Trip to Massachusetts
Jun. 2nd, 2008 08:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scottahillAs I promised to a few of you, Jen, Miriam, and I are going to come up to Massachusetts for a week or so next week, Boston and Williamstown, to make up for Miriam's absence from the Bethans reunion. We are looking at either late July or early August for the trip, and I wanted to ask those of you in MA if there are any dates in there that you won't be in town or around for a visit. We'd like to show off Miriam see as many of you as we can. Please respond here or email me soon so we can get the plane tickets before the prices double.
Also, if anyone wants lots of extra baby time, we wouldn't turn down a place to stay...crib not required, although a good-sized bed would be useful.
Business out of the way, I should give y'all an update on Miriam and also on us old folks:
Miriam will be *nine* months old next Sunday (I will coincidentally be 33 on the same day). A couple of weeks ago she finally figured out how to crawl forward, although in a rather unusual fashion, with one leg tucked under her and one foot pushing forward. Hey, it works. :) She loves to stand up and "cruise" (walk while holding onto the couch or whatever), and she can stand by herself for 5-10 seconds at a time, and even slowly let herself down from a free-form stand (without holding on!) into a sit, rather than falling down. She's been saying "Yayayayayayaya" a lot, with some "lalalala" thrown in and the occasional "dadada" as well (one time I walked into the room and, with a delighted look on her face, she said "Yeah, dada!" As a scientist I need reproducibility before marking it in the baby book...but that was darn close to counting. :) She entered her "I won't let strangers hold me" phase about a month and a half ago, although that might have toned down a bit recently, and she has been content to stay both with her babysitter and with her grandmother (Jen's mum) after a little bit of acclimatization. She will still smile at strangers most of the time. She is a very active little baby when she's awake, although she still takes about three naps during the day.
We have gone through so many iterations and feints and double-feints with the job issue that keeping people updated has been a mess. This is the current picture, which is probably the true one: Jen is going to accept the job at the University of Toledo, but for technical reasons she is not going to officially start there (as an assistant professor) until next April. We are going to stay in Dallas (boo!) while Jen leisurely writes a few papers and finishes up. Sometime in early 2009, then, we will move to Toledo, and Jen will unofficially start to set up her lab there (while officially remaining a post-doc in Dallas, and being paid by her grant). My job search has been a complete failure, so I will probably end up at the University of Dallas in the fall to teach the second half of the course I taught in the spring (but sans lab this time), and I won't teach at all in the Spring because we'll be moving. I'm currently working on research which might be publishable in the spring, so that will help fill the gap a little bit.
Although we're not moving to Toledo this summer as planned, we *are* going to move to Irving so as to be closer to work. Jen's current commute is 30-60 minutes (up to 90 on the bus), and the move cuts it to 8-10 (and avoids going through downtown to boot); it's also only 2 miles from the University of Dallas. The house is also NOT on a major throughfare, which will be nice. I may talk more about the move later.
Also, if anyone wants lots of extra baby time, we wouldn't turn down a place to stay...crib not required, although a good-sized bed would be useful.
Business out of the way, I should give y'all an update on Miriam and also on us old folks:
Miriam will be *nine* months old next Sunday (I will coincidentally be 33 on the same day). A couple of weeks ago she finally figured out how to crawl forward, although in a rather unusual fashion, with one leg tucked under her and one foot pushing forward. Hey, it works. :) She loves to stand up and "cruise" (walk while holding onto the couch or whatever), and she can stand by herself for 5-10 seconds at a time, and even slowly let herself down from a free-form stand (without holding on!) into a sit, rather than falling down. She's been saying "Yayayayayayaya" a lot, with some "lalalala" thrown in and the occasional "dadada" as well (one time I walked into the room and, with a delighted look on her face, she said "Yeah, dada!" As a scientist I need reproducibility before marking it in the baby book...but that was darn close to counting. :) She entered her "I won't let strangers hold me" phase about a month and a half ago, although that might have toned down a bit recently, and she has been content to stay both with her babysitter and with her grandmother (Jen's mum) after a little bit of acclimatization. She will still smile at strangers most of the time. She is a very active little baby when she's awake, although she still takes about three naps during the day.
We have gone through so many iterations and feints and double-feints with the job issue that keeping people updated has been a mess. This is the current picture, which is probably the true one: Jen is going to accept the job at the University of Toledo, but for technical reasons she is not going to officially start there (as an assistant professor) until next April. We are going to stay in Dallas (boo!) while Jen leisurely writes a few papers and finishes up. Sometime in early 2009, then, we will move to Toledo, and Jen will unofficially start to set up her lab there (while officially remaining a post-doc in Dallas, and being paid by her grant). My job search has been a complete failure, so I will probably end up at the University of Dallas in the fall to teach the second half of the course I taught in the spring (but sans lab this time), and I won't teach at all in the Spring because we'll be moving. I'm currently working on research which might be publishable in the spring, so that will help fill the gap a little bit.
Although we're not moving to Toledo this summer as planned, we *are* going to move to Irving so as to be closer to work. Jen's current commute is 30-60 minutes (up to 90 on the bus), and the move cuts it to 8-10 (and avoids going through downtown to boot); it's also only 2 miles from the University of Dallas. The house is also NOT on a major throughfare, which will be nice. I may talk more about the move later.
