Rob and I are settling into an evening of reading, movies, homemade brownies, and dark beer.  We are celebrating the fact that the week is over, that it is spring, and that Holden will be 9 months old this Sunday.  The babyproofing began in earnest today.  I sequestered all of our plants behind the couch and built a barrier using a tote, the couch, and a crate of records.  Now Holden will not be able to access the plants, or the litter box, which I am convinced he believes is a mysterious cat portal into a faraway cat world to which no humans are granted access.  

I still haven’t heard anything about re-scheduling my interview.  At this point, I am just using this time to decompress and to reflect on how imperfect this particular institution is—a fact that makes me feel better about my own shortcomings.  In addition, it makes me realize that this might not be the perfect fit for me—-if the institution is weighed down with disorganized committees and poor communication, this might not be the right thing for us.  I will know for sure when I actually get there (you know, sometime in the next decade or so!)  I have a feeling that there are a few people who are dragging their feet—those few who insist on being a part of the interview process but aren’t actually ever around to do so.  It makes the job of everyone who *is* on the ball that much tougher.  

That said, most things are looking up.  I found out 2 weeks ago that my manuscript was finally accepted.  And I also met my pumping goal for my milk donation, so that is another weight off my chest (teehee).  I just need to arrange for a cooler to be delivered so I can ship the milk off for processing.  I would feel awesome right now if I were sleeping a bit better.  Holden has been waking up constantly throughout the night…pretty much every 1-2 hours.  He’s not hungry, just in pain from teething.  This has been going on since January.  Today I noticed that he has a fourth tooth poking through, on the opposite side from the last tooth to emerge.  Yes, our son has fangs.  Last night I had my first corneal erosion since November, which means that I am back on the clock for the 3-month healing period.  It’s so frustrating.  Now I am back to using eye ointment nightly.  If I’m still having problems when I am done with the breastfeeding, I may have the debridement procedure repeated.  And I won’t skip the Vicodan this time.

So many updates—I will start by talking about our delightful weekend (now that we’re already halfway through the week!) It’s been in the low 50s, which is warm enough to drive with the sun roof open, and also warm enough to enjoy two consecutive days at Battery Park, just a few steps from our house.  Holden loved using the swings:

After enjoying the swings, Holden delighted in watching the older kids run around the playground from the safety of this little park bench.  I know he can’t wait to join the fun in a few short months:

What a great day!

Holden is also developing new skills in the realm of language.  He has dabbled in language throughout his life, as most babies do, preferring the repetition of ba-ba-ba or ma-ma-ma.  He knows a lot of words already, probably more than I even realize.  When I ask where the kitty is, he scans the room to find Stoli.  When I am reading him a book and ask him to turn the page, he will dutifully turn it.  Over the weekend, when we returned from our walk around town, I hoisted him from his stroller and said “Up.”  He replied “Up-Up.”  And when I repeated the word back to him, he said it again and smiled.  Today we were singing “the big fat duck” song to him (don’t ask) and he responded by saying “duck!”  When he was younger (sometime between 6 and 7 months), there were a couple of occasions where I could have sworn that he said “itty” referring to the cat.  He hasn’t said kitty since then and I’m not sure whether it was coincidence, although both times he was starring directly at the cat.  He seems to go through cycles with language, where he prefers one sound and practices it over and over again and then appears to forget all about it for months.  Holden seems to know the meaning of basic phrases like “Do you want a sip of water?” or “Do you want to nurse?”  He also knows “We’re going to visit Papa.”

Other milestones—Holden started crawling on St. Patrick’s Day.  It’s not an army crawl, it’s the real thing, on his hands and knees.  He’s not especially fast (yet) but he’s much less frustrated with himself now that he is more mobile.  Holden just got his third tooth this week—his canine on the left side.  So now he looks like a lopsided infant Dracula.  I am going to start calling him Nosferatooth.

Today I took Holden to a final visit with the nanny so I could put the finishing touches on my job talk.  I was feeling so overwhelmed this morning, realizing how much I still have to learn.  Over the weekend, I had e-mailed my contact person at the institution where I am interviewing to see if a 20-minute pumping session could be scheduled into the middle of my interview day.  I never got a reply, so today I put out another e-mail to try to firm up plans for Friday.  I was surprised when I was told that they couldn’t confirm the interview for that day because there were people (critical people, apparently), who wouldn’t be able to make it.  I was told that we would have to try to schedule it for next week instead.  So I tactfully replied that I could do that but we would have to make a decision soon so we could make arrangements on this end.  It’s no small task to coordinate everything so that Rob’s work is finished up (at least well enough for him to be out of the office), Holden has sufficient milk pumped, and our bags are packed for several days out of state.  I’m grateful for a few extra days of preparation, but I am also really anxious to have this all behind me.  I applied for this job back in November, and it will be April before I know whether or not I will be hired there.  The good thing about this process is that I have had wonderful support from lots of people to get things done—-from people pitching in to watch Holden, to a gang of friends who convened last night to listen to my talk and give feedback, to a postdoc advisor who gave up 2 hours of his day today to discuss my slides with me, I am just so lucky to have people who care enough to help me get through this.  

As for stupidity, this is something I came across on the PostSecret website.  The idea that a career in science continually makes one feel stupid is an idea that thus far, matches my experiences and resonates with me in ways that are too embarrassing to recount.  This whole process—preparing my talk, developing a research program, making decisions about what scientific questions are important to answer, then changing those questions based on what is affordable—has been humbling and continually reinforces how little I actually know.  I’ve had to prepare myself to answer questions about cardiovascular reflexes, exercise interventions used in children with ADHD, the phylogeny of the cerebellum and its role in helping different species face adaptive challenges, movement disorders, isolating genetic characteristics through successive selective inbreeding, etc.  These topics are vastly different and none are in my area of specialty per se, yet I need to be prepared to discuss any of them.  This is why I always feel stupid—and according to the article referenced above, I am not in the minority here.  Being in science is about embracing your stupidity—and eventually becoming so used to it, that you don’t even notice it anymore.

As usual, the last thing I am thinking about in preparation for this job talk is what I should wear while giving it.  I am not a stylish person, a fact that I know and am OK with.  I loathe clothes shopping even though I look good in most things I try on.  I can just never seem to justify the time and money it takes to build up a respectable wardrobe.  Most of my clothing must be versatile enough to wear in the lab and must take the abuse that goes along with getting all manner of things smeared all over it, a purpose that has adapted itself quite well to motherhood.  I own lots of jeans, tank tops, basic knit tops, hiking boots or mocs and the ubiquitous purple hoodie that has appeared in almost every picture of me since 2006.  I own no heels.  The only makeup I own is 2 tubes of lipstick.  I look horrific in eye makeup and will never wear it again—it’s a pain and it’s not for me.  The only thing I absolutely must use 0n a daily basis is a quality facial moisturizer.  Without it, I feel dessicated and old.  That said, this minimalist approach is pretty common in the Northeast where people are more concerned with staying warm than looking good.  During my infrequent trips to the south, the midwest, or the west coast, the first thing I notice is the massive amount of makeup that women wear.  And the heels.  And the perfume.

After some deliberation, I made some decisions about what to wear for my interview.  My hair is another story; I will brush it, but there’s no guarantee that it will behave.  Since losing massive amounts of hair from breastfeeding, my hair is starting to grow back in patches, where I literally have oddly-placed strips of hair that are about 2 inches long framing my face.  It’s really annoying but there’s nothing I can do about it until it grows out a little longer.

As for the clothing, I opted for a dress that I bought a year and a half ago about a week before I found out I was pregnant.  I  bought it expressly for the purpose of wearing to a job talk one day, and haven’t worn it since it was purchased.  The hitch is that (up until this weekend), I didn’t have the right shoes for it.  Because of the style and cut of the dress, I was initially thinking about getting some tall boots, but ultimately I opted for something more subdued.  I found these beauties for a relatively decent price:

Yes, they have little heels.  Very little.  And there is plenty of room in the toe.  They are super comfy—I won’t wear them every day, but they are perfect for giving presentations and going to funerals.

And I tried on the dress finally—a full year and a half since I first purchased it.  And it fits!

I decided that I need a jacket to cover up my bare arms (and to cover up any potential breastmilk catastrophes that might happen while I’m up in front of a crowd of strangers).  I rummaged through my closet and found a jacket that I bought 10 years ago for like $20.

I’m happy enough with how it covers things, so I’m going with it.  In these pictures I am wearing brown tights, but I might try a pair of black nylons to see if they look any better.  I hate agonizing over stuff that is so trivial.

So back to the important stuff—the actual interview preparation!  Things are going well.  My slides are clean and organized; I’ve practiced the talk a few times but I’m still dissatisfied with some of the transitions.  Holden is going to the nanny again this Wednesday so I can iron out some last-minute issues.  I’m still working up a budget for setting up the lab.  I’m also crafting an outline for a Special Topics course over which I have free reign regarding course content—I’ve opted to propose a “Multiple Memory Systems” course that allows me to 1) teach something interesting that I know a few things about, 2) fill in the many holes in my knowledge so that I can plan some fun experiments for the lab.   I am also coming up to speed on the research of others within the department.  I am thoroughly exhausted from all of this.  I can’t wait until it is over.

I’m in job talk land, and I have 10 minutes before I have to go pick Holden up from the nanny.  Just thought I’d share some neurons I counted last year.  They are pretty: