  I am consistenly thinking of her and hoping for the best, but like John, I know only time will tell.