Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

Ok, this post (like the holiday cards that we haven't yet designed, let alone sent out) is a little late. See my previous post for a quick run-down on why I haven't been posting recently.



Christmas of 2011 was our ninth Christmas living in New Mexico, but only the second time we actually spent the holiday in New Mexico (the first being 2008 when Adelaida was born). We have generally traveled to visit our families at Christmas, and therefore have never really decorated for Christmas and never had our own Christmas tree. This year, though, we decided to change that.

With three young kids -- two of whom were five months old -- traveling at Christmas time seemed like a lot of work. So, we invited Dale's family to visit us at Christmas and skipped the Christmas celebration with my family, since we had spent almost two weeks with them in September and are planning to visit them again in the spring or summer.

Since we would have six young kids in the house at Christmas, we decided we'd better have a Christmas tree! So, we set out to buy one, on December 23rd, in the middle of a blizzard ... and found that most local stores were sold out of Christmas trees and we wouldn't have it in time if we bought it online. With no other options available, I made one last attempt to buy a tree, and the Edgewood Walmart came through for me! It wasn't a tall tree, or particularly full or bushy, or fancy in any way, but we made it work.

We decorated it with silver sleigh bells and red glass balls, and with the lights already strung on the tree, it made our living room seem almost festive!

We put a few presents under the tree on Christmas morning and let Adelaida pass them out. It felt like a real Christmas celebration!


And the crowning achievement of the Christmas tree was that we got a family picture, with all five of us looking at the camera, in front of the decorated tree. Merry belated Christmas everyone!

Dissertation Defended!

For the past 62 months, I've been able to check the "student" box on all those demographic questionnaires. At 34 years old, I've kind of felt like a perpetual graduate student and often wondered if I would ever finish! (and really, did I want to finish? or was being a grad student what I wanted to be forever? Difficult questions to answer!) About a year or so ago, I decided I'd had enough. Grad school was fun, but I was ready to move on. So last spring and summer I made a big effort to finish my research, and over the summer I started writing my dissertation.

And then life intervened, in the form of two beautiful babies. After Estella and Cordelia were born, I put the research and dissertation on hold for a while as I nursed, changed diapers, nursed, read books to Adelaida, nursed, took the kids to the zoo, nursed, and nursed some more.


As much as I enjoyed spending time with my girls, it was also nice to go back to work at the beginning of January, to interact with adults and challenge myself intellectually instead of just physically and emotionally. Since the beginning of January, all three kids have been in school four days a week and I made a big push to finish my research; write, revise, and finalize my dissertation; and prepare and practice my defense presentation.

I had a dissertation defense date set: February 29th, 2012. Life in general was on hold while all of my available energy was directed toward the dissertation. For the past several months, whenever I have heard about things I'd like to try, books I'd like to read, and places I'd like to go, my standard response has been "I'll think about that again in March."

Yesterday was D-day. I defended my dissertation yesterday morning at 10:30am, with a forty-five minute public presentation followed by a short question-and-answer session from the public. Fourteen people attended my defense: a good-sized crowd that included my dissertation committee, several members of the Kemp group, two coworkers from Sandia, a couple of members of the UNM chemistry department, and Dale. I'm so grateful they were all there, as it was nice to have some friendly faces to focus on during the presentation! (The title is "A Proposed Palladium-Catalyzed Cycle for the Epoxidation of Alkenes.")


Following the presentation and audience questions, the public dispersed and I was left alone with my dissertation committee -- literally me on one side of a long table and the four committee members facing me across the table. They asked questions about my research and I responded -- some questions I simply didn't know the answer to, some questions I knew confidently how to answer, and some I muddled my way through a response that may or may not have been appropriate.

Eventually (a little over an hour after starting), their questions were exhausted and I was asked to leave the room while they "deliberated." Now, it seems to me that it might take as long as forty-five seconds for Rick to say "I think we should pass her" and the other three to say "I agree," "I agree too," "I also agree" and open the door to let me back in the room. But they must have been talking in extreme slow motion -- or perhaps discussing other topics just to let me have the heart-pounding experience of wondering what was happening inside that closed room in which my fate was being decided -- because I was out in the hall for more than 20 minutes. But at last, the door opened, I was ushered back into the room and was shaking hands with my committee members and receiving their congratulations for graduating with distinction.

Granted, I need to make some minor editorial changes to my dissertation, but I am essentially done. Sixty-two months of grad school and I'm about to put that phase of my life behind me and start something new. It still feels a little surreal.

Cordelia and Estella are seven months old!

I'm finding that life with a toddler, two infants, and a dissertation to defend is BUSY! Something has to be put on the back-burner for a while, and recently it has been posting to the blog. But our babies turned seven months old recently (yay!) and I didn't want to get too far behind in chronicling their development, so here is a recent picture of our beautiful little girls. Cordelia is on the left and Estella is on the right.


Both Estella and Cordelia have grown up so much in the past month! Just a few days after they turned six months old, both babies mastered new skills: Cordelia learned to sit up well by herself, and Estella learned to army crawl! Interestingly, one month after they mastered these skills, Estella still can't sit up by herself and Cordelia still can't army crawl. I am reminded every day that these are two different babies who are developing differently and that there is no one "right" way for a child to develop.

Cordelia is loud. She has a loud cry, a loud (and wonderful!) laugh, and generally loud vocalizations. We almost have to wear earplugs when we feed Cordelia because, mere seconds after one bite of food is in her mouth, she is loudly squealing for another bite! More than anything else, Cordelia loves to "talk" to Adelaida. Whenever she sees her big sister, Cordelia makes a loud, happy noise that Adelaida loves to hear!

Since Estella has become mobile, nothing stops her from getting what she wants -- and more often that not, that is a foot! When we lay her down on the floor, she immediately looks around to find Cordelia, then makes a bee-line for Cordelia's feet. They must taste really good, because both of the babies like to chew on Cordelia's feet! If Cordelia isn't on the floor with her, she'll crawl toward my feet, Dale's feet, Adelaida's feet, or any shoes she can find -- we've recently started putting our shoes on top of the coffee table or TV stand to keep them out of Estella's mouth.

Here are pictures from the first seven months of the girls' lives:

one-month-old Estella


one-month-old Cordelia


three-month-old Estella


three-month-old Cordelia


five-month-old Estella


five-month-old Cordelia


seven-month-old Estella


seven-month-old Cordelia


And here is a bonus picture of my three beautiful girls together -- Estella, Adelaida, and Cordelia.

Adelaida's first haircut

A few days after Adelaida's third birthday, she had her first haircut.


I cut Dale's hair regularly, so we made a big deal out of Dale getting a haircut and told Adelaida that she could get a haircut too if she wanted. She wanted Dale to go first, so he sat down in the chair, I draped the towel around his shoulders, -- and suddenly Adelaida wanted it to be her turn!

So I sat Adelaida down in the barstool and handed the camera to Dale . My intention was to cut about one inch off. Since her hair has never been cut before, it was pretty scraggly at the bottom and I wanted to even it up. Of course, she was very squirmy and I'm not a great hairstylist, so when I was done with the first set of cuts, I had to take another half inch off to make it somewhat even.


Her hair is still not perfectly straight, but it is so much better than it used to be! Just getting rid of her scraggly ends was a great benefit. And despite cutting about an inch and a half off, her hair is still pretty long. I'm not sure when we'll cut it again, but we probably won't wait another three years!

A busy Momma and a wonderful Daddy

I will start this post by acknowledging that I haven't posted much lately and, to those who look forward to watching my kiddos grow over this blog, I'm sorry! And to further disappoint you all, I'm not planning to post much in the next month or so. But we are still taking pictures of the kids and I have an ever-growing list of subjects for the blog, and I promise that I will catch up with it eventually.

There is a reason for my negligence -- I am finishing my dissertation and will be defending it on February 29th! This semester, after twelve long years (including a four-year break from grad school, changing schools and concentrations, and three kids), I will finally finish my PhD! But I am going to be working like crazy over the next month, preparing for my defense, so am going to be ignoring all non-essential things like blog posts (and cleaning the house, and starting the garden, and cooking dinners, and anything else I can think of to set aside for another month).

Adelaida, Cordelia, and Estella, of course, can't just be ignored for a month until I'm done with my dissertation. Fortunately, Dale has been wonderful about being the primary care person for them when he is home and has provided me with several hours of uninterrupted time to work this month. And, this being January and the kids (all three of them!) being in school, we've seen our fair share of illnesses recently. The kids have had five unanticipated stay-at-home days in the past two weeks, and I suspect we'll have another tomorrow. Dale has stayed home with them two full days so that I could go to work, and he's already trying to rearrange his schedule to stay home part of the day tomorrow. Thank you Dale!

Last weekend, I walked downstairs to get something and found Dale cuddling with all three of his little girls on the sofa, watching football (or was it a "soccer-ball" game? I don't remember). He was holding both Estella (on the left) and Cordelia, and also had an orange bucket full of legos that Adelaida insisted he hold. He was keeping all three kids happy so I could work. What a super-Daddy!

Happy half-birthday to Estella and Cordelia!

January 17th marked Estella and Cordelia's fist half-birthday! They are growing up so fast and are such happy, beautiful little girls. See how they have grown! (Cordelia is on the left and Estella is on the right.)


At six months old, Estella is so precious. She watches everything around her and loves to "talk" to her toys. Her favorite toys are soft, plush toys because they have tags. She is fascinated by tags and is making it her personal goal to taste every tag in our house! Estella has a beautiful smile and pure blue eyes. Her body is a very odd combination of very limp and completely stiff -- when we first pick her up, she is so limp that we have to hold her head in line with her body, but when we try to carry her, she sticks her arms straight out behind her and arches her back. It will be really nice when she learns to hold on to us when we carry her!


Estella at four months:


Estella at two months:


newborn Estella:


At six months old, Cordelia is a happy, happy child. She laughs when she see something funny (hilarious things like Adelaida walking across the room, for example), and when she smiles, her whole face lights up! She likes to taste all of her toys, whether they are plush or hard, but the toys have a tendency to jump out of her hands after just a few minutes. Cordelia started rolling over at the beginning of January, so now she can roll to get a toy that she has dropped. She sleeps on her stomach now, too, which has been a surprisingly good change for her and she does a lot better now about sleeping through the night.


Cordelia at four months:


Cordelia at two months:


newborn Cordelia:

All by herself

Adelaida is independent. I don't know how many times a day I hear "I want to do it by myself!" coming out of her little mouth.



She has always wanted to do things herself, and whenever reasonable, we encourage her to. So, she cuts her pancakes by herself, she turns lights on by herself, and she even uses the toilet by herself. Lately, she has been asking to do things that really require a second person by herself. For example, Adelaida has homework for school, and she has to print her name at the top of the paper. If Adelaida were to write her name by herself, it would look like eight little circles and no one would ever be able to decipher it, so I tell her that she can write her name and I will help her by holding the marker with her and guiding her hand to write her name. Naturally, she tells me that she wants to help herself, then grasps the marker with her right hand, places her left hand on top of her right hand, and proceeds to write her name quite illegibly. Another example is holding hands in the parking lot. One of our rules for safety is that Adelaida must hold my or Dale's hand in the parking lot, and if she doesn't agree to hold our hands, then we will pick her up and carry her in the parking lot. She is generally good about holding our hands, but sometimes she insists that she will hold her own hand. She holds her left hand out, grasps it with her right hand, and leads herself carefully through the parking lot. Not acceptable parking lot behavior, but it is quite funny to see!



Tonight, we heard another new "I want to do it by myself" incident.

We are constantly telling Adelaida that she needs to be a happy girl. Unfortunately, she has a tendency to whine when she wants something and to yell and scream when she is upset. This might just be a function of her being three years old, but we don't like it and encourage her to be happy instead of whiny or upset.

Today, Adelaida had a great day. She was happy, playing by herself and with her sisters all day long ... until Dale tried to get her ready for her bath and she wanted to continue playing. She started to get just a little bit upset, and Dale picked her up, sat her on his lap, and told her that she needed to be happy. This is what I heard:

Dale: "Adelaida, it's OK, stop squirming, I just want to talk to you."
Adelaida: "No! Don't talk to me! I just want to talk to myself!"
Dale: "OK, you can talk to yourself in a minute, but I need you to be a happy girl tonight."
Adelaida: "Don't talk to me! I want to talk to myself in the hallway!"
Dale: "OK, you can talk to yourself in the hallway. What are you going to say to yourself?"
Adelaida: "No Daddy! Don't talk!"

She squirmed out of Dale's lap and ran to the hallway. There, we heard her say sternly, "Adelaida! You need to be a happy girl! Don't be upset. Now go back to the bonus room and be happy to Daddy."

The next thing we knew, she was running into the room, toward Dale, giggling and laughing, and jumped into his lap. She said to him, "I'm ready for my bath now! I'm going to be happy!"

Dale and I looked at each other and laughed, and I realized that even a three-year-old can decide to have a good attitude and make it happen.

A little artist

About a year ago, we got an easel for Adelaida. It has a chalk board on one side, dry erase board on the other side, and a roll of paper on the top that she can paint on. She has used the chalk side, but I've been wary of letting her paint until recently. But a few weeks ago, I cut up an old shirt to make a smock, rolled out the paper, and introduced Adelaida to finger painting. She loves it!

The first time she cautiously dipped one finger in the paint, she immediately held her finger up and asked me to clean it. I'm sure she has painted at school, but she was not very happy at having paint on her finger at home.



Eventually she realized she could wipe her finger off on the paper, and soon she discovered she could make hand prints!


She was having a blast and was kept occupied with the painting for quite a long time.

I pulled out the paints again this week, and she immediately covered her hand in paint and smeared it all over the paper. Eventually her eye itched and she rubbed it with a blue hand. Fortunately, it cleans very easily!

Starting Solids

Estella and Cordelia have entered a new phase -- one in which they are no longer solely dependent on me for nutrition, they are developing their tastes and learning how their mouths work, and their diapers are starting to stink!

Last weekend, I pulled out the baby spoons, bibs, and booster chairs, defrosted some frozen pumpkin, and started feeding the babies!


They both did really well, although the first few feedings took a long time for them to eat very small amounts of food. And I forgot how messy babies are when they eat!

Cordelia looks at her daddy, wondering what this weird thing against her mouth is.


Cordelia's first bite


Estella prefers the pumpkin on her chin to in her mouth


Cordelia likes pumpkin and eagerly opens her mouth whenever the spoon is near!


Estella knows she is supposed to put something in her mouth when we are feeding her ... is it her bib? her hand?


Adelaida wasn't sure what to think of her baby sisters eating "real food." The first time I fed them, she scolded me, "No, Momma! Babies only eat milk from Momma's breast!" (which is what we've been telling her since they were born, to keep her from feeding the babies grapes and crackers and pasta and such). Eventually, I was able to explain to her that her sisters are growing up and they can now eat pumpkin, but only if Momma or Daddy feed it to them. She was confused again when I introduced the babies to banana, but I think she understands now that they will be getting more foods in the coming months.

Adelaida is Three!

Time really does fly when you are having fun, and our little girl is certainly fun! We celebrated Adelaida's third birthday this week and I started reminiscing about the past three years with her.

It seems like just three days ago that I held my baby girl for the first time, marveling at her little tiny hand wrapped around my finger. She was so precious and so tiny and all I wanted to do was hold her and protect her and love her!





And the next thing I knew, she was smiling at me and laughing and eating butternut squash and crawling toward the dogs' water bowl and saying "da-da" and suddenly she wasn't an infant any more.





And wasn't it just two days ago that Adelaida was taking her first steps and feeding herself and saying more and more words like "ball" and "puppy" and "hippopotamus" and asking me to read her twenty books every day and developing real independent interests and melting my heart with her smiles?!

But still she grew up so fast, and yesterday (wasn't it just yesterday?) she stopped wearing diapers and didn't need a bib anymore and started singing the most adorable songs at naptime and said "I'm independent!" and her words became phrases and phrases became sentences and sentences became whole stories!







And today Adelaida is a smart, kind, confident three-year-old who loves her baby sisters and adores her daddy and still has a beautiful smile and an infectious laugh. She is strong-willed and independent but when faced with choices, she generally makes good decisions. I am so proud of the big girl she has become.









Adelaida is also getting bigger -- or is Pink Panther just getting shorter? Here are some of the traditional pink panther pictures of Adelaida over the past three years:

two months old


nine months old


one and a half years old


two years old


three years old