Last night Sydney left home around nine to meet up with some guys from his department while I, ahem, took a three-hour nap. It’s been a week of long days, so the nap felt fantastic. Today I stayed home (to be near all the books I needed) while Sydney went in to class, and he stayed after a talk to join a group that was going out for food and further discussion. My social butterfly!
Erin
Wow, was it ever painful to shift from Thanksgiving break at home into the long-days-on-campus routine of the final week of class. Even without any classes on my slate, there’s an inevitably a meeting or two or three each day to keep us busy and away from home for long stretches. So we’ll just try to get ourselves out the door in the mornings without forgetting half the things we need.
Next week is almost as busy, with dinners and more meetings and packing. Oh yes, and finishing up a dissertation chapter section! The plan is to leave Ithaca a week from this Saturday (bye, Arwyn!), spend a day with David and Lisa in South Bend, spend about a week-and-a-half with my family in Iowa, and then drive to Philadelphia, where Sydney will attend the annual APA conference. That same conference is where he’ll be doing interviews next year, so his attendance this year should help him get the lay of the land. My conference (it meets the same time) is meeting in San Francisco this year, so I thought I’d pass on the preview, but next year it will be in Philadelphia. So it’s something of a scouting trip for both of us. Oh yes, and since I have absolutely no intention of sitting in on the philosophy conference, I am already daydreaming about wonderful days of museums and old libraries and other big-city attractions.
Erin
When we started dating Sydney introduced me to the Penner-men tradition of “night lunch,” which amounts to a sizable bedtime snack. Or, more accurately, the fourth meal of the day. When Sydney and Nelson get together, we see a lot of night lunch: the bread, cheese, butter, tomatoes, cottage cheese, etc., start filling the kitchen counter around 10pm. I’ve never been sold on the idea of raiding the fridge just before sleep, but recently I’ve been putting in my own requests for night lunch. Bread, cheese, and avocado or, like last night, popcorn with a large glass of milk. Definitely more than just a bedtime cup of tea.
So some thing seem like particular pregnancy-related appetites. But other things are just the way I have always been. Sydney and I bought our first box of clementines for the season yesterday and I promptly ate eight of them. Though some friends kindly chalked it up to pregnancy cravings, I don’t think I would have had any fewer in previous years. Maybe I’ve just been preparing for pregnancy all my life 🙂
Erin
I think one of the things I am most thankful for is that I was spared Black Friday shopping. I’ve always thought there was something a bit odd about Black Friday shopping — you spend a day being thankful for what you have but before you quite make it through the next night you realize that you just really need a whole lot more stuff?
But even if I had woken up this morning thinking that my life would be much improved by some additional possessions, insanity like this would be quite enough to keep me at home: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/business/29walmart.html?ref=business. By 3:30am the crowd at this particular Wal-Mart was getting large and unruly enough that the store employees called the police. The police came but eventually left because of similar situations at several other stores in the area. Five minutes before the store was to open the crowd broke down the doors and trampled an employee to death (I just stepped on someone’s face? Excuse me, but I do really need to go get that flat-screen TV that is two inches larger than the one I bought last year. Oh, you want to give him CPR? I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until all two thousand of us are in the store. It’s really unreasonable to expect us to restrain our lusts any longer.)
Among the many parts of this that I simply can’t comprehend is the one about people blaming Wal-Mart for this death. Apparently, Wal-Mart could have done more to prevent it. I’m sure they could have. They could have secured the store with four-inch steel gates. Or they could have hired some snipers to shoot anybody in the crowd who showed signs of unruliness. Or maybe the idea is that they could have just not had a Black Friday sale.
Of course, the customers could have stayed at home even if there was a sale.
Sydney
Nosebleeds. I had never gotten a nosebleed in my life until I came to Ithaca, when by March even I ended up with a nosebleed after 6 months of dry winter air. But this past week I’ve had a nosebleed nearly every day–what gives? Don’t worry: they’re very minor, and I mostly notice them because they occur just as I’m about to head off to school. But I’ve been utterly mystified as to how Ms. I-Love-Winter has been turned into a big nerd.
Well, turns out nosebleeds are quite common during pregnancy, particularly if you a) have a cold b) spend any time in dry air. Yup, that’s me. Apparently something to do with the increased blood flow during pregnancy.
One surprise after another . . .
Erin
Anytime I need a good laugh I take a look at the “what to name your baby” websites. I know that naming is a very personal thing and something of a minefield, so I will attempt to keep an open mind. But here are a few things I’ve learned during my brief forays into the naming world:
– Some names simply don’t translate across cultures and languages. Perfectly lovely names from Russian, Italian, Spanish, etc., may lose their beauty if regularly pronounced with hard Midwestern vowels or, say, a Brooklyn accent. You can correct everyone you meet, or you can concede the game early on.
– Being a Faulkner scholar doesn’t necessarily mean I’m going to go running to his books for baby names. Eula, Bobo, and Sophonsiba, anyone?
– Boys’ names are incredibly susceptible to potty humor. Half the standard names out there are ruined, meaning I will probably want to play the “Imagine you’re a cruel second-grade boy. How are you going to torture this child, and how will his name help you?” game. Sad, but true.
– Sydney snorted with laughter when I told him that “Erin Kay” sometimes translates into “pure peace.” What, I’m not the perfect embodiment of tranquility? 🙂 We’ve joked about naming our kids something that means “fierce temper” or “stubborn.” We’ve also thought about naming them something really dorky, since, unless our kids inherit some seriously recessive genes, they’re going to be sizable kids. But then we’d be setting up pacifist Mennonite kids for a lifetime of playground fights . . .
– If an alternative spelling is possible, someone’s used it. The more common the name, the more elaborate the alternative spellings.
– I didn’t know that we needed courts to prevent us from naming our kids “Satan,” but now that I do (thank you, News of the Weird) I’m glad they’re in place.
– People don’t always check the origin of names. And even when you think you know where the name comes from, parents can always add their own twist to the naming story. See the following article quotation:
“We knew we wanted to give our children unusual names from the start. My husband used to be a male stripper and his stage name was Romeo so we decided to call our first son after the three greatest lovers of the world,” Romeo Casanova Valentino.
Much to be said for the personal touch.
Erin
We’ve been quiet on the blog, which you might take as an indication of how life’s been recently. Classes are winding up as we get into Thanksgiving. I think I’m now done with French (yes!) and will need to buckle down with my real work over the next couple of weeks. Sydney’s birthday was on Friday and we celebrated in a typical Sydney-and-Erin way: we took a walk in the woods to enjoy the beautiful sun and snow; we visited the grocery stores to stock up on good food; we spent the evening at home to avoid lots of people and traffic (since Cornell athletics brought in sold-out crowds); I made cauliflower curry; we spent the rest of the evening curled up on the couch, reading and enjoying the quiet. Perhaps a slightly strange way to spend a birthday, but perfect for us, particularly since we were getting over the latest cold/flu bug.
Erin
Recently I got very happy when I learned that I had a paper accepted to a conference in Boston next spring. A good event, close to home, and a chance to see my college roommate, Lisa; what more could one want?
Well, recently Sydney informed me that he got a paper accepted to a conference in The Netherlands next spring. How cool is that? Way to go, Sydney! 🙂 Unfortunately, I’m not going to get to tag along, but I’ll be thinking envious thoughts in his direction!
Erin
So far I think I’ve done a pretty good job of not worrying this pregnancy to death. Especially when you consider that I am surrounded by a number of older, more experienced women who periodically turn to me with furrowed brows and interrogate me about my eating and sleeping habits: “Do you get enough protein?” “Have you been doing yoga?” “You haven’t had tests x, y, and z done?” All well-intentioned, and I’m glad to keep these things in mind as I scrutinize my diet and whatnot, but potentially worry-inducing for a new mother. For the most part, I think I’ve done a pretty good job of assuring the concerned inquirers that I’m toeing the line–and, which is far more difficult, I’ve managed to keep their worry from jumpstarting my worry-wart tendencies.
There was one exception: the worst night of sleep I’ve had so far was the one after Mom mentioned that I had dark smudges under my eyes in photographs, thus causing both she and my dad to worry about me a bit. I knew that I’d been having trouble sleeping (for the first three months of pregnancy I fitfully nightmared my way through the night), but I held out hope of that improving and tried not to let it bother me. Of course, hearing the concern expressed by someone else got me actively worrying about it, so that night passed very slowly and left me with half-a-dozen new dreams to relate to Sydney the next morning. But when I got up, I laughed at myself for letting their worry start up my worry and make their concerns self-fulfilling. Since then I’ve slept soundly, a trend I intend to continue as long as possible 🙂
I’m quite glad that I still fit in my clothes (though I appreciate the help of a scarf in making the bump not so obvious). Thus far, I’m not terribly impressed by the legendary “pregnancy appetite.” I’m just eating less varied (and nutritious) food than I would normally eat, with the occasional hunger pangs that send me running for various forms of sugar (or, if I prepare for such things, raisins). Either I normally have a pregnancy appetite or I haven’t gotten there yet. If it’s the former, I guess I’m in for a major letdown!
Baby food of the week: at 18 weeks he or she is currently about the size of a bell pepper 🙂
Erin
… is that you become the victim for millions of people who apparently have nothing better to do than to infer all manner of grand conclusions from every trivial detail about how you talk, dress, act, and so forth. If you find yourself with nothing better to do than to be amused by such ‘gilding or staining of all objects with the colours borrowed from internal sentiment’ (my apologies to Hume), you can entertain yourself with readers’ comments here. I guarantee that you will learn nothing whatsoever about the president, the president-elect, or their wives. On the other hand, you might learn something about a certain subset of the readers of the NYTimes.
Sydney
Alan Schmierer