Busy busy beavers

Everett has had a busy week with many firsts (and first birthday coming up)!  He had his first popsicle, which was a BIG hit.  He cried when it was gone, and then tried to lick mine.  He also had his first trip to the zoo in Columbus with his cousin Adelaide.  It was fun, but he didn't really understand the concept of the zoo.  He wasn't sure which was more interesting: the bonobos, or the little girl drinking her juice.  And if the animals weren't moving, he didn't notice them at all.  But, we bought a membership to the Fort Wayne Zoo in anticipation of our move, so I'm sure we'll have many more opportunities to acquaint him with zoo animals.  He also went to his first Reds game, which was very fun.  He got all dressed up in a red and white polo shirt, khaki shorts, and red socks, and he loved the stimulation of the game.  He couldn't sleep there though, so we left early to put him to bed.  Tonight, he had his first grilled cheese sandwich, and he loved it (boy after his momma's heart).  We've been trying to avoid the temptation to cook him his own meals, thinking he should eat whatever we're eating...but we had planned on having veggie burgers, and then decided those were not very toddler-friendly and changed our minds, so all 3 of us had grilled cheese.  I don't know if this counts as us "bending" too much to his needs, but it seemed to work for everyone.  I actually have no problem eating like a toddler, given that the staples of my diet are cottage cheese, yogurt, and hummus.  Hmmm, I wonder why Everett is so fond of those foods...

In other news, we're waiting on a mortgage, which is just as stressful and awful as I remember it being when we did this 2 years ago.  There's something so troubling about having your "net worth" boiled down to a series of numbers, and then having qualifications determined based on a set of practical but totally impersonal rules that may or may not have any bearing on your ability to repay the loan.  Waiting and chilling out are not really my strong suits either, and I am at this very moment trying to resist the urge to recalculate our debt-to-income ratio for the four hundredth time tonight.  After the 399th time, Kyle told me to go to bed.  Note to self: do not EVER again sit down and look at loan documents at 10 pm.

As for endeavors that are more productive than stressing out about mortgages, we have been busily conquering house projects: this week we planted a tree, cleaned the deck, painted a door frame, recaulked our bathroom sink, and bleached the grout in the bathroom.  We're considering this good practice for our new house, which will need a lot more work than that.  I have also been busily working on preparing my courses for the fall.  I'm most excited about the general biology course I'll be teaching to non-majors.  For biology majors, we can assume most of them "get it" on some level, understand why they are there and why they should care.  But for non-majors, they may not "get it," which makes the teaching almost more challenging, and almost more important...my job is to make them "get it" without just telling them.  Make them discover why things are important, and if I do a good job, maybe even inspire them.  I'm preparing 13 week-long inquiry-based units on topics of my choosing (a little biased, perhaps, but I think I earned it), and I'm so excited and giddy about it that it doesn't really feel like work at all.  I think that's a good thing.