There are videos of Benjamin being cute under the ‘Baby Ben’ tab at the top of the page or by clicking here.
Last updated on 7/2/2010
There are videos of Benjamin being cute under the ‘Baby Ben’ tab at the top of the page or by clicking here.
Last updated on 7/2/2010
I may just hate myself and be unaware of it at the cognitive level. Yes, you see, I’m taking 6 classes this semester. Granted, one of them I’m auditing and another is an online course, but still. 6 classes. Oh, and did I mention that one of the classes is taught by Dr. Chang – the professor with the 60 page take home final last semester – and two surprise tests the last week before finals…yeah.
My schedule is weird – MWF I have one class at 9:30AM and nothing after it. TR I have three classes going from 1pm till 5:15 pm. And in the free time I fit in the online class, my independent study class, working in the Center for Business Analytics and doing grading for Dr. Ryan. Because the schedule is weird and I have a lot of non-structured stuff to do, Amy and I decided that it would be good for me to adopt a schedule like I had full time work – I’m on campus every day from 9AM till 6PM. This lets us adjust to our new, more permanent family roles now when I can still come home early/leave late if I really need to.
I’m really excited because next weekend I’ll be down in Kingsport interviewing with Eastman Chemical for their statistical department. I had my phone interview with them a few weeks ago and wasn’t sure how well I’d done. But, they called be back for an all-day site interview (6:45 AM till 4:45 PM). I need to put together a presentation on my education and to talk about a project I’ve done plus get tested to make sure I actually know stuff about statistics – I’m nervous because this seems like a dream job and I’m excited because I’m actually getting a real job interview for a job that could be an amazing career.
I’m sorry I haven’t been posting as much lately as I used to – I’ll try and get back into the habit.
Now that I’m a stay-at-home mom and don’t have to go into work on Mondays, I’ve discovered that the once dreaded days can actually be really fun. So here’s a basic sum-up of a Monday enjoyed to its fullest.
We started out the day with me taking Benjamin to the library since it has been furloughed for the past week. I didn’t realize how popular the library here is until I showed up yesterday and had a hard time finding a parking space. People here really do love their library. I checked out a few books and realized how eclectic my literary interests are as I was talking to the librarian checking them out to me. I had asked for her help in finding an unabridged copy of the Count of Monte Cristo in the online catalog because my only clue was the number of pages and I couldn’t find anything longer than 500 pages. We finally found it and managed to put it on hold. So here I am getting frustrated trying to find a 1,500 page book while checking out two young children’s books and a biography… after returning several non-fiction books on biology and math. It’s nice because there’s always something that I’m in the mood to read.
After our library trip, Mark and I talked about how his job interview went. He really likes the sound of Eastman so we hope and pray that he gets this job. We should find out just over the next couple of days whether he will be called back for a follow-up interview.
I then proceeded to spend what felt like the entire rest of the day feeding Benjamin, which fortunately gave me the opportunity to read one of my library books from start to finish and about a quarter of another one. Plus, we watched two episodes of the Planet Earth series including one about the deep sea. The cool thing there is that people who know me well enough know how obsessed I am with the open and deep ocean (not so much the tropics). Learning about the life in the deep ocean really gives you an appreciation for creation because of how varied and completely unexpected or previously unimaginable it is. Prior to the discovery of the ecosystems surrounding the deep-sea hydrothermal vents in 1976, people didn’t realize the extent to which life can flourish and develop without any reliance on the sun whatsoever. Discovering an ecology centered around chemosynthesis (bacteria using the mineral and nutrient rich waters spewing out of the vents from Earth) even changed how xenobiologists look for life on other planets. I personally think that life on this planet that Heavenly Father has blessed us with is varied and plentiful enough to supplant any desire on my part to search the stars for life.
I also got to spend a large chunk of time playing with a singing to Benjamin. I just can’t get enough of his coos and almost giggles and smiles. He loves silly noises (like tongue and lip trills) as well as little songs. I didn’t realize how many nursery rhyme type songs I knew until I started singing them and didn’t show signs of stopping about half-an-hour of one to two minute songs. I love being a mom!
Mark and I (and Benjamin) have been blessed this summer to have tons and tons of family visitors. I decided the best way to share the highlights would be with a pictorial history. Enjoy!
Before Benjamin was born, I wondered how exactly I would fill the hours since newborn babies are not the most interactive. Now I know what you fill all those hours with. You nurse and change diapers non-stop. But besides those two things, I have really enjoyed being a new mother. I love looking across the room at my wonderful husband holding our son and making funny faces. I love going on walks and seeing Benjamin sleep soundly in the stroller even with a jackhammer going 10 feet away. I love going on drives around town with Benjamin just beginning to make cooing noises from the backseat. I love reading fairy tales, nursery rhymes, my favorite childhood stories, and the scriptures to my son. I love having Benjamin fall asleep with his legs curled up underneath him on my chest and wondering how he ever fit inside me (or managed to get out!). I love it when Benjamin looks up at me and tries so hard to imitate the smile on my face resulting in a half-grin and weird sort of raised eyebrow thing. And at night, I especially love it when he sleeps for longer than 10 minutes at a time in his crib. I’ll let you know when that begins to happen regularly.
At 10:52 today, Benjamin Mark Ewing II was born at 9 pounds 4.2 ounces after 26.5 hours labor (including a 1 hour delivery). When Amy arrived at the hospital yesterday they diagnosed her with pre-eclampsia and she had to be moved to a Special Care room to be medicated for that and monitored. Turns out, the medicine for inducement and the medicine for dealing with the high blood pressure from pre-eclampsia fight each other, so it took her nearly a full day to get regular, strong contractions. She got an epidural to try and help make sure that the pain of the contractions wouldn’t cause her blood pressure to rise but, wouldn’t you know it, this incredibly hard pregnancy decided to be harder and her body decided it wouldn’t respond to the normal drip of the anesthetic so she experienced the full force of her contractions. Once she was fully dilated the delivery went well – she was champ and pushed just like she was asked to and then some.
Mother and child are both happy and healthy (Amy is still being treated for and recovering from the pre-eclampsia, but she’s doing fine), Benjamin is sleeping soundly now in our room as I write this. We’ve posted a few (and will post many more) pictures of Benjamin to the flickr feed on here that you can enjoy.
It’s been a while since we’ve posted anything about cooking on here and I think it’s time to change that.
There’s a fantastic steakhouse in the Utah/Nevada area called Ruby River. I’d been there a couple times before I took Amy and the thing I love most about it (and the reason I went back) is not their steaks (which are delicious). If you think about it, for the most part, a steak is a steak (assuming it’s the same cut, same thickness, etc…) no matter where you get it from. So, I pick my steakhouse for the sides/appetizers. Ruby River has a jacketed baked potato. Not the kind that you’ll find when you Google “jacketed baked potato” but a baked potato which has then been dipped in onion ring batter and fried so it has a delicious outer shell. I’m not a huge fan of baked potatoes because I find them to be bland tasting and just an excuse to eat sour cream, butter and cheese. These potatoes are amazing. I wanted to make them.
I have not had any success in making onion rings from scratch. After we bought our deep fryer it was the first thing I tried to make – beer battered onion rings. I thought about buying some mix for it but then I got lazy. Instead I found an oven bake recipe for onion rings that I tried with baked potatoes. Success.
The original recipe is found here on some engineering cooking website. I made minimal changes to it which I’ll describe here. I made 3 restaurant sized potatoes with this size recipe (potatoes the size of my fist, not the size whole hand).
These are delicious potatoes that you can enjoy just like a regular baked potato but with better flavor and more of a pop. I would recommend flavored kettle chips (we used ‘original’ and it was lacking just a bit in flavor, so…advice given).
Enjoy!
I went into the doctor today for another weekly check-up and definitely wasn’t looking so good. I haven’t been able to get a decent night’s sleep for the past week especially because of getting severe muscle cramps no matter how I choose to sleep. This could be the cause of my headaches, returned nausea, increasing blood pressure, and fatigue. I’m pretty sure, though, that the swelling is really just from it being hot and humid and delivery time. Anyway, after sitting on that table waiting for her to come in, I was feeling way worse. Then when she helped me to sit up, the room got fuzzy, and I almost tossed my cookies. At this point, she said, “So let’s induce you tomorrow okay?” She’s mostly just worried about how awful I’m feeling (and looking apparently), and it’s obviously not going to be getting any better before I actually deliver. So getting induced will maximize the amount of energy I have for delivery and keep me from getting to that state of my early pregnancy days of puking everything up to which I am perilously close. Thus, Mark and I will become parents tomorrow! Barring a 17 hour or longer labor. But we’re not going to seriously entertain that possibility right now. Today I’m focusing on taking it easy as per the doctor’s orders. Taking naps, playing the piano, and hanging out with Mark and Mom. And praying that everything goes well, and Benjamin is healthy and happy baby.
Just last week, Mark and I came up on our one-year anniversary for living in Bowling Green. When we first moved here, we were mostly just super psyched not to be living in Provo anymore. Provo was a college town that represented one phase of our lives that we just wanted to leave behind. College life seems to just have dragged on and on and on. We want to be established as a family with Mark in a career job (not me) and with our own children. Well, that phase finally seems like it will soon be attainable with us having reached several milestones in the past year important for that end.
Of course there have been other major events in our lives, but these were some of the ones I felt most appropriate to share. Yay for our first year in Bowling Green!