Full Night's Sleep

I think last night was the first full night's sleep. We've had stretches from midnight to 5 or 5:30, but this was a full 11 to 6. Rose also now grabs both legs with her hands.


The itzbeen is a wonderful tool. The glowing orange buttons have symbols for diaper change, feeding, sleep, and anything you want. The oval button above the readout turns on a flashlight. There is a right/left slider for keeping track of which side a child was nursed. As you can see, Rose went 9 hours between feedings and 8.5 between diaper changes. This is about how long she slept.

Dancing and Doing

I was in a groove before heading off to Philly, and upon returning, I have found my groove still in place. I worked on getting my desk set up, straightening out the house for cleaners tomorrow (yay), and I even went contra dancing tonight. Even better, I found the New England crowd to be welcoming. This is a first and a big incentive to return and dance again.

Pot Rack

We purchased this thing over a year ago, it was majorly delayed in shipping (something about bad weather in China), and then it just sat on my table amidst piles of jobs to do. Well, today I did it. I hung the pot rack even though the placement of joists was masked by the use of thin wood strips used to space the ceiling from the joists. I spent way too much time on it, but I am very happy with the results. Now all I have to do is patch about 20 or so drill holes in the ceiling.

Insomnia

Having taken care of the baby each night at the 3:30 feeding, I am not wide awake at this time. We switched off to give each other a bit of a break for sleeping, but I can't sleep. Been awake since 12ish. Bleh. I'll be on again around 5:30. I'll need to nap sometime today.

The Band and The Baby

So it seems that the baby is a great fan of The Band. I put on Kingdom Come (a live album) and she just went to town in her little floor exercise setup kicking and swinging arms to the music. Who knew that a Bostonian by birth would love Southern Rock from such an early age?

new togs

I was shopping for new shorts and other summer gear. I try to balance environmentally/socially responsibly created new clothes with going to thrift stores and giving clothing continued life. The latter is much friendlier to the wallet, but recently I have been trying to help the demand for new clothing from good sources grow.

One of my favorite companies is going out of business. Check out Nau to see a model of a very good clothing company that didn't make it. Also, there are some excellent deals on the inventory that they are trying to sell off.

On Time and Sleep and other fancy things

With the new baby in house for over a month, I am learning the new perspective on time and sleep that each new parent learns. The many warnings of, "Say goodbye to sleep" and "Go see lots of movies now" are warnings communicated in simple terms.

Granted, Reena and I are both home full time, and that is a huge precondition to my new perspective. A full-time parent, whether single or unsupported, has a Herculean task. However, I have found that my sleep hours have decreased a bit, but the most interesting thing is my notion of time and sleep have radically changed. They are no longer tied to the rising and setting of the sun, but now they revolve around the sleep cycle of the baby. Reena and I trade off the night with one of us staying up until 3:30 or so and the other waking with the dawn chorus. Rose is beginning to catch 3 to 4 hours of sleep at a time, so this doesn't necessarily mean that the responsible party has to be up during that whole time--it just means it fairly often.

Thus, I am getting about 5 hours of sleep each night--an amount that would not work for teaching full time but is seeming to suffice for parenting an infant. Yes, this parenting gig is much less work than teaching full time, so far. This will get even more doable now that the New York trip is over (I took my class to New York for three days and two nights last week), the yearbook is done (I can't even describe the frustration that inDesign has been giving me), final reports are written, and the year-end DVD is authored and produced. Then it will just be my normal projects patiently waiting their turn to be done. Baby has certainly ratcheted the pace of getting projects back a further notch.

Next up during or after all of this is new material on the freedmanriles website with Rose. I have the structure down. Now I just have to build it.

Mountains to Move

As I get closer to the day the baby is born, it feels like there are mountains to move. Some, I am sure, are not needed, yet I construct them and am forced to move them. They, along with the important things, will be left behind when my priorities and time are reapportioned. I would love to see now from the future to know which mountains to move. Instead, I just shove ineffectually at all of them simultaneously. There are so many mountains to move.

A photo from the family vacation in Cornwall when I was in 6th grade. The scan is more grainy than the photo, but I still love this shot.

Digitized Photos

I recently sent my old negatives to Scancafe to have them digitized. They just came back, and now I have access to all of the photos I have taken (minus a few b&w rolls that were part of high school photo class and yearbook class). The photos stretch from my 110 camera back in 1982(?) until I transitioned to getting my negatives returned with a cd of the images. The cds are not as good quality scans, but they'll do.

As I began to explore these images, all 4 dvds of them, I happened upon this photo of the spiral stair within The Monument in London. This column commemorates the Great Fire of London. Clearly this photo shows my fascination with things helical, so I ported it to my store and stuck it on several items to see how it would look.

Two Facets

Last weekend and this one upcoming, my newly formed reading response group met, and the participants shared writing. I loved being able to get back into my story and have revisions to make.

Today, my Redsox/Cards tickets arrived in the mail. Wow! Another kind of excitement.

Cards Tix!

Red Sox tickets went on sale Saturday. I was at a conference and drove back to town that day. I forgot that it was the day to buy tickets until a party-goer downstairs reminded me. I quickly went up stairs only to be greeted by the interminable window of too busy. I finally got through that and then had to deal with the interminable too busy Red Sox window. Eventually I ended up with pairs of tickets for two games and a single for the other. I will see the Cards when they come to Boston. I'll be wearing the right color...

facebook

found facebook. Nuff said.

Lots of changes at work.

Lots of work at work.

Bees are lazy cads today!

Usually I get a few things done each day and am happy, but today I am outpacing the bees. I have oiled hinges, replaced light diffusers, put down non-slip material under bath mats, run around town shopping for things to do chores with, got new parking tags for both my car and Reena's as well as putting them in, changed my voter registration address, and the list goes on. Buzz Buzz.

Recently I posted much stuff on Craig's list. Reena and I had culled this stuff from the rest for getting rid of before the move, but it came with us and sat in a room. More than half of it has already been picked up. I am ready to give anyone who shows as much of it as they want to carry off. Yay Craig's List.

The last push to organize the basement storage/work room and get stuff down there from the dining room where it has been hulking in the shadows will happen in the next few days. I will also be writing student recommendations for next schools, doing curriculum, and some of my own art. Plenty of feet up and watching movies, too.

So here I am, a year older, perhaps wiser, perhaps more foolish, and looking at fatherhood.

Oh, I posted house pictures on the other website. Very messy, but I hadn't gotten around to it, so there they are.

calendars ready

I finally got around to refreshing my calendars on Cafepress. Click on them to see the new pages.

Susan Cooper

I just returned from a round table with Susan Cooper and Gregory Maguire. While I have not read any of Maguire's books, I was teethed on Cooper's Dark is Rising series. She was an articulate and wonderful speaker. Maguire tended to dominate the discussions, but there was plenty of Cooper's voice as well.

My soul is filled once more.

First Computer

When I started teaching, I purchased a computer and printer. These stayed with me for a long time--the printer until just a few years ago. The computer was one of those old Compaq all-in-one models. Gary Garber, with whom I was living at the time, supplied the credit card as I had none.

The good and the bad

It finally came. Through much hoop jumping and frustration I was able to finally acquire my Massachusetts teaching license. Attached to it is a statement:

Congratulations on completing the
requirements for licensure.

You have worked diligently toward
this goal and should be proud of
your accomplishment.

It is people like you who help to
enhance the quality of education
in the Commonwealth. I wish you
the best in your future endeavors.

I nicely personal message printed on every license. Funny thing is that all of my diligent work for this license had nothing to do with my ability as a teacher. I studied for and took three exams, I collected letters from colleges and universities documenting my coursework, and I did other paper shuffling. Anyway, I have the document in hand that lets me be the supervising teacher for student teachers and, should I need to, teach in a public school. I have no intention of moving schools, but this gives me options.

That was the good news. On the bad, and temporary front, I have come down with the season's first cold--a nasty sore throat followed by prodigious phlegm. I took a day off on Thursday and a half day on Friday. Friday was our grandparents and special friends day, so I felt obligated to be at school, but I high tailed it out of there soon after the associated assembly (actually in the middle of the assembly).

Blue Fractal

This is a slightly changed version of the image. Can you see the difference?

new fractal

Etching and The Beginning of the School Year

The year has begun. I have a new co-teacher, a student teacher, and much new curriculum. Thus, I have been pretty absent from this blog. I thought I'd share a project I just finished with my class. We did some glass etching which will lead to both a unit on soil, air, and water quality and to a unit on algebra. Here is a picture of the student teacher's water bottle that she etched.