Ding Dong

I took this video of Caroline "dancing" (sorry, no sound). My favorite part of it is how Shelby comes into the picture at the end and starts nosing Gavin's butt. Ha, ha! I know that isn't as funny as it seems to me right now, but I was just in tears when I first saw it.

Caroline's latest obsession is The Wizard of Oz. Over the last couple days, she started to march around the house singing "Ding dong on the witch!" She kicks her legs out like the munchkins while she marches. Last night, I wached her while she took her bath. She talked non-stop for about 10 minutes very earnestly, and the only thing I really understood was "And the wizard; and the witch is dead".

We're ready to head back to Houston tomorrow afternoon. It's always sad to leave here. Caroline grows up so much between the times we see her.

Flashback

Flashback baby post #2...

October 03, 2005 10:07 PM

Gavin is going to California tomorrow for a few days for work. In my weird, baby-obsessed world the biggest impact of my husband leaving town for four days is that it is inconvenient timing for baby-making. How are we supposed to keep up the recommended once-per-48-hours pace if we’re separated by half the country?

(Meanwhile, I’m sure that all my friends are glad that this post is time-delayed, because who wants to know that your friends are doing it tonight?)

Family Moment

We're having fun in Wyoming. Caroline is, as expected, pretty much stealing the show. She is definitely 2 years old. Last night, I was instructed to "sit in the chair" rather than help color. Gavin seems to be the favorite at the moment.

Letting the Cat Out of the Bag

Or rather, the fetus. That’s right, I’m pregnant! Here’s a cut at heading off all the questions I can think of...

1) I am due June 6, 2007.
2) No, we do not know the sex. We’re discussing whether we will find out before the birth.
3) I am 12 weeks along.
4) We’ve had 2 ultra-sounds, the second today. Pictures soon, I promise.
5) We’ve known since early October. 1st non-family revelation was Nov 1.

I’ve been diligently following the rule that you shouldn’t blog what you don’t want the world to know. As of today, we told a whole bunch of work folks, so the secret is definitely no-more. I can, therefore, start posting the side diary of all my baby thoughts that I’ve been keeping. I promise not to dump it all at once.

So, flashback to last fall...

---------------------------
Sept. 29, 2005 7:20PM

We’re trying to get pregnant! This is, no doubt, not the Earth-shattering revelation that it could have been. This is due to the fact that I will not be posting this entry until well after the deed has been accomplished. I don’t want to deal with the work-related questions that will be asked around work until I know for sure that we are having a baby and when. So, having heard the lessons learned the hard way by strangers who thought nobody from work read their blogs, I am not blogging about it until I don’t care who reads it.

This prudent attitude doesn’t remove the desire to blog about this important phase of life, however. In fact, I’ve enjoyed reading about others’ experiences so much that I can’t wait. Thankfully, Sarah came up with a great idea – blog now, post later! So, that’s what I’m going to do. :)

Right after I took my birth control pill case from its featured spot next to my toothbrush and hid it in the medicine cabinet, I promised myself I wasn’t going to get crazy about this babymaking thing. When my sister was trying to get pregnant the first time, it seemed like every month she’d be telling me how she was sure she was pregnant this time because her breasts were sore, or she felt naseous, or whatever. It took them about a year and a half to conceive, so you can imagine how many false signs there were.

It’s hard not to get caught up in the hype, though. When you want a baby you want one NOW. That’s maybe even more the case when you’ve really wanted one for 2 years and are just now getting started. I am stolidly refusing to rush out and buy pregnancy tests in bulk so that I’ll be able to start testing each month as soon as possible. You’d be surprised, though, how often pregnancy symptoms appear in your life when you’re on the lookout (consciously or subconsciously). I never thought I’d be hoping to puke in the morning, but...

I’ve now had one menstrual cycle that I could have reasonably expected not to have had. The disappointment isn’t crushing yet by any means, but I really hope I’m one of the lucky people that gets knocked up quickly. The waiting is going to be brutal.

No. 1

I landed an airplane yesterday! Well - sort of. It was basically just following the step-by-step directions from my instructor. The term controlled crash may be a bit more applicable than normal, but I got a little '1' under the No. Landing column in my log book. I was kind of high and definately not appropriately trimmed, so I felt like I was fighting the airplane all the way down. But, I hit the runway and didn't damage anything.

My instructor keeps telling me that I'm doing really well. I definately felt less confident in the things I was doing this week, though. It's one thing to do this stuff with him there telling me exactly how to do it. It will be something else entirely to do it on my own, though. I think I have several more weeks before I have to worry about that, though.

Electonics Failure

I'm having a bad week. Much of this badness has to do with electronics.

Tuesday night, I went into the control center for a sim, dutifully turning off my cell phone before entering the "no transmit zone". Five hours later I walked back out, and turned my cell phone back on. Nothing appeared on the screen. Hmmmm.... Turn off again and back on. Nothing. Dial my home number, and it rings. So, just the screen, apparently. Crap.

Wednesday morning, I get into work and turn on my computer. It freezes as it's loading Windows. I try again, and get the "Windows failed to start properly" screen. I try to boot normally, in my last sucessful configuration, and in safe mode. Nothing. I call the IT guys. It turns out (expectedly) that my hard drive has failed. They can't get anything off the disk, although they see that there's probably still data on it. If I want to try to get my data, I have to talk to some other people.

Today I talk to the other IT people. I'm told that they will only attempt to recover my data if I can "prove it's worth the money". So I spend several hours trying to list all the things I've done in the last six months that I'll lose if they don't help me. The 6 months is because I manually backed up my data before my computer got refreshed last spring. (Work also doesn't think that it's worth it to pay for backup services for us.)

One bit of good news... I took the battery and sim card out of my phone tonight, and it turned on. I put the sim card back in, and it seems to be functional again. I'd better never turn it off again.

Recap

So, yeah, I've been really bad with the blogging recently. What's been happening? Well... My volleyball team won two games this week. That's games, not matches. However, it puts us solidly in 2nd from last place, having doubled up the co-op team. The next team ahead of us has twice as many games won as us, but we'll take what we can get. In softball, we took one game out of two last week. That also places us 2nd to last, but in a more competitive league.

I saw Nightmare Before Christmas in 3-D last weekend. The effect was pretty cool. I then spent Sunday at home relaxing, which I've resolved to do more of. I have been running myself pretty ragged recently with social engagements. Need more "me time" as Sarah says.

Tomorrow, I have my 2nd flying lesson. IF the rain holds off until late enough. I'm not sure the weather is going to cooporate. Last night I had this cool dream that I was flying at night. For some reason, all the lights onthe ground looked much dimmer than they do in real life. I was straining my eyes trying to pick out the lights on radio towers. Then I got to the airport and there was ground fog completely covering the runway. So, I had to come in really low, dodging under telephone wires to keep under the fog so I could see the runway.

The funny thin about that dream is that you'd think it was a nightmare from all that stuff going wrong. But in the dream, I was totaly calm and in control. So different from reality.

Space Race

There is a space race these days. It's not between governments, like the last one. It's a race between companies to see who can capture the (perceived) suborbital tourism and transport market. Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites seem to be pretty far along, given the flight of Spaceship One a couple of years ago. Other companies seem to be behind by at least a year or two, but it isn't always clear how far. One company that enjoys being mysterious, Blue Origin, appears to be reaching a milestone soon given the recent FAA approval they received to proceed with low-altitude testing. I wish them luck. The shoestring budget DC-X, a similar VTOL demonstrator in the 1990s, had several fantastically successful flights before the overworked ground crew failed to set up the landing gear correctly for an otherwise perfect flight, resulting in the loss of that vehicle.

Woah!

This week went fast! I need to cut back on my extra-curriculars. I usually have something after work at least 3 nights a week. I have always liked being busy, but it's starting to wear on me a bit.

No flying this weekend :( because my instructor is out of town. Gavin is going to an all-day bachelor party tomorrow. What am I to do? Maybe relax? Maybe talk someone into going to see the Nightmare Before Christmas re-release with me. That's probably doable.

Gojira!

Tonight we will unwrap the plastic from the Gojira DVD and watch it after grilling salmon and eating pumpkin pie. It'll be a good night. :)