Li'el

Happy to announce the arrival of Li'el, April 12th at 5pm, 8 lb 1 oz, 21 inches.  We are all doing well and settling in.  She sometimes reminds us a little of Eytan when he was little.

We had guests for a little while, which meant lots of fun companions (grandparents, great-grandpa, cousins and aunts and uncles of various sorts) and playground time for Eytan.

 

And we hosted a little simchat bat (baby naming), complete with relatives skyping from afar.

 

Meanwhile, we've been stretched a little thin balancing Eytan and Li'el together, alongside lovely visitors plus our scaled-back but still existent responsibilities of classes for Mike and grading for me.  I'm sure it will settle down eventually.

Meanwhile, a friend emailed me a picture from spring in Wenatchee of which I am jealous -- not that there's anything wrong with Pittsburgh per se, and, as I've mentioned before, it makes sense for us to be here for the moment, but still... oh well.



Til next time :)

Kiddo updates

So, we got a kid-sized-bed for Eytan... we had thought about finding another crib for new-baby-to-be, and then figured, well, Eytan is actually probably old enough to sleep in a bed...  And this does seem to be the case, albeit with a few transition issues.

We set the bed up and put it in his room along with the crib, figuring he could sleep in whichever he wanted and get used to the idea of the bed.  We figured he'd go for the crib, but as soon as the bed was in there, he wanted nothing more to do with the crib.

The only problem is that being able to get in and out on his own means that our previous strategy of letting him babble and sing to himself until he falls back asleep if he wakes up too early in the morning was no longer effective.

The first night he slept well until about 5am and then presumably woke up and stepped off the edge of the bed to get down... and while it is a low bed, it's not that low.  So it was a bit of a fall... but since then he's gotten really good at not rolling off and getting down safely.  So now our sign to go and get him often comes when he starts banging on the door of his room to get out.



Eytan has also seemed to acquire a concept of "pretend play" or maybe just of inanimate-objects-as-friends lately.  His daycare gave him a baby doll, so he could get used to the idea of a new sibling, and he has gotten super excited to take care of the baby, change its diaper, put it to bed at night (accompanied by bedtime story, blankets and pillow, patting it on the back and giving it a pacifier), have the baby read him stories, etc.  This is also true of one particular stuffed animal bear, who also often gets to sleep in his bed at night.  It's interesting.


Putting shoes on the baby
 

As per request for Mike to carry Bear around in the backpack

He has also gotten pretty good at knowing when he needs to pee.  So when his diaper is off, he'll often yell "towel," run to the bathroom and get one, go back to where he was and stand there and pee, and then wipe it up with the towel.  This has not yet translated to running to the bathroom to pee there, but hey, it's a good first step.

The other resident of our household who comes up when we talk about peeing and bed-sharing has been Timber the cat, who will sleep somewhat unobtrusively near the foot or middle of our bed until I get up in the middle of the night to pee.  And when I get back he has stretched himself out to take my spot, and decides it's play-attack time when I try to squeeze my way back in.

Otherwise, not too much news.  My mom and bro were here for Passover (see photos below, and also one from Mike's mom's visit a few months back, which got lost somewhere along the way). 


Eytan "pushing" us on the sled


With Rafi


With Kathy

Eytan is just getting over a bad cold/flu thing (a week of fever followed by so far a week of coughing), which I have also caught (although I think everyone else has been safe so far?). Anyway, the goal is to move it on out of the household before new potential babyface comes along.  Mike's classes are still going, and he's planning to start the teaching program in the fall.  My classes are winding down, which means spring and summer are in theory on their way.  No new places to live yet, but we're looking around.

I'll leave you with a few videos.  One from the appropriately named "blue slide" playground we went to the other day.

And a couple of new dancing videos

Decisions...

So... what's new?  I went to D.C. with my agricultural policy class -- 15 students in a big university van descending on Capitol  Hill.

It was kind of funny, and good for the students to get to meet and talk to people involved in farm bill politics, I think. For me it was okay too, a little tiring (4 weeks to go 'til potential new baby theoretically arrives), and a little separation-anxiety-y for me not to get to see Eytani for three whole days... but he, of course, did fine, and he got to hang out much both with papa and with visiting safta... and it was good practice for all of us, I'm sure :)

What else?  Mike was accepted to a masters in teaching program (masters and teaching certificate in one year), a bachelors in nursing program (conversion from non-nursing to nursing bachelors in one year), and was wait-listed at a medical (doctor of osteopathy) school, all near pittsburgh.  So he's in the midst of deciding lots of things... (although i'd say the lean is towards teaching, so far...).

**Photo interlude of Eytan gathering his things (hat, pacifier with attached duck, and potty/briefcase), saying goodbye to us, and getting ready to leave (for work? school? outing?).  Sometimes the routine involves kissing the cat goodbye too.





Meanwhile, we're starting to look for places to move (in the area but not in the city), both because our landlord wants to rent our current apartment out to students starting this summer (he can put more students in here and presumably charge more rent) and (mostly) because urban life doesn't seem to suit us so much right now.  There are, of course, conveniences -- walking to work, Mike being closer to classes, less car time for Eytan, nearby playgrounds...

But we miss being able to walk out the front door in bare feet and be outside.  And we miss being able to have animals and gardens... not that we currently have tons of spare time, but we also don't really take advantage of city things all that much either (restaurants, movies, museums, concerts, etc.).  So it's operation look-for-housing and operation bring-the-goats-east time.  The only tricky part seems to be finding a place not too too too far a commute that will let us keep farm animals and that is more rural than suburban -- zoning seems to be, unsurprisingly, more restrictive here than in Wenatchee.

**Photo interlude: To contradict what I just said, here's a picture from a diner chain in the area that we decided to try out.  Eytan decided the best part was eating the butter.  And below a picture from the aviary where Mike and Eytan went with our neighbor and their 2-year-old.





It also looks like I'm going to be teaching a class on dairy in the fall, so I'm trying to get some leverage for housing the goats somewhere (our theoretical new place to live? the farm campus?) by building them into the class (well, and I think they'd be a really good complement to the class).  It is one of the nice things about my job, the melding of academic stuff with hands-on stuff (i.e. I can totally justify, and am encouraged to justify, having goat-milking and cheese-making be part of my syllabi just like reading and writing are part of it).  See photo below, for example, I sat in this semester on a meat production class that involved seven weeks at a lamb farm and slaughterhouse, with the last week being a lamb-cooking party.  Really interesting too to cook under the instruction of a chef who can tell you why to cook things a certain way and how...

Other than that, not much to report.  So I'll leave you til next time with a last photo interlude of pictures that daycare sent home, one of Eytan's class and the class next door eating lunch together, and one of art projects.

Not a ton to report...

Just a few little updates.

Spring semester is in full swing here for me, and it's still busy, but I'd say definitely better than it was in the fall -- reading is more manageable and I'm able to stay a little ahead on things without working at all waking hours.  I still often do some catch-up in the evenings or weekends, but we're at least heading in the right direction.

Mike is taking anatomy & physiology and pharmacology in case he decides to go to nursing school in the fall, and two educational psych classes online in case he decides to go to teaching school in the fall, and waiting to hear back from those programs as well as medical school type options.  Will be an interesting decision-making season in a few months I think...

Eytan is running around, saying more words, liking daycare a bit more it seems, being a big fan of things like cooking, music, and trying on big shoes, and generally being cute.  One of his recent favorites is to put on a hat and pick up a backpack and say bye to mike and i and head for the door (to go to work or school, presumably)...

This last photo is the Pittsburgh Children's Museum, which has a water exhibit, of which Mr. Eytan is a big fan because it involves water.

Winter-wise, we've had some snow, on and off, and so have learned that sleds are perhaps even more fun to use indoors than outdoors.

Although it's a little hard to push the mama on the sled indoors.

 

And we've had some winter visitors, my mama and grandpa when it was snowy and icy...

And Mike's mom a few weeks later when it was warm and green.

So, that's about it... not a ton more going on than that... perhaps more exciting stuff next month?

Back and forth

Well, we're back in Pittsburgh after nice travels back to Washington.  And it's snowy here, which is exciting, since it was more like hovering around 50 degrees when we left.  In Washington, of course, it was quite snowy too.

While Eytan had not been a big fan of snow in Minnesota (well, he was okay with it until he fell and found it cold and wet), he adjusted quite well in Washington, which was useful.  It was really nice to see the goats again, and easier with Eytan being  more mobile around them (and able to bark at them... as goats are easily confusable with dogs, you know).

 

 

Since the goats had to be moved from their temporary home in Moses Lake, we had a bit of a complicated arrival, flying into Spokane at at 2am west coast time (i.e. 5am east coast time, delays delays), sleeping a few hours, driving the couple of hours to Moses Lake, renting a Uhaul, and driving the next couple of hours to bring the goats back home.  We weren't quite sure what we would do with them when left again, though, as we hadn't been able to find another temporary home for them from afar... leading possibility was that we would leave them with friends in Wenatchee for a couple of weeks, and then a couple of students of mine would hopefully fly out in January and drive them (in a vehicle we had yet to find) across country on a winter road trip.  

Would the students be able to make the trip?  Not totally clear.  Would we find a vehicle that would work to drive them that far in winter?  Also unclear.  Would we have a place to put them when they arrived in PA?  Unclear too.  Needless to say it was all a bit of a question mark.  Luckily, shortly after arriving, we found friends of a friend in Leavenworth with too much hay and too few goats, who were excited to take them for a bit. So later in the week, we rented another Uhaul and drove them there, to spend the winter and spring with a few other goats and a goose.

 


I know, it's a lot of trouble for goats.  They are nice goats, though...

Anyway, aside from the goat dramas, our trip was good.  I got a bunch of work done for my orchard pesticide safety grant.  And we got to see some friends.  And camp out in our house.  And check out the stars.  It felt like being home... (I know, I know, we've only been in Pittsburgh 2 months, of course it doesn't feel like home yet... and all the things that we didn't like about Wenatchee are still there alongside the things we liked... and my job and Mike's school are good reasons for us to stay east for a bit... but still).

And after about a week, we packed up again and drove to Montana (with friend- and bro-visiting in Spokane along the way) to see Mike's bro and family (including new baby).  It's a pretty long drive, so luckily Eytan could help out this time.

And then back to Spokane and back to PA, where we've been transitioning back to eastern time and eastern mode.  Eytan has been saying more words (ca for car, and for cara (face in Spanish), and nana for banana, and nani for mani (peanut), and agua, and cac for sock), and walking around with his backpack on (a gift from the Pittsburgh library system -- which, I have to say, is not quite as friendly as the Wenatchee library system, in that they actually charge late fees and you have to go pick up books in person rather than having them mailed to your house... but, well, I suppose on the other hand they do give away little backpacks).

Timber was very happy to have us home, and has spent as many indoor hours as possible sleeping next to my belly.  He and Eytan have both continued batting at computers and phones and playing with strings, although Eytan has started to get a little jealous when Timber lays claim to a box he likes or goes into the little alcove that they both like to use, and Timber sometimes bats Eytan away when he feels besieged (or wants to play).  So we're all starting to talk more about sharing.

Aside from that, here are a few other pictures from pre-travels -- one from the local conservatory, on a fake tree climbing thingie...

one from Chanukah candle lighting time...

one of Eytan's daycare class painting (they are way more craft-y there than we are at home, which is lovely, although they do seem to spend an awful lot of time taking pictures presumably for the parents... but I guess there are worse things)...

 one leftover from Thanksgiving in Minnesota...

and one really leftover from summer that a friend just gave us when we were back in Wenatchee.  But maybe winter is a good time for reminders of summer anyway.

I think that's pretty much it from here.  I'm getting ready to start classes in another week or so (agricultural policy and research methods), and Mike is getting ready to start classes in another two weeks (prerequisites for teaching and nursing programs, should he decide to go one of those directions in fall), and Eytan will keep doing daycare a couple of days a week.

We are scheduled to have some visitors coming in January, so you'll probably get updates there next time, as well as on how our new somewhat more structured semester is proceeding :)  Best wishes until then!

Wow

So, I've never really liked the cycle and pace of academic school years -- you know, the being crazy crazy crazy busy, then stopping abruptly for a bit, and starting over.  My job here might end up being an improvement over this normal university rhythm, but, well... not quite yet.  As you might be able to tell from my longer-than-usual delay on writing, it's been super busy.  I think it's mostly because the classes I am teaching/co-teaching were originally designed by a sociologist with the humanities-like tendency to assign several hundred pages of reading a week per class (I had had a say in the syllabi too, of course, but I had forgotten, I think, what it takes to read so much at once).  And so, I've been kind of drowning in reading the last two months. 

But I think that if I'm smart in writing my syllabi for next semester (agricultural policy class and research methods), I can make it a bunch more manageable.  At least that's the goal.  Because I don't mind working, but my sticking with this job for any length of time is going to be somewhat contingent on finding a better balance than the probably more typical academic-y-ness of working just about every evening and weekend...  I'll let you know how it goes.

Aside from the workload, though, I think my job is actually pretty good.  It's hard to say because it's still new, but so far, it seems about a million times better than my last job (which wasn't bad, but ended up being kind of boring and pointless-feeling a lot of the time) -- the stuff I'm doing is more interesting to me, and more interesting to the people I work with, the people I interact with are interested in somewhat similar things, or at least things that are more of interest to me, and so it's probably just easier for me to see the point of what I'm doing on a daily basis...

And even though for the last 10 years I kind of sought out being the lone "person thinking about social/societal issues" in a sea of natural scientists, it's really nice not to have to play that role here at all.  There's a lot of interest in and potential for hands-on stuff alongside the book learning (applied classes, farm campus work, travel courses (?)), and people collaborate and brainstorm together a lot, which was something I had hoped for other places but rarely saw (at least not in the way I might have liked).  Not to say it's perfect or anything, but there's potential.

Meanwhile, I had promised you in previous posts a view of our place from outside -- we're the second floor of windows in the house on the right in this picture.  Down the block is a nice park with a playground. 



And I've attached a video of Eytan walking around mostly because it shows a lot of the layout inside.



So, it's very nice, although I think have to stick with my last assessment of ultimately probably too urban for us... I'll keep you posted on the more-rural-place-to-move-to-next-summer search.

You may also have noticed above that Eytan was kind of excited to be walking around in shoes.  He has in fact gotten quite adjusted to shoes, and really likes putting them on and taking them off, especially if they are about 15 sizes too big.





Other recent developments include taking our hands or holding onto our pant legs to lead us places he wants to go, and as previously, continuing to get along pretty nicely with Timber, pulling his tail and kindly offering to share his pacifier.



Eytan also continues to be super excited about anything that looks or seems like a phone (which is interesting, because while Mike and I do talk on the phone, it's not super often -- but it is, I suppose, something which rings and we go to it, a compelling sequence in and of itself).  So we often end up leaving old (unconnected) phones around the house for playing with.  The following is one he picked up at a friend's when we visited Minnesota for Thanksgiving.

Below are a few more pictures from that trip.  The backstory to them is that the jumpsuit Eytan is wearing was Mike's from when he was little, and Mike was trying to get a parallel picture to one he has of his grandma holding him in that jumpsuit.  Eytan wasn't quite ready to sit still for it, but this was one attempt.

And he (and we) did get to spend some time hanging out with bunches of relatives and friends.

What else?  I guess a lot of the rest of what we've been doing has been continuing to adjust and settle in.  We've gotten used to buying eggs again rather than getting them from our chickens, and have found a way to bring our food scraps to the farm campus of my school to compost rather than have to adjust to throwing them out.  I'm probably used to the fact by now that when I go running and hear a rustle beside the path, it's more likely to be a squirrel than a snake. 

Eytan's front tooth (which had been pushed back up into his gums a couple of months ago when he fell face first onto a bucket as we were packing to leave Wenatchee (in a scary bleedy episode where we had thought it had been knocked out until the dentist did an x-ray and found it hidden back way up there)), has been coming back down quite nicely into its normal spot.  He has also started daycare twice a week, which has let him hang out with more kids and let Mike have a little more time to work on things on his end.  Mike will be taking classes in January and then ideally starting some more official yet-to-be-determined school program in the fall.

Although Mike and Eytan have probably seen a bit more of the city than I have so far, I have done a little bit of Pittsburgh area exploring through work, primarily agricultural/food tourism on class field trips -- one to a pig/cow farm, and a coffee roaster, and a lamb farm (which turned into a surprise visit to a slaughterhouse in West Virginia, which freaked out a few of my especially vegetarian students -- see third photo below).

So, what else can I say?  I guess there are pluses and minuses so far of life in Pittsburgh.  There are aspects that are certainly more convenient than living in Olalla Canyon -- eating Thai food on occasion (even takeout), for example, or walking to a supermarket, or having universities nearby where Mike can go back to school, or having much much much shorter flights to anywhere east of the west coast or mountain region. 

But I would say on the whole, "quality of life" is probably not as good here as it was in Wenatchee -- in terms of open-space, traffic, affordability, access to medical care, etc. (the care itself I think is better here, probably technologically and knowledge-wise several years ahead of Wenatchee, but the beaurocracy of having to wait forever in crowded waiting rooms and having the office misplace your appointment and not be willing to do much about it and having to go from one department to the other trying to find lost paperwork feels like a long way from showing up at the doctor's office where you know everyone, and being in and out in 20 minutes -- I guess the moral of the story is that if you have something requiring serious or complicated medical attention you're probably better off being here (which I guess is why in Wenatchee they would send you to Seattle for that), but for routine care I'd choose Wenatchee hands down). 

I guess, in short, I miss our old digs.  There are definitely parts I don't miss -- work, other odds and ends -- and those are probably many of the reasons why we came.  But there are times where a geographical transporter machine would come in handy :) :).  But, kind of along those lines, we head back to WA next week, and again next summer for lingering grant commitments.  And who knows, perhaps with some workload management at my job and a potential move outside the city proper, Pittsburgh will grow on us too.

Meanwhile, one second-to-last bit of news, which I will as usual bury deep in the middle of a long post, is that assuming all continues to go well, Mike and Eytan and I are all expecting the arrival of another kiddo in early to mid April (well, Eytan may or may not quite be expecting it per se, but...).  We are excited, and so far all seems good on that front, as I am just starting not to fit into normal clothes any more.  Ah well.

Last but not least, I'm leaving you with a few more Eytan videos.  He has gotten super fond recently of music, and has figured out that when you put a CD into the big brown box (or more accurately ask someone taller than you to do that), music comes out.  The dancing started as back and forth swaying whenever there's any sort of recorded music or people singing...

 

...and has recently become more complex.

The most recent move, as you can see below, is a squat, which is always better when someone else does it with you.

So that's it for now.  Hope to send you more pictures and updates when we get back from trip west.