The Number Field

There's a nice trail near our house. It loops around a shopping area, and is about a mile and a third long. Jenny and I have gone walking there a few times. Today I had meant to do an erg workout, but instead found myself at home, with no time to return to the boathouse, and I decided to go for a run. Very rarely in Austin do we see weather that reminds me of my winter training glory days, but with the temperature a balmy 38 degrees and a stiff north wind, today was one of those days. I hadn't been running in months, and have only recently gotten back on the erg--the semester always gets in the way of my fitness, but now that it's over, I have a little more time. I eventually ran hard and long enough to warm up, and had a very nice run. During my third (and final) loop, I heard a rustle in the trees off to my left. When I looked over, I saw a pair of deer bounding past me.

When I first told a friend that we were pregnant, he said "prepare to get a lot less fit." Those words, coming from a triathlete and father, were not very encouraging, since I'm not in great shape now, while somehow he and his wife continue to perform at top levels. Last night my brother said the same thing in more general terms; that it's very difficult to find any amount of extra time when the baby is a newborn. I'm worried, and fitness is just one small part of it. I don't need to make great strides forward in that area, I just want to stay healthy. I do need to progress steadily in my research, and I would like to make sure that Jenny has personal time to work on her projects also. Everyone must think like this before the baby comes, and then remember those thoughts only faintly afterwards, through the sleep-deprived haze. Is there anything I can do to prepare better?

Whenever a problem has come up during the pregnancy, we've hoped for two things: that we could manage it during the pregnancy, and that it would go away after Sunflower arrived. We've had very few problems so far, but that has changed. Jenny's experienced some episodic pains in her ribs the past few weeks, so our doctor ordered an ultrasound for Jenny's internal organs (not for the baby). It detected sludge in her gall bladder, and our doctor diagnosed that as the the source of the problem. She prescribed some medicine to treat the problem, and referred us to a surgeon.

Yesterday we visited the surgeon. He confirmed what our doctor had told us, and added that it is too late to perform surgery, so we'll have to wait until after the baby arrives to take action. Until then, we can manage the pain best by limiting Jenny's diet; she's not allowed to eat any fat at all. On the plus side, he said that there's no reason why spicy foods should be a problem. We asked about the chance that the problem would go away once the baby came, since it is only sludge, not gall stones. In no uncertain terms, he said that Jenny should have her gall bladder removed not long after delivering the baby, because even if the pain went away, she would be at high risk for similar problems if she were to get pregnant again.

I went to the grocery store today and took care only to buy low fat and no fat items. This seems to be working, as Jenny has been able to manage without medication today. But on top of it all, she has a cold, and has been coughing all day (and all of last night, too). So to the best of our ability, we're taking it easy, which is not all that easy to do.

I administered the precalculus final exam to my students last night. If you'd like to see how you would do, here's a copy of it . I don't want to put any pressure on Sunflower, so I don't think that we'll start with this material until she's at least two or three years old.

At the beginning of today's Lamaze class (our second of three), a strange thought struck me. I suddenly realized that Lamaze class felt just a little bit like Driver's Ed. Think about it: both classes attempt to teach something that can only be really learned through experience. We spent a lot of time watching slightly old-fashioned videos that are at times scary. We're there with a bunch of people that we'll never see again, but are connected to because we're at the exact same stage of life, so that makes things a little awkward.

Can you see Sunflower kicking?

These things only contribute to a faint sense of similarity, and I'm not sure that anyone else would agree with me. For one thing, our Lamaze instructor is much nicer than any driver's ed teacher. We never did breathing exercises in driver's ed, although perhaps they would have been useful. And in Lamaze class they teach you to embrace the pain, instead of avoiding it at all costs.

In other news, here's a new picture of Jenny and Sunflower. Right now we're experiencing a thunderstorm with sleet, even though it was almost eighty degrees earlier today. It's unusual weather for Austin. With Sunflower due in February, I hope that we don't have anything like this when she decides to come. After class tonight, I know that it will be tough enough without any weather complications.

For the two years that we've been married, Jenny and I have sent themed Christmas packages as presents to our various family members. The first year, of course, our wedding was the theme, and the package featured a framed wedding-day photo of us, along with some other items. Last year, we chose Texas as the theme. Among other things, the packages included a Texas-shaped cookie cutter and kitchen towels with bluebonnet pictures. The featured gift was chocolate-covered pecans from the Berdoll Pecan Farm , home of the tallest, flashiest, most hypnotizing electric billboard in central Texas.

We've been working on this year's gift for a while now. Today we put things into high gear, so that the packages we have to mail will get to their destinations in time for Christmas. We think we've picked a good theme, and hope our family members will like the contents of the packages. I won't reveal this year's theme. However, looking forward it's hard to imagine that next year's theme won't have something to do with Sunflower's first year.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that my computer had become even more unreliable than I was used to. I don't shut it down when I take to and from school, I just put it to sleep, but it had taken to shutting down spontaneously even after I had put it to sleep. Although this seems like just an inconvenience, it made me worry about the overall health of my four year old laptop.

I eventually traced my problems to the battery system, and discovered that my computer had lost its ability to charge the battery. Because of that, the battery had run down to the point where it couldn't even supply the minimal amount of power to keep the computer live while asleep. I borrowed a friend's computer and charged my battery, and solved the problem temporarily. However, I still couldn't use the computer for any length of time without plugging it in; my battery is old, and doesn't hold much of a charge anyway. During further investigations, two different technicians diagnosed the problem as a bad logic board, and said that repairs would cost several hundred dollars--enough that it would probably make more sense to buy a new computer instead. With Sunflower on the way, it is not the time for me to be making a major outlay like that for myself, but I would also have a hard time without my own computer. So I continued my research, and found the wonderful site iFixit . I learned that there was a small chance that the DC-in board was causing the problem, and I could replace that myself for about ten percent of the price of the logic board repair.

Opening up a computer, especially a laptop, is a scary thought, but mine is long past its warranty and iFixit provided step-by-step instructions. I opened it up, switched the part, and closed it back down, with no extra screws remaining. When I plugged it in and turned it on, the battery began to charge again! While the computer was open I tightened up some miscellaneous screws in the computer chassis. As a result, I am now able to use a replacement battery I bought last year and hadn't used because it seemed to fit loosely into the compartment. The battery wasn't bad--the connector was just too loose!

I'm pretty happy. For one thing, I didn't ruin my computer. But even more than that, I breathed new life into my whole setup.

Jenny has taken to fighting back when Sunflower kicks. She presses on her tummy and says that she can feel limbs and other extremities that she can't quite distinguish between. She tried to demonstrate, but until Tuesday night, I didn't understand what she was talking about. After Lamaze class (which I'll have to discuss in a later post), she sent me to the nearby Central Market, a fancy grocery store, looking for a few things. While I was there, I picked up something for her itchy tummy skin: Burt's Bees Mama Bee Belly Butter (what a name!). I had thought about saving it for a Christmas present, but decided against that, since she's dry and itchy now.

When I got home, she let me apply the belly butter, and as I rubbed it in, I could feel what seemed to be different objects moving around under her skin. It was so cool, and I finally understood why Jenny sometimes seems to be preoccupied with moving her hand around her stomach, as if she's following something: she is following something! Now we get to talk about whether it's a foot, a knee, a head, or something else that's pushing towards the outside world.

I'm about to head to school for what will be a long day before I return home tonight. I have class at 9:30 (I have to hurry or I'll be late!). Then I teach this evening from 5:00-6:00, and following that I'm leading an extra review session for the UT Learning Center. Immediately following that, I have to rush down to our hospital, because Jenny and I have our first Lamaze class tonight! I'll miss the first little bit, but since it goes until 9:30, I will get to most of it. We have three sessions, and this is the only one I'll be late for. I hope Jenny doesn't feel too lonely right at the beginning.

Around this time of year, we sometimes get into discussions about holiday traditions. In the past, since we didn't have children, we tended to focus on family activities from our own childhood. However, now that Sunflower is on the way, I wonder if the few small traditions that we have established will continue in the future, or if her presence will alter them. For one thing, I have taken a Thanksgiving bike ride, continuing a tradition from my young adulthood. I don't remember the first time that my family did this all together, but I think it was when I was in high school. We instituted this tradition on very sound principles: it's important to be hungry when thanksgiving dinner comes around. In some humorist's description of his own childhood (probably Patrick McManus), he talks about how they would go dig a big hole in the backyard on Thanksgiving morning to get hungry and tired before turkey time.

Starting my Thanksgiving bike ride.

This year, I'm not in great shape, so I went on a bike ride of moderate length, about 25 miles. I had my GPS on and logged the route . About halfway through, after I had climbed a pretty big hill and was recovering a little bit on the flat, a guy passed me. I couldn't let this happen, so I drafted off of him for a little while, then at the next big hill, I waited until he started to struggle and then took care of him. Eventually, because of a couple of red lights that I hit, he almost caught up to me again, but it was right where I turned off onto a different road.

The Thanksgiving Bunch

We had Thanksgiving dinner with Jenny's brother and his family, along with some other friends from church. We had lots of turkey and ham and other good things. We took chips and queso (which non-Texas people might call Nacho Cheese or something like that), which is another good Thanksgiving tradition. We also watched plenty of football, including the Texas vs. A&M game in the evening. Jenny impressed the men with her football knowledge, but then she went to watch Persuasion with the girls. On our way home, we indulged in one more Thanksgiving tradition. Much like some people drive around neighborhoods on Christmas Eve to look at Christmas lights, we drive around on Thanksgiving night to all of the electronics stores, to see which one has the longest line of crazy people waiting for Black Friday. As in previous years, in this area Best Buy won easily.

On Wednesday night, Jenny wanted to watch a movie, mostly because she didn't have to get up early for work the next day. We didn't have everything that we were supposed to prepare for Thanksgiving, so she sent me to the grocery store, and told me to look for a movie at the movie-rental kiosk. (It's a Movie Cube, not a RedBox or DVDPlay, but operates in the same way.) These rental things work best when you know what you want, and you want a new release. After scrolling through a couple of screens, I couldn't find anything interesting, and a line was developing behind me, so I abandoned the search.

At home, I resumed the search by connecting to Hulu . We narrowed our choices to Sleepless in Seattle and a childhood favorite of mine, Hans Christian Andersen . Jenny let me make the final decision, and I chose Hans Christian Andersen , because it has Danny Kaye, and I hadn't seen it in so long, and I could only half-remember the words to the math song "Inchworm" . To my dismay, that song had been edited out, but can be found on Youtube . The show is delivered over the internet, so there aren't any time constraints. I don't know why they removed that song, along with "Copenhagen," "Thumbelina," and possibly others. Still, it's a great movie and worth watching. I don't think that it's possible to make a movie like this anymore; the entertainment landscape has changed. Please correct me if you think I'm wrong, or can recommend recent movies that share the same gentle spirit.

I highly recommend other Danny Kaye movies, especially The Inspector General (based on a play by Nikolai Gogol) and The Court Jester . You can watch Hans Christian Andersen for yourself here .