Boston Babymoon!

All the cool (pregnant) kids these days seem to go on a "babymoon" to exotic locations, places where it'll be much more difficult to go to once the baby arrives. My spring break finally arrived this week – already in my third trimester! So we weren't going to be too ambitious in planning a big trip: we can't go to the Caribbean because of Zika virus; I'm sure I wouldn't tolerate a long flight very well; and mostly, I just want to sleep all day!

So we happily planned a low-key visit for a few days up to Boston. We've been saying for the past couple years that we would go up and visit our friends, and now we finally had the motivation to go. We found a place on Airbnb in Cambridge, which is apparently where all of our friends now live.

After a stroll around Harvard Square, we checked out some places along the Freedom Trail. We ate lunch at Quincy Market:

And checked out the Paul Revere House and Old North Church ("one if by land, two if by sea..."):

Must make time for North End snacks, of course!

For dinner, we drove out to Newton to see Sarah B., her husband, and her adorable toddler. Sarah B. is also expecting, due just 4 weeks after me! Here we are with matching socks and baby bumps:

The next day was rainy, cold, and fairly miserable. Perfect for a museum day! After a taco stop, we spent the afternoon at the Museum of Fine Arts (my first time there!).

They had quite a nice antiquities collection (for an American museum). I hadn't realized it earlier, but one particularly important vase is in their collection:

What's special about this 6th c., black-figure Corinthian vase? Well, it depicts Heracles on the left (with the bow and arrow), Hesione in the middle, and the sea monster that threatened Troy on the right (a somewhat obscure myth that I will not go into here). It's an odd-looking "sea monster," though, no? It really looks like an animal skull protruding from a rock. And this, friends, serves as evidence for how early Greeks interpreted the fossil record they encountered in their daily lives. How else to make sense of the strange, unrecognizable animal bones preserved in stone? Why, these are the mythological monsters of the past! Anyway, I do love this line of reasoning, and if you want to know more, I suggest you read the genuinely interesting and entertaining book I learned this from, Adrienne Mayor's The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times.

And now, back to vacation photos. We got to visit with one of my former roommates from Michigan, Christa, who now is on the faculty at Harvard and has two beautiful little kids! She also still has the two dogs Nien and Mika (plus their daughter) who first introduced me to puppy love. I don't know whether they remembered me, but I was sure happy to see them!

Before departing, we visited Townsman, a restaurant my brother Peter is invested in. I think it was a good choice, because the food was delicious, the location excellent (near the Chinatown T-stop and a close walk to Boston Common), the service accommodating, and there was a bustling lunchtime crowd. Everyone, go eat there!

 

And thus concluded our babymoon. Thanks to all our friends and family who made the time to see us! We hope to see you soon in Long Island, where you will be welcomed by all three of us!

The Big Announcement

I've been neglecting this blog...it's not that I haven't had much to say, but that I wasn't ready to say it. Now I'm ready to share our biggest news yet: I'm expecting! First, let me introduce you all to our "Lumpy":

And here's what I'm looking like these days:

 

 

 Some FAQs:

-Will you be having a boy or a girl?
It's a girl! We are very happy.

-How far along are you? When is your due date?
I am 29 weeks today. She is due July 3rd. She'll be a Freedom Baby!

-How are you feeling?
Relative to a lot of other pregnant women, I shouldn't complain. I'm able to eat and sleep and go to work every day. But I am feeling increasingly exhausted and have much less stamina than I used to. I need a lot of rest, so I'm trying to find ways to sneak it in (naps on the train, naps in my office chair, etc.), while conserving energy where I can (less socializing, carrying less weight in my backpack, etc.). The commute plus teaching back-to-back classes are the hardest parts.

-Are you getting time off from your work?
Yes! I'm still keeping my fingers crossed, as not everything has been signed on the dotted line. But it looks like I'll be teaching until I go into labor (I'll be as involved as I can with my summer program in June and early July). Once Lumpy comes, I'll be on temporary disability leave for several weeks, until my program ends. I'll be responsible for the final wrap-up administrative work in August/September, but then I get my usual fall annual leave in Oct.-Dec. Then I'll use my parental leave proper next spring, so I won't have to teach until Summer 2017. I know I complain a lot about my job, but this is one reason to be very grateful for it – and for my union. I will still have administrative and research responsibilities, but my schedule will be extremely flexible, and I will certainly have most days at home. Hurray!


-Are you excited?
Yes! But also nervous and scared about how much our lives will change and how challenging it is to know how to parent a child. Since I teach college students, I have a lot of exposure to people just as they leave their parents' home and set off on their own path; and wow, obviously some kids are going to be better adjusted than others, probably due in part to individual temperament and in part to how they were raised. It's so intimidating to think about how much influence we will have, despite our ignorance and lack of wisdom about so many things. Even worse, we might not discover the various consequences of our choices for a couple decades! But I know we'll cross each bridge as it comes, and in the meantime, I'm trying to enjoy this stage of waiting to meet our little baby. Just a few more months to go!