Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

A stuffy nose has meant that Katherine has been shorting sleep this past week and needing constant holding every other day.  And it’s rained most of the time, so walks have been sparse; having been caught out in the rain with Katherine once, I know it’s no picnic.  I’m also getting hit with a big dose of cabin fever, since it’s my  seventh week in a very small apartment.  And I got hit with a migraine the only night that Katherine slept like her usual lovely self.  So Sydney was kicked awake all one night by his wife, and kept up all the next by the snuffles of his daughter.  Quite the welcome home, no?  Oh yes, and I’m trying to write a paper as I work with Katherine on bottlefeeding, which is about as easy as breaking a willful horse.  But with more screaming.  This could be a tough couple of weeks . . .

Erin

I’m having a bit of trouble pulling my paper together for the conference next week.  It’s a shorter version of a chapter I wrote last fall, so it’s not like I need to come up with a new idea, but writing in short stints when Katherine is sleeping (for 5 minutes? 20?  40?  you never know) is a bit tricky.  In the midst of my revisions I got an email from my advisor, letting me know she’d see me at the conference–and at my panel.  I suppose I’m grateful that she’s going to hear my talk, but knowing that is not making the revisions any easier!

Erin

I’m going to miss him, in large part because we have been having a good time getting our little family figured out.  Katherine is definitely going to make things more confusing, though; if I hear Sydney speaking, there are now three people he could be addressing (yes, our cat is a person)!  And we’ve both already slipped up and called Katherine by Arwyn’s name.  Oh well: it’s good fodder for therapy later on 🙂

Erin

And she has apparently decided to celebrate by partying all night long.

Our babe, who was sleeping in four-hour stretches at night just a few weeks ago, has decided to stop sleeping for any real length of time at night–or during the day, for that matter.  Yay!  And I just learned that it’s going to be a few more weeks before I’m largely recovered from childbirth.  A second yay!

Good thing she’s cute and we’re very attached to her.

Erin

Each day for the past week or so I’ve awoken in the night to find that Katherine needed changing: diaper, clothes, everything.  But when I reached for clean clothes we ran into a snag.  I put one outfit on only to find that she couldn’t fully extend her legs in it.  I put another on only to find that I couldn’t snap it together under her rear.  These are outfits that I had washed within the past week after she sported them around town–and I didn’t shrink them!  Some didn’t fit even when I moved up a size!  What is this magic growing in the night?

Erin

I think these mashed potatoes are rather attractive:

Sydney

As you can tell from our recent posts, life around here has been moving rather slowly. Or rather, our little one has been growing and growing, and we’ve let much of the rest of life fall away as we watch her. But things are about to get busy:

A week from today Sydney will take the car and scoot for the border . . . to deliver a paper at the Canadian Philosophical Association. He’ll then return home just in time for a medieval colloquium here at Cornell over the weekend, where he’ll deliver another paper. Busy week, eh? I, meanwhile, will hope I have enough energy, patience, and recovered health for a week alone with Katherine.

And then we’ll switch; just a few days after Sydney finishes the second conference we will, as a family, drive to the city and take a train to the middle of Manhattan, where I will attend a conference and deliver a paper and Sydney will care for Katherine. How do you haul enough gear for an infant on a subway??? Diapers alone will fill a car!

Then we’ll return home for a couple of days (Sydney will garden and Erin will pack) before leaving to visit the Penner clan in Nova Scotia. Can’t say I’m looking forward to the drive with Katherine, but we will be glad to get away for some family time after all of the academic hoopla! And I’m anxious to see what the Penner grandparents make of Katherine 🙂

Erin

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOL9Lj9ITMw]

In the past few days we’ve been testing out the whole living-with-a-baby thing.  On Sunday we went to church, where Erin realized that mothers of young children don’t listen to sermons, but rather sit outside, feeding wriggly little ones and catching up with other moms.  But she did get to sit in the service long enough to sing some hymns, so she was satisfied!

On Monday we took Katherine and the baby backpack to the grocery store and to Sydney’s smallest garden plot, where Sydney worked hard and Katherine and Erin lolled on the grass.

On Tuesday we visited Sydney’s big garden, which is currently a large spread of dirt.  So no lolling on the grass.  Erin protected Katherine from the wind and kept her fed while Sydney once again worked hard.  And then we took a family walk through the woods: lovely.

And today we visited campus as a family.  Definitely the farthest Erin’s walked since Katherine was born, so the outing feels like a real accomplishment.  And there was much oohing and aahing over Katherine in both departments.  And we were grateful she didn’t let out a howl, since our building is one gigantic echo chamber.

Walking around campus with Katherine is amusing: since she’s still pretty small, most people don’t notice I’m carrying a baby in the backpack.  But if they do notice, they stare and start to smile despite themselves.

Erin