Merry Christmas!

Our Christmas celebrations today topped off what has been a really exciting holiday season for Nora and our family.  She has been delighted by all the aspects of the holiday this year, so in addition to sharing a few pictures of our Christmas day, I wanted to post some of my other favorite scenes of the season.

Christmas Day

I didn't manage to get any pictures of the family festivities, but we spent Christmas Eve with Billy's Dad's side of the family.  After the three of us got up and opened presents on Christmas morning, Patti, Chuck, and Brian came over for Christmas breakfast.  Later in the morning Tres and Vickie joined us to celebrate, and then after Nora's nap we went up to Billy's aunt's house to spend the afternoon and evening with his mom's whole side of the family.  We are thankful that we got to see all of our Maryland relatives in a 24 hour span!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Decorations

Snow Day

Christmas Clothes

Making Sugar Cookies with Aunt Vickie

Visit to Santa

Decorating Wrapped Gifts

We're sorry to be unable to head west to see my family this holiday season, but we anxiously await my mom's trip to Maryland and we are thankful that FaceTime makes it easy to talk to Nate, Ashley, and Everett regularly.  We hope your December has been full of holiday cheer!

More Light Moving Forward

My dad used to say the winter solstice was his favorite day of the year.  He hated the days of waning daylight that are especially noticeable in Portland, where I remember it being dark at, like, 4pm.  The solstice was his favorite day because it meant from here on out, every day was going to get a little bit brighter than the last.  I spent my solstice grading final exams.  Billy graciously took Nora up to his parents' so I could make my way through them at home.  I finished them before bedtime, thus bringing to an official close the semester that has felt so heavy.  Oscar's ill health and death have cast a long shadow.  I was due to sit for a translation exam on Dec 13 to satisfy our program's foreign language department, so the need to prepare for that loomed ahead of me all term.  Although these things are minor compared to the other heavy sorrows I've shouldered throughout my graduate career, they had an impact on me, and they have made it hard to see how much progress I've made. In the spirit of optimism about the future that the solstice represents, I wanted to write a post documenting all of the things that I managed to accomplish in this term.  Otherwise, I'll be inclined to forget, and that feeling of "I didn't get anything done!" that often plagues me will start to set in.

So, in no particular order, here goes!

• I finished revising my dissertation prospectus and filed it with our program!  Despite having completely changed my research topic after my comprehensive exam, I managed to get it in just in time to meet the "9 month" guideline our program has encouraged.  
• I made it through another semester working as a TA for a large lecture class.  There are advantages and disadvantages of this arrangement, but I love teaching and often feel handcuffed by being a helper in someone else's course.  I am fortunate to have worked with a professor who has genuine appreciation and respect for me, so that definitely makes a difference.  But next term I get to teach my own course, with my own curriculum, and I can't wait.
• I did my best to work 10 hours per week on the Katherine Anne Porter Correspondence project.  I finished getting all of the 5000+ pages ready for digitization, completed the inventory of them, and did the best I could to correct and complete the metadata records.  My rewards for all this work, so far, are being able to see the letter images together online and being promoted to "content expert" on the project.  This means that moving forward, I'll be doing less metadata work and more work that draws upon my knowledge of KAP.  In other words, I'll get to do the kind of stuff that could make a big positive impact on my dissertation and employment prospects.
• I hosted back to back birthday parties for Nora Jane.  What was I thinking?!  I guess I was thinking I wanted to give her family and friends a chance to celebrate her, and I wanted her to know how special and how well loved she is.  So, mission accomplished.
• I potty trained my not-quite-two year old.  She is now rarely having accidents, even at school.  She still wears a diaper overnight, but I LOVE not having to change diapers. And I love how proud my big girl is of herself every time she goes on the potty.
• I celebrated 10 years together with Billy.  Truly, none of the things on this list would have been possible to accomplish without him.  I hope people read this blog with that fact in the back of their minds at all times.  But sometimes it needs to be stated, explicitly.  My ten years with Billy have been the best years.  They are all helping me become my best self.  Here's a picture of us at Mythbusters Live, celebrating 10 years together while surrounded by a bunch of pre-pubescent boys in sweatpants: 

• I satisfied the foreign language requirement! THANK GOODNESS.  The saga of setbacks I've encountered in trying to get this requirement out of my way is very long, very annoying, and was ultimately very anxiety-inducing.  But it's over now, which means I no longer have to choose between working on my dissertation and studying a language that will not be mentioned in it.  It also means:
• I've advanced to candidacy!  Basically, this means that I have advanced to the status of someone who only has to write the dissertation-- all other degree requirements have been satisfied.  Most people advance to candidacy after passing their comprehensive exam, which I did last year, but the language requirement kept me from reaching this status until now.  
• I completed my first out-of-town research trip to Yale.  This deserves a post of its own, but since I haven't gotten around to that yet, I want to mention it here.  In early November, I drove up to New Haven so I could consult the Josephine Hersbt archive.  It was such a productive trip. I left Monday morning and returned Thursday, which gave me about 26 hours of research time in the Beinecke, which worked out perfectly.  I did a lot of work in advance to figure out what I wanted to see, so in my three days there I found all of the things I was expecting to find AND so much more material pertinent to my dissertation that has never been addressed in Hersbt scholarship.  Meanwhile, Nora and Billy did really well at home together during my 3 night absence.  I can't wait to have a chance over break to start working, in earnest, on the chapter that will incorporate this research!  Here are some pictures of my trip

So while I often felt like I was struggling to keep my head above water this semester, and I have a LOT to do over break if I'm going to have a decent writing sample to submit for my fellowship applications, I am proud of what I managed to accomplish this term.  Maybe next term I'll have a little more time for blogging?

Goodbye, Oscar

I've been meaning to write a blog post about Oscar all semester.  I wanted to explain how having his health in jeopardy has impacted me, our family, and my work.  But I guess I had been putting it off because I was hoping to be able to report good news about his recovery.  Unfortunately, that was not to be.  About two weeks ago, Billy and I had to make the difficult decision to have him euthanized.  I tried to write this post about a week later, but I'm only managing to finalize it now.

As many of you probably know, dachshunds suffer from spinal disc issues because of their long stature.  Oscar's first spinal injury occurred when we were at the hospital for Nora's birth, but a single course of steroid treatment successfully rehabilitated his back.  This past July, he hurt himself again, but this time it was his neck that was pretty seriously injured. Another single course of steroid treatment seemed to heal him, but after a few weeks, it was clear that he was not back to normal.  After another course of steroid treatment, he was in even more pain than when it had started.  We became convinced that he was re-injuring his neck while on the steroid.

We considered surgery, but ultimately decided against it because it would have been very expensive, it would have put Oscar through a lot of additional stress, and even if it had successfully treated this disk injury, it wouldn't have done anything to prevent future injuries.  Billy did a lot of internet research on treatment options for dogs with intervertebral disk disease, and we learned that eight weeks of complete crate rest is recommended for dogs recovering from neck injuries.  We had to switch to a new vet, but we were able to find one who agreed to prescribe Oscar higher doses of anti-inflammatory and pain medications in hopes that we could keep him comfortable in the crate while giving his nerves the time they needed to heal.  In an attempt to speed his tissue recovery, we also had a tech from the vet's office come to the house for laser treatments 2-3 times a week.

This was a really difficult 8 weeks for us.  Oscar tolerated being in the crate, but he disliked it as much as you might expect.  It was stressful for us to be worried about his health, and keeping on top of his medication regiment required our constant attention.  We were able to stick with it, though, because he showed noticeable improvement from week to week.  With about two of the eight weeks remaining, we began to get very optimistic that he was healing enough to enjoy a happy life outside the crate, even if it was going to require serious limits on his mobility.

Unfortunately, Oscar was ultimately unable to tolerate life outside the crate.  Once he we let him out of the crate to move around, the pain began to return.  We spent a few weeks hoping that he would be able to acclimate to life outside the crate if we slowly increased the length of time he was allowed out, but this didn't work out as we'd hoped, either.  He wanted to be out, to play with Nora, and to sit on our laps.  But anytime we would let him out for more than 15 or 20 minutes, his head would slowly begin to drop lower and lower until we'd have to force him back in the crate to rest.  When that rest stopped helping him feel better, and the yelping pain returned at the end of his pain medication cycles, we decided that he had been through enough and we had to let him go.

It was hard to accept that the treatment regimen hadn't worked despite all the time, energy, and optimism we put into it.  It is difficult to feel like Oscar might be running around today if our vet had recommended crate rest when the injury first happened.  I find myself wishing we'd been more successful at limiting his mobility throughout his life.  Maybe he would have lived longer if he hadn't been allowed to go up and down the stairs or jump up on the couch.  But maybe not.  He was a healthy, happy, vivacious little guy up until the injury in July, and we did the best we could to help him recover, so it gives me a little bit of comfort to know that while he was alive, he was living the life he wanted to live.

I don't quite know how to describe how it feels to lose Oscar.  It's devastating. It's heartbreaking.  The house feels so... empty.  And quiet.  Billy and I got him a few months after we moved in together, so in essence, we have always had him.  He was a member of our family.  We both loved him dearly and loved watching our daughter fall in love with him, too.  He was so good to her.  He made us feel like a family when we were just two kids in our early twenties thinking about planning a life together.  He taught us lessons about being caretakers that have made us better parents to Nora.  He made our lives happier just by being in the house. Although we both had dogs growing up, neither of us was living at home when their lives ended.  This is the first time either of us has had to say goodbye to a beloved pet and adjust to life without him around. We're trying to take it one day at a time.  Each day I feel a little bit less pain about his death and I miss him a lot more.  So that sensation, at least, is all too familiar for me.

And while we have been sorting through our own feelings of loss about Oscar's death, we have also had to decide how to answer Nora's questions whenever she brings him up.  I hope to write a separate post at some point about how she is adjusting to his absence, but in the meantime, here's the short version: She is beginning to understand that he is gone for good, and she won't be able to see him again.  I feel like she misses him but is not fully capable of understanding what that feeling is or why she is experiencing it.  So we've been talking about "missing" and trying to help her understand.

We're thankful for all the love and support our family and friends have shown since we had to put Oscar down.  It is a bit reassuring to realize that everyone knew how important he was to us.  In closing, I wanted to share a few of my favorites among our more recent pictures with Oscar.

Ugh. I miss him.

Potty Training the Working Mom Way

The title of this blog has been something of a misnomer for about two months now because, while the doctoral studies continue, we haven't been doing many diaper changes lately.  In late September, we set aside a weekend for the three day potty training "boot camp" you can read about in various places online or in books.  Their stories all go like this: you set aside three days for the task.  You don't leave the house, and you don't let your kid wear a diaper or any clothes.  You offer no negative reinforcement at all, but usher the toddler over to the potty as soon as they start to go.  You offer a lot of praise and a treat any time they get something in the potty.  All the stories seem the same: on day one, the child has accidents everywhere.  On day two, the child begins moving toward the potty to go, even if it means they have accidents on the way. And on day three, the child is miraculously trained and has no accidents!  You just let the kid run around naked for another week or two and she never pees on any of her clothing.

These people are full of it.  Just like those women who say that co-sleeping is 100% relaxing and allows them to feel fully rested from the time their child leaves the womb.  Just like those women who claim that after one night of allowing their baby to cry it out, their child slept perfectly for twelve straight hours every night until they went off to college.  If these people are not liars, they must have those ever elusive "easy children" that I've never actually seen in real life.  Thankfully, I have honest friends who've successfully potty trained their kids already, and they encouraged me and laughed with me when I got very frustrated.  Since they're all stay at home moms, though, figuring out how to manage this milestone across the home and day care environments took some extra creativity and flexibility.  In case anyone is interested in our potty training trials, I thought I'd pass along some of the most useful things I figured out over the course of the process in case they help others down the line.

• You'll know when you and your child are ready to attempt this task.  Thankfully, you've already become an expert at politely dismissing unsolicited advice by this point in your child's life. Because if you think your child's ready at 23 months a lot of people will tell you it's "too soon."
• Talk to your day care providers in advance to get a sense of how much they'll be willing to cooperate and support the process.  I was lucky in this regard because Nora's teachers are fantastic.  Her main teacher was super excited for her, proud of her when she showed up in undies after the three days of training at home, has never complained once about having to clean up after an accident, and has even encouraged me about what a great job I'm doing.
• The three day naked boot camp method IS a great way to start.  Here are my additions to the tips you can find elsewhere for how to prepare for these three days:  
• Ask yourself: what clothes will I want to be wearing when I'm getting peed on repeatedly? And then make sure you have a whole stack of those clothes clean.  (For me, this was yoga pants and t-shirts.) 
• Make sure you have plenty of alcohol in the house.  That way, when you survive each day (especially that first one) of being cooped up inside with a peeing machine, you can reward yourself with a little big of liquid relaxation.  And if you need a drink even  before bedtime, I won't judge you.
• Look for little signs of improvement from each day to the next rather than comparing your child's progress to anything you read online.  My friends told me to stick with it as long as I felt like Nora was moving forward instead of rejecting the process.  I'm so glad they did.  They told me that after about a week, I'd be surprised at how far she'd come.  They were right.
• Think about what "treat" will incentivize your child without sabotaging your attempts to feed her a healthy diet.  We settled on fruit snacks because Nora is manipulative.  Once she figured out that she was going to get a treat for going on the potty, she started squirting out one drop at a time and demanding a treat.  
• If you're like me, you might think the way to avoid accidents is to ask your child to pee on the potty really frequently.  This might work for some kids, but I realized on day three that I was asking Nora to do it so much that she was a) getting annoyed with me and b) not really able to feel when she had to go without being told.  I decided she would ultimately learn faster if I wasn't so committed to preventing accidents, and I think that worked out according to my plan.
• When your child goes back to day care, consider using thin underwear under pull-ups.  The people who use the three day method sometimes act like you will fully sabotage your training if your child ever sees a diaper again, and they swear pull ups are evil.  But on the other hand, no matter how supportive your child's teachers are, sanitation concerns prevent them from allowing your kid to pee in puddles all over the classroom.  Our teachers were immediately on board with putting Nora's undies under her pull up, which I figured would keep things sanitary while also making sure Nora could feel the wetness when she had an accident.  Once she stopped having large accidents, they just stopped using the pull ups and switched to the thick undies.
• We like the thick training undies since we never knew when Nora might tinkle a little bit before she realized she was going.  The ones Gerber makes are better than the store brand from Babies-r-Us, which have stretched out an unfortunate amount.  We didn't use the plastic pants that go over these because even with Nora's nice thick thighs, they seemed really gappy.  I figured the pee would just run right down her leg.
• Expect your child's progress at day care to lag behind her progress at home.  Nora stopped having pee accidents in the house after about a week, aside from the occasional rare one.  It took several more weeks before she stopped having regular pee accidents at school.  It took her longer to stop having poop accidents at home, and that improvement has taken longer to take hold at school, too.  
• Think about getting a travel potty.  This is something I would have thought was unnecessary, but Billy's cousin Jacelyn gave us this one for Nora's birthday and it has been really nice to have in the car.  The bags are kind of expensive, but we use them so rarely that the 30 pack I bought will probably last as long as we need them.  The travel potty's real function is to eliminate that underlying anxiety you'll have about traveling in the car with a potty training child-- and since I drive Nora to and from day care every day, this has taken a big weight off my mind.
• While I'm recommending potties, you don't need an expensive or fancy one.  We bought this froggy potty, and then I promptly bought another so we can have one in the living room on the main leve and one in the upstairs bathroom.  (Again: is two necessary? No.  Is it worth the extra $10? For me, definitely-- especially since we saved a lot of money on diapers by potty training early.)

I think that's about it.  We're still using diapers at naptime and overnight, though I think Nora will be ready to do away with those fairly soon.  Like everything else, we figured it would be better to do this one step at a time rather than trying to force it on her all at once.  And aside from those first three days, which nearly drove me crazy because I had unreasonable expectations and because I hate being cooped up in the house, the whole process has been relatively painless.  And like everything else about parenting since Nora was about five months old, the joys of the process have far outweighed the frustrations.  It is so delightful to see how excited she gets about peeing and pooping in the potty.  She likes to please, but really, I think the real effect of the praise is that it makes her feel like going in the potty is something she deserves to take pride in.  I'll wrap this up with a few pictures that prove this point.

This is us posing for a picture to send Dad on the third day of bottomless boot camp.  She wanted to show him the treat she had earned for going in the potty.

And this is her on her birthday, immediately after telling our photographer, Ena, that she had just gone peepee on the potty.

I never get tired of seeing that proud look on her face.  And I never think "You know, I wish I'd changed more diapers today."  So if I can offer one last piece of advice, it's to start the potty training process when you think you're both ready rather than putting it off out of fear about how it will go.  If we hadn't done it fairly early, we'd not only still be changing diapers-- we'd be missing out on all the great comments she makes about it, too.  Like last week, when she shouted from the bathroom, "MOMMY!  Poopies look like broccolis!  But I can't eat em!" or like each morning, when she tells me excitedly "I need undies LIKE YOU!"

Elmo's Halloween

Nora really enjoyed all the Halloween festivities again this year!

A few weeks ago we went to a local farm to meet up with our friends Amy and Brian and their kids, Jenna and Austin.  Nora and Jenna had a great time exploring all of the activities and riding around in the wagon to pick out pumpkins.

On the way home from the patch, Nora covered one of her pumpkins with stickers, and then we let her paint up another one.  I gave her black, white, and all the primary colors-- and although she started by painting individual marks, she had more fun mashing them all together. She LOVES seeing her pumpkins when she gets back to the house, so we decided against carving them in order to make them last longer.

My mom did a great job making Nora's costume again this year!  Sesame Street is one of the few TV shows we allow Nora to watch, so she points out Elmos everywhere she goes, and Mom found the perfect fabric to make Elmo's body and got the proportion of the eyes and nose perfectly right. We saw a few other Elmos in our various Halloween celebrations, so we can confirm that Nora's costume, home made with care, made her the best Elmo!  

My grandmother, Mimi, sent Nora a special Halloween outfit, and she was so excited to wear it to school on Thursday that she started doing the Hokey Pokey!

Nora's school has a Halloween Costume Parade, and they invite the parents to come watch and join them for the party afterwards.  Nora loved parading around, naming everyone else's costume, and eating all the special treats.  It was a fun chance for me to observe Nora interacting with her classmates and teachers, and I liked meeting some of the parents I didn't already know.  It also gave me a chance to get some pictures of Nora with her friends, but since I don't have their parents' permission, I've decided not to post them online.  Shoot me an email if you want to see more pictures of Nora with her classmates! : )  I wish you could see in this parade picture that Dracula's holding her hand.  He's one of her friends that we hear about frequently at home.

After we got home in the evening, we went up to Gram and Pop's for dinner and to hand out candy to trick or treaters.  Then we all headed over to Lauren and Brian's house for a Halloween bonfire and passing out more candy.  Although Nora was initially hesitant to wear her Elmo hat when we were trying it on, once she saw how much everyone loved seeing her in her costume, she didn't want to take it off!

It was definitely another successful Halloween!