We are finally settling into a bit of a rhythm around here. Both kids seem quite keen on their nursery days. Nathaniel is moving up from the baby room to the rowdier one Katherine is in, and I’m quite happy that they regularly come home with wet clothes tucked into backpacks after play in water, or, as earlier this week, green paint in their hair. I don’t know whether, on the whole, I get a lot more work time with the kids at nursery, given the walking and other things, but it is quite nice to have some time that doesn’t have to come at the expense of Sydney’s. He and I work things out reasonably well by now, but it still helps to have some outside source to tap when both parents need some time away, particularly when you know the kids get a different kind of play than we provide.
I am really, really enjoying my postdoc opportunity. The reading groups, lectures, weekly coffees for fellows and staff to get together, office space, etc., are all quite surprising and welcome after two years of going it alone in Oxford and working in libraries and at home. I have been a bit nervous because I’m scheduled to give a paper as part of my postdoc in just a few weeks, but I had a few ideas come together in a flash yesterday that will, with a lot of work, help me put together something I like in time. Of course, I do have to submit nearly 30 job applications in that same period of time, but now I at least see the way forward. I also visited Grinnell College’s study-abroad program in London last week, after a friend made introductions for me, and I had a wonderful time learning about a kind of teaching I’ve never done, but that, as one who studies British literature, I might have the opportunity to do in the future.
Sydney is still struggling with fatigue since he’s not quite shaken the terrible sleep of our baby days, but he’s keeping busy with lectures and teaching. He and I regularly sit down with the calendar and bargain with each other so that he can go to the lecture on Wednesday but let me have the one on Friday, etc. We are occasionally bothered that we can’t both be gone at the same time, but, more often than not, we are simply reminded that we’re in a great place for attending wonderful events, and we’re glad to have the chance to fit in some, if not all, of them.
Erin
Alan Schmierer