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Extra! Extra! Nathan Time

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For work reasons, Mark is not available, which means Nathan and I have been having a lot of bonding time. Sunday night we made applesauce muffins. Which means I made applesauce muffins, and Nathan measured dry beans onto the floor--because I preferred him playing in that than with flour or rolled oats. He also got to lick the maple syrup measuring cup, which he was a big fan of, and got offended when it ran out. Honestly, I made the applesauce muffins because I didn't want to go outside [which he wanted to do, which I knew because he kept showing me his shoes and jacket] and figured he would get distracted with muffins. That's also why I put away laundry--because he loves laundry--and why we went to the library. Maybe even why we went to church. Basically we had a bunch of side quests to distract him from his Main Quest. I'm beginning to suspect that all of his childhood will be me coming up with side quests, filling up his days with Things To Do so that he doesn't rea...
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What's in a Name

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 I'm here to tell you that Sheila, Mark's car of 20 years, has died [more precisely, has been donated to public radio, but the fact remains that she no longer runs]. Mark was starting his drive home from St. Louis when Sheila just...stopped. He started her up again, and she reasserted her stationary status. He did a manual override to get her off the road [ie put her in neutral and rolled off to the side down the hill], and then called a tow.  And thus began the search for the ideal car . [Unfortunately, I don't think cars, or people, have achieved perfection on earth, but the pressure to find the closest-to-perfect still exists]. It needed to have safety features like a backup camera, curtain airbags, and superb crash test results. I stipulated that it needed to have air vents to the rear seat, as I had noticed that Nathan can get warm sitting back there in his carseat. We preferred a hybrid, for environmental and gas-price reasons. The car also needed room for his strolle...
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Being a Parent is Not Like Riding a Bike

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 Parenthood is a difficult multidirectional journey.  In the first few months, unravelling from lack of sleep, you realize how selfish you actually have been in your pre-parenthood life, as you give so much of yourself to this new being that you begin to be untethered to who you once were. The postpartum period is not just a fourth trimester for the infant, but for the mother as well, for her life is even more tied to sustaining the baby than it was when the baby was in utero. I have never given so much for anyone as I did in that period, which seemed to stretch infinitely while I was in it, and only now seems to have finite bounds. I think all physicists should experience the postpartum months to grasp how warped time can become, because what holds more gravity than the beginnings of an utterly unique life just recently dropped into spacetime, dragging the parents into his orbit with such insistent yet basic demands? Strangely, as the baby gains mass, slowly leaving infancy, ...
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