Happy Mother's Day! This being my second Mother's Day (first if you don't count when I was pregnant, but I do so there!) I was again reminded of all the hopes and joys and fears I have for my son as a human being and for myself as a mother. These hopes and joys and fears are the same that mothers throughout human existence have felt, and so it's really nothing new. I shouldn't worry about the things that could go wrong, because no matter how good a mother I am or will be (I'm counting on getting better with time and experience) I will screw up and scar Jamie in some way. I know that there are things beyond my control, but I hope I get to see Jamie grow up, and I hope he gets to grow up. But again, I worry. My imagination is too creative sometimes, and parenting websites and magazines are just fodder for my worst nightmares. In the end, all I can do is love my family, enjoy my son and be the best mother I can be, and pray that God will take care of the things I can't see. AND STOP TAKING EXTRANEOUS SHIT SO SERIOUSLY.
On a lighter note, I passed my oral exam and now have a Master's Degree. Because my exam occurred 13 days past the deadline for May graduation, the date on it will be 2009. 2009! Officially the conferment date will be in January. Okay, seriously, why is the December graduation dated in January? Okay, whatever. I'm over it. I was so worried that I would fail. I'm so paranoid. But in the end I passed after only 10 minutes of discussion, part of which was about whether or not some members of my committee were interested in helping us do some observations. My friends Julie, Trevor (yay, Dr. Trevor), and Tam were there during my exam and I'm very grateful for their support. Those in the outer room during the exam heard occasional laughter, and figured things must have been going well. They were. While we waited for the decision to down from on high, we heard laughter. And I knew I had passed. :)
Five days before my exam, my computer decided to start acting up. I couldn't start up the linux partition and Knoppix couldn't access it to recover any data. Totally scared me silly. Then, very mysteriously, it decided to load up normally. *head banging hard on the table* So I was able to get all that I needed for my exam. But I decided it was time for a new computer. And so I ordered a macbook. I like that I can do my command line coding without separate partitions and I can still have Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. My macbook arrived on Wednesday, and I've been in love with it ever since. I just LOVE not having to go back and forth between partitions, but I do miss the games that came with RedHat. Oh, well. I had quite a time getting a fortran compiler to work on here, and then I had trouble with a mysterious error that I had seen before that no one was able to fix. So I handed the computer to My Darling, and said in a piteous voice, "Fix... it... Please... fit... it..." And he did. God I love that man! He has a sexy brain.
Okay, now on to knitting! I am still working on my first pair of socks. Or, actually, I'm still working on my first sock. I'm about to do the toe. I have very little knitting time, but I take it with me where ever I go so I can try to get some knitting done everyday. I'd go nuts otherwise. I still have Jamie's sweater, Mama's scarf, and my scarf ready to work on, but with Jamie, research, pumping breastmilk all the damn time, and doing doula training, I am very very very busy. And loving it! Mostly.
Jamie is eating solids now. If you call baby food solid. They're really just thick liquids. Anyway, he loves solid food. He's had carrots, peas, and a little bit of potato. And he is trying hard to get up and walk around. He'll just frantically move his legs back and forth like he's walking when you hold him on your lap. He reaches for things all the time now, and rolls over consistently.
Jamie still fights sleep like a demon. Some nights he will let us put him to sleep without a problem, and other nights he screams no matter what we do. Rocking, walking, bouncing, singing, reading, feeding, breast feeding, etc. Usually it works best to do several at once, but sometimes he just screams through it all. All I can do is try to be consistent and comfort him and soothe him. Oops there he is now. I'm off to soothe the savage infant whom I love more than anything else.
