now it's later
Apr. 29th, 2012 05:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aryanhwyI had a great time in Osnabrück.
When Tarek approached me last fall about the possibility of co-teaching a short-course on the origins of logic (me) and what logic is good for (him) for cog sci students, I told him I'd be glad to but that by then I'd have a 5.5 month old baby that might cramp arrangements some. In particular, I said I'd only do it if he could get child care for during my lectures, since I didn't want to assume that Joel would be available to come with and take care of her for me (which turned out to be a good assumption given that he was in fact still pretty sick and also almost ended up going to Paris for a few days). I gave two lectures each day, of 1.5 hours each, and he arranged for some undergrads to come by and take care of her for those periods. It ended up working out great; we'd get to campus around 10:00am, Tarek would start lecturing and I'd feed Gwen, then she'd be awake for most of the rest of his lecture only getting fussy around the end at which time I'd put her in the stroller and she'd fall asleep, and sleep for most of my morning lecture. By the time my lecture finished she'd be getting hungry, so I'd feed her and she'd be awake for our lunch break, and be ready to fall asleep again during my next lecture, so the babysitters never had to deal with a hungry, fussy baby (except for the very last lecture today when Gwen's schedule was disrupted enough that she was crying and refusing her bottle, but luckily it was right at the end and so I was able to go to her and help calm her down. (It is a bit distracting lecturing when you can hear your baby crying down the hall...).
And in between, she often played happily on the floor, or napped in her stroller (I am so thankful that she naps well in her stroller – 2.5 hours one afternoon! And a good 45 min. - an hour and a half in general, so her naps in the stroller are just as good as her naps in bed at home. It was also really nice how accommodating everyone was; she had lots of people flirting with her, and no one seemed to be irritated when she'd lie on the floor and make noises, or when I'd be in and out of the room during one of Tarek's lectures to try to attend as much of his as I could and yet still have to replace the pacifier on a regular basis. Because unfortunately, her cough has gotten a bit worse and two days ago she was pretty congested, so she would cough, spit out her pacifier, wake up, cry, and then have trouble taking it back because of her congestion. Poor baby. Our nights were also not the greatest; Wednesday on the trip over she never got an afternoon nap at all, and didn't fall asleep until about 8:30 (about 1.5 hours later than normal), and even so still woke up around 5:20 and didn't go back to sleep until a 40 min. nap around 7:00. So Thursday was a bit rough. Then Thursday night she slept from 9:00 to 7:00, which was great – except for the hour she was awake between 2:15 and 3:15. Friday night was the worse, due the cold she started fussing around 11:45 and didn't really fall asleep until 3:15, when she finally fell asleep propped up on the pillow next to me in bed. Luckily, it was a big pillow, so I was able to lay her parallel to the headboard, so that if she rolled (which she has still never done while sleeping but I would've hated for that night to be the first) she wouldn't roll off the bed, and then I still had space on the pillow myself. So Saturday I was really, really dragging; I told Tarek as we walked out to campus in the morning that I wasn't sure if I'd make it to the afternoon and that I might have him give both afternoon lectures and then I'd do two today rather than just one. Luckily after lunch arrived I was coherent enough to continue. And then last night she did wake up twice – around midnight and then around 5:30, and was up 30-45 minutes between having a small bottle and taking some time to stop fussing and go back to sleep, but then she slept until after 8:00a, unheard of. So I felt a lot better in the morning (though I'm awfully tired now and once she falls asleep I'll probably doze on the train some).
Part of the reason why everything worked out so well despite the nonstandardness of one a small baby around, was the particular audience: Cognitive scientists see babies as subject material. :) We had a lot of discussions related to human reasoning, formal languages, ‘what is a language', extended mind and extended cognition, how babies communicate and reason and learn, and so most everyone seemed to think it was fun having a baby around. As I joked to Tarek while we were waiting for my train to come in, it seems like spending 4 days around a bunch of cognitive scientists did wonders for Gwen's development – not only has she seriously improved when it comes to sitting (she still has trouble sitting on a flat surface like the ground, but put her on a chair or someone's lap, or anything where her feet can hang down a bit, and she can sit up for long periods without any support), but just then I'd looked in on her to find that she'd managed to pick up her pacifier and put it back in her mouth -- a skill I'd told him only half an hour earlier that I was looking forward to her mastering. Not only that, she was chomping around on my fingers earlier today, and I'm pretty certain I feel a tooth! (OK, so that last isn't really a cognitive skill, but still, I marvel at how much has changed in just 5 days). In addition to all these new Mad Skillz she also got quite the variety in terms of new foods. Normally I eat breakfast during her morning nap, lunch at campus after I've dropped her off at daycare, and supper after she's gone to bed, so she hasn't really had much chance to be around when I'm eating. The hotel I stayed at was really sweet and each morning when I came down to breakfast someone brought out a great big furry blanket to put on the floor next to my chair for Gwen to lie on while I ate. Each morning I gave her a slice of cucumber to nom on, and this seemed to go over quite well. Thursday and Friday we ate lunch in the cafeteria, so she got to try some pasta with tomato sauce, “chili” (which I would not have recognized as such if I hadn't been told that's what it was, though it was a very tasty barley-beef-vegetable-tomato soup), and vanilla pudding with red-fruit sauce. The last went over particularly well; it was by far the sourest thing she's ever tried, and it definitely got a puckery reaction, but then she immediately grabbed for the hand holding the spoon to pull it closer, a clear sign that she wants more. And now that she's getting so good at the unsupported sitting, I'm going to have to keep trying to give her more and more foods. So far she hasn't met something she didn't like, and she also hasn't met anything that has given her digestive grief, thank goodness.
She's also beginning to show clear evidence of people recognition – finally it's becoming more regular that if she's fussy and I come and pick her up, she calms down, and it's not because I do anything but just because I'm holding her. She also made friends with one of the Ph.D. students, Martin, who would often stop by and play with her, and at the end when I was holding her and he came by to say good-bye, she gave him a great big smile; I'm sure she recognized him. Martin also stepped in briefly as a substitute babysitter; the babysitter never made it to where we were during my morning lecture (the building we were in is closed on weekends and thus Tarek had to go down and let people in, and the two just never connected), so during the first part of my morning lecture Martin played with her and then sat with her on his lap for awhile, until she got fussy and then we took a break for me to get her to fall asleep and then I left the stroller in the hall way (advantage of the building being pretty much empty other than us!) and continued. It was pretty cute having her in the audience; she sat on his lap quite contentedly and was zeroed in on me the entire time.
But everyone was accommodating and no one was put out by her presence, and that really was great. I found myself reflecting quite a bit about how I'm going about being an academic and a mom at the same time. For me, it was obvious: If I was going to co-teach this course, Gwen was coming with, and accommodations would have to be made. But I wonder why I find this so obvious, given that I don't see other academics (male or female) doing this (with the exception of the day that Prof. Rosenberg showed up to 3rd semester Greek with her little daughter, Sarah, whom she had given birth to midway through 1st semester Greek, so we all knew about her but had never met, because her babysitter had called in sick). But further than that, I also got a taste of what this might be like in the future. Some of the mornings we were both up, I'd eaten breakfast, and we were just waiting for Tarek to come pick us up, and I'd lay her down on the bed and we'd just sit and talk. It was a really fun, special time, especially since for most of the rest of the day she was often sleeping or with a babysitter, or I was trying to pay attention to Tarek's lecture, so I didn't get my normal dose of dedicated baby interaction. And I realized that this is something I can continue. Even when she's old enough that it's easy for me to leave her at home with Joel, I still hope to bring her with to conferences, not every one, but at least some. And if she ever has any siblings, once they're both old enough that they have the option of staying at home, I still hope to at least one trip per year take one of them along with, and have this be a special mother/daughter (or mother/son) retreat/trip. I hope that Gwen, and any siblings she might have, when she grows up can look back on these as being something special and fun, rather than being boring, tedious things that she was dragged along to.
And now we're on the train back (I've got electricity but no internet access on the German train, on the Dutch I'll have internet access but no electricity, so I'm writing this now and will post it later), and I'm really, really looking forward to a solid night's sleep where I don't have to roll over and replace a pacifier multiple times, and I'm looking forward to seeing Joel and hopefully hearing that he's continuing to feel better, but even with the less than desirable night time sleep for both of us, I still had a tremendously fun time.
When Tarek approached me last fall about the possibility of co-teaching a short-course on the origins of logic (me) and what logic is good for (him) for cog sci students, I told him I'd be glad to but that by then I'd have a 5.5 month old baby that might cramp arrangements some. In particular, I said I'd only do it if he could get child care for during my lectures, since I didn't want to assume that Joel would be available to come with and take care of her for me (which turned out to be a good assumption given that he was in fact still pretty sick and also almost ended up going to Paris for a few days). I gave two lectures each day, of 1.5 hours each, and he arranged for some undergrads to come by and take care of her for those periods. It ended up working out great; we'd get to campus around 10:00am, Tarek would start lecturing and I'd feed Gwen, then she'd be awake for most of the rest of his lecture only getting fussy around the end at which time I'd put her in the stroller and she'd fall asleep, and sleep for most of my morning lecture. By the time my lecture finished she'd be getting hungry, so I'd feed her and she'd be awake for our lunch break, and be ready to fall asleep again during my next lecture, so the babysitters never had to deal with a hungry, fussy baby (except for the very last lecture today when Gwen's schedule was disrupted enough that she was crying and refusing her bottle, but luckily it was right at the end and so I was able to go to her and help calm her down. (It is a bit distracting lecturing when you can hear your baby crying down the hall...).
And in between, she often played happily on the floor, or napped in her stroller (I am so thankful that she naps well in her stroller – 2.5 hours one afternoon! And a good 45 min. - an hour and a half in general, so her naps in the stroller are just as good as her naps in bed at home. It was also really nice how accommodating everyone was; she had lots of people flirting with her, and no one seemed to be irritated when she'd lie on the floor and make noises, or when I'd be in and out of the room during one of Tarek's lectures to try to attend as much of his as I could and yet still have to replace the pacifier on a regular basis. Because unfortunately, her cough has gotten a bit worse and two days ago she was pretty congested, so she would cough, spit out her pacifier, wake up, cry, and then have trouble taking it back because of her congestion. Poor baby. Our nights were also not the greatest; Wednesday on the trip over she never got an afternoon nap at all, and didn't fall asleep until about 8:30 (about 1.5 hours later than normal), and even so still woke up around 5:20 and didn't go back to sleep until a 40 min. nap around 7:00. So Thursday was a bit rough. Then Thursday night she slept from 9:00 to 7:00, which was great – except for the hour she was awake between 2:15 and 3:15. Friday night was the worse, due the cold she started fussing around 11:45 and didn't really fall asleep until 3:15, when she finally fell asleep propped up on the pillow next to me in bed. Luckily, it was a big pillow, so I was able to lay her parallel to the headboard, so that if she rolled (which she has still never done while sleeping but I would've hated for that night to be the first) she wouldn't roll off the bed, and then I still had space on the pillow myself. So Saturday I was really, really dragging; I told Tarek as we walked out to campus in the morning that I wasn't sure if I'd make it to the afternoon and that I might have him give both afternoon lectures and then I'd do two today rather than just one. Luckily after lunch arrived I was coherent enough to continue. And then last night she did wake up twice – around midnight and then around 5:30, and was up 30-45 minutes between having a small bottle and taking some time to stop fussing and go back to sleep, but then she slept until after 8:00a, unheard of. So I felt a lot better in the morning (though I'm awfully tired now and once she falls asleep I'll probably doze on the train some).
Part of the reason why everything worked out so well despite the nonstandardness of one a small baby around, was the particular audience: Cognitive scientists see babies as subject material. :) We had a lot of discussions related to human reasoning, formal languages, ‘what is a language', extended mind and extended cognition, how babies communicate and reason and learn, and so most everyone seemed to think it was fun having a baby around. As I joked to Tarek while we were waiting for my train to come in, it seems like spending 4 days around a bunch of cognitive scientists did wonders for Gwen's development – not only has she seriously improved when it comes to sitting (she still has trouble sitting on a flat surface like the ground, but put her on a chair or someone's lap, or anything where her feet can hang down a bit, and she can sit up for long periods without any support), but just then I'd looked in on her to find that she'd managed to pick up her pacifier and put it back in her mouth -- a skill I'd told him only half an hour earlier that I was looking forward to her mastering. Not only that, she was chomping around on my fingers earlier today, and I'm pretty certain I feel a tooth! (OK, so that last isn't really a cognitive skill, but still, I marvel at how much has changed in just 5 days). In addition to all these new Mad Skillz she also got quite the variety in terms of new foods. Normally I eat breakfast during her morning nap, lunch at campus after I've dropped her off at daycare, and supper after she's gone to bed, so she hasn't really had much chance to be around when I'm eating. The hotel I stayed at was really sweet and each morning when I came down to breakfast someone brought out a great big furry blanket to put on the floor next to my chair for Gwen to lie on while I ate. Each morning I gave her a slice of cucumber to nom on, and this seemed to go over quite well. Thursday and Friday we ate lunch in the cafeteria, so she got to try some pasta with tomato sauce, “chili” (which I would not have recognized as such if I hadn't been told that's what it was, though it was a very tasty barley-beef-vegetable-tomato soup), and vanilla pudding with red-fruit sauce. The last went over particularly well; it was by far the sourest thing she's ever tried, and it definitely got a puckery reaction, but then she immediately grabbed for the hand holding the spoon to pull it closer, a clear sign that she wants more. And now that she's getting so good at the unsupported sitting, I'm going to have to keep trying to give her more and more foods. So far she hasn't met something she didn't like, and she also hasn't met anything that has given her digestive grief, thank goodness.
She's also beginning to show clear evidence of people recognition – finally it's becoming more regular that if she's fussy and I come and pick her up, she calms down, and it's not because I do anything but just because I'm holding her. She also made friends with one of the Ph.D. students, Martin, who would often stop by and play with her, and at the end when I was holding her and he came by to say good-bye, she gave him a great big smile; I'm sure she recognized him. Martin also stepped in briefly as a substitute babysitter; the babysitter never made it to where we were during my morning lecture (the building we were in is closed on weekends and thus Tarek had to go down and let people in, and the two just never connected), so during the first part of my morning lecture Martin played with her and then sat with her on his lap for awhile, until she got fussy and then we took a break for me to get her to fall asleep and then I left the stroller in the hall way (advantage of the building being pretty much empty other than us!) and continued. It was pretty cute having her in the audience; she sat on his lap quite contentedly and was zeroed in on me the entire time.
But everyone was accommodating and no one was put out by her presence, and that really was great. I found myself reflecting quite a bit about how I'm going about being an academic and a mom at the same time. For me, it was obvious: If I was going to co-teach this course, Gwen was coming with, and accommodations would have to be made. But I wonder why I find this so obvious, given that I don't see other academics (male or female) doing this (with the exception of the day that Prof. Rosenberg showed up to 3rd semester Greek with her little daughter, Sarah, whom she had given birth to midway through 1st semester Greek, so we all knew about her but had never met, because her babysitter had called in sick). But further than that, I also got a taste of what this might be like in the future. Some of the mornings we were both up, I'd eaten breakfast, and we were just waiting for Tarek to come pick us up, and I'd lay her down on the bed and we'd just sit and talk. It was a really fun, special time, especially since for most of the rest of the day she was often sleeping or with a babysitter, or I was trying to pay attention to Tarek's lecture, so I didn't get my normal dose of dedicated baby interaction. And I realized that this is something I can continue. Even when she's old enough that it's easy for me to leave her at home with Joel, I still hope to bring her with to conferences, not every one, but at least some. And if she ever has any siblings, once they're both old enough that they have the option of staying at home, I still hope to at least one trip per year take one of them along with, and have this be a special mother/daughter (or mother/son) retreat/trip. I hope that Gwen, and any siblings she might have, when she grows up can look back on these as being something special and fun, rather than being boring, tedious things that she was dragged along to.
And now we're on the train back (I've got electricity but no internet access on the German train, on the Dutch I'll have internet access but no electricity, so I'm writing this now and will post it later), and I'm really, really looking forward to a solid night's sleep where I don't have to roll over and replace a pacifier multiple times, and I'm looking forward to seeing Joel and hopefully hearing that he's continuing to feel better, but even with the less than desirable night time sleep for both of us, I still had a tremendously fun time.
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no subject
Date: 2012-04-29 06:03 pm (UTC)Of course most of my experience in "taking the baby/toddler/kid along with me" has been with SCA things -- but even so, *my* SCA things tend to consist not only of regular family-friendly events, but also teaching boring old classes and business meetings and the like, right. Both of my kids were great as babies and toddlers, but the oldest has grown up as a social butterfly, which means she LOVES regular events, but is BORED TO TEARS at classroom-style events where she has to sit quietly instead of running around helping.
On the other hand, my youngest has a very different personality, and continues to think it's great fun to go to classes with mom, and will sit quietly and listen or read a book, or write, draw, and color in her notebook. I think I still have saved the paper on which she wrote notes back and forth with our kingdom earl marshal during a particularly long and boring regnum business meeting...
no subject
Date: 2012-04-29 06:12 pm (UTC)You know, maybe that's where I've gotten the impression that it's ordinary/obvious to just bring Gwen along with me anywhere I go.
I think I still have saved the paper on which she wrote notes back and forth with our kingdom earl marshal during a particularly long and boring regnum business meeting...
Awwww....
And if Gwen turns out to be the social-butterfly type instead of the sit-quietly-in-the-back type, well, then maybe special trips to conferences with Mom may not be her thing, which would be fine with me. Or maybe it would just mean that she'd come along, but I'd attend fewer talks that I would otherwise. We'll see. :)
no subject
Date: 2012-04-29 07:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-30 12:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-30 07:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-30 01:24 pm (UTC)