Parenting Practice

Academia: I'm still off conferencing in Houston, and hopefully will be able to report to you next week that it went well (I'm writing this on Sunday night before leaving). In the meantime, I give you another outfit I wore last week, on a day when the students were really wearing me down. It wasn't a bad day at all, but just a day in which everyone had a question, or a weird problem, or a complaint.

It was exhausting, but in a way, probably good practice for parenthood. After all, Baby C will be here soon and she will need me way more than any student I've ever had. I'm sure it will feel different - I'll love my daughter more and differently than my students, which will make meeting her needs easier in some ways. But there will probably also be days when I feel run down by how dependent she will be on her dad and me. For those days, my job can be an excellent warm-up.

Sartorial: Wearing fun clothes can make tiring days a little better. Bright purple and red, comfortable jeans, and a big flower in my hair all make me smile. That's something to keep in mind for those inevitably tiring days with Baby C: putting on happy clothes might help ease that worn-out new mommy feeling.

To any moms reading this, how did you make yourself feel a bit more human on long days with your baby?

Conferencing in the Lone Star State

Academia: Happy Memorial Day, y'all! I hope anyone reading this in the US is enjoying the holiday (and if you're not in the US, I hope you're just having a nice Monday at work). I am spending my Memorial Day flying to Houston for the annual NAFSA conference. NAFSA is an organization for international educators and administrators, and a colleague and I have a poster presentation on Wednesday. I'm really excited; this is my first national conference and I'm looking forward to see what this type of conference is like. I can't wait to report back to y'all next week about my first foray into academic networking!

Sartorial: I wore this outfit last week, but I'm wearing something very similar for the flight today - just swapping out the shirt and adding a blazer (so I don't have to pack it). These pants are sooooo comfy, so they're great for the plane, but can also go straight from the airport to conference registration and still be appropriately professional. And I think the animal print shoes make the whole outfit a little more fun - yes, I'm going to a conference, but my shoes don't have to be stuffy, right?

Back on the Grid

Hey everyone. I'm back.

I totally didn't intend to drop off the face of the earth for six weeks. Everything is going great here, which is exactly why I did drop off the face of the earth - everything going great means everything is also really busy. Here's a rundown of what I've been up to in the past six weeks:

1. Went to Paris with Cary. Tres magnifique!
2. Spent two weeks trying to mentally and physically recover from trip to Paris.
3. Had a nephew, who is honestly the cutest baby ever born. Three weeks old last Saturday, and the apple of his aunt Emily's eye.
4. Finished the semester.
5. Recovered from the end of the semester.

Plus, got increasingly more pregnant, as you can see. I'm 26 weeks right now and feeling wonderful, albeit a little awkwardly sized. Seriously, who would have thought that putting on a pair of pants would be such an act of balance? My daughter is strong and healthy, and quite the active kid. I couldn't have asked for a better pregnancy so far, and all I can ask for now is that it keep going the way it's been going.

So what are my plans for the blog going forward? Obviously, step one is not to drop off the face of the earth for six weeks again. Beyond that, I'd like to keep posting twice a week. I'd love to do more, but it's hard to come up with five non-repetitive outfits every week for months when my wardrobe is so limited. After Baby C is born in August, we'll take things one day at a time, but hopefully will be able to keep up the twice-a-week plan once we've got our feet under us.

Thanks for sticking around, and I'm glad to be back! Until Wednesday or Thursday, enjoy this adorable picture of me and my nephew:

See what I mean? Couldn't you just eat him up?

Anne of Green Gables

Academia: Things are quieting down from the beginning of the semester, for which I am sooo thankful. It's nice to be busy at work, but it's also nice to have quiet days after the busyness. Yesterday I had a few minutes to sit in my office armchair and put my feet up on my desk chair. It was delightful.

Sartorial: Another delightful thing that happened over the weekend is that my mom came and took me maternity clothes shopping! I thought everything would be too big still, but it all fit perfectly, so apparently I'm showing more than I thought. I can't tell y'all how nice it is to have clothes that look right on my body and don't make me feel like a sausage squeezed into a too-small casing. I got three dresses, two skirts, and a pair of jeans. And may I just say, why aren't all pants made like maternity pants? They're so stretchy and wonderful. A friend of mine called them "reverse Spanx." Instead of squishing you in, they just expand to let you be as big as you want to be. I must find a way to keep wearing them forever.


This is one of the dresses I got, and I feel so pretty in it. The ruffly collar and the flowers remind me of Anne of Green Gables - they seem so feminine and old-fashioned. Of course, Anne didn't get pregnant until book five of that series, and then I doubt her maternity dresses were 100% synthetic fabric (or that they even called them "maternity dresses" back then... they were probably just "dresses"), but I like to think that if Anne were not fictional and walking around today, this is what she would have picked.

Okay, I'm imagining a fictional character from an Edwardian-era novel shopping at Motherhood Maternity. It's definitely to stop writing and go to bed. I'll be back soon with more new maternity clothes and less rambly weirdness, I promise.