Snowbound Herpetologist

Recently, Maya has become obsessed with her role as "The Potty Language Police."  With Trump in power, we have seen an increase in the usage of potty language around our house, particularly the words "stupid," "idiot," and "crap" (and let me just say that I am not the #1 offender here).  I wanted to document for future reading that not only does Maya run after you screaming "Potty language!!!! PSHHHHHH!" as she freezes you with her powers, but that the best part of all is that she wants to spell potty language at you to skirt the rules.  Some of her gems: Maya: "Mama, I know the worst potty language of all .  Are you ready?" Me: "Sure, tell me the worst one." Maya: "B-S-O-S-O." Me: "Oh wow, that is so bad." Maya: "Oh, I have an even worse one.  The worstest of all . M-A-O-S-O-X-Y-B-L-T." Me: "Oh my goodness. That is worse." ...and this game could go on for like hal

At 35 weeks pregnant, yo!  No matter what, it's important to fight for human rights and equality - we will not be silent!

I'm writing this post a little early, since I don't technically hit 35 weeks until Sunday.  However, we're headed to the zoo that day and I'm going to try to catch up on housework this weekend as well, so I thought I should write an update now for this "golden" milestone in case Sunday is simply too busy! I'm happy to report that I did successfully submit one of the two grants that I was kicking around.  The process of writing while massively pregnant was brutally awful, and it reminded me of how hard I worked at the end of my dissertation as well - getting up at 5am to force myself to write science when my brain was so maxed out that it seemed like nothing I was writing was even marginally coherent.  It was a painful process then, as it was now - but it was only one bad week this time around, whereas to finish my dissertation, it was like that for like 3 months and I gave myself an ulcer.  Moreover, the grant really isn't going to get invited/funded

I'm only going to take a second to write a super brief post, but I wanted to say hi!  A few more updates since the last one, even though it hasn't been very long. #1: I (finally!!!) got my medical records from my loooong labor + c-section with Maya that I requested like 2 months ago.  Reading through them was crazy!  Mostly I remembered everything from the experience correctly, despite being unbelievably distracted and broken while such things were being explained, but there were definitely some surprises.  For example, it turns out that there was a whole pediatric resuscitation team in the delivery room just in case Maya came out in distress, and I had no idea that they were there.  A fun positive: they were the only ones to use a name in their notes, calling her "Maya" instead of "patient" (I have no idea who told them her name - I assume husband, but he has no recollection of this, or of their presence, either).  She was a little hypoxic according to co

Things have been quite hectic in the North Country recently - I'm exhausted.  Things of note: - We had a fantastic holiday trip to California.  It was amazing to see family, it was so warm and beautiful, and I got to see tons of great birds (and even otters).  That is pretty much the only super positive thing I'm going to write in this entry. - We had a growth scan last week to make sure new baby is still developing ok, given a) the potential Zika risk, and b) the marginal cord insertion.  Well, baby was HUGE, nearly 4.75 lbs at 32 weeks.  The cord insertion looks *terrible* to me, although the good news is that it's super easily visible on ultrasound due to the anterior placenta.  Anyway, it looks like it's hanging on to a mere scrap of placenta, and I'm personally not convinced that it's not actually velamentous instead of marginal.  However, again, baby is huge, so I guess it's working well despite looking terrible.  The other good news is that the in