The weather has been crazy this month. October 4 had a high of 106 degrees, October 18 had a high of 68, October 24 is projected to have a high of 92, and November 1 is projected to have a high of 69. I don't believe we've had swings this large before (at least, in my memory it hasn't been like this, and I'm too lazy to try to look up the data).
Hannah's big move in the last month has been to add words to her vocabulary. I think her most common word at this point is "more", which she sometimes says as mo-mo-more, and I have to blame myself for that somewhat because when she would sign more aggressively (kind of tapping her fingers together repeatedly) I would verbalize "more more more more" because of how many times she would do it. But there are other things like she says like "owl" and "down" and "yeah" (the last one is said in a whispery sort of voice). There's probably a dozen more that have popped up in the last month, but I'm not going to just type out a list.
She finally got her 15 month vaccines and flu vaccine a few days ago. It was a little late due to just being sick and then a little busy, but it's fine. She fevered a little bit after this one, but only for about a day. The sickness that she had seemed pretty minor, but it took a long time to go away, and part of me wonders if she just has allergies, because the temperature variation confuses the plants and we get high pollen counts when that happens. That's something that I think we'll just have to keep an eye on.
The cooler temperatures have allowed us to get outside more, which has been great. She's really embracing her social side when we're out. When she's wandering around, it's kind of like she's everybody's friend. She will just engage with anyone nearby, and sometimes gets them to show her their phones or smart watches or whatever. She's also had a few more splashpad opportunities, and those have been great social moments with other kids. It's kind of neat to just sit back and watch her do her thing, and she doesn't really need us to hover too closely for her to feel comfortable and confident. There have been just a couple times where she's shown some separation anxiety things. (But some of that is developmentally appropriate and normal, so it's we don't feel bad about those situations other than feeling bad that she feels bad.)
Bedtimes are much more predictable than they were, and she's now using a sleep sack which I think is helping. Since she still isn't yet a blanket or stuffed animal in bed baby, the sleep sack is a good alternative to helping her feel cozy. I still don't really understand how some kids are able to get to sleep with 7:00 bedtimes or whatever. We're usually starting her bedtime at around 8 and she falls asleep sometimes as late as 9. But a lot of the times, she's out by 8:15-8:30. She's also going down on her own in the crib now (at least at night), and that it does feel like we're getting better sleep. The extra sleep and more consistent bedtime has opened up a lot of new time and space for us because now there's a real "after the baby goes to sleep" time. It's really nice to not be so tired that you have to go to sleep right after the baby does, and that extra hour or so of non-baby time has been good.
Miscellaneous other stuff: We're going through lots of library books. She's going to be starting her swim lessons at the multigen center soon. It will be interesting to see how the new classes go ("hear about" is more correct, as the lessons are while I'm on campus). (Note: I started this last week, and I'm finally getting around to finishing it. Joan took her to her first couple lessons, and she's having a great time.) She's also been getting extra social opportunities as Joan has been participating in a women's group that also meets while I'm on campus. So there's a lot of good socialization that she's getting beyond the interactions with random strangers. She had her first IKEA trip with us and her grandparents, and that was one of her first "hold hands in crowded a public space" opportunities, which she also did very well with. She's just doing this growing up thing very well right now.
I'm in a better place with work stuff than a month ago. Classes have continued to flow well, and it's really more about starting to find time to work on those other projects. I've been able to put in quite a bit of time thinking about and tinkering with the conceptual physics course. I've put together a couple light/color labs and have continued to gather and compile resources. I also have a slate of statics and kinematics labs and concepts in mind that I hope to start to work on soon. I also need to figure out what random things I need to buy, like glue guns and spaghetti.
The .NET project is in a little bit of a holding pattern, but not because of the .NET side of it. I use .NET to pull some data from our database, but as I tried to share out the code it turns out that the access to the database isn't what I thought it was, and so it works for me but not for them. So I'm going to need to inquire a bit about how to make that work right. I don't think it should be too complicated to resolve, but it's also something above my pay grade.
I was finally able to bring the program learning outcomes project to a close. This doesn't mean that we're done doing the assessments. But I think I've set up a system that is quick and easy to implement, which means that we have to think about it less moving forward. I basically put all of the structure into a Canvas development course, and then all the faculty can just copy modules out of that course into their courses, and (in theory) all of the rubrics and data should flow back to the main assessment person so that we don't have to do the administrative setup steps ever again. This also makes it so that if we update anything, it's just updated in one place and everything is automatically pushed forward from there. So I feel good about that one.
I haven't touched my MATH 125 materials at all, and they're going to remain in a languished state for a while longer. There's just not enough reason for me to pick that up again while I've got all of these other projects rolling around. And I don't feel bad about that one. It's just something that will have to wait its turn.
We're making some progress with bringing the Nevada Math math competition out to our campus. We're still trying to flesh out the details, but it sounds like we're going to be about 90% set after this next exchange of emails, and then I'll bring it back to the faculty for another look to make sure that we are ready to commit. And then we'll commit and see where it goes from there.
We're starting to gather some quotes for work to be done around the house. There's some painting to be done, both inside and out, and Joan wants to get a security door (security screen) on the front and back doors so that she can open them up and get some airflow through the house while still having the door locked. She's still working on picking the colors and thinking about the furniture arrangement. I'm not sure when we're going to move on those things, but it's feeling like it's starting to pick up speed.
I killed all of the basil. The ones that I tried to transfer didn't hold, and I failed to water the rest of them for a couple days and they dried up. So there's nothing growing right now. I think it's past the season for sunflower seeds, so I don't know what, if anything, I'll put in there. I know I've got a couple packets of other herbs, and I might just scatter a few and see what happens.
We're just a couple weeks from election day (though early voting has already started). On the one hand, I can't believe this is even a close race. I think the answer should be pretty clear if you hold to beliefs such as "character matters" and "truth is important." But on the other hand, what is it about my understanding of humans and human culture that leads me to think that when it comes to power and authority that those two claims actually apply in reality? So we'll ride out this nailbiter, and whatever will be will be. "Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are regarded as dust on the scales."
The jazz concert last month was fun, but it ended up being too hot to really want to hang around for the second group. So we went to 85 Degrees and just hung out for a bit. That was our first time going out without Hannah since she was born. Related to this, we're continuing to look into longer-term consistent babysitting options, and hopefully we'll have something figured out by January so that we can have a little bit easier of a time managing work.
Other stuff: When I look back at the last month's notes, I realize that I still need to weigh Thor. As I type this, he's on my stomach, in between me and the laptop, and there's no scale nearby. And so this is basically why it never gets done. Maybe in the next month, I'll get to it. But at least I don't notice any particular behavioral changes that make me think there's a problem. We've done AYCE sushi a couple times this last month. The first family visit went well, as did the second family visit. The third one got cancelled due to a bad back, but it sounds like things there are getting better and maybe it will happen at some point in the future. In the last month, a relative had a cancer diagnosis and is working their way through it, so praying folks can pray about that.
