New Photos

I grabbed the camera last night, which grabbed Davis' attention.  Most of these ended up being pretty much the same, but I love the number of different expressions on his face.  They are all head shots because he was pretty much trying to get the camera most of the time.

Please do not send cottage cheese

Every day we are sent home from daycare with a form that lists when Davis had snacks or meals, when he had a diaper changed and any additional notes.  Today, the note read "Please do not send cottage cheese, he only throws it, not eats it."  So there you have it, no more cottage cheese. 

This week has been a true testament to our ability to adapt and alter our schedules as needed.  Tonight was the monthly "Working Moms Group", which I really enjoy attending.  However, after sitting down to dinner with my family for the first time since Sunday, I decided to forgo the group meeting and have a nice quiet evening with John and Davis.  I found myself back in lab last night at 10pm in order to finish an experiment that I had to pause due to a dentist appointment, which, I had already swapped with John's dentist appointment earlier in the day.  Monday night I taught an indoor cycling class.  It's not a good feeling when you realize you have only seen your son for about a half hour in a 48 hour period.  Luckily, we had a wonderful evening tonight together, which included skyping with Grandma, Grandpa, and cousin Eliason.  Eliason is more like a grown man every time I see him (or talk to him!).  He now wears size 13 shoes and is as tall as me! (Maybe taller, since I think I've already begun the shrinking process).  Davis enjoyed showing them his toes and singing "If you're happy and you know it". 

I'm going to wrap this blog post up so that I can spend some time with John, but I'll end with some personal successes for both of us.  John had a goal to run to work by the end of July and today he did it!!  In June I began a freestyle efficiency class and as of today I have shaved off three strokes in a 25 yard distance and the class is only half over.

One more picture

Kristen really likes this picture, so I had to post it.

Photo Shoot

A few weeks ago, Kristen and I had a photo shoot with a local photographer.  She took a ton of photos and quite a few turned out really well.  The whole set of ones we liked is on picasa.  Here are a few samples:

Which path to take?

It was very hard to get all three of us looking in the same place.  We got Davis to look at the camera by throwing a ball over the photographer's head.

Water!

I love the expression on his face

Yum!

yeah, that's a lot!

Many awesome things occur when you are raising a child.  Their first bath, their first smile, their first laugh, their first favorite food, their first tooth, their first word, and their first sentence.  It's all incredible, to see life from the beginning.  Today we had another major first.  Well, technically it's not officially a first.  A couple of weeks ago we noticed that Davis was pointing to things and saying "What's that?", which I believe counts as a complete sentence.  However, this morning Davis and I were playing before daycare and he brought me a big stack of his magnetic sticks (courtesy of Uncle James, Aunt Stephanie and Cousin Melanie, and it's still a favorite toy).  I said to Davis "Wow! That's a lot!"  He said "Yeah, it's a lot".  Unfortunately, I was so excited I really scared him, so he may never say it again!

Of all the things we've seen Davis learn and do, the understanding of language still continues to astound me.  Despite how little he says right now, it's clear he understands a great deal.  For example, tonight John said to Davis "Can you look under the crib for Domino?" And Davis immediately got down and looked under the crib, where, of course, Domino had planted himself for our bedtime ritual.  Even more amazing was just a little earlier he had looked under the crib and said "Meow Meow".  This is incredible since all animals up to now have been woof-woof's.  (Correct, Davis really wants a dog so I think we should get him one :)  It's fascinating that in addition to saying woof-woof when he sees an animal, he always says dog-dog, never just dog.

In other news, a paper I submitted in January was just accepted (FINALLLLLLY).  Yay!  I suppose the upside to that is when I got a bottle of sparkling wine to celebrate the paper acceptance it seems like it's been a long time since we got the bottle of wine to celebrate the submission of the paper.  Better to space out the celebrations I suppose.  I think John and I will try to get a babysitter for Saturday night so we can go out for a nice dinner and then I'm going to head out salsa dancing with some friends!  It's amazing how distinct the line becomes about whether John likes salsa dancing.  When it was simply the cover at the door he could be convinced to give it a try, but now it's the cover at the door plus $15 an hour for babysitting, so he's opting out of the dancing bit of the evening.

I don't think John has mentioned it on the blog yet, so I'll boast for him, he received a substantial promotion that takes effect this month, his title is now "Principal Software Engineer".  He's the first one in his company to have that title!

Toes are awesome

It's been a long time since I have blogged..since May in fact.  Luckily, John has been keeping up with posts recently, but I would like to get better at it since it's proving to be important for documenting Davis' development and sheer awesomeness.  So here's a small warmup to get me back in the swing of blogging. 


I don't think I've mentioned it here, but after I defended in May (and officially graduated in June), I began work as a postdoc, joint with my Ph.D. lab and a new lab.  I'm still working out what it all means with regards to where I am and when, but it's awfully comfy to stick around my old stomping grounds and work with the same people I have been working with for years.  The biggest change in my postdoc is that I am now doing biological experiments and very little computation.  It's been quite the change and an eye-opening experience.  I've been completely overwhelmed and it's been pretty hard to go from feeling like you know something to feeling like you know nothing.  I'm blessed with great colleagues who are happy to help me through the learning curve of experiments (and enough of them I can spread out the wealth of my ignorance among them all, decreasing the burden on any one of them, although some still get a pretty heavy dose of me).  I think I enjoy it.  In contrast to when I was doing fabrication, the experiments I'm doing go fast enough to keep me excited about them.  Fabrication work left me pretty unexcited about getting back into the lab, but it's proving to be a completely different mode and timescale (for reference, it was typically 6 months to a year of fabrication before you ever even got to sit down with a device to see if it did what you hoped it would).  One of the hardest transitions to this new way of life is scheduling my day.  I'm eating lunch at 2:30 in the afternoon, missing the gym, and coming home exhausted after a full day of standing and running between labs.  I think as time goes on and I get the hang of things, it will get better.


Davis is growing and changing by the day.  It's cliched, but.. It sure is amazing to see the world through the eyes of a newborn/baby/toddler.  For example, Davis loves the toe song.  You know the one that goes "This little piggy went to the market, this little piggy stayed home..."  When we take off his shoes and socks he looks at his feet and points and I sing the song.  He laughs in delight when the last little piggy runs home.  He usually points again and we sing again..then one more time usually, perhaps a few more times.


John and I are amazed by his capacity to pick new things up and even extend them.  For example, when we went to the water park, he picked up a stick.  When he saw other kids putting things like buckets in the water stream to catch water, he put his stick in it.  Then when a little girl showed him how to catch water with a bucket, he tried it.  The first time we went to the water park he splashed in the puddles on the perimeter.  The second time, he was running through the center where the water was pouring down.  Who knows what he will do next time.


Davis is certainly like his dad was, a "me do it meself" kind of guy.  He gets upset at mealtimes if we try and give him finger food a little at a time.  This morning breakfast went much better when we handed him the entire plate of eggs and toast along with a fork.  He's doing wonderful at feeding himself with a spoon and fork.  We just have to be on the watch for when he finishes in order to catch the plate before it hits the ground.   


We hoped to go camping this weekend, Davis even has his own sleeping bag!  (Davis fell asleep on my sleeping bag on the last trip and I was freezing all night long).  Unfortunately, it looks like thunderstorms will prevent our trip from happening this weekend. 

Water Park

Recently, we've been enjoying taking Davis to the sprinklers/water park at the school near our place.  When we went on Monday, we took a camera and got a few pictures of the little guy spashlin' and enjoying water.