The Interview and The Weekend

So, the "work-week" didn't involve anything out of the ordinary. Sarah was feeling a bit under the weather for most of the week, and she was particularly puny on Thursday, so Duane stayed home with her to let her recover. She seems to be feeling better now except for a nasty cough that is lingering.

My interview in Durham was scheduled for Friday morning at 8:45. Of course, as luck would have it, the weather forecast was calling for a wintery mix Thursday night into Friday morning. So that added a level of stress to an already stressful situation. Luckily, the weather cooperated and I was able to make the drive to Durham early Friday morning without having to deal with any inclement weather. As for the interview itself, it was fantastic! I really enjoyed talking with all the scientists I met with and I have every confidence I would be happy working for this company. It was actually refreshing, because most of the scientists are in their mid-30s and at similar points in their careers as Duane and me. Everyone was extremely nice and friendly and only had good things to say about the company. Of course, I am sure they were also trying to sell the company to me just as I was trying to sell myself to the company, and I am certain they have their fair share of work-related issues there. But in general, it seemed a lot less political and hierarchical than the academic research setting. So now I just have to wait and see if I made it through this cut of the interview process. I should hear from the HR department by the end of the coming week, and they will let me know whether or not I am invited to return for the second (and last) on-site interview before they make their decision. So I am hopeful that I will be offered this opportunity to return and interview a second time. As usual, I will keep you all posted as the events unfold.

This weekend, Mimi and Papa Bagwell came to visit Sarah (and us too). Sarah warmed right up to them and she played hard with them all weekend! Saturday night Duane and I left Sarah with Mimi and Papa for a few hours. We actually went to see a movie (Vantage Point, which we highly recommend) and then out for dessert afterwards. It was nice to get away together for a few hours without the worry of how Sarah was coping...we knew she was happy and in good hands! We are all looking forward to another visit from Mimi and Papa in a couple of weeks. They are coming again to babysit Sarah so Duane and I can make it to a Wake Forest basketball game (I got Duane tickets to the Wake Forest vs. NC State game for Valentine's Day)!

In other Sarah news, her vocabulary is really exploding these days! She has mastered most of the parts of her face. She can say and correctly point to her eyes, nose and mouth. She can point to her ears, but she only says "ears" on occasion. Since my last post, she has also learned to say "night-night", "peek-a-boo", "popcorn", and "rhino". She has only said "peek-a-boo" and "popcorn" a couple of times, so I am sure they are not yet regular words in her vocabulary. Basically at this point, she tries to say anything we ask her to say, so it is really a lot of fun to teach her new words!

Guess that's all the updates we have. This is Duane's last week of work in his current lab before he transitions to his new lab. I will just be waiting to hear the verdict about my interview. And as far as we know, Sarah has a normal week at daycare with no special activities planned besides her weekly Preschool Music class. And Mr. Winston will also have a typical week of sleeping on the couch all day while we are at work and playing in the evenings when we are home.

Have a great week and we'll update you next weekend!

A BUSY WEEK!!!

The past week was pretty busy around here!

We spent a couple of evenings getting things ready for Sarah's Valentine's Day party on Thursday. We made Valentines for all her classmates, and we also had to take in a snack to share with the class. Sarah gave everyone Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Valentines, and we took lemon poundcake slices for the party. When I picked her up that afternoon and asked how the party was, her teacher responded by telling me that "Sarah really likes peaches." Apparantly, all the other kids were begging for the sweet treats, and all Sarah wanted was fruit and crackers. So she ate everyone else's healthy snacks, and they all ate her sweets! Sarah has not yet developed the sweet tooth that I have, so I am thankful for that...hopefully it will last! We don't really keep sweets or other junk food in the house, so I guess we haven't really exposed her to those tastes too much.

Our Valentine's Day was nice too. I got a beautiful pair of diamond earrings from Duane, and he even cooked a nice dinner for us Thursday night after Sarah went to bed! Saturday we went to a party at another couple's house. There were 5 couples there, 4 couples with kids and the 5th couple with a baby boy due in about 8 weeks. So it was a lot of fun! The kids played together, the moms all chatted downstairs and the dads all chatted and played air hockey upstairs. Chae and Billy prepared a fantastic meal for all of us, and we even all got Valentine party favors when we were leaving.

Jacob, Kenzie, Sarah and Noah eating dinner together!

Sunday my friend Christy came shopping with me to assist me in picking out a new suit for my interview this week. We had good success, so I feel like I will at least look nice on Friday if nothing else!

Today the daycare was closed for President's Day, so Christy, Heather and I took the kids to the Children's Museum to play this morning. They had a blast and really wore themselves out! We ate a quick lunch together, then took the kids home for their naps. Poor Sarah was exhausted from all that playing...she napped for almost 3 hours! We all went to the playgroud for the afternoon. Sarah had fun swinging while Noah and Hayden played tee-ball! So after this day full of excitement, Sarah is really tired and is almost ready for bed now at 7:00! I have to admit, it WAS a busy and action-packed day, so I am a bit tired myself! I actually have to head off to a Junior League meeting at 8:00 tonight though, so I can't be too tired yet!

Sarah shopped for oranges in the Food Lion at the Children's Museum.

Sarah enjoyed playing with these rubber ducks in the alphabet section at the museum.




Rocking the babies in the nursery section at the museum

As for Sarah's latest accomplishments, she learned how to say "shoes" last week, and it is now clearly understandable when she says "juice." She has also been practicing the motions to "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes." She starts at the head, sometimes touches something on the way down, and always ends up at the toes. She LOVES that song, and gets all excited whenever she hears it on her Baby da Vinci video. She is also becoming less dependent on her pacifier. She definitely only gets it at bed time and nap time, so we are hoping to try and take it away completely over the long Easter weekend. We'll see how things go between now and then.

I have my interview on Friday, so I am busy trying to get ready for that. Next week is Duane's last week in his current lab before he transfers over to his new lab at the beginning of March. Otherwise, our work situations are about the same.

We are looking forward to a visit from Mimi and Papa Bagwell this weekend. I think Duane and I will try to do something fun on Saturday since Mimi and Papa have offered to watch Sarah for us that day! Maybe we will at least be able to get out for a few hours to catch a movie or something.

We'll update again at some point next weekend. I'll likely have some interesting tidbits to share after my interview, and I am sure there will be lots to share after Sarah has another busy and action-packed weekend!

Just Another Weekly Update...

The past week has been pretty standard for us. Since my last post on Monday afternoon, I am happy to report that we all survived the stomach virus and everyone is feeling normal again. We all went back to work and daycare on Tuesday, so the rest of the week proceeded as usual.

Sarah had a good week. No accidents to report, so that always makes for a good week as far as daycare goes. She brought home lots of art projects from the week, and she played outside on the playground a good bit as well. And of course, she had her weekly session of preschool music on Wednesday. This weekend she spent the day Saturday with Duane while I enjoyed some girl time with some friends. They went shopping at the mall and then went swinging at the park.

As far as her latest skills and development, she is continuing to bring so much joy to our lives with her little personality! Recently, she has become OBSESSED with the Baby Einstein series of videos (we call them "movies" around our house). Every day, she insists on watching at least 2 of her movies, and if it is a weekend, we basically watch movies all day long! She does have a good attention span for them, I'll give her that much. She just loves the puppets and she enjoys dancing around to the music that goes along with the movies. She is actually learning a good bit from them, so I guess it could be worse. She tries to repeat the words that she learns on the movies, and she is getting slightly better at recognizing the parts of the boody (thanks to Baby da Vinci). She has also learned quite a few more animal sounds. Initially we worked on the cow, the sheep, and the duck. She has mastered those, and has also added the dog and the bird sounds. The dog sounds like "oof-oof" (she can't do the "w" sound) and the bird is "twee-twee." She is getting pretty good at using "mama" and "dada" correctly these days. The past couple of weeks, she has really started using the word "baby" alot, and she uses it correctly and in context. This weekend, she added "juice" and "cheese" to her vocabulary. These words sound almost identical when she says them, and I won't even attempt to spell them out phonetically for you, but she uses them appropriately and we know what she means when we hear them. Sarah has also become quite the little helper around the house. She is good about picking up her toys after herself, she LOVES to put her dirty clothes in the hamper in her room, and she also enjoys throwing trash away in the trash can.

As for the lives of Allison and Duane, well...our updates are not nearly as exciting as Sarah's! My piece of good news is that I was offered an on-site interview at the CRO company in Durham, so I am really excited and hopeful that this will work out for me! I will be interviewing Friday, Feb. 22nd, so I will not have any job updates until that time. This weekend Duane and I actually went out to dinner without Sarah! Our friends Paul and Kim offered to babysit Sarah while we went out for an adult dinner at The Village Tavern on Saturday night. Sarah actually went to bed before we even left the house for our dinner, so at least it was not too stressful for Paul and Kim...maybe they'll be willing to babysit again sometime if Sarah is always that easy to manage! At any rate, it was nice to get out for some time together for a bit, so hopefully we will be able to do things like that more often now that Sarah is getting older.

The upcoming week won't be much different than most others. Sarah has a Valentine's Day party on Thursday, so we will spend some evenings this week working on making Valentines for all of her classmates. Saturday evening we are supposed to be going over to another couple's house for a little Valentine's get-together. I think there will be 4 or 5 couples there, and we are all bringing the kids so they can play together while we all visit. Otherwise, it is just work as usual for us.

Hope everyone has a great week and a Happy Valentine's Day!

A Week of Highs and Lows!

The title of this blog pretty much sums up our last week!

In the job arena, we have good news to report! Duane has secured a new job, which he will begin March 1. He will actually be working for his graduate research advisor again, which will be nice. The project he will be working on is really taking off, so we are hopeful that this position will be fruitful for Duane professionally. Needless to say we are all relieved that things worked out and we aren't going to be forced to face unemployment at this time!

As for me, things are progressing as well. While I have not heard anything back from my Elon interview, I am happy to report that I just got off of another phone interview with the CRO in Durham that I mentioned in the previous blog. I feel better about this interview than the Elon interview, so I am hopeful that I will be recommended for an on-site interview with this company. I am not sure how long it will take for me to hear something back from the Human Resources department, but they have been pretty quick to respond thus far, so I am hoping that I will hear something in a few days as to whether or not I made the cut for this round of the interview process. We'll keep our fingers crossed!

Now on to the "bad" news. Last week a nasty stomach virus appeared at Sarah's daycare, and we were convinced that she had somehow avoided it. Well, we were wrong! Friday night she got sick and so we were up a good portion of the night dealing with that. This is the first time Sarah has ever thrown up, so we were not accustomed to dealing with this type of sickness. Sarah was terrified, and we were all exhausted, but she is finally starting to feel better. She was puny for most of the weekend, and she is still eating a pretty bland diet, so we kept her home from daycare today just as a precaution. We'll be back on schedule tomorrow, barring any setbacks today. We are keeping our fingers crossed that neither Duane nor I end up sick later in the week...we are both feeling not so great at the moment, but hopefully it will not get any worse than it is now.

In other news, yesterday was a sad day in our house! The Wake Forest basketball team lost their game against NC State in the final second of the game, and then the Patriots went on to lose the Super Bowl in the final minutes of that game! So it was not a good day of sports for Duane!

So these are the highlights from our last week. As usual, we will continue to keep you posted on the job search for me and on Sarah's latest and greatest accomplishments and anecdotes. Hope you all have a good week!

An Uneventful Week

Not a lot of excitement this past week. We all enjoyed a short work/school week, since we were off Monday for MLK holiday. I actually went to see "27 Dresses" with some of the other daycare moms! Duane continued to apply for jobs all week, and he has had some positive feedback from several positions. I won't elaborate at this time, but hopefully by the end of next week or the beginning of the following week things will fall into place and we will have some positive news to share with everyone as far as that goes. As for me, I am continuing to keep my options open. I should hear back from Elon either this week or next week, so we'll keep you posted in that as well. I have also applied for a job at a CRO in Durham. I have a friend who works there now, and she really seems to enjoy it. They have a new position opening up soon, so I have applied for that position. It is non-laboratory based. Basically, I would be involved in regulatory affairs and clinical trial development, which means that I would be doing a lot of writing and no lab work. Which is right up my alley, so I am hopeful that I will at least get an interview. I did receive a call from the Human Resources department on Friday, and she said that she will be sending my application on to the hiring manager, so hopefully I will hear something again later this week. It is a lengthy interview process...one phone interview and two on-site interviews, but they are hoping to have someone in place sometime in March or early April, so that is encouraging.

Now on to Sarah, which is really why you all read this blog anyway, right? She had a good week at daycare. She has been eating extremely well lately, so perhaps she is in a growth spurt? Or maybe she is just really hungry! Right now, she has 12 teeth, and she is working on the 4 incisors, which has been a bit rough. The teething is not really keeping her up at night, but it is making her a bit more cranky than usual during the days. We are just spoiled because she has always been such a great baby, so when she is the least bit out-of-sorts, we don't know what to do! Hopefully these teeth will make their way to the surface soon, and we SHOULD be done with teething for a while...the only teeth left are the last 4 molars, which can come in anytime between ages 2 and 5. She only had one accident at daycare this week, which is a good week for Sarah. She may be the smallest in the class, but she is one of the most daring. And because of that, she has a lot of accidents, usually involving her mouth! This week was no exception. When I picked her up Friday, she had an accident report on her cubby...she fell off the little leather sofa they have in the class, and of course, she injured her mouth! It never seems to bother her, though, so I am thankful for that.
This weekend, we pretty much stayed at home. Sarah played with her kitchen a lot. She is learning how to pretend she is cooking, and she will pretend she is eating. She'll put a piece of the plastic food in her mouth, and then say "Mmmmmm!" She also discovered the adult rocking chair in our spare bedroom, so she has been rocking in that chair all weekend! She likes to get in the chair, rock, and read her books out loud while she is rocking! It is pretty cute to watch! This weekend, she also learned to say "All done!" Well, it sounds more like "ah-duh" but we know what she is saying. Anytime she finishes a meal, we say "all done" to her, so now when she finishes eating, she says "ah-duh" for herself. Today, she got to see the deer for the first time. We had 4 deer right beside our back porch, so we did like usual and let Mr. Winston out on the back porch to bark at the deer (who don't flinch at all when he barks...they are not remotely afraid of him). Well, Sarah saw the deer while we were on the porch and she was fascinated with them. They eventually ran off back into the creek, and poor Sarah was sad all day because she could not see the deer anymore. She kept pacing by the back door and looking out the window for them!
Rocking in the big rocking chair!


Sadly, that is all the news from here. What's in store for the coming week? Sarah starts the Spring session of her preschool music class on Wednesday. She LOVES her music class, so I am thankful that the daycare offers that for all the students who are interested. Duane and I will wait for some good news as far as our job searches go. We are looking forward to a visit from Grammy and Paka Lehtinen next weekend...they are coming to visit Sarah and watch the SuperBowl with us. Hopefully the Patriots won't let us down - otherwise, it will be a sad occasion for all the Lehtinens! Hope you all have a super week...more updates next weekend!

Weekly Updates

So I think I will TRY to post weekly updates so that they aren't all so lengthy.

This week was not a good week as far as the job searches go for both me and Duane. Let's just say we have had our share of disappointing and discouraging news this week, which leads us both to question why we ever chose this science career path in the first place. Basically, due to government funding issues of scientific research, lots of budget cuts are going on across the nation. To make a long story short, Duane's lab has lost a significant amount of funding, which means that there is no longer any money to support the work going on in the lab. Which means there is no money to pay the employees. Which means that Duane needs to find a new job pronto. So this all came as a shock to us this week, so we are now full steam ahead looking for a new job for Duane that he can start at the beginning of March, as that is when his lab's funding will expire. As for me, I had my phone interview for the Assistant Professor position at Elon yesterday. While I feel certain that the phone interview went well and I was responsive to the questions I was asked, I am not sure how enthusiastic I am about this position now that I know a bit more about it. The search committee will be making decisions about who to bring on campus for in-person interviews over the next few weeks, so I should know if I made it to this next stage of the interview process by the beginning of February. If I am offered an on-site interview, I will certainly go and keep an open mind, but I will not be disappointed if I don't ever hear anything else from this position. So I suppose I am just neutral at this point. So of course, all of this has made me rethink things yet again. I am not sure what to do with my career. Stay in academic research, try my hand at strictly teaching, or look into industry? I continue to waver in my decision... So anyway, that is an update on our current job status, such that it is. Please continue to pray for us that something will work out for both of us soon...it is getting very discouraging and frustrating, as I mentioned earlier!

On to Sarah...no real exciting happenings in her life this week. She had her 15 month checkup today (although she is now almost 16 months old), so I can share her stats with you. She weighed in at 20 pounds 5 ounces (25th percentile), she was 30 inches tall (50th percentile) and her head was 18 3/4 inches (STILL in the 90th percentile there)! So she is still a munchkin! At least we finally broke the 20 pound mark! It was an uneventful visit this time...no shots, so that was good! In other news, her little personality is developing and she is getting more chatty these days. Some of her new words are "mill" (for milk), "mooooo" (for the cow), "baaaaa" (for the sheep), and "qua-qua" (for the duck). She can now point to her tummy if you ask where her tummy is, and she enjoys pointing to everyone else's tummy, too, by pulling up their shirt and sticking her finger in the bellybutton! We have been working with her on the parts of her face, but so far, she says "eye" and then points to her ear. That is her response to everything related to the face, so clearly we have some more work to do. She is getting good at stacking her blocks and she can correctly complete a couple of her basic puzzles. As for her personality, let's just say that she has recently developed quite a fiesty little attitude. When she wants someting she just yells "mama" over and over until either Duane or I magically figure out what it is she wants. Recently, her obsession has been animal crackers. She wants to eat them ALL THE TIME, and when we won't let her eat them (because it will ruin her next meal, for instance), she throws a FIT! She stands in front of the pantry trying to open it, SCREAMING to the top of her lungs, and then finally throws herself down on the floor and cries when she realizes she isn't getting a cookie. Following the doctor's orders and information I have read in parenting books and magazines, we have been ignoring her when she is in tantrum mode. So when she gets like this, we just walk away from her and usually Duane and I end up laughing our heads off because seeing her throw these fits is slightly funny. And if we didn't laugh, we'd go insane! So needless to say, Sarah has turned into quite the little drama queen...the doctor said that from now until 18 months will be a challenging time, as this is the age that all babies start to test their limits. So we are just preparing for this to continue, at least for a while.

I will close with some photos of one of our recent trips to a local park. Sarah LOVES to swing (as you can probably tell), but she wasn't so sure about the slide!

Our Holiday Festivities...Part 2

Just wanted to quickly fill you all in on the rest of our holiday festivities. Our New Year's travels to Charlotte and Anderson were great fun. In Charlotte, we visited with Kristin, Mike, Madison and Brady and exchanged gifts with them. I got some great jewelry, Duane got a nice shirt, and Sarah got a very cool MegaBlocks Princess Castle set of blocks! She has enjoyed playing with it, even though she does not quite yet know how to put the blocks together - Duane has been building various castles for her!

Sarah opening her Princess Castle in Charlotte.
We then headed down to Anderson for a few days. Sarah had lots of gifts waiting for her from Santa, Mimi and Papa, and Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Marisa. She got a giant coloring book and crayons, a new puzzle, the Fisher Price Animal Train, the Fisher Price bouncing zebra toy, some books, some clothes, a monogrammed necklace, a stuffed puppy dog and a nifty stuffed unicorn backpack that also serves as a sort of "leash" so we can keep up with her when she is walking through stores when we are out and about. Sarah must have been a very good girl this year!

Sarah just loved the little tree that was decorated for her at Mimi and Papa's house!

One evening we headed to Gray Court to visit with Frances, Kim, Luke and Ashlee, who are all part of my extended family. This was the first time that Luke, Ashlee and Sarah have all been together, so it was a lot of fun to see the three of them interact. We had a nice visit with everyone.

Me, Sarah (15 months), Luke (8 years), and Ashlee (3 years)

On New Year's Eve we went out to a nice restaurant in Anderson to celebrate the New Year and also Mimi's birthday. We enjoyed a great dinner, and Sarah was a very good girl while we were at the restaurant so that made the evening even more enjoyable. On New Year's Day we visited for a while with my Grandma Kathleen and we were able to watch her open her Christmas gifts at that time. She really enjoyed spending time with Sarah and laughing at all the funny little things Sarah does these days! She even got down in the floor and played with Sarah for a bit! We also took Sarah to the local pond in Anderson and let her feed the ducks. She LOVED the ducks, and wanted to chase them around the pond.

Sarah and Daddy watching the ducks...

We traveled back to Winston-Salem last Wednesday, and on Thursday it was back to the regular routine! Sarah is back into her groove at daycare, and Duane and I are settled back into the work routine. We are still on the job search as well, so hopefully we will have some good news for you all soon! Duane is still waiting to hear whether he got the last position he interviewed for...hopefully we will get an update on where the selection process stands for that company either today or later this week. I applied for a tenure-track assistant professor position at Elon University, and I have a phone interview scheduled with the head of their search committee next week. So that is exciting for me! I am also planning to apply for an upcoming position at a research and development company that is located in the Research Triangle Park (RTP) general area. This position would mostly involve medical writing, which I have recently become interested in, so hopefully I will get the opportunity to interview there as well and learn more about what the position would entail.

Guess those are all of our recent updates. Hopefully we will have some more news-worthy information to share in the upcoming weeks regarding our job searches! Hope you are all enjoying the New Year thus far!