Vanishing act

Some basic etiquette when a colleague goes on maternity leave: She is not dead.

If, for example, lab renovations are going to cause her lab space to be completely torn up and covered in plastic sheeting for two weeks, she would probably prefer to learn this news via email, rather than discovering it for herself when she manages to leave the baby in someone else's care so that she can go into work for a few hours.

That is all.

It sounds so obvious when you put it that way

It is really, really hard to read grants when someone is sucking on your nipples.

How our conversations have changed

Dr Jekyll: I never thought that a person who weighs 8 pounds could fart as loudly as a person who weighs 140.

Dr Hyde: It's really amazing, isn't it?

Dr Jekyll: I feel kind of intimidated by it.

Dr Hyde: I've dealt with newborns before but I don't ever remember one that could fart this loudly, or this long.

Dr Jekyll: Yeah, usually babies are impressive at burping, but it's hard to get a good burp out of Small.

Dr Hyde: Our baby saves it up for the other end. We should video it and put it on YouTube. "Amazing Farting Baby."

Dr Jekyll: Yeah, it'll go viral.

Dr Hyde: The Asians will make T-shirts with his face on it.

Dr Jekyll: We'll make our first million!

Dr Hyde: And then there's the ringtones.

Creative technology usage

There have been some strange rustling noises underneath the house. Last year when this happened, it was due to a resident stinky skunk. After waiting one evening past midnight for the skunk to exit, Dr Hyde had carefully blocked up all the entrances to the crawl space with loose bricks, so we were surprised that anything could have gotten back in. But sure enough, some of the bricks in one location were displaced.

Dr H wanted to brick up this entrance again, but I pointed out that if there was another skunk under the house, and it was trapped and died, I would be wrathful in the extreme. How to make sure the beast was gone?

Dr Hyde's solution: he took the baby sound/video monitor, which we usually use to make sure the cat has not smothered the baby, and planted the camera portion outside over the crawl space entrance, running the power cord in through a window. Then he stayed up late with a fussy Small, watching the video monitor.

A little after midnight, an animal exited--a sleek possum. Dr H waited to make sure there were no more possums, then re-bricked up the crawl space.

Today, the camera is still outside, and I am relying on ESP to make sure the cat hasn't leapt into the bassinet.

Some observations

1) When you hear about toothless older folks having to gum their food, you may be left with the impression that this is sad because gums are soft and lack chomping power. This is so very not true.

2) In the first couple of weeks, Small just stared at my armpit while breastfeeding. Now that he is a bit more aware of his world, he often looks sideways up at my face. As only one eye is visible in this position, he bears more than a passing resemblance to a large whale underneath one's boat, gazing upwards at the humans crowding the rail.

3) Wow, do I owe my mother.