Still Random But Happier

On Monday I started the year 1 transcripts and it became immediately evident that I would not meet my original goal of finishing morpheme analysis by the end of February. It was a relief, actually, to realize that I had to revise my schedule. Yesterday I had a phone conference with my advisor after the faculty meeting in which they review all the doc students' progress over the past year. I passed. She told me, in fact, that when my file came up, a few of the faculty joked that I should give out time management tips. (There are a couple of PhD students with one child, and one woman who has two children, but I am decidedly an oddity with my five. My only time management tips are to give away the TV and teach the kids to clean bathrooms and load the dishwasher.) We also talked for a while about what comes next. I am working on a timeline that she thinks is ambitious, but she also thought it was ambitious for me to try to get to candidacy before the baby arrived. I'd much rather be shooting for a goal that she thinks is optimistic than be told I needed to meet a deadline that seemed unrealistic to me. So that's good.

It's been almost three weeks since any baby pictures were posted on this blog, which is a situation that must be rectified. I call this one "Baby with Brothers and Laundry." (My MIL has been asking me to dress her in pink and take a picture. I never dress her in baby pink, you might remember, because I have always hated baby pink, but I finally obliged.) Here she is (still in pink! two whole pictures of her in pink!) with her oldest brother; here she is with the youngest. Joe and Pete made her a bed of stuffed animals, which she thought was intriguing and they thought was hilarious. Pete loves, LOVES to hold her and to be photographed holding her; she is sometimes uncertain that this is a good idea.

Alex is making sure that she'll know how to text-message before any of the other babies can do it. Pete's eyes are closed in this one but I love it anyway: he has his shirt hiked up too so he can nurse his baby, who shares his sister's name. I am realizing the 9yo is not in a single one of these recent pictures, which is another situation to rectify.

I was up late last night grading (late by postpartum standards, which is to say midnight), and that always jacks up the cranky potential for the next evening. I am going to go make onion soup, and fold laundry, and tidy up the living room. Which means I should end this post pronto. Catch you later.