If I don't manage to finish this by the end of the day, it will mark the first month since i started doing this back in 2007 that I didn't post something. I used to do this about every other week before Hannah, and now it's about once a month.
(Note: It's January and this still hasn't been finished, so I guess that streak is officially over.)
Hannah has really accelerated her language development this month. She's continuing to expand her vocabulary and is starting to put together basic noun-verb sentences (like "Buckle off"). She is also using possessives (or at least proto-possessives) in her speech (like "dad belt"). It's exciting to think that she may soon have the ability to really express her own thoughts and perspectives.
She continues to show interest in music. She's continuing to pick out words in songs that she likes and even says them approximately in the right place sometimes. She is also learning the alphabet through listening to one of multiple toys that sings the alphabet song. She's even showing signs of starting to recognize letters and numbers, which is something I wasn't really expecting since we haven't explicitly been trying to get her to do that. The same thing with colors. One of her gifts was a percussion set (xylophone and a couple small drum heads) and I'm hoping she'll get into it.
Her sleep is in a pretty good place. She's still not sleeping through the night, but she's starting to sleep in longer stretches more consistently. This good sleeping pattern continued throughout our Christmas travel, pretty much unaffected by changes in location and inconsistent bedtimes. So there's a lot to feel good about there.
Other Hannah things: She's got a couple more teeth (first molars) coming in. It's been a while since the last ones, but just in time for her dentist visit next month. She has a while lot of new toys and clothes from relatives. She's starting to show some athleticism with running and climbing (good body awareness, coordination, and balance), and we're going to try to get her into a baby tumbling class to keep her moving. She has a scary good memory. She saw a picture of a relative that she hadn't seen in six months and immediately knew their name (and this isn't a relative that we talk about particularly frequently).
Work stuff is in an okay place, but I will be scrambling a little before the semester begins. My schedule changed slightly, as my ART 240 class didn't meet enrollment. So I have a little bit of extra prep to do for a MATH 120. Fortunately, that's not a hard class to teach. But it is work I have to do that I wasn't planning on doing.
The VIS 115 course is still under development. I'm about 30% on the materials and about 80% on the content. I've got a pattern that I'm following for hope I'm putting my notes together, which helps to speed up the process of putting the notes together. I also have lab time, which is time where I need to step back and let them do stuff, which also fills the time. So I can reasonably expect to be mostly done by the time the semester begins.
My other course is MATH 182 (Calculus 2), which I've taught before and have notes and everything ready to go. I think... Normally, I'd be more on top of where I'm at, but I'm still adjusting to having Hannah around occupying brain space. And so I leave myself notes on my work computer to remind myself where I'm at so I can keep track of things without my brain. So when I get back to the office in a couple days, I'll be able to reorient myself to whatever needs to be done.
It looks like we're all set for the math contests. According to the admin, we've cleared the make hurdles and now it's just minor paperwork. This should be interesting because we're trying to bounce back from our failed Axiom conferences from before the pandemic. We'll see if this partnership pays off for us.
The PTG project got a good place at the end of the semester with a version that some of the leadership wants to show to students. I'm also hoping to get with our graphic design person to get done insights for how to make it look good. I'm probably going to pick that back up in February because I need to get on to of classes, first.
There's a bit of catching up to do with family stuff. We ended up staying in Vegas for Thanksgiving sure to Joan getting COVID. She wasn't feeling good the weekend before and did an at home test. We did some on home isolation (as best as we could) because Hannah hasn't had her first vaccine series for COVID. Joan did a great job masking around the house and staying isolated because the two of us avoided getting sick.
Fortunately, our Christmas travels were not interrupted by illness! And it was a busy trip. The high level overview is that it was two days driving out, four days with Joan's side of the family, three days with mine, and two days driving back.
Hannah was her usual outgoing self. She seemed to move very comfortably from one environment to the next, and I already noted that she slept well and everything. It was really only the last leg of the drive when she really showed that she was done with being in the car and resisting getting back into the car seat. She's now had a few days at home and is finding her usual pattern again. Joan has her work cut out for her trying to keep her from a meltdown, and she did a great job of that.
Thor was a little cranky when we got back, but that's normal for him. He had plenty of food and water because I had some friends checking in on him, so it's just a little bit of loneliness (which is ironic for a cat that started off not wanting anything to do with people in general). So I've been trying to give him a little extra snuggle time before classes start.
I should probably wrap this up because I'm already several days into trying to finish it and I'm not sure when my next down time to do it is going to happen. The little stuff: I need to clean up the second half of the garage. The house is scheduled for a painting in February. I still haven't played much piano. "The Mind" is a crazy game that I need to tell more people about.
