Science Fair!

Okay, so first off I have to admit that I was really excited about coming up with a project and participating in the science fair.

Ian and I (well, mostly me really) got our idea from reading through a Usborne book about Ecology. I found this sidebar: The sidebar talked about the presence of lichen and how it indicated the air quality in a given area. I got to thinking about it and wondered how much lichen we had at our house in the Raleigh area compared to my in-laws' house in Murphy (in the NC mountains). It also happened to be an extremely convenient project since I spent the last 10 days at their house!

First, I took pictures of lichen in Murphy: I noted that I really didn't find much lichen on live trees. The really leafy colorful lichen that indicates good air quality was exclusively on dead tree material. In fact, most of the pictures that I took were from the fence posts in the horse corral. We breathed easy in Murphy knowing that we had clean air.

When we got back home we surveyed the trees in our backyard. The only tree that had any lichen on it was alive. It was a silver maple that is probably 50 years old. I checked some dead limbs from the yard but they had no lichen. This leads me think that we have fairly polluted air here in Raleigh. We had a bit of the leafy stuff but almost no lichen at all on the newer trees and bushes. Yikes!

It was fun to take a small blurb in a book and really run with it and think about how it applies to our everyday life. Thanks for the great idea, Iain and Evie!!

Happy Birthday Ian!

Tap, tap, is this thing on?

No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, I have just been really busy and crappy about writing.

In Februaury I scrambled to get all my doula reading done before my training at the end of the month. I also made it through my first Jensen D-Day fairly unscathed.

In March I spent a week with Ian and my father-in-law while my MIL was in NYC. I spent another week without internet service since we just ported our home phone number to one of our cell phones and so we had no line for DSL until AT&T could come out and fix it.

Today is a special day though because Ian is 4!

I can't believe my son is already four. He has so many wonderful ideas about life and the world. He likes "mushroom kisses" (a term he coined...I am still not 100% sure what it means) but he doesn't want me to kiss hurts anymore. He likes to be the leader but he still likes to hold my hand and stick by my side in new situations. He adores his dad but he still calls his room "Mama and my room."

I am so lucky to have him in my life. He keeps me on my toes and helps me want to be a better person. He melts my heart when he says, "Mom, we're best friends for-EVER!"

His Spiderman birthday party is on Saturday. This is the first year he has wanted to have a party with friends. We bought a bounce house. I think it will be fun.

I'm a DIT!

No, not a ditz, a dit! That's a doula-in-training. I just mailed off my registration today for my doula training which will take place in February. I just lined up the childbirth class that I need to audit before I take my training. I just checked out all the books on my reading list that I don't already own. I feel like things are falling into place.

I have been toying with the idea of becoming a doula (and maybe eventually a midwife) for a little while now. It has been in the back of my mind-something I didn't even want to consider seriously since I lacked the confidence to go ahead with it. Right around Christmas I started thinking about it again and it just seemed like the right time to go for it.

I have always been the type of person who let myself get bogged down by the what-ifs and doubts in my head. I really thought about this and tried to keep my head out of the decision to go ahead and get certified. I love babies and moms and this is a way for me to help new moms and babies get a good start together. It can be really part-time and it is something I can stop doing for a while if I need to, and then I can pick it up and easily get re-certified.

I'm pretty excited (and also a tiny bit anxious) about this new venture. Everyone I have told has been super-supportive. My mom told me that I seemed born for this kind of work! Having a lot of folks backing me up feels really good.

These guys will always be my first priority. I feel so lucky every day to have them in my life.

According to Ian

You don't really think these sweet little animals would hop in a Transformers spaceship and try to take over the world, do you? Nah, me neither.