Meet Me in St. Louis?

Does anyone know anything about whether St. Louis is a nice place to live? We are likely to end up in Richmond again after going through this law school hiring and medical residency thing, although we may stay here in the Philadelphia area as well. The latest twist is a possibility of heading out to Washington University in St. Louis. I don't see why we'd end up falling that way, although I'm sure the cost of living is good, and many people assume I'm from the Midwest anyhow, so I might as well be.

BLD98 Blog Turned 6...

... and nobody noticed. Can you believe this blog has been around for over 6 years? It looks like Oct 6, 2002 was the birthday according to Walsho's first post. Keep 'em comin' ladies and gents.

New Years in July

For those of you who may have been wondering, I haven't really dropped off the face of the earth, it only seems like it!  (Though sometimes I wonder myself because Indonesia is pretty much the edge, in more ways than one.)  

Yes, the rumors are true that we have a baby girl on the way!  We affectionately refer to her as Bug, and if we don't manage to come up with a real name, which is a serious concern at this point, we might call her that for the rest of her life.  She is due on the 25th of January.  I'll be "moving" to Singapore the day after Christmas to wait out the last 4 weeks or so.  (No one will let me get on an airplane after that and if she does decide to arrive a little early, we'll be glad to be there.)  Jason will come on weekends until the baby is born and then stay for a few weeks thereafter.  Once Bug has a clean bill of health and a passport, probably about a month after she is born, we can bring her home to Jakarta.  (For anyone a little rusty on his/her Southeast Asian geography, Singapore is about an hour and a half by plane from Jakarta.)

The good news is that we know a good Constitutional lawyer who will help us convince the Supreme Court that Bug is eligible to be President someday even though she was born abroad.  

So, I would propose Singapore for NYE, but it's admittedly not very close to Kansas.  Dan is correct, that I've secretly been scheming to move our New Year's Eve tradition to the summer time.  For this year, it gives us Greenwalds a fighting chance of being able to attend and will give everyone the chance to meet the several next generation BLDers who are arriving between January and April of 09.  Plus, you all saw each other this past June and I know everyone needs a bit longer of a break from Lincoln.    

I will follow Dan's orders and begin sorting something out for July  - residency, rookie draft and international flight considerations included.

One last poll before I sign off:  Do Xingang, China and Jakarta, Indonesia look or sound anything alike on paper?  I don't think so either.  But somehow all of our worldly possessions got unloaded in Xingang a few weeks ago.  Now they must clear Chinese customs before they can continue on their journey to Jakarta.  This is only slightly better than if the MSC Lucy had sunk somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  Our well-weathered container has been on it's way here in one way or another since we called for it in July.  I can't tell you how unprepared we are to bring a baby home in 8 weeks.  I'm thinking about going out and buying a box of diapers just so I don't feel completely helpless.  Those of you who know me should compliment Jason for managing to stay sane despite living with me through this. 

Miss you guys like crazy.  This is the hardest time of the year to be so far from home. 

parenting question

Not to turn this into a parenting blog, but holy crap I'm losing my mind. Any of you with children older than Joe go through a period at ~16 months where your child will not go to sleep without major fussing/crying? Joe has never been a great sleeper, but has been pretty good. Now, he wakes during the night and resists going back to sleep. He also resists being put to sleep initially. I'm not sure if he's figuring out the power of his own cries or what, but it's starting to take it's toll. I'm turning into a crazy(ier) person! If you have gone through the same thing, please tell me that it rights itself quickly. If you have not, please pretend. Thanks!

New Year (from Dan)

Since there hasn't been anything about new year, I wanted to post (a) what people have said to me and (b) my thoughts.

What I have heard is a strong push to not do NYE, and instead try to do something this summer. The main reasons I've heard are: 1) Amanda might be able to come and 2) Amanda might plan it. 

My thought is that Amanda's presence and Amanda's planning are two of the fundamental strengths of the BLD New Year, and that we appear to have moved away from these strengths in recent years for reasons that are not entirely clear to me.

I also think that NYE is a terrible holiday for people with young kids. You have little time off, you're cooped up inside b/c the weather stinks, you've already possibly been stressed by recent travel with kids, you're getting up at 6AM, so you don't want to also be up at midnight.

I would propose that, instead, those of us with young kids do what we want to do on NYE and go to bed at 8:30. And Amanda start planning in earnest the 9 1/2 th Annual BLD New Year's Eve party at the mid point of 2009 (~June 30) .

Thoughts? 

Dan

Yeah, softball

If my grandmother hasn't called you yet, you must not be on her rolodex of top 700,000 friends.

The Mazzuccos are having a girl! Despite the recommendations of the Doucets and the stern instructions of Marilyn Fasani, the Mazzuccos are having a girl, according to the reports of at least one technician at South Jersey Radiology Associates.

The father-to-be was seen tearing his hair out and issuing warnings to local fathers to keep their boys away. The grandmother-to-be was rumored to have purchased the entire girls' clothing section of a local Babies 'R' Us store. 

So, I thought I'd add a new post since there hasn't been a lot of activity lately. Of course my thoughts are frequently on Jaya, so I put a couple Halloween pictures on here for your amusement. We went to our neighbors'/coworkers' home as usual during our time here in Modesto. They are good Catholic folk and Notre Dame alumni (is that redundant?). They recently had a boy who they dressed up as Casey Clausen, Notre Dame's quarterback. We dressed Jaya up as a Redskins cheerleader. After putting them down on the couch for a photo together, their boy almost immediately grabbed Jaya's hand. It was pretty cute. I only got one photo in before he grabbed her hand so these two pictures pretty much sum up the progression. Note to self: keep an eye on that kid... You might also notice the Redskins baby booties on Jaya. I insisted she wear those because I bought them in 7th grade for my kid someday! I don't know why people say she looks like me... :-)

Late night amusement

I was reading the Daily D opinion pages tonight for some amusement before heading to bed. On a whim, I searched for "Kevin Walsh" and every column he wrote popped up for review. Kevin, I think you wrote a lot on abortion in college. In an effort to find something a little more lighthearted, I search for "Lincoln Willis" and "Dan Mazzucco". Ahhh, I miss sitting on the Collis porch, eating lunch, and reading the D. In an effort to bring you back a few years and help you recall some fond memories, I give you Dan Mazzucco's "Groups Don't Define Identity" from February 1, 1996. The only thing missing is a TPB reference...

http://thedartmouth.com/1996/02/01/opinion/groups/print/

Softball, It Is

Hillary and I wanted to let all of you know that, unfortunately, our first born child will most likely not be playing for the Cleveland Indians.  However, we are EXTREMELY happy to announce that we will be blessed with a little girl in March.  

I know that most of you have been through this procedure before, sometimes multiple times, but for us, seeing the ultrasound and all of the tiny details it revealed was amazing.  Our little girl was quite feisty, punching and rolling around, but eventually the nurse was able to take pictures of all of her important parts.  

Reflecting the obstinancy of both of her parents, she turned face down when it was time for her profile shot and steadfastly remained there.  So if anyone would like to see a beautiful picture of our daughter's spine, we would be happy to oblige.

Wrong blog

Oops. I wasn't paying attention and accidentally posted about Amanda's first Girl Scout meeting on this blog. I deleted it, but if you follow this blog it will still show up as a post. In case you were wondering...

Dartmouth Homecoming Shenanigans

I somehow got on the eDartmouth mailing list and was reading up on the typical Dartmouth student behavior during Homecoming when I came upon this paragraph.

"No arrests were made at Saturday’s homecoming football game, although one student chose to “rush the field” apart from the planned field rushing, Kinne said. Six students rushed the field during last year’s game, but no arrests have been made for rushing the field since 2006.

All Class of 2012 students were once again invited onto the field during halftime, a tradition which began last year to discourage students from rushing the field illegally."

I dunno what disturbs me more...that there's a "planned, legal" time for 'shmen to rush the field or that you can call something a tradition if it's only been done for two years.

I am pretty impressed that people still "illegally" rush the field somehow.

Go Mazzucco!

Sports Fan

Go Phillies and the Flyin Hawaiian!

Go Overachieving Browns (even though you busted my bracket)!!!

Prayin for lotsa family members. Love you all!

Following Blogs

Did anyone else notice this option on the Blogger dashboard? Dan, I think you can use this to see what I'm posting over at Our Home On the Range. Just add it. Let me know if it works.

I've added a bunch, including this blog, but I kept it private so people couldn't trace back to a blog that has our names in it. (Kristin, your blog isn't set up for feeds, so I couldn't follow it yet.)

Christmas Memories

Below is an advertisement from the magazine we receive free as members of an electricity cooperative:



Do cherished memories of past Christmas seasons make this holiday extra special for you? If so, perhaps you would like to share some of them with other Kansas Country Living readers.

In our December issue, we plan to print several of the best stories about Christmas submitted by our readers.

If you would like to participate, simply include your name and electric cooperative with your story. Please restrict the length to 250 words and mail it by November 1st.

If your story is printed, we will award you with the 2008 Willie Wiredhand Holiday Ornament:




I've left off the address because we don't want all of you to write competing stories and decrease our own chances of winning this fabulous prize.

Who is this BLD wannabe?

I was looking through some old photos yesterday that my mom recently gave to me and came across this one. Who is the BLD imposter on the left?

By the way, Rob, your hair is almost as cool as my t-shirt tucked into my jeans.