Busy day, busy life
Man, today has been pretty busy so far. Got up early to get into church by 8:30 for bell practice, practice 30 minutes, break for 30, practice for 30 more, then 30 off before the service at 11. See today was bell Sunday, and we had 5 separate pieces that we were playing. Tuya Es Gloria, Will the Circle be Unbroken, Amazing Grace (with Taps woven in at one point), Vibrations, and When in our Music God is Glorified. Some went well, others not so much. Thank you very much reasie, oogby and trenchcloak for making the trek down to Akron to watch us.
We then went out to lunch with the afore mentioned Vibbert-Crick clan before heading back up to Cleveland Heights. Since home we have gotten laundry worked on, dishes done, trimmed the hedge and one of the bushes out front, removed one of the bushes from in front of the living room window, and soothed an upset baby to sleep. Next I think I'm going to work on getting that voltage regulator built so that we won't have to deal with D batteries any more on the swing.
Life in general has been pretty busy. My mother palady came up this past Wednesday to babysit Isaac, when we had to go down to church to practice for bell Sunday, and was able to babysit for us while Kari was at work so that I could get extra hours in this week. She unfortunately came down with a cold (I hope you're feeling better Mom!) and left yesterday morning, running between two storm fronts, but not really having to deal extensively with either.
I've been trying to bike into work when it is realistically feasible, but only did it on Friday this past week. I was able to use my new bike though, a Fuji Crosstown 3.0, that my parents got me for my birthday. It rides much smoother and more comfortably than the bike that I got when I was ~11 years old (I think), that I had been using for most of my cycling adventures (a Diamondback Sorento if you're curious). What I have discovered is that I am horribly out of shape. Well, I actually already knew that, but this just reinforces it.
Research is going. I have a paper that needs "major revisions" before it can be accepted to the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics, but the required experiments and edits should be completed in time for the June 15 deadline. I have a draft manuscript that is currently being looked at by two of my advisers for an instrumentation paper. I'm still working, slowly, on my proposal. I'm finally getting the hang of doing streaming potential measurements, so I should be the first person to be able to report on the zeta potential of the silicon nanoporous membranes that I work with. Also, one of my advisers has essentially offered me a job for after I get my degree as a bridge before I find a job in industry. Lots of other stuff is happening, but most of it is either boring or highly technical, so I won't get into it here.
And now to talk about what most people are interested in, Isaac. He is doing quite well these days, weighing in at slightly more than 13.5 lbs. When he was measured on May 6, he was 24 inches long. He has had his first set of immunizations, and definitely did not enjoy the experience, though I wasn't there to witness it. He was quite fussy the next few days as well. Since about 6 weeks, he has been able to support his weight on his legs, though we have to balance him. He seems to be very ahead of the curve on gross motor skills, slightly behind the curve on fine motor skills, and slightly ahead of the curve on verbal skills, at least according to daemon82. She has done more research into skills development than I have.
We are slowly building up a repertoire of stories from our experiences. One of my favorite ones actually occurred while we were still in the hospital in which Kari and I discovered the importance of burping the baby. We have witnessed the benefits of brightly colored books and him flirting with older women (about 2 weeks his senior). We also have some requisite poo stories (including projectile poo that flew over 3 feet, we have photographic evidence).
As we take pictures that we deem to be net worthy/safe (photographic evidence of projectile poo is not net worthy/safe) we have been posting them here. If you only looked at this site when he was first born, you might want to check back, as more have probably been added. One of the things we are doing is taking a picture with him next to his stuffed giraffe, Gishy, at each month. For comparison:
One month:
Two months:
One final thing. I recently joined Twitter, so if you want to follow me, my handle is RossASmith.
Not sure when I'll post again, take care of yourself out there