Seeing the Positive: 2013 in Review Already

So I guess it's time to come clean.  2013 has not been my favorite.  It has not been our favorite.

I have been sick TWICE.  And learned that pregnant ladies take about 2x as long to recover from any illness as any "normal" person. I pride myself on my awesome immune system (I know, that is pretty lame.), so this has been quite a blow. Plus, it's hard to get anything done when you are coughing and sneezing and feel like dirt. And, I hate having to take so many meds (antibiotics, decongestants, etc), all of which are safe in pregnancy, but kind of make me feel like poor Harper is going to be born all frazzled with a dent in her head. I have kept the meds to a minimum, but still. 

After I finally recovered from the first plague that infected our entire family ON NEW YEARS EVE (yeah, we went to bed at 10:30 because we were sick), Rob got the flu. He was well for about 2 days before I was sick again.  But Em and I both were vaccinated against the flu this year so that's a good thing.

Our babysitter is moving to Michigan.  But no worries, we found a nanny!  She is to start on Monday, Feb 4.  OH WAIT, SHE BACKED OUT.  LAST WEEK. Great.  So then we went on a "flight of the bumblebee" type nanny search, found one that seemed great, and then it turned out that she had waaaayyyy too much drama going on in her life.  And that stuff matters when you depend on someone to be at your house for a certain number of hours each day, and be in the presence of mind to care for your child. But we did eventually work out our childcare situation, even though it is only a temporary solution.

We recently got three large water leaks under our house fixed, which had contributed to the approximate doubling of our water bill before we found them.  But hey, they're fixed, so this is not too bad.

Plus, I found out that the funding for my job (WHICH I HAD SECURED UNTIL JUNE, 2014), might actually not work out. So at the end of June of 2013, I have no job.  This is making me feel quite murderous, because I am currently on a pregnant-lady job hunt.  This is a BAD SURPRISE. And let's be honest.  It matters if you are pregnant and show up at an interview.  Hoping to find a job in teaching that starts in the fall so it won't matter anyway.  We shall see. How is it that a person goes to college for TEN YEARS AND BECOMES A DOCTOR to not have any clue in hell how they will get paid in six months? Guess I'll have to use that Ph.D. and be creative.

But if I don't have a job, I guess I won't need childcare.  So there is at least that.  And no, in the current economic state of the country (which is improving, but not awesome), I don't feel I'm being the least bit dramatic.

The above job scenario forced us to wait on buying the vehicle we wanted, though, which we found pre-owned and close-by.  It is still available, but we are not sure we want to drop a huge amount of money on a car right now. Damn it sucks being an adult.

Harper has a choroid plexus cyst on the left brain hemisphere. The choroid plexus is the part of the brain that makes cerebrospinal fluid.  Damn me and my in-depth knowledge of the brain, but this is an important structure! The doctors are not worried about it, but do want to make sure it resorbs in the next 4 weeks, as it is a marker for chromosomal disorders.  So I have an ultrasound scheduled for then. My other chromosomal disorder screens all came back negative, which is a great sign. No, I don't really want to discuss it AT ALL, other than to update later. So please don't email/text/call and ask, pretty pretty please. We have kept this information private for several weeks because I didn't want to talk about it (but my blog feels like a lie if I don't put everything out there). Plus, I have just told you everything I know, and in my heart I feel like everything is going to be just fine.  I am just waiting for that confirmation from the doctor's mouth to my brain!

But I am trying, as of this week, to see the positive.  There is lots of it around, actually. Lots.  So in February I'm going to stress less. Really!

It's good for worms

Yesterday I called my grandma on the phone.  She didn't recognize my voice and asked, "Um, Who is this?".  No, she's not senile or batshitcrazy-my family remains stubbornly sharp-minded til the bitter end.  I just have a cold and sound like a family of frogs has taken up residence in my throat. So I told her it was me and that I was sick.  And then she said, "Again?!".  Yep.  Again.  This time it's not that bad, just annoying because I cough a lot and have to sleep propped up on pillows so I can breathe.  Anyway, none of this is the point of the story.

Here's a real life conversation that took place last night between me and Granny:

Me:  Yeah, I've just been coughing a lot so I'm losing my voice.

Granny:  Oh MAN I hate that coughing!  I have some good cough medicine with codeine in it they gave me at the hospital.

Me:  I can take cough drops but that's about it.  And I've been wondering if a person can get addicted to Vicks Vaporub-I can't sleep at all without it.

Granny:  Yeah that vicks is good stuff.  I put a glob down my throat every night before bed.  It's Gawd-awful but it stops me from coughing. 

(At this point I'm questioning whether the cough syrup she is has REALLY that good?)

Me:  You SWALLOW IT?

Granny:  Yeah!  And it really helps that coughing.

Me:  Granny-seriously?  It has turpentine in it!

Granny:  Oh, Daddy used to give us turpentine all the time.  He said it was good for worms.

Yeah.  That happened. I love my grandma.

What is more fun than a silver tutu?

Not much, except a silver tutu and pink sparkly boots!

Last weekend we vid-chatted with Uncle Jeff and Aunt Lori (Em's aunt and uncle, not ours-don't want to age them before their time!), and opened our Christmas presents that we had sent to one another.

Among the gifts for Em was an adorable black sweater with silvery-gray tutu skirt.  I have to say that Em is so super active that I don't put her in a lot of dresses and skirts, but she happened to have a birthday party to go to this weekend!

I think she loved wearing her special party outfit-I'll have to put a little more work into her outfits sometimes.

She did her best to avoid any pictures-she stands still until she sees that the camera is focusing (the red light comes on) and then she TAKES OFF.

Makes for some fun action shots to be sure.

Then it was time for some piano "practice".  She likes to play the piano by herself now, thankyouverymuch.  So demure and proper she is!

Demure and proper?  Not any child of mine.

Her dad must have introduced her to Jerry Lee Lewis.

She has an adorable bubble dress from Tommy and Donna at Christmas that she's just growing into, so I guess that'll be the next fashion experiment.

Hope everyone has a great week!  And awesome extra bonus day off work!!!

Parenting, defined.

Love means being happy to see someone no matter what time it is.  Even if that person has peed through all their clothes.

-The Honest Toddler

**also, I might add that pee is often the least of our problems if there is a middle-of-the-night wake-up call.

TBL Woes

Let me first just say that I "get" the idea of working in a team.  It mimics the "real workplace" where one doesn't necessarily have the choice of who they work with, blah blah blah. Most highly-functioning students hate group work because they feel they always end up doing all the work for a good grade while the rest of the "social loafers", as they are called, just sit back and watch.  Oh, to be a social loafer.

Well, here comes the white knight, TEAM BASED LEARNING (TBL), developed by a professor at the University of Florida, to solve all our woes. Make students work together productively!  Everyone will smile and glitter will shoot out their noses!  Everyone will do better in the class and all this sounds like rainbow marshmallows in my ears! The winner gets a diamond-encrusted pony!

I have taken a lot of pedagogical approach training, and in theory TBL seems great.  It involves this idea of a flipped classroom, where the students read a chapter and watch a video/do some assignment in order to prep for class.  Once in class, the student takes an individual quiz.  Then, the students are placed in their teams, and they retake the same quiz, this time as a group.  You're supposed to be able to get a better score on the team quiz because everyone is prepared for class, right?  As a teacher, I love this idea.  But now I'm a student being subjected to such tomfoolery, and I don't love it. Evidently I am also an 85 year old lady who uses the word "tomfoolery".  Anyway.

I am taking a Research Integrity course this semester (required as part of my fellowship), where TBL is the approach. There are ten class meetings, a quiz at each one.  Each individual quiz is worth 40 points, and each team quiz is worth 40 points, so there is a possibility of receiving 80 points per class.  We have to have so many of these  points in order to pass.  Ok, that's fine. And honestly I am not worried about failing this course.  How sad would it be if I FAILED ETHICS?

However, I am worried about my team.  There is me, three grad students from varying programs, and a pediatrician on our team.  They tried to make us diverse. 

We took a "trivia" quiz as a team, and got two out of two questions wrong.  And here is how it went.

Question 1:

Where was the first business school located?

I don't remember all the options, but Boston and Philadelphia were both options.  We were supposed to discuss then hold up a card with our answer and team number on it.  

Keri:  I think it's Philly (the Wharton School of Business). (My first thought was Benjamin Franklin, who I associate with businesspeople as well as with UPenn--these associations turned out to be more of less wrong, but my answer was right.)

Group:  Rabble!  Rabblerabblerabble!  It's totally Boston because of Harvard.  (I have to admit they at least backed up their answer better than I did.) We should vote Boston!  Boston Boston!

The answer was Philly.  So of course we were wrong.

Question 2:

What year was the Wharton School of Business Founded?

Again, I don't remember all the options, but one of them was  (1860-1870), followed by (1880-1899), followed by some other time periods that would have obviously been too late for a "first-founded" something-or-other.  

Keri: I think it's (1880-1899), because the 1860's was during the Civil War, and the other options seem way too late.

Group:  Rabble!  Rabblerabblerabble!  It's totally (1860-1870) because that one is separated from the others by 10 years!  Definitely that's it!  (This time, their reasoning was totally absurd and I probably should have argued more.)

I was outvoted again, and again we were wrong.  There were only two questions, so if we had been scored, we would have gotten a zero.  A ZERO.  This is NOT OKAY with me (except that time I took calculus as a college freshman.  Then it was totally okay because calculus is stupid).

Now, I know I'm supposed to "make the case" for my answer, etc.  And maybe this will work better when we were to have actually prepared for class..

I suppose I will have to keep you posted.  I'm not ready to write TBL off just yet--I think I need the whole semester to see how this whole thing plays out.  The guy teaching it is great, and it's obvious he put a ton of work into the class to make it way more interesting than "some dude telling me what is okay to put in my publication" lectures.  This, I super-appreciate, especially since the course meets for 2.5 hours every Friday. 

TRIUMPHANT JINGLE BELL RETURN

Hey Y'all, I'm back.

It's a long story about why I've been gone so long.  But I have been feeling a little bit (obviously) blog-lazy.

So I'm going to post some pictures.  And simply say this:

We had Christmas.

We had Christmas at my mom's:

Check out these two girls.

Rikki's cute family will be joined by a baby girl in June!  

Also, gotta mention here that Colby gave us deer steaks (fresh out of the forest) that we cooked for our "at home" Christmas Dinner.  We still have some in the freezer.  No I will not share it with you.

Tye helps "Mere" in the kitchen.

Did you notice Em's superfab boots?

I'm not sure that Em and Tye could look more excited. Sheesh.

But, to be fair, Emerald Mans is SERIOUS about her food.

Em's doll and stroller from Memere & TPa.

Then we had Christmas at our house:

Treats for Santa.

Bella ate these treats. Yes, including the fudge and drinking the milk.

Then suffered from chocolate poisoning for all of Christmas day.

Don't worry.  Santa eats enough treats anyway.

Staying up way too late on Christmas Eve. 

No one told me you have to HELP SANTA PUT TOGETHER THE PRESENTS.

Santa spoils.

What a Christmas morning!

(Yes, I might have saved this shape sorter from all the stuff she got for her birthday...thanks Aimee and Steven! She loves it!)

This pretty much sums it up.

Stocking time.

Oh, right.  This sums it up, too.  

Is someone tired of being left out of the photos?

Perhaps Santa brought the wrong kind of catnip.

I had a stroke of genius for displaying the Christmas cards.  Yeah, I haven't taken it down yet.

And finally, we had Christmas with Rob's parents:

Like Abby and Biffy, we three can't take a good picture together.

See, Christmas:  accomplished. We also got a new refrigerator (told ya.),  ran an infirmary at our house, and caught a plague that lasted well into the New Year.

Hopefully 2013 is smooth sailing from here!

Happy (belated) New Year Everybody.