PhD2B?

Well, today I finally had a meeting with my dissertation chair. It's only been, oh, three years or so since I last saw him in person. Anyway, it went well, and he has 2 little ones that are very close in age (think Cocking Family child spacing) so he totally understands why I've been progressing so slowly. He thinks I have a decent draft underway and if all goes well I could propose this fall. And then all I have to do is collect data, and analyze it, and write it all up and defend it! No problem! Despite the mild sarcasm I am actually feeling encouraged. I really will do this and be finished sometime in this lifetime.

Go Away!

Yesterday morning when I told Leia it was time to have her diaper changed, I was told:

"I don't want. Go away!!"

She had a devious grin on her face when she said it.

Seems I'm getting some pre-two-year defiance. Fabulous. Of course I thought her antics were hysterical, which probably didn't help the situation.

Photo Onslaught

Wanted to post more pictures from the musuem...

Here's Leia driving a tractor and pretending to eat some corn:



And shopping (she needed lots of lemons, apparently)



And harvesting vegetables:



Great, fun place. I took her twice over the course of the weekend, since she loved it so much and the place is small enough that I could basically let her run loose and entertain herself. I hear there is something similar in New York. I'd totally be up for a field trip!

Scary story

I won't sleep unless I write about this.

I woke up just before 5AM this morning in our hotel in Philly. I looked over and saw Jeff fast asleep, and then I rolled out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom. Now, we stayed in a suite (sweet!), and the bathroom had two doors. I was going through the bathroom to get into the next room where Leia was sleeping so I could check on her. There were no lights on, so it was pretty dark, but I could see where I was going. To my horror, I saw a person standing right in front of me, blocking the other door. And the person was moving toward me. And it was *not* Jeff, as he was sleeping in bed behind me. I ran back to the bedroom screaming. Jeff jumped up immediately, started screaming louder, and ran through the bathroom to check on Leia. He found her safe, so he stopped screaming and came back into our room. I was on the bed shaking. "What's wrong???" he asked. I asked him to turn on the lights and told him I thought I saw someone in the bathroom. Then the phone rang. (Just to add to the extreme spookieness.) It was the front desk, wanting to know if we were okay. I imagine it sounded like somebody'd been murdered or something. We scooped Leia out of her Pack 'N Play and put her in our bed, right between us, where she immediately went back to sleep. Neither one of us slept much more after that, though.

Jeff told me later that his worst fear is that something happens to Leia in the middle of the night, and that I find her and then come get him in hysterics. So that is why he started instantly screaming and running to her. I still don't know what I saw in that bathroom. A ghost? My mind playing tricks? Who knows. All I know is that I can't remember ever being more scared.

Many Leias

Just got back from a trip to Philly (Wizard convention) and I took Leia to a wonderful kid's museum called the Please Touch Museum. I am too tired to go into all of the details now but I wanted to post my favorite picture.

I'll write more about it after I've had some sleep...