good news, bad news

ELP flipped! I'm pretty excited about that. But they heard a minor heartbeat arrhytmia (which we sort of noticed a month ago), but we spent 2 hours at the clinic checking it out this morning, and the doctor says it is nothing to worry about. Luckily my mom is visiting and got to hang out with me for my marathon OB visit. She has been really helpful around the house, and it is significantly cleaner than when she came (despite our best efforts to clean it last week when it first went up for sale)!

baby list

I have a baby list, but it only has stuff for me on it :). Really it's all breastfeeding stuff, so it's not just for me. Mostly I want some nice nursing shirts, but I also am eyeing a big floppy hat for baby which acts as a cover-up when feeding, so that could count as baby clothes for ELP. I think that's a great idea because I am not at all interested in covering my baby with a towel--they are not parrots and covering them with a cloth does not necessarily make them calmer (in fact, it really used to piss LP and me off). Maybe if ELP is really nice and flips around, I will put on some nice new toys for her on the list.

Monkey bars

Providing more evidence that ELP is smaller than LP was, I was hanging on the monkey bars at the playground yesterday. At this time with LP, I remember trying to climb a rope and being immediately stopped by a bad feeling in my abdominal muscles, like they were being stretched too much.

More interestingly, LP can also hang by his hands on a bar, and climb ladders! He can't hang on long; maybe a few seconds, but it seems pretty impressive for a toddler!

ELP is still breech. I am hoping she turns on her own, but the chances are now less than 50/50. If she doesn't turn on her own, we will attempt an external cephalic version in 2 weeks to make her turn, which has somewhat better than even odds of working. Otherwise, I guess I have to prepare for people to cut into my stomach, so I am sad and a bit scared. But C-sections do appear to increase the safety of delivery for breech babies, especially since people are less experienced in doing a regular breech birth (as they shouldn't be, since it is slightly more dangerous).

:(

I should be happy that we both got jobs (at least informally) in the same place (A), but insead I am sad that TE has to reject his really great offer in place L. He even liked all the people he met there, and it was in his favorite sub field.

finally some data

Not that it really clears anything up, but TE and I ranked our potential jobs on a scale of 1 to 10. It's not clear what 1 represents, but 10 is the ideal job. We also guessed about what the other would say. We were supposed to base the number on the assumption that we had the job offer (and guess about details if necessary) though for TE in Place D, there was a lot of guessing because he is looking at a few options, none of which are very clear or close to giving him an offer. (I think that unduly affected his choice of his rank for Place D.)

Here are my job rankings:
Place A: 9
Place D: 8
Place L: 5

Here is what TE guessed for my jobs:
Place A: 9
Place D: 7
Place L: 3

Here is what TE says about his jobs:
Place A: 6
Place D: 5
Place L: 9

Here are my guesses for TE's jobs:
Place A: 6
Place D: 8
Place L: 9

I was surprised we weren't that far off. If we are maximizing the sum of these numbers, or keeping both above a minimum level of 5, it looks like Place A is the choice, but Place D is better if TE gets an offer that looks closer to my guess of 8 than his guess of 5. Obviously, I think I'm right. It's hard to justify going to L if we have offers in A, but I guess we could still go there if we don't get offers in A or if TE gets a bad offer in D.

LP antics

I thought I should also update on LP's progress. Last week he put together 3 words: "No bite, Daddy." Daddy had been threatening to eat one of his strawberrys (which LP was holding up and taunting us with, pretending that he wanted me or TE to eat it and then moving it away). He has done it a few times with other words since then.

LP hears "no biting" a lot at day care, I think. He had his rubber duck trying to bite his finger, then he turned it around and told it "no bite". He's very serious when he says this, and seems to like giving orders. He seems a bit scared by his new stuffed alligator, though. It has a big mouth with teeth, and he will put his finger in and then say it bit him and run to me for protection.

In other news, we are getting the house ready to put on the market, and some friends came over this weekend and helped paint and wash siding and trim bushes. It was great to finally get something accomplished. We also had lots of strawberry pie. I've picked almost 3 gallons of strawberries this year, but luckily for me they are starting to wind down now, because ELP is getting bigger every day and I feel like I'm squishing her when I bend down for the strawberries.

possible job locations

So the job search is down to three places, all national lab sort of places. One place just called me and asked if I wanted to interview in person (I had said that we might be making a decision soon on other jobs). I told them we should wait until we hear back from other jobs this week until I schedule an interview, since I don't want to waste everyone's time. I also said I can't possibly interview beyond 2 weeks from now because of the birth, but they are willing to "work around that"; maybe do another longer phone interview or something. I don't know what to do about them.

Here are how the three places stack up:

Place A: Niether of us have a job offer here, but we are expecting to hear back this week. I am expecting to get an offer, but I am less sure about TE. Maybe I'd put it at 60/40 but there's just no way to know yet. He also could probably find a different job in A, but it wouldn't happen very soon.
Here are how the jobs at A would look:
Professional/Career: This job would probably be the best for me; TE would be changing fields a bit, which is alright as long as he likes his new field.
Location: It's a really great place to live, but far away from family. The cost of travel would be covered with the extra salary.
Salary/Benefits: This job would be the best offer for me; probably TE would be good too.


Place D: I have a job offer here and TE has a lot of leads but nothing that will be decided soon. I am confident if we moved here he would find a job in a reasonable time, but it's kind of risky to take that chance.
Here are how the jobs at D would look:
Professional/Career: This job would be great for me; I guess whether TE's job would be great depends on which lead follows through, but I think there are some great jobs for him there.
Location: We would be moving home, which would be really fun while the kids are young.
Salary/Benefits: My offer is fine but lower than the other two would be. I think TE would get a pretty good offer.

Place L: TE has a job offer here and I potentially have an interview. They will interview 2 people so I guess my chances are 50/50.
Here are how the jobs at L would look:
Professional/Career: This job would be not so good for me in the long term. I think I would be happy and productive, and it's not completely out of the blue, but it's just not the best career path to take in terms of my plan to be a professor; TE's job is exactly what he's looking for.
Location: Nothing great in particular about Place L, but it's not as far as A.
Salary/Benefits: My offer would be good. TE's offer is good, but I think he is worth more.

How am I supposed to compare?