Introducing....

Whew!  I can't believe its been almost a month since this news actually happened, but what they say about a second child joining your family is correct!  Chaos has come to stay for a bit.  I'll go back and update a few more things as I have time, but for now, here is Addie's birth story finally!

Miss Adeline Paige joined the family on Thursday, July 21st at 6:48am.  Coincidentally, July 21st was her estimated due date!  Even more shocking is the fact that the second it hit midnight (and I mean exactly) my contractions started at 6-8 minutes apart and ended at 6:48am when she was born...less than 7 hours later!!  It was a very intense and fast process, but there was very little drama and she did beautifully through the whole thing.  It was a long and drawn out story that started Wednesday morning at 6:45am when I woke up to get showered and ready to bring Noah over to Miss Nancy's house for the day.  The second I got up out of bed, I felt a little gush and as I ran to the bathroom, there were a couple of more little ones that followed.  This was a repeat performance from when Noah was born.  I KNEW my water had broken, but was told to call the doctor's office to go in for confirmation.  Wouldn't you know that once I got to the office, I couldn't turn any of their test papers blue, they couldn't see the ferning pattern of amniotic fluid on the slides, and when I had an ultrasound of my amniotic fluid levels, there was no significant drop from normal levels.  Of course when they tested my fluid levels, it was almost 6 hours after my water broke, which is plenty of time for the fluid to replenish itself.  I spent the entire morning in the office with nothing to show for it.  By 5pm, I received a call from the office to head over to labor and delivery to repeat all of the tests that I had already done earlier in the day.  After about 5 hours in triage at Labor and Delivery, still not turning test strips blue, walking the halls, and a couple of additional hours of listening to a little baby's heartbeat on the monitors, the residents discharged me saying that they could neither confirm nor deny that my water broke and that I was showing no imminent signs of delivering.  I can't remember a time when I have been that discouraged and angry.  Keep in mind that I have called my parents to drive in from Maine (a 7 hour drive) and have pulled Tim out of work for the day all for people to tell me that I perhaps don't know what I am talking about and that I should go home and wait for something more interesting to happen.

Flash forward a couple of hours, we were back at home and getting ready for bed.  No sooner did I lay down in bed when I had a really strong and painful contraction.  Tim was trying to read me some of Harry Potter series.  A couple more contractions later and I decided that perhaps we should time the contractions.  I hadn't right away because I had been having really irregular contractions since the previous Tuesday.  Over a week of false labor mind you got me really hesitant to time anything, never mind call back and report anything.  After 2 straight hours of contractions 6-8 minutes apart, I finally called into the after hours line and got ahold of my favorite midwife, Janet.  She urged me strongly to go back in.  By the time we got back in at 3am, I was sent directly into a labor and delivery room (at least a step up from the trip earlier).  At 3:30, I was checked and was 4 cm dilated, 80% effaced and -2 station (earlier in the day at the doctor's office I was 2 cm dilated, 50% effaced and -3 station) and I earned an admittance to stay...we were finally going to have a baby!  I was hoping to see how far I could go without an epidural, but with very few expectations.  I had to be monitored for contractions and the little lady's heart rate in order to earn my way off of continuous monitoring, which wasn't an issue at all.  About an hour later, I had my choice of places to labor.  I headed into the whirlpool tub and turned on the jets.  While the water did ease some of the tension, the pain was still there in a significant way and after about an hour or so of contractions in the tub, I headed back to the room in hopes of getting some epidural relief.  Sadly, by that time I was 8-9 cm dilated.  The midwife suggested we finish breaking my bag of water in the hopes that it was the bag of water pushing on my cervix and without it there labor would slow down enough to get the epidural in.  Unfortunately, once she broke my bag of water instead of slowing down, I dilated completely and was ready to push with no time for an epidural!!  I asked for some IV medication to help through the pushing and ended up with a blown IV access point and a bit of Stadol under my skin and that is all.  Twenty minutes of pushing later, and an epic amount of pain I cannot possibly describe and Adeline was born at an amazing 8 lbs, 12 oz, 20 and half inches in length, with a 36cm head, much bigger than we were expecting and almost a pound more than Noah at birth.  

babywearing so I can still get things done around the house and play with Noah while keeping Addie close, but for now, we are thoroughly enjoying our new addition to the family!
    

Negotiating the next step

Now that everything is official, or as official as it is going to get until the signed contract arrives in the mail, I can officially announce that I have accepted a position for a tenure-track (permanent, as opposed to a temporary visiting) full-time position as an Assistant Professor in the psychology department at a teaching-focused school in upstate New York. While this is certainly not my dream job at a small liberal arts college in New England, its is an excellent opportunity for me to gain some much needed teaching experience and to prove my merit as an outstanding educator on top of being able to do quality research. I will be teaching 3 courses in the fall semester, one Research Methods course and 2 sections of an Aging class, which will both be new preparations for me. I'll be a very busy person once we arrive in the area. Obviously, this is certainly a relief to have finally landed a position for next year, but it is bittersweet as well given that we will be making a big move away from family, friends, a position that I LOVE at Boston College, an area we are familiar with, and in some ways most distressingly Nana Lou (she is a daily comfort that gives us the knowledge that Noah is safe, happy, and loved there). I am viewing this as a necessary detour that will hopefully give us the opportunity to end up in a place where we all want to be long-term. Who knows, maybe I will end up loving it there and we will settle down and stay. I may stay a few years and look again with a more competitive and well-rounded application package, time will tell. I don't promise sunshine and rainbows as we plan for and survive this transition, so please make an effort in my less optimistic periods to remind me that this is what is best for us all in the long run and bear with me as I attempt not to lose my mind!

Set as an example!

How cool is this?!?! A couple of years ago, my advisor and I published a paper about how older adults process emotional images. It came out in a journal called Psychology and Aging. It was a short paper, just one experiment, but a very clean result that was very interesting in reference to the other results being published at the time. Flash forward 2 years. In June I get an email from a higher-up in the writing style section of the American Psychological Association. They indicate that some portion of my manuscript will be included in the newest revision of the Publication Manual for the American Psychological Association. They also state that I will receive a complimentary copy of the new manual in gratitude for my work appearing (since APA owns the journal Psychology and Aging and in order to publish any paper you have to turn over copyrights to the manuscript to the journal, they could very well do whatever they wanted with my paper with or without my permission). In any case over the last couple of weeks, I have been receiving congratulatory emails regarding my paper being included in the manual and not having received my complimentary copy, I had no clue what people were talking about. I finally got my hands on a copy and discovered that the entire manuscript was included in the manual as a sample 1-experiment study. Essentially, they have used our paper to illustrate all of the formatting and style intricacies used by any researcher who wish to publish in scientific journals! Its nice to finally know what people are talking about. If you want to see for yourself, check out this link. (**Disclaimer, sometimes the link works, sometimes it doesn't, just check back in a few minutes if you get an error message**)

We don't own a house, but Noah does

Based on Noah's love affair with being outside, Tim and I decided this weekend that perhaps we needed to start filling out the space in the backyard. If you remember from last year, we still have the cute little swing attached to the back porch. That is as popular as ever, if not more so.
Please see Exhibit A:

He will literally stand below the swing pointing up at it and grunting emphatically until you put him up in there and start pushing. He laughs hysterically and loves every minute of it. Dare you try and take him out before he is properly finished, the little dude will clutch the red bar with his feet and start pulling it back towards himself indicating that you should abandon all plans of removing him from the swing and instead reattach the safety clips and resume the swinging if you don't mind. And if you do mind, too bad for you...a temper tantrum will be invoked upon your sorry soul. He is a man who clearly has no opinions about anything.

Incidentally, here is a picture of one such tantrum. This was from Sunday when I brought the little man inside for lunch. He had been up for close to 5 hours at this point, and had played hard that morning. I had to physically remove him from the swing when it got to be 11:45am. Lunch needed to be eaten before all heck broke loose. He threw the conniption fit on the kitchen floor and then surprisingly decided that the next appropriate action would be to remove one of my bras from the dirty laundry basket waiting to go down stairs and put it around his neck. He then walked around the kitchen following me about 4 inches behind and whining pathetically while "wearing" the bra. Someday when he is 18 and bigger than me, I am going to threaten to haul this out and show his girlfriend if he gives me any trouble!!


In order to provide some alternate types of activities to engage in while in the backyard, we decided to look around for a climbing structure or a playhouse of some sort. I called a few of the grandparents and put the word out that we were looking for something and would they mind casually checking out a couple of yard sales. A couple hours later, Pepere B. is on the phone saying they would help out if we wanted to buy a new one. After a bit of searching around and reading some reviews, I found one that looked nice and didn't involve a $199 shipping charge (are you kidding me...really people??? Almost $200 in shipping charges for an item that was listed at $269...I'll pass thanks!).

Here is Noah checking out the one we decided on. Tim picked it up Saturday night while I put the dude down for bed. Not only did he have to take the whole thing out of the box to fit it in the car, but he also had to tie the two biggest pieces to the roof. It was a sight to behold. Too bad it was too dark to take a good picture of the situation. We assembled it in the backyard by the light of Pepere L.'s insanely bright work lights so that it was ready to be enjoyed Sunday. No one spoils the little dude...nope, not him.

"Yes, can I help you? Oh no, this bank doesn't give out money, it only accepts deposits...we take cash, animal crackers, goldfish snacks, and Nutragrain bars! Got any of those???"

This last picture should actually be in the swimming post, since it happened on Monday, but I liked all of the swimming pictures together and didn't want a random picture of Noah dressed in there. Both Tim and I knew this was bound to happen one of these times, the transition from 2 naps a day to 1 has been going about as well as can be expected with such an active little dude. Here is what happens when you spend the morning at swim class, then playing in the backyard nonstop for a hour. We got most of lunch in him, but when Memere L. went to go get some fruit and the clean up towel, the day's activities just seemed to catch up to him and he fell asleep sitting up in his highchair. I wonder if there is a baby that has managed to escape toddlerhood without a picture like this being taken. Classic and too cute not to share.

This afternoon I give my final exam to my class and after the grading is done I can wash my hands of all of the extra stress teaching has brought me this semester. I intend on giving myself a nice pedicure in the next few days so that I can enjoy my cute painted toes for Mother's Day on Sunday.

Love, hate, and some where in between

An early summer hit here in New England and it was SO worth the wait!  We had fun plans and outings lined up for the weekend, and the weather did not disappoint.  Saturday started off cool, but by afternoon, it was sunny and almost 85!  Sunday's weather was almost identical!  Memere & Pepere B. drove down on Saturday to hang out for the day and attend BC's yearly Arts Festival.  We have gone every year since I started working there and it hasn't disappointed yet.  Its a great way to get out for the day, enjoy some spring weather and see some free performances.  I even get a chance to shop for jewelry...sadly, I didn't fall in love with anything this year.  The wee man had a blast toodling around campus with Pepere while Memere and I were checking out the jewelry and the pottery.  It was nice to have Pepere back with us, he missed out on Easter with some nasty cold induced vertigo.  He still weaves and swerves a bit, but its nothing we can't pass off with a few jokes of hitting the vanilla extract a little too hard (long back story on the vanilla extract...its a family jokes we've had going for years).  We stayed at the festival for a couple of hours and then got a chance to have the first cookout of the season...the hamburgers and potato salad were such a treat after a long and very snowy winter.  On Sunday we spent the morning playing outside in the yard and we managed to sell our old tank-esque mountain bikes that haven't been ridden in 4+ years.  It was pretty amazing actually.  I posted the ad on craigslist later Saturday night and within and hour we had 6-8 people trying to stake a claim.  By Sunday at lunch time, the bikes were gone to a new home and we had a little money to put to our planned new bike purchase.  The plan was to get rid of the tanks, which we obviously weren't using, in favor of some reasonable, lighter weight, and more comfortable bikes with a child seat and helmets all around.  After lunch and a nap, we executed said plan.  Tim and I ended up with matchy matchy bikes coincidentally (apparently, they don't feel the need to stock reasonably priced women's bikes for women over 5'2".  I ended up with a men's bike so that my knees weren't hitting the handle bars when I turn.  So far Tim and I are in love!  They needed a bit of adjusting to install the Noah seat, but after our first ride tonight, I can see them getting some serious mileage...what a fun family activity and a nice way to celebrate the end of a very long and stressful semester.  (LOVE)

So tonight we went out for our first ride now that everything is installed and ready to go.  Being that we are all on bikes, we all wear helmets...even the smallest member of the house.  We found a great helmet that is fully adjustable (and its massively easy to adjust), so it should fit him for a couple of seasons.  Unfortunately, Noah is not so much of a fan of the helmet.  He (HATES) the helmet.  He spent the first solid 10 minutes of the bike ride, which should have been amazingly fun, screaming his head off and trying to rip the helmet off his head.  Once he finally cooled down a bit, I got a look and saw that it needed to be tightened a tad so that it wouldn't keep drifting down near his eye.  Of course adjustments would require that he sit still long enough and not continually attempt to rip the thing off.  This is a work in progress and hopefully, Noah will get the drift that a helmet is non-negotiable and the suffering of a helmet is worth the fun of the ride.  Time will tell.

Finally, Noah and I had our first Baby & Me swim class at the Boy's & Girl's club!  I had a blast, Noah...meh, he could take it or leave it at this point (SOME WHERE IN BETWEEN).  When we first got in the pool I was holding him on my hip, the water hit him and I instantly felt him tighten his grip on me.  We played around and bounced a little before the class actually started and he grew clingy-er and more like a suction cup.  During the class, there was a lot of bouncing and singing and attempting to get the wee man excited about the water.  He wasn't having it until we played Humpty Dumpty (you know, sitting on a wall, "jumping" into the water when Humpty fell), then he was having it, laughing and smiling.  All was well with the world then.  Then we moved onto free play, and he was back to not really caring much about being in the water.  Right before the class finished, we did the Hokey Pokey, and instead of putting arms and legs in, his teeth chattered! :)  Poor dude.  He certainly didn't seem miserable, and this is his first organized class type experience, so hopefully, with some more exposure, he'll start to like it more and get more excited about the whole thing.

It's about time little dude!!

So we reached a new milestone. It is one that we have been waiting for since he was about 9 months old or so....or since Nana Lou told us that he would be walking before Thanksgiving. Then it was going to be before his birthday. Then maybe Christmas.....well..you get the idea. Noah on the other hand had other plans. He figured out how to pull himself up into a standing position really quickly. Heck, he loved to cruise along the furniture, or even to walk if you were holding both his hands (on his terms of course!), but the little guy just refused to let go, take the leap, and walk across the room. He was perfectly content dropping down to the hands and knees and crawling along. Those days have finally come to an end, and I feel like we can say with a fair amount of certainty that Noah is finally walking!! He started doing it on a regular basis on Tuesday night while I was at class, and it was kindly requested that I capture the moment today, and I did. So for all of your viewing pleasures I present Noah, the upright wonder (well, sort of)!!

Running updates from the world of chaos

So I realized this evening that I haven't posted much of anything at all in over a week and since I do enjoy reading all of the updates from the blogs I follow, I figured it was pretty crappy of me to a) not post something cute about what the wee man is up to, and b) not post something interested about the lives of the rest of the household, so here we go in bullet form to save time.

Wee Man News

• The wee man is taking independent steps occasionally...this is not making the monumental news list since he literally needs to be propped up hanging on to something to start and then coaxed over the gap with promises of college tuition and a car on his 16th birthday! :)  He is, shall we say, slow to warm up to the usefulness of upward mobility.  He seems perfectly happy to cruise along the furniture where it is safe and sound and then crawl on the floor across greater unsupported distances to get where he needs to go.  Make NO mistake, the child gets where he needs to go, and he actually possesses the ability to outsmart us occasionally and gets places he knows he shouldn't be, but desperately wants to go anyway.  For example, earlier this week, Tim was working on things in the kitchen and I was hanging out playing in the living room with him.  He took off for the greener pastures in the kitchen and stopped along the way through the dining room to harass my laptop bag (which he knows he shouldn't be touching).  He waited long enough for me to become occupied by picking up the laptop bag and relocating it out of his reach before he took off like a bat out of Hades for the kitchen.  He almost succeeded, he made it as far as the doorway through to the kitchen before I caught up with him.  Little sneak!  So as far as we are concerned, he'll walk when he is good and darn ready, whenever that happens to be. 
• For a while now, the little dude has been making more and more sounds that are getting closer and closer to words.  During mealtimes, he has gotten really adamant about pointing to whatever it is he wants a bite of next.  Points at the applesauce, feed him applesauce, he happily takes a bite.  Points at applesauce, try to feed him a bite of cottage cheese because that is what is already on your spoon, he refuses the bite, turns his head and purses his lips..."No dice momma, I pointed at the apple sauce...I believe I made my intentions quite clear!"  Its cute more of the time to see him exert such independence and nice to know that we are well on the way down the road to real human communication.  What isn't so nice is when he points repeatedly at the cookie that daddy happens to be eating in the near vicinity.  What is terribly cute is when you inevitably give him a bite of something he wants and he looks at you with a big old grin and says "Mmmmmmm."
• In other Noahisms, he has officially entered the most mommycentric stage we have seen yet.  Things are fine as long as I am schlepping his 22 pound hiney around with me every where.  No putting him down to pee, to make his lunch, to drop him off with the previously beloved Nana Lou.  Nope, nothing doing...he clings on with both hands and feet.  Nana Lou literally  peeled him off of me on Tuesday morning so I could actually make it out to get to work.  Hopefully the guilt-ridden drop offs are an infrequent occurrence, even if I kind of love the baby cling-on that so desperately wants to be near me...to be attached to me all the time.  How can a momma not love all that undivided wee man loving?
• Random Noah news, he has abandoned the traditional sippy cup in favor of the straw sippy variety.  Strange as these are for the most part labeled for toddlers ages 2+, but seriously, am I going to stop him??? No.  He was hardly ever drinking anything out of those other cups and I was constantly helping him to tip them back far enough to get anything out of them.  Now I just fill it up, hand it off and he is on his way.  He frankly seems much happier with them and spends a great deal more time drinking out of them and a great deal less time throwing them on the floor...Bonus for us!   

Other Family News

• I got an email at the end of last week with an invitation for an on-campus interview at Assumption on Jan 26th...meaning a number of things, a) I successfully navigated the 2nd phone interview grill session with the search committee at the beginning of the month, b) I officially made it down to the final 2 or 3 candidates, and traditionally any candidate invited to campus would be a suitable hire, c) the great stressfest of 2009 has officially begun! :)
• I taught my first class today as an instructor at B.C.!  How cool is it that students are referring to me as Professor???  It went well in terms of the class period itself, but the logistics were a bit of a nightmare.  The university assigned me to teach in a classroom that only had 14 chairs...too bad there were 20 students!  Um, not good.  So after teaching for an hour and a half, I ran around campus for 3 hours trying to get a bigger classroom (or at least one with more chairs), which required a stop off at the main office, a call to room assignments (yes...that is their official title, real original huh?), the chick at room assignments gave me an open option in Higgins 275, so I bundled up (cause it just so happens to be the coldest day of the winter so far), ran over to look at Higgins 275, confirmed that it was a perfect room (enough chair, pretty new building, high-powered technology wired and ready to go), I stopped off at Media Services to exchange my media key (to access said high-powered technology) for the old classroom and get a media key for the new classroom.  I stopped back at the main office to speak with the secretary who called room assignments back to confirm the change.  The same lady we spoke with earlier and told us about Higgins 275 now swears up and down that 275 is not the room she said, she insists she said Higgins 265.  What??  So now I run back to Higgins to confirm that 265 is also an acceptable room (remember it is like 12 out...with a wind chill of like -10 or so?), stop back at Media services to re-exchange my media key and get one for Higgins 265.  Then I get to spend the next hour or so trying to figure out which on-line campus class roster is correct so that I can email my class to tell them not to go to the old classroom on Tuesday and instead come to Higgins 275...I mean 265...right?  What a way to lose and afternoon!

And now we wait

I had my second phone interview with Assumption College today, with the 5 member search committee. How intimidating could that have possibly been, to have 5 face-less voices grilling you about your career goals, your teaching philosophy, your views of the importance of the Catholic church in an undergraduate's education (whether I agree with the importance or not, this is still a private school founded by the Augustinian's who are indeed Catholic), what are my needs in terms of start-up equipment and costs, and on and on and on. The interview lasted for about 45 minutes or so, and I did get the chance to ask a few more questions, one of which included an idea of the remainder of the interview process. It appears as though the top 2-3 candidates will be invited to campus for an official interview with the department head, the search committee, a bunch of big wig administrators, and to give a job talk. The mere thought of all of this leaves me wishing I had a glass of wine. But, I guess the moral of the story is that I can't get a job without surviving the job search process, so I will be wishing for impending stress in the form of an on-campus interview I guess. The timeline appears to be fairly quick with interviews taking place at the beginning of their semester, which begins Jan. 20th. Hopefully we can work it around my teaching schedule, but we'll cross that bridge down the road a bit!

Excellent News!

I have finally gotten some excellent news from the job hunt front!  I got an email a couple days ago requesting a phone interview for Assumption College (which if you don't know is in Worcester, MA).  Its a small, private, Catholic College VERY similar to Stonehill, where I did my undergraduate degree.  I had a lovely chat with the chair of the search committee, who seemed quite excited about my teaching and research interests and was really interested in my desire to involve undergrads in active research projects.  I learned a bit about the department and about the undergraduate community there.  It seems like a wonderful place to be.  Perhaps if things continue to go well, Tim and I will have to take a little drive up to Worcester to check the place out!  I am scheduled for a second phone interview next week with the whole 5 person search committee this time and am looking forward to hopefully being able to share more exciting news!

Exciting News!

Just wanted to post some exciting news from families other than our own for a change! I just got word last night that my good friend from graduate school, Alison, has successfully transitioned from being very pregnant to mommy...of twins! Tim and I are so happy and excited for both Alison and Justin and are sending lots of love and prayers their way. Alexander James (Xander) was born 10/23 and weighed 6 lbs., 1 oz. and Hannah Elizabeth was born 3 minutes later, weighing 4 lbs., 15 oz. Hannah is now home with mom and dad, while Xander is still in the NICU while he finishes getting over a bit of early respiratory distress. I know I can say that I am amazed at Alison's strength and courage enduring 36 weeks of pregnancy with two small people! Both Alison and Justin will make wonderful parents and Xander and Hannah are so lucky to have found their way into a such a loving and welcoming home! Congratulations and we can't wait to see more pictures! :)

Gracious, he walks!

So, Noah walks now. Not independently without holding on mind you, but it is still exciting to watch. In lieu of pictures for this post, which really wouldn't do the milestone justice, Tim has graciously assisted and we have for the first time ever some video!!! Yes, people, this is exciting! :) I will admit, it is a very short video, but that is our fault...we were too dumbfounded and he was too quick for us to pull our act together. We figured it was about time the little dude got a push toy and so as not to spoil any fun for his birthday and/or Christmas, we got him something that we hadn't given ideas to anyone for. Its a very cool grocery cart that plays music, counts, and sings the alphabet. We figured it was pretty fitting given his Daddy's line of work and all!

So, no sooner did we get the thing assembled and put it in front of him, Noah grabbed right onto the handles and took off across the living room!! We were shocked and very excited to say the least. Tim finally got it together enough to pull out the video camera and, for your viewing pleasure, we present to you a very short clip of the wee man tooling along doing some groceries (too bad he doesn't pay for his own food!).

Enjoy! We certainly did. By the end of the weekend, he had made it (with some Daddy hovering to make sure no wee man was harmed) all the way from the living room to the kitchen where I was cleaning up! It was pretty cool, and of course he thought he was just the greatest (which he is of course).

The application is out!

In my obsessive search for faculty job postings, I saw that UNE had updated their website to reflect the new faculty posting in the psychology department. The traditional materials were requested, a cover letter, a CV, and reference letters. I included a couple of extra things, like my research statement and teaching philosophy to bolster my case and sent the application out late this morning! Wish me luck...I would love to end up back in Maine!

WOOOOO HOOOOOO!!!!!!!

Exciting news to share...so exciting I can hardly type in full sentences!!! I did my customary job search for my Friday afternoon (right before I leave because I don't feel like doing any other work) activity and I FOUND MY POSTING!!!!! It is out finally, the Assistant Professor position at the University of New England!!! If you have talked to me recently, you would know that I am currently on the job market, looking for my first REAL job. That is, I have seriously spent the last 11.5 years of my life either in college, graduate school, or in a training fellowship. Now don't you think its about time I got my own real job?? I think so, and perhaps someday we can extend the excitement and actually own a house too...one step at a time though, I wouldn't want to rush into anything.

Anyway, so the posting. I had been advised to contact the chairs of the psychology departments at schools I was really interested in during the late summer months to introduce myself and express my interest in the department should any openings come about. Basically, I get my name out there so if/when my application arrives the name rings a bell! So I got a super nice email back from the chair at UNE saying that a posting would be coming out in October and she strongly encouraged me to apply! This is a very good thing.

Now the reasons I am so excited about UNE are three fold; 1) it is back in Maine and that is ultimately where I want to end up and where I want to raise Noah and any other future small people, 2) it is the perfect size school, small, liberal arts, meaning a lower stress department where I won't feel like I am constantly struggling to be productive enough to make the grade, and 3) it is less than 20 miles from all relevant grandparent type of people....memeres, peperes, nanas, etc. That last point is a huge big deal for me...I not only love to have the social support network, and I enjoy hanging out with family, but I think it is EXTREMELY important that Noah have the opportunity to really get to know all of his grandparents. I only really knew 1 memere and when she passed away in 2005, I felt this huge sense of loss not only for her, but for the role of a grandparent in my life in general. I have no one like that left to share stories with, to learn really cool bits of things from, and no one to continue to provide the M&M dish on the second shelf of the kitchen cabinet (just far enough from small people reach)!

I want SO badly to get this position. So wish me luck and think successful thoughts for me!!! I'll keep you all posted with a blow-by-blow report...thus far, just a posting, still waiting to hear about the application details, deadlines, etc.