During our walk "around" the block with Will this evening, Paul placed his hand on a neighborhood tree to steady himself as he picked up Will and tip-toed through some puddles of water on the sidewalk. After he placed Will down past the puddles, he turned to me and said that his hand was stinging from splinters that just then had caught his hand when he touched the tree. I looked at his hand, but it didn't look like splinters -- in only seconds, welts had begun to rise and the sting he intially felt was getting stronger.
It was our first experience with the buck moth caterpillar -- one of the four varieties of caterpillars currently covering Louisiana trees. And of the four, the buck moth stings. Paul must have brushed his hand along the venomous spikes on it's back. After icing his hand for a few hours this evening, he's doing fine. According to the information we found about the venom, the stings are comparible to bee stings and discomfort can stick around for a few days. I guess that we should feel lucky... Will notices these caterpillars and has enthusiastically pointed at (and 'accidently' stomped on) them. It's practically a miracle he hasn't tried to pick one up yet! Now we know to look out for them and make sure that he steers clear.
Watch out for the caterpillars!!
Saturday, April 30, 2005
Stinging Caterpillars
Friday, April 29, 2005
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Afternoon Break
Today was a long day of work... I have a presentation tomorrow on my study of low birth weight and violence in Peru. The exciting part is that it is my LAST DAY of formal, registered, classes. So I figured it was worth staying up a little longer for nostalgia.
This afternoon, Paul, Will and I took a walk to the park and played for a half hour after an early dinner (greens and raw veggie salad with my favorite pineapple pizza - which Will loves.) It was a perfect evening. There was a nice breeze, the sun was setting so it wasn't as strong, and it was beautiful. The park had a few other kids, but it was quiet enough that Will was able to run around without risk of being stomped on (he likes to follow the older kids around, which can present problems!)
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Water break!
Will drinking out of Dad's water bottle (water bottles are a new fascination... beware baby backwash.) Paul took this picture during their afternoon trip to the Zoo. 
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Plans for the future
How does a PhD student with a family plan her life and career? Here are the answers that we've come up with so far....
The current plan:
- Stay here this summer. I turned down projects in Peru, South Africa and Kenya to stay here and study for comps. Advice from those who know is to stay focused and in New Orleans until comps are done. So, I'm taking this advice and speeding up my program.
- I got approval to do the last of my advanced biostats through independent study... so the summer will be a rough time of advanced evaluation design methods (ie: the class where you only "speak greek" -- tau, lambda, beta, etc.), regression, and (the REALLY scary one) categorical. Just to give a sense of the scope... these are usually three separate classes.
- Finalize my committee over the summer.
- Apply for funding for preliminary data collection for the prospectus.
- If I feel confident from the summer, take comps in October. (They are offered in October, February, and June.)
- Celebrate the completion of comps with a TRIP in October/November! (Current plan is to take the invitation to go to New Delhi, India, and visit Bela Auntie, Raja, and Chiya.)
- (Hopefully) have some funding at the start of the New Year.
- Current top contender for 2006 research destination... Lima, Peru.
- Work on prospectus over summer 2006.
- Have a baby in late summer/early fall 2006.
- Have six months with baby during which I'll only work part-time and continue to work on prospectus, apply for disseration funding, and finally present the prospectus.
That is a far as we can see right now and so many things could change (I decide to use secondary data at either stage, we don't get pregnant, we get pregnant sooner/later, etc., etc.) After this, it will be collecting disseration data, doing the disseration, defending, and graduating. Too hard to see that far right now! As adventurous, enthusiastic, and curious as I am, it will be interesting to see how closely I follow this plan.
Besides, all plans can and should be altered as learning opportunities arise!
Monday, April 25, 2005
Hooray for Mommy and Will!
Will cheers while we play a game of pinball! Will is very good at firing the ball!
The (Current) Numbers of Our Lives
- 24 x 80: dimension of our house
- 30: estimated number of outlets Paul has replaced in the house
- 9: estimated numbers of *new* outlets Paul has installed
- 1000: estimated number of feet of electrical wire Paul has pulled through the house
- 4000: estimated number of MP3s downloaded on our phatbox
- 16: number of dollars I paid for my new (second hand) Kate Spade purse
- 13671: size of the birth population I am currently studying
- 9044: number that is actually coming up when I run my models
- 2: number of hours Will usually naps in the afternoon
- 3: number of poopy diapers yesterday
Saturday, April 23, 2005
Hungry Man!
Will is fresh from the pool and ready for dinner! Granna made pork chops with celery and carrot gravy, fresh green beans, corn, and brown rice. Will ate a whole bowl with everything and even had room for vanilla pudding dessert! Impressive -- especially considering that he ate a scrambled egg for breakfast, tuna fish salad sandwich and pear for lunch, and had multiple snacks including crackers, an apple and cheese curls. Wow!
Kid Clothes Saga Continues
Will and I are in Mobile this weekend. Mom is sick, but up and helping to watch Will while I work. I took a break this afternoon and took Will to get a haircut and then to pick up his clothes from Children's Cottage.
Will was truly an angel through the entire afternoon. It was well into his naptime, but he played (adorably played, actually -- he made everyone around stop and look to comment on how darn cute he was babbling away while he played) and was patient while I tried different outfits on him for size and shopped around.
The downside: Children's Cottage either hadn't pulled our order or couldn't find it. (I'm guessing couldn't find it... the staff was a little short on organization.) So, some of the outfits I had picked out weren't available in Will's size. Another downside is the outfit I had chosen for the wedding had a problem -- the pipping on the shirt was black, not navy, so it didn't match right. Apparently it was a manufacturer problem as all of the outfits in the 24-month size had this problem. Back to the drawing board on the wedding outfit front.
The upside: Everything was 25% off! Plus, it was a nice store full of adorable pieces and we were able to get some wonderful outfits that weren't featured on the website. We walked away with three beautiful outfits (one is on order and will be in after a week or so) and a pair of white dress socks. (And one poopy diaper.)
Driving Fun
Top Three Favorite Bumper Stickers:
3. NO C.A.R.B. (Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Bush)
2. Republicans for Voldemort
1. Be Fabulous
Thursday, April 21, 2005
A Possible End to the Kid Clothes Saga
So, the stuff to Best Dressed Child went back. Nervous about Amy's wedding being a month away, I started to look again online. After missing a few items of interest on ebay (I'm not very good at remembering times and don't like that I can't tell how worn an item is...) I went back to look at online stores... ready to pay out just to have something in time.
And then hit gold!
I found Children's Cottage -- a little children's store currently having a sale (in honor of the election of the new pope, of all things.) Even better, they are located in Mobile, Alabama -- a short drive away from my parents' house. So, I made an order online to reserve some outfits (they only had a few sizes left in many items) and my Mom called this morning. My Mom, being the most personable and friendly person on the planet, instantly became buddies with the owner, who is holding all the outfits for Mom to inspect and pick up later this week (saving us shipping). So, finally --- we got great stuff, on sale, in stock, didn't pay shipping, and local to Granna, who now has a friendly relationship with the owner.
So far, looking like a great ending!
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
A Lesson in Geek Priorities
Paul emailed work Wednesday morning to say that he was going to be out for a few hours that morning because:
1. He was ill
2. The truck was stolen (so we thought at that point)
3. TiVo died.
Many deeply heartfelt email condolenses arrived quickly from Paul's co-workers. They lamented the (temporary) loss of TiVo, and commented how horrible it was to be sick, but to be sick without TiVo was incredibly tragic.
No one mentioned the car.
Holly and Paul and the terrible, no good, very bad morning
Wednesday morning.
5:00am. Paul is sick.
6:30am. TiVo died.
7:30am. We find that our 1995 Purple Ford Explorer ("Barney") was stolen.
8:00am. Paul alerts work to a sick day due to his illness, TiVo's death, and Barney's capture.
8:30am. We amend the stolen report after I call the city towing company and find Barney.
What happened? We blocked off a large street area in front of the house to allow for the DuctBusters trucks. Paul moved them extra early Tuesday morning and did so somewhat hastely since he had to move both cars quickly so that the large DuctBuster trucks could get into the space. The street was very crowded with the dumpsters and equipment from the construction going on right now, so he had to park a little further down the street, where we don't know the neighbors as well. He must have moved the truck somewhere that pissed someone off. We found out from the towing company that it was called in by a neighbor...! (Even the towing company thought it was totally ridiculous.)
The lesson? Be careful not to even touch on someone's driveway. (We were called in by a neighbor... we've even met them briefly and I do Yoga at the same studio as the wife.) Paul swears he couldn't have been that close, but admits he may have made a mistake and feels badly about it. What is troublesome is that even if he was partly blocking their puny, not-well marked driveway, the fact that they didn't even go out to the street to ask around about who's car was there is a serious bummer. Everyone around here knows us and our cars -- especially the workmen, who are all over the place these days. Paul's gone by three times to apologize and no one has been there. (Although our other neighbors agree that they should be apologizing to us!)
Tuesday night dinner
Will at dinner last night. He was having a great time talking, laughing, parroting us, and eating Dad's yummy Mexicali-stew! Both the video camera and the digital rebel came out.
Around
Will's favorite daily activity is "around." This game began in Honduras during the summer of 2003 with Paul and Jonas, the then 22 month old son of my friend and colleague, Joanne Bailey. Paul spent a lot of time watching Joanne's kids, especially Jonas, who had taken a special liking to Paul. While we worked on Joanne's in-laws' porch, Paul would play in the yard with Jonas, and they developed the game "around." This involved walking (over and over again) around the outside of the house and yard, repeating the same activities each trip "around." With Jonas and Paul, "around" involved things like picking up Jonas so that he could touch the clothesline, jumping off the concrete sill of the house at a certain corner, and counting the chickens in the trees (really, the chicken slept there.)
With Will, "around" involves a similar pattern (but unfortunately without the chickens.) The Joseph Street version of around leaves our house to the right, and going around our street block in a circle. Will points out certain things, performs specific acts in specific places, and basically explores his world each tiny detail at a time. This includes pointing to the ceramic frog in the garden of a house around the corner ("La Rana! Ribbit!"), saying "Woof, Woof" to the decorative dogs on an iron fence gate, sitting on the front steps of a particular house where he sometimes sees the owners sitting ("Hi!"), spinning in a circle on a stamped concrete driveway, pointing and getting very excited about the friendly cat and two dogs who live at the corner of Octavia and Laurel, peeking through a Will-sized hole in a fence, trying to open one gate that has a knob he can reach, "smelling" the black-eyed susans (still an exhale rather than an inhale), poking his finger in a certain hole in a patch of concrete sidewalk, straining to turn a spigot on the front of someone's porch, and then once he's turned the corner back onto Joseph Street, picking up two rocks, only to drop them a few steps later to pick up a stick. We do this walk three or more times a day. The neighbors are getting used to the routine to the point where they look forward to his little visits.
We can't so much as open the front door without the risk of Will running out, full speed, to begin "around." (Luckily, we've trained him to wait for us to hold his hand before going down the front steps.) He LOVES it.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
One Year Ago...
Paul and Will... one year ago today!! Will was in his "no hair" phase -- between loosing his birth hair and growing his baby hair. I can't believe he was once just a little puddin'!
Kids Clothes Saga Continues...
Best Dressed Child turned out to suck. While the outfits (for the most part) were great, the size was too big. Turns out that Will needs the 24 months, even though he's technically long enough for 2T. The one 24-month outfit I got (the one for this summer's weddings) came with holes in the sleeves (probably due to carelessly placed security and pricing tags). I don't feel like I should pay full price ($52!) for a piece with holes. When I emailed them, they were crummy. So, I wrote a nice letter expressing my disappointment and am returning the entire lot. My recommendation: steer clear of them!!
Back to square one for dressy outfit shopping.
Good news: we found a great kids dressy outfit store (Concepts) in Clearview Mall in Metairie (better known as "The Target Mall" since it has a HUGE two story Target.) So, we have that option along with another online place: One of a Kind Kid. Wish us luck!
Monday, April 18, 2005
The Money Pit
Our tax refund has quickly gotten eaten up by home improvement projects. The big ticket items:
- Custom glass fitted to the two cabinet doors we had cut out to make glass doors. (Who knew that getting plate glass was so darn expensive?) Our cabinet-maker suggested that we go to the Stained Glass Studio in Metairie -- he said that this was THE place to go. We understand why! No sloppy plate glass here. They were amazing. We went Thursday afternoon with Will (toddler in a glass shop?!) and loved the place. We ended up choosing a classic Victorian design and got a quick lesson on glass, leading, design, and so much more. They even offer classes (wonder if I can make the time for the drive this summer?)
- Duct cleaning from DuctBusters. We thought the cats were tracking funny dirt on to the guest room bed. Nope. Turns out it was mold falling out of the ducts above the bed when Paul worked in the attic. DuctBusters is coming to clean out the mold, dust, grime and whatever else is growing in our 100+ year old ducts. From what we understand, they do quite an impressive job and treat the ducts to prevent any future problems. Hooray for the coming of clean air! (This is happening Monday and Tuesday.)
- Plantation Shutters for the huge front walk-through windows. This is becoming more of an issue now that the spring days are starting to heat up... the afternoon sun through the front windows is impressive. Months of debate, research, measuring, measuring, and re-measuring led us to Blinds.com -- we are confident that we can install them ourselves and decided to save thousands (literally) by ordering discount direct. The quotations I got from companies over the past few months (from Home Depot to private designers) ranged from $800-1500 per window... forget it! We got these for a fraction of those prices. (The trade-off: blinds.com aren't the most informative folks so you really have to know what you want when you order and be prepared to install it yourself.) We ordered the Hunter Douglas cafe shutters (we need two sets -- a top and bottom -- to cover the 108" of window height.) Only 9 months of paper blinds and we'll finally be graduating to real shutters!!
A VERY exciting week!
Sunday, April 17, 2005
The Sponge
Will has been watching and learning very intently. Some things he's picked up lately:
- How to move the gate to "escape" from the front room and into the rest of the house
- How to walk around the front yard gate and on to the sidewalk and street
- How to move the piano bench and open (and close) the keyboard
- How to smell the flowers (actually, he hasn't figured out that it's an inhale -- he sniffs ON the flowers instead)
- How to put on his shirt (he reaches and helps to get his arms through the holes)
- How to put on shoes (our shoes -- his aren't as exciting)
- How to open doors
- How to fill cups with water in the shower and dump them on Mom's head
- How to turn the television on and off
Saturday, April 16, 2005
Pictures from Mud-bath and Park
Pictures from Will's dive in the mud and from juggling club in the park...
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I
Saturday Fun in the Park
I brought Will to the last hour of Juggling Club this afternoon (Paul has been participating for a few weeks now -- every Saturday at St. Charles on Audubon Park from 1-4). We took turns with Will playing with the equipment (for the most part, Will treats juggling balls like soccer balls -- they aren't quite multi-purpose yet to him.) We also did a lot of chasing after Will (here is the photo example of this).
Juggling club with Dad
Will contemplates the juggling pins while Dad practices "handing off" with Yos (in the background). Audubon Park juggling club, Saturday April 16th.
Owies
Will's most recent owies:
- two scabbed knees
- one scratch/red mark on the back of his right calf
- big cuts on the fourth finger on his left hand (this one is bothersome to me because it is pretty ugly looking)
- bruise on the thumb on this left hand from it getting pinched in someone's front gate (Dad accidently pinched his finger in the gate while trying to pull Will away from it)
We have very little insight into how the majority of his scrapes and scratches were earned. They just seem to appear...? Is Dad too reckless? Mom too overprotective? (This was the theme of last week's "Scrubs" so it's on the mind.) We're not sure. But the fact is that he does seem to be collecting the warrior marks of toddler-hood.
Friday, April 15, 2005
Boys will be boys or Will will be Will?
Muddy Will! Will summersaulted into the gutter while playing with Emily (his "novia" across the street). After a great deal of chaos from the neighbors who stopped cars and ran over to see what happened (he was fine, he was just laying on his back in the mud) -- Dad brought him home and the two of them hopped right into the shower. Here is Will -- overalls are already off -- getting off his muddy shirt (the Snoopy Naval Academy t-shirt - doh!) and showing his very muddy hair. We can appreciate that this is only a glimpse of what is to come...!
Albums
These links will bring you to Kodak Easy Share (formally ofoto) where you can view and order prints. Because I load them with a "one-click" system, all photos from Picassa go up... in other words, the albums are usually full of pictures.
If you use Kodak Easy Share for purchasing photos, we recommend signing up with Fat Wallet. We use fat wallet for just about all our internet purchases for cash back and have been really pleased with it. They offer cash back and other offers for a ton of stores (the Kodak site included).
March 6-7: To the Zoo and Playing with the Monsters
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I
March 11-15: At Home at Play
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I
March 18-23: Trip to Pennsylvania and seeing Grandma Betty
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I
March 27: Easter Morning
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I
March 27: Easter Afternoon
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I
April 1-8: Will and his Hat and Trip to Mobile
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I
April 12: Piano Man!
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Photo Sharing
Thank goodness.
Ofoto, now it's "Kodak Easy Share," is finally up and running with Picassa. Ofoto was working great... then they became Kodak and stopped working with Picassa for awhile. I was all worked up over it. Shutterfly doesn't work with Mozilla (internet browser of choice) and Snapfish is "kludgy" (an internet term that Paul taught me -- means not well designed and prone to problems -- good one for Scrabble!) Other sites that work with Picassa (like WalMart) don't have unlimited storage. What is a Mom who loves digital pictures to do???
Seeing that I can now use Ofoto again has just made my day! New photo albums will be up ASAP.
Piano Baby!
Will contemplates the next piece to add to his repertoire. (The book -- from Grandma Betty's music books -- is the Reader's Digest collection of Children's Songs.)
Will's New Hobby
Will has a new favorite hobby... playing the piano! While we were in PA visiting Grandma Betty, I played the piano many times each day so that we could sing to old songs (Grandma may not know what she ate for breakfast, but she knows the words to ANY song!) Will was enthralled by the piano. He finally figured out that he has one in the living room... and he figured out how to open it. (Note: he watches and learns everything... be careful!) It's fine that he plays it, but he will also try to close the keyboard (big finger hazard) so we are trying to figure out a solution before a big owie happens.
Yes, Virginia. Boys need dress clothes, too.
How can it be so hard to dress a kid under the age of 2?
After hours and hours of effort from Amy, Paul's Mom, me, and my Mom (and Paul... I made him look with me online at least once) --- I finally made an order for Will's wedding outfit(s) last night from www.bestdressedchild.com. It was VERY DIFFICULT. Boys can wear mini-suits (What kid under 2 is going to keep a suit together? Grown men can barely do it!) Or, they can wear sailor suits (a little too themed for a wedding). Or, they can wear fru-fru christening outfits in all white. Seriously, finding a little dressy romper is like the search for the Holy Grail. And don't even get me started on cost. Even on ebay, these things weren't cheap.
Granna picked up a generous tab on a few outfits to get us through the summer festivities. We decided on this for the weddings. We found tons of great outfits for rehearsals, breakfasts, fourth of july, and other events... but they were SOLD OUT everywhere. It was exhausting and unbelievable. Finally, we settled on some others, justifying that he'll be able to wear these through November in our temperate city (we got everything in 2T... technically, he's a fit in 18month-wear, we're buying 24month for the next 3 months, and 2T for beyond.)
To the Doctor!
Will had a nice visit to the doctor's today. Paul braved it alone to let me have some much needed R-and-R as I recover. After my half-dead presentation last week, the clinic has turned into a very friendly place for us... the nurses have called twice to check on me and, according to Paul, the staff was "swooning" over Will today.
The report from Paul:
- When Dr. Ravi (our new doctor of choice) opened the door, Will was seated on the doctor's stool, book open on the desk, "reading"
- Will blew kisses to the nurses staff (read the entry on Will's new practice of blowing kisses... wow, it is ever a heart-melter)
- Will has a little upper-respiratory infection. Nothing we can do but wait it out. Heart sounds great, lungs are strong and clear. (In other words, the little bug that has taken me out for over a week is a mere blip on the radar for this kid. Is breastmilk the miracle drug or what?!)
Stats:
- Will is just over 22 pounds (including clothes)
- I measured his length yesterday at 33 inches. HE IS LONG.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
Rising from the ashes...
Well, I'm not quite the phoenix yet, but I am getting better.
The bad news is that Will has developed a productive cough. We've been giving him doses of infant Tylenol Cold and Cough. Hopefully, this will be enough to fend off any latent illness roaming around. His temperment has been great, so he doesn't seem sick (just the cough) -- we are very hopeful that this is as far as it will go.
