Your Semi-Annual Curtis/Hall News Fix

So let's see... The last time I actually posted here was July of last year, and before that was January, so it looks like I'm right on schedule. Apparently, I can only update everyone on our family when I am between semesters.

In any case, here we are. Dash and Amy have both started school again, and I start up on Wednesday. The past six months have been full, certainly, but no more so than usual. I'll see if I can sort of sum them up.

August-September 2010

Lakeside!

New Photos: Dashiell's 5th Birthday

The Wait Is Over

The problem with waiting six months months between blog posts is picking up where you left off. It's not really possible. So with that in mind, I'll just jump right in, and try to hit the highlights.

I last wrote in January, since which time Eleanor has grown considerably larger and cooler, Dashiell has finished preschool, I have finished my first year of law school, and Amy has moved steadily closer to finishing library/information science school altogether. Our lives continue to be more hectic than we perhaps would like, but we manage, and at least we're not bored.

Anyway, let's start with Eleanor. Eleanor is now a beautiful, active, happy 9-month-old. Unless hungry or tired, she is generally delighted about something or other, and now spends most of her time crawling around the house and either putting things in her mouth or trying to stick her fingers in the fan. She can pull herself up using the furniture, and does a lot of babbling. She is also learning to "swim" (i.e., bob around in the water for a half-hour) with dad four days a week.

As some of you already know, we have for several months now been vacillating between worrying and not worrying about Eleanor's weight, as her weight-for-age percentile has moved steadily down from 50th to 5th. The doctor is clearly concerned, but Eleanor is clearly happy, strong, and active; we tend to think the latter is the more important and persuasive evidence. Plus the fact that her weight-for-length percentile remains perfectly steady. All the same, it's hard not to let the doctor's fretting get under your skin. Anyway, long story short, we finally spoke with a pediatric dietitian the other day, and she was far more helpful and encouraging, and far less alarmist, than our doctor. (Related side note: we're now in the market for a new pediatrician.) Eleanor now seems to be eating better, and I for one refuse to worry or stress out about it anymore.

Dashiell is the same great kid he's always been. He loves his sister and plays with her and keeps her safe, and of course loves the fact that she finds him so incredibly fascinating. He, too, is taking swimming lessons, and loves them, especially the part at the end where they get to leap into the water from the edge of the pool. He's in his third week, now, and it's truly amazing how much more comfortable he is in the water.

Dash also, of course, finished preschool in May. He loved it to the very end, and got to finish out the year with a "Ladybug Hoedown" (the kids all dressed like ladybugs and sang songs; it was precious) and a field day (pictures of which may be found here). He is now looking forward very much to attending "5-year-old school," and we wave to the building, and the playground, every time we drive past it.

Last month, Dash and I took a sort of spontaneous Father's Day trip to Chicago to visit my dad, who hasn't seen Dash since Amy's and my wedding, and also to see the rest of that side of the family, who have never met Dash, and whom I haven't seen for over a decade. It was a great trip, and Dash had a great time with his grandpa and all his cousins and aunts and uncles. (Pictures of the trip may be found here.)

As for me, I finished Year One of law school, and had a pretty good semester, grades-wise. For the summer, I'm working as a research assistant for my criminal law professor, but this barely counts as work, as so far I have clocked about 17 hours, total. Still, it's something law-related to keep my mind in gear, and it looks good on a resume. In the fall, I'll be taking Constitutional Law, Property, and Criminal Procedure; I'll also be continuing as a research assistant, as well as working as a sort of TA for a first-year Contracts course, and possibly also as a TA for a Lawyering Process course (the one that's all about legal writing and research). It sounds like a lot, but shouldn't amount to more than about 20 hours a week on average.

Amy, of course, continues to support all of this by working her two jobs, among other things, as well as attending classes herself. She is now about a year away from graduation, which is very exciting -- except for the part where she has to decide what to do with the degree. Apart from that, the two jobs are going well. Right now, she's in the midst of the Publishing Institute -- the four-week event for which she and her team (at one job) spend the rest of the year preparing -- so she's working more hours than normal, and is more exhausted, but it'll all be over soon. Then, of course, comes the fall, and more classes, and more craziness, and so on and so forth. What can we say? It's what we do.

I think those are the main points. If you click on either of the two photo links above (or any of the photos off to the right on this page), you should be able to click through to several other photo albums I recently posted. I'll try to at least post monthly batches, if nothing else, in the future.

We hope you are all doing great and having a wonderful summer (with air conditioning -- we are doing without, and it is no picnic). Drop us a line in the comments, or by email, or whatever. We'd love to hear from you.

State of the Family Address

Apparently, I haven’t updated our family blog since late September, at which time Amy, Dashiell, and I were patiently awaiting the arrival of Eleanor. Well, in case you hadn’t heard, she’s here, and has been for nearly four months. Surprise!

Those four months have of course been very, very full. I completed my first semester of law school, not only surviving but managing respectable grades. Then the holiday season arrived, and we all had a great time building up Dashiell’s anticipation of Christmas, seeing lots of family, and of course celebrating Christmas itself. If you haven’t done Christmas with a 4-year-old, I highly recommend it.

Eleanor has developed beautifully. As you probably know, she spent the first three months of her life in a “hip harness,” a sort of all-body cloth-and-velcro thing that held her knees up and out to the side, so as to allow her apparently loose hip ligaments (or is it tendons?) to tighten up, so as to prevent her hips from slipping in and out of their sockets so easily. The harness has now been off for a few weeks, the hips seem fine, and Eleanor still hasn’t gotten over the thrill of just kicking her legs over and over again.

Dashiell remains an exemplary big brother, helping his mother and me immensely by entertaining Eleanor while we cook or clean, and entertaining himself when we’re too occupied with Eleanor to be much fun. He really is amazing, and (so far) we’ve experienced none of the jealousy, anger, etc., that we’re told often accompany the arrival of a new baby.

Apart from the brother thing, Dash continues to enjoy school. Actually, that’s a huge understatement. Some days, he literally jumps for joy when the morning bell rings and his teacher opens the classroom door. He simply loves it. And his teachers seem to love him, though they worry that they’re not stimulating him enough, mainly because of the reading thing. He, however, seems perfectly content with everything, so we see no need to worry about it just yet.

Speaking of school, Amy has returned to her Library Science program, and is taking two classes this quarter. As one might imagine, this does complicate our scheduling a bit, but we’re managing -- thanks to the incredibly generous babysitting time being provided every week by my mother and by Amy’s cousin Nicole. And of course the less regular, but no less appreciated, services of Amy’s parents and Tresa and Dave. They all are truly life savers.

As for me, I’m about two weeks into my second semester, studying Contracts and Criminal Law (plus that Lawyering Process class where I learn how to do legal research and writing). So far, Contracts is occasionally interesting, but mostly pretty dry, and Criminal Law is fascinating.

I think that’s about everything. I’ll post another batch of pictures sometime in the next week.

And now we wait...

As we here at the Curtis/Hall household sit around twiddling our thumbs and waiting for Eleanor to show up, I figured I’d do a brief update -- though I don’t know that there’s much to report, beyond the thumb-twiddling.

We saw the doctor yesterday, and she told us, for the second week in a row, that Eleanor should be showing up any second now. In fact, she said she hadn’t expected to see us again after last week. In any case, the updated stats, for those who know what these things mean, are four centimeters and 95%. For those who don’t know what that means, it means Eleanor should be showing up any second now. Unfortunately, it doesn’t mean she has to. So we twiddle our thumbs.

Meanwhile, Dash continues to enjoy his new school. Every day, he tells us about the books he got to read, who he played with, and that he got to go outside (“Two times!”). Amy got to go to a Back to School Night (I was in class) and chat with his teacher a bit. They all think Dash is a great reader, of course, and have discovered that if they try to skip a page here and there when reading, or change the wording a bit for the benefit of their audience, Dashiell will call them on it. Most importantly, he’s having fun and making new friends -- some of whom he’s started running into around the neighborhood as well, which is pretty cool.

I’m enjoying my school, too, though we don’t get to play outside nearly enough. Each week seems to fluctuate between feeling totally on top of things and feeling utterly lost and incompetent, which is stressful, but somehow it all still seems worthwhile. Our legal system, good or bad, is fascinating, and however inadequate I may feel, I know I’m slowly but surely getting the hang of it.

Amy, of course, is just tired of being pregnant. She’s still working both jobs, though her leave of absence from the library starts Tuesday, no matter what Eleanor does. She’s also been cleaning a lot, not wanting to have to leave suddenly when the house is a mess and then come home to that from the hospital. It’s a fair concern.

So that’s where we are. Just keep your fingers crossed for us and think good thoughts. We’ll spread the word as soon as anything (finally) happens.
 

P.S. In case there’s any confusion: The due date is still four days away, so yeah, we’re probably being prematurely impatient. I blame that doctor for getting our hopes up.