#AGU2015

I’ve been going to the AGU conference forever (in dog years).  I went to a spring one in DC when I was in grad school, and I’ve been every year since 2004 in SF.  As a scientist, teacher attendee, teacher presenter, and now, as a mentor of budding young scientists!  I have to say that, other than the stress of overseeing the creation of scientific posters by high school students, this was by far the best incarnation of the meeting for me.  When I worked in science it was always fun and exciting, but I felt obligated to go to a certain strand of talk, and constrained in participation.  As a teacher it’s more isolated and inflexible.  Last year, as a teacher presenter, it was incredibly stressful (and I was 8 months pregnant with Charlie and could.not.stop.sweating.  It was truly awful.  It's a good thing that the education people filmed an interview with me right after the presentation (peak sweat) and both posted it online and sent it out in a mass e-mail.  Yay for embarrassing timing!).  This year, as a mentor, I just went and did what I wanted.  I helped the girls get their posters set up, took some obligatory pictures, and then followed my heart.  I went to a few talks on how cities are preparing for more extreme climate events in the future (bravo, Boulder, for installing bike paths that double as water tunnels during times of flood!), I ate a Nutella crepe, I people watched, I met R2D2, I had lunch with an old college friend, I went to the exhibit hall and had several engaging conversations with various sales reps.  I generally felt super relaxed and engaged.  I also drove a 12 passenger van up, which was thrilling.  Those things do NOT fit in all SF parking garages--biggest lesson of the day.

 I thought it would be a good picture for an APES GIS lesson.

 Young scientists ready to talk about accretion disks and dust sublimation!

slave shrimp and drunk toddlers

Winter break has started with a triumphant bang!  We went to hear Handel’s Messiah at the Grace Cathedral, an experience that I will not be repeating.  That thing is about two hours too long for me--the Cathedral was nice, but I didn’t need a $30 nap.  I’ve also graded half of my winter break grading pile (teaching, the job that will slowly, but surely, kill you).  Sunday was a particularly eventful day, as I innocently ordered a delicious-sounding Cajun shrimp platter from Whole Foods, only to be told that I absolutely had to cancel that order, or certain family members would not even deign to be in the house with the shrimp.  This was quickly followed by Theo’s consumption of a glass of brandy egg nogg, which led to a Kaiser phone call and some diligent watching of his behavior for about two hours.  Poison control classified him as legally drunk, so I guess that milestone is going in the baby book.  Though, honestly, at some point it was hard to tell what was legally drunk and what was just toddler.

 This guys was born happy.

 Theo loves giving him hugs and talking to him.

Candy canes have been incorporated into parking garage play.

things I did today

--Took Theo to Target
--Got rid of our infant car seat and installed the marathon.  (This was actually the saddest part of the day--when I said goodbye to the infant seat--because it's the end of an era.  It was so sturdy and my trusty companion on two maternity leaves.  We walked all over the bay area, me and that car seat in a snap-n-go.  That car seat went on an awesome mural tour, and spent a lot of time in Target.  But even if I did have another kid, we'd have to get a new seat, as it was a hand-me down for Theo, and thus really old.  Old enough that I probably shouldn't, according to the manufacturer, have used it with Charlie).
--Played with Charlie
--Celebrated Hanukkah
--Talked through some awesome gift ideas with our good friends
--Impulsively bought another selfie stick
--Brainstormed 40th birthday plans (is it too early for an April bday?)
--Hammered out traveling goals for our kids

Here's last night's Hanukkah picture.  We just light all of the candles, because they are so pretty.

candles jumped in

Hanukkah has been in full swing around here, so we are at a peak excitement level nearly every night.  Tonight was Theo's preschool Hanukkah party, which was absolutely amazing in part because his class did a candle dance and (though I am biased) he was really good at it!  Here he is with a candle crown, decorating a dreidel:

What is it with preschools and crowns?  I'd never given much thought to the form of hat known as crown until I had a kid, and now it seems like crowns occupy my thoughts more than they should (I'm making a special birthday crown for Theo this year because last year's paper one was so well-loved).

Yesterday I spent a whole lot of (someone else's) money on a hotel and flight for my talk this spring.  I am so very excited for that mini-vacation/work trip.  It is in Boston, during the marathon, so hotel prices are off the hook.  It makes absolutely no sense, but a 5 star luxury hotel is cheaper than a standard chain hotel, so I'm luxing it up for a few days!

festival of lights night 1 (last night)

hermanos

Nothing says Jewy McJew more than your kid bringing the menorah with him wherever he goes....

This guy's been eating some foods.

 These guys have been bonding.

when it's dry and ready, I shall play

December is shaping up to be the most exciting month of the year.  Hanukkah will bring daily presents, and then Santa will bring even more! What a time to be alive! (for Theo).

pix

I saw this picture on facebook and I get deliriously happy whenever I think about it....knitted on sewing needles.  What.a.time.to.be.alive.

This year, I bought a tiny fake tree to put in Theo's room, but he insists on moving it different locations within our house and plugging it in.  It's currently 3 feet away from the big tree in our bedroom.

tweets

If, as a lawmaker, you can say nothing except for some platitude-words that appeal to mass delusion, and your position is that it's "complicated" or unconstitutional to do anything to change the rules that govern our society, or if you make the false comparison between guns and cars and claim that accidents happen, or that it's just bad terrorists and our guns laws/culture/idiocracy have absolutely not one thing to do with it, then seriously.....

 It's sobering to follow real people.

I think he means “Odd that we live in a country where….”  Or more specifically, “Odd that we have a political party where…”

Yesterday’s mass shooting was more personal to us because of where it happened—a regional center, like the one here we’ve been to many times here, that offers assistance to families with children who have developmental differences.  They employee kind people who help you navigate state agencies and school districts to find the resources you need for your children.  The last time I was there, I sat in the waiting room with a family who had a severely autistic teenage daughter, who ran around the waiting room, happily, though she did not have language.  Regional centers provide services, like respite, for those families, so that the strain of caring for special needs kids doesn’t break them apart.  This morning, NPR mentioned that the shooting was bringing the existence of regional centers into the mainstream, which is a weird angle, I think. 

do-over

Well,  I have finally finished my summer fellowship project on Jefferson and agriculture, sent off my many applications, and drafted an education poster for an astronomy meeting.  In other words, it's all coming to an end, this fall of being stretched in too many directions.  My burnout feels very real right now...the kind of burnout that is not fixed, as if I've crossed over some burnout threshold and am just DONE.  Of course, this cannot be the case, as I still have to get up and go to work everyday, but I am really trying to savor tree-holiday season right now.

One of the perks of living downtown is our proximity to Christmas in the Park, which is like a small, month-long carnival with decorated trees and outdoor performances.  I took Theo tonight and we rode the train and listened to music.  He really likes concerts (and flashing lights), so it was a success!

 Theo on the train.

Theo and Nana were mesmerized by the flashing lights.

He rode this car ride by himself.   He's three!

There was music, with a very prominent sax section.

This guy is a ray of sunshine.

a few Theo stats

City Boy with Sword (that was promptly lost)

Favorite number: 10

Hobbies:  assessing the moon’s phase, tying back the curtains

Games:  playing teacher, or anything with numbers on it (rules can be made up)

Books: Runaway Bunny, Goodnight Moon, Corduroy

Toys:  kitchen, trains, marble runs (mama's favorite too)

Interests:  knowing the first letter of words (for show and tell), the machinations of the city, being bossy

raspberry fingers

Tomorrow is the most sacred of school holidays, for it is COFFEE CART day!!!  I would be more excited, except that I am sick and single parenting for a few days and that combination is hard, yo.  Today I started reading the Laudato Si, the pope's encyclical about the destruction we humans are wreaking on our sensitive home.  It's a pretty easy and quick read.  My students are creating a global change infographic and I'm giving them extra credit for incorporating Laudato Si quotes where appropriate.  BAM--science and morality--together forever as we spiral down this crazy techno-wormhole dystopia we call modernity.

This little guy thinks it's funny when he puts raspberries on his fingers:

And this little guys is happiest in the early, early morn:

Sometimes clothing a child is a real drag

How many pairs of shoes is appropriate for a toddler boy?  Currently, Theo has three pairs--crocs (standard), sport-sandals and tennis shoes.  Only one pair is really appropriate for colder weather and today that pair broke.  When you have only three pairs of shoes, breakage necessitates an immediate mall run to pick up another pair.  So, we went, and it was unbelievably crowded for a Tuesday night.  We had a lot of fun, though, and Theo did some arm dancing that you might want to check out:

it's finally winter

This NaBloPoMo is not going well for me.  I feel very uninspired to blog because I spend all of my free time writing for various other things.  In years past I have not had a huge workload in addition to my job, so it has been much more fun to actively blog.

This fall, all of my big words, complex sentences, and coherent thoughts are spent by the end of each night.  I have a limited amount of writing/extra working/reflecting power each day, and by the time I blog, it is gone.  Today, for example, I woke up to despair over the state of our world (which was then compounded by this awful article on the motherlode blog, which has made me cry three times today already.  Note to self: do not ever read comments.), spent two hours plotting up what I hope will be my last ever black hole graphs, then wrote for two hours about the job of a teacher to manage classroom emotions. I also have two children to interact with and dishes to do.  I will be done with all my other things in December, so maybe I will make December a do-over month?  My writing taper month after this hellacious fall?  Maybe I'll just try to post a cute picture of my kids each day and give up on writing until next month?  We'll see where this goes!

this little light of mine, in the neighborhood, wherever I go

I walked in the kitchen this morning to find a king dining at my table!  This is the birthday crown his teacher made him last year.  I guess I'd better make him a nice felt one this year!

I wore these new shoes today.  They are CROCS, which is outrageous yet comfortable and I will never apologize for being a wearer of plastic shoes!

My application pile grew by one last week when I was asked to submit an application for an award that has a lot of money for lab supplies attached to it.  At this point, I feel like an award application robot pony.  You basically point me in the direction of an award or program, give me a writing prompt, and off I gallop.  There are just several letters of rec on file with multiple people at my school at this point.  It is ridiculous and feels like it came on due to an avalanche of good luck and inspiration.  It's sapping all of my desire to write anything else and wearing me down.  I feel like I'm in school again, but with no guarantee of a degree at the end.

This week's been a big one.  In Tuesday I went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, as I have in November for the past five years, on a field trip.  When we returned I gave a overview of my black holes project to the school board, which made me very nervous (and my mouth very dry).  Today, I talked to a research team from Sweden about my views on technology in the classroom for about an hour and a half (all teachers did).  And tomorrow I teach with no breaks!

Like a lone jellyfish, floating in the abyss......

Brothers

My baby-daddy's phone picture quality leaves much to be desired, but I do appreciate it when pictures of hugging brothers appear in the middle of the workday. 

Cal Academy

We live one block from Adobe, and were awakened this morning by the sounds of a helicopter moving large air vents from the ground to the top of the building.  Helicopters are SUPER loud in downtown areas due to the multitude of surfaces available for funneling the sound waves.  Of course we had to investigate the haps with our binoculars.

Then we went to the Cal Academy, where many things were seen and many battles of the will were waged.

And this evening there was chili!  Our good friends came over with their kids.  Their daughter is 1.5 years older than Theo and he absolutely adores her.  Every.single.time. she is here they spend some quality time on the toilet together...he on his potty and she on the real toilet.  It is adorable and completely strange, as going to the bathroom was never a play date activity for me.

hairs cut

I got my bi-annual haircut today and took a selfie with Charlie--it looks more stylish in real 3D life.  My hair vacillates between short and shorter, and has done so since I was 8.  I am much too impatient and easily bored to have long hair.  I crave rapid change in all things, including hair length.

Natan is currently watching the third Hobbit movie, a decision I see as completely unnecessary.  Though perhaps I should not be one to speak about the choices an individual makes within an HBOGo account, as I watched "American Sniper" recently under the impression that it was supposed to be a good movie.  It was absolutely not and made me even more annoyed with Clint Eastwood. I think it might be impossible to separate an artist from their political leanings.  Now when I watch one of his movies, I'm constantly looking for artistic decisions that might be driven by his politics.  Maybe that just makes me a bad audience member?

trunking your anus

Last night, Natan read aloud an outstanding paragraph from one of his NYRB...a paragraph that I think can only be appreciated whilst in the middle of toddlerdom:
 
"Sometimes it is the small things that best reveal shared life experience.  When baby elephants are weaned they throw tantrums that rival those of the wildest two-year-old humans.  One youngster became so upset with his mother that he screamed and trumpeted as he poked her with his tiny tusks.  Finally, in frustration, he stuck his trunk into her anus, then turned around and kicked her.  "You little horror!" thought Cynthia Moss as she watched the tantrum unfold.

Today, while Theo was behaving in a particularly colorful way, Natan said, "He's trunking your anus."  It's a good thing the visual is delightfully tied to cute baby elephants.

Theo, trunking my anus since 2012.

In exciting work news, I have been invited to speak at a workshop!  Invited, invited...like didn't apply or submit an abstract, just got an unexpected e-mail about my summer project on Jefferson (or TJ, as I like to call him).   Of course, before I accepted I checked my calendar to make sure it wasn't on a weekend or a break, because I am done with that noise (while I have tiny humans in my house).  Since it is firmly in the middle of a long work week, I will happily do it.  It's also on the east coast, which makes it even more fun and exciting.  I am, of course, ignoring all of the work it will require in favor of planning neat excursions and yelping restaurants in which to eat.  

Wordless Wednesday

pumpkin jams

We didn't celebrate Halloween because there was no preschool shindig and it's just not my jam.  I feel like an alien species when I see other adults getting into dressing up and going out.  Halloween has always been just a day to get through so that you can concentrate on the real holidays--Thanksgiving and tree time (Christmas).  Theo and I happened to be at our local Whole Foods on that day and he requested that we take a picture together, to which I happily obliged.

When we talked about halloween (before I knew that his preschool banned it), he told me that he wanted to be a pumpkin.  He wore his costume to speech tonight, which was obviously a huge hit. I mean, COME ON!

hotline bling (AKA baby's first Drake video)

I've been singing Hotline Bling to Charlie and Theo.  Theo likes to sing the, "You used to call me on my cellphone" part, and then I chime in with, "late night when you need my love".  Kind of like a call and response!  Tonight, we all watched the video on my phone.  I am nothing if not determined to make them into lovers of pop culture.

I also submitted my super-big-hardest-of-my-life application tonight, so that monkey is finally off of my back.  Now I just have to tackle a bunch of other applications that should feel relatively easy in comparison, so silver lining?  I would also like to note that I spent 4 hours working on black hole research today, in addition to my full-time job.  I've been practicing a lot of self-soothing lately.

Here's a cute one:

Doin' it

It’s November, which means it is officially NaBloPoMo!  This has probably been the most stressful, over-scheduled, over-application-ed fall of my entire life, but the good news is that it should all be over by December (?).  I will push on, and try to blog a little something every day.  

Daylight savings time means nothing to small children, as they are not likely to marinate in their bed sheets for an additional hour like any reasonable adult.  Instead, they are eager to greet the world (and their mommy) at the ungodly 5 am hour. 

 Packed up for a day out.

Learning how to use a computer.