Mystery

I swear, half of parenting is a sleuthing job.  Baby is fussy, much more so than usual, and with real tears.  Is she too hot? Too cold? Wet? Diaper on too tight? Is she bored? Overstimulated?  She won’t let me put her down without screaming.  Does her belly hurt? Is she tired? Does she have [...]

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Month 4

Dear Nuala,
Most of the last month has been really, really difficult. The end! See you October 26!
Where was I? Oh, yes. The last month has been very difficult because classes started and all of a sudden I had a million things to do every day on top of taking care of you (which is the [...]

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Slow but sure

Once upon a time, I began tackling the downstairs bathroom/laundry room.  You can see evidence of my having begun the project here.  Over the past year-plus, we’ve been tolerating and silently cursing the last remaining bit of fugly there: the sink and vanity cabinet.  I don’t know why they call it a vanity; it had [...]

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There’s sleep, and then there’s sleep

Nuala is a brief napper.  These days, she’s taking three or four 30-45 minute naps a day.  It’s just enough time to barely get any work done on my chapter or lectures or grading papers, or to eat lunch without swallowing it whole, but not nearly enough time for me to lay down and get [...]

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She rolls!

Here we are, six days from her four-month birthday, and she rolls.  Up to now, it’s all been practice rolls–getting almost all the way up and grabbing a finger or a toy to get up over that left shoulder.  But today, she rolled.  And rolled.  And rolled.

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Back on track? Pleeeease?!

Nuala went to bed without fuss a little before 8, woke again a half hour later to finish eating (most of the time, she falls asleep during the post-bath, pre-bed meal), and slept till 1:30.  And again until just after 5.  And then dozed with me off and on until after 8.
I love this baby [...]

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I’ve misplaced the owner’s manual.

Boy, nothing will make you feel less competent and confident as a human being than being a parent.
For the past several days, Nuala has decided she no longer wants to sleep a good 6+ hours on the first stretch.  On top of that, she’s decided she must whine to communicate, and that the ways in [...]

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Good heavens

I don’t know how many hundreds (thousands?) of pictures I’ve taken of this baby.  I shouldn’t be surprised at how gorgeous she is, or how well pictures come out with the help of a fabulous camera; and yet sometimes, there’s this:

Our girl is 16 weeks old today.

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Trudge trudge trudge

Between the four consecutive nights of bad sleep/no sleep, a baby who’s discovered that the nasal whine is good for everything she wants to express and who’s started pooping on everything in the middle of the night,  a mountain of work to do, and did I mention the sleep?… this week looks to be awesome.
At [...]

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Wrong again, liberal media

[title courtesy Homer J. Simpson]
I’m finishing off the third week of a class in which we talk about Big Ideas about health and disease; tomorrow, for example, we’re tackling whether and how disease can be conceptualized to strengthen, perpetuate, or undermine social and political structures.  Stuff that requires a little reading, some deep thinking, and [...]

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