Cold Spaghetti

Will opens his very special gift from PapPap… his own kid-size 9-iron.
Uncle Skip, PapPap and Will play with the Geotrax train, Christmas afternoon.
Will opens his tiger flashlight — the light is in his mouth and it roars when you open it!
Paul opens his framing nail gun. (Skip took this picture — that is why I actually am in it!)
Will and Uncle Skip run the train (the control is in Will’s hand.)

Mail in New Orleans:
— For those who have sent stuff only to have it returned or lost, I finally deciphered the code. Only first class mail gets through. All media mail, flyers, periodicals, and other are returned to sender. If you’d like us to receive something that isn’t first class mail, send it to my parents’ house in Mobile (email me for the address).

Comps:
— Today marks three weeks post-comps. Still no word. I’ve been in contact with everyone. My only clue was from Penny last week “some responses in and good” but besides that cryptic insight, I know nothing. Carl emailed last night to say that “tomorrow is the day” but it is quickly approaching 4pm with no news. A few more days and I may be getting an ulcer for Christmas.

Teeth:
— I forgot how hard it is to have really clean teeth when pregnant. Not sure if this experience is common, but brushing and flossing is challenging… my gag reflex is so super sensitive that it takes a long time to get a clean mouth. I’m brushing or gargling a hundred times a day and still don’t quite feel fresh. What is up with that?

Myself, my mother, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother are all first born girls. When I was pregnant with Will, I felt confident that I would be continuing in this tradition. I truly believed that fate would bring me a girl. When we had a 20-week ultrasound, I made grand claims that there would be “no stem on the apple” visible in the fuzzy pictures. We learned two things that day: that I was wrong and that Will was probably not going to need a sports car.

That day I learned that the knowledge of a baby’s sex could be an experience in humor and humility. As a result, in this pregnancy, I have been hesitant to claim authoritative knowledge on the baby’s sex. With the first pregnancy, Paul and I had a firm choice in boy’s names (William, obviously) but not so firm on girl’s names. This time, we are firm on girl’s names (Katherine “Kate”) but not so firm on boy’s names (Jackson “Jack” and Charles “Charlie” are my top picks, neither one liked much by Paul, who has not had any favorites thus far.) So I have been going on the belief that because we actually have a firm name picked for a girl, it therefore had to be a girl.

Subconsciously, I’ve been thinking, feeling, and wanting a girl. A boy and a girl, one of each, “the complete set” as Paul calls it. Without intending to, I have been fixating on this baby being a girl. I slip up and call the baby “she”. I’ve been checking out girl’s crib linens (Will’s linens are blue cars, trucks, and airplanes). I’ve been planning out how to do a fun gender-neutral bedroom (the kids will share a room) that has accents of both boy and girl colors. This has all been happening in secret. I have been afraid that sharing my secret thoughts would jinx me good. I know that Murphy’s Law is out there and I have experienced its humbling poignancy.

So today was a big day. It turns out Murphy let me slide.

*It’s a girl!*

I know it looks bad. There were those claims made in the 3rd grade. I even planned the heist with a cooler on the scene. But it didn’t happen then, and I promise, it didn’t happen now. That little penguin is hiding out at someone else’s house.

Over the past 4-5 days, we have been dealing with Will’s first true diaper rash. The last two days have by far been the worst. The stuff comes out of nowhere and sticks around — particularly because, now that diaper changing hurts, Will does his best to hide his diapering needs. This morning saw our first sign of improvement and Will did not shed any tears during the two changes we’ve had today. Our choice ointment for fastest improvement: regular destin (highest percentage of zinc oxide). Choice for daily maintance? The local brand: Boudreaux’s Butt Paste.

I’ve mentioned that Will can count to 10 without any problem. But apparently I’ve sold him short. With a little coaching, he actually can go on to 20. It is super cute listening to him go around the house and count things: “one, two, three, four Santa Claus!” He’s not even 25 months old. I’d be thinking Doogie Howser if he weren’t doing all this with his finger up his nose.

In the midst of our holiday madness, we are also prepping the house and ourselves for our next trip overseas. The fact that we leave in just over 2 weeks (2 weeks!) is both exciting and overwhelming. So far, we have:
– Arranged for a sub-let from a fun UK family with a precious two-year old girl and another little girl due soon!
– Have reservations in a local hotel for the night we arrive (the flight comes shortly before midnight; we’ll meet the housekeeper at the house the next morning)
– Paid half our rent up front by electronically transfering money to their account in Indonesia (where they used to live!)
– Have a housekeeper (fairly standard in these parts)
– (Almost) have a nanny — just a phone call left to confirm
– (Almost) have a private spanish tutor — just have to arrange some logistics
– Are reading all that we can about Peru (history, culture, art, travel, etc.)

The faculty I’m working with assure me that getting an assistant (for transcription and assistance with interviews) will be no problem, so that is great. We’ve got a list of contacts and organizations and will brainstorm further once I’m there. The idea is that this is just an exploratory trip. I have a bunch of potential research questions to expand into a disseration… the idea is to talk about the issues and questions within the field, gather some observational data, then return home, run models from DHS and other data sources to compare, and develop a final research question and disseration topic from all of the information. Then I can write the prospectus, which sort of lays out my plans for a disseration and serves as the “background” — sort of like the first few chapters — and apply for formal disseration funding. Because I am interested in an academic career, it is important to me to both collect my own data for at least part of my disseration and obtain outside funding to do so. This is first step towards that end. I am excited and a bit nervous to sort of be on my own, which is what getting a doctoral level degree is all about.

University Montessori held a holiday program tonight where all the kids gathered on the stairs in the front of the school and sang Christmas carols. It went sort of how you would expect for a pre-school presentation. Some tears, lots of blank faces, and a little singing from a few of the older kids. In other words, it was really cute. Then we were ushered inside for cookies (made by the older kids) and while we chatted with parents, Will managed to score at least 3 cookies. We captured the evening on video so no still pictures were taken until we got home.

With all those cookies, Will had some energy to expend. Insisting that his hat “stay on” he ran around the house after the squeeky ball. I managed to catch this photo in a rare moment of pause.

All tuckered out from his big night, Will rests and waits for shower time.

Our weaning method is working even better than expected! It has made going to bed something Will is excited about (“Binky time! Nite-nite, Daddy, nite-nite, Mommy!”) and he completely understands how the system works. This morning, when Paul went to get Will out of his crib, Will had already put “up” his binky so that he could be lifted out of the crib to start in on morning playtime.

A bonus: his already impressive vocabulary is now growing at an alarming rate. This kid does not stop jabbering! We love it.