Family Photo Challenge

We took a lot of photos of the three of us this month, but they were for our Christmas card. (Stay tuned, you should be getting that one in the mail sooner or later.) Here is one that will not appear on our holiday greetings, but has all three of us in the same frame.

Santa Picture 2011

As soon as she sat on his lap, she said

"Hello, my name is Carolyn. I would like a tuba please"

A tuba, really? I think I need to talk her into something different.

Mom's Out of Town; Dad's In Charge

I had to go to a research conference in Boston for a few days, which means that Steve had to take a turn at being single-parent for a few days. Here are some photos he sent me of the weekend (she was at a birthday party at a children's cooking academy)

The caption on this one said, "She picked out her own outfit today." Of course, she wanted to wear her unicorn shirt. And the pairing of the ballerina skirt, striped tights, and snow boats is pretty cool!

It is hard to be away from home, even if it is only once or twice a year and only for a few days at a time, but it was nice to receive play-by-play text messages showing me what I was missing! Thanks Steve. It was great to meet up with them in Ohio for the Thanksgiving holiday.

School Pictures, age 3

First, a photo of Carolyn Rebecca Altman, age 3.



Then, one of her whole class at the Montessori Community School.

Caught Up

I finally uploaded all of our photos from the past month. I added details about each event to the blog. There are so many new posts that you will have to go to the second page to see them all. (click on the "older posts" link at the bottom of the page)

Have you heard the news?

Well, the first round of voting has taken place on my tenure review, my pants are getting tight and I cannot necessarily keep hiding it .... so I think I am getting more willing to admit to people that I am pregnant. I still have not told a single one of our local friends, but slowly (probably after thanksgiving) I will announce it to our friends here and to my colleagues at work. It is not that we aren't excited; I just did not want to formally acknowledge it since my tenure and promotion are at stake right now. The tenure process for a university professor is, for lack of better words, a really big deal. While a pregnancy should not (and cannot legally) affect people's decisions, I did not want to cloud anyone's judgement by being the young female faculty member who has had two kids. Having one child pre-tenure was hard enough to justify. Anyway, the feedback and votes at this stage of the process are good, but I still have many more layers of review and votes over the next several months before the decision is finalized. I know I cannot hide the pregnancy through the entire 40 weeks, but I hid it long enough to allow the first (and probably most critical) rounds of reviews and votes to occur.

Hopefully, by spring -- around the same time we are welcoming a new baby to our household -- I should have a formal letter in my hand from the University President granting me retention, promotion, and tenure. That would be good! A new baby and job security.

Who knows, maybe I can have it all. I admit, balancing it is never easy, but I do not think I would want it any other way!

So, there you have it..... I am pregnant. Baby Altman is due at the end of May.

I am lucky in that, so far, the pregnancy seems to be on-track and uneventful. I do not feel sick. However, there is something about the hormones raging through my body that cause me to have the most crazy dreams that completley disrupt my sleep. Inevitably, there are a few hours each night, around 3am, where I am wide awake staring at the walls. (This happened with Carolyn too). Needless to say, I am tired.

Below is a picture of how we told my parents. While they were visiting us recently, my mom celebrated her 60th birthday. I knew I wanted to do something special to acknowledge this milestone birthday, and we had planned to tell them that I was pregnant, so that is when I came up with my idea for a gift .... I bought a book of knitting patterns and a big bag of yarn and gave it to her when she arrived to town. On the front page of the book, there was a note that said, "Turn to page 38 for your gift." On that page, there was a tiny baby in a cute little outfit, with another note that said "Do you think you could knit this? We need it finished by next May." It took her a moment, but once she figured it out, tears flowed and she was thrilled.

Finally, here is a picture of our little bean from a few weeks ago. I have another ultrasound next week, so I will post some new pictures then. If you need help interpretting the shot below, you are looking at a side profile of the entire little bean laying on its back. Its little bird-legs were so skinny that they are pretty hard to see in the photo. During the ultrasound, though, you could see those little legs kicking all around, two little arms waving, and a little heart fluttering in the middle of the bean's body. Also notice the tiny little brain that has already formed.

Good night little baby. Keep growing.

More knitwear

The goofball did not want to participate in this particular photo shoot. Ignore the silly faces, but admire the cute hat and scarf from Grandma Lynn.