• Life

    Learning Locking Blocks at 14-15 Months

    May 24, 2022 - By 

    When Small Sophie first played with these round locking blocks at a little under 15 months of age, she did not know what direction to put them in. She understood that the round part aligned and accurately placed those—— but upside-down or right-side up? She had to try both if she first went with upside-down. By the second day, she understood that they go right-side up and consistently placed them correctly. However, she often left blocks halfway locked. We would help her lock the blocks now and then, else the towers would fall. (She put them back up if they…

  • Life

    Small Sophie’s Sleeping Space (14th Month)

    May 6, 2022 - By 

    Right as Small Sophie turned 14 months old, I decided that it was high time for Young Sophie to learn to sleep in her own bed. 14 months is a large number! It has two digits! And I had endured many months of her rolling, flailing, and climbing on top of me throughout the night. Although she has had her own bed for the majority of her months alive, she was in the habit of rolling into my bed and on top of me every night. You see, her bed was placed next to my bed: In one easy motion,…

  • Life

    Easter Egg Hunt for Toddlers

    April 18, 2022 - By 

    At 14 months, Young Sophie does not have the height to reach interesting hiding places. Fortunately, she, too, can participate in egg hunting by picking eggs off of the grass. She surprised us all by picking us her basket and taking it to the eggs. We had thought we would have to carry the basket for her. I bought 2T and 3T outfits when she was a few months old thinking they would be good for growing into. The dress is 2T sized and fits fine now that she can walk. I actually had laid out a white onesie for…

  • Life

    How can I look like a more appealing candidate for a developer position?

    June 27, 2021 - By 

    I am going to graduate from college in a year. How can I look like a more appealing candidate for a developer position? From what I am told, I had two traits that led to great popularity: I ended with a 4.0 GPA in Computer Science and I am female. Just like that, I was inundated with interview opportunities! My brother, who studied Computer Engineering and did not grow up to be (and did not start out as) a woman, was not nearly as popular. If you have the misfortune of not being like me, do you have time to…

  • Life

    How To Look More Important: Huawei Edition

    June 25, 2021 - By 

    When it comes to contributions to open source software, the quantity of patches a company or individual adds clearly affects how important of a contributor the company appears to be. Contributors usually agree that they want to focus on the quality instead of quantity. A Linux Kernel maintainer wrote a somewhat adversarial message directed at people associated with Huawei about numerous submissions they have made which are not very substantial. Basically, Huawei employees submitted many individual small changes— including insignificant spelling corrections or minor cleanup. While one might argue that those are still useful changes, consider that Huawei could have…

  • Finance - Life

    The Cost of Childbirth

    May 21, 2021 - By 

    What is the cost of giving birth? How much does childbirth cost in a hospital? I looked up these and other similar terms after deciding I wanted children and again after getting pregnant, but very few pages actually explained the breakdown of their bills and what sort of insurance they had. I am sharing my costs in case there are others who were trying to read more about the same things. My insurance for this childbirth was Cigna Open Access Plus In-Network with HRA. There is a $4000 deductible and $4000 Out-of-Pocket (OoP) per person, with an $8000 family Out-of-Pocket. The…

  • Life

    Postpartum Care Down There, or Perineum Things

    April 19, 2021 - By 

    I ended my first childbirth with a 2nd degree tear, which the doctor described as “normal”. This meant that I had skin and muscle damage, but not such that it extended all the way to the back. From my internet research, I knew this meant stitches— which was what I got. A few hours after giving birth in the Labor and Delivery Ward at Saint Barnabas Medical Center, I was moved to the Family Centered Care Unit. (Those are two long mouthfuls!) In the second location, the nurse told me that a postpartum woman should urinate every 2-3 hours and…

  • Life

    My Baby’s Nose-Picking Tweezers

    April 7, 2021 - By 

    Before I needed to pick a baby’s nose, I would not have thought about designating a pair of tweezers to be “nose-picking tweezers”. However, one finds oneself saying and doing different things in life, especially when one adds a baby! My baby sometimes gets hardened mucus particles in her nose. Although she is occasionally able to sneeze them out on her own, they sometimes stay in for a few days. Baths only help loosen her clogged nostrils so much and mucus wipes marketed for babies do not seem to help me get very far inside her nose. Young Sophie’s grandfather…

  • Life

    Misspellings on Clothes: Princess Baby Hat

    March 25, 2021 - By 

    I believe that what you wear says something about who you are. In some cases, what you wearing literally says something. This hat, with its bright rose-gold foil-colored cursive commonly associated with throw pillows, decor about living and loving, and weddings, is not quite my style. Fortunately, thus hat was not gifted to me but to my baby. As you can see, the dot of the “i” is in the wrong place. I do not know whether this is a case of someone not knowing how to write cursive or an accident by a graphic designer. Surprisingly, this hat may…