Back to reality

Turns out I really like my usual, every day. Last week was a good halfway closer to insane than I already am. I left every morning at 7:20 and got back every night at 11. All of the in between was spent doing the following:

1. Grab a sterilized toothpick.

2. Poke it into a Streptomyces colony on a plate.

3. Streak it out onto a new plate.

4. Repeat 2400 times.

Not included are making the plates, drawing lines on the plates and labeling each spot, and circling and labeling all of the Streptomyces colonies. It made me think a little about what it means to be a grad student. I think the main difference between grad school and a job is that you are a grad student. It's not what you do from 9-5; it is who you are. There's an "outdated" notion of suffering for your science. I put quotes around outdated because it is talked about as outdated, but still expected.

Anyway, I don't like complaining too much (especially since I designed the experiment for which that was part one), and I'm pretty sure that's not what you are here to hear. I'm just your tour guide to the life of Hannah. So let's get down to business. A lot has happened in the past couple of days.

Hannah has started to wave. This has been in the works for some time now, and she was probably making some attempts a week or more ago, but it's hard to tell a first wave from a little spastic arm movement. Now she's really waving. Or saluting. It's kind of a hybrid. She started out by waving at our friend Jesse, and followed that up with waving at my lab-mate Florence. Not us. We have waved at her at least 20 times a day for a month. It makes sense, I suppose, to say hi to people who are new, as opposed to people you see almost every waking second. We have gotten waves out of her since; however, so have the dogs. And strangers walking by. And her exersaucer. She's really getting into this waving thing. This morning I was walking around with her as she was getting her first bit of sleep fussiness. I felt like an assistant on some Miss Baby America pageant. She would look at something and do a little wave. Jolt her head around to the other side and another wave. We'll call her Miss Sleepy Beauty. If you would like a better feel for what it looks like, then do the following (don't worry, your webcam isn't on).

1. Hold your arm straight out to your side.

2. Bend at the elbow, because that's the only bendy part of your arm.

3. Hit your forehead and snap your arm back into place.

In other news, she also has two teeth now. Her middle bottom teeth have started their ascent. She's been a real champ throughout this whole teething thing. I would have demanded much more Tylenol than she did. Now that I think about it, perhaps that is related to her other new hobby, YELLING REAL LOUD. Not when she is upset. That might even make things easier. She yells when she is happy, or when she wants you to look at her. It is really pretty cute at home, since she does it to the dogs a lot. In the exersaucer or her jumper especially; the dogs walk by without going up to her and she lets out this "aaaYYYAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!". If she were a little more coordinated, it would perhaps be followed by a bit of kung fu. It's more noticeable when we are out. She's happy most of the time, even when we drag her to whatever it is we want to do. Last week Heidi, Hannah and my mom (who took over my Hannah-watching duties) took me out to dinner as a break from work. My mom and I sat across from Hannah and Heidi. If my mom and I would talk to each other, Hannah would look at us and "AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!". I mind this a little more than Heidi; I'm bordering on obsessive when it comes to bothering other people in public. Then this past weekend we went wine tasting with a couple of friends. I was driving, and Heidi can't drink more than a glass of wine because of breastfeeding. So we went around carrying a baby and watching other people taste wines. Which made the screaming baby feel even more awkward for me.

"Will either of you be tasting today?"

"No, we're just here because what high-brow wine-tasters don't love screaming children? It's a happy scream, by the way. Shouts of joy are the perfect pairing for that dessert wine."

We had a good time. Hannah did too. And it seems like the people who are decent and I would respect don't mind happy children. Maybe it turns out that the ones who get mad about happy babies I don't mind pissing off. Hannah waved at them anyway.

I'll have to get up some pictures soon. We probably got one or two good ones out of the day.

Also, in closing, the Trojan ad that I saw on the sidebar makes me question how enjoyable I am making parenthood sound. "Don't want this to happen to you? We can help!"

Note added in clarification: I don't pick the ads, they are chosen automatically based on blog content.