A year with HH2

I can't believe it but it’s already been a year since HH2 was born. There have been many sleepless nights but they have all been worth it. In the beginning braving the NICU every 4 hours to see him and in some cases to get peed on was one of the hardest things I have ever done. But looking at him today you can never tell that there was ever a problem. He has progressed by leaps and bounds that I never imagined. His vocabulary is growing week by week and he is slowly starting to pick up some signs. Of course he has his favorites. Favorite words seem to be mama and dada while the favorite sign is “all done”. He loves to watch a nascar race when ever there is one on TV and say uh-oh at just the right time. His new favorite character is elmo and he is still my little hockey fan through and through.

This also marks something big for me. I have officially completed my goal of nursing for a full year. Granted there have been plenty of times that I was ready to give up but thankfully I never did. After pumping for three months I was happy to go back to nursing while I was at home and just pumping at work and first thing in the morning. A lot of getting through it all was my support system from not only W but other moms in a local group that I met and the other part was just me being stubborn. I did not want him to ever have to need formula. So now here we are at a year and at this point I'm still going to let him nurse on demand for a while longer. I still say that I am going to do child led weaning but in all honesty I am going to take it just like I did nursing in the beginning which is just month by month, week by week or in some cases day by day. I think that's really the only fair way to do it for both of us right now.

This also marks the one year anniversary of W officially becoming a SAHD. I don't tell him enough how grateful I am that he agreed to this for us, but I truly am.

So here we are at a year and I can't believe the day is here. He's come so far from the sick baby boy that I first saw in the NICU whose first order of business when we came down to see him was to pee on W. Now he is a cruising and almost walking one year old little boy who has defiantly stole my heart from the day he was born!

On the defensive again

So this week I have found myself once again defending my choices to the guys. Since I talked about playing hockey (which in hind sight was a bad idea) the comments have been comical but at the same time struck a chord with me somehow. I kept my cool as usual and just did my normal stewing away from them since its even worse to let them know something bothered you. Basically we were having our normal morning coffee and impromptu bs meeting and the guys asked if I was serious about playing hockey. I of course told them yes. They then said they just didn’t understand how I could do that and take time away from my family since I was already in grad school.

Now here’s what gets me. Both DA1 and DA2 go out once a week and have guys night. Neither one get home to see their kids go to bed, but yet feel its their right as men to be able to have a guys night and go drink once a week. My question is how is me playing hockey on Thursday nights after grad school any different?

Personally I need the mental and physical break from school and work. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family and spending time with them, but I need some sort of release. I used to work out quite a bit in the morning but since we have had so much over time that I haven’t been able to get over there. Martial arts as also a great stress relief but I haven’t been able to do that in a very long time. So now I start a new activity and stress relief. Already we have a tournament scheduled for the end of April. It should be a good trip just because my finals for ISE601 and MAE680 are the night before.

So tonight is my first practice with the team and we will just have to see how everything goes. With any luck things will go well and I won’t be too banged up tomorrow.

Women in engineering

Once again I have no clue what possessed me to look this stuff up, but I guess I got curious. I’ve always known that women in engineering, much less mechanical and aerospace were few, but since I’ve worked with some of them they haven’t seemed as much of a rarity as the numbers say. So I looked at the 2004 census report and here are the numbers I came up with.

In 2004
For all engineering
23% female
77% male
*Not really surprising since I know that less than half of the engineers I work with are women*

Freshman undergraduate students enrolled at a 4 year accredited university
17.2% female
82.8% male
*I think at UAH this is a little higher.*

Number of women that held the engineering title 2004 at thier jobs
563- mechanical
149- aerospace
*Now this was the number that shocked me*

Percentage of women with husband not working 7.9%
*Oddly enough this wasn’t a shock.*


So there are the stats. In some respects I know they are old and that more women are getting into engineering but still the numbers seem low. I’ve been around this business for a couple of years now and I guess because I’m in a town with more where just about everyone you meet is an engineer of some kind.

Ok this ended up as a random mess of a blog. Hopefully my next one will make more sense.

more hockey stuff

So its official. I went from possibly playing women’s hockey yesterday to going to get fitted for equipment tomorrow. I can’t wait to see what happens with this. W has been very supportive and knows that I need some kind of outlet since I really don’t have one right now.Anyway hopefully either tomorrow or Wednesday I will get around to posting the blog that I have been working on for the past couple of days. I promise it has more to do with what this blog is about more than hockey stuff! But now I can officially now say that we are a hockey family. HH2 was born around a hockey season and will start termites when he is 3, W photographs hockey really well, and now I am going to play adult league.

Am I just crazy?

Just a thought. I might end up not only working, going to grad school and spending time with HH2 and W but also possibly playing adult league hockey. I guess I just don't have enough going on right now?


More thoughtful stuff to come later this week but for now I just had to get this random thought out there after buying hockey skates and starting to break them in this weekend.

How is it that I stay so busy yet feel so alone at times?

This thought came to me this morning as I saw another one of the mommy meetups I belong to schedule a meetup for the weekday. I’m not trying to complain or get sympathy because I do like what I do, but it just seems like there are times where I don’t think that most people get me. I feel like such the odd ball being the one who works, goes to school and still tries to spend time with my boys. I really wish that there were a group of other moms in the area that got together once a month on the weekends at a park or somewhere else that doesn’t cost money to get in. I guess I feel much like W does at times and just partially disconnected from the world. I spend so much time at work, then school and then at home that I really don’t have any other interaction with other moms. I really have very little interaction with other women except my stats professor. I have no clue why all of this really started, but here it is anyway.

random update

So it’s been about a week since I last posted and there of course has been drama. First my grandmother did pass early last Saturday morning. It was expected just still not easy to deal with. The funeral and viewing went well. HH2 did great the entire time and only got freaked out a little at the viewing and slept all through the funeral. It of course it’s ironic or sad (or both) that the only time everyone on that side of the family gets together is for a funeral. On the plus side I did get to see a lot of the back trails around the house that I never knew were there. Also the rest of the family finally got to meet HH2, but of course it was under less than ideal conditions.

So, in light of all that I missed one stats class and I am desperately trying to catch up. I am just about done with catching up on stats, and I still hate flight testing, I swear this professor has it out for me. Also in the midst of the funeral and everything I completely forgot to take a stats quiz which I am worried will kill my grade but so far my professor says not to worry about it too much and she would keep an eye on it with me. I’ve gone over all the lecture slides from last Tuesday but I still feel behind. Also with a flight testing exam coming up I’m of course worried. I know the guys at work will be asking me to work over this week and being the glutton for punishment that I am I’ll end up working it. So this should be a fun week, flight testing exam Thursday, stats homework due Thursday, plus around 18 hours of overtime. Yeah I’m going to be a zombie this week. I’m just thankful that W understands and doesn’t get too mad at me for being so strung out for weeks at a time.