girl on the way!

So FB got the scoop, but the news from the doctor is that we're having another girl. Thanks to all who supported the name Otis, which sadly is no longer suitable. I am hard at work dreaming up a middle name. Jill has picked out the first name.

After a blazing hot end of summer, fall has been fantastic. You'd think that after so many sunny, mild days we'd have some nice photos of our park outings, but we don't. So we'll show more Clara!

As you can see to the right of this page, I've been reading a book about railroad history. The biggest surprise is the number people killed during rail construction. The scariest case was the construction of the Panama railroad -- an estimated 6000 workers died. At any time, 2/3 of the workforce was too sick to work.

A personal favorite story was how the 4 owners of the Central Pacific Railroad stole big money during construction of the transcontinental railroad. One of them was Leland Stanford, founder of a small junior university in California. Go BEARS!

informal cyclocross

Local bike riders have organized some in-town weekday cyclocross races, and I raced tonight. I rode the downtube-friction-shiftered Trek 500 with much aplomb. My troubles were the dismounts, barrier jumps, and remounts. The 3 guys that finished ahead of me gained at least 3 seconds per skill-set-required action. I should practice. And yes, there were more than 4 racers. Maybe 9.

After the race, Luke complained that my collision with a barrier on the last lap left it sitting higher for those after me. There's a positive aspect of lacking finesse.

A great advantage of college town life is that babysitting works fabulously. Let's say you want to go out to a nice restaurant with your true love without having to mind the baby. Just call up a friend and give her some dinner and the baby. Return home and sleep, and then said friend goes to her just beginning party. Perfect!

We ate very well at Silvercreek on Saturday night.

Clara enjoys crawling into her toy box to play.
Clara also enjoys getting into the kitchen drawers, but we disapprove.
Is that the face of repentance or disdain? I say repentance.

entering the teenage months

Have we discussed Clara enough lately? She turned 13 months today, so let's have a little update.

She still has 6 teeth, 4 uppers that are getting big enough to see when she smiles and 2 lowers.

She says 'dada', 'moma', and 'bye-bye' only when she wants.

She has taken 2 steps on her own, but mostly crawls or walks while holding onto whatever is handy. She loves to climb stairs. Just this week, she walks with us while holding our hands, but only when she wants.

When we're eating something she doesn't like too much, she points toward the counter where we once, maybe three months ago, had put the only package of whipped yogurt snacks that we ever bought. She seems to hope that if she points to that space, they will return.

She likes pasta best, especially mac and cheese (made by us, not kRaft).

We gave her bites of my German chocolate birthday cake, and she bounded around the house for 30 minutes.

We've been watching episodes of Psych recently, and Clara enjoys the theme song very much. Dancing and smiling ensues.

Her favorite activity with mommy is 'buzzy bee,' a tickling game. She holds her fingers just like mommy when she wants mommy to do it. Peak a boo is also fun.

She usually goes to sleep at 9:30p and wakes up around 7:30am. Recently, she's been waking up from being cold or hungry, but generally sleeps through the night. Two daytime naps of about 1 1/2 hours each.

When she's MAD, she jerks her entire body like a fish out of water.

She grabs my stomach flab and mommy's nose hard! We're teaching 'gentle'.

She waves at strangers. We do this every day on the quad while mommy is teaching. When strangers wave back, she does a shrug/hide her face duck before looking at them again.

We love her lots!

back from the Pitts

I had my first business trip as a daddy this week. Umf, I felt gut pain the first couple nights from missing the kid.

I spent Sun through Wed near the confluence in Pittsburgh at a groundwater protection conference. The conference theme was the water-energy nexus. Did you know that electricity production uses about the same amount of water as agriculture in the US? Did you know that India uses 30% of its electricity generation to pump groundwater? The nexus is an HUGE story.

Bobby Kennedy Jr. was the keynote speaker. He walked within 1 foot of me, but I neither shook his hand or tripped him. He hates coal.

My birthday happened a week ago. We had caramel apples instead of cake. I hope to bake my cake tonight.

Here's some reasons that I missed Clara terribly. What a funny kid!
Clara is a huge star with Jill's students.

The conference was too busy for me to enjoy Pittsburgh. The one tourist thing I did was ride the incline. I would have loved to ride a bike there and climb some of the steepest streets in the country. Maybe next time.

whirlwindy

Big news to report this week, but let's save it for the end.

Clara's big birthday celebration extended to essentially a full week. Jill's parents stayed with us a couple days and brought birthday presents. Clara is clearly impressed.

Quiet time is not overly common with the ever-active Clara, but grandma is able to get some reading time in.
One difficulty of marrying someone that grew up 2000+ miles away from home (and living near neither place) is that getting both sets of grandparents together is a rare event. We're pleased to report that for the 3rd time ever, both sets of parents were in Urbana albeit for a couple hours. Here's your proof.
Clara loved playing with Grandma's iphone, perhaps her favorite toy to date.
One of Jill's students is quite the photographer. My favorite subject:
Okay, the big news. First the smaller news: it looks like we'll be selling our townhouse in Los Alamos. We accepted an offer from a buyer, and if all goes well we'll close near the end of October. Hurray!

Finally, we're expecting another baby in March! My favorite name for the baby is Otis, but no one else likes it. But that's what we call the kid for now.

first birthday bash

Today actually isn't Clara's birthday, but it was a fine day to celebrate. Last year, in the evening on Labor day, Clara was born. Now she's a whirling dervish with a grand sense of adventure. As for us parent-folk, we're full of joy and gratitude to have her in our family. And sometimes, we're exhausted.

For lunch we went to Clara's favorite Mexican restaurant, where she is adored by the wait staff. First, they gave her a helium filled balloon. After she ate some frijoles and arroz, they put a sombrero on her head, sang a birthday song, and set out a plate with whipped cream and chocolate. All very good!

Now that she has some hair, that's another good place to put whipped cream.
After an afternoon nap, we were joined by some friends at the local park for a picnic and cupcakes. Thanks so much to all for celebrating with us! It has been a joy to have you in Clara's life during the last year.
Clara ate a bunch of sweet potatoes before starting on her cupcake, a white cake with lemon cream cheese frosting made by mommy and daddy. After dipping her hands in the frosting she put some in her mouth and ate with relish.
Will we pay for Clara's excessive eating of sweets eating today? Time will tell...

Stocking up on the 80's

I'm no nostalgist. Though I enjoyed growing up in the 80's, I'm pretty happy with life right now. That said, I seem to be a huge sucker for bikes from the 80's, as evidenced by the photo below. Only one is not ours.

As Clara rapidly approaches her first birthday, moving everything to everywhere else is about the most fun to be had.
Clara needs lots of energy to accomplish her daily tasks. Starting with a jug of milk and a glass of oj gets her off on the right footing.
Jill (and I) survived her first week teaching a reading class at the IEI. Perhaps one reason for the job availability is fellow teacher's sabbatical to jolly old England for the semester. I think Clara will miss her.